WORLD OF THE WEIRD
Welcome to WORLD OF THE WEIRD! Every story you read
here is absolutely TRUE!!! DarkPhantom has searched the world over to bring
you stories of the strange and unusual. E-mail DarkPhantom with any "weird"
true story you may know.

HOW NAZI SCIENTISTS TRIED TO CREATE AN ARMY OF TALKING DOGS
It's further proof that Hitler was barking mad.
In his book Amazing Dogs: A Cabinet of Canine Curiosities, Cardiff University historian Jan Bondeson mines obscure German periodicals to reveal the Nazis' failed attempt to breed an army of educated dogs that could read, write and talk. "In the 1920s, Germany had numerous 'new animal psychologists' who believed dogs were nearly as intelligent as humans, and capable of abstract thinking and communication," he writes. "When the Nazi party took over, one might have thought they would be building concentration camps to lock these fanatics up, but instead they were actually very interested in their ideas."
According to the book, scientists envisioned a day when dogs would serve alongside German troops, and perhaps free up SS officers by guarding concentration camps. So to unlock all that canine potential, Hitler set up a Tier-Sprechschule (Animal Talking School) near Hanover and recruited "educated dogs" from throughout the country. Teachers claimed a number of incredible findings. An Airedale terrier named Rolf became a mythic figure of the project after teachers said he could spell by tapping his paw on a board (the number of taps represented the various letters of the alphabet). With that skill in hand, he mused on religion, learned foreign languages and even asked a noblewoman, "Can you wag your tail?" Perhaps most outlandish is the claim by his German masters that he asked to serve in the German army because he disliked the French. Another mutt barked "Mein Fuhrer" when asked to describe Hitler. And Don, a German pointer, is said to have imitated a human voice to bark, "Hungry! Give me cakes!" in German.
Germany's love of dogs may have blinded the Nazis to the outlandish goals of their project. "Part of the Nazi philosophy was that there was a strong bond between humans and nature. They believed a good Nazi should be an animal friend," Bondeson says. "Indeed, when they started interning Jews, the newspapers were flooded with outraged letters from Germans wondering what had happened to the pets they left behind."
Hitler, a well-known dog-lover, had two German Shepherds named Blondi and Bella. He killed Blondi shortly before killing himself in 1945.
by WILLIAM LEE ADAMS
APPARITIONS OF THE VIRGIN MARY
It's not unusual for a lone witness to clain he or she has seen a ghostly
apparition. But in Zeitoun, Egypt, thousands of people insist they've
seen an eerie shining figure, believed by many to be the Virgin Mary, atop St.
Mary's Coptic church.
The strange sightings began in April 1968 and continued until 1971. Then they
started up again in the mid-1980's. this time over another Coptic church outside
of Cairo, St. Demiana's. The figure, accompanied by a bright light, at first
appeared only in the early morning. Later on. she was seen briefly several
times each night.
Huge crowds gathered in the streets below, and several witnesses said the dome
of the church inexplicably glowed during these visitations. Others reported
that the smell of incense sometimes pervaded the entire area.
On one occasion the mysterious lady "stayed for twenty minutes," according to
journalist Mousaad Sadik, who wrote about the apparition in the Cairo-based
paper Watani. "Spellbound," he reported the next day, "the people started to
plead and pray."

AUSTRALIA'S ENORMOUS EGG
During the 1930's, an Australian farmer found a football-sized
egg that has baffled scientists ever since. Researchers confirm that the
object is an egg - in fact, a bird's egg. But they say it's thirteen times
bigger than an egg laid by the giant emu, the largest egg the scientists of
the Australian continent have ever found.
Though the egg remains a mystery to this day, theories abound. The egg could
be from a species know as the Aepyornis, a bird long extinct in its
natural habitat of Madagascar, some four thousand miles west of Australia.
The egg could have drifted across the Indian Ocean and floated up to Australia's
shore, experts suggest, as does other material caught in the juncture of the
Indian and Southern oceans in the area of the find. Or the egg could have
been carried by humans and abandoned on the Australian shore.
Then again, some scientists say, the egg might belong to an extinct Australian
bird, whose fossil footprints and what is possibly its skull were found
relatively nearby.

THE MYSTERY SPHERES OF COSTA RICA
Banana company workers hacked through the dense vegetation of a tropical forest
in Costa Rica about fifty years ago, hoping to uncover land suitable for growing
bananas. They not only found the rich soil they were looking for, but they also
discovered something totally unexpected - a huge round stone about six feet in
diameter.
As the workmen searched under nearby vines and brush, they found many more
round stones. Some were only a few inches in diameter and weighed just a
couple of pounds. But others were eight feet around and weighed more than 16
tons. They were all so smooth and appeared so perfectly round that it took
careful measuring to prove that they were not absolutely perfect spheres.
When the workmen reported their discovery, they learned that few people in the
area had ever seen the objects. No one - including scientists from all over the
world who came to study the mysterious spheres - knew who made them, or why.
The balls were found to be made primarily of granite, although a few were made
of limestone. Most were in groups of at least three, but as many as forty-five
were found together. Some were inexplicably arranged in triangles and others
in circles. Still others were placed in long straight rows pointing north and
south, leading to speculation that some long-forgotten ancient people used them
to keep track of the position of celestial bodies - in other words, a prehistoric
planetarium.

~CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO MAIN ROOM~

Email: planet9@rocketmail.com