Did You Know.....

[Warph]

....that this little girl managed to get so many donations that nobody can even lift the buckets full of coins... except her because she's the strongest girl in the world!  

[Warph]

...that despite photographic evidence and eyewitness accounts, these tales of TIME TRAVEL were too good to be true.


1. Billy Meier and the Plejaren
Not many time travelers have photo albums with snapshots of their journeys. Meet Billy Meier. In the 1970s, the Swiss-born Meier was taken on a few chronological joyrides by a race of extraterrestrials called the Plejaren. They showed him prehistoric earth with dinosaurs, the surface of ancient Mars and even introduced him to Jmmaneul, the real Jesus.
Meier's holiday pics of the Plejarens' spacecraft turned out to be an inventively decorated garbage can lid. The dinosaurs were blurry shots of illustrations from a book called Life Before Man. And the pretty Plejaren girls? Photos that Meier had taken of dancers from The Dean Martin Show on his TV screen.
http://www.billymeierufocase.com/dinosaurphotodeconstruction.html


2. Rudolph Fentz
In 1950, a man with mutton chop sideburns and Victorian-era duds popped up in Times Square. Witnesses said he looked startled, and then a minute later, he was hit by a car and killed. On his person, the police found 19th-century money, a letter dated 1876 and business cards with his name – Rudolph Fentz. None of these items showed signs of aging. A Mrs. Rudolph Fentz was tracked down. She was the widow of Rudolph Fentz, Jr., and the story went that junior's dad disappeared mysteriously in 1876. Weird, right? Eventually it was discovered that this urban legend originated from a 1950 short story written by Jack Finney. Finney would go on to write the classics Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Time and Again.
http://www.security-faqs.com/did-rudolph-fentz-travel-in-time-160-years-before-john-titor-did.html


3. John Titor
How's life in the year 2036? "Food and livestock is grown locally. People spend much more time reading and talking together face to face. Religion is taken seriously and everyone can multiply and divide in their heads." That's an entry from John Titor. Titor, a traveler from the future, first showed up on internet discussion boards in the 2000, making predictions about the years ahead. In 2001, he returned to the year 2036. Most of his predictions did not come true.
http://www.johntitor.com/


4. The Chronovisor***
Not so much time travel as time voyeurism. The Chronovisor, a magic television/camera that could tune into times and places from the past, was invented in the 1950s by a Benedictine monk named Father Pellegrino Ernetti. He used it to film the crucifixion, and that footage, along with the Chronovisor itself, is now reportedly hidden away in the vaults of the Vatican.


5. Henry Fonda
In the 1948 movie Fort Apache, there's a brief moment when Fonda's character appears to be checking his stagecoach route on an iPhone.

Well, notepads can sometimes look like iPhones.


6. Andrew Carlssin
The alarm bells went off on Wall Street and with the SEC in 2002 when unknown investor Andrew Carlssin quickly parlayed $800 into $350,000,000 via some high-risk stock trades. Carlssin was arrested. He confessed that he was from the year 2256. It turns out the story originated from that ever-sensational source of fakery, The Weekly World News. Ten years on, the story is still being reprinted and circulated.
http://theedgeofreality.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=phenomenon&action=display&thread=480


7. 1941 Hipster
In the midst of a hat-and-suit crowd shown in a photograph from 1941, there's a young man who seems wildly out of place. He's wearing new wave sunglasses, what appears to be a T-shirt and he's holding a portable camera. Turns out the sunglasses were unusual but not unknown at the time, the Tee was a letter sweater, and the camera was a Kodak Folding Pocket model. Still, that was ten years before the concept of the teenager was born, so give the young dude props for being ahead of his time in self-expression.



8. John Krasinski
Could Jim from The Office be a time traveler? Or maybe a vampire? When an 1835 portrait painting by Danish artist Christen Købke was noted to bear a striking resemblance to actor John Krasinski, the story went viral. "Wow! Seems a little highbrow for NBC marketing," Krasinski said. "But I like it!"



9. 1928 Cell Phone LadyA woman walks through a film premiere crowd in Los Angeles talking on her cell. Not so remarkable. Until you consider the year is 1928. The clip, from bonus material on a DVD of Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, hit the internet in 2010. Never mind the obvious questions about non-existent satellites and cell towers back in the jazz age. The device was most likely an early hearing aid. Still, the clip is mind-teasingly fun to watch.

