Jay Leno Says Good Bye!

To “The Tonight Show”

After 17 strong seasons, Jay Leno says goodnight for the last time on his television program “The Tonight Show”. However, dont cry just yet, Jay Leno is going to be doing a prime time comedy show starting this fall!

As of June 1, Conan O’Brien will headline the “Tonight Show”.

Well, I don’t know whether Conan O’Brien will be as good as Jay, but he won’t be able to stay as wonderful and popular as Jay – Conan, somehow, just doesn’t seem to fit into the Late Night format that Jay was able to dominate with for 17 years.

We certainly will miss Jay!

Miracles & The Ethiopian Flag

UFO falls in Kazakhstan – witnesses

Source: http://www.russiatoday.com/Top_News/2009-05-14/UFO_falls_in_Kazakhstan___witnesses.html

Residents of a western Kazakhstan town reported that they witnessed two silver objects fall from the sky on Wednesday night.

“It was at about 3AM. I was standing by my tractor when the guys started shouting: ‘Look, there are some balls flying.’ They were big and sparkling with Green, Yellow and Red,” an eyewitness told Interfax news agency over the phone.

According to the witnesses, the spherical objects were approximately 60 cm in diameter, had a silvery surface with what appeared to be a small opening. The UFOs failed to bend or dent when local residents attempted to strike them with their tools, and said the balls produced sparks when they attempted to do so.

A preliminary investigation has failed to identify the strange objects, but according to head of the local emergencies service Aleksandr Ivanov, they are most likely “fragments of a man-made aircraft.”

He also noted that the region where the two spherical objects were discovered has no history of similar incidences.

“Objects fall on the areas bordering the Russian military test range Kapustin Yar, but here it’s a rare thing. I’d say it’s a first,” he said.

The balls were found to pose no immediate threat to public health or the environment and were sent for further research to “a specialized organization.”

Halo of Red, Gold and Green

On April 13, 2008, a Halo of Red, Gold and Green colors hanging around the sun startled people in Ethiopia, with many seeing it as a miracle or a sign from God.

According to scientists, this unheard of ring of red, gold and green light was supposedly caused by sunlight refracted by ice crystals. It hung in the sky around the sun for almost an hour before it finally faded and disappeared.

The colors of the Ethiopian flag are red, gold and green.

Some Ethiopians say, similar Halo last appeared in 1991. Ethiopia celebrated the millennium (the year 2000) according to its ancient calendar on September 11 2007.

It is believed that this Ethiopian millennium is indeed the real millennium touch stone given that Roman Catholic Popes including Pope Gregory had changed the original Julian calendar (derived from the original Egyptian/Ethiopian calendar) by adding 6 years and 9 months to it.

Many expect that the new millennium will change the negative system which has controlled life on earth dating from the last two millennial.

Many followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church who had gathered to welcome the visiting Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Shenouda, viewed the phenomenon as a miracle, or at least a sign of a blessing from God.

The highest authorities of the church itself appears to support the interpretation placed on the event by lay members. Pope Shenouda, the head/Patriarch of the Coptic Orthodox Church which is closely affiliated with the Ethiopian Orthodox Church believed it was a signal from above.

“We accept any sign from God to encourage us in our way,” he said, “and confirm that we are going right in our way.”

Abuna Paulos, the Patriarch of Ethiopian Orthodox Church, gave thanks to God for the heavenly signs.

“If God reveals himself from the sky,” he told a press conference, “we believers do not get surprised. We only rejoice and double our efforts to thank God. Thank you, God, for revealing a sign.”

Many spiritualists in Ethiopia and abroad also consider this most unusual of astronomical events to be something significant, given the timing of the year, given the numerous prophesies of the old, and especially given the hallowed importance of Ethiopia as the birth place of humanity.

Even the ever wonderful Beyoncé who went to Ethiopia for the Millennium celebrations, and who had been given a warm reception by the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, is singing her current hit “Halo”, louder than the rest.

These occurrences are certainly very special and significant signs. So, what could happen on Planet Earth in the days, months and years to come? Will Jesus Christ appear again in Ethiopia to rule the earth for the next millennial amidst a flare of red, gold and green colors?

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The Antiquity, Origin, and Religion of the Abyssinian Race

Children of God

According to an Ethiopian legend, God molded the first humans from clay. He put the first batch in an oven to bake, but left them there too long, and they emerged burned and black, so he threw them away to the southern part of Africa. He took the second batch from the oven too soon, and they were pasty and white, so he threw them northward, where they became the Arab and European populations. The third and final batch was just right, and God put them in Ethiopia.

May be, may be not – but certain is: Ethiopians could trace back their genealogy to all the three Biblical Fathers – Shem, Ham & Japhet. That means, populations that belong to the so-called, Black, White and Yellow human races are all children of the Ethiopians.

The following amazing article was written 113 years ago…

The Most Gifted of Africans The New York Times  Published: April 19, 1896

The experience of the Italians during the past few years with the Abyssinians has shown beyond doubt that these mountaineers of “the Switzerland of Africa” are decidedly a superior race to the other peoples of the Dark Continent with whom the Europeans have come in contact in their colonization and partition schemes. To a great extent this superiority is the result of their origin and pedigree. Although the modern representatives of the Ethiopians of myth and history, they are in reality not Ethiopians at all. They are not black, but are of Caucasian descent as pure as the Anglo-Saxon or the Celt. Language and physiology stamp them as members of the Semitic race, and, consequently, as kindred peoples to the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Arabs, the Syrians, the Jews and other history-making nations of antiquity. To call them Ethiopians in the sense of blacks is a singular misnomer, originating probably in the fact that, being the only African people except the Egyptians known at an early date to the Greek-Latin literature, the term “Ethiopian” gradually was used to designate all Africans, and is now the national name for that very people who, almost alone on the entire continent of Africa, do not belong to the Negro race.

In truth, the Abyssinians are not originally an African race at all. Their earliest traditions point to Southern Arabia as their original seat, and by a singular piece of good fortune, the German traveler, Edward Glaser, who has made four scientific journeys to Southern Arabia, hitherto never explored, has found there the indubitable evidences of the existence of the Abyssinian people in those districts before the days of Christ. In close connection with this is the other discovery that at that time there existed in Southern Arabia a mighty Sabaean Kingdom, and Prof, Sayce declares that on the basis of these finds the visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon in Jerusalem was, historically considered, “the most natural thing in the world.” Of this the Abyssinians have retained a very clear tradition. The present line of Kings claims to be descended from King Solomon by a son born to him by the Queen of Sheba, which son bore the same name. Menelik, as that in which the present ruler of Abyssinia glories. The royal house of Abyssinia can trace its lineage through a long list of generations without any break to Menelik, the son of Solomon. To doubt this descent of an Abyssinian King is equivalent to treason, and the literature on the subject is abundant.

