Huge reptiles called dinosaurs began to flourish on earth 180 million years ago. These creatures suddenly died out about 60 million years ago.
Why did dinosaurs vanish suddenly, after ruling the earth for some 120 million years, is a question that still puzzles scientists today.
Despite the many theories on dinosaur extinction, including the currently popular meteorite impact theory, the demise of the dinosaurs is still unexplained.
Wherever dinosaur bones are unearthed, the evidence predominantly suggests catastrophic entombment by water, sometimes by clearly marine water. Just the burial and fossilisation of such massive hulks as the large dinosaurs indicates catastrophic action. There is also evidence that some dinosaurs were rapidly buried in at least regional debris flows.
The large dinosaur bone-beds especially indicate a major catastrophe. Some of these bone-beds represent the remains of one dinosaur species, an unusual taphonomic condition. Babies and young juveniles are almost entirely missing as fossils, another enigmatic occurrence for those who assume uniformitarianism.
Billions of dinosaur tracks have recently been discovered, and these provide further evidence for unusual, stressful conditions. For instance, the tracks do not traverse hills, they are practically always orientated in a straight line, there are very few tracks of baby dinosaurs, and some dinosaurs that may have been poor swimmers are nearly absent. It is suggested that dinosaur tracks and remains could have occurred during temporary exposure of sediments during the first half of the Flood.
Dinosaur eggs, nests, and babies at first glance appear to contradict the hypothesis of briefly exposed sediments during the Flood. However, many unknowns still surround this fascinating evidence of in situ dinosaur activity.
The volcanic and meteorite theories for dinosaur extinction have both supportive and contrary data. The data from these theories can be fitted into a Flood model, a model in which the dinosaurs perished at different times within the first 150 days.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Who was "Jack the Ripper"?
A series of murders that took place in the East End of London from August to November 1888 were blamed on an unidentified assailant known as "Jack the Ripper". Since that time, the identity of the killer has been hotly debated, and over one hundred Jack the Ripper suspects have been proposed. Though many theories have been advanced, experts find none widely persuasive, and some can hardly be taken seriously at all.
Jack the Ripper is the world’s most famous serial killer. Yet his reign of terror lasted a mere 10 weeks and was confined to a small area of the Victorian Metropolis. It is difficult today to say how many victims he actually had, though it is generally agreed that there were five. These five were Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly. The first victim, Mary Nichols, was murdered on August 31st 1888. The final victim, Mary Kelly, was murdered on 9th November 1888.
The killings took place in one of the most crime ridden parts of Victorian London, and all the victims were common street prostitutes. The question that has eluded dedicated researchers for over a hundred years now is who was Jack the Ripper? Obviously today it is virtually impossible to answer this question with 100% certainty. We can look at what the detectives of the time, those who investigated the killings, had to say. But in order to even attempt to answer the question we must first ask and answer another question. What happened to Jack the Ripper to stop him killing?
If we accept that Mary Kelly was the last victim of Jack the Ripper, then we must also accept that something happened to the killer shortly after the bloodbath in Miller’s Court (the place where Mary Kelly lived and where she was murdered in the early hours of 9th November 1888). Murderers such as this don’t stop killing. They may lie low for a while, perhaps even for many years. But the desire to kill remains and can be re-awakened at anytime, unless something happens to the murderer to stop him.
In the case of Jack the Ripper that something was doubtless one of four things. He may have died, possibly by his own hand, shortly after he killed Mary Kelly. He may have been living with his family and they either realised he was insane and incarcerated him in a lunatic asylum, or possibly even handed him over to the police. A third, though unlikely, explanation is that he moved somewhere else continued killing and the connection was never made. This is an unlikely explanation since the murders were reported all over the world, and had a similar killing spree occurred somewhere else there is little doubt that the connection would have been made. The fourth and most likely scenario, however, is that at some stage in the days or months that followed the murder of Mary Kelly the police finally got the break they’d been hoping for since the killings began, and Jack the Ripper was finally caught. So having considered the options as to what happened to the murderer we can now turn our attentions to the question everybody wants to know. Who was he?
