A Reminder

According to Harold Camping, Christian radio host, the rapture will occur on Saturday, May 21st, 2011. Whether the End Times will happen in the morning, afternoon, or evening has not yet been specified, but it would seem a sensible idea to have a Rapture Preparedness Kit containing first aid, bottled water, and a flashlight. Also, make sure to stock up on canned food, as Camping asserts that god will destroy the entire universe once October roles around. The rapture has previously been scheduled to fall in 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1999, and 2005. Apparently budgetary reasons have consistently lead to its postponement.

Electromagic Youth For All

While studying my face in the mirror this morning (as I often do while brushing my teeth), something caught my eye. I paused to wipe the rabies-esqe toothpaste foam from my mouth, went in for a closer look and, much to my horror, noticed a few gray hairs. It appears that my extreme, fast-paced lifestyle of reckless street-racing, base-jumping, and freestyle parkour (sometimes all at once) had finally caught up with me and my body is beginning to show the inevitable signs of aging. Through the quick application of a black Sharpie, the gray hairs were concealed from view and my youthful good-looks returned.

Many people, however, would never be satisfied with my permanent-marker method and instead rely on more esoteric attempts to thwart the inevitable effects of time. Take, for example, the Integratron: the new age cure for old age.


Built near the aptly named Giant Rock boulder in Landers, California, the Integratron is a dome constructed from plywood and fiberglass. Its resemblance to a UFO is probably no coincidence as its designer, George Van Tassel, claimed to have been given instructions by creatures from the planet Venus. Van Tassel devoted his life to working on the Integratron. He funded the project through annual Giant Rock Spacecraft Conventions, in which UFO enthusiasts from all over the United States came to share their stories of encounters with otherworldly intelligences. One such visitor was two-time presidential candidate Gabriel Green, who wrote about the convention in his book Let's Face the Facts About Flying Saucers.

The Integraton was intended to be a "high-voltage electrostatic generator" that would "recharge" one's cells and rejuvenate the mind and body. Van Tassel was convinced that the unique dome shape of the Integratron would draw upon naturally occurring electromagnetic phenomena that he believed to exist near Giant Rock.  The Integratron served as the base of operations for his "Ashtar Command" new age concepts until his death in 1978. Apparently the Integratron's rejuvenating effects were never enjoyed by its creator.

Afterward, the building was briefly considered for renovation into a disco, but fortunately the idea never materialized. Currently the Integratron is operated by a group that rents it out for restorative "sound baths", metaphysical gatherings, art installations, and musical events.

Would you like to know more?
-Visit to Integratron's official website.

Maniac Ape Strikes Again

Listen Shoughnessy, there's a gorilla on the loose and he may be our murderer!

It's in the air, for you and me.

Fallout is forever.



I'm Not Afraid of Flying Saucers

According to the most recent radio reports, it appears that Vermont is in for the final snowstorm of the season and it's going to be a big one. The chefs of the Hyper Kitchen are understandably concerned that they will be snowed-in, and that uncontrollable madness and potential axe-murders will be the result of this isolation from civilized society. As such, we thought it prudent to get the Monster of the Month segment done as quickly as possible before the inevitable slide into barbarism occurs.

If asked to draw an alien, it's a safe bet that you would produce an illustration of some macrocephalic, bug-eyed dwarf with gray-green skin and a smug expression. This image has become the archetype of extraterrestrials after being popularized by the X-Files, the Weekly World News, and various sci-fi flicks. These so-called "Grays" were based on descriptions of the otherworldly entities supposedly witnessed in actual alien abduction cases. In fact, the majority of these accounts include variations on the Little Gray Man. However, that isn't to say there aren't some exceptions and now and again a spectacular oddball will come along. The Flatwoods Monster springs immediately to mind, as do today's Monster of the Month: the Pascagoula Abductors.

On the night of October 11th, 1973 shipyard workers Calvin Parker and Charlie Hickson were fishing on the Pascagoula River when a UFO descended from the skies and deposited three truly unnatural humanoids. Standing at around five feet tall, they were described as having pale gray skin that was wrinkled like a rhino's hide. Their hands were fleshy "mittens" or "claws," and their stumpy legs remained motionless as they hovered through the air. Their faces consisted of little else than dour, slit-like mouths and several carrot-like shapes erupted from each side of the head. Moving in a clumsy, robotic fashion, these three strangers from beyond proceeded to levitate Parker and Hickson into their spaceship, whereupon the terrified humans were monitored by a baseball-shaped camera.

