Judging by their ability to meditate for hours on end, to abstain from food for days, and their vows of silence, most us would agree that Tibetan Monks have better control over their minds and bodies than the average person. Still, what’s particularly amazing is some of them can control physiological processes, such as blood pressure and body temperature – feats many medical doctors find astounding.

In one of the most notable exhibits of their skills, a group of Tibetan monks allowed physicians to monitor the monk’s bodily changes as they engaged in a meditative yoga technique known as g Tum-mo. During the process the monks were cloaked in wet, cold sheets (49 f / 9.4 c) and placed in a 40 f (4.5 c) room. In such conditions, the average person would likely experience uncontrollable shivering and would shortly suffer hypothermia. However, through deep concentration, the monks were able to generate body heat, and within minutes the researchers noticed steam rising from the sheets that were covering the monks. Within an hour, the sheets were completely dry.

Although, the display was fascinating to the doctors, for the monks it was an ordinary occurrence. In fact, new monks use g Tum-mo as a way of proving their meditative strength and hold contests to see who can dry the most sheets in one night.

The Buddhists say the heat they generate is a byproduct of the meditation, since it takes energy to reach a state of alternate reality – a place unaffected by our everyday world.

Multiple personality disorder, or dissociative identity disorder, is a mental condition that’s interesting on many levels. Perhaps most intriguing of all is how some sufferers not only exhibit personality and behavior changes as they switch between their different identities, but some also have measurable physiological variations between each persona. For instance, one of a patient’s personalities may need eyeglasses and another won’t. Or, one identity might be diabetic and another will have perfect health. In such cases, it isn’t simply a matter of the patients thinking they need eyeglasses or insulin, their bodies actually go through legitimate alterations, such as differences in intraocular pressure or blood sugar levels.

In one case, published by the American Psychiatric Press, a doctor noted how medications prescribed to a dissociative identity disorder patient had different effects depending on what “personality” took the drug. For example, when a tranquilizer was given to the person’s childish persona, it made the individual sleepy and relaxed. However, when the adult personality was administered the same drug it made him anxious and confused. Similar results were found with other patients and with a variety of different medications. Doctors even noticed visibly apparent traits, like lazy eye, would come and go depending on which personality was present.

This phenomenon is especially fascinating since no one, including the patients, is claiming mysticism is at work. On the contrary, it is a genuine example of the mind altering the body.

A placebo is an inert substance or belief which produces real biological effects in humans. It’s so widely accepted as fact that a placebo variable is included in most medical tests as way of proving if, say, a drug works on its own merits or because people “think” it works.

There are tons of experiments showing the proof of the placebo, but one of the most amusing to watch is a test done by a group of Princeton students who decided to throw a non-alcoholic keg party for their unsuspecting classmates. The experimenters secretly filled a keg with O’Douls (contains about 0.4% alcohol while regular beer has around 5% alcohol) and then watched as their peers acted silly, slurred words, slept on the ground, and generally acted drunk. Although it’s nearly impossible to get intoxicated on O’Douls, these college students had such a strong belief they were drinking standard beer that it affected their behavior.

Curiously, researchers have discovered the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger, and some drugs that have been on the market for years, such as Prozac, are now proving less effective than placebos. Naturally, this is a major issue for big pharmaceutical companies, which has left many scrambling to conduct neurological studies in an effort to come up with new ways to safeguard their industry from ordinary sugar pills. Incidentally, Big Pharma is currently more profitable than Big Oil, so there’s quite a bit at stake.

While placebos are generally associated with positive outcomes, like curing an illness or getting drunk on O’Douls and having fun (if you consider that positive), the nocebo effect produces negative results, such as a cancer patient vomiting before chemotherapy starts or someone breaking out in a rash because they thought they touched poison ivy, even though it was merely an ordinary plant.

One of the most talked about examples of the nocebo phenomenon was an incident published in “New Scientist.” According to the account, late one night an Alabama man, referred to as Vance, went to a cemetery and met up with a witch doctor who told Vance that he was going to die soon. Believing the witch doctor’s prediction, Vance soon fell ill and within a matter of weeks was emaciated and close to death. Vance was taken to the hospital but the medical doctors could find nothing wrong with him. Finally, Vance’s wife told the physician, Dr. Doherty, about the encounter with the witch doctor, which gave the creative physician an idea. The next day, Dr. Doherty told the couple he had tracked down the witch doctor and physically threatened him until the medicine man finally admitted he had put a lizard inside Vance that was eating him from the inside. Of course, the Doctor’s story was completely fabricated, yet he made a big show of injecting the patient with a mysterious substance and snuck in a genuine, green lizard that he pretended to extract from Vance. The next day, Vance awoke alert, hungry, and it didn’t take long before he fully recovered.

Apparently, that story was corroborated by four other medical professionals, and is often cited when explaining why Voo Doo sometimes works (i.e. not because of magic, but because of the nocebo effect).

There are a lot of stories floating around out there about people who experienced an injury in their dreams and then found real, physical evidence of the wound on their bodies once they awoke. For instance, some people have claimed to have been caught in a fire in their dreams and then woke up to find burn marks on their skin. Other common stories involve people being attacked during their dreams and then waking up to find scratch marks somewhere on their bodies. However, most of these stories are found in chat rooms or message boards, so it’s hard to corroborate if they are true.

But, there is one well documented case, reported by famed psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, about an Indian man named Durga Jatav who, during a battle with typhoid fever, had an extremely vivid dream about being held captive in another realm. To keep him from escaping, his dream captors cut his legs off at the knee. Unfortunately, his legs were already severed by the time the captors realized they had the wrong man and didn’t need to keep Jatav after all. When Jatav asked how he could leave with no legs, they offered him several pairs of legs, he picked out his own pair, and then they were miraculously reattached.

While Jatav was having the dream, his body became very cold and at one point his family thought he was dead, yet he revived a few days later. Once he was awake, his sister and neighbor noticed deep fissures around his knees that weren’t there previously. X-ray photographs showed no abnormality below the surface of the skin, which led Jatav and his family to believe the marks came from his dream experience. Dr. Stevenson met Jatav some 30 years later (1979) and took pictures of the still visible scars. Although Stevenson did not witness the event, he apparently believed the story, which was confirmed by all involved, and he even included the account and photographs in his book “Reincarnation and Biology: A contribution to the Etiology of Birthmarks and Birth Defects.”

Obviously there’s no scientific proof to this intriguing account, but it’s not too far-fetched considering what we already know about the power of the brain over the body.

Like the Tibetan monks, Indian Yogis seem to have an unusual talent for manipulating their physiological processes while in deep meditation. After hearing stories of yogis spending 28 days underground and surviving, in 1936, a French cardiologist named Therese Brosse traveled to India to see if the yogis truly did have such talents. In her experiments, the yogis reportedly slowed their heart down so slow that it was only detectable via an EKG machine.

In the 1950s Brosse’s study was expanded by another group of researchers who traveled through India with an eight-channel electro-encephalograph and various other instruments, which they used to monitor the yogis’ brain activity, respirations, skin temperature, blood-volume changes, and skin conductance. Two of their test subjects were placed in air-tight sealed boxes, on two separate occasions, and were monitored for 8 to 10 hours. During that time the Yogis showed biological characteristics similar to sleep and were able to slow down their heart rate and respiration to low enough levels that oxygen and carbon dioxide quantities inside the box remained virtually in the same proportions as found in air at sea level. Thus, it was shown that by slowing down their bodily processes and not panicking (as most would do) the Yogis could survive a live-burial for far longer than the average person, possibly even weeks longer.

Many athletes claim it helps them perform better when they “play” the game in their minds before ever stepping foot on the field or court. While we might assume doing so is just a mental exercise that enables them to better focus on the game, there might be more concrete changes happening inside the body.

Take, for example, Air Force Colonel George Hall who was locked in a small, dark North Vietnamese prison for seven years. While most would lose their minds in such circumstances, Hall went to his happy place, so to speak, by mentally playing golf every day of his imprisonment. His visualizations were extremely in-depth and included everything from hitting the ball off the tee, raking the sand traps, feeling the wind, and of course tapping the ball into the hole.

Regardless of being weak and 100 pounds lighter than before his capture, one of the first things Hall wanted to do after his release was play a legitimate round of golf. He was invited to the Greater New Orleans Open where he astoundingly shot a 76. When a member of the press suggested his performance was a case of beginners luck, Hall replied, “Luck, I never 3-putted a green in the last five years!”

So, despite his physical deterioration and not stepping on a course in over seven years, his body had developed muscle memory based simply on his imaginings.

Jack Schwarz, a Dutch Jewish writer, also lived in horrific conditions while forced into a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. Like so many others, he was beaten, starved, and tortured beyond what most of us can comprehend. To cope with his situation, he began the practice of meditation and prayer, which he developed to the point where he could block out the pain of his torment and subsequently withstand his situation.

After his release, Schwarz continued his mind over matter practice and occasionally demonstrated his skills by putting a long sail-maker’s needle through his arm without injury. He also displayed his ability to regulate his body’s blood flow by causing the puncture hole in his arm to bleed or stop bleeding at will. Schwarz was studied by researchers at the Menninger Foundation who found that he could indeed control many of his bodily processes with only his mind. Furthermore, through an electroencephalograph, they determined his brain had different electrical activity as compared to most other test subjects. According to Schwarz, he could also see people’s auras, which allowed him to gauge their physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental conditions.

Undoubtedly it’s difficult to keep a positive attitude when you’re facing a life-threatening disease, but, based on a variety of medical studies, doing so may mean the difference between living and dying.

For example, in 1989, Dr. David Spiegel of Stanford University conducted a study on 86 women with late stage breast cancer. Half of those women received standard medical care while the other half were given weekly support sessions in addition to the standard medical care. During the sessions the women shared their feelings, talked with other patients, and generally had a positive outlet where they could cope with their illness. At the end of the study, the women in the support group lived twice as long as those not in the group. In 1999, a similar study found that cancer patients who have feelings of helplessness and hopelessness have a lower chance of survival.

In recent years, David Seidler, writer of “The King’s Speech,” claimed to have eliminated his cancer through meditation and imagination. After battling bladder cancer for years and only two weeks away from surgery, Seidler decided to see if he could get rid of the cancer through his imagination. He admittedly thought the idea was a little “woo-woo,” but by that point he figured he had nothing to lose. So, he spent the two weeks leading up to his surgery envisioning a clean, cream-colored, healthy bladder. When Seidler went in for his pre-surgery biopsy, the doctor was stunned to find a distinct lack of cancer – he even sent the biopsy to four different labs for testing. While Seidler believes his visualization were behind the cancer’s disappearance, his doctor labeled it a “spontaneous remission.”

It seems counterintuitive that increasing numbers of people are claiming to put a greater effort into exercising and eating a nutritious diet, yet there are more obese people in the world than ever before. Some researchers think positivity is a missing variable in the weight loss equation, and a lack of it is what’s keeping people chubby.

To prove the point that the mind has a major impact on the body, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer conducted an experiment on a group of predominantly overweight hotel maids who, judging by their daily activity levels, should have been thin. Despite essentially exercising all day long through their work, Langer discovered through a survey that 67% of the maids felt they didn’t do any type of exercise. Langer predicted the maids’ perceptions were hampering their weight loss, so she took half the maids aside and, in addition to taking their physical measurements, explained that through their cleaning work they were exceeding the surgeon general’s definition of an active lifestyle. The other half of the maids were given no information.