Throughout the autumn of 1888 the Victorian police were arresting suspect after suspect but each time they arrested a likely looking candidate they were either able to provide cast iron alibis for their whereabouts on the nights of the murders, or else were exonerated by actual events when the killer struck again whilst they were in police custody.
On 19th September the Chief of London police (Metropolitan Police Commissioner) Sir Charles Warren wrote to the Home Office to update them on progress, or to be more precise lack progress, in the police investigation. “A great number of clues have been examined & exhausted without finding anything suspicious. A large staff of men are employed and every point is being examined which seems to offer any prospect of a discovery.” He also mentioned three men against whom the police had suspicions.
The first was Jacob Isenschmid, an insane pork butcher from Switzerland who had been arrested at Holloway and was now in an asylum. Abberline had written of this suspect on 18th September “Although at present we are unable to procure any evidence any evidence to connect him with the murders, he appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes.” Apparently two doctors Dr Cowan and Dr Landseer had alerted the police to the fact that this man, whom they knew to be a lunatic, was the murderer. His landlord told the police that he was absent from his lodgings during the night when Annie Chapman was murdered. His estranged wife, Mary, told Sergeant Thicke that although her husband was violent she did not thing he would “…injure anyone but me. I think he would kill me if he had the chance.” But, as with Ludwig, Isenschmid was also not the murderer, for on the 30th September, when the killer struck again, the mad Swiss Pork Butcher was caged in an asylum.
Warren’s second suspect was Oswald Puckeridge who had been “released from an asylum on 4th August [and who] has threatened to rip people up. He is being looked for but cannot be found as yet.” Not a great deal has been found about Puckeridge, and even less is known about why the police suspected him. It would seem that the police may have traced him and eliminated him as a suspect, since his name was not included on later lists of suspects.
The final suspect is even more elusive since Warren doesn’t identify him but merely states that “A brothel keeper who will not give her address or name writs to say that a man living in her house was seen with blood on him on morning of murder. She described his appearance & said where he might be seen. When the detectives came near him he bolted, got away & there is no clue to the writer of the letter.”
Evidently the police were no nearer catching the killer by the end of September 1888 than they had been at the start of Jack the Ripper’s killing spree. But the suspects being brought in and questioned at least give us an insight into the type of person the police thought they were dealing with and so provide us with something of an insight into the police thinking at the height of the Jack the Ripper scare.
However, it is now time to look beyond the autumn of terror and look at the suspects that the police had after the final Jack the Ripper murder, that of Mary Kelly on the 9th November 1888.
On 13th February 1894 The Sun Newspaper began a series of articles that did not reveal the name of their suspect but were obviously referring to one Thomas Hayne Cutbush. Thomas is said to have contracted syphilis in 1888 after which he began suffering paranoid delusions. On March 5th 1891 he was detained at Lambeth Infirmary as a wandering lunatic, but he escaped within hours. Over the next few days he stabbed a lady named Florence Grace Johnson, using a knife he had purchased in Houndsditch the week before. He then attempted to stab another lady, Isabelle Frazer Anderson before being arrested on 9th March 1891. He was arraigned at the London County Sessions in April 1891, found to be insane and was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure. He was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum where he remained until his death in 1903.
Cutbush was the nephew of Superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush, who was responsible for supplies and pay at Scotland Yard. Doubtless he was one of the “relatives” referred to in the articles as being “in positions which would make them a target for the natural curiosity...” In 1896 Superintendent Cutbush shot himself in the head in his own kitchen in the presence of his daughter.
