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As much as we enjoyed compiling our Top 10 Awesome Van Damme Photoshop Pictures and how much Jean-Claude will always be our favourite action hero of the ‘90s, Nicholas Cage has made some awesome movies himself and darn right deserves a post on our site as well. So without further ado, here are our top ten movie roles we cannot help but think that Mr. Nicholas Cage should have played.
We would firstly like to thank the site Nic Cage as Everyone for providing us with the pictures. If you would like to see what Nicholas Cage would have looked like playing 100s of different movie roles and more then we suggest you check out their site. After scanning the site we came up with our top 10 below.
Nicholas Cage, the ‘90s action star who brought us films such as “The Rock,” “Con Air,” and “Face/Off,” has starred in over 60 films (not all of them are good, but that’s to be expected). His recent role is the voiceover for the character Crug in the animated film The Croods (2013).
If you have ever wanted to know what Nicholas Cage may have looked like if he played such roles as Captain Jack Sparrow or even the kid in Home Alone then you are not alone. But your imagination and hopes can now be reality as we bring you our top 10 roles that Nicholas Cage should have played.
10. Nicolas Cage as Captain Jack Sparrow
As well as Harry Potter fans, we are also partial to the Pirates of the Caribbean movies – one of Johnny Depps more exciting roles. And as much as Johnny Depp was perfect for the role of Captain Jack Sparrow we just cannot help but think that Nicolas Cage would have made the film a little more badass. You have to admit that he can pull off the “Captain Jack Sparrow” look.
9. Nicolas Cage as Wolverine
As you will come to realise, we have picked some pretty icons roles for our friend Nicholas Cage to play – Take Wolverine here, in the X-Men movies, who is played by Hugh Jackman. And because of this Hugh Jackman is always associated with Wolverine. But, being the big movie star that Nicholas Cage is, he could take on a role such as Wolverine…couldn’t he?
8. Nicolas Cage as Gandalf
There is a god! If you are a Nic Cage fan or not (we are guessing you are if you are reading this) you have to agree that he looks amazing as Gandalf aka The White Wizard aka Gandalf the White. Stand to one side Ian McKellen for the next Hobbit as Nic Cage needs to play the next Gandalf. We might as well get Van Damme on board to play Bilbo Baggins and Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham both to play Dwarfs. Heck, maybe Chris and Liam Hemsworth as Elves?
7. Nicolas Cage as Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett
Mike Lowery and Marcus Burnett or to me and you Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are the guys in the movie “Bad Boys”. What’s better than Nicolas Cage is a movie? Two Nicolas Cages in a movie of course. One actor playing two roles in the same movie, it has Van Damme written all over it (Double Impact). All we need to do now is make sure a brother gets killed and throw in a little revenge. If you look closely at Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) on the DVD case you will notice he looks like the UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre.
6. Nicolas Cage as Iron Man
If you give a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist some tin cans what do you get?
On a second note: Ever wanted to know what Nic Cage may look like as Iron Man…well, Tony Stark as he isn’t wearing his suit? Now you can! The picture is more a representation of what a love child may look like between Robert Downey Jr and Nicholas Cage, but you get the idea. If Nic Cage was to play the role of Tony Stark do you think he would have done the role justice?
5. Nicolas Cage as Albus Dumbledore
Yes, this is indeed the second (first, depend on how you guys voted) Harry Potter character on our top ten list that Nicolas Cage should have played. We had to include Albus Dumbledore, as NC would look amazing playing him we think you will agree. Anyway, the Sorting Hat has spoken and told us that indeed Nic would have played a better role. No offence to Richard Harris. After all, it’s just for the LOLs, right?
4. Nicolas Cage as Forest Gump
I don’t think you could get a more iconic scene still from a movie if you tried. Even the people who haven’t seen Forest Gump will now this picture is from that movie. In all honesty, the role as Forest Gump is probably Tom Hanks’ greatest role and is a film we recommend you watch if you have not seen it. But our friend Nicholas Cage never had the chance to play the role of Forest Gump. Can you imagine him saying the line “life is like a box of chocolates…”
3. Nicolas Cage as Kevin McCallister
Oh my days! We had to sit down for this one as it’s just magical (the only word we can think of). The idea of a fully grown man playing the part of child in a film is just plain funny (no, not like Bruce Willis in “Look Who’s Talking”. That film should be banned). If you have been fortunate to watch the movie “Kung Pow” then you will know it’s possible with CGI to take an old movie and green screen in someone new. Well, someone needs to do this with Nicolas Cage in the movie “Home Alone”.
2. Nicolas Cage as Hermione Granger
Nicolas Cage as Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger is genius. As much as we love the Harry Potter franchise (really, we do) we cannot help but think that if Nicolas Cage did in fact play Emma Watson’s part the movie would have made us a tiny bit moist. The only thing more epic than this is the possibility of Nicolas Cage playing Alan Rickman’s character Severus Snape.
1. Nicolas Cage as Willy Wonka
We can only wish that Nicholas Cage had his own Chocolate factory. But for some reason we are sure he would sell chocolate-covered ammunition (“Lord of War” reference) and not the kind Johnny Depp made in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Then again, it was a remake by Tim Burton so anything was game. If you are wondering why NC didn’t play Willy Wonka we have a theory: Both films (Lord of War and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) were indeed made around the same time, so obviously Nic was busy…makes perfect sense.
Whoever makes these amazing Photoshop pictures of Nicolas Cage can we request you keep them coming? They are amazing and we cannot get enough of them. You may know by now that Jean-Claude Van Damme is the daddy, so can we also request some of that guy too? Come on, what’s more important than creating awesome Photoshop pictures? (Rhetorical btw)
Everyone has a favorite candy. Some people like the powdery sugar in Pixy Sticks. Others prefer classics like lemon drops and root beer barrels. Some like chewy candy like licorice, and some like to suck on candy like jawbreakers.
Anyone who has a sweet tooth knows that candy is the best way to sate it. However, you may not know everything about your favorite candy—like where it got its name, how it was first made, or even why.
10 Saltwater Taffy Was Probably Named As A Joke
Although nobody knows who made it first, saltwater taffy got its start either on the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, or at Midwestern county fairs in the 19th century.
Taffy is made with sugar, salt, flavorings, corn syrup, and other ingredients that vary between recipes. It is then pulled and molded to aerate the mixture so that it becomes soft and chewy. Regardless of its name, this soft taffy does not have saltwater in it, although some brands do add extra salt.
According to rumor, saltwater taffy got its name from candymaker David Bradley. During an 1883 storm, his taffy stock became soaked with saltwater from the Atlantic Ocean. But even though his store was flooded, customers still came in to ask for his taffy. He jokingly called it “saltwater taffy,” and the name stuck.
In 1923, John Edmiston trademarked the name and tried to get a cut of the profits from anyone selling “saltwater taffy.” But the Supreme Court decided that the name had already been used too often for candy and ruled against him. As a result, Edmiston did not receive any royalties. The term became common again and is now the accepted way to market nearly any taffy, salty or not.
9 Cotton Candy Was Promoted By Dentists
Originally called fairy floss, cotton candy has gone by many monikers, such as candy floss or spun sugar. John C. Wharton and William J. Morrison patented their version of a cotton candy machine in 1899. Then they introduced the machine and their new candy concoction at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904. They sold nearly 70,000 boxes of candy at that fair.
As cotton candy is made entirely from caramelized sugar, most people realize that such a sweet overload will probably send you to a dentist sooner rather than later. Interestingly, Morrison was a dentist. To be fair, he was also a lawyer, an author, and a civic leader. But still, a dentist creating cotton candy has to raise some eyebrows.
In 1900, cotton candy was introduced to the Ringling Brothers by Thomas Patton, who had invented a more modern version of the cotton candy machine. Even later, Josef Lascaux, another dentist, created another version of the machine that he never officially patented. He did, however, coin the name “cotton candy.”
As to why more than one dentist had a hand in the rise of cotton candy’s popularity, we can only guess that it has to do with the consequential rise of cavities.
8 Pop Rocks Caused Urban Legend And Widespread Panic
The fizzing candies Pop Rocks were developed in 1956 by General Foods research scientist William A. Mitchell. Originally sold for 15 cents a packet in the early 1970s, they came in orange, cherry, and grape flavors. Pop Rocks are small, crystallized pieces of sugar with air pockets of carbonation that “pop” and “crackle” when the candy melts in your mouth or in water.
This popping sound led to an urban legend. As early as 1979, there were rumors about a child who had exploded after eating Pop Rocks with soda. At one point, the Food and Drug Administration even set up a hotline to field any questions from parents concerned about their children eating the candy.
After a large marketing effort to combat the rumors that were gripping the imagination of the public, Pop Rocks eventually disappeared from market shelves in 1983. They have since popped back up and had a resurgence in popularity.
But the crazy rumors still linger and were even featured on MythBusters. Don’t worry about busting your gut, though. The most that Pop Rocks and soda will do to your stomach is to make it upset.
7 Lollipops Have Strange Name Origins
Since ancient times, candies and sugary sweets have often been put on the ends of sticks for easy eating. It became popular in the 17th century to enjoy boiled sugar treats that were pressed onto sticks to eat. This treat was soft candy rather than hard, but it was one of the forerunners of the modern lollipop.
In the 20th century, the owner of McAviney Candy Company often brought home for his children the leftover sticks used to stir batches of candy. He began selling these sticks in 1908, which coincided with the invention of the first automated machine that put sticks in hard candy. Samuel Born, the inventor of the candy machine, was even awarded a key to the city of San Francisco for his invention.
In 1908, George Smith began marketing the modern version of a lollipop through his confection company, Bradley Smith Company. He coined the term “lollipop” in 1931 after a famous racehorse of the time called Lolly Pop.
When lollipops stopped being produced during the Great Depression, the name fell into the public domain. The name also meant something like “tongue slapper” because “lolly” was Old English slang for “tongue” and “pop” meant “to slap.”
Some linguists have even linked the name to the Roman phrase loli phaba (“red apple”), supposedly referring to the traditional Roman toffee apple treat. So the famous name originates from a horse, Old English slang, or ancient Rome. Or it could be made-up. Whatever the truth, it’s a unique way of looking at lollipops.
6 Snickers Also Has Strange Name Origins
The Snickers bar has an interesting story behind its name as well. Although the Snickers bar was not the first peanut, caramel, and nougat candy bar, it was one of the most popular and most enduring of its time.
Frank and Ethel Mars, founders of Mars, Inc., had great success with the Milky Way bar and were open to developing new candies. After three years of development, the Snickers bar was released in 1930.
Just months before the release of their new candy bar, Ethel’s favorite horse, Snickers, died. This was a hard loss for her as she adored her horse. So she and her husband named the new candy bar “Snickers” in the horse’s honor.
Interestingly, the farm where Snickers had lived was called the Milky Way Farm, just like their other famous candy bar. Regardless of this name theme, Snickers candy bars live on as one of the best-selling candies in the world.
5 Circus Peanuts Inspired Lucky Charms
Fondly remembered as one of the original penny candies, Circus Peanuts have been around since the 1800s. The banana-flavored marshmallows are notorious for their love-it-or-hate-it reputation.
Maybe that’s why no one has admitted to inventing them, much less tried to brand them. Since we don’t know who the creator is, we also have no idea why these peanut-shaped candies have a banana flavor.
Either way, these little gum stickers are the reason why we have marshmallow cereals. General Mills product developer John Holahan found that the mixture of Cheerios and cut bits of Circus Peanuts was good enough to sell, which led to the development of the ever-popular Lucky Charms cereal.
So maybe, even if you’re not fond of Circus Peanuts, you might want to thank whoever made them if you love marshmallows in cereal.
4 M&M’S Lost A Color In Cancer Panic
Forrest Mars Sr., son of Frank and Ethel Mars of Mars, Inc., was inspired by the candy-shelled chocolates in military rations to make the famous M&M’S candies. Named for Forrest Mars Sr. and Hershey executive William Murrie, these candies were patented and put into production in 1941.
Eventually, they were sold only to the military. But when the war ended, their popularity continued with civilians. The candies were sold in cardboard tubes, and the original colors were brown, red, violet, yellow, and green. However, in 1979, one of these colors faded from the mix due to FDA test results.
The dye called FD&C Red No. 2 was linked to tumors in female rats in a 1971 Russian test. However, this test was later found to have been incorrectly performed. The tested dye wasn’t the food coloring that was used in M&M’S anyway.
But the damage had already been done. Mars had to deal with a public that was panicked over the possible effects of FD&C Red No. 2. Used to color several popular foods like soda, hot dogs, ice cream, and candy, the public demanded that the controversial dye be removed.
Although M&M’S were colored with Red No. 40, Mars replaced red M&M’S with orange M&M’S to ease public anxiety. In 1987, the red color was reintroduced for M&M’S and has been popular ever since.
3 Necco Wafers Were Brought To The South Pole By The Ton
These chalklike candies were invented in 1847 when Oliver Chase made the first lozenge cutter. It became the machine that launched the candy industry, and it wasn’t long before its first creation, Necco Wafers, made it big.
The military commissioned a major portion of Necco Wafers’ production during World War II because the candies were easy to transport without melting. They were also cheap enough during the Great Depression to become a popular civilian treat.
Famous Arctic explorer Donald MacMillan gave out these candies to native Canadians on his journeys, but that was nothing in comparison to Admiral Richard Byrd. For a two-year journey to the South Pole, Byrd packed 2.5 tons of Necco Wafers. That was about 0.5 kilograms (1 lb) of candy per week for every man on the crew for the entire trip.
There is no record as to whether the entire amount was consumed. Still, the eight original flavors that Admiral Byrd carried with him can be enjoyed today. Except for the price, not much about Necco Wafers has changed since they were invented.
2 Dubble Bubble Gum Was An Accident
Ancient people chewed on bits of tree bark tar. The Maya and Aztecs also chewed on chicle from sapodilla trees. Then, in the 1840s, John Curtis used spruce tree resin to make gum to chew on and later created the first chewing gum factory.
It wasn’t until 1928, however, that our modern idea of chewing gum was created. Accountant Walter E. Diemer created it by accident. He liked to experiment in his spare time. After expanding on a failed recipe, he found a way to make chewing gum that was easier to chew and more resistant to breakage in packaging.
Interestingly, the iconic pink color was chosen simply because that was the only color available. After a successful trial run, the new gum was packaged and marketed as Dubble Bubble Gum. Eventually, the packages included comics that featured Dub, Bub, and the iconic Pud.
This only helped the popularity of the new chewing gum. At the beginning of World War II, it was even shipped to the military before the scarcity of products forced the factories to stop production. These factories reopened soon after the war ended and still cater to our bubble-blowing, cud-chewing needs today.
1 PEZ Dispensers Were Created To Attract Smokers
The famous PEZ candies were created in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. Originally, they didn’t have the sweet, fruity flavors that we know today. They used to be peppermint flavored. In fact, their name comes from pfefferminz, the German word for “peppermint.” Packaged in tins, the candies were popular for a time. They were supposed to be used as an alternative to smoking because their creator, Eduard Haas III, disliked smoking.
In 1949, new PEZ dispensers designed by Oscar Uxa were introduced as a way to hygienically share the candies without touching all of them. The dispensers were also designed to draw in smokers. Flicking open the top of a PEZ dispenser was meant to be like flicking a lighter. For a time, Haas even used the slogan “No Smoking, PEZing Allowed.”
In the transition to American markets, PEZ changed to their iconic fruity flavors, and the dispensers acquired their character tops. Whether PEZ have actually discouraged smoking is debatable. But PEZ still exist today as beloved combinations of candies and toys.
The US Senate candy desk is an aisle desk on the Republican side of the Senate that is stocked with various candies. However, it is open to Democrats as well.
The senator assigned to the seat is in charge of keeping it stocked, traditionally with sweets from his own state. This is the only seat that is not assigned by seniority. Instead, it is usually offered to those who love candy and sweets.
The tradition started in 1965 with Senator George Murphy, who had a legendary sweet tooth. He stocked his desk drawer full of candies and offered them to senators who were passing by. When he lost his seat in 1970, the next senator to occupy the desk continued the tradition.
It becomes an interesting tidbit when the desk changes owners and even caused an uproar in the Senate when Senator Craig Thomas took over in 2007. There was concern that his home state of Wyoming didn’t have any well-known candy companies such as Hershey’s, which supplied 180 kilograms (400 lb) of candy per year when Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum occupied the desk.
But the fear that Thomas would be unable to keep the desk stocked was overblown. Several Wyoming artisan companies stepped forward to supply the candy desk, and the candy tradition continued without a hitch.
Many believe that we share our universe with other intelligent species, and they’re probably right, but some believe that the extraterrestrials are right here among us. This is nothing new. Humans have always believed that we share our world with other intelligent beings, often mysterious ones with magical powers. Where did these ideas come from? The explanations are both diverse and surprising.
10 Selkies And Finfolk
Celtic and Scandinavian folklore speaks of selkies, or seal maidens (and occasionally seal grooms). These creatures could transform from a seal to a human and could be captured as a potential spouse by stealing their empty seal skin and forcing them to maintain their human form. Some researchers believe that the legends of the selkie have origins in folk memory. Early Celtic settlers in Scotland and the Shetlands encountered Finnish and Lapp women and perhaps married them. The Finns and Lapps wore sealskin clothing and used kayaks, details which over time may have turned into stories of transforming seal women.
Meanwhile, in the Orkney Islands, there was a widespread belief in a group known as the finfolk, a shape-shifting race of nomadic sorcerers. These unparalleled boatmen were amphibious and had a nasty tendency to abduct human mortals to be their husbands or wives. There was a rash of these sightings during a period called the Little Ice Age, when sea temperature dropped by up to 5 degrees Celsius (9 °F), and Arctic sea ice extended as far south as Iceland. Some writers believe that sightings of finfolk could have actually been sightings of Inuit in kayaks, who had followed the ice floes east and south.
9 Elves
We have talked before about the pervasive belief in elves in Iceland, which often affects road planning considerations. Some argue that the belief is of relatively recent origin. According to Arni Bjornsson, who worked in the ethnological department of the National Museum of Iceland, few people seriously believed in elves in the past. The notion became popular due to hippie culture in the 1970s, as well as an incident in 1971 when a “a clumsy but merry bulldozer driver” caused damage while moving rocks outside of Reykjavik and blamed the situation on pesky elves. No one believed him, but it created headlines and launched a craze for elves.
Elf-mania took on a wider scope during a 1986 summit in Reykjavik between Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan, during which reporters had limited access to the leaders and were forced to find other ways to occupy their time, leading many to question Bjornsson about the Icelandic belief in elves. This increased profile only served to further the belief in elves among many Icelanders, though they might have thought the idea was ludicrous only 20 years earlier.
Interestingly, while elves exist in many European traditions, Alaric Hall at the University of Leeds argued that they had more significance for the first Icelandic colonists, as Iceland was uninhabited and had no native population to subdue:
So they are actually indigenous people. But they don’t want to be. Like everyone else in Western Europe in the Middle Ages and in the early modern period, they really wanted to be invaders. So, what elves did is they provide . . . this kind of earlier indigenous population that can allow you to feel like a conqueror.
In later centuries, these tales became more elaborate as struggling Icelanders spoke of the lush feasts and wonderful mansions of the elves. Today, the myth has neatly tied in with romantic environmentalist ideology and a cultural reaction against modernity.
8 The Minotaur
Many ancient myths have their origins in human interpretation of geological formations and processes that they did not understand. The violent volcanic eruptions in Hawaii, and the resulting increased fertility due to lava flows, led to the goddess Pele, a force of destruction and creation. The odd appearance of Wyoming’s Devil’s Tower, caused as a result of erosion on a laccolith rock formation, were interpreted by tribes living in the area as the claw marks caused by a giant bear trying to reach a group of people hiding on the top.
The legend of the Minotaur is similar. There is not much that can be said about the creature having a human body and a bull’s head, except that the bull was an extremely common symbol in the ancient Minoan culture of Crete. Earlier versions of the myth didn’t even give details about the appearance of the creature at all; they only emphasized that it was trapped beneath the Earth in a great labyrinth and that its roar caused the Earth itself to shake.
The island of Crete lies on a subduction zone, where the Nubian block, which is connected to the continental shelf of Africa, slides beneath the Aegean block and causes an extremely high number of earthquakes, more so than even other subduction zones. This is the reason for the supposed “cruel bellowing” ascribed to the Minotaur; it was an attempt to explain the sudden tectonic disturbances that the Minoans suffered. The half-man, half-bull nature of the Minotaur was likely a later Greek interpretation, based on old stories of the bull-loving but collapsed Minoan culture, as well as possibly from fragments of pottery showing men and bulls grappling in combat.
7 Ghosts
We’ve already explored various possible explanations for ghostly phenomena, but new research indicates yet another potential answer. Swiss scientists have determined ghosts may be an illusion of the brain caused when we lose track of our body’s location due to illness, fatigue, or stress. Conflicting sensory-motor signals could cause the perception of a presence in the area even under normal conditions.
The experiment worked by using a robotic arm that volunteers controlled with their index finger. The signals were relayed to another robotic arm that was positioned to touch their backs. When this happened simultaneously, it created the illusion the volunteers were touching their own backs. But when the finger movement and back touching was out of sync by a mere 500 milliseconds, something weird happened. The volunteers reported feelings of being watched or touched by unseen presences, slowly drifting backward toward a hand, or feeling that invisible people were present. Two were so disturbed that they asked for the experiment to stop.
