Engineer captures video footage of what appears to be a woolly mammoth crossing a Siberian river. These creatures have been thought to be extinct since about 2,000 B.C.



This is a large animal thought extinct for thousands of years, now spotted. Along with historical notes like that mountain gorillas weren't discovered until the early 1900's, this gives more hope for some day discovering definitive evidence of the existence of Sasquatch.

I was introduced to this by youngest daughter. At first I didn't know what to make of it, but I think it's darn funny (and innovative).



Fact!

(also, though we share a surname, there is no relation that I know of to the BoredShorts people).

It might make you feel better. Don't believe me? How about NFL Defensive Lineman Rosey Grier.



FYI - Grier played with the Giants from 1955 to 1962, during which he led the team to a NFL Championship in 1956 and the Eastern Conference Championship in 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1962. Grier was selected for the Pro Bowl in 1956 and 1960, and was named All-Pro at the defensive tackle position in 1956 and 1958–1962. Grier was traded in 1963 to the Los Angeles Rams. He was part of the "Fearsome Foursome", along with Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy,often considered one of the best defensive lines in football history.
(Oh, and he also tackled Robert F. Kennedy's assassin. Now if that don't qualify you for the man card, I don't know what does.)


Still don't believe me AND Rosey Grier? Read the post below. If that won't convince you, nothing will. :gcryingsmiley:

This one's in my neck of the woods!

What did a Vermont trail camera capture?



More info here.

HT: Cryptomundo

This article just appeared in last Month's New Yorker. It's available in its entirety online.

The Apostate: Paul Haggis Vs. The Church of Scientology

The "main" subject of the article is writer/director/producer Paul Haggis's defection from Scientology. But it's about much more than that. It's an in-depth expose on Scientology. I hope it hits the entertainment world, and the rest of the world, like an atom bomb.

It's a very long article, but it's worth the read even if you have to break it up into pieces. The writer was very thorough, and I can't imagine how many months it took him to write this. (I think the dude's looking for a Pulitzer.)

It's awesome though. It's amazing stuff. Scientology is not just bizarre, it's evil.

About two weeks ago I told my wife that I'm at the point where I'd give the famous (or infamous) Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film about a 90 percent chance of being legitimate. In other words, I think it's highly likely that Sasquatch exists, and that the creature in that film is indeed a Sasquatch.

When Roger Patterson filmed the creature (whether it is a human in a monkey suit, or an actual bipedal monkey, virtually everyone agrees that it is a creature), he believed he had iron clad proof of Bigfoot's existence; he didn't -- at least not from a scientific standpoint. And now more than 40 years later, the proof of Bigfoot's existence continues to be elusive.

Enter The Erickson Project. Like any "proof" of Sasquatch's existence, the Erickson Project is either a hoax (and a seemingly elaborate one at that), or it's real. Whatever it is, its claims are extraordinary:

- Detailed, up-close video of Bigfoot, including detailed facial footage
- Saliva, blood, and hair samples from multiple specimens

In my opinion, the latter "evidence" is the most profound, and supposedly the Erickson people are waiting on laboratory DNA confirmations before releasing a documentary chronicling their findings.

If this is a hoax, so be it. If it's legitimate, and they really do have the extraordinary evidence that they claim to have, then The Erickson Project will go down in history as one of the most amazing, groundbreaking natural discoveries of all time.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but even I have to admit that I'm a believer, and therefore it's easy for me to believe. At any rate, as this trailer shows, The Erickson Project has gotten some credible scientists (like anthropologist Jeff Meldrum) to at least sit down and talk to its camera:



Irrefutable proof of Bigfoot's existence is an extraordinary claim, so it necessitates extraordinary evidence. We'll see ...

#1



Chupacabra. The reasons I can't get with the little choop are many, but the primary reason is no one seems to know what they're describing. I've heard it described as a humanoid-vampire type animal, a canine, a flying gargoyle type creature, etc. (I think the dog with mange explanations seem the most plausible.) For me a good cryptid is more animal than monster, and chupacabras definitely fall into the monster category. I don't believe in monsters.

#2

Alien Big Cats. In this case the term alien doesn't mean extraterrestrial, but simply a cat, like a tiger, that appears outside its typical habitat or range. An example would be if you told me you saw a jaguar hop over your fence and eat your chihuahua. Zoo escapees aren't very interesting to me. Now if you told me you saw a 7-foot bipedal ape eat your chihuahua, then we'd have something to talk about.

#3

Yeti. This might seem odd, seeing how yeti is likely Bigfoot's foreign relative, but the reason I'm not into the yeti is simply that the yeti is not an American cryptid. I'd rather read about the giant monkey in my own back yard.

That's it. Short and sweet. Now all you choop lovers hit me with your best shot! (Ok, it'll probably just be Shrode.)

#1:



Bigfoot. I love this guy. I can't get enough of him. In fact, my wife gave me a Bigfoot T-shirt for Christmas featuring the famous frame 352 from the legendary Patterson-Gimlin film of a supposed sasquatch (same shot as above). I give him about a 60 percent chance of being real.

#2:

Thunderbird. This birdbrain is a distant second. I do enjoy reading some T-Bird accounts online from time to time, but I'd give him about a 20 percent chance of being real. Hey, that's a chance at least!

#3:

Lake Monsters like the Loch Ness Monster or Champ from Jared's neck of the woods. I think there's a solid 50 percent chance that a lake monster exists somewhere.

#4:

Orang pendek. He's a smallish, bipedal Sumatran ape of some sort. There have been some credible sightings of an orang pendek, but the reason this little monkey is so far down on my list is because he's not indigenous to America. In other words, I have no chance of ever seeing him. :-( I give him a 40 percent chance of being real.

#5:

Blo. He's also supposedly bipedal, and despite some credible sightings in the past, I don't think he's real. I give him a zero percent chance of existing. It is fun to read about him, though.

It's "Mountain Cedar" season here in Texas, and man is it a doozy.

Jan. 1 brought not only the highest pollen count of the season so far, at 22,300 grains per cubic meter of air, but also the highest single-day count measured here since 2003. And given the generous rainfall through September last year, some observers are predicting an unpleasant few weeks ahead. “The trees are really loaded this year,” said Dr. Paul Ratner, an allergist who provides pollen counts that appear in the San Antonio Express-News and on local TV stations each day. “It seems we're right on track for whatever you want to call it. I call it a good cedar year, but not if you have cedar allergies.”

Ratner said this year's season, which began Christmas Eve, has already produced more than half the amount of mountain cedar pollen seen during the entire season last year, which was mild. Mountain cedar season typically begins in mid-December and lasts well into February. Dr. Dale Mohar, a Kerrville allergist, said the trees there are “really red” with pollen and that counts have been “in the thousands since last week.”

Mountain cedar is the common name for the Ashe juniper trees that grow in thick forests across the Hill Country. The reddish-brown pollen arrives each winter on chilly north winds, usually after the first frost. And it's a lot of pollen — sometimes enough to leave a reddish blanket of powder on cars and lawn furniture. Mountain cedar trees generate some of the highest concentrations of pollen of any plant.

Unlike in most places, where ragweed is the No. 1 misery-producing allergen, mountain cedar holds that rank in South and Central Texas. Experts recommend that people who are sensitive to mountain cedar pollen remain indoors when possible during the season.

Every year at this time, many people are miserable. But this year, it's so bad, that pretty much everyone is suffering. I find it kind of funny actually. (I'm suffering too, worse than ever, so I'm laughing with you, not at you.)

At church Sunday, I welcomed everyone by telling them it was a "Two Kleenex Box Sunday" and one lady actually held up the two boxes she had with her. Everyone you talk to here is suffering runny and red nose, sneezing and burning eyes. What's funny about it to me is that you can't find any sympathy. Just try to say, "Man, the Cedar's really killing me." and the person you say to it will look at you through bleary, red eyes like your the most self-centered person in the world. I told everyone Sunday not to feel self conscious about their red noses and bug eyes, "because anyone you talk to will be hoping you don't notice theirs either."

We've all got it and it's pretty miserable. On the plus side, small talk is easy. You can pretty much approach anyone and say, "How's the cedar affecting you?" and you are guaranteed to get a conversation going that's at least a little more personal than the weather.

The following is a true story.

A few months ago I was awoken from sleep and immediately struck with a strange sense of fear, dread, and anxiety. My breathing was shallow, my heart was racing, and, worst of all, the only thing I could move was my eyes. I was paralyzed.

I also recently watched a documentary on alien abduction where a woman recounted her "abduction" experience, and it was eerily similar to my aforementioned incident. She said she woke from sleep, was struck with fear, and found she could not move. At that point, aliens supposedly walked into her room and took her to their spaceship. She couldn't remember the actual abduction, but had to solicit the help of a hypnotist in order to "realize" what had happened to her after the aliens walked into her room.

With my experience I didn't see any aliens, but I did see a being of some sort. It looked otherworldly with hulking white arms and legs, like a nefarious Michelin Man. It was saying something that I couldn't understand, and standing next to my bed, sort of hovering over me and seemingly gloating. My head was swimming.

After a few seconds my fear subsided. I still couldn't move and I still had the bad guy next to my bed, but I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid because I realized I was experiencing sleep paralysis, an uncommon occurrence that is actually quite common for me to experience. Sleep paralysis is when one's mind is awake, but one's body is still asleep. During REM sleep your body gets paralyzed (presumably so you can't act out your dreams and hurt yourself), and someone who's experiencing sleep paralysis has a mind that's a awake, but a body that still thinks it's in REM sleep; hence, the paralysis part.

I've been experiencing sleep paralysis about once a month for as long as I can remember. Sometimes it feels like there's a weight pressing down on me, and sometimes I see weird things like furniture flying across the room or objects suddenly appear that aren't really there. The common thread is the paralysis. The scariest times are when I wake up with my head buried in my pillow and have difficulty breathing. It's all I can do to force myself to move so that I can take a breath. (I have discovered a useful trick in those instances. Since I have limited control over my tongue and mouth, I bite down on the tip of my tongue and that usually snaps me out of the paralyzed state.)

For me, sleep paralysis is the most likely explanation for supposed alien abductions. If you're interested in reading more on that topic, here's a link to a New York Times article circa 1999 that discusses it in depth.

It seems that everywhere I turn I'm reading about scientists who are expounding the virtues of the Drake Equation, or talking about the possibility of getting invaded by space aliens, or simply talking about making "first contact" with the plethora of intelligent life-forms that must exist in our universe.

Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that all stuff of science fiction just a few years ago? Why the surge of supposedly smart people who seem to think that Star Trek isn't so far off the scientific mark after all?

I think the answer is that some in the scientific community will grasp any straw to avoid the conclusion that God exists and that we are accountable to Him. If Earth isn't so special, and there are millions (billions?) of other intelligent civilizations out there, then all that drivel about human beings being made in God's image and God Himself manifesting in the flesh -- well that's all nonsense.

I recently perused the infamous Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion, in which Dawkins speaks about how "probable" it is that advanced alien civilizations are so far down the evolutionary line that they would seem to us to be god-like. In other words, apparently these super-aliens would be indistinguishable from Yahweh, while still being a product of Darwinian evolution. Apparently Dawkins wants to have his proverbial cake and eat it too: a universe with alien gods (complete with god-like powers), but sans an actual God. In the book Dawkins also dips his toe into the waters of the historical JESUS (perhaps he saw a shark in the water that looked like N.T. Wright, and wisely chose not to jump in). While conceding that JESUS was most likely a true historical figure, Dawkins made me wonder whether or not he thinks it was possible that JESUS was actually an extraterrestrial with "god-like" superpowers, rather than the Son of God.

The mind begins to boggle.

In a couple of places I've heard (or read) Dawkins say that if he stands before God after death, he would say what Bertrand Russell planned to say, "Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence." The reality is if your heart is hard, then evidence doesn't mean squat. In the Gospel of John, when God the Father spoke from Heaven, even that wasn't enough evidence for some who heard it. They passed it off as thunder (John 12:29).

The truth is God has spoken to us through creation, and especially through a special creation that was made in His image -- humanity. He took on our flesh (our humanity) and defeated sin and death, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

Man is not merely a speck in the universe; he's creation's finest hour.

Scientists are trying to figure out why evolution put a spark of the divine in every man.

Jesse Bering's mother died of cancer on a Sunday, in her own bed, at 9 o'clock at night. Bering and his siblings closed her door and went downstairs, hoping they might somehow get some sleep. It was a long, hard night, but around 7 a.m., something happened: The wind chimes outside his mother's window started to chime.

Bering remembers waking to the tinkle of these bells, a small but distinct sound in an otherwise silent house. And he remembers thinking that those bells carried a very specific message. "It seemed to me ... that she was somehow telling us that she had made it to the other side. You know, cleared customs in heaven," Bering says.

The thought surprised him. Bering was a confirmed atheist. He did not believe in any kind of supernatural anything. He prided himself on being a scientist, a psychologist who believed only in the measurable material world. But, he says, he simply couldn't help himself.

"My mind went there. It leapt there," Bering says. "And from a psychological perspective, this was really interesting to me. Because I didn't believe it on the one hand, but on the other hand I experienced it." Why is it, Bering wondered, that even a determined skeptic could not stop himself from perceiving the supernatural? It really bothered him.

It was a very good question, he decided, to take up in his lab.

God, Through The Lens Of Evolution

For decades, the intellectual descendants of Darwin have pored over ancient bones and bits of fossils, trying to piece together how fish evolved into man, theorizing about the evolutionary advantage conferred by each physical change. And over the past 10 years, a small group of academics have begun to look at religion in the same way: they've started to look at God and the supernatural through the lens of evolution.

In the history of the world, every culture in every location at every point in time has developed some supernatural belief system. And when a human behavior is so universal, scientists often argue that it must be an evolutionary adaptation along the lines of standing upright. That is, something so helpful that the people who had it thrived, and the people who didn't slowly died out until we were all left with the trait. But what could be the evolutionary advantage of believing in God?

Or possibly, there might be another reason the human behavior is so universal. Obviously Dr. "Presupposing Naturalism" probably never read the appendix to C.S. Lewis' "The Abolition of Man." I can hear Jack yelling now, "It's the Tao, you nicompoops. And God put it there. These things don't just happen by themselves. Being scientists, you probably ought to know that."

Bering is one of the academics who are trying to figure that out. In the years since his mother's death, Bering has done experiments in his lab at Queens University, Belfast, in an attempt to understand how belief in the supernatural might have conferred some advantage and made us into the species we are today.

Bering has a credo, a truth he says he's learned after years of studying this stuff. "I've always said that I don't believe in God, but I don't really believe in atheists either," Bering says. "Everybody experiences the illusion that God — or some type of supernatural agent — is watching them or is concerned about what they do in their sort of private everyday moral lives."

In fact, Bering says that believing that supernatural beings are watching you is so basic to being human that even committed atheists regularly have moments where their minds turn in a supernatural direction, as his did in the wake of his mother's death.

"They experience it but they reject it," Bering says. "Sort of override or stomp on their immediate intuition. But that's not to say that they don't experience it. We all have the same basic brain. And our brains have evolved to work in a particular way."

Or maybe God made your brains, Captain avoid-the-obvious.

Through the lens of evolution, a belief in God serves a very important purpose: Religious belief set us on the path to modern life by stopping cheaters and promoting the social good.

Why would the human brain have evolved to work in that way?

For Bering, and some of his friends, the answer to that question has everything to do with what he discovered in his lab — the way the kids and adults stopped cheating as soon as they thought a supernatural being might be watching them. Through the lens of evolution then, a belief in God serves a very important purpose: Religious belief set us on the path to modern life by stopping cheaters and promoting the social good.

God And Social Cooperation

Dominic Johnson is a professor at the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom and another one of the leaders in this field. And to Johnson, before you can understand the role religion and the supernatural might have played in making us the people we are today, you really have to appreciate just how improbable our modern lives are.

Today we live in a world where perfect strangers are incredibly nice to each other on a regular basis. All day long, strangers open doors for each other, repair each other's bodies and cars and washing machines. They swap money for food and food for money. In short: they cooperate.

This cooperation makes all kinds of things possible, of course. Because we can cooperate, we can build sophisticated machines and create whole cities — communities that require huge amounts of coordination. We can do things that no individual or small group could do.

The question is: How did we get to be so cooperative? For academics like Johnson, this is a profound puzzle.

"Explaining cooperation is a huge cottage industry," Johnson says. "It dominates the pages of top journals in science and economics and psychology. You would think that it was very simple, but in fact from a scientific academic point of view, it just often doesn't make sense." It doesn't make sense because there's often tension between the interests of the group and the interests of the individual. Johnson gives an example.
...
On the other hand, Johnson says, if there are Gods or a God who must be obeyed, these strains are reduced. After all, the punisher isn't a vigilante; he's simply enforcing God's law. "You have a very nice situation," Johnson says. "There are no reprisals against punishers. And the other nice thing about supernatural agents is that they are often omniscient and omnipresent."

