No lindorm in this one

 

No deer were harmed
when generating this picture!

"Vilda Småland" is a Swedish nature documentary only available for viewers in Sweden at SVT Play. Småland is a region in southeastern Sweden. Over 100 years ago, a maverick ethnologists actually claimed that the dragon-like lindorm was a real cryptid living somewhere in the Smålandese forests but, alas, nobody took him seriously! The real wildlife in the region in question is featured in this production. 

I admit that I got a bit bored after a while, since most of the docu is about deer. But sure, they show three different species, so if Cervidae is your main interest in life and you live within the borders of our kingdom, I suppose you´ll get your treat. Other animals shown include white-tailed eagles (munching on a dead deer!), whooper swans, grebes, the capercaillie, foxes, badgers, boars and lynxes. Weirldy, the sound made by the lynx sound like dog barks?! 

While it´s kind of interesting to watch animals you *almost* see when out strolling, the deer aspect soon got to me. But then, I´m not a hungry lindorm, so there´s that, I suppose!

 

You can´t make a monkey out of me

 

Nice try, cladistician!

A propos an old creationist tune and the utterly infuriating character of cladistic terminology. 

So humans are apes...or are we australopithecines? Apes are monkeys, butterflies are moths, and soon all insects will be crustaceans. And yes, all land-lubbing vertebrates are really lobe-finned fish. Not sure why rabbits aren´t treeshrews, but I´m sure research is ongoing. 

At least in Swedish, the apes (as in chimps, rillas, orangs, gutsick gibbons and the siamang) can bask in human glory, and I really do mean Homo (pardon my Latin). Per Wikipedia, Hominidae is called "människoapor" (human-apes or man-apes) while Hominoidea is called "människoartade apor" (human-like apes). Note that both categories also include Homo itself. 

I´m sure Jacko down at the zoo loves to be called human-like (sounds almost teleological), but alas, if Anatomically Modern Män is amused, could be another thing entirely. After all, humans aren´t just *like* humans, they in fact *are* shmucking humans. 

Time to put an end to the reign of autistic nerds in science, or what?    

Life on the edge...or just another Tuesday?

 

"Wild Scandinavia: Life on the Edge" is the first part of a three-part BBC nature documentary about...wait for it...Scandinavian wildlife. It deals with the Scandinavian coasts and features the Stockholm Archipelago, the sand dunes of Jutland, Norwegian fjords and the Arctic coast. 

Perhaps good if you never seen any Scandinavian animals before, but personally, I recognized most of the species shown: the grey seal, the white-tailed eagle, killer whales, sea otters, puffins and so on. But sure, the various marine invertebrates were suitably disgusting. I don´t think I want to swim in Norwegian territorial waters! 

In a later episode, they cheat and take the viewer to Iceland and Svalbard, which are not part of Scandinavia as the term is usually understood in Sweden, Norway and Denmark. 

Could be of some interest on a boring February evening. As long as you know that the wildlife shown is far, far away... 

Shaken but not stirred

JMG has an idea about the Voynich Manuscript: 

<<<<

Strda221, it’s a hoax. A couple of years ago, while doing research on the career of Sidney Reilly (real name Zygmund Rosenblum), one of the great international spies of the early 20th century, I ran across a reference to the Voynich manuscript in relation to a ring of document forgers who manufactured fake historic documents as well as more mundane items such as fake passports. 

Having carefully examined a facsimile of the manuscript, I’ve come to think of it as one of the masterpieces of the forger’s trade, the Mona Lisa of fake manuscripts.

<<<<

New Light

 

Apparently, the Jehovah´s Witnesses have gradually been changing their doctrines the last couple of years or so. So far, the most notorious change has been the permission for male members to have beards, while female JW´s are allowed to wear leggings?! Dude. 

However, other and perhaps more substantial theological changes have recently been made, as well. The video above (from an "apostate") was uploaded just the other day. The previous position of the JW´s was that non-JW´s who die before the Second Advent won´t be resurrected and hence will stay dead, while non-JW´s who are alive at that time will be killed by Jesus (that is, the Watchtower Society are "annihilationists" - non-believers are annihilated rather than sent to Hell forever). Suddenly, the Jehovah´s Witnesses take a more agnostic position on whether or not non-believers/non-members can be resurrected. They point to a Bible verse in which Jesus says that towns rejecting his gospel will be treated worse on Judgement Day than even Sodom and Gomorrah. But how can that be, since these two notorious dens of sin were destroyed by the Lord in consuming fire, together with all the inhabitants? To the Watchtower Society, this opens up the possibility that some of the Sodomites might nevertheless be resurrected!

But there´s more. Apparently, the Watchtower organization previously took the position that only those who joined before the Great Tribulation could be saved. Those who realize the truth only when the Tribulation has already started (or is just about to start?) will burn together with the unrepentant sinners. However, the most recent issue of Watchtower magazine suddenly declares the opposite: it´s possible to join and be saved even during the Tribulation. "Unrepentant apostates" will be annihilated, but that could imply that repentant ones will be saved - in other words, people expelled from the JW ranks could perhaps return to the fold during the last days. 

In a cult-like organization like this one, changes like these will be uncritically accepted by a large portion of the membership...but not by everybody. Expect defections and splits in the near future, as both "moderates" and the super-orthodox leave the fold. 

