Interesting Wikipedia thread

[DrunkBomber]

Ive wanted to have a thread like this for a while and I was going to make one on TalkBears but I dont think it would get the traffic it deserves so Ill make it here with hopes that other people will contribute to it. I know I find a lot of the stuff on there very interesting and its cool to have that much information on random things so accessible. So if anyone else looks through it and finds cool articles please post them. Ill start it off.

Juliane Diller Köpcke of Lima, Peru was the sole survivor of 93 passengers in the December 24, 1971 crash of LANSA Flight 508 (a LANSA Lockheed Electra OB-R-941 commercial airliner) in the Peruvian rainforest. She and her mother, famed ornithologist Maria Köpcke, were traveling to meet with her father, biologist Hans-Wilhelm Köpcke (Anglicised Hans-Wilhelm Koepcke).[1]

 

Juliane Köpcke was a high school senior studying in Lima, intending to become a zoologist, like her father. Her mother was traveling with Juliane from Lima to meet the father who was working in Pucallpa.

 

The airplane was struck by lightning during a severe thunderstorm and exploded in mid air, disintegrating two miles up. Köpcke, who was 17 years old at the time, fell to Earth still strapped into her seat. She survived the fall with only a broken collarbone, a gash to her right arm, and the loss of sight in one eye.

 

Her first priority was to find her mother, who had been seated next to her on the plane. But her searches proved fruitless - she later found out her mother had died in the crash.

 

By using jungle survival skills she had previously learned from her father, Koepcke was soon able to locate a small stream. She then waded through knee-high water downstream from her landing site, relying on the survival principle her father had taught her that tracking downstream should eventually lead to civilization. The stream also provided clean water and a natural path through the dense rainforest vegetation. After nine days, she found a canoe, and a nearby shelter, where she waited. Hours later, the lumbermen who resided in the shelter arrived, and tended to her injuries and extensive bug infestations. The next morning they took her via a seven hour canoe ride down the river to a lumber station in Tournavista, from where she was airlifted with the help of a local pilot to her father and a hospital in Pucallpa.

 

Her experience is the subject of two films, the first being the 1974 Giuseppe Maria Scotese film Miracoli accadono ancora, I (Miracles Still Happen), and the most recent being the 2000 Werner Herzog film Wings of Hope.

[iamshack]

Wow, crazy story...thanks for posting that.

[Rooftop Shots]

I remember seeing the movie "Miracles Still Happen" on TV when I was a kid. It was pretty low budget, but still pretty cool at showing how the "will" can sometimes over-ride all adverse circumstances that stand in the way.

[Texsox]

One of the really fun things with wiki is following links. Also on December 24 was the famous Christmas Eve reading of Genesis by the Apollo 8 crew. At the time, the most watched television show.

 

 

 

Apollo 8 was the first manned voyage to a celestial body. Its three-man crew of Mission Commander Frank Borman, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Lunar Module Pilot William Anders became the first humans to see the far side of the Moon. The mission also involved the first manned launch of a Saturn V rocket, and was the second manned mission of the Apollo Program.

 

Originally planned as a low-earth orbit Lunar Module/Command Module test, the mission profile was changed to the more ambitious lunar orbital flight in August 1968 when the Lunar Module scheduled for the flight became delayed. The new mission's profile, procedures and personnel requirements left an uncharacteristically short time-frame for training and preparation.

 

After launching on December 21, 1968, the crew took three days to travel to the Moon. They orbited ten times over the course of 20 hours, during which the crew made a Christmas Eve television broadcast in which they read from the Book of Genesis. At the time, the broadcast was the most watched TV program ever. Apollo 8's successful mission paved the way for Apollo 11 to fulfill U.S. President John F. Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon before the end of the decade.

 

 

[DrunkBomber]

Travis Walton (born April 23, 1957), claims to have been abducted by a UFO on November 5, 1975, while working with a logging crew in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in Arizona. Walton could not be found, but reappeared after five days of intensive searches.

 

The Walton case received considerable mainstream publicity and remains one of the best-known instances of alleged alien abduction. Jerome Clark writes that "Few abduction reports have generated as much controversy" as the Walton case.[1] It is furthermore one of the very few alien abduction cases with corroborative eyewitnesses, and one of few abduction cases where the time allegedly spent in the custody of aliens plays a rather minor role in the overall account.

 

Randles and Hough write that "Neither before or since has an abduction story" begun in the manner related by Walton and his coworkers. Furthermore, the Walton case is singular in that "the victim vanished for days on end with police squads out searching ... it is an atypical "Close Encounter: Fourth Kind" (CE4) ... which bucks the trend so much that it worried some investigators; others defend it staunchly." (Randles and Hough, 186)

 

Supporters argue it is an important and persuasive case, because of the number of corroborative eyewitnesses (the vast majority of alien abduction reports are based on a single individual's testimony), the fact that witnesses passed polygraph exams in support of their accounts, and because in the more than thirty years since the event happened, none of the witnesses have changed their accounts, in spite of at least one cash offer to do so.

 

Skeptics note that Walton failed his initial polygraph examination (and also argue there were problems with some of the other polygraph exams which call their reliability into question), speculate that the disappearance was a moneymaking scheme, and argue there are troubling inconsistencies and problems with the tale that raise significant doubts as to its veracity.

 

In his survey of UFO abduction literature, Terry Matheson writes that "Walton’s experience stands out by virtue of its not being particularly bizarre as far as abduction accounts go." (Matheson, 111-112)

 

Travis reported that after approaching the UFO near the work site, the last thing he remembered was being struck by the beam of light. When he woke, Travis said he was on a reclined bed. A bright light shone above him, and the air was heavy and wet. He was in pain, and had some trouble breathing, but his first thought was that he was in a normal hospital.

 

As his faculties returned, Travis says he realized he was surrounded by three figures, each wearing a sort of orange jumpsuit. The figures were not human; Travis described them as similar to the so-called Greys which feature in some abduction accounts: "shorter than five feet, and they had bald heads, no hair. Their heads were domed, very large. They looked like fetuses ... They had large eyes — enormous eyes — almost all brown, without much white in them. The creepiest thing about them were those eyes ... they just stared through me." Their ears, noses and mouths "seemed real small, maybe just because their eyes were so huge." (Clark, 646)

 

Afraid for his safety, Travis says he got to his feet, and shouted at the creatures to stay away. He grabbed a glasslike cylinder from a nearby shelf and tried to break its tip to create a makeshift knife, but found the object unbreakable, so instead waved it at the creatures as a weapon. The trio of creatures left him in the room.

 

Matheson finds this portion of the narrative troublingly inconsistent, noting that "despite his 'weakened' condition, 'aching body' and 'splitting pain in his skull', maladies for which no cause is suggested, he has no trouble jumping up from his operating table, seizing a conveniently placed glasslike rod, and, assuming a karate 'fighting stance', frightened them with this display of macho aggression, enough at least to cause them to run away." (Matheson, 110) However, if one accepts Travis's story, an adrenaline rush might account for his quick recovery from his pains.

 

Travis then left this "exam room" via a hallway, which led to a round, spherical room with only a high-backed chair placed in the room's center. Though he was afraid there might be someone seated in the chair, Travis says he walked towards it. As he did, lights began to appear in the room. The chair was empty, so Travis says he sat in it. When he did, the room was filled with lights, similar to stars projected on a round planetarium ceiling.

 

The chair was equipped on the left arm with a single short thick lever with an oddly shaped molded handle atop some dark brown material. On the right arm, there was an illuminated, lime-green screen about five inches square with black lines intersected at all angles.[3]

 

When Travis pushed the lever, he reported that the stars rotated around him slowly. When he released the lever, the stars remained at their new position. He decided to stop manipulating the lever, since he had no idea what it might do.

 

He left the chair, and the stars disappeared. Travis thought he had seen a rectangular outline on the rounded wall — perhaps a door — and went to look for it.

 

Just then, Travis heard a sound behind him. He turned, expecting more of the short, large eyed creatures, but was pleasantly surprised to see a tall human figure wearing blue coveralls with a glassy helmet. At the time, Travis said, he did not realize how odd the man's eyes were: larger than normal, and a bright gold color.

 

Travis says he then asked the man a number of questions, but the man only grinned and motioned for Travis to follow him. Travis also said that because of the man’s helmet he might have been unable to hear him, so he followed the man down a hallway which led to a door and a steep ramp down to a large room Travis described as similar to an aircraft hangar. Travis says he realized he’d just left a disc-shaped craft similar to the one he’d seen in the forest just before he’d been struck by the bluish light, but the craft was perhaps twice as large.

 

In the hangar-like room, Travis reported seeing other disc-shaped craft. The man led him to another room, containing three more humans — a woman and two men — resembling the helmeted man. These people did not wear helmets, so Travis says he began asking questions of them. They responded with the same dull grin, and led him by his arm to a small table.

 

Once he was seated on the table, Travis says he realized the woman held a device like an oxygen mask, which she placed on his face. Before he could fight back, Travis says he passed out.

 

When he woke again, Travis says he was outside the gas station in Heber, Arizona. One of the disc-shaped craft was hovering just above the highway. After a moment, the craft shot away, and Travis stumbled to the telephones and called his brother in law, Grant Neff. He thought that only a few hours had passed.

 

After hearing Travis’s story, Gillespie speculated that Travis may have been hit on the head and drugged, then taken to a normal hospital where he had confused the details of a routine exam with something more spectacular. Travis dismissed this, noting that the medical examination had found no trace of head trauma or drugs in his system. Travis told Sheriff Gillespie that he was willing to take a polygraph, a truth serum, or undergo hypnosis to support his account. Gillespie said that a polygraph would suffice, and he promised to arrange one in secret to avoid the growing media circus.

 

Duane and Travis then drove to Scottsdale, Arizona, where a meeting with APRO consultant James A. Harder had been arranged. Harder hypnotized Travis, hoping to uncover more details of the missing five days. Clark writes that "Unlike many other abductees, however, Walton’s conscious recall and unconscious 'memory' were the same, and he could account for only a maximum of two hours, and perhaps less, of his missing five days. Curiously ... Walton encountered an impenetrable mental block and expressed the view that he would 'die' if the regression continued." (Clark, 637)

[whitesoxfan101]

 

Travis Walton, in his own words, 20/20, 1979.

[DrunkBomber]

Chupacabra (also chupacabras /tʃupa'kabɾas/, from Spanish chupar: to suck, cabra: goat; goat sucker) is a cryptid rumored to inhabit parts of the Americas. It is associated more recently with sightings of an allegedly unknown animal in Puerto Rico (where these sightings were first reported), Mexico, and the United States, especially in the latter's Latin American communities.[1] The name comes from the animal's reported habit of attacking and drinking the blood of livestock, especially goats. Physical descriptions of the creature vary. Eyewitness sightings have been claimed as early as 1990 in Puerto Rico, and have since been reported as far north as Maine, and as far south as Chile. It is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail. Most biologists and wildlife management officials view the chupacabra as an urban legend

 

The first purported attacks occurred in March 1995 in Puerto Rico.[3] In this attack eight sheep were discovered dead, each with three puncture wounds in the chest area and were completely drained of blood.[3] In 1975, similar killings in the small town of Moca, were attributed to El Vampiro de Moca (The Vampire of Moca).[4] Initially it was suspected that the killings were committed by a Satanic cult; later more killings were reported around the island, and many farms reported loss of animal life. Each of the animals had their bodies bled dry through a series of small circular incisions.

 

Puerto Rican comedian and entrepreneur Silverio Pérez is credited with coining the term "chupacabras" soon after the first incidents were reported in the press.[5] Shortly after the first reported incidents in Puerto Rico, other animal deaths were reported in other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Brazil, the United States and Mexico

[DrunkBomber]

The Real World: San Diego, rape allegation.

A 22-year-old woman claimed she was raped in the Real World house sometime during the night of November 14, 2003 by an acquaintance of Real World cast member Randy Barry, identified in local reports as "Justin", who was staying at the house as a guest. The woman claimed the man bought her a drink at a downtown San Diego nightspot, and that she blacked out after drinking it. According to cast member Jamie Chung, a member of production staff said that the young woman was found lying naked on the bathroom floor of the Real World house as Justin emerged, saying, "I just hit that." That person then dressed the woman and moved her to the living room couch, where Chung, upon arriving home on the morning of November 15, found her. Chung then helped that other person move the woman to the downstairs guest bedroom. Chung and the camera crew woke the woman at 10:30a.m. while cameras were rolling. Chung told the woman that she may have been sexually assaulted in the bathroom during the night, but the woman, according to Chung, appeared disoriented and had difficulty speaking. With the woman's help, Chung contacted a male friend of hers and arranged for her transportation home. Feeling pain in her genital region, the woman reported the incident to police on November 16, and a subsequent medical examination revealed abrasions to both her vagina and anus. According to police, the woman believes her assailant drugged her, brought her back to the Real World house and then while she was unconscious, raped her in the bathroom, since that is the only place in the house where the show's cameras are off-limits.

