The Chupacabra Caught?

By Mike Krumboltz

It really does exist! Maybe! The famed chupacabra has apparently been found, and it's a Texan.

Or at least it was. The beast is now dead, but news of its capture near Blanco, Texas, inspired Bigfoot-sized searches. Lookups on "chupacabra" surged a whopping 571%, and related queries on "what does chupacabra mean" also roared. (For the record, its rough translation is "goat sucker.") The find also inspired renewed interest in the equally notorious Montauk Monster.

Jerry Ayer, owner of Blanco Taxidermy School, has possession of the mythical beast's body. According to CNN, the animal was discovered by one of Ayer's students. The student had "placed poison...to catch an unidentified animal that had gotten into a family member's barn." Little did the student know the animal in question was (maybe) the chupacabra.

In the video from CNN (which is pretty gross, so beware), Ayer shows off some of the unusual features of the animal, including abnormally long legs and teeth. It looks a bit like the world's ugliest (and meanest) dog.

Of course, this is hardly the first time someone has claimed to have captured the chupacabra. In years past, brave souls have spotted it in places ranging from Russia to Maine to the Philippines. Often the animal is spotted by folks who conveniently forget to snap a photo.

Not so this time. Ayer says he plans to preserve the animal and then donate it to a local museum so it can be enjoyed by others. As the taxidermist puts it, the beast is "a tremendous conversation piece." Sort of like the Mona Lisa or a really stellar collection of garden gnomes.

Click here for details.

The Illuminati

Among the most persistent claims by conspiracy buffs, the Illuminati are the people who pull the strings on puppeteers who believe they themselves are pulling strings attached to other puppets. Shadows within shadows, Illuminati members supposedly hover in the background among Masons and other groups, including the Priory of Sion, followers of Kabbalah, Rosicrucians and, in a test of theological extremes, the Elders of Zion.

Launched in 1776 by Adam Weishaupt, a Bavarian Jesuit scholar described as “an unpractical bookworm without necessary experience in the world,” the Illuminati (“Enlightenment”) was created as a secret society the true objectives of which would be revealed to its members only after they achieved a “priestly” degree of awareness and understanding. Those who managed to survive Weishaupt’s process of selection and preparation eventually learned they were cogs in a political/philosophical machine regulated by reason, an extreme extension of the founder’s “reason over passion” Jesuit education. Thanks to the Illuminati, people would be liberated from their prejudices and become both mature and moral, outgrowing the religious and political restrictions of church and state.

Achieving this utopia would be a gain not without pain, however. Illuminati members were to observe everyone with whom they came into social contact, gathering information on each individual and submitting sealed reports to their superiors. By this means, the Illuminati would control public opinion, restrict the power of princes, presidents and prime ministers, silence or eliminate subversives and reactionaries, and strike fear in the hearts of its enemies. “In the bosom of the deepest darkness,” wrote one of the movement’s early critics, “a society has been formed, a society of new beings, who know one another though they have never seen one another, who understand one another without explanations, who serve one another without friendship.

From the Jesuit rule, this society adopts blind obedience; from the Masons it takes the trials and the ceremonies; and from the Templars it obtains subterranean mysteries and great audacity.” Without a doubt, this was a force to be reckoned with.

One of Weishaupt’s early strategies was to ally himself with the Freemasons, a move that initially proved successful. Within a few years “Illuminated Freemasons” were active in several European countries. But as details of their true aims escaped, public attitude turned against them until, in August 1787, Bavaria declared that recruiting Illuminati members was a capital crime. This managed to drive the society more deeply underground, but it also persuaded Weishaupt that his vision was seriously flawed. After renouncing his own order and writing several apologies to mankind, Weishaupt reconciled with his Catholic religion and spent his last few years helping to build a new cathedral in Gotha.

During the Illuminati’s limited tenure, tales circulated that it was responsible for the outbreak and progress of the French Revolution, a claim that is almost laughable in view of the group’s emphasis on reason instead of passion. Few events in history were propelled by raw passion more than the overthrow of the French throne.

The short-lived dance between the Illuminati and Freemasons launched a fable that persists among some conspiracy addicts to this day. Various anti-Mason commentators continue to insist that Masters of the Illuminati remain in control of the Freemasons and other secret societies, dedicated to bringing Weishaupt’s original plan for world domination to reality. Yet, while the Illuminati appears as a shadowy presence within or among other secret societies, no one seems able to identify specific acts attributable to them. And, unlike every other secret society to be examined here, no one within the Illuminati has ever broken the oath of silence to reveal its inner workings. If you resort exclusively to logic, you suspect that the Illuminati is a phantom organization with neither goals nor members. If you fear secret societies, you believe they are powerful enough to deny their own existence.

Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012

Kirin

This famous holy animal is of Chinese pedigree, but it has reportedly been seen in Japan as well.

Its descriptions are various, but it usually combines a dragon's face and scaley hide with the body of a hoofed mammal, either a horse or a deer. Its body is often wreathed in flames, and it can breathe fire. It is sometimes depicted with one horn, and thus thought associated with the unicorn in the West, but it is just as frequently adorned with two. The characters "ki" and "rin" are said to represent the male and female of the animal, although which is which is variable.

Though its appearance is fearsome, the kirin's demeanor is wholly pious and gentle, and it avoids harming any living thing, even the grass and insects beneath its feet. This heavenly beast lives for two thousand years and is only seen on earth once a millenium, to usher in a new era, and is said to appear at the birth of great and benevolent leaders. Confucius' mother also purportedly encountered a kirin before her child was born.

The kirin shares its name with the giraffe of the real world, and there is a possibility that the legends of this holy beast were inspired when specimens of that animal were brought back to China from Africa.

Rods

The Rods Phenomenon started in March 1994 when it was discovered accidentally by filmmaker Jose Escamilla. These what he calls "rods" are strange flying things that can only be seen on slowed-down film and videotape, and sometimes captured in still photographs.

As he studied the tapes in frame-by-frame detail, Escamilla noticed long, thin, bizarre objects darting about the screen. Initially he thought they were birds or insects that were very close to the camera lens, but as he sharpened the clarity of the picture, an elongated cylindrical body could be viewed.

Their rod-like shape gave them their name, and in subsequent years, a wealth of similar footage has been recorded from all corners of the globe.

Rods seem to be living organisms, unnoticeable to the human eye because of their rapid movement. They have an extended, ultra-thin frame, and sets of wings or fins protruding from their body. The quick, haphazard motion suggests they are organic life, but detailed analysis is difficult, as they are only discernible in pictures taken with high-shutter-speed cameras.

To some extent they look like stick insects with no real limbs, but the possibility that they are known organisms has been proven wrong. Footage of rods moving alongside existing animals highlights the fact that their design and attributes are quite unlike any creature that we recognise.

There has been a huge amount of private footage captured by enthusiasts, but very few examples of truly high-grade, broadcast quality photography. One of the best examples of rods on film came from Mark Lichtle, who was recording parachutists leaping into a cavern in Mexico called the Cave of the Swallows. During the 45 minutes of footage, countless rods can be seen alongside insects, birds and people, and it is now widely accepted that the Cave of the Swallows is one of the best places to capture rods on camera.

However, rods are sighted across the world, and even the US Navy is reported to have knowledge and footage of the phenomenon. With an abundance of growing proof, it seems the idea of flying rods has to be taken seriously. But still, nobody has any idea what they truly are.

Flying Rods - The funniest bloopers are right here

The Mothman

The Mothman is the name given to a creature reported in the Charleston and Point Pleasant areas of West Virginia between November 12, 1966

A seven-foot-tall, well built, humanoid monster with giant red, glowing eyes andhuge brown wings, a creature who can ascend to the skies from a standing position, and fly at astonishing speeds, and who mutilates pets and instils instant fear in the
hearts of all those who see him.

Yet, for over a year in the mid 1960s more than 100 otherwise reliable residents of a small West Virginian town distinctly saw the horrifying figure that terrorised their community. They saw ‘Mothman’.

The weird events connected to the Mothman began on November 12, 1966 near Clendenin, West Virginia. Five gravediggers were in the local cemetery that day, preparing a grave for a burial, when something that looked like a “brown human being” lifted off from some nearby trees and flew over their heads. The men were baffled. It did not appear to be a bird, but more like a man with wings. A few days later, more sightings would take place, electrifying the entire region.

It was not until three days later that the creaturereally terrified the community with a close encounter.

