we go to zoo on new years eve day!
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Sunday, December 30, 2007
wierd
The Litigious Society
A few days after professional skier Stoil Popow was killed while kite-surfing in the rough winter waters off of Connecticut's Long Island Sound in 2004, his widow told the Connecticut Post that she had "begged" her husband not to go out "because it's January." Nonetheless, in November 2007, she filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court, charging that her husband's tragic demise was actually caused by the town of Stratford, Conn., which was negligent in not posting warning signs along the stretch of beach used by Popow (of "hazardous and unsafe conditions") and for not having lifeguards on duty.
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A few days after professional skier Stoil Popow was killed while kite-surfing in the rough winter waters off of Connecticut's Long Island Sound in 2004, his widow told the Connecticut Post that she had "begged" her husband not to go out "because it's January." Nonetheless, in November 2007, she filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in federal court, charging that her husband's tragic demise was actually caused by the town of Stratford, Conn., which was negligent in not posting warning signs along the stretch of beach used by Popow (of "hazardous and unsafe conditions") and for not having lifeguards on duty.
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dodidodo
Man recounts his meeting with Bigfoot
By GARY CORSAIR, DAILY SUN
In the early-morning blackness, partially bathed in a Hollywood-weird glow of incandescent light and rolling fog, Dan Jackson slowly uncoiled from a half-hour crouch in his hiding place behind a garbage Dumpster.What he saw — the very thing he had spent 20 years looking for — was so terrifying, Jackson would see it in his broken sleep for months.
A dark, hairy head. Glistening black eyes. A mouth full of bared teeth clenched in rage.“He was huffing like a damn freight train,” recalled Jackson, a venomous-snake expert from Lithia, who claims he came face to face with a fearsome creature he once didn’t believe existed.“In November 1983, if you had asked me whether I believed in Bigfoot or Sasquatch, I would have said, ‘You mean that thing Hollywood made movies about? Are you crazy? No, of course not,’” says Jackson, an experienced outdoorsman who trapped alligators before he began extracting venom from snakes.His opinion changed on a hog-hunting trip in a bayhead of sawgrass and cypress bog near Naples.
Jackson was tracking a “bunch of hogs” he had spooked when he became a believer.“As I was looking into the sun, I saw a dark object about 150 yards away. I thought, ‘Good, I’m going to have bear steaks tonight.’ That’s when what I thought was a bear, turned out wasn’t a bear,” Jackson recalls. “It had been bending over, then it turned at the waist and looked at me. It had a black face and black eyes. It stood up and turned and walked on two legs right into the bayhead.”Jackson was momentarily paralyzed with fear.“It scared me so bad, I forgot I had a shotgun in my hands. It wasn’t a gorilla, and it wasn’t a chimpanzee,” Jackson said. “It was like water pouring into a computer. My mind just short circuited. What transpired might have taken 10 seconds. It could have been10 hours for all I know.”When Jackson regained his senses, he investigated where the creature had crouched.“Where his head came up to the cypress trees, I estimated it was 6 1/2-to-7-feet tall,” Jackson said. “The grass was matted down and there was a terrible smell. I equate it to someone who’s been sleeping in a goat pen.”Back home, Jackson began spending long hours in libraries trying to learn all he could about what he saw. Even before the Internet was a household word, he found plenty of information.“Everything I read indicated that it was peaceful, and never hurt a human,” Jackson said. The more he read, the more he wanted to return to the Collier County bayhead.“As often as I could, I went back down there. I wasn’t trying to catch it or anything like that, it was just that I know I saw it, and I wanted to see it again.”Each time, Jackson tried something different. Night-vision goggles. Floating bait. Hiding in tree tops. He hung a tether ball off a tree limb in hopes of getting a handprint. He even mounted a mirror in the swamp, seven feet off the ground, because he had seen primates in a TV documentary lick mirrors. “Saliva contains DNA,” Jackson reasoned.“I admit, for the first two or three years it was probably comical the way I was doing things in the woods. But I started to get better and better. My techniques got better,” Jackson said.But he couldn’t find what he calls the Florida Skunk Ape. Still, he was certain the creature was there, which made him only more determined.“I can’t look you in the eye and tell how I knew he was close, but I know there were times that he was,” Jackson said. “I’ve been in the wild enough to know when something is wrong — times when it’s like someone threw a switch and all the noise stops. You just knew that sucker was watching you.”Through years of searching, Jackson became convinced his prey was extremely clever.“You’re dealing with an intelligent creature, and he knows his environment better than you know your home,” Jackson said. “I feel like he has a heightened sense of hearing, eyesight and smell. He knows you’re there long before you know he’s there.”If you believe Jackson on this point, then you’ll probably believe his search encompassed 20 years.“I’d go two to three times a month over a period of 20 years,” Jackson said. “I was driven because I saw one of these things and I wanted to see it again.”Long after most people would have given up, he was finally rewarded.“Eighteen years into my search, I found a footprint,” Jackson said. “I found a group of smashed-down palmetto bushes, then a footprint, and then its next step was into a creek. It didn’t come out on the other side. I would have seen where it came out because the other side was heavy brush. I went down the stream, but I didn’t see any evidence where it left.”Jackson made a plaster cast of the 19 1/2-inch footprint, which he found “in the middle of the Everglades, 6.2 miles from the nearest road.”“I’m 6-foot, about 240. The impression my foot made where I found the footprint was barely a quarter-inch. Whatever made this track went down two inches,” Jackson said. “You can’t hoax this. Not where I found it. You’d put it where other people would find it.”An engineering professor Jackson consulted estimated whatever made the footprint weighed “a little better than 500 pounds.”Jackson figured something that large must do some serious eating, so he began concentrating on what the Skunk Ape likely ate.“I got smart and started watching game trails. I figured if I could find game trails, then I could find him,” Jackson said.Jackson hit the jackpot when a friend with thermal-imaging equipment took him for a nighttime helicopter ride over the area he had been searching. Jackson didn’t see the Skunk Ape, but he saw the mother of all game trails.The next night, Jackson began following the trail. After 21 days (during a “six- to eight-week period) of meticulously “working the trail,” he reached the edge of the woods. To his surprise, the trail ended near the rear of a new, small strip mall.“At the back of the strip mall there were six brand-new dumpsters,” Jackson said. “I thought, ‘Hot damn, I hit the jackpot. This where I am going to set up.’”On the third night of his stakeout, he saw the Skunk Ape approach the dumpsters. Unfortunately, as Jackson moved from his hiding place at the edge of he woods, the creature ran away at a startling speed.It was clear to Jackson that he couldn’t sneak up on the creature. He would have to station himself closer to the dumpsters.Jackson stayed away for “eight or 10 days.” During that time, he worked out a plan. He decided to put “bait” — a half-gallon of orange juice with sugar and chloral hydrate (triple the dose that would “drop a 250-pound man” he says) — in the dumpster behind a pizza restaurant. He would place pop cans containing pebbles on the lids of the other dumpsters, which would alert him to the arrival of the Bigfoot.He considered setting up a video camera, but rejected the idea because of the “weird” lighting behind the strip mall. Plus, he knew his video would be dismissed as fake. If people questioned Roger Patterson’s famous Bigfoot footage from 1967, they would surely dismiss anything Jackson produced.At about 2 a.m. on the foggy night described in the opening paragraph of this article, Jackson, armed with a magnaported .44-Magnum in case the encounter turned violent, was crouched between two dumpsters when he heard a pebble-filled can hit the pavement.“You’ve heard of the ‘pucker factor?’ Well, my ‘pucker factor’ went up,” Jackson said. “Another couple cans hit the ground. Now my ‘pucker factor’ went up into the red zone. As I raised up, and brought my head above the top of the dumpster, I saw a pair of eyes.”There was nothing friendly about the eyes just 10 feet away from Jackson’s face.“If he heard me, or smelled me, I don’t know, but he had a-hold of the dumpster he was in and he was glaring at me with a look of rage on his face,” Jackson said.For the first time in his 20-year search for the Skunk Ape, Jackson feared for his life.“My instinct was self preservation. As I straightened up, he jumped out and landed; it was me and him. There’s no way to describe the fear,” Jackson said.Jackson squeezed off a shot as the Skunk Ape leaped toward him; then, in a blink, it was gone.“There’s no way I would have been able to fire twice. He was gone that quick. He was tremendously fast,” Jackson said. “It was one, two, three, and then it was over.”And so was his search. Forever.“I had been lulled into a false sense of security. I always thought they were peaceful creatures. You didn’t see the look in his eyes. It was purely a look of rage on its face,” Jackson said. “I told myself, ‘Dan, you idiot, you might get another chance. You saw his strength, don’t push it.’ Yeah, I had disturbed his supper, but it was more than that. What I’m going to tell you next, you’re going to think I am crazy, but I think the rage was because I had outsmarted him.”Jackson created a stir in the Bigfoot research community when he posted his story on his Web site (Bigfoot, Skunk Ape & Me). Naturally, other seekers wanted to know where his frightening encounter took place.“I have had requests from three who said they wanted to know the location and check it out. These people seemed too insincere and ill prepared, beside the fact that they were intending to spend only one night every other week to check things out,” Jackson said. “Please excuse me here, but I worked on finding that location for a total of 21 days out of a month. It made me angry that they wanted to stand on my shoulders and try to do in one night what I had worked for and took the chances for so long to do. I’ve never told where it happened … and I never will.”And Jackson, who is writing a book about his experience, remains adamant he is through searching for the Skunk Ape, Bigfoot, Sasquatch — whatever you want to call it.“I made the same mistake others had made; I wanted to prove it existed. And it almost cost me,” Jackson said. “I’m satisfied. I’m not running into any lightning storms.”Gary Corsair is a senior writer with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119 or gary.corsair@thevillagesmedia.com.
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By GARY CORSAIR, DAILY SUN
In the early-morning blackness, partially bathed in a Hollywood-weird glow of incandescent light and rolling fog, Dan Jackson slowly uncoiled from a half-hour crouch in his hiding place behind a garbage Dumpster.What he saw — the very thing he had spent 20 years looking for — was so terrifying, Jackson would see it in his broken sleep for months.
A dark, hairy head. Glistening black eyes. A mouth full of bared teeth clenched in rage.“He was huffing like a damn freight train,” recalled Jackson, a venomous-snake expert from Lithia, who claims he came face to face with a fearsome creature he once didn’t believe existed.“In November 1983, if you had asked me whether I believed in Bigfoot or Sasquatch, I would have said, ‘You mean that thing Hollywood made movies about? Are you crazy? No, of course not,’” says Jackson, an experienced outdoorsman who trapped alligators before he began extracting venom from snakes.His opinion changed on a hog-hunting trip in a bayhead of sawgrass and cypress bog near Naples.
Jackson was tracking a “bunch of hogs” he had spooked when he became a believer.“As I was looking into the sun, I saw a dark object about 150 yards away. I thought, ‘Good, I’m going to have bear steaks tonight.’ That’s when what I thought was a bear, turned out wasn’t a bear,” Jackson recalls. “It had been bending over, then it turned at the waist and looked at me. It had a black face and black eyes. It stood up and turned and walked on two legs right into the bayhead.”Jackson was momentarily paralyzed with fear.“It scared me so bad, I forgot I had a shotgun in my hands. It wasn’t a gorilla, and it wasn’t a chimpanzee,” Jackson said. “It was like water pouring into a computer. My mind just short circuited. What transpired might have taken 10 seconds. It could have been10 hours for all I know.”When Jackson regained his senses, he investigated where the creature had crouched.“Where his head came up to the cypress trees, I estimated it was 6 1/2-to-7-feet tall,” Jackson said. “The grass was matted down and there was a terrible smell. I equate it to someone who’s been sleeping in a goat pen.”Back home, Jackson began spending long hours in libraries trying to learn all he could about what he saw. Even before the Internet was a household word, he found plenty of information.“Everything I read indicated that it was peaceful, and never hurt a human,” Jackson said. The more he read, the more he wanted to return to the Collier County bayhead.“As often as I could, I went back down there. I wasn’t trying to catch it or anything like that, it was just that I know I saw it, and I wanted to see it again.”Each time, Jackson tried something different. Night-vision goggles. Floating bait. Hiding in tree tops. He hung a tether ball off a tree limb in hopes of getting a handprint. He even mounted a mirror in the swamp, seven feet off the ground, because he had seen primates in a TV documentary lick mirrors. “Saliva contains DNA,” Jackson reasoned.“I admit, for the first two or three years it was probably comical the way I was doing things in the woods. But I started to get better and better. My techniques got better,” Jackson said.But he couldn’t find what he calls the Florida Skunk Ape. Still, he was certain the creature was there, which made him only more determined.“I can’t look you in the eye and tell how I knew he was close, but I know there were times that he was,” Jackson said. “I’ve been in the wild enough to know when something is wrong — times when it’s like someone threw a switch and all the noise stops. You just knew that sucker was watching you.”Through years of searching, Jackson became convinced his prey was extremely clever.“You’re dealing with an intelligent creature, and he knows his environment better than you know your home,” Jackson said. “I feel like he has a heightened sense of hearing, eyesight and smell. He knows you’re there long before you know he’s there.”If you believe Jackson on this point, then you’ll probably believe his search encompassed 20 years.“I’d go two to three times a month over a period of 20 years,” Jackson said. “I was driven because I saw one of these things and I wanted to see it again.”Long after most people would have given up, he was finally rewarded.“Eighteen years into my search, I found a footprint,” Jackson said. “I found a group of smashed-down palmetto bushes, then a footprint, and then its next step was into a creek. It didn’t come out on the other side. I would have seen where it came out because the other side was heavy brush. I went down the stream, but I didn’t see any evidence where it left.”Jackson made a plaster cast of the 19 1/2-inch footprint, which he found “in the middle of the Everglades, 6.2 miles from the nearest road.”“I’m 6-foot, about 240. The impression my foot made where I found the footprint was barely a quarter-inch. Whatever made this track went down two inches,” Jackson said. “You can’t hoax this. Not where I found it. You’d put it where other people would find it.”An engineering professor Jackson consulted estimated whatever made the footprint weighed “a little better than 500 pounds.”Jackson figured something that large must do some serious eating, so he began concentrating on what the Skunk Ape likely ate.“I got smart and started watching game trails. I figured if I could find game trails, then I could find him,” Jackson said.Jackson hit the jackpot when a friend with thermal-imaging equipment took him for a nighttime helicopter ride over the area he had been searching. Jackson didn’t see the Skunk Ape, but he saw the mother of all game trails.The next night, Jackson began following the trail. After 21 days (during a “six- to eight-week period) of meticulously “working the trail,” he reached the edge of the woods. To his surprise, the trail ended near the rear of a new, small strip mall.“At the back of the strip mall there were six brand-new dumpsters,” Jackson said. “I thought, ‘Hot damn, I hit the jackpot. This where I am going to set up.’”On the third night of his stakeout, he saw the Skunk Ape approach the dumpsters. Unfortunately, as Jackson moved from his hiding place at the edge of he woods, the creature ran away at a startling speed.It was clear to Jackson that he couldn’t sneak up on the creature. He would have to station himself closer to the dumpsters.Jackson stayed away for “eight or 10 days.” During that time, he worked out a plan. He decided to put “bait” — a half-gallon of orange juice with sugar and chloral hydrate (triple the dose that would “drop a 250-pound man” he says) — in the dumpster behind a pizza restaurant. He would place pop cans containing pebbles on the lids of the other dumpsters, which would alert him to the arrival of the Bigfoot.He considered setting up a video camera, but rejected the idea because of the “weird” lighting behind the strip mall. Plus, he knew his video would be dismissed as fake. If people questioned Roger Patterson’s famous Bigfoot footage from 1967, they would surely dismiss anything Jackson produced.At about 2 a.m. on the foggy night described in the opening paragraph of this article, Jackson, armed with a magnaported .44-Magnum in case the encounter turned violent, was crouched between two dumpsters when he heard a pebble-filled can hit the pavement.“You’ve heard of the ‘pucker factor?’ Well, my ‘pucker factor’ went up,” Jackson said. “Another couple cans hit the ground. Now my ‘pucker factor’ went up into the red zone. As I raised up, and brought my head above the top of the dumpster, I saw a pair of eyes.”There was nothing friendly about the eyes just 10 feet away from Jackson’s face.“If he heard me, or smelled me, I don’t know, but he had a-hold of the dumpster he was in and he was glaring at me with a look of rage on his face,” Jackson said.For the first time in his 20-year search for the Skunk Ape, Jackson feared for his life.“My instinct was self preservation. As I straightened up, he jumped out and landed; it was me and him. There’s no way to describe the fear,” Jackson said.Jackson squeezed off a shot as the Skunk Ape leaped toward him; then, in a blink, it was gone.“There’s no way I would have been able to fire twice. He was gone that quick. He was tremendously fast,” Jackson said. “It was one, two, three, and then it was over.”And so was his search. Forever.“I had been lulled into a false sense of security. I always thought they were peaceful creatures. You didn’t see the look in his eyes. It was purely a look of rage on its face,” Jackson said. “I told myself, ‘Dan, you idiot, you might get another chance. You saw his strength, don’t push it.’ Yeah, I had disturbed his supper, but it was more than that. What I’m going to tell you next, you’re going to think I am crazy, but I think the rage was because I had outsmarted him.”Jackson created a stir in the Bigfoot research community when he posted his story on his Web site (Bigfoot, Skunk Ape & Me). Naturally, other seekers wanted to know where his frightening encounter took place.“I have had requests from three who said they wanted to know the location and check it out. These people seemed too insincere and ill prepared, beside the fact that they were intending to spend only one night every other week to check things out,” Jackson said. “Please excuse me here, but I worked on finding that location for a total of 21 days out of a month. It made me angry that they wanted to stand on my shoulders and try to do in one night what I had worked for and took the chances for so long to do. I’ve never told where it happened … and I never will.”And Jackson, who is writing a book about his experience, remains adamant he is through searching for the Skunk Ape, Bigfoot, Sasquatch — whatever you want to call it.“I made the same mistake others had made; I wanted to prove it existed. And it almost cost me,” Jackson said. “I’m satisfied. I’m not running into any lightning storms.”Gary Corsair is a senior writer with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119 or gary.corsair@thevillagesmedia.com.
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Saturday, December 29, 2007
volcanos
VOLCANO KRAKATOA'S EXPLOSION
The largest explosion documented in the Earth, it was at the Island of Krakatoa, in the Strait of Probe, located between the island of Sumatra and the island of Java, in Dutch Oriental Índia (Indonesia).
Little can be told on Krakatoa because everything that was in the proximities was destroyed, and the witness didn't live to count the horror that during adds minutes could observes.
Since the beginning of 1883 Krakatoa already gave adds warning signs: rolls of smoke began to leave the rifts of the crag, and the washes river invaded the closest forests.
But the Dutchmen of Java and Sumatra didn't give importance to those signs, because there were dozens of volcanos in the area, and Krakatoa, inactive there plows millennia, it was to 150 kilometers of distance.
