>>> 'Loch Ness Monster
(loch-ness-monster.html) <<<
>>> Don't ASS-U-ME
these lines are coding errors; you will end up making an ASS out of U and ME
... <<<
ARTICLES
Preamble &
General Mysteries
The Universe & Its Mysteries
Cryptic Creatures
UFOs
Aliens & Alien Autopsies
Real Aliens & Alien Abductions
Ancient Astronauts - Series #1
Ancient Astronauts - Series #2
Phenomenal Places
Bible Mysteries
Jesus Mysteries
1.0 Preamble
In this web article we will examine the enduring Mystery of the Loch Ness Monster ... what we choose to call The Nessie Mystery, because the Scots affectionately calls the Loch Ness Monster — whether he, she or it exists or not — as 'Nessie'.Surely for many people, the Loch Ness Monster (or 'Nessie') is a lifeform that would be as fascinating to learn about as ... UFOs and Aliens-ETs — and perhaps just as dangerous as in a UFO encounter classified as a 'Close Encounter' (within 500 ft / 160 m) of the 'Third Kind' (where "animate beings" are involved).
Of course, in the mind of the public, the Loch Ness Monster is probably seen as a surviving form of aqueous (if not marine) dinosaur, known as a plesiosaur. Never mind that plesiosauri was supposed to have died out some 60 million (i.e., 60,000,000) years ago!
Note that in our 'Articles' section, we also have another web article on Nessie, where we examine the
various hoaxes that had been perpetuated from the 1930s right up to the 1970s
... we examine these Loch Ness Monster hoaxes in the context of a field of
study or endeavor which has come to be known as 'cryptozoology'. This is a field of study that is regarded as little more than a pseudoscience, from the viewpoint of the mainstream scientists, i.e., biologists in general
and, especially, zoologists in particular.
Click here to find our web article on 'Cryptozoology - Hoaxes, says SSPIA'.
If you look closely at the above picture of my favorite mysteries, you may
realize that it represents a 'continuum' of Mysteries, beginning at the left of
the picture with The UFO Mystery and Aliens Mysteries, then through earthbound exotic lifeforms such as the Loch Ness Monster
(hence, The Nessie Mystery) that may be living in strange places, such as Scotland's Loch Ness and the
Atlantic Ocean's Bermuda Triangle, aka Devil's Triangle ... and then the picture rounds off with the mysterious
and wonderful works of humankind, including handiworks of art, such as the Mona Lisa, as well as mysterious monumental megaliths such as Stonehenge and the Egyptian Pyramids, with perhaps some assist from ETs, eh? — if the 'ancient
astronauts' idea is true, that would bring us back to the beginning of the
picture, with the UFOs and the Aliens-ETs. Note that this steady and regular
progression of the Mysteries is the reason that the above picture appears on every web page, for the picture, although not amounting to an exhaustive list of
Mysteries, still is a reasonably good pictorial representation of many
Mysteries of interest ...
Also, note that the set or group of mysteries in the picture happens to be the set of Mysteries that are in most people's 'top-of-mind' recall category ... as the marketing communication researcher would say. That is, people seems to recall these Mysteries more easily than they do other Mysteries ...
Anyway, the Loch Ness Monster — as a member of the group of
'cryptozoologically' exotic lifeforms or objects as interesting as UFOs and
Aliens-ETs — represents the next logical step in our
'continuum' of Mysteries. We reproduce part of the above (ubiquitous) picture
to highlight this ...
Okay ... Let's start our exploration of the Loch Ness Monster with some lighthearted look at Nessie ... below are several video clips (plus one cheeky one with model and actress Kitana Baker!) from the famous video hosting site, YouTube ...
"Toyota Loch Ness"
"Can Loch Ness be hiding a monster after all?"
[Loch Ness water is cold!]
"Kitana Baker Incident at Loch Ness"
2.0 Nessie Sightings
Most of the Nessie sightings that have managed to be recorded in the form of photos or videos are usually the easiest to dispose of, because these photos or videos tend to show vague images of things that are simply too indistinguishable to say that they are anything at all ... Thus, using Occam's Razor (principle of parsimony) and, erring on the side of caution, unless a more concrete form of evidence (such as a bona fide carcass or, better still, a living specimen), then we would not be unjustified to write off such vague photos or videos.In fact, we could even say that these images may be about some other, more innocuous, aqueous — freshwater or marine — lifeforms ...
Maybe the pictures are just showing tree logs or stumps or branches that have fallen into the water and which have resurfaced temporarily due to water currents.
There are also many videos that show what could easily be interpreted as waves
or water wakes, plus possible movements of some lifeforms or logs, other than
our purported Nessie — such as is shown in the video on the
right. Such vagueness in these video 'evidence' can be interpreted in too many
ways to say that they definitely show Nessie moving or paddling or swimming in
the water. |
Here is another of those vague video images of what purportedly may be Nessie
herself ... this Loch Ness Monster video comes from YouTube, and carries the
title "New Loch Ness Monster Video in CCTV News" ... where CCTV News is the China news agency:
The original clip is in Mandarin, showing two news anchor persons, one Asian man, one Asian woman, both probably from China, reporting on the possible Nessie sighting. The segment that we excerpted and shown above, may apparently be showing a Loch Ness Monster type of creature moving in the water ... what you really see is a vague, ill-defined and practically indistinguishable picture, compared to what is claimed may be the Loch Ness Monster itself because of the shadowy 'shape' moving through the water.
