Mysterious Tourettes-Like Tics Strike Teen Population Of New York Town
Can this really be a case of youthful “mass hysteria”? Feel bad for the left-out teens who have not acquired the exciting mystery illness. Via MSNBC:
The mystery illness now producing Tourette’s-like symptoms in a more than a dozen girls from upstate New York is also affecting a 36-year-old who is experiencing the same tics as the teens. Some neurologists have suggested the illness could be “conversion disorder,” or mass hysteria.
High school student Thera Sanchez, 17, and 14 others started experiencing the odd symptoms last fall: stammering, verbal outbursts and limb spasms.
The teens’ plight captured the attention of environmental activist Erin Brockovich, who began speaking out about a 1970 train accident that spilled cyanide and industrial solvent four miles from the teens’ school, LeRoy Junior-Senior High School. According to a 1999 Environmental Protection Agency report, approximately 35,000 gallons of TCE (trichloroethene) contaminated the area near the derailment.
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Blue Goo Falls From Sky Into British Man’s Yard
The mysterious spheres of jelly are “not meteorological” in nature. The whole thing smacks of a 90s Nickelodeon game show gone horribly awry. Via BBC:
A man in Dorset has been left mystified after tiny blue spheres fell from the sky into his garden. Steve Hornsby said [they] came raining down late on Thursday afternoon during a hail storm.
He found about a dozen of the balls in his garden. He said: “[They're] difficult to pick up, I had to get a spoon and flick them into a jam jar.” The Met Office said the jelly-like substance was “not meteorological”.
Mr Hornsby, a former aircraft engineer, said: “The sky went a really dark yellow colour…As I walked outside to go to the garage there was an instant hail storm for a few seconds and I thought, ‘what’s that in the grass’?”
Walking around his garden he found many more blue spheres were scattered across…
Boy’s Eyes Glow In The Dark, See In Night Vision
Is he a “starchild”? Part-alien DNA seems like the most rational explanation for this:
A boy has stunned medics with his ability to see in pitch black with eyes that glow in the dark. Doctors have studied Nong Youhui’s amazing eyesight since his dad took him to hospital in Dahua, southern China, concerned over his bright blue eyes.
Dad Ling said: “They told me he would grow out of it and that his eyes would stop glowing and turn black like most Chinese people but they never did.” Medical tests conducted in complete darkness show Youhui can read perfectly without any light and sees as clearly as most people do during the day.
The ‘Strange Sounds’ YouTube Meme: Apocalypse? HAARP? Viral Marketing?
Footage recording bizarre mystery sounds of seemingly immense proportions emanating from the heavens (like the ones above) are being posted from multiple points of the globe but mainly in the Northern Hemisphere:
Speculation is rife as to their cause and nature and the story has been quickly spotted by the usual suspects …
Fortean 2011: The Weird Year in Review
Via WhoForted? – one of a handful of a new generation of bloggers (Mysterious Universe, Ghost Theory, The Secret Sun and Hidden Experience spring to mind) that do justice to the impish spirit of Charles Fort.
Some strange-lights:
- Paranormal polarisation
- The Mass Exodus of the Cynical Believers
- Bigfoot Overload
- The Biggest, Weirdest, and Best of 2011 – books, podcasts, paranormal reality series’
Make the jump and start making your preparations for this year’s Mayan-tinged weirdness …
Mysterious White-Nose Syndrome Is Killing Bats Across The U.S.
Holy Fungus, Batman! Reports David Wrights and Jonann Brady of ABC NEWS:
A mysterious fungus is killing off thousands of bats around the country. Scientists are calling it white-nose syndrome, because of the distinctive white smudges on the noses and wings of infected bats.
White-nose itself doesn’t kill bats, but it disturbs their sleep so that they end their hibernation early. During the winter there are no insects to eat, so the bats literally starve to death.