Do the Pascagoula Abductors represent the genuine face of alien life; having come from some unknowable world to float around and study us with silver spheres? According to those involved, both Parker and Hickson were genuinely hysterical and did not behave like a couple of hoaxers. After world of the abduction spread like wildfire across the Mississippi media, others came forward to saw that they had noticed some unusual activity in the sky around the vicinity of the purported abduction. Despite this, workers at two 24-hour toll-booths that were in the full view of the river never saw any UFO and security cameras at a nearby shipyard showed nothing out of the ordinary. Additionally, twenty years down the road Parker has significantly elaborated upon his original story and also claims to have had subsequent alien encounters with a tiny alien woman who apparently reads the Bible.

But don't take my word for it!

-You can read about it in a book.

Or, if you don't have fifty bucks to burn,
listen to this interview of Charlie Hickson.

The kids love gorillas.

It's complicated.

The Nowhere Pit

In 1997, the notoriously reliable Coast-to-Coast AM radio program featured an interview with a man named Mel Waters from Ellensburg, Washington. Mel announced that he had discovered a hole on his property said have been once used by rural townsfolk as a dump for broken appliances and garbage. This was no cellar hole though. No matter how much trash was thrown down into the darkness, the hole was never filled. It appeared to be a genuine abyss. Waters claimed to have lowered reel upon reel of fishing line down into the hole in hopes of measuring its depths, but gave up after exceeding fifteen miles in line length. Apart from its anomalous size, the hole had other mysterious properties. Mel related local stories about dead animals being thrown into the hole, only to return alive and well a few days later. However, these resurrected creatures behaved strangely and avoided humans. Waters always declined to describe the hole's exact location.

Mel Waters' story proved to be a popular one and he was invited back on the show on five subsequent occasions. Word of the hole spread, and Washington-area paranormal enthusiasts became quite excited. UFO followers, New Agers, and bigfoot trackers headed to Ellensburg in hopes of finding Waters' arcane hole. Several old wells were found, many of considerable depth, but nothing arcane was ever discovered.

In his later interviews, Waters mentioned that he had been threatened by soldiers dressed in yellow uniforms and that these men demand that he cease his examinations of the hole or they would frame him for crimes he did not commit. Perhaps these yellow soldiers eventually did away with the troublesome Mr. Waters for good or maybe he tripped and fell into the abyss, as he never again called in to Coast to Coast AM and later investigations revealed that no one by that name owned any land in Ellensburg. Despite this apparent disappearance, the story of the hole is sustained by a small but dedicated group of believers in the supernatural.

Would you like to know more?

-Read this article from the Seattle Times

-Read this article from the Seattle PI

260 Miles to...the Thing.

This morning, the letters of my Alpha-Bits breakfast cereal re-arranged themselves to spell out "D O O M." While I'm hardly the superstitious type, it did remind me that February had departed and it was time for another exciting Monster of the Month installment.

Between El Paso, Texas and Dragoon, Arizona, there are hundreds of billboards alongside Route I-10; advertising 24 hour gas stations, restaurants, music clubs, and tourist destinations. Among these are more than two hundred billboards, painted a distinctive yellow, that alert drivers to a particular attraction off of Exit 322. The attraction in question rests at a local gas station.

They call it...the Thing.

Referred to by various signs as the "What-is-it" or "The Mystery of the Desert," the Thing can viewed at the cost of only a single dollar (75 cents for those under eighteen). After paying at the register, visitors are lead to three shacks made of corrugated steel, connected by a path marked out with bright yellow monster footprints. The first shack contains various tableaus depicting scenes of torture. Carved wooden figures menace caged prisoners with hooks, branding irons, and lashes. Shack number two contains an odd assortment of dust-covered antiques on display, along with some peculiar folk-art and a 1937 Rolls Royce said to have been owned by Adolf Hitler.

The third shack is dominated by the final "What is it?" sign. Beneath it is a white coffin-like box with a large glass lid. Therein lies...the Thing: a shriveled, freakish figure that may or may not have once been human. Pictures can be found on the Internet, but we decided it was best to preserve the mystery of the Thing and not completely reveal its appearance.

