Oumuamua doesn’t have a tail like a comet, but vents something causing acceleration (NASA; ESA; Joseph Olmsted (STScI); Frank Summers (STScI) / Public Domain)

Oumuamua, and Our Search to Reach Our Strangest Visitor.

There is much we don’t know. We may have made extraordinary strides on understanding the limits and levers of reality in the past few hundred years, but we have more questions now than when we started, and far more questions than answers. We do not know who we are, or indeed what we are. We

Roman orichalcum, which begs the question: how can we not know what this metal is? Well, it seems that perhaps the Romans didn’t know, either (Emanuele riela / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Orichalcum: A Lost Metal that we Never Lost?

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato, writing about Atlantis, made mention of a fabulous metal which he called “orichalcum”, literally “mountain copper”. This mysterious element was supposedly second only to gold in value, and was highly prized by the ancients for its beauty and its versatility. Plato was not the first to mention this precious metal.

The Celtic “Warrior of Hirschlanden” is believed to depict a member of the Kóryos (Harke / Public Domain)

The Kóryos, and the Bronze Age Need for Murderers

The Bronze Age was a time of immense upheaval for Indo Europeans. As these people came together and took giant steps towards society and civilization there was much to be learned, and many problems to be resolved. The discovery of metallurgy, which supercharged the Stone Age agricultural revolution, changed the world forever. Gone were the

The Baghdad Battery disappeared during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but we have a great deal of surviving detail on what the original artifact was like (Ironie / CC BY-SA 2.5)

The Baghdad Battery: History Rewritten or History Misunderstood?

For those who search for the strange and unusual from history there are certain things which prove interesting time and again. Unexplained phenomena, disappearances and unsolved murders, these always appeal, and it is easy to understand why. A mystery solved is, after all, no mystery at all, and those that remain so allow for endless

Lionel “Buster” Crabb in diving gear off Gibraltar, 1944 (Coote, R G G (Lt) / Public Domain)

Wet Work: The Story of Buster Crabb

In early 1956 Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party, and the Soviet Premier Nikolai Bulganin arrived on a diplomatic mission to Britain aboard the Soviet cruiser Ordzhonikidze. For the duration of the mission the cruiser was docked in Her Majesty’s Navala Base, Portsmouth. The mission came at a delicate time. Stalin had been

A colossal stone head at Chavin de Huantar depicting a man turning into a jaguar (PsamatheM / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Chavin de Huantar: Do You Want To Meet a God?

Ask the average person about pre-Columbian South America and you would almost certainly hear about the Inca. This mountain kingdom which carved itself a loose empire that runs the length of the Andes looms large in the modern consciousness. But this can be deceptive. The Inca were hugely successful, but they were a comparatively recent

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