The Dancing Virus

I know by merely reading the title of this post you think i'm taking the mickey, but this may well be one of the most un-fabricated entries i will ever write. While it is not a conspiracy theory as such, The Dancing Virus does fall under the category of "unexplained phenomena". Aside from its mind-blowingly vague categorization, it also has a significant amount of documentation confirming its occurence, which include "physicians notes, cathedral sermons, local and regional chronicles and notes issued by the Strasbourg city council". Now Strasbourg is certainly a city of prestige being not only the headquarters for the Council of Europe but also the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines. So the idea that it is just the French taking the piss is unlikely, particularly in a country known to take themselves very seriously. So with that in mind, please read.....

Yes, very seriously.....

On just an ordinary July day in Strasbourg 1518, a seemingly sane woman named Frau Troffea walked out onto a street and started to dance, yep dance. Alright pretty normal thus far, the poor lady just felt like a little jig right? Now thats all well and good, but something isnt quite 100% when that same lady continues her jig for 6 days straight! The lady is clearly mentally unwell though, isn't she? and this is where the story ends? Well as many of us have come to know, the simplest answer isn't necessarily the right answer.... Over the next week 34 people joined her out on that very same street, forming the first ever street dance crew! Within a month 400 were shimmying down the streets of Strasbourg, and (i assume) everyone else in town was terrified with this legion of dancers who could not be persuaded to stop. As this continued just about everyone of the 400 people had danced themselves to death from either heart attack, stroke or exhaustion. But why?

All things considered, the people of Strasbourg got off easy...

What i find makes this story and so many other "creepy stories" unsettling, is the fact it was such an innocent and generally positive activity that caused their death. The list of possible causes were extensive, yet each failed to explain key characteristics in the behavior those 400 people exhibited.  After physicians ruled out the "genius" suggestions of astrological and supernatural causes, a popular theory was that it was a case of mass hysteria (not the shit muse song). Mass Psychogenic Illness, which can arise after severe psychological stress, seemed likely. A lot of the community had been struggling through famine, malnutrition and the necessity to kill off beloved farm animals. However experts are still baffled as to why such mental stress would surface in the form of dancing. Furthermore, there was no consistency amongst those involved, with the afflicted representing a diverse socio-economic sample.

Other theories, both equally disconcerting, were ergotism and St Vitus' dance. The former suggesting the 400 had eaten ergot laced bread. However ergot is a fungal hallucinogen, and as well as inducing delirium and seizures, the mushroom also causes a loss of blood supply to the limbs. This would have made a complex coordinated action like, say, dancing close to impossible. St Vitus dance on the other hand was a medievil term used for curing seizures, and in my opinion falls to close to the category of supernatural bullshit. The dance was induced rather than being voluntary and occured after being presented with an image of the St Vitus. This practice was however, generally used to treat children and once again was a unlikely to be the ailment of people representing a diverse social sample. So yes, to this day what caused 400 people to dance themselves to death in the streets of Strasbourg has yet to be determined. But i have developed my own theory to explain the second most horrifying dance related event of the last 500 years, after of course...

Why???

The Tarantella. Originating in the historical southern Italian region of Taranto, it is now considered just a nice little folk dance, its roots though, are planted in something far more terrifying. Something that may well explain the events of 1518. The dance itself is the result of a condition referred to as Tarantism. You see Taranta was teaming with poisonous spiders affectionately named Lycosa Tarantula. The spiders venom, (lets just see if this sounds familiar to you) is said to have the following effect, "an irresistible need for a a wild and rapid twirling motion bringing the victim to the point of exhaustion". Now your thinking, "yeah that all sounds plausible, but how did the spiders get all the way from the south of Italy to the north of France?" Well, with further research i looked up european trade routes from around the same time and what do you know? There are some very direct trade routes between the two cities! See for yourself....

 

Something i should have mentioned before is that this is a one off event! Nothing similar has happened since. I'll leave you guys to mull that one over for a while. 

So there you have it, The Dancing Virus and while I'm sure my theory offered no more  of an explanation than those before me, just remember this: Next time you are out at a club and everyone around you is dancing like a complete fuck stick, this bloke is probably somewhere close by.......

The Philadelphia Experiment

So I'm going to start you on one of my favourite conspiracy theories. It's an old one and quite famous, so a lot of you may have heard it before.


The Philadelphia Experiment was first introduced to me by an old flatmate who i dont talk to anymore. He was a pretty firm believer in this epic conspiracy, that said this was the same guy who wouldnt let a girl leave his room until he was given a lackluster handjob. So evidently he had far more pressing issues than believing a silly story about a boat and the concept of invisibility, or did he......


Read on:

Also known as "Project Rainbow", in 1943 the American Naval vessel, The USS Eldridge began being fitted with the required equipment at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. For what was this ship chosen? To be the first invisible warship and to my knowledge the first invisible anything. The American Navy seemed to think, that by using Einsteins "unified field theory" they could turn a big fuck-off warship invisible. While i dropped science in year 10, i could loosely make out that the theory tries to relate maths and physics to electromagnetism and gravity. If this could be achieved the navy could use generators to bend light, however i am still unsure how this would make the ship invisible. Moreover, Einsteins theory to date, has not been able to prove a relation between both the mathematical and physical.

I could make a square route pun here, but i wont.

Despite these theoretical holes, the USS Eldridge was first tested on July 22nd 1943, and what do you bloody know? It was a success!, the ship "disappeared" momentarily. It did however have just a couple of glitches....



Here is where shit really starts to get fucked. Initial witness reports stated that when the ship disappeared it was replaced by what was described as a "thick green fog". And if that doesnt get you a little uncomfortable, a large proportion of the crew complained of "crippling nausea" after the experiment. Now while both these side effects could be explained by the probable use of nuculear material (the atomic bombs that would tear Japan a newen' were merely two years away), this last report maybe a little less simple to explain.
It was alleged that some of the sailors had become embedded in the metallic structures of the ship! At the conclusion of the experiment many of the crew were left with hands, legs, skulls and entire bodies merged to the hull of the Eldridge. Needless to say supposed brainwashings occured and it was all hushed up.

Its in there somewhere.

Under the premise that the ship had not been "re-calibrated" properly, the dumbass navy made some ammendments and the ship was re-tested again, only three months later on October the 28th. This time though the USS Eldridge not only became invisible it has said to have teleported in a "flash of blue light" to the port of Norfolk, Virginia over 200 kms away!

Reports are further supported by another group of sailors aboard the merchant ship SS Furuseth, who claim to have seen the Eldridge appear alongside their boat and promptly disappear. In case that wasnt weird enough, for whatever reason (and totally un-substantiated mind you), it is "believed" the USS Eldridge also "travelled back in time" for some period..

Artists impression of a US Furuseth sailor.

The program was shut down, with the Navy cutting their losses at men with steel in their heads, others in mental asylums and some who had just vanished. While the concept remains pretty cool, the idea of having my head fused with a ships hull is not something i would consider a reasonable trade off.

If you want to read more on the origins of the theory see:

Morris Jessup

&

Carlos Miguel Allende