OSCAR - the cat who predicts death

Sheltered beside man five thousand years ago, the cat has a troubled history. In ancient times was worshiped, the animal considered sacred, magical, a messenger of the gods. In the turbulent Middle Ages, people began to fear cats, particularly of the black cat, as their devilish incarnations, devoid of wizardly tools. "Sentenced" inquisition processes were tortured with a fierce sadism, drowned and burned at the stake. In the contemporary period, they have become not only cats always present in our house, but researchers give them more attention, assigning them extrasensory qualities such as telepathy or precognition.

Never in any country in the world, the cat was worshiped as in ancient Egypt. It seems that the inhabitants of the pyramids have come to deify this animal early dynastic period of 2900 years BC, Cats saved the Egypt from starvation. Grain reserves had been severely damaged by a terrible invasion of mice and, at the command of Pharaoh, hundreds of cats were brought from throughout the region and placed as sentry against rodents. So the cat began to be loved and then considered sacred animal. Bastet, the goddess with the body of a woman and cat image was the embodiment strange dual admiration born of the Egyptians, this animal clean, affectionate, gentle night, with an incredible ability to disappear and reappear imperceptibly with mystical abilities . Peaceful troubled her personality, but also mysterious Egyptians worshiped a respect mixed with fear.

Throughout the ages, cats have hovered over various superstitions, some auspicious, others, on the contrary, that brings misfortune. For example, according to an Irish popular belief, if you cut way a cat in the moonlight, this means imminent death. Especially the black cat is considered to bring misfortune. Less than England, where even the King Charles the Great had a black cat, which claimed that bears his luck, convinced that she is the "watchman" of his life. His conviction was so firm that the British monarch commanded the cat to be guarded day and night, lest some misfortune run or get hurt. Coincidence or not, the day after the cat died, King was arrested and on January 29, 1649, was beheaded.

Despite the cat's studies, researchers were unable yet to explain what special abilities the little feline fail to anticipate all sorts of events related to their masters.

By staggering, cats presentiment of danger, foreboding, and masters, or plan their approaching death. In 2007, David Dosa, a specialist in geriatric old age home, published an article in a newspaper, the story of Oscar, a cat that had been adopted by employees of asylum and was able to provide patient death. Cat story "Paranormal" Oscar appeared for the first time in 2007, this being continued to fascinate the nursing staff and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island (USA). Why? Because Oscar the cat lives at the rehabilitation center when longer stays with a patient, it is a sure sign that the patient will die within a few hours! The cat came especially for the final moments of the life of the patient ... You may think that a cat announces its presence as one feared death, but Oscar is regarded as a comfortable companion. All day, she walks the corridors of asylum, entering the salon to salon, but remaining only with patients who are approaching the end. Doctors tried several times to chase, pulling it out, but Oscar, to the astonishment of all, does not scramble never gave, struggling to get back near dying.

Intrigued, nurses subjected him, Oscar, finally an "experiment". "The cat was taken and placed on the bed of an old man that I thought would die soon. But soon, Oscar got up, rushed from the salon and went straight to the bed of another patient. A few hours later, I discovered that the cat had known better than us who would die. Besides patient who had been all day he died that evening, while the first lived a few days, "Dr. Dosa story. "There can be no coincidence, for Oscar accurately predicted the death of over 50 patients. The other five are still alive asylum cats, but none of them ever expressed such a skill. I can not give an explanation for this strange phenomenon! The only case that I can think of is that cat, with its highly developed olfactory sense, could perceive the smell released by the cells at the time of death. But amazing is that Oscar knows even a few hours before the man going to die. "

"The door to the patient's room is closed, so Oscar sits and waits. He has important things here, "says Dr. Dosa. "He's watching Mrs. T. She is clearly in the terminal stage of the disease and breathing hard (...) The cat sniffed the air, it concerns finally Mrs. T., jumps out of bed and leaves the room quickly. Today will not die T. (...) Mrs. K. is resting quietly in her bed, having a balanced breathing but shallow. It is surrounded by pictures of her grandchildren. Despite these souvenirs, she is single. Oscar jumps into her bed and again sniffs the air. Make a break assess the situation, and then crouches beside Mrs. K. Once he saw that Oscar is Mrs. K, the nurse called Mrs. K family to come to the center. Also called a priest for last rites. The family was around Mrs. K, and one of her relatives asked why the cat was there. I was told that the cat is there to help Mrs. K to reach heaven. Half an hour later, Mrs. K has died ".

The precision with which Oscar predicts death asylum persuaded employees to adopt a protocol unusual: as soon as it discovers sitting of "standby" next to a dying family members announces its imminent end.

Dr. Joan Teno noted that the dying cat is next 2 hours before dying. He does not think the cat would have paranormal abilities, but simply there is a "biochemical explanation." Joe Nickell, a researcher in the field, gives a possible explanation: "How cells die, carbohydrates degrade more oxygenates, including various types of chemical mixtures ketones known for their fragrant aroma. It's possible to smell Oscar simply a high level of a chemical compound released before his death. Certainly, animals have a more refined sense of smell, which exceeds the average man. "

 Legends say that cats are the guardians of the gates of hell demons are afraid of them. Another name for them would be "glove God" because Noah himself would have thrown his gloves after rats gnawed boat and turned into cat hunting glove. But these are legends. Cats are cats and these animals have developed senses, especially the sense of danger all too.

 Whatever our amazement what capacities have some amazing animals, we humans do not have, although we believe "superiors".

Worlds within Earth

Although many of us find the idea of a hollow Earth is rather ridiculous, since scientifically-based information handy are currently exploiting this alternative theory dates back to the ancient and not own a single civilization. It occurs both in Icelandic folklore, and in distant Tibet, and the idea is the same: the true wisdom springs from the depths of the earth, and there was a population of advanced so spiritually and technologically. Or Paradise Lost? Or is it in fact the true location of Atlantis? Or maybe the little green men from space are not coming as we believe, but even the center of the Earth, where they were based for their flying saucers. In this case, we should get the hat in front of them and call them "intra-terrestrial" ... How much is truth and how much is fiction?

