Meet The Man(n) Behind The Paranormal Database
There are certain websites you find yourself stumbling across again and again, and for me one of these is the Paranormal Database.
By James Clark - If I’m due to take a trip somewhere, and think I might have time to visit a supposedly haunted site while I’m there, I’ll have a quick search online for local ghost stories and before long I find myself in the Paranormal Database. Likewise, if I’m looking for information about a ghost story I want to research, this is often one of the first sites I come across. Given the size of the database, this is hardly surprising.
The Paranormal Database currently contains over 10,000 entries summarising paranormal and cryptozoological reports from around the UK and Ireland. And the site is continually being updated.
Its creator, and the author of a recent book of paranormal tales from Cork in Ireland, is Darren Mann.
Read the interview at Meet The Man(n) Behind The Paranormal Database
Haunted Cork
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Virginia 'butt slasher' caught in Peru
A man suspected in a series of buttock slashings in Fairfax, Virginia, has been captured in Peru, authorities said.
Johnny D. Guillen, known as the "Corta Nalgas" -- or "butt cutter" -- was captured Friday in Lima, according to Jair Quedas, system operator for Interpol Peru.
Authorities in the United States were looking for Guillen for allegedly cutting the buttocks of 13 young women, according to America Noticias, Peruvian local television.
Fairfax County Police in Virginia posted on its website that the man -- whom it identifies as Johnny D. Guillen Pimentel -- is suspected in a retail store assault that took place last year.
County police set up a task force to try to find a serial assailant responsible for several attacks that took place between February 2011 and July 2011.
"In each case, the suspect distracts his victim before cutting them. The victims have all been teenaged women or in their early 20s," Fairfax County Police said in a statement last year.
In one incident, officers responded to a report of a woman who suffered a 1 1/2 inch wound to her buttocks at a Forever 21 store on July 25.
"The 18-year-old victim was shopping when she noticed clothes that had fallen off of a rack behind her and saw a man bending down to pick them up," police said. "She abruptly felt a sharp pain and considered that one of the hangers had struck her. A short time later, she discovered her denim shorts had been slashed; her buttocks had been cut and were bleeding."
In another case, police said, a 21-year-old woman was shopping at a T.J. Maxx store at Fairfax Towne Center on June 8 when she felt a pinch on her buttocks.
Similar to other reports, "the victim turned around, saw a man picking up pieces of clothing and thought she may have been cut by one of the hangers," police said. "When the woman returned home, she discovered cuts in her clothing." - cnn
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Gigantic Cut Emerald Weighs 25 lbs
Could be yours - if you have a few million dollars sitting around in petty cash. The soon-to-be world famous gemstone, Teodora (Gift of God), goes to auction later this January in Kelowna, BC. It's the fifth largest emerald in the world but the largest cut emerald.
In occult history the emerald (not the Teodora, it's too large) can cure eye diseases when placed over the organ - sapphires also work. From the mid 1300s comes a recipe for a remedy against the Black Plague using one sixth of a drachm of each pearls, jargoons, emeralds and coral. Emeralds are recommended for amulets to be used by children to prevent epilepsy, by women to drive off fears and evil spirits.
This beautiful green gem also is credited with strengthening the memory, giving knowledge of the future, revealing adultery and increasing wealth.
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Time traveller, who came back after 74 years, died at the age of 31 years old
Translated: Did a space-time vortex snatch a man from the 1800s and plop him down in the middle of traffic on a busy New York City street? Many witnesses—including the New York Police Department—say YES…
Time travel stories have emerged over the centuries . One of the best time travel stories convinced many people—including some of the NYPD—that time travel’s not a theory, but real.
The Spanish website sinmisterios.com recounts the tale of the best documented occurrence of time travel in recorded history. The incident is allegedly corroborated by witnesses 74 years apart.
All details are said to be documented by official law enforcement records.
time traveller rudolf henz 150x150 Time traveller, who came back after 74 years, died at the age of 31 years oldPhoto claimed to be Rudolf Fenz, Senior.
Rudolf Fenz, Senior disappeared in 1876. Despite an intense search by police, Fenz was never found. Yet his family always held out hope that the kindly immigrant from Europe would return. They waited years, eventually dying one-by-one still with the hope that their beloved Rudolf might come back.