A month later, Langer’s team returned to the hotel and reevaluated the maids. They found an overall decrease in systolic blood pressure, weight, and waist-to-hip ratio in the educated group. The other group had no significant physical changes. While some suspect the mere discussion of exercise somehow altered the women’s behavior, Langer said there was no indication any of the maids modified their routines, and she feels the results were due simply to a change in mindset.

Content and copy writer by day and list writer by night, S.Grant enjoys exploring the bizarre, unusual, and topics that hide in plain sight. Contact S.Grant here.

The post 10 Amazing Examples of Mind Over Matter appeared first on Listverse.

Saint Benedict is a pretty important saint and is known for both his skills at speaking and his general holiness and purity of heart. Saint Benedict is known for surviving multiple attempts on his life by his enemies. According to the legends some monks decided to poison him. The first time they tried to poison his wine and the glass shattered into little pieces when he prayed over it. The next time around the monks decided to use food, since that can’t shatter so easily. However, their plans were ruined when a bird flew away with the bread they had laced with poison. St Benedict founded the most famous order of monks the Benedictines and placing a Saint Benedict Medal over the doors of your house is said to keep evil spirits away.

According to his life-story, St Boniface arrived in Germany and saw the people worshipping a tree. He was angry at what he considered to be the worship of false idols and decided to destroy the tree. Supposedly with one blow of an axe the tree was felled and the Germans who saw this believed in his message. Some people claim that to satisfy their attachment to trees, Boniface invented the Christmas tree and told them to use it was a symbol of everlasting life.

There have been many saints who have supposedly had the gift of prophecy. One of the more interesting legends is that of St Anthony Mary Claret. He asked a group of farmers to come to his mission; many explained they could not because they needed to tend to their fields. He told them that if they came their fields would yield more, and if they did not come their harvest would be completely ruined. According to the story, his prophecy did indeed come true. There is also the prophecy of Saint Malachi, which has been mentioned here before. This prophecy of the popes predicts that the last pope will reign at the start of the end of the world. According to those who pay attention to the prophecy, our current pope (Francis) is supposed to be the last. The prophecy of the popes is suspected by some to be a forgery and—as with all post-apostolic prophecy—Catholics can freely choose to believe or disbelieve.

Many Catholic Saints through the ages have claimed to have something akin to an out of body experience. One of them, Saint Theresa of Avila claims that it felt like her soul was traveling to regions outside her body. Other saints to report this phenomenon include St Pio of Pietrelcina and St Frances Xavier. Saint Theresa was said to gain this ability through long meditative states of prayer, eventually feeling as if she was going through a sort of “detachable death” and felt it took her much closer to God.

The stories say that St Andrew the Apostle was eventually captured for preaching the message of Christianity and was affixed to an X shaped cross. His captors used this remarkably cruel means of execution because he seemed to feel no pain at all when they had previously tortured him. It is said that even though his execution was long and brutal, that he felt no pain whatsoever. Some legends also say that the specific type of cross was chosen because Andrew did not believe himself worthy to be killed using the same method Jesus had used for his sacrifice—the same reason St Peter chose to be crucified on a upside-down cross.

One of the oldest legends is that of St Lawrence, who was a deacon at the time, stationed in the city of Rome. The Saint is said to have been in charge of taking care of the poor, and was ordered by those in authority to give him their treasures. He brought the poor before them and said that these were the true treasures of the church. In retaliation for his impudence, his execution was ordered. In order to make it as painful as possible he was tied to a hot gridiron and slowly roasted to death. The story says that no matter how long it went on, it seemed not to bother him and he offered a quip near the end that he could be turned over as he was finished on one side.

Incorruptibility is when a corpse seems to not follow normal decomposition patterns and remains mostly fine. The skeptics argue that this is due to people secretly using embalming of different varieties, however, some cases are harder to explain and happened in cases where it seems decomposition should have actually been going faster. Some of the more famous cases include that of Saints Catherine of Genoa or Francis Xavier. The bodies of St Catherine of Laboure and St Bernadette are also said to be incorruptible, after being examined thoroughly it seems their bodies are pretty much in the same shape as they were when they died. St Bernadette is pictured above.

St Joseph of Cupertino is the patron saint of Astronauts, Pilots and pretty much anything to do with flying. This is because Joseph of Cupertino was known to have the ability to levitate. The stories say that his rapture in prayer was so great that he would get caught up during Mass and start levitating above the altar. Another legend says he was able to levitate carrying an enormous cross as if it were basically weightless. It was believed among those who knew him that his incredible holiness gave him incredible abilities.

This one is perhaps the most well known, but also incredibly controversial. There are many who say the claims of Stigmata are simply untrue. Others believe in the Stigmata, but argue over which cases are actually genuine and not faked. The most recent legend is that of Padre Pio, who is said to have received the stigmata, the same marks that would have been upon Jesus on the cross. Padre Pio (now St Pio of Pietrelcina) also allegedly had the ability to read the sins on a confessor’s soul and to bi-locate.

Bi-Location is one of the strangest paranormal phenomena. While many strange happenings are impossible to prove, some seem plausible. But how can you be in two places at once? Even if you could, it would seem a challenge to act in both places; your brain can only accomplish one task at a time. However, reports of this go back a long way. Among Catholic saints who have been seen in two places at once, include Saint Alphonsius Liguori and Saint Gerard Majella. One of the strangest features of many of these stories is that we never hear any evidence that the Saint in question was aware they were in two places at once. Some have then logically said that perhaps one of them was an apparition, but that would still make it quite a remarkable phenomenon.

You can follow Gregory Myers on twitter.

The post 10 Amazing Feats Performed By Saints appeared first on Listverse.

Ten thousand Greek Mercenaries trapped deep in hostile territory—Persia. With their employer, the usurper to the Persian throne, Cyrus, dead in battle and the mercenaries’ general killed in a treacherous plot, the Ten Thousand elect the philosopher-soldier Xenophon to lead them back home. And that’s just the first five minutes (or first few pages if you’re reading Anabasis).

With supplies dwindling , Xenophon chose to lead the Ten Thousand home via the shorter path north to the Black Sea. To get there, the Ten Thousand crossed mountains, fought their way through Armenia, and navigated a series of clannish alliances and feuds. When the remaining Hellenes finally reached the Black Sea shores, Xenophon wrote that the soldiers screamed, “The sea, the sea!” And while that wasn’t the end of the Ten Thousand’s ordeal, for cinematic purposes, that’s one heck of a finale.

True, The Warriors (1979) brought the Anabasis to the screen in the form of stylized Coney Island gang-warfare. But as great as the Warriors’ adaptation was, a half-dozen leather vest wearing street toughs lacks the epic appeal of ten thousand Greek warriors fighting for their lives across the Persian Empire.

Memnon was a hired Greek general in service of the Persian king Darius. He just barely escaped his first encounter with Alexander the Great at the Battle of Granicus. Alexander’s army routed Memon’s mercenaries and Persian allies there, but like all great underdogs, Memnon quickly bounced back from defeat.

After Granicus, Memnon proved himself to be the only commander capable of even slowing down Alexander’s march east into Persia. Memnon recognized the futility of challenging Alexander in pitched battle, and instead commandeered the defense of strategic cities like Halicarnassus. Before the walls of Halicarnassus, Alexander’s advance came to a grinding halt and Memnon’s defenders allowed Alexander only the most Pyrrhic of victories. The Macedonians spent months struggling to control the city and still the citadel remained under Persian control when Memnon chose to withdraw and regroup his forces elsewhere.

Alexander’s greatest rival continued to challenge the Macedonian forces in the west from the Aegean Sea. Fortunately for Alexander, Memnon died suddenly from a fever before he could rally Sparta and other disgruntled city-states to throw off Macedonian rule and force Alexander to return to Greece.

The tenth century marked a turning point in Scandinavian-Byzantine relations. Rather than fight against one another, for the first time, Vikings in large numbers were hired into the Byzantine military. For the next several centuries, hired Norsemen wielding giant battle-axes made up the elite corps of the Byzantine emperor’s personal guard. To its own detriment, Hollywood has thus far ignored the action movie gold mine that is the Varangian Guard’s history.

If pressed to choose just one story of a Varangian Guardsman, the life of Harald Hardrada would be a good place to start.

In the early 11th century, an uprising forced a young Harald to flee Norway—the country his family once ruled. He found refuge, and employment, in Byzantium. For eight years, Harald fought in service of the emperor. He rose through the ranks and became captain of the guard. But when the Byzantine empress refused Harald’s request to marry her niece, Harald kidnapped the girl and escaped the empire with more wealth than any Viking had ever seen before. And when he returned to Norway, Harald found the kingdom welcome him with open arms.

You want soldiers of fortune? How about an entire city filled with and ruled by them? Fourteenth century Athens was that city. And the Catalans were those mercenaries.

The Catalan Company was formed to swing the balance in the war for Sicily. After that fight wound down, the Catalans hired themselves out to the Byzantine Empire, who desperately needed more bodies to replace the ones Turks were chopping up.

The Catalan Company achieved several victories for their new paymaster. Maybe too many though, as Catalan leadership tried to establish its own kingdom within the Byzantine Empire. Not surprisingly, the offended emperor had the Catalan general, Roger de Flor assassinated and fired the Catalan Company, who in 1311, drifted south to serve the Duke of Athens.

And that’s where the story really gets going, because after winning several victories for the Duke, the Catalans’ new employer decided to stiff the mercenaries. Big mistake. The Duke of Athens then attempted to pit the mercenaries against each other. Bigger mistake. Offers of land and noble titles could not sway the Catalan leaders to turn upon their comrades. The company rallied together, defeated the Duke’s army, and took control of Athens and the surrounding areas. The mercenaries ruled Athens for the next seventy years.

The 17th century was the century for vicious religious warfare. The century’s death toll from the Catholic-Protestant struggle for Europe’s soul makes the Crusades look like a friendly disagreement by comparison. By the end of the 1600s England and Ireland were center-stage in said struggle.

Patrick Sarsfield, an Irishman, was part of the losing effort following England’s Glorious Revolution to reestablish the Catholic James II on the English throne. Sarsfield’s leadership wasn’t enough to wring out a victory. But, his efforts forced the beleaguered King William III to sign a treaty with an unusual provision.

Sarsfield and thousands of Irish-Catholic soldiers were permitted to seek refuge in France. The exodus became known as “the flight of the wild geese.” And France was more than happy to hire Sarsfield and his experienced soldiers.

The “Irish Brigade” fought all over Europe for the French monarchy, hoping one day for the invasion that would bring them back to Ireland. The brigade never got that chance, though Sarsfield was honored as a marshal of France for his battlefield tenacity. Shortly after, Sarsfield was struck down by an English musket during fighting in the Netherlands. As he lay bleeding, Sarsfield supposedly said, “If this was only for Ireland,” and then died.

Steiner’s story was seemingly made for film. As a German teenager, Steiner spurned his family’s military roots and ran away from home to study for the priesthood. A tryst with a nun ended Steiner’s religious aspirations, though.

Steiner joined the French Foreign Legion one year later. Once again a romantic relationship altered Steiner’s trajectory. While stationed in Algeria, Steiner fell for an Algerian woman who prompted her future husband to join Anti-French dissidents.

The Legion didn’t take kindly to anti-government sympathies among its ranks and kicked Steiner out. Beginning in 1967, Steiner took up various insurgent causes across Africa.

