Probe International October conference details

 

 

The Bizarre Disappearance of Agatha Christie…..
Asylum Earth: The Voices in My Head are Scientists…..
Ouija: Ideomotor Response, Strange Coincidences, and “Talking Boards”…..
Frustrated Farmer Charges for Viewing Crop Circle…..
The Fairies’ Right of Way…..
Jeremy Hunt accuses Stephen Hawking of peddling a ‘pernicious falsehood’ after the top physicist claimed Tories are trying to privatise the NHS…..
Nazis, Antarctica, and Bigfoot…..
A Ghostly Airman At Loch Ness?

Among the greatest mystery novelists of all time, surely English crime novelist Agatha Christie ranks high. So well-known and ubiquitous are her works in literature that even people who have never read even a single one of her novels know her name, and over the course of her career until her death in 1976, during which she wrote 80 novels, Agatha Christie became the best selling novelist in history, the most widely published, behind the Bible and Shakespeare, as well as the most translated author, making her works known and enjoyed throughout the world, and she was celebrated with some of the highest accolades and awards a writer could ever possibly achieve. However, one of her greatest mysteries was carried out in real life, when she went missing without a trace and reappeared over a week later, with none of it ever being explained or satisfactorily solved.
The Bizarre Disappearance of Agatha Christie

 

We’re smart.  We’re handsome.  We have opposable thumbs and impressive scores on Candy Crush.  Why wouldn’t intelligent extraterrestrials want to talk to us?  Then again we have jihad, crusades, madmen threatening each other with nuclear weapons, poverty, racism, injustice, climate change, and the inexplicable popularity of reality television (apart from schadenfreude).  An alien might be forgiven for assuming we are insane, and treat us the same way we treat the guy on the corner having an animated conversation about strategies for a land war in Asia with an invisible Attila the Hun, that is, as clinically interesting, but better left alone.
Asylum Earth: The Voices in My Head are Scientists

 

The Ouija board, and its predecessors in spiritualism that include table turning and similar methods of divination, have long fascinated us. Even the scientific explanation for what moves the planchette—a psychological phenomenon called ideomotor response—is by itself fascinating, without having to infer that some actual knowledge of things beyond the known senses can be gleaned from a parlor game.

However, could there be more to the Ouija board, and its seemingly uncanny ability to relate messages that appear to have spiritual origins? The best explanation for the workings of the famous “talking board” does entail that processes working within the subconscious mind are far more involved than most of us (and yes, to some degree, even modern science) can yet ascertain.
Ouija: Ideomotor Response, Strange Coincidences, and “Talking Boards”

 

As someone who enjoys looking at photos of the more intricately patterned and sacredly geometric crop circles, I admit I also forget that those crops belong to some farmer who may not be too happy to see their field trampled by whatever is making those circles. All we ever see are the pristine photos taken the morning the crop circles are discovered, not the ones two days later of the decomposing grains, spectator trash and a farmer shaking a fist at annoying drones. One enterprising farmer is paying for the loss of about eight tons of grain by charging £2 ($2.59 US) to see the circle.
Frustrated Farmer Charges for Viewing Crop Circle

 

Protecting the places where the magic folk roam

Our new neighbor came home with a whitethorn sapling and a spool of red ribbon. Dark shadows sat under his eyes. He hadn’t slept well in weeks, he said. Not since he’d cut down the old whitethorn tree in his backyard.

The locals had scoffed: didn’t he know? Know never to cut down a lone whitethorn tree, and certainly never to expect a good night’s sleep again if he did?

No, he answered drily enough, he hadn’t known. He’d recently moved here from England. The fairies back home did things differently.
The Fairies’ Right of Way

 

Mr Hunt wrote: ‘Most pernicious falsehood from Stephen Hawking is idea govt wants US-style insurance system. Is it 2 much to ask him to look at evidence?’

He added: ‘NHS under Cons[ervatives] has seen more money, more doctors and more nurses than ever in history. Those with private med[ical] insurance DOWN 9.4 per cent since 2009.’
Jeremy Hunt accuses Stephen Hawking of peddling a ‘pernicious falsehood’ after the top physicist claimed Tories are trying to privatise the NHS

More doctors and nurses, he says, well how come there are chronic shortages of staff in surgeries and hospitals and so many transient GPs? There are clearly not enough front-line staff to cope. Too many sticky fingers. Greedy profiteering and aggrandizing faux public servants over the decades have sucked the vitality out of the NHS and just about every other (alleged) public service utility and department. People know this, have always known what these contemptible bastards are like. Yes they moan to each other but they still obey, without protest or question, their ever psychotic regulations, turn blind-eyes to their monstrosities, and vote for more of them. Until people start making choices that benefit the whole rather than just themselves then the onslaught against human beings and all life and resources will continue till the Earth is a wasteland…and if private medical insurance is down then it is not because the predatory government is making such a good job of the NHS it is because less people can afford it. – Ellis

 

Nazis. Has there ever been a greater villain or evil force out there? Throughout history they have not only served to be the perpetrators of horrific acts, but also the target of numerous, countless conspiracy theories and strange tales. They really manage to fit whatever the creepy story calls for, and there are many such stories. Among the many are the rumors that the Nazis had a secretive, covert base in the cold depths of the continent of Antarctica, a tale which in itself has spread out to cover many facets of the weird. Yet there is one account in particular that I feel is particularly surreal and odd. It is a harrowing and horrific tale of soldiers out in the frigid elements, fighting not only the landscape itself, but unknown entities dwelling within it. In short, it is the perfect story of Nazi bizarreness.
Nazis, Antarctica, and Bigfoot

 

In 1976, the long-sunken remains of a World War II-vintage aircraft were found in Loch Ness, Scotland. It was a Vickers Wellington Bomber. The aircraft was the brainchild of Barnes Wallis, a man who created a revolutionary “bouncing bomb” during the hostilities with the Nazis, and which was designed to destroy German dams. The Dam-Busters, was the nickname of the team that dropped the bombs. An enormous amount of interest was exhibited by military historians and aviation enthusiasts when the aircraft was found. The race for its recovery was well and truly on.
A Ghostly Airman At Loch Ness?