This news story from a couple of days ago really made me laugh as I tried to fathom out how anyone could confuse a doll with a dead body -
On Tuesday of this week police near Izu City in Japan were left wondering if they had become victims of a hoax.
Discovered near a forest near the seaside resort, following an anonymous tip-off, the body was wrapped in a sleeping bag.
For some reason, the investigators didn’t think to look inside the sleeping bag and, instead, took it directly to the city police station so that a post-mortem examination could take place.
According to a spokeswoman, no-one had any reason to doubt that a human body was inside until a medical examiner unwrapped it and found that the ‘body’ was in fact a doll.
In defence of this bizarre situation, The Asahi newspaper said that the doll was actually quite sophisticated and life-sized and was dressed in a brown wig, blouse and skirt.
Do all police officers have such good deductive skills that they can’t tell a human and a doll apart?
In October 2000 someone claiming to be John Titor alleged that they had travelled back in time from the year 2036.
Whilst the truthfulness of their forum posts were debated at the time there were, and still are, plenty of people who believe his story.
However, did someone precede his time-travelling antics some 160 years earlier?
In 1950, a man reportedly appeared out of nowhere in Times Square.
He was dressed in extremely old-fashioned clothes and sported sideburns of a style that were not currently seen.
Witnesses claimed that the man appeared surprised at first, and then horrified, as he was hit by a car.
The man died immediately.
RUDOLPH FENTZ
When the police arrived on the scene they discovered that the man possessed money from the nineteenth century money in addition to business cards that had his name on - Rudolph Fentz.
When background checks were run on the man they revealed that he didn’t seem to exist, as no records about him could be found anywhere.
The closest match was a Mrs. Rudolph Fentz.
When the police spoke to Mrs. Fentz they discovered that she was the widow of one Rudolph Fentz, Jr.
Apparently, her dead husband’s father has mysteriously vanished in 1876, leaving behind no clues as to what may have happened to him, or where he had gone.
Could this Rudolph Fentz, who disappeared in 1876, be the same man who was killed by a car in 1950?
JACK FINNEY
For many years people thought so, accepting the above account as fact.
However, some years later a researcher eventually found out that the ‘facts’ of this case were hardly unique - in 1951 an author, Jack Finney, had written a piece of fiction for a sci-fi anthology.
A couple of years later that same story had been reprinted without permission.
The reprinted story also failed to disclose the fact that it was a piece of fiction.
Rumour has it that the story was reprinted by someone who believed in time travel and who wished to convince others of it’s validity.
Ironically, the knowledge that it was derived from a work of fiction would probably have had quite the opposite effect.
Here’s an interesting, and potentially worrying, email I’ve just received -
READ IMMEDIATELY PLS
Get this sent around to your contacts ASAP…we don’t need this spreading around.
PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS:
You should be alert during the next days:
Do not open any message with an attached file called ‘Invitation’ regardless of who sent it, It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which ‘burns’ the whole hard disc C of your computer.
This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts.
It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.
If you receive a mail called ‘invitation’, though sent by a friend, do not open it and shut down your computer immediately.
This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.
This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus.
This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept
SEND THIS E-MAIL TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW, COPY THIS E-MAIL AND SEND! IT TO YOUR FRIENDS AND REMEMBER: IF YOU SEND IT TO THEM, YOU WILL BENEFIT ALL OF US
It sounds rather nasty - who wants to lose the entire contents of their hard drive?!?
Fortunately, just like the virus of the antichrist, it is a rather common email hoax, one that has been going around the internet for some time now in various guises.
Should you visit the McAfee site, you will discover that they have not reported this virus at all.
If you receive this email then do not panic and just delete it.
Alexander Hamilton is widely believed to be responsible for the world’s first publicised UFO sighting.
In 1897 Hamilton, of Yates Center, Kansas, claimed that he came out of his house and discovered a cigar shaped UFO hovering above his farm.
Hamilton further claimed that aliens, appearing as humanoids, were in the spaceship and had attached a rope to one of his calves and that they were trying to winch it aboard their vessel.
The story was published in the Yates Center local newspaper alongside statements from local residents who vouched for Hamilton’s honesty.
For close to a century Hamilton’s account of events was believed to be one of the best ever documented UFO incidents.
THE LIAR’S CLUB
Unfortunately for those who want to believe, Hamilton’s UFO sighting was nothing more than a hoax.
Alexander Hamilton was part of a group know as the ‘local liar’s club’ whose purpose was to outdo each other with ever grander fabricated tales and stories.
As Hamilton’s tale was so convincing it was submitted to the local newspaper as a joke.
None of the local liar’s club could have envisaged how seriously the story would have been taken, or how far the news would spread.
The compelling story stood for 80 years until 1977 when Jerry Clark investigated the story for FATE magazine.
Clark published the results of Robert Schadewald’s work which showed that dry cleaning bags, candles and balsa wood had been used to orchestrate the hoax.
The candles were used to provide the hot air required to lift the bags in addition to contributing a strange glow which added considerably to the effect.
Despite the number of alleged UFO sightings around the world, very few have ever been confirmed as hoaxes.
Does this mean UFOs really do exist, or are the experts just wary of trying to debunk stories when they may not be able to prove their falsity?
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Friday, September 19, 2008
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