---

A specifically English term that dates back hundreds of years, the Woodwose or Wodewose – possibly derived from a combination of wudu, which means forest, and wasa, that translates in today’s language as being – was, essentially, a hairy wild man of the woods, whose rampaging form can be graphically seen to this very day in countless pieces of priceless medieval European artwork from countries including Germany, Italy and Britain.

Tabitca Cope, the author of the excellent cryptozoological novel, Dark Ness, says of the Woodwose that it “…is a savage, naked man decked out in leaves and boughs or moss and ivy, carrying a huge club. He has been reportedly seen in England since 14th Century and up to the 16th Century and has been described as a large bearded man whose entire body was covered in curly hair.”

She adds: “Historians theorized that the wodewose may have been some ancestor of man, and during the periods of its existence, had learned to fashion tools from wood. Similar stories of large hairy ape-men are found in the Pacific Northwest, Europe, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guiana, Ecuador, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, parts of Africa, and of course the Himalayas.”

Unlike the classic Bigfoot of the Pacific northwest regions of the United States, or the Abominable Snowman of the frozen Himalayas, the Woodwose was – despite its oft-reported abundance of body hair – far more human-like in its appearance and nature.

This has led to deep speculation that the legends of such creatures might very well have had their origins in sightings of so-called feral people: Human-beings who, either by choice or unfortunate circumstances, lived solitary lives, deep in the heart of the woods and, as a by-product, descended into states of definitive savagery.

Then there is the astounding theory that, possibly, the tales of the Woodwose were born out of occasional sightings of pockets of ancient humans, such as Neanderthals, or people of the Neolithic era, who, rather incredibly, may have survived long after conventional wisdom and science tells us they became utterly extinct or absorbed.

Added to that, there was a widespread belief across much of Europe centuries ago that if a man or a woman decided to live among the beasts in dense and foreboding forests and woodland, he or she would inevitably become more and more animalistic as time passed by. Eventually, it was accepted, they would become wild people in the literal sense of the term: Nothing less than fully-fledged, hair-covered beasts of the trees.

The well-known Cornwall, England-based anomalies researcher, writer, and friend, Kithra, has spent many a moon seeking out the truth behind the Woodwose legends and says of the creature that it “…is usually shown as a complete, part human, figure carrying a club with the limbs being leafy. It also often shows a thick beard and wears a cap. The Woodwose may also be shown holding the club in different positions. Sometimes this is on its side and sometimes it is raised. There is a theory that a raised club depicts the figure before it was converted to Christianity, but it’s probably more correct to believe that it was raised to ward off evil spirits.”

A memorable description of a Woodwose can be found within the pages of Konungs skuggsjá (or The King’s Mirror), which was written in Norway at some point around 1250: “It once happened in that country (and this seems indeed strange) that a living creature was caught in the forest as to which no one could say definitely whether it was a man or some other animal; for no one could get a word from it or be sure that it understood human speech.

“It had the human shape, however, in every detail, both as to hands and face and feet; but the entire body was covered with hair as the beasts are, and down the back it had a long coarse mane like that of a horse, which fell to both sides and trailed along the ground when the creature stooped in walking.”

Returning to Kithra, she also notes that it wasn’t until the early medieval period that wild men were thought of as being truly human beings, but ones that had been driven wild due to madness. At this particular same time, she comments, “…Celtic tales attribute poetic, or prophetic, powers to wild men. In Welsh tradition, especially, such powers are given to Myrddi, (a.k.a. Merlin), who at one point becomes mad and goes into a forest where he finds himself able to write prophetic poetry.
Original artwork found here

“Mediaeval literature, and art, is full of wild men stories and icons and, whilst mostly portrayed as being mainly human, they are sometimes shown as crawling on all fours and attacking dogs. Rather than being the true Wild Man of the Woods, who lives a feral life, it is possible that the Woodwose falls into the category of a strange being that manifests itself into reality from time to time. If that is true then it may account for the occasional reports that still surface today.”

