What in the world IS this?!

[zxc]

Weird contraption



What in the world is this? It was so weird that I had to photograph it. It made me think of a really efficient guillotine + grave burier machine all in one, with the head sliding down the ramp into a pit. Not to mention the suspicious mound right next to it...

edit: This is dangerous!

 

[loveofreason]

Looks like the loading conveyor we used to use to lift hay bales up onto the truck.

Could you get any closer to check it out?

 

[zxc]

Nope, there was a fence.

 

[Kumori]

I agree with zxc, it's an execution device.

 

[zxc]

Oh I know what it is!

It's Forest!!

 

[Kumori]

Oh I know what it is!

It's Forest!!

It's really powerful... Especially against living things.

 

[Jordan~]

It's a horse-drawn-staircarriage. It's what they used to get people on to passenger aircraft before the combustion engine was invented.

 

[zxc]

I must say it doesn't look like one; but then again, I have never seen a horse-drawn-staircarriage before.

 

[Jordan~]

There might be a buried passenger ornithopter?

Edit: It looks exactly like a mammoth-drawn staircarriage, actually:

 

[zxc]

 

[zxc]

That's one small mammoth to fit in that burrow!

Perhaps it's a portable, collapsible one.

 

[zxc]

The mound doesn't look too ancient.

Perhaps it's all a set-up to misdirect inquisitive pedestrians and detectives away from the Mystery of the Shoes and Bottles:

 

[Jordan~]

From the passengers, of course: They arrived, having arranged that the mamoth-drawn staircarriage be there to take them off the passenger ornithopter, and promptly buried the ornithopter in the mammoths' burrow. They removed their shoes to avoid leaving footprints in the soil, and buried most of them, but one person forgot to remove theirs and left them on the surface. The bottles were there because ornithopters are quite slow and they needed something to drink on the journey. Obviously these people wanted to avoid detection, my theory is that they're time travellers from the past.

 

[Decaf]

I agree with the execution contraption, but the device was actually designed for covert use. Once the person's head was chopped off it was thrown up into the top a barn and covered with hay bales.

http://www.hitbyafarm.com/uploaded_images/DSCN2138-723415.JPG

 

[Jordan~]

Ah, and right there you can see the clever use of the mammoth-drawn staircarriage as a feeding machine. Without unyoking the mammoths, one can feed them by placing bales of hay on the stairs and pulling the escalator chain - of course, here the stairs have been removed. It's just a shame that the mammoths are hidden by the barn.

 

[Kumori]

I do believe we need more of these threads.

That being said, carry on.

 

[zxc]

oh oh OH dear...

It's an execution contraption which covertly disposes of severed heads by stuffing them into hay bales and then transported by an ornithopter ridden by time-travellers from the future that have previously travelled to the ice age for the time machine's first run, so that they could attain mammoths that could be lured by yoke to pull the execution contraption which doubles-up as a staircarriage for the time-travellers; the bottles were disposed of after the travel to the ice age, as they had served their function of providing the time-travellers with fresh water; the shoes are in fact those that belonged to the latest victim of the beheading-contraption, as the head has already been disposed of, the body has decomposed, and the clothes have been stolen by the time-travellers to use for warmth and protection from exposure the next time they travel into the ice age again (just in case their current mammoths die before their mysterious mission is complete).

The whereabouts of the time-travellers (and mammoths) are as yet unknown.

 

[Jordan~]

Well, the mammoths are in that barn in the second picture, and in the burrow in the first. As for the time travellers... They're too good to get caught.

 

[zxc]

After conducting a thorough search through the galaxy, I believe I have finally tracked down the alien time-travellers:



The extra-terrestrial building is their headquarters. Cars are scattered outside the building to disguise the zone to humans. The covered crops are either alien crops that are being tested on Earth's soil, or experiments being run on natural plants.

 

[Radioactive_Springtime]

a contraption set there specifically to baffle people.

 

[zxc]

a contraption set there specifically to baffle people.

Such a solution is just too simple, too clear-cut! It cannot be near the truth! Besides, you are ignoring the significant progress we have made into the research of this contraption and the beings that created it.

 

[Jordan~]

My theory is that the time travellers are Victorians, and that's what they thought buildings in the year 2008 would look like. The man they killed was a local who spotted them and worked out what they were, they had to silence him. They took his clothes so that one of them could attempt to observe the people of the age in disguise, and left his shoes behind because they thought their own shoes were good enough.

 

[Thread Killer]

The image was so small...I thought it was a trebuchet at first. Eh...

 

[zxc]

The image was so small...I thought it was a trebuchet at first. Eh...

You're supposed to click it

 

[Wisp]

Haha... Ithought it was a trebuchet as well...

 

[Thread Killer]

Yeah, but that was when I first glanced at it. Without clicking it, I saw the modern wheels so I knew I was wrong.

But it still looked like a trebuchet.

 

[Wisp]

In a general sense, the overall shape DOES look like a 'chet.

 

[Jordan~]

Nope, definitely a staircarriage, á la Shakespeare's Growth Delayed, perhaps one of his most notable plays alongside A Slurry Tale.

 

[Ermine]

At first glance, I thought it was a scrawny trebuchet. Then it looked like a staircase, now I'm thinking it could be used to spread seeds, or some sort of ramp.

 

[Kumori]

At first glance, I thought it was a scrawny trebuchet. Then it looked like a staircase, now I'm thinking it could be used to spread seeds, or some sort of ramp.

A ramp on wheels! And don't forget the mammoth brine.

 

[Fleur]

If we turn that by 90 degrees... it looks like old tractor catapulting sidecar without one wheel.

 

[Aphasia]

It's a farmer's thingy, i.e: I have no idea.

@zxc: Why didn't you ask a farmer what that thing was?