03/12/2008 by admin.

Stargazers have enjoyed the sight of a smiley face in the night sky.  An extremely rare positioning of Venus, Jupiter and a crescent moon provided a smiley face over Asia.  What a wonderful coincidence to have the crescent moon right beneath the two planets just as they appear close together in the night sky.   The next time the 3 will be this close together will be in 2054.

It’s amazing as the Moon, Venus and Jupiter all feature in our story, and the ‘magician’ chose to leave us a emoticon ’smiley face’ in one of his messages.  What’s more, the date of the event is curious too - the 3rd of the 12th - when our story is designed to promote 3 things - Art, Love and Nature - and the role of the 12 sacred stones in helping to reveal the wonder of the survey.  

There’s more magic to this life than we know! LOL!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7ljA9y7QRF8&feature=related

MARCH OF THE INVADER ANTS

A recently discovered ant species, Lasius Neglectus, capable of forming supercolonies has begun to invade Northern Europe, including the UK.  Originating from Asia, a garden infested with them will contain between 10 to 100 times more ants than their European counterparts.  One of the species co-discoverers, Professor Jacobs from the University of Copenhagen, said, “When I first saw them I didn’t imagine it possible that so many ants on the same lawn.”  Perhaps Charles Lamb would have something to say about this given his encounter with ’super ants’ invading his boots just prior to the arrival of Malachi, the messenger.

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q52 Do you believe in miracles?, Q39 Do you believe in magic?, Q20 Have your eyes ever deceived you?, Q27 Do you like gardening?, Q12 Is our Earth enchanted? | No Comments »

04/08/2008 by admin.

Astronomer, Patrick Moore, McFly and Gillian Anderson have signed up to A Message from Earth. It’s an initiative by the social networking site Bebo. On 9 October, they plan to beam 500 messages in a digital capsule to the nearest planet thought able to support life - Gliese 581c.  Bebo users are invited to submit ideas for the messages, which will arrive in 2029.

http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=6864550350

Meanwhile, Grace Bergere, a 12 year-old girl from New York, has miraculously survived a 14 storey fall down a chimney. She plummeted 180ft but emerged largely unscathed after landing in a huge pile of soot.  Firefighters  had expected to find her dead. Grace’s father described her survival from the fall as a miracle.  Curious that the chimney and the soot seem to be an uncanny reminder of the ‘Dark Satanic Mills.’

http://www.myfoxdc.com/myfox/MyFox/pages/sidebar_video.jsp?contentId=7118899&version=1&locale=EN-US

Posted in Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q78 Do you want to be part of the picture?, Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q52 Do you believe in miracles?, Q15 Do you sometimes fear the worst? | No Comments »

29/07/2008 by admin.

In Humberside, England, a young romantic named Robert ploughed a proposal for his sweetheart to marry him. The message read ‘Sarah Marry Me’.  He then flew his surprised girlfriend of 10 years over the field. Sarah was amazed, and shed a few tears. She accepted at once, saying the magic words, ‘I do’. 

The Blakesware Set must be delighted. Our Sarah hopes that one day someone might do something similar for her!

Another celebration - The National Areonautical and Space Administration (NASA) are celebrating 50 years since they were established.  The highlights are many - orbiting the Earth, landing on the Moon and adventures into our solar system.  The most famous quote remains, ‘One step for a man, one giant step for mankind,’ and echoed in The Haymakers Survey.  NASAs motto is ‘For the benefit of all’.  NASA’s Office of Education’s motto is ‘Shaping the Future’. 

We recommend a visit to NASA’s website to witness all they’ve achieved.

 http://www.nasa.gov/50th/home/index.html

We come down-to-Earth with a visit to the West Midlands and a safari park to rejoice at the sight of six rare white lion cubs, which is remarkable since according to African legend white lions are a lucky charm and only come along once every 100 years.   Take a peep at the darling cubs…

Word for word, letter for letter, their names are Star, Haze, Neptune, Ariel, Oberon and Ophelia. Fortunately, none are made of stone, unlike Uncle John Plumer’s lion head statue!

Posted in Q65 Have you ever wished you could fly?, Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q79 Have you ever looked into the shadows?, Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q42 Do you enjoy drawing?, Q41 Do you like surprises?, Q22 Do you love our Earth? FREE CHRISTMAS PRIZE DRAW!, Q25 Do you believe in fairies?, Q29 Could you live without machines?, Q20 Have your eyes ever deceived you? | No Comments »

14/04/2008 by admin.

Research by the National trust shows that global warming is already bringing a huge amount of change to the British coast.  Increased flooding and erosion will force some species away from their habitats - but others may be attracted by the higher temperatures.  Rising sea levels could drown freshwater pools and isolate mud flats and marshes, forcing wading birds and terns out of their homes.  Shingle beaches used by grey seals to raise their pups could be isolated.

World food prices have become so high that hundreds of thousands of people in a large set of countries could starve, warned the head of the International Monetary Fund.  The rising costs of basic crops, such as wheat and and rice, are a global problem, reaching record levels.  Poor harvests and a shift to crops for biofuels are being blamed for the peak.

Meanwhile, NASA has released new stunning images of Phobos - one of Mars’ moons! Readers may recall that Ben speculated on the presence of Mars and its moons on the night Malachi unearthed Lucy’s locket! Creepy? 

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q76 Are you going to take action now to save our world?, Q53 Do you prefer to keep warm?, Q28 Have you ever lived in poverty?, Q18 Do you let your heart rule your head?, Q15 Do you sometimes fear the worst? | No Comments »

06/04/2008 by admin.

Astronomy’s have discovered a solar system with a planetary system much like our own.  They have found two planets that were close matches for Jupiter and Saturn, orbiting a star about half the size of our sun. Dr Dominik from the Royal Astronomical Society says the system is more compact than our own and some 500 light years away. He speculates that its only a matter of time before habitable Earth-like planets are discovered.  Curiously, tin our build up in ‘The Haymakers Survey’to the discovery of Charles Lamb’s journal we speculate about an identical Earth elsewhere in the Universe. Imagine it another you reading these very words somewhere else light years away!

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q23 Do you believe all the laws of physics?, Q.3 Do you have a good imagination? | No Comments »

03/03/2008 by admin.

The first-ever pictures of an avalanche on Mars have been captured by NASA’s orbiting HiRISE camera. Clouds of dust reveal active landslides at the base of a towering slope. “It really surprised me,” HiRISE team member Ingrid Daubar Spitale, of the University of Arizona in Tucson, said in a press release. “It’s great to see something so dynamic on Mars. A lot of what we see there hasn’t changed for millions of years.”  So Mars is still mobile, perhaps that explains why we can see a heart shape in the dust cloud! Try rotating the picture anti-clockwise and look about the centre of the image - there’s the heart on a slight tilt to the right. 

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q59 Do you like surprises?, Q41 Do you like surprises?, Q.3 Do you have a good imagination? | No Comments »

20/02/2008 by admin.

A meteor zipped across the U.S. Pacific Northwest sky early Tuesday morning before exploding, possibly littering eastern Oregon with marble- to basketball-size space rocks.  The meteor was caught on a surveillence camera in North-Western America. This is the dramatic footage…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_7250000/newsid_7255600/7255695.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&asb=1&news=1&bbcws=1 

Eyewitnesses describe the light as really bright - something unreal. An airline pilot has reported seeing the meteor hit the ground in a rural area outside of Seattle at about 6:45 on 19 February. A search has commenced for any fragments, focusing on an area around the ‘Blue Mountains’ or outside the town of Pendletown, Oregon.

People all over the world have different beliefs about meteors and meteorites. One thing they have in common though is a belief that meteors are extraordinary.  In the Philippines, for example, one must tie a knot in a handkerchief before the light is extinguished.  In Chile, one must pick up a stone when sees a meteor.

We’ve also discovered really amazing footage of a meteor that crashed to Earth in the USA in March 2007 - 3 months into our watch. Here:

http://tsr117.hi5.com/friend/video/3484654–12239959–Desert%2BMeteor%2BCaught%2Bon%2BFilm–view-html

A search to try to establish the credibility of the March 07 footage led us to discover that 1 day into the Whittenbury Watch a mysterious space object crashed into a house in New Jersey USA.  It was described as resembling a shiny lump of  ‘fools gold’. Take a look at the article here…

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070105-space-rock.html

Posted in Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q57 Have you ever spied on anyone?, Q.5 Do you believe in fate? | No Comments »

04/02/2008 by admin.

In a scene out of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”, a Malaysian family was startled to return home to find their apartment ransacked and a thief snoozing on the bed.  The burglar, who had also helped himself to food from the kitchen, remained fast asleep under a blanket until police arrived to take him away. Householder V. Sathya said his nine-year-old son discovered the intruder when he entered his bedroom after the family returned from a shopping trip. He shouted and ran out of his room. Even then the burglar did not wake up and carried on sleeping while holding on to one of his wife’s purses.  V. Sayhya said, “I guess my wife’s cookies were just too irresistible for him.” The 29-year-old thief tested positive for drugs and was under investigation for trespassing. 

Meanwhile, in another part of the Universe, a smiley face has been seen. LOL! An amazing life-like face with a giant smile has been found on the Red Planet.

The amazing image was captured by a satellite, thousands of kilometres away.  The latest picture comes after a satellite image last month showed a man-like figure on Mars. 

Posted in Q43 Do you believe in happy endings?, Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q41 Do you like surprises?, Q37 Do you know how to have fun?, Q12 Is our Earth enchanted?, Q.6 Do you believe in fairy tales? | No Comments »

02/02/2008 by admin.

Next week, Across the Universe by the Beatles is to become the first song ever to be beamed directly into space by NASA. The track will be transmitted using the Deep Space Network, to mark the 40th anniversary of the song being recorded.  It will be aimed at the North Star, Polaris - which features in ‘The Haymakers Survey’. The former Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney said the project was an amazing feat.  Fans have been asked to get involved by playing the song at midnight GMT on Monday 4 February, to coincide with the broadcast.  The event will also mark 50 years of NASA.  Ben’s just crazy about The Beatles… He loves this link…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbirjVeI_Pk&feature=related

Posted in Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q40 Can you play a musical instrument? | No Comments »

22/01/2008 by admin.

An image beamed back from Mars by NASAs Explorer Spirit in 2003 is creating a stir of excitement.  It shows what may be a strange humanoid looking figure walking downhill. Sceptics might say it’s just an odd shaped rock formation, but whatever the explanation, it’s certainly intriguing and mysterious. Many stargazers are struggling to believe their eyes.

Posted in Q79 Have you ever looked into the shadows?, Haymakers: Watch Wonders, Q78 Do you want to be part of the picture?, Q70 Do you like to look at the stars?, Q54 Do you enjoy a bit of a mystery?, Q20 Have your eyes ever deceived you? | No Comments »