Windsor-Essex, Ontario being hit by mysterious rumblings
windsorstar - Ontario’s Environment Ministry is investigating reports of mysterious rumblings in parts of Windsor and Essex County.
Nine formal complaints have been registered to the local ministry office and there have been numerous telephone inquiries, officials say.
“I feel like I’m going mental,” said Sonya Skillings, a resident in the 3800 block of Poplar Avenue, just east of Windsor Regional Hospital’s Western Campus.
“It’s in the ground and it feels like there is a subway under the house. It happens at all different times — in the middle of the night, as well.”
The ministry has investigated underground blasting by at the Windsor Salt mine, but the company blasts only once a day Monday to Friday in mid-afternoon.
“We just want to know what the noise is,” said Skillings, a married mom to six-year-old and five-month-old boys. “It’s just weird that nobody knows. If it’s not the salt mines, then what is it?”
Ministry of Environment officers have asked homeowners to keep a log in order to help find the source of the rumbling.
The calls about the noise have come from nearly every corner in Windsor and the surrounding area, said Teri Gilbert, issues project co-ordinator for the local Environment Ministry office.
“We have received a number of complaints and it seems widespread,” she said. “Most are from west Windsor, but also Amherstburg, South Windsor and Lakeshore.
“In response we are working with a number of partners — the City of Windsor, federal government and Michigan state government — to determine the source. We have not been able to nail it down.”
The ministry’s goal is to eliminate any possibility the vibrations are being caused by an industrial source on either side of the border.
Mining activities by salt companies on either side of the border have been ruled out because “their operations are not coinciding with the times people are feeling these (vibrations),” Gilbert said.
Homeowners and any neighbours they can enlist will log the noises and vibrations for at least the next month, she said.
Another possibility could be overhead jets circling, landing and taking off from Detroit Metropolitan Airport, but Skillings believes that’s not the case.
“The vibrations definitely are more underground,” she said. “All I hear is the rumbling.”
Gilbert indicated federal aviation authorities may be contacted once the Environment Ministry can rule out all industrial sources.
“It’s a mystery,” she said. “There appears to be no rhyme or reason to it.”
UPDATE: Nearly 40 Windsor and Essex County residents report mysterious rumblings
windsorstar - The rumblings are upon us — everywhere.
Following a Star story that appeared Friday, nearly 40 people called by noon to say they too have experienced strange rumblings, vibrations or noises at their homes.
The calls came from every corner of Windsor and Essex County stretching as far away as Amherstburg and Colchester North.
“It’s like a low grade rumble,” said Valerie Chedour who lives on Belle River Road in Woodslee. “At first, I thought it was trouble with my furnace. It’s not. Then I wondered about heavy machinery, then it happened in the middle of the night. There is no pattern or rhythm to it.
“At least I know now I’m not going nuts and hearing things. That it’s for real.”
Theories on the cause among callers ranged from windmills, Zug Island, ships on the waterways, truck traffic and possible earthquakes.
“That noise has literally been driving me crazy,” said Irene Sorrell who lives on California Avenue by Assumption high school. “It shook my house. I thought it was a kid in front of my house with a boom box and I look and there is nobody there.
“I wish the heck I knew what it was. It’s like a bloody semi was in my yard.”
Ontario’s Ministry of Environment has begun an investigation to rule out possible industrial sources causing the mysterious vibrations.
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New Japan Tsunami Video
Amazing video where a fair-sized village is swallowed up in mere seconds.
Click for video
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FBI 'believed Hitler faked his death'
The FBI believed that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler faked his suicide in 1945, and tried to track him down for nearly 30 years after his death, according to de-classified files.
On 29 April 1945, Hitler and his lover Eva Braun killed themselves in the Berlin bunker. Now, 66 years on, the FBI files reveal that the US agency had maintained a detailed dossier on the Fuhrer and closely investigated any report that indicated he still was alive.
The files reveal how FBI agents ranch in Argentina, living in a hotel in Denmark and in New York City. He was bearded, clean-shaven, suffered from asthma and stomach ulcers, according to informants who wrote their sightings in to the then FBI director, J Edgar Hoover.
The FBI office in Los Angeles noted on 21 Sept, 1945: "Hitler and 50 of his closest family landed approximately 10 days after the fall of Berlin in two submarines in southern Argentina. Hitler has grown a beard and is hiding on a ranch."
