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The Earl of Haddington, authority on the paranormal dies

Lord of the paranormal

Lord Haddington at Stonehenge




From the Daily Telegraph

The Earl of Haddington, authority on the paranormal dies

The 13th Earl of Haddington, who has died aged 74, was a landowner, conservationist, photographer and explorer of the paranormal.

Among his recreations he listed beekeeping, keeping finches and “cerealogy”, by which he meant an expert knowledge of crop circles. Yet this was only the tip of the iceberg. 

His healing powers, assisted by the use of rock crystal, gave him a Merlin-like presence in the House. Many swore by his treatment, which he  dispensed on request, at exhausting physical cost, to peers, peeresses and staff alike. When Andrew Festing painted his official group portrait of the Lords debating the 1995 Queen’s Speech, his friend Haddington jovially agreed to pose for the joke figure of “the slumbering Earl” on the government side.

John George Baillie-Hamilton  was born at Mellerstain on December 21 1941. His father, a Lord Lieutenant of Berwickshire and distinguished veteran of both World Wars, was a noted horseman and forester. His mother was the Catholic Sarah Cook, who played an important part in the formation of the Edinburgh Festival. His sister, Lady Mary Russell, was a maid of honour at the  Coronation.

Haddington’s marked transcendentalism first showed itself when he was two. He was terrorised by the ghost of a German pilot killed in a bomber-aircraft crash on the Mellerstain estate. His silence caused adult concern but he dared not betray its cause. 

After university he hitch-hiked the world, exercising his talent for photography, which he exploited professionally in London on his return.  An inspired assignment, commissioned by Sir Jocelyn Stevens, was to instil some of the magic and mystery of Stonehenge into English Heritage’s guidebook.

His interest in the paranormal  alerted him early to the corn circle phenomenon. He was a sponsor of The Cerealogist magazine, initially edited by his friend John Michell, the radical-traditionalist author and antiquarian; and he could tell at a glance whether a circle was paranormally genuine or trodden by hoaxers.

His son, George Edmund Baldred, succeeds him as 14th Earl. Haddington married first, in 1975, Prudence Hayles (dissolved 1977); and, secondly, in 1984, Jane Heyworth, who survives him with their son and two daughters.

The 13th Earl of Haddington, born December 21 1941, died July 5 2016

Eagle tries to carry off Australian boy

 

An eagle attempted to lift a little boy into the air during a bird show at Alice Springs in Australia

Eagle tries to carry off Australian boy

From the BBC


 

A wedge-tailed eagle tried to fly away with a terrified boy at a popular wildlife show in central Australia.

A crowd of stunned onlookers watched the enormous bird latch its talons on to the screaming boy’s head during a show at Alice Springs Desert Park.

Witnesses said the bird attempted to pick him up “like a small animal”.

The boy – believed to be between six and eight years old – escaped with a “superficial” gash to his face.

Christine O’Connell from Horsham in Victoria state was visiting the park with her husband on 6 July when the attack occurred.

She told the BBC the eagle flew straight for the boy from about 15m away.

The attack lasted for seconds before staff from the park intervened

“A fellow who was sitting closer said the little boy kept running his zipper up and down,” said Mrs O’Connell, who caught the attack on her camera.

Distracted by the noise, the eagle grabbed the boy’s green hoodie and attempted to lift him away before park staff moved in, Mrs O’Connell said.

The attack left the boy crying and bleeding, but his injuries were not severe.

A Victorian man who was in the crowd, Keenan Lucas, told the NT News the show was ended quickly after the attack.

“We’re at the bird show in the afternoon, having a great time and looking forward to seeing the wedge-tailed eagle come out for the finale,” he said.

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The boy suffered minor injuries in the attack and was taken for medical treatment



The Australian Wedge Tail Eagle is one of the biggest in the world. The 3rd biggest in fact. The American Bald Eagle being the 5th biggest.

These are both small compared to the legendary Thunderbird as described in the Native American legends.

Here’s a couple of stories about the Thunderbirds.

This one from Animal X Classic series 2.

 

From Animal X Natural Mystery Unit. Motherman, Thunderbirds, witches and other Unidentified Flying Creatures.

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Marsupial mole makes rare appearance in WA

Marsupial mole makes rare appearance in WA

From the ABC By Erin Parke

Rare Marsupial mole in WA’s Kimberley


Aboriginal women in Western Australia’s north have encountered a strange, silky-haired mole that is only spotted a handful of times each decade.

The marsupial mole is found only in desert areas of northern and central Australia, and rarely surfaces from underground.

Kate Crossing, who co-ordinates an Indigenous Protected Area in the Gibson Desert, said she was stunned to see one of the animals during a field trip with the local Aboriginal rangers near the Northern Territory border.

“We saw this little golden creature run along the track in front of us, and as I brought the car to a stop, one of our rangers, Yelti, yelled out ‘Kakarratul!’ and jumped out and grabbed hold of it,” Ms Crossing said.

“It was less than the size of your hand, and it’s just this golden-coloured animal, with a little pink nose, and it lives almost all its life underground.

“It is so rare to see them above ground, so we were just amazed … we were so lucky.”
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The women, who are from the remote community of Kiwirrkurra, quickly took some photographs and video footage, before releasing the animal a little way off the road.

Ms Crossing said there was tremendous excitement as they were able to touch the fast-burrowing creature, which they call Kakarratul.

“Some of the people who’ve spent more time in the desert before [white] contact had seen a mole before, but not for many years, and there were younger people who’d never seen one properly,” she said.

“It had beautifully soft fur, and it looked really delicate … but it also had really strong front legs and feet. When we put it down, off the road, it went straight down and it was gone in less than 30 seconds.”

Relatively little is known about the marsupial mole, which is so well adapted to living underground it has no functioning eyes or ears.

