Thanks Tim for the heads up!

Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot was recently in an expedition that covered some deep-wooded areas in Queensland, Australia. According to a recent article, the team is claiming to have captured audio from the mythical Australian Yowie. Bigfoot’s cousin down under.

The Finding Bigfoot team claims that the sounds they recorded are of an unknown animal, hinting at the Yowie.

While he was reluctant to give details ahead of presenting their evidence on the still-to-be-completed third season of the US show, Fay said that in two different locations they had activity that they had attributed to a yowie – the fabled ape-like creature of the Aussie bush.

“We got some really compelling audio,” he said.

“It is not a known species, I can tell you that. One of the details (convinces us) there is nothing else it could have been.”

You know, you would think that with all this “compelling evidence” that is found –coincidently around the third season finale– these researchers would release it to the public domain immediately to get a collaborative analysis done.

Here’s the article from the CourierMail.

A US television crew has recorded what it believes is compelling audio evidence of the existence of yowies.

The four-member team from Animal Planet’s Finding Bigfoot series were on an expedition through remote forests spanning the Queensland and NSW border when they made the recordings.

Bigfoot Field Research Organisation member James “Bobo” Fay said that of the more than 20 expeditions conducted around the world by the TV team, this was “maybe the best one as far as audio recordings”.

While he was reluctant to give details ahead of presenting their evidence on the still-to-be-completed third season of the US show, Fay said that in two different locations they had activity that they had attributed to a yowie – the fabled ape-like creature of the Aussie bush.

“We got some really compelling audio,” he said.

“It is not a known species, I can tell you that. One of the details (convinces us) there is nothing else it could have been.”

Their discovery comes as scientists from Oxford University and Lausanne Museum of Zoology are preparing to use new DNA analysis techniques to determine whether creatures such as yowies, Bigfoot, sasquatches or yetis exist.

The European scientists have asked other scientists, museum curators and Bigfoot tracking groups to share samples thought to be from the mythical ape-like creature.

Bryan Sykes, of Oxford University, told the Associated Press the research group had already received offers of samples to test, including blood, hair and items supposedly chewed by Bigfoot.

Fay is still “stoked” with having captured the Australian yowie sound on tape.

“When at first we all heard it, we were like, ‘No way’,” he recalls.

“If you were in North America, you could have written off one of the compelling things we heard as being a large bear. But there are no large bears here.”

Some seven years after the events of the Patterson/Gimlin film, even without the internet, it is unlikely many people had never seen the famous footage of “Patty” making her way across the river and into the woods to escape intruders into her habitat. What could they think they were hearing? Even as witness to the sounds they heard there must have been some doubt in their minds. When Ron next returned to the camp it was in the company of an investigative reporter named Al Berry, and some recording equipment. There began a life long study and interaction with Bigfoot.

Some of Ron’s results can be found here

Always careful to express that he proposes no answers to these questions, leaving those to the experts, and expressing that his study relates only to those creatures he has interacted with, Ron relates a broad range of interactions and experiences with the species. Believing that the creatures are tribal and possibly divided into sub-species as, if other stories are true, they are separated by oceans and could have evolved along different lines.

Footprints, exchanging gifts (to the extent that the creatures added fresh branches to the roof of their camp shelter,) sightings, and voice recordings. They have no pictures, or at least none were presented at the conference, as Ron echoes the experience of others that Bigfoot are seemingly aware of exceptionally shy around cameras. They have attempted to post trail cams and found them later removed, at times violently, from trees.

People have asked “How can Bigfoot be found?” Ron will tell you they cannot. Like most animals, they are aware of the presence of bumbling noisy humans long before we are aware of them. If Bigfoot want to interact with you they will find you.

How do you know they are there? One of the sounds they make is a “whoop” that is believed to be a simple location signal, used among the creatures for their own purposes. But even this is only if they want you to hear them. Bigfoot have a broad range of vocal capabilities, mimicry being just the tip of the iceberg. As has been noted in a previous article, there is a firmly held belief that Bigfoot use infrasound, sound below 20 Hz, outside the human range of hearing.
Ron relates a story of a night when he and another awoke to the sounds of their camp being destroyed, dreading the scene that would present itself in the morning. When they emerged from their shelter, nothing had been touched.

