| Mondo Bizarro | Feb 18 2023 |
Mystical powers of mummy are no match for mystical powers of scientists.
It may look like a monkey's head sewn onto a fish's body, but the freakish horror you see in the image above is actually a revered mummy that has been worshipped by some people in Japan since the 1700s. Its normal residence is a box in a temple in Okayama Prefecture, where it ended up after allegedly being found in the Pacific Ocean, off Shikoku Island, between 1736 and 1741. It quickly became known for bestowing mystical health cures and increased longevity, and acquired that reputation, we're sure, without any suggestion from the temple priests. Then it caught the attention of paleontologists at the Kurashiki University of Science and the Arts, and—who'd have thought it?—this week they pronounced the mummy a fake.
Leave it to scientists to drain the magic and wonder from irrational belief systems by actually figuring things out. It's almost like they enjoy triggering existential crises. Amazingly, they worked for an entire year on ruining this particular mystery. We know because stories like the one at this link began popping up in early 2022. Scientists, in addition to being killjoys, are slow. The scientific community is fine with that, and we can all only wish the same were true of the communities at our jobs.
But moving at the speed of molasses is a positive of science, not a negative, because science takes its sweet time to get things right. They've done that here, using computerized tomography scans and other tests, and discovered the mummy is exactly what any set of rational eyes would assume it to be—animal parts embellished with papier-mâché.
But moving at the speed of molasses is a positive of science, not a negative, because science takes its sweet time to get things right. They've done that here, using computerized tomography scans and other tests, and discovered the mummy is exactly what any set of rational eyes would assume it to be—animal parts embellished with papier-mâché.But here's what interests us about the story. The object actually is quite old. Scientists carbon dated it back to at least the 1800s, which in our opinion makes it something more than just a fake—it's an antique. And if it isn't one of the oldest cryptids ever put into physical form, we'd be surprised. We bet if the priests in Okayama sold it they'd profit handsomely. Hell, we'd happily buy it and hang it in Pulp HQ to enthrall and enchant our girlfriends. But assuming the temple priests wanted more than a hundred bucks for it, they could auction it. Some internet billionaire might want it. With the yen acquired the priests could perform a few good works—minor miracles themselves. And if disappointed masses in the prefecture need a replacement mummy to worship, we suggest Mother God. She never healed anyone, but at least she didn't live in a box.
Hi, Mother God here. I've departed my physical form, but I still heart all of you.
| Mondo Bizarro | Oct 30 2022 |
Just a D.O.G. going about his J.O.B.
Those of us in fat, modern societies tend to forget that hunger is probably the number one behavioral driver inscribed in our genes. It need not be said that this especially goes for animals. To a domesticated dog humans are a good provider of meals, but to a wild dog that's hungry, a human—once he stops moving around, throwing rocks at you, and yelling weird mouth noises at you—becomes the meal. That's sometimes the case even with domesticated dogs, under specific circumstances. Pet dogs trapped with dead owners in houses, apartments, or even sometimes in the woods, start chewing on master's face when they eventually get hungry.
This week in Zacatecas, Mexico a cartel related gang killing led to the grisly sight of a dog trotting down a local street with a severed human head in its mouth. A bystander filmed the animal as it was busily taking care of job one: discreetly get the head somewhere quiet and safe to enjoy in peace. A dog carrying a head presents an awkward mental image, so we thoughtfully provided the camera phone screen grab above. It's low-rez, but as you can see (and never unsee) the dog carried its intended meal upside down by a chunk of handy neck flesh, easy as pie. Dogs are MacGyverish when they need to be. Years ago we were at a barbecue when one jumped on a picnic table, grabbed a pot of pork and beans by the handle, and fled into the nearby trees.
This decapitated head story caught our eye not just because it's unusual, but because PSGP has a history with wild dogs. There was a pack that terrorized the somewhat isolated barrio where he lived in Guatemala, and their aggressive behavior was a problem. They surrounded him more than once. But he was sympathetic to their difficult lives, so he gave them a massive pig's head to eat. He cooked it especially for them, though he admits he didn't season it. Bland or not, he and the dogs subsequently reached good terms, and remained that way. The point is, since he's seen a dog carry a head, this Zacatecas story resonated.
