Discussion about U.F.O.

An unidentified flying object (commonly abbreviated UFO) is a popular term for real or imagined aerial phenomena that are not readily identified. Research by military and civilian groups shows that after investigation UFOs are generally identified either directly or by applying Occam's Razor. Therefore some, such as the USAF, who originally invented the term in 1952, define UFOs as only those objects remaining unidentified after scrutiny by expert investigators, while other definitions call something a UFO from the time it is first reported as being unidentified.

In addition, the term UFO is also often used as a synonym for alien spacecraft in popular culture, though an anomaly may be classified as a UFO independently of opinion as to its origins. Because of the confusion of meanings that have become associated with UFO, some investigators instead prefer to use the broader term Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (or UAP).

All studies agree that only a tiny percentage of reported UFOs are actual hoaxes. The vast majority of reports are of something real, perhaps appearing anomalous, but most of these represent honest misidentifications of conventional objects such as aircraft, balloons, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets.

Modern reports and the first official investigations of UFOs began during World War II with sightings of so-called foo fighters by Allied airplane crews, and in 1946 with widespread sightings of European "ghost rockets". UFO reports became even more common after the first widely publicized United States UFO sighting, by private pilot Kenneth Arnold in mid 1947 (which gave rise to the popular terms "flying saucer" and "flying disc"). Millions of people believe they have seen UFOs since then and tens of thousands of such reports have been cataloged.

Unexplained aerial observations have been reported throughout history. Some were undoubtedly astronomical in nature: comets, bright meteors, one or more of the five planets which can be seen with the naked eye, planetary conjunctions, or atmospheric optical phenomena such as parhelia and lenticular clouds. An example is Halley's Comet, which was recorded first by Chinese astronomers in 240 B.C. and possibly as early as 467 B.C.

Other historical reports seem to defy prosaic explanation, but assessing such accounts is difficult. Whatever their actual cause, such sightings throughout history were often treated as supernatural portents, angels, or other religious omens. Journalist Daniela Giordano says many Medieval-era depictions of unusual aerial objects are difficult to interpret, but argues some that depict airborne saucers and domed-saucer shapes are often strikingly similar to UFO reports from later centuries. Art historians, however, explain those objects as religious symbols, often represented in many other paintings of Middle-Age and Renaissance.

Shen Kuo (1031–1095), a Song Chinese government scholar-official and prolific polymath inventor and scholar, wrote a vivid passage in his Dream Pool Essays (1088) about an unidentified flying object. He recorded the testimony of eyewitnesses in 11th century Anhui and Jiangsu (especially in the city of Yangzhou), who stated that a flying object with opening doors would shine a blinding light from its interior (from an object shaped like a pearl) that would cast shadows from trees for ten miles in radius, and was able to take off at tremendous speeds.

Pre-modern reports

Photo of an unidentified object New Hampshire in 1870; known as the mystery airship.

Before the terms "flying saucer" and "UFO" were coined in the late 1940s, there were a number of reports of unidentified aerial phenomena in the West. These reports date from the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth century. They include:

On January 25, 1878, The Denison Daily News wrote that local farmer John Martin had reported seeing a large, dark, circular flying object resembling a balloon flying "at wonderful speed."

On November 17, 1882, a UFO was observed by astronomer Edward Walter Maunder of the Greenwich Royal Observatory and some other European astronomers. Maunder in The Observatory reported "a strange celestial visitor" that was "disc-shaped", "torpedo-shaped", "spindle-shaped", or "just like a Zeppelin" dirigible (as he described it in 1916).

On February 28, 1904, there was a sighting by three crew members on the USS Supply 300 miles west of San Francisco, reported by Lt. Frank Schofield, later to become Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Battle Fleet. Schofield wrote of three bright red egg-shaped and circular objects flying in echelon formation that approached beneath the cloud layer, then changed course and "soared" above the clouds, departing directly away from the earth after two to three minutes. The largest had an apparent size of about six suns.

Drawing of E. W. Maunder's Nov. 17, 1882, "auroral beam" by astronomer Rand Capron, Guildown Observatory, Surrey, UK, who also observed it.

1916 and 1926: the three oldest known pilot UFO sightings, of 1305 catalogued by NARCAP. On January 31, 1916, a UK pilot near Rochford reported a row of lights, like lighted windows on a railway carriage, that rose and disappeared. In January 1926, a pilot reported six "flying manhole covers" between Wichita, Kansas and Colorado Springs, Colorado. In late September 1926, an airmail pilot over Nevada was forced to land by a huge, wingless cylindrical object.

On August 5, 1926, while traveling in the Humboldt Mountains of Tibet's Kokonor region, Nicholas Roerich reported that members of his expedition saw "something big and shiny reflecting sun, like a huge oval moving at great speed".

In the European theatre during World War II, "Foo-fighters" (balls of light and other shapes that followed aircraft) were reported by American pilots pilots but were dismissed by scientists as St. Elmo's Fire or illusions.

On February 25, 1942, the U.S. Army detected unidentified aircraft both visually and on radar over the Los Angeles, California region. No readily apparent explanation was offered. The incident later became known as the Battle of Los Angeles, or the West coast air raid.

In 1946, there were over 2000 reports of unidentified aircraft in the Scandinavian nations, along with isolated reports from France, Portugal, Italy and Greece, then referred to as "Russian hail", and later as "ghost rockets", because it was thought that these mysterious objects were Russian tests of captured German V1 or V2 rockets. Over 200 were tracked on radar and deemed to be "real physical objects" by the Swedish military.

The Kenneth Arnold sighting

This shows the report Kenneth Arnold filed in 1947 about his UFO sighting.

The post World War II UFO phase in the United States began with a famous sighting by American businessman Kenneth Arnold on June 24, 1947 while flying his private plane near Mount Rainier, Washington. He reported seeing nine brilliantly bright objects flying across the face of Rainier towards nearby Mount Adams at "an incredible speed", which he "calculated" as at least 1200 miles per hour by timing their travel between Rainier and Adams.

This shows Kenneth Arnold holding a picture of a drawing of the crescent shaped UFO he saw in 1947.

Although there were other 1947 U.S. sightings of similar objects that preceded this, it was Arnold's sighting that first received significant media attention and captured the public's imagination. Arnold described what he saw as being "flat like a pie pan", "shaped like saucers and were so thin I could barely see them...", "half-moon shaped, oval in front and convex in the rear. ...they looked like a big flat disk" (see Arnold's drawing at right), and flew "like a saucer would if you skipped it across the water". (One of the objects, however, he would describe later as being almost crescent-shaped, as shown in illustration at left.) Arnold's descriptions were widely reported and within a few days gave rise to the terms flying saucer and flying disk. Arnold's sighting was followed in the next few weeks by hundreds of other reported sightings, mostly in the U.S., but in other countries as well.

After reports of the Arnold sighting hit the media, other cases began to be reported in increasing numbers. In one instance a United Airlines crew sighting of nine more disc-like objects over Idaho on the evening of July 4. At the time, this sighting was even more widely reported than Arnold's and lent considerable credence to Arnold's report.

American UFO researcher Ted Bloecher, in his comprehensive review of newspaper reports (including cases that preceded Arnold's), found a sudden surge upwards in sightings on July 4, peaking on July 6–8. Bloecher noted that for the next few days most American newspapers were filled with front-page stories of the new "flying saucers" or "flying discs". Reports began to rapidly tail off after July 8, when officials began issuing press statements on the Roswell UFO incident, in which they explained the debris as being that of a weather balloon.

Over several years in the 1960s, Bloecher (aided by physicist James E. McDonald) discovered 853 flying disc sightings that year from 140 newspapers from Canada, Washington D.C, and every U.S. state except Montana.

UFO studies and result differences
It has been estimated from various studies (such as those cited below) that 50-90% of all reported UFO sightings are eventually identified, while 10-20% remain unidentified (the rest being "garbage cases" listed as having "insufficient information" to enable classification). Various studies (such as the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book) have also shown that only a small percentage of UFO reports are deliberate hoaxes (typically less than 1%). Instead, the vast majority are honest misidentifications of natural or man-made phenomena.


The following are some major scientific studies undertaken during the past 50 years regarding UFOs:


Project Blue Book Special Report No. 14 (referred to further below as BBSR) was a massive statistical study the Battelle Memorial Institute did for the USAF of 3,200 UFO cases between 1952 and 1954. Of these, 22% remained unidentified ("true UFOs"), using the stringent criteria that all four scientific analysts had to agree that the case had no prosaic explanation, whereas agreement of only two analysts was needed to list the case as explained. Another 69% were deemed identified, and for the remainder, 9%, there was insufficient information to make a determination.


The official French government UFO investigation (GEPAN/SEPRA), run within the French space agency CNES between 1977 and 2004, scientifically investigated about 6000 cases and found about 13% defied any rational explanation (UFOs), while about 46% were deemed readily identifiable. (The remainder, or 41%, lacked sufficient information.)


When the AIAA in 1971 reviewed the results of the 1966-1969 USAF-sponsored Condon Committee study, 30% of the 117 cases remained unexplained.


Of about 5,000 cases submitted to and studied by the civilian UFO organization NICAP, 16% were judged unknowns.

In contrast, much more conservative numbers for the percentage of UFOs were arrived at individually by astronomer Allan Hendry, who was the chief investigator for the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS). CUFOS was founded by astronomer Dr. Allen Hynek (who had been a consultant for the Air Force's Project Blue Book) to provide a serious scientific investigation into UFOs. Hendry spent 15 months personally investigating 1,307 UFO reports. 
In 1979, Hendry published his conclusions in The UFO Handbook: A Guide to Investigating, Evaluating, and Reporting UFO Sightings. Hendry admitted that he would like to find evidence for extraterrestrials but noted that the vast majority of cases had prosaic explanations. He deemed 89% IFOs and only 9% unidentified. If only "hardcore" cases -- well-documented events which defied any conceivable conventional explanation -- the figure for UFOs dropped to only 1.5%.

One possible reason for Hendry's more conservative results might be that he was operating from a very different set of data. Hendry examined almost exclusively civilian reports, mostly from inexperienced witnesses. In contrast, government studies, such as the U.S. Project Blue Book or the French GEPAN/SEPRA, or the civilian NICAP study, contained large numbers of civilian and military pilot sightings and other military sightings, usually considered to be higher evidentiary cases because of the greater experience of the witnesses and the presence of corroborating data such as radar.

As an example of the difference, military personnel made up only 1% of Hendry's witnesses, but 38% of the Battelle / Air Force study. The military witnesses also contributed a much higher percentage of "excellent" or "good" cases (58% for the military vs. only 33% for the civilian cases), which were more likely to be judged unknowns in the Battelle study. Overall, 29% of military cases were judged as unknowns vs. 17% for civilian cases.
Because the results for the Battelle BBSR study and Hendry's CUFOS study are readily available and contain many statistical breakdowns of cases, they will be contrasted in detail below.

Battelle Memorial Institute breakdown of cases

Out of 3,201 cases, 69% were judged to be identified, 22% were unidentified, and 9% had insufficient information to make a determination. A report classified as "unidentified" was defined as: "Those reports of sightings wherein the description of the object and its maneuvers could not be fitted to the pattern of any known object or phenomenon."
Only two of four scientific analysts had to agree for a case to be listed as an IFO, but all four analysts had to agree for it to be judged a UFO. About twice as many of the excellent cases were judged UFOs as the poorest cases. The difference was accounted for mostly by cases judged having "insufficient information", which was only 4% for the best cases but 21% for the worst. Quality of cases didn't seem to have much effect on the various category percentages for the IFOs, except in the "psychological" category, in which the poorest cases had much higher relative rates.

source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Tony_Sidaway/Unidentified_flying_object

