best of the blog: scott covers amelia earhart!

Friday, April 13, 2007

okay...

once again, buying me some time and showing me how a real blog is done, my good friend, scott weinstein...
(thanks, scott!)


Amelia Earhart is an OTHER




It's one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the last century. What happened to Amelia Earhart? She was officially declared dead in 1939. But, like all celebrities who die young, her legend lives on.

On July 1, 1937, Amelia Earhart, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, took off from Lae, New Guinea in her Lockheed Electra 10E. Their destination was Howland Island 2550 miles away. They would never arrive. The Coast Guard cutter Itasca was assigned to wait for them near the island, stay in communication, and when they arrive help them find the island. But, what no one at the time knew was that her plane's radio-reception antenna had been ripped away during take-off. People could hear her, but she was unable to hear anything.






In the early hours of July 2, the Itasca received a transmission from Earhart saying that she was running low on fuel. A second message said that she was on "line of position 157 dash 337." That was the last they heard. The ship then began a search northwest of Howland Island. They found nothing. As news of the missing plane spread, the Navy ordered six ships to join the search. A pilot flying over Gardner Island, an uninhabited atoll in the Phoenix Islands hundreds of miles to the south, reported seeing "signs of recent habitation." But, no people were spotted. It was assumed no one was there and they moved on.

But, you know what they say about assume?

What happened to her? Well, clearly she crashed. That's pretty obvious. Many theories have surfaced over the years. Alien abduction is among them. But, we determined in the last post that while aliens exist, they haven't been to Earth yet. So, rule that one out.

Many people have speculated that she was captured by the Japanese, who executed her for spying. Other stories claim that she was forced to make broadcasts as one of many women known as Tokyo Rose. All those theories have been disproved. And some researchers think that for wartime propaganda purposes, the US government may have spread those false rumors.

There is also the claim that she survived the flight, moved to New Jersey, changed her name, remarried and became Irene Bolam. But, the real Irene Bolam refuted this. And even sued the author of a book pushing that theory. When they actually looked into her life, they realized this poor woman could in no way be Earhart.

So, what happened? A newly discovered dairy, kept by an AP reported aboard the Itasca, has awakened interest. The diary itself offers no new clues. However, it does provide an account of the search and rescue efforts. And of her last transmissions.





According to the current theory, that pilot flying over Gardner Island may have been too hasty. In 1940, a British overseer on Gardner recovered a partial human skeleton, a woman's shoe and an empty sextant box at a former campsite. The initial examination of the bones claimed they belonged to a stocky European male. Of course, the original bones were lost. But, modern supercomputer forensic scientific examinations say that the measurements of the bones are consistent with a woman of Earhart's age and height. In addition the shoe matches those she wore in photos before she left for her trip.

Currently, The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (or TIGHAR, seriously, that's what they call themselves) is planning a ninth trip to Gardner Island. It is safe to assume that any remains have been devoured by the surroundings by now. But, there is a little insight into what her final hours may have been like. Thanks to short-wave radio. Harmonic frequencies in the middle of the ocean can often be heard thousands of miles away. And that July night Betty, a 15 year-old girl in Florida, was listening. She heard Earhart's final transmissions and took notes in her school notebook. The woman on the radio was with a man, who was "coherent at times, then would go out of his head." Earhart was trying to keep Noonan from leaving the plane, and kept telling him to come back to his seat, because she needed to stay near the radio. And as the transmissions faded, she heard her say that they "were leaving the plane, because the water was knee-deep on her side." Betty's father notified the Coast Guard, but they dismissed him. There had been several hoax transmissions that night.

So, who knows how things really ended. Maybe they made it off the reef onto the island. Built some form of shelter. Eventually, they started exploring. Earhart probably had to smack Noonan around some, since he was clearly loosing it. And eventually, she had to "take care of him."

But, that doesn't mean her adventures were over. Maybe there were other inhabitants. Maybe a smoke monster. And hatches. Hey, is that a Dharma logo on the side of her plane. Did she become an Other? Is she really Ben's mom? Of course, her bones mean those adventures ended pretty quickly. But, it's fun to imagine.