The Police, it appears, had already considered and looked into the possibility of Cutbush’s being Jack the Ripper and had ruled him out as a suspect. But, as a result of The Sun’s accusations, Melville Macnaghten was asked to prepare a report in which he refuted the newspapers allegations. Now known as the Macnaghten Memoranda this report was one of the first official documents to provide an insight into who the police at the time thought the killer was. Macnagheten mentions three suspects who were more likely to have been the murderer than Cutbush. It is important to note that Macnaghten does not say any of the three were Jack the Ripper, just that they were more plausible suspects than Cutbush. Referring to the killings Macnaghten wrote:
It will be noted that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, and, seemingly, the appetite only became sharpened by indulgence. It seems, then, highly improbable that the murderer would have suddenly stopped in November '88, and been content to recommence operations by merely prodding a girl behind some 2 years and 4 months afterwards. A much more rational theory is that the murderer's brain gave way altogether after his awful glut in Miller's Court, and that he immediately committed suicide, or, as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum.
No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders:
(1) A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.
(2) Kosminski -- a Polish Jew -- & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.
(3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian doctor, and a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac. This man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.
Jack the Ripper is the world’s most famous serial killer. Yet his reign of terror lasted a mere 10 weeks and was confined to a small area of the Victorian Metropolis. It is difficult today to say how many victims he actually had, though it is generally agreed that there were five. These five were Mary Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly. The first victim, Mary Nichols, was murdered on August 31st 1888. The final victim, Mary Kelly, was murdered on 9th November 1888.
The killings took place in one of the most crime ridden parts of Victorian London, and all the victims were common street prostitutes. The question that has eluded dedicated researchers for over a hundred years now is who was Jack the Ripper? Obviously today it is virtually impossible to answer this question with 100% certainty. We can look at what the detectives of the time, those who investigated the killings, had to say. But in order to even attempt to answer the question we must first ask and answer another question. What happened to Jack the Ripper to stop him killing?
If we accept that Mary Kelly was the last victim of Jack the Ripper, then we must also accept that something happened to the killer shortly after the bloodbath in Miller’s Court (the place where Mary Kelly lived and where she was murdered in the early hours of 9th November 1888). Murderers such as this don’t stop killing. They may lie low for a while, perhaps even for many years. But the desire to kill remains and can be re-awakened at anytime, unless something happens to the murderer to stop him.
In the case of Jack the Ripper that something was doubtless one of four things. He may have died, possibly by his own hand, shortly after he killed Mary Kelly. He may have been living with his family and they either realised he was insane and incarcerated him in a lunatic asylum, or possibly even handed him over to the police. A third, though unlikely, explanation is that he moved somewhere else continued killing and the connection was never made. This is an unlikely explanation since the murders were reported all over the world, and had a similar killing spree occurred somewhere else there is little doubt that the connection would have been made. The fourth and most likely scenario, however, is that at some stage in the days or months that followed the murder of Mary Kelly the police finally got the break they’d been hoping for since the killings began, and Jack the Ripper was finally caught. So having considered the options as to what happened to the murderer we can now turn our attentions to the question everybody wants to know. Who was he?
Throughout the autumn of 1888 the Victorian police were arresting suspect after suspect but each time they arrested a likely looking candidate they were either able to provide cast iron alibis for their whereabouts on the nights of the murders, or else were exonerated by actual events when the killer struck again whilst they were in police custody.
On 19th September the Chief of London police (Metropolitan Police Commissioner) Sir Charles Warren wrote to the Home Office to update them on progress, or to be more precise lack progress, in the police investigation. “A great number of clues have been examined & exhausted without finding anything suspicious. A large staff of men are employed and every point is being examined which seems to offer any prospect of a discovery.” He also mentioned three men against whom the police had suspicions.
The first was Jacob Isenschmid, an insane pork butcher from Switzerland who had been arrested at Holloway and was now in an asylum. Abberline had written of this suspect on 18th September “Although at present we are unable to procure any evidence any evidence to connect him with the murders, he appears to be the most likely person that has come under our notice to have committed the crimes.” Apparently two doctors Dr Cowan and Dr Landseer had alerted the police to the fact that this man, whom they knew to be a lunatic, was the murderer. His landlord told the police that he was absent from his lodgings during the night when Annie Chapman was murdered. His estranged wife, Mary, told Sergeant Thicke that although her husband was violent she did not thing he would “…injure anyone but me. I think he would kill me if he had the chance.” But, as with Ludwig, Isenschmid was also not the murderer, for on the 30th September, when the killer struck again, the mad Swiss Pork Butcher was caged in an asylum.
