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Operation: All Clear - The Oklahoma City Bombing

Oklahoma City Bombing The Oklahoma City Bombing in 1995 was alleged to have been carried-out by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (alone...

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Bogdan: The Magnetic Boy

A seven-year-old Serbian boy named Bogdan, whose family claims is magnetic, is not allowed near electronic appliances because he will destroy them. Further, items adhere themselves to his body -- not just metal objects, either; Bogdan has been known to attract plates and bowls, even a TV remote control. The objects stay affixed to his body until he physically removes them.

The boy's family was proud to show-off his abilities to reporters last week, but refuse to give their last name, perhaps fearing ridicule or maybe simply to protect young Bogdan. They claim he has possessed this odd gift since birth.

Bogdan: How does he work?

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Thursday, February 24, 2011

The Silent City - Prince Luigi

A decade after the New York Times reported that there was no proof to support the claims that The Silent City exists, Prince Luigi Amedeo claimed to have seen it while climbing Mt. Saint Elias. On the morning of July 7th, 1897, Prince Luigi and the members of his expedition claim the Silent City was "mirrored in the clear atmosphere."

One wrote, "It was so distinct... that it required... strong faith to believe that it was not in reality a city." The expedition claimed the image lasted some 30 minutes before dissipating.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The Man-Eating Elephant

An elephant in India that killed 17 was found to have died with human flesh in her stomach.

Men in the area chased the elephants away with fires to plant tea leaves on the elephants' natural habitat. During one of these incidents, the elephant's baby was killed. The elephant then stalked into villages at night and killed one man. The next night, she returned to kill five. This went on, night after night, until the order was given to have the elephant killed. A professional hunter put her down.

DNA testing proved the elephant had consumed human flesh.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Panther to Blame for Mutilations in UK?

The mutilated bodies of three swans and two lambs are being blamed on a Big Cat Golborne residents reported sunning itself high in a tree a few days earlier. Other reports said some half-dozen witnesses spotted a "panther-like creature" laying on rooftops in the same area at about the same time. However, authorities are quick to note that the eyewitness reports of the cat were all from a distance, meaning they may well have seen a housecat or even some other animal. One dismissive authority from the Three Sisters area says he has been on-patrol throughout the area all winter and has seen no tracks or other evidence of a Big Cat in the area.

While authorities are not prepared to announce that a Big Cat is on the prowl in the area, police are treating the matter seriously. The sightings, and the swans and lambs, have been investigated by police.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Monday, February 21, 2011

New Pictures of 'Bow Nessie'

Bow Nessie
Bow Nessie
UPDATE: 2018 - The original photograph included herein has since been deleted, and the link (an iFrame to an external site which may no longer exist) likely corrupted.  The second photo, which was here, actually showed little more than a black dot from far away and a post on this original sighting has since disappeared.  This photo is of the original Bow Nessie sighting, released to the Press on February 17, 2011.

In February 2011, "Bow Nessie" of Lake Windermere in England was spotted not once but twice in a matter of a few days.  The second sighting occurred on February 21, 2011.  In both sightings, photographic evidence was taken, though what they show is questionable.  

Flat-Earthers (largely religious extremists with strong military ties) have since despoiled the results for Bow Nessie in Bing -- because they make a lot of money selling safaris to hunt these ancient creatures to pieces of shit just like themselves -- but some ardent searching lead me to these original links and photos.

Bow Nessie has since largely faded from the public's memory, but -- for whatever reason -- 02-21-11, a Texas Penal Code for repeated child sexual abuse, came up instead of Bow Nessie!  Which sums-up Flat-Earthers better than I ever could!

Bow Nessie is said to inhabit Lank Windermere in England, and is sometimes referred to as England's Loch Ness Monster.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Things What Done Fell from the Sky: A Mysterious Whirlwind

H.A. Boys of the North Cadbury Rectory wrote an account passed-on to him by three eyewitnesses who saw a whirlwind appear from nowhere and pick up about a ton of hay. The whirlwind lifted the hay to a height of nearly 200' before losing strength. It dropped the hay over the church's roof and grounds.

Some think bizarre showers, such as those of fish and frogs, are caused by such weather phenomena as whirlwinds. However, this does not explain most of the cases we have observed here.

The incident occurred at 3:30pm on July 28th, 1904; two whirlwinds were reported in nearby areas, including Bristol, the following day.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Saturday, February 19, 2011

The Silent City - L.B. French

Despite having reported that a San Franciscan reporter had identified the cityscape in Prof. Dick Willoughby's Silent City photograph as Bristol, England, the New York Times ran an account from a Mr. L.B. French, who claimed to have seen the Silent City for himself.

