The Book of THoTH Newsletter Issue 157

[ReverendChaos]

Newsletter for the week of August 24th to August 30th

Hello to everyone! To all of our new subscribers out there, welcome
to the book of THoTH Newsletter and to our Book of THoTH Google
group. Thanks for taking the time to subscribe and thanks for joining
our group. We're glad that you've joined our mailing list and hope
that you enjoy what we have to offer in its pages.

As of this newsletter, we've have had 17 new members to join us at BoT
since last week. To those who've joined, we say thanks for taking the
time to be a part of the greatest paranormal site on the web! Due to
this new addition of members, we now stand at 8,224 members strong. A
huge thanks to each and everyone of you for helping to make this site
what it has become! We couldn't do it without you.


This Week at BoT:
Lonecat, last week's winner of the prestigious GoldStar, has passed
the shining award onto another worthy member of BoT. Lonecat has
chosen WrinklyNinja to be this week's recipient. Wrinkly has won this
honor for his "gentlemanly" posts and for "the many interesting
contributions" that he has made to BoT. Congratulations,
WrinklyNinja! It's great to have you back in action at BoT.

No one has answered Juno54's question in the BoT LabCoat Quiz yet.
That question is:
"Explain why some peoples hair turns green-ish in summer (other than
using hair products that make it so)."

There have been a few close answers, so if you want a chance to wear
the highly sought after BoT LabCoat, hurry up and don't miss out on
the "BoT LabCoat Quiz Part IX" thread in the Science section of our
forums.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopic-21115-90.html


This Week in the Forums:
Walt has a thread in the UFO section that details a sighting of his
this past May. He also has a few serious questions relating to what
he saw. For those who wish to read about his report and attempt to
answer his questions, see "UFO Sighting & Relevant Questions".
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-21478.html

"MAJOR NEWS: New Rendlesham Forest UFO Disclosure!" is a thread by
Phoenix which gives us some information and questions relating to that
famous incident. He also informs us of a movie that is being made
about it. To read more about this, and to try and answer a few of the
questions, don't miss Phoenix's thread in the Aliens /
Extraterrestrial section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-21535.html

An older thread in the ESP & PSI section has been revived with some
new comments, views, and experiences. Is gazing at the sun good for
you? How beneficial is it? You may be surprised at what you find
out. To read more and to lend to the discussion, be sure to see
teslafire's thread, "Sun-Gazing Non-Eater".
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-3265.html

GnosticLady has an interesting thread in the Phenomena section that
tells about a recent experience of hers. It seems that she
unmistakenly heard coffee being poured before she even poured it. Was
this an instance of precognition, or a case of the brain being "one
step ahead" and providing sound to a routine exercise? To read about
GnosticLady's experience and to contribute your thoughts, please see
"I heard my coffee being poured before I poured it".
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-21534.html

"Yetiski?" is a thread by Crux that provides us with the link to a
video of a Bigfoot-like creature that was filmed in Poland. Is it
real? Is it fake? To watch the video and to decide for yourself,
take a look at Crux's thread in the Animal Kingdom & Cryptozoology
section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-21553.html


Random Site Feature of the Week:
If you haven't noticed yet, we have a new feature on our forums since
our big upgrade. Thanks to THoTH's hard work, we can now embed
Youtube videos onto our forum posts!

To to this, simply copy and paste the link to a Youtube video onto the
posting window. Highlight it with your mouse and then click on the
"youtube" button. Voila! That's all there is to it.


Strange Fact of the Week:
Most everyone is familiar with the geoglyphs at and near Nazca.
They're also familar with the White Horse of Uffington, England. What
many don't know is that there are as many as 200 geoglyph figures
along the Colorado River from Nevada to the Gulf of California in the
U.S. and a total of over 600 in the American Southwest and Mexico.
The first of these to be discovered was the "Blythe Giant", which was
discovered by a pilot flying near Blythe, California in 1923.


Trivia Question of the Week:
In 1967, two children were playing when they came across a spherical
shaped UFO sitting on the ground. They told investigators that they
saw "four devils" near it, then the figures levitated and entered the
craft, which took off with a soft, whistling sound. Where did this
happen at?


Answer to Last Weeks Trivia Question:
When was the term "UFO" first used?

The term UFO was suggested by Capt. Edward J Ruppelt, the first
director of Project Blue Book, and first used in 1952. His suggestion
was fueled by the concern that the common term at the time, "flying
saucer", did not accurately express the variations of the many
sightings. UFO was soon adopted by the U.S. Air Force in 1954, who
also briefly used the term "UFOB" (Unidentified Flying OBject). Many
today pronounce UFO by saying each letter, but Capt. Ruppelt's
suggestion included that the term be pronounced as a word (you-foe).


