Science Special News

[Rasputin]

Japanese man in mystery survival

A Japanese man has survived for 24 days in cold weather and without food and water by falling into a state of "hibernation", his doctor has said. Mitsutaka Uchikoshi, 35, went missing on 7 October after going with friends to climb Mount Rokko in western Japan. He had almost no pulse, his organs had shut down and his body temperature dropped to 22C (71F) when he was found. Medics say they are still puzzled how he survived because his metabolism was apparently almost at a standstill. Mr Uchikoshi is believed to have tripped and lost consciousness after leaving his party to descend from the mountain on his own. "I lay down... in a grassy area, which felt good in the sunshine, and eventually I fell asleep," Mr Uchikoshi told reporters at a news conference at a hospital in Kobe, where he was treated. "That's the last thing I remember," he said. He was found by rescuers on 31 October. "He fell into a hypothermic state at a very early stage, which is similar to hibernation," said Dr Shinichi Sato, who treated Mr Uchikoshi. "Therefore, his brain functions were protected without being damaged and have now recovered 100%. This is what I believe happened," he said.

Mr Uchikoshi - who had been treated for severe hypothermia, multiple organ failure and blood loss - was released from hospital and returned home on Tuesday. Professor Hirohito Shiomi, a hibernation expert at a university in Hiroshima, was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying the case was "revolutionary, if the patient truly survived at such a low body temperature over such a long period of time".

[Rasputin]

How to super-size a volcanic eruption

Super eruptions that blast loads of ash sky high can change the climate. Now scientists are finding that the relationship could go both ways with the climate having an impact on huge volcanic eruptions. A bone-dry climate, which occurs in periods between ice ages, could make conditions just right for building up enough underground magma to fuel a giant volcanic eruption, said Allen Glazner of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. He presented this idea here last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Human civilization has never experienced such a catastrophic eruption, which could blanket the state of Texas with soot two feet deep, for about 74,000 years. That’s when Mount Toba in Indonesia blew its top making history as the largest eruption in the last 2 million years. Even still, with the potential to devastate Earth, colossal-size eruptions are front and center for researchers who want to find ways of predicting the when, where and how big of such blasts. Beneath the ground, a large enough store of magma must build up to fuel the eruptions. “It’s all got to be underneath the ground in one place so that when you tap that magma chamber it all comes out at once or at least in a relatively short period of time, days to weeks,” said Jake Lowenstern, U.S. Geologic Survey’s chief scientist of the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.

Glazner suggested that if more magma gets pumped up from below a volcano than exits at the surface, a super eruption could result. One way to change this balance is to turn up the heat, which can occur, he said, during inter-glacial periods when precipitation decreases. “If you have a system where you’re pumping heat in at the bottom and you’re cooling if off the top, at the same time you never make a big magma body,” Glazner told LiveScience. When conditions dry out the cooling effect of water gets turned off. Without cooling, super-size magma chambers can build and ultimately fuel an eruption.

[Rasputin]

Haunted Minnick Manor

ISIS Investigations: On Halloween morning, October 31st the ISIS team set out to investigate a home in Averill Park, New York, after receiving the kind invitation from the FLY 92.3 Radio station and the owners of the home. Fondly referred to as the Minnick Manor, the owners Glenn Minnick and Adrian Castillo contacted FLY 92.3 and the Morning Rush Show hosted by Jim Clark, Brian Cody and Chrissy Cavotta and invited the crew to host the show live on location. Our team found out that the station was looking for a paranormal team to assist them and we volunteered.

The land that the home is now located on was once owned by Stephen VanRensselaer, who bought the land and later sold it in 1803. The home was built in the year 1805. Further, the current owners are actually the 13th owners of the home and have now owned the home for several years. Neighbors and friends refer to the house as Minnick Manor, or “the scary place with the pond in the front yard.”

The house underwent renovations when it was purchased by the owners and the owners began to note strange sounds from the first night they stayed in the house: sounds including the laughter of children and footsteps.

The house is quite large, consisting of four bedrooms, an office, sitting room, kitchen, several bathrooms, the attic, the basement, dining room, and wash room. Outside the location was a barn, both an old and new barn: part of newer barn was at one time a slaughter house, and in the back of the house there is a pool. A short distance from the fenced off pool is a half-gated pet cemetery, and a circle of trees that has an area where no grass ever grows, according to the current owners of the property.

