The new horror movie "Paranormal Activity" could be filling movie studio marketing departments with fear.

Using a campaign of limited showings, social media and word-of-mouth fan buzz, the film has managed to become a breakout hit without the aid of a glitzy marketing campaign -- or even a traditional movie trailer.

According to Variety, the very low-budget film (it reportedly cost $11,000), which played in fewer than 200 theaters, raked in $7.1 million over the weekend -- a record for a limited-release film. The film had an impressive $44,163 per-screen average and placement in the top five of the box office ratings over the weekend.

"We think it's exciting that they are taking this grassroots approach to independent film because sometimes independent films do get lost in the shuffle," said Kevin Carr, a writer/reviewer for the site Film School Rejects. "It's a unique test to see if people can demand things outside of standard marketing campaigns."

"Paranormal Activity" bills itself as "the first-ever major film release demanded by you."

The movie, which was an audience favorite at the alternative Slamdance festival in early 2008, was acquired by Dreamworks (then a part of Paramount Pictures) two years ago.

The studio initially planned to remake it using better-known actors. But after studio executives, including Steven Spielberg, viewed it, they decided the Paranormal Activity Movie could stand more or less as it was (though director Oren Peli did shorten the film and shoot a new ending).

The movie gained buzz after Paramount began late-night screenings in college towns, and fans took to Twitter and other sites to hail the scary flick, which centers on a young couple who believe their house may be haunted.

Paramount increased the interest by urging fans to sign on to ParanormalMovie.com and demand theaters in their locations show the film.

Peli posted a video on YouTube expressing gratitude to the fans and urging them to continue rooting for the Paranormal Activity movie.

"I just wanted to take this opportunity to speak directly to the fans and thank you all for the amazing support," Peli said on the video. "It's just been overwhelming especially considering the long road this film had for three years and the studio wanting to do a remake."

More than a million people have heeded the call. The result has been a groundswell of interest rivaling that of big-budget films.

Megan Colligan, co-president of marketing for Paramount, said the studio had a limited budget for advertising the film, so its marketing had to be tightly targeted.

http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/paranormal-activity-movie.html

Colossal 'sea monster' unearthed

The fossilised skull of a colossal "sea monster" has been unearthed along the UK's Jurassic Coast. The ferocious predator, which is called a pliosaur, terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago. The skull is 2.4m long, and experts say it could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found: measuring up to 16m in length. The fossil, which was found by a local collector, has been purchased by Dorset County Council. It was bought with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and it will now be scientifically analysed, prepared and then put on public display at Dorset County Museum.

Palaeontologist Richard Forrest told the BBC: "I had heard rumours that something big was turning up. But seeing this thing in the flesh, so to speak, is just jaw dropping. It is simply enormous."

Pliosaurs were a form of plesiosaur, a group of giant aquatic reptiles that dominated the seas around the same time that dinosaurs roamed the Earth.

They had short necks and huge, crocodilian-like heads that contained immensely powerful jaws and a set of huge, razor-sharp teeth. Using four paddle-like limbs to propel their bulky bodies through the water, they made easy work of passing prey such as dolphin-like ichthyosaurs and even other plesiosaurs.

David Martill, a palaeontologist from the University of Portsmouth, said: "These creatures were monsters.

"They had massive big muscles on their necks, and you would have imagined that they would bite into the animal and get a good grip, and then with these massive neck muscles they probably would have thrashed the animals around and torn chunks off.

"It would have been a bit of a blood bath."

Big contender

Experts think this latest discovery could represent one of the largest pliosaurs ever found.

Dr Martill said: "This thing is absolutely enormous. When I saw it, it really just hit me how big it was."

The fossil comprises a lower jaw and upper skull.

http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/sea-monster.html

Fresh doubts over Hitler's death

Fresh doubts over Hitler's death after tests on bullet hole skull reveal it belonged to a woman. Adolf Hitler may not have shot himself dead and perhaps did not even die in his bunker, it emerged yesterday.

A skull fragment believed for decades to be the Nazi leader’s has turned out to be that of a woman under 40 after DNA analysis.

Scientists and historians had long thought it to be conclusive proof that Hitler shot himself in the head after taking a cyanide pill on 30 April 1945 rather than face the ignominy of capture. The piece of skull - complete with bullet hole - had been taken from outside the Fuhrer’s bunker by the Russian Army and preserved by Soviet intelligence.

Now the story of Hitler’s death will have to rewritten as a mystery - and conspiracy theorists are likely to latch on to the possibility that he may not have died in the bunker at all.

