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Friday, 25 September 2015

Laetitia Toureaux - May 16, 1937

On the evening of May 16th, 1937, Laetitia Toureaux headed for a bus stop after leaving a dance hall in a Parisian suburb. She cut a striking figure as she boarded- 29 years old, in a green suit, white hat, and gloves. Twenty four minutes later, she arrived at a metro station, the Porte de Charenton, and boarded the first-class car bound for central Paris. While the other cars were full, the first class carriage was empty. The train departed at 6:26PM, and 45 seconds later arrived at another station, the Porte Dorée. Six passengers entered the first class car and found Laeitita Toureaux, mudered, with a 9 inch dagger in her neck. No one had exited, no one else was in the car. So who killed her?
Within days of her murder, police had uncovered strange information about her life. She worked in a glue factory by day and frequented dance halls or bal musettes by night. Some viewed Laetitia as a naive, innocent victim, but most saw her as a heartless social climber, marrying her late husband without his family's knowledge or assent. In addition, though she was faithful to him during their marriage, after his death she had numerous affairs. She also, strangely, was known by some acquaintances as 'Yolande".
Interestingly, Laetitia was also a sometimes informant for a Parisian detective agency "Agence Rouff". Bal musettes were known to attract pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers.
However, most beleived she had been killed by the French facist terrorist goup, Comité secret d'action révolutionnaire, also called La Cagoule. When the police raided La Cagoule on November 15th, 1937, several members claimed knowledge of Toureaux's murder, stating she had been an informer and had been identified.
"It appears that sometime in 1936, Laetitia, now known as “Yolande” and working for the police to infiltrate illegal, right-wing political groups, became the lover of Jeantet, the Cagoule’s arms smuggling expert. Jeantet ran a garage near Montmarte and commanded a fleet of cars he used to smuggle arms from Geneva to Paris. By the spring of 1937, the Cagoule began to suspect Toureaux of deceit and set a trap for her. News of an upcoming arms run was leaked to her, but when the car was stopped at the Swiss border, it was empty. The ruse cost Toureaux her life."
However, there has never been any arrest for her murder, and French police files on the case are sealed until 2038. Why was Laeititia killed, and by whom? If the police knew her killer, why was there no arrest? And how did a killer escape from a train car unnoticed?

Documentary Video

Ball Lightning

Ball lightning is an unexplained atmospheric electrical phenomenon. The term refers to reports of luminous, spherical objects which vary in diameter from pea-sized to several meters. It is usually associated with thunderstorms, but lasts considerably longer than the split-second flash of a lightning bolt. Many early reports say that the ball eventually explodes, sometimes with fatal consequences, leaving behind the odor of sulfur.
Until the 1960s, most scientists argued that ball lightning was not a real phenomenon but an urban myth, despite numerous reports throughout the world. Laboratory experiments can produce effects that are visually similar to reports of ball lightning, but whether these are related to the natural phenomenon remains unclear.
Many scientific hypotheses about ball lightning have been proposed over the centuries. Scientific data on natural ball lightning are scarce, owing to its infrequency and unpredictability. The presumption of its existence is based on reported public sightings, and has therefore produced somewhat inconsistent findings. Given inconsistencies and lack of reliable data, the true nature of ball lightning is still unknown. The first ever optical spectrum of what appears to have been a ball lightning event was published in January 2014 and included a video at high frame rate.
Descriptions of ball lightning vary widely. It has been described as moving up and down, sideways or in unpredictable trajectories, hovering and moving with or against the wind; attracted to, unaffected by, or repelled from buildings, people, cars and other objects. Some accounts describe it as moving through solid masses of wood or metal without effect, while others describe it as destructive and melting or burning those substances. Its appearance has also been linked to power lines as well as during thunderstorms and also calm weather. Ball lightning has been described as transparenttranslucent, multicolored, evenly lit, radiating flames, filaments or sparks, with shapes that vary between spheres, ovals, tear-drops, rods, or disks.
Ball lightning is often erroneously identified as St. Elmo's fire. They are separate and distinct phenomena.
The balls have been reported to disperse in many different ways, such as suddenly vanishing, gradually dissipating, absorption into an object, "popping," exploding loudly, or even exploding with force, which is sometimes reported as damaging. Accounts also vary on their alleged danger to humans, from lethal to harmless.
A review of the available literature published in 1972 identified the properties of a “typical” ball lightning, whilst cautioning against over-reliance on eye-witness accounts:
  • They frequently appear almost simultaneously with cloud-to-ground lightning discharge
  • They are generally spherical or pear-shaped with fuzzy edges
  • Their diameters range from 1–100 cm, most commonly 10–20 cm
  • Their brightness corresponds to roughly that of a domestic lamp, so they can be seen clearly in daylight
  • A wide range of colours has been observed, red, orange, and yellow being the most common.
  • The lifetime of each event is from 1 second to over a minute with the brightness remaining fairly constant during that time
  • They tend to move, most often in a horizontal direction at a few metres per second, but may also move vertically, remain stationary or wander erratically.
  • Many are described as having rotational motion
  • It is rare that observers report the sensation of heat, although in some cases the disappearance of the ball is accompanied by the liberation of heat
  • Some display an affinity for metal objects and may move along conductors such as wires or metal fences
  • Some appear within buildings passing through closed doors and windows
  • Some have appeared within metal aircraft and have entered and left without causing damage
  • The disappearance of a ball is generally rapid and may be either silent or explosive
  • Odors resembling ozone, burning sulfur, or nitrogen oxides are often reported