10. The Philadelphia Experiment
According to legend, in a secret experiment done in 1943, the US Navy was able to render the destroyer USS Eldridge invisible, then dematerialize it and transport it from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia, and back again. One account insists the ship went backwards in time by a full 10 seconds (though how that was determined is still sketchy). The experiment reportedly had terrible side effects, such as causing sailors to remain invisible. Secret government projects often foster all kinds of fanciful tales, but this one has endured, and was even the basis of a 1984 movie.  http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm



11. Hakan NordkvistTalk about pipe dreams. While doing a little DIY plumbing, Nordkvist slipped through a wormhole in time and was suddenly confronted by an older version of himself. The two talked. They compared tattoos. They bonded. And Nordkvist filmed it on his phone. Reportedly, it was all part of an advertising campaign by an insurance company to promote the benefits of pension plans

**********************************************************************************

***The Chronovisor - The Missing Time Machine
An eccentric priest claimed he had a machine that could see into the past. Was his story folly or fancy?

In his little 12 by 12 foot monastic cell Father Pellegrino Ernetti greeted Father Francois Brune one afternoon in the early 1960's. The two men had just met for the first time the day before during a ferry ride across Venice's Grand Canal. During their short conversation, Father Ernetti had said something that stuck in Father Brune's mind. The two, who were both experts on ancient languages, were talking about scriptural interpretation when Father Ernetti remarked that there existed a machine that could easily answer all their questions.

Father Brune was puzzled about what kind of machine could do such a thing and resolved to bring it up again with Father Ernetti in that day's meeting. When asked about it, Father Ernetti described a device he called a "chronovisor" that looked a bit like a television. Instead of receiving broadcasts from local transmission stations, however, the chronovisor could tune into the past to allow the viewer to see and hear events that had occurred years or even centuries earlier. Father Ernetti told Brune that the machine worked by detecting all the sights and sounds that humanity had made that still floated through space. Father Brune wanted to know if Father Ernetti and his collaborators had been able to see the crucifixion of Christ. Ernetti replied, "We saw everything. The agony in the garden, the betrayal of Judas, the trial - Calvary."

Everyday Chronovisors
What Father Ernetti was describing to Brune, the chronovisor, was a type of time machine. It is unlike the fictional devices found in most popular books, TV shows and movies, however, that transport people into the future or past. This type of time machine would bring pictures and sounds from the past into the present. Time machines that transport people seem far beyond anything our technology can currently build, but what about a device that just deals with images and sounds? Could a machine like Father Ernetti described be built?

A second piece of evidence that Father Ernetti released was a picture of Christ's face while he was on the cross, apparently photographed through the chronovisor. The photo shows the face of a bearded man with upturned eyes. It wasn't long, however, before someone noticed that the picture was identical (except being reversed left-to-right) to one sold at the Sanctuary of Merciful Love in Collevalenza, Italy. The photograph shows a wooden carving of Jesus in the sanctuary by the Spanish artist Cullot Valera.

After this revelation Father Ernetti said little more about the photograph and the chronovisor. He died in 1994.

As for the manuscript of Thyestes that he said he had transcribed from watching the play on the chronovisor, it seems too short - only 120 lines - for it to be the full play. Most plays of this type would have been ten times as long. Dr. Katherine Owen Eldred of Princeton University, an expert on the play who translated the manuscript for the American edition of the book Father Ernetti's Chronovisor, suspects that isn't authentic. Many of the words used in this manuscript didn't appear in the Latin language until over two centuries after the play was first performed. The type of words and the way they are repeated also suggest that the person who composed the manuscript had limited skills in Latin. As Ennius, the playwright, was using his native language this seems very strange. This makes one wonder if the author wasn't Ennius, but Father Ernetti himself.

The Enigma of Father Ernetti
What can we make of this strange story? It would be easy to dismiss Father Ernetti as a crackpot or compulsive liar. Outside of his entanglement with the chronovisor, however, Father Ernetti was an extremely respected, but quiet, intellectual whose specialty was archaic music. He spent most of his life doing research and teaching on this subject and was the author of such respected books as Words, Music, Rhythm and the multi-volume work General Treatise on Gregrian Chant. Why would such a respected clergyman, academic and author make up such a wild story?

After the Father's death the editors of Father Ernetti's Chronovisor received a document from someone claiming to be a relative of Ernetti but wishing to remain anonymous. The document tells of how this relative was called to Ernetti's deathbed and the priest confessed that he had made up the play and falsified the picture. However, Ernetti continued to insist that the chronovisor actually worked.

