STRANGEmagazineWEB | ![]() | STRANGEmagazineWEB |
On April 28 and 29, 1996, the Washington Post covered aspects of the "mad cow" controversies.
In Britain, Peter Behan, a top neurologist, claimed that a 15-year-old young woman came down with "mad cow disease" because of her propensity for devouring hamburgers.
He described how she was very ill with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), the human analog to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which was first found in British cattle during 1986. Both illnesses lethally rot the brain. In late April 1996, the girl was being treated in a Scottish hospital.
Authorities of hospitals in southern England had earlier said that they had found another three potential cases in humans.
While the Scottish hospital claimed that only an autopsy could provide a solid diagnosis, Behan said that in the case of the aforementioned teenager, a new U.S. test had been utilized.
During March 1996, many countries had banned British beef because of the possible link between CJD and BSE--a contention based until recently on circumstantial evidence, plus the damage caused by a deformed version of the protein molecule PrP in both diseases. Ten cases of CJD had been diagnosed in Britain from February 1994 to October 1995.
Recent research may possibly explain the link. An article by David C. Krakauer, Paolo Zanotto, and University of Oxford colleagues, published in the April 25, 1996 Nature, examined PrP in 33 animals. The PrPs of humans, apes and cattle have the same variations at amino acids number 143 and 155. These similarities may well account for the sharing of the diseases across species lines.
The Big Gray Man, a legendary entity alleged to live on the mountain Ben MacDhui in Scotland, was chronicled by Affleck Gray, who died on February 7, 1996. Gray, an expert on the entity, was a mountaineer whose books included Legends of the Caimgorms and The Big Gray Man of Ben MacDhui.
An article by Dimitry Frokofeiv in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper (apparently circa early 1996) reviews a few weirdnesses that happened in Russian forests, including a six-month mystery concerning people found dead--with "vampire" marks on their necks.
Russian police found some camps where barefoot residents wore unprocessed animal furs. In one of these, a jar of human blood turned up--which, after testing, turned out to be that of a person missing three weeks.
In another incident, a police truck ran into trouble in the area. When stopped to check the vehicle's wheels, one officer was attacked. His partner left the vehicle to rescue him, helping him arrest the malefactor.
The uncouth arrestee wore only a torn gown made of furs and rags. He said nothing in his defense, just growled. A bottle of human blood was found in his pocket. He did not survive captivity, having that same night bitten his wrists and died.
A research ship with American scientists caught a 26-foot-long giant squid 600 miles east of New Zealand on December 31, 1995, according to a bulletin from the Pelagic Shark Research Foundation released January 31, 1996.
Steve O'Shea, a marine scientist working for the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, revealed that the usually elusive squid was netted near the Chatham Islands, and that it was one of merely twenty captures known during the last ten years. National Public Radio on January 31, 1996 revealed that it soon died.
Its remains were refrigerated until the ship arrived in Wellington, New Zealand, during late January 1996.
The giant animal, which turned out to be a female, ended up at the Department of Invertebrate Zoology, headed by Dr. C.C. Lu, at the Museum of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
Clyde Roper, heading up the Smithsonian Natural History Museum's "Quest for the Giant Squid" is set to disembark in November 1996 for a $5 million dollar expedition in which each day a four-person submersible will explore the ocean's abyss in the waters off New Zealand in order to film the enormous animal alive in its own habitat. Roper's Squid Squad includes Steve O'Shea. Roper will also be accompanied by a National Geographic Society TV Crew, whose results will be beamed by satellite to classrooms, reported USA Today on February 1, 1996.
The Mambu Mutu--Swahili for crocodile-man--is a lake monster to contend with. According to the people around Lake Tanganyika, it looks like a person with the tail of a fish, i.e. a mermaid, and eats the brains and drinks the blood of its prey.
Though, according to the July 1995 Ano Cero, initial theories took the creature to be a sirenid, Carlos Bonet, a zoologist from Spain, thinks that the thing might be a flat-skulled giant otter--a creature known in fact to drink blood.
Yu Gong, who had been searching for Bigfoot for more than a decade. died while on a hunt--but Bigfoot had nothing to do with it. The Xinhua News Agency reported on January 26, 1996, that Yu had died in a northern China traffic accident.
During hunts, Yu's modus operandi was to hide in forests at night. Thus he was able to obtain nests, hairs, feces and footprints which were claimed to belong to the elusive entity.
His death was just one calamity affecting plans for more elaborate and sophisticated quests for the creature.
The Chinese Academy of Mongolia has during late 1995 reported a number of musical sand dunes in the Badainjaran Desert. The area, part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China, has, according to the Xinhua News Agency circa early December 1995, been found to be home to a phenomena in which, during a mild wind, the dunes make noises that resemble sometimes a flying airplane, sometimes a groan, and sometimes even singing.
These may be caused by sand grains of uniform size rubbing against each other, figured scientist Zu Jiangjun.
