Brisbane, Queensland, Australia - Few people find the courage to throw it all in for a career change, but Helen Thomas may have had the advantage of hindsight at the outset.

Helen’s decision to forfeit the security of a fortnightly pay check in order to pursue a career - an unconventional one at that - was not without turmoil.

The former public relations consultant has abandoned the stress of the morning commute, queuing for cappuccinos and corporate wear for a career as a psychic. continued

Psychic Helen Thomas has learned to come to grips with an ability to communicate with the dead

In a simple blue dress with her hair tied neatly off her face, Helen does not represent a stereotypical new-age fortune teller, although her calm demeanor and deep blue eyes suggests she possesses a “knowing”.

Helen is neither a ghost whisperer nor a clairvoyant, but has had strange and chillingly accurate premonitions for most of her life. She says she has only recently been able to accept her ability to communicate with the dead.

The first significant experience of mediumship came when Helen was just 20 and dreamed about her aunt on the night she died.

“It was September 1, 2008. I will never forget the morning,” she said.

The sensations she felt over her own body as she was lying in bed were the same as those experienced by her aunt in her final moment, she said.

“It completely threw me. It’s not something normal. It’s not something that happens in every day life. It’s not something that you can really come and talk to people about, well I didn’t think at the time. I later went and told the messages my aunt had given me to two of her children and I said that had asked me to tell them that she loved them. And they had gone to bed the night before thinking, ‘If only mum could tell us one last time that she loved us.’ It took me a long time to come to terms with it all and what had happened. And if I really ever wanted it to happen again.”

An intense period followed, complicated by feelings of grief for her aunt and fear of her apparent gift.

“There was this fear for me that I wouldn’t be able to control it. I was worried about the isolation it might bring and what would people think.”

It would be five years before Helen revisited her other side. Hers came to be a long journey of self-discovery - freeing herself of the conservative values instilled in her during years of Catholic schooling in Brisbane - as much as a career change.

When curiosity took hold two years ago Helen visited a psychic. “In talking with her and having that reading she opened me up to how I could control it and not be scared of it,” she said.

“She invited me to a workshop. I was tempted not to go in. I was the youngest person there. It was in this workshop that I had my second big moment - when I was asked to take a piece of jewelery out of a box and just sit there and hold it and say what came to my mind. As I spoke, I noticed a woman across the room crying and she said, ‘You’ve just given me information from my grandmother - that used to be her necklace.’ That’s when I realized there was something I could obviously tap into.”

Practice on friends and family followed. Then extended family and their friends. Now the messages come thick and fast.

“I am very fortunate because my mum is open to this sort of thing,” she said. “In fact mum and her sister (Helen’s aunt who passed away) used to find it quite funny to joke about these sorts of things. They would go an see psychics and view them with a healthy skepticism and come home and compare notes and laugh about what the future had in store for them.”

Her father is supportive but wishes his eldest daughter could predict the lotto numbers.

“You end up letting go of a different way of life,” she said.

“My friends have known me as a very hard-working, goal-orientated person. All of a sudden I have decided to leave my job and go out and do something so completely unconventional. I have let go of the fear of what people might think of me. I know that there are people who won’t get it and I know that there are people who will always be skeptics. I have spent the last 18 months trying to live in the confines of normal life, but I need to do what makes me feel happy in my heart and not following my head.”

Only recently has Helen been able to connect with her guides. “I have read an awful lot and basically taught myself, because I don’t really buy into all the new-age stuff that comes with this profession.”

Occasionally the messages would come at the most inopportune times. “Sometimes I would stand up at my desk at work and say, ‘Right, who’s got the aunt with the long hair and the brother that passed away.’”

Thankfully her work colleagues were happy to engage in Helen’s impromptu medium readings free-of-charge.

“There are two sides to what I do - the psychic side is where my guides give me information about the different situations that a person might have their life and how they might want to handle them. I am also a direct channel, because I am a medium, for people who have passed away. It’s not actually me giving the information. I am just a telephone and I let the information through. At the end I hang up the phone and people can do with that information what they will.”

Helen uses angel cards to gain an overall insight into a person’s life. She has also honed her ability to glean messages and visions from pieces of jewelery in the practice of psychometry. “I’m not going to get my crystals out,” she says.

“I believe there is a rational explanation for most happenings. But if messages can be passed to me, I’ve got to believe in that. For whatever reason I can do this, and I don’t know why.”

Hartford,Connecticut - TIt’s hard to stump the staffers at Connecticut’s historical landmarks - they’re pretty well versed on their buildings’ one-time occupants. But there’s one common question for which they have no adequate answer: Is this place haunted?

Very old buildings commonly come with lore about spooky happenings, but rarely does anyone really explore these tales. To that end, officials with Connecticut Landmarks have tapped the East Haven-based Connecticut Paranormal Research Investigators (CT-PRI, for short) to get to the bottom of things.

Since May, the group has been schlepping its equipment - infrared cameras, temperature gauges, audio recorders, holy water - to four of the 12 properties maintained by Connecticut Landmarks. They concluded their on-site work last week, at Hartford’s oldest building, the Butler-McCook House on Main Street. After reviewing the evidence, they’ll put together their findings.

That will be the basis for a series of presentations for the public in September and October titled, appropriately, “Is This Place Haunted?” continued

Christine Kaczynski, at right, and Jan Fortier take photographs at the
Butler-McCook House while testing for paranormal activity there

The five-member CT-PRI was founded by Christine Kaczynski, who introduces herself as “coming from a family of exorcists in Greece.” A design engineer by day (she doesn’t charge for ghost-hunting), she’s been working in the paranormal field for 35 years and formed the group five years ago. Kaczynski points out that they’re not actually looking for hauntings, which are malevolent spirits, but for spiritual presences.

Kaczynski twisted her ankle a week earlier but discounts the possibility of otherworldly menace. “Mostly they play upon your fears,” she says of evil spirits. “They’re psychological attacks a lot of the time.”

Spots That Go Cold

Connecticut Landmarks long resisted the idea of paranormal research - after all, it’s a serious organization that deals with history and facts, said Rochelle Simon, director of communications for Connecticut Landmarks. But, after years of fielding questions from the public, the group’s officials realized they also were curious. Simon says they also were impressed by CT-PRI’s professionalism.

It takes the crew about 20 minutes to set up all the wiring and install infrared cameras in four of the rooms Butler-McCook House. Cynthia Riccio, Butler-McCook’s site administrator, has said that she feels a distinctive “presence” when she’s alone in the house. She suspect’s that it’s Frances McCook, the house’s last occupant.

The investigators do some preliminary photography to get the house’s layout and set up temperature gauges to check for spots that suddenly go cold. Adam Shefts of Wallingford, who joined the group about a year ago, does most of the tech stuff. Many of the gadgets are gifts from his family, even though his father thinks it’s a waste of time. His mother, though, is a believer, and his friends think it’s a cool hobby.

“I don’t go around telling too many people because I don’t know what their reaction is going to be,” Shefts says.

Jan Forcier of Bridgeport wanders the house, extending a digital recorder in her hand and petitioning any spirits to make themselves known. She’s hoping to capture electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, in ghost-hunting argot.

“I’m here to communicate with you. Do you mind our being here?” she says to the dark. “Can you tell me your name? Is there something you would like to say?”

If any spirits take her up on the offer, Forcier won’t know until she reviews the tape later; you can rarely hear spirits with the naked ear. Even on recordings, she says, words are usually muffled, as though they’re being spoken underwater. EVP experts claim that spiritual voices are either below 30 hertz or above 28,000 hertz; human voices are mid-range.

Sometimes presences make themselves known visually in the form of silhouettes or even full human shape, Forcier says. She’s never seen this happen yet, though.

Faint Orbs Of Light

Most of the action takes place in a room downstairs as the investigators watch the monitor, split into four screens for each camera, waiting for something to happen. When something does, it’s not flying furniture or the risen form of the house’s last occupant, Frances McCook, but usually faint orbs of light. Most are dismissed as dust, but at about 10:30, an orb that appears on Screen 3 (the music room) catches Shefts’ attention.

“It’s got substance to it, and it curves. It’s an oval shape, and dust wouldn’t be oval,” he says, jotting down the time and location.

“The real important thing is that it changed shape - it went from circular to oval.” continued

Hartford’s oldest building, the Butler-McCook House

The non-investigators in the room find this curious but aren’t particularly taken aback. A short while later, a brighter light that shoots across the screen has a different effect.

“Holy crap!” says the otherwise poised Simon of Connecticut Landmarks, putting her hand to her mouth. A few weeks earlier, she described herself as something of a skeptic, but lately she has been talking of eerie happenings.

At a previous investigation at the Nathan Hale Homestead in Coventry, one of the cameras went black momentarily. The investigation at the Bellamy-Ferriday House and Garden in Bethlehem produced both spooky orbs and EVP.

None of this surprises the staff at some of these landmarks. Ghost stories at the Hale house, for instance, go back to the early 20th century - weeping, footsteps, chains, the works. On the night of the investigation there, workers told one story after another of odd events.

Hours Of Just Waiting

But an investigation can go on for hours with nothing happening. Sometimes the crew goes home empty-handed. On-site work takes about four to five hours. Nonetheless, time moves along at Butler-McCook with lively conversation. Kaczynski holds court, remembering some of her more harrowing exorcisms.

Talk also turns to more earth-bound topics, such as the rise and fall of Krispy Kreme stock. They also talk about their favorite ghost-hunter TV shows, except for Kaczynski, who can’t stand any of them.

It’s doubtful that the Connecticut Paranormal Research Investigators would make for good TV. Watching a handful of folks stare at a monitor hardly sounds like a ratings blockbuster. But their earnestness is such that a non-believer can get caught up.

Even staunchest skeptics can admire the crew’s dedication; the job requires an astoundingly high threshold for tedium. After crew members pack up a little after midnight, they’ll go home and review hours of audio tapes.

“It’s very tiring work; you could miss something in a snap,” Forcier says. “The energy has to be just right, and the conditions have to be just right.”

Sheryl Hack, executive director of Connecticut Landmarks, says taking the paranormal approach should be a fun way to tell the histories of its properties. And, she adds, the question of whether they’re haunted is worth answering.

“We’re committed to telling the stories of these places we steward.”

The results of the paranormal tests will be presented Sept. 24.

Fort Scott, Kansas - While a thunderstorm blew through Fort Scott on Saturday night, an investigation of the ghostly kind was underway at the Fort Scott Scottish Rite Temple.

About 9 p.m. Saturday, members of the Wichita Paranormal Research Society began investigating the Scottish Rite Temple in order to determine whether or not there is paranormal activity occurring at the Temple.

According to Scottish Rite Temple Executive Secretary Terry Claar, when he was contacted by Nancy Wimmer from the Fort Scott Chamber of Commerce about allowing a paranormal investigation to be conducted at the Scottish Rite Temple, he was excited to allow the researchers access to the temple. continued below

(left) Members of the Wichita Paranormal Research Society check equipment
(right) View of the outside of the Fort Scott Scottish Rite Temple

Wimmer said the paranormal investigators were in Fort Scott in April to investigate the Chamber of Commerce building and a private home. While they were in the area, they expressed an interest in investigating the Scottish Rite Temple. After getting the okay from Claar, the investigators scheduled a day to begin the research.

According to Shane Elliott, founder of the Wichita Paranormal Research Society, the investigators brought in eight infrared cameras that were hooked up to a DVR system.

“We broke up into small two-person groups to capture things on audio and video,” Elliott said.

According to Elliott, the group of investigators research different places to either “prove or disprove” that there is paranormal activity going on. An official determination that either proves or disproves paranormal activity at the Temple has not been reached yet because the investigators are still examining the data received during their investigation.

However, research participants said they had several “personal experiences” during the investigation that could indicate paranormal activity could exist.

According to Wimmer, who was present during the investigation, all of those involved in the exploration saw, heard and felt indications that something out of the ordinary could be present at the Temple.

“We all had some personal experiences,” Wimmer said. “We were trying to go on the balcony, and we heard a piano playing on the stage. One of the girls heard a door at the back of the stage open and shut. We can’t confirm anything. It was just personal experiences.”

According to Elliott, the investigators did come away with five possible electronic voice phenomenon (EVP). However, researchers still have to examine the recordings before a determination can be made as to their source.

“When you are recording with a digital recorder and you play back and listen, you hear a voice that wasn’t there when you were talking,” Elliott said, explaining what an EVP is.

In addition to the recordings, Elliott said he too had strange personal experiences during the investigation.

“I did find bats up in the theater,” he said. “That was interesting. Two of them kept flying around my feet.”

Claar said he would not be surprised if the investigation proved the existence of paranormal activity inside the Scottish Rite Temple. The existence of a cemetery next door to the temple is one of the reasons Claar said it would not surprise him to find out there is paranormal activity going on.

Claar explained that before the building connected to the Scottish Rite Temple was built, town officials had to exhume the bodies of about 16 people who were buried in a small cemetery at that location. The bodies were re-buried in the Evergreen Cemetery, and a hotel was built on top of the very spot the cemetery once stood.

“I’m pretty much convinced that there’s forces or whatever you want to call it, especially since I found out there was a cemetery next door. The spirits don’t like to be moved around,” he said.

Claar said he believes, if the investigators prove the paranormal activity exists, that existence might be caused from a combination of the spirits from the cemetery and spirits from the Scottish Rite Temple.

“I think it’s intermingled,” he said. “I think we have our own and some of it is in the building next door. I am anxious to hear the results. We’ll wait and see what they say.”

Elliott said it usually takes about two-weeks for his team to go through and analyze all of the data collected during the investigation. He added, about 85 to 90 percent of the time he and his team are able to disprove the existence of paranormal activity.

According to Elliott, the Wichita Paranormal Research Society is the Kansas state representatives for the TAPS family, which is the same group that does the Ghost Hunters television show.

For more information about the Wichita Paranormal Research Society visit their web site.

Is France a country?
I thought Europe was a country!”
You tried to trick me.

Pawhuska, Oklahoma - The Constantine Theater in downtown Pawhuska once having hosted Vaudeville acts, silent movies, operas and original showings of movie classics such as Gone with the Wind, is now said to host ghosts. In fact, it is one of the top haunted sites in Oklahoma.

People have reported hearing the sound of opening and closing doors, footsteps going up and down the stairs and once reported was a mist seen drifting in the crawl tunnel underneath the theater’s stage.

Because of the strange experiences at the building, it has been investigated a number of times, with some of the investigations resulting in recordings of footsteps, a gunshot followed by a gasp and laborious breathing.  continued below

The Constantine Theater in downtown Pawhuska

Originally built around 1880 as the Pawhuska House Hotel, the building was purchased by Greek immigrant Charles Constantine in 1910. He then renovated the building and turned it into the theater it is today.

“The first time we came here we walked in and we go, ‘Wow!’” said Dustin, the co-founder of Northeast Oklahoma Research, speaking of the elegant Greek decor of the theater.

Dustin and his team of investigators from N.O.R.S. conducted an investigation on the theater on May 23 and from 7:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. took approximately 40 hours worth of video and audio recordings focusing much of the equipment on the stage where most reports of paranormal experiences seemed to have their source.

N.O.R.S. returned to the theater Saturday evening to present their findings. to the public.

“The things on the Internet have been people walking across the stage during a bar room brawl kind of setting - hear glass breaking,” he told the dozen people in attendance at the presentation. “We didn’t experience that.”

He said the team did, however, have some findings but the events didn’t seem to occur on the stage as they had anticipated. They occured around the boardroom.

“The boardroom above the lobby ended up being a very interesting place,” he said, adding he regretted focusing the most highly sensitive equipment on the stage. He said if he were to do it over, he would put it in the boardroom. “That is were we had some experiences. That is where we heard someone walking up and down the stairs. It’s not disturbing its just a little awkward.”

He said the video evidence, although capturing some dark movements and shapes was overall not so impressive, but that rather it was the audio that was especially interesting.

He played audio clips of odd whooping, whipping sounds, and then later a knocking or tapping sound.

Then he played a recording of a whisper from what sounded like a male saying, “Where is she?”

Dustin said the team members, before the investigation, agreed to speak at normal tones during the recording and if they accidentaly whispered, to tell the other team members and to log the instance so as not to mistake it as a paranormal event.

Dustin then played a clip of someone whispering, “Peter, I was right here when the store closed.”

“Nobody that was with us is named Peter or rhymes with Peter. That is what we thought what interesting,” said Dustin. “We heard Peter clearer than anything.”

He said team members debated whether the voice said “door” or “store” but the name Peter was clear. “So that was a little awkward.”

Dustin told the group at the presentation that he later learned a gentleman by the of Peter worked for Constantine from 1921-1923.

Holiday Beach, Texas - To many of us an animal is a best friend. A pet can be a valued companion and quite often they are just like a member of the family. So it is not surprising at all that we wonder what happens to our faithful friend upon their death.

