Referat Unsolved Mysteries

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A thread of evidence... A lack of clues... A hopeless situation... From all over the world Summary Chapter Title Page Mysterious places 3-5 Bermuda Triangle 3 Gateway to Hell 4 Unsolved mysteries 5-7 The purpose of Stonehenge 5 Loch Ness monster? 5 UFOs 6 Unsolved murders 7-9 J.F.K’s assassination 7 Lady D’s death 8 Explained mysteries, but still unsolved Ghosts 9 Poltergeist 9 Mysterious places Bermuda Triangle Bermuda Triangle, region of the western Atlantic Ocean that has become associated in the popular imagination with mysterious maritime disasters. Also known as the Devil s Triangle, the triangle-shaped area covers about 1,140,000 sq km (about 440,000 sq mi) between the island of Bermuda, the coast of southern Florida, and Puerto Rico. The sinister reputation of the Bermuda Triangle may be traceable to reports made in the late 15th century by navigator Christopher Columbus concerning the Sargasso Sea, in which floating masses of gulfweed were regarded as uncanny and perilous by early sailors; others date the notoriety of the area to the mid-19th century, when a number of reports were made of unexplained disappearances and mysteriously abandoned ships. The earliest recorded disappearance of a United States vessel in the area occurred in March 1918, when the USS Cyclops vanished. The incident that consolidated the reputation of the Bermuda Triangle was the disappearance in December 1945 of Flight 19, a training squadron of five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers. The squadron left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with 14 crewmen and disappeared after radioing a series of distress messages; a seaplane sent in search of the squadron also disappeared. Aircraft that have disappeared in the area since this incident include a DC-3 carrying 27 passengers in 1948 and a C-124 Globemaster with 53 passengers in 1951. Among the ships that have disappeared was the tankership Marine Sulphur Queen, which vanished with 39 men aboard in 1963. Books, articles, and television broadcasts investigating the Bermuda Triangle emphasize that, in the case of most of the disappearances, the weather was favorable, the disappearances occurred in daylight after a sudden break in radio contact, and the vessels vanished without a trace. However, skeptics point out that many supposed mysteries result from careless or biased consideration of data. For example, some losses attributed to the Bermuda Triangle actually occurred outside the area of the triangle in inclement weather conditions or in darkness, and some can be traced to known mechanical problems or inadequate equipment. In the case of Flight 19, for example, the squadron commander was relatively inexperienced, a compass was faulty, the squadron failed to follow instructions, and the aircraft were operating under conditions of deteriorating weather and visibility and with a low fuel supply. Other proposed explanations for disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle include the action of physical forces unknown to science, a “hole in the sky,” an unusual chemical component in the region s seawater, and abduction by extraterrestrial beings. Scientific evaluations of the Bermuda Triangle have concluded that the number of disappearances in the region is not abnormal and that most of the disappearances have logical explanations. Paranormal associations with the Bermuda Triangle persist in the public mind, however. Gateway to Hell Because of the paranormal phenomenon’s, a cemetery from Kansas is named The Gateway to Hell. A small town in Kansas called Stull. A quiet town, with just a few dozen houses and two stores. But this place, apparently peaceful, has some scary secrets. The local cemetery is considered one of the few places on Earth where we can meet all the negative paranormal phenomenons. The locals are convinced that this is the place from which Satan comes to our world. The name of the town was given after the first man who was in charge of the local mail, Silvester Stull, who died in 1862. The cemetery is located at the end of the town, the cause of the town’s problems. Less than 100 toms and one burned down church are the only clues which tells us that the place is a cemetery. Their problems start from the town’s postal code. Stull is the only town in the U.S.A. with the code 666. A decision was taken to forbid anyone to come any closer than 50 meters to the cemetery fence. Anyone who doesn’t respect the decision risks even jail. This decision was taken to keep away the ghost hunters and the curious ones ho want to see with their own eyes if the legends are true. The “Time” magazine asked the Pop John Paul II which was the reason for asking that the plane he was travelling in, to Colorado, to not pass over the little town in Kansas. The Pop answered that he didn’t wanted to get near the “Cursed Ground” the name that he gived to the local cemetery. The bad name of the place comes from all the stories and legends about the old cemetery. Strange satanic rituals, spells and ghosts where reported in the last 150 years in that area. About the burned down church it is said that no drop of rain drops inside the church although the building’s rough was destroyed completely. Near the place there are a few stairs, and the locals says that people who went down on them, came back after a few weeks, although they thought that they were missing just for a few seconds. From one of the trees, inside the cemetery, used to be hanged witches who were caught doing rituals of calling the Satan. A legend says that inside the cemetery is one of the seven gates which will open once the Devil comes back on Earth. Dozens of scientists came over the last 25 years in the town to find out the truth about “The Gateway to Hell”. “It is truth, there were registered a series of strange phenomenon’s, like vanishing of things, seeing of some ghostly shapes, cold winds only over the cemetery. I don’t know if this things are caused by supernatural phenomenonts or it’s just an active magnetic anomaly”, said Andrew Lawrence, one of the scientists who studies the phenomenonts in Stull. Unsolved mysteries The purpose of Stonehenge Why Stonehenge was constructed remains unknown. Most scholars agree that it must have been a sacred and special place of religious rituals or ceremonies. Many have speculated that Stonehenge was built by Sun worshipers. The axis of Stonehenge, which divides the sarsen horseshoe and aligns with the monument’s entrance, is oriented broadly toward the direction of the midsummer sunrise. In nearby Ireland the celebrated megalithic monument Newgrange, built approximately at the same time as Stonehenge, was oriented toward the midwinter sunrise. In the early 1960s American astronomer Gerald S. Hawkins theorized that Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory and calendar of surprising complexity. Hawkins suggested that ancient peoples used the monument to anticipate a wide range of astronomical phenomena, including the summer and winter solstices and eclipses of both the Sun and the Moon. The astronomical interpretation of Stonehenge remains popular today, despite many uncertainties. Some scholars are doubtful that the peoples who constructed Stonehenge and other sites of the era possessed the mathematical sophistication necessary to predict many of the events that Hawkins theorized. They note that Stonehenge’s architects may have been aware of the subtle movements of the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies without having an analytically advanced understanding of astronomy. The true purpose of Stonehenge is an enduring mystery. Modern observers can only speculate about what it meant to its builders and what compelling impulse drove them to invest so much labor and care in creating it. Loch Ness monster? Sightings of large underwater animals in Loch Ness, a 24-mile-long lake in Scotland, have often been reported but never confirmed. As early as 565 ad, Saint Columba, a Christian missionary, is said to have seen a monster in the lake. Modern interest was evoked in 1933 when a British couple reported viewing a creature with a long neck and body, and in the next several decades various expeditions attempted to find such a creature. A major expedition was initiated this June, under the joint sponsorship of the Academy of Applied Sciences in Boston and the New York Times. The head of the investigatory team, Robert Rines, president of the AAS, led several earlier expeditions. In 1972, using underwater photography, sonar equipment, and other electronic devices, he obtained photographs that spurred scientific interest. One of the pictures, which were made clearer by the use of a computer, showed a diamond-shaped object thought by Rines and Sir Peter Scott, the British naturalist and artist, to be the 4-6 foot long flipper of an animal about 45-60 ft. in length. The size was consistent with indications obtained from sonar apparatus, and the monster was provisionally named Nessiteras rhombopteryx, which means Ness mammal with a diamond-shaped fin. The photographs were made public late in 1975, to allow the monster to be placed on the British list of protected species. Although the 700 ft. deep loch supports numerous fish, the projected monster population is not large – perhaps ten to 20 animals. A number of scientists expressed doubts about the evidence presented by Rines, criticizing the use of computer enhancement of his 1972 pictures and the lack of solid facts for the animal s size. Others suggested that the creature