Scuttlebutt Pipeline

Welcome to Scuttlebutt Pipeline! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up to receive email notifications of new entries.
Also, don't forget to check out Fifty for the Fall, your chance to win $50 cash - no strings attached!

Horror enthusiasts, now might be the time to rip open those savings accounts, scrounge around in the sofa seats, and pull out all of the secret caches. Bran Castle, which once housed the warload Prince Vlad the Impaler who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula in Romania is being put up on the market by Romania’s former royal family. This piece of history and culture could be yours for a paltry $135 million:

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania’s former royal family put “Dracula’s Castle” in Transylvania up for sale Monday, hoping to secure a buyer who will respect “the property and its history,” a U.S.-based investment company said.

The Bran Castle, perched on a cliff near Brasov in mountainous central Romania, is a top tourist attraction because of its ties to Prince Vlad the Impaler, the warlord whose cruelty inspired Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, “Dracula.”

Legend has it that Vlad, who earned his nickname because of the way he tortured his enemies, spent one night in the 1400s at the castle.

(Full Article)

Now that is what I would call investment property. If you could afford it would you buy Bran Castle? What would you do with it, keep it open for the public or for private rental, maybe even just your own personal use?

It appears that there has been yet another citing of the Loch Ness Monster recently. Only this time someone managed to make a video of it.

EDINBURGH, Scotland - The Loch Ness monster is back — and there’s video.

A man has captured what Nessie watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland’s most mysterious lake.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” said Gordon Holmes, a 55-year-old lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.

Nessie watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.

“I see myself as a skeptical interpreter of what happens in the loch, but I do keep an open mind about these things and there is no doubt this is some of the best footage I have seen,” said Shine, of the Loch Ness 2000 center in Drumnadrochit, on the shores of the lake.

Holmes said whatever it was moved at about 6 mph and kept a fairly straight course.

“My initial thought is it could be a very big eel, they have serpentlike features and they may explain all the sightings in Loch Ness over the years.”

(full story)

What do you think? Is it possible that the Loch Ness monster does exist or is this just another elaborate hoax? Remember the first “real photograph” that was taken of Nessie was later debunked by the children of the man who took the photo. He told them how it was done and later after his death the children leaked it to the press.