It´s interesting to note that Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the original Watchtower Society whose ideas were discarded by the epigones, actually believed that everyone would be resurrected and given a second chance to accept Jehovah. In other words, Russell was really a universalist. But perhaps it´s too much to ask that the Brooklyn leadership will take a deep dive and actually restore Russell´s strange new gospel. 

At least they can have beards or leggings...

 

Fascism and video games

Two comments by somebody named Karl Grant at JMG´s blog Ecosophia, concerning a recent Swedish video game... 

>>>>

Also something real odd happened in pop culture these last couple of weeks. Arrowhead Game Studios, a small Swedish video game developer, released a game called Helldivers 2 which promptly blew up in popularity. The game sold over 1 million copies in just three days; soon the servers handling the game’s multiplayer functionality were overloaded. The game’s popularity has been spreading like wildfire ever since. The premise of the game is that your character-a helmeted, masked and therefore faceless soldier- is part of an elite paratrooper unit, the Helldivers, and is pretty much fighting a for a science fiction version of George W. Bush’s government.

And I mean that quite literally. You are invading the planets of a insect alien species to take their oil and spread “freedom and democracy” to their people. You are also attacking a rogue colony of cyborgs, named Cyberstan of all things, because their leaders are developing weapons of mass destruction. You got a senator named John W. Killjoy who talks about seizing WMDs from aggressive aliens and preventing them from being “too advanced” along with a general named Cowel Pollin.

The thing is Bush has been out of office for the last 16 years. About half the people playing this game were still in elementary school when he left office and the other, older, half includes a lot of veterans of the War on Terror. You wouldn’t think an science fiction send up of his presidency were you play a soldier fighting for a sci-fi George W. Bush and Dick Cheney would be the most popular video game in the world right now but it is.

Any thoughts on why that might be?

>>>>

I understand that but the fans of the game are not treating it as a mockery. Quite the opposite, they are openly and unironically embracing this science fiction version of George W. Bush’s America which the creators of the game dubbed Super Earth. So much so that a lot of Democratic aligned media is having a major freak out about it. For example, NBC just put this article out today:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/helldivers-2-fascism-satire-debate-rcna140653

And that is what I find interesting, and a little odd here, is that a bunch of young men are openly embracing a science fiction repackaging of the Bush Admin and the mainstream media is treating the game as a cultural threat which seems to be increasing the game’s popularity. This is not a healing feedback loop; this is an escalating culture war feedback loop.

>>>>>

Here is the NBC article, in case the link in the quote doesn´t work:  

A video game has reinvigorated a long-running debate on fascism and satire

Leap year

 

Yes, it´s a leap year. Those strange years when February has 29 days instead of the usual 28. Not that it means much, but there you go.

Imagine being born on February 29... 

Climate *science* sensitivity

 

You preach it, mama. Sabine Hossenfelder doubles down on the topic of climate models, arguing that the best models show the climate crisis to be *much worse* than expected. Many climate scientists, meanwhile, deny this. 

But why would they do that? No idea, but here is a guess: climate models can´t be *too* alarmist for reasons of politic. If they are, passivity or "mitigation" (or even "after us, the Deluge") are the anticipated political responses. So climate models have to be "just right" in terms of political alarmism, otherwise no action or the "wrong" kind of action might be the result. Imagine if it could be proven that all climate change is natural and outside the jurisdiction of humanity. Obviously, that could lead to other types of politics than the ones we currently endure. 

Another reason might be fear that if some models turn out to be wrong (no matter in what direction), *all* models will be questioned by climate change denialists and politicians trying to win their votes. Hence, the outlayers must be hushed up or quashed.

Or maybe the climate scientists are hallowed saints of Objectivity and Neutrality, and therefore Obviously Right, who knows. You be the judge, citizen.    

Unsuspending

 

Look who´s back...

Marianne Williamson "unsuspends" her presidential campaign

Sunshine state

 

Even the researchers themselves admit that their "study" doesn´t explain Bigfoot sightings in Florida, where there are no black bears. They also forgot that Bigfoot is seen the year round, while black bears hibernate in winter...

I don´t doubt that many Bigfoot observations are misidentified bears, but it´s clearly not the only thing going on here. Misidentified Floridans is another factor. 

Or it´s fairies. 

Bigfoot? Sasquatch? Nupe, it´s probably just a black bear 

Therefore God

 

Not an Aldabra rail, I´m afraid

Ooookay...

The bird that came back from the dead by evolving twice 

Double emergence

 

Brood XIX on the attack, and this time
IT WANTS TO DESTROY HUMANITY!!!

Two groups of periodical cicadas, known as Brood XIII and Brood XIX, will soon emerge from their burrows across the Midwest. Which they do every 13 years (Brood XIX) or every 17 years (Brood XIII). Every 221 years, the two broods emerge together ("dual emergence"). 

Literally trillions of cicadas will swarm across 16 American states, driving people nuts with their nut-like stench or bugging them by simply being around. The nutty bug plague will last for months...until the creatures bug out, or are eaten by predators.

Not sure how this will affect the primary election cycle, or whether there are apocalyptic prophecies about Abbadon and Apollyon connected to this. Personally, I´m more worried about locusts than about true bugs, so there´s that, I suppose. 

