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.

Quick – grab a pen and write this down. We’ve recently stumbled upon something that’s sure to make us both very rich. We’re gonna need you to send us money though, you know, to get us started. Not a lot of money mind you, just a few hundred dollars. We guarantee to at least double your money sometime before you die.

It’s not a Ponzi scheme either, in case that’s what you were thinking. You’ll be funding an expedition – a treasure hunting expedition. More specifically we’re looking for the Amber Room – a four walled room that was dismantled and stolen by Nazis sometime long ago.

Honestly – does their treachery know no bounds?

If you do lend us money for the trip, by the way, let’s not put anything in writing. Our word is good.  Also please never ask for any of our contact information.  Good?

Good.

Now let’s get to the explanations. Wikipedia explains the room to us:

“The Amber Room… in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoye Selo near Saint Petersburg is a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, it was sometimes dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.”

That sounds nice, doesn’t it? The thing was built by two countries – Russia & Germany between 1701 – 1709. They were working together like fast friends – probably sharing sandwich bites on lunch break and laughing when one or the other accidentally got a smidge of gold leaf on their cheek. We’re sure it was a fine time had by all.

Then, 200-ish years later, things changed. Germany decided it was breaking up with Russia – and they wanted their letterman jacket back. Of course, in this example the letterman jacket weighs several tons, is made partially of gold and doesn’t have any lip stick marks on the collar or smell of bubble gum.

Rense.com tells us how it happened:

“The last time they were seen was in 1941 at Koenigsberg, then the main town in East Prussia but now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Nazi soldiers took the curved amber panels there after stripping them from Tsarskoye Selo, the summer residence of Russian tsars. But the panels disappeared in 1945 at war’s end.”

Does that really surprise anybody? The Nazis took pretty much anything their German jeeps roared past. Like the Spear of Destiny for instance – remember how they kifed that one? A very greedy lot if you ask us.

And when they took the Amber Room, they took it for good – it hasn’t been seen since. Like any good treasure-related mystery, though, there are plenty of theories as to where the room is now. Here are a few – also from Rense.com:

“Assuming the panels were evacuated from Koenigsberg in time, other theories place them on a wreck in the Baltic Sea, in mines deep in east Germany’s Harz mountains or even in some dusty corner of a Bavarian castle.”

Although the Amber Room in all it’s splendor sees to have vanished without a trace – at least one piece of it has surfaced. As Wikipedia states:

“…in 1997 one Italian stone mosaic that was part of a set of four which had decorated the Amber Room did turn up in western Germany, in the possession of the family of a soldier who had helped pack up the Amber Room.”

‘But where’s the rest of it,’ you ask impatiently. Lot’s of people have claimed to find it – but nobody has produced it. Some say it was melted down and forged into a very large toilet – form fitted for Eva Braun’s stank butt. Others say we made that up.

The fate of the Amber Room is considered by many to be the greatest lingering mystery of WWII. It may have been destroyed or it may be out there somewhere – probably in the back of a 7-Eleven we think.

If you stumble upon it, let us know, won’t you?

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.

It’s called the Quacker. Right off the bat you know we’ll either be selling you Aflac, or trying desperately to convert you to Richard Nixon‘s pro-oatmeal religion.

We’ll not be doing either of those, actually. Instead – we’ll be talking about weird, repeating underwater sounds Cold War Russian submariners used to hear every time they’d pass certain spots. Some say it was the sounds of super technology secreted under water. Some say it’s the groanings of an unknown monster. Yet others believe it could have been aliens scooting around a deep sea base.

We think it was probably dolphin farts. But let’s take a look, shall we?

Remember the Bloop? It was that weird sound recorded by one of many microphones in the Arctic or something. Nobody knows what it was – but many agree that it didn’t emanate from any known animal. The Quacker is just like that. It wasn’t actually recorded (that we’ve seen), but it was heard by lot’s of submarine crewmen that Russia used to send into the North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Please notice the similar location (but totally different sounds) of the Bloop.