Documentary video

The Nazca Lines

The Nazca Lines  are a series of ancient geoglyphs located in the Nazca Desert in southern Peru. They were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994. The high, arid plateau stretches more than 80 km (50 mi) between the towns of Nazcaand Palpa on the Pampas de Jumana about 400 km south of Lima. Although some local geoglyphs resemble Paracas motifs, scholars believe the Nazca Lines were created by the Nazca culture between 500 BC and 500 AD. The hundreds of individual figures range in complexity from simple lines to stylized hummingbirdsspidersmonkeysfishsharksorcas, and lizards.
The designs are shallow lines made in the ground by removing the reddish pebbles and uncovering the whitish/grayish ground beneath. Hundreds are simple lines or geometric shapes; more than 70 are zoomorphic designs of animals such as birds, fish, llamas, jaguars, monkeys, or human figures. Other designs include phytomorphic shapes such as trees and flowers. The largest figures are over 200 m (660 ft) across. Scholars differ in interpreting the purpose of the designs, but in general, they ascribe religious significance to them.
Due to its isolation and to the dry, windless, and stable climate of the plateau, the lines have mostly been naturally preserved. Extremely rare changes in weather may temporarily alter the general designs. As of recent years, the lines are said to have been deteriorating due to an influx of squatters inhabiting the lands.
Archeologistsethnologists, and anthropologists have studied the ancient Nazca culture to try to determine the purpose of the lines and figures. One hypothesis is that the Nazca people created them to be seen by their gods in the sky. Kosok and Reicheadvanced a purpose related to astronomy and cosmology: the lines were intended to act as a kind of observatory, to point to the places on the distant horizon where the sun and other celestial bodies rose or set in the solstices. Many prehistoric indigenouscultures in the Americas and elsewhere constructed earthworks that combined such astronomical sighting with their religious cosmology, as did the later Mississippian culture at Cahokia in present-day United States. Another example is Stonehenge in England.
Gerald Hawkins and Anthony Aveni, experts in archaeoastronomy, concluded in 1990, the evidence was insufficient to support such an astronomical explanation.
Reiche asserted some or all of the figures represented constellations. By 1998, Phyllis B. Pitluga, a protégé of Reiche and senior astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, had concluded the animal figures were "representations of heavenly shapes". According to the New York Times, "she contends they are not shapes of constellations, but of what might be called counter constellations, the irregularly shaped dark patches within the twinkling expanse of the Milky Way." Aveni criticized her work for failing to account for all the details.
In 1985, the archaeologist Johan Reinhard published archaeological, ethnographic, and historical data demonstrating that worship of mountains and other water sources predominated in Nazca religion and economy from ancient to recent times. He theorized that the lines and figures were part of religious practices involving the worship of deities associated with the availability of water, which directly related to the success and productivity of crops. He interpreted the lines as sacred paths leading to places where these deities could be worshiped. The figures were symbols representing animals and objects meant to invoke the gods' aid in supplying water. The precise meanings of many of the individual geoglyphs remain unsolved as of 2013.
Henri Stierlin, a Swiss art historian specializing in Egypt and the Middle East, published a book in 1983 linking the Nazca Lines to the production of ancient textiles that archaeologists have found wrapping mummies of the Paracas culture. He contended the people may have used the lines and trapezes as giant, primitive looms to fabricate the extremely long strings and wide pieces of textiles typical of the area. By his theory, the figurative patterns (smaller and less common) were meant only for ritualistic purposes. This theory is not widely accepted, although scholars have noted similarities in patterns between the textiles and the Nazca Lines, which they take as sharing in a common culture.

