There are a lot of strange things that occur and even though they are hard, or impossible to explain, they sometimes are quite natural. One of these types of events that has always bewildered me was when animals are found inside solid stone and are alive. The animals that I am speaking of are usually frogs or toads and sometimes even lizards. In 1853 a horned lizard was found alive in stone. The stone and animal were sent to the Smithsonian for study. The lizard died two days after its release. Some of these animals seem to be a little different than the ones the we are familiar with. One example was a toad that was trapped in stone and released that had much longer legs than present day toads. Could this have been some sort of prehistoric animal that had been trapped in rock for millions of years and lived?

In 1791 a villager from Meudon, began to break up some large rocks. He split one huge one and to his utter surprise, a toad fell out. Far more surprising was the fact that the toad was alive. This had happened to the man once before. The toad had survived inside a solid rock without oxygen from the day the rock formed to when it was found. This could have been millions or years or at least tens of thousands, depending on what type of rock it was. Did this animal have some way of putting itself into suspended animation? It would seem so, wouldn't it? How else could an animal survive without air or food and how could it extend it's life span to such an incredible length? Could this be the result of some sort of experiment with dimensional travel or the like that had gone bad. Remember those old Star Trek episodes where Scottie warns people that he doesn't have an exact fix to beam people down to some planet and tells them that they could end up materializing in stone or somewhere else just as unpleasant?

I was reading an account by a amateur photographer who had decided that he wanted to photograph storms. Now taking up a hobby like this might contain unsuspected hazards. He was setting up his camera when the storm decided to increase its power. He decided that the best place to put his camera was on top of his car. Let me mention this folks, this is not a good idea if you are talking about a storm that has lightning and this one did. Bolts began to flash all around our friend and he happily snapped away and then it happened. A huge bolt struck behind him and he went sailing through the air. He estimated that he was sailing through the air at a height of about six to seven feet. He landed on the ground completely unhurt. Here is a lesson he learned, lightning can travel through the ground, you don't need a direct hit to be electrified.

A yacht was sailing in the vicinity of Tonga and was motoring along until it hit a sea of stone. This event occurred in August of 2006. The captain and crew were perplexed, they had never seen anything like this in the ocean before. What had they found? How come this was not on any of the charts, after all it was not like no one had come this way before? They had hit a sea of pumice, that light stone that floats. What the ship's crew was witnessing was the birth of a volcanic island. This is a very rare event and they were privileged to see it happen. They decided that it wasn't a good idea to be where they were and began to turn around. The pumice clogged their engine and they had to clean it out before leaving. They got out ok and all is well for boat and crew.

Bat
Photo Source: USDA

This will seem strange to us and a lot of the western world I am sure. The traditional Christmas dinner is usually turkey or ham, but this isn't true in some other places. For example if you lived in Singapore, you might have a nice holiday meal of dog or bat. As a matter of fact in Vietnam, roast dog is sold at street corners. Here man's best friend becomes man's best meal.

All did not go well for Christopher Columbus when he was sailing to the new world. No I am not talking about the crew almost mutinying, I am talking about strange things that happened when he reached the Bermuda Triangle. It is said that as he was sailing along, a ball of fire went right over his ship and crashed into the ocean. This in itself was strange enough but he couldn't explain the fact that there was no wind yet waves were rolling through the ocean. Then there was the fact that his compass was spinning like a top for a minute or two. Lastly there was the eerie light that seemed to be coming from the ocean. He never found out what caused these events although the waves could be explained. Today many people still talk of strange happenings in this part of the ocean.

Oil companies want to drill for oil in England. So far that certainly doesn't sound unusual does it? No, but the companies have Russian connections and want to use microleptons to locate the oil. I bet you have no idea what I am talking about do you? Why should you, I didn't know what microleptons were until I looked them up. They are particles that underground oil might release and it is said that they are unknown to high energy physics. Supposedly these particles can be seen by making a recording of them and shining a "microlepton generator" onto the photographic film. A plane will fly over the area suspected of having oil deposits and in the plane will be a microlepton scanner that will identify the oil. It can also identify other deposits such as gas and minerals, or so it is said. Some scientists are saying that microlepton don't exist and this is just a waste of time.

Well so much for the unusual.