If you imagine just a little or even squint a little, you can even convince
yourself that it's a plesiosaur! Of course, as Dr. Michael Shermer, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, said at a presentation at the TED 2006 Conference in California (TED =
Technology, Entertainment, Design), that when you are squinting, you are
'transforming' an image from fine grain to coarse grain and thus you are
reducing the quality of your data. And, of course, when you are exploring or investigating
something, you want better and better quality in your data, and not the reverse
(say, by "squinting").
Dr. Michael Shermer — "Why People Believe Strange Things"
TED 2006 Conference, Monterey, California.
(TED = Technology, Entertainment, Design)
Download?
CLICK HERE!
(New window will open.)
And, of course, there is always the psychological dimension in all these extraordinary claims ... while looking at photo or video image(s), if you aren't really thinking about the Loch Ness Monster at all, then you may not know what it is that you are viewing or looking at, until someone suggests it to you that it is the Loch Ness Monster ... and straightaway ... you 'see' the Loch Ness Monster in the photo or video image(s).
Basically, the problem with such ill-defined pictures as we have seen in the
Loch Ness Monster video images we see above (as well as many still photo
images, such as those we show in our web article on 'Cryptozoology - Hoaxes, says SSPIA') is that, the possibility of a hoax becomes almost a highly probable event. Even if no hoax was actually intended, we have no choice but to reject these images as an interim conclusion (which I refer to as 'Temporary Judgment' in a web article entitled 'Why Mysteries?'). In our examination, investigation, exploration or study (take your pick!) of each of the 'Mysteries of the World', we SHOULD and MUST always bear in mind what the late Dr. Carl Sagan (1934-1996) once said (and he was referring specifically to UFOs, but it applies to all Mysteries of the World), "Precisely because of human fallibility, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!"
Probably, the only time when what a scientist like Dr. Sagan calls "extraordinary evidence" is not required is when we are talking about what is usually known as 'Religion' ... but then Religion is not Science, Religion is based on 'faith' ...
And in matters (e.g., the 'origin of man' issue) where both Science and Religion have something to say from each's perspective, then it is up to any one individual to make up his or her mind whether to look for "extraordinary evidence" or to believe based on 'faith'.
In the case of the Loch Ness Monster, whether a particular lifeform exists or not — or in this case, whether a prehistoric lifeform has survived the geological times (from the 'early Jurrasic Period', of the 'Mesozoic Era', within the 'Phanerozoic Eon') up to the present day — is not a matter of faith (no matter how much you claim you 'believe' that the Loch Ness Monster exists today): if you make a claim of such magnitude and sensation, then you need to be able to back up your "extraordinary claim" with "extraordinary evidence".
3.0 Plesiosaur — Cambridge Encyclopedia
As we stated above, near the beginning of this web page, it has been thought
that the Loch Ness Monster may be a surviving plesiosaur. According to the
Cambridge Encyclopedia, "The Loch Ness Monster is reported to resemble a
plesiosaur. Arguments against the plesiosaur theory include the fact that the
lake is too cold for a cold-blooded animal to survive easily, that
air-breathing animals like plesiosaurs would be easily spotted when they
surface to breathe, that the lake is too small to support a breeding colony and
that the loch itself formed only 10,000 years ago during the last ice age."That encyclopedia also recorded the following points ...
Lake or sea monster sightings are occasionally explained as plesiosaurs. While the survival of a small, unrecorded breeding colony of plesiosaurs for the 65,000,000 years (with respect to evolution) since their apparent extinction is unlikely, the discovery of real and even more ancient living fossils such as the Coelacanth and of previously unknown but enormous deep-sea animals such as the giant squid, have fuelled imaginations.
The National Museums of Scotland confirmed that vertebrae discovered on the shores of Loch Ness, in 2003, belong to a plesiosaur, although there are some questions about whether the fossils were planted (BBC News, July 16, 2003).
On November 2nd, 2006, Leslie Noè of the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge, UK, announced research which casts further doubt on a plesiosaur inhabiting Loch Ness. Instead, he found that the neck evolved to point downwards allowing the plesiosaur to feed on soft-shelled animals living on the sea floor.
It was reported in The Star (Malaysia) on April 8th, 2006, that fishermen discovered bones resembling that of a Plesiosaur near Sabah, Malaysia.
The 1977 discovery of a carcass with flippers and what appeared to be a long neck and head, by the Japanese fishing trawler Zuiyo Maru, off New Zealand, created a plesiosaur craze in Japan.
I
n an article entitled "What Was the New Zealand Monster?", published in the Oceans Magazine (November 1977), which we are going to look into rather closely in the next section ("New Zealand Monster"), the writer John Koster — who was also the author of The Road to Wounded Knee (together with Robert Burnette; Bantam Books, June 1974) — explained that, "For the benefit of those who have never studied paleontology or seen the movie version of The Land That Time Forgot, a plesiosaur is a marine reptile, a cousin of the dinosaurs which became extinct about 60,000,000 years ago, except in Hollywood and Japanese movies. Plesiosauri were probably fish-eaters — 'they had very good teeth', one scientist observes — and were widely distributed over the world's oceans in the Mesozoic era, or age of the dinosaurs." (see picture below, from Wikipedia)
Below are some pictorial representations of plesiosaurs ...
Plesiosaur - Sea Monsters @ Wikispaces.com
Head and Neck of Plesiosaur - Sea Monsters @ Wikispaces.com
(enlargement of part of above picture)
Plesiosaur - plesiosauria.com
"Unidentified animal caught in the net of fishing vessel off New Zealand. (Taiyo Fishery Co./Michihiko Yano)" — www.gennet.org/facts/nessie.html
4.0 "New Zealand Monster"
The last four pictures (above) are apparently actual photographs taken by Yano Michihiko — the then 39-old assistant production manager of Taiyo Fisheries Ltd. — who was onboard the Japanese fishing ship Zuiyo Maru, trawling for mackerel off the coast of New Zealand.On April 25, 1977, the fishermen "snagged a rotting corpse at a depth of 900 feet and hauled in the remains of a beast that no one anywhere seemed to be able to identify", wrote John Koster in the November 1977 edition of Oceans Magazine (pp. 56-59; "What Was the New Zealand Monster?"). Koster is a New Jersey newspaperman and, as we pointed out earlier, the author of The Road to Wounded Knee.
Back to Yano Michihiko — "an intelligent man who had graduated
from Yamaguchi Oceanological High School in 1957" (according to Koster's
article) — who related the following ...
"The crewmen knew that if we picked it up, we'd have to clean and sanitize the decks. But we got it untangled from the net and pulled it out with ropes around the middle of the body. The rope wasn't well handled and it fell suddenly. So we lifted the neck and I took the pictures. Cameras are my hobby, but I didn't have my own camera, so I had to borrow one."
According to Yano, "there were eight men on deck, five on the bridge, and two working the net winch. The creature was seen by all of them and several others who heard the noise and looked out of curiosity. In all, it was observed by eighteen crewmen."
Yano took measurements of the carcass: the head was about 45 centimeters long, the neck 1.5 meters long, the four fins were each 1 meter long (with the front fins a little bigger or longer than the back fins), and the body (from the top of the head to the base of the tail) was 6 meters long. Yano also noted that the "well-developed vertebratae" (backbone) were about 45 centimeters long and 15 centimeters thick.
When Yano first returned to Japan aboard a different ship on June 10, 1977, he asked his company darkroom to process the five color snapshots he had taken of the creature. Executives from the Taiyo Fishery Co. were fascinated by the strange beast and enquired of some local scientists, who apparently said the creature was "not a turtle, nor a whale, nor a dolphin ... it's something we've never seen before".
Wrote Koster: "Excited now, the Taiyo officials brought Yano before a second the Taiyo officials brought Yano before a second blue-ribbon panel of eminent marine scientists to try to ascertain what the strange beast had been."
In the press-covered panel discussion with Professors Ikuo Obata and Hiroshi Ozaki of Japan's National Science Museum and Professor Toshio Kasuya, of Tokyo University's Marine Research Center, Yano said, "From seeing only these pictures, it's possible this could look like a rotten seal. In the Antarctic they have the southern elephant seal, which grows to 3.5 meters [long] but the size [6 meters long] doesn't fit."
To which Professor Toshio Kasuya said, "If this had been a seal, the tail would be too long," and Professor Hiroshi Ozaki said , "If this had been a reptile, the number of bones around the neck should be greater, according to the drawing". Professor Ozaki was referring to a simple sketch with measurements that Yano had drawn after his return to Japan some two months after actually examining the creature.
A reporter covering the panel discussion then asked the ominous question, "Could the New Zealand monster have been a dinosaur?" To which Professor Ikuo Obata replied cautiously, "It's easier to survive in the sea than on land. One theory is that the creature is a mammal, and the other is that it is a long-necked monster ... [plesiosaur]. And there are many points that don't fit the mammal theory. Within my knowledge, it looks like a plesiosaur. But I can't say for sure unless I have the skull and vertebrae to examine."
Professor Ozaki disagreed with the "Nessie" / plesiosaur theory, saying "If it's not a sea monster, it could be either a mammal or a fish, but I don't think it's a fish." To which , Professor Kasuva agreed, "If it were a shark, the spine would be smaller. And the neck itself is too long as shown in the picture. I think we can exclude the fish theory."
Thus, most of the panel agreed to discount the fish theory, so that, as Professor Obata concluded, "It must be either a mammal or a reptile. But with the materials we have, we can't judge which one."
The mammal theory was soon disposed of on two fronts by the Japanese scientists ...
The July 21, 1977, edition of the Japanese broadsheet, Asahi Shimbun — which broke the news of the strange "monster" to the world on that day — quoted Professor Yoshinori Imaizumi of Japan's National Science Museum as saying, "It's not a fish, whale, or any other mammal. It's a reptile, and the sketch looks very like a plesiosaur. This was a precious and important discovery for human beings. It seems to show that these animals are not extinct after all."
