Man Claims To Be Crop Circle Psychic
by Nancy Talbott
A young Dutch medium with extraordinary abilities says he can predict when and where new crop circles will form.
Robbert van den Broeke
As far as anyone knows, Robbert van den Broeke, a young Dutchman who lives in the southern Netherlands village of Hoeven, is singular in his ability to consistently and accurately predict the appearance of new crop formations in his general vicinity.
The 28 year old says that since early adolescence he has experienced visions in which he can clearly see both the location, and the design, of the new crop circle. He also has a clear sense whether the new formation is occurring at that precise moment, or that it will occur soon.
In the days just prior to these experiences he generally feels a build-up of physical and mental angst which dissipates once the crop circle has actually formed.
Over the years he has also visually witnessed quite a few crop circles forming. These circles are usually accompanied by unusual light phenomena, although not the same light anomalies in each instance.
In both daytime and nighttime sessions, he has observed single or multiple spheres of bright white or yellowish light hovering over a field, frequently the one that is directly behind his home, under which the plants suddenly flatten into a crop circle. Sometimes he simply sees a flash, or multiple flashes of light, after which new circles or formations of circles are seen in the field.
As Robbert has matured the strange events which occur around him have escalated and now regularly include many which are generally labeled variously as psychic or poltergeist situations, out-of-body experiences, remote viewing, physical translocation, lucid dreaming, and UFO or ET encounters.
In addition to Robbert’s ability to perceive the presence of unidentified energies which are apparently present just before and during the appearance of crop circles. He says these unidentified enegies often remain afterwards in the fields.
Robbert increasingly exhibits other unusual sensitivities. He has become known in Holland as a medium of considerable ability and now regularly sees clients who have requested healing sessions or readings.
With a 1-3 minute focus, Robbert is capable of reading your thoughts and visions. Robbert says telepathy is possible for most people, however due to certain events, people have lost this ability.
He also confirms that most of the crop circles are not done by physical extra terrestrial flying objects. Robbert says only in one case he witnessed a physical extra terrestrial craft that shot bolts of energy down a field creating a very complex crop circle with lightning speed.
He isn’t sure if the energies he sees are somehow connected or controlled by a physical craft.
The most interesting Robbert’s admission is that when visiting the crop circle fields he sometimes feels tremendous energy of love emitting from them. He says this energy is meant to lift people and raise their consciousness.
As Robbert ages, he finds himself being able to do other things that he wasn’t aware he could do.
He is capable to focus mental energy and bend or destroy physical objects without touching them.
Robbert can also influence and confuse a compass, changing the magnetism field around it. An arrow pointining to north was within a minute pointing to west as Robbert moved his hand accross it. With two minutes of mental focus, he was able to move the compass arrow anywhere he pleased.
The Odditorium 09.07.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Stonehenge Was Hidden From Lower Classes Telegraph UK
How Time Moves Forward Phys Org
Sleep Is The New Sex Mom Logic
Gods Protect Geeks’ Gadgets In Japan iol.co.za
Minnesota Mystery Track Cryptomundo
100 Things You Should Eat Before You Die Food Proof
Hypnosis Realities and Fallacies UFO Digest
Water Absorb Emotions, Cures Illness int.iol.co.za
Thousand Year Old Brothers In Arms Daily Mail
Photo: Dark Figure In The Crypt Of Oxford Castle Phantoms And Monsters
The Human Buzz Lightyear Daily Mail
Were Hobbits Relict Homo Erectus? Cryptomundo
The Prophet, Used Car Lots And The 72 Hour Guarantee The Heavy Stuff
Paranormal Speech Has Lively Dead Spots St Petersburg Times
Got Ghosts? They’ll Investigate Tampa Bay Online
Maritime Folklore Laced With Tales Of Ghosts Chronicle Herald
Vanna White And Her Very Large Skull Globe and Mail
Living On Rachel Time
by Mike Trask
State road 375, also known as the Extraterrestrial Highway, runs northwest past Rachel, a center of UFO tourism. The hamlet has one business, a bar, and its residents aren’t interested in having any more of them.
A long lonesome highway
Jobs be damned, say residents who prize freedom, stars and sunsets. The people here love to drink booze, shoot guns and ride dirt bikes. They can do them all simultaneously without risking arrest as they come and go from the A’Le’Inn, the only bar and the lone business within 50 miles of this desert outpost.
The census says 98 people live in Rachel, 150 hard miles north of Las Vegas. The locals can count only about 65 residents, an eclectic cast of characters sharing live-and-let-live values.
There’s Connie West, whose family has owned the double-wide trailer that is the A’Le’Inn for 20 years. It’s more than a bar. It’s a diner, motel, gift shop and the social center of the community.
There’s Sandra Hockenberry, the barkeeper, and her boyfriend, J.D. Smalls, who provides the firewood for the town. There are Ken Langley and Glenn Nelson, retired guys from Georgia who traveled in a motor home across the country before deciding five weeks ago to claim Rachel as their home. Everybody has welcomed Ken and Glenn.
Jay Keller is the quiet handyman who drinks Dr Pepper and kisses girls hands in in a courtly manner. Steve Medlin owns a 900-square-mile ranch and stops in to pick up a six-pack of Bud Light. Cody Theising is the teenage waiter, Connie’s son and the heir to the inn.
Shaggy-haired Bob Clabaugh, a retired commercial pilot, moved here a decade ago to escape Las Vegas, and spends his days sipping Michelob and chatting.
They all choose to live here for about the same reason. They have rejected conventional lifestyles for this libertarian’s paradise, a place free of judgments and outside intrusions except for the stream of tourists hoping to spot a UFO.
The closest store is in Alamo, 50 miles east on the Extraterrestrial Highway back to U.S. 93. That’s where you finally reach the nearest school, the nearest cop and the nearest gas station, which is attached to a small grocery store. If you really want to shop, its back to Las Vegas or 150 miles to Mesquite.
There is no cell phone coverage and no cable TV in Rachel.
It doesn’t get much quieter or much more desolate than Rachel.
It’s here that somebody wants to build a 2,000-bed prison.
• • •
On Thursday many of the residents of Rachel will meet at the A’Le’Inn to caravan 110 miles to Pioche, the Lincoln County seat, to try to stare down the proposal to put a prison four miles from their community center.
The prison lights alone will ruin the gorgeous sunsets and stargazing available where there isn’t a man-made light taller than a front porch within 100 miles.
The man who wants to build the prison on 1,000 acres here also wants to build a housing tract next to it called Lincoln County Estates. Over the years there’s been talk about building a solar plant and an old folks’ home on the land, but those turned out to be just rumors.
But the prison talk is real and the Lincoln County Planning Commission is being asked by the developer to grant a special use permit allowing a medium-security prison.
• • •
Rachel is the epicenter of conspiracy theories and UFO sightings because of its proximity to the secrecy-shrouded Area 51, a government testing facility.
This bizarre slice of American pop culture provides the town’s economic foundation, such as it is.
A handmade welcome sign greets earthlings and aliens entering Rachel. The Inn, its walls decorated with grainy photos of alleged spaceships, sells all types of souvenirs featuring oval-headed green creatures.
Twenty miles east of town, Steve Medlin keeps the notorious black mailbox, which is actually white, where you can leave a letter for your friends from outer space. It is dimpled from gunfire.
The nearby stop sign has also been fired upon, as has every road sign on the Extraterrestrial Highway, the 98-mile stretch of two-lane Route 375 that cuts through Rachel.
After a few drinks the locals offer stories about lost time and the appearance of orbs.
Ken Langley is ready for another Jim Beam and ginger ale. He takes his glass behind the bar and pours himself a drink, pausing to mark the notebook that rests atop the beer cooler.
To earn the privilege of pouring your own drinks at the Inn one need only be willing to help out when needed. Ken pitches in behind the bar on busy days. He’ll settle up his tab one of these days. A lot of Rachel operates on the honor system.
• • •
One-acre parcels are available at Lincoln County Estates for $16,500. Snickering locals will sell you a spot a lot cheaper if you’re just looking for a place to park your trailer.
The developer’s web site bills the estates as “free from the stressful world of urban living,” pitching a rural lifestyle that “will be preserved forever” and “never fall into the hands of urban developers.”
The man who wants to build the prison and the adjacent homes is Jim Toreson, the owner of Toreson Industries Inc.
He is the most hated man at the A’Le’Inn, where people are so friendly and trusting they greet even reporters with a hug.
Toreson claims he lives most of the time near Rachel, although the locals can’t recall his ever stepping into the Inn. They know he drives a Honda with California tags.
Toreson says he was shocked by the backlash against his plan. He says creating jobs with the prison, and providing residential home sites, will feed off one another and all around help Rachel.
“We are very poor in Rachel,” he says, speaking from a cell phone with a California area code. “We don’t have a gas station. We need economic development. There’s no way I’m going to do harm to the area. It would do more harm to me than everyone else.”
• • •
There are positives to building a private prison in Lincoln County. Or at least one positive.
Lincoln County can use the money. How much the prison would generate in property taxes hasn’t been determined, but anything would help.
The county is bigger than Massachusetts and has a population of only 4,165. Only 2 percent of the land in the county is privately owned and one-third of that gets agricultural exemptions.
Toreson’s plan is to build the prison, find a company to operate it, and then for the state, whose prisons are crowded, to pay to house overflow inmates in Rachel. California has private prisons; Nevada does not.
Clint Wertz, the county planning director, has recommended that the Planning Commission approve the prison. Whatever it decides, the losing side is sure to appeal to the Lincoln County Commission.
The prison would be filled with short-timers. “They are not violent offenders,” Toreson says. “It’s like Martha Stewart when she went to jail.” The people of Rachel aren’t Martha Stewart fans.
“All these years our children have been so safe, riding bikes and four-wheelers,” says Kay Day, the widow of D.C. Day, one of the founders of the town. “Now, if some idiot escapes, how safe are they going to be?”
Worse than the prison would be everything that comes with it. The traffic on the jackrabbit-carcass-littered highway and the light polluting the night sky. The absolute worst would be the law enforcement that might come to town with some regularity as the population expands. They might even start making residents register their guns.
Plus, nobody wants a prison in his neighborhood. “It will just ruin our whole way of life,” says Connie West.
“We wouldn’t care if it was some kind of work that people could feel good about,” says resident Bob Clabaugh. “If it was a plant building solar panels or doing something good it would be one thing. But what kind of people want to stand there watching prisoners go from one place to the other?”
• • •
In a few hours the Milky Way will be floating against a pitch-black sky. At the A’Le’Inn, friends are finishing their last beers before heading home for dinner. They’re talking about how everyone minds his own business and helps out when needed. Nobody asks too many questions. It’s nobody’s business who took the dozens of shots at Toreson’s Lincoln County Estates billboard. Nor is it anybody’s business who burned the thing down.
If he’s allowed, and without the support of the residents of Rachel, Toreson may forever change the face of this vast and empty desert.
“I’m sure his grandkids’ kids are set for life,” says Sandra Hockenberry, the bartender. “That money doesn’t matter to us. We have a different level of value.”
The Odditorium 09.06.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Please Act Now! Save The Museum!! Cryptomundo
Ripper Claimed Earlier Victims BBC News
This Could Only Happen In Massachusetts Believe It Or Not Boston.com
Oldest Skeleton In Americas Found National Geographic News
The Truth About The Aztec UFO Crash UFO Digest
Zen Meditation Really Does Clear the Mind Live Science
Elephant Scores 87 Percent On Math Exam Fox News
Oldest Gorilla In Captivity Dies Cryptomundo
PsychicCosmos.com Is Now International USPR Wire
Phoenix’s Oddball Architecture AZ Central
Scientists Interested In Large Footprint Discovery WSMV Nashville
Psychic TV Called Exploitainment Stuff
Bigfoot Mystery At Sandy Creek Online Athens
Men Kill Witch Brother iAfrica
Purley Cross Tesco UFO Captured On Camera This Is Croydon Today
A Cry For Help Ruffles Feathers Times Of Trenton
Police Consult Psychics Over Missing Woman Radio New Zealand
Bobcats Claim Foreclosed House Los Angeles Times
Downtown Tours Feature Tales Of The Past Tyler Paper
Snake Scare Yahoo News
The Most Alien-Looking Place On Earth Dark Roasted Blend
Possible Ghost Skeleton Captured In Edinburgh Vault Photo Paranormal News
Dog Collapses After Seeing Owner News 24
Obsessing Over Health Food ABC News
Night Guards Now Protecting Vegetable Gardens The Telegraph
The 80s Voted As Coolest Decade Sky News
A Brief History Of Every Game Console Ever Made Games Radar
In Australia The UFO Proof Is Out There
by Nick Calacouras
Stories about fleets of UFOs invading the Australia’s Northern Territory have flooded the news in recent weeks but an Aussie UFO hunter says the NT has been a flying saucer hotspot for decades.
Keith Douglas and friends
Keith Douglas, a 57-year-old former cabinet maker now runs UFO Research Alice Springs,a branch of the Australian UFO Research Network. “People are very heads down, arse-up, and ignore what is going on,” he said. “But I’ve got plenty of time. I go out for night watches all the time.”
Mr Douglas’ night watches start at 11pm and last until 7am.
“I know what I’ve seen and the stories I’ve heard. I’ve come across enough to be convinced there are UFOs,” he said. “I just get amused as to why they spend so much watching us.”
Mr Douglas has had two good sightings, but has covered reports of abductions, crop circles and unidentified crafts. He said Central Australia had several hotspots, such as the Pine Gap joint-defence facility or Wycliffe Well, 1100km south of Darwin.
“There’s a lot of stuff coming and going from Pine Gap,” he said. “And you can see crafts reasonably well at Wycliffe Well, they generally look like a white light. But down south, near the South Australian border, they are orange lights.”
Mr Douglas said he was contacted once by an indigenous woman from a remote community who reported being followed by a UFO for several hours.
“She didn’t have a camera or anything, so she painted me a picture of it.”
Below are samples of UFO cases dating back to 1970, but Mr Douglas said there were many more cases. “For every one you hear about, there are two or three you don’t,” he said.
- 1970: Mongrel Downs Station, near WA border.
Three scientists working for a mining company in the Tanami Desert spot two UFOs with pulsing or flaming lights going on a Sunday afternoon cruise.
1976: Elliott.
An old man claimed to be abducted after a bright object landed near him. Beings took him on board and asked him about life on Earth before returning him unharmed.
1983: Darwin.
A 16-year-old reported a close encounter and entities about the house.
APRIL 1995: Nightcliff.
A jumbo-jet-sized cigar shaped object “whooshed” by as it passed through the clouds.
DECEMBER 31, 1995: Moulden.
Reports of four orange light objects objects travelling over the area at 11.45pm. They returned two hours later.
JANUARY 7, 1996: Central Australia.
Station hand has a daylight sighting of a battleship grey object hovering 40m above the ground.
FEBRUARY 3, 1996: Two carloads of people reported seeing a fast-moving, orange and soundless fireball. It hovered before meeting another fireball and the pair travelled south.
MARCH 8, 1996: Santa Teresa, near Alice Springs.
UFOs were seen hovering over the community for several nights. Described as large, glowing objects the size of a train.
NOVEMBER 1996: Honeymoon Gap, near Alice Springs.
A bright blue glow was noticed in the trees at the base of a mountain 500m away. The light rose up and hovered over a car before flying towards Pine Gap.
JUNE 6, 1998: Uluru.
Two astronomers noticed a bright pulsating star moving erratically, before it changed direction and flew out of sight.
JULY 12, 1998: Katherine.
Several people saw an object the size of the moon, rimmed with fire, moving west.
AUGUST 8, 1998: Alice Springs. Two bright white fluorescent lights seen high in the northern sky, one cigar shaped followed by a small ball.
AUGUST 30, 1998: Alice Springs.
A Baptist Church group camping outside Alice Springs noticed a bright silver ball of white light flickering and moving up and around.
2001: Palmerston.
Reports of 11 bright orange lights flying in a V-formation.
JUNE 22, 2001: Alice Springs.
Five red lights spotted flying in the sky in the shape of a pentagon.
MARCH 2003: Palmerston.
A bright red-orange light moving at a steady pace suddenly splits into a row of six or seven smaller orange-yellow lights.
MARCH 2003: Palmerston.
An egg-shaped object was spotted flying above a plane.
JUNE 18, 2005: Darwin.
A green and amber coloured octagonal craft, reportedly moving at 450km/h flew overhead near the airport.
Tasmania’s UFO Mystery
by Luke Scott
Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of one of the State’s most bizarre aviation mysteries.
On Saturday, October 21, 1978, pilot Frederick Valentich took off from Victoria’s Moorabin Airport in his single-engined Cessna 182, bound for King Island.
It was about 6:15pm, and conditions were ideal for flying, with fine weather, a mild north-westerly breeze and almost unlimited visibility.
But Valentich never made it.
No trace of the 20-year-old volunteer flight instructor or his aircraft was ever found, but the manner of his disappearance has fuelled speculation by UFO buffs for nearly three decades.
Some say Mr Valentich was abducted by aliens, some that his aircraft simply crashed into Bass Strait, some that he faked his disappearance and started a new life somewhere else.
The extraordinary conversation Mr Valentich had over the radio with Melbourne Flight Service flight controller Steve Robey in the moments before he disappeared has gone down in UFO folklore.
According to The Examiner’s original report of the incident, Mr Valentich radioed Melbourne at 7:06pm, after passing Cape Otway, asking if there was any known traffic in the area below 1600m.
The flight controller replied that there was no known traffic in that area.
Mr Valentich radioed again to say there appeared to be a “large aircraft” below 1600m.
Mr Robey asked Mr Valentich about the type of aircraft he could see.
“I cannot confirm,” Mr Valentich replied.
“It has four bright lights that appear to be landing lights. The aircraft has passed over me.”
At 7:08pm, Mr Valentich radioed Mr Robey at Melbourne Flight Services again, saying the unidentified aircraft was flying towards him.
“It seems to me to be playing some sort of game,” he reported.
“It’s flying at speed I cannot estimate.”
Moments later, Mr Valentich was asked how large the mystery aircraft appeared to be.
“It seems to be stationary,” Mr Valentich answered.
“I’m orbiting and the thing is orbiting on top of me also. It has a green light and a sort of metallic light on the outside.”
A few seconds later, the pilot radioed to say the object had vanished.
At 7:12pm, Mr Valentich reported that his engine was coughing and rough idling.
He said that he was continuing to King Island, then added: “Unknown aircraft hovering on top of me.”
This was followed by a series of metallic noises and contact with Mr Valentich was lost.
It was estimated Mr Valentich’s Cessna would have been about half way between Cape Otway and King Island when it disappeared.
Six aircraft and a team of boats scoured about 7000sq.km from Cape Otway to King Island searching for the missing pilot.
The search was called off four days after Mr Valentich disappeared.
http://northerntasmania.yourguide.com
The Odditorium 09.05.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Texas Official Demands Answers About Alleged UFO CBS 11
Those Damned Blurry UFO Pictures UFO Media Matters
Mystery Of Father Gill UFO Sighting UFO Mystic
Ghost stories Of Mid Sussex Littlehampton Gazette
Pub Hopes To Raise Spirits For TV Channel This Is Lancashire
Still Searching Inquirer
Cemetery Fun A Bad Idea McDowell News
UFOs Seen In China’s Chongqing The Epoch Times
Trawling Around A Few Old Haunts Gazette Live
A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far Far Away Enid News
Discover Barnstable’s Ghostly History Cape Cod Times
Handsome Stranger? Be Careful He Bites New York Times
The Ghost Of The D.C. Madam 10 Zen Monkeys
Psychic Tony’s Messages From My Parents Hertfordshire Mercury
Thomas Crop Circle This Is Wiltshire
UFO Secrecy National Security And The FOIA American Chronicle
Aliens Are Super-Human Black Men
by Ryan Deter
A prophet plans to build temples and summon nebulus negroids who will then restore the natural order by making Flavor Flav king of Isreal.
But I don’t wanna work for Diddy.
Prophet Yahwey calling all UFOs
Starting Sept. 11 until Nov. 11, 2008, Prophet Yahweh, Seer of Yahweh, Master UFO Caller, will be summoning UFO flying machines for the world to see via the “UFO TV News” broadcast channel. Shortly after the sightings start appearing, a spaceship will descend on Prophet’s cue and sit in the sky over Las Vegas for three days.
According to Prophet Yahweh, “Super human black men, from other planets, are here in spaceships to prove that we are not alone in the universe.” They will do this by appearing, on Prophet’s prayer signal, in one of their spaceships over Las Vegas, NV. The spaceship will hover in the sky for three days and all Las Vegans will be able to see it, day and night, before it goes back up into space.
UFOs have been appearing to Prophet Yahweh since 1979. Since then, over 2,000 sightings have appeared to him. On May 25, 2005, Prophet proved his ability to summon UFOs, on-command, when KTNV ABC TV-13 (Las Vegas) documented him calling down a glowing orb UFO flying machine.
Also, according to Prophet, these beings are the Angels of YAHWEH. They travel back and forth to the earth in spaceships. On the planet they come from, they have a great King who is the Creator of all things. His name is YAHWEH. He sits on a magnificent throne inside of a glorious Temple that’s located between an ocean and mountains there.
Holy YAHWEH has sent His Angels to the earth to wake up black people of slave descent to the fact that they are the original nation of Israel and not Africans. It was in 70 A.D. that the Romans invaded the land of Israel and sacked Jerusalem. Historians say that they were black like the Ethiopians and were driven out of Israel down into Africa where they were later captured and sold as slaves to the Americas.
Prophet says that holy YAHWEH has determined that the time has ended for the black Israelites to be in the lands of their enslavement. Because of this, He has commissioned His Angels to return them back to their rightful land, the land of Israel. At that time, Yahweh’s angels will set them back up as rulers of the world from whence they fell into slavery.
Prophet claims that he is in direct telepathic contact with the angels of Yahweh. Through this means of communication, they have given him supreme knowledge and understanding of who they are, what it’s like on their planets, what their beliefs are, and what their plans are for planet earth.
UFO TV News has created a special “Questions and Answers” e-group where people can interact directly with Prophet Yahweh and find out what these space beings have revealed to him.
Prophet says that he has been instructed to build Temples to YAHWEH with landing spots next to them. The main two will be in the wilderness of Brazil and the desert of America. Yahweh’s Angels will land at those Temples on a regular basis.
Sometimes, after they land, they will come out of their spaceships, go to a podium and address the world’s media and government officials gathered there. At that time, they will make known their plans for the permanent colonization of planet earth.
When they get out of their spaceships, the world will see that they are superhuman black men from another planet.
At some point after the public landings start, Yahweh’s angels will bring the holy prophets Enoch and Elijah to Prophet Yahweh’s Temple. The job of these two prophets will be to unify the black Israelites worldwide, establish their government, and cause all nations to return them back to Israel. There they will meet their Messiah at his return when he arrives traveling with 20,000 inter-galactic battleships.
According to Prophet, “There is no possible way the public descent and hovering of a spaceship over Las Vegas, for three days, will not happen on my prayer signal.”
Prophet Yahweh is available for interviews.
- For additional information:
Official Prophet Yahweh Site:
http://www.prophetyahweh.com
Questions And Answers Group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufotvnews
UFO Summoning School:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ufosummoningschool
The Odditorium 09.04.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Shedding Light On The Unexplained The Turlock Journall
Favorite Old-House Ghost Stories Old House Journal
P Is For Parapsychology The Santa Barbara Independent
Man Murdered For Practising Witchcraft Times of India
Winged Cat Mutated Because Of Too Much Sex College OTR
Spooky Ohio Photo Gallery Akron Beacon Journal
The Folly Of The Boys Who Cried Bigfoot Charlton County Herald
Ghost Hunters Visit Buffalo Museum WIBV TV
Bigfoot Sightings In Canada American Chronicle
Aircraft Museum Ghosts A Flight Of Fancy Sunderland Echo
Historians Partner With Paranormal Spirits Observer Southtown Star
Hen Parties In For Spooky Time Down Skinningrove Mine Gazette Live
A Ouija Experience In India From the Shadows
Eye Witness Recounts 1952 Flying Saucer Flap The UFO Chronicles
My Contact With Flying Saucers Trickster’s Realm
Messenger Of Deception UFO Mystic
Blanchard, Lytle and Roswell A Different Perspective
Men in Black: The Early Days Alien Seeker News
Residents Are Excited By UFO Lights
by Ryan Deter
Locals continue to report unidentified lights in the skies over Shropshire.
Lights may be linked
to animal mutilations
UFO experts have described Shropshire as a hive of activity and believe something big is going on in the county.
Following dozens of reports of unidentified lights in the sky over the past three months Philip Hoyle, of the UFO Investigation and Research Unit, has revealed that an investigation is under way. It is focusing on the Hope and Rea Valleys in the south of the county.
Farmers in the area reported finding a number of mutilated animals after seeing strange lights.
Mr Hoyle, of the Shrewsbury-based unit, said, “We have got a highly active area in the Hope and Rea Valley near Bishop’s Castle and Ludlow where we continually have sightings from farmers. We have farmers who are not renowned for flights of fancy telling us of lights and discs over their farms.”
He added, “There are about 35 people in these valleys that claim to have been involved in abduction over the last 20 years and they are all unrelated. They are all professional people and they are all saying the same thing, something is going on here.” Mr Hoyle said 10 years ago a man reported spotting a disc while driving over the Burway near Church Stretton.
He was later interviewed by military intelligence officers.
“Shropshire does seem to have more than its fair share of activity and we are investigating the valley area,” Mr Hoyle added. People are seeing things and experiencing things and we have animal mutilations in the area. Farmers are finding animals dissected to such a precision that even Defra cannot explain it. They can see the lights then they find the animals. Animals are being killed but nobody can see anything.”
Over the past three months a number of Shropshire Star readers have spotted strange lights in the skies.
The latest report comes from Neil Gregory, of Ditherington, Shrewsbury.
He said he spotted an orange glowing light above Haughmond Abbey on Saturday at about 10.30pm. The 56-year-old said he thought it was a plane on fire at first. “It was an orange glow and it was pulsating, my wife saw it as well,” he said. “It stopped and hovered and was pulsating for 20 to 30 seconds then it disappeared in about six seconds.”
ODD SHAPES AND SIGHTS
- * July 1 - Pilot David Bemand sees orange lights over Ludlow at about 10pm.
Candice Taylor, 23, of Burford, Brookside, Telford, spots a shape resembling a basket in the night sky.
Mr Bemand, who has held a private pilot’s licence for 22 years, was at home in Luston when he saw the lights.
* July 27 - Four mysterious lights seen above Ironbridge at about 9.40pm. Lauren Crouch saw the lights and managed to photograph them.
* August 14 - Julie Cooper, 49, of Church Street, Broseley, Telford sees mysterious lights above her mother’s house in Jackson Avenue, Broseley at about midnight.
* August 15 - Mother-of-one Marion Groves and her husband Jim, of Hinkshay Road, Dawley, see two white lights hovering between 8.30pm and 11pm. Nina and Bill Hall see lights on the same night as they drive back to Aqueduct from Bridgnorth along the A442.
* August 30 - Neil Gregory, of Ditherington, Shrewsbury, spots an orange glowing light above Haughmond Abbey at about 10.30pm.
http://www.shropshirestar.com/
End Of The World May Be Next Wednesday
by Mike Hanlon
Doom-mongers fear the consequences of scientists replicating the Big Bang.
The End
Two nightmare scenarios, two ends of the world. In the first, there is little warning. For maybe a month there would be no sign that life was about to come to an abrupt and nasty end for all living things on Earth.
Then, earthquakes would start unexpectedly, alerting geologists that something terrible, unimaginable, was amiss.
After a few days, these seismic disturbances would reach catastrophic proportions.
Cities would be levelled, the oceans would rise and wash in a series of mega-tsunamis that would attack the world’s coasts, killing millions.
The fact that the earthquakes were striking randomly, not along well-known geological faultlines, would be proof that something devastating was afoot.
Finally, the end would come, in a disaster of Biblical scale. The Earth would literally start to crack up.
Molten lava would wash over the land and the seas would start to boil.
Mega-hurricanes would level buildings and forests the world over. Eventually, mountains would crumble as the Earth’s crust continued to disintegrate.
The fabric of the planet itself would start to disappear, trillions of tonnes of rock, water, air and life sucked into a whirlpool of unimaginable force.
From space, our blue-and-white home would appear to vanish down a plughole in a flash of light.
At least in this scenario we would have a little time, perhaps, to come to terms with the end.
However, a second doomsday scenario is even more terrifying. There would be no warning at all.
In an instant, about one-twentieth of a second, the entire Earth would simply vanish from space.
Less than two seconds later, the Moon would follow suit. Eight minutes later, the Sun would be ripped apart, followed by the rest of the planets in the solar system and onwards, a wave of destruction caused by a rent in the fabric of space itself, spreading out from our world at the speed of light.
Any extra-terrestrials out there would die too, in due course. And there would be nothing technology could do about it.
But why should we now be worrying about such possible causes of armageddon?
The answer is a gargantuan machine, the largest most expensive scientific experiment in history, the Large Hadron Collider, to be turned on next Wednesday.
Although it was designed to answer the fundamental questions of life, some people have claimed that it could end up destroying the entire cosmos.
The Large Hadron Collider Atlas detector during construction
This gigantic atom-smasher has been built under the Swiss-French border near Geneva, and is the most powerful device ever built for probing the secrets of the atom and the forces and particles which make up our Universe.
It is a staggering device, occupying a train-sized tunnel 18 miles long, buried 300ft underground, studded with gigantic, cathedral-sized ring-shaped detectors where collisions between packets of heavy sub-atomic particles, hadrons, will take place in the hope that the innermost workings of matter and energy will be revealed.
The LHC is, arguably, the most impressive machine ever built by mankind.
But a few people are convinced that it should never be turned on. A lawsuit has been lodged at the European Court For Human Rights by a small group of maverick scientists.
They claim there is a small, but not zero, chance that when the LHC is activated it will create either a mini-black hole which would fall into the ground and swallow the Earth from within (scenario one.)
Or, even more bizarrely, trigger a catastrophic chain reaction in the very fabric of space and time itself, which would rip apart the entire universe like the skin of a bursting balloon (scenario two.)
Bizarrely, this group, led by a German chemist called Otto Rossler, are using the European Convention on human rights to argue that, should the LHC destroy the entire Universe, it would “violate the right to life and right to private family life.”
In fact, since 1994, when the collider was first mooted by the multi-national European nuclear research organisation (CERN), a small number of doomsayers have claimed that by replicating the conditions pertaining at the start of the universe (The Big Bang) about 13,700 million years ago, there would be a small but real risk an unstoppable cataclysm would take place.
This is not a threat taken seriously by the scientists at CERN. When I visited the place a couple of years ago, to see the collider being built, any mention of mini-black holes and other risks elicited only raised eyebrows and shrugs of derision.
The LHC was not designed to destroy the universe, of course, but to fill in some of the embarrassingly large gaps that still run through our basic understanding of physics and how the universe works.
It could discover, for instance, what most of the Universe is actually made of.
The ordinary stuff’ that we see around us, the atoms and molecules of water, carbon, iron, oxygen and the rest that make up our bodies, the planet Earth, the Moon, the other planets, the Sun and all the stars, actually accounts for only about one part in 25 of the total ingredients of the cosmos.
Astronomers know that something else, invisible and mysterious, must pervade every inch of space, its subtle gravity affecting the movements of the galaxy.
This material, no one really has a clue what it is, has been dubbed dark matter and it is hoped that the collider just might shed some light on what it is, perhaps uncovering a new type of particle.
Perhaps more embarrassingly, we don’t know what it is that gives even ordinary matter its mass.
In the 1960s, British physicist Peter Higgs proposed the existence of a new particle, now known as the Higgs Particle, which effectively lends weight to the stuff of the universe.
So important and fundamental is this hypothetical entity that it has been dubbed the God particle.
It is hoped that if Higgs is right, the collider could finally clear up this mystery and, as a result of its super-powerful collisions, traces of this particle could emerge.
By simulating the Big Bang, it is hoped the LHC will act as a “universe in a test tube,” allowing scientists to examine a whole suite of exotic subatomic particles and forces and to go some way to completing the work started by Einstein and the other giants of 20th-century physics.
So is there really a chance that the scientists have made a terrible miscalculation and that their new toy could inadvertently kill us all?
Happily, the simple answer is no. CERN’s scientists have in fact commissioned several safety reviews (such as those that have taken place before other big particle accelerators have been turned on.)
All have concluded that there is no measurable risk whatsoever. Perhaps the best argument against the LHC doomsday scenario is that cosmic rays, natural high-energy particles from space, smash into the Earth’s atmosphere all the time with far, far more energy than will be generated by this machine.
If it were possible to create a dangerous black hole by simply bashing atomic particles together, this would have happened naturally long ago, and we wouldn’t be here to build this particle accelerator in the first place. So we are safe.
In fact, what the scientists at CERN really fear is not the end of the world, but that their machine simply isn’t big or powerful enough to uncover anything new, that to probe the deepest secrets of the cosmos they will have to ask for yet more cash to build something on an even greater scale.
Either that, or their equations are simply wrong and a whole new approach is needed, despite the billions they have spent.
Not a doomsday for Earth, perhaps, but a catastrophe for physics.
As for the rest of us, we have to hope that the scientists have done their sums right, and keep our fingers crossed next Wednesday.
Stalking Cat At London Museum Opening
by Ryan Deter
A man who has spent considerable resources to surgically modify his body to resemble that of a tiger, will be on hand at the opening of a new museum.
Museum openings are usually pretty muted affairs, but not when you invite a man who can turn himself into a cat and someone who thinks he is a lizard.
With a contortionist along for good measure, and a mini Elvis, few guests at the launch of tonight’s newest exhibition space in London should be bored, at least not with the entertainment.
Dennis Avner - the worlds Most Modified Man
Stalking Cat, aka American computer repair man Dennis Avner, 50, is the world’s most modified man and has had surgery to create a feline cleft lip and a flat, upturned nose.
He has also had tiger stripes tattooed on his body and fixes synthetic whiskers to a piercing through his lip every day.
Stalking Cat says it is his Native American beliefs that have driven him to transform himself into his totem animal, a tiger.
Ripley’s Believe It Or Not museum has a collection of more than 500 oddities, including a display of human shrunken heads from Ecuador and a copy of The Last Supper painted on a grain of rice.
Among other odd exhibits is a Mini Cooper which has been covered in a million Swarovski crystals.
“It was made by an English couple, now living in Canada, and is the finest art car in the world. And yes it can be driven,” said Edward T Meyer of Ripley Entertainment.
Other oddball guests at the opening in Piccadilly include Caprice and Jordan, believe it or not...
The Odditorium 09.03.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Paul’s Ghost Hunt Was A Real Scream Liverpool Echo
Artificial Lights Put Distance Between Us And Nature Desert Valley Times
Did Close Encounter Light Up Our Skies? Stockport Express
Ghost Hunters Wanted For Fundraiser Midlothian Advertiser
UFO Caught On Camera Above City Bradford Telegraph Argus
Where Bigfoot Treads UFOs Fly Seattle Pi
Your Travel Guide To The UFO Capital Of The World! UFO Digest
Out of The Ordinary Festival Returns To Sussex Press Dispensary
Sasquatch Sighting At Campbell River British Columbia Phantoms And Monsters
Crop Circle In The Form Of A Cross Ana Luisa Cid
5 Scientific Theories That Will Make Your Head Explode Cracked
Top 20 Items Of Religious Kitsch Times Online
Microsoft Patents Your Computers ‘Page Up’ And ‘Page Down’ Keys ZDnet News
Brothers Stole Parts From 244 Corpses CNN
Ghost Hunt Delves Deep Into Darkness Ohio.com
The End Of Unlimited Internet
by Ki Mae Heussner
Major internet service providers are quickly moving foward with plans to impose bandwidth limits and begin usage-based service.
Unplugged
Get ready to say goodbye to unlimited Internet access. Last week, Comcast, the second-largest Internet service provider in the country, announced that starting Oct. 1 it would officially set a threshold for monthly Internet usage.
In an online announcement, the service provider said that although it already contacts residential customers who use excessive amounts of bandwidth, it had never provided a specific limit. Now, Comcast said it will amend its user agreement to say that users will be allowed 250 gigabytes of monthly usage.
The company emphasizes that its cap is generous and will only affect about 1 percent of its 14.4 million customers. Experts say these customers might include heavy gamers and those who use a significant amount of bandwidth for creating or uploading video.
But industry watchers note that Comcast’s decision is indicative of a trend by Internet service providers to move toward usage-based service plans.
On Aug. 1, Frontier Communications changed its policy to define acceptable use for high-speed Internet as 5 GB per month. In June, Time Warner Cable launched a test program in Beaumont, Texas, that imposes monthly Internet usage limits of 5 GB to 40 GB on subscribers.
Because Comcast is a heavyweight in the industry, its announcement has drawn criticism and questions from broadband and telecommunications researchers.
“The biggest problem I have is they haven’t given us any data. They’ve given us no proof,” said Om Malik, author of Broadbandits: Inside the $750 Billion Telecom Heist and editor of GigaOM, a popular technology Web site. Malik said GigaOm and five other technology news sites managed by his online publishing company, Giga Omni Media, receive about two million visitors each month.
Comcast’s limit is substantially higher that those established by other service providers, Malik acknowledges. But he maintains that the company’s decision amounts to metered billing and, if that’s the case, it should provide a tool so that consumers can monitor their own usage.
“With electricity companies, and water companies, you have the choice to monitor the electricity you are using,” said Malik, drawing comparisons between Comcast and regulated public utilities that maintain the infrastructure for public services.
“If they are going to behave like a utility, shouldn’t they be treated like one?” he added.
He also argued that even though a 250 GB bandwidth cap is generous in today’s terms, it may not be sufficient in the future, especially as bandwidth-needy, high-definition video becomes more common.
In its announcement, Comcast said its average residential customer uses approximately 2 to 3 GB. To put its monthly limit of 250 GB in perspective, the company said that to consume that much bandwidth a customer would have to send 50 million e-mails, 62,500 songs, download 125 standard-definition movies or upload 25,000 hi-resolution digital photos.
Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas stated the company has had an excessive use policy for years but has never disclosed its definition of excessive use.
When the customers would exceed the limit, he said Comcast would call to alert them. In most cases, the customer would voluntarily moderate his or her usage in response. If customers didn’t cut back on usage, Comcast reserved the right to suspend service. Douglas said the only difference in the policy is that customers now know that the threshold is 250 GB per month.
He says Comcast does not provide a meter tool because free and fee-based meter tools are readily available and not necessary for 99 percent of their consumers.
Although Douglas says that the company is evaluating usage-based billing models that resemble Time Warner’s trial program, he stressed that this cap is different. “This is about protecting the 99 percent of people who don’t use a massive amount of bandwidth from the small percentage that does use an extreme amount,” he said.
But industry experts observe that Internet technology is advancing rapidly and the lack of good data make it difficult to prepare for the future.
“Today’s bandwidth hog is tomorrow’s average user,” said Fred Von Lohmann, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit civil liberties group. If a cap had been imposed on the top 10 percent of Internet users in 1997, many Internet innovations of today would likely not exist, he said.
While Von Lohmann said that no one has the right to unlimited Internet access, developments in the industry need to be monitored. “This is not an emergency, but it is something that needs to be carefully watched,” he said.
Like Malik, Von Lohmann said the industry would benefit from increased transparency, in terms of providing data regarding customers Internet usage. Another major issue he flagged is competition.
Comcast sells high-definition video through other parts of its business off-line. These Internet usage limits essentially handicap competitors who want to deliver similar products online, he said.
Doug Williams, an analyst with media research firm Jupiter Research, said that cable operators, such as Comcast, have been and will continue to be first movers in imposing bandwidth caps because they have a more immediate need to do so.
Unlike telephone companies that also provide Internet service, cable operators use a shared distribution network. Extremely heavy use by a single connection has a negative and direct impact on other users in that area, he said.
As cable operators continue to impose these caps, telephone companies will be paying close attention to the customer response to determine if they should move in the same direction.
Williams says that for customers accustomed to a world of unlimited Internet access, these caps might not be welcome changes. As cell phone plans, long-distance telephone packages and other services move to flat-rate, unlimited approaches, this is a step in the opposite direction, he said.
“I think that’s going to be something that consumers are not going to be particularly happy about. But they might not have many options for recourse,” he said.
“That’s not going to make people happy, especially in this economic climate.”
Canadian Couple Claim Bigfoot Sighting
by Monica Inman-Riley
A man and wife from Anfield say they saw a black sasquatch while travelling through Skiff Lake in York County.
Dale and Valerie Tompkins
“I know exactly what I saw,” said Dale Tompkins. The resident of Anfield in Victoria County was referring to a remarkable incident in York County last weekend which he describes as “quite chilling… for a few minutes afterwards, especially.”
It was shortly after 7pm Sunday evening, Aug. 17 and Tompkins and his wife Valerie were travelling in the Skiff Lake area, heading home from a visit with friends at Second Eel River Lake. That’s when they spotted it, the creature they both firmly believe to be Bigfoot.
“When we got home we went on the Internet and found pictures exactly like what we saw,” Dale told an interviewer the following day. “There were pictures of brown ones and black ones. What we saw was a black sasquatch.”
“We were a half to three-quarters of a mile from the Skiff Lake sign in a densely wooded area when we came around a turn and saw a huge figure on the edge of the road. It looked down towards us then it walked across the road ahead of us just about 250 meters away.”
Tompkins said that at first he and Valerie thought it was a bear standing on its hind legs. But as they came closer they realized they were seeing more than just a bear.
“We own hunting and fishing camps and in the last 22 years we have brought in and weighed over 150 bears and I have seen 15 or 16 live ones, five this spring, so I know a bear when I see one. I know a bear can stand on its hind legs and move around, but a bear can’t walk on two legs the way this human-like form did. It crossed the road in three or four long steps, swinging its long arms like a human!”
Tompkins estimated the chip-sealed road to measure 35 feet across.
At the time of the sighting, the couple noticed a vehicle following closely behind them. With hopes that the driver had seen what they described as a “pitch-black, sleek, hairy, approximately 8-and-a-half foot sasquatch,” they stopped him and his passenger along the road in Canterbury.
“We asked them if they saw what we saw and they said they did,” explained Valerie. “They told us they were on their way home from their local area cottage. They were as excited as we were.”
When contacted, the other couple confirmed the road-side conversation with Dale and Valerie Tompkins, who they said they met for the first time that evening.
Although they requested anonymity the woman said, “I know what we saw and I don’t care if people believe us or not. There are four of us who witnessed the same thing so why would we just make something like that up?”
Although they stand behind the claims, her husband acknowledged most people will not believe them. “We don’t want to be involved in what we feel people will only think of as a hoax.”
Valerie Tompkins considered someone may be playing a hoax on them and the out-of-town couple. “If it was just someone dressed up, they sure did a good job,” she said.
Then she added in a firm tone, “We believe we saw Bigfoot.”
http://victoriastar.canadaeast.com/
The UFOs Of Sussex
by Miles Godfrey
Sussex is a hotbed of UFO sightings. According to the British UFO Research Association there is about one sighting in the county a week.
Reg and Sandy Washer
caught a UFO on camera
It is easy to dismiss tales about little green men and flying saucers. But there remains a constant stream of UFO reports from across Sussex, from wildly varying sources, suggesting there must be at least some substance in the claims.
Whether you believe in aliens or not, and some of the country’s most prominent scientists do, there is no denying that unusual objects are continually being spotted in our skies. And whether they are actually beings from outer space, experimental aircraft or simply honest mistakes remains open to debate.
But UFOs are still a fascinating subject, especially given that it is estimated at least one sighting is being made every week in this county (Britain) alone.
A spokesman for the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) said: “Sussex is a real hotbed of sightings, one of the biggest in the country. At the moment there is around one sighting made and reported to us a week. It varies but that is an average. One reason for the number could be the mix of rural locations and views over the sea.”
Indeed there are regular sightings made over the coast, suggesting either that is where aliens like to fly or that people are easily mistaken by objects they see – or both.
Mistakes are, of course, regularly made. Chinese lanterns let off by revellers are often thought to be UFOs and reported as such. There have been numerous reports made during the past year that turn out to be the floating paper lights.
But for every ten sightings that are explained there is at least one which turns out to be inexplicable.
The most recent example was one made by Jo Wilcox at her home in Cedar Close, Worthing.
In August she described seeing several UFOs hovering over her house. She reported seeing a bright orange ball, wobbling slightly from side to side.
Mrs Wilcox said, “No stars were visible and it hovered, really bright orange, wobbled from side to side then remained still. I screamed for my neighbour who came out with her 14-year-old son. They saw it too.”
You might not think that middle-class Conservatives are prone to making bold claims about UFOs but Lynda Hyde, Tory representative for Rottingdean on Brighton and Hove City Council, certainly believes they were seen in the skies above Saltdean on May 31.
She said, “Two of the reports came from people I know well and I judge them to be sane. The UFOs were described as almost square in shape with each one having four red or orange lights. They made no sound. When they left, two went in a westward direction and the third flew vertically up until it disappeared.”
Mother-of-one Michelle Huggett, 31, also spotted a red and orange object hurtling across the skies in Lancing in broad daylight in February.
She said, “I was walking through town when I spotted it. It was moving very fast east to west but then just suddenly stopped. There was absolutely no noise at all. It was spooky.”
More than 60 glowing orbs were spotted in the skies above Uckfield in October last year.
Resident Jamie Smith said, “It was like something out of Space Invaders.”
All of those sightings are among the most intriguing to have been reported in the past year and all remain unexplained.
Other mysterious sightings have been solved as more Earthly flying objects within days or even hours.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) keeps a list of all the UFOs reported to it. It does not comment on the validity of such sightings, claiming that it investigates them only to check if British airspace has been compromised.
An MoD spokesman said, “Unless there is evidence of a potential threat, there is no attempt to identify the nature of each sighting reported.”
It logged 52 sightings, only a fraction of those actually seen, between 1998 and 2006.
There does not appear to be a particular part of Sussex where more UFOs are spotted than others.
Brighton and Hove is a hotbed but then it has a far denser population than other areas, making sightings more likely.
Of the past ten sightings, nine have been on or very near the coast. Others have occurred inland at Petworth, Polegate and the one at Uckfield.
The BUFORA spokesman added, “People should always report sightings of UFOs because the more they do the bigger the picture is built up. It is too hard to say what percentage are genuine mysteries or not. But the only way it can be researched is by having them reported.”
UFO Hacker Distraught Over Extradition
by Ryan Deter
An emotional Gary McKinnon awaits extradition to face charges of hacking into U.S. military computers.
A British computer expert accused of hacking into American military systems was in a distraught state as he awaited extradition to the US, his family and friends said.
Gary McKinnon, 42, who claimed he was looking for UFO files, has lost a string of legal battles against his extradition, culminating in a failed last-ditch appeal at the European Court of Human Rights last month.
His parents and girlfriend joined supporters in London for a demonstration outside the Home Office, calling on the Government to prevent him from being handed over to American authorities.
Mr McKinnon, an unemployed systems analyst from Wood Green, north London, admits accessing 97 US Navy, Army, Nasa and Pentagon computers, but he said he was motivated by curiosity and only got in because of lax security.
The US government said he stole passwords and deleted files. Glasgow-born Mr McKinnon faces up to 70 years in prison if he is found guilty.
Lucy Clarke, who has been with Mr McKinnon for the last three and a half years, said: “He is a broken man, he is distraught and very scared. All we can do is wait. The whole family has been living in terror.”
Miss Clarke, 37, who works as a secretary, said she hoped the action would raise public awareness of his plight and highlight the one-sided nature of the extradition treaty.
Demonstrators wore T-shirts stating “Give Gary McKinnon a Fair Trial”, chanted and held up placards with messages such as “No Evidence Required, No Justice Required” and “UK Law for UK Citizens.”
His father, Charlie McKinnon, travelled from his Glasgow home to support his son.
The 63-year-old scaffolder said: “I don’t want him to go to America. There is no hope for him to face a fair trial there, they have made up their minds.”
UK Bigfoot Terrorizes British Teens
by Ryan Deter
A strange encounter leaves a group of young men scared and shaken.
After recent events worldwide regarding Bigfoot, interest in Cannock’s very own alleged sasquatch has heightened. A Cannock resident has come forward with claims he have had a very strange encounter over in the Staffordshire forest.
“Last year around June time, me and two other friends were supposed to go to a 24-hour basketball event for charity. Us being lads we decided to skive and go and sit down the lane in my car, and do what typical teenage lads do.
“Anyway, so me and two others were parked up in a little pull-in, down a lane in Gentleshaw not too far from Burntwood, Cannock. We were parked in this pull-in facing the road, with trees either side of us, and a gated-field behind. It was around two o’clock in the morning and we had the interior light on in the car, when my friend in the front passenger seat said he could see something moving outside, on the right side of the car.
“We turned off the interior light to get a better look and could definitely see something moving in the trees in the distance. Our first thoughts were a person or an animal, all we could see was something large moving around. This thing must have been about 10-15m away. (I didn’t exactly have time to measure!) I turned the car headlights and hazard lights on, to see if I could see anymore. This thing was the shape of a human, but stood about 7-8ft, it was hard to tell with it being dark and such a distance away.
“At first sight it was crouching, not completely to the floor, but approx half way and facing directly at the car. It was too dark to see whether it was staring at us, but im guessing it was! As soon as it realised we had seen it, it stood up straight, hesitated and ran towards us. Well as you can imagine I wasn’t sticking around. This thing was definitely not human, it was huge! It wasn’t just tall, but broad and stocky too. I haven’t got a clue what its face was like, or its skin or fur, or whatever it had. It wasn’t light enough.
“My back passenger darted to the other side of the car, and nobody said a word. As it came towards us it was rustling big bushes, shaking pretty big trees, it was just like in a horror movie. I drove out of the pull-in and turned left down the lane, this thing was keeping up with the car, but in the trees. I was trying so hard not to look in my mirrors, but I could see it in the corner of my eyes, I don’t know whether it was flying or jumping or what.
“Its strength and quickness was unbelievable. Obviously I wasn’t thinking that at the time, I just wanted to get the hell out of there! I drove to the bottom of the lane doing about 80mph, and it just vanished as soon as I came up to a pub at the bottom of the lane. I didn’t stop until I entered a residential area.
“The fear was unreal, I have never been so scared, and didn’t think I would ever experience anything that would scare me so much. I felt physically sick, cold and shakey. I just didn’t want to believe what I had seen. None of us discussed it, I think we were all in denial! I completely blanked it from my mind after that, and didn’t discuss it again untill 3 days ago, when the front seat passenger brought it up in conversation, and now I can’t forget about it.
“I hate re-living it, but I thought I would let others know of my experience. I’m not asking you to believe me, because to everyone else it probably seems so far fetched, but I know what I saw and so do the other two lads. I’m not at all saying I saw Bigfoot, but I know 100% this thing was not human. I know other stories say the thing they saw had red eyes, but I didn’t see red eyes, I wasn’t close enough to see. Glad I wasn’t too.
“What haunts me now, is what would its face have looked like? Where is it?
“It must have been watching us, and what would it have done if we didnt get away?”
The Odditorium 09.02.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
BVM Apparitions UFOs And Deceptions UFO Digest
Aliens Links To Human Disparity On Earth Canadian National Newspaper
True Confessions Of An ET UFO Contact American Chronicle
Paranormal Society Enjoys Growth Centre Daily Times
Nova Scotia Village Uses UFO Sighting To Lure Tourists Canada.com
Where Are All The UFOs? The Border Watch
The Unraveling Of The Bigfoot Hoax Cryptomundo
Two Brazilian Bird People And An English One Hecklerspray
Haunted Spice Rack For Sale Fox News
Mummy Was A Daddy BBC News
Fight The Gray Realm UFO Digest
Bark If You See Mary Toronto Sun
The Lamest Photos Ever Received Forget Omori
A New Use For Old Typewriters Wired
Lucy And Desi’s Secret Granddaughter New York Post
Time And Reincarnation UFO Digest
Alabama To Tax Fat Employees Fox News
Absorbing Orbs Common Ground
Archeologists Discover John McCain’s Crypt Cap News
Grandfather Was A Time Traveler
by Dean Terry
A friend of mine found something strange in his late grandfather’s belongings.
The grandfather
The following are excerpts from a message I received from my friend Adrian:
“My grandfather died recently. He was quite a unique person and I will miss him dearly.
While helping my mother sort out my grandfather’s personal effects, I came across something incredibly odd.
He left behind a key to a small chest which he gave to my mother just days before he died in the hospital. The chest, he said, was very important. He never said what was in it, but I figured it was a possibly an old family heirloom.
Since my mother was so emotionally distressed at my grandfather’s passing, I took on the task of sorting out his things. After sorting through clothing, letters and other personal articles, I finally came to the chest.
I was surprised when I opened it and found the only thing inside was a yellowed, ragged-edged booklet.
When I first paged through it, I though it was a prank. My grandfather had a great sense of humor and was known as a bit of a prankster. But after reading passages from the booklet, I was shocked to see that was in fact a manual explaining theories about time travel and how to do it.
Also, inside the booklet was a folded piece of paper, seemingly picturing a time traveling device and the bending of space.
I’m no expert on space time sciences or physics, but this information appears to me too complex to be a prank.
Dean, I scanned the images and am sending them to you. Please tell me what you think. You may want to put the scanned images on your website. Maybe readers of Our Strange World would have comments.
I’d like some help to confirm whether this is real, or possibly a final prank by my late grandfather.
Thanks - Adrian”
The Booklet:
The Paper Found In The Booklet:
“Dean, my grandfather was a brilliant man. When I was young, he used to tell me strange stories about living on other worlds. I remember him telling me of devices like home television recording systems, advanced computer systems and the internet - long before they became available.
My grandmother passed away when my mother was six years-old. After that, my grandfather left my mother with relatives, and he disappeared for a number of years. The story was that grandfather had accepted a job overseas, but my mother isn’t sure that was true. She said she remembers getting letters from grandfather which were postmarked from New Mexico.
Mother said he was always evasive about that portion of his life, but after he returned home, he started receiving monthly checks from the government.”
What are the chances that Adrian’s suspicions are real?
If this information is not a hoax, how did it come into Adrian’s grandfathers possession?
Could his grandfather have been a time traveler?
What do you think?
Copyright © 2008 Our Strange World
The Odditorium 09.01.2008
A compendium of Strange Things...
Ghost Club Investigate Inside Tunnels Birmingham Mail
Life In The Stars Utne Reader
Greensburg Man Documents Surge Of UFO Sightings Pittsburg Tribune-Review
Cryptozoologys Top 10 Most Wanted Monsters Nolan Chart
Aliens Are Stealing Our Remotes New Lenox Patriot
Animal Intelligence And The Evolution Of The Human Mind Scientific American
Secret Behind Indian Guru Levitation Revealed Weird Asia News
An EVP To Chill Your Soul Paranormal Examiner
Michigan Couple Tie The Knot At Funeral Home CBS News
Restless Spirits Of The Penn’s Creek Massacre The Paranormal Pastor
Mr Petri’s Project Intangible Materiality
How To Explain Consciousness Shifts Beyond The Blog
Getting Into The Spirit Of Things At Cowdray Midhurst And Petworth Observer
100 Ugly British Cars Telegraph
Ancient DNA Being Used To Make… Beer Washington Post
Mysterious Angels Nolan Chart
Wearable Dino Suits That Look And Move Realistically Tech E Blog
The 2008 Alien Invasion Of The UK Oh My News
Confererate Ghosts And A Dark Old House
by Kim Kimzey
Rumor has it that the spirits of Confederate soldiers still haunt a house near Glendale Mill, South Carolina.
Members of UPI in the attic
At one time, it was a grand house. Even in its neglected and dilapidated state, there is still some regality to the home Dr. James Bivings built in the 1830s. It sits on a hill that once overlooked Glendale Mill.
Fire claimed most of the mill four years ago, but the columned house still stands as a landmark in the once-bustling mill village.
The mill was eventually sold by Bivings in bankruptcy proceedings. Dexter Edgar Converse, founder of Converse College, became manager of the mill and moved into the house in 1855. Superintendents of the Glendale Mill would follow.
The house hasn’t been inhabited for many years. Or has it?
Do apparitions, including soldiers, wander its large rooms and grounds? Team members of Upstate Paranormal Investigations recently spent a night there gathering audio, video and other data to determine whether paranormal activity is indeed taking place.
Some think the house was used as a hospital for Confederate soldiers. The basement supposedly served as a morgue.
“From local people that we’ve talked to, they say that Confederate soldiers have been seen,” said Annette Sepulveda, founder of UPI.
Some people have told UPI team members they’ve seen Confederate soldiers around the basement. Some claim to have seen a woman on the porch, Sepulveda said.
Going Inside
During UPI’s recent investigation, Sepulveda carefully steps through weeds and over wires running across the overgrown lawn from the house to a pitched tent. The tent is where the team has set up equipment powered by car batteries.
The house has no electricity, and it’s very dark this overcast night. The amber glow from a streetlight illuminates the house and chain link fence surrounding the property.
It’s about 9:30pm and the neighborhood is quiet, but the crickets are loud. The air is thick with their chirping, as well as the humidity.
Beams from flashlights cut into the dark and guide investigators into the house. Light from Sepulveda’s flashlight bounces across floors and walls. Some places show water damage and graffiti.
“It’s a crying shame, what’s been done to it,” Sepulveda says. “It’s absolutely gorgeous, even though it’s neglected.”
She reflects on the house’s former significance for Glendale residents. “Think of the planning that must have gone on there for the whole community,” she says.
“If you believe, like a lot of people, believe that life doesn’t end, that the human body is full of energy and energy cannot be destroyed, it only changes to something different, then when a person dies their energy could be absorbed into these walls, you know, the energy of everyday life being absorbed into the walls and becoming a part of the building,” she says.
“A lot of people believe that. Do I know scientifically? Can I prove that that’s true? That’s what we’re trying to do.”
UPI, which formed in February, has 10 active members and a technical adviser. A few team members are from North Carolina; one is from Greenville. The rest are from Spartanburg. All of them have regular jobs. They do paranormal investigation in their spare time.
Amber Patton, a team leader from Spartanburg, said members are serious about investigating the paranormal and include believers and skeptics. “I think we’re greatly misunderstood,” she said.
She said a lot of people think of them as ghost busters.
Patton said the group’s goal is helping people. She said paranormal activity is terrifying to some, and that the group might serve to help ease their minds.
Investigations Are Free
UPI has investigated four cases. Two more are pending.
Sepulveda says they never ask clients for a fee. “To us, it’s an honor and a privilege to have an opportunity to investigate the paranormal,” she says.
Team members use their own equipment. On their most recent investigation of the Bivings house, they set up equipment, including a motion sensor and cameras, all over the house. A couple of team members watch the video live out in a tent.
They also have audio equipment to record electronic voice phenomena.
But the most important investigative tool, Sepulveda says, is intuition. “It will tell you when something’s there. It will tell you when to get out. It will tell you when it’s safe.”
Before an EVP session in the basement, team members gather in a circle, join hands and pray for protection. After the prayer, Rick Huffman and Sepulveda head back into the house and descend the stairs to the basement.
Huffman, co-founder of the group and a lead investigator, sits down on one side of the basement, and Sepulveda sits on the other side. They’re settling in, preparing for the EVP session.
“All right guys, we are going silent for EVP sessions,” Huffman radios to team members upstairs.
They switch off their flashlights, and the basement goes black.
“Is there anyone in this basement who would like to communicate with us?” Sepulveda asks. “We’re not here to harm you. We’re only curious. Are you a Confederate soldier?”
Huffman introduces himself and the team and explains what they’re doing.
More questions follow. The session lasts about 13 minutes.
Huffman thanks anyone who might be present for any attempts they might have made to contact the team. Not always exciting
Sepulveda says paranormal investigating is actually very boring. “It’s a lot of long hours sitting and waiting,” she says.
She says their ultimate goal is to help people determine whether they’re experiencing paranormal activity. They first search for natural explanations of suspected paranormal activity.
“I’m a very analytical person,” Huffman says. “I will drive it into the ground if I have to, you know. I’m like a bulldog. They have to keep me on a leash sometimes because I want to find out the truth.”
It will take hours to review the data the team members have collected, including audio.
Sepulveda says she hears something while playing back the EVP session from the basement. When she asked, “Are you a Confederate soldier?” she heard a whispered yes.
Thursday, they were still reviewing what they gathered. Sepulveda said more than half the group will scrutinize the recording to decide whether it’s legitimate, man-made or mechanical. If they can’t agree, they will throw it out.
History Up To Question
B.G. Stephens, the self-described unofficial mayor of Glendale, grew up there. He said a strong rumor is that the basement might have been a Confederate morgue, but no one has substantiated that. He points out that there wasn’t much Civil War combat here.
“Glendale mill workers and owners contributed to the Southern cause in the Civil War with the assignment of one-third of the plant’s production to Confederate use,” Michael Leonard wrote in Our Heritage: A Community History of Spartanburg County, S.C.
Brad Steinecke, collections and research manager for the Spartanburg County Historical Association, said it’s perfectly conceivable that the house could have been used as a hospital. Nothing in the historical records supports that, however.
Steinecke said the Glendale Mill produced wooden shoe soles during the war.
Maybe, if the crickets quiet down long enough, you can hear them echoing in the hallways or shuffling across the basement’s dirt floor.
Into The Darkness Of A Haunted Theatre
by Brynn Mandel
Roaming around a dark, vacant theater for hours on end looking for ghosts? Just a typical night for Shekinah Paranormal Investigators of Barkhamsted, Connecticut.
The Warner Theatre Torrington, Connecticut
Jeff Messenger bounded up the basement stairs, toward his mother’s shouts emanating from the dark theater’s auditorium. It was after midnight. The theater sat deserted, save for Messenger, his older brother, their 72-year-old mother, a theater staffer, and possibly, they hoped, a ghost.
Hours into the late-night survey by ghost-hunting brigade Shekinah Paranormal Investigators, the matriarch of the Messenger family thought she saw something “snow white.”
From the catacombs of the 77-year-old Warner Theatre, the Messenger brothers negotiated a confounding labyrinth bringing them backstage, down a few stairs and through a narrow doorway that dumped into the auditorium’s shadowy blackness. Amid rows of empty seats, the viewfinder of a strategically placed infrared camera shined a solitary beacon. On rear walls, the subtle red glow of signs above doors implored: Exit.
“I watched it float out of sight,” Cassandra Messanger’s gravelly voice peaked in excitement as her breathless sons arrived by her side.
Jeff rewound the infrared-equipped video camera, one of three stationed around the Torrington performing arts center, and announced that he felt something. “Literally, guys, something just tugged on my camera,” he said, waving his hand.
Bam!
A bang sounding like the slam of a metal door echoed. Maybe Murph the rumored resident “presence” had decided to play along in the ghoulish game of cat-and-mouse, after all.
A man who seems to vanish into thin air. Pockets of unusually cold air. Lights that turn on and off by themselves. Performers who see something in the balcony out of the corner of their eyes.
Theaters accumulate their share of superstitious stories, and the art deco, 1931 former movie palace, is no exception. Just look at the ghost light, a single bulb left burning into the night on stages worldwide to ward off ghosts or to avoid fumbles over props and set pieces, depending on who you ask.
Eight years ago, the Warner turned its ghost light off after it ignited a fire that damaged the stage and orchestra pit. Reports of strange occurrences persisted, most blamed on Murph. According to lore, Murph was a drunk vagabond who broke into the theater one night to sleep and tumbled down the basement stairs to his death.
“I don’t know where the story came from,” said Carol Klapp, the Torrington Historical Society’s librarian who researched spooky local lore last year for a Halloween cemetery and ghost tour. “That’s not to say it’s not true. Most of these stories do have some basis in fact.”
Fact, as you may determine in the curious case of “Murph,” often proves stranger than fiction. And despite “Ghostbuster"-like qualities of the Shekinah team’s tools, the hand-held EMF meter measures electromagnetic energy and emits sounds like an AM radio between stations, fact is ultimately what the Messengers and two other paranormal teams investigating the Warner this year are after. They want proof.
Leaning on a gnarly wood cane, Cassandra Messenger explained how she came to not only believe in ghosts, but to hunt them through arthritis and aging: “I figure, if there’s a God, there’s a devil. In my mind, I want to prove both sides.”
A longtime school employee, Cassandra raised her three adult sons in Barkhamsted, where they attended an Episcopalian church. Shekinah means presence of God.
Jeff, a University of Connecticut graduate, grew up with a grandson of the Warrens, a Connecticut couple famous for their investigations of haunts like the horror house in Amityville, N.Y. A scrawny, artistic kid, Jeff so feared ghosts he slept with a night light. Outings with the Warrens’ grandson intrigued him enough that, four years ago when he met demonologist David Considine, Jeff signed up for a paranormal class.
Though he said he has attended a few exorcisms and seen some “pretty creepy” things, Jeff and the year-old Shekinah specialize in friendly ghosts, like Murph. Members of the nascent ghost-hunting group work by day at courthouses and casinos, among other places.
Holding a digital voice recorder, Jeff called hauntings unpredictable.
“You can go 99 percent of the time with nothing happening,” said Jeff, eyeballing the black-and-white night vision images on the back of one High-8 camcorder. “It doesn’t occur every night. It doesn’t occur on cue.”
Just as infrared technology illuminates a realm of spiritual activities the naked human eye can’t see, Jeff said, so can sound recorders pick up EVP, or electronic voice phenomena.
A few hours into their search, the Messengers and Steve Criss, marketing manager for the Warner, piled into an elevator to try to detect whispers or utterances from Murph in the upper balcony, supposedly a favored hangout. The group stood in silence as the elevator gears hummed, pulling them upward. The door slid open, and they took seats in the back of the house. It was so dark you could hardly see a hand in front of you.
“If there’s anything here, if it can turn that flashlight on, it’s a small button on that flashlight,” Jeff said, setting the light in the aisle.
Minutes ticked by silently. Jeff, a solidly-built bald man with a pale, almost ghostlike complexion offered: “It’s been my experience generally that ghosts don’t do requests.”
It was time to give the spirit recognition, said Jeff, explaining the more recognition given a spirit, the more it is empowered. But there would be no “Murph are you here?” Provoking a spirit or addressing it directly invites it to bind itself to you, said Jeff, and that would not be good. Instead, they needed to talk about Murph and hope that he might later be heard on the recorder. They established a code word, Simon, to be uttered in every sentence so that if a voice from another dimension manifested on the recorder, it could be distinguished from those of mere mortals.
Jeff hit the record button and asked Criss, a four-year Warner employee, about Murph’s tendencies. Talk turned to the graveyard-shift guy who locks the building, sometimes with his wife in tow.
“Simon ... his wife hears various voices here?” Jeff asked.
“Simon, yes,” replied Criss.
Criss recalled feeling as if he wasn’t alone while working late at night on a few occasions.
“I don’t know what the term is, but you just get the willies, let me get out of here quick,” he said, the group’s flashlights dancing on the star-adorned ceiling as they left the balcony. “You feel the hairs on the back of your neck rise.”
A woman from the box office reported seeing a haggard-looking old man who was there one minute, gone the next.
“We’ve sort of embraced the possibility that, yes, there is someone here,” said Criss. “I haven’t been sold on it. If he is here, he’s certainly more of a positive energy.”
When a light bulb blows or ladder crashes, it’s standard for folks to shrug and say, “Oh, that’s Murph.”
“We’ve got a little orb,” called Jon Messenger, a former B52 Air Force crew chief, emerging from behind a black curtain obscuring stage left. He pointed to a fleck on a digital still camera’s LCD screen. “Oh, there’s two.”
“Two?” said his mother, approaching.
Orbs, or circles of light seldom detectable to the naked human eye, Jeff explained, are considered controversial even among ghost hunters. The phenomena could easily be caused by a cloud of dust, an insect, a refraction of light. But to believers like the Messengers, they also could be a spirit’s energy field, precursors to a full-blown apparition.
“They can sparkle like a lightning bug and they can appear as big as a basketball,” said Jeff, who is writing a book about Connecticut hauntings. “They come, they flare and they fade.”
Cooed Cassandra: “They’re beautiful.”
The “holy grail” of footage, as Jeff called it, would be an actual form. Jeff attested to accumulating video footage and photos that could cause pause among nonbelievers. They depict objects flying through the air, vaporous shapes and faces. The Messengers say they have seen “undeniable things,” including a spooky figure that emerged from a grave in one of the cemeteries they’ve surveyed.
Ernest Cedar, Torrington’s municipal historian, never heard of a real, living or rumored spiritual vagrant living or dying near the Warner. “We have other ghost stories flopping all over the place,” he said, adding he believes none of them.
It turns out, someone did take a life-ending tumble down basement stairs at the Warner 74 years ago. It made front-page news in the Aug. 2, 1934 Waterbury Republican: “E. Frost Knapp Torrington, Hurt; Retired Merchant Seriously Injured In Fall Down Theater Stairs.” Attending the movies with his wife, Knapp left his seat to go to the men’s room. He perilously mistook the door to the basement stairs for the men’s room. After a conspicuously long absence, his wife and theater staff launched a search. They found Knapp at the bottom of the stairs, suffering from a fractured skull. He died four days later. His obituary noted how, curiously, Knapp was among of a trio of close friends from Torrington to suffer falls in the course of a week. One of those falls also resulted in death.
Knapp’s death was the closest story to Murph’s that the local historical society’s librarian could find.
In the darkness after Cassandra’s sighting, the group awaited the instant reply. The bang in the flurry of action, they discovered, may have been her cane falling. The tiny screen showed the theater moments earlier, in hues reminiscent of “The Blair Witch Project.”
“You see it? I was shocked. It started in the back. It was a big, white orb. It came from the back and it descended into the dark. I heard two bangs against that wall before it happened,” said Cassandra, showing her flashlight in her pocket, where she said it remained the entire duration of the so-called “light anomaly.”
The men rewound the tape over and over, marveling. Too big to be an insect catching the light, or a dust particle, the voices in the dark determined.
“From what we witnessed so far there’s definitely something,” said Jeff, calling the giant orb on film unlike anything he’s filmed so far. As the clock struck 1am the group wrapped up its ghost hunt, satisfied at the sight. Before exiting onto Main Street, they each uttered a so-called binding prayer, intended as a safeguard against spirits following you out the door.
Jeff recited his: “In the name of God, I command all spirits to remain here, and be at peace.”
San Angelo Shadow Chasers Look For Proof
by Rick Smith
The author tags along with a team of paranormal investigators as they take a look at an old cemetery in San Angelo, Texas.
Looking for spirits of the past
Do you believe in ghosts? I didn’t. Then, last weekend, I found myself in a spooky old cemetery at midnight, surrounded by ghost hunters. Now, I’m not so sure about things that go bump and boo in the night.
I can’t tell you exactly where the San Angelo Paranormal Society’s investigation took place. The privacy is part of the deal they made with the people who manage the cemetery. I can tell you it’s a peaceful, pretty place during the day, but at night, moonlight and imagination can paint a different picture.
The paranormal society includes some people who are serious about solving mysteries.
President Darin Durden helped organize the group two years ago after experiencing some unexplainable noises and incidents in his own San Angelo home.
The group meets once a month and also makes regular investigations of places where unusual activity has occurred. They use a variety of gadgets, including special meters and cameras, to try to detect telltale signs of spirits.
Last Saturday around 11pm, about a dozen members gathered at the cemetery, received an orientation by the cemetery manager, then broke into teams to check different areas.
I tagged along with Iraq War veteran Stoddard Owens, house painter Val Rodriguez and two of the group’s youngest members, 16-year-old Rachel Russell and Kelsey Johns, who is 19.
The two men are what the group calls “skeptics.” Stoddard and Val have never seen a ghost, but they’re interested in trying to find evidence that something beyond the ordinary exists. “I need proof,” Val said. “I want it to poke me, push me or knock me down. I want to see it come right at me.”
Be careful what you wish for, Val.
The women say they are true believers because they have had encounters with ghosts, and they were scary. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with,” Kelsey warned.
Kelsey told me she was sleeping in a friend’s house one night when a rustling of papers woke her. “It was like someone was going through the papers,” she said.
But no one was there. “I was scared so bad I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t cry. I just sat there.”
Then an invisible hand reached out and touched her. “It was like, ‘Don’t be afraid. Calm down.’”
She said she was a skeptic before the incident, but not now.
Unlike Kelsey, Rachel said she’s always been able to hear things others can’t, including the voices of spirits. “The emotions can hit me hard,” she said.
Our little band of ghost busters spent almost three hours that night walking the cemetery, snapping pictures, taking electrical readings, looking for anything unusual.
I was secretly relieved, but also a little disappointed, when I didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary.
After the hunt, stepping around silent tombstones as we walked back to the cars, Stoddard and I talked about why he and the others chase ghosts. “I’ve always been curious,” he said, checking his meter as we walked. “I’ve never seen or heard anything I couldn’t explain. But I’m still looking.”
* What: The San Angelo Paranormal Society.
* When: The group meets the first Saturday of each month at 6 p.m.
* Where: Widdershins, a shop at 215 S. Koenigheim St., on the west side of the street.
* Information: 456-9806 or