Since the document is anonymous it is hard to know how much faith to place in it. Father Brune, Ernetti's long time friend, believes that the chronovisor existed, but Ernetti came under pressure from his superiors in the last years of his life not to talk about it. Brune thinks the resemblance of the picture to the statue can be explained by the artist carving the work under the direction of a nun who had a vision. In the vision she saw Christ hanging on the cross and described it to the artist. The artist translated her vision exactly into the sculpture. The sculpture and the photo look alike because they both are true representations of Christ's face. One coming to us via the chronovisor, the other through the nun's vision, suggested Brune.

We may never be able to prove that the story of Ernetti's chronovisor was false, but with our technical capabilities expanding continually might it be possible to someday build such a device?

Paleoacoustics
Trying to gather the remnants of electromagnetic waves left over in the environment and reassemble them into a coherent image seems an overwhelming task, even with the most advanced computers. Some scientists have speculated, however, that we may find past sounds preserved in the environment. They've even given this speculative branch of science a name: Paleoacoustics.

The idea is that sound waves might have been recorded and preserved by accident. One possible way this could happen would be during the creation of pottery. In theory, a clay vessel spun on a potter's wheel and given a spiral pattern with a stylus would act like a primitive phonograph. On early phonographs, sounds were preserved by using a tin (or later wax) cylinder spun with a needle, etching a spiral groove down the surface of the cylinder. The needle would pick up sounds waves and etch the vibrations into the grooves. When the needle traveled down the groove a second time, the effect would reverse itself and the needle would vibrate, playing back the recorded sound.

On the pottery wheel the soft clay of the pot would act as the recording medium and the stylus as the needle. In theory the sound vibrations could be etched into the clay. Given that this method of creating pottery has been around for thousands of years this technique seems to hold out the promise of bringing back sounds from the ancient past.

Though this idea for recovering ancient sounds has been around since it was proposed by Richard G. Woodbridge in a letter to Proceedings of the IEEE in 1969, nobody has yet been successful in recovering ancient sounds (a hoax in 2006 suggesting Belgian researchers had accomplished this with a 2,000 year old piece of pottery fooled a number of people as it made the rounds through various newspapers and across the internet). However, as our instruments become more sensitive and our computers more powerful we may yet see success with this type of investigation.

Still, if these techniques are successful they would still be a far cry from Ernetti's chronovisor which could tune into the past at any place or time.

Will we ever be able to build a machine like he described? Only time will tell.[/font][/size]

[Warph]

     

Elvis the American

By Daniel J. Flynn on 8.16.12 @ 6:10AM

...that he died 35 years ago today.

"The army can do anything it wants with me," remarked Elvis Presley upon leaving for basic training in 1958. "Millions of other guys have been drafted, and I don't want to be different from anyone else." But Elvis was not like anyone else.

He wore sideburns and greasy long hair in the crew-cutted fifties. He played black music in the segregated South. He appeared in foppish fashions -- ascots, satin pants, pink shirts -- in t-shirt-and-jeans Memphis. As a teenage steady remembered, "I knew the first time I met him that he was not like other people."

This did not sit well with other people. Classmates cut the strings to his guitar. Other kids pitched rotten fruit at him. The coach kicked him off the high school football team, and a boss threatened to fire him, for refusing to get a haircut. "I felt really sorry for him," noted a classmate, who had defended Elvis from bullies. "He seemed very lonely and had no real friends. He just didn't seem to be able to fit in."

Elvis never fit in. He stood out. Greatness isn't about meshing with the crowd. Greatness requires the courage to stand apart. In an era derided as conformist, Elvis was an individual. He dared to be different.

One gleans just how much of a pariah the guitar-strumming teenager was from reading Peter Guralnick's Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley. If the 20th century's most popular singer appeared as a show-business cliché at his death 35 years ago today, he projected so eccentric an image in his pre-fame Memphis days that the idea of him conquering the entertainment world would seem as bizarre to Memphians as Elvis appeared to them. If Elvis doesn't strike us today as outlandish, it is because we live in the world that Elvis made.

The individual who initially threatens the crowd eventually pleases the crowd. Mockers became imitators. "What he did," Grand Ole Opry member Jimmy "C" Newman told Guralnick, "was he changed it all around. After that we had to go to Texas to work, there wasn't any work anywhere else, because all they wanted was someone to imitate Elvis, to jump up and down on the stage and make a fool of themselves." Thirty-five years after his death, the high school outcast remains the world's most impersonated person.

"I don't sound like nobody," the inner-directed Elvis, to borrow David Riesman's famous fifties phrase, told Sun Records. His unique style extended from his dress to his art. The postwar star defied categorization. Critics labeled his music bebop, hillbilly, folk, country, and r&b, until finally settling on rock 'n' roll. Like his classmates, they sneered like snobs. The New York Times judged, "Mr. Presley has no discernable singing ability."