This did not go down well with Western scientists. As John Koster wrote:
Nonsense! shouted back the American and British scientific communities, and not a few people in Japan, where the New Zealand monster was front-page news for weeks. Rather than face the stinking carcass of a dinosaur apparently deceased not more than thirty days, paleontologists, mammalogists and marine biologists all over the world advanced their own theories — it was a seal, a whale, a basking shark, ... but no theory, whether prehistoric [or] mundane, was completely adequate to explain away the 4,000-pound, 32-foot body, which was examined, photographed five times, clipped for tissue samples, and then dumped back into the sea for fear it would contaminate the Zuiyo Maru's catch of fish.
[...]
"It's baloney," said Dr. Bobby Schaeffer, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. "Every ten years or so, something is found, usually in the Pacific, and people think it's a dinosaur. And it always turns out to be a basking shark, or an adolescent whale. When sharks find a dead whale, they have a merry old time, and the half-eaten corpse looks like a dinosaur skeleton."
British scientists, even more distant, were much less impressed. While the colony of true believers around Loch Ness hailed the discovery as proof that Nessie had living relatives, most academics scoffed at the very idea. Dr. Alwyne Wheeler, of London's Natural History Museum, said the corpse was probably a shark. "Sharks are cartilaginous fish," he explained in the New Scientist, July 28, 1977. "When they start to decompose after death, the head and gills are first to drop from the body . . . Greater experts than the Japanese fishermen have been foiled by the similarity of shark remains to a plesiosaur."
[...]
A Scottish zoologist, Dr. Alan Fraser-Brunner, aquarium curator at the Edinburgh Zoo, blasted the Nessie theory. He said the body was "at once recognizable to a zoologist as that of a dead sea lion ... that the estimate of length and weight must be an exaggeration, and that ... as seems to be the rule with 'monsters' we are left with no evidence except an indistinct photograph, but it is clear enough to show that the animal was mammalian. Nothing about it resembles a plesiosaur, which was a reptile."
Unfortunately for Dr. Fraser-Brunner, Yano — besides taking pictures of the creature — had also taken tissue samples of fibrous material from one of the fins for analysis. The tests began on these specimens as soon as Yano returned to Japan on June 10, 1977.
The test reports came in about a week after the news of the "monster" first
broke on July 21, 1977, in the Asahi Shimbun. Wrote Koster:
"Among fish, it is known that only sharks and rays have the type of protein called elastoidin," Dr. Kimura said. "But as for reptiles, I do not think there is relevant data, even abroad." He added that the protein could not have come from a mammal's skin or hair. Thus, chemically, the monster may have been either a fish or, possibly, a reptile, but not a mammal.
So Dr. Fraser-Brunner's conclusion of a mammalian origin did not quite agree with Dr. Kimura's test results. And Koster wrote that "one would have thought that his [Dr. Fraser-Brunner's] assertion that the creature had been a seal would have prompted amusement. Instead, several Japanese, mostly laymen, agreed with him. Others took the position that the creature was a shark, ignoring Yano's description of a clearly defined spinal column, the absence of any dorsal fin, and the small size of the examined head, none of which fit the morphological features of a shark."
A few words of caution came from Professor Tokio Shikama, a paleontologist at the Yokohama National University, who said, "Even if the tissue contains the same protein as the shark's, it is rash to say that the monster is a shark. The finding is not enough to refute a speculation that the monster is a plesiosaur."
So, again, the Japanese scientists — from the panel of scientists, from Japan's National Science Museum, and from Tokyo University — all agreed that the strange "monster" was not any kind of fish (such as a large basking shark) ... nor any kind of aquatic mammal (such as a sea-lion seal or a whale).
As John Koster wrote this ending in his article, "In the end, everybody's individual preconceptions won out. Those who were prepared to believe in living plesiosauri were convinced or nearly so, while those who refused to believe found nothing to change their minds. For the open-minded skeptics, or for those who were just plain curious, the New Zealand monster remains one of the most tantalizing enigmas of the sea."
It should be noted that the coelacanth, which scientists thought was extinct about 60,000,000 years ago, was discovered alive and virtually unchanged off the coast of Madagascar in 1938. So we have on record of at least one case of a prehistoric creature being alive and well, today in the modern era.
Anyway, the Cambridge Encyclopedia entry on Plesiosaur begins by explaining
that it is:
Plesiosaurs ... (Greek: plesios meaning 'near' or 'close to' and sauros meaning 'lizard') were carnivorous aquatic (mostly marine) reptiles.
Plesiosaurs (sensu Plesiosauroidea) first appeared at the very start of the Jurassic Period and thrived until the K-T extinction, at the end of the Cretaceous Period.
The first plesiosaur skeletons were found in England by Mary Anning, in the early 1800s.
It is occasionally claimed that plesiosaurs are not extinct, although the evidence for this belief is generally not accepted in the scientific world.
