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A group of central Ontario parents is demanding their children's schools turn off wireless internet before they head back to school next month, fearing the technology is making the kids sick.

Some parents in the Barrie, Ont., area say their children are showing a host of symptoms, ranging from headaches to dizziness and nausea and even racing heart rates.

They believe the Wi-Fi setup in their kids' elementary schools may be the problem.

The parents complain they can't get the Simcoe County school board or anyone else to take their concerns seriously, even though the children's symptoms all disappear on weekends when they aren't in school.

"Parents are getting together and realizing this is the pattern," said Rodney Palmer of the Simcoe County Safe School Committee.

"We went to the school board and they did nothing."

The symptoms, which also include memory loss, trouble concentrating, skin rashes, hyperactivity, night sweats and insomnia, have been reported in 14 Ontario schools in Barrie, Bradford, Collingwood, Orillia and Wasaga Beach since the board decided to go wireless, Palmer said.

"These kids are getting sick at school but not at home," he said.

"I'm not saying it's because of the Wi-Fi because we don't know yet, but I've pretty much eliminated every other possible source."

The Simcoe County school board could not be reached for comment Friday because their offices were closed.

The parents group has offered to pay for wired connections if the board switches off the Wi-Fi, Palmer said.

"They didn't even say no," he said. "They ignored it and … reaffirmed their position supporting Wi-Fi.

"They are culpable and … they have the gall to go on the record and say they haven't had any doctor's notes. Well what doctor has been schooled about the rate of microwave infections?"

Susan Clarke, a former research consultant to the Harvard School of Public Health, said Wi-Fi technology alters fundamental physiological functioning and can cause neurological and cardiac symptoms.

"We have the physics that show that children, especially young children, are going to absorb much more radiation than older children and adults because of their thinner skulls and because the size of their brains more closely approximates the size of the wavelength being deployed," Clarke said.

Wireless technology also wastes energy, is less secure than wired connections, could be violating a student's right to a safe environment and should be turned off in schools, Clarke added.

"The simple solution is plug back in the wired, ported system that's already there and unplug the wireless," she said. "It's real easy and it costs nothing. In fact, it will save money."

Professor Magda Havas of Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., who does research on the health effects of electromagnetic radiation, issued an open letter to parents and boards saying she is "increasingly concerned" about Wi-Fi and cellphone use at schools.

Claims by Health Canada that Wi-Fi is safe provided exposures to radiation are below federal guidelines are "outdated and incorrect," based on the growing number of scientific publications reporting adverse health and biological effects, Havas wrote.

"It is irresponsible to introduce Wi-Fi microwave radiation into a school environment where young children and school employees spend hours each day."

The Ontario Ministry of Education said it has heard from the parents in Simcoe County and received a complaint passed along from a Peterborough family worried about Wi-Fi in schools. But the ministry said it is up to local school boards to deal with the issue.

"The boards, the principals and the teachers should work together to address those concerns," said ministry spokeswoman Erin Moroz.

The provincial New Democrats said they too had been hearing from parents worried about the effects of wireless technology on children, and called on the chief medical officer of health to investigate.

"Within a few months of Wi-Fi being installed, stories start coming forward with kids complaining about headaches, neurological effects, loss of balance and problems with fine motor skills," said NDP health critic France Gelinas.

"There is enough anecdotal evidence from parents that this is worth looking into."

Palmer plans to find alternate schools or even home school his two children this fall if the board doesn't agree to turn off the Wi-Fi and said other parents will likely follow suit if the symptoms return.

"If they're going to continue to endanger the health of children, I can predict that many of the parents who are now writing us saying their kids have been fine all summer are going to have a change of heart about the third week of September when their kids are coming home from school with these problems, particularly the ones that are passing out and falling down, hitting their head on the gym floor," he said.

While parents worry about younger children, concerns about the health effects of wireless technology prompted Lakehead University to virtually ban Wi-Fi from its campuses in Thunder Bay, Ont., and Orillia, Ont.

"There will be no Wi-Fi connectivity provided in those areas of the university already served by hard wire connectivity until such time as the potential health effects have been scientifically rebutted or there are adequate protective measures that can be taken," says Lakehead's policy on Wi-Fi and cellular antennas.

