10 Paranormal Legends Connected To The US Civil War

The US Civil War had its fair share of paranormal events that continue to this day. From cryptids and UFOs to reincarnations and prophetic dreams, here are 10 of the most interesting paranormal events connected with that terrible war.

10 John B. Gordon Reincarnation

In 1991, fire chief Jeffrey Keene decided to visit Civil War battle locations. When he visited the field where the Battle of Antietam had been fought, Keene was overcome with emotion and could not stand anymore. After returning home, he contacted a psychic to help him understand the experience. During the reading, the psychic kept repeating the words “not yet.”
Soon afterward, Keene was reading a historical magazine about the war when that phrase jumped out at him. According to the magazine, General John B. Gordon had repeated that phrase to hold back his troops during the Battle of Antietam.
Keene began to earnestly research the life of the Civil War general and discovered uncanny resemblances between Gordon and himself. Both men looked similar. Also, many of the men under Gordon’s command looked just like firefighters with whom Keene worked.
On Keene’s 30th birthday, he had felt a sharp pain in his jaw that went away. Doctors could find no reason for this pain. Similarly, Gordon had taken a bullet in the jaw when he was just 30 years old. Keene also has three markings on his face that correspond to where Gordon suffered his wounds.
The weirdest connection came when a linguist compared the two men’s writing styles. Keene’s firefighting reports were remarkably similar to the writing style of General Gordon, who had collected his memories of the Civil War in a book. Both reports seemed to come from the same man, separated only by time. Keene firmly believes that he is the reincarnation of the old Civil War general.

9 General McClellan’s George Washington Sighting

The Civil War was going poorly for the North during the first few years of the war. General George B. McClellan, one of the Union’s main generals, was struggling to mount successful operations against Confederate forces. That’s when McClellan reported a strange incident in which he saw a vision of George Washington in early 1862.
Late one night, McClellan was studying maps and planning attacks when he gradually realized that the enemy knew his positions too well and could fight off any offensive. As he sunk into despair, he heard a booming voice through his cabin.
The voice told him that only God was helping the Union to repel Confederate attacks and that the South would have won otherwise. Looking up from his maps, McClellan found himself staring at the wispy ghost of George Washington.
Washington reassured McClellan that the cause was not yet lost and that the US would prevail for many centuries. After his speech, Washington raised his hand above McClellan’s head in blessing and thunder rolled throughout the cabin.
When McClellan awoke, he was lying on the table. At first, he thought that it had been a dream. But when he looked at his maps, he could see markings that showed him how to attack the Confederate positions. He did not remember making those markings himself.
Obviously, this story helped to solidify the idea that the North received divine help during the war. But the tale was only made public after the war ended. It is impossible to determine whether this actually happened to McClellan, but it is a fun story of paranormal events.

8 White River Monster

The White River was one of the most important trade routes in Arkansas during the Civil War. As such, it was the site of constant combat. Oddly, combat on the river may have involved a mysterious cryptid called the White River Monster as well. Although not officially sighted until the 20th century, local legend and paranormal investigators have placed the monster in the Civil War.
According to local legend, the White River Monster is a gray-skinned, reptilian creature that sometimes walks on land, leaving distinctive three-toed footprints. Multiple attempts to capture the monster have proven unsuccessful.
Reports of sunken ships during the Civil War have led some believers to assume that the monster was active during the conflict. Sailors told stories of boats being smashed from underneath by an aggressive creature.
Other reports state that soldiers on the river shore sometimes shot at a large, elephant-like creature in the water. But they were never able to kill the beast, which resulted in multiple boats falling victim to the enigmatic cryptid.

7 Beauregard-Keyes House

Photo credit: Infrogmation

If you believe in the supernatural, the Beauregard-Keyes House is one of the best places to go if you want to witness a real Civil War battle. This New Orleans estate belonged to General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, a leading general of the Confederate forces.
Beauregard was in command of the shelling at Fort Sumter, which started the war, and was instrumental in the early victories of the Confederacy. After the war, he retired to his New Orleans residence and died there in 1893.
A decade later, the house was occupied by the Giaconas, an Italian family who had mob connections. One night in 1909, a mob shooting occurred at the house, killing three of the Giacona family members.
They promptly moved out and decided to convert the house into a macaroni factory. Residents fought against the change, ultimately saving the house as a heritage site. Then the hauntings started.
Around World War II, people began reporting odd occurrences in the house, such as visions of Civil War soldiers. Legend states that General Beauregard appears on certain nights with an entire contingent of soldiers.
The most common supernatural occurrence is hearing gunshots and battle sounds from the yard. In 1993, paranormal investigator Victor Klein wrote his description of the unusual activity at the house:
Men with mangled limbs and blown-away faces swirl in a confused dance of death. [ . . . ] Horses and mules appear and are slaughtered by grapeshot and cannon. The pungent smell of blood and decay permeated the restless atmosphere.
If true, General Beauregard and his troops are still fighting the war in the next life.

6 The Legend Of Old Green Eyes

The story of Old Green Eyes, a cryptid or ghost from the Battle of Chickamauga in Tennessee, is actually two unrelated legends that bear the same name.
The first story is about a Civil War soldier whose head was blown off during the battle. His friends buried his body without the head. According to legend, the ghost of this soldier still roams the battlefield, moaning and looking for his head. People have wrecked their cars after being shocked by glowing green eyes on the roads near the battlefield.
The second, older story involves a mysterious cryptid called Old Green Eyes that was allegedly first sighted during the Civil War. Legend states that soldiers saw the monster during the Battle of Chickamauga. According to popular folklore, it was a short creature that had glowing eyes and a protruding jaw with huge fangs. Old Green Eyes had long hair like a woman, but the hair was thin and straw-colored.
Soldiers say that they spotted the creature walking among the dead bodies after the battle. Sightings of the creature continued into the 20th century with Chickamauga park ranger Edward Tinney stating that he glimpsed the mysterious creature. According to Tinney, Old Green Eyes still stalks the abandoned battlefield, always watching those who decide to visit.

5 Bigfoot Sightings

While the Civil War was raging in the US, there were multiple stories of encounters with Bigfoot, the country’s most popular cryptid. One of the stories came from the Battle of Chickamauga, that haunting ground of Old Green Eyes.
Before the battle, Privates Ott Morton and Billy Chandler were sitting on a sentry line when they heard terrible shrieks from the woods. They went to investigate and ran into a monster that was 3 meters (10 ft) tall and smelled like rotting meat.
After running from the woods screaming, the two privates told their commanding officer about their experience. He went to investigate the area, and to his surprise, there were footprints in the dirt that were 55 centimeters (22 in) wide.
Bigfoot also appeared in Virginia. While guarding Harper’s Ferry one night, Private Moore heard shouts coming from his barracks. The soldiers were yelling about a man-beast roaming around and were getting guns so that they could kill it.
As Moore listened, he could hear gunfire coming from the river. The next morning, his commander said that he had seen a hairy monster that was 3 meters (10 ft) tall the previous night.
Another Bigfoot sighting came from Virginia. A young soldier was sick and returned home from the front. Knowing that he would die soon, the soldier requested that his family bury him in the mountains near his home. These mountains had been the location of many Bigfoot sightings.
When the soldier died, his family buried him according to his request. A few days after the burial, the soldier’s father went to visit the grave and found that it had been dug up. His son’s body lay nearby, torn apart and stripped to the bone. The father suspected that Bigfoot was the culprit.

4 Nicolas Cage: Civil War Vampire

Jack Mord is an antiques dealer who came across an interesting photo while searching through old documents. The photo, taken around the time of the Civil War, shows a man from Tennessee who looks shockingly like modern-day actor Nicolas Cage. The resemblance is uncanny, which has led Mord to speculate that Cage is actually an undead vampire.
It is hard to tell how seriously Mord takes this claim, but he was adamant about this conspiracy theory in 2011. Mord claimed that Cage comes back and reinvents himself every 75 years, constantly switching occupations. For proof, Mord pointed out that Cage has looked nearly the same since his 1987 hit Moonstruck.
At one point, Mord offered to sell the photo for $1 million. To boost his credibility, he claimed that certain photography experts and historians had stated that his photo was genuine and showed a Civil War prisoner of war.
Since 2011, the photo has disappeared. Mord’s articles have also been removed from his website.

3 Jefferson Davis’s Ghost

Photo credit: Jeffrey Reed

Few people from the Civil War are as important as Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America. Davis died in 1889, but his ghost still walks the Earth according to some paranormal investigators.
Davis’s postwar estate, Beauvoir, is in Mississippi. His ghost supposedly still lives there, with sightings beginning in 1986.
During a Civil War reenactment at the estate, a photographer took a picture of some girls in costume. When he developed the picture, he saw something odd. Two figures stood in the windows, one in a white dress and one in a dark suit.
During the event, the organizers had locked the house. Also, the woman in the white dress was at the balcony level of the house, meaning that she was not a reflection of any of the reenactors.
As stories about the ghosts circulated, staffers at the estate eventually came forward to say that they had seen Jefferson Davis on multiple occasions. Unlike other paranormal hot spots, full-body apparitions occur often enough at Beauvoir that people have taken pictures of the president.
Other members of Davis’s family have also appeared as well as Confederate soldiers who walk the grounds. Ghost investigators are fans of the site, and Beauvoir has become a popular destination for people interested in the supernatural.

2 Joseph Smith’s Civil War Prophecy

Photo via Wikimedia

Mormon prophet and founder Joseph Smith is a controversial character in history. During his life, he spent a lot of time writing down prophecies and supposed revelations from God.
One of the most interesting is his 1832 prophecy that there would soon be a war over slavery in the US and that the war would start in South Carolina. He also stated that the South would ask for help from Great Britain. This prophecy is a canonized part of Mormon scripture as Doctrine & Covenants Section 87.
Even though the Civil War did start in South Carolina, skeptics are critical of Mormon claims. For one thing, anyone in the US in the mid-19th century with even the slightest political awareness could have guessed that a war would start over slavery. Abolitionist movements were already springing up during Joseph Smith’s time.
Detractors also point out that Great Britain was not involved in the Civil War to any great extent and that Smith’s prophecy that the Civil War would eventually involve all nations proved false.
Still, faithful Mormons state that these considerations are invalid. First, they point to how specific the prophecy is about South Carolina. They also state that the prophecy was actually meant to include all wars until the second coming of Jesus Christ.
In 1842, Smith again recorded the Civil War prophecy. After his death in 1844, the church continued to teach and print this eerily specific prophecy.

1 Abraham Lincoln’s Vision Of His Assassination

Photo credit: Alonzo Chappel

Abraham Lincoln was a religious man—one who put a lot of stock in the dreams that he had. Often, he talked about his dreams and pointed out that God had frequently communicated with people in the Bible that way.
In the 1880s, Lincoln’s friend Ward Hill Lamon published an account about the former president’s dreams. According to Lamon, Lincoln had a strange dream in 1865 in which he woke up and began wandering through the White House. He could hear sobs coming down the hallway.
As he entered the East Room, he saw a gathering of soldiers and mourners crying over a corpse. When Lincoln asked a soldier who was dead, the man replied that it was the president, who had been murdered by an assassin.
This was not the only premonition of death that Lincoln supposedly had. According to Lamon, the president once saw himself in the mirror and watched his face transform to a ghostly shade of white.
On the morning of his assassination, Lincoln told his cabinet that he had dreamed the previous night of sailing across a body of water at great speed. Evidently, Lincoln had a similar dream before every turning point of the Civil War.

10 Mythical Things that Actually Existed

Modern people are skeptical by nature. Maybe that’s because we grew up reading, listening to, and watching fantastical stories, only to discover the real world isn’t as exciting. Monsters are not real. Magic is not real. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and Hanukkah Hank. But just because Santa isn’t a magical elf overlord, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a real life individual who did some breaking and entering and left gifts in his wake.
Let’s give our skepticism a dose of reality and take a look at ten (and a bonus and competition) supposedly mythical things that actually existed, or that have had real world equivalents.

10Dragons

Theories as to what inspired stories of dragons include lost crocodiles and dinosaur bones, but we can’t call these real dragons because humans never encountered dinosaurs, and crocodiles are too small. That’s where the Megalania comes in, an ancient relative of the Komodo Dragon that terrorized the Aboriginals of Australia. It grew to lengths of up to twenty-six feet (eight meters) and weighed up to 4,300 pounds (1.9 tons). Its poisonous saliva contained a blood thinner that caused its victims to bleed to death.

9Hobbits

Excavations of a limestone cave on the Indonesia island of Flores uncovered a three-foot-tall skeleton with a skull one third the size of a normal human—a hobbit. Researchers discovered the bones of nine such people, the youngest of which dates back about 12,000 years. They also found tools and other signs of civilization. There are skeptics who believe the hobbits are simply humans that suffered from a growth inhibiting condition such as microcephaly, but the popular opinion among scientists is that the hobbits are a separate species like Neanderthals that shared a common ancestor with humans. Also, Indonesia has active volcanoes, which you could, say, throw a ring inside if needs be . . .

8Kraken

The Kraken is widely believed to have been inspired by a giant squid. That’s a little bit of a letdown, isn’t it? With eyes like beach balls, a giant squid is big for sure, but it lacks a certain . . . monstrosity. It’s not something we could see tearing a boat apart.
But recently a Colossal Squid was discovered in the Southern Ocean. It’s estimated to be about forty-six feet (fourteen meters) in length and its beak and eyes are bigger than that of a giant squid. What sets it apart from other squids: in addition to suckers, its limbs are lined with sharp hooks, some that swivel and others that have three points. Now that could do some damage.

7Amazon Women

You’ve no doubt heard of the Amazon’s—exclusively female tribes of fierce warriors who are best known for getting wild with Hercules. The Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the fate of the Amazons, saying that they were captured, relocated, overcame their captors, became shipwrecked, and then ended up on the Eurasian Steppe where they fought the Scythians. Thinking the Amazons would make strong wives, The Scythian men decided to fight the next battle on the field of love. The dwindling Amazons eventual agreed to inter-marry with the Scythians as long as their daughters were encouraged to continue the proud tradition of the woman warrior.
Herodotus has been known to embellish history, so it’s best not to believe him unless he’s backed by archaeological evidence. And he is. Ancient graves unearthed in the Eurasian Steppe reveal that a good portion of the Scythian women had battle-damaged bones, and that they were buried with swords, bows, daggers and other staples of the warrior.

6Dire Wolf

The Dire Wolf has appeared in many role-playing games, and maybe you’ve read (or seen) them most recently on Game of Thrones. In real life, dire wolves existed alongside early man and the mega-fauna in the Pleistocene Age. They were larger than the average wolf, stronger, and had sharper teeth.
But when the mega-fauna began to go extinct, dire wolves lost their primary food source. They were too slow to hunt the smaller prey that modern grey wolves feasted upon, which forced them to become scavengers—something they weren’t really built for. Eventually they died out.

5Scylla and Charybdis

On Odysseus’ voyage, he had to steer his ship through a narrow strait that had a monster close to either shore. On one side was Scylla, a multi-headed beast that plucked crew from the deck. On the other side was Charybdis, a sea monster that sucked ships to the depths using a whirlpool. Odysseus opted to sail nearby Scylla, thinking it would be better to lose a few men instead of the whole ship.
The Straits of Messina run between Sicily and the Italian mainland. It is here that Scylla and Charybdis lived. Charybdis is an actual whirlpool minus the monster, and its current is weaker than the legends would have you believe. On the other side of the strait are rocky shoals believed to have inspired the heads of Scylla. In reality, it looks like Odysseus might have been better off choosing Charybdis.

4Berserkers

Berserkers aren’t just a character build from Skyrim, they first appeared in old Norse poems and were feared warriors in their day. But how did they obtain supernatural strength and invulnerability? Surely their legendary battle frenzies were not more than embellished stories? The stories were true. Berserkers achieved their frenzy by chasing a dragon of a different sort. They took intoxicating drugs before battle—most likely hallucinogens—that made them fearless, stronger and dull to pain and danger. Researchers have discovered that the drug bufotenine is capable of reproducing the berserk rage.

3Tower of Babel

Unlike the Hanging Gardens, there is archaeological evidence at the dig-site of Babylon to support that Nebuchadnezzar II commissioned the Tower of Babel. You can see its remnants here.
Only it wasn’t a place of babbling gibberish that was destroyed by God. It was a ziggurat named Etemenanki, a temple to the god Marduk that was later destroyed by Alexander the Great. He wished to rebuild it in his image, but died before that could happen. Many people subsequently tried to rebuild it in their own images, each time tearing down what had been rebuilt to start anew. But nobody ever finished it. It looks like this place ended up representing humankind’s inability to work together after all.

2Moby Dick and Captain Ahab

Not only was Moby Dick inspired by an actual giant white sperm whale, but the real one was infinitely more badass. He was named Mocha Dick, perhaps because he lived near the island of Mocha. He came off victorious against a hundred whaling ships, sending some in splinters to the bottom of the sea. He also took on three whaling ships at once and won.
Captain Ahab was also inspired by a man living around the same time as Mocha Dick. Captain Pollard didn’t seek revenge after his ship was wrecked by a whale, forcing him and his crew to resort to cannibalism to survive, but he did go back out to sea as the captain of a new ship . . . that also was sunk—this time by a storm. He spent his remaining years as a night watchman.

1Imoogi

Korean legends speak of Imoogi—enormous pythons believed to be juvenile dragons. It is said that the Imoogi lived in water or caves, and had to survive for a thousand years before they could ascend to heaven and become true, fully-formed dragons.
Although it existed in South America and not Korea, there was a python of such gigantic proportions that we might mistake it for a young dragon. The Titanoboa was roughly 46 feet (14 meters) in length and weighed over a ton. It constricted at a force of 400psi, which is like having 1.5 times the Brooklyn Bridge on top of you, and it could swallow a human without even showing a bulge. They went extinct long ago, but we like to think that they ascended to dragon-hood.

+Krishna’s City of Dwarka

According to legend, Krishna (Hindu equivalent of Jesus) ruled over the city of Dwarka—until it was swallowed by the sea. For Hindus, finding the Lost City of Dwarka would be like finding the Holy Grail or the Arc of the Covenant.
Archaeologists have discovered a sunken city off the shores of India. Stone reliefs found in this city have not only indicated that it is in fact Dwarka, the oldest city in history, but that it was ruled by a flesh and blood Lord Krishna.

10 Bizarre Traditions Of Love That Are Lost In History

Today’s traditions of love—holding hands, kissing, going on dates, and sending flirty text messages—seem rather simple and not at all unusual. Even dating apps, which might have been seen as controversial and even strange before, have become part of most young people’s everyday lives today.
When we think about the past, we don’t expect to come upon any outrageous or strange love traditions. However, there are plenty. Below are 10 bizarre love customs from the past. Would you like any of them to return?

10 Vinegar Valentines

Mean Valentine’s Day cards, also known as “Vinegar Valentines,” emerged in the 1800s and were used for humiliation purposes. A complete opposite to the ordinary Valentine’s card, a Vinegar Valentine was a cheaply made card with a satirical image as well as a four- or six-line verse which described and mocked the personality of the recipient. There was a card for every insult you could think of, from baldness to status. More extreme cards even suggested that recipients kill themselves. The targets of these cards were varied and could include neighbors, enemies, bosses, teachers, or simply those whose advances you wanted to dismiss.

One Vinegar Valentine, for example, portrays an image of a quizzical bald man around whose head a swarm of insects, possibly flies or moths, circle about. The little poem underneath the illustration reads:
Bald Head. Your bright shining pate is seen at all shows
and invariably down in the bald-headed rows
where you make conspicuous by your tender care
your true ardent love for that one lonesome hair.
These Vinegar Valentines, most popular between the 1840s and the 1880s, were mass-produced by the same companies that produced the frilly, sweet Valentine’s Day cards we’re used to today. Note that before the prepaid stamp was introduced, the receiver paid for the mail instead of the sender. The recipient of a Vinegar Valentine not only had the bad luck of receiving the insult but also had to pay for it!

9 Wearing Your Heart On Your Sleeve

Have you ever wondered where the rather strange expression, “wearing your heart on your sleeve,” came from? There are actually three possible explanations for its origin. The first theory suggests that it originated in the Middle Ages when, during a Roman festival, men drew names to determine the identity of their lady friend for the coming year. Once the name of the lady was known, it was worn on the man’s sleeve for the remainder of the festival. This rather strange tradition began after Emperor Claudius II forbade marriage due to his firm belief that unmarried men made better soldiers. As an alternative to marriage, he suggested this strange “temporary coupling.”
The second theory suggests that when a knight performed in a jousting match in the Middle Ages, he would dedicate his performance to a certain woman of the court. The knight would attach to his arm something that belonged to the woman, such as a handkerchief, to let everyone know that the match would defend her honor.
The third possible origin of the expression comes from a Shakespearean play in which the phrase was first expressed in writing. In Othello, Iago, the play’s main antagonist, makes a confession regarding his disloyal acts and says, “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for Daws to peck at,” which basically means that he is fully exposing himself and inviting the birds to peck at him.

8 Escort Cards

Escort cards, also referred to as “flirtation cards,” resembled calling cards and were a humorous way for young people to initiate courtship in late 19th-century America. At the time, most women could hardly speak to a man without a chaperone, and thus, the easiest way for a man to flirt or start up a conversation with the woman he liked was to secretly slip the card into her hands. The woman would then hide the card in some inventive way, such as by slipping it into her glove or by hiding it behind her fan.

Some of these cards were innocent and polite with sayings such as, “May I Have The Pleasure Of Seeing You Home Tonight? If so, keep this card; if not, please return.” Others were far more aggressive and had sayings like “Not Married And Out For A Good Time” printed on them.
However, men weren’t the only ones with “acquaintance cards” up their sleeves. A card that says, “You May C Me Home Tonight” as well as a card that reads, “I am Anna ‘Butch’ Engle Who The Devil Are You?” were found by collectors, suggesting that women used escort cards in much the same way as men.

7 Lover’s Eyes

Photo via Antique Jewelry University

Lover’s eyes, also known as “eye miniatures,” were popular love tokens exchanged between wealthy couples in the late 1800s and early 1900s. A lover’s eye was a painted miniature of the giver’s eye, which was then gifted to their lover. As the name suggests, the lover’s eye revealed solely the eye of the giver, thus allowing the receiver to wear it in public without the fear of anyone recognizing the identity of their loved one.
The size of these eye miniatures varied between a couple of millimeters to a couple of centimeters. They were either painted in watercolor on ivory or in gouache on card and were often set in rings, pendants, brooches, snuffboxes, or toothpick cases.
According to legend, the first lover’s eye was crafted at the end of the 18th century after the prince of Wales, who later became George VI, fell in love with Maria Fitzherbert, a twice-widowed Catholic. Maria did not reciprocate the prince’s feelings of affection, however, so the prince decided to stage a suicide attempt, after which Maria changed her mind and agreed to his marriage proposal. Nonetheless, Maria soon changed her mind once more, presumably after she realized how difficult it would be to get the king to agree to their marriage, especially seeing as she was a twice-widowed Catholic. She fled to Europe.
However, the prince of Wales was undeterred. In November 1785, he sent her a second marriage proposal along with a miniature of his eye, which was set in a locket. A note that accompanied the parcel said, “P.S. I send you a parcel, and I send you at the same time an eye. If you have not totally forgotten the whole countenance, I think the likeness will strike you.” Whether it was the eye miniature or the note that softened Maria’s heart, it worked, for she soon agreed to the prince’s marriage proposal. They got married in a secret ceremony in December 1785. Shortly after, eye miniatures became a popular fad among high society.
Today, fewer than 1,000 of these lover’s eyes exist.

6 Future Husband Superstitions

In the past, ladies often relied on superstitions and strange rituals to learn about their future husband. One of the most popular superstitions regarding this involved reading signs from birds. This rather unusual practice dates back to Greek and Roman times. The idea is that the very first bird an unmarried woman spots on Valentine’s Day will predict the character and personality of the man she will marry. For example, if a woman saw a goldfinch, that meant that she would marry a rich man, and if she saw a sparrow, it meant that she would marry a poor man but be very happy. A robin meant a sailor, and a woodpecker meant that no marriage would take place at all.
Another ritual that was popular in Great Britain in the 1700s involved pinning five bay leaves sprinkled with rose water to one’s pillow, one in the center and one in each corner. For this ritual to work, the ladies also had to consume salted eggs with no yolk and chant a little prayer that said, “Good valentine, be kind to me; in dreams, let me my true love see.” If all the steps of the ritual were carried out accordingly, the lady would supposedly see her future husband in her dreams.
Finally, brave ladies were advised to visit a graveyard on the eve of Saint Valentine’s Day. After completing a special chant and running around the church 12 times, it was believed that an image of their future husband would appear before them.

5 Bundling

In colonial America, bundling was a popular tradition which involved a courting couple to be in bed together, albeit with all of their clothes on. Often, a board would be placed in the middle of the bed to keep the couple separate, or the woman would be put in a bundling bag or a duffel bag–like chastity bag. The parents were also often in the same room as the bundling couple to further ensure that no inappropriate behavior took place.

It is believed that the rather strange tradition of bundling was first introduced to the American colonies by the early flood of Scots, Welsh, and other various European immigrants. Since fuel prices in the 18th century were high and the nights often cold, bundling was not only an opportunity for some intimacy, but also a good way for the couple to keep warm. However, according to some scholars, the first occurrence of bundling can be traced back all the way to the biblical story of Ruth and Boaz. According to the story, Ruth, a widow, and Boaz, a wealthy landowner, spent a night together on a threshing room floor and soon after, became husband and wife.

4 Apples Of Love

In 1975, author Benjamin Brody wrote an article called “The Sexual Significance of the Axillae,” which was published in the journal Psychiatry. In the article, Brody described the strange romantic custom present in rural Austrian society, wherein a girl kept slices of an apple in her armpit during a dance. The apples served as a natural deodorant. At the end of the dance, the girl would present the sweaty apple slice to the man she fancied, and if the man returned her feelings, he would bravely eat the apple slice, letting the girl know that where he stood.
This strange custom wasn’t used exclusively by women, either, although men generally seemed to forgo the apple and opt for other objects, such as handkerchiefs, instead. An article in the 1899 Journal of American Folklore, for example, states, “To make a girl love you, take a piece of candy or anything she is likely to eat, and put it under either armpit, so that it will get your scent.”

3 Courting Sticks

Strict societal rules in early New England meant that courting was difficult. Couples were rarely left alone on their own, and this meant that the man had to often visit his lady in her family home. Most houses at the time were small, meaning that the whole family often sat in front of the fire in the same small assembly room, making private conversation between the two lovers almost impossible. This was where the invention of courting sticks, also known as “courting tubes,” came in.
A courting stick was a hollow tube, 2–2.5 meters (6–8 ft) long and about 2.5 centimeters (1 in) in diameter, fitted with two mouthpieces and two earpieces. To use the courting stick, a couple would sit at the either side of the fireplace and whisper little flirtations to each other. To hear the man speak, the woman would put one end of the tube in her ear, and when the man wanted to hear the woman’s reply, he would put his end of the stick into his ear. Even though the whole family was present in the room, no one else could hear the two lovers’ secret conversation.

2 Lovespoons

The custom of men giving lovespoons to the woman they wanted to court began in Wales in the 16th century. The tradition wasn’t strictly confined to Wales, however; it extended all across Europe and was especially popular in Celtic countries. Lovespoons were presented to a lover similar to how a bouquet of flowers might be presented to a lover today and were usually made by young men during long sea voyages or winter nights. These spoons were always carved from one piece of wood only, and the handle of the spoon was almost always decorated.

If the girl accepted the lovespoon, it was a sign that she returned the man’s feelings and that a relationship between the two would begin. It is believed that this is where the origin of the word “spooning” comes from. If the couple decided they were well-suited for each other and decided to stay together, they would often display the lovespoon on one of the walls of their home, similar to how a wedding photograph would be displayed today.

1 Morgengabe

In Germany in the Middle Ages, marriage between a man and a woman always meant the exchange of many gifts between the two families involved. The husband presented a “bride price” (a certain sum of money, property, or some other form of wealth) to the father of the bride, and the latter gave something to the newly married couple in return. However, perhaps the most interesting gift of all was the one that the husband gave to his new bride.
The morgengabe, or “morning gift,” was a substantial gift (usually about one-third or one-fourth of the dowry, depending on the law) that a husband gave the bride the morning after they consummated the marriage. Morgengabe was essentially a payment for the woman’s virginity, which, of course, could not be sold until the husband had verified that it did, in fact, exist. In the early Middle Ages, consummation was what made the marriage real, and morgengabe was, in effect, its final guarantee.

10 Bizarre eBay Auctions

eBay is one of the most famous e-commerce sites. E-commerce is short for Electronic Commerce. Just as the name implies, it is a market in which transactions are made electronically. You can buy anything from food to vehicles with just a couple of clicks. Thousands of transactions are made every day, most of them are pretty normal. However once in a while, a bizarre and unexpected item is put into auction. In this list, we will look at 10 of the most unusual and bizarre items that were put up for auction.

10Golf Balls from a Snake’s Gut

On January 11, 2008, an auction for 4 golf balls that were surgically removed from a python’s gut ended. The balls were removed in an emergency room at Gold Coast’s Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. The golf balls were initially used to coax a hen to lay an egg. The python then raided the hen house but mistook the golf balls as real eggs. The veterinarians that removed the golf balls soon put them into auction to raise money for a new wildlife hospital. The sanctuary didn’t receive any government funding and as demands rose, more space was needed to cope. After an intense bidding that went down to the last second, the golf balls, together with x-rays and photographs of the surgery, were sold for $1401 to an Australian man. The python would soon make a fast recovery and was soon released to the wild.

9Single Cornflake

On November 2009, Bill Bennett sold a single cornflake for $1.85. He did it as an experiment but he didn’t expect any buyers. “There were no takers at first,” he said, “but then someone offered 1 cent and it grew from there. After a couple of days I agreed to sell it for $1.85.” He said the sale came just in time, as eBay had told him to withdraw the cornflake because he had no “Best Before” date on it. “But it’s sold now, I had some interesting inquiries about it, someone asked if it would mate safely with a Sugar Puff and another asked if it would be sociable if it was dropped in a fish tank,” he told BBC.

8A Group of Men

On February 2006, 4 men put themselves for auction for a fun filled weekend at February 18 and 19. They will not be liable for the travel bills but promised “some beers, some snags, some good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs.” Mark, one of the 4 men, said the idea just came up one day while the four were together. “We were just having a few beers in Balmain and through it would be good idea for people to join us.” Mark also said that a celebrity has been included in the deal. He didn’t say who it was but he mentioned that it would be out of this world. The auction concluded at February 9 and a guy from Sydney, Australia won the auction with a bid of $45,000. The celebrity turned out to be Rob Kardashian.

7Water

On June 2008, water that was said to have been left in a cup Elvis Presley once drank from has been sold for $455. The few tablespoons came from a plastic cup Presley sipped at a concert in North Carolina in 1977 – which was kept by fan Wade Jones, who was then 13. He saw Presley drink from it and a guard gave it to him as a souvenir. He kept the water in a freezer until 1985, when it was put in a sealed vial. But he is refusing to sell the cup. Mr. Jones is willing to put the Styrofoam cup on display, possibly to coincide with Presley’s birthday on 8 January – for a minimum of $300 plus travel expenses. Presley drank from the cup on stage while introducing his band at the concert at Greensboro, Mr. Jones, now 40, said.

6Partially-eaten Sandwich

Food that contains people’s faces is common on eBay. Sandwiches that contained the faces of Spongebob, Hello Kitty and Ron Artest have been sold. However none of them was sold with the same price as a sandwich with the image of Virgin Mary ($28,000).
In November 2004, a seller put his 10 year-old grilled sandwich with an image of the Virgin Mary in it for auction. On Nov. 14, eBay pulled the auction stating that they don’t allow joke listings. However, the owner convinced eBay that the sandwich is real and stated the she herself would deliver the sandwich to the winning bidder. The posting became an Internet sensation, eventually getting more than 1.6 million hits. The new owner of the famed sandwich, online casino GoldenPalace, is putting it on display at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, also in Hollywood, Fla. It promises to take the partially eaten religious icon on tour. The seller says she took a bite of the sandwich 10 years ago, saw the image of Mary, and immediately decided that this blessed snack was not to be eaten.

5Sports Car for Less than a Dollar

On June 2005, during a live interview with Jodie Marsh, Kerrang 105.2’s Tim Shaw told the glamor model he was prepared to leave his wife and their two children for her. His wife Hayley was listening and said her husband’s flirtatious interview was the “last straw” in their strained relationship. After having a few drinks and while his husband was still on air on the radio, Hayley listed Tim’s Lotus Espirit Turbo for sale on eBay with a “Buy It Now” option of a measly 77 cents. The item description read: “I need to get rid of this car in the next two to three hours before my husband gets home to find it gone and all his belongings in the street.”
The car sold within five minutes. Mrs. Shaw said: ‘When he said he would leave me and the kids for Jodie Marsh, that was it for me. I am sick of him disrespecting this family for the sake of his act. The car is his pride and joy but the idiot put my name on the log book so I just sold it. I didn’t care about the money; I just wanted to get him back. There is no hope for reconciliation.’ AKerrang 105.2 spokesperson said the DJ was ‘absolutely gutted.’ Mr. Shaw was suspended from the station in February 2006 after he broke into program director Andrew Jeffries’ house during a live prank, damaged the property and wrote obscenities on the wall.

4New Zealand

On May 2011, a man from Brisbane, Australia put New Zealand into auction. The starting price was a penny. After 6,000 hits and 22 bids later, the prize raised to $3,000. Even though it may seem funny, some people aren’t amused. Foreign Minister Winston Peters quoted: “I don’t think it’s fun. I think that kind of nonsensical stupidity, I’ll leave to the tabloid media.” Before the country could be sold, eBay closed the auction and rendered it invalid. The man trying to sell New Zealand would not appear on camera but says he has been to Auckland once and did not think much of it.

3Ghost

On September 2010, Martin Fawcett put his friend ghost for auction. Fawcett said that the winning bidder will also receive the ghost’s home, a regular glass jar. Fawcett claimed that her great-great grandmother died of cancer and he wants to donate the money to Cancer Research UK. In the description on eBay, he writes: “He enjoys being let out occasionally but please ensure to put him back as when left out for too long, he begins to get anxious. Twenty minutes a time is sufficient. I have not yet given him a name, so you can call him whatever you want, although he does giggle when I call him Casper.
Unfortunately, on the 6th day of the auction, eBay removed the auction because it was against the policy to sell intangible items or items whose existence cannot be verified on receipt of them, such as ghosts, souls, or spirits. Even though eBay said that the auction was for a good cause, they had to remove it because they’re strict regarding the policies.

2Iceland

On October 2008, an anonymous seller put Iceland for auction. During that time, Iceland owes $5.49 billion to Russia and the seller thinks that they can use the payment to reduce the debt. Bidding started at 99 pence but it reached $17.28 million in just a couple of days. Globally renowned singer Bjork was “not included” in the sale, according to the notice, but there were nonetheless 26 anonymous bidders and 84 bids.
“Located in the mid-Atlantic ridge in the North Atlantic Ocean, Iceland will provide the winning bidder with a habitable environment, Icelandic Horses and admittedly a somewhat sketchy financial situation,” the notice read.
Bidders’ questions included: “Do you offer volcano/earthquake insurance?” “Is it possible that my payment will be frozen?” and “Will you accept C.O.D. as a form of payment?”

1Entire Life

On June 2008, Ian Usher put his entire life for auction. The auction included his three bedroom house in Western Australia and everything inside it including his car, motorcycle, Jet Ski, and parachuting gear. He also offered complete introduction to his friends and a trial offer for his job. Mr. Usher said: “Everything that I have – the furniture in the house – all has memories attached to it. It’s time to shed the old, and in with the new. On the day it’s all sold and settled, I intend to walk out of my front door with my wallet in one pocket and my passport in the other, nothing else at all. My current thoughts are to then head to the airport and ask at the flight desk where the next flight with an available seat goes to, and to get on that and see where life takes me from there.” The company wherein Usher is working for is offering the successful bidder a two-week trial, which could be extended for three months and then become permanent. Mr. Usher said his friends in Perth were willing to be introduced to the highest bidder, allowing him to advertise his auction as offering a complete lifestyle. When the auction is finished, his entire life was sold for $384,000.

10 UFOs That Allegedly Left Physical Evidence Behind

Reports of “trace cases,” where UFOs leave their fingerprints behind, are steadily growing. They can be easily dismissed as lies from attention-seeking weirdos, but when they come from professionals such as pilots, policemen, soldiers, and scientists, it makes you wonder. These are not the career fields that encourage employees to swing on the extraterrestrial vine; they stand to lose a lot by reporting or investigating a UFO. (Of course, they can also stand to gain a fair amount due to the publicity.) This doesn’t mean that civilian sightings are less important. Trace cases, like any other good mystery, cannot be proven to everybody’s satisfaction, but they remain eternally fascinating to paranormal sleuths, whether armchair or professional.

10Cruiser Bruiser

A moody UFO had no respect for the law when it was approached by a deputy sheriff in 1979. While on patrol outside the small community of Stephen, Minnesota, Val Johnson encountered something that would give him and his cruiser the UFO version of weaseling out of a ticket. Around 2:00 AM, the deputy noticed a bright object hovering above the road and decided to investigate a little closer. The UFO suddenly rocketed straight at his patrol car, killing the engine. The last thing Johnson remembered was light all around him and the sound of glass shattering. When he woke up, the strange object was gone and he was blind and bruised but able to radio for help.
Fellow policemen soon arrived and found Johnson’s 1977 Ford worse off than he was. The windshield was splintered and smashed, there were dents in the hood, and both a headlight and the roof beacon were wrecked. The car’s two radio antennae were bent, respectively at 45- and 90-degree angles. Johnson also stated that the car’s clock and his wristwatch both stopped for 14 minutes and that he had blacked out for 39 minutes. Time in the Val Johnson story is the only suspicious factor in an otherwise compelling UFO trace case. He never clarified how he knew that he had been unconscious for exactly 39 minutes, nor did he explain what had made him aware that the two clocks had lost time and how he measured the time lost as 14 minutes.
The medical evidence was a little more solid. The doctor who attended to Johnson described his sight injury as similar to welder burns caused by extreme exposure to UV light. Thankfully, he eventually recovered his vision, and the patrol car—original damage intact—now stands in a museum in the Minnesota town of Warren.

9 The Killer Ice Cream Cone

On January 7, 1948, Captain Thomas Mantell was leading a squadron of four F-51 Mustangs to an airfield in northern Kentucky, unaware that a giant cone-shaped object in the air was already freaking out civilians, military, and highway patrols. The coned craft gave witnesses the impression of being reflective and at least 90 meters (300 ft) in diameter. Since they were incidentally in the right airspace, a tower operator requested that Mantell investigate. The Mustangs climbed in altitude to reach their target, but at 6,800 meters (22,500 ft), low fuel or oxygen forced all the other pilots to return to base.
Alone, Mantell continued ascending and radioed his last message, saying that he saw the object directly ahead and that he was going to give the chase another 10 minutes. But shortly afterward, a horrified local watched Mantell’s plane circle three times before it dove out of the sky and exploded about halfway to the ground. The extreme fringe believed that Mantell had been shot down by an extraterrestrial force. The director of Project Grudge, Edward J. Ruppelt, blamed the incident on the Skyhook balloon. The US Navy was secretly developing the Skyhook, a massive ice cream cone–shaped balloon made of reflective aluminum. None of the witnesses had heard about or seen Skyhook before.
According to Ruppelt’s sources, several of them were launched about 240 kilometers (150 mi) away on the same day as the Mantell UFO. While Ruppelt couldn’t locate the flight records that would’ve proved his theory, he was satisfied that the wind patterns for January 7 would’ve taken a Skyhook into the locations of the reported sightings.

8The Rendlesham Compensation

Photo credit: Simon Leatherdale

On December 27, 1980, John Burroughs met the most eye-popping sight of his life. He was one of the first airmen on the scene at the alleged landing site in Rendlesham Forest, a touchdown that would later become Britain’s flagship UFO mystery. During the encounter, some of the men were said to have touched the conical craft, but the group eventually fled the forest when some of them started falling into a trance-like state and had to be physically dragged away from the object.
Burroughs, an American, believed that his proximity to the craft that night had exposed him to something deadly, possibly radiation, which later caused severe heart problems and other health complaints. For years, he fought for disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs, bravely sticking to his story that a spaceship had made him sick. To build his case, Burroughs needed the right paperwork, but the VA could only trace his service records back to 1982, two years after the incident. He had to go through two Arizona senators’ offices before he could get the discharge papers which proved he’d been stationed near Rendlesham around the time of the incident.
He also produced Project Condign as evidence—a declassified British study that sidelined UFOs as a little-understood form of weather “plasma” called “unidentified aerial phenomena” (UAP). Even Condign concluded that it was conceivable that the Rendlesham witnesses had been exposed to radiation, albeit from UAP. What helped sway the VA’s final decision in Burrough’s favor were his service medical records, which could be viewed by the agency but not Burroughs. Based on these documents and others, Burroughs was finally awarded full disability and some acknowledgement that his bad health had really been caused by a close encounter.

7The Kecksburg Acorn

A mass-witness sighting allegedly took place on December 9, 1965, and ended when something plowed into the Earth at Kecksburg, Pennsylvania. A meteor-like object blazed through Ontario, Canada, and six US states, dropping debris and leaving sonic booms and field fires in its wake. Thousands saw it in the sky and later read in the newspapers that it was just that: a meteor. But there are those who believe it fell in the woods at Kecksburg and that it was a car-sized object shaped like an acorn. Unearthly symbols were written on it, something close to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
While witnesses insist it attracted a heavy military presence, the US Army said they found nothing. Yet years later, amid pressure to release the truth about the Kecksburg incident, NASA admitted that they’d examined debris from the site and found that it had been a Russian satellite. When ordered by a judge to produce the documentation of their findings, NASA seemed to have misplaced them. The only Soviet candidate that remotely fit was Kosmos 96, an acorn-shaped satellite which wasn’t nearly as big as the Kecksburg object. Even NASA’s chief scientist for orbital debris, Nicholas L. Johnson, stated that Kosmos had nothing to do with the fireball sightings or the crash, which may still turn out to be two separate events.
US Space Command also reported that Kosmos crashed in Canada 13 hours before the sightings started. In 2003, scientists discovered topless trees leading toward the spot where the object was reportedly found. The damage was dated to the year of the crash. While one scientist felt that ice was probably responsible, it’s plausible that an incoming object could’ve sheared the trees as it crashed through them.

6The Water Thief

During the same year as the Rendlesham Forest incident, an Australian farm worker named George Blackwell had a run-in with a thirsty UFO. He was roused from his sleep at about 1:00 AM by frantic farm animals bellowing and galloping and an unearthly whistling sound. Checking to see what was going on, the 54-year-old was astonished to see cattle trying to escape a double-domed object hovering about 3 meters (10 ft) above the ground. The craft appeared to be checking a shed, a hedge, a silo, and finally a water tank, whistling loudly all the way.
The open water tank seemed to hold the object’s attention for a while before it finally settled on the ground. Blackwell approached the object on his motorbike but was forced to stop 15 meters (50 ft) away due to the earsplitting whistling. He estimated its height to be about 4.5 meters (15 ft) and the diameter to be 8 meters (26 ft). The surface was dotted with orange and blue lights that might’ve been round windows. But the weirdest feature was a moving black tube which inflated to a size bigger than the UFO itself. When the craft took off, apparently with the 38,000 liters (10,000 gal) of water later discovered missing from the tank, the creepy tube shrank back into the middle of the object’s base.
For a long time, the cattle avoided the black ring marking the landing site and, for more than a week, the headache-plagued Blackwell suffered from diarrhea and couldn’t hold much food down. For days after the sighting, his wristwatch would only tick when he wasn’t wearing it.

5The Lavender Crater

In 1965, a French farmer heard a noise which he took to be a helicopter landing on his property and decided to investigate. Maurice Masse, 41, raised lavender just outside the town of Valensole in the south of France. Going out to his field, he encountered a dull oval shape about 3.5 meters (11 ft) wide and 2.5 meters (8 ft) high. Resting on its belly with six legs, it reminded him of a spider. There was also a pair of child-sized entities scrutinizing the lavender.
When Masse tried to get closer, one of the creatures paralyzed him by pointing a rod at him. They resembled the classic greys except that they were white, neckless, and had elfish ears. They boarded the craft and, for 15 minutes after their departure, Masse was unable to move. The weather had been dry for some time, but the landing site was a sopping wet crater. About a day later, the wetness was gone and the ground turned hard as concrete while the rest of the field’s earth remained crumbly. For months afterward, Masse suffered from a strange sleeping disorder where he slept 15 hours at a stretch, which wasn’t normal for him.
French government agencies and police gathered interesting data from the site. The landing area showed highly elevated levels of calcium when compared to the rest of the field. Dents and a 3-meter-wide (10 ft) spherical space showed that something had been there. The lavender plants around the crater were sick and dying, and for 10 years nothing would grow in that spot.

4The Ubatuba Case

While the only danger one UFO in Brazil presented was to itself—it exploded like a firecracker—it’s possibly one of the most noteworthy trace cases. On September 14, 1957, columnist Ibrahim Sued received a letter from a fan who had a fantastic story and the proof to back it up. The envelope contained three white metal pieces allegedly from a disk that had disintegrated above a beach in Ubatuba, Sao Paulo. The fan, who claimed to have witnessed this event, was never identified.
The testing done on one of the pieces destroyed it but gave interesting findings. It was revealed to be magnesium with above average density, and when the study stated that the magnesium was purer than that which human technology could produce, the fragments became an overnight sensation in UFO circles. The University of Colorado tested one of the two remaining pieces and found that it wasn’t as pure, but since the Brazil sample no longer existed, its purity couldn’t be verified. However, the Colorado study did concede that their piece was packed with an abnormal amount of strontium, something not found in normal magnesium. The metal had also been strengthened during its manufacturing with a process called directional crystallization, a technique unknown in 1957 when the fragments were mailed to the columnist.

3Fire On The Highway

On September 16, 1965, two South African police constables were on night patrol. They were driving on the Pretoria-Bronkhorstspruit highway, their evening shift so far uneventful, but then midnight changed everything. It’s unclear who first saw the contraption sitting on the highway, but it was a sight that neither would ever forget. It certainly wasn’t terribly frightening—the craft was a simple, copper-colored disk—but what struck Constables John Lockem and Koos De Klerk was what happened when the UFO sped off seconds after they sighted it.
Fleeing, the craft shot away in a rush of speed and heat, spewing an overload of fire that bounced 1 meter (3 ft) off the asphalt. The highway actually caught fire. An area of 1.8 meters (6 ft) in diameter burned so intensely that gravel separated from the tar. During the official investigation that followed, it was found that a section of the road had collapsed, most likely under the weight of the large UFO. Samples taken from the carnage were sent away for analysis, but the results were never made public.

2The Scoutmaster Attack

A case occurred on August 19, 1952, that stumped the investigators of Project Blue Book. That night, Deputy Sheriff Mott N. Partin responded to a call that three terrified children had shown up at the caller’s farmhouse. They were scouts claiming that their scoutmaster, “Sonny” Desvergers, had collapsed while investigating strange lights on a rural road in Palm Beach. Going back to the scene, the cops didn’t have to search long. Desvergers emerged from the trees in a traumatized state which the 19-year police force veteran Partin felt was genuine.
The scoutmaster claimed that he’d been attacked by a UFO and had three tiny burn holes in his hat and singe marks on his arms. The case eventually landed on the desk of Blue Book investigator Edward J. Ruppelt. Investigations at the scene didn’t immediately find anything conclusive, and Ruppelt learned from the scouts that they never saw the original lights that had caught Desvergers’s attention. However, the boys did witness subsequent lights, including a red light that seemingly caused their scoutmaster to faint.
Desvergers’s story held despite Ruppelt’s attempts to trip him up, but Ruppelt smelled a publicity stunt for financial gain when Desvergers hired a press agent and made ridiculous claims to reporters. Then Desvergers’s history of lying, going AWOL, and car theft (which got him removed from the US Marines) caught up with him. Ruppelt was now weary of him, and his press agent abandoned him. Certain now that the sighting was a hoax, Ruppelt was at a loss to explain how the whole thing was staged. Nor could he or the FBI lab discover what had burned the scoutmaster’s cap or how some of the grass taken from the site had charred roots while their leaves were fine. Nothing prevents a compulsive liar from having a supernatural experience. Either Desvergers told the truth, somewhat embellished, or he managed to pull off a hoax that left one of the best investigators in the business without answers.

1The Maury Mystery

On June 21, 1947, Harold Dahl and his crew claimed that they’d survived a frightening encounter that damaged their boat, injured one of them, and killed their dog. Navigating around Maury Island, Dahl’s men noticed six doughnut-shaped objects above them. One was faltering badly. Before it flew away with the others, the UFO spewed a stream of shiny flakes (these caused the harm to the witnesses). The next day, Dahl was cornered by a Man in Black (MIB) who told him to mind his own business. But the story had already reached Kenneth Arnold, who himself had his historic sighting three days after the Maury incident. He met with Dahl, who handed over some of the debris but not the photos he’d snapped of the crafts.
Perhaps due to the local MIB and FBI threatening legal steps if Dahl didn’t drop the matter and admit it was a hoax, Dahl eventually did exactly that. Two Air Force officers, Captain Davidson and Lieutenant Brown, were going to take the debris to Fort Hamilton for analysis, but their B-25 went down shortly after takeoff. The military cordoned off 150 acres around the crash site but abandoned most of the wreckage after a week. Some speculated that they were done tinkering because they had found the extraterrestrial flakes.
Two days after the Air Force fatalities, another plane crashed, this time with Arnold on board. He barely survived. The Tecoma Times claimed that the B-25 was deliberately downed to prevent the fragments from reaching Fort Hamilton. Two weeks after publication, the journalist who wrote the article, Paul Lance, died from a cause that couldn’t be identified, despite a 36-hour autopsy. The case remains torn in two camps—those who believe Dahl faked the whole thing and those who feel that key truth seekers were silenced and that Dahl was frightened into saying it was a hoax.

Top 10 Ridiculously Common Science Myths

There is nothing better than a bit of mythbusting (which accounts for the popularity of the television program of the same name), so here we are again, presenting you with a new list of terribly common misconceptions and myths – this time about science.

10Evolutionary Improvements

The Myth: Evolution causes something to go from “lower” to “higher”
While it is a fact that natural selection weeds out unhealthy genes from the gene pool, there are many cases where an imperfect organism has survived. Some examples of this are fungi, sharks, crayfish, and mosses – these have all remained essentially the same over a great period of time. These organisms are all sufficiently adapted to their environment to survive without improvement.
Other taxa have changed a lot, but not necessarily for the better. Some creatures have had their environments changed and their adaptations may not be as well suited to their new situation. Fitness is linked to their environment, not to progress.

9Humans Pop In Space

The Myth: When exposed to the vacuum of space, the human body pops
This myth is the result of science fiction movies which use it to add excitement or drama to the plot. In fact, a human can survive for 15 – 30 seconds in outer space as long as they breathe out before the exposure (this prevents the lungs from bursting and sending air into the bloodstream). After 15 or so seconds, the lack of oxygen causes unconsciousness which eventually leads to death by asphyxiation.

8Brightest Star

The Myth: Polaris is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere night sky
Sirius is actually brighter with a magnitude of ?1.47 compared to Polaris’ 1.97 (the lower the number the brighter the star). The importance of Polaris is that its position in the sky marks North – and for that reason it is also called the “North Star”. Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and, interestingly, is only the current North Star as pole stars change over time because stars exhibit a slow continuous drift with respect to the Earth’s axis.

7Five Second Rule

The Myth: Food that drops on the floor is safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds
This is utter bunkum which should be obvious to most readers. If there are germs on the floor and the food lands on them, they will immediately stick to the food. Having said that, eating germs and dirt is not always a bad thing as it helps us to develop a robust immune system. I prefer to have a “how-tasty-is-it” rule: if it is something really tasty, it can sit there for ten minutes for all I care – I will still eat it.

6Dark side of the Moon

The Myth: There is a dark side of the moon
Actually – every part of the moon is illuminated at sometime by the sun. This misconception has come about because there is a side of the moon which is never visible to the earth. This is due to tidal locking; this is due to the fact that Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon is so immense that it can only show one face to us. Wikipedia puts it rather smartly thus: “Tidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, one side of the Earth’s Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner. This synchronous rotation causes one hemisphere constantly to face the partner body.”

5Brain Cells

The Myth: Brain cells can’t regenerate – if you kill a brain cell, it is never replaced
The reason for this myth being so common is that it was believed and taught by the science community for a very long time. But in 1998, scientists at the Sweden and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California discovered that brain cells in mature humans can regenerate. It had previously been long believed that complex brains would be severely disrupted by new cell growth, but the study found that the memory and learning center of the brain can create new cells – giving hope for an eventual cure for illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

4Pennies from Heaven

The Myth: A penny dropped from a very high building can kill a pedestrian below
This myth is so common it has even become a bit of a cliche in movies. The idea is that if you drop a penny from the top of a tall building (such as the Empire State Building) – it will pick up enough speed to kill a person if it lands on them on the ground. But the fact is, the aerodynamics of a penny are not sufficient to make it dangerous. What would happen in reality is that the person who gets hit would feel a sting – but they would certainly survive the impact.

3Friction Heat

The Myth: Meteors are heated by friction when entering the atmosphere
When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere of the earth (becoming a meteor), it is actually the speed compressing the air in front of the object that causes it to heat up. It is the pressure on the air that generates a heat intense enough to make the rock so hot that is glows brilliantly for our viewing pleasure (if we are lucky enough to be looking in the sky at the right time). We should also dispel the myth about meteors being hot when they hit the earth – becoming meteorites. Meteorites are almost always cold when they hit – and in fact they are often found covered in frost. This is because they are so cold from their journey through space that the entry heat is not sufficient to do more than burn off the outer layers.

2Lightning

The Myth: Lightning never strikes the same place twice
Next time you see lightning strike and you consider running to the spot to protect yourself from the next bolt, remember this item! Lightning does strike the same place twice – in fact it is very common.  Lightning obviously favors certain areas such as high trees or buildings. In a large field, the tallest object is likely to be struck multiple times until the lightning moves sufficiently far away to find a new target. The Empire State Building gets struck around 25 times a year.

1Gravity in Space

The Myth: There is no gravity in space
In fact, there is gravity in space – a lot of it. The reason that astronauts appear to be weightless because they are orbiting the earth. They are falling towards the earth but moving sufficiently sideways to miss it. So they are basically always falling but never landing. Gravity exists in virtually all areas of space. When a shuttle reaches orbit height (around 250 miles above the earth), gravity is reduced by only 10%.