Marsupial mole found by WA Indigenous rangers

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Crab hordes heading for Australia

Crab hordes heading for Australia

It is believed the crabs gather together for protection, although an alternative theory posits that mating is behind the behaviour



A marine scientist who was scuba diving off Melbourne has filmed a giant spider crab aggregation on the shores of Port Phillip Bay.

Victorian-based aquatic scientist Sheree Marris said approximately hundreds of thousands of crustaceans make their way to southern Australia’s shores between May and July each year as the ocean waters cool.

“What I found really interesting about this aggregation is I’ve never seen so many before,” she told the ABC.

“I swam in a straight line for four-and-a-half minutes and the crabs were thick on the sandy shallows. It was gobsmackingly amazing.

“[In previous years] I’ve swam maybe a minute-and-a-half to two minutes and [this year] I wasn’t going slow.

“It’s pretty awesome.”

But marine research biologist Dr Julian Finn from Museum Victoria said it is hard to know the exact number of crabs coming to Port Phillip Bay and why they choose to aggregate in large piles, because there is not a lot of research available about the crustaceans.

“But it is fantastic what is happening. It’s an amazing spectacle that people should go and see,” he said.

“We are really lucky that such an amazing thing happens near Melbourne.”

Ms Marris said the sight of all the crabs made her feel “like a kid on Christmas day, getting all their presents”.

“I was excited. I was like a kid in a candy shop. The ocean is my happy place,” she said, noting that, unlike most people, she is not afraid of the crabs.

Ms Marris is a sea life enthusiast who once won a Young Australian of the Year award

Ms Marris said the aggregation allows crabs to moult with “safety in numbers”.

“When the crabs have freshly moulted, their bodies are soft, making them vulnerable to predators such as rays and sharks,” she said.

“That’s why they commit to the shallows. For crustaceans, for them to grow, they need to shed their shell, which is really hard.

“They get out of their old shell and they grow a new shell, which is really soft and takes time to harden.

“So by being in this aggregation, it reduces their chances of being eaten. It’s like a case of safety in numbers.”

Display was like a ‘moving blanket of legs and claws’

In terms of deciding which crabs go on top of the pile, “it’s every crab for themselves,” Ms Marris said.

“There’s no hierarchy. It’s just this orange chaos of legs and claws. It’s a moving blanket of legs and claws really, it’s pretty awesome,” she said.

“At times they kind of just stack on top of each other and the maximum I’ve seen is 10.

“But that’s how deep it can actually get, which makes sense because if you’re on the top, you’re going to be more vulnerable, especially if they’ve just freshly moulted.”

The moulting process is determined by some biological cues and some environmental cues as well, Ms Marris said.

“What happens is when one starts moulting, it sets off a chain reaction and then you’ll get these massive moults. At the end of the video, you can see where they do start moulting,” she said.

“Some people freak out when they do start seeing [what they think has been] a mass death of crabs.”




2016 International Bigfoot Conference

2016 International Bigfoot Conference

Minnesota Iceman




 In October of 2015, at a conference in Hot Springs Montana, Author Russell Acord, and Ed Brown sat down and started planning the first International Bigfoot Conference.  While they didn’t agree on everything, the one thing they all agreed on was; they had to create a conference with a purpose, and that purpose was to provide an opportunity for up and coming researchers to share the stage with some of the biggest names in the world of Bigfoot research. 

They knew that if we could pull our resources together; they could create an event to rival the best ones out there.  So they set out to bring in some top respected speakers to share the platform with some that have earned recognition for their own research.  they started with three outstanding up and comers; Kirk Brown from California, Misty Allabaugh from Montana, and Becky Cook from Idaho.  While it is hard to call any of the “Up and Comers”, they were confident they have chosen three candidates who are soon to be stars. 

Now came the task of looking for the big names that could schedule the time to join them on the stage in Kennewick Washington.  Ed first talked to Stacy Brown Jr, and was delighted that he was ‘all in’.  Then, on the Derek Randles, Dr. Jeff Meldrum, Todd and Diane Neiss, Mitchel Townsend, Shane Corson and Gunnar Monson.  But they weren’t done yet; they wanted to add world renowned cryptologists, Adam Davies and Ken Gerhard who confirmed that they were both ‘completely on board’.  And while we won’t give their names just yet, they are awaiting response from a few more legends in community to round out our list of esteemed speakers and guests.

2016 International Bigfoot Conference

 For more information check out their website and if you are down that way definitely join the conference. It sounds great.

Here’s some great stories of Bigfoot featuring at least one of their guests Dr Jeff Meldrum.   This is the famous Skookum Cast Expedition. 






A Wasp That Turns a Spider Into the Walking Dead

A Wasp That Turns a Spider Into the Walking Dead

by Dr. Elizabeth Mitchell from AnswersinGenisis.org

 

A parasitoid wasp (Pteromalus puparum) (Credit: John Abbott/NPL)

 
Spiders turned into zombies by parasitic wasps modify their webs to serve their new masters.
When a parasitic wasp skewers an orb spider and glues an egg to its back, she sets off a chain of events that soon alters the behavior and destiny of the spider. A new study from the host-parasite pair’s Japanese homeland shows that, some time after the egg hatches, the spider abruptly abandons its former lifestyle and follows a precisely choreographed sequence of actions that modify its normal web-building activities to produce the best possible home for a developing wasp.

zombie spider

Zombie Web Design

Transformed by the ichneumonid wasp Reclinervellus nielseni’s sting into an obedient zombie, the orb-weaving spider Cyclosa argenteoalba does more than nourish the wasp’s larva with its own inward parts. The zombie spider serves its new master by modifying its web design to make a stronger-than-normal web devoted to the protection of the wasp’s pupal cocoon. No longer concerned with catching prey for itself, the spider reworks its web to build a hammock of extra-strong non-sticky silks that will ultimately cradle the cocoon.

Kobe University’s Keizo Takasuka and colleagues, who published their work in The Journal of Experimental Biology, painstakingly searched for spiders already parasitized by the wasp and then observed how the spiders’ behavior was affected. They also collected and observed the behavior of normal spiders.

This modified web design is actually an enhanced version of the resting web the orb spider normally builds to protect itself when molting. A spider sheds its exoskeleton in order to grow and is helpless during this time. A normal spider molts nestled in its resting web for just two days, but to accommodate the 10-day period wasps require to pupate in their cocoons, the parasitized spider builds an unusually durable web. It spends 10 hours repeating certain web-building steps over and over, reinforcing the web with additional threads until it produces a web of large-diameter silks with increased tensile strength. It leaves out the sticky stuff. Once its construction operation is complete, the zombie spider sits in the center of the web until the larva consumes the rest of its body fluids and kills it. Then the larva morphs into a pupa and emerges 10 days later as a mature wasp

Shining in the Light

The zombie spider decorates this specialized resting web with ultraviolet-reflecting silks. These deter web-destroying collisions with birds. Scientists used to think that the ultraviolet-reflecting silks in spider webs attracted prey, but their routine inclusion in resting webs of molting spiders and the webs of nocturnal spiders suggests otherwise. The fact that these particular zombie spiders, following their detailed and very pragmatic altered programming, include UV-reflecting décor in their cocoon webs while leaving out sticky fibers altogether is consistent with this view. So is the fact that the prey-capture regions of the normal orb webs studied by this Japanese team were unadorned with UV-reflecting fibers.

It appears the UV-reflecting webs are God’s design to protect spider webs from being destroyed by bird collisions. Studies have shown the UV-reflecting silks really do deter bird collisions. At least one company is now manufacturing glass incorporating a web of UV-reflecting strips to prevent birds from crashing into windows. This example of biomimicry—technology based on designs found in nature—now protects birds soaring around the observation tower on the Holy Island of Lindesfarne, a center for Celtic Christianity off the coast of England dating back to the 6th century.

Biomimicry

UV-reflecting silk is just one of many biomimetic applications the study of spiders has provided. For instance, spiders produce several different kinds of silk. A gene that produces a protein in the dragline silk of one species of orb spider has been used to produce transgenic goats that produce recoverable silk in their milk, a protein that can be used to produce fibers stronger than steel for use in artificial joints, bulletproof vests, and parachutes. Biomimetic breakthroughs in technology are imitations of God’s designs. Zombie-creating parasites like this wasp and its parasitized partner can reveal much about the common designs created by God and how even their variations and derangement can work together to perpetuate species in this sin-cursed world.



World Gone Wrong

The fallen world we live in since man sinned supplies an endless variety of examples illustrating what can go wrong. Or, from the point of view of parasitic wasps fulfilling their instinct to multiply using the best available resources, what can go right! How do such parasitic relationships develop?

Parasites survive at the expense of their victims, ordinarily sparing the life of the victim until it is no longer needed.Parasites that manipulate host behavior do so in a way to enhance their own growth or dispersion. Ichneumonid wasps ensure their larvae will be fed by recruiting insects or spiders to donate their bodily fluids to nourish wasp larvae. And the Reclinervellus wasp is not the only ichneumonid that reproduces by providing its larvae with living meals while also manipulating the spider’s web-building behavior to provide each pupa a haven. A Costa Rican wasp, for instance, Hymenoepimecis argyraphaga, follows a similar strategy utilizing the orb-weaving spider Plesiometa argyra.

In fact it was to the Ichneumonidae family of wasps that Charles Darwin referred when he wrote to botanist Asa Gray, questioning how a good God could create such a cruel system. Darwin wrote, “There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.”5

God created a perfectly good world (Genesis 1:31) and presented it to man (Genesis 1:26–28). Darwin failed to recognize that God’s good world went wrong because of man’s sinful rebellion. The New Testament reinforces this Old Testament truth, Romans 8:19–23 confirming that that the whole of creation groans in slavery to corruption in the wake of man’s sin. (Read more about this in “The Fall and the Problem of Millions of Years of Natural Evil.”) Thedeath and suffering that afflict not only people but also animals are consequences of human rebellion against God.

Cruelty and the Curse

Darwin complained that he could not envision the cruelty of nature as part of a good God’s design, yet in order for the living things in this sin-cursed world to endure for the past 6,000 years, variations and even derangements of God’s designs have allowed life to go on. Many organisms have adapted by developing defense and attack structures. (Read more about these in “How Did Defense/Attack Structures Come About?” and entomologist Dr. Gordon Wilson’s article on “Divinely Designed Defenses.”) The study of parasites like the ichneumonid wasps will help answer Darwin’s concern by helping us understand what good purposes these organisms were designed to serve in the pre-Fall world as well as the changes that led to the development of parasitic lifestyles after the Fall. Be sure to read more about this in Dr. Matthew Ingle’s article “Parasitology and Creation.”

Spiders today are carnivores, most paralyzing prey caught in their webs and enzymatically digesting and consuming them. (It is curious that most news articles about these zombie spiders paint a horrific image of the spiders’ fate but fail to mention the daily dietary practices of spiders, which are certainly no kinder.) Carnivory and parasitism are both consequences of sin’s curse. We know from God’s Word (Genesis 1:29–30) that animals did not originally eat other animals.

So what did spiders eat? We cannot be dogmatic about the behavior of pre-Fall animals 6,000 years removed from our ability to observe them, but we can reasonably speculate that they could have subsisted on pollen grains caught in their webs. This is not idle speculation. While spiders today are not generally herbivorous, a mostly herbivorous spider living on the Bullhorn acacia tree feeds on the tree’s Beltian bodies.6 And a 2013 study found that 25% of the diet of the juvenile orb-weaving spiders analyzed consisted of pollen grains caught in their webs. The pollen grains in the study were large enough to require active digestion by the spiders’ extraoral enzymes and were likely consumed while the spiders were recycling their webs.7 Thus it is no stretch to propose that before the Fall spiders wereherbivorous, and spider webs may have originally functioned as pollen catchers.

But what about parasites like the ichneumonid wasps? If God did not originally design these wasps to turn their hosts into zombies, how did they get to be that way? While we cannot go back and observe the process by which an animal, plant, or fungus became a parasite, we can be confident that all the original created kinds of organisms fulfilled helpful, not harmful, roles in the good world God made. Since the Fall, a combination of mutations and other genetic mechanisms, phenotypic plasticity, natural selection, and environmental changes that have altered available resources have produced many harmful varieties of organisms as well as created both symbiotic and parasiticrelationships that ultimately ensure the survival of many species that might otherwise become extinct.

And if the incidence of parasitism in this Japanese pair is any indication, the spider population is not exactly being decimated by the predations of parasitic wasps. It took Keizo Takasuka’s team many days to find 23 parasitized spiders among the 1,615 spiders they inspected.8 Similarly, in a study of zombie ants last year, scientists found that a parasitic fungus infected only a small percentage of the carpenter ants in its ecosystem in order to survive. (Read more about it in “Zombie Ants and Genesis.”) Thus in the post-Fall world in which we live, carpenter ant populations survive to decompose dead wood, wasps survive to continue their valuable pollinating activities, and plenty of spiders survive to continue controlling insect populations.

Usurping the Normal, Not Evolving the New

Further research is needed to discover the chemical agent(s) the wasp or its larva uses to induce the spider’s zombification, causing it to repeat various steps in the normal web-building process over and over while eliminating others. However, a spider’s hormones normally trigger the molting process for which the spider builds a resting web. Therefore, Takasuka and colleagues suspect the wasp is injecting a chemical that mimics the hormone that normally directs the spider to molt.

The same is true of a behavior-altering virus that induces zombie-like behavior in gypsy moth caterpillars. It deactivates their molting hormone, prompting infected caterpillars to climb to treetops where they die and rain their viral load over a wide area. (See “Parasites Affect Behavior of Moths.”)

None of these parasitic relationships or zombie-generating species result from molecules-to-man evolution. This parasitic partnership is an example of an extended phenotype—all the effects a wasp’s gene has, including its effects on another organism (the spider). Parasitic wasps are still wasps, just a family of wasps that now depends on a rather elaborate form of carnivory to reproduce. The spider is still a spider, and even its behavior is a modification of an existing one. Indeed, if these wasps are able to supply a biochemical mimic of the spider’s own hormone, as the authors suggest, such a biochemical similarity exists because all creatures share a common Designer. These and other extraordinary variations were designed by our wise God to be somehow manifested after the Fall. Even though these insidious lifecycles highlight the ugliness of death due to sin’s curse, they still allow the created kinds to reproduce in a fallen world.

Learn more about the beneficial pre-Fall roles today’s parasites likely played in the pre-Fall world in “The Genesis of Malaria: The Origin of Mosquitos and Their Protistan Cargo, Plasmodium falciparum,” how parasitology helps us understand the changes in nature after the Fall in “Parasitology and Creation,” and how deadly venom seems to have developed from harmless but essential biochemicals in “Evolution of Snake Venom: A New Use for Old Genes?” and “Mamba Venom Derives from Gene Duplication.” You can find out more about real-life zombies and parasitic host manipulation in “Zombie Ants and Genesis,” “Parasites Affect Behavior of Moths,” “Brain Chemistry In Rats Altered By Parasite,” and “Zombies Existing in Nature.”

 

 

Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile

Bizarre Reptile

Fossils shed light on ‘bizarre’ reptile



Fossils shed light on bizarre reptile. A crocodile-sized creature that lived 242 million years ago was the first known vegetarian marine reptile, according to new fossil evidence.

Two specimens unearthed in China reveal details of the animal’s skull and how it fed.

Named Atopodentatus, scientists say its hammer-shaped skull helped it to feed on underwater plants.

Only a handful of marine reptiles, living or extinct, are known to be herbivores.

Dr Nick Fraser of National Museums Scotland, who worked on the fossil, said it belongs in the pages of a children’s storybook by Dr Seuss, which depicts animals with a strange jumble of features.

The reptile was “a bizarre, bizarre animal”, he explained.

“We envisage it scraping algae and the like off rocks underwater.

“Herbivorous marine reptiles are very rare – this is the oldest record that we know of.”

Strangely toothed

The first fossils of the creature were discovered a few years ago.

It was named Atopodentatus unicus, which is Latin for “unique strangely toothed”.

A reconstruction of the animal’s head

New fossils unearthed in China’s Yunnan Province by Chun Li of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing give a detailed picture of the animal’s skull.

The discoveries, unveiled in the journal, Science Advances, show that rather than having a zipper-like snout as previously thought, the animal had a wide hammer-headed jaw filled with peg-like front teeth.

Play-Doh

Scientists used clay to make a model of the jaw to work out how the animal fed.

“To figure out how the jaw fit together and how the animal actually fed, we bought some children’s clay, kind of like Play-Doh, and rebuilt it with toothpicks to represent the teeth,” said co-researcher Olivier Rieppel of the Field Museum in Chicago.

“We looked at how the upper and lower jaw locked together, and that’s how we proceeded and described it.”

He said Atopodentatus also helps tell a bigger story about the world’s largest mass extinction 252 million years ago.

It lived at a time when the Earth was recovering from the loss of 90% of all marine mammals.

“The existence of specialised animals like Atopodentatus unicus shows us that life recovered and diversified more quickly than previously thought,” he said.

