As we learned in Drag Me to Hell and Thinner, you don’t fuck with gypsies. Just give them their mortgage extensions, and don’t run them over while your wife’s giving you a blowy. Romanian politicians have known this forever, of course, which is why they’ve backtracked on a proposed tax on fortune-tellers and psychics.
Remember the martian asteroid that was said to contain evidence of life, way back in 1995? This isn’t about that. Not exactly, anyway. Instead, in 2001, there were widespread reports of a “scarlet” or “red” rain in the Kerala region of India. Now, some scientists claim to have found evidence of extraterrestrial life in the fallout from those rains.
hanks to its large population of expats, Phuket is already a weird place. In recent weeks, though, the popular island has been making more headlines than usual. Here’s a rundown of noteworthy items.
Sure, it’s probably fake. But if it’s an editing/CGI trick, someone got lazy. But it’s probably not a diver carrying props, either. So, experts, what’s the natural explanation?
(TRAVEL FEATURE) For a town that boasts one of Guatemala’s most important shrines to the saint of smoking and drinking, it sure was hard to buy cigarettes in Santiago Atitlán. There were a few left in my bag, but I’d been told that Maximón demands a full pack of smokes. The last thing I wanted to do was offend an ancient Mayan god.
To really understand a country, you need to look at its criminals and its weirdness. Taken on their own, you get snapshots of two aspects of the civilian psyche. When they intersect, all the better. That in mind, let’s consider the strange story of Australia’s Lemon Tree Passage ghost — and the people who are trying to conjure it by breaking the law.
The next time you’re pulled over for reckless driving, just tell the cops you’re “a being from another world” and that local laws “don’t apply.” It didn’t work for Eilish De Avalon of Geelong, Australia, but maybe you’ll have better luck.
Public works projects rarely go smoothly. If it’s not the cost overruns, it’s the lazy contractors; if it’s not the environmental worries, it’s the worker strikes. But how about bad feng shui? For elderly ethnic-Chinese residents of Phuket, Thailand, a new traffic tunnel will bring damnation by interfering with the island’s spatial flow. According to [...]
As I recall, it was my former colleague Jim Knipfel who introduced me to the work of Gunther von Hagens, the German doctor famous for his plastination technique of preserving human bodies. It’s von Hagens’ work that’s on display in those ever-touring Bodies and Cycle of Life exhibitions; the latter features flayed human bodies posed [...]
For anyone who’s ever worried about accidentally eating something weird overseas, your nightmare just came closer to reality. As reported by Reuters, cops in Indonesia have arrested two people in Jakarta for making meatballs out of monkeys. But these were no ordinary monkeys. The pair poached a rare breed for their special soup, known locally [...]
For everyone who doubts that the Bible is the infallible word of God, a literal account of true events, a Chinese/Turkish archeological expedition has some news for you: Noah’s Ark was real, and they’ve found it. From News.com.au: The team said it had recovered wooden specimens from a structure on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey [...]
Calling all History Channel producers — according to an Italian magazine, Hitler was obsessed with the Shroud of Turin, and may have even tried to swipe it. It’s ratings gold! From the Local: Reporting on the article, German daily Die Welt said Cardin found documents written by former Turin Archbishop Maurilio Fossati in 1938 that [...]
More high weirdness from the Church of Scientology. This time, the Australian branch is accused of torturing and embezzling money from its followers and — get this — forcing employees to have abortions. The accusations have been leveled by Nick Xenophon who, by dint of his name, should actually be a Scientologist — not “a [...]
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Conspiracy theorists, start your engines! There’s a new atmospheric oddity making the YouTube rounds. So what caused the strange Moscow cloud? Was it really an optical illusion? Or was it aliens? Chemical warfare? An industrial accident? I’m going with HAARP.
Though my bullshit sensor is clanging louder than the dinner bell at a fat camp, I can’t resist reporting this one. Tired of being bullied by the full-sized world, a group of 120 dwarfs have set up their own little village in southern China. This being the 21st century, they’ve naturally invited tourists to pay [...]
Cargo cults spring up when indigenous cultures intersect with a more technologically advanced people: colonists + the indigenous, conquerors + the subjugated, armies + unfortunate locals. Even mundane items introduced by the strangers are sometimes seen as mysterious and even divine; when the visitors hit the road, a queer spiritualism grows up around the artifacts [...]
These are good times to be fringe. Earlier this week, Israel’s wealthiest woman, Shari Arison, came forward as a psychic. In a forthcoming book, the multibillionaire will claim to have foretold the tsunami that devastated Indonesia and Thailand, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina and, of course, the global econopocalypse. Now, it’s Asia’s turn. Miyuki Hatoyama, [...]
Six miles outside of Bristol, England, Anthony and Christina Bush operate a zoo that welcomes 120,000 visitors each year. It’s a member in good standing of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums and, by all accounts, the rhinos, gibbons, donkeys, prairie dogs, zebras and giraffes enjoy decent lives on the premises. So what’s [...]
Calling Loren Coleman! Is this Nessie? Or just a boat? —Loch Ness Monster on Google Earth | The Sun
