Esoterica

Drone Reveals Massive Stonehenge-Like Circular Monument in Ireland

A drone flyby has revealed a prehistoric henge, or circular monument, in a field next to the  5,000-year-old passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland. The new henge is the fourth one discovered near the Newgrange tomb.

The discovery comes as archaeologists, in a separate discovery, have unearthed a mysterious prehistoric structure – thought to be a ceremonial Neolithic avenue aligned with the rising and setting of the sun at the spring and fall equinoxes.

The high ground around the Newgrange passage tomb, beside the Boyne River about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Dublin, is already celebrated as a Neolithic "graveyard" and ceremonial center.

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The finds reveal the importance of the area to its ancient inhabitants 5,000 years ago — more than 100 years before the Neolithic stone circle at Stonehenge in England was built, and about 400 years before the pyramids at Giza in Egypt, archeologists said.

Mexico earthquake reveals lost ancient temple inside pyramid

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake which hit Mexico last September caused considerable damage to the country’s historical sites – including the Teopanzolco pyramid in the southern state of Morelos.

But the earthquake has also revealed a temple nestled inside the large pyramid – which is thought to date back to 1150 and to belong to the Tlahuica culture, one of the Aztec peoples living in Mexico.

Among what remains of the temple – which measured 6m by 4m (20ft by 13ft) – archaeologists found an incense burner and ceramic crockery.

The discovery was made when scientists from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) used radar to check for structural damage to the pyramid.

That Massive Black Sarcophagus Was Opened. Here's What's Inside.

A mysterious, black, granite sarcophagus discovered in Alexandria, Egypt, dating to a time after Alexander the Great conquered the area in 332 B.C., has been opened.

There was speculation at the time the discovery was announced earlier this month that the massive coffin held the remains of Alexander and that opening the sealed and foreboding-looking box would unleash a curse. Neither seem to be true … unless stinky sewage causes some sort of torment.

Along with the sewage, archaeologists found the remains of three skeletons inside the sarcophagus. These may be those of soldiers, Egypt's antiquities ministry said in a statement issued today (July 19) in Arabic.

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The opening of the sarcophagus creates a series of new mysteries for Egyptologists to tackle: Who were these three people? When exactly did they live? What killed them? Why were they buried in such a giant sarcophagus? What were they buried with (if anything)? And how did so much liquid sewage get into the sarcophagus?

Welcome to the Meghalayan Age - a new phase in history

Geologists have classified the last 4,200 years as being a distinct age in the story of our planet.

They are calling it the Meghalayan Age, the onset of which was marked by a mega-drought that crushed a number of civilisations worldwide.

The International Chronostratigraphic Chart, the famous diagram depicting the timeline for Earth's history (seen on many classroom walls) will be updated.

A portion of an Indian stalagmite that defines the beginning of the Meghalayan Age
It should be said, however, there is disquiet in the scientific community at the way the change has been introduced. Some researchers feel there has been insufficient discussion on the matter since the Meghalayan was first raised as an idea in a scholarly paper six years ago.

Ghost Particle Sent from Deep in Space Could Change Our Understanding of the Universe, Scientists Reveal

A single strange particle from deep space may shed light on some of the mysteries of the universe.

The tiny, ghost like subatomic particle was ejected from an incredibly energetic galaxy four billion light years away and could solve the century old mystery of where cosmic rays come from, as well as providing an entirely new way of looking at the cosmos.

The mysterious particle made its way to scientists from the most extreme environments in the universe, and will give them an unparalleled look at those intriguing regions.

Like the discovery of gravitational waves in 2016, the latest find could give scientists an entirely new way of peering into the infinite depths of space. And just as with the earlier discovery, the new development relied on scientists spotting the tiniest disturbance down on Earth, and tracking it to a mysterious black hole billions of light years away.

A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one 'oddball'

Twelve new moons orbiting Jupiter have been found -- 11 "normal" outer moons, and one that they're calling an "oddball." This brings Jupiter's total number of known moons to a whopping 79 -- the most of any planet in our Solar System.

A team led by Carnegie's Scott S. Sheppard first spotted the moons in the spring of 2017 while they were looking for very distant Solar System objects as part of the hunt for a possible massive planet far beyond Pluto.

In 2014, this same team found the object with the most-distant known orbit in our Solar System and was the first to realize that an unknown massive planet at the fringes of our Solar System, far beyond Pluto, could explain the similarity of the orbits of several small extremely distant objects. This putative planet is now sometimes popularly called Planet X or Planet Nine. University of Hawaii's Dave Tholen and Northern Arizona University's Chad Trujillo are also part of the planet search team.

Your Earliest Memory Might Not Have Happened

If life is but a tapestry, then memory is the thread. But some of those threads may simply be imagined: A new study out today in Psychological Science suggests that our earliest memories often couldn’t have happened the way we remember them.

In 2007, the UK’s BBC Radio broadcast a series of programs centered around memory. As part of one program, listeners were prodded to take a survey on the BBC website. The survey asked them to recall various types of memories in as much detail as they could, such as what they were doing during a widely experienced event (known as a flashbulb memory) or a particularly self-defining moment in their lives. They were also asked about the earliest distinctive recollection they were certain they had.

The researchers behind this new paper studied the responses from more than 6,000 volunteers who filled out that latter portion of the survey. They found that nearly 40 percent of these volunteers swore they remembered something before the age of two; nearly 15 percent said their first memory happened before the age of one. That might not seem like a big deal, in of itself, except for the fact these memories probably aren’t real.

The vast majority of scientific research, for decades, has found that our brains simply don’t have the ability to process and encode life experiences into long-term memories before the age of three-and-a-half (we might have some memories of those early years when we’re kids, but they fade away by the time we reach third grade). That’s the lowest floor, too; some studies suggest we can’t really remember autobiographical events until as late as age seven once we’re adults. But that reality doesn’t stop people from believing otherwise.

How Pope Francis Is Changing the Catholic Church

Inside the Roman Catholic Church, Francis has led a kind of revolution by deemphasizing culture-war issues such as abortion and homosexuality, and by focusing on pastoral outreach to the destitute. His allies tell me he is bringing the gospel back to its simple and radical roots. The tiny Fiats and Fords in which he rides, his humble Vatican residence, his simple white robes—all are designed to send a message.

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He has not pleased everyone. When it comes to empowering women, he has not gone nearly as far as many would like. He has said they will never be Catholic priests—and tends to exalt them with domestic, beatific language. But in a homily in June he seemed to expand his view, championing the equality of the “working companion”—not just the mother—and decrying a society in which “a woman is trampled underfoot precisely because she is a woman.”

Another troubling blind spot lies in clerical sexual abuse. Early this year, Francis repeatedly doubted the allegations of abuse survivors in Chile, calling them guilty of “slander,” and backed a powerful Chilean bishop they accused of a cover-up—actions that confounded even his closest supporters and threatened to tarnish his papacy.

But just as it seemed he had lost his way, Francis issued a remarkable apology. He held hours of emotional talks with the victims and began ousting Chilean bishops accused of covering up abuse. One of the Chileans he spoke to, Juan Carlos Cruz, now tells me he is filled with hope for the first time in ages. The pope, he says, has become a “friend.”

Watch: Jehovah's Witnesses official says to destroy records because 'Satan's coming after us'

A Jehovah’s Witnesses official delivered an urgent message to a group of elders at a 2017 seminar in Britain: The time had come to rethink the record-keeping policies of the organization, which has come under fire for its handling of child sex abuse complaints.

Shawn Bartlett, the Witnesses’ record management overseer, explained that handwritten notes and drafts of internal documents needed to be destroyed because of the potential legal harm they posed to the organization, which has eight million followers worldwide and more than a dozen congregations in the Philadelphia area.

“The question is: Why has this come up?” Bartlett said, according to a video recording of the seminar that was leaked online earlier this year by an anonymous insider.

“Well, we know that the scene of this world is changing, and we know Satan’s coming after us, and he’s going to go for us legally. We can see by the way things are shaping up. So the organization has said, ‘We’ve run into difficulties in the past because of the records we have.'”

Turkish 'sex cult' leader who preached while surrounded by glamorous women dubbed his 'kittens' is arrested over fraud

An alleged Turkish sex cult leader who preached sermons while surrounded by glamorous women who he dubbed his 'kittens', has been arrested over fraud.

Adnan Oktar, a bizarre and controversial Islamic televangelist figure, was detained in his villa in Istanbul's upmarket Cengelkoy district by local police on Wednesday.

Police said accusations against Oktar include forming a gang with criminal intent, sexual abuse of minors, sexual assault, kidnapping, blackmail, fraud, money laundering and exploitation of religious sentiments.

Oktar presented programmes surrounded by scantily-clad and heavily made-up women - who appeared to have had plastic surgery - who he dubbed 'kittens'.

The alleged sex cult leader was detained along with dozens of mainly female alleged supporters.