Still, it´s good to know that won´t be any shortage of cicada burgers for the vegans this spring!  

A trillion cicadas will descend onto the US

Biden förlorar mot sig själv?

 

Arab-amerikaner och andra proteströstar mot Biden i demokraternas primärval i Michigan. I staden Dearborn fick blankröstarkampanjen 75% av rösterna! Om dessa väljare inte röstar på Biden i höstens presidentval, kan Trump mycket väl segra. 

Vilket kanske vore ironiskt...

Rejäl smäll för Biden i Michigan

The dragon´s lair

 

At first I assumed we were dealing with another fake fossil from Red China, but it seems the "Chinese dragon" moniker is promotion. And sure, it seems to have worked, since dozens of media outlets report the story. 

Somewhat ironically, the fossil is housed in Scotland! Parallels to the Loch Ness monster are obvious, since Dinocephalosaurus (the "dragon´s" scientific name) was apparently a marine creature.

Well, let´s see for how long this stays in the news...   

Stunning 240-million-years-old "Chinese dragon" fossil unveiled by scientists

Down and out in the solar system

 

Me, when realizing how little we really know

Some crazy science news about our own cosmic backyard, the good ol´ solar system. 

Note the third link! Is panspermia back in fashion? The impending solar maximum will lead to a rehash of all the usual conspiracy theories (and a couple of new ones - wanna bet?). 

And yes, it´s funny that the most far out object in the solar system is called Farfarout, although I suppose Farfargone would be even more entertaining. But perhaps thats a secret nickname for Earth? Oh, and they discovered volatiles on Mercury, LOL.  

Life on Mercury?

Farfarout

Key building blocks for RNA and DNA discovered at distant asteroid

Gargantuan sunspot pointing directly at Earth

Rogue space systems

 

As we all know, the scientists of Laputa (or was it Lagado) tried to extract sunshine from cucumbers. That was Gulliverian fiction, of course, courtesy of Jonathan Swift. 

However, it seems that the Academy of Lagado is still alive and kicking, in the form of something called a "quantum drive". But perhaps Star Trek is a better pop culture reference in this case? 

Note also that the privat company that tried to test the "quantum drive" in outer space is called Rogue Space Systems! 

We have come a long way, baby. 

Projicering

 

- Börjar bli fett varmt här ute i skogen, bror!
- Ja, det är de där jäkla privilegierade
gröngölingarna som brassar på med
fossila bränslen!

Ny runda moralpanik och vuxenmobbning mot Pourmokhtari. Och jag tror mig som bekant ha löst gåtan: det handlar givetvis om projicering. 

För vad har den privilegierade ädelsvenska medelklassen (inklusive dess progressivare flyglar) egentligen gjort för att klimatanpassa sig? Givetvis just ingenting alls. Och de tänker inte göra något i framtiden heller. De vill behålla sin privilegierade lifestyle. För vem vill inte det? 

Det är därför de blir så förbannade på Pourmokhtari: hon agerar nämligen helt öppet som den vakna medelklassen gör i smyg. Alltså ljuger och förvränger á la Bagdad Bob för att på så sätt slippa klimatanpassa. Hon är deras exakta spegelbild. Och ingen syndare vill se sig själv i spegeln.

Det är där skon klämmer.

Dessutom har ju Greta Thunberg försvunnit från det omedelbara rampljuset. Hon som tidigare fungerade som ett slags syndoffer för den pseudo-gröna medelklassen. Istället har de fått ett slags anti-Greta på halsen. En anti-Greta som givetvis inte ger dem retorisk och psykologisk absolution. 

Att Pourmokhtari dessutom är invandrarkvinna med "fel" politiska åsikter gör det hela ännu mer spicy...

Pourmokhtari fick Schulman att vilja kasta TV:n i väggen

Glada nyheter

 

- Bror, när ingen kollar snor vi tantens juveler!

LOL. 

Gunilla Persson skuldfri efter uppgörelse med Försäkringskassan, kronofogden ska rösta på hennes låt

Fiasco in West Africa

 

Has Niger won the power struggle in West Africa? The West African organization ECOWAS, which is presumably dominated by Nigeria, will lift its sanctions against Niger, where a pro-Russian military junta overthrew the pro-Western government last year. ECOWAS also calls on Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso to rejoin the organization. Mali and Burkina are allies of Niger. Finally, ECOWAS will lift its sanctions against Guinea, which is still an ECOWAS member. 

Ostensibly, all these sanctions are about "restoring democracy", but I think it´s safe to say that it´s really an expression of geopolitics. Anti-Russian geopolitics, to be exact.

The sanctions did cripple Niger´s economy, but they have also hit back at Nigeria, apparently because the two nations have intertwined economies. So rather than continuing with the blockade, ECOWAS (which at one point even threatened military action against the Niger junta) have backed down. And yes, it´s a win for Russia. But apparently also for the civilian population, who didn´t get shit out of the shenanigans.  

That being said, I couldn´t care less whether or not the nations in the Sahel are run by military regimes or not. I´m happy as long as they fight al-Qaeda and don´t conspire with the Wagner Group. Or ex-Wagner, in this case. If you have to bribe them to make them leave the Russian orbit, by all means, bribe them, then.

I have spoken. Plainly.      

