Federal authorities in January raided Charles L. Stewart’s home after receiving complaints.

Stewart has not been criminally charged, but prosecutors and state and federal wildlife agencies are investigating. The Giant African Snail is prohibited in the U.S. without special approval.

Experts say it devastates new ecosystems. The snail grows up to 10 inches long, can reproduce on its own and can even eat plaster.

Stewart says he means no harm, and his religion uses the snails in healing ceremonies.

Followers said they got violently ill, losing weight and developing strange lumps in their stomachs.

[via: cbsnews.com]

In 1951, a quiet, picturesque village in southern France was suddenly and mysteriously struck down with mass insanity and hallucinations. At least five people died, dozens were interned in asylums and hundreds afflicted.

For decades it was assumed that the local bread had been unwittingly poisoned with a psychedelic mould. Now, however, an American investigative journalist has uncovered evidence suggesting the CIA peppered local food with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of a mind control experiment at the height of the Cold War.

The mystery of Le Pain Maudit (Cursed Bread) still haunts the inhabitants of Pont-Saint-Esprit, in the Gard, southeast France.

[For the rest of this story go to telegraph.co.uk]

Father Gabriele Amorth said people who are possessed by Satan vomit shards of glass and pieces of iron.

He added that the assault on Pope Benedict XVI on Christmas Eve by a mentally unstable woman and the sex abuse scandals which have engulfed the Church in the US, Ireland, Germany and other countries, were proof that the Anti-Christ was waging a war against the Holy See.

“The Devil resides in the Vatican and you can see the consequences,” said Father Amorth, 85, who has been the Holy See’s chief exorcist for 25 years.

“He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, or even appear to be sympathetic. At times he makes fun of me. But I’m a man who is happy in his work.”

While there was “resistance and mistrust” towards the concept of exorcism among some Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI has no such doubts, Father Amorth said. “His Holiness believes wholeheartedly in the practice of exorcism. He has encouraged and praised our work,” he added.

The evil influence of Satan was evident in the highest ranks of the Catholic hierarchy, with “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus and bishops who are linked to the demon,” Father Amorth said.

In a rare insight into the world of exorcism, the Italian priest told La Repubblica newspaper that the 1973 film The Exorcist gave a “substantially exact” impression of what it was like to be possessed by the Devil.

People possessed by evil sometimes had to be physically restrained by half a dozen people while they were exorcised. They would scream, utter blasphemies and spit out sharp objects, he said.

“From their mouths, anything can come out – pieces of iron as long as a finger, but also rose petals,” said Father Amorth, who claims to have performed 70,000 exorcisms. “When the possessed dribble and slobber, and need cleaning up, I do that too. Seeing people vomit doesn’t bother me. The exorcist has one principal duty – to free human beings from the fear of the Devil.”

The attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II by a Turkish gunman in 1981 and recent revelations of “violence and paedophilia” committed by Catholic priests against children in their care was also the work of the Devil, said Father Amorth, who has written a book about his vocation, Memoirs of an Exorcist, which was published recently.

Father Amorth, who is the president of the Association of Exorcists and fought as a partisan during the war, has previously claimed that both Hitler and Stalin were possessed by the Devil.

In an interview with Vatican Radio in 2006, he said: “Of course the Devil exists and he can not only possess a single person but also groups and entire populations.

“I am convinced that the Nazis were all possessed. All you have to do is think about what Hitler and Stalin did.”

He also condemned the Harry Potter books, saying they were dangerous because they dabbled in the occult and failed to draw a clear distinction between “the Satanic art” of black magic and benevolent white magic.

[via: telegraph.co.uk by Nick Squires]

Grandmother Zhang Ruifang, 101, of Linlou village, Henan province, began developing the mysterious protrusion last year.

Since then it has grown 2.4in in length and another now appears to emerging on the other side of the mother of seven’s forehead.

The condition has left her family baffled and worried.

Her youngest of six sons, Zhang Guozheng, 60, said when a patch of rough skin formed on her forehead last year ‘we didn’t pay too much attention to it’.

‘But as time went on a horn grew out of her head and it is now 6cm long,’ added Mr Zhang, whose eldest brother and sibling is 82 years old.

‘Now something is also growing on the right side of her forehead. It’s quite possible that it’s another horn.’

