thesun - An expectant hush descends over the audience in the darkened room as the woman up front begins to twitch.
As she curls her toes inside her worn grey socks, Cathy Star Eagle's head falls forward and she talks in a low, monotone voice: "Greetings to all who have gathered seeking knowledge and universal truth."
We're clearly not at a conference for insurance salesmen.
The bizarre event is an extraterrestrial channelling session at the world's largest UFO conference, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Each year thousands of flying saucer fans from the UK and all over the world descend on the five-day event - which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary - to hear from a range of wackos. Sorry, speakers.
The Sun has bagged a spot at Cathy's much-anticipated sideshow - despite a ban on the Press - where she claims to pass on messages from The Ambassador telepathically.
Not surprisingly The Ambassador turns out to be an alien, otherwise known as Loran, from the planet M42 in the Orion star system. But to sceptics, Cathy's description of her ET pal doesn't really help her case.
She says: "Loran is about 4ft tall, copper in colour, with an Asian appearance. He has a little bit of hair, but not a lot.
"Be careful what you ask because he doesn't hold back - although he's always respectful and discreet."
Cathy, a somewhat overweight woman from nearby Tucson, is now in a trance-like state as she answers one question each from those present.
But rather than seize the chance to ask a real-life alien about intergalactic space travel, the audience are more interested in the mundane, quizzing agony uncle Loran on their house moves, career worries or relationship troubles.
One elderly man asks about his granddaughter, who is battling cancer.
Slowly Cathy, alias Loran, replies: "We do feel this situation is more positive than first thought. The malignancy is not as advanced as feared. Nutrition will be key to overcoming the disease."
Then she blinks back into consciousness with all the theatrics of a pantomime actor.
Ironically, after telling the man his granddaughter needs a better diet, we spot her later in the restaurant with an equally overweight friend tucking into mammoth-sized hamburgers and fries.
Meanwhile, the conference's vendor room is abuzz with activity as self-professed UFO experts flog all manner of merchandise. One book catches my attention - We Are Among You Already - and I approach the table for a look.
Author Jujuolui Kuita, 40, starts to chat and when I ask where she's from, she says cryptically: "From where here on Earth?"
She is in fact from Concord, California, although she insists she is a hybrid, with part-human, part-alien DNA.
She says: "My planet is Faqui in the Andromeda galaxy. Since birth I've known I was from another place. I felt isolated and different, that this wasn't my home.
"I am half reptilian and can shape-shift into another species called Fajan." I can't wait to see this.
"It's scary when it happens in public."
I really can't wait.
"Although other people don't necessarily notice because it happens at a higher frequency than they can see."
Just my luck.
Elsewhere in the vendor room Cynthia Crawford is doing a roaring trade in scary-looking alien sculptures.
The 61-year-old claims her £115 creations promote contact with extra-terrestrials.
Then Cynthia, of Apache Junction, Arizona, starkly states: "I came from a government experiment. My father told me about it. He had operated with the government in Korea and experimented with alien devices found in their crashed ships.
"My mom was drugged as part of a programme and impregnated with me. For that reason my DNA is only 34 per cent human and I've got very porous bones, which are typical of my alien family. There are many races - Zuma Zeta, Tall White Zeta and Blue Archturian. I love them all. I channel their energies into my sculptures."
Further along the hall Stan Romanek, one of the conference's main speakers and a famous "alien abductee", is selling his book, Messages.
The 48-year-old Colorado IT worker was a UFO sceptic until 2000 - when he says he saw his first flying saucer. Since then he claims to have been abducted several times and maintains his story is the most scientifically documented case ever.
Last year his footage of an alien apparently peering in the window of his home caused a media storm. It can be viewed on YouTube.
At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, he says: "You get a lot of whack jobs at conferences like this."
I like him already.
But he insists: "I'm just a regular guy who came into this community with no clue about UFOs. My first abduction occurred in 2001 when there was a knock on my door at 2am. There were three odd-looking creatures with abnormally large, almond-shaped eyes. They started leading me to the balcony and I felt a tap on the back of my head. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in bed with holes all over my back."