Source: CBC
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/08/15/ontario-wifi.html

At the fringes of those luminous phenomena which range from spook lights to freak lightning, there are some strange accounts for which there is no ready explanation. These involve lights that show a parti­cular interest in human beings – and not always to their benefit.

Take what befell 12-year-old George Campbell and his father, EW Campbell. They were riding along the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, north of the city of Sherman, Texas, on the night of 4 October 1898. Somewhat after nine o’clock that evening, the boy was witness to a startling phenomenon:

He is a bright, intelligent little fellow, who said he didn’t believe in ghosts; that his parents had never scared him with spook stories, and he is one of the best- behaved scholars in the fourth grade at the Franklin school building. His story as told to a News reporter to-day is as foll­ows: “Last night papa and I were riding along the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, about two and a half miles [4km] north of town, when all at once everything got very bright. We saw a great ball of fire coming down toward the ground. It got within about three feet [90cm] of the ground and seemed to rest for a while and then it went back up until it got clear out of sight. There was a buzzing sound all the time.” George describes it as being about 10 feet [3m] in diameter and that it hurt one’s eyes to look at it. Although they were very close to it, he says that he did not feel any heat.

It’s a puzzling tale, one which nowadays might be interpreted as a UFO account.

Another encounter with a mysterious fireball did not have such a fortunate outcome. Twenty-two years previously, also in Texas, near the town of Palestine, another “intelligent boy” appeared, out of breath and “as pale as he could be”. His story was that he’d been trudging along a highway at night.

There was a negro woman riding a horse in the direction the little coloured boy was going. The boy appeared that night in Palestine… He said he saw a ball of fire come out of the sky and strike the woman and set her ablaze. The horse ran away with the woman afire on his back, and he ran to town to tell the people what had happened. The people went to look after further parti­culars concerning this curious incid­ent, and they found the woman lying on the ground, her clothing burned off, but enough of life in her to tell that she had been struck in the breast by a ball of fire. She died the next day. The horse was afterwards found with his mane singed. People here think that she was struck by a meteor.

In contrast, there are also numerous instances of death from above by freak lightning manifesting as balls of fire. These incidents are no less outré, but in such cases we might console ourselves with a natural explanation. In 1866, Miss Addie Murray, a schoolteacher in Ross township, Vermillion county, Illinois, met her untimely end in this way: “She was sitting in the schoolhouse with two pupils, when the house was struck, and she was found sitt­ing in the chair dead, with her clothing nearly burned off, and the child­ren severely stunned. The child­ren describe the scene as a ball of fire falling into the room.” [3] Something similar struck John Whitton, a driver for a telegraph construction train in Leavenworth that same year. “He had occasion to lift the tele­graph line off the ground, when a flash of lightning struck the line at that point, tearing it into small pieces, and instantly killing him. The men who saw the accident state that they saw a ball of fire as large as a man’s fist issue from Whitton’s breast.”

An unfortunate death by a fireball in 1933 was accompan­ied by a curious premonition on the part of the unfortunate victim. “In San Rocco, during a thunderstorm, a cleric was killed by lightning. The priest was involved in a discussion with several of his congregation in the village street, when quite slowly a one metre [40in] big, orange-coloured fireball came floating through the air straight towards the priest, which then erupted in his vicinity. The incid­ent made quite an impress­ion on the superstitious farmers, more so, as the day before the priest had presaged his own demise that was soon to come.”

A different kind of strange light, again attracted by the presence of a human being, was experienced by Alec Campbell, working as a game warden in Southern Rhodesia (now Zim­babwe). One night, Campbell was walking by an old burial ground when suddenly a bright light appeared beside him. “The light turned into a ball of fire about the size of a softball and moved along at Campbell’s speed, he said… he turned and stared at the mysterious light. Immediately, the ball started advancing on him.” Campbell remembered the tales that said that if one encountered such a light, the best thing to do was to close one’s eyes, which would cause the light to disappear. He did so, and the light vanished.

Could there be lights not only possessed of some sort of intelli­gence but which are capable of forming a unique rapport with a person and even delivering painful stings when they so choose?

