History's Mysteries

[nacho]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_pass_accident

The mysterious circumstances of the hikers' deaths have inspired much speculation. Investigations of the deaths suggest that the hikers tore open their tent from within, departing barefoot in heavy snow; while the corpses show no signs of struggle, one victim had a fractured skull, two had broken ribs, and one was missing her tongue.[1] The victims' clothing contained high levels of radiation.[1] Soviet investigators determined only that "a compelling unknown force" had caused the deaths, barring entry to the area for years thereafter.[1] The causes of the accident remain unclear.[2][3]

Movie time!

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2011/04/dyatlov-pass-incident-film-production.html

That's my paranormal paranoia go-to site, but they usually do a good job with stuff like this. In between the OMG it's Alien Bigfoot Vampires!! you end up with a very exhaustive history -- and usually some multimedia -- of their topic of the day. This one has some great stuff on the Dyatlov Pass mystery.

They made the movie and it's a totally gay Blair Witch rip off about documentary filmmakers trying to find out what happened. Color me disappointed.

Meanwhile, in an effort to have a show with a budget of $17, NBC is doing "Siberia" -- which is a drama about a reality show set in Siberia where the contestants make base camp at a place that suffered a similar incident as at Dyatlov. The game proceeds...and then things go wrong! Da-da-dum!

I'm watching episode one now and...uh...kind of enjoying it. It has the fake reality show feel that Series 7 captured.

So...I watched this (the movie).

It's Found Footage-by-the-numbers. Which is fine, because there's really no way to make Found Footage movies unique...

But, then, in the final reel, they try to make it unique, and that turns the movie into a fascinating and horrible disaster. What is, at first, a great twist -- a secret and apparently long-forgotten Soviet bunker -- becomes an insane derailment of epic proportions. We go from inexplicable people trying to kill them, to a weird Philadelphia Experiment inspired sub-story, to poorly rendered attempts at copying the REC monster that come off looking more like something from a mid 2000's video game, to the dogged insistence that you, the audience, are intimately familiar with the Philadelphia Experiment conspiracy theories, to a bizarre version of Timecrimes, to ancient indian curses, to lost alien wormhole technology, and a time paradox that makes no sense and almost feels like, as it was being added in, they forgot what time period they were in. We jump to 1959 and back, but everyone clearly forgets which time period they're in. It's the simplest of paradoxes -- 2013 people zapped back to 1959 and have a hand in creating what happens to them in 2013 -- but, then, the writers completely lose track of time, where their characters are, and fail to conceptualize the world of 50 years ago (Soviet officers recognize a digital camera for what it is?). But, then, I think maybe the twist was that the Soviet "protectors" in 1959 were also the unexplained guys in 2013. But...that doesn't work, because... Well... Oh, man.

This fucked up ending is so fucked up, so terribly and poorly conceived and executed, that it's a classic example of "so bad it's good." I laughed myself silly in stunned wonder/horror as the script fell apart in front of me. I'd actually recommend watching it, in that old school MST3K way. 

[RottingCorpse]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/09/stonehenge-area-inhabited-thousands-years_n_5289118.html

Stonehenge Discovery 'Blows Lid Off' Old Theories About Builders Of Ancient Monument

From who built it to what it was used for, Stonehenge is surrounded by many enduring mysteries -- and researchers from the University of Buckingham in England now say they've solved one of them.

"For years people have been asking why is Stonehenge where it is, now at last, we have found the answers,” David Jacques, an archaeology research fellow at the university, said in a written statement.

Last October, Jacques led an archaeological dig at a site 1.5 miles from Stonehenge. His team unearthed flint tools and the bones of aurochs, extinct cow-like animals that were a food source for ancient people. Carbon dating of the bones showed that modern-day Amesbury, an area that includes the dig site and Stonehenge itself, has been continuously occupied since 8820 B.C. Amesbury has now been declared the oldest continually occupied area in Britain.

The finding suggests that Stonehenge was built by indigenous Britons who had lived in the area for thousands of years. Previous theories held that the monument was built in an empty landscape by migrants from continental Europe.

"The site blows the lid off the Neolithic Revolution in a number of ways," Jacques said in the statement, referring to the assumption that those migrants drove Britain's transition from a hunter-gatherer to a farming society in the 6th Century B.C. "It provides evidence for people staying put, clearing land, building, and presumably worshipping, monuments."

The researchers say evidence suggests that before erecting Stonehenge, people living in the area set up gigantic timbers between 8820 and 6590 B.C. -- a sort of wooden precursor to the stone monument. Jacques likened the area to a "Stonehenge Visitor's Center," where visitors from far and wide came to feast and tour the site with local guides.

"The area was clearly a hub point for people to come to from many miles away, and in many ways was a forerunner for what later went on at Stonehenge itself," he said.

[nacho]

Jesus Christ, Huffpo! Woodhenge, and the "Beaker culture" and supporting settlements that eventually built Stonehenge were discovered in 1925!

Absolutely nobody knows anything about history anymore, do they? In 30 years, I'm going to write away for an archaeology degree and then release a viral video about how I discovered the location of the first shot fired during an event known as "the Civil War" by the ancients...

