"The Unexplainable...."

[Tmee2020]

Both Voyager spacecraft launched in 1977 carried these records.
They contain sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth, and are intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who may find them.

Included is a message from the UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim.

For some reason we haven't heard back from them.

[Buck-cherry]

Originally Posted by Pepper II

This myth has been debunked in recent years. The body contains a lot of fat which smolders and burns slowly but quite hot (like tallow). In every case there has been an ignition source present and also in every case the victim was alone. Had someone else been present they would have extinguished the fire before it did any harm and we would never have heard about it. I saw a very interesting documentary in which the resulting scenario was duplicated using a pig carcass.
The only people interested in perpetuating this myth (aside from your assorted wackos) are those who have no interest in the facts but want to sell books or TV shows. That last statement also applies to aliens building our ancient monoliths, little green men visiting Roswell, and Jesus or the Madonna showing up on taco shells and water towers.

SHC is what happens when you are sitting in your lounge, peace and quiet, bored, and you think to yourself : "I'm going to light one of my farts......."
As everyone knows, farts should only be lit at parties, NEVER when you are alone.

[Shy Talk]

Originally Posted by nevermind

The universe contains about 125 Billion star systems. To me it's obvious that there is more life out there.
I don't think mankind will ever be able to travel through space, it's simply impossible due to the fact of the distance ...!!!!
The Solar System is a home to two regions populated by smaller objects.
Planetary scientists use the terms gas, ice, and rock to describe the various classes of substances
found throughout the Solar System, the so called planets.

due to the distances involved and the speeds required to cover the distances, it is simply not possible that humans will ever venture much beyond Mars. Once out of the Earth's magnetic field any astronaut is subjected to massive solar radiation and even with the fastest possible spacecraft (56K mph) the exposure is too great. It would be a suicide mission.

If the ship was built in space and shielded, there is still the problem of osteoporosis and muscle atrophy. We constantly have 14.7 pounds pressing down on every square inch of our bodies. This is removed in weightlessness and the muscle and skeletal structure begins to break down.

Even if you got to Mars or Jupiter, avoiding the radiation...when you returned to Earth the weight of the atmosphere on your weakened structure would probably suffocate you.

For similar reasons aliens coming to Earth is also an impossible fantasy. The distances involved are simplt too great.

[danton]

My only certain 'ghostly' experience was odd to the point of ridiculousness. It has made me however believe that death may not be the final frontier.

I was dropping off to sleep one night when my bed was shaken violently three times in rapid succession. I jumped up immediately and in the dark lashed out fearing someone was in the room. I turned on the light and saw I was alone, the door closed. The room was silent.

I noticed the bed was trembling. The mattress, a double one, was visibly moving in a rapid motion. Nothing else. I watched this for a few seconds then moved closer to the bed. All was silent, simply the mattress moving like a shiver across agitated water.

I leaned over and placed the flat of my hand against it hoping I suppose to feel something. As soon as I touched the mattress the movement stopped. Perplexed, I think I might have made myself tea. I certainly went into the front room and from the window to the street – the flat was on the first floor (second if you are an American) – saw three young people push starting a car. Normal life then, continued.

Eventually, I returned to my bed and slept with the light on. I continued to sleep like that for a few days after.

Next day I tried a number of times to induce the trembling motion in the mattress without success. It was simply inert. The more violent attempts to create something like the effect also made objects around the room shake and vibrate. The room as I say, had been absolutely silent the night before.

Later I spoke to a friend in the flat next to mine. She subsequently introduced me to another woman who had lived in the flats. She also had had experiences which did not lend themselves to easy explanation. She had listened to movements in the top floor flat overhead and furniture being moved. The flat was unoccupied, empty and was locked – as indeed it was when I lived in the flats.

The building was a strange construction and the floors were noticeably 'springy'. Sound travelled well (though I have hearing loss). It dated from late in the 19th century and I believe had been used by embassy legation staff. One may have been a moderately famous writer of early science fiction, but I could not confirm this.

Soon after I left – forced out not by trembling beds but property developers. I took the bed with me. It never trembled ever again.

I do not know what to make of this strange event. I was the only witness and I have nothing with which to compare it. I remember testing myself to be sure I had not had some 'episode'. True, I had been very stressed and so tired I found sleep came only with difficulty (like now). Of itself, it seems senseless, even oddly funny. But I do not doubt what I saw with my own eyes.

[alman]

when i was a child an old man used to walk up the stairs, come into my bedroom and ask me my name and where i lived.This happened about three times a week at night and went on for five years untill we moved house. My parents told me it was just bad dreams. About a year after moving house my dad asked me what the guy looked like,i asked why and he admitted he'd seen him too but did'nt want to tell me when we were living in the old house.

[TCO95]

When I was about 9 or 10 we got new neighbours, a fairly rambunctious family except for the youngest daughter. She was usually fairly quiet and almost always had a look of concern on her face. I asked why and found out that in their previous home she slept in a room in which there had been a murder committed. They had not known about the murder when they moved in.

For a long time she had gotten visitations from the elderly woman who had been stabbed with a screwdriver and left in her clothes closet to die. She kept these visits to herself as she didn't think anyone would believe her. The old woman never did anything but stand at the end of her bed and stare at her. However, the room never heated up like the rest of the house even though it faced west and received plenty of sunlight.