The early connection of the Abyssinians with their kindred people of the Semitic family is also indicated by the presence in their midst of a unique semi-Helot race, numbering perhaps 500,000, and commonly known as the “Falashas” or Black Jews. They are Jewish in descent and religion, adhering only to the tenets and teachings of the Old Testament, while the Ethiopians or Abyssinians themselves are Christians. It is an old tradition, sustained and supported by some remarkable facts, that the Abyssinians were themselves first converted to Judaism and then to Christianity, and that the Falashas constitute that portion of the race which refused to accept the teachings of the Christian Church. Certain it is that the Abyssinian faith presents a somewhat odd conglomeration of Jewish and Christian elements. Thus, they still practice circumcision, although they have accepted baptism: they observe the seventh day as well as the first; the number and manner of their fasts are decidedly Jewish, and in many other ways they show traits peculiar to the Jewish faith.

They themselves, by their very name, indicate how strong a feeling of their origin is still present with them. The name “Abyssinians” they utterly despise as a term, meaning in the Arabic, a mixed or mongrel people, which has been given by their enemies. They themselves adopt the historic name of “Ethiopians,” or, still better, the native name of “Geez”. The term, “Geez”, while originally meaning almost the same as the word “Hebrews” – those who crossed over-is generally employed in a later sense of “Freedmen.” By this term the people designate themselves, as did the “Franks” of the Middle Ages, as “a people of freedmen.”

In more than one respect the Abyssinians are a unique people. Their physical and mental peculiarities, chiefly their language, mark them as a purely Semitic people, the only people of that family which, as a nation, settled and worked out its historical mission on the Dark Continent. In their history, religion, and literature they have been practically uninfluenced by the Hamitic people around them, including the oldest representatives of civilization on the African continent, the Egyptian. To all intents and purposes the history of the Abyssinian people, as far as this can be traced in their literature, is a chapter in church history, and that, too, an interesting chapter.

The civilization and culture of Abyssinia is practically a product of the Greek Church life of the fifth century. Converted to Christianity in that period of great theological and christological controversies, the Abyssinians took part in the discussions of the day, and with the decision of the Synod of Chalcedon in 451 A. D., condening Monophysitism, or the doctrine that Christ had but one will and not two, severed its connection with the Church at large, and voluntarily entered upon a period of isolation that lasted for an entire millennium, as Abyssinia did not come into touch and tone with the civilization of the world again until rediscovered by the Portuguese in the fifteenth century. Only in undefined story as the country of the “Presbyter John” was an uncertain report of the existence of an African Christian nation spread in the Europe of the Middle Ages. For to the voluntary isolation came enforced separation, when in the seventh and eighth centuries the Mohammedan hosts conquered Egypt and vainly tried to overpower the Abyssinians. It is ever to the historic credit of these sturdy mountaineers that for a thousand years they hve been able to maintain their own independence and national individuality against the fanatical hordes that overran Southeastern Europe to the very walls of Vienna and Southwestern Europe almost to the Rhine. But he Califs and the Weziri, by the conquest of Egypt, drove in a wedge between Abyssinia and the rest of Christianity that separated them as though they belonged to different worlds.

From historic factors and forces like these only one result could come, and that was the petrification of thought and life in the Abyssinian people and Church. Substantially in their faith, services, liturgies, thought, and life, with the native conservative tendency so pronounced in the Semitic peoples, in Abyssinians we have a petrification and stereotyped formalism of the Greek Christian culture of the fifth century. But during this time this “hermit nation of Africa” has preserved a treasury of Christian works,lost largely to Greco-Latin literature, and which is now invaluable.

Ethiopic literature is comparatively large, but also either directly Christian or written under the spell of Christianity. It is almost entirely a literature of translations, first from the Greek, and then later from the Arabic and Coptic. Whether the Christianity or the civilization of Menelik’s people could be rejuvenated is something that only a prophet or a prophet’s son could foretell. The efforts of Protestant and of Roman Catholic missionaries in this direction have been carried on for half a century without tangible results, except among the Falashas. Possibly if other methods or agencies were applied, better success could be reported. Certain it is that of all the nations of Africa, the Ethiopians or Abyssinians are by descent and natural endowments the most gifted on the continent.

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Greed – The Root of All Evil

How greed outstripped need

American culture set us up for the economic fall, psychologists say.

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/01/consumerism.html

As the world slipped into economic meltdown, the nation started talking about greed: greedy lenders, greedy Wall Street executives, greedy CEOs and greedy Americans who used credit to finance untenable lifestyles.

Greed may very well have driven much of the economic crisis, says University of Rochester social psychologist Richard Ryan, PhD. But does the blame fall on the individual, or on our increasingly materialistic culture?

“America has an economic system set up to create the kind of mess we’ve seen recently,” says social psychologist Tim Kasser, PhD, of Knox College in Galesburg, Ill. “Our form of capitalism encourages materialistic values, and the research shows that people high on materialism … are more likely to engage in unethical business behaviors and manipulate people for their own purposes.”

In fact, American corporate capitalism—the highly competitive economic system embraced by the United States as well as England, Australia and Canada—encourages materialism more than other forms of capitalism, according to a study by Hebrew University of Jerusalem psychologist Shalom Schwartz, PhD. He compared the values held by people in countries with more competitive forms of capitalism with the values of folks in countries that have a more cooperative style of capitalism, including Austria, Germany and Norway. These countries rely more on strategic cooperation among the various players in the economy and society to solve their economic problems, such as unemployment, labor and trade issues, rather than relying mostly on free-market competition as the United States does.

As expected, citizens who live in more competitive free market systems cared more about money, power and achievement than people who live under more cooperative systems. Research also supports the notion that the more people care about money and power, the less they care about community and relationships. A study by Kasser, University of Victoria psychologist Fred Grouzet, PhD, and colleagues, for example, asked students in 15 countries about the goals they value most, including community feeling, financial success and physical health. They found they could chart those values onto a kind of pie with some values—money versus community and relationships, for example—in direct competition with each other.

“Of course we can care about community and money,” Kasser. “But as money becomes important—the bigger its slice of the pie—the desire to help other people tends to become less important.”

University of Minnesota psychologist Katherine Vohs, PhD, demonstrated this idea in a series of studies in which she primed participants to think about having large amounts of money. Compared with a group of students who were primed to think about neutral concepts or insufficient funds, participants with wealth on their minds were less helpful at, for example, picking up spilled pencils, and were less generous, for instance, donating less to charity. These participants were also more insular, choosing to sit farther away from a colleague or work independently rather than in a team.

Money and community are inherently incompatible because they tap into two fundamentally different motivational systems, says Kasser. Helping the community and forming personal relationships satisfy intrinsic psychological needs while financial success satisfies extrinsic needs of rewards and praise.

And for those motivated by rewards, America’s corporate incentive system may even encourage unethical behavior, says Ryan. Investment banks, mortgage companies and other industries that fueled the economic downturn reward employees for specific outcomes—say, selling more mortgages or obtaining high quarterly profits—rather than other aspects of job performance. Research shows that the people who are offered these types of rewards take the shortest route to reach their goal, whether it’s ethical or not, Ryan says.

“Rather than rewarding good practices, we’ve been rewarding outcomes, however they’re attained,” says Ryan. “And that’s driven a lot of greedy behavior from folks who wouldn’t normally act that way.”

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This Is The Face of The First European

All Humans Ethiopians

This is the face of the first anatomically-modern human to live in Europe. It belonged to a man – or woman – who inhabited the ancient forests of the Carpathian Mountains in what is now Romania about 35,000 years ago.

