Crypto Happenings

This story has made the rounds for a bit, but I was sort of holding off to see if anything new came out of it. In July of 2007 in Cuero, Texas, two curious creatures were hit by cars in the area. Some believe them to be chupacabra, others a disheveled coyote. The linked article is from Earthfiles.com, and includes some investigation, photos and an interview with the rancher who was most involved. I had two other articles from a local paper and an AP feed that I wanted to include here for a bit of balance and I sat on it too long and they are no longer available.

Looking at the photos, the front legs look like they have been broken severely and healed poorly. In that situation a feral animal would learn to move with it's hind legs, I've seen domestic animals do the same thing. So the anatomy of shorter front legs when compared to the chupa-mythos on this animal leaves a little to be desired for me. It's certainly a curious specimen, and the interview is intriguing, but it seems a lot of possible research wasn't done for what may or may not be legitimate reasons.

Here's another one that is a bit more amusing than anything else....

Reported on the 18th of October out of Charleston, South Carolina a woman called 911 to report that she may have just hit a giraffe... in South Carolina. The caller says there were two crossing the road, she tried to avoid them and struck one damaging the side mirror of her car. She believed it to be a giraffe because it was ""bigger than a horse." Police who spoke to the woman felt it "may have been a large deer," the caller did not want to file an official report. There is an audio clip of the 911 call with the article. It is highly unlikely that there were two giraffe roaming along the highway in South Carolina that day, the eye witness reports it was larger than a horse, and the police admit all they have to go on is the witness account. I haven't seen any follow up on this, or even if the police did investigate what she may or may not have run into.

Philosophy of Ghosts

This is an excerpt I stumbled across of famed Deconstructionist and Philosopher Jacques Derrida's thoughts on ghosts. The clip is from the film "Ghost Dance," which he helped script, and it explores his idea that a ghost is a memory of something that was never real. I have not seen it in full myself yet. Derrida died in 2004.

Johnny One Leg's Great Adventure

This is one of those stories that is almost too absurd to believe...

John Wood had to have his leg amputated following a plane crash that killed three members of his family in 2004, including his father. If the story ended there we'd all stop for a second to feel for the guy and go back to what we were doing. The story however does not stop there.

When the leg was amputated Mr. Wood put in a request with the hospital that he wanted the leg after it was removed. It was his wish to have the bones to hold onto so that when he eventually died he could be cremated as a "full man." To his surprise, he was presented, not with the bones, but with the fleshy leg and foot combo by the funeral home attending to the matter. He kept the leg in his freezer and despite becoming a bit of a macabre joke, all was well.

Then Mr. Wood got behind on his bills and his electricity was shut off. It was decision time for Mr. Wood, but after the plane crash, loss of family and amputation he wasn't going to take another hit from the power man. He cut the screen from his front door, wrapped the leg in it and tied it to a a couple posts to let it dry in the sun. Once it dried he put the remains inside his barbecue smoker for safe keeping.

He eventually became homeless and was living out of a van which he also ultimately lost. His family had put all of his belongings in storage for him while he dealt with his situation. Eventually the bill for the storage space went unpaid and the contents of his storage space were put up for auction. Including the barbecue.

Enter Shannon Whisnant, the buyer of the smoker from the storage auction. He found the leg, and notified the police. Wood's family saw the story on the news and came forward with their story. Crazy eh? Well... there is more. After surrendering the leg to police Wishnant has since changed his mind and decided he paid for the leg and wants it back to use in a Halloween display in intends to charge admission to and is willing to go to court to fight to have it back. The police have said "he doesn't have a leg to stand on". (yes, the police really did say that) they will return the leg to Mr. Wood to hang on his rear view mirror or whatever his next great idea is.

- Prof. Gruntsplatter