Do animals have a spirit or a soul? We like to think that they do.

Anyone who shares life with a pet can see that they have intelligence and life force. Pets also have their own distinct personalities whether they are a cat or dog or a parrot.

Is it possible that animals, such as cats and dogs, may become ghosts? There have been many reports of people who have had encounters with beloved pets who had previously died. continued below

Is there an afterlife for pets?

Here is just such a story which describes how the ghost, or spirit, of a dog saved a man’s life:

Right after World War II a soldier by the name of Joe was returning to his family in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. When Joe got off the train he was still a few miles from home and had to walk.

His walk took him down a road along the river, which he had to cross to reach home.

There were two different bridges: one, which was a new bridge, and one older girder type bridge. The newer bridge was closer so naturally, he decided to take that route.

Just as he came near to the bridge Joe was met by Shep, the old family dog. He had missed the dog and evidently the dog had missed him too. He greeted the dog and played with him before continuing on.

As Joe started to enter the bridge the dog stopped, and began barking. Shep tugged on the man’s pants leg and it was obvious that he did not want him to go that way.

Of course the man wanted to take the shortest route he tried to call Shep and to get him to come along, but the dog only got more insistent. Finally, Joe decided to let the dog have his way and he went on toward the older bridge.

Eventually, Joe made it home, and called out to the family. Of course, everyone came running, and they had a tearful reunion.

Joe said, “I would have been here sooner, but Shep made me come the long way.” Everyone got a funny look on their face, and asked him what he meant, so he explained the whole story.

After a long silence and many meaningful glances, Joe’s father said, “Joe, Shep died last winter.”

The next morning, Joe learned that the river, which had been raised by spring rains, had flooded the new bridge and taken out the middle section. If he had tried to cross it in the dark that night, he would surely have been killed.

Did Shep, a faithful pet, come back from the dead to save Joe’s life?

Land O’Lakes, Florida - Midnight, March 5. A young man drives toward U.S. 19 on Gulf Trace Boulevard in Holiday. He turns on his high beams where the road curves along some woods, just past the recreation center.

His lights catch a pair of yellowish eyes, then a broad-shouldered figure, 8 or 9 feet tall, covered in brown hair. The creature freezes before running to the tree line. It stops to look back at the car.

The young man pulls over 20 feet away. There are no other vehicles on the road. He can now see the creature from the shoulders up. The man doesn’t know why, but he thinks to yell, “Hi!” No answer. The creature disappears into the woods. Believe it?

The young man sure seemed convincing when he reported the sighting to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. It dispatched Cathy Betz, an investigator who lives in Land O’Lakes. Her job is to separate hoaxes from actual Bigfoot sightings in Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties.

She’s never seen a Bigfoot herself, but she is convinced they exist. Someday, she says, we’ll get proof.

Meanwhile, she’ll keep her day job: saving lives as a registered nurse in the intensive care unit at the James A. Haley Veterans Hospital in Tampa. continued below

Cathy Betz uses training and ten years experience to investigate claims of Bigfoot sightings

Betz, 45, has believed in the cryptid ever since she was a little girl growing up in Florida and her father took her to see the 1972 docudrama The Legend of Boggy Creek.

She read up on the subject, exploring evidence, and she became convinced that something was really out there. In 2003 she joined the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

She has been a nurse for 25 years. At first, she was reluctant to tell the other nurses at about her new hobby. She just told them her week-long absences were spent on camping trips. Eventually she let slip that she was attending training expeditions with the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

They gave her some ribbing, but she didn’t hold their agnosticism against them.

“I don’t expect anybody to believe it,” she says. “I don’t disrespect you for that.”

She enjoys the trips as a way to explore the outdoors with a group of interesting and like-minded people, she says. They sleep in tents, look around for signs of Bigfoot, and get training in tracking and hair identification.

“I never imagined myself doing this kind of thing 10 years ago,” Betz says. “But I love it.”

She has been on four expeditions in Florida and one in North Carolina, and she is now on another in Utah. It was on the North Carolina expedition in 2008 that she had her closest encounter with Sasquatch.

At least she believes it was Sasquatch. It could have been a bear. Something walked around the tent, touching the fabric and grunting.

“I can’t say with certainty what it was,” Betz said, “but it was in a place with a lot of sightings.”

She has collected animal skulls from her various outings, many of which now decorate her home at the end of a dirt road in Land O’Lakes. In her big leafy yard, another skull hangs on a cross of sticks - leftover Halloween decorations, she says.

Her bathroom is decorated with enormous exotic bugs that she bought on eBay and framed. She awakes in the morning to crowing roosters and the chirps of her pet parakeet, Skittles. continued below

A replica cast of a reported Bigfoot footprint makes
the size 8 feet of Betz’s 13-year-old nephew look small

Two days after the Holiday man said he saw a swamp monster, Betz met him at the scene. She compared his story to the version he submitted to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization online. It was consistent.

They searched for tracks but didn’t find any. He told her he was sure he had not seen a bear or a human.

Betz’s notes are secret, she says, in order to protect the witnesses. She says the young man from Holiday did not want to be identified for this article.

She considers her role to be much like what a police investigator does.

“We don’t want to be considered like a fluff organization,” she says. “In order to be taken seriously, we feel like we should separate out the stories that don’t pan out.”

As part of her investigations, she often cross-check facts, such as if the witness says it was a full moon. And she examines the area, looking for tracks, hair and other clues. She knows all about inspecting footprints for dermal ridges and mid-tarsal breaks.

“We’re really a research and science-based organization trying to get as much evidence as we can,” she says. “We don’t want people to think that we’re just throwing everything out there that we get.”

Based on reported sightings, Betz believes Bigfoot creatures are much like many other Floridians - they leave for the summer. They tend to travel in nuclear families, she says. They eat fish and berries; they kill deer by breaking their back legs, slitting them down the gut, and extracting the liver.

She estimates there are 5,000 to 10,000 of them across the continent.

Scientists doubt that.

“The scientific community is sympathetic to the possibility, but there isn’t a whole lot of concrete evidence that is causing a lot of scientists to give up their current research projects and go out looking for Bigfoot,” said David Daegling, an anthropology professor at the University of Florida and author of Bigfoot Exposed: An Anthropologist Examines America’s Enduring Legend. “The problem with eyewitness testimony is that it can’t stand on its own from the standpoint of scientific evidence of an uncatalogued animal being out there.”

Henry Cabbage, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said Bigfoot’s existence has not been confirmed. But the agency does keep a file on the subject, which includes news clippings and letters from people requesting permits to go out and catch one.

So, feeling spurned by the scientific establishment, Bigfoot believers have developed their own systems for collecting and corroborating evidence. They have formal reports, credibility ratings, training expeditions and special investigators, like Florida’s own Cathy Betz.

When Betz completed her report on the Holiday Bigfoot, it was classified as Class A - the highest rating of credibility, meaning it was unlikely, based on the observer’s conditions, that some other animal was mistaken for a Bigfoot. The report joined the more than 3,700 others posted to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization’s Web site.

“Thousands of people for hundreds of years have been seeing something out there and are describing pretty much the same thing,” she said. “Most people don’t have anything to lose or to gain, but they’re still coming forward.”

But the physical proof is still rather scant, and Betz knows this. Photographs and videos are tenuous, and hair samples and footprints are suspect. (By contrast, there are just 100 Florida panthers, and one of them was caught on video two weeks ago.)

“It’s going to take a body,” Betz says.

Why has no one found one yet?

Betz says it’s possible that the Bigfoot bury their dead. She thinks there are bones, but they’re probably sitting unidentified in a museum somewhere.

Bears are hit by cars or shot by hunters in Florida all the time. Why not Bigfoot? Betz said there was once a Bigfoot hit by a car in the Everglades, but it escaped to the swamp.

But when a carcass is found, and Betz is confident one will be, all those people who make fun of her now will be believers, too.

She just hopes the species will be protected.

“Once it’s established that it’s out there, we’re afraid of what’s going to happen,” she said, fearing poachers or the government. “It’s going to be a circus.”

An Ancient Egyptian statue of a female in the Field Museum, Chicago, Illinois.

The resemblance of the nose is most incredible

Monterey, California - The wilderness is pitch-black at night and Monterey’s Bart Cutino says he and his colleagues like it that way as they try to solve one of the enduring mysteries of folklore.

Cutino, 35, is an unabashed, unapologetic member of The Bigfoot Research Organization, a diverse group of about 200 researchers and adventurers. They wander through the deep woods for days at a time in search of a legendary creature - indeed, they believe there are thousands of them - inhabiting the forests of North America and the world.

The vast majority, they’re convinced, are in the Pacific Northwest. Cutino says there have been at least 10 sightings over the years in Monterey County, the most intriguing by a University of Southern California psychology professor who says he saw one at dusk at the Fort Hunter Liggett military base while boar hunting in 2002.

(left) Bart Cutino of Monterey, California (right) Bart Cutino
and Bigfoot Research Organization benefactor Wally Hersom

“Sometimes I’ll just drive through the forest with the headlights off, moving at about 4 mph, using a thermal-imaging unit to see every living creature. I’ll do that for seven or eight hours at a time,” Cutino, who was born and raised in Monterey, says.

Other times, he and fellow researchers will go out in pairs or small groups, watching, waiting, listening and searching in the darkness for any evidence of a mostly nocturnal animal with an eternal life-span that got its nickname from a newspaper in 1958.

The “Bigfoot” moniker, he says, makes many of his fellow researchers wince because it implies to too many people that there is only one. It is believed to be a shy, enigmatic, probably mythical creature that reveals itself for precious seconds at a time, almost always to somebody without a camera or a camcorder.

Misinformation and pranksters have further belittled the ongoing quest to find the real-life Sasquatches, believed to be wood apes.

‘It wasn’t scary’

Cutino, an associate with NCW Group Wealth Management in Monterey, believes there are actually about 6,000 to 7,000 in North America alone - and is convinced that there’s nothing mythical about them.

Indeed, on Aug. 18, 2007, he feels certain he saw one on Chinook Pass, near Naches, Wash., during an outing he took with about 14 friends, including several other Bigfoot researchers.

According to a report he filed that summer for the Bigfoot Research Organization, he was standing a short distance from his campsite around midnight when he heard the breaking of a branch. He decided to check out the sound with a hand-held thermal-imaging unit, a device that uses body heat to make living things visible in the darkness.

What he saw 50 yards down a path appeared at first to be human being peering at him from behind a large tree, peeking first around one side of the trunk, then the other.

“About 20 to 25 seconds later, it stepped out from behind the tree and dropped on all fours, knees on the ground, arms extended and did this little head rotation in my direction,” Cutino says. “At that point I knew what it was, and it was surreal. It wasn’t scary. I just couldn’t believe it was happening.”

He says the Sasquatch propped itself momentarily onto its right shoulder and inched itself forward, at which point Cutino began snapping his fingers, trying to get the attention of a colleague who was 30 yards away, near a truck containing recording equipment.

“Every time I snapped my fingers, this thing would make a full-body, convulsive-type movement - very agile, very animalistic - and it would pause-freeze every time I stopped snapping my fingers,” Cutino says. “Then it rotated back onto its right shoulder, put a hand up next to its face, and splayed out the hand so I could clearly see all five digits on the hand.”

