Paranormal Sleuths Reappear at the Venetian Theatre

oregonlive.com - While the audience watched the closing minutes of “Death of a Salesman” in The Venetian Theatre’s auditorium Saturday night, a team of paranormal investigators set up equipment, hoping to capture a performance of a different sort.

Greg Gieler, co-leader Chris York and 10 other members of Rain City Paranormal planned to spend the night in the darkened building, watching for a sign from any of the spirits that may lurk in the refurbished theater and bistro at 253 Main St.

On July 25, Gieler had led a smaller investigation at the invitation of owners Denzil Scheller and Saxony Peterson. Since the Venetian’s opening in the summer of 2008, its staff had witnessed a number of unexplainable events. Lights and music have turned on and off unassisted. Phantoms, including a gray-haired man who favors one of the auditorium’s back-row seats, have made multiple appearances.

During their summer inquiry, Gieler’s team had themselves witnessed a strange phenomenon in the projection room when the temperature rose and then fell one degree at a time upon verbal request. Also, a review of recordings had revealed voices, inaudible to those present, one clearly saying “I’m sorry…sorry.”

Based on those discoveries, an expanded team set up even more equipment for this second visit. Four infrared cameras would constantly surveil the main foyer, the auditorium, the projection room and the second floor hallway. Two team members stayed at “base camp” to monitor a computer screen and the images from those cameras.

Meanwhile the remaining 10 team members, accompanied by an Argus reporter, split into two groups and began their investigations. They carried audio recorders and K2 electromagnetic field detectors. The EMF meters would sense changes in electrical energy that paranormal investigators think may be caused by spirits. Those readings could be compared to baseline measurements collected by the team as part of their setup procedures.

One team headed to the dressing rooms beneath the stage and began the procedure that would be repeated throughout the building’s many rooms.

Everyone took a seat in the darkened room and, with the audio recorders running, identified themselves for the record. Each sound was labeled, leading to comments such as “my stomach growled” and “adjusting my seat.” The team waited for a noise no one claimed.

None came.

One by one, team members made requests in soft voices. “If you’re here, please let us know by making the lights change on that device over there with the green light,” indicating the EMF detector.

The lights didn’t waver.

They asked questions: Had the spirit worked in the theater? What was the year? Did it want the team to stay, or leave the room?

No response came.

After 20 minutes or so, the team shifted to the stage and began again.

Nothing happened. Over two-way radios, everyone agreed to meet back at the base camp.

Gieler speculated the spirits might be overwhelmed by the presence of so many people at once, so he next sent out two-person teams for another round of observations.

A team led by Chris York climbed the narrow stairway to the projection room. They began their questioning, at one point requesting the spirit tap in response. A loud thud came from below.

York descended to check if someone had banged the door at the base of the staircase. No one had. A call went out for teams in other parts of the building to repeat recent actions, while those in the projection room listened to see if those sounds reproduced what they had heard.

The thud remained unexplained, the only such event to occur during hours of close observation. The time approached 1:30 a.m.

In the next weeks, the investigators will comb through hours of film and audio recordings and use special software to search for speech concealed beyond audible frequencies.

In the meantime, the primary message from Saturday night’s long investigation was that paranormal investigations require great patience.
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Posted 8/26/09

Persistent Spirits Haunt Oregon Theater


oregonlive.com - It's closing time at the Venetian Theater and Bistro, and a staff member heads into the auditorium.

A tall, gray-haired man remains in the back-most row of seats. "It's time to leave," he's told. He does, only not through the door. He simply disappears.

Saxony Peterson, co-owner of the theater at 253 Main St., says the same man has appeared three different times and to different people too.

If this were the only odd occurrence at the Venetian, it might be blamed on late hours, power of suggestion or the overactive imaginations of a weary crew. But it's not.

Peterson said, during play rehearsals, Bag and Baggage's Scott Palmer has heard unexplained footsteps crossing the stage. Staff returning from the upper dining area reported turning off the lights and music, only to have them come back on as they started down the stairs. This happens regularly, she said.

Normal work flow in the kitchen was once interrupted by water streaming from above. After mopping up, the crew removed the ceiling panels to find the leak's source. Peterson said they found no water pipes, nothing there containing any water. Strangest of all, the removed panels were not even damp, even though a flood had passed through them not long before.

Then there's Dale Buck's experience. One night she was alone in the auditorium, on her way to check the rear exit door, when she heard whispers coming from the left side of the room. Then a "big rush of cold air came past my left ear," she said. "It was colored gray and black, and as it passed my ear, it whispered 'stop.' "

So Peterson and Denzil Scheller invited a team of paranormal investigators, volunteers from the International Paranormal Reporting Group, to conduct an investigation. IPRG, which itself has allied teams in Idaho, Oregon, Montana and Germany, is recognized by The Atlantic Paranormal Society. TAPS, for fans of events that defy scientific explanation, is the group behind the Ghost Hunters show on the Syfy network.

The team came to The Venetian on July 25. They brought digital voice recorders, infrared cameras, temperature sensors and K-2 meters for reading electromagnetic disturbances.

Greg Gieler, who led the IPRG investigators, reported back to Peterson and Scheller Aug. 18 with IPRG's findings.

Gieler set up his laptop on a table in the Venetian Bistro. He explained how he'd pored through hours of recordings made at The Venetian searching for electronic voice phenomena. Such EVPs are disembodied voices, or sounds with no explainable source, that are picked up by recording devices but are not audible to people present at the time.

Passing headphones around the table, everyone present took turns listening to the examples Gieler had discovered. In one, recorded in the theater's projection room, a voice could be clearly and slowly, saying, "Sorry ... I'm sorry ... sorry."

Gieler said paranormal events, by their very nature, have no scientific explanation. That's why they are "paranormal." IPRG, first of all, tries to find a verifiable cause for its findings. The EVPs, like other such incidents don't have one. That doesn't stop ghost hunters from speculating on their nature. In this case, Gieler said, spirits may make use of some actual source -- perhaps a chair sliding back -- and draw it out to create a word.

Investigators also had a strange encounter in the theater's projection room.

As background, Scheller emphasized that room is the only climate-controlled space in the building. The heat given off by the projector in a confined space makes it necessary to keep a constant temperature of about 68 degrees.

Gieler said, he could feel the temperature warming while he was in the projection room, so he asked the presence to raise the temperature to exactly 70 degrees. His sensor measured 70. Then, by steps, he asked for 71, then 72, then 73 degrees. Each time the temperature rose to the requested point and held until asked to go higher.

Gieler said he then said aloud, "If you make it go to 78 degrees, I promise I won't ask you to go higher because I know it's really hard." That happened. And the process repeated this time in reverse, back down to 68 degrees.

Gieler thinks The Venetian is an interesting enough site to warrant further investigation. He asked Scheller whether he would be interested in hosting a TAPS boot camp, a ticketed event in which up to 60 paranormal investigators gather.

In the meantime, Bag and Baggage is preparing for its first play of the new season. Peterson says the unexplainable events seem to increase whenever more people are in the theater's space.

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Photos: Mysterious Sphere UFO - Michigan - 10/5/09

Click for MPG file

MUFON witness report: I went out my back yard to a field that is an old golf course. I had my camera with me as I usually do. I noticed a bright white round ball in the sky. I began shooting pictures and then took some video footage of this object as it went from right to left (west to east). I would estimate this object as being over a mile away. I continued taping until the object could not be seen as it passed behind the trees. There was no noise that i could detect. It also looked to be shimmering, or reflective.

NOTE: MUFON report from an undisclosed location in Michigan. My first thought was that this could possibly be a satellite until I enlarged and enhanced...Lon

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Ouija Board Found

deadlinescotland - A OUIJA board thought to have been used by the creator of Sherlock Holmes has been found in a secret compartment at a school of paranormal studies.