Although, it is unknown what the protrusion is on Mrs Zhang’s head, it resembles a cutaneous horn.

This is a funnel-shaped growth and although most are only a few millimetres in length, some can extend a number of inches from the skin.

Cutaneous horns are made up of compacted keratin, which is the same protein we have in our hair and nails, and forms horns, wool and feathers in animals.

They usually develop in fair-skinned elderly adults who have a history of significant sun exposure but it is extremely unusual to see it form protrusions of this size.

The growths are most common in elderly people, aged between 60 and the mid-70s. They can sometimes be cancerous but more than half of cases are benign.

Common underlying causes of cutaneous horns are common warts, skin cancer and actinic keratoses, patches of scaly skin that develop on skin exposed to the sun, such as your face, scalp or forearms.

Cutaneous horns can be removed surgically but this does not treat the underlying cause.

[via: dailymail.co.uk]

The curious green light was spotted by photographer Peter Rye who wanted to take night-time images of Denver mill in Downham Market.

The landmark, which was built in 1835, is lit up at night and so Mr Rye set up his camera on a tripod to take long exposure pictures of the mill.

While he was there he didn’t hear or see anything unusual and it is only when he got home to King’s Lynn that he realised there was something odd about the images he’d taken.

The green light was on some images but not others indicating it was not a smudge on his lens and it appeared to have moved from right to left.

Plane? Helicopter? Gyrocopter? The theories abound in and around the villages close to the windmill, which is 30 miles from an RAF base, about what went on that February night.

Lindsay Abel, manager of the windmill, told Mail Online: ‘It is very strange it has to be said.’

She said the building was an aerial landmark for pilots and had even been used as a navigational tool during World War II.

‘The Germans used it in the war when they headed up to the Midlands to bomb,’ she said.

‘Maybe the UFO looking down saw these strange sails and wondered what the hell it was!’

Malcolm Robinson, founder of Strange Phenomena Investigations, said he thought the photograph showed a Chinese lantern.

He said: ‘[Chinese lanterns] can be from 2 to 6 feet across and a candle can be lit inside them whereupon the individual then releases them into the sky.

‘Chinese lanterns have given rise to many a false UFO report here in the UK.

‘What I think has happened here is that the paper which makes up the Chinese Lantern could have been made of green paper and the candle would shine through the green paper turning the image/light to green.

‘When photographed, the cold night air would intensify around the light making it blur for the camera.’

The 19th century windmill stopped working in 1941 when its sails were struck by lightning but has since been restored and is the last working windmill in Norfolk.

[via: dailymail.co.uk]

The penguin, believed to be suffering from a condition known as melanism, was spotted on Fortuna Bay, a sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia, about 860 miles off the Falklands.

A group of travellers had travelled to the island to watch local wildlife and one of the group, Andrew Evans, took this picture of the penguin, one of several thousand.

“Observing this black penguin waddle across South Georgia’s black sand beach revealed no different behaviour than that of his fellow penguins. In fact, he seemed to mix well,” he wrote on a National Geographic blog.

“Regarding feeding and mating behaviour there is no real way to tell, but I do know that we were all fascinated by his presence and wished him the best for the coming winter season.”

Biology experts say that because black penguins are particularly rare there is very little research discussing the subject.

Melanism is however, common on other animal species such as squirrels.

It is estimated that about one in every 250,000 penguins shows evidence of the condition.

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology expert Dr Allan Baker, from the University of Toronto, said the Antarctic penguin was black because it had lost control of its pigmentation patterns.

After being shown the pictures by National Geographic, Dr Baker, also the head of the Department of Natural History at the Royal Ontario Museum, described them as “astonishing”.

“I’ve never ever seen that before,” he told the magazine.

“It’s a one in a zillion kind of mutation somewhere. The animal has lost control of its pigmentation patterns. Presumably it’s some kind of mutation.”

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the condition is the darkness in an animal’s skin, feathers, or fur is acquired by populations living in an industrial region where the environment is soot-darkened. It can be gene related

It does, however, mean that the probability that its members will survive and reproduce is enhance.

The condition evolves over the course of several generations.

But due to being lighter in colour, they become more conspicuous to predators.

[via: telegraph.co.uk by Andrew Hough]