This seems to have been the case in Richmond, Indiana, in 1978. The bizarre incident involved local resident Martha Grieswell, 46 at the time, whose house had been plagued by “flashing pinpoints of light” ever since one had come into her bedroom one night in early January that year. Grieswell described how it appeared to her that she and the light were watching each other. The little light approached her: “I said ‘No,’ and it stopped about one and half feet [45cm] away. Then I held out my hand and it came right over and sat in my hand and turned my whole hand a psychedelic purple. It glowed for a while, then shut down to a point of light, then rose from my hand – then the others started to come in…”

Over the following nights, dozens of the “floating, flashing lights”, mostly white and pinhead-sized, entered her bedroom through the closed window; after that, they became her constant companions as soon as evening fell. Grieswell also began to note some of these lights during the daytime, although then they seemed less active. She moved out of the upstairs bedroom, where the lights continued to manifest, and began conducting experiments to try to ascertain what the lights might be.

She captured several in containers, including an aluminium cigar­ette case, and saw them shining through the container walls. Grieswell also immersed the lights in water, keeping them submerged for two days: “The lights were observed to ‘swim’ freely, and when released, to ‘fly’ free, their lights undimmed.” She got the same results when she locked them up in a freezer. She was only able to conduct these experiments when the lights were willing participants, since at other times they simply escaped through the walls of the containers. Radiation tests and an attempted chemical analysis turned up nothing. She did find out, though, that one thing had an effect on the lights. When she touched one with a burning cigarette, the light made “a crackling sound, as if you had wadded up cellophane very rapidly in your hand”. She was unable to replicate that experiment: “You can’t burn them any more. They move away too fast,” she explained. It dawned upon Mrs Grieswell that the lights might learn from experience and therefore might possess some kind of intelligence. When asked why she wanted to get rid of them, she gave the unnerving answer: “Because they bite.” At times, when the lights became more bright, they would sting or bite, giving off a sensation like “the sting of a sweat bee”, and leaving a very small welt. “They go through a tapping motion… When they land, they raise up, then light again… they feel like bugs when they sit on you and that’s when they burn.”

One night, a light got in her eye, which was a painful experience. The next day, she noticed that the eye was bloodshot and the corner crusted. When the lights were not stinging her, they had a tendency to land and crawl over her during the night. They also stung her husband, who wasn’t able to see them. This might be a significant detail; some of the many curious people who visited her house were able to see the lights, yet others were not.

Trying to escape the lights for a while, Mrs Grieswell went to her mother in Decatur, but on the third night after her arrival the lights came in through the window and were also seen by her mother. Perhaps, she reasoned, they had been able to follow her or had hidden themselves in her clothing or luggage. She got the impression that the lights meant to say that she could not flee from them. She sought help, and consulted scientists, ufologists and psychic researchers, but to little avail. As she said to the reporter who visited her (he wasn’t able to see the lights): “I’ve just made up my mind that I’m not going to get rid of them.”

One of the psychic researchers whom Grieswell contacted offered as explanation that she might be “experiencing a stage of consciousness preliminary to becoming a psychic medium”. A plausible suggestion, coming from a psychic researcher, as puzzling luminous phenomena manifest themselves often around mediums, and are well known in the field of para­psych­ology. It is said that Helène Smith experienced the manifest­ation of mysterious globes or lights in her studio where she had taken up painting, long after her association and ensuing break-up with Theo­dore Flournoy: “The visions were accompanied by luminous phenomena. They began with a ball of light which expanded and filled the room. This was not a subjective phenomenon. Helène Smith exposed photo­graphic plates which indeed registered strong luminous effects.”

Then there is the case of Ada Bessinet, a Toledo medium of the 1920s. Denounced as a subconscious fraud by Professor Hyslop, who had investigated her during 70 sittings between 1909 and 1910, she clearly made more of an impression on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He wrote, describing a séance with her: “Brilliant lights are part of the medium’s power, and even before she had sunk into a trance, they were flying up in graceful curves as high as the ceiling and circling back on us. One nearly rested on my hand. It seems to be a cold light, and its nature has never been determined, but perhaps the cold, vital light of the firefly may be an analogy.” [9] Hereward Carr­ing­ton was another who was not impressed, but he did state that he observed some very curious lights at a 1922 séance which, “on request, hovered for a few moments over exposed photographic plates and that the plates, when developed, showed unusual markings which he failed to obtain by artificial means”.