5.0 Wikipedia
The free online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, has grown up so much and so fast that it has become such an ubiquitous source
of information, and the Site Build It! (SBI!) package that I use to create this 'Mysteries of the World' website lists it as the top 3 sites ranked by Alexa.com for the keyword "loch
ness monster" ... the first two were YouTube web pages (!) with video clips
bearing these titles:- "Toyota Tacoma Loch Ness Monster Ad"
- "New Loch Ness Monster Video in CCTV News"
Anyway, according to Wikipedia (adapted/re-paragraphed) ...
The Loch Ness Monster (Nessiteras rhombopteryx) is an alleged animal, identified neither as to a family or species,
purportedly inhabiting Scotland's Loch Ness. 
Wikipedia's own article or entry on "Loch Ness" states that:
Loch Ness is best known for the alleged sightings of the legendary Loch Ness Monster, also known as "Nessie"."
It is connected at the southern end by the River Oich and a section of the Caledonian Canal to Loch Oich.
At the northern end there is the Bona Narrows which opens out into Loch Dochfour, which feeds the River Ness and a further section of canal to Inverness.
It is one of a series of interconnected, murky bodies of water in Scotland; its water visibility is exceptionally low due to a high peat content in the surrounding soil.
An entry in Wikipedia on "Loch" explains that:
- a lake or;
- a sea inlet, which may be also a firth, fjord, estuary or bay.
Sea-inlet lochs are often called sea lochs.
To continue with the Wikipedia article on the Loch Ness Monster ...
Popular belief and interest in the animal has fluctuated over the years since it came to the world's attention in 1933.
Evidence of its existence is largely anecdotal, with minimal, and much disputed, photographic material and sonar readings: there has not been any physical evidence (skeletal remains, capture of a live animal, definitive tissue samples or spoor) uncovered as of 2008.
Local people, and later many around the world, have affectionately referred to
the animal by the diminutive Nessie (Scottish Gaelic: "Niseag") since the 1950s.
Origins
The term "monster" was reportedly coined on 2 May 1933 by Alex Campbell, the water bailiff for Loch Ness [water bailiff: "a law enforcement officer responsible for the policing of bodies of water, such as a river, lake or coast" — Wikipedia] and a part-time journalist, in a report in the Inverness Courier [Wikipedia cites The Sun 27 November 1975].
On 4 August 1933, the Courier published as a full news item the claim of a London man named George Spicer that, a few weeks earlier, while motoring around the Loch, he and his wife had seen "the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic animal that I have ever seen in my life", trundling across the road toward the Loch carrying "an animal" in its mouth.
The following month, another letter came from a veterinary student reporting a similar encounter while on a night drive.
These stories soon reached the national (and later the international) press, which talked of a 'monster fish', 'sea serpent' or 'dragon', eventually settling on 'Loch Ness Monster' [Wikipedia cites Daily Mirror, 11 August 1933; Wikipedia also cites the Oxford English Dictionary as giving 9 June 1933 as the first usage of the exact phrase Loch Ness monster].
To continue with the Wikipedia article on the Loch Ness Monster ...
Other letters began appearing in the Courier, often anonymously, with claims of land or water sightings, either on the writer's part or on the parts of family, acquaintances or stories they remembered being told.
In 1934, interest was further sparked by what is known as The Surgeon's Photograph. In the same year R. T. Gould published a book [here Wikipedia cites Gould, Rupert T. (1934). The Loch Ness Monster and Others. London: Geoffrey Bles.], the first of many which describe the author's personal investigation and collected record of additional reports pre-dating the summer of 1933.
Subsequent investigations by other agents over the ensuing decades added additional material which was eventually woven into a continuum of sightings dating from the 6th century A.D. to the present, and which appeared to present a strong case for the existence of a large, possibly unknown and certainly unidentified animal or family of animals living in Loch Ness.
However, some people, such as Robert H. Rines, believe that the last few creatures died out in the 20th century [Wikipedia cites Boston Globe Feb 11, 2008 "Loch Ness monster quest nears end"].
6.0 Postscript
This web page is a preliminary look-see at the mystery of the Loch Ness Monster, if indeed the creature exists ... Mainstream, Establishment-types regard this entire matter as of the Fringe, of course.| ← | Previous Page | Next Page | → | |
| ← | 'Index Page' | |||
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
 |  |  |
| | |
|  | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
|  | |
| | |
It is my sincere hope that you are not, or have not become, so gullible as to fall for anything bogus or nonsensical or farcical, such as falling for stuff like "Astrology" or "I-ching" or some such similar garbage ... including falling for anything that is featured, as a warning, in our public service webpages — our entire Mysteries of the World / MOTW Website is geared to warn readers and viewers of these scams, hoaxes, frauds and tricks, in other words, we are asking you to beware and be aware!
It is intellectually dishonest to believe in something that is not true, even if it is profitable (that is, even if it makes you a lot of mullah, money, cash, whatever); surely, you are not chained to the "bean-counter" mentality, are you? Because if you are, that is really, really sad!
If you want to be liberated or if you want to awaken, then walk away from that which is not the truth! ("The truth shall make you free", says the Bible, right? Yes!) Especially, don't be so chained to the money, that you become "richly asleep", unable to awaken from the nightmare of your own making that has ensnared you!
