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Issue 900 - 1/28/2019
HOLLYWOOD USED TO HAVE A MORAL CODE! WHO KNEW? by Lindsey Harrison 
“Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.”
– Gilbert K. Chesterton, English writer Looking at the Hollywood of today, it might come as a surprise that there was ever a code of morality that motion pictures had to follow. These days, we see sexual content and violence in just about every movie . . . and if you pay close attention, even some of the children’s films out there have innuendos that only us adults really understand. That’s probably for the best anyway, but the fact remains that morality just doesn’t really have a place in Hollywood anymore. And let’s not forget that if we had to pick out the top “stars” of Hollywood today, more than just a few are not famous for their acting abilities or really any sort of talent at all. Many are famous for the drama they bring to the small screen in the form of reality television shows. Somehow, our society has begun to view them as something more than just the people they really are. And along with their unearned status as idols, these “stars” reek of lax morals. Yes, we have gotten up on our high horse for a minute, but it’s likely that you know exactly what we mean. So, the idea that Hollywood had a self-imposed moral code it used to follow might come as a shock. Then again, maybe it doesn’t. Either way, the Motion Picture Production Code (also as the Hays Code) set guidelines for propriety in films. Those guidelines shaped the way films were created and even shaped the films themselves. Good, bad, or otherwise, the MPPC is a part of Hollywood’s history and we at Snippetz felt it was worth out time to see what impact the code had, both back when it was enforced and now that it is most obviously not (for better or for worse!). WHAT WAS THE MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTION CODE? The Motion Picture Production Code was published on March 31, 1930, and according to the code itself, the advent of sound in motion pictures was what spurred the Association of Motion Picture Producers to adopt the code. Apparently, the idea that sound could now be used in conjunction with the moving images (which is why films are called “movies”) “unlocked a vast amount of dramatic material which for the first time could be effectively presented on the screen.” And that material was apparently too much for the American public to handle . . . at least according to the Association. The Code’s general principles included the following:
In short, the Code required that every motion picture adhere to the opinions held by the Association about right and wrong, good and evil, etc. How nice of them to know what’s best for all of us, right? The Code was technically in effect from 1930 to 1968 when it was replaced with the letters-rating system we have today (i.e. G, PG, PG-13, R) but it was really only enforced from about 1934 to the mid-1950s. WHAT WAS IN THE MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTION CODE? OK, it’s clearly fair to say that we are less strict about what is shown in films today than they were in the 30s, 40s and 50s. But does that necessarily mean the films we watch today are immoral? Well, if they have certain elements in them, that very well could be, at least according to the Code. Ultimately, however, the film would have just been edited or never even made if the script didn’t conform to the Code’s guidelines. Here are some of the rules for appropriate film content:
There are a few guidelines which stood out to us for various reasons. Check them out:
BASS-ACKWARDS CODE? Call us feminists if you must, but there are certain parts of the Code that simply don’t jive in our opinion, which makes us even more grateful that the Code is no longer in effect. For instance, the institute of marriage was supposed to be considered sacred. OK, fair enough. But that meant that films in which a leading lady was not married, especially if she was a “career woman,” must also make clear that said lady would gladly give up her career, her current way of life, if the right guy came around. To make it even more frustrating, that rule was expected to be followed even if it was material to the plot or not. In fact, the Code implied that women who appeared to have low morals should be “punished” somehow in the story line of the movie. So, let us get this straight: a man can be depicted as a bed-hopping gigolo and that was just fine, but let a woman indicate that she wasn’t interested in getting married and that film would likely be edited to shreds. Got it. Ugh. And what about showing married couples in bed? Nope, they better not be in bed . . . they need to be in beds. As in separate beds. Also, let’s not forget that cartoons were not exempt from the Code. Remember the dancing hippos in Disney’s “Fantasia” (1940)? Well, they didn’t always have those lovely tutus. They were required as part of compliance with the Code because otherwise those hippos would have been *gasp* naked! Somebody better tell the people at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo that their hippos are running a nudist colony, stat! INFLUENCE OF THE CODE We mentioned some of the ways the Code impacted what people saw and considered acceptable during the 30s, 40s and 50s. But there’s even more to it than meets the eye initially. Consider this: offending scenes and inappropriate titles were not allowed. But since each state had its own censorship board that determined what was considered “offending” and “inappropriate,” that meant the censorship of each film copy varied based on where it was being shown. We can only hope the film was restored to its original version before it was shipped on to the next distribution location, but it’s likely safe to say a mistake or two happened and we don’t even know that we haven’t seen the original of a “classic” movie. If producer David O. Selznik hadn’t protested a cut he didn’t agree with, “Gone with the Wind” wouldn’t have included the famous line, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” That line was originally cut by the Production Code Administration, the organization that worked with studios and filmmakers to make sure the Code was being followed. Issue 901 - 2/4/2019
ELEPHANTS NEVER DO SOMETHING... BUT WE FORGOT WHAT IT WAS! by Lindsey Harrison 
If anyone wants to know what elephants are like, they are like people only more so.”
– Peter Corneille, French tragedian What is it about elephants that makes us love them so darn much? Sure, they have these amazing trunks that are like fire hoses stuck to their faces with little hand-thingies on the end that they use to pick things up. And of course, there’s their super cute eyes that always seem to look sad even though they have these incredible eyelashes that most women would literally (almost) kill for. Maybe it’s the fact that they are these gigantic beasts who seem so gentle even though they could pick you up and throw you across the room, should they feel the urge. Everyone likely has their own reasons for loving elephants and it seems like you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn’t. Anyone who doesn’t is probably a serial killer anyway. Just kidding. But it all seriousness, elephants really are miraculous creatures and since we don’t have a ton of them living in our little corner of the earth (minus the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, of course), the only way we can experience these animals is to learn as much as possible about them and then watch YouTube videos of elephants grabbing ostriches by the neck. Sorry, that was a tangent. You get the idea, though, right? We’re bringing you all the great things we’ve learned about elephants in this masterpiece of a magazine we call Snippetz. Enjoy! ELEPHANTS 101 Before we go too much further, let’s clear something up: Many of us have operated under the belief that there are two types of elephant species. Well, we’ve all been wrong this entire time. There are actually three types: the African Savannah elephant, the African Forest elephant and the Asian elephant. OK, so aside from actually traveling to one of these places and spotting their elephants in their natural environment, thereby using that context to determine what type of elephant you are looking at, there are physical differences between the species. For starters, their ears are different sizes. No, not on each elephant. African elephants have larger ears, which some people say are shaped like the continent of Africa, while Asian elephants have smaller ears that are supposedly shaped like India. OK, but what about the two types of African elephants, you ask. Can we tell them apart by their ears? Well, sort of. African Forest elephants have more rounded ears than their Savannah counterparts. Next, let’s take a look at their tusks. Now, we could go on a rant about how ivory only looks good on elephants and killing these majestic creatures for their tusks should ideally result in a slow, painful death for the poacher, but we won’t. Instead, we’ll focus on one particular fact: African elephants, both males and females, grow tusks while only male Asian elephants do. However, some female Asian elephants may grow small, nearly invisible tusks called “tushes.” Speaking of tusks, one way to distinguish an African Savannah elephant from an African Forest elephant is to look at their tusks. African Forest elephants have straighter tusks, while African Savannah elephants’ tusks have a very distinctive upward curve. On to their heads! African elephants have a smoother, more rounded head while Asian elephants have two lumps on the tops of their heads, with an indented portion between them. And what about those amazing trunks we talked about earlier? Well, African elephants have two “fingers” on their trunks while Asian elephants only have one. Can we all agree that either way, being able to grab and point at things with your nose is a pretty sweet deal? DO ELEPHANTS EVER FORGET? You’ve probably heard this saying before and you may be wondering now how in the world humans were able to make that bold statement. Quite a few people around the world must be curious about that statement because the top search on Google containing the phrase, “Why don’t elephants . . .” ends up being, “Why don’t elephants forget.” The following searches were also made the list of top searches: “Why don’t elephants chew gum,” “Why don’t elephants eat meat,” “Why don’t elephants play cards in the jungle,” “Why don’t elephants like penguins,” and “Why don’t elephants use computers,” to name a few. But again, we digress. Researchers have studied herds of elephants and noticed that the head female, the matriarch, appears to remember certain places where food and water were available before. A group of scientists who were studying three different herds of elephants in Tanzania and determined that the matriarch of each group appeared to have remembered a drought that was recorded 30 years prior because when the next drought hit, the matriarch knew what to do and where to go. Additionally, elephants seem to recognize each other and remember who they consider “friends” and who are “foes.” In fact, elephants are said to actually hold grudges (which just makes us love them even more). They seem to remember who has hurt them in the past and they react negatively to that individual. ARE HUMANS JUST SMALLER, LESS WRINKLY ELEPHANTS WITHOUT TRUNKS? OK, we admit, that sounds a bit strange but bear with us for a moment. We’ve compiled a list of certain things that humans and elephants have in common and while you might be surprised, you’ll probably understand why we said what we said above. First, elephants have large brains – they weigh in at about 11 pounds – and some scientists believe they may be as intelligent as chimpanzees and dolphins. Incredibly, elephants’ brains are extremely similar to the structure and complexity of human brains. That said, there are quite a few things these creatures do with their super-smart brains that certainly support our argument. Let’s start with the ways that their brains function like ours when it comes to emotions. Scientists have determined that elephants exhibit traits of feeling grief, which is often witnessed when an elephant happens upon the remains of another elephant. Frequently, they will gently touch the remains with their trunks, almost as though they are caressing the body and saying one last goodbye. Another emotion they exhibit is altruism, which is defined (in part) as “selfless concern for the well-being of others.” It is not uncommon for elephants to not only help others of their species at the possible detriment to their own safety, but also to help other species as well. This appears to show their ability to feel empathy for other creatures, too. They feel what that other individual is feeling and have been seen comforting each other with their trunks. Elephants also have the ability to be self-aware in that they can recognize themselves in the reflection of a mirror. They have been seen using tools and creating artwork. One possible link to humans has been mostly debunked but the legend surrounding the myth continues: elephants allegedly get drunk for fun off fermented fruit. Perhaps it’s true for the odd elephant here and there, but mostly elephants stay away from the rotten fruit that’s fallen from trees in favor of the fresh fruit still clinging to the branches. ELEPHANT SNIPPETZ
Issue 902 - 2/11/2019
IN THE NAME OF LOVE... (POTIONS) By Lindsey Harrison 
“I didn’t know if it was day or night
I started kissing everything in sight But when I kissed the cop down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine He broke my little bottle of Love Potion Number Nine” – Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, American songwriters What is it about love that makes us all want it so darn much? No, we’re not talking about the love we have for our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, etc. We’re talking about that deep down, tear-your-heart-out, sick-to-your-stomach passionate love. If we didn’t know better, those two descriptions might make us reconsider our desire to be in love. It doesn’t exactly sound awesome, does it? But for those of us who have been lucky enough to fall in love with someone who loved us back, we know better. It’s an experience unlike any other. If it wasn’t, would Hollywood have been able to make a massive fortune on romantic comedies? We think not. Anyway, with love being on everyone’s mind this week – head’s up for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention but Valentine’s Day is the 14th – we thought it might be interesting to take a stroll back through history to see the different methods people developed to supposedly make someone fall in love with them. A love potion, if you will. Now, as usual, we at Snippetz don’t condone the use of these things, nor do we claim they even work. We are simply informing you, our dear readers, about mankind’s attempts to create a love connection with the help of a love potion or two. Enjoy! IT STARTED WITH A KISS . . . OK, we don’t know that for certain and it’s fair to say that we’ll never be 100 percent sure that we’ve uncovered the first love potion ever concocted. What we do know is love potions have been around since at least the second century A.D. How do we know this? Well, a Roman writer and philosopher named Apuleius was actually taken to court for his use of an alleged love potion on a wealthy widow he snagged and subsequently married. The widow’s relatives, who brought the charges against Apuleius, claimed that the potion he used actually undermined the widow’s true wishes, causing her to fall in love with him when, under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have. However, the court ruled in favor of Apuleius. Perhaps that’s because the potion contained shellfish, spiced oysters, lobsters and cuttlefish. If the potion really worked the way the widow’s family claimed, those must have been some pretty potent marine animals! AND YOU THOUGHT LIVER AND ONIONS WAS BAD They say that if something is worth having, it’s worth working hard for. You know, you gotta put in a little blood, sweat and tears. Apparently, some people took this idea literally because more than just a few of the recipes call for some of the above mentioned bodily fluids to create an effective love potion. For instance, a concoction that acted like a love potion but was actually a love cake, if you will, dates back to medieval times. These love cakes were baked according to specific instructions, namely that the person baking it must be naked. As weird as that may sound, it makes sense when you consider that the dough must be rubbed everywhere on the naked baker’s body, and when we say everywhere, we mean everywhere. The point was to get the naked baker’s sweat infused into the dough which was then baked and fed to the person whom the naked baker desired. It’s unclear if the bread was to be served by the naked baker while he or she was naked, but perhaps that upped the chances of a love connection developing. If you thought the naked baker recipe was unsavory, you ain’t heard nothing yet! Other recipes – and yes, that is recipes plural, as in more than one – called for menstrual blood as a key ingredient. We’ll take a hard pass on that and just live our lives as lonely spinsters, thank you very much. Saliva was commonly used as well, which is clearly illustrated by the following “potion”: “Mix together a chip of gold, a pinch of safe, a drop of charged witch’s saliva, a smooth rock obtained from a river bed, half a cup of rain water, a tea spoon of honey, a piece of tree bark such as witch hazel, a drop of vanilla, a drop of amber oil, a pinch of ginger, a pinch of table sugar and a handful of chocolate chips. Adding another body fluid will enhance the potency of it.” Guys, there is so much wrong with that recipe. For starters, if you were to use witch’s saliva, that implies either you yourself are a witch or you know someone that is. Anyone remember the Salem Witch Trials? Yeah, we do too, and it seems fairly dangerous for someone to outright claim to be a witch, at least in those times. But what about the rock from a river bed? What if it’s not a river but a stream? Maybe we’re just too cynical, but this love potion sounds like a crock. Let’s not forget the ever-popular “Spanish fly”, a well-known ingredient obtained from the blister beetle. That ingredient has been around for a very, very long time, even though it contains 5 percent cantharidin, a chemical that irritates animal tissues, including that of humans. In fact, it can cause permanent damage to the kidneys. THE BOND BETWEEN A HUSBAND AND WIFE IS SACRED . . . AND WORMY Have you ever had an argument with your significant other and felt that the bond between the two of you was breaking or damaged? Well, never fear because a book written in the 1500s, called “The Boke of Secretes of Albertus Magnus of the Vertues of Herbes, Stones and Certaine Beastes” (yes, all those misspellings are accurate) has the answer! Simply crush – or more aptly, smash – earthworms and periwinkle into a meal for the two of you and voila! You’re back in love. NOTHING SAYS LOVE LIKE LIZARDS A recipe from Nigeria actually calls for the neck of a lizard, finger nails, umbilical cord remnants, blood from a viper, and witch’s hair. One caveat – you must drink it while it’s still boiling. Another recipe from the Philippines calls for a lizard drowned in urine as a key ingredient in the love potion. But apparently, that’s a slippery slope because another recipe from Nigeria calls for the same lizard-drowned-in-urine ingredient, mixed with wine. However, the results from that potion are anti-love. Well, excuse us! LOVE KILLS The quest for love has caused humans to do some pretty strange things, including using potentially poisonous ingredients in love potions. For instance, a common ingredient in love potions in India was the datura plant, also known as Jimson weed. It is a hallucinogen, which might be why it was used in the first place but can also be fatal. Allegedly, it was used on South American women to put them to sleep so they wouldn’t flip out when they were buried alive next to their chieftain husbands. Sounds great, where do we sign up? THOSE GREEKS ARE AT IT AGAIN! It just wouldn’t be an article about historical love potions if we didn’t include something from Ancient Greece. Those people were all about things just like this . . . and apparently, one particular ingredient was so popular and widely-used that the Greeks literally used it to extinction! Satyrion or satirio was an orchid that was ground into a powder mixed with wine, which allegedly caused people to be “passionately and wildly in love.” It couldn’t have anything to do with the wine, could it? Just kidding. But in all truthfulness, the Greeks believed in the potion so ardently that the plant is completely extinct. Hey Greeks, why didn’t you save some for the rest of us?? Issue 903 - 2/18/2019
WHERE DID THEY COME FROM? TONGUE TWISTERS by Lindsey Harrison 
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers"
For most of us, the idea of speaking our minds, saying what we really feel deep in our hearts, isn’t such a hard thing to do. Of course, if you’re emotionally closed off, there’s not much we can do to help you. But, if you’re like some people and just struggle with getting the right words to come out of your mouth in a way that makes sense, we might have actually found a useful tool for you! Don’t talk. Ever. Just kidding. The tool of which we speak is the tongue twister. You’ve probably run across one or two in your time, perhaps stamped on a pencil you got at the doctor’s office when you broke your arm sledding when you were 8 years old. Or maybe you just heard them around. We don’t know your life. What we do know is that tongue twisters are certainly in a category all their own. They’re not really jokes and they’re not really poems. What in the world is their purpose and why on earth would we care how much wood a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Never fear, Snippetz is here! We’ve tracked down some of the best tongue twisters around and did some research into where in the world they came from. Don’t act like you have anything better to do than read this incredible article . . . we know the truth! Have fun! WHAT IS A TONGUE TWISTER? As long as you don’t use the online Urban Dictionary to define the phrase “tongue twister,” you’ll likely find something like the following definition from Dictionary.com: “a word or sequence of words difficult to pronounce, especially rapidly, because of alliteration or a slight variation of consonant sounds.” It’s unclear when the first tongue twister was created and to be honest, it would be nearly impossible. What if our caveman ancestors sat around making tongue twisters to pass the long nights when they couldn’t sleep? Unless they make wall paintings depicting these tongue twisters, we’d have no way to know and wouldn’t that just be the most interesting thing in the world . . . trying to decipher and ancient tongue twister! One thing we do know, however, is that one of the most famous tongue twisters was written in honor of someone who literally changed the way the world looked at prehistoric Earth. MARY ANNING SELLS SEASHELLS ON THE SEA SHORE Yes, it’s true. Mary Anning, a young girl from Dorset in the southwest of England, sold seashells on the sea shore. Way back in at the end of the 1700s, Mary Anning was born into a family that was rather resourceful. They would scour the seashore for fossils and other interesting seashell-type things and sell them to people who came to visit the area. Although Mary was about 10 or 11 when her father died, she had already learned how to recognize, label and catalog the different fossils she and her brother discovered, thus keeping the family afloat, but barely. That is, until she and her brother discovered something monumental: the skull of an Ichthyosaur. For those of you who don’t know what an Ichthyosaur is – and shame on you, by the way – it was one of the largest animals ever to grace God’s good earth, although it technically didn’t ever go on land. It was a marine reptile that hails from the Jurassic period and closely resembles a porpoise in both appearance and mannerisms. Anyway, back to Mary. At the time she and her brother found the fossil, she was only 12. For the next several years, the siblings uncovered more fossils, including that of a plesiosaur and a pterosaur. Their discoveries proved that animals can become extinct, which was something people thought to be impossible at the time. They literally thought animals went to other places on the earth that suited them better. Sadly, Mary died at the young age of 47. However, her discoveries were recognized for their importance to the field of science and her determination was inspirational to say the least. Because Mary’s influence spread so far and wide, it’s no surprise to find out that she had a poem written about it. Well, actually it’s a tongue twister. Regardless, it was written in 1908 by Terry Sullivan and it goes a little something like this: She sells seashells on the seashore The shells she sells are seashells, I’m sure So if she sells seashells on the seashore Then I’m sure she sells seashore shells. OTHER TONGUE-TWISTING TALES “How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? A woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.” The origin of this tongue twister is unknown but it’s clear who brought it to the forefront of the public’s mind: Fay Templeton, a Vaudeville performer. She sang it as part of the chorus for song in the Broadway musical, “The Runaways,” in 1903. A year later, “Ragtime” Bob Roberts did a cover of Templeton’s song on a record be released, further increasing the tongue twister’s fame. But there are a few things wrong with the rhyme. First off, woodchuck’s don’t exist. Apparently, they are actually groundhogs but way back when British settlers first came to our cozy little country, they misheard the Algonquian word for groundhog, which is wuchak. To be fair, that sounds somewhat like woodchuck so they get points for trying. The other problem is that woodchucks, or groundhogs, don’t chuck wood. However, researchers just had to figure out how much wood they could chuck and decided to equate wood with dirt, which groundhogs are known for chucking as they dig their tunnels. They determined a woodchuck could chuck about 700 pounds of wood, if only woodchucks could chuck wood. “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; a peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked; If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where’s the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.” The first recorded use of this tongue twister in print was in 1813 as part of John Harris’s “Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation.” But of course, someone wanted to know where in the world the rhyme came from. Surely Harris didn’t just randomly come up with it, right? Some say the Peter Piper referenced in the rhyme was a French horticulturalist named Pierre Poivre, who was known for smuggling cloves from the Spice Islands. Digging deeper, researchers point out a few other things: 1). Pierre is the French form of Peter; 2). Poivre is French for “pepper;” and 3). Piper is Latin for “pepper” and could easily be substituted for Poivre as Peter Piper’s last name in English. Get it? “The sixth sick sheikh’s sixth sheep’s sick.” If ever there was a winner for random tongue twisting, it would be this one! In fact, it held the Guinness World Record for the world’s hardest tongue twister when that was still an official category. However, more recently a team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed one they believe is even harder: “Pad kid poured curd pulled cold.” Who’s to say which tongue twister is the hardest . . . we certainly aren’t. But if you happen to find yourself with nothing to do, try saying the above tongue twisters three times fast and see how successful you are. Issue 904 - 2/25/2019
NOW THAT'S JUST WRONG: SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS THAT SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED by Lindsey Harrison 
“Science is the search for truth, that is the effort to understand the world: it involves the rejection of bias, of dogma, of revelation, but not the rejection of morality.”
– Linus Pauling, American chemist It’s true that science experiments have resulted in some incredible advances in healthcare, technology, psychology, etc. “In the name of science,” and all that mumbo jumbo, right? But isn’t there something to be said for NOT doing something just because you can? Let us explain. In the world of science, which is admittedly vast, just about any experiment can be conducted if it’s presented in a way that seeks to further our understanding of a specific thing. For instance, we can grow human ears on the sides of mice, and yes, we understand the implications that has for creating real ears for people who have either lost theirs in some horrific accident or perhaps were born without them altogether. However, not all experiments have such noble purposes. Sometimes it seems experiments are conducted just for the sake of conducting them. We could sit here all day and argue the merits of each scientific experiment ever conducted and there would probably still be some people out there who simply don’t agree with what we have to say. That’s fine. You’re wrong, but it’s still fine. Just kidding. We at Snippetz don’t want to argue with you, our dear readers. What we want is to entertain and educate you with some science experiments that, perhaps, should never have taken place. So, sit back and laugh a little as we bring to you some seriously questionable science experiments! WILL WORK (OR EAT VOMIT) TO GET GOOD GRADE How could we NOT pick this as our first experiment that never should have been? Did you read the title?? Anyway, it sounds gross and it certainly is, but there was a “good” reason behind Stubbins Ffirth’s actions in 1804. As a medical student at the University of Philadelphia, he asserted that yellow fever must not be contagious because it was prevalent in the summer but not during the winter. Side note: yellow fever is very contagious, but Ffirth didn’t know that at the time. To prove his theory, that yellow fever was a result of the excessive heat, food and noise people often encountered during the summer, Ffirth took some pretty drastic measures. He decided the best person to experiment on was himself. To do so, he cut small incisions in his arms and dumped “fresh black vomit” from yellow fever patients directly into them. He did not catch yellow fever. He tried a few more methods, including dropping vomit into his eyes, inhaling the fumes of fried-up vomit, putting vomit into a capsule and swallowing it, smearing the bodily fluids from yellow fever patients all over himself and last (but certainly not least), he chugged a glass of pure vomit. Still nothing. While he didn’t end up infecting himself, Ffirth’s experiment was still not proof that his theory was correct. In fact, it wasn’t correct at all. But yellow fever, while highly contagious, requires direct transmission into a person’s bloodstream, which usually happens from a mosquito bite. In the end, we simply ask, WHY?? DUMBO GOT DRUNK, BUT TUSKO DROPPED ACID To be fair, neither Dumbo nor Tusko intended to imbibe in their respective vice. Poor Tusko, a 14-year-old male elephant just living his life in 1962, became the unwitting subject of an experiment to see if 297 milligrams of LSD would send him into “musth,” which you’ll recall from our article about elephants from a few weeks ago is a the state of sexual aggression. The scientists behind the experiment were Louis Jolyon West and Chester M. Pierce from the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine and the dosage they chose was 3,000 times the typical human does of the drug. After being injected, poor Tusko stumbled, lurched and trumpeted his way around his enclosure before literally keeling over dead. But that didn’t answer the question at hand: does LSD induce musth? And apparently it was a very important question to answer because another scientist, Ronald Siegel, from UCLA replicated the experiment on two other elephants. However, he didn’t inject them; instead, he put the drug into their water. Thankfully, those two elephants survived. The question remains unanswered to this day. Yet again, we ask WHY??? TIME TO TALK TURKEY What does it take to sexually arouse a turkey? A burning question you may not have ever asked, but apparently researchers Martin Schein and Edgar Hale from Penn State University, felt the need to find the answer in the 1960s. To do so, they tested male turkeys by removing parts of a lifelike female turkey model they placed in the pen with the males one by one. Gone were the wings, the tail, the feet, until eventually all that was left was a head on a stick. And yet, those turkeys still showed interest! The experiment was run in reverse to see how the males reacted to a headless body and strangely enough, they weren’t interested. So, now we know that turkeys will attempt to mate with a head on a stick, but not a body without a head. (Say it with us this time) . . . WHY??? JUST HANGING AROUND Have you ever wondered what happens to a human body when it is hanged by the neck from a noose? Nicolas Minovici apparently did. In 1905, the forensic scientist enlisted the help of his assistant and some colleagues to answer that question. Luckily for everyone but Minovici, he opted to be hanged himself. After an adjustment period, Minovici was able to remain suspended by his neck for about 3-4 seconds and in all, hanged himself 12 times. His response was that it hurt and his neck ached for weeks afterwards (duh). But . . . WHY?? WHAT FACE DO YOU MAKE WHEN YOU DECAPITATE A RAT? Again, another question you probably never thought to ask. But Carney Landis, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Minnesota, decided he needed to know that answer in 1924. Using mainly fellow graduate students, Landis exposed the students to various stimuli to see what facial expressions they made, such as the smell of ammonia or naughty pictures. The coup de grâce was when he had each subject decapitate a rat. About two thirds of the participants actually agreed to the beheading but the remaining third were not spared the gore. Landis just did the job himself. In the end, he concluded that people use many different types of expressions to convey the same emotion. Well, thank God for that. But really . . . WHY?? NOT YOUR AVERAGE SMARTPHONE In fact, the phone of which we speak was actually made from a cat. In 1929, scientists Ernest Glen Wever and Charles W. Bray decided to make a cat into a telephone. Essentially, they hotwired the cat so that a sound entering the cat’s ears could be heard through an amplified in another room. In case you were wondering, it worked. However, when they killed the cat and tried the experiment again, it didn’t work. Moral of the story? Live cats make good telephones but dead cats don’t. Annnndddd, one more time . . . WHY??? Issue 905 - 3/4/2019
WEATHERING THE WEATHER, WHATEVER THE WEATHER! by Lindsey Harrison 
“The preciousness of life and the changes of weather and the beauty of seasons – all those things have always sort of dazzled me.”