America disagreed. By late 1956, the phenom sold two-thirds of RCA's 45s. Between "Heartbreak Hotel" hitting #1 in April of 1956 and the induction of recruit #53310761 in March of 1958, the King reigned atop the singles sales charts for more than a year. Only a force as powerful as the U.S. Army could stop him.

Rather than overthrowing the American social order, Elvis was a product of it. Before his singing career, he mowed lawns, served as a theater usher, worked as a machinist, and drove a truck. He repeatedly affirmed his love of God and belief in the Bible. In these early years, he steered clear of drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes -- but not food or practical jokes. And even though girls literally ripped the clothes off his body, he generally stopped short of doing the same with his many dating partners. Above all, he loved his parents, lavishing a pink Cadillac and a mansion upon his mother before her death. The journey from the Lauderdale Courts housing project to Graceland was the American Dream on steroids.

Elvis enthralls 35 years after his death in part because of his contradictions. A mama's boy/rebel, the loner amidst the entourage, and the painfully shy performer who confidently commanded audiences remains an enigma. Thirty-five years from now, the world will still be talking about, imitating, and singing along with the King.

Americans loved Elvis because he was unique. Americans loved Elvis because he was America.

[W. Gray]

I saw Elvis Presley perform once in 1965. Like a lot of guys of the era, I did not like him--that is until I saw him perform in person. He performed in Wichita around 1976 while I was living in Mulvane and he stayed at the Hilton Hotel at Rock Road and Kellogg. I think that is now a Holiday Inn.

I was in Europe from 67-70, well after Pressley served over there.

There was a famous black singer who had become a multimillionaire from various hit recordings and had been drafted into the Army. He served without complaining also. I cannot recall his name but remember reading about him in a European English language newspaper. As near as I can recall, he was a truck driver in Manheim. That location would probably have put him in the 3rd Armored Division.

A newspaper interviewed him and the reporter, among other things, asked about his small E-5 (buck sergeant) pay, which at the bottom rung was around $230 a month.

"Oh that" he said, "I use it for stamps and miscellaneous."

[Warph]

....that A Scottish monster hunter named George Edwards has claimed to have caught the Loch Ness Monster on film.

                         

Story at:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9449489/Has-the-Loch-Ness-monster-finally-been-caught-on-camera.html

I am skeptical about such things, but I get a kick out of cryptozoology... all of those Big Foot stories, Yeti sightings, and other mysterious creatures that allegedly live in the depths of lakes or forests or jungles and are sometimes glimpsed but never found.  Do any of you believe in that stuff?  Have any of you encountered, first or second or third hand, in person or in an oral tradition, any of the "cryptids" on this list?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cryptids

[Warph]

Is Puma Punku Evidence of Ancient Aliens?


....that at nearly 14,000 years old, the ruins of Puma Punku are the oldest and most baffling on the face of the Earth. No one knows who designed and built this complex of sophisticated inter-locking blocks, and then vanished. Researchers investigate the ruins on-location in Peru and present new computer analyses. Forensic evidence on the ground, together with local myths and legends, suggest this site may have been designed and even once inhabited by a species of extraterrestrials.

Puma Punku is a wondrous set of ruins located in the in the ancient city of Tiahuanaco of Bolivia. Filled with massive, precisely cut stones,  these very ancient and mysterious ruins have baffled archaeologists and researchers for years. Ancient alien theorists believe that there may be only one explanation of such amazing workmanship, which dates back thousands of years: Aliens either created the ruins with advanced tools and machinery or they assisted humans in the task.

                       

The mysteries of these ruins are how  they were carved and how they were brought to the top of a plateau. The blocks that created the ruins of Puma Punku were made from very hard rocks of granite and diorite, which are both nearly impossible to cut with anything besides diamond, yet there is no trace of  diamonds near the site.

                       

In addition to the unknown tools that were used, people are also amazed by the the incisions that were made in the stones.  The cuts are extremely fine and perfectly straight, with many pieces stacked or placed together with no spaces or mortar between them. The interlocking of the stones creates a precise puzzle of flawless pieces. Some of the straight grooves are only 1 cm deep, suggesting that a very advanced machine was responsible for creating such precision.  Also, the holes that were formed into the stones are perfect, and all of equal depth, suggesting a high-tech drill of some kind was responsible.

The work done on these stones is advanced and would require the most sophisticated of tools, leaving many wondering how it would have been possible for men living in that area thousands of years ago. This work could have been created from 500 B.C. to the ice age. Even today with modern technology,  it would be nearly impossible to replicate these ruins. This is why ancient alien theorists hypothesize that only aliens could be responsible for helping such primitive people create this work of art.

In addition to the extraordinary carvings and precise craftsmanship, the maneuvering of these stones is just as baffling. Many of the blocks weigh about 200 tons and some are as heavy as 450 tons and more. The question is, how in the world did these stones get on top of a 13,000 foot plateau and how were they moved into place to form the  interlocked puzzles?  While there are explanations of stones being rolled on tree trunks in other areas, this theory does not apply to Puma Punku because there are absolutely no trees on the plateau. There has not been an explanation of either the carving or maneuvering of these massive stones.

According to experts, whoever built the ruins of Puma Punku must have known mathematics  and astronomy and would have had to draw plans and write.  However, there is no evidence that these ancient people were involved with any of this. There are no drawings or writings anywhere on or near the ruins, nor is there any evidence that people of that time were capabale of such knowledge.

There are some who suggest that an advanced civilization of people lived in this area of Bolivia who had writings and plans for this amazing work, but a catastrophic event swept away the remains of the population and created the ruined look of the stones.  There is some evidence to suggest that there was a great flood thousands of years ago that might have wiped out these ancient people and their records. However, this is just a theory.

The conclusion is that there is no good explanation for how these ruins were created. It continues to be a great mystery to this day that has many ancient alien supporters believing that Puma Punku is probably the most significant evidence that earth was visited by extraterrestrials in ancient times.

What Are Aliens Team?
"If we know where we come from, we'll know where we're going."








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[Diane Amberg]

Interesting of course, but 14,000 years ago the climate could have been much different with trees and different peoples. They are assuming that nothing has changed in 14,000 years. I suspect we may be badly short changing the ability of those people to understand rock and fracture it much as the Egyptians did later. Also, who said the work was really that old, and is it really granite, not sandstone, which is very common there.  My nephew and girlfriend went to Machu Picchu not long ago, I'll ask him what he thinks. They researched the entire area before they went.

[Warph]

Interesting of course, but 14,000 years ago the climate could have been much different with trees and different peoples. They are assuming that nothing has changed in 14,000 years. I suspect we may be badly short changing the ability of those people to understand rock and fracture it much as the Egyptians did later. Also, who said the work was really that old, and is it really granite, not sandstone, which is very common there.  My nephew and girlfriend went to Machu Picchu not long ago, I'll ask him what he thinks. They researched the entire area before they went.

My son and his girlfriend were at Machu Picchu a couple of years ago.  They climbed this mountain where this tourist ad picture was taken. 



They were in S.A. for three weeks and one of those areas they covered was Puma Punku in Bolivia. 

They just left tuesday for Cancun and the Mayan Pyramids in the Yucatan. They'll be back Sept. 10th.

As for 14,000 yrs. ago.... maybe ol' Harvey here had something to do in helping to create those ruins you see:

[Warph]

          


No "B" Batteries, What's The Deal?


....that around the time of World War I, American battery manufacturers, the War Industries Board, and a few government agencies got together to develop some nationally uniform specifications for the size of battery cells, their arrangement in batteries, their minimum performance criteria, and other standards.

In 1924, industry and government representatives met again to figure out a naming system for all those cells and batteries they had just standardized. They decided to base it around the alphabet, dubbing the smallest cells and single-cell batteries "A" and went from there to B, C and D. There was also a "No. 6″ battery that was larger than the others and pretty commonly used, so it was grandfathered in without a name change.

As battery technology changed and improved and new sizes of batteries were made, they were added to the naming system. When smaller batteries came along, they were designated AA and AAA. These newer batteries were the right size for the growing consumer electronics industry, so they caught on. C and D batteries also found a nice in medium- and high-drain applications. The mid-size A and B batteries simply didn't have a market and more or less disappeared in the U.S..

While you typically won't see either A or B batteries on American store shelves, they're still out there in the wild. A batteries were used in early-model laptop battery packs and some hobby battery packs. B batteries are still sometimes used in Europe for lanterns and bicycle lamps. According to Energizer, though, their popularity is dwindling there, too, and they might be completely discontinued.

[Diane Amberg]

I think Harvey needs a good meal!  Uh,vegetarian that is. We enjoyed Chichan itza and Chac mool and all his spooky friends.The dzonot or cenotes were fascinating since all the rivers run underground, yet there is plenty of good water to be had.