Gigantism - The Tragic Story of a Victim

Las Vegas teenager Tanya Angus was a tall, pretty girl.  At 5 feet 8 inches tall, she stood slightly above some of her school friends.  But then, in 1999, she suddenly began to gain both weight and height.  When she passed away, she stood 7 feet 2 inches tall and weighed nearly 400 pounds. 

What happened?  Tanya had developed a non-cancerous tumor on her pituitary gland.  This resulted in the
development of a rare disorder called acromegaly.  Her body was releasing too much growth hormone, and there was no way to control it.

Tanya’s case is typical of adult acromegaly.  Victims develop a benign, or noncancerous tumor on the
pituitary gland, which is located at the base of the brain.  This gland produces several hormones besides the growth hormone, but in Tanya’s case it was the growth hormone that caused the worst of her medical problems. It was this hormone that caused her bones and other tissues to grow out of control.  The pressure created by the growing tumor causes headaches and impaired vision.

    Tanya must have gone through hell.  She needed specially made shoes and could not wear pullover shirts or sweaters.  Jewelers stretched her rings to size 20 and added chain to her necklaces.  Eventually she ended up in a wheelchair.  She ate one meal per day, but some people believed that she lacked the discipline to control her weight.  Her medications caused her face to swell.   

    Eventually, Tanya became an advocate for others suffering from acromegaly.  But her life ended suddenly
when she caught a cold and developed a fatal tear in her heart.

    Tanya’s story is one of the courage of a young woman.  It also points out that even though acromegaly is a
relatively rare disease, there is much work to be done to find a way to control and secure it for the sake of its victims and their families.  I hope someone takes up Tanya’s cause and provides help for those helpless sufferers.

There’s more information about acromegaly at this site

When is a Dead Man Really Dead?

Tony Yahle had been dead for 45 minutes, and hospital staff at Kettering Medical Center were preparing to move his body to the morgue.  Then his son stepped up and said, “Dad, you’re not going to die today.”  At that second, Yahle’s heart began to beat.  Doctors are at a loss to explain his sudden recovery.

It began when Yahle’s family realized he was not breathing and had no pulse.  They performed CPR while waiting for paramedics to arrive, but all efforts to revive him failed.  He was rushed to Kettering Medical Center with no heartbeat or other vital signs.  Doctors spent 45 minutes trying to revive him before declaring him dead.  It was then that his 17-year-old son shouted, “Dad, you’re not going to die today.”

At that point, Yahle’s heart monitor started showing up tiny electrical signals once or twice a minute.  His
cardiologist noticed them and renewed efforts to revive his patient.  Gradually, Yahle’s heart rate began to increase.  Finally, the cardiologist was able to say that Yahle would live through the bizarre incident.

Yahle later was transferred to Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center.  He woke up five days later.
Eventually he was allowed to go home to rest and recover.  When asked, the 37-year-old Yahle said he was feeling fine and planned to return to work the following Monday.

Interestingly enough, as I was preparing this article, I ran across stories of two other people, a man and a woman, who had also suddenly revived after having been declared dead by medical personnel.  Both had been dead approximately 45 minutes. 

Ordinarily, when oxygen to the brain has been cut off for a much shorter period of time than 45 minutes, there is significant brain damage.  In each of these three cases, the victims did not seem to experience obvious damage to their brains.  Is there some sort of “magic window” at 45 minutes in which some people can be restored with minimal or no damage? 

If you’d like a little more information, you’ll find it here:

Is This a Vampire Cemetery?

Construction workers working on a road near Gliwice in southern Poland uncovered four skeletons.  Later, another thirteen skeletons turned up.  All seventeen were found with their skulls placed between their knees or hands and stones placed on top of the skulls. 

According to archaeologists, this is the way suspected vampires were buried during the 15th and 16th centuries in Poland in order to prevent them from returning to life. 

So far, a total of 43 graves have been located at the grave site.  The other bodies were not treated in the same way as the seventeen.  Since the cemetery was located near an execution site, it is possible that some, if not all, of the victims were actually executed and then buried nearby. 

It is interesting that there was no sign of clothing or buttons found on the bodies.  It is probable, however, that the bodies were stripped of jewelry, coins, and other valuable items by either the executioners or the people who actually buried the bodies.

The skeletons are being removed from the site for testing designed to determine the ages of the victims and the possible causes of death.  Researchers are also studying church and court records to try to identify at least some of the individuals buried in this strange graveyard. 

There’s another article, along with a few photographs here:

What is This Stone Structure?

There is a strange stone cairn at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee.  It was discovered more than ten years ago, but information about it is only now becoming public.

The cairn (a stacked pile of rocks) is estimated to be 32 feet tall and is cone-shaped.  It is huge, with a diameter of 230 feet at its base.  Built of stacked, rough basalt cobbles and boulders, its weight is estimated at 60,000 tons.

It is probable that the mysterious cairn was built when sea levels were lower and most likely is more than 4,000 yearsold, although investigations into its actual age are still underway.  Archaeologists are hoping to find artifacts or other evidence to help them identify the cairn’s purpose. 

Similar cairns often mark graves.  If that is the case, the individual buried there would have had a high status
deserving of such a massive structure. It is also possible, of course, that the cairn was dedicated to an entire family group.

When Did Humans Really Reach the New World?

There are a number of archaeologists who say they have found evidence that people had ventured into the New World much earlier than the iconic Clovis culture.  In almost every case, their evidence has been dismissed by their colleagues.  So it is no real surprise that one of the most recent studies is being hotly contested.


A research team led by Christelle Lahaye of Michel de Montaigne Bordeaux 3 University in France led a team which excavated a rock shelter in Brazil.  They found 113 stone tools inside the site buried in ancient sediments.  Careful analysis of those sediments revealed that some of the tools had been buried 22,000 years ago, at least 6,000 years earlier than the oldest reliably dated Clovis artifacts.


One of the first criticisms of the team’s findings came from John McNabb of the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom.  He pointed out that evidence in rock shelters is open to different interpretations.  Rocks falling from cave ceilings and walls often resemble crude tools. But in the case of the Brazilian rock shelter, the “tools” are made of rock that is not naturally present at the site, suggesting that they were brought in from elsewhere. The team has found that some of those stones originated at least 10 miles away.

There is one more piece of elusive evidence that has not been discovered yet.  No human remains have been found.  Nor has any ancient cave art, a sure sign of human occupation, turned up at the cave or other nearby sites. 

LaHaye and her team are studying the original rock shelter and others nearby, looking for more evidence of human occupation.  It will be interesting to see how their investigation develops.  If this team can uncover more proof that people were in the Americans 22,000 years ago, there may yet be hope that some of the other claims for early occupation might be taken more seriously.

For more information about this intriguing find, go here

24 People Missing in Nome, Alaska - Where Did They Go?

Twenty-four people vanished in Nome, Alaska between 1960 and 2004. None have ever been seen again. So what happened to them? No one, not even the FBI, knows to this day.

With a population of roughly 3,500 residents, Nome is by no means a large town. But it serves as a hub for a number of smaller tribal villages who go there to do their banking, shopping, and socializing. Nome boasts two airports and two radio stations along with a harbor and a lively business district, complete with bars.

When you look closely at it, 24 missing people over a period of 44 years does not sound like a large number. But the fact that none of them were ever found does raise some interesting questions.

Nome lies in the middle of one of the harshest environments in the world. It sits on the treacherous Bering Sea coast where sudden storms, packed ice and rough seas are common. Coupled with the fact that Nome is fairly tolerant of drinking by their Native American populations and visitors, many people have concluded that the missing people brought their Permanent Fund checks to town, got drunk, and simply vanished into the night, never to be seen again.

There are, of course, almost as many theories as there are missing people. For some, these unfortunate people fell victim to the region’s dangerous environment. Others suspect that least a few may have fallen victim to a serial killer.  Some wonder if they might have been kidnapped by aliens.
Alaska has more reports of missing persons than any other state. In 2004 alone, more than 3,400 people were reported missing. The state is rugged, with a harsh and unforgiving climate, and lonely. It is easy to walk out on a nice day only to be enveloped by a sudden blizzard or ice storm. Falls from rocky hillsides and sudden spills into an icy river no doubt account for at least some of the disappearances. Others may fall victim to predators.

Since no bodies or other evidence has ever been recovered of the missing 24 people, it is not likely this mystery will ever be solved.

Missouri’s Mysterious Spook Light

Though it’s usually referred to as the Joplin Spook Light and sometimes as the Hornet Spook Light, this mysterious glowing ball is associated with Oklahoma as well. Its story goes back more than a hundred years.

Apparently this light is only seen on Devil’s Promenade Road located approximately 12 miles southwest of Joplin, Missouri. It is capable of changing colors, though it is usually orange. It is round, varying from baseball to basketball size. It invariably is seen traveling from east to west along the four-mile stretch of Devil’s Promenade Road, and it is said to appear every night, usually between ten o’clock and midnight.

Some witnesses say that it spins at high speeds down the center of the road, then rises and hovers above the treetops before disappearing. Others have said that it sways from side to side.  It has even been reported to appear inside cars.

The earliest reports of the spook light date from 1836 when it was supposedly first seen by Native Americans moving along the infamous Trail of Tears. The first published report was in 1881 in a pamphlet called the “Ozark Spook Light.”

There are several legends associated with the Spook Light. One tells of a man who got lost in the woods and never made it home. His wife took a lantern and set out to look for him, but in vain. She set out night after night look for her missing husband. Eventually she died, but each night, according to the story, her ghost sets out with a lantern in a vain search for her man.

The oldest legend seems to be that of a Quapaw Indian maiden and her lover. Her father would now allow the young couple to marry, so they ran away. As pursuing braves closed in on them, the couple leaped to their deaths above the Spring River. The light was supposedly born that night and represents the ill-fated lovers.

The Spook Light has, of course, been the subject of extensive investigations, both by paranormal investigators and scientific organizations, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. No one so far has come up with a satisfactory explanation. Among the theories are natural gas, electrical charges which may be originating from the nearby New Madrid Fault. So far, however, none of the possible explanations can be proven.

Although apparently it defied attempts to photograph it for many years, photos and even video have recently begun to emerge. There’s a great video of the spook light here: