For just a moment, consider that we aren’t alone in the universe and other life forms exist beyond the Milky Way and Earth, which is the only place advanced life forms have so far been found.
If there are extraterrestrials somewhere in the universe, maybe they saw the dawn of man in this planet and decided they’d watch our progress. How would they have done so?
Extraterrestrials may have been watching us since the dawn of man on Earth (Via Pixabay)
“A hundred million years ago, an advanced civilization detects strange signatures of life on a blue-green planet not so far away from their home in the Milky Way. They try sending signals, but whatever’s marching around on that unknown world isn’t responding. So, the curious galactic explorers try something different. They send a robotic probe to a small, quiet space rock orbiting near the life-rich planet, just to keep an eye on things.
If a story like this played out at any moment in Earth’s 4.5 billion-year history, it just might have left an archaeological record. At least, that’s the hope behind a new proposal to check Earth’s so-called co-orbitals for signs of advanced alien technology“
Co-orbitals are space objects — planets, moons, even space rocks — that orbit the sun at approximately the same distance as Earth, James Benford, a physicist and independent SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), explains:
“They’re basically going around the sun at the same rate the Earth is, and they’re very nearby.’”
It was Benford who suggested his theory of alien surveillance at a conference in Houston last year:
“If he’s right, the co-orbitals could be a way to detect alien activity that occurred before humans even evolved, much less turned their attention toward the stars.”
The Milky Way and Earth may be under surveillance (Via Wikipedia)
Not everyone — including fellow SETI researchers — is on board with Benford’s controversial theory. One of them is Paul Davies, a physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, who says he still thinks we have an obligation to check out all of the co-orbitals just to be sure:
“How likely is it that alien probe would be on one of these co-orbitals, obviously extremely unlikely.
“But if it costs very little to go take a look, why not? Even if we don’t find E.T., we might find something of interest.”
Finding the Bugs
Operating from the premise that extraterrestrials are indeed watching us, all we have to do is find the hidden bugs. How would that be done? Dr. Benford has a suggestion:
“Earth’s closest star other than the sun right now is Alpha Centauri, 4.37 light-years away. But every half million years or so, a star comes within about a light-year of Earth, Benford said, meaning that hundreds or thousands of stars (and their possible attendant planets) have been close enough to our planet during Earth’s long history to make contact. Long-ago aliens may have observed nothing more exciting than photosynthesizing bacteria, or dinosaurs if they were lucky. But their probes could still be sitting on the co-orbital surface. “‘This is essentially extraterrestrial archaeology I’m talking about,’ Benford said.”
This little guy may be watching our every move. (Via Pixabay)
Benford suggests we need to use optical and radio telescopes as well as pinging co-orbitals with planetary radar to see if his theory is confirmed. Sending small spacecrafts would also be feasible and not too expensive, he adds. China is already planning to send a spacecraft to explore a near-Earth asteroid and an odd rock in the asteroid belt as soon at 2022:
“Seeking signs of intelligent extraterrestrials close to Earth is informative even if the search comes up empty, Benford said. That no one’s heard or seen any extraterrestrial signals in 50 years or so doesn’t mean much, given the mind-boggling time span of Earth’s history. A lack of evidence spanning hundreds, millions or even billions of years would be much more convincing.
“‘If we don’t find anything, that means no one has come to look at the life of Earth for over billions of years,’ Benford said. “‘That is a big surprise, a stunning thing.’”
Other surprises may await us once our search begins. All the more reason to see what we can find.
Here’s more on SETI (Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence):
The gunman had posted online that he believed he was being surveilled by law enforcement before carrying out the attack that killed Cpl. Matthew Snook, the state’s homicide unit said
The ancient texts of Mesopotamia are undergoing a revival, as ancient astronaut theorists look at them for clues about our true origins. While the texts are dismissed as mere mythology by mainstream scholars, these theorists are looking at the words with fresh eyes and open minds.
Perhaps there is more to these texts that scholars brushed aside too readily? Meanwhile, similar texts are viewed as unquestionable and Holy by millions of religious people today. As in the older stories, sometimes those texts feature stories of supernatural beings from other worlds, monstrous people and animals, not to mention advanced technology.
It’s fascinating to look at the intersections of ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Bible. The stories overlap, and when they do they are sometimes consideredApocrypha, or “hidden.”
Previously, we looked at the story of 4 Baruch. It’s one such hidden story of an eagle messenger that could resurrect the dead. The story also features a clear case of time dilation similar to the famous American folklore of Rip Van Winkle.
Now, we’ll look at another story connected to “the most prestigious god of the Mesopotamian pantheon,” Marduk, and his dragon. Now this story, also considered apocryphal, is “Bel and the Dragon” in the extended Book of Daniel. The story considered apocryphal in the Protestant Bible but lived on in the King James Bible.
The Bible story features an idol of Bel, or “lord” whose name in ancient Mesopotamia was Marduk, son of the god of wisdom Enki. This name should be familiar. Why? He’s associated with Zeus by the Greeks. His temple may be quite famous in another Bible story. (See below)
Marduk, who was later known as Bel, was worshipped almost in a monotheistic sense in Mesopotamia. Then, invading armies would do their best to erase all traces of him from history. His statue became so important that it was repeatedly stolen and restored to ancient Babylon.
“Marduk was regarded as the creator of the heavens and earth, co-creator with Enki of human beings, and originator of divine order following his victory over the forces of chaos led by the goddess Tiamat. Once he legitimized his rule, he conferred upon the other gods their various duties and responsibilities and organized both the world and the netherworld.”
“Marduk was the patron god of Babylon, the Babylonian king of the gods, who presided over justice, compassion, healing, regeneration, magic, and fairness, although he is also sometimes referenced as a storm god and agricultural deity. His temple, the famous ziggurat described by Herodotus, is considered the model for the biblical Tower of Babel.”
“The Greeks associated him with Zeus and the Romans with Jupiter. He is depicted as a human in royal robes, carrying a snake-dragon and a spade. Marduk seems to have originated from a local deity known as Asarluhi, a farmer’s god symbolized by the spade, known as a marru, which continued as part of his iconography. Marduk’s name, however, though linked to the marru, translates as ‘bull-calf,’ although he was commonly referred to simply as Bel (Lord). Far from the local deity he sprang from, Marduk would become the most prestigious god of the Mesopotamian pantheon.”
Bel’s dragon
Marduk’s son, Nabu, became “the most important god of the Babylonians,” and was associated with the Egyptian god, Thoth. Both Marduk and Nabu were associated with a snake-dragon known as the Mushussu Dragon. You can see the ‘dragon’ on the famous reconstructed Ishtar Gate initially constructed by the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar II circa 575 BCE. It initially was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World along with the King’s Hanging Gardens of Babylon, which no longer exists.
The Mushussu Dragon was alive in the story from the Bible, while Bel was a statue considered protective and of great importance. The hybrid dragon was not as we would expect a dragon to look. It has talons of an eagle, lion-like forelimbs, a long neck and tail, a horned head, and a snake-like tongue, and a crest.
The dragon wasn’t like the fire-breathing kind we know from the movies but shared much in common with dragons from other ancient stories around the world. Some cryptozoologists suggest the dragon from this Bible story was a real-life creature, known as the now-extinct Sivatherium.
These strange creatures were an extinct genus of enormous giraffids that ranged throughout Africa to the Indian subcontinent that may have still been around until 8,000 years ago. The species seems to be a subject of cave paintings in Saharan Africa, and when you see what it looked like, it does look like Marduk’s dragon. (see video below)
What happened to the dragon in the Bible story? Well, nothing good, that’s for sure. Daniel decides to kill it in a very peculiar way. First, Daniel convinces the Persian King (who had taken over) that worshipping Bel was wrong as idol worship. Bel’s followers were secretly consuming food left for the statue, and this was so egregious that the King slaughtered them for it and destroyed the statue of Bel.
See a cartoon version of Bel and the Dragon with the idol of Bel as a head from Easter Island (!).
The news so distressed the people of Babylon that Daniel was thrown into a den of lions to die, which as you know he miraculously doesn’t. The story becomes the familiar “Daniel in the Lions’ Den.”
Today, the Bible tells the little-known story of the ‘heroic’ slaying of a seemingly harmless dragon, and the moral of the story that worshipping Bel was not the true religion. That narrative continues today, but in looking back, we see the ancient stories through a modern lens and with renewed interest. Instead of slaying the proverbial dragon, maybe it’s time to take a closer look?