Not even when the Dutch captain Ferzenaar, in the month of August, arriving in Batávia (today Jacarta, capital of Indonesia), in the island of Java, he told to the Dutchmen that he had appeared two new volcano in Krakatoa, and that' the earth was alone hot that it got to burn the sole of my boots.' Ferzenaar was the last Westerner to step in Krakatoa.
On that month of August, the rocks of the narrow passages of the Strait of Probe were covered with ashes, and many ship captains gave up on passing over there, but even alone an American ship went by that route with the load of kerosene oil.
Though, little later, nobody lives it crossed the probe Shore, because the snores of Krakatoa were continuous and frightening.
In that area all there was many Dutch besides the native people, because those islands: Java, Sumatra, etc. they were colonies of Holland.
In the afternoon of August 26 the snores of the volcano were extremely strong and deafening, and nobody dared to go for bed to sleep.
Ace 7 hours of the night, there was a terrible explosion. In spite of the distance, the effects of the sound were similar to it of an earthquake: chill and cracks in the buildings, broken glasses, etc.
After this terrible explosion, they finished the snores and vein a total silence.
However the silence deceived, there far away, in Krakatoa, it was having a fight of giants among the fire of the he/she will have and the water of the sea.
He had opened up a rift in the bottom of the volcano, and the water of the sea enters and it was pushed by the lava, in an it goes and it comes that it culminated with an explosion testified never by the man.
Tons of powdered rocks flew for the space, seeming, according to the sailors of a British ship, located to kilometers of distance," a pine tree brilliantly illuminated for electric sparkles."
The noise of Krakatoa was the largest scream given by the Earth, that never a human being had ear before.
The roars of the explosions were heard in Australia (3.700 km) and even in Rodriguez's Island (5.000 km).
In a ray of 500 km all of the cities and ships were invaded by the rocks and burning ashes.
The crew of the ship Northam Castle fought bill several fires provoked by the hot ashes. Most of the crew their eardrums burst by the noise. The captain wrote in the diary": we are in complete darkness" and it was noon.
As the sound is slower than the light, the roar arrived to the populations next good after the vision of the explosion.
The island that had 47 squared km, lost two thirds, 2/3 of his/her surface, transformed in powdered rocks that they were taken even to 40 km of height, being suspended in the stratosphere during months.
In Batavia for many days was necessary to use artificial illumination during the day.
During the night, in New York, Paris and other places, the moon and the stars took a greenish shade. This phenomenon lasted until the half of 1884, therefore more than six months.
The worst, however, it was the immense wave of up to 38m of height that it swept the close beaches.
The coastal cities of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes were completely destroyed.
The gigantic wave arrived in Australia, India and Japan, where he/she made damages in the ships and docks.
When passing for the City of the Cable (South Africa) he/she still had half meter of height; it crossed the cable Horn (Earth of the Fire) the almost 650 km/h of speed.
After traveling the whole Indian Ocean folded the Cable of the Good Hope and he/she entered in Atlantic Ocean, arriving at English Channel, that is between England and France, where it forced the currents of the ships.
The Strait of Probe was covered with belly fish upward, died by the hot waters due to the volcanic lava.
In the coast of Java, a reformed captain of the Navy saw to appear a new island suddenly, however soon he noticed that it was an avalanche of water with 15m of height.
The wave reached in the earth the height of 30m, and it went destroying everything that found: cities, houses, thousands of people were swept for the monster of water.
The reformed captain was one of the few people that saw the enormous wave and he survived; he woke up in the high of a tree, a kilometer of distance of the coast.
Result of the devastation: 36.000 people died, 300 villages and destroyed cities and 6.000 boats and destroyed ships.
The destruction was not larger because the area was little inhabited in the occasion; today the number of deads would be of several million.
Where existed a mountain of almost 1.000m of height, it exists now a gigantic hole in the bottom of the sea with approximately 10km of width and 300m of depth.
Krakatoa exploded with an equivalent violence to 100 bombs of hydrogen and it was felt in the whole world, however the two bombs that the Americans played in Japan, although he made a great damage, it was not noticed in many cities of the own country.
A lifetime it was destroyed at the island; but the miracle of the life doesn't leave anything desert: a botanist, found, 4 months later, a very small spider weaving a screen, although there was not anything to be hit, therefore he was the only inhabitant of the area
The spider had arrived there probably taken by the wind.
The Nature filled with life the island again, now fortunately smaller; it didn't take centuries, but just few years.
It is soon appeared grasses, bushes, trees, worms, ants, butterflies, snakes, lizards, several species of birds.
They came brought by the wind, caught or hidden in boats, swimming or flying.
In 1923, forty years later, a flora and exuberant fauna nothing indicated that that beautiful small island of beaches of black sand was the center of the largest terrestrial tragedy of the modern times.
Although the island seems a paradise, it stays uninhabited: the water just exists in the rain puddles and they are sulfurous, the wind howls in a dismal way around of the mountain; the Indonesians say that bad spirits live there.
In 128 the some hundreds of meters of what remained of the island, it appeared of the waters a small hill, every fumyly came and the sea again covered her of fish died.
Ever since only it has been growing, it is already with more than 150m of height above the sea.
The Indonesians call its " The Son of Kracatoa"; only the time will say if he pulled the father.
If the sinking and did explosion of part of a small island make so much damage, as it would have been then with the submersion of Atlantis that provoked the biblical and universal flood?
Free Comments & Graphics
The largest explosion documented in the Earth, it was at the Island of Krakatoa, in the Strait of Probe, located between the island of Sumatra and the island of Java, in Dutch Oriental Índia (Indonesia).
Little can be told on Krakatoa because everything that was in the proximities was destroyed, and the witness didn't live to count the horror that during adds minutes could observes.
Since the beginning of 1883 Krakatoa already gave adds warning signs: rolls of smoke began to leave the rifts of the crag, and the washes river invaded the closest forests.
But the Dutchmen of Java and Sumatra didn't give importance to those signs, because there were dozens of volcanos in the area, and Krakatoa, inactive there plows millennia, it was to 150 kilometers of distance.
Not even when the Dutch captain Ferzenaar, in the month of August, arriving in Batávia (today Jacarta, capital of Indonesia), in the island of Java, he told to the Dutchmen that he had appeared two new volcano in Krakatoa, and that' the earth was alone hot that it got to burn the sole of my boots.' Ferzenaar was the last Westerner to step in Krakatoa.
On that month of August, the rocks of the narrow passages of the Strait of Probe were covered with ashes, and many ship captains gave up on passing over there, but even alone an American ship went by that route with the load of kerosene oil.
Though, little later, nobody lives it crossed the probe Shore, because the snores of Krakatoa were continuous and frightening.
In that area all there was many Dutch besides the native people, because those islands: Java, Sumatra, etc. they were colonies of Holland.
In the afternoon of August 26 the snores of the volcano were extremely strong and deafening, and nobody dared to go for bed to sleep.
Ace 7 hours of the night, there was a terrible explosion. In spite of the distance, the effects of the sound were similar to it of an earthquake: chill and cracks in the buildings, broken glasses, etc.
After this terrible explosion, they finished the snores and vein a total silence.
However the silence deceived, there far away, in Krakatoa, it was having a fight of giants among the fire of the he/she will have and the water of the sea.
He had opened up a rift in the bottom of the volcano, and the water of the sea enters and it was pushed by the lava, in an it goes and it comes that it culminated with an explosion testified never by the man.
Tons of powdered rocks flew for the space, seeming, according to the sailors of a British ship, located to kilometers of distance," a pine tree brilliantly illuminated for electric sparkles."
The noise of Krakatoa was the largest scream given by the Earth, that never a human being had ear before.
The roars of the explosions were heard in Australia (3.700 km) and even in Rodriguez's Island (5.000 km).
In a ray of 500 km all of the cities and ships were invaded by the rocks and burning ashes.
The crew of the ship Northam Castle fought bill several fires provoked by the hot ashes. Most of the crew their eardrums burst by the noise. The captain wrote in the diary": we are in complete darkness" and it was noon.
As the sound is slower than the light, the roar arrived to the populations next good after the vision of the explosion.
The island that had 47 squared km, lost two thirds, 2/3 of his/her surface, transformed in powdered rocks that they were taken even to 40 km of height, being suspended in the stratosphere during months.
In Batavia for many days was necessary to use artificial illumination during the day.
During the night, in New York, Paris and other places, the moon and the stars took a greenish shade. This phenomenon lasted until the half of 1884, therefore more than six months.
The worst, however, it was the immense wave of up to 38m of height that it swept the close beaches.
The coastal cities of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes were completely destroyed.
The gigantic wave arrived in Australia, India and Japan, where he/she made damages in the ships and docks.
When passing for the City of the Cable (South Africa) he/she still had half meter of height; it crossed the cable Horn (Earth of the Fire) the almost 650 km/h of speed.
After traveling the whole Indian Ocean folded the Cable of the Good Hope and he/she entered in Atlantic Ocean, arriving at English Channel, that is between England and France, where it forced the currents of the ships.
The Strait of Probe was covered with belly fish upward, died by the hot waters due to the volcanic lava.
In the coast of Java, a reformed captain of the Navy saw to appear a new island suddenly, however soon he noticed that it was an avalanche of water with 15m of height.
The wave reached in the earth the height of 30m, and it went destroying everything that found: cities, houses, thousands of people were swept for the monster of water.
The reformed captain was one of the few people that saw the enormous wave and he survived; he woke up in the high of a tree, a kilometer of distance of the coast.
Result of the devastation: 36.000 people died, 300 villages and destroyed cities and 6.000 boats and destroyed ships.
The destruction was not larger because the area was little inhabited in the occasion; today the number of deads would be of several million.
