Ningen: Deep Ones in the Antarctic?

The video frame above is said to depict a Ningen, a creature of Japanese lore, said to live in the depths of Antarctic waters.
Ningen literally means "human" in Japanese, and they have been spotted by Japanese fishermen and "research ships" (translation: whaling ships) during the last decade.
There are a few blurry photographs and some really blurry videos of these things, and the following details, coming from an anonymous researcher:
They are humanoid in appearence, long arms with five fingers, (or not if you read another account), have legs (or fins), are completely white, and are 20 to 30 meters in length. (!!!!) They mostly surface at night, and they are difficult to spot because they resemble icebergs.

Now that's a large creature.. Aliens? The Deep Ones? Shoggoths? (remember At the Mountains of Madness? it was set in the Antarctic)
Your guess is as good as mine.. Here's what Mysterious Universe has to say

While the first known reports of theses mammoth monstrosities are apparently untraceable; it is accepted that the Ningen did not gain any real notoriety until a description of these creatures appeared online in a popular Japanese forum known as 2channel. The individual posting claimed to have been working on a “government whale research vessel,” when one of these creatures rose up from the depths.
According to the account, the anonymous crew member — along with fellow researchers — scrambled up onto the deck to catch a glimpse of what they initially thought was a “foreign submarine” floating on the horizon. However, as the research vessel approached the object it became evident that they were not dealing with a machine-tooled structure, but a living, breathing, behemoth. The crew stared in awe at this biological anomaly until it submerged moments later.
There are persistent rumors that suggest that members of this research team managed to snap a series of extraordinary photos of the “thing” during their brief encounter, but these images were allegedly suppressed in order to spare the government funded research team the shame — and financial ruin — of being associated with this unusual event.

An here's a video said to be depicting a Ningen


Alien / Ningen Sighting : Sagami Bay, Japan Aug... από MysteryHistoryTV

Whatever these things are, I suspect information will be slow at coming, forever keeping them in the long light of uncertainty.. 

More photos and Videos Here 

Voynich Manuscript dated, not by Bacon

Not written by Francis Bacon, that is, as he lived in the 13th century, and the carbon dating revealed the book to be written in the early 15th century.
For those of you not familiar with the Voynich Manuscript check the Wikipedia entry for the history of the “World’s most mysterious manuscript”.

Written in an unknown language and depicting unknown plants and animals it has baffled scientists and intrigued mystics. Some have even gone as far as to suggest it is of alien origin or even the Necronomicon.

A nice artistic try inspired by the Voynich manuscript was the Codex Serafinianus by Italian Artist Luigi Serafini, although far creepier and less intriguing.

The Voynich still defies expert coders, although some believe they have found the secret and cracked the code, or some words at least.. I am not convinced.

Nice to know there are still things out there that just don’t make sense.

Original story here.

Disassembling Lovecraft

Courtesy of the Surreal One the above movie trailer came to my attention: The Last Lovecraft: The Relic of Cthulhu.
Yep. It’s a comedy. And although my skin crawls at the thought of the Great Old Ones being used in a comedy, I have to admit the whole “last Lovecraft” premise sounds funny. If you couple that with generous amounts of tentacles and goo and unnamable horrors, well, they could have something.  Here’s the story.

On the contrary, the “In Search of Lovecraft” flick I saw last week, made me weep for the lost, never to be returned, hours I spent watching it.
It is the tale of a young reporter who stumbles on to a Mythos-inspired cult, and faces horrors unknown to mankind. Yeah right.

The film looks like it was made by high-school kids, and sounds even worse! As for the horrors, some of the special effects will make your skin crawl with their apparent crappiness!
To top it all up, the movie poster features a naked chick with glowing eyes. Can you say “sexploitation”? (although there is not one shred of nudity inside the film, so it’s only poster-wise… )

Pffffff. I will have to wait for “In the Mountains of Madness” by Guillermo Del Toro. At least there there is hope. And hope dies last.