Staff at the Edinburgh College of Parapsychology found the occult Victorian device hidden in small cupboard built into a kitchen wall, 20 feet out of reach.

The spooky find – used to spell out messages during a Séance – is thought to have been used by mystery writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The device was found with its original packaging, and was labelled as a “Telepathic Spirit Communicator.”

Edinburgh-born Doyle immersed himself in the practice of spiritualism in 1906, after his wife Louisa and son Kingsley died.Doyle found solace in the practice, which believes that contact can be made with people beyond the grave.The area is even said to have influenced his writing, and his novel, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was even banned in the Soviet Union because it was said to be occultist.

Roberta Gordon, 62, a medium and president of the college, said the Victorian device was found along with a “Dungeon Tube” with is said to use musical vibrations to relieve pain.

She said: “We were very excited to be quite honest.

“Arthur Conan Doyle was very much into spiritualism so there is every chance he would have seen some of the equipment we found.”

“There is no way we will be parting with any of it though – it’s part of our heritage.”

Roberta’s husband Richard, 66, from Gullane, East Lothian added: “We’ve found quite a few unusual things while we’ve been clearing out the building, like strange recordings.

“The college has been here for 77 years so there’s a lot to find.

“I believe Doyle used to frequent the building.

“And it’s well known that he was a spiritualist – it’s very possible that he used the board.

“The board was made in Manchester, and we’ve got the packaging as well.

“We’re not sure how old it is yet, but the wheels are made of bone – not plastic or wood.”

Roberta and husband Richard have spent the last few months renovating the building, which is in the upmarket west end of the city.

But the ouija board is not the first unsettling discovery the couple have made.

They’ve also found old records containing medium sessions and red lights used during Derren Brown style séances.

Roberta said: “We had been told there was paint stored in one of the high-up cupboards, so we set about looking for it.

“But instead we discovered all of this – we couldn’t believe it.”

The college was founded in 1932, but followers of spiritualism existed long before then, often operating in secret for fear of persecution by the authorities.

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Has 'Jack the Ripper' Finally Been Identified?

telegraph.co.uk - Mei Trow used modern police forensic techniques, including psychological and geographical profiling, to identify Robert Mann, a morgue attendant, as the killer.

His theory, the result of two years intensive research, is explored in a Discovery Channel documentary, Jack the Ripper: Killer Revealed.

Trow's research is rooted in information from a 1988 FBI examination of the Ripper case, which had worked up a comprehensive criminal personality profile.

The portrait drawn up of Jack was as a white male from the lower social classes, most likely the product of a broken home.

It was also thought he would have had a menial job but with some anatomical knowledge, something like a butcher, mortuary or medical examiner's assistant or hospital attendant.

Because of prolonged periods without human interaction, Jack would also have been socially inept

It is known that Mann was from an extremely deprived background. His father was absent for much of his upbringing and he had spent some time as a child in a workhouse.

Trow said: "I wanted to go beyond the myth of a caped man with a top hat and knife, and get to the reality, and the reality is simply that Jack was an ordinary man."

Trow makes another startling conjecture, that the Ripper killed another two women.

He believes Martha Tabram, found with 39 stab wounds to her body in Gunthorpe Street, was the first of Jack's victims, and Alice Mackenzie, brutally murdered eight months after the confirmed five killings, was his last.

The two women, along with Polly Nichols and Annie Chapman, would have been delivered to the Whitechapel mortuary in which Robert Mann worked.

After the killing of Polly Nichols, Jack's first recognised victim, Mann unlocked the mortuary for the police so they could examine the body and as such, was called as a witness in her inquest to help establish the cause of death.

Most damningly, he undressed Polly's body with his assistant, despite being under strict instructions from Inspector Spratling to not touch the body, and Trow suspects that this was an opportunity to admire his handiwork.

The Coroner, in his summation of Robert Mann's testimony, concluded that, "It appears the mortuary-keeper is subject to fits, and neither his memory nor statements are reliable."

Professor Laurence Alison, Forensic Psychologist at Liverpool University, who features in the documentary, said: "In terms of psychological profiling, Robert Mann is the one of the most credible suspects from recent years and the closest we may ever get to a plausible psychological explanation for these most infamous of Victorian murders."

Trow's is the latest in a long line of theories about who Jack the Ripper was. More than 100 suspects have been proposed over the years, including a member of the royal family, a doctor and even the artist Walter Sickert.

JACK THE RIPPER: KILLER REVEALED will be aired on the Discovery Channel on Sunday October 11 at 9pm. The accompanying book, Jack the Ripper: Quest for a Killer, is published by Pen & Sword.
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Posted 9/9/08

'Jack the Ripper' Indentified by Relative of Police Chief in Charge


THE Jack the Ripper ‘industry’ got a boost on the 120th anniversary of his first acknowledged murder.

The great-grandson of the police chief in charge of the 1888 Whitechapel Murders arrived at the Ripper exhibition at the Museum in Docklands in East London—just before the 120th anniversary of the murder Mary Ann Nichols, a prostitute known as ‘Polly,’ believed by many to be his first victim.

He arrived with evidence from his Victorian ancestor revealing the Ripper’s true identity.

Jack the Ripper was never caught and his identity has remained a mystery for 120 years, feeding a whole ‘industry’ that has evolved worldwide with ‘Ripperologists’ keen to tell us who he really was.

One of the strong theories re-emerged this week was when Nevill Swanson, great-grandson of Chief Inspector Donald Swanson, turned up at the museum in Canary Wharf to see the exhibition before it closes in November.

“My great-grandfather knew who Jack the Ripper was,” Nevill told the East London Advertiser.

“He solved the case—but police couldn’t prosecute because the only witness who could identify the killer in a court of law wouldn’t testify.”

Donald Swanson scribbled who he knew to be Jack the Ripper in the margin of a copy of the memoirs of Sir Robert Anderson, Assistant Metropolitan Police Commissioner at the time of the Whitechapel Murders, in a chapter that just referred to the main suspect, but not by name.

“The suspect was Kosminsky,” Swanson pencilled in.

Aaron Kosminsky was a Polish immigrant living in Whitechapel who had been ‘identified’ by another Polish emigre, who then refused to take the witness stand.

“The police knew the case would collapse in court,” Swanson’s great-grandson added.

“He knew Kosminsky would get away with it—so he had him committed to an asylum instead.

“There were no more murders after that.”

It was Nevill’s father who uncovered the margin notes from the family possessions when Nevill’s great aunt—daughter of Chief Inspector Swanson—died in 1978. The book with the margin notes was left to Nevill’s father.

But the story got buried for several years after he sold the rights to the News of the World in a deal worth £1,000, Nevill remembers. For some reason, the notes were never published.

It wasn’t until 2001—some 113 years after the Whitechapel Murders—that the Kosminsky theory finally emerged.

“My father died in 2001 and the book with the margin notes came down to me,” Nevill added. “I knew the significance of the notes and have since loaned the book to Scotland Yard’s Black Museum.”

It is a strong and compelling theory—but would spoil the ‘Ripper Industry’ if even this was not challenged by rival theories over the Ripper’s identity.

The marginalia was probably added some time after 1910, and Anderson wouldn’t have known anything that Swanson hadn’t told him, a reader has informed us.

Martin Fido was the person who identified Kosminsky by going through asylum records.

This week, the Australians bowled their own theory to stump the Ripperology world with a claim that it wasn’t Kosminsky at all—but an immigrant named Walter Thomas Porriott who is now buried in a cemetery in Brisbane.

The Brisbane Times claims that Porriott, another suspect on Scotland Yard’s list, was the real Jack the Ripper.

Porriott was living at Limehouse in East London at the time, just two miles from Whitechapel. He was a convicted killer, a conman, bigamist and quack doctor known to hate prostitutes, the paper insists.