He led Biafran rebels with some success against the Nigerian regime. Later, Steiner found more success leading Southern Sudanese separatists against dictatorship in Khartoum. Steiner’s early efforts to establish a Southern Sudanese resistance were taken up by subsequent leaders who used the guerrillas to affect the end of the First Sudanese Civil War (1955-1972). Sudanese government troops captured Steiner, though, and the mercenary served three years in various prisons before being released due to poor health.

Before the soldiering life seized him, Mike Hoare was an accountant. World War II intervened though, and the former accountant deployed first to India and then Burma as a British officer.

After the war ended, the potential for adventure in Africa drew Hoare away from London. He began a safari company in South Africa, which familiarized him with terrain and people across much of the continent. He put his connections and knowledge to use as a mercenary in the Congo in the 1960s and gained fame for helping rescue a group of European hostages held in Stanleyville.

Unfortunately, Hoare’s career suffered an ignominious end. In 1981, a still fervently anti-communist Hoare, attempted to depose the corrupt and communist leader of Seychelles. Hoare and 43 mercenaries flew into the country disguised as a beer-drinking club on a charity mission. Things deteriorated when customs found weapons in one of the mercenary’s luggage. A gun-battle ensued between the mercenaries and local police, before Hoare commandeered a passenger plane and most his men escaped to South Africa.

Hoare and his crew were convicted only of hijacking. And most of the mercenaries were released after a few months, while Hoare served three years of a ten-year sentence before being released.

Bob Denard was the prototypical soldier-of-fortune—shadowy origins, a menagerie of aliases, and questionable renegade tactics. Throughout the French mercenary’s career, wherever a state was failing, Denard could be found either propping up or dismantling the government roughly in accordance with France’s desires.

The Congo, Algeria, Yemen, Benin, Nigeria—Denard and his small band of mercs, in keeping with Cold War sensibilities, fought for whichever paymaster was most ardently anti-communist at the time. But out of all the strife-ridden states of the 20th century, Bob Denard made the biggest impact on the Comoros Islands.

For two decades (1975-1995), Denard played king-maker in the south-east African island nation. Four times during that span, Denard staged coups. And for most of the 1980s, Denard essentially ruled the country through a series of Comoran political puppets.

Denard had a hard time letting go after being ousted in 1989, and attempted one last coup in 1995 with just thirty fellow mercenaries. For once, the French government didn’t approve and returned Denard to France. After a brief prison spell, Denard lived out his years relatively peacefully, as French prosecutors were somewhat reluctant to strictly prosecute a man French special services admitted to utilizing.

Tim Spicer represents the “new” mercenary—the corporate mercenary. A British Army veteran who served in the Falklands and North Ireland among others, Spicer found that civilian retirement didn’t suit him.

Spicer proved an adept marketer and his fledgling freelance military company was awarded contracts in Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone. Both operations ended in scandal and failure. At least one university case study cited Spicer’s actions in Sierra Leone as a perfect example of exactly what not to do in armed conflict.

As the scandals mounted, Spicer moved smoothly, changing company names and establishing new ones. In 2002 Spicer finally founded a winner with the incorporation of Aegis Defense Services. In just two years Aegis grew from security consulting for cruise ships to winning a massive 300 million dollar contract from the U.S. government to coordinate the thousands of military contractors in Iraq. It’s like the Social Network, but with more up-armored SUVs.

And sure enough, scandal found Spicer in Iraq. Not long after Aegis’ arrival, videos surfaced of “employees” targeting unarmed Iraqi civilians.

The plot was simple enough. Simon Mann, a former member of the British SAS, gained the support of wealthy financiers to recruit, equip, and direct a small army of mercenaries to execute a coup in the oil-rich nation of Equatorial Guinea. But before Mann’s group could replace Guinea’s regime with one more favorable to outside financial interests, the mercenaries had to actually get to Equatorial Guinea.

Mann’s mercenaries planned to fly from South Africa to Zimbabwe to acquire weapons before continuing on to Equatorial Guinea. But a near-total lack of confidentiality undid the operation.

When the mercenaries landed in Zimbabwe, local authorities were waiting in force to arrest the sixty-plus mercenaries and Mann for attempting to purchase weapons illegally. The fifteen man advance party in Guinea was easily apprehended the following day.

Mark Thatcher—yes, son of the Margaret Thatcher—was also implicated in the conspiracy and arrested. Thatcher got off light. Simon Mann, not quite so, but the mercenary was pardoned in 2009.

Mann’s story actually seems to have captured Hollywood’s interest. And a film adaptation of the so-called “Wonga Coup” may be in the works.

The post 10 Movie Worthy Real-life Mercenaries appeared first on Listverse.

In 2003, scientists were surprised to discover a massive circular stone structure underneath 30 feet (9 m) of water in the Sea of Galilee. The structure is comprised of basalt rocks, stacked in a cone shape and it is twice the size of Stonehenge in the UK. In their findings that were only recently published, archaeologists have noted that it shares some features of ancient communal burial sites found worldwide, but it may also be a ramp or a ceremonial structure. As they have never come across a structure of this size, with its specific features, they can only speculate as to its exact age, how it was constructed and how it was used.

The circular anomalies that can be seen off the coast of Florida, North Carolina, and Belize have been documented by enthusiasts and archaeologists alike. Even though they are found on a global scale, their true objective hasn’t been discovered so far – many believe they were used as an ancient type of burial mound. They are also very similar to stone structures that have been found in Saudi Arabia that can be seen on this website. It is believed that the underwater structures have been better preserved than those on dry land and may date back to ±8,000 BC. as those in Saudi Arabia have been dated to around 7,000 BC.

Divers discovered proof of Eastern Canada’s ancient past while taking part in a unique submarine project in 2005. They found the very curious stone structure at a depth of 40 feet (12 m) below the surface. It consists of a massive 1,000 lb (453 kg) elongated rock with an almost completely level surface resting on 7 baseball-sized stones, which in turn sits on a huge several thousand pound slab on top of a ledge. It was thought to be a natural formation until geologists and archaeologists looked at the images. The discovery of the man-made “rock cairn”, was deemed to be proven when an underwater archaeologist concluded the existence of three shims was enough proof that the structure was man-made.

Whether it is a UFO, a Nazi anti-submarine defense tool or simply a glacial rock that has been dragged across the sea floor, the discovery of the disc-shaped Baltic Sea anomaly (and its subsequent investigation in 2012) kept all the interested parties on the edge of their seats. Although Swedish explorers generally convinced everyone that it is a rock and not a UFO, their research has raised a lot of questions. Firstly, the rock didn’t have a silt-layer on it, which is usually the case when rocks have been lying still at the bottom of the ocean for any period of time. Furthermore, the 196 feet (60 m) wide rock seems to be covered by construction lines and boxes and it appears to be propped up by a 26 foot (8 m) high pillar.

Lake Baikal in southern Siberia is unique in many regards. It is the oldest, deepest and largest fresh water lake on earth. The sediment deposit on the bottom of the lake is more than 4 miles (7 km) deep and many of the fish species that thrive in its waters can be found nowhere else on earth. As its ice cover normally lasts into June, astronauts on the International Space Station were alarmed to see a very large circular area of thinned ice near the southern end of the lake in April 2009. To their astonishment, there was also another feature above a submarine ridge that divides the lake. Although the origin of the circles is a mystery, the distinct pattern would suggest that warmer water were brought to the surface, but hydrothermal activity has never been observed over the very deep water at the southern tip of the lake.

Even though Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous historical stone monuments in the world, it is not unique. Similar stone arrangements have been found worldwide. In 2007 while surveying the bottom of Lake Michigan with sonar, a team of underwater archaeologists discovered a series of stones aligned in a circle 40 feet (12 m) below the surface. One of the stones also seemed to feature a carving of a mastodon, an animal that has been extinct for 10, 000 years. If the site is validated, it would not be completely out of place, as other stone circles and petroglyph sites can be found in the vicinity.

A series of submerged structures discovered off the Cuban coast in 2001 captured the imaginations of archaeologists, researchers and Atlantis-hunters worldwide. Found by a company doing surveying work, the sonar images have shown symmetrical and geometric structures that covers an area of 200 ha (almost 2 square km) at depths between 2,000 and 2,460 feet (± 700 m). Skeptics believe the site is too deep to be manmade as it is estimated that it would have taken the structures 50,000 years to sink to their current depth. If conclusive proof can be found that these structures were indeed manmade, it would back up the Maya and local Yucatecos stories of an ancient island inhabited by their ancestors that vanished beneath the sea.

Since its discovery in 1987, the massive Yonaguni Monument off the coast of Japan has been a subject of debate between scientists, archaeologists and scholars. Many supporters claim that the site is natural but may have been modified by human hands like the rock-hewn terraces of Sacsayhuaman. If proven true, the site would have been modified during the last ice age – around 10,000 BC. Skeptics on the other hand believe the whole structure to be natural; that the drawings and carvings observed are nothing more than natural scratches. The fact remains that although Yonaguni’s features can be seen in many sandstone formations worldwide, the high concentration of questionable formations at one site is unlikely.

During expeditions in 2006 and 2007 the deeper waters to the west of Bimini were mapped using side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profiling. A number of rectangular features were discovered at a depth of 100 feet (30 m). They are all aligned in the same direction in straight, parallel lines. The researchers have claimed that the structures appear to be very much like those found off the coast of Cuba. At a later dive managed by the History Channel, the formations were better observed. There are about 50 stone piles, mainly 10 by 45 feet in size, and all at a depth that would place their age around 10,000 BC.

In May 2001, it was announced the ruins of an ancient city was discovered in the Gulf of Khambhat. The discovery was made with the help of sonar while routine pollution studies were being done. During the announcement, the site was described as evenly spaced dwellings, a drainage system, bath, granary and a citadel that pre-dates the Indus Valley Civilization. During follow-up investigations, the area was dredged and several artifacts were recovered. Among them were wood (dated ± 7,000 BC), stones described as hand tools, fossilized bones, pottery sherds and a tooth. Among the controversies are that all the supposed artifacts are stones of natural origin, that the “sherds” are natural geofacts and that the dredging could have allowed errant artifacts to be dug up along with the site’s, removing all credibility from the finds.

Hestie lives in Pretoria, South Africa. She is amazed by all the mysterious discoveries that dates back to 10,000 years ago

The post 10 Mysterious Underwater Anomalies appeared first on Listverse.

The space race between the USSR and the USA—not to mention countless blockbuster space films—created a popular conception of astronauts as some of the most heroic, intrepid, and glamorous people in the world. This list will attempt to rank the ten most famous, inspirational, and influential astronauts of all time, who each changed the course of history by breaking down one or another of humankind’s barriers.

“I really don’t want to say goodbye to any of you people” (Before boarding the Challenger)

Christa is probably the most tragic figure on this list, and one who will always be in many of our older readers’ hearts.

When she was still a child she had been fascinated by the space program, but when she grew older she instead opted to become a teacher. In 1984, however, NASA announced that it was seeking a teacher to fly on the Space Shuttle Challenger. Christa applied, got the job, and took a leave of absence from teaching to train for the fulfillment of her childhood dream.

She and seven other astronauts on board were killed when the Challenger exploded only seventy-eight seconds after taking off from Cape Canaveral, in what remains to this day one of the most tragic accidents in NASA’s history.

“Houston, we’ve had a problem here”

It’s very possible that most people who hear this name (and know it) probably think of Tom Hanks, and not the real Jim Lovell. It’s also quite possible that if Lovell were a sportsman, he would be considered to be an extremely unlucky player—the one who never quite made the cut for the big game. He was the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, which suffered from a crippling system failure en route to the moon but was brought back safely. The mission was left unaccomplished, however, and once again Lovell had failed to make his dream come true.

Lovell was the first of only three people to fly to the moon twice—and the only one to have flown there twice without making a landing. He will always be something of a king without a crown.

“If you like waterbeds you’re going to love zero gravity…”

If there had been an exclusive marathon for astronauts, there’s no doubt that Valeri Polyakov would have won it. He experienced his first spaceflight as a researcher onboard Soyuz TM-6. The Soyuz linked up with the Mir space station, where Polyakov spent a whopping two hundred and forty days in space, studying the effects of micro-gravity on humans.

On January 8, 1994—this time as a doctor-cosmonaut on the Soyuz TM-18 flight—Polyakov returned to Mir. He spent the next 437 days in space, a world record that still stands today. During his stay on the space station, he conducted medical and physiological research. He orbited the earth 7,075 times and traveled 186,887,000 miles before landing back safely on March 22, 1995.

Dr. Polyakov left the Russian space service shortly after his return, after accumulating a then-record total of 678 days in space. Even though many of his records have been broken since then, Polyakov is famous as the first astronaut to make space his second home.

“I don’t know what you could say about a day in which you have seen four beautiful sunsets”

John Glenn made history in 1962, when he became the first American to orbit the Earth. But even before that, John had been a war hero who had flown fifty-nine combat missions during WWII. In 1959, Glenn took on a new challenge after he was selected for the U.S. Space Program. He and six others—including fellow legend Alan Shepard—were put through incredibly difficult training, and together they became known as the “Mercury Seven.”

Glenn orbited the Earth three times during his mission, which lasted nearly five hours. After this success, he became an American hero and a household name. He was feted with parades, and received numerous honors. President John F. Kennedy even awarded him the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, and the two eventually became personal friends. It is believed that Kennedy was the one who encouraged Glenn to consider a life in the public service. After a few failed attempts, he was elected to the US Senate in 1974.

“Exploration is wired into our brains. If we can see the horizon, we want to know what’s beyond”

Buzz Aldrin is probably the second-most popular member of Apollo 11, and was one of the first people to walk on the moon. Aldrin—along with flight commander Neil Armstrong—made the historic Apollo 11 moonwalk, becoming the first two humans to set foot on the moon. They spent a total of twenty-one hours on the moon’s surface, and returned with forty-six pounds of moon rocks.

The historic walk was broadcast around the globe to an estimated six hundred million people—the largest TV audience in history. Upon his safe return to Earth, Buzz was decorated with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and his own star on the Hollywood walk of fame.

“I believe I never knew what the word round meant until I saw Earth from space”

Leonov is a legendary Soviet cosmonaut, and the first man to leave the spacecraft and take a spacewalk. He left the Voskhod 2 spacecraft and spent twelve minutes floating alongside, attached by a tether. He practiced free-fall maneuvers, made observations, and even took a short motion picture. When he attempted to return to the capsule, he found that his suit had over-pressurized to the point where he couldn’t fit though the hatch. He had to release the excess air before he could get inside.

Leonov is the only surviving member of the legendary Voskhod programme, and his legacy can be spotted in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, “2010: Odyssey Two.”

“I must admit, maybe I am a piece of history after all”

Shepard enjoys the honor of being the first—and so far the only—man in history who played golf on the moon. Unfortunately for Shepard, this is not a sports list; such an accomplishment can’t help his ranking, but it still makes him pretty awesome.

Early in 1961, NASA chose Shepard over Glenn and Grissom, the two other finalists, to be the first American in space. After his historic flight, Shepard’s thirst for adventure remained unquenched, and looked forward to future missions. On January 31, 1971, Apollo 14 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, nearly ten years after Shepard’s first space flight. He commanded the Apollo 14 mission, piloting the lander to what was the most accurate landing of all the Apollo missions. He became the fifth person to walk on the moon, and the only member of the Mercury Seven to do so. Alan Shepard will be remembered both as the first American in space; as one of a handful of moon-walking pioneers; and certainly as the first human being to play sports on another planet.

“If women can be railroad workers in Russia, why can’t they fly in space?”

Valentina Tereshkova was the first woman in space, orbiting the Earth in June, 1963, at the young age of twenty-six. Her excited and lively voice was broadcast to people all around the world: “It is I, Seagull!”

The image of a seagull soaring on high seemed to fit the young cosmonaut perfectly, and thereafter she came to be known affectionately as “Seagull” by people throughout the world. Valentina Tereshkova was an ordinary cotton mill worker, who managed to accomplish something quite extraordinary.

According to the Soviet propaganda machine, her flight showed the world that in a socialist state, women could achieve just as much as men—and that they were even encouraged to reach for the stars. The reality, however, was that Tereshkova’s three days in space were nothing more than a political stunt to upstage the Americans; no more Soviet women would enter space until 1982, nearly twenty years later.

“That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind”

Neil Armstrong was one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century. As a young man, he took an active part in the Korean War, and received the Korean Service Medal. After his service he returned to University, eventually graduating with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering. In later life, he took a teaching position in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Cincinnati.  

These are all fair accomplishments, of which any person would be proud. But they’re nothing compared to the journey that made Armstrong famous around the world. As we all know, he became the very first human to ever walk on the moon, on July 21, 1969.

“”I looked and looked and looked but I didn’t see God” (Disputed)

Yuri Gagarin is the prototype of all future spacemen—and except for that of Neil Armstrong, his name is probably the most recognized of all astronauts to this day. He became the first human to enter space, and the first to orbit the Earth—giving a huge boost to the Soviet space program, and intensifying the space race with the United States.

After the flight, Gagarin became a global celebrity, and one of the very few Soviets who was allowed to tour the West. He visited numerous countries, such as Germany, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and China, with the aim of promoting the Soviet Union’s accomplishment of putting the first human in space.

He was greeted everywhere as a hero, despite the petty politics of the Cold War. Three months after the Vostok 1 mission, he even visited the United Kingdom, where he was worshiped like no other Soviet in history. He remains the most decorated astronaut of all time, having received honors and medals from more than twenty-five different countries.

Theodoros II is a collector of experiences and a law graduate. He loves History, Sci-Fi culture, European politics, and exploring the worlds of hidden knowledge. His ideal trip in an alternative world would be to the lost city of Atlantis. His biggest passions include writing, photography, and music. You can view his photostream here.

The post 10 Astronauts Who Became Pop Icons appeared first on Listverse.

Back before he was a United States president, William Henry Harrison was a general. During the War of 1812, he established Fort Meigs just south of Toledo, Ohio, and successfully defended it against British attacks for over a year before it was finally abandoned and burned down. Because after all, who needs a fort proven to be highly defendable?

These days, people claim to hear cannon fire, muskets, and the sounds of fifes and drums being played, and no one can explain exactly what is causing those sounds. Still more people have stated they hear footsteps and, when walking around outside, have seen apparitions staring at them through the windows. It’s believed that over 500 dead Americans, British, and Indian soldiers are buried in unmarked graves around and underneath the fort, which was reconstructed and opened to the public in 1974.

If you have ever read The Last of the Mohicans, or at least watched one of the movie versions, you are familiar with Fort William Henry. Located on Lake George in upstate New York, it was a fort used in the French and Indian War. Of course there is a chance you may have become familiar with the fort through another means: an episode of the television show Ghost Hunters, since rumor has it that Fort William Henry is one of the most haunted military sites in America.

There are ghost tours offered at Fort William Henry, with reports over the years of lights turning on and off as well as the sounds of unexplained footsteps, as well as wind chimes sounding despite the absence of any actual wind. The fort was home to a massacre during the skirmish between Indians and British soldiers, with some believing that the spirits from both sides of the conflict still roam the grounds.

Going back to the War of 1812, but this time hopping across the border and into Canada, we move now to Stoney Creek. Located in Ontario, Stoney Creek was home to Mary Jones Gage and her family. Her husband, who had fought for the British, had died during the American Revolution, and then in 1813 invading American troops stormed the home with the hopes of taking it as their headquarters. The next day, the Battle of Stoney Creek broke out with the Gage family holed up in the basement of their posh home.

Unlike most of our other entries on this list, the Stoney Creek home once owned by the Gage family is not said to be haunted only by deceased soldiers but by Mary Jones Gage herself, whose family had been at one point held captive by American forces during that fateful battle. These days it is believed Gage still haunts the grounds. She died in 1841, and before she could be laid to rest her body and headstone disappeared. In addition to Gage haunting the actual home, there have been reports of misty figures who appeared to be soldiers marching in the area, apparently headed to battle.

In 1066, the Battle of Hastings took place with King Harold II and 7,500 of his Saxons defending against the invading Norman conquest of William, Duke of Normandy. William defeated Harold, and an abbey was built on Senlac Hill with the high altar said to have been placed on the very spot where King Harold perished. Apparently building an abbey on the site of that much bloodshed was a bad idea, considering that over the years there have been numerous bizarre reports.

Apparently, most of the sightings are of ghostly monks rather than soldiers, with visitors claiming to have seen re-enactors dressed in robes wandering the grounds only to be later informed that there were no re-enactors employed at the time. There are some other claims, such as the high altar bleeding and a soldier marching through the Great Hall carrying a sword, but those tales are considerably less substantiated.

Built in 1867 in San Angelo, Texas, as an outpost to protect the frontier settlers in West Texas, Fort Concho operated for more than 20 years. Among the commanders who served there was Pecos Bill himself, William Shafter, and today it is considered an historical landmark sitting on 1,600 acres. It saw numerous battles over the years, and its soldiers helped put down the Comanchero Movement, which saw illegal profiteering between Mexican and American traders.

These days, however, it is more famous for being haunted by several ghosts, including the spirits of James Cunningham, George Dunbar, Edith Grierson, and Ranald MacKenzie. MacKenzie was the most famous commander at Fort Concho, and visitors claim to have seen him appear as an apparition throughout the fort, particularly in Officers Row, where he lived for the duration of his time at Fort Concho. The other three, including the spirit of 12 year old Grierson, have been spotted throughout the facility over the years.

The Battle of Marston Moor was fought on July 2, 1644 during the First English Civil War. 4,000 members of the Royalist side were killed in what was a decisive victory for the Parliamentarians, with Oliver Cromwell leading the victors. Cromwell used the Old Hall in the village was used as a base of operations by Cromwell, and according to legend, he’s there to this day, haunting the grounds.

Oh, and that’s not even mentioning the fact that, apparently, the spirits of the Royalists who were slain in battle still roam the area. There have been reports over the years of phantom soldiers marching in Marston Moor, including possible sightings in 1932, 1968, and 1992, when people reportedly observed long haired, finely dressed soldiers marching along the roads.

The Battle of Cold Harbor took place from May 31 to June 12, 1864 during the American Civil War, and is considered one of the bloodiest battles in United States history. Union general Ulysses Grant led his men against Confederate general Robert E. Lee in what would turn into a bloodbath, with the Confederates decimating Grant’s troops through the course of the two weeks of fighting. It was one of the last battles for Grant, and one that he would call one of his largest regrets.