One theory Hoover ordered his agents to pursue was an extensive 11-year probe into the possibility that Hitler faked his own death with a bogus suicide in 1945.
One sighting came from a doctor in 1954 who claimed to have treated Hitler for an intestinal disorder in St Louis. Others told tales of Hitler dining in a Washington restaurant in 1946, 'The Scotsman' reported.
Years later, the truth emerged from the files of SMERSH -- Russia's elite intelligence service meaning "Death to Spies" -- which proved from the reports of Hitler aides in the bunker that he shot himself.
His ashes and bones, together with those of his wife, were buried and uprooted several times in what was former East Germany before being disinterred one last time from a military base near Magdeburg in 1970s and flung into a river.
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Curious Yowie
First of all, I have given this account only once before, and it was on the internet. I don't feel as though I could tell someone in real life, I much prefer to sit down and think about it and get it right. (Plus, you know, being judged, bit embarrassing etc etc).
The Sighting.
When?
August 1997.
Where?
Kanangra Boyd National Park, on a big hike from the Wombeyan Caves to Katoomba. For those that know the area, it was to the north of Kanangra Walls, on the track that heads northeastish to Katoomba, from Creft's Walls and along the hills Rip, Rack, Roar and Rumble. I haven't got my maps with me, but it was somewhere along the track down from Mount Stormbreaker to the (I think) the Cox's River (possibly the Kowmung).
What Happened?
It was getting late in the day as I was walking down the track - probably around 5pm. It was definately verging on dusk. I was walking with two other gentlemen (who ended up not seeing anything). I told them I had to take a break and use the 'facilities' - a hole in the ground - and that I'd meet them at the prearranged campsite further along the track and down by the river.
I took my time and picked a good spot - always an important factor when using the facilities in the bush. I ended up picking a nice spot about 10 metres off the western side track. The ground fell away quite steeply from where I was, and I was overlooking something of a clearing - I think a big tree had fallen down and cleared a spot.
As I dropped strides and started, I heard a clear noise in the bush in front of me - something was moving up the hill towards me. I thought it was a kangaroo or a wombat - I clearly remember thinking 'Oh it's dusk, must be a wombat. Awesome, I've never seen one in the wild before'. It would stop and start, and it became clear that it wasn't a wombat - it was moving through the bush on two feet.
I thought 'What the hell, who's walking up from the bottom of the hill?' The bush was quite thick and the track was behind me - not in front. I thought my mates were playing a trick or something. I yelled out something like 'Hey! I'm taking a dump here! Gimme a sec!'. I started cleaning up and stopped paying attention to the noise. It had stopped, and I assumed that whoever it was had got the message.
I'm finishing with the toilet paper when suddenly the noise is a LOT closer - about ten metres away on the far side of the clearing. I started and said 'Goddamn it, I'm almost done just wait a sec!'. I pulled up my underwear and looked up. I noticed a tree on the other side of the clearing was quite a bit wider than before. I froze. There was a MASSIVE hairy guy ten metres away from me, just chilling. Looking at me, standing there with my pants around my ankles. I froze for what felt like an eternity, animal in the spotlight style.
Now, I remember this instant really well because I'm sorry to say that I went into panic mode.
We just stared at each other for about ten years (more like five seconds). I stammered out 'Uh ... hi ... I was just ...' or something like that. The big guy started to sway really gently from side to side. I remember clearly that he had to widen his stance slightly - I heard his foot come down on the undergrowth. He had his hand on the tree at (his) head height. I couldn't really see his face - he (I assume a he) had his back to where the Sun was setting over the ridge to the West.
Now, I suppose it's funny to look back and think that this big guy was thinking (and, sorry to engage in some anthropomorphism) 'Oh hey, I see you just took a dump on my favourite bit of bush, that's cool', but after he started swaying I paniced. It was as though someone had just a big 'PANIC' button in my brain, it's hard to describe. My pants were up and my pack was on in a second and I RAN down the hill along the track to the river (not a great idea). I was obviously spooked down the bottom when I got to my mates, and I just told them that I fell in the (now) dark. What else was I going to tell them? I wasn't even sure about what I had seen. I put up my tent and just went to bed. I was awake most of the night. I'm sure the big guy came and had a look at us at some point in the night - camp was only about a kilometre away from where I had seen him - but I didn't hear anything, and I was awake most of the night. Luckily the next day was a designated rest day, because I was buggered the next morning.
And that's it. I'm skeptical about this kind of thing, but there's simply no other explanation that I can come up with for what I saw. I've thought about it a lot over the years. I suppose it could have been an incredibly elaborate practical joke, but there's no way that someone knew in advance that I was going to stop where I did to be lying in wait. The big guy well, was HUGE. I'm 6'6" and I got the impression that he was a LOT bigger than me - not just in height, but in body mass. I can't imagine faking that kind of body mass with a suit - it would have to be some kind of elaborate prosthetic, quite apart from the fact of the amount of preparation that would be required in the absolute middle of nowhere. It wasn't another person, and it wasn't some kind of animal - I've seen kangaroo, wallabies and deer in the bush, and this was not like them.
Well, there it is, laugh away! - Yowiehunters Forum
New videos - Yowiehunters YouTube channel
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Russia releases Gagarin's secret last words
physorg - First cosmonaut in history Yuri Gagarin, pictured saluting the crowd upon his arrival in London, in July 1961 during an official visit to the UK. One of the last things Yuri Gagarin did before making his pioneering voyage into space 50 years ago was make sure he had enough sausage to last him on the trip back home to Moscow, archives have revealed.
One of the last things Yuri Gagarin did before making his pioneering voyage into space 50 years ago was make sure he had enough sausage to last him on the trip back home to Moscow.
This tidbit was among more than 700 pages of once-secret material linked to the life and times of the world's first spaceman that were released by Russia ahead of the April 12 anniversary.
The historic space shot turned Gagarin into an instant celebrity whose boyish charms became a powerful propaganda weapon for the Soviet Union as it scrambled to win its ideological battle against the United States during the Cold War.
His boy-next-door grin and outsized helmet became a staple of Soviet stamps while his heroism turned into a subject of elementary school literature that became comparable to the teachings of Lenin.
Russian authorities -- with their own space programme in trouble -- have grabbed on to that glory by making the Gagarin celebrations into a national event stretching from the halls of the Kremlin to the International Space Station.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is planning a visit to the mission control centre outside Moscow while his mentor and predecessor Vladimir Putin will hold his own meeting with Russian and Ukrainian cosmonauts in Ukraine.
But making the biggest news among Russians this weekend were files revealing the conversation Gagarin had while strapped into his capsule with chief rocket designer Sergei Korolyov -- a man who became a legend in his own right.
Gagarin is best remembered by a generation of Russian for pronouncing "Poyekhali!" as his Vostok spacecraft lifted off the ground.
The phrase can be translated as either "Let's Go!" or "We're Off!" and is now a regular part of the Russian lexicon.
But the Russian Internet was abuzz with what Gagarin said moments before his famous catchphrase.
One of Korolyov's biggest worries appeared to be that the would-be hero had enough to eat once he touched down on Earth.
"There in the flap you have dinner, supper and breakfast," the father of the Soviet rocket programme told Gagarin by radio as the clock ticked down.
"Got it," Gagarin replied in comments originally posted on the lifenews.ru website.
"You've got sausage, candy and jam to go with the tea," Korolyov went on. "Sixty-three pieces -- you'll get fat! When you get back today, eat everything right away."
Gagarin joked back: "The main thing is that there is sausage -- to go with the moonshine."
Korolyov appeared to take the joke in stride.
"Damn. This thing is recording everything, the bastard," the scientist said in reference to the relay recorders.
The website also published a photograph of the original faded sheet on which the conversation is transcribed.
Detailed description of the Soviet spacecraft Vostok 1 which carried the first man into space 50 years ago
Lifenews.ru added that Gagarin appeared to be singing and whistling to himself while mission control continued conducting various last-minute checks.
Not all of them went smoothly.
Gagarin at one point is told to rip off some adhesive tape and adjust a piece of equipment because "we forgot to tape that thing".
He is later told that access hatch would have to be readjusted because "one of the contacts failed to light up" on the mission control panel.
Gagarin appeared to take everything in stride and began happily reporting all he saw once his spacecraft was finally aloft.
Various historians noted that one of the Soviet officials' biggest fears was that their cosmonaut would lose consciousness once he became weightless.
"The sensation of weightlessness feels nice," Gagarin reported to ground control at one point. "Everything is swimming."