Bats may be one of Mother Nature’s least cuddly creatures, but they are ecologically important, keeping mosquitos and insects that attack crops in check.
Researchers say the syndrome has killed upward of half a million bats from New England to Virginia.
Image Of Virgin Mary Appears At Florida Hamburger Restaurant
If the Virgin Mary really did materialize in this amazing-sounding restaurant, I think I might be open to Christianity. Report from the Tampa Bay Observer:
Now the Virgin Mary’s likeness has popped up on a stainless steel wall inside Hamburger Mary’s, an Ybor City restaurant with customers more likely to show up for gay karaoke nights and celebrity drag-queen shows than religious revelations.
“These two ladies in one of the booths saw the image during Sunday brunch,” said day manager Melanie Todd, who goes by the name Melanie Minyon (pronounced like mignon) when performing in blue wigs and over-the-top sexy gowns at the restaurant’s nighttime drag shows. “One of them was in tears she was so moved, and they were both carrying on and taking pictures.
“Now, we serve all-you-can-drink Bloody Marys for Sunday brunch,” Todd said, “so I think it’s safe to say there are lots of visions being seen around here…
Who Haunted Betsy Bell?
Betsy Bell
An alternate reading of M.V. Ingram’s history of the infamous Bell Witch haunting suggests a sinister secret at the heart of the mystery. This from Victorian Gothic:
The visitations began with sightings of strange animals about the Bell homestead, and of a unknown girl in green swinging to the limb of a tall oak. Soon there came an unaccountable knocking about the door and exterior walls of the house, followed by scratching and gnawing sounds that searched from room to room. It assaulted the boys in the night, ripping the sheets from their beds and pulling their hair as they tried to sleep. Whenever candles were lit to investigate, they would soon hear screams coming from their sister’s room.
Betsy Bell was 12 years old in 1818 when she became the thrall of an unseen tormentor who, for some three years, relentlessly beat her, mangled her hair, pinched and pricked her…
UFOs Spotted In Scotland?
Possibly the most viewed and discussed UFO incident thus far in early 2012, though of questionable validity:
New sighting of two fast moving UFOs caught on video in Scotland. Recorded on a dashboard mounted camera from one of the Scottish mountain rescue teams.
Alien Face Spotted On Mars?
Someone spotted what they describe as an image of an elongated alien head while using Google Mars to view the planet’s surface. Is it evidence of intelligent life in outer space? Or unintelligent life on Earth? Be the judge:
Strange Growth on Nuclear Waste Might Be “Biological in Nature”
Rob Pavey reports in the Augusta Chronicle:
Savannah River Site scientists are working to identify a strange growth found on racks of spent nuclear fuel collected from foreign governments.
The “white, string-like” material was found among thousands of spent fuel assemblies submerged in deep pools within the site’s L Area, according to a report filed by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, a federal oversight panel.
“The growth, which resembles a spider web, has yet to be characterized, but may be biological in nature,” the report said. Savannah River National Laboratory collected a small sample in hopes of identifying the mystery lint — and determining whether it is alive …
Malaysian Guru Offering Tours Of Heaven And Hell
A visit to the afterlife will set you back $61. Via Mind Power News, an account from a reporter who attempted the otherworldly journey:
A group of daring people took the opportunity to be part of a ‘Hell Tour’ in Penang. The trip was organised by Master Kek Eng Seng of the Tze Bei Guan Yin Dhamma Centre, who claims that he can travel through the realms of Earth, Heaven and Hell. For the first time in Malaysia, he offered people the opportunity to visit the ‘Afterworld’.
The number of Hell travelers was brought down to slightly more than 50, including a dozen reporters from the Chinese dailies and yours truly.
As night fell, the group, all clad in white shirts symbolising purity and sincerity, gathered at Padang Brown in Georgetown for the “tour”.