Warren’s second suspect was Oswald Puckeridge who had been “released from an asylum on 4th August [and who] has threatened to rip people up. He is being looked for but cannot be found as yet.” Not a great deal has been found about Puckeridge, and even less is known about why the police suspected him. It would seem that the police may have traced him and eliminated him as a suspect, since his name was not included on later lists of suspects.
The final suspect is even more elusive since Warren doesn’t identify him but merely states that “A brothel keeper who will not give her address or name writs to say that a man living in her house was seen with blood on him on morning of murder. She described his appearance & said where he might be seen. When the detectives came near him he bolted, got away & there is no clue to the writer of the letter.”
Evidently the police were no nearer catching the killer by the end of September 1888 than they had been at the start of Jack the Ripper’s killing spree. But the suspects being brought in and questioned at least give us an insight into the type of person the police thought they were dealing with and so provide us with something of an insight into the police thinking at the height of the Jack the Ripper scare.
However, it is now time to look beyond the autumn of terror and look at the suspects that the police had after the final Jack the Ripper murder, that of Mary Kelly on the 9th November 1888.
On 13th February 1894 The Sun Newspaper began a series of articles that did not reveal the name of their suspect but were obviously referring to one Thomas Hayne Cutbush. Thomas is said to have contracted syphilis in 1888 after which he began suffering paranoid delusions. On March 5th 1891 he was detained at Lambeth Infirmary as a wandering lunatic, but he escaped within hours. Over the next few days he stabbed a lady named Florence Grace Johnson, using a knife he had purchased in Houndsditch the week before. He then attempted to stab another lady, Isabelle Frazer Anderson before being arrested on 9th March 1891. He was arraigned at the London County Sessions in April 1891, found to be insane and was sentenced to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure. He was sent to Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum where he remained until his death in 1903.
Cutbush was the nephew of Superintendent Charles Henry Cutbush, who was responsible for supplies and pay at Scotland Yard. Doubtless he was one of the “relatives” referred to in the articles as being “in positions which would make them a target for the natural curiosity...” In 1896 Superintendent Cutbush shot himself in the head in his own kitchen in the presence of his daughter.
The Police, it appears, had already considered and looked into the possibility of Cutbush’s being Jack the Ripper and had ruled him out as a suspect. But, as a result of The Sun’s accusations, Melville Macnaghten was asked to prepare a report in which he refuted the newspapers allegations. Now known as the Macnaghten Memoranda this report was one of the first official documents to provide an insight into who the police at the time thought the killer was. Macnagheten mentions three suspects who were more likely to have been the murderer than Cutbush. It is important to note that Macnaghten does not say any of the three were Jack the Ripper, just that they were more plausible suspects than Cutbush. Referring to the killings Macnaghten wrote:
It will be noted that the fury of the mutilations increased in each case, and, seemingly, the appetite only became sharpened by indulgence. It seems, then, highly improbable that the murderer would have suddenly stopped in November '88, and been content to recommence operations by merely prodding a girl behind some 2 years and 4 months afterwards. A much more rational theory is that the murderer's brain gave way altogether after his awful glut in Miller's Court, and that he immediately committed suicide, or, as a possible alternative, was found to be so hopelessly mad by his relations, that he was by them confined in some asylum.
No one ever saw the Whitechapel murderer; many homicidal maniacs were suspected, but no shadow of proof could be thrown on any one. I may mention the cases of 3 men, any one of whom would have been more likely than Cutbush to have committed this series of murders:
(1) A Mr M. J. Druitt, said to be a doctor & of good family -- who disappeared at the time of the Miller's Court murder, & whose body (which was said to have been upwards of a month in the water) was found in the Thames on 31st December -- or about 7 weeks after that murder. He was sexually insane and from private information I have little doubt but that his own family believed him to have been the murderer.
