A Virginia landlord found a couple of old tombstones in the basement of a house he is subletting. At first he did not think much of it, since he is not the type to believe in ghosts; but then again he remembered that a couple of tenants had reported that they would hear door slamming, disembodied voices and footsteps throughout the house.

Coincidence?

Full source: Star Exponent

A man helping ready a Triangle home for the rental market found two tombstones in its basement Wednesday.

For the last week, Edward Grogg has been doing handy work at the a one-story home on Triangle Street, helping landlord Elliot Diamond get the 60-year-old house ready to be rented again, after two “unfavorable” tenants abruptly left with little notice two weeks ago.

While in the basement, Grogg said he saw slabs of concrete lying on the floor.

“When I picked them up I could feel the grooves, so I took them and turned them around, leaned them against the wall and then I realized they were real tombstones,“ said Grogg. “I don’t believe in ghosts, but I was kinda spooked.“

According to Grogg, the tombstone discovery is the latest in a series of eerie events in this house, including a light bulb that inexplicably turned on while power was shut off to the house.

The headstones of Mary J. Fitton, alive between 1880 and 1935, and David M. Ingram, alive between 1957 and 1980, are now in a police evidence room in Woodbridge. Grogg called authorities on Diamond’s advice and reported what he’d found.

Prince William library historian Don Wilson said a check of local records showed Fitton lived with her husband, Hanson Fitton, on Saint Asaph Street Alexandria before her death on Oct. 6, 1935. Social Security death records showed Ingram lived in Washington in 1971.

Wilson said both people could be buried in Alexandria, and that their headstones could have been stolen or replaced.

“Usually, when we find a tombstone in Prince William County, it has been removed from a grave site and replaced with a new one, after the stone begins to show wear,“ he said.

Investigators do not know how the stones got into the house, but they’re trying to find out.

Diamond bought the house as an investment property in 2003, and said his last tenants were a man and a woman who argued frequently. He said the man left without notice, and the woman weeks later surrendered the key to the house, leaving no contact information behind.

“The headstones weren’t there when I was in the basement about a year ago,“ said Diamond. “The police are going to have to track down where these guys went and ask them about it if they are going to find out who they belong to.“

While Diamond said he doesn’t know about any paranormal activity in his house, Grogg said the tenants previous to the man and woman who abruptly left moved out because they heard strange voices, doors slamming and footsteps on the wooden floors where no one was walking.

Grogg lives next door with his fiancée, Sabrina Ham, on the first floor of a house also owned by Diamond and below is a woman who helps Diamond manage his properties. For a few dollars off the rent, Grogg agreed to help Diamond clean the vacated house.

Three days ago, Grogg was doing electrical work there and had shut off power to the house. While back at his home, he saw a light on in the vacant house, and so did the property manager, who asked him about it.

“She said ‘Look inside the house, the light’s on,‘“ said Grogg. He pointed Wednesday to a single round light bulb that hangs in a light fixture above the kitchen, saying it had inexplicably turned itself on.

With much of the cleaning nearly finished, Grogg said he will not volunteer to paint the house or do any other side jobs there. He said he’ll leave them to someone else.

Jeff Meldrum, associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello and author of “Sasquatch:Legend Meets Science“, will be doing a free talk (that’s right, FREE) in Kennewick, Washington.

Meldrum will talk about his extensive research work on the elusive creature. Good news for you Bigfoot enthusiasts in near proximity.

Full source: The News Tribune

By John Trumbo

KENNEWICK — When Jeff Meldrum goes into the backcountry, he keeps his eyes, ears and nose alert for signs of Sasquatch.

For 12 years now, the author of Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science has been on the hunt for evidence that will prove or disprove existence of the legendary tall, apelike creature described in hundreds of sightings across much of forested North America.

Meldrum, an associate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University in Pocatello, will talk about his research at a free 7 p.m. Thursday program at the Kennewick Library, 1620 S. Union St.

“As a scientist I don’t have the answers yet,” Meldrum said in a phone interview Tuesday. But he hopes his research will be fruitful.

