In the 1951 movie Distant Drums starring Gary Cooper, a small band of soldiers were crossing a swamp in pursuit of Seminole Indians. While wading through the Everglades one unnamed soldier was attacked and dragged underwater by an alligator. His last sound as he died was a startled scream.

In The Charge at Feather River two years later, a soldier named Private Wilhelm screamed in what sounded like alligator-assaulted agony when he was struck by an arrow. In fact, his cry of pained surprise was practically identical to unnamed soldier’s. Both men would soon be forgotten as a bit parts in B-movies, seen by relatively few moviegoers. But the holler they bellowed went on to be heard by millions– if not billions– of people worldwide.

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During the 1950s and 1960s the United States Army spent considerable energy developing one- and two-man flying machines to carry its soldiers into battle. These vehicles were intended to offer a powerful advantage in scouting and observation, and to give infantrymen unprecedented freedom of movement on the battlefield. Ultimately the US Army hoped to give the common foot soldier a set of wings.

The US National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics (NACA) began to conduct feasibility research on such technology in the early 1950s. After some encouraging results in the laboratory using compressed air, several companies went on to build experimental vehicles. This brief fad of military aviation gave rise to a number of unique contraptions, including such unlikely inventions as backpack helicopters, hovering platforms, and flying jeeps.

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For centuries sailors have been telling stories of encountering monstrous ocean waves which tower over one hundred feet in the air and toss ships about like corks. Historically oceanographers have discounted these reports as tall tales– the embellished stories of mariners with too much time at sea. But in the last eleven years scientists have discovered strong evidence indicating that such massive rogue waves do exist. The phenomenon has become the subject of recent scientific study, but their origin remains a mystery of the deep.

About one ship is lost every week in the world’s oceans, mostly due to poor seamanship or severe weather. But it now seems likely that at least a small percentage of sea disappearances are due to encounters with these destructive waves. Over the years experienced captains have made very credible reports of meeting behemoth waves which appear spontaneously, cause extensive damage to their ships, and shrug back into the sea just as mysteriously as they had appeared. One account describes the appearance of a giant wave trough which onlookers likened to a “hole in the sea”, followed by a twelve-story-tall “wall of water.” To further compound the mystery, some such waves have been said to appear mid-ocean, and often in calm weather.

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At the height of the Cold War, the US Central Intelligence Agency was willing to try just about anything to gain an advantage over the dreaded Communists. The agency considered using exploding cigars or seashells to remove Cuban leader Fidel Castro; they employed psychics to attempt “remote viewing” of Russian military secrets; and the CIA even put the Soviets on the business ends of clairvoyant minds to attempt mind-control.

One of the CIA’s most bizarre Cold War efforts was Operation Acoustic Kitty. In declassified documents from the CIA’s super-secret Science and Technology Directorate, it was revealed that some Cold-War-era cats were surgically altered to become sophisticated bugging devices. The idea was that the cats would eavesdrop on Soviet conversations from park benches, windowsills and garbage containers. The cat was meant to just stroll up to the sensitive conversations, completely unnoticed. The clandestine cat’s electrical internals would then capture and relay the audio to awaiting agents.

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In 1934, much of the world was in the grip of the Great Depression. Unemployment was an epidemic, and many businesses struggled desperately to survive. One notable exception to these economic troubles, however, was the radio industry. Broadcasters in the US were making upwards of two billion dollars a year, and they owed much of their success to the innovations of a brilliant man named Edwin Armstrong. Twenty years earlier he had significantly improved the sensitivity and quality of radio receivers with his invention of the regenerative circuit in his junior year of college, and he went on to further improve them with his Super Regenerative circuit and Super Heterodyne receiver. These laid the foundation for the success of radio broadcasting– in fact, almost any radio you buy today will still incorporate these innovations. But in 1933, Armstrong brought about an even more revolutionary change in the broadcasting business: FM radio.

In spite of these brilliant technical achievements, Armstrong saw little financial benefit from his inventions. Many of his ideas were plundered by unscrupulous people, a trend which ultimately led to Armstrong’s tragic and premature death.

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Immediately following the American Civil War, some Confederate southerners were unwilling to live under the rule of the triumphant Union. Reconstruction had gone badly for many of these former Confederates as their pre-war lifestyle was gone and replaced with economic impoverishment. Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil seized upon this opportunity by offering an alternative. He sent recruiters into Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, South Carolina and Texas in search of experienced cotton farmers for his country. Many southerners saw this as their only option for happiness; to build a community with southern values in the jungle of Brazil. They would become known as the Confederados.

Dom Pedro offered the disgruntled Southerners a package of tax breaks and grants if they would immigrate to Brazil. General Robert E. Lee asked Southerners not to accept, but about 10,000 Confederates did take the Emperor up on his offer. Eventually about sixty percent of the Confederados trickled back into the United States, but of those who stayed permanently, most became part of a Confederate-values colony northwest of Sao Paulo that was named Americana.

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During World War 2, large bombers and flying fortresses were considered critical for victory by both the Allied and Axis forces. In order to meet the threat of enemy bombers, both the Germans and the Americans were developing new interceptors intended to attack large enemy planes by deliberately colliding with them. Employing a technology which was ultimately abandoned, the solidly-built interceptors were meant to collide with their target at extremely high speeds. If all went according to plan, the bomber would be fatally wounded and the ramming plane and its pilot would survive the impact, ready to move on to the next victim.

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“Monkey boys,” “wolf girls,” “gazelle boys,” and even an “ostrich boy;” they are all part of the lore of the feral children. Also known as “wild children,” these are children who have grown up with little or no human contact, and they are therefore unaware of human social behavior or language. Some are thought to have been raised by animals, some have reportedly fended for themselves in the wild, and others are victims of abuse, having grown up in the forced isolation of cages or basements.

Being skeptical by nature, I usually find such claims too incredible to be true, but there is a considerable amount of evidence and history available about feral children. While many of the historical cases are unreliable or completely fictitious, other records of feral children defy a simple explanation and are hard to ignore.

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