Beliefs: OTS beliefs center around far-right-wing ideology—members of an earlier, non-UFO version of the sect were believed to be former Nazis. It also combines mystical Christianity, homeopathic medicine, Freemasonry, and the belief that a messiah—Di Mambro’s daughter, Emmanuelle—would save the human race by taking true believers to a planet that orbits the star Sirius. They’re also a doomsday cult; they believe that the rest of humanity will be destroyed after the faithful are removed to that other planet. Their story took a dark turn in 1994 when nearly 100 members in Canada and Switzerland died. Many of them, including Jouret, Di Mambro, and “messiah” Emmanuelle, committed suicide, while others were murdered. The cult lives on, though, and has between 150 and 500 members worldwide today. However, due to their violent past, they are regarded as a criminal organization in several countries.
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64% of Americans believe aliens have contacted humans. 37% believe they’ve contacted the U.S. govt.
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Religion: ZetaTalk
History: ZetaTalk got its start on the Internet chat site of the Institute for the Study of Contact with Non-Human Intelligence (ISCNI) in January 1993. That’s when one chatroom member, Nancy Lieder of Wisconsin, revealed that she was in contact with alien beings called Zetans from the Zeta Reticuli star system, approximately 39 billion light years from Earth. She’d been a “contactee,” she said, since childhood. Over the next couple of years, Lieder drew a following that grew into the thousands.
Beliefs: Lieder’s writings quickly became popular—and more and more alarming. In 1995 Lieder wrote that the comet Hale-Bopp, which was discovered that year (and would go on to become one of the brightest comets of the 20th century) didn’t exist. The Zetans, she said, had informed her that the comet was a myth cooked up by the “Majestic 12,” or “MJ12,” a secret group of scientists and world leaders, to hide the real truth: In May 2003, a massive object called “Planet X” would pass very close to the Earth, reversing our magnetic poles and wiping out all life on the planet. Lieder became an Internet and late-night radio-show sensation, and her followers grew in number (as did her detractors, mostly astronomers). When May 2003 came and went with no life-ending catastrophe, Lieder and her supporters claimed that she knew it all along—it was a lie the Zetans told her to fool Earth’s world leaders (the mysterious MJ12 again) and prevent them from enslaving the human race. Lieder now says Planet X will destroy life on Earth sometime before 2012.
Extra: If that’s not nutty enough, Lieder says she’s given birth to more than a dozen children—hybrid children—fathered by aliens.
“Babies have big heads, big eyes, and tiny little bodies with tiny little arms and legs. So did the aliens at Roswell. I rest my case.”
—William Shatner
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Of the top 10 largest celebrity diamond engagement rings ever given, three were given to Liz Taylor.
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CRAZY COOKBOOKS
Some cookbooks, like Julia Child’s, are perennial bestsellers. And then there are these.
The I-Can’t-Chew Cookbook
The 99-Cent-Only Stores Cookbook
Mini Ketchup Cookbook
Cooking in the Nude
The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook
The What Would Jesus Eat Cookbook
Cooking to Kill: The Poison Cookbook
The Cannabis Cookbook: Over 35 Recipes for Meals, Munchies, and More
Regional Cooking From Middle-earth: Recipes of the Third Age
Mini-Mart à la Carte
Cooking With a Serial Killer: Recipes from Dorothea Puente
Dining by the Stars: An Astrology Cookbook
Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine!
101 Things to Do with Ramen Noodles
The Testicle Cookbook: Cooking with Balls
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Every April 1st, San Francisco’s First Church of the Last Laugh holds a “St. Stupid’s Day” parade.
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HOW TO “DRESS”
A CHICKEN
Every night we have food on our plates—but we have no idea how it got there. Our grandparents have a word for that: crazy.
BACKGROUND
Just a few short generations ago, it was common for people in rural areas to raise—and slaughter—their own chickens. And cities still had open-air markets where vendors sold live chickens, which they butchered in front of the customer. Today supermarket chickens come tidily pre-“dressed,” wrapped in plastic. So while this might make you a little squeamish, for better or worse, this is how you prepare a chicken.