French told the newspaper he saw a misty cloud around 5am sometime in early July from which the Silent City emerged. He described it in luscious detail, noting that it did not appear as a modern city, as Willoughby had said, but an ancient one. He described trees, rooftops, and ancient mosques or cathedrals.

French said the Eskimo guides accompanying the expedition fled as he and a companion struggled to setup their camera equipment. By the time they were prepared to shoot, the mirage had receded. L.B. French estimated the Silent City was visible for some 25 minutes.

It should be noted the article was published on Halloween, 1889. Also, all of the features French (who appears to have disappeared from history) describes are visible in Willoughby's faked photograph of the Silent City.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Photographic Evidence: The Silent City of Alaska

Silent City - Willoughby, 1885-1888The Silent City of Alaska is one of the most celebrated hoaxes in American history, but its legend is not the open and shut case many skeptics would have you believe. 

Mirages are known to be inexplicably realistic according to eyewitnesses, and the one Prof. Dick Willoughby claimed to have seen was just that. Replete with well-defined rooftops, trees, and streets, Willoughby claimed the modern-era cityscape that arose from a misty haze on the Muir Glacier's horizon lasted only a few minutes before dissipating, but he managed to snap the accompanying photograph, "proving" he had seen something in Alaska in 1889.

America bought the state of Alaska from Russia just 20 years earlier, and few Americans had any idea of what to expect from the area, except cold. When San Francisco papers picked-up the story in 1889, it exploded throughout the popular culture, and papers as far away as New York and Ottawa carried the story and picture.

The article is overly flattering of Prof. Willoughby, establishing his expertise in mining and "Arctic" History, as well as his elevated status amongst natives throughout the territory. Willoughby was the first American to discover gold in Alaska and claimed to have seen numerous, bizarre mirages during his expeditions -- particularly, the Silent City, which he said appeared every year from June 21st to July 10th on the Muir Glacier.

According to some sources, Willoughby sold the negative he sent to the San Francisco Chronicle for about $500, and by all sources, Willoughby sold copies of the photograph for 75¢ in gift shops throughout Juneau. He even chaperoned paid tours of the area where he claimed to have photographed the mirage, which some said was the reflection of either a French or German city thousands of miles away. Others suggested Montreal, which quickly became the forerunner even though Montreal experts and officials refuted it. Eventually, it was determined to be the reflection a Russian city thousands of miles away.

Others labeled the photograph a fake from the start, including a photographer quoted in the original San Francisco Chronicle article, who said it was the result of a badly exposed plate. "I regard it as a trick,"  he is quoted as having stated.


He also discounted it as a mirage, noting that all of the mirages he'd seen were of islands and landscapes, not cities -- and absolutely none of them featured people. The idea had captured the public's mind, becoming a media sensation.

The dating of the photograph remains in question. Some sources indicate the picture was taken in 1885, though it was later asserted that Willoughby sent to San Francisco for photography equipment in 1888. Willoughby was no photographer, though some accounts regard him as an "amateur;" he had no prior experience and never photographed anything else. When a San Francisco Chronicle reporter asked to see the negative, Willoughby could not produce it, and claimed the chemicals and process he used to develop the picture were "secret."

On October 11th of the same year, The San Francisco Chronicle published an article that identified the Silent City in the photograph as Bristol, England. Soon, the story emerged that Willoughby had either received an overexposed plate of the city when he purchased a box from a store or paid a down-on-his-luck English photographer for the plate some years before. In short, it was determined that Willoughby had faked the photograph. 


Sources say the Professor died a mere two years later, but I could not confirm this. What I can confirm is that there is a Willoughby Ave. in Juneau, AK.

But the story of Alaska's Silent City does not end there.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Wave of Darkness - Wimbledon

At 12:25 PM, "a tunnel of darkness with light visible at either end" descended upon Wimbledon, England for about 10 minutes on April 15th, 1904.  An eyewitness said it was too dark to garden and he could not explain the phenomenon, which came quickly with "puffs of wind," but no thunder or lightning.

He inquired Symom's Meteorological Magazine readers as to whether or not the formation could have been a snow cloud, but it does not appear his question was ever answered.  The writer also noted that he saw no mention of it in the press.  It does not appear to have been mentioned by anyone else since then, though the story has been repeated.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Friday, February 18, 2011

Wave of Darkness - Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 1886

No one can explain the wave of darkness that swept over Oshkosh, Wisconsin at 3:00 in the afternoon on March 19th, 1886.  Within the span of five minutes, it was as if night had settled over the town.  Horses were spooked and people scrambled through the streets. But the inexplicable wave of darkness lasted only 10 minutes before abating.

