Forteania

Bigfoot musings

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:30:00 +0000

The twitterverse (or at least the very tiny sub-section of people that are interested in weird things) was all a buzz today over the news that Justin Smeja, the guy who claims to have killed a Bigfoot, had successfully passed a lie detector test. According to the person that administered the test, this meant that Justin Smeja was telling the truth. Or at the very least believed that what he was saying was true. For many in the Bigfoot/Cryptid community this brought up a whole host of issues. Guy Edwards, writing on both Bigfoot Lunch Club and Cryptomundo, asked a very pertinent question with his article entitled, “Bigfoot Killer Passes Lie Detector Test. What Does it Mean?”. Personally I'm not sure that it means a whole lot of anything. Allow me to elaborate just a little bit. It seems to me that all the polygraph indicated was that there was “No deception detected” in response to the questions asked of Smeja. This tells met that Smeja certainly believes he killed a Bigfoot. However this is not the same thing as actually killing one. As a background to this whole issue Smeja claims to have shot and killed not only an adult Bigfoot, but also what appeared to be a juvenile Bigfoot. For a more in-depth look at this event you can read Jeffery Pritchett's interview for Examiner.com with Smeja.

I'm not here to pass judgment one way or the other on this issue. In fact, this news got me to thinking about Bigfoot and the fact that I've never really had a chance to sit down and organize my thoughts on the big hairy hominid. And so I would like to take a moment or two of your time tonight and try to put down in writing were my opinion on Bigfoot is at the moment. As with any of my opinions on fortean topics, this is subject to change anytime, assuming new evidence comes along that causes me to re-evaluate the issue. Without further delay let's get started!

Undiscovered primate or Inter-dimensional traveler?

One last note, my thoughts on Bigfoot actually encompass all hairy hominids from around the world. So, although I will only be referring to 'Bigfoot' or 'Sasquatch', please understand that I also mean any other similar creature you can think of. Including, but not limited to, the following; Almas, Amomongo, Bukit Timah Monkey Man, Yeti, Yowie, Abominable Snowman, and so on. Thank you!

It seems likely that the most basic question to deal with first is whether or not Bigfoot is an actual flesh-and-blood creature or some etheric denizen from some other place. From the many reports I've read (and some of which I will be including below), I'm currently of the opinion that at least some (if not the vast majority) of Bigfoot encounters can best be explained by a creature that is altogether more paranormal than physical. We certainly don't seem to have much in the way of physical evidence for this creatures existence and as I said some of the reports can be quite bizarre. Please understand I said we don't have much physical evidence, not that we don't have any evidence. I know there are cases of hair, scat, and other very physical samples being collected from something that would seem to be quite physical in nature. However, most of these have turned out to be inconclusive at best or mis- identifications at worst.

So for the time being I'm content with having the opinion that there is a paranormal aspect to Bigfoot that is not typically taken into consideration, especially when people make claims of shooting one. As an example, here are just a few of the more bizarre/supernatural Bigfoot encounters that I was able to locate. Both of the following were found from a Google Groups post. The first example is from a Val Power, an anthropology undergraduate from Vancouver who wrote of her alleged Sasquatch encounters.

Too much has been written on too little direct observation. The focus of this report is the phenomenal aspect of the Sasquatch based on my two encounters in British Columbia.

REPORT #1

As we entered the forest via a well worn path, we both noticed and remarked that we could feel a pressure on the top of our heads. It was not uncomfortable but quite noticeable. The trail we were on led to a gulley and I knew this area very well as I was raised only three blocks away from it. Miriam and I would come here often on walks.

Once in the forest we did not walk more than one and a half city blocks. We spent time looking at the variety of vegetation and sitting on a log talking. This is not an area of thick undergrowth.

As we got up to continue our walk along the path, I noticed a log by which appeared suddenly, a Sasquatch laying on the ground facing the log. Its knees were slightly bent. Its fur was black. Miriam didn't seem to notice it and continued down the path. I got on my hands and knees because I wanted to get a good look at this creature.

I was only about a foot away from it at most, and close enough to comfortably reach out and touch it. Between the Sasquatch and myself was a visible, clear barrier. The bottom edge was approximately three to four inches from the ground. I did not look to see the height of the barrier nor the length, nor did it occur to me to see if I could walk around to see its face.

I wanted to reach out and touch its fur but didn't because I was unsure if the barrier would have an affect on my hand or my physical being.

As I knelt on the ground I heard a 'metallic' like 'click-click' and my eyes became as a microscope. Looking through this new heightened lens I could examine with clarity a single hair and how it fit into the light, creamy colored skin. Without touch, I could move aside a hair to examine it and know the thickness of its fur. There was no sound.

As I knelt on the ground, I was given a message or a knowing, "When the barrier touches the earth, the worlds will blend, and chaos will result".

As suddenly as it appeared it disappeared. I stood up and saw Miriam walking towards me. I asked her what she had been doing to which she replied, "Looking at a house in the trees". The house was small, on a branch approximately ten to twelve feet up in a tree. I didn't see the house and she didn't see the Sasquatch.

Later on in the article, Val analyzes what she believes happened to her and her friend during the events. It's a fascinating read and I suggest you check out the link to give it a glance yourself. The same Google Group post also has an excerpt from the book The Psychic Sasquatch by Jack “Kewaunee” Lapseritis.

[p. 27] This story was related to me over a six-year period through a series of letters, numerous telephone calls, and personal interviews. The account took place west of the Rocky Mountains; the names and places are changed to protect the family involved. These events occurred in the latter part of the 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Mr. Jeffrey and family are well established members of their community.

[p. 29] On the first night, they [the Jeffrey family] decided to walk along the lake after dark thinking they might see a Bigfoot further away from their trailer. After a while, they heard a banging of sticks on a hollow tree. Then loud thumping noises at a distance, as if something with huge feet was carelessly stomping the ground as it ran.

The banging on trees seemed to be coming from different directions, evidently by two separate individuals. The noise was heard repeatedly, which greatly perplexed them.

The Jeffrey family decided to hide in the brush in an effort to catch a glimpse of a Bigfoot. Before long, they were astounded by an ungodly cry [p. 30] unlike anything they had ever heard before.

What they observed in the moments that followed was beyond their wildest imaginations. They reported that the Sasquatch stepped out of the forest holding a flashlight device, and directed the beam up in the air while howling upwardly.

During this time, other unseen creatures hit their sticks against hollow logs making a loud drum-like thud. There were three bangs, then a pause; three bangs, then a pause – always three.

Within minutes, a round, saucer-shaped glowing object appeared on the horizon and hovered over the trees directly above the Sasquatch. The frightened family huddled in the bushes, observing the peculiar ritual.

There is a little bit more to the excerpt to be found on the Google Groups post, but of course to get the full story you'll have to check out the book. This particular account doesn't necessarily rule out a physical creature, but it certainly doesn't sound like an unclassified species of hominid. At least not in the classical sense of some kind of animal. This creature seems to have a pretty healthy grasp of technological understanding. Again, doesn't mean that the beings aren't from around here but that they are certainly stranger than we may know.

Just like any other fortean topic, my mind isn't entirely made up on what Bigfoot is. I do tend towards the explanation that there is some paranormal/supernatural aspect to Bigfoot that makes it far more than just another member of the hominid family. Cases such as the ones sighted above have definitely led me to this tentative conclusion. But like any good Fortean, I haven't completely settled into one camp or the other.

This makes my opinion on this whole Smeja/Bigfoot killing issue a little hard to pin down. Assuming that he isn't lying, as indicated by the polygraph test, then what does that mean exactly? It makes me wonder what he actually shot and killed. If the creature related in the above accounts is indicative of a Bigfoot, then how in the world did Smeja shoot them? Maybe he shot one of the biological Bigfoots (Bigfeet)?

These are just some of my random thoughts on Bigfoot. I realized that this post was getting a bit long so I'll be wrapping it up for now, but rest assured I will be returning to the Bigfoot issue from time to time in the future. As usual be sure to follow the links below for all of the additional information. Also let me know what you think in the comment section below. Do you think Bigfoot is some kind of inter-dimensional traveler or a surviving member of some long thought to be extinct member of the hominid family tree?

Additional Info:

Bigfoot Killer Passes Lie Detector Test. What Does it Mean?

'To Kill Or Not To Kill' Interview with Bigfoot killer Justin Smeja

Supernatural Bigfoot UFO Connection - Google Groups

The Psychic Sasquatch

Humanoid sighting reports, not just little Greys!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 23:58:00 +0000

I'm always fascinated to read humanoid encounters and reports of strange beings that people have had dealings with. Whether or not these accounts are valid is often difficult to determine, but it does seem that many of the people who recount them are sincere in their telling of the stories. If nothing else the stories are fascinating to read about. Some time ago I came across an amazing website which has a massive index of these bizarre humanoid encounters. So tonight I thought I would share with you a just some of the cases that stood out to me as examples of the variety of entities people report seeing. Not unlike my post dealing with the menagerie of Ufonauts, you won't find too many stories of 4-ft tall Grey beings from Zeta Reticuli listed below. All the reports come from Albert S. Rosales' Humanoid Sighting Reports that are posted on UFOinfo.com. Rosales has painstakingly collected these reports from a variety of sources and has tried his best to organize them, both by date and by type of encounter. I love how Rosales approaches this topic in both his willingness to simply take what people say as important and with his attempts to preserve this information for any and all to have. Quoting directly from the website, Rosales says:

I always felt that the study of the "humanoid” itself was more important than any other study ….. I am currently engaged in attempting to catalog most reported encounters with humanoids, entities, beings, little men, giants, MIB, creatures, amphibians, reptilians, grays etc. So far I have over 10000 cases in my files, many known, many not so well known. I have translated many from all corners of the globe . I think this study is vital for future researchers and for UFO historians.

I obviously do not believe every single story, but I believe all stories must be told. Many are first hand reports, others are just anecdotes, but all are included. I am constantly looking for new sources of information and I am willing to assist any serious researcher looking for humanoid cases. I also need help from the numerous groups Worldwide in forwarding humanoid incident reports for my catalog, so it can one day be used by everyone.

With that in mind I will let the cases speak for themselves for the most part. I can't tell you what to make of them. If you wish they could just be what Greg Bishop calls 'UFO porno' or perhaps they might resonate with you as similar to something you or someone you know has sighted. Personally, I take the reports at face value and assume the people involved encountered what they have reported encountering.

First up is a really interesting event where a man was doing some work in his yard when he found himself face to face with some little beings and their pet. It comes from the 1977 year reports.

56.
Location. Near Snohomish Wisconsin
Date: April 1977
Time: 1600

Steven Unzelman was clearing some land behind his property in an area surrounded by tall evergreen trees and brush when he noticed a man like figure standing close by. The man seemed startled and suddenly the witness began hearing a loud buzzing sound and everything around him began to vibrate. The figure appeared to be yelling at him. A second man wearing a blue coverall now descended from the sky inside what appeared to be a half-egg shaped contraption with rotating blades on top. It was creating a strong turbulence all around the area. Both men descended to the ground using this peculiar machine. The two half egg shaped objects then suddenly shot up into the sky and disappeared. Both men were described as bald headed with flat faces. Both had dark brown skin and wore metallic blue uniforms and what appeared to be oxygen tanks on their backs. Both were about 5-feet tall and their heads were slightly larger than normal. Suddenly the witness heard a loud motor sound and saw a disc shaped object descend overhead making the trees whip back and forth. After emitting more sounds the object shot straight up making a siren-like sound. The object was silvery and appeared to have been spinning. The two humanoids then began walking away looking over their shoulders at the witness. He then heard a noise and noticed a huge hairy Bigfoot type creature hiding behind a nearby stump. The two humanoids then seemed to motion at the Bigfoot to come with them. It seemed to obey and left with them. The witness experienced a memory loss after the incident.

HC addition # 2387
Source: Peter Guttilla, The Bigfoot File
Type: C

This is a fairly classic example of the 'soil sample collection' variety of encounters. One has to wonder if perhaps they should hire someone else to do the soil collecting, after all they've only been doing it for a few thousand years or so, but I digress.

7.
Location. Badlands area Montana
Date: July 1913
Time: unknown
J. L. Buick & another prospector were startled by a small brown man saying "Peace be with you, my friends." Sitting on a patch of sand was a silvery round object nearly 100 ft in diameter, with central dome & a small conning tower; no wheels underneath. Around it was other small men in brown picking flowers, pebbles, etc, & some mining a rock outcrop. The occupant told the witnesses they were from another planet, which had secretly been keeping tabs on earth for over a hundred years; they had learned English via spies working in a US circus. The craft rose silently & then took off. Next day it came back, & they were given a tour inside; 5 concentric saucers with diminishing air pressures, the outermost being evacuated. As to lift, "gravity is only a different type of magnetism," so it can be controlled by an electromagnetic drive; they can do 9000 mph, and have artificial gravity inside the saucer. Rockets, they were told, had failed for space travel.

Humcat 1913-1
Source: Letter to Donald Keyhoe
Type: G

This next case is really weird. In a lot of ways it reads almost like a Nazi version of the Roswell incident, especially in some of the details about the living and dead “ETs” which were recovered.

16.
Location. Czernica, Germany (Eastern Part, now territory of Poland)
Date: Summer 1937
Time: unknown
A multicolored ball or globe-shaped UFO was seen to fall in a field (or near a field) belonging to Eva Braun’s parents (this was the future mistress of Adolph Hitler) The area was cordoned off by SS-troops from the town of Jelenia Gora (called Hirschberg at the time). The crashed disk was transported to the Hirschberg SS base and kept under very strong guard and super top security. The disk was 7.6 meter in diameter and 3.8 meters high. It consisted of a large “overwhelming” dome, encircled by a narrow outer rim, and smaller flat dome on the bottom with a flat lower section. The top of the dome was also flat and large. The craft had 6 oval-shaped structures resembling portholes but not transparent, or devices that radiated some type of light, located near the base of the upper dome. On the lower surface of the outer rim the craft had 12 lights. The color of the disk was a dull metal gray. There was an insignia on the dome resembling the letter “T” with 2 props on its sides. The entrance into the disk was found on the top of the upper dome. The general shape of the disk resembled that of a German soldier’s helmet with a small protrusion on the bottom. Inside the circular cabin were 3 small seats, there were control panels around the dome and 3 alien beings were found: one was dead, the other two were alive. One of the live aliens died soon after the crash, and the second live alien remained in custody for about 1.5 months and then died. The aliens were small dwarfs, about 0.9-1.0m in height, with large hairless pear-shaped heads, small dystrophic looking bodies, long narrow hands with 4 fingers, grayish skin and large dark slanted eyes. The Germans were afraid to move the disk to a more distant location, out of apprehension that it might explode during a long trip during transportation. So, a research laboratory had to be constructed nearby. From Hirschberg the disk was removed to a more secured underground location, which most likely, was called “Der Riese” a Nazi complex in the nearby Gory Sowie mountains (now in southwest Poland), which was also a site being used for excavating for uranium ore. This complex had an extensive network of underground hangars, connected by tunnels. The bodies of the occupants and the living extraterrestrial were also moved into this complex. The alien that lived for a little bit over a month apparently supplied the Germans with some type of information and was desperately asking the Nazi medical doctors for help, but they could not help him because of the different biological structure of his body. The alien died from an unknown illness. The origin of the crashed craft was apparently the double star system RA known on earth as 78 mu-1, Cygni, 73.1 light years in distance. Among the information given to the Germans by the surviving alien was that they had built underground bases in the polar region of the Canadian Northern Territories maybe Baffin Island. This data was supplied to Adolph Hitler himself. But no substantial technical data was in fact provided by the alien that could had help Nazi scientists to cope with the alien technology, despite their desperate attempt to obtain such data. The surviving alien also informed the Germans that the crashed was caused by some kind of technical malfunction. The alien was kept and interrogated at the same underground installation as the disk. Adolph Hitler and some other top Nazi figures including Werner Von Braun and Air Marshall Hermann Goring inspected the crashed disk, the alien bodies and consulted Nazi scientists in an attempt to use the object as a super secret weapon. Among those scientist involved in investigating the crashed disc were, Max Von Laue, Otto Hahn (who discovered nuclear fusion) and Werner Heisenberg. Fortunately (and unfortunately for the Nazis) the alien technology was extremely sophisticated and difficult to understand. The disc indeed inspired some Nazi scientists to construct different models of disc-shaped planes and the so-called flying bombs. This crash and possession of the extraterrestrial spacecraft was one of the factors that possibly inspired Hitler with extreme self-confidence to start World War II, hoping to use the craft as a sort of super weapon that would eventually help him conquer the world. Because of the approaching Soviet troops the whole underground complex was blown up, and the disk and the alien bodies was buried in one of the underground tunnels, the entrance was sealed with numerous huge rocks. It is apparently still there, unbeknownst to the Polish Government. The disk apparently still emanates radiation from its power plant, but because of the nearby uranium mines this source of radiation remains undetected.