And don't forget, check out my comic...
After School Agent

Thanks for listening,

SCOTT

dick giordano

okay...

sad news this weekend as we lost comics great, dick giordano, saturday morning at the age of 77.

only a month or so ago, i had written about my meeting dick years ago to accompany the batman sketch he did for me. when our pal, russ burlingame, asked me for a few words about dick for newsarama, i included that with the following...

Dick Giordano was in the Captain's Seat at DC when I was a kid and first started reading comics, and so he is, in my mind at least, highly responsible for those bright, beautiful, four-colored days of discovery; he was steering the world that I was falling in love with.
Later I began to know him as an Artist, as the other half of one of my favorite art teams, and his work was simply stunning. He made me see what an Inker brought to every image when he didn't ink Neal--it wasn't as tight, it seemed to me, not as powerful.

I met Dick Giordano at Heroescon in 1999. Cully [Hamner] introduced us and acted as interpreter a bit, initially, as Dick's hearing was probably a little more than half gone at the time. I had, of course, loved his work for years, and told him so, and he was curious and excited to know what I did (Sensational Spider-Man at the time, so...) I got up to speed quickly and asked him for a sketch, which he very graciously did, as we yelled through a pleasant, but loud, conversation. It didn't help that we were in the basement of a loud and poorly lit bar.

A true giant. A true gentleman.
He will be missed.

Todd Dezago
Tellos, The Perhapanauts





in truth, i think that carmine infantino was still managing editor when i first started reading comics and that julie schwartz ran things for the next 5 or so years, but dick came on in 1980 and certainly guided the DCU through some magical and innovative times!
thank you, dick!
you brought so much!




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

over the years i've posted a bunch of--what i consider to be--funny pictures.
i was looking through my "funny pictures" file the other day trying to find a particular ad (it's the one at the very bottom...) and found a couple i'd forgotten about. here are a few that still made me smile...





only in middle school...





arrested ronald
(who likes clowns...?)





???





girls' nite out




jack-hammered








is he going in a hot tub...?

happy monday!
smell ya later!
todd

casper and leanne hannah!

okay...

so what i keep getting from people, here on the perhapanauts website and on my facebook page, are questions from people asking where issues 2 and 3 of CASPER and The SPECTRALS are. i have done my best to be encouraging and reassuring that those next chapters would definitely be out, definitely see print but, truth to tell, it was pretty iffy there for a while. and while the guys at ardden entertainment--the company producing the book--were doing all they could behind the scenes to get this thing together and back on schedule, they weren't making any public statements to let you, the readers, know what was going on.
but now, finally, we have some real news, some positive news, and some especially awesome news, that we can share.
first is that the project is back on track, that issue 2, drawn by pedro delgado, will be on stands in june!
second is that, sadly, due to some disagreements with ardden, pedro had to leave the project and so issue three will be illustrated by our own...LEANNE HANNAH!!
i've been so excited about this and about the awesome work and designs that leanne has been turning in--and not been able to say anything about it--that i'm fit to bust! but now it can be told and leanne does a great job of it over on her website, so go take a look!

http://leannehannah.com/


congrats, leanne, and i'm so happy to be working with you!
* everything she says about me over there are lies...




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i used to be a big jay leno fan before he stared on the tonight show. his comedy was funny and clever and sometimes it would sneak up on you. when he got the gig from johnny, he watered down his onstage personality and went mainstream to appeal to a wider audience and that's okay--but it wasn't really my energy drink anymore.
the only part of his show that i did like--and would try to catch every monday night after volleyball when i thought of it and had the chance--was headlines, where he would read items from national and local newspapers sent in from all over the country. mis-worded headlines, hilarious police reports, amusing wedding announcements...funny stuff.

i'm not sure if that's where these originally came from, but our alison sent them the other day and some of them made me laugh out loud. hope you do too and will go into the weekend with a smile on your face...



















have a great weekend!
smell ya later!
todd

this is post no.710.

best of the blog: the kelly goblins!