It's important to note at this point that while dogs will eat humans—in part, or given the chance, in whole—that doesn't mean it's a preferred or easy decision. The Zacatecas dog was surely wondering, “Am I still a good boy?” And the answer he probably came up with was, “Let me eat first, have a good scrotal lick and a nap, and I'll get back to that perplexing conundrum later, assuming I remember to do that.” Unfortunately, he never got the chance, as he was relieved of the head by some human killjoys. He'll get another opportunity, though. The cartel wars always provide.
| Mondo Bizarro | Jun 13 2022 |
Anger is a dish best served twice.
Remember the men's magazine covers of elephant attacks we posted not long ago? Late last week a woman named Maya Murmu in the Indian state of Odisha was drawing water from a well when she was attacked by an elephant. The animal apparently charged her, knocked her down, trampled her, and left her smashed into the dust. An ambulance was called but Murmu succumbed to her injuries. This is where the story gets weird. Murmu's family arranged for a funeral the next day via the traditional method of outdoor burning, but during the ceremony the same elephant appeared, grabbed the corpse from the pyre, flung it into the air, trampled it, and fled.
This is a really angry elephant we're talking about, because that's seriously gangsta behavior—like Gotti level, like something from a rap song. Stomp you once, shame on you, stomp you twice, you deserved that too. Not that Murmu did anything to deserve it. But elephants are supposed to have good memories, so that's where our minds immediately went, and yours too, we bet. Reports from Odisha say the attack was unprovoked, but something set off the animal. Business deal gone wrong, personal betrayal, something. Currently it's still at large. Authorities think it escaped from the Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary in the adjacent state of Jharkhand, but for now its whereabouts are unknown, and really, we wouldn't recommend searching for it.
We dug around for a photo of the events mentioned, and did in fact find a shot that seems to show Murmu's family gathered around her body but even we aren't morbid enough to use it. We already get more than enough nightmare fuel doing this website. One of the reports we found also had a blurry elephant photo we took to be the angry pachyderm, but without a caption we couldn't be sure. That being the case, at top you get a shot of an unrelated animal not involved in the Odisha attack. We may update this strange saga if anything new and interesting comes across, but even with the scant information available it's a story so bizarre—and so pulp—that we had to mention it. If you want to see fifty amazing magazine covers of elephant attacks, just click here.
| Mondo Bizarro | May 5 2022 |
Climate change dredges up grim evidence of crimes thought long forgotten.
Earlier this week in Nevada, someone ambling along the shoreline of Lake Mead found a corroded oil drum that had a nasty surprise inside. Police determined that the contents were human remains, and that the poor individual died of a gunshot wound sometime in the mid-1970s to early 1980s. Whoever killed the person dumped the body deep into the lake—actually a huge reservoir formed by Hoover Dam—but because of an ongoing drought in the western states, the water has in recent years dropped more than a hundred feet below its maximum, revealing tracts of previously submerged land. Authorities believe that as the water level continues dropping they'll find more bodies. And why is that? Well, Las Vegas is nearby.
In a related story, somewhere in Sin City an elderly mobster awoke from an afternoon nap in a sweaty panic, put his hands to his painfully throbbing head, and said: “I felt a great disturbance in the Force. It's as if a voice I thought was silenced decades ago suddenly cried out in terror.” Silence doesn't always last. For sure that'll be the interesting part of this—seeing if modern forensics can identify the body, a good possibility considering the advances of recent decades. And of course identification might lead to suspicions about who dumped it.
The elderly mobster later phoned a slightly less elderly hitman and ranted, “You told me it'd never be found!” To which the hitman said, “Who am I? Nostra-fuckin'-damus? I'm supposed to know the goddamned lake's gonna dry up? You still getting chauffeured around in that old Cadillac? I got a hybrid, so don't blame me!” To the list of problems
caused by global warming, add grisly corpses reappearing, and former hitmen virtue signaling about their carbon footprints. Which the mobster was too old to understand anyway. “Hybrid? You know I never worked with them! I never liked them, and I never trusted them!”
