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Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Daily 2 Cents: Alien Girl and the Secret Apollo 20 Mission -- The World's Oldest Photograph -- Penn State Spooks


Alien Girl and the Secret Apollo 20 Mission

If you were to believe Nasa's records, then that would be that, but in April 2007, an individual with the username "Retiredafb" uploaded several videos to YouTube claiming that they were footage from Apollo 20, a secret joint American-Soviet space mission from August 1976.

The user identified himself as William Rutledge, 78, a former astronaut now living in Rwanda.

His videos show what seems to be the cabin of Apollo 20, as well as footage, supposedly on the moon, of a mysterious lunar city, as well as the corpse of what seems to be an alien girl that internet users call "Mona Lisa", lying in the cabin.

Rutledge's videos were so popular that they garnered over 1.5 million views on YouTube, but apparently a few months later Rutledge claimed his YouTube account had been hacked and all but one of his videos were deleted (although you can watch the other two videos about the lunar city and the alien autopsy here and here).

He then moved his videos to a new account on Revver.com, but that page no longer exists.

Before he disappeared, however, he did agree to be interviewed, through the message function of his YouTube account and Yahoo Messenger, by Italian freelance writer and UFO/space exploration enthusiast Luca Scantamburlo.

William Rutledge's account

Rutledge claims in his interview with Scantamburlo that Nasa's Apollo 14 mission flew over a polar region of the Moon and captured numerous space ships and cities of ancient, oddly-shaped, towering buildings, which looked like they had been abandoned for hundreds of years.

Rutledge says that Apollo 20 landed near the Delporte Crater in order to explore a large "cigar-shaped" mother ship, which had apparently been abandoned for 1.5 million years, and within the spaceship, the astronauts found two corpses of alien beings, one of which was captured on 16mm film.

He claims that the female alien he and his crew found had six fingers, hair, but no nostrils, and seemed to be in a state that was "not dead" but also "not alive". He claims to Scantamburlo that the alien girl was brought back to Earth and is still alive somewhere.

"USAF recalled that, I have been chosen later for Apollo 20 because I was one of the rare pilot who didn't believe in God (it has changed since 1990) but it was a criterion in 1976. It was not the status of the Nasa astronauts. Not believing in God made the difference. That's all," Rutledge told Scantamburlo.

Rutledge's answers are quite rambling, and on many occasions, Scantamburlo tests his knowledge about Nasa in the 1970s and what happened to the other cancelled Apollo missions. Read more at IBTimes

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Report points to photo as possible new clue to Amelia Earhart's fate

A newspaper photograph of Earhart's plane taken in 1937 could hold the key to her disappearance.

One of the most enduring mysteries of the modern era, the disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart during an attempt to circumnavigate the world in 1937 has been the subject of investigations and debate for almost 80 years.

Now a potentially vital new clue has emerged in the form of a photograph of Earhart's plane that was captured by the Miami Herald just before she took off.

The image shows a piece of aluminum bolted to the plane, presumably to cover one of the windows, that was not present in any previous pictures. The metal plate seems to match an identical piece that was discovered in 1991 on a remote Pacific Island during a search for the crash site.

The find suggests that Earhart didn't go down over the ocean as some have believed but instead may have crash landed on a remote island where she and her navigator Fred Noonan may have survived for several days while waiting for help that never came.

Efforts are now underway to try and match the rivet pattern on the aluminum plate from the island with the one in the picture - if the two match then the mystery may have finally been solved. Read more at FoxNews

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The World's Oldest Photograph

The picture below is reputed to be the world’s first photograph. It was taken in 1826 and was developed by French photographer Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. He called this process “heliography” or sun drawing and the entire process took eight hours.


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Penn State Spooks

The Penn State has many spirits roaming the campus.

Atherton Hall: Named in honor of Frances Atherton, the hall opened in the 1930s as a girl's dorm and now houses scholars and international students. It has a pair of reported spooks roaming its' halls. One of them is "Gumshoes", a former house mother. Students can still hear the distinctive creaking of her shoes as she paces the halls, keeping an eagle eye on her girls. The other is Frances herself, whose spirit has been spotted floating along the halls late at night. She must make a quick run to the hall whenever she takes a break from haunting Old Botany. A reader added another little bit of lore: "I lived in Atherton Hall in 2005...and I used to get a creepy feeling in my room all the time. I heard a rumor about someone dying in the elevator shaft, directly next to my room. Anyways, there is definitely something weird going on there."

Beam Hall: Built in 1975, the old dorm was converted into business offices, and then converted back to dorms again. Campus legend has it that the dorm was originally shut down because of poltergeist activity coming from a second floor loo. A man supposedly hung himself in there from an overhead pipe and his spook has been raising havoc since. Once it become offices, the ghostie reportedly behaved himself. But the pipe is still there, and it's a dorm again...

Brumbaugh Hall: This is a collegiate urban legend brought about by psychic Jeanne Dixon. She once predicted that there would be a mass murder in the tallest female dorm of an eastern university (she later denied she meant PSU) and since then upperclassmen have delighted in spooking the frosh by telling them of a rumored midnight visit on Halloween by an ax murderer in Brumbaugh. Urban legend or not, it's said many freshmen decide to spend Halloween night anywhere but at Brumbaugh.

Ghost Walk: This tree lined path once led to the doors of the Old Botany Building. It's said that a student was caught on the walk in a sudden blizzard and froze to death in the 1860s, and his spirit since has been reportedly seen there by other warm blooded students. The Ghost Walk is now gone. It's site was used to build the Burrowes Building. His spook hasn't been seen since, now that it's presumably warm and toasty inside the new building.

Ihlseng Cottage: The cottage, built in 1898, was a residence, a hospital, and now hosts offices of the Institute for Arts and Humanities. One of our readers relates this tale: "I used to work there... on the third floor, and one night I was there after hours to meet a deadline and heard what I thought was my neighbor across the hall working. It was a male voice, clear as day. When I was leaving I checked, no one else was in the building, and my neighbor was actually traveling that week." So maybe we have one more hard-working spirit on campus.

Keller Building: There were reports of activity here in the 1990s, when a student left his room screaming because of a presence in his bed. When he returned with the RA, the door had locked, and the sounds of a poltergeist ransacking the room could be heard through the door. This may be related to a student that committed suicide there.

Old Botany Building: The spook of Frances Atherton, wife of old president George Atherton, is said to keep an eye on him from the attic of Old Botany, built in 1909. She's supposedly been sighted looking out the attic's front window towards Schwab Auditorium where George's grave is located. She's also been reported to be seen swaying in her rocker, tending to her knitting. The lights have been seen spotted going on and off in the locked room, footsteps have been heard, and electrical devices malfunction. Once the staff posed for a picture in front of Old Botany. When it was developed, a stranger was seen looking out the upstairs window of the supposedly empty building.

Old Coaly: Old Coaly was one of the pack mules used when Penn State was being built in the 1850s. When he died he was the last of the original mule team, and his skeleton was put on exhibit at Old Main. A fire there caused the university to store him in the cellar of Watts Hall, a dorm. He was later put back on display at the Agricultural Building in the 1960s, and Old Coaly apparently didn't like being moved again. It's said that you could hear his braying coming from the basement, and he was even was spotted standing outside the storage area and on the first floor. Current Watt's RAs and residents haven't heard Old Coaly lately. Now that's he's been in one place for awhile and had a campus eatery named after him, he may be satisfied with his lot. But we all know how stubborn a mule can get...

Patee Library: The basement stacks at Pattee are alleged to be haunted by the ghost of Betsy Aardsma, who was murdered there in 1969. The crime was never solved. People have a sense of presence there, things get moved around, and one student claimed to feel someone grab her neck. Other phenomena have been reported that aren't thought to be of Betsy's doings. Screams have been heard from the subbasement and shadowy female forms & glowing red eyes have been seen in the library. The spooks have reportedly either disappeared into a mist or exited by walking through Pattee's walls.

Pollock Laptop Library: Tales of a spirit roaming the East Side study area and voices heard when the library was empty have been reported from Pollock Library.

Runkle Hall: The Hall, a dorm built in 1957, has almost as many spooks as residents. The third floor is especially active, with lots of poltergeist activity. One girl had her TV constantly switching to an all Spanish channel among other things like locking and unlocking doors, flickering lights, electronics that turn on and off and objects being thrown off of the walls. They broke out the ouija board, and sure enough - the answers were spelled out in Spanish, and the board told them they shared their room with 11 spirits, the first example of Latino ghosts in the state that we're aware of. The study lounge is called the "ghost room" because of the loud bangs, rearranged furniture, opening, closing, and self-locking doors and other phenomena emanating from it. One student saw an old lady's spook sitting in her rocker at the end of the hall.

Scwab Auditorium: Former president George Atherton is buried just outside the auditorium, and his spook is supposedly inside. He's thought to be a friendly ghost, watching over the collegiate actors and occasionally moving the curtains. Reportedly his spirit has both been seen and heard. Charles Schwab, who donated a large chunk of the money used to build the auditorium in 1903 is said to be the ghost that watches performances from the seats. A seat will go down, as if someone's sitting in it, and later rise when it leaves. The actors are convinced that it's "Schwaboo the Ghost" watching the show. Other apparitions have been reported from the hall. One of them was wearing a Revolutionary War uniform. Another duo, an adult and child, have been reported floating above the stage.

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