If you live in Austin, you are most likely familiar with the local free publication The Austin Chronicle.  Each year, they give their readers the opportunity to recognize the best people, places and businesses the city has to offer with their annual “Best of Austin Reader’s Poll”.  

In 2007, shortly after we first opened our museum here in Austin, we were bestowed the prestigious title of “Best Bigfoot Hunters” by the Chronicle in their Critics’ Picks category. This year, we’re shooting for one of the main categories chosen by the readers: Best Museum! 
If you’d like to cast your ballot for us, all you need to do is go to this website, fill out the required information, and write “Museum of the Weird” in the blank for “Museum” (under the Arts and Entertainment category).  Only one ballot per person (please, no stuffing ballots or we’ll get eliminated from the competition). You only have until Tuesday, July 21, so please get those ballots in today!  Thanks in advance for your vote!  Here’s the URL:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/feedback/bestof/09/

When browsing the dearth of “Bigfoot” videos on YouTube, you’ll find there is undoubtedly an overabundance of unquestionably fake footage, usually in the guise of humor… and very poor attempts at humor, I might add.  But every once in a while, you come across something that may deserve a closer look. This is one of those videos. 
The man who shot the footage, Ed Runninghorse, claims to have filmed a video last month purporting to be that of a black hairy creature squatting or crouching, possibly in an effort to avoid detection. Runninghorse was exploring an area of Carlos Avery Wildlife Management Area west of Forest Lake, MN.  He had been finding several mysterious “stick structures” in the remote forest that day, seemingly made by the hand of some intelligent being. As he was about to wrap it up and return to his vehicle, he caught a glimpse of “what appeared to be the size of a large man” running through the woods.  According to Mr. Runninghorse, “What really didn’t make sense was that it was solid black in color and moved with a swift, smooth motion.”  When he tried to chase it, it seemed to disappear. 
Later upon reviewing his footage, he was surprised to have caught something black, hairy, and very still crouching off in the distance. Could it be a Sasquatch? Watch the following video, then you decide.

Sunday, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the first-ever scientific dating of bones discovered in a hidden tomb under the alter of St. Paul’s Basilica in Rome “seems to confirm the unanimous and uncontested tradition that they are the mortal remains of the Apostle Paul.” Radio carbon dating performed on the bone fragments indicate they are from the first or second century AD.
The announcement came just a day after the Vatican reported the discovery of the oldest known icon of Paul found on a fresco inside another tomb that had been excavated, St. Tecia in Rome. 
St. Paul, one of the main Apostles of Jesus to spread Christianity after his crucifixion, is traditionally acknowledged  to have been beheaded in Rome under the emperors’ persecution of early Christians. It is widely believed that the bone fragments discovered in the tomb under the Basilica of St. Paul are the remains of his body, while his skull fragments are believed to be held in another basilica, St. John Lateran in Rome.

On the cryptozoological front, a new species of elephant-shrew, or sengis, has been discovered in the remote forests of Tanzania, in what the mainstream media is dubbing a “giant shrew.”  

While I wouldn’t say this previously unknown species “dwarfs” other sengis species (it is only about 25% larger than other known species), nevertheless it is an important zoological find. 

UPDATE: The creature shot and killed in Medina County last week has been positively identified by a veterinarian as a coyote with a severe case of mange.

This is not the first time a mangy coyote was misidentified as a chupacabras. Remember the Cuero Chupacabras of 2007? It was identified through DNA testing to be a virtually identical match to a coyote. 

Then there was the “Elmendorf Beast” of 2004, and last year’s chupacabras caught on a Texas patrolman’s dashboard camera, both bearing a striking resemblance to mangy coyotes.
So the real mystery may not be so much what the identity of these so-called “chupacabras” are, but rather why are so many Texas coyotes coming down such severe cases of mange?

Could the following image be that of a mysterious creature known as the Chupacabras (meaning “goat-sucker” in Spanish)? It appears that another one of these creatures was shot and killed here in Texas, which has seen a spate of sightings of the elusive creature in recent years. We will be investigating this claim further and provide you with updates here.  Stay tuned!

In case you didn’t catch this iReport on CNN, here’s footage captured Saturday, June 13th of a UFO hovering over the King’s Dominion theme park in Doswell, VA (no, not Roswell… Doswell). 

It’s obviously a smoke ring created by the nearby “Volcano” ride. What is interesting is how long the ring actually hovers there and keeps its shape. Otherwise nothing particularly noteworthy.
If you really want to waste any more of your time on this one, you can catch the whole story here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq-9jc_jMao

Not so weird as it is horrifying, a young 6 year old girl came out today to tell her story of how she was set on fire by her mother in a bizarre act of voodoo exorcism.  Reported by WABC News, the incident occurred on February 4th in the basement of Marie Lauradin’s Queens, NY household.  Lauradin, the mother of the girl, was apparently intent on driving out an evil spirit she believed had taken possession of her daughter.
According to Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, “it’s alleged that an accelerant was poured over the child, and that the child was forced into a ring of fire, and…was burned over 25% of her body.”
Thankfully, the child is now living with a foster family and is recuperating after spending 55 days in the hospital. Both the mother and grandmother of the girl were arrested.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Steve Butler of Ghost Chat New England, a cable access show in the northeast. The program will air in about a month, I will post it here when it does.

14-year-old Gerrit Blank of Essen, Germany was struck by a pebble-sized meteorite on Friday, and lived to tell about it. 
According to The Telegraph, Gerrit saw a ball of light in the sky shooting straight towards him, and in an instant was stuck in the hand by the red hot meteorite, sending the boy flying and creating a foot wide crater in the road.
According to the teen, at the moment of impact “there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder” that was so loud it left his ears ringing for hours.
Subsequent tests on the rock have proven that it did indeed originate from outer space. The incident marks the first time on record that a human suffered a direct hit by a meteorite, the odds of which are more than one-in-a-million.
Sources: Yahoo News, The Telegraph (UK