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15 Jun 01 - 01:32 PM (#484315) Subject: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel I have seen four. These are for real but only one has been identifeid. The first was in the summer of 64 in Vestal NY. A 4 inch snowflake was within my grasp yet would allude caoture as if by magnetic repulsion. (this was identified at U of R as a rare flying web spinning aphid) The second was clearly a solitary plant near the base of Cayuga Falls NY. It was on a thick 4 1/2 ft. stalk with no leaves and a globe about a foot in diameter on top of a silvery purple color. The third may be in a genre outside a lifeform but there were 2 seperate 6 in. globes of light that emerged right though a brick wall into our back room at 23 Strathallan Pk Roch. NY. I was fascinated and touched one but the cat was frightened with its hair on end, The last was actually my first as a yound child. On a clear day I would see rapidly flashing "things" go by. It would frighten me that adults could not see my "lightning beings". Nowadays some would say these could have been 'rods'. |
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15 Jun 01 - 01:42 PM (#484323) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Noreen The third sounds like 'ball lightning', Donuel- which would also have made the cat's hair stand on end! |
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15 Jun 01 - 01:43 PM (#484324) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario The plant is a variety of Allium (related to onions) - I've seen them in the gorges myself. third sounds like ball lightning - not common - but not that rare either. the fourth sounds like floaters in the fluid of your eyeball. Did you know Seamus Kennedy is singing at Milestones this sunday? |
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15 Jun 01 - 01:44 PM (#484328) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Ebbie Donuel, you would be fun to know! I remember 'remembering' more when I was a kid but I no longer remember what it was. If you can follow that. Until I read on, I thought your 'globes of light' were actually fireballs of lightning- but I don't believe you could have touched one, definitely not without harm. Do you have any theories as to their origin? I'm sure some mudcatters will list some of the life forms they have found in their refrigerators! Ebbie |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:06 PM (#484349) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel The globes of light passed though the opposing wall as smooth as butter. When somthing disobeys 3 tenents of known physics it gets your attention. As a result I studied all I could find about dimensional incursions begining with flatland and going . To this day I wish I had the courage to have touched the one globe beyond its nebulous event horizon ( stick my whole arm through it and not just extend a finger). Either due to "excitment" or dysfunctional memory the incident does seem fragmented. For example the cat was locked in this room for a reason but after I touched the last globe (one folowing after another about 2 feet apart a foot below the ceiling) the cat was locked on the other side of the door. I was a clinical hypnotist at the time (12 years total) but I assure you this was no hypnogogic reverie. |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:08 PM (#484351) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel We call refridgerator unknowns "meatcake" |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:09 PM (#484352) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Is it meat or is it cake ? |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:10 PM (#484353) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief Wasn't that a George Carlin routine? Some people have all the luck. I've never seen anything even slightly "rum" as they say. My life has been an unending monotony of obedience to the known laws of physics. Sigh. alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:27 PM (#484365) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Thanks, 2 solved - 2 to go. New animals are still being discovered. The midget deer in Thailand/Cambodia that appear to have gills, deep sea vent worms , ancient horses near Mongolia etc. Mudcaters I expect would not be timid about saying what they saw. |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:28 PM (#484366) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Liz the Squeak Micca naked. The vapour moth caterpillar. It looks like an animated olive green toothbrush with orange stripes, long hairy 'horns' and bright yellow belly. LTS |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:33 PM (#484373) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario which two are you considering identified? |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:40 PM (#484375) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario this is prety strange (scroll down) The Deer Antler Long-furred Winged Penguin Rattlesnake lives in forests. They make their nests in the under ground burrows that they dig out with their antlers. It eats anything that cant get away. Its fur is for keeping it warm in the winter. It has gills so it can breathe under water. Its penguin wings help it swim. Its only predators are bears |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:43 PM (#484380) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel The flying aphid on its snowflake web and the alien looking purple ball plant are3 the 2 "solved/known" lifeforms. Another one comes to mind that I saw in the great swamp of Batavia NY. It is a NEON orange plant parasite that grows prolificly over everything in its path. It is basicly a 1/2 inch neon stem that looks like a gigantic neon orange net that branches out hrizontaly and sucks life from . This swamp is a rare temperate jungle that has freshwater shrimp and many other things not found anywhere else. This place is in the same region of NY where you can practicaly dig anywhere and find mammoth bones. |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:43 PM (#484381) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Justa Picker Powdered/freeze dried life forms. One of my kids got this thing in a package in a birthday party grab bag. Got home, read the instructions and mixed the crystals with water. Next thing you know, little tadpoles swimming. Brings a whole new meaning to the term "Get a Life!" :-) |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:44 PM (#484382) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: gnu Alex... "yeah, I see it too." was indeed from a Carlin album on a cut about nursery rhimes. Something to do with mushrooms. Either "Class Clown" or, more likely, "Toledo Window Box". As for the snowflake, static charges do build up on flakes, depending on the humidity and rate of fall. This could account for the inability to contact one. Freaky stuff ? Number one in my books would be the Northern Lights, which cannot be described by words or video. Until you witness them up close, directly overhead, the AB displays as seen on TV are tame. |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:48 PM (#484385) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: hesperis Hmmm, 6 inches diameter? If faeries exist, it could be faeries. (I'm serious.)