[monkey!]

Ugh. Everybody knows Stone Henge was built for the lizards.

[nacho]

From SA --

the best number station in my opinion is the one thats in the middle of bumfuck russia that did nothing but broadcast a series of 3 tones for 27 years, then, in the middle of the night, the routine was interupted by a voice saying something in russian, twice.

then it went back to broadcasting the tones.

some guy actually managed to record it, ill try to post the link if i can remember the name of the station, its the scariest fucking thing ever if you really think about it.

edit: heres a page on it, its called ubv-76 and it has a recording, i dont know if its the recording of the guy interupting it but you get the jist of how creepy it would be.

http://www.freewebs.com/meterbands/numberstations2.html

edit 2: found the recording

http://www.geocities.com/uvb76/buzzer-message-091202.mp3

Hoping I'll find a translation...

I tried to translate, but it's super garbled. Here is my best attempt:

<beginning is super garbled. part of it sounds like "seventy-six". a short part is repeated twice. i think the message is something like "this is site one hundred and seventy six".>

<more garbled stuff>

<something ending in "two">

thirty-six (or 33?), ninety-three, eighty-two

<garbled>

six, two, six, nine, one

<garbled>

<something like "... of the code">

<some names?>

tatiana

three, six, nine, three, eight, two, seven (or 8?), zero

<long pause>

<then the message is apparently repeated, starting with the "seventy six" thing>

seven hundred two (or 602?), six hundred ninety one

<garbled>

thirty six, ninety three, eighty two, <two digit number ending in 0>

<garbled>

six, two, six, nine, one

<garbled>

tatiana

<garbled>

three, six, nine, three, eight, two, <8 or 7>, zero

http://io9.com/a-great-way-to-listen-to-those-mysterious-number-stati-1605472855

The University of Twente in the Netherlands maintains a web-based shortwave radio that anyone can access. War is Boring recommends its two favorite "numbers stations":

The Buzzer: Tune the dial to 4625 kHz and you'll hear a repetitive buzzing noise. This obnoxious station goes by the call sign UVB-76, but shortwave aficionados call it The Buzzer. The Buzzer has been blaring that tone since the early 1980s. On occasion, the buzzing stops. A voice comes on and reads numbers and letters in Russian.

Yosemite Sam: The cranky gunslinger from old Bugs Bunny cartoons began screaming across the shortwave band around 2004. He's hard to pinpoint because he moves. But you can typically find him at 3700 kHz or 6500 kHz.

Every broadcast begins with a millisecond-long compressed data burst followed by a sound clip of Yosemite Sam. The data burst and sound clip then moves to a higher frequency. This broadcast is repeated over a two minute period before receding back into the darkness. To date, no one has decoded the data burst.

[monkey!]

It's aliens!

[nacho]

Numbers Stations are this week's Wiki Workhole:

http://www.avclub.com/article/explore-century-old-mystery-numbers-stations-207413

[nacho]

News worth following! Uncovering the "hidden" (faded, worn) text on the map that influenced Columbus:

http://www.wired.com/2014/09/martellus-map/

Results later this year. Hopefully it'll say something interesting beyond "dunno what's here, homes."

[nacho]

Annoying narrator...but a few things here I didn't know about. So now you can watch it and join me on the Wiki Wormhole that it inspires....

[nacho]

And, man... The Sarah Joe...


http://1dustytrack.blogspot.com/2013/11/unsolved-mystery-of-the-sarah-joe.html

[RottingCorpse]

I'm so coming back to this later.

[Reginald McGraw]

And, man... The Sarah Joe...


http://1dustytrack.blogspot.com/2013/11/unsolved-mystery-of-the-sarah-joe.html

That is freaky.

[nacho]

A claim that they found Earhart:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/south-pacific/4070865/Claims-Amelia-Earharts-plane-found

They found a Lockheed Electra buried in coral.

There's lots of folks who say this is crap, but it backs up a theory by an archeologist in 07 that she went down at roughly the spot where they claim to have found the plane.

We'll find out for sure in a few weeks.

I love going through this thread and doing Unsolved Mysteries updates... No go on the plane, and bone fragments found belonged to...a turtle. Earhart remains a mystery.

Earhart update!

After decades of looking, researchers say they may finally have found a bit of wreckage from Amelia Earhart's plane.

The aluminum fragment was recovered in 1991 on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the Pacific Ocean about 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii. Some believe Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, lived there as castaways after being forced to land during their 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

“This is the first time an artifact found on Nikumaroro has been shown to have a direct link to Amelia Earhart,” Ric Gillespie, executive director of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), the non-profit group that made the identification, told Discovery News.

...

In 2013, sonar data revealed a strange 22-foot-long object under 600 feet of water near the remote island. At the time, TIGHAR speculated that the object was a piece of the Electra's fuselage.

The research group hopes to return to the area around Nikumaroro in June for a closer look at the sonar anomaly and to search for other potential relics.

Links, pics, videos at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/30/amelia-earhart-plane-fragment-found_n_6069970.html?utm_hp_ref=science

[nacho]

Wow...this Earhart discovery might actually have legs.

[monkey!]

Unlike Earhart!