– Anthony Doerr, American writer Whenever you meet someone new, especially if you happen to be an awkward introvert like this writer, you probably find yourself having to make small talk. And probably the most common subject to make small talk about is the weather. Why is that? Maybe because it’s a fairly safe topic, unlike politics or religion, and it’s easy to make statements that can be supported by fact, like, “Oh look. It’s raining.” Considering how much of our lives is dictated by the weather, you’d think we’d think of something else to talk about for small talk. Truthfully, the weather happenings we experience are often anything but “small.” OK, there are days that are hum-drum, same-old-same-old, but there are more times than you might think where weather takes an unusual turn or displays something we almost can’t even explain. These weather phenomena are just the type of thing we at Snippetz love learning about and we hope you’ll love learning about them through this article, as well. Enjoy the weather, whatever the weather, as you read all about weather! SNOWFLAKES We thought it appropriate to start with snow for this weather article, considering we’ve seen more snow in Colorado this winter than the past three winters combined, it seems. And if someone asked you to come up with one interesting fact about snow, what do you think you’d say? We’re betting that a few of you would say, “No two snowflakes are alike.” No, we don’t mean the slang term for someone who is easily offended, overly emotional and can’t deal with opposing opinions. We literally mean flakes of snow. Have you ever stopped to think if that blanket statement is actually true or not? How could we ever possibly say that with any degree of certainty? Well, if we can trust the nearly five decades of work done by a self-educated farm from Jericho, Vermont, then we can be fairly certain. Wilson Bentley, who was 19 when he began his project, spent the next 47 years of his life take photographs of individual snow crystals, beginning in 1885. Bentley said, “Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no design was ever repeated.” The reason for the unique design of each snowflake? Kenneth G. Libbrecht, physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, said that, while each snowflake may start out in a similar fashion as a speck of dust, as it falls through the clouds, it gathers water molecules, which freeze, evaporate and rearrange themselves. And roughly 180 billion water molecules are collected by each snowflake, making the possible configurations virtually endless. LIGHTNING Lightning is no joke. Even in ancient times, when people believed in multiple gods that controlled things like the weather and the oceans, lightning was often considered a weapon used against humans for upsetting a god, usually Zeus who is said to be the Father of the Gods and the god of lightning. Makes sense, really . . . you make your dad made and he has lightning as a weapon to punish you, he’s probably going to use it. But knowing what we know now about lightning and how it is created, it’s much less mysterious. It’s no less intriguing, though, when you think about the fact that volcanoes can produce lightning. That phenomenon, known as a “Dirty Thunderstorm,” is the result of an electrical discharge created through the eruption. Fragments and particles of volcanic ash collide with one another during the eruption, generating static electricity, the BOOM! Volcanic lightning!! Although you may not have heard about volcanic lightning, you’ve probably heard the saying that lightning never strikes the same place twice. In fact, the opposite is true. Lightning frequently strikes the same place twice. And if there was ever a place to demonstrate that, where the Catatumbo River dumps into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, is that place! Considered the most lightning-struck place on the planet, this area attracts about 1.2 million lightning bolts each year, which amounts to roughly 28 lightning strikes every minute. Why? It’s not entirely clear, but scientists theorize the areas unique topography and wind patterns play a role. HOLEY WEATHER No, not weather from God. The holes we’re talking about are literal holes created by the weather. There are two different examples that are unusual to say the least. First, we’ll look at snow doughnuts. Why the person who discovered these didn’t call them “snow-nuts” we’ll never know, but it’s disappointing just the same. Anyway, these doughnuts made from snow require precise weather conditions and only occur in mountainous areas. Similar to a snowball, a snow doughnut is formed around a clump of snow that rolls downhill, accumulating more snow on the outside as it goes. However, if the conditions are just right, the snow doesn’t collapse onto itself in the middle, as a snowball would. Instead, it maintains a certain level of elasticity and the inner hole stays open, resulting in a snow doughnut. Second, we’ll look at a fallstreak hole. Often called a “hole punch,” this phenomenon appears as a large gap in a cloud, that is usually circular or elliptical. They can occur in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds and are formed by the freezing water droplets that are “supercooled,” but not frozen like an ice crystal. In fact, ice crystals must be present for these supercooled water droplets to form ice crystals (yes, ice crystals in these clouds need other ice crystals to form). Once that happens – which could be compliments of an airplane cruising through the cloud, introducing those ice crystals as it goes – the droplets freeze and fall. They leave behind a hole in the middle of the cloud, creating a fallstreak. OCEAN AND PLANT WEATHER OK, that probably makes no sense, but we found three really cool phenomena that require the ocean plants of some sort in order to come into existence. First, let’s talk about dendritic frost flowers or sea ice flowers. These leaf-like protrusions occur when unfrozen rivulets of water in new sea ice – sea ice that is forming or has just formed – are exposed to very cold air. There is a whole bunch of scientific stuff that explains how these are made but it’s super complicated. Suffice it to say, these sea ice flowers look like little patches of leaves sticking up from the ice. Neat, right? Next, let’s check out brinicles. These are literally underwater icicles that are formed when very cold saline water meets less cold ocean water. The super salty water is heavier than the surrounding water so it sinks, leaving behind a long, finger-like tube of ice as it descends, called a brinicle. Lastly, let’s talk about frost flowers. Not dendritic, just frost flowers. These amazing creations result from the exposure of liquid stuck within the stem of a plant or flower to below freezing temperatures. The liquid moves through the stem to the surface and freezes. This process continues and the “old” ice is pushed away from the stem as the “new” ice is formed. The result is very delicate, almost hair-like, growths that actually look like flower petals! WEATHER SNIPPETZ Japan was saved by the weather on two separate occasions when the Mongolians tried to invade their island. Both times, typhoons destroyed the majority of the invading fleet. Roy Cleveland Sullivan, a park ranger who worked in the hills of the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, was struck by lightning seven times between 1942 and 1977. His injuries included losing his eyebrows, the nail on one of his big toes and various burns on his body. Issue 906 - 3/11/2019
SNIPPETZ WANTS TO KEEP YOU SAFE FROM SCAMS by Lindsey Harrison 
“Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud.”
