Doctors Baffled, Intrigued by Girl Who Doesn’t Age

By Bob Brown | ABCNews.com

 

Brooke Greenberg is the size of an infant, with the mental capacity of a toddler.

 

She turned 16 in January.

 

 

 

At about 16 pounds and 30 inches, 16-year-old Brooke Greenberg has not aged significantly, physically or apparently cognitively, since she was a toddler. Doctors hope that her case could shed light on the mysterious genetics behind aging.

 

 

“Why doesn’t she age?” Howard Greenberg, 52, asked of his daughter. “Is she the fountain of youth?”

 

Such questions are why scientists are fascinated by Brooke. Among the many documented instances of children who fail to grow or develop in some way, Brooke’s case may be unique, according to her doctor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pediatrician Lawrence Pakula, in Baltimore.

 

“Many of the best-known names in medicine, in their experience … had not seen anyone who matched up to Brooke,” Pakula said. “She is always a surprise.”

 

Brooke hasn’t aged in the conventional sense. Dr. Richard Walker of the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa, says Brooke’s body is not developing as a coordinated unit, but as independent parts that are out of sync. She has never been diagnosed with any known genetic syndrome or chromosomal abnormality that would help explain why.

 

 

 

Scientists wonder if Brooke Greenberg, now 16, will help point the way to new discoveries about the genetics of aging. Pictured from left to right on Brooke’s 12th birthday( above) are sister Caitlin, 15; Brooke; sister Emily, 18; mom Melanie Greenberg; and sister Carly, 9.

“We love her just the way she is,” said Melanie Greenberg. “We don’t want to change her.”

 

 

In a recent paper for the journal “Mechanisms of Ageing and Development,” Walker and his co-authors, who include Pakula and All Children’s Hospital (St. Petersburg, Fla.) geneticist Maxine Sutcliffe chronicled a baffling range of inconsistencies in Brooke’s aging process. She still has baby teeth at 16, for instance. And her bone age is estimated to be more like 10 years old.

 

“There’ve been very minimal changes in Brooke’s brain,” Walker said. “Various parts of her body, rather than all being at the same stage, seem to be disconnected.”

 

Brooke’s mother, Melanie Greenberg, 48, sees a different picture. “She loves to shop,” Greenberg said. “Just like a woman.”

 

Brooke rides in a stroller while her mom shops for clothes in the infant sections of department stores near their home in a Baltimore suburb. That Brooke is in her mid-teens is so mind-boggling that if another mother with a toddler asks Greenberg how old Brooke is, she usually doesn’t try to explain.

 

“My system always has been to turn years into months,” Greenberg said. “So, if someone asked today, I might say, she’s 16 months old.”

 

 

 

 

 

The Toddler Who Rebels Like a Teen

 

Brooke weighs 16 pounds and is 30 inches tall. She doesn’t speak, but she laughs when she is happy, and she clearly recognizes the people around her. She has three sisters: Emily, 22; Caitlin, 19; and Carly, 13. All three are bright, active and of normal size and development. They say that Brooke has ways of expressing herself like the teenager she is.

 

“She looks like a 6-month-old, but she kind of has a personality of a 16-year-old,” Caitlin said. “Sometimes we joke about how she rebels.”

 

Brooke will resist and refuse activities that don’t appeal to her by vocalizing her displeasure, not with words, but with sounds typical of an infant. “She makes it known what she likes and what she doesn’t like,” sister Emily said.

 

Carly said it no longer seems strange to have an older sister who is still essentially an infant. “As I got older, she was just like another little sister to me,” she said.

 

In her first six years, Brooke went through a series of medical emergencies from which she recovered, often without explanation. She survived surgery for seven perforated stomach ulcers. She suffered a brain seizure followed by what was diagnosed as a stroke that weeks later left no apparent damage.

 

At 4, she fell into a lethargy that caused her to sleep for 14 days. Then, doctors diagnosed a brain tumor, and the Greenbergs bought a casket for her.

 

 

“We were preparing for our child to die,” Howard Greenberg said. “We were saying goodbye. And, then, we got a call that there was some change; that Brooke had opened her eyes and she was fine. There was no tumor. She overcomes every obstacle that is thrown her way.”

 

Brooke’s doctor said the source of her sudden illnesses remains a mystery.

 

“We often did not have a good explanation for why she became ill as quickly and intensely as she did,” Pakula said. “There were many times in which there were real doubts about her ability to survive.”

 

As she rocks back and forth in a baby swing, Brooke is fed through a tube inserted into her stomach, because her esophagus is so small that swallowed food could back up into her lungs and cause pneumonia.

 

Doctors recommended growth hormone therapy early in Brooke’s life, but the treatment produced no results.

