Creationism Upheld, Theoretically

Father of Evolution Theory still stirring debate

Monkey's Uncle or not, Charles Darwin framed the contentious debate over who we are and where we came from. Meanwhile, Chupacabristas cry foul at the goal line in Amazing Updates and on this Date in Amazing History Fidel Castro settles in for a long stay at the top in Old Havana.

Much of the scientific and academic world this week has observed the 198th anniversary of the birth of the eminent English naturalist Charles Darwin, whose 1859 landmark work, The Origin of the Species, laid the foundation of the Theory of Evolution. Darwin subsequently became one of the 19th and 20th Century's most controversial figures. Even today his towering legacy is contested as fiercely as ever by proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design. Not long after his passing in 1882, doctrinal zealots in London circulated a story (proven false) that Old Charlie had a deathbed conversion to Christian Orthodoxy whereupon he recanted his celebrated Theory.

Happy 198th Charlie!

Therefore it is quite appropriate at this time that I should address a question that has, over the past fifteen years or so, often been posed to me by a number of sincere individuals. Does my own cornerstone Integrated Theory of Inversional Constructs (ITIC) allow for the POSSIBILITY of Intelligent Design? That is to say, could ITIC allow that all life on the planet was deliberately and precisely placed here (and perhaps within a much shorter time frame than conventional scientists believe) by a single All-knowing, All-Powerful Creator?


To that question, the answer is an emphatic YES. Of course it is possible. Is it probable then? Before dealing with the latter question I should point out that an ITIC embrace of Creationism would raise the corollary, but equally valid presumption or possibility of Unintelligent Design or what has been termed Abortionism. According to this theory, everything on the planet is attributable to a Vastly Powerful but Unknowing and Mostly Incompetent Supreme Bungler who has botched or miscarried almost every single undertaking He has put His clumsy Hand to. Abortionism would explain the myriad inconsistencies and biological blind alleys that proliferate in Nature. It would also go a long way toward explaining many senseless cataclysms and disasters that have befallen the earth over millennia, including meteors slamming into the planet, the Black Death and the Bush Presidency.

Accordingly, the inverse corollary would stipulate that not only did dinosaurs and people NOT share the planet at the same time but dinosaurs themselves were separated by geologic ages so vast that a Tyrannosaurus might have had to wait centuries before a Brontosaurus would show up and provide him with lunch. The age of the Earth is not four or five billion years but more like 40 or 50 billion. Noah and his family didn't spend 40 days and 40 nights on the Ark but 40 years and 700 grandchildren must have spilled out of the boat when it landed at Ararat. By which time the throng of hungry Noahans had eaten every last pair of animals on the craft except for two types of rodents: rats and rabbits which the passengers learned to breed and prepare in an infinite variety of ways. As for fresh vegetables, try having seaweed soup everyday for four decades.

Theologian Melvin postulated
God as an Adorable Boob

These and other such teachings formed the basis of Melvinism, a Protestant sect that arose in 16th Century France and was later spread by ardent missionaries to Equatorial Africa and Brazil. According to Jean Michel-Ange Melvin, the Paris-educated theologian who founded the faith in 1527, mainstream churches had completely misinterpreted the Old Testament texts and Christian gospels. God was not a jealous and vengeful Omnipotent Deity who could order the massacre of thousands at the drop of an idol, declared Melvin, rather He was a kindly and well-meaning, but essentially accident-prone Celestial Parent (named Yeeow-zaah) who just got things wrong most of the time. Jesus wasn't crucified on purpose but accidentally nailed to a cross-bar during a sandstorm that blew up as the Helpful Carpenter was assisting Roman soldiers to erect a suburban racetrack. Actually, it was a gladiator ring but the soldiers withheld that information from the pacifist Savior. Melvinist doxology doesn't involve prayers to the Heavenly Father but for Him.

A number of Melvinist churches flourished in France and its colonies up until the eve of the 1789 Revolution and then rapidly dwindled when Napoleon condemned the faith as an anti-Republican heresy. Today only a few remote Melvinist congregations in Northeastern Brazil continue the practice where it survives as a curious blend of Candomble, Macumba, Spiritualism and Reform Judaism. Melvin himself was buried beneath a small headstone in a corner of the famed Cimetiere Pere LaChaise in Paris but was dislodged in 1971 to make room for Jim Morrison of the Doors. The current location of the Melvin reliquary remains a mystery.

To sum up: In terms of classic (if something first advanced in 1954 could be called classic) ITIC analysis, Creationism and its presumptive corrollary Abortionism must be seen as equally valid and logically compatible alternate theories of the Earth's origin and, I would say, merit equally serious study in our schools and institutions of higher learning.

AMAZING UPDATES:

Rev. Chong Migillicuddie has written from Barranquilla that several of his Iglesia Adventista Chupacabrista (IAC) parishoners are furious that 19-year-old Hamish Gomez of Miami Beach dared to associate the miraculous reappearance of the "Chupas Divinas" in Florida with anything so tawdry as betting on the American Super Bowl. "It's unfortunate nonsense like this," says Chong "that utterly ridicules and sensationalizes the Chupacabra manifestations, obscuring the true nature of their heavenly mission. I would have thought that a person from a Jewish background would have deeper sensitivity for this wondrous apparition. After all," the Reverend continues,"We now know It wasn't really a ram that got tangled in the brambles as Abraham prepared to make a burnt offering of Isaac. It was a goat, placed there by an angelic Chupacabra under orders from On High." Rev. Chong says an IAC task force is working on a Chupacabra Cabbala citing numerous Old Testament passages that are suggestive of Chupa intervention.

We've received the latest revised forecast for the Year of the Pig (which begins next week), from noted Shanghai astrologer Dr. Yao Man Fu-Zi who foresees several startling political omens in the zodiacal alignments for 2007 and beyond. This subject will be further explored in the next Amazing Realms installment.

El Jefe goes the distance
Photo: Philippe Halsman
cover LIFE Magazine 1961

THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY:

14 February 1848 Democrat James Polk becomes the first U.S. President to be photographed in office (by Matthew Brady) and so begins a charming American political tradition: the White House photo opportunity. This tradition will be utilised a great deal by succeeding presidents, especially embattled Republicans waging unpopular wars.

13 February 1865 The desperate American Confederacy approves the recruitment of slaves as soldiers on the proviso that their owner's approval is gained. Thus blacks in the South are offered the unique opportunity to fight on the losing side of a war aimed at keeping them in bondage forever. General Robert E. Lee surrenders at Appomattox two months later thereby permanently ending both the Civil War and slavery in the U.S.

