I like a good mystery, whether reading Agatha Christie or science fiction. I enjoyed browsing through a handful of non-literary websites that open doors to the heretofore unexplained. In a few of the sites listed this week, I had to put on my thinking cap as my first grade teacher used to say—to understand concepts put forth by a college professor about the fourth dimension. The websites touch on topics such as extra terrestrials, cryptozoology, consciousness, near death experiences, and string theory.
Museum of Unnatural Mystery . I spent an unnatural amount of time browsing this site and enjoying every minute. This pleasantly put-together site serves up a menu of “exhibit halls” that let you explore topics that include UFO’s, cryptozoology, space and time observatory, weird geology, odd archeology, and a host of other subjects. In the Weird Geology section, I learned about the Ringing Rocks of Bucks County, PA. I got to “listen” to different tones that these rocks make and now I want to rush off to Pennsylvania and experience them in person. In the Odd Archeology exhibit hall I read about the Bagdad Battery, which may have been the first ever invented. Other links on the site let you “Ask the Curator” your most curious questions. There is also a Children’s Reading Room and an opportunity to sign up for the Strange Science News e-newsletter. This “museum” is educational and entertaining, and most of all, easy to follow.
Clifford Pickover’s Home Page .Once you ignore the marketing ploy to by Pickover’s books, you can access some of his theories. Put on your thinking caps, because you will need them. The author explains his vision of the fourth dimension and how we three-dimensional beings might understand better this other-world. Once you get past the fourth dimension you can move on up to the next six and read more about string theory. Pickover calls his 4th-dimension discourse “Adventures in Consciousness.” It will stretch your brain.
Near-Death Studies . Elizabeth Kubler-Ross started the movement to study near-death experiences (NDE’s), and the web author of this site is a member of the International Association of Near-Death Studies, so this isn’t any chat room chatter here. This may be the only online newsletter that collects testimonies of NDE’s from the pages of the mainstream press. Anyone who has read Mooney’s books (Life After Life) or the more recent entries in this genre will enjoy reading the material here.
World Science . If you want to know what is going on in the world of science long before it hits the mainstream press, this is the place. Here are some examples of stories that I read during the week of April 19: A musician studied by scientists can identify different musical sounds by the flavors they create in their mouths; New evidence suggests that the shape of the universe may be a bizarre form of a dodecahedron (12-sided object); Bacteria may have a form of intelligence. As to that last article, maybe I’m a bit bizarre myself because my first thought was “why wouldn’t bacteria have a form of intelligence?” You can find samples of science art at this website, and on the home page there was (maybe it’s still there) an image of bacterial art that resembled plumes of a rare feather.
Invitation to ETI . Attention, extraterrestrials! This website is for you! Honest! This is the web-based scientifically credible SETI (search for extra-terrestrial intelligence) experiment. It is an invitation by approximately 100 scientists, artists and futurists from Planet Earth to any ETI having the capability to read it. I don’t know if Leno or Letterman has found this website yet, but you can imagine that jokes about ET’s and personal computers. The Internet being a democratic society, one does not have to be at ET to log on and read the invitation. Earth to Paula….Earth to Paula…