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The artist’s reconstruction – a face that could be male or female – is based on the partial skull and jawbone found in a cave where bears were known to hibernate. The facial features indicate the close affinity of these early Europeans to their immediate African ancestors, although it was still not possible to determine the person’s sex.

Richard Neave, the forensic artist who reconstructed the facial features in this clay model, based his assessment on a careful measurement of the bone fragments and his long experience of how the soft tissues of the face are built around the bones of the skull.

The reconstruction was made for the forthcoming BBC 2 series The Incredible Human Journey which documents human origins and evolution, from our birthplace in Africa to the long migratory routes that led us to populate the most distant parts of the globe. It is impossible from the bones to determine the skin colour of the individual, although scientists speculate it was probably darker than modern-day Europeans, reflecting a more recent African origin.

Mr Neave’s clay head of the “first modern European” now sits on the desk of Alice Roberts, the Bristol University anthropologist who will introduce the BBC series, which is scheduled for screening next Sunday evening on BBC 2. “It’s really quite bizarre. I’m a scientist and objective, but I look at that face and think ‘Gosh, I’m actually looking at the face of somebody from 40,000 years ago’, and there’s something weirdly moving about that,” Dr Roberts told the Radio Times.

“Richard creates skulls of much more recent humans and he’s used to looking at differences between populations. He said the skull doesn’t actually look European, or Asian, or African. It looks like a mixture of all of them. And you think, well, that’s probably what you’d expect of someone who was among the earliest populations to come to Europe.”

Potholers discovered the lower jawbone of the first modern European in 2002 in Pestera cu Oase, the “cave with bones”, located in the south-western Carpathians. The remaining fragments of skull were unearthed in 2003.

Scientists have dated the bones using radiocarbon analysis to between 34,000 and 36,000 years ago when Europe was occupied by both Neanderthal man, who had lived in the region for tens of thousands of years, and anatomically-modern humans – Homo sapiens – who had recently arrived on a migratory route from Africa via the Middle East.

Although the skull shares many modern feature of human anatomy, it also displays more archaic traits, such as very large molar teeth, which led some scientists to speculate the skull may belong to a hybrid between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals – an idea discounted by other experts.

Erik Trinkaus, professor of anthropology at Washington University in Missouri, and one of the first specialists to study the bones in detail, said the jaw was the oldest, directly-dated modern human fossil. “Taken together, the material is the first that securely documents what modern humans looked like when they spread into Europe,” he said.

Continue reading…

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Can Cosmic Rays Provoke Fortean Miracles ?

Charles Hoy Fort was a Dutch-American writer and researcher into extraordinary phenomena.

In the early 20th Century, Fort published an abundance of carefully documented data which science is either unqualified or reluctant to account for. His most famous work, “The Book of the Damned” (1919) used the word “damned” to imply “the excluded” and contained what Fort believed to be “a procession of data that Science has excluded.” Today, the term “Fortean” is often used to describe a wide range of paranormal phenomena.

Charles Fort visited the libraries of New York and London for over thirty years, tirelessly reading and keeping notes on occurrences outside the established theories of science. He collected numerous accounts of aerial phenomena before the invention of aviation, including objects in the sky that today would be considered UFOs. Fort had the idea that “beings on Mars” were controlling events on Earth, and the reason that we never meet our overseers is because they have no interest in talking with their farm animals. According to writer Colin Wilson, Fort’s books imply, “People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.”

Robert LeRoy Ripley was an American cartoonist and globetrotting adventurer who created the world famous Ripley’s “Believe It or Not!” newspaper series. Depicting authentic oddities from around the world, Ripley’s cartoon panel became a mainstay of American newspapers during the first half of the 20th Century. He financed publications of untold curiosities and established museums that he called “Odditoriums” in major cities.

Robert Ripley was a connoisseur of the odd and fantastic, “seeking stories of bizarre and unusual proportion.” He allegedly kept a 28-foot boa constrictor snake as a house pet and allowed squirrels and chipmunks to scurry about him while he drew his famous cartoons. According to the official Ripley’s website, “At age 58, Ripley died while taping the 13th episode of his television series, an episode that dealt with death and death rituals. He passed out during the show, was taken to the hospital and, soon after, was pronounced dead of a heart attack.” Today, the Ripley’s cartoon panel is still seen daily in nearly 200 newspapers worldwide. Every year, millions of people visit the Ripley’s museums.

Both men devoted their entire lives to tracking down the interconnectedness of the natural world and synchronicity — quirks not recognized by most scientists or academics. But why have our foremost researchers not considered probing such challenging phenomena? The answer might have something to do with “the management of research funds.”

In 1865, the German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé said that he discovered the ring shape of the benzene molecule after having a vision of a snake swallowing its own tail. In 1873, Heinrich Schliemann, the man who unearthed ruins believed to be of the ancient city of Troy, had a dream of the beautiful “Helen of Troy” putting on a strange gold necklace. The next day he saw something sparkle in the excavation soil. It was the same gold necklace that he saw in his dream. Sir William Crookes was an English chemist who in 1861 discovered the element thallium. His studies of cathode rays led to the invention of the modern television. Crookes’s revolutionary work in this area became the basis of numerous discoveries that ultimately revised the study of chemistry and physics.

In 1870, Crookes decided that science had a duty to study paranormal phenomena. Although he pioneered the systematic study of out-of-body experiences (OBEs) Crookes’ definitive evidence irritated members of the scientific community so much that there was discussion of stripping him of his Fellowship of the Royal Society.

In the 1970s, Russel Targ (an inventor of the laser) and Harold Puthoff (an authority on quantum vacuum states) conducted major experiments at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI). As a result of their research, they both believed that Uri Geller, retired police commissioner Pat Price, and artist Ingo Swann all had genuine psi — or psychic abilities.

In 1980, James Randi, an accomplished stage magician and professional skeptic, launched a comprehensive debunking of the Stanford experiments. Randi called Targ and Puthoff “the Laurel and Hardy of psi” and claimed that their experiments were a heap of incompetence and fraudulence. Yet, just like Charlie Chaplin, Randi had no scientific training. He admitted that metal bending by Geller was observed in the Stanford laboratory. But Randi played down the fact that the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency (DARPA), as advised by Andrija Puharich, was also in touch with Geller, Price and Swann.

In 1978, a survey of 14 active psi research laboratories by Dr. Charles Tart revealed that five of those laboratories had been officially approached by officials or agents of the U.S. government who were gathering information on psi. The total known figure, at the time, for funding to mainstream psi researchers amounted to several hundred thousand dollars a year. Almost all the researchers surveyed maintained that using psi for espionage or military purposes was a very real possibility, and several were certain it was being done.

Probably more than in other areas of scientific investigation, it is information about who funds psi research that is classified, not only what is being done. Former White House staffer, Barbara Honegger reported, for instance, that the very word “parapsychology” was classified at the CIA — that is, a directive existed that it is not to be used in telephone conversations except over secure lines; and that any report with the word in it is automatically classified.