Perhaps the most intriguing thing about his case is a series of equations he produced under hypnosis.
He says: "I'm not from a maths background and I'm dyslexic, so the symbols look like gibberish to me. One of the equations ended up being the structure of an element we didn't even have at the time, element 115.
"Dr Claude Swanson, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has confirmed my equations are way above my level of comprehension.
"In fact, he believes they contain clues about the direction that physics is going to take and are beyond current theories in the field."
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Bigfoot Suit Results in Bigfoot Suit...Whaaa?
yahoo - First there was a Bigfoot sighting. Now, there's a Bigfoot suing.
A performance artist and amateur filmmaker who dressed as the mythical beast says New Hampshire park rangers didn't have the right to kick him off a mountain where he had been scaring, or at least amusing, hikers while friends videotaped his antics.
Backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, Jonathan Doyle is suing the state, arguing that the requirement to pay $100 for a special use permit 30 days in advance and get a $2 million insurance bond violates his free speech rights.
"The underlying activities are humorous, but the principle's important," said Jon Meyer, a lawyer representing Doyle. "We're talking about a very small-scale activity in a very large place. We don't believe there's any legitimate government role in regulation."
Doyle's attorneys say no one complained to the state park service after Doyle first dressed as Bigfoot, ran around the rocky top of Mount Monadnock, returned to human form and interviewed bystanders about what they saw Sept. 6, 2009.
"People loved it. It was socially engaging," Doyle, 30, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. "When I showed up at the top of the mountain dressed as Bigfoot and beating my chest, everyone just laughed and hoorayed."
Hikers describing their encounters in a video Doyle posted on YouTube seemed happy to get in on the fun and inflate the legend.
"At first I thought it was just a man in a suit making some sort of documentary, but then I saw it devour this man's friend and a small child," one man said at the top of the popular hiking spot as others behind him relaxed, admired the view and drank water. "I still see blood on the rocks."
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A boy who looked to be about 10 said he even took a photo of the legendary monster, which is more strongly associated with the Pacific Northwest than New Hampshire. "Yeah. I'm gonna put it on eBay, sell it for like $50," he said.
When Doyle let it get out that he planned to return Sept. 19 to film a sequel, Monadnock park manager Patrick Hummel noticed. The subject line in an e-mail he wrote to his supervisor: "Bigfoot problem on Monadnock...not kidding."
Hummel said in the e-mail he planned to intercept Doyle and added, "If you want to waste 5 minutes of your time, he's on YouTube."
So when Doyle returned with a small band of costumed friends to film "The Capture of Bigfoot," they were captured themselves, sort of. Hummel interrupted the skit and barred them from filming, saying Doyle needed a permit.
"Here I am in a Bigfoot outfit, and he's an authority figure and he's got a job to do," Doyle said, during a telephone interview from the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he is waiting tables to support his artwork.
The interrupted skit — of Bigfoot sneaking up on a friend of Doyle's — had about 2,200 hits on YouTube as of Tuesday, while his Sept. 6 video had about 2,300.
Doyle said he thinks officials found his Bigfoot stunt — and the publicity it generated — tacky for a mountain revered by literary giants Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Monadnock is a scenic mountain with views of four states from its 3,165-foot-tall summit. Emerson and Thoreau both hiked it and wrote about it. New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union attorney Barbara Keshen said in her brief that it is said to be among the most-climbed mountains in the world.
A lawyer who was among the friends with him when Hummel stopped the filming forwarded details of the case to the ACLU.
"Jonathan Doyle started this thing with nothing but good humor and intentions," Keshen said. "But it does have serious overtones."
Keshen and the state both filed motions Tuesday seeking favorable verdicts. Doyle is seeking attorneys' fees, nominal damages and to be allowed to videotape on Monadnock without having to get a permit.