The traditional story is that Hitler committed suicide with Eva Braun as the Russians bombarded Berlin.

Although some historians doubted he shot himself and suggested it was Nazi propaganda to make him a hero, the hole in the skull fragment seemed to settle the argument when it was put on display in Moscow in 2000.

But DNA analysis has now been performed on the bone by American researchers.

Is it hers? Eva Braun died aged 33 and the skull was from a woman under 40

'We know the skull corresponds to a woman between the ages of 20 and 40,' said University of Connecticut archeologist Nick Bellantoni. 'The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust. And the sutures where the skull plates come together seemed to correspond to someone under 40.' Hitler was 56 in April 1945. Mr Bellantoni flew to Moscow to take DNA swabs at the State Archive and was also shown the bloodstained remains of the bunker sofa on which Hitler and Braun were believed to have killed themselves.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/hitler-death.html

Jack the Ripper's identity finally uncovered?

With the fragment of human kidney sent in the mail to the police came a letter: "I send you half the kidney I took from one woman ... and the other piece I fried and ate ..." The writer's return address: "From Hell." It was the fall of 1888, and all of London instantly knew that the gruesome missive came from "Jack the Ripper," who had just slashed to death his fourth known victim, 43 year old Catherine Eddowes.

All four women had been pathetic prostitutes, aging and worn, forced to ply their degrading trade in the slum district known as Whitechapel. A veritable cesspool of the most wretchedly impoverished people, it had narrow streets and alleys that led through a filthy maze of gin shops, brothels, and opium dens. Fewer than half the children survived to the age of five; up to seven people were packed into each tiny room of this garbage strewn warren. To fend off starvation in such desperate circumstances, many young women had no alternative but to become streetwalkers. Such women, for unexplained reasons, were the prey of the Ripper, who was never identified nor apprehended.

Mei Trow used modern police forensic techniques, including psychological and geographical profiling, to identify Robert Mann, a morgue attendant, as the killer. His theory, the result of two years intensive research, is explored in a Discovery Channel documentary, Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed.

Trow's research is rooted in information from a 1988 FBI examination of the Ripper case, which had worked up a comprehensive criminal personality profile.

The portrait drawn up of Jack was as a white male from the lower social classes, most likely the product of a broken home.

It was also thought he would have had a menial job but with some anatomical knowledge, something like a butcher, mortuary or medical examiner's assistant or hospital attendant.

Because of prolonged periods without human interaction, Jack would also have been socially inept

It is known that Mann was from an extremely deprived background. His father was absent for much of his upbringing and he had spent some time as a child in a workhouse.

Trow said: "I wanted to go beyond the myth of a caped man with a top hat and knife, and get to the reality, and the reality is simply that Jack was an ordinary man."

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/jack-the-ripper-revealed.html

Goat gives birth to a 'human'; a faun

THE community of Lower Gweru and its surroundings in the Midlands Province was left shell-shocked when a goat gave birth to human-like creature that had the combined features of a man and a goat.

A report in The Chronicle newspaper said the goat gave birth to the 'creature' on Sunday morning in Maboleni area. The creature had a human head, face, nose, shoulders and human-like skin that had very scanty furs. It had goat features from the “shoulders” to the legs. Its sagging stomach prevented curious villagers from determining whether it had human or animal sex organs as it protruded covering the front part.

Villagers said the end product was so scary that even dogs were afraid to move close to the goat.

“Normally, dogs like to play around a goat when it has just given birth. This time the dogs kept their distance. This is indeed a miracle that has never been witnessed anywhere,” said one elderly villager, Themba Moyo. The owner of the goat who gave his name as Mr Nyoni said the incident left him shocked and he decided to contact the police and the local leadership.

“It’s the first time that my goat did this. I have 15 goats and it’s this goat that gave me birth to most of them. My goats often give birth to sets of twins,” he said.

His wife, Mrs Nyoni, said she never bothered to check when she learnt from her daughter that her goat had given birth.

She said she was busy with her laundry and she only learnt from her brother-in-law that the goat had given birth to an unusual creature. “By that time the ‘thing’ had died. My brother-in-law then decided that we inform the community and the leadership about this unusual incident,” she said.

Midlands Governor and Resident Minister Jason Machaya, police and the media visited Maboleni area to have first-hand information. Governor Machaya said it was disgracing that a man can stoop so low opting for animal company in a world full of women.