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15 Jun 01 - 02:50 PM (#484388) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel The "snowflake" was a spider web substance the aphid spins. Somehow it is electrostaticly charged. the aphid sits in the middle and flys the darn thing. correction: the neon orange stems are 1/4 inch thick. and above it should have read "2 of the 4" |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:57 PM (#484395) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel I read the faeries link on glowing sheres. The 2 differences are what I saw was slightly larger and could definetly pass through 'solid' matter. |
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15 Jun 01 - 02:58 PM (#484396) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario the neon orange net sounds suspiciously like "doddor" - a parasitic plant |
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15 Jun 01 - 03:05 PM (#484404) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel ANOTHER ONE SOLVED. Mudcaters are really "in the world" |
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15 Jun 01 - 03:10 PM (#484410) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario I still say ball lightning for the glowing spheres. Ball lighning CAN pass through solid objects -frequently without any damage - and also the "one following another" part is an observed behavior of multiple ball lightnings. I have also heard tell of people who have touched ball lightning without getting shocked - but I don't think I would have the guts to try it! |
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15 Jun 01 - 03:32 PM (#484436) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: okthen A shop, local to me sells mermaid,fairy, and angel fossils, of course they are fake, they have to be, but they are well done and quite convincing. cheers bill |
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15 Jun 01 - 03:37 PM (#484441) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: MMario why do they "have" to be? MMario-whobelieves |
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15 Jun 01 - 03:39 PM (#484446) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief Don't fairies' bodies blow away like dust when they die? On second thought, DO they die? Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:15 PM (#484470) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Cobble About four years ago on the Isle of Skye we were driving along in the dark, it was pouring with rain but to the left of us the sky was clear and showing a beautiful silver moon. The silver light was reflected in the sea loch which was away below the level of the road. All of a sudden Brian shouts STOP, look at that. I stopped the car and brian opened the window letting in the pouring rain, but through the rain we could see, spanning the loch and the silver moon reflection a silver rainbow, a semi circle of silver light. I was a sight that legends are made of. The next day we told several people what we had seen and all thought we must have had too much whisky. I had only drank coffee! We have never heard of anyone else seeing a MoonBow. It's the most eerie, but beautiful sight I have ever seen. Mrs C
i stopped |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:29 PM (#484483) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Perhaps what we call ball lightning that doesn't shock and does not bounce and can pass through solid objects as through thin air - is not ball lightning. One following another is still a curious behavior. I have seen the filmed behavior of ball lightning and earth lights and I would have to say there is a stronger resemblence to earth lights than ball lightning. I have also seen the film evidence of sprites that airline pilots used to speak of in hushed tones before the satilite images proved them real. They sort of look like upside down tornado cones of light and last only a split second. Clearly it is a phenomena of upper atmosheric lightning. I have posted this "globe of light sighting elsewhere" but have not had nearly the insightful response as here at mudcat city. |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:40 PM (#484494) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Giac@Brian's Cobble -
There is a waterfall not too far away from me where one can hike on a moonlit night and see a "moonbow." It is quite popular, but can't immediately think of the name of it. And, I don't remember if it is in East Tennessee or western North Carolina, but it is in the Great Smoky Mountains and well worth the walk. |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:46 PM (#484501) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jon Freeman Just been reading about Ball Lightning. Apparently you can make it in a microwave. Not sure I have the nerve to try though. Jon |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:47 PM (#484502) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief Doesn't ball lightning require the air to be very, very dry? Donuel, I have those squiggly things in my eyeballs too. They're especially easy to see when staring at a perfectly clear blue sky, for some reason. Mine sorta look like paper-clip chains. Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:56 PM (#484516) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Floaters in the eyes are familiar to almost everyone but do not have the rapid movement and bright glint in the sun that I saw as a child , but your interpretation is reasonable. Moon bows ?- this is a mental painting I will keep. Perhaps there are Jupiter bows on other moons in the solar system. |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:58 PM (#484521) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief I get bright shinies too; they just started about a year ago. I wonder if it's a sign of impending mental illness? alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 04:59 PM (#484522) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: SINSULL One year I found cocoons on a bush out front. I cut the branches and kept them in a window box outside. It was a Gypsy Moth. Never have a seen a more frightening "bug" as it emerged from the cocoon, spread its wings and flew. Hideous to beautiful in about ten minutes. |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:06 PM (#484529) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Mrrzy Cockroaches in Africa that are as big as a dollar bill (if you don't count the antennae, which are again as long as they are) and transparent, so you can see not only thier insides, but the floor through them as they scuttle around. Also in Africa, Tunisia I think (it has a 4th grade flavor), there were caterpillars also the length of a dollar bill, but only about an inch in diameter, that were BRIGHT BRIGHT KELLY GREEN and had big triceratops horns. Preemies! Timothy, especially, at 2lbs11, was not even in the human larval stage... And I saw something once, not sure where, that looked a lot like the little aliens the cat/woman and bald man turned into at the end of Catspaw, I think, but I might not have the right Trek episode... |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:19 PM (#484550) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief I weighed 3 lbs when I was born, but turned out to be human after all (at least I assume I'm human, being able to interbreed with other humans (unless my first wife wasn't human, which might be worth pondering)). Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:22 PM (#484554) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Allan C. I just want to offer a clickie here for the location of the moonbows mentioned above. It is at Cumberland Falls State Resort Park in Kentucky. |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:25 PM (#484557) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief To answer the question of the thread title, a pair of moths apparently fornicating on the back of a house in Chicago, Illinois. Wingspan was about 10 inches. Each. (each moth, not each wing) Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:26 PM (#484558) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Transparent cockroaches WOW. Someone mentioned getting the bright shinies last year and if it was mental illness. Well yes and no. It could be the aura onset of migraine headaches that do not evolve all the way to pain. The silvery flashes can be small or encompass ones entire vision. Then there are lesions but we won't go there. |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:36 PM (#484566) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Sorcha Beginning cataracts can cause floaters, too, but I don't think they are usually shiny. |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:39 PM (#484567) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief Oooooh, I had a visual migraine once, about 4 years ago. Totally freaky. It was like a really psychodelic light show, but without the drugs (or the Pink Floyd soundtrack). Maybe this is related, then. Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:41 PM (#484568) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mousethief Well the floaters I've had all my life; at least since I was 5, anyway. My stepdad calls pork chops baked in cream-of-mushroom soup, "floaters." I wonder if they can cause cataracts? Alex |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:54 PM (#484586) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: mooman I just love Tardigrades and the more I read about them the more fascinated I am. Clickit here is a good starting page about them. mooman |