– Sophocles, Ancient Greek tragedian Most of us would agree with Sophocles in the statement above. We get up each day and go to work. We put in long hours and, in general, most of us are proud of the work we’ve done and are compensated appropriately. We may not have everything we want, but for the most part, we have what we need. Of course, if someone were to gift us $1 million, we wouldn’t turn it down, but the truth is that most people value hard work and respect the fact that we have to earn what we have, money-wise and possession-wise. Because of this shared value we place on the things we’ve earned, most of us don’t go around scamming each other to get money we don’t deserve. Sadly, that’s not the case for everyone. There are lots of people out there who don’t value hard work and don’t want to earn the things they get. Instead, they’d rather dupe honest people into believing lies. Those lies lead to honest people giving up money, information or both to dishonest people looking to make a quick buck at someone else’s expense. And these types of scams happen every day! We at Snippetz know you work hard for your money and we want to help you protect yourself from falling prey to these scammers. After all, we value you, dear readers, more than you’ll ever know! CARD SKIMMERS In this increasingly digital age, it seems that people rarely use paper money for transactions anymore. Probably one of the most obvious examples of this is at the gas station. No one wants to walk up to the kiosk and talk to the person inside, not because there’s anything wrong with that, but simply because it’s so much more convenient to just swipe your car and fill ‘er up! Sadly, the fact that many gas stations have pumps that the clerk in the kiosk can’t see all the time means thieves can place card skimmers there and there’s none the wiser. The skimmer works by capturing your credit card or debit card information via the magnetic strip on the back, which the thief can then use to make fraudulent charges on your account or even make a copy of your card. There are a few ways you can spot a skimmer, if you know what to look for: Skimmers are meant to fit over the existing machine’s card slot but often the card reader sticks out further than the rest of the machine or the panel. The card reader may appear to be a completely different piece than the rest of the machine. The card reader may be loose or wiggle when you use it. If a card reader is moveable, it’s likely been messed with and it’s not safe to use. Often there is a security seal on the gas pump’s cabinet panel, indicating that it is secure. If the seal appears to be broken or it plainly states “VOID OPEN” the cabinet has likely been tampered with and a card skimmer may have been placed. In any of the above instances, you can report your suspicions to the clerk in the kiosk. Of course, there are likely more ways that thieves are able to skim your credit card information without leaving the telltale signs, which is why experts suggest either paying at the kiosk with cash, using a pump that is in plain sight of the clerk in the kiosk, or using a payment app on your phone. Essentially, that payment app sends you a randomly generated 16-number code to your smartphone that you use in place of your credit or debit card. RANDOM PHONE CALLS “Can you hear me now?” You’ve probably seen the commercial for the phone service where the kinda nerdy guy walks around asking that inane question. Well, that same question – or something similar to it – is what thieves often use when they are pulling a phone scam on you. The goal of that question is to get you to respond, “Yes,” which they record and use to authorize fraudulent charges on credit cards. How do you know if the phone call is a scam or not? Well, if you don’t recognize the number, experts recommend just not answering the call. Many newer smartphones will even indicate that the phone call is a suspected “spam” number, meaning it could be a scam. Additionally, scammers have figured out that people will frequently answer a number with the same first three digits as their own phone number (e.g. if your phone number is 719-123-4567, their fake number will show up as 719-123-xxxx). Again, if you don’t recognize it, don’t answer it. If the call seems too good to be true, i.e. you’ve won a free trip to a tropical paradise, it’s likely a scam. The scammer is hoping you’ll be willing to pay a small fee to have access to that prize, which of course doesn’t exist. By doing so, they get your credit or debit card information and they’re off spending your money! If someone calls to tell you your computer is infected with a virus or that you need to update some software, it’s always likely a scam. Antivirus companies don’t call you to tell you anything and they certainly won’t ask for personal information over the phone to remedy the situation. THREATENING PHONE CALLS No, they don’t say, “Give me all your money or we’ll kill your dog.” Rather, these phone scams use the threat of being arrested for an outstanding warrant or missing jury duty (or something along those lines). Naturally, us law abiding citizens might be a bit scared of the prospect of being arrested for something we know nothing about. But if you’ve ever watched “Cops” or LivePD,” you know that the authorities don’t call you before they serve a warrant on you. They’ll just show up, probably early in the morning, and start pounding on your door. The IRS also will not call you to tell you to pay for your back taxes. And the sheriff’s department won’t call you to tell you to wire money to them to bail out a relative. Bottom line: anyone asking for money over the phone better be related to you and in a real pickle, otherwise it could definitely be a scam. Now, here’s one that could sound a bit more legitimate but is still a scam, nonetheless. These scammers have taken to impersonating representatives from the utility company who call to insist your bill is past due and payment is due immediately to prevent your utilities from being shut off. Jerks. Experts say, if you know you’ve paid your bill, definitely don’t believe the caller. If you’re unsure, you can always call your utility company yourself to verify that status of your account. No utility company calls and demands payment over the phone, especially if they’re requiring a specific type of payment like wiring money or using cryptocurrency (i.e. bitcoin). Probably the most upsetting scam we’ve come across in doing this research is one that specifically targets veterans. The Veterans Choice Program is a creation of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs designed to allow eligible veterans to use healthcare providers outside of the VA system. Sounds great, right? Well, scammers have figured out how to create phone numbers similar to the VCP number and will advertise it as the real deal. If a vet intends to call the VCP to verify their eligibility but calls the fake number instead, they may be prompted to enter credit card information to receive a “rebate.” Upon doing so, their information is in the hands of the scammers. Here’s the good news: the REAL VCP phone number is 866-606-8198. If you’re unsure if you reached the real VCP (maybe it just doesn’t sound right when they answer), hang up and call again. You may have accidentally dialed the wrong number. Stay safe, stay aware and don’t let the scammers win! Issue 907 - 3/18/2019
STOP THIEF! SNIPPETZ INVESTIGATES THE BIGGEST ART HEISTS IN HISTORY by Lindsey Harrison 
“Art is what you can get away with.”
– Andy Warhol, American artist Did you happen to notice the pun above? Today, we’re talking about art heists, the biggest ones in history to be exact, and we found an interesting little quote from one of the most influential and well-known artists of the 20th century about “getting away” with something? Yes, we know that Mr. Warhol was not talking about stealing art when he said what he said, but hopefully it got your attention. Because here’s the thing: art cannot be defined in any sort of certain terms. Is there some secret art committee that gets together once per month and looks over every piece of artwork created in the previous 30 days or so, who ultimately takes a vote on what pieces are “art” and what aren’t? And furthermore, what makes a piece of artwork worth millions of dollars, while something similar – but executed by someone – else isn’t given a second glance? The answer to the first question is “no” and the answer to the second is “we don’t know.” One thing is certain and that is when something is valuable, people covet it. And coveting that valuable thing can sometimes lead someone to do something drastic, like stealing a famous piece of artwork or two. Keep reading as Snippetz brings you the biggest art heists in history! YOU GOTTA DRESS THE PART In the early morning hours of March 18, 1990, two men dressed as police officers gained access to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Massachusetts, via one of the employee entrances. They were stopped by the security guards but claimed to be investigating a disturbance at the museum. Once inside, the faux police officers overpowered the security guards and then helped themselves to 13 pieces of art from such masters as Manet, Johannes Vermeer and the only seascape Rembrandt ever painted, called Storm of the Sea of Galilee. The total value of the stolen pieces was more than $500 million, and clearly the museum was eager to get them back because they offered a $5 million reward for their return. Sadly, the crime has not been solved, thus the thieves are still at large, and the artwork is lost for the foreseeable future. The museum has committed to keeping