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THE AQUIZIAM BLOG 2008

Over the past year we've received a fair number of e-mails asking us to provide more information and insights into the creation, development and progress of the Aquiziam web site.  This blog is an attempt to satisfy these requests.

Aquiziam.com derives its name from “A Quiz I Am” and the team has made every effort to make it so by including quizzes, mystery, strategy, psychology, behavior, body language and mind art in the content.

Here we will also share our own personal views regarding some of the content we’ve researched and created.  We will also look at some of our current work and future plans.

The Aquiziam Blog - The story and people behind the web site

18 SEPTEMBER 2008 - THE TAOS HUM MYSTERY

Completed and uploaded the page on the Taos Hum Mystery. Compared to the Dyatlov Pass Accident it was weak stuff. The general consensus was that there are much more interesting mysteries to be recorded.

11 SEPTEMBER 2008 - THE DYATLOV PASS ACCIDENT

We've just uploaded the Dyatlov Pass Accident mystery. What an experience it has been trying to untangle this story. We can honestly say that for the couple of weeks that we've been working on this it has truly captured our interest and imagination. It's a pity that so much of the original material was in Russian. Translating the texts was a painfully slow process even with the help of electronic converters. Perhaps the most suprising aspect of this research was the empathy that we felt for the Russian skiers. It must have been a terrible way to die.

The reason for this web site has always been to bring subjects that interest us to the attention of other people. We hope that in certain sections we provide useful information - even advice. However, with regard to the mysteries, we've never set out to try and solve them but this case is different. This is a mystery that deserves to be solved!

9 SEPTEMBER 2008 - THE POWER OF FORUMS / BODY LANGUAGE

A routine check of our visitor statistics showed a sudden increase in visitors - a 500% increase to be exact. It appears that someone had posted an entry on the forum about the rude gestures pages and for five days we had a tremendous flood of interest. This is the third time that this has happened and was by far the largest. We were pleased to see that after visiting the rude gestures page they did explore the rest of the site.

Overall the body language section of the Aquiziam web site still remains the most popular and generates over 50% of the visits on its own. So far more than 100,000 people have viewed this pages and the figure is climbing every month. We've had letters from places as far away from each other as Iceland and the Philippines asking us to keep building this part of the site. We pleased to say that this is very much our plan. In particular, we intend to do some pages specifically on "male body language" very soon.

17 JULY 16 AUGUST 2008 - GHOSTS IN ENGLAND & THE TAR TUNNEL (Shropshire / England)

Having completed the top 100 mysteries page, we decided that the first we'd look at would be Ghosts. We'd been planning to visit the UK and travelled there in the last week of July 2008. Armed with a new Nikon P5100 we decided to spend some time hunting for apparitions and other such spectral phenomena. We didn't think for one minute that we'd actually capture anything on film. As it turns out the camera was not only great for taking landscapes and general photo's it seemed to be able to pick up something else.

The picture on the right was taken in Ironbridge in the county of Shropshire. Situated in part of the Ironbridge Gorge is the Tar Tunnel.  It was originally constructed to make the transport of iron and coke to and from the furnaces of Blists Hill easier.  However, during its construction natural tar wells were discovered deep under the hills and its purpose changed.  It is now a little known tourist attraction.  Shortly after the tar wells the tunnel is barred as it is considered unsafe beyond that point.  It is here that a series of photographs were taken that show an unusual sequence of events.  In the first image an orb appears very faintly against the roof of the tunnel.  In the second image a bright wraith appears and in the third image the orb has clearly moved past the camera.  By coincidence a face appears in the brickwork of tunnel.  What’s the explanation? Well, we don’t have one.

We didn't notice the "wraith" when taking the pictures nor did we see the shadow figure in the study of the Jackfield tile works but you can see them by visiting the Ghosts page.

We've included a picture of the new Nikon. (Right) Notice the unusual lens.

15 JULY 2008 - THE TOP 100 MYSTERIES (Worcestershire / England))

For the past couple of months we've been trying to understand what mysteries most fascinate people and why. To do this we compiled a list of 280 mysteries from every source that we could find and then using an Excel spreadsheet we databased them. We then used a combination of internet tools to identify which areas of interest we most searched for across Google, Altavista and several other search engines. We also used Google's Beta engine to calculate not only the percentage of interest from a search point of view but the number of websites that in some way related to the subject. The result was that we could then assign a score to each subject and rank the mysteries in descending order.

8 JUNE 2008 - A HIDDEN SECRET HEART (London / England)

Serendipity - or in other words a "favorable and pleasant coincidence" occurred on the 8th of June 2008. One of the team was staying in the Jumeirah Carlton Towers in London and happened to notice the railings of a private park opposite the hotel (Cadogan Gardens / Place). There - clear as day - was a secret heart made of wrought iron. We'd just finished creating the Secret Heart Page and associate symbols page so the discovery was a strange coincidence. Naturally it was photographed and there were several Londoners that watched as we did so. Clearly they were surprised that someone should take such an interest in an old park fence. What was even more interesting was that the Gardens contained a striking erotic statue (click here to see the statue) that ties in with the true meaning of the Secret heart symbol. If anyone has more information about Cadogan Place, the statue, its history or any other useful fact then please contact us. We'd particularly like to know when the "Gardens" were established and how old is the fence.

18 - 22 APRIL 2008 - THE INCREDIBLE TRIP TO THE LOST CITY OF PETRA (Petra / Jordan)

This was the perhaps the most incredible trip that we've ever done. We flew into the Queen Alia International Airport and caught a taxi to Amman. (About thirty minutes). We stayed at the grand Hyatt which is a fantastic hotel with good security and very friendly management. The journey to Petra took about three hours and was for the most part wide dusty landscapes until we reached hte rift hills and mountains. On reaching Petra we headed in as fast-and-as-far as possible. Until you've been there it is impossible to appreciate the size of this place. All-in- all the tombs and the valley probably cover 25 - 50 square kilometres. When you see Petra you realise that the mystery of the Nabataens is genuinely far from explained and you are walking amongst the evidence of their existance. We were lucky to meet up with a an American woman who had visited the region mny times and thanks to Aspen's guidance we saw far more than we normally would have. Take some advice - you can't see Petra in one day. We did our best and the photographs have turned out well but next time we'll spend longer and we are definately getting some better camera equipment.