Meditating on outlandish theories that have long been taken seriously teaches us to be cautious before many ideas including credence in the media and even in some scientific circles .

There is two hollow Earth theory . According to the former, we live on its bark , and inside there is another world that we do not know , where the mysterious kingdom of Agartha , the residence of the king of the world. According to the second , we believe that we live in outer crust of the earth , but actually living inside it ( we think we live on a convex surface , but in reality, we live in a concave surface ) .

One of the first hollow Earth theory was proposed in 1692 by Edmund Halley , who suggested that the Earth was composed of four spheres stacked one another and the planet's interior would have lived and illuminated by a light atmosphere as . Later, the famous mathematician Euler had to replace the theory of multiple spheres to that of a single sphere , hollow , within which there was the sun to heat and light an advanced civilization .

The theory was resumed in the early 1800s by Captain J. Cleves Symmes of Ohio , who wrote several scientific societies " to the world : I declare the earth is hollow and habitable within, that he was a number of spheres solid , concentric , one inside the other , and it is open at the poles with an extension of 12 or 16 degrees " . The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia is still today a wooden model of the universe created by him . According to Symmes , the North Pole and South Pole were two openings leading into the interior world ; to identify them , the man tried to raise funds for an expedition to the polar regions . The idea was taken from a newspaper editor , Jeremiah Reynolds , who had made all efforts to start the expedition at the expense of the American state and invested $ 300,000 in action.

At the end of the century , the theory of Cyrus Reed Teed returned some , the concept of which what we think is the sky is actually a mass of gas that fills the inside of the globe, with some areas of bright light ( the sun and the moon and stars would not be some celestial globes , but visual effects ) . It was argued in the nineteenth-century mathematicians , Teed 's theory was difficult to challenge because it was possible to design a convex surface on the concave surface of the Earth without noticing too many discrepancies .

The theory that the Earth is a solid sphere but is hollow and the opening to the inner world are poles . These " gates " were multiplied in time , due to geographical diversity , therefore the poles were added to the caves in the South American jungle , mountain Meltpego Punson Tibet , Stonehenge , England Mount Shastra in California. Currently, this theory has passed the threshold is described as a great source of wisdom , perhaps because modern people do not want to believe in dreams, but want to touch , see, especially to find out exactly what benefits can bring any new discovery , weighed in terms of material . Hollow Earth theory that age contrasts with the lack of concrete information about this topic , has led many to speculate that this is actually the source of the existing government secretly . Staying in the same area , the conspiracy was put in touch with the others, including the Aryan race which continues to develop and the staged death of Hitler , well- healthy living deep within the Earth .

In the West, the idea has got wings in 1628 , when Edmund Halley testified : "I believe that the Earth is composed of concentric spheres, like a Chinese puzzle box. These areas sustain life and are bathed in eternal light." In his view, the aurora borealis was caused by gas escaping from inside the thin crust. Starting from Haley, John Simms developed around 1800 new theories of emptiness." Haley was right about concentric spheres but said openings at the poles. Ocean flows to and from these openings and there is no doubt that there are also people inside the Earth ."

The new theory came to a proper historical background when scientific discoveries were in full swing. At the time, U.S. President John Quincy Adams approved a sea expedition to be led by Charles Wilkes . Americans pride themselves on the first mission dedicated to locating and exploring Earth's vast interior . The President was more than happy to fund this unique journey in the hope that America will be assigned the greatest discovery since its discovery itself . Brave journey aimed to reveal places that nobody had ever seen , even though everyone was talking about them for hundreds of years . This expedition was to play an important role for science because even if Earth Interior remained an unknown, sailors brought back important materials for geology, botany, zoology, anthropology, which subsequently led to the necessity of a foundation. At least three of the scientists onboard received international recognition in scientific circles as a result of their discoveries.

In 1906 , William Reed Teed publishes his " ghost poles ," which explains why the poles were located : the simple fact that they do not exist . In his opinion, the generic name of "poly " meant , in fact , into the interior of the Earth . Another author , Marshall B. Gardner published a book entitled " A Journey Inside the Earth " , in which the extreme push this belief : "I found that previous theories are somewhat on track but as an addition , I believe that Earth's interior is illuminated by the sun which is about 600 miles in diameter, and holes at the poles are definitely more than 1,000 miles in diameter . " The subject was not new . Before him, there was another " visionary " who share the same idea eccentric , Cyrus Teed . In 1897 , he asserted : " We actually live inside the Earth , in the inner surface of the crust . In the void are the sun, moon , stars , planets, and comets . There is nothing outside. Interior is everything ." The idea may seem a little aberrant to modern astronomers that we discover new galaxies millions of light years away . However, in the 40s in Germany were many theorists .

To develop this theory , namely, that we live inside a sphere less artificial ... imagine that would be true . Why not, I could ask ... Spaceships sent beyond Earth people would know the truth , but they are controlled by some government agencies would have every incentive to hide reality .

If our sky " infinity" is nothing but a hologram ? If the moon is nothing but a gigantic spaceship , moving 24 hours a day, 7 days out of 7 ? If the sun is nothing but an inner star and the rest of the planets are but much smaller spacecraft much closer than we think , we monitor ? If everything we see in telescopes is nothing else than what we show hologram in the program of " Matrix" ? By who ? Who is interested in maintaining this illusion ?

One theory says that connect the beginning of mankind , the moon does not exist at all . We say this ancient writer Democritus and Anaxagoras ; Aristotle writes that the Arcadia (Greece ) , before being inhabited by the Greeks , was inhabited by Pelasgians , who occupied these territories before the sky to be Luna ! For this reason , the Pelasgians were also called " proselenes " meaning "before the moon ". Apollonius of Rhodes writes that there was a period in which " they were not all heavenly bodies in the sky before the Danai and Deukalion races existed when there were only Arcadians before the Moon in the sky existed ." Ovid wrote that " Arcadians possess their lands before the birth of Jupiter because the nation is older than the moon " and Censorinus stated that " in the past no moon in the sky " .

