Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Were you one of the people who complained that the last Indiana Jones movie climaxed with a bunch of aliens getting melted together? Did you think at the time that real archeologists would never mess around with stupid, buried, old UFOs?

Well, you were wrong, apparently. Because according to some sources – about forty 500 year old graves with a grand total of 200 bodies have been found. And the bodies – they’re 7 feet tall. And they all have crystal skulls, so if you were one of the millions who didn’t like that movie, then maybe you owe George Lucas an apology or something.

There aren’t any crystal skulls in the mass graves. Sorry we lied to you. But there were about 200 bodies that some people think were aliens.

Africa is a place known mostly for birthing 90% of the world’s drug lords, 85% of the world’s ruthless village massacres and 100% of AIDS.

Too much?

It’s also known for having hidden, living dinosaurs and really weird, gay monsters. But that’s talk for another day. Because today we’re talking about alien mass graves that have allegedly been unearthed recently. According to Archaeologydaily.com:

“A team of anthropologists found a mysterious burial in the jungle near the city of Kigali Rwanda (Central Africa).  The remains belong to gigantic creatures that bear little resemblance to humans. Head of research group believes that they could be visitors from another planet who died as a result of a catastrophe.

“According to the scientists, they were buried at least 500 years ago. At first, researchers thought that they came across the remains of ancient settlements, but no signs of human life have been found nearby. The 40 communal graves had approximately 200 bodies in them, all perfectly preserved. The creatures were tall – approximately 7 feet. Their heads were disproportionately large and they had no mouth, nose or eyes. The anthropologists believe that the creatures were members of an alien landing, possibly destroyed by some terrestrial virus to which they had no immunity. However, no traces of the landing of the spacecraft or its fragments were discovered.”

We’d like to know exactly which anthropologists found the bodies. And which ones said they thought the bodies were “members of an alien landing, possibly destroyed by some terrestrial virus.” Is that a hypothesis legitimate anthropologists are allowed to have?

We’re gonna need some pictures and really boring 70 page thesis papers written on the topic before we’re ready to fully bite.

Still though, wouldn’t it be cool?

Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

Dinosaurs in today’s world have completely sold out. Instead of gutting each other in magnificent toothy battles, they do boring things like chase after their Jeff Goldbloom-kidnapped babies. It’s enough to convince you they’ve all been neutered.

Now don’t fret, any dinosaurs that are reading this. Your reptilian-equivalent of testosterone can be restored in our eyes if you ravage a rhino or something.

You know, like this…

Normally when we talk about giant reptiles in this column they’re in the form of lizard-men who jump all over people’s cars, and drag human women into caves where they’re forced to lay eggs, and then bury them on a beach close, but not too close, to the ocean.

Today, however, our story is 100% based on actual science and guaranteed non-fiction!

That or just some random guy’s unverifiable account. It’s from 1932, and Wikipedia spills it:

“In 1932 John Johnson (sometimes spelled Johanson), a Swedish plantation owner, was traveling with a servant in the Kasai valley, in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). They encountered a Rhinoceros, and, while attempting to pass it without detection, were surprised by a large creature rushing out of the undergrowth and attacking the rhinoceros. The servant ran away and Johnson fainted. He awoke to see that the creature was eating the rhinoceros. “It was reddish in color, with blackish-colored stripes,” he said later. “It had a long snout and numerous teeth.” He decided that the creature, 13 m (43 ft) long, was a Tyrannosaurus. He also said “The legs were thick; it reminded me of a lion, built for speed”.”

The dino was called Kasai Rex for this reason or that. As for whether or not said servant ever corroborated the story is unknown. We have a feeling that he definitely did though.

Believe it or not this isn’t the only time a T-rex has been spotted in Africa. A very similar story was told in a magazine that same year (1932). What’s more – in both stories pictures are said to have been taken. The one accompanying this article is from one of those encounters, but we’re not sure which.

Obviously that picture looks like a still from King Kong or something, but since we’re pretty sure the giant ape film was a documentary, that really doesn’t diminish from the pic’s authenticity.

And there you have it. As of 1932 at least one T-rex was still roaming the African wilds, so next time you’re on safari you might consider covering yourself in urine. After all, that’s how the kid survived so long in Jurassic Park 3.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, ancient artifacts, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

The Grootslang is an African monster that’s said to live in a place called the ‘wonder hole,’ aka ‘the bottomless pit.’ It’s a cave that’s alleged to stretch 40 miles to the ocean, allowing the beast to come and go in a massive, half-elephant slither.

And to make it all a touch more interesting – at least one explorer that entered the cave as a one-man hunting party vanished forever.

The Grootslang is a horrible creature that enjoys murdering innocents, and worse yet, is super ugly. Well, we suppose if you’re either it’s gigantic snake-father or it’s elephant mother you wouldn’t find him unattractive. No – if that was the case you’d probably have his baby pictures strategically adorning all the walls in your super-long, crappy cave.