Monday, March 26, 2007

okay...

here's one of my favorite cryptid/alien tales.
i first read about the kelly goblins in dc/factoid books the big book of the unexplained--my favorite--and if you haven't dug up a copy fo this masterpiece for yourself, you're missin' out! also known as the hopkinsville goblins (and i've heard a few people refer to them as the "hopkinsville gremlins"...) in doing my usual searches for all things paranormal i found this great write up of it on wikipedia.

enjoy!


KELLY GOBLINS

On the evening of August 21, 1955, members of the Sutton family were entertaining a visiting friend, Billy Ray Taylor, at their farm house located near the towns of Kelly and Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

When Taylor went to an outside water pump for a drink at about 7.00 p.m., he observed strange lights in the sky to the west. He excitedly told the others about his "flying saucer" sighting, but no one believed him, instead thinking that he had become overly excited after seeing a vivid "shooting star". (Hendry, 190)

At about 8.00 p.m., the family dog began barking loudly, and then hid under the house, where it stayed for the entire event. Going outside a few minutes later, Billy Ray Taylor and Elmer "Lucky" Sutton then asserted that they saw a strange creature emerge from the nearby trees. Jerome Clark describes the creature as: a luminous, three-and-a-half-foot-tall being with an oversized head, big, floppy, pointed ears, glowing eyes, and hands with talons at their ends. The figure, either made of or simply dressed in silvery metal, had its hands raised. (Clark, 309-310)

When the creature approached to within about 20 feet of the Taylor home, the men began shooting at it, one using a shotgun, the other man using a .22 rifle. The creature, they said, then flipped over and fled into the darkness. Sure that they had wounded the creature, Lucky and Billy Ray went out to look for it. Hendry writes that as the men were stepping from the porch, "a taloned hand reached and touched his hair from above." (Hendry, 191) They shot at the creature -- it was perched on an awning over the porch -- and it was knocked from the roof.





Within minutes, Lucky's brother J.C. Sutton said that he saw the same (or a similar creature) peer into a window in the home; J.C. and Billy Ray shot at it, whereupon it too flipped over and fled.

For the next few hours, the witnesses would assert that the creatures repeatedly approached the home, only to be shot at each time they did. One time, the witnesses shot one of the beings nearly point blank, and would later insist that the sound resembled bullets striking a metal bucket. The floating creatures' legs seemed to be atrophied and nearly useless, and they appeared to propel themselves with a curious hip-swaying motion, steering with their arms. Clark writes that "[i]f the creatures were in a tree or on the roof when hit [by gunfire], they would float, not fall, to the ground." (Clark, 310)
Hendry writes that family matriarch "Mrs. Lankford … counseled an end to the hostilities," noting that the creatures had never seemed to try harming anyone. (Hendry, 191) Between appearances from the creatures, the family tried to temper the children's growing hysteria.





At about 11.00 p.m., the Taylor-Sutton crew decided to flee their home in automobiles; after about 30 minutes they arrived at the Hopkinsville police station. Police Chief Russell Greenwell judged the witnesses to have been frightened by something "beyond reason, not ordinary." (Clark, 311) He also opined "[t]hese were not the sort of people who normally ran to the police … something frightened them, something beyond their comprehension." A police officer with medical training determined that Billy Ray's pulse rate was more than twice normal (Clark, 311)

There might have been partial corroboration of the Taylor-Sutton tale: at about 11 p.m., a state highway trooper near Kelly independently reported some unusual "meteors" flying overhead "with a sound like artillery fire." (Clark, 311)

Several police officers accompanied the Taylor-Suttons back to their home, and according to Daniels et al, "[t]he official response was prompt and thorough." (Daniels et. al, 65) In 1998, Karal Ayn Barnett wrote, "By all accounts, the witnesses were deemed sane, not under the influence [of drugs or alcohol], and in such a state of terror, no one involved doubted that they had seen something beyond far their ken."[1]

Police and photographers who visited the home saw many bullet holes and spent shells, and further discovered what Clark describes as "an odd luminous patch along a fence where one of the beings had been shot, and, in the woods beyond, a green light whose source could not be determined." (Clark, 311) Though the investigation was inconclusive, Daniels et al. writes, "Investigators did conclude, however, that these people were sincere and sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the case for publicity." (Daniels, 65)

Police left at about 2:15 a.m., and not long afterwards, the witnesses claimed that the creatures returned. Billy Ray fired at them once more, ruining a window. The last of the creatures was allegedly sighted at about 4.45 a.m. on August 22.

aliens? gremlins? goblins?
outer space...or another dimension?

gotta run!
smell ya later!
todd

hidden

okay...

so i had planned to go off on a tangent about how much i always loved hidden picture pictures and puzzles today, about how i always loved them in the issues of highlights in the dentist's office back when i was a kid--still do!--and how i'm always fascinated when some artist takes the time to weave and wind secret images into their work.
i had planned to do that...but since i feel like i dislocated my shoulder playing football the other day, i'm going to cut things a little short and just post some of these cool hidden pictures images i found and let you play with them a bit.


a classic highlights find-the-pictures...

and the key...







some hidden animals...





the current master of the form, bev doolittle...




what is the couple dreaming of...? (it took me a second to see this...you?)





yeah, okay, you can see the tiger in the picture...but can you see "the hidden tiger"...?



and the answers to your
"five for friday"

1. there are fourteen punctuation marks in english grammar. can you name ten?

period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

2. name the six pythons.

graham chapman, john cleese, terry gilliam, eric idle, terry jones, michael palin

3. what is the only fruit or vegatable never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh?

lettuce

4. what do the j. and the two r.'s stand for in tolkien's name?

john ronald reuel

5. name six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "s".

shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.

have a good monday!
smell ya later!
todd

this is post no.708.

best of the blog: the dump creature--part 3!

okay...

so, first off, here's part three of our best of the blog--the dump creature...

Saturday, September 02, 2006

The DUMP CREATURE--WHAT WAS IT?!

WAIT!
DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU READ THE POST BELOW!!
AND THAT ONE SAYS THE SAME THING, SO GO TWO DOWN...!!

When Paula M. went to the dump site in search of old, collectible bottles, the last thing she expected was an encounter with an unknown animal. And she may not have expected the amount of attention the story of her encounter would receive. Besides the article about her sighting of this mysterious creature, which appeared on this website (see "The Creature of the Dump"), Paula was also recently interviewed by talk radio host Jeff Rense. Brad Steiger, a well-known author of many books on the paranormal and mysterious creatures, also spoke with Paula on Jeff's show. Steiger commented that he has documented many encounters with strange creatures, but the one Paula met was new to him. Most curious, he said, was the animal's large, crystal-blue eyes.

Paula is still seeking answers or even suggestions to what this large, worm-like creature might be. Some readers have responded with their ideas - and even warnings - about this blue-eyed tube worm. Here is what they have to say:


An Ingot?_
I probably won't be the first or only to inform you that what Paula saw at the dump may indeed be an unidentified Southeastern Asian creature known as an ingot [possibly lingot]. Check with Agence France-Press for stories about ingots during the final years of French involvement in Indochina. They were seen burrowing everywhere, and the descriptions of the bodies and eyes match those of Paula's story. Old Indochina veterans in the French army could never explain them or where they came from, and there is no record of American sightings during this country's involvement later. General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, supreme commander of French forces in Indochina, was so unnerved by sighting of burrowing ingots and the lack of information about them that he brought in a special team of researchers, who apparently found nothing. The ingot is like no other creature reported on earth, and it contributed to the general weirdness of the French experience in Indochina. Ingots were reported in large numbers in 1953 around the North Vietnamese site where an entire French regiment vanished without a trace. This disappearance may have had nothing to do with ingots, but there are still old veterans in the cafes of Paris, Bordeaux and Marseilles who swear there was a connection. Incidentally, the reality of the disappearing regiment is well-documented. For a few years in the 1950s, burrowing ingots made big news in France. But France, like the US later, hid its Indochinese veterans and paid little attention to their stories... about anything. Such is defeat. - Loic C.