First let’s get the name out of the way. It’s not named after a duck’s call. It’s actually a reference to a frog noise. The Russians, apparently, think that frogs go ‘Quack’ instead of ‘Ribbit.’ The quacks would pass the submerged subs – or at least they sounded like they were passing by. Nothing ever showed up on radar.

It should be noted that the noises were heard in the same under water sectors. When the submarines left the vicinity – the noises ceased.

So what was it? There are three guesses, all summed up on Wikipedia:

“There never was much consensus about the nature and origin of these sounds, and the only hard fact about them is that they existed. Official reports of the commission remains classified to the present day, even if it was known that it never reached a conclusion. Several hypotheses were proposed, but none reached full acceptance, as they all failed to account for at least some of the phenomenon properties. The three main theories about the origin of this phenomenon propose some secret new technology developed by the US or NATO, an unknown marine animal or extraterrestrial activity.”

And exactly how did the things emitting the sounds act? Peculiarly, to say the least. According to theFullWiki.org:

These objects exhibited behavior not unlike some living being or manned vessel, showing obvious interest in the passing submarine, circling around it, trying to actively avoid sonar pulses, and so on. The speed of some of these objects (estimated from Doppler shift of their sound frequency) was in the range of 200 km/h, much higher than any then-known man-made vessel. Contact was attempted on several occasions, but, apart from some obvious reactions to these attempts such as changing the pitch of the sounds or movement of the apparent sound source), nothing came of it.

The peak of quacker observations occurred at the end of the 1970s, when the areas where the sounds appeared started to multiply and spread over from the Barents Sea to other areas including the North Sea and the North Atlantic in general. The Soviet Academy of Sciences was invited to create a joint commission with the representatives of the Navy, as this phenomenon was identified as a potential national security risk. This commission worked for about a decade, but despite extensive investigations results remained inconclusive, and it was eventually disbanded. In the 1980s the phenomenon slowly faded, and now quackers may have disappeared completely.

With the sound stopped – we’ll probably never know what it was. Until we maybe develop invisible submarines. You know – like Wonder Woman‘s jet. The sailors aren’t invisible. You can see them walking around – you just can’t see the hull. That way when another weird sound happens, all anybody would have to do is look up. Plus they’d all be wearing only blue-spangled underpants and magic bracelets.

Solving these types of things seems all to easy, doesn’t it?

We should be a government.

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.

The SS Ourang Medan was a Dutch cargo ship that sent out a distress call, but by the time help arrived the entire crew were dead with their eyes open, staring ahead with a look of incredible horror on their faces. As she was about to be towed to land the ship exploded, and sank to a watery grave – refusing to give up any answers as to what happened on her salty decks.

The first mention of the SS Ourang Medan and all its suddenly dead crew was in a periodical published by the United States Coast Guard. Allegedly, the ship sent out a distress call, and according to GettysburgGhosts.net, it went something like this:

“”All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge.  Possibly whole crew dead.”  This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then [the words] “I die.”"

Help arrived as you can imagine – and only after a few hours. It was too late. Everybody on board was dead. As the rescue party boarded they saw a gruesome sight – the entire crew was at the doorway of decomposition with their eyes open, their arms outstretched, and their lifeless faces twisted in absolute horror. The ship’s dog was dead as well – found with a tooth-filled snarl on its lips.

The Medan itself was completely undamaged, and the sailors had no visible wounds to explain their mass-demise. Before the boat could be explored further flames exploded out of the cargo hold, and the would-be rescuers were forced back to their own vessel. Then the death-ship exploded, and sank out of man’s reach. Had the other ship’s crew not managed to cut the ropes holding the two barges together, perhaps both would have plunged together.

There are several theories as to how all those men died – ranging from the inhalation of carbon monoxide to some kind of nefarious UFO intervention. In the end, nobody really knows what happened.

You know what else nobody knows? If the Ourang Medan ever concretely existed or not. As we already stated, the first mention of the Medan was in a publication put out by the US National Coast Guard. One would think that meant sources were well documented. But perhaps this isn’t the case. Wikipedia seems to think so anyway:

“Several authors note their inability to find any mention of the case in Lloyd’s Shipping Register. Furthermore, no registration records for a ship by the name of Ourang Medan could be located in various countries, including the Netherlands. While Bainton states that the identity of the Silver Star, which was reported to have been involved in the failed rescue attempt, has been established with some certainty, the lack of information on the sunken ship itself has given rise to suspicion about the origins and credibility of the account. Bainton and others have put forward the possibility that accounts of, among others, the date, location, names of the ships involved, and circumstances of the accident might have been inaccurate or exaggerated, or that the story might be completely fictitious.”

So did the ship ever exist? No record of it anywhere would certainly seem to indicate that it didn’t. This point is counter-argued with a barely-post WWII mentality saying that some sort of top secret chemical cargo may have required absolute secrecy – and then triggered all those deaths.

It seems to us an ace scuba team should be able to answer all this once and for all. Let’s see if we can’t put one of those together.

Janet Jackson’s mystery illness hasn’t got any less mysterious over the last 24 hours, but it might have gone away – unless it hasn’t.

Although Janet Jackson has left the hospital that she admitted herself to after suddenly falling ill before a concert on Monday, she’s still decided to cancel upcoming concerts in Boston and Philadelphia while she recuperates. Meanwhile, the nature of Janet Jackson’s illness has yet to be revealed.

Did you get all that? There was a lot of complex information just there, so we’ll reiterate in much simpler terms – nobody knows. Nobody knows what’s been going on with Janet Jackson. And nobody cares. Nobody knows and nobody cares. And if you care you’re an idiot. Idiot.

We’ll give you the good news first, and then the better news. The good news is that Janet Jackson has left hospital. On Monday night, when Janet Jackson suddenly fell ill and was hospitalised right before a concert, there were fears that Janet had succumbed to some sort of incredibly serious disease.

But it’s OK, because she didn’t stay in hospital for long enough for that to be feasible, as E! Online reports:

According to Rebecca Burns, a spokeswoman for the hospital, the 42-year-old Grammy winner “was discharged after a few hours.” Burns declined to elaborate on the singer’s condition, citing patient confidentiality rules. In a brief statement, the singer’s publicist did not address her ailment but said Jackson “is recuperating.”

A few hours? That’s how long it takes to even get seen in a hospital, isn’t it? If you went to hospital for a few hours anywhere around here you’d spend the entirety of that time sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair watching Cash In The Attic repeats on a TV with the volume turned down next to a coughing old lady.

If Janet Jackson was only in hospital for a few hours, chances are she hung around for a bit, listened to a doctor say “There’s nothing wrong with you. Stop wasting my time,” and went home again. She’s going to be OK!

However, that’s not something we can say for sure, because nobody is disclosing what Janet Jackson’s illness actually is. Based on highly scientific arbitrary guesswork, though, we think we’ve narrowed down Janet Jackson’s mystery illness to one of the following:

* Gout

* Green Monkey Disease

* Dandy-Walker Syndrome

* Uveomeningoencephalitic Syndrome

* Probably, like, a cold or something

Oh, we promised you better news, didn’t we? Well, the better news is that following her hospitalisation, Janet Jackson has cancelled her concerts in Boston and Philadelphia.

That means that up to 4,000 boyfriends in each area will now get to breathe a sigh of relief because they will no longer be dragged to a bloody Janet Jackson concert when they could be doing something more constructive, like picking their belly buttons or seeing how long they can hold one of their eyes open for before it starts to hurt.

If there’s one thing more annoying than going to a Janet Jackson concert, it’s going to a Janet Jackson concert in Canada.

And if there’s one thing worse than going to a Janet Jackson concert in Canada, it’s getting ready to go to a Janet Jackson concert in Canada and then finding out you can’t because Janet Jackson’s gone and been struck by some sort of super mystery illness.

