The Agents of F.L.A.S.K.

[Benny Holiday]

My grandfather was a magicican of some note back.in the 20s & 30s. Among his tricks was fortune telling, and he once told my Dad that it was all simple tricks & techniques, knowing how to "read" people - what they call "mentalism" today. Except, he said, for one weird incident, in which he distinctly had a vision that a woman's son would be shot dead. Now the idea was that you were only supposed to tell people good fortunes, but my grandfather was so affected by the vision he told the woman about it.

She returned a couple of weeks later, heartbroken, with the chilling news that her son had indeed been shot dead. Her husband and son had been on a hunting trip when her husband's gun was caught in a wire fence he was trying to get through and went off, killing the son. My grandfather was never able to explain how he saw that so clearly or where the impression came from.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Want to win a half million dollars? Write an essay that details “the best evidence for an after life.”

http://www.bigelowinstitute.org/

we got this, right?

 

[Harp]

Want to win a half million dollars? Write an essay that details “the best evidence for an after life.”

http://www.bigelowinstitute.org/

we got this, right?

Initial thoughts center focus the seventh game of the 2016 World Series. Maddon, Cubs skipper,
could not leave well enough alone and relieved Hendicks, all hell broke loose, Indians-the better
managed team move in for the kill when God opened up the heavens and rain fell on Cleveland;
next, obviously divinely inspired Cubs left fielder Jason Heyward delivers the now infamous sermon
in the dugout, all of Chicago; including criminals, drug dealing gangs, White Sox fans, and other
low life scum, pray fervently for the Cubs, Chicago and Cleveland take the field, Cubs kick ass.

Right, we got this.

 

[Tiki Tom]

So. ESP. I’ve heard a lot of good anecdotal stories that suggest there might be something to it. But here is a story that is tangible and verifiable (from today’s news):

"She has played the lottery for two decades using the same set of numbers that her husband dreamed about 20 years ago. In December, his dream became reality when his wife played those numbers and won a $60 million jackpot."

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/24/...million-lottery-husband-dream-trnd/index.html​

That is $60 million worth of believability. Why can’t I ever dream about winning Lotto numbers?

 

[Harp]

So. ESP. I’ve heard a lot of good anecdotal stories that suggest there might be something to it. But here is a story that is tangible and verifiable (from today’s news):

"She has played the lottery for two decades using the same set of numbers that her husband dreamed about 20 years ago. In December, his dream became reality when his wife played those numbers and won a $60 million jackpot."

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/24/...million-lottery-husband-dream-trnd/index.html​

That is $60 million worth of believability. Why can’t I ever dream about winning Lotto numbers?

My sister scored five numbers in the Illinois Lottery when I was in college drawing $264 GI Bill monthly.
I asked what and why those numbers. The date she and her husband met; his college football jersey
number; etc etc etc.... They had enough for a down payment on a house. ESP nada.

 

[Artifex]

One should probably bear in mind that it is extremely common for lottery participants to use numbers that are in some way significant to them. After all, humans are terrible random number generators!

We never hear about all those people who had a premonition that their number would win and it didn't - or who used the same special number for twenty years, and only won a bit less than they spent on tickets

 

[Tiki Tom]

Yup. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence. Everyone has their own threshold about when the odds are just way too long. Here are some more stories to make us wonder if there isn’t perhaps more to consciousness than is generally acknowledged:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/angelicaamartinez/creepy-premonition-stories

 

[Tiki Tom]

Still “on topic”: If you have 45 minutes or so, this NPR talk show delves into Project Star Gate in an easy-to-listen-to style. Very interesting and contains stuff I haven’t heard before (including the term “eight martini results.”*) If half this stuff is true, well, it bends our understanding of the world.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/04/18/esp-psychics-government

* - Test results that were so astonishing the monitor needed a few drinks to wrap his/her head around what had happened.

 

[Tiki Tom]

“We found a Thylacine.”
Talk is cheap. But hopefully we will be SEEING more details in the near future. Could be exciting. Possibly.

But wait... A little cold water is almost immediately thrown on the tale.

https://www.cnet.com/news/has-the-e...-in-the-wilds-of-australia-its-very-unlikely/

Yet such an obvious mistake also sounds unlikely. How could you confuse one of these with a Thylacine?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pademelon

Please show us the photos. We will judge for ourselves.

We will likely hear more about this.

 

[Benny Holiday]

I don't know about a thylacine, but looking at that video I think we've found Russell Crowe's long lost brother.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Judge for yourself...

 

[Tiki Tom]

Happy Friday! This print looks a little too good to be true. But here’s hoping. Is tearing up trashcans a new bigfoot behavior?

https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/326085/Bigfoot-in-East-Kelowna

 

[Tiki Tom]

What an extraordinary tale!

In short: Father and Son spend years searching for an amazing lost treasure, and then the FBI (allegedly) swoops in and steals the gold at the last minute.