 

Howard Greenberg recalled the follow-up visit to the endocrinologist. “We took her back in six months, and the doctor looked at us and said, ‘Why didn’t you give Brooke the growth hormones?’ And I said, ‘We gave Brooke the growth hormones. We gave her everything you told us to do.’ And Brooke didn’t put on a pound, an ounce; she didn’t grow an inch.”

 

 

Part of the Family

 

Brooke’s hair and her nails are the only two things that grow, Howard said. “She has pajamas and outfits that are 10 or 12 years old,” he said.

 

One of the things she loves most is movement. As Brooke lies on her stomach, Carly often steers her through the house on an ottoman. Brooke also likes to push against open kitchen drawers until they slam shut.

 

In her crib, “she’s very content,” Howard said. “She has very little conception of time.”

 

The family has placed a small television near the crib so she can watch whenever she pleases. Her father gets up in the middle of each night to check on her.

 

Brooke has a caretaker during daytime hours, but the family’s schedule revolves around her, year after year. The Greenbergs take no vacations, have few nights out and involve Brooke in as many family activities as possible. “To go to a swimming pool for the summer, or belong to a summer club … we tried all those things, and it’s lacking something,” her mother said. “Brooke’s not there. We’re not a family without Brooke.”

 

Brooke goes to a Baltimore County public school, Ridge Ruxton, dedicated to special education. Based on her age, she would be a junior in high school. Jewel Adiele, one of Brooke’s teachers, said she wonders sometimes what Brooke is thinking or perceiving.

 

 

“People who have worked with her in the past or who briefly see her say … there’s no change,” Adiele said. “But I think, in her heart, she changes. I think from day to day, there are changes. They’re not just as visible as you see in a lot of teens.”

 

To try to determine why Brooke’s aging process has been so irregular — and what it means to the understanding of our genetic makeup — Walker and Sutcliffe have studied samples of Brooke’s cells and DNA to look for what they think may be a genetic mutation never seen before that has affected the way she ages.

 

Walker, of the University of South Florida, believes that if the gene can be isolated, it may provide clues to questions about why we age and die.

 

“Without being sensational, I’d say this is an opportunity for us to answer the question, why we’re mortal, or at least to test it,” Walker said. “And if we’re wrong, we can discard it. But if we’re right, we’ve got the golden ring.”

 

A Key to Understanding How We Age?

 

If the gene — or complex of genes — is identified, Walker plans to test laboratory animals to determine whether the gene can be switched off and, if so, whether it will cause the animal’s aging to slow.

 

In the long term, the idea that the aging process might somehow be manipulated raises serious questions about what human beings might do with that knowledge.

 

“Clearly, that’s the science fiction aspect of it,” said Walker, describing the social and ethical dilemmas that would arise. “We can’t have continued reproduction and people who don’t age.”

 

One possible reason to slow the aging process, Walker suggested, would be to allow astronauts to travel in space for long periods of time. “But right now, it’s only conjecture,” he said.

 

Neither Walker nor Pakula, her doctor, can speculate how long Brooke’s life might be. “That’s more of a crystal ball question,” Pakula said. “I think there’s no way of knowing. “

 

 

The visual evidence of that unpredictable future is always there in the family pictures — photographs in which everyone but Brooke is aging.

 

The Greenbergs are fascinated by the promise that a scientific breakthrough may stem from Brooke, whose own life is governed by the most basic elements: food and shelter; a family’s love; and their ability to see in her far more than meets the eye, having come to terms with the prospect that she will never grow up.

 

“We love her just the way she is,” Melanie Greenberg said. “We don’t want to change her.”

 

Added Howard Greenberg, “Brooke is the nucleus of our family. What if Brooke holds the secret to aging? We’d like to find out. We’d like to help people. Everybody’s here for a reason. Maybe this is why Brooke is here.”

 

Article from: ABCNews.com

 

Photos: Slideshow courtesy of Greenberg Family

 

Excellent Holiday Gift for Children & Families>>>

Video News Report:Why is This Broom Standing on Its Own ?

The Man They Could Not Hang

John ‘Babbacombe’ Lee appeared as a lonely figure on the gallows – but each time an attempt was made to open the trapdoor, it stuck.

 

 

United Kingdom – Throughout the past 100 years, the myths surrounding John “Babbacombe” Lee’s story have taken on a life of their own. Urban legends, ghostly sightings and tales of supernatural intervention have grown far beyond what anybody in 19th century South Devon could have imagined for the lowly manservant.

 

Lee, nicknamed The Man They Could Not Hang, came to prominence when he was convicted of murdering his employer, Emma Keyse, and setting fire to her Babbacombe home, called The Glen.

 

Mike Holgate, of Torquay, an expert on John Lee, said, “During his trial, the prosecution portrayed Lee as a depraved lunatic capable of smashing an old lady’s head with an axe, then slashing her throat with a knife.

