New Discovery May Solve Mystery of Great Pyramid

The Great Egyptian Pyramids are some of the most mysterious structures on earth and have been the topic of countless debates throughout history. The question of how they were built, when they were built, and who they were built by, and for what purpose they have to this day have garnered endless theories and speculations.

Here’s what we think we know:

Archaeologists believe that the Great Pyramids in Egypt were constructed by the old kingdom society around 2500 BC. They believe that the main purpose of these pyramids was to act as tombs for the pharaohs and their queens. That would make sense considering the sheer size of the pyramids. They are huge with the largest, the great pyramid of Giza incorporating around 2.3 million stone blocks, with an average weight of 2.5 to 15 tons each.

But besides what we can measure, the rest of what we think we know about the pyramids are mostly just theories. The fact is, we really don’t know for sure why the pyramids were created, we don’t know who created them, we really don’t know exactly how old they are and we for sure have NO clue how a Bronze Age society that we perceive to be primitive was able to create them.

Not only that, there are a few unbelievable facts about the dimensions of the Great Pyramid in relationship to the earth: Did you know that if you  take the height of the pyramid and multiply it by 43,200 you get the polar radius of earth? Not only that, If you take the base perimeter of the pyramid and multiply it by 43,200 you get the equatorial circumference of the earth. Why 43,200? The number isn't random. It comes from a key motion of the earth called the precession of the earth’s axis. Pyramids were built and encoded with the exact dimensions of the earth at a scale of 1 :43,200.

General agreement on how the pyramids were built: 

It seems that archaeologists generally agree that the granite from the pyramid’s internal chambers was somehow quarried 533 miles south of Giza in Aswan, and the limestones used as casings were from Tura a few miles away, but because these stones were so massive, everyone had varied opinions about how they were transported. Every once in a while, a new theory will come out and claim to solve the mind-boggling mystery of how the pyramids were constructed.

The last big theory was proposed in 2014 by a Dutch engineer who claimed that the stones were transported using sand, water, and a wooden sled.

New finding:

Now, according to a new British documentary called Egypt’s Great Pyramid: The New Evidence, there is apparently new evidence that two tonne blocks of limestone and granite were transported by thousands of laborers along the Nile river in wooden boats held together by ropes. Special canals were also used to bring them to an inland port which was in close proximity to the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The scroll that provided evidence of such a procedure was written by an Egyptian overseer named Merer and is apparently the only first-hand account of how the great pyramid was constructed. In the papyrus scroll found in the seaport Wadi Al-Jar, it is written that Merer and his team of 40 workmen were in charge of using wooden boats along the Nile River to carry 150,000 tonnes of limestone in order to build Pharaoah Khufu's tomb in 2600BC. He explained that the boats were tied together by ropes, which helped to keep them secure.

Besides the scroll, researchers also uncovered a system of canals and a ceremonial boat, which lends truth to what Merer wrote, detailing that his team of 40 skilled workers dug canals to channel the water from the river to the pyramid.

What do you think? Did we just solve one of the greatest mysteries in the world?

---

Source: 

http://www.newsweek.com/who-built-ancient-egypts-great-pyramid-hidden-text-holds-clues-thousand-year-670265

Are Pyramids Proof Of An Ancient Advanced Civilization?

In our modern era, it cannot be denied that the ancient pyramids of Giza have somewhat become the “apple of mankind’s eyes." This is not just because we revel at their distinctiveness as a tourist destination, but mainly because these ancient structures are vestiges of a once-thriving civilization that had a unique history and culture.

Background:

The oldest and the largest of the Egyptian pyramids found at the vast desert landscape of Giza is the Great Pyramid. Believed to have been built for and by the will of the Pharaoh Khufu at some point during his reign in the 26th century BC, the Great Pyramid withstood the test of time. It was one of the biggest buildings on the face of the earth up until the transition to the twentieth century. Standing today at 455 feet (138 meters), this ancient structure is considered by some to be a unique icon of Egyptian legacy and is also the “last construction standing” among the listed Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 

The second pyramid, known as Khafre's pyramid, is widely believed to have been commissioned by Khufu’s son Khafre, whose reign commenced around 2520 BC. The Great Sphinx monument is also located near the Khafre’s pyramid and dates around the same time as his reign, which has led some scholars to believe that the human face of the Sphinx is that of Khafre himself. 

The third pyramid, which is the smallest out of the three principal pyramids of Giza, was supposedly built to serve as the final resting place of Pharaoh Menkaure. It is believed to have been constructed between 2510 and 2490 BC during his rule.   

Proof of Advanced Ancient Technology:

The pyramid complex of Giza is regarded by many to be an impressive feat of engineering, considering mankind’s knowledge about construction and the technology available to the builders of the time were supposedly primitive. Scholars also deem these pyramids as testimonial relics of the “blood, sweat and tears” of tens of thousands of laborers who worked for decades to erect these ancient structures. 

These ancient buildings have continued to stand their ground for the past 4,500 hundred years, an incomparable achievement that has gained the interest and admiration of many. Part of the fascination over these pyramids is rooted in the curiosity over who built them as well as why and how they were built. These questions have opened an avenue of “new-age” discourse in our modern era, with some going so far as to assert that the ancient pyramids of Egypt could be a remnant of a technologically-advanced ancient civilization. Some even believe the pyramids are proof that ancient visitors of extraterrestrial origin once socially interacted with the people of earth. 

Most talk of advanced ancient civilizations and ancient astronauts is put off as pseudoscientific or fantastical speculation, but those who believe that the pyramids of Giza could have been built using advanced ancient technology have arguments that are just too compelling to ignore. 

Here are ten reasons why the pyramids of Giza could be evidence that Egypt’s ancient civilization once possessed advanced technology, which could be alien in origin. 

1. The Size & Weight of the Pyramids & Their Materials. 

One of the arguments raised by those who believe that the pyramids of Giza were built using advanced alien technology is the colossal size and weight of the pyramids and the materials they were built from. 

Building the Great Pyramid, for example, required the quarrying and transportation of 2.3 million stone blocks. Lifting each of these blocks was not exactly effortless either as these stones weighed between 2.5 to 15 tons. 

Archaeologists and researchers have presented theories of how the laborers of that time managed to quarry and transport these blocks from a nearby source to the site where the pyramid was built. However, many insist that these massive stones were nearly impossible to mine, move and lift given the primitive tools of that era. Since the Great Pyramid took at estimated 20 years to complete, it would have taken the laborers only two and half minutes to set each of the pyramid’s insanely-heavy blocks. 

2. The White Limestone Casings of the Great Pyramid. 

While the Great Pyramid is still a magnificent sight to behold, its current appearance today is nothing but a shadow of its former shining beauty. In the distant past, Egyptians referred to the Great Pyramid as “Ikhet,” which, which translates to “Glorious Light.” The Great Pyramid was once shielded with casings made of white-colored and smooth limestone until a disastrous earthquake in 1303 AD led to its untimely uncoupling. Much like mirrors, the pyramid stones reflected sunlight, which made the pyramid glisten like a crystal in the middle of the desert. 

What’s interesting about these reflective stone casings is not just their shape and appearance, but also the source of the material they were made of. Gathering large amounts of flat and polished limestone meant that tons of these stones had to cross the long stretch of the Nile river before they could be used. For some, this leads to the inevitable question of how those who worked in the construction of the pyramid managed to transport heavy and reflective limestone without the guidance of sophisticated knowledge and machinery.  

3. The Elaborate Tunnel Systems Inside the Pyramids of Giza. 

Archaeologists uncover a secret or two hiding beneath the pyramids of Giza from time to time. Prime examples of these discoveries are the elaborate networks of tunnels hidden under the vast desert. There are those who have dared to explore these passageways and the potential rooms or compartments hidden within, but most are still largely unexplored by people of the 21st century. 

What purpose could these tunnels have possibly served? Until we have the chance to excavate and thoroughly investigate these pathways, there’s still no definite answer to this question. Some believe that there could be an underground city beneath the pyramids of Giza and that this buried metropolis could be thousands of years old. 

