Mayan Every 20th Day Celebration

In the Maya Empire, every 20th day was a festival day. Priests would climb up the steps of a pyramid. On the steps, dressed in fierce masks and towering hats, they would dance and rattle things and make a lot of noise. Their huge hats had things sewn on them that jingled. This added to the noise.

Bloodletting was part of every festival. But bloodletting was a personal sacrifice. The Maya cut themselves so that a drop or two of blood would appear. The nobles smeared their blood on a bit of bark and then burned it, to help their blood get to heaven, so the gods would know they had made a sacrifice in their honor.

           The Maya did practice human sacrifice, but human sacrifice was not part of every festival. When captives were forced to play a game of ball against a Maya team, they always lost. After the game, the captive team was sacrificed.

The Mayans Mathematics

     The Mayans were the first civilization to have and use the concept of zero. They did not yet have a system to identify fractions or negative numbers, they only had whole numbers and zero. The number system they created was vigesimal which is based on multiples of 20. Unlike the multiple symbols we use for various numbers the Mayans had just three symbols to write any possible number. They had the dot which had a value of 1. The bar had a value of 5, and the Shell had a value of 0. These numbers are all written vertically in columns. The lowest position in a column was reserved for the numbers 1-19. After that, the next highest position in a column is used for multiples of 20. The next highest position in the column is used for multiples of 400 (20x20).

     Here is a couple examples of how to write some numbers. When writing vertically the vigesimal positioning system, to write 20 a zero is placed in the first position (base) with a dot on top of it, in the second position. The dot in this place means one unit of the second order, which equals to 20. To write 21, the zero would change to a dot (1 unit) and for the subsequent numbers the original 19 number count will follow in the first position. As they in turn reach 19 again another unit (dot) is added to the second position. Any number higher than 19 unites in the second position is written using units of the third position. A unit of the third position is worth 400 (20x20), so to write 401 a dot goes in the first position, a zero in the second and a dot in the third. Positions higher than the third also grow multiplied by twenties from the previous ones.

Paranormal

    Paranormal events are phenomena described in popular culture, folklore and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described to lie beyond normal experience or scientific explanation.
    In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a person. A widespread belief concerning ghosts is that they are composed of a misty, airy, or subtle material. Alternative theories expand on that idea and include belief in the ghosts of deceased animals. Sometimes the term ghost is used to describe any spirit or demon, however in popular usage the term typically refers to a dead person's spirit.
    The possibility of extraterrestrial life is a complex theory that may never be proven. Many scientists are actively engaged in the search for unicellular life within the solar system, carrying out studies on the surface of Mars and examining meteors that have fallen to Earth. Projects such as SETI are conducting an astronomical search for radio activity that would show evidence of intelligent life outside the solar system. Scientific theory of how life developed on Earth allows for the possibility that life developed on other planets as well. The paranormal aspect of extraterrestrial life centers largely around the belief in unidentified flying objects and the phenomena said to be associated with them.