So a lot of myths , legends and stories tell us that the moon does not exist in the sky ; it seems that it would have appeared after the Great Flood. So here might conclude that the Moon may have been inserted into the hollow of the earth , just to monitor ; Luna gives us dreams and nightmares night we "suck " and vital energies.

In 1913, Rudolf Glauer founded the Thule Society , which adheres to time many political-military secret societies . The mythological mix it in tissue around his company has attracted a lot of Germans, enthralled by the hypothesis of a hidden realm where the world springs wisdom and purity . In conclusion, Thule was populated by magical creatures , initiated by the aliens, and their descendants were none other than the Aryans . The pure offspring were obviously Germans and their mission were to inherit the power of the ancestors and to use their advanced knowledge . Germans were so convinced of the authenticity of their roots , that one of the theoreticians of the Nazi party , Alfred Rosenberg , was to declare in 1946 : "Everything started with this company . Secret teachings that I received there helped us and better than our divisions SA and SS to conquer power. Thule Society founders were some genuine magicians." Dogma that company would be based in Germany bare earth movement initiated by Airman Peter Bender. In his opinion , the Earth had no external face because it was a rocky hole in a universe that stretches to infinity.

Although it seems hard to believe, impossible this fantasy is directly proportional to its followers , including senior officers and aviation and marine . It was not long until Hitler himself would embrace the idea of bare earth . In 1942 , at war , Hitler ordered a secret expedition . The idea that Bender 's ideas were true , then the Germans could spy on British army without it have no idea . Accompanied by physicist Heinz Fisher, soldiers landed on the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea.

After some sources , the theory was taken seriously by senior Nazi officials followers occult sciences , and in some circles, it is considered that the German navy would be allowed to establish with more accuracy the positions of British ships - because , if it could be used infrared , bending Earth would have obscured . Hitler would have sent an expedition to the Baltic island of Rugen , and here a Dr. Heinz Fischer trained a telescopic camera to the sky to spot the British fleet sailing inside the convex surface of the hollow Earth . It is said even that was missed some shootings V1 calculate precisely because trajectory assuming a convex rather than concave surfaces .

If the Earth were hollow , the reflection of radar waves propagate in a straight line will provide images of distant points located on the inner . It was a military plane to find the enemy position . Needless to say, this did not happen only in their imagination . Developed amid instability and insecurity own Germany in those days , location inside a bare ground had also another psychological effect , as Jacques Bergier and Louis Pauwels highlights " hollow Earth theory gave human beings the feeling of being wrapped , closed protected as a fetus in the womb . " After Hitler's death , many did not want to believe in the end of one of the banalest great destinies of mankind, therefore they were convinced that he did not commit suicide but that , along with his aides , slipped into the depths of the Earth where they all lived happily ever after .

The idea of a unique world of ardent minds of many adventurers . One of them went on with this research . Dr. Raymond Bernard wrote the book " The Hollow Earth " , after which initiated the construction of settlements in South America , determined to discover the possible inputs that we engage in life's journey . Later, he disappeared without a trace in one of the caves Amazon and his followers were convinced that reached its goal. So be it ?

Byrd's name is related to the discovery of bare earth . An avid explorer , he participated in research assignments both in Antarctica and in the Arctic, events have provided a new impetus Hollow Earth theory . Initially it was thought that his expedition will end once and for all these fantasies but finally, things settled otherwise. Documents related to these quests , and Byrd 's diaries were submitted later in the annals of the University of Ohio . The fact that one of the missing logs generated a net of intrigue around . That , and the fact that Byrd referred to Antarctica as " Earth Eternal Mystery " and noted : "I would like to see the land beyond the North Pole . Zone beyond the pole is the center of the Great Unknown ." This evidence was more than sufficient for those who believe in the theory.

Operation Highjump , initiated by the U.S. government in 1946, he was carrying on Admiral Byrd . The stated purpose was to explore the Antarctic area of geographical , geological , hydrographic conditions to test electromagnetic area to strengthen the sovereignty of the United States in the area and to test the reactions of the human body in extreme conditions. The mission was cut short in February 1947 , six months earlier than originally scheduled date , without any acceptable explanation .

Just keeping the mystery of the true motivations have opened Pandora's box . The alleged lack of Admiral log events included even in February , but the words scrawled on the paper were too harsh for sensitive ears of mankind. A version of this journal unauthenticated circulating on the Internet , and here recounts in detail Byrd expedition which went over the ice , to a green land , where he was greeted by people blond friend who drove him to master. Follows a philosophy and life lesson that one called Master will provide human Byrd . The lesson learned , and he climb aboard his craft and returns to the frozen lands in the midst of humanity is heading towards extinction . What is not mentioned here is that the month of February in the Antarctic is so tough in terms of weather conditions , that a research mission here means lost time and resources , and a flight is downright impossible.

In an article in The New Scientist, scientists are invited to give their expert opinion on this issue . They agree that if the Earth would be empty , mankind would be in danger of suffocation , thirst , drought , famine , frost and finally sinking. Even in this order . A hollow Earth would not have enough mass to sustain the existence of the air by the force of gravity and surface water would evaporate . Also , there is a magnetic field generated by the Earth's liquid iron core . Compasses would not work , and some migratory birds would be totally bummed regarding orientation . But that would be the least care . In the absence of an atmosphere , radiation from space would not encounter any barrier , and life on Earth would not have a chance. There would be no volcanic activity and no sign of lava . And especially a bare earth would have a mass of 5 x 1022 kg , which means only a small fraction of its real .