If God is everywhere and sees everything, people curb their selfish impulses even when there's no one around. Because with God, there is no escape. "God knows what you did," Johnson says, "and God is going to punish you for it and that's an incredibly powerful deterrent. If you do it again, he's going to know and he is going to tally up your good deals and bad deeds and you will suffer the consequences for it either in this life or in an afterlife."

So the argument goes that as our human ancestors spread around the world in bands, keeping together for food and protection, groups with a religious belief system survived better because they worked better together.

We are their descendants. And Johnson says their belief in the supernatural is still very much with us.

Wow! To borrow from Robert Jastrow's famous quote, I think this may be one of those cases when the scientists will finally ascend to the top of the mountain to find C.S. Lewis, Blaise Pascal and Augustine sitting there saying, "It wasn't evolution that gave each of you an inherent, automatic belief in God, you dummies." Of course they won't be recognized by the new arrivals. The scientists will ask, "Is one of you Charles Darwin?"

"He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." - Ecclesiastes 3:11

With regard to the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, most detractors dismiss it as a man in a monkey suit. In my opinion, modern eyes are colored by Hollywood special effects. From what I've read -- and I've read a decent amount on this subject -- if the P-G film was a hoax, it's one of the best hoaxes in modern history. Take 10 minutes to review this film that was aired on the National Geographic channel, because it might make you question your presuppositions.

Yesterday I had to call Microsoft Tech support. We are trying to use our computer to send and receive faxes. We've never done that before, but we're trying to set it up that way. So I called Microsoft so they could help me set it up.

I could actually understand what he was saying and he didn't sound like he was in India, so I was hopeful. He was also very friendly.

First he has me pull up Windows "Fax and Scan feature" and read it to him. Step 1 for setup says to plug my fax line into my fax modem. I have no fax modem. I explain this to him. He asks me if I have any modem, I tell him I have a DSL modem. He says, "In all honesty, I've never actually heard of a fax modem before. This is new to me." He asks me to hold while he researches this issue...

When he comes back to me, his first words to me are...

Wait for it....

"According to Wikipedia..."

You can pick yourself up off the floor now.

So now Microsoft techs are using Wikipedia for their research. You may go ahead and let your laughter out now. No one around you will mind. I wonder if Wikipedia knows this? I can see the ad tag now, "Microsoft uses us to learn how to use their own products."

Also spoken to me by my Microsoft tech support specialist while we were talking...

"Pardon me, but my browser is going slow. It's been acting funky all day."

I wonder if I should have suggested that he try Firefox?

Finally, he discovered by doing "research" that I need to go buy another modem, one that will be analog so that it can dial phone numbers, which a digital modem will not. Though he's not sure even then that it will work. He suggested I call my ISP to make sure they would recognize it and support it. In my Microsoft guy's defense, the dude at my ISP tech support had never heard of it either. And he said, "I asked around and all the other guys around here are shrugging their shoulders."

I should also say in my Microsoft guy's defense, that he was a very nice guy and he really tried. I don't blame him. I blame the Microsoft machine (both literal and metaphorical.)

So apparently, Microsoft Windows has been listing as a feature for a decade now that your computer can send and receive faxes, but no one actually knows how. I have this theory that no one actually does it, but we all assume that someone out there is...

It's like having a red button that says "turbo boost" on your car you've never pushed. You have it, so it must be cool...but you never use it. I wonder how many other features Windows claims to have, but they aren't actually real things?

I close with my second favorite quote (following "According to Wikipedia...") spoken by my Microsoft Rep...

"Oh my God. I'm getting blocked by a firewall on my end."

:-)

last night that I woke up this morning, only to find that Bill had live-blogged "LOST" last night, and all of you had been discussing it here on Thinklings, and so I was skimming a very long comment thread about a LOST episode that I had missed because they moved it to Sunday night without my knowing...

Tells you what sorts of things I worry about, huh?

Scary.

Contra vs. Duck Hunt

There is so much awesomeness here, it may blow up your monitor.

Baylor University, my alma mater, has named Ken Starr the new president of the university. Yes, that Ken Starr.

Interesting.

(In no particular order.)

- Native American legends and artifacts depicting ape-like men (see Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science)

- The massive number of sightings in regions of the country where you'd expect such sightings (e.g. the Pacific Northwest)

- Tracks, tracks, and more tracks ... and some with inexplicable dermal ridges

- The legendary Patterson-Gimlin film

- The Jacob's Creature photo

- I've seen one (just kidding)

Cryptomundo offers up the Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories of 2009.

My fave, of course, is the Champ video.