 

Another cast member told police that he had seen the woman barely able to stand up in the bathroom, mumbling incoherently and looking confused, according to the search warrant.

 

The police sexual assault unit began investigating the next day, November 17, but the Real World cast and crew had left on the cast's group trip to Mexico, and all film from November 14 and 15 had been shipped from the house to the production headquarters in Los Angeles. Kevin Lee, the on-site producer of show, told police he had not viewed the footage but that, after talking to the cast, believed the woman might have been raped, and confirmed that Justin was resident in the house at the time of the alleged assault. Why this did not motivate him to look at the film or to use the on-site film-editing computer to review the incident is unknown. Lee agreed to supply the police with the consent forms and photo ID cards that listed who was in the house at the time of the incident, and gave them a tour of the house, allowing them to search the bathroom for evidence.

 

At the end of the tour, however, Lee received a phone call from Pam Naughton, an attorney representing Bunim-Murray Productions, which produces the show. Naughton refused to permit the police to search the bedrooms and stated that the producers would not turn over any documents or film until she personally reviewed them. The police then obtained a search warrant, and raided the house, confiscating the film-editing computer, the cast's e-mail computer, bedding, towels, videotapes and other possible items of evidence. After examining hours of footage taped for the show, and seizing evidence at the scene, police made no arrests, and the San Diego County District Attorney's office concluded there was not enough evidence to warrant any charges.

 

Nearly a month of footage from the season ended up on the cutting room floor due to the allegation. While Charlie Dordevich only appears in three episodes, he lived in the house almost as long as Frankie, who appeared in the first 23 episodes.[22][23][24]

 

TV Guide critic J. Max Robins opined, "The sexual-assault charge is the most tragic event in a long list of disturbing incidents that have plagued The Real World since it debuted 12 years ago."

I cant say I remember seeing this on the show.

[Brian]

I cant say I remember seeing this on the show.

 

They never showed anything about it. I remember hearing this rumor before the season actually aired.

[DrunkBomber]

They never showed anything about it. I remember hearing this rumor before the season actually aired.

If its true, which it seems like it is for sure, than the producers of the Real World are honestly some of the biggest pieces of s*** out there. To cover up a rape because of liability issues or whatever other reasons is horrible and Im surprised that its not that well known of a story, I wonder if theres a gag order or something.

[DrunkBomber]

Pedro López (serial killer)

 

López became notorious as the Monster of the Andes. According to López, his mother, a prostitute with 13 children, caught him fondling his younger sister in 1957 when he was eight years old, and evicted him from the family home. He was then picked up by a pedophile, taken to a deserted house and repeatedly sodomized. He was later taken in by an American family and enrolled in a school for orphans. He allegedly ran away either with a teacher from his school or because he was molested by a teacher. At 18, he was gang-raped in prison and, he claimed, killed three of the rapists while still incarcerated. After his jail term he started preying on young girls in Peru. He later claimed that, by 1978, he had killed over 100 of them. He had been caught by a native tribe, who were preparing to execute him when an American missionary intervened, and persuaded them to hand him over to the state police. The police soon released him. He relocated to Colombia and later Ecuador, killing about three girls a week. López later said "“I like the girls in Ecuador, they are more gentle and trusting, more innocent." The authorities had previously believed the disappearance of so many girls was due to white slavery or prostitution. López was arrested when an attempted abduction went wrong and he was trapped by market traders. He confessed to over 300 murders. The police only believed him when a flash flood uncovered a mass grave of many of his victims.

 

This one will lighten up everyones day!

[DrunkBomber]

The real man that the character Diego from the movie Blow was portraying.

Eventually, Lehder was captured in the jungle, and lost his fight against extradition. In 1987 (by which point his net worth was in the neighborhood of $2.5 billion), he was sent to the United States, where he was tried and sentenced to life without parole, plus an additional 135 years.

 

In 1992, in exchange for Lehder's agreement to testify against Manuel Noriega, this was reduced to a total sentence of 55 years. Three years after that, Lehder wrote a letter of complaint to a Jacksonville federal district judge, complaining that the government had reneged on a deal to transfer him to a German prison. The letter was construed as a threat against the judge.