caused by global warming, add grisly corpses reappearing, and former hitmen virtue signaling about their carbon footprints. Which the mobster was too old to understand anyway. “Hybrid? You know I never worked with them! I never liked them, and I never trusted them!”Plenty of mob-connected people have disappeared from Las Vegas over the decades. As pulp aficionados we have to hope they're all in the lake. Seriously, wouldn't it be fantastic if like seventy bodies turned up? Meanwhile, we bet there's an uptick in local bottled water sales. While it's true the reservoir's output is purified before it gushes through city faucets, and the nuclear testing grounds and chemical plants scattered around Vegas have probably left worse than corpse pathogens in the lake, images of human remains tend to give people a special kind of willies. You can purify the water, but you can't purify people's natural fear of death and decay. Since nothing serious is actually being done about global warming, we at least recommend a more sustainable form of victim disposal. When trouble looms, hide the evidence better. It's time to innovate, Gen Z—older generations have failed.
Edit: As of 7 August a total of four bodies have been found. More to come?
| Mondo Bizarro | Dec 10 2021 |
People really otter learn to be more careful.
The scene on the cover of this famous issue of Men magazine always struck us as absurd. In fact, animal attack covers from vintage mens magazines tend to be more funny than frightening. But it seems as though reality has strong sense of irony.
In Singapore a couple of days ago, Graham George Spencer, a British resident of that tropical island-state, was attacked by otters at the Gardens by the Bay botanical park, where several colonies of the animals live. Spencer was swarmed by a bevy of otters that managed to knock him off his feet and bite him twenty-six times. He summed up the ordeal with: “I actually thought I was going to die.”
That's no hysterical claim. Wild otters can grow to be five-and-a-half feet in length, which, frighteningly, is longer than both of the Pulp Intl. girlfriends. Spencer was saved thanks to the intervention of a friend
whose yelling startled the otters, giving Spencer the chance to get to his feet. Those crazy animals then chased the pair all the way to the visitors center, where they barked otter epithets, heaved rocks though a window, and spray painted the walls with the phrase, “Immigrant go home!” Spencer received medical treatment for injuries to his ankles, legs, rear end, and pride, and also got bitten by more than $1,000 in medical costs. All because he wanted to have a healthy walk in the park. Next time maybe he'll spend his day drinking pints at the pub like a normal Brit. Next up: weasels rip somebody's flesh.
whose yelling startled the otters, giving Spencer the chance to get to his feet. Those crazy animals then chased the pair all the way to the visitors center, where they barked otter epithets, heaved rocks though a window, and spray painted the walls with the phrase, “Immigrant go home!” Spencer received medical treatment for injuries to his ankles, legs, rear end, and pride, and also got bitten by more than $1,000 in medical costs. All because he wanted to have a healthy walk in the park. Next time maybe he'll spend his day drinking pints at the pub like a normal Brit. Next up: weasels rip somebody's flesh.
| Intl. Notebook | Mondo Bizarro | Oct 1 2021 |
Mystery attackers of U.S. embassy workers in Havana turn out not to be Cuban—or human.
A couple of nights ago PSGP and PI-1 were in deep slumber in their seaside apartment when a high pitched noise sprang up in the wee hours. It took only moments to identify the sound as a cricket, which somehow had gained entry to their bedroom though it's on the top floor three stories up, and the exterior doors were shut. What followed was a comedy of errors, as PSGP tried in vain to pinpoint the noise and eject the interloper, while PI-1 cursed all of creation because insects were now conspiring to disturb her sleep. They ended up moving out of the bedroom. The next day PSGP had another look around, and after a more careful examination located the cricket—outside on the balcony. It had never gained entry to the flat in the first place. It was just that loud and disorienting. This is an absolutely true story, and even the timeline is factual. It really did happen night before last.
So imagine our surprise when an item came across the wires this morning about the infamous Havana Syndrome. You know the one. U.S. embassy personnel stationed in Cuba, beginning in 2016, reported mysterious sounds in the building, which brought on headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, balance problems, and other weird effects. The State Department and the American press immediately ran a political football the entire length of the unverified news field and claimed Cuban or Russian sonic or energy weapons were probably the cause. Nobody explained what Cuba or Russia had to gain from quasi-effectual sonic attacks, and it didn't matter, because you never let implausibility get in the way of rekindling the Cold War. But there are these people called scientists, and they have a way of studying things until they find answers, and yesterday the most likely cause of the dastardly Havana Syndrome was revealed to be crickets.
