The Mystery of the Carved Stone Balls

 

All across Scotland, for centuries people have been unearthing mysterious carved stone balls. (Which archaeologists, in a fit of whimsy, refer to as "carved stone balls" or if you want to be really technical, "petrospheres.") Imagine grinding a rock into a roughly spherical shape, then carving semi-circles out of its side. 
 
These smoothed semi-circles are called "knobs," and were typically decorated with either straight cross-hatching, spirals, or concentric circles. Sometimes quite elaborately, and other times in a very plain style. Most of them have six "knobs," which forms one on each face if it were a cube. But they have been found with other numbers, with the record so far being a carved stone ball featuring 160 knobs.

 
The carved stone balls date from the Neolithic era, and are found mainly in northeast Scotland, which puts them within the territory and time span of the ever-mysterious Picts. Most of them are small, about 2.75 inches in diameter, or approximately the size of a tennis ball. There are 387 known examples, but likely many more have been found and discarded over the centuries, because they were broken, too plain to interest collectors, or found by someone who didn't realize what it was.
 
What would possess the Neolithic Picts to carve a ball out of stone, then carve smaller balls on its side? A number of theories have been proposed, most of them at least somewhat plausible. Many people have observed that the shape of the knobs makes it easy to tie a leather thong around them, which would make the carved stone balls useful as a swung weapon, or as a weight tied to fishing nets, or as a tool used in scraping hides clean to be dried for leather.
 
Other speculation includes such divergent theories as a divining tool, or as a symbol of authority and a speaking stone (similar to the conch shell in Lord of the Flies).
 
A large portion of the known carved stone balls have been carved to an exacting size, within a millimeter of one another. Although their weights vary widely (because they are carved out of different substances - likely whatever the carver had at hand), their almost uniform size may be a clue as to their purpose.
 
Or perhaps we are just uncovering the popular hobby of the day, a Neolithic version of the amazing Dorodango "marbles" that Japanese school children fashion out of mud and persistence.

Second Annual National Beard and Mustache Championships

Maybe it's not freaky, but it's still one of our stranger national championships.

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The Second Annual Beard and Mustache Championships will be held tomorrow in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where 200 of the finest mustaches, beards, and “partial” beards will be on display. Although the competition is termed “national”, championship organizers expect “bearders” from Germany, new Zealand, Canada, and elsewhere. Although one would think tht the competitors will be primarily male, event coordinator Phil Olsen told the Huffington Post, “we’re all inclusive. We don’t test for gender,” he added, “I have enough to do already.”

The championship will contain five main categories; mustache, partial beard (goatee, van dyke, mutton chops, etc.), full beard groomed, full beard natural (the most competitive category, and freestyle (your guess is as good as mine). According to the website, there are a number of components by which competitors will be scored. 

In all categories, the judges will be instructed to consider the overall condition and health of the facial hair, detail in styling if applicable, uniformity of color, thickness, symmetry, size including but not limited to length, and presentation.

Olsen, who is the head of Beard Team USA, first became interested in the sport of “bearding” when he attending a contest in Sweden. He felt the US was “sorely underrepresented” in the competition and resolved to bring it back to States as a serious preoccupation. By 2003, Olsen was hosting tournaments across the US, even sparking a 7-part documentary on the Independent Film Channel entitled “Whisker Wars”. Olsen says there’s more to “bearding” than just being able to grow one. “It takes a lot of skill to get the beard ready for competition. But, like with anything, people with good genes do have a better chance.” He adds, facetiously, “Some people pick their parents well and can grow a good beard, just like basketball players who are tall have an advantage."

In this way the criteria a beard and mustache competition sounds most similar to the Westminster Dog Show than a “talent” competition, but there is certainly an element of tenacity to competitors. “"I do a lot of grooming," said John Myatt, a professional bearder from Los Angeles. "I eat healthy, and shampoo and condition it daily. I believe if you have a healthy diet, you'll have healthy hair. My facial hair is a little oily, but it's holding up well." Myatt won second place at the World beard Champsionships in Tronheim, Norway for his “Verdi”, a short rounded beard in the “partial beard” category.