“I’m quite personally convinced there will be a new species of primate confirmed,” he said.

Meldrum said he has more than 200 casts of what may be Sasquatch footprints — each a five-toed impression up to nearly 14 inches long and more than 5 inches wide found at various sites.



Some of those he collected himself in 1996 near Walla Walla, where he had gone to talk to a man who had reported finding tracks in the Blue Mountains. His interest in the legendary creature dates back to when he was 11 years old and saw the famous film taken by Roger Patterson near Bluff Creek, Calif., of a purported Bigfoot running away.

As an expert in primate and human locomotion, Meldrum looks for detail that shows the mechanics of how a Sasquatch foot differs from a human’s. The Sasquatch footprints show a foot that flexes in the middle, more like an ape than a man, he said.

Meldrum said he’s so far convinced the oversized biped footprints aren’t of a human. But as a scientist he doesn’t want to jump to a conclusion that Sasquatch, or Bigfoot as the infamous creature has been named in California, is real.

The footprints are intriguing, but Meldrum is more interested in hard evidence such as scat or hair that could offer the possibility of obtaining DNA. He said that’s his goal with this summer’s research.

Past monthlong trips into Sasquatch country have not given Meldrum a glimpse of the mythical creature. But he said he has heard “vocalizations,” and once had his campsite visited by a stealthy biped that brushed by the tent and had sufficient dexterity to unclasp and unzip compartments on a backpack before slipping away into the night.

“I’ve had rocks thrown at me and been in a cabin when something tossed firewood onto the roof,” he said.

In each situation, Meldrum had been in the remote areas for weeks at a time and had positioned himself in areas where Sasquatch sightings had been reported.

Meldrum is serious about his research and isn’t put off by critics, even fellow academics. “I’m seen as the lone voice in the wilderness, but there are others who are just as interested,” he said.

Meldrum believes that if Sasquatch is real, then it has to be a relatively solitary creature whose territory probably includes up to 1,000 square miles.

That would put the total North American population of Sasquatch at between 500 to 1,000 creatures, with as few as 50 in all of Northern California.

Some of the most convincing evidence for Sasquatch to be real is the history of sightings going back hundreds of years, he said.

Meldrum said Native Americans had Sasquatch stories, and so did early Europeans who came to the continent and reported seeing hair-covered wildmen.

Canadian trapper David Thompson, who worked for the Hudson’s Bay Co. and explored the Columbia River from its source to mouth in the late 1790s, also mentioned the strange creature in his accounts of coursing across the Pacific Northwest, Meldrum said.

Thursday’s program will include about an hour of presentation followed by a question and answer period.

View Larger Map

Photo: International Crypto. Museum

The above photo is of an alleged Bigfoot print in the snow. It was taken 10 days after the initial report of the sighting of a very tall Bigfoot-like creature in the area. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who lives near the area, is investigating the sighting.

I’ve not seen many Bigfoot related news articles lately, especially not many BIG cases reported since BFRO’s ” ‘Squeaky’ footage“. I enjoy reading these eyewitness type of reports, even though we should always take all reports of this nature with a grain of salt.

Full source: Sun Journal

By Kathryn Skelton

LEEDS — He’s calling the area the Turner Triangle and this beast the “Leeds Loki.”

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman visited Line Road last week to do his own investigation into a couple’s claim that something like Bigfoot walked in front of their car.

On Monday, Coleman said that the man had reported seeing something hairy, 7 feet tall and walking upright cross the road on the morning of Feb. 8 near the Greene-Leeds town line. The woman with him put its height at closer to 6½ feet.

Coleman is protecting the couple’s identity, so far only communicating with them through a friend.

“They’re just afraid it would ruin their lives because of all the ridicule,” Coleman said. “They’re really very skittish.”

Coleman, who has a museum in Portland dedicated to mostly unconfirmed creatures (Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, the Jersey Devil), was involved several years ago in naming the Turner Beast, a black animal that created enough mystery that it made national headlines before being unmasked as a dog.