The history of the Thing has some gaps, but it is commonly accepted that it was created in 1950 by Homer Tate, a lifelong builder of sideshow exhibits like shrunken heads, Fiji Mermaids, and alligator men. At some point, the Thing came into possession of attorney Thomas Prince, who established the exhibit in 1965. Since then,legions of tourists have been compelled to see the Thing for themselves; beckoned by hundreds of billboards.

And within its glass sarcophagus, the Thing silently waits for them.

Would you like to know more?
-Visit this Homer Tate tribute
-Read this article from Roadside America

Secret of the Space Tyrant!

Kalmykia is a small Buddhist republic in the greater Russian Federation. For 17 years, the nation was ruled by President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a multi-millionaire who made his fortune in the privatization of the Russian auto industry after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ilyumzhinov is also the head of the World Chess Federation and introduced compulsory chess-education in Kalmykian schools. His time as president was marked by ostentatious displays and charges of corruption. The people of Kalmykia remain the poorest in all of Russia, despite numerous expensive construction projects; most notably a still yet-to-be-completed "Chess City" which was intended to house and celebrate chess champions and facilitate competitions. In 1998, opposition journalist Larisa Yudina was found stabbed and bludgeoned to death after publishing articles critical of Ilyumzhinov. Her murderers were two former government aides to Ilyumzhinov, who promptly banned the publication of Yudina's newspaper. The organization Reporters without Borders currently rate Kalmykia as being "among the most repressive towards the media in the entire Russian Federation." If this wasn't enough, Ilyumzhinov also described having a friendly relationship with Libyan dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi and former Iraqi-dictator Saddam Hussien.

Despite these little controversies, Vladimir Putin, then president of Russia, seemed to think well of Ilyumzhinov. In 2002, after Putin abolished the direct election of regional leaders (with this power being relocated to the Russian presidency), he selected Ilyumshinov for another seven-year term. Ilyumzhinov's political future was assured, until 2010 when the Kalmykian president made a very serious gaffe on a televised interview.

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced that on September 17th, 1997, during a trip to Moscow, he was visited by aliens.

The abduction was a simple affair, really. As described by Ilyumzhinov, the aliens descended from the skies, took him from his apartment and brought him to "some star." Ilyumzhinov, fearing that he would be late for a meeting in Ukraine, asked the aliens if they could bring him back to Earth and they complied. During the voyage, Ilyumzhinov had the opportunity to talk at length with his newfound extraterrestrial friends and they implied that chess originated in outer space.

Shortly after the interview, Putin's successor President Dmitry Medvedev received a letter from an alarmed Russian MP Andre Lebedev, who asserted that Ilyumzhinov was unfit to rule Kalmykia. Rather than decrying Ilyumzhinov as delusional, Lebedev was primarily concerned that the Kalmykian president may have disclosed official secrets to the aliens and created a security risk for the Russian Federation. Lebedev went on to suggest that alien abduction protocol be drafted for government leaders to prevent breaches of sensitive information.

It was probably not a coincidence that after controlling Kalmykia since 1993, Ilyumzhinov announced that he would not run for another term. Medvedev's new appointed president of Kalmykia, Alexei Orlov, was installed into power on October 24th, 2010. Although he has lost his political power, Ilymzhinov continues to act as the president of the World Chess Federation. Chessplayers, it appears, are more familiar with insanity.

Would you like to know more?
-Read this article from the Guardian
-Read this article from the BBC
-Watch this interview with Illymzhinov

The View from the Atom is Gorgeous This Time of Year

In 1958, Brussels was home to the first World's Fair Exposition to come after World War II. The event was super-saturated with post-war optimism and futurist ideas, and despite that more than fifty years has past since the Fair took place, those ideas can still be seen as embodied by the Atomium; a 335-foot tall structure inspired by the iron atom. Consisting of eight enormous steel spheres joined by sixteen tubes, the Atomium dominates the landscape like an alien spaceship. Each sphere is nearly sixty feet across and they house exhibit halls and (at one time) a restaurant. Sadly, due to safety concerns the three top-most spheres are off limits to the general public.

The building was intended to be demolished at the completion of the fair, but it proved to be such an iconic work of architecture that it was allowed to remain. Currently, it's the most popular destination in the city and a holdover to a unique period in history.


Would you like to know more?
-Visit the official Atomium site