Teenage hackers dismembered and disappearing

 

In 2010 I became friends with a young man named Adam Beckert in Portland. He was a friendly teenage boy that attended the local high school and we would sometimes talk at the library, where I would often go. He told me a wild story involving a group of teenage boys he went to school with that had recently disappeared. He stated that they all were involved with local hacking and pranking, and they had stolen some software that belonged to one of their fathers. The man’s name reportedly was Richard Krausen, and he apparently had worked for the National Security Agency until somewhat recently. According to Adam the man had resigned after working on a project at the NSA involving some kind of evolutionary encryption algorithms. It was the prototype of this software that the son and his friends had stolen, but Adam had reason to believe that Richard had stolen the program himself before leaving the NSA. This is illegal, but nothing too sinister. It’s what happened next that was concerning.

According to Adam Mr. Krausen  suddenly goes crazy, rambling nothing that seems to make any sense, and then out of the blue he shoots himself. I heard about this myself from a neighbor of mine who said he was at a friend’s house that night in the same apartment building when it occurred. He said it was very gruesome. Law enforcement seal up his house, with the boy and his friends nowhere to be found. Then a couple of weeks later all four of the boys are found alive, each with their tongues and eyes cut out. When Adam took me to see them at the hospital the police and the hospital staff wouldn’t let us in. I never saw anything on the news about this, and I haven’t been able to find anything on Richard Krausen. All information about him online seems to have disappeared. In addition to this, I haven’t been able to contact Adam for some time now as well. I don’t know what all this means. Did the boys find out something that got them into trouble? I don’t know why anyone would do this to themselves? I have heard people talking about it, calling them some kind of cult, but I think it is something different. 

Numbers Stations

 

Some time around WWII, shortwave radio users started to stumble across random radio stations whose broadcasts were just a string of numbers, being read aloud by a voice (often female). These mysterious broadcasts have been found around the world, each distinctive in its own way, each one as cryptic as the last.
 
No organization, either government or private, has ever admitted to running a numbers station. They are featureless, nationless, and essentially impervious to being decrypted. These stations broadcast 24/7, but they are frequently only heard at night, due to the better conditions for shortwave radio transmissions carrying farther.

 
These mysterious broadcasts are clearly a form of communication, but with whom? The standard speculation is that most of them are being run by governments communicating with embedded spies. 
 
Let's say you're a British spy living undercover in Russia. Every night you tune your shortwave radio to a spot on the dial where you can pick up your assigned numbers station. You can tell you have the right station when you hear its broadcast begin with a few bars of a particular agreed-upon song, or with a specific English phrase.
 
What follows this station identification is a string of numbers, which you write down. You then use today's sheet from your one-time pad to decrypt it, and find your instructions.
 
Of course, it might raise suspicion if numbers stations only broadcast when they had new instructions for their spies. So they broadcast 24/7, and the message changes at regular intervals, and the spies need to know which day and time to listen in order to get the right message. (Or maybe all the other messages just translate to "ignore this message.") You can see how complicated the spy game can get! I would never have managed as a spy. I simply don't have the patience.
 
Other numbers stations are thought to be run by drug cartels. They presumably are broadcasting pickup and drop-off locations and times, or perhaps announcing the next meeting. 
 
Numbers stations have long had an active fan base, people who track the stations, attempt to locate and identify them, and trade information about them with other fans. Some of the most long-running stations have achieved a sort of fame, like the Lincolnshire Poacher (so named because each broadcast begins with a few bars of the folk song of the same name) and the Atencion station (which begins each broadcast with "Atencion!").

