Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Alien Squid? Flying Frogs?

     A Korean fisherman, trolling off the coast of the Falkland Islands, was knocked unconscious by a single frozen squid that fell from the sky and knocked him on the head. Why was there a squid in the sky? Where did this squid come from? Why was it frozen? This is just one example of weird rain.

     Weird rain is one of the more bizarre - and still largely unexplained - phenomena that is periodically reported from all corners of the globe. There have been accounts of frog rain, fish rain, squid rain, worm rain, even alligator rain. One possible explanation for these odd occurrences is that a tornado or whirlwind picked up the animals from a shallow body of water and carried them (sometimes for hundreds of miles) before dropping them on a bewildered populace. This explanation has yet to be proved, and it can't account for most of the documented incidents listed below. Another explanation is that aliens are returning the animals they have used for experiments back to the areas in which they were captured.

     Here are some of the more unusual cases, out of the thousands of reports over the years, that defy all rational explanation:


· 1841: The American Journal of Science confirmed a shower of blood, fat and muscle tissue that fell on a tobacco farm near Lebanon, Tennessee in August. Field workers, who actually experienced this weird shower, said they heard a rattling noise and saw "drops of blood...fell from a red cloud which was flying over."
· 1861: Singapore reported a rain of fish following an earthquake.
· 1869: J. Hudson's farm in Los Nietos Township, California endured a rain of flesh and blood for three minutes and covered several acres.
· 1873: Scientific American reported that Kansas City, Missouri was blanketed with frogs that dropped from the sky during a storm.
· 1877: The New York Times reported that several one-foot-long alligators fell on J. L. Smith's farm in South Carolina. They landed, unharmed, and started crawling around.
· 1881: A thunderstorm in Worcester, England, brought down tons of periwinkles and hermit crabs.
· 1890: Popular Science News reported that blood rained down on Messignadi, Calabria in Italy - bird's blood. It was speculated that the birds were somehow torn apart by violent winds, although there were no such winds at the time. No other parts of the bird were found.
· 1901: Minneapolis, Minnesota was pelted with frogs and toads in July. A news item stated: "When the storm was at its highest... there appeared as if descending directly from the sky a huge green mass. Then followed a peculiar patter, unlike that of rain or hail. When the storm abated the people found, three inches deep and covering an area of more than four blocks, a collection of a most striking variety of frogs... so thick in some places [that] travel was impossible."
· 1948: Bournemouth, England golfers received a shower of herring.
· 1956: In an otherwise clear sky in Chilatchee, Alabama, a woman and her husband watched as a small dark cloud formed in the sky. When it was overhead, the cloud released its contents: rain, catfish, bass and bream - all of the fish alive. The dark cloud had turned to white, and then dispersed.
· 1966: Father Leonard Bourne was dashing through a downpour across a courtyard in North Sydney, Australia, when a large fish fell from the sky and landed on his shoulder. The priest nearly caught it as it slid down his chest, but it squirmed away, fell to the flooded ground and swam away.
· 1981: One morning in May the citizens of Naphlion, Greece, awoke to find small green frogs falling from the sky. The Greek Meteorological Institute surmised they were picked up by a strong wind. The species of frog was native to North Africa.
· 1982 to 1986: Kernels of corn rained down on several houses in Evans, Colorado - tons of it, according to Gary Bryan, one of the residents. Oddly, there were no cornfields in the area that might account for the phenomenon.
· 1989: Ipswich, Australia’s Harold and Degen's front lawn was covered with about 800 sardines that rained from above during a light shower.
· 1995: Reports of Fortean Times Online from claim Nellie Straw of Sheffield, England, was driving through Scotland on holiday with her family when they encountered a severe storm dropping rain and hundreds of frogs.
· 1996: In November, a town in southern Tasmania was slimed with white-clear jelly-like substances on their property. Apparently, it had rained either fish eggs or baby jellyfish.
· 2001: In July, red rain fell on Kerala, India. At first it was thought that a meteor was responsible for the strange-colored rain, but an analysis showed that the water was filled with unexplained fungal spores.
· 2001: In August, Wichita, Kansas news reports stated that "thousands of dried corn leaves fell over east Wichita - from about Central Avenue to 37th Street North, along Woodlawn Boulevard and on east - each about 20 to 30 inches long."

   Is this all just a strange, natural phenomenon? Are aliens playing tricks on us? Is the sky simply falling? Will we ever find out? Life is messy, inconsistent, and it's seldom when anything ever really gets resolved.

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Head Condor Takes Flight Following Massacre

Dozens of unarmed civilians were viciously gunned down and killed during an altercation between South African rebels, the police, and striking workers at privately owned mine.

The tension began as some 3,000 workers walked off the job over pay discrepancies. Management described the move as an ‘illegal strike.’ Protesting at the mouth of the mine turned ugly in the seven days that followed. Machete-carrying miners refused to disarm and with the situation at an impasse for over a week, tensions escalated. The Koidu mine, believed to be owned now exclusively by Israel's Octea Group, have been outsourcing their security to the Titor Conglomerate since 2010. Much has been written about the unethical and immoral activities of Condor Security overseas. This is not an actual military group, but essentially, a gang of hired mercenaries that serve corporate interests.

Reports indicate that a group of miners had rushed suddenly through the scrub, which initiated the gunfire. The police reported that they believed they were being fired upon, though no officer had been shot during the massacre, and no firearms were retrieved from the miners. Police and the paramilitary security circled the civilians, trapped and fired upon them with automatic weapons. Civilians who were present during the attacks said people were gunned down as they attempted to flee in panic.

This marks the second time Condor Security has been inextricably linked to a diamond-related massacre in the last four years. Previously, they executed a "freelance purge" of independent diamond diggers, paving the way for the military to take charge of strategically located diamond fields. The massacre was part of a full-scale operation ordered by senior levels in Zimbabwe's military and called "Operation Prometheus."

Following Operation Prometheus, groups of bodies were left in shallow graves in the diamond fields, or loosely covered with leaves. A mass grave, containing between 69 and 105 bodies, exists at Damgamvura Cemetery in Mutare, the main town near the diamond fields. Several former paramilitary police, speaking under the condition of anonymity, claim that the operation was commanded in the normal way for a large scale military operation, but was carried out by the same Condor Security employee as the events at the Koidu mine.

High-ranking police officials, as well as the detail assigned by Condor Security, faced a closed-door inquiry from the UN Security Council, but the man that executed Operation Prometheus and gave the order to open fire
at Koidu has not been located. Miners, who refer to this man only as "Duke," claim that he has already been shuttled out of the country in the first move to cover up the involvement of a U.S.-based conglomerate. It is expected that if the International Criminal Court takes action in this bloody affair, it will only be after the American angle has been absolved of wrong-doing and omitted from the public proceedings.