Recently in Forteana Category

Scotland: Strange things are afoot at Prattle Towers. Last night I set up the Solstice Everblack and stepped back to take a photograph. When I downloaded the photo from the camera, I spotted something I hadn't noticed: Cthulhu Himself peering through the window! (click on the image to see the large version)

The likeness is unmistakable. Heretics might claim it's really the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but look - there's no attempt to hide an essentially tentacled nature here. All those people who believe that Jesus can appear in a plank of wood, or that the Virgin Mary would manifest in the form of toast will have to admit, this is the real thing. They'd better bow down to Cthulhu and accept their inevitable doom, for the evidence is undeniable.

Today's fabulous offer is not, as it might seem at first, an umbrella which was seen by Jesus himself. The seller of Umbrella Jesus Image Seen Worldwide Featured In Book simply needs to win an auction for some punctuation.

Up for auction I have a truly AMAZING item. This is an umbrella with the image of Jesus Christ on the cross. I have had this umbrella for many years and some how pictures of it that I had on my computer leaked onto Youtube. I do not know how but the author of the new book Look It's Jesus Amazing Holy Visions in Everyday Life saw them and contacted me. He wanted more pictures and permission to use them in this new book he was working on. I gave him my permission and in exchange he sent me an autographed copy of the book when it was released which you can see from the picture. (THE BOOK IS NOT INCLUDED IN THIS AUCTION).

The editor of Entertainment Weekly loved Look! It's Jesus! so much that she put it in the Jan. 22, 2010 issue.

I will not tell the story of when and how I found the umbrella because it is all featured in the book. Which is a very interesting book by the way. But it is an interesting story.

Again this is the actual umbrella that is featured in this book as "Umbrella Jesus". This is not a man-made item or a scam. I even have the original picture I sent to the publisher on a disc somewhere and if I find it I will send it along with the item but once you see the umbrella you will see that it is the real deal.

It is hard to see from the pictures but looking at the umbrella, which is worn all the way around, the one side you can clearly see Jesus with his arms spread and his legs crossed and you can see his head bowing down with hair and a beard.

I would not recommend trying to use this umbrella because it is older and has some wear but it is a truly amazing item.

This item has truly been a blessing to me and I hope it will be a blessing to you.

OWN A PIECE OF HISTORY!!!!!

I have to admit, I cannot clearly see Jesus. I can clearly see a pair of nicely rounded buttocks framing a rather well-used arsehole, though.

Well, the comments might be working, or they might not be (previewing first definitely does work), and regardless, they look odd. Search definitely isn't working, but here are a few stories to keep you occupied while I try and fix things:

• One of the day care abuse cases from the 80s has been resolved as Bernard Baran wins his appeal after 21 years in prison for a crime which never happened. Background information at freebaran.org.


• Virgin Mary spotted in bird shit.


• Israeli Supreme Court rules in favour of a Christian who had Kosher certification removed from her bakery due to her having the wrong set of superstitions.

Iraq: Recent weeks have seen reports of strange animals around Basrah.

For over a month now, people in Basrah have been circulating rumors about a strange, bear-like deadly creature that attacks people at night with its strong claws. Locals in rural areas around Basrah claim it has killed three people and injured six others, and that it usually pounces on its victims as they are sleeping outdoors during hot summer nights, when electric power outages are common. Farmers at Garmat Ali, Abu Skheer, Jisr and Shikhatta were so alarmed, they assigned guarding duties at night to prevent its attacks, the Nahrain website and Radio Sawa reported last week...

The animal is known locally as the Garta or 'the muncher,' and mothers in Basrah used to tell scary stories about the Garta to their children so they would not wander out alone at night. Old families in Basrah believe the animal brings bad luck because it is mostly found in cemeteries at night. The unusual phenomenon, however, is their sudden appearance in large numbers near the city and their increasingly aggressive behavior.

Rumours are circulating that British troops have deliberately brought the creatures, or their eggs, into the city as a means of spreading chaos. Some of the animals have been killed, and are believed to be the indigenous Hog Badger.

