by Melanie Billings

 

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April 2005 Edition

  PHOTO OF THE MONTH: Meet Robert. 

Take a good long look...imagine waking up and seeing that standing at the foot of your bed, which is something that Robert likes to do, apparently. Robert is a 3-foot-tall doll who, according to legend, has blatant disregard for the fact that dolls are not supposed to do things like get up and walk around. Supposedly, the antique doll has repeatedly escaped from his glass case in the Key West Martello Museum in Florida. Robert also has the dubious distinction of earning the title of Creepiest Doll I've ever seen. Ever. Perhaps someone should introduce Robert to Anne who shares his love for escaping from boxes and generally terrorizing people.

 SITE OF THE MONTH: Archive of the Patently Absurd Inventions Inventions that no one knew they needed until they were invented, and even then not so much. Be sure not to miss the Extreme Comb-over, Marilyn Manson exercise suit, and one invention that is more disturbing than the rest and possibly even more disturbing than our friend Robert the doll: the Toilet Snorkel.

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Sparkplugs from space? Nope... Another unexplained anomaly turns out to have less-than-mysterious origins. The "Cosco Artifact"--a spark plug found encased in a geode in 1966 and rumored to be thousands of years old-- is thoroughly debunked by none other than the illustrious Spark Plug Collectors of America organization who identified it as a rare type of spark plug used in the 1920s. Okay, so they aren't exactly illustrious but who else would be able to solve a spark plug mystery?

Ghost hunters are "more fun than a barrel of monkeys" At least they are according to a Virgina home owner who called paranormal investigators after renovations in recently purchased 178-year-old building stirred up more than dust.

Ghost detector/memory device The always enterprising Japanese fill that much-lamented gap between extra memory storage for your computer and ghost detecting. And apparently for no other reason than just because they can.

English mystery shoes now up for auction Why am I not surprised?

Star Disc is actually a clever fake

 The tragic story of Tina Resch A disturbing account of what became of the teenage girl at the center of the of the famous poltergeist investigation in the 1980s.

Warning: Do not disturb resting gulls Especially if you are on horseback in the middle of a horse race. 12 horse and riders vs. a few half-asleep and very grumpy gulls. Horse and riders: 0. Gulls: 5.

The BBC requests an interview with Bob Marley... A mere 24 years after his death. The mix-up occurred on April 1st but the BBC insists it wasn't an April 1st joke, just plain stupidity on their part. If I were them, I think I'd be more than happy to let April Fool's Day take the blame.

Scientists pose new theory that claims black holes don't exist at all. Liars. I saw that cheesy movie back in the 80s. I know the truth.

Man calls in dead to work Well, not really but close enough. In a case of either really hating his job or just being extremely lucky, the man died from injuries he suffered in an accident but was revived and was feeling well enough to call his workplace the very next day to let them know he might not be in for awhile.

 And in other near-death news Doctors freeze a man to save his life after he nearly drowned.

This headline just writes its own jokes: Death charged in cemetery theft. "Death was released on his own recognizance and was ordered back to court April 6. If convicted he would face up to 15 years in prison."

It's a bird, it's a cloud, it's a...a...actually no one knows what the hell this thing is Mysterious chemtrail seems to morph into an odd and rather menacing shape in this series of photos.

 

13 Things that Do Not Make Sense In the science world, not life in general. That list would be far longer than 13.

The next generation of EVP? A woman receives a text message from beyond the grave. Presumably, the message did not contain any "LOL" "WTF" or "OMG!", although in that situation a well-placed "WTF' would speak volumes, I'd think.

Our tax dollars at work Government employees working on the Yucca Valley nuclear waste dump project simply made up information to fill in all that pesky paper work. "I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names," wrote a U.S. Geological Survey employee..."

 Perhaps there is a link between weather patterns and Yucca Mountain government employees Or maybe it's just that the world is getting lazier as a whole. Behold--lazy weather! "Ocean currents, the main driver of climate, tend to confine themselves to one side or the other. When waters from North and South meet at the equator, they combine lazily and create an utter lack of wind known as the doldrums."

Images of the first extra-solar planet You know, if NASA was just taking photos of a big red spotlight and passing them off as an "extra-solar planet" we'd never know the difference. Remember that whole "moon landing" affair?

Doctors on Wheels Further proof that robots are plotting to take over the world. Robots that look a lot like giant TV carts are now standing in for doctors on hospital rounds. "All agree there's a time and a place to use the robots. They are not meant to replace doctors, only help them." Sure, that's what the robots want you to think.

Special thanks this month to my good friend Joe who helped me scout out weird news stories and also lent me a few wisecracks that are scattered throughout this month's Weird Files. I humbly thank him and his vast knowledge of TV carts, black holes, lazy weather and also his amazing ability to make the hours between 11 PM and 2 AM magically disappear.

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