Tatzelwurm?_
I just read the article in the new issue titled "The Creature of the Dump." At the end of it, you asked if anyone had any idea as to what the thing might have been. Is it possible that it was a tatzelwurm? I've not heard anything about tatzelwurms for quite some time. But upon reading that article, that was the first, and really the only, suggestion that came to mind. While I'm writing, I also want to say that I am very glad to have found your website. I ran across it only a few weeks ago while researching something and joined the mailing list. It must take a huge amount of time and effort to maintain such a website. For that, I thank you. - Scott



The tatzelwurm, German for "worm with claws," is a legendary creature, not recognized by science, that is said to dwell in the Swiss and Austrian Alps. It is reputedly a "dragon" with a catlike head and spiked ridges along its back. It supposedly has a seven- foot-long, light-colored cylindrical body with four legs that end in three protruding toes. The above skeleton was allegedly given to the Geneva Institute of Sciences as the first physical proof that the tatzelwurm actually exists. The first sightings of the tatzelwurm were in the 1700s by a farmer who claimed that it attacked his livestock. The skeleton is almost certainly a fake.

The 8-Foot Horror_
I have not seen this creature myself, but I know of someone in California who has. It was about more than 30 years ago and the people who saw it were little children at the time. They said they were playing in the backyard in the dirt when all of a sudden this "thing" came sprouting out the the dirt. The brother and sister just watched in horror, holding their breath. The brother described it as a tall, worm-looking thing about 8 feet tall. Up to this day, if the sister asks the brother, "Do you remember...?" he cuts her off and says he doesn't want to talk about it. I believe in what they saw._- Natalie W.

Predatory Behavior?_
I read the article about that weird creature of the dump that Paula M saw. I just think that she ought to be careful going back to look for the creature. Its behavior seems to me to suggest that it is a predator of some sort. First, most herbivores, when aware of an unknown, possibly hostile species, will do their best to flee, or at the least if they cannot escape they will show some sign of fear. This creature obviously showed no sign of fear from the account that was given. This creature even came out of the ground when it was likely that it would have had some sign that there was a large being somewhere in the vicinity. I assume that it had this knowledge as a creature that lived underground would likely be sensitive to vibrations, and be able to determine that something large was around. The next thing that makes this creature seem predatorial is how it extended itself and waved in the air in a very obvious manner. This seems like it could be some sort of attraction mechanism for prey, by showing them a small part of its body to attract some other creature toward it. Of course, I am not a professional in the field of animal behavior, but I have observed and read about predators so that I do have some knowledge on the subject. These ideas could be completely wrong, but it never hurts to be careful. I'd just suggest that she doesn't approach the creature and that she does not go to look for it alone. Perhaps the reason that the creature is unknown is that no one has ever survived an experience with it before. - Anton B.


personally, i think that the first post "An Ingot?" doesn't do much to confirm or authentify paula's story, but it sure makes for a creepy addendum.
the last one, offering that what she saw might only be the tip of the iceberg, a dangling bit of bait to lure prey closer--that's eerie too!
but obviously, none of these comments can absolutely identify the creature and THAT'S what makes the whole thing stay with me. even if a zoologist or biologist somewhere were able to step forward and show us a specimen or give an entire thesis of this thing, it's still a monster!

that why i love this stuff. i WANT there to be weird, still-undiscovered, unknown creatures out there! i WANT to know that there are still some dark shadowy places where the light of our so-called civilizataion hasn't yet shined. i WANT to see these creatures, run into them. yeah, maybe even at night...

i just don't want them to eat me.

whadda YOU think?

todd


and while i'm reaching back into the archives,
allow me to pad out this post with a classic
"five for friday"

1. there are fourteen punctuation marks in english grammar. can you name ten?