The murders ended as soon as Porriott emigrated in 1888. He died in Brisbane in 1952, some 62 years later.

But there’s more... Members of the renowned Whitechapel Society—dedicated to research into East London’s Victorian and Edwardian society and the 1888 Whitechapel Murders—hold a ‘21st century public investigation’ at the Museum in Docklands this Saturday (September 6), where the most comprehensive Ripper exhibition ever has been staged all summer.

They are promising “fresh photographic evidence” when the ‘investigation’ begins at 3pm.

Three authors are putting their theories to the public, Trevor Marriott, Bill Beadle (the society’s chairman) and Frogg Moody.

Ripperologists, of course, are a determined breed, determined to keep the fires of the ‘industry’ burning with different theories—and doubtless will continue to keep them burning for the next 120 years.
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Posted 3/10/08

The Ripper Casebook: Open to the Public

'PC.97J. NEIL reports at 3.45.a[m] 31st inst, he found the dead body of a woman lying on her back with her clothes a little above her knees...' So begins a vivid account on lined notepaper, by a Superintendent J Keating, under the heading 'Metropolitan Police'. The ink seems as fresh as a morning newspaper. Yet it is dated 31 August, 1888.

This is one of the police reports filed just hours after Jack the Ripper claimed another victim in London's East End. It is one of numerous documents relating to the Victorian killer which, after more than a century in the archives, are to go on public display for the first time.

Handwritten accounts from the scenes of the crimes, detectives' case reports, coroners' inquiry records, witness statements, photographs and letters will form the centrepiece of a major exhibition, 'Jack the Ripper and the East End', at the Museum in Docklands, London. Visitors will not be spared graphic descriptions, such as 'her throat cut from ear to ear', in the retelling of the bloody and gruesome crimes.

'They are absolutely amazing,' said Julia Hoffbrand, curator of the exhibition. 'They were written on the day each woman was found, so as a step by step account you get a real sense of what happened. The documents bring home the fact that these are real people and real events. They are very moving.'

The files were first kept at Scotland Yard, then transferred to the National Archives in Kew, west London. But due to their fragile condition they could only be viewed on microfiche. 'It's a rare opportunity to see the actual documents in the original ink,' Hoffbrand said.

The police report of 31 August 1888 continues: Dr. Llewellyn, No.152 Whitechapel Ro[ad]... arrived quickly and pronounced life to be extinct, apparently but [a] few minutes, he directed her removed to the mortuary, stating he would make a further examination there, which was done on the ambulance. It has since been ascertained that the dress bears the marks of Lambeth Workhouse and deceased is supposed to have been an inmate of that house.'

Jack the Ripper is believed to have killed five prostitutes in or near Whitechapel in 10 weeks between August and November 1888. More than 170 names have been put forward as suspects including the Duke of Clarence, the artist Walter Sickert, who had a morbid obsession with the killings, Montague John Druitt, a barrister who took his own life just after the last murder, and Michael Ostrog, a Russian thief. Books, plays, films and musicals have mythologised the killer and every night tourists walk the same streets on a guided Jack the Ripper walk.

A letter purportedly from the Ripper to the police will also be on display. Dated 7 November 1888, the handwritten scrawl states: 'Dear Boss, I am writing you this while I am in bed with a sore throat but as soon as it is better I will set to work again on the 13th of this month and I think that my next Job will be to polish you off and as I am a member of the force I can soon settle accounts with you I will tear your liver out before you are dead and show it to you.' The letter, signed Jack the Ripper, has a crude drawing of a man, but remains one of many tantalising clues.

Among the documents are witness statements to coroners as well as contemporary press reports. At the inquest into the death of Catherine Eddowes, whose mutilated body was found in Mitre Square in Aldgate, her daughter Annie Phillips tells of her father's separation from her mother: 'He had no ill will to my knowledge against Deceased [Catherine Eddowes]. He left Deceased between 7 & 8 years ago entirely on account of her Drinking Habits.'

Like Eddowes, Mary Ann Nichols was found with her throat cut, in Buck's Row, Whitechapel. On her last evening alive, she is reported as having said: 'I'll soon get my "doss" money; see what a jolly bonnet I've got now.'

The exhibition, which opens on 15 May, will also feature maps and recordings from people who grew up in the slums of Whitechapel. Donald Rumbelow, a leading expert on the Ripper and co-author of Jack the Ripper: Scotland Yard Investigates, welcomed the exhibition. 'To see the documents out of the mounts will be quite something.'

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Video: UFO / OVNI Tracks Iranian Missile During Launch Exercise

Notice the first cut into the cloud (circled on the left). The object (circled on the right) stops immediately and travels back across cloud enlarging the opening

Object travels back through the cloud (right to left) enlarging the opening

Complete dissection of the cloud


Click for video
NOTE: Object travels left to right cutting through the cloud...then reverses direction right to left expanding the opening through the cloud. It seems to stop and reverse in less than a second. Some may say this is an Iranian jet, but I highly doubt it...Lon

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Same Ghost, Different Name, Haunts Tucson Bar

tucsoncitizen.com - It is an old establishment with a new identity. Gooch’s Grill at 1118 E. Sixth Street opened in July.

Chances are that you have driven by, or maybe even stopped in to the place before; perhaps during one of the establishment’s past lives. Before it was Gooch’s Grill, it was called The Victory Bar. Before that, it was Belushe’s Bar and Grill. Many Tucsonans might still identify the location as The Rhino Pub. The only thing that has remained consistent about the location throughout the building’s existence, is the rumor that a resident ghost lurks inside.

At the risk of sounding cliché, spirits, in more than one sense of the word, are on tap at Gooch’s Grill.

Employees and patrons alike acknowledge the fact that strange things are afoot at the bar after closing time. Bottle caps are flicked by unseen fingers throughout the bar. The swinging saloon style doors that lead up to the second floor office will swing back and forth for no apparent reason. The ghostly figure of a woman appears to some folks. The frequent sound of crying can be heard. Lights turn off or on by themselves. The previous owner of the bar, when it was Belushe’s, witnessed the bar’s televisions operating by themselves. It is a classic haunting.

Property owner Lon Wirtz has always disclosed the fact that the property is stigmatized, or haunted, to each enterprising bar owner who has occupied the property. Now, Gooch’s Grill occupies that spooky space.

Gooch himself states that The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS) from the Syfy Channel’s television series, Ghost Hunters, has been invited to investigate the establishment. Whether or not Ghost Hunters’ Jay and Grant will show up to debunk or prove that the place is haunted, remains undetermined at the moment.

The identity of the ghost is unknown. Wirtz believes that before he built an addition onto the property several years ago, that a woman had been brutally raped and murdered on that very spot many years before. It is also rumored that the property operated as a bordello at one time, decades ago.

If ghosts scare you, don’t let this one scare you away from Gooch’s. The entire time I have visited the location over the last 15 years, I have never heard of the ghost emerging from the darkness until closing time or after. Just don’t stay that long. If lack of parking in the UA area scares you, there’s ample parking behind Gooch’s Grill, accessible from the first alleyway behind the building, south of Sixth Street.

More often than not, you might find Gooch himself at the bar, chatting with his customers. Occasionally, you might even find me on the front patio of the bar, gazing up toward the second floor window, hoping to lock eyes with the ghost.

Though her identity is unknown, the ghost likely has grown accustomed to nicknames over the years. She can now be referred to as: Gooch’s ghost.

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Woman Believes She Reunites With Lost Pet's Spirit

whitbygazette.co.uk - A Whitby woman is hoping to track down a pair of dog owners after a spooky incident left her searching for answers.

Retired Yorkshire Post worker Jean Day had a bizarre day on a recent trip to Sandsend.

Having lost her faithful pet Yorkshire terrier Snoopy two years ago she now believes that he may not have gone far away.