Documentary video

Tuesday, 15 September 2015

Elisa Lam Death - February 19, 2013

A smiling Asian woman wearing a red scarf and black coat
The body of Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old Canadian student at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles on February 19, 2013. She had been reported missing at the beginning of the month. Maintenance workers at the hotel discovered the body when investigating guest complaints of problems with the water supply.
Her disappearance had been widely reported; interest had increased five days prior to her body's discovery when the Los Angeles Police Department released video of the last time she was known to have been seen, on the day of her disappearance, by an elevator security camera. In the footage, Lam is seen exiting and re-entering the elevator, talking and gesturing in the hallway outside, and sometimes seeming to hide within the elevator, which itself appears to be malfunctioning. The video went viral on the Internet, with many viewers reporting that they found it unsettling. Explanations ranged from claims of paranormal involvement to the bipolar disorder Lam suffered from; it has been argued that the video itself has been tampered with.
The circumstances of Lam's death, when she was found, also raised questions, especially in light of the Cecil's history in relation to other notable deaths and murders. Her body was naked with most of her clothes and personal effects floating in the water near her. It took the Los Angeles County Coroner's office four months, after repeated delays, to release the autopsy report, which reports no evidence of physical trauma and states that the cause of death was accidental. Guests at the Cecil, now re-branded as Stay on Main, sued the hotel over the incident, and Lam's parents filed a separate suit later that year.
Some of the early Internet interest noted unusual similarities between Lam's death and plot elements from the 2005 horror film Dark Water. There have been efforts to fictionalize the case since then as well. Less than a year after her death, Hungry Ghost Ritual, aHong Kong horror film, included a scene apparently inspired by the elevator video, and mainland Chinese director Liu Haoannounced he was planning a film based on her life and death, hopefully starring Gao Yuanyuan. An episode of Castle was inspired by it, and a horror film that uses the case as a backstory, The Bringing, is currently in development under Sony Pictures.
Lam, the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong who opened a restaurant in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby, was a student at the University of British Columbia;although she was not registered when she left her home in January 2013 for a trip to Southern California, which she called her "West Coast Tour" on her Tumblr blog. She said she planned to stop in San DiegoLos AngelesSanta Cruz and San Francisco. While she also hoped to visit San Luis Obispo, she was not sure she could.
The lower five stories of a tan brick building in a city. Its lower windows have awnings; there is a fire escape on the right. At the street there is a large shelter over the entrance with "Hotel Cecil" on it in black type on a yellow background. A small truck and car, both white, are parked on the street in front.
The Cecil, where Lam spent her last week
She traveled alone, on Amtrak and intercity buses. She visited the San Diego Zoo and posted photos taken there on social media.[12] On January 26 she arrived in Los Angeles and checked into the Cecil Hotel, near downtown's Skid Row.
Built as a business hotel in the 1920s, the Cecil fell on hard times during the Great Depression of the 1930s and never recaptured its original market as downtown decayed around it in the late 20th century. Several of Los Angeles's more notable murders have happened at or have connections to the hotel: Elizabeth Short, victim of the Black Dahlia murder, the city's best-known unsolved killing, supposedly made the Cecil her last stop before her death, and in 1964 Goldie Osgood, the "Pigeon Lady of Pershing Square", was raped and murdered in her room at the Cecil, another crime that has never been solved. Serial killers Jack Unterweger and Richard Ramirez, the "Night Stalker", both resided at the Cecil while active. There have also been suicides, one of which also killed a pedestrian passing in the front of the hotel. After recent renovations it has tried to market itself as a boutique hotel, but the reputation lingers. "The Cecil will reveal to you whatever it is you're a fugitive from," says Steve Erickson.
Lam also had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression. She had been prescribed four drugs—WellbutrinLamictalSeroquel and Effexor—to deal with the condition. According to her family (who supposedly kept it a secret), she had no history of suicidal ideations or attempts,  although one report claims she had, in fact, briefly gone missing at some earlier time as well.
In mid-2010, she began a blog named Ether Fields on Blogspot. Over the next two years she posted pictures of models in fashionable clothing and accounts of her life, particularly her struggle with her disorder. In a January 2012 post titled "You're always haunted by the idea you're wasting your life" after a quotation from novelist Chuck Palahniuk that she used as an epigraph for the blog, Lam lamented that a "relapse" at the start of the current school term had forced her to drop several classes, leaving her feeling "so utterly directionless and lost." She worried that her transcript would look suspicious with so many withdrawals, adversely affecting her ability to continue her studies and attend graduate school.
A little over two years after Lam had started blogging, she announced she would be abandoning the blog for one she had started on Tumblr in March 2011, Nouvelle/Nouveau. Its content was heavier on found photos, mostly of fashion, and quotes, with a few posts in Lam's own words. The same Palahniuk quote was used as an epigraph.
While traveling, Lam kept in touch with her parents back in British Columbia daily. On January 31, 2013, the day she was scheduled to check out of the Cecil and leave for Santa Cruz, they did not hear from her and called the Los Angeles police; the family flew to Los Angeles to help with the search.
Hotel staff who saw her that day said she was alone. Outside the hotel, Katie Orphan, manager of a nearby bookstore, was the only person who recalled seeing Lam that day. "She was outgoing, very lively, very friendly," while getting gifts to take home to her family, Orphan told CNN. "[She was] talking about what book she was getting and whether or not what she was getting would be too heavy for her to carry around as she traveled."
Police searched the hotel to the extent that they legally could. They searched Lam's room and had dogs go through the building, including the rooftop, looking unsuccessfully for her scent. "But we didn't search every room," Sgt. Rudy Lopez said later, "we could only do that if we had probable cause" to believe a crime had been committed.
On February 6, a week after Lam had last been seen, the LAPD decided more help was needed. Flyers with her image were posted in the neighborhood and online. It brought the case to the public's attention through the media.