The owner also reported to the FLY 92.3 crew that for a period lasting approximately three months or more, the stereo would turn on, unaided, at 3 AM every morning and play Mozart. Interestingly, the owners own no CDs or tapes of Mozart and the stereo was not tuned into a classical station at the time. When such happenings would occur the owner’s cat was reported to stand up on its haunches and all of its hair would stand up on end. Finally, the owner was so disturbed by the repeated occurrence that he eventually unplugged the stereo all together.

One of the owner’s cats has responded in an unusual manner to occurrences in the home. The cat named “Spooky” is typically a friendly animal, but since moving into the location the cat has often been seen standing on its haunches, looking into the dining room wide eyed and then darting under the couch or onto the owner’s lap shaking in fear.

The owner also reports hearing people walking and talking in the attic when no one is there and hears doors slamming in the house on occasion. Further, the owner also reported an incident that occurred approximately three years ago when they were having a friend over. His friend, a clairvoyant, viewed the attic and said, “Don’t you see them over there?” The owner responded, “Who, what?” The clairvoyant then told the owner that he saw two people, both in 1800’s style clothing and smiling. He also reported that they were happy that the new owners lived there. After this incident, the owner reports that he rarely enters the attic alone anymore.

The owner of the location recounted another event: during a Christmas party at the home, guests have left almost immediately after arriving because they felt that there was “too much activity in the house.” When the owner requested clarification the disturbed guests said, “Invisible guests roaming around the party.”

The owner reports being a die hard skeptic before he bought their current home. A well educated and successful businessman, he states that he is not rattled or disturbed by things easily, except that now he is occasionally disturbed by his unexpected guests. While the new owners believe that there is definitely a presence in the home, they don’t believe that it has any mal-intent.

There was a rumor that a woman was formerly buried on the location, but the ISIS team has no evidence to confirm or deny such a statement at this time.

Stats:

The Moon: 66 % Waxing Gibbous
Solar X-Rays: Normal
Geomagnetic Field: Quiet

The Formal Interview:

The ISIS team had an opportunity to speak with the owners at length. Both owners are highly educated and level headed. They have never dabbled in the occult and they have never dealt with the occult in any fashion. The location has never been blessed and no clergy has been consulted. There has been no prior media involvement and no other groups have investigated the location before our arrival and the arrival of the FLY 92.3 crew.

The clients reported that some of their friends will not stay at the house, claiming that there is too much activity in the house, and some family members are nervous about the house. The clients recounted the information previously provided to FLY 92.3 (mentioned above).

Part of the home burned down and was renovated: the summer kitchen is rebuilt after having burned. Burn marks are still present in the attic region of the home.

According to the current owners, one of the neighbors reports seeing a woman in the window of Minnick Manor from her home across the street. This eye witness testimony is congruent with one of the photographs later captured by the ISIS team.

The clients report no detection of unusual odors at any time, but they have heard people talking, mumbling, murmuring from other rooms, and what sounded like a baby. Some of our evp captures are congruent with the client’s assertion. The clients report no sleep difficulties, except when the activities occur. No unusual movement of objects has been reported, and no levitations have been witnessed. Cold spots and hot spots, however, have been experienced on occasion. The clients do not feel threatened by the activity in any way. Finally, the clients report that much of the activity occurs in the home between the hours of 1 am and 3 am, and that the activity was intense for the first few weeks, dissipating to a few occurrences a month.

The clients supplied our team with some historical documentation of the location. The house was built in 1805 for William Gorsline and was on a 164 acre tract of land: land that was purchased by Stephen VanRensselaer in 1803. The Wordens, the 12th owners of the home, bought the home in 1977, which then came with 81 acres of land. The owners have the original deed to the property framed in their home, with the signature of Stephen VanRensselaer on it. The property was originally sold for “sixteen and one half bushels of good clean merchantable wheat,” payable yearly, as it is stated in the 200 year-old Indenture the owners now possess.