The creature stood up, went down again, then stood again before Cutino made a decision to run in the opposite direction, toward his friend with the recording equipment. By the time his colleague got the complicated recording equipment set up and directed, the Sasquatch was gone, Cutino says.

He’s convinced

Based on measurements taken later, using a 6-foot-3, 175-pound colleague as a model in the same location, Cutino estimates that the creature stood about 7 feet tall and weighed up to 575 pounds, with the vast majority of the weight in its upper torso.

The head was relatively small and unusually round, and its arms were an astounding length, perhaps even longer than its legs.

That there is no photographic evidence is disappointing, but Cutino says it didn’t temper his exhilaration that night.

“At the time, I’d been going out there looking for one of these for about four years, and wasn’t 110 percent convinced that they really existed, even though I had talked to a lot of people who said they had seen one,” he says. “But after that night, I’d bet everything I love and I’d sit back and smile, knowing that Bigfoot is real. That’s how certain I am of what I saw out there.”

Legendary Sasquatch

Cutino hails from a well-known Monterey family. His father, Bert, is co-founder and chief operating officer of the Sardine Factory restaurant and a principal in Cannery Row Co. and Foursome Development Co.

His late uncle, Pete, was a Hall of Fame water polo coach at the University of California-Berkeley. Both of his grandfathers, first-generation Sicilian immigrants, were fishermen on Monterey Bay during the heyday of the sardine era.

“Both of my nanus - my mom’s dad and my dad’s dad - used to see our version of the Loch Ness Monster out there in the bay. All the fishermen called it ‘Bobo,’” Cutino says. “Looking back at all the reports, I’m guessing that it might have been an oar fish - a very lengthy, serpentine-like fish that looks like it has a mane.”

Those tales, plus an interest his brother, Mark, had in Bigfoot, captured Bart’s fascination when he was only 6. He began reading everything he could about the legendary Sasquatch, watching TV reports and later scouring the Internet for information. Over the past six years, he’s spent over 200 nights in the forest.

Sightings have been reported in every state except Hawaii and Rhode Island, numbering in the thousands, with Washington (465) and California (411) at the top of the list. Nine Canadian provinces, and seven other countries - led by Malaysia, with 36 - also have turned in reports.

Skeptical scientists

The vast majority of the scientific world considers the Bigfoot phenomena to be largely bunk. Scientists have expressed doubts that such a species could exist in numbers great enough to perpetuate itself, wondered how such a creature could find enough food to sustain itself and noted that nobody has ever found the remains of a Sasquatch.

They have also questioned the validity of the famous Patterson-Gimlin film, shot in Bluff Creek in 1967, that purports to show a female Sasquatch retreating from her pursuers.

But Bigfoot researchers have arguments to combat each of those concerns.

“People have a right to be skeptical, especially when you consider an evidence pile littered with hoaxes, and what a poor job we’ve collectively done presenting our case as researchers,” Cutino concedes. “However, even sifting through the debris, one will find more viable, intriguing physical evidence and eyewitness testimony than 99 percent of our court systems receive.”

Technology, he says, is finally catching up with the needs of researchers, and he believes irrefutable images of a living Sasquatch are likely to be captured in the next few years.

Until that happens, and as long as his family - including his wife and baby daughter - remains supportive, he intends to continue his quest.

“My idea of a good time might be unpopular, being a Peninsula resident, but everybody else can have their tee times,” Cutino says. “Just put me in the middle of a dark redwood forest at 3 a.m. and I’m the happiest guy in the world.”

Torrington, Connecticutt - Is there a ghost in Snapper Magee’s? After an investigation this past weekend it is possible.

Around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, after the popular Water Street bar closed, the Northwest Connecticut Paranormal Society came in to investigate reports that the building may have a spirit inside. A team of five investigators, including a sensitive and a psychic came by from the Professional Investigations and Presentations group, equipped with an assortment of tools to conduct a proper paranormal search, said John Zontok, the director of the organization.

Word first got out that the building may be haunted after ghost hunter-types had come by Snapper Magee’s a few weeks ago, said Travis Myers, bar owner. After rumors of shadows being witnessed in photographs and different feelings from some guests, Myers said he agreed to have a paranormal team come in and investigate.

Could this be the home of ghosts?

From 2 to 5 a.m. the team remained, setting up eight infra-red night vision cameras, EVP sensors to pick up voices, and tools to measure the electro-magnetic field, Zontok said.

The result: there was a high amount of magnetic energy in the front of the bar as well as in one room on the second floor where there was no electricity at all, he said.

“Which could possibly mean there was a presence there, trying to show itself to us,” he said.

In particular, the energy in the front of the bar was peculiar, Zontok said, as it was not as heavy towards the back of the first floor nor was it detected outside near the street.

Now, after conducting the initial research, the group is scheduled to come back next Tuesday.

In the meantime, historical research will be done, to clarify rumors of the building being a brothel in the past, Zontok said, as well as a rumor that a prostitute committed suicide there.

Whether there is in fact a ghost in the building remains to be seen, he said.

As for now, Myers said he the news of a possible ghost will not hurt his business. In effect, it may help, he said.

One of his bartenders, Jessie Thomsen, said she always thought that the basement of the building was creepy even before knowing there was possible paranormal activity.

“But now it’s even more creepier,” she said.

When asked about her visits to the basement — to pick up necessary beverages for the bar — Thomsen said her visits are shortened.

Despite the five years of research into this paranormal hunt, Zontok said he is a skeptic. He said he finds it hard to believe in any type of afterlife at all.

Of the 200 residential cases that the group has been asked to investigate these past years, only 8 percent have turned out with unexplainable occurrences, he said.

“Something that happens that you actually can’t explain scientifically,” he said.

The group is made up of legitimate people, he added, including two college professors, a retired marine, nurses and college students.

“There are all walks of life in our group,” Zontok said.

In investigating these unexplainable occurrences, sometimes it is necessary to conduct methods of freeing these paranormal presences, if they are demonic, he said.

Sometimes, the group will utilize an Native American-style spirit cleansing and other times there will be a Christian or Catholic crossing ceremony, often involving prayers, crying and songs, Zontok said.

With more attention being drawn to their work, the Northwest Connecticut Paranormal Society has already been profiled on NBC30, for reports of a haunting in Barkhamsted.

Now, the group is ready to be featured on the Discovery Channel this October, around Halloween, he said.

For “evidence” of the paranormal, obtained at local haunted sites, click here.

United Kingdom - Imagine staring at a woman on a security camera filming the scene just yards ahead of you. When you look up there is no-one there. Then the ghostly figure on the camera turns and walks away.

This was just one hair-raising experience of security guards at the iconic Cardiff Royal Infirmary, but there are many more.

The CRI stands in the city center with stories of more than a century of history and heroism, illness and death in its walls.

It is soon to be partly demolished and reborn as a modern medical center for the city.

But staff overseeing its later years as a largely abandoned building claim to have seen sights to make your skin crawl.

Douglas Bragg, 74, from Roath, Cardiff, said he doesn’t believe in ghosts but when he worked at the infirmary as a plumber he saw something he can’t explain.

“I had a feeling that someone was behind me,” he said.

“I turned and I saw what I thought at that time was the matron Eileen Reese. She had a grey uniform on with some sort of bonnet. Something was a bit strange about it but I turned back to what I was doing.

“Something made me turn around again and there was nothing there.

“I didn’t think much about it until the following day. I tried to find out where Eileen Reese was and she certainly wasn’t resident at the hospital that day – in fact she was on a week’s holiday. My only explanation to myself was that it was a ghost, but I don’t believe in ghosts.”

Gareth Radcliffe, 61, from Pentwyn, Cardiff, has walked the corridors of the CRI as a security officer for eight years and has heard some haunting tales.

“There are meant to be three ghosts on the main corridor – the soldier of Mametz, the grey lady and another old lady,” he said.

Gareth’s family has a longstanding connection to the building. The Radcliffe Shipping Company gave money for the infirmary chapel to be built and a ward carries their name. His mother later worked as a domestic on the Radcliffe ward.

Gareth added: “My mother died in the infirmary so it doesn’t put me off. The building doesn’t frighten me, I’ll go anywhere. I don’t think she’d let anything happen to me.”

However, other hardened medical professionals have been troubled to the point of calling in an exorcist, Gareth said.

“In pathology, they had an exorcism about eight or nine years ago,” he said. “They work in pathology so they’re not frightened of ghosts, but they called the police in for an exorcism. For them to work in pathology and not to want to go back up there they’ve got to have seen something pretty terrible.”

Father Roy Doxey, who has been vicar of nearby St German’s Church for the past 12 years, said: “A ghost comes back to try to connect to something in its life, or with something it has an affection for. The ones that do come back are mostly benign spirits, they come back for various reasons. As Christians we would want that soul to move on.” continued below

Image: The old infirmary is to be partly demolished and reborn as a modern medical center

Another security man who has had a disturbing experience is Gareth Owen, 64, from Pontypridd.

“Sometime last year I was monitoring the cameras here and something caught my eye,” he said.

“A figure went into the security office 10 to 12 yards from me. Knowing the security officer was out on patrol I thought it was a bit strange.

“Five or 10 minutes later I saw the figure coming back out of the office.

“According to the camera, that figure passed me but in front of me there was no-one. It was a lady, who wouldn’t have been in the security office in the first place.

“She was dressed very smartly, but I wouldn’t say it was in this era but from quite a few years ago.”

The mysterious woman seen by both Douglas and Gareth Owen could be a former matron, whose portrait used to hang in the infirmary.

Elizabeth Bragg, 70, who worked at CRI between 1988 and 1995 as a clerical officer based in the X-ray, casualty and MRI departments, said: “There was a painting about the size of a chimney breast and it was of a sister in the old-fashioned bonnet, the big long cape and white starched apron.

“She was tending an injured solider and judging from his uniform it was sometime around the Crimea War.

“As you walked in, there was this glorious feeling and she was just our grey lady and anyone who’s seen her I think has had a blessing.

“As long as the infirmary exists she will be there because of the way she cared.”

According to Stephen Harris, director of development at CRI, the painting was a well known oil painting of an army commander and matron at the bedside of soldier.

United Kingdom - The number of people attending the event caused roads in the area to become gridlocked in the hours leading up to sunrise at 0458 BST.

Druid ceremonies took place alongside music and Morris dancing, however overcast skies obscured the sun.

Police praised the crowd and said there had been only 37 arrests, for minor disorder and drugs offenses. continued below

A record number of people gathered for this years celebration of the Summer Solstice

Supt Nick Ashley said: “The celebration has been peaceful and enjoyable for the majority who were present to celebrate in a safe manner.

“It is disappointing that a small number of people chose to ignore the conditions of entry and brought with them illegal drugs but this was dealt with effectively.”

Police for the most part are wishing people a happy Solstice and so are the security guards

The event to mark the dawn of the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has grown in popularity since a four-mile exclusion zone around the site was lifted nine years ago.

English Heritage, which manages the ancient monument, said the car park was full with 6,500 cars two hours before sunrise. Meanwhile the main route into Stonehenge, the A303, was closed due to volumes of traffic.

Peter Carson, head of Stonehenge, said: “We were expecting it to be busy this year, but we had ensured that it has been a peaceful and enjoyable solstice.

“There has been a great atmosphere and where else would you want to be on midsummer’s day?” continued below

Visitors celebrated to the sound of beating drums, chanting and dancing

Police drafted in extra officers and said there would be a zero-tolerance approach to drugs and drunkenness, with an alcohol limit of four cans of beer or a bottle of wine per person imposed by English Heritage.

Druid King Arthur Pendragon told the BBC shortly before sunrise: “It’s a very nice atmosphere and everything’s fine at the moment.

“There have been more police present this year, more security, but everything’s passed off very jovially and everyone’s in a good mood.

“And the police for the most part are wishing people a happy solstice and so are the security guards.”

English Heritage had issued an advisory note to visitors which warned: “Summer Solstice is not a good time to experiment with drugs - the crowd, the noise and the sheer size of the place are likely to make any bad reaction much, much worse.”

Meanwhile, a limit of 200 tents was set at a field near the Avebury Ring after residents complained about the number of visitors to that site in 2008.

United Kingdom - A man came back to life - like the Biblical Lazarus - half an hour after doctors told his family he had died.

Michael Wilkinson, 23, “died” in hospital of a previously undiagnosed heart condition after his mother found him collapsed in bed.

Doctors failed to revive the roofer and pronounced him dead, and he was given the last rites.

But 30 minutes later medics found a pulse and told relatives he was actually alive. continued below

30 minutes after Michael Wilkinson was pronounced dead, medics found a pulse

Mr Wilkinson, from Preston, was transferred to the intensive care unit at Royal Preston Hospital in Lancashire where he survived for two days following an emergency operation. He then died on February 3rd this year.

An inquest heard that his return to life was known as Lazarus syndrome - the spontaneous return of circulation after attempts to resuscitate fail. There have only ever been 38 cases recorded worldwide.

The syndrome takes its name from the biblical story of Lazarus, who was raised from the dead by Jesus.

At time of Mr Wilkinson’s death, his mother Susan Horrigan, 44, said: “It was as if he had been taken away from me, then given back only to be taken away again.”

John Whittaker, A&E consultant, told the inquest at Preston Magistrates Court: “When we pronounce him dead that is not a small thing, you make absolutely certain.

“The decision to pronounce him dead was because we had worked on him for 15 minutes and come to the end of what we could do.

“There is a phenomenon known as Lazarus syndrome. It is incredibly rare. There have only been 38 cases of this ever in the world.”

He said Michael’s pulse restarting was probably due to the drugs he had been given.

Assistant Dept Coroner Derek Baker, addressing Mrs Horrigan, said: “You received this tragic news Michael had died then prepared yourself to deal with this tragedy.

“Then you were told a pulse had been found. How long after was that? One hour, two hours?”

She replied: “About half an hour.”

The inquest heard Mr Wilkinson died of cardiac arrest leading to organ failure. The coroner recorded a verdict of death by natural causes.

A post-mortem examination carried out at the Royal Blackburn Hospital found he had an undiagnosed heart condition, in which his left ventricle had become abnormally thickened.

Mr Wilkinson had been drinking with his family in Preston the evening before he was found collapsed but tests showed alcohol was not a factor in his death. They also ruled out drug use or any physical trauma.

Speaking after the inquest, Mr Wilkinson’s grandmother Carole Bolton, 66, said: “He was lovely, people used to say he was a good-hearted lad.

“He was good-hearted and it was his heart that took him. We would like to thank staff at the Royal Preston Hospital. They could not have done more.”

Torquay, Devon, UK - Britain’s oldest ghost appears to have been caught on camera at the country’s most ancient inhabited site.

The ‘spook’ was snapped in a prehistoric cave at Kent’s Cavern in Torquay, Devon, looming from a wall and surrounded by an eerie mist. 

In the image, taken by a tourist, the ghostly face of the caveman seems to hover in mid air staring in to the distance. continued below

Image of a ghostly apparition caught on camera at Kent’s Cavern in Torquay, Devon

For almost 200 years archaeologists have been digging up the prehistoric caves hoping to unearth evidence of our ancestors.

They’ve found lots of bones of all sorts of animals - as well as a human jawbone dated at around 40,000 years old which was when Neanderthal Man became extinct.

Now, it seems, there could be fresh evidence of the early inhabitants of the caves - but no excavations were needed for this new ‘find.’

Simon Howard took the photos during a visit to the caves, one of which he says shows the outline of a face in the rocks, and a strange mist which wasn’t there when the picture was taken.

“We were on a tour round the caves and I happened to snap a picture inside the Bear’s Den chamber while waiting for the other members of the tour to arrive. 

“Later on when I took a look at the photo I saw this mist which was not visible at the time.

“I won’t say what I think I can see in the picture - I’ll let people decide for themselves.”

Kent’s Cavern worker James Hull says it’s not the first time a ghostly sighting has occurred: “There have been some strange and unexplained happenings in the caves down the years, as I’ve personally experienced on some of the paranormal investigation nights we have held here,” he said.

“But this is the first photograph taken that we’re aware of which shows what looks like a ghost.

“Everyone who has seen the photo here at the caves can see the profile of the face of a man with a large eye, long nose, small mouth and a beard, wearing what appears to be a helmet with a nose-guard, shrouded in mist.”

Kent’s Cavern is recognized as the most important stone age cave in Britain and has revealed more about palaeolithic Britain than anywhere else.

Implements found there include some that date back almost half a million years and many flints associated with the Neathderthals, while a human jawbone uncovered in 1927 is 31,000 years old, providing the oldest evidence of modern man (Homo sapiens ) in northwest Europe.

Editor’s note: I don’t get it. What I see looks like Frankenstein using a cell phone.