 

Within weeks of sending that letter in the fall of 1995, Lehder was whisked away into the night, according to several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona. While many believe he could have been released, others consider that this is not true.

 

According to journalist and author Tamara S. Inscoe-Johnson, who worked on the Lehder defense during the time in question, Lehder was simply transferred to another prison and has continued to be held in WITSEC, which is the Bureau of Prisons' version of the federal Witness Protection Program.

 

Inscoe-Johnson argued that Lehder had not been released, despite Internet rumors to the contrary. Inscoe-Johnson's work on Lehder entitled "Norman's Cay: The True Story of Carlos Lehder and the Medellin Cartel", details why the author believes that Lehder will never be released. Allegedly, Lehder would be privy to secret information regarding the CIA's and his own involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

 

Carlos Lehder's ongoing legal battles confirm Lehder remains imprisoned in the US, and that he is not likely to be released anytime soon. On July 22, 2005 he appeared in the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit to contest his sentence. Lehder appeared pro se, arguing that the United States failed to perform its obligations under a cooperation agreement he had entered into with the United States Attorney's Office, after he held up his end of the deal. (United States v. Lehder-Rivas, 136 Fed. Appx. 324; 2005). In May 2007, he requested the Colombian Supreme Court to order the Colombian government to request from the United States his release because of the violations of his cooperation agreement.

 

[SoxFan562004]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_roll

 

all you ever wanted to know about rick rollin'!!

Edited May 22, 2008 by SoxFan562004

[DrunkBomber]

Aron Ralston

 

Aron Lee Ralston (born October 26, 1975) is an American mountain climber who became famous in May 2003 when he was forced to amputate his lower right arm with a dull knife in order to free himself after his arm became trapped by a boulder. Ralston documented his experience in a book titled Between a Rock and a Hard Place (ISBN 0-7434-9281-1), published by Atria Books on September 7, 2004.

 

Ralston, a student of mechanical engineering and French at Carnegie Mellon University, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. At Carnegie Mellon, he served as a Resident Assistant, studied abroad, and was an active intramural sports participant. He left his job as a mechanical engineer with Intel in 2002 to climb all of Colorado's "fourteeners", or peaks over 14,000 feet high. While he was on a canyoneering trip in Blue John Canyon (near Moab, Utah), a boulder fell and pinned his right forearm, crushing it. After five days of trying to lift and break the boulder, a dehydrated and delirious Ralston bowed his arm against a chockstone and snapped the radius and ulna bones. Using the dull blade on his multiuse tool, he cut the soft tissue around the break. He then used the tool's pliers to tear at the tougher tendons. Although he didn't name which brand (other than to say it was not Leatherman), he did describe it as "what you'd get if you bought a $15 flashlight and got a free multi-use tool". [1] After Ralston was rescued, his arm was retrieved by park authorities and removed from under the boulder. It was cremated and given to Ralston. He returned to the boulder and left the ashes there.

 

The incident has given Ralston something of a folk-hero status and has even inspired spinoffs such as Stanford University's Aron Ralston MAN Game.

[DrunkBomber]

Earl Manigault

 

Earl Manigault was born in Charleston, South Carolina and raised in Harlem, New York. He grew up playing basketball and practiced constantly. He attached weights to his ankles in order to make himself stronger and so he could jump higher. Earl's eagerness in the end of his life to help people overcome the same struggles he did was tremendous. The nickname "Goat" has several proposed origins. One theory states that by the time Manigault was in high school, he was known as "The Goat" because of his quiet demeanor. Another states that the nickname started by confusion over Manigault's last name; people thought Manigault referred to himself as Earl Nanny Goat, so he became "The Goat". Goat also is an acronym for Greatest Of All Time.