"West Africa drops sanctions against Niger, ceding to coup regime"

Pardon my French

 

Emmanuel Macron didn´t simply say that Western boots on the ground in the Ukraine are possible. At least if Swedish TV translators are to be trusted, he said that today, there are "officially" no Western troops in Ukraine. But the possibility can´t be ruled out in the future. 

What does "officially" mean in this context? Does he mean regular troops as opposed to mercenaries? Everyone knows that volunteers from other nations have signed up to fight in Ukraine. 

Or does he actually mean that *there already are regular NATO troops in Ukraine*, but strictly under cover? If so, I assume he was sending a secret message to Vladimir Putin...

Note also the peculiar timing: just this Sunday, the New York Times admitted that the CIA has 12 spy bases in Ukraine, and their article very strongly suggest that these are used by the Ukrainians to hit tragets in Russia proper. 

Propaganda? Or is something much more serious underway?   

Fentanyl Wars

 

I´m not saying this is a conscious strategy from China´s part. Or true at all. Maybe it´s just "how the system works". China can´t be the only government turning a blind eye to the international trade in drugs and weapons. To put it mildly. 

That being said, the Opium Wars were certainly real. And yes, the opium trade *did* destroy the social fabric of China...

Pondering.  

Disintegration Warfare Manifesto

China is secretly arming American criminals with machine guns

China aids Mexican cartels 

How China is flooding America with fentanyl on purpose

Overlords of Antarctica

 

Ahem, I did say "Antarctica"...

First, a somewhat curious Iranian threat against the United States:

>>>Iran’s Navy commander announced in a televised broadcast last fall that the regime owns Antarctica and will build a military operation in the South Pole. "We have property rights in the South Pole. We have plan to raise our flag there and carry out military and scientific work," Iranian Navy Commander Rear Admiral Shahram Irani said in late September, according to a translation by the Washington D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).>>>

Probably just BS, but who knows? The second link goes to an even more peculiar conspiracy blog, which I link to mostly for fun. Think Nazis in Antarctica, Hollow Earth, Face on Mars, the Moon landing was a hoax, a dash of anti-Semitism ("banking practices" - yeah, he means the Jews, right?)...

Make of this material what you wish. 

Iran declares Antarctica its property in direct challenge to Biden, global treaty

Iran and Antarctica

 

Underreported?

 

The first link goes to a pro-Russian site summarizing the article in the second link, which is from the New York Times, but might not be available to everyone (due to pay walls, etc). 

Here is the gist of it (written from a pro-Russian perspective): 

>>>On Sunday The New York Times published an explosive and very belated full admission that US intelligence has not only been instrumental in Ukraine wartime decision-making, but has established and financed high tech command-and-control spy centers, and was doing so long prior to the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of two years ago.>>>

>>>Among the biggest revelations is that the program was established a decade ago and spans three different American presidents. The Times says the CIA program to modernize Ukraine's intelligence services has "transformed" the former Soviet state and its capabilities into "Washington’s most important intelligence partners against the Kremlin today.">>>

>>>This has included the agency having secretly trained and equipped Ukrainian intelligence officers spanning back to just after the 2014 Maidan coup events, as well constructing a network of 12 secret bases along the Russian border—work which began eight years ago. These intelligence bases, from which Russian commanders' communications can be swept up and Russian spy satellites monitored, are being used launch and track cross-border drone and missile attacks on Russian territory.>>> 

>>>This means that with the disclosure of the longtime "closely guarded secret" the world just got a big step closer to WW3, given it means the CIA is largely responsible for the effectiveness of the recent spate of attacks which have included direct drone hits on key oil refineries and energy infrastructure.>>> 

>>>Clearly, Kiev and Washington now want world to know of the deep intelligence relationship they tried to conceal for over the past decade. It is perhaps a kind of warning to Moscow at a moment Ukraine's forces are in retreat: the US is fighting hand in glove with the Ukrainians. And yet the revelations contained in the NY Times report also confirm what President Putin has precisely accused Washington of all along.>>>

Also of interest is the claim that Trump didn´t know about the full extent of the CIA program, which was instead in the hands of anti-Russian hawks within his administration, specifically Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. Which suddenly explains some bold statements by the latter about Ukraine having the right to bomb Russia (my observation)...

Why isn´t the above headline news the world over? 

CIA built 12 secret spy bases in Ukraine, waged shadow war

The Spy War: How the CIA secretly helps Ukraine fight Putin

Thunderbird epitaph

 

More info on the elusive "Thunderbird photo" mentioned in a previous blog post. Note the commentary section, in which several people claim to have seen the photo! 

So do I, but I don´t claim it was real. Probably another photo entirely which I misremember, or a photo-shopped image in some old Fortean magazine inspired by the urban legend.   

Seeking the missing thunderbird photograph

My kingdom for a quagga

 

- Daniell´s Quagga? Yeah, I vaguely remember him,
annoying as heck, always tried to steal the best grass!

When I was a kid, Swedish school dictionaries only contained two words beginning with the letter Q. One was quisling. The other was quagga (spelled "qvagga"). That´s a kind of zebra. These days, the Quagga is no longer classified as a separate species, but as a subspecies of the Plains Zebra (which is somewhat confusingly known in Latin as Equus quagga). Confusingly, since the "real" Quagga is extinct! 

Below, I link to two blog posts by Karl Shuker, who had some fun trying to track down information about two freak specimens of the Quagga once assumed to represent entirely new species. Apparently, it wasn´t easy! Today, Daniell´s Quagga and the Isabella Quagga are only known from illustrations in old books. 

Fun fact: when I asked Bing AI to generate a picture of a Quagga, it produced pictures of perfectly plain zebras instead. So yeah, the Quagga does seem to be extinct, alright. Maybe next time, I´ll ask the AI to make a picture of a quisling instead... 

The Isabella Quagga - a long-lost, long-forgotten equine enigma

Daniell´s Quagga and Ward´s Zebra - another two striped curiosities of the equine kind

Maximum evil theodicy

 

Where is the Spanish Inquisition when you finally need it? :D

Lilith´s spawn

 

"Nordiska väsen" is a entertaining book by Swedish author, illustrator and gamer Johan Egerkrans. The topic? Creatures of Nordic, mostly Swedish, folklore. Both the good, the bad and the literally ugly! The first edition was published in 2013. I recently procured the 2023 "jubilee edition", which apparently includes twelve new entries. For some reason, Egerkrans´ works are sold as children´s books, which may explain why I almost missed them! I´m not *entirely* convinced that "Nordiska väsen" is suitable for kids...or even adults, if you think ghouls and hobgoblins are real and haunt your back yard (or is it church yard).

The illustrations are somewhat "non-traditional", but as Egerkrans shrewdly points out, nobody really knows how the creatures of folklore really look like anyway. Besides, what counts as "traditional" might in many cases be national romantic images from the late 19th century (think John Bauer or Ernst Josephson). I´m not an expert on Swedish folklore, but if Egerkrans is to be believed, trolls weren´t seen as ugly or obviously different from humans - quite the contrary, they were often seen as (almost) human-like. Other critters look pretty much as expected: Näcken is green and dangerous, Odin is one-eyed and rides a fast horse, the gnomes are small and grumpy, and so on. 

I was surprised to learn that there are special gnomes associated with ships, and still others with water mills. Indeed, the folkloric imagination is virtually endless. Have you heard about merchildren before, or that some people living in coastal areas claimed descent from such? Did you know that the trolls have dangerous pets, such as hell hounds? Or that the often dangerous and ambivalent creatures of folklore are said to be descended from Adam´s first wife Lilith and her new husband Alför? According to another tale, the critters are spirits who fell out of heaven by mistake (!) during the war between God and Lucifer. Not belonging in hell, but unable to return to heaven, they have settled down in the Scandinavian forests... 

Some of the paranormal folkloric creatures would probably be seen as "cryptids" today, had people still searched for them. One example is the gamm or gam, an enormously large and evil raptor-like bird which preys on cattle. Another is the dragon-like lindorm, which indeed *was* downgraded to a cryptid during the 19th century by the maverick folklorist Hyltén-Cavallius. Other creatures seem to have been similar to modern cryptids from the start, such as the sea-serpent or the kraken. 

Some pagan deities seem to have survived the introduction of Christianity, although demoted to spirit status. Odin´s wild hunt was still seen and heard by the baptized but superstitious peasants, Odin supposedly being cursed (by God?) to search and destroy other spirit-beings until kingdom come. Every church was said to have a supernatural guardian: the spirit of an animal sacrificed when the church was built. It´s not clear from the account whether animals actually were sacrificed in this manner, or whether they were merely thought to have been so. The whole thing smacks of paganism. The goddess Hel lived on in the folklore, since her three-legged hell horse sometimes stalked the countryside. And ancient handaxes sometimes found in the wilderness were interpreted as Thor´s hammer and were said to protect the owner against all forms of malevolent sprites and spirits. 

Does anyone still believe in the creatures described in the book? That´s a good question. At least in my youth, a few people still took reports of Storsjöodjuret (known as Storsie in English) seriously - that would be the monster of Lake Storsjön. Our very own Loch Ness monster! Otherwise, I strongly suspect that the UFO-alien mythology has pretty much taken over everything...

"Nordiska väsen" (2023 edition) is recommended if you understand Swedish and/or like artistic books suitable as collector´s items. 

Jovars

 

Hunnerna har tydligen röstat ja till svenskt NATO-medlemskap. Jaha. 

Stand off

 

The Red Sea stand off with the Houthis (de facto North Yemen) continues... 

Houthis sever undersea communication cables linking Europe and Asia

Written by zombies

 

"Insane Curiosity" is an annoying channel on YouTube, which probably only exist to generate clicks and ad revenue. 

The video above is almost humorously confused. What on earth does blue giant stars have in common with Fermi´s paradox, nanotechnology and zombies? 

Nothing, of course. The incoherence of the content leads me to suspect that the whole script (and the voice) are AI-generated. 

Linked here for "educational" purposes only, LOL.  

The dark side of meditation

 

So meditation actually works? LOL. Good luck with this material, which is one and a half hours long!

Realism

 

Overheard somewhere on X:

"If you unilaterally disarm yourself the other nation will still have guns. If you deconstruct your own identity the other nation will retain its own. If you adopt some racially blind utopian morality the other nation still sees race. Leftism is a death cult for these reasons."

I´ll keep that in mind, bro. 

 

Phantom of the pines

 

This annoying creature gives cryptozoology a bad name, tbh. Note the bizarre tales about the kangaroo and the blue dandelion! I have a very faint memory that I actually visited Great Falls at the Passaic River years ago, but I must have missed the local cryptids...

Unless Alexander Hamilton counts.  

The Remains of the Jersey Devil

The Thunderbird Effect

 

One of the more funny cryptozoology mysteries. Think Mandela Effect or something to that, well, effect. Somewhere, there is supposed to be an authentic photo of a "thunderbird" (a monstrous cryptid raptor) nailed to a barn, surrounded by cowboys. The photo may be taken in Tombstone, and many people have hazy memories that they´ve seen it in some old newspaper or magazine. However, cryptozoologists and other enthusiasts can´t seem to find it?! 

Weirdly, I also have a rather strong memory of a thunderbird photo that fits the description. It´s not included in the collection below, but the way I remember it, it was the Argentavis silhouette surrounded by the usual cowboys. Which isn´t a mystery at all, since I read Fortean journals during my sadly misspent youth. At the moment, I can´t seem to find them, but my guess is that it would have been INFO Journal circa 1990. My point being that the picture was probably photo-shopped, not the elusive original. 

Bing AI´s version of the Tombstone thunderbird can be seen above, LOL.

About the Thunderbird Photo 

Thunderbird Photos Exposed! 

The Fresno dragons: a socialist plot?

 

In 1891, Californian newspapers reported "dragon" sightings in the area around Fresno. The monstrous creatures were supposedly pterodactyls. Or perhaps not, since many newspaper editors blamed moonshine or outright hoaxing. There were true believers and skeptics already back in 1891.

The most original claim is that the 1891 tall tale was a garbled version of a real incident involving a socialist-Marxist-utopian commune in the Sierra Nevada, the Kaweah Colony. After being forced off their land by the US army, the evil socialists supposedly imported two large and extremely dangerous Australian birds known as "boas", which were expected to physically attack the horses and mules of the soldiers! 

Nobody knows what on earth a "boa" might be (perhaps a garbled reference to moa?), but there is a flightless bird that roughly fits the description: the cassowary. Except, of course, that the story of how the Kaweah colonists imported them as a bio-weapon is probably just another tall tale. Still, I suppose Juan Posadas might have been interested in this fakelore...

The Fresno Dragons

 

Lost lineage

 

This dude definitely suffers from ADHD, ha ha, but he does say some interesting things in these clips. Very interesting, in fact. I´m old enough to remember when saying stuff like this would get you attacked by Skeptics (TM) on the web as a dangerous pseudo-scientist...

First, we have the idea that humans aren´t descended from Australopithecus, since these creatures were adapted to a more arboreal lifestyle. Instead, Australopithecus is a side branch on the hominin family tree. Humans would then be "directly" descended from Sahelanthropus and Orrorin, who lived prior to the australopithecines and were bipedal. Note also the implication that the last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees would be - relatively speaking - more human-like than ape-like. 

Second, there is the famous Cerutti mastodon kill site in California, which has been dated to 130,000 years BP. The mastodon may have been killed by humans, which according to standard accounts didn´t live in the Americas at that time. Indeed, Homo sapiens had hardly left Africa! So either Homo sapiens sneaked into the New World much earlier, searching for tender proboscid flesh, or some other Homo did it. 

Of course, ideas like the above have been entertained for a long time by Theosophists, Anthroposophists, creationists and my man prabhu Michael Cremo.

Which doesn´t mean their world-views or methods are right. Mere guess work based on religous scriptures doesn´t count in science. Purely by chance, some religious group somewhere will turn out to be right about something. Still, it is kind of funny that people whose religious convictions made them predisposed to doubt Australopithecus as a human ancestor or Clovis First, may have been on the right track all along. And, of course, there have always been minority reports in science they could "quote-mine"...

But the nerds on the web, who seem to live in an eternal now, will never admit any of this. If somebody finds Atlantis, they will probably act as if Graham Hancock never existed, either.

Among cryptids and nerds

 

Super-nerd, or what? A fake smilodon skull with primate teeth?!

The thinking atheist

 

Youtube content-creator Emerson Green has always (?) been an atheist skeptical of mainline atheism and skepticism. I previously linked to his defense of "conspiracy theory" and a video about UFOs and aliens. He also seems to be a kind of ontological pluralist, rather than a materialist.

In the video above, posted ealier today Swedish time, Emerson says that he is no longer an atheist but rather an agnostic. His agnosticism seems to be a form of process philosophy (or ditto theology). He mentions Pierre Teilhard de Chardin sympathetically, and says that theism (although probably wrong) might still be a rational position to hold. 

In general, he seems to believe in a kind of soft teleology in the cosmos. Wouldn´t surprise me if this guy actually becomes spiritual one of these days. Which "proves" my contention that a consistent and intellectually grounded atheist must be a materialist.

And they cheat, too. 

Ratatouille eats people

 

 

My apologies to the X account The Fourth Way. 

The thunder of birds

 

Not sure what to make of this: psychotic breaks, turkey vultures seen under very strange conditions, or misplaced Irish fairies? 

Thunderbirds are divine creatures from American Indian mythology, but it seems even White people see them...and frequently despair. While the Thunderbird is usually thought of as a gigantic raptor, there are also weird reports of impossibly large crow-like birds. And not just from Pennsylvania!

