An Evening of Christmas Ghost Stories
with your host Richard Whittaker
Come warm your bones with some hot chocolate as we gather for an age-old Christmas tradition– listening to spooky tales of days of yore! Featuring two terrifying tales by British master of the macabre, M.R. James, as read by resident Englishman Richard Whittaker.
The event is $8 and includes admission to the Museum of the Weird. Hot cocoa will be served. Seating is extremely limited, so we recommend buying your tickets now! We recommend you show up at least 15 minutes early to get your seats and enjoy the museum.
TODAY ONLY – SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15! Come down to Lucky Lizard Curios & Gifts for our annual Christmas Celebration Sale! Today we are offering up to 50% off all day long on almost everything in the shop!
Many unique, handcrafted or one-of-a-kind gifts! 25-50% off
MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD® t-shirts! 20% off
All jewelry! 20% off
FURRY BONES® and all other figurines! 20% off
ARCHIE MCPHEE/ACCOUTREMENTS novelty toys and gifts! 20% off
also:
KEEP AUSTIN WEIRD® t-shirts and merchandise! 10% off
HORROR/SCI-FI t-shirts! 10% off
If you haven’t done your Christmas shopping yet, today is your day to SAVE $$$!
Having just returned from the first two-week long vacation I’ve had in a while, I’m feeling refreshed, rejuvenated and looking forward to the exciting news I’m going to announce today at Wizard World Comic Con!
I and my fellow Museum of the Weird sideshow performers Blockhead Benny and Obi-Juan Martinez will be in attendance hosting a special panel at 5:00pm today in Exhibition Hall F. I’ll be showing off artifacts from the Museum’s collection, talking about the Minnesota Iceman, and signing copies of my new Museum of the Weird comic!
And I’ve got an electrifying announcement for all fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror (or as I like to call it, “sfanthor,” a term I coined with my short entries into this year’s Fantastic Fest Film Festival). If you live in the Austin area and you’re a fan of these film genres, you’re going to want to be there!
Whether you’ve already got your wristbands or are planning on going (or you’re just now hearing about it), Wizard World is a ton of fun for fans of not only comics but practically everything from our pop culture. Everyone should go at least once if you’ve never been, and this year’s convention seems to be the one to attend. Just look at who’ll be there!
Stan Lee, Bruce Campbell AND Captain Kirk under one roof? My brain’s gonna explode!
Screen shot of the moment the supposed Skunk Ape stands upright.
Could this be the best video yet of the elusive Skunk Ape, the south’s version of Bigfoot? Here’s the description accompanying the video, which was uploaded by YouTube user Josh Highcliff on October 28, 2013:
Here is exactly what I seen, I’m not sure what it is but can someone please tell me? Is there a person who can do video analyses or something? I got scared and ran away, i wish i stayed to keep taking the movie.
Date: october 24 – 2013
Where: about 9 miles west of Tunica, Mississippi on my hunting property
Time: about 6pm
I was out hunting hogs, just sitting in a part of the swamp i have heard em before…it is not too far from a road. I was wearing hunting camo and just sitting dead still waiting for it to get dark, cause thats when the hogs come out. I hear a noise behind the tree i was sitting on, i thought it was the hogs, when i got around i could not believe my own two eyes.
There was this huge black thing crouched by a dead cypress about 50 yards away, i thought it was a hog but saw these big shoulders and a head upright with hands. It looked like it was digging out the stump. My first instinct was to run, i did not even think of shooting…then i know no one will believe me…it was like everything slowed down…i was scared! I took out my iphone and started videotaping it..i guess i pushed the record button twice cause it stopped blinking red.. but i pushed it again. I hear a truck driving down the road and the thing stood up!! I was trying to be dead quiet…when it stood up i could not control myself and ran. That stump was huge and i’d guess the sucker was 7feet tall, i am a hunter and am pretty darn good at guessing size.
that’s no bear!
I don’t know what to think.. if someone can tell me what it is or if somone was trying to prank me i, I don’t want to go back on my land. this is the first movie i have ever put on youtube..the video looks better on my phone and computer
I always heard stories of skunk ape and honey island swamp monster from these parts but never thought about it being real ever.
has anyone seen anything like this in mississippi?
David “Crusty” Herron snapped this photo of what he dubbed “Lost Nessie” from a distance of about 600 feet from shore.
Last Friday, the scene from Magnetic Island off the northern coast of Australia must have looked like something straight out of The Lost World. Beachgoers were treated to the sight of what appeared to be a long-necked sea going creature straight out of our prehistoric past.
The strange looking object moving in the water was extraordinary enough to get the attention of numerous eyewitnesses, many wondering just what it could be.
Plesiosaur? Sea serpent? Or could it be something more mundane and explainable, like a piece of driftwood or a sunken boat? You decide.
From The Australian:
The strange sea sighting has created quite a buzz on the island, with locals desperate to know: just what is lurking in the water?
One of them is marriage celebrant David “Crusty” Herron, who photographed it from a beach about 200 metres away.
“It was bobbing up and down in the water and at first I thought, what’s that?” Mr Herron told AAP.
“Someone yelled out ‘it looks like a Loch Ness monster’.
“I’ve never seen anything like it – it could be anything. We are all wanting to know what it is.”
James Cook University biology professor Glen Chilton says while new and old creatures are constantly being discovered, even near the Great Barrier Reef, it’s unlikely to be a strange aquatic beast.
“It’s probably a piece of a tree or piece of a boat which has somehow broken away,” he told AAP.
Australian cryptozoologist and self-proclaimed “yowie man” Rex Gilroy is keeping an open mind. “It’s hard to say from the photo,” he said.
Mr Gilroy, who has authored books on mythical creatures, says he’s aware of about 800 sightings of reptilian creatures with long necks and football shaped heads.
Some of those were from the Magnetic Island and Townsville area, he said.
The most recent was in October last year when a fisherman saw a creature with a large grey coloured body protruding from waters off Magnetic Island, he said.
When asked if it could have been the remains of a dragon boat that supposedly sunk there in the recent past, the man who photographed the creature, David Herron, refuted it and compared the beast to a plesiosaur. Here’s “Crusty” being interviewed by News 7:
Let’s take a break from my super-important, nail-biting Facebook countdown to gather our composure, sit back, and have a little laugh (at other people’s expense). If you haven’t seen this video yet (it’s gotten over a million hits), stop what you’re doing and take a minute to watch.
Prankster Tom Mabe sent joggers running for their lives with his latest Halloween-themed contraption.
You’d be forgiven for being more than a little concerned at the sight of the grim reaper wailing and flying towards you, but that’s exactly what happened to several passers-by at an otherwise ideallic park in Louisville, Kentucky.
Taking advantage of the Halloween season as a chance to engage in some paranormal-themed japery, serial prankster Tom Mabe dressed up a remote control helicopter like the grim reaper and filmed people’s reactions as he chased them around with it.
“We have had a lot of fun making this,” he said. “It’s taken some work to make it happen, but it’s great fun. It flies with the help of a remote control helicopter but you rig it up in a really brilliant way. It has to be quiet so people don’t hear it.”
A video of the prank shows joggers and other park visitors fleeing in horror as the contraption flies after them while emitting a wailing noise. “The best bit is when you sneak up on people. We fly it about 200ft in the air and then drop it down so it’s right behind them,” Mabe added.
Dr. Melba Ketchum’s announcement of Zoobank accepting her proposed name for the Bigfoot species.
Dr. Melba Ketchum announced today that Zoobank has officially granted the creatures popularly known as “Bigfoot” the latin name: Homo sapiens cognatus.
Former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-Bigfoot hunter Nikolai Valuev joins host Mark Evans as they investigate the Almasty.
For those of you who have not had the chance to watch the first episode of the excellent show Bigfoot Files, you can watch it in its entirety here:
The show is well-worth watching, and is an example of the type of programming cryptozoology needs more of. Bigfoot Files takes a scientific approach to the search for answers to the mystery of Bigfoot, following genetics professor Bryan Sykes in his analysis of DNA extracted from hair samples provided to the Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project (OLCHP).
The first episode had some pretty amazing (in my opinion) results on some supposed Yeti hairs. And while the description for Bigfoot Files: Episode 2 sounds less than enthusiastic…
…Professor Sykes reveals the results of his DNA tests on the hair samples he’s collected. Will the results confirm the Bigfootologists’ stories or will it be bad news?
…Episode 3, the finale of the three-part series, sounds much more promising. From the British Channel 4 description for Episode 3 of Bigfoot Files:
The ‘Almasty’ is Russia’s very own Bigfoot. It has been written about for over 300 years, and Russia’s Almasty hunters claim there have been over 10,000 encounters over the years.
The big theory in Russia is that it’s a surviving hominid, possibly even a Neanderthal.
Mark Evans travels to Russia and investigates one of the highest profile Bigfoot stories in the world: the tale of Zana, the so-called Wildwoman: a living Almasty said to have been found in the remote Caucasus in the 1870s.
She was alleged to have had four children by her captors over the years. Almasty hunters have tracked down her descendants and Bryan Sykes uses cutting edge tests to analyse their DNA and test the Neanderthal theory about Zana.
Mark also meets a giant among Almasty hunters, seven foot tall former heavyweight boxing champion of the world Nikolai Valuev, who is now Duma Deputy (the equivalent of an MP) for Kemerovo in Siberia.
Mark joins him as he checks out the latest hot Almasty sighting and meets the three kids who claim to have captured one on camera near a frozen lake.
Finally, in Moscow, Professor Sykes reveals the results of his DNA tests on Zana’s relatives. The results are unequivocal, extraordinary and totally unexpected (emphasis mine).
I for one, am waiting with baited breath on Professor Bryan Sykes’ announcement of what he has found in the DNA of the relatives of Zana. If we look at the description, it sounds like 1.) his results will leave no doubt as to their veracity; 2.) we know that it is not something mundane, e.g. they’re not just normal humans; and 3.) it’s not what we would expect. I would expect the results to come back either purely homo sapiens OR neandertal-human hybrid. But could it be something other?