16 February 1959 Victorious revolutionary Fidel Castro takes the oath as Cuban premier in Havana. Exiles in Miami and American CIA agents immediately start planning the Bearded One's downfall but the wily El Comandante-en-Jefe will be around a very, very long time.

Chupacabra Omens Erred with Bears at Superbowl XLI

The notorious Chupacabras may be back in the Everglades again reopening the debate over whether they are real, imagined, from outer space, heaven-sent harbingers of a New Covenant or did they augur an auspicious but erroneous omen for the Bears in Super Bowl XLI? At least one local astrologer thought so. In Amazing Updates, a Hong Kong electronics heir ditches a run for the US Congress in order to pursue Britney Spears and On this Date in Amazing History Edna Everage misses her first chance to meet the Queen.

Allegedly first sighted in Puerto Rico in the summer of 1995, no rumored creature in recent memory has caused quite as much stir and media hyperventilation (in Latin markets at least) as the notorious Chupacabra or goat-sucking demon. Breathless reports about "beasts which drained the blood of goats", made by the San Juan tabloid El Vocero, were quickly followed by similar manifestations in Mexico, the Florida Everglades and even Brazil. The "creatures" were variously reported as walking on two-legs, having bat-like-wings and fearsome dentition or curved fangs. Further accounts mentioned reptilian skin, spines or quills on the back, muscular arms, hands with three fingers and a thumb tipped by thick sharp claws, large red eyes, many sharp teeth and a long tongue or extractor.

CHUPACABRA by Ricardo Pustanio

Low-budget Mexican and US filmmakers, always on the look-out for fast-buck monsters, lost no time in transferring the "terrifying" beasts to the cinema and video screen, churning out a total of eleven productions since 1995: Ataca el chupacabras (1996); El Chupacabras, (1996); Adventures Beyond: Chupacabra (1997); Guns of El Chupacabra (1997) aka "Chupacabra, El" - USA (working title); Legend of the Chupacabra (2000); Chupacabras (2000); El Chupacabra (2003); Bloodthirst: Legend of the Chupacabras (2003); Bloodthirst 2: Revenge of the Chupacabras (2005); Night of the Chupacabra (2005) Chupacabra Terror (2005) aka "Chupacabra: Dark Seas" - USA (TV title). In most depictions, excepting a 1997 "documentary," the chupas are clearly portrayed as a menace to humans, even slaughtering passengers on a ship. Yet in the "real-life" testimonies and evidence compiled to date, the chupa victims have all been livestock or household pets. Then again who would pay good money to watch a movie about a terrified goat or an imperiled parakeet?

In his latest foray into the case, psychic detective Herschel Gomez once again called in his distinguished relative, Dr. Domingo Dombrowski, widely noted for being the first scholar to receive an advanced degree in Chupacabrology from Puerto Rico's Instituto de Cryptozoologia de Caguas,1974 (formerly the Caguas College of Applied Phrenology). Dombrowski, who now resides near Orlando, FL is the same researcher who solved the celebrated 1960 "Bat Monsters of Bayamon" controversy (a hoax) and the sensational 1963 case of the "Cataño Fairy" (a runaway juvenile midget from the touring Nicaraguan side-show El Circo de Tacho). He claims the earliest "chupacabra" sightings actually date back to the 1600s when Taino Indians still lived on Puerto Rico. The name, he says, derives from a Spanish approximation of an Arawak dialect (aboriginal) appellation.


IMAGE SOURCE

Together Gomez and Dombrowski first visited a West Everglades site in 1996 where four eviscerated goats were discovered over the Easter Weekend. Dombrowski dismisses the notion that the chupacabras were either dogs (the opinion of local zoo officials) or creatures from outer space. Nor does he believe that they have recently migrated to Florida from Puerto Rico. "As stated in my 1974 work, The Chupacabra Chronicles of Las Casas, it is my firm opinion that these are hybrid creatures that have existed in the Caribbean basin since the earliest days of the Spanish conquest. The Chupacabra," affirms Dombrowski, " is probably a centuries-old cross between a now extinct species of South American lemur and a Malaysian flying fox (fruit bat) introduced to the region by Catalonian sailors previously stationed in the Philippines."

Elsewhere this past year, the first chupacabra sightings were reported in Central Russia where the creatures were said to be feeding on turkeys. In Turkey, where no chupas have turned up yet, turkeys are called hindi implying they come from India. Although there have been no chupas reported on the sub-continent, some researchers now think the 2001 case of the Monkey Man of New Delhi bears renewed examination.

Meanwhile, fresh reports of Everglades sightings have excited Reverend Emiliano Chong-McGillicuddie, a South American clergyman who eleven years ago first proclaimed sightings of the chupacabras to be " apparitions intimately connected with world changes and the spiritual reawakening foretold by so many visionaries including Edgar Cayce and Madame Blavatsky." Chong-McGillicuddie, formerly Pastor of the Asemblea Espiritista Carismatica de Medellin, Colombia, had just announced that a new congregation--Iglesia Adventista Chupacabrista-- was formed in the port city of Barranquilla to propound a revised cosmology in which the "divine chupas" were the heavenly harbingers of a New Order "in which the Lion shall not only lie down with the Lamb but the Goat shall hang out with the Bat."

Chong-McGillicuddie spent three days in Virginia Beach in December 1995 pouring over the Cayce archives for possible references to the chupacabra apparitions. Based on his research--correlating certain Cayce readings with six key Nostradamus quatrains--the pastor had concluded that the chupacabra phenomenon signaled the New Advent of Planetary Salvation. Rev. Chong notes that the letters in "Chupacabrista" easily form "CabraChrista" (Christ-goat). He plans to lead a party of his followers to the Everglades later this Spring in hopes of a revelatory sighting.

Finally, Herschel Gomez's young nephew Hamish Gomez insists that the most recent chupa appearances were also an omen for the SuperBowl XLI being played in a stadium not far from the Everglades itself and where livestock-devouring creatures were first reported in 1996. "Look," says Hamish, an avid astrologer like his uncle, "the Bears secured their conference title earlier this month under Capricorn, the Sign of the Goat. Chicago is a city famous for its stockyards and it was once burned to the ground by a cow!" "Not only that", adds Hamish, " if you rearrange the letters of the Spanish word "Chupacabrismo" (meaning Chupacabra-ness more or less) you get "Chicapo B'ars". " Close enough, even for Nostradamus maybe. But not for Peyton Manning as it turned out much to young Hamish's considerable embarrassment. Uncle Herschel also pointed out that the Colts won their conference title under the Goat as well. The Chupacabras, for their part, have no comment. And those unfortunates who bet heavily on Chicago turned out to be the biggest suckers of all.

AMAZING UPDATES:

IMAGE SOURCE

Hong Kong Electronics scion Fu-Tze (Footsie) Feldman, a Fort Lauderdale tax attorney, has notified local Republican Party operatives that he will not contest freshman Democrat Ron Klein in a 2008 US Congressional race. "Call it the surge that broke the camel's back," he told friends recently. "The way this war is going, the GOP nomination won't be worth a pitcher of warm spit," he added, colorfully recalling the candor of a Depression Era vice-president.

For the present Feldman is in Hollywood (the West Coast one) hoping to wrangle a way to escort Britney Spears to the Academy Award Ceremonies later this month. "She'll forget all about K-Fed once she's exposed to the special aura of F-Foot," he said, though his friends admit that the family's $6-billion fortune might have some bearing on Ms. Spears outlook. If Feldman manages to take to the young pop-star to the Oscars then he'll also invite her to a Chinese New Year Gala at uncle Chuk Wam-Bang's sumptumous mansion in Malaysia the following weekend.


ON THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY:

Feb 3 1690
The first paper money in America is issued in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. But the local Indians refuse to accept it. Nor, after hearing what happened in Manhattan, will they accept glass beads either.

Feb 3 1954
Millions greet Queen Elizabeth II in Sydney on her first royal
trip to Australia. Unable to attend, future honoree/housewife Edna Everage sends regrets from Moonee Ponds.

Feb 4 1889
Harry Longabaugh is released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, "the Sundance Kid." Upon seeing himself in the mirror for the first time after a long period of incarceration, the Kid is devastated to realize that he looks nothing like Robert Redford.

Young Edna
GREAT WIGS

Feb 4 1909
California law segregates Caucasian and Japanese schoolchildren, thereby extending to the Nipponese youngsters the same honor that Chinese pupils in the state have enjoyed for decades. Academic test scores for both groups soar while white kids in the Golden State go on to distinguish themselves in swimming, square dance and choir.

Feb 5 1900
The United States and Great Britain sign the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, giving the US the right to build a canal in Nicaragua but not to fortify it. Nicaragua, a sovereign nation at the time, is not a signatory and the Americans later decide to stiff the British by building a canal in Panama instead.

Gandhi and the Non-Prophet Motive

Mahatma: dreamed of freedom for his people
SOURCE

Just ahead of the 59th anniversary of his death at the hands of an assassin, we look back at a troubling set of prohesies attributed to Mahatma Gandhi and glimpse the curious legacy of a little known relation. Today in Amazing Story Updates, from Korea, Reverend Moon explains his astrological reservations to Dr. Hosokawa and the regular feature, This Date in Amazing History, recalls the day San Franciscans gave up good grass.

Ten years ago, a US supermarket tabloid exclaimed that, according to a series of previously secret Edgar Cayce-style predictions, before the end of 1997 the AIDS virus would become as prevalent as "the common cold". The startling prophesies, were said to have been issued by (of all people) Mohandas Karamchand (aka Mahatma) Gandhi and said to have turned up in a weathered notebook discovered at a former ashram in Sevagram, India. They were also purported to have foretold a terrorist mass assassination that would end the lives of seven top world leaders in March 1998 and that three months later the planet would see the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Needless to say, each of these prognostications fell as flat as a soggy pappadam.

At the time, news of these "Mahatma Prophesies" came as something of a surprise to most Indians who had never heard of the Father of the Nation, a confirmed Hindu, making psychic predictions of any sort, least of all regarding Jesus Christ. He did forecast the end of the British Raj and predicted continued strife with Pakistan but these were deduced by prevailing political developments and not oracular intuition.

However, after a nine year investigation, author-researcher Rajiv Perlmutter Patel of Walnut Creek, CA is convinced the ashram writings may be partially authentic: they were penned by Gandhi, he says, but not Mohandas the Mahatma. Actually they were the work of his irascible little brother Ganesh aka "Garrett" Gandhi of East Ipswich, England. The younger Gandhi, said Patel, was not above contriving outrageous pseudo-psychic scams throughout much of his adult life in the United Kingdom. Ganesh first followed his older brother to London in March 1931 for a conference on India's future and remained in the UK until after the end of World War Two.

"Garrett" Gandhi: Soho hypnotist

Ganesh, who always sported a jaunty VanDyke beard and powder-blue turban, parlayed his brother's famous name into a notable nightclub and music hall act as a stage hypnotist known variously as the "Fakir of Finchley," the "Ipswich Swami" and during the most celebrated point in his cabaret career just prior to the Blitz, the "Picadilly Pandit." "It was an entertaining blend of sideshow fortune-telling, "telepathy" stunts and Eastern mystical mumbo-jumbo," says Patel "and war-jittery Brits ate it up. He even used a snake in a basket until the RSPCA stepped in."

Garrett married four times, dated Merle Oberon briefly after the war and eventually settled in East Anglia where he operated a Felixstowe vegetarian restaurant for many years and raised five of his eight children. He died there in 1976 at the age of 89. Garrett was said to have been profoundly shaken by his brother's murder and afterward steadfastly avoided the public spotlight.

Patel himself is no stranger to the psychic realm. He is the nephew of noted sensitive Rhoda Gold Perlmutter of Passaic NJ whose father knew Ganesh Gandhi and wrote an unpublished book about him. Rajiv thinks the so-called "predictions" were part of Garrett's fortune-telling act and may have been accidentally left behind during a 1946 visit to his elder brother's ashram. We may come to know much more about the last and more clandestine phase of Garrett's career, says Patel, when Mordechai Perlmutter's book is released sometime in the coming year. Gandhi reportedly granted the interviews that form the major source of the biography on the condition that nothing could be disclosed until 30 years after his passing. Moredechai himself died in 1994 but Rhoda Perlmutter has vowed to see the work published as her father intended.


AMAZING STORY UPDATES

From his office in Sapporo, Dr. Kenji Hosokawa informs us that Rev. Moon has written from Korea to dispel the notion that his church's weekly financial bulletin the Seoul Sellers Guide and Satanic Star Chart had deliberately misconstrued Hosokawa's Fire Pig Forecast. The clergyman is not, by the way, to be confused with the leader of the Unification Church, but presides over the the United Korean Reformed Four-Square Pentecostal Church based in Pusan. Rev. Moon Joon Song (Moon is quite a common name in Korea) says his organization takes no issue with Hosokawa at all since the church has its own unique system of stock market predictions based upon snake handling and interpretation of arcane Biblical prophesies to which only Rev. Moon and a few trusted associates are privy. Any other attempts to forecast market trends are, by his definition, "Satanic" and no better than the worthless conjectures of professional analysts on Wall Street where, he says, "the Devil reigns supreme." His followers, Rev. Moon added, "do not pay any attention whatsoever to the animals of the Oriental Zodiac unless it happens to be the Year of the Serpent."