With the advent of the Internet, Ron began making available the compiled sounds he had recorded and that is where Scott Nelson comes into the picture. A Crypto-linguist for the Navy, Scott has 30 years and thousands of hours experience analyzing and transcribing vocal recordings. It was while helping his son on a school reject he got discovered Ron’s recordings. Scott’s son seemed to feel there was something more to the sounds Ron had recorded, so got his dad involved. Scott, unable to determine from the recordings he was hearing contacted Ron for better quality recordings and soon became a member of the team that travel with some frequency to the Sierra hunting camp.

Years of study later:

I would personally like to thank Mr. Neslon for permission to use the parts of his presentation found her for this article.

For more information on Scott and his work follow this link

Yes, the quality of the sound is not the best. The hotel was seemingly not equipped with the best equipment and anyone providing sound had to simply hold the microphone up to the speakers of their computer. That or no one knew how to set up their computer to get direct sound. Also I was using a basic hand held camcorder with condenser microphone. So please understand that you may not hear everything there was to hear. I did not hear everything there was to hear, as much of it takes many repetitions to discern. That said, much of it was there and I can assure you, more than just a trick of human perception finding or imagining what it is looking for.

This presentation more than made up for the absence of Dr. Ketchum.

John relates a series of incidents that happened in his youth while living with his grandfather. His experience is centered around an entity that he refers to as “The Dark Walker”.

I don’t want to give anything away, other than to say it’s a riveting tale that has no middle ground. Either believe it, or you don’t.

Let’s get right to it:

Photo Courtesy of Openwalls.com

Quote Lon:

“I received the following correspondence a few days ago. It was forwarded by ‘John’ a retired Federal employee who lives in northern Nevada and who wishes to remain anonymous. The story centers around an experience John had while living with his Grandfather. John later stated to me that the property was in a rural area of Aleppo Township in Greene County, Pennsylvania. He did not want to pinpoint the location but did say that he wanted the anecdote dedicated to his Grandfather – Samuel Hill, who he considers the most remarkable man he has ever known.

John seemed quite sincere in my opinion. He decided to come forth with the account after he had a rather strange encounter a few months ago (which he did not want to discuss). John did mention in his most recent email that he was 81 years old and a veteran of the Korean War. He also stated that he truly felt his Grandfather’s actions were taken in defense of his family:”

The Dark Walker – Reader Submission to Phantoms & Monsters

When I was a boy my mother and I lived with my grandfather who had a farmhouse in a rural location in southwestern Pennsylvania. My grandfather was a handyman who also worked a small blacksmith shop in his old barn. My grandmother had died before I was born and my father had also passed away while serving overseas in the U.S. Army.

Beginning in the summer of 1946 we noticed strange howling sounds coming from the woods that surrounded the property. The activity came at night and was very frightening when the howling came close. The sounds didn’t seem to bother my grandfather though my mother and I were shaken when it would begin. The sounds continued off and on for about a year but we never noticed any animals. My grandfather and I would hunt for deer and squirrel in the woods during the colder months but we never saw signs of unusual animal activity.

One late afternoon in the spring of 1947 I was helping my grandfather in his shop when I noticed something moving around the edge of the woods near an area where by grandfather had a few junk cars and other items. It was about 200 feet from our location but I clearly noticed someone or something moving around. I told my grandfather to look. He walked to the door, lit his pipe and said nothing. After a minute or two he turned around and got back to work. About that time this thing moved into the woods and disappeared. I couldn’t judge how big it was but it sort of reminded me of a magazine picture I had seen of a large ape that was said to inhabit in the Asian jungles.

Later that evening I told my mother what I had seen. She was shocked because she knew I wouldn’t lie to her and that the howling sounds had been closer lately. I also told her of my grandfather’s response when I pointed the creature out to him. She immediately stood up and walked into the sitting room in order to ask my grandfather what it was. He started to shake his head slowly and said that he was hoping that we wouldn’t ‘see it’ because he was worried we would be scared and leave him.

After assuring him that we’d never leave him my mother again insisted that he tell us what this creature was. He looked away, took a deep breath and said ‘it’s a Dark Walker’ and said that it had lived in the woods for many years. He said the native Indians called it ‘Stone Spirit’ and they thought that it was an evil spirit who would appear when someone was about to die. The last time he had seen the ‘Dark Walker’ was the night before my grandmother died. My mother was skeptical of the ‘harbinger of death’ angle but she sensed that there was something unnatural nearby.

