Eels, Raining Flesh and a Falling Telescope Mark Odd Day in Fringe Circles

THE INTERNET — The Daily Grail, a website devoted to the fringes of science and culture, published its roundup of news briefs on November 3, opening with an invitation to readers to "dance like you're a magician" while perusing the day's items.

Among the offerings is a piece asking what might follow if first contact with other intelligences were to take the form of an archaeological discovery. Another traces how London's 1838 "great stink" is said to have helped create the modern vampire. A third looks at the drugs the Inca reportedly gave children before sacrificing them on volcanoes.

The digest also revisits an event it dates to 1841, when flesh and blood are reported to have rained down in Tennessee. According to the linked article, such falls are not one-off events, with accounts running from ancient Greece to modern India. Elsewhere, 2.8 million eels are said to swarm an underwater mountain, and scientists are described as still uncertain why. The Grail marks the occasion with a line of Lovecraftian invocation.

In the realm of research, a psychedelic nasal spray, inspired by the secretions of the Sonoran desert toad and recreated in a laboratory, is reported to be a treatment for depression. A further item says Lamarck's long-mocked idea that organisms shape themselves and their world is making a comeback.

Other briefs include FOIA records said to show informants advising the FBI on subversive flying saucer groups; the expected fall to Earth of NASA's Swift space telescope; and a study in which 1,000 people entered a haunted palace, with psychologists reporting findings the Grail promises may surprise readers. The first LaserSETI stations in Asia are reported active in Saudi Arabia, and a collection of strange human experiences of time is also featured.

The day's video asks about the truth behind Havana Syndrome. The quote of the day, from John Lewis, concerns the vote as the most powerful non-violent tool in a democratic society.