Hollow Earth theory beyond debate that it has generated , the horny minds of writers and , especially , gave only a good material to be exploited . Therefore, many who crave to believe in this theory have used these products literature and fiction to give credibility to their beliefs , covering practical way backward. Some important cultural figures who wrote The Hollow Earth is HG Wells , Aldous Huxley, Herman Hesse , Edgar Allan Poe , Edgar Rice Burroughs and perhaps the most famous work of all, that of Jules Verne , " Journey to the Center of the Earth " .

Our sun inside is made of cold fusion ?

Some scientists consider " cold fusion " as a pseudo - science. But many countries in the world are investing significant sums in studying this concept. Some scientists have even already discussed the possibility that cold fusion to occur within the Earth ; eg P.Palmer , a geophysicist known already suggested this. Helium-3 , which comes from the Earth , has been considered by some as an indication that cold fusion could take place deep inside the Earth . Would not it be possible that our sun inside has also been produced by "cold fusion"?

OURANG MEDAN - creepy disappearance

We’ve all come across stories of ghost ships and death ships: The Flying Dutchman, Mary Celeste, and so on… However, (in my opinion) none really compare to the nature of the story I’m about to tell you. That is, the legend of the S.S. Ourang Medan.

According to widely circulated reports, in June of 1947 — or, according to alternate accounts, February of 1948 — multiple ships traversing the trade routes of the straits of Malacca, which is located on the sun-drenched shores of Sumatra and Malaysia, claimed to have picked up a series of SOS distress signals.

The unknown ship’s message was as simple as it was disturbing:

“All officers including captain are dead, lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.”  This communication was followed by a burst of indecipherable Morse code, then a final, grim message: “I die.” This cryptic proclamation was followed by tomb-like silence.

The chilling distress call was picked up by two American ships as well as British and Dutch listening posts. The men manning these posts managed to triangulate the source of these broadcasts and deduced that they were likely emanating from a Dutch freighter known as the SS Ourang Medan, which was navigating the straits of Malacca.

A conscripted American merchant ship called the Silver Star was closest to the presumed location of the Ourang Medan. Originally christened “Santa Cecilia” by the Grace Line (W. R. Grace & Co.), the vessel had been renamed the Silver Star when the United States Maritime Commission “drafted” it in 1946.

Noting the terrified urgency in the message that came over the airwaves, the Captain and crew of the Silver Star wasted no time in changing their course in an effort to assist the apparently incapacitated ship. Within hours, the Silver Star caught sight of the Ourang Medan rising and falling in the choppy waters of the Malacca Strait.

As the merchant craft neared the ill-omened vessel, the crew noticed that there was no sign of life on the deck. The Americans attempted to hail the Dutch crew to no avail. When the rescue vessel arrived on the scene a few hours later, they tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response to their hand and whistle signals. That’s when the Captain of the Silver Star decided to assemble a boarding party. As they left the safe haven of the Silver Star, these unfortunate souls had no idea that they were about to walk into a living nightmare.

Once on board, the crew quickly realized that the distress signal wasn’t an exaggeration. The deck was littered with corpses; with their eyes and mouths wide open, arms out, faces twisted with the anguish of horror and agony. As a May 1952 report of the Proceedings of the Merchant Marine Council put it: “their frozen faces were upturned to the sun, the mouths were gaping open and the eyes staring…”. It is said that even the ship's dog was dead, frozen into a haunting grimace. The captain’s remains were discovered on the Bridge, the communications office was still at his post, his fingertips resting on the telegraph. According to reports, all the corpses shared the same wide-eyed expressions on their faces. Each corpse was positioned with arms outstretched as if they were still locked in battle with some unseen assailant terror. On examination of bodies was found that all crew members died about 6-8 hours ago, but despite this, their body temperature exceeded the mark of  40 degrees Celsius.

Below deck, search party members found cadres of corpses in the boiler room, but almost as disturbing as this grim find was the fact that the American crew members claimed to have felt an extreme chill in the nadir of the hold, even though the temperature outside was a scorching 110°F. While the search team could see clear evidence that the crew of the Ourang Medan suffered profoundly at the moment of their deaths, they could find no overt evidence of injury or foul play on the swiftly decaying corpses. Nor could they spy any damage to the ship itself.

Their captain determined that they should attach a line to the Ourang Medan and tow her ashore but as his crew was doing this they saw the Ourang was on fire, smoke was billowing from below her decks. These men barely had time to cut the towline and make their way back to the Silver Star before the Ourang Medan exploded with such a force that she "lifted herself from the water and swiftly sank”.

To this day, the exact fate of the Ourang Medan and her crew remain a mystery. Some say that pirates killed the crew and sabotaged the ship, others claim that she was transporting an illicit cargo of chemicals such as potassium cyanide and nitroglycerine (both of which become dangerous when combined with sea water). The condition of the bodies found aboard and haunting distress call, however, has led to more rampant speculation...ranging from the inhalation of carbon monoxide to some kind of nefarious UFO intervention. In the end, nobody really knows what happened.

The ship was lost to the sea and became a part of the realm of maritime legends and mysterious.

What we have presented so far are the facts as presented by those who were at the scene and were recorded in documents of various investigations conducted after a series of state authorities. Worthy of consideration is the fact that the time elapsed since the occurrence of this event altered any possibility to discover other elements that can provide clarification on the elucidation of the mystery. As such we are left little choice but to make interpretations of the information we have and throw some conclusions about what happened to Ourang Medan.

Briefly, the facts are as follows:

1 An S.O.S. was received by several ships that travel through the area that day. We can have no certainty that rescue call was sent from the ship Ourang Medan, we only know that he was received by several ships including the Silver Star.

2 Reports on the situation on the ship Ourang Medan belong exclusively to Silver Star crew who boarded the ship in distress.

3 It is not very clear when the event occurred, some documents place him in June 1947 while others in February 1948 when the event is particularly relevant because the weather could have a great influence on the interpretation of spot reports .

4 The incident occurred in a straight width not exceeding 80-100 km, which was very trafficked in that period. Is there no rescue ground forces to intervene more quickly than the Silver Star. Examination bodies revealed that people already died about 6-8 hours in a very straight circulated showing symptoms science then and the current can not explain.

5 The way the message is worded suggests that communications officer make sure that all officers including captain are dead and their bodies are in a location clearly defined "chartroom and bridge", which means that one could verify certain that it can work and that "threat" was either not very stringent or perhaps the disappeared. Yet the communications officer was found dead even as finger transmitter would end while transmitting the message "I die".

6 On deck, there were only remnants captain, no crew member who did not end near the vessel

7 The crew bodies found on deck were "frozen" in a similar position. Position with arms stretched out as if trying to fend off an unseen terror does not suggest in any way a gas poisoning, which could eventually produce symptoms of suffocation. Also, the position of defense suggests that people trying to defend a physically solid. It is unlikely that all underwent concomitant hallucinations. However, communications officer could be consistent which means that the message is not felt an immediate threat, nor suffered from any visual or auditory hallucination.

8 Cursory examinations of the bodies showed that all individuals have suffered before death, the bodies temperature increases above 40 degrees Celsius. We can assume that there is one exception - the communications officer that if he died with his hand on the transmitter while transmitting a message somewhat coherent unlikely his body temperature to be so high.

9 In their haste to withdraw rescue team members from the Silver Star had the inspiration to make even the dog's body for further analysis. Experience should tell them that we are witnessing an incident full of unknowns and it will lead to an explosion shortly sinking with the loss of any evidence that could lead to the elucidation of the case.

10 Pretty strange is the statement that the search team members when examining bodies found in the boiler room all felt a shiver down your spine while the outside temperature was 100 ° F. This may elucidate questions about the period in which event, I personally tend to believe that occurred in February 1948.

THEORIES MORE OR LESS REASONABLE

Researchers that have tried to determine what actually happened to the crew on the Ourang Medan have all hit brick walls. One reason this tale is considered a legend is that fact that there are no official records that this ship ever existed. But this does not mesh with the fact many ships heard the Ourang’s distress call, and it is believed by many that the Silver Star did change course and it did discover this ship. 

Of course many have speculated what exactly caused these men’s deaths--which I find fascinating since in the same breath it is mentioned that this incident didn’t actually happen. Many theories have been suggested, some more far-fetched than others.

1. Cover up

One mentioned often is since this ship sank right after the Second World War it’s relative obscurity was used to transport chemicals used to make poisonous gas--it is stated if salt water hit these chemicals it would have killed the crew and then eventually caused the explosion. An interesting note about this theory is some believe that the real name of this ship was changed to disguise the fact that it was transporting these chemicals. Regardless, if this theory is believed one still has to wonder why this mixture of gasses plus the salt water didn’t cause the ship to explode immediately.

2. Explosion of a boiler

Another theory states that the ship’s boiler must have malfunctioned causing a carbon monoxide leak. The crew then inhaled these fumes and died. But why did the seaman on deck not survive? Wouldn’t the fresh sea air have saved them ?

3. Methane gas bubbles from the see

A third theory presented involves “methane bubbles” surfacing in clouds from a hole or fissure in the sea floor which then asphyxiated the crew. This theory is at fault because these bubbles could not have caused the ship to explode. One has to wonder if these bubbles could kill the entire ship’s crew?

4. Alien attack

In 1953, Frank Edwards and Robert V. Hulse retold the basics of the legend for Fate Magazine and in his 1955 book “The case For the UFO,” astronomer, author and noted “Philadelphia Experiment” researcher, Morris K. Jessup, hypothesized that the crew of the Ourang Medan may have been attacked by extraterrestrials for reasons unknown.

Other Fortean enthusiasts have theorized that the unlucky Dutch crew may have had a Scooby Doo-like run-in with vengeful wraiths of the sea or a ghost ship full of surly, undead pirates. The dubious proof, which supporters of the paranormal option use to confirm their theory, is the evident lack of a natural cause for the deaths as well as the purportedly petrified expressions etched onto the faces of the doomed sailors. Add to this the unnatural chill in the cargo hold and the assertion that some of the deceased sailors were reaching up towards what was assumed to be an unknown adversary and you have all the ingredients for a hoary seafarers’ tale.

This is scant evidence indeed for a supposed interaction with either evil aliens or malevolent phantoms, but one can hardly blame yarn spinning mariners for trying to add a little spice to a story told around campfires on stony shorelines to wide-eyed children… or even novice deckhands. So, if we presume for the moment that the paranormal is out then we must be dealing with…

5.  Pirate attack

Others speculated that pirates boarded the ship and attacked the crew but this was immediately ruled out because there were no marks found on any of the bodies. An article in Fate magazine in 1953 stated that since none of the mainstream reasons purposed were solid it could have been something paranormal that caused these deaths.

6. Paranormal

One rumor stated after this in 1965 involved a UFO. It was put forth that aliens must have attacked the ship. Another reason given is based upon the fact that the Silver Star crew experienced a feeling of immense cold in the Ourang Medan’s lower decks. This caused speculation that “ghosts” had something to do with the crew’s demise.

CONCLUSIONS

When all is said and done, if anyone really knows what happened to the Ourang Medan and her crew then they’re not talking, but whatever the truth is behind this unfathomable tragedy, it remains one of the most perplexing and downright scary maritime enigmas of the 20th Century… and while it might not be as famous as the plethora of other ghost ships said to sail the high seas, it is every bit a terrifying.

Zana - the Yeti woman

Hundreds of explorers, theorists and fantasists have spent their lives searching for the infamous 'big-foot'. But a leading geneticist believes he has found evidence to prove that it - or rather she - could have been more than a myth.

Russia’s ‘Almasty Hunters’ have been obsessed with her story for over half a century and have always believed that Zana could be a surviving Neanderthal, the human-like species that is thought to have died out tens of thousands of years ago.

Professor Bryan Sykes of the University of Oxford claims a towering woman named Zana who lived in 19th Century Russia - and appeared to be 'half human, half ape' - could have been the fabled yeti.