4 Questions About The Cyclops Shark

 

Question 1: Is it real?
Although everyone on the internet immediately assumed that this was a Photoshop job, it turns out that, according to all the best evidence, this one-eyed shark is real. It isn't alive, and it isn't even fully formed, but it does seem to be real. At the very least, the world's leading shark researcher is investigating the body, and he says it's real.
It's as real as we're able to verify, given that we are all sitting on the other side of a computer screen.

The story behind this bizarre creature is that it was one of several fetal bull shark pups which were found inside a pregnant bull shark. 
 
Question 2: What's with the eye?
This fetus is suffering from a birth defect called Cyclopia. This is a congenital disorder which is found in 1 of every 16,000 live births, and (as you might expect) presents with one single eye in the middle of the face. It usually causes facial problems as well, such as the lack of a nose, or the malformation of the mouth. 
 
Question 3: Would it have lived?
In this case, the fetal shark appears to be fairly well developed. It might have lived, had its mother not been killed. Other cyclopeans have survived a short time after birth. The most well-known of these was a Cyclops kitten born a few years ago, who died after about 24 hours.
It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it doesn't appear to have developed gill slits. Cyclopean animals rarely live more than 24-48 hours, and that would probably have been the case with this little fellow as well. The truth is, the birth defect which causes the single central eye often causes other, bigger underlying problems.
 
Question 4: Who's killing pregnant bull sharks and taking out the babies, and why? 
This isn't a threatened species, but it will be if people keep killing the pregnant ones for no apparent reason. None of the news reports about this freak shark fetus mention any of the back-story behind its discovery.
Bull sharks are unique among shark species, in that they can and do easily adapt to fresh water. This means that they can travel long distances up-river, and even live comfortable lives in freshwater rivers and lakes. There are other species of shark which can sometimes be found in freshwater or brackish water, but the bull shark is the undisputed king of freshwater life.

Have a Real Halloween Adventure This Year

 

Do you like to get spooked—I mean really spooked, the kind where you wonder if you should have worn a Depends or not—but every year, you find yourself at the same haunted house or Saw 42 premiere as last year? It’s still fun, for sure, but if you want to get yourself truly scared this Halloween, why not search for something a bit more…authentic?

My husband and I spent our honeymoon at a real haunted mansion in 2007. The Lemp Mansion in St. Louis has some of the best haunted stories around; I even had teachers in high school tell tales about how spooked they were when they visited the old place. When we spent the night there, we didn’t really experience anything, but I still didn’t sleep much because it was so damn spooky!

Since then, I’ve found so many other ghost researchers, resources, and tours in the St. Louis area, which isn’t far from where we live. We would really love to hop on board one of these investigations or tours for Halloween sometime soon, and if you really want to experience something truly frightening this year, you might want to check and see if your own area offers such experiences.

One that I recently learned about was the St. Louis Ghost Hunters Society’s Halloween event, or events. You can join them for an evening in one of the area’s most haunted places, the Haunted Crystal Grill, and use their own equipment and everything to explore the area and see what you can see. My husband jokes that I would probably pee myself if we did such a thing, but I have an excited bubble in the pit of my stomach every time I think about it. I really hope we can join in one of these adventures sometime soon. Just keep in mind that kids under 16 are not allowed, and kids under 18 must be accompanied by an adult.

I also searched for “St. Louis Ghost Tours” and found dozens of results. How exciting! Try doing a similar search in your area and see what you can find. Though it costs money, I would highly recommend going with a tour guide—not only so you’ll feel a bit safer, but so you’ll also be able to learn more about the history of the places you visit. Some may even be closed to people outside tour groups, too, so that might guarantee you access.

Magnetic Children in Serbia

Two boys mysteriously attract metal

 

Maybe some of us really are X-Men. Maybe we'll wake up one morning and find ourselves able to shoot lasers out of our eyes or manipulate the way we perceive time. We don't know all the secrets of the human genome yet. We don't know just what all those nucleic acids are capable of awakening in us. We certainly don't know why certain children in Serbia seem to be magnetic.

They're not comic fanboys, either. They've probably never even heard of Professor X or Magneto. Yet these two kids--cousins living in the same town--are capable of attracting metallic objects just like your everyday magnet. 

Sanja Petrovic first discovered her son David's ability when she asked him to grab a spoon from a kitchen. The 4-year-old had never possessed magnetic properties before, but suddenly he found the metal utensil sticking to his hand. Upon witnessing the phenomenon, Sanja called her sister only to discover that David's 6-year-old cousin Luka had the same power. No other children or adults in the family attract metal. No one else in the town does, either. It would seem the condition is genetic, but no one has any idea so far how it manifests. Doctors--even radiologists--have examined both boys and can find nothing abnormal about either of them. They seem to be perfectly healthy little dudes. They just happen to be magnetic.

What's even stranger about the whole condition is how it seems biologically rooted. The families of the boys have tested their magnetic properties and have found that the magnetism goes away when they're sleeping. It returns in the morning when they're awake and active. After using their abilities, the kids feel tired and cold. I can't imagine what kind of biological condition would create magnetism that waxes and wanes with circadian rhythms, but it does seem to be a recessive genetic trait. Who knows what this says about the human genome? We might have to wait until our DNA mapping technology gets a little more extensive to figure out what's going on here.

Unlike many a member of the X-Men, David and Luka seem perfectly content with their oddity. They put on shows for neighbors where they prove their ability by holding up utensils and metal plates on their skin. As for the boys' families, they have gotten over the initial shock of the strange condition and are just happy their kids are healthy--even if they do have to make sure they stay out of reach of sharp metal objects that might accidentally fly into them. 

Irishman's Death Ruled "Spontaneous Human Combustion"

A coroner in Ireland has officially ruled a man's death as being caused by spontaneous human combustion. 76 year-old Galway resident Michael Faherty was found "lying on his back in a small sitting room, with his head closest to an open fireplace" in which a fire was burning. Although the room was undamaged (except for the part directly below and directly above Mr. Faherty's body), "the body had been totally burned."
This is the classic Spontaneous Human Combustion scenario: a person alone in their home is discovered, charred almost beyond recognition, with the rest of the room being largely undisturbed. In many cases the victims are known to be smokers and drinkers. I wasn't able to find that information about Mr. Faherty.
One thing you notice about cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion is that they invariably follow that pattern. You never hear about people just walking down the street and bursting into flames, or sitting in their office. "I came back from lunch break, and he was just a pile of charcoal!" It's always isolated people alone in their homes who suffer from this problem.
Unfortunately, the possibility of doing a meaningful autopsy on a body in this situation is almost nil. A very slow fire can cause a tremendous amount of damage to the material being burned, all at low temperatures which don't damage the surrounding area. (Just ask my aunt and uncle's house, which experienced a slow, low-temperature fire in the floor between two levels… extremely destructive.)
The most likely scenario here is that Mr. Faherty suffered a heart attack or stroke, fell to the floor and died, and then his body caught fire. The fireplace was burning nearby, and could easily have sent a spark out that kindled Mr. Faherty's clothing. From that point forward, the wick effect would take care of the rest.
Although the least interesting of SHC's possible explanations, the wick effect remains the most likely. In the wick effect, slow-burning clothing gradually renders the fat in the body, similar to the way a candle's wick burns. Experiments conducted with the bodies of pigs wrapped in people clothing have produced results identical to those found in cases of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
However, many other theories have been proposed over the years:
  • Alcohol in the bloodstream spontaneously igniting in an internal fireball
  • A massive charge of static electricity discharging at once
  • Angry ghosts enacting revenge
  • Ball lightning

In the absence of any solid evidence (like CCTV footage), we may never know for sure.

Vanishing Cruise Ship Passengers

The Daily Mail has a surprisingly thoughtful (for The Daily Mail) article about the surprising number of passengers who have gone missing from cruise ships. 165 people have vanished from cruises in recent years, most of them without leaving a trace behind. Where are they going, and why?