The howling continued each night though we hadn’t seen any signs of the ‘Dark Walker’. One warm evening we were sitting on the back porch. There were a few howls but it seemed like the sounds were further away. We were listening to the radio when all at once my grandfather stood up and looked out towards the barn. He turned to me and said ‘John, go get my pistol and ammo – hurry now’. I ran into the sitting room and grabbed the .455 Webley revolver and a handful of bullets from the old steamer trunk. I handed it to him and watched him load the gun. He then picked up a hatchet and slid it in his pants belt. ‘Now both of you get into the house – now!’ We were in the kitchen looking through the screen door and watched my grandfather walk slowly towards the barn. We saw him turn and walk out of sight into the dark. I decided to grab my shotgun and keep it nearby. After a minute or so we heard three gunshots and a blood curdling scream emanate from the woods near the barn. Then it suddenly stopped and there was complete quiet. We were frozen and wondering if we should go look for my grandfather. A few seconds later we heard him yell ‘stay in the house until I come back.’

I heard the pickup truck start up. I looked out the storage room window and saw my grandfather drive to the back of the barn and park. Several minutes later he backed up and drove by the side of the house out onto the road. I could see that there was something in the back covered up with a tarp. It was getting late so my mother told me to go to bed.

The next morning I came downstairs and sat beside my grandfather who was reading the newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee. My mother was sitting at the other end of the table staring at my grandfather. Not long later she said ‘well dad, tell him’. My grandfather put the paper down and looked at me. ‘I killed the Dark Walker’. That was all he said. My mother told me not to tell anyone and that the matter was closed.

We never talked about it again. My grandfather lived another 15 years and my mother stayed with him until his dying day. When I grew older I moved away and raised a family. I would return home to visit each summer – and never heard another howl. John

NOTE: I asked John if he thought the ‘Dark Walker’ was a Bigfoot or hominid. He responded by stating that he didn’t think it was a hairy man or human-like creature. He thought it seemed more animal-like than human and that it moved lower to the ground…at least during the brief time he observed it. John mentioned that there were Shawnee legends of similar creatures but he never found a reference to a ‘Stone Spirit’.

Yea, I know what everyone was thinking, Bigfoot, right? Well, it would seem this is one of those rare occasions these days when the creature in the woods is likely not Bigfoot.

The story conjures up all kinds of mental pictures and I happen to like that his grandfather never showed them what was in the truck bed or spoke of it again.

For all we know, John’s grandfather killed an Indian Skinwalker. I also completely understand John’s respect for his grandfather. My father was the same way, when he decided not to speak about something, that was it. We forgot it and never asked him again.

Does anyone out there have a Dark Walker in their past?

If anyone can offer information in reference to this mystery, please feel free to forward it to lonstrickler@phantomsandmonsters.com or send it to me: scott@ghosttheory.com and I’ll get it to Lon.

I appreciate that Lon allows us to reprint his stuff and I thank him for this one.

Associated Content:

EX: Skinwalker Ranch
GT: Ex MUFON Director Questions ‘Skinwalker Ranch’ Claims
GT: Fox’s Hannity investigates ‘Beast of Bray road’

The Collateral Hominid Project is Oxford University’s project to help identify the so-called “cryptid” animals that are said to roam the planet. Chupacabras, Nessie, and especially Bigfoot samples are welcomed by the project as long as they’re organic samples. This project is to identify the genetic make-up of such creatures.

Which is good news to all you out there that have some Bigfoot evidence stashed away.

With the project opened to anyone in the world, there should be some interesting evidence submitted to the lab. According to the project’s deadlines, the “publication phase” won’t happen until November-December of this year.

Source: Oxford University

As part of a larger enquiry into the genetic relationship between our own species Homo sapiens and other hominids, we invite submissions of organic material from formally undescribed species, or “cryptids”, for the purpose of their species identification by genetic means.

Timetable
The project is divided into three phases.

SAMPLE SUBMISSION PHASE May – September 2012
DNA ANALYSIS PHASE September – November 2012
PUBLICATION PHASE November – December 2012

SAMPLE SUBMISSION
Sample submissions are invited from institutions and individuals. In the first instance, please send details of the material you would like to submit to one of the Principal Investigators. These should include:

· Your name, institutional affiliation (if any), postal and email addresses and other contact details.
· A physical description of the specimen: (Hair, tooth etc). Photographs welcome.
· Its provenance: A short account of the origin of the sample, when and where (with coordinates if known) it was collected and how it came to be in your possession.
· Identification: Your opinion of its likely species identification, and your reasons.
· Authority: A statement that you are entitled to send the specimen for analysis and that we have permission to publish the results.

In order to avoid misidentification of samples due to contamination, our preferred material is hair, although tissues will be considered.