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15 Jun 01 - 05:59 PM (#484593) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jim Dixon The strangest life form I have ever seen was my newborn son. He came out all purplish and bloody, and with this long gray thing attached to his belly. But they got him cleaned up pretty well, and now he seems almost normal. |
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15 Jun 01 - 06:04 PM (#484598) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Bill D well, I happened on a punk-rock concert once...two-legged beings with green, spiked hair and safty pins thru their noses were leaping from the speaker cabinets and landing on their heads, which only exacerbated their bizarre behavior.....I went away from there... |
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15 Jun 01 - 06:08 PM (#484603) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: catspaw49 Beat me to the Cumberland Falls Moonbows. I've been there on several occasions when they were visible. Only happens at specific times of the month and also under the right atmospheric conditions. I've spent many nights there when they should appear but don't. Great place to stay BTW......beautiful country and great hiking. About 35 miles away is one of the most beautiful places that no one ever goes......a 4 foot wide and 103 foot tall waterfall in this lovely hollow....the best! Spaw |
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15 Jun 01 - 06:11 PM (#484605) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel If you are going to single out people there is always Warren Christopher (Vulcan?) or you can go to uglypeople.com |
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15 Jun 01 - 06:19 PM (#484612) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Amergin mollificent is a bit odd.... |
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15 Jun 01 - 06:39 PM (#484629) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Cobble Allan C.. Thanks for the info on Cumberland Falls. Pleased to know others have seen a moonbow, and it was'nt the faries Interesting it is stated it's the only place in the western world this phenomenon can be seen! How do we define " Western World" ? We saw the Moonbow by Loch Greshornish, Isle of Skye off the West Coast of Scotland. Mrs C
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15 Jun 01 - 06:58 PM (#484643) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Bill D hmmm...messed up my HTML above try this: but this is also pretty strange... frogfishes |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:01 PM (#484645) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Liz the Squeak Tried to find ugly people, can you provide a blue clicky please? LTS |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:14 PM (#484654) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: CarolC The neon orange stringy stuff is definitely 'dodder', as MMario suggested. It looks like neon orange silly string sprayed all over a bunch of plants. I thought I was seeing something 'not from this world' first time I saw it.
This one was strange more for its location than anything else... When I was a zookeeper, I was responsible for the 'North American Small Mammals'. One day, I was working in the outside run of the Arctic Fox enclosure. The foxes were inside the building and the outside run was empty. The enclosure had walls on two sides, chain link fence on two sides, and chain link fence above. About two or three feet above the upper chain link fence, there was a corrugated metal roof supported by I-beams. I never really used to look up at the roof, so I was startled to the point of jumping when something landed with a loud chinky thump on the chain link above me. I looked up at it and didn't recognize it as anything that occurred naturally in that area. And I was very familiar with the native species because I had spent a recent summer working as an interpretive naturalist, where it was my job to know those kinds of things. Turns out it was one of the brown lemurs from the primate section that had escaped. |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:21 PM (#484659) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Matt_R Mrrz, you mean those aliens that looked like warty chicken marionettes? |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:23 PM (#484661) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Bill D I just pasted uglypeople.com into my Netscape, and it went right to it (kinda sad place, though....) makes you wonder why someone would bother collecting all those? Unless you're Diane Arbus |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:32 PM (#484670) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Matt_R I've seen something really strange here in eastern North Carolina. It's some sort of insect. At first glance, it appears to be a firefly, but it's not. As fireflies light up by a sort of short "fade in-fade out" glow, this insect has a steadily sustained radiance. Fireflies usually glow a greenish-yellow color, while thing creature glows bright blue. It also tends to fly in a directly straight line, whereas fireflies kind of swoop and fly with no set direction. It scared the hell out of me the first time I saw it, this fat blue light come bobbing down a country lane at 10pm, in a straight line, about 4 feet off the ground. Then the light would go abruptly out after being sustained for about 30-45 seconds. Then it would appear 20 feet further away, flying straight again. My parents didn't believe me, but one night I managed to show it to them. It was flying about 15 feet in the air, in a straight line, and appeared to land on a tree limb, and it just sat there, constantly glowing. Then it disappeared. I also seemed to remember that it buzzed somewhat, even though I was about 50 feet away when I saw it. Bizarre. |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:37 PM (#484675) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Amergin you want to see ugly folks look at my calendar photo.... |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:46 PM (#484684) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Spaw , finding the secret water falls is great fun. South of Fredonia NY (by the mink farm) is a clamshell waterfall into a naturally smooth stone 40 ft slip and slide. Then further down the water boils down into a DEEP crevass and bubbles out of the same hole and continues down stream eventually I assume into Lake Erie . I always thought one could put their laundry into that bubbling water hole and they would come up clean. |
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15 Jun 01 - 07:56 PM (#484690) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Gareth Strangest life form ? Well actually I thought it was William Hague, that is untill I saw Anne Widicombe ! Sorry UK joke. Gareth |
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15 Jun 01 - 08:10 PM (#484695) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: RangerSteve I had something growing on my basil plants one year that I can't identify. It was a white goo, something like phlegm, but way too much to come from a person, even if he had a major cold. It only grew on the basil, not on the surrounding plants. And this was something called bush basil. The standard generic basil was untouched. After I cut of the offending branches, it never came back. This was maybe 10 or 12 years ago. Ive never seen anything like it since. Any clues? |
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15 Jun 01 - 08:18 PM (#484702) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: SINSULL We had something similar in the corn crop. Big white mucousy balls that were sticky to the touch. I thought they were some sort of bug nest. They grew on the stalk, not the corn itself but were enough to turn everyone off to eating the stuff. |
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15 Jun 01 - 09:09 PM (#484729) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: CarolC Another one I just remembered... A few years ago I encountered a bug here in West Virginia that would walk around people and other obstacles, rather than over them. And they would scream if you tried to touch them. |