1. Suicide
Suicide always strikes by surprise. No one ever says "I knew he was going to kill himself, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner." The person who commits suicide is, almost by definition, a person who doesn't reach out to others or share their desperation. It's this self-isolation which creates the mindset that causes someone to believe that death is the only plausible solution to their problems.
(I have zero respect for people who commit suicide, but loads of empathy. If you are having thoughts of suicide, please reach out. In the U.S. you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline toll-free at 1-800-273-8255.)
Cruise ships have two things in plenty: alcohol, and isolation (for those who choose to cruise solo). They also offer an easy method, which is close to hand 24 hours a day. In your land-lubber life you may not always be close to a bridge or on the roof of a tall building, but on a cruise ship you're only ever a few steps away from the railing.
This is a potent mix for suicide, which is often the result of a sudden impulse.


2. Crime
The combination of alcohol and isolation is also one that can breed crime. A rape, dispute, or mugging gone wrong could easily lead to the victim being knocked unconscious and pitched over the side.
 

3. Accidental Falls
Cruise ships are well aware of the risk of people falling over the balcony. It's virtually impossible to fall over the railings, most of which are at least 3.5 feet high. Unless you get drunk and decide to re-enact the famous "I'm flying" scene from Titanic, it's unlikely that people are falling off cruise ships accidentally.
 

4. Cruise Ship Serial Killer
This is a possibility posed in the comments on the Daily Mail article. Cruise ships would seem to offer the perfect hunting ground for a serial killer who's willing to specialize in burial at sea.
Two things work against this theory: first, most serial killers' victims are young, white women. Whereas the people who go missing from cruise ships tend to be older married people. Second, serial killers are actually incredibly rare, despite what movies and television would have us believe.
 

Ectoplasm

This morning I happened upon an episode of Syfy Channel's excellent show "Fact or Faked" where they were trying to debunk a series of photographs of ectoplasm. Perhaps the best debunking of ectoplasm is that you really don't hear about it anymore. Surely if ghosts really did exude and use ectoplasm, we would still be taking photographs and samples of the stuff!
Ectoplasm had its heyday in the spiritualism of the late 1800s and early 1900s, coincidentally along with the rise of affordable, semi-portable cameras. Most of the evidence of ectoplasm was indeed photographic, under circumstances which are, shall we say, somewhat suspect.
Ectoplasm also was closely tied to the use of spirit mediums, another fad which has somewhat faded. The ectoplasm often seemed to be surrounding or being exuded from the medium, which was supposedly proof that the medium was working with the spirit world. In truth, it was usually proof that the medium was working with dry ice pellets or long strips of gauze.
I am reminded of a chapter in Mary Roach's book Spook, where she tracks down and examines an actual historical sample of ectoplasm. It is cheesecloth, which the medium stashed in her lady parts. (The passage where Roach checks out the sample from the historical library and examines it is worth reading the entire book, frankly. I shall be etymologically punny and call it "hysterical.")
Ectoplasm was said to be mucusy, or sometimes gauzy and transparent. Depending on the medium, and what was happening, I suppose. The theory of the day was that spirits clothed themselves in ectoplasm, that it was part of the process of the spirit manifesting in our world. (Obviously it was really just part of the process of fleecing the bereaved customer.)
Ectoplasm featured strongly in the Ghostbuster movies of the 1980s, of course. At which point I suppose you could say that ectoplasm's run had finally come to its natural end: being flung at Dan Ackroyd in a wacky 80s comedy movie.
The term "ectoplasm" is often used to describe other mysterious slimes which do appear from time to time. Whether people are referencing the historical ectoplasm of spirit photography, or the slimy ectoplasm of Ghostbusters, is often uncertain. (More likely the latter, in my opinion.) Slime can sometimes appear when a wind-borne fungus all jellifies at once, or when - as happened in Alaska recently - an unusually large hatch of shrimp eggs floats to the surface and gets washed up on the beach.

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