The Chupacabra
SOURCE

The intrepid Herschel Gomez is back from a fresh foray into the West Everglades, south of Lake Okeechobee to investigate newly reported sightings of the notorious Chupacabra, a sort of bipedal vampire-bat more given to attacks on livestock than people. For the moment, Gomez says he's not certain whether the beast being described by Puerto Rican farmworkers is actually a chupacabra or the traditional "Skunk Ape" of the Everglades, thought to be a Southern cousin of Big Foot or the Susquatch. The "ape" is held in high regard by the local Skunkasookie Indian Tribe who revere the creature as an important Guardian Spirit that is NOT to be molested or disturbed in any manner. Herschel is asking his Orlando-based marital in-law Domingo Dombrowski, a noted authority on "chupas" to help him investigater further.

THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY

Capt. Morgan: Yo ho ho and a bottle of him

27 JANUARY 1671 Welsh Pirate Henry Morgan (after whom a famous brand of Jamaican rum is named) lands at Panama City and after winning a furious battle with Spanish defenders promptly burns the place to the ground. The scene will be immortalized centuries later by subsequent hit movies and the "Pirates of the Caribbean" attraction at various Disney Theme Parks but with scant mention of Morgan himself. According to Dutch medium Hiero Thrypplewaart, the vainglorious captain still harangues Uncle Walt about it whenever the two cross paths on the Other Side.

29 JANUARY 1613 Galileo observes Neptune but fails to recognize what he sees. In frustration, he checks the Pisa Yellow Pages for an optometrist only to find there are none, nor any telephones either. Considerably annoyed, the astronomer chucks the volume over the balcony of the Leaning Tower despite its list of outstanding spaghetti and Pisa parlors easily reached by ox-cart.

30 JANUARY 1847 The sleepy bayside Californian village of Yerba Buena is formally renamed San Francisco leaving behind a charming original Spanish appellation of "Good Herb or Grass," a commodity that the new city won't again become associated with for another 120 years, mostly in the Haight-Ashbury section.

Our Lot in Lap of Lett Lab Lizard?

Scipionyx: Cousins from outer space?
Image Source: Luis V. Rey's Art Gallery Dinosaurs and Paleontology © Luis Rey

An amazing Manhattan parrot has excited UK scientists prompting a review of the astounding story of a remarkable reptile in the Baltic that first appeared nearly a decade ago. Also, parched conditions in Australia confer one unexpected blessing and our look at Amazing History recalls the Day that New York women became outlaws for smoking in public.

We don't need to be reminded that these do indeed seem to be strange times and some religious fundamentalists may be forgiven for seeing omens of an approaching "End of Days" in the various proliferations of odd phenomena surrounding us. This sort of Doomsday thinking has typically been prevalent among Christians at the close of one millennium and the start of another. However, everybody is not on the same millennial page. The festival of the Fire Pig beginning next month is Year 4704 by Chinese calculations. According to the Jewish calendar it's year 5767, Muslims have just rung in Year 1428 of the Islamic calendar and this is the 5107th Hindu calendar year.

Religious perspectives aside we are witnessing an onslaught of bizarre, often unsettling events and freak behaviors. And that's just in Washington, DC. Late last month, British researchers were reported to be studying an African Grey parrot kept in New York that not only mimics human speech but has a vocabulary of 950 words, demonstrates a sense of humor, invents words and phrases, and even shows signs of telepathy, astounding scientists. The bird, named N'kisi, is believed to be one of the most advanced human language users in the animal world.

Gabby Grey: "Gentlemen, I said I wanted a CRACKER not these blasted blocks!"


Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge School of Veterinary Medicine, told BBC News Online: "The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots." Actually that's not quite true. The biggest leap came nearly 10 years ago with lizards or rather with one particular reptile. It's time to revisit the curious case of the "Talking Lithuanian Lizard" first reported in The Amazing Realms of Prof. Kurt S. Jacobi back in April 1998:

First the bad news, astronomers have discovered a giant asteroid hurtling toward Earth that may very well strike the planet in the year 2028 and send humankind the way of the dinosaurs.

The good news is that on-going research by Latvian paleontologists may suggest that not ALL dinosaurs perished in a previously theorized primordial cosmic collision but survived due to the timely intervention of reptilian extra-terrestrials who ferried their terran cousins to a home planet. Latvian research team leader, Dr. Valerian Livani says uncovered evidence has led to speculation that these intelligent visitors might be persuaded to return in time to help Earth avoid a second smash-up.

The source of these sensational claims is an extraordinary zoological oddity known for years locally as "Larry the Talking Lithuanian Lizard," a Vilnius sideshow attraction that drew serious scientific attention only last September (1997). A Lett researcher, Ivan Pavilosta, visiting relatives in Varena chanced upon the remarkable reptile when he took his nephew to the circus.

What first appeared to be an over-sized Baltic Spotted Gecko that could bark a series of guttural sounds on command, turned out to be the herpetological find of the century, if not the millennium. Bargaining with the lizard's owner, an acrobat from Minsk, Pavilosta paid the equivalent of four thousand dollars for the animal with which he quickly returned to the university at Riga. Upon closer examination of the 17-inch-long creature, experts were stunned.

Loudmouth Lizard: Knows more than he lets on to Letts

Dino-Mite

For one thing, Larry is not any type of lizard known to modern science. He does, however, bear strong structural similarities to the fossil of a small dinosaur, Scipionyx samniticus, recently discovered in Italy and thought to be an ancestor of modern birds. Larry not only can mimic human speech far better than any parrot but can also read in six languages including English and Russian. It was only after noticing the lizard apparently engrossed in a copy of War and Peace, that Pavilosta decided to purchase the animal from the circus performers.

Actual inter-species communication with Larry did not begin until Dr. Livani and the other scientists accidentally left his open cage near a computer and the reptile began skittering across the keyboard, producing what initially seemed to be gibberish but later turned out to be a passage from the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes in Hungarian. Four days later, he tapped out the first four paragraphs of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution in flawless French.

According to Larry super-intelligent reptiles such as himself occur in nature only once in every 500,000 hatchings and then only among four species of European lizard-like creatures small enough to escape undue attention from most humans. Endowed with telepathic powers and able to communicate with mammals and birds, Larry says normal reptiles are too dense for a decent conversation. He suggests that he deliberately allowed himself to be "captured and tamed" in order to study Homo sapiens at close range.