(2) Kosminski -- a Polish Jew -- & resident in Whitechapel. This man became insane owing to many years indulgence in solitary vices. He had a great hatred of women, specially of the prostitute class, & had strong homicidal tendencies: he was removed to a lunatic asylum about March 1889. There were many circumstances connected with this man which made him a strong 'suspect'.
(3) Michael Ostrog, a Russian doctor, and a convict, who was subsequently detained in a lunatic asylum as a homicidal maniac. This man's antecedents were of the worst possible type, and his whereabouts at the time of the murders could never be ascertained.
Monday, August 3, 2009
Aliens love oceans, indicate Russian Navy UFO records
The Russian navy has declassified its records of encounters with unidentified flying objects, popularly known as UFO's, which indicate that extraterrestrial intelligences like to stick to oceans while visiting Earth.
According to a report in Russia Today, the records, dating back to soviet times, were compiled by a special navy group collecting reports of unexplained incidents delivered by submarines and military ships.
The group was headed by deputy Navy commander Admiral Nikolay Smirnov, and the documents reveal numerous cases of possible UFO encounters.
The materials are of great value, according to Vladimir Azhazha, former navy officer and a famous Russian UFO researcher.
"Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more - with lakes. So, UFOs tend to stick to the water," he said.
On one occasion, a nuclear submarine, which was on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean, detected six unknown objects.
After the crew failed to leave behind their pursuers by maneuvering, the captain ordered to surface. The objects followed suit, took to the air, and flew away.
According to Navy intelligence veteran, Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay, "Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO's fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea."
Another place where people often report UFO encounters is Russia's Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water body in the world.
Fishermen tell of powerful lights coming from the deep and objects flying up from the water.
In one case in 1982 a group of military divers training at Baikal spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits.
The encounter happened at a depth of 50 meters, and the divers tried to catch the strangers. Three of the seven men died, while four others were severely injured.
Also, many mysterious events happened in the region of Bermuda Triangle, recalls retired submarine commander Rear Admiral Yury Beketov.
Instruments malfunctioned with no apparent reason or detected strong interference. The former navy officer says this could be deliberate disruption by UFOs.
"On several occasions, the instruments gave reading of material objects moving at incredible speed. Calculations showed speeds of about 230 knots, of 400 kph," Beketov said.
"Speeding so fast is a challenge even on the surface. But water resistance is much higher. It was like the objects defied the laws of physics. There's only one explanation: the creatures who built them far surpass us in development," Beketov said.
According to a report in Russia Today, the records, dating back to soviet times, were compiled by a special navy group collecting reports of unexplained incidents delivered by submarines and military ships.
The group was headed by deputy Navy commander Admiral Nikolay Smirnov, and the documents reveal numerous cases of possible UFO encounters.
The materials are of great value, according to Vladimir Azhazha, former navy officer and a famous Russian UFO researcher.
"Fifty percent of UFO encounters are connected with oceans. Fifteen more - with lakes. So, UFOs tend to stick to the water," he said.
On one occasion, a nuclear submarine, which was on a combat mission in the Pacific Ocean, detected six unknown objects.
After the crew failed to leave behind their pursuers by maneuvering, the captain ordered to surface. The objects followed suit, took to the air, and flew away.
According to Navy intelligence veteran, Captain 1st rank Igor Barklay, "Ocean UFOs often show up wherever our or NATO's fleets concentrate. Near Bahamas, Bermudas, Puerto Rico. They are most often seen in the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean, in the southern part of the Bermuda Triangle, and also in the Caribbean Sea."
Another place where people often report UFO encounters is Russia's Lake Baikal, the deepest fresh water body in the world.
Fishermen tell of powerful lights coming from the deep and objects flying up from the water.
In one case in 1982 a group of military divers training at Baikal spotted a group of humanoid creatures dressed in silvery suits.
