November 2010

I have been reading "Let Me In" by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, and one of the chapter intros caught my eye.  A brief poem by Viktor Rydberg titled "Skogsgraet."  The word "skogsgra" was left untranslated, with a footnote from the translator defining it as "a beautiful but sinister forest spirit."

Rydberg, a Swedish poet of the mid to late 1800s, wrote of the Skogsra in the same light as Keats wrote of La Belle Dame Sans Merci.  Rydberg's poem "Skogsgraet" tells of a "strong and handsome bachelor" named Bear, who goes hunting in the woods one autumn night.  Bear falls in love with a skogsra which he glimpses on the shore of a moonlit lake, and he is forever ruined. Doomed to a life alone, because he can love only the Skogsra, who he of course can never have.

I have difficulty writing about the topic of indigo children, because it's just so sad.  In the broadest, most meta sense, the concept of "indigo children" is a way to fleece gullible parents out of shed loads of money. 

Although the idea of "indigo children" first came to a wide audience in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they were originally "discovered" by a New Age psychic named Nancy Ann Tappe.  She made an off-hand mention that she had noticed a lot of children with indigo-colored auras. 

In 1998, a husband and wife team wrote a book called The Indigo Children, and the phenomenon was off and running.  According to Carroll and Tober, "indigo children" were actually mystical creatures, foundlings of a sort, who would grow up and improve the world for the better.

A recent spate of UFO sightings has featured blue lights, flying in any number of patterns, configurations, and speed.  Problem being: these are the work of hoaxers across the country.

The recent availability of lightweight LED light strips has allowed pranksters with remote controlled aircraft to mimic UFO sightings with remarkable skill.  Metafilter user smoothvirus put together an excellent post about this pranking, and its consequences.

If you are a devoted fan of the late lamented show MonsterQuest, you have already seen these light strips in action in several episodes.  For example, in the "Ohio Grassman" episode, a local RC helicopter enthusiast is enlisted to help with the hunt.  The team attaches a FLIR thermal camera to the belly of the RC helicopter.  The pilot meanwhile attaches a set of lightweight LED strips to the helicopter itself, so that he can monitor its orientation when it is in flight in the darkness.

Imagine a worldview so convoluted that the answer to "Where are the bodies of the people killed by the Indonesian tsunami go?" is not "They were washed into the ocean," but "They were taken by the Reptilians and beamed up into space, to be sold at an intergalactic black market butcher shop."

Confused?  Don't worry: YouTube Sensation colesakick wants to break it down for you.  In fact, that is what she was sent here on Earth to do: She is a Pleiadian who was incarnated here to blow the whistle on "you guys."  (I think she means the Reptilians and co?)  At the end of the video she identifies herself as "The spirit of the mother of everything in this galaxy."

Unfortunately, colesakick (real name Colleen) had a recent misfire.  In a video titled "Update to Obama and all hostiles" she predicted that "On November 6th the EMP will take out all communications and electrical grids so prepare your electronics, unplug them, place on ground and cover with metal blanket of some kind"  (I don't have a "metal blanket," can you loan me one?)

If you have ever found a weird lump or growth on a plant, chances are good that it's a gall.  Leaf galls are the most commonly seen.  You can find these strange lumps on tree leaves of almost any species, all throughout the summer months.  They are easiest to spot late in the season, when they are largest. 

Leaf galls can frequently be spotted on oak trees.  These galls are caused by a species of parasitic wasp, known (logically enough) as the gall wasp or gallfly.  In the center of the gall, were you to cut it open carefully, you would find the larvae of one of these wasps.

The gall wasp injects its egg into the flesh of the leaf.  As the larvae hatches and grows, the gall grows around it, like a sort of leaf tumor.  The mechanism by which this gall grows is unknown.  The larvae grows fat and healthy, eating the gall flesh of the leaf.