After reviewing your submission, we will send you a sampling kit with instructions. Please do not send any materials without first hearing from us. They will not be analysed nor returned.

You may choose whether to be identified as the donor of the sample, or to remain anonymous.

DNA ANALYSIS
At the end of the submission phase, the most promising samples will be selected for DNA analysis. You will not be charged for the analysis. Unselected samples will be returned.

The process of DNA analysis is destructive. Any unused material from selected samples will be returned or, if you prefer, will be submitted for curation as part of the Bernard Heuvelmans Cryptozoology archive in Lausanne.

PUBLICATION PHASE
Results from DNA analysis will be prepared for publication in a peer-reviewed science journal. No results will be released until any embargoes on publication have passed.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Prof. Bryan Sykes
Professor of Human Genetics
Wolfson College
University of Oxford
Oxford OX2 6UD
United Kingdom
bryan.sykes@wolfson.ox.ac.uk

Dr. Michel Sartori
Directeur
Musee de Zoologie
Palais de Rumine
Place de Riponne 6
CH-1014 Lausanne
Switzerland
michel.sartori@vd.ch

When emailing please use OLCHP as the subject of your message

What does Dr. Novella think about this contraption? Pareidolia.

I’ve written a few articles about these so-called “ghost boxes” and each and every time that I do, the end conclusion is the same. People hear what they want to hear through pareidolia.
Dr. Novella gives us an insight perspective on how modern science views such claims.

Full source: NeuroLogica

What you hear, then, is what you would hear if you had an old radio with an analogue dial and you simply moved the dial quickly up and down the frequencies. You get a mix of static with snippets of speech or music. It is a perfect set up for generating audio pareidolia. The practice emerged out of electronic voice phenomenon (EVP), in which ghost hunters listen to hours of audio recorded in an allegedly haunted location and listen for noise that their brains can interpret as words. They then impose meaning on the random words. The ghost box just speeds up the process by generating “raw audio” for the pareidolia.

There are two layers of pattern recognition that are occurring when we have an eager ghost hunter sitting in front of a radio scanner (sorry, I mean “ghost box”) listening for the ghosts. The first layers is hearing words, names, or phrases. Sometimes the words are actual words coming through from a radio station. Sometimes, however, they are just noise that the brain tries to match to a word. Here is a great example – most of the words and phrases “heard” by the ghost hunter in this video are more imagination than anything else. I suggest you listen to the audio without the video and write down any words that you think you hear. Then watch the video and see if they match what the ghost hunter thought he heard.

On the video the alleged words flash up on the screen, so that suggestion will kick in. This is a well-known phenomenon – when a word or phrase is suggested to you, your brain will hear what is suggested. Here is a funny example – the “O Fortuna” lyrics misinterpreted as funny phrases. (Perhaps ghosts are trying to communicate through the lyrics of foreign-language music.)

There is also a second layer of pattern recognition, however – the meaning of the words. People are very good at inferring meaning, which is a useful skill in a highly social species. Like many such things, we are too good in that we tend to over-infer meaning. I see people do this all the time with their pets. They assign very sophisticated human understanding and intent to behaviors that probably have a much simpler explanation. We saw this also when researchers tried to teach apes to communicate with sign language. The researchers were very good at inferring what the apes meant even when signing essentially randomly. Sometimes, for example, the animal would try to be funny or playful by signing the opposite of what he meant.

We see the same thing in the ghost box video. The ghost hunter is good at taking the random words and phrases and inferring some meaning from them. He is then very impressed by the pattern of responses, concluding that there must be some intelligence behind them. Of course there is an intelligence at work, but it is at the receiving end of the words. Any apparent meaning to the alleged words is coming from the minds of those making the connection. In this way it is similar to a cold reading. The person making all the connections in a cold reading is not the reader but the subject. They are finding meaning in the questions and fragments (I see a letter “J”) that the cold reader is throwing out.

This general phenomenon is very common – seeing patterns in randomness and then being overly impressed at the connections. The naive premise for the believer is that if there were not a real external phenomenon going on (in this case, ghosts) then the apparent connections would not be there. This premise, however, is false. Humans are good at finding connections anywhere, and in that way we often deceive ourselves into thinking there is something there when there isn’t.

Read the rest of the article: NeuroLogica

Area residents were so distraught that it sparked a full blown search by authorities who suspected there was a bear on the loose in the area.