Witnesses described the six-foot, six inches tall woman discovered in the Caucasus mountains between Georgia and Russia as having 'all the characteristics of a wild animal' - and covered in thick auburn hair.

Experts believe the wandering 'Wild Woman' was found lurking in the remote region of Ochamchir in the Republic of Abkhazia.

She was captured by a local merchant in the 1850s who hired a group of hunters to subdue and shackle her in the mountainous terrain.

Professor Sykes claims Zana was kept in a 'ditch surrounded by sharpened spikes' and sold from owner to owner until she came to serve nobleman Edgi Genaba as a servant.

Famously known as the ape woman, Zana had at least four children by local men and some of her descendants still live in the region, the Times reported. 

Sykes made an astonishing discovery when he carried out saliva tests on six of her living relatives and the tooth of her deceased son Khwit.

The DNA analysis revealed that they all contained the right amount of African DNA for Zana the ape woman to be '100 per cent African' but remarkably she did not resemble any known group.  

Her resemblance was that of a wild beast - 'the most frightening feature of which was her expression which was the pure animal,' one Russian zoologist wrote in 1996.

The man who organised various eyewitness accounts of Zana wrote: 'Her athletic power was enormous. She would outrun a horse and swim across the Moskva river even when it rose in violent high tide.' 

To answer the riddle and establish what species she belonged to, Professor Sykes has tested samples from six of Zana’s living descendants. He has also recovered DNA from a tooth taken from the skull of one of her sons, Khwit. Such work is highly specialized and Sykes was the first geneticist ever to extract DNA from an ancient bone.

The results are complex and fascinating. First, they show that Zana was, in fact, no more Neanderthal than many of the rest of modern humans. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010 it became clear that Europeans and Asians contain around 2 to 4% of Neanderthal DNA; almost certainly the result of interbreeding.

But the big surprise in Sykes’ results was that Zana’s DNA is not Caucasian at all, but African. Khwit’s tooth sample confirms her maternal African ancestry and the saliva tests on the six living descendants show that they all contain African DNA in the right proportions for Zana to have been genetically 100% sub-Saharan African.

“The most obvious solution that springs to mind is that Zana or her ancestors were brought from Africa to Abkhazia as slaves, when it was part of the slave trading Ottoman Empire, to work as servants or labourers,” says Professor Sykes. “While the Russians ended slavery when they took over the region in the late 1850s, some Africans remained behind. Was Zana one of them, who was living wild in the forest when she was captured?“

But that theory would not explain her extraordinary features, described by reliable eyewitnesses. There is an even more intriguing alternative theory. Having carefully studied the skull of Zana’s son, Khwit, Professor Sykes believes there are some unusual morphological skull features – such as very wide eye sockets, an elevated brow ridge and what appears to be an additional bone at the back of the skull – that could suggest ancient, as opposed to modern, human origins.

And Sykes has raised the bold theoretical possibility that Zana could be a remnant of an earlier human migration out of Africa, perhaps tens of thousands, of years ago. If correct, Zana could be evidence of a hitherto unknown human ‘tribe’, dating from a distant time when the human species was still evolving and whose ancestors were forced into remote regions, like the Caucasus mountains, by later waves of modern humans coming out of Africa.

Some have argued that she was a runaway Ottoman slave but Professor Sykes says her 'unparalleled DNA' refutes that theory.

He believes her ancestors came out of Africa over 100,000 years ago and lived in the remote Caucasus for many generations.

The archaeological site of Dmanisi, located in the Kvemo Kartli region of Georgia about 93 km southwest of the capital Tbilisi, has only been partially excavated so far, but it’s already providing the first opportunity for anthropologists to compare and contrast the physical traits of multiple human ancestors that apparently coincided in the same time and geological space.

“The differences between these Dmanisi fossils are no more pronounced than those between five modern humans or five chimpanzees,” said Dr. David Lordkipanidze from the Georgian National Museum in Tbilisi, a lead author of a paper in the journal Science and co-author of a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Traditionally, researchers have used variation among Homo fossils to define different species. But in light of these new findings, Dr. Lordkipanidze, and his colleagues suggest that early, diverse Homo fossils, with their origins in Africa, actually represent variation among members of a single, evolving lineage – most appropriately, Homo erectus.

Zana was eventually 'tamed' by the nobleman who bought her as a servant and kept her on his estate in Tkhina in the Republic of Abkhazia.

Accounts from the time claim she was incredibly muscular, slept outdoors and ran around naked until she died on the estate in 1890. 

Some of his colleagues doubt his other findings - which include a claim that an unknown species of bear might account for yeti sightings in Bhutan. 

One of the Russian Almasty hunters, Dr. Igor Burtsev, offers testimony in the Channel 4 documentary that may back this theory up. He unearthed Khwit’s skull in 1971 and a few years later, showed it to a group of anthropologists in Moscow. They were, he says ‘amazed’, and identified a mix of ‘primitive’ and ‘progressive’ (modern) features in the skull. Lacking the scientific tools at Sykes’ disposal, they could take it no further. Now Sykes is able to propose the theory with some confidence.

It is only a theory at this stage – and a bold and speculative one at that. But Professor Sykes intends to study it much further before reaching his final conclusions.

There are also scientists who criticize the statements of Professor Sykes.

But then, what else can you expect from someone who deplores…math? Take a look at the prominent pull quote.

“Professor Sykes criticized modern genetics for its lack of ambition and its fixation on mathematics. I’m afraid the golden years are over, he said. It is a field now dominated by the arrogance of bioinformatics and, as such, has lost it’s way.”

That is utterly baffling. Doesn't he like that genetics is fixated on mathematics? But genetics has relied heavily on math since Mendel! If he actually analyzed Zana’s descendants and compared them to extant human populations, he was using the principles of bioinformatics! What he seems to be saying is that he wants to ignore the data to give greater credence to the bigoted legends of Zana, the Russian ape-woman.