The JASON Group, an independent organization of scientists that works with the U.S. government, analyzed recordings made by embassy personnel and found only one phenomenon to be a sonic match—the Indies short-tailed cricket. There the sneaky bugger is just below. This mystery was actually unravelled back in 2019, but the report was classified—probably to milk a few more years from a patently ridiculous story of being targeted by commies. Let's face it—when you have top level Cuban figures defensively trying to explain that they have no
sonic or energy weapons, and the American press is pretty much dismissing those claims, you keep the pressure on. Some experts note that sonic weapon frequencies wouldn't be recordable, and the enemy attack theory is thus unaffected. In other words, the recordings given to JASON scientists weren't of the actual phenomenon in question. Well, okay, but we prefer crickets. Please let it be crickets. Or maybe the answer is twofold. Maybe Havana Syndrome is caused by crickets trained by Cuba or Russia. Bet those egghead scientists didn't even think of that.
The JASON Group, an independent organization of scientists that works with the U.S. government, analyzed recordings made by embassy personnel and found only one phenomenon to be a sonic match—the Indies short-tailed cricket. There the sneaky bugger is just below. This mystery was actually unravelled back in 2019, but the report was classified—probably to milk a few more years from a patently ridiculous story of being targeted by commies. Let's face it—when you have top level Cuban figures defensively trying to explain that they have no
sonic or energy weapons, and the American press is pretty much dismissing those claims, you keep the pressure on. Some experts note that sonic weapon frequencies wouldn't be recordable, and the enemy attack theory is thus unaffected. In other words, the recordings given to JASON scientists weren't of the actual phenomenon in question. Well, okay, but we prefer crickets. Please let it be crickets. Or maybe the answer is twofold. Maybe Havana Syndrome is caused by crickets trained by Cuba or Russia. Bet those egghead scientists didn't even think of that.
| Mondo Bizarro | Sep 22 2021 |
Two men find out that nothing in life is truly free except trouble.
An interesting story came out of Byram, Mississippi yesterday that caught our eye because it's pure pulp. We actually read a book a while back that has the same plot set-up. We can't remember the title but we wouldn't kid you. Anyway, the story is two men happened upon an Acura sedan on the side of a country road with a sign on it reading “free car.” The keys were in the ignition, so they took it for a ride, presumably with plans to keep it. In the book the guy actually was asked to drive the car, instead of finding it, but it had same basic opening.
At some point, we like to imagine, one of our Mississippi duo sniffed a couple of times, turned to the other and said, “Bro, was that you?” After a fierce fart denial, a counter accusation, and an agreement that the ten pine tree air fresheners scattered around the car's interior couldn't be making the aroma, they stopped, opened the trunk, and found a corpse. At least, that's how we picture them finding it. More likely, after the intial jubilation had passed, they simply realized a free car—even a used Acura sedan—was too good to be true. The baggage in back was identified as Anthony McCrillis, last seen a few days earlier. According to the Byram sheriff there were no signs of obvious trauma—on the corpse he meant, the two guys are probably still freaked. An investigation is ongoing.
The humor here—and yes, it's a little funny—comes in thinking about the note writer. Did this scheme spring forth from his brow unbidden, or had he worked his way up to it? Like did he start years back by leaving a bag of free clothes somewhere, but they were all infested with ticks? Then
maybe he left an umbrella somewhere but when someone opened it a dead parakeet fell out? And later, jazzed over his bird caper, maybe he left a free recliner on the road that had a cat under the cushion. The guy fascinates us, whoever he is. His cold, calculating callousness is a sheer marvel.