Jurassic Bark Worse than Bite

The lizard claims congenital knowledge of the Age of Dinosaurs and says a breed of omnivorous four-foot tall reptiles actually ruled the Earth for about 100 million years and escaped the planet aboard alien spacecraft just before the last asteroid collision. These reptiles implanted a genetic code in four surviving species programmed to manifest itself every century or so. As a rule, Larry says these super-lizards generally avoid people and do not try to influence human events. "Pointless," he confides. The approaching asteroid is a source of concern to Larry and others of his kind. They, about 700 in all, expect to be rescued by their interplanetary relatives well before the Big Rock gets too close.

Dr. Livani and his team are baffled by these reptile revelations and have trouble accepting much of the material. "Just because a lizard can speak, read and write (and bark)," he says, "doesn't necessarily mean that the creature is always truthful or not given to delusion. We retain a healthy scientific skepticism." Livani concludes, "All we know for certain right now is that he can beat any of us at chess and that he prefers beef stroganoff (a dish he was fed at the circus) to insects."

Since reporting those details nine years ago, a shroud of official secrecy and academic controversy has descended over the lizard case. For the record, Dr. Livani (from Latvijas Universitate) says he can comment nothing further about the animal or its present whearabouts. European herpetologists concede that geckos are the best vocalists in the reptilian world but note that they are usually confined to warmer climates and none have ever been detected north of the Riviera. Many Latvians, meanwhile, object to calling the animal "Lithuanian" in the first place. They suggest it had probably been stolen from a pet shop in Skrunda near a gigantic Soviet-era radar installation whose powerful emanations, they suspect, invested the imported reptile with remarkable powers. "He really ought to be nicknamed The Skrunda Skink," quipped one Lett.





AMAZING STORY UPDATES… The severe drought that has gripped most of Australia in recent months is having one beneficial side effect. The advance of a variety of over-sized mutant mosquitos ("mozzies" in the local parlance) seems to have been checked. The South Australian Royal Entomological Research Station says none have turned up in any of the nation's coastal cities, much to the relief local health agencies. The monster mozzies, eight times the size of a normal mosquito, were not reported to feed on human blood but to drain transmission fluid from expensive imported automobiles. And this has had a few Aussies suspect the creatures were the product of some Japanese or German experiment (possibly conducted in Malaysia) that went awry. Whatever their origin, says Dr. Barry Corrigan from Brisbane, "it seems this larger breed cannot find enough stagnant water in which to reproduce normally. And for that we should be grateful."...Our intrepid Irish-Iraqi psychic-urologist Mohammed Mohoney has confirmed that while in Sydney next April to attend an oncosexology symposium, he will also be a featured speaker at a Darlinghurst Psychic Fair organized by his uncle Syed al-Rashid who emigrated to New South Wales three years ago...Closer to home here in Florida, there seems to have been a fresh round of chupacabra sightings in the Western Everglades. Herschel Gomez is on the case and we'll have more on that as developments warrant.


ON THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY…

22 JANUARY 1901

After 63 years, Royal Mail stops sale of the Queen Victoria postage stamps series and begins the King Edward VII series. Among the many RM firsts under Her Royal Highness were: First adhesive stamp (the Penny Black 1840); First post boxes erected in mainland Britain (1853); Ten London postal districts established (1858); Post Office begins telegraph service (1870); First use of bicycles to deliver mail (1880) Postal order introduced (1881); Parcel post begins (1883); First picture postcards (1894). No such major Post Office innovations occur under the nine-year reign of Edward but with grandson George V national telephone service begins (1912).


22 JANUARY 1908


Responding to a national crusade waged by Lucy Page Gaston and her Anti-Cigarette League of America, New York City passes the Sullivan Ordinance, a regulation prohibiting women from smoking in public; other municipalities follow New York's example. Anti-smoking laws are also adopted in the states of Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, Kansas, Iowa and Tennessee. All fail to curb the national tobacco habit and are all repealed by 1927. Lucy herself is struck by a streetcar and dies in 1924 by which time US smoking increases dramatically (from 4.4 billion to 73 billion cigarettes yearly) since the 1899 onset of her anti-smoking campaign.

Above: Lucy Page Gaston: Out, out damned butt!

Chicken Choke may rival Chicken Soup as Miracle Therapy

Hollywood Urologist/Psychic Mohammed Mahoney heads for Sydney (via Basra) to check the latest medical findings on wanking as cancer prevention while Aussie tour promoters anticipate a rise from the results. Plus Jesus is spotted on a tree in the Philippines, a Canadian schoolboy confesses and This Date in Amazing History.

Irish-Iraqi specialist Mohammed Mahoney (a board-certified physician with a thriving
urology practice in Hollywood, FL) informs us he will extend his biennial trip overseas this year to include a swing through Sydney after he visits Uncle Abdullah and other members of his mother's family in Basra this April. Mohammed wants to attend the Workshop on Confrontation, Confusion and Challenges in Oncosexology sponsored by ISSC (International Society for Sexuality and Cancer).



In particular Mahoney wants to hear the update on a sensational 2003 report by Australian researchers indicating that the vigorous practice of masturbation, especially in a man's younger years actually reduces the risk of prostate cancer in later life. The findings by medical investigators by Melbourne's La Trobe University were part of The Australian Study of Health and Relationships, the largest and most comprehensive survey of sexuality ever undertaken Down Under. Telephone interviewed 19,307 respondents between the ages of 16 and 59 years, a sample that consisted of 10,173 men and 9,134 women randomly selected from all states and territories of Australia.



Australian researchers questioned over 1,000 men who had developed prostate cancer and 1,250 who had not about their sexual habits. They found those who had ejaculated the most between the ages of 20 and 50 were the least likely to develop the cancer. The protective effect was greatest while the men were in their 20s. Men who ejaculated more than five times a week were a third less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life. The news was greeted with excitement and relief among millions of thankful “wankers” around the globe anxious to learn if the discovery will be confirmed by subsequent studies in other localities.


Up the coast in Brisbane, our friend Dr. Barry Corrigan reports that tour and hotel operators of Queensland’s tourism-dependent Gold Coast region aren’t waiting for further medical surveys to start cashing in on what they see as an unprecedented promotional bonanza. “It’s not clear yet what any follow-up studies may show,” says veteran tour guide Rolf Sickerdick,”but as far as people here concerned the case is made already..masturbating IN AUSTRALIA wards off cancer. And that’s what we’re going to be marketing.” Sickerdick’s firm is already packaging Great Barrier Reef sail trips aimed an expected surge of American visitors “Pleasure cruise takes on a whole new meaning aboard our state-of-the-art schooner the Wankee Trader!” proclaims one brochure. Two new uber-neon-studded beach-front dance palaces, The Choked Chicken and Monkey Spanker will open their doors to an anticipated clamoring clientele next month while certain restaurants plan to lure Canadian and Jamaican visitors with heavily advertised nightly “jerked chicken at your table” specials. And the local Warner-Brothers theme park is said to be exploring how to tastefully pander to the family trade with Woody Woodpecker.



Corrigan notes that plans have already been announced for an extravagant 900-seat cabaret-style nightspot that will be named Le Club sWANK and erected, appropriately, next to the world’s tallest residential building, the Q1 (“The Shaft”) perhaps now destined to be more emblematic of the city than ever. For his part, Mahoney will attend the Sydney ISSC conference with an eye to possibly getting funding for a similar prostate-link study underway here in Fort Lauderdale (a Sister City to Queensland’s Gold Coast). “There couldn’t be a more natural place in the US for such a survey,” says Mahoney. After all, everyone KNOWS what the peninsula state is shaped like.”

AMAZING STORY UPDATES…

Family sources report that owners of the Hong Kong-based Fong-Wam-Bang Electronics empire are having second thoughts about financing American-born grandson Fu-Tze (Footsie) Feldman in a 2008 US Congressional race. For one thing, they reason, the Democrats control Congress again so how effective could a freshman Republican like Feldman be even if he won? Another cause for concern is the prediction by psychic Herschel Gomez that Footsie will woo and subsequently marry pop-star Britney Spears later in the year. From Malaysia, uncle Chuk Wam-Bang says he thinks the reclusive grandparents reckon a showbiz marriage and a simultaneous political campaign would draw far too much inquisitive publicity for the family to handle… Just six days after we relayed the story from Cowpie Corral, Alberta concerning a miraculous papal visage on a schoolboy’s apple, some 2,000 people swarmed into the town of San Enrique in the Philippines on Christmas Day to view an image of Jesus Christ that seemed appear on the trunk of an acacia tree. There was some difference of opinion whether you had to be standing 10-feet away while light hits the trunk in a certain way and whether there was also an angel hovering behind the face. The San Enrique mayor guessed there might be a logical explanation for the appearance while a skeptical town pastor flatly proclaimed the apparition a hoax. Sadly, that’s the also the latest word from Cowpie Flats as well where eighth-grader Barton Gilhooley ultimately confessed to doctoring his Granny Smith apple with an emerald magic marker. He explained was trying for an image of Wayne Gretsky but wound up with something that witnesses said looked like a younger version of Pope Benedict instead. He was suspended from Meadow Muffin Middle for three days over the prank.

ON THIS DATE IN AMAZING HISTORY…

15 JANUARY 1346 Holy Roman Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria bestows upon his wife Margaretha, Holland and the oft-contested, war-torn province of Zealand. He would have preferred to give her a New Zealand but it would take Dutch navigator Abel Tasman 400 years to show up and find one.

15 JANUARY 1535 Henry VIII declares himself head of the English Church and thereby replaces Pope Clement VII, in the hearts of his subjects, as the model for Christian rectitude and moral probity that the British Royals have upheld to the present day.

15 JANUARY 1920 Prohibition (the 18th Amendment or Dry Law) goes into effect in the United States driving “demon rum” underground where it flourishes and “speakeasies” sprout up in thousands of communities across America. Selling liquor and beer becomes illegal but not drinking so millions of Yanks encourage lawbreakers and organized crime hits the Big Time. The 18th Amendment is repealed in 1933 and brazen flouting of the law is once more largely confined to politicians.

15 JANUARY 1955 Nearly ten years after the shooting stopped, the USSR, moving with characteristic dispatch and deliberation ends its state of war with the German Federal Republic (West Germany). Six years afterward, the Russians build a wall across Berlin that will stand until the Soviet Union itself begins to fracture in the 1980s.

Cayce-Dixon Clash mars 2007 Psychic Predictions Fete

Paranormal Squabbles

Kyle Cassidy Images, Gallery Nine, Contact the artist.

Celebrated seers gather in Miami Beach for 2007 Psychic Prediction extravaganza but a trans-trance squabble between Jean Dixon and Edgar Cayce nearly scuttles the paranormal party. Herschel Gomez' aunt Hortensia hosted the affair at her Art Deco Ocean Drive villa. Meanwhile, on the otherside of the planet, tribal leaders in Western Australia ponder their pending return to power in ancestral lands.

Jean Dixon: Real gift or lucky hit?

Miami psychic Herschel Gomez reports that a terrible row developed this past week during the so-called Florida “Superbowl of Psychic Predictions for 2007” namely the annual South Beach Celebrity Seance SmackDown hosted by his aunt, Hortensia de Gomez Gutman, the onetime personal chiromancer to Fulgencio Batista. The event, which draws together area Latin and Anglo psychics for a lively session of competitive readings and extended chats with deceased notables, was staged on January 3rd, the 62nd anniversary of the "crossing" of the guest of honor, Edgar Cayce, who was almost a no-show. The evening got off to a tense start with Mme Shanti Dombrowski, the Madras-born spouse of Herschel's third cousin Domingo, expressing bitter resentment at being compared unfavorably to Jean Dixon as a prophet. "Let’s be honest, she really got lucky just once," said Shanti, "and traded off that for decades afterward." For her part, Dixon-- channeling through Hortensia a bit later--dismissed Shanti as a “presumptuous Tamil Nada from Orlando” which prompted a round Latino titters.

Edgar Cayce: Overslept?

But the real fireworks erupted when Dixon and the late-arriving Cayce renewed their long-running feud over who had the most embarrassing failed predictions. "The Vietnam War ending in 1966," remarked Cayce, who spoke through Irish-Iraqi trance medium Mohammed Mahoney, "what a tragic clunker that was!" "I'll take the heat for that anytime,” responded Dixon, “over predicting that California would slide into the Pacific Ocean in 1998. You were really asleep on that one, Ed." The two ended their discarnate dialogue on a more positive note by agreeing that rightwing evangelical Pat Robertson is undoubtedly the dimmest “seer” on the contemporary prophesy scene.


Deadly dialogue
Earlier Cayce apologized to the group for nearly missing the session but explained he had to attend a low-key reception at the Dead Despots Society for new arrivals Augusto Pinochet and Saddam Hussein. The DDS, notable for its impressive board of respected late humanitarians and philanthropists, helps rehabilitate departed dictators and war criminals preparing them for an eternity of endless begging--for their victims’ forgiveness in the afterlife.

Celebrity Seance: Trancing with the stars

On a more congenial note, the assembled seers exchanged a variety of premonitions, dreams and forecasts and found broad agreement that global weather changes would begin to wreak havoc on a generally good international economy in the latter part of the year. All agreed that ephemeral personalities like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Brad Pitt take up entirely too much space in the psychic media and something ought to be done about it but no-one present could foresee how. Mahoney did boldly predict that cinema’s swaggering Kiwi Russell Crowe will be eating crow by year’s end. “And I don’t mean Sheryl,” he added.

All in all, the Séance SmackDown ended quite amicably. Despite the few occasional harsh words and sharp outbursts--and a couple of angrily tossed ouija boards--only one psychic was asked to leave early after she was found to be using a marked Tarot deck and having two “wands” up her sleeve.

Map of tribal lands: Heritage reclaimed

Another Legal Gain For Ozzie Natives

Hard on the heels of a Federal Court decision recognizing the Native Title Claim of the Noongar People of Western Australia to a 193,956km² tract of land that encompasses the entire State capital city of Perth (population 1.7 million) comes word that in New South Wales (where Sydney is located) it’s been decided to share with the local Githabul tribe the administration of a 6,000 -square-kilometre area that encompasses 19 parks and forests, including several UN World Heritage sites. Reports indicate that the so-called native title pact will create jobs for the Githabul people and give them much greater involvement in the management of the land.

Unlike the reaction in Western Australia, where state and federal government spokespeople immediately announced a challenge to the native tile ruling, officials on all sides are welcoming the Githabul agreement as a positive step toward Reconciliation between Australian whites and other later arrivals and the traditional owners of Australian territories.



Recalling the past with generous reciprocity


Back in Perth, Noongar elders are said to be reviewing strategies and plans in the event their title claim is upheld in the courts. “Naturally, we want to move forward in a spirit of compassion and absolute reciprocity,” says Emerson Amangu, member of a committee looking at implementation schemes for re-establishing tribal authority over the capital and its environs. “Above all, we want to show the Wadjalla (whites) the same kind of goodwill and fair treatment that we ourselves were shown in their place.”


Consequently, an assortment of proposals are being put forward that the in-coming Noongar Administration might wish to adopt. These include classifying whites as fauna on tribal lands, making sure that all Wadjalla children are educated in the Noongar language and culture (with school menus that feature traditional dishes like roast monitor with witchetty grub and honey ant sauce) and restoring place-names to their aboriginal designations including Perth itself which soon might be called Greater Wajuk, West Nyaki-Nyaki or New Noongar.

Above: School monitor: Soon to be served
Happy Meal style with grubs and ants

From the Wabbit to the Wehrmacht

Cel-fueled Fascism

It now seems indisputable in the light of numerous and well-documented studies of North American television viewing habits that culpability for the chronic problem of worsening epidemic violence in our public schools including murderous episodes such as the Columbine rampage, now can effectively be traced to a too-long ignored instigator: Bugs Bunny.

Thanks to the decades-long mission of a squad of zealous monitors formed by the Florida Parent Teacher Association, which studied TV programs aired in Florida and other American states since the 1990s, we now have a comprehensive index of the most violent shows on the air. And the worst offenders have turned out to be Bugs, Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Tom & Jerry even Rocky and Bullwinkle.

These meticulous findings--counting the number of violent acts per half hour--rated the Warner Brothers characters and others, including Batman, and an ecology-activist called Captain Planet among the worst offenders.

3Rs: Readin', Ritin' and Revolvers

In 1992, TV Guide commissioned a similar study of a typical 18-hour TV broadcast day to determine levels of violence. The US networks and the more popular cable channels were monitored for "purposeful, overt, deliberate behavior involving physical force or weapons against other individuals." There were 1,846 acts of violence that broke down this way:

* Cartoons (471); promos for TV shows (265); movies (221).
Toy commercials (188) actually had nearly three times the violent content of prime time dramas (69).

* Further studies done in both the United States and Canada have shown a positive relationship between early exposure to TV violence and physical aggressiveness as adults.

* The results of a study released in March, 2002 that tracked 700 male and female youths over a seventeen-year period showed a definite relationship between TV viewing habits and acts of aggression and crime in the later life. (1)

It is thanks to such diligent research we can now more accurately assess how mindless “toon” savagery has “desensitized” formative young minds and paved the way for proliferating weapons and gang violence in schools. And to think we were fretting about rap music lyrics, mayhem-themed video games, forensic crime-scene dramas, FOX News war coverage and gun shows for numbing our youth to violence and mayhem when the real culprits have been under our noses for 50 years or more.

Disney shadowed

Although a corresponding link to increased drug abuse to cartoons remains elusive, this is obviously a field for future study and perhaps grounds for additional taxpayer-supported research grants. And while the Disney Studios characters have been a bit less manic than their WB rivals, they were equally prone to violent outbursts, especially Donald Duck. I myself could be persuaded to undertake such a multi-million dollar seven-year study of Donald D and Goofy. In my view, Donald’s unintelligible speech and tantrums are undoubtedly the result of some sort of hallucinogenic delirium the source of which might be uncovered by a frame by frame digital analysis all DD features going back into the mid-1930’s. It’s common knowledge today that a nicotine-dependent Walt Disney himself voiced Mickey Mouse’s falsetto dialogue. But what we do not know is to what narcotic or pharmaceutical agents might have Walt resorted in pursuit of this bizarre vocal effect?

Armed with this with these extremely well documented analyses of decades-long chronic brutality on the animated screen we may now be able to establish that other social ills can be blamed on cartoons: battered wives, cruelty to animals, cheating in sports and in the classroom, income tax evasion, stock fraud, insider trading, tampered electronic voting machines and stolen elections.

Demonic Duck

It is entirely possible that we may also assign to these socially destructive cartoons a contributory role in the outbreak of World War Two and the Holocaust. Several of these hyper-aggressive characters date back to the Great Depression when they were seen across Europe by many thousands of impressionable children who subsequently became ardent members of the Hitler Youth and later the SS and Gestapo.


I myself clearly recall being highly agitated at our neighborhood cinema in Kiskunfelegyhaza, Hungary every time I saw Ignatz the Mouse throw a brick at Krazy Kat and then at home afterward hurling matsoh balls at my twin sister, Chava. Perhaps it’s nothing short of a miracle that today I am not a raving lunatic myself having been repeatedly exposed at a tender age to such animated depredations.