The Cold Harbor battlefield is also believed to be one of the most haunted military sites in America, with locals reportedly hearing sounds of the battle to the point where cannon fire, gun fire, and the sounds of screaming men are sometimes reported in the local newspaper. Tourists claim to still smell gunpowder when they visit the historical landmark, and both the Cold Harbor National Cemetery and the Garthright House, located across the street, are said to be haunted by the spirit of a young girl.

The Dieppe Raid, also known as Operation Jubilee, was a precursor to the Normandy Invasion during World War II. Consisting of primarily Canadian soldiers along with some British and a few Americans, the operation commenced on August 19, 1942 and between the hours of 5:00 a.m., when it began, and 2:00 p.m., when the battle ended, the attack proved to be a failure for the Allies. The casualties numbered more than 4,000 before the Allied forces retreated back across the English Channel.

Fast forward to 1951, when a pair of tourists were vacationing in Puys, nearby to Dieppe, and at 4:00 a.m. they were awakened by what sounded like gunfire, shouting voices, and other sounds of battle coming from the beach nearby their hotel. For the next three hours, they listened to the events unfold and documented all of the sounds they heard, and later the Society for Paranormal Research determined that their notes matched up almost to the second to the Dieppe Raid on that exact same beach.

The American Civil War was an incredibly bloody affair, to put it mildly. However, nowhere was this more evident than at the Battle of Antietam, which took place on September 17, 1862 on Antietam Creek in Maryland. The battle lasted four hours in this tiny area, and the casualties were astonishing. In that one small span of time, more than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action. Today, the small road near Antietam Creek where the battle took place is known as Bloody Lane, for very good reason.

Today, the sound of gunfire and smell of gunpowder is often reported at Bloody Lane, and visitors have claimed to have both seen and heard spirits in the area. Virtually everything surrounding the Battle of Antietam has had reports of haunting, from Burnside’s Bridge, where Ambrose Burnside’s Union soldiers pushed back the Confederates and where the dead were quickly buried in shallow, unmarked graves, to the nearby St. Paul Episcopal Church, which was used as a Confederate hospital in the aftermath of the battle. According to the local legends, the floorboards of the church are so stained in blood that not even sandpaper will take it out.

If Antietam was the bloodiest single battle in the American Civil War, Gettysburg is the most famous and, over the course of several days, became one of its bloodiest with more than 50,000 men killed, wounded, or missing. Fought from July 1 through July 3, 1863 in the small town in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Battle of Gettysburg is viewed as the turning point for the Union in the Civil War.

And in the 140 years since the battle was fought, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who visited to Gettysburg who does not have some spooky story to share. At the Daniel Lady Farm, which served as the Confederate field hospital, it is believed that more than 10,000 deceased soldiers still haunt the grounds. Cashtown Inn, where the first soldier in the Battle of Gettysburg was killed, also has some bizarre tales, and the owners claim to have photographic evidence of spirits on the premises, as well as guests reporting hearing knocking on doors, lights turning on and off, and doors locking and unlocking themselves. Those are only a small sampling of the alleged ghostly sightings, which have also been reported at the Gettysburg Hotel and the Baladerry Inn, as well as on the battlefields themselves.

The post 10 Haunted Military Forts And Battlefields appeared first on Listverse.

In the past we’ve talked about some of the greatest impostors in history, but here’s another installment for your viewing pleasure. These are 10 of the greatest impostors and con men of the 20th century.

Our first entry begins in the final years of the 1800′s and carries over to the leading decade of the 20th century. Cassie Chadwick was born Elizabeth Bigsley in 1857, and it wasn’t long before she embarked on a long and incredibly successful con career. It only took fourteen years to lead to her first arrest—she was picked up after forging checks in Ontario under the claim they they were inherited from a long lost British uncle. The court released her shortly, claiming her to be insane—a dubious accomplishment for a 14-year-old.

As the years progressed, so did Cassie’s schemes. In 1882 she married her first husband, masquerading as a clairvoyant named Madame Lydia DeVere. The high profile wedding, however, brought her past victims out of the woodwork and to her front door, demanding payment for the money she had stolen from them. The marriage lasted less than a year.

Fifteen years and three husbands later, Cassie Chadwick embarked on her most ambitious scam to date, and the one that turned her into a legend—she convinced the world that she was an illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie, the ludicrously wealthy steel and railroad mogul. Over the next eight years, she scammed up to $20 million in bank loans under Carnegie’s name—while the banks themselves were too afraid to ask Carnegie to vouch for the loans for fear of stirring up controversy over his “illegitimate daughter.” The entire scheme collapsed around her in 1904 when she was arrested after one bank called her bluff. She was given 14 years in jail, but in 1907 she died due to heart complications.

It’s hard to fault a man for trying, no matter how devious their intentions may be. And it’s hard to find a man who tried harder than Stanley Clifford Weyman. Unlike most impostors, Weyman wasn’t in it for the money—he wanted the adventure, famously stating: “One man’s life is a boring thing. I lived many lives. I’m never bored.”

In between impersonating navy and military officials, journalists, and the actual U.S. Secretary of State, he also masterminded a meeting between an Afghani princess and Warren Harding, the President of the U.S. See, in 1921, Afghanistan and Britain were in talks to negotiate a peace treaty, and Princess Fatima, of Afghanistan, was visiting the U.S. However, the U.S. government wasn’t acknowledging her official presence.

So what did Weyman do? He visited Princess Fatima under the guise of a Liaison Officer for the State Department and promised that he would arrange a meeting between her and President Harding. All he asked was that she supply $10,000 as a complimentary present to the State Department. But here, where most con men would have taken the money and run, Weyman actually followed through on his promise—he used the $10,000 for first class transport and accommodations for the princess, then lied his way up through the chain of command at the White House until he got to the president himself. When the press released his photo beside the princess and the president, he was recognized and arrested. Why did he do it? Just to see if he could.

It’s rare that an impersonator will manage to make a positive impact on the world and save the lives of the people who come to depend on him. Most impostors are after money or, in the case of Stanley Weyman, excitement. For Ferdinand Demara, impersonation was about filling in gaps, picking up the pieces where a job was needed, whether he had the training for it or not.

Early in his “career,” Demara was a soldier in the military. Not happy with where that was taking him, he decided to fake his own suicide in 1942 and assumed the name of Robert French, then began teaching college psychology at a Pennsylvania university. Every now and then he would move to a different university position under a variety of names. Eventually, though, he was caught and given jail time—not for impersonating anyone, but for deserting the army years earlier.

Out of jail and with the headlines of the Korean War plastered across newspapers, Demara decided to assume the name of an acquaintance, a surgeon named Joseph Cyr. Under his new identity he got a job on the Canadian destroyer HMCS Cayuga and shipped off to Korea. Unfortunately, he turned out to be the only surgeon on the ship, and ended up performing more than sixteen major surgeries—with no formal training. All of his patients recovered. In the biography of Demara’s life, The Great Impostor, Demara claimed that he simply read a surgery textbook before operating.

George Dupre is an interesting case, in that his only real impersonation was of himself. However, the history he actually had and the history he claimed to have were so different that he inadvertently became one of the greatest Canadian war heroes in the years following WWII.

After the war ended, Dupre began traveling across Canada as a public speaker, describing his missions as a spy for the Special Operations Executive, a legendary espionage organization sometimes referred to as the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Dupre wove intricate tales of life behind enemy lines in occupied Paris, working with the underground resistance to overthrow the Nazi Gestapo. He described his harrowing experience as a prisoner of the Gestapo undergoing weeks of physical and psychological torture yet refusing to divulge any information. His story became so widespread that a book was written about it, The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk, and Dupre became an international sensation.

Except that none of it ever happened. With the fame from the book came testimonies from people who had actually served with Dupre in the war. The truth was, Dupre spent the entire war behind a desk in London. It turned out that Dupre had just embellished a few stories for fun, and somehow the entire thing spiraled out of control. Aside from the fame though, Dupre never benefited from the book deal and the public talks—he donated all his proceeds to Scouts Canada. His biography was reclassified as fiction.

Most of the impostors on this list got their start at a young age—few of them achieved notoriety before the age of twenty. David Hampton is now considered one of the youngest successful con artists and impersonators, and his story has since been adapted into the play and film Six Degrees of Separation. His gimmick: impersonating actor Sidney Poitier’s son (Sidney Poitier actually has six daughters and zero sons).

In 1983, at the age of nineteen, David Hampton tried to get into a Manhattan night club with a friend. The bouncers refused to let them in, but when Hampton came back later and told them he was Sidney Poitier’s son, they immediately showed him to the VIP section. Thus, an identity was born. Hammond took to showing up at first class restaurants, claiming that he was meeting his “father.” He would dine, then act disappointed when his father never arrived while simultaneously signing the check in Poitier’s name.

Soon he began to target the wealthy citizens of Manhattan—including Calvin Klein and Gary Sinise, among others. Hampton would introduce himself as David Poitier, then make up a story about how he had been mugged and needed a place to stay until his father arrived the next day. In one of these homes he stole an address book, and took to calling first, claiming that he was a friend of their son/daughter from college.

After Hampton’s story became famous in Six Degrees in 1990, he began traveling the country under various other personas (“David Poitier” wouldn’t exactly fly anymore), playing the impersonation game until 1993, when he passed away from AIDS.

Christian Gerhartsreiter is a German who moved to the U.S. in 1979 in the hopes of getting a job as an actor. His plan worked—but not exactly in the normal sense. A mere eighteen years old with no money, no connections, and no legal visa to be in the States, he decided that the best thing to do would be to get married and obtain a green card through his wife. So that’s what he did—he found a young woman named Amy Duhnke and told her that if he were sent back to Germany he’d be conscripted into the German army to fight the Russians (this was during the Cold War). She agreed to marry him, but the day after the wedding Christian skipped out on the honeymoon and pointed his compass towards California, where his true calling lay.

His true calling, of course, was to become Clark Rockefeller—the faux multimillionaire social butterfly who spent the next two decades—from around 1985 to 2006—claiming to be a member of the illustrious Rockefeller family. The plan worked exceedingly well until his wife Sandra Boss (of 11 years we should add), began to get suspicious that he was not, in fact, a Rockefeller. The married couple had been living exclusively on Sandra’s income the entire time, while “Clark” pursued high profile social connections.

And the rest, as they say, is history. Sandra Boss discovered the lie, filed for divorce in 2006, and left with their daughter. Two years later, Clark was arrested for kidnapping his daughter in Boston, sparking a whirlwind investigation into this mysterious German’s true identity. As it turned out, he also killed a guy.

Stanley Kubrick is an American director who’s something of a legend among movie buffs. The words “greatest director in history” have been thrown around, along with the words “not British” and “heavily bearded.” Those last two are particularly important, because in the early 90′s the reclusive Kubrick began to show up in social clubs in London—only now, he was clean shaven and decidedly English. The “new” Kubrick was actually a man named Alan Conway, who had taken to using the name for the social status it imparted.

Despite the changes in his physical appearance, and reportedly having next to no knowledge of any of Kubrick’s films, Alan Conway (real name Eddie Alan Jablowsky) managed to keep the charade going. Since the real Kubrick hadn’t been seen in public more than a handful of times in the past 15 years, it couldn’t have been terribly difficult—and even people who had actually met Kubrick in real life were fooled by the act. The film critic Frank Rich was famously convinced and, based on Conway’s behavior, came to the conclusion that Kubrick was gay (which Conway was).