shown in the Scott-Rines reconstruction resembled a plesiosaur, a reptile group that flourished some 70 million years ago but has been considered extinct since then. Some doubters expressed the view that the object sighted was not an animal at all, but the remains of a Viking ship. Despite the criticism, the AAS-Times investigators continued to conduct photographic probes, and planned to send in divers equipped with television cameras. UFOs Unidentified Flying Object (UFO), any object or light, reportedly sighted in the sky, that cannot be immediately explained by the observer. Sightings of unusual aerial phenomena date back to ancient times, but UFOs (sometimes called flying saucers) became widely discussed only after the first widely publicized U.S. sighting in 1947. Many thousands of such observations have since been reported worldwide. At least 90 percent of UFO sightings can be identified as conventional objects, although time-consuming investigations are often necessary for such identification. The objects most often mistaken for UFOs are bright planets and stars, aircraft, birds, balloons, kites, aerial flares, peculiar clouds, meteors, and satellites. The remaining sightings most likely can be attributed to other mistaken sightings or to inaccurate reporting, hoaxes, or delusions, although to disprove all claims made about UFOs is impossible. From 1947 to 1969 the U.S. Air Force investigated UFOs as a possible threat to national security. A total of 12,618 reports was received, of which 701 reports, or 5.6 percent, were listed as unexplained. The air force concluded that “no UFO reported investigated, and evaluated by the Air Force has ever given any indication of threat to our national security.” Since 1969 no agency of the U.S. government has had any active program of UFO investigation. In 1997 the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) admitted that the U.S. military had deceived the American public in an effort to hide information about high-altitude spy planes. These planes, the Lockheed U-2A and the Lockheed SR-71, accounted for over half of the UFO reports during the late 1950s and 1960s. Some persons nevertheless believe that UFOs are extraterrestrial spacecraft, even though no scientifically valid evidence supports that belief. The possibility of extraterrestrial civilizations is not the stumbling block; most scientists grant that intelligent life may well exist elsewhere in the universe. A fully convincing UFO photograph of a craftlike object has yet to be taken, however, and the scientific method requires that highly speculative explanations should not be adopted unless all of the more ordinary explanations can be ruled out. UFO enthusiasts persist, however, and some persons even claim to have been abducted and taken aboard UFOs. (A close encounter of the third kind is UFO terminology for an alleged encounter between humans and visitors from outer space.) No one has produced scientifically acceptable proof of these claims. Unsolved murders J.F.K’s assassination On November 22, 1963, President and Mrs. Kennedy were in Dallas, Texas, trying to win support in a state that Kennedy had barely carried in 1960. On his way to a luncheon in downtown Dallas, Kennedy and his wife sat in an open convertible at the head of a motorcade. Lyndon Johnson was two cars behind the president, and Texas Governor John B. Connally and his wife were sitting with the Kennedys. The large crowds were enthusiastic. As the motorcade approached an underpass, three shots were fired in rapid succession. One bullet passed through the president’s neck and struck Governor Connally in the back. A second bullet struck the president in the head; a third one missed the motorcade. Kennedy fell forward, and his car sped to Parkland Hospital. At 1:00 pm, he was pronounced dead. He had never regained consciousness. Assassination of President John F. Kennedy On November 22, 1963, President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy made a campaign visit to Dallas, Texas. Enthusiastic crowds greeted them as their motorcade made its way toward downtown Dallas. Near the Texas School Book Depository three shots were fired, mortally injuring the president. Later that day Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president. A state funeral for President Kennedy was held on November 25, 1963. President Kennedy’s young son, John F. Kennedy, Jr., saluted the carriage containing his father’s casket as the funeral procession passed by. The Assassin The bullets that killed Kennedy were fired from a sixth-story window of a nearby warehouse. That afternoon, Lee Harvey Oswald, who was employed in the warehouse, was arrested in a Dallas movie theater and charged with the murder. Two days later, as the suspect was being transferred from one jail to another, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby sprang out from a group of reporters and, as millions watched on television, fired a revolver into Oswald’s left side. Oswald died in the same hospital to which the President had been taken. The Warren Commission Five days after the funeral, President Johnson appointed Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Earl Warren chairman of a committee to investigate Kennedy’s death. The findings of the commission were announced on September 27, 1964. The investigators had found no evidence of conspiracy in the assassination. Their report concluded that “the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald.” Lady D’s death Concluding a two-year investigation, two French judges ruled on September 3, 1999, that the August 1997 deaths of Diana, princess of Wales, and her companion, Emad Mohamed al-Fayed, were caused solely by an intoxicated driver. The 32-page ruling cleared nine photographers and a press motorcyclist of charges that they provoked the accident in Paris, France, by chasing the couple in their chauffeur-driven limousine. The accident occurred in the early morning hours of August 31 after Diana and al-Fayed, known as Dodi, left the Ritz Hotel. The limousine, traveling at high speed, crashed into a concrete pillar in a tunnel near the Seine River. Diana, al-Fayed, and Henri Paul, the vehicle s driver, were killed in the crash; a bodyguard, Trevor Rees-Jones, survived with severe injuries. The photographers and press motorcyclist, who acknowledged following the couple through the streets of Paris prior to the accident, were charged with manslaughter and failing to come to the aid of the accident victims. The judges blamed the accident on Paul, who had taken antidepressant medication and was legally intoxicated. “The driver was in a state of drunkenness and under the influence of medicines incompatible with alcohol, a state which prevented him from keeping control of his vehicle while he was driving at high speed on a difficult section of road,” the judges wrote. The judges found no evidence that the photographers caused the accident or failed to assist the victims at the accident scene. However, they criticized the conduct of several photographers who snapped pictures of the wrecked vehicle and its occupants before emergency personnel arrived. Although this behavior raised moral and ethical concerns, the judges noted, it was “not a breach of penal law.” The ruling affirmed the findings of a police investigation that a mysterious white automobile, which apparently grazed the limousine immediately prior to the accident and was never found, was traveling in the same direction as the limousine and was not responsible for the accident. Explained mysteries, but still unsolved Ghosts Ghost, nonmaterial embodiment or essence of an organism, especially of a human being. The term is sometimes used virtually as a synonym for soul or spirit, and in the Christian religion, in the form Holy Ghost (now, more often, Holy Spirit), it has a specialized meaning. More frequently, however, the term ghost is applied to an apparition, usually of a dead person, that varies in apparent solidity from a mere foglike mass to a perfect replica of the person. A wraith, in contrast, is the visible spirit of someone still alive. A doppelgänger is a special form of wraith that makes its appearance at a time when the physical body of the subject is observed at some distant place. In many religions, and particularly in primitive faiths, the belief exists that the spirit wanders away from the body during periods of unconsciousness such as sleep. Such religions also teach that after death the spirit lingers near the body of the dead person. A common practice of groups holding such beliefs is to propitiate the ghosts of the dead by offerings of food, clothing, and other objects that the ghosts may find useful in the spirit world. In many primitive civilizations the personal possessions of a dead man, including his weapons, his pets, and sometimes even his wife, are buried or burned with his body. The practice of ancestor worship, as well as the mourning rites of many modern civilizations, probably originated in the belief in ghosts. Poltergeist Poltergeist, German for "noisy ghost," unexplained phenomenon that invisibly moves objects or hurls them about, starts fires, or causes other mischief. Identical phenomena attributed to poltergeists have been reported from all parts of the world and throughout all ages. Poltergeist disturbances include noises of every description, especially bell-ringing. Serious physical injury is rare, although on occasions great force is displayed. The manifestation is usually confined to a house, and it may cease as suddenly as it began and for no apparent reason. PAGE PAGE 2 쥁`