Fantasy, History, Media, Nature, News, Science, Uncategorized

Who Dunnit?

63 Comments

We all know that headlines don’t always tell the story. The last few days there have been lots of articles about scientists “solving the Loch Ness Monster”.  Although I am a skeptic in general, I couldn’t help clicking on the first story I saw.  Of course scientists have NOT solved the mystery of Nessie.  What they have done is find more eel dna in the water of the lake than they expected.  All it took was for one person to say “maybe the Loch Ness Monster is really a giant eel” for the story to take off.

The same arguments for why the Loch Ness Monster can’t exist apply to a giant eel (lake too cold, not enough food to keep a giant eel alive, no bones/evidence of previous generations) but that hasn’t stopped the explosion of “Nessie is a giant eel” stories.

I don’t make it a point of following stories like the Loch Ness Monster, the faked moon landing or anything having to do with Area 51, but I look at reports if they cross my path. I do follow the work being done on Amelia Earhart’s disappearance fairly closely (TIGHAR) and I do think this mystery will be solved in my lifetime.  But Nessie, not so much.

What mystery would you like to be explained?

63 thoughts on “Who Dunnit?”

  1. I would like to know why we have such weird mail delivery. The Saturday before Labor Day the mail didn’t get delivered on our street. Since our newspaper is delivered by the USPS, that meant we didn’t get our Saturday paper until Tuesday. Last week on Wednesday, the mail was delivered in the morning, and again in the afternoon. Most days it doesn’t arrive until 6:00 PM.

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    1. The irritating thing about Wednesday was that the newspaper wasn’t in the first mail delivery. Not expecting a second delivery, I phoned the newspaper to complain, and they kindly hand delivered a paper. When I got home from work I saw we had a second set of mail in the mailbox, including the paper, so I had two Wednesday papers.

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  2. It’s tempting to dive right into the mysteries of current politics, but that’s too depressing this early in the morning and I’ll leave it to others if they are so inclined.

    I harbor a longstanding fascination with mysteries, particularly those that involve archaeological puzzles and anomalous artifacts but not limited to those. I’m not necessarily eager to have them solved. I prefer to live in a world where not everything has an explanation. Here are some mysteries that have at one time or another caught my attention:

    -the Antikythera Mechanism: https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/5/17/15646450/antikythera-mechanism-greek-computer-astronomy-google-doodle

    The Voynich Manuscript

    The mystery of the intricate and precise stonework at Machu Picchu and other sites

    The ghosts of the Trianon: http://www.kathleenmcgowan.com/the-mystery-of-the-versailles-time-slip/

    I have and have read many books relating to evidence that there was more global exploration and contact between ancient peoples than has been formally acknowledged and indications of more advanced ancient cultures than are traditionally portrayed. I find that intriguing.

    I also would like to know whatever happened to a box of jewelry- making tools we used to have. They just vanished somewhere.

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    1. Me too, about the ancient cultures.. those pyramids weren’t built by “thousands of slaves”. Husband is reading a book by Graham Hancock – Fingerprint of the Gods: the Evidence of the Earth’s Lost Civilization – tho’ it is probably a bit over the top for most baboons.

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      1. I’ve read it. Also Underworld, Hancock’s exploration into undersea archaeological sites that would have been inundated no later than the end of the last ice age—10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

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    2. Bill, I am also interested in the Voynich Manuscript. I’ve read what I can find on it but I don’t think it’s solvable.

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        1. “It’s better as a mystery.” I used to think that. Now I’m seriously frightened by the ability of some people to believe what they choose to believe, facts be damned. I find myself firmly opposed to “alternative facts.” Alabama was never in Dorian’s crosshairs, dammit.

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      1. Putting that old thermos to the ultimate test to see if it can figure out which to keep cold and which to keep hot. Hope your experiment works.

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  4. is there really a 40% part of the population that is ok with trumps atrocities just because he is the only one who supports their particular interest whether it be anti muslim anti gay anti tax anti immigrant pro gun pro god pro alabama hurricane theory and is his nomination of horrible candidates for lifetime positions retractable once proved to be harmful to life as we know it?

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    1. My 87 year old uncle, a 45 supporter, recently told my sister that although 45 has the morals of a pig, he is willing to support him for Supreme Court victories and abortion stances. He also opined that all the opposition to 45 is a liberal conspiracy. He talked for 45 minutes. She finally told him he had 5 minutes to finish the monologue and find something new to discuss.

      Apparently to hold these views one must have impaired judgment and be very old. I don’t know how my sister lived through those 45 minutes.

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      2. Ugh, Jacque. I’m willing to give a lot of the benefit of the doubt to old people, but chances are that mindset has been honed during all of his adult life.

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        1. Oh, yes. And he was our history teacher who felt free to state his views. But any social judgement he once had, has vanished.

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      1. Not to drag us too far down the political path but the damage that’s been done for me I don’t think can be undone and that’s the I feel a little less safe than I used to knowing how many people are ok with 45 because he supports their one little sliver.

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        1. Maybe this is the same thing, maybe just related, but I will never understand how conservatives who feel duty bound to hold their friends and family to a strict moral code, often going to extremes to impose it, are utterly incapable of finding a leader who at least attempts to appear to be a decent human being.

          I sometimes thin there is a grudging admiration for the utter lack of shame.

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        2. There’s a TV documentary series called “The Family” that explores the ties between the evangelical Christian movement and the powers that be in Washington. Though it’s troubling to watch, I recommend seeing it. ” “The Family” is a profoundly troubling examination of the theocracy that wields power behind-the-scenes in Washington D.C.

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        4. maybe if the dems proclaim we are opposed to takeover by an outside government or that we believe in letting man come to his own agreement with his own god or that taxes should only be paid in proportion to ones ability to pay we could get those nimrods to say “yeah i’m for that”

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  5. Rise and Solve the mystery Baboons,

    1. Why is rental medical equipment so expensive? In the end it is cheaper to buy the needed items I cannot borrow (and I borrowed most of it–I will purchase a cane, and maybe a rolling walker).

    2. My mother had 2 antique Kodak cameras, circa 1920 and one has disappeared. She says Aunt Donna, who has become a hoarder, stole it. Did she?

    3. re: Geneology. Where did the Kleins and Klines come from in the 1840’s because they just materialize in Iowa and I cannot find any leads into the earlier 1800s? Edith and Jacob Kline had to come from somewhere. There are thousands of Jacob Klines in Iowa at that time, though. The same for the Cooks circa 1805 who appear in Ashtabula County, Ohio–from somewhere. This will be my genealogy project in AZ this winter. In previous winters I solved the Hardings from a Maine settlement mystery and the Nancy Ann Hammacher mystery. These two, cited above, are very stubborn.

    4. How can I get urban psychologists in charge of licensing and certification to understand the challenges rural practitioners face with earnings, critical mass of patients and practitioners, access to internet, and the costs of licensing and certification? They don’t get it and need to somehow explain this to the powers that be.

    I would appreciate any input about solving any of the aforementioned mysteries. 🙂

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    2. Tracing relatives previous to 1850 when the census started including names and ages of family members and other info is tough unless you can find a family association that has collected family histories for that surname. The 1880 census can be helpful in that it asks respondents where their parents were born, so children of the Kleins and Cooks could at least tell you that.

      I have two family lines—the Platts and the Barneys—that I haven’t been able to connect with a previous generation prior to 1850. I have been in contact with the family associations for both without results. Like your relatives, they just seem to have materialized. It’s especially mysterious because both families go back at least to the eighteenth century in America.

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      1. The other dynamic during those years is that when the Louisiana Purchase opened for settlement there was no education system. Previously educated families produced illiterate children who could not document in writing from whence they came. One Jacob Kline signed his name with an X as a tavern owner in the DesMoines area.

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      1. This is a problem occurring with our State Department of Human Services which is making headlines lately due to people in high places quitting. It is not psychologists, per se. MN DHS is widely known to be a problematic arm of state government. Nothing new here. (I was part of an audit years ago that my county failed. However, our examiner told us we should be pleased because everyone in the state failed the audit, and our county failed, but ranked first in the state for compliance. But we failed better than any other county. Really?).

        A certification process for DBT is caught in the grinder of the DHS dysfunction. Rural teams are expected to pay large amounts of money for a certification process that is very difficult. The challenges of practicing and recruiting Mental Health Providers, which I know you are familiar with, in a rural area make the process and expense even more difficult. The expectation may have some undesirable consequences if not addressed in a sensible way that helps them.

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        1. I was writing a response to them about this issue this morning intermittently with my reply post. The mystery of DHS loomed large at that moment.

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  6. A new bit of technology undermines belief in Bigfoot. Of course, it is difficult to prove a negative. One can always argue that absence of proof is not proof of absence.

    That argument is in trouble because of trail cameras. Trail cams are digital imaging devices that can be lashed to trees and left there indefinitely to document the passing of any critter that moves in their range of view. These cameras are so inexpensive that some hunters have several dozens set out in wild places, recording the passing of any animals 24/7.

    Trail cams have recorded many strange things. I saw a trail cam image of a squirrel catching riding on the back of a wild hog. A trail cam photographed three deer having sex together. A trail cam photographed a great horned owl attacking a deer. But there is no trail cam image of Bigfoot. At all.

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  7. 1. Was there ever a world without greed? if so, where did we go wrong – was it when we went to cultivation, to have a better grip on the food supply? Or when we let villages get to be cities because (?) everyone wanted to be in the same location?

    2. Why do we still do Daylight “Saving” Time?

    3. Where is my favorite jade earring?

    There are more… thinking.

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  8. Considering the current advanced state of digital image technology and also digital storage, why are store surveillance photos always so crappy?
    The same goes for the speakers at drive through facilities. Why are they always almost unintelligible?

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  10. Maybe it’s because I spend so much time reflecting on the past, but there is only one mystery from our family history that defies resolution. I used to have a big question about my parents’ relationship. I finally figured it out.

    The one remaining puzzle is a really curious theft from our home in 1998. It made no sense then and makes no sense now. I have a hunch about what happened, but I’ll never know for sure because asking probing questions could possibly do more harm than good. In this case I’m content to let the mystery be.

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  11. I imagine I have a long list of “where is that?” questions, but given the influx of stuff to my little house as I tried to help empty my parents’ house, I can’t think of anything off hand right now.

    I have lo these many years ago lost track of a silver confrimation cross that had been given to me by a beloved Danish woman who was the original owner. I thought I must have somehow lost it in all the many moves I had made since high school, but hoped it might be in one of the many boxes of things my mother was “decluttering” over the years that I just hadn’t gotten to.

    I was stunned when she handed it to me with some other stuff last Christmas. I have flogged myself regularly for my carelessness and sloth in losing it over the decades. Turns out it was safe and sound all along.

    I’ve gotten a few family history mysteries solved in the first flush of “going through things”, but that is on hold until this winter for now.

    I suspect I will never know why most of my ancestors decided to get on a boat and come to Minnesota, but every so often, something emerges…

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