Elisa Lam CCTV video

Warning! Proceed with caution, it may not be suitable for some to watch this video.


Human Torch -1982

In 1982, young Benedetto Supino was 10 years old.  One morning he was sitting in the waiting room at his dentist’s office when suddenly the comic book that he was reading burst into flames.  More incidents quickly followed; one morning he woke up to a fire in his bed, and on another day a plastic toy he was staring at burst into flames as his uncle held it.
benedetto-supino
Just about everywhere he went he seemed to cause fires on objects around him.  Furniture, books, and paper would burn near him or as he looked at it.  Some claimed that his hands would glow as the items caught fire.  The boy famously said, “I don’t want things to catch fire, but what can I do?”
Apparently fire wasn’t the only thing that Benedetto could do.  He seemed to have an effect on machines and electronic motors.  His father was a carpenter who had a workshop in the community, and when visiting the shop, all of the machines started to fail.  He spent over 3,000 pounds on repairs before realizing that he just needed to stop bringing Benedetto around.
Not knowing what to do, his parents had Benedetto work with parapsychologist Dr. Demetrio Croce.  Eventually, the fires died down and stopped.  She claimed that she had taught him to “control and hone his abilities”.
Benedetto was eventually able to blend back into society.  Although he is only in his early 40’s today, he seems to have stayed out of the news and away from setting things ablaze.
Documentary Video

Caroline Walter - 1867

Over 50,000 flowers have been placed on the grave of a young girl who died almost 145 years ago in Freiburg, Germany. Who places them there, no one knows. Every morning, under summer’s sun and winter’s snow, a fresh flower has been placed on the grave of Caroline Christine Walter.Caroline Walter and her beloved older sister Selma moved to Freiburg to live with their grandmother after their parents died. She went to a school for young ladies and by the time she reached the age of 16, she already had a number of admirers who were attracted by her young beauty. When her sister married, Caroline happily went to live with her and her new husband.
In the early summer of 1867, just before she turned 17, Caroline contracted tuberculosis and passed away a few short weeks later.Her sister Selma wanted to create a lasting memorial and asked a sculptor to cast a grave in her sister’s likeness. The life size and life like sculpture depicts Caroline just as if she fell asleep reading in her own bed.The grave was placed against one of the outer walls of the Alter Friedhof cemetery which had already been in existence for more than 200 years. It was a peaceful setting, made more peaceful by the beautiful grave of the sleeping girl.It was soon after Caroline passed away, and the flowers on her grave from the funeral were wilting, that her sister began to notice that a fresh flower was always on the grave when she visited. Months and then years passed and still no one had discovered who might be leaving the flowers. The cemetery groundskeepers could provide no clue but perhaps they were sworn to secrecy.
Caroline had never mentioned any young man in particular to Selma however legends abound. The most common one is that the flowers were placed by one of Caroline’s tutors who had fallen in love with her and mourned her passing for the rest of his life. But, even had he lived to be a hundred, he still would have died more than half a century ago. Did he leave instructions for future generations to carry on the tradition?Today, only a little sunlight filters through the boughs of the trees overhead, moss has grown over the place where she sleeps but every morning since that fateful day in 1867, a fresh flower blooms on Caroline’s grave.
Documentary video - the language is not english

Mary Celeste Crew Death Case

Mary Celeste was a 282-gross ton brigantine. She was built by the shipbuilder Joshua Dewis in 1861 as Amazon at the village of Spencer's Island, Nova Scotia. She was the first vessel of many larger vessels to be built at the Spencer's Island ship yard. Amazon was owned by a group of eight investors from Cumberland County and Kings County, Nova Scotia, led by Dewis, and William Henry Bigalow, a local merchant.The Amazon was registered at the nearby Nova Scotia town of Parrsboro, the closest local port of registry.Amazon's first captain, Robert McLellan, the son of one of the owners, contracted pneumonia nine days after taking command, and he died at the very beginning of her maiden voyage. He was the first of three captains to die aboard her. John Nutting Parker, the next captain of Amazon, struck a fishing boat, and had to steer her back to the shipyard for repairs. At the shipyard, a fire broke out in the middle of the ship. Her first trans-Atlantic crossing was also disastrous for her next captain, after she collided with another vessel in the English Channel near Dover. This resulted in the dismissal of the new captain.

After this inauspicious beginning, the brigantine had six profitable and uneventful years under her Nova Scotian owners. She travelled to the West Indies, Central America and South America, and transported a wide range of cargoes. In 1867, the ship ran aground during a storm off Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. After she was salvaged, she was sold for $1,750 to Richard Haines of New York, and was repaired at a cost of $8,825.03.In 1868, Amazon was transferred to the American registry, and the following year was renamed Mary Celeste. The new owners' intention was to take her across the Atlantic and make a profit trading with the Adriatic ports.
Departure
While waiting in New York City for a cargo of raw alcohol to be delivered to Mary Celeste, Captain Benjamin Briggs wrote a letter to his mother in Marion, Massachusetts, who was caring for Briggs's 7-year-old son Arthur. Briggs's wife Sarah and their two-year-old daughter Sophia would accompany him on the voyage. The letter, dated 3 November 1872, revealed his optimism.[citation needed]On 5 November 1872, under command of Captain Briggs, Mary Celeste docked on New York City's East River and took on board a cargo of 1,701 barrels of commercial alcohol intended for fortifying Italian wines on behalf of Meissner Ackermann & Co. It was worth about $35,000; the ship and cargo together were insured for $46,000. Mary Celeste then set sail from Staten Island for Genoa, Italy.[citation needed]

In addition to her captain and a crew of seven, she carried the captain's wife, who had sailed with her husband many times, and Sophia, their 2-year-old daughter. Thus ten people were aboard. Briggs had spent most of his life at sea, and had captained at least five ships and owned many more. The crew for this voyage included a Dane and four Germans, all of whom spoke fluent English, had exemplary records, and were considered experienced, trustworthy and capable seamen. The first mate and cook were Americans.Before Mary Celeste left New York, Captain Briggs spoke to an old friend, David Reed Morehouse, from Nova Scotia, who was captain of the Canadian merchant ship Dei Gratia, also a brigantine. Briggs, Morehouse, and their wives had dinner together on the evening of 4 November. Briggs and Morehouse had served together as sailors when they were young. During the conversation, they discovered they had a similar course across the Atlantic Ocean, through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Mediterranean.However, Morehouse was still waiting for his cargo to arrive when Mary Celeste left port on 5 November. Morehouse's cargo eventually arrived and on 15 November, Dei Gratia finally set off with 1,735 barrels (275.8 m3) of petroleum in her hold. Dei Gratia left New York harbour seven days after Mary Celeste (some sources say eight days later).
Discovery
An engraving of Mary Celeste as she was found abandoned.Sporadic bad weather had been reported in the Atlantic throughout October, although Dei Gratia encountered none and her journey across the ocean in November was uneventful. Just short of a month after leaving port, on 4 December 1872 (some accounts state 5 December, which is the equivalent date in nautical days), at approximately 1pm, the helmsman of Dei Gratia, John Johnson, sighted a ship about five miles (8 km) off their port bow through his spyglass. The position of Dei Gratia was approximately 38°20′N 17°15′WCoordinates: 38°20′N 17°15′W, some 600 miles (1,000 km) west of Portugal.

Johnson discerned that there was something wrong with the other vessel. She was yawing slightly, and her sails did not look right, being slightly torn. Johnson alerted his second officer, John Wright, who looked and had the same feelings about her. They informed the captain. As they moved closer, they saw the ship was Mary Celeste. Captain Morehouse wondered why Mary Celeste had not already reached Italy, as she had a head start on his own ship. According to the account given by the crew of Dei Gratia, they approached to 400 yards (366m) from Mary Celeste and cautiously observed her for two hours. She was under sail, yet sailing erratically on a starboard tack, and slowly heading toward the Strait of Gibraltar. They concluded she was drifting after seeing no one at the helm or even on deck, though the ship was flying no distress signal.Oliver Deveau, chief mate of Dei Gratia, boarded Mary Celeste. He reported that he did not find anyone on board, and said that "the whole ship was a thoroughly wet mess". There was only one operational pump, two apparently having been disassembled, with a lot of water between decks and three and a half feet (1.1 m) of water in the hold. However, the ship was not sinking and was still seaworthy.
All of the ship's papers were missing, except for the captain's logbook. The forehatch and the lazarette were both open, although the main hatch was sealed. The ship's clock was not functioning, and the compass was destroyed; the sextant and marine chronometer were missing. The only lifeboat on the Mary Celeste, a yawl located above the main hatch, was also missing. The peak halyard, used to hoist the main sail, had disappeared. A rope, perhaps the peak halyard, was found tied to the ship very strongly and the other end, very frayed, was trailing in the water behind the ship.Popular stories of untouched breakfasts with still-warm cups of tea on the cabin table are untrue and most likely originated with fictionalised accounts of the incident. At the inquiry, Oliver Deveau stated that he saw no preparations for eating and there was nothing to eat or drink in the cabin.
Deveau returned to his ship and reported to the captain. Two men, Charles Augustus Anderson and Charles Lund, then boarded Mary Celeste. The cargo of 1,701 barrels of alcohol was, Deveau reported, in good order. However, when it was eventually unloaded in Genoa, nine barrels were found to be empty.A six-month supply of uncontaminated food and fresh water was still aboard, and the crew's personal possessions and artifacts were left untouched, making a piracy raid seem extremely unlikely. It appeared the vessel had been abandoned in a hurry. There was no sign of a struggle, or of any sort of violence.


The Taos Hum - 1996

The Hum is a phenomenon, or collection of phenomena, involving widespread reports of a persistent and invasive low-frequency humming, rumbling, or droning noise not audible to all people. Hums have been widely reported by national media in the UK and the United States.The Hum is sometimes prefixed with the name of a locality where the problem has been particularly publicized: e.g., the "Bristol Hum", the "Taos Hum", or the "Bondi Hum".Data from a Taos Hum study suggests that a minimum of two percent and perhaps as many as 11 percent of the population could detect the Taos Hum and the Daily Telegraph in 1996 likewise reported a figure of two percent of people hearing the Bristol Hum. For those who can hear the Hum it can be a very disturbing phenomenon and it has been linked to at least three suicides in the UK. However, amongst those who cannot hear the hum and some specialists, there has been skepticism about whether it, in fact, exists.

The essential element that defines the Hum is what is perceived as a persistent low-frequency sound, often described as being comparable to that of a distant diesel engine idling, or to some similar low-pitched sound for which obvious sources (e.g., household appliances, traffic noise, etc.) have been ruled out. There are a number of audio reproductions of the Hum available on the web.
Other elements seem to be significantly associated with the Hum, being reported by an important proportion of hearers, but not by all of them. Some people hear the Hum only, or much more, inside buildings as compared with outdoors. Some perceive vibrations that can be felt through the body. Earplugs are reported as not decreasing the Hum.

The Daily Telegraph reported that two percent of people could hear the Bristol Hum. Research into the Taos Hum indicated that between two percent and 11 percent of people could hear the hum, with the actual figure likely being at the lower end of the range. The hum does appear to be geographically focused, i.e. it does appear to be possible for hearers to move away from it; the range of the Taos Hum was reported to be 48 km to 72 km. Women may be more likely to be affected than men. Age does appear to be a factor, with older people being more likely to hear it.
On November 15, 2006, Dr. Tom Moir of the Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand made a recording of the Auckland Hum and has published it on the university's website. The captured Hum's power spectral density peaks at a frequency of 56 hertz. The Taos Hum was between 40 to 80 hertz. Higher-pitched tones have also been reported; the Hueytown (Alabama) Hum has been compared to the sound made by a dentist’s drill or fluorescent light bulb near the end of its life.In 2009, the head of audiology at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, Dr David Baguley, said that he believed people's problems with hum were based on the physical world about one-third of the time and the other two-thirds stemmed from people focusing too keenly on innocuous background sounds.This sound can be heard from various places around the Western continents but the source is unknown.

Documentary video

Faces of Belmez - 1971

The Bélmez Faces or the Faces of Bélmez is an alleged paranormal phenomenon in a private house in Spain which started in 1971 when residents claimed images of faces appeared in the concrete floor of the house. These images have continuously formed and disappeared on the floor of the home.Located at the Pereira family home at Calle Real 5, Bélmez de la Moraleda, Jaén, Andalusia, Spain, the Bélmez faces have been responsible for bringing large numbers of sightseers to Bélmez. The phenomenon is considered by some parapsychologists the best-documented and "without doubt the most important paranormal phenomenon in the [20th] century".

Various faces have appeared and disappeared at irregular intervals since 1971 and have been frequently photographed by the local newspapers and curious visitors. Many Bélmez residents believe that the faces were not made by human hand. Some investigators believe that it is a thoughtographic phenomenon subconsciously produced by the former owner of the house, María Gómez Cámara – now deceased ("Thoughtography" is considered a form of psychokinesis among parapsychologists).Skeptical researchers point out that unlike other psychic claims this case is falsifiable. Since the faces of Bélmez are fixed on whitewash of cement, scientists are able to analyze the molecular changes that took place in such mass of concrete.[citation needed] Skeptics have performed extensive tests on the faces and do believe that fakery has been involved
The appearances in Bélmez began on 23 August 1971, when María Gómez Cámara claimed that a human face formed spontaneously on her concrete kitchen floor. María's husband, Juan Pereira and their son, Miguel, destroyed the image with a pickaxe and new concrete was laid down. However, the Pereira story goes, a new face formed on the floor. The mayor of Bélmez was informed and forbade the destruction of the new face. Instead, the floor concrete was cut out and taken for study.María's home was advertised to the tourists as La Casa de las Caras (The House of the Faces). By Easter of 1972 hundreds of people were flocking to the house to see the faces. For the next 30 years the Pereira family claimed that faces continued to appear, both male and female and of different shapes, sizes and expressions.