The encounter happened at a depth of 50 meters, and the divers tried to catch the strangers. Three of the seven men died, while four others were severely injured.
Also, many mysterious events happened in the region of Bermuda Triangle, recalls retired submarine commander Rear Admiral Yury Beketov.
Instruments malfunctioned with no apparent reason or detected strong interference. The former navy officer says this could be deliberate disruption by UFOs.
"On several occasions, the instruments gave reading of material objects moving at incredible speed. Calculations showed speeds of about 230 knots, of 400 kph," Beketov said.
"Speeding so fast is a challenge even on the surface. But water resistance is much higher. It was like the objects defied the laws of physics. There's only one explanation: the creatures who built them far surpass us in development," Beketov said.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Spontaneous Human Combustion
In December 1966, the body of 92-year-old Dr. J. Irving Bentley was discovered in his Pennsylvania home by a meter reader. Actually, only part of Dr. Bentley's leg and slippered foot were found. The rest of his body had been burned to ashes. A hole in the bathroom floor was the only evidence of the fire that had killed him; the rest of the house remained perfectly intact.
How could a man catch fire -- with no apparent source of a spark or flame -- and then burn so completely without igniting anything around him? Dr. Bentley's case and several hundred others like it have been labeled "spontaneous human combustion" (SHC). Although he and other victims of the phenomenon burned almost completely, their surroundings, and even sometimes their clothes, remained virtually untouched.
Can humans spontaneously burst into flames? A lot of people think spontaneous human combustion is a real occurrence, but most scientists aren't convinced.
What is Spontaneous Human Combustion?
Spontaneous combustion occurs when an object -- in the case of spontaneous human combustion, a person -- bursts into flame from a chemical reaction within, apparently without being ignited by an external heat source.
The first known account of spontaneous human combustion came from the Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin in 1663, who described how a woman in Paris "went up in ashes and smoke" while she was sleeping. The straw mattress on which she slept was unmarred by the fire. In 1673, a Frenchman named Jonas Dupont published a collection of spontaneous combustion cases in his work "De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis."
The hundreds of spontaneous human combustion accounts since that time have followed a similar pattern: The victim is almost completely consumed, usually inside his or her home. Coroners at the scene have sometimes noted a sweet, smoky smell in the room where the incident occurred.
What makes the charred bodies in the photos of spontaneous human combustion so peculiar is that the extremities often remain intact. Although the torso and head are charred beyond recognition, the hands, feet, and/or part of the legs may be unburned. Also, the room around the person shows little or no signs of a fire, aside from a greasy residue that is sometimes left on furniture and walls. In rare cases, the internal organs of a victim remain untouched while the outside of the body is charred.
Not all spontaneous human combustion victims simply burst into flames. Some develop strange burns on their body which have no obvious source, or emanate smoke from their body when no fire is present. And not every person who has caught fire has died -- a small percentage of people have actually survived what has been called their spontaneous combustion.
The Theories
To combust, a human body needs two things: intensely high heat and a flammable substance. Under normal circumstances, our bodies contain neither, but some scientists over the last several centuries have speculated on a few possible explanations for the occurrence.
In the 1800s, Charles Dickens ignited great interest in spontaneous human combustion by using it to kill off a character in his novel "Bleak House." The character, named Krook, was an alcoholic, following the belief at the time that spontaneous human combustion was caused by excessive amounts of alcohol in the body.
Today, there are several theories. One of the most popular proposes that the fire is sparked when methane (a flammable gas produced when plants decompose) builds up in the intestines and is ignited by enzymes (proteins in the body that act as catalysts to induce and speed up chemical reactions). Yet most victims of spontaneous human combustion suffer greater damage to the outside of their body than to their internal organs, which seems to go against this theory.
Other theories speculate that the fire begins as a result of a buildup of static electricity inside the body or from an external geomagnetic force exerted on the body. A self-proclaimed expert on spontaneous human combustion, Larry Arnold, has suggested that the phenomenon is the work of a new subatomic particle called a pyroton, which he says interacts with cells to create a mini-explosion. But no scientific evidence proves the existence of this particle.
