Eerie Skull-Shaped ‘Halloween Death Asteroid’ Will Return To Earth Next Year

A skull-shaped asteroid that whizzed past Earth around the night of Halloween 2015 will fly by our planet again, this time in November 2018. Back in mid-October 2015, a group of astronomers using the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii discovered a weird asteroid that had an uncanny resemblance to a human skull when seen in the right lighting. The overall shape and features -- 'eyes' and 'nose' -- of the object looked a lot similar to that of a real human skull. Things got even creepier when a few weeks later around Halloween night, the spooky space object, measuring about 2250-2300ft in size, made its closest approach, zipping past Earth at a distance of about 486,000 km or about 1.3 times the distance to the moon. Now, the same asteroid, officially dubbed 2015 TB145, is set to make a comeback. The object, according to a report in Phys.org, is currently 3.7AU away and will zip past Earth sometime in November 2018. This time, however, it will make a much farther approach, estimated to be 105 times the distance between Earth and Moon.

During Halloween asteroid's last flyby, astronomers from NASA and different parts of the world used different telescopes to capture its images and study its characteristics. Calling it an Apollo-type near-Earth asteroid, Astrophysicist Pablo Santos-Sanz from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA-CSIC) revealed the techniques they used to capture the object. "On the one hand, we used optical telescopes from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Granada, the Calar Alto Observatory in Almería and the La Hita Observatory in Toledo; and on the other, we analysed it in the mid-infrared using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) VISIR instrument at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Cerro Paranal, Chile." Their observations revealed that the asteroid carries shape of a slightly flattened ellipsoid and "is very dark, only slightly more reflective than charcoal". The return of the weird space object in 2018 has given Santos-Sanz and other astronomers another opportunity to study and discern its characters. "Although this approach shall not be so favourable, we will be able to obtain new data which could help improve our knowledge of this mass and other similar masses that come close to our planet," the researcher says. After this, the skull-shaped asteroid will appear in 2088, zooming past Earth by 20 lunar distances.

Another Human Foot Washes Ashore In Canada. That Makes 13

The exceptionally high tides this time of the year off British Columbia can turn the rocky western coast of Vancouver Island into a graveyard. Bones from gray whales, sea lions and killer whales wash ashore, piling on the beach along fallen evergreens. But on Thursday morning, Taz, a 6-year-old Rottweiler, sensed something different about a bone tangled in a bed of kelp. Taz darted away from her owner, Mike Johns, to inspect it, sniffing a piece that jutted out on a beach in the hamlet of Jordan River. Her instincts were right. Mr. Johns followed behind her and pushed away the kelp, revealing his dog’s find: a tibia and fibula attached to a left human foot with a white ankle sock in a black running shoe. In any other part of the world, a sneaker with a human foot washing ashore might be a terrifying discovery, enough to frighten residents and stir fears of a gruesome murder or a serial killer on the loose. But not in British Columbia, where these discoveries have become so common that they are tracked. It was the 13th foot to wash ashore since 2007. “It’s just a freak thing that it happened to be here,” said Mr. Johns, 56, who lives in Jordan River, a surfer’s village about 70 miles southwest of Vancouver, Canada. Mr. Johns said he called the police and then used a stick to pick up what remained of the leg, carried it back to his property and locked it in his greenhouse. He worried that if it remained on the beach, it would have washed back into the ocean or attracted the bear hanging around town or an eagle from the nearby nest. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police retrieved the remains on Friday, the authorities said, and they are being inspected by the Coroners Service of British Columbia.