 

He was mentored by Holcombe Rucker.[1]Maniigault was particularly famous for his leaping abilities on the basketball court, including his signature move - the double dunk. He would dunk the ball and catch it with the other hand while still in the air and dunk it again. He was said to be able to touch the top of the backboard to retrieve quarters and dollar bills, although it's likely he would've had to jump over 60 inches to do so, making the story hard to believe. He was only 6'1" but the ankle weights he wore as a child helped him to build up tremendous jumping ability. He once reverse dunked 36 times in a row to win a $60 bet.[1]

 

But to prove dunking wasn't his only skill, he would practice hundreds of shots each day, making him a deadly long-range shooter as well. Earl played with some of the best players of his day, such as Earl Monroe, Connie Hawkins and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who went as far as calling Earl the greatest player he had ever seen. When Kareem finished his career with the Los Angeles Lakers and had his number retired at the Los Angeles Forum, he was asked who was the greatest player he had played with or against. After a long silence, Kareem answered 'It would have to be Earl "The Goat" Manigault,' much to the amazement of many. A video of this statement can be seen here: Video

 

Earl set the NYC junior high school record by scoring 57 points in a game in the late 1950s. While attending Benjamin Franklin High School, Earl's life took a fateful turn when he began associating with the wrong crowd. He started using drugs and skipping classes. He was the star of his high school team and seemed destined for greatness in the National Basketball Association. Earl was eventually kicked out of school after being caught smoking marijuana. He finished high school at a private academy, Laurinburg Institute North Carolina. This is where he met the mother of his first child. Before attending high school in North Carolina, Earl did not know how to read.[citation needed]

 

After high school, Earl was courted by at least 75 colleges offering scholarships, including North Carolina, Duke and Indiana. Earl chose Johnson C. Smith University. He only lasted one semester as his grades were not very good and because of that, he had to fight with the coach for playing time.

 

Earl returned to Harlem and developed a heroin addiction. Earl served 16 months in 1969 and 1970 in prison for drug possession and another term of 2 years from 1977 to 1979 for a failed robbery attempt so he could buy heroin. After this prison term, Earl quit heroin and started the "Walk Away From Drugs" tournament for kids in Harlem. He worked at this tournament until his death from heart failure in 1998.[2]

 

In 1996 a TV movie was made about his life called Rebound: The Legend of Earl 'The Goat' Manigault

 

They made a movie about his life called "Rebound" Not the stupid one with Martin Lawrence. Don Cheadle played him well. Its an interesting story. Id recommend the movie too.

[DrunkBomber]

Ed Gein

 

Edward Theodore Gein (pronounced /ˈgiːn/) (August 27, 1906 – July 26, 1984) was a notorious American killer.

 

Gein is known to have killed two people, but is suspected of killing others.[1] His crimes earned widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and manufactured gruesome trophies and keepsakes from the corpses.

 

Police suspected Gein to be involved in the disappearance of a store clerk, Bernice Worden, in Plainfield on November 16, 1957. Upon entering a shed on his property, they made their first horrific discovery of the night: Worden's corpse. She had been decapitated, her headless body hung upside down by means of ropes at her wrists and a crossbar at her ankles. Most horribly, the body's torso was empty, the ribcage split and the body "dressed out" like that of a deer. These mutilations had been performed postmortem; she had been shot at close-range with a .22-caliber rifle.

 

Searching the house, authorities found:

 

* Human skulls mounted upon the corner posts of his bed;

* Skin fashioned into a lampshade and used to upholster chair seats;

* Breasts used as cup holders

* Human skullcaps, apparently in use as soup bowls;

* A human heart (it is disputed where the heart was found; the deputies' reports all claim that the heart was in a saucepan on the stove, with some crime scene photographers claiming it was in a paper bag);

* Skin from the face of Mary Hogan, a local tavern owner, found in a paper bag;

* A window shade pull consisting of human lips;

* A vest crafted from the skin of a woman's torso;

* A belt made from several human nipples, among many other such grisly objects;

* Socks made from human flesh.

* A sheath made from human skin.

* A box of preserved vulvas that Ed admitted to wearing.

 

[Leonard Zelig]

Ed Gein

 

The Blind Melon song Skinned is about that dude.

[DrunkBomber]

The Blind Melon song Skinned is about that dude.

Theres a lot of pop culture about him. It said that Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs and Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre were modeled after him.

[SpringfieldFan]

Since this thread has acquired something of an Art Bell Show flavor:

 

Courtney Brown

 

In the early 1990s, Brown was instructed in remote viewing (RV), a psychic technique originally developed for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) through Stanford Research Institute. According to proponents, remote viewing can be used to access information from any geographic or temporal location; however, it has been generally considered a pseudoscience by scientists.

 

Brown subsequently developed a methodology he calls Scientific Remote Viewing (SRV). In 1995, he founded The Farsight Institute, a non-profit organization whose purpose is study remote-viewing and to also train remote viewers.