WHAT YOU NEED:
A large pot of water, a bucket, pliers, a sharp knife, a traffic cone, and a live chicken.
HOW IT’S DONE:
1. Is your chicken ready to be eaten? If it’s a chicken bred for this purpose, it should be between six and eight weeks old.
2. Don’t feed your chicken for its final 24 hours—it makes the slaughter less messy. (There will be far less semi-digested food in its stomach and far less digested food in its intestines.)
3. Take an orange rubber cone—the kind used by road crews—and cut off a chunk of the wide end so it’s about 9″ tall. Nail this, small side down (like a funnel), to a wall or post, about 18″ off the ground. Place a bucket underneath.
4. Heat up a large pot of water to about 160°F. This will be used to loosen the chicken’s feathers and make plucking them much easier.
5. Catch your chicken. They’re fast and don’t want to be caught (obviously), so you have to catch it off-guard. Sneak up behind it and grab it by the legs. Lift it off the ground, holding it at arm’s length.
* * *
NASCAR superstitions: peanuts, the color green, and women in the garage are all bad luck.
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6. Stuff the chicken in an empty burlap sack (like a feed sack). This calms down the chicken.
7. While the chicken is in the bag, hold it against your body with one arm. With your free hand, find the chicken’s neck through the burlap. Pull down on it, then bend upward very quickly. You’ll hear a snap, and the chicken’s body will reflexively flap its wings, even though it’s now quite dead.
8. By its feet, pull the chicken out of the bag and stick it headfirst into the inverted cone so that its head pokes out of the bottom hole, directly over the bucket.
9. Hold the chicken’s head in place in the palm of your hand. Hold the sharp knife in your other hand. With one fast stroke, cut the chicken’s jugular vein (where the head meets the neck).
10. Allow the blood from the chicken to drain into the bucket. When the chicken stops moving completely (even though it’s dead, its muscles may continue to pulse), pull it out of the cone.
11. Holding the dead chicken by its feet, dunk it in the hot water, immersing the whole thing. Swirl it around for 10 to 15 seconds.
12. Place the chicken on a clean table. Starting near its feet, wipe your hands up the chicken’s body toward the head. This should release most of the feathers.
13. Continue wiping to remove the feathers. If there are any stragglers—especially the small pin feathers—you can take them out with a small pair of pliers.
14. With your knife, cut off the head and feet.
15. Spread the chicken’s legs and in between, slice into its undercarriage. Remove the chicken’s innards (go on, reach in there) and cut into pieces: two legs, two thighs, and a split breast.
16. Dredge in flour, dip in an egg wash, dredge in flour again, and fry in a skillet full of oil.
17. Serve with biscuits.
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In 1987 Mike Hayes financed his entire $28,000 college education by soliciting 1¢ donations.
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CUTTING-EDGE MEDICINE
The idea of “thinking outside the box” is almost clichéd. But in the case of these medical researchers, it’s absolutely appropriate.
DO RABBITS REALLY NEED THIS KIND OF HELP?
In November 200
9, Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest University’s Institute of Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, announced that his research team had made a medical breakthrough: They successfully grew rabbit penises in their laboratories. Not only that, the scientists implanted the penises onto rabbits that had damaged sexual organs. Result: The rabbits developed erections, and when placed with females…well, they did what rabbits do, and were even able to father baby rabbits. The new technique involves taking specific cells from rabbit penises, spraying them onto a frame made of collagen (the main protein found in animal connective tissue), soaking the structure in growth-inducing hormones, and “growing” the new organ in a special oven. It was, of course, for a very good cause: “One of the major challenges that we find is babies who are born with inadequate organs,” Atala said, “and right now there are not a lot of options.” His work may also lead to growing new organs—of various kinds—for humans in the not-too-distant future.