4.  Strange Heat Anomalies in Several Areas of the Great Pyramid. 

In 2015, an international team of scientists and architects conducted thermal scans of the pyramids in Giza. To their astonishment, they observed “thermal anomalies” in the pyramids and detected high-temperature heat spots in several areas of the Great Pyramid. Mainstream science proposed that empty chambers, internal air currents and the use of varied construction materials were the causes of these anomalies, but believers of ancient advanced civilizations had something completely different in mind.

They believe that the heat spots come from advanced ancient equipment or machinery hidden beneath the pyramids. Some even speculate that the Great Pyramid of Giza could be an antiquated spacecraft built or brought here on the planet by extraterrestrial beings and that the heat anomalies indicate that the alien ship’s engines are ready to ignite after receiving sufficient energy from the sun for the past few thousand years. 

5. Alignment of the Great Pyramid with True North. 

The position of the Great Pyramid and its alignment with the location of true north is one of the more well-known pieces of evidence for the possibility of a technologically-superior ancient civilization. Although built thousands of years ago, the Great Pyramid is regarded by many to be the most accurately-aligned structure on the planet – yes, even more so than our modern-day Meridian Building in London – with a very minimal degree of error of 3/60th. Moreover, this error is not just a mistake in calculation but is explained by the fact that true north shifts as time passes. This means that the Great Pyramid was perfectly aligned at the time it was built. 

How did the ancient Egyptians manage to design and erect the Great Pyramid with such a high level of accuracy? They did not have a compass, so they must have calculated the alignment using sophisticated algorithms. But if they didn’t even have the knowledge and technology to make a compass, how could they have mathematically extrapolated the Great Pyramid’s near-perfect alignment with the cardinal direction of true north? Theories have attempted to answer this mystery, but experts can’t seem to agree on a single explanation. 

5. Alignment of the Pyramids with the Stars of Orion’s Belt. 

According to the Orion Correlation Theory, which was first presented by Robert Bauval back in 1983, the placement of the three main pyramids in the Giza Plateau aligns with the three main stars of Orion’s Belt. This theory also alleges that the whole outline of the Great Sphinx, the pyramid complex in Giza as well as the Nile River reflects the location of the constellations of Leo, Orion’s Belt and the Milky Way galaxy, in that order.

What’s interesting about this theory is its suggestion that the three pyramids of Giza were precisely aligned with the three stars of the Orion’s Belt in 10,500 BC. If true, this would mean that these pyramids were constructed 12,000 years ago and not 4,500 years in the past as mainstream science has led us to believe. 

7. Eight-Sided Design of the Great Pyramid

While it may initially seem like the Great Pyramid of Giza has four sides just like most pyramids, it is the only one to have been built with eight sides and four slightly-concave faces. 

Also worth mentioning is the degree of precision required in forming all eight sides of the pyramid, with each side indented by one degree of a half-degree, which is not an easy thing to do even in modern times. 

Moreover, all sides of the Great Pyramid cannot be easily seen from the ground or even from afar, and are only visible from above. 

As for what purpose the eight-sided design of the Great Pyramid served, some say that it had the structural purpose of keeping the casing stones from loosening, while others suggest that the indentations are nothing more than the incidental consequence of erosion. Of course, there are also those who believe that multiple-sided pyramid served an astronomical purpose or that it could be a communication device between ancient Egyptians and the extraterrestrial beings that guided them in the distant past. 

Based on the seven reasons we have just enumerated, can we conclude that the pyramids in Giza prove that ancient Egyptians once possessed highly advanced technology that may very well have come from extraterrestrial sources? 
Were our ancestors far more capable than we give them credit for? We may never know. 

---

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Wonders_of_the_Ancient_World
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Giza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giza_pyramid_complex#Khafre.27s_pyramid_complex
http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html
http://listverse.com/2017/06/02/the-pyramids-of-giza-prove-advanced-ancient-technology/
https://exemplore.com/ufos-aliens/Did-Aliens-Build-Pyramids
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/793767/Pyramids-Giza-how-when-built-ancient-aliens
http://proofofalien.com/top-10-evidences-to-prove-the-aliens-built-the-pyramids/
https://www.ancient-code.com/there-is-an-incredible-lost-underground-city-beneath-the-pyramids-of-giza/
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-34773856
http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/793767/Pyramids-Giza-how-when-built-ancient-aliens
http://proofofalien.com/top-10-evidences-to-prove-the-aliens-built-the-pyramids/
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/9/29/1242266/-Ancient-Egypt-Misconceptions-About-the-Pyramids
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_correlation_theory
http://unexplained.co/paranormal-articles/facts-that-prove-the-great-pyramid-of-giza-was-built-by-an-advanced-ancient-civilization/9523/
https://ancientexplorers.com/blogs/news/the-pyramid-of-giza-built-by-an-extremely-advanced-ancient-civilization
https://www.ancient-code.com/evidence-of-ancient-advanced-technology-the-great-pyramid-of-giza/

The Ourang Medan, The Mystery of the Deadliest Ghost Ship in History

In June 1947, the Dutch freighter S.S. Ourang Medan was traveling along the straits of Malacca, when the ship suddenly sent out a chilling distress signal.

"All Officers, including the Captain, are dead. Lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead."

This first message was followed by a series of indecipherable Morse code sequences until finally, a last ominous transmission:

"I die." 

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER VIDEO

Ourang Medan's grim SOS was picked up by British and Dutch listening posts around Sumatra and Malaysia, who worked together to determined where the signal was coming from and alerted nearby ships.

American merchant ship Silver Star was first to reach Ourang Medan. They waived and shouted at the vessel to check for signs of life above deck. But there was no answer. Only eerie silence.

The US ship decided to send out a rescue team to board the ship to look for survivors. But what they found was a blood-curdling nightmare.

The entire Dutch crew was a ghastly pile of corpses – eyes wide open in horror, mouths are frozen in an eternal scream, arms stretched out as if saying stop as if saying no more.

Inside, they found the captain with the same twisted expression on his face as that of his men, dead on the bridge of the ship. Now nothing more than a dead captain, leading a dead ship.

His once strapping officers are now cold corpses straggled on the wheelhouse and chartroom floor. Even the ship’s dog wasn't spared a horrific death.

But the most harrowing is finding the radio operator, fingertips still on the telegraph where he sent his dying message.

After seeing the chilling devastation on board, the Silver Star decided to tow the Ourang Medan to port. But it wouldn't make it to shore, as thick clouds of smoke started rising from the lower decks and interrupted the rescue.

The crew barely had time to sever the line and move to safety, before the Ourang Medan exploded. The blast was apparently so big that the ship “lifted herself from the water and swiftly sank,” taking with it all the answers to its mysterious end to the bottom of the sea.

Or so the story of the Ourang Medan goes.

Some details may differ slightly in each version of the story. Like it happened in February 1948 instead of June 1947. Or that the waters that day were choppy instead of calm. And that the crew wasn't just dead, but they were decomposing at a faster rate. 

While in some versions, the details are, well, too detailed. Like one of the two American ships that heard the distress signal was named The City of Baltimore. That the smoke from the lower deck before the explosion came exactly from the Number 4 hold. Or that the poor canine aboard was a small terrier.

But whichever version of the story you've heard (or told), the basic plot points remain the same - Ourang Medan's entire crew met a gruesome and inexplicable death, and then very conveniently blew up and sank to the bottom of the ocean, leaving us all with an unsolved nautical macabre mystery.

So what happened to the Ourang Medan?

Theory #1: It was a cover up.

The most commonly pointed out loophole in the tale of the Ourang Medan is the vessel's lack of paper trail.

The Lloyd's Shipping registers don't have any mention of the ship. It's not in The Dictionary of Disasters at Sea that covers the years 1824-1962. It wasn't in the Registrar of Shipping and Seamen either.

There's no trace of it in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Nothing in the Dutch Shipping records in Amsterdam. The Maritime Authority of Singapore also doesn't have the ill-fated ship in any of their records. 

In other words, the Ourang Medan was a ghost ship, even before it gained notoriety as one. Because there's no tangible proof that it even existed.

But as espousers of this legend would explain, it's because the Ourang Medan is part of a transnational government cover-up involving the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, China, the United States, and possibly many others.

They believe that the ship was deliberately expunged from all maritime records because it was being used to smuggle a secret cargo of lethal nerve gas to Japan.

Saying the Ourang Medan's voyage is linked to Army Unit 731 founded by Japanese bacteriologist Shirō Ishii, whose main objective was to bring back a weapon of the chemical, gas, or biological variety, that could win the war in their favor.

But as the Geneva Protocol of 1925 prohibited the use of all chemical and biological weapons in war, the only way a large shipment of poisonous gas could make it across the other side of the world without raising any suspicion from authorities is by loading it as inconspicuous cargo, in an old, beat up Dutch freighter.  

This theory also provides a convenient and somewhat plausible explanation for the grisly death of the Ourang Medan's crew. With that much hazardous chemicals on board, a gas leak would've certainly led to the immediate death of everyone in the ship.

However, it wouldn't explain why the rescue crew from Silver Star wasn't affected by the poisonous gas when they boarded the ship.

Or why, like the Ourang Medan, there’s no mention of the Silver Star in Lloyd's register.

Theory #2: It was carbon monoxide poisoning.

American author and inventor of the term Bermuda Triangle, Vincent Gaddis, speculates that it was carbon monoxide poisoning is the answer to the mysterious deaths of the Ourang Medan crew.

According to his theory, burning fuel from a malfunctioning boiler system produced carbon monoxide fumes that poisoned the crew.

When breathed in carbon monoxide enters the bloodstream and prevents red blood cells from carrying oxygen around the body. At high levels, carbon monoxide can cause dizziness, vomiting, seizures, loss of consciousness, and even death. 

The trouble with this theory is that Ourang Medan is not an enclosed space. Fumes could've simply escaped into the atmosphere, and lives of the crew working the upper decks of the ship would've been spared.

Theory #3: It was pirates.

What's a story about a ghost ship without pirates, right?

There are theories claiming that pirates invaded the Ourang Medan and killed everyone on board, which although doesn't explain some accounts saying that there were no visible wounds on the victims' bodies, it does fit with the Strait of Malacca's long history with piracy as far back as the 14th century.

Because of its geography - narrow and dotted with many islets - it makes it ideal for a surprise attack towards ships using it as the trade route to China and Europe.

Theory #4: Ghosts

One of the most repeated, but arguably, also the most inconsequential detail in the story of the Ourang Medan is the extreme chill the rescue team felt as soon as they entered the hull of the ship, despite it being 110°F outside.

Inexplicable drop in temperature plus the frightened expressions on the crew's faces set in a vast, unforgiving sea, equals ghosts did it.

There aren't many supporters of this theory, but what's a ghost ship story without a ghosts-did-it theory?

Theory #5: Aliens

You might think that the alien theory is the most far-fetched, the most uncreative, the most cop out theory explaining the phenomena of the Ourang Medan, but it's a very popular theory, with entire books dedicated to it.

The story of the Ourang Medan has all the elements of a good mystery - inexplicable deaths, unknown assailants, world powers, war, pirates, ghosts, and multiple highly-plausible conspiracy theories. 

Which is probably why it still fascinates us to this day, even if it's already been dismissed by historians, researchers, and the casual internet fact-checker alike as a hoax.

But if it's good enough for the CIA to release a document in 1959 saying, that the Ourang Medan holds the key to many of the sea's mysteries, including that of sightings of huge fiery spheres that come from the sky and descend into the sea, then, it's certainly a hoax worth retelling.

---

Sources:
1. Death Ship: The Ourang Medan Mystery, http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/11/death-ship-the-ourang-medan-mystery/
2. The Myth of the Ourang Medan Ghost Ship, 1940, http://skittishlibrary.co.uk/the-myth-of-the-ourang-medan-ghost-ship-1940/
3. S.S. Ourang Medan, http://www.crime-mystery.info/great-mysteries/ss_ourang_medan/the_hoax
4.S.S. Ourang Medan, https://www.historicmysteries.com/ourang-medan/
5. CARGO OF DEATH, https://web.archive.org/web/20070205223141/http://www.neswa.org.au/Library/Articles/A%20cargo%20of%20death.htm
6. LETTER TO<Sanitized> FROM C.H. MARCK, https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80R01731R000300010043-5.pdf
7. Did the Ourang Medan “ghost ship” exist?, https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/20263/did-the-ourang-medan-ghost-ship-exist
8. The SS Ourang Medan: Death Ship (Updated), https://shortoncontent.wordpress.com/2015/01/15/the-ss-ourang-medan-death-ship-updated/
9. Mysterious Death at Sea: the Disturbing Discovery at the S.S. Ourang Medan, http://weekinweird.com/2011/07/17/mysterious-death-sea-disturbing-discovery-s-s-ourang-medan/
10. The Mammoth Book of Unexplained Phenomena: From bizarre biology to inexplicable astronomy, https://books.google.com.ph/books?id=YHCeBAAAQBAJ&lpg=PT263&dq=Vincent%20Gaddis%20ourang%20medan&pg=PT263#v=onepage&q=Vincent%20Gaddis%20ourang%20medan&f=false
11. Vincent Gaddis, http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/eng/Vincent_Gaddis
12. Crime on the high seas: The World's Most Dangerous Waters, http://www.cnbc.com/2014/09/15/worlds-most-pirated-waters.html
13. The World's Most Dangerous Waters, http://time.com/piracy-southeast-asia-malacca-strait/

Blood Splatter Discovered On Shroud Of Turin, Could Belong To Jesus Christ

Along with the Holy Grail and the Spear of Destiny, the Shroud of Turin is one of the most sacred religious relics on the planet. The piece of linen, measuring 53 square feet and containing the faint image of a man, is believed by millions of Christians from around the world to be the cloth Jesus himself was buried in after death.

Ever since a photo negative of the linen captured by Italian amateur photographer Secondo Pia revealed an image of a body over 100 years ago, scores of researchers have analyzed the image as well as the blood stains and fabric to try and confirm or dismiss the linen’s authenticity. But after years and years of studies, tests, and debates, they came to the conclusion that it is still hard to tell. No one knows for sure. Some say the blood on the cloth belongs to Jesus while some claim that the face of Jesus was painted on by counterfeiters in medieval times. 

ARTICLE CONTINUES AFTER VIDEO

The biggest focal point for skeptics is a carbon-14 dating conducted in 1988 where a small piece of fabric from the corner of the shroud was sent to labs at the University of Oxford, the University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. All three places confirmed that the material dated back to 1260 and 1390, which is more than a thousand years after Jesus was alive. That seemed like a huge piece of evidence to dismiss the authenticity of the shroud, but soon researchers found that the carbon dating that came from the top edge of the shroud produced a much different date than a piece taken from the bottom edge of the cloth. 

But here’s the thing: even if the image was from medieval times and not from the time of Jesus, there is still the mystery of how the image of the man was created in the first place. Every scientific attempt at replicating the image has failed so far. This has caused the shroud of Turin to become not only one of the most sacred relics but also one of the most mysterious.

Recently, researchers in Italy analyzing the shroud of Turin have discovered the blood of a torture victim on the cloth, thus supporting claims it may have been used to bury Jesus. The new findings, titled New Biological Evidence from Atomic Resolution Studies on the Turin Shroud, was published in a US scientific journal that was carried out by The Instituto Officina dei Materiali in Trieste and the Institute of Crystallography in Bari.

The study says that the cloth contains 'nanoparticles' usually not found in the blood of someone healthy. According to Elvio Carlino, a researcher at the Institute of Crystallography in Bari, Italy the cloth reveals the 'great suffering' of a victim 'wrapped up in the funeral cloth.'

According to professor Giulio Fanti of the University of Padua, the blood contained high levels of creatinine and ferritin, substances found in patients who have suffered from devastating traumas like torture. According to him, 'the presence of these biological nanoparticles found during our experiments point to a violent death for the man wrapped in the Turin Shroud.'

The Shroud of Turin has been an intensely debated topic in the world of science ever since. If these findings are true, then they will completely shatter the skeptic theory that image on the cloth was forged by counterfeits.

Elvio also said that 'these findings could only be revealed by the methods recently developed in the field of electron microscopy' and  'the nanoscale properties of a pristine fiber taken from the Turin Shroud.'

Even though this study sheds a bit of light on this ancient mystery, there are still numerous questions that we have yet to answer. Was this shroud the same exact cloth Jesus Christ was buried inside when he died? How was the image of the man created on the cloth created?

Italian physicist Paolo Di Lazzaro told National Geographic: “It is unlikely science will provide a full solution to the many riddles posed by the shroud...A leap of faith over questions without clear answers is necessary—either the ‘faith’ of skeptics, or the faith of believers.”

If you want to see the shroud for yourself, it is currently on display at St. John the Baptist Cathedral in Turin. At the moment, we can only wait for more evidence regarding the Turin's Shroud before we fully reveal it's mysterious origins. 

---

Sources:

• https://www.rt.com/viral/396609-turin-shroud-blood-torture/ 
• https://www.livescience.com/52567-shroud-of-turin-dna.html 
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/04/150417-shroud-turin-relics-jesus-catholic-church-religion-science/ 

Hundreds Of Giant Mysterious Tunnels Discovered In Brazil

Brazil – a tropical paradise and home to some of the best athletes in the world.

It is the largest country in both South America and Latin America and boasts a beautiful culture and stunning scenery. In Brazil, you can find the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue and the awe-inspiring Corcovado and Sugarloaf Mountains. Travelers and explorers will find a wonderful slate of fauna such as the giant anteater, several varieties of sloths, armadillos, otters, and even capybara in the country.

However, Brazil has more than meets the eye. In fact, the country has its fair share of mysteries.

In 2010, geologist Amilcar Adamy from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, found a giant hole a few miles north of the Bolivian border. Upon investigation, he realized that the hole could not have been naturally made. None of the caves Adamy explored looked like anything the tunnels featured, with their round passages and smooth floors.

The mysterious tunnels have since then been discovered by various experts around the country and have opened up an entirely new realm of possibilities for geological studies.   

The Tunnels

source: Disclose.tv

Geologist Heinrich Theodor Frank stumbled across the tunnels while driving on the national Novo Hamburgo Highway. While driving, a hole of around one meter in diameter caught his attention. The hole was located at a construction site, and after further investigation, Frank discovered that the hole led to a complex underground tunnel. The tunnel was about 70 centimeters high and a few meters in length, with what appeared to be strange scratches on the ceiling of its walls. 

After further exploration, Frank realized that hundreds of similar tunnels existed all over Brazil. The state of Rondonia alone has a large complex of 600 meter-long tunnels. Not only that, 2,000 burrows with similar characteristics have also been found. 

Not even the locals in the area knew about the origins of the tunnels. Further tests showed that the tunnels were not man-made in origin. 

The Mysteries

Urban legends point towards various "historical" and even supposed "mythological" origins of the mysterious tunnels. Some say the tunnels were created by Indians, Jesuits, slaves, or even revolutionaries. Others believe the tunnels are a giant anthill or were even made by bears. Very rare few point towards a great mythological serpent that may have used the tunnel as its home.

Regardless, geological evidence alone proves that the tunnels were not created by Brazilian natives. The Indians who lived in Brazil even before the Europeans arrived did not use iron, and therefore had no means of digging through the hard rocks around the tunnels. 

According to Frank, there is no natural geological process known to man that can produce the features of the tunnels. These features include the circular or elliptical cross-sections that branch, rise, and fall around the area.

The geographic distribution of the tunnels is another mystery to scientists. The tunnels were only found in the southern parts of Brazil - particularly in the states of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. They don't exist anywhere else. 

source:Earth Touch News Network

The claw marks on the walls of the tunnels are also peculiar.

Prehistoric animals such as giant armadillos or possibly mega-sloths are thought by many to be possible creators of such marks.

The biggest burrows, with sizes of up to five feet in diameter, may have been dug by ground sloths that have adapted to the area’s environment and developed digging skills.

Giant armadillos, though shorter than sloths, may also have the skills necessary to dig these tunnels as well. The grooves along the ceiling may, in fact, be marks the animals have left whenever they pause or stop working. 

Unfortunately, there are no specific indications of these animals living in the country. Moreover, the sheer size of the tunnels cannot possibly be made by any “giant” armadillos or sloths – at least, ones that we know of.

The giant armadillo, the largest existing member of its family, weighs between 65 and 90 pounds and is native to South America. However, its burrows are about 16 inches in diameter, and only up to 20 feet long. If the tunnels’ five foot wide and 250-feet long burrows are in fact dug my animals, then it should be one extremely big creature – one that has not been discovered yet. 

However, it seems there is still another possibility.

Historical Evidence

source: Ancient Origins

Frank eventually sent photographs of the tunnels to Marcelo Rasteiro of the Brazilian Society of Speleology. He introduced the notion of "paleoburrows" excavated by living organisms in any geological age.

Examples of these organisms include worms in the Cambrian Era, mollusks in the Mesozoic Era, or rats in the Pleistocene. These are all organisms that have lived millions of years ago.

Until the early 2000s, hardly any burrows attributed to extinct animals can be found in scientific literature. In fact, it was only in 2015 that Adamy himself had the opportunity to extensively explore the mysterious tunnels. 

If this paleoburrow theory is to be believed, then the tunnels in Brazil may have been created between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. If this is the case, then the Rondonia tunnels Frank have discovered may be the first - and the largest - paleoburrow in the Amazon.

These tunnels can actually be found all over the world, which adds even more depth to the mystery. Frank said similar caves could be found in countries such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. 

Until scientists can figure out who, what, or how these paleburrows were made, they will remain an unfathomable enigma.

---

Sources:

http://www.ancient-code.com/experts-baffled-discovery-hundreds-mysterious-tunnels-brazil/
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/crux/2017/03/28/paleoburrows-south-america/#.WPiI9tKGOUk
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/extinct-megafauna-dug-these-incredible-tunnels-in-brazil/
http://www.ufrgs.br/paleotocas/Producao.htm

Did Ancient Civilizations Possess Knowledge of Time Travel?

source: humansarefree

Time travel has always been a fascinating topic that’s been largely explored in a multitude of written works of science fiction and countless sci-fi films for many, many years. But what’s even more interesting is that tales of time travel go much further back in our history, with some ancient texts that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years mentioning or describing cases of people traveling forward in time. 
 
With the existence of a variety of ancient legends and myths from different parts of the world which seem to be literary interpretations of what could be actual examples of time traveling, some of us just can’t help but ask: Did certain ancient civilizations possess some knowledge of time travel?
 
Well, though we can’t answer this definitively just yet, for now, let us look into some of the ancient texts which mention tales of people who have supposedly defied all laws of logic, space and time. 

1. Story of the Seven Sleepers

source: wikipedia

The story of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus is a tale that is quite significant in both the Christian and Islamic tradition. The Christian interpretation of the story goes like this:

During the persecutions overseen by the Roman emperor Decius sometime in 250 AD, seven young men were accused of being worshippers of Christianity. These individuals were given some time to renounce their faith, but instead, they chose to surrender their material possessions by giving them to the poor and retiring to a mountain cave. Inside this cave, the seven young men prayed and eventually fell asleep. When they awoke, they thought they had only slept for a day, but when they wandered into the city to buy food, they were astounded to find buildings with the crosses of Christianity attached to them. And so, they came to the stunning realization that they had not slept for just one night, but for two hundred years, and they had awakened at a time when Christianity had already spread across the vast expanse of the Roman Empire. 

A similar tale about these sleepers can be found in Surah 18 of the Qur’an. Referred to as the story of the Companions of the Cave, it tells almost the same story as the Christian version; only the Qur’an does not provide the exact number of the People of the Cave who had miraculously been transported a couple of centuries into the future.

2. Bible - The Book of Baruch - Disappearance of Jeremiah

Source: ken raggio

There are also several examples of time travel found in the Bible, and one of them is a story about the disappearance of Jeremiah as told in the deuterocanonical Book of Baruch. 
 
In the first part of this book, Jeremiah is told by God that Jerusalem will be destroyed and that he has to bury and protect the vestments of the temple. After that, he is to go into exile with his people until the day comes that God would allow them to return. But before the destruction of Jerusalem, Jeremiah instructed Abimelech, a eunuch, to bring back figs from the orchard of Agrippa. Abimelech, however, ends up falling asleep in the orchard. And when he woke up, he was told by an old man that he had slept miraculously for the last 66 years. 

3. Mahabharata - Story of King Raivata Kakudmi

Source: a brief history of time travel

One of the very first stories that describe time travel can be found in the Hindu epic, Mahabharata – an ancient text which is believed to have been written no later than 400 BCE. This tale in that text follows a king, his daughter, and their quest to find her the most suitable husband. 

Revati was the only daughter of King Raivata Kakudmi, a monarch who ruled the prosperous kingdom of Kusasthali. Because the king thought her daughter was so beautiful and accomplished that no could prove good enough to marry her, Kakudmi took Revati to Brahmaloka, the home of the creator Brahma, to seek the powerful god’s help in finding his previous daughter the perfect suitor. 

When they arrived, Brahma was listening to a musical performance so they had to patiently wait until the performance was completed before Kakudmi could pay his respects and make his request to the god. However, once he did so, Brahma only laughed at the foolishness of the king. The God revealed that during the time they had waited in Brahmaloka, 108 yugas had already passed on Earth, with each yuga representing around 4 million years. 
 
With Kakudmi and Revati completely astonished over how so much time had passed on Earth during their short stay in Brahma’s domain, Brahma had to explain to them that time runs differently in different places of existence, which is interestingly similar to how modern physicists and astronomers conceptualize space-time today.  

4. Buddhist Text - Pali Canon - Heaven of the 30 Devas

buddha's real teachings

Another ancient text that we will be discussing is the Buddhist text of Pali Canon, which, like the previous stories, also mentions the relativity of time. 
 
It is written in this collection of scriptures in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition that in the heaven of the thirty Devas, or the place of the Gods, “time passes at a different pace, and people live much longer.” For example, one hundred years on Earth is equivalent to just a single day passing in the heaven of the Gods. 

5. Japan - Legend of Urashima Taro

source: wikia, ayakashi: ghost guild

Urashima Taro is the protagonist of the legend about a fisherman who rescued a turtle from harm, who turned out to be the daughter of the Emperor of the Sea, Ryujin. To personally thank him and reward him for his actions, Taro was brought to the bottom of the sea to visit the Palace of the Dragon God where she met the Emperor and Princess Otohime.
 
Taro stayed in the underwater palace for three days, but he eventually decided to go back home to his village where his aging mother lived. And so, he asked the princess’s permission to leave, and before he left, she gave him a mysterious box that will supposedly protect him from danger so long as he never opens it. 
 
However, when he reached land, he discovered that 300 years had already passed since he had left the village and traveled to the bottom of the sea. In grief of all that he had lost, he opened the box the princess gave him, which let out a cloud of white smoke. Suddenly, Taro aged rapidly, and from the sea, he heard the voice of the princess reveal that kept inside the special box she gave him was actually his old age. 
 
All the stories and texts I have just mentioned all paint the idea of time travel in the same way that modern science has theorized it today: that time is relative and not absolute; and that the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. And while these myths and legends may just be stories concocted from the brilliant imagination of their writers, they have opened an avenue of discourse that compels us to contemplate what it could mean for humanity if there are those among us who have the means to travel through time as well as the power to modify our history. 

---

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepers
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak//publics/pseudepig/ParJer-Eng.html
http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-unexplained-phenomena/time-travel-ancient-mythology-modern-science-001242?nopaging=1
http://the-wanderling.com/mahabharata.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakudmi#Meeting_with_Brahma
https://www.ancient-code.com/time-travel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urashima_Tar%C5%8D
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C4%81li_Canon#Sutta_Pitaka
http://www.messagetoeagle.com/did-ancient-civilizations-possess-knowledge-of-time-travel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel

Five Space Mysteries Science Still Can't Solve

It’s not a big secret that the vastness of space is filled with puzzling mysteries.

Mankind has barely gone past our planet’s moon, and only one of our probes – the Voyager 1 – has managed to leave the solar system. A lot of what we have learned about deep space came from falling objects and telescopic views that have been pierced together by the brightest minds in astronomy.

Some of the more well-known mysteries involving space have already been resolved by various experts in the field. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that space remains full of wonder and unexplained phenomena. Some of these mysteries may eventually be resolved by means of astronomical observations, but others may never actually be given an accurate answer.

The prestigious journal Science selected several of the most puzzling questions that leading astronomers are still baffled with today. They have enlisted the help of different experts in deciding which mysteries have the staying power of remaining unanswered in the distant future, while also weeding out those questions that might soon be answered in the years to come.

And so, in no particular order, let me tell you about five of the most compelling space mysteries that science has so far been unable to solve.

The Mystery of Dark Energy

It was back in the 1920s when astronomer Edwin Hubble made the stunning discovery that the universe is not in a static state, but is in fact, expanding. This was corroborated and expanded further in 1998, when the Hubble Space Telescope – which incidentally is named after the same iconic astronomer – provided the data from distant supernovas that allowed scientists to reach an even more astounding conclusion that the universe is expanding at a slower rate in the past compared to the rate of its expansion at present.

This earth-shaking discovery threw off many scientists from their balance as they long believed that the gravity of matter would gradually decrease the speed of universe’s expansion. It was even believed that gravity would also be responsible for making the expanse of the universe contract. In order to explain the universe’s accelerated expansion, the widely-debated dark energy was conceptualized. This dark energy is what is believed to be the mysterious force that is expanding the universe at ever-increasing speeds.

Although dark energy is theorized to make up around 73 percent of everything that exists in our universe, it is still unseen and unmeasured by mankind. And though the energy is needed to balance out the mathematics of the universe, it is also likely that we may never get to detect and uncover its true nature.

 The Mystery of Dark Matter

Back in the 60s and the 70s, astronomers came up with the hypothesis that universe contains more mass than what can be perceived physically. Vera Rubin, in particular, an astronomer at the Carnegie Institution of Washington, thoroughly studied and researched the speeds of stars at different locations in various galaxies, and she discovered that there was virtually no difference between the velocities of stars located at the center of a galaxy and those which are found at the farther parts of the same galaxy. These results somehow deviate from basic Newtonian physics, which suggested that stars which are located on the outskirts of a galaxy should orbit more slowly compared to those found at its center.

To explain this unusual phenomenon, astronomers theorized an invisible mass which then came to be known as “dark matter.” Though it cannot be seen, dark matter possesses mass, and its existence is supposedly supported by the gravitational pull that this invisible mass exerts on ordinary matter. This makes dark matter the “glue” which theoretically holds everything in the universe together. Dark matter is believed to make up approximately 23 percent of the universe, and while scientists are still not so sure what dark matter actually is, modern technology may soon allow scientists to detect some of its particles, hopefully in the foreseeable future.

The Mystery Behind the Missing Baryons

Credit: University of Wisconsin- Madison

 Dark energy and dark matter combined makes up roughly 96 percent of the universe, while regular matter only makes up around 5 percent of our cosmos. However, more than 50 percent of the particles of regular matter – referred to as baryons – is said to be missing. These baryons are particles composed of protons and electrons, and according to astronomers, the count of these baryons from the early formation of the universe to its current state has been dropping from some unknown reason, as if they were gradually but inevitably erased from cosmic history.

Tracking down the location of these missing baryons in the universe continues to be an important priority in the scientific field of astronomy, as the discovery of where they are could help scientists and researchers to paint a much clearer picture on how galaxies and other structures in the cosmos evolved as time went by.

The Mystery Behind Supernovas

Do you know how do stars explode? Many of the processes that have something to do with how stars and the solar system are formed are essentially understood by modern science now. What is not clearly known by researchers, however, is what happens in a star in the event that it finally explodes.

In the untimely event that a humungous star completely depletes its fuel and perishes, it triggers a massive explosion referred to as a “supernova.” This spectacular explosion is known to shine very brightly – in fact, much brighter than the glimmer of an entire galaxy. In recent years, significant strides achieved in supercomputing have made it possible for astronomers to research about the stars’ and supernovas’ internal conditions, and to recreate them by designing complex computer models. But even with these advanced technologies that are available for use by the brightest minds of science, many details about what goes on inside a star before its explosion, and how this explosion happens, continue to endure until now as a challenging astronomical puzzle.

The Mystery Behind the Peculiarity of the Solar System

While astronomers and space observatories have preoccupied themselves with discovering new planets which are located in proximity of other stars, some researchers have dedicated their intelligence and their resources in the pursuit of fully understanding the unique characteristics that our solar system possesses.

For example, the four innermost planets found in our solar system – including Earth – while very different from one another, all share the same feature of having rocky outer shells as well as metallic cores. On the other hand, the four outermost planets are immensely distinct from the innermost planets and from each other, with each possessing their own identifiable as well as distinctive characteristics.

And so, in the hopes of finally figuring out how our solar system was formed and how it came to existence, scientists have dedicated much of their time and exerted significant efforts into the study and exploration of the processes involved with planetary formation. Unfortunately, despite their dedication, the exact answer to the mystery of how our solar system came to be has remained elusive, and the answers that have been postulated in an attempt to explain it are not so simple.

According to experts, all existing attempts at cracking the mystery behind the diversity of each planet in our system is clouded by the uncertain nature of random chance. This line of reasoning is supported by the results of computer simulations which demonstrated that that the un-sequenced fusion of planetesimals in planetary system when it was still forming could just as likely have resulted to the formation of three or five terrestrial planets in contrast to the four planets we currently have.

But as the search and study of alien worlds which orbit other stars go beyond the stamp-collection of planets according to their orbit and mass, more insights can potentially be gained from these distant worlds in our effort to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of the planets within our solar system. In learning about these alien worlds, scientists are given a higher number of planetary outcomes to assess when it comes to explaining how the solar system came to be.

The five space mysteries we have listed are not the only existing enigmas about the universe that science has yet to give a full-proof answer to. Other mysteries such as the re-ionization of the universe, the source of cosmic rays, and the reason behind the heat of the sun’s corona, have continued to motivate men and women of science to come up with various theories and hypotheses that could provide the best explanations that would possibly resolve such difficult, cosmic questions. And while there are those who propose ideas to explain these phenomena, there are also those who have dedicated much of themselves to refuting such theories and providing an alternative and more plausible explanation to these mysteries.

For some of these questions, we have gotten – even by just a little bit – somewhat closer to giving the most scientifically verifiable answers that will resolve and put an end to these space mysteries. However, it cannot be denied that many of them are expected by most to remain unsolved in the foreseeable future. And while we may never really know the complete truth behind these mysteries, that does not mean mankind will stop trying to figure them all out. And perhaps that innate human quality instilled in all of us is the most astonishing mystery of them all.

---

Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/mysterious-space-objects-2016-7/#the-great-attractor-5
http://www.space.com/15942-modern-astronomy-mysteries-baffling-scientists.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2153367/The-space-mysteries-science-CANT-solve--weird-heat-sun-3-4-universe-thats-gone-missing.html
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/02/160218-dark-energy-matter-universe-gravity-mysteries-space/

What is Deja Vu?

Did you ever get that odd and unsettling feeling or sense that you’ve been in an exact situation before? Or you’ve already experienced something that you know for certain you are doing for the very first time? Have you ever felt that overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that you shouldn’t be familiar with at all?

What is Déjà vu? 

This phenomenon is called “déjà vu,” which in French literally means “already seen.” Essentially, it is a sensation that something we’re experiencing at the moment has happened before, whether it’s just a single element such as a taste, a sight or a sound, or whether it’s an entire sequence of events. Déjà vu is a common intuitive feeling that has happened to around 60 to 70 percent of people, and it occurs more frequently to people between 15 and 25 years old compared to any other age group.

Déjà vu is a rather complex phenomenon, and like many unusual phenomena involving the brain, it has yet to be fully understood. There is much speculation as to how and why this phenomenon occurs in people. To many parapsychologists, this occurs when things and experience from our past lives merge with our present life. Several psychoanalysts, on the other hand, attribute the phenomenon to nothing more than simple fantasy and wish fulfillment of our desires and dreams.

Then, there’s the psychological standpoint, which generally considers déjà vu to be caused by a memory mismatch that in turn, causes people to feel that they’ve already experienced a specific event that they know is completely novel to them. Though not fully proven, some experts in the field generally agree that déjà vu occurs because of a communication issue between the short term and long term memory, a rare occurrence that functions like a circuit break.

Although the actual cause of déjà vu has yet to be confirmed by science, there are many different theories that attempt to explain how it happens, and they each have interesting implications for the mechanisms of the human brain. For those who are fascinated by this phenomenon and want to try to get to the bottom of this psychological mystery, here are three psychological theories that have been proposed to explain déjà vu!

Causes of Déjà Vu: Dual Processing Theory [False Memories]

One theory suggests that déjà vu is caused by memories failing to form correctly in the brain. This theory is called “dual processing,” and it is the most widely accepted take on this mysterious phenomenon among psychologists. The dual processing theory is based on the way the human brain processes new information and how it stores short-term and long-term memories. Essentially, the theory holds that déjà vu happens when two cognitive processes are momentarily out of sync.

In 1963, Robert Efron at the Veterans Hospital in Boston tested his proposed idea that a delayed neurological response is what causes déjà vu. According to him, because information enters the processing centers of the brain via more than a single path, it is likely that there are instances that the blending of information might not synchronize correctly.

In testing his theory, not only did he find the temporal lobe of the brain’s left hemisphere to be responsible for sorting incoming information, he also discovered that the temporal lobe receives this incoming information twice, but with a milliseconds-long delay between transmission. The information arrives once directly, and a second time after its detour through the right hemisphere of the brain. Should the second transmission get delayed by just slightly longer, then the brain might put a later timestamp on that information and consider it as a different memory from the previous memory already processed by the first transmission. This neurological delay is what could possibly explain the sudden sense of familiarity people feel on certain experiences or events.

Causes of Déjà Vu: ‘Divided Attention’ Theory

Another theory suggests that déjà vu could be triggered by things that we have seen subliminally but we just haven’t registered on a conscious level yet. Called “divided attention,” this theory relies on the brain’s inability to focus on all things at once, which means it has the tendency to momentarily “forget” about other actions or events that are happening in real-time.

According to this theory, it is not necessary for people to actually have experienced an event or a stimulus in the past for déjà vu to occur. Instead, divided attention theory tells us that when we are first exposed to a situation and we are momentarily distracted by something else such as a thought or a sight, this causes us not to pay attention to what’s going on around us. While we may not have consciously taken note of what was happening to our surroundings at the time, we have, however, taken it in unconsciously. But as we regain awareness, the entire sequence of events rushes back to us as eerily familiar, as if our memory is convincing us that we’ve been there before – which we kind-of have, in a way.

Causes of Déjà Vu: ‘Hologram’ Theory

The last theory that we will be discussing is the ‘hologram theory’. Dutch psychiatrist Herman Sno proposed the idea that memories are like holograms, which means that a person can recreate the entire three-dimensional image from any fragment of the whole.

Based on his reasoning, human memories are so interlinked with each other that experiencing just a single fragment is enough for a person’s brain to reconstruct an entire multi-sensory memory. However, there is a caveat to the brain’s automatic process of “filling in the blanks” – and that is, the smaller the fragment, the fuzzier the ultimate picture or scene will be.

According to Sno, déjà vu happens when certain details in the current environment we are in – be it sight, sound, smell or something else – resembles some remnant memory in our past, and our brain recreates a complete picture or an entire scene from that fragment alone. This could be particularly confusing if our memory of that past event is either vague or incomplete since the brain would just have to put in other bits of information to complete the picture, even if the added memory isn’t actually our own. This brings out a feeling of familiarity as well as the powerful sensation of reliving a forgotten memory which in turn could trigger the experience of déjà vu.

And so, based on this theory, you could experience déjà vu when picking up a can just because the feeling of the metal is the same as the bike handle that you once had, or when you go to a restaurant and saw a table cloth without actually remembering that your grandmother also had the same one on her dining table when you were just a small child.

Although déjà vu has been extensively studied as a phenomenon for over a century, and researchers have come up with dozens of advanced theories about its cause, there is no specific theory that claims to be the 100% accurate answer to this mystery. Until now, we can honestly say that there is no simple explanation for how exactly how déjà vu works and why it happens.

Perhaps sometime in the near future – when our technology is advanced enough and we have learned more thoroughly about how the brain works – will we finally be able to unlock the compelling secrets behind this strange phenomenon.

---

Sources:

https://youtu.be/foVMwJtlR5s

https://youtu.be/nFAvUkjba-Q

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/extrasensory-perceptions/question657.htm

http://www.brainfacts.org/about-neuroscience/ask-an-expert/articles/2014/what-causes-deja-vu/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/03/15/why-we-get-deja-vu_n_9463818.html

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

Dual Processing Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200503/been-there-done

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/deja-vu4.htm

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

‘Divided Attention’ Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

Hologram Theory

http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/17131/1/What-Causes-Deja-Vu.html

http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/deja-vu4.htm

http://www.medicaldaily.com/deja-vu-and-its-relatives-how-simple-mistakes-memory-could-signal-deeper-neurological-problems

http://listverse.com/2016/06/19/10-fascinating-theories-to-explain-deja-vu/

The Black Knight Alien Satellite

    This black knight is not at all related to the bat-costumed dark knight that we know all too well. In fact, many people think it’s an alien satellite that has been kept secret by NASA and the government for more than a decade since it was first discovered. Over the decades, there have been many sightings of the strange object, but no one knows why it’s up there floating in space. All reports from US, Russia, And Europe in general say that the satellite is of “unknown origin”. So what is this curious object anyway? When was it discovered? What does it do? What is its purpose? Let’s start from the very beginning.

    Although there are varied opinions, it is generally believed that Nikola Tesla was the one who “discovered” the black knight when he set up a magnifying transmitter at his Colorado Springs facility in 1899 to investigate wireless distribution of electricity. What he didn’t expect were strange signals that were repeated periodically with number and order. They were timed pulses coming as ...1, ...2, ...3, that led him to believe that the signal was coming from an extraterrestrial source. Tesla originally thought that the signals were being sent from Mars, but he later restated that the signal was actually coming from another part of space. It’s not surprising that Tesla associated the signal with alien intervention, because a lot of people believe that Tesla has had contact with aliens. It is believed that he received information from aliens in a number of different cases. For example, once he was trying to find an equation/principle for the AC machine and suddenly, out of nowhere, he got the answer via telepathy or from an unknown source. Apparently he also invented many things for the government that were kept from the public, but that’s another story on it’s own.

    Not long afterward Tesla’s discovery, Guglielmo Marconi, Italian inventor and electrical engineer, was also intercepted by a strange unknown artificial signal. He found that some of his morse code messages were being returned to him, which fascinated and frightened him at the same time.

     Following his discovery in 1927, another man named Jorgen Hals, a civil engineer in Oslo, was using a radio receiver to listen to shortwave transmissions and noticed something very peculiar was happening. His signals were being reflected back to him. He didn’t know what it was, but the echoes were being reflected back to him at strange intervals ranging from 3-15 seconds. These irregularly reflected intervals were later known to be LDES, or Long Delayed Echoes.

    After the occurrence of all of these events that might have been related to alien interaction (especially the LDES),  the press was majorly stirred up. From 1928 to 1930, a experiments were performed that tested the legitimacy of the reflected signals, and it turned out that they were very real indeed. The only problem was that no one had an explanation for the signals’ reflections. As a result, even more experiments were run in France and the UK in the 1930's, but at the end of the day scientists could do nothing but be confused and speechless. Even today, we don’t have an agreed upon explanation for the occurrence and location of these LDES.

    Of course, after the experiments were run, the black knight became an even hotter topic for many news outlets, and the first story of the alien shuttle appeared on May 14th, 1954 when St. Louis Dispatch and The SF Examiner wrote about it, explaining that the U.S had found a strange satellite in space and that it could possibly be a surveillance satellite launched by the Russians.

     Then, on August 23, 1954, another story was released about the Black Knight, this time by the tech mag Aviation Week and Space Technology. They basically told the world that the Pentagon found two satellites orbiting the earth, both of which were natural. The pentagon was furious when they heard about the release of the story because want the satellites to be known by the public. As a result, they lied to the public and told them that the satellites were asteroids (as if anyone would actually believe them). By then the public already knew that something was up, and that either the Russians had managed to put something into orbit or there was something more...supernatural at work.

    A few years later, in March of 1960, another satellite was found orbiting earth. This satellite was a spectacular discovery because it wasn’t like the previously discovered satellites at all. It was a large black object weighing about 15 tons that was in POLAR orbit around earth, which means that it passes over polar regions and has a plane that contains the polar axis. This is amazing because first of all, the US and soviets didn’t even KNOW how to put an object in polar orbit. Second of all, neither country was capable of putting an object that weighs so much into space either. Third of all, the satellite was twice as fast as any known satellite at the time. As a result, the strange polar-orbiting satellites acquired a name: the Black Knight. No one knows for sure the origins of the name, but it’s believed that the name is based on a rocket the British had developed, which was also called Black Knight. After the amazing discovery, astronomers across the country conducted research on the satellite and realized that it had one of the strangest patterns of appearance and disappearance, because it would disappear for long periods of time before reappearing again YEARS later. 

   Robert L. Johnson, director of the Adler Planetarium, said that "‘THE OBJECT ‘DOESN’T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO MAINTAIN A REGULAR SCHEDULE,LIKE ANY OTHER HEAVENLY OR MAN MADE OBJECT...‘WE DON’T KNOW WHEN TO WATCH FOR IT.’" What was it trying to do?

      Stanford space scientist Ronald Bracewell had an explanation for the phenomenon and believed that the satellite was a way for a distant alien civilization to communicate with earth. He said that the aliens might have sent out a probe, or ‘Bracewell probe’ as it’s we now call it, into the universe to look for other planets that seemed promising and contained intelligent lifeforms. He said that the satellite would remain dormant until humans found a way to send signals to it, in which it would send signals back.

     Duncan Lunan, a Scottish science writer was so intrigued by Bracewell’s theory that he decided to test it out for himself. He reexamined the data from the LDE experiments of 1928 and was absolutely and completely baffled. He mapped out the delays from the echos he recorded in 1928, and found that they formed the pattern of the  Boötes constellation, a constellation the in the northern sky. Not only that, Lunan was also able to decode the message that was being conveyed from the LDE Data at a stable point between the orbits of Earth and Moon called L5. the message read:

“  START HERE.OUR HOME IS EPSILON BOOTIS. WHICH IS A DOUBLE STAR. WE LIVE ON THE 6th PLANET OF 7 — CHECK THAT, 6th OF 7 — COUNTING OUTWARDS FROM THE SUN WHICH IS THE LARGER OF THE TWO.OUR 6th PLANET HAS ONE MOON,OUR 4th PLANET HAS THREE,OUR FIRST AND THIRD PLANETS EACH HAVE ONE.OUR PROBE IS IN THE ORBIT OF YOUR MOON THIS UPDATES THE POSITION OF ARCTURUS SHOWN ON OUR MAPS.”

If this doesn’t send chills down your spine, I don’t know what does.

     What’s even more amazing is that, along with the decoded message, Lunan also realized something else. Although he made his discovery in 1972, he realized that the star system he saw from the LDE data was not like the star system he saw in the skies at all. He concluded that if the black knight really was an alien probe, it must have taken ages to reach earth. He was right. By looking back in time, Lunan realized that the map he created matched how Epsilon Bootis looked like the Epsilon Bootis that was in the skies 13,000 years ago. This means that the satellite, possibly sent from a distant alien civilization, could have been orbiting the planet since pre-history.

     By then, Lunan was pretty much convinced that an alien civilization living near the Bootes constellation was trying to contact earth. It’s possible that the the same signal was also intercepted by Tesla and Macroni as well, but we will never know for sure. Sadly, since there wasn’t solid proof regarding the existence of such a supernatural satellite, people started believing the Pentagon’s excuse that the Black Knight was just some “space debris”.

     Thankfully, visual evidence of the satellite was found in 1998 when the crew of the space shuttle Endeavor was able to take high-resolution pictures of the strange black object while they were in space. The old stories of Tesla, LDES, and Lunan’s constellation map once again resurfaced in the minds of people across the country. Until today, we are still not sure what the Black Knight is, what it does, or where it comes from, but we DO know for a fact that it’s no regular satellite.

9 Strange Acts of Nature Science still Can't Explain

Nature is beautiful but it's also a cruel mistress that can be scary, completely unpredictable and in some cases defy explanation. Although we get why the sky is blue, how the Grand Canyon formed and why birds poop on our heads (they hate us) here are some events of nature that continue to elude explanation.

1.    Animal Migration

I’ll admit, I love road trips but I’m really bad at them. I tend to get lost a lot and I get sleepy 30 minutes in. I’ve splashed water on myself, I've stuck my head out the window like a dog, nothing works. Although I still can't figure out how to stay alert on long trips in the car I am very thankful for GPS, but now I feel that I’m too reliant on them. Once I followed my GPS through a college campus, another time the GPS took me through a cemetery in nowheresville Pennsylvania at night, and that’s where I draw the line. I mean, take me through a college campus I may get a ticket, take me through a graveyard in the middle of the night? that’s some silent hill stuff! My point is I NEED a GPS especially on long trips, but have you ever noticed that many animals migrate thousands of miles across land and sea, and they never have a Garmin attached to their necks.

So How do animals make these long treks without getting lost? No one really knows, though there are many theories. For example, an article in The Independent that focused on pigeon migration, mentioned that the birds navigate the Earth using visual landmarks or their sense of smell to determine their location. More bizarre-sounding theories include the concept that pigeons use magnetism to determine if they’re north or south of home; another is that the pigeons use morphic resonance, a theory by Rupert Sheldrake, to refer to what he calls the "the basis of memory in nature basically the idea that there are collective memories that are shared within species.

2.     The Naga Fireballs

Every year, around late autumn on the night of the full moon at the end of the Buddhist Lent going back as far as anyone can remember. Hundreds of fireballs explode randomly out of Thailand’s Mekong River. This phenomenon is known as “Naga fireballs,”  Locals believe the balls come from the breath of Naga, a mythical serpent that haunts the river. Many scientists believe that the fireballs are nothing more than pockets of methane bubbling up from the river, others argue that whatever is sailing through the air has mass, and "must have been propelled physically. So the question is, what is propelling these fireballs. You guys ever hear of a watermelon seed spitting contest? maybe the river serpents gather together every year for the annual Mekong River Fireball Spitting Contest.

3.    The Tunguska Event

A ball of fire exploded in a remote area of Russia In June 1908, the explosion was so powerful it shook the ground and instantly flattening 770 square miles of forest. The blast reached 15 megatons of energy, about a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. Because this event occurred near a river called Tunguska, it was Known as the Tunguska event. 

Researchers suggests that a meteor was to blame because there is a lake nearby and scientists believe that it was created by a meteor. But others say the lake was there before the event, so if not a meteor, then what cause the most powerful natural explosion in recent history.

4.    Earthquake Lights

Earthquake lights are white or bluish flashes that occur right before a large earthquake and last for several seconds. These lights have been documented for hundreds of years, but it wasn't until the 1960s, when people took pictures of this phenomenon during the Matsushiro earthquakes, that scientists started to take it seriously.

There are many theories for the origin of the lights, such as piezoelectric and frictional heating to gas emissions and electrokinetics. Recently scientists believe that the lights are caused by the natural electrical charge of rocks which are awakened by pre-earthquake elements.

5. Blue Jets and Red Sprites

Blue Jets and Red Sprits occur above clouds during a lightning storm and are only visible from space or an airplane. They basically looks like fireworks falling from the sky. Sprites are red most of the time and happen as high as 50 miles off the surface of the ground, while jets shoot directly out of the tops of storm clouds, sometimes traveling as far as 30 miles up into the Ionosphere.

Scientists think the phenomena has something to do with whatever is causing the lightning we see in every storm and that is basically all they know. The sprites seem to occur as a result of a lightning strike on the ground, but the jets seem to occur randomly.

6. Raining Animals

Throughout history random things has been documented raining from the sky including Frogs, Fish, Worms, and even blood. The prevailing theory is that waterspouts or tornadoes scoop random things up like a whole lot of fish and then transport them sometimes hundreds of miles in the sky then rain them down.

But this theory does not explain why often only a single species is in the rain. Like if a waterspout sucked things up from a lake, it should not just be raining fish, it should be raining fish, turtles, frogs, lake monsters.

7. Spontaneous Human Combustion

Spontaneous Human Combustion or SHC means just that, it refers to when a person bursts into flame for no apparent reason.

The first known accounts of spontaneous human combustion date all the way back to 1641. More recently, cases of SHC have been suspected when officials have found corpses burned to ashes but the furniture surrounding them were completely undamaged. For example, an Irish coroner ruled that spontaneous combustion caused the 2010 death of 76-year-old Michael Faherty, whose badly burned body was discovered near a fireplace in a room with virtually no fire damage.

Many scientists dismiss the theory, because of course the human body is composed mostly of water and they argue that an undetected flame source such as a match or cigarette is the real culprit in suspected cases. Others claim that because it takes a temperature of around 570 degrees to burn a body to ashes, it’s impossible that the body would be the only thing that burns.

There are many theories of course that try to explain this phenomenon. Some say the victims are alcoholics and consumed so much alcohol that their blood became flammable, other say the combustion is caused by gamma rays. 

8.    Fairy circles:

Fairy circles are strange formations of grass-less earth surrounded by grass. Almost perfect circles and researchers have no idea what causes them. What’s also strange is that these circles start off small and grow large and the circles lie regularly spaced from one another forming the same pattern across the landscape.. They are commonly found in Namibia and parts of South Africa. Fairy circles vary 7 and 49 ft in diameter and since the 1970s, when researchers first started investigating the phenomenon, there has been no viable theory that was able to satisfy the scientific community.

There are some guesses that involve termites and patterns that arose naturally from competition between grasses. There is also the local belief that the fairy circles are footprints of the gods or made by a dragon that lives within the earth and I'm gonna go ahead and throw Colosseum arenas for little fairies into the discussion. 

9.     The Marfa Lights

The Marfa lights are mysterious glowing orbs that appear in the desert outside the West Texas town of Marfa.

The lights, which are roughly the size of basketballs and vary in color. reportedly hover, merge, split, twinkle, float or quickly dart around. There seems to be no way to predict when the lights will appear; they're seen in various weather conditions, but only a dozen or so nights a year.  and of course no one has been able to figure out what these lights are.

The first mention of the lights comes from 1883, when a cowhand Robert Reed Ellison claimed to have seen flickering lights one evening while driving a herd of cattle near Mitchell Flat. During World War II, pilots from nearby Midland Army Air Field tried to locate the source of the mysterious lights, but were unable to discover anything.

Possible causes of the lights has been attributed to cars, optical illusions, ghosts and of course aliens.