Indeed, encounters with the Woodwose have occurred in Britain in both the 20th and 21st centuries. While my files on the matter of these latter-day Woodwose are certainly not bulging, I do receive around 4 or 5 sighting-reports per year, many of which have a distinct paranormal air to them, which, of course opens up an entirely different can of worms! But that, as they say, is a story for another day…

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2013/08/the-wildest-man-of-all/

---

If time travel is possible, should society be ethically obligated to try and reverse some of history’s worst crimes against humanity?

That’s the question I posed to MIT quantum mechanic Seth Lloyd, who was part of a 2010 team that used quantum teleportation to send a photon a few billionths of a second back in time in order to try and have it destroy its former self.

Lloyd, who also holds a master’s in history and the philosophy of science, said the team’s effort was in part unsuccessful, but it doesn’t mean that time travel for ethical purposes would ultimately be impossible.

“If you think you can go back to change something,” said Lloyd, “clearly you would be tempted to do this. The question is would it do any good?”

Certainly, the alternate reality one “enters” (or creates) might be a better place; with no Holocaust, and no Armenian or Rwandan genocides, says Lloyd. But he says it’s still not clear that such events could, in fact, actually be prevented in our current reality.

He doesn’t exclude the possibility that going back to right such wrongs might inadvertently set some other horrible chain of events into motion. “The universe is a chancy place,” said Lloyd.

Of two different physical theories of time travel, only one allows for changing one’s past.

In Type 1 time travel — the type highlighted in the “Back to the Future” films — all possible pasts and futures in some sense exist simultaneously, says Lloyd. So, that when you go back and change the past in order to enter a different future, your “old” future is in some sense still “there.”

“From a theoretical physics standpoint,” said Lloyd, “Type 1 is certainly possible, but we still don’t have a very good theory of how it would work.”

He notes that current physical theory favors Type 2 time travel scenario in which the past can’t be changed no matter how hard one tries.

“Our theory of time travel is Type 2,” said Lloyd, “[which means] no matter how hard you try to mess with the past you can’t do it.”

In a 2010 experiment, led by Aephraim Steinberg, a quantum physicist at the University of Toronto, the team confirmed this fact when they sent an elementary particle a few billionths of a second backwards in time.

“When we aimed the photon gun at itself in the past,” said Lloyd, “at the last minute, a little quantum fluctuation [always] whisked the photon bullet out of the way.”

But eventually both Type 1 and Type 2 time travel could see fruition. And if that happens, the ultimate question is whether the powers that be will choose to interfere with the space-time continuum?

It’s a question that might best be answered with a question. If time travel is possible, why don’t we see evidence of our future selves visiting us in the present?

Lloyd says that just as in “Back to the Future,” time travelers would likely do their utmost to blend in with the epoch they were visiting.

Lloyd is the first to admit that our current understanding of “time” is pretty minimal.

But to actually send people back to the past, he says, would require something like a rapidly-rotating black hole in order to manipulate the fundamental fabric of space and time in ways that he acknowledges can be “quite hard to do.”

“Time travel is allowed by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity,” said Lloyd, “but we don’t know how to implement the conditions to actually make it happen.”

Lloyd jokingly notes that any attempts to create a “rapidly-rotating” miniature black hole in the lab would likely be promptly rebuffed by MIT’s workplace safety board. But at least he and colleagues are working on such “thought” experiments.

“Everybody talks about time travel but nobody does anything about it,” he laments.

The conventional theory of time is that it moves on a long string, says Lloyd. But in time travel, he says, time is more like a Mobius strip that twists back onto itself.

Although the laws of physics seem to allow it, Lloyd says from a practical standpoint we don’t know how to create the requisite closed timelike curves to make this “Mobius twist” happen. However, as Lloyd points out, normally, if something is allowed by the laws of physics, then it’s mandatory.

“But at the moment,” said Lloyd, “your best bet for time travel is to jump into a rapidly-rotating black hole and pray.”

Source: Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2013/08/28/should-time-travel-be-a-moral-imperative/

---

Three centuries ago in parts of North America, a strange event turned morning to night. It remains wreathed in mystery - so what caused the Dark Day?