[Rasputin]

The Investigation

The FLY 92.3 team and several individuals interested in the paranormal stayed overnight at the location. Since the overnight stay was primarily for fun and not for serious investigation, the team did not stay overnight at the location. A team of six ISIS investigators set out to arrive on location in the early morning hours and arrived at 5:30 AM on October 31, 2006 to begin conducting a serious investigation. Dayna Winters and Patricia Gardner, the Cofounders and CoDirectors of the ISIS team were accompanied by Justyn Stately, team case manager and clairsentient; Angela Kaufmann, team paranormal sketch artist; Mark Winters, team lead technician; and Sathish Victorio lead team investigator. While Patricia and Dayna had some knowledge of the case, the rest of the team went into the investigation cold to avoid any preconceived notions before they examined the location.

After Patricia and Dayna conducted the initial walk-through of the location, Justyn, Angela, and Sathish (Seth) went from room to room seeing what kind of energy vibrations and images they could pick up, if any. While the latter mentioned members of the crew conducted their part of the investigation, Patricia, Dayna and Mark went through all of the rooms in the home and took 800 photographs, electromagnetic field readings, and temperature readings. Finally, in between gathering evidence, Patricia spoke with the FLY 92.3 team to address questions and Dayna and Patricia later spoke with a reporter from WXXA FOX 23, Kathryn Hauser, for the Halloween special they were conducting.

The initial walk through revealed some significant sensitive findings. While the basement was considerably cool, and expected to be so, the well insulated attic was extremely cold. Two of the bedrooms located on the second floor of the home felt oppressive. Since heat rises, the attic should have been a bit warmer than the rest of the house. What’s even more remarkable is that the owner notes not having any kind of extreme changes in his heating bills, even with the attic as cold as it was.

The team then checked out the rest of the house, as well as the basement. In the basement, “Patricia” got the flash of a man’s face, which correlated with what one of the overnight guests experienced the evening prior. The team immediately determined that any orbs that appeared in photos in the attic or basement of the location would have to be dismissed because the basement floor was partly dirt, and the basement had a significant amount of insulation in it. Further, the majority of the attic floor had insulation on top of it and the insulation could cause a lot of dust and orbs to appear.

Brian Cody, a member of the FLY 92.3 team woke up feeling ill and his illness seemed to progress during the time he was at the location. Later that evening, he was reported to have a fever of 104 degrees. Interestingly, when psychic sketch artist Angela Kaufmann entered the room that Brian Cody stayed in she felt dizzy and disoriented, and sensed “sickness.” The room was initially 48 degrees and it dropped to 43 degrees Fahrenheit without explanation.

The second bedroom the team entered revealed a slight temperature fluctuation from 40 degrees to 42 degrees. The windows in the rooms were not open and were adequately sealed, allowing no drafts to pass through them.

As of November 9, 2006, Brian Cody has fully recovered.

Dayna and Patricia instructed Seth and Angela to go upstairs to the take evps samples in the attic. Shortly after entering the attic, Angela Kaufmann noted that she felt dizzy and that she felt that she might fall, the temperature of the attic was 37.4 degrees, it dropped to 35.6, and then 33.8 degrees Fahrenheit and then Seth, not Angela, fell backwards down the stairs. He was startled, but remained uninjured. Seth later noted his experience:

“Angela was feeling dizzy and she wanted to go downstairs. I headed back downstairs and the next thing I know, I’m falling. Angela had just started noting a temper fluctuation before I fell. She was using a thermometer that gives Celsius readings and the readings were 3 -2-1 (degrees), in that order.”

In the sitting room of the location, Patricia was doing EMF readings. The audible readings were so loud that they could be heard by others in the room, despite the fact that Patricia was wearing headphones to listen to the audible waves. Patricia began to feel dizzy and felt the need to leave the room. She stepped outside in an effort to “ground out” the excessive energies she was feeling. She then reported that she felt female energies attached to her.

Photos: Several interesting photos revealed activity at the location. Photos reveal the face of a male and the face of a female, appearing in the room where Brian Cody slept. Numerous orbs appeared in several pictures, and an unexplainable photo in the basement reveals a strange strip of light in motion (caught with infrared) with no known mundane origin. There was also a picture of a strange face that appears in several pictures of the master bedroom mirror, but does not appear in later pictures. View photos here.

