Fortean Mysteries SIG      recent history        issue 76         Newsletter of the Fortean Mysteries SIG of American Mensa          
  only 200,000 millicents per 3 issues     Published irregularly since Undecember 1658 AC
 "All things are possible ..." (Mt 19:26)
     SIG NEWS
  We missed getting any of our newsletters finished before the newest postage increases, but that will only affect sample or back, not subscription, orders. We also were out of copier supplies temporarily.  If you've visited our website you've had a chance to peruse the AD-AC conversion chart. In the Anno Confusionis calendar Mpossibilities started Aprilis 1641, so we've only been at this
for 19 years of confusion.
  We've also adopted our own monetary system too -- one that makes it easier for anyone who wants to be a millionaire to become
one -- the millicent ["honest" or diligent"], named in honor of eccentric Millicent Garrett Fawcett (1847-1929). A
three-issue subscription would now be 200,000 millicents and a back order or sample 50,000 millicents plus
34,000 millicents postage.

    GOOD OL' 2000

    Considering what had been foretold would happen -- that did not happen -- the year 2000 A. D. was a great year.
Many predicted a worldwide depression with millions jobless, homeless and starving because of the millennium bug. Since
 1994 Martha Raemer's Mary statue was reported to have bled and wept
and said "The world will end January 1, 2000."
  Dr. Hong Yeun Park prophesied that North Korea would be violently overthrown early in the year and Kim Jong-Il
assassinated.
  Dr. Julian Salt predicted "mile-high waves, hurricane-like winds and volcanic explosions worldwide" in May when the planets aligned.
  Dr. Renzo Cavotta claimed Jesus would return in the Fall having alledgedly examined secret passages of the Ded Sea Scrolls.
  Rabbi Herzl Rosenblum, author of Interpreting the Dead Sea Scrolls:A Reconstructionist Approach, based his
prophecy on Daniel 8:14, naming 300 days into the  year or Oct. 27 as Doomsday.
  Rev. Connor Barlow predicted a great earthquake on the West Coast and a killer meteor shower in the Southwest and a
700-mile-per-hour supercane in the Southeast.
  Patience Dereign prophesied a total collapse of the Russian economy triggering a civil war.
  Rev. Roger Cleypoole, Anglican Institute for Bible Interpretation, said: "Doomsday will occur at the end of the second millenium -- the year 2000."
  Prof. Brian Kingsley, author of A Comprehensive History of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, said: "New
translations [of Joseph Smith's golden tablets] reveal a prediction that 'In 2000 A. D., all the world will be
consumed.'"
  Professor and Seventh-Day Adventist minister Joan Merchen bases her year 2000 prediction on the 67 years since the
Antichrist Adolf Hitler rose to power.
  The Bethlehem Scroll Conference's prophesies for the year 2000 come from their imaginative interpretations of the
so-called Bethlehem Scrolls alledged to have been written by the Wise Men. They have met annually since the scrolls discovery in Cologne in 1991. They said Pope John Paul II "is almost certainly the emissary and ambassador" vaporized by a nuclear missile, "ball of fire", while visiting North Korea, "the East". Billy Graham would be martyred by the Iraqis. An
accidental release of germs and nerve gas would kill millions of Iraqi including Saddam Hussein. Adolf Hitler
would rise from the dead and imprison or murder 666,000 Christians in one day. They predicted 200,000 dead in race
riots in New York on Easter, half the world killed in the aftereffects of a comet fall and almost all the rest in a pandemic with only one hundred raptured away.

  THE NEW MILLENNIUM

  Exciting New Millenium Prophecies: And how they will change your life forever!  "prophets" extend the fun even further:
2001 Castro overthrown (Dr. Naphtali Dan)
2002 Japanese computer as intelligent as monkey (Dr. Naphtali Dan)
2008 first woman U. S. president (Ann Fisher), not Hilary Clinton (Starr Melody)
2010 papacy ends (Ann Fisher)
2019 Mark McGwire's son sets new 87-home run record (Dr. Naphtali Dan)
2020 antichrist unmasked (Jean Dixon)
2025 four-legged poultry (Dr. Hong Yeun Park)
2030 moon colonized (Ann Fisher) (not until 2350 Sr. Nadia)
2040 Mars colonized, black woman U. S. president (Ann Fisher)
2050 man explores other galaxies (Ann Fisher), escargot new snackfood, self-willed robots (Dr. Naphtali Dan)
2065 Mary apparitions, WW 0 (Dr. Hong Yeun Park)
2070 moon vacations (Ann Fisher), body reshaping (Starr Melody)
2080 Moldy Oldies boom (Starr Melody)
2100 telepathy common (Dr. Naphtali Dan), democratic China (St. Gregor II), Mexican top wines (Dr. Naphtali Dan)
2200 neopuritanism, theocracies (St. Gregor II)
2265 atheistic anarchistic neoluddites (Dr. Hong Yeun Park)
2350 angels revealed (Dr. Hong Yeun Park)
2365 New Land (united America) (Sr. Nadia)
2449 space mining boom (St. Grigor II)
2450 athlete clones (St. Gregor II)
2500 cyborganic colony cities (Starr Melody)
3000 time machine labs destroyed by "John Brown" and "Jim Jones" (St. Grigor II)
  And as mentioned way back in Mpossibilities 37 (Dec. 1985) The Third Millennium: A History of the World A. D.
2000-3000 by Brian Stableford and David Langford wrote about the last nuclear war (between Argentina and
Brazil) in 2079 and the volcanic destruction of Japan in 2085.

    CLAUS AND AFFECT

  Also mentioned in that 15-year-old issue mentioned above was "Relativistic Santa" which proposed the hypothesis that  Santa traveled at 99.9999%c with an energy requirement of 5% of the sun's yearly output.
  This year we've discovered (elfed@ mymerrychristmas.com) Ed Zackery's simpler one on "How Santa Does It".
  Because Santa starts from the North Pole he never has to make any turns to reach any place in the world he may want
to go since they're all in the same direction, south, which saves him much time. He can also do all his traveling on
Christmas Eve because he only has to cross a few time zones.
  Ed exaggerates a bit in saying he need cross no time zones, since not all zones converge at the poles. Santa would
have to cross time zone boundaries to visit
Afghanistan, Burma, Central Australia, the Cook Islands, India, Iran, the Marquesas, Newfoundland, Novaya Zemlya, and Saudi Arabia, but then how many believers in Santa could there be in most of these places?
  We've also discovered some of Santa's Eurasian assistants: Bartel comes to Austrian, Bohemian, and Swiss children.
Bertha Butzenbercht ("giftbringer") is a crooked-nosed, beady-eyed hag who distributes gifts to good German children on
Perchtentag (Jan. 5) and slashes the stomachs of those who are not. Bulleklas comes to Macklenberger and Pomeranian children. Father Frost and his daughter the Snow Maiden come on New Year's Day to good Russian children. Herscheklos
comes to Turingian children. It is a telepathic shapeshifter of Shetland Islanders. The gnomish Jola Sveinar comes to good Icelandic children. Julenisse ("Yule nisse"), a little, bearded, red-clan gnome  comes to Danish and Norwegian children. Jule Tomte comes to good Swedish children. The kallikantzari, long-tailed hairy creatures, come to Greeks in winter and put
out fire and steal food. Knecht Ruprecht ("servant Rupert") with long red tongue and wild eyes comes to German children. Krampus comes on winter nights to punish naughty Austrian children. Nicolai Chudovorits comes on Jan. 6 by flying reindeer sleigh. Pelznickel ("furry Nick" aka Schimmel Reiter, "white horse rider") comes to good Brandenberg children on
Nicholasmas Eve (Dec. 5). Pere Noel and Pere Fouettard ("father spanker") come Dec. 24 to good and naughty French Children repectively. Sinter Klaas comes to Amsterdam in November and then on a white horse with moorish Zwart Piet
("black Pete") to reward good Dutch children and take bad ones to Spain. Rower and Rubbet come to Schleswig-Hollstein
children. Rugeklas comes to Macklenberger and Pomeranian children. Ruprich and Sammichlaus come to Austrian, Bohemian, and Swiss children. Sumerklas comes to Macklenberger and Pomeranian children.
   :::::::::::::::::::

      BOOKS

  In the Johnson Smith Company catalog, "Things You Never Knew Existed", we find the new 216-page book, Mind Controllers and the 222-minute video, What Happened on the Moon?: An Investigation into Apollo by Dr. David
Groves.
  Edward R. Hamilton's catalog has even more interesting offerings: the 265-page Forbibidden Science: Suppressed
Research that Could Change Our Lives by Richard March, Julian Barbour's silly The End of Time: The Next
Revolution in Physics. the 538-page  Strange and Unexplaind Happenings, Vol. 3: When Nature Breaks the Rules
of Science ed. by J  Clark and N. Pear, The World Guide to Gnomes, Fairies, Elves and Other Little People by Thomas
Keightley, the pantheistic 256-page Mysteries of the Mind by Richard Restak, the 319-page Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History by W. Ryan and W. Pitman, the 333-page Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? Discourses on Reflexology, Numerology, Urine Therapy and Other Dubious Subjects by Martin Gardner, the
338-page Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach about Evolution Is Wrong by Jonathan
Wells, the 914-page  Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race by M. A. Cremo and R. L. Thompson.
  That's 3,179 pages for the eight books.

       RELICS
  We must confess we keep hoping that the show "The Relic Hunter" about the adventures of Prof. Sydney Fox will be
about true relics rather than cursed or idolatrous artifacts.
  Joan Carroll Cruz's Relics satisfies better.
The most holy relics would, not unexpectedly, be those of Jesus. Besides the mysterious Holy Grail and more
mysterious Holy Shroud are many other lesser known ones.
  Four blackened sycamore boards said to be from His manger brought from the Holy Land by Pope Theodore (640-9) are kept at the Basilica of St. Mary Major, Rome.
  His swaddling clothes are said to be kept Aix La Chapelle, Aachen, Germany, since acquired by Charlemagne. They've
been displayed publicly about every seven years since the 14th century.
  The Holy Tunic of the Basilique Saint-Denys, Argenteuil, France, also traces back to long before Charlemagne having been under the care of his kinswoman the Abbess Theodorade until presented to Louis VII. The cloth is wool and stained in the
shoulders and kidney areas by human blood.
  The Holy Coat of Trier, Germany, is said to have been a gift from  St. Helena who had a castle there to Bishop Agricius. In 1196 the linen cloth was transferred to the St. Nicholas Chapel. It was displayed in 1512, 1810, 1844, 1891, 1933 and
1959 with many accompanying "miracles and manifestations".
  The thornless remnant of the crown of thorns is kept at at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. St. Gregory of Tours (d. 593) described the crown as green "miraculously renewed each day". About 1063 it was taken from Mt. Zion to Constantinople and in 1239 from Venice to Sens and two years later to King Louis of France. It is displayed every year on Good Friday.
  Some of the 70 thorns taken from it are at Weverlghem, Belgium, others at Spedali Ruiuniti di S. Chiara, Pisa; Saint-Germain-des-Pres, Paris; Aachen, Germany; Saint-Corneille, Compiegne; Malmesbury Abbey; Stoneyhurst College; Stanbrook
Abbey; St. Michael's, Ghent; Oviedo Cathdral; Barcelona, Spain.
  The Holy Nails also said to have been found by St. Helena supposedly were attached to Constantine's crown and horse's bridle and Charlemagne's crown. 30 churches claim the three nails, but the most authentic claim is that of Sancta Croce, Rome.
  The Title (Titulus Crucis) was said to have been divided into thirds by St. Helena. One piece was hidden for over a
thousand years in a wall of Santa Croce (c. 455 to 1492), by 1550 however the red paint had faded and the wood become worm-eaten -- Holy Worms!
  The Holy Sponge became divided between Paris, Rome and Aachen; the Holy Reed Florence, Lunegarde, Bavaria, and
Greece.
  According to Cruz the most authentic claimant to "The Lance of Longinius" is at St. Peter's, Rome. In 614 the point of the lance was taken to St. Sophia's Church in Constantinople, and eventually to Sainte Chapelle, but lost during the French
Revolution. The blade was sent to Pope Innocent VIII as ransom for the sultan's brother in 1492.
 (((((o)))))))

      QUAKE
  The record India quake prompted us to get out our Richter scale equivalency chart where we learned that 7.9 is
as much energy as a 47.8 megaton bomb. The estimated world arsenal of 100,000 megatons could produce a 9.8 quake. A earth-busting quake, we calculate, would be 16.9 or about half a million billion gigatons.