Derro found living under the earth

Derro found living under the earth By JUSTIN MITCHELL

Back to Alien Races and Descriptions Burlington UFO and Paranormal Research Center WASHINGTON -- Weekly World News has uncovered the shocking discovery of a race of underground Mole People living 20 miles beneath the Earth, using secret tunnels to enter the United States! This discovery was made not by archaeologists, but by NASA scientists tunneling deep inside the Earth -- and they're trying to keep the existence of this race covered up! A NASA insider has leaked exclusive photos and information about these "cave people" under the condition of anonymity. "This story has to be told," says the source. "It's just too big to keep under wraps." The source excitedly spilled some big secrets about the Mole People. "They seem to be a friendly race," he says, "But they're very primitive. We're trying to communicate with them, but it's a complicated task since they don't speak English. "The Mole People, as we've nicknamed them, have easy access to the surface world," states the source. "That said, President Bush is handling the situation with an abundance of caution. "One wrong move could result in the creatures declaring war on the surface. We're not even sure how many of them there are. We've only seen one city so far, with an estimated 2,000 Mole People in residence. "But it's been suggested that there likely are several million of them living in sprawling and cavernous underground cities, scattered beneath the Earth's surface." The creatures have some strong similarities to humans -- but also a few significant differences. "Like us, they walk on two legs, but they're much taller than the average human -- standing 8 to 10 feet tall. Their fingers are claw-like. And their hands are webbed and designed for digging, not unlike the claws of a mole. "Their skin is super-tough. It has to withstand the intense heat and rugged conditions found below the Earth's surface." There seems to have been some contact and interplay between humans and the subterraneans at some point in history -- they speak a language similar to an old Navajo dialect. The source says the Mole People have ultradense musculature, making them capable of extreme violence. "When one member of the expedition lit a cigarette lighter, the Mole People interpreted it as a threat and attacked him. "They pounced on him like jungle cats, nearly snuffing him out along with his cigarette. He was lucky to escape with his life." The Mole People are reportedly very curious about the surface world -- our clothes, our gadgets and especially our foods. They particularly enjoy our fresh fruit. "I brought them some grapes, and they acted like it was a feast," the source says. "Obviously they can't grow fruit of their own, living 20 miles beneath the Earth's surface." NASA is reportedly eager to study the Mole People. "We want to find out everything about them -- what they eat, how they live, and, most importantly, what is their relationship to the human race. "We're curious if they are related to us in some way. Are they the genetic ancestors of modern man?" Experts say speculation has been widely varied on the Mole People. "They could be anything from Yetis to space aliens to descendants of the survivors of the lost city of Atlantis. Experts say this discovery has raised a number of serious and troubling questions, including: Are the towering inhabitants of the civilization hostile and warlike or friendly and cooperative? Will they make territorial claims on the surface of Earth? And what about crucial oil and mineral reserves below the surface? Who owns them: the Mole People -- or us? How is it that NASA -- whose official mission is to explore outer space -- discovered the underground culture? Tight-lippped NASA spokesmen would neither confirm nor deny the report. Pressured by reporters, a White House spokesman promised information "as I am authorized to provide it." But he warned: "That won't be anytime soon." According to the source, NASA "stumbled on" the underground civilization in August while running a classified project code-named Operation Mole Hole -- an initiative that reporters now believe may have involved spying on China, using new "underground technologies." "So far NASA has found secret cavern entrances to the underground world in areas around Washington State's Mount Shasta, Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and also scattered throughout the southwestern U.S.," said the source. For centuries, man has speculated about the existence of creatures beneath the Earth's surface. Now, for the first time, it seems those suspicions have been proven correct. But whether these creatures are benevolent or enemies of all mankind remains to be seen.

Webmaster Note: Personally I believe that if they are of a previous race from a forgotten time and have lived among or under us all this time, why would the government even think of them as enemies and fearful of an attack . Iam quite convinced that if this was their plan, they would have done it along time ago. Below I have submitted the Agartha Map and you can compare tunnel entrances located on it with the previous article. Here is the information I have on our Alien Description Site concerning the Dero and Tero, both subterrainian races. TEROS I found several descriptions describing the Teros and Deros . I will submit what has been presented to me and leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions. The First: A term describing various human groups who inhabit the cavern systems and re-established antediluvian cities beneath the North American continent. Many of these may be descended from early American colonists, while others are apparently descended from older civilizations such as ancient native Americans who went underground hundreds and/or thousands of years ago. The nemesis of the Tero are the 'Dero', which apparently consist of draconian or reptilian controlled elements. The Second: Explains the Teros as an underground civilization as well, but refer to them as non-humans. The Teros are more friendly and help keep the Deros , who are more demented from having excessive power. They live in underground tunnels, cities and sometimes under the sea. A problem I have with the Dero name NASA gives to the subterrean people they found is that by all of the descriptions I have found on the Dero they were more of a Dwarf-like creature...never have I seen one described as 8-10 foot tall. Let's check out some of the other inner-world races and see if we can find a more fitting description and name for what NASA has descovered.............

UNDERGROUND RACES: Beneath our Earth's surface is the 'Inner World' with seemingly endless natural caverns and artificial tunnels spreading out and down into the earth. These passages have their own peculiar underground ecology of water-dwellers and lichens, mosses and fungi. In its upper levels, this dark realm is inhabited by humanoids of every sort. Farther down are stranger races, most hostile to surface-dwellers. Drow, the evil dark elves, thrive in ''Inner Earth'. They trade with or war on other races there and on the surface, and are renowned as spellcasters. Duergar, the gray dwarves, inhabit deep regions and seldom venture to the surface. Organized and intelligent, they easily hold their own against other subterranean races. They are masters of stone- and metalworking, but hate their cousins, the hill and mountain dwarves. The stunted dwarflike derro are among the worst of the Under-Oerth races. They crave magic, power and slaves. They are hated and distrusted even by other evil races, which avoid them. Every twenty years, derro explode outward through the underworld, attacking anything they encounter and destroying or enslaving weaker races. Jermlaine look like miniature humans that stand twelve to eighteen inches high. These troublesome gremlins love to swarm and rob larger beings, leaving the stripped victims for monsters to find. Jermlaine like rats, and share their lairs. Troglodytes are manlike reptiles that dwell underground. These creatures emit a nasty musk in battle that disables humans, demihumans and humanoids, allowing the trogs to kill quickly and take the bodies back to their lair for a feast. For more information on human abductions by these creatures click here Kuo-toa are fish-men, the descendants of an ancient race almost completely destroyed by humanity. The few survivors found refuge beneath the earth. Now they struggle to hold their own against smarter, faster, more powerful races. Wererats are frequently seen in the upper levels of the Inner Earth, particularly beneath the Hellfurnaces and in the sewers of cities and towns they have infiltrated in their human forms. They conduct trade with other races, both under-and aboveground. Beholders may have come to Earth from another world or plane. A beholder resembles a sphere about four to six feet across, with a single huge eye, a fang-filled mouth and ten eyestalks crowning the sphere. A beholder can levitate to any height, floating at the speed of a slowly walking human. Xenophobic and cruel, beholders cast powerful magical rays from their eyestalks; the central eye can cancel out magic used against the beholder. Very few people ever ever see a Beholder. Fewer still will ever live to tell their tale. But everyone knows of the existence of them so terrifying is their reputation. Mind flayers, also known as illithids, are human size and vaguely humanoid in appearance. Their slimy skin is violet-colored and each hand has three fingers and a thumb. The mind flayer's head resembles an octopus: four tentacles hang around its lamprey-like mouth, and its two huge eyes have no visible pupils. The mind flayer uses the tentacles to grasp a victims head and flays open the unfortunate's skull, eating the brain. Many mind flayers can cast magical spells, but some also have dramatic mental powers called psionics, with which they can enslave or brainwash others. Mind flayers live in great underground cities; one such city apparently exists beneath the Hellfurnaces. They are not believed native to Earth. Svirfneblin, the deep gnomes, are a good underworld race. These hairless, hunched gnomes defend themselves against the hordes of evil.

source : http://www.burlingtonnews.net/derros.html

Our Future in 2012

An apocalyptic view of Seattle sinking into the Puget Sound, will something like this happen in 2012?

