Who knew -- I didn't -- that one of my favorite places on the Oregon coast, (Yachats) is home to sea monsters? Next time I'm out there I'll have to take a much closer look.
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| source: Bizarre Zoology blog |
In the beginning of things men were animals and animals men. ~ Algonquin saying
"For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons." ~ The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy
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| source: Bizarre Zoology blog |
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| image: public domain |
Giant Salamander sighted in Kyoto, Japan | The Daily Grail: While the residents of Kyoto may have been shocked to see a Giant Salamander out for a stroll (especially since, unlike other salamanders, they can't actually breathe out of water, so I hope he/she headed back into the river soon after), some 200km (125 miles) East in the Okayama mountains there is an annual festival held in celebration of the creature.
The village of Yubara Onsen has held its Hanzaki Festival for almost fifty years now. Hanzaki is the local name for the Giant Salamander which refers to the ancient belief that if the creature were cut in two, both halves would live and grow into a whole.
A procession takes place through the village every 8th of August. Two floats with gigantic models of Giant Salamanders - a black male and a red/brown female - are followed by singers and dancers.
Oregon Cows Are Tough - Black Bear Loses: A couple of evenings ago, an Eastern Oregon rancher went out to check his beef herd. He saw a very strange sight -- and was able to photograph an unusual battle between a black bear and some brave cows. The bear began to attack a cow and then the herd came to her aid. One cow in particular got especially aggressive and head-butted the bear right off its feet. Then, two cows sandwiched the bear between their heads. After that, the bear decided to flee and limped back into the woods.
Q: What type of ammunition do I need? --A: We only use high-velocity jacketed because soft, expanding rounds were bouncing off their thick skulls leaving the Sasquatch holding his head while he runs through the woods screaming in agony.It's a joke, a spoof, and not "real" but it just isn't funny. Sigh.
From a favorite blog of mine, Tony Morrill's Fortenia:
Forteania: 19th Century Chupacabras: While thumbing through one of my paranormal books the other night, I came across a familiar story. A group of sheep farmers were upset because something was attacking and killing their livestock. The creature was not, however, eating the sheep. According to witnesses, it was biting their jugulars and, apparently, draining them of blood. If this sounds familiar to you, hold your assumptions for just a second. The above the story comes not from Puerto Rico in 1995, instead Charle Fort relates the account in his book Lo! (which I of course read in The Book of the Damned) written in 1931. Fort tells readers:
In the month of May, 1810, something appeared at Ennerdale, near the border of England and Scotland, and killed sheep, not devouring them, sometimes seven or eight of them in a night, but biting into the jugular vein and sucking the blood. (Fortenia)Fortean (and UFO) events -- just when you think they're isolated, specific to a decade or era or location, you find they are not. As Morrill and other Fortean researchers have long pointed out, these events pop up in Fortean history, upsetting our ideas about why and how such anomalous episodes occur.
School District Seizes Lunches From 40 Elementary Students in Debt: As many as 40 students at Uintah Elementary in Salt Lake City had their lunches—which they'd already received from the cafeteria—seized and trashed by school authorities because their parents were behind on payments.
According to Jason Olsen, a Salt Lake City District spokesman, the child-nutrition department realized some students' families had outstanding balances on Monday, but the department's manager wasn't able to notify the school until after lunch had been served on Tuesday. So the department did what any humane, understanding person would do: they snatched the meals from the children and threw them in the trash.
William Fredrick Buchman Arrested After Police Find Up To 400 Pythons In His Home: A California elementary school teacher was arrested Wednesday after police discovered an estimated 300 to 400 pythons --both alive and dead -- in his Santa Ana home.
"Some [were] in boxes, some in crates and some crawling around," Santa Ana Police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna said, according to ABC Los Angeles.
If Called By the Cult of the White Panther, Don’t Anther | EsoterX: The Wyandott were not alone in their hierophanic experience of the white panther, in so far as they are rare, they represent a clear disjunction in the natural order. The Chippewa (also called the Ojibwe), an Algonquin group spread out around Lake Superior at the time (including Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ontario, and Quebec) refer to talking white panthers that acted as oracles, and had the power to condemn those who offended them to wander the earth as living skeletons. We do not hear of the rise of a white panther-specific cult among the Chippewa, but as one of the largest cultural groups of Native Americans across a wide geographic area, they no doubt felt a little less pressure from encroaching colonists and less competition from adjacent tribes.
Dead Cows Wash Up On Beaches In Denmark And Sweden: COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The carcasses of almost a dozen cows have washed ashore in Denmark and Sweden, puzzling police in the Scandinavian countries.
Since Dec. 29, eight dead cows have been found by people strolling on beaches in southern Sweden and three in Denmark. All the animals had parts of their ears cut off. Investigators suspect this was done to remove the identification tags used to trace the cows.
Danish and Swedish police said Thursday the cows were probably dumped from a ship in the Baltic Sea. They are trying to pinpoint which livestock transports have passed through the waters separating the two countries in recent weeks.
Conjoined gray whale calves discovered in Baja California lagoon; find could be a first | GrindTV.com: Scientists in Mexico’s Laguna Ojo de Liebre, or Scammon’s Lagoon, on Sunday discovered conjoined gray whale calves, and it could be the first documented case of Siamese twin gray whales.
Conjoined twins have occurred in other species, notably fin, sei and minke whales. However, an online search and a search of the database at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County did not reveal published instances of conjoined gray whale twins.
William Henry's Revelations | William Describes a Bizarre Horror Show at a UFO Conference | unknowncountry: William Henry tells a horrifying story of imprisonment of the audience at the Contact in the Desert Conference August 9--11. He says that David Wilcock came with a bodyguard, and that Steven Greer arrived with a whole group of bodyguards, who proceeded to lock the doors and allow nobody in our out during his presentation. If this happened, it was illegal, and we urge all UFO conference attendees to demand that they not be imprisoned during any performance for any reason.
DRUNK WASPS: Just When You Thought They Couldn't Get Worse: Humanity's worst fear has been realized: wasps are getting drunk. And they're not fun drunks, either.
The British Red Cross is warning citizens of a record number of wasps in the UK that are out of a job. That is, their queens are fully supplied with nectar, leaving worker wasps to do nothing but laze around and drink fermenting fruit.
The Independent reported that as winter approaches, wasps are becoming bolder and angrier as they get older. And now these retirees are getting wasted and stinging with more frequency.
Here Be Dragons: The Evolution of Sea Monsters on Medieval Maps - Yahoo! News: WASHINGTON — The iconic sea serpents, mermaids and other mythical creatures found on world maps from medieval and Renaissance times splash to life on the pages of a new book.
Chet Van Duzer's "Sea Monsters on Medieval and Renaissance Maps" (British Library, 2013) charts the evolution of the mythical creatures that adorned atlases from the 10th century through the 17th century. Cartographers used the beastly art to illustrate mysterious, unexplored regions of the globe and the possible dangers of seafaring.