The local newspaper reported that towns to the west of Oshkosh, WI had experienced the same phenomenon just before residents there, indicating the wave of darkness had traveled from west to east.  There were no air currents overhead, the newspaper said, nor was there a solar eclipse on March 19th, 1886.

Ball Lightning: Salina, KS 1919

In the early evening of October 8th, 1919, a "ball of fire as big as a washtub floating low in the air" hit a building, ripping out bricks and destroying a window on the second story.  It then exploded with a report a correspondent likened to a gunshot, "filling the air with balls of fire as big as baseballs, which floated away in all directions."

Some of the Ball Lightning followed wires and powerlines as one might expect, but others simply floated away "independently of any objects near by [sic]."  One ball of lightning hit an electric switch box, blasting it open and plunging the east side of Salina, Kansas, into complete darkness.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Spontaneous Human Combustion - Baby Seaton

11-month-old Peter Seaton was sleeping in his crib on a January night in 1939. Harold Huxstep said he heard screaming from the child's room and rushed to it to find the baby engulfed in flames. Huxstep, who was visiting the Seaton home, tried to save young Peter Seaton, but the intensity of the flames threw him across the hall.

Firemen put out the fire and investigated the incident, but could find no plausible explanation for the fire. Even more bizarre, the furniture beneath the child was barely damaged. In fact, none of the furniture in the nursery had been burned. Peter Seaton, by all accounts, was a victim of spontaneous human combustion.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

USO - North Atlantic, 1954

The crew of the SS Groote Beer saw something rise from the seas in the late summer of 1954.  According to Captain, Jan P. Boshoff, who observed the object through binoculars, the moon-shaped USO was flat and gray, with bright lights on its edges.  It flew away at a 60º angle more rapidly than manmade crafts can move.

Crewmembers on the Aliki P., a Honduran freighter sailing in the same general area, reported, "... a ball of fire moving in and out of water without being extinguished.  Trailing white smoke.  Moving in erratic course, finally disappeared."  It may have been the same USO, as the sighting was radioed-in to the Long Island Coast Guard around the same time.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Thai Couple Breaks Kissing Record

A Taiwanese couple broke the Guinness World Record for longest kiss after locking lips for an astounding 46 hours and 24 minutes. The previous record of 32 hours was set by a couple in Germany in 2009. Guinness Records has yet to confirm the new record.

Contestants, which included 14 "serious" couples, were allowed to eat, drink, and even use the restroom, so long as they did not break the kiss. The winning couple, Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, won cash and prizes worth over $5000.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011
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Friday, February 11, 2011

Austin Auto & Injury Attorney

This post has been removed.

Romanian Witches Face Punishment if Faking It

A proposed law in Romania would find witches in danger of jail time and/or a fine if their predictions prove inaccurate. This year, the Romanian government recognized witch as a legitimate profession. Witchcraft in Romania is an ancient custom still revered in modern times.

The new law would require witches to file for permits and be judged by the accuracy of their predictions. Witches across the country were already disappointed with the ruling change, as it means they are now taxable, but this proposal brought forth spells against the government.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Lithuanian Clergy Puts Stop to Ad Campaign

Lithuanian-area monks and nuns effectively ended a regional advertising campaign that featured a Franciscan monk hoisting a mug of beer. The company behind the campaign said it was only trying to link monks' historical past as brewers to their product and meant no insult, but nuns and monks from the area wrote to tell the company that they found it offensive. The company has ended the campaign and apologized for the error.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Ball Lightning: The Account of Maxwell Lyte

Henry Maxwell Lyte lead an impressive career and remains well-respected for his work to this day.  It may surprise some to know that Lyte gave an account of Ball Lightning he witnessed in the Pyrenees some years prior to the Science Club on August 17th, 1881.

Lyte said he was inside of a barn renovated into a church in the French mountains when a great storm arose.  The congregation moved to secure the barn when Lyte saw a ball of fire he estimated at 6' in diameter "leisurely" moving at 10-12mph up the valley.  Lyte threw himself to the ground, and the ball passed over the makeshift church to strike a plum tree behind it.  The tree was "shattered to atoms."