There have been countless theories throughout time about how the world will end and how -- ­or if -- life will cease to exist. At the turn of the 21st century, conspiracy theorists claimed that the Y2K bug was only a small part of the impending devastation: The new century would bring about total destruction, and no one would survive. Others believe that Earth is slated for another ice age, which will kill off all living things. And according to astronomers, billions of years from now, the s­un will become a red giant, expanding to a size larger than the Earth's orbit and consuming Earth in the process. Even if the planet somehow survives, the sun will eventually shrink, becoming a white dwarf and gradually cooling off until it can no longer warm anything in the solar system.

In 2006, Mel Gibson released a movie about the Mayan civilization. "Apocalypto" follows one man's journey from slavery back to his family. During the course of the movie, a young woman prophesizes that a man will bring an end to the Mayans and wipe out their civilization. But in the real world, some speculators don't believe a man will be the end of the Mayans -- instead, they think a celestial event will be the cause. The Mayan calendar even gives us a potential date for the theoretical downfall: Dec. 21, 2012.

Many doomsayers hang onto the idea that this ancient calendar is a ticking time bomb signaling our fast-approaching demise during the 2012 winter solstice. While scholars pay little heed to these fervent forecasts, they're still interested in the calendar. For example, there is some lingering disagreement over which day marks the exact beginning of the Mayan calendar. One commonly referenced date is Aug. 11, 3114 B.C., although other researchers pinpoint dates such as Aug. 13, 3114 B.C. (which would make Dec. 23 the big day.)

So how does the Mayan calendar system work? Do the Mayans really believe we have only a limited time left on Earth, and if so, why would Dec. 21, 2012, be the appointed doomsday? Read on to find out if the end is near.

Complicated Calendars

The Maya city of Chichén Itzá, of which this precise arrangement of columns is but a small part, was itself laid out like an enormous calendar.

The May­ans have a complex system of calendars, and each calendar has a differen­t purpose. Some of the more commonly known Mayan calendars are:

The Tzolk'in Calendar: Used primarily in crop rotation, this calendar allows one 260-day period to ready the land and one 260-day period to grow and harvest the corn. It was also considered a sacred calendar by the Mayans and determined when their rituals occurred. The Tzolk'in uses 20 days signs coupled with 13 number signs to produce the 260 uniquely identified days.

The Haab Calendar: This calendar lasts 360 days and breaks down into 18 20-day months, with a five-day waiting period at the end that was considered extremely unlucky called the wayeb (also sometimes spelled uayeb). Similar to the Gregorian calendar we use today, the Haab calendar follows the cycle of the sun.

The Calendar Round: The Calendar Round gave the Mayans a way to record history in longer increments. By combining the Tzolk'in and Haab calendars, they had 18,980 uniquely designated days, or in other words, 52 years.

Fifty-two years was longer than the Mayans' average life span at the time of the Calendar Round's creation. However, Mayan historians wanted to create a calendar that could be used to record history for centuries. This led to the Long Count calendar. The Long Count multiplies up from the other calendar systems and incorporates an era called the Great Cycle, which lasts approximately 5,125 years [source: Malmström]. The idea that the world is on its way to an end comes from the Long Count.

The Long Count to the End

The Mayans built fantastic temples like this one in Tik'al, Guatemala. Exactly what caused the great civilization to decline is still a mystery.

Use of the Long Count calendar dwindled after the Mayan Classic period and was apparently nonexistent by the time the Spanish arrived. Since no extant records exist for researchers to draw direct correlations, many have attempted to extrapolate from the progression of the other Mayan calendar records using logical deductions. Through this work, it's been determined that the beginning of the current Great Cycle likely fell on Aug. 11, 3114 B.C., making th­e end of the Great Cycle land on -- you guessed it -- Dec. 21, 2012. (Or potentially Aug. 13 and Dec. 23, depending on how scholars calculate it.) Apocalypse aficionados and others anticipating a grand climactic change seem to be especially set on designating Dec. 21 the big day. After all, it does sound decidedly sexier to say the world might meet disaster on the winter solstice as opposed to a rather insignificant date two days later.

Regardless of this debate, the Mayan people don't actually believe the world is going to perish at the end of this cycle. In fact, they believe it's a time of great celebration and luck when the planet lasts through a full Great Cycle. And after all, it seems we've made it safely through past Great Cycles (it's debated how many cycles there have been) and the world is still turning. Also, to help put this in perspective, chances are good you own a calendar that stops short on Dec. 31 of this year -- does that strike you as a herald of disaster or just the sign of a new beginning?

Devastation Predictions:

Nostrad­amus

Michel de Nostredame, also known as Nostradamus, was a 16th-century physician who also had a penchant for writing. He penned a series of prophecies, focusing prima­rily on wars, disasters and destruction. Using metaphors and mystery, Nostradamus wrote these prophecies as quatrains, or four-line verses. His followers say he predicted the rise of Hitler, the Apollo moon landing and the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. His critics say his writings are nothing more than ancient horoscopes, written to tell of events that undoubtedly will occur again and again. To find out more about Nostradamus and his prophecies, read our article on How Nostradamus Works.

Proponents of an impending December doomsday, however, believe the world will end and all living things on Earth will die. Other people believe it will signify a time of great spiritual awakening or a massive shift in global consciousness. But is this monumental turn of a vast page in the Mayan Long Count calendar really going to end the world or radically alter worldwide perspectives? Probably not. Most scholars see this theory as an example of extremists using misinformation and nonsense to cash in on the fears of others or tailor an overdue apocalyptic event to fit their own pre-existing belief system [sources: NASA, Tulane University, New York Times].

So what will happen on Dec. 21, 2012? It's likely that the day will pass with no major events at all. People may not even realize it's the projected doomsday, although that's unlikely considering how much press it will probably garner. We'll just have to wait and see what happens -- and hopefully still be here to update this article on Dec. 22, 2012.­­

source : http://history.howstuffworks.com/central-american-history/world-end-in-20121.htm

The History of Dracula

It wasn't until he came across documents during his research at the British Museum that novelist Bram Stoker found the man who would serve as the perfect foundation for his classic gothic horror character, Count Dracula [source: Kent State University. Vlad Tepes (pronounced te'-pish), a 15th-century prince from the dark, forested mountains of Eastern Europe was his inspiration.