Unfortunately, this story would be hilarious if it wasn’t quite so tragic. Conway was a violent alcoholic, according to his son, and his impersonations were closer to fanatical delusions than any carefully calculated plan. Conway passed away in 1998 from heart problems.

In the past, masquerading as one of the captains of industry seemed to be the surest way to a quick million. These days, the Hollywood faces are the new American royalty. In 1992, Tehran native Anoushirvan Fakhran came to the States on a student visa, and spent the next several years living a lavish lifestyle, sprinkled with privileges usually reserved for celebrities and visiting royalty. That’s because nobody knew him by the name of Anoushirvan—to everyone who knew him, he was Jonathan Taylor Spielberg, nephew of director Stephen Spielberg.

In fact, he had even gone so far as to officially change his name to Spielberg in 1997. Then, in 1998, an anonymous woman placed a call to Paul VI high school in Fairfax, Virginia. She claimed to represent Steven Spielberg, and said that his nephew would be filming a movie in the area and wanted to research high school life. So the school allowed “Jonathan” to attend free of tuition, and gave him an official transfer from his previous school, the fictitious Beverly Hills Private School for Actors. Jonathan Spielberg was now a student.

During this time, Jonathan and his mother were living in a posh apartment in Fairfax Village, and Jonathan drove a BMW to school, often parking in the school principal’s reserved space. Nobody complained; he was related to a celebrity. Eventually though, the scheme backfired—Jonathan stopped attending classes, and the school tried to reach Steven Spielberg to find out why. Jonathan was arrested and sentenced to 11 months in jail for forging documents.

Steven Russell is probably closer to an escape artist than an impostor, but the means through which he masterminded his many prison escapes are the stuff of legend. In 1990, Russell lost his job and, instead of searching for new work, faked an accident and sued the company. This landed him his first prison sentence, and his first chance to escape. In 1992, Russell impersonated a prison guard by changing his clothes and just walking right out of the prison.

On his second arrest, which was for embezzling nearly $1 million from a medical company, Russell was given a $950,000 bail—he couldn’t pay it, so he simply called the courthouse, told them he was a judge, and reduced the bail to $45,000, which he promptly paid. Unfortunately, he was quickly tracked down again once the error was discovered, and Russell found himself facing a 40 year sentence for the previous embezzlement charges.

So he escaped again—this time by coloring his prison uniform with several dozen green markers until it resembled surgical scrubs. Again, he walked right out the front door. And again, he was quickly found and arrested. So this time Russell typed up fake medical records on a typewriter in his cell, and, through judicious use of laxatives, convinced the prison guards he was dying of AIDS. Then he called the prison and said that he was a doctor looking for volunteers to test a new AIDS treatment. When the prison warden announced the news, Russell promptly volunteered.

The next time he was caught, he faked a heart attack and was taken to a hospital under guard of FBI agents. So he asked to use the phone—and called the very agents guarding him under the guise of an FBI detective to let them know that they no longer needed to guard him. Russell is currently back in prison, looking forward to his release date in the year 2140. The film I love you Phillip Morris is based on his exploits.

The Rockefellers just can’t catch a break. Before the German Clark Rockefeller, there was Christophe Rocancourt, the “French Rockefeller.” Christophe started his scams big, and kept the ball rolling his entire career—his first scam was faking a property deed in Paris, and then selling that deed for $1.4 million.

With his wallet freshly stuffed, he then hopped the ocean to the United States and began fraternizing with the Hollywood fat cats, claiming to be a French relative of the Rockefellers. Through this alias (and others), he convinced multiple people to fund his fictitious projects. Most of the time, he never even had to make any concrete claims—he would just show up at a party and make a vague mention of his mother, who might happen to be an actress one week, or a famous producer the next week.

In 2006, he was interviewed by Dateline, and claimed that he had, all said and done, scammed about $40 million in his lifetime. His modus operandi was to convince someone wealthy that he was working on a large investment, but needed some capital to get it off the ground. The person would give Rocancourt the money, and Rocancourt would disappear. He famously convinced Jean Claude Van Damme, the action star, to produce a movie of his.

He was arrested for fraud in 1998, but has continued his scams well into the 21st century. As of 2009 he was in jail in Vancouver, where he told reporters, “I never steal. Never. I lied, but I never stole.”

The post 10 Greatest Impostors Of The 20th Century appeared first on Listverse.

There may well be some awesome tales that didn’t make it into this list (any tale with a dragon in it is awesome, after all)—so please let us know in the comments.

It most often requires great cunning to defeat a dragon, and that’s the virtue which crops up again and again in stories about dragon slayers. We start the list, however, with a case of brute strength being the victor.

An unnamed dragon is said to have terrorized the area around the Austrian city of Innsbruck. It hoarded a massive treasure of gold, small pieces of which occasionally got swept away by the local river and found by villagers. Whenever the dragon noticed a loss of coin, it would devastate the surrounding countryside, smashing houses and killing locals in a fury of revenge.

Thankfully, a giant by the name of Haymo happened to live nearby. He was twelve feet tall, and of noble heritage. His strength was unmatched—and he believed that he could stand up to the dragon. So the giant put on his suit of armor, and marched with grim determination through the piles of rubble the dragon had created from what had been whole villages. 

Finding the dragon just as it was getting ready for another rampage, Haymo jumped onto it and began pounding it with his fists. The dragon writhed and squealed in pain, eventually breaking free and fleeing to its cave. Haymo followed it, ultimately stabbing it and cutting out its tongue, which he presented to the locals as proof that they no longer had to fear the terrible dragon.

Krakow, the ancient capital of Poland, is said to have been founded above the lair of a dragon known locally as Smok Wawelski. There are a number of versions of this tale, but the most popular has it that the dragon pillaged the countryside for many years, devouring livestock and terrifying farmers. The king sent out a call to noblemen and knights throughout the land, stating that whoever managed to slay the dragon would be rewarded with riches and marriage to his daughter. But none of the knights were able to get the better of the dragon, who quickly reduced all comers to a pile of ash.

A poor shoemaker’s apprentice named Skuba eventually volunteered his assistance. The king, who was by this stage rather desperate, agreed—though few people had much faith in the ability of the young lad. Skuba knew that he couldn’t kill the dragon with force, so he set a trap.

He killed three lambs, stuffed them with spices and sulphur, and left them lying outside the dragon’s cave. After the dragon had devoured this tasty morsel, he experienced a massive burning in his stomach. The pain became so great that he drank half of the nearby river in an attempt to quench it—eventually consuming so much water that he actually exploded.

Should you ever find yourself in Poland, you can still visit the dragon’s cave today.

According to various pre-Hindu religions, the asuras were a type of demigod or demon (direct translation is difficult as the pantheon is different to those familiar in the West). The most powerful of these demigods was Vritra, a dragon so big that his body covered the whole world. He would sometimes use his coils to block rivers, earning him the nickname “bringer of drought.” He eventually had the nerve to steal Earth’s entire supply of water, turning the planet into a desolate wasteland.

Vritra was slain by Indra, who would later go on to become king of the gods. Shortly after Indra was born, he set out and managed to demolish ninety-nine fortresses belonging to Vritra. Inevitably, a huge battle ensued. Indra was ultimately victorious, and “with his own great and deadly thunder smote [Vritra] into pieces,” thereby freeing the waters of the world.

The story of the Brno dragon is similar to that of the Wawel dragon above, except that this dragon is actually a crocodile. Yet its nickname—the “Brno dragon”—and its present-day resting place, hung by chains from the ceiling of the Town Hall, justify its place on this list.

Legend has it that near the beginning of the last millennium, the people of Brno were tormented by this beast, who lived in a cave and would eat anything that came his way. The frightened townspeople didn’t know how to deal with the problem, but they were luckily soon visited by a traveling butcher.

The cunning butcher, hoping to slay the beast, sewed a bunch of quicklime into an ox-pelt and left it out to be eaten. The dragon duly gobbled it up. Quicklime reacts rather vigorously with water—so when the beast washed its meal down with large swigs from the river, the contents of its stomach began to boil. The crocodile burst open, much to the delight of the locals, who sewed him back up and had him mounted on the ceiling for prosperity. The butcher earned a reward of one hundred gold coins, and presumably several xp into the bargain.

In Norse mythology, the dwarf Fafnir was one of three brothers. He didn’t begin life as a dragon, but became one after murdering his father for gold. He hid in the wilderness with the treasure, and became a dragon in order to better guard it. Unfortunately for the upstart dragon, he also happened to breathe poison around the land, which the locals understandably weren’t too happy about.

Fafnir’s brother, the blacksmith Regin, asked his own step-son—the young hero Sigurd—to kill the problematic dragon. Sigurd decided to dig a ditch, hiding there with the aim of suddenly leaping out and stabbing Fafnir in the heart.

Odin, King of the Gods, for his own reasons turned up and advised Sigurd to dig a number of other ditches to drain away the dragon’s blood, so that he wouldn’t drown. Sigurd listened to the advice, and when Fafnir showed up he duly attacked him. Though he missed the heart (instead plunging his sword into the dragon’s shoulder), the wound still turned out to be fatal.

Regin then asked Sigurd to cook the dragon’s heart. Sigurd, for some reason seeing nothing odd about this, did as he was told. He touched the heart to check if it was cooked, and burned his thumb in the process; and when he touched his thumb to his mouth in order to ease the pain, he suddenly found that he was able to understand the speech of birds. These birds told Sigurd that Regin intended to kill him, so the young hero killed Regin first, and made off with all of the gold himself.

The story of the dragon of Modiford starts out with a little girl named Maud. She was walking in the woods one day when she found a bright green baby dragon, smaller than a cucumber. She took it home with her and fed it milk, but as it grew in size, it began to consume chickens and other small animals. When it reached adulthood, it took to eating people—though throughout this process it remained friendly to Maud.

In what seems to be a recurring theme, the people living in the area weren’t too keen on having a man-eating beast in their midst—but they were at a loss as to how they might get rid of it.

There are a number of stories about how the dragon was killed. Most of them involve a convicted criminal who was offered pardon in exchange for slaying the beast. According to one story, he hid in a cider barrel and shot the dragon when it approached. Another story has it that he rigged the barrel with spikes and hooks, and the dragon impaled itself when it attempted to wrap itself around him. Two more stories involve the dragon being ambushed in its sleep—in one instance by the above criminal, and in another instance by a rabble of pitchfork-wielding villagers.

Perhaps the people of Modiford celebrated the dragon’s death a little too enthusiastically, and the details became blurry? We can probably forgive them for that.

There are two versions of the battle of the Hittite Storm God with the dragon-like giant Illuyanka. I will recount my favorite one here, but you can read them both here if you wish. Sadly, we know very little about the details of Hittite mythology, so the story has a few gaps in it (we aren’t told, for example, why the Storm God and the dragon didn’t get along).

During their first battle, Illuyanka the dragon was victorious over the Storm God. The despondent Storm God went to see the Mother God, Inata, to ask for her help in getting revenge. Inata came up with a plan, but she needed some assistance to carry it out—and for this, she went to a human man called Huspashiya. 

Huspashiya agreed to assist the god in return for letting him sleep with her, which she duly did. They then put together a large feast, with quite a significant amount of alcohol, and invited the serpent Illuyanka and all of his family to have his fill. When he was too drunk to move, they proceeded to tie up the serpent and the rest of his family up, allowing the Storm God to come and finish him off.

