Skeptophilia (skep-to-fil-i-a) (n.) - the love of logical thought, skepticism, and thinking critically. Being an exploration of the applications of skeptical thinking to the world at large, with periodic excursions into linguistics, music, politics, cryptozoology, and why people keep seeing the face of Jesus on grilled cheese sandwiches.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Bizarre news in brief

This is shaping up to be an interesting week here at Worldwide Wacko Watch.

First, we have reports of a "dragonfly drone" near Fort Benning, Georgia.

An unidentified man saw, and drew a picture of, a small, self-propelled aerial craft buzzing around his house.  Despite the fact that the man couldn't produce the actual object itself and stated that it never landed, he was able to replicate details in his drawing that border on the astonishing (including the fact that it had an embossed Greek letter epsilon on its top).  (You can read the report, and see the drawing, here.)

This is only the latest of a series of "dragonfly drone" reports, coming from California, Oregon, Arizona, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, and Ohio.  The Alabama report, back in 2007, came from a guy who went by the fake name "Ted Connors" so as to preserve his anonymity.  Connors claimed to be a subcontractor for the Department of Homeland Security, and was working near Maxwell AFB when he was buzzed by a drone.

Then, he "telepathically downloaded" the memory of the drone, and found out that its origin was the planet Oltissis, in a parallel dimension.  He found a library book in Montgomery which mentioned Oltissis, and brought it to work to read, but agents from the DHS showed up one night and confiscated the book.  *cue suspenseful music*  You have to wonder if they gave him money to pay the inevitable library fine.

All I can say is, if we have people working for the government who believe that they've telepathically downloaded information from a drone originating on a planet in a parallel dimension, it's no wonder we're in trouble as a nation.  Next thing you know, we'll have a young-earth-creationist climate change denier who wants to bring home vigilante justice on the Federal Reserve Chairman running for president.


Speaking of Texas, next we have a story from Galveston, where a 19-year-old man who claimed to be a "five hundred year old deathless vampire" broke into a woman's apartment and bit her on the neck because he "needed to feed."

Police took a while to subdue Lyle Monroe Bensley, who at the time of his apprehension was clad only in a pair of boxers and kept making "hissing sounds."  He claimed that he "didn't want to feed on humans," but he had no choice.

He's being kept restrained in the Galveston County Jail, until police officials can find a wooden stake and a large mallet.


Then, we have a story from Hebron, Kentucky, where a team sponsored by the fundamentalist group "Answers in Genesis" is attempting to build Noah's ark to the exact specifications listed in the bible.

Mike Zovath, the project manager, states, "There's a lot of doubt: 'Could Noah have built a boat this big, could he have put all the animals on the boat?'  Those are questions people all over the country ask."

Yup, I know I've asked that same question myself.  And then answered it, "No."  But that isn't stopping Zovath and his crew, who are determined to show that such a craft could have housed "thousands of animals with no problem."

For reference, the current estimate of the number of animal species on Earth is somewhere around 12 million.  And that isn't even counting the plants, which also presumably would have benefited from protection from coverage by thousands of feet of salt water.


And now that we're discussing fiction, we will end with a helpful do-it-yourself article (here) called "How To Cleanse Your Own Aura."  I have to admit if you could handle such things on your own it would be more convenient than bringing your aura to the drycleaners.  The article includes such essential tips as figuring out when your aura is dirty:
How much time do you spend in bad places?  Work space, shopping centers, bus?  How many times a day do you touch people around you?  How often do you have sex with random people?  If you’re alive, then I bet you collect negative energies.  Don’t worry, we all do :-)
I kind of question his assumption that "we all" have sex with random people.  But anyway, let's take it for granted that we all have stressful factors in our lives and therefore "collect negative energies."  The writer said that he sometimes collects so many negative energies that his aura turns dark and he can "barely see his third eye."  If you can imagine.

In any case, if you too find yourself having a hard time locating your third eye because your aura's got schmutz on it, here's what you do:

Light a candle in a quiet room, and imagine yourself illuminated by a "spiritual light."  Then when your aura lightens up, grab the "negative energies" and fling them into the flame, making sure to exhale while you do it so you don't "inhale the negative energies back into your body."  There!  All better!  Next time, try to take better care of your aura, and you won't have to go through all that trouble again.

For one thing, try having less sex with random people.

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