Every year around the end of the Buddhist Lent, crowds gather along the Mekong River to watch the Naga fireballs — glowing balls that, according to Wikipedia, "are alleged to naturally rise from the water high into the air." They are said to be "reddish" and to "range in size from smaller sparkles up to the size of basketballs," and "the number of fireballs reported varies between tens and…
The Man in the Iron Mask was "an unidentified prisoner of state during the reign of Louis XIV of France." According to Wikipedia, he was arrested in 1669 under the name "Eustache Dauger" and "held for 34 years in the custody of Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars in four successive French prisons, including the Bastille." — Read the rest
The post The masked prisoner of Louis XIV whose name was…
When astronomers first observed iPTF14hls in September 2014, they identified it as a supernova and expected it to dim within 100 days. Instead, it kept erupting. Over approximately 1,000 days, its brightness peaked at least five times, varying by as much as 50 percent. — Read the rest
The post A star discovered in 2014 has exploded six times and none of the theories explain it appeared first on…
In January 2020, a Finnish Reddit user posted a photo of curtains printed with eight celebrity faces and asked for help identifying them. Seven were quickly matched — Josh Holloway, Jessica Alba, Orlando Bloom, and others prominent in the mid-2000s. The sixth face, dubbed Celebrity Number Six, resisted identification for four years. — Read the rest
The post It took Reddit four years to identify…
Cicada 3301 is the name of "three sets of puzzles posted under the name '3301' online between 2012 and 2014." The first appeared on 4chan on January 4, 2012, and ran for nearly a month; a second came in 2013, and a third in 2014. — Read the rest
The post An anonymous group posted internet puzzles to recruit code-breakers, then vanished appeared first on Boing Boing.
The Yuba County Five were five young men from Yuba County, California, "each with mild intellectual disabilities or psychiatric conditions," who went missing after a college basketball game on February 24, 1978. Their car "was found abandoned in a remote area of Plumas National Forest, on a high mountain dirt road far out of their way back to Yuba County." — Read the rest
The post Five men left…
More than 700 medieval tunnels called Erdstall honeycomb the ground in Bavaria, with hundreds more across Austria and central Europe. They are tiny — about 1 to 1.4 meters high and no more than 60 centimeters wide — and connected by "Schlupf," squeeze-holes so narrow you have to crawl through one shoulder-first. — Read the rest
The post Hundreds of tiny medieval tunnels no one can explain…
In early 2014, internet sleuths found a YouTube channel called Webdriver Torso that had uploaded more than 77,000 videos. Each was 11 seconds long and identical in form: a series of one-second slides, each showing a blue rectangle and a red rectangle on a white background, with a beeping tone. — Read the rest
The post The YouTube channel with 77,000 videos of red and blue rectangles appeared…
I was vaguely aware, browsing bookstores and libraries, that there was an odd group of murder mysteries with cats on the cover illustration (and cat puns in the title of course), but for many years was not entirely sure that this wasn't just one prolific author writing one ongoing series to a niche but dedicated readership of cat detective fans. Despite being a fan of anthropomorphic animals in…
It was around 8 p.m. when, on a dark night in early November 1888, every sheep across roughly 200 square miles of Oxfordshire decided, all at once and for no apparent reason, to leave. Tens of thousands of them broke from their fields and pens and ran into the night. — Read the rest
The post On one night in 1888, tens of thousands of English sheep fled their fields at once appeared first on…
In 1986, road crews repairing 30-year-old pavement on the route between Caracas and its airport spotted a 50-yard smudge of greasy black gunk. It looked like chewed bubble gum, made the road slick as ice, and swelled in hot, wet weather, then shrank when things turned cold and dry. — Read the rest
The post Caracas has a mysterious black highway goo that has killed 1,800 people appeared first on…
Two men sat in a car on Abbey Road in Beeston, Nottinghamshire, on the night of February 1, 2025, waiting to catch a ghost. Luke Roberts and Jai Brewer call themselves the "banana hunters," and they had come to watch a particular street corner opposite a church. — Read the rest
The post 15 honey-drizzled bananas appear on a plate every month on a street corner appeared first on Boing Boing.
The following extracts are taken from Eusebius’ Church History. All emphasis is mine.
Book III
Chapter 2. The First Successor to St. Peter in Rome.
Chapter 3. The Epistles of the…
I will be quoting from the Epistle of Barnabas, which is a letter attributed to Paul’s companion that was composed somewhere between the middle and latter part of the first century AD. It contains a lot of allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament commandments and events, which the author connects to Christ, his commandments, and the Church. All emphasis will be mine.
Genesis 1:26 & Jesus…
In this post I will be quoting from the works of Justin Martyr and Tertullian in respect to Old Testament prophecies and typology pointing to Christ. All emphasis will be mine.
One interesting typology that both of them employ is the case of Joshua, whom they not only take to be a picture of Jesus but as also foreshadowing Christ’s actual name. Both Justin and Tertullian argue that Joshua is the…
I continue from where I previously left off: Novatian, Trinity, Modalism, Hypostatic Union.
Chapter 20.
It is Proved from the Scriptures that Christ Was Called an Angel. But Yet It is Shown from Other Parts of Holy Scripture that He is God Also.
But if some heretic, obstinately struggling against the truth, should persist in all these instances either in understanding that Christ was properly…
St. Irenaeus mentions what the Apostle John exclaimed when he ran into the gnostic heretic Cerinthus. He also recalls what his Bishop St. Polycarp, the beloved and holy martyr and disciple of the holy Apostles, said to the heretic Marcion when he saw him in person. All emphasis will be mine.
Chapter 3 A refutation of the heretics, from the fact that, in the various churches, a perpetual…
Promising theories abound.
The post Eagle-eyed sleuths might be close to finding the sender of this puzzling 33-year-old Valentine appeared first on Upworthy.
Slasher films are in my top three genre movies. They're basically mysteries with a lot more bodies, and I love a good whodunit.
If I had to pick a franchise that has been consistently satisfying across seven movies, it's the _Scream_ series.
They make movies they know we want and consistently deliver on the gore and excitement.
I genuinely enjoy all the movies here, even if I have my…
There’s one level in this underground dungeon that can only be seen, but not accessed, by the public. “There’s something that’s been bothering me on my commute, so could you please look into it?” That was the message our Japanese team received from a reader recently, and it immediately piqued our interest. The message went […]
There’s a reason hotels don’t use this number for their rooms. In Japan, the numbers “4” (“shi”) and “9” (“ku”) are associated with death and suffering, due to the way the word “shi” can also be used to mean “death” and “ku” can mean “suffering“. The belief is so widespread that hospitals and hotels avoid […]