First, the legend: History tells us that in 1863 a Union wagon train left Wheeling, West Virginia, carrying “52 bars of gold, each weighing 50 pounds” to be used to pay Union soldiers. After the gold-laden train arrived at St. Marys it was never seen again. It was recorded that the wagons and soldiers’ bodies were later recovered but the gold vanished.

Fast forward to today… A father and son who believe they found a legendary cache of buried Civil War-era gold have been fighting for access to government documents about an FBI dig at the remote Pennsylvania site. The FBI has said it found nothing at Dent’s run. Dennis and Kem Parada of Finders Keepers say the FBI is hiding the truth. On Thursday, an appeals court ordered Pennsylvania state officials to produce their communications with the FBI about the excavation, which was conducted on state-owned land in Elk County. The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources had refused to provide the documents…. However, clearly someone in the government was thinking about treasure. One of the leaked docs reads as follows: “We believe the cache itself is in the neighborhood of 3x5x8 (feet) to 5x5x8,” wrote K.T. Newton, an assistant U.S attorney in Philadelphia, in a 2018 email marked “Confidential.”

The Paradas have previously said they had an agreement with the FBI to watch the excavation. Officers instead confined them to their car for most of the dig, then, at the end of the second and final day, escorted them to the site — by that time a large, empty hole.

https://time.com/5945127/fbi-gold-pennsylvania-dents-run/​

My suggestion: Look for FBI agents/officials who are suddenly living well beyond their means.

An amazing yarn. I only wish that photo showed father and son in fedoras and sporting whips.

 

[Zombie_61]

...An amazing yarn. I only wish that photo showed father and son in fedoras and sporting whips.

Had that been the case it's doubtful anyone would consider them as anything but a couple of crackpots. I don't know much, but I know the "Official" types take themselves far too seriously.

 

[Tiki Tom]

This week's grab-bag of unconventional stuff...

1. Book Alert: “The Scientist and the Psychic”; in which a scientist writes a book about his relationship with his mom, who happens to have been a well-known Canadian clairvoyant/psychic. Did his mother really find missing dead bodies for the police? Get banned from casinos in Vegas for being able to pick slot machines that were about to pay out? Foresee events? Etc.?

https://nationalpost.com/entertainm...e-paranormal-was-something-not-to-be-believed​

Half memoir, half scientific inquiry, the book has gotten some good reviews…

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52579496-the-scientist-and-the-psychic
​

2. Remember those unexplained sounds emanating from the depths of the Pacific Ocean? Now we have strange large footprints on the deep sea bed…

Press report:

https://www.express.co.uk/news/scie...ional-Oceanographic-Centre-alien-science-news​

https://www.thekaijuologist.com/post/large-footprints-found​

Caused by deep diving whales? Hmmm. Umm, Okay.​

 

[Tiki Tom]

Return of the Curse of the Mummy?

The ancient curse reads: “Death will come on Quick wings for those who disturb the king’s peace.”

As we know, King Tut’s tomb was opened on 29 November 1922. Shortly thereafter

• George Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon, a financial backer of the excavation team who was present at the tomb's opening, died on 5 April 1923 after a mosquito bite became infected; he died 4 months and 7 days after the opening of the tomb.
• George Jay Gould I, a visitor to the tomb, died in the French Riviera on 16 May 1923 after he developed a fever following his visit.
• A. C. Mace, a member of Carter's excavation team, died in 1928 from arsenic poisoning.
• Captain The Hon. Richard Bethell, Carter's secretary, died on 15 November 1929: died in bed in a Mayfair club, the victim of a suspected smothering.

NOW there are plans to move 22 royal mummies in the next few days to a new home at the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. At the same time, Egypt has recently been experiencing a wave of disasters, from building collapses to fires to a fatal train crash. Not to mention that a giant ship recently blocked the Suez Canal.

Some superstitious types see malevolent ancient magic at work. Scoff if you will… But would you volunteer to drive the truck moving the mummies?

https://www.arabnews.com/node/1833981/middle-east

 

[Lean'n'mean]

^^^^^What we don't get to hear about are the thousands of Egyptologists, archeologists, technicians & hired hands that have nothing happen to them when messin' around with the mortal remains of the deseased Pharoahs.
Poor king Tut was in a bad way when he left this world to enter the next, because of consanguinity or 'keeping it in the family' as the ancient Egyptians called it..........it's doubtful he was in a position to cast a curse.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Scoff if you will… But would you volunteer to drive the truck moving the mummies?

What does the job pay?

 

[GHT]

What does the job pay?

That reminds me of a Monty Python gag. A sign reads: "The wages of sin is death." The graffiti underneath reads: "But the hours are very good."

 

[Tiki Tom]

The mummies of 18 kings and 4 queens of ancient Egypt have been paraded across Cairo, with marching bands and a 21 gun salute. Sorry I missed it. No mention of the curse.

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/egypt-mummies-cairo-parade/index.html