EMF readings: We have recently added a speaker and amplifier to our collection of investigation tools. The tool converts emf waves into audible waves so that they can be heard. While the emf detector failed to work while in the location, the amplifier produced positive findings of unexplained origin. Patricia was in both the sitting room and the kitchen and detected emf waves that were not attributed to natural causes. Virginia, a member of FLY 92.3 crew, felt the energy that was being detected, reporting that it made her hand and arm tingle. The audible waves were loud enough to be heard by others that were in the room at the time, including reporter Kathryn Hauser from WXXA FOX 23.

A high emf reading was detected in the sitting room. An evp is later captured in the same area that says, “I am sitting right here.” Patricia felt “something unseen” trip her as she was trying to leave the room to break the connection she was feeling to something that was producing a high amount of energy.

[Rasputin]

Temperature Fluctuations:

As mentioned earlier, in one of the bedrooms there was a noted temperature drop. The room was initially 48 degrees and it dropped to 43 degrees Fahrenheit without explanation. The second bedroom the team entered there was a slight temperature fluctuation from 40 degrees to 42 degrees. This is the room in which Brian Cody spent the prior evening.

A cold spot was detected in one of the upstairs bedrooms. In a room where the base temperature was 52 degrees Fahrenheit, a cold spot of 39.5 degrees was detected right over the center of the bed. The comforter of the bed was cool to the touch and then the cold spot disappeared. Later that morning, in the same bedroom a slight hot spot appears, jumping from 59 to 66 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the room that Jim Clark reportedly spent the night. Later, in the same room, while conducting the evp session, another temperature fluctuation was noted: an increase in temperature from 53.6 degrees to 66.2 degrees was noted by Angela Kaufmann in one of the bedrooms.

EMF Readings: The emf detector that gives numerical readings malfunctioned while in the location only to later begin working perfectly when not inside the house. The emf detector that converts emf to audible waves picked up tremendous activity inside the location, particularly in the sitting room, near the book case in the upstairs office, in one of the smaller bedrooms over the bed where a cold spot was detected.

EVPs: Reveal the voices of men, women, and children, ranging to class A to C. Due to the fact that there were so many people on the location at the time, the evp findings are limited to time periods when relative quiet was experienced. Ambient noise is to be expected when so many people participate in an event. Listen to the EVPs.

After Patricia and Dayna conducted the initial walk through, Angela Kaufmann, Justyn Staley and Seth Victorio were permitted to walk through the location to see what they could pick up in terms of sensitive experiences. None of the three investigators were given any information on the case prior to their arrival. Further, none of the investigators are allowed to speak about their findings with each other until their task was completed.

Patricia felt dizzy while in the sitting room. An evp is later captured in this region of a male whispering, “I’m sitting right here.”

Psychic Sketches: Interestingly, when in the basement of the location picked up an impression of a man and sketched him. This was the same spot that Patricia received the “flash” or vision of a man’s face and that another guest reported seeing a man’s face the evening before. Angela also felt female energies at the location and created a quick sketch of what she sensed. Angela’s sketches are included with the photographs of the investigation.

Clairsentient Experiences: Justyn Staley was allowed to examine all the rooms of the location. He entered the location with no prior knowledge of the case. Upon entering the basement, Justyn noted the feeling of a presence; his ample notes indicate the presence of a male energy form in the basement—“the presence of an old man” and the name of “Marshall.”

Justyn later notes an unusual feeling about two pictures on the staircase. Interestingly, one of the pictures on the staircase appears to resemble one of our photographic captures.

Video: Video proved unremarkable.

Conclusion: Location Haunted.

The discovery of several evps, significant photos, significant temperature fluctuations, investigator experiences, and reported experiences from other eye witnesses has led to the conclusion that the Minnick Manor is indeed, haunted. No cleansing was performed as the current owners do not feel threatened by the ongoing activity.

Special Thanks:

The ISIS team would like to give our special thanks to the owners of the Minnick Manor for giving us the opportunity to investigate their beautiful home. We would also like to give our thanks to Brian Cody, Jim Clark, and Chrissy Cavotta, Virginia and all of the other members of the FLY 92.3 crew. Finally, special thanks go out to the crew of WXXA and Kathryn Hauser. The ISIS team enjoyed the experience immensely.