While no one in the barn was killed, nine shepherds had taken refuge in a small cabin on the mountainside above.  Discharge from the Ball Lightning that struck the plum tree hit the cabin, setting it ablaze.  Four of the men were killed there, another three died from complications due to injuries sustained in the accident, and the remaining two were maimed for life.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Monday, February 7, 2011

Ball Lightning: Remenham, England - 1871

A truly unexplained event of Ghost Lights was reported by a woman in Remenham, England in January, 1871 which some researchers think may have been a case of Ball Lightning. According to the eyewitness, "air bubbles" appeared in her home, coloring the wallpaper and furniture "rose... which gradually deepened into crimson," into golden orange, then lilac and deep violet. Nothing in her home sustained damage.

The report continues with the woman looking outside to see more of these "air bubbles" floating over the snow outside. Several inches in diameter, they colored the snow as they had her home's interior. Soon, the first set of bubbles was blown away by a wind, only to be replaced by a second set rising from the ground! A servant returning home also witnessed the phenomenon from a different viewpoint.

No sparks or electrical odors were reported, as is usually reported with Ball Lightning. None of the inexplicable "bubbles" exploded with a report or discharge, either. While the phenomenon sounds more akin to Ghost Lights than Ball Lightning, the 1871 incident has yet to be scientifically explained.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Ball Lightning or Ghost Lights: England - September 2, 1786

On September 2nd, 1786, a hurricane struck England. Accompanying the hurricane was a "bright ball of fire and light," the nature of which has never been fully explained. While some researchers have suggested it could have been Ball Lightning, it lasted for a full 40 minutes and did not disappear with a signature explosion. The inexplicable phenomenon may have been more closely related to the phenomena known as Ghost Lights.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Ball Lightning: The Sidmouth Incident

On the early evening of August 12th, 1970, a particularly violent thunderstorm swept over Sidmouth, England. Suddenly, a "red ball of fire" appeared above the town. The Ball Lightning crackled for several seconds before exploding with a roar. The lightning bolts that shot from the Ball Lightning headed toward the ground. At the moment of explosion, 2500 TV sets across the area were cut-off.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Ball Lightning: The Paris Incident

Ball Lightning is rarely associated with death, though they do occur (and we've already detailed one of the more famous incidents, which wasn't directly the cause of ball lightning, per se, but fits our purposes). In one of the more spectacular incidents, which occurred in Paris in July 1849, Ball Lightning hit a house and three pedestrians.

According to reports, a red ball hovered approximately 20' above a tree during a lightning storm. The ball soon caught fire, then burst, spraying lightning in every direction. One bolt punched a cannonball-sized hole in a nearby house. The Ball Lightning continued spinning, though diminished in size, before exploding again. This time, the resulting offshoots knocked down three pedestrians.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

New Indonesian Crop Circles

The first reported crop circle of 2011 comes from an Indonesian rice field in Slemen, Yogyakarta. Discovered the morning of January 22nd, only one picture has surfaced in the press so far. Witnesses claim the crop circle was not present in the field the night before and refute that it could have been made naturally by wind or animals. So far, no human has stepped forward to claim responsibility for the crop circle and an investigation is underway.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

New Pics of Ancient, Uncontacted Peruvian Tribe Driven into Brazil by Illegal Construction and Logging

Ancient Peruvian Tribe Driven to Brazil by Illegal Loggers
Ancient Peruvian Tribe Driven to Brazil by Illegal Loggers
A human rights organization released pictures of a previously uncontacted Peruvian tribe on Monday to heighten awareness of logging laws in the country. The organization warns that the tribe is likely to come into conflict with other tribes fleeing their homes, as well as the vicious loggers themselves, as loggers illegally encroach on their territories.

Human rights activists and organizations have pushed Peru for tighter logging regulations for years, yet the country has done little to nothing... but illegally sell more Amazon tribes' lands to shitbag construction companies protected by paramilitary organizations like TigerSwan, SIS, and Raytheon.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

'Closest Sighting Yet' of Big Cat in the UK

Former policeman, Michael Disney, claims a Big Cat crossed his path in Pembrokeshire on January 28th, 2010, as he was driving. Disney told officials and reporters the cat passed about 15' in front of his car, which was going about 10-15mph at the time. The encounter occurred in broad daylight and lasted 5-6 seconds by his estimation. He said he had a clear view of the animal under excellent visibility conditions.

Disney said the cat was about 3' long with a body-type he likened to that of a German Shepherd and "a large, cat-like head." Fearing public safety, he drove to a local farmer's home to use the phone and learned that the owner had also seen the Big Cat a week or so earlier. Officials said they do not believe the public is in danger, but did warn people not to approach the animal if they see it.

"I am 100% certain that this was a puma or panther-like animal and was definitely not a dog, cat, or any other domestic animal," Disney said. "It was not something I had seen before, other than in a zoo."

© C Harris Lynn, 2011