[Buddhism Without Beliefs: A Contemporary Guide to Awakening;puts it:
see also Living with the Devilaka ego or Mara]
Check out the following caveats/warnings/remarks on handling what are purported to be "Mysteries" ... the caveats/warnings/remarks are presented below our usual SBI! ads at the bottom of the webpage.
Cheers!
Paul Quek
Webmeister
Woodlands, Singapore
P.S. Some people ask me who is that cute PYT at the top of this web page ... is
she my girlfriend, they ask slyly? "I wish!", I replied, if not slyly, at least
dreamingly.
P.P.S. Have a look at the following YouTube video clip ...
P.P.P.S. Thanks to the folks at SBI! SBI! gives results!
 |  | |
   | ||
| | |
|  | |
| | |
The Complete Book of the Unexplained
A Thrilling Exploration of the Earth's Most Baffling Mysteries
is a gripping anthology of the world's most mystifying conundrums.From eerie tales of curses, witchcraft and ghosts, to miraculous accounts of religious visitations and angels, it covers the complete spectrum of the unexplained.
Combining scientific research, witness accounts and historical evidence, the authors recount the most bizarre episodes of our planet — and beyond — in vivid detail.
Intriguing secrets of lost civilizations, alien abductions, mystical places, mythical beasts and stories of life on Mars are revealed, along with tales of individuals whose remarkable psychic powers have set them apart.
Guaranteed to astonish and intrigue, The Complete Book of the Unexplained
sheds new light on the deepest, most awesome secrets of the universe.The Complete Book of the Unexplained
A Thrilling Exploration of the Earth's Most Baffling Mysteries
[Adapted]
| | |
| Truth in an Age of Deception  | |
| | |
| | |
| The Weird 100 "TAKE A WALK ON THE WEIRD SIDE"Sure, everyone's had the occasional odd experience — the car
keys vanishing from your kitchen table, déjà vu  , the case of the disappearing beer. Most of them can be explained away. (The dog took your keys; you really have been here before; your roommate drank the beer.) But what about the true enigmas, the puzzles of science and the universe that can't be so easily dismissed? Questions such as:
In this fascinating compendium, Stephen Spignesi presents one hundred of the strangest, most mystifying riddles on earth including: angels and zombies, near-death experiences, crop circles, poltergeists, auras and halos, Nostradamus's predictions, possession and exorcism, The Philadelphia Experiment, reincarnation and past-life regression, Stonehenge, time travel, legendary beasts and mythological creatures, and more! Filled with dramatic photos and drawings, as well as "pro" and "con" evidence from believers and skeptics alike, THE WEIRD 100 explores the unbelievable while proving that life is a lot more
interesting — and infinitely weirder — than we
ever imagined. | |
| | |
Telling the Truth (About Santa, Etc. ...)
One mother I know cheerfully admitted that the whole story was hokum and forfeited her children's trust for the rest of her life. A father of my acquaintance tried to stress the poetic truth of the tale and faced an embarrassing interrogation about his hocus-pocus with Santa suits, Christmas stockings and half-eaten mince pies. Another said, 'It's true about Santa the way it's true in the book that Long John Silver was a pirate.' 'So it's not true,' his little boy replied. An academic couple, after discussing it thoroughly between themselves, decided to tell their children, 'It's true that Santa brings you your presents in the same way that we speak of the wind hurrying or the sun smiling.' The little boy and girl, who concluded that the sun and wind exist and that Santa does not, never forgave them for this evasion.
A schoolmaster who taught my own children and had a very pious little girl tried saying that the Santa story was a parable: 'You don't suppose,' he said, 'that the things Jesus told in the parables actually happened, do you?' The child ceased to be pious. Fellow-Catholics gave me rival advice. 'Tell your boys,' one said, 'that the Santa story is an attempt to express the divine love that is reflected in parents' love for their children.' I felt this was good doctrine but that there was no place for Santa in it. 'Of course Santa exists,' the other asserted. 'He's Saint Nicholas, mediating for children.' I was prepared to admit this but felt that it tended to make the image of the gift-bearer pagan and abominable - which, I suppose, it is. I still feel the Santa tale is more than just another of the falsehoods we invent to manipulate our victims but I have not yet found the sense in which it is true or a way of expressing it which exactly fits the facts.
-- Thomas Dunne, Truth - A History and a Guide for the Perplexed (1997)
Science & Our Beliefs
Science has illuminated so many of the corners which were unknown to our ancestors that we have come to accept scientific explanations in preference to religious explanations.
But belief in science, that is materialism, cannot satisfy us as a full explanation of reality because it is a one-sided view. Science can explain how, but it cannot explain why. Science cannot provide us with an ethical or moral basis for living our daily lives.
In this situation many people feel a loss of direction. They cannot find a belief system to follow. Science does not satisfy their need for moral guidance. Traditional religions are not believable in the face of scientific discovery. They can see no pattern in the way that life unfolds, and things seem hopeless.
