Category: strange events

Putin Endorses Kackle Kamala

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

putin economist

He’s looking for a friend in the White House

No, it’s not a put-on. Vladimir Putin has thrown his support to Kamala Harris for president (https://www.foxnews.com/world/putin-says-he-backs-harris-over-trump-adds-hes-ready-talks-ukraine).

A quote from the Russian boss: “She laughs so expressively and infectiously–”

[Run screaming to the sidewalk.]

This 2024 political season is about as crazy as it gets. I thought Putin was supposed to be The Bad Guy. Oh, tut-tut–Donald Trump is The Bad Guy.

O readers, make of this what you will. Gee, maybe she could sew it all up if she gets Xi Jin Ping’s endorsement, too.

It wouldn’t surprise me.

‘Were Giants Ever Real?’ (2020)

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Furahan Biology and Allied Matters: The anatomy of giants in 'Game of Thrones': did they get it right?

It couldn’t be… could it?

People all over the world have believed in giants. Were these super-sized humans ever real?

Were Giants Ever Real?

I can’t think of an ancient or medieval culture whose people didn’t believe in giants. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire–so they say. But shouldn’t there also be some bones, artifacts, or giant-friendly houses? How is it that we’ve found no physical trace of something that everybody, once upon a time, believed was real?

Just another one of those things we’ll never know.

Eh? ‘The Little People of Wyoming’

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I watched this just before bedtime last night, and I’ll say it’s just about the rummest thing I’ve ever seen–“the Little People of Wyoming.” (The video is 20 minutes and change.)

It reminds me of a classic short story, They Bite, by science-fiction great Anthony Boucher. He must have followed this “Little People” enigma in the 1930s and 40s.

Are there, or were there ever, “little people”  Out West, only two feet high or even less, who came to populate Native American legends… and left behind several mummified bodies? And who could sometimes prove to be rather nasty neighbors. Were the legends true?

Beats me!

Dead at Her Desk–for Four Days

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

There’s something very wrong with this story.

A Wells Fargo employee in Tempe, Arizona, died at her desk and wasn’t found till four days later (see video). She was 60 years old and working in a cubicle. The medical examiner has not yet found a cause of death, although foul play is not suspected.

But how could she have been there, slumped over her desk for four days, without anybody noticing? I’m guessing she lived alone. When she didn’t come home from work, no one reported her missing, no one made a fuss. A few other employees in the building noticed a rather nasty smell, but thought it was coming from the pipes.

I had a small, windowless office at my newspaper. What if I had died at my desk? Would anyone have noticed? There were times when I was the only person in the office. How can you die, and no one notice for four whole days?

Come to think of it, I did once faint at my desk–no air conditioning, way too hot–only to wake up and find myself the only person in the building. Everybody else had gone out to eat. No one knew I’d fainted from the heat.

I wonder if this woman could have been saved, if only someone had found her in time.

This needs to be seen to. It mustn’t happen again.

‘My Friend, the Enormous Stingray’ (2016)

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2,200+ Stingray Cartoon Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty ...

If you can’t find a dog or a cat, make friends with a stingray!

A little boy makes friends with a great big stingray–

Stop! What kind of crazy ptoosh is this?

No, honest, really–here, look at this.

My Friend, the Enormous Stingray

I think the stingray might be bigger than the boy.

I wonder how you’d turn out if you were raised by stingrays.

‘A New Science Is Born’ (2020)

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Why Quokkas Are The Cutest Animals On Earth

[We are hoping and praying to have a peaceful, restful Sunday. Because once the doctoring starts, those quiet, normal days don’t come around much anymore.]

You’ve heard of cryptozoology, the study of animals that may or may not exist. Well, now we have cryptogeography–the study of places that may or may not exist.

A New Science Is Born!

Happily we have Byron the Quokka to explain it. And I’ll bet everybody has a place or two in memory that isn’t there anymore when you want to see it.

And maybe it never was there. Not really.

{If you’re wondering what happened to Joe Collidge… Well, his day was the day we had no Internet till suppertime. Honk if you want a special edition.}

What in the World Was *That*?

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

Giant cricket hi-res stock photography and images - Alamy

No, it can’t be… Can it?

I had to run to the store the other night; and as soon as I stepped out the door, I heard something  that stopped me in my tracks.

Whirrr! Reeee!

At first I thought it was some kind of machinery; but there was no machinery out there, just some parked cars. And this was loud! There was something metallic about it, something vaguely cicada-ish. But I never heard of cicadas coming out at night. A cricket the size of a cat? I called my wife outside, and she heard it, too.

Katydids? We do have katydids in our neighborhood, but this was no katydid–it was way too loud. And there was more of it at the other end of the lot. Have we been invaded by some kind of giant bug?

Well, I simply don’t know, and I wonder if I’ll hear it again tonight. I wonder if I’ll see it.

Maybe I don’t want to.

Whale Sinks Fishing Boat

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If the Roman historian, Livy, was still in business, he’d definitely list this incident in his “prodigies of the year”–strange events, by which the gods communicated with man. But it took special priests to interpret the signs.

In the sea off Portsmouth, an angry whale attacked a fishing boat and, as you’ll see in the video, easily sank it. We don’t know what precipitated the attack. You can see the poor devils aboard the boat–what can they do? They’re sitting ducks.

I’d like to know what kind of whale it was. It’s a baleen whale: I can’t think of any of those who attack ships.

Earlier this year we saw killer whales attacking boats off Gibraltar. Now it’s baleen whales off Massachusetts. I find myself asking more often than I used to, Is God trying to tell us something?

I haven’t seen a news text that tells us how the fishermen made out.

UPDATE: The two guys on the boat jumped clear and were rescued (https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/news/local/2024/07/23/whale-slams-boat-topples-boaters-rye-nh-coast/74515126007/). It’s possible the confrontation with the whale was an accident: the fishermen and the whale were going after the way prey, and they kind of… intersected. Once the boat was overturned, the whale swam away.

NY Councilwoman… Bites Cop!

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

“Accused”? They’ve got it on video.

Is our politics getting out of hand? Hey, get a load of this.

At a recent protest over a homeless shelter in a residential neighborhood, police had to be called it to keep it from turning into a riot.

So New York City Councilwoman Susan Zhuang–wanna try to guess her party affiliation?–reached over a barricade and bit a police officer in the arm. Yes, I said “bit.” Broke the skin, too.

We are not told why she did this. For all we know, it’s a bad habit.

Is this the kind of character we want governing our cities? Is there any defensible reason for biting a police officer?

Pray for our country. It needs it.

6 Dead–In the Lap of Luxury

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Murder at a luxury hotel… Paging Miss Marple…

It sounds like an Agatha Christie mystery, doesn’t it? A five-star hotel in Bangkok, six wealthy Vietnamese, including two with American passports–and all six left for dead in one room (https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/07/deadly-brew-cyanide-laced-tea-kills-six-people/).

All six appear to have been poisoned, including the poisoner, whichever one of the six it was. Traces of cyanide have been found in the drinking glasses. Not a good look for the Grand Hotel Erewan.

Police have pretty much reconstructed the crime, which, they say, involved a very large debt that couldn’t be paid. But there’s still a bit to be cleared up. Like, for instance, why were those six people all in the same room? It sounds like an event of some kind. I can’t help wondering if it was the poisoner who invited them all up to his or her room on some pretext and then poisoned everybody.

But maybe I’ve read too much Christie.