The return of Rudolf Fenz
Long after all his living relatives had died, Rudolf Fenz returned. And he returned in the most incredible fashion possible. For Rudolf Fenz suddenly materialized on June 1950 in the middle of a busy Fifth Avenue in downtown Manhattan—74 years after vanishing without a trace.
Seconds after appearing in the midst of heavy traffic he was struck down and killed by a car.
Time had played a cruel trick on Fenz, it propelled him three-quarters of a century into the future only to toss him in front of a speeding automobile.
New York’s Finest get involved
From the beginning of their investigation into the odd death of a strangely attired man, the New York police knew the case was anything but typical.
The motorist who struck and killed the odd pedestrian testified the man seemed bewildered and confused…in a daze. The driver swore the man literally appeared with no warning right in front of him.
The corpse itself was an enigma.
Although the deceased dressed immaculately and his clothes looked new, the police investigation confirmed the mystery man laying dead on the street wore clothing almost a century out of date.
According to police records—written by the investigating officers at the scene of the accident—the dead man wore a black coat, a wide-brimmed hat, trousers and odd shoes that fastened with archaic, 19th Century style oversized buckles. He appeared to be in his early thirties.
Police found coins long out of general circulation—some still retaining mint luster—in the man’s pockets. In his leather billfold were U.S. banknotes with dates preceding the 1870s and crisp calling cards engraved with the name “Rudolf Fenz, Senior.”
The officers also discovered a receipt for the boarding of horses and storage of a carriage among the man’s effects.
Amazing facts uncovered
Unable to determine where Rudolf Fenz, Senior lived—or locate any next of kin—the police handed the case over to one of their crack missing person’s investigators, Hubert Rihn. With the resources of the Missing Persons Bureau of the State of New York, Rihn contacted his counterparts in European countries, including Austria and Germany, in an attempt to find any existing relatives of the victim.
Allegedly, Rihn’s investigation ran into blind alleys.
Finally, almost in an act of desperation, Rihn requisitioned a copy of an old New York City telephone directory from 1939. There, the dogged investigator found an important clue: the directory listed a man named Rudolf Fenz, Junior.
That discovery, followed by a lot of painstaking police work, led Rihn to an elderly woman, the widow of Rudolf Fenz, Junior.
Here the case takes its most unusual and bizarre turn. The facts that emerged left the officers of the NY police force stunned.
During a lengthy interview with Mrs. Rudolf Fenz, Jr., she told investigators that her father-in-law, Rudolf Fenz, Senior, disappeared during his daily walk. At the time, his son—later her husband—was only four years old. Reports were made by the family and an investigation was undertaken by authorities, but no trace of her missing father-in-law ever surfaced.
The year was 1876. Rudolf Fenz, Senior was then 31 years old.
So Rihn dug into the 19th Century archives of unsolved missing persons cases recorded by the Missing Persons Bureau of the State of New York. There, to his astonishment, was the record of one Rudolf Fenz, Senior, reported by his family as missing. The record stated he’d never returned from his daily walk.
An old photograph of Rudolf Fenz, Senior accompanied the missing person report. The photo was the exact likeness of the man killed on the busy New York street.
Could the hapless Fenz, out for his daily walk, have been swept
up by a time vortex and thrust into the alien world of the future there only to meet a swift and merciless death?
If so, then Rudolf Fenz, Senior, who lived only 31 years, died 105 years after his birth. - disclose.tv
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Project plans to generate power from a volcano
Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.
They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn't dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes - without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents.
Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for power and waning political concern over global warming. Efforts to use the earth's heat to generate power, known as geothermal energy, have been further hampered by technical problems and worries that tapping it can cause earthquakes.
Even so, the federal government, Google and other investors are interested enough to bet $43 million on the Oregon project. They are helping AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle and Davenport Newberry Holdings LLC of Stamford, Conn., demonstrate whether the next level in geothermal power development can work on the flanks of Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Ore.
"We know the heat is there," said Susan Petty, president of AltaRock. "The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic."
The heat in the earth's crust has been used to generate power for more than a century. Engineers gather hot water or steam that bubbles near the surface and use it to spin a turbine that creates electricity. Most of those areas have been exploited. The new frontier is places with hot rocks, but no cracks in the rocks or water to deliver the steam.
To tap that heat - and grow geothermal energy from a tiny niche into an important source of green energy - engineers are working on a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems.
"To build geothermal in a big way beyond where it is now requires new technology, and that is where EGS comes in," said Steve Hickman, a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif.