Rumors of Strange Creatures Abound in Basrah—IraqSlogger, 6th July 2007.

United States: Psychological research conducted at the University of Missouri-Columbia has shown a correlation between mood and credulity. In particular, being in a good mood correlates with believing any old bollocks.

Laura King, professor of psychological sciences in the College of Arts and Science, along with a faculty member from Johns-Hopkins University, tested the notion during a series of interesting studies that examined how mood and intuition can affect a person's beliefs - even under the most unique circumstances and scenarios.

When you're in a good mood and more intuitive, you're open minded, creative and engaged in what appears to be reality, King said. You make non-rational associations.

The research investigated phenomena such as UFO and ghost sightings, sympathetic magic and cooties. So, next time a fundie tells you how great their imaginary friend makes them feel, you know what it is.

Good Moods Spark Overly Credulous Beliefs, Study Finds—Research at MU, 1st June 2007.

UFOs are in the news again. First up is a lump of black rock found near Seattle, which some claim fell from an alien spaceship, and others claim came from a B-25 which crashed while carrying an alien spaceship. Possible alien stone found near Seattle—Earth Times, 24th April 2007; Is strange rock from UFO or just a piece of poppycock?—Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 22nd April 2007

Then there's a magic mountain in Argentina, where UFOs are said to gather, and which is claimed to have healing powers. But its special effects can only be felt if you know how to kid yourself: Books about the Uritorco are available in several languages because the hill's positive forces cannot be felt without some basic knowledge of its "spirituality reactor," a vendor explains behind a thick cloud of perfumed smoke rising from huge joss sticks. The languages available are clearly all dialects of Bollocks. Argentine magic mountain attracts UFO- and esoteric freaks—Jurnalo, 24th April 2007.

Finally we learn that Mick Jagger claims to have had a UFO encounter in the 1960s: In 1968 he went camping in Glastonbury with his then girlfriend, singer Marianne Faithful, and encountered a rare, luminous cigar-shaped mothership. Around the same time Mick had a UFO detector installed at his British estate. The alarm kept on going off whenever he left home, indicating the presence of strong electromagnetic activity in the immediate area. Of course, this all took place in the late 60s—a time when rock musicians never, ever took drugs. Sir Mick Jagger had close encounter with aliens in the 60s—LondonNet, 23rd April 2007.

• United States: Proctor and Gamble sues after Satanism myth re-emerges. Procter & Gamble Suing UT Co. For 'Satan' Remarks—KUTV, 6th March 2007.
• United Kingdom: Alleged victim in navy rape case admits her 'memories' of the attack were recovered by a therapist. Sailor 'recalled rape in therapy'—BBC News, 7th March 2007.
• Uganda: Man who blamed witchcraft for a series of deaths caused by contaminated alcohol dies after consuming contaminated alcohol. Waragi kills one in Wakiso—New Vision, 8th March 2007.
• United States: Fear of ghosts causes vandals to choose to vandalise in broad daylight. Not surprisingly, they are seen and caught. Vandals did in by fear of legendary ghost—Herald-Citizen, 8th March 2007.
• England: Airliner spotted over Burnley. UFO flap ensues. UFO spotted above Burnley?—Burnley Express, 7th March 2007.
• United States: Teacher claims she was fired because other staff thought she was a witch. Lawsuit brings religion, witchcraft from class to court—CNN, 8th March 2007.
• United States: What is heterosexuality. What causes it? Origins of Heterosexuality—Box Turtle Bulletin, 8th March 2007.

A handful of stories from the last few days which I was too lazy to write about at the time:

• Teachers get advice on how to spot signs of ritual abuse—The Guardian, 2nd February 2007. Note the word being repurposed to mean the abuse of children by Christians who believe the child to be possessed or a witch. Many of the signs are a bit crap, and others would apply to more mundane forms of child abuse too.
  
