Journal of the Bizarre

Shortly after the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, WABC Radio host Aaron Klein stated: “Investigators would be wise to thoroughly examine the possibility of a missile attack in light of recent information about the global proliferation of such projectiles capable of downing civilian airliners.”

On his website, Klein Online, he cited “unverified claims” that a cache of surface-to-air missile launchers went missing in Ukraine. He made these statements in March-- long before many of the unfortunate passengers of MH17 even bought the tickets that would lead to their tragic demise.

Eerily, a little more than four months after Klein made this statement, MH17 was destroyed over the Ukraine, allegedly by pro-Russian separatists armed with surface-to-air missiles.

Even more astonishing than Klein's connection of the MH370 disappearance to the crisis in the Ukraine is the fact that, back in March, Malaysia's Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein rev…

Late Tuesday, ABC Australia reported that the train which was supposedly carrying the remains of 282 bodies from the MH17 disaster arrived in the city of Kharkiv- but the train arrived with only 200 bodies on board.

"We are sure of having 200 bodies and body parts, that is all that I know," said Jan Tuinder, head of the Dutch delegation, on Tuesday. It is believed pro-Russian separatists fired the SA-11 surface-to-air missile which blew up the Malaysian jet liner.

It is perhaps strange that the alleged perpetrators of this disaster, the Russian-backed separatists, are not only the same people who loaded the bodies onto the train, but are also the same people who said there were 282 bodies on the train. How could 82 bodies possibly disappear on a train?

This is just one of the countless lingering questions in the wake of the crash of Malaysian Flight MH17.

International monitors report that the crash site is still being "compromised" by separatists near Donetsk, a pro-…

Can Human Breath Catch Fire?



Most of us are familiar with those colorful circus performers who spit fire as part of an act, but not many people are aware that human breath can ignite under the right circumstances. One such event took place in 1886 and was described by Dr. George Beatson and was published in the esteemed British Medical Journal.

Beatson, a pioneer in the field of oncology, described one patient with an extremely bad case of halitosis, whose breath was so foul that it was flammable:

I can not do better than give the facts in the words of the patient himself, who communicated them to me by letter. He writes as follows: "A rather strange thing happened to myself about a week ago. For a month or so I was troubled very much with foul eructations. I had no pain, but the smell of the gas which came from my stomach was disagreeable to myself and to all who happened to be in the room. About a week ago, as I said, I got up in the morning and lighted a match to see the time, a…

Of the many things I've inherited from my father, a fanatical love for The Twilight Zone has influenced me the most. As a kid, I reveled in each deliciously ironic episode, but my favorite episodes were the ones dealing with space travel, because they presented a picture of how the world would look in some distant far-off year... like 1987! Being a kid in the 1990s, of course, these episodes made me double over with laughter. I was equally amused by my grandfather's collection of vintage science magazines, with colorful covers which captured everything from flying cars to artistic renderings of the "world of tomorrow".

I have no idea how many other people share my fondness for vintage pictures of the future, but hopefully some of you will enjoy this post, perhaps those of you who are nostalgic for a tomorrow that never happened years ago, or for those of us who are still waiting for flying cars, bubble-shaped houses beneath the sea, and robot maids to cater to our e…

With so many paranormal researchers labeled as pseudoscientists and quacks, it's important to remember the pioneers  who have made invaluable contributions to the world of science and medicine. One such pioneer was Dr. Carl Wickland, the Swedish-born physician who, in 1908, was appointed chief psychiatrist at the National Psychopathic Institute of Chicago. Wickland also authored the groundbreaking book Thirty Years Among the Dead, which chronicles his long career working with sanitarium patients and exploring the realms of reincarnation and demonic possession.

A wonderfully written article on Dr. Wickland appeared in the October 26, 1913 edition of the New York Sun, in which he details his methods and discusses some of his most incredible cases. Although Dr. Wickland remained active in the paranormal community up until his death in 1945, the New York Sun article is perhaps the most intriguing article written about this brilliant pioneer of paranormal research:

Obsession by evil spi…

Many articles have been written about the seemingly mysterious deaths of ufologists and a possible conspiracy link, but precious little has been written offering a logical explanation for the multitude of deaths suffered by those in the UFO community.

The topic of ufologist deaths was first brought to light by comic book writer Otto Binder who, in 1971, published an article entitled "Liquidation of the UFO Investigators," which begins:

Over the past 10 years, no less than 137 flying saucer researchers, writers, scientists, and witnesses, have died -many under the most mysterious circumstances. Were they silenced, permanently, because they got too close to the truth?

Definitely an interesting and provocative article, but do Binder's claims have any basis in fact?

Binder begins by mentioning the case of Frank Edwards, a radio newscaster and UFO aficionado who, according to Binder, was murdered during the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists. Binder alleges that the chairman…