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Thursday, October 13, 2011

Just the Facts? Texas Light Anomaly, Young Woman Ages Overnight and Black Death DNA Reconstructed


Light Anomaly: 15 North of Fort Worth, Texas

(Unedited) - At 8:50 PM, October 11, 2011, the night of the Full Moon, I was snapping photos of the Full Moon with my 1st Generation iPhone while in the country 15 miles due west of Fort Worth. I took six photos in 46 seconds from a stationary position through the moon roof of an SUV. There was some clouds around the moon and the moon glare was such that I did not think any photos would turn out viewable. I did not see anything other than a blue light in the corner of the iPhone viewer; but when I looked without the iPhone, I could not see a blue light and chalked it up to some camera artifact I was seeing.

When I downloaded the photos, I was surprised to see not only a Blue Sphere in the bottom right hand corner of the photos, but a White Sphere within the clouds surrounding the Moon. As I checked each photo, the White Sphere seemed to move around in the clouds while the Blue Sphere remained stationary.

I decided to take measure of the distance, angles and diameters of the Spheres in Photoshop. I was surprised to see that the diameter of both the Blue & White Spheres where identical & remained virtually the same, approximately 27 pixels within the six photos.

The Full Moon was scheduled to arrive at 9:06 PM, twenty-six minutes later than the photos I took. I went back outside to just look at the Full Moon when a helicopter flew overhead towards the moon's direction. A helicopter flying overhead would not be unusual as they fly from Weatherford to Fort Worth almost nightly, an East-West flightpath. However, this one was flying Southeast.

I don't know what to make of these photos, but I have never had something like this appear in any before. It was just very odd to have two different colored spheres appear in photos, one moving and one stationary over a 46 second interval - and both of them being identical in size. Further, the White Sphere's position would be nearly over the Joint Reserve Base - formerly Carswell Air Force Base. - MUFON CMS

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Young woman mysteriously ages overnight

Nguyen Thi Phuong from Vietnam is only 26, but you would be forgiven for mistaking her as an old woman.

After suffering an allergic reaction in 2008 and taking a variety of medications prescribed for it, Phuong's skin on her face, neck and hands rapidly wrinkled and became saggy, giving her the appearance of a 70-year-old granny.

It all began when the young lady from Giong Trom district of Ben Tre province ate some seafood.

It made her face break out into an itchy rash so bad, that she used to scratch her face even in sleep, Phuong told Tuoi Tre, a major Vietnamese daily newspaper where the news first broke.

To alleviate the symptoms, she ate some medication her husband, Nguyen Thanh Tuyen, 34, bought her.

The medications did not work. She then visited a local doctor, who prescribed her pills for dermatitis.

However, the pills made her face swell up and hives erupt on her skin. She stopped taking them after a week, and turned to some traditional Chinese medicine practitioners in town.

She was given some medication that reduced the swelling, but also made her put on weight. However, the medication was expensive, costing VND30,000 (S$1.88) a day, and did not do much to improve her condition.

Phuong soon began wearing a face mask whenever she went out. After her husband quit his job in 2009 to take care of her, they ran out of money and she stopped taking all medications.

She then decided it as a fate decreed by God and the couple stopped trying to cure her condition, Phuong told local news outlets. - asiaone

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Agent Fox Mulder says "...listen to 'Beyond the Edge' Radio this Sunday night at 8:00 PM ET for a chance to receive this signed photo"

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Paranormal Museum To Open in Pennsylvania

A ghost hunter's collection of items related to spirits, aliens and other strange creatures is featured at the new National Museum of Mysteries and Research Center in Columbia, Pa., near Lancaster.

The collection belongs to Rick Fisher, a paranormal investigator who has delved into 1,000 alleged hauntings during the past 50 years.

The museum is set to open in the basement level of a building at Third and Locust streets on Saturday, Oct. 15.

Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for children and seniors. Hours will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.

Fisher's collection includes toys and movie memorabilia from "Ghostbusters" and "E.T." The museum features a library where visitors may research paranormal topics.

Fisher will present a Ghost Hunters Workshop from 6 to 10 p.m. on Oct. 22 at the museum. The workshop is designed for anyone who is serious about becoming a paranormal investigator. Cost is $20 per person and registration will be limited to 20 people.

Fisher is the author of "Ghosts of the River Towns."

You can listen to our interview with Rick Fisher at Beyond the Edge Radio podcast

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'Black Death' DNA Reconstructed

Fragments of 700-year-old DNA from the bug responsible for the Black Death have been pulled from the teeth of four plague victims buried in east London.

Scientists used the degraded strands to reconstruct the entire genetic code of the deadly bacterium - the first time experts have succeeded in drafting the genome of an ancient pathogen, or disease-causing agent.

The researchers found that a specific strain of the plague bug Yersinia pestis caused the pandemic that killed 100 million Europeans - between 30% and 50% of the total population - in just five years between 1347 and 1351.

They also learned that the strain is the "mother" of all modern bubonic plague bacteria.

"Every outbreak across the globe today stems from a descendant of the medieval plague," said lead scientist Dr Hendrik Poinar, from McMaster University in Canada. "With a better understanding of the evolution of this deadly pathogen, we are entering a new era of research into infectious disease."

Although rare, bubonic plague continues to kill some 2,000 people around the world each year.

The scientists, reporting their findings in the journal Nature, analysed the skeletal remains of four individuals exhumed from an East Smithfield "plague pit" sited under what is now the Royal Mint in London.

Tiny scraps of Yersinia pestis DNA were obtained from the victims' dental pulp, and from these fragments, the researchers were able to reconstruct virtually the whole of the bug's genetic code, or genome.

The same techniques could now be used to study the genomes of other ancient pathogens, say experts.

"This will provide us with direct insights into the evolution of human pathogens and historical pandemics," said co-author Dr Johannes Krause, from the University of Tubingen in Germany. - Yahoo

The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time (P.S.)

The Black Death (P.S.)

The Black Death: The Great Mortality of 1348-1350: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Series in History & Culture)