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.

There isn’t a lot published about the Black Umbrella Project. We heard it mentioned by a caller on Coast to Coast. What it is, allegedly, is a government-run hybridisation between human beings and the world’s most vicious predators. The caller already mentioned claimed to be part cat.

We’ve scoured the internet looking for Black Umbrella stories, but we couldn’t find anything except for what the caller himself has posted.

Still, It’s quite interesting.

To start, we’ll let the half-cat man himself tell what the Black Umbrella Project is. This is as he phrases things on his own website Blackumbrellaproject.synthasite:

“From what I’ve been told The Black Umbrella Project was the name given to a research team of military scientists and doctors that was put together in the late 1960′s in the hopes of finding a way to turn human beings into more efficient weapons. They asked the question; who are the most feared killers on the planet? What, no matter how big or tough a man is, would cause him to run screaming in the other direction?

“They all pretty much came up with the same response…the vampires and werewolves of myth and legend, and the predators of the animal kingdom. Since you can’t very well give a wild animal instructions for an assassination or covert operation, they decided to try and combine human and animal to create their very own “vampires” and “werewolves” using the animals to do it. They isolated the desired traits in the animal genetics, and combined them with human DNA. They had created a “hybrid” between the two…a person with the abilities and senses of the animal. A predator with a brain.”

This all sounds like it’s straight out of a Hollywood storyboard – pretty cool. But as we already said – running ‘Black Umbrella Project’ through Google leads only to what Russell (the Coast to Coast caller) has posted himself. It doesn’t look good.

Still though – in his defense there is plenty posted on 100% real animal/human hybridisation. It wasn’t so long ago scientists actually did mix our genes with those of a cow. Check out this excerpt from an article posted on ABC.net on April 3, 2008:

“The researchers say they have hollowed out the egg cells of cattle, inserted human DNA to create a growing embryo, and then taken it apart to get embryonic stem cells.”

See that? That’s absolutely true. As far as the military is concerned though, they have no real use for soldiers that have to run around dragging gigantic utters behind them, although they would probably admit it would save them millions in milk cost on any given battlefield.

The New York Times carried a similar story about the proposed mixing of human and mouse genomes:

” A group of American and Canadian biologists is debating whether to recommend stem cell experiments that would involve creating a human-mouse hybrid. The goal would be to test different lines of human embryonic stem cells for their quality and potential usefulness in treating specific diseases. The best way to do that, some biologists argue, is to see how the cells work in a living animal. For ethical reasons, the test cannot be performed in people.

“But if the human stem cells are tested that way in mice, any animals born from the experiment would be chimeras — organisms that are mixtures of two kinds of cells — with human cells distributed throughout their body. Though the creatures would probably be mice with a few human cells that obey mouse rules, the outcome of such an experiment cannot be predicted. A mouse with a brain made entirely of human cells would probably discomfort many people, as would a mouse that generated human sperm or eggs.”

Did you read that last part? It said “a mouse that generated human sperm or eggs.” A situation like that would make it pretty hard to play catch with dear old dad in anything but the literal sense. The best story – also 100% true, was provided by Russell on his own website. It’s from National Geographic, and it’s terrifying:

“Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells.

“In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains. Scientists feel that, the more humanlike the animal, the better research model it makes for testing drugs or possibly growing “spare parts,” such as livers, to transplant into humans.”

There you have it. That’s three concrete pieces of evidence that several human-animal hybrids have legitimately been created, and two concrete pieces of evidence that a fourth experiment is in talks. In the case of the rabbits, it said the Chinese let them develop for several days before destroying them. What would the end result be if a full gestation period were allowed?

Russell himself claimed to be part cat – created in a petri dish and told he was an orphan, if we’re not mistaken. And he has chest x-rays to prove it. He said he’d get these x-rays to George Noory, but we have no idea if he ever did or not. So little being available about the alleged ‘Black Umbrella Project’ seems pretty dubious.

But it seems it’s really not far-fetched at all.

Frightening.

Britney Spears is getting ready to launch a new $100 million (that’s £50 million) world-wide comeback tour, according to The News Of The World.

Just recently – just yesterday, in fact – it seemed to all that, like Kurt Cobain and Vincent Van Gogh before her, Britney Spears had reached the end of the line. The feeling was she had nothing left to give – and that all she needed now was one small, gentle push into death’s eternal release. Ahh.

But, unlike like Kurt and Vince before her, she has seemingly decided that she actually does have something more to offer and that she is going to tour the world, giving it out for about $100 dollars a ticket!

To all of us who’ve once thought ‘what if Kurt hadn’t died?’ the remainder of Britney Spear's life will no doubt offer the answers we’re after. Maybe nothing, maybe everything, will be justified.