.­Accounts of Vlad Tepes' cruelty have been distorted throughout history, and Stoker's adaption seemed to help perpetrate these distortions. The prince was bestowed with the surname "Tepes" ("Impaler") based on his fondness for impaling victims. It was his father from whom he proudly took the name "Dracula" ("Son of the Dragon"). Tepes was no vampire, although one historic account details how he drank a victim's blood. And Tepes certainly wasn't immortal (it's unclear how he died), as Stoker's count is.

But Stoker wasn't just inspired by the prince's name. Tepes' reign was a cruel and bloody one.

When investigating sensational history, it's easy to find grossly exaggerated tales that obscure the facts. In the rare case of Vlad Tepes, little exaggeration is needed. Tens of thousands of people were tortured, maimed or died by his hand or command. This isn't in dispute -- it's accounts of Tepes' motives where distortion tends to emerge.

As the prince of Wallachia, a region in Romania, and a defender of Christianity against the Muslim Turks, Tepes made many powerful enemies. His enemies spread propaganda about the ruler, which inadvertently assured Tepes' place in history. Tepes' deeds and atrocities made such an impression, in fact, that an unflattering epic poem about him was published on the Gutenberg printing press just eight years after the same moveable type was used to print the first Bible. Had his detractors not campaigned against him, generating publications that survive today, Tepes' legacy may have been lost.

So who was this man? Was Tepes as bloodthirsty in real life as his fictional counterpart is in movies and books? The short answer is yes -- even more so.


Vlad the Impaler

Bram Stoker's fictionalization of Vlad Tepes spurred scholarly research into the real man. Research has attempted to show the motives for his murderousness. Tepes desired a unified Romania free from the outside influences of Gerand the Turks.

His consolidation of local power was harsh. On Easter Day, 1456, Tepes invited regional nobility to dine with him. Following the meal, he had the old and infirm murdered and marched the remaining guests 50 miles to a dilapidated castle, which he took as his own. There, he put the nobility to hard labor restoring it. Most died during from maltreatment and exhaustion; those who didn't were impaled alive on spikes outside the castle when restorations were complete.

A painting of Vlad (Dracula) Tepes, the 15th-century prince who inspired Bram Stoker's fictional vampireVlad's father, Vlad Dracul, ruled Wallachia from 1436 to 1442, was unseated by his countrymen and regained the throne from 1443 to 1446. Vlad Tepes served in the same position from 1456 to 1462. When he was inducted into the Order of the Dragon, a secretive organization of Christian knights, he took the name "Dracula." The name would be replaced by the nickname "Tepes" from those who feared and hated him.

Vlad Dracula's social ideologies were contradictory. He wanted to be remembered as a saint -- he murdered a Catholic monk who denied that Tepes would be canonized. Yet his behavior was hardly saintly. Having come to view destitution as a scourge on his domain, Tepes invited his poverty-stricken subjects to dine with him. At the end of the dinner, he had the dining room locked, and his guards set fire to it, killing those inside

.His foreign enemies suffered equal (if not worse) fates than his subjects. For four years, Tepes and his younger brother were imprisoned by Turks after their father sent them as tribute to the sultan Mehmet. Tepes' father had become a puppet leader of Wallachia for the Turks, and his sons were imprisoned to guarantee their father's continued loyalty. Tepes was meant to become a future puppet leader like his father. But rather than keep allegiance to the Turks, he resolved to fight them.

When he became prince in 1456, Tepes took strides toward Romanian independence. He developed biological warfare, sending subjects disguised as Turks, stricken with infectious disease, to live among the armies in their camps. For those Turks who survived, when they invaded the capital of Wallachia, Tirgoviste, they found a forest (about one-half mile by two miles in dimension) made entirely of corpses of captured prisoners impaled on spikes. The invaders left quickly.

Impalement, the method of execution that gave Tepes his name, is an extraordinarily painful way to die. Tepes ensured maximum pain when he impaled his victims by rounding the ends of spikes and oiling them to reduce tearing. Spikes were introduced into the victim's anus and pushed in until the other end emerged from the victim's mouth. The impaled victim was then hoisted vertically, and left to writhe in agony, sometimes for days.

The aged vampire in Stoker's novel required blood to stay alive; Tepes shed blood by the bucketful to promote his lifelong goals. Conservative estimates put his victim count at 40,000. It's also significant to note that eating and death were so intertwined in Tepes' life. He often dined with guests before killing them, and he was reputed to have taken meals outdoors, among impaled dead and dying.

Why is blood such a significant symbol of vitality and power in fiction, allegory and reality? Find out about the symbolism of blood on the next page.

Blood: Symbol of Life

Most Christians wouldn't infer vampirism from the story of the Last Supper. Christ offers the chalice containing wine to signify his blood to his disciples and directs them to drink it. But there is a parallel between the Eucharist and vampire legends: Both suggest that the consumption of blood is an act of obtaining vitality.

Christ told his disciples he'd shed his blood for their forgiveness. By drinking it, they were taking part in his everlasting divinity. Similarly, through ingesting the blood of others, vampires of lore may live eternally here on Earth.

According to some sources, blood is also reputed for its mythic ability to maintain beauty. When Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula fed on blood, his appearance reverted to a handsome, youthful version of himself. The 16th-century Hungarian countess Elizabeth Bathory is said to have used the blood of her murdered victims to promote her skin's health. Some Renaissance-era women believed applying the blood of doves to their skin could maintain beauty. And even today, some women apply rouge or pinch their cheeks to create the appearance of a healthy flush.

Anthropophagy (cannibalism) is another example of the symbolic (and literal) vitality derived from eating the flesh or drinking the blood of others. Through cannibalism, symbolic vitality generally comes from two sources: kin and the vanquished. Endocannibalism refers to eating the flesh of a member of one's group. In some cultures, eating the flesh of a relative serves as a way of carrying on the line of ancestors. Exocannibalism is eating the flesh of one outside the eater's group, like a conquered foe. Tepes committed exocannibalism in one account when he ingested the blood of captured Turks, although there's no evidence he believed he gained any tangible power from the act. Rather, he ate blood-dipped bread from a bowl as a signal of what the future held in store for the Turks.

Cannibalism is associated with madness in the modern, developed world. German Armin Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter for killing and eating another, willing human.

Instances of nonritual cannibalism also produce vitality. Perhaps the most famous case of cannibalism took place in 1972, when an airplane carrying the Uruguayan national soccer team crashed in the Andes Mountains. Several members were left alive and resorted to cannibalizing their dead teammates to survive for more than two months.

It appears our ancestors took some time to develop mores -- cultural restrictions -- against cannibalism. Evidence of anthropophagy as recent as around A.D. 1100 has been uncovered at Anasazi settlements in the Southwestern United States. And genetic researchers have found a gene variant spread among humans throughout the world that suggests we descended from cannibals.