  
• Brought to book: the poo lady's PhD—The Guardian, 3rd February 2007. Ben Goldacre find Gillian McKeith's PhD thesis:

  There are lots of grand statements about research, with nice superscript numbers relating to references in the back. But when you chase to the back of the book to see what these academic documents are, they include such august periodicals as Delicious, Creative Living, Healthy Eating, and my favourite: Spiritual Nutrition and the Rainbow Diet.
  
  Some of it is plainly absurd. As we get older, she explains, the levels of RNA/DNA decrease. Okay. If you do not have enough RNA/DNA, she goes on, you may ultimately age prematurely. Stress can deplete your DNA, but algae will increase it. And that's not all. Chlorophyll within the algae is a powerful oxygen generator for human beings. Back to GCSE Biology: it'll only make oxygen if there's light inside me, Gillian ...

  I found You are What you Eat frustrating and full of errors—it cited the safe drinking levels which were revised upwards in the early 1990s, for example. There are some good recipes in there, but often they are made needlessly complicated, and use exotic ingredients which would put it out of the price range of mere mortals.
  
  
• New Conspiracy: Israeli Genocide Against Lebanese — With Poison Balloons—The MEMRI Blog, 1st February 2007. This sort of panic is well recorded, and has a long history. There are examples of similar panics during the First World War, but this one seems to have the added legs of organisations willing to exploit it for political reasons.
  
  
• An indictment that the liberal left is oblivious to—The Guardian, 3rd February 2007, isn't on the web site, presumably due to intense embarrassment about the ungrammatical title. Oliver Kamm alleges that a mysteriously monolithic liberal left puts the rights of religious organisations over that of the individuals they oppress:

  In the past century, material betterment and the steady diminuation of discrimination advanced progressive goals. Much of the left have [grr...—F.] yet to come to terms with this achievement. At the extreme, some who were once on the left have adopted the language and outlook of the right. They argue for what by any objective standards are reactionary positions. These include promotion of religious obscurantism in place of secularism; segregation of the sexes at public events; abridgement of free speech in deference to the sensibilities of those who claim themselves victims of Islamophobia; and, most pernicious, the resurrection in political debate of some highly traditional motifs of anti-semitic conspiracy theory.

  If you can get yourself to the library, it's on page 31.
  
  
• Tolerating intolerance is still this country's besetting sin—The Guardian (Comment Is Free), 4th February 2007. More comment on a related matter to the above.
  
  
• Muslims are now getting the same treatment Jews had a century ago—The Guardian (Comment Is Free), 2nd February 2007. One major difference, which is mentioned, but not dwelled upon, is that 19th century radicals-who-happened-to-be-Jewish were not fighting to impose Judaism on the populace as a whole, nor were they the ones wearing traditional Jewish dress as they had pretty much rejected religion. The tiny minority of violent Islamist fundamentalists claim to be fighting for their faith.

United States: Ah, the Weekly World News, such a wonderful publication bringing us exciting tales from all over the universe. Recently we were told of an interesting development of the cattle mutilation theme.

It was as if someone had taken a scalpel to the takeout box, Weald said of his mutilated order of steamed tofu. Neighboring containers of soy sauce and low-calorie dressing were unharassed.

High levels of radiation were found in the freezer, so the Weekly World News asked a suitably anonymous expert for their opinion.

However, NASA researchers believe that the tofu mutilators' origin may be otherworldly.

There have been increased reports of crop circles in soybean fields, and of UFO sightings near the star Vega, a NASA source revealed.

So there you have it - it was space vegans. Another story from a couple of weeks earlier, Health Food Stores Particularly Vulnerable to Alien Attack, supports this hypothesis.

Tofu Mutilations Blamed on Aliens from Vega—Weekly World News, 4th December 2006 (via drieux).

Scotland: Pictish symbol stones have been the subject of much debate over the years, with many hypotheses put forward to explain their unique iconography. Stan Hall has come up with possibly the most surprising one, suggesting that the Newton Stone in Aberdeenshire depicts a planetary catastrophe, and that something was around to witness it.

I recognised that on the Newton Stone it shows two planets breaking away from each other…The double disc and z-rod pictographs…record for posterity the actual birth of Jupiter from Saturn.