Documentary video

Charlie Chaplin TIme Traveller -1928


The picture shown above depicts a women appearing to use a cellphone from the Charlie Chaplin movie.Perhaps she really is a time-traveler, sent back through the decades to make a jaw-dropping cameo appearance.Or maybe she was a maverick genius, secretly testing out advanced technology for the government and caught on camera at the wrong moment.

Whatever the explanation, this footage from a Charlie Chaplin promotional film in 1928 showing a woman apparently using a mobile phone has left viewers stumped.A traveler from the future? This clip from a film about the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie The Circus shows what appears to be a woman talking on a mobile phone in the opening scene 
A traveler from the future? This clip from a film about the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's 1928 movie The Circus shows what appears to be a woman talking on a mobile phone in the opening scene (on the right)The baffling scene is found in the extras section of The Circus and shows members of the public attending the premiere of the film at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
The short piece of footage shows an older woman dressed in a coat and hat with her hand held up to the left-hand side of her face as she talks. 
There is no one around for her to be speaking to apart from a suited man who strides on ahead at the beginning of the shot.Even her gestures and behaviour as she 'talks' will be eerily familiar to modern-day viewers as she appears to stop, mid-sentence, during her apparent conversation.
The bizarre anachronism was unearthed by film buff George Clark on his Charlie Chaplin box set.
Her gestures as she walks and talks appear just like those of modern-day mobile phone users +4
Look who's talking: Her gestures as she walks and talks appear just like those of modern-day mobile phone users
A close-up of the image shows the woman's hand is close to her face and she appears to be talking +4
Woman out of time: A close-up of the image shows the woman's hand is close to her face and she appears to be talking. He says he has shown it to more than 100 people and still no one can come up with a convincing explanation. Some viewers have suggested she is listening to a portable radio close to her face, although this would not explain why she appears to be talking.
Others say she may be displaying signs of schizophrenia and covering her face to hide the fact that she is talking aloud to herself. 
It has also been suggested that she is simply trying to hide her face from the camera so she is not filmed.There are also sceptics who believe the footage is just a stunt created by Mr Clark - a film maker with Yellow Fever Productions - to publicise his latest film festival.
The first device that could be likened to a mobile phone was Motorola’s original ‘Walkie-Talkie’ which was developed in the 1940s, but that was the size of a man’s arm and still came more than a decade after the Chaplin film.As the scene fades out the mystery figure can be seen smiling as she talks +4
See you later... As the scene fades out, the mystery figure can be seen smiling
In The Circus, Chaplin's character falls in love with the circus-owner's daughter
The main attraction: In The Circus, Chaplin's character falls in love with the circus-owner's daughter
Portable mobile phones that we would recognise today did not appear until the 1980s and even then they were still too big to hide in the palm of your hand.In a video that Mr Clark has posted on YouTube he jokes that the only plausible theory is that the woman is a time traveler.
He says: ‘This short film is about a piece of footage I found behind the scenes in Charlie Chaplins film The Circus.' 'Attending the premiere at Manns Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, California - the scene shows a large woman dressed in black with a hat hiding most of her face, with what can only be described as a mobile phone device - talking as she walks alone.
‘I have studied this film for over a year now - showing it to over 100 people and at a film festival, yet no one can give any explanation as to what she is doing.‘My only theory - as well as many others - is simple... a time traveler on a mobile phone. See for yourself and feel free to leave a comment on your own explanation or thoughts about it.' Chaplin’s The Circus was one of the master director’s final silent movies and won him the Academy Award in 1929 for ‘Versatility and genius in writing, acting, directing and producing’.It tells the story of the Tramp, who works as a clown in a circus and who falls in love with a circus-master’s daughter.Chaplin produced the film at the height of the legal fallout over his divorce from Lita Grey and he did not mention it once in his autobiography, even though it is now regarded as one of his masterpieces.

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