Now a new report has surfaced bringing back memories of the beast.

university student Helen Murray was out for a walk near the Old River Lea when she saw a shaggy black animal that she says was bigger than a human. At first she thought it might be dead but when it moved she took a couple of photos with her cell phone and then ran in terror.

Here’s the report from London 24:

The ‘Beast of Hackney Marshes’ mystery

A strange creature has been captured on camera on Hackney Marshes – 30 years after the unexplained sighting of another mystery beast sparked a full-scale search for a suspected bear on the loose.

Terrified university student Helen Murray said she took the snaps while out for a stroll near dense woodland close to a path near the Old River Lea on bank holiday Monday earlier this month.

She said she was stopped in her tracks by the unknown animal, which was larger than a person and covered in shaggy black fur.

“I tried to stay calm as I wasn’t sure what kind of animal it was or if it was even alive,” she said. “I had my phone ready to call 999. Then the creature moved. Somehow I managed to take a couple of pictures before I ran.

“I managed to get away but was scared half to death.”

Ms Murray says she didn’t contact the police because she thought they wouldn’t believe her.

A spokeswoman for Hackney police said there have been no other reports of sightings, while experts at London Zoo said the pictures were not clear enough for them to comment.

The photographs have revived memories of the unexplained case of a bear reportedly sighted on the Marshes in 1981 – 50 police officers, army marksmen, and a helicopter were drafted in to search the area, but the beast was never found.

Officers at the time stressed the people who’d seen the animal were not hoaxers, although they admitted they could have been victims of a hoax.

Two bear carcasses had previously been found nearby in the River Lea and it remains a mystery how they got there.

I tried my best to blow up and manipulate the pictures but with little success as you can see above.

Is it a bear, dog or something more crypto-like? The best I can do is leave it up to the readers to decide.

Thanks to London24.com for their spin on the Hackney Mystery Beast.

Associated Content:

GT: MonsterQuest: ‘Gable Film’ Mystery Solved
GT: Wisconsin: Man-Wolf sightings
GT: Bigfoot vs Grizzly Bear

The infamous “Haunted hospital” in Los Angeles will soon be getting a facelift. The 107 year old Linda Vista Community Hospital has been the focus of a rash of recent paranormal investigations.
After the hospital closed its doors nearly 25 years ago, urban legends and paranormal rumors have become synonymous with the building. A new proposal was put in place to pump nearly $40 million into the old building and renovate it for a senior living community.

Yahoo News
Would you want your grandma living in an abandoned hospital so well known for its creepy atmosphere and alleged hauntings that it has been used in various Hollywood productions by folks like Rob Zombie and the makers of the horror film “Se7en”?

The L.A. Times says the 107-year-old Linda Vista Community Hospital may soon earn a new reputation once a proposed $40 million conversion is complete, transforming the abandoned building into a senior living home.

“People tell me it’s the most haunted place in L.A.,” said Maurice Ramirez, executive vice president of Amcal Multi-Housing Inc., the affordable housing group heading the hospital’s conversion. “Because it’s been empty for maybe 25 years or so, it becomes the subject of a little urban folklore about ghosts and things.”

The hospital’s caretaker Francis Kortekaas says he has experienced a few unusual moments over the years since Linda Vista closed shop in 1991, including when a sink seemed to turn itself on and off in front of his eyes, and when he felt a child’s hand reach out for his own, even though he was alone at the time.

“It felt like my daughter’s hand,” he told the paper.

Not that I believe that the building harbors ghosts or anything, but I do find it interesting to see what kinds of stories will begin to trickle out of the hospital as more patients and employees start moving in.

This turned out to be a less than ordinary day when a San Clemente California mother decided to clean up after her kids.

43 year old Lyn Hiner came across some stones on the floor of her home that her daughter had found at the beach. Tidying up a bit, Lyn put the stones in her pocket and it wasn’t long before she felt what she thought was an insect biting her. In reaction, Lyn slapped her leg to kill whatever it was that was stinging her only to have her cargo shorts burst into flames.

Read on for the rest of the story:

A California mother is recovering from second- and third-degree burns after colored rocks her family collected from a southern California beach unexpectedly caught fire while in her shorts pocket.

“We were talking about who was going to pick up the babysitter,” Lyn Hiner said today on “Good Morning America.” “And all of a sudden something hot on my leg just sort of started to bother me so I started thinking it was a bug bite, so I started slapping it and the next thing I know my pants were on fire.”