From a blog devoted to find "the missing Thunderbird photo".   

Thundercrows over Pennsylvania

 

Snakes in the sky

 

Kind of hard to believe, unless it´s a misidentified natural phenomenon of some sort. A skeptic suggestion at the time was that people in the Wild West were drinking too much moonshine!  

The sky serpents of 1873

On a frontier alien

 

A fascinating blog post about what could be the first reported "UFO crash" in the United States. The report is from 1865, and the crash presumably happened either then or in 1864. The newspaper reports of the incident are confusing (surprise). The "crash" could have been a meteorite impact - although a fairly big one - but the trapper witnessing it claims to have seen a mysterious stone with hieroglyphics on it. The newspaper then speculates:   

>>>Astronomers have long held that it is probable that the heavenly bodies are inhabited—even the comets—and it may be that the meteors are also. 

>>>Possibly meteors are used as a means of conveyance by the inhabitants of other planets, in exploring space, and it may be that hereafter some future Columbus, from Mercury or Uranus, may land on this planet, by means of a meteoric conveyance, and take full possession thereof—as did the Spanish navigators of the New World in 1492, and eventually drive what is known as the "human race" into a condition of the most abject servitude. 

>>>It has always been a favorite theory with many that there must be a race superior to us, and this may at some future time be demonstrated in the manner we have indicated.

Note that this was written in 1865! The author of the blog post (writing in 2023) fills in:  

>>>Lumley's account is actually quite startling when you consider its similarities to modern UFO lore and the fact that it was reported nearly a century earlier. 

>>>The Roswell crash debris was said to have material covered with strange hieroglyphics, much like the surface of Lumley's object. Socorro, New Mexico police officer Lonnie Zamora similarly stated that the egg-shaped craft he witnessed in 1964 was emblazoned with a strange red insignia. 

>>>The image of Lumley examining the crashed object and its path of destruction across the landscape echoes the story of young José Padilla and Reme Baca, who discovered an avocado-shaped craft that had plowed across San Antonio, New Mexico ranchland in 1945. Their claims are today known as the Trinity crash. 

None of the above proves that UFOs or aliens are real, of course. Anymore than the Aurora crash in 1897 (which I have discussed in a previous post on this blog). Still, it´s certainly intriguing that this kind of lore goes back all the way to the Civil War era! The idea that hieroglyphics are somehow supernatural is of course even older - compare Joseph Smith and the Mormons. 

Montana, 1865 - the first American UFO crash?

När muslimer försvarar hedningar

 

Har ingen välgrundad åsikt om Alexander den store var homosexuell eller inte, men Kleopatra och Hannibal var givetvis inte svarta afrikaner. Men det mest ironiska är ju att afro-centrismen här används som en ny form av *västerländsk* kulturimperialism. 

Vad synd att Kleopatra och Hannibal inte var muslimer, för *då* hade de varit fredade från Wärdegrunden (TM). Och detsamma gäller väl Alexander.

Notera också ironin att två muslimskt dominerade länder i Nordafrika är mer historiskt korrekta när de diskuterar den hedniska tiden än sekulära Netflix... 

Grekisk vrede när Netflix gör Alexander den store homosexuell 

Mandelmamma

 

Ett rop på hjälp? Jag ser säkert i syne (som vanligt) men jag kan inte undgå att undra om detta subliminalt är en markering mot Greta Thunberg och klimatrörelsen...

Gen Z vägrar ärva sina mammors ätstörningar

Don´t ask, don´t tell

 

With apologies to Psychedelic Outlaw and Esoteric Memes East and West. 

Alabama Mama

 

So neither Donald Trump nor Nikki Haley endorse the recent decision of the Alabama Supreme Court to de facto ban IVF. Hmmm...

Maybe they both realize that the abortion issue does the GOP more harm than good. So better not support crazy over-reach. 

Haley backtracks

Donald Trump calls on Alabama legislature to preserve IVF

 

Quite the celeb

 

Probably just a poor single mutant, hyped up by the Internet. Including my blog, now!  

The Great Red-Beaked Raven of Russia

Gone forever?

 

Bing AI´s version of a thylacine

Darren Naish (a science blogger) is skeptical of claims about the survival of the thylacine in Tasmania. 

The hunt for persisting thylacines, an interview 

Nameless civilization

 

Archeologist Milo Rossi takes the viewer on a tour of two important excavation sites in Turkey: Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe. Both are dated to about 12,000 years ago. Göbekli Tepe plays an important role in "Atlantomaniac" speculations about lost civilizations, one reason being its highly anomalous nature as a fairly advanced "temple complex" in a sea of Stone Age hunters and gatherers. Think Graham Hancock. 

However, recent research suggests that Göbekli Tepe was part of a larger civilization, also including the older Karahan Tepe (which may have been the oldest permanent settlement in the world). Due to excellent climate, the surrounding area was virtually teeming with game animals and plant resources, making it possible for people who were still technically hunters and gatherers to settle down and build...whatever these complexes are supposed to have been. (I read elsewhere that bread and ale would have been important, making you wonder what these guys gathered out there!) 

And while no evidence of agriculture has yet been found on the tepe sites, Rossi confidently predicts that it eventually will be. Apparently, the oldest known agriculture is "only" about 1000 years younger and from the same general area. Judging by the book "The Dawn of Everything", archeologists today know that human culture was fairly advanced already during the Upper Paleolithic, so seen in *this* context, the nameless civilization of the Anatolian tepes isn´t as anomalous as it may have looked like at first sight. It seems the Stone Age Atlantis may have been very "native", after all!

Fun fact: although Rossi attacks Hancock and other alternative people in his videos, some of his footage from Karahan Tepe is actually credited to Dakota of Earth, the crazy psychedelic dude most notorious for his mini-documentary about the Aghori at Varanasi, India! Heh heh heh.   

Welcome to Laputa

 

Oh no, not the hydrogen economy again!  

Demons in the sky

 

This one is hard to believe, tbh.  

Demons bonded by common diseases

Conspiracy theory iceberg

 

This is a somewhat eclectic conspiracy theory "iceberg", or actually alternative knowledge "iceberg". I have grouped various controversial speculations in three groups: Most likely, In the middle and Least likely. 

I have *not* arranged the individual items in each category from most to least likely, since I´m too tired right now. But sure, doing that could be interesting. Obviously, this is based on my subjective speculations and conjectures. Feel free to disagree! Also, the "iceberg" is obviously not exhaustive.  

Most likely 

Bigfoot

The Honshu wolf is still extant

The thylacine is still extant 

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker is...guess what

Ball lightning

Earth lights

Portugal discovering the New World

Portugal discovering Australia 

Phoenicians in Scandinavia 

9/11 was an inside job 

JFK wasn´t shot by Oswald

Hitler had part Jewish descent

Pearl Harbor was provoked by FDR (and I fucking like it) 

Pygmies and Giants

Near Death Experiences (NDEs)

Ghosts

Near-global flood

Jesus Mythicism

Buddha Mythicism

Teleology in evolution

Rupert Sheldrake

Parapsychology  

Peak oil/Limits to growth

Fascism

Gnosticism 

Ukraine blew up Nordstream

The Dems were behind the BLM-Antifa riots

Lenin got German gold

Nemesis 

Big Bang denialism

Theosophy 

Joe Biden cognitive decline

Hunter Biden´s laptop

Wuhan lab leak

The Event 

Brahman real and Thou Art That, Shvetaketu

Everything is suffering 

Known civilizations older/more advanced than we think

Migrant crisis planned by certain elite groups

Both Karl XII and Gustav III were victims of vast conspiracies 

Woke is a CIA psy-op

Woke is a Chinese psy-op

Election fraud is as American as apple pie

Midwits are a thing

People who want to abolish age of consent laws are usually paedophiles

Russia is winning the war in Ukraine

Fermi´s paradox has been solved, but people don´t want to hear the solution

Operation Stay Behind went rogue and killed Olof Palme

Actual Masonic conspiracies

George Soros is a bad boy

Justin Trudeau is Fidel Castro´s love child

Richard B Spencer is a fed

Richard B Spencer actually is a Neo-Nazi carrying out deep entryism in the Democratic Party

Belief in UFOs is fostered by US intelligence agencies as a cover for military test flights  

In the middle

Lost Civilization (Atlantis)

Lemuria

ETH

Fairies 

Cryptozoology in general

Old Earth Creationism

Intelligent Design (as understood in the US)

Marxism 

Anarcho-syndicalism

Christianity and main-line religions

Panspermia

Channeling

Most COVID-related alternative theories

Netanyahu had foreknowledge of 10/7

"Centuries of Darkness" 

Afro-centrism 

Climate change real, but not caused by humans

Climate change real, but Ice Age rather than warming

Juan Posadas

The Moon eats people 

Magick

I AM Movement 

Chemtrails

Astrology

Eugene McCarthy (the maverick scientist)

Trotskyist/Neo-Con connection

The Knights Templar are not what they seem to be

The hydrogen economy

Least likely

QAnon

Ancient Aliens (Däniken)

Reptoids (Icke)

Biblical literalism

Puranic literalism

Flat Earth

Hollow Earth

Apocalypticism

Charles Hapgood

Velikovsky

Trump collusion (2015-21) 

Young Earth Creationism

Fusion power

Cold fusion

Libertarianism

Cornucopia 

Mandela Effect

"Starseeds" and such

Lilac unicorns from Lakuma channeled by Diana Cooper

Aquatic Ape Theory

Mothman

UFO contactee cases

The Da Vinci Code

"Professor" Dave is a nice guy

AI will turn the Terminator franchise into reality

Name it and claim it

Taylor Swift is an op 

The Singularity

Stargates

The Green transition  

Nibiru and the Annunaki 

Breakaway civilization

The Mud Flood and Great Tartary

Phantom time (most versions)

Kensington Rune Stone

Anthroposophy

Hare Krishna

Scientology

Babylonian Brotherhood or Illuminati behind everything

A race of land-lubbing intelligent cetaceans once created a highly advanced civilization in Siberia

The Moon is a UFO 

The Moon landing was a hoax

The Face on Mars

Fox News alien autopsy video

Bob Lazar

Antarctica was Atlantis

Time travel

Jews are evil aliens controlled from the planet Pluto

Ashtar Command (the blogger) is more than one guy

Materialism

The recession is over