Huspashiya’s fate wasn’t much better, either. He went to live with his newfound goddess-lover, but was forbidden from looking out of the window. After twenty days of resisting the temptation to do so, he finally couldn’t help himself—and when he looked out, he saw his wife and child. He begged to be allowed to return to them, and . . . that’s all we know for certain, as the original source of the story is damaged from that point onwards. Scholars suspect that he was either killed for disobeying, or granted his wish after being castrated.

The story of the Lambton worm begins in the thirteenth century with a rebellious young boy named John Lambton, the son of a local lord in Durham Country, England. One Sunday, John decided to skip church, instead deciding to go fishing. Despite being warned that skipping church would bring no good, John set himself up for some relaxed angling. After a couple of hours, he caught a small, black, worm-like creature, which had the features of a salamander. Thinking it strange but of little further interest, he threw it into a well and got on with his life.

In adulthood, John joined the crusades as atonement for his youthful transgressions. While he was gone, the worm—by now fully grown—had emerged from the well. It wrapped itself seven times around a local hill, terrorizing villagers by eating their livestock and even snatching small children. The elderly Lord Lambton was able to sedate the worm by offering it twenty gallons of milk a day—but the local impact of the worm’s presence was devastating.

Upon his return from the crusades, John Lambton learned of the giant worm. Many had already tried to slay the beast, but whenever a piece of it was cut away it would simply reattach and heal itself. John sought the advice of a local witch, who advised him to attach spear-points to his armor and to fight the worm in the local river. He did so—and when the worm tried to wrap itself around him, its flesh was torn by the spear points, and the mangled pieces were washed away by the river’s current.

John was able to vanquish the beast, but in doing so he incurred a curse against his family which would last for nine generations: not a single of his descendants was to die peacefully in bed, as long as the curse lasted.

While walking along the river one day, the Shinto storm god Susanoo came across an old couple and their daughter, a young girl. Noticing that both of the couple were in tears, Susanoo enquired as to the cause of their troubles. They explained that they had once had eight daughters, but in each of the last seven years the giant serpent Orochi had eaten one daughter—and was now due to return for their last.

The old man explained that the beast had eight heads, eight tails, and a body the length of eight valleys. If there’s one thing this list has taught us, it’s that the best way for a storm god to slay a dragon is to get it drunk. Susanoo advised the old couple to build a fence with eight gates, and behind each gate to place a bucket of refined liquor. They duly did so, and when the beast arrived, each of its heads gulped down the contents of the buckets, which resulted in the dragon becoming intoxicated. Susanoo proceeded to hack the beast into pieces, turning the River Hi into a river of blood.

This is the only African tale on this list, taking place in what is modern-day Ghana. In the town of Wagadu, in ancient times, the people had made a deal with a dragon called Bida. They fed the dragon ten young maidens each year, and in return Bida made it rain gold three times annually. The town chief Lagarre, grandson of the chief that had originally made the deal, was able to renegotiate this to just one maiden a year in return for the same three rainfalls of gold. Eventually, it became the turn of the most beautiful maiden in the kingdom, Sia Jatta Bari, to be fed to the beast. She was dressed in wedding garb, and led out to the dragon’s lair.

Sia’s lover, Mamadi Sefe Dekote, had other ideas. He rode dutifully with the procession, but secretly harbored a plan of his own. He knew that it was the dragon’s custom to stick its head out of his cave three times, before snatching its meal on the third. As Bida’s head came out for the final time, Mamadi struck the dragon, killing it, and saving Sia. Celebrations all round, right?

Not quite. It turned out that the people had become quite used to the rainfall of gold provided by Bida—so they chased both Mamadi and Sia out of Wagadu. Also, it seems that Sia didn’t love Mamadi quite as much as he loved her, and tricked him into cutting off a finger and a toe. She then declared that she couldn’t love anyone who didn’t possess a full compliment of digits.

Mamadi was understandably upset by this point. He presumably reminded Sia that he’d killed a dragon for her, but ultimately turned to a witch for a love potion, which made Sia fall instantly in love with him. Mamadi then tricked Sia into sleeping with one of his servants—and when she realized what she’d done, she died instantly of pure shame.

Alan is an aspiring writer trying to kick-start his career with an awesome beard and an addiction to coffee. You can hear his bad jokes by reading them aloud to yourself from Twitter where he is @SkepticalNumber or you can email him at mailskepticalnumber@gmail.com.

The post 10 Lesser-Known Dragon Slayings From Legend appeared first on Listverse.

The first standardized attempt to measure the human’s mental capacity was courtesy of Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon, who formulated a test to measure verbal ability. Binet and Simon only wanted to use the test to find those children who suffered from mental retardation. This experiment was furthered by William Stern in 1912 to compare a child’s mental age with his or her chronological age. Stern coined the term “intelligence quotient.” The score is calculated by dividing the mental age by the chronological age, then multiplying the quotient by 100. If a child of 10 years old has a mental age of 5, his IQ is 50. Determining his mental age is the difficult part.

Once an average person reaches the age of 15 or so, the IQ test is no longer important, since the mental age has reached maturity. But an average child of 5 should have a mental age of 5. If that child has a mental age of 1, he has a below-average IQ. The two most popular tests used today are the Weschler and the Standford-Binet. On the latter, Albert Einstein (who will make quite a few appearances in this list) scored a now famous 186 as a child. On the former, the same score registers as a 160. The problem with either number is that the tests were not originally conceived for the purpose of scoring this high.

Extremely high scores are routinely inaccurate. 180 on the Standford-Binet is typically the top of the scale, and anything measured over it has few precedents for comparison and should be taken with a grain of salt. Suffice to say, the test-taker has a high degree of adaptability, versatility, and fast retention of information. But is a 186 “smarter” than a 176?

All the various tests can do is discover the very low scorers among children, and these scores are quite accurate. The difference between a 79 and a 69 is highly noticeable, and the test can determine which is which and the reasons why. Given our current understanding of intelligence, the only feasible method by which to score extremely high IQs accurately is to make the questions harder. Spatial reasoning diagrams have many more moving parts and last longer; jumbled words are longer; arithmetical sequences have more gaps. But if you can perform these mental feats on simple challenges, the only difference between them and the more difficult ones is the time you require to solve them. If so, then disregarding the time you need to finish the test, your score ought to be the same. You did the same kind of work. If you deserve a bonus for the extra difficulty, then your score has become arbitrary.

Quite a few IQ tests measure “general knowledge.” Here’s an actual IQ question this lister came across when he was 5: “What color is an apple?” Well, the only apples this lister had seen in his first 5 years were green. Got that one wrong. There are quite a few colors of apples. Some are more than one color. Mensa’s test includes questions like, “2D is to mobius strip as 3D is to ______.” Google says the answer is “Klein bottle.” Now that we know, are we smarter? Einstein once said that he did not like to clutter up his memory with facts and numbers that he could just look up in a dictionary.

As general knowledge goes, the intent is to ask questions to which everyone on Earth, at an age of 5, should know the answers. There are some questions that fit the bill, like “What is 2 + 2?” but does a correct answer to this question indicate a higher mental capacity in the child? IQ tests have historically tried to eliminate all unfairness, and the only way to do so is to eliminate “general knowledge” questions. One question ths lister encountered on the Internet is, “If you unscramble the letters in CIFAIPC, you would have what?” The choices include the correct answer, “ocean.” This question measures vocabulary, reading, and visual reasoning. But suppose the person taking the test understands English and yet has never heard of the Pacific Ocean.

IQ tests were invented for the purpose of scoring children. We all know that children require a lot of parental discipline to ensure they don’t grow up to be criminals. It always starts innocuously enough with bullying, name-calling, and lording any advantage that can be found over a supposed inferior child. While the children with high IQs are usually deemed the nerds of a group and picked on by the larger, and usually dumber, bullies, the nerds frequently pick on each other as well. Size may not matter, but the group that knows everything about Star Trek will publicly ridicule the individual who wants to fit in but can’t.

Children are mean. They require maturity to grow out of this, and though good parenting is essential, it really only stops with age. This is why parents are usually told that it is a better idea not to inform their children of their IQs. If it’s even one point below the arbitrary average of 100, the child will feel inferior. If it’s well above average, the child will likely lord it over his peers. If it is average, the child will probably still feel inferior.

But then, adults seem to take their IQs very seriously—when it’s in their favor. We have groups around the world like Mensa, the Triple Nine Society, the Prometheus Society, and the Mega Society. The last of these is said to be the most exclusive intellect club in the world. Applicants must score at least 171 on the Standford-Binet test to be accepted. Mensa requires “only” a 132. But what good is it to be a member? The Mega Society does very little that can be described as helpful. They have meetings now and then around the world, and at these meetings, the members just schmooze and congratulate each other. More on this at #1.

The Internet, and so-called “experts” before it, have long propagated some theoretical, famously high IQs across history. They are, of course, utter conjecture, since the IQ, as a notion of measured intellect, and its tests have only been around since the turn of the 20th Century. But if you google “famous high iqs,” you’ll find well known webpage(s) claiming that on the scale that measures an average as 100, and Einstein’s as 160, Leonardo da Vinci “scored” 220. That’s an outright lie for a number of reasons: da Vinci didn’t score anything on a test that had yet to be invented; he might have had a 220, but not because the webpage says so—nobody knows; the numbers on these sites seem to be estimates based on the person’s significance to history, as well as the diversity of their exploits.

Everyone knows da Vinci had his hand in everything. But is that why Einstein scores lower at 160? Einstein is less creative? If you think it’s difficult to measure intellect in terms of the black-and-white mathematics and sciences, imagine measuring a person’s skill in liberal arts. You pick the single genre of the arts. Let us say “literature.” The tests usually measure skill in spatial reasoning, reading, vocabulary, arthmetic, memory and sometimes general knowledge. So in terms of vocabulary, would Shakespeare have a higher IQ than Ernest Hemingway, because Shakespeare uses bigger words in his work? Hemingway had this to say about it, “William Faulkner is of the opinion that because I do not use the 10 dollar words, I don’t know them. Well, we both have Nobel Prizes, so I assure you, I do. But there are older ones, simpler ones, better ones, and those are the ones I use.”

And how do we measure the IQ of Ludwig van Beethoven? He was good at music, but not good at mathematics. His mathematical education stopped at arithmetic. He couldn’t even do intermediate algebra. If he were to take the test, he would probably score low, but the absence of math and science from his mind didn’t hurt his career much. Charles Dickens is said to have had a 180 IQ. Why? Because Nicholas Nickleby is a good story? It is impossible to judge this literature as better than that (within reason), because all liberal arts are subjective endeavors. Justin Bieber has a lot of fans, and a lot of them probably think his music is better than Mozart’s.

Is it fair to say that Stephen Hawking’s estimated 160 deserves to be lower than Isaac Newton’s 190? They both worked in the same fields. But Newton “created” the calculus. Hawking simply works with it. Is that worth a 30 point drop? Andy Warhol was a rather good painter for someone with an 86, although to be fair, he may have answered the questions wrong on purpose, in protest. Who was smarter, Warhol or Jackson Pollock?