Despite the lack of hard proof from the analysis of the alleged 'yeti hairs', he says he has developed a strong sense that 'something is out there' after speaking to dozens of witnesses. 

Professor Sykes could not say if the yeti, bigfoot or the Russian almasty is the best candidate for a surviving race of human 'apemen'.

He said: 'Bigfoot has many more people trying to find it. But I suppose, either the yeti or the alma / almasty, which live in inaccessible and very thinly populated regions, is the most likely.'

Strange "sleep disease" from the Kazakh steppe

In a cold spring morning in 2010, dull life of people in Krasnogorsk, a town in northwestern Kazakhstan, was troubled by an incident that would change the entire local community life.

Lyubov Belkova, who friends call Lyuba for short, had finished first as usual and walked back to her stall by the entrance. Someone asked Lyuba a question. When no answer came, the women looked over to notice the plump, middle-aged woman slumped in her seat, head down on her table of socks and hats.

“Lyuba? Lyuba?” They called. No response. Nadezhda, a former nurse, hurried over. She tapped her lightly — nothing. She checked Lyuba’s pulse — it was normal. She checked her pupils — they were dilated. “Call the ambulance,” she commanded. Then she noticed Lyuba was snoring.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to wake his family decided that we need to see doctors. Lyuba was not awake until four days without to be able to remember anything of what happened to her during this period.

When she tried to get out of bed to find that it no longer feels legs from the knees down. "I thought it would not be mine!" was her thought. After a few minutes and fully recovered. She got one out of bed and was walking without any help hospital halls.

The little group healthcare in the area of relieved, thinking it was just one of those isolated incidents which can not be explained, but that science is unable to investigate very thoroughly because its impact is minimal and the human, financial and time resources must judicious use. But it would be not so!

 For the next month, Lyuba was emotional, she was weepy. Sometimes her granddaughter told her she had become aggressive. Lyuba complained of dizzy spells. She had headaches. She had to write everything down so as not to forget. Scraps of paper littered her kitchen windowsill: “Turn off the water,” “Buy milk,” “Take medication.” Lyuba was confused by all this; then again, at 61, she was getting older, maybe this was normal. Poor Lyuba, the townspeople told each other, but Krasnogorsk had been a Soviet uranium mining town — they’d seen far worse.

A few weeks after Lyuba, Nadezhda, the nurse from the market, went to bed one night, and the next morning her mother couldn’t wake her. She was snoring heavily. When she woke up a few days later, the doctors told her they couldn’t find anything wrong with her, she was probably overworked. She needed to rest more. She thought that made sense. Life had been hard in Krasnogorsk since the Soviet Union collapsed. Nadezhda had been tired for decades. Poor Nadezhda, everyone said, life hadn’t been easy for her.

For the next two years, Lyuba would be in and out of the hospital six more times with the same symptoms. She lived with a packed bag — underwear, robe, slippers — of everything she would need. Lyuba kept all her medical charts in a thick baby-blue folder. Doctors had written all kinds of things she didn’t understand: “signs of postischemic alterations of the basal ganglia,” “ischemic stroke,” “stenocardia,” “cerebral atrophy,” and “substitutive external hydrocephalus.” She had traveled to Russia for more tests. The hospital there did MRIs, EKGs, and body scans; they checked her thyroid. She trudged around for days with a machine the size of a large purse that logged her vitals. In the end, they told her she had second-grade circulatory encephalopathy and cerebral obliterating atherosclerosis, and they didn’t exclude the possibility of epilepsy. Her gait had turned jerky, she complained of headaches, she was always so emotional. She knew people were gossiping that there was something funny about her. Poor Lyuba, they said to each other, so many strokes, how is she still alive?

In March 2013, the townspeople gathered in the neighboring village of Kalachi to celebrate the spring festival of Nauryz. They watched their children perform traditional Kazakh dances, sing songs and recite poems in the village’s playground. After a few hours, they settled into the bar next door for the evening, drinking into the night. Over the long weekend, three college-age kids and five adults fell ill with the same symptoms. First, they would slur their words as if they were drunk. They would see double, and start swaying, then they would fall asleep and snore heavily. They could be roused, speak, go to the bathroom, even eat food, but then they would fall back asleep. They stayed in this state for days. When they finally woke up, they didn’t remember anything. The villagers didn’t understand what was wrong. Maybe the kids had been doing drugs, they told each other,maybe the adults drank too much. But it didn’t add up.

That’s when the townspeople remembered Lyuba and Nadezhda. They remembered another woman who worked in a shop across the street from the market, who fell ill a few weeks after Nadezhda. She snored and couldn’t be woken for days either. Someone mentioned Bogdan — the high school senior who had come home from school and fallen on the carpet around the same time as Lyuba. Bogdan had been active in his illness, verging on violent. He kept trying to run somewhere and had to be tied down to the hospital bed. He was out for nine days. He didn’t remember anything either. Drugs, the town rumor mill had churned, maybe he drank something. It wouldn’t be the first time homemade brew had gone wrong. Teenagers, they had tutted.

They remembered Julia, a shop attendant who had gone across the street to the bakery in Kalachi a few months before Nauryz. After she came back, she took off her jacket and sat down, but when she tried to stand again, she couldn’t. She tried to speak, but her speech was slurred as if she’d chugged a bottle of vodka on her morning bread run. She was ill for three days. When she woke up, the doctors told her she had overexerted herself. She needed to rest more. But Julia was 28 and she wasn’t particularly tired. The doctors said there was something wrong with her spine. After that, Julia was fired from her job; the proprietor didn’t want a liability. Poor Julia, people had said at the time.

Just as they were slowly connecting the dots, the residents of Kalachi and Krasnogorsk started getting sick en masse. It came like a biblical plague exacting revenge on all those people who had tutted poor Lyuba, poor Nadezhda, poor Julia. There would be nine waves of sleeping sickness in total — no street would be spared — over 130 people, a quarter of the total population, some multiple times. Everyone would exhibit similar symptoms: the slurred speech, the swaying, and the double vision. When they woke up, they remembered nothing. Everyone was getting the same diagnosis: encephalopathy of unknown origin, basically abnormal brain function of no known cause.