Wells are drilled deep into the rock and water is pumped in, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing.
Cold water is pumped down production wells into the reservoir, and the steam is drawn out.
Hydroshearing is similar to the process known as hydraulic fracturing, used to free natural gas from shale formations. But fracking uses chemical-laden fluids, and creates huge fractures. Pumping fracking wastewater deep underground for disposal likely led to recent earthquakes in Arkansas and Ohio.
Fears persist that cracking rock deep underground through hydroshearing can also lead to damaging quakes. EGS has other problems. It is hard to create a reservoir big enough to run a commercial power plant.
Progress has been slow. Two small plants are online in France and Germany. A third in downtown Basel, Switzerland, was shut down over earthquake complaints. A project in Australia has had drilling problems.
A new international protocol is coming out at the end of this month that urges EGS developers to keep projects out of urban areas, the so-called "sanity test," said Ernie Majer, a seismologist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. It also urges developers to be upfront with local residents so they know exactly what is going on.
AltaRock hopes to demonstrate a new technology for creating bigger reservoirs that is based on the plastic polymers used to make biodegradable cups.
It worked in existing geothermal fields. Newberry will show if it works in a brand new EGS field, and in a different kind of geology, volcanic rock, said Colin Williams, a USGS geophysicist also in Menlo Park.
The U.S. Department of Energy has given the project $21.5 million in stimulus funds. That has been matched by private investors, among them Google with $6.3 million.
Majer said the danger of a major quake at Newbery is very low. The area is a kind of seismic dead zone, with no significant faults. It is far enough from population centers to make property damage unlikely. And the layers of volcanic ash built up over millennia dampen any shaking.
But the Department of Energy will be keeping a close eye on the project, and any significant quakes would shut it down at least temporarily, he said. The agency is also monitoring EGS projects at existing geothermal fields in California, Nevada and Idaho.
"That's the $64,000 question," Majer said. "What's the biggest earthquake we can have from induced seismicity that the public can worry about."
Geologists believe Newberry Volcano was once one of the tallest peaks in the Cascades, reaching an elevation of 10,000 feet and a diameter of 20 miles. It blew its top before the last Ice Age, leaving a caldera studded with towering lava flows, two lakes, and 400 cinder cones, some 400 feet tall.
Although the volcano has not erupted in 1,300 years, hot rocks close to the surface drew exploratory wells in the 1980s.
Over 21 days, AltaRock will pour 800 gallons of water per minute into the 10,600-foot test well, already drilled, for a total of 24 million gallons. According to plan, the cold water cracks the rock. The tiny plastic particles pumped down the well seal off the cracks. Then more cold water goes in, bypassing the first tier, and cracking the rock deeper in the well. That tier is sealed off, and cold water cracks a third section. Later, the plastic melts away.
Seismic sensors produce detailed maps of the fracturing, expected to produce a reservoir of cracks starting about 6,000 feet below the surface, and extending to 11,000 feet. It would be about 3,300 feet in diameter.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released an environmental assessment of the Newberry project last month that does not foresee any problems that would stop it. The agency is taking public comments before making a final decision in coming months.
No power plant is proposed, but one could be operating in about 10 years, said Doug Perry, president and CEO of Davenport Newberry.
EGS is attractive because it vastly expands the potential for geothermal power, which, unlike wind and solar, produces power around the clock in any weather.
Natural geothermal resources account for about 0.3 percent of U.S. electricity production, but a 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report projected EGS could bump that to 10 percent within 50 years, at prices competitive with fossil-fuels.
Few people expect that kind of timetable now. Electricity prices have fallen sharply because of low natural gas prices and weak demand brought about by the Great Recession and state efficiency programs.
But the resource is vast. A 2008 USGS assessment found EGS throughout the West, where hot rocks are closer to the surface than in the East, has the potential to produce half the country's electricity.
"The important question we need to answer now," said Williams, the USGS geophysicist who compiled the assessment, "is how geothermal fits into the renewable energy picture, and how EGS fits. How much it is going to cost, and how much is available." - physorg
How much do you enjoy receiving 'Phantoms and Monsters'? Is it worth an offering of a few dollars for a daily dose of the strange and unusual occurrences in our world?
BTW, I am always open to blog content suggestions and well-detailed submissions of your experiences. Thanks again...Lon