“This incident is very shocking. It is my first time to see such an evil thing. It is really embarrassing. The head belongs to a man while the body is that of a goat. This is evident that an adult human being was responsible. Evil powers caused this person to lose self control,” he said.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/faun-birth.html

Panama: youngsters claim to have killed an alien

The discovery of a strange creature in Cerro Azul, Panama, sparked controversy among the people, for what some say might be a creature from another planet, others simply believe that it si just an animal.

Two young men were having fun on the hill when they saw at the entrance of a cave a creature that was approaching them. They were frightened and stoned it to death. Panama’s Channel 13 showed images of a strange creature that appeared last weekend in Cerro Azul, east of Panama City, and that alarmed local residents.

According to Telemetro, polemic unleashed between those who believe it is an animal and those who think it’s an extraterrestrial creature. No authority said anything about the find. Telemetro said four children, aged between 15 and 16 , saw the “thing” out of the water fall of Cerro Azul and stoned it to death, afraid of being attacked.

Mongolian Death Worm

The Mongolian Death Worm is a cryptid purported to exist in the Gobi Desert. It is generally considered a cryptozoological creature; one whose sightings and reports are disputed or unconfirmed.

It is described as a bright red worm with a wide body that is 0.6 to 1.5 meters (2 to 5 feet) long. In general, scientists reject the possibility that such mega-fauna cryptids exist, because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population[1] and because climate and food supply issues make their survival in reported habitats unlikely.

The local name is allghoi, which means "blood filled intestine worm" because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow. It is the subject of a number of extraordinary claims by Mongolian locals—such as the ability of the worm to spew forth sulfuric acid that, on contact, will turn anything it touches yellow and corroded (which would kill a human), and its purported ability to kill at a distance by means of electric discharge.

The Mongolian Death Worm, known to Mongolias nomadic tribesmen as the allghoi khorkhoi (sometimes given as allerghoi horhai or olgoj chorchoj) or intestine worm for its resemblance to a sort of living cows intestine. It is said to be red in colour, and is sometimes described as having darker spots or blotches, and sometimes said to bear spiked projections at both ends. They are said to be thick bodied and between 2 and 5 feet long.

The Mongolian Death Worm is said to inhabit the Southern Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The first reference in English to this remarkable beast appears in Professor Roy Chapman Andrews 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man, although the American palontologist (apparently the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) was not entirely convinced by the tales of the monster he heard at a gathering of Mongolian officials: None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely.

Czech Explorer Ivan Mackerle: "Sausage-like worm over half a metre (20 inches) long, and thick as a mans arm, resembling the intestine of cattle. Its tail is short, as [if] it were cut off, but not tapered. It is difficult to tell its head from its tail because it has no visible eyes, nostrils or mouth. Its colour is dark red, like blood or salami It moves in odd ways either it rolls around or squirms sideways, sweeping its way about. It lives in desolate sand dunes and in the hot valleys of the Gobi desert with saxaul plants underground. It is possible to see it only during the hottest months of the year, June and July; later it burrows into the sand and sleeps. It gets out on the ground mainly after the rain, when the ground is wet. It is dangerous, because it can kill people and animals instantly at a range of several metres."

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/Mongolian-death-worm.html

Urban Legends - Superman Curse

The Superman curse refers to a series of misfortunes that have plagued creative people involved in adaptations of Superman in various media, particularly actors who have played the role of Superman on film and television. The curse basically states,

If you intend to play the strongest man on Earth, you will either die or end up in the weakest position possible.

The curse is somewhat well-known in popular culture, largely due to the high-profile hardships of Superman actors George Reeves and Christopher Reeve. Other sources deny the curse, stating that several Superman-related actors, such as Bud Collyer and Teri Hatcher, continued with successful careers after their association with the franchise and that many hardships of "cursed" individuals are common in their respective fields.

Supposed victims of the curse

Siegel & Shuster

Writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster created Superman in the 1930s but their employer DC Comics held the copyright to the character. In 1946, the two sued DC, arguing that they were inadequately compensated for the character. The New York Supreme Court limited their settlement to $60,000 each, a small sum compared to the millions of dollars Superman comic books, films, television series, and merchandise grossed. In 1975, in response to a campaign launched by Siegel and Shuster and joined by many prominent comic book creators, DC agreed to pay the two lifetime pensions of $35,000 a year and give them credit in every adaptation of the character. While Siegel and Shuster were respected in comic book fandom for Superman, neither went on to work on any other high-profile comic books after Superman. Some tellings of the curse state that Siegel and Shuster themselves cursed the character out of anger for the injustice.

The Fleischer Brothers

Brothers Max and Dave Fleischer founded Fleischer Studios, which produced the original Popeye, Betty Boop, and Superman cartoons. Shortly after bringing Superman into animation, the Fleischers began feuding with one another and their studio slumped financially until they were forced to sell to Paramount Pictures, which ousted the Fleischers and rearranged their company as Famous Studios. Although Dave Fleischer went on to a career as a special effects advisor at Universal Studios (which now owns many of Paramount's sound feature films released before 1950), Max died poor at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital.

Kirk Alyn

Kirk Alyn played Superman in two low-budget 1940s serials but failed to find work afterwards, saying that casting directors thought he was too recognized as Superman. He eventually retired to Arizona. He made an uncredited cameo appearance in the 1978 film Superman: The Movie as the father of young Lois Lane, who witnesses young Clark Kent racing the train they are riding on (his wife is portrayed by Noel Neill, also uncredited, who played Lois Lane in the Kirk Alyn Superman movies as well as on The Adventures of Superman from 1953 to 1958). Alyn developed Alzheimer's disease before passing away of related causes and old age in 1999.

George Reeves

George Reeves played Superman in the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Men and the ensuing television series Adventures of Superman. Like Alyn, he was recognized only for the role. On June 16, 1959, days before he was to be married, Reeves was found dead of a gunshot wound at his home with his Luger near him. The death was ruled a suicide but other theories persist.

John F Kennedy

In 1963, U.S. President John F. Kennedy's staff approved of a Superman story in which the hero touts the president's physical fitness initiatives, scheduled to be published with an April 1964 cover date. On November 22, Kennedy was shot and killed but, at the request of successor Lyndon B. Johnson, DC published a reworked version of the story.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/superman-curse.html

Cryptozoology - Mysteries of The Kongamato

The Kongamato ("breaker of boats") is a reported pterosaur-like creature from the border area of Zambia, Angola and Congo. Suggested identities include a modern-day Rhamphorhynchus, a misidentified bird (such as the very large and peculiar Saddle-billed Stork), or a giant bat.

Frank Melland, in his 1923 book In Witchbound Africa, describes it as living along certain rivers, and very dangerous, often attacking small boats. It was red, with a wingspan of 4 to 7 feet. Members of the local Kaonde tribe identified it as a pterodactyl after being shown a picture of one from Melland's book collection.

In 1956 an engineer, J.P.F. Brown, allegedly saw the creature at Fort Rosebery near Lake Bangweulu in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). It was about 6:00 p.m. when he saw two creatures flying slowly and silently directly overhead. He observed that they looked prehistoric. He estimated a wingspan of about 3 to 3 1/2 feet (1 meter) and a beak-to-tail length of about 4 1/2 feet (1.5 meters). It reportedly had a long thin tail, and a narrow head which he likened to an elongated snout of a dog.

Some 65 million years ago, starting in the Jurassic and lasting into the Cretaceous, there existed a powerful flying reptile known as the Pterosaurs. The majority of fossils found have been in marine deposits, which means they probably were fish eaters and spent most of their time over coastal waters. These Pterosaurs apparently managed to fly with no feathers, their main aerodynamic feature where wings of membrane supported by an enormously elongated fourth finger. They had hollow limb bones and a large keeled breastbone attached to strong wing muscles which where needed for true flight, not just gliding.

The large expenditure of energy required to remain in flight for long periods of time, and the resulting loss of heat caused by the surface of their wings exposed to moving air, means that they must have had some method of regulating body heat, although it is doubtful they were truly warm blooded as mammals are. The majority of the Pterosaurs species where anywhere from the size of a sparrow to the size of an eagle, however some larger species have been discovered. The Pteranodon with a wingspan of 27 ft. and the colossal Quetzalcoatlus, with a wingspan of 50 ft, possibly 60 ft. are two examples of these larger species. Some pterosaurs even had fur, although they are in now way related to mammals. It would seem impossible that these creatures could have survived to the present day. After all, if they existed surely people would see them flying about as they hunted for food. How could a flying population of reptiles remain hidden? There are reports that people have been seeing flying creatures that match the description of pterosaurs for a hundreds of years. People have even been reportedly killed by these ancient flying creatures.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/Kongamato.html

Mysteries of Mongolian Death Worm

The Mongolian Death Worm is a cryptid purported to exist in the Gobi Desert. It is generally considered a cryptozoological creature; one whose sightings and reports are disputed or unconfirmed.

It is described as a bright red worm with a wide body that is 0.6 to 1.5 meters (2 to 5 feet) long. In general, scientists reject the possibility that such mega-fauna cryptids exist, because of the improbably large numbers necessary to maintain a breeding population[1] and because climate and food supply issues make their survival in reported habitats unlikely.

The local name is allghoi, which means "blood filled intestine worm" because it is reported to look like the intestine of a cow. It is the subject of a number of extraordinary claims by Mongolian locals—such as the ability of the worm to spew forth sulfuric acid that, on contact, will turn anything it touches yellow and corroded (which would kill a human), and its purported ability to kill at a distance by means of electric discharge.

The Mongolian Death Worm, known to Mongolias nomadic tribesmen as the allghoi khorkhoi (sometimes given as allerghoi horhai or olgoj chorchoj) or intestine worm for its resemblance to a sort of living cows intestine. It is said to be red in colour, and is sometimes described as having darker spots or blotches, and sometimes said to bear spiked projections at both ends. They are said to be thick bodied and between 2 and 5 feet long.

The Mongolian Death Worm is said to inhabit the Southern Gobi Desert in Mongolia. The first reference in English to this remarkable beast appears in Professor Roy Chapman Andrews 1926 book On the Trail of Ancient Man, although the American palontologist (apparently the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character) was not entirely convinced by the tales of the monster he heard at a gathering of Mongolian officials: None of those present ever had seen the creature, but they all firmly believed in its existence and described it minutely.

Czech Explorer Ivan Mackerle: "Sausage-like worm over half a metre (20 inches) long, and thick as a mans arm, resembling the intestine of cattle. Its tail is short, as [if] it were cut off, but not tapered. It is difficult to tell its head from its tail because it has no visible eyes, nostrils or mouth. Its colour is dark red, like blood or salami It moves in odd ways either it rolls around or squirms sideways, sweeping its way about. It lives in desolate sand dunes and in the hot valleys of the Gobi desert with saxaul plants underground. It is possible to see it only during the hottest months of the year, June and July; later it burrows into the sand and sleeps. It gets out on the ground mainly after the rain, when the ground is wet. It is dangerous, because it can kill people and animals instantly at a range of several metres."

The creature is reported to be able to spray an acid like substance that causes death instantly. It is also claimed that this creature has the ability to kill from a distance with some sort of super charged electrical charge. Numerous Mongolians have reported seeing this creature including a Mongolian Premier. The creature is reported to hibernate during most of the year except for June and July when it becomes active.

It is believed that touching any part of the worm will bring instant death, and its venom supposedly corrodes metal. Local folklore also tells of a predilection for the color yellow and local parasitic plants such as the Goyo. It is also believed that the worm likes to get out on the ground generally after the rain, when the ground is still wet.

Read more at http://theunexplainedmysteries.com/Mongolian-death-worm.html

Did We really land on Moon?

In the early hours of May 16, 1990, after a week spent watching old video footage of man on the Moon, a thought was turning into an obsession in the mind of Ralph Rene.

"How can the flag be fluttering?" the 47 year old American kept asking himself when there's no wind on the atmosphere free Moon? That moment was to be the beginning of an incredible Space odyssey for the self- taught engineer from New Jersey. He started investigating the Apollo Moon landings, scouring every NASA film, photo and report with a growing sense of wonder, until finally reaching an awesome conclusion: America had never put a man on the Moon.

The giant leap for mankind was fake. It is of course the conspiracy theory to end all conspiracy theories. But Rene has now put all his findings into a startling book entitled NASA Mooned America. Published by himself, it's being sold by mail order - and is a compelling read. The story lifts off in 1961 with Russia firing Yuri Gagarin into space, leaving a panicked America trailing in the space race. At an emergency meeting of Congress, President Kennedy proposed the ultimate face saver, put a man on the Moon. With an impassioned speech he secured the plan an unbelievable 40 billion dollars.

And so, says Rene (and a growing number of astro-physicists are beginning to agree with him), the great Moon hoax was born. Between 1969 and 1972, seven Apollo ships headed to the Moon. Six claim to have made it, with the ill fated Apollo 13 - whose oxygen tanks apparently exploded halfway being the only casualties. But with the exception of the known rocks, which could have been easily mocked up in a lab, the photographs and film footage are the only proof that the Eagle ever landed. And Rene believes they're fake. For a start, he says, the TV footage was hopeless. The world tuned in to watch what looked like two blurred white ghosts throw rocks and dust. Part of the reason for the low quality was that, strangely, NASA provided no direct link up. So networks actually had to film man's greatest achievement from a TV screen in Houston - a deliberate ploy, says Rene, so that nobody could properly examine it. By contrast, the still photos were stunning. Yet that's just the problem. The astronauts took thousands of pictures, each one perfectly exposed and sharply focused. Not one was badly composed or even blurred.

As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers. Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.

The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time. The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out.

If Persey is right and the pictures are fake, then we've only NASA's word that man ever went to the Moon. And, asks Rene, "Why would anyone fake pictures of an event that actually happened?" The questions don't stop there. Outer space is awash with deadly radiation that emanates from solar flares firing out from the sun. Standard astronauts orbiting earth in near space, like those who recently fixed the Hubble telescope, are protected by the earth's Van Allen belt. But the Moon is to 240,000 miles distant, way outside this safe band. And, during the Apollo flights, astronomical data shows there were no less than 1,485 such flares. John Mauldin, a physicist who works for NASA, once said shielding at least two meters thick would be needed. Yet the walls of the Lunar Landers which took astronauts from the spaceship to the moons surface were, said NASA, about the thickness of heavy duty aluminum foil.

How could that stop this deadly radiation? And if the astronauts were protected by their space suits, why didn't rescue workers use such protective gear at the Chernobyl meltdown, which released only a fraction of the dose astronauts would encounter? Not one Apollo astronaut ever contracted cancer - not even the Apollo 16 crew who were on their way to the Moon when a big flare started. "They should have been fried", says Rene. Furthermore, every Apollo mission before number 11 (the first to the Moon) was plagued with around 20,000 defects a-piece. Yet, with the exception of Apollo 13, NASA claims there wasn't one major technical problem on any of their Moon missions. Just one effect could have blown the whole thing. "The odds against these are so unlikely that God must have been the co-pilot," says Rene.

Several years after NASA claimed its first Moon landing, Buzz Aldrin "the second man on the Moon" was asked at a banquet what it felt like to step on to the lunar surface. Aldrin staggered to his feet and left the room crying uncontrollably. It would not be the last time he did this. "It strikes me he's suffering from trying to live out a very big lie," says Rene. Aldrin may also fear for his life.
Virgil Grissom, a NASA astronaut who baited the Apollo program, was due to pilot Apollo 1 as part of the landings build up. In January 1967, he hung a lemon on his Apollo capsule (in the US, unroadworthy cars are called lemons) and told his wife Betty: "If there is ever a serious accident in the space program, it's likely to be me." Nobody knows what fuelled his fears, but by the end of the month he and his two co-pilots were dead, burnt to death during a test run when their capsule, pumped full of high pressure pure oxygen, exploded.

Scientists couldn't believe NASA's carelessness - even a chemistry students in high school know high pressure oxygen is extremely explosive. In fact, before the first manned Apollo fight even cleared the launch pad, a total of 11 would be astronauts were dead. Apart from the three who were incinerated, seven died in plane crashes and one in a car smash. Now this is a spectacular accident rate. "One wonders if these 'accidents' weren't NASA's way of correcting mistakes," says Rene. "Of saying that some of these men didn't have the sort of 'right stuff' they were looking."

NASA wont respond to any of these claims, their press office will only say that the Moon landings happened and the pictures are real. But a NASA public affairs officer called Julian Scheer once delighted 200 guests at a private party with footage of astronauts apparently on a landscape. It had been made on a mission film set and was identical to what NASA claimed was they real lunar landscape. "The purpose of this film," Scheer told the enthralled group, "is to indicate that you really can fake things on the ground, almost to the point of deception." He then invited his audience to "Come to your own decision about whether or not man actually did walk on the Moon."

A sudden attack of honesty? You bet, says Rene, who claims the only real thing about the Apollo missions were the lift offs. "The astronauts simply have to be on board," he says, "in case the rocket exploded. It was the easiest way to ensure NASA wasn't left with three astronauts who ought to be dead." he claims, adding that they came down a day or so later, out of the public eye (global surveillance wasn't what it is now) and into the safe hands of NASA officials, who whisked them off to prepare for the big day a week later.
And now NASA is planning another giant step - Project Outreach, a 1 trillion dollar manned mission to Mars. "Think what they'll be able to mock up with today's computer graphics," says Rene Chillingly. "Special effects was in its infancy in the 60s. This time round will have no way of determining the truth.

9 SPACE ODDITIES:

1. Apollo 14 astronaut Allen Shepard played golf on the Moon. In front of a worldwide TV audience, Mission Control teased him about slicing the ball to the right. Yet a slice is caused by uneven air flow over the ball. The Moon has no atmosphere and no air.
2. A camera panned upwards to catch Apollo 16's Lunar Landerlifting off the Moon. Who did the filming?
3. One NASA picture from Apollo 11 is looking up at Neil Armstrong about to take his giant step for mankind. The photographer must have been lying on the planet surface. If Armstrong was the first man on the Moon, then who took the shot?
4. The pressure inside a space suit was greater than inside a football. The astronauts should have been puffed out like the Michelin Man, but were seen freely bending their joints.
5. The Moon landings took place during the Cold War. Why didn't America make a signal on the moon that could be seen from earth? The PR would have been phenomenal and it could have been easily done with magnesium flares.
6. Text from pictures in the article said that only two men walked on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Yet the astronaut reflected in the visor has no camera. Who took the shot?
7. The flags shadow goes behind the rock so doesn't match the dark line in the foreground, which looks like a line cord. So the shadow to the lower right of the spaceman must be the flag. Where is his shadow? And why is the flag fluttering if there is no air or wind on the moon?
8. How can the flag be brightly lit when its side is to the light? And where, in all of these shots, are the stars?
9. The Lander weighed 17 tons yet the astronauts feet seem to have made a bigger dent in the dust. The powerful booster rocket at the base of the Lunar Lander was fired to slow descent to the moons service. Yet it has left no traces of blasting on the dust underneath. It should have created a small crater, yet the booster looks like it's never been fired.

As Rene points out, that's not all: The cameras had no white meters or view ponders. So the astronauts achieved this feet without being able to see what they were doing. There film stock was unaffected by the intense peaks and powerful cosmic radiation on the Moon, conditions that should have made it useless. They managed to adjust their cameras, change film and swap filters in pressurized suits. It should have been almost impossible with the gloves on their fingers. Award winning British photographer David Persey is convinced the pictures are fake. His astonishing findings are explained alongside the pictures on these pages, but the basic points are as follows: The shadows could only have been created with multiple light sources and,in particular, powerful spotlights. But the only light source on the Moon was the sun.

The American flag and the words "United States" are always Brightly lit, even when everything around is in shadow. Not one still picture matches the film footage, yet NASA claims both were shot at the same time. The pictures are so perfect, each one would have taken a slick advertising agency hours to put them together. But the astronauts managed it repeatedly. David Persey believes the mistakes were deliberate, left there by "whistle blowers" who were keen for the truth to one day get out.

CT scans reveal mummies' long-lost secrets

A long line of hospital staff wraps around the corridor outside a small conference room in New York to catch a glimpse of the precious cargo.

Inside are the three frail bodies in open wooden crates causing all the commotion. Another body -- a prince no less -- is a few rooms down in a computer tomography scanner.

The bodies are part of the Brooklyn Museum's collection of 11 Egyptian mummies, transported to the North Shore University Hospital to be scanned. The goal: Find out who they are, how they might have died and establish a chronology of advances in ancient Egypt's mummification techniques.

The process is not necessarily new. Egyptian mummies have been exposed to radiographic study since 1896 and CT scans, which conducts imaging by sections, for more than two decades.

Perhaps the most famous of them, King Tutankhamun (c. 1355-346 B.C.), was scanned in 2005 right outside the vault that holds his sarcophagus. The scan resulted in more than 17,000 images that were analyzed by an international team of radiologists, pathologists and anatomists, led by the world-renowned Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The scope and ability of CT scan technology are proving invaluable in learning more about the funeral rituals of ancient Egyptians and the mummies themselves. Whereas conventional X-rays cannot clearly distinguish soft tissue from bone and can see only two planes, CT scanning can differentiate among the various types of bone and soft tissue, and reconstruct three-dimensional images that "show fine detail inside coronary arteries down to 0.6 millimeters" said Amgad Makaryus, director of cardiac CT and magnetic resonance imaging at North Shore, providing a better chance at diagnosis and differentiation among diseases.

"CT has proved to be exceptionally well-suited for studying the fragile, wrapped figures of Egyptian mummies, especially those still contained within their decorated plasterlike shells, or cartonnages," according to an article by a team of eight researchers, led by Derek N.H. Notman, published in the American Journal of Roentgenology.