Of all the services, the Navy has historically been the most open-minded about taking psi research seriously and funding it. In 1975, the Navy reportedly funded SRI to see if psychics could detect sources of electromagnetic radiation at a distance; and, in 1976, to see whether they could influence a magnetometer at Stanford University. The SRI scientists reported that they could. (Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, “The Roots of Consciousness,” 1997)

It appears that “paranormal research” finances today are blocked or classified by government agencies, and perhaps even some clever debunking is done in the name of national defense cover-ups. But where does that leave the rest of us?

The Nobel Peace Prize is an award established in the 1895 will of Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the explosive dynamite. The Nobel awards are actually six international prizes awarded annually for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, economics, and the promotion of peace. The award ceremonies and their associated banquets are major international events to give attention to the Nobel laureates. Unfortunately, the inventor of dynamite actually believed it would lead to world peace. He once said: “As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.” He could not comprehend that nuclear weapons would soon replace the dread of his dynamite creation. In 1893, Alfred Nobel wrote in a letter:

I should like to dispose of a part of my fortune by founding a prize to be given every five years (say six times; for if we have not succeeded in reforming our present system within thirty years we shall inevitably revert to barbarism).

Over a hundred years later, the Nobel awards are granted in violation of the letter of his will. It appears to some critics that the self-styled peace prize has today become a “standard advertisement” for a major armaments manufacturer. Nobel Industries Limited was a successful explosives business established by Alfred Nobel in 1870. It merged into Imperial Chemical Industries in 1927 and Akzo Nobel in 1994. At present, Nobel Enterprises is a colossal chemical conglomerate in Scotland that still specializes in explosives. The original site “was almost like a community, and there were so many people employed there that a bank, travel agent and dentist were based on the site.” A Japanese trading firm now owns Nobel Enterprises.

How is it possible that a weapons industry is relied on to champion world peace prizes? Is it not as distasteful as a harlot presenting awards for chastity — only to promote a corrupt trade and increase its customer base? Princess Diana of Wales once raised the issue of Nobel Enterprises’ immoral involvement in the making of landmines. That would certainly have damaged the incomes of the weapons industry. But she is no longer with us. It is almost absurd that after Diana’s death the anti-landmine organization “won” the Nobel Peace Prize. That is only one of the numerous scandals surrounding Nobel Enterprises.

They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace. (Jeremiah 6:14)

The Nobel Prize is universally regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive. But it is also the most overbearing agenda controlling the management of academic research funds. If a new idea or discovery is not in some way related to the allusion of discord and response (i.e., the war industry) it will simply not be sponsored. And its pronouncements have repercussions in universities throughout the world.

Fort and Ripley received no academic funding for their hard work. They had to crisscross continents to gather material for their projects. But in our time, the Internet has brought amazing records within the reach of ordinary people. The “Anomalist,” for example, is a website that reviews unexplained mysteries and strange discoveries. On the average, at least ten “miracles” or sensational facts are reported every day. The reported cases are probably only the tip of an iceberg, which means there may be well over five thousand anomalous occurrences each year. This is not a trivial amount. But mainstream science continues to sweep them all under the rug. To continue writing them off as random flukes is not satisfactory. We need to uncover their underlying causes.

According to the Associated Press, mathematician Stephen Hawking said Pope John Paul once told scientists not to study the universe’s origins. In 2006, Hawking quoted the pope as saying, “It’s OK to study the universe and where it began. But we should not inquire into the beginning itself because that was the moment of creation and the work of God.” The scientist then joked that he was glad John Paul did not realize that he had presented a paper at a conference suggesting how the universe began. “I didn’t fancy the thought of being handed over to the Inquisition like Galileo,” Hawking said.

Nonetheless, the pope’s alleged remarks do not harmonize well with the Scriptures. Being uninformed was a medieval warning sign of unempirical simplicity. Jesus once said, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” (Matthew 7:7) He also said: “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” (Luke 8:17) We are accordingly commanded by Jesus to ask and to seek, not to remain satisfied with our lack of knowledge or to partake in mistaken notions. According to the Revelation, even the greatest enigma, “the mystery of God” will be made public when the right time is accomplished. Perhaps that time is much nearer than we think.

In the 1980s, parapsychologist D. Scott Rogo attempted to present a scientific rather than a religious justification for the little-understood events that we traditionally describe as miracles. He examined typical cases of levitation, bleeding stigmata, miraculous images, visions, weeping statues, and bilocating saints. His educated guess was that “miracles are generated by the formidable powers of the human mind itself.”

On January 16, 2009, a crippled U.S. Airways jetliner safely landed on the Hudson River. The incident was regarded as a miracle after no one died from the mishap. All 155 people on board the plane that crashed into the river survived. New York Gov. David Paterson described it as “the miracle on the Hudson.”

On the very same day, NASA scientists said “alien bugs” could be responsible for strong plumes of methane gas detected on Mars. “NASA Reveals Life on Mars,” boldly declared the front page of The Sun newspaper. Scientist Michael Mumma of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center said: “This raises the probability substantially that life was there or still survives at the present.” UK Mars expert Professor Colin Pillinger told The Sun: “The most obvious source of methane is organisms. So if you find methane in an atmosphere, you can suspect there is life.”

The official Vatican newspaper had already published an article in 2008 called “Aliens Are My Brother.” Writing in the Vatican newspaper “L’Osservatore Romano,” the astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, said intelligent beings created by God could exist in outer space. Science and religion need each other, and many astronomers believe in God, he said.

It is a bit paradoxical that Pope Benedict XVI now plans to update the Vatican’s current rules on investigating apparitions to help distinguish between true and false claims of visions of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. “Catholics who claim they have seen the Virgin Mary will be forced to remain silent about the apparitions until a team of psychologists, theologians, priests and exorcists have fully investigated their claims under new Vatican guidelines aimed at stamping out false claims of miracles.”

According to “Petrus,” an Italian online magazine which leans towards conservative elements in the Vatican, anyone who claims to have seen an apparition will only be believed as long as they remain silent and do not court publicity over their claims. If they refuse to obey, this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false. The visionaries will then be visited by a team of psychiatrists, either atheists or Catholics, to certify their mental health while theologians will assess the content of any heavenly messages to see if they contravene Church teachings. If the visionary is considered credible they will ultimately be questioned by one or more demonologists and exorcists to exclude the possibility that Satan is hiding behind the apparitions in order to deceive the faithful. (Jerome Taylor and Simon Caldwell, “Catholics ordered to keep quiet over Virgin visions,” The Independent, January 13, 2009)

How the general public will react to such stringent inspections remains to be seen. Take, for example, the Australian man who says that his life has been blessed since an image of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus appeared in his lava lamp. John Smith of Sydney has set up a shrine to the lava lamp in his home. The revelation of the lava lamp shows “the unmistakable image of the Holy Mary cradling the Baby Jesus,” according to Smith. “This is a true, tangible miracle that is not just an optical illusion,” he said to the press (Ananova).

Does the Holy Office really expect every John Smith to remain silent — perhaps by means of a stern warning of excommunication? And does the Vatican actually intend to dispatch a team of psychologists, theologians, and exorcists to determine if the lava lamp image resembles the Virgin Mary beyond a reasonable doubt? What about basic human rights — like freedom of speech? Pope Benedict (Joseph Ratzinger) has already been widely criticized for his past involvement with Nazi Germany and the Hitler Youth. Will this fresh “vademecum” not give tough opponents such as Dan Brown and others an opportunity to argue the chances of a new Inquisition — like Galileo? And as a final point, is there conceivably a Vatican profit incentive behind the latest rules for miracles? Who is going to pay for all those expert teams to travel worldwide and inspect every piece of burnt toast and bent pretzel that may resemble Jesus or the Virgin Mary? And yet, maybe they are indeed special miracles.