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15 Jun 01 - 09:21 PM (#484741) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: GUEST Nice site, hesperis. Donuel's 4th "lifeform" made me think of faeries too. I have seen a bunch of these flying around very fast in a rooughly spherical group. Definitely not just "floaters". They were tiny, though, about the size of grains of rice. I couldn't get Allan C.'s Moonbow clickie to work. When I worked in a Reference Library about 20 years ago a woman told me about the Brocken Bow but I couldn't find anything for a couple of years and finally found a picture of a similar one in China. I used to have site which showed a picture, but it is gone now. http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/779.html Helen |
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15 Jun 01 - 09:53 PM (#484760) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: GUEST,petr donuel, my dad saw ball lightning as a youngster and described it pretty much as you did. What about sundogs? thats another phenomenon that you tend to observe in winter in the northern climes It looks like on either side of the sun quite a distance away in the sky there is small reflection of it. I saw one last week although it was only one. petr |
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15 Jun 01 - 09:56 PM (#484762) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Strangest lifeform? That would have to be Ed Sullivan...assuming he was alive. It was a little hard to tell for sure most of the time. Aside from that I have seen E.T.V.'s (extra-terrestrial vehicles)up reasonably close on 2 occasions, and at a great distance on another...that was pretty well what they had to be...but I did not see the obviously intelligent beings who were no doubt inside controlling them. So I guess that doesn't count, technically, as seeing "lifeforms", but rather machines. And NO!!! I am not going to elaborate and give you all the details yet again, because I am simply so fed up with the professional doubters that I can't be bothered. Tell them to debate it with Jimmy Carter. He saw them too, along with a whole slew of credible witnesses who were with him at the time, back when he was Governor Carter. - LH |
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15 Jun 01 - 10:25 PM (#484773) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull I saw a really big garden worm once,it was about 6 feet long,I was only young so I got scared and ran inside. |
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15 Jun 01 - 10:29 PM (#484776) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk 6 FEET????!!! Now, that IS scary! - LH |
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15 Jun 01 - 10:44 PM (#484780) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Matt_R Maybe it was someone's still-alive, unravelled brain! |
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15 Jun 01 - 10:57 PM (#484794) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull I was only about 3 years old! :-) |
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15 Jun 01 - 11:30 PM (#484802) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Ed Sullivan was a hoot. Sundogs ?! In Rochester you could hardly have a summer sun near sunset without them. The lake must have helped. Insect: I found a Dobson Fly. 6 inches long with 2 1/2 inch pincers all for show. It lives in that form to mate 24 hours maximum then dies. The one I found must have already gotten lucky. Blue bugs in Maryland , maybe, but I don't have a sustained sighting. MD is good for UFOs. I have seen 3 here in 7 years. Pretty rare but they were all different. A 4th UFO I did not see but heard (since the sound was so ominous I did not have the timarity to go outside and look) As a musician the sound is clear in my mind to this day. In short it was as if an electrical power plant passed 10 feet over your roof with a throbbing hum. My wife was even less likly to get up and look. At the time we both said nothing but we still remember it 6 years later. I swear my unlikly reaction to the sound was that it was "saying" - danger stay away - , but it was unlike me to actually stay away. Another bizarre lifeform Gymnophilus Spectobilious - Big Laughing Jim is what Americans in MO call this mushroom. It grows on logs like Shitake but I have never eaten one. They were available through a mail order house in IN. I am sure there are some at the American Type Culture Depository which is a couple miles from me. Perhaps it should not be located 10 feet from the railroad tracks since it has all the spores and micro organisms that are fit and unfit to keep. This is where whackos ordered their Anthrax before security checks became a bit more stringent. Well thats it for my [fright nite] friday night post. |
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15 Jun 01 - 11:52 PM (#484813) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Philibuster My dog, for sure. I STILL think he's a barking pig. |
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15 Jun 01 - 11:53 PM (#484814) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Sorcha Apparently "gymnospec spectabilius" is a Magic Mushroom--several sites say it contains psylocybin (sp?) Others just say it is "poisonous"............looks a lot like a regular Button 'shroom when immature, and something like an Amanita (but no red,no spots) when fully opened. |
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16 Jun 01 - 12:16 AM (#484830) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: catspaw49 I'd hate to see such a list as this without the inclusion of Neil Young. Spaw |
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16 Jun 01 - 12:26 AM (#484837) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: YOR I don't know what in the hell it was, but I took it out of the frig and threw it away. |
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16 Jun 01 - 12:48 AM (#484840) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Sorcha YOR, LOL! Been there, done that too! I remember something that used to be the Christmas Grapefruit; a gift from my mom's brother. You know, the 2 dozen grapefruit each wrapped in paper............I found them in the drawer in August when I was about 10. Asked Mum "Are these spoiled enough to throw away?" |
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16 Jun 01 - 01:21 AM (#484852) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: CarolC Little Hawk! hesperis! We forgot to mention flattop! (Doh!) |
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16 Jun 01 - 01:27 AM (#484856) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Amergin i saw a picture of some old fart with a mullet once... |
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16 Jun 01 - 01:34 AM (#484858) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: DougR Cleigh O. Possom (ok, I've only seen a picture) |
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16 Jun 01 - 06:58 PM (#485151) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Right again, Spaw! Neil Young for sure. Maybe he's actually an alien whose spaceship got stranded in Ontario. - LH |
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16 Jun 01 - 07:49 PM (#485177) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Here is a picture of a rainbow and "something else" Sorry the clicke html is not second nature yet; http://www.sightings.com/general11/rainbow.htm |
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16 Jun 01 - 07:56 PM (#485181) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: CarolC Click here for rainbow thingie. |
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16 Jun 01 - 10:00 PM (#485233) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Helen Okay, finally found a picture of the Brocken Bow/Spectre of the Brocken. http://nemo.as.arizona.edu/~swest/atmo/atmo.html Coincidentally, there are some other fantastic photos of light effects, including sundogs. Helen |
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16 Jun 01 - 11:39 PM (#485251) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Art Thieme Back in 1967 Carol and I moved to Depoe Bay, Oregon where we lived in a house for 62.50 a month at the top of a cliff about 70 feet above the Pacific Ocean -- above Sandy Cove. At low tide I loved to scramble over the rocks and seaweeds photographing hundreds/thousands of creatures so strange and mysterious it couldn't be believed. We are yet to communicate with any of the millions of animals that inhabit our planet with us. I constantly wonder why we assume we'll be able to communicate with any extra terrestrial life form we might encounter some day. One day I found a CHITON at least a foot long and 6 inches wide. It was covered with long hair-like seaweed and/or algae. This was early in the morning shortly after sunrise. I had to let Carol see what I found so I climbed the bluff and tossed the chiton into bed with her. Well, she looked at it (and the many worm parasites that inhabited it) screame, hit me a terrific hit, ran into the bathroom and slammed the door. I calmly retrieved my chiton, took it outside and photographed it from all angles. Then I climbed back down the cliff to the tide pools where I replaced the chiton into it's watery habitat. Then I waited for a flower shop to open, bought Carol one red rose and this coming January 3rd we will celebrate our 35th anniversary.