2. name the six pythons.

3. what is the only fruit or vegatable never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh?

4. what do the j. and the two r.'s stand for in tolkien's name?

5. name six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter "s".

have a great weekend!
smell ya later!
todd

best of the blog: the dump creature--part 2!

Friday, September 01, 2006

The DUMP CREATURE--part 2!

HEY!
DON'T READ THIS UNTIL YOU'VE READ THE ENTRY BELOW!

here, because brian demanded it!...
part 2.


By now, Paula was completely perplexed. This was like nothing she had ever seen in person, at a zoo or on any nature program on television. And if this creature wasn't strange enough, it then gave Paula a remarkable surprise.

"All of a sudden, while I was examining it, two big beautiful crystal blue eyes popped open! Now I knew what end of the animal I was looking at."

All thoughts of this being some kind of giant worm were immediately dismissed. Worms don't have eyes - not like that! More curious than frightened of this remarkable animal, Paula began to wonder how big the body was and what its arms, legs and tail looked like - or if it even had any such parts. "The white of the eye surrounding its blue pupil was the whitest I'd ever seen - a pure virgin white. The size of the eyes were quite big in proportion to its body size. I wondered if it were a juvenile."

Paula was totally astounded when the eyes opened because while first looking at it she could not tell that it had eyes at all; there were no visible eyelids, eye lashes, bulges, indentations, holes or slits of any kind. The curiosity seemed to be mutual. "My presence didn't seem to bother it because it studied me for only a short period of time. Then it ignored me. It appeared content and relaxed while it exposed itself to the sun. Its slow motion movement and blinking reminded me of a turtle."

Paula felt that the creature was harmless and stepped even closer to it for a better look. She looked for its mouth, nose and ears, but couldn't find them. She wondered if they were camouflaged in the same way that its eyes had been. She also tried to determine where its head ended and neck began because it had no chin or indentations of any kind to separate the two. The body, neck and head appeared as one - like a living, flexible tube with eyes.

Paula was startled when the creature began to move, and she instinctively stepped back. The animal slowly began to sway the top of its body back and forth as it stretched itself upward toward the sky, all the while slowly blinking.

"I tried to get it to look at me again by clapping my hands and yelling, but it continued to ignore me." Since it had no discernable ears, Paula wondered if perhaps it couldn't hear sound. So she tried waving her arms and hands about to draw its attention to her. But all it did was stare at the sky, continuing to sway its head back and forth, stretching upward while blinking slowly. It was as if it were hypnotized by the light of the sun.

After about five minutes, the creature decided to retreat into its lair. "I watched it until it finally pulled itself slowly back into its burrow. I looked into the hole after it, but it was so dark that I couldn't see anything."

Paula isn't quite sure what to make of this peculiar encounter, but it haunts her. "I haven't been able to erase it from my mind, and it's driving me crazy! I've asked many people about it and have spent countless hours searching the Internet for answers to any known or unknown animal fitting the description of the animal."

Paula returned to the dump site this Spring in hopes of getting another glimpse of the mysterious creature. No such luck. Some of the hole openings were there, however. "I am convinced that this animal still exists and lives there. It's possible that it hibernates, so I will go back again in early to mid-summer and try and get another glimpse of it - and possibly capture it on film."

Hopefully, Paula will succeed in capturing the animal on film or video. It could be something well known to science, if unusual. For now, however, the creature of the dump remains unknown.


and, yeah, i'll post the comments/replies/conjectures tomorrow.

g'night!
todd

best of the blog: the dump creature!

okay...

before we run the second in our wednesday best of the blog feature, one more reminder to come and check out the squiggly-kneed fred hembeck and myself tonight on




from september of 2006, this is part one of three (i'll post the other two tomorrow and friday...)
i originally found this story on paranaormal@about.com and was just fascinated!
enjoy!