Where existed a mountain of almost 1.000m of height, it exists now a gigantic hole in the bottom of the sea with approximately 10km of width and 300m of depth.
Krakatoa exploded with an equivalent violence to 100 bombs of hydrogen and it was felt in the whole world, however the two bombs that the Americans played in Japan, although he made a great damage, it was not noticed in many cities of the own country.
A lifetime it was destroyed at the island; but the miracle of the life doesn't leave anything desert: a botanist, found, 4 months later, a very small spider weaving a screen, although there was not anything to be hit, therefore he was the only inhabitant of the area
The spider had arrived there probably taken by the wind.
The Nature filled with life the island again, now fortunately smaller; it didn't take centuries, but just few years.
It is soon appeared grasses, bushes, trees, worms, ants, butterflies, snakes, lizards, several species of birds.
They came brought by the wind, caught or hidden in boats, swimming or flying.
In 1923, forty years later, a flora and exuberant fauna nothing indicated that that beautiful small island of beaches of black sand was the center of the largest terrestrial tragedy of the modern times.
Although the island seems a paradise, it stays uninhabited: the water just exists in the rain puddles and they are sulfurous, the wind howls in a dismal way around of the mountain; the Indonesians say that bad spirits live there.
In 128 the some hundreds of meters of what remained of the island, it appeared of the waters a small hill, every fumyly came and the sea again covered her of fish died.
Ever since only it has been growing, it is already with more than 150m of height above the sea.
The Indonesians call its " The Son of Kracatoa"; only the time will say if he pulled the father.
If the sinking and did explosion of part of a small island make so much damage, as it would have been then with the submersion of Atlantis that provoked the biblical and universal flood?
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scotland
Scotland
The term as at present used includes the whole northern portion of the Island of Great Britain, which is divided from England by the Cheviot Hills, the River Tweed, and certain smaller streams. Its total area is about 20,000,000 acres, or something over 30,000 square miles; its greatest length is 292 miles, and greatest breadth, 155 miles. The chief physical feature of the country is its mountainous character, there being no extensive areas of level ground, as in England; and only about a quarter of the total acreage is cultivated. The principal chain of mountains is the Grampian range, and the highest individual hill Ben Nevis (4406 feet). Valuable coalfields extend almost uninterruptedly from east to west, on both banks of the Rivers Forth and Clyde. The climate is considerably colder and (except on parts of the east coast) wetter than that of England. The part of Scotland lying beyond the Firths of Forth and Clyde was known to the Romans as Caledonia. The Caledonians came later to be called Picts, and the country, after them, Pictland. The name of Scotland came into use in the eleventh century, when the race of Scots, originally an Irish colony which settled in the western Highlands, attained to supreme power in the country. Scotland was an independent kingdom until James VI succeeded to the English Crown in 1603; and it continued constitutionally separate from England until the conclusion of the treaty of union a century later. It still retains its own Church and its own form of legal procedure; and the character of its people remains in many respects quite distinct from that of the English. Formerly the three prevailing nationalities of the country were the Anglo-Saxon in the south, the Celtic in the north and west, and the Scandinavian in the north-east; and these distinctions can still be traced both in the characteristics of the inhabitants and in the proper names of places. The total population, according to the census Of 1911 is 4,759,521, being an increase of 287,418 in the past decade. The increase is almost entirely in the large cities and towns, the rural population of almost every county, except in the mining districts, having sensibly diminished, owing to emigration and other causes, since 1901.
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The term as at present used includes the whole northern portion of the Island of Great Britain, which is divided from England by the Cheviot Hills, the River Tweed, and certain smaller streams. Its total area is about 20,000,000 acres, or something over 30,000 square miles; its greatest length is 292 miles, and greatest breadth, 155 miles. The chief physical feature of the country is its mountainous character, there being no extensive areas of level ground, as in England; and only about a quarter of the total acreage is cultivated. The principal chain of mountains is the Grampian range, and the highest individual hill Ben Nevis (4406 feet). Valuable coalfields extend almost uninterruptedly from east to west, on both banks of the Rivers Forth and Clyde. The climate is considerably colder and (except on parts of the east coast) wetter than that of England. The part of Scotland lying beyond the Firths of Forth and Clyde was known to the Romans as Caledonia. The Caledonians came later to be called Picts, and the country, after them, Pictland. The name of Scotland came into use in the eleventh century, when the race of Scots, originally an Irish colony which settled in the western Highlands, attained to supreme power in the country. Scotland was an independent kingdom until James VI succeeded to the English Crown in 1603; and it continued constitutionally separate from England until the conclusion of the treaty of union a century later. It still retains its own Church and its own form of legal procedure; and the character of its people remains in many respects quite distinct from that of the English. Formerly the three prevailing nationalities of the country were the Anglo-Saxon in the south, the Celtic in the north and west, and the Scandinavian in the north-east; and these distinctions can still be traced both in the characteristics of the inhabitants and in the proper names of places. The total population, according to the census Of 1911 is 4,759,521, being an increase of 287,418 in the past decade. The increase is almost entirely in the large cities and towns, the rural population of almost every county, except in the mining districts, having sensibly diminished, owing to emigration and other causes, since 1901.
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queen
Mary Queen of Scots
Mary Stuart, born at Linlithgow, 8 December, 1542; died at Fotheringay, 8 February, 1587. She was the only legitimate child of James V of Scotland. His death (14 December) followed immediately after her birth, and she became queen when only six days old.
The Tudors endeavoured by war to force on a match with Edward VI of England. Mary, however, was sent to France, 7 August, 1548, where she was excellently educated, as is now admitted by both friend and foe. On 24 April, 1558, she married the dauphin Francis and, on the death of Henri II, 10 July, 1559, became Queen Consort of France.
This apparent good fortune was saddened by the loss of Scotland. Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth, her council made plans to "help the divisions" of Scotland by aiding those "inclined to true religion". The revolution broke out in May, and with Elizabeth's aid soon gained the upper hand. There were dynastic, as well as religious, reasons for this policy. Elizabeth's birth being illegitimate, Mary, though excluded by the will of Henry VIII, might claim the English Throne as the legitimate heir. As the state of war still prevailed between the two countries, there was no chance of her being accepted, but her heralds did, later on, emblazon England in her arms, which deeply offended the English Queen. Mary's troubles were still further increased by the Huguenot rising in France, called le tumulte d'Amboise (6-17 March, 1560), making it impossible for the French to succour Mary's side in Scotland.
At last the starving French garrison of Leith was obliged to yield to a large English force, and Mary's representatives signed the Treaty of Edinburgh (6 July, 1560). One clause of this treaty might have excluded from the English throne all Mary's descendants, amongst them the present reigning house, which claims through her. Mary would never confirm this treaty. Francis II died, 5 December, and Mary, prostrate for a time with grief, awoke to find all power gone and rivals installed in her place. Though the Scottish reformers had at first openly plotted her deposition, a change was making itself felt, and her return was agreed to. Elizabeth refused a passport, and ordered her fleet to watch for Mary's vessel. She sailed in apprehension of the worst, but reached Leith in safety, 19 August, 1561.
The political revolution, the vast appropriations of church property, and the frenzied hatred of Knox's followers for Catholicism made any restoration of the old order impossible. Mary contented herself with the new and, by her moderation and management, left time for a gradual return of loyalty. But though she ruled, she did not yet govern. She issued, and frequently repeated, a proclamation accepting religion as she had found it -- the first edict of toleration in Great Britain. A slow but steady amelioration of the lot of Catholics took place. At the end of her reign there were no fewer than 12,600 Easter communions at Edinburgh.
In 1562 Father Nicholas de Gouda visited her from Pope Pius IV, not without danger to his life. He reported himself sadly disappointed in the Scottish bishops, but was almost enthusiastic for the "devout young queen", who "numbers scarce twenty summers" and "is without a single protector or good counsellor". Though she still counteracts the machinations of the heretics to the best of her power . . . there is no mistaking the imminent danger of her position". That was true. Mary was a woman who leant on her advisers with full and wife-like confidence. But, living as she did amongst false friends, she became an utterly bad judge of male advisers. All her misfortunes may be traced to her mistaking flashy attractions for solid worth. Other sovereigns have indeed made favourites of objectionable persons, but few or none have risked or sacrificed everything for them, as Mary did, again and again.
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a great-grandson of Henry VII of England, with claims to both English and Scottish crowns, had always a possible candidate for Mary's hand, and, as more powerful suitors fell out, his chances improved. He was, moreover, a Catholic, though of an accommodating sort, for he had been brought up at Elizabeth's court, and she in February, 1565, let him go to Scotland. Mary, at first cool, soon fell violently in love. The Protestant lords rose in arms, and Elizabeth backed up their rebellion, but Mary drove them victoriously from the country and married Darnley before the dispensation required to remove the impediment arising from their being first cousins had arrived from Rome. But she did leave enough time for a dispensation to be granted, and it was eventually conceded in a form that would suffice, if that were necessary, for a sanatio in radice.
As soon as the victory had been won, Darnley was found to be changeable, quarrelsome, and, presumably, also vicious. He became violently jealous of David Rizzio, who, so far as we can see, was perfectly innocent and inoffensive, a merry fellow who helped the queen in her foreign correspondence and sometimes amused her with music. Darnley now entered into a band with the same lords who had lately risen in rebellion against him: they were to seize Rizzio in the queen's presence, put him to death, and obtain the crown matrimonial for Darnley, who would secure a pardon for them, and reward them. The plot succeeded: Rizzio, torn from Mary's table, was poignarded outside her door (9 March, 1566).
Mary, though kept a prisoner, managed to escape, and again triumphed over her foes; but respect for her husband was no longer possible. Her favourite was now James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had served her with courage and fidelity, in the late crisis. Then a band for Darnley's murder was signed at Ainsley by most of the nobles who had been implicated in the previous plots. Darnley, who had been ill in Glasgow, was brought back to Edinburgh by his wife, and lay that night in her lodgings at Kirk o' Field. At two the next morning (10 February, 1567) the house was blown up by powder, and the boy (he had only just come of age) was killed. Inquiry into the murder was most perfunctory. Bothwell, who was charged with it, was found not guilty by his peers (12 April), and on the 24th he carried Mary off by force to Dunbar, where she consented to marry him. Bothwell thereupon, with scandalous violence, carried a divorce from his wife through both Protestant and Catholic courts, and married Mary (15 May). Exactly a month later the same lords as before raised forces against their whilom confederate and the queen, whom they met at Carberry Hill. Bothwell was allowed to escape, but Mary who surrendered on the understanding that she should be treated as a queen, was handled with rough violence and immured in Lochleven Castle. -->
The original documents on which a verdict as to her guilt should be formed have perished, and a prolonged controversy has arisen over the evidence still accessible. This confusion, however, is largely due to prepossessions. Of late, with the diminution of Protestant rancour and of enthusiasm for the Stuarts, the conflict of opinions has much diminished. The tendency of modern schools is to regard Mary as a participant, though in a minor and still undetermined degree, in the above-mentioned crimes. The arguments are far too complicated to be given here, but that from authority may be indicated. There were several well-informed representative Catholics at Edinburgh during the critical period. The pope had sent Father Edmund Hay, a Jesuit; Philibert Du Croc was there for France, Rubertino Solaro Moretta represented Savoy, while Roche Mamerot, a Dominican, the queen's confessor, was also there. All these, as also the Spanish ambassador in London, represent the Bothwell match as a disgrace involving a slur on her virtue. Her confessor only defends her from participation in the murder of her husband. The most perfect documentary evidence is that of the so-called "casket letters", said to have been written by Mary to Bothwell during the fatal crisis. If, on the one hand, their authenticity still lacks final proof, no argument yet brought forward to invalidate them has stood the test of modern criticism.
The defeat at Carberry Hill and the imprisonment at Lochleven were blessings in disguise. The Protestant lords avoided a searching inquiry as much as Mary had done; and she alone suffered, while the others went free. This attracted sympathy once more to her cause. She managed to escape, raised an army, but was defeated at Langside (13 May, 1568) and fled into England, where she found herself once more a prisoner. She did not now refuse to justify herself, but made it a condition that she should appear before Elizabeth in person. But Cecil schemed to bring about such a trial as should finally embroil Mary with the king's lords, as they were now called (for they had crowned the infant James), and so keep the two parties divided, and both dependent on England. This was eventually accomplished in the conferences at York and Westminster before a commission of English peers under the Duke of Norfolk. The casket letters were then produced against Mary, and a thousand filthy charges, afterwards embodied in Buchanan's "Detectio". Mary, however, wisely refused to defend herself, unless her dignity as queen was respected. Eventually an open verdict was found. "Nothing has been sufficiently proved, whereby the Queen of England should conceive an evil opinion of her sister" (10 January, 1569). Cecil's astuteness had overreached itself. Such a verdict from an enemy, was everywhere regarded as one of Not Guilty, and Mary's reputation, which had everywhere fallen after the Bothwell match, now quickly revived. Her constancy to her faith, which was clearly the chief cause of her sufferings, made a deep impression on all Catholics, and St. Pius V wrote her a letter, which may be regarded as marking her reconciliation with the papacy (9 January, 1570).
Even before this, a scheme for a declaration of nullity of the marriage with Bothwell, and for a marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, had been suggested and had been supported by what we should now call the Conservative Party among the English peers, a sign that they were not very much impressed by the charges against the Scottish queen, which they had just heard. Norfolk, however, had not the initiative to carry the scheme through. The Catholics in the North rose in his support, but, having no organization, the rising at once collapsed (14 November to 21 December, 1569). Mary had been hurried south by her gaolers, with orders to kill her rather than allow her to escape. So slowly did posts travel in those days that the pope, two months after the collapse of the rising, but not having yet heard of its commencement, excommunicated Elizabeth (25 Feb., 1570) in order to pave the way for the appeal to arms. Both the rising and the excommunication were so independent of the main course of affairs that, when the surprise they caused was over, the scheme for the Norfolk marriage resumed its previous course, and an Italian banker, Ridolfi, promised to obtain papal support for it. Lord Acton's erroneous idea, that Ridolfi was employed by Pius V to obtain Elizabeth's assassination, seems to have arisen from a mistranslation of Gabutio's Latin Life of St. Pius in the Bollandists (cf. "Acta SS.", May, IV, 1680, pp. 657, 658, with Catena, "Vita di Pio V", Mantua, 1587, p.75). Cecil eventually discovered the intrigue; Norfolk was beheaded, 2 June, 1572, and the Puritans clamoured for Mary's blood, but in this particular Elizabeth would not gratify them.
After this, Mary's imprisonment continued with great rigour for yet fourteen years, under the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Amias Paulet, at Sheffield Castle, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Chartley. But she had so many sympathizers that notes were frequently smuggled in, despite all precautions, and Mary's hopes of eventual release never quite died.
The frequent plots of which our Protestant historians so often speak are empty rumours which will not stand historical investigation. Elizabeth's life was never in danger for a moment. Plans for Mary's liberation were indeed occasionally formed abroad, but none of them approached within any measurable distance of realization.
Her eventual fall was due to her excessive confidence in Thomas Morgan, an agent, who had shown great skill and energy in contriving means of passing in letters, but who was also a vain, quarrelsome, factious man, always ready to talk treason against Elizabeth. Walsingham spies therefore frequently offered to carry letters for him, and eventually the treacherous Gilbert Gifford (a seminarist who afterwards got himself made priest in order to carry on his deceits with less suspicion) contrived a channel of correspondence, in which every letter was sent to or from Mary passed through the hands of Elizabeth's decipherer Thomas Phellips, and was copied by him. As Morgan was now in communication with Ballard, the only priest, so far as we know, who fell a victim to the temptation to plot against Elizabeth, Mary's danger was now grave.
In due course Ballard, through Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of wealth, wrote, by Gifford's means, to Mary. It seems that the confederates refused to join the plot unless they had Mary's approval, and Babington wrote to inquire whether Mary would reward them if they "dispatched the usurper", and set her free. As Walsingham had two or three agents provocateurs keeping company with the conspirators, the suspicion is vehement that Babington was persuaded to ask this perilous question, but positive proof of this has not yet been found. Against the advice of her secretaries, Mary answered this letter, promising to reward those who aided her escape, but saying nothing about the assassination (17 July, 1586).
Babington and his fellows were now arrested, tried and executed, then Mary's trial began (14 and 15 October). A death sentence was the object desired, and it was of course obtained. Mary freely confessed that she had always sought and always would seek means of escape. As to plots against the life of Elizabeth, she protested "her innocence, and that she had not procured or encouraged any hurt against her Majesty", which was perfectly true. As to the allegation of bare knowledge of treason without having manifested it, the prosecution would not restrict itself to so moderate a charge. Mary, moreover, always contended that the Queen of Scotland did not incur responsibilities for the plottings of English subjects, even if she had known of them. Indeed, in those days of royal privilege, her rank would, in most men's minds, have excused her in any case. But Lord Burghley, seeing how much turned on this point of privilege, refused her all signs of royalty, and she was condemned as "Mary Stuart, commonly called Queen of Scotland".
During the whole process of her trial and execution, Mary acted with magnificent courage worthy of her noble character and queenly rank. There can be no question that she died with the charity and magnanimity of a martyr; as also that her execution was due, on the part of her enemies, to hatred of the Faith. Pope Benedict XIV gives it as his opinion that on these two heads no requisite seems wanting for a formal declaration of martyrdom, if only the charges connected with the names of Darnley and Bothwell could be entirely eliminated ("Opera omnia", Prato, 1840, III, c.xiii, s. 10).
At first glance the portraits of Mary appear to be inconsistent with one another and with any handsome original. But modern criticism has reduced genuine portraits to a comparatively small number and shown how they may be reconciled, while their stiff appearance is probably only the result of the unskillful painter's endeavour to represent the quality of majesty. Three chalk sketches by Clouet (Jeanet), representing her at the ages of 9, 16, and 19, are the most reliable for outline. The third, "Le Deuil Blanc", has been several times copied in oil or miniature. For her reign in Scotland no picture seems to be known, except, perhaps, Lord Leven and Melville's, which is interesting as the only one that gives us an idea of life. During her captivity it seems she was painted in miniatures only, and that from these descend the so-called "Sheffield" type of portraits. A very valuable picture was painted after her death, showing the execution; this, now at Blairs, and its copies (at Windsor, etc.) are called "memorial pictures".
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Mary Stuart, born at Linlithgow, 8 December, 1542; died at Fotheringay, 8 February, 1587. She was the only legitimate child of James V of Scotland. His death (14 December) followed immediately after her birth, and she became queen when only six days old.
The Tudors endeavoured by war to force on a match with Edward VI of England. Mary, however, was sent to France, 7 August, 1548, where she was excellently educated, as is now admitted by both friend and foe. On 24 April, 1558, she married the dauphin Francis and, on the death of Henri II, 10 July, 1559, became Queen Consort of France.
This apparent good fortune was saddened by the loss of Scotland. Immediately after the accession of Elizabeth, her council made plans to "help the divisions" of Scotland by aiding those "inclined to true religion". The revolution broke out in May, and with Elizabeth's aid soon gained the upper hand. There were dynastic, as well as religious, reasons for this policy. Elizabeth's birth being illegitimate, Mary, though excluded by the will of Henry VIII, might claim the English Throne as the legitimate heir. As the state of war still prevailed between the two countries, there was no chance of her being accepted, but her heralds did, later on, emblazon England in her arms, which deeply offended the English Queen. Mary's troubles were still further increased by the Huguenot rising in France, called le tumulte d'Amboise (6-17 March, 1560), making it impossible for the French to succour Mary's side in Scotland.
At last the starving French garrison of Leith was obliged to yield to a large English force, and Mary's representatives signed the Treaty of Edinburgh (6 July, 1560). One clause of this treaty might have excluded from the English throne all Mary's descendants, amongst them the present reigning house, which claims through her. Mary would never confirm this treaty. Francis II died, 5 December, and Mary, prostrate for a time with grief, awoke to find all power gone and rivals installed in her place. Though the Scottish reformers had at first openly plotted her deposition, a change was making itself felt, and her return was agreed to. Elizabeth refused a passport, and ordered her fleet to watch for Mary's vessel. She sailed in apprehension of the worst, but reached Leith in safety, 19 August, 1561.
The political revolution, the vast appropriations of church property, and the frenzied hatred of Knox's followers for Catholicism made any restoration of the old order impossible. Mary contented herself with the new and, by her moderation and management, left time for a gradual return of loyalty. But though she ruled, she did not yet govern. She issued, and frequently repeated, a proclamation accepting religion as she had found it -- the first edict of toleration in Great Britain. A slow but steady amelioration of the lot of Catholics took place. At the end of her reign there were no fewer than 12,600 Easter communions at Edinburgh.
In 1562 Father Nicholas de Gouda visited her from Pope Pius IV, not without danger to his life. He reported himself sadly disappointed in the Scottish bishops, but was almost enthusiastic for the "devout young queen", who "numbers scarce twenty summers" and "is without a single protector or good counsellor". Though she still counteracts the machinations of the heretics to the best of her power . . . there is no mistaking the imminent danger of her position". That was true. Mary was a woman who leant on her advisers with full and wife-like confidence. But, living as she did amongst false friends, she became an utterly bad judge of male advisers. All her misfortunes may be traced to her mistaking flashy attractions for solid worth. Other sovereigns have indeed made favourites of objectionable persons, but few or none have risked or sacrificed everything for them, as Mary did, again and again.
Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, a great-grandson of Henry VII of England, with claims to both English and Scottish crowns, had always a possible candidate for Mary's hand, and, as more powerful suitors fell out, his chances improved. He was, moreover, a Catholic, though of an accommodating sort, for he had been brought up at Elizabeth's court, and she in February, 1565, let him go to Scotland. Mary, at first cool, soon fell violently in love. The Protestant lords rose in arms, and Elizabeth backed up their rebellion, but Mary drove them victoriously from the country and married Darnley before the dispensation required to remove the impediment arising from their being first cousins had arrived from Rome. But she did leave enough time for a dispensation to be granted, and it was eventually conceded in a form that would suffice, if that were necessary, for a sanatio in radice.
As soon as the victory had been won, Darnley was found to be changeable, quarrelsome, and, presumably, also vicious. He became violently jealous of David Rizzio, who, so far as we can see, was perfectly innocent and inoffensive, a merry fellow who helped the queen in her foreign correspondence and sometimes amused her with music. Darnley now entered into a band with the same lords who had lately risen in rebellion against him: they were to seize Rizzio in the queen's presence, put him to death, and obtain the crown matrimonial for Darnley, who would secure a pardon for them, and reward them. The plot succeeded: Rizzio, torn from Mary's table, was poignarded outside her door (9 March, 1566).
Mary, though kept a prisoner, managed to escape, and again triumphed over her foes; but respect for her husband was no longer possible. Her favourite was now James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who had served her with courage and fidelity, in the late crisis. Then a band for Darnley's murder was signed at Ainsley by most of the nobles who had been implicated in the previous plots. Darnley, who had been ill in Glasgow, was brought back to Edinburgh by his wife, and lay that night in her lodgings at Kirk o' Field. At two the next morning (10 February, 1567) the house was blown up by powder, and the boy (he had only just come of age) was killed. Inquiry into the murder was most perfunctory. Bothwell, who was charged with it, was found not guilty by his peers (12 April), and on the 24th he carried Mary off by force to Dunbar, where she consented to marry him. Bothwell thereupon, with scandalous violence, carried a divorce from his wife through both Protestant and Catholic courts, and married Mary (15 May). Exactly a month later the same lords as before raised forces against their whilom confederate and the queen, whom they met at Carberry Hill. Bothwell was allowed to escape, but Mary who surrendered on the understanding that she should be treated as a queen, was handled with rough violence and immured in Lochleven Castle. -->
The original documents on which a verdict as to her guilt should be formed have perished, and a prolonged controversy has arisen over the evidence still accessible. This confusion, however, is largely due to prepossessions. Of late, with the diminution of Protestant rancour and of enthusiasm for the Stuarts, the conflict of opinions has much diminished. The tendency of modern schools is to regard Mary as a participant, though in a minor and still undetermined degree, in the above-mentioned crimes. The arguments are far too complicated to be given here, but that from authority may be indicated. There were several well-informed representative Catholics at Edinburgh during the critical period. The pope had sent Father Edmund Hay, a Jesuit; Philibert Du Croc was there for France, Rubertino Solaro Moretta represented Savoy, while Roche Mamerot, a Dominican, the queen's confessor, was also there. All these, as also the Spanish ambassador in London, represent the Bothwell match as a disgrace involving a slur on her virtue. Her confessor only defends her from participation in the murder of her husband. The most perfect documentary evidence is that of the so-called "casket letters", said to have been written by Mary to Bothwell during the fatal crisis. If, on the one hand, their authenticity still lacks final proof, no argument yet brought forward to invalidate them has stood the test of modern criticism.
The defeat at Carberry Hill and the imprisonment at Lochleven were blessings in disguise. The Protestant lords avoided a searching inquiry as much as Mary had done; and she alone suffered, while the others went free. This attracted sympathy once more to her cause. She managed to escape, raised an army, but was defeated at Langside (13 May, 1568) and fled into England, where she found herself once more a prisoner. She did not now refuse to justify herself, but made it a condition that she should appear before Elizabeth in person. But Cecil schemed to bring about such a trial as should finally embroil Mary with the king's lords, as they were now called (for they had crowned the infant James), and so keep the two parties divided, and both dependent on England. This was eventually accomplished in the conferences at York and Westminster before a commission of English peers under the Duke of Norfolk. The casket letters were then produced against Mary, and a thousand filthy charges, afterwards embodied in Buchanan's "Detectio". Mary, however, wisely refused to defend herself, unless her dignity as queen was respected. Eventually an open verdict was found. "Nothing has been sufficiently proved, whereby the Queen of England should conceive an evil opinion of her sister" (10 January, 1569). Cecil's astuteness had overreached itself. Such a verdict from an enemy, was everywhere regarded as one of Not Guilty, and Mary's reputation, which had everywhere fallen after the Bothwell match, now quickly revived. Her constancy to her faith, which was clearly the chief cause of her sufferings, made a deep impression on all Catholics, and St. Pius V wrote her a letter, which may be regarded as marking her reconciliation with the papacy (9 January, 1570).
Even before this, a scheme for a declaration of nullity of the marriage with Bothwell, and for a marriage with the Duke of Norfolk, had been suggested and had been supported by what we should now call the Conservative Party among the English peers, a sign that they were not very much impressed by the charges against the Scottish queen, which they had just heard. Norfolk, however, had not the initiative to carry the scheme through. The Catholics in the North rose in his support, but, having no organization, the rising at once collapsed (14 November to 21 December, 1569). Mary had been hurried south by her gaolers, with orders to kill her rather than allow her to escape. So slowly did posts travel in those days that the pope, two months after the collapse of the rising, but not having yet heard of its commencement, excommunicated Elizabeth (25 Feb., 1570) in order to pave the way for the appeal to arms. Both the rising and the excommunication were so independent of the main course of affairs that, when the surprise they caused was over, the scheme for the Norfolk marriage resumed its previous course, and an Italian banker, Ridolfi, promised to obtain papal support for it. Lord Acton's erroneous idea, that Ridolfi was employed by Pius V to obtain Elizabeth's assassination, seems to have arisen from a mistranslation of Gabutio's Latin Life of St. Pius in the Bollandists (cf. "Acta SS.", May, IV, 1680, pp. 657, 658, with Catena, "Vita di Pio V", Mantua, 1587, p.75). Cecil eventually discovered the intrigue; Norfolk was beheaded, 2 June, 1572, and the Puritans clamoured for Mary's blood, but in this particular Elizabeth would not gratify them.
After this, Mary's imprisonment continued with great rigour for yet fourteen years, under the Earl of Shrewsbury and Sir Amias Paulet, at Sheffield Castle, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Chartley. But she had so many sympathizers that notes were frequently smuggled in, despite all precautions, and Mary's hopes of eventual release never quite died.
The frequent plots of which our Protestant historians so often speak are empty rumours which will not stand historical investigation. Elizabeth's life was never in danger for a moment. Plans for Mary's liberation were indeed occasionally formed abroad, but none of them approached within any measurable distance of realization.
Her eventual fall was due to her excessive confidence in Thomas Morgan, an agent, who had shown great skill and energy in contriving means of passing in letters, but who was also a vain, quarrelsome, factious man, always ready to talk treason against Elizabeth. Walsingham spies therefore frequently offered to carry letters for him, and eventually the treacherous Gilbert Gifford (a seminarist who afterwards got himself made priest in order to carry on his deceits with less suspicion) contrived a channel of correspondence, in which every letter was sent to or from Mary passed through the hands of Elizabeth's decipherer Thomas Phellips, and was copied by him. As Morgan was now in communication with Ballard, the only priest, so far as we know, who fell a victim to the temptation to plot against Elizabeth, Mary's danger was now grave.