Scientists arrived with sample baggies and metal machines; then came local government officials in suits with clipboards and surveys about relocation. Journalists swarmed. People kept getting sick. No one knew why or what to do about it. And — despite reports this summer that a possible explanation has been discovered — they still don’t.

At first, suspicion turned on the uranium mine two miles away. The complex lies in shattered ruin on the horizon as a constant reminder of the town’s former glory. When I arrived in late April, there was little to welcome visitors. A gated cemetery on the side of the road and a lone landmark heralded our approach, proclaiming “Krasnogorsk” in neat red letters with a red jackhammer and helmet on a white inverted triangle. Beyond the stump, Krasnogorsk’s tall apartment blocs rise out of the flat golden steppe, as if they had been air-dropped there directly from Moscow — separated from the squat, ramshackle farmhouses of Kalachi by a small ravine that serves as the natural boundary between town and village.

Everyone who saw Krasnogorsk for the first time was jealous of its beauty and its bounty. The town had two schools, a large, gleaming hospital, and a theater that could hold 420 people. They had running water, electricity, and central heat, unlike their village neighbors in Kalachi, who carted well water, used chimneys and kept livestock. The miners got extra rations of milk or sour cream. In the summer, everyone gathered at the Ishim, a river so clean people could see their toes wiggle when they swam in it. They would fish for carp and tench and barbecue it on the sandy banks. Miners had summer cottages with small vegetable gardens. They had so much, Krasnogorsk looked down on the 600 villagers of Kalachi. Why wouldn’t they? They even instituted a coupon system to prevent the villagers from buying their fancy town food. When the mine ran out of uranium in 1980, they sealed it and opened a new one 30 miles away.

It was in this atmosphere of uncertainty that people started getting the sleeping sickness. So when doctors said it happened because they were overworked, everyone believed them. Why wouldn’t they? If the residents of Krasnogorsk and Kalachi were exhausted, they had plenty of reasons to be.

From the beginning, there were lots of theories. Maybe the wind was bringing something from the mine. Maybe it was coming out of the earth. Or maybe it was the changing seasons. People told each other to open the windows, they told each other to close the windows, but it didn’t seem to matter. Whatever it was, it was coming fast.

There were days when multiple people on a single street fell sick. There were days when people on opposite ends of the town fell sick simultaneously. The men were usually more active, verging on violent, and had to be restrained. Women were calmer in their slumber. Yet each could be woken up, spoken to, fed — smokers even went out for cigarettes — before falling back asleep. A cluster of people could be in the same place and only some of them would fall asleep. Why? they asked each other.

Kazakhstan’s National Nuclear Center’s Institute of Radiation Safety and Ecology was dispatched from its base in Kurchatov, northeastern Kazakhstan, for a month in April 2014. The team measured radon levels, though radon causes lung cancer, not drowsiness. They tested the ground, the air, the water, and food — tomatoes, potatoes, and cucumbers were put into plastic bags. Radon levels were high but no higher than one would expect from a town and village practically on top of a uranium mine, so they ruled it out. They turned their attention to carbon monoxide.

But nothing was conclusive, so people kept talking. Maybe the village of Kalachi would be resettled like their neighbors in Krasnogorsk. Maybe the village school would be closed. Rumors stretched like shadows at dusk. A man swore he had seen people burying barrels in shafts when they were closing the mine. Someone else said the government had found gold under the town and wanted them out, so they were being poisoned. Maybe the government wanted to make the city a closed military zone, or a resort for the wealthy. Perhaps they found holy water; maybe it was diamonds. Residents started noticing helicopters flying overhead — could they be spraying something? People saw ghosts. One woman saw UFOs, small red and blue orbs that hung a few feet above the earth; others swore they’d seen them too.

Curiously, people also noticed that while visiting relatives from Russia and Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, fell sick, no official outsider ever did — not the journalists, not the scientists, not the parade of local government officials who came to the village meetings with their empty promises. “How can you explain that?”, they asked each other. Surely this is evidence the government is poisoning us.

There was the truck driver who got sick while fishing and nearly fell into the once-pristine Ishim River. He crawled to his car and drove home, and his granddaughter watched as he slammed into the driveway and broke his headlight in the process. There was the school gym teacher who got sick at her neighbor’s house and sprained her neck. There was the village veterinarian, who finished castrating 40 pigs before people realized he had been sick the whole time. One man got sick on his motorcycle. No one understood how he managed to get back in one piece. There was the town dance instructor, the former ballerina who tried to dance Swan Lake and The Nutcracker while sick. There was the former engineer, an amputee, who had been inside all winter, but came out to the balcony to birdwatch in the spring and was sick in minutes. There were two pregnant women. There was the mechanic who had been walking to work when he got the illness, slipped on ice, and broke his back. There was the man who came to visit his mother-in-law, who’d been in town only a few hours when he got sick.

Then there was the cat, who everyone thought was sick until the owner admitted she had fed it vodka. That didn’t bother people as much as when the cow died. Everyone was so panicked about their livestock, Acting Mayor Asel Sadvakasova commissioned a public autopsy by experts imported from Esil and publicized the results to prove the cow had died of natural causes.

Officials are also still uncertain as to how mines that have been inactive for 25-years could produce such large levels of poisonous gas, and why reports of the sickness began only two years ago.

The uranium mines closed in the late 1980s, but many locals and some scientists suspect the abandoned works have left a disastrous legacy.

“Concentrations of radon at that particular place are four or five times normal. And there are uranium ore mines nearby. Maybe [the problem] comes from there,” Artem Grigoriev, the head of research at the Kazakhstan national nuclear centre’s institute for radiation safety.

Evacuation of both villages began in January 2015, with the government seeking to relocate 223 families.