LET’S GET NAKED!
In 2009 biologists at the University of Rochester in New York announced that they may have solved a longstanding mystery involving a bizarre species of rodent: the naked mole rat. The rats, found in East Africa, have little to no hair, can live as long as 30 years, and—this is the mystery—don’t seem to get cancer. In fact, they’re the only animal known to science that doesn’t. In 2009 the Rochester team announced that they may have figured out why: Naked mole rats have a gene that makes the cells in their bodies “claustrophobic,” meaning that if cells start multiplying uncontrollably—the defining characteristic of cancer—the gene stops the multiplying long before a tumor can form. “It’s very early to speculate about the implications,” say lead researchers Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov, “but if the effect of this gene can be simulated in humans, we might have a way to halt cancer before it starts.”
* * *
The engineering division of British Rail received a patent for a flying saucer in 1973. (It doesn’t fly.)
* * *
QUICK—WHERE’S THE REMOTE?!
In 2005 Ged Galvin, 55, of Barnsley, England, suffered horrific injuries when a car collided with his motorcycle. One injury affected his ability to use the bathroom: “The doctors did several operations to repair the sphincter in my bottom,” Galvin said, “but they didn’t work. They told me I’d have a colostomy bag for life.” But they were wrong. In 2009 doctors performed a complex procedure: They took a muscle from Galvin’s knee, wrapped it around his sphincter, fitted the muscle with electrodes, and programmed a remote control to contract and expand the muscles. “Now, when I want to go to the loo,” Galvin explains, “I use the remote control. They call me the man with the bionic bottom. My gratitude to the surgeons is endless because what they have done is a miracle.” He also said he’s fine with the fact that the muscles in his bionic bottom will have to be replaced every few years. (No word on whether he ever gets it mixed up with the TV remote.)
PHOTO FAKERY
The Image: In 2005 a photo of a kidnapped African-American soldier was posted on the Internet. He was sitting in the sand against a wall with his hands behind his back. On the wall behind him is a flag with Arabic writing on it. The barrel of an assault rifle points toward the man’s head from off camera. Underneath the picture is a statement: “Our mujahedeen heroes of Iraq’s Jihadi Battalion were able to capture American military man John Adam after killing a number of his comrades.”
The Truth: The U.S. military wasn’t missing anyone named “John Adam.” After a few hours of confusion, someone noticed that the “soldier” looked a lot like “Special Ops Cody,” a toy action figure only available at Army and Air Force Exchange Service stores in the Middle East. (Only a few hundred of the African-American version of the dolls were made.) Though the photo didn’t do much to help the Jihadist effort, it did help the toy’s value skyrocket from $39 to several hundred dollars on eBay.
* * *
Economic indicators? Studies show that requests for breast implants drop sharply before a recession.
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THE ONE MILLION
GUESSES QUIZ, PART II
We’re back…with a few more quiz questions that we’re pretty sure you won’t be able to answer in a million guesses. (For Part I, turn to page 80.)
STORY: In March 2009, Julia Grovenburg of Fort Smith, Arkansas, got pregnant. Two and a half weeks later, she got what?
ONE MILLION GUESSES LATER: Pregnant again with a second child. Normally, hormones released after conception and throughout pregnancy stop the release of eggs from the ovaries, preventing a woman from becoming pregnant while she’s already pregnant. However, in what doctors say is an extremely rare phenomenon known as superfetation—of which there are only 10 known cases in history—Grovenburg actually conceived a second baby more than two weeks after becoming pregnant the first time. The discovery was made in June, when doctors performing an ultrasound found two fetuses in different stages of development in her womb. (No word yet on the outcome of the pregnancy.)
STORY: In August 2009, a British dwarf performing at the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland had to stop his show mid-act and go to the hospital. What happened?
