Top 5 Ambitious Future Space Missions

Here are the top 5 space missions which show the curiosity of human beings to explore the last frontier.

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Edinburgh's Blair Street Vaults

 
There are few places in the world quite as haunted as the Edinburgh's Blair Street Vaults. Also known as South Bridge vaults or just Edinburgh Vaults, the place consists of a series of nineteen chambers arches. The vaults were home to local taverns and shops but later became a safe haven for thieves, murderers and all sorts of nasty figures, making it one of the most dangerous places in the city.

Eventually, living conditions proved to be unsuitable even for these criminals, who could no longer tolerate the poorly circulated air and lack of sunlight, running water, and sanitation. Things became so bad that by the 1860s, most of the vaults had been emptied and filled with rubble, so as to prevent flooding and discourage ongoing crime.

Legend:

According to many paranormal investigations, the Edinburgh Vaults are reportedly one of the most haunted locations in the world. Mustering up all of our courage, our group went on a ghost tour of the vaults, learning of the spirits that still roamed its corridors from the 17th and 18th centuries. 

One of the famed ghosts is known as “Mr. Boots,” an evil entity who is believed to have murdered a woman and kept the body in his “house” inside. He hates the people who tour the vaults, and allegedly gets angry or even attacks anyone who dares to sit in the spot where the body was hidden. The most common reports of his presence, however, are the sounds of thick, heavy boots, stepping ever so slowly around visitors.

A woman described her encounter with Mr. Boots as:

“She told us of the presence of a malevolent male ghost who was very strong… he told her to get out of the vaults… She had tried to reason with him but he made a lunge at her and she saw him very clearly… He said ‘get out’ repeatedly. He was very territorial.”

There are also some other spirits which are not so terrifying. One is called "The Aristocrat", who is a well-to-do gentleman with a tall black hat and beard and is often seen leaning against the wall between the double height room and the tavern. With folded arms, he watches and grins at people as they pass. The other is called "The Cobbler" who is believed to be a shoemaker from the late 18th century, he is described as a short, stocky man wearing a long leather apron and a white shirt. He is known to smile at people as they pass, and is generally felt as a positive presence.

There is also a young spirit called "The Child". He is a small boy who wanders through the vaults, aged at about six or seven. He is described as having “blonde, curly hair and is dressed in a smart, blue suit with knicker-bocker trousers.”

Other unusual occurrences have also been reported around the vaults, with a member of staff at an adjoining bar once reporting leaving an orange on the counter for a few seconds while he put something in the bin, only to find it perfectly peeled when he looked back.

Investigation:

In 2001, Professor Richard Wiseman conducted a study of people spending time the vaults and concluded that, since those people who believed in ghosts reported more supernatural occurrences that those who did not believe, and since there were more “sightings” and odd events in rooms the participants had been told were haunted, that much of the experience was created in the minds of the people who went in there.

In contrast to this however – and perhaps lacking the academic credentials of Professor Wiseman – was Joe Swash, who spent a night in the vaults by himself in 2009 for a BBC programme, during which his microphone supposedly recorded the voice of a Catholic priest reciting the last rights for 20 minutes, something Swash himself never heard.

Others take down Electronic Voice Recorders, light meters and other ghost-hunting gadgets, and invariably all report strange, unexplainable readings.

For those that work there, however, there’s no need for any specialist equipment - just nerves of steel to go down into the dark vaults after everyone else has left the building.

Historical paranormal locations, like the Edinburgh Vaults, that embrace their haunted legacies are some of the coolest places to visit, because not only are you getting the opportunity to step back in time, you might even get to interact with the spirits who were there when it all happened.

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Thunderbird

 

The Thunderbird is a cryptid of North America.Thunderbirds inhabit the folklore of many regions. The name Thunderbird is derived from the sound that is apparently produced as a result of the thunderous beating of the mighty wings of the creature.Tales of similar creature often appear in Native American mythology; some tales tell of enormous eagles strong enough to carry whales back to their nests. Since pioneers began moving west across the North American plains, sightings of large birds have been reported. Similar stories appear from civilizations around the world.

Legend:

Native tribes all across North America, especially along the Pacific coast and in the Great Lakes area, have stories depicting enormous birds of prey. Some stories told that these birds were so large and powerful that when they flapped their wings, thunder was created. Lightning flashed out of their eyes, and water fell off their backs, creating rain. 

The tribes used thunderbirds to explain some of the things that happened naturally, such as storms and other forms of weather. The legend of Passamaquoddies, for example, describes the quest of two Indians in search of the source of thunder high in the mountains. Other stories said that there was a thunderbird who battled an enormous killer whale. When the two beasts fought, they destroyed much of the land, knocking down trees and causing much destruction. 

Although dangerous and powerful beings, thunderbirds were also seen as benevolent nature spirits, and they sometimes assisted the tribes in their search for food during periods of famine.According to some legends,the igneous rocks known as thunderstones are the eggs of these creatures.

Sightings:

Sightings of large bird-like creatures have been reported for many years, ever since people began settling further west in the United States and Canada. 

One of the most famous reports is from 1890, where two Arizona cowboys claimed to have shot and killed a large bird. It was described as having no feathers, and it had the head similar to that of an alligator. The two men supposedly dragged the dead bird back to town after killing it. The report seems to suggest that this creature looked more like a pterodactyl or a dragon than any modern-day bird.

Jeromy Clark in his book Unexplained!, lists many more sightings,including:

• In the early 1940s, writer Robert R. Lyman spotted a Thunderbird sitting on a road near Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It soon took to the sky, spreading its 20-foot wingspan.
• In 1948, several witnesses along the Illinois-Missouri border sighted a condor-like bird about the size of a Piper Club airplane
• In 1969, the wife of a Clinton County, Pennsylvania, sheriff saw an enormous bird over Little Pine Creek. She said its wingspan appeared to be about as long as the creek was wide—about 75 feet!
• In 1970, several people saw the gigantic bird "soaring toward Jersey Shore [Pennsylvania]. It was dark colored, and its wingspread was almost like [that of] an airplane."

Another sight occurred recently, on the evening of Tuesday, September 25, 2001, a 19-year-old claimed to have seen an enormous winged creature flying over Route 119 in South Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The witness's attention was drawn to the sky by a sound that resembled "flags flapping in a thunderstorm." Looking up, the witness saw what appeared to be a bird that had a wingspan of an estimated 10 to 15 feet and a head about three feet long.

Conclusion:

The possibilities for an explanation are endless.There’s something marvelous about the notion that a giant, man-eating bird of native lore could still be prowling the skies of the Midwest.

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Expedition sets out to locate Shackleton's ship

Researchers with the Weddell Sea Expedition are hoping to find the wreckage of Shackleton's vessel Endurance.

Believed to lie 3,000 meters beneath the freezing waters of the Antarctic, the famed vessel, which carried Shackleton and his crew on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914, has long been sought-after due to its role in one of the most incredible adventure stories of the modern age.

Shackleton had aimed to lead the first ever land crossing of the Antarctic continent, however the plan was abandoned after the loss of his vessel left he and his crew stranded in the middle of nowhere.

After spending months camped on drifting sea ice, the crew ended up on Elephant Island - an isolated location hundreds of miles from the nearest settlement or shipping route. 

In an effort to find help, Shackleton and a few of his men set out across the ocean in a tiny boat to reach the island of South Georgia which was situated approximately 720 nautical miles away.

After several perilous weeks at sea, they finally arrived on the island. Shackleton and two of his men then had to cross the mountainous terrain of the island on foot to reach an occupied whaling station.

Incredibly, in the end, every single member of his crew was rescued.

Now Professor Julian Dowdeswell and colleagues are hoping to make history themselves by tracking down the last known location of the Endurance and using robotic submersibles to find the wreck.

Even getting to the site however will be an endeavour worthy of Shackleton himself.

"We've got a journey of several hundred km from where we are now through really heavy and quite difficult sea-ice," said Prof Dowdeswell.

"We shall do our best to get there with the excellent ice-breaker that we have, but in any given year it will be very difficult to judge whether you will be able to penetrate the sea-ice."

With any luck, the ship itself will still be relatively intact on the sea floor.

"I think that if we locate the Endurance, the greater likelihood will be that her hull is semi-upright and still in a semi-coherent state," said marine archaeologist Mensun Bound.

"However, on the evidence of the only deep-water wooden wreck I have been privileged to study, I must concede that there is every possibility that she could have been wrenched wide open by impact (with the seafloor), thus exposing her contents like a box of chocolates."

Source:BBC News

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Kentucky woman reports '7ft tall creature'

The woman and her husband had been driving near Sandy Hook when they saw something in the road.

The report, which was submitted to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, describes how the couple had encountered a large bipedal creature just after 7:45pm on October 18th.

It was described as "very big in stature, thick legs, thick abdomen... at least 7ft tall" as well as being "the color of a tree, specifically the trees in that area, so like a grayish-brown, very earthy-tone."

The woman's husband, whose eyes were on the road at the time, saw only a "strange shadow".

Due to the mountainous nature of the area, the creature - whatever it was - must have descended a steep incline to reach the road and then dropped down another steep incline on the other side.

After the incident, the couple returned to the same location but couldn't find anything unusual.

"That night, the neighborhood dogs were behaving very strangely, barking and howling all night long," the woman added. "One of them even acted as if he could see something in the distance, and began to growl and stalk before he took off to chase it. It was a very weird night."

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NASA InSight lander heads for "7 minutes of terror"

 NASA's InSight lander will be descending 80 miles through the Martian atmosphere in a few hours.

Having traveled more than 89 million miles since its launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base back in May, the ambitious spacecraft is currently on track to reach Mars on November 26th.

Just like the previous surface missions, InSight must survive the '7 minutes of terror' - the time it takes for a probe entering Mars' thin atmosphere at hypersonic speed to slow to walking pace and gently put itself on the ground.

"Landing on Mars is hard. It takes skill, focus and years of preparation," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

"Keeping in mind our ambitious goal to eventually send humans to the surface of the Moon and then Mars, I know that our incredible science and engineering team - the only in the world to have successfully landed spacecraft on the Martian surface - will do everything they can to successfully land InSight on the Red Planet."

If InSight survives the descent, the $1 billion lander will attempt to learn more about what lies beneath the surface of the Red Planet using an array of sensitive instruments including a burrowing temperature sensor and a seismometer designed to detect Marsquakes. Its mission is to determine the red planet's internal structure.

"This mission will probe the interior of another terrestrial planet, giving us an idea of the size of the core, the mantle, the crust and our ability then to compare that with the Earth," said NASA Chief Scientist Jim Green.

"This is of fundamental importance to understand the origin of our solar system and how it became the way it is today."


For the team, touching down on the surface of Mars will represent years of hard work and preparation ending in a single event.

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Black Mountain

The Black Mountain, known to the Aboriginals as Kalkajaka meaning ‘the place of the spear’, is located in Queensland, Australia. The area is a national park and has a unique range of wildlife, including species that are endemic only to this area, many of which are rare.

Appearance:

The mountain is made up of large piles of black granite rocks and huge granite boulders, some of which are said to be the size of small houses. According to geologists, these rocks and boulders were formed 250 million years ago by solidified magma formation and the absence of soil to fill in the gaps and cracks between the rocks means there are many tunnels and caves within the mountain. The black granite also serves to give it a very dark and eery appearance. 

Legends:

As you would expect from such a spooky place it is rich in legend and folklore. The Aboriginal call it the mountain of death. The legends of the mountain are taken very seriously by the local aboriginal people and they are said to avoid the place like the plague. There are so many caves, tunnels and mazes within this mountain making it very easy to get lost. The mountain is known for some very strange sightings and disappearances and the natives have a lot of very disturbing stories surrounding the Black Mountain. 

One of the most famous of these stories involves a wicked medicine man known as the eater of flesh. The local tribe was so scared of this man that they would actually let him eat their old and sick hoping to appease his cravings for human flesh.  But it seems that one day his hankering to chow down on humans got the better of him and he killed and ate a tribal chief who he had caught napping.

Black Mountain boulders

For the rest of the tribe, as you can imagine this was the last straw. So they banded together and off they went to have a word with the Eater of Flesh. Of course, being well versed in the ways of magic it wasn't much of a problem for him to transform himself into a giant snake and he made his escape into the heart of the Black Mountain. It was there that he spent his days, only venturing out to satisfy his hunger for the meat of fellow humans. Ever since that time both people and animals who ventured too close to the mountain have disappeared, never to be seen again.

The first documented disappearance, involving European Settlers, occurred in 1877,

a courier named Grayner was out on horseback in search of a missing calf in the vicinity of the mountain. When Grayner failed to return a search was undertaken but no trace of Grayner, his horse or the calf was ever found.

A few years later an outlaw named Sugarfoot Jack and some members of his gang were on the run from the authorities. They had decided to hide out in the black mountain, but after an intense search by police nothing more was seen or heard from them.

Then in around 1890, another strange disappearance took place. This time a police constable Ryan and some trackers from near by Cooktown had tracked a fugitive to the mountain of death only for the trail to go cold at the entrance to one of the many caves. Ryan decided he would enter the cave and try and corner his man, but Ryan and the fugitive never came back out of the mountain.

An inside look

There is another story of a station owner who went by the name of Harry Owens. One day he had made his way to the mountain in search of some lost cattle and did not return. His absence was soon noticed by his partner George Hawkings who went to the police to report him missing, before setting out to search for him. It seems misfortune also befell Hawkings, as it has been recorded that he also did not return from the mysterious mount. So the local police force was brought in and conducted a search of black mountain for the two missing men. Bravely two officers of the law entered one of the caves but only one returned. Apparently, the one that came out was so shaken by what he had witnessed in there that he could not give a coherent account of what had occurred.

Now the Black Mountain started to get a reputation from the white settlers. The natives have always known to stay clear of this area and in the 1920’s two reporters were determined to get to the bottom of this mystery and they went to the black mountain and they too were never seen again. Even the trackers that went to go look for them also disappeared. 

Conclusion:

Whether one believes any of the folklore or spooky stories surrounding Black Mountain, it is certainly a harsh, unfriendly place that instills a certain sense of unease and dread in those who see it. It remains a place of many unanswered questions and a mystery waiting for explorers to uncover its secrets.

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