Read complete story at http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/06/25/mummy.scans/index.html

UFO's of the 19th Century

Article by Cristina Aguilar

For decades, these UFO sightings have been explained away as meteors or other things. But what is interesting that before the Wright brothers launched an airplane, flying crafts were already visible in the skies. None of these crafts could really be explained away as weather balloons or meteorites, to witnesses of the 1800s the crafts were not from this earth.

The Wright Brothers may have been the first to put an machine into the sky, but people had been looking up at flying aircraft for decades before the brothers launched the first airplane.

Reports of UFOs were recorded in newspapers of the 19th century, among the most famous was written in the St. Louis Democrat, Oct. 19, 1865. That article appeared two weeks later in The Cincinnati Commercial, bringing more public awareness to UFOs. The account was of an old Montana fir trapper by the name of James Lumley who saw a UFO fly over him and crash into the forest, exploding like a rocket. The story picked up by the Missouri Democrat and other newspapers, which contributed to national attention or awareness of alien spacecraft.

Most fur trappers may tell tales of Indians, or bears, or mountain lions, but Lumley's account of a flying saucer that crashed into Cadotte Pass was among the most explicit and remains a mystery to this day. It is said that debris from the crash may still be up there, but few there has been no findings since. Nevertheless the story has remained one of the most mysterious of the 1800s.

Lumley was about 175 miles above the Upper Missouri in Great Falls Montana. He was on his way back to his camp site when he saw a "bright luminous body in the heavens." It went rapidly into an eastern direction and was plainly visible for about five seconds. As it flew Lumley saw it burst into an explosion in the sky and he later heard an explosion. It was shortly followed by a strong wind through the forest like a tornado, and the event left the air smelling like sulfur.

The next day, after walking two miles, he saw a path "several rods wide" made through the forest. He followed the path and discovered an object or rather a stone on the side of the mountain. What was unusual about this stone is that it had strange hieroglyphics and glass in it. Lumley felt the fragment he had found had come from an immense body and that the hieroglyphics must have been used for some purpose and made by human hands.

Read complete article at http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977715311

Ukraine: UFO lands in village, multiple wintesses

Michael Cohen

Reports of a UFO landing in a small rural village are filtering out from the Ukraine. Residents of the village of Brailov are insisting that they were woken up to an intensely bright white light in the middle of the night, earlier this month.

The residents, mostly farmers, are also claiming that electrical surges and a strange feeling of electrical currents passing through their bodies accompanied the light.

In the morning after the UFO event three unusual imprints consisting of 'wheels with wheels' arranged in triangular formation were seen on the ground of one of the resident's yards.

The witnesses included 82 year grandmother old Helena Ganzyuk, her daughter 56 year old Nadezhda Ganzyuk and 24 year old Helena Petrovskaya. After the event a number of residents, including some witnesses, became ill.

Symptoms of their illnesses included vomiting and high temperature. Emergency services were called in from Kiev and radioactivity was measured. Radioactiviy levels were high but not extreme. Metal traces were identified and dirt samples removed for analysis.

The residents believe a UFO of extraterrestrial origin might have been responsible for the incident.

Read original story at http://www.allnewsweb.com/page6946949.php

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UFO-spotting Turkish night-watchman regards aliens as 'the world's policemen'

WITH HIS neatly clipped moustache and checked shirt buttoned up to his neck, 51-year-old Yalcin Yalman doesn’t look like a typical trendsetter.

But the images he has filmed since 2007 from the suburban Istanbul holiday village where he works as a night-watchman have helped turn UFO-spotting, once the object of scorn, into a popular pastime among educated Turks.

“For me it’s just a hobby, a way of passing the night,” Yalman shrugged outside an Istanbul conference centre where more than 1,000 people had paid 35 lira (€16), a handsome sum by local standards, to listen to him and ufologists from around the world reveal their latest findings.

Holding cups of watery coffee selling at an extortionate three lira, elegantly dressed Turkish ladies with word-perfect English peppered speakers from as far afield as Mexico with questions about 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar.

Former head of the UK defence ministry’s UFO desk and a well-known ufologist, Nick Pope, one of the speakers at the conference, confessed himself amazed at the turnout.

“Ufology has a bit of an image problem back home – computer nerds, trainspotters, you know,” he said. “But that is not the sense I get here at all. And there seems to be an equal balance between men and women.”

Haktan Akdogan, the organiser of last weekend’s International UFO and New Age Congress, the fourth of its kind in Turkey, put growing domestic interest in UFO sightings down to the increasingly receptive Turkish media, “more sympathetic than the media in the West”.

Read complete story at http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0622/1224249263841.html