[VIRAL] This Egyptian Statue Caught Moving On Its Own. How?

Expert: Brian Cox is looking into the phenomenon

The Church of Our Lady of Velankanni in Mumbai became a major venue for pilgrims after its statue of Jesus began to drip water, and the church was happy to encourage this stat of affairs. So when pesky old skeptic Sanal Edamaruku revealed that faulty plumbing was causing water to leak onto the Son of God, the protests were none too happy. Although he is a longstanding debunker of religious myths, and a vocal critic of the church (including Mother Teresa), on this occasion things went further. After being charged with blasphemy, and receiving death threats, he sought exile in Europe, where he is trying to persuade governments to put pressure on India to abandon its archaic law.

Early in the morning of 21 September 1995 a worshipper in New Delhi offered milk to a statue of the Hindu deity Ganesha, whereupon the elephant god reportedly snorted it up his trunk. Throughout the morning the milk drinking spread to statues of other gods in temples all over India. Later the same day, the new craze reached Britain and other countries. Indian scientists suggested that capillary action was causing the liquid to rise from proffered spoons before running down the front of the statues.

Reports that a roadside statue of the Virgin Mary had started to move in Ballinspittle, County Cork, triggered off a series of sightings of other moving statues around the country. Sadly on this occasion a Catholic bishop declared this Marian apparition to be an illusion. Nevertheless, around 100,000 people were said to have visited the site of the ‘miracle’. Incidentally, after 15 pints of Guinness, whole churches can sometimes appear to move.

When statues ‘weep’, the chances are that the lachrymose protagonist will be the Virgin Mary. Reports are legion, but only one has been officially sanctioned by the Vatican: Our Lady of Akita, reported in 1973 by Sister Agnes Katsuko Sasagawa (below) in the remote area of Yuzawadai, near Akita. This wooden statue of the Virgin Mary – which also apparently manifested stigmata, as did Sister Agnes – is said to have wept on 101 occasions over the following six years.

This Egyptian mummy is an adult man who was unwrapped long after his mummification. Analysis of a CT scan data shows that the man was around 45 to 50 years old and around 5 feet, 4 inches tall when he died. The body still has the remains of the gold that was applied to his face and hands during the mummification process. His fingernails are dark red, although it is not yet known if this was caused by disease or was cosmetic.

This howler monkey is from the site of Grand Chaco, in Argentina, South America. It has not been radiocarbon dated, but it is likely that the monkey was naturally preserved in the warm, dry environment of the area and prepared for display, with a rhea feather skirt and feather wreath around its head and neck.

This young woman with long, black hair was naturally mummified in the warm desert air, seated in the burial position typical in Chile before 1400 A.D. She was wrapped in fabric after her death, the impression of which is still visible on her chin and cheeks. She has unusual tattoos; an oval with a dot inside on both breasts and beneath the left corner of her mouth. Little is known about the meaning of these mysterious tattoos.

Michael Orlovits and his wife, Veronica, and son Johannes, are part of a group of 18th century mummies discovered in a long, forgotten church crypt in the town of Vac, Hungary, in 1994. Born in 1765, Michael died in 1806 at the age of 41. He worked as a miller, grinding grain into flour and is wearing a replica of the original clothing in which he was buried.

This Peruvian child mummy, known as the "Detmold Child," has been radiocarbon dated to 4504-4457 B.C. -- more than 3,000 years before the birth of King Tut. The child, which was about 10 months old when it died, naturally mummified in the hot, arid desert environment.

The ancient Egyptians used to remove the vital organs of the people they mummified and would place them in airtight canopic jars.

This mummy, known as "Mumab," is only 15 years old but it was done in the ancient Egyptian style by Dr. Bob Brier and Ronn Wade, who used the cadaver of a Baltimore man who died in his seventies of heart failure, and donated his body to science.