Source: Fortean Times
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/4180/blasts_from_the_past_
the_news_that_time_forgot.html

It looks like an elaborate practical joke using some strategically placed double-sided tape.

But these assortment of metal objects stay on Brenda Allison's skin because she has a heightened electromagnetic current running through her body, it is thought.

Coins, safety pins, magnets, spanners and even a metal lid from a Vaseline pot can stay on her body for up to 45 minutes without falling off. When the pulse is at its strongest, she can dance in her living room without them coming off.

Since childhood Miss Allison's body has set off car alarms, interrupted the TV signal and blown out light bulbs. Her parents stopped buying her watches after her magnetic field kept interfering with the timing mechanism.

Every person has a subtle electromagnetic field flowing through their bodies - but most of us are unaware of its presence.

However, the 50-year-old mother-of-one says she first noticed the effects of her magnetism when she was in a nursery school. As she grew up she started to keep a diary and realised the magnetic pulses were strongest at the end of each menstrual cycle.

'People laugh when I put metal objects on my skin and they don't fall off,' Miss Allison, of Holloway, north London, said: 'But sometimes my condition can be extremely embarrassing.

'On on occasion I had a dreadful experience at the supermarket. When I reached the check-out the till machine started to misbehave and it was obvious I had caused it.

'The man on the checkout started shouting at me and accused me of putting a voodoo curse on his till.'

Doctors have told Miss Allison that her magnetism may be caused by high stress levels and have urged her to take steps to relax. During strong magnetic periods she has been advised to grip the kitchen taps because they are 'earthed'.

Last night she said she her one wish was to be tested by electromagnet specialists so she can understand the cause behind her condition.

'When I was a child my parents knew there was something different about me,' the accounts manager said.

'But they never entertained the idea of taking me to the doctor. 'What would they say? "We think our child is a magnet".

'Medicine was very different back then and I think if my mother had said that to a doctor she would have been taken away by the men in white coats.

'When I was a child we constantly had the TV repair man round because I had interfered with the electronics in some way.

'And they gave up buying me watches because they would just stop.'

It was only earlier this year that Miss Allison discovered that metal objects would stay on her skin when she placed them there. Her body can emit a negative or positive charge, depending on the time of the month. This means she will repel some objects and attract others, and vice versa, depending on the charge.

She added: 'Metal objects don't fly towards me, but when I put them close to my skin I can feel a pull.

'They tend to stay on for longer if they are near a bone - I don't know why.

'They can stay on me for up to 45 minutes without me touching them. Sometimes I feel like a fridge covered with magnets.

'My son has grown up with my magnetism so he finds it normal. But he did used to complain when it stopped his battery-operated toys from working.'

Kathy Geminiani, an electrotherapy expert, said it is possible that Miss Allison has a stronger charge in her body.

She said: 'Everyone has a charge, all slightly different. It sounds like Brenda is highly charged.'

Source: Daily Mail (UK)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1304481/Iron-Lady-The-mother-magnetic-
metal-objects-stick-45-MINUTES.html?ITO=1490

---

From Smaug the Dragon resting upon the hoarded wealth of the dwarves, to Conan the Barbarian finding the Treasure of Tranicos, lost hoards have been one of the key plot devices of heroic fantasy. Their equivalents in real life are no less inspiring, as there are few thins that can grip the human mind as much as the allure of a lost treasure-trove: gold and silver coins, precious jewels and adornments, exquisitely wrought decorations and other objects that bespeak the wealth of forgotten monarchs and lost kingdoms. From a child's dream of peg-legged pirates buying oak chests filled with doubloons and pieces of eight on some lonely island to exhaustive searches by scholars and adventurers, the search for the concealed wealth of yore has been the source of poems, books and motion pictures.

The siren-call intensifies, however, when a curse is said to rest upon the treasure...