 

Under the advisement of Michael Raoul Duval, Brown has recently published remote viewing book Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception. In this book, Brown claims to have made a breakthrough by having discovered the psychic mechanism that allows remote viewing to work. He says that a remote-viewer's perception during a remote viewing session appears to be guided by the thoughts of the person who later ultimately analyzes the remote-viewing data. His book explains that the person who analyzes the remote viewing data can potentially cause a corruption of this data.

 

In his two early RV books, Brown describes a coalition of extraterrestrial civilizations and spiritual entities that he calls the Galactic Federation. This group includes the Greys, a race of aliens that Brown says can be categorized by their spiritual development, as he identifies four groups of Greys. Involved with the Federation are the consciousnesses of terrestrial spiritual masters such as Jesus and Buddha.

 

Brown also writes that there is intelligent life on Mars today. He claims that a race of humanoid Martians, a project of the Galactic Federation, are living secretly under the surface of Mars and in hidden retreats on Earth due to an eons-old natural disaster on their planet.

 

He also describes a particular renegade group of humanoid reptilian warriors who operate behind the scenes and have a dark agenda for the future of humanity.

 

In late 1996, after Brown had been interviewed on the Art Bell radio show about his book Cosmic Voyage, he later returned and corroborated claims made by amateur astronomer Chuck Shamek that a large object appeared to be located behind Comet Hale-Bopp. According to Brown, remote viewers at The Farsight Institute had remote viewed the so-called "Hale-Bopp companion" and suggested that it appeared to be a complex artificially constructed object of non-human origin[2

 

 

[SoxFan1]

Ed Gein

We have the same birthday.

[SpringfieldFan]

 

Exploding head syndrome

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome

 

Exploding head syndrome is a condition that causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as if from within his or her own head, usually described as an explosion, roar, sound of waves crashing against rocks, loud voices, or a ringing noise. This usually occurs within an hour or two of falling asleep, but is not the result of a dream and can happen during the day as well. Although perceived as tremendously loud, the noise is usually not accompanied by pain. Attacks appear to change in frequency over time, with several attacks occurring in a space of days or weeks followed by months of remission. Sufferers often feel a sense of fear and anxiety after an attack, accompanied by elevated heart rate. Attacks are also often accompanied by perceived flashes of light (when perceived on their own, known as a "visual sleep start") or difficulty in breathing. The condition is also known as "auditory sleep starts." It is not thought to be dangerous, although it is sometimes distressing to experience.

 

 

Causes

The cause of exploding head syndrome is not known, though some physicians have reported a correlation with stress or extreme fatigue. The condition may develop at any time during life and women are slightly more likely to suffer from it than men. Attacks can be one-time events, or can recur.

 

The mechanism is also not known, though possibilities have been suggested; one is that it may be the result of a sudden movement of a middle ear component or of the eustachian tube, another is that it may be the result of a form of minor seizure in the temporal lobe where the nerve cells for hearing are located. Electroencephalograms recorded during actual attacks show unusual activity only in some sufferers, and have ruled out epileptic seizures as a cause.[1]

 

A report by a British physician in 1988 might be the first description of exploding head syndrome.[2]

Edited June 13, 2008 by SpringfieldFan

[DrunkBomber]

Salvia divinorum

 

Salvia divinorum, also known as Diviner’s Sage,[2] ska María Pastora,[3] Sage of the Seers, or simply by the genus name, Salvia, is a powerful psychoactive herb. It is a member of the sage genus and the Lamiaceae (mint) family.[4] The Latin name Salvia divinorum literally translates to “sage of the seers”.[5] The genus name Salvia is derived from the Latin salvare, meaning “to heal” or “to save”

 

Mazatec shamans crush the leaves to extract leaf juices from about 20 (about 50g) to 80 (about 200g) or more fresh leaves. They usually mix these juices with water to create an infusion or ‘tea’ which they drink to induce visions in ritual healing ceremonies

 

Salvia divinorum is becoming more widely known about and used in modern culture. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual US based survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), for 2006 estimated that about 1.8 million persons aged 12 or older had used Salvia divinorum in their lifetime, of which approximately 750,000 had done so in that year.