Vampire legends, then, may be allegories for real-life monsters -- perhaps like Vlad Tepes -- that have refused to honor the sacred taboo against consuming the vitality of other humans.

source : http://history.howstuffworks.com/european-history/real-count-dracula.htm

World of Werewolves and Lycans

Werewolves, also known as lycanthropes from the Greek λυκάνθρωπος, λύκος (wolf) and άνθρωπος (human, man), are mythological or folkloric humans with the ability to shape shift into wolves or anthropomorphic wolf-like creatures, either purposely, by being bitten or scratched by another werewolf, or after being placed under a curse. This transformation is often associated with the appearance of the full moon, as popularly noted by the medieval chronicler Gervase of Tilbury, although it may have been recognized in earlier times among the ancient Greeks through the writings of Petronius.


Werewolves are often granted extra-human strength and senses, far beyond those of both wolves or men. The werewolf is generally held as a European character, although its lore spread through the world in later times. Shape-shifters, similar to werewolves, are common in tales from all over the world, most notably amongst the American Indians, though most of them involve animal forms other than wolves.

Werewolves are a frequent subject of modern fictional books, although fictional werewolves have been attributed traits distinct from those of original folklore, most notably the vulnerability to silver bullets. Werewolves continue to endure in modern culture and fiction, with books, films and television shows cementing the werewolf's stance as a dominant figure in horror.

Etymology

The word werewolf is thought to derive from Old English wer (or were) and wulf. The first part, wer, translates as "man" (in the sense of male human, not the race of humanity). It has cognates in several Germanic languages including Gothic wair, Old High German wer, and Old Norse verr, as well as in other Indo-European languages, such as Sanskrit 'vira', Latin vir, Irish fear, Lithuanian vyras, and Welsh gŵr, which have the same meaning. The second half, wulf, is the ancestor of modern English "wolf"; in some cases it also had the general meaning "beast." An alternative etymology derives the first part from Old English weri (to wear); the full form in this case would be glossed as wearer of wolf skin. Related to this interpretation is Old Norse ulfhednar, which denoted lupine equivalents of the berserker, said to wear a bearskin in battle.

Yet other sources derive the word from warg-wolf, where warg (or later werg and wero) is cognate with Old Norse vargr, meaning "rogue," "outlaw," or, euphemistically, "wolf".

A Vargulf was the kind of wolf that slaughtered many members of a flock or herd but ate little of the kill. This was a serious problem for herders, who had to somehow destroy the rogue wolf before it destroyed the entire flock or herd. The term Warg was used in Old English for this kind of wolf (see J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit) and for what would now be called a serial killer[citation needed]. Possibly related is the fact that, in Norse society, an outlaw (who could be murdered with no legal repercussions and was forbidden to receive aid) was typically called vargr, or "wolf."

The term lycanthropy, a synonym, comes from Ancient Greek lykánthropos (λυκάνθρωπος): λύκος, lýkos ("wolf") + άνθρωπος, ánthrōpos ("human"). A compound of which "lyc-" derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *wlkwo-, meaning "wolf") formally denotes the "wolf - man" transformation. Lycanthropy is but one form of therianthropy, the ability to metamorphose into animals in general. The term therianthrope literally means "beast-man." The word has also been linked to the original werewolf of classical mythology, Lycaon, a king of Arcadia who, according to Ovid's Metamorphoses, was turned into a ravenous wolf in retribution for attempting to serve his own son to visiting Zeus in an attempt to disprove the god's divinity.

There is also a mental illness called lycanthropy in which a patient believes he or she is, or has transformed into, an animal and behaves accordingly. This is sometimes referred to as clinical lycanthropy to distinguish it from its use in legends. Despite its origin as a term for man-wolf transformations only, lycanthropy is used in this sense for animals of any type. This broader meaning is often used in modern fictional references, such as in roleplaying game culture.

Another ancient term for shapeshifting between any animal forms is versipellis, from which the English words turnskin and turncoat are derived. This Latin word is similar in meaning as words used for werewolves and other shapeshifters in Russian (oboroten) and Old Norse (hamrammr).

The French name for a werewolf, sometimes used in English, is loup-garou, from the Latin noun lupus meaning wolf. The second element is thought to be from Old French garoul meaning "werewolf." This in turn is most likely from Frankish *wer-wulf meaning "man-wolf."Folk beliefs


Description and common attributes

Werewolves were said to bear tell-tale traits in European folklore. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the pretense that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognised by bristles under the tongue. The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though they are most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that they have no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), and that they retain human eyes and voice. After returning to their human forms, werewolves are usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated and undergoing painful nervous depression. Many historical werewolves were written to have suffered severe melancholia and manic depression, being bitterly conscious of their crimes. One universally reviled trait in medieval Europe was the werewolf's habit of devouring recently buried corpses, a trait which is documented extensively, particularly in the Annales Medico-psychologiques in the 19th century. Fennoscandian werewolves were usually old women who possessed poison coated claws and had the ability to paralyse cattle and children with their gaze. Serbian vulkodlaks traditionally had the habit of congregating annually in the winter months, where they would strip off their wolf skins and hang them from trees. They would then get a hold of another vulkodlaks skin and burn it, releasing the vulkodlak from whom the skin came from its curse. The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no.

Becoming a werewolf various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described). In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve. To drink rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis. The 16th century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia.

In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man could turn into a werewolf if he, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his face.

In Galician, Portuguese, and Brazilian folklore, it is the seventh of the sons (but sometimes the eighth child, a boy, after a line of seven daughters) who becomes a werewolf (Lobisomem).[citation needed] In Portugal, the seventh daughter is supposed to become a witch and the seventh son a werewolf; the seventh son often gets the Christian name "Bento" (Portuguese form of "Benedict", meaning "blessed") as this is believed to prevent him from becoming a werewolf later in life. The belief in the curse of the seventh son was so widespread in Northern Argentina (where the werewolf is called the lobizón), that seventh sons were frequently abandoned, ceded in adoption, or killed. A 1920 law decreed that the President of Argentina is the official godfather of every seventh son. Thus, the State gives a seventh son one gold medal in his baptism and a scholarship until his twenty first year. This effectively ended the abandonments, but there still persists a tradition in which the President godfathers seventh sons.

In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628),

There are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures.

Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote.