The singer/dancer is said to be in training to hit the road again, which perhaps puts an end to previous ‘Britney’s next step’ rumours, such as becoming a regular on a TV sitcom, or playing the role of a deep-south mental patient on stage, but who knows – perhaps she could do all three?

Imagine if Kurt survived! He may have ended up as a regular on Friends? As Phoebe’s new boyfriend, who doesn’t quite fit into the group because he’s ‘like, so serious?’ and when Chandler makes a sarky remark about Kurt’s uptight demeanor he just gets up and executes them all and then himself. If only he’d lived. Like Britney has been and is doing! Woop-woop! 

A source tells the News Of The World:

"There will be no more on-stage blunders. Britney’s turned a corner and the world will be amazed with her. Things are looking up for Britney. She's finally focusing on her career again."

And the positivity doesn’t even stop there! Britney’s former manager, Larry Rudolph (sacked for trying to get her into rehab) has told Ryan Seacrest on his KISS FM radio show:

"I've seen her a few times over the past week or two. I've spent some time with her just socially. I've gone up to the house. I've sat with her. She's in great shape, I couldn't be happier to see the condition she's in. But this is not a time to talk about business with her. What she needs now is the public to be on her side and root for her, because she deserves it and that means a lot to her. I can't think of a situation where somebody's been set up for a bigger comeback than that girl."

Good for Britney Spears.

It seems all this attention we’ve been giving her is working after all. We told you we cared.

Read More – Britney's back…for $100 Million – NOTW

Read More – Britney's in great shape, says ex-manager – MSN 

The forthcoming JJ Abrams-helmed Star Trek movie is one of the most breathlessly-anticipated movies for a long time, especially by people waiting to see if it can out-bad the one about Captain Kirk wanking around with some whales.

And the latest Star Trek-related news suggests that it might just be able to, thanks to another piece of wayward casting. It's been announced that, as well as the bloke from Heroes, one of Harold and Kumar and Simon Pegg, Star Trek will also star Winona Ryder as Spock's Vulcan mother. What Winona Ryder will actually do in Star Trek remains to be seen, although it's probably safe to say that there's going to be a subplot where Spock experiences all sorts of emotionally-conflicting erotic thoughts about his own mother. Well, he is part-human, after all.

For a film that hasn't even been filming for a week yet, Star Trek is raising all sorts of eyebrows around the place. If the subject of the movie – a hammy 40-year-old TV show about corset-wearing man-actors knobbing around in space – isn't tired enough, then the choice of Lost creator JJ Abrams to direct it is also a concern, seeing as how he'll probably make it six years long and fill it with polar bears that are there for no reason at all.

And then there's the Star Trek casting to worry about. Some anonymous bloke as Captain Kirk we don't have an issue with, nor with a Spock played by Sylar out of Heroes or even Eric Bana as the Star Trek baddie. But Simon Pegg as Scotty? John Cho as Sulu? William Shatner as nothing at all? That's madness, surely. Still, at least JJ Abrams hasn't done anything completely ridiculous like casting the girl from Reality Bites as Spock's mother and then get her species wrong. Imagine how crap that would be.

Wait a minute, he's done what?! Actually, yes, it's been announced that JJ Abrams has signed Winona Ryder up to play Spock's mother in the new Star Trek movie. On the surface of things, this seems like a nice way to bring Winona Ryder back into the major motion picture fold, since all she's done lately is either direct to DVD turkeys or impenetrable claptrap like A Scanner Darkly, but maybe there's more to this than meets the eye.

Perhaps, just perhaps, JJ Abrams hates Winona Ryder, hates everything she stands for and wants to ensure that she'll have to spend the rest of her life going to all kinds of Star Trek conventions and being pelted with bits of maggoty fruit – because he's done gone and made Winona Ryder a Vulcan when everyone knows Spock's mother is a human. That's a Star Trek cock-up of colossal proportions, like when Doctor Crusher told Wesley to meet her in Transporter Room Eight in season one, episode 18 of Star Trek: The Next Generation, when everyone knows the Enterprise only has six Transporter Rooms, the idiots. Way to wreck our lives, idiots.

Maybe there's a completely rational explanation about why Winona Ryder's Star Trek character is a Vulcan instead of a human or maybe – after starring in Alien: Resurrection – she just really enjoys enraging spods. And if so, good for her. In fact, we're certain that Winona Ryder will be perfect for the Star Trek role and she'll win everyone over no matter who she's playing.

Just so long as the rest of the Star Trek cast remember to lock up their valuables, obviously.