Free Republic

Mexico’s president posted a photo on his social media accounts Saturday showing what he said appeared to be a mythological woodland spirit similar to an elf. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not seem to be joking when he posted the photo of an “Aluxe,” a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore. López Obrador wrote the photo “was taken three days ago by an engineer, it appears to be an aluxe,” adding “everything is mystical.”

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not seem to be joking when he posted the photo of an “Aluxe,” a mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore. López Obrador wrote the photo “was taken three days ago by an engineer, it appears to be an aluxe,” adding “everything is mystical.” The nighttime photo shows a tree with a branch forming what looks like a halo of hair, and what may be stars forming the figure’s eyes. López Obrador has long expressed reverence for indigenous cultures and beliefs. Engineers and workers are in the Yucatan peninsula, constructing a tourist train that is...

The ministry, which did not specify which flights had been threatened, added that Syrian air defenses had destroyed 14 of 16 Israeli missiles launched by six F-16 jets against unspecified targets near Damascus on Tuesday. “Provocative acts by the Israeli Air Force endangered two passenger jets when six of their F-16s carried out airstrikes on Syria from Lebanese airspac,” the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement carried by the Russia Today news outlet.

Experts probing the discovery of 13 hand prints in the eerie Egyptian Cave of Beasts say the 8000-year-old stencils did not belong to humans Anthropologists probing the discovery of tiny 8000-year-old hand prints in an Egyptian cave say they were not made by human hands. Explorers stumbled across the tiny hand imprints in a Saharan cave after unearthing more than 5000 images carved into the stone in Egypt's southwest border with Libya 14 years ago. But a study of the 13 tiny hand prints show that not only are they not human - but that they are believed to belong...

August 23, 2014 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - In 1200 A.D., a Swedish man named Frederik Ugarph found a hard wood statue only about six inches (15 cm) high of a little person wearing a conical hat in what is now Trondheim, Norway. The statue was standing on a pedestal engraved with the words: “NISSE Riktig Storrelse.” That means, “Gnome, actual height.” Owned and housed today by the Oliv family in Uppsala, Norway, X-ray tests indicate the wooden statue is more than 2,000 years old, perhaps carved from a tree that is no longer known. Another historic account of a “miniature person”...

Plans to build a new road in Iceland ran into trouble recently when campaigners warned that it would disturb elves living in its path. Construction work had to be stopped while a solution was found. From his desk at the Icelandic highways department in Reykjavik, Petur Matthiasson smiles at me warmly from behind his glasses, but firmly. "Let's get this straight before we start - I do not believe in elves," he says. I raise my eyebrows slightly and incline my head towards his computer screen which is displaying the plans for a new road in a neighbouring town. There...

Steeped with folklore and mythology, Iceland is no stranger to tales of elves roaming the wilderness. Last December, 25 people turned out to protest the construction of a road through a lava field near Reykjavik on the basis that it would pass through a rock believed to be an elven church. One of those participating in the protests was Ragnhildur Jónsdóttir, who from an early age maintained that she had the ability to see and communicate with these mythological sprites. No stranger to the inquisitive glance of strangers, Jónsdóttir remains steadfast in her beliefs and is convinced that everything she...

Almost overnight, the gay community has gained two new icons: Vincent Autin and Bruno Boileau, the Frenchmen who married in the southern city of Montpellier on Wednesday, in the centre of a political firestorm. From one point of view, the whole thing was rather quotidian. The grooms wore dark suits and ties, and were married in Montpellier city hall. The ceremony was conducted by the Socialist mayor Helene Mandroux, and the music included songs by Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. If you took away the heavy security presence and the frenzied media attention (the wedding was broadcast live on...

MONTREAL — A man charged with uttering death threats on Facebook armed himself with high-powered weapons because he feared he was being stalked by elves, a Montreal court was told Wednesday. Quebec provincial police told David Abitbol's bail hearing that he told a friend on the Internet that his .12-gauge shotgun was just what he needed to kill the mythical creatures. A disturbing portrait emerged of the 28-year-old Abitbol during Wednesday's proceedings in which the Crown reported that an initial evaluation indicated that he was fit to stand trial. "There's nothing at this point to make us doubt his ability...

North Pole—In a stunning revelation, a new CNN poll revealed that elves overwhelmingly support government run healthcare. The results showed that 88% of workers gave the public option a big thumbs up while 10% were opposed to the public option, leaving 2% undecided. The problem, according to the U.T.W. (United Toy Workers), was that benefits had been slashed because of a recessing economy. The U.T. W. feels that Santa has been less than forgiving when it comes to their Constitutional right to healthcare, saying that “he better step up to the plate or a lot of kids are going to...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season likely won't get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers. The U.S. Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks. Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender.

<p>Bess writes: Surely Icelanders don't believe in Elves? It's a matter of earnest debate on the New York Mag where John Moody, who lives in Iceland responds to this Vanity Fair article on the country's financial meltdown. The debate centres on this VF claim that Alcoa, Iceland's largest aluminium company had to "defer to a government expert" in 2004 while scouring a potential site for a smelting plant to "certify that no elves were on or under it." The writer, Michael Lewis reports "It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.”</p>

An article on Iceland's de facto bankruptcy in the April issue of Vanity Fair notes that a "large number of Icelanders" believe in elves or "hidden people." This widespread folklore occasionally disrupts business in the sparsely populated North Atlantic country. Before the aluminum company Alcoa could erect a smelting factory, "it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it." How do you find an elf? With psychic powers. According to a poll conducted in 2007, 54 percent of Icelanders don't deny the existence of elves...

PALOMINAS — Tis the season for giving, and students of Palominas Elementary School have taken that giving spirit to heart. The children have been gathering donations of pet food and supplies for dogs and cats housed in the Bisbee Animal Shelter. Organized by first-grade teacher Hope Geminder, students in her class have been the project’s primary contributors. The first-graders have collected dog and cat food, treats and toys, along with a few horse-related items. “This is the second time I’ve organized a pet food drive,” Geminder said on Wednesday as students loaded the donated items into her car. “Most of...

Smack Will Ferrell as "Buddy the Elf" with a snowball.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13, 2007 – Santa’s USO elves will be checking their list twice this weekend to ensure they’re ready to host about 2,000 troops slated to transit through Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport before catching flights home to their families and loved ones. The elves – actually volunteers from United Service Organizations of Metropolitan Washington – will work through the night Dec. 15 to prepare for a mass holiday exodus to begin at the suburban Maryland airport at 6 the following morning. As some 1,800 soldiers attending advanced individual training at nearby Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., await their flights,...

MANILA, Philippines -- As a trial-court judge, Florentino V. Floro Jr. acknowledged that he regularly sought the counsel of three elves only he could see. The Supreme Court deemed him unfit to serve and fired him last year. Case closed? Not in the Philippines, where vampires are said to prey on unwary travelers and wealthy politicians consult fortune tellers and card readers. Mr. Floro, 54 years old, has become a media celebrity. He is now wielding his new clout to campaign for the return of his job -- and exact vengeance on the Supreme Court. Helping him, he says, are...

ICE Agents Arrest Jolly Fat Man in Red Suit Attempting to Enter the U.S. Illegally. AXcess News) Reno, NV - Based on U.S. Department of Homeland Security rules, a bearded jolly fat man in a red suit going by the alias St. Nick was captured by ICE agents while attempting to enter the United States illegally after DHS profiling matched the description of Mr. Nicholas as a possible terrorist threat. "Mr. Nicholas doesn't possess a recognized passport and therefore the Department views him a possible threat to the United States," a spokesperson for the DHS said. Nicholas, who says he...

Is there an anti-elvian prejudice afoot in the land? According to the DUmmies there is and I can't say I disagree with them. I mean how seriously can you take somebody who looks like a tiny elf? Even Kucinich's former press secretary (William Rivers Pitt) secretly mocked him by sending insider info on the 2004 Kucinich presidential primary campaign to the Kerry campaign in a desperate bid to ingratiate himself with the latter until the Elf discovered the betrayal and fired Pitt. Of course, if an elf cannot be elected president, does that also close the White House doors...