Einstein is typically remembered as a poor student when he was young, but that is grossly unfair. By the time he graduated from high school, Einstein had made his poorest showing how fast he answered questions. The German teachers were trained to drill the knowledge into the students by rote, and this was not how Einstein’s brain worked. When asked a question, he thought for a while to remember the answer, then thought some more to be sure of it. This was all it took to come close to failing several times, but he never did. His teachers considered him retarded. One of them just shook his head while Einstein was thinking and said, “Einstein, you will never amount to anything!”

Most IQ tests are timed, which means your speed is part of the score. Even if you answer every question correctly, your slow speed will pull your IQ down a few points, sometimes many. But is speed important in life? If you’re an astronaut working calculus to correct your decaying reentry trajectory before you burn to death, time is more than money, but how many of us will experience such a problem in life? And besides, why not get the math right before you reenter?

We know by now that the popular legend of Einstein the F-student is not true. He never flunked a course in his life, and in high school, he got very good grades. But for someone who redefined the entire 20th Century, whose last name has become a byword for “genius,” you would expect straight As, and Einstein did not get them. His report card for junior/senior year in high school is well know across the Internet, and it shows grades of 6, or A, in algebra, geometry, applied geometry, physics, and history. He scored 5 in chemistry, Italian, and German, a 3 in French, and 4 in geography and art. Most of them fair grades, but then, his strongest suits are obvious.

IQ tests typically measure the scientific and mathematical disciplines very well because you’re either right or wrong. There is no gray area. In this regard, it makes sense why Einstein would score a 186. He had a lot of talent for math. But while in elementary and middle schools, he scored a solid 3 to 4, or about a C, in most linguistic subjects, even his own language. If the test he took was balanced, with focus given to the liberal arts, his scores in these subjects certainly pulled his overall score down, which means his mathematical brain probably scored a lot higher than 186. On top of all this, Einstein failed his entrance exam to get into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School. He aced the math and science sections, but failed French, Italian, history, and geography. He had to spend a year in a run-of-the-mill vocational college until they let him retake the exam. So how can we trust the single number?

If Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali were to have taken the same IQ test, which one would have scored higher? Ali seems the more reasonable answer, but this is strange inasmuch as we know very little of the mens’ intellectual capabilities. They didn’t work in mathematics or mechanical engineering. They were boxers. They made millions by beating people up. Ali won two of their three encounters, but don’t count Frazier as a footnote to Ali’s glory. Frazier was the only man to beat Ali in his prime. He did it on points and he knocked Ali down.

What do you think Frazier would have scored on an IQ test? An average 100? But a high IQ doesn’t enable a person like Einstein to box well. Einstein had no desire to box, or do very much that is physical. Perhaps it is fair to say that there is such a thing as a “physical IQ.” Boxing is a sport of motor skills. These are controlled by the brain, and some people are born with an incredible knack for refining them with ease. Franz Liszt had extreme motor skills in his hands and feet.

If two boxers train in the same way, and one of them very quickly learns how to duck, jab, dance, and counterpunch, while the other simply can’t get it, we see the existence of “talent.” IQ tests are used to measure universal truths in mental acuity. Is it fair to say that the boxer with more aptitude for the sport is the more intelligent of the two? IQ tests do not root out such natural prodigies.

Of course intelligence is rather important to life as a human, and the higher one’s is, the better, but only if it is put to good use. The film Good Will Hunting deals with this requirement to use one’s “gift” for the improvement of mankind and the world. Everyone knows Einstein was a genius. But is he famous because of his 186 IQ? Or did his papers on Relativity and the photoelectric effect have anything to do with it? He was also rather involved in the creation of the atomic bomb. Time Magazine calls him the Man of the 20th Century.

Ever heard of William James Sidis? He lived from 1898 to 1944 and is reputed to have had a “ratio IQ” between 250 and 300. This IQ is a matter of very heated debate to this day, because the sources don’t agree and all of them are hearsay. There is, however, no doubt that he had an extremely fast aptitude for learning anything. By his 20s, he was able to speak in over 40 languages, and claimed to be able to learn one in a day. He invented his own language, called Vendergood, which was a mishmash of Ancient Greek, Latin, and about 8 other European languages. J. R. R. Tolkien did the very same thing with Elvish, and spoke at least 30 languages. But we don’t think of Tolkien as having an IQ above 250, and yet he wrote a lot more than Sidis, and Tolkien’s literature is popular. Sidis invented a rotary calendar that would always be accurate even to the leap year. But why is that important? We already have working calendars. With a 300 IQ, it’s a shame he didn’t invent the time machine or a real lightsaber.

Rene Descartes, probably another high IQ holder, famously wrote, “Cogito, ergo sum.” “I think, therefore, I am.” While this lister definitely agrees, he has always thought of this statement as incomplete. William Sidis proves it. He squandered his natural talents on the trivial. Einstein reached the heights of his greatness with “only” a 186. What could Sir Isaac Newton have done with a 300? Perhaps the phrase should be, “Cogito, ergo sum. Facio, ergo recordaremur.” “I think, therefore I am. I do, therefore I will be remembered.”

FlameHorse is a writer for Listverse. He has no idea what his IQ is.

The post 8 Reasons The IQ Is Meaningless appeared first on Listverse.

Famously, the Egyptian pyramids were built to host the body of the king. They became temples to the dead, and a new source of worship. That’s all very nice—but perhaps a little elitist. That was the thought of Thomas Willson in 1829, when he proposed a new solution to London’s ongoing problem with graveyard overpopulation: a pyramid mausoleum which could contain the corpses of five million people, and which, if completed, would have been ninety-four floors high (by comparison, the Chrysler Building has just seventy-seven floors). And it would have been located in the middle of London.

Willson thought the idea compact, hygienic, and ornamental, and he hoped that people would come from afar to have picnics and admire it. He also calculated that it would bring in a tidy profit of around ten million pounds. Not all envisaged the idea in the same way, however: one historian has described it as a “nightmarish combination of megalomaniacal Neo-Classicism and dehumanized Utilitarian efficiency”, which is an old-fashioned way of saying “this stinks.” In the end, public opinion turned against it—Londoners most likely deciding that they would rather picnic a park than beneath a colossal pyramid of death.

We associate the Romans with amphitheaters, temples, and statues—but one thing we don’t tend to think of is pyramids. Well, think again. Smack-bang in the middle of Rome is a two-thousand-year-old, 121-foot (37m)-high pyramid.

The Romans had only recently made Egypt a province, and were obviously impressed with their huge tombs to ancient kings. “I like the sound of that,” a Roman magistrate called Gaius Cestius probably said—and had one built for himself, Roman-style, upon his death. Alas, as with the Egyptian pyramids, advertising your tomb in such grand style isn’t always a good idea; both his body and the pyramid’s other contents were plundered in antiquity.

What do you do when you want to build a sixty-five-floor pyramid in the middle of crowded Mexico City? Why, you turn it upside-down and build it underground, of course. That’s the proposal of a Mexican architectural firm. They want to give the city’s main square a glass floor, and build a pyramid of offices, homes, and shops underneath it.

Mexico has a rich history of pyramid building from the Maya civilization, and according to one of the architects, the proposed pyramid would “dig down through the layers of cities to uncover our roots.” Because there’s nothing like building a vast, hi-tech underground shopping centre to discover your roots. At a projected $800 million, the city hasn’t yet expressed much enthusiasm for the idea.

What’s the biggest pyramid in the world? The Great Pyramid of Giza? No—there’s actually one that’s twice as big.

Though not as tall as the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the Great Pyramid of Cholula—which also has the less catchy name of Tlachihualtepetl—is much wider. It can be found in central-east Mexico, and was built over a period of a thousand years, from the third century B.C. to the ninth century A.D.  

Some say that it was built by a giant called Xelhua, but archaeologists, predictably, disagree. They claim that the pyramid was constructed by a series of ancient Mexican civilizations, who added layer upon layer over the years. These days it’s quite overgrown, and doing its best impression of a hill—so much so that the Spanish built a church on it in the sixteenth century.

Everybody thinks of Egypt as the pyramid capital of the world, but there’s another country that has twice as many pyramids: Sudan. Located directly to the south of modern Egypt, they were mostly built around the third century B.C.—around eight hundred years after the last Egyptian pyramids were built.

There are more than two hundred and fifty of them, ranging from twenty feet (6m) to one hundred and twenty feet (36m) high. Many of these have only been discovered in the last few years, suggesting that either the Sudanese were fantastic at hiding their pyramids, or that archaeologists prefer more glamorous locations in which carry out their digging.

It may not be much to look at these days, but the mausoleum pyramid of the first Emperor of China is deadly. It was built from 246 B.C. to 208 B.C., supposedly by as many as 700,000 men—and it was filled with more traps than would fit into an Indiana Jones movie.

It was supposed to be a representation of the Emperor’s palace and universe, and in this vein he had all his childless concubines killed and buried with him. Lovely. Workers, too, were buried alive, in order to preserve the pyramid’s secrets, and trees and grass were planted to make it seem like a hill. The Chinese are yet to excavate, claiming that archaeology isn’t sophisticated enough to do the job properly. But it could well be that they’re simply scared of the traps; for instance, it’s known that the pyramid was filled with a moat of mercury. More than two millennia later, mercury readings from the site are still dangerously high.

Being an architect is tough work. You spend months getting your drawings and measurements perfect—only to have the builders read your plans the wrong way round. That looks like what happened in 1983, for the construction of the 262-foot (80m)-high Slovak Radio Building, in Bratislava, Slovakia. Inside is a concert hall—and it proudly boasts one of the largest organs in Slovakia. If you’re visiting in a group, make sure everyone is spread around evenly; it looks like it could topple at any moment.

Sure, it didn’t last long—but for a while, New York had its own pyramid. At the end of World War One, thousands of helmets from captured German soldiers were taken back to America, and in a somewhat macabre victory display, they were piled up into a pyramid at Grand Central Terminal.

Somehow, we don’t think this would be received very well today. Still, it’s a touch more civilized than the similar actions of fourteenth-century Central Asian emperor Tamerlane. During one siege, he built a pyramid of 90,000 human skulls in front of a besieged city to intimidate them. We imagine that it worked.

Pyramids of death don’t die that easily. In 2007, a group of German entrepreneurs unveiled their designs for a 1900-foot (580m)-tall pyramid to house the bodies of up to forty million dead people. It would also be multi-colored, as if to compensate for the fact that it would be filled with dead bodies. For around $1000, anybody could sign up to have their ashes encased in a block after they die—and the color would be of their choosing. At around ten times the size of the original Great Pyramid, it would have almost literally cast a shadow over the neighboring villages.

Remarkably, the group were given $115,000 of funding from the German government to pursue the idea; since then, however, the plan seems to have faded due to lack of interest and local objection to having a gigantic multi-colored pyramid full of dead people on their doorstep. But don’t worry: if you’re interested, you can still sign up here.

Why restrict pyramid building to our own planet? The Curiosity rover sent by NASA to examine Mars found something rather curious. This pyramid looks like it’s been copied from the ancient Egyptian ones—or perhaps it’s the other way round.

NASA scientists say that the pyramid is most likely the product of wind erosion; but in the minds of ancient aliens theorists, it’s “hard evidence” that our world today has been shaped by mystical space aliens from Mars. One thing is for sure, however: if the aliens who built this rock were the ones who visited Earth, they must have been pretty tiny. The Pyramid of Mars is about the same size as a football.

N. Christie is currently traveling the world to determine once and for all what the Seven Wonders of the World really are.

The post 10 Greatest Alternative Pyramids From Around The World appeared first on Listverse.