The Agents of F.L.A.S.K.

[Lean'n'mean]

Photographic proof that Nessie lives !

 

[GHT]

Further proof of Nessie:

 

[Tiki Tom]

My biggest surprise was when the bank wouldn’t exchange my Scottish Pounds back to Euros when I got home. There is no doubt that the Loch Ness Monster now constitutes a brand for Scotland and is a huge tourist draw. It’s interesting that some of the better known “mysteries” have their roots in the golden era; Nessie, the Yeti, Lost city of the Monkey God, Shangri-la, the curse of the mummy, lost city of Ubar, Amelia Earhart mystery, UFOs... all rooted in the 1920s thru 1950s time period. I’m sure there are more examples. It was an era when international travel was just beginning in earnest, when the scientific method promised to unravel great mysteries, when there were still blank spots on the map. But perhaps most importantly, the public had a hunger for such mysteries and had not yet been jaded into today’s ubiquitous state of perpetual hard-wired cynicism.

Regarding cryptids, for a while I had high hopes that Megalania —-a giant extinct flesh eating lizard—- still survived in the Australian outback.

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/megalania-a-monster-still-among-us/

But, alas, I don’t think there has been a sighting in awhile. But that would be high on my list of expeditions that I’d like to see mounted.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

Regarding cryptids, for a while I had high hopes that Megalania —-a giant extinct flesh eating lizard—- still survived in the Australian outback.

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/07/megalania-a-monster-still-among-us/

But, alas, I don’t think there has been a sighting in awhile.

If what you're looking for are giant flesh eating lizards, capable of ripping a cow to shreds, then look no further than the Komodo Dragons.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Absolutely. The Komodo dragon is often sited as a reason to believe that Megalania may still survive in the Aussie outback. I think the last sighting was in the 1970s or so. Since then a rancher saw giant lizard tracks when he was out repairing a fence, but that is about it.

Proof that my computer is spying on me: This was the first article in my newsfeed this morning:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...nthusiast-records-biggest-sighting-beast.html

A) This conforms to Lean ‘n’ Means observation that photo evidence is usually blurry;
B) The fact that the guy says this is his third sighting of Nessie this year does not lend a lot of credibility;
C) Nonetheless, what is it? A rogue wave perhaps? Or maybe it is Nessie, in fact.

 

[Benny Holiday]

That Lost World series wasn't shown in Australia (that I know of), but I can see there are a couple of interesting reasons to watch it.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

That Lost World series wasn't shown in Australia (that I know of),

Which is quite strange given that it was an Aussie co-production, filmed in Oz & starred William Snow.

but I can see there are a couple of interesting reasons to watch it.

Ah, you mean the hats Yep, the show used Akubras.

 

[Benny Holiday]

No never showed up on the radar here. Just exported I guess. Haha yeah sure, the hats!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Grab your fedora and whip. This week’s F.L.A.S.K. pandemic mystery involves the history of civilization.

In the accepted textbook version, civilization is about five or six thousand years old and dates from the time when humans transitioned from being hunter-gatherers to a more settled agriculture-based way of life. The Pyramids date to about 5,000 years ago. Stonehenge dates to roughly the same period. According to this traditional worldview, 10,000 years ago civilization did not exist. 10,000 years ago we would have been living in small wandering bands of hunter-gatherers, using primitive spears and tools, and wearing mostly animal skins.

Then, in 1996, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt started digging at Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey. He discovered an apparent temple complex dating to about 11,000 years ago; at least twice as old as the Pyramids and Stonehenge. The complex is large and contains 20 foot tall, 10-ton, carved standing stones. As British Archaeologist and Stanford professor Ian Hodder said “Göbekli Tepe changes everything.” How were traditional hunter-gatherers able to build such an impressive temple complex? Did the agriculture revolution start earlier than previously thought? Did Göbekli Tepe have its own antecedents? Or was it a new and completely original thing?