The area has had other historical Bigfoot sightings, he said, as well as sightings of animals described as black panthers and cougars. Mystery cats, Coleman said, seem to live in one place year-round; he questioned whether Bigfoot migrates through the area in spring and fall.

“I think what’s happening, we may have a Turner Triangle where there’s a lot of marshy lands,” Coleman said. “My conceptualization is that the whole area is more wild than the people in Lewiston or Portland understand.”

Eric Nickerson lives on Line Road, a quarter-mile from the point of the sighting. He said he’s never seen anything strange in the woods there. In the early 1980s, however, 8 miles away on Turner Center Bridge Road, he claims his brother saw a Bigfoot and, that riding home one day on his bike, he himself was chased by one.

“It was right behind me for a ways,” Nickerson said. “Thank God, the house was there — I don’t know if it might have caught me or not.”

A family member has called History Channel’s “MonsterQuest” to offer up several stories, he said.

Coleman has been featured before on the monster show.

Bill Dubois, manager at the family business Red Roof in Leeds, said people had been in the store gossiping about the sighting, though most of the information was second- or third-hand.

“The people that saw it seemed pretty spooked,” he said.

His take on whether something could be in the woods out that way: “In this world, you never know. I have one customer that was just a Bigfoot freak; he believes in it. Telling him, he got all excited.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

Sure I can put together a 200-300 page book about any paranormal story, listing facts, names, proof and pictures and call it a day; but what really makes the creation stand out? I’ve scrapped so many “chapter ones” that it’s not even funny. I’ll find myself getting too technical with the writing that it starts to deviate from the story line. Or at times I find myself writing in a non-fluid motion. As if making a quick news post here on Ghost Theory.

I’ve read a few books in the last couple of months. I’ve re-read classic best-sellers as well. Just to get an idea as to what people tend to like in a horror/paranormal story. The bottom line is that there isn’t a single way of writing a book. Being too technical might be interesting to those who are in the know, but for the rest, it will be boring. The same can be said for the opposite scenario. I think that using less “technical jargon” would be ideal since this is all about story telling.

The bottom line is to not lie or superimpose outrageous scenarios. I’m doing my diligent work and cross referencing all claims. I’m checking county records for supposed witnesses and places, tracking and interviewing said witnesses as well.

I’ve decided to present the story and evidence as is, and not try to proselytize the reader into thinking one way or the other. The main focus on the book is to tell the story, while presenting facts (and fallacies for that matter) all the while grabbing the reader’s attention. A fluid storyline. If that means that I should use very little technical or philosophical analogies, then so be it.

So my question to you is: What makes for a good paranormal book?

This is just bizarre. I really would not think much of news like this one, but the fact that multiple witnesses were saying that they witnessed passengers in a car “…‘disappear’ momentarily at one stage”
A car crash on Paris’ M6 motorway has been shrouded in secrecy lately. What appears to be a typical, unfortunate crash, turned into something from the X-Files. Cue in music…

Many witnesses say that they saw a bright light emanating from one of the vehicles before crashing and had seen the occupants of one of the vehicles disappear, only to reappear within moments.

Full source: Prlog

M6 Crash Report – Suspected Link to Paris Crash Being Investigated
Details of a recent car crash in Paris are now surfacing after an embargo placed by the authorities on reporting the incident has now been lifted.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PR Log (Press Release) – Mar 08, 2010 – Speculation has been rife about the links between the incident in Paris and the recent crash on the M6 as it is clear that both have some level of unexplained activity and both crashes have been subject to strict reporting guidelines.

Full details are unclear at this time but it is understood that two vehicles were involved in the crash and that it took place near the Eiffel Tower, although the exact location is being kept secret. Parisian traffic police were keen to play down several rumours that have started to circulate amongst those who witnessed the crash surrounding the events that led up to it.

These include alleged witness statements that claim a bright light could be seen emanating from at least one of the vehicles before it collided with the other. In other statements, witnesses walking on the nearby pavement were reported to have seen the occupants of one of the vehicles ‘disappear’ momentarily at one stage.

The Parisian traffic police have denied the validity or existence of the statements and also confirmed that there were four bodies present in the vehicles; two in each. All were male and were said to have been badly burnt in the subsequent fire after the crash.