HC addendum
Source: Robert K Lesniakiewicz, Milos Jesensky “Wunderland, Extraterrestrial Technologies, Anton Anfalov, Lenura A Azizova, Iryna V Volyk & Sergey V Kovalevskiy
Type: H

This next and final report I wish to share reminds me of tales of encounters with Fairies and going to the fairy realm.

5.
Location. Banks of the River Volga, Russia
Date: January 1912
Time: night
Mr. V. Dychkin and his friend were driving during a snowy night in separate sledges along the banks of the river. Dychkin's friend was driving ahead and he was following him. Suddenly they encountered two "strangers" standing alongside of the road, and Dychkin invited them to seat on the sledges. The two strange looking men convinced Dychkin not to continue home because of the storm, but to turn to the nearest town and spend the night there. Though Dychkin knew that there weren't any towns in the area, he drove against his will in the direction where the men told him. One of the men then pointed and yelled out, "Look, there is the town!" Dychkin looked and to his amazement saw a beautiful scene; something resembling a huge strange "city" was located on a flat plateau, illuminated by thousands of lights. The lights were positioned in a "fantastic" arrangement; he had never seen anything like it. Convinced in the reality of his vision Dychkin turned in the direction of the lights without hesitation. His companion followed and soon approached him. Suddenly both men were seized by incredible fear and rushed towards the road, never seeing where the two strangers had gone. Dychkin looked back in the direction of the lights but was surprised to see only the night gloom and darkness.

HC addendum
Source: "Rebus" Magazine, St. Petersburg 1914
German Mikhailov "NLO" Magazine # 50
Type: G?
Comments: The lighted "city" could have been a giant spacecraft but also the possibility of parallel worlds cannot be overlooked.

Are all of these encounters made up or exaggerated? We may never really know. I tend to agree with Rosales in that these incidents are important in our understanding of paranormal or even ufological phenomena. It's true that they also make for some great reading. On that note I can't recommend enough that you visit the UFOinfo site in order to read these and many, many, more reports each just as unusual and bizarre as the last. In addition to the reports available at the site, Rosales also publishes the Journal of Humanoid Studies that can be downloaded as PDFs. Drop me a line and let me know what you think of these reports in the comments, additionally if you come across some other bizarre encounters feel free to post those as well.

New writing gig

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 11:28:00 +0000

It's been a few days since my last post, so I wanted to take an opportunity to give you readers an update on what I've been up to. Never fear I have a few projects in the pipeline that will return us to your regularly scheduled Forteania postings that you've all come to love so much. As many of you are already aware, in addition to blogging here at Forteania I also write a column for Tim Binnall at his Binnall Of America website that's entitled Fortean Ramblings. Well you can add another url to your list of places to find my writing. As of Monday August 6, I began writing for Disinfo.com. My first (and so far only) post went live Monday evening in celebration of Charles Fort's birthday. What better way to celebrate not only my new gig at Disinfo, but also Fort's birthday? Below I'll give you a snippet of that post, but you should really follow the link below to check out the whole thing.

Happy Birthday Mr. Fort!

August 6, 2012 marks the 138th birthday of the great cataloger of the strange and unusual Charles Fort. Writing in the early 20th century, Fort would pen a total of seven books in his lifetime. Two early works, X and Y, were sadly never published as the author burned them during one of his many bouts of depression. Another title, The Outcast Manufacturers, was a fiction book that enjoyed some moderate success. The works that have made him rather famous (or infamous depending upon who you ask) are The Book of the Damned, New Lands, Lo!, and Wild Talents. Through the use of the New York Public library, Fort set about to dig up the data he felt that science had too long neglected. Almost right from the beginning Fort laid out his intentions pretty clearly. In his first work, The Book of the Damned, Fort wrote:

“A Procession of the damned. By the damned, I mean the excluded. We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded”

Follow this link in order to read the whole thing. Also be sure to keep checking back on Disinfo for more of my writing. That's all I have for now, tonight should see normal posting resume here. Until then, Stay Classy internets!

Tulpas, Tibet, and the Conjuration of Philip

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 00:54:00 +0000

When it comes to possible explanations for fortean or paranormal phenomena, I always find myself fascinated by the concept of the tulpa. Tulpa is a Tibetan word that is typically rendered into English as 'thoughtform'. The idea is that someone can create from their thoughts an actually entity or phantom and give it life. Alexandra David-Neel is credited with bringing the term and concept to the Western world in her 1929 book Magic and Mystery in Tibet. David-Neel had traveled extensively around the globe and was one of the first Westerners to be allowed entrance into Tibet and their religion and culture. David-Neel relates a lot of information to the reader about Tulpas in the Tibetan belief. According to David-Neel:

“A Bodhisattva [David-Neel says this is a person that has attained a spiritual perfection that places them just below the Buddha] is the basis of countless magic forms. By the power generated in a state of perfect concentration of mind he may, at one and the same time, show a phantom (tulpa) of himself in thousands of millions of worlds. He may create not only human forms, but any forms he chooses....” (pg 121)

David-Neel continues by saying:

“The power of producing magic formations, tulkus or less lasting and materialized tulpas, does not, however, belong exclusively to such mystic exalted beings. Any human, divine or demoniac being may be possessed of it. The only difference comes from the degree of power, and this depends on the strength of the concentration and the quality of the mind itself” (pg 121)

With this in mind, I wish to take a look at a relatively modern example of the creation of a ghost named Philip. During the 1970s a group from the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, along with a Dr. A.R.G. Owen (who was a mathematician) meet in order to see if they could, in essence, create a ghost. The group was comprised of Dr. Owen, his wife, a former chairperson of Mensa, an industrial designer, an accountant, a housewife, a bookkeeper and a sociology student. Additionally a psychologist by the name of Dr. Joel Whitton would also attend some of their experiments. The original idea was that this group of people could create a ghost seemingly by meditating on the idea of him including the history of the ghost. They would then attempt to make contact with this discarnate entity through séances and gain information from it.

Here is a part of the biography for the spirit the group created in order to flesh out “Philip Aylesford”:

Philip was an aristocratic Englishman, living in the middle 1600s at the time of Oliver Cromwell. He had been a supporter of the King, and was a Catholic. He was married to a beautiful but cold and frigid wife, Dorothea, the daughter of a neighboring nobleman.

One day when out riding on the boundaries of his estates Philip came across a gypsy encampment and saw there a beautiful dark-eyed girl raven-haired gypsy girl, Margo, and fell instantly in love with her.

He brought her back secretly to live in the gatehouse, near the stables of Diddington Manor - his family home.

For some time he kept his love-nest secret, but eventually Dorothea, realizing he was keeping someone else there, found Margo, and accused her of witchcraft and stealing her husband.

Philip was too scared of losing his reputation and his possessions to protest at the trial of Margo, and she was convicted of witchcraft and burned at the stake.

Philip was subsequently stricken with remorse that he had not tried to defend Margo and used to pace the battlements of Diddington in despair.

Finally, one morning his body was found at the bottom of the battlements, whence he had cast himself in a fit of agony and remorse.

One member of the group even sketched Philip's portrait

With this back story firmly in mind, the group meet weekly in order to attempt to communicate with “Philip”. As a part of their weekly meetings the group would come together and meditate on both the image of Philip and also his history. The group did this for about a year with no positive results. Some members of the group did claim during this time that they were able to sense a presence, but apparently nothing that was verifiable. The group was quite determined and rather than let the last year be for waste they decided to change up the tactics a bit. In order to have better results with conjuring Philip, the group began to replicate the séances of old.

Candle light, sitting around a table, soft music playing, the whole thing. They even had pictures of castles like the one Philip would have lived in, had he ever actually lived that is. This new method seemed to do the trick. During one of the group's séances, they began to receive communication from an entity. Through a series of rappings (reminiscent of the early Spiritualism movement) the group was able to determine that they were finally talking with Philip. The entity revealed this to the group through a series of raps. Speaking through raps, Philip continued to display his own unique attitude. This was discovered by how long Philip would pause in between answering the questions which the researchers posed to him.

The group never questioned that the entity they were in communication with was Philip because of it's lack of knowledge on many topics. It seems that Philip only knew the answers to questions that someone in the group knew the answer to. If they would ask him a question that the group didn't know the answer to he would be unable to answer. While the Q & A portion of Philip's ability might have been lacking, he completely made up for this shortcoming with his very clear psychokinetic abilities. Overtime as the séances continued, the group discovered that Philip was able to move the rapping table. Often, Philip would even cause the table to rush over to people that were late to the weekly meetings.

The height of the Philip saga came when the group set out to perform one of their weekly séances in front of an audience made up of 50 people or so. Additionally a TV film crew was brought in to record the séance as part of a documentary. Unlike most paranormal phenomena, Philip actually seemed to enjoy the spotlight. The rappings and psychokinetic feats were on display for all the audience to see. At one point during the séance the group was even able to get the entire table to levitate a few inches off of the ground. Sadly, because of the dim lighting that was required as a part of the séance the film crew was unable to record this for posterity. Only a part of the documentary seems to be online and you can check out the few minutes of it that exist here.

Although the groups main objective of having Philip physically materialize (not unlike Rosalie), they were overall satisfied with the results of their experiments. So much so that after their success with Philip, the Toronto Society for Psychical Research went on to conjure other ghosts with similar apparent success. In one instance, using a different group of people, they were able to conjure a new spirit which was called “Lilith”. A few other groups are supposed to have been able to successfully recreate this experiment as well, but finding information on those incidents is rather difficult.

At the end of the day it's hard to say what it was that was actually occurring in this situation. It certainly seems to fit in with the concept of the tulpa, especially as explained by David-Neel in her classic work on the topic. I only wish that more of the documentary existed so that it could be scene. Ostensibly, if this experiment was truly as easy as the group proclaimed I suppose that anyone could conceivably do this at home. Before you do decide to go through with this and conjure your own ghost, I feel I must leave you with a parting warning from David-Neel:

“.....the practice is considered as fraught with danger for everyone who …. is not aware of the nature of the psychic forces at work in the process. Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control.....Sometimes the phantom becomes a rebellious son and one hears of uncanny struggles that have taken place between magicians and their creatures, the former being severely hurt or even killed by the latter.” (pg 313)

Sources and further reading:

About.com article

Unexplained Mysteries thread

Stranger Dimensions article

Conjuring up Philip by Iris Owen (part of the original group that summoned Philip)

Harry Price and the Materialization of Rosalie

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:25:00 +0000

In parapsychological research perhaps no phenomenon is more elusive, and most highly debated, than the actual manifestation of a ghost or spirit. While reading through my recently acquired copy of Brad Steiger's Real Ghosts, Restless Spirits, and Haunted Places I came across a fascinating account of a materialization of a child's ghost that was witnessed and investigated by famed British author and Psychic researcher Harry Price. Price wrote about the events that led up to his coming into contact with Rosalie in his 1939 book Fifty years of Psychical Research. The story that follows is interesting but, like most of the paranormal, is highly controversial. I'll leave it for you to decide what happened that night. Steiger tells us the following:

On December 8, 1937, Harry Price had just concluded a radio broadcast regarding psychic phenomena when a listener contacted him with an interesting revelation. Price was informed that the listener regularly participates in a family séance that was held every Wednesday evening, at which the family materialized the spirit of a child. (pg 234)

Harry Price, Psychical Researcher

Price was offered the opportunity to come and witness one of these weekly investigations on some conditions; according to Price in Fifty years in Psychical Research:

Of course, there were conditions, which I anticipated. But I was genuinely astonished at the simple rules to which I was asked to adhere. In the first place, if I accepted the invitation to attend a séance, I was to promise not to reveal the identity of any of the sitters, or the locality where the séance was held. I could write an account of the séance giving my candid views of it, provided I mentioned no names.

If I were impressed with the proceedings, I was 'not to seek a scientific inquiry', as the mother of 'Rosalie,' who attended each sitting, was 'terrified that her girl might be frightened away.' These Wednesday meetings were in the nature of a sacred communion with the spirit of her daughter, and would be maintained as such.

I was not to bring to the séance any light (such as a torch); I was not to speak to or touch the materialization without permission, and I was not to do anything, or make any experiment, without the sitters' consent. I would not be asked to sign any document embodying these arrangements: it was to be a 'gentlemen's agreement.'

As a part of the conditions, Price would be allowed to fully search the room and home where the séance was to be held. In his own words Price says:

I would be allowed full control of the room and the sitters up to the beginning of the séance. I could search the house from top to bottom, seal all external windows and doors, search the séance room (the drawing-room), all doors and windows of which I could lock and seal,

I could move - or remove - any furniture, ornaments, etc., from the séance room which I thought fit, I could control the room to the extent of sprinkling powdered starch or other substance round doors or windows, or place electrical contacts there (she admitted that she had gathered that this was what I did, from my broadcast from the 'haunted house'),

I could search the sitters or any person in the house immediately before or after the séance.

Price agreed and set a date in which to come see the events of the séance firsthand. When he arrived at the location, Price was given a little more background information about the child's spirit that was going to be manifested. Apparently the child was a little girl named Rosalie. Rosalie had died in 1920 from a case of diphtheria. In his notes, Price simply referred to the mother as a 'Madame Z'. In addition to the background on the child, Price was given some information detailing the circumstances by which the weekly séance began. Price notes:

In the spring of 1925 - according to my hostess - Madame Z. was awakened during the night by the sound of her dead girl's voice crying 'mother.' This occurred so frequently that Madame Z. got into the habit of lying awake at night, waiting for the 'voice.' Gradually, she thought she could see (in the dark) the dim outline of 'Rosalie' and hear her footsteps in the room. Finally, the mother declared, one night she put her arm out of bed and her hand was clasped by that of her little girl.

The séance began sometime after dinner. However it wasn't until around 10 pm that something started to happen. Madame Z suddenly said that she felt the presence of Rosalie that she was here. Rosalie's mother began weeping and sobbing. Price, meanwhile, relates that he heard nor saw anything though he did report smelling something. In fact Price says:

At the same moment I, too, realized that there was something quite close to me. I neither heard nor saw anything, but the sensation was an olfactory one - I seemed to smell something that was not there previously. It was a strange, not unpleasant smell.

