Bigfoot Soap, Good Ghosts, Dark Zones and More Mysterious News Briefly — January 28, 2021

Mysterious News Briefly — January 28, 2021

This is not good news for those trying to lose those Covid 19 pounds – a study of Asian elephants in captivity found that the animals are less fat than the average human. If they could talk, Asian elephants would be saying, “Who’s got junk in the trunk now?”

The Doomsday Clock – that famous countdown to Armageddon – enters 2021 stuck at 100 seconds to midnight, the same time it was set at in 2020. That doesn’t sound too bad – until you realize that most people can’t even pay attention for 100 seconds.

Scientists boring more than a mile deep into Antarctic ice were surprised to discover a yellow-brown mineral called jarosite that is rare on Earth but was found in abundance on Mars by the Opportunity rover -- proving that Mars was once covered with glaciers. Is this the real reason why Elon Musk founded the Boring Company?

A California mineral collector cracked open a round agate rock and found that the surface of the halves looks exactly like the big eyes and wide grin of the Muppets character Cookie Monster. Watch for a jealous Miss Piggy to demand that every pink rock in the world be cracked open to find her face too.

The mysterious growing “dark zone" on Greenland's melting ice sheet has been identified by scientists as being caused by phosphorus-loaded dust from exposed rocks that feeds algae and turns the ice from white to grey, absorbing more sunlight and causing more meltdown. Meanwhile, that dark zone forming deep in your freezer on some unlabeled stuff you haven’t touched in years is still unexplained.

Forensic investigators searching for the cause of the mysterious collapse and ultimate destruction of the Arecibo Observatory radio telescope in Puerto Rico have uncovered multiple manufacturing errors in both the main and auxiliary cables causing unusual degradation that resulted in the slipping out of their sockets. ETs who can’t get their calls anymore will probably join in the lawsuit.

The Bigfoot fandom is up in arms (pun intended) over the Oklahoma lawmaker who wants to have a Bigfoot hunting season in his state and the advertising world probably agrees as yet another company – the Canadian environmental laundry product maker Tru Earth® -- is using the cryptid (or is it someone in a Bigfoot suit?) in commercials to sell a new government-approved disinfecting multi-surface cleaning strip. If Canadians think “clean” when they think of Bigfoot, those pucks to the head may be taking their toll.

Built in 1760 and the only home in Trumbull, Connecticut listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the David Mallet Jr. House is up for sale, along with its ghosts – one is believed to be the ghost of a woman murdered there in 1908 by a jilted suitor who the current owner says nonetheless says is a “good ghost.” “Good ghost” is realtor code for “paranormal fixer-upper.”

Using a technique called low-intensity focused ultrasound, which uses sonic stimulation to excite the neurons in the thalamus, neuroscientists managed to jumpstart the brains of two patients who had been in comas for years, significantly improving both their mental and physical abilities. Can this be aimed at Washington DC?

Scientists have found the earliest evidence yet for dairy drinking in modern-day Kenya and Sudan where there’s evidence humans were ingesting milk products at least 6000 years ago, which is long before they developed the “milk gene” which overcame lactose intolerance and allowed them to properly digest it. When the only other choices are pond water or sucking the juice out of a yam, milk suddenly doesn’t sound so bad.