She said: “I was in the Bridge Cafe with a friend, hitherto a place unknown to me. We had sought refuge in a storm and were grateful for a latte.”

She said her friend made her aware that someone outside was trying to get her attention.

She added: “The stranger explained how the couple’s dog watched my approach to the cafe becoming most excited, almost demented, then listening to my voice though out of sight, clamored to reach me. Would I so kindly agree to meet and pacify him? As a devoted dog lover, I agreed.

“Just two years before I had lost my soul-mate and treasured Snoopy, a Yorkshire Terrier.

“Asking its breed I was astounded to hear theirs was a Yorkie.

“Mine had reached 14 years, became very ill and had to be put to sleep from suffering further.

“Oscar, she said, was 18 months.

“As we approached the garden table my searching eyes met the frantic welcome of their Yorkie leaping towards me as if in recognition.

“The couple were bemused by our make-believe reunion.”

Jean said she does not believe in reincarnation but the coincidences played on her mind.

“I muttered to his owners ‘this just has to be the spirit of my departed Snoopy’,” she added.

She now wants to trace the owners to put her mind at rest.

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British Man Says He Witnessed an Alien Dressed as a Ballerina

metro.co.uk - Winchester councillor Adrian Hicks is on the search for an alien dressed like a ballerina that he spotted five years ago. Visible only to the chosen few, the pretty blonde female UFO interloper is said to shuffle along the pavement in a penguin-like walk, wearing only a white ballet outfit and broad smile.

Is it here, in this quiet Hampshire backwater, that 'the invasion' has started? Yes, according to Councillor Hicks. He says he saw the ballerina-like alien under the city's Guildhall clock five years ago but has only now come clean about his strange encounter.

'It was staggering – I am not usually lost for words but I was that day,' he said. 'She was a humanoid walking with a penguin-like gait. She had very large oval eyes and was twirling her hands in a circular motion. She was laughing and seemed to be enjoying herself. She was human enough to get away with it,' he added.

And the intrigue doesn't end there. Mr Hicks, who has spent £400 perfecting an artist's impression of the alien, believes she is linked to covert US and British military operations at a nearby base. 'UFOs are flying in and out of the military base – Winchester is the UFO capital of Europe,' he added.

Mr Hicks, a Lib Dem councillor for the city, claims he saw the alien in January or February 2004. He said other shoppers also saw her but no one had admitted it. The hospital technician also regrets not plucking up the courage to speak to her.

He has not spoken about the day for fear he would jeopardise his chances of winning a council seat, he added. His colleagues, he says, are 'in denial' about the existence of aliens in Winchester.

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Owlman of Mawnan: Has It Returned?

NOTE: The CFZ is reporting the possible return of the Owlman of Mawnan. I have included the CFZ's excellent history of this crytid as well...Lon

forteanzoology.blogspot.com - A couple of weeks ago a 12 year old girl called Jessica Wilkins or Jessica Wilkinson encountered the Owlman of Mawnan.

This is the first sighting that I have heard of in several years and only the second this century.

Yes, the news did come from Tony Shiels, but I know that he was in Ireland at the time, because we were with him. No doubt this revelation will cause further coals of opprobrium to be heaped upon my poor head by those who like to think that they know best.

However, we exist to tell you the news as it is told to us and we will, however, give you more news as and when we get it.
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THE HISTORY OF THE OWLMAN

cfz.org.uk - A letter written by Tony 'Doc' Shiels - April 1976: "A very weird thing happened over the Easter weekend. A holiday-maker from Preston, Lancs., told me about something his two young daughters had seen ... a big, feathered bird-man hovering over the church tower at Mawnan (a village near the mouth of the Helford River). The girls (June 12, and Vicky, daughters of Mr Don Melling), were so scared that the family cut their holiday short and went back three days early. This really is a fantastic thing, and I am sure the man wasn't just making it up because he'd been told I was on a monster hunt. I couldn't get the kids to talk about it (in fact, their father wouldn't even let me try), but he gave me a sketch of the thing drawn by June.

"There have been no reports, so far as I know, of anybody else seeing the Bird-Man ... even if it turned out to be just a fancy dress hang-glider, you'd think someone else would have spotted him ... but Mawnan is not a place for hang-gliding! I really don't know what to think ... it's as if a whole load of weirdness has been let loose in the Falmouth area since last autumn!"

For a period between the late autumn of 1975 and the early spring of 1977 it seems that Southern Cornwall was seized by a period of collective madness. Much of this is chronicled in some depth in the book The Owlman and Others.

There were dramatic extremes in the weather - droughts and floods - heatwaves and frozen wastes. The local animal life went (figuratively and literally) crazy; one unfortunate woman was imprisoned in her house by hordes of attacking birds which literally beat themselves to death against the walls of her house, which was dripping red with their blood. Another woman was similarly imprisoned by a mob of feral cats, dog attacks trebled, swimmers were attacked by dolphins (who also saved other swimmers from drowning), and there were reports that cattle belonging to local farmers had developed the power of teleportation. Most interesting to the fortean were the burgeoning numbers of UFO sightings and the reports of three entirely different sets of mystery animal in the region; Morgawr (the Cornish Sea Serpent), the Cornish mystery big cats and the Owlman of Mawnan.

The first reports of these 'creatures' in print were in an obscure booklet entitled Morgawr-the monster of Falmouth Bay by Anthony Mawnan-Peller. He gave a brief description of the events of Easter Saturday: "During the Easter weekend, the two young daughters of a holidaymaker ... Mr. Don Melling, from Preston, Lancashire ... saw a 'huge great thing with feathers, like a big man with flapping wings', hovering over the church tower at Mawnan (on 'Morgawr's Mile'). The girls ... Vicky, 9, and June, 12 ... were so frightened that the family holiday was cut short by three days".

Although not widely read outside Cornwall, this booklet was available extensively throughout the county and was read by many people including two young girls of fourteen, Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry, who in early July 1976 were camping in the woods by Mawnan Old Church when they, too, saw the Owlman.

They met Tony on Grebe Beach, below Mawnan Old Church the day after their sighting. Sally, who was from Plymouth, had been staying with her friend Barbara, (who would only admit that she lived 'quite near the river'). Sally approached Tony and said: "Are you Doc Shiels? We've seen the bird monster."

Sally described what they had seen: "It was like a big owl with pointed ears, as big as a man. The eyes were red and glowing. At first, I thought that it was someone dressed up, playing a joke, trying to scare us. I laughed at it, we both did, then it went up in the air and we both screamed. When it went up you could see its feet were like pincers"

Her friend added some details of her own: "It's true. It was horrible, a nasty owl-face with big ears and big red eyes. It was covered in grey feathers. The claws on its feet were black. It just flew up and disappeared in the trees".

Although as Tony admitted at the time, it is possible that the two young ladies were trying to hoax him, he is convinced that they were genuine.

He separated the two girls and had each of them draw a picture of what she had seen. The two pictures are dissimilar enough to rebuff suggestions of collusion but have enough points in common, both with each other, and with the other accounts of the 'creature' to be considered as a significant piece of evidence.

Both girls made brief additional notes underneath their pictures. Sally's read: "I saw this monster bird last night. It stood like a man and then it flew up through the trees. It is as big as a man. Its eyes are red and shine brightly".

And Barbara wrote: "Birdman monster. seen on third of July, quite late at night but not quite dark. Red Eyes. Black Mouth. It was very big with great big wings and black claws. Feathers grey."

The two girls agreed on most points with their pictures although Sally thought Barbara had 'done the wings wrong'. At the same time as Sally and Barbara were talking to 'Doc' on Grebe Beach, two other girls also saw what Tony refers to as 'his Owliness':

"It has red slanting eyes and a very large mouth. The feathers are silvery grey and so are his body and legs, the feet are like a big, black, crab's claws. We were frightened at the time. It was so strange, like something out of a horror film. After the thing went up, there were crackling sounds in the tree-tops for ages. Our mother thinks we made it all up just because we read about these things, but that is not true. we really saw the bird-man, though it could have been someone playing a trick in a very good costume and make up. But how could it rise up like that? If we imagined it, then we both imagined it at the same time".

Two years later, a young lady called 'Miss Opie' saw 'A monster, like a devil, flying up through the trees near old Mawnan Church'. A few days later Tony Shiels wrote to Janet and Colin Bord of the Fortean Picture Library: "The owlman is certainly back in business, it seems. I poked around his area, around Old Mawnan Church, a couple of days ago, and the atmosphere was positively crackling with 'odd presences', if you know what I mean.

As soon as anything really exciting happens, I'll let you know. It would be terrific if I really could get a picture of our feathered friend, but, he only seems to pop up for young girls ... and I ain't one!"

The Owlman, as it was now generally known, (it appears that Tony coined the name in late 1976), was seen again on the 2nd August by three young, unnamed French girls. The landlady of the boarding house in which they had been staying told Tony that the three girls had been frightened by something "very big, like a big, furry bird with a gaping mouth and round eyes" This was all that the landlady could tell him, so Tony left a message for the girls to contact him, but as always seems to be the case he never heard anything further. Many commentators on the case have questioned Tony's role in the affair. One investigator, Mark Chorvinsky of Strange magazine even claimed that because so many of the sightings were connected with him, that Tony had made the whole thing up. Such people do not understand the reticence of the Cornish people. They do not like to talk to outsiders, and I am convinced that if it had not been for Tony's presence in the area as a trusted 'local' the affair would never have been made public. The case of the French girls for example. Tony wrote to me in 1995 explainiing how he had become involved: "The French girls were students (at Camborne Tech - now known as Cornwall College), lodging in Redruth. I think they were on some sort of 'summer school' course. Their landlady 'phoned me about this sighting. Remember, at the time, I was getting quite a lot of media coverage. People reported weird shit to me"... Two years later the creature re-appeared when, "an enormous, bird-like creature" was seen flying "over the Helford River and into the trees near Grebe Beach".

At Hallowe'en 1986 Tony was at the centre of a media storm when the Bishop of Truro, and the local newspapers accused him of having committed unspeakable acts of blasphemy inside Mawnan Old Church whilst attempting to invoke the Owlman. The affair was somewhat of a 'five minute wonder' in the press and the actual sequence of events remains obscure. Ten years or so later Tony told me: "I did a few bits and pieces inside the Church ... There was a lot of misreporting that I was throwing out challenges to God, and saying I'd smack him in the gob. I don't think God has a gob, and I wouldn't do that anyway to the deity. He'd give me a harder smack back wouldn't he?" Eventually - more by luck than by judgement - I pieced together the true story.

He had indeed visited the church with a local radio team, but the "huge crowd of people" turned out to be ONE rather shy bloke called 'Dave'. He told me that there was no blasphemy, no swearing, no naked witches and no cigars, and that the wizard had entered the church, muttered a few things under his breath in a foreign language and then left again. It turns out that the radio team had approached my friend and asked him what he had planned to do to celebrate Hallowe'en. He said: "Buy me a drink and I'll show you."

This the radio people did, only to find that like many wizards, my friend has a legendary capacity for the stuff. Finding at the end of the evening that they had nothing to show for their severely depleted expense accounts, I have a sneaking suspicion that someone decided that it would be a good idea to concoct a bizarre tale of blasphemy and psychic mayhem.

In 1989 a young man called 'Gavin' and his girlfriend 'Sally' (not their real names), encountered the Mawnan Owlman. This was perhaps the most important sighting to date from a cryptoinvestigative point of view, because it is the only sighting that cannot in any way be linked to Tony 'Doc' Shiels. I have interviewed 'Gavin' on a number of occasions and am convinced of his veracity. This is his story in his own words:

"We had a torch and I was shining its beam across trunks about fifteen feet off the ground. I am fairly sure that the animal was standing in a large conifer tree and the illustration we made after the sighting (but not til we got home actually) does depict the animal in a conifer tree, but I'm not that sure now. Here is the actual sighting as written down in my diary:

'Every couple of hours we would walk along the fringe of the wood. This was the third time that evening and it was beginning to get dark. From a distance trees looked black but closer up the branches and trunks could be seen. We saw the animal at about 9.30 pm. It was standing on a thick branch with its wings sort of held up at the arms. I'd say that it was about five feet tall (but please read on). The legs had high ankles and the feet were large and black with two huge 'toes' on the visible side. The creature was grey with brown and the eyes definitely glowed. On seeing us its head jerked down and forwards, its wings lifted and it just jumped backwards. As it did its legs folded up. We ran away.

"We had a pretty good idea what it looked like. We didn't know what to do about it, and essentially vowed never to tell anyone. I last saw Sally about two years ago and talked about it then. She was as unkeen to share the information then as she was earlier, and I promised I wouldn't tell anyone about her involvement, but I could 'do what I liked' with my interpretation. I respect this and have never disclosed any information about her'.

To date the most recent sighting of the Mawnan Owlman, took place, allegedly, at the end of the summer of 1995 and is chronicled in a letter sent to Simon Parker, the night editor of the Western Morning News in Truro. It reads:

"Dear Sir, I am a student of marine biology at the Field Museum, Chicago, on the last day of a summer vacation in England. Last Sunday evening I had a most unique and frightening experience in the wooded area near the old church at Mawnan, Cornwall. I experienced what I can only describe as 'a vision from hell'. The time was fifteen minutes after nine, more or less, and I was walking along a narrow track through the trees. I was halted in my tracks when, about thirty metres ahead, I saw a monstrous man-bird 'thing'. It was the size of a man, with a ghastly face, a wide mouth, glowing eyes and pointed ears. It had huge clawed wings, and was covered in feathers of silver/grey color. (sic). The thing had long bird legs which terminated in large black claws. It saw me and arose, 'floating' towards me. I just screamed then turned and ran for my life.

"The whole experience was totally irrational and dreamlike (nightmare!). Friends tell me that there is a tradition of a phantom 'owlman' in that district. Now I know why. I have seen the phantom myself. "Please don't publish my real name and address. This could adversely affect my career. Now I have to rethink my 'world view' entirely. Yours, very sincerely scared... 'Eye Witness'."

We have her name and address, but we have respected her wishes and kept her anonymity. We have tried a little piece of covert investigation into this particular eyewitness but have drawn a blank whenever we tried to investigate further. I think that it would be unwise to wholeheartedly accept this account as genuine, but it is included for the sake of completion.

We are left now with what devotees of TV gameshows would no doubt call the $64,000 question. Does the Owlman exist? and if it does what is it?

I quite understand the unwillingness of researchers like Mark Chorvinsky to accept such a bizarre tale purely on the evidence presented by such a notorious figure as 'Doc' Shiels. After all, by his own admission he is a 'charlatan' and a 'thimble rigger', and he has even told me not to "invest belief in anything" especially him! (and this is a man I count as a close and dear friend). The discovery of 'Gavin' and his succinct and believable eyewitness testimony provided an invaluable corroboration to the vast body of 'Shiels-channeled' evidence, and has persuaded even some noted sceptics that there is something to the story after all.

Graham McEwan has suggested that such 'creatures' are quasi-animate thought form manifestations created by the unconscious mind of a lonely traveller. The veteran explorer and mystic Alexandra David-Neel writing in With Magicians and Mystics in Tibet (1931) tells how certain Buddhist monks can create living thought forms called tulpas. She claimed that she managed to create one of her own, the image of a fat and jolly monk who was seen on at least one occasion by an independent witness. She warns, however: "Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to play the part of a real being it tends to free itself from its makers control". In the case of her tulpa this happened and she described how the monk became thinner and less jolly and how slowly 'his face assumed a vaguely mocking, sly, malignant look. He became more troublesome and bold. In short he escaped my control.'