Smells aside, Price seemed to infer that Rosalie had made her appearance. Finally curiosity perhaps getting the best of him, Price requested permission to touch Rosalie. According to Price:

Permission was given, and I stretched out my left arm and, to my amazement, it came in contact with, apparently, the nude figure of a little girl, aged about six years. I slowly passed my hand across her chest up to her chin and cheeks. Her flesh felt warm, though (and this may have been imagination) not so warm as one would expect to find normal human flesh. I laid the back of my left hand on her right cheek: it felt soft and warm and I could distinctly hear her breathing. I then placed my hand on her chest again and could feel the respiratory movements.

Going further:

There are no words to express how I felt at the appearance of the form before me - or rather to the left of me. A supreme scientific interest, with a feeling of absolute incredulity, would best describe my reactions. I had not bargained for anything so wonderful (or so clever!) as this.

But if I had been tricked, so had the mother, and that was unthinkable. She, at least, was not acting a part. I asked whether I could hold 'Rosalie.' I was told that I could move my chair nearer to the child and this I did. I was now able to use both hands and again felt every inch of that little form.

If it is a spirit - I argued to myself - then there is no difference between a spirit and a human being. With my right hand, I lifted 'Rosalie's' right arm and felt her pulse. It appeared to be too quick and I estimated a rate of 90 to the minute. I put my ear to her chest and could distinctly hear her heart beating.

I then took both her hands and asked X., his daughter, and Jim to speak in order to prove their presence in their respective seats. They did so. I knew that Madame Z. and Mrs. X. were on either side of me, as I had only to put out my hand to touch them.

After time spent investigating the fact that the materialized child was, at least apparently, flesh and blood, Price didn't want to miss the opportunity to speak with what could very well be an ambassador of the spirit world. So he set about to ask her some questions that he felt could give him some more information about where she came from and what 'life' was like where she resided. Price lists the questions and answers, or lack thereof, in his book as:

'Where do you live, Rosalie?' (No answer.)
'What do you do there?' (No answer.)
'Do you play with other children?' (No answer.)
'Have you any toys there?' (No answer.)
'Are there any animal pets?' (No answer.)

The only question that Rosalie was willing, or perhaps able, to answer was whether or not she loved her mother to which she replied in the affirmative. Not long after the Q & A session had ended, Rosalie began to slowly dematerialize and finally disappeared back to whatever realm she had first come from. A mere two hours after returning home wrote notes on the events that had occurred that night. He concluded with the following paragraph that shows what his opinion on the preceding events was. It reads as follows:

I feel I have not done justice in this report to the amazing events of last night, and I am still wondering if 'Rosalie' was a genuine spirit entity, or whether the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. If the latter, then the 'hoax' has been going on for years and no actress in the world could simulate Madame Z.'s poignant emotion.

And where did the 'spirit' come from? These are questions which I shall have to think about, and answer. If I had witnessed the materialization of 'Rosalie' in my own laboratory, I should not hesitate to proclaim to an incredulous world that survival was proved. It is possible - though very doubtful - that last night's historic (as far as I am concerned) séance may be repeated under better conditions in a laboratory. But Madame Z. is convinced that 'Rosalie would be frightened away.'

The sitting I have just attended is at least distinguished by the complete absence of blasphemous humbug and hymn-singing, which characterize so many pseudo-spiritualist séances run by rogues for profit. Looking at it in retrospect, I can think of several things I ought to have done that I did not do, and one of these is the taking of 'Rosalie's' finger-prints.

I had ample opportunity, but no materials. Another thing I might have done was to have ascertained who the 'medium' was. Madame Z. herself denies that she is mediumistic, but I can think of no one else. Apparently, there was no medium.

I have to say that, all things considered, Price maintains a fair amount of skepticism over what he experienced. I'm not so sure that I would have been able to retain such skepticism after what Price had witnessed. Steiger notes that after Price refused to divulge the information about the identities of those involved in the séance, his already tarnished reputation within the psychical research field was hurt even more. Investigators not only wanted to know who the séance members were, they also wished to perform their own investigations. But Price was nothing if not a man of his word and so, as far as I've been able to determine, the identities have remained a mystery. Let me know what you think of this story, and be sure to follow the links below for more information, including a link to the entire chapter of Price's book that was devoted to the case of Rosalie.

The Dover Demon

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 23:46:00 +0000

Continuing my cryptozoological kick, I wish to take a look at yet another rather elusive cryptid that made a small splash on the paranormal scene and left just as suddenly as it appeared . Even years later the witnesses are stunned by what they encountered that night. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's take a trip back in time to April 21, 1977 and the town of Dover, Massachusetts.

Around 10:30 pm the night of April 21, 1977 three teenage boys were driving along an area outside of a bar when their headlights illuminated a bizarre creature that appeared to be crawling along a wall near Farm Street. Originally one of the witness, Bill Bartlett, thought that they were looking at what could have been a dog or cat. Yet as he got a better look at IT he quickly realized this was no creature he had ever seen before. Later Bartlett would be quoted as saying

“It was not a dog or a cat. It had no tail. It had an egg-shaped head. It looked like a baby’s body with long arms and legs. It had a big head about the same size as the body, it was sort of melon shaped. The color of it was… the color of people in the Sunday comics.”

Bartlett's sketch

The witness was unable to see anything that resembled a nose, ears, or a mouth on the creature. It's also interesting to note that evidently the driver, Bartlett, was the only one of the three in the vehicle who was able to see the creature as his two friends were too busy laughing and talking to notice it. Once Bartlett had returned home he drew a sketch of the creature that he had seen.

This was not to be the last sighting of the mysterious creature however. About an hour after Bartlett sighted the creature, John Baxter aged 15 was walking home from his girlfriends house when he saw what he at first took to be a child. The thought initially struck Baxter that it could be a local child that he knew who suffered from a disability. He began to follow it seeing if the child perhaps needed help of some kind. As he attempted to catch up to the “child”, he soon lost sight of it. After stopping a moment in order to catch his breath, Baxter looked across at a gully and finally caught sight of the “child” he had been trying to catch up to. The creature that his eyes fell on matched in description exactly that given by Bartlett. The long, slender armed and fingered creature with the giant bulbous head. In his own words Baxter had this to say:

“As I was looking really close there I could see the eyes it was looking at me I just stared at it for another few minutes and then I just got all these thoughts that maybe it was something really strange. ‘Cause, you know, nothing ever happened to me like this before, so I didn’t know what to think.”

Artist's sketch based off of Baxter's description

“So I finally got the thought that maybe it wasn’t as safe as it looked, ’cause the way it was staring at me it just seemed like it was– I don’t know. I got all these feelings that it was thinking to itself, or waiting to spring, or whatever, you know? And so I backed up the bank kind of fast, and my heart started beating really fast!” (Source AmericanMonsters.com)

The final sighting of the creature occurred the following night, sometime around midnight. Will Taintor, 18, was driving his girlfriend Abby Brabham, 15, home when Abby spotted something on the side of Springdale Avenue. According to Brabham:

“As I looked at it… it kind of looked a minute like an ape. And then I looked at the head and the head was very big and it was a very weird head It had bright green eyes and the eyes just glowed like, they were just looking exactly at me”

Abby Brabham's drawing of what she saw

Within a week investigators Loren Coleman, Ed Fogg, Walter N Webb were on the scene investigating the sightings. In fact Loren Coleman, who not only investigated all of the primary witness firsthand, is credited with giving the creature its name “Dover Demon”. After interviewing all of the witness, the investigators came to the following conclusion on the events:

‘‘We have a credible case, over 25 hours, by individuals who saw something. Nothing quite like the Demon has been reported seen before or since. The Dover creature does not match the descriptions of the Chupacabras, or of Roswell aliens, or of the bat-eared (Hopkinsville Goblins) said to have attacked a family in Hopkinsville, Ky., in 1955… it doesn’t really fit any place. It’s extremely unique. It has no real connections to any other inexplicable phenomena. I think the Dover Demon’s mystery lives on. ’’

Loren Coleman also appeared on Animal Planet's Lost Tapes television show that discussed the Dover Demon. Below is a clip of that show for you to check out.

The final piece of information I will leave with is this Boston Globe article from 2006 in which the then 46 year old Bartlett was interviewed about the strange sighting that he had had some 29 years prior. From that article:

Dover--Twenty-nine years later, William Bartlett stands by his story of what he saw on Farm Street that night. It was an eerie human-like creature, he said, about 4 feet tall with glowing orange eyes and no nose or mouth in a watermelon-shaped head.

‘‘I have no idea what it was,’’ Bartlett, now a 46-year-old artist living in Needham, said in a recent interview. ‘‘I definitely know I saw something.’’

The ‘‘Dover Demon’’ that Bartlett and two other teenagers reported seeing over a two-day span in April 1977 has since gained worldwide attention, not unlike Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the Latin American goat-sucker, the chupacabra. Internet pages are devoted to the Dover Demon. You can play a video game featuring the creature, or buy a figurine of it as far away as Japan.

‘‘In a lot of ways it’s kind of embarrassing to me,’’ said Bartlett. ‘‘I definitely saw something. It was definitely weird. I didn’t make it up. Sometimes I wish I had.’’

He has made a career as a painter, his work displayed in galleries on both coasts, but a Google search on ‘‘Bill Bartlett,’’ he noted, invariably turns up his teenage encounter with the unknown.

Once, his wife, Gwen, browsing the horror section of a bookstore, flipped open an encyclopedia of monsters — and there was an entry about her husband and the Dover Demon.

‘‘It’s a thing that’s been following me for years,’’ Bartlett said. ‘‘Not the creature — the story. Sometimes I dread every Halloween getting calls about it.’’

Writing in the 1999 2nd edition of his Unexplained!,Jerry Clark notes that Martin S Kottmeyer has a possible explanation for what the teenagers saw those nights. Clark writes:

Martin S Kottmeyer has suggested that the witnesses were seriously mistaken about what they saw, and he knows what the Dover Demon may have been: a young moose .... He notes, “Bartlett's placing o fthe eyes matches the placement just above the hip of the muzzle on a moose's head. The lack of a discernable nose and mouth is easily laid to the fact that nostrils and mouth are very far down on the muzzle. A drawing of a young moose presents ears swept back along the line of the head and would not discernably stick out, thus accounting for the absence of visible ears.” (pg 415)

So what do you think? Was it a misidentified, but still wholly mundane, animal? An alien out for a little recon mission? Personally I'm not sure what to make of it. Unlike many of the cryptid stories that have circulated for years the Dover Demon had a mere 25 hour splash on history. Whereas Bigfoot has been seen for hundreds of years, if not more, to the best of my knowledge the Dover Demon was only sighted over the period of April 21 to 22 and no more. I don't think the kids made it up, after all it seems to have had a profound impact on Bartlett at least. I'm keeping an open mind on this one for now, be sure to let me know what you think in the comments section below!

Momo the Missouri Monster - 40 yrs On

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 01:21:00 +0000

I've been on a decidedly UFO-centric bent the last few weeks of posts and so tonight I thought I would leave that topic behind and head back over to the harried (or hairy pardon the very bad pun) world of cryptozoology. It would seem that no place in the world was safe from large hairy hominids. Australia has their Yowie, the Himalayas their Yeti, and the Pacific Northwest of North America has Bigfoot. Apparently not to be outdone it seems that the town of Louisiana, Missouri also has a hairy hominid that popped up for a time and then seemingly vanished back into whatever ethereal dimension these creatures call home. So let's travel back in time to July of 1972 and meet with Momo, the Missouri Monster. The first reported sighting of the creature occurred on July 11, 1972. According to The Kansas City Star:

The Harrison family lived in a house along what was then known as Marzolf Hill. On a hot summer day, 8-year-old Terry Harrison and his 5-year-old brother, Wally, were chasing their dog through the woods.

Suddenly, 15-year-old Doris Harrison, who was inside, heard her brothers screaming, ran to the window and saw a creature she described as perhaps 7 feet tall with dark hair covering its face. It held a dead dog under its arm and blood – apparently from the dog – flecked the dark hair of the beast. And, ooh, that smell!

“It wasn't a man and it wasn't a bear,” said Doris Harrison Bliss, now 55. “It was something …”

“Something you'd never seen before?” she was asked.

“Exactly!”

Something not seen before

It's at this point that I would like to point out a few interesting details about this case. First, in keeping with the hairy hominid tradition, the creature was quite tall and also had a fairly unpleasant odor to it. Anyone who is even cursorily aware of other sasquatch reports knows that both of these facts are in keeping with the party line, so to speak. However I'm sure many picked up on the fact that Momo was apparently feasting on someone's dog. Now I don't know about you all but I probably would not have stuck around much longer in the presence of an apparently carnivorous 7 ft tall creature. That's just what Doris and her brother's did, they got out the area and fast! This was not to be the last time that Momo would wield it's (probably) blood covered head however. With an apparent attraction to the Harrison family we find this piece of information from Prairie Ghosts:

Everything was quiet until three days later, on July 14. That evening, Edgar Harrison (the children's Father) conducted a regular prayer meeting in his home and about 45 minutes after it ended, heard ringing noises that sounded as though someone was throwing rocks into the metal water reservoir on top of Marzolf Hill. The reservoir was an attraction for neighborhood children but it was unlikely that any of them would have been playing there at that hour. As he listened closely to the sounds, he heard one especially loud ring and then an animal-like growl. The sound came closer and closer and was so loud that his family came running out of the house. They urged him to leave the neighborhood but Harrison wanted to see what was making the sound.

He finally gave in to his family's pleading and as he drove down Allen Street, he met about 40 people, some of them carrying guns, who were on their way to investigate the sounds at the reservoir. For some reason, Harrison shouted "Here it comes!" and the entire crowd turned away and ran. A number of people reported hearing the strange cries and screams that night but by the time that police officers Jerry Floyd and John Whitaker arrived on the scene to investigate, they found nothing out of the ordinary.

Later that evening, Harrison and several friends explored Marzolf Hill and found an old building from which a strong and unpleasant odor lingered. Harrison described it as a "moldy, horse smell or a strong garbage smell." In the days that followed, he and others would experience the same smell around areas where the bizarre sounds were heard.

Once again we have Momo conforming to some of the standard Sasquatch behavior. Many people have reported rocks being thrown around in areas that Sasquatch have allegedly been sighted in. After a few other people in the town began to have run-ins with Momo, the media (both local and national) picked up a whiff of the story (or of Momo, it's hard to tell which). As a small sample of some of the reports, The Kansas City Star says:

Reports of encounters began to pile up. A man claimed he was chased by a big hairy beast with red eyes. School kids said they saw it from their classroom window. Two women picnicking near the river said Momo chased them to their Volkswagen, then displayed the human-like intelligence to try and open the door before a blast of the horn scared it away.

Prairie Ghosts has an account of the last sighting of Momo that has been reported:

During the last week of July, a series of mysterious three-toed prints appeared on the Freddie Robbins farm, about eight miles south of Louisiana. No casts were made of the prints but they were protected until investigators were able to make diagrams of them. They would turn out to be an almost exact match of prints found a few days later. More tracks were discovered on the early morning of August 3 at the farm of Mrs. and Mrs. Bill Suddarth, who lived just northwest of town. In the middle of the night, they heard a high-pitched howling in their yard and ran outside with flashlights to see what was going on. In the middle of their garden, they found four prints from a three-toed creature.