According to Dr. Giulio Rognini, “Under normal conditions, [the brain] is able to assemble a unified self-perception of the self from these representations. But when the system malfunctions because of disease—or, in this case, a robot—this can sometimes create a second representation of one’s own body, which is no longer perceived as ‘me’ but as someone else, a ‘presence.’ ” Such confusion in self-awareness, movement, and one’s sense of position in space can occur due to medical conditions affecting the brain or from extreme physical or emotional situations such as grief. The feelings of unseen presences may help to explain belief in ghosts and other spirits, demons, and angels.
6 Changelings
The modern mythology surrounding the link between the MMR vaccine and the appearance of autism has a precedent in the way that prescientific cultures perceived the condition. In Scandinavian, Celtic, and Germanic traditions, there are stories of children stolen by fairies or other supernatural forces, which leave behind changeling children as a substitute. They are described as constantly screaming, refusing to talk, making strange sounds and movements, talking to invisible creatures, having difficulty showing emotion, and being resistant to affection, with little emotional connection with their mothers. Many of these symptoms are seen in autism, which features an inability to form social relationships, disordered verbal and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors.
Autistic children usually appear as normal infants at first, before symptoms of the condition manifest when they are older. This is likely the source of the idea of a normal human child being stolen and replaced by an alien substitute. In 2005, researchers published an article in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, inspired when the head researcher heard the mother of an autistic child tell a current affairs program, “The girl I gave birth to has been stolen.”
Today, the feeling of a change in a child previously perceived as normal is blamed on Big Pharma putting poison into vaccines. Centuries ago, the same impulse laid the blame on fairies or the Devil. One disturbing fact is that stories of changelings suggest that they were often killed or abandoned. One Grimm fairy tale involves a mother taking a changeling baby into a field and whipping it until the Devil appears and swaps it for her original child. Trials for the murder and torture of alleged changelings occurred into the 19th century, and belief in the phenomenon persisted into the modern era in Ireland, Bavaria, and Eastern Europe.
5 Cyclops
Greek legends of one-eyed giants may have been spurred from early findings of prehistoric fossils. In 2003, the bones of Deinotherium giganteum, a massive distant relative of elephants that stood 5 meters (15 ft) high and had 1.4-meter (4.5 ft) tusks, were found on the island of Crete. Skulls of Deinotherium giganteum were huge and featured a large nasal opening for the trunk in the center of the skull. Modern paleontologists know that such an opening suggests a large trunk on the animal. However, it would have been extremely easy for the ancient Greeks to assume it was an eye socket and to believe such skulls belonged to a fierce race of one-eyed giants. As the giant mammals lived in forests all over southern and eastern Europe during the Miocene and Pliocene eras, their skulls could have easily been found by the Greeks in many different places.
That is one explanation for the Cyclops myth, but interestingly, there is a very rare genetic condition known as holoprosencephaly that can cause babies to be born with only one eye. This condition results in the embryonic forebrain failing to divide into the two lobes making up the cerebral hemispheres, resulting in a child with a single-lobed brain and major skull and facial defects.
Few women carry such children to term today, although there was a terrible situation in a New York State hospital in 1960, when a child suffering from holoprosencephaly was born and left to starve. A doctor referred to the child as a “monster” and “it” and even practiced a finger amputation procedure on the child. If such inhumanity is possible in modern times, it is not hard to imagine that in ancient times, such children could be seen as monsters as well.
4 Satyrs
In Greek and Roman times, it was believed that the sexually adventurous half-man half-goat creatures known as satyrs were more than just a legend and that they still lived in hidden parts of the Mediterranean. Supposed satyr mummies were placed on display by showmen to wow tourists in places like Rome and Antioch. At the time, Greek theater made extensive use of realistic satyr masks made of skin, which modern reproductions have shown to be quite striking. It is likely that the satyr corpses showcased in the Greek and Roman world were made by hucksters combining human mummies with satyr masks, hooves, and tails.
Quarriers working with Triassic limestone on the islands of Paros and Chios are said to have unearthed fossils that they interpreted to resemble the gods Pan and Silenus, who look like satyrs, featuring large heads with semi-human features, goat ears, hooves, and horns. Unfortunately, we have no way of knowing exactly what fossils the quarriers came across, but it was quite common for the ancients to ascribe mythical origins to fossils they found.