As of October 1995, Mohd Yusof wishes to spend fourteen days in a cage. But he does not want to be alone--he intends to have as his companions 300 poisonous snakes.
The world's record for this type of captivity was set in 1987 by Yusof's uncle, who spent a mere ten days caged with only 200 snakes at the Kuala Lumpur Zoo.
According to Australia's Sunday Mail on October 10, 1995, snake charmer Yusof was attempting to obtain the needed moneys for his effort and was arranging for a 3-meter-wide glass box at the World Trade Centre in Singapore.
Dr. Nick Allen, the head of fine arts at South Africa's University of Port Elizabeth, is convinced that while the Shroud of Turin is not the burial cloth of Christ, it is indeed special: a photograph--taken perhaps during the 13th century.
All the technologies needed to create photographs were in place during that period. Light sensitive emulsions were available, and lenses were used in glasses in Venice during 1275.
To test his thesis, art historian Dr. Allen duplicated the proposed conditions. A giant camera obscura with a quartz lens--7 millimeters thick and 15 centimeters in diameter--was deployed so that a life-size model's image could be focused on a canvas sheet soaked in silver sulphate, a chemical used since the 9th century AD. An image developed four days afterward, and was fixed in an ammonia bath--not composed of the bodily byproduct probably originally used.
On the BBC1 Tomorrow's World television program of September 8, 1995, Allen spoke of how, if he had seen the Shroud incognito, he would have thought it a photograph.
The shroud's artist, perhaps a 13th century alchemist, may have kept his process secret both to "authenticate" the Turin shroud and keep others from creating copies.
Dr. Allen, whose shadow analysis of the shroud supports his photographic thesis, speculates that the Turin shroud was fabricated in Venice circa 1248-1386, and had either been commissioned by the Knights Templar or was stolen by them.
A flock of birdwatchers in central England got to see a giant fish instead, reported The Sun in late September 1995. The enthusiasts had come from all over the country in order to get a view of a migrating red-necked phalarope, a rare bird indeed. But enjoyment turned to horror when the object of their observation, during a swim, was gobbled up by a 4-foot-pike. Only a few feathers remained to indicate that the scarce creature had even been to the Leicestershire reservoir.
One observer of the incident likened it to a scene from the movie Jaws, related the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of September 24, 1995.
Iguanas and other reptiles are known for a tendency to jar lamps and inadvertently start fires. In many cases, their tails are deployed.
A recent 1995 blaze in Munich, Germany, however, was caused by a quieter creature. This was a pet tortoise, which had knocked a lamp, and set curtains on fire.
According to the September 21, 1995 Columbus Dispatch, the blaze grew, until $20,700 worth of damage was done. While two women were medically treated for their breathing of smoke, the animal escaped injury.
Angel Morant Fores via COUD-I shared the following:
The central plateau in Vietnam is apparently home to some stone-age people who are linked to Neanderthals. Thus claimed the local press in Hanoi, working from accounts of military veterans, scientists and investigators.
In September 1995, a report via France Presse stated that come December an international team was going to investigate these eyewitness stories by visiting the plateau, reported the September 14, 1995 El Perriodico.
Thirty-two-year-old Paco Cazanga threw himself into a pit of jaguars at Guatemala City's zoo after his attempt to make a sale ended disastrously. Circa late August 1995, Cazanga had been engaged in a product demonstration, trying to sell a customer a pistol, when the weapon went off and killed the prospective buyer.
Hugh Cross, the owner of an escaped labrador, warned the public not to look into the pooch's eyes if they encountered it. The animal, named Oscar, was, according to its publicity, the world's only canine hypnotist.
During a sold-out show in Edinburgh on August 21, 1995, the dog took its leave while being put through its paces by co-star Cross.
Scottish police, as of August 23, were still seeking the staring-eye dog, noted the August 23, 1995 USA Today.
The Order of the Knights Templar gave a news conference on August 17, 1995 from an apartment in a dilapidated Rome suburb, claiming that they possessed the Holy Grail. Showing a tiny, green, mottled glass flask, Rocco Zingaro di San Ferdinando, Italy's Grand Master of the Templars, announced that it was time for the world to know the "grail's true whereabouts."
This was in reaction to what they deemed a false claim from England by Graham Phillips. Another reason for their showing of the Grail was that, as the year 2000 was approaching, humankind needs "the grail for its salvation."
While the artifact has been subjected to no dating techniques, "numerically it is perfect" in its, to the Templars, meaningful measurements, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on August 18, 1995.
In mid-July 1995, nineteen-year-old Park Seung-hyung survived 16 days without either solid sustenance or fresh water because of a dream.
The shop assistant had been trapped in a collapsed department store in South Korea. While there, she dreamed that a monk dispensed her an apple, and thus she held onto life.
Finally, after more than two weeks, she was rescued.
STRANGEmagazineWEB | ![]() | STRANGEmagazineWEB |