So far no one has offered scientific proof of a theory explaining spontaneous human combustion. If humans can't spontaneously combust, then what is the explanation for the stories and pictures of people who have seemingly burned from within?
How could a man catch fire -- with no apparent source of a spark or flame -- and then burn so completely without igniting anything around him? Dr. Bentley's case and several hundred others like it have been labeled "spontaneous human combustion" (SHC). Although he and other victims of the phenomenon burned almost completely, their surroundings, and even sometimes their clothes, remained virtually untouched.
Can humans spontaneously burst into flames? A lot of people think spontaneous human combustion is a real occurrence, but most scientists aren't convinced.
What is Spontaneous Human Combustion?
Spontaneous combustion occurs when an object -- in the case of spontaneous human combustion, a person -- bursts into flame from a chemical reaction within, apparently without being ignited by an external heat source.
The first known account of spontaneous human combustion came from the Danish anatomist Thomas Bartholin in 1663, who described how a woman in Paris "went up in ashes and smoke" while she was sleeping. The straw mattress on which she slept was unmarred by the fire. In 1673, a Frenchman named Jonas Dupont published a collection of spontaneous combustion cases in his work "De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis."
The hundreds of spontaneous human combustion accounts since that time have followed a similar pattern: The victim is almost completely consumed, usually inside his or her home. Coroners at the scene have sometimes noted a sweet, smoky smell in the room where the incident occurred.
What makes the charred bodies in the photos of spontaneous human combustion so peculiar is that the extremities often remain intact. Although the torso and head are charred beyond recognition, the hands, feet, and/or part of the legs may be unburned. Also, the room around the person shows little or no signs of a fire, aside from a greasy residue that is sometimes left on furniture and walls. In rare cases, the internal organs of a victim remain untouched while the outside of the body is charred.
Not all spontaneous human combustion victims simply burst into flames. Some develop strange burns on their body which have no obvious source, or emanate smoke from their body when no fire is present. And not every person who has caught fire has died -- a small percentage of people have actually survived what has been called their spontaneous combustion.
The Theories
To combust, a human body needs two things: intensely high heat and a flammable substance. Under normal circumstances, our bodies contain neither, but some scientists over the last several centuries have speculated on a few possible explanations for the occurrence.
In the 1800s, Charles Dickens ignited great interest in spontaneous human combustion by using it to kill off a character in his novel "Bleak House." The character, named Krook, was an alcoholic, following the belief at the time that spontaneous human combustion was caused by excessive amounts of alcohol in the body.
Today, there are several theories. One of the most popular proposes that the fire is sparked when methane (a flammable gas produced when plants decompose) builds up in the intestines and is ignited by enzymes (proteins in the body that act as catalysts to induce and speed up chemical reactions). Yet most victims of spontaneous human combustion suffer greater damage to the outside of their body than to their internal organs, which seems to go against this theory.
Other theories speculate that the fire begins as a result of a buildup of static electricity inside the body or from an external geomagnetic force exerted on the body. A self-proclaimed expert on spontaneous human combustion, Larry Arnold, has suggested that the phenomenon is the work of a new subatomic particle called a pyroton, which he says interacts with cells to create a mini-explosion. But no scientific evidence proves the existence of this particle.
So far no one has offered scientific proof of a theory explaining spontaneous human combustion. If humans can't spontaneously combust, then what is the explanation for the stories and pictures of people who have seemingly burned from within?
Friday, May 8, 2009
What is Intelligence?
The age-old question regarding intelligence still remains unanswered...Why are some people more intelligent than others?
Some children are exceptionally gifted from an early age, they learn more quickly and efficiently than most adults and soon amaze all who know them in the areas of science, literature, music, painting and sports.
Psychologists use the term ‘precocious’ to define such children. While they are in every way normal there are specific features of the brain that are more developed. Hence it is not the anatomy but their ability to possess information that makes them gifted.