 

“The judge, in passing sentence of death, remarked how calm Lee’s demeanor had been throughout the trial.

 

“Lee is said to have leaned forward in the dock and replied firmly: ‘The reason why I am so calm is that I trust in the Lord, and He knows I am innocent.’

 

“In the days leading up to the date of execution, Lee read the Bible prodigiously and proclaimed his innocence.

 

“It is said he told the prison chaplain the real culprit was the lover of his half-sister, Elizabeth Harris, who was cook at The Glen and expecting a child which was later delivered out of wedlock in Newton Abbot Workhouse.”

 

The prison governor’s logbook states on the morning of the execution, as Lee approached the gallows trapdoor, he told two prison guards he had dreamed “three times the bolt was drawn, and three times the bolt failed to act.”

 

Lee was a lonely figure on the gallows – but each time an attempt was made to open the trapdoor, it stuck.

 

After each failed attempt the trapdoor was tested and it opened normally, but when Lee stood on it again the door would not open. Three times this happened, each with the same outcome.

 

It is rumored that throughout the ordeal on the scaffold, a white dove perched on the gallows until the condemned man was led safely back to his prison cell.

 

The Home Secretary told Parliament he could not expect a man to “twice face the pangs of imminent death.”

 

Lee began a 23-year prison sentence in Exeter, and from that day the myths about his life spread across the world. Witchcraft and devilish incantations were often talked of when people tried to reason Lee’s escape from death.

 

Friends of Lee claimed they had paid a white witch handsomely to save him from the noose.

 

Other people told stories of how Lee’s mother had visited the church graveyard near her home at Abbotskerswell, recited the Lord’s Prayer backwards and summoned the Devil to save her son.

 

Also, an old woman called Granny Lee, from Ogwell, is said to have told locals “they shall not hang him” as she walked to Exeter on the morning of the execution and cast a spell on the gallows from a spot overlooking the prison.

 

In 1905, the witchcraft theory gained credence from a surprising source – the Archdeacon of Westminster, Basil Wilberforce.

 

At the time of the murder he had been a regular visitor to Babbacombe, where he addressed temperance meetings organized by a distinguished neighbor of Emma Keyse, Lady Mount-Temple of Babbacombe Cliff.

 

The churchman was chaplain to the House of Commons and vehemently opposed a growing campaign for Lee’s release.

 

He informed the Home Office that he “knew the Lees well” and said they were “a well-known witch family on Dartmoor.”

 

Whether miracle or sorcery, the events on the scaffold cast doubt in many people’s minds about Lee’s guilt.

 

The editor of The Times, who poured scorn on the Home Secretary’s decision to eventually reprieve Lee, said Lee’s story would “encourage foolish and superstitious people to believe, in spite of evidence as clear as noonday, that Lee was wrongfully convicted.”

 

Mike added, “The Home Office didn’t help themselves, because they refused to release details about the trapdoor malfunction for 100 years, so the myths grew.

 

“There were even questions asked in Parliament at the time. I can’t understand why they wouldn’t announce the details, and they had all the speculation to go through again when he left prison 23 years later.”

 

After his release, Lee went to London, where he then eloped with a barmaid, abandoning his wife who was expecting their second child.

 

He then seemingly disappeared without trace – having reportedly visited Australia, America and Canada – and Mike Holgate only recently discovered that Lee died in 1945.

 

Mike traced the grave to a cemetery in Milwaukee, America. Records show Lee died, aged 80, on March 19, 1945.

 

The legend certainly did not die with Lee, however, because Mike recently recorded a number of spooky tales about The Man They Could Not Hang.

 

He said, “A strange event added to the mystery more than a century later when a pub named the John Lee opened on Babbacombe Downs at Easter, 1989.

 

“At the beginning of June, the swinging pub sign bearing the logo of a hanged man fell to the ground on three consecutive nights for no discernible reason.

 

“That same week, Steve Harley and his band Cockney Rebel were appearing in concert in Exeter. It had just been announced the talented singer-songwriter was to play the role of John Lee in a forthcoming movie.

 

“A tiny bay just outside Brixham was selected for the setting of the film, where a mock Victorian villa was to be built to re-create the scene of the murder.

 

“Extensive and dedicated research by the filmmakers had reportedly uncovered new facts about the murder and they had been incorporated into the script, which had two possible endings.

 

“The producer told the press, ‘I’ve lived and breathed this for so long now that I’m not going to give up until I have discovered the truth.’

 

“Unfortunately, the ‘truth’ never came out because the film was abandoned, soon followed by the closure of the Babbacombe pub. Perhaps the two projects had earned the displeasure of John Lee’s troubled spirit.”