When questioned about why they won’t name an exact location for the crash, the police have put out a statement saying that ‘we wish to keep the location secure whilst the investigation continues and we are aware that such a location would attract people wanting to speculate on the reasons for the crash. This would jeopardise the integrity of the scene and any evidence that is still to be uncovered’

Further details of the investigation to follow.

Mark Collins
Freelance Journalist
Writer for VoloLegal / VoloMed

No, It’s not Gary from GhostTheory. Eugene Erlikh from Lake Erie, Ohio is the man who claims that what he captured on this camera are UFOs above and around the Lake Erie area.

The objects were described as flying solo and also doing group formations. There’s supposedly a video shot of these UFOs, but I was not able to find it through the FoxNews website or any other video/media outlet.

Full source: FoxNews

It’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s a UFO?

That’s what one Lake Erie, Ohio, resident is claiming. Eugene Erlikh snapped a half a dozen photos of something unusual floating in the sky. Erlikh believes the photos show a UFO, Fox8.com reports.

Erlikh told Fox8.com that the objects emitted “brilliant” colors and were flying solo, and occasionally in group formations. The objects appeared to be “making line formations and triangles in the sky.”

Erlikh, an EMT and paramedic student, also recorded video footage of what he says are “astonishing captures.”

The rest of the pictures can be seen here.

Poltergeist. An archaic German word that translates to “Noisy spirit”.

Many have read, or experienced events in life that can be classified as a poltergeist haunting. Disembodied footsteps, ghostly knocks or furniture moving are all typical poltergeist activities.

The following submitted personal story is about what happened to Karen M. Her encounter with a poltergeist was far more noisier than a typical ghostly knock. Sounding like “10 people with long sticks pounding the walls“, Karen’s poltergeist encounter has haunted her all these years.

When I was young about 15 I move up to Vancouver Island to be with my sister and brother in law, that summer . I was in love with a friend of theirs and wanted to be with him. I was losing my virginity to him around that time. They were in a old farm house , way at the back of the land ,that house was at the ends of its days. On 40 acres.In Courtney, B.C. on Headquarters road. I am 54 now.

It all started slowly at night with tappings on the walls outside, high up. My sister had dogs at the time ,big red setters,they had too much energy and we were forever letting them in and out of the living room doors .

We all sat at the kitchen table one morning and started to talk at the same time, we had all been awake, it turns out, We all can all hear the knocking around the house at night . We were all pretenting to be asleep and not wanting to bother with it, but we all were awake and didn t know the person next to us was awake too,We all had one eye open,each night We were all listening to the same thing.
I was shock, we didn t say anything for days before ,we confirm we all listening to the sounds.

Things got stronger, one night ,coming back from town my brother in-law walk in to the house then right back out again ,saying we are sleeping over at a friends place down the road. he wouldn t tell me what happen in there.The next day in the light we were back in the place laughing about how silly this was to sleep over on a friends floor, later that day, my sister and brother in-law went to town for the next night.

My boyfriend and I were alone in the house for a couple of hours everything was alright. Later into the night and then the knocking started then ,turn into banging faster and faster, louder and louder, around, all around us at the same time, the sound from the top of the outside walls were being banged by maybe like by 10 people with long sticks pounding the walls, I though, a joke, the night was dark with no moon, I had enough, and walk into the kitchen to look out the window and the light came on by its self, I jumped out of the room fast, and it went off.

My boyfriend ran and got a shotgun and we were going outside to get these people and I had the dogs ready by the neck now,all wild and barking to get out the same doors, ha, I thought “I’ll get them, with these dogs, heh heh and we will show them the gun, too Well I had the dogs fighting to go out, then when I open to door, an let go for the rush of them to move out, for the first time in my life, the dogs stop at the door and wouldn’t leave the house. They always run outside. I have never seen a dog stop stone dead in their tracks and not leave . The barking was real mean now. The banging was harder all around the outer walls going faster around us .