From the Viceroyalties of the Spanish Main

One of Latin America's fabled treasure hoards is the one belonging to the Marquis of Yaví y Tojo, which had to be hauled away by forty mules burdened with gold and silver.

In 1679, Juan José Campero de Herrera a noble member of the knightly order of Calatrava (created from the remains of the Knights Templar), had the good fortune to marry well: his bride, Juana Bernardes de Obando, was the great-granddaughter of the famous General Zárate, who had been given enormous land-grands and money by the Spanish viceroy for having established a town in the Andean valley of Jujuy (modern Argentina). The Obando family's fiefdom extended from the vicinity of Humahuaca to the city of Tarija (modern Bolivia), giving the reader a fair idea of the extent of this land-grant. The knight of Calatrava therefore acquired, through marriage, a territory the size of Switzerland and Serbia combined, as well as the title of Marqués de Yaví y Tojo. After being pronounced man and wife, Campero de Herrera had acquired wealth, nobility and power in a single stroke.

Far from what one would expect after such unexpected bounty, Campero de Herrera did not sit back to enjoy his good fortune, but rather devoted himself to making improvements to his domain, building dams to control the flow of a nearby river, flour mills to feed the vast nations of natives under his sway, and installed facilities to retrieve abundant placer gold from the rivers. But even the best fairy tales have their down side: his wealthy bride proved barren and hopes of perpetuating the family name were dashed. Ever pious, Campero de Herrera built two churches to seek divine intervention in the vicissitudes of biology.

Modern historians have found church documents attesting to the wealth of the childless marquis: a business contract makes mention of three hundred and thirty quintales of silver (an old unit of measure equivalent to 100 kilograms) being mined at Cochinoca -- sixteen thousand kilograms of silver ore.

The marquis dug tunnels underneath his country house--Alicate--as a way to reach the mine workings and perhaps as exit routes in case of an attack by hostile natives. Perhaps Campero de Herrera could see the clouds gathering in the horizon; his excessive wealth and good fortune had led him to believe that it was possible to separate his fiefdom from the viceroyalty and run it as an independent domain. The plan failed, Campero de Herrera was forced to set all of his business documents and books to the torch. But there would be no impoverished exile for the knight of Calatrava--he loaded his fortune onto the backs of forty mules and vanished, along with his wife and retainers, in 1696, never to be seen again.

After this lengthy prologue, it is here that the "legend of the lost treasure of the Marqués de Yaví y Tojo" begins. Tradition holds that the marquis, unable to cross the Andes with such a fabulous burden, decided to bury his kingly wealth in a place from which it could be recovered at a later date. In order to avoid any problems involving faulty recall or geographical changes, the marquis drew symbols marking the site. These can be seen in a canyon overlooking the Yaví River and resemble odd hieroglyphics showing what appears to be a sea anchor and a feline figure. The locals are adamant that the scrawls are not native petroglyphs but marks made by the marquis to show the location of the treasure.

Relived of his burden, states the legend, the fugitive nobleman reached a wilderness known as Siete Corrales. There, it is said, Campero de Herrera and his wife were slain by natives who took the forty mules which still carried considerable quantities of food and valuables.

There are native structures in the La Mendieta mountain range which surrounds the area. Could these hold the marquis' lost silver treasure? Local ranchers believe that it would be possible to find the leather bags carried on muleback by dredging the Yuruma Creek, the body of water along which the ambush took place. This lost treasure awaits the brave souls willing to claim it.

But the Marquis of Yaví y Tojo's lost treasure isn't Argentina's only lost treasure trove: according to retired school principal Christina Coccari, the oral traditions of her country's Tuy region (a Guaraní word meaning "soft mud"), which includes the towns of Lavalle, Madariaga and Villa Gesell. In 1820, the fledgling Argentinean government built a series of forts to keep the nomadic tribes at bay. Wagons filled with bricks for this construction effort reached the area from Chascomús and three forts were erected--Juancho Viejo, Invernadas and La Porteña. The government then entrusted a military man, General Alzaga, with the task of colonizing the region and dispersing the Pampas tribesmen, who were known for their raids and for abducting the colonists' women and children. Ten years later, one such raid by the Pampean chieftain "Arbolito" (Little Tree) destroyed the forts and killed the settlers, except for one young woman who had survived along with a leather chest filled with silver and gold coins, buried at the foot of a tree marked by a hanging Rosary.