“And it’s definitely a reptile that no one would have thought to exist – look at it, it’s crazy!”

What you can make with clay and toothpicks

Other bizarre sea and river monsters

There are still many strange creatures lurking in the waters around the world. From the Monster of Lake Van in Turkey to the various unidentified creatures that live off the west of of Britain, the Golden Gate San Fransisco Bay monster to the Altamaha-ha river monster of Georgia in the USA.

Here’s a video from Animal X Natural Mystery Unit that looks at sea and river monsters.



World’s oldest dog dies aged 30

Maggie the world’s oldest dog

‘World’s oldest dog’ Maggie dies at the age of 30 leaving her owner devastated.

From the Daily Mail.


Maggie the Kelpie, an Australian dog that was thought to be the oldest in the world, has died at the age of 30 leaving her owner devastated.

She was the best friend of Victorian dairy farmer Brian McLaren who confirmed the news, saying that Maggie passed away peacefully on Sunday night.

The beloved dog was still wandering around the dairy in Woolsthorpe, west of Melbourne, and growling at cats in the weeks before her death.

But Mr McLaren said that the Kelpie, who was more than 200 in dog years, went downhill in her last two days.

Maggie the Kelpie, an Australian dog that was thought to be the oldest in the world, has died at the age of 30 leaving her owner Brian McLaren (pictured) devastated

She was 30 years old, she was still going along nicely last week, she was walking from the dairy to the office and growling at the cats and all that sort of thing,’ Mr McLaren told the Weekly Times.

‘She just went downhill in two days and I said yesterday morning when I went home for lunch … ‘She hasn’t got long now’.

‘I’m sad, but I’m pleased she went the way she went.’

Maggie has already been buried beside the McLaren’s other dog in a marked grave under a pine tree.

Mr McLaren said that the Kelpie, who was approaching her third century in human years, went downhill in her last two days.

The beloved dog was still wandering around the dairy in Woolsthorpe, west of Melbourne, and growling at cats in the weeks before her death

A man’s best friend

‘We were great mates, it is a bit sad,’ he said. 

Maggie was a contender for the oldest dog in the world, but Mr McLaren lost the original paperwork for the dog, meaning that her age could not be independently verified.

The Western District owner previously spoke about the fact that his youngest son, Liam, was four years old when they bought Kelpie Maggie as a young pup. Liam is now 34.

Officially, the title of the oldest dog in the world still belongs to Bluey, an Australian cattle-dog from Rochester in Victoria, which reached 29 years and five months. 

According to the Guinness Book of Records his owner bought him as a puppy in 1910 and he grew up to work among the sheep and cattle until he was put down in November 1939.

Dogs are amazing creatures. There are so many stories about how a dog has saved its owner, or travelled enormous distances to be with its owner, or how they sniff out drugs, explosives even cancer.

Here’s an amazing story about some dogs that travelled hundreds of kilometres to be with their owners. Dogs are undoubtedly our best friends.

 


Terrified couple claim they saw a Werewolf

Terrified couple draw picture of ‘Werewolf of Worcester’ after claiming to have bumped into it in the Cotswolds

From 

They drew a picture of the fearsome beast they claim to have seen CREDIT: CATERS

Terrified couple claim they saw a Werewolf.

A terrified couple have drawn a sketch of a fearsome beast they claim to have seen while on a National Trust property at 1am in the Cotswolds.

They also took a blurry picture of the animal, dubbed the ‘Werewolf of Worcester’ because the drawing, although it is said to be a big cat, has features of a werewolf.

Robert Ingram and wife Nicola sketched what they saw – and the big cat appears to have features which resemble that of a werewolf.

Werewolf drawing

From their drawing, it appears to be standing upright like a humanoid creature, rather than crouching like a cat.

The beast also has protruding, pointed teeth and fearsome, sharp cheekbones.

The pair encountered what they are convinced was a black panther while driving through Croome Court – a National Trust property – at 1am last week.

The couple said the creature weighed about nine stone and was as tall as their car window.

They were convinced the big cat was going to pounce on their car before they sped off.

Robert produced the sketch so animal experts can find out what the creature is.

A photo of the beast CREDIT: SWNS

He told The Mail:  “It was petrifying. It looked like it was on steroids.

“We were driving along outside the national trust property, there are lots of open fields around there, when suddenly, I spotted something in the road ahead.”

“It was getting dark, but I saw its eyes reflect in my headlights.

“We stopped the car, and it was just standing there.

“We’d heard rumours about an escaped panther in the area, but we’d thought it was a load of nonsense.

“But when I saw this animal with my own eyes, I was stunned. It was enormous, far too big for a fox or a dog. It must have weighed about 9 stone – about the same as a slim adult.

“It looked right at us and walked up to the car. It then lowered the front of its body and looked like it was going to pounce.

“We just slammed the car into reverse and went as far as we could.

“I was so scared I fumbled to get my phone out to take a picture, but we’d already driven quite far away.

“There was no way you were going to get me to go near it again to take a better picture. It was terrifying.”

The couple think the creature has escaped from a zoo. There have been dozens of claims of escaped big cats in Worcestershire in recent years.

A spokesman for Worcestershire Wildlife Trust told The Mail: “It is always possible that there is a panther, or other big cat, in our countryside but there hasn’t yet been any firm evidence to prove that they’re there.”

Werewolf stories go back centuries. The most famous was in France. The Beast of Gevaudan which killed around 300 people. Check out the documentary.





Exposing the Hidden History of Giants of the Americas

 

Giants of North America

Exposing the Hidden History of Giants of the Americas. Were they the Nephilim?

Watch the video of the Return of the Nephilim or read the article first and watch the video later.

Jim Vieira and Hugh Newman, GrahamHancock.com
Waking Times

The Iroquois, the Osage, the Tuscaroras, the Hurons, the Omahas, and many other North American Indians all speak of giant men who once lived and roamed in the territories of their forefathers. All over what is now the U.S. are traditions of these ancient giants.” 1



Did Giant humans roam Ancient America in the past? Did the Native American’s have a royal class of giant rulers entombed in massive burial mounds?

The historical record certainly seems to support this reality. Over a two hundred year period, more than 1000 accounts of seven-foot and taller skeletons have been reported unearthed from ancient burial sites in North America. Newspaper accounts, town and county histories, letters, scientific journals, diaries, photos and Smithsonian ethnology reports have carefully documented this. These skeletons have been reported from coast to coast in burial chambers, stone crypts, caves, ancient battlefields and massive mounds.

Strange anatomic anomalies such as six fingers, double rows of teeth, jawbones so large as to be fit over the face of the finder, and elongated skulls, were documented in virtually every state. Smithsonian scientists identified at least 17 skeletons that stood at over seven feet in their annual reports, including one example that was 8 feet tall, and a skull with a 36-inch circumference (an average human skull has a circumference of about 20 inches). The Smithsonian Institution is mentioned dozens more times as the recipient of enormous skeletons from across the United States.

In late 2014, an article from a satirical website claimed that a Supreme Court ruling forced the Smithsonian Institution to admit to the historic destruction of giant skeletons. It was published not long after our Search for the Lost Giants TV show that aired on History Channel. The headline read: “Smithsonian Admits to Destruction of Thousands of Giant Human Skeletons in Early 1900s.”2 The article was convincing, and this apparent exposé of the National Museum hit a chord with people. Right away, we were inundated with emails from people believing the story was real. In reality, if such a story were true, it would surely be front-page worldwide news. However, when an Internet post is mentioning a startling find and not verifying any of the professionals involved, or real organizations or institutions they belong to, one can quickly conclude that it is a misrepresentation of facts or an outright lie. Maybe someday, however, the Smithsonian will admit to the irony of this story.

The over-willingness to believe seems to be the culprit for such stories gaining life. This is the reality we have had to deal with when researching the strange case of the North American giants, as hoaxes and exaggerations were often reported as truth. This is further complicated by the lack of physical evidence, and the moral and ethical implications of investigating human remains. When the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) was passed in 1990, any remaining giant skeletons and bones were removed from public display and buried according to the traditions of individual tribes.

Old postcard showing 7 ft. skeleton discovered at Serpent Mound, Ohio.

We often get asked: “where are the bones?” and we reply: “ask the Smithsonian and the Native Americans.”

Even with these obstacles, we have done our best to chase down every account to the end and to be as impartial as possible. The book Giants on Record, is not trying to be a long scientific paper but rather an assemblage of data and documents that have been hidden in libraries and local historical societies, and quietly shunned by orthodox anthropology and archaeology for over a century. The following accounts are part of this forgotten legacy, which carry implications that may someday shake the foundations of American academia.

THE SMITHSONIAN FILES

Most of the reports we have uncovered are from well-known newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, but we begin our analysis with this account from The Worthington Advance (November 18, 1897, pg.3) that describes the ethnological work of theSmithsonian Institution’s Division of Eastern Mounds, and quotes the Director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the time, John Wesley Powell. The image below accompanies the news report,

It is officially recorded that agents of the Bureau of Ethnology have explored more than 2,000 of these mounds. Among the objects found in them were pearls in great numbers and some of very large size… It is a matter of official record that in digging through a mound in Iowa the scientists found the skeleton of a giant, who, judging from actual measurement, must have stood seven feet six inches tall when alive. The bones crumbled to dust when exposed to the air. Around the neck was a collar of bear’s teeth and across the thighs were dozens of small copper beads, which may have once adorned a hunting skirt.”

As part of the Search for the Lost Giants show, Jim and fellow researcher James Claryinvestigated the following account that had this heading:

An Ancient Ozark Giant Dug Up Near Steelville: Strange discovery made by a boy looking for arrowheads, gives this Missouri Town an absorbing mystery to ponder.”

Highlights of the lengthy report from The Steelville Ledger (June 11, 1933) are given:

“…he turned up the complete skeleton of an 8 foot giant. The grisly find was brought to Dr. R. C. Parker here and stretched out to its enormous length in a hallway of his office where it has since remained the most startling exhibit Steelville has ever had on public view… An appeal to Dr. Aleš Hrdli?ka, anthropologist of the National Museum in Washington and celebrated authority on primitive races is expected to help. Dr. Parker has written to him, offering to forward the skull or the whole skeleton, if necessary for scientific study.”

Jim and James Clary found the exact location where the 8-foot skeleton was removed, which was from along the north wall of a cave. They met with several relatives of Billy Harmon, who all professed to the legitimacy of the find. They also found where R. C. Parker’s office once was, and ran into an old timer, who was Dr. Parker’s patient in his youth.

While reading through the microfilm at the Steelville library, three reports of the find where uncovered, including the photo that shows Les Eaton, a 6-foot man laid out next to the 8-foot skeleton in Dr. Parkers office (see image below).

Photo of Les Eaton next to giant skeleton

The Steelville Ledger also reported that the skeleton was packed up and shipped to the Smithsonian, never to be heard of again.

The San Diego giant was purchased by the Smithsonian for $500 ($14,000 in todays money) in 1895, although they later claimed it was a hoax.




The Smithsonian Institution is continually linked to giant skeletons, or at least the lack of them. Most of the reports end in something like this: “The bones were shipped to the Smithsonian Institution for further study.” This ongoing problem of the “missing bones” has become a matter of legend, as there are dozens of reports of the Smithsonian receiving artifacts and giant skeletons. Today, however, they deny their existence. We investigate this thoroughly in our book, and conclude that a cover-up may have been instigated in the late 1800s because it did not fit in with their new ideologies of ‘Manifest Destiny’ and ‘Evolution.’ Although the giants were sidelined in the early stages of scientific discovery, they were, thanks to earlier explorers of America, already in the written record.

EARLY EXPLORERS

As far back as the 1500s when the Spanish navigators were exploring the coast of the Americas, sightings of live giants were being recorded. Three captains of Spanish ships reported these taller-than-average native people on their expeditions to America, as well as Sir Francis DrakeCaptain John Smith, a Smithsonian professor, and several other notable eyewitnesses.

In 1519, Spanish explorer Alonzo Álvarez de Pineda was mapping the coastline of the Gulf Coast, marking the various rivers, bays, landmarks, and potential ports, declaring that they belonged to the king of Spain. Not far from where the river empties into the Gulf of Mexico he “found a large town, and on both sides of its banks, for a distance of six leagues up its course, some forty native villages.”3 He also noted that other than giants, the tribes also had a race of tiny pygmies. Pineda described the tribes that settled near the Mississippi river as: “A race of giants, from ten to eleven palms in height and a race of pigmies only five or six palms high.” (Webster’s Dictionary defines a palm used as a unit of measurement to range from seven to ten inches, so the giants were at least 6 feet 7 inches to 8 feet tall).

On his return from Tampico to the Mississippi, Pineda unknowingly sailed right past a tribe of equally huge Texas Indians.3 A report on the Karankawas, John R. Swanton, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, describes the men as being:

…very tall and well formed…Head-flattening and tattooing were practiced to a considerable extent.”

However it was also recorded that they:

…do not eat men, but roast them only, on account of the cruelties first enacted against their ancestors by the Spanish.” 5

So that’s OK then!

A few years later in 1523, as the Spanish fleet discovered, dominated, and overran the Caribbean Islands, a strange report came forth via historian Peter Martyr who assisted at the Council of the Indies. The account was originally shared by a native who was Christianized and taken to Spain:

The report ran that the natives were white and their king and queen giants, whose bones, while babies, had been softened with an ointment of strange herbs, then kneaded and stretched like wax by masters of the art, leaving the poor objects of their magic half dead, until after repeated manipulations they finally attained their great size.” 6

In early 1521, Francisco Gordillo and Pedro de Quejo undertook a secret voyage from Spain. They sailed over to America and along the Carolina coast to capture Native American slaves, and to scout out potential locations for new Spanish colonies. They managed to capture seventy members of the Chicora tribe to bring back to their homeland:

The chiefs of the province of Chicora, a portion of what is now South Carolina, were famous for their height, which was supposed to prove their royal blood.” 7

While Gordillo and Quejo treated the enigmatic Chicora Indians with treachery, their relationships with the Duhare peoples were much more gentlemanly. This was probably because the inhabitants of Duhare were described as looking European, with red or brown hair, tanned skin and gray eyes. Strangely, for this part of the world, the men had full beards and towered over the Spanish. They did not appear to be Native American. He visited with many of the Native American tribes in the area and recorded their customs, rituals and ways of living. The report on the Duhare stated:

Ayllon says the natives are white men, and his testimony is confirmed by Francisco Chicorana. Their hair is brown and hangs to their heels. They are governed by a king of gigantic size, called Datha, whose wife is as large as himself. They have five children. In place of horses, the king is carried on the shoulders of strong young men, who run with him to the different places he wishes to visit.” 8

The Spanish describe Datha as being the largest man they had ever seen. He had a wife as tall as him. He wore brightly colored paint or tattoos on his skin that distinguished him from the commoners.

This was all happening at the same time that the Patagonian giants (pictured below with Dr. Frederick A. Cook in 1898) were being witnessed on the southern tip of South America. For “Giants” became fashionable in the 1500s. In the summer of 1579, just north of San Francisco, Sir Francis Drake recounted his witnessing of living giants in his diary. In 1602, the California Channel Islands were ‘discovered’ by the Spanish, an area that has become a mecca for giantologists. Over 3,000 skeletons were discovered on the islands in the early 1900s, some being between 8 and 9 feet tall. Numerous mysterious reports of skulls containing ‘double rows of teeth’ were also reported on the neighboring islands.

Dr. Cook with two Patagonian giants standing at around 7 ft. tall.

 

DOUBLE ROWS OF TEETH

Reconstruction of skull showing double rows of teeth

Hundreds of skeletal exhumation reports across the United States have demonstrated some very unusual anatomical features. These include macrocephalic (large) skulls, elongated craniums, enormous jaws that were fit over the face of the finders, and double rows of teeth. They come from official Smithsonian reports (with one account describing a third set of teeth), newspaper articles, and letters and journals from doctors and respected members of the local community. The ‘double row of teeth’ phenomenon is what we will briefly look at here, as it has been described in multiple accounts with evidence going as far back as 6,000 years, from the area of the Canadian Great Lakes. 9

This first account from the California Channel Islands is reported in The Scientific American (Volume 6, 1862. pg.227). The finds were dated to between 3,362-8,000 years old:10

Exposing the Hidden History of Giants of the Americas

The Indian skulls with double rows of teeth are said to have been found not only abundantly on San Clemente Island caves, but also often still on the neighboring Island of San Miguel, the San Bernardo or Juan Rodriguez of Cabrillo.”

Jim also uncovered further accounts from the opposite side of the country in New England. In The Town History of Deerfield, Mass (pg.78, 1895), Historian George Sheldon writes:

At the foot of Bars Long Hill, just where the meadow fence crossed the road, and the bars were placed that gave the village its name, many skeletons were exposed while plowing down a bank, and weapons and implements were found in abundance. One of these skeletons was described to me by Henry Mather who saw it, as being of monstrous size—‘the head as big as a peck basket, with double teeth all round.’ The skeleton was examined by Dr. Stephen W. Williams who said the owner must have been nearly eight feet high.”