But we digress – here’s a description of the creature as found on Beastpedia:

“The Grootslang is a cryptid that supposedly dwells in a deep cave known as the “Wonder Hole” in Richtersveld, South Africa. Its name means “Great Snake” in Afrikaans, and it is described as either a forty-foot-long serpent or an elephant with a snake’s tail.”

The Grootslang’s legend has been around for a while – and a big part of that legend pertains to its main hobby. You see, the wonder hole isn’t just the creature’s home filled with piles of dirty laundry and empty pizza boxes – it’s also stuffed full of diamonds.

With the double payoff of finding a one of a kind monster and endless pocket-fulls of diamonds, lots of people have been willing to go spelunking – at least one of which was never seen again. An article entitled ‘Disappearances feed Grootslang legend’ will smatter you with details. It’s long but interesting:

“For years, the Oxford-educated English businessman had trained himself to find the legendary treasure of the Richtersveld in South Africa. It was there, legend had it, that a cavern filled with diamonds awaited the bold adventurer. The only problem was, the cavern was supposedly guarded by Grootslang, a fearsome 40-foot-long serpent with enormous gems in its eye sockets.

“I am determined to return to England as a very rich man or a dead man,” he reportedly said before setting sail with six companions in the summer of 1917. Before leaving, he read hundreds of old maps and diaries from prospectors. He studied African languages and familiarized himself with the customs, legends and superstitions of that part of the continent. His destination was the Orange River Territory, a harsh scrub land populated by poor natives and wild animals.

“The first night in camp a lion killed one member of the expedition and seriously injured a second. A few days later a third companion died of either a poisonous insect bite or snakebite. A fourth man became sick and begged to be taken back to civilization. That left only Mr. Grayson, since the two remaining members of the expedition “volunteered” to take the sick and wounded men to the nearest village for medical treatment.

“I can do this on my own,” he boasted to the guides before they left him alone in the wilderness. That was the last time Mr. Grayson was seen or heard from. When a rescue party returned a week later, they found the camp deserted and no sign of the Englishman.

“The Richtersveld had claimed another victim. Some say it was the Grootslang that killed the hapless adventurer. Native guides pointed out that only a fool would venture into the region alone.Even today, guides are reluctant to take expeditions to the cavern, which is known as the Wonder Hole or Bottomless Pit. Only one man, a tough prospector named Travis, is said to have tried to explore the hole and lived.”

There have been other witnesses to the creature too. Some say it’s a gigantic snake that leaves a trail three feet wide. Other’s say it’s the much more interesting half-elephant/snake something-or-other.

We really don’t care what it looks like – because with money like that it can afford to be ugly.

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Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

People are familiar enough with Bigfoot and the common descriptions given to him – that being visually identical to how Rosie O’Donnell would look if she always walked around naked and backwards with her face on the reverse-side of her skull. What people don’t often know is that the sasquatch is not the only hairy anomaly out there – oh no.

You see, there’s also the much less reported Agogwe – an animal that’s every bit as hairy as sasquatch but a fraction of the size. There have actually been a surprising amount of sightings of this guy – sightings to be detailed on the next page, sucka.

When it comes to the Agogwe, there are three basic sightings that seem to get reported the most. Let’s get them out of the way right off the bat. Here is what Captain William Hitchens claims to have seen in 1900, in his own words:

“Some years ago I was sent on an official lion-hunt in [east Africa] and, while waiting in a forest glade for a man-eater, I saw two small, brown, furry creatures come from dense forest on one side of the glade and disappear into the thickets on the other. They were like little men, about 4 feet high, walking upright, but clad in russet hair. The native hunter with me gazed in mingled fear and amazement. They were, he said, agogwe, the little furry men whom one does not see once in a lifetime.”

Hitchens didn’t tell his story publicly until 1937. He was, of course, met with ridicule at which point Cuthbert Burgoyne defended him in a magazine with his own Agogwe sighting a year later. Here are his own words:

“As we watched [Africa's east coast from a Japanese cargo ship] two little brown men walked together out of the bush and down amongst the baboons. They were certainly not any known monkey and yet they must have been akin or they would have disturbed the baboons. They were too far away to be seen in great detail, but these small human-like animals were probably between four and five feet tall, quite upright and graceful in figure. At the time I was thrilled as they were quite evidently no beast of which I had heard or read. Later a friend and big game hunter told me he was in the Portuguese East Africa with his wife and three hunters, and saw a mother, father and child, apparently of the same species, walk across the further side of the bush clearing. The natives loudly forbade him to shoot.” Without the quote, an account of Mr. Burgoyne’s making such a report is given in.”