the memory of those pieces alive and has hung empty frames where the missing artwork used to be. LOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING Strangely enough, the above heist was not the only successful one in which the thieves claimed to be police officers in order to steal a famous piece of artwork. But in the case of the 2003 theft of the Madonna of the Yarnwinder, painted by Leonardo da Vinci, the men initially joined a group of tourists visiting the Drumlanrig Castle in Scotland in 2003. The two men simply removed the painting, since the alarms around the painting weren’t set (since it was daytime), but not without a bit of convincing on their part. The other tourists naturally didn’t think what the men were doing was kosher, but the thieves managed to persuade the group that they were part of a police drill in which they were practicing how to handle this exact situation. For whatever reason, the onlookers believed them, and the men hopped into a Volkswagen Golf and sped off. Thankfully, the painting, worth about $65 million, was recovered and now hangs in the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh. DÉJÀ VU Déjà vu is described as the feeling of having experienced a particular event sometime before. For one famous painting, The Scream by Evard Munch, that must have been what it felt, if paintings had feelings that is. Why? Because 20 years after being stolen from the National Art Museum in Olso, Norway, in 1994, the painting was stolen yet again from Oslo’s Munch Museum. Let’s start with 1994: this was a “smash-and-grab” type of operation, where the thieves broke through a window at the National Art Museum, cut the wires that the painting was hanging from and then zipped back out through the same window, all in a span of less than one minute. Allegedly, the four crooks left behind a note in place of the painting, that stated, “Thanks for the poor security.” Luckily, the thieves also left behind a piece of the painting’s frame at a nearby bus stop (which begs the question: if they rode the bus, why didn’t anyone think it was strange that they were walking around with a famous painting?), and law enforcement was able to use that to help them recover the painting three months later. Jump forward to 2004: this time, The Scream and Madonna, both Munch’s paintings, were taken from the Munch Museum. Two men, masked and toting guns, stormed the museum during operating hours and made off with the paintings after threatening the security guards not to get involved. The men escaped in a getaway car, but not before a bystander took a photo of the men. Unfortunately, the photo and the security camera footage were not much help. However, after two years of searching, the paintings were recovered and even though they had sustained minor damage, they were certainly not burned to prevent evidence from being found, as rumors were indicating at the time. Although reports vary, each painting has an estimated value of about $60 million. HEY, MONA LISA . . . WHERE YOU GOING? The story of how the Mona Lisa was stolen is certainly one of the more interesting ones we came across. It was truly an inside job. Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee at the Louvre Museum, in Paris, France, had such strong feelings that the painting belonged in Italy, where its painter, Leonardo da Vinci, was from. He decided to hide in a closet at the museum until the room in which the painting was located was empty, and then he hopped out and snatched the painting off the wall. He removed the painting from its frame, stuffed it under his smock and simply walked out of the museum in 1911. It took two years, but the police were finally able to track down Peruggia after he attempted to sell the painting to an art dealer in Florence, Italy. Even though the painting was worth about $100 million, Peruggia only spend six months in jail for his crime. HOLLYWOOD COULDN’T HAVE DONE IT BETTER In probably the most sensational, Hollywood-worthy heists, eight thieves managed to make off with three paintings from Stockholm, Sweden’s National Museum: a Rembrandt and two Renoirs. But it wasn’t as though the group of them just walked in together and stole the paintings during the heist in 2000. Nope. One man held the security guard at gunpoint while two others snatched the paintings. In various parts of the city, other members of the group blew up cars to create a diversion that would keep the police from being able to send all their troops to the burglary. And in even more Hollywood-like fashion, the thieves at the museum jumped into a speedboat that was waiting nearby and took off. Thankfully, the paintings, worth a combined $30 million, were recovered. Issue 908 - 3/25/2019
AMERICA'S GOT MONSTERS! by Lindsey Harrison 
“Monsters just outside our peripheral vision are scarier to contemplate than monsters miles away or in someplace only a fool would set foot in.”
– Andrew Pyper, Canadian author No, it’s not Halloween and yes, we are still going to be talking about monsters. And why not? It’s not like these creepy creatures relegate themselves to one night per year. If the stories we at Snippetz have found are to be believed, monsters are all around us, all the time. What’s interesting is that most of them are NOT the monsters you’re likely to imagine. No Frankenstein, no Dracula, no Swamp Monster. No, indeed. The monsters we’re talking about are the lesser-known ones. The ones that allegedly hang out around the old bridges in small towns or lurk around in the shadows just waiting for the right time to make their move. You may have heard of one or two of these monsters, especially considering some areas seem to embrace the idea of their local monsters rather than abhor them, but it’s equally as likely that you haven’t heard of a single one. Either way, Snippetz promises to regale you with some (potentially) terrifying tales of things that go bump in the night . . . or maybe just go thud sometime in the late afternoon. HODAG We’re starting off with one of the monsters that has been embraced by the locals in the area where it lurks and that’s the legendary Hodag of northern Wisconsin. Allegedly, the strange creature, which had four legs, measured eight feet long and weighed in at about 256 pounds, was first discovered in 1893. It was said to have two horns on its head and spines running down its back and onto its tail. Although it is described as looking like a dinosaur, the “savage and ferocious” creature was covered in dark fur. The Hodag had been the stuff of legends for quite some time in the Rhinelander region of Wisconsin, but one man certainly helped rocket its notoriety into the upper stratosphere. Gene Shepard, born in 1854, claimed to have found definitive proof of the Hodag’s existence in 1893 when he and a hunting party managed to corner the Hodag and kill it using dynamite. The remains (or Shepard’s proof, if you will) were charred but available for anyone to see, as long as they were willing to pay for the chance. Three years later, Shepard claimed he had finally captured a Hodag alive by drugging it with chloroform. Supposedly, he and his men dragged the creature back to the Rhinelander area and stashed in it a pit. There is even a photograph (poorly staged and obviously not authentic in our opinion) of the moment the Hodag was brought back, which now graces the cover of countless postcards and other souvenirs. The Hodag’s reputation was welcomed with open arms, legitimate or not, by the locals who even made the Hodag the City of Rhinelander’s official mascot as well as the high school’s mascot. The town even throws an annual Hodag Country Festival. BRIDGE TROLLS Our next American Monster hails from the lovely town of Loveland, Ohio, more specifically along the Miami River. According to the tales, in 1955, a man claimed that he was driving along said river when he noticed something strange beneath one of the bridges. Actually, it was a couple “something stranges,” which he described as about 3 to 4 feet tall, bald, with webbed hands and feet. When the man pulled over to get a better look at the creatures, he claimed one of them held up a stick or rod that shot sparks out at him when they saw the man watching them. He quickly left and headed straight for the nearest police station where he made a report, but since that first sighting, no other “Bridge Troll” encounters have been reported. FROGMAN Now, here’s where things get a little weird because we find ourselves back in Loveland, Ohio to recount sightings of our next American Monster, the Frogman. The first report (yes, there was more than one) came in 1972, when Ray Shockey, a police officer, was driving along the Little Miami River (sound familiar?) at about 1:00 a.m. He noticed what appeared to be a dog lying in the road, so he slowly approached it, but the creature allegedly stood up on its two hind legs, then scurried off over the side of the guardrail and into the ditch leading to the river. Shockey would later describe the creature as standing about 4 feet tall, with webbed feet, claws for hands and the head of a frog. Shockey relayed his story to fellow officer Mark Matthews and while the two returned to the “scene of the crime” so to speak, they found no evidence of the Frogman Shockey said he saw, other than some scratches along the guardrail where the creature was supposed to have climbed over. Two weeks later, Matthews was out on patrol by himself in a similar area as Shockey when he came upon what he thought was an animal that had been struck by a car. Naturally, he stopped to check things out but that’s when the animal (you guessed it) stood up on its hind legs and scampered over the