A white killer whale—fin pictured here— was recently spotted in Alaska's Aleutian Islands, sending researchers and their ship's crew scrambling for cameras.
"I had heard about this whale, but we had never been able to find it," said Holly Fearnbach, a research biologist with the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle who photographed the rarity. "It was quite neat to find it."
The whale was spotted last month while scientists aboard the Oscar Dyson—a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) research ship—were conducting an acoustic survey of Pollock, a whitefish, near Steller sea lion haul-out sites.
"This is the first time we came across a white killer whale," agreed John Durban, a research biologist at NOAA's Alaska Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.
Fearnbach said the white whale stood out.
"When you first looked at it, it was very white," she said Thursday.
While the whale's saddle area was white, other parts of its body had a subtle yellowish or brownish color, suggesting it was not a true albino, Durban said.
The whale was spotted about two miles (three kilometers) off Kanaga Volcano on February 23. (See map of Alaska.)
It appeared to be a healthy, adult male about 25 to 30 feet (7 to 9 meters) long and weighing as much as 10,000 pounds (4,500 kilograms).
Wednesday night, a chilling paranormal investigation and a groundbreaking trek into the Himalayas in search of the Yeti scored with viewers and set series high ratings records for SCI FI's hit reality series, Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth. The season 4 premiere episode of Ghost Hunters at 9pm delivered a 1.9 household rating, 2.7 million total viewers, 1.615 million Adults 18-49 and 1.706 million Adults 25-54, its highest rating of a regular series episode to date. In the 10pm hour Destination Truth kicked off its second season with its best-ever telecast, delivering a 1.4 household rating, 1.034 million Adults 25-54, 970,000 Adults 18-49 and 1.7 million total viewers. Additionally:
SCI FI was the #1 cable network in Ghost Hunters' 9pm time period for both Adults 18-49 and Adults 25-54, and demonstrated its appeal across genders by ranking #1 in cable in the 9-10pm time period for Women 25-54, Women 18-49, Men 25-54 and Men 18-49 Compared to the Fall 2007 premiere of the most recent slate of new Ghost Hunters episodes on 9/26/07, this is an increase of +36% in household ratings, +49% in Adults 25-54, +30% in Adults 18-49 and +33% in total viewers.
Compared to the Destination Truth season 1 premiere on 6/6/07, last night's episode is up +27% in household ratings, +34% in Adults 25-54s, +15% in Adults 18-49s and +18% in total viewers.
Next week, Jason, Grant and the Ghost Hunters team attempt to debunk the myriad of alleged ghostly sightings at the Burlington County Prison Museum (formerly the Burlington County Jail), a national landmark located in Mount Holly, NJ. Then, at 10 PM, Josh Gates travels to East Africa to investigate mysterious haunted ruins in search of ghosts, and to Mongolia to locate a monster size sandworm that has locals in a panic.
Ghost Hunters kicked off its fourth season as one of cable's hottest shows. Enjoying record-high ratings throughout its run, the series celebrated its best season ever in Fall 2007, culminating in the record-breaking special on Halloween, Ghost Hunters Live. Its spinoff, Ghost Hunters International, made its series debut this January as the highest-rated reality telecast in the Channel's history, cementing the franchise's place as the #1 paranormal destination in cable! Ghost Hunters is produced in association with Craig Piligian's Pilgrim Films and Television (American Chopper, Dirty Jobs, The Ultimate Fighter). Piligian and Thomas Thayer, along with Rob Katz and Alan David, serve as executive producers.
In the second season of Destination Truth, adventurer and truth-seeker Josh Gates once again takes viewers off the map in his search for answers to some the world's most notorious unexplained mysteries. The show will feature even more exotic locales, stunning finds and fascinating eyewitness accounts as Josh brings his humor to brand new investigations. This season of Destination Truth is Executive Produced by Brad Kuhlman (1000 Places to See Before You Die, Daisy Does America, FM Nation).
SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a dynamic Web site (www.scifi.com ) and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 93 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.
A lesbian member of a blood-drinking vampire cult and her lover have been sentenced to life in prison for the sexually-motivated murder of their housemate.
Jessica Stasinowsky, 21, and Valerie Parashumti, 19, pleaded guilty to bludgeoning 16-year-old Stacey Mitchell to death with a concrete block in 2006 because she was "annoying", the Australian Associated Press reported.
Judge Peter Blaxell said the murder, in Perth, Western Australia, was "sexually perverse" and "evil", after the court was told the two lesbian lovers became aroused as they battered the teenage girl and then kissed while standing over her body as she lay dying.
"You have each had more than a year in custody to reflect upon the evilness of your crime, yet you still lack remorse and obviously place no value on the sanctity of human life," Mr Blaxell said in handing down the life sentences.
"There is also the added problem that you each enjoy being sexually aroused by the infliction of violence," he said.
When Stacey moved into a house the lovers were sharing, Stasinowsky immediately hated her because she thought the teenager was flirting with her lover, the court heard.
Parashumti felt the need to prove that Stacey meant nothing to her, so she and Stasinowsky decided to kill her.
On the day of the murder, the trio drank whiskey in the kitchen and Stacey took tablets which made her drowsy.
Parashumti crept up behind Stacey and started hitting her on the head with a concrete slab, while Stasinowsky took off a dog chain belt and began to strangle her.
Stacey took at least 45 minutes to die, but Stasinowsky later told a prison officer she wished it had lasted longer.
"Even more appalling are your admissions to the effect that at the time of the murder you were each sexually excited by the violence of the event," said Judge Blaxell.
The killers made a mobile phone video of the murder scene, laughing and mocking their victim, and then dumped her body upside down in a garbage bin in a back shed.
A psychologist found Parashumti, who drank blood as part of a vampire subculture, had very strong sexual sadistic tendencies and was sexually aroused by physical torture and violence.
Fred Eichler at Eastern Bowhunting TV has captured a video of a hominid like creature and has posted it on his website. I don't know the credibility of this person, but it is very interesting nonetheless.
According to a report in the Daily Telegraph, the recent discovery of Earth-like planets outside our solar system and the launch of a major NASA mission in 2009 is bringing extra-terrestrial contact a dramatic step closer.
"We really believe that in the next 20 years or so, we are going to learn a great deal more about life beyond Earth and very likely we will have detected life and perhaps even intelligent life elsewhere in the galaxy,'' said American astrophysicist Dr Frank Drake, who founded the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence project (SETI) in 1961.
According to SETI senior astronomer Dr Seth Shostak, there are 200 billion stars just in our galaxy and at least half of them probably have planets orbiting them, which makes it 100 billion planetary systems with probably five planets in each system.
"That's 500 billion planets out there - and bear in mind there are 100 billion other galaxies," said Shostak.
"To think this (the Earth) is the only place where anything interesting is happening, you have got to be really audacious to take that point of view,'' he added.
Next year, NASA will launch its Kepler space telescope, which will constantly scan the same 100,000 stars over its entire four-year mission to discover Earth-sized planets in the habitable zones around suns.
SETI will then focus its deep-space listening equipment on those solar systems.
The mayor of a village in southwest France has threatened residents with severe punishment if they die, because there is no room left in the overcrowded cemetery to bury them.
In an ordinance posted in the council offices, Mayor Gerard Lalanne told the 260 residents of the village of Sarpourenx that "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."
It added: "Offenders will be severely punished."
The mayor said he was forced to take drastic action after an administrative court in the nearby town of Pau ruled in January that the acquisition of adjoining private land to extend the cemetery would not be justified.
Lalanne, who celebrated his 70th birthday on Wednesday and is standing for election to a seventh term in this month's local elections, said he was sorry that there had not been a positive outcome to the dilemma.
"It may be a laughing matter for some, but not for me," he said.
You would expect a ghost to hang out in a club dedicated to scaring customers, not to making them laugh. But that's what Jokeboy's Comedy Club in downtown Ocala has on its hands, according to a paranormal specialist.
"I immediately felt an energy, a presence, when I walked into the building," said Rick Hayes, a University of Florida graduate who serves as a paranormal communicator for Life's Gift Inc. "He is connected with the building and very protective of it."
Those protective measures caught club owners Myra Popp and Brian Walters off guard. Popp said she would turn out the lights as she locked up the club, but on a regular basis the lights would be on when she returned the next morning.
She said she also noticed a breath on the back of her neck when no one was around, and a feeling she was always being watched.
"It was really spooky, but not scary spooky," Popp said. "You'd hear someone walking upstairs, or someone walk past you, but there wouldn't be anyone there."
A GHOSTLY HABITAT
The black-painted building at 18 S.W. Broadway St. is two doors down from the new Starbucks and next door to Mango's. The shell of the structure preserves the masonry vernacular style it had when built in 1906. Popp left the east wall inside as unfinished brick, but painted the rest of the building in shades of brown and purple. Black curtains cover windows, keeping out daylight.
The attic, which used to be a complete second story, is filled with dust, cobwebs and exposed steel pipes. Piles of rubble from tenants past fill the attic, where the ghost is said to hang out. There was no hooing or howling Tuesday morning, but the lights were on.
"He likes tampering with the lights," Popp said. "He leaves them on for protection."
WHO IS HE?
The ghost goes by the name of Linus, Hayes said.
Hayes, a friend of Popp's family, stopped by the club one evening after a seminar at Central Florida Community College.
"We kept having these weird things happen and we thought we should bring someone in," Popp said.
Hayes immediately made his way to the attic, where he identified the spirit.
"He's not tall - maybe 5'5" or so," Hayes said. "He has a round face and is a little stocky, definitely middle-aged. He is very respectful, though. He stays up in the attic because he doesn't want to interfere with business."
But Linus has some suggestions for the club owners, Hayes said.
"He's a little upset because there aren't children around anymore," Hayes said about Linus, who he envisioned wearing a white apron. "He is really concerned about the building, like he had good business memories there, and he doesn't want it to be torn down."
A 1920s VISITOR
Hayes said Linus may come from the 1920s era. After being built as a tennis racket store by J.W. Alexander, the property became Ocala Market and Meats in 1921. According to the Historic Ocala Preservation Society, there was a soda fountain in the building until it became the Marion Liquor Store in 1940.
If there is a ghost that looks over the building, this is the first HOPS President Suzanne Thomas has heard about it.
"We don't really have any ghost stories downtown," she said. "The noises could be the wood floors extending when the weather changes. It could be mice. It is a great story though, and it may bring people in."
Popp and Walters say they aren't looking for extra publicity, nor are they inventing the story. They're content to live with their new roommate.
"He protects the place, so I like him hanging around," Popp said. "Plus, I think he likes me."
Sightings of a large black cat in the Hawkesbury and surrounding areas should be taken more seriously, and the animal declared a pest by the State Government, according to retired magistrate and Moss Vale Rural Lands Protection Board director Ian McDougall.
Mr McDougall, a Board director for Kenthurst, said the continuing presence of a large black cat-like animal should be of great concern to the Minister for Primary Industries, Ian MacDonald.
“I want him to declare the animal as a pest so we could then have mandatory reporting,” he said. “Then people wouldn’t feel they were nutters if they reported their sighting.
“It’s important to me. I believe in due course these animals are going to take a child.”
His comments come on the back of several fresh sightings in the Kenthurst area.
Mr McDougall said the large volume of sightings collected by Grose Vale resident Chris Coffey and local big cat researchers could not be ignored.
“What these people are seeing and describing to me is all the same thing – a large black animal, feline in shape, and its got powerful limbs and what most of them describe as jet black fur and a tail that’s about 1m long and 2-3 inches thick with a boomerang curve at the end of it,” he told The Gazette this week.
“The interesting thing about this group, the people I’ve spoken to, is they’re from all walks of life, they’re not delusional.
“It’s obvious there’s more than one of these creatures and they seem to be tracking along the creeks.
“If it’s not a panther it’s something that looks like a panther.”
The Board recently wrote to the Minister about the big cat issue, but stopped short of demanding that it be declared a pest species.
Mr McDougall – who made it clear he was speaking independently of the Board, not for it – said he favoured a more direct approach.
“I don’t want it shot,” he said. “If one of them can be trapped so we can find out what it is, that’d be great.
“But until someone drags a carcass and dumps it on the doorstep of the DPI, nothing much is going to happen.
“It’s already scratched a young kid in Kenthurst. Somebody has to do something.
“That’s my responsibility to the people who elected me.”
Pilot Steve Fossett, who recently was declared dead several months after his plane vanished in the desert. As you might have read when the incident was fresh, the search for his craft was nearly unprecedented and resulted in finding many other previous plane crashes (six in last report) but not Mr. Fossett’s. Click The Heavy Stuff for the full article.
"And all the people perceived the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the voice of the horn, and the mountain smoking." Thus the book of Exodus describes the impressive moment of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.
The "perceiving of the voices" has been interpreted endlessly since these words were first written. When Professor Benny Shanon, professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reads the verse, he recalls a powerful hallucinatory experience he had when he visited the Amazon and drank a potion made from a plant called ayahuasca.
"One of the things that happens when you drink the potion is a visual experience created via sounds," he says.
Shanon presents a provocative theory in an article published this week in the philosophy journal Time and Mind. The religious ceremonies of the Israelites included the use of psychotropic materials that can found in the Negev and Sinai, he says. "I have no direct proof of this interpretation," and such proof cannot be expected, he says. However, "it seems logical that something was altered in people's consciousness. There are other stories in the Bible that mention the use of plants: for example, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden."
Shanon, former head of the Hebrew University psychology department, said his first experience with ayahuasca was in 1991 when he was invited to a religious ceremony in the northern Amazon in 1991 in Brazil. "I experienced visions that had spiritual-religious connotations," he says. Since that time, he has used it hundreds of times, and has published a book about the plant.
"Hypotheses have been around for 20 years connecting the beginning of religions with psychoactive materials," Shanon says. He believes the Israelites used two plants in Sinai and the Negev: one of them is wild rue, a hallucinogen used by the Bedoin to this day. However this plant is not identified with any plant mentioned in the Bible.
The acacia tree also has psychedelic properties, Shanon says, which the Israelites could have used. The acacia is mentioned frequently in the Bible, and was the type of wood of which the Ark of the Covenant was made. According to Shanon, he drank a potion prepared from a species of acacia while he was in South America, which caused similar experiences to those produced by the ayahuasca.
Shanon also sees signs of a hallucinogenic vision in the story of the burning bush.
"Moses 'looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed,'" Shanon quotes from Exodus 3:2. Time passes differently when under the influence of the plant, he notes. "That's why Moses thought the bush was not consumed. It should have been burned in the time he thought had passed. And in that time, he heard God speaking to him."
"But not everyone who uses a plant like this brings the Torah," Shanon concedes. "For that, you have to be Moses."
The ghost-hunting summit that was expected to attract more than 500 paranormal investigators to Gettysburg in June has been cancelled.
The Gettysburg National Military Park's policy against organized paranormal investigations on the battlefield is the main reason for the cancellation of the G4 Summit, organizer Kerry Eble-Keller said.
"It was just not what it could be," Eble-Keller said Tuesday.
Had things gone as planned, it would have been the first year for the event. As many as 540 people were registered to attend, he said.
Efforts to find homes and businesses in the area open to paranormal investigation were met with limited success, and without the battlefield as an option, "we realized we were just going to disappoint a lot of people," Eble-Keller said.
Park spokeswoman Katie Lawhon has said the park's policy against ghost hunting stems from a broader policy of only allowing organized activities on the battlefield that support the mission of the park. Individuals can, however, conduct investigations if they do not disrupt other visitors or damage park resources.
"We've tried to be very clear about our position on commercial ghost hunting and paranormal activities and also large-scale events in the park," Lawhon said Tuesday. "It all comes down to our mission."
That mission is "to preserve and protect the resources associated with the Battle of Gettysburg and the Soldiers National Cemetery, and to provide the understanding of the events that occurred here, within the context of American history."
Activities consistent with that mission can be granted special-access permits, but events like the G4 Summit do not qualify, Lawhon said.
"Our focus continues to be talking about the history of the Battle of Gettysburg and the soldiers who sacrificed their lives here," she said. "We're going to continue to spend our time on that."
Before he learned of the park's policy, Eble-Keller said he began organizing and publicizing the event through MySpace.com.
Eble-Keller has said the ghost hunters wanted to conduct paranormal investigations on some of the deadliest spots of the Gettysburg Battlefield, including Devil's Den, Little Round Top and the field of Pickett's Charge.
When that fell through, effort went into finding other places in the Gettysburg and Hanover area open to paranormal investigation.
But only about a dozen homes and businesses volunteered - far fewer than what would be needed to occupy more than 500 ghost hunters, Eble-Keller said.
"We came up way, way short," he said.
Besides, the battlefield is the main draw for ghost hunters, he added.
"That's the main reason they wanted to come to Gettysburg," Eble-Keller said.
E-mails went out Monday informing would-be investigators of the cancellation.
Whether some people will still show up is unknown.
"A lot of people made motel reservations," Eble-Keller said. "It's up to them if they still want to come on their own."
Most reactions so far have been ones of disappointment, he said.
"Other people say that they feel sorry for us because we put so much hard work into it," Eble-Keller said. "I have more sympathy, I think, than anger."
When more than a dozen lambs and sheep were slaughtered on a Shelburne farm last fall, wildlife officials suspected either a wolf that had escaped from captivity or a rogue mutt on a hungry rampage.
But after the culprit animal was killed and examined, they found themselves with a bigger mystery: How did a wild eastern gray wolf, an endangered species absent from the state for more than a century, find its way to western Massachusetts?
Thomas J. Healy, head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Northeast regional office, said Tuesday recent DNA tests at the agency's Oregon labs confirmed it is the first gray wolf found in New England since a 1993 case in upstate Maine.
The discovery of the 85-pound male wolf may help solidify experts' theories that the endangered species has been migrating south from Canada and repopulating rural parts of New England.
This wolf, though, was found farther south than any other reported spottings, and nothing indicates it had escaped or been set free by someone keeping it as a pet, authorities said. Continued...
Hollywood super producer Steven Spielberg is preparing to launch a new social network, we’ve heard from multiple sources. The focus will be on users who’ve had or who are interested in sharing paranormal and extraterrestrial experiences. The new social network may also have original video content investigating alleged ghost and UFO stories.
Spielberg has always had a love for ghost and UFO stories. His movies include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Poltergeist (1982), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Casper (1995), Men in Black (1997), The Haunting (1999), War of the Worlds (2005) and the upcoming Interstellar (2009). His first movie, at 16, was a 140-minute science fiction adventure called Firelight (which later inspired Close Encounters). Add to those titles a score of other sci-fi movies.
Spielberg has apparently had at least one paranormal experience himself. There are stories of him staying in a hotel called Excelsior House and being so frightened by ghosts that he fled the room and moved 20 miles away. We’ve also heard anecdotes about Spielberg seeing the ghost of a dead relative repeatedly as a child. Whether based in reality or the product of an exceptional imagination, these experiences may have had an impact on his life’s work and this upcoming social network.
The project may have originally been associated with Yahoo but the project was killed off before launch. But if our sources are right, the idea has lived on and a team in Los Angeles is working to launch it in the next few months.
Hundreds of documented sightings of UFOs across the UK will be released by the MoD to the National Archive in the coming weeks.
Detailed accounts of sightings in the Bonnybridge area are expected to be among the files.
The Stirlingshire town became famous in the 1990s after dozens of locals reported objects in the sky.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said the secret files date back more than 10 years.
He said: "The files contain information about UFO sightings by members of the public and include photographs that people have taken or drawings they have done.
"There is no scientific data included in the files just the public reports which may also include a comment from nearby RAF bases saying whether there was flight activity when the sightings took place."
Earlier files released by the MoD have concluded that UFO sightings could be attributed to natural phenomena in the atmosphere.
'Ongoing issue'
Bonnybridge councillor Billy Buchanan, who said he had seen UFOs on many occasions, said the release of the files was good news.