 

 

 

 

Source – http://www.thisissouthdevon.co.uk/

Why is Debris Raining from the Sky in this Neighborhood ?

Raining rebar : A southeast Rogers neighborhood has been repeatedly hit with flying metal debris.

By Tom Treweek Staff Writer  Posted on Friday, July 3, 2009

http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/News/75013/

 

 

ROGERS – When Kevin Montondo mows his yard, he puts on his hardhat. On some days, he adds a camouflage down-lined coat, the closest thing to Kevlar that he owns. It’s a comedic image until he pulls out the 5/8-inch nut that fell on his car or the bits of rebar that hit his house.

 

“What’s hitting will literally kill you,” Montondo said.

 

He collects the projectiles from his yard in Ziploc bags, an estimated 25 pounds so far. Some days there’s more than a dozen nuts, bolts, marbles, ratchet bits and other hard, launchable objects. He finds most of them in the morning because the barrage comes at night – every night for the last two months.

 

Montondo said the Blackburn subdivision in southeast Rogers has been under a self-imposed lockdown since the assault began about two months ago. At the peak of summer vacation, the neighborhood’s nearly 30 children are nowhere to be seen because there is no telling when the metal will fall. The earliest Montondo has noticed it was 11 a.m., but debris was also reported hitting at 4:17 a.m. After dark, the falling objects can seem like a hailstorm.

 

“The night the rebar was coming in, it was like it was raining,” he said.

 

Police have been in the neighborhood regularly. Cpl. Angel Murphy-Pearce said calls came from Montondo’s home on Mulberry Street and the adjacent B Street, but investigators have no witnesses of the acts, just the aftermath. They have canvassed the neighborhood by vehicle and by foot. They’ve interviewed residents several times and have attempted to lift fingerprints from the debris. Investigators still have no suspect.

 

There is still no certainty about the culprit’s methods. Residents have suggested several possibilities of propulsion, from a shotgun to something mechanical, Murphy-Pearce said. They’ve also suggested several suspects, but those suspects have, so far, turned out to be victims as well.

 

The Montondos’ behavior is that of a family accepting what is going on, trying to accommodate the behavior to lessen the damage.

 

“I leave my windows down because that’s less windows that will get broke,” Sydney Montondo said.

 

But Kevin Montondo’s speech is peppered with references to firearms and manhunts.

 

“We’ve been told we’re not supposed to shoot back, and we’re not doing that,” he said.

 

The projectiles come from a northerly or northeasterly direction, and the items falling from the sky seem to be getting smaller of late, Sydney Montondo noted. That is little consolation.

 

As the holiday weekend approached, Kevin Montondo only feared the activity would escalate. Police have been responding within three minutes of his calls, he said, but he won’t rest until the person is caught.

 

Police also want this to end, preferably before someone is hurt. So far, no one has been hit with the debris, only structures and vehicles, but that kind of luck may not last forever.

 

“We very much want to get to the bottom of this,” Murphy-Pearce said.

 

Because of the number of occurrences, Murphy-Pearce could not speculate on the criminal charges the culprit will face. That decision, she said, will be up to the prosecuting attorney.

 

But to charge the suspect, police must find one. Murphy-Pearce said anyone with information on the incidents is asked to call the Police Department at 636-4141.

Michael Jackson death: conspiracy theories and unanswered questions

 

Source : John Bingham

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/5646095/Michael-Jackson-death-conspiracy-theories-and-unanswered-questions.html

 

Michael Jackson’s death left the internet awash with conspiracy theories and speculation while genuine questions about the cause remained.

Even before it became clear that the singer had died there were suggestions of fakery and intrigue surrounding reports of his collapse.

When news that Michael Jackson had been taken to hospital after going into cardiac arrest emerged, Perez Hilton, the Hollywood blogger, pronounced himself “dubious” saying that he had pulled a “similar stunt” when he was getting ready for a big appearance in 1995.

 The posting, which suggested that the star was “dragging his heels” over the 50 performance residency planned at the 02 arena, was taken down from the site.

But even after his death had been confirmed, postings from the public continued to insist that he might not have died.

Bizarre claims that other celebrities had also died began to circulate including rumours – quickly debunked – that Harrison Ford had gone missing from a yacht or that Matt Damon had died in a car or plane crash.

Early theories posted on internet forums included the suggestion that Michael Jackson had faked his death and pocketed money from his upcoming comeback performances to solve his financial difficulties.

A message on digitalspy read: “Millions in debt and realises that he can’t deliver on a 50 gig comeback tour, so he fakes his death, assumes a new identity (which he’s been trying to achieve for many years) and disappears?”

One posting on Twitter suggested that the original internet report that the star was dead had been wrong but that he had been “covertly” killed because a “media bandwagon” had already got out of control.

Another internet posting suggested that he had been killed by a new “experimental bio weapon”.

It is not the first time that the web has carried rumours and gossip about Michael Jackson’s death.

Claims that the singer’s decomposed body had been found at his Neverland ranch and that an impostor had taken his place circulated four years ago but originated from a spoof story on the satirical site The Onion.

Aside from the more outlandish theories about Michael Jackson’s death there was genuine debate about the cause.

Internet news reports questioned why his personal doctor had been with the singer at his home but had been unable to help him and why reports of the singer’s death took so long to confirm.

The main theory was that his collapse stemmed from an over reliance on prescription painkillers after sustaining a series of injuries in rehearsal.

Meanwhile Uri Geller, a friend of Michael Jackson, blamed stress.

UFO ‘battle’ over Nuremberg, Germany in 1561

Source : John Sparacio , www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977715338

 

Summary: At sunrise on the 14th April 1561, the citizens of Nuremberg beheld “A very frightful spectacle.” The sky appeared to fill with cylindrical objects from which red, black, orange and blue white disks and globes emerged. Crosses and tubes resembling cannon barrels also appeared whereupon the objects promptly “began to fight one another.” This event is depicted in a famous 16th century woodcut by Hans Glaser.

 

Below are descriptions of the event from various sources:

—————

 

At dawn of April 4, in the sky of Nuremberg (Germany), a lot of men and women saw a very alarming spectacle where various objects were involved, including balls “approximately 3 in the length, from time to time, four in a square, much remained insulated, and between these balls, one saw a number of crosses with the color of blood. Then one saw two large pipes, in which small and large pipes, were 3 balls, also four or more. All these elements started to fight one against the other.” (Gazette of the town of Nuremberg).

 

The events lasted one hour and had such repercussions that an artist, Hans Glaser, drew a woodcut of it at the time. It describes two immense black cylinders launching many blue and black spheres, blood red crosses, and flying discs. They seem to fight a battle in the sky, it also seems that some of these spheres and objects have crashed outside the city.

 

(UFOs at Close Sight – Ufologie.net)

 

—————

 

Today in Odd History, an eerie battle raged in the skies above Nuremberg, Germany. It began at dawn, as dozens, if not hundreds, of crosses, globes and tubes fought each other above the city. It ended an hour later, when “the globes in the small and large rods flew into the sun,” and several of the other objects crashed to earth and vanished in a thick cloud of smoke.

 

According to the Nuremberg Gazette, the “dreadful apparition” filled the morning sky with “cylindrical shapes from which emerged black, red, orange and blue-white spheres that darted about.” Between the spheres, there were “crosses with the color of blood.” This “frightful spectacle”was witnessed by “numerous men and women.” Afterwards, a “black, spear-like object” appeared. The author of the Gazette warned that “the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that he avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may, temporarily here and perpetually there, live as His children.” In the same year, a Lutheran clergyman on progress in Nuremberg wrote: “…God the Almighty has … placed in the heavens many horrible and hitherto unheard of signs… We have seen far more signs now than in any other year. The sun and the moon have been darkened on a number of occasions. A crucifix in the sky was seen, as were biers and coffins with black men beside them. Further, rods and whips and many other signs were seen in a multitude of places… and scarcely a year has passed of late without an eclipse of the sun or moon…”

 

(News of the Odd)

Nuremberg, Germany. April 14th 1561. The Hans Glaser wood-cut from 1566, 5 years after the event and in the same year as the Basle report.

 

At sunrise on the 14th April 1561, the citizens of Nuremberg beheld “A very frightful spectacle.” The sky appeared to fill with cylindrical objects from which red, black, orange and blue white disks and globes emerged. Crosses and tubes resembling cannon barrels also appeared whereupon the objects promptly “began to fight one another.” After about an hour of battle, the objects seemed too catch fire and fell to Earth, where they turned too steam. The witnesses took this display as a divine warning. This report is unique in the annals of Ufology, in that it has never been repeated. There is no record of such “objects” in either local or German national folklore. The surviving Town records from the period, give no indication of any unrest either civil or external. Given the uniqueness of the incident, it appears that something supernatural or paranormal took place.

 

(Jim Morris)

 

—————–

 

April 1561 – A War In Heaven?

 

One of the most astounding of documented sightings of aerial phenomena took place in 1561 over Nuremberg, Germany. What was described could only be called a war in the heavens, with a wide variety of craft ranging from spheres to spear-like cylinders to crosses. The sky was apparently filled with the machines, clashing in battle. Comets and such were well identified and charted in this period, so it is highly unlikely that what the people witnessed was merely a celestial phenomenon like a ‘meteor shower’, as some debunkers suggest. Rather, what is described are physical objects of unique detail and shapes, in ‘battle’ for over an hour. The battle was such that a winner was perceived as well. Spheroid UFOs were seen emerging from cylindrical ‘motherships’. At the conclusion of the battle, it seems a magnificent, black, spear-like super-ship of some kind came upon the scene…

 

It began at dawn, as dozens, if not hundreds, of crosses, globes and tubes fought each other above the city. It ended an hour later, when “the globes in the small and large rods flew into the sun,” and several of the other objects crashed to earth and vanished in a thick cloud of smoke.