Suddarth quickly called his hunting buddy, Clyde Penrod, who drove over and made a plaster cast of the print. Penrod, who was an avid outdoorsman, was puzzled by the whole affair. With the tracks being 20 feet away from anything else, he couldn't understand how they could have been made. They began abruptly in the center of the garden and ended just as mysteriously. It looked as of the three-toed creature had just appeared in the center of the garden and then vanished. No tracks were found anywhere else on the property and there was no sign that any prankster could have made them either. This was the last encounter with the creature and perhaps it is fitting that the "monster flap" ended on such an inexplicable note.

And with that Momo seemingly vanished back into the woods whence it first came apparently never to be seen again. What exactly did the people of Louisiana, Missouri experience back in the summer of 1972? It's hard to say for sure. The accounts all have the typically bullet points of a sasquatch encounters including; the overwhelming odor, the height, and the rock throwing. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that, at least to my knowledge, this is the only incident I'm aware of wherein a Sasquatch was reported to have killed and eaten something. If I've missed another report or account that I should be aware of please feel free to leave me a comment below.

Before I go I wanted to leave you all with one last piece of Momo-mania. A musician by the name of Scott Cooper composed this amazing masterpiece that was inspired by Momo. It's actually quite a catchy little tune, you can give it a listen here. With that I leave you for another night. Have a good one Forteans!

The West Lothian Incident

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 00:14:00 +0000

It seems as though every time that I think I've heard just about every kind of UFO encounter story that exists, a new one pops up and shows me that (much to my chagrin) I don't know everything. The following case that we will be looking at is rather famous in the annals of Ufology and certainly one of the more unique cases that I've come across. I'm sure many of you will be shocked to learn that I first heard about this from a thread on AboveTopSecret entitled “The Dechmont Woods Encounter 1979”. It tells a very fascinating tale of what happened to a forestry worker by the name of Robert Taylor from Scotland. The thread lead me to find some additional sources about Taylor's account. Here it is in a nutshell (source from UFO Evidence):

On the 9th of November 1979, at around 10.30 am, Robert Taylor, a forestry worker employed by the Livingstone Development Corporation parked his pick up off a track at the bottom of Dechmont Law, just off the busy M8 motorway. He walked up the lower slope of the forested hill with his dog, and as he emerged into a clearing an amazing sight greeted him.

Before him in the clearing was a large, circular, sphere like object about twenty feet across. It appeared to be made from a dark metallic material with a rough texture like sandpaper, parts of which were transparent. A narrow flange ran around the outside of the object.

As he approached, two spheres with protruding metal spikes in the manner of old navel mines dropped from the object. They were about three feet wide and made of the same dark metallic substance as the larger object.

The two spheres rolled towards him and flanked him, each rolling at the same time to his left and right foot. With his dog now barking furiously, the spikes attached to the Bob's trousers and pulled him towards the larger sphere. Bob heard a distinct hissing sound and smelled an acrid smell that caused him to choke

The next thing he knew he was coming round lying face down on the grass with his dog nearby. The strange objects had disappeared from the clearing, his legs were aching, his trousers were torn and he found he could not speak.

At this point Taylor struggled back to his vehicle in order to radio for help. Unfortunately he still could not speak and so made the decision to walk back to his home. We'll pick the story up from About.com:

Arriving at this house, his wife was stunned to see his condition. He was covered with mud, and his pants were torn. He began to tell her the story of his experience. His wife wanted to call the police, but Taylor was against it, considering the subject of the matter. He did allow her to call his job supervisor, and the head of the forestry department, Malcom Drummond. He took a bath while she made the calls.

Drummond called a physician, and drove straight to Taylor's house. He was so anxious to find out what happened that he questioned him while he was still in the bathtub. Taylor and Drummond agreed that there must be some kind of physical evidence left on the ground by either the craft or the small spheres, and Drummond headed to the area to check it out, but he was unable to find the exact location.

Dr. Gordon Adams arrived and began to check out Taylor's condition. He found a grazed area on Taylor's left leg, and another graze under his chin. There were no apparent head injuries. At this time, anyway, Taylor's body temperature, blood pressure, and other body functions seemed normal.

Adams called in for an ambulance to transport Taylor to the hospital for a head X-ray and an interview with a counselor. Taylor refused to make the hospital visit until later.

Eventually Taylor would give in and allow the police to become involved in the case. To their credit, it would seem the police handled the whole thing quite respectably. Possible because they had never dealt with any thing like this in the past, but who's to say? The police were able to find physical evidence that something had actually landed, what that something was is (shockingly) up for debate.

Whatever Taylor may or may not have seen it would seem that everyone who knew him knew that he was a man of his word and was not prone to making up these kinds of stories. Probably not surprisingly a mundane explanation has been offered for what Taylor had encountered. Would you like to take a guess as to which astronomical body makes an appearance in the explanation? If you guessed Venus then you guessed correctly, Here from the UFO Evidence post is the explanation in full:

The main explanation given by Steuart Campbell, is that Bob witnessed a mirage of Venus, which brought on an epileptic fit and caused him to hallucinate the whole encounter. Although possible, Bob had never experienced epilepsy before or after the event, although some of his symptoms after the encounter are similar to those experienced by those with epilepsy.

Personally I'm not sure what it was that Taylor saw that November morning back in 79. I can say that I don't think the Venus explanation really fits the bill in being an adequate explanation. The last thing I will leave you with is this mini-documentary on the event in question. Featured prominently is the witness himself. I don't know what it is exactly but I enjoy hearing the witnesses themselves give descriptions of the events that transpired. I guess it's because it reminds me that at the heart of these events is a human element that can often times be overlooked. Whether something genuinely fortean or otherworldly occurred to Taylor that day it's unlikely that his like stayed the same after it was all said and done.

Additional sources:

Dechmont Woods Encounter

Unexplained-Mysteries Thread

Contactee Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 22:36:00 +0000

I finally picked up Nick Redfern's Contactees: A History of Alien-Human Interaction as of Friday and have already jumped right into reading it. This book got me thinking and so I started looking into the Conctactee movement at my usual sources. I thought I would share with you all some of the more interesting things that I've come across so far. I'm still hoping that a recent article I had written for a magazine will be published because it also deals with the Contactee issue, albeit from a slightly different perspective, but until then this post will have to tide you over. I still maintain an open mind about the Contactee movement as I'm not always sure what to make of it. I don't think the answer is as clear-cut as some would suggest. Namely that all of their accounts are hoaxes that were put on by the Contactees themselves simply for profit. At the same time I don't know if they had as many, or as vivid, contacts as they claim. Regardless I will share with you all the items that I've come across in my research and leave it up to you to decide what you think of the Contactees.

Space Brother Contactees YouTube Documentary

This hour-long documentary mostly focuses on Howard Menger's contacts with the space people. Missing from the documentary is the fact that in the 1960's Menger appeared on Long John Nebels radio show (as a bit of background Long John Nebel was the Art Bell of the 50's and 60's who interviewed the majority of the mover's and shaker's of the Fortean/UFO fields of the day) apparently recanted his account and claimed that he was apart of some kind of Army test to gauge the publics reaction to the idea of alien contact. It's an interesting documentary that I would recommend especially if you've never heard of Menger and actually, for that matter, if you have heard of him you may not have actually heard from him like you can in this video.

As a final piece of the Menger case I wised to share with you is this blog post from Outsider Music expert Mr. Fab, entitled Authentic Music From Another Planet. It contains a link for you to download music that Menger claimed he was directed to play by the contactees. In other words this was music that was channeled through Menger by his Space Brothers.

Emmanuel Swedenborg – 18th century contactee and theologian

Born in 1683 Emmanuel Swedenborg was a scientist, philosopher, theologian, and early Alien Conctatee. In many ways Swedenborg was far ahead of his time; he had many theories about the neuron, the cerebral cortex, and the nervous system. In addition to his fascination with anatomy, Swedenborg spent some of his time diagramming and designing a variety of “flying machines”. Among some of his other accomplishments, found at this site, there are:

Swedonborg's Flying Machine

In the next two years of his life (1716-1718), Emanuel published a scientific periodical titled 'Daedalus Hyperboreus'. The periodical held record of mechanical and mathematical inventions and discoveries. In this journal, he also mentioned about a flying machine, which he had earlier referred to in his letter to Eric. Around this time, Emanuel was also enobled, along with his siblings, by Queen Ulrika Eleonora and their surname changed to Swedenborg. Emanuel's scientific inventions include a dry dock of new design, a machine for working salt springs and a system for moving large boats overland.

In the field of biology, Swedenborg stressed on the importance of cerebral cortex. Apart from these, he drew feasible sketches of futuristic machines, including an airplane, a submarine, a steam engine, an air gun and a slow-combustion stove. Emanuel Swedenborg was offered the position of a professor in mathematics at Uppsala University, in 1724. However, he declined the offer, because he dealt with geometry, chemistry and metallurgy mainly, not maths.

In 1758 Swedenborg published Life on Other Planets which detailed the civilizations and peoples that could be found living on Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus, and the moon. At this point many would likely be pointing out that we now know that those places do not have any life on them. But according to Swedenborg the planets are inhabited by spirits on other dimensions. Cop out? Maybe. But then again, who knows? If you would like to know more about Swedenborg and all of his miscellaneous works and theories you should check out the following links:

The, at this point almost obligatory, ATS thread on the topic.

The Swedenborg Project

Wiki article

Gabriel Green Presidential Candidate and Contactee

Finally the last contactee that I wanted to take a look at is one of the more obscure ones out there. Strange considering the man ran for US President in both 1960 and 1972 as a write-in candidate representing the Flying Saucer Party. Beyond that rather unique aspect of his story, Green was pretty much a run-of-the-mill Contactee. He alleged that in 1957 he met a crew of Space Brothers from the planet Korender which orbited a star in the Alpha Centuri system. He was also in contact with his Korendians via telepathy. You can follow this link here to hear Green being interviewed about his decision to run for President. The same year that Green was contacted by the Space Brothers, he founded the Amalgamated Flying Saucer Clubs of America, Inc. Green only published one book which was entitled Let's Face Facts about Flying Saucers. Finding info on Green isn't really easy. If you want to read more about him the best source that I've been able to come across so far is his Wiki article.

That's about all I've come across so far that really stuck out in my mind. The Contactee movement is a very interesting aspect of the overall history of Ufology. It's hard to say whether the Contactees were liars, hucksters, or hoaxes. Perhaps, we could take them at their word. It's entirely possible that they had the encounters that they claimed to have had. As with anything else in the Fortean world the answers are never a simple matter of black or white. It's mostly a gray area. (No pun intended!).

Tale of the haunted pizza place

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 00:27:00 +0000

When you think of places that are haunted you would likely imagine old houses, maybe hospitals, or perhaps hotels and motels. But what about pizza places? If the following video is to be believed then Stocky's Pizza, a restaurant in Haughton, Louisiana is haunted by something that likes to mess with one employee, Lori Evans, in particular. The story comes via a local radio station, Kiss Country 93.7. From the original article entitled "Is Stocky's Pizza Haunted? Shocking Surveillance Footage Points to Paranormal Activity [VIDEO]":

Many folks believe in ghosts, but few can say they’ve caught evidence of a haunting on video. Stocky’s Pizza employee Lori Evans says there’s not only a ghost haunting the recently opened Haughton, Louisiana pizzeria, but that it’s far from friendly. And she has some unnerving surveillance camera footage to prove it.

Last Saturday morning, Evans arrived at Stocky’s to find the ice scoop in the middle of the kitchen floor. When the staff left the night before, it was placed on top of the ice machine where it’s normally kept.

The discovery was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back,” Evans tells Kiss Country.

A number of similarly eerie incidents prior to that morning prompted her to scour the surveillance video to see just what was going on. What she discovered will make you shiver.

The following video was recorded on July 14 at a little after 6 a.m. — hours before the arrival of any of the staffers. Nobody was in the pizzeria at the time, confirms Evans.

Here in all of it's glory is the video.

Personally I've watched this surveillance footage more than a few times and I can't really make anything out. Maybe you can see what it is that is supposed to be taking place and I would certainly appreciate any input or opinions. Regardless of what is or isn't happening in the video, the article goes into more detail about some other experiences that Lori Evans has a had at Stocky's Pizza.

The first thing that happened was when I was standing in the kitchen area at the dough roller working. All of a sudden a bottle of tobasco sauce hit me in the back then landed on the ground. I looked back because the bottle had been on top of the microwave. A server who was in the dining area actually saw it happen and we were both freaked out because it flew across room as opposed to just falling from its spot! We started wondering at that point. The tobasco sauce has been mysteriously thrown several times and busted on one occasion! Another time was when we were working and heard a loud crash in the back hall. When we went to see what it was, there was a broom and a dust pan both on the floor. They “snap” into a holder on the wall so they are never on the floor. They’d been hanging there fine all day with no problems and snap into separate holders, yet both fell???? The motion sensors have gone off twice and the alarm company has called the owner to come out and check; to find nothing. Several of us have actually “felt” a presence and had the hair stand up on our arms/neck. When I came in that morning and found those on the floor, so far from their spot, I knew it was time to check it out on tape and we finally found evidence of activity!

Follow this link for the original article from Kiss Country 93.7. I'm not too sure what to make of Evans' account. It definitely isn't anything out of the ordinary (ha!) as far as “haunted” places go. Although the location in this case is a bit unusual, I suppose anywhere can truly end up haunted. As a kind of post script to this story, in the comments section below this article Lori Evans states that a ghost researcher/paranormal investigator has gotten in touch with her in order to set up an after hours investigation. Hopefully some more information will come out of this about what's going on. As always be sure to check out the original link for the full article and be sure to let me know what you think in the comments below. That's all I have for now and suddenly I'm craving some pizza, so if you please excuse me I've gotta get my 'za on!

RCMP vs the Aliens!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:51:00 +0000

Hello dear readers it's been quite some time since last you heard from me, your friendly neighborhood Fortean. I come today to weave you a short, albeit interesting, story of the RCMP and their unsuccessful search for ET. As usual I was on the always fascinating Above Top Secret when I found this thread that had just moments before appeared. Entitled “RCMP search for 'non-human entities' in BC”, it told a harrowing story of one couples narrow escape from something. Taken from the news link found in the thread the account is as follows:

Coquitlam Mounties responded to a call of a man and a woman screaming from their apartment on Wilson Avenue. When police arrived, the couple told investigators they had seen two “non-human entities” on their patio.

Several Mounties scoured the area in search of the spirited suspects, but turned up nothing.

RCMP Cpl. Jamie Chung said there was no indication drugs or alcohol were involved in the incident, nor could he say whether or not the couple really believed they saw something other than a human.

“Anything is possible, I guess,” he told The NOW. “People see ghosts all the time — who am I to say ghosts don’t exist?”

Chung sent out this tweet Monday morning regarding the incident: “Strange but true. #cqrcmp went to a report of ET sighting in #PortCoquitlam in the early morning. Area searched and no aliens found.”

And unfortunately at the moment that's all we really know about what happened. Actually I'm hoping that someone that lives in the area might be able to dig up some more information about what went on that night. I spoke with RCMP Cpl Jamie Chung earlier on twitter hoping to find out a some more details about what had occurred.

It's hard to say what, if anything, the man and woman saw. We know for sure that they simply described what they had seen as “non-human”(as evidenced by Cpl Chung's response seen above). I wonder if perhaps the few media outlets that latched onto this story were a little hasty in declaring that “aliens” were seen. Then again, even in his original tweet about the event Cpl Chung himself described what they were looking for as “aliens”. Hopefully more information will be brought to light in the coming days about what the witnesses had actually seen that night.