“We’ll try to get a DNA sample,” said Andy Watson, a spokesman for the service. During winter months, British Columbia experiences what are known as “king tides,” unusually high tides that can cause coastal flooding. The tides, along with strong currents and the fact that shoes are buoyant, mean that the remains could belong to someone as far north as Alaska or as far south as Oregon, Mr. Watson said. “Our search won’t stay in Canada,” he said. Mr. Watson said it was too soon to determine how the person died. Since the first severed foot was discovered in August 2007, the cases have caught the attention and imagination of Canadians across the country. By July 2008, five feet had been retrieved in the Strait of Georgia, part of the Pacific Ocean between Vancouver and Washington State. The 12th foot was discovered in February 2016, a right foot in a black and blue New Balance sneaker that was found about 20 miles west of last Thursday’s discovery. (One foot discovered in 2008 turned out to be a hoax.) At first, people’s theories for how the feet came to their final resting spot ran from the logical to the hysterical. Maybe they died in a plane crash or fell overboard, some surmised, or they were dumped in the ocean by a serial killer or human traffickers. But in reality, the explanations were far less sinister. The authorities have identified eight of the 12 feet as belonging to six people, and none died by foul play. Investigators determined that the six people identified so far died in accidents or committed suicide, Mr. Watson said. Joshua Constandinou, who owns the Cold Shoulder Cafe in Jordan River, about a half-mile from the site of the foot, said residents were not rattled by the discovery. “At the beginning, it seemed more strange, but now it happens so many times,” Mr. Constandinou said. He said that people understood that science could explain the mysteries. “It makes sense to me that if a body is in the ocean and decomposes, you end up with a shoe that floats and an ankle where it would disconnect from the tibia and fibula,” Mr. Constandinou said. “That is what they are finding on the beaches.”

3 Things The Devil Will Do To Try And Spoil Your Christmas

Christmas is a time for us to remember what God has done by sending His one and only begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to save us. That said, the enemy will always try to ruin this time of remembrance and thanksgiving unto God. But how will the enemy do it? How will he spoil your Christmas celebrations? Here are a few ways how.

1) By directing the focus towards something else

The enemy has been diverting people's attention away from Jesus on the very holiday He ought to be remembered. The enemy has been at this for many years making Christmas more and more about family and gifts and less and less about Jesus. And yet many of us fail to see it. At times, we are distracted by wrong beliefs such as Santa Claus. At times we are distracted by the thought of great (yes, expensive) holiday vacations. At times we are distracted by the Christmas shopping rush, so much so that we end up stressed and with our focus taken away from Jesus.

2) By causing all sorts of unnecessary pressure and trouble

The enemy also loves to put heavy and unnecessary burdens on our shoulders, and Christmas time is no exception. Where I'm from, for example, people tend to prepare great feasts every Christmas. And so, when people aren't doing well in the area of finances, the Christmas season becomes a burden, not a joy to celebrate anymore. Some will even borrow money just to prepare something great to eat, which then results in another problem. Have you ever experienced the pressure of preparing the best Christmas party at home on a tight budget? Have you ever felt the pressure of making sure the kids have gifts and the relatives are pleased? If you have, then you know what I'm talking about. These things are all important to some extent, but remember this: God wants you first and foremost to rejoice in the birth of His Son this Christmas and there are lots of ways this can be done without spending a lot or anything at all, for example by going to free carol concerts and Christmas Day church services, or sitting down to read the Nativity story together. There's no shame in asking other guests to chip in with the cost of the Christmas Day dinner - maybe by having a potluck dinner and asking everyone to bring something, for example - or giving inexpensive gifts to the grown-ups in the family so that the kids get something decent. Satan is smart when it comes to getting us all stressed out over things that don't matter half as much as we think they do.

3) By causing disappointment

Lastly, Christmas is a time wherein we should remember that the Lord Jesus Christ came to earth, taking the form of a servant who was born in a lowly place away from public applause. It's supposed to be a time when we remember just how much God loved us. The enemy, however, will want to distract us from the simplicity of Christmas by making us hope for many things we really don't need. Some, especially children, expect to receive Christmas gifts from family and friends. Some workers hope to receive a Christmas bonus. All of us long to have a "merry" Christmas. But we don't always get what we hoped for and end up disappointed. Friends, the enemy will do all that he can to distract us from seeing Christ this Christmas. Let us not allow him to do that by simply focusing on the real reason why there's Christmas in the first place: God. When we have a real encounter with Jesus at Christmas, everything else will fade in comparison.