And there they tied a true love knot, Art Thieme
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17 Jun 01 - 12:03 AM (#485263) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Bert The big mucousy ball are aphids. We used to call the stuff Cockoo Spit, most are small but you do see larger ones occasionally. The Stinkhorn Mushroom is also an interesting sight. |
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19 Jun 01 - 03:34 AM (#486732) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Thanks to Helen for extremely interesting link and information. The eye (and then the mind and later on the recollection) can easily be fooled under the appropriate circumstances. Even basically sane persons as, e.g., Jimmy Carter can be fooled. Carter was fooled by the planet Venus to believe having seen a UFO way back in 1969. He told about the sighting a couple of years later. As an aside, how much you should rely on memory in these things: Carter's recollection of the date of the sighting was about 9 months off the real date (with persons like Carter you can easily recheck these dates even years later). And when such an originally unimpressive story is retold and retold and retold even more inaccuracies creep in like you can see in Little Hawks attempt above: In Little Hawks tale, Jimmy Carter was governor when seeing the UFO. That can be checked easily. Carter wasn't governor when seeing what he thought was a UFO.
Or compare Little Hawk's whole slew of credible witnesses with this newspaper account: No one recalls 1970 UFO spotting by Tom Tiede (Newspaper Enterprise Association) Mt. Pleasant (Texas) Daily Tribune, Feb. 2, 1978 Leary, Ga (NEA) - Jimmy Carter had a close encounter of a highly suspicious kind here in 1970 [the date I have given above is the correct date, W.H.]. He was a political hopeful then, making a speech at the local Lions Club, and he says he spotted an unidentified flying object 30 degrees above the horizon. He also says 10 to 12 others saw it with him. As it happens, however, there is no one in Leary who remembers sighting a UFO in company with the future president. Carter insists that the object's brightness attracted a crowd, but it appears it only attracted him. Not one resident recalls anything unusual about that particular January evening. The townsfolk are mildly amused by the inconsistency of the matter. They have in fact been chuckling ever since last year when the media carried belated news of the Carter encounter. Some think that Carter actually viewed the town's silver water tower; from a distance it can look a bit odd. But whatever Carter saw, he apparently saw it alone. Mayor Stanley Shepard says he has talked with everyone who might have attended the Lions Club meeting on the night in question, "and nobody remembers anything about flying saucers." People recall that Carter's speech was dull - but as for spaceships, no.... Another researcher found a single co-witness who said he was unimpressed and thought the apparition to be a weather balloon. I do not want to make much out of errors in details. Just to warn in general not to take tales told years after an event at face value. Initial perception and later memory will take care of smoothing out some details. And you might never know which details. As for #4 in the first post, best guess is it's entoptic. As for strange lifeforms, the strangest I have seen was a tuatara. Wolfgang |
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19 Jun 01 - 09:12 AM (#486868) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: catspaw49 Wolfgang, your post accounts for almost everything mentioned.........except Neil Young. Spaw |
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19 Jun 01 - 09:14 AM (#486871) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Matt_R Wolfgang....a harmless little lizard?? |
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19 Jun 01 - 10:02 AM (#486915) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Yes, Matt. |
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19 Jun 01 - 10:22 AM (#486932) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: GUEST,Roger the skiffler Well I got up in the night (as you do at my age) and coming back was faced by this hideous apparition, certainly the strangest lifeform I've ever seen, even the naked mole-rat... (Memo to self: drape something over the full length wardrobe mirror in future). RtS (the elephant man's homlier twin) |
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19 Jun 01 - 10:51 AM (#486965) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Patrish(inactive) RtS I am sure you do yourself an injustice, but you did make me laugh - and on a Tuesday I once shared a caravan with Skip, Bill, and Sam - I saw many strange things ;-) Patrish |
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19 Jun 01 - 02:29 PM (#487146) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Kim C Philibuster, I have a dog just like that! Sunday at the mall I saw a man who had his hair all wigged out just like Buckwheat. On purpose. |
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19 Jun 01 - 08:45 PM (#487427) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Wolfgang - Thanks for the info about Jimmy Carter. I mentioned him because people know who he is, whereas if I mention an airline pilot I've met whom no one has heard of, it doesn't pull much weight with anyone. Whether or not Carter saw the planet Venus in 1970 doesn't change what I saw in the late 60's one iota, but thanks anyway. If Venus had manuevered that close to the Earth, we would not be here to talk about it, I can assure you. I Suggest you check out this site: disclosureproject.org And watch the entire May 9/2001 press conference in Washinton D.C. on Real Player if you've got it, and then ask yourself why all these professional people would expose themselves in such a manner and risk public ridicule, etc...unless they thought it was vitally important that the public know what's going on...which is a coverup on the highest covert government levels of contacts which have occured since the 40's, if not before, with ETV's (UFO's). And then, as Spaw points out, there's Neil Young! How the hell do you explain that? He may, in fact, be the only thing out there stranger than Ed Sullivan. :-) - LH |
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19 Jun 01 - 09:42 PM (#487471) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Amergin Who may be, LH? Spaw or Neil Young? |
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20 Jun 01 - 12:37 AM (#487555) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Oh...Ha! Ha! Well, I meant Neil Young. Spaw is quite strange, of course, but I haven't actually seen him...well, a couple of photos, but... Anyway, I meant Neil Young. Don't forget to send your prayers or good thoughts toward Spaw if you feel it will make a difference. He's being operated on tomorrow morning. - LH |
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20 Jun 01 - 05:52 AM (#487655) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Little Hawk, I only did the follow-up on Carter as an example for the unreliability of (UFO) reports and I choose Carter for the same reasons as you did: he is well known. And of course I want to sow some seeds of doubts into some minds: 'If even Carter...' There's one more point where I am in total agreement (excerpt for the wrong date of Carter's sighting) with what you write: Whether or not Carter saw the planet Venus in 1970 doesn't change what I saw in the late 60's one iota. No, it surely doesn't change a iota what you actually saw (that's not my point), but it changes my willingness to take your interpretation of what you saw as gospel. Venus doesn't have to come close to Earth to be mistaken for a UFO. In case someone want to read the old discussion, click here. Wolfgang |