In Japan today, most people have no religion. This may seems strange to people of other countries but it is true. The national religion of "Tennosei" or Emperor worship, a religion which was part political manipulation and part fanaticism, perished with Japan's defeat in World War II, and since that time most Japanese have followed the path of materialism in their efforts to rebuild an abundant and comfortable society. This lack of religious belief is increasingly troubling the young people of Japan.
[The same lack is obviously present in most countries. - Paul Quek]
[ ... ]
in Eido Michael Luetchford's
Introduction to Buddhism & the Practice of Zazen:
The Teachings of Gudo Nishijima Roshi
SPECIAL WEB ARTICLE
And if you think that the UFO phenomenon is just for the fringe crowd, the kooks, the 'need to get a life' layabouts, and the pseudoscientists, etc., etc., etc. ... think again!
The videos are a bit longish than perhaps necessary ... and there are some boring parts, here and there, especially for the 'fast crowd' with byte-sized attention spans ... but nevertheless the 9-part YouTube video is an eye-opener of a documentary produced and aired during the last years of the 20th century (specifically, in 1998).
UFOs are serious stuff to the Russians ... so don't take things too lightly! Especially in this new 21st Century ...
If the Russians think UFOs are real, and if they think they can reverse-engineer UFO-Alien technology to their political, economic, military and security (PEMS) advantage ... well, the 21st Century might just become a Russian century, and we might all just be sipping illegal Volka in underground resistance-movement hideaways (much like the French Resistance folks back during the Second World War)!
Now ... do things begin to take on a new light?
|
| | |
| What the Mysteries-of-the-World (MOTW) Website is about ... In general, we are a website about the Mysteries of the Universe (where 'World' = 'Universe') ... and the term 'Mysteries of the Universe', of
course, encompasses the more staid and serious scientific Mysteries about the
Cosmos, aka Universe, including such mysterious topics as Supernovas, Black Holes, Red Dwarfs, Pulsars, Neutron Stars, and Galactic Superclusters, Clusters and Groups .... For the more sensationalised Mysteries, we are thus also a site that examines the Mysteries surrounding the controversial and perennially-interesting Roswell Incident, UFOs, Aliens, Anti-gravity Propulsion Systems and the like ... We also deal with
and so on and so forth (other examples of Indexes/Indices will become available) ... Along the way, we will examine unusual topics such as
And, we will also explore to the full the meanings of such terms as
This includes an examination of the various terms associated with what I call 'The Fringe' —
Eventually, this site will grow to such an extent that it really will become an all-inclusive and comprehensive Index of these and other Mysteries of the World ... proceeding from the Index Page, to every other webpage and every 'web article' ... As we are still an evolving site (and blog), our current system of arranging the Index of Mysteries (as it were) is a tentative one ... ultimately, we will achieve an Index (or system of pointers) that can bring you, the reader-cum-viewer, to each and every known Mystery, either directly or via various cross-referencings ... The Science of the Librarian will come in handy here, I am sure! To re-iterate: this site will eventually become an all-inclusive and comprehensive Index of Mysteries ... such an Index cannot be build up in a day, even with an army of eager beavers at work ... so that the Index will be growing, day after day, week after week ... Wish us luck and pray for us for God's blessing on this project. | |
| | |
| | |
| Caveats to Mysteries Explorers, Investigators & Students ... In this web site, our aim is to see whether we are any nearer to understanding
the 'Mysteries', and even perhaps to see whether we are close to 'solving' them or reaching
some other kind of closure. Please note that, although I am not a scientist, I am quite Science-grounded so that this site is also Science-grounded ... and I embrace such ideas as are embodied in:
| |
| | |
| | | |||||||||
| More Caveats ... It's incredible the things that people believes in ... such as Cryptozoology,
with its collection of impossible-to-find 'cryptids' (aka 'paranormal'
creatures), prominent examples of which are Bigfoot or Sasquatch , the Loch
Ness Monster, Skunky, and Chupacabra. "Penn & Teller [Bullshit!] - Cryptozoology" (Excerpt)
And, of course ... as an intelligent and non-gullible person, you should not believe in such nonsense, unless there is proof! Extraordinary claims must be accompanied by extraordinary evidence or proof. But so far, no such evidence or proof has been offered that would satisfy anyone whose explorations are reality-based or whose investigations are truth-based ... such reality- and truth-based explorations-investigations are conducted by the mainstream scientists (like the late Nobel-prize winning physicist and all-round maverick, prankster and amateur bongo player, Dr. Richard Feynman) as well as by the professional skeptics (such as the famous and much-sought after speaker who is also the Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, Dr. Michael Shermer). It is so easy to fool ourselves — many of us are surprised to learn that the easiest person to fool is often ourselves! — as Dr. Feynman warned us when he gave a lecture about Science, especially that bogus variety that he called "cargo cult science". We also tend to see what we want to see or we believe what we want to believe — as Dr. Shermer observes and cautions in his writings and many presentations in conferences and appearances on TV. "Cognitive bias" and/or "perceptual errors" are terms that Dr. Shermer uses to refer to the matter. Besides errors of cognition, there is also a tendency to interpret many things
according to our affective bias, meaning an emotive state which is engendered by being easily influenced
emotionally by events ... And we should be aware that we also may be plagued
with 'selective memory' to boot, so that we interpret events out of the time
sequence in order to fit our beliefs, prejudices and interpretations of the
events ... Unknowingly, many people suffer from both cognitive and affective biasnesses — I happen to know a few of them in the real world, but these people don't seem to live in the real world ... Let's look for the simpler explanation rather than the dramatic or sensational, and often, impossible, explanation — applying with care the principle of parsimony (where less is often better), or Occam's Razor. Remember: a possibility does not equal to a reality! Many things are 'possible'; they have a tiny chance or probability of occurring, but they usually do not happen or cannot happen at all. Finally, if you want to see if you are delusional, biased, prejudiced, gullible, and totally ungrounded in reality or Science, then check out whether you have fallen into the trap that I call 'The Fringe'. | | |||||||||
| | |
| | |
| This website is predicated on the basis of the following categorization of the
Sciences ... Four Categories of Science By Stanton T. Friedman (Former Nuclear Physicist)Some people have insisted that if I can't provide a piece of a [flying] saucer or an alien body, there is nothing to support my claims. I was quite surprised during my last visit with Carl Sagan in December 1992, when he claimed that the essence of the scientific method was reproducibility. In actuality, as I wrote Sagan later on, there are at least four different kinds of science:
In all the category-4 events, we must obtain as much testimony from witnesses as possible. Some testimony is worth more than other testimony, perhaps because of the duration of observation, the nearness of the witnesses to the event, the specialized training of the observer, the availability of corroborative evidence such as videos and still photos, or the consistency of evidence when there is testimony from more than one witness. Our entire legal system is based on testimony — rarely is there conclusive proof such as DNA matching. Judges and juries must decide, with appropriate cross-examination, who is telling the truth. In some states, testimony from one witness can lead to the death penalty for the accused. We should take note of the fact that even instrument data is dependent on testimony from the observer of the instruments, and on appropriate calibration and validation under standardized circumstances. Also, our courts place limits on requirements for testimony, such as that against one spouse by the other. Furthermore, there are rules about hearsay testimony, and rules regarding legal evidence are complex and detailed. When it comes to flying saucers, we must remember that the reason most sightings can be determined to be relatively conventional phenomena, often seen under unusual circumstances, is that most people are relatively good observers. The problem comes with the interpretation of what was observed. People watching the sky late at night may get excited about a very bright light that moved very slowly. Checking on the position of the planets at that time may reveal that that light was Venus, because we have good information as to the angle of observation, the direction of the light from the observer, the relatively slow rate of motion, the location of Venus at that time, and so on. On three occasions, when living in Southern California, I was called by people who described an unusual object moving rapidly. I tried to make sure that I analyzed their observations, such as, what time was it? In what direction were you looking? In what direction did it seem to be moving? Was there any sound? What was its apparent size, say, as compared to the moon (just covered by an aspirin held at arm's length)? Two of the people wanted to tell me that the object was just over the next hill. I stressed that this was an interpretation, because even huge objects far away can seem to be small objects nearby. In all three cases, I felt that what was being described sounded similar to a rocket launched down the California Coast when the sun had gone down, but while the object was high enough to still be in sunlight. I had seen such a spectacular case once myself. I checked, in all three cases, with Vandenberg Air Force Base, which launches many rockets down the U.S. West Coast. Indeed, there had been a launch at the right time in each case. One case was especially intriguing, because several witnesses were looking out across the ocean from a beach area and described the thing they saw as similar to a string of popcorn. It turned out to be the launch of a special weather satellite with extra solid boosters being dropped off multiple times. The people were good observers. To say the least, it would be irrational to say that people are good observers when their input allows us to identify the object being observed, and yet poor observers if we can't identify the UFO as something conventional. — Stanton T. Friedman (Nuclear Physicist)    Source: Stanton T. Friedman (Nuclear Physicist) Flying Saucers and Science Subtitle — A Scientist Investigates the Mysteries of UFOs: Interstellar Travel, Crashes, and Government Cover-Ups
| |
| | |
| | | |
| Nine Points to Note
| | |
| | |
or 
) ...
— please click the audio player below:
to our webpages and 'web articles'
(click on the Mysteries Blog button on the LEFT NavBar)
As stated in our Mysteries Blog, the ' Mysteries of the World' Website does NOT aim to sensationalize any particular 'Mystery', although we
will examine and explore all possible viewpoints pertaining to each
'Mystery' — including the fringe AND the mainstream. We will, of course, come to a conclusion (eventually!) about each 'Mystery' ... even if that conclusion may eventually turn out to be 'as yet unresolved' or 'unexplained to our satisfaction'. |
Penn Teller Bullshit! Show
(New window opens)
 Latest Updates!
(New window opens) |  Announcement! - Roswell Rock
(New window opens) |  Browsers Notes
(New window opens) |
KFCP stands for "keyword-focused content page" ...
This Tier 2 webpage is based on the keyword "loch ness monster".
BBA (Hons), MAppSci (CompSci)
[Bachelor of Business Administration, Honours]
[Master of Applied Science, Computing Science]
Check this out: Cool Software! (New window opens)
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
