Videographer posted: After taking some time lapse photos, I noticed this strange light in the sky that was captured in about 4 frames. Extremely bright, it radiated quite a bit of light in contrast to the ferry boats below as well it lights up the water. I live on the 23rd floor and know the flight paths of planes coming and going into SeaTac and the Coast Guard helicopter flight paths, this did not follow these typical paths in the least nor did it behave in flight as a plane or copter would. If you look close at the first and last frames when the object first appears and right before it exits the view, it actually looks like two separate objects flying close together. The background is Bainbridge Island with the Olympic Mountains in the background.
Not being a math wiz, I would be interested in finding out the relative speed of the object. I was taking shots in 15 second intervals, the ferries are consistent in their speed and I would say they were about 1/4 mile out from my position. I know that when planes were coming in for approach to land I would only get one shot at most due to their speed so this object had to be moving rather slowly in real time. I've never been a true believer of this stuff per say but after this happened, I'm pretty convinced something is going on.
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(from chron.com) - Deputies responding to a 911 call in this East Texas town found a gruesome scene: a human ear boiling in a pot on a stovetop and a hunk of flesh impaled on a fork sitting atop a plate on the kitchen table.
Authorities believe that the 25-year-old man arrested in the death of his 21-year-old girlfriend cooked parts of her body and may have tried to eat them — actions he described to them in the emergency call that led them to the grisly discovery.
Christopher Lee McCuin, 25, was scheduled to be arraigned today on a capital murder charge. He was in solitary confinement at a jail on a $2 million bond Sunday night and did not have an attorney, officials said.
Authorities say it is unclear whether McCuin consumed any part of the woman's body.
"We cannot prove that he did," Smith County Sheriff J.B. Smith said Sunday. "He was either going to, had been or led us to think that he was doing it." Continued...
Recently, the world’s largest fish market in Tokyo, Japan had it’s first auction of 2008. At the Tsukiji market 2,904 bluefin tuna were sold, including one that set the record for most expensive.
A Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 US for a huge bluefin tuna that was caught off Japan’s northern region of Aomori.
Japan consumes about 25% of the all tuna caught and is moving towards limiting bluefin tuna fishing in its own waters in an attempt to help protect the species from extinction.
Here's a Peter Graves' narrated TV documentary from the 1970's. The film subject is Bigfoot tracks and sounds. I actually remember watching this though I don't know the title. It's a very interesting piece especially with the early research equipment and film techniques.
(from agoracosmopolitan.com) - I have been researching the Crop Circle phenomena since I saw my first one in 1976. I had been on a "night watch" for UFO's on Clay Hill in Warminster. Three separate orbs of approximately six feet in diameter of coloured light had been weaving around and above us for some three hours on the top of Clay Hill, merging at times into a single globe and then separating again above us, suddenly one of the orbs descended to some thirty feet above us and then flew down into a field at the base of Clay Hill.
As dawn broke I noticed a flattened circle in a field of wheat. On inspection there were no broken stalks just a perfectly flattened circle some thirty feet in diameter. At that particular point in time I had seen and had knowledge of the famous "Tulley UFO Nests" in 1966 at Australia but had not heard of anything of a similar nature in this country. There then appeared to be a lapse in the appearances of any Crop Circles despite my search and request for any information on them until the early 1980's. Continued...
The Church of the SubGenius has announced that the end of the world will take place on Saturday, July 5, 2008. In preparation for the fulfillment of this doomsday prophecy, the Church is requesting that all of its members participate in a bizarre religious ceremony taking place in upstate New York, during the final weekend before the arrival of the apocalypse.
Since its inception in 1953, Church founder J.R. "Bob" Dobbs has predicted that a fleet of flying saucers will arrive at the beginning of July to destroy the worldwide Conspiracy against the Church of the SubGenius, while all ordained SubGenius ministers will be rescued by escape vessels piloted by the Alien Sex Goddesses, also known as the Xists.
The Church is inviting all of its members worldwide to gather together for the final hours in Sherman, New York from Wednesday, July 2 to Sunday, July 6, at a clothing-optional outdoor campground called Brushwood Folklore Center. The first gathering at this compound took place in 1996, and the event has increased in size and participants each following year. 1998 was designated the first true "X-Day," and each successive year has added one to the total. This year's celebration in 2008 is X-Day 11, or X-Day XI.
The Church has been engaged in a massive recruitment campaign to increase the numbers of its membership before the arrival of the Xists. According to Church records, the organization currently has approximately 100,000 members worldwide. SubGenius recruitment has been especially dedicated among the ranks of people who refuse to conform to the norms of society, including disbelievers, blasphemers, pranksters, rebels, hackers, pornographers, geeks, and outcasts.