maybe he left an umbrella somewhere but when someone opened it a dead parakeet fell out? And later, jazzed over his bird caper, maybe he left a free recliner on the road that had a cat under the cushion. The guy fascinates us, whoever he is. His cold, calculating callousness is a sheer marvel.And yes, we're assuming there was a murderer, and McCrillis didn't plan to give the car away, wrote a note, made one last trunk check, oopsed his way inside and pulled the lid shut after him. There's a killer for sure. One with a wicked sense of humor. But the joke's on him because he'll get caught. He has to. You can't mess around with a car, a corpse, and a note, and leave no evidence unless you're Fantômas or Jame Gumb. After his conviction he'll be told he's getting a free prison cell, but find he's actually housed with some six-five lifer with face tattoos and a mental catalogue of callous ideas that have made three prison psychiatrists leave the profession. You know what that would be called, right? Karma.
| Mondo Bizarro | Aug 14 2021 |
Tabloid crosses line between science and science fiction.
Our examples of the cheapie tabloid National Examiner all have art on their front pages, but when you have a scoop like this cow blockbuster, typography alone is more than adequate. Needless to say—but we'll do it anyway because in this millennium people believe in illuminati pedophile rings in pizza parlors—a cow never gave birth to a baby boy. Hope that wasn't disappointing to hear. The story, from this issue that hit newsstands today in 1967, claims that it happened in Russia when a woman named Natasha Kropotkin was critically ill and her fetus was transferred to a cow in order to save its life. The fetus, not the cow. Anyway, the achievement stands second only to the launch of Sputnik in Soviet scientific annals. Kropotkin is a Russian word meaning gullible, by the way. If the child had been real, though, he'd be in his fifties today, and we imagine him working in the field of animal husbandry, middle management level. Medically speaking, other than involuntarily mooing at times of stress and having a tremendous problem with gas, we picture him as normal in every way. He'd also be hung like a bull. Elsewhere inside Examiner are many more bizarre stories, and a couple of nice photos of Italian actress Maria Grazia Bucella. You can see plenty more mid-century tabloids in our comprehensive index located here.
| Mondo Bizarro | Jul 22 2021 |
Lord of the Rings fan raises his game, lowers his life prospects.
An interesting item began popping up online yesterday about Fernando Franco de Oliveira, an avid Lord of the Rings fan from Brazil who made himself look like an orc with the help of tattoos, dermal implants, and surgery—including an operation to remove his nose. The result is what you see above, and well, it's both atrocious and very sad. We liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but it's junior high literature. Imaginative and well written to be sure, but a typical person aged twelve to fourteen—like we were when we first came across it—would be able to read the books and enjoy them. Same with the movies. They're officially rated for filmgoers aged thirteen and up.
The point is that neither the books nor movies are something to let influence your life to the extent that you get your eyeballs tattooed black and your ears crimped. There's not a lot to say about this other than 
that the obsessive quest for individuality on a planet of almost eight billion people has claimed another victim—a mentally ill one. Yes, yes, we know. You're not supposed to say things like that these days. You're supposed to be supportive and non-judgmental, but we can do what we want on our website, and we judge that de Oliveira is mental.
that the obsessive quest for individuality on a planet of almost eight billion people has claimed another victim—a mentally ill one. Yes, yes, we know. You're not supposed to say things like that these days. You're supposed to be supportive and non-judgmental, but we can do what we want on our website, and we judge that de Oliveira is mental.Being able to express himself rationally, de Oliveira can of course present the façade of a sane person, but his outward appearance makes a mockery of that, because to do what he's done is to deliberately destroy one's life, or—even worse—to not understand that to do it is to destroy one's life. True, he was never a beauty queen, as you see in the soft-bodied, monobrow dominant photo at right. But he still had a nose. And anyone with a nose has a shot at good things in life.
De Oliveira will of course tell you his existence is good, that people tell him he looks cool, that chicks dig it or he has a committed partner who loves it, that he was never happy until finding himself in this way, that it even earns him money, and anyone who hates on him is really the one with problems, but he'll be using his surgically forked tongue to lie through his vampire teeth. He's insane. End of story. He's even crazier than Caius Veiovis and that guy probably bites the heads off bats. All that said, we'd still rather hang out with Orc Boy than someone who bases their life upon Atlas Shrugged. At least he's decided to be a monster only on the outside.
| Mondo Bizarro | Jun 15 2021 |
More people are talking about alien visits but they still aren't happening.
Have you noticed the uptick in talk about UFOs the last couple of months? The subject is being discussed on websites like Scientific American and BBC, in the pages of publications like the New York Times, and even in the corridors of power in in Washington, D.C., where a while back Congress demanded that the Pentagon produce a report on the subject. Donald Trump and Barack Obama have talked about it. Retired Nevada Senator Harry Reid even went so far as to say that weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin may have fragments of a crashed UFO in its possession.
All we have to say is here we go again. We know a lot of people really believe in the existence of alien UFOs, but here's when we'll believe: when one arrives, an alien climbs out and says. “Greetings, Earthling. Take me to your leader. We ask because we couldn't figure out which of you is in charge of this clusterfuck.” Let us be clear. We aren't
UFO agnostics. Agnostic would be to neither believe nor disbelieve—in other words to cop out. We're UFO atheists. When the only alleged evidence consists of hearsay, anecdotes, blurry photos of pie tins on strings, and indistinct FLIR footage, we feel safe saying they don't exist.
UFO agnostics. Agnostic would be to neither believe nor disbelieve—in other words to cop out. We're UFO atheists. When the only alleged evidence consists of hearsay, anecdotes, blurry photos of pie tins on strings, and indistinct FLIR footage, we feel safe saying they don't exist.The idea of UFO sightings being legit hinges upon numerous assumptions. That aliens have the ability to come here. That they have the ability to come here and want to observe us. That they want to observe us and prefer to do it up close rather than from a vast distance. That they want to observe us up close rather than from a distance and aren't interested in disguising themselves. And that their up close methods of observation would be detectable to us in the first place. Think stealth or nanotechnology. We human doofuses already have the basics of those figured out. Aliens would have the capability to observe us by using machines the size of gnats, a far more likely option than soaring around the sky chased by F-35s.
The list of assumptions UFO believers gloss over goes on, but the biggest problem, in our view, is that aliens could learn far more about us from our broadcasts and data emissions than in person. Even our detection and defense capabilities, assuming 
they wanted to understand those, would be easier to learn from intercepting and decrypting the code through which they operate, rather than with field encounters. And surely none of us think super-advanced aliens wouldn't be able to break military encryptions?
they wanted to understand those, would be easier to learn from intercepting and decrypting the code through which they operate, rather than with field encounters. And surely none of us think super-advanced aliens wouldn't be able to break military encryptions?They could also, from millions of miles away, decipher our languages, observe our many warring cultures, ponder our crazy taboos, note our hundreds of fanciful religions, puzzle over our destruction of the very environment we need to survive, be horrified over our caste systems based on the presence of a pigmenting chemical in our skin cells, and be astounded over the fact that most of the above is true because we've created a global system that elevates and rewards ruthless, dangerous people. Some of those people are smart, but many of them are sociopaths, and all the major tribes of Earth (U.S., Russia, China, et al) are led by people prone to violence. Would aliens really want to bother with creatures like that?
So while we keep up with UFO reporting—as required by our status as a pulp website—we don't believe aliens are the cause. If they're anything, they're advanced drones. But the alien UFO stories will keep coming. We think humans, or at least some humans, will believe even the most outlandish fantasy if it makes them feel good, or makes them feel frightened or outraged. If you doubt that the latter is true, just ponder the epochally sad fact that fantasies about a pedophile ring in a Washington D.C. pizza parlor have had an indelible effect on American politics. In short—people are amazingly gullible. Despite anything Harry Reid says, we don't think Lockheed has alien UFO bits in a top secret warehouse.
All that said, we also do not believe humans are alone in the cosmos. Scientifically, the assumption that we're alone makes no sense. Plus wouldn't that be utterly depressing, the idea that we're the smartest creatures in the universe? We're hanging off a cliff edge like Indiana Jones, groping for a stray tree root to save us as our sacks of gold threaten to pull us to our doom. If nuclear war and global heating don't send us hurtling into the abyss, resource depletion and social collapse will. The system we put in place to deliver prosperity is now eating the foundations that enabled it to stand in the first place. We can't be the smartest beings in the universe. We think aliens exist—but immeasurably far across the cosmos. And if we're wrong, and they're actually among us, all we can say is: reveal yourselves, and please help.