The phenomenon of repercussion, the power of animal metamorphosis, or of sending out a familiar, real or spiritual, as a messenger, and the supernormal powers conferred by association with such a familiar, are also attributed to the magician, male and female, all the world over; and witch superstitions are closely parallel to, if not identical with, lycanthropic beliefs, the occasional involuntary character of lycanthropy being almost the sole distinguishing feature. In another direction the phenomenon of repercussion is asserted to manifest itself in connection with the bush-soul of the West African and the nagual of Central America; but though there is no line of demarcation to be drawn on logical grounds, the assumed power of the magician and the intimate association of the bush-soul or the nagual with a human being are not termed lycanthropy. Nevertheless it will be well to touch on both these beliefs here.

The curse of lycanthropy was also considered by some scholars as being a divine punishment. Werewolf literature shows many examples of God or saints allegedly cursing those who invoked their wrath with werewolfism. Those who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church were also said to become werewolves.

The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh king Vereticus into a wolf; Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men supposedly became werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.

A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of a man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God. He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the abundance of the earth down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolatry and superstitious belief.

A distinction is often made between voluntary and involuntary werewolves. The former are generally thought to have made a pact, usually with the Devil, and morph into werewolves at night to indulge in nefarious acts. Involuntary werewolves, on the other hand, are werewolves by an accident of birth or health. In some cultures, individuals born during a new moon or suffering from epilepsy were considered likely to be werewolves.

Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern horror fiction, but this kind of transmission is rare in legend, unlike the case in vampirism.

Even if the denotation of lycanthropy is limited to the wolf-metamorphosis of living human beings, the beliefs classed together under this head are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied. The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whom it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.


Vulnerabilities

Most modern fiction describes werewolves as vulnerable to silver weapons and highly resistant to other attacks. This feature does not appear in stories about werewolves before the 19th century. (The claim that the Beast of Gévaudan, an 18th century wolf or wolf-like creature, was shot by a silver bullet appears to have been introduced by novelists retelling the story from 1935 onwards and not in earlier versions.)

Unlike vampires, they are not generally thought to be harmed by religious artifacts such as crucifixes and holy water. In many countries, rye and mistletoe were considered effective safeguards against werewolf attacks. Mountain ash is also considered effective, with one Belgian superstition stating that no house was safe unless under the shade of a mountain ash. In some legends, werewolves have an aversion to wolfsbane.


Remedies

Various methods have existed for removing the werewolf form. In antiquity, the Ancient Greeks and Romans believed in the power of exhaustion in curing people of lycanthropy. The victim would be subjected to long periods of physical activity in the hope of being purged of the malady. This practice stemmed from the fact that many alleged werewolves would be left feeling weak and debilitated after committing depredations.

In medieval Europe, traditionally, there are three methods one can use to cure a victim of werewolfism; medicinally, surgically or by exorcism. However, many of the cures advocated by medieval medical practitioners proved fatal to the patients. A Sicilian belief of Arabic origin holds that a werewolf can be cured of its ailment by striking it on the forehead or scalp with a knife. Another belief from the same culture involves the piercing of the werewolf's hands with nails. Sometimes, less extreme methods were used. In the German lowland of Schleswig-Holstein, a werewolf could be cured if one were to simply address it three times by its Christian name, while one Danish belief holds that simply scolding a werewolf will cure it. Conversion to Christianity is also a common method of removing werewolfism in the medieval period. A devotion to St. Hubert has also been cited as both cure for and protection from lycanthropes.

Classical literature

Zeus turning Lycaon into a wolf, engraving by Hendrik Goltzius.


Herodotus in his Histories wrote that the Neuri, a tribe he places to the north-east of Scythia, were transformed into wolves once every nine years. These rituals were apparently meant to symbolise earthly regeneration and rebirth.Virgil was also familiar with human beings transforming into wolves.

In Greek mythology, the story of Lycaon provides one of the earliest examples of a werewolf legend. According to one version, Lycaon was transformed into a wolf as a result of eating human flesh; one of those who were present at periodical sacrifice on Mount Lycæon was said to suffer a similar fate.

In Metamorphoses, the Roman poet Ovid vividly described stories of men who roamed the woods of Arcadia in the form of wolves.

The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder, relates two tales of lycanthropy. Quoting Euanthes, he mentions a man who hung his clothes on an ash tree and swam across an Arcadian lake, transforming him into a wolf. On the condition that he attacked no human being for nine years, he would be free to swim back across the lake to resume human form. Pliny also quotes Agriopas regarding a tale of a man who was turned into a wolf after tasting the entrails of a human child.

In the Latin work of prose, the Satyricon, written about 60 C.E. by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, one of the characters, Niceros, tells a story at a banquet about a friend who turned into a wolf (chs. 61-62). He describes the incident as follows, "When I look for my buddy I see he'd stripped and piled his clothes by the roadside...He pees in a circle round his clothes and then, just like that, turns into a wolf!...after he turned into a wolf he started howling and then ran off into the woods."


European cultures

Many European countries and cultures influenced by them have stories of werewolves, including Albania (oik), Armenia (mardagayl) France (loup-garou), Greece (lycanthropos), Spain (hombre lobo), Argentina (lobizón), Mexico (hombre lobo and nahual), Bulgaria (върколак - varkolak), Turkey (kurtadam), Czech Republic/Slovakia (vlkodlak), Serbia/Montenegro/Bosnia (vukodlak, вукодлак), Belarus (vaukalak, ваўкалак), Russia (vourdalak, оборотень), Ukraine (vovkulak(a), vurdalak(a), vovkun, перевертень), Croatia (vukodlak), Poland (wilkołak), Romania (vârcolac, priculici), Macedonia (vrkolak), Slovenia (volkodlak), Scotland (werewolf, wulver), England (werewolf), Ireland (faoladh or conriocht), Germany (Werwolf), the Netherlands (weerwolf), Denmark/Sweden/Norway (Varulv), Norway/Iceland (kveld-ulf, varúlfur), Galicia (lobishome), Portugal/Brazil (lobisomem), Lithuania (vilkolakis and vilkatlakis), Latvia (vilkatis and vilkacis), Andorra/Catalonia (home llop), Hungary (Vérfarkas and Farkasember), Estonia (libahunt), Finland (ihmissusi and vironsusi), and Italy (lupo mannaro). In northern Europe, there are also tales about people changing into animals including bears, as well as wolves.

Werewolves in European tradition were mostly evil men who terrorized people in the form of wolves on command of the Devil, though there were rare narratives of people being transformed involuntarily. In the 10 century, they were given the binomial name of melancholia canina and in the 14th century, daemonium lupum. In Marie de France's poem Bisclavret (c. 1200), the nobleman Bizuneh, for reasons not described in the lai, had to transform into a wolf every week. When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter. His behaviour at court was so much gentler than when his wife and her new husband appeared at court, that his hateful attack on the couple was deemed justly motivated, and the truth was revealed. Other tales of this sort include the German fairy tales Märchen, in which several aristocrats temporarily transform into beasts. See Snow White and Rose Red, where the tame bear is really a bewitched prince, and The Golden Bird where the talking fox is also a man.

