zombies

Zombies are dead bodies with no souls, created by the black magic of voodoo sorcerers. Voodoo is a religion which originated in West Africa and was brought to Haiti in the early 16th century by West African slaves. The slaves could not practice their religion openly and were forced to adopt in public the practices of the French Catholic settlers. Voodoo is still a popular religion in Haiti and in cities where Haitians have emigrated, such as New Orleans. Vodu is an African word meaning spirit or god. The black magic of voodoo sorcerers allegedly consists of chemicals, various poisons (perhaps that of the puffer fish) which immobilize a person for days, as well as hallucinogens administered upon revival. The result is a complacent, paralyzed, or brain damaged creature used by the sorcerers as slaves, viz., the zombies. The zombie is not to be confused with the zombie astral, whose soul (ti-bon-ange) is controlled by the sorcerer.

It is quite understandable that a religion practiced under slavery would emphasize evil spirits. It is a cruel irony that some in the religion would evolve to worship at evil's altar and engage in practices which not only enslave others but keep the community in line from fear of being turned into a zombie/slave.

Loch Ness "monster"

The Loch Ness "monster" -- affectionately known as "Nessie" -- is an alleged plesiosaur-like creature living in Loch Ness, a long, deep lake near Inverness, Scotland. Many sightings of the "monster" have been recorded, going back at least as far as St. Columba, the Irish monk who converted most of Scotland to Christianity in the 6th century. Columba apparently converted Nessie, too; for it is said that until he went out on the waters and soothed the beast, she had been a murderess.

The modern legend of Nessie begins in 1934 with Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London physician, who allegedly photographed a plesiosaur-like beast with a long neck emerging out of the murky waters. That photo created quite a fuss and is still at the center of controversy (see the reader comments section of this entry). Before the photo, Loch Ness was the stuff of legend and myth. The locals knew the ancient history of the sea serpent and a few months before the publication of the famous photo a couple claimed they had seen a large "monster' in the lake.. But people came to the lake more to relax than to go on expeditions looking for mythical beasts. After the photo, the scientific experts were called in and cryptozoologists offered their opinions to any who would listen. Could be a plesiosaur. Yes, but it could be a tree trunk, too. Or an otter. In 1984, Stewart Campbell analyzed the photo in an article in the British Journal of Photography. He argued that whatever was in the photo could have been only two or three feet long. He guessed that it was probably an otter or a marine bird.* Later, there would be explorations by a submarine with high tech sensing devices. Today, we have a full-blown tourist industry said to have generated an estimated $37 million in 1993, complete with submarine rides (about one hundred bucks an hour in 1994) and a multi-media tourist center. Unfortunately, business has slowed down in recent years. In 2007, it was estimated that Nessie tourism brought in an estimated £6 million ($12.2 million) to the Highlands. Some are blaming skepticism and the fact that there have been only  two sightings in the first nine months of 2007. There were only three sightings in 2006. A decade ago, ten to twenty sightings a year was common.* The decline in sightings should concern the true believers, given the ubiquity of digital cameras, camera-phones, and the presence of webcams at various places around the lake. Adrian Shine, head of the Loch Ness Project, believes that one reason for the decline in sightings is that people are more skeptical about what they see. “I think we live in a more pragmatic age, and that people are becoming more aware of the sort of illusions that can occur on water,” he said.* If so, there may be hope for our species, after all.

fairy

A fairy is a mythical being of folklore and romance. Fairies are often depicted as diminutive winged humans with magical powers. The Tooth Fairy exchanges presents, usually coins, for teeth left out or under one's pillow at night. Fairy godmothers are protective beings, like guardian angels.

Fairies should not be confused with gnomes, which are also mythical diminutive humans but are deformed and live underground. Pixies, on the other hand, might be considered a type of fairy known for their cheerful nature and playful mischievousness. An elf might be thought of as a big pixie, often depicted as a mischievous dwarf, such as the Irish leprechaun known for his pranks but also believed to know where treasure is hidden. Elves are sometimes depicted as helpers of magicians, e.g., Santa's helpers.

 

Bigfoot

[a.k.a. Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, Mapinguari (the Amazon), Sasquatch, Yowie (Australia) and Yeti (Asia)]

An apelike creature reportedly sighted hundreds of times around the world since the mid-19th century. The creature is variously described as standing 7-10 ft (2-3 m) tall and weighing over 500 lb (225 kg), with footprints 17 in. (43 cm) long. The creature goes by many names, but in northern California it is known as “Bigfoot.” (It is also known as the Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas, Yeti or Meh-Teh [Asia], Mapinguari [the Amazon, where descriptions match that of a giant sloth thought to be extinct*], Sasquatch, and Yowie [Australia]). The creature is big business in the Pacific Northwest along a stretch of US-101 in southern Humboldt County known as the Redwood Highway. Numerous shops line the roadway, each with its own Bigfoot chainsaw-carved out of majestic redwood.

Nazca lines

The Nazca lines are geoglyphs and geometric line clearings in the Peruvian desert. They were made by the Nazca people, who flourished between 200 BCE and 600 CE along rivers and streams that flow from the Andes. The desert itself runs for over 1,400 miles along the Pacific Ocean. The area of the Nazca art is called the Pampa Colorada (Red Plain). It is 15 miles wide and runs some 37 miles parallel to the Andes and the sea. Dark red surface stones and soil have been cleared away, exposing the lighter-colored subsoil, creating the "lines". There is no sand in this desert. From the air, the "lines" include not only lines and geometric shapes, but also depictions of animals and plants in stylized forms. Some of the forms, including images of humans, grace the steep hillsides at the edge of the desert.

Mary Celeste

FOREWORD: When the seafloor bounces up and down during a shallow submarine earthquake, the vertical motion acts like a giant piston, pushing and pulling at the water, generating a series of intense pressure changes known as seaquakes. This energy travels toward the surface at 1,500 meters per second as alternating compressions and rarefactions (dilations). Seismologists C.E. Nishimura, Acoustics Division, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. 20375 has estimated seaquake intensity one meter above the epicenter of a shallow magnitude 7 earthquake at ~280 decibels re: 1mPa, which is the equivalent of 14,500 pounds per square inch (p.s.i.). Scientists from Goddard Space Flight Center (link) estimated shock waves from two major undersea earthquakes off the coast of California at six kilobars (90,000 p.s.i.). In 1969, a seaquake struck an oil tanker near the Azores, turning this ship into 32,000 tons of scrap metal (link). The Azores can thank their lucky stars that the M/V Ida Knudsen was not loaded with crude oil. The Ida knudsen is only one of the over 4,000 seaquake/vessel encounters that I have gathered in the 40 years I've been working on the mystery of lost ships and stranded whales.

The True History of Atlantis

Note: The cataclysms of fire and water of worldwide extent of which we speak in this essay are strictly scientific. They are widely attested in the geological record, being generally accepted by modern Geology. So are the massive extinctions of all sorts of species, and particularly of the large mammals which took place at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. Some 70% of the former species of great mammals which existed in the former era became extinct then, including, in all probability, two species of humans, the Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons, which became extinct more or less at this epoch.

Only the mechanism for the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — which is a certain fact, but is so far unexplained by Science — is new and our own. We propose that this dramatic event was caused by a huge explosion of the Krakatoa volcano (or perhaps another one), which opened the Strait of Sunda, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia.