Written on 3:13 AM by Mrudula
The Zodiac Killer is a serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s. His identity remains unknown. The Zodiac coined his name in a series of taunting letters he sent to the press. His letters included four cryptograms, three of which have yet to be solved.
Even though police investigated over 2,500 potential suspects, the case was never officially solved. There were a few suspects that stood out, but the forensic technology of the times was not advanced enough to nail any one of them conclusively.
This October, 1966 killing began a ghoulish series of murders that panicked the people of the San Francisco area. For years the Zodiac taunted the police with weird ciphers, phone calls, insulting and cryptic messages.
Before it was all over, this clever and diabolical killer changed the lives of eight people, only two of whom lived to tell the tale.
The Zodiac story began on a darkened road near Benicia, California, on the night of December 20, 1968, when a motorist discovered the lifeless bodies of two teenagers at “lovers’ lane” spot [View the crime scene photos]. Months later, a gunman attacked a second young couple in a public park miles away, and, after leaving the scene, he traveled to a payphone located just blocks from the Vallejo Police Department and dialed the number of the station. When the police dispatched answered, the caller spoke in a low, monotone voice, as if he were reading from a prepared script.
“I want to report a murder. If you will go one-mile east on Columbus Parkway, you will find kids in a brown car. They were shot with a nine-millimeter Luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye."
Investigators from Vallejo and Benicia realized that they were searching for the same killer and the bold, sinister phone call raised fears that the gunman would strike again. A teenage boy survived the shooting but was unable to help identify any possible suspects.
Twenty-six days later, three envelopes arrived at the offices of three Bay Area newspapers. Each envelope contained a handwritten letter and a piece of a coded message. The writer provided a list of details regarding the two shootings, and explained that the symbols formed a coded message that would reveal his identity. The letter ended with a warning, “If you do not print this cipher by the afternoon of Fry. 1st of Aug. 69, I will go on a kill rampage Fry. night. I will cruse around all weekend killing lone people in the night then move on to kill again, untill I end up with a dozen people over the weekend.” A crossed – circle symbol had been drawn at the bottom of the page.
Each of the newspapers complied with the demand to publish the cipher, and news of the gunman’s threats created fears that he would strike again. Experts and amateurs scrambled to decode the cipher while investigators sorted through hundreds of tips from helpful citizens. The deciphered message did not reveal the killer’s identity but the words did offer a chilling portrait of the author’s state of mind. “I like killing people because it is so much fun … I will not give you my name because you will try to slo(w) down or stop my collecting of slaves for my after life …”
When authorities expressed doubts concerning the writer’s claims, another letter arrived, and began with the words that would forever send chills throughout Northern California.
“Dear Editor – This is the Zodiac speaking. In answer to your asking about the good times I have had in Vallejo I shall be very happy to supply even more material.” The writer provided more details about the attacks and then took issue with some factual errors in news reports about his crimes.
Weeks passed and as the manhunt continued, the Zodiac moved north into the Napa Valley and California wine country, where he stabbed a young couple on the banks of Lake Berryessa. A survivor told investigators that the attacker had worn a black, squared hood with a white crossed circle over his chest. To prove he was responsible for the crime, the Zodiac used a black marker to draw a large crossed-circle on the door of Bryan’s car. Below his symbol, the killer listed the dates of the two shootings and added the notation, “Sept 27 69 6:30 by knife.”
At 7:40 pm, the Napa County Police Department received a call placed from a telephone booth located a few blocks away. Officer David Slaight listened as the caller said in a low, monotone voice, “I want to report a murder – no, a double murder. They are two miles north of park headquarters. They were in a white Volkswagen Karman Ghia.” Slaight asked the man to provide his location, but the voice only grew more distant as the caller replied, “I’m the one who did it.”
Investigators from Napa met with detectives in Vallejo and Benicia and compared notes but were unable to develop any solid leads. The Zodiac may have believed that the three law enforcement agencies were not up to the task and he invited the San Francisco police department to join in the hunt.
Twenty-nine year old cabdriver Paul Stine picked up the Zodiac on the night of October 11, 1969. Stine drove to a destination in a wealthy San Francisco neighborhood where the passenger shot him in the right temple [View a crime scene photo]. Fingerprints found inside the cab and on its exterior were photographed and collected. On the driver's side of the vehicle, police found fingerprints which appeared to contain traces of blood. Investigators believed that these fingerprints may have been left by the killer.
Three young witnesses watched the crime in progress from a house directly across the street and contacted police. The descriptions provided by the three young witnesses produced a composite sketch of the man seen exiting Stine’s cab. Police believed that Stine was the victim of a routine robbery until the Zodiac began to send scraps of the cabdriver’s blood soaked shirt to prove they were mistaken.
The letter ended with another terrifying threat of violence. “School children make nice targets I think I shall wipe out a school bus some morning just shoot out the frunt tire + pick off the kiddies as they come bouncing out.” Patrol cars and aircraft followed buses to and from schools and armed officers rode onboard for added protection. [View a CBS NEWS report about the Zodiac bus threat.} The Zodiac then sent another letter along with diagrams of a bomb he intended to plant along bus routes.
The ongoing mystery attracted the customary crackpots, wild tips, false confessions and hoax letters. Infamous defense attorney Melvin Belli entered the story during a televised phone conversation with a man claiming to be the Zodiac. [Watch Belli and the Zodiac imposter.] Police traced subsequent calls to Belli’s home and identified the crazed imposter as a patient in a mental hospital. As if to reclaim the publicity, the killer mailed a letter to Belli that included another blood soaked scrap of the cabdriver’s shirt to prove that he was the real Zodiac. Despite Belli’s public offer to help the killer, the real Zodiac never contacted the famous attorney again. [During one call to Belli's home, the Zodiac-imposter declared "Today's my birthday!". The so-called "Belli Birthday Call" has since become the subject of controversy.]
More letters contained more threats, bomb diagrams and coded messages. The Zodiac also announced his intention to change his way of collecting “slaves for the afterlife” by staging his crimes to appear to be “routine robberies, killings of anger and a few fake accidents.” [Watch a 1969 TV news report on the Zodiac's November letters.] The killer included long, rambling descriptions of his fantasies of torture along with selected passages from the Gilbert and Sullivan musical, The Mikado. Letters soon featured a box score which credited the Zodiac with an increasing number of victims followed by the notation “SFPD = 0” and the taunt, “I hope you have fun trying to figgure out who I killed.”
Given the killer’s apparent freedom to do as he pleased, one particular passage was difficult to refute. “The police shall never catch me because I have been too clever for them.” The failure to catch the Zodiac was a constant source of embarrassment for his chosen nemesis, the San Francisco police department. Each new letter became a liability as the psychotic pen pal wrote, “Hey blue pig, doesn’t it rile you to have your nose rubbed in your boo-boos?” and, “I have grown rather angry with the police for their telling lies about me.”
The Zodiac also demanded that the people of the Bay Area wear “some nice Zodiac buttons” bearing his chosen symbol, the crossed circle. When the public did not comply with his wishes, he wrote that he had “punished” them “by shooting a man sitting in a parked car.”
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Munnu
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Written on 3:12 AM by Mrudula
The Voynich manuscript is a mysterious illustrated book written in an indecipherable text. It is thought to have been written between 1450 and 1520. The author, script and language of the manuscript remain unknown.
By current estimates, the book originally had 272 pages in 17 quires of 16 pages each.[2] About 240 vellum pages remain today, and gaps in the page numbering (which seems to be later than the text) indicate that several pages were already missing by the time that Voynich acquired it. A quill pen was used for the text and figure outlines, and colored paint was applied (somewhat crudely) to the figures, possibly at a later date. There is strong evidence that at one point in time the pages of the book were rearranged into a different order
The manuscript first came to the attention of modern scholars in 1912 when Wilfrid M. Voynich (after whom it is now named) discovered it tucked away in the library of Villa Mondragone, a Jesuit college in Frascati, Italy. He purchased the manuscript and brought it with him back to America
In the 1970s Robert Brumbaugh, using a complicated decoding scheme, decided that the manuscript was either a medieval treatise on the elixir of life, or a sixteenth-century hoax.
Since then, a variety of theories about the manuscript have been suggested. In 1978 John Stojko argued that it was an account of an ancient civil war written in an ancient, vowelless form of Ukrainian. In 1986 Michael Barlow suggested that Voynich himself had written the manuscript as a hoax. In 1987 Leo Levitor theorized that it was an ancient prayer-book, offering repetitive meditations on the themes of pain and death. More recently, Jacques Guy has wondered whether it might not represent an ancient attempt to transcribe an east-Asian language, say Chinese or Vietnamese, into alphabetic form.
To this day the Voynich manuscript resists all efforts at translation. It is either an ingenious hoax or an unbreakable cipher. It is thought that the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft might have used the Voynich manuscript as the model for the fictional work, The Necronomicon, which he refers to in many of his stories
- Munnu
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Written on 3:11 AM by Mrudula
Since 1991, people in the Taos, New Mexico area have reported hearing an annoying, low-frequency hum, the cause of which has yet to be identified. Some residents of Taos are plagued by this machine-like sound that grinds away 24 hours a day, with only occasional respites. Some cannot sleep; others complain of headaches. Most people, however, cannot hear the hum at all.
Nevertheless, it is there. Instruments pick it up. In fact, they have even recorded a higher-frequency component that pulses between 125 and 300 cycles per second.
The cause of the hum is a mystery. One hint comes from the observation that the hum seems concentrated along the Rio Grande Rift, a fault that also runs into Texas and Colorado. One theory blames the hum on the fault's rock surfaces grinding against each other!
The hum is on the threshhold of human hearing - from about 20 to 20,000 hertz or cycles per second. Acoustic investigations have concentrated on low - frequency sounds between 33 and 80 hertz, but have failed to pinpoint the source of the strange sound. The sound has been described as low, grinding and pulsating, like a diesal truck idling in the distance. Explanations are as varied as the people who claim to hear the noise. Everything from a form of mild, contagious mass hallucination to possible secret electromagnetic warfare experiments being conducted at one of the high tech laboratories in the area are discussed as possible sources.
Yet Taos is not unique. Similar reports have been made in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Canada and many places in the United States, most recently in Indiana. Troubled hummers in England have even formed an organisation, the Low Frequency Noise Sufferers Association. The only certainty when dealing with the hum, is that some people hear it, while others do not. That is not to say that the noise isnt real, perhaps some peoples sense of hearing is more suseptible to the noise than others.
While a similar effect has been shown to occur with electric motors operating at certain frequencies, this does not appear to be the case in most of these situations.
- Munnu
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Written on 3:10 AM by Mrudula
The Mary Celeste is often described as the archetypal ghost ship, which was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean unmanned and under sail heading towards the Strait of Gibraltar in 1872. The fate of the crew is the subject of much speculation; theories range from alcoholic fumes to underwater earthquakes, along with a large number of fictional accounts.
She was built in 1861 as the Amazon at Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia, Canada and was the first large vessel built in this community. Her original name was "Amazon". She was 103 ft overall displacing 280 tons and listed as a half-brig. Over the next 10 years she was involved in several accidents at sea and passed through a number of owners. Eventually she turned up at a New York salvage auction where she was purchased for $3,000. After extensive repairs she was put under American registry and renamed "Mary Celeste".
The British brigantine Dei Gratia came upon the Mary Celeste sailing erratically midway between the Azores and Portugal on 4 December 1872. The crew could spot no one on deck threw their spy glass so the captain of the Dei Gratia dispatched a boarding party lead by 1st Mate Oliver Deveau. Deveau's team reported that the ship was fully provisioned and perfectly seaworthy yet mysteriously abandoned. A few clues indicated the crew of the Mary Celeste had quickly launched a small yawl for no apparent reason.
What ever has happened till today no one knows much aabout it.
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Munnu
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Written on 3:09 AM by Mrudula
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Written on 3:08 AM by Mrudula
The Count of St. Germain has been variously described as a courtier, adventurer, charlatan, inventor, alchemist, pianist, violinist and amateur composer, but is best known as a recurring figure in the stories of several strands of occultism – particularly those connected to Theosophy, where he is also referred to as the Master Rakoczi or the Master R and credited with near god-like powers and longevity.
Little is known of Count Saint-Germain's birth. He was said to be descended from an Alsatian Jew, a Portuguese Jew, a tax-gatherer in Rotondo, or the King of Portugal. Saint-Germain himself did not help to elucidate the enigma of his true identity. It has been also alleged, that he was the son of Prince Franz-Leopold Rakoczy (or Ragoczy) of Transylvania (1676-1735), or Juan Tomás Enríquez de Cabrera and Maria Anna von Neuburg (1667-1740), or Marquis de Rivarolo (1669-1749), or Sultan Mustapha II (1664-1703). Later he determined to take the name of Saint-Germain from the little town of San Germano, or from the holy brother, St. Germanus. Whoever he was, he was well educated, and at least for some decades he seemed relatively wealthy.
Several Theosophists claimed to have met Saint Germain in the late 19th or early 20th centuries:
* Annie Besant said that she met the Count in 1896.
* C. W. Leadbeater claimed to have met him in Rome in 1926 and gave a physical description of him as having brown eyes, olive colored skin, and a pointed beard; according to Leadbeater, "the splendour of his Presence impels men to make obeisance".[8] Leadbeater said that Saint Germain showed him a robe that had been previously owned by a Roman Emperor and that Saint Germain told him that one of his residences was a castle in Transylvania. According to Leadbeater, when performing magical rituals in his castle in Transylvania, Saint Germain wears "a suit of golden chain-mail which once belonged to a Roman Emperor; over it is thrown a magnificent cloak of Tyrian purple, with on its clasp a seven-pointed star in diamond and amethyst, and sometimes he wears a glorious robe of violet."[9]
* Guy Ballard, founder of the "I AM" Activity, claimed that he met Saint Germain on Mount Shasta in California in August of 1930, and that this initiated his "training" and experiences with other Ascended Masters in various parts of the world.[10]
* Edgar Cayce, the "Sleeping Prophet", was asked while in trance if Saint Germain was present. Cayce's reply was: "When needed." from reading # 254-83 on 2/14/1935
* Dorothy Leon, living author, has claimed to have had several encounters with Saint Germain and is an avowed disciple of his.
Saint-Germain's knowledge of diamonds, precious stones, and chemistry impressed his contemporaries; his dyeing skills were widely acknowledged. Graf Karl Cobenzl wrote in a letter in 1763, that he saw how St Germain made some experiments, "of which the most important were the transmutation of iron into a metal as beautiful as gold". Without any doubts, the physical goals of alchemy - the elixir of life and the Philosopher's Stone - fascinated deeply St Germain. The Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung has argued that alchemy also corresponds to psychology. "What the alchemists called 'matter' was in reality the unconscious self," Jung claimed. Deliberate mystification can be pure bluff to exploit the credulous or projection of unresolved inner tensions. St Germain was secretive about his past, he had several identities, and in his occult studies, he perhaps indirectly searched the truth of himself.
- Munnu
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Written on 3:07 AM by Mrudula
Elizabeth Ann Short was an American woman who was the victim of a gruesome and much-publicized murder. Nicknamed the Black Dahlia, Short was found severely mutilated, with her body severed, on January 15, 1947 in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, California. The murder, which remains unsolved, has been the source of widespread speculation as well as several books and film adaptations.
Elizabeth Short hailed from Medford, Massachusetts. She quit school at age 16 and became a drifter. During the last four years of her life, she floated from Massachusetts through California, through Florida through Indiana, and into Chicago where she boarded a train and rode to the Union Pacific station in Los Angeles. Soon after her 1946 arrival in LA, Elizabeth was tagged "the Black Dahlia." Her moniker was earned because of her raven locks, penchant for wearing black, intriguingly obsessive behavior and the release of Raymond Chandler's The Blue Dahlia as a motion picture.
The Black Dahlia murder has been a baffler. It is the most infamous unresolved homicide in LAPD history. But the solution to the Dahlia murder has been "there" for LAPD Homicide and the LA public for more than a half-century. This is a paradox with a simple explanation: the solution was shrouded in black symbolism, abstruse encryption, plus a plethora of reportage.
For over 50 years, the murder of the Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, captivated the interest of virtually everyone familiar with the case. Within this site are the details of the life of Elizabeth Short and her gruesome and premature death. Through the deciphering of clues intentionally left by her killer, the Black Dahlia's murderer is revealed, along with his twisted motives and methods.
The story of the unemployed 22-year-old waitress has inspired dozens of books, Web sites, a video game and even an Australian swing band. The quest to pinpoint her killer has become a hobby for generations of armchair detectives. And this fall, Hollywood will recast her tragic plight in a star-studded Black Dahlia movie.
The Los Angeles Police Department has all but given up hope of ever closing the Dahlia case; the department has more urgent crimes to investigate, and the killer has likely been dead for years. Yet, it is precisely the unsolved status of Elizabeth Short's murder that gives it such an enduring allure.
We need to emphasize here that the case is so cold, the information so musty and bungled, that it's difficult to get a lucid picture of Elizabeth Short's brief life, much less her grisly death. The Crime Library will not attempt to solve the Black Dahlia murder in these pages, but to simply relate Short's story based on the most unbiased, accepted facts available, including historical newspaper articles and law enforcement records, as well as contemporary literature.
- Munnu
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Written on 3:05 AM by Mrudula
Bermuda Triangle is the greatest modern mystery of our supposedly well understood world: a region of the Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico, where explanation. Also known as the Devil's Triangle, is a region of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean in which a number of aircraft and surface vessels have disappeared. Some people have claimed that these disappearances fall beyond the boundaries of human error or acts of nature.
The land was first seen by a sailor (Rodrigo de Triana), although the Admiral at ten o'clock that evening standing on the quarter-deck saw a light, but so small a body that he could not affirm it to be land; calling to Pero Gutiérrez, groom of the King's wardrobe, he told him he saw a light, and bid him look that way, which he did and saw it; he did the same to Rodrigo Sánchez of Segovia, whom the King and Queen had sent with the squadron as comptroller, but he was unable to see it from his situation. The Admiral again perceived it once or twice, appearing like the light of a wax candle moving up and down, which some thought an indication of land. But the Admiral held it for certain that land was near
With almost every case the same thing has happened. By the time concrete information is obtained, the story has lost its appeal, and no follow-ups ever find their way into the papers. I have tried to stay away, therefore, from relying on any newspaper accounts. These, unfortunately, have almost always been the exclusive source for any popular account of an incident, whether in a magazine or book, previous to this web site.
Many US warships are listed missing by the US Navy between 1780 and 1824, including the General Gates, Hornet, Insurgent, Pickering, Wasp, Wildcat and Expervier. Her disappearance in 1815 delayed the closing of the War of 1812. She carried the peace proposal on board.
And many more aircrafts were disappeared.
- Munnu
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Written on 2:59 AM by Mrudula
The Church of Satan was established in San Francisco California Walpurgis night April 30 1966, by Anton Szandor LaVey, who was the Church's High Priest until his death in 1997
History in their Words:
"Anton knew the date upon which the first Church of Satan must be established. It would have to be during the traditional night of the most important demonic celebration of the year, when witches and devils roam the earth, orgiastically glorifying the fruition of the Spring equinox: Walpurgisnacht, the night of April 30th—May 1st.
LaVey shaved his head as part of a formalized founding ritual, in the tradition of medieval executioners, carnival strongmen, and black magicians before him, to gain personal power and enhance the forces surrounding his newly-established Satanic order. It was the enactment of an allusion at the end of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Kubla Khan: an incantation rejecting the Holy Trinity and the spiritual life in favor of one devoted to Hell and material pursuits.
Shaving the head is also traditional to the Yezidi devil worshippers as a rite of passage that the emerging adept must perform. The razor for this rite is washed in the waters of Zamzam, the subterranean well of Islam said to be the point of origin for underground streams flowing under the Seven Towers of Satan. The caverns beneath the Towers are supposedly tributaries leading to the place of the Satanic Masters, known as Shamballah, or Carcosa. Thus, shorn of his locks, he leaves the world of the descendants of Adam behind him. To make the ritual complete, LaVey declared 1966 Year One, Anno Satanas—the first year of the reign of Satan.
The Council of Nine, following the dictates of the Nine Unknown, was established throughout the world. Many significant writers have obliquely referred to this mysterious cabal—Shakespeare, John Dryden, Talbot Mundy, Richard Johnson—an archetypal formation which is reflected in the nine members appointed to sit in positions of absolute authority on the United States Supreme Court. The new Age of Fire had been inaugurated, and though the ceremony on Walpurgisnacht, 1966, was a highly personal, private one, LaVey would soon feel the tremors it was to produce.
“We blended a formula of nine parts social respectability to one part outrage,” says Anton LaVey. “We established a Church of Satan—something that would smash all concepts of what a ‘church’ was supposed to be. This was a temple of indulgence to openly defy the temples of abstinence that had been built up until then. We didn’t want it to be an unforgiving, unwelcoming place, but a place where you could go to have fun.”
And thus was initiated two revolutions which have carried over into today: 1) the integration of magic and logic, and 2) a religion based on self-indulgence, carnality (here and now instead of there and then), and pleasure instead of self-denial. Other ego-affirming, human potential programs like EST, drew from the ground-breaking attitudes and techniques of the Church of Satan. "
Want to know more? Stay tuned :)
- Munnu
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Written on 2:49 AM by Mrudula
The Babushka Lady is a nickname for an unknown woman who might have filmed the presidential motorcade in Dealey Plaza during the John F. Kennedy assassination. She was called the Babushka Lady because she wore a headscarf similar to scarves worn by elderly Russian women or grandmothersShe appeared to be filming with an amateur movie camera.
Babushka Lady's scarf makes her stand out among crowd rushing up the Grassy Knoll, behind Jean Hill.
Babushka Lady remains standing as both couples (Brehms, and Jean Hill and Mary Moorman) near her go low to the ground.
No one till today found who she was.
- Munnu
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Written on 6:15 AM by Mrudula
The Shroud of Turin (or Turin Shroud) is a linen cloth bearing the image of a man who appears to have been physically traumatized in a manner consistent with crucifixion. It is kept in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, Italy. It is believed by many to be the cloth placed on Jesus of Nazareth at the time of his burial
The image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The striking negative image was first observed on the evening of May 28, 1898 on the reverse photographic plate of amateur photographer Secondo Pia who was allowed to photograph it while it was being exhibited in the Turin Cathedral. According to Pia, he almost dropped and broke the photographic plate from the shock of seeing an image of a person on it.[2][3]
The shroud is the subject of intense debate among some scientists, people of faith, historians, and writers regarding where, when, and how the shroud and its images were created. From a religious standpoint, in 1958 Pope Pius XII approved of the image in association with the Roman Catholic devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, celebrated every year on Shrove Tuesday. Some believe the shroud is the cloth that covered Jesus when he was placed in his tomb and that his image was recorded on its fibers at or near the time of his alleged resurrection. Skeptics, on the other hand, contend the shroud is a medieval forgery; others attribute the forming of the image to chemical reactions or other natural processes.
The image on the cloth has many peculiar and closely studied characteristicsPDF (114 KiB), for example, it is entirely superficial, not penetrating into the cloth fibers under the surface, so that the flax and cotton fibers are not colored; the image yarn is composed of discolored fibers placed side by side with non-discolored fibers so many striations appear. Thus the cloth is not simply dyed, though many other explanations, natural and otherwise, have been suggested for the image formation. Alone among published researchers, McCrone believed the entire image to be composed of pigment. However, this hypothesis was disproved after closer inspection showed that there was no more pigment particles on the image area than on the non-image area of the shroud.[citation needed] Other results have shown the image to be a discoloration, not a "coloration."
The shroud, however, has many defenders who believe they have demonstrated that the cloth is not a forgery, dates from the time of Christ, is of miraculous origin, etc. It is claimed that there is type AB blood on the shroud. Skeptics deny it. Blood has not been identified on the shroud directly, but it has been identified on sticky tape that was used to lift fibrils from the shroud. Dried, aged blood is black. The stains on the shroud are red. Forensic tests on the red stuff have identified it as red ocher and vermilion tempera paint. Other tests by Adler and Heller have identified it as blood.* If it is blood, it could be the blood of some 14th century person. It could be the blood of someone wrapped in the shroud, or the blood of the creator of the shroud, or of anyone who has ever handled the shroud, or of anyone who handled the sticky tape. But even if there were blood on the shroud, that would have no bearing on the age of the shroud or on its authenticity.
It is claimed that the cloth has some pollen grains [pdf format] and images on it that are of plants found only in the Dead Sea region of Israel. Avinoam Danin, a botanist from Hebrew University of Jerusalem claims he has identified pollen from the tumbleweed Gundelia tournefortii and a bean caper on the shroud. He claims this combination is found only around Jerusalem. Some believers think the crown of thorns was made of this type of tumbleweed. However, Danin did not examine the shroud itself. His sample of pollen grains originated with Max Frei who tape-lifted pollen grain samples from the shroud. Frei's pollen grains have been controversial from the beginning. Frei, who once pronounced the forged "Hitler Diaries" to be genuine, probably introduced the pollen grains himself or was duped and innocently picked up pollen grains another pious fraud had introduced (Nickell).
Danin and his colleague Uri Baruch also claim that they found impressions of flowers on the shroud and that those flowers could only come from Israel. However, the floral images they see are hidden in mottled stains much the way the image of Jesus is hidden in a tortilla or the image of Mary is hidden in the bark of a tree. The first to see flowers in the stains was a psychiatrist, who was probably an expert at seeing personality traits in inkblots (Nickell, 1994)
Danin notes that another relic believed to be the burial face cloth of Jesus (the Sudarium of Oviedo in Spain) contains the same two types of pollen grains as the Shroud and also is stained with type AB blood. Since the Sudarium is believed to havethe Sudarium of Oviedo existed before the 8th century, according to Danin, there is "clear evidence that the shroud originated before the eighth century." The cloth is believed to have been in a chest of relics from at least the time of the Moorish invasion of Spain. It is said to have been in the chest when it was opened in 1075. But, since there is no blood on the shroud of Turin and there is no good reason to accept Danin's assumption that the pollen grains were on the Shroud from its origin, this argument is spurious.
In any case, the fact that pollen grains found near the Dead Sea or Jerusalem were on the shroud means little. Even if the pollen grains weren't introduced by some pious fraud, they could have been carried to the shroud by anyone who handled it. In short, the pollen grains could have originated in Jerusalem at any time before or after the appearance of the shroud in Italy. This is not a very strong piece of evidence.
Moreover, that there are two cloths believed to have been wrapped around the dead body of Jesus does not strengthen the claim that the shroud is authentic, but weakens it. How many more cloths are there that we don't know about? Were they mass produced like pieces of the true cross, straw from Christ's manger, chunks of Noah's ark? That cloths in Spain and Italy have identical pollen grains and blood stains is a bit less than "clear evidence" that they originated at the same time, especially since there is clear evidence that the claim that they have identical pollen grains and blood stains is not true. But, even if it were true, it would be of little value in establishing that either of these cloths touched the body of Jesus.
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Munnu
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Written on 6:06 AM by Mrudula
Crop circles are patterns created by the flattening of crops such as wheat, barley, rapeseed (also called "canola"), rye, corn, linseed and soy. The term was first used by researcher Colin Andrews to describe simple circles he was researching. Although since 1990 the circles have evolved into complex geometries, the term "circle" has stuck. Various hypotheses have been offered to explain their formation, ranging from the naturalistic to the paranormal. Naturalistic explanations include man-made hoaxes or geological anomalies, while paranormal explanations include formation by UFOs. Many circles are known to be man-made,[6][7][8] such as those created by Doug Bower, Dave Chorley, and John Lundberg,[9] and a 2000 study into circle hoaxing concluded that 80 percent of UK circles were definitely man-made
In 1991, two men from Southampton, England announced that they had conceived the idea as a prank at a pub near Winchester, Hampshire during an evening in 1976. Inspired by the 1966 Tully Saucer Nests,[18] Doug Bower and Dave Chorley made their crop circles using planks, rope, hats and wire as their only tools: using a four-foot-long plank attached to a rope, they easily created circles eight feet in diameter. The two men were able to make a 40-foot (12 m) circle in 15 minutes.
The pair became frustrated when their work did not receive significant publicity, so in 1981 they created a circle in Matterley Bowl, a natural amphitheatre just outside Winchester, Hampshire - an area surrounded by roads from which a clear view of the field is available to drivers passing by. Their designs were at first simple circles. When newspapers claimed that the circles could easily be explained by natural phenomena, Bower and Chorley made more complex patterns. A simple wire with a loop, hanging down from a cap - the loop positioned over one eye - could be used to focus on a landmark to aid in the creation of straight lines. Later designs of crop circles became increasingly complicated.
Bower's wife had become suspicious of him, noticing high levels of mileage in their car. Eventually, fearing that his wife suspected him of adultery, Bower confessed to her and subsequently he and Chorley informed a British national newspaper. Chorley died in 1996, and Doug Bower has made crop circles as recently as 2004. Bower has said that, had it not been for his wife's suspicions, he would have taken the secret to his deathbed, never revealing that it was a hoax.[19]
Circlemakers.org, a group of crop circle makers founded by John Lundberg, have demonstrated that making what self-appointed cereologist experts state are "unfakeable" crop circles is possible. On more than one occasion such cereologists have claimed that a crop circle was genuine when the people making the circle had previously been filmed making the circle.[20]
Scientific American published an article by Matt Ridley,[21] who started making crop circles in northern England in 1991. He wrote about how easy it is to develop techniques using simple tools that can easily fool later observers. He reported on "expert" sources such as the Wall Street Journal who had been easily fooled, and mused about why people want to believe supernatural explanations for phenomena that are not yet explained. Methods to create a crop circle are now well-documented on the Internet.[17]
On the night of July 11-12, 1992, a crop-circle making competition, for a prize of several thousand UK pounds (partly funded by the Arthur Koestler Foundation), was held in Berkshire. The winning entry was produced by three helicopter engineers, using rope, PVC pipe, a trestle and a ladder. Another competitor used a small garden roller, a plank and some rope.
Gábor Takács and Róbert Dallos, both then 17, were the first people to be legally charged with creating a crop circle. Takács and Dallos, of the St. Stephen Agricultural Technicum, a high school in Hungary specializing in agriculture, created a 36-meter diameter crop circle in a wheat field near Székesfehérvár, 43 miles (69 km) southwest of Budapest, on June 8 1992. On September 3rd, they appeared on a Hungarian TV show and exposed the circle as a hoax showing photos of the field before and after the circle was made. As a result, Aranykalász Co., the owners of the land, sued the youngsters for 630,000 HUF (approximately $3000 USD) in damages. The presiding judge ruled that the students were only responsible for the damage caused in the 36 meters diameter circle, amounting to about 6,000 HUF (approximately $30 USD) and that 99% of the damage to the crops was caused by the thousands of visitors that flocked to Szekesfehervar following the media's promotion of the circle. The fine was eventually paid by the TV show, as were the students' legal fees.
Not everybody accepts that circles are man-made, believing instead that many designs are too perfect and that they lack signs of human interaction. Among these critics was British born astronomer Gerald Hawkins who, prior to his death, argued that some circles displayed a level of complexity and accuracy that would be difficult to recreate on paper, let alone in a field after dark.[17] In response, circle creating groups and proponents of the man-made hypothesis state that it is possible to create a complex design by marking radii and angles with rope, and to enter and to move about a field using landscape features and tractor trails in order to avoid leaving other marks.[22]
Had crop circles existed in the thirteenth century, they would have been attributed to Satan, who was said to have been responsible for many weird happenings as well as for many unweird things, such as the construction of Stonehenge and Hadrian's wall between England and Scotland. It was believed by many that the ancients could not possibly have accomplished such feats on their own. Today, Satan's power as an explanation for weird or wondrous things has been usurped by aliens.
- Munnu
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Written on 5:41 AM by Mrudula
Here's a quote from the Gospel of Philip -
And the companion of [the Savior is] Mary Magdalene. The [Savior] loved her more than all his disciples, and frequently kissed her on the [mouth]. The rest of [the disciples] [got close to her to ask]. They told him: "Why do you love her more than all of us?" The Savior responded and said: "Why do I not love you as I love her?" (Gospel of Philip 63-64).
The Bible say Mary was at the last supper. She "wiped their feet", that was a task of honor that the host or hostess of a party would do for the guests. You do in fact see this in other literature. So if that was true, then Mary, being the "feet washer", was a person of great importance at this meal. In fact it is sort of like "her meal" that she is laying out for her best friends and her true love. Given that information, it's not unusual to then extrapolate that she might have sat at the table with them ...
I gathered few more evidence from various places. Here they go..
SUGGESTIVE EVIDENCE
* The marriage of Jesus Christ is a taboo subject because most Christians regard it as an impious suggestion. They think this way because marriage implies sexuality, and sexuality is defiled in Christian dogma. A married Christ is rejected for theological reasons, not because of historical facts which may disprove the thesis.
* While the New Testament "appears" to be silent on the subject, it was not until late in the 2nd Century, that any Christian leader denied that Jesus Christ was married. Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria believed that a married Jesus was inconsistent with His role as the Savior of the world, not that marriage would have Him sinful, but rather, that His mission was too demanding and heavenly to allow Him the opportunity for marriage.
* All later references in the Patristic writings show the Church Fathers following the same pattern: they deny that Jesus was married based upon the supposed silence of the Scriptures and doctrinal problems which were inconsistent with the Church's dogma (e.g. a celibate priesthood, the ritual defilement of seminal emissions, etc.).
* There was a 2nd Century tradition among various heretical sects which taught that Jesus was married. Clement and others may have been reacting to those movements.
* Although he didn't say one way or the other, Irenaeus' Doctrine of Recapitulation supports the notion of a married Savior. With a style similar to the Druids, Irenaeus, another 2nd Century leader, taught that Jesus Christ symbolically entered every critical stage of human existence and sanctified it. Since family life, including sexuality, is central to our lives, it seems logically consistent with the mission of a Savior to redeem and sanctify this aspect of our experience, as well.
* In their dispute with Augustine, the Celtic Pelagians argued that the Atonement of Christ cancelled Original Sin. If Original Sin was, as Augustine argued, a sexually transmitted disease of the soul, then Christ has reversed the process and made it a transmitter of healing, health, and virtue.
* In keeping with the Creeds of the Church, the offspring of Christ would not have represented a "divine race". The Creeds teach that Christ had two natures: one human and one divine, without mingling and without confusion. Since procreation is a human function, we can reasonably say that the children of Jesus would have been just as human as any other human being.
INDIRECT EVIDENCE
* Jewish customs of Jesus' day required married Rabbis. Unmarried men were considered a curse to Jewish society. Jesus would not have had much credibility as a leader had He not been married. Although Jesus was a non-conformist and had many conflicts with Jewish tradition, His parents, Joseph and Mary, were not. The Bible says that they were careful to perfectly obey the laws of their people. It also says that Jesus was "subject unto them". Since Jewish culture practiced arranged marriages and early marriage, as well (a Jewish boy was marriageable at age 16), it is reasonable to assume that Jesus' parents would have performed their parental duties faithfully and arranged a bride for the young Jesus. There are 18 silent years in His life (12 - 30). The Gospel of John tells us that there were many other things which Jesus did which have not been recorded.
This point is important because it shifts the weight of presumption. Given the cultural milieu in which Jesus lived and the supporting Biblical evidence, the burden of proof lies with those who do not believe Jesus was married. They must show why Jesus and His parents would have been derelict in their civic responsibilities and not contracted a marriage.
* According to Josephus, descendants of the House of David felt a moral obligation to perpetuate their line, never knowing which one among their descendants would be the chosen Messiah. Jesus may or may not have known who He was, but regardless, He lived as a normal person until called by the ministry of John the Baptist.
DIRECT EVIDENCE
* Hippolytus, a Christian leader from the late 2nd Century, was followed by Origen in the 3rd Century in saying that the Song of Solomon was a prophecy of a marital union between Christ and Mary Magdalene. Although they believed Mary was symbolic of the Church, nevertheless, the notion presupposed a real, albeit a spiritual (meaning non-sexual), marriage between Mary and Jesus.
* There are hints scattered in the Gospels of a special relationship between Jesus and Mary. If she is the same Mary of Bethany in John 11, then we can explain why Martha arose to greet Jesus and not Mary. Some scholars say she was sitting shiva according to Jewish custom. "Shiva" was when a woman was in mourning. Married women were not allowed to break-off from their mourning unless called by their husbands. In this story, Mary does not come to Jesus, until He calls her.
· At the Resurrection, when Mary meets Jesus in the Garden, there is a degree of intimacy which one would expect between lovers, not friends.
· The Greek word for "woman" and "wife" is the same. Translators must rely upon the context in deciding how to translate it. Sometimes, the translation is arbitrary. When Mary is referred to as a "woman" who followed Jesus, it can just as easily be translated as "wife".
* The story of Mary with the alabaster jar anointing the feet of Jesus is cited by some scholars as the most direct witness to their marriage. It is in all four Gospels and was a story in which Jesus gave express command that it be preserved. This ceremony was an ancient one among many royal houses in the ancient world, which sealed the marital union between the king and his priestess spouse. We find it mentioned briefly in the Song of Solomon. Although we may not understand its significance, Jesus and Mary knew exactly what they were doing. To be the valid Messiah, He had to be anointed first by the Bride. They were by-passing the corrupt Jewish establishment.
There is more support for the marital status of Jesus. However, it involves a discussion of the Old Testament prophets which would be too tedious to undertake, here. It is important to realize, however, that belief in a married Jesus does not require any more faith than a resurrected Jesus. And if you know where to look, you can find just as much biblical evidence for both.
Please read this with an open mind it is rather interesting.
1) St. John, 2 chap., verses 2-8. "And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, they have no wine. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. Jesus saith unto them, fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. And he saith unto them, draweth out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast." Now at a Jewish wedding the guests cannot give orders. By Hebrew law and courtesy only the groom, the grooms mother, and the governer can give orders. The servants should have ignored Jesus's mother and Jesus. The groom should have been asked to allow them to do this and He would order the servants. For Jesus to do this before he became a well known miracle worker would have been unheard of. As well it is unlikely that Mary would have heard of the lack of wine before anyone else, again it would go against custom. But if Jesus was the groom and it was his wedding than this would have been perfectly alright. And throughout the entire chapter the groom is only asked by the governer why he hid the best wine until the end and to give it to the guests. So Jesus could be the groom at this wedding. It doesn't prove it but it definitely opens up the possibility. Jesus might not have been mentioned specifically as the groom because later when people wrote about Jesus they wanted him to appear pure and unmarried. But since they needed to show Jesus miracle they had to leave this part in. But they left it ambigous enough that no one would really question it.
2) Throughout the bible Jesus is called a teacher. By Hebrew law only married men may be teachers. So depending on how closely Jesus followed Hebrew law this could be a sign that Jesus was married. As for teaching people about religion again he would have to be married by Hebrew law. The moment any Jews heard Jesus wasn't married but was trying to teach them they'd all leave. UPDATE: I have found out through a response on this post and my own sources found out that to be a Rabbi a man has to be married. So while Jesus would not HAVE to be married, it would be considered bad form for Jesus to teach children. Now people have stated that Jesus didn't follow all the laws, and quite rightly stated that people were uncomfortable at FIRST with this. Now we can take this as meaning Jesus was never married and people just stopped caring. Or we can think that at first people were uncomfortable but something Jesus did shortly afterwards made them allow Jesus to continue teaching to the children. This could have been marriage. So we have a question mark here. Did the Jewish people just decide to ignore law and tradition for Jesus, a possibility. Or did Jesus get married and people didn't have a problem anymore. Like so much with the bible and religion in general it comes down to faith.
3) The most critical part comes about after Jesus is crucified and it shows us who Jesus may have been married to. St. Mark, Chap. 16, verse 1. "And when the sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him." Now by Hebrew law the ONLY women who can anoint a man are family members. For Mary Magdalene to even attempt to anoint Jesus would be unthinkable under Hebrew law, unless she was married to Jesus. So it seems much more likely through this one verse that Jesus and Mary were married.
Now I know the bible doesn't come right out and say Jesus was married. But if Jesus was known to be married would he be seen as pure as he is made out to be? It is very likely that Jesus was not acknowledged as being married because the writers of Jesus did not want it known. As many christians say the people who wrote about Jesus saw it from different perspectives and some were nowhere near Jesus when Jesus lived. So after the fact it would be easy to leave out certain parts that did not match up with what they wanted. And until some writing from Jesus or his disciples is allowed to come out of the vatican vaults there is always the possibility that some parts of Jesus life was left out by the known writers who were not close to Jesus.
The above is taken from Hierogamy & the Married Messiah which is now available. It is the most complete analysis of the "married Jesus" doctrine to date.
-
Munnu
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Written on 9:43 PM by Mrudula
For most people talking on a mobile phone, cooking dinner in the microwave or driving in a car is simply part of modern living in 21st century Britain. But completing any such tasks is impossible forDebbie Bird - because she is allergic to Cell Phones and Microwaves.
The 39-year-old is so sensitive to the electromagnetic field (emf) or 'smog' created by computers, mobile phones, microwave ovens and even some cars, that she develops a painful skin rash and her eyelids swell to three times their size if she goes near them. As a consequence, Mrs Bird, a health spa manager, has transformed her home into an EMF-free zone to try and stay healthy. 'I can no longer do things that I used to take for granted,' Mrs Bird said. "My day-to-day life has been seriously affected by EMF".
- Munnu
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Written on 9:40 PM by Mrudula
The Girl who collapses Every Timeshe experiences strong emotions Kay Underwood, 20, has cataplexy, which means that almost any sort of strong emotion triggers a dramatic weakening of her muscles. Exhilaration, anger, fear, surprise, awe and even embarrassment can also cause sufferers to suddenly collapse on the spot.
Kay, of Barrow-upon-Soar, Leicestershire (UK), who was diagnosed with the condition five years ago, once collapsed more than 40 times in a single day. She said: "People find it very odd when it happens, and it isn't always easy to cope with strangers' reactions. "
Like most cataplexy sufferers, Ms Underwood is also battling narcolepsy - a condition that makes her drop off to sleep without warning. Narcolepsy affects around 30,000 people in the UK and about 70 per cent of them also have cataplexy.
- Munnu
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Written on 9:38 PM by Mrudula
Chris Sands, 24, from Lincoln, hiccups as often as every two seconds - and sometimes even when he is asleep. He has tried a variety of cures, including hypnosis and yoga, but nothing has worked. Mr Sands thinks his problem stems from an acid reflux condition caused by a damaged valve in his stomach. "If the acid levels are severe enough they are going to do keyhole surgery and grab part of my stomach and wrap it around the valve to tighten it," he said.
Mr Sands, who is a backing singer in the group Ebullient, said the condition has hampered his career as he has only been able to perform four times. In the next couple of weeks --as of the day of the report--, doctors at Nottingham's Queen's Medical Centre will put a tube into his stomach to
monitor acid levels and decide if keyhole surgery is possible.
- Munnu
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Written on 9:34 PM by Mrudula
Meet Natalie Cooper, a 17-year-old teenager who has a mystery illness that makes her sick every time she eats anything. Well, almost anything. She can eat one thing that doesn't make her sick: Tic tac mint!
For reasons that doctors are unable to explain, Tic tacs are the only thing she can stomach, meaning she has to get the rest of her sustenance from a specially formulated feed through a tube.
- Munnu
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Written on 9:30 PM by Mrudula
That's the story of AJ, an extraordinary 40-year-old married woman who remembers everything.
McGaugh and fellow UCI researchers Larry Cahill and Elizabeth Parker have been studying the extraordinary case of a person who has "nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic" memory of her personal history and countless public events. If you randomly pick a date from the past 25 years and ask her about it, she'll usually provide elaborate, verifiable details about what happened to her that day and if there were any significant news events on topics that interested her. She usually also recalls what day of the week it was and what the weather was like.
The 40-year-old woman, who was given the code name AJ to protect her privacy, is so unusual that UCI coined a name for her condition in a recent issue of the journal Neurocase: hyperthymestic syndrome.
- Munnu
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Written on 9:28 PM by Mrudula
Teenager Ashleigh Morris can't go swimming, soak in a hot bath or enjoy a shower after a stressful day's work - she's allergic to water. Even sweating brings the 19-year-old out in a painful rash.
Ashleigh, from Melbourne, Australia, is allergic to water of any temperature, a condition she's lived with since she was 14. She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria - so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide.
-Munnu
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Written on 9:24 PM by Mrudula
Rhett Lamb is often cranky like any other 3-year-old toddler, but there's one thing that makes him completely different: he has a rare medical condition in which he can't sleep a wink.
Rhett is awake nearly 24 hours a day, and his condition has baffled his parents and doctors for years. They took clock shifts watching his every sleep-deprived mood to determine what ailed the young boy.
After a number of conflicting opinions, Shannon and David Lamb finally learned what was wrong with their child: Doctors diagnosed Rhett with an extremely rare condition called chiari malformation.
"The brain literally is squeezed into the spinal column. What happens is you get compression, squeezing, strangulating of the brain stem, which has all the vital functions that control sleep, speech, our cranial nerves, our circulatory system, even our breathing system," Savard said
- Munnu
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