[Rasputin]

Scrooge 'was a victim of brain disease'

It was the night before Christmas and Ebenezer Scrooge was facing a succession of supernatural terrors; or, as the latest medical thinking would have it, he was succumbing to a brain disease so obscure that doctors would not give it a name for another 150 years. A pair of medico-literary sleuths claimed last week to have tracked down the illness that haunted Scrooge. They concluded that Charles Dickens brilliantly observed the symptoms in A Christmas Carol. Robert Chance Algar, a Californian neurologist, and his aunt Lisa Saunders, a medical writer and physician, believe that the affliction that made Scrooge a byword for miserliness and redemption was Lewy body dementia (LBD), a disease so complex that doctors did not include it in the medical lexicon until 1996. A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, presents readers with a “squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner” who dismisses the festivities as humbug until he is visited by ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. The spirits open his eyes and transform him into a philanthropist.

Scrooge himself appears to blame food poisoning for his experiences, telling Jacob Marley’s ghost that he is merely “an undigested bit of beef . . . there is more of gravy than the grave about you”. But that is before the ghosts of Christmas enter his cold bedroom. Algar thought at first that Scrooge was in the grip of depression or a bipolar disorder, yet neither would explain his ghostly visitors. “All the events described in the story fit a person suffering from the early stages of LBD,” he said. LBD is similar to both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. “Dickens says, ‘The cold within him froze his old features and stiffened his gait’, and he also suffers from tremors. But for me the most telling symptom is the ghosts,” said Algar.

[Rasputin]

Juicing the brain

Physicians have long tinkered with ways to "improve" the human brain, but as our understanding of that organ's inner workings quickly grows, artificial enhancement is becoming more feasible. Military research is at the forefront of this work, much of it focused on drugs. The goal is to produce a better soldier, but the emerging techniques could just as easily be applied to any individual. The military wants to juice up personnel's brains because the human being is the weakest instrument of warfare. Although for centuries astonishing and terrifying advances have been made in the technology of conflict, soldiers are basically the same. They must eat, sleep, discern friend from foe, heal when wounded, and so forth. The first state (or nonstate) actor to build superior fighters will make an enormous leap in the arms race. In the short run, researchers are trying to devise aids that would overcome a person's inherent limitations, such as mental fatigue.

Long-term results could lead to individuals everywhere who are tireless, less fearful or even better speakers. Reducing human error caused by mental fatigue is crucial because death by "friendly fire" is a shockingly frequent occurrence.

[Rasputin]

Majority of Americans believe in angels

A bluebird in the garden, a spirit in a house, a kind man on the side of the road. Americans are big believers in angels, although not necessarily the ones with halos and wings.An overwhelming majority, almost regardless of backgrounds and religious convictions, think angels are real, according to an AP-AOL News poll exploring attitudes about Santa Claus, angels and more.Belief in angels, however people define them, is highest — almost universal — among white evangelical Christians, 97 percent of whom trust in their existence, the poll indicates. But even among people with no religious affiliation, well more than half said angels are for real.The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted by telephone Dec. 12 to 14 by Ipsos, an international public opinion research company. The margin of sampling error for all adults was plus or minus 3 percentage points.If it's one thing to believe in angels, it's something else to explain exactly what an angel is.

"A presence that you feel around you, is my opinion," said Elizabeth Daves, 63, of Flemington, N.J. "I accept them — to come whenever they want to." And she said they came, and have comforted her, since her mother-in-law died in their house.Edward Pelz, 80, of Grabill, Ind., said he believes that angels are guiding him, even though it's impossible to explain to anyone else."Have I ever seen one? Nope. We depict an angel as a person that's white, has a robe on, has wings on back. I'm not sure that's the way they look. So for me, I think sometimes there's angels that aren't that way."

[Rasputin]

Sea levels rise: Islands disappearing

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true. As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of ***ibati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

Two-thirds of nearby populated island Ghoramara has also been permanently inundated. Dr Sugata Hazra, director of the university's School of Oceanographic Studies, says "it is only a matter of some years" before it is swallowed up too. Dr Hazra says there are now a dozen "vanishing islands" in India's part of the delta. The area's 400 tigers are also in danger.Until now the Carteret Islands off Papua New Guinea were expected to be the first populated ones to disappear, in about eight years' time, but Lohachara has beaten them to the dubious distinction.

