"Giant Butterfly" Sighting Over Los Angeles
Blogger Grant Lawrence describes a reader's strange sighting at "The Giant Butterfly" Returns to Los Angeles: Witness Describes Amazing UFO Experience
...I just stood back there quietly scanning the tree with my eyes for 'little Sam' the squirrel when I noticed above the tree line coming from my right way out in the sky, a sizable object that was moving at a steady moderate pace. Not soaring fast. Just passing from right to left in the sky. It was a clear sky. Partly cloudy-partly sunny.
It didn't take long to realize that this object was something quite unique. It is hard to deduce the distance that this object had been out in the sky but it was too large to have been a regular bird and did not look like an airplane or anything mechanical. The reason why it was so odd is that although seeing this from my angle looking up at it, I could not make out any real definition but I did see what looked like wings above this mass that flapped like the wings of a butterfly.
It looked like what a gigantic butterfly would appear to be at a great distance in the sky. It was not streamlined or had wings open like a bird soaring. This is what really knocked me over. As it kept passing over I looked at this object that I then considered to be some kind of very large 'bird' because of the 'wings' that I saw flapping but in the motion that a butterfly would flap its wings. So in my mind my first thought was a huge 'bird' because of the many sightings of enormous 'birds' and the thought of a gigantic butterfly was to me, outlandish. Continue reading at "The Giant Butterfly" Returns to Los Angeles: Witness Describes Amazing UFO Experience
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Wedding Off After 'Demonic Voice' Called
smh - A man broke up with his fiancee after phone calls from a "demonic voice" told him she was sleeping around, the jury in a black magic sex trial has been told.
The man said he believed a black magic curse had been placed on the woman he loved and he was "petrified" when he "continuously got calls from these demonic voices".
The man, who cannot be named, was giving evidence in the NSW District Court on Thursday at the Sydney trial of Tony Golossian, 62, Arthur Psichogios, 40, and his wife, Frances Psichogios, 39.
The men have pleaded not guilty to a string of mainly sex charges relating to two women, while the woman has denied eight charges relating to one complainant.
Crown prosecutor Sarah Huggett alleges the complainants were told, and believed, black magic curses were placed on them that would bring illness or death to them or their loved ones.
To rid themselves of the curses, they attended "prayer sessions" where they were blindfolded and sex took place, Ms Huggett says.
She says the women received phone calls from "disguised, demonic-sounding voices" instructing them to do things.
Similar phone calls to the first complainant's fiance, urging him not to marry her, were designed to isolate her, Ms Huggett alleges.
The man told the jury he became petrified at receiving phone calls from a "demonic voice" after learning of the curse on his fiancee.
In one call, before her third "prayer session", he said he was told to go to a certain hotel room, but he had to promise "not to harm Arthur".
"If you harm him, we will not protect you from the evil," the caller said, before he discovered his fiancee and Arthur Psichogios in the room.
In another call, the voice told him: "Arthur loves you like a brother, it is (the woman) that is blackmailing Arthur to have sex with him."
He said his fiancee asked him if angels could make you do bad things, and that she said she was willing to do whatever it took to protect her family.
In another call, the voice said he needed to "save himself" from his fiancee, that she was "using the angels as an excuse to sleep around", and used the Greek word for "slut" to describe her.
In a further call, the voice instructed him to go to another hotel room, saying if he did not listen there would be an accident "and my father would die and I would have up to 90 per cent burns on my body".
The man said "our relationship was destroyed" after he went to the hotel room and his naked fiancee answered his knock at the door.
But he said although the wedding was off, he kept in contact with her as he was concerned "for her safety" as he still believed the black magic was around her.
The trial is continuing before Judge Penelope Hock.
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India: Fight Witchcraft With Science
- TelegraphIndiaDispur has decided to fight the menace of social prejudices and superstitions like witchcraft by popularising science education in the state.
The decision in this regard was taken recently after the Assam Science, Technology & Environment Council (ASTEC) appointed over 120 specialist tutors to popularise science among school students.
Another 160 teachers will be appointed shortly for the same purpose.
An Assam government official told The Telegraph that most teachers would go to underdeveloped and char areas in the state to take science beyond classrooms, to create a scientific temperament among the younger generation so that they do not develop unfounded beliefs and superstitions. He said the focus would be on Karbi Anglong, NC Hills, Barpeta, Baksa, Dhubri and Goalpara districts under the project.
The appointed teachers have already undergone a 21-day training organised by ASTEC.
The training focused on acclimatising the students with practical utilities of science.
“These teachers will try and make science a way of life that would help them lead a life free from unfounded beliefs, superstitions and prejudices,” the official said.
The official said the current teaching methodology of science and mathematics was only theory-centric, which made the subjects boring and tough to understand.
He said such teaching did not enthuse students to adopt or use science to solve problems in their daily lives.
Under the new methodology, the specialist teachers would take students out and ask them to deliver speeches regarding various practical uses of science. The official said students would be given additional marks in their class examinations if they could convince people about the utility of science.
“Performance of these teachers will be assessed at regular intervals by a panel of experts. The assessment would particularly examine whether the teachers were successful in implementing a practical formula to popularise science,” the official said.
The principal of B. Borooah College, Dinesh Baishya, welcomed the initiative and said long-term results would depend on the dedication of the teachers and involvement of the students. He said many unfounded beliefs like witchcraft exposed the ugly face of society.