The dogs hairs went straight up. I have never seen that before ,and the hair is six inches long on that red breed. My eyes opened wide . My boyfriend looked, we looked at each other, in horror, all of us backed up from the doors, and the dogs, and with the gun we all sat down on the couch, freaked, the sound was all around us. The dogs now whimpering.

Then the banging, then stopped. We stayed there in that spot, not moving awake for hours with one little light on, we must of all fell asleep at the same time, dawn came, we awoke still, holding on to the big dogs, with the sunlight coming in, through the windows, I was alive, and happy it was day light. In the early morning, I went to the door and open it, the dogs and I ran out . I looked for foot prints around the house. There was none .

My sister came back later that morning. We tried to tell them at the same time what had happen. They had found a new place to live in town. I broke up with the boyfriend later that week , he wasn t the man I wanted under pressure with and went back to my mothers for the winter to go to school. It was so strange the dogs would not go out after whatevery it was out there. I was a woman when I left there, that summer I trust myself to see the truths in life .Of what I know and what happen on that night ,in that old house , In my guts it was a haunting ,that happen in my life. I never want to go through that again.

The dogs are the ones that let me something was wrong out there. I didn’t understand, I was gear up for the hunt of the problem. Something unreal happen that night, this touch me deeply, it didn’t make sense, why the dogs wouldn’t go out, and their hair on ends, I often wonder what would have happen if we did go outside with the loud banging going on. If we didn t have the dogs there to show us, this is not a good to leave the house.

I don’t write stories, well this was important to me to try .

Karen M.

I like history. Ancient, Pre-Columbian, European, Mesopotamian… pretty much all of it. I like the paranormal as well. Poltergeists, apparitions, UFO, Cryptozoology all are interesting to me.
When history and the paranormal collide…well I just have a field day.

A few years ago I saw a documentary titled “Hitler and The Occult” on the History Channel. I was so impressed by the research and story telling that I got on their website a minute after the show was done and bought a copy of it.

We all know that Hitler was a sociopath. He used his intelligence against humans and is responsible for one mankind’s greatest atrocities. Not many people know the inner struggles and illogical beliefs of this once failed artist. (I say failed not because he did not have talent, but because he did not believe in his work as an artist. Low self-esteem?)

What is know is that Hitler and his henchmen were deeply involved in the occult. From Rudolf Hess to Heinrich Himmler. Himmler is one of the most enigmatic of the henchmen. Taking over Germany’s Wewelsburg castle, and setting up a “spiritual bootcamp”, Himmler was as devoted to Hitler’s political and military plans as he was to his dark occult views.

The Wewelsburg castle. Located in Germany, in the village of Wewelsburg, was used after the mid 1930s by the Schutzstaffel under the orders of Heinrich Himmler. Himmler wanted to convert the castle into the main Schutzstaffel cult site. Wewelsburg was used as a spiritual training camp for all soldiers under Himmler. They were subjected to bizarre occult practices which included: a round table that seated the top 12 SS leaders. Obviously modeled after the tales of King Arthur. Ceremonial worship of the ashes of dead SS leaders, seances to try and reach the fallen and other weird practices.

Himmler would order his trusted SS leaders to sit in the main room of the castle for hours and contemplate and meditate. According to those who were close to Himmler, he believed he was the reincarnation of the Saxon King Heinrich the first. He even named his own personal chamber in the castle as “Himmler’s Crypt”. A dedicatory name to the Saxon king.

Himmler also confided in Karl Maria Wiligut. Known as “Himmler’s warlock”, Wiligut was committed into an asylum in 1924, before ever meeting Himmler.
Wiligut’s medical records included domestic abuse, violent behavior, “eccentric” behavior and occult interest. Released in 1927 he eventually made his way from Austria to Germany where he eventually crossed paths with the SS and Himmler and using the SS movement as a catalyst for his own “eccentric behavior”. His stay was short lived as Himmler himself was made aware of his sketchy past:

From wikipedia:

In November 1938, Karl Wolff, chief adjutant of Himmler’s personal staff and the second-highest ranking officer in the SS, visited Wiligut’s wife and learned of Wiligut’s earlier involuntary commitment to a mental institution, which proved embarrassing to Himmler. Wiligut’s staff was notified that his “application” for retirement on grounds of age and poor health had been granted in February 1939, and the official retirement was dated August 28, 1939, only a few days prior to the outbreak of World War II. Wiligut’s final years were insecure: he moved to Aufkirchen in 1939, to Goslar in 1940, and to Wörthersee in 1943, and after the war to a refugee camp in St. Johann near Velden, where he suffered a stroke. After this he was permitted to return to Salzburg, but he soon moved on to Arolsen in Hesse, where he died on 3 January 1946. His gravestone is inscribed with “UNSER LEBEN GEHT DAHIN WIE EIN GESCHWÄTZ” (”Our Life Passes Away Like Idle Chatter”).

I present to you, History Channel’s “Hitler and The Occult”

Video might be slow to load

If you liked this video, you can get it here:

The article by Billy Cox from the HeraldTribune prods at the correlations between the history of nuclear technology in the United States and the increasing sightings of UFOs.

Cox writes about Pat Broudy. A woman that came across an apparent UFO surveillance document while going through old paperwork to obtain her widow’s benefits from the Veterans Administration.

“Pat Broudy found a reference to apparent UFO surveillance on a nuclear operation in the Pacific. The episode is detailed at length in Robert Hastings’ 2008 book “UFOs and Nukes.”

Broudy, whose ex-Marine husband Charles died in 1977 from exposure to radiation, discovered the surprise in Defense Nuclear Agency documents declassified in 1982. It was a blurb in a 4/7/54 ship’s log from the Operation Castle sequence, several hours after Shot Koon rocked Enewetak with a 110-kiloton blast. The report noted that “an unidentified luminous object passed over ship from bow to stern, yellowish-orange in color, traveling at a high rate of speed and a low altitude.”

Giving the strong arguments for the existence of UFO and ETs visiting our planet, what are the probabilities that such life forms are spying on us and our destructive behavior? For what purposes?
Surely it would be arrogant for us to assume that there is no possible way some other life form would be more “advanced” than us and therefore have the power to intervene in our affairs. Maybe with the ever increasing “need” for nuclear weapons there should be someone, or something out there to intervene and put an end before it’s too late.

Full source: HeraldTribune

… Just don’t get caught

by Billy Cox

The clownish stewards of Soviet history used a heavy hand to rewrite its past, airbrushing disgraced icons — politicians, cosmonauts, generals, etc. — from state photos when the gravity of being human dragged them back to earth. In the U.S., managing history requires a bit more finesse.

Much about the evolution of nuclear weapons in America remains classified today, and during the Bush administration, previously released Cold War-era documents on our WMD arsenal were yanked back into the dark. After all, despite the best efforts of censors on the front end, some things slipped into the public domain that probably never should’ve been there in the first place. To wit:

In 1998, as she sorted through reams of government paper during her marathon legal ordeal to obtain widow’s benefits from the Veterans Administration, Pat Broudy found a reference to apparent UFO surveillance on a nuclear operation in the Pacific. The episode is detailed at length in Robert Hastings’ 2008 book “UFOs and Nukes.”

Broudy, whose ex-Marine husband Charles died in 1977 from exposure to radiation, discovered the surprise in Defense Nuclear Agency documents declassified in 1982. It was a blurb in a 4/7/54 ship’s log from the Operation Castle sequence, several hours after Shot Koon rocked Enewetak with a 110-kiloton blast. The report noted that “an unidentified luminous object passed over ship from bow to stern, yellowish-orange in color, traveling at a high rate of speed and a low altitude.”

As security breaches go, this one would appear to be a bag of small fries. OK, our impregnable fleet got buzzed by a UFO 50 years ago, so what — no harm, no foul. But then, as Hastings discovered in 2004 when he attempted to access the Operation Castle documents online from the Department of Energy, the bogey reference — cited on page 341 of the original report — wasn’t there. In fact, pages 301 to 350 were missing from the posted archives. Hastings’ theory: “It would have been too suspicious to delete just that one page.”