In due course Ballard, through Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of wealth, wrote, by Gifford's means, to Mary. It seems that the confederates refused to join the plot unless they had Mary's approval, and Babington wrote to inquire whether Mary would reward them if they "dispatched the usurper", and set her free. As Walsingham had two or three agents provocateurs keeping company with the conspirators, the suspicion is vehement that Babington was persuaded to ask this perilous question, but positive proof of this has not yet been found. Against the advice of her secretaries, Mary answered this letter, promising to reward those who aided her escape, but saying nothing about the assassination (17 July, 1586).
Babington and his fellows were now arrested, tried and executed, then Mary's trial began (14 and 15 October). A death sentence was the object desired, and it was of course obtained. Mary freely confessed that she had always sought and always would seek means of escape. As to plots against the life of Elizabeth, she protested "her innocence, and that she had not procured or encouraged any hurt against her Majesty", which was perfectly true. As to the allegation of bare knowledge of treason without having manifested it, the prosecution would not restrict itself to so moderate a charge. Mary, moreover, always contended that the Queen of Scotland did not incur responsibilities for the plottings of English subjects, even if she had known of them. Indeed, in those days of royal privilege, her rank would, in most men's minds, have excused her in any case. But Lord Burghley, seeing how much turned on this point of privilege, refused her all signs of royalty, and she was condemned as "Mary Stuart, commonly called Queen of Scotland".
During the whole process of her trial and execution, Mary acted with magnificent courage worthy of her noble character and queenly rank. There can be no question that she died with the charity and magnanimity of a martyr; as also that her execution was due, on the part of her enemies, to hatred of the Faith. Pope Benedict XIV gives it as his opinion that on these two heads no requisite seems wanting for a formal declaration of martyrdom, if only the charges connected with the names of Darnley and Bothwell could be entirely eliminated ("Opera omnia", Prato, 1840, III, c.xiii, s. 10).
At first glance the portraits of Mary appear to be inconsistent with one another and with any handsome original. But modern criticism has reduced genuine portraits to a comparatively small number and shown how they may be reconciled, while their stiff appearance is probably only the result of the unskillful painter's endeavour to represent the quality of majesty. Three chalk sketches by Clouet (Jeanet), representing her at the ages of 9, 16, and 19, are the most reliable for outline. The third, "Le Deuil Blanc", has been several times copied in oil or miniature. For her reign in Scotland no picture seems to be known, except, perhaps, Lord Leven and Melville's, which is interesting as the only one that gives us an idea of life. During her captivity it seems she was painted in miniatures only, and that from these descend the so-called "Sheffield" type of portraits. A very valuable picture was painted after her death, showing the execution; this, now at Blairs, and its copies (at Windsor, etc.) are called "memorial pictures".
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saint
St. Agnes of Assisi
Younger sister of St. Clare and Abbess of the Poor Ladies, born at Assisi, 1197, or 1198; died 1253. She was the younger daughter of Count Favorino Scifi. Her saintly mother, Blessed Hortulana, belonged to the noble family of the Fiumi, and her cousin Rufino was one of the celebrated "Three Companions" of St. Francis. Agnes's childhood was passed between her father's palace in the city and his castle of Sasso Rosso on Mount Subasio. On 18 March, 1212, her eldest sister Clare, moved by the preaching and example of St. Francis, had left her father's home to follow the way of life taught by the Saint. Sixteen days later Agnes repaired to the monastery of St. Angelo in Panso, where the Benedictine nuns had afforded Clare temporary shelter, and resolved to share her sister's life of poverty and penance. At this step the fury of Count Favorino knew no bounds. He sent his brother Monaldo, with several relatives and some armed followers, to St. Angelo to force Agnes, if persuasion failed, to return home. The conflict which followed is related in detail in the "Chronicles of the Twenty-four Generals." Monaldo, beside himself with rage, drew his sword to strike the young girl, but his arm dropped, withered and useless, by his side; others dragged Agnes out of the monastery by the hair, striking her, and even kicking her repeatedly. Presently St. Clare came to the rescue, and of a sudden Agnes's body became so heavy that the soldiers having tried in vain to carry her off, dropped her, half dead, in a field near the monastery. Overcome by a spiritual power against which physical force availed not, Agnes's relatives were obliged to withdraw and to allow her to remain with St. Clare. St. Francis, who was overjoyed at Agnes's heroic resistance to the entreaties and threats of her pursuers, presently cut off her hair and gave her the habit of Poverty. Soon after, he established the two sisters at St. Damian's, in a small rude dwelling adjoining the humble sanctuary which he had helped to rebuild with his own hands. There several other noble ladies of Assisi joined Clare and Agnes, and thus began the Order of the Poor Ladies of St. Damian's, or Poor Clares, as these Franciscan nuns afterwards came to be called. From the outset of her religious life, Agnes was distinguished for such an eminent degree of virtue that her companions declared she seemed to have discovered a new road to perfection known only to herself. As abbess, she ruled with loving kindness and knew how to make the practice of virtue bright and attractive to her subjects. In 1219, Agnes, despite her youth, was chosen by St. Francis to found and govern a community of the Poor Ladies at Monticelli, near Florence, which in course of time became almost as famous as St. Damian's. A letter written by St. Agnes to Clare after this separation is still extant, touchingly beautiful in its simplicity and affection. Nothing perhaps in Agnes's character is more striking and attractive than her loving fidelity to Clare's ideals and her undying loyalty in upholding the latter in her lifelong and arduous struggle for Seraphic Poverty. Full of zeal for the spread of the Order, Agnes established from Monticelli several monasteries of the Poor Ladies in the north of Italy, including those of Mantua, Venice, and Padua, all of which observed the same fidelity to the teaching of St. Francis and St. Clare. In 1253 Agnes was summoned to St. Damian's during the last illness of St. Clare, and assisted at the latter's triumphant death and funeral. On 16 November of the same year she followed St. Clare to her eternal reward. Her mother Hortulana and her younger sister Beatrice, both of whom had followed Clare and Agnes into the Order, had already passed away. The precious remains of St. Agnes repose near the body of her mother and sisters, in the church of St. Clare at Assisi. God, Who had favoured Agnes with many heavenly manifestations during life, glorified her tomb after death by numerous miracles. Benedict XIV permitted the Order of St. Francis to celebrate her feast. It is kept on 16 November, as a double of the second class.
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Younger sister of St. Clare and Abbess of the Poor Ladies, born at Assisi, 1197, or 1198; died 1253. She was the younger daughter of Count Favorino Scifi. Her saintly mother, Blessed Hortulana, belonged to the noble family of the Fiumi, and her cousin Rufino was one of the celebrated "Three Companions" of St. Francis. Agnes's childhood was passed between her father's palace in the city and his castle of Sasso Rosso on Mount Subasio. On 18 March, 1212, her eldest sister Clare, moved by the preaching and example of St. Francis, had left her father's home to follow the way of life taught by the Saint. Sixteen days later Agnes repaired to the monastery of St. Angelo in Panso, where the Benedictine nuns had afforded Clare temporary shelter, and resolved to share her sister's life of poverty and penance. At this step the fury of Count Favorino knew no bounds. He sent his brother Monaldo, with several relatives and some armed followers, to St. Angelo to force Agnes, if persuasion failed, to return home. The conflict which followed is related in detail in the "Chronicles of the Twenty-four Generals." Monaldo, beside himself with rage, drew his sword to strike the young girl, but his arm dropped, withered and useless, by his side; others dragged Agnes out of the monastery by the hair, striking her, and even kicking her repeatedly. Presently St. Clare came to the rescue, and of a sudden Agnes's body became so heavy that the soldiers having tried in vain to carry her off, dropped her, half dead, in a field near the monastery. Overcome by a spiritual power against which physical force availed not, Agnes's relatives were obliged to withdraw and to allow her to remain with St. Clare. St. Francis, who was overjoyed at Agnes's heroic resistance to the entreaties and threats of her pursuers, presently cut off her hair and gave her the habit of Poverty. Soon after, he established the two sisters at St. Damian's, in a small rude dwelling adjoining the humble sanctuary which he had helped to rebuild with his own hands. There several other noble ladies of Assisi joined Clare and Agnes, and thus began the Order of the Poor Ladies of St. Damian's, or Poor Clares, as these Franciscan nuns afterwards came to be called. From the outset of her religious life, Agnes was distinguished for such an eminent degree of virtue that her companions declared she seemed to have discovered a new road to perfection known only to herself. As abbess, she ruled with loving kindness and knew how to make the practice of virtue bright and attractive to her subjects. In 1219, Agnes, despite her youth, was chosen by St. Francis to found and govern a community of the Poor Ladies at Monticelli, near Florence, which in course of time became almost as famous as St. Damian's. A letter written by St. Agnes to Clare after this separation is still extant, touchingly beautiful in its simplicity and affection. Nothing perhaps in Agnes's character is more striking and attractive than her loving fidelity to Clare's ideals and her undying loyalty in upholding the latter in her lifelong and arduous struggle for Seraphic Poverty. Full of zeal for the spread of the Order, Agnes established from Monticelli several monasteries of the Poor Ladies in the north of Italy, including those of Mantua, Venice, and Padua, all of which observed the same fidelity to the teaching of St. Francis and St. Clare. In 1253 Agnes was summoned to St. Damian's during the last illness of St. Clare, and assisted at the latter's triumphant death and funeral. On 16 November of the same year she followed St. Clare to her eternal reward. Her mother Hortulana and her younger sister Beatrice, both of whom had followed Clare and Agnes into the Order, had already passed away. The precious remains of St. Agnes repose near the body of her mother and sisters, in the church of St. Clare at Assisi. God, Who had favoured Agnes with many heavenly manifestations during life, glorified her tomb after death by numerous miracles. Benedict XIV permitted the Order of St. Francis to celebrate her feast. It is kept on 16 November, as a double of the second class.