[Rasputin]

Why death may no longer be a fact of life

It is a mystery older than Methuselah: why are we born to die after our allotted three-score years and ten? Now scientists have discovered how genetic damage to cells and our ability to carry out repairs are the major factors in determining how long we will live. The research could lead to new treatments for horrific diseases which cause young children to age prematurely and die, with trials expected within a year. And while Methuselah's 969 years and an elixir of eternal life are still in the realms of religious belief and science fiction, researchers believe it is now theoretically possible at least to extend lifespan "significantly". It was once thought the ageing process was pre-programmed, hardwired into the human condition, and that death was simply a fact of life. But life expectancies in developed countries have stubbornly continued their upwards rise, by about two years every decade or about five hours a day. A paper made public yesterday by the journal Nature detailed a study of mice which grew old and died within three weeks because they lacked genes involved in repairing damage to DNA, and also the discovery of a new disease which results in premature ageing. Professor Laura Niedernhofer, of Pittsburgh University, said their findings showed that DNA damage and the ability to repair it were crucial in determining lifespan.

"Damage, including DNA damage, drives the functional decline we all experience as we age," she said. "But how we respond to that damage is determined genetically, in particular by genes that regulate growth hormone and insulin. "Avoiding or reducing DNA damage caused by sources such as sunlight and cigarette smoke, as well as by our own metabolism, also could delay ageing."

[Rasputin]

Bosnian pyramids still intrigue

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World. An Arab proverb says that: "Man fears time, yet time fears the Pyramids", a reference to the fact that the pyramid has survived for about 4,500 years and, in that time, has lost a mere 10 metres off its incredible 145 metre height.Composed of two million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tonnes, this was not erected by George Wimpey and Co in a fortnight. For approximately 43 centuries it was the world's tallest man-made structure. Or so we thought. Reports are emerging from Bosnia-Herzegovina of structures that make the pyramid of Giza look like a scale model.At 267 metres tall, the Pyramid of the Sun blows the Egyptian opposition into the weeds. If that wasn't enough, it is simply one of a number of pyramids located in the same region - there are also the Pyramids of the Sun, the Dragon and, most recently discovered, Love.These revelations are not simply about who has the biggest bragging rights for historic civil engineering projects.

Structures like these take colossal man power to create – estimates for a single Egyptian pyramid run into tens of millions of man hours.Such a workforce means, in turn, huge logistical organisation – land cultivation, food transport, housing, water, waste disposal etc. The simple existence of these gigantic man-made structures in Europe means the entire history of the development of human civilization will have to be rewritten with Bosnia-Herzegovina at its centre.

[Rasputin]

UFO hacker could land in Guantanamo Bay

A UK hacker who broke into dozens of US military computers to find secret evidence of alien life and technology faces up to 70 years in a US prison. The 40-year-old unemployed systems administrator faces charges of attacking 97 US military and NASA computers between 2001 and 2002. If found guilty, he could face up to 70 years in prison and may even be sent to Guantanamo Bay as a terrorist suspect. Gary McKinnon will lodge what is likely to be his final appeal against extradition on February 13 next year at London's Court of Appeal. He lost his first appeal against extradition in a High Court hearing last July, but was given leave to take his case to a higher court. If that fails to overturn the extradition order signed by UK Home Secretary John Reid in July, McKinnon's only remaining option to avoid a US trial will be to appeal to the House of Lords. McKinnon is not optimistic of his chances following the Lords' refusal to intervene in the extradition of the NatWest Three, who were extradited to the US in July as part of a £11.5m fraud investigation connected with the collapsed energy giant Enron.

McKinnon has admitted accessing computer systems in the US, including those cited in a US indictment against him. He wanted to find evidence of UFOs, antigravity technology and government suppression of ‘Free Energy', all of which he claims to have gained evidence of through his activities. In an interview with the BBC, McKinnon said he got into the networks quite easily, simply by using a Perl script that searched for blank passwords. Embarrassingly for the US military, that means computers in the top-secret networks could be hacked using active default passwords.