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20 Jun 01 - 10:47 AM (#487810) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Wolfgang, you never took my interpretation of what I saw as gospel. Nor will you take any private individual's interpretation of such an incident as gospel. That's my opinion. And really, why should you, unless you knew that person very well, and felt that they were trustworthy and also of very good judgement? I used to be just like you, Wolfgang. I didn't believe in anything unless it was confirmed and accepted first by the official on high authorities of this society...the government, the police, and the mainstream scientific community. I was a completely rational, mental, scientific minded, logical atheist. That was up till I was about age 20 or thereabouts. Then I saw ETV's. And that changed a lot of things. Then I had some other experiences of a personal nature (outside of this discussion) and that changed a lot more things. I appear to have made an honest error in repeating the Jimmy Carter story...well, fine. Have you ever made an honest error, Wolfgang? Ever? Or has every word that ever passed your lips been...gospel? You are practicing a mental religion with its own set of rigid holy scriptures...you just haven't realized it yet. - LH |
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20 Jun 01 - 11:01 AM (#487829) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Little Hawk, Have I ever made an error? Many, and I add to them nearly daily. I have a printout of one of my bigger scientific errors as an enlarged picture in my room, to teach me modesty. I know that I have erred and will err again. Wolfgang |
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20 Jun 01 - 11:09 AM (#487838) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang And it is also humbling that a formula (an index) in a certain field of research that is (at least in Germany) named after me (the formula, not the field) has been shown later to produce artifactual results. So each congress I go to in Germany I may hear my name as an example of an erroneous approach. Wolfgang |
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20 Jun 01 - 12:26 PM (#487946) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk LOL! Okay, Wolfgang, you have succeeded in putting a smile on my face this morning. :-) As you've noticed, I get touchy over ETV's (or UFO's). I imagine we all get touchy over something...I used to be such a scientific-minded, utterly sceptical little conventional know-it-all prig that I have retained a lifelong anger against that particular attitude when I think I see it in somebody else...it's really my own past I am reacting against, in all likelihood, rather than you. My father and his brother are/were like that too. His brother was in the Manhattan Project in WWII, and had to be the most insufferably arrogant person I have ever known. He had the answer to everything...supposedly...but I caught him on some errors when I was a kid, like the time he insisted that our Pearl Gourami was a Siamese Fighting Fish. When I showed him the fish book with the pictures of these fish, he glared at the book, and said "Some idiot has put the wrong headings under these pictures!" The man was utterly impervious to anything except his own ego. Unlike you, he never admitted to an error in his whole life, and I don't think I ever met anyone who liked him much, except his mother. She thought he was a genius. - LH |
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20 Jun 01 - 01:01 PM (#487991) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jim Cheydi I'm surprised no one's mentioned English Jon's talking cat. |
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20 Jun 01 - 01:23 PM (#488019) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Corrrrr....gotta get me some rancid kippers...tear open the bleedin' garbage bags and help meself...corrrr.... - LH (for the cat) |
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20 Jun 01 - 01:34 PM (#488039) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Naemanson I haven't had time to read through this thread but I am currently in Washington DC so nothing described above is as wierd as what I am seeing on a daily basis. |
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20 Jun 01 - 01:47 PM (#488051) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Melani Art T, after the chiton trick, it's amazing that you're still married. Carol must be a wonderful person. When I was a teenager, our yard was invaded by a very large number of naked green caterpillars with two long tufts of white hair placed like horns, and red spots with some black trim. They were about an inch long, but there was one that was at least five inches. My mother and I gazed on them in horror, and she predicted that the vegetation in our yard would be stripped. Then we saw the five-incher. I said, "Step on it!" and she said, "Are you kidding? I'd be up to my ankle in caterpillar gush!" We fled inside the house, and the things were gone by the next day. I have never seen a caterpillar like that, before or since. We lived in the suburban Chicago area. Anybody have a clue what they were? Actually, though, some of the strangest lifeforms I've encountered are here on Mudcat... |
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20 Jun 01 - 04:24 PM (#488191) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk Richard Nixon was very strange as well. I blame it on his family... - LH |
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20 Jun 01 - 04:58 PM (#488219) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Justa Picker Marty Feldman. |
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20 Jun 01 - 05:00 PM (#488221) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Angie i am spoiled for choice |
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20 Jun 01 - 05:35 PM (#488249) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jim Dixon I see from previous posts that we are not limiting this thread to "life forms" but also meteorological phenomena. Well, I don't know how to classify this one, unless it's a geological phenomenon. I was walking with some friends along a built-up path through the flood plain of the Mississippi River near here (St Paul, Minnesota). A marshy area surrounded us, and the river was not far away. We stopped to rest, and for no particular reason, I began staring at a shallow puddle next to the path. Actually, there were two puddles, and water was slowly trickling across some mud from one puddle to the other. The far edges of the puddles disappeared into the tall weeds. As I watched, the water gradually came to a stop and then changed directions and began flowing the other way. After a few minutes, it reversed directions again . . . and again . . . and again. I think we watched through 2 or 3 complete cycles. I didn't time it, but I'd estimate it took 10 minutes or so per cycle. Then we got bored and left. The experience was sort of like watching paint dry. But wouldn't YOU watch paint dry if it dried, and then got wet again, and then dried again, all by itself with no apparent reason? |
