Erich von Däniken was the Swiss author whose bestselling books about the extraterrestrial origins of ancient civilizations brought him fame among paranormal enthusiasts and scorn from the scientific community.. He has died.
He was 90.
Von Däniken’s representatives announced on his website on Sunday that he had died the previous day in a hospital in central Switzerland.
His daughter Cornelia confirmed the information to Swiss news agency SDA.
Von Däniken rose to prominence in 1968 with the publication of his first book “Chariots of the Gods,” in which he claimed that the Mayans and ancient Egyptians were visited by alien astronauts and instructed in advanced technology that allowed them to build giant pyramids.
May he rest in peace.. and may God grant his soul the ability to know the answers he sought on Earth.
James Cameron’s third sci-fi epic has added $65.6 million internationally and $86 million globally in its fourth weekend of release, bringing its overseas tally to $888 million and global total to $1.23 billion. Although a box office juggernaut, “Fire and Ash” is trailing the first two films, 2009’s “Avatar” and 2022’s “The Way of Water,” at this point in its run.
“Zootopia 2” has remained a box office force since Thanksgiving, with $30.8 million overseas and $40.9 million worldwide in its seventh weekend in theaters..
MORE.. Good jeans..
Lionsgate’s psychological thriller “The Housemaid” is about to surpass $200 million globally. The film has generated $25.5 million from 66 overseas territories, including a No. 1 bow in the United Kingdom with $23.7 million. So far, the R-rated film, adapted from Freida McFadden’s popular book and starring Sydney Sweeney and Amanda Seyfried, has become a breakout hit with $98.3 million internationally and $192.5 million worldwide after four weekends of release.
Bodies are piling up at overwhelmed hospitals in Iran as major protests in the country continue, according to reports. The BBC confirmed that the morgue was overflowing at Poursina Hospital in Rasht city after at least 70 bodies were brought there overnight. Elsewhere, a medic at a Tehran hospital said their staff was in crisis mode after protesters were brought in with “direct shots to the heads” and “to their hearts as well”.
The bloodshed comes as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signalled a coming clampdown, despite US warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with Iran’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God”, a death penalty charge.
The president has been shown potential plans, ranging from possible military strikes to action that doesn’t include the military, according to MS Now and other media outlets, citing U.S. officials. Trump aides are set to brief the president Tuesday on measures, including military, cyber and economic, to follow through on his threats, according to reports.
The federal government’s Boeing E-4B Nightwatch — a military aircraft known, somewhat alarmingly, as the “Doomsday Plane” — touched down at Los Angeles International Airport this week, in what may be the famed aircraft’s first-ever LAX landing.
The plane is equipped to serve as an airborne operations center for the president, the Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the event of a disaster that wipes out command centers on land.
This week the Canadian government announced health screenings and quarantine of up to seven days for those coming back from the country.
And in December, Spain told its citizens to stay away from Cuba due to a “serious epidemic”.
Known just as “the virus” to many, reports suggest one third of the Cuba’s population has been infected – and the British Medical Journal described the “surge” as the country’s most serious crisis in recent decades.
MORE…
In areas like Camagüey and Holguín, cemeteries have reportedly been overwhelmed.
Three months after the disease spread across the island, the Cuban government recognised the crisis as an epidemic.
But the regime still refused to declare a national health emergency.
The disease has been called a type of “combined arbovirus” – where people are infected with multiple viruses at the same time and it becomes difficult to diagnosis.
Jonathan Gerlach allegedly has an Instagram account by the username “deadshitdaddy” with the subtitle “Ledger of the Dead”. On the page he claims he is a private consultant conducting “provenance & forensic documentation of human remains”
The investigation began in November when people reported missing remains from the cemetery. The investigation gained traction when an anonymous tip gave police info. The tipster claimed to have been inside the home and witnessed dead bodies hanging from the ceiling. The tipster also said that Gerlach traveled as far as Chicago to deliver bones to a customer.
Police set up undercover surveillance at Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yeadon and caught Gerlach in the act.
According to court documents, investigators recovered more than 100 human skulls, long bones, and mummified human feet and hands from his basement. Eight corpses, along with body parts, ashes, jewelry and clothing believed to have been taken from graves, were found inside the storage unit.
MORE..
Police say Gerlach targeted mausoleums and underground vaults at the 1855 cemetery. It’s considered the country’s largest abandoned burial ground, according to Friends of Mount Moriah Cemetery, which helps maintain the 160-acre landmark in Yeadon that’s home to an estimated 150,000 grave sites.
Police say the investigation remains active. Authorities are urging anyone with loved ones buried at Mount Moriah Cemetery who has concerns to contact Yeadon Borough Police.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer icon Sarah Michelle Gellar is opening up a bit more about the long-anticipated new chapter in the Buffyverse..
According to Gellar, this project isn’t a reboot, and it isn’t quite a sequel either. It’s Buffy, but something different.
Officially titled Buffy: New Sunnydale, the series will see Gellar, who starred as the Slayer for seven seasons, return in a guest capacity, passing the stake (so to speak) to a new generation. The new Slayer will be played by Ryan Kiera Armstrong, alongside a cast that includes Faly Rakotohavana (Unprisoned, Secret Society of Second Born Royals), Chase Sui Wonders (I Know What You Did Last Summer), Ava Jean (A Week Away, Law & Order: SVU), Sarah Bock (Severance), Daniel di Tomasso (Witches of East End, Major Crimes), and Jack Cutmore-Scott (Oppenheimer, Frasier). Speaking on the Shut Up, Evan podcast where she revealed the official title, Gellar clarified the show’s direction: “It’s not a sequel, it’s not a reboot — it’s a continuation.”