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nuns
Abbess
The female superior in spirituals and temporals of a community of twelve or more nuns. With a few necessary exceptions, the position of an Abbess in her convent corresponds generally with that of an Abbot in his monastery. The title was originally the distinctive appellation of Benedictine superiors, but in the course of time it came to be applied also to the conventual superior in other orders, especially to these of the Second Order of St. Francis (Poor Clares) and to these of certain colleges of canonesses.
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The female superior in spirituals and temporals of a community of twelve or more nuns. With a few necessary exceptions, the position of an Abbess in her convent corresponds generally with that of an Abbot in his monastery. The title was originally the distinctive appellation of Benedictine superiors, but in the course of time it came to be applied also to the conventual superior in other orders, especially to these of the Second Order of St. Francis (Poor Clares) and to these of certain colleges of canonesses.
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evil
The Pope has ordered his bishops to set up exorcism squads to tackle the rise of Satanism.
Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.
He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
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Vatican chiefs are concerned at what they see as an increased interest in the occult.
They have introduced courses for priests to combat what they call the most extreme form of "Godlessness."
Each bishop is to be told to have in his diocese a number of priests trained to fight demonic possession.
The initiative was revealed by 82-year-old Father Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican "exorcistinchief," to the online Catholic news service Petrus.
"Thanks be to God, we have a Pope who has decided to fight the Devil head-on," he said.
"Too many bishops are not taking this seriously and are not delegating their priests in the fight against the Devil. You have to hunt high and low for a properly trained exorcist.
"Thankfully, Benedict XVI believes in the existence and danger of evil - going back to the time he was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith." The CDF is the oldest Vatican department and was headed by Benedict from 1982, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, until he became Pope in 2005.
Father Amorth said that during his time at the department Benedict had not lost the chance to warn humanity of the risk from the Devil.
He said the Pope wants to restore a prayer seen as protection against evil that was traditionally recited at the end of Catholic Masses. The prayer, to St Michael the Archangel, was dropped in the 1960s by Pope John XXIII.
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Thursday, December 27, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
ugly but works
//set com_maxFPS "76" //set r_mode "4" set r_textureMode "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST" set r_ignorehwgamma "1" set r_picmip "3" set r_detailtextures "0" set r_drawSun "0" set r_fastsky "1" set r_flares "0" set r_dynamiclight "1" set r_subdivisions "64" set r_lodbias "2" set r_lodCurveError "125" set cg_drawGun "0" set cg_shadows "0" set cg_brassTime "0" set cg_coronas "0" set cg_marktime "0" set cg_showblood "0" set cg_bloodFlash "0" set cg_bloodDamageBlend "0.0" set cg_atmosphericEffects "0" set cg_wolfparticles "0" set s_khz "11"
sorry my bad
this is what i meant they dont work,
So once the map is loaded with devmap, you can start going into the console and enabling some cheats. Here is a list of some cheats you can do:
/give ammo-Gives you a shitload of ammo, like 9999 rounds + 15 grenades.
/give skill X-Increases a specific skill by 20 XP. The values you can use for X are:0- Battle sense1- Engineering2- First aid3- Signals4- Light weapons5- Heavy weapons6- Covert ops
/give skill-If you use the give skill command without a number after it, it will just add 1 skill point to all of your skills areas (heavy wea
So once the map is loaded with devmap, you can start going into the console and enabling some cheats. Here is a list of some cheats you can do:
/give ammo-Gives you a shitload of ammo, like 9999 rounds + 15 grenades.
/give skill X-Increases a specific skill by 20 XP. The values you can use for X are:0- Battle sense1- Engineering2- First aid3- Signals4- Light weapons5- Heavy weapons6- Covert ops
/give skill-If you use the give skill command without a number after it, it will just add 1 skill point to all of your skills areas (heavy wea
joke away!
Onions and Christmas Trees......... The family is sitting at the dinner table. The son asks his father, 'Dad, how many kinds of boobies are there?' The father, surprised, answers, 'Well son, there's three kinds of breasts. In her twenties, a woman's breasts are like melons, round & firm. In her thirties & forties, they are like pears, still nice, but hanging a bit. After fifty, they are like onions.' 'Onions?' 'Yes, you see them, and they make you cry.' This infuriated his wife and daughter so the daughter says, ' Mom, How many types of 'willies' are there?' The mother, surprised, smiles and answers, 'Well dear, a man goes through three phases. In his twenties, his Willie is like an oak tree, mighty and hard. In his thirties & forties, It's like a birch tree, flexible but reliable. After his fifties, it is like a Christmas tree.' 'A Christmas tree??' 'Yes dear, dead from the root up and the balls are for decoration only.' _____
brown mountain lights.....
According to local legend, the lights were first reported by Cherokee and Catawba Indians, dating back to the year 1200. for their version of the lights’ origin.In 1771, Geraud de Brahm, a German Engineer, was the first white man to explore the Linville territory. He was intrigued by unexplainable sounds in the area, and in his diaries, he wonders if such noises could be created by the spontaneous ignition of “nitrous vapors” carried by the wind. Some historians believe his speculation had some relevance to the lights.In the twentieth century, the lights were first journalistically documented in 1913. A reporter from the Charlotte Observer explored the mystery. Afterward, they were investigated three times by the United States government: once by the U.S. Weather Service, and twice by the U.S. Geological Survey. Even the Smithsonian conducted an expedition. In a 1922 geological survey, George Mansfield studied the mountain and its weather conditions for weeks. In his official report, titled Circular 646, he stated the lights were: 47% auto headlights, 33% locomotive lights, 10% stationary lights, and 10% brush fires. Almost everyone clearly saw the report as pure hogwash. The lights had been seen long before autos and locomotives. Plus, in 1916, a great flood wiped out transportation routes. There were no trains or autos in the area for more than a week. However, the lights continued to be seen.Numerous private groups have researched the lights throughout the years. One of the most prominent investigations was done in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s by a team of scientists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee called ORION (Oak Ridge Isochronous Observation Network). They, along with a group called The Enigma Project, spent years analyzing the area. Though they gathered a great deal of valuable information, they were unable to conclusively solve the mystery. Artists have been fascinated by the mountain. The lights inspired Andy Anderson’s novel, Kill One, Kill Two (in which the lights appear before a murder occurs), and have been featured in numerous books on the unexplained. North Carolina authors John Harden, Nancy Roberts, and John Parris have all included the phenomenon in their works. In the early 1960s, Scott Wiseman’s “Brown Mountain Light” became a hit bluegrass song, performed by Tommy Faile. It has been re-done by numerous artists. But, perhaps most significantly, the Brown Mountain Lights were featured in a May 9,1999 episode of The X-Files. The show was called “Field Trip.”Currently, The Brown Mountain Lights are being investigated by , a paranormal research team in Asheville, North Carolina. .
All content copyright © 2000 by Shadowbox Enterprises, LLC
According to local legend, the lights were first reported by Cherokee and Catawba Indians, dating back to the year 1200. for their version of the lights’ origin.In 1771, Geraud de Brahm, a German Engineer, was the first white man to explore the Linville territory. He was intrigued by unexplainable sounds in the area, and in his diaries, he wonders if such noises could be created by the spontaneous ignition of “nitrous vapors” carried by the wind. Some historians believe his speculation had some relevance to the lights.In the twentieth century, the lights were first journalistically documented in 1913. A reporter from the Charlotte Observer explored the mystery. Afterward, they were investigated three times by the United States government: once by the U.S. Weather Service, and twice by the U.S. Geological Survey. Even the Smithsonian conducted an expedition. In a 1922 geological survey, George Mansfield studied the mountain and its weather conditions for weeks. In his official report, titled Circular 646, he stated the lights were: 47% auto headlights, 33% locomotive lights, 10% stationary lights, and 10% brush fires. Almost everyone clearly saw the report as pure hogwash. The lights had been seen long before autos and locomotives. Plus, in 1916, a great flood wiped out transportation routes. There were no trains or autos in the area for more than a week. However, the lights continued to be seen.Numerous private groups have researched the lights throughout the years. One of the most prominent investigations was done in the mid-1970s to mid-1980s by a team of scientists from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee called ORION (Oak Ridge Isochronous Observation Network). They, along with a group called The Enigma Project, spent years analyzing the area. Though they gathered a great deal of valuable information, they were unable to conclusively solve the mystery. Artists have been fascinated by the mountain. The lights inspired Andy Anderson’s novel, Kill One, Kill Two (in which the lights appear before a murder occurs), and have been featured in numerous books on the unexplained. North Carolina authors John Harden, Nancy Roberts, and John Parris have all included the phenomenon in their works. In the early 1960s, Scott Wiseman’s “Brown Mountain Light” became a hit bluegrass song, performed by Tommy Faile. It has been re-done by numerous artists. But, perhaps most significantly, the Brown Mountain Lights were featured in a May 9,1999 episode of The X-Files. The show was called “Field Trip.”Currently, The Brown Mountain Lights are being investigated by , a paranormal research team in Asheville, North Carolina. .
All content copyright © 2000 by Shadowbox Enterprises, LLC
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Monday, December 24, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Saturday, December 22, 2007
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