Vanishing Venus, Biohacking Cyborg, Octopus Revolt and More Mysterious News Briefly — December 21, 2021

Mysterious News Briefly — December 21, 2021

A man in Dartmoor, England, claims to have encountered an unusual variety of alien big cat – he thinks he saw a caracal, a sand-colored big cat with black facial stripes and black-tipped ears that are native to Africa, Asia and parts of Pakistan. He didn’t think to take a picture or look for a giant litter box.

Chinese scientists want to use muon radiation – formed when cosmic rays interact with particles in the upper atmosphere – to create a 3D X-ray image of the tomb of Emperor Qin Shi Huang and its Terracotta Army without having to damage it or activate any ancient curses. This would change everything if they find it’s filled with lost socks.

A transhumanist biohacker claims they have spent the last 14 years implanting over 50 chips, antennae, and magnets into their body -- with no anesthetic and no guarantee of safety -- to become a cyborg … or what transhumanists call "posthuman" and the biohacker calls a "grinder" hybrid of both human and machine. Transhumanist kids or grinder wannabes – don’t try this at home.

Archaeologists in Norway digging in farmland at Gjellestad in southern Norway uncovered the remains of a cluster of Norse longhouses from about 750 CE to 850 CE, including one measuring almost 200 feet (60 m) long and 50 feet (15 m) wide which would make it one of the largest longhouses ever found. They think it served as a ceremonial hall, which means the Vikings liked to party as much as pillage.

Scientists and conservationists in the UK are fighting the development of the world's first commercial octopus farm in the Canary Islands – arguing that these intelligent "sentient" creatures which seem to feel pain and emotions should never be commercially raised for food. If the octopuses can get the support of pigs, chickens and cows, we may be in for a 21^st century version of Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

Demi Lovato, host of the paranormal series “Unidentified With Demi Lovato,” is being criticized for serenading a spirit in a haunted brothel in Vulture City, Arizona, with the song ‘Skyscraper’ and claiming the noise heard after it on an EMF detector was a ghostly standing ovation. Did the critics prefer ‘Heart Attack’?

A two-headed calf was born on December 13 on a farm in New Venice, Brazil, and has managed to survive despite problems in feeding and standing. Local veterinarians can’t explain what caused it, but they’re probably hoping it’s not a sign 2022 will be a worse year than 2021.

Hyundai unveiled its Mobile Eccentric Droid (MobED) – a four-wheeled robot with a low and flat body coupled with “stability and high maneuverability” to make it a “perfect” bot for carrying anything safely, from a baby to a pyramid of glasses filled with champagne uphill. Which comes first – the perfect mobility robot or humans evolving away from having legs?

NASA reports that Venus will disappear from the night sky on January 5^th and return eight days later as the result of the inferior conjunction -- a period of time where it will move between the sun and the Earth, drop below the horizon and switch from being an evening ‘star’ to a morning one. No one takes the inferior conjunction period, which occurs only once every 584 days, harder than Frankie Avalon.

A mysterious object resembling a floating military tank was spotted by oil rig workers on the Natuna Sea in Indonesian waters of the southernmost portion of the South China Sea, and no one knows what it is or who it belongs to. Let’s hope it’s not a new kind of whaling ship.