Since then “alternative archaeology” (sometimes called “pseudoarchaeology”) has emerged as an amateur field similar to “cryptozoology”. The basic hypothesis of alternative archaeology says that civilization is (much) older than commonly believed. Indeed, one of the common themes of alternative archaeology is that an older civilization emerged after the last ice age and was wiped-out about 13,000 years ago. After that our civilization had to reboot and reinvent itself. Various intriguing bits of “evidence” have been put forward. Mainstream archaeologists roll their eyes. But then something pops up to lend credence to the pseudoarchaeologists.

What do card carrying members of F.L.A.S.K. think of all this? Is the Sphinx much older than the nearby pyramids? We can resume the hunt for Nessie and pterodactyls later. The Lost Dutchman Mine will wait. Dig up evidence on this one and the very history of civilization will change and fame and glory will be yours.

 

[GHT]

What do card carrying members of F.L.A.S.K. think of all this? Is the Sphinx much older than the nearby pyramids? We can resume the hunt for Nessie and pterodactyls later. The Lost Dutchman Mine will wait. Dig up evidence on this one and the very history of civilization will change and fame and glory will be yours.

View attachment 232463

Easy peasy. We all know that God created Adam, and then he gave Adam a mate, whom he called: Eve. Now Adam & Eve lived in the beautiful Garden of Eden. They were very happy but there was something missing in their lives. Nooky. And if you want a more definitive word: "Sex." So this evil spirit disguised himself as a phallic symbol, actually he was a snake, and he it was who told Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, and when she did she saw that her mate was, er, interesting! And when Adam ate from the tree of knowledge he saw Eve and thought: ******* ****!
Now Adam, having learned that, tab 'A' goes into slot 'B,' and his mate Eve, produce two sons that they name: Cain and Abel. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, each of his own produce, but God favoured Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.

Now I know that's true because The Vincentian Fathers taught it to me at school. When I questioned the fact that Adam & Eve produced two sons, and that Adam & Eve were the first to be created, how come Enoch popped up from nowhere. Now the Vincentian Fathers are very knowledgeable on theology and they, in their discretion, pointed me in the right direction.

I was administered a slap around the head with every syllable: "You-lit-tle-heath-en-how-dare-you-quest-ion-the-word-of-the-Lord?" So you see, we started with Adam & Eve and their sons, Cain & Able. But if Able is removed from the equation it does make me wonder, maybe we started with Adam & Steve, but then I forget about it because I know the true answer anyway.

 

[Artifex]

Looking back up the thread a bit, why not suppose Nessie was an elephant? Traveling circuses used to go around with exotic animals at one time, and it is entirely possible that that could have been the first time a Scotsman saw an elephant. Imagine the elephant was allowed to go for a paddle in the loch, with rounded back, head, and trunk projecting snorkelwise from the water.

From a distance, that would look like the neck and two arches of a sea monster - especially if you weren't expecting to see an elephant in Scotland, and had heard tales of monsters...

 

[Benny Holiday]

Easy peasy. We all know that God created Adam, and then he gave Adam a mate, whom he called: Eve. Now Adam & Eve lived in the beautiful Garden of Eden. They were very happy but there was something missing in their lives. Nooky. And if you want a more definitive word: "Sex." So this evil spirit disguised himself as a phallic symbol, actually he was a snake, and he it was who told Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge, and when she did she saw that her mate was, er, interesting! And when Adam ate from the tree of knowledge he saw Eve and thought: ******* ****!
Now Adam, having learned that, tab 'A' goes into slot 'B,' and his mate Eve, produce two sons that they name: Cain and Abel. Cain, the firstborn, was a farmer, and his brother Abel was a shepherd. The brothers made sacrifices to God, each of his own produce, but God favoured Abel's sacrifice instead of Cain's. Cain then murdered Abel, whereupon God punished Cain by condemning him to a life of wandering. Cain then dwelt in the land of Nod, where he built a city and fathered the line of descendants beginning with Enoch.

Now I know that's true because The Vincentian Fathers taught it to me at school. When I questioned the fact that Adam & Eve produced two sons, and that Adam & Eve were the first to be created, how come Enoch popped up from nowhere. Now the Vincentian Fathers are very knowledgeable on theology and they, in their discretion, pointed me in the right direction.