The young survivor told the tragic story to a priest, Father Castañeda, who ordered that the treasure chest be located. Despite their best efforts, this was never accomplished, for a local child had found the Rosary dangling from the tree and taken it to her mother.

Contemporary belief holds that the treasure chest is located in the "El Rosario" lagoon, but that the hoard is "accursed" due to the blood that was spilled over it, and will therefore represent a source of misfortune for anyone who comes across it.

In the Mexican Desert

Mexico reputedly holds a number of undiscovered treasures that are waiting to be claimed by an intrepid adventurer. One of them is the so-called "Tesoro del Fraile" (the Friar's Treasure) buried somewhere in the northern state of Coahuila. During the gold and silver boom times that pervaded throughout the Mexican viceregal area, a number of treasure troves were stolen and concealed. This particular one, according to historian Rubén Dávila Farías, involves a series of letters written by Fray Pedro de Noyola, a priest who left Mexico during the country's War of Independence. In one missive, dated January 20, 1811, the priest asks Cipriano Lozoya, a resident of port of Veracruz, to go north to Coahuila to find a buried treasure: "It will not be possible for me to return to that country in which I lived so joyfully...but perhaps chance may lead you, my friend to a happy and wild region known as the Bolsón de Mapimi, where you shall find a hill known as La Bufa. On that hill, with its face toward the rising sun in the month of May, you can see a [mountain] range that dominates that height and two smaller hills not too far away. The point of reference I must give you is known as Antiguo Mineral de Mapimí..." the priest goes on to explain that in a cave halfway up the small western hill, known as Guadalupe, there is a cave. The treasure hunter was to walk a distance of "twenty rods" from the cave entrance and dig "three rods down" to find four strongboxes containing gold and silvery jewelry belonging to the Church, plus an alleged 200 boxes of gold and silver coins "minted with the effigy" of King Charles V.

A further, grislier find would also be the bones of the 4 mules used to haul this amazing wealth.Elena González, a resident of Torreón in the State of Coahuila, told television journalist Nino Canún in 1993 that she possessed the "gift of voices" and that one such voice had guided her and her friends to a series of caves where she found a "little bag of cloth containing sixteen silver pieces". Had Ms. González been given a foretaste of the greater wealth of the Friar's Treasure?

Nostradamus Sees Treasure

Michel de Nostradamus, born in 1503 in the village of Saint Remy, in Provence, has been considered by many as the most important post-Biblical prophet for the enigmatic and verses known as the Centuries. Michel was the great-grandson of Pierre de Nostradamus, a court physician who attended the kings and dukes of France. Born into a family of mathematicians and philosophers, Nostradamus's work has been interpreted and re-interpreted to suit all manner of interests. Many have overlooked some of the lesser quatrains utterly unrelated to eschatology--and one of them has to do with lost treasure.

The 27th Quatrain (XXVII) reads thus:
Dessous de chaine Guien du Ciel frappé.
Non loing da lá est caché le tresor,
Qui par long siecles avoir esté grappé,
Trouver mourra, l'oeil crevé de ressor.
("Under the mountains of Guyana by heaven punished
Not far away there is treasure concealed,
Having for long ages being sealed
Death to he who finds it, eyes by springs pierced")

The 27th quatrain, a prophecy having nothing to do with the rise or fall of kings or great wars, has been ignored, as have been others, such as the 10th -- interpreted by some as foretelling the rise of cinematography as an art ("serpents sealed in cages of iron"). The revelation of a hidden treasure trove in the Guyana Highlands is certainly fascinating, and no one has ever made an effort to find it. The treasure, says Nostradamus, will remain inviolate and the curse upon the first one to lay eyes upon it shall remain in force. The "eyes by springs pierced" suggest some ingenious booby trap set by the filibuster or pirate who was forced to leave his wealth in this remote, inhospitable location. Such devices, reminiscent of the harrowing experiences of the fictional Indiana Jones in the opening moments of Raiders of the Lost Ark, are known to have existed. It is believed that the tomb of Shi Huangdi, the legendary Yellow Emperor, is still defended by arrows set on hair-triggers.