The Story of Martha’s Vineyard, by Charles Gilbert Hine (pg. 136, 1908):

Some 15 years ago the skeleton of an Indian Giant in almost perfect preservation was dug up in the same locality (Cedar Tree Neck), the bones indicated a man easily six feet and a half possibly seven feet high. An unusual feature was a complete double row of teeth on both the upper and lower jaws.”

History of the Town of Rockingham, Vermont, by Lyman Simpson Hayes (pg. 338, 1907):

When the earth was removed from the top of the ledges east of the falls, a remarkable human skeleton, unmistakably that of an Indian, was found. Those who saw it tell the writer the jaw bone was of such size that a large man could easily slip it over his face and the teeth, which were all double, were perfect.”

History of the Town of MiddleboroMassachusetts, by Thomas Weston (pg. 400, 1906):

A few years ago when the highway was straightened and repaired, remains were found. When his skeleton was measured by Dr. Morrill Robinson and others, it was found that the thigh bone was four inches longer than that bone in an ordinary man, and that he had a double row of teeth in each jaw. His height must have been at least seven feet and eight inches.”

Map of New England states with tribal territories, circa 1600.

After scrutinizing the possibilities, the ‘double row of teeth’ phenomenon could be explained by there being either: 1) Literally two sets of teeth (double); 2) molars and premolars in the front of the mouth resembling ‘double’ teeth—an unusual anomaly in itself; 3) supernumerary teeth that are just occasional ‘extra’ teeth in the mouth, that could be seen as double sets of teeth, but not ‘full sets’; 4) teeth so worn down that only two roots exist that resemble two separate teeth. Further investigation clearly needs to be carried out before we can understand the origins of these unusual traits. Some accounts could be due to the parlance of the time, but it is notable that the historical record so frequently links the ‘double row of teeth’ phenomenon with giant skeletons.

ORIGINS OF THE TALL ONES

The origins of the North American giants are shrouded in mystery, but we know that they were involved in the sophisticated Mound Building cultures of the Mid-West, as the royal tombs are often found within them. There are legends that place them in the era of the Megafauna (mammoths, mastodons, sabre-tooth tiger etc.) at around 13,000 years ago. There are dozens of oral histories that revere them as gods, and sometimes as fearsome cannibalistic warriors. Great wars took place between these titans, and archaeologists have uncovered prehistoric battlefields containing oversized bones and weapons. They often possessed double rows of teeth and other anatomic anomalies; so who really were these people, and where did they come from?

This is the big question.

The origins of the North American giants are hotly debated by independent researchers, academics and skeptics, but there is now enough data to begin serious research into the subject. We cover the theories of their origins in our book, ranging from the Denisovans of Siberia to the Nephilim of the Bible Lands. There is also compelling evidence that the giants may have originated from the Americas.11

The Nephilim of the Bible are basically fallen angels. Here is a really good explanation from Dr Chuck Missler of the Koinonia Institute. Connecting UFOs with giants and the feared Nephilim.



Hundreds of creation myths and oral histories attest to this, and the giants are in stories from remote times. One example can be found in the writings of Tuscarora Indian David Cusick in his book Six Nations (1825). He states that when the Great Spirit made the people, some of them became giants. Ross Hamilton commented on this:

It seems that the tall people at least shared the status of being the first inhabitants of Indian memory, and that the smaller-in-stature folk lived among or in proximity to them from remotely ancient times.” 12

Most people do not believe in giants, however, but rather scoff at the idea, regarding it as folklore that has been mixed up and sensationalized by newspaper journalists. We disagree, as there is ample evidence within Native American mythology, genetic data, ethnological studies, scientific reports, early excavation records, first-hand accounts, and discoveries featured in newspapers and Town History books. Now is the time for academia to take a look at this data, and to expose what really happened at the Smithsonian; for an important chapter in human history is on the verge of being lost forever.

  1. Wilkins, Fate Magazine, January, 1952
  2. http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/smithsonian-admits-to-destruction-of-thousands-of-giant-human-skeletons-in-early-1900s/
  3. Woodbury Lowery. The Spanish SettlementsNew York: Russell & Russell. 1959, p.149.
  4. Danial Garrison Brinton. Notes on the Floridian Peninsula, 1859.
  5. ibid
  6. Pietro Martire d’ Anghiera. 1457-1526; MacNutt, Francis Augustus, 1863-1927. De orbe novo, the eight Decades of Peter Martyr d’Anghera; New York, London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
  7. Frederick Webb Hodge. ed. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, Part 1, 1971 pp. 657-658.
  8. Daniel Garrison Brinton, ed. Library of Aboriginal American Literature, 1884
  9. Wright, J. V. A History of the Native People of Canada: 10,000-1,000 BC. Gatineau, Quebec: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1995. p.257, and http://www.andrewcollins.com/page/articles/denisovan.htm
  10. www.pcas.org/Vol36N2/18TitusWalker.pdf
  11. http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/anthropology-of-human-origins/out-of-america-family-of-hypotheses/
  12. Ross Hamilton. A Tradition of Giants: The Elite Social Hierarchy of American Prehistory. 2007.
About the Author

Jim and Hugh have been speaking at various events and hosting book launches in November 2015, including the Origins Conference in London on 7th, Glastonbury (UK) on 10th, CoSM in New York on 14th, Ashfield Massachusetts on 17th and Earthkeeper Conference on 21st-23rd in Arkansas. Full details about their work can be found at https://www.facebook.com/giantsonrecord.

Giants on Record is published by Avalon Rising Publications (UK) and is available in hardback, paperback, Kindle and other ebook formats on Amazon.com.

** This article was originally published on GrahamHancock.com.**

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