Hall believes that this break-up of Saturn — which must have been an extraordinary cosmic moment — has been recorded in the myths of all ancient people.

The Greeks talk of the night of the falling stars — all major civilisations have records of major interplanetary catastrophes. They're found in old nursery rhymes, which have found to be Sumerian, like 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle' which shows the planets rushing together.

But whilst Hall believes that our mytho-history records these turbulent disruptions, he is unsure whether humans would have been around to witness the events depicted. Which leads to Hall to question who first set down the information? Just who might have been around to see the birth of Jupiter?

If you are even slightly familiar with the contents of Chariots of the Gods, you can guess who.

Out of this world solution to a Scottish standing stone—The Scotsman, 28th November 2006 (via Warren Ellis).

Either there's a sub-editor with a sense of humour, or an incompetent one at work here: ICE arrests 15 aliens in Roswell working for U.S. military contractor.

Today's must-have bargains are more examples of over-active imaginations at work. First up is JESUS FACE ON A LOG christian bible catholic religious. We are urged PLEASE HELP HIT THE PULSE " CLICK WATCH IT NOW".

PLEASE CLICK ON YOUR WATCH IT NOW TO GET IT ON THE PULSE

This is the way i found it in the desert. This log is not touched painted or anthing like that i cant believe it. Its a weird story me and my kid were in the desert and i was talking to him about a problem we as a family were having, around a camp fire. And my kid said ask God. 10 second lateri was picking up a log with JESUS on it

Im not a very religious person, But my kid is. The prayer was answered and the log needs a new home. If your prayer is answered pass it on after.

PLEASE CLICK ON YOUR WATCH IT NOW TO GET IT ON THE PULSE

Bid a penny at a time. I promise this is real and not like some piece of toast with the big man grilled into it

It's the bit on the right of the picture, rather than the side that looks like the conventional representation of Jesus. Bidding is at $1.01 (US) right now, but there's another 9 days to go. A little more expensive are these Images Of Mother Mary & Christ. They are presumably not of interest to fundies, as this pair of masterpieces was apparently created 210,000,000 years ago.

Images Of Mother Mary and Christ in a 210 million year old rock. READ EVERTHING VERY CAREFULLY. 1) ONE OF A KIND. 2) IT IS ORGINAL) 3) ESTIMATED @ 210 MILLION YEARS OLD. 4) ONLY SERIOUS BIDDERS ONLY PLEASE. 5)YOU WILL EXCEPT THE C.O.D. CONDITIONS, NO IF ANDS OR BUTS.) THIS IS ORIGINAL AND MADE BY MOTHER EARTH AND ALL SEE MOTHER MARY AND HER BACK SIDE OR MOTHER MARY AND HER SON JESUS CHRIST. I WISH THE BEST TO ALL BUT MOST OF ALL THE WORLD MUST SEE THIS. GOOD LUCK.

location found in Cerro Cuadrado, Patagonia, Argentina

Age: Jurassic (Approx. 210 Million Years Ago)

WILL CONSIDER A SERIUS BEST OFFER

I've turned the photograph through 90 degrees so you can easily see what miraculous object is worth the US $1,000,000.00 (US) Buy It Now price.

You know, you might be wandering down the street, and you can't be sure, but you think there might be aliens in the area. Well, you can now clarify the matter with help from India Daily's simple experiment to find out if an extraterrestrial UFO is in your vicinity .

If you really want to know if an extraterrestrial UFO is really near you, look at the animals and yourself. It is now scientifically proven that super high intensity of electromagnetic flux makes all living beings depressed. Our living soul is electromagnetic energy and it cannot tolerate an influence of an external very high intensity of electromagnetic flux that is uncontrolled by our soul. So all living beings become depressed and the thinking process gets difficult in the presence of extraterrestrial UFOs. When you find all animals are lethargic and you also feel the same, the possibilities are very high that one or more UFOs are near by.

A simple experiment to find out if an extraterrestrial UFO is in your vicinity —India Daily, 5th February 2006.