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21 Jun 01 - 05:13 AM (#488581) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Jim, that's a fine puzzle and with a little help from a colleague I have worked out what I think the most probable rational explanation is. The start of course is that water flows from a higher level to a lower and never vice versa. So there had to be a fluctuation in water level. I then first went a wrong trail of thinking and thought the ten minutes should be a chance coincidence. Only when I made the 10 minutes an integral and necessary part of the solution I succeeded. Here you go: Like any children's swing each body of water has an Eigen frequency that is the frequency with which it swings to and fro. If you have water in a bowl and you swing the bowl with the Eigen frequency of the water you'll easily make it spill over. Use the wrong frequency and you need much more force to achieve the same effect. Same in your bathtub. With the correct frequency of moving your body you can make a flood easily. The frequency however is lower for your bathtub than for a bowl. With swings, the Eigen frequency is determined by the length of the ropes, with water the main determinator is the mass of the water involved. The more water the lower the frequency. With an enormous reservoir the Eigen frequency can be in the region of minutes. Now make your bathtub water swing to and fro and imagin observing two connected 'puddles' in the middle, then the water will flow first one way and then the other and change direction about once a second. Hard to see. Now take your two puddles connected to each other and connected to a large body of water. Assume that the large body of water swings with a very low Eigen frequency of once every ten minutes and that the amplitude of the swing is extremely low and usually not seen. The the 'slope' of the water surface will change every ten minutes so minimally that you can't see it. But if you are at a place where two puddles are connected by something which is an obstacle to the free flow of water (small opening, very shallow connection or so) then the flow of water will be slower than the build up of level differences and in such rare situations you'll see actually the water flow. The same physical principle leads to the famous maelstroms of Norway (I link to a particular one I have seen once). The last open question is what is the force behind the swing (everybody knows a swing without additional force will come to a standstill under real life conditions). The force behind the maelstroms is the moon and its gravitation. Your account is precise enough to find a possible 'driving force'. The Mississippi it is. It is connected to the swampland and continuously leads to small random perturbations in the reservoir of water we are talking about. These minor perturbations lead the water reservoir to swing continuously with its Eigen frequency of once per ten minutes. Under extreme circumstances like the one you have encountered, this swing can be seen by the unaided eye. Isn't science fun? But let's not forget other hypotheses. It could be a big hidden factory run by aliens below the swampland and every ten minutes they pump off the waste water of their activities. Or a band of leprechauns fancied to fool you. Or the earth is a big living being making cosmic music and the ten minutes are the time between two draws of breath when playing a particular invisible instrument.... Wolfgang |
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21 Jun 01 - 08:01 AM (#488656) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Wolfgang Jim, would you mind me citing your story (with your name and source) and my explanation in the Journal of the German Skeptics (assuming that the editor agrees). In case you would mind, I'd retell it without using your actual words or your name. Wolfgang |
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21 Jun 01 - 08:21 AM (#488667) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk I recall as a child doing the bathtub swing routine, and finding just the right frequency to cause a flood to happen...very neat! And messy, of course. - LH |
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21 Jun 01 - 10:05 AM (#488753) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: English Jon Please Little Hawk, Can I have my Cat back? Ta, EJ |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:04 AM (#488829) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: ScottyG In June of '82 while driving up to Michigan from Virginia, we stopped at a convenience store in Maryland, just below the Pennsylvania state line. (I can't recall the name of the town.) It was around 11 PM. These really ferocious looking insects were everywhere; on the store windows, all over the ice dispenser, on parked vehicles, everywhere. They were grayish brown, about 5 inches long, and their wings were more like moth wings than fly wings (they weren't transparent or opaque). Some of them were flying around the lights in the parking lot, and I swear, they looked like friggin' birds! These things had some major mandibles. They looked like they could take your finger off if they got a hold of you. Gave me the creeps walking from the car to the store with these things all over the place. Folks inside the store, including some locals, had never seen anything like them. One dude was saying how he had unknowingly put his hand near one of them, and it grabbed on to the fleshy part. Scared the crap out of him and hurt like hell. Actually drew blood, he said. I believe it. Despite my warriness, my curiosity won on the way back to the car. I prodded one of these strange creatures that was on the ground with the toe of my boot. It latched on to the edge of the sole, and I had to step on the thing with my other boot to pull away from its grip. I swear, its pinchers left a visible mark in the hard leather of the sole. Damdest things I ever saw! I've never been able to determine exactly what these nasty buggers were. Anybody have a clue? ScottyG |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:16 AM (#488840) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: English Jon Steve Brett EJ |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:20 AM (#488847) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Little Hawk English Jon - With pleasure. He scattered the garbage all over the place, ate the goldfish, terrified the budgie, shed on the furniture, and shit in the closet. He is an utterly disreputable animal! You are welcome to him. - LH |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:27 AM (#488853) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: English Jon You're lucky he didn't attempt to sodomise your grandma! Cheers LH EJ |
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21 Jun 01 - 11:56 AM (#488882) Subject: RE: BStrangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: gnu About twenty-five years ago, I had the occasion to see a Blue Moose in the mountains near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick, Canada. I had heard stories about these huge beasts from my father, but never knew anyone who had seen one as they are extremely rare. They were thought to be extinct over two hundred years ago because the early European settlers did not have the same respect for them as the native peoples and killed them off indiscriminantly. They were easy to kill because their legs on one side were six inches shorter than on the other side, which made them well suited to the mountainous terrain. All you had to do was jump out from behind a tree, holler at them and when they turned around to run, they fell over and injured themselves, often fatally because of their tremendous girth. |
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01 May 20 - 08:06 AM (#4049730) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel I was going to go with octopus but I am more fascinated by the human donald trump. |
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01 May 20 - 08:16 AM (#4049731) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Scotty G. Those insects are called Dobson flies that live as flying creatures for only 24 hours to mate. |
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01 May 20 - 08:26 AM (#4049733) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jim Carroll I think that I will never see A think more lovely than a FLEA lea Jim Carroll |