The harmless-looking, green- and orange-colored rocks, which Hiner’s daughters found Saturday on San Onofre State Beach in southern California, are now the subject of an intense scientific investigation.

Hiner, 43, had put the rocks in her pocket after they left the beach. As she and her husband, Rob Hiner, were preparing to go out later that evening, the rocks suddenly erupted in her pants.

Rob Hiner, who appeared on “GMA” alongside his wife at the Santa Ana, Calif., burn center where she is being treated, said the couple had no idea what was happening.

“It was just this bright intense flame,” he said. “We didn’t know what it was. Our first response was just to try to pat it out.

“But, In trying to pat it out, it wasn’t going out so the next thing was just to try and drop and roll and eventually we just tried to tear her shorts off and got them off of her,” he said.

Fire authorities responded to smoke alarms in the couple’s home that were set off because the flames in Lyn Hiner’s pockets were so intense.

“There were actual flames coming off of her cargo shorts,” Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Marc Stone told ABC News. “The husband was outside with a garden hose, actually trying to cool her leg down.”

The couple were eventually taken to the Grossman Burn Center, where Lyn Hiner continues to recover from the severe burns on her hands and leg.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” her doctor, Dr. Andrea Dunkelman, said today on “GMA.” “She has third-degree burns, which means that it’s been burned all the way through her skin to her underlying tissue, her fat. We treated her by placing skin grafts from her thigh to that area.”

Lynn’s husband, Rob, suffered burns on his hands in the incident while trying to come to his wife’s aid.

“We’re exhausted but we’re overwhelmed with love and support,” Rob Hiner said. “We’re just grateful. We’re grateful that things weren’t worse and God just continues to provide for us in this situation.”

Scientists investigating the mysterious explosion say there were seven rocks in total that the Hiner’s
children took from the beach. Field tests found traces of phosphorus — the flammable orange chemical used in matches — on the rocks.

“It’ll burn right through flesh, bone and skin. I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Dr. Michio Kaku, author of “Physics of the Future,” an examination of science in the coming century, said.

The beach where the rocks were collected is near Camp Pendleton Marine base. But Marine officials say there’s no evidence any military materials were involved.

San Diego State University geologist Pat Abbott says this was not Mother Nature’s fault.

“I know the orange is not part of the rock,” Abbott said. “It’s not natural. It’s human made.”

Wow! Now that’s what I call a hot foot…er, leg.

Anyone who thinks the military base has something to do with this raise your hand.

Thanks to ABC’s Yahoo Feed for this odd story of human combustion.

Associated Content:

GT: ‘Mystery Man’ Inexplicably Catches Fire
GT: Friday Video: Inside Spontaneous Human Combustion
GT: The Man with the Flaming Hands

In all the years of seeing reports and stories about the carved heads that populate Easter Island, not once did I ever consider the idea that they were attached to stone bodies. However, it would seem that is exactly the case and it’s not just a few as every single one of the approx 1,000 sentinel statues are as complete as can be, from the top of their oddly shaped heads to the feet of their….errr, feet!

Apparently, Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project decided it was high time someone started digging to find out what lay below the surface.

Van Tilburg, who is also a fellow with The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California has been fascinated with the strange figures which seem to stand guard over the Island for quite some time. In fact, she’s been visiting the small South Pacific Island for 30 years and deeply involved with the Statue Project for the past 20.

Here’s more on this revealing story:

Easter Island archaeology project digs up island’s secrets

New photographs reveal what lies beneath the surface of Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world — the carved bodies of the island’s 887 famous guardians.

Most people think of the 63-square-mile Pacific island’s silent stone sentinels as simple heads. But the heads all have bodies — and a backstory that’s only now being pieced together, explained Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project.

“Those statues which are the most photographed are standing in the quarry. They’re buried up to mid-torso level. So it’s understandable that the general public didn’t have a clue that those statues had bodies,” she told FoxNews.com.

Current belief is that the statues were carved between A.D.1100 up until the 1800s, when an influx of Westerners transformed the culture. Van Tilburg, a fellow with The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, has only been coming to Easter Island (called Rapa Nui) to do research for twenty years, since 1992. But she first came more than thirty years ago — and stayed for one clear reason.

“I fell in love with the statues,” she said simply.

“I came to Easter Island in 1981. I was impressed with the number of statues and that they seemed accessible to me, they were on the surface. I wanted to know what was below the surface.”

First Van Tilburg documented the island’s statues and those that have been removed to museums; there are 887 inventoried, though she says the number is closer to 1,000. Then she began the next phase of work to reveal what lay beneath the ground — covered up not intentionally by men, but through centuries of exposure to the environment.