In my more frivolous moments I wonder whether Mark Chorvinksy was sort of right after all. Maybe 'Doc' had made the whole thing up, perhaps after he had been reading John Keel's classic The Mothman Prophecies (about a similar apparition in West Virginia during 1967), and had decided in a spirit of genuinely surreal mischief that it was perhaps time that Cornwall had something similar to counterpoint its very own sea monster. Perhaps this very act of creation helped form a tulpa which then got out of hand. If so then I suspect that Tony was as surprised as anyone else when other people started to report sightings of the creature.

Another theory that I have adopted at various times is linked with the sex of the witnesses. With the one exception - the young man who has asked to be identified only as 'Gavin' the only people to have seen the creature have been young women. Even 'Gavin' was accompanied by a young woman at the time. Could the owlman be a sort of three dimensional, feathered poltergeist? An apparition 'invoked' by the peculiar hormonal and emotional changes which affect young women at this time?

Maybe the combination of these conditions - which as anyone who has ever shared a house with a teenage girl will know can be quite devastating, with something inate in the psychical infrastructure of the area surrounding Mawnan Old Church has a synergistic effect, producing the apparition that has become known as The Owlman of Mawnan.

As Oscar Wilde said, 'the truth is never pure and seldom simple'. Perhaps the real identity of the Owlman of Mawnan, and indeed other similar 'creatures' seen across the globe is some, all, or none of the explanations given above, or perhaps, more probably, we shall never know!

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California Man Claims Oval Craft / Alien Encounter In Yard

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Link to video MP4 file - witness makes video statement

MUFON witness statement: Around 3:00pm I was watching my cat sitting in the yard from inside my house, looking out a sliding glass door. He was looking out into a field and then looked straight up. His ears went flat and his eyes were big and he ducked down and quickly ran to a tree to climb but stopped halfway looking up all around. At that moment a saw a reflection of a black oval (off of a camper shell window in the driveway) moving away to the left. I have tall trees all around the house but only the sky can be seen in the reflection. I went and picked up the cat and he was trembling and shaking. Later that night at exactly 9:50 I went outside to feed the cat, as I stepped out of the door I saw something flashing colorful lights just off the porch steps in the yard no bigger than a baseball. It was very dark and I took 2 steps towards it and noticed that it was being held by "something" about 1 to 2 feet tall. I was startled and jumped back and at the same time the "thing" was startled too and dropped the flashy thing and ran away super fast. I looked where "it" dropped the flashy light thing cause it was right in front of my pumpkin patch. I heard it hit the ground and later believe it bent a pumpkin leaf stem.

Nothing there. I was terrified by then and went inside to collect my self.

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East Texas Woman Claims Aliens Stole Her Baby Fetus, Still Visit

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According to Jane Nelms, an alien took her four-month-old fetus and claims aliens follow her and constantly visit, starting in 1973. Nelms was hypnotized and remembers her alien abduction experience and what the aliens told her. While in their spacecraft, Nelms witnessed several species of aliens...some wearing street clothes. Nelms said that she and her husband had not been having sex and was shocked when she suddenly turned up pregnant in the 1980s. She claims an alien impregnated her with a half-human, half-alien child. Nelms even provides the alien's fingerprints and an x-ray photo of it. She says government men in black have been following her and trying to silence her. Jane swears she is not crazy...her father was knighted by the Queen of England. She says the aliens told her that one day we all will meet the aliens, who intend to make themselves known in the near future.

Statement with video: A news report on an East Texas woman's story of alien abductions. Jane Nelms lives near Winnsboro. She grew up in England and has lived in many places, claiming aliens follow her and constantly visit, even now here in East Texas. KLTV 7 has more on her story.

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Sarmiento: If Bigfoot Exists, It's Not An Ape

statesman.com - If Bigfoot exists in North America, the mythical beast is no mere ancient representative of an ape family that migrated across the Bering land mass with mastodons and ancient man, a primatologist says.

Bigfoot — or Sasquatch or Skunk Ape or Fouke Monster or whatever name you prefer — would have to be a completely new and specific species, Esteban Sarmiento told attendees at the ninth annual Texas Bigfoot Conference on Sept. 26. "If it's real, this animal is exceedingly human-like," Sarmiento said. "It would be our closest relative on earth."

Sarmiento, though, wouldn't exactly address the question of whether Bigfoot exists or whether he believes the tales about wild, hairy beasts that have drifted out of dark, wooded river bottoms and foggy rain forests for decades. What Sarmiento did say, though, is that, based on his studies of great apes in Africa, Sumatra and Borneo, whatever Bigfoot is, he's not an ape.

Sarmiento spoke during the conference about the so-called Patterson-Gimlin film shot in 1967. A touchstone in Bigfoot lore and the believers' burning bush, the film purports to show a female Bigfoot with pendulous breasts, striding across a rocky area in northern California.

The film has been debated by believers, denounced and debunked by critics, shown on television and dissected and disseminated on YouTube.

Roger Patterson was a would-be filmmaker who had been trying to get funding for a movie about Bigfoot. In early 1967, he rented a quality 16mm camera and convinced Robert Gimlin to travel with him into the wilderness to look for the creature . Amazingly, they found a hairy specimen walking away from them and into heavy timber in the distance. The creature shown in the film is covered in dark hair and walks with a human gait, even turning its head to look back at the camera before it disappears.

Gimlin, who's still alive and attended the conference, swears the film is real. Patterson maintained its authenticity until his death, which happened in 1972. However, a man named Bob Heironimus has claimed he was paid $1,000 to don the suit and walk in front of the camera and out of sight.

Bigfoot and Sasquatch sightings have been common in the Pacific Northwest for decades. They've also been prevalent in East Texas and the surrounding big timber regions of Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma.

Believers think the common traits of a 7- to 9-foot tall, hairy, wild-eyed but super intelligent beast that normally avoids humans but often is spotted walking along roadways or standing close to remote cabins are related to the same species.

Bigfoot is rare enough, they say, that he must move around to find mates and new territory, and that's why reports have filtered in for at least 150 years.

There have been some obscure and out-of-focus photos taken over the years, and there have been Bigfoot hoaxes and claims of capture and kills, even by respected members of the Bigfoot community. But no one ever has managed a quality photo that comes even close to Patterson's film.

Bigfoot believers — the serious ones are called researchers to separate themselves from simple believers who seem to have devout faith as well in Atlantis, UFOs, chupacabras and aliens among us — have claimed the film shows a possible descendant of Gigantopithecus blacki, a great ape that migrated across the land bridge to live in North America. Sarmiento isn't buying that.

"A great ape (chimp, gorilla or orangutuan) can't do this. I guarantee there's no great ape that can do this," Sarmiento says, pointing to the frame in the film when the creature turns in full stride to look over its shoulder at the camera. "A gorilla couldn't do this. It can't turn it's head. An ape would have to stop and turn around to look at the camera." Apes can walk on two legs, he said, but not with the stride and gait the Patterson Bigfoot uses. That's a human trait.

"And the breast is covered in hair. Gorillas don't have hair on their breasts. Apes only have breasts if they're nursing, but there's no baby in the film," Sarmiento said. "Females usually have a baby around, and I don't think it would leave and not take the baby." Sarmiento added that the bottom of the Bigfoot's foot in the film isn't an ape's foot with an opposable toe and even noted that it looks somewhat like a padded house shoe.

So what is it? What does the film show? "If I can't show it either way, why would I make the call," Saremiento said. "If it's real it has to be a whole new species. Is it a man in a monkey suit? I don't know. If I said that and it turned out not to be, then I'd look stupid."