[Rasputin]

The other mystery of Easter Island

Easter Island is branded into popular consciousness as the home of the mysterious and towering moai statues, but these are not the only curiosity the South Pacific island holds. Where the moai are fascinating for their unknown purpose and mysterious craftsmen, the island's lost language of Rongorongo is equally perplexing. The unique written language seems to have appeared suddenly in the 1700s, but within just two centuries it was exiled to obscurity.Known as Rapa Nui to the island's inhabitants, Rongorongo is a writing system comprised of pictographs. It has been found carved into many oblong wooden tablets and other artifacts from the island's history. The art of writing was not known in any nearby islands and the script’s mere existence is sufficient to confound anthropologists. The most plausible explanation so far has been that the Easter Islanders were inspired by the writing they observed in 1770 when the Spanish claimed the island. However, despite its recency, no linguist or archaeologist has been able to successfully decipher the Rongorongo language.When early Europeans discovered Easter Island, its somewhat isolated ecosystem was suffering from the effects of limited natural resources, deforestation, and overpopulation.

Over the following years the island's population of four thousand or so was slowly eroded by Western disease and deportation by slave traders. By 1877, only about one hundred and ten inhabitants remained. Rongorongo was one victim of these circumstances. The colonizers of Easter Island had decided that the strange language was too closely tied to the inhabitants' pagan past, and forbade it as a form of communication. Missionaries forced the inhabitants to destroy the tablets with Rongorongo inscriptions.

[Rasputin]

Enthusiast builds 'flying saucer'

Some people may call Alfie Carrington crazy or foolish. How else do you describe a man who has spent more than half his life building a flying saucer? By day a construction worker, Carrington spends his free time inside a rented storage garage in Clinton Township where he broods over a 14-foot-wide, carbon fiber, fiberglass vessel."Something genius is hiding away in Alfie's eccentricities," friend D.L. Bradley, a pastor in Clinton Township, said last week.Thirty years ago, when Carrington of Clinton Township was 27 and obsessed with science fiction, he set out to build a UFO look-alike. But something inside him cried out for more.Inspired by ordinary Americans like Orville and Wilbur Wright, who piloted the first heavier-than-air aircraft 103 years ago this month, Carrington pored over books, magazines and studies about aviation. Never mind his lack of engineering experience.He has spent nearly $60,000 for some of the materials he believes are needed to launch his creation -- a lot for a man who drives a rusted 1986 Mercury Cougar.Carrington does it because he believes he has discovered a simple design for an aircraft that aeronautical engineers have spent countless millions trying to build.

"People are going to say I'm nuts," Carrington shrugged.Unlike aeronautical engineers who have tried to build vessels for commercial flight -- most notably those who entered the X-Prize contest for a reusable privately built suborbital spacecraft -- Carrington's aim is more terrestrial. He wants to replace the automobile with a Jetsons-style vehicle."Why drive when you can fly 500 m.p.h.?" he asked.

[Rasputin]

Nepal's "Buddha Boy" reappears

A Nepalese teenaged boy who was hailed as a reincarnation of the Buddha has reappeared after nine months of wandering through the jungles of eastern Nepal, police said. "A team of police found the Buddha Boy sitting under a tree in the Piluwa jungle after there were rumours that some locals had spotted the boy on Monday afternoon," said Rameshwor Yadav, a police officer in the Bara district, 170 kilometers (106 miles) east of Kathmandu. Ram Bahadur Bomjan, 16, had disappeared in March after he reportedly shunned food and water for almost 10 months while he meditated under a pipal tree in Bara near a holy site <http://search.breitbart.com/q?s=%22holy+site%22&sid=breitbart.com> in Nepal revered by Hindus and Buddhists. The event had drawn hundreds of devotees daily who offered money and gifts for the "Buddha Boy," but were barred by Bomjan's supporters from reaching within 50 metres of his meditation spot. Local officials however had expressed scepticism on the impossible fasting claims and said the boy was being used by supporters to fleece funds from villagers.

The Gautam, or Enlightned, Buddha was born a prince in Lumbini located in Nepal's low-land jungle around 500 B.C. He shunned his life of privilege and wandered for many years before he obtained enlightenment at Bodh Gaya in the eastern Indian state of Bihar on Nepal's southern border. Bomjan reportedly told local villagers that he disappeared from the previous meditation site because of noisy crowds, Yadav said.