 

* Uncontrollable laughter

* Past memories, such as revisiting places from childhood memory

* Sensations of motion, or being pulled or twisted by forces

* Visions of membranes, films and various two-dimensional surfaces

* Merging with or becoming objects

* Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

 

A particular focus of many US media stories is the long-running coverage of the case of Brett Chidester.[63][59] Chidester was a 17-year old Delaware student who committed suicide in January 2006 by climbing into a tent in which a charcoal grill was lit. He died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Reportedly, some months before this, Brett’s mother had found out and questioned him about his salvia use. Brett said that he had ceased his experimentation, but his parents do not believe that he was telling the truth. They have argued instead that salvia caused depression and must have been largely to blame for his death. Some of Brett’s earlier writings about his salvia experiences have been used to suggest that it made him think “existence in general is pointless”. Some media stories have referred to these earlier written experience reports as if they were part of Brett’s suicide note. In any case, law was soon passed in Delaware classifying the herb as a Schedule I controlled substance in that state. This legislation was named “Brett’s law” (formally referred to as Senate bill 259).

[DrunkBomber]

Salvia divinorum

 

Salvia divinorum, also known as Diviner’s Sage,[2] ska María Pastora,[3] Sage of the Seers, or simply by the genus name, Salvia, is a powerful psychoactive herb. It is a member of the sage genus and the Lamiaceae (mint) family.[4] The Latin name Salvia divinorum literally translates to “sage of the seers”.[5] The genus name Salvia is derived from the Latin salvare, meaning “to heal” or “to save”

 

Mazatec shamans crush the leaves to extract leaf juices from about 20 (about 50g) to 80 (about 200g) or more fresh leaves. They usually mix these juices with water to create an infusion or ‘tea’ which they drink to induce visions in ritual healing ceremonies

 

Salvia divinorum is becoming more widely known about and used in modern culture. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an annual US based survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), for 2006 estimated that about 1.8 million persons aged 12 or older had used Salvia divinorum in their lifetime, of which approximately 750,000 had done so in that year.

 

* Uncontrollable laughter

* Past memories, such as revisiting places from childhood memory

* Sensations of motion, or being pulled or twisted by forces

* Visions of membranes, films and various two-dimensional surfaces

* Merging with or becoming objects

* Overlapping realities, such as the perception of being in several locations at once

 

A particular focus of many US media stories is the long-running coverage of the case of Brett Chidester.[63][59] Chidester was a 17-year old Delaware student who committed suicide in January 2006 by climbing into a tent in which a charcoal grill was lit. He died of carbon-monoxide poisoning. Reportedly, some months before this, Brett’s mother had found out and questioned him about his salvia use. Brett said that he had ceased his experimentation, but his parents do not believe that he was telling the truth. They have argued instead that salvia caused depression and must have been largely to blame for his death. Some of Brett’s earlier writings about his salvia experiences have been used to suggest that it made him think “existence in general is pointless”. Some media stories have referred to these earlier written experience reports as if they were part of Brett’s suicide note. In any case, law was soon passed in Delaware classifying the herb as a Schedule I controlled substance in that state. This legislation was named “Brett’s law” (formally referred to as Senate bill 259).

[DrunkBomber]

Suge Knight

 

Marion Knight was born in Compton, a Suburb of Los Angeles. As a youth, he was associated with the Mob Piru Bloods street gang because he lived in a gang-dominated neighborhood. Though he was not a true member, Knight was frequently seen wearing their colors. His name Suge (pronounced /ʃʊɡ/) derives from "Sugar Bear", a childhood nickname.[1] He remained an excellent student and athlete, so much so that he won a football scholarship to University of Nevada, Las Vegas where he played collegiate football for several years. After school, he played professionally for the Los Angeles Rams for a short time, but couldn't quite make the grade. Instead, he found work as a concert promoter and a bodyguard for celebrities including Bobby Brown. Knight's legal problems began in 1987 when he faced auto theft, concealed weapon and attempted murder charges, ultimately receiving probation. Two years later, he formed his own music-publishing company, and allegedly made his first big fortune in the business by coercing Vanilla Ice into signing over royalties from his smash hit "Ice Ice Baby" owing to material that he supposedly sampled from one of Knight's company associates. (The possibly apocryphal story holds that Knight held Ice by his ankles off of a 20th-floor balcony, though in Ice's version, the threat was more implied.) Knight next formed an artist management company and signed prominent West Coast figures The D.O.C. and DJ Quik. Through the former, he met several members of the seminal gangsta rap group N.W.A.