Thanks to Andrew D. Gable for article

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Video: Mysterious UFO - Benalmadena, Spain - 9/12/09

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Statement with video: UFO filmed over Benalmadena, Spain. 12/9/09. 20.45pm. Object was seen hovering for 15 mins before it drifted towards me, turned on it's end and gained altitude until it disappeared from sight.

stv.tv - A Scots holidaymaker told on Friday how he spotted a UFO hovering above a Spanish tourist town from his hotel balcony.

Raymond Meyer, of Guardbridge, near St Andrews, Fife, was in his hotel room at the Hotel Siroco in Benalmadena when he saw the object a few hundred yards away.

He has placed the footage - shot in mid-September - on video site YouTube, where hundreds of visitors have already viewed the film.

Now he hopes those who watch the two-and-a-half minute video can help him unravel the mystery object - and find out whether an alien presence really was over the Spanish holiday resort, or whether there is a simpler explanation.

Mr Meyer said: "I filmed the object from my room balcony on Saturday September 12 at 8.45pm.

"I had watched the object for about five minutes before getting my camcorder and recording it.

"After I had recorded the sequence the object drifted towards me, turned on its end then went vertically up until it disappeared from view.

"Unfortunately my camcorder wouldn't refocus to film this.

"Since returning from holiday, I've shown numerous people the footage and it's left everyone speechless."

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UFO Encounter - Near Charlotte, North Carolina - 2/10/09

ufocasebook.com - Every Tuesday I travel to Cornelius to play cards at a comic store. On February 10, 2009, I had an incredible sighting at a range closer than anything I can find in many UFO chronicles across the web.

At about 6:15-6:20 on February 10, 2009, I saw a large circular object floating above Highway 16 on the west side of Charlotte, NC. I was driving toward Huntersville when I saw the grayish object floating right above the trees. It was kind of shaped like a flat disk or acorn, and was floating above the trees on the right of the highway.

The object appeared to be between 50 to 100 feet in diameter and no more than 10 or 20 feet tall. I first noticed the object about 200 yards ahead of me, and I could not see the entire circumference, yet it was a circular object suspended in mid-air. As it was I became immensely curious as to what was keeping it suspended.

When I approached the object I realized that it was hovering without suspension partially over the highway and the trees on the right side of the road. From a distance it seemed to be shrouded in shadows at the very end of dusk when the sun is on the horizon.

As I approached I could see in clear detail four lights all on opposite sides in a sort of perfect X-formation on the bottom of the object along with hollow hole in the center of the bottom of the saucer. The skin of the object seemed to be made of a grayish metal with clear, straight seams in a seemingly symmetrical pattern.

Across the bottom of the object there seemed to be markings that looked almost hieroglyphic in nature. In the center of the object there was an empty black hole like there was a middle cylinder removed from the structure. The method of flight of the object seemed to be something completely out of this world, yet since I was on the ground and could not clearly see the top of the object, I could not tell if it had any sort of propeller keeping it adrift in mid-air, yet from every angle that I had a visual I did not see anything that would explain its method of flight.

The skin almost reminded me of a smooth pewter with a pattern that was grid-like with the hieroglyphic symbols in each cell. From the distance I was it seemed to be texture on the outer surface but I could faintly make out markings in the pattern, but I had no idea what they meant.

This simple fact - that the object was simply floating a few feet above the trees on the right of the road interested me most, When I realized that the object was beyond the human capacity of technological development, I remember feeling a sudden fear that I should not be witnessing what I was seeing.

When I passed under the object for a brief moment, I remember passing almost directly under one of the light fixtures which I remember seeing with clear detail. It seemed to emit an intense cone of light similar to those that illuminate night construction on highways, if not brighter.

The light seemed to be held onto the object on two sides by small V-like metal structures, and the light itself could not have been larger than one of our manufactured 100 watt generic bulbs, yet it burned with great intensity.

The center hole of the object was most peculiar because it seemed to ascend into the object into a total blackness which my eyes couldn’t penetrate. The hole, from what I could tell, probably took up about 10-20% of the base surface area and was in the exact center of the object.

When I passed under the object I remember nothing but fear and curiosity in the object. I must have been going close to 100 mph when I was passing under it to get out of its way, and the only thought of stopping for a picture was thwarted with my fears of abduction.

I still to this day pass by the very curve on Highway 16, and remember the sighting every time I drive that route.

There are 2 shots, and I would say that they are at least 95% accurate. The first is a view from the road a little higher than my car, which is portrayed, and shows the shape and location of the object over the road.

The second is a close up of as near as I can remember to what the light fixtures and the pattern on the skin looked like.

Of course the symbols in the grid on the 2nd sketch are hypothesized, I remember clearly certain aspects, such as the grid-like pattern on the skin, straight edge symbols, the way the lights were moving, and how the mechanisms looked, that led me to describing this sketch to the artist.

Thanks to UFO Casebook

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'Mom, have you checked the room today?'

southbendtribune.com - by Becky Emmons - At least once a day I carefully open the door to Monty’s room to see if everything is as I left it.

After Monty, our second son, left home for good, we did what a lot of parents do — we redid his bedroom.

Out went the plaid wallpaper, twin beds, shelves of trophies. In came deep blue walls and some old family pieces, including the antique, standard-sized four-poster bed that I grew up with. The problem came when I found the perfect bedspread with shades of blue: Blue flowers.

Needless to say, he does not sleep in that room anymore. He usually slept in the guest room anyway; it has a queen-sized bed and its own bathroom.

His bedroom gets little use. I probably use it the most because I’ve taken over his walk-in closet for my out-of-season clothes and shoes.

I always keep the door shut because I don’t want cats in there taking naps. I’ve especially kept that room off limits because since our son Rod married Danielle in June, her wedding gown has been hanging in there.

A few weeks ago, I experienced a series of disturbing events, some in Monty’s bedroom.

I was having a restless night and couldn’t sleep so I went down to the sunroom and plopped on the sofa. Suddenly I heard a loud swishing noise that sounded like a rushing, gurgling river.

We have radiant heat beneath the stone floor, but even when the heat is on, I’ve never heard this sound. I was puzzled about it, but too tired to do anything about it, such as wake up my husband.

I dozed. Something woke me up later. I was aware of flashing lights outside. I got up and stumbled to the door between the family room and the garage. When I opened the door, I discovered the big, overhead garage door shut, everything in perfect order … except the flashers on my car were blinking.

It really freaked me. I woke up my husband on this one. He calmly said, “Well, turn the car on and turn the blinkers off.”

But, how did they get on? It totally unnerved me. I went back to bed with him, but was more restless than ever.

That morning, I went down to Monty’s room to look for a pair of sandals in his closet. The door was shut as always, but when I walked into the closet, there was a pile of shoes and shoe boxes that had apparently “fallen” off a couple of shelves. Needless to say, I was spooked again.

“Who is messing with me?” I shouted to no one. Tyke, one of my dogs who follows me everywhere, took a step back and cowered.

I seriously began to question my sanity, my memory, my thoughts about ghosts. It had been my husband’s grandparents’ house. If they were haunting, why were they bugging ME? My car. My shoes.

Within a couple of days, I began to feel like it had all been a bad dream or maybe somebody’s bad joke.

I ventured back to Monty’s closet. There on the floor in the closet doorway sat a pair of black dressy flats that I’d gotten last spring on a sale table. Now, we women know our shoes, and I know I had not seen that pair since I’d put them away after I bought them. I’d completely forgotten about them. Yet, here they were, out of their box, sitting neatly side by side, ready to be stepped into.

I think that episode bothered me more than any of the previous ones.

I’ve questioned all my family members, rightly so as they are a bunch of jokesters. All pleaded ignorance.

Monty seemed to take me the most seriously; maybe because it’s technically his room. Via long distance phone the next day, he asked, “Mom, have you checked the room today?” And a couple days later, “Mom, is the room OK today?”