In 2005, the Chicago Tribune reported that thousands of Catholics made a spontaneous shrine of an improbable setting — a Chicago underpass whose smudged concrete wall produced a “water-runoff stain” many proclaimed to be a miraculous vision. Most of the crowd saw the big splotch as the Virgin Mary, dubbing it “Our Lady of the Underpass.” The image was reverently a “Rorschach Icon” in which a random pattern is “recognized” by the mind’s inclination, known as pareidolia, to construe unclear images as definite ones.

Another recent case was the face of a woman scorched onto a grilled cheese sandwich; one more was on a hospital window. The face of Jesus was also seen in a giant forkful of spaghetti illustrated on a billboard, while a different Christ portrait was found on a tortilla.

MyFoxNational Reports published similar photos of miraculous visions that had shown up in common items such as a potato, a tree and a cheese snack. Are devout spectators just imagining things or are these sightings wonderful signs from heaven?

• Biblical Warning From a Talking Fish

(March 2003) A Jewish fish cutter in New York was busily slaughtering a batch of carp when one of them started shouting apocalyptic warnings to him in Hebrew, according to the BBC. “The fish shouted that everyone needed to account for themselves because the end is near,” said Zalmen Rosen, the fish cutter. The fish then commanded Mr Rosen to start praying and begin studying the Torah before identifying itself as the soul of a local man who had died the previous year.

After a moment of stunned silence all hell broke loose. Mr Rosen’s co-worker Louis Nivelo became convinced that the talking fish was the work of Satan and ran around screaming: “It’s the devil! The devil is here!” before finally collapsing into a pile of packing crates. Mr Rosen then began to panic and tried to kill the fish with a machete-sized knife. But the carp bucked so wildly that Mr Rosen succeeded only in slicing a huge gash in his own thumb and had to be rushed to hospital. After an exhaustive struggle, the fish flopped off the counter – still muttering in Hebrew – and was finally butchered by Mr Nivelo.

• The Man Who Hadn’t Slept in 20 years

(January 2005) Ukrainian Fyodor Nesterchuk hadn’t slept for more than two decades. All attempts by doctors to put him to sleep have failed and they now say there’s nothing wrong with the 63-year-old man.

• Brain Tumor Was Cured by Prayer

(March 2005) Andy Delbridge of North Carolina was diagnosed in 2002 with the most aggressive and dangerous type of brain tumor. He and his family asked for divine intervention. Today Delbridge is cancer free. Not only is the brain tumor gone, so are the growths that had appeared near his heart. They simply disappeared, without surgery.

• The Girl with X-Ray Vision

(April 2005) Natalia Demkina of Russia claims to be able to see inside the human body. She can also spot internal injuries by looking at a photo. Professor Yoshio Machi at Tokyo University said: “Her ability is not x-ray vision, but she definitely has some kind of talent that we can’t explain yet.”

• The Scientist Who Lived on Sunlight

(May 2005) Cancer researcher Dr Michael Werner claims to get all his energy from sunlight. He says he has eaten nothing for four years. Dr Helmut Oberritter who is investigating the phenomenon said: “Obviously this case needs a lot more investigating if we are to explain it.”

• Shop’s Ghost Obsessed with Shoes

(May 2005) A shop in Cornwall called in a vicar to get rid of a ghost who had become obsessed by a pair of shoes. The shoes in the shop were usually on display with one crossed on top of the other. But the deck shoes continually ended up side by side. “It can’t be a coincidence,” said shop worker Helen Honey. “Because we have tried jumping up and down by the shelf to see if it wobbles, but nothing moves.”

• The Lake that Vanished Overnight

(May 2005) Residents of a village in central Russia were trying to solve the mystery of a lake that disappeared overnight. Russia’s NTV channel showed a huge, muddy basin where the lake once was, in the village of Bolotnikovo. Village youngsters told the BBC the lake had appeared during the reign of the feared Tsar Ivan the Terrible and had been “shrouded in dark mystery” ever since.

• Lions Rescued Ethiopian Girl

(June 2005) A 12-year-old girl who was abducted and beaten by men was found being guarded by three lions that apparently had chased off her captors, a policeman told the Associated Press. “Everyone thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people,” Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said. “They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest,” he said.

• The Virgin Mary’s Statue Walked

(July 2005) Thousands of Italians flocked to a small town outside Naples armed with mobile phones in the hope of filming a statue of the Virgin Mary that residents said had miraculously moved its legs. Parishioners at St Peter’s church in Acerra said they had witnessed the plaster statue’s legs turn flesh-coloured and move “as though she were walking towards us.” One man told The Daily Telegraph that he had filmed the “miracle” on his mobile phone.

• Superman Flew Over Serbia?

(August 2005) Serbian authorities were investigating reports of a real-life Superman after

people claimed to have seen a cloaked figure flying over their houses. Hundreds of residents in Ljubovija described seeing a cloaked person flying above buildings “as if he had an invisible engine on his back” and changing directions while in mid-air, the local daily Blic reported.

• Psychic Heard Dead Woman in Lake

(September 2005) An Italian psychic who led police to the body of a missing woman at the bottom of Lake Como said an unworldly vision allowed her to unravel the three-year-old mystery. Maria Rosa Busi said she saw the last moments of Chiara Bariffi’s life before she plunged into the lake inside her car in late 2002, and even heard a message from the deceased. “I went to the lake, and I saw where it happened … I heard her, I saw her and I drew a map,” Busi told Reuters.

• Ghostly Presence Haunted New Orleans

(September 2005) In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Sgt. Robin Hairston of the California National Guard told CBS: “I was in my sleeping bag and I opened my eyes and in the doorway was a little girl. It wasn’t my imagination.” Spc. Rosales Leanor said: “I was using the restroom and I just saw a little shadow, kind of looming in front of me.” Another member of the Guard unit said that she saw and heard a little girl laughing when she opened a closet that contained cleaning supplies. At a Baton Rouge marina, not a shred of paper could be found. Except for the pages of a Bible, which was found by a soldier. It was open to the Book of Revelations. At a nearby church, nearly destroyed, another Bible was found, showing the exact same passage from Revelations.

• Blind Woman Recognized Colors by Touch

(October 2005) A blind woman baffled scientists after proving on TV that she could distinguish between colors by touch. Gabriele Simon, 48, from Wallenhorst in Germany, revealed her ability in her country’s most popular TV show Wetten dass. She used her fingertips to recognise the different colors of various t-shirts and blouses while blindfolded.

• Visitors Flocked to See Image of Dead Priest

(October 2005) The image of what appeared to be a priest holding a child mysteriously appeared on the wall of a church in Chile. Visitors from all over the country were flocking to see the figures at the Christo Rey de Tome Church in Santiago, reported Las Ultimas Noticias. They believed it was the figure of Father Hurtado, who looked after needy kids when he was alive and was due to be canonised by the pope.

• Perfect Memory Confounded Scientists

(March 2006) Jill Price has the astonishing ability to remember with remarkable clarity even trivial events that happened decades ago. Give her any date, she says, and she could recall the day of the week, usually what the weather was like on that day, personal details of her life at that time, and major news events that occurred on that date. Like any good scientist, James McGaugh was initially skeptical. But not anymore. “This is real,” McGaugh said to ABC News. He is one of the world’s leading experts on how the human memory system works.

For as long as he can remember, Brad Williams has also been able to recall the most trifling dates and details about his life. For example, he can tell you it was Aug. 18, 1965, when his family stopped at Red Barn Hamburger during a road trip through Michigan. He was 8 years old at the time. And he had a burger, of course. “It was a Wednesday,” Williams said to the Associated Press. “We stayed at a motel that night in Clare, Michigan. It seemed more like a cabin.” To Williams and his family, his ability to recall events and especially dates is a regular source of amusement. But according to experts, Williams’ skill might rank his memory among the best in the world. Doctors are now studying him, and Jill Price with similar talents, hoping to achieve a deeper understanding of memory.

• Teenager’s Touch Cured Diseases

(July 2006) Adam is not your average 19-year-old. This Canadian college student makes more than most doctors do. He says he can heal people with just his hands. ABC News estimated that Adam would make more than $1 million a year. It was at the age of 15, Adam says, that he began manifesting bizarre powers. “All these strange telekinetic things [started] happening around me. Just little things like pencils flying out of my hands, erasers flying out of my hands,” he said.

Now Adam says he channels that power into healing cancers and infections. Linda Peterson, a fourth-grade teacher from Minnesota, says she experienced the healing benefits of Adam’s hands. Linda was diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer in 2004. She went to one of Adam’s workshops; then, two weeks later, when doctors took a look at her tumor, they discovered there was no tumor.

• Cross Saved Girl from Lightning Strike

(July 2006) A Russian teenager survived a lightning strike, which was so powerful it vaporised a gold cross on her neck. The bolt hit Marina Motygina, 16, from Ekaterinburg in western Russia on the top of her head and seared through her body into the ground. The necklace she had been wearing was ‘atomised,’ leaving burns in the shape of a cross on her neck, Pravda reported.

• Man Survived Fall of 15,000 Feet

(February 2007) A New Zealand parachutist survived a fall of 15,000 feet after his chute failed to open. He released amazing footage of his near-death plummet filmed by a camera attached to his helmet. Michael Holmes made headlines around the world after surviving the fall during a routine jump over New Zealand’s Lake Taupo on December 13, 2006. A camera attached to his helmet captured his plummet, which was aired in New Zealand. At 4,000 feet Holmes discovered his main parachute would not open. The reserve also did not work. Holmes’ camera shows him checking his altitude meter as he struggles to turn over onto his back to see what the problem is. In the final seconds of his fall, Holmes waves goodbye and yells “bye,” before the chilling image of his shadow growing larger beneath him fills the screen. The screen then goes black. A thorn bush broke Holmes’ fall.

• Girl Was Born With 4 Arms and 4 Legs

(November 2007) Tiny Lakshmi Tatma was born in 2005 with four arms and four legs. The local population considered her the manifestation of a goddess. Her parents named her after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth. A local circus even tried to buy her, but her parents chose health over fame and asked a team of doctors to remove her extra limbs. The surgery, conducted in Bangalore, ended successfully. It took more than 30 surgeons 27 hours to not only remove two of Lakshmi’s arms and two of her legs but also to rebuild much of her body and save her organs.

• Zombie in Underground Tunnels

(Februaury 2008) Staff at a sewage works called in a “ghostbuster” because they were being stalked by a zombie-like figure that roamed the underground tunnels. Workers at Southern Water’s treatment plant in Eastbourne, East Sussex, said they were scared to enter tunnels after being followed by a “humanoid figure” as they went about their jobs. Mark Wey, a sewage treatment worker, got permission from his bosses to hire a paranormal investigator to launch an investigation into the sewage spirits.

Mr Wey hired parapsychologist Michael Kingscote who paid the tunnels a visit. The clairvoyant said: “There seems to be one particular area that’s giving people the creeps. People have seen and felt things. Michael instantly detected someone standing there and he was suspicious there was something quite unusual there. The conclusion is, we can’t prove it is haunted because of strong electromagnetic fields, which can cause the illusion of being haunted, the feeling of being touched or watched, but there is definitely paranormal activity.”

• Man Targeted by Alien Meteorites

(April 2008) A Bosnian man whose home was hit an incredible five times by meteorites believed he was being targeted by aliens. Experts at Belgrade University confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic handed over were meteorites. They were investigating local magnetic fields to try and work out what makes the property so attractive to the heavenly bodies. But Mr Lajic, who had a steel girder reinforced roof put on the house he owns in the northern village of Gornja Lamovite, had an alternative explanation. He said: “I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don’t know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate.”

• Ghost Doctor Cured Children

(May 2008) Twenty-five children were miraculously cured of everything from cancer to heart defects by a ghost doctor who appears out of nowhere, tends to his patients, and vanishes into thin air. This was what the staffers revealed at Sacred Heart Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela. “It has happened too many times to be some kind of trick or a hoax. This man, a ghost, is literally curing patients that medical science cannot help,” said Dr. Luke Martin, chief surgeon at Sacred Heart. “We’ve had at least 40 witnesses who have seen the spirit and they all agree: He is not of this Earth. He is from a world beyond.”

The mind-boggling drama reportedly began when the white-haired bearded spirit appeared at the bedside of a seven-year-old girl with an inoperable brain tumor in July of 1990. Hospital staffers who saw the spirit thought they were seeing an ordinary physician until the apparition stepped away from the child’s bed and vanished into thin air.

Since that time the ghost doctor has appeared to 24 other children in the hospital’s pediatric unit and cured them of cancers, birth defects, and other life-threatening afflictions with a few kind words and the mere touch of his miraculous healing hands. Nobody has been able to identify the spirit with any degree of certainty. But paranormal researcher Simon de Armas believes that it was the ghost of Dr. Carlos Martinez, who practiced medicine in the 19th century and died in 1879.

• Man Survived 47-Storey Fall from Skyscraper

(June 2008) A windowcleaner who survived falling 47 storeys from the roof of a New York skyscraper has made a ‘miraculous’ recovery – and is walking again. Alcides Moreno, a 37-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, plummeted almost 500 feet when cables connecting his cleaning platform to the roof failed. His brother, 30-year-old Edgar, was killed, but Alcides survived, and after months of operations and physiotherapy, the only physical reminders of his ordeal are a limp and a long scar on his left leg. On Christmas Day, he opened his mouth and spoke for the first time since the accident, and six months on, he is able to walk his dog. His wife, Rosario Moreno, cried as she thanked the doctors and nurses who kept him alive. “Thank God for the miracle that we had,” she said after the accident. “He keeps telling me that it just wasn’t his time.”

• The World’s First Unicorn?

(June 2008) An Italian nature reserve claimed the world’s first unicorn after a deer was born with a single horn in the center of its head. “This is fantasy becoming reality,’’ said Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Centre of Natural Sciences in Prato, near Florence. “The unicorn has always been a mythological animal.’’ The roe deer was born in captivity in the research center’s park in the Tuscan town of Prato. The condition is believed to have been caused by a genetic flaw, the deer’s twin has two horns. Mr Tozzi, who had never seen the condition before, said such anomalies might have inspired the myth of the unicorn. The unicorn, a horse-like creature with magical healing powers, has appeared in legends and stories throughout history.

• The Girl Who Bled Without Being Cut

(September 2008) Twinkle Dwivedi has a rare condition where she bleeds spontaneously from any part of her body. Twinkle, 13, has a strange disorder, which means she loses blood through her skin without being cut or scratched. She has even undergone transfusions after pints of it seeped through her eyes, nose, hairline, neck and the soles of her feet. Sometimes her condition is so bad she wakes up with her entire body covered in dried blood. Indian medics now believe her condition is an extreme version of a rare blood disorder for which they cannot find a cure. Her blood is watery and has the color of a light red wine – but they cannot find a treatment to make it thicker.

• Man Caught a Bullet With His False Teeth

(September 2008) A terrified man survived an assassin’s bullet when it ricocheted off his wife’s cheek – and he caught it in his false teeth. The miraculous escape happened in Zagreb, Croatia, as the two men started rowing about an overdue debt. Within minutes one pulled out a pistol and blasted the couple at point blank range. “He was so close you’d think that one or both of them would be dead instantly,” said one police source in Zagreb, Croatia. But the bullet just grazed the cheekbone of terrified blonde Mirna Cavlovic and carried straight on towards her husband Stipe. Then amazingly the shot got caught in Stipe’s dentures and fell harmlessly to the ground.

• Boy Suffered From Werewolf Syndrome

(November 2008) Pruthviraj Patil, suffered from a rare genetic disorder known as hypertrichosis — or “werewolf syndrome” — which causes a thick coat of hair to grow over every inch of his body except his palms and feet. A group of Columbia scientists, including dermatologist Angela Christiano, were developing a cure for Pruthviraj’s disorder, which is estimated to afflict fewer than 50 people on the planet. Christiano and her colleagues at Columbia were using injections of testosterone to stem the growth of hair.

• Horse and Elephant Painted Art

(December 2008) A horse whose abstract paintings sell for more than £2,000 is to have his own exhibition in Venice. Cholla – pronounced Choyah after a desert cactus – uses his mouth to hold a brush and paints on an easel-mounted canvas in his paddock. Owner Renee Chambers of Reno, Nevada, said she first noticed Cholla’s hidden talent four years ago when she painted the fence of his paddock. She said: “He seemed really interested in what I was doing then one day my husband Robert joked to me that I should give Cholla a brush. He hasn’t looked back since then.”

Meanwhile, a female elephant, rescued from abusive treatment in Burma, can now paint a beautiful image of an elephant. Her trainer talks to her throughout the process as his gentle touch gives her confidence. She focuses on her work and seems to enjoy the approval of the audience. All of her training has been reward based. Touched by their horrific backgrounds and loving personalities, ExoticWorldGifts.com now supports “Starving Elephant Artisans” by selling their paintings so they can continue to have a new life in Thailand.

• Tree Man Grew Roots From His Body

(December 2008) An American doctor has given hope of recovery to an Indonesian fisherman who feared that he would be killed by tree-like growths covering his body. Dede, now 35, baffled medical experts when warty “roots” began growing out of his arms and feet after he cut his knee in a teenage accident. To make ends meet he even joined a local “freak show,” parading in front of a paying audience alongside victims of other peculiar diseases. Although supported by his extended family, he was often a target of abuse and ridicule in his rural fishing village. After testing samples of the lesions and Dede’s blood, Dr Anthony Gaspari of the University of Maryland concluded that the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV), a fairly common infection that usually causes small warts to develop on sufferers, causes Dede’s affliction. Dede’s problem is that he has a rare genetic fault that impedes his immune system, meaning his body is unable to contain the warts.

• Blind Man Detected Objects He Could Not See

(December 2008) A man who was left completely blind by multiple strokes was able to navigate an obstacle course using only his “sense” of where hazards lie. Professor Beatrice de Gelder, from the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, who led the study, said: “This is absolutely the first study of this ability in humans.” Experts believe that “blindsight” trades on our subconscious ability to recognize things we cannot see. They think that even though the eyes do not identify objects, something in the brain can still respond to what they sense on a subconscious level.

• Angelic Image in Hospital Doorway

(December 2008) On the afternoon of Nov. 5, teenager Chelsea Banton was hospitalized in an intensive care unit, facing dismal medical trials, and in an oxygen mask. As family and friends prayed for her, a nurse practitioner called her mother Colleen’s attention to a monitor showing the door to the pediatric intensive care unit. “On the monitor, there was this bright light,” Colleen recalls. “And I looked at it and I said, ‘Oh my goodness! It looks like an angel!” Colleen pointed her digital camera at the monitor and took a photo of the image.

The angel-like image gave her a peace that stayed with her when hospital staff removed Chelsea’s oxygen mask. And then, “when they took the mask off of her, her stats went as high as they’ve ever been. “Her color was good, and the doctors and nurses were amazed,” Colleen said. “The nurse practitioner who saw the image in the monitor said, ‘I’ve worked here 15 years, and I’ve never seen anything like it.’” Chelsea was removed from intensive care on Nov. 14 and went home three days later. Her mother believes it was a miracle – attended by a very real angel bathed in light at the door to the pediatric intensive care unit.

• Lucky Man Won Lottery 21 Times in 13 Months

(January 2009) The Colorado Lottery launched an investigation into a repeat winner when other lottery players complained that Tadeusz Krupa and his immediate family had won $1,000 or more in Colorado’s “Cash 5” game a total of 21 times since December 2007. His $158,000 haul, before taxes, includes seven $20,000 jackpots. “We know that this gentlemen didn’t scam the system,” said Colorado Lottery Deputy Director Tom Kitts, who disclosed there was no sign of any wrongdoing. “It was just an unusual occurance,” said Kitts. Krupa claims his first lottery win was also his largest, a $500,000 jackpot in his native Poland three decades ago.

• Baby Was Born Two Days After Mother’s Death

(January 2009) An ice-skating coach who collapsed and died from a brain haemorrhage gave birth to a baby girl two days later. Jayne Soliman, 41, was declared brain-dead at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital but doctors managed to keep her heart beating long enough to deliver her little girl, Aya Jayne, by caesarean section.

• Girl Laughed Non-Stop for 12 Years

(January 2009) A Chinese girl has been laughing non-stop for 12 years. The mother, Yang Longying, of Chongqing, says it started when her second child, Xu Pinghui, had a fever when she was just eight months old. “Ever since then, she has been laughing uncontrollably,” she told the Chongqing Evening Post. The couple say the situation worsened when she reached two years old because she lost her ability to speak and could only laugh. A neurologist at Chongqing Medical College is now suggesting a brain scan to try and establish the cause of the girl’s condition.

The above items are not from half-baked sources, but conventional news outlets such as Reuters, the Associated Press, and other reputable suppliers of news reports. They can all be verified. If reports of unidentified flying objects were to be added to the list, they would exceed several thousand — within a span of only a few years.