This Week in History:
August 30, 30 B.C.: Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide.

August 30, 1963: A hot line between the Kremlin and the White House
went into operation to reduce the chances of an accidental war.

August 31, 1887: Thomas Edison received a patent for his
"Kinetoscope," and moving pictures were born.

August 31, 1888: Mary Ann Nicholls, considered to be Jack the
Ripper's first victim, was found murdered in London.

September 1, 1923: A devastating earthquake struck the Japanese
cities of Tokyo and Yokohama. Nearly 150,000 people were killed and
more than two million left homeless.

September 1, 1985: A joint U. S.-French expedition located the wreck
of the Titanic 560 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.

September 2, 1666: The great fire of London broke out, destroying
much of the city, including St. Paul's Cathedral.

September 2, 1945: Japan's formal surrender in World War II was
celebrated as Victory over Japan (V-J) Day.

September 3, 1783: The Treaty of Paris officially ended the
Revolutionary War between the United States and Great Britain.

September 3, 1976: The unmanned U.S. spacecraft Viking II landed on
Mars and took the first pictures of the planet's surface.

September 4, 1781: The city of Los Angeles was founded by Spanish
settlers.

September 4, 1957: Nine black students attempted to enter Little
Rock's Central High School but were blocked by the National Guard.
Arkansas governor Orval Faubus had summoned the federal troops.

September 5, 1836: The Republic of Texas made military hero Sam
Houston its first president.

September 5, 1972: Palestinian guerrillas killed 11 Israelis at the
Munich Summer Olympics.


This Week's Birthdays:
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (August 30, 1797) - Born Mary
Wollstonecraft Godwin, she was an English romantic/gothic novelist.
Her most famous work is "Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus". She
was married to the Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley

Georg Jensen (August 31, 1866) - Georg Jensen was a Danish
silversmith. Starting off as a goldsmith and then a sculptor, the
turned to pottery and ceramics in order to make a living. Though his
work was well received, he again found it hard to make a living due to
weak sales, and turned into silversmithing. It was later that he
finally became successful, having opened retail outlets as far away as
New York, Paris, Stockholm, and Berlin.

Adolphe Appia (September 1, 1862) - Adolphe Appia was a Swiss
architect and theorist of stage lighting and decor. He is best known
for his scenic designs for Wagner's operas in which he rejected the
painted two-dimensional sets for three-dimensional "living" sets. His
design theories helped to shape modern perceptions between performance
space and lighting.

Queen Liliuokalani (September 2, 1838) - Queen Liliuokalani was the
last monarch and the only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Loren Eiseley (September 3, 1907) - Eiseley was a respected
anthropologist, science writer, ecologist, and poet. Best known for
his poetic essay style, he used this to explain complex scientific
ideas, such as human evolution, to the general public. His writings
about humanity's relationship with the natural world is also said to
have inspired the environmental movement.

Donald McKay (September 4, 1810) - Born in Nova Scotia, Hopkins was a
Canadian-born American designer and builder of sailing ships. He
opened his first ship yard in Newburyport in 1841 and then moved to
East Boston in 1845. McKay designed and built some of the most
successful clippers ever built.

Jesse James (September 5, 1847) - Jesse James was an American outlaw
and the most famous member of the James-Younger gang. After his
death, he became a folklore figure and was sometimes labeled as
"America's Robin Hood" and as a gunfighter, though he never played
either role during his lifetime.

We only have one member of BoT with a birthday this week. That member
is Virgolight, who celebrate their birthday on the 4th of September.
Happy Birthday, Virgolight! Here's to a great day of birthday
celebration and a most wonderful year to come!


Tech Tip of the Week:
Are you one of those people who like to open links in new windows or
new tabs instead of navigating away from the page you're on? If you
are, we'll tell you about a handy little tip this week that allows you
to open links in a new tab without having to change your browser's
settings and without having to right click and click on "open link in
new tab".

It's very easy for those of you who are using a mouse with a scroll
wheel. Simply middle click (click on the scroll wheel) on the link.
When you do this, the link you clicked on will open up in a new tab.

This trick should work in both Internet Explorer and Firefox, so happy
middle clicking!


Unsolved Question of the Week:
In 1878, five Sisters of Loretto prayed for a stair case leading into
the choir loft of their newly built chapel. After a few months, they
had one. The mystery is who built the Loretto Chapel's staircase?

To give a bit of history, the Loretto Chapel was built after the
arrival of five nuns from Kentucky in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They came
there to spread religion and education to the area and soon had a
school and convent built. Construction on the chapel began in 1873 and
was led by French architect P. Mouly. In April of 1878, the beautiful
gothic chapel was completed, the first of it's kind west of the
Mississippi River. However, there was one thing missing from the
chapel, and that was a stair case leading to the choir loft. This was
said to be because of the death of P. Mouly who was shot by the
archbishop's nephew on the accusation that Mouly had romantic
intentions toward the nephew's wife. It was then that the work on the
chapel had ceased.

The chapel was completed though, even if it didn't have a staircase.
The workers had decided that the proposed staircase wouldn't fit
inside the structure anyway. That wasn't too bad considering that in
those days, many of the lofts did not have staircases. Due to space
most leaned a ladder up and climbed into the loft, but the Sisters of
Loretto needed a staircase to accommodate their long robes which would
make it difficult on a ladder. Architects and carpenters were brought
in to remedy their situation, all to no avail. Any conventional
staircase would have been impossible without moving seats, due to the
small size of the chapel and the height of the loft. It was then that
the sisters decided to make a novena to St. Joseph, the patron saint
of carpenters. For nine days they meditated and prayed. It wasn't
until the last day that an elderly man with some tools and his mule
arrived at the chapel.

Having come on the ninth and last day of the novena, the sisters had
faith that their prayers had been answered and so they let him try to
do what so many others had said was impossible. He wanted nothing in
return except for food and tubs of water. It was then that he began
his work. Legend surrounding the chapel says that he carried only a
saw, a hammer, and a T-square. After working there for at least six
months, he called the sisters together and announced "you have your
staircase". If was then that he left without even time for a thank you
from the nuns.

The staircase has remained a mystery since then. After completion, the
nuns prepared a feast for the carpenter. They searched the town after
the failed appear. The people of the town were asked but nobody knew
anything about him. No one had seen him, fed him, knew where he had
slept or where he had gone. Not even the local lumber yard had records
of his purchases. After this mystery man couldn't be found, the
sisters began to believe that perhaps it was St. Joseph himself had
built the stairway.

One of the things that makes the Loretta Staircase so unique is not
it's mystery builder, but the way that it was built. One of it's
amazing features was that there is no center support of any kind for
the staircase. It's a steep spiral stairway, made without a single
nail or screw, that has two complete 360 degree turns and is twenty-
two feet from the floor to the floor of the choir loft. The staircase
has thirty-three steps that the sisters would remind everyone of being
the exact number of years that Jesus was on Earth.

Then in 1965, some new information came to light about it's possible
builder. This was when Oscar Hadweiber, a third generation master
carpenter, visited the Loretto Chapel for the first time. After
viewing the staircase and being overwhelmed by the work of art, he was
recalled to a family story which said that his grandfather had came to
America and built a stairway somewhere out west. His grandfather was
Johann Hadweiber, a renown European carpenter who spent two years
working around New Mexico and Colorado. It turns out that the spiral
staircase was built in those same two years. Oscar then became
enthused with the staircase, sending a letter to the sisters stating
that it was his grandfather that had built it.

Being shocked at this new bit of information, and being a bit
skeptical, the current sisters needed something more than word of
mouth as proof. Oscar seemed to have found what he believed to be
proof in 1970. This proof was said to be in an old tool box found in
storage in his sister's home. Inside the old box was a faded sketch of
the overhead view of a spiral staircase that had thirty-three steps.
However, Oscar died in 1980 without the sketch having ever been
authenticated. The sketch has since disappeared, along with his tools,
leaving only a photocopy of the drawing in existence.

Since Oscar's death, no new information has came about, but people
still marvel over the staircase in Loretto Chapel. Still standing
today, architects from all over have come to visit and view this
mysterious construction. They look on in wonder, some trying to
explain how it didn't crash on it's first use or how such precision
was obtained with so few tools and that tub of water. Aside from it's
construction, another oddity about the stairway is that they were made
with a type of hardwood that is not native to the New Mexico region
and no one could explain where any carpenter in the area could have
gotten it.

So who do you think built the Loretto staircase? Was it the European
builder, Johann Hadweiber, or were the prayers of the Sisters of
Loretto answered? Was it either? Until some kind of reliable evidence
shows up, this may be another question that belongs to the realm of
the unsolved.


Quote of the Week:
"If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see
anybody."
- Agatha Christie


That concludes this week's edition of the BoT newsletter. We hope
that you've enjoyed it, found it a nice change in your inbox, and are
looking forward to receiving the next one. As always, we should have
lots more waiting in store for you.

Until next time, keep your eyes to the skies and the door to your mind
unlocked. You never know who might drop by for a visit.