So, I continue to check. And, as the season of goblins and ghoulish things approaches, I’m bracing myself. I’ll keep you posted.

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Wisconsin Woman Claims 'Translucent Beings' Outside Her Window

mufon.com - A woman in Wisconsin supposedly witnessed three translucent beings sitting in the trees outside her window.

At around 10:00 AM in the first week of July, 2009, the woman states she had been sitting watching television in a recliner, with a clear shot out the window when the beings appeared.

Startled, she found herself frozen in place as she examined the beings standing side-by-side.

Each entity was somehow attaching itself to the tree four feet off the ground.

The beings were about six inches wide, and approximately a foot tall, but the report also says it may have been difficult to judge height since the creatures may have been sitting.

The woman also described their arms as being extremely long.

The woman said their faces were cone-shaped, their arms were extremely long. and she couldn’t make out any features on the strange conical snouts.

The creatures appeared to be translucent, and did not reflect light properly. The woman said it was as though they were cloaked or invisible with only their outline visible.

The creatures and the woman stared at each other for approximately four minutes. The woman finally got up the nerve to slowly extricate herself from the room and leave through the front door.

She had heard stories of people getting abducted, and this only added to her unease, “I was afraid they would come in and abduct me. Or do experiments as we hear about what happens to people.”

She turned her back to them for no more than a couple of seconds, but they had vanished by the time she looked back.

She quickly ran to her neighbor who asked her if she had seen a ghost, to which the woman said she had indeed seen something very weird.

The next person who saw the creatures was the woman’s boyfriend who woke her and asked if she had seen anything weird outside of their rear window.

Having not told him the story of the bizarre creatures, she tentatively said yes, but nothing else.

The boyfriend described the three creatures with cone-shaped faces identical to the ones she had seen, and that they had eyes or possibly holes where eyes should have been.

The beings were apparently riding some form of platform or stationary device, busying themselves at a control panel when he spotted them.

Their bodies were also translucent, although the platform held a faint milky color to it.

He was certain they didn’t see him, and was able to watch them for about four minutes.

As they shared their stories, each was relieved that the other could confirm the sighting, but they were also unnerved by the possibilities of strange creatures stalking their window.

Two days later, at approximately 0:00 AM, as the couple was sitting watching television, she again saw movement again in the trees.

Only one of the beings had returned. He stood hanging in the middle of the window at the same height as before.

His conical face stared blankly at them before it vanished.

The boyfriend, terrified at the prospect of seeing the creatures yet again, didn’t turn his head to look out the window, and the creature vanished.

The sighting had a toll on the occupants of the house. They are now terrified and looking for answers as to why the creature is appearing outside their window, and what it wants from them.

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Photos: The Stanley Hotel - Estes Park, Colorado - 9/13/08

NOTE: I received this photo taken during a ghost tour (September 13, 2008) at the infamous Stanley Hotel. You can go to the collection of photos from that tour S.P.O.O.K. (Scientific Paranormal Operation of Kansas)...Lon

Here is the information received:

I took this photo on September 13, 2008 at the Stanley Hotel. We were taking a ghost tour. I stopped at the bottom of the steps on the 2nd floor near Room 217 and looked up the stairwell. There was no one there that I could see. I snapped a few photos from my camera and continued the tour. This was about 2PM-3PM. A few days later, I came home and was going over the photos. I was very surprised and a little scared at what I saw in the photo.

I contacted a few professional photographers who validated that it wasn't photo shopped or retouched, but they couldn't give me much information on what they thought it was. One photographer did tell me that he thought it was a little boy, but I can't really see it that much.

Our clairvoyant/sensitive and photo tech 'SW' looked over the image and came to this conclusion:

"Hi Lon...This is very interesting. I had thought that only human spirits haunted the Stanley... "that" is not human. It reminds me of a gargoyle but it isn't. The Stanley Hotel is partially built into a mountain, or so I have heard. That "thing" came in from that point. I get the sense that is a "live creature".

In reference to 2 other photos taken at the Stanley Hotel, here is the response from 'SW':

"The photo of the face outside, is Chansonetta Stanley Emmons. She was the sister to F.O. and his twin brother Francis. I've included a picture that I found of her.

The parlor window photo is Flora Stanley, Mr. Stanley's wife (I know because I get the impression of a piano and flowers). She is present in most sightings, whereas Mr. Stanley tends to avoid being seen. I feel he prefers the great hall and private quarters."



Chansonetta Stanley Emmons - one of the first American female photographers. In 1883, the Stanley brothers invented the dry plate process which allowed faster photograph development, which they sold to Eastman Kodak for a fortune. Many of Chansonetta's photographs adorn the Stanley Hotel



F.O. Stanley and Flora Stanley ride a 'Stanley Steamer' - August 1899, New Hampshire

The ballroom where Flora Stanley's spirit lingers

F.O. Stanley

Any updates that are forthcoming will be posted here...Lon
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THE STANLEY HOTEL


The Stanley Hotel is a 138-room Georgian hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Located within sight of the Rocky Mountain National Park, the Stanley offers panoramic views of the Rockies. It was built by Freelan O. Stanley of Stanley Steamer fame and opened on July 4, 1909, catering to the rich and famous. The hotel and its surrounding lands are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Stanley has hosted many famous guests, including the Titanic survivor Margaret Brown, John Philip Sousa, Theodore Roosevelt, the Emperor and Empress of Japan, and a variety of Hollywood personalities. The Stanley Hotel also hosted Stephen King, inspiring him to write The Shining. Contrary to information sometimes published King was living in Boulder at the time and did not actually write the novel at the hotel. Parts of the mini-series version of The Shining were filmed there, although it was not used for Stanley Kubrick's cinematic version.

Stephen King's stay at the Stanley Hotel was the inspiration behind his novel 'The Shining'. Stanley Kubrick directed the award-winning film starring Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall. Contrary to popular belief, no scenes were filmed at the Stanley Hotel.

Many reports have come from the guests of the hotel that they had seen strange images and had unexplainable things happen to them. Some believe that F. O. Stanley haunts the hotel himself. He has been seen most often in the lobby and the Billiards room, which was his favorite room when he was alive. He has also been seen in the bar but quickly disappears before anyone can get a better look.

It is also believed that F.O.'s wife Flora haunts the hotel as well. When she was in the hotel, she used to entertain the guests by playing piano in the music room. Though there have been no actual sightings of her, the keys of the piano have been seen by several guests to be moving by themselves.

Guests have also reported hearing children playing in the hallway when no children were present, one couple even checking out because of the noise. Various employees have reported hearing voices when no one was around and seeing impressions in beds in rooms where no guests have stayed in for awhile. One guest claimed to have recorded a faded image of a man in a cowboy hat in his room, standing in front of the window. It lasted for a few minutes and then faded away. Another incident occurred where a guest attending her sister's wedding wrote "REDRUM" on a mirror with lipstick in her sister and her groom-to-be's room a joke. Later, as she was walking down the grand staircase to the lobby, she felt someone shove her and she fell down the stairs. After being helped up, she looked to see who shoved her, but no one was around to have done so.

Many strange events seem to take place in the Stanley Hotel for sure. Some are certainly less explainable than others. Why people believe they see the Stanleys has no reasonable explanation. Noises that guests and employees hear could be the creaking of heaters that they think might be ghosts, or the shifting of the pine wood that some of the hotel is made from. Voices that they hear could be echoing through the floors and walls from other rooms. That could account for the children that are heard as well. Or they could actually be children that hide when someone tells them to stop or keep it down. The guest who recorded the ghost wearing the cowboy hat would be more reliable if he showed this recording rather than say he did. And the girl who claimed to be shoved could very well have lied. After all, she was in the process of pulling a prank when it happened.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/
http://www.anchorweb.org/
http://www.stanleyhotel.com/

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