It is a well-known fact that cosmic rays can cause genetic mutations. Natural selection and evolution depend on it. But cosmic rays and solar cycles can also affect other things. They can bring about serious damage to power grids and other communications systems, which could prove to be catastrophic for world governments. I therefore propose that cosmic rays and solar cycles can also produce temporary “kinks” in the electromagnetic spectrum and momentarily distort the fabric of space-time – just long enough for anomalous phenomena to manifest. At least this is what our quantum physicists have been suggesting for years. But when asked to explain how anomalous phenomena or miracles happen, they will usually laugh and insist that such things are only imagined. Yet, if scientists truly want to remain in control of the situation, they must come to grips with the thousands of miracles and remarkable events that come to pass every year. It is no longer acceptable to simply sweep them under the rug with a cynical smile. “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

The Rivers of Ethiopia

“ And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia [Genesis 2:13]

Few people know that many of Africa’s fertile Mountains and water-rich Rivers are located in Ethiopia. The vast majority of these rivers go out of the Ethiopian Eden to water the gardens of Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, Egypt and, even Israel.

Today we will learn a little bit about some of the glorious rivers of Ethiopia.

Most of the Ethiopian uplands have a decided slope to the north-west, so that nearly all the large rivers flow in that direction to the Nile, and comprising around 85% of its water. Such rivers are the Tekezé River, the Abay, and the Sobat. The rest is carried off by the Awash, which runs out in the saline lacustrine (lake bed) district along the border with Djibouti; by the Shebelle River and the Jubba, which flow southeast through Somalia, though the Shebelle fails to reach the Indian Ocean; and by the Omo, the main feeder of the closed basin of Lake Turkana.

The Tekezé River has its headwaters in the central tableland. During the rains the Tekezé rises around 5 m above its normal level and at this time forms an impassable barrier between the northern and central regions. In its lower course, the river is called Setit. The Gash or Mareb, which forms part of the border with Eritrea, is the most northerly of the highland rivers which flow toward the Nile valley. Its headwaters rise on the landward side of the eastern escarpment within 80 km of Annesley Bay on the Red Sea. The Mareb is dry for a great part of the year, but like the Takazze, is subject to sudden freshets during the rainy season. Only the left bank of the upper course of the river is in Ethiopian territory.

The Abay has its source near Mount Denguiza in the Gojam highlands, and flows to the south side of Lake Tana. Tana, which stands 750 to 1,000 m below the normal level of the plateau, is more like a flooded crater. It has an area of about 2,800 km² and a depth of 75 m. At the southeast corner the rim of the crater is breached by a deep crevasse through which the Abay escapes, and here makes a great semicircular bend like that of the Tekezé, but in the reverse direction down to the plains of Sennar, where it takes the name of Bahr-el-Azrak or Blue Nile. The Abay has many tributaries. All these are perennial rivers.

In the mountains and plateaus of Gambela and Kaffa in southwestern Ethiopia rise the Baro, Gelo, Akobo and other chief affluents of the Sobat tributary of the Nile. The Akobo, joins the Pibor, which unites with the Baro, the river below the confluence taking the name of Sobat. These rivers descend from the mountains in great falls, and like the other Ethiopian streams are unnavigable in their upper courses.

The chief river of Ethiopia flowing east is the Awash River, which rises in the Shoan uplands and makes a semicircular bend first southeast and then northeast. It reaches the Afar Depression through a broad breach in the eastern escarpment of the plateau, beyond which it is joined on its left bank by its chief affluent, the Germama and then moves around in the direction of the Gulf of Tadjoura. Unfortunately, it fails to reach the coast.

A

Abay River – Adabay River – Akaki River – Akobo River – Alero River – Angereb River – Ataba River – Ataye River – Atbarah River – Awash River – Awetu River – Ayesha River

B

Balagas River – Baro River – Bashilo River – Beles River – Bilate River – Birbir River – Blue Nile – Borkana River

C

Cheleleka River

D

Dabus River – Dawa River – Dechatu River – Dembi River – Denchya River – Didessa River – Dinder River – Doha River – Dukem River – Durkham River

E

Erer River

F

Fafen River

G

Galetti River – Ganale Dorya River – Gebele River – Germama River – Gestro River – Gibe River – Gilgel Gibe River – Gilo River – Gojeb River – Gololcha River – Greater Angereb River – Guder River – Gumara River

H

Hanger River – Hawadi River

J

Jamma River – Jerer River – Jikawo River – Jubba River

K

Kabenna River – Katar River – Keleta River – Kersa River – Kibish River – Kulfo River

L

Lagabora River – Lesser Abay – Lesser Angereb – Logiya River

M

Mago River – Magyecha River – Mareb River – Meki River – Mena River – Mille River – Modjo River – Mofar River – Muger River – Mui River

N

Neri River

O

Omo River

P

Pibor River

Q

Qechene River

R

Rahad River – Reb River – Robe River

S

Sagan River – Shebelle River – Shinfa River – Sor River

T

Tekezé River

U

Usno River

W

Wabe River – Walaqa River – Wajja River – Wanchet River – Wari River – Weito River – Weyib River – Welmel River

Y

Yabus River

Two-Year Old With IQ of 156

Just a couple of days ago, I went to visit the two-year old daughter of my Ethiopian friends. There, I was stunned to hear the cute girl talk in complete sentences, sing more than 20 songs in Amharic, like an adult would. Of course, the words used by her include peoples names, nouns (objects/animals etc), verbs (doing words), adjectives (describing words) and requesting words.. but her phrases are not single word phrases, like “Drink” or “Eat”, but “I want to drink, I want to eat” and so on…It’s expected that a two year old should be able to have a vocabulary of 100-200 words, but this particular girl is amazing.

And now, just by coincidence, I read the following story about another amazing two-year old, Elise Tan Roberts, from London, England, who can name 35 capital cities and who has just become the youngest member to join high IQ society, Mensa. This is something that Professor Richard Lynn wouldn’t like to hear.

Elise Tan Roberts has an IQ of 156 – 4 less than Albert Einstein had – and can recite the English alphabet, count to 10 in Spanish and name types of triangle.

Elise took the standard Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale test which showed she was in the top 0.2% in her age group in the UK.

Mensa has described the girl as an “exceptional child”.

‘Interesting challenge’

Ben Woods, who became a Mensa member in the 1990s at the age of two years and nine months old, was the youngest member in the society before Elise, who is two years and four months old.

In 2007, Georgia Brown, from Aldershot, Hampshire, became the youngest female member, at six days older than Ben Woods. She scored 152 in an IQ test. Elise can also spell her name aloud and read the words mummy and daddy.

Child psychologist Professor Joan Freeman tested the toddler.

Mensa chief executive John Stevenage said: “Elise’s parents correctly identified that she is an exceptional child. They now realise they have an interesting challenge on their hands as she grows up.

“We wish them well and look forward to seeing Elise develop in the coming years.”

Mensa has about 24,000 members in the UK and Ireland and counts presenter Carol Vorderman, whose IQ is 154, DJ and TV presenter Sir Jimmy Savile and inventor Sir Clive Sinclair among its members.

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