Halfway through the morning the sky turns yellow. Animals run for cover and darkness descends, causing people to light candles and start to pray. By lunchtime night has fallen. Is it the end of the world?

The Dark Day, as it's become known, took place on May 19, 1780 in New England and parts of eastern Canada. For the past 232 years historians and scientists have argued over the origins of this strange event.

Today there are many theories. Was it the result of volcanic eruption, fire, meteor strike - or something more sinister?

When the makers of Doctor Who this week asked fans of the show to send in their suggestions, they received a wide range of theories both plausible and Tardis-related.
Dr Who's Tardis The makers of Doctor Who are seeking a timelord-related solution

With little scientific knowledge amongst the populace in 1780, people would have been afraid. Some lawmakers in Connecticut believed it was the day of judgement. The sense that a decisive moment was afoot would have been bolstered by the fact that during the preceding days, the sun and moon glowed red.

Historian Mike Dash says the north-east corner of the US was a deeply Protestant society with a profound interest in "guilt, sin and redemption". Dash, who wrote about the paranormal in his book Borderlands, says that faced with sudden darkness, people would look for biblical precedents.

"There are some verses in Matthew that might have led them to believe that this is the second coming of Christ. At the time, natural events - even birds fighting in the sky - were a sign of God's intentions. The Dark Day would have seemed like a warning to Man."

So what might explain 1780's Dark Day?

The Met Office points out that thick cloud can drop low enough to turn on automatic street lights and require cars to use their lights. But it's unlikely this alone would be enough to cause a Dark Day.

A solar eclipse can be ruled out as there is a record of when these occur - and they only last for a matter of minutes.

The eruption of the volcano Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 caused enough ash to enter the atmosphere to ground flights across northern Europe.

Thomas Choularton, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Manchester, says volcanic ash clouds often cause "yellow days". Eruptions at Mount St Helens in Washington State have lowered light levels in recent decades, he adds.

And yet there is no record of volcanic activity in 1780, he says, making a huge ash cloud an unlikely explanation. A meteorite is equally unlikely, although "you can't rule it out completely", Prof Choularton says.

The answer to the puzzle can be found in the trees, many scientists believe.

Academics at the University of Missouri's Department of Forestry analysed tree trunks inland from New England, where westerly prevailing winds would originate. They found signs of fire-scarred rings in tree trunks dating back to that period.

It is also known that there was a drought there in 1780 making fire more likely, says Dr Will Blake, associate professor of geography at Plymouth University.

But could a forest fire cause such a change in light? "I've witnessed minor fires in Australia where you get a very eerie light. The bigger the fire, the darker it's going to get." Fog is common on the east coast. The mix of fog and soot from the forest fire would combine to make darkness descend, Dr Blake argues.

Eyewitness accounts in New England support the forest fire hypothesis. Soot was spotted in the rivers. And Jeremy Belknap of Boston wrote in a letter that the air had the "smell of a malt-house or a coal-kiln".

William Corliss, the physicist and chronicler of unexplained events, found 46 accounts of dark days around the world between 1091 and 1971.

Nowadays people can call upon scientific knowledge, satellite pictures and the media for reassurance. But Dark Days have continued to unsettle people until surprisingly recently.

A Dark Day in a similar part of North America to 1780's occurred in 1950. It was caused by forest fires in Alberta and prompted alarm and confusion, says David Phillips, senior climatologist at Environment Canada.

"If you'd woken up at noon you'd have believed it was midnight. People thought it was nuclear attack or a solar eclipse."

Whatever the cause in 1780, the geography must have exacerbated the fear, says Dash. Settlements tended to go little more than 200 miles inland. In essence, European settlers were living on the edge of a vast unknown continent.

"When it goes dark for them, there's no guarantee it is ever going to get light again. In those days it would be quite natural to think it was the Second Coming," Dash says. When dawn arrived, it is likely that prayers of thanks were said across the previously benighted land.

Source: BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18097177

---

Sign up today for Bizarre Bazaar and Conspiracy Journal Magazines