On 15th November, two young couples were driving together near the McClintic Wildlife Preserve, just outside Point Pleasant. The area was known to locals as ‘TNT’, because it had been used as an explosives depot during the Second World War and there were many abandoned chemical and industrial plants in the vicinity. Late in the evening, the two couples approached an old generator plant and saw that its door appeared to have been ripped off. It was then that they noticed two huge red eyes shining out of the gloom at them. These hypnotic, staring discs were attached to what they said was ‘shaped like a man, but bigger, maybe six or seven feet tall. And it had big wings folded against its back’.

As the creature approached, the young group sped off, but as they looked back they saw it take to the air, rising straight up without flapping its wings. It had a giant 10- foot wingspan, and kept pace with the car despite the vehicle reaching speeds of 100 miles an hour. Eventually the group reached the Point Pleasant city limits, where their aerial pursuer turned away and disappeared.

The couples drove straight to the local police station and reported what they had seen. They told Deputy Sheriff Millard Halstead that it followed them down Highway 62and right to the Point Pleasant city limits. Although local police found nothing at TNT, they accepted the young people had seen something.

Over the next few days reports of a giant ‘bird’ terrorising locals came into police headquarters with increasing frequency. Car passengers had experienced the creature swooping down on them, and the reception on television and radio sets were being disrupted across the region. One man whose television failed lived in Salom, 90 miles from Point Pleasant. Newell Partridge, a local building contractor who lived in Salem (about 90 miles from Point Pleasant), was watching television when the screen suddenly went dark. He stated that a weird pattern filled the screen and then he heard a loud, whining sounds from outside that raised in pitch and then ceased. “It sounded like a generator winding up” he later stated. Partridge’s dog, Bandit, began to howl out on the front porch and Newell went out to see what was going on.

When he walked outside, he saw Bandit facing the hay barn, about 150 yards from the house. Puzzled, Partridge turned a flashlight in that direction and spotted two red circles that looked like eyes or “bicycle reflectors”. They moving red orbs were certainly not animal’s eyes, he believed, and the sight of them frightened him. Bandit, an experienced hunting dog and protective of his territory, shot off across the yard in pursuit of the glowing eyes. Partridge called for him to stop, but the animal paid no attention. His owner turned and went back into the house for his gun, but then was too scared to go back outside again. He slept that night with his gun propped up next to the bed. The next morning, he realized that Bandit had disappeared. The dog had still not shown up two days later when Partridge read in the newspaper about the sightings in Point Pleasant that night.


Perhaps the most chilling story concerning Mothman happened on 16th November 1966. A young mother was driving to see some friends, who had one of the few houses close to the TNT compound. She said she had seen a ‘funny red light’ in the sky, and, as she arrived at her friends’ house, heard something rustling near her car. ‘It seemed as though it had been lying down. It rose up slowly from the ground.

A big grey thing. Bigger than a man, with terrible glowing eyes,’ she said. Horrified, she grabbed her small daughter and ran into the house, locking the doors behind her. The creature followed,creeping onto the porch and staring in the windows. The police were called, but by the time they arrived, Mothman had disappeared.

Over the next year, Mothman was seen by many witnesses including firemen and pilots. At 17.00 on 15th December 1967 the Silver Bridge linking Point Pleasant to Ohio suddenly collapsed, 46 people died as a result, and the residents of Point Pleasant were forced to deal with real horror rather than mythical beasts. Their creature’s reign of terror paled into insignificance and he was forgotten. However, many people still believe the bridge disaster may have been Mothman’s terrible final act.

Friday the 13th

The thirteenth day of the month is considered "unlucky" if it falls on a Friday, why? That's because 13 was considered a very unlucky number. In Scotland, Thirteen is known as the "Devil's Dozen"--a title characteristic of the worst associations of this much abused number. The Romans considered that the fatality followed the number whenever and for whatever purpose thirteen people gathered together. The superstition surrounding the number 13 could also be linked to Norse mythology. According to legend, 12 gods were at a banquet at Valhalla when Loki, the god of mischief who was not invited, turned up, bringing the total number of guests to 13. He was responsible for the chaos that led to the death of one of the gods so all the gods grieved.

And what about Friday? One reason for this has something to do with the the alleged date of Jesus' crucifixion which was a Friday, but the belief in its ill luck probably goes much farther back in history and may have something to do with the sacrifices offered to the goddess Friga (or Frigg, Frigga)in Norse mythology. She is said to be the wife of Odin, and is the "foremost among the goddesses".

Other thinks that the unlucky day was connected on October 13, 1307. It was the day when officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars — knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren — in chains, charged with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices.

It is a tradition in Britain that Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose.