Mothman Museum

In Point Pleasant, West Viriginia, there’s a tiny museum devoted to the fabled Mothman. Here’s a short video tour of it (and the video has to be short, because the museum is apparently quite small)…

How To Fake A UFO

The very cool site Weird America has a new video up - How To Fake A UFO. We thought our readers will really like this video, so a little pointer for you!

After you watch this video, be sure and check out the rest of the stuff up on the site.

Death of Napoleon — Mystery Solved?

For those you not familiar with French history, Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to the island of St. Helena after his defeat at Waterloo. He subsequently died May 5, 1821.

There’s long been a bit of a mystery regarding the death of Napoleon. Rumors of arsenic poisoning, foul play and cancer have always abounded. A bit of a historical mystery and always a great source of discussion and speculation amongst historical minded folks (like your friendly Mysterious Earth crew).

Well, a team from the UT Southwestern Medical Center undertook a pretty rigorous analysis of all available information - autopsy records, historical records, etc. The culprit? Gastric cancer.

Gastric cancer was more likely at fault, Dr. Genta said. Other scholars have recently found that the plump emperor lost at least 20 pounds in the last six months of his life, a sign of gastric cancer. The autopsy descriptions show that Napoleon’s stomach was filled with a dark material that resembled coffee grounds, an indication of gastrointestinal bleeding that likely was the immediate cause of death, Dr. Genta said. The most important description was of a large, ulcerated lesion on his stomach, and a smaller ulcerated lesion in another part of his stomach that had penetrated the wall and reached the liver.

Apparently, the long standing mystery of Napoleon’s death has been solved. While this is not the type of subjects we usually cover, we found it pretty interesting.

Read the entire report on the investigation into Napoleon’s death.

UFO Crash in Iran

With all the world tensions involving Iran these days, this little story could be a bit on the scary side. A UFO crash has been reported in Iran last week…or maybe it was something else.

You can read the original story here if you are so inclined.

But what we really found interesting was this:

Meantime, an informed source told that the object has been on fire and there has been thick smoke coming out of it prior to the crash, concluding that the object couldn’t have been a meteor as meteors do not smoke.

mmmm…we are quite thrilled to see that great minds still exist in Iran and they are putting such keen deductive reasoning to good use.

Plus, we didn’t know that “meteors do not smoke”….

Robert Anton Wilson

Since you are reading Mysterious Earth, we’re sure you’re already quite familiar with the work of Robert Anton Wilson. The legendary author, the guy who put the Illuminati and conspiracy theories and chaos and so many other subjects on the map, passed away a few days ago.

RAW (as he was referred to by his fans) produced a huge body of work in his lifetime - titles such as The Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy and The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles.

RAW had been suffering from post-polio syndrome.

Here’s a full report on Robert Anton Wilson.

Hail Eris!

The works of Robert Anton Wilson

Skunk Ape Film

photo from the Miami Herald

Skunk apes — apparently, they crawl lonely swamps and woods in the American south. They’ve been spotted in many southern states, but most of the sightings seem to occur in Georgia and Florida. Florida…oh yeah…gators and skunk apes. This southern version of Bigfoot is big, hairy, and smelly (but then again, such a description fits some of my neighbors — and maybe yours).

A group of film students from Florida International University in Miami Florida went out into the Everglades in search of the ever elusive Skunk Ape and they’ve produced a cool documentary about their experience.

Read the full report from the Miami Herald — the film is called Footprints and its about 15 minutes long. Hopefully, it’ll show up in online — doesn’t seem to be on YouTube yet, though.

Hogzilla

Giants hogs? Around big city Atlanta Georgia?

Yeah, its true…Hogzilla roamed around the streets of Atlanta, but he roams no more!

The hog hung snout down from a tree Friday in William Coursey’s front yard, not far from where the avid hunter said he shot the beast. He said he hauled it to a truck weight station, which recorded the hairy hog at 1,100 pounds. (AP)

If true, WOW!

So if you’re in the woods around Hotlanta, watch out for those giant hogs. In the meantime, read more about the story.

French UFO Archives

Ah, you crazy French! We here at Mysterious Earth are looking forward to sightings regarding the Eiffel Tower - and we imagine there’s some reports from the Left Bank of Paris as well!

In some exciting news for UFO researchers and enthusiasts, the French government has announced they will be publishing their entire UFO sighting archive - only removing individual names to provide anonymity!

The French space agency said it will publish its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online, but will keep the names of those who reported them off the site to protect them from pestering by space fanatics.

Jacques Arnould, an official at the National Space Studies Centre, said the French database of around 1,600 incidents would go live in late January or mid-February.

You can read MSNBC’s full report on this announcement and also go ahead and check out the French Space Agency web site.

And, by the way, Happy New Year - hopefully 2007 will be a great year for strange and unusual events from around the world!