 

 

According to the Nuremberg Gazette, the “dreadful apparition” filled the morning sky with “cylindrical shapes from which emerged black, red, orange and blue-white spheres that darted about.” Between the spheres, there were “crosses with the color of blood.” This “frightful spectacle” was witnessed by “numerous men and women.” Afterwards, a “black, spear-like object” appeared. The author of the Gazette warned that “the God-fearing will by no means discard these signs, but will take it to heart as a warning of their merciful Annunciation with St. Emidius Father in heaven, will mend their lives and faithfully beg God, that he avert His wrath, including the well-deserved punishment, on us, so that we may, temporarily here and perpetually there, live as His children.”

 

 

(Rense.com)

 

—————-

 

A broadsheet that dates from 1561, held in the Wickiana Collection of Switzerland’s Zurich Central Library, describes an ancient battle of ufos over the skies of Nuremberg, Germany, on April 14th of that very same year. At sunrise, many people witnessed large numbers of dark red, blue and black ‘globes’ or ‘plates’ near the sun, ’some three in a row, now and then four in a square, also some alone. And amongst these globes some blood colored crosses were seen.’ The document also refers to two great tubes ‘ in which three, four and more globes were seen. They then all began to fight each other.’ This went on for about an hour, until ‘they all fell…… from the sun and sky down to the earth, producing alot of steam’. Beneath the globes a long object that looked like a great black spear was also described as being seen.

 

(Subversive Element)

The Legend Of The Hermit

by Neil Arnold

Is it just a whisper on the wind that strange people, resembling a bizarre cult, once inhabited Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and became known as the Wissahickon Cult? The cult is considered the first of such Doomsday worshipers and is said to have formed in the 1600s.

 

 

 

A hermit clan is said to have

knowledge of the supernatural

 

They slept under the stars. They ate only what they could grow or find. Some say that they were members of America’s first Doomsday Cult – a secret order formed in the 1600s called The Hermits of Wissahickon. The hermits – who also called themselves the Tabernacle of the Mystic Brotherhood, or The Society of the Woman in the Wilderness – fascinated local residents with their esoteric practices.

 

Ritual magic, herbal medicine, numerology, alchemy, astrology, shamanism, and body modification – those are just a few of the alleged practices of the Brotherhood. The hermits were skilled in medicine and instrumental music, and Kelpius was a respected scholar. Numerology was big among the Brotherhood and 40 was a key number.

 

Some would say they were once disciples of Satan, but perhaps their mystical awareness merely came from a worship of nature and an understanding of the planet, instead of from sinister sources. Strangely, there are roads in Philly named after the legacy of the people. Hermit Street and Monastery Avenue are said to be named after the cult who were also known as the Tabernacle of the Mystic Brotherhood.

 

Their last surviving hermit supposedly had the ability to turn ordinary objects into gold. Legend states that he trusted a friend to cast a golden stone into the Schuylkill River as an ode to the lady of the lake, and once thrown, shards of glittering gems littered the ground and a bright flash filled the night air. Variations of the legend claim that it was not a stone thrown into the depths, but a casket that exploded, its illuminations resembling spears of lightning.

 

No one really knows the truth regarding the unusual hermit clan, but at Fairmount Park a huge monolith stands to honor the founder of the order, a man named Johannes Kelp, who was known to his disciples as Kelpius.

 

 

 

The cave of Kelpius

 

A mysterious cave also remains in Wissahickon, which was supposedly once inhabited by such a group, or cult. There they were said to practice strange rituals and have visions pertaining to shamanistic powers and numerology.

 

The marker at the cave declares that Kelpius was the first Rosicrucian master in America. The Rosicrucians (meaning rose and cross) are a worldwide brotherhood that claims to have secret wisdom dating to ancient Egypt. The group describes itself as a philosophy and fraternity but not a religion.

 

The truth of the Brotherhood remains as hidden today as it did back then, yet it seems that these people were merely great visionaries and not something akin to witches, and so the tragedy of misunderstanding once again prevails, but thankfully there are still remnants of these gifted people in the modern day.

 

http://phillyist.com/

MORE Strange, Paranormal & Mind Power related ->->

1968 UFO Mystery Still Unresolved

by Dave Olson

B-52 Navigator Patrick McCaslin recounts a 1968 UFO encounter.