In the second part of the video, we get to the dragon, which was not an idol but a real biblical creature -at least until Daniel was done with him.
When one thinks of extraterrestrials, Japan probably isn’t the first place that comes to mind. But Japan is home to compelling and strange stories of unexplained visitors. It has also been the site for a famous account of a USO (Unidentified Submerged Object) and a mysterious passenger. Also, Japan is the home to one of the most unusual monolithic stones we’ve seen as well as pyramids. (Is there anyplace without pyramids?)
On the eastern coast of the Hitachi province in Japan, a strange rounded USO was dragged ashore by fishermen in 1803. Three similar texts described the round “Utsuro-Bune” (hollow ship) and a female occupant found alive inside.
The hollow ship, which was six meters wide and almost four meters high, had metal plates and bars with glass windows on it. It was said to resemble a large incense burner. A hatch opened, and a young woman who appeared 18-20-years old stepped out. In western circles, she is called “The White Princess,” and she was clutching a strange quadratic box.
She spoke an unrecognizable language and wore clothing of fabrics the villagers had never seen. Inside the ‘ship,’ there were strange writing and more unique materials they likened to bedsheets or carpet. Although she was friendly, she spoke an unknown language.
Comparison of the Utsuro-Bune symbols to those from RAF Bentwaters and Roswell via Mysterious Universe
You can listen to a podcast discussing this encounter from Mysterious Universe below:
The woman stood around four feet nine inches tall with pale skin and red hair and eyebrows. Her hair was artificially extended with strands of white fur or fine fabric. However, the drawings of her in the texts showed a woman who didn’t match the descriptions for some unknown reason.
Utsuro-bune via YouTube (see video below)
One historian, Yanagida Kunio, suggested that the woman may have been set out to sea in a round boat, which was not unheard of at the time. The object never flew but merely drifted in the water. The Toen shōsetsu text suggests she may have been daughter of a king in a foreign land. Perhaps she had broken her marriage vows, and the object inside the box was the severed head of her lover.
Although the text noted the cruelty of her situation, the villagers decided to put her back inside the craft and pushed her back out to sea.
“From a humanitarian viewpoint, this treatment is too cruel for her. However, this treatment would be her destiny.”
It’s a disturbing, fascinating, and unexplained story from beginning to end.
Further to the south at Asuka Park, there is an 800-ton monolithic granite carving resembling the description of the Utsuro-Bune. It’s called the Masuda-no-iwafune (the ‘rock ship of Masuda’). The monolith is 36 feet in length, 26 feet in width and over 15 feet in height. Lattice shaped carvings at the base are thought to indicate some unknown process to shape the rock. There are also two three-foot square hole cut into the solid rock.
Ancient Origins suggests the structure might have been created to commemorate the creation of the Masuda Lake, which was later drained.
Other theories are that the monolith was an ancient astronomical observing station or a tomb for a royal family, though no bodies have been found. Where have we heard that one before? *Cough* Egypt.
Ancient Astronaut theorists Takeharu Mikami and Giorgio A. Tsoukalos traveled to visit the site in 2017. They believe Masuda-no-iwafun might represent a Sky Boat told in Japanese mythology. Is this structure meant to represent a UFO or something else? Nobody knows for sure, but the look is undoubtedly otherworldly in appearance.
The Chernobyl catastrophe remains a worst-case scenario for nuclear power. The incident with the Chernobyl-4 reactor in 1986 is still considered both unique and the only instance in the history of nuclear power to feature radiation-related fatalities. And a mysterious black bird might be the key to unlocking the story.
So … what happened?
Chernobyl
Essentially, the only thing that went wrong with Chernobyl was everything. From uncontrolled chain reactions to poor safety management, the set of misfortunes that went into the event is one of the saving graces of nuclear power today. It is unlikely that sequence of events could be repeated to such disastrous effect. However, the consequences from even this one incident were extremely steep:
The accident destroyed the Chernobyl 4 reactor, killing 30 operators and firemen within three months and several further deaths later … Acute radiation syndrome (ARS) was originally diagnosed in 237 people onsite and involved with the clean-up and it was later confirmed in 134 cases. Of these, 28 people died as a result of ARS within a few weeks of the accident.
And Chernobyl’s mysterious black bird might provide an answer to those searching for meaning among the chaos.