And finally, here is the third frequently given account, as found on Wikipedia:

“Charles Cordier, a professional animal collector who worked for zoos and museums, followed the tracks of the [Agogwe] in Zaire in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Once, said Cordier, [an Agogwe] had become entangled in one of his bird snares. “It fell on its face,” said Cordier, “turned over, sat up, took the noose off its feet, and walked away before the nearby African could do anything”

Well that’s pretty interesting, and if that last account is true it shows quite a bit of intelligence clicking and ticking deep in the skull of that little furry animal. You should know that the Agogwe seems to go by different names depending on where its living. Other names it goes by include the Kakundakari, the Kilomba, the Sehite, the Agogure and Orang Pendek.

We said there were three primary stories available for the curious to read, but that’s only for those specifically researching the Agogwe. If you check under the other names, like the Orang Pendek, for instance, there’s more to find. For example, here’s a sighting from a Dutch colonist. We found it, too, on Wikipedia:

“I saw that he had short hair, cut short, I thought; and I suddenly realized that his neck was oddly leathery and extremely filthy. “That chap’s got a very dirty and wrinkled neck!” I said to myself. His body was as large as a medium-sized native’s and he had thick square shoulders, not sloping at all… he seemed to be quite as tall as I. Then I saw that it was not a man. It was not an orang-utan. I had seen one of these large apes a short time before. It was more like a monstrously large siamang, but a siamang has long hair, and there was no doubt that it had short hair.”

And there you have it. Hairy creatures of various sizes are found absolutely all over the world – and sightings of them are taken seriously enough for National Geographic to be in the middle of a very real effort to catch the Orang Pendek on film.

Good luck to them, that’s what we say. Good luck to them.

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This must be Amy Winehouse's lucky year – not only has she won five Grammy awards but she's also single-handedly caused the destruction of an entire continent.

And that's not just us saying that – the UN says so too, so it must be true.

According to a UN bigwig, every time Amy Winehouse glamorises drug-taking, it helps to fuel the African cocaine trade and recklessly creates corrupt 'narco-states'. And worse still, Amy Winehouse is becoming a cultural icon in Africa, and those poor people have got problems enough as it is without feeling the need to stagger round their villages in just their bra shouting "My Blakey!" all the time as well.

You have to feel for Amy Winehouse at the moment – Karma seems to be auditing her quite strictly at the moment. Whenever something good happens to Amy Winehouse – like when she won all those Grammys – Karma swiftly redressed the balance so that, in her next public performance at the Brits, Amy could hardly stand up and generally looked like she was spazzed off her munch on a bucket of giraffe tranquilliser. 

And now, right after Amy Winehouse was cleared of perverting the course of justice, Karma jumped in again to whip the good news away and make sure she gets scolded for ravaging the entire continent of Africa all by her lonesome. The boss of the UN's Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, has blamed Amy Winehouse for the African cocaine trade, you see. All of it. The Daily Mail reports:

Singling out the singer Amy Winehouse, whom he called the "poster girl for drug abuse", and supermodel Kate Moss, whose career flourished after she was publicly exposed as a cocaine user, Mr Costa said: "One song, one picture, one quote that makes cocaine look cool can undo millions of pounds worth of anti-drug education and prevention. "Coke-snorting fashionistas are not only damaging their brains – they are contributing to state failure on the other side of the world. Amy Winehouse might adopt a defiant pose and slur her way through (the song) Rehab but does she realise the message she sends to others who are vulnerable to addiction and who cannot afford expensive treatment?"

You have to feel a little bit sorry for Amy Winehouse here, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's unfair to single out Amy Winehouse alone for an entire industry with various distinct production stages because – although a furiously annoying goon – she's just one girl with a few problems who's been singled out by the UN because its realised that an anti-drug message will be heard more if it finds a high-profile celebrity with some amount of notoriety to use as a scapegoat.

Secondly, Amy Winehouse isn't even fuelling the African cocaine industry anyway. She's fuelling the African crack industry. Durr-brains.

Read more:

UN drugs boss slams 'coke-snorting fashionistas' like Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty – Daily Mail 

It seems that some people are never happy. After saving the world by organising a few gigs, Bono has been slammed by head of African Aid Action, Jobs Selasie.

Bono, who is renowned for his messianic charisma and rumoured to heal the blind just with his touch, was criticised by Selassie for not involving grassroots African organisations and saying that such half-baked charity endeavours such as Live Aid are detrimental to the future of Africa. 

African Aid Action chief Selasie said:

"You can't impose change from without. It has to come from within and we won't end poverty with handouts."

Well, we're sure the celebrity multi-millionaire and tax evader philanthropist's friends will disagree, such as war-mongering President George Bush, who supported Bono's efforts at ending world hunger and violence by inviting him for dinner a few years back.

Don't worry Bono, a few more concerts with a range of spoilt and mediocre musicians will put any criticism from real charity workers to bed.

Read more:

Bono and Bob Geldof increase Africa's problems say charity – NME

[story by Paul McLoughlin]