I thought they were only pulling my leg and didn't put much stock in the story. But since the eldest son still lived in the home they told me they could take me there and show me the room. That August we finally went to the house with me fully expecting them to have someone jump out of a closet or something like that. However, when we got there my friends mother refused to enter the room and my friend would only go to the door. Outside it was a typical August day hot and sticky but when I entered that room it was cool as if it had air conditioning, which it didn't. From the hallway my friend encouraged me to look in the closet. This was when I was expecting my surprise but when I opened the door and looked inside all I seen was a screwdriver stuck into the back wall. They told me later that no matter how many times they removed the screwdriver it always reappeared.

When I went home that night and told my family what had happened they brushed it off as a hoax. However, no one could tell me how the rest of the house could be sweltering and that room so cold. Later, when my mom met friends mom they talked about the story and although my mom didn't admit to believing them she refused to go to the house and see for herself.

To date this has been my only brush with the paranormal.

[Alvin Lucifer]

My thought here on ancient mysteries might have already been expressed. Anyway, what if we drop the linear notion of the accumulation of human knowledge? This allows for the possibility that the ancient Egyptians and the ancient Mayans possessed knowledge and devices which slipped out of human memory. Five or ten thousand years is a flicker of an eyelid in terms of evolution. The ancients had the same brain as we have and just as clever. In five thousand years, provided we do not get annihilated as a species, our descendants might have forgotten all about the Internet or space travel, but they might have achieved great things we can't conceive of today.

[Alvin Lucifer]

We lived in an old farmhouse in my childhood. The main structure was built around the time of the American Revolution. We all felt strange presences in that front part of the house. I had but one discrete experience with the paranormal. I'm skeptical, but this was weird as I was wide awake. I looked over and saw an apparition. It was a young girl of about twelve years standing in my room. She was wearing a white nightgown and her blonde hair in ringlets done up in a 19th century style. She had a strange glow about her. I was a nervous kid, but for some reason, I wasn't frightened, just puzzled. I thought it could have been my sister Ruth,* because Ruth was about the same age at the time, and she did have curly hair. However, my sister didn't wear that style of nightgown and she didn't wear her hair in that style. Heck, no girl in 1980 would, unless she was at a costume party! The figure before me was also shorter than Ruth with a more slender, angular facial structure. I still thought it might be her, though. I looked closer, but the visage remained hazy. "Ruth?" I whispered. Nothing. The girl just stood there in the glow. "Ruth?" I said louder. No answer. Then the apparition was gone. No motion. No fading away. It just disappeared in an instant to quick to comprehend.

The last thing I would believe is that I saw a ghost. It seems more likely it was a dream. However, I did not wake up with the phantom girl in my bedroom. She appeared while I was awake. If it was a nightmare, I would have been freaked out. I suffered frequent nightmares and night terrors in childhood, I think these were part of my inchoate lifelong anxiety disorder. However, this apparition did not frighten me at all, and I was a kid who got the frights from ordinary shadows moving on the wall. So I don't understand. I never will.

*Not her real name. I generally don't use real names on the Internet.

[Extempus]

Originally Posted by damp-patch

There are no secrets about the building of the pyramids. A few very clever people designed them and got an awful lot of other people with a lot of time on their hands to build them.

Let's have a look at the granddaddy of the pyramids, the Great Pyramid. The 4th Dynasty king Khufu (commonly known as Cheops) is thought to be the one under whom it was built. According to the Turin Papyrus of Kings, Khufu reigned only 23 years, and according to Herodotus, it took 10 years to build the causeway (over which the stones were moved) to the construction site. Assuming he was correct, that leaves only 13 years in which Khufu could have built it! Originally, it stood about 481 feet tall and had a base of about 756 x 756 feet... that's 91,636,727 cubic feet of stone (well, slightly less, since it has chambers and passageways inside)! It contains an estimated 2,300,000 stones, averaging about 2.5 tons apiece. The 9 stones in the ceiling of the King's Chamber were quarried over 500 miles from the construction site and weigh some 400 tons altogether.

So, 13 years x 365.25 days = 4,748.25. If we assume an average of 12 hours work/day throughout that period, then 4,748.25 x 12 = 56,979 hours. I'll be nice and round it off to 57,000 hours. So, if we divide 2,300,000 stones by 57,000 hours, we get an astounding 403.5 stones that weigh an average of 2.5 tons that have to be put in place each and every hour! That's 6.7 per minute or 1 every 8.9 seconds.

Even if one assumes Khufu reigned longer, we still have a major problem. If we assume he was building the Great Pyramid for 26 years, that's still 1 stone that needs to be moved into place every 17.8 seconds. Even if we assume that work was done around the clock for 26 years, that's still 1 stone that must be put into place every 35.6 seconds.

This kind of construction cannot be accomplished even in the 21st Century. So how did the ancient Egyptians do it? No one has any clue... except maybe Ed Leedskalnin, who took his secret to the grave...

[Mad Koala Bear]

Why did it necessarily have to be finished at the time of his death? Construction could have continued for many years afterwards out of respect for him.