Which is what happened last night, as it happened. Five minutes before the opening act of Janet Jackson’s concert in Montreal was set to take the stage, Janet ‘suddenly fell ill’ and had to go to hospital. Nobody would say what illness Janet Jackson had, although it’s thought to be the rare Nogoodalbumsfortwodecades Syndrome. Or it might be something serious, in which case – whoops.

Janet Jackson must be glad she kept that secret teenage daughter of hers a secret, because there could be a chance that Janet’s going to need to start harvesting her organs before long.

Why? Because that bout of the sniffles that wrecked Janet Jackson’s SNL appearance in March has escalated into a full-blown mystery illness that has disappointed literally dozens of Canadian Janet Jackson fans. Well, disappointed is a strong word. And so is dozens, for that matter.

Anyway, the point is that Janet Jackson suddenly got ill right before a concert last night and had to cancel the show. BBC News reports:

The 42-year-old had to cancel her Montreal show after she “got suddenly ill” during her sound check, her publicists said. Jackson was being monitored at an unnamed hospital but no further details of her condition have been released.

Are you getting this? Janet Jackson is ill with a disease that’s a secret in a hospital that’s unknown in a country that nobody cares about. Don’t any of you say we never give you the facts.

For the time being, Janet Jackson hopes to reschedule her cancelled concert – leading us to believe that she’s either not that seriously ill at all or that she plans to surprise the population of Montreal in the future with a number of sexy dance routines performed inside an iron lung attached to a stationary bleeping piece of hospital equipment.

Hopefully it’ll be the first one, otherwise we’re going to look a right bunch of dicks.

It's not a good time to be a fan of giant-haired widdly-woo nostalgic Spandex rock right now.

Not only do you have to live with the fact that you've wasted a great big portion of your life endorsing the very worst type of music ever invented, but now Van Halen have postponed a load more reunion dates as well.

This is the second batch of shows that Van Halen have ditched this month so far, and it's all because Eddie Van Halen is currently being tested for a mystery medical condition. Sounds serious. We just hope that whatever the condition is, it's important enough to deny thousands of fans the chance to pay an inflated amount of money to see a gang of old men play music that all sounds like the theme-tune to Biker Mice From Mars.

Van Halen has always enjoyed something of a fluid line-up but, among the 400 singers and schoolboy bassists called Wolfgang that have passed through Van Halen's ranks, Eddie Van Halen has always remained the constant of the band.

Sure, Eddie Van Halen may have taken the odd day off to record Michael Jackson's most overrated song or develop a crippling substance abuse problem or two, but he's always been the beating heart of Van Halen. So when Eddie Van Halen contracts a mystery illness and has to go and be tested, that pretty much spells curtains for Van Halen as a band.

Earlier this month Van Halen cancelled a few dates because of Eddie Van Halen's 'issues. At the time we were undecided whether this meant Eddie Van Halen had fallen out with his bandmates for the billionth time in a decade, or whether his ex-wife's autobiography had plunged him back headfirst into a blizzard or booze and drugs, or whether he just has post-traumatic stress disorder from that time his garden got a bit flooded.

But now that a total of 17 Van Halen dates have been disrupted, it's starting to look like Eddie Van Halen might actually have quite a serious medial problem, as Reuters reports:

Rock band Van Halen's reunion tour fell into disarray on Monday when it announced it would postpone all shows through April 19 while guitarist Eddie Van Halen undergoes tests for an unspecified medical condition… According to organizers, Van Halen, 53, who has battled cancer and substance abuse, "is currently under doctors' care" and will "continue medical tests to define a course of treatment." No further details were made available.

Sounds worrying and, although his music makes us want to tear lumps of flesh out of our faces, we still hope that Eddie Van Halen's condition isn't as deadly as it's starting to sound.

Because, seriously, first Patrick Swayze and now Eddie Van Halen? Our 1980s icons are being obliterated. And these things always come in threes, so if we were Steve Guttenberg or Roland Rat we'd be bloody well cacking it at the moment.

Read more:

Van Halen scraps more shows amid mystery ailment – Reuters