 

 

A routine bomber flight in the pre-dawn hours of Oct. 24, 1968, turned unforgettable for navigator Patrick McCaslin. McCaslin and his B-52 crewmates were practicing maneuvers in the skies above Minot, N.D., when officials at the nearby Air Force base radioed a request.

 

“The tower called and said, ‘Could you guys keep your eyes open for anything unusual?’’’ said McCaslin, recalling that flight four decades ago.

 

 

“We asked, ‘What are we looking for?’

 

“They said, ‘You’ll know it if you see it,’’’ McCaslin said.

 

“This is a dim memory,” he added, “but I think one of the pilots said, ‘Are the missile crews seeing things again?’’’

 

McCaslin’s first move was to focus the plane’s radar into a narrow, high-intensity beam. “I saw a radar return off to our right; it was faint on the first sweep and then it was very strong on the next sweep,” he said.

 

When McCaslin informed the pilots about the contact, they replied they couldn’t see anything because of cloud cover, but asked him to keep them apprised of what the object did.

 

What it did, McCaslin said, was move faster than anything he had ever clocked on radar.

 

“From one sweep of the radar to the next, it came from three miles to one mile,” he said. “Later, we computed the closure speed at 3,000 miles an hour.”

 

From there, it only got stranger.

 

“It blew my mind that this thing had closed on us this quickly,” said McCaslin, who recalled that as he advised the pilots of what the object was doing, the bomber lost radio contact with the tower.

 

“We could hear them, but they couldn’t hear us,” he said.

 

A short while later, the object dropped from the plane’s radar.

 

Officials in the tower also watched the blip disappear from radar and asked the bomber to fly lower in an attempt to regain contact.

 

As the plane approached the spot where radar contact was lost, the crew finally saw something.

 

“The pilots indicated they could see it visually, just hovering above the ground,” McCaslin recalled.

 

“They said to me, ‘Why don’t you unstrap and come up and take a look at this thing?’” said McCaslin, who decided to stick close to his ejection seat.

 

“I didn’t know what this thing was.”

 

Shortly after the pilot and co-pilot began observing the mysterious, glowing object, it rose quickly into the sky and disappeared.

 

Long Witness List

 

While the bomber crew members were making their observations, workers on the ground were seeing something similar and reacting to alarms going off at one of the Minuteman missile silos near the Minot air base, said Bill McNeff, who heard parts of the story firsthand from a brother-in-law who worked as a security guard at the air base in 1968.

 

McNeff, a retired electrical engineer living in the Twin Cities and a former director of the Minnesota chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, said the Minot incident was one of the things that inspired him to pursue decades of research into UFO phenomenon.

 

His quest led him in the 1980s to the National Archives in Washington, where he poured over the files of Project Blue Book, the official U.S. Air Force inquiry into reports of unidentified flying objects in the 1950s and ’60s.

 

“There were incidents during the Minot episode that did not make it into the Blue Book files,” said McNeff, who added the official record doesn’t reflect that two airmen passed out after a close approach from the UFO.

 

He said a report that the lid of a missile silo was tampered with was also left out.

 

“What I learned later is that the lid was completely off the silo and lying on the grass,” McNeff said.

 

Patternicity

 

McNeff said the Minot case ranks among the most intriguing of all UFO sightings because of the number of witnesses and its proximity to a heavily guarded nuclear installation.

 

Those factors don’t impress Michael Schermer. Schermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine and founder of the Skeptics Society, shakes his head at any suggestion UFOs are anything more than earthly events that have yet to be explained.

 

“What the public has done is equate ‘UFO’ with ‘extraterrestrial spaceship,’ but to date we don’t have a shred of evidence that any of the sightings represent extraterrestrial,” Schermer said.

 

He said the Minot case, with its radar contact indicating an object that moved extremely fast, is interesting, but proves nothing.

 

“How do you know it just wasn’t one branch of the military not telling the other branch of the military what they’re doing? That happens all the time.” Schermer has coined a term for why some equate UFOs with visits from outer space.

 

“I call it patternicity, the tendency to find meaningful patterns in random noise,” he said.

 

“Basically, our brains are wired to always find an explanation even if there isn’t one,” he said. “In other words, we have a low tolerance for ambiguity.”

 

Vega Schmayga

 

McCaslin, who eventually became a pilot and later a high school science teacher in Texas, where he still lives, doesn’t know if what showed up on his radar that night 40 years ago came from outer space or inner space.

 

But he said one of the explanations the Air Force came up with – that his bomber crew was looking at a star called Vega – is hogwash. Well, he actually used a stronger noun. And his irritation with the official story is still evident after four decades.

 

“My business was to navigate with several means, the star Vega for one,” he said. “This thing was at or near the ground. How could it be a star if you’re looking at the ground?”

 

When TV specials air interviews with McCaslin, his neighbors will approach him and ask if he believes in UFOs.

 

“I’ll tell you what I tell them. I believe what I saw that night. I’m not ready to accept all the things that you see out there – about alien abduction and all that – because I didn’t have that experience. It would be a leap in logic to say it came from outer space,” McCaslin said.

 

“It could have come from inner space,” he said. “It could have come from anywhere.”

 

Scientist says some UFO reports worth pondering

 

Stories about a B-52 bomber’s encounter with an unidentified flying object in North Dakota in October 1968 pop up on many Web sites.

 

In one posting, Twin Cities-based UFO researcher Bill McNeff relates what co-pilot Brad Runyon reported seeing in the early morning hours on that day 40 years ago.

 

Runyon described an object more than 200 feet in diameter and hundreds of feet long.

 

He said the object had a metallic cylinder attached to one end, with a crescent moon-shaped section glowing yellow-green connected to the cylinder.

 

Many scientists dismiss UFO sightings as unremarkable. Many, but not all.

 

“My perspective is there’s certainly something going on. I don’t know what it is,” said Bernard Haisch, an astrophysicist and author of more than 130 scientific publications.

 

Haisch believes the UFO question deserves to be pondered by the scientific community, even if 99 percent of reports are explainable or hoaxed.

 

“There’s still a huge amount of data that is potentially useful,” said Haisch, who operates a Web site called http://www.ufoskeptic.org.

 

He defines “skeptic” as someone wary of extraordinary explanations for perplexing mysteries who is also willing to look at data.

 

With the rise of string theory – which allows for the possibility of multiple universes – Haisch finds it odd that physicists are usually the first to scoff at the idea of visitors from other worlds. “It’s kind of a strange situation,” he said.

 

Thomas McDonough, senior scientist with a group called The Skeptics Society, grew up believing in the paranormal, but gradually became a doubter.

 

“There are so many ways people can be fooled,” said McDonough, who like Haisch is from California and has a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

 

Absent tangible evidence, McDonough said he has concluded that the Earth is not being visited by aliens. However, he’s keeping the door open to possibilities.

 

“Every now and then in science, someone comes along with a weird story that leads to something new. But most times,” he said, “the weird stories lead to something mundane.”

 

http://www.in-forum.com/

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Miracle Girls Tears Of Blood

A miracle has been declared over a girl who cries tears of blood.

 

 

 

 

Patna, India – A girl has become a holy shrine in Patna, eastern India, where worshippers watch her cry blood instead of tears.

 

Doctors have been stumped by Rashida Khatoon’s condition, which causes her to shed tears of blood several times a day.

 

But local Hindu holy men have declared her a miracle.

 

And followers now flock to her home and have showered her and her family with gifts as holy offerings.

 

“I do not feel any pain when it happens but it’s a shock to see blood instead of water,” said Rashida.

 

 

 

Source – http://www.austriantimes.at/

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Man’s Death Linked To Ancient Curse

 

By Ryan Deter

There is said to be a 13th-century bishop’s hex which brings disaster to anyone who damages his cathedral.

 

 

The death in police custody of a man suspected of vandalising Dornoch Cathedral has led to speculation that a curse, said to have been laid in mediaeval times, has struck again.

 

Gilbert de Moravia, Bishop of Caithness, invoked a solemn curse “upon those who destroy and injure” the fabric of the 13th-century building in his deed declaring the foundation of the cathedral, which was completed in 1239.

 

When the much-respected warrior-cleric died in 1245, he was interred beneath the floor of the cathedral. He was subsequently made a saint.

 

Daryl Shearer, a 19-year-old arrested for allegedly vandalising and stealing money from the ancient building on Friday, October 24, died mysteriously in a police cell in Dingwall later the same weekend, while awaiting a court appearance.

 

A post-mortem examination has been carried out and no cause of death has been released.

 

Back in 1570, St Gilbert’s curse was said to have struck down landowner William Sutherland, of Evelix, near Dornoch.

 

During the sacking of the cathedral by the Mackays of Strathnaver and retainers of the Earl of Caithness, Sutherland had joined in and kicked over St Gilbert’s bones. According to local tradition, the very foot that perpetrated the deed rotted away, creating such a stench that no one would go near Sutherland as he died a slow, agonising death.

 

Sue Higgins, curator at the local museum, said she was aware of stories about the curse, but added: “I personally have not heard any speculation locally about what happened more recently.”

 

The Rev Susan Brown, minister at the Church of Scotland cathedral said she did not know of the tale.

 

She distanced herself from any talk of a curse, adding: “I don’t know if he was responsible, but the fact a young man has died at such an early age is incredibly sad and sobering.”

 

. . .

 

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/

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