Maybe that’s what happened, or maybe not. Maybe it’s one of those random, arbitrary things, like when fish fall out of the sky. But if, as many researchers assert, UFOs are among America’s most highly classified secrets, then it would probably make sense to eliminate the reference from something this arcane. Unless you get caught doing it. Then you play into the hands of the accusers and you look really dumb.

Pat Broudy, who recently won her decades-long battle against the VA for widow’s benefits, still retains the DNA’s unedited Castle report at her home in Dana Point, Calif. She’s had her fill of government efforts to deny and alter the past.

“Nothing they do is surprising to me anymore,” she says.

I was contacted by Chris Cunnyngham a few days ago with this interesting story.
Although I tend to stay away from conspiracy theories (for my own sanity) the story title itself got me interested enough in reading the full post.

‘Templar crucifixion nail’ found in imaginary country – but is it a hoax?‘

Here is the brief summary from Chris:

So, boiled down, this is what we have: A man buys an old building, pronounces it a nation, secedes from his country, proclaims himself Prince, conducts archaeological digs and claims to have found three Templar skeletons and a nail that may have been a venerated relic of a crucifixion. And if it was a crucifixion nail it was one of thousands available.

Sounds a little sketchy.

I couldn’t agree more with Chris on this one. It’s obvious that tourism is the main goal here.

Full source: Examiner

Media outlets are reporting that archaeologists on the “island of Ilheu de Pontinha, just off the coast of Madeira” have found a four-inch Roman nail from the time of Christ’s crucifixion buried with the skeletons of what appear to be three Templar Knights.

That’s a pretty juicy story with a lot of popular elements. Ask Dan Brown.

I’m not a journalist but since I play one on the Internet I thought I would try to make sense of this story using the famous Five W’s of journalism. The story takes an interesting turn at Where.

Let’s look at the basic elements.

WHO

The Templars – The legendary Christian Knights founded in Jerusalem in 1119 to protect Christian pilgrims after the first Crusades captured the city. The Templars rose from monastic poverty to become one of the greatest powers in Europe before being wiped out to thwart their growing influence and acquire their valuable land and holdings. The Templars were known to venorate relics and were thought to have a piece of the True Cross from the crucifixion of Jesus as well as the head of Saint Euphemia of Chalcedon*, among other items.

The Templars are also the go-to guys for much of modern conspiracy lore and popular novels and movies like The Da Vinci Code have only raised their profile. They have been linked to almost every conspiracy imaginable and a cottage industry has cropped up concerning their secrets and lore.

WHAT

The Nail – Reportedly found in a decorated box and described as well cared for with a “peculiar finish” that may be the result of being handled often. The description heavily implies that it was treated as a holy relic.

Nails from crucifixions were considered powerful magical and medical amulets in ancient times and due to the widespread practice of crucifixion there was no shortage of them. Archaeologist Joe Zias writes that “tens if not hundreds of thousands of individuals were subject to this cruel and humiliating death” over a 800 year period. Six thousand followers of Spartacus were killed by crucifixion in one fell swoop in 71 BCE.

The skeletons – Three skeletons with swords, with one sword bearing a marking of the Knights Templar, have been reported. No word on the condition of the bones and no pictures have been released of the remains or crypt, if any.

WHEN

Crucifiction Era: 400 BC to 400 AD

Crucifixion of Jesus: 29 to 36 AD

Templars: 1119–1314 AD

WHERE

And here’s where it gets interesting. News reports are placing this find on “the tiny isle of Ilheu de Pontinha, just off the coast of Madeira.” A quick check of Google maps brings up nothing but a general search leads us to the “Principality of the Pontinha” a “self-proclaimed country founded by Prince D. Renato Barros.” Renato Barros announced his secession from Portugal in a 2007 press release and headquarters his country in the “Fort of São José.” It seems that all three of these entities – the Ilheu, the Principality, and the Fort – are the same thing – a precarious pile of rocks on the side of a jetty off the southern city of Funchal that may indeed be an old fort. It is not an island anymore though it could have been on at one time.

Read the full article: Examiner