The Fortean Tinged Links Of 2008
Most of you who read The Heavy Stuff (THS) know the word Fortean - and, in this listing - THS brings the dozen or so links we carried on our Squidoo site this year that had a fortean twinge (the link to THS’s Squidoo site will be at the bottom of this post). No, the list this year does not include any fish falling out of the sky - but does include hairy frogs and unicorn deer.
So, without further ado, and,- in reverse order of weirdness - THS presents a dozen of the best Fortean Links of 2008:
12th - Buddha Boy — One of the standard features of the Fortean is an element of impossibility; - therefore, would a human that doesn’t eat or move qualify? Well, such is the descriptions of the ability of Buddha Boy `Ram Bahadur Bomjon’ who `re-appeared’ this year on Nov. 10th - you can read much more about this fortean human here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Bahadur_Bomjon
11th - Picture of a Cat-clawed Hairy Frog — Seems frogs and their various mutations have been fodder for `weird lists’ now for years - and this year was no exception as you can see in this fortean picture http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23777116-5003419,00.html .
10th - Strange Holes In Russia — A very strange story here for sure. Evidently, since the 1980’s, folks have been finding deep holes in the Russian Forest — holes which don’t have any evidence of the excavation of earth to make the aimless holes. The pictures on this link will leave your head in a tizzy - who, or what is making these? http://www.englishrussia.com/?p=939
9th - Unicorn Deer Picture — Could a defect like this be a source of the unicorn legend? http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/unicorn-italy/ (link seems to be slow today)
8th - Phantom Clowns - Mr. Coleman’s other interest (he runs the cryptomundo.com site above - the leader in cryptozoology) is copycat crimes or the copycat effect. His writings on the subject border on pure fortean stuff — such as this new (and evidently classic) story this year about Clown Incidents in Chicago http://copycateffect.blogspot.com/2008/10/phantom-clowns-are-back.html.
7th - Obama’s `Fake’ Certification of Live Birth Document — Don’t you think it’s a little fortean that BOTH presidential candidates had questions about being legal candidates due to birth circumstances this year? We do. Not only that - look at this document that the Obama team offered up as his `proof’ — make sure to hit the enlargement by clicking on the document, also read the comments below — strange days indeed my friend — http://elluminati.blogspot.com/2008/07/barack-obamas-fake-birth-certificate.html .
6th - Turing Test Results — If you are not familiar with the Turing Test — its a test where humans ask questions to either humans or computers online and judge the results to say whether they are talking to a human or a computer. (IE: Can Robots Think) The idea is that when a computer is able to fool 30% of the humans that computers are basically self-aware enough to be deemed intelligent. This link shows this years results in which one computer scored 25% - yes, the day is near. Of particular interest, make sure to watch closely in the video how the computer answered the question “If we shake hands, who’s hand am I holding” - the answer is mindblowing - and brings into question whether the computer is `telling the truth’ from its viewpoint. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/7666246.stm.
5th - `Eerie’ Nighttime Olive Robberies — Every olive gone - every olive. Overnight. No machinery sounds. Entire 400 tree groves. 5 properties. The link — http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23733873-2,00.html
4th - Gnome (Entity) Videos — This year saw a number of what THS calls entity or creature videos - but, the ones that featured what appear to be Gnome like entities captured lots of folks imaginations — make sure to hit the video link on this one http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/weird/article1817406.ece
3rd - Mysterious Wind Damages ONE Downtown Apartment Building — You almost have to see this picture to believe it. How could ONLY one building be damaged in this dense downtown area of LA? Fortean indeed my friend — http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=3621582
2nd — False Fortean Memories — Are you one of thousands of folks who remember seeing a long time ago a picture of a `Thunderbird’ that was being stretched out by a number of cowboys? THS is one of those folks. Well, guess what? The picture possibly has NEVER existed and may be a `false memory’ of all of us. Read more about this amazing possibility here - http://forgetomori.com/2008/skepticism/the-brazilian-lost-thunderbird-false-fortean-memories/
1st - Super Strange Sheep Circle — Chance itself and the law of numbers and possibilities allows much in the realm of occurrence and evidently 100 sheep doing something like this is one of them. Amazing picture. http://www.neatorama.com/2008/01/28/the-sheep-circle/
Please visit my front page too www.theheavystuff.comso you can see the last 15 posts including another top 10 listing like this just two weeks ago. Oh, and my squidoo page with all the above links and some that just missed this list www.squidoo.com/anomalyman. Finally, thanks for your support this year — within the past two weeks even www.cosmiclog.msnbc.com — carried this blog - THS even had over 2,000 hits in one day. Again thanks - give us a bookmark and see you again in 2009. Want even more Heavy Stuff? www.squidoo.com/theheavystuff .
The Heavy Stuff - Nothing Like it.