Both sides agree there's no need for a trial because no facts are in dispute. What they dispute is whether the administrative rule requiring permits, as it was applied to Doyle, violates his First Amendment rights to free speech and expression.
New Hampshire's department of resources and economic development, which oversees the park system, referred all questions to the attorney general's office because the case is in litigation.
Assistant Attorney General Matt Mavrogeorge said the rule is constitutional.
Doyle, who grew up in Keene and has attended several art schools but has yet to graduate, has done other stunts to elicit reactions. He created and drove a "Bat-Mobile" around Manhattan. He dressed as an angel and stood stock still in the main aisle of an Episcopal church. He also said he designs websites and murals and loves to paint.
"I don't want to be locked in a Bigfoot suit forever," Doyle said. "I'd like to be able to do more."
Bigfoot is the nickname given to sightings of large, hairy, human-like creatures that have been reported across the United States. Scientists are skeptical, at best, about its existence.
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Millions of Dead Fish Clogged Redondo Beach, CA Marina
scpr - Millions of dead fish were found Tuesday floating in a Southern California marina. Boaters awakened to find a carpet of small silvery fish surrounding their vessels, said Staci Gabrielli, marine coordinator for King Harbor Marina on the Los Angeles County coast.
California Fish and Game officials believe the fish are anchovies and sardines.
Experts had yet to determine what happened, but Gabrielli said the fish appeared to have moved into the harbor to escape a red tide, a naturally occurring bloom of toxic algae that can poison fish or starve them of oxygen.
High winds overnight might then have trapped the fish in the harbor, crushing them against a wall where they used up the oxygen and suffocated, she said.
The dead fish were so thick in some places that Garbrielli said boats can't get out of the harbor.
Fish and Game authorities arrived and began taking samples of the fish.
"We have no idea how they got here," said spokesman Andrew Hughan. "There are thousands and thousands and thousands of fish."
King Harbor is on the Santa Monica Bay coast, about 22 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles.
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NOTE: Millions of dead anchovies + lots of scavenging seagulls = bird crap everywhere
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Connecticut Woman Arrested For Keeping Son in Dog Crate
theday - A 54-year-old woman appeared in Middlesex Superior Court today to respond to charges that she had kept her son in a dog crate at night because he was soiling his bed or bedroom, Old Saybrook police Sgt. Kevin Roche said.
Kathlyn Anthony, of 28 River Ave., was charged Sunday with risk of injury to a minor following several months of investigation that involved Old Saybrook police and the state’s Department of Children and Families.
Old Saybrook police learned from an Old Saybrook public schools employee in December that Anthony had allegedly been keeping her son in a dog crate at night for about two weeks, Roche said.
The plastic crate with a metal door measured 36 inches by 22 inches and was 30 inches high, Roche said. The family had once used the crate to house cats, Roche said.
“Apparently, the child who was in the crate was having some issues, or the mother was having some issues with the child defecating in the juvenile’s bed or within his bedroom,” Roche said.
Roche would not disclose the boy’s age or the school he attended to protect the child’s identity. He said the boy was adopted but could not say when he had been adopted or how many other children Anthony had.
Roche said Anthony had “sought out some other remedies – different agencies and different ways of correcting the issue – and it didn’t work,” Roche said.
“So she started using the dog crate as a way of – and I don’t want to say punishment – but that’s where he slept at night,” Roche said.
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Christie Brinkley Convinced She Witness UFO / USO in Crete
contactmusic - Christie Brinkley is convinced she once saw a Ufo when she was living in Crete.
The model and actress insists she has been a believer there's life on other planets ever since.
Brinkley, the former wife of rocker Billy Joel, recalls seeing four bright lights in the sky as she was shopping one day.
She says, "This is (in) broad daylight and the lights are very, very bright... All of a sudden all four of the lights shot over the mountain to the other side of Crete (where I lived)."
Returning to her harbour village, she learned the lights had disappeared beneath the sea.
She adds, "There were no reports of any planes or anything like that and it just went under the water and never re-appeared."