Black Bird
The legend of the black bird changes often, but it goes something like this:
Various reports detailed witnessing a black, bird-like creature around the area of the Chernobyl-4 reactor. Details about this surfaced slowly after the nuclear reactor’s meltdown. Apparently, workers who died were among those to witness this creature. Those who saw the black bird were said to experience nightmares in the subsequent weeks. Even more frightening, some reported receiving strange phone calls after the disaster, and believers have attributed it to the black bird.
The exact purpose of the black bird is relatively fluid from retelling to retelling, sometimes serving as a harbinger of doom and sometimes being the cause of it.
Because of the similarities between their descriptions, some have linked the tales of Chernobyl’s black bird to Mothman, a famous half-man, half-monster of lore.
Sadly, the best source of information for this lore would be the workers that may or may not have witnessed it. Without their testimony, we may never know the full truth of what happened at Chernobyl. But its impact lives on — as a haunting coda to an already complex and tragic story.
To see more about the famed creature of the Chernobyl disaster, check out this video below!
“Do the right thing and what’s required by law. Move over so that these first responders can go home safely to their families,” Waupaca Sheriff Timothy Wilz stated
“Every day, if you go out there with the right mindset, you’ll be helping somebody,” retired Syracuse Police Chief Joseph Cecile said “Not every job is like that.”
Here’s a hypothetical for you: You’re given the opportunity to somehow stand before a black hole in space and find out where it might lead. Would you take the leap? And if you did manage to work up your courage, what exactly would happen when you entered that giant void in the universe where even light can’t escape?
Professor Richard Massey of Durham University notes that as much as we do know about the cosmos, we don’t exactly have all of the data when it comes to black holes. So where would you go if you fell into a black hole? Massey notes:
“Who knows? Falling through an event horizon is literally passing beyond the veil — once someone falls past it, nobody could ever send a message back. They’d be ripped to pieces by the enormous gravity, so I doubt anyone falling through would get anywhere.”
Ripped to pieces? That’s not exactly what anyone wants to hear. But it does fit into the facts we have regarding the mystery of black holes.
Back to Einstein
Most physicists agree that Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity predicted black holes because they link space-time with gravity. That has direct implications for the death of stars, according to Live Science:
“It has been known that black holes result from the death of a massive star leaving behind a small, dense remnant core. Assuming this core has more than roughly three-times the mass of the sun, gravity would overwhelm to such a degree that it would fall in on itself into a single point, or singularity, understood to be the black hole’s infinitely dense core.”
So what does a zero gravity force such as found in a black hole mean for the human body? Nothing good, that’s for sure, Professor Massey says:
“According to Massey, tidal forces would reduce your body into strands of atoms (or ‘spaghettification’, as it is also known) and the object would eventually end up crushed at the singularity. The idea that you could pop out somewhere — perhaps at the other side — seems utterly fantastical.”
So much for traveling at unheard of speed across the universe via a black hole. Back to the drawing board.
Wormhole Anyone?
Let’s abandon our hopes of using a black hole for any productive purpose and focus instead on a wormhole. Would that work?
Some in the scientific community have suggested that black holes could actually be wormholes to other galaxies, and Einstein himself explored the possibility:
“Einstein teamed up with Nathan Rosen to theorise bridges that connect two different points in space-time in 1935. But it gained some fresh ground in the 1980s when physicist Kip Thorne — one of the world’s leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity — raised a discussion about whether objects could physically travel through them.”
“We see no objects in our universe that could become wormholes as they age.”
Black hole/White hole
Maybe black holes lead to white holes. That’s a theory that gained traction in the 1960s when Russian cosmologist Igor Novikov first mentioned it. Here’s how that works:
“Novikov proposed that a black hole links to a white hole that exists in the past. Unlike a black hole, a white hole will allow light and matter to leave, but light and matter will not be able to enter.”
But there are problems with this idea, too. We know that black holes die, but we aren’t sure if they become white holes or if white holes are merely the opposite of a black one.
Going Nowhere Fast
All of this speculation leads us back to where we began in many ways: Black holes don’t lead anywhere, and even if they did, you would never live to see the other side.
Physicists Ahmed Almheiri, Donald Marolf, Joseph Polchinski, and James Sully expanded on work done by Stephen Hawking and came up with a compelling idea:
“They worked on a theory that became known as the AMPS firewall, or the black hole firewall hypothesis. By their calculations, quantum mechanics could feasibly turn the event horizon into a giant wall of fire and anything coming into contact would burn in an instant. In that sense, black holes lead nowhere because nothing could ever get inside. “
But that theory directly violates the general theory of relativity.
There’s really no answer to the question of where you go if you do fall into a black hole, and the black holes in the universe have refused to yield a response, so we’ll just have to keep looking, exploring, and theorizing.
The Milky Way’s black hole is the subject of this video:
The Norse Berserkers were legendary ferocious Viking warriors dating back to ninth-century Scandinavia that seemed immuned to harm in battle. They entered a trance-like state of blood-thirsty rage said to give them increased and unmatched skills in battle.
“… a demoniacal frenzy suddenly took him; he furiously bit and devoured the edges of his shield; he kept gulping down fiery coals; he snatched live embers in his mouth and let them pass down into his entrails; he rushed through the perils of crackling fires; and at last, when he had raved through every sort of madness, he turned his sword with raging hand against the hearts of six of his champions. It is doubtful whether this madness came from thirst for battle or natural ferocity.”
Origins of the Berserkers
The word “berserk” means “out of control; wild or frenzied.” The word may have come from the Norse word for bear, “bjorn” or “berr,” meaning “without armor.”
On the other hand, Ranker notes that the word “berserker” derives from the Old Norse “serkr,” meaning “coat” or “shirt,” and “ber,” the Norse word for “bear.”
The Berserkers were said to go into battle naked, apart from bear or wolfskins and horned headgear. According to the Norse myths, they howled like wild animals as they left a wake of bloody carnage behind them. If they were injured, they would keep fighting, seemingly unaffected. But how is this humanly possible?
See the Berserkers in action from the History Channel below:
Murderous mushrooms
One popular theory to explain this is the use of a beautiful but toxic psychoactive mushroom, Amanita muscaria. The iconic and deadly red mushrooms with white spots are woodland toadstools commonly called Fly agaric or amanita.
The use of these dangerous mushrooms by Siberian shamans is known and if carefully treated the effects are said to induce a state of hallucination, euphoria, flushed red skin, and muscular twitches. These symptoms match closely with symptoms describing the Berserkers.
An elderly shaman, Tatiana Urkachan of the Tungus tribe, discussed the use of the mushrooms below, dressed like an Amanita mushroom no less. She reportedly insisted that she would never take the mushrooms herself because “she was too powerful a shaman to need it.” Urkachan admits the mushroom can quite easily kill you.
Getting into the weeds
Now, Karsten Fatur from the University of Ljubljana has offered another possibility that he believes is more likely, the use of a plant called henbane. Fatur’s doctoral work is based on the examination of the use of hallucinogenic plants in Slovenija.
In the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, Fatur suggests that henbane, Hyoscyamus niger, was probably used by Viking berserkers. The effects of taking the plant match the symptoms of Viking berserkers more closely than mushrooms. Plus, henbit is a more common plant in Scandinavia. Keep in mind, this plant is also toxic and dangerous. (Read: Do not try this at home!!)
“According to historical accounts, the condition of these rages began with shivering, teeth chattering and a general chill. Then, face swelling and reddening, followed by an intense rage during which the beserkers could not tell friend from foe. When the rage subsided, the warriors were left weak and feeble, sometimes for several days at a time.
Henbane can cause feelings of delirium, inhibition loss and manic episodes—hence, the excess so often described in accounts of beserkers. It can also trigger visual disturbances, hallucinations, drowsiness and red skin, as well as dull pain—which would explain the apparent invulnerability of the warriors.”
Of course, the use of henbit is still just another guess, though a well-educated one. The traditional explanation for berserker’s power is based on self-provoked hysteria through intense rituals.
“Like all traditional members of shamanic secret societies, berserkers acquired their power through ritualistic practice. These practices included spending periods in extreme isolation, fasting, exposure to extreme heat and cold, and engaging in group weapon dances prior to battle. In the wilderness, berserkers lived like their totem animal, adopting its mannerisms and habits, sustaining themselves by hunting and raiding settlements.
So, yeah, they just ran off into the woods and lived like f*cking bears and wolves because they were goddamn Viking berserkers.”