She explained that the series will explore where Buffy is now, what kind of world she lives in today, and how that world exists both with her and without her.
New Sunnydale sounds like it’s interested in legacy, in a very changed world since the show aired..
If done right, this could be exactly what fans have hoped for: not nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake, but a smart evolution of one of television’s heroes .m
But the real question now is will there be a musical.
In a desperate attempt to change the narrative away from Stranger Things posts for the last week, or maybe just as a brief respite from entertainment and movies altogether, we’re going to focus on dreams. That’s fun. Or, in my case, last night’s nightmare.
Every now and then I have a dream this memorable .. a nightmare that sticks with you .. and last night was one of those sleepless nights. It was the 3:00 a.m. witching hour when I woke up. That seems to be the most popular time for a nightmare to abruptly pull you out of your nocturnal decommission.
In this situation, the abrupt nature was a giant inflatable lumberjack.
Let me explain.
In the dream, there was a bluish tint to the atmosphere and fresh-fallen snow covering a giant yard .. presumably my yard. I noticed something underneath the snow, struggling to move. When I went down to investigate, it turned out to be an inflatable lumberjack. How cute. Have fun.
It started innocently, with the lumberjack now freed from the heavy snow on top of it and able to inflate freely. But as dreams tend to go, it didn’t stop there. Literally. It just kept inflating, to the point where it was potentially 30 to 40 feet high, and that’s when it started to frighten me.
So, in the dream, I ran back to the house for safety. When I looked out the window, the lumberjack decided to grab a giant inflatable axe, detach himself from the strings holding him down, and run at the house at full speed.
What a strange concept — a lumberjack, let alone a 40-foot inflatable lumberjack, charging at you at full speed.
It’s weird because it was just a dream, but it’s the kind of dream that stayed with me all day. There could be plenty of reasons why it happened. Maybe it’s stress. Maybe there’s something in my own life coming at me full speed that I need to grasp or grapple with.
Or maybe it was just too much vino at the hotel bar. Either way, I asked AI to make a gritty four-panel comic based on my very detailed description. It didn’t quite capture the full inflatable rendering, the size and ferocity of the lumberjack, but it’s good enough for me.
So I present it for your approval, with the help of our ever-increasing spy device known as AI. Enjoy: The Inflatable Lumberjack Dream, comic-style.
For about seven days now, we’ve been hunting for clues—freezing frames to see what the clock says behind Mr. Clarke, talking amongst ourselves, making videos, sharing memes, and convincing ourselves that the secret ninth episode of Stranger Things was coming today, January 7th.
Even last night on The Tonight Show, the actor who played Vecna did a fake aerobics video that was exactly one minute and seven seconds long. The stars appeared to align. Except… they didn’t.
All of the people who said Conformity Gate was a go are now looking a lot like Papa—confident, mysterious, and ultimately wrong.
And here’s the reality check: though Netflix and creators Matt and Ross Duffer have made no official comment on the theory amid ongoing post–series-finale press interviews, the show’s bios on Netflix’s Instagram, TikTok, and X accounts all clearly state that all episodes are now playing. So that’s a wrap.
Despite the Duffer Brothers remaining silent, all we really have left to look forward to is the January 12th special—and maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get a little Wes Craven–style meta twist with that. But let’s be honest: no hopes that that is real either. Conformity Gate was fun while it lasted.
Listen, official pages are having a little too much fun with Stranger Things. Fans are already going wild over this whole Conformity Gate situation, but here’s the interesting part.. today, we actually tested something, and it does happen.
On Stranger Things’ official TikTok page, when you go to certain videos and type “I believe,” a dice pops up with a number. On another video, when you type “fake ending,” an image appears of the kids from season one hugging. So at this point, are we being gaslit… or is it possible that Conformity Gate is based on something real that’s still coming?
It’s also pretty much known at this point if you go to Netflix and search for fake ending one of the results that comes up and actually the only result that comes up will be Stranger Things season 5.
And then this…
WTF! Acabo de buscar "Stranger Things" en el buscador de google y te sale un dado de D&D. Cuando tirás siempre sale el 1 (Henry) y se da vuelta la pantalla como en el Upside Down. Ojo, creo que elijo creer en la teoría de #conformitygate#StrangerThings5pic.twitter.com/ryyM5CbMMw
…But hear me out for a second and go with this interesting possibility, which probably also won’t happen.
Remember Wes Craven’s New Nightmare? That movie was about the making of A Nightmare on Elm Street, until it slowly turned into something very real, where Freddy actually was real. Now here’s the kicker: there’s a special coming out on January 12th about the making of Stranger Things on Netflix.
What if they pulled a Wes Craven stunt and gave us more than we expected?
Again, this is hypothetical. At this point, it’s basically fan fiction. There’s no indication that some secret finale is dropping in theaters or on Netflix on January 7th. But the Easter eggs keep piling up, fans keep hunting, and people are increasingly convinced they’re seeing something—just like Joyce Byers staring at those Christmas lights back in season one.
