Doug's Darkworld

This is the well known (among UFO enthusiasts at least) Cumberland Spaceman photo. It was taken in 1964 in a field in England by Jim Templeton. He claims there was no one else in the field when the image was taken. Analysts at Kodak confirm the picture is unaltered. While UFO enthusiasts have speculated endlessly about this image, most people have no trouble seeing that the white suited figure is a human being. Was Jim Templeton lying? Maybe. I think modern psychology gives us a better answer though. We know very well now that the human brain often doesn’t “see” perfectly obvious things when it isn’t expecting to see them. He was alone in the field taking pictures of his daughter, and simply didn’t register it when someone walked across the field. The camera doesn’t lie, but the brain sure can.

Here we have the famous Hugh Grey Loch Ness Monster picture. It was the first Nessie photo, and was reprinted widely in its day. Taken in 1933, Mr Grey insists it was an image of an unknown animal, a story he told with apparent sincerity all his life. This blurry picture is supposed to be proof of something? Less credulous minds point out that it looks like a swimming dog with a stick in its mouth. In fact once you “see” the dog’s head the image becomes a lot less mysterious. What is it really a picture of? Who knows. The only thing mysterious about the photo is that anyone thinks there is any mystery about it, it’s just a blurry picture of something in the water. And this is touted as evidence for the existence of the Loch Ness Monster? Sheesh.

Here we have one of the most recent photos of Bigfoot. Like all photos of bigfoot, it conveniantly doesn’t show enough detail to really tell anything at all. At least this one is a close up, but again, a close up of a hairy lump doesn’t have a whole lot of probitive value. At this point the complete lack of clear Bigfoot photos (think decades of security cameras and wildlife trap cameras, not to mention camera equipped hikers,) is damning evidence that there is no there there. It’s going to take a Bigfoot carcass or a substantial portion of one to convince most people at this point.

Ah, the back seat ghost photo. This is often touted as one of the best ghost photos ever taken. This was taken by Mabel Chinnery in 1959 while visiting her mother’s grave. She didn’t see the person in the back of the car until the photo was developed. She claims it looks like her mother. Skeptics claim it looks like a crude hoax. In fact most people claim it looks like a crude hoax as far as I can tell. It’s also a little unclear how a camera would be able to capture an image of a mythical creature, the evidence that ghosts are anything other than folklore is non-existant. It is clear to me that if this is one of the “best” ghost photos ever taken, I think we can safely asign them to the Bigfoot category.

Ah, we come to the famous Mansi Champ photo. Champ or Champy is America’s version of Nessie. A family named Mansi took this picture. They didn’t think anything of it for years. They lost the negative in the interum. They can’t remember where exactly they took the image from. It bears an uncanny resemblance to a  floating log. And this is the “best” evidence for the existence of Champ?  And how come none of these animals ever wash ashore dead? Colour me unconvinvced.

OK, we end with this fascinating image. What the hell is that? It’s a photoshopped image of a squirrel, even the most credulous ten year old wouldn’t be fooled by it. Well, I hope not. No, I’m really not trying to make fun of people who place a lot of stock in the images above. It just sort of comes with the territory. I included this pic because it does have a minor bit of oddness associated with it. This morning one of the last dreams I had was a vivid dream that featured a cat morphing into a squirrel. And then when I got up and logged onto Facebook, what should I see but this image posted on my wall by a friend. That’s one hell of a conicidence! Does it mean anything? Of course not, that’s why I use the word coincidence. Jung might have called it synchroncity, a meaningful coincidence.

Fortunately there are real mysteries out there, though one has to wade through a lot of silliness to find them.  I found a doozy in fact. There is some sort of oceanic creature that constructs incredibly elaborate burrows, and has for a long time, fossil burrows almost as old as the appearance of life have been found. New burrows have been discovered in the ocean floor, whatever this creature is, it still exists. The mystery though is that the creature making the burrows has never been indentified. None have ever been found fossilized, and every modern burrow scientists have found and excavated was abandoned! Slippy little devils obviously, scientists debate numerous possibilities. I’ll post about it soon and my gentle readers can make their own guess.

(With the exception of the Bigfoot photo, the images above are all believed to be Public Domain under US copyright law. The Bigfoot Photo is claimed as Fair Use under US copyright law. Credit and Copyright: American Bigfoot Society.)