Thank You To Our Supporters For A Wonderful 2013

As the sun sets behind the NFI filing cabinets, we would like to take a moment to thank all the people that have supported NFI during our first year of public operation. Your input of advice, time and legal tender has enable us to reach several of our goals and has set us up for a fantastic 2014.

2013 saw the launch of the NFI web site World Of Nomadic Fungi, which immediately jumped into the publication of our first of four eye witness accounts. We also posted information from the Wobblers Encyclopedia of Parasitic Fungi that focused on the natural history of Nomadic Fungus.

A real land mark was our acquisition of documents from the Bureau of Scientific Analysis and Protection pertaining to military testing of parasitic fungus.

And lets not forget the first known video footage of a Nomadic Fungi actually moving of its own accord.

The NFI presented at two public venues this year, the Art Conspiracy and the Art.Science.Gallery. Each enabled us to spread the word about Nomadic Fungi.

TWe also had the release of the NFI logo which may sound like a small thing but believe me, it is so very nice to have NFI letterhead that reflects the professional dedication that we and our supporters feel.

NFI is already hard at work making plans for 2014. You'll read more eye witness accounts, see more publications of documents, as well as the release of the Nomadic Fungi Advisory Chart.

There will be more public events, and if our computer technicians can manage it, the World Of Nomadic Fungi web site will soon have a shop page where you can sign up to become a NFI member. Thank You gifts such as limited edition prints, booklets and buttons will be available as enticing incentives.

Cheers to a great start and a fantastic 2014 to everyone!

Dr. B.F. Smith PhD

Nomadic Fungi Institute Logo Launch

As part of the Nomadic Fungi Institute's mission to inform the community about the spread of the parasitic fungus known as Nomadic Fungi we are very happy to announce the launch of the official NFI logo.

To mark this event the NFI has created a limited edition of artists trading cards. Fifteen of these artists trading cards will be included in the Art/Science Trading Card event at the Art.Science.Gallery in Austin Texas. Another fifteen will be included in the second annual Pagan Potluck event at the Liz Morris estate in Dallas Texas.

The NFI logo will be used on all official NFI letterhead and documents. It will also be incorporated into NFI field surveys as a marker of known Nomadic Fungi activity.

The NFI logo will be posted at Nomadic Fungi contamination sites in order to warn the public that they are entering an area with known levels of Nomadic Fungi spore activity. The NFI logo will use a color code system similar to the one used by the Homeland Security Advisory System in monitoring the threat of terrorist attacks, ie: Yellow- Guarded, Orange- Elevated, Red- High, Purple- Severe.

Documents Point To Military Testing Of Cordyceps Fungus

The Nomadic Fungi Institute has come into possession of documents that were released by the Bureau of Scientific Analysis and Protection (BSAP) through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). These documents cover a time period when secret military testing was being preformed on a genus of parasitic fungus known as Cordyceps. The code name for this project was the Nomadic Fungi Project*.  

The BSAP used the FOIA's exempt information clause to heavily censor these documents with long blackened bars obscuring a majority of the text. Judging from what can be gleamed from the documents much of the photographic documentation has been removed. 

Our preliminary studies indicate that the Nomadic Fungi Project began testing in the late 1950s, focusing on the invasive characteristics of a parasitic fungus known as Cordyceps, and how to optimize its ability to immobilize victims. Apparently it was a fluke that the researchers created a cordyceps that was quite effective at de-mobilizing motorized vehicles. The only drawback was the extended time required by the fungus spores to germinate.

Beginning in 1962, experimentation was being conducted on the spores, focusing on speeding up the germination process. By 1967 a cultivated spore was developed that cut the germination time down from two months to just under one week (5-6 days). 

There were serious concerns voiced at this time concerning the containment of such an aggressive fungus, and what would happen if a containment breach were to occur. Despite these concerns testing and development continued until Febuary 19^th, 1971 when President Nixon suddenly shelved the project and all documents were sealed.

Over the next few months the Nomadic Fungi Institute will be posting more from this cache of documents.

Mr. Rotifer H. Wobbler

*Apparently our Founder Mr. Rotifer H. Wobbler based the name of the Nomadic Fungi Institute on the rumored existence of this secret military testing project. Unfortunately due to his sudden disappearance in 1973 and the fire that destroyed his home, we cannot be certain.

Dramatic Footage Of A Nomadic Fungi In Action

This amazing footage could be the very first documentation of a vehicle being manipulated by a Nomadic Fungus. Unfortunately, due to the way it was delivered to the Nomadic Fungi Institute verification is proving quite difficult.

As far as we can recall, this ground breaking document was slipped into the Nomadic Fungi Institute mail slot about a year and a half ago. It is recorded on a VHS cassette half way through a season four episode of Friends.

The first person in the office that morning must have seen the video cassette laying on the floor, picked it up and placed it next to the coffee maker. For a year and a half it remained there being utilized as the spot for dirty spoons.

The fact that this footage was ever seen is a bit of a miracle. It was during our annual spring cleaning and the video cassette was heading for the recycle bin when someone suggested we might play it as back ground noise.

So, there we were cleaning to the sounds of canned laughter. On screen, Rachel is massaging a bald girl's head and Ross walks into the room, the bald girl gets up and leaves. Ross and Rachel jump into each other's arms and start kissing madly. Then there's the sound of a railroad crossing bell and suddenly it's midnight and you're looking through bushes at an empty parking lot. The sounds of cicadas fill the air, then whirling onto the scene is a yellow Ford Mustang topped with a multi plumed Nomadic Fungi. It spins around a few times and almost runs over the camera as it zooms out of view.

Then Ross and Rachel are back on the screen looking at each other sheepishly. And that's it! That's all the information we have. No descriptive letter, no scrawled note, just a video cassette in a cardboard sleeve with Ross, Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Joey and Chandler smiling up at us as if we were all old friends.

Hail Damaged Car Grows Nomadic Fungus

On June 12th, 2012 baseball sized hail rained down on our house for over 30 minutes. Nothing in the Lakewood area escaped damage. Houses, trees, cars ... simply everything in the neighborhood was pulverized. Here's a few video documents of hail storm: Jeff Mailey,  Robcat2075

Earlier that week, I was riding high because I had just bought a new car.  Well, it was a new car to me. And since I paid cash, I didn't have to pay full auto insurance coverage. I could get by with just the state required liability coverage. That would save me hundreds of dollars! I was bragging to all my friends about how I was beating the system and sticking it to the man. Then the hail storm came.

Just a few pea sized pellets at first. The kind that make you think about maybe moving the car.  I was just pulling my coat out of the closet when the big boys started coming down. The noise was incredible. My wife and I just stood there frozen. That's when the dining room window shattered. Then the skylight above us exploded. We were instantly covered in glass and rain water.

Screaming and yelling, we ran around the house like crazy people.  Afterwards, we nailed planks of wood and sheets of cardboard and blankets over the smashed windows. Sixteen windows in all. I didn't even know we had sixteen windows in the house.

As for my new car, it was reduced to a pile of rubble. Every inch of it was dented. All the windows were gone. Even the seats had big holes in them. I scrounged up a black tarp, threw it over the car and went back into the house.

Over the next few months, all of our energy, time and money went into getting the house repaired. We were both brown bagging it for lunch, and I was taking DART (public transport) to get to work. As the carpenters, glaziers and roofers each completed their tasks, our lives settled back to normal and I finally felt like facing my car.

When I stepped out the back door of our house I was expecting the worse. I wasn't expecting a ten foot tall mushroom! It was growing from the interior of the car, through the front windshield and up into the sky. It had to be at least ten feet tall. There were a half dozen thick tubular branches sprouting from the top, and the whole thing was covered in a golden brown velvet. It smelled like omelets.

I was dumbstruck. I mean this was definitely more than what a normal neighborhood body shop could handle. Who do you call? A body shop, a mechanic, an arborist? I just started calling anybody I could think of. After about 12 or 13 calls I realized I sounded a bit deranged, and that people were starting to hang up on me...

It was a few days later that I stepped out the back door again, and the F***** car was gone! Completely gone. Not even an oil stain on the driveway. The whole area looked like it had been raked, scrubbed and vacuumed clean. I screamed and cussed and kicked over the patio furniture... then I turned around and went back inside.

So, with my car now missing and no funds in the bank for a new one. I am still brown bagging it for lunch and taking DART to work. On the bright side, using public transit gives me more time to read, which is how I came across the Nomadic Fungi Institution. Any chance you guys can help me find my car?

The Wobblers Encyclopedia of Parasitic Fungi

Mr. Rotifer H. Wobbler

The Wobblers Encyclopedia of Parasitic Fungi was compiled by Mr. Rotifer H. Wobbler and published in 1959. It is internationally recognized as the primary resource for information pertaining to parasitic fungi. Unfortunately, Wobblers had a very short run of only 200 copies, thus it was never widely distributed beyond the world of academia. Today, due to its scarcity and value, most copies are kept under lock and key at corporate bio labs or a few select universities.

Mr. Wobbler's interest in unusual botany began as child when he received a Venus Flytrap as a Christmas present from his Uncle Eugene. Under the care of the young Mr. Wobbler, the Venus Flytrap thrived on a steady diet of house flies and the occasional dollop of ground meat.

While attending Laramie Middle School, the young Mr. Wobbler became enthused with entomology. Of particular interest were the very aggressive fire ants found on the school playground. With the use of a magnifying glass, the young Mr. Wobbler spent hours observing their habits. Then one day he saw an ant dangling from a blade of grass just above the mound. This ant appeared to have long horns growing from its back. The next day there were more of these ants. Soon it appeared that most of the colony was dangling from blades of grass, each sprouting horns. By the end of the week, the mound was completely still, surrounded by dangling dead.

Wobblers Encyclopedia of Parasitic Fungi

Completely dumbstruck, the young Mr. Wobbler was determined to discover what had happened to his beloved ant colony. He began a flurry of letter writing, reaching out to any person or institution that had anything to do with entomology. Six months later he received his answer: Cordyceps, a type of fungus that uses a parasitic stratagem to propagate.

This answer opened up a whole new world to the young Mr. Wobbler, a world that quickly became an obsession and the foundation for his life long master achievement, the publication of The Wobblers Encyclopedia of Parasitic Fungi.

A Word From Our Distinguished Director

Dr. B. F. Smith PhD

My first encounter with a Nomadic Fungus was very typical of most first encounters, I simply didn't know what I was looking at. I assumed it was some sort of large plant, perhaps a cactus. It looked very strange growing from the rusted hulk of an old car, but given that I was hopelessly lost in the rock strewn desert of southern New Mexico, I had more pressing issues to contemplate....

It would be another twenty years before I discovered that what I had stumbled across was a Nomadic Fungus, a mutated mushroom from the cordyceps genus. Out of pure amusement I did a little more research, but strangely there wasn't much out there. No scientific papers. No government sanctioned research. No PBS specials.

Most of what I found were small town newspaper clippings about old geezers and hermits who claimed their junk cars were covered in large mushrooms. Inevitably the articles would pose the question, "Were you anally probed?"  Everyone knows aliens not mushrooms do anal probing. This seemed like a deliberate attempt to discredit the interviewees. It was my first glimpse at the massive cover up surrounding the Nomadic Fungi pandemic. 

Midnight Nibblet Volvo 245DL

This scale model of the Midnight Nibblet fungus attached to a 1974 Volvo 245DL is based on photographs sent to the Nomadic Fungi Institute.

Although no cases have yet been officially verified or acknowledged by the U.S. government, rumors of giant fungi growing from automobiles began to circulate in the 1950s.

The original Midnight Nibblet photographs were estimated to have been taken around 1981, but they remained stashed away in a shoebox until May of 2012 when they came to light during the family estate sale.

The Nomadic Fungi Institute recognizes that today's economy is built upon a vast transportation network and that the existence of a parasitic fungus feeding upon automobiles imposes a serious threat to all humanity.

The Nomadic Fungi Institute is dedicated to the research and documentation of the phenomenon known as Nomadic Fungi. It is the goal of the Nomadic Fungi Institute to make all documents, interviews and photographs that pertain to this very serious threat available to the public at large.

For more information please visit www.WorldOfNomadicFungi.com   

T-Bird at the Golf Course

This Eye Witness Account was filed on February 19, 2013 by Mr. Thomas T. Thorn of Springfield Ohio.

  

I took this picture with my iPhone. It was the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen.

My city is very proud to have converted the old stinky trash dump on the south side of town into a world class golf course. After the hoopla of the ribbon cutting, anybody that could swing a golf club (myself included) was out there ripping up the green. To put it frankly, it was down right dangerous, what with golf balls flying every which way. I think more than a few people ended up at the Nabisco County Hospital after being hit by a stray ball.

Now I'm not much of a golfer to start with and having to wait at every green to tee up gave me a bit too much time to pop another beer. So, some of my shots might have been a bit wild too, but I swear I never hit anyone. Most of my wild balls were worm burners that ended up in the drink. By the tenth hole I was down to my last ball. When it went flying off into the poison ivy choked woods I knew I had no choice.

Using my putter as a machete I made my way into the jungle. About fifty yards in I saw this old junked car. I think it was a T-Bird. But what really caught my attention was this weird plant growing out of it. Some kind of toad stool, except it was really big. Like over my head big. It kind of gave me the creeps.

When I got back to the putting green my friends were so drunk that we just called it a day. Over the next week as I scratched at my rash blistered skin, I thought about that car and decided I would go back and take another look. But when I got there the toad stool was gone. Judging by all the empty shotgun shells scattered about, I figured some kids must of shot it to pieces.

Nomadic Fungi Genus Of Cordyceps

Nomadic Fungi are a transmogrification of the Cordyceps genus. Cordyceps are a fungus that propagates through parasitic behavior. Their airborne spores attach to small insects such as ants, spiders and crickets. The spores first sprout roots that attach to the central nervous system, overriding the host insect’s mental and physical functions. 

Thus impaired, the insect responds in a zombie like fashion climbing the nearest plant where it firmly attaches itself and waits. 

The spores, now feeding off of the body fluids of the insect soon rupture through the insect’s skin and grow upward into long horns. These horns develop a covering of thousands of fresh spores that are taken up by the wind and silently float back to the earth, landing on new unsuspecting insect hosts.