The DUMP CREATURE!


okay...

i really should be writing the script to issue 4 of perhapanauts:second chances right now, but like every good procrastinator, i'm stalling. i'm on a bit of a roll in THIS part of writing; the talking to people, letter writing, emailing, blog blogging, correspondence kind of writing. i'll get to the more imaginative, fantastic, makin' crazy crap up right off the toppa your head kinda writing a little later.

actually, for most of this post, i plan on cutting and pasting one of my favorite (weird) stories off of paranormal at about dot com. i really don't know what the rules are about this, about borrowing content or whatever it's called, but i think that as long as i say where it came from--and not try to claim it as my own--everybody's cool.

anyway, i read this article about a year or so ago and it just continues to haunt me. i keep trying to figure out a cool way to incorporate it--this thing or occurance or whatever it is--into the perhapanauts, but i just haven't figured out a way to get it to all fall into place.
yet.

it's pretty self explanatory and it's actually in a couple parts; the story i'll bust up into 2 sections, and the comments. i'll post the replies/responses seperately.

see what you think.

THE CREATURE OF THE DUMP
Sometimes it's difficult to believe your own eyes. When people encounter a thing they cannot explain - something completely alien to their experience - they tend to doubt their own senses at first. The mind tries to relate what is seen to previous experiences, but when that thing is so totally bizarre, many people second-guess their experience. "I couldn't have seen that," they tell themselves. "It doesn't make sense."

In a recent poll of readers, I asked if they had ever seen a living creature they could not explain. Of more than 650 respondents, 47 percent said that they had. That's a lot of unexplained sightings.

Paula M. had one such sighting. But it wasn't of a Bigfoot, a sea serpent or even a Chupacabra. In many ways it was much stranger. And try as she might and after diligent research, she has yet to come up with an explanation for what she saw.
The encounter took place on a warm, otherwise ordinary day in the summer of 1999 just outside a small town in Oregon.__One of Paula's hobbies was prowling through old junk yards and dump sites for vintage old bottles and glass. On this particular day, she headed to an old off-road dump site that she had heard about but had never been to before. Paula parked her car on the side of the road and hiked a short distance to the dump.

The dump was typical of several she had been to: Piles of discarded household items and furniture, scattered mounds of rusting old appliances and metal. This recess was quiet and secluded. It was surrounded by trees and had patches of tall skimpy grass and weeds amid the trash. A small stream rested at very bottom of the recess with slow moving water one to two inches deep.__Then Paula noticed something peculiar - something she had never seen at any other dump site.
"As I was staking out the area," she said. "I happened across some tunnel-like holes in the ground. The holes were of a peculiar size, which made me wonder what kind of animal possibly could have dug them."

Paula noticed six or seven of the holes, each about two inches in diameter and partially camouflaged by the sparse growth of the recess. The holes could have been made by any number of burrowing creatures, Paula reasoned. She didn't worry about it.__Experienced in this hunt for junkyard treasures, Paula sifted around here and there for about 30 minutes until she found a spot that looked inviting on the slant of a hill, about three-fourths of the way down to the stream. Dropping to her knees, she took her hand trowel and began to dig. Paula especially valued the old bottles with embossed lettering, but such finds rarely made their appearance quickly or easily. She dug in the dirt for nearly an hour - so long that in this kneeling position her legs were beginning to go to "fall sleep."

Paula decided to take a break from her excavation and stretch her legs. She stood and walked around a bit. "While I was moving about at the bottom of the recess, I thought I saw, from the corner of my eye, a clump of dirt move. It was about the size of my fist."__She turned to look squarely in the direction of the movement, trying to detect it again. But nothing moved. "Nah," she thought, "it was nothing."_ _Paula was about to return to her dig when she saw it again. About 10 feet away from her, the clump of dirt moved, like it was pushed out of the ground from beneath, and rolled down the hill. Paula began to get a little nervous. Whatever had made those tunnel-like holes was apparently making another one. And she wasn't particularly keen on watching a rat, a snake or some other potentially dangerous animal come slithering out.