This isn't the first time that the town Port Coquitlam has had dealings of a decidedly “alien” nature however. While on twitter earlier today someone pointed me to a CE-2 type UFO event that took place in Port Coquitlam back in August of 1974.

Three young boys; David Bates, Henry and Steven Tillie, were traveling home around 8 pm on August 16, 1974. While taking shortcut through some woods, the boys became aware of a strange high pitched sound which caused the cat that David was holding to struggle out of his hands and run away into the forest. As the cat made it's way into the woods, the boys were shocked to see the cat keel over as if it were sleeping. In fact they referred to it as “playing dead”. The story continues:

The boys then turned towards the source of the noise and saw an object approach over the trees, traveling south or north over the railway bridge spanning the river. The object had a red light on top and green and white lights at either end of its length. These lights flashed on and off. Traveling slowly, the object reversed its course and with an undulating motion headed for the small cleared area amongst the trees where the sandpit was situated.

The intensity of the noise disturbed David so much that his friends said he placed his hands over his ears and called out for it to stop. However, David does not recall doing this.

The UFO began to settle down for a landing and the noise became a buzz, the children claimed. All this took place within a few brief minutes. At that point the terrified cat recovered and returned to its owner, clawing David when he picked it up.

The long scratch on his arm was still visible when I interviewed him in September.

In a state of petrified amazement, the boys remained at their point of observation about 150 feet from the touchdown site. As the object settled down to land it gave off a blast of hot air that disturbed the ground so violently the boys were covered in a film of dust.

Immediately prior to making contact, the object extended short legs, then some action on the part of the machine caused sand and stones to be sucked upwards towards it in a violent swirling manner. A few seconds later, the boys said, "blue sparks came up from the ground as the machine made contact."

Not long after this the boys are finally overcome with fear, or perhaps they came to their senses, and they ran back to the homes. The article goes into some great detail about the research and investigation that was done into this event by the author himself. I highly recommend that you follow this link in order to read it for yourself. Also be sure to check out the original news articles, 'Policerespond to ET sighting in Port Coquitlam' and 'TheTruth is out in Poco'. That's all I have for now Fortean faithfuls. Until next time; Stay Classy Internet!

Podcast interview!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:56:00 +0000

Film-maker, and self proclaimed "outlaw for love", Paul Kimball recently interviewed your's truly on his revived podcast, The Other Side of Truth. You can listen to the podcast here. Here's the description of the episode:

In this episode, I spend an hour chatting with Fortean researcher / blogger Tony Morrill, one of the bright youngsters out there who are interested in the world of the weird and the wacky. In an eclectic conversation where we throw in everything but the kitchen sink, we start off with some background information on Tony, and how he became interested in the paranormal at a young age, and then follow up with a back-and-forth on everything from UFOs to ghosts to Bigfoot. We also find time to pontificate / ruminate about posthumanism, tip our caps to the work of the late Mac Tonnies, Greg Bishop, and Nick Redfern, and "imagine the imagination factory" - all while keeping our tongues planted firmly in our cheeks. We even managed to reference a couple of cartoon characters we like, and I slipped in a musical interlude that is tangential to the point of being apropos of nothing, but somehow it still fits. This was a fun episode to record, and reminded me more than a bit of some of my past conversations with my pals in the "Cabal". Tony has his feet planted firmly on the ground, even as he has his eyes set to the sky. It's a good place to be!

I also suggest checking out his other latest interviews with Aaron John Gulyas and Walter Bosley.

Additionally, you can also head over to Binnall of America in order to find my most recent Fortean Ramblings column entitled "We didn't start the fire". That's about all I have for now. Come back soon for shenanigans!

Demonic UFOs

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:38:00 +0000

Alternatives to the ETH are always really interesting to me. If you've read this blog at any time in the past you are likely aware of the fact that I'm always looking into different explanations for the origins of the UFO and its occupants. The Cryptoterrestrials as proposed by Mac Tonnies, Jacques Vallee's theory of UFOs as some form of psychosocial control, and John Keel's Ultraterrestrials are all different avenues that I have looked into and spent a lot of time reading about. I've dedicated an equal amount of time blogging and writing about each of these alternatives in the past as well. However there is one area that I've only done a little bit of reading and research into; the idea that occupants of UFOs are demonic in the Judeo-Christian sense. The reason for this is that I really find the theory a bit too limiting and it feels a little like some confirmation bias is going on.

Still in the interest of fairness, and to not exclude any idea, I began to read a recent thread on ATS that delved into this topic. And with a title like Secular Researcher's Findings that UFO Activity is not Extraterrestrial in Origin, how could I resist? Likewise in the offline world I had a bit of synchronicity with this topic which I will go into a little latter in the post. But first let's get to thread from ATS. In the interest of fairness I feel that I should state upfront that I definitely do not agree with the posters conclusions. I feel that he's grasping at too many disparate pieces in order to tie his theory together and don't personally accept this theory. However I am bringing the information to you attention because I don't think there is anything wrong with entertaining an idea. And I figure you should never shut your self off to any avenue.

The poster went through a lot of work in order to gather together the information necessary to formulate their thesis that the UFO phenomena and Alien Abductions are merely demonic deceptions meant to present a new gospel and cause people to turn away from the Judeo-Christian faith. They came to that conclusion based on couple of things; people that experience the UFO phenomena, especially Alien Abductees, typically end up experiencing psychic phenomena, many early UFO researchers, such as Jacques Vallee and John Keel, had come to the conclusion that the answer to the UFO was not the Extraterrestrial, and finally that the galaxy is just too large for the prospect of interstellar travel to be anything more than just a pipe dream. With these things in mind, the poster ultimately states the following as their final assessment of the situation;

The Facts of what we know to be true:
1. Aliens are inter-dimensional/Spiritual beings.
2. They do not use interstellar travel.
3. They are malevolent.
4. Their aim is to deceive man-kind.
5. The film industry is helping to prepare us for a "grand deception".
6. "Alien Abductions" stop in the name and authority of Jesus Christ
7. "Alien Abductions" match the abilities of fallen angels as described in the Bible.
8. "Aliens" bring primarily deceptive anti-biblical messages, as is reported by abductees and contactees.

Conclusion:

"extraterrestrials" are intentionally evangelizing people to an alternate spirituality(new age)and are demonic in origin.

I will let that information stand on it's own. Again I don't believe that this is what is going on. I do recommend that you check out the thread for yourself because there is some great debate that is going on back and forth from both sides of the argument. I appreciate that this poster is willing to acknowledge that UFOs seem to encompass many paranormal events, but I don't agree with the conclusions that he reaches. Interestingly enough he is not the first person to reach this kind of conclusion. Writing in his 2010 book, Final Events and The Secret Government Group on Demonic UFOs and the Afterlife, Nick Redfern tells the story of a group comrpised of Government officials called the Collins Elite that eventually reached the same conclusion.

The group studied the phenomena by interviewing UFO witnesses and alien abductees, the Collins Elite would eventually leave the ETH behind completely in favor of a very dark, and demonic view of the phenomena. In a very short summary the group believed that the UFO was just the latest way for this dark demonic force to deceive our species for the purpose of gaining access to our souls so that the demonic enemies could quite literally harvest some kind of unknown energy from it for purposes that were unknown and not well understood.

I would definitely recommend reading Final Events in order to get the whole story on this strange group and the even stranger conclusions that they came to. Once again I don't necessarily agree with the conclusion that the Collins Elite came to about the provenance of the UFO, but for argument sake we don't really know enough yet in order to rule anything out completely. Many in the Collins Elite felt that perhaps we were being farmed in some fashion and I can't help but to be reminded of Charles Fort classic quote: “The Earth is a farm. We are someone else's property.”

Ah yes one last thing before I leave you; I had mentioned that I had a somewhat synchronistic incident involving this whole 'Aliens=Demons' meme this past week. This past weekend my girlfriend and I were at our local Books-A-Million and as is typical for me I headed over to the 'New Age/Paranormal' section to kill some time. The first book that I happened to pick up was Phil Imbrogno's Ultraterrestrial Contact which, despite the controversy from last year, I still intend to read. As I was thumbing through, looking at the chapter headings, I found a tiny little square piece of paper which someone had stuck in the book.

Intrigued by what sort of person would put one of these in a book, I decided to visit the website from the paper on my phone. Unfortunately my phone had a really bad signal and so the website was taking a while to load. As I waited for it to come up I wondered if any other books contained a similar paper or if I had some how grabbed the “lucky” one. I checked something like 15 or 20 books but only found similar papers in four of the books. There were three variations of the message on them. The books I found them in were interesting, because personally I don't know if I would of picked the same ones had I been intending to spread this kind of message. I found them in two Zecharia Sitchin books, There Were Giants on the Earth and TheWars of Gods and Men, and the last one was in Jim Keith's Casebook on the Men in Black (which I reviewed here). In any event they all lead to the same website http://www.delusionresistanc.org.

Delusion Resistance is run by a former MUFON investigator named David Ruffino. You can read all about him at the site. As I said I had a very synchronistic feeling when I saw these papers because I was thinking about the ATS thread, trying to write this blog post and just generally gathering my thoughts together. And what should happen but I come upon these papers. It may not mean much to others, but it certainly struck me as interesting. That's all for now, again I recommend that you head over and read the thread and draw your own conclusions. Don't let what I or anyone say influence what you decide or conclude. Also be sure to check out Nick Redfern's Final Events as it's a very fascinating read about the Collins Elite. You can listen to Greg Bishop's interview with Nick Redfern on this topic here. Until next time I will leave you with a quote that I feel is relevant to this topic.

"The UFO manifestations seem to be, by and large, merely minor variations of the age-old demonological phenomenon..."

-John Keel

UFOnauts: many shapes, sizes, and colors

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Fri, 25 May 2012 00:26:00 +0000

It should come as no surprise to anyone that has been in the UFO arena for any amount of time that there are a myriad of UFO occupants that have been encountered by many people all throughout the world. One thing that can be said for sure is that they certainly don't all fall into the “Gray Alien” meme that has become so popular in our culture. As I've noted in previous posts (Little Green Meme?) they seem to come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. And boy that's no exaggeration! Over at AboveTopSecret a member by the name of karl12 has brought together an awesome thread entitled 'UFO Occupants ~Drawings,Sketches and Non-Human Reports' which showcases a large number of the varied Ufonauts seen by people.

Below are just a few of the examples, though I highly recommend that you check out the thread for more information on each of the cases included. First up will be The Flatwood's Monster.

I'm sure most are familiar with the baisc story of the Flatwood's Monster so I won't go into too much detail here. From the related ATS thread:

From the town of Flatwoods, of Braxton County, West Virginia, comes the mysterious tale of a burning craft which fell from the sky, and a mysterious being. The account began in the afternoon of September 12, 1952 when Sheriff Robert Carr and his Deputy Burnell Long received a call from witnesses who had seen the fiery object as it crashed into the earth. The unknown object had crashed on the Elk River, south of Gassaway. The natural assumption was that an airplane had faltered, and fallen from the skies. Not long afterward, a second unusual sighting was made by some school buddies at the Flatwoods School. Shortly before nightfall, four boys playing football saw something fall on a hill not far from the school playground.

The boys, at first frightened, succumbed to their youthful curiosity, and headed for the sight, which was on the property of one Bailey Fisher. They proceeded up the hill, stopping at the house of Kathleen May, excitedly telling her of what they had seen. Kathleen and her two sons joined the search party. Reaching the top of the hill, Mrs. May remarked that, the night was foggy and there was a mist in the evening air." " the air had a metallic smell which burned our eyes and noses." A dog was reported to have ran ahead of the group only to return with his tail between his legs, frightened by something.

Topping the hill, they could see a "glowing, hissing" object about 10 feet in diameter, about 100 yards away. Now completely dark, the night was shattered by two lights, about a foot apart. One of the boys had a flashlight, and when he turned it on the two distant lights, a creature ten foot tall appeared.." a bright red face, bright green clothing, a head which resembled the ace of spades, and clothing which, from the waist down, hung in great folds". Suddenly, the creature began to "float" toward them, sending the group running back down the hill to the May house, where they quickly called the Sheriff.

The boys also called some of their schoolmates, and when the Sheriff arrived, the scene of the event was full of locals, who had to see the creature for themselves. Reporter A. Lee Stewart, of the "Braxton Democrat," began interviewing witnesses of the unusual event. He would later state that all of the observers were extremely frightened by what they had encountered. Stewart, accompanied by one of Kathleen May's sons, made their way back to where the creature had been spotted. Approaching the sight, Stewart was overwhelmed by an odd smell, but saw nothing unusual. Returning to the exact spot the next morning, Stewart could observe "skid marks" where some object had been.

Next up will be the strange abduction account of a security guard in Italy named Pier Fortunato Zanfretta. I'll admit I was actually not terribly familiar with this case before coming across it in this thread. The story is as follows:

Shortly after midnight on December 6th, 1978, Zanfretta was on duty in Torriglia, a village near Genoa. It was a dark and moonless night. It was also very cold and snow had fallen during the day so that there was a dangerous film of ice on the roads. As Zanfretta approached a client's uninhabited country-house (called "Our Home" by the owner, Dr. Ettore Righi), in the area of Marzano, his patrol car, a Fiat 126, mysteriously stopped dead. The car engine, lights and radio all failed seemingly for no reason. At the same moment he saw four strange lights moving about in the garden of the house and stepped outside of his car to investigate with gun and flashlight in hand.

At first he thought that burglars were behind the house. So he walked through the open gate and crept along a wall in an attempt to surprise them. But Zanfretta had underestimated the problem and ended being the one who was surprised by what he had taken for thieves. Feeling himself touched from behind, the security guard whirled around and saw something that filled him with terror: only inches away stood what he called: "An enormous green, ugly and frightful creature, with undulating skin, no less than ten feet tall". When he directed the beam of his flashlight on the being's face, he was so frightened that he dropped it, but quickly it up again and run away. While running, he became aware of a large and very bright light behind him.

Turning around, he saw a huge, flat triangular form which was blinding in its brilliance. Zanfretta shielded himself from the light with his arm. This thing which he assured was a flying saucer, ascended from the back of the house. It was bigger than the house itself, and produced a hissing sound. Later, Zanfretta said that he felt an intense heat. He made it back to his car and tried to call his security company's operations center in Genoa. It was 12:15 A.M. Carlo Toccalino, the radio operator, has testified that Zanfretta was speaking in an excited and disconnected way. He kept saying: "My God, are they ugly!".

The operator then asked if "they" were human and if they were assaulting him. The answer was: "No, they aren't men, they aren't men". At that point, the communication were abruptly broken off and Toccalino called the chief of the security service, Lt. Giovanni Cassiba. An hour later, a couple of other patrol guards, Walter Lauria and Raimondo Mascia, found Zanfretta in front of the country-house, lying on the ground. It was 1:15 A.M.. When he saw them, he jumped up, gun and flashlight at the ready. Eyes bulging, Zanfretta didn't seem to recognize them, nor to understand when they told him to lower his weapon. The other patrolmen rushed and disarmed him. To their surprise, his clothes felt warm even though the December night air was quite cold.

The account continues at this thread; much like Zanfretta's abduction experiences (bad joke heh). Moving onward; we now turn to another abduction which allegedly occurred in the Yukon territory of Canada. The hunter that experienced the abduction actually tells the story in his own words. It's a bit of a lengthy account, but is highly fascinating and I would suggest you follow this link to read it. Here's an overview of what occurred:

In August or September 1987 (later determined to be Wednesday September 2, 1987), I left Ross River (where I lived) and headed up the North Canol Road by myself on my motor bike for moose (hunting).

I was planning on spending 3 days in the area between Sheldon Lake and Macpass. A guy I worked with and a friend of his were to leave a day later and I was to meet them for some fishing. We were all to stay at a trailer at Dewhurst Creek.

I left Ross River early in the morning and the temperature started to drop. Then it started to rain very hard and very cold. When I got to Gravel Creek, I stopped at Art John's Cabin and put on extra clothes while standing under the edge of his roof. I knew the rain would not stop, so I got back on my bike and headed off.

I arrived at the trailer ½ hour before dark, very cold and very tired. I lit up a fire, cooked supper and went straight to bed looking forward to the morning hunt. Over night the rain had stopped.

At daybreak (September 3, 1987) I put my gear and my gun on my bike and headed towards Macpass. A couple of miles down the road, I was putting along at about 10 mph looking into the trees and watching the hillsides. I decided to stop for a pee.

I was standing just in front of my bike watching the mountains to the south, when I noticed to the left out of the corner of my eye, what I first thought was an airplane. It was 400 to 500 yards away and about the size of a DC-3 plane or a full-size school bus.

It was travelling north to south, at about 40 yards above ground and moving maybe 30 km/h. Right away I thought "boy is he low". I blinked my eyes because I couldn't make out any tail fin or wings.

Right away I thought, somebody must be here and I've got to tell them what I saw. The noise I heard sounded like a heavy trunk lid on a car slamming shut.

I quickly walked along the edge of the road to the corner to see who was there.

I came face to face (about 20 yards) with 2 grey creatures in blue jump suits, about 5 ft. tall with big insect looking heads, pointy faces, big eyes, thin arms, body and legs. I immediately thought "they're not little green men*, they're grasshopper people".

Finally the last one that I want to look at comes from some lumberjacks in Finland in 1971. I'm including this one just because of the unusual size and overall characteristics of the entity involved. From the account:

On the snowy, overcast afternoon of February 5, 1971, two Finnish lumberjacks – 21 year-old Petter Aliranta and 18 year-old Esko Juhani Sneck – had a close encounter that would haunt them for the remainder of their days. The fantastic event began at approximately 3:00 pm. when the young duo — who had spent the morning cutting down trees in the forests near the village of Kangaskyla in Kinnula – decided to call it a day because the overcast conditions were making it too dark to continue.

According to their account, Aliranta had just turned off his chainsaw, when he suddenly noticed an odd metallic object hovering at tree-top level. He claimed that it was shaped like “two saucers” on top of each other and was about 15-feet in diameter.

At the bottom of the vehicle there were four thin landing legs with rounded bases, which he estimated to be more than 6-feet long. If the craft made any sound it was no doubt overwhelmed by the continued roaring of Sneck’s chainsaw.

Aliranta stared in amazement as a weird, green garbed entity to slowly descend through the open portal from the bowels of the craft. He later described this unusual entity as being less than 3-feet in height with its entire body covered in a green, one-piece suit. On the front of the head was a faceplate that was described as being akin to that of a scuba diver. Although the creature had arms and legs, the suit gave no indication of hands or fingers.

You can follow this link in order to read more of the account and to see some other artist renditions of the occupants that were encountered by the lumberjacks. Also as I said earlier you really should go to karl12's thread in order to see all of the different Ufonauts that are available. I think it's safe to conclude that occupants of UFOs are far stranger than just the stereotypical grays that have been seen over the last twenty-some odd years. I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that there are 57 varieties of ETs visiting our planet, it does however give one pause for consideration.

Is our planet some way station for intergalactic tourists? I don't know for sure. My gut reaction would be to say no. It seems more likely to me that the phenomena is malleable and there is some combination of the occupants altering their appearances and the human brain filling in the gaps of perception. I would certainly be interested in hearing what you guys think about this. Until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean Philosopher saying “Stay Classy, Internet!”

Yeti DNA to be probed

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 23 May 2012 11:54:00 +0000

Yeti DNA is back in the news once more as Wired.UK is reporting that a new study is being designed in order to collect samples of the elusive cryptids DNA. According to the article, the Oxford University and the Lausanne Museum of Zoology are combining their efforts in order to find the best sample of Yeti remains that can be tested for DNA. As a part of their goal;

The Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project has been created to try and entice people and institutions with collections of cryptozoological material to submit it for analysis. Anyone with a sample of organic remains can submit details of where and when it was collected, among other data.

Once a reasonable database has been collected, the team will select the most interesting samples (hair shafts are particularly desirable, apparently) and ask the owners to submit them for rigorous genetic analysis. The results of these analyses will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

A member of Wolfson College, Oxford was interviewed by Wired.UK for the article and he seems to be far more optimistic than I am about their chance of determining anything meaningful. Bryan Sykes said quote:

"Mainstream science remains unconvinced by these reports both through lack of testable evidence and the scope for fraudulent claims. However, recent advances in the techniques of genetic analysis of organic remains provide a mechanism for genus and species identification that is unbiased, unambiguous and impervious to falsification. It is possible that a scientific examination of these neglected specimens could tell us more about how Neanderthals and other early hominids interacted and spread around the world."

If you happen to be a group or individual that has what you believe to be Yeti DNA you can go to the Project's website to find out how to submit your sample for testing. I wish that I could be a little bit more excited about this project and in some ways I am. It's great that a scientific body is taking an aspect of the paranormal seriously. Although I do have a couple of issues with this kind of project. I'm not a scientist by any means, but it's my understanding that at best in these kinds of DNA testing situations they will only be able to tell what the sample isn't. In other words, this isn't the first time that supposed Yeti, or Bigfoot, DNA is going to be tested. The results usually end up being that the sample isn't human, bear, or any other known large animal. Which I suppose is something. But it doesn't really tell us anything for certain.

Add to that the fact that I haven't been convinced that the Yeti, or any of the giant man-apes for that mattter, are necessarily a physical flesh and blood creature. After all there are some very paranormal reports of Yeti's that have been encountered over the years. It may be that we aren't dealing with a truly 'real' creature in some sense of the word. In which case DNA testing may not be all that easy. That's not to say that I don't think the project should not still go through with it. I could very well be wrong and there could in fact exist an undiscovered large species of primate that lives in the remote wilderness of the world. I wish them luck. At the very least they could rule out some spurious evidence.

I for one hope that Jeffrey Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Group submits his Bigfoot DNA evidence for testing. After my slightly negative review of Gonzalez's conference held last year to discuss his findings, I spoke with Greg Bishop who interviewed Gonzalez. In that interview Gonzalez told Bishop that he was looking for a place to send his sample in for testing and it sounds as though this could be his best opportunity to do that. You can listen to that interview at this link.

I'll certainly keep my ears to the ground on this story because it will be interesting to see how it develops in the coming days and months. Feel free to head over to the Project's website for more information about how to submit a sample if you feel you have one. Until next, this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean Philosopher saying “Good night and good luck!”

Ghost of Guildford

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:43:00 +0000

I don't often post ghost photos, or posts about ghosts for that matter, but I couldn't pass this one up only because it struck me as quite interesting. I first found the photo from an AboveTopSecret thread [which is evidently my M.O. :)]. The story originally came from GetSurrey, a news website. The article relates the following from the photographer who allegedly captured the "ghost";

Ghost or some kind of image artifact?

THROUGH the low light borne from a thick swathe of fog wrapping itself around The Mount, a featureless figure stands on the path – could this be a genuine photograph of a ghost captured in Guildford, or is it a mere trick of the light?

Amateur photographer, Mark Baker, 37, who took the picture has no idea, but does think it strange the series of pictures he took last week when trying out a new camera timer appeared to show a white form when he downloaded them.

Mark, who was sitting in his van, using his new equipment when he took the photos, said: “I have just got a new timer for my camera and wanted to get some photos of the fog lifting – so my camera was just taking pictures.

“It was not until I got home and was downloading, I noticed it,” he said, adamant he had not digitally altered the image in any way. “The black specks are dirt on the windscreen of my van, but the image is way past that.”

The concept of taking a photograph without seeing anything anomalous, only to find something after the film has been processed (or downloaded nowadays), is really quite common within the ghost hunting side of the paranormal. Additionally the area of Guildford, which is located in Surrey, UK, where the photo was taken has a history to it that, at least according to ghost hunters, would be conducive to allowing for ghostly manifestations to occur. It was the location of where the town's executions were carried out in the past. The author of the article interviewed Phil Hutchinson who not only runs the Ghost Tour of Guildford, but who also is a member of the Ghost Club that is, at least according to the article, is “one of the world’s oldest organisations associated with psychical research”.

Hutchinson is quoted as saying:

“I do not think it is fake,” he said. “It is not the sort of photo I was expecting, almost always they are illuminated bits of dust on the flash – this is something very different.”

Mr Hutchinson said the only sightings he had heard related to The Mount previously came from council workers at Henley Fort who claimed to have seen a man walking his dog disappear before their eyes.

“This is one of the best ghost photographs I have seen for some time, however, I think it is an amazing trick of the light, although that does not mean I am convinced – it is symmetrical and has about the height and dimensions of a human form.”

According to both the original article and also the AboveTopSecret thread, a local ghost hunting group by the name of The GhostfinderParanormal Society conducted an investigation of the site around which the photo was taken. A part of their investigation can be viewed no the YouTube video below.

The head of The Ghostfinder Paranormal Society had this to say about the photo:

Barri Ghai, director of The Ghostfinder Paranormal Society, also believed the photos were free of doctoring. He said: “I am stuck for words on this one – these images have caused quite a stir amongst my team.

“We are actually convincing ourselves that this could be genuine, a real ghost, but obviously for us to say that without a full investigation of the area is a tough one.

“At first glance I thought it could be a light anomaly, 99% of all photos have an explanation and my impression would be an anomaly caused by the light and camera.”

Follow this link in order to view the article for yourself. Additionally you can head over to the AboveTopSecret thread to find the original post I read and to hear from one of the members of The Ghostfinder Paranormal Society. So, what exactly did Mark Baker photograph? Who knows? I will say that this photo certainly looks far better than any of the “orb” photos that I have seen and certainly ranks right up there in my mind with the photos that I originally discussed in this earlier post. I'm by no means a photo-analyst and so can only offer a layman's opinion. It looks really good. But I'm reserving calling it a photo of a ghost. I'm willing to say that the photo is extremely strange and I'm interested to hear what you guys think about it. If you have any ideas please feel free to comment below and let me know.

UFOs, USOs, and Alien Death Rays!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Tue, 15 May 2012 12:01:00 +0000

Central and South America have long been home to some of the more bizarre aspects of the UFO phenomena. One incident that stands out in my mind was the subject of an amazing thread over at my favorite gold mine; Above Top Secret. Like a diamond in the rough I seek only to bring you what stand out as the best of the best among the often questionable threads that exist on that site. The thread focuses on the 1977 UFO flap that the tiny Brazilian island of Colares experienced for a period of months during which time many photos and videos of UFOs were taken, people were injured, and allegedly at least two persons died from their interaction with the UFOs. And, as a slight follow up to my most recent post, the case had more than a few USOs thrown into the mix for good measure.

Starting in August of 1977, Colares began to experience an unusual phenomena which the local residents called Chupa-Chupas. These chupa-chupas were odd luminous objects that would hover around the town at night and would often shoot out thin beams of light that would strike the townspeople. Many of those that were struck would report feeling as though their blood had been drained by the lights. One resident offers what occurred to him in the early days of this bizarre episode.

The barber Carlos Cardoso de Paula (aged 49), living at Travessa Deodoro da Fonseca No. 231, had a still closer encounter with the "lights", as he himself relates:

"Everybody else was asleep. I was just still having my last smoke when suddenly a ball of fire entered our house up near the ridgepole of the gable. It started shooting round and round the room, and then finally came right close to my hammock.

"It ran up my right leg as far as the knee (without touching my skin). I watched with much curiosity as it then moved across to the other leg. Then I started to feel feeble and sleepy. My cigarette fell from my hand and I came to and let out a yell. The fireball quickly vanished and everybody woke up.

"I think it had been searching for a vein in my body but didn’t manage to do so. As its brightness grew, I felt a sort of heat coming from it."

(account taken from UFO Casebook)

As the interaction with the strange objects began to increase the people of Colares started to suspect that perhaps the UFOs were trying to make contact with the people. Whether this is the case or not, the chupa-chupas were having a kind of contact with the residents. Many people, after having been struck by the beams from th UFOs, sought medical attention due to anemia (again the lights seemingly draining the person of their blood) or just general weakness from having been knocked unconscious by the beams. What's interesting to note is that many of the townspeople felt that the UFOs originated from and underwater base near by the oceans of the town and after a night of draining the residents blood, the lights would return to their base.

The nightly sieges became so frequent and unbearable that the majority of the women and children in Colares left the area to stay with friends and family in other nearby villages. The men remained and attempted to build bonfires in order to ward off the strange attacks of the chupa-chupas.

By November 1977 doctor Wellaide Cecim Carvalho, the physician in charge of the health unit on Colares Island, took care of to some 35 people claiming to have been touched by the strange light.

She took blood samples, and concluded that the victims suffered from generalized hypertermia, superficial chronic headache, burnings, intense heat, nauseas, tremors in the body, giddiness, asthenia and presented very small orifices in the skin where they were hit by the rays.

She wrote: "All of them had suffered lesions to the face or the thoracic area." The lesions, looking like radiation injuries, "began with intense reddening of the skin in the affected area. Later the hair would fall out and the skin would turn black. There was no pain, only a slight warmth. One also noticed small puncture marks in the skin. The victims were men and women of varying ages, without any pattern."

Up until this time it seems as though no one had yet witnessed any entities associated with these lights. That is until the following account;

This was the case of Claudomira, resident in the Island of Colares. She claims that her family already did not sleep right with fear of the devices.

"In one of these days, after midnight, I woke up because of a strong flash, a sort of focused bright green light ray that came down from the top roof to my left chest. I tried to shout, but my voice did not function. I felt an esquisite heat... Later, that beam of light diminished and I saw that I was burnt."

Claudomira told that she sighted a strange object, much similar to an umbrella, from which a being of clear skin, oriental eyes, and great ears.

According to her, the creature was dressed in tight green clothes and had a sort of pistol in the hand, which emitted the luminous beam. At this moment, Claudomira felt perforated as by needles on her breast.

"After this, I felt a migraine headache and a great weakness, that left me collapsed for several days."

Eventually the military of Brazil would get involved in the case. The COMAR (Comando Aéreo Regional, the Regional Air Command of the Brazilian Air Forces) came to the region in order to investigate the strange occurrences. According to UFO Casebook, the Air Force made four films and hundreds of photographs of the chupa-chupas under a project titled Operation Plate (for Saucer, at least according to the UFO Casebook folks).

There is a whole lot more to this case and I suggest that if you are really interested be sure to check out the reading list I will put at the bottom of this post. What really happened back in the fall of 1977 to the residents of Colares? It's hard to say for sure. Many may say mass hysteria, but I don't know of many cases of mass hysteria that cause people to have anemia. And mass hysteria probably doesn't film or photograph all that well. Oh, I almost forgot I had earlier mentioned that at least two persons were reported to have died because of their encounters with the chupa-chupas. Well I could find an account of only one person that died after having interacted with the lights. According to UFO Casebook;

One of the most interesting cases she took care of happened with a lady who had cardiac problems. She arrived at the doctor's office very nervous and immediately she showed her left breast, in which were two strange holes.

