In 2009 several witnesses claimed they saw Santa Rosalia appear in the caves of the famous hermit in the ruins in Sicily. Others, however, have seen an image far from reassuring, admitting that they have come across a black hooded figure. A group of young tourists recorded these disturbing images.
NOTE: There was an innuendo in 2005 that a small group of pilgrims disappeared in the cave of Santa Rosalia. Of course, believers would say that this is impossible since saints only represent 'good'. Honestly, I don't know if that incident has anything to do with this video. Back in the early 1980's, I was told of a woman who swore that she had witnessed a being in the grotto when she was a child...saying it was shrouded in a hooded black robe with skeletal hands and feet. Is there any truth to these reports. At the time I originally looked into this mystery, I contacted officials in Palermo and was directed to the group who managed the shrine. I never received an answer to my inquiry...Lon
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SANTA ROSALIA, PATRON SAINT OF PALERMO
Saint Rosalia (1130–1166), also called La Santuzza or "The Little Saint", is the patron saint of Palermo, Sicily, El Hatillo, Venezuela, and Zuata, Anzoategui, Venezuela.
Devoutly religious, she retired to live as a hermit in a cave on Mount Pellegrino, where she died alone in 1166. Tradition says that she was led to the cave by two angels. On the cave wall she wrote "I, Rosalia, daughter of Sinibald, Lord of Roses, and Quisquina, have taken the resolution to live in this cave for the love of my Lord, Jesus Christ."
Santa Rosalia, clearly holds a special place in the hearts of many Sicilians. During the first week of June every year in Santo Stefano Quisquina, there is a special celebration to commemorate her miraculous intervention that saved Palermo from the Black Plague. Rosalia was the daughter of Duke Sinibaldo, Lord of the Quisquina and the Roses, who was a cousin of King William II of Sicily. Like Saint Francis of Assisi, Rosalia turned her back on a life of ease and chose to devote herself to prayer and solitude. The legend says that in 1159 she retired to a hermetic existence in a remote cave on Monte Pellegrino, the rocky cliff high above the Bay of Palermo. Nothing was heard from her again until 1624, when the plague arrived in Sicily.
Salvation to Sicily came in the unexpected form of La Santuzza, who appeared in a vision to a hunter lost on Monte Pellegrino. "Don't worry," she said "I will protect you and I will protect the city". She revealed to him the site of the cave in which she had lived as a hermit and told him to go back to Palermo and alert the archbishop and rulers of the city. The hunter did as he was instructed, and those leaders found her remains and displayed them through the streets of Palermo. Within three days, the plague ended. After this St Rosalia would be venerated as the patron saint of Palermo, and a sanctuary was built in the cave where her remains were discovered. - chestofbooks.com / ferlita.com
It was the year 2000. I went to sleep waking up around 2 am as I had read the kitchen clock. Something was off - it didn't feel right, so I got up to check the house. I being a single mother with a son at the time was concerned I switched on the kitchen light. I looked at all doors they were locked I could clearly see. No need to check. But to my horror the door handle turned I saw the knob turning. I was petrified to say the least - the lock undone right in front of my eyes. The door to the outside out the lounge room was open, and the door to the garage was now open. I walked over checked the gauzed security door - odd they were both still locked. Just the internal wooden doors opened and unlocked right in front of my eyes. I walked over and locked them closing the door.
I knew I had absolutely witnessed the abnormal. I was scared to sleep but did fall asleep.
In the morning I found something in my mouth, so I went to the bathroom and pulled out with my fingers a strange bit of tissue organic living animal. I don't know what it was - I put it in the drain. Then my son walks in the bathroom and till this day it still makes me cry. He said 'mum I have something in my mouth.' I was shocked and horrified to put my fingers in his mouth to find the exact replica logged in between his back teeth and inner cheek. I took it out and because I was next to the sink in bathroom in it it went. What was that last night? What happened to me and my son. The horror of the unknown. I speak the truth yet I live in fear of the horror I witnessed before my eyes. What was that in my boys mouth and mine? I only pray that he my son was not harmed by something. No one believes yet that I speak the truth. I know what I witnessed. What I touched and what I discarded was not natural. D
NOTE: seems to me that this was a possible abduction scenario. These situations are rarely singular...sometimes entire families, over several generations, experience repeated abductions. Lon
A new book charting a host of unexplained mysteries in Devon includes a historic sighting of a mermaid off Exmouth
The tale of a mermaid spotted swimming off Exmouth has been included in a new book about the supernatural and paranormal in Devon.
Paranormal Devon by Daniel Codd, is packed full of weird and wonderful stories from across the county, which have been researched and compiled from archives.
Many of the first-hand accounts and contributions included in the book are from ordinary folk living in the county.
The tale of the mermaid dates back to August 1812, when a sea creature was spotted a mile off Exmouth. A man called Mr Toupin was with a group on a sailing trip when he claims they heard music, then saw a creature which was human-like, with a fish tail.
Mr Toupin’s account said the group was drawn to ‘a singular noise, impossible to describe fully but comparable to a wild, tinkling harpsichord melody’.
The party spotted something ‘human-like diving and twisting in the water’.
When the group unsuccessfully tried to attract the creature, they threw boiled fish into the water, which drew the creature nearer. ‘It was no other than a mermaid’, said the account.
Mr Toupin’s detailed description of the creature said: “It had a long, oval face, seal-like, but more agreeable, and hair seemed to crown its upper and back head.
“There is no suggestion ‘she’ was attractive, more like an animal, whose upper arms were covered with a soft fawn or pinkish down.
“It possessed two arms, which it had used to great agility, which terminated in four webbed fingers on each hand.
“Its waist tapered gradually to form a tail, which bore the appearance of shiny scales, while its back bore something like feathers.
“In length it was about five-and-a-half feet, and it appeared to be cavorting playfully near the vessel – before, after three quick plunges, it swam rapidly away and was lost to sight.”
The mermaid sighting in Exmouth followed almost 100 years after a similar creature was caught at Topsham bar, near Exeter, by a group of eight fishermen.
The four-foot ‘mermaid’ had legs, webbed feet, human eyes and mouth, and a salmon-like tail; as it was dying ‘it groan’d like a human creature’.
The creature was put on display at Exeter, and then London, after the group used sticks to knock it down after it leapt out of the fishing net and ‘run away with great swiftness’. - Exmouth Journal
Chad Lewis has traveled the world looking for such supernatural creatures as ghosts, vampires and hellhounds.
He is disappointed that he has never seen anything of the kind himself, but he has collected the stories of people who have seen such creatures or faithfully believe in them.
“The more bizarre, the better,” Lewis said.
Lewis, 39, of Eau Claire, has found that there is plenty of fertile ground for such tales in his home state of Wisconsin, and he has written about them in a book called The Wisconsin Road Guide to Mysterious Creatures
Lewis will share those stories Tuesdayat the Marathon County Public Library and will encourage people to tell their own stories of the strangeness they’ve seen or heard about.
Phantom chickens, werewolves, bearwolves and, of course, Bigfoot will be covered. He’ll also talk about the “unknown beast terrorizing Wausau,” he said.
Lewis, who has earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Stout, is neither a believer nor nonbeliever of the stories he tells.
“I hope these things are out there,” he said. “Most of these things, I just don’t know. ... I’ve always thought it would be great to see a Bigfoot creature. But over the years, I’ve shifted a bit, and now I’m on a sea serpent kick.”
Chances are better, Lewis said, that sea monsters are real than Bigfoot.
Lewis’ interest in the odd began when he was in high school and started wondering why “all these people were seeing UFOs. I wanted to know what makes somebody believe in the strange and unusual versus someone who does not.”
That led him to explore ghost stories and investigate haunted houses. He grew tired of not seeing ghosts, and hearing the same kinds of stories over and over. So he branched out into the creature side of things, reveling in the oddness of it all.
The striking thing about creature stories is that as otherworldly as they are, they also are almost universally embraced by humans everywhere, and some stories — such as tales of beast-men such as Bigfoots or yeti — have been around for ages and ages across several cultures. - Wisconsin Rapids Tribune
Call it what you will: A Yeren, a Yeti or a Yowie, but the fact remains that people the world over keep seeing these big hairy buggers lurking in the night.
The latest sighting took place recently just north of Bexhill when a Lismore resident and music videographer spied the classic creature crossing a moonlit Bangalow Road.
The witness, who has asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said he was driving back home from a night of filming at Eltham and had just turned onto the Bangalow Road heading for Lismore when he spied a creature jumping a barbed wire paddock fence before briefly pausing at the edge of the road.
Suddenly the beast moved across the two lanes of bitumen, raising his arm to apparently shield its eyes from the bright high beam glare of the approaching car.
"I would have seen it for between 20 and 30 seconds," the witness recalled.
"It was really moving at the time. It leapt the fence no problem.
"All I can remember was seeing this large black object with a solid build, lanky legs and long lanky arms.
"It wasn't clothed ... it wasn't wearing clothes like a human."
The witness said the creature ran with a fast, stooped pace. It had high shoulders and almost no neck and a small head.
"It was like its head was shrunken into its shoulders," he said.
Sydney-based yowie researcher, Paul Cropper, said the recent sighting revealed some "classic" elements which provided a common thread linking many experiences by many people over many decades.
"The fact that this thing was heavy set, with long arms and a small head ... these are classic traits," Mr Cropper said.
The area where the yowie was seen has a long history of similar sightings. There have been stories about them in The Northern Star since the 1800s.
In fact Mr Cropper emailed us a clipping from our own paper dated May 17, 1878 in which three descriptions of yowies were published - all of them seen in the west of NSW.
"There is the valid question of why no one has run a yowie down with a four wheel drive," noted Mr Cropper. "But the fact remains that for well over 100 years, from early settlement to modern times, people have claimed to have seen the same thing."
The amateur cryptozoologist said he was fascinated by what could be called the UFOs of the animal world.
"It's a puzzle and I am trying to put the pieces together," he said.
"I have spoken to over 100 people who have seen a yowie and I feel they have had genuine experiences." - Northern Star
Join Eric, Lon and Sean as we again welcome author & independent researcher Thomas P. Fusco to BTE. We invite you to call the toll free number 1-877-677-2858 or simply ask your questions in the chat room. This promises to be a very interesting show!
Thomas P. Fusco is an independent researcher who has devoted nearly three decades investigating the relationship between mind, physics, spirituality, parapsychology, scientific anomalies and paranormal phenomena with the goal of uncovering the unifying cosmological framework that has eluded mankind for generations. Since the official launch of his book in November 2011, he has been invited to speak as a guest on over 200 national and international radio programs including Coast to Coast AM. Mr. Fusco will be speaking and presenting at both the upcoming Paradigm Symposium in Minneapolis, October 17-20, 2013 and the Spirits, Shadows and Secrets International Symposium to be held in the fall of 2014 in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was also a participant in the VIP invitation-only think-tank conference called The Gathering in November 2012.
Mr. Fusco will be discussing the theory of supergeometry presented in his book, Behind the Cosmic Veil: A New Vision of Reality that describes a new model of supernatural mechanics, which not only explains the behavior of strange phenomena like the paranormal, UFOs and psychic phenomena, but also provides compelling answers to some of the fundamental problems facing physics today. This cosmological model is based in part on a superphysical extension of Einstein’s continuous spatial field theory with physicist David Bohm’s implicate order.
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Here are a few more reader submissions that relate to encounters with strange animals...possibly cryptids or other beings:
THE DOVER DEMON?
I saw this creature crossing the street (Rte. 18) in Abington, MA in 1970 while I was driving home from work. It stopped, looked at me, and then scurried off up an embankment. It climbed up the side of a storage building onto the roof, and watched me watch it for a small amount of time, then ran along the roof and out of my sight. I later told my wife and some friends about it, and they all decided I was not in my right mind or was making up a story (not in my nature). Last week my wife brought a book home from the library which described the creature and other sightings in Dover. She now believes my story - after 39 yrs of disbelief. I'm not sure what this creature was. I described it as a "purple monkey" kind of thing, but the color I saw was most likely a result of the type of night lighting in the area. I am not broadly given to paranormal sightings or the existence of many cryptozoological creatures, but I know that I saw this or something like this. Walt
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SOUTH CHINA SEA ENCOUNTER
Hello there Lon,
It came to interest me about how you can send in your own story about a close encounter or possibly something unusual.
So I have a story my mother told me a long time ago about encountering a creature (which of course I was really skeptical about) when she was roughly 25-26 years old. (Now 55)
She recently told me the story again and it was still the same way she told me when I was 15-16 which then made me believe, what if it was true? And if it is true, What was it?
When my mother was still living in Vietnam, she was very poor like every working Vietnamese citizen there. People worked hard to try to earn money or at the very least get enough food to survive the rough lifestyle of Vietnam. Back then, My mother told me it was a very shady place to live. People died easily because of starvation or health problems occurred which killed many hard working people. Another way many people died was how citizens were forced to go to different areas of Vietnam to work. My mother was soon one of the many who had to be forced to go elsewhere.
That very same night when she was soon to leave, her brother managed to tell her about a boat that was to be used to escape Vietnam and head away from there. At least a dozen people (including my Mother and Uncle) got on a boat and headed out from Hà Tiên towards Thailand.
That night, when the dozen escaped, they celebrated and rejoiced by drinking and eating on the boat through the first night. Through the 2nd or 3rd day, their engine broke and was now traveling where the water took them. Through the 4th day of being on water, they barely had any supplies and soon the group began to think they would all die with little water and food.
My mother doesn't know what day this was during the 1 week of being out at sea before reaching Thailand but this is when the encounter with the creature occurred.
My mother also didn't tell me what time of day it was, but it was bright enough to be able to see the creature in the water. (during mid day?)
As the boat was still moving through the force of the water, my mother noticed a very big creature close to the boat. She described the creature to be "gray" in color and also very big. She told me that the creature must of been much bigger than the boat they were in considering it was right beside them.
Also, my mother explained to me that the creature didn't move at all when my mother looked at the body of the creature, it just stayed in the shallow water. Surprisingly, I asked her if she saw a face, tail or anything else that could define it. But she told me that her friend grabbed her and told her not to look in case something bad were to occur. Another interesting detail my mother told me was that she felt, if the creature were to move, even it's tail if it did have one, she thought the boat would definitely flip or possibly destroy the boat. I asked my Mom what you thought it could have been and the first thing that came up in her mind was "Fish".
But I know in my own conscience, it couldn't have been a fish. So I also asked her if the body of the creature was smooth, and she responded, "Yes". After the next couple days, the dozen managed to make it to Thailand and never saw that creature again.
So in my own thoughts, I had to rule it out that it was no fish, and if somehow in the world, if it is a fish, it's definitely a unique one with a smooth gray body and no scales.
Also, if my mother did see its entire body, there was definitely no top fins on the creature which almost wants me to rule out it was no shark, but it could of been a bit deeper to not reveal its top fin?
I'm also not too sure what creatures lurk in the South China Sea and if they even have any big sea creatures.
I wanted to come up with a possibility it was a whale or shark but to get so close to a boat, wouldn't the creatures get scared? Also it stood still in the water for a while, I don't exactly know if sharks have the tendency to do that. Whales on the other hand, maybe? Even for a Fish, Definitely no way it could be one.
I was hoping I could get some answers on what it may of or could of been. If you guys get this, hopefully you guys can fill me in with anything that is related to this.
Appreciate it. - Johnny
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UNKNOWN FLYING ENTITY
Thanks for the daily email updates. I had an encounter that I did make a report on but have never received any inquiries. Since your readers send you their experiences maybe there is a chance someone has seen something similar.
The encounter occurred on July 6, 2005 at about 11:30 pm. I had a long day in San Diego then afterward going to the beach at Del Mar, CA for some surf fishing. I arrived at my home in San Marcos about 11:00 pm. After cleaning my fish and showering, I was very tired. I went out to my carport for a smoke and a look at the night sky. I looked north, thinking about a recent UFO sighting and wondering what it's all about. In the distance, at a couple hundred feet, I saw a faintly visible moving object that flitted from side to side. Whatever it was, it reflected light from the streetlights. It's side to side movement was so quick, I couldn't tell if it was one object or two. The object then zipped directly over my neighbors house across the street. By this time, I was certain I'd never seen anything like it. It continued to move side to side, in a space of approximately 50 feet. It then stopped and I observed it more clearly.
It may have had big "eyes" and wing-like appendages, and was probably 2 to 3 feet in width. It remained still and I could see wavering reflections from it's "wings" which were not beating like a birds, but showed shimmering reflections from the streetlights. I felt the hair on my head rise all the way down my back to my ankles! It appeared to be looking at me, as I smoked my cigarette. I felt threatened, and said out loud, "I see you!" Then it went from stationary to out of sight, right over my head in an instant. I came out from under my covered carport, and turned to follow it's movement. Immediately, it zipped into view directly above my head, obviously studying me! I could see really weird large and intensely dark "eyes". It seemed surprised by my looking right at it. It didn't like being seen. My apprehension rose even higher. It turned away and disappeared like a shot.
It had a birdlike shape, but was thicker. My impression was of reflections of the streetlights on wing-like appendages, and big dark eyes!
It wasn't a bird, bat or any familiar nocturnal creature. It's movements did not seem explicable in comparison to any creature that fly's by beating it's wings. The hills and mountains are so rugged and inaccessible near my home, that anything could remain hidden and make night time forays at will. I read about "thunderbirds" but I'm not sure if this was one of these.
Thanks for the help! HR
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POSSIBLE MOTHMAN
I was driving back to my home in Grove City, Ohio at about 9 pm on February 22nd when I saw something very strange. I had just made a turn off RT104 onto Borror Rd. and was driving around a sharp turn when I saw something brown on the side of the road. I first assumed it was a deer since I have seen several on this road before but as I got closer it was too big to be a deer. The best I can describe this object it that it looked like a big piece of brown shag carpet about 6 to 7 feet tall and about 10 feet wide. As I came close to passing this object on the side of the road it folded up like the rug was being folded in half. I flinched and swerved out of the way because as it folded I thought it was lunging toward me and coming after me. I just sped up and kept driving home.
I did not tell anyone what I had seen for a few days because I was so baffled and didn't want to believe that I saw what I did. After replaying the sighting over and over in my head I decided to tell my wife and we started looking up on the internet, things that might match what I saw. The closest thing we could come up with is the Mothman except I didn't see any glowing eyes, but if the eyes were reflective I would probably not have seen them because the creature was facing the road and not my headlights. Anyway this was the strangest thing I have ever seen. Brian P.
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In 2009 several witnesses claimed they saw Santa Rosalia appear in the caves of the famous hermit in the ruins in Sicily. Others, however, have seen an image far from reassuring, admitting that they have come across a black hooded figure. A group of young tourists recorded these disturbing images.
- this is David Michael Jacobs' book. One of the best I've read on the subject. Lon
- another David Michael Jacobs book. Highly recommended. Lon
by Daniel Codd, is packed full of weird and wonderful stories from across the county, which have been researched and compiled from archives.