Then she saw it. Something living began to poke itself out of the ground!

Paula's first reaction to seeing this "thing" was saying, "Oh, my God! What are you?"

Paula was familiar with the outdoors and was reasonably sure of what animals she might encounter in a junkyard. But this thing she could not identify. She stepped cautiously closer to it, thinking that the vibration of her digging may have driven it from its burrow.__She stopped about four to five feet away from the creature. What she could see of it was poking out of the ground about five inches. "At this point, I wasn't sure what end of the animal I was looking at," Paula said. "It was about two inches in diameter, and the end of it was perfectly smooth and round - like a cue ball. It was light-brown in color, very much like the surrounding earth. It had a worm-like shape, but didn't taper down at the end as worms do, and was firmer around looking. It had no distinguishing or familiar features to indicate to me what it was."

Its size made it obvious that this was not a worm - at least not any kind of worm Paula had ever heard of. And she could not see its entire body, only what was poking out of the ground, so who knows what this thing really looked like.

Paula looked at the creature closely, trying in vain to find anything familiar about it. She could not detect any eyes, mouth, nose or ears. It had no fur, scales or worm-like ripples on its skin. What it did have was patches of peach-like fuzz - very fine and spaced apart like the hair on a young human's arm - covering what looked like soft, dusty skin about the texture of a person's. It was not wet, slimy or tough looking.

By now, Paula was completely perplexed. This was like nothing she had ever seen in person, at a zoo or on any nature program on television. And if this creature wasn't strange enough, it then gave Paula a remarkable surprise.

part 2 tomorrow...

later~~
todd

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still finding cool hulk pin-ups and such--
here's one i found and loved--i dig it when we see such awesome SIZE to these characters/monsters.


that's it!
see ya tonight!
smell ya later!
todd

this is post no.705

where monsters dwell and popgun!

okay...

last week i felt like i was scrambling to find something to blog about, this week, i got too much...

first up, if you're not out having too much fun this wednesday night drinking green beer and eating massive amounts of corned beef and cabbage to celebrate your irishness, why not tune into where monsters dwell, the latest, greatest comics/pop culture radio program on the web!?! i'll be dropping by, as will my good friend, volleyball teammate, and all-around comics legend, fred hembeck!!




you can get there by going here...

http://wheremonstersblog.blogspot.com/

see ya there!

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though this massive tome hit the stands last month--and if it did, as heavy as this thing it, it prob'ly broke the stands...!!--i didn't get a chance to see it until this past weekend, and so i'm officially pimping the latest volume of image comics' amazing anthology popgun!
popgun 4 is huge and just super-jam-packed with so much comic-y goodness, you would never be able to find more bang for your buck! if you've never seen one of these before, make sure to do yourself the favor of checking out a copy next time you're at your local comic shop.
here's the cover along with the blurb...


POPGUN is back with another eclectic collection of established fan favorite creators and rising stars coming together for a new edition of the Harvey Award-winning graphic mix tape! From high-octane action to heart-tugging drama to laugh-out-loud comedy, this collection has comics you'll love: over 500 full color pages of them!

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why am i hawking this particular edition you might ask...?
well, in this particular edition, i happen to have collaborated on a story.
what's the story, you might ask...?
well...here it is. presented in all it's glorious full color six-pagedness! i did it with artist nikos koutsis who kinda pulled a fast one on me once i agreed to do it with him, but it turned out okay , so here it is.
it's called "fables from fractured earth!"








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from yahoo photos--
In this photo released by Taronga Zoo, an un-named baby elephant is being assisted by a keeper at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Australia, Friday, March 12, 2010. The calf that was believed to have died during a nine-day labor is feeding itself and has earned the nickname 'Mr. Shuffles' since learning to stand after it was born early Wednesday. (AP Photo/Bobby-Jo Vial)



that's it for today!
smell ya later!
todd

this is post no.704.