A Succession of Spirit Guardians

It isn't enough for a hoard to be accursed by its previous owner or due to the violence that has characterized efforts at seeking its possession: sometimes supernatural guardians are appointed to guard the treasure, and perform their task with chilling efficiency. Among the considerable holdings of the Cleveland Public Library we come across two fascinating occult tomes, the Libellus Magicus and the Praxis Magica. These volumes, which apparently formed part of the collection of A.E. Waite, the renowned occultist. The Libellus, also known as The True Magical Work of the Jesuits, contains a variety of conjurations and spells, among them "St. Cyprian's Invocation of Angels and his Conjuration of the Spirits Guarding Hidden Treasure" -- a means by which a treasure hunter may adjure the paranormal forces to relinquish the treasures entrusted to their care. Such supernatural aids would probably come in handy to the brave souls willing to dare some lost hoards, such as the one allegedly contained within the Khabriat Douma cave system in the mountains of Lebanon. Important due to its strategic value, the town of Douma attracted the attention of conquerors throughout the ages until it was finally burned down by the Ottoman Turks in the 17th century. According to local legends, a vast treasure of unknown origin can be found beneath the rocky outcropping known as Mar Nohra, and that there are inscriptions and carvings nearby that are clues to its location. The intricate cave system, according to experts, was used in ancient times for military purposes and is linked to the fortress of Al-Hossein. Lebanese tradition holds that a princess hid her wealth in boxes inside this cave system, hence its name, "Cave of Boxes"; it is further believed that the ancient hoard is protected by a type of local magic known as rasad, which punishes treasure hunters by ruining their businesses, possessions and families. Other Middle Eastern hoards are protected by more fearsome guardians, such as the efreeti.

Similar supernatural protectors are not unknown in the Americas, either: the cave known as La Malinche in the state of Veracruz is believed to contain a hidden treasure--whether Aztec or Spanish is unknown--that is protected by the ghost of La Malinche herself, the woman who aided the conquistador Hernán Cortes as a translator. Legend holds that the beautiful revenant offers the treasure to anyone unlucky enough to pass her way, warning them that if they are unable to extract the hoard, they will be trapped forever within the caves.

In Britain's Cornwall, tradition holds that the odd and still unexplained structures known as fogous play a role in supernatural treasure. These Celtic structures appear to have played a role in local folklore and were considered to contain evil spirits assigned to protecting a particular trove. Modern adventurers entering these structures have been treated to a host of paranormal events, ranging from hearing voices to encountering apparitions of what may be the reputed "guardians" of lost treasure.

American Spiritualist Emma Hardinge discussed the 19th century belief surrounding the discovery of gold or treasure: Spirits were able to lead mortals to uncover treasure troves or even lesser bounties like misplaced deeds or wills (Modern American Spiritualism, 439). If the treasure hunter placed his or her trust in spirit guides and treasure was indeed found, "it proved the belief in spirits by its fruits." Hardinge adds the interesting side note that American folklore had associated treasure with discarnate entities before the mid-19th century boom in such beliefs. It was believed that "Indian or pirate spirits" were the protected hidden wealth against unworthy seekers.

Treasures of Brazil

To the north of the Brazilian capital city of Brasilia lies the State of Tocantíns, which holds huge semi-desertic regions crossed by the Balsas and Sono Rivers -- not the image that comes to most people's minds when thinking about Brazil. This scarcely populated and seldom traversed region of the country is considered to be accursed: truck drivers on their way to make deliveries claim to have seen "beautiful women" emerge from nowhere, lights dancing among the sand dunes, and others lights that engage in vehicle chases. The region's reputation as an unholy location was only heightened in 1994 when, according to journalist Pablo Villarubia, a tractor-trailer suffered a mechanical breakdown in the middle of the desert. Twenty days later, the driver's corpse--half eaten by vultures--was found, clutching a stick with which he had tried to keep the carrion birds away.It is only fitting that an area such as this should have a "lost" source of wealth: the legendary Los Martirios gold mine.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the bandeirantes or expeditioners who cut their way into the forbidding Brazilian heartland were looking for that country's version of El Dorado: a lagoon filled with gold, silver and emeralds, crowned by a city whose inhabitants lived like kings. The Colonial explorers set out to find them and even established a number of towns to serve as bases for forays. While no city was found, the adventurers came across the Paraupava River and its gold deposits. A village named Araés was established and mineral wealth was exploited, but as it became increasingly harder to extract gold, the settlers became dispirited and the village was abandoned to the elements. In the mid-20th century, explorer and historian Manoel Rodrigues Ferreira was able to ascertain that the "lost" Los Martirios gold mine had been found--over the centuries, the river had undergone a name change to Araguaia and the village of Araés had vanished from the maps.