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01 May 20 - 10:19 AM (#4049760) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Mrrzy Tumble flies, as we called them. First encountered when one of my sisters complained A worm came out of my knee. They lay their eggs on things drying in the sun, like us or dogs or sheets, then the larvae burrow into you or your dog and make a kind of zit that squeezing, or if vaseline is put on it so they (the larvae) can't breathe, makes a worm come out. If left alone, eventually a fly will fly out. Once mom stopped drying sheets in the sun we rarely got them, but a pediatrician we knew fainted when the salve she put on what she thought were my friend's rash of boils caused a field of worms to emerge, and an embassy party was enlivened by flies bursting out of a woman's cleavage as she had not treated what she thought was a painful rash her bra, sun-dried, had given her. And every Sunday I sat with our basset hounds, and removed ticks and squoze out tumble flies. We all enjoyed that communning... The things kids think are normal! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cordylobia_anthropophaga |
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01 May 20 - 01:11 PM (#4049790) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel I've seen them. |
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01 May 20 - 01:32 PM (#4049793) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Senoufou Ah Mrrzy, my husband came back from Cote d'Ivoire five years ago with one of those growing in his leg. I had to explain to our doctor what it was (the School of Tropical Medicine is in London, not Norfolk, so they'd never even heard of such a thing!) Luckily he got a slot in the Plastic Surgery Dept at our local hospital, and I was asked to gown up and go in with him to translate. (he had just a local anaesthetic). Luckily I'm not in the least squeamish. I had to advise that they got all of it out (they have tiny red spines which cling onto the flesh and can cause infection) It was removed wearing a little black hat (husband's skin!) Husband called it a 'tumbu'. It was so interesting that crowds of medical staff came in to have a look! Very exotic. |
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01 May 20 - 05:31 PM (#4049836) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Mrrzy Which is how we little American children got to calling them tumble flies. All it takes is the dab of vaseline, though, then they come out on their own. I have never heard of surgical intervention. The last one I had was in my eyelid. I thought it was a zit but what I squoze out wriggled, so... |
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01 May 20 - 05:41 PM (#4049842) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Senoufou That's quite true Mrrzy. If one starves it of air (they breathe through the tip of their body) by putting grease over the top, they pop out themselves after a time. But the Plastic Surgeon just thought it would be best to make a small incision and cut it out, then put in some stitches. That wasn't the end of the problem though, because my poor husband got keloid scarring (quite common with black skin) and had to have steroid injections many weeks later. African women usually iron clothes with a charcoal-filled iron, which kills off any tumbu eggs. But I don't think my husband's sisters did this. Fascinating creatures though (tumbus, not my lovely sisters-in-law, although they too are fascinating!). |
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01 May 20 - 05:51 PM (#4049847) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jack Campin My brother found a couple of peripatuses in the bush in New Zealand and tried keeping them as pets in a terrarium. Cute little things, like big slugs with velvety dry skin and about 30 little Michelin Man legs. I never saw them eat, though. Their feeding strategy is extraordinarily disgusting (there are probably videos). One of them disappeared, probably because it was cannibalized. The 11th Edition Enclopedia Britannica (1914ish) goes completely over the top with an article of several pages about their genus (Onychophora) with beautiful anatomical drawings. |
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02 May 20 - 04:02 AM (#4049899) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Senoufou I've just looked that up Jack - how interesting! I'd never heard of them. The article said they haven't changed much in millions of years. Good info for a pub quiz! 'What is a velvet worm?' My father brought home two locusts when I was about ten. He'd got them from some lab in Kensington (no idea why they let him take them!) I kept them for ages - beautiful things, with an oily surface and a nice mottled pattern. They only needed some leaves popped into their vivarium. I called them Len and Larry! |
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02 May 20 - 09:30 AM (#4049938) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Mrrzy The echidna at the London zoo looked like it had sat in rice and put its feet on backwards... |
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02 May 20 - 08:18 PM (#4050043) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Tardigrades look like they are wearing space suits and can survive space for years. Ya just can't kill them. They are immortal in a different way than jellyfish which is stranger still. |
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03 May 20 - 04:31 AM (#4050069) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jim Carroll NATURALIST DISCOVER A NEW SPIECIES Jim Carroll |
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03 May 20 - 05:17 AM (#4050079) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler Going back to the original post: My late first wife told me that as a child she used to watch dancing lights, pinhead size, in a corner of a room, down near the skirting board in the first house she lived in, in Suffolk. She assumed that they were what people called faries. On the day that her father died we went down to the beach for a late evening stroll. As the waves came in they began to flash along their length just before they broke, in the vertical wall of water. It was phosphorescence caused by millions of tiny organisms. Imagine 10 yard long green flourecent lights. Robin |
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03 May 20 - 09:12 AM (#4050119) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jack Campin I loved the fireflies when I was in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania ones fly at dusk and flash BRIGHT for a second at a time. It's like someone is throwing lighted cigarettes. Sadly they've got quite rare now. |
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03 May 20 - 11:00 AM (#4050128) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Donuel Fireflies have peak years and waning years like spiders. In Vietnam the fireflies only flash in unison. Here they have a mind of their own. Downtown has flashers but that is something completely different. |
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03 May 20 - 11:28 AM (#4050133) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Senoufou BBCW, I have a friend who used to do a lot of sailing with her husband around the Suffolk coast, and she often noticed phosphorescence in the water. But she attributed it to Sizewell B nuclear power station!! |
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03 May 20 - 12:38 PM (#4050145) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler This was 3 cliffs Bay on the Gower peninsula in 1974. It was quite a rare phenomenom. I only saw it twice in 7 years there. Robin |
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03 May 20 - 03:10 PM (#4050173) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jack Campin The South-East Asian fireflies do something which, in the entire animal kingdom, is only known of as a human behaviour - rhythmic synchronization. Only the males flash; thousands of them assemble in the same and pulsate their bums all together. Vietnamese lady fireflies find this an irrestistible turn-on. |
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04 May 20 - 05:04 AM (#4050270) Subject: RE: BS: Strangest lifeform you have ever seen! From: Jack Campin "...assemble in the same tree..." |