She complained of giddiness, shortness of breath, and weakness - characteristic symptoms already known by people hit by the phenomenon. The doctor tried to calm her and she returned to her home.

But at about 03:00 pm, however, Dr. Wellaide was called to the residence of the woman, who had become very sick. Her whole body was still, and she gasped for air, but she did not have fever and did not vomit.

Seeing the seriousness of the situation, the doctor took her to a hospital in Belém.

Hours later, she received the medical papers and the certificate of death forwarded by the Medical Institute Legal Renato Chaves, which stated a heart stroke as cause of the death.

That's all for now. Be sure to follow these links to learn more. And remember, evidently not all UFOs are necessarily friendly!

UFO Casebook

About.com Info

MUFON

AboveTopSecret Thread

USOs

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 02 May 2012 23:28:00 +0000

An extremely fascinating and often overlooked aspect of the UFO phenomena are USOs. USO, Unidentified Submerged Objects, are exactly what they sound like; namely underwater UFOs. Considering that over 70% of our planet is covered by water, it should come as no surprise that a large proportion of UFO sightings deal with bodies of water. Whether the craft is seen entering, exiting, or both, there are a large number of sightings that deal with this aspect of the phenomena. With this phenomenon in mind, a moderator over at AboveTopSecret made a thread that called for people to help him sift through the reports of USOs in order to pull out the really intriguing gems.

I realize that the thread, found here, is fairly old but it got me to thinking about this unusual phenomenon again. One of the sites that the thread mentions is a great repository of some of the USO reports that have been compiled together in chronological order. The website, that you can see here, is truly a one-stop shop for all things USO. The site is run by Carl Feindt, a retired aircraft engineer and ex-military man, and it has a wide variety of topics within the category of USOs for one to get lost in. The chronology of sightings is just one of the available resources that can be found there. I can't recommend the site highly enough.

For that matter, getting back to the ATS thread, I would recommend that you read through the posts there as many members picked some of the more interesting and intriguing cases of USO sightings. But if you're really interested in learning about this phenomenon I can't recommend Ivan T Sanderson's Invisible Residents: The Reality of UnderwaterUFOs highly enough. In Invisible Residents, Sanderson lays out his non-ETH theory of what might be behind the UFO/USO phenomena. Sanderson speculates on the existence of what he terms to be OINTS or Other Intelligences which represent a secretive parallel civilization that shares the planet with us, albeit in underwater bases. For Sanderson, UFOs represent this civilizations ability to reach the stars. He picks out more than one occurrence where people have sighted craft entering the ocean from what seems to be high up in the atmosphere and the reverse where the craft descends from high in the atmosphere only to “crash” into the water at high rates of speed.

Among these reported occurrences, Sanderson relates what may be one of the more widely known examples of a USO; The Shag Harbor incident. This case was even included in Paul Kimball's 2007 documentary BestEvidence: The Top Ten UFO cases coming in at a respectable #6. You can watch that clip below.

For those that can't view the clip allow me to sum up Shag Harbor for you. It began on the evening of October 4, 1967 on the tip of Nova Scotia, Canada in a small village called Shag Harbor. Five local teenagers were watching four flashing orange lights that were dancing in the sky suddenly dive at a 45 degree angle towards the water below. Initially believing that they were witnessing a plane that was about to crash, witness phoned the local authorities. Much to their surprise however, instead of crashing into the water the craft began to hover right above the surface for a distance of about a mile and a half. While the witness were phoning in to the police, RMCP Constable Ron Pound was making his way down Hwy #3 and was also watching the same amazing spectacle. He was under the impression that the four lights were in fact attached to the surface of one immense craft which he estimated to be some 60 ft in length.

Eventually NORAD and dive teams would be sent to the scene in order to investigate the occurrence only to leave empty handed concluding only that an object of “unknown origin” had crashed in the Harbor that night. It wasn't until the early 90's that the full story of what happened came out. MUFON investigators Chris Styles and Doug Ledger discovered by interviewing the original witnesses that there was a whole other part of the story that had yet to be revealed. From the UFOCasebook site:

The divers, along with other witnesses related these events: The object that dove into the waters of the harbor had soon left the Shag area, traveling underwater for about 25 miles to a place called Government Point, which was near a submarine detection base. The object was spotted on sonar there, and Naval vessels were positioned over it. After a couple of days, the military was planning a salvage operation, when a second UFO joined the first. Common belief at the time was that the second craft had arrived to render aid to the first.

At this time, the Navy decided to wait and watch. After about a week of monitoring the two UFOs, some of the vessels were called to investigate a Russian submarine which had entered Canadian waters. At this point, the two underwater craft made their move. They made their way to the Gulf of Maine, and putting distance between themselves and the chasing Navy boats, they broke the surface, and shot away into the skies.

Whatever USOs ultimately turn out to be, they are certainly a fascinating part of the entire UFO phenomena. They are an unappreciated part of the UFO picture that are not given the attention that they rightfully deserve. As is often said, we know more about the surface of the moon then our planet's oceans and seas. So if there does exist a parallel civilization that is terrestrial in origin, or even extraterrestrial origin, there would be no better place for them to set up shop for whatever purpose they are here to accomplish. To learn more, visit the Water UFOs site and definitely be sure to pick up Sanderson's book. Well until next time this is your friendly neighborhood Fortean reminding you to not only keep your eyes to the sky, but also on the oceans. You just never know which direction the next UFO sighting maybe coming from.

Little Green Meme?

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 02 May 2012 01:17:00 +0000

Almost a year ago I emailed an editor of one leading UFO magazine about potentially writing an article for them for publication. I sent some of my work that I had written up to that point and he seemed interested in me potentially expanding one of my original articles for Binnall of America. So with that in mind I worked somewhat diligently at the task for a few months. At the same time I commissioned my girlfriend Ashley to do artwork that would appear in the magazine. Eventually for reasons that I'm still not too sure of the article never appeared in the magazine (I think the editor quit and then the magazine folded or something) and because of this I've sat on the article for quite some time. But I've finally decided to share it with you guys, including Ashley's original artwork, to help me get back into the swing of regular updates as I'm out of school for the summer. Presented below is the article in it's entirety (be warned it's a bit lengthy, after all it was going to appear in a magazine). Hope you enjoy!

Little Green Meme?

When the modern UFO era began after Kenneth Arnold’s 1947 sighting of objects near Mount Rainier, Washington sightings of flying saucers began to be reported from all over the world. Not long after these sightings people also began to report seeing the occupants of the disks. People from all different walks of life were apparently sighting a myriad of strange creatures. In South America little hairy dwarves were sighted, while in other parts of the world the sightings of 9 foot tall monstrosities were reported. But whenever anyone refers to the occupants of these crafts, especially in the 'mainstream' media they only speak of “little green men”. The reason for this is the events of the Kelly-Hopkinsville Case, the aftermath of which is that the term “little green men” would enter the vocabulary of the population and became an infective meme that would be with Ufology for years to come.

On an August night in 1955, Billy Ray Taylor and his wife were visiting the family of Lucky Sutton. The Suttons; Vera Sutton, JC Sutton, Alene Sutton, and three Sutton children, lived in the rural town of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Glennie Lankford, June Taylor and O.P. Barker were also visiting the Lucky Sutton house. Early in the evening Taylor went outside of the Sutton house in order to get some water from the outside pump. Just a few minutes later Taylor rushed back into the house exclaiming that he had just seen a flying saucer fly over the house, hover around the woods, and descend into a gully located nearby the home. No one in the family took Taylor's claim seriously as no one went outside to investigate.

An hour later the Sutton’s dog began to bark, so Lucky and Taylor grabbed their guns and went outside to see if they could find what was upsetting the dog. The frightened dog ran under the house and would not return until the following morning. While outside of the house, Lucky and Taylor were amazed to see a 3½ ft tall being approaching them with its arms raised up. They later described the being to researchers as having a large round head, long thin arms that extended nearly to the ground, and legs that did not appear to move. The hands of the being were out of proportion to the rest of its body, and looked more like the talons of a bird than human hands. While the being's eyes appeared to be glowing with a fire that was the shade of yellow.

Being the good country folk that they were, Lucky and Taylor decided to shoot first and ask questions later. When the bullets from their rifle and shotgun struck the creature it back flipped, landed on its feet, and ran back into the darkness. At this point the men went back into the house to check on the family and tell them what had happened. When they rejoined the group in the living room they were astonished to see the same, or similar to it, being at the window. Again, Lucky and Taylor took a shot at the creature. This caused the being to flip backwards and retreat into the shadows. At this time the men were certain that they had either killed or at least wounded the creature(s), so they went outside to see if they could locate the bodies.

Taylor walked outside, but paused on the porch for just a moment. Suddenly, from the roof, a talon reached down and grabbed his hair. Alene pulled Taylor back into the house. Lucky fired upon the creature which caused it to release Taylor and fall from its perch. At this point, it’s not clear who, but someone noticed that one of the beings was in the tree. So both Taylor and Lucky fired at the creature knocking it from the limb, however, instead of falling straight down, the being appeared to float in a falling leaf motion to the ground.

This attack lasted for a little while longer before the group could no longer stand it. Everyone ran to their cars and took off towards the police station in Hopkinsville. When they arrived and began telling their story, it was obvious to the officers on duty that something had happened to these people as they were clearly shaken. A few sheriffs’ deputies and the chief of police, Russell Greenwell, accompanied the Suttons and Taylors back to the house. Once the police arrived they searched for a long time, but could find no apparent trace of anything out of the ordinary. They did, however, see plenty of buckshot meaning that shots had been fired on the grounds of the home that night. The police couldn’t directly tie the buckshots to the sightings of the numerous beings, however in a few places that Taylor and Lucky had fired on the creatures there appeared to be a strange green luminescence on the ground, the source of which the police were never able to determine. A photograph was taken of the luminous patch of grass but a sample was not collected, upon returning the following day the patch had mysteriously disappeared. Police also interviewed neighbors that live close to the Sutton house, most reported not only seeing strange lights flying around in the sky that same night but also heard the gunshots that came from Lucky and Billy’s guns.

Ultimately unable to truly prove anything, the police left the family to resume their duties. A little later that night once the police had finally gone and the family tried to go to sleep, Glennie Lankford spotted another one of the creatures back at the same window and told her son Lucky. Of course Lucky wanted to shoot it, but Glennie told him not to as the creatures, although certainly bizarre, had actually done nothing to harm them that night. Lucky fired at the creature anyway and once again the bullet had no effect and the creature retreated back in to the darkness. The being’s presence at the home lasted until dawn.

The following day the story was repeated in the Kentucky New Era Newspaper and the Sutton Farmhouse became a huge tourist attraction. The family was interviewed about the events of that night and no matter how many times the story was recounted it was always the same. A man named Andrew Ledwith, who worked with WHOP a radio station in a nearby town, interviewed each of the seven adults involved in the incident separately and each told the same story and described the creatures almost identically. Except that the female witnesses thought that the creatures had a more husky build than what the male witnesses described. Ledwith, who was also an artist, was one of the first people to illustrate what the witnesses saw. As later newspapers picked up the story over the weeks and months that followed, they began to refer to the beings as “little green men” although the original descriptions had been that they were in silver suits or were silver themselves.

After the initial media attention, people began to swarm the Sutton house. If the Suttons believed that the worst of their ordeal was over they were sadly mistaken. They were inundated with people seeking proof, stories, or in some cases even autographs. Sadly this was not all that the Sutton family had to deal with. Local public opinion almost immediately labeled the incident as a hoax. Eventually the family could no longer take all of the negative publicity and they started to charge the thrill seekers that came to see them. This only fueled the charges that the family was hoaxing the entire event simply to exhort money from people.

The Sheriff’s department, to its credit, took the family at their word. Chief of Police, Russell Greenwell had a few things to say about what had happened that night. When he described his initial meeting with the Sutton Family the night of the events he said that they appeared to have been frightened “beyond reason, not ordinary”. He would also remark to Ufologist Isabel Davis that when he and the other officers arrived at the Sutton household that, “In and around the whole area, the house, the fields, that night, there was a weird feeling. It was partly uneasiness, but not entirely. Everyone had it. There were men there that I’d call brave men … they felt it too.”

The local police were not the only group to get involved in the investigations or to take what happened seriously. The US Air Force, upon hearing about the incidents, sent officers from the nearby Fort Campbell to do some investigations. Although the Air Force investigation also turned up empty handed for any kind of concrete evidence, this incident remains as an open case to this day. Project Blue Book, the official Air Force UFO investigation from the time period, never did an official investigation but kept a file on the incident none the less. They labeled the case as an 'unknown' which is something they were not very fond of doing at the time.

Eventually the family got completely fed up with all of the attention they were getting, so they sold the property to extended family and moved away. To this day, the surviving witnesses to the event are hesitant to ever talk to anyone about the case. Although on the rare occasion that they have told anyone their stories, they are exactly as they were on that late night oh so many years ago.

Persons that were skeptical of the case almost immediately came forward with alternative theories as to what the Suttons may have actually seen that night. One of the most obvious alternative explanations was that the family simply hoaxed the entire event. As it stands, although others may have also seen unidentified lights in the sky that night, only the families involved in the incidents ever claimed to have actually seen the beings. The local community seemed to accept this theory pretty readily at the time, as a matter of fact they wrote the entire saga off as a drunken hoax that had simply gotten out of hand. It's unlikely that this was the case as Glennie Lankford was known for not allowing the consumption of alcohol at her house, especially when young children were present.

In any event it wasn't too long before a member of the Air Force was ready to offer a very down-to-earth explanation for the strange firefight that had occurred on that August night just two years prior. Speaking in 1957 U.S. Air Force Major John E. Albert came to the conclusion that what Lucky and Taylor had been shooting at was none other than an escaped monkey from a circus that was dressed in silver. There are a few problems with this explanation however. While it is true that a circus was in town during the week of the sightings, the circus never reported losing a monkey. Additionally if Lucky and Taylor shot nearly as many times at the creatures as they have said, there would have been a body of some kind that was discovered by the Police or other investigators that night.

The most recent terrestrial explanation for what had occurred that night was first proposed by French Ufologist Renaud Leclet. He suggested that perhaps the beings the family had sighted that night, were in fact Great Horned Owls. The owls would match the descriptions of the beings 'glowing' eyes and would explain some of the apparent otherworldly abilities displayed by the entities. As the owls fly silently it is unlikely that either Lucky or Taylor would have heard the owls flying around from say a limb to the top of the porch. Another part of this explanation that would seem to solve this case, is that the Great Horned Owl aggressively defends its nest. Perhaps, the theory goes, when Lucky and Taylor first started firing on the beings they must have accidentally hit the owls nest causing them to attack for most of the night. The problem with this explanation is not unlike the circus monkey theory. Where are the bodies? At many times Lucky and Taylor apparently hit the beings dead on, so if they were simply misidentifying owls, bodies would or should have been found somewhere at the house. Not only that none of these theories can explain the luminescence patch of ground that was seen, nor the very eerie feeling that was reported by all present at the house the night of the siege.

As with most cases of UFO occupant accounts, the skeptics are still skeptical and the believers still believe in the basic validity of the story. No official explanation has ever been offered by either the police that investigated nor by the Air Force. The surviving members of the incident still maintain that the testimony that was given on that fateful night in 1955 is what actually occurred to them. The legacy of the case, besides offering yet another anecdotal story of human / non-human interaction, is the term 'Little Green Men'. The term has become a meme that has been picked up by people ever since. To this day you will still hear people mockingly refer to the occupants of UFOs as little green men. The next time you hear this, you can smile knowing where this term originated.