He said: "The more information that comes out about the sightings the more it gives credibility to all those, including myself, who have been ridiculed by speaking out.
"On a number of occasions I have seen something that cannot be rationally defined.
"It's an ongoing issue for Bonnybridge with many of the area's elderly people getting concerned when they cannot explain something they've seen in the sky."
Luis Burgos writes: "Silvia Simondini of the VISION OVNI organization has sent us another curious daylight photograph of a UFO taken at Sierra de los Padres, Buenos Aires Province by collaborators of her organization, who have managed to take excellent photos of these objects over the area in recent times.
"According to Jorge Luis Figueiras, a FAO image specialist, [the photos] show a solid object with a protuberance in its lower section, which has been noticed in other cases. From another angle we can see the object with its typical "hat-shaped" UFO configuration, in a rotated position. UFOs are visiting these latitudes again while the 2008 saucer wave continues in full swing."
Bolivia: La Paz
Photo taken by Maria Griselda, a member of the Ciufos-LaPampa group. The object visible over the colonial-era palace was not visible at the time that the photo was taken. Another example of a "chance UFO"?
Peru: Macchu-Picchu
Raul Oscar Chaves writes: "The purpose of the first photo was to capture the lovely landscape formed by the shadowy mountains against a cloudy background. Upon downloading the photo, the presence of a possible sphere was noticed. There was a marked contrast in color between [the object] and the landscape, which was nearly in shadow.
"In the second, the idea was to place the presence of toursits on the mountain crest within the frame, represented by a plant decorated with a flower. The notorious presence of an object in the image's background was subsequently detected.
"These photos were taken by members of CIUFOS employing a 6 MP Kodak Easyshare digital camera."
Naval warships might look like all-powerful vessels but they are also highly vulnerable to being spotted by the enemy. That fear of being detected has led the military to develop new stealth technologies that allow ships to be virtually invisible to the human eye, to dodge roaming radars, put heat-seeking missiles off the scent, disguise their own sound vibrations and even reduce the way they distort the Earth’s magnetic field, as senior lecture in remote sensing and sensors technology at Britannia Royal Navy College, Chris Lavers, explains in March’s Physics World.
Wars throughout the twentieth century prompted advances in stealth technologies. Some of the earliest but most significant strides towards invisibility involved covering ships with flamboyant cubist patterns – a technique known as “dazzle painting”. During the Second World War, the US military even worked out a way of using lights to make the brightness of a ship match that of the background sea.
When British physicist Robert Watson Watt was charged with designing a ‘death ray’ to destroy entire towns and cities during the Second World War, he calculated it impossible. He did conclude however that radio waves could be used to detect ships and aircrafts too far way to be seen by the naked eye.
Radar was born. For ships to dodge radar, both a ship’s geometry and a ship’s coating have to be considered. Radars are particularly receptive to right angles, which is why modern battleships are often peculiarly shaped. Special paint and foam-coating have also been used to cover ships, which convert radio-waves into heat and stop radio waves being reflected, rendering the signals useless.
The “stealthiest” ship that currently exists is Sweden’s Visby Corvette. Apart from being painted in grey dazzle camouflage and made of low-radar reflectivity materials, it also does not use propellers, which are the noisiest part of a ship. The vessel also has the lowest “magnetic signature” of any current warship.
But the next generation of warships could be truly invisible by exploiting “metamaterials” – artificially engineered structures first dreamt up by physicist John Pendry at Imperial College, London. Metamaterials are tailored to have specific electromagnetic properties not found in nature. In particular, they can bend light around an object, making it appear to an observer as though the waves have passed through empty space.
About the research, Chris Lavers writes, “If optical and radar metamaterials could be developed, they might provide a way to make a ship invisible to both human observers and radar systems, although the challenges of building a cloak big enough to hide an entire ship are huge.”
826LA.org (the Los Angeles chapter of Dave Egger's 826 Valencia organization) opened THE ECHO PARK TIME TRAVEL MART, a store front for its writing and tutoring center in Echo Park. The store features a wide array of products to serve your time travel need---everything from Caveman Candy to Evil Robot Memory Erasers and Heisenberry-flavored Time Freezy Hyper-Slush. I designed all the product and store graphics. This is a quick video tour I filmed 30 minutes before the official opening.
While appearing live on an internet radio program on Monday, February 25, 2008, UFO Researcher Dick Criswell took several live reports about UFO sightings. Some were from Eastern Canada and others from the area of the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Generating Plant near Homestead, Florida. The Florida sightings involved both cylindrical and triangular shaped UFOs. Earlier today, Tuesday, February 26, 2008, we received more reports of triangular shaped UFOs near Homestead and the nuclear power plant operated by Florida Power and Light.
Just after receiving the additional reports of UFO sightings from the Homestead area, more reports came in from areas all along the East Coast of Florida. Shortly after that, the Turkey Point Nuclear Power Generating automatically shut down leaving millions of South Florida residents without power. Based on the reports we received and the fact that UFOs have been directly and indirectly connected to other power outages and failures throughout the years, we believe that the Florida outage was caused by the presence of UFOs.
A woman collecting wood near mountains in Fujeirah said she was nearly scared to death after being confronted by a lion. The Emirati was with two female helpers collecting woods to burn at their home when she saw the animal staring at the three while perched on rocks ahead of them.
She said: “Suddenly I saw the animal just standing there. We were terrified and rushed to hide from it behind rocks fearing it would attack us. I was so scared and thought it would kill us. After a few minutes the animal disappeared and we could no longer see it. I know it was a lion as I can recognise them from other animals.” Police were immediately alerted to the area and conducted a search for the animal although no trace was found. A spokesman for Fujeirah Police said: “We moved patrols into the area and although we have not found the animal we are continuing to scan the area.”
According to reports last week, one farmer lost 70 sheep in a frenzied attack to an unknown predator in an area close to the reported lion sighting.
The farmer arrived at his field near Badiya last Wednesday morning after being alerted by a farm worker to find the mutilated remains of his flock scattered around the field.
The sheep were worth dhs35,000, he told police. The man was quoted in the Arabic press as saying there were rumours circulating of a resident bringing a juvenile lion into the area and then losing it. The Head of Dubai Zoo, Riza Khan, told 7DAYS that the woman may have seen a large wild cat that lives in Fujeirah and Ras Al Khaimah, but it was unlikely to be a lion as the environment is not suitable for them to live there.
The UAE is no stranger to wild animals appearing in strange places as last year a female juvenile cheetah was found wandering in Sharjah near Tasjeel Auto City. The animal, believed to be an escaped pet, was trapped and taken to safety. A large crocodile was found by a man in his front garden in Ajman after returning from his local mosque while a smaller croc was also spotted walking along the Al Wasl Road in Dubai before it was beaten to death.
All were believed to be pets that have escaped from homes or gardens.
Mike Zimmerman, 62, retired from the Texas Department of Public Safety after 25 years but not before he was on Protective Detail for five Texas Governors.
Zimmerman was assigned to protect Governors Briscoe, Clements, White, Richards and Bush for a period spanning 19 years.
"Clements was governor twice," he said.
To date, Zimmerman may be the most credible witness to come forward to report what Erath County residents have been coming forward in droves to report since January 8 -- another unidentified flying object.
He said it was 6:05 a.m. on January 31 when he awoke from a peaceful slumber for a Mother Nature call. As he was returning to bed, something caught his eye through the bedroom window of his home located just past the city limits on U.S. Highway 281 South in Stephenville, Texas.
"I saw three bright lights," Zimmerman said. "Two white lights were grouped closer together and higher and the third one was closer to the horizon. That one was a was a reddish orange color."
Zimmerman shared a sketch and notes he had jotted down.
But, there is more to this story…
The two white lights also were shooting out beams of white light in a pulsating strobe light effect. The reddish orange light closer to the horizon did not have beams shooting from it.
"At first I thought it might be three helicopters with really bright search lights until I noticed the beams of white lights shooting out to the side of the bright lights," Zimmerman said.
He said he awoke his fiancée to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was seeing. The couple watched for approximately three minutes he said.
"What I saw is completely different from what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw," Zimmerman said. "The beams from the side weren't as obvious as the bright big lights and they were just real quick. The whole beam would just shoot out there and just disappear. If anyone had taken a picture with a timed exposure they would have caught all of them (shooting beams) at one time. It was strange. I have never seen anything like this before at all."
Zimmerman said the sun was rising and he's not sure how the lights disappeared. He said he didn't know if they became less obvious because of the sun's light or if they just left.
"I could have turned away for a minute and they left," Zimmerman said. "I'm not sure what happened, but I remembered looking and they just weren't there anymore."
Zimmerman said his home faces the northwest and his bedroom is on the back of the structure.
"I got out my compass and it indicated 115 degrees," Zimmerman said. "So the objects would have been more to the east."
Zimmerman said he had talked with Gaitan on January 9 so he was aware of the object Gaitan and his son had viewed on the evening of January 8.
When asked if he was able to ascertain if the objects appeared to be under intelligent control, he said he could not say because he didn't see them move.
"I hope it's military," Zimmerman said. "I know they've got things. I could go either way (opinion of military or alien) but it was out of the ordinary and I have never seen anything like it before."
Zimmerman said as he was watching the shooting beams he at first wondered if something could be going on at Fort Hood.
"That's the first thought I had, but that's a long way off and it appeared to be closer than that," Zimmerman said.
Zimmerman estimated that with a dime held out with his arm fully extended, the objects would have been slightly larger than the dime.
He is currently employed as an officer with the Tarleton State University Police and he said he has not had another sighting, but openly confessed, "I pay more attention now and I'm watching for it."
When asked why he waited so long to come forward, he looked thoughtful and then he said, "It was something I had to think about and it didn't seem the same as what Lee Roy (Gaitan) saw."
The Stephenville UFO saga continues with Zimmerman being the third officer to come forward after Erath County Constable Lee Roy Gaitan and Sheriff's Deputy Jim Clifton.