That process has taken 12 years so far, and may take a lifetime of work.

“It’s the first time that one has been excavated in such a way that the documentation was complete and scientific,” she told FoxNews.com. Other groups have dug in the past, and looters have found their way to the remote island as well.

“People have been treasure hunting there for a long time.”

Van Tilburg is conducting a far more thorough examination, however, working in collaboration with a staff of three in California and ten Rapa Nui natives who are doing all of the excavation work. She is currently gearing up for the sixth scheduled dig on the island, which should run from October through November 2012.

Work so far has revealed evidence of ceremonies and very large quantities of paint; the archaeologists believe the workers painted the statues as well as their own bodies.

She found evidence of human burials nearby as well.

And recent digs have revealed just how the massive heads were carved — some of which tower more than 30 feet in height, from base to top, and weigh more than 80 tons.

“We found over 500 stone tools. The statues were carved with different types, big heavy picks and finer basalt and obsidian tools to finish details,” she explained. Other tools were used to rub surfaces and burnish the statues. Van Tilburg found evidence of post holes as well, big enough for a tree trunk, and rope guides carved in some statues to elevate them into standing position.

But the intent of the giant sculptures, their reason for being, is still not totally clear.

“Think of China where they buried an army of standing warriors. That group was intended to be together as part of a burial feature. Here, on Easter Island, each statue is individually constructed by groups.”

A signed stone recently discovered beneath one of the heads held a petroglyph of a Polynesian style canoe, and a clue: It was meant to signify identity, Van Tilburg said.

“It was meant to identify that statue either to a family group of people or a subgroup, either carvers or the family unit the carvers came from, or beyond that, to the chief,” she told FoxNews.com. The giant sculptures were most likely relatives and not guardians, in other words.

Later sculptures were far more realistic and individualistic, she noted, which also reveals something about the changing culture, as native peoples moved from highly controlled fiefdoms to a society allowing for more individual expression.

“It’s always important to get beneath the surface of things,” she said.

Well, what can I say? Sometimes there are answers to questions seldom asked. In this case it turned out to be monument-al.

Now, what’s the deal with that Stonehenge place? Maybe those things are like teeth with giant pronged roots…and maybe nerves and…What? Until they are exposed I can say anything I want.

Thanks to Fox News for digging this one up.

Associated Content:

EX: The Easter Island Statue Project
GT: Video: New Discoveries At Stonehenge
EX: Easter Island-Faces of Mystery
EX: Home Page

Now we time warp to the present and find Dan, now a Systems Engineer working on a plan. This is not just any plan mind you, this is the mother of all plans. You see, Dan has decided to take on the task of designing and building a starship. Not just any starship either as he plans to build a modern day Starship Enterprise.

Yes, this guy is serious and he just might have the wherewithal to get er done.

Of course Dan doesn’t have the propulsion technology that Scotty mans on Star Treks Enterprise so he decided the best option was to go nuclear baby! Furthermore, what he calls the Gen1 Enterprise will not be the size of Lost in Space’s Jupiter Two, nosireebob! His starship will be 3,150 ft long. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly 2-1/2 times the hight of the Empire State building.

Lets look into this further and see what Dan’s up to:

Let’s build the Enterprise! Star Trek fan unveils bold plan to make Captain Kirk’s space ship within 20 years

A Stark Trek fan has a message for humanity: Can we boldly go where no man has gone before – and build a fully-functioning Starship Enterprise?

Visit BuildTheEnterprise.org, and you may believe you have stumbled upon the blueprints of a NASA-funded project, so complete and fully-fledged are the blueprints.

Every detail of the first Enterprise has been planned out to the smallest degree, from the inner workings of the ‘gravity wheel’ to the coverings on the exterior shielding, as well as the outline of the first ten missions and the political problems that will have to be overcome.

Naturally, there are some differences: Captain Kirk and his crew explored the universe in 2250 or thereabouts, and the increase in technology advances gives Kirk and co a distinct advantage, such as warp drives powered by anti-matter and teleportation devices.

Still, ‘Dan’ a systems engineer whose job involves trialling new technologies, believes we can build his model within the next 20 years and it can then be a vessel for humanity, using nuclear generators to take us to the moon in three days and to Mars in 90 days.

The ship – otherwise known as the NCC-1701 – is a faithful – and more importantly, a technically possible, recreation of of the biggest shows in Sci-Fi history.

