Thylacine hunter Mike Williams confident technology will provide evidence of living tiger
Tasmanian tiger hunter Mike Williams is confident evidence of a living thylacine will emerge sooner rather than later because of the growing popularity of crash cameras in cars.
Mr Williams, who led an international team of naturalists searching for the thylacine last year, has urged Tasmanian motorists to invest in the technology.
“If you live in an area where you think thylacines have been seen, then crash-test cameras are the go,” Mr Williams said.
Mr Williams, who is from New South Wales, has returned to Tasmania to gather more thylacine information and is cruising around the North-East and North-West with one of the digital video cameras attached to his car.
He is interviewing about a dozen people who say they have seen the thylacine, including farmers, trappers and motorists.
Mr Williams is also going over archival evidence and camping in areas where thylacines are likely to be, looking for evidence in situ.
“I believe they are still out there,” he said.
He said Tasmanian trappers had provided him with extremely reliable accounts of seeing multiple thylacines in the mid-1980s.
Many other sightings have been from motorists driving around the bush at dusk and night, including one from only 16 months ago.
“Post 1950, a large percentage of the sightings have been made by people in cars at night,” Mr Williams said. “That’s why crash-test camera technology on cars is so important.”
Mr Williams said the decline in the number of Tasmanian devils would have boosted the population of surviving thylacines, providing a greater window of opportunity for evidence of the animal’s existence.
Mr Williams’ search has gained the support of veteran thylacine hunter James Malley, who spent almost half a century searching for the elusive creature.
“I support him 100 per cent,” said Mr Malley, after meeting Mr Williams.
“All you can do is encourage these people.’’ - The Mercury
Shadow of the Thylacine: One Man's Epic Search for the Tasmanian Tiger
The Last Tasmanian Tiger: The History and Extinction of the Thylacine
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Plane Hit By Fish During Takeoff
The men and women of the Air Force deal with a variety of dangers in the sky every day. But now they apparently have a new one to add to the list: fish.
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration jet was struck by a falling fish during a MacDill Air Force Base takeoff last September, a new report from the Air Force says. The plane aborted the takeoff, assuming they had hit a bird -- a common occurrence at the waterfront base.
"We were nearing the point in the takeoff where we needed to rotate, or raise the nose of the airplane off the ground, when an Osprey with something in its claws flew in front of our aircraft," recalled Lt. Cmdr. Nick Toth, the pilot of the NOAA Gulfstream G-IV.
Bird strikes can damage aircraft and have been blamed for several fatal crashes around the world.
Planes are particularly vulnerable during takeoff and landing, so most airports have staff devoted specifically to preventing or responding to such incidents. MacDill, home to the USAF 6th Air Mobility Wing as well as NOAA's Hurricane Hunters -- is no exception.
"We swept the runway, but we didn't find any remains of the bird," said Lindsey Garven, 6th AMW bird aircraft strike hazard contractor. "We continued our search and were surprised to find a 9-inch sheepshead lying near the end of the runway."
Still skeptical, officials packed up the specimen from the runway along with DNA from the aircraft and sent them to the Smithsonian Feather Identification Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Results concluded the plane did, in fact, record NOAA's first-ever fish-strike.
"At first, we didn't believe the test results," exclaimed Toth. "There was no way we hit a fish during takeoff. I mean, how does something like that even happen?"
"As comical as this event is, the underlying lesson is that vigilance with regards to wildlife on and around the runway is necessary to keep all aircrew and aircraft safe and to maintain our goal of mission readiness," added Garven. - My Fox Tampa Bay
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Debunking Nibiru
Linked to the close of the Mayan calendar, a variety of rumors have spread regarding ways the world could end in 2012. One popular contender is Nibiru, a supposed planet that some claim will collide with Earth at the end of the year. But despite the buzz, there is no scientific evidence supporting the alleged planet's existence.
Nibiru has been linked to NASA by various bloggers, and is also sometimes referred to or confused with Planet X, another supposed world for which there is no evidence.
Because of the Nibiru NASA connection that’s been claimed, the space agency put out a statement to say there is no Nibiru or Planet X coming to destroy Earth in 2012. What follows below is the true science and history of these supposed rogue planets, with reference to a real object, Comet Elenin, that somehow got mixed up in the whole mess. Read more at Nibiru: The Nonexistent Planet
The Anunnaki of Nibiru: Mankind's Forgotten Creators, Enslavers, Saviors, and Hidden Architects of the New World Order
Twelfth Planet: Book I of the Earth Chronicles (The Earth Chronicles)
The Lost Book of Enki: Memoirs and Prophecies of an Extraterrestrial God
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Dreams are real, say scientists
A group of scientists at Boston’s Harvard Medical School say they’ve made the stunning discovery that dreams are not, as once thought, a series of abstract sensations, images and sounds that occur during sleep, but rather demonstrably real events that take place in an alternate universe that can only be accessed during certain stages of unconsciousness.
In a study published yesterday, the scientists detailed how they monitored a number of participants during various stages of sleep, and gave them complex tasks, such as bringing objects from the dream world back to the ‘real’ world.
They said it first became apparent that dreams were real when subjects successfully managed to retrieve a number of items, including a comb, a lantern and a baby dragon.
Kevin McCaffrey, a neuroscientist and researcher who helped conduct the study, said that anyone was capable of retrieving objects from dreams, so long as they concentrated “really hard.”
“What people haven’t realised until now is that this alternate universe that we might call Dreamland, is actually a very real place that people do go to when they sleep,” he said. “It is a place where internal emotions very tangibly affect the external environment, the laws of physics don’t apply unless you’re running from a ghost, and people are a lot more willing to have sex with you, whether you like it or not.”
“We really need to find a new term for ‘real world’, because actually, the dream world is just as real.”
When asked what he thought the implications of such a discovery were, McCaffrey said he wasn’t yet sure, but he expected them to be large.
“Well I think you’ll find it’s a double edged sword,” he said. “For people who’ve accomplished great things in their dreams, it’ll be nice to be able to say with some confidence that they’ve actually done it. For example, I once won the Tour de France.”
“On the other hand, for those who have had traumatic experiences in dreams and have been able to console themselves with the thought that they weren’t real… Well, they might not be able to say that anymore.”
McCaffrey added that while he knew many would find the study alarming – even disturbing – he personally thought it was exciting, and was especially pleased by the discovery that he wasn’t a virgin. - The Civilian
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TODAY'S TOP LINKS
The 'Undead' Encounters
Is the Universe a Simulation?
Strange Disappearances and Multidimensional Journeys
The Haunting Of The Scary Screaming Skulls
The Mystery of the Lost Word of Freemasonry and Its Astronomical Significance
The Templars: The History and the Myth: From Solomon's Temple to the Freemasons
The Knights Templar: The History and Myths of the Legendary Military Order
Sworn in Secret: Freemasonry and the Knights Templar