guardrail, into the ditch nearby. With stories from not one but two police officers both claiming roughly the same thing, news spread quickly. However, not everyone was sold on the idea of a Frogman running around Loveland, Ohio and speculated that the men had made up the entire story. If you are the farmer who said he saw a Frogman cruising through his field one night, you probably think their story is true. But if you’re one of the millions of others who realize no such creature has been seen since the ‘70s, you’re likely a bit more skeptical. MOMO Now this monster is not to be confused with the Momo that has been in the news recently, which is a social media creation that apparently targets young internet users, urging them (and instructing them) to commit suicide. Whether or not any of the monsters in this article are real, we can say without a doubt that whomever is behind the social media Momo is a true, bona fide monster. Anyway, the Momo monster that we’re really interested in is the one that was (again) reportedly seen in the 1970s. Seriously, what’s up with the ‘70s?? That Momo was named as such because it was seen in Missouri – Momo is short for Missouri Monster. Allegedly, it was about 7 feet tall, covered in dark fur and had glowing orange eyes. The first sighting was in 1971 and the next came just a year later. Both incidents resulted in the same description of the Momo but neither incident brought about any further information to follow up on and the Momo has not been seen since. DOVER DEMON We bet you can’t guess when this monster was seen . . . but if you happened to guess the 1970s, you’d be right! This monster allegedly terrorized Dover, Massachusetts for two days and was described by the “viewers” as standing about 3 feet tall with a massive head, big orange eyes, and a body with thin, hairless arms. The first sighting occurred on the evening April 21 and the next came just a few hours later. The next sighting occurred the following day. All the descriptions of the Dover Demon matched up, with one exception: the last people to see it claimed it had green eyes instead of orange eyes. This may come as a surprise, but the Dover Demon has not been seen since. That seems to be the case with all of these American Monsters, which is both good and bad. It’s good because we certainly don’t want to run into a giant Frogman or a hairy dinosaur-like creature. But it’s bad because there’s just no way to know if these monsters were the stuff myths or actually if America was actually home to some pretty interesting creatures! Issue 909 - 4/1/2019
HERE'S SOMETHING THAT BUGS US... THE WORLD'S BIGGEST INSECTS by Lindsey Harrison 
“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
– E. O. Wilson, American scientist There’s a reason why we say we are being “bugged” by someone when they are annoying or bothering us; it’s because that’s exactly what many insects – bugs – do to us humans. Granted, not every insect is a bother. In fact, some insects like butterflies and dragonflies for example, are often more mesmerizing than annoying. Those beautiful insects are NOT the ones we’re interested in, though. Truly, what fun is that? Nope, we searched for the biggest bugs, the ones that you wouldn’t dare try to squish under your shoe if it came crawling up to you. Why? Because we wanted to and you can’t tell us what to do. Just kidding. If you’ve been a Snippetz reader for any length of time, you know that we love finding out about the unusual, the strange and sometimes the terrifying. Just be grateful that we live in this gorgeous state instead of one of the more gigantic-bug-friendly environments around the world. We have a challenge for you, though. As you read this super awesome article, we challenge you to not scratch any phantom itches you may develop. Think you can do it? Let’s find out! PHRYGANISTRIA CHINENSIS ZHAO Go ahead and say that name three times fast. We couldn’t, but that’s not the point. The point is that this bug, whose name is admittedly quite a mouthful, has made a name for itself by being the longest insect in the world. It was first discovered in 2014 by a researcher named Zhao Li in the Guangxi region of China. Li said he had been searching for just such an insect after hearing from locals that an 18-inch-long bug had been located. Well, Li got more than he was bargaining for when he came upon the new species of stick bug he discovered; instead of measuring in at 18 inches, the specimen Li discovered measures more than 24 inches. Just like the other bugs of its type this record setter looks like a stick, which is part of its defense mechanism. Even though it’s more than 2 feet long, this bug can still blend in with other similar sticks well enough to avoid becoming prey. It doesn’t hurt that it is able to stay virtually motionless during the day when predators are out looking for a meal. TITAN BEETLE We agree, this name is significantly easier to say than the first insect we introduced you to. The scientific name, Titanus giganteus, isn’t much harder. Even though this beetle’s name isn’t terribly noteworthy, its size certainly is. While it doesn’t exactly compare with the 24 inches of the above stick bug specimen, the Titan beetle’s 6.5 inches is still remarkable. Imagine having a beetle that size cruising around your picnic lunch in the park. Anyway, the Titan beetle has large jaws and a sharp spine and seems to be relegated to the rain forests in Colombia, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela. So, we’ve got that going for us, which is good. Additionally, even though it may hiss when a predator comes too close for comfort, scientists generally agree that it doesn’t pose any danger to humans. HERCULES BEETLE Another marvelously named insect, the Hercules beetle can grow to a similar length as the Titan beetle. The difference, however, is that the Titan beetle’s body is much larger than the Hercules beetle’s and much of the Hercules beetle’s length comes from a massive sword-like horn on the top of its head. A second, smaller horn protrudes from the lower part of the beetle’s head, creating somewhat of a pincer. In most other ways, this beetle looks much like you would expect it to, with a smooth shiny exoskeleton that can range in color from a sandy beige with a black head, to an almost greenish black all over. It’s important to note that the Hercules beetle we are discussing here – Dynastes Hercules – is just one of the subspecies of beetles known as the rhinoceros beetle. Other Hercules beetles exist but do not have the same crazy horn configuration on their heads. These beetles can be found in South, Central and North America and have been rumored to be extremely powerful, able to lift up to 850 times its own weight. That rumor has not been corroborated, but if it is true, that’s pretty incredible, right? GIANT FIJIAN LONGHORN BEETLE OK, we know, we’ve got a lot of beetles on our list of biggest bugs but that’s not our fault. Talk to God. Anyway, this specimen lives on the Fijian island of Viti Levu and prefers to eat tropical plants, which it obviously has plenty of access to. What makes this beetle so impressive, aside from its size which can be up to 5.5 inches long, is that it has incredibly powerful jaws. They carry the same power, based on size and weight of course, as those of a shark. Those jaws aren’t the only method of defense that the giant Fijian longhorn beetle – scientifically named Xixuthrus heros – possesses. Much like the Titan beetle, it hisses to scare away predators. Now, you’re probably thinking that a hissing beetle can’t be that scary. But we’ve got two things that refute that idea. First, if more than one type of beetle uses hissing as a way to protect itself from being eaten, it’s probably because it’s effective. Second, if you ever happen to leave your back door open on a hot, Fourth of July night so your dogs can be either inside or outside, wherever they feel most comfortable, you might happen to come home to a house full of beetles. And if you find an especially large beetle on your carpeted stairs, you may be tempted to scoop it up and put it outside. But you might not be so interested in touching it when you realize it is holding onto the carpet and it begins hissing at you. Trust us, the hissing is scary. GIANT NEW ZEALAND WETA Moving away from beetles, we will next look at an insect described as resembling an unsuccessful cross between a cockroach and a cricket. Although they don’t get much bigger than about 3 inches in length, it was apparently impressive enough for the Maori people of New Zealand to name it “the God of the ugly things.” That’s not exactly what its scientific name – Deinacrida heteracantha – translates to, but it certainly paints a vivid picture. As we mentioned, its body typically measures about 3 inches but when you add in the length of its legs and antennae, it appears much bigger. Luckily, it’s exclusive to New Zealand and feasts mainly on leaves, dead animals, other insects and fruit. QUEEN ALEXANDRIA’S BIRDWING So, if we said there was a butterfly whose wingspan could reach 12 inches, would that make it less beautiful and more . . . well, icky? We don’t believe so. In fact, there is one such species that exists and holds the title of the largest butterfly species, called the Queen Alexandria’s Birdwing. Scientifically called ornithoptera alexandrae, this butterfly is just as spectacular as its smaller counterparts. Its brightly colored wings warn predators that is poisonous, but not deadly. It lives in the forests of Papua New Guinea but if it were to make its way up to Colorado for a brief visit, we wouldn’t mind. |
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