However, as creator ‘Dan’ points out, ‘many changes are needed inside the Gen1 ship to make the ship compatible with the technologies of the first half of the 21st century.

‘Keep in mind that the Star Trek adventures in the NCC-1701-x Enterprise ships take place starting in the year 2245. Our technology today is just not up to building a starship – that will have to wait for a Gen4 ship or later.

But this doesn’t mean that the Gen1 Enterprise will not be awe-inspiring and similar in many fundamental ways to the Enterprises of the future.’

He added: ‘The Gen1 Enterprise will be the same size as future Enterprises or larger. It will have 1g gravity like the future ships and ample comfortable living space. It will have a bridge with 1g gravity where the captain and key crew members will often work.

‘It will have a huge number of sensors for probing whatever the ship encounters in space. It can launch landers that descend to a planet below and then return to the ship. It will move beyond the brute-force rocket engines of the 20th century by using ion propulsion engines powered by on-board nuclear reactors.

‘Yes, this may still be a long way from warp drives powered by anti-matter, but it will be a respectable start.’

Dan continued: ‘Things get moved around and reworked quite a bit inside the Gen1 Enterprise compared to the Enterprises of Star Trek. For example, in the NCC-1701-x ships the hanger deck is located in the back of the lower hull and this serves as the launch and entry port for shuttlecrafts.

‘But in the Gen1 Enterprise this lower hull section instead houses the main engine and main nuclear reactor. For the Gen1 ship, the spaceport entry doors are on the underside of the saucer hull.

‘The reason for this is that in the Gen1 Enterprise every bit of the three hull sections to the rear of the Enterprise are needed to house the three engines and nuclear reactors that will be needed to provide enough power to move the massive ship with the required .002g constant acceleration.

‘Another example of a change is that the bridge is not at the top center of the saucer hull as it is shown in the figure above. If it was there in the Gen1 Enterprise then there would be no gravity on the bridge. Having the ship’s captain and crew floating around inside the bridge just makes no sense. Thus, in the Gen1 Enterprise the bridge is in a dedicated section of the gravity wheel so that they will work in 1g gravity.

‘While things get moved around quite a bit inside the Gen1 Enterprise when compared to the ships from Star Trek, they are not moved around upon a whim. They are moved around because the Gen1 ship’s technological capabilities demand certain changes.’

Dan, who is behind the project, seems qualified for the role, and hopes that even if his project doesn’t – excuse the pun – get off the ground, his project will inspire The Next Generation.

On his website he states: ‘In my day job I work as a systems engineer and electrical engineer. For 30 years I have worked at the same Fortune 500 company, a company that is a high-tech leader in the US and globally.

‘I’m lucky that in my role I often get to explore new ideas and new technologies when working toward the development of new products. The BuildTheEnterprise website just seems to flow out naturally from the same approach I take in pondering and evaluating new ideas and technologies in my day job.

‘Personally, I have found working as an engineer to be very rewarding. The work is interesting, the pay is good, your co-workers are bright and enthusiastic, and the unemployment rate in engineering typically runs under 3 per cent – far below the national average for all workers. For these reasons I hope that some young people find a bit of inspiration in this website, and that this might even help motivate some to study engineering in college.

‘And okay, for the record, while in grade school I watched the first Star Trek series each week during the original season on TV in 1966 on my family’s black and white TV.

‘Captivated by the image and idea of the USS Enterprise, I built a long lost model of it from a kit I purchased at a store. I was around nine years old. So I suppose the USS Enterprise has been burned into my brain for a long time, just waiting for a chance to get out.’

Wow! This is quite a plan Dan has hatched and while many will scoff at it, remember, they scoffed at the Wright Brothers when they invented the airline stewardess.

Furthermore, nuclear waste can easily be disposed of by flushing it down the port a potties, right? I mean who’s going to stop him? After all, you can’t get fined in space, right? No really, can you?

I say, if this isn’t a big bunch of s-h-i-t, I’m all on board! Besides, you get to wear neat jumpsuits and call your buddies Bones. Don’t forget having sex with….OK, nuff said!

Thanks to our favorite tabloid, The Daily Mail for this one.

See Dan’s Website at BuildTheEnterprise.org

Notice: Photos are copyright of Alamy and Build the Enterprise. We are grateful for the opportunity to use them.

Associated Content:

GT: The Tools of Sci Fi
GT: Dr. Barry Taff: Building A Real Time Machine
GT: Iran Develops UFO…Sort Of