16th Century Jet Propelled Cats & Birds
From Nyan cat to leaping feline fails the airborne moggie is quite rightly a harmless obsession for those who create internet memes.
Images from the manual, which was digitised by the University of Pennsylvania, appear to show jet packs strapped to the backs of cats and doves.
The German text accompanying the pictures helpfully advises military commanders to use them to "set fire to a castle or city which you can't get at otherwise."
The pictures showing cats and doves being propelled towards a castle by what appear to be jet-packs appear in a “Feuer Buech” manuscript that has now got experts puzzled.
The treatise in question was written by artillery master Franz Helm of Cologne, who was believed to have fought in several skirmishes against the Turks in south-central Europe at a time when gunpowder was changing warfare. Read more at Independent
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Actor has scary experience
Chad Michael Murray has had a scary supernatural experience.
The 32-year-old actor recently played prison guard Andy Wyrick in The Haunting in Connecticut 2: Ghosts of Georgia, a horror film based on real events.
But scary moments haven’t just happened on film for Chad. In real life he’s also experienced some seriously spooky goings on.
“My buddy was staying over, I went to bed, he went to bed, then I heard this stomping around coming from upstairs. I went up and my friend was in his room, sleeping. I woke him up, we started looking around, there was no one there,” Chad revealed to British newspaper Metro.
“Then it started again – feet running across the floor and drawers slamming. He thought there was someone there, so we went through every closet, couldn’t find anything, went back downstairs and the noise started again – followed by a weird howling.
“My friend’s face went white and his hair went up on end. Another friend came round the next night and tried to recreate the sounds in the empty room – and it was what we’d heard.”
Chad, who made his name in teen drama One Tree Hill, is gearing up for his next big project Left Behind, a move away from the horror genre, as the actor tries out a Sci-Fi thriller.
The movie tells the story of a group of survivors left behind following the sudden disappearance of millions of people.
Due out later this year, the feature co-stars Nicolas Cage, who Chad credits with teaching him some valuable acting lessons.
“You take things from people as to what you like and don’t like. I worked with Nicolas Cage recently. He was a consummate professional. He put everything he had into each scene and was always the first on set,” Chad explained.
Another A-List actor to influence Chad’s career was Fight Club star Edward Norton.
The 44-year-old Oscar nominee was actually the reason Chad got into acting.
“I love film. I used to put on little shows for my family when I was a kid. I love telling stories. I remember the day the light really turned on – I saw Primal Fear with Ed Norton and Richard Gere. Ed Norton’s performance was so incredible, I thought: ‘That’s what I want to do.’ From then on, I never looked back,” he gushed. - Film-News
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'Sykesville Monster' on Sasquatch Chronicles
Bigfoot Hotspot Radio EP21 - Sykesville Monster
Tonight we have on Lon Strickler to discuss the Sykesville Monster, we will also be speaking with three other witnesses who have encountered Sasquatch. Two weeks ago, Monsters and Mysteries in America aired the "Hiding Evidence of the Sykesville Monster" featuring Lon Strickler's Bigfoot sighting that led to a citywide curfew and an alleged government cover-up. In this episode of Sasquatch Chronicles, Lon sits down with William Jevning to tell his story.
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'At Will' OBEs
After a class on out-of-body experiences, a psychology graduate student at the University of Ottawa came forward to researchers to say that she could have these voluntarily, usually before sleep. "She appeared surprised that not everyone could experience this," wrote the scientists in a study describing the case, published in February in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.
Pretty crazy, right? One would think that if you could leave your own body and float above it, you'd be a little more... vocal about it. But since it was a common experience for her--one she "began performing as a child when bored with 'sleep time' at preschool... moving above her body" instead of napping--it may have appeared unremarkable. This is way more interesting than what I did, which was indeed napping.
The most exciting thing about this case, to me, is "the possibility that this phenomenon may have a significant incidence but [is] unreported because people do not think this is exceptional," as the authors wrote. "Alternatively," they continued, "the ability might be present in infancy but is lost without regular practice. This would be reminiscent of the discovery and eventual study of synesthesia that some researchers now hypothesized is more prevalent in young people or can be developed."
Those are fascinating suggestions--both that these out-of-body experiences may be more common than previously thought, or could be learned during a critical window early in life.
But back to the case study. The 24-year-old "continued to perform this experience as she grew up assuming, as mentioned, that 'everyone could do it.'" This is how she described her out-of-body experiences: "She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling along with the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving “real” body. The participant reported no particular emotions linked to the experience."
An unusual find, wrote the scientists, University of Ottawa researchers Andra M. Smith and Claude Messier--this is the first person to be studied able to have this type of experience on demand, and without any brain abnormalities. Instead of an "out-of-body" experience, however, the researchers termed it a "extra-corporeal experience" (ECE), in part because it lacks the strong emotions that often go hand-in-hand (such as shock & awe, for example).
To better understand what was going on, the researchers conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of her brain. They found that it surprisingly involved a "strong deactivation of the visual cortex." Instead, the experience "activated the left side of several areas associated with kinesthetic imagery," such as mental representations of bodily movement.
Her experience, the scientists wrote, "really was a novel one." But just maybe, not as novel as previously thought. If you are capable of floating out of your body, don't keep it to yourself! - PopSci
Adventures Beyond the Body: How to Experience Out-of-Body Travel
Out-of-Body Experiences: How to Have Them and What to Expect
Mastering Astral Projection: 90-day Guide to Out-of-Body Experience
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