Conclusion

Aside from the thrill of acquiring sudden wealth--a constant in almost every culture on earth--the notion of finding buried treasure, much like a child's fabled discovery of "pirate treasure" lying under a large black "X" on a tattered map, has led many adventurers to expend both capital and human lives on such endeavors, with the legendary "Money Pit" of Oak Island being one of the most memorable examples. The belief that the gold of dead kings is tantalizingly within our reach will be with us forever, even if said riches are protected by forces beyond our imagination.

Source: Inexplicata
http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/2010/08/that-which-glistens-paranormal-treasure.html

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As Muscovites suffer record high temperatures this summer, a Russian political scientist has claimed the United States may be using climate-change weapons to alter the temperatures and crop yields of Russia and other Central Asian countries.

In a recent article, Andrei Areshev, deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation, wrote, "At the moment, climate weapons may be reaching their target capacity and may be used to provoke droughts, erase crops, and induce various anomalous phenomena in certain countries."

The article has been carried by publications throughout Russia, including "International Affairs," a journal published by the Foreign Ministry and by the state-owned news agency RIA Novosti.

In an telephone interview with RFE/RL, Areshev appeared to back off from claims he made in the article, saying that he was merely positing a theory.

"First of all, I would like to say that what I wrote in that article, even the citations, does not in any way claim to a be final truth. It is, if you will, speculation, in other words, the definition of an hypothesis," Areshev said.

Moscow is currently sweltering under record temperatures. On July 29 Moscow suffered its hottest day ever, with temperatures hitting 39 degrees.

But Russia isn't the only country suffering form a heat wave this summer. Indeed, the United States is also experiencing record temperatures. On July 24, temperatures in Washington, D.C., hit 37.7 degrees, and local weather services issued heat warnings for the first time this summer.  

Areshev agrees that it is also hot in the United States, but notes that the United States is significantly farther south than Russia, meaning that such high temperatures are not so surprising there.

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, announced in July that land and ocean temperatures throughout the world were the highest ever, since they began tracking global temperatures in 1880.

Conspiracy Theories

In the article, Areshev voiced suspicions about the High-Frequency Active Aural Research Program (HAARP), funded by the U.S. Defense Department and the University of Alaska.

HAARP, which has long been the target of conspiracy theorists, analyzes the ionosphere and seeks to develop technologies to improve radio communications, surveillance, and missile detection.

Areshev writes, however, that its true aim is to create new weapons of mass destruction "in order to destabilize environmental and agricultural systems in local countries."

Areshev's article also references an unmanned spacecraft X-37B, an orbital test vehicle the Pentagon launched in April 2010. The Pentagon calls X-37B a prototype for a new "space plane" that could take people and equipment to and from space stations. Areshev, however, alleges that the X-378 carries "laser weaponry" and could be a key component in the Pentagon's climate-change arsenal.

The Pentagon was not immediately reachable for comment.

Areshev also cites the U.S. government's effort to use rain and cloud coverage to block the Vietnam Army's supply routes during the Vietnam War. He insisted, however, that he was not a conspiracy theorist.

"My comments were not made in order to accuse the U.S., or any other country, of consciously influencing Russia," Areshev said. "That would be quite ridiculous."  

Asked whether or not Russia was also experimenting with climate-control methods, Areshev said since he was not a member of the government, he did not have information about such projects.  

Source: Radio Free Europe
http://www.rferl.org/content/Russian_Scholar_Warns_Of_Secret_US_Climate_Change_
Weapon/2114381.html