Professor Kurt Stanislaw Jacobi, a native of Northcentral Wallachia, holds a Ph.D. psychoharmonic engineering from Comenius University, Bratislava where he graduated summa cum laude in 1948. During the late 50's, Dr. Jacobi was a visiting scholar on the faculty of CCNY where he first postulated his now famous integrated theory of inversional constructs (ITIC) which ultimately made possible the Apollo moon landings, the Camp David Peace Accords and the inclusion of the annotated biography of Anna May Wong in the required reading curricula of Singapores' public schools.

(1) Visit the American Psychological Association for a
well documented study on this subject.

Debating the Pig Year Daikichi

Japanese Netsuke Boar

I have just been informed by our distinguished Japanese collaborator, Dr. Senji Hosokawa of Sapporo, that some of his astrological calculations regarding the forthcoming Year of the Pig (arriving February 18th in the Asian Lunar Calendar) have been regrettably misinterpreted by a number of financial publications in his country and in neighboring South Korea. Dr. Hosokawa’s extraordinary work in using traditional Oriental astrology and Zodiacal aspects to forecast economic trends in the major Eastern currency markets and commodities exchanges has earned him an unrivaled reputation in the boardrooms of Japan’s largest financial institutions and brokerage houses.

It was doubly surprising then to hear the “Sage of Sapporo” complaining about the “reverse spin” that seemed to be coloring reports of his generally auspicious Hokkaido Horoscopic Market Outlook for 2007.

In traditional lore, Hosokawa says, the Pig represents prosperity, abundance and fulfillment. It is the 12th and final sign of the Oriental Zodiac representing a culmination of the Heavenly Calendar. Each sign is also accented by a particular element which magnifies or sometimes dilutes the basic attributes. Those elements are Air, Wood, Earth, Water, Metal and Fire and it takes 60 years for an element to rotate across the Asian Zodiac. 2007 brings us the Year of the Fire Pig, last seen in 1947. It is also sometimes called the Year of the Red Pig since Fire is associated with that color. Hosokawa says the Fire element would normally intensify and energize the abundance and prosperity attributes of the Pig, but there is a catch. As the Sapporo Sage points out, the Pig has a Yin character and a Yin Fire is more prone to instability than a Yang Fire. Therefore the intensified prosperity of a Pig Year could be unpredictable and volatile.

Euro-boar in bronze

Kenji feels that the problems writers at other journals may be having seems to stem in part from a lack of understanding of the finer points of astrological interpretation and the complex interplay of elemental influences. The Korean-based weekly Seoul Sellers Guide and Satanic Star Chart (affiliated with the Rev. Moon movement) for instance mentioned a “Roasted Pig Forecast” while the usually respected Tokyo Traders Tout and Tipster Sheet spoke of a possible “Fire Sale” of tumbling Nikkei stocks as occurred in another Yin-Fire year, 1997.



Nikkei bored

Asian Markets ended 2006 (the Dog Year has one more month to play out) on a fairly upbeat note with the general expectation of even stronger economic gains in 2007, especially in China where it could really be a year for Red Pigs. Hosokawa says Japan’s outlook is good, too, particularly for machinery, computer and high tech industries along with property, hotel, mining, and insurance though not without the risk of a Yin-Fired third-quarter slowdown that could diminish the traditional Daikichi (good luck) associated with the Pig Year.


Pigs feeding at trough

Hillary: Happy as a pig in daichiki

Politically, the Sapporan says the year could likewise be excellent for some prominent Pigs in the US. Hillary Clinton is a Pig, indeed a Red Pig as some of her opponents no doubt will note. (Her husband is a “Hot Dog” as Fire Dogs are sometimes playfully termed.) Hosokawa says that historically the Democratic Party has been kind to Pig ambitions. Both party founders Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were Pigs as was President James Buchanan and even Ronald Reagan who spent decades as a Democrat prior to changing parties.



Proving an Arctic Ark

The word that Canadian scientists have newly discovered a massive break in the artic ice shelf (matching the kind previously reported in the Antarctic) and news that the Polar Bear is in trouble due to Global Warming are unpleasant reminders of a climate change path humankind has been down at least once before.

My enterprising Dutch colleague (and onetime in-law) Viscount Wim Van Wynkoop of Utrecht has sent word from his latest expedition in Northeast Turkey that the most recent analysis of splinters from timbers located on the side of Mount Ararat has yielded the clearest evidence yet that he has found the fabled site of Noah’s Ark. The ice crystals found embedded in the timbers also contain ancient arctic plankton and therefore suggest confirmation of Van Wynkoop’s long-held theory of contact with an iceberg.

Aerial view of Ararat site

Possibly lending additional credence to this interpretation are the newly discovered Red Sea Scrolls, a set of cuneiform scriptural passages on sheepskin unearthed by Israeli construction workers near Elat in July 2003. The scrolls, now in the custody of specialists at Beersheba University, were found secreted in large terra cotta jars and are estimated to predate the Qumran scrolls from the Dead Sea by some 3,000 years. Several of the stories, crafted in an early Sumerian-type alphabet, parallel the Old Testament versions but with notable differences.

US version of Noah..note soaring American eagle

The tale of Noah (No-Hah) reveals the ark builder not as a pious patriarch but a sober-minded dealer in exotic animals captured to satisfy the extravagant tastes of Near East potentates and satraps. His noted brother was Hoo-Ha, an itinerant jester who entertained in various Mediterranean courts, often paired with their flamboyant sister Minnie-Ha-Ha, an exotic dancer. In this account, No-hah wasn’t trying to spare his family and the world’s wildlife from the wrath of God but attempting to find the quickest route for getting to India and back again ahead of Phoenician competitors. He was especially keen to secure a contract to supply animals to the new Hanging Gardens rumored to be in the planning stages at Babylon.

As a result of a just-concluded Ice Age and rising waters from retreating polar caps, Van Wynkoop says, this proved far more hazardous than in modern times. No-Hah’s floating menagerie was gashed by an iceberg before foundering on an Anatolian mountaintop. The dealer and his sons were able to recover a few of their precious cargo but both the East Sumatran Rhinoceros and the Himalayan Yeti specimens, in particular, got away. The Yeti also took No-hah’s youngest granddaughter, Shirley, with him. Local legends affirm that the couple and their hirsute heirs operated a popular Greek restaurant on Cyprus called “The Abominable Aegean” until it burned down during the Trojan War. Generations of their rowdier offspring were no doubt responsible for a subsequent spate of werewolf legends across the Balkans. Particularly those in which the lycanthropes seemed to be wearing yarmulkes since Shirley got the Yeti to convert shortly after their elopement in Asia Minor.