Will Zana’s relatives be something more than either human or neandertal?
And while I think a human-bear hybrid would be totally unexpected… I don’t think that’s the case here. 😉 I guess we will just have to wait.
“The Incredible Bionic Man” makes his debut at the Washington Air and Space Museum.
A first-ever walking, talking “bionic man” built entirely out of synthetic body parts made his Washington debut on Thursday.
The robot with a human face unveiled at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum was built by London’s Shadow Robot Co to showcase medical breakthroughs in bionic body parts and artificial organs.
“This is not a gimmick. This is a real science development,” museum director John Dailey said.
I’ve always wondered when and how someone would do this: take all of the existing bionic technology we have today… artificial organs, limbs, etc… and combine it into a single walking, talking being. However, there’s one element that’s missing… the human soul.
Which is why I suspect in this video below Bertolt Meyer, the man who contributed his facial features to the robot, has such intense feelings towards the android upon first seeing it… it is essentially wearing his face. Meyers is experiencing the creepiness of “the Uncanny Valley,” that is, the point where something is close to being human but not quite there yet, which often elicits feelings of fear and repulsion.
The 6-foot-tall (1.83 meter), 170-pound (77-kg) robot is the subject of a one-hour Smithsonian Channel documentary, “The Incredible Bionic Man,” airing on Sunday.
A “bionic man” was the material of science fiction in the 1970s when the television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” showed the adventures of a character named Steve Austin, a former astronaut whose body was rebuilt using synthetic parts after he nearly died.
The robot on display at the museum cost $1 million and was made from 28 artificial body parts on loan from biomedical innovators. They include a pancreas, lungs, spleen and circulatory system, with most of the parts early prototypes.
“The whole idea of the project is to get together all of the spare parts that already exist for the human body today – one piece. If you did that, what would it look like?” said Bertolt Meyer, a social psychologist from the University of Zurich in Switzerland and host of the documentary.
The robot was modelled after Meyer, who was born without a hand and relies on an artificial limb. He showed off the bionic man by having it take a few clumsy steps and by running artificial blood through its see-through circulatory system.
Abominable Snowmen book and my mummified “Yeti” finger.
I was tipped off to this news several months ago (and again a few days ago) that Oxford University geneticist Dr. Bryan Sykes would be announcing some “unexpected results” concerning his DNA study of supposed Yeti hair samples. Well, now those results are being officially announced to the world, and I would think it’s safe to say they are not what anybody had expected, but no less amazing in my opinion.
For centuries, tales of the Yeti, an elusive but terrifying creature said to roam the inhospitable Himalayan Mountains, have enthralled curious minds.
Now, research by a leading UK geneticist may have unlocked the truth about the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, after hair samples from two mystery animals proved to be a genetic match to an ancient polar bear.
The findings, to be explained in “Bigfoot Files,” a documentary series on Britain’s Channel 4 TV network, are the work of Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University.
He put out a worldwide call last year for people to submit hair or other tissue from “cryptids,” or previously undescribed species, and collected more than 30 samples for analysis.
Sykes’ research focused on two samples in particular, both from the Himalayas but found about 800 miles apart, one in the Ladakh region and the other in Bhutan.
To his surprise, testing found a 100% match with a polar bear jawbone from Svalbard, the northernmost part of Norway, that dates back between 40,000 and 120,000 years, according to a news release from Channel 4.
First of all, the sheer fact that, yes, the Yeti is indeed a real living “prehistoric” animal and not just the stuff of legends anymore, is enough to get excited about. So yes, I am elated to hear this news coming from an extremely reputable source like Dr. Sykes and Oxford University. If anything, it shows that there’s sometimes much more than just a grain of truth to sightings and descriptions of legendary cryptids, that they are not just some imaginary creation made up by the locals.
Second, this confirms my own suspicions about the possible identity of the Yeti, in that it may be something altogether different from Sasquatch. For years I had erroneously made the same assumption that most people do, that is, lumping the Yeti in with Bigfoot and Almas, in that I had always believed they were all some sort of related bipedal primate. That is, until I began collecting Bigfoot prints for the Museum of the Weird.
When I first received a cast made from the original Tom Slick Yeti print retrieved on one of his Nepal expeditions, I was stunned. Now I don’t proclaim to be a scientist nor am I an expert in animal tracks, but even to my layman’s eyes these did not look anything like the Bigfoot casts I had already amassed! In fact, when I first saw the Tom Slick cast, my first thought was, “this is fake.” It just didn’t look like what I thought a Yeti print should look like (which in my mind, would be like a Bigfoot print). Once I realized that, yes, what I had was indeed a copy of the actual Tom Slick Yeti print and not a phony, my second thought was, “this could be a bear.” It was an an eye-opening revelation.
Here for your consideration is a side-by-side comparison of the Tom Slick Yeti print and a Bigfoot print (one of the “Grays Harbor” casts), both on display in the Museum of the Weird.
The Bigfoot print is nearly twice the length of the Yeti print, and the Yeti print has only four visible toes.
Look at the difference in size and shape, and let us know what your thoughts are.