There is a more interesting fossil possibility: Author Adrienne Mayor has suggested that a satyr corpse displayed in Antioch and reported by Saint Jerome may have been a miner who had been trapped in a salt mine collapse and mummified. She is backed up by the 2007 uncovering of so-called “salt men” from 540 BC in a salt mine in northern Iran. The process of salt mummification causes the preservation of hair, flesh, bone, and internal organs. The salt men found in the mine bore a striking resemblance to ancient depictions of satyrs, with similar hair and beards, snub noses, and protruding jaws.
Hawaiian legend speaks of a mysterious group of little people living hidden in valleys or forests who are capable of great craftsmanship and engineering. They were said to vary from a few inches to 0.6 meters (2 ft) in height, and they worked at night while people were sleeping.
They’re believed to be simply creatures of folklore, but some believe that they have real-world origins. Some claim the first Tahitian settlers of Kauai encountered people who had arrived before them, settlers from Marquesas. Manahune was a term used by the Tahitians for themselves until they were defeated at the hands of warriors from Raiatea, after which it became a term of derision meaning “commoner.” Supposedly, the Tahitian arrivals to Hawaii termed the inhabitants menehune, a derogatory term indicating that they were at the bottom of the social ladder.
According to some folklorists, it wasn’t until the arrival of Europeans that the term began to take on a mythical hue. Explorers curious about works of construction like fish ponds and ditch aqueducts were told that they were built by menehune. These stories may have been conflated with European notions of pixies and brownies, eventually becoming a mythical race of furtive night builders.
Medieval lore held that demonic entities could take female or male forms to sexually violate sleeping Christians in order to torment them or to impregnate women with a “demon seed.” Such ideas were also common to Jewish mysticism, where they were linked with Lilith. In Muslim cultures, they were blamed on randy jinn. In China, the phenomenon is known as ghost oppression, and the Japanese call it kanashibari and believe that it can be caused by spirits, sorcerers, or ghosts.
The most common explanation for this phenomenon suggests that it is caused when some mental faculties become conscious while the rest of the brain is in a state of REM sleep. The physiology of REM sleep often causes erections in men and lubrication in women. When combined with feeling awake but being unable to move, as well as dreamlike thought, hallucinations, and sensory awareness, this can cause feelings of fear and eroticism. These can easily become notions of evil and sexual supernatural beings.
A variation of this explanation purports that the phenomenon occurs when there is a temporary malfunction in breathing and heartbeat while a person is in a state of non-REM sleep. The slow breathing and heat rate triggers an alarm response in the brain, reacting as if the sleeper was close to death. The panic response causes heart rate and breathing to speed up, and if the sleeper then enters REM sleep, they will be confronted with incubus or succubus imagery. This phenomenon has been linked to crib death in infants and may be linked with the activation of the diving reflex, vital for water birds and seals who need to reflexively hold their breath when diving.
1 Doppelgangers
German folklore speaks of the doppelganger (literally meaning “double goer”), a double of a living person whose appearance often suggests that the original person’s death is imminently approaching. Such doubles are found in other world traditions as well, such as the Norse vardyger, the Finnish efirstcomeri, and the ancient Egyptian ka, a spirit double with the same thoughts and feelings as the original.
In neuroscience, the phenomenon of seeing one’s double is referred to as heautoscopy, meaning “seeing of one’s self,” which is distinguished from autoscopy, or “seeing oneself,” which is more associated with out-of-body experiences. In heautoscopy, you perceive an illusory body, and your center of awareness can shift between your physical body and the illusory one. Such hallucinations typically also involve strong emotions, shared bodily sensation, and a combination of empathy for the illusory body with a feeling of depersonalization in the physical body.
Brain scans of patients suffering from heautoscopic hallucinations usually show damage to the left posterior insula and adjacent cortical areas. The insular cortex combines visual, auditory, sensory, motor, proprioceptive, and vestibular signals with signals from the viscera, giving rise to self-consciousness and the perception of the bodily self. As the perception of self is so important to the human condition, it is perhaps not surprising that the doppelganger effect is so closely tied with the possibility of imminent death.
There may also be feelings of lightness, flying, rotation, or vertigo associated with a heautoscopic experience, which may explain why in some folklore, doppelgangers appear as wraiths and are said to appear before the eyes of the dying, performing evil actions that the person performed in life.
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