Related articles

• Guillermo del Toro's 'At the Mountains of Madness' To Shoot This Summer (slashfilm.com)
• Cthulhu Hits Xbox (pcworld.com)

The Original Necronomicon may still be around

In this post at the Cthulhufiles site the author, a Dr Carlos Sorentino follows the trail of the Al-Azif, the alter ego of the elusive Necronomicon.
The rather small article reads very professional and the bibliography seems convincing. Dr Sorentino is indeed a part of the staff of Macquarie University. (with all the bullshit afloat in the net, I just had to check).
The Book of the Ancient Demons was last catalogued in Buenos Aires in 1952 in the "Anexo" of the National Library:

In 1952, the "Biblioteca Nacional" of Buenos Aires, in its old "Anexo" of Avenida Santa Fe 1851, had a copy of the translation catalogued as "Sagredo, León. El Libro De Los Antiguos Demonios Escrito por el Arabe Abdul Hazred, Salamanca, 1612." ^[4]

The catalogue entry is puzzling. Firstly the year is quoted as 1612 while Freyre de Andrada attributes a date of 1512 to the publication of de Sagredo’s translation. Secondly, the mention of Palau is enigmatic as this bibliographer does not seem to have ever catalogued the Al Azif or El Libro De Los Antiguos Demonios Escrito por el Arabe Abdul Hazred. Furthermore, Palau never worked in Buenos Aires: is this a reference to another, yet undiscovered, copy of the Spanish translation?

The "Anexo" was closed in 1978 when the building was declared unsafe and condemned to demolition. The collections were transferred to the library of the "Servicio Geologico Nacional" in the second floor of the "Secretaria de Industria Comercio y Mineria" en Avenida Julio A. Roca 651 in Buenos Aires. However the modern catalogue does not list El Libro De Los Antiguos Demonios Escrito por el Arabe Abdul Hazred in its current holdings.

 There you have it. It should still be there. Or not..
The mention o Theodorus Philetas, the fictional Greek scholar that created the word Necronomicon is mentioned in the text, which makes it kind of fishy.. 
Can someone shed some light on this? I think I am very gullible, to say the least. Maybe I'll contact Dr Sorentino to ask for clarifications. Will update..

Sinkhole follow-up : Cthulhu is not in

This follow-up is related to my previous article on the Guatemalan sinkhole which almost devoured a city block a month ago.  Just to show that I have no problem with rational, clear-headed explanations which do not involve giant tentacled monstrosities, here’s an update.

It seems the waters from the sewage system augmented by the tropical storm Agatha eroded the loose soil where there used to be an old well, leading to collapse. It does not lead to Shamballa, Rlye’h, or anywhere else as it is only 30 meters deep..

An for some visual proof, here’s a set of pictures from the geologists who explored it..

Well, that was it. Another chance of mystery down the drain (or the sewer). But the best ones are right in front of our eyes, right?

Hat tip to forgetomori

The Trail of Cthulhu - Guatemala

No, it’s not Photoshop. It is a giant sinkhole that swallowed a building in Guatemala City, after tropical storm Agatha. The pictures where published in the Guatemalan’s Government Flickr feed, otherwise I would think it was a hoax. Source: NY TImes.

I was amazed at how round it is, almost like a well. As for the depth, it seems no one knows yet, but it sure looks bottomless… Reminds me of that post I resisted a while back knowing that it was crap.

As I have stated in earlier posts, I have a thing for all things Hollow Earth, as well as the Cthulhu mythos in General. I mean, look at this hole. Shudde M’ell himself would have no trouble entering or exiting that hole. Really. But, then again, if he had, everyone in Guatemala City would be dead or stark raving mad. It’s that Great Old One effect we love so much.
Still, that hole gives me the chills…

Alp-size mountain range in Antarctica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From Reuters:

Jagged mountains the size of the Alps have been found entombed in Antarctica's ice, giving new clues about the vast ice sheet that will raise world sea levels if even a fraction of it melts, scientists said on Tuesday.

Using radar and gravity sensors, the experts made the first detailed maps of the Gamburtsev subglacial mountains, originally detected by Russian scientists 50 years ago at the heart of the East Antarctic ice sheet.