As you can see, the use of psychoactive weeds alone doesn’t seem to be adequate in describing the Berserkers. So complete was their transformation that they were said to shapeshift into animals, or so say the legends. A group of the warriors called a berserkgang was said to change form collectively, a fearsome force that nobody would want to run into. In fact, the berserkers were eventually outlawed in their own homeland.
Can any plant be responsible for such superhuman carnage? Probably not, but could henbit have been part of the berserk recipe, combined with rituals, plenty of alcohol, an altered mental state, and a touch of insanity?
Explore the story of the berserkers from Mythology and Fiction Explained:
After a traffic stop near Flagstaff, the Cococino County Sheriff’s Office performed a vehicle search; the agency’s K-9 unit uncovered more than 17.5 pounds of suspected fentanyl
Though they were first discovered in a Scottish cave in 1836 by local schoolchildren, they remain a mystery nearly 200 years later, with various theories, myths, and conspiracy theories growing up around them despite their diminutive size.
“Despite the passage of 181 years, researchers are no closer to ascertaining the creator or the purpose of the coffins, each of which contains a tiny, carefully dressed human figure.
“Some say that it is witchcraft. Others claim it is a symbolic burial of men lost at sea. One of the most intriguing theories is that the coffins were made in a kindly attempt to quiet the wandering souls of 17 people who were murdered for the dissection table by the notorious serial killers Burke and Hare.”
Only eight of the tiny coffins survive to this day, and they are on permanent display at the National Museum of Scotland.
Intricate Little Gems
The Scotsmandescribes the little coffins as containing “a miniature figure of the human form cut out in wood, the faces in particular being pretty well executed. They were dressed from head to foot in cotton clothes, and decently laid out with a mimic representation of all the funeral trappings which usually form the last habiliments of the dead.
“The coffins are about three or four inches in length, regularly shaped, and cut out from a single piece of wood, with the exception of the lids, which are nailed down with wire sprigs or common brass pins. The lid and sides of each are profusely studded with ornaments, formed with small pieces of tin, and inserted in the wood with great care and regularity.”
Arthur’s Seat, where the miniature coffins were first found (Via Wikimedia)
Who Made the Wooden Coffins?
Something made with so much care and attention to detail had to be done by someone with incredible skill, and researchers are of the opinion that they were likely made by someone skilled in the trade of shoe making:
“Further research has determined that the figures were most likely made by the same craftsman and the coffins were made by two different people. In addition, “the materials and tools used – wood, iron embellishments, nails, a sharp, hooked knife – indicate the coffins could have been fashioned by a shoemaker”
Here’s where the mystery comes into play. Why would anyone make such things? They weren’t meant to be toys for children (were they?!) and they serve no real purpose, so why even construct such things in the first place?
To answer the linger question, we have to travel back to when the coffins were created and see what was happening at that time in Scotland.
For one thing, Scotland was becoming a center of great medical expertise, and its medical schools were training doctors, which led to a huge increase in enrollment.
Those studying anatomy needed bodies to dissect and examine, and that led to a dramatic increase in grave robbing:
“Among the most devious body snatchers in history were William Burke and William Hare, both Irish immigrants, as well as the famous Edinburgh anatomist and scholar Dr. Robert Knox. As a once-popular children’s rhyme retells, “Up the close and doun the stair/ But and ben wi’ Burke and Hare. Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief/ Knox the boy that buys the beef.”
Portraits of William Burke, William Hare, and Dr. Robert Knox (Public Domain)
But even the graveyards failed to provide enough bodies, and with authorities on close watch to make sure more graves weren’t robbed, Burke and Hare reportedly began dispatching victims via murder so they could continue to make bank by providing fresh bodies to local medical schools:
“And so began a vicious killing spree that lasted 10 months, during which Burke and Hare dispatched at least 16 victims [12 of whom were female] and earned around £150 (roughly £12,000 now – no mean sum).”
Some say the coffins have nothing to do with Burke, Hare, and serial killings. Instead, they maintain, they were created to commemorate those who had been killed in the Radical War of 1820:
“Author and amateur historian Jeff Nisbet believes the miniature coffins were created to keep the ‘flames of rebellion lit’ following the Radical war of 1820. He suggests the coffins were meant to serve as a memorial honoring the Radicals who were killed.”
No matter what theory you subscribe to, there remains no concrete explanation for the creation of these small coffins, and in some ways that makes them even more fascinating than they otherwise would have been.
