The Strange, Bizarre and Unknown

Sasquatch Attack?

Crew members of MonsterQuest have experienced unusual occurrences over the years at a remote cabin near Snelgrove Lake, Canada. In 2006, a member of the audio crew had a rock thrown at his head from the woods. Another rock from an unknown source hit the roof of the cabin, the crew member said (see video). The eerie rock-throwing incident happened again in 2007. About the happening Jeff Meldrum said, "Obviously, there's nothing in the woods, that's recognized anyway, that can lob rocks in that fashion" (see video). The most recent 'Sasquatch Attack' episode of MonsterQuest can be seen at watchmonsterquest.com.

The Alternate History Theme Park Where Dinosaurs Fought in the Civil War
Most speculative fiction surrounding the American Civil War imagines how the world would be different had the Confederacy won its independence. But roadside attraction creator Mark Cline has imagined an entirely different kind of Civil War science fiction. His fiberglass creations tell the tale of a group of Union soldiers who discover a lost valley of dinosaurs in Virginia and plot to use them as weapons against the South.

The attraction, called “Professor Cline’s Dinosaur Kingdom,” imagines a lost chapter from Civil War history. It supposes that in 1863, a group of paleontologists inadvertently stumbled upon a valley of live dinosaurs. The discovery comes to the attention of the Union Army, who, recognizing the destructive power of the giant lizards, decide to capture them and unleash them on the Confederate Army. Naturally, it results in Jurassic Park-inspired carnage:

What you see along the path of Dinosaur Kingdom is a series of tableaus depicting the aftermath of this ill-advised military strategy. As you enter, a lunging, bellowing T-Rex head lets you know that the dinosaurs are mad — and they only get madder. A big snake has eaten one Yankee, and is about to eat another. An Allasaurus [sic] grabs a bluecoat off of his rearing horse while a second soldier futilely tries to lasso the big lizard. Another Yankee crawls up a tree with a stolen egg while the mom dinosaur batters it down. Mark has augmented some of these displays with motors: toothy jaws flap, tails and tongues wag.

It proves a devastating defeat for the North. The Dinosaur Kingdom is located in Natural Bridge, Virginia.

Double-Decker Graves Set For Go-Ahead

Human remains are to be dug up and re-buried deeper in the ground in double-decker graves to tackle a shortage of space for new burials.

New inscriptions will then be added to existing headstones while some old gravestones could even be removed altogether, reports the Daily Telegraph. Up to a dozen local authorities around Britain are set to begin an 18-month trial of the scheme.

A Government report last year found that burial space in England and Wales will be full in 30 years, while some urban boroughs are already out of room.

Tim Morris, the chief executive of the Institute of Cemeteries and Crematorium Management, says that only graves more than 100 years old that are no longer visited will be considered for the scheme.

Mr Morris, who is also a member of the Government's burial advisory board, told The Times: "In the cities this is a serious problem and our cemeteries are just not sustainable. We need these powers across the country or we are going to have serious disposal problems."

Almost a third of the roughly 600,000 people who die each year in Britain are buried.

Highway to Hell Popular at Funerals

AC/DC's Highway to Hell is becoming one of the most requested funeral tunes in Australia. Ding Dong the Witch is Dead from the Wizard of Oz, and Another One Bites the Dust by Queen are also popular, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Funeral managers at Centennial Park, the largest cemetery and crematorium in Adelaide, said only two hymns still rank among its top 10 most popular funeral songs: Amazing Grace and Abide With Me. Highway to Hell, which includes the line: "Going down, party time; My friends are gonna be there too", is just outside the top ten, with Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.

Leading the funeral chart is crooner Frank Sinatra's classic hit My Way followed by Louis Armstrong's version of Wonderful World.

"Some of the more unusual songs we hear actually work very well within the service because they represent the person's character," Centennial Park chief executive Bryan Elliott said.

Among other less conventional choices were Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Monty Python, Hit the Road Jack, and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead.

Horse Found On 12th Floor

Police called to investigate a strange smell in a block of flats found a horse jammed into a ventilation shaft 12 storeys up. Residents in the tower block in Prokuplje, southern Serbia, called police and when officers arrived they said the smell was so bad they ordered the building to be evacuated because of fears the overpowering fumes could be lethal.

A police spokesman said: "The smell was absolutely noxious. We had no idea what it was at first and did not want to take any risks.

"We even had to call in a special unit which deals with dangerous chemicals. Eventually though our officers tracked down the stink to the air vents and finally found the putrefying remains which were identified as a horse.

"How on earth someone managed to get a horse's body 12 storeys up and why someone would put it there though we have no idea."

Knit Your Own Hitler

A designer has created controversy with a set of knitting patterns for woolly models of the world's most evil dictators. Rachael Matthews's new book has designs for a dozen dictators, with a photo of Hitler doing the Nazi salute on the cover. She calls the Hitler doll Knitler, reports The Sun. Other tyrants featured are former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, Uganda's Idi Amin and Cambodian dictator Pol Pot.

Ms Matthews is the brains behind Cast Off, a London knitting circle that has grown famous over the past few years. The group have knitted together on the Circle Line, at folk clubs in the East End, and were once ejected from the Savoy for their knitting exploits.

Knitting kits to make items including shoelaces, a cigarette, lipstick, a grenade are available from her website www.castoff.info.

Walter