This week’s poll results got a little more interest (or people re-voting…no no no) than before. Again the question asked was:
“What do you believe in the most?”
Mermaids got 3 votes
Big Foot got 3 votes
The City of Atlantis got 10 votes
Menehune got 7 votes
The Loch Ness Monster got 3 votes
UFO’s got 6 votes
My vote was for Menehune. In Hawaiian mythology, the Menehune [pronounced meh-neh-HOO-neh] are said to be a people, sometimes described as dwarfs in size, who live in the deep forests and hidden valleys of the Hawaiian Islands, far from the eyes of normal humans. Their favorite food is the maiʻa (banana), but they also like fish.
The Menehune were said to be superb craftspeople. Legends say that the Menehune built temples (heiau), fishponds, roads, canoes, and houses. They are said to have lived in Hawaiʻi before settlers arrived from Polynesia many centuries ago.
In Beckwith's Hawaiian Mythology, there are references to several other forest dwelling races: the Nawao, who were large-sized wild hunters descended from Lua-nuʻu, the mu people, and the wa people.
Some early scholars theorized that there was a first settlement of Hawaiʻi, by settlers from the Marquesas Islands, and a second, from Tahiti. The Tahitian settlers oppressed the "commoners", the manahune in the Tahitian language, who fled to the mountains and were called Menahune. Proponents of this theory point to an 1820 census of Kauaʻi by Kaumualiʻi, the ruling Aliʻi Aimoku of the island, which listed 65 people as menehune. (Thanks Wikipedia for this information).
The City of Atlantis received the most votes. Those that I talked to about this said they were inclined to vote for it because they feel there is historical evidence that this city did exist. This is what Wikipedia has to say about all of this…Atlantis (in Greek, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, "island of Atlas") is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC.
In Plato's account, Atlantis was a naval power lying "in front of the Pillars of Hercules" that conquered many parts of Western Europe and Africa 9,000 years before the time of Solon, or approximately 9600 BC. After a failed attempt to invade Athens, Atlantis sank into the ocean "in a single day and night of misfortune".
Scholars dispute whether and how much Plato's story or account was inspired by older traditions. Some scholars argue Plato drew upon memories of past events such as the Thera eruption or the Trojan War, while others insist that he took inspiration from contemporary events like the destruction of Helike in 373 BC or the failed Athenian invasion of Sicily in 415–413 BC.
The possible existence of a genuine Atlantis was discussed throughout classical antiquity, but it was usually rejected and occasionally parodied by later authors. As Alan Cameron states: "It is only in modern times that people have taken the Atlantis story seriously; no one did so in antiquity". The Timaeus remained known in a Latin rendition by Calcidius through the Middle Ages, and the allegorical aspect of Atlantis was taken up by Humanists in utopian works of several Renaissance writers, like Francis Bacon's "New Atlantis". Atlantis inspires today's literature, from science fiction to comic books to films. Its name has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations.
UFO’s were the next in line and Wikipedia thinks that an unidentified flying object (usually abbreviated to UFO or U.F.O.) is any unusual apparent object in the sky whose cause cannot be identified by the observer, or (in a narrower definition) by investigators; though in popular usage it more loosely means alien spacecraft, being one explanation (among several) offered for such sightings. Though UFO sightings have occurred throughout history, modern interest in them dates from World War II, since when governments have investigated UFO reports, often from a military perspective, and UFO researchers have investigated, written about and created organizations devoted to the subject. One such investigation, The UK's Project Condign report, notes that Russian, Former Soviet Republics, and Chinese authorities have made a co-ordinated effort to understand the UFO topic and that State military organizations, particularly in Russia, have done "considerably more work (than is evident from open sources)" on military applications which have stemmed from their UFO research.
Studies have established that the majority of UFOs are observations of some real but conventional object—most commonly aircraft, balloons, noctilucent clouds, nacreous clouds, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets – that have been misidentified by the observer as anomalies, while a small percentage of reported UFOs are hoaxes. However, after excluding these incorrect reports, between 5% and 20% of the total remain unexplained, and so can be classified as unidentified in the strictest sense. Many such reports have been made by trained observers such as pilots, police and the military; some involve radar traces, so not all reports are visual. Proponents of an extraterrestrial hypothesis believe that these unidentified reports are of alien spacecraft, though various other hypotheses have been proposed.
While UFOs have been the subject of extensive investigation by various governments, and some scientists support the extraterrestrial hypothesis, few scientific papers about UFOs have been published in peer-reviewed journals. There has been some debate in the scientific community about whether any scientific investigation into UFO sightings is warranted.
Mermaids, Big Foot and The Loch Ness Monster all only got 3 votes so if you want more info on them you’ll have to visit WIKIPEDIA yourself. Thanks for voting and I look forward to your answers on this week poll about movie sequels.