Loren Coleman is a leading authority on some diverse topics.
He has a master's degree in clinical social work and has worked for years as a researcher and consultant in the field of suicide prevention and school violence, all over the country.
But he also has degrees in anthropology and zoology, and over the years he's become a national figure in cryptozoology, the area of documenting new or unknown animals. Cryptozoology includes the study of legendary mystery creatures like Bigfoot or the Abominable Snowman, as well as the search for not-yet-documented birds, reptiles or cats.
Coleman, 60, is a former adjunct professor at the University of Southern Maine and has written 30 books on cryptozoology and related fields. He's also consulted on TV shows like NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries," the History Channel's "Monster Quest," and A&E's "Ancient Mysteries." Continued...
A team of researchers at the University of Alberta has discovered a gene that is able to block HIV, and in turn prevent the onset of AIDS.
Stephen Barr, a molecular virologist in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, says his team has identified a gene called TRIM22 that can block HIV infection in a cell culture by preventing the assembly of the virus.
"When we put this gene in cells, it prevents the assembly of the HIV virus," said Barr, a postdoctoral fellow. "This means the virus cannot get out of the cells to infect other cells, thereby blocking the spread of the virus."
Barr and his team also prevented cells from turning on TRIM22 - provoking an interesting phenomenon: the normal response of interferon, a protein that co-ordinates attacks against viral infections, became useless at blocking HIV infection.
"This means that TRIM22 is an essential part of our body's ability to fight off HIV. The results are very exciting because they show that our bodies have a gene that is capable of stopping the spread of HIV."
One of the greatest challenges in battling HIV is the virus' ability to mutate and evade medications. Antiretroviral drugs introduced during the late 1990s interfere with HIV's ability to produce new copies of itself - and even they are beneficial, the drugs are unable to eradicate the virus. Barr and his team have discovered a gene that could potentially do the job naturally.
"There are always newly emerging drug-resistant strains of HIV so the push has been to develop more natural means of blocking the virus. The discovery of this gene, which is natural in our cells, might provide a different avenue," said Barr. "The gene prevents the assembly of the virus so in the future the idea would be to develop drugs or vaccines that can mimic the effects of this gene."
"We are currently trying to figure out why this gene does not work in people infected with HIV and if there is a way to turn this gene on in those individuals," he added. "We hope that our research will lead to the design of new drugs, or vaccines that can halt the person-to-person transmission of HIV and the spread of the virus in the body, thereby blocking the onset of AIDS."
The researchers are now investigating the gene's ability to battle other viruses.
Barr's research is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research. The findings are published in the Public Library of Science Pathogens.
The following was posted with this video: Professor Sugob, Here are the two videos you asked for. As per our conversation, I can be reached at home until 4:30PM daily and then I can be reached at my cellphone number. Answers to your additional questions: 1. Yes, the skeletal structure is in tact and the bones & joints can clearly be seen under the skin. 2. The pores of the skin are quite small but I can see them with a magnifying glass. 3. The toes do have toenails but I don't see any nails on the fingers. 4. Yes, that is hair on the legs and arms. It's hard to photograph with my camera. 5. Yes, it does have an odor and it is very pronounced! The smell is hard to describe but I can say it's very unpleasant. 6. About a tissue scrape, yes, as long as it is not destructive to the animal / thing. Thank you again for your (and Professor Mahs') help on this. I look forward to your next reply. dave
Due to the great pain he suffered due to his wife's death, 32 year old Jeff Green did something totally out of character for a normal and sane person. He said, "I could no longer take the pain that my wife's death caused me and I brought her back home." This is where Jeff's story takes a twisted turn. His wife, Lucy, was born with a heart condition that cut her life at the young age of 29. Lucy's last words to Jeff were, "We will meet again in heaven." These words served of no consolation to Jeff's despair.
At the funeral, in an act of desperation, Jeff decided that he would not let Lucy leave him. "I called the cemetary caretaker and explained my feelings. I spoke with the authorities and got special permission to take my wife home with me. They thought it was strange, but I was allowed to take her with me. I'd rather have her at home than seven feet under ground. Lucy had a great sense of humor and I'm sure she would appreciate being my coffee table." Jeff ordered a special glass casing that eliminates the decomposition of a dead body. "It cost me about $6,000.00, but it was worth it."
Some of his friends and relatives, filled with fear, stop visiting Jeff. His true friends respected his decision and continue visiting him. Some even comment that it is a nice piece of furniture.
What is depicted in the picture above? Is it two jets several miles apart from each other? Or two police cars several yards apart from each other? Or is it what each of us want it to be?
UFO NEWS - On February 6th we posted Michael Lee Hill's UFO video captured on August 18th, 2006 on the shores of Lake Erie. Six days later it has generated a heated debate in the post's comments.
Many skeptics believe the lights pictured above are two distant jets coming at us in a landing pattern - appearing to hover. Other skeptics say these are two police cars driving across a hill at night - on parallel roads with distance forcing the perspective.
We don't think so.
1) Michael Lee Hill tells us he shot this in Eastlake, Ohio. In this topo map of the area you will see no hills near or across the shoreline.
2) If these aircraft are flying towards Eastlake then we can only find two destinations, Lost Nation Municipal Airport and Cuyahoga County Airport. Neither of these airports look the part for what would be obviously BIG planes on approach.
3) If these aircraft were coming in to Cleveland Airport they would be traveling from right to left.
4) In the frame grab above shouldn't there be an appreciable size difference between two aircraft of this size, miles apart — even with the alleged mirage affect?
UFO NEWS believes these two 'things' are flying about 20 feet apart from each other.
If anyone would like to further debunk this sighting I believe we must begin with these new ideas. - UFO NEWS
This footage is from the FOX News UFO segment 2/3/07. They cut out the good parts so I thought you might want to see the whole clip.
The truth may well be out there, but who would have thought it was floating over the skies of Newton-le-Willows?
This strange object was spotted hurtling through the night skies by several local residents.
It's sudden appearance over homes on Wymbrel Avenue at around 9pm on Wednesday left many baffled.
Stuart Welsby was he returning from a shopping trip with wife Emma and their young son when he spotted a 'glowing orange blob' floating across the Newton skyline and took these pictures on his mobile phone.
Amazingly, he spotted the same strange glowing light at around the same time the following night.
He said: "We just saw this thing in the sky and both said 'what an earth is that'.
"It was right above us but was moving at the normal speed of an airplaine but it had no aviation lights and when I turned my engine off there was absolutely no noise coming from it.
"I would describe it as like a bright orange glow. You could by the way it was moving that it wasn't a shooting star or a meteor.
"I stopped the car and got out to take a better look and there were a few other people milling about who'd also noticed it. It was very odd.
"I took a picture on my mobile phone but we were only about a minute from our house so we dashed home to get my digital camera.
"When we got back it was still there but by the time I had got the digital cameras it had disappeared, which was also very strange because it was a clear night with not much cloud.
Stuart, a 31-year-old mobile paint sprayer, says he has no firm beliefs on the existence of UFOs before his unusual encounter on Wednesday night.
He joked: "We have a 16-month-old boy and had just been shopping, so we'd certainly not had one too many! In fact, we were rushing to get home because it was past our son's bedtime but this thing just stopped us in our tracks.
"Afterwards my wife said that this thing had really got to me because I was on the internet checking web forums to see if anyone else spotted it.
"There were quite a few people about so other's spotted it as well, I'd really like to know what other saw and what they think was behind it."
There have been two more sightings of a big cat in the Stonehaven area.
Marketing and PR consultant Elma McMenemy, who lives at Barras, had a close encounter with the beast, which she described as similar to a panther, on Cheyne Hill while out walking her dogs on Tuesday morning.
Mrs McMenemy's suspicions were first aroused when her dogs, both deerhounds, began scratching at a stone wall.
She told the Leader: "They were terribly attracted to the wall. One of my dogs jumped over it. I looked over to see what was happening and the cat stood up. It was right there, about three or four feet away from me."
Mrs McMenemy (56), said the cat was "completely black, with a shiny, smooth coat" and the same height as one of her deerhounds - about 28 inches tall.
"The dogs appeared to have interrupted its breakfast," she continued. "It had been gnawing at what looked like a deer's leg. My dogs gave chase, and it ran. It tried to take its meal with it, but dropped it a few seconds later".
She said: "I got such a fright, I was so shaken up. I think it's a good idea for other dog walkers to be warned. My dogs are quite big so thankfully it ran away." She added she would think twice about taking her dogs to Cheyne Hill – at least for a few days.
This remarkable sighting comes just days after the Leader was told of another reported sighting in a garden in the harbour area of Stonehaven.
Carol McCaskie, who lives in the Old Town, says that she saw a big cat two months ago.
Her partner, Chris Stephen, said: "We weren't going to mention it until we saw in last week's Leader that there had been a sighting at Crawton. We thought people wouldn't believe us."
Miss McCaskie said: "It was about half four in the morning. Our dog Moya started barking, which is very unusual for her in the middle of the night. I let her and our cat out, but the pair of them both froze on the front steps. That's when I saw the big cat at the end of the garden."
She said it was smooth haired, and a "solid, dark colour".
Miss McCaskie continued: "It just turned round slowly and looked at me, then at our cat and the dog, before it just slowly strolled away."
"It was about the same size as our cocker spaniel, but it was definitely not a dog. It was a big cat." she insists.
Carol and Chris became even more suspicious when, three weeks ago, their dog started barking at half past four in the morning once again. This time, they found a large dead rabbit on the steps in front of their home.
In a further mystery, four or five domestic cats disappeared from the area around that time.
Miss McCaskie reported the rabbit carcass to the vet, and was referred to David McKinnon, the Wildlife Police Officer for Grampian, who came and removed the animal.
Mr McKinnon told the Leader that he is still awaiting test results to reveal what killed the rabbit, adding: "We have had lots of sightings of big cats in the Grampian area over the years. Many of them have been reported by credible people, including doctors and police officers. So yes, we do get big cat sightings in Grampian. But the jury's still out on whether there are indeed big cats in Britain."