After some prayers and rituals, we were all set to start our journey at around 10.15pm. My eyes were covered…
UFO Bubble Over Cinisello Balsamo, Italy (Video)
A television report about a translucent UFO in the sky above Cinisello Balsamo, Italy. This was recorded on November 13, 2011 by Antonio Urzi:
Has the “God Particle” (the Higgs Boson) Been Discovered?
Davide Castelvecchi reports in Scientific American:
Rumors are flying about a December 13 update on the search for the long-sought Higgs boson at Europe’s Large Hadron Collider.
The physics buzz reached a frenzy in the past few days over the announcement that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is planning to release what is widely expected to be tantalizing — although not conclusive — evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson, the elementary particle hypothesized to be the origin of the mass of all matter.
Many physicists have already swung into action, swapping rumors about the contents of the announcement and proposing grand ideas about what those rumors would mean, if true. “It’s impossible to be excited enough,” says Gordon Kane, a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
Mysterious Man Bursts Into Flames At Swedish Train Station
Photo: Matthew McPherson (CC)
Via the Herald Sun:
A man suffered severe burns after he seemingly burst into flames outside a Swedish railway station, the Goteborgs-Posten newspaper reported.
A streetcar driver returning from his break yesterday evening saw the man suddenly covered in fire while he was standing outside a vinyl record store at the station. After a while the man, believed to be in his early 40s, started to yell, but shocked passersby just stood and stared, the report said.
The streetcar driver then ran up, ripped his coat off and managed to put the fire out with the help of another man. An ambulance arrived within minutes and took the man to the hospital.
“All we know is that it is a man. We have no knowledge of his identity, his age, any motive or even the circumstances of the incident,” police officer Asa Andersson said. “He is sedated and will probably remain…
Ohio Family Claims To Be Haunted By Ghosts Having Sex
This certainly raises all sorts of questions. CBS Cleveland reports:
An Ohio grandmother and her 4-year-old granddaughter say they have caught ghosts having sex inside their house.
Speaking to CBS Cleveland, Diane Carlisle said this visitation was the latest in a series that goes back to when she first moved to her Euclid home 12 years ago. Her photos prove it, she said.
This time, her granddaughter Kimora saw a man’s bare backside and a woman’s legs with high heels still on. At other times, they’ve seen men, women and children in various rooms and in her backyard.
Even her dog had an experience better to forget than remember. Walking up the stairs from the basement, something caught its hind legs and held them. Now, the dog avoids the basement.
The rest of the family has learned to live with them, Carlisle said.
“[My granddaughter, daughter and I] have grown with them around,” she said. “At times…
Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
I’ve always enjoyed the story of Toynbee Tiles and now there is a documentary:
The (Unexplained) Death of Bats
Via New Times:
The abandoned iron mine at Mine Hill in Roxbury used to provide a winter home for 3,000 bats — the largest bat hibernaculum in the state. The last time Jennie Dickson, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection, counted, there were about 100 bats there.
“That’s not good,” she said. For the past five years, the bats of the eastern United States have been dying in like numbers — one of the worst environmental catastrophes in recent years.
What biologists like Dickson knew was that the dying bats could be found with an off-white fungus on their nose and wings. What was causing the die-off was uncertain …
The Largest Galaxy Clusters in the Universe Hint That Something is Behaving Strangely
Via the Daily Galaxy:
The large-scale structure of the Universe appears to be dominated by vast “hyperclusters” of galaxies, according to the new the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, compiled with a telescope at Apache Point, New Mexico. The survey plots the 2D positions of galaxies across a quarter of the sky. The science team has concluded that it could mean that gravity or dark energy — or something completely unknown — is behaving very strangely.
We know that the universe was smooth just after its birth. Measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), the light emitted 370,000 light years after the big bang, reveal only very slight variations in density from place to place. Gravity then took hold and amplified these variations into today’s galaxies and galaxy clusters, which in turn are arranged into big strings and knots called superclusters, with relatively empty voids in between.
On even larger scales, though, cosmological…