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Son discovers mother's prized necklace at scene of road crash that killed her 25 years ago... after tips from TWO psychics
dailymail - A son whose mother died in a motorbike crash 25 years ago has found her golden necklace at the scene of the tragedy - after being tipped off by two psychics.
Mother-of-three Angela Bishop, 42, was killed when the motorbike she was on with husband Michael, now 70, collided with a car in Cornwall in 1985.
The nurse's beloved necklace, which she wore every day, was never found until son Richard Bishop, 48, was inspired to search for it after meetings with the mediums.
Now Richard and his wife Paula claim they found the gold cross necklace at the site of the crash.
It was after scraping through undergrowth with a metal detector and using head torches that Richard made the discovery last week.
Builder Mr Bishop, who lives in Barwick, near Yeovil, said: 'I was a sceptic at the start, but now I am a believer. I would not have chosen to go through all of this emotion over the past few months. It has been tough and I never thought we would find it.
'When I shone my torch over the ground after digging away with a trowel and saw this bit of metal shine, I could not believe it.
'I know some people will not believe us and sometimes I cannot grasp everything that has happened. But mediums can help people and there is no way we would have even known this necklace was there without them'
'We gave each other a big hug and I ended up bursting into tears.'
His wife Paula, 44, was first told there was a 'lost' necklace that needed to be found during a private reading with Yeovil psychic Flo Essex, 80.
Paula visited Flo by chance, after a accompanying a friend who wanted to visit the medium after her mother died in 1997.
She was stunned when Flo began recounting the crash that had killed her mother-in-law and revealed Angela desperately wanted her cross necklace to be found.
Mother-of-three Paula returned home and told Richard about the reading - but they decided against going further then as it was too upsetting.
But in July this year, another psychic, Wendy Drayton, spoke to Paula at a group session and told her the name of the road - the A30 - and said an important necklace was lying there in a ditch.
Michael and Paula then had a private reading with Wendy, who gave further information about the crash and told them Angela was unhappy being buried in
Cornwall as her family was from Somerset.
Paula said: ''We knew then that we had to find it. Wendy told us Angela wanted her necklace to be found and that it was lying at the scene of the crash.
'My father was ill at the time and she told me he was dying. She added that he had almost died the week before - there's no way she could have known.
'Wendy then told me that Michael and I should go and visit in three weeks, so we arranged a visit for then, which was the 9th of October.''
The couple decided to take Wendy with them on their three-hour trip to Cornwall to the crash scene on the A30, near Solways Garage, Marazanvose, near Redruth.
They had identified the spot through a newspaper cutting from the Cornish Gazette in Redruth library.
Before they arrived, Wendy told them there was a telegraph pole at the site - which tragic Angela had looked at as she lay dying on the road.
To the shock of Michael and Paula, there was indeed a pole at the site and Wendy was able to show them exactly where Angela was flung across the road.
Michael and Paula then began examining the verge - which is covered in ivy and trees - with head torches and trowels and Michael found the necklace buried in the undergrowth.
After finding the necklace, the couple took it to their original psychic Flo Essex, who told them Angela would soon appear to Richard in human form.
She also told them further details about the crash and described seeing Angela being forced into the air with the impact.
Richard, who has been with wife Paula for 17 years, said he still couldn't believe mediums had helped him find his mother's necklace after so long.
Mrs Essex, renowned in Yeovil for her charity work with husband Jim, said: 'My spiritual work is important to me and I am glad I could help. I am not quite sure what I have done, but the lady gave me a big hug after the session and left very happy.'
Paula Bishop added: 'I know some people will not believe us and sometimes I cannot grasp everything that has happened. But mediums can help people and there is no way we would have even known this necklace was there without them.'
The couple have placed the necklace over a picture of Angela, which they have at their home.
'We have put the necklace around her neck on a photograph of her so they are now finally reunited.'
Paula added: 'I never thought it was going to work, at every step things seemed to go wrong. It came as a complete surprise when I saw my husband with it in his hands.
'The process has been incredibly difficult for my husband and his father but they both feel like they have a bit of Angela back now.
'When we gave the chain to my father-in-law he was in complete shock, he couldn't believe it had been found after all these years.
'It was such a tragic accident, for her to die so young and as a mother, it is just awful.
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Mysterious "Hot Spot" on Alien Planet Leaves Scientists Baffled
io9 - Have we discovered an alien colony? That's one sensationalistic but nevertheless awesome possible explanation for the strange "hot spot" discovered on exoplanet Upsilon Andromedae b, 44 light-years from Earth.
The planet is a "hot Jupiter," a gas giant with an extremely high temperature. According to Space.com:
The planet is about 70 percent as massive as Jupiter, and it whips around its star every 4.6 days or so, scientists said.
Crossfield and his team used NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope to measure the total infrared light coming from the planet and its parent star over five days in February 2009.
The Spitzer telescope cannot see the planet directly, but it can detect light variations that arise as the hot side of the planet comes into Earth's field of view. The hottest part of the planet will give off the most infrared light.
Conventional wisdom suggests that the star-planet system should appear brightest when the planet is directly behind the star, thus showing Spitzer its full sun-facing side.
But the system was brightest when the planet was to the side of the star, with its side facing Earth.
Scientists aren't sure what would account for this bizarre brightness, though they have some theories. Supersonic winds might cause it, or some other aspect of hot Jupiter meteorology that we don't understand yet. I'm not sure why nobody has yet suggested that it's heat pollution from a massive alien colony. Seems like the most logical explanation.