The Church is seeking underground bands, indie rockers, performance artists, and performers and producers from the adult entertainment industry, because sexual freedom has been an important part of Church doctrine from the start. X-Day will be a celebration of free expression, performance art, rock and roll, pornography, and adult entertainment; and certain parts of the event will be restricted to adults only. Only ordained ministers of the Church of the SubGenius are allowed at the event, but the Church is accepting memberships at its standard rate of $30 up until the final hours of July 4.
The Church of the SubGenius has been no stranger to controversy since its foundation, and the upcoming X-Day celebration promises to be no different. In the late 1980s, members of the Church were accused of spreading a virus in Macintosh computers known as the "Peace Virus." Numerous articles have been written on the Church in such noteworthy publications as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wired Online, Boston Globe, U.S. News and World Report; and broadcast reports have been produced by CNN and NPR. In April 1999, officials of the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts shut down an official SubGenius Devival gathering in the belief that the Church was affiliated with the Trenchcoat Mafia (the organization blamed for the Columbine high school shootings), though authorities later realized the association was mistaken. In its January 1, 2000 issue, a Time magazine poll declared J.R. "Bob" Dobbs the biggest fraud of the 20th century.
The Church received additional media attention in 2006 when one of its high-ranking members, known in SubGenius circles as Reverend Mary Magdalen, became involved in a legal battle for custody of her son due to her membership in the Church. This case has been covered in such popular online sites as Boing Boing, Fark, and Wikinews (Wikipedia's news reporting service). Reverend Magdalen is being represented by the law firm of Lipsitz Green Fahringer Roll Salisbury & Cambria, LLP.
Wednesday night's bitter cold temperatures rattled tree-dwelling iguanas in South Florida.
The large green reptiles drop out of the trees and litter the ground when temperatures drop in sunny South Florida.
The lizards are not dead. Most of them are alive and are simply cold. When the weather returns to the warmth they know and love, they will spring back to life.
"It is as if they are in suspended animation," said Robert Yero, park manager at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne.
At Bill Baggs park on Thursday, it was raining iguanas.
The critters could be found underneath buttonwood trees and beneath a sea grape.
"We have found dozens on the bike path after a major cold snap,'' said Yero. "When they warm up in the sun, they come back to life.''
The iguanas are exotics from Central and South America. Most of them were house pets at one point, and then released into the wild by their owners when they got too big.
In their new home in the wild of South Florida, they feed on vegetation.
A possibly authentic video of a drone-like craft has surfaced from the southeastern state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It depicts a strange black object hovering in the distance. The video also displays a family of young children in a state of pure excitement over the encounter. The video is shaky and blurry but that does not dismiss the fact that this UFO incident is probably authentic.
Interesting video taken by U.S. soldiers patrolling in Iraq. The strange objects seem to stay stationary in the sky. Though nightvision was used in the video, one soldier noted that the lights were very bright with the naked eye. Whether it be natural phenomena or possibly black ops (in that case, the objects would be huge), it is definitely an unusual sight.
In 1977, Randy L. Braun was hiking along Lake Superior near Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park in Michigan, when he had a mysterious encounter with an unidentified creature. The photo indicates a serpentine species up to at least 75 feet in length with a horse-like head on a long neck and an undefined tail. It was swimming in a vertically undulating fashion and appears to be dark green to black in color.
An account from 2005 states:
“Lake Superior has scattered reports of sea serpents and lake monsters. Though there is no specific myth about a lake monster in Superior, there are some creatures in Lake Superior that might be mistaken for a sea serpents."
However, there are claims that a serpent is in Lake Superior, named Pressie. The name comes from Presque Isle River where one of the better sightings occurred.
Known as Mishipishu (and variations thereof) to the area’s native people, the animal is depicted in pictographs at various shoreline sites, either as a spiky cat-like creature (its Ojibway name means "great lynx") or as a serpent (sometimes called by other names).
Here is Randy Braun's written account of the incident with other information.
Cryptid cat sightings are a worldwide phenomena. For decades, there have been accounts of large black cats roaming the countryside of Great Britain. As well, recent mutilations of horses and livestock in Australia have prompted fear that undocumented large cats also dwell on the continent.
Over the past few years, there has been an increased number of large cat sightings recorded throughout the United States, especially in the mountainous regions. Most descriptions have been similar to those of cougars or panther-like creatures, large muscular felines with long tails. Though, many of the reports proved to be that of a large feral cat or an oversized pet.
Before European settlers set foot in North America, the native Cherokee tribes of Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia spoke of the fearsome Wampus Cat that roamed the land. This was said to be the result of a woman who had disguised herself in the skin of a mountain lion and spied on the men of the tribe as they sat around the campfire telling sacred stories on a hunting trip. When the woman was discovered, the tribe's medicine man punished her by transforming her into a half-woman, half-cat. Supposedly, this creature still lives.
In the early 19th century, the Wampus Cat was reported to roam the Southern bottomlands and described as ". . . an impossibly hideous critter said to have the head of a man, the body of a wildcat only larger, and the soul of a demon." The Wampus Cat was known to lurk along murky river bottoms and feast upon hapless hunters, fishermen and travelers and anybody else who wandered too far away from civilization. Wampus Cat stories and sightings became less and less frequent after the War Between the States.
Old American South books and newspapers state that "Wampus" was a name used for an unknown monster cat as well as other mystery animals. The word catawampus (cattywampus), which means "Cater-Cornered; slant wise, or Evil; malicious" in the American Heritage Dictionary, seems to be a neutral piece of evidence.
A few years ago, I read this account of a young man from Knoxville who was responding to an inquiry concerning the Wampus Cat and other mysterious large cats:
“During the school year, my girlfriend lives in Strong Hall on the University of Tennessee campus. One night while we were at her place, I was talking about how I was walking back to my dorm (Greve Hall) with a friend of mine. I was beside him, but very slightly ahead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be a man in a black cloak walk up to my friend and sort of lean into him, almost like he was going to put his hand on my friend's shoulder. Only when his hand fell on my friend's shoulder, he simply disappeared. I will admit that during this time I was a bit tired from studying for an exam, and my friend says he felt nothing, but that's neither here nor there.”
“After telling my girlfriend this story, she told me that during the first week of school she looked out her ground-floor window toward the corner of 16th and Cumberland, and saw what appeared to be a human-sized cat walking on its hind legs, with glowing eyes. I don't remember the details she gave me, as far as how long it was there or how long she saw it.”
“It should be noted that my girlfriend is from Minnesota and I have no reason to believe she would try to trick me by reading about the Wampus Cat and then trying to pretend she saw it. We're very close and I have no reason to believe she would lie to me.”
Granted, this could have been a dorm party induced phantom, but I think the writer was serious. There are recent accounts of large cat sightings in the south that have an unusual twist.
Recently, an unknown predator mauled a pit bull and killed two puppies in Brunswick County, North Carolina and residents fear it's the same animal that killed three dogs in September. The county's animal control agency investigated the animal's tracks, droppings and other clues but couldn't determine what attacked the dogs. Locals call the unknown animal the 'Beast of Bolivia'. Some residents and experts said the predator may have been a wayward panther or cougar, or even a wolf because 3-inch paw tracks were found at the scene. There have been no reports of noise during the attacks which seems strange since this is a residential area. As well, the beast has never been seen.
In an earlier incident, a man was taking pictures of alligators in the North Santee River in South Carolina with a digital camera. Later when he returned home and looked at the images, he realized there was a black panther watching him. He stated that he never witnessed or heard the animal for the entire time he was at the river.
Mystical cats or just wayward species? If there were no legends, the world would be much duller. Many people consider the Bigfoot or Sasquatch a legend or myth. I’d say just as many people consider the hairy hominid a fact. Is there a valid paranormal dimension in cryptozoology? What do you think?
Environment Canada and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada can't explain just what it was a P.E.I. couple filmed in the Island skies on Wednesday evening.
When Tony Quigley and his wife Marie of North Tryon, just east of the Confederation Bridge, saw a dark spiral in the sky they went for the video camera.
"When we first saw it, it was going so slow. We said, is it a meteorite, or what the heck is it? So when we did start to tape, it was above the cloud and that's the part we missed," said Marie Quigley.
"When it came out of the cloud, we have it from there until it's out of sight. I have no idea. I mean I didn't think it was a UFO or anything but to me I thought something was in trouble, but it was going so slow. I mean it was at least a half an hour from the time we first spotted it till it went out of sight."
The couple has no clue what it was. Their first calls, to the Charlottetown Airport and the RCMP, were no help. They called Environment Canada, which was also unable to identify the phenomenon.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada has reviewed the footage to ensure the sighting was not of an aircraft in distress. A representative from the board confirmed it was not, but had no further details.
A Pennsylvania couple can't keep celebrating New Year's this way.
Becky and Kyle Armstrong saw in 2008 at Gettysburg Hospital, where Becky Armstrong gave birth to the hospital's first baby of the year. Faith Lynn Armstrong was born yesterday at 5:23 a.m.
More remarkably, it's the second year in a row that the Armstrongs have done that.
Gettysburg Hospital says the couple's firstborn was the hospital's first baby last year. Kaden Skye Armstrong was born on January 1st, 2007.
A mysterious “flying Dorito-shaped” object which was seen by dozens of people just before Christmas has been spotted again – this time in the skies above Lower Gornal.
The strange unexplained flying object was seen by residents in Wallows Wood, off The Straits, at around 6.15pm on Tuesday.
Householders described the object as looking like an “arrowhead” with three orange lights arranged in the shape of an isosceles triangle.
Residents watched it move slowly across the sky before it disappeared from view in the direction of Wolverhampton.
It is the second time the triangular object has been spotted flying over the Black Country in recent weeks.
Scores of people contacted the Express & Star after seeing a UFO in the skies above Wednesfield and Dudley in December and Stourbridge-based UFO Research Midlands was deluged with calls and emails from onlookers who witnessed the object.
Lower Gornal resident Peter Wasdell, aged 57, said he could not believe his eyes when he saw the object.
“The dog started barking and when my wife went outside to find out what was going on she saw the object in the sky and called me out to have a look,” he said.
“There were three orangey lights in a triangle formation. They weren’t shaped like an equilateral triangle, more like an isosceles triangle, and shaped like an old fashioned arrow head. I don’t think it was a plane because we didn’t hear any noise.
“My daughter and her boyfriend and the next door neighbours all saw them and we watched them for about 15 minutes before they disappeared behind the trees.”
Paranormal enthusiast Craig Lowe, who is a member of the Birmingham UFO group, said the area was a “hotspot” for unexplained activity. Mr Lowe, who captured December’s sighting on videotape, said he believed the object could be some sort of military aircraft.
Birmingham International Airport spokesman John Morris said the airport took all reports of UFOs seriously. “We had a couple of inquiries before Christmas following the first sightings over Halesowen,” he revealed.
Ghostly goings-on at a Manchester care home are being recorded by the city council after staff are said to have been petrified.
For 10 years, there have been reports of things going bump in the night.
And a care worker was so scared that she drew a cross in felt tip on the wall in a private staff bedroom. But she now faces a disciplinary hearing – for allegedly damaging property.
It is understood that two members of staff have reported experiencing paranormal activities and town hall bosses have now asked council workers to record unusual happenings at the house.
The frightened woman worker had neatly drawn a crucifix at the property where two adults with learning disabilities live.
It is claimed staff had been left petrified by banging noises, flashes of light, items moving and being poked at while they lay in bed.
But the worker was sent home by bosses from Manchester City Council’s social services department and initially accused of gross misconduct, wilful damage to property and displaying a religious image.
She was reinstated the next day and all of the charges except the damage to property were dropped – but she has been told there will be a disciplinary hearing. The hearing has been postponed as the woman is off work with stress.
The property in Blackley is staffed by five people and one has to sleep over every night. The council do allow staff to have religious images with them – such as a crucifix – while on duty sleeping over.
A source said: “For the last 10 years, there have been reports of paranormal activity at the house - banging, noises, light flashing around rooms, things moving and even reports of staff being touched. A member of staff took a crucifix and put it on a wall in the staff bedroom. Staff felt safer and the activity subsided for a while, but then someone moved the crucifix.
“Then there was a disturbing incident, with heavy banging in the kitchen and no one there.
“Soon after, a member of staff came on duty and was worried about the incident and having to stay overnight. She drew the cross and ended up being suspended. She did it in all innocence to protect herself.
“The cross was in a private bedroom to which no one has access except staff. Everyone is in total disbelief that she could be treated in this way.”
The cross was drawn where the crucifix had been and council investigators took photographs of it as evidence.
The case is being treated as vandalism, as the house is owned by the adults who live there and need 24-hour care.
A council spokesman said: “The council does not believe in paranormal activity and we are dealing with this purely as a case of damage to property.”
Police captured a more than 100-pound mountain lion in a Las Vegas neighborhood Wednesday, authorities said.
Police and animal control officials tracked the animal to a back yard after it eluded capture early in the day and then reappeared Wednesday afternoon.
The animal was tranquilized and captured without incident, Las Vegas police spokesman Bill Cassell said. It was handed over the Nevada Division of Wildlife and will be released in a less densely populated environment, he said.
No injuries were reported.
Authorities estimated the mountain lion weighed between 100 pounds and 110 pounds.
It was first seen in a gated community about 12 miles northwest of downtown Las Vegas. Residents were told to remain indoors, and children at a nearby middle school during winter break were locked down while officials searched the neighborhood after the initial 10 a.m. sighting.
Police gave up after three hours, and then got another call.
"It did what all good suspects do," Cassell said. "It waited for the cops to leave and then took a walk down the street."
Video from a sighting near Tuliszkow, Poland in 2006. Similar sightings have been reported worldwide, but most prevalent in Europe and the Middle East. Central Poland has been a significant hotspot for UFO sightings and reports since the mid-1990's.
(from countypress.com) - A paranormal group's November investigation of Castaways On Lake Nepessing has led it and one of the co-owners to believe the restaurant is haunted.
Parahaunt, a paranormal group from Westland, examined the eatery and deemed it full of spirits.
Despite not getting a final report from the group, one of the restaurant's co-owners, Sharon Johnson, said she thinks there's other spirits housed there that aren't evil.
"If they were evil they would've done something by now," she said. "(The paranormal group) seemed very professional. It's not like a game to them. We didn't go out of our way to tell them anything (in advance)." Continued...
(from app.com) - The carcass of a 15-foot-long True's beaked whale was found washed up on the beach at Iroquois Avenue (Beach Haven, NJ) at 7:30 a.m. Monday.
As of late Monday afternoon, the cause of death was not known and the animal was being taken to the Bolton Center, part of the University of Pennsylvania's veterinary medicine program in Kennett Square, Pa., for an autopsy, a representative from the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine said. Little is known about the whale, only that its size shows that it is an adult.
"We won't know until we open him up," said Robert Schoelkopf of the stranding center.
True's beaked whales are rarely seen because they live in deeper waters and seldom come near the shore, he said. Continued...
It has been more than 37 years, but the FBI hasn't lost interest in Dan (D.B.) Cooper, the man who parachuted from a Northwest Airlines jet over the Pacific Northwest while clutching a bag with $200,000 in ill-gotten gain.
Federal agents say they have reignited their pursuit of the mysterious Cooper.
In a news release issued Monday, the FBI said it is providing to the public a series of photos and information about the case, which has baffled and mesmerized authorities and the public for decades.
"Would we still like to get our man?" the FBI release said. "Absolutely."
The FBI said it's taking the action because of "new technologies like DNA testing."
The questions the FBI said it hopes to answer: Who was Cooper? Did he survive the jump? And what happened to the loot, only a small part of which has ever surfaced?
The agency said it has pursued "thousands of leads and considered all sorts of scenarios."
"And amateur sleuths have put forward plenty of their own theories. Yet the case remains unsolved."
The material the FBI is releasing on its website includes photos of some of the recovered currency and of a necktie Cooper took off before jumping. The FBI says the tie has yielded DNA evidence.
"Please look it all over carefully to see if it triggers a memory or if you can provide any useful information," the FBI said.
A man from Morris, Minn., says Cooper is his brother. Lyle Christiansen was watching the "Unsolved Mysteries" television show a few years back as it featured the Cooper case.
Since that show, Christiansen has tried to convince the FBI that Cooper is his brother and is now dead.
An FBI spokeswoman said Christiansen's brother is "not a viable suspect."
On Thanksgiving Eve in 1971, a man who gave the name Dan Cooper bought a ticket for a Northwest flight from Portland, Ore., to Seattle.
Shortly after the plane took off, the man handed the flight attendant a note, saying he had a bomb. He wanted $200,000 in cash and two parachutes when the plane landed in Seattle.
The money and parachutes were brought aboard the plane, which took off for Mexico. Over southern Washington, the hijacker jumped out the back door into freezing rain -- and was never seen again.
The name was fake. Some of the money was found years later in the mountains.
A Florida man was about halfway through a plate of steamed clams when he chomped down on something hard — a rare, iridescent purple pearl. George Brock and his wife, Leslie, had been spending a day at the beach Friday in South Florida and stopped at Dave's Last Resort & Raw Bar for a bite. Their find could be worth thousands.
"Few are round and few are a lovely color, so this is rare," said gemologist Antoinette Matlins. "I think they have found something precious and lovely and valuable."
The gems occur most frequently in large New England quahogs, clams known for violet coloring on the inside of their shells. The clams in the $10 plate came from Apalachicola in the Florida Panhandle, said restaurant manager Tom Gerry.
The Brocks, of Royal Palm Beach, plan to have the pearl appraised and said they may sell it if it is valuable.