ONE MILLION GUESSES LATER: His penis became glued to a vacuum cleaner. The festival is known for its odd performances, and Daniel Blackner, also known as “Captain Dan the Demon Dwarf,” has a particularly odd act that he performs with a vacuum cleaner and a…special attachment. But this time the attachment had broken before the show, and he’d used extra-strong glue to fix it. It hadn’t dried by the time he did his act…and it took a trip to the hospital to get the device removed. “It was the most embarrassing moment of my life,” Captain Dan said later.
STORY: Scientists at the Primate Research Center at Japan’s Kyoto University reported in 2009 that while they were studying macaque monkeys at a shrine in Thailand, they’d seen several females teaching their babies to do what?
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Mental health professionals are twice as likely to kill themselves as other people are.
* * *
ONE MILLION GUESSES LATER: Floss their teeth with human hair. For years, monkeys at the shrine have been known to pull out the hair of visitors, sit down with it, and spend several minutes running a strand of hair through the gaps in their teeth. That’s surprising enough, but the Kyoto researchers followed the activities of seven adult females, all with one-year-old babies, and found that a young monkey would sometimes sit in front of its mother and watch her intently as she flossed. While the baby was watching, the mother would exaggerate her flossing motions, opening her mouth very wide, cleaning the same spot several times with obvious motions, all while looking at the young monkey. They were, the researchers said, teaching the kids how to floss. “These findings suggest,” said lead primatologist Nobuo Masataka, “that education is a very ancient trait in the primate lineage.”
STORY: Firefighters in St. Petersburg, Florida, received a call in 2009 that a man was bleeding from his face not far from the fire station. Two firemen jumped into their rescue vehicle, hit the lights and sirens, and when the garage door opened, they did what?
ONE MILLION GUESSES LATER: They ran over the guy they were rushing to help. Ted Allen Lenox, a 41-year-old homeless man, was lying on the ground directly in front of the bay doors, police said, and the firefighters couldn’t see him over the hood of their 10-ton rescue vehicle. They stopped when they felt a “bump,” then got out and treated Lenox on the scene and later drove him to the hospital. Lenox, who’d been drinking, eventually recovered from his injuries. One of the firefighters told reporters, “We should have just walked out the door and looked.”
BONUS QUESTION
Q: What are “Super Lemon Haze,” “Vanilla Kush,” “Triple Zero,” “Grey Area Crystal,” and “Royal Jelly”?
A: Winning strains of marijuana at the 2009 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.
* * *
Celebriphilia is an abnormally intense desire to have a romantic relationship with a celebrity.
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THE WORLD’S MOST
DANGEROUS BAND
Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne—those “wild children” of rock ’n’ roll are downright tame compared to the craziest musical act we’ve ever heard of. Murder, suicide, and sheep heads are all part of the package with the Norwegian “black metal” band known as…Mayhem.
DISILLUSION
In the early 1980s, a radical underground music scene was forming in Europe. As far as these young musicians were concerned, rock was too tame, punk had gone mainstream, and the supposed “Satan-worshipping” heavy-metal acts like Black Sabbath, Dio, and KISS were all faking it. So, with no bands that were “heavy” enough for their taste, these young people made their own music that reflected their bitter attitude toward…well, everything. The two most prominent styles to emerge from the scene came to be known as “death metal” and “black metal.” To the untrained ear, both sound pretty much the same—blisteringly fast tempos; distorted guitars; screeching, unintelligible vocals; morbid lyrics (when you could hear them); and elaborate, gruesome stage acts. But of the two, black metal was the most melodic…and the most blasphemous.
THE GATHERING
One of the pioneering bands of black metal was an Oslo band called Mayhem. Formed in 1984, the original lineup consisted of guitarist/vocalist Øystein Aarseth (also known as “Euronymous”), bassist Jorn Stubberud (“Necrobutcher”), and drummer Kjetil Manheim. After going through a few singers (“Messiah” and “Maniac”), Mayhem was joined by Swedish vocalist Per Yngve Ohlin, who adopted the nickname “Dead.”
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy Page 37