"The surprising thing was that not only is this mountain range the size of the Alps, but it looks quite similar to the (European) Alps, with high peaks and valleys," said Fausto Ferraccioli, a geophysicist at the British Antarctic Survey who took part in the research.

He told Reuters that the mountains would probably have been ground down almost flat if the ice sheet had formed slowly. But the presence of jagged peaks might mean the ice formed quickly, burying a landscape under up to 4 km (2.5 miles) of ice.

The last (obvious) place of mystery. 4Km of ice is thick. Too thick to melt, destroy, burrow, at least for the time being.
A true Terra Incognita, hostile and unforgiving, igniting the imaginations of writers with subzero secrets and hidden civilizations. Where else could an Ancient City millions of years old could have survived intact, if not under the protective polar cap?
I am referring of course to H.P Lovecrafts "At the Mountains of Madness". Holds a special place in my heart.
It could be there, under the ancient, ancient ice. Really. It could be.

And if it isn't, is it really important? No. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. H.P. was right in so many aspects it makes you wonder.

The Bloop : Cthulhu Live from Rlye'h

Well, I could not resist. The Bloop, according to Wikipedia:

The Bloop is the name given to an ultra-low frequency underwater sound detected by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration several times during the summer of 1997. The source of the sound remains unknown.

The sound, traced to somewhere around 50° S 100° W (South American southwest coast), was detected repeatedly by the Equatorial Pacific Ocean autonomous hydrophone array, which uses U.S. Navy equipment originally designed to detect Soviet submarines. According to the NOAA description, it "rises rapidly in frequency over about one minute and was of sufficient amplitude to be heard on multiple sensors, at a range of over 5,000 km." According to scientists who have studied the phenomenon it matches the audio profile of a living creature but there is no known animal that could have produced the sound. If it is an animal, it would have to be, reportedly, much larger than even a Blue Whale, the largest known animal on the earth.^[1]

Because the Bloop noise originated near the location of the fictional sunken city of R'lyeh from H. P. Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu", the Bloop has been linked to Cthulhu by Lovecraft fans

Well, that sends tremors down my Shoggoth-infested spine, but, wait a minute.. Humor aside, larger than a blue whale? Well, that's big.

Having seen Cloverfield lately, I can honestly say that a Rising of the High Priest of the Elder Gods would not be funny. Not one bit funny. Like shitting bricks not funny.

To aid you in the meditative process of such an event, here's Cthulhu Meditation, using the source audio of the Bloop to make you even more effective in your invocation of the Deep Ones.

Fth'aghn!..

Holes in the ground again. Now it's Russia...

 Englishrussia reports that since the late 1980's, strange holes appear in the dense forests in the Siberian region. They are big enough to allow descent of a man, and they end abruptly several meters down. The forest around them is undisturbed and impenetrable by heavy machinery, and the soil removed from the hole is nowhere near.. Now that is weird.
Now that excites my Hollow Earth passion deeply.. They seem to be core samples, complete with vertical scratch marks on the sides, but huge. The machinery required to dig such holes would leave permanent scars in the surrounding forest. And last, but not least, their lack of purpose. They are not oil drilling tests. These are a lot smaller. They are not part of a network as they are not interconnected. They are located at random in a huge forest, probably a small percentage of the undiscovered ones, deep in the forest.
Aliens, anyone? Recent holes appeared in a field near a highway connecting the cities of Krasnoyarsk and Abakan, near the village of Kurgany, Siberia. They are different than the ones in the forest, as they look more like crash sites (!) or burrowing holes (that' even weirder)

I wonder if the earthquake some three years ago did not wake up some Cthulhu Mythos creature, like the Eater of Souls, craftily deployed in the same region in A Colder War, a short story by Charles Stross that will leave a cold spot inside you after reading..
Theories and more theories... They say the questions are more important than the answers, but I seem to be missing the questions as well..

UPDATE: Tony Polounine was kind enough to post an interesting idea, that the holes are the product of a flying machine designed by Victor Grebennikov. Read his comment below and more on Grebennikov here: http://keelynet.com/greb/greb.htm. I will have to write something about him soon. This is the stuff legends are made of!