Grave couldn't hold this musician

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:58:00 +0000

It's been said that the only things certain in life are death and taxes, but in the case of a South African musician death may not be so certain after all. Apparently not even the grave could hold this talented artist. From The Guardian:

The South African music scene has been rocked by the claim that a Zulu singer has returned from the dead. Police are investigating a man who says he is Khulekani Mgqumeni "Kwakhe" Khumalo, one of the best known figures in traditional maskandi music, who died in December 2009.

"It really is him," Khumalo's grandmother, Zintombi Mseleku, told South Africa's Sunday Tribune. Mseleku is one of several relatives - including the singer's daughter and two common-law wives - who insist the man who appeared on 29 January is the person they laid to rest two years ago, at a funeral attended by many local politicians and journalists. "There is no way I can get confused over Kwakhe," Mseleku said. "He is looking a little worn, and his cheeks are less chubby, but it's him."

Perhaps not surprisingly many local officials are begging to differ. The article continues:

Officials are less convinced. The purported Khumalo was arrested on Monday and questioned by police. They have taken fingerprints and DNA samples; test results are due later this week. If the man's DNA matches the material on file, officials are expected to exhume the musician's body. Otherwise, he may be charged with fraud.

Not content with simply keeping him for his musical ability, Khumolo told curious onlookers that had gathered at his house that he was to be turned into a Tokoloshe. Which, according to Bantu and Zulu traditions, is a dwarf like water sprite that is said to be quite mischievous in its behavior.

Tokoloshe mask (from the Guardian article)

Personally I'm going to file this one under the "interesting if true" category. Follow this link to read the rest of the article. South Africa has a rich culture of supernatural beliefs which seem to make Khumalo's story a bit more easier to swallow. Honestly if you are interested in learning more about their beliefs I suggest you check out this site. I found it to be pretty informative. In the end, I suppose we will have to await DNA testing to prove that this musician has found a way to conquer death. Or if a fairly clever con-artist has a found a new scheme.

The fishmonger strikes again!

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:48:00 +0000

Recently Fort's Fishmonger paid a visit to the Philippine province of Agusan del Sur. Writing in The Philippine Star, Jaime Laude relates an old school Fortean story.

Small fish of still unknown species mysteriously fell from the skies over Loreto town in Agusan del Sur Friday afternoon during a heavy downpour, leaving residents and officials baffled and amused.

Blance Gobenciong, Office of Civil Defense (OCD) director in Caraga, confirmed the phenomenon but offered no explanation.

National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) executive director Benito Ramos also could not provide an explanation for the strange incident.

“It came with the rain and about a kilo of these live fish is in the aquarium now,” Gobenciong said. Surprised residents went out of their houses despite the heavy rain to collect the fish that landed on rooftops and on the streets.

Artists depiction of the fishmonger's handiwork

Falls of fish are probably among the better known kinds of falls which Fort collected in his works. As was the case even in Forts day, there exists a pet theory offering a solution to this seemingly bizarre phenomenon. In this most recent example of Fish falls, the answer came back with a vengeance.

Lt. Col. Niel Patricio, commanding officer of the Army’s 26th Infantry Battalion whose unit has operational jurisdiction over Loreto town, said one his men witnessed the incident.

Patricio said the phenomenon might have been triggered by a twister that sucked out a school of mudfish fingerlings from the Agusan Marsh, which is a breeding ground for mudfish.

“That’s the most logical explanation for now,” he said.

Personally, I have always liked Fort's explanation for this phenomenon. On page 90 in his The Book of The Damned, Fort states:

I think that things raised from this earth's surface to that region have been held there until shaken down by storms – The Super-Sargasso Sea.

Of course in typical Fort fashion, he came later to offer an alternative explanation for Fish Falls that relied on a more earth bound explanation. In his third book Lo! Fort explains to his readers how a fish fall occurred in England around May in the year 1881.

a fishmonger, with a procession of carts, loaded with several kinds of crabs and periwinkles, and with a dozen energetic assistants, appeared at a time when nobody on a busy road was looking.

The fishmonger and his assistants grabbed sacks of periwinkles, and ran in a frenzy, slinging the things into fields on both sides of the road. They raced to gardens, and some assistants, standing on the shoulders of other assistants, had sacks lifted to them, and dumped sacks over the high walls.

Meanwhile other assistants, in a dozen carts, were furiously shoveling out periwinkles, about a mile along the road. Also, meanwhile, several boys were busily mixing in crabs. They were not advertising anything. Above all there was secrecy.

The cost must have been hundreds of dollars. They appeared without having been seen on the way, and they melted away equally mysteriously. There were houses all around, but nobody saw them.

Would I be so kind as to tell what, in the name of some slight approximation to sanity, I mean by telling such a story?

But it is not my story. The details are mine, but I have put them in, strictly in accordance with the circumstances. There was, upon May 28, 1881, an occurrence near Worcester, and the conventional explanation was that a fishmonger did it.

Inasmuch as he did it unobserved, if he did it, and inasmuch as he did it with tons upon acres, if he did it, he did it as I have described, if he did it.

I for one prefer to believe that, much like his forebear back in the 1800's, a fishmonger struck the poor people of Agusan del Sur. Be sure to follow this link to read more of the story. Until next time; be sure to look up in the skies. Especially if you enjoy seafood!

Adamski vindicated? Not quite.

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:46:00 +0000

I'm starting to suspect that I have an unhealthy obsession with Above Top Secret and it's variable crazy threads. I was once again going through the site when a thread title grabbed my attention. Entitled “Life Spotted on Venus - Russian Scientist”, my mind began to entertain all manner of ideas. Could some Scientist have finally discovered Orthon's hideout? Unfortunately, as is usual in this field, the truth is not as exciting as I had originally hoped.

According to the original article, which the thread creator states is “all over Russian language websites”,

An article published in the Solar System Research magazine reported Several objects resembling living beings were detected on photos made by a Russian landing probe in 1982 during a Venus mission.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti of the Space Research Institute of Russia’s Academy of Sciences published research that analyzed the photos from the Venus mission made by a Soviet landing probe, Venus-13, in 1982.

The news article's headline was, not entirely unlike my post's title, a bit sensationalist. In fact, to his credit, Ksanfomaliti admits that the findings weren't exactly indicative of life. Instead he was quoted in the article as saying:

The photos feature several objects, which Ksanfomaliti said, resembled “a disk,” “a black flap” and “a scorpion.” All of them “emerge, fluctuate and disappear,” the scientist said, referring to their changing location on different photos and traces on the ground.

Ksanfomaliti went on further to state:

"What if we forget about the current theories about the nonexistence of life on Venus, let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living,” Solar System Research quoted Ksanfomaliti as saying.

Contrary to what the article's title would seem to indicate, at the end of the day this Russian Scientist is simply asking that we be open-minded enough to allow that these objects may actually be living. And here I was hoping for some candid, National Enquirer-style paparazzi photos of Orthon or the other Venusian's that “Professor” Adamski was allegedly in contact with.

Orthon...? Is that you?

You can read more of the original article here. Not sure what to make of this story, I for one don't mind some out of the box thinking. But at the same time, the one photo that the story has in it doesn't instill any confidence in me that what we are looking at is 'biological'. But, as always, I ask that you judge for yourselves and let me know what you think!

Herbert Schirmer - An Abductee in his own words

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:15:00 +0000

I'm not a huge fan of the vast majority of the current abductee literature mostly, I think, because it tends to be a bit repetitive and, if I'm being completely honest, dull. It quickly becomes a case of “If you've heard one, you've heard them all.” One can only have so many tales of 'anal-probes' or 'hybrid children' before you should be ready to scream and be done with the whole thing. However in looking back over the past literature available on the subject one case has always particularly stood out to me. And recently I was pleased to come across some audio of the abductee involved who spoke at a UFO conference on his experience.

At 2 AM on a December night in 1967, Patrolman Herbert Schirmer was making his normal rounds on Highway 6 in Ashland, Nebraska, when he saw lights that he at first took to be an oncoming vehicle but soon became obvious that something else was going on that night. At the junction of Highway 6 and 63, Schirmer came upon what he would later describe as UFO that had the appearance of aluminum and was hovering about 10 feet above the ground. The red lights that had earlier attracted Schirmer's attention were flashing from out of “portholes” around the object. After watching the object for only a few moments, it started to make what was described as a siren sound, and as something like flames shot out from underneath, it began to zoom off into the night sky.

Schirmer's Alien

Schirmer got out of his patrol car with flashlight in hand and began to look around the area where the craft had been hovering. After not finding anything that stood out, Schirmer went back to the police station and recorded the following entry into his log book “Saw a flying saucer at the junction of highways 6 and 63. Believe it or not!”. Seeing that it was 3 O' Clock, Schirmer figured that he was missing about 30 minutes of time that he could not account for. As it happened, the Condon Committee was in full swing as this incident occurred, and as a part of their investigation into the UFO phenomena, Schirmer was brought to Boulder, Colorado where he was eventually hypnotically regressed by psychologist Dr. Leo Sprinkle.

During the regression it came out that Schirmer had actually been taken aboard the craft by 4 ½ foot tall beings that had a Winged Serpent insignia upon their chest. Referring to Schirmer as “the watchman”, they guided him around their craft showing him many things. They revealed that a part of their mission on Earth was to take Electricity. Additionally they were involved in a breeding program of some form and that in order to keep their true agenda from being discovered they appeared to people completely at random. Below is a YouTube link to the lecture that Schirmer gave on the events of the night.

If you want to learn more, or if you prefer reading the story as opposed to listening to the YouTube link provided, you can follow these links if you wish to know more. But I highly recommend listening to Schirmer tell you what happened in his own words. I would like to leave you with the final words given to Schirmer. The final message that was offered from the beings to Schirmer has long been one of my favorite ET messages. They told him “We want you to believe in us, but not too much.” Somewhere in there may lie a clue as to what is actually going on behind this phenomena.

ATS Thread on the Topic

UFO Evidence Report

Link to the MP3 if you prefer to download the audio.

Looking in from the outside

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:51:00 +0000

The following post is courtesy of Ashley Ruff:

During the three and a half years that I have been dating Tony I have had the joy of watching him explore the world of forteana, hopping around from theory to theory. While observing Tony research, I have learned that the majority of people involved in this field are extremely immature. Are they childish for believing that the moon may be a hollow satellite? No. Are they silly for thinking that a giant dinosaur might live in Loch Ness? Not at all. The majority of the people involved in this field show a lack of maturity by not working together AND for not picking up where the last generation of researchers left off by exploring new theories or evolving those theories further.

I don't know how many times Tony has come to me and showed me some website where one guy shared a new/evolved theory about God knows what and a million people tore that guy's theory apart, instead of bothering to entertain it or waisting time pointing out something silly like grammatical flaws-looking past the theory and dissecting the man. Tony has told me about countless arguments where people waist valuable time fighting over pointless details instead of using that time to work together. AND don't even get me started on the politics involved. Debating theories is one thing, but I couldn't believe how these grown men and women would argue a theory by typing stupid insults (some veiled and some not). I'll never forget when one of Tony's friends and mentors was verbally attacked via the listeners' comment section on a website due to his “rebellious” opinions. It wouldn't be so bad if these people were debating theories like adults, but they act like children with name-calling and completely unrelated insults. These people are too busy promoting their pet theories and defending them like their religion than to come together. Aren't they all suppose to be working towards the same goal? Uncovering answers or something?

I've learned that they choose not to work together: finding it more effective to bring each other down, laugh at the theories of others, and generally act like a group of preschoolers . Fine. It's easier for the alien guys to stay in their own group and for the cryptozoology guys to stay in their corner and then the paranormal ghost guys are off in some abandoned building looking for a ghost or something. Maybe all of these weird events have connections (or maybe they don't), but since these groups choose to do their own thing we probably won't know.

They can choose not to work together, fine, but for God's sake get some new material. It's sad that these people spend their lives researching theories only to come to the same conclusions that the generations before them came to. Pick up where they left off! Use their theories as a launching point! Obviously they didn't find the answers, right? So use what they know and keep going. Very few people that Tony has told me about (or that I have heard) have been able to move on. I don't know much about this stuff but I've learned that MacTonnies, for example, was able to move past the standard ETH (alien crap) and go on to the Cryptoterrestrial Theory. Even Tony has been able to move past the cafeteria tray of forteana and begin attempting to find the connections.

It's not that I'm trying to offend anyone, but maybe they need a little offending. I thought it was typical that people working towards a common goal would work together. I'm not even saying that people shouldn't disagree, but don't put a theory on a pedestal. It's a THEORY for a reason. And maybe they could argue their points of view like adults, and really would it hurt to entertain a new theory? As far as we know none of the other theories have proven to be true so why hold fast to any?

I'm a senior in college, one of those artsy-fartsy kids that always has paint on their jeans. Before I met Tony I had little interest (and still have little interest) in this paranormal stuff. I enjoy a WhoForted? article now and then, I've been known to listen to MysteriousUniverse, go on a supposedly haunted road, etc., but I think it's sad that it takes an outsider, someone with no real stock in this field, to point out these two, seemingly obvious, flaws. And yet so few people are rocking the boat by stepping outside of their comfort zones, including their pet theories, by collaborating. Perhaps if (and when) a Bigfoot guy could sit down with a UFO guy and compare notes, something NEW could happen for a change. But, hey, I'm just an outsider. - Ashley R

Space Ball .... from space!?

noreply@blogger.com (Tony Morrill) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 02:07:00 +0000

It would appear that the internet is all a flutter tonight about the recent discovery of a "space ball" found in Namibia. According to Discovery News, the object was first discovered in late November. From the article:

Eyewitnesses reported hearing a series of explosions a few days before the extraterrestrial find. The "space ball" was consequently recovered near a village in the north of the African nation, 480 miles from the capital Windhoek.

The mystery sphere has a diameter of 35 centimeters (14 inches), a rough surface and appears to consist of "two halves welded together," police forensics director Paul Ludik told the AFP news agency.

The "Space Ball" in question (Image Courtesy of Discovery News)

More at the site.

I hate to rain on anyone's parade, but before people start shouting "Alien artifact" according to the above news article, "Ludik also described the object as being made of a "metal alloy known to man,". The article then goes a bit further to really burst everyone's bubbles. According to the author of the article, Ian O'Neill, the object is only a COPV. A "CompositeOverwrapped Pressure Vessel" is apparently just some space junk. In order to back this up, the author puts photos up that are of confirmed COPVs. It's not terribly hard to see how similar the "Space Ball" and one of the COPVs really are.

COPV, it's not hard to draw a comparison (Image Courtesy of NASA)

Still, when I first read about this object a small part of me temporarily flashed back to something I had read in Gray Barker's The Silver Bridge. In chapter 9, entitled The Golden Ball, Barker relates a tale of another object that purportedly fell to Earth from the Heavens. On the same night that Woody Derenberger was meeting with the "alien" Indrid Cold, a town about 30 miles south of Parkersburg, West Virgina, also had UFO sightings. One of the apparent witnesses to this display, a Mr. John White, discovered an object on his lawn. Well to be more specific, his children actually discovered the object.

Described as about 12 inches in circumference, the item seemed to be made completely of gold and was quite heavy. Although the descriptions of the objects differ, my mind immediately flashed to this item. Who knows, maybe Indrid Cold's compatriots got tired of hanging out in West Virginia and decided to check out Namibia?

Be sure to follow the news link and decide for yourself what the provenance of the Space Ball really is!