Oprah: Lulu Not a Real Person, Accuses Memoirist, West, of Hoax

(above: Prada, Marfa)

Talk show queen Oprah Winfrey spoke up today to denounce celebrated memoirist, Zelda del West, who recently penned an explosive tell-all about a small Walla Walla girl who supposedly endured a horrible kidnapping crisis at the hands of an evil aunt who also happens to be a Wicked Witch.

"This is just another hoax memoir," Oprah announced. "The girl, Lulu, cannot be found, nor any of this story verified. I demand an apology from Zelda del West, if that's even her real name, which is unlikely. She's a fake. Furthermore, I assert that there is no such thing as a Wicked Witch of West Texas, or Walla Walla, or anyplace else, for that matter."

West was reached at her home on a Chupacabra ranch somewhere near a town somewhere in Texas, or somewhere near Texas, or near a state that borders Texas-- depending on how you define "near." Suffice it to say that West is a bit vague about her location.

"I resent the accusation that I made this story up. Lulu is very real and because of the trauma she's endured her mental state is fragile. I have protected her identity out of concerns for her safety. The Wicked Witch of West Texas certainly is real, and Lulu's still in danger, as am I, having revealed her existence to the world. We can't simply go prancing about over at the Marfa Prada store like the Witch isn't watching."

"I've actually spoken to Lulu," insists June Jones, West's editor. "She's just a very frightened little girl, who happens to tell people to shut up a lot."

The controversy shows no signs of letting up.

"Oprah has been mislead by so many phony memoirists," Zelda del West speculated, "she really has no idea what's true and what's false at this point. Plus we all remember that incident with a certain evil wizard not long ago."

Heading to Marfa Prada

Deep in the middle of nowhere, near Marfa, Tx. sits this mysterious Prada outlet, which is never open. However, it's been rumored that the location actually is home to a wormhole, the other end of which is somewhere in Italy, which is how the Wicked Witch of West Texas manages to get her designer outfits from this West Texas location. Who knows? Only the shadow. We're going to be investigating strange goings on at this location. Wish us luck, because who knows what we'll encounter at the Wicked Witch of West Texas's favorite retail outlet. 

Alien Burial in Texas Graveyard--1897

From Wikipedia:
"The Aurora UFO Incident is a UFO incident that reportedly occurred on April 17, 1897 in Aurora, Texas, a small town in the northwest corner of the DFW Metroplex.[1] The incident (similar to the more famous Roswell UFO Incident 50 years later) reportedly resulted in a fatality from the crash; however, unlike Roswell, the government did not allegedly engage in any coverup, and the alien body is reportedly buried in an unmarked grave at the local cemetery."

Greetings From West Texas

West Texas is a scary place sometimes. Lightning, a tornado and aliens and a chupacabra treaten an oil well in this shot captured last night near Ft. Stockton, Texas. Rumor had it the Wicked Witch of West Texas was having a barbeque in the area, followed by a wild shindig. Certainly, the guest list would have made for some interesting conversation.

Get Your Unicorn: Fabulous Mythical Animal Taxidermy Sale

See the Slideshow here.

From the article:

The fictional menagerie of deceased critters also boasts an extended sausage dog, furry fish, mermaid and a bizarre bat-like winged beast with webbed feet.
They formed part of a museum of taxidermy that has closed and now are to go under the hammer.
They were billed in the 19th century as having been brought to the UK by fictional adventurer Professor Copperthwaite.
Some Victorians might even have believed these impossible creatures existed because some, like the Siamese sheep, were real.
Others such as the Jackalope - a nearly extinct antlered species of rabbit "found almost exclusively on the high plains of Wyoming" - were not.
The mermaid was said to have been purchased from a man in Calcutta from a Japanese sailor and the unicorn is labelled "Monoceros unicornis."
And the "cheasant" or "phicken" was said to be a cross between a domestic fowl and ornamental pheasant.

Wow. A "real" jackalope. We all know what's on my Halloween gift list.

Astronomy For Monday: Witch Head Nebula

Intense light streams from Rigel (bright star at right) across 40 light years of space to illuminate the Witch Head Nebula, then reflects another 775 light years to reach us. This nebula is very dim and is just barely above sky glow at a clear dark site. South is up in this image.
Rigel is B8 supergiant star with an absolute visual magnitude 40,000 times that of our Sun. Its surface temperature is 11,000 K.

Word of the Day: Steganography

Above is the last known photo of the Wicked Witch of West Texas. Unfortunately, the photographer was transformed into a naked mole rat just after it was taken. If you see her in your neighborhood, kids, just run away. Don't try anything crazy, okay?

Secret codes and hidden messages are always in fashion around these parts, so with this in mind we embark upon our exploration of steganography. Steganography is a particular way of sending a coded message, of which the acrostic is one example. We posted last week about fun with acrostics. The concept of steganography is simple: it is a message hidden within something else, so it, in effect, hides in plain sight. This is very different from a message sent in cryptographic form. A code that looks like a code makes explicit the fact that it has a hidden message if only one can decode it. The "Voynich Manuscript" is an interesting example of an encrypted text, but since it's never been decoded it may have a more wicked secret. It may just be a random bunch of symbols constructed to make nosey people the world over spend thousands of hours trying to make sense where there is none. If you're trying to think of something vaguely bad to do, making up a hoaxed secret code document isn't the worst idea in the world, but we digress.

Steganography can take many forms. In the digital age a message can be hidden in an image file, for instance. But you don't have to do anything high tech to engage in this form of subterfuge. No, all you have to do is think a bit. As an illustration let's look at a message intercepted by Lulu recently. A message that was on it's way to Cybil. Here's what the message actually said:

Sick
by Goosebury

In the old age wicked was not counted good,
and Goosebury traded wishes wondering.
Then, black borrowed not a blasphemous name.
To merry see more, you sailed soon.
At length did cross an Albatross,
for the sea witch wailed. Knows man nothing? Suspects then nothing.
And the good south wind still blew behind.
Register surprise at happiness the brightened menger makes as thoughtfully Wicked.
Down to a sunless sea.
Twas halloween that day. But we didn't meet.

(½, ½)

Lulu, cleverly, figured out that the "1/2, 1/2" part was a key for deciphering what appears to be a bit of really awful poetry. Bad poetry is a very common form of writing, so the reader could simply ignore this bit of poetic poop, but Lulu is always on the lookout for evil, so she did not dismiss it. What Lulu found when she solved the puzzle this weird message presented can be seen if you click here.

By deciphering the real text within the crappy poem, Lulu learned that Cybil was not just a double agent, but a triple agent, betraying the rest of the family for the Witch and then selling out the Witch for this "Goosebury" fellow. There are other methods of hiding messages stegonographically, as well, and we'll address some of them in the future. For now, try out a stegonographic message with a friend.