Werewolf folklore is rare in England, possibly because wolves had been eradicated by authorities in the Anglo-Saxon period.

Harald I of Norway is known to have had a body of Úlfhednar (wolf coated), which are mentioned in Vatnsdœla saga, Haraldskvæði, and the Völsunga saga resemble some werewolf legends. The Úlfhednar were fighters similar to the berserkers, though they dressed in wolf hides rather than those of bears and were reputed to channel the spirits of these animals to enhance effectiveness in battle. These warriors were resistant to pain and killed viciously in battle, much like wild animals. Ulfhednar and berserkers are closely associated with the Norse god Odin.

In Latvian folklore, a vilkacis was someone who transformed into a wolf-like monster, which could be benevolent at times. Another collection of stories concern the skin-walkers. The vilkacis and skin-walkers probably have a common origin in Proto-Indo-European society, where a class of young unwed warriors were apparently associated with wolves.

According to the first dictionary of modern Serbian language (published by Vuk Stefanović-Karadžić in 1818) vukodlak / вукодлак (werewolf) and vampir / вампир (vampire) are synonyms, meaning a man who returns from his grave for purposes of fornicating with his widow. The dictionary states this to be a common folk tale.

Common amongst the Kashubs of what is now northern Poland, and the Serbs and Slovenes, was the belief that if a child was born with hair, a birthmark or a caul on their head, they were supposed to possess shape-shifting abilities. Though capable of turning into any animal they wished, it was commonly believed that such people preferred to turn into a wolf.

According to Armenian lore, there are women who, in consequence of deadly sins, are condemned to spend seven years in wolf form. In a typical account, a condemned woman is visited by a wolfskin-toting spirit, who orders her to wear the skin, which causes her to acquire frightful cravings for human flesh soon after. With her better nature overcome, the she-wolf devours each of her own children, then her relatives' children in order of relationship, and finally the children of strangers. She wanders only at night, with doors and locks springing open at her approach. When morning arrives, she reverts to human form and removes her wolfskin. The transformation is generally said to be involuntary, but there are alternate versions involving voluntary metamorphosis, where the women can transform at will.

The 11th Century Belarusian Prince Usiaslau of Polatsk was considered to have been a Werewolf, capable of moving at superhuman speeds, as recounted in The Tale of Igor's Campaign: "Vseslav the prince judged men; as prince, he ruled towns; but at night he prowled in the guise of a wolf. From Kiev, prowling, he reached, before the cocks crew, Tmutorokan. The path of Great Sun, as a wolf, prowling, he crossed. For him in Polotsk they rang for matins early at St. Sophia the bells; but he heard the ringing in Kiev."

There were numerous reports of werewolf attacks – and consequent court trials – in sixteenth century France. In some of the cases there was clear evidence against the accused of murder and cannibalism, but none of association with wolves; in other cases people have been terrified by such creatures, such as that of Gilles Garnier in Dole in 1573, there was clear evidence against some wolf but none against the accused. The loup-garou eventually ceased to be regarded as a dangerous heretic and reverted to the pre-Christian notion of a "man-wolf-fiend." The lubins or lupins were usually female and shy in contrast to the aggressive loups-garous.

Some French werewolf lore is associated with documented events. The Beast of Gévaudan terrorized the general area of the former province of Gévaudan, now called Lozère, in south-central France. From the years 1764 to 1767, an unknown entity killed upwards of 80 men, women, and children.[citation needed] The creature was described as a giant wolf by the sole survivor of the attacks, which ceased after several wolves were killed in the area.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century witchcraft was prosecuted by James I of England, who regarded "warwoolfes" as victims of delusion induced by "a natural superabundance of melancholic."

source : http://askville.amazon.com/lycanthropy-psychiatric-syndrome-present/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=55416778

Zombies Culture

A zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero's 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.                                                                                               

History in Haiti

According to the tenets of Voodoo, a dead person can be revived by a bokor, or sorcerer. Zombies remain under the control of the bokor since they have no will of their own. "Zombi" is also another name of the Vodou snake lwa Damballah Wedo, of Niger-Congo origin; it is akin to the Kikongo word nzambi, which means "god". There also exists within the vodun tradition the zombi astral which is a part of the human soul that is captured by a bokor and used to enhance the bokor's power. The zombi astral is typically kept inside a bottle which the bokor can sell to clients for luck, healing or business success. It is understood that after a time God will take the soul back and so the zombi is a temporary spiritual entity.

In 1937, while researching folklore in Haiti, Zora Neale Hurston encountered the case of a woman that appeared in a village, and a family claimed she was Felicia Felix-Mentor, a relative who had died and been buried in 1907 at the age of 29. Hurston pursued rumors that the affected persons were given powerful drugs, but she was unable to locate individuals willing to offer much information. She wrote:“ What is more, if science ever gets to the bottom of Voodoo in Haiti and Africa, it will be found that some important medical secrets, still unknown to medical science, give it its power, rather than gestures of ceremony. - Zora Neale Hurston.”

Several decades later, Wade Davis, a Harvard ethnobotanist, presented a pharmacological case for zombies in two books, The Serpent and the Rainbow (1985) and Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie (1988). Davis traveled to Haiti in 1982 and, as a result of his investigations, claimed that a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders being entered into the blood stream (usually via a wound). The first, coup de poudre (French: 'powder strike'), includes tetrodotoxin (TTX), the poison found in the pufferfish. The second powder is composed of dissociatives such as datura. Together, these powders were said to induce a death-like state in which the victim's will would be entirely subject to that of the bokor. Davis also popularized the story of Clairvius Narcisse, who was claimed to have succumbed to this practice.

Davis' claim has been criticized for a number of scientific inaccuracies. One of these is the unlikely suggestion that Haitian witch doctors can keep “zombies” in a state of pharmacologically induced trance for many years.[4] Symptoms of TTX poisoning range from numbness and nausea to paralysis, unconsciousness, and death, but do not include a stiffened gait or a deathlike trance. According to neurologist Terence Hines, the scientific community dismisses tetrodotoxin as the cause of this state, and Davis' assessment of the nature of the reports of Haitian zombies is overly credulous.

Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing further highlighted the link between social and cultural expectations and compulsion, in the context of schizophrenia and other mental illness, suggesting that schizogenesis may account for some of the psychological aspects of zombification.

source : http://www.whenthefreakscomeout.com/zombies.html