However, since not enough is known about the complex network of the brain, scientists do not know enough to identify these individual abilities in the micro structures of the brain.
Another difficulty is the lack of general definition of intelligence. We know it as a general term to combine a number of brain functions. We know that everybody has intelligence, even animals.
There are also many aspects related to it such as ability to understand, ability to convert information into action, the capacity for abstraction, recalling information and the most important - common sense. It is therefore difficult to evolve a definition that the would completely define the term INTELLIGENCE.
Some children are exceptionally gifted from an early age, they learn more quickly and efficiently than most adults and soon amaze all who know them in the areas of science, literature, music, painting and sports.
Psychologists use the term ‘precocious’ to define such children. While they are in every way normal there are specific features of the brain that are more developed. Hence it is not the anatomy but their ability to possess information that makes them gifted.
However, since not enough is known about the complex network of the brain, scientists do not know enough to identify these individual abilities in the micro structures of the brain.
Another difficulty is the lack of general definition of intelligence. We know it as a general term to combine a number of brain functions. We know that everybody has intelligence, even animals.
There are also many aspects related to it such as ability to understand, ability to convert information into action, the capacity for abstraction, recalling information and the most important - common sense. It is therefore difficult to evolve a definition that the would completely define the term INTELLIGENCE.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Did Napoleon die from poisoning?
Following his defeat at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (born 1769) was sent into exile on the tiny island of St.Helena in the South Atlantic.
Napoleon spent five years on the British ruled island before he died on May 5, 1821.
During his exile Napoleon's health declined steadily. Since September 1819. Bonaparte had been under the cure of Dr. Antommarchi. The doctor had performed a postmortem, observed by five british doctors. He confirmed that the emperor had died of stomach cancer. But many did not believe the official post mortem, and, until a few years ago, rumour prevailed that he died of arsenic poisoning.
An argument in favour of the poisoning theory was that Napoleon's body had not decomposed in the coffin even in 1840 (arsenic delays decomposition of the dead body).
The problem with this thoery was that the damp condition of St.Helena could have slowed down the decomposition process.
In the early 1960s, tests were carrried out on Napoleon's hair samples.T he results shot down the arsenic theory. A second round of testing in 1994 revealed arsenic in small quantities.The poison could have come from food and water on St.Helena.
Possible suspects:
1. An agent of the Bourbons, the french royal family, who were restored to the throne in 1814, and owed this gain to Napoleon's defeat.
2. British doctors, who could have easily poisoned the emperor.
3. Count de Montholon, responsible for the house hold of the emperor. According to the emperor's will he stood to receive large sum of money.
An extensive 2007 study found no evidence of arsenic poisoning in the organs, such as hemorrhaging in the lining inside the heart, and also concluded that stomach cancer was the cause of death.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, January 26, 2009
A Link between Egypt and Americas?
According to the official view there was no contact between the Old World and the New World before Columbus. Yet numerous similarities have been found that suggest a link between Egypt and the Americas:
Both cultures have huge pyramids, aligned to the cardinal points.
Both cultures have structures built with megalithic stones and extremely fine joints.
Both cultures have construction sites that exhibit intriguing bumps on many unfinished stone blocks.
Both cultures employed a unique style of construction using "L" shaped corners.
Both construction techniques used the same style of metal clamps to hold the huge stones in place.
Both cultures used the process of mummification to preserve and honor their dead.
These compelling similarities suggest that both ancient cultures were influenced by a sophisticated common source.
Both cultures have huge pyramids, aligned to the cardinal points.
Both cultures have structures built with megalithic stones and extremely fine joints.
Both cultures have construction sites that exhibit intriguing bumps on many unfinished stone blocks.
Both cultures employed a unique style of construction using "L" shaped corners.
Both construction techniques used the same style of metal clamps to hold the huge stones in place.
Both cultures used the process of mummification to preserve and honor their dead.
These compelling similarities suggest that both ancient cultures were influenced by a sophisticated common source.
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