I was administered a slap around the head with every syllable: "You-lit-tle-heath-en-how-dare-you-quest-ion-the-word-of-the-Lord?" So you see, we started with Adam & Eve and their sons, Cain & Able. But if Able is removed from the equation it does make me wonder, maybe we started with Adam & Steve, but then I forget about it because I know the true answer anyway.
View attachment 232496

I came from the other direction; growing up I read anything and everything, on topics as varied as geology, history, dinosaurs, ancient man, physics, you name it; had it been printed on toilet paper, I'd have read it. When I reached adulthood, a lot of the gaps in scientific knowledge didn't make sense to me until I applied some of the concepts I'd read in theological treatises. From that perspective, you have people created with pure genes, no copying mistakes, whose descendants were easily able to construct monolithic structures and understand advanced mathematics because their minds and bodies weren't worn down by generations of disease and cell mutations at that stage. It also explains how the mystery of written language just appears across a variety of cultures roughly 5,400 years ago.

 

[Benny Holiday]

Big cats in Australia story from the news over the weekend:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05...in-australia-zoo-big-cat-documentary/12205082

 

[Tiki Tom]

From that perspective, you have people created with pure genes, no copying mistakes, whose descendants were easily able to construct monolithic structures and understand advanced mathematics because their minds and bodies weren't worn down by generations of disease and cell mutations at that stage.

I'd be loath to discuss the genetics of it (I'm not qualified), but it is no secret that many, if not most, human cultures have antediluvian-myths/legends about a golden age when humanity was somehow better. Then came the floods. And, interestingly, modern geologists and meteorologists tell us that sea levels have risen about 400 feet (!) in the last 20,000 years. The Alternative Archaeology (AA) crowd point out that much of the area between Indonesia and SE Asia that is now underwater was once dry land. There are claims (by Graham Hancock, if you must know) that the remains/ruins of at least one city have been found submerged off the coast of India. I don't know. Also there are some interesting monumental stone works around the world that "arguably" pre-date what is currently assumed. The contrast of "older" and "newer" stonework in the Inca empire is interesting. Some argue that the Incas built their empire "on the shoulders" of a much older civilization. The truly giant monolithic stonework at Baalbek is sometimes claimed to predate our historical ideas. The accepted view is that the 800 ton stones (!) were cut and put in place by the Romans, and then the Romans built a temple on top of them. Fine. But as far as I know (please correct me if I'm wrong) nowhere else in the world did Romans use such truly gigantic cut stones. Anyway, is all this looney-tunes talk? Is the standard view that civilization is only five or six thousand years old by-and-large correct? I don't know. But Göbekli Tepe proves that, at least in one place, there was an exception to the rule. Is Göbekli Tepe the tip of the iceberg? Again, I have no idea. It's an interesting debate that I like to keep an eye on.

Big cats in Australia story from the news over the weekend

I'll also keep an eye on this story with interest. Regrettably pterodactyls, Nessie, and bigfoot stretch credulity (I'd be happy to be proven wrong), but Australian big cats and tasmanian tigers strike me as entirely plausible.

 

[Benny Holiday]

It all makes me want to put on one of my leather jackets, a good fedora and go off on an adventure that I couldn't afford even without virus restrictions! The big cats are in my back yard though, so to speak, so I'll be keeping an eye on those stories too. Really enjoying this thread Tom!

 

[Lean'n'mean]

but Australian big cats and tasmanian tigers strike me as entirely plausible.

Did someone mention Tasmanian tigers ?

 

[GHT]

It all makes me want to put on one of my leather jackets, a good fedora and go off on an adventure that I couldn't afford even without virus restrictions!

You forgot the whip! Where would you be without your whip?

 

[Tiki Tom]

You forgot the whip! Where would you be without your whip?

Whip: optional. Ability to think outside the box: Mandatory.

 

[Benny Holiday]

hahahah GHT if I took a whip, I'd only end up hurting myself with it!

 

[GHT]

hahahah GHT if I took a whip, I'd only end up hurting myself with it!

I never thought of that, ah well...........