This Week On 'Beyond the Edge' Radio - Mark and Debby Constantino

Mark and Debby are a husband and wife paranormal research team specializing in EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena.) They have been married since 1989 and reside in northern Nevada.

They have been blessed enough to have traveled and investigated some of the most haunted locations in the country with some of the most prominent people in the field.

Over the past several years They have been channeling most of our time and effort into receiving EVP on a consistent basis.

Mark and Debby believe there is a process that allows us to reach our loved ones, giving closure to the dead as well as the living. We also believe that EVP is a huge tool that can aid police in crime solving.

They also work with haunted items. Dolls, antiques, almost any object has potential.

Debby has the gift of attracting spirits. She considers herself born with the natural ability to see, feel and hear spirit. She also feels she vibrates on a level to glimpse into the nature realm.

She was born and raised in a haunted house, and to date all the places we reside remain active and will probably stay active. We do believe this is a large reason for our success.

Mark grew up with a strong belief in the Afterlife, but never experienced anything until he met Debby.

Mark and Debby make numerous appearances and lecture at paranormal conferences around the country sharing our thoughts and techniques on how to successfully record for EVP, along with examples of EVP we have recorded over the years. We also participate in live ghost hunts geared specifically to interactive EVP sessions with groups.

Their experience says yes, you can converse with those who have passed on in almost real time.

Our media appearances include the television shows "Dead Famous," “Paranormal State” and "Ghost Adventures" as well as countless radio programs.

Join Eric Altman and Lon Strickler each Sunday at 10 PM ET as we go
Beyond the Edge!

Just the Facts? - 'Vampire' Stalks Siberia, Antarctic Humanoid and Loch Ness Monster REAL!

'Vampire' stalks Siberian livestock

A blood-sucking creature is preying upon goats near Novosibirsk. As rational explanations run thin on the ground, the specter of the so-called chupacabra raises its demon head.

Horrified farmers and smallholders are confronted by the drained corpses of their livestock in the morning, bloodless and bearing puncture marks to the neck but otherwise largely in tact.

But local cops are reluctant to record apparent vampire attacks, as they await official recertification, leaving the locals up in arms.

Blood-suckers

“If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk! Only our police force are doing jack-diddly about it,” complaining locals told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They say that there is no Chupacabra. Come if you will journalists, have a look at what is happening to us.”

Death in the night

Local animal keeper Natalya told of her experiences.

“It all happened on the night of June 10,” she told KP. “I was sleeping, my daughter was sitting at the computer looking at the internet. She says that about 2.00 am she heard a sound in the yard. Some whining.

“The dog which guards the farm screamed for 15 minutes and then quietened down. The dog’s behavior drew the attention of my daughter Natalie, but she didn’t think it was important. She thought that if a stranger had come to the house then the dog would bark. And here it was more like whining, you think of howling at the moon.

“In the morning it became clear why the dog had been howling. I got up and went to the barn to milk the goats. I looked and saw right on the doorstep a goat with its neck thrown back unnaturally. On the neck there was something like a bite mark, the belly was torn, and there were huge claw marks. I came over bad and started screaming, I ran to the house to see the children were alright,” she said.

Whatever killed the goats never tried to eat the flesh, it just drank its victim’s blood.

From the devil

Natalya’s news of a near-mythical chupacabra spread like wildfire among residents of Krasnoginnoe village, then it became clear that nearby Tolmachevskoye and Chick villages had also been afflicted.

The blood-suckers had targeted cattle in Tolmochevskoye. “It’s come from the devil. I’ve seen it. My brother, even when he lived near St Petersburg seven years ago accidently photographed a chupacabra. He took the usual family picture and then saw the demonic face through the kitchen window. Grey-red it was, such an unpleasant face, like a bat with fangs,” Natalie’s uncle Viktor Shushpanov told KP.

“My brother showed me this photograph and upon the advice of his family he burned it,” he said.

Ring the church bells

“All the people are scared, they fear that the creature will move onto children,” the head of the village said. “We have organized night patrols of six people. We walk through the village, on the look out for this wickedness. But so far we have had no results.”

While hopes for speedy retribution are fast diminishing the beast has turned out to be a boon to troubled parents, presenting a very useful threat for naughty children.

The chupacabra is a recent legend, originating from mid 1990s North America. It is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail.

But there seems to be a more prosaic explanation: Discovery News reported in 2010 that what were believed to be chupacabra in the Americas turned out to be wild dogs infected with a deadly form of mange. The University of Michigan put forward a similar theory. - themoscownews

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Compose

Mysterious apparition appears in flood victim’s photographs

When Michael Harris was photographing rising water outside his village home he saw nothing unusual. However, when he looked at the images later on his computer, Mr Harris, of Great Saxham, near Bury St Edmunds, noticed a number of orb-like discs on the image. And when he looked at them still more closely, he noticed three of the circular discs had what seemed to be faces. The photographs were taken a few weeks ago during the very heavy rain which left some parts of Bury flooded.

The possibility that the strange discs are the result of debris on either the camera lens or sensor have been ruled out because they only appear in one of the pictures he had taken. And the likelihood they are some form of bokeh – the way in which light spots are rendered out of focus – has been similarly put to rest because his compact camera’s lens does not have the wideness of aperture to make such shapes possible. As a result, Mr Harris, who has lived in the cottage with his wife Julie for more than 20 years, is at a loss to explain the strange and peculiar face-like shapes.

But he is very keen to find out what they might be. He said: “When you change the contrast and put the light levels right down, everything else disappears but you can still see the orbs, though they turn blue. It is very strange. I keep looking at them and every time I sit down to have a look I see something else. There must be something in it.” He has even wondered whether the strange discs might be connected with a ghost he believes shares his timber-beamed 200-year-old cottage.

Called ‘John’, Mr Harris said the ghost in their house had a dog and told how John would occasionally ruffle people’s hair, put his hand over a lampshade to cast a shadow or push a photograph off a ledge in the study. “The truth is,” he said. “We don’t know what these discs are. We would really like to know. They are perfectly circular. One of them has an old-fashioned style beard with big long side-burns.” - eveningstar

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Loch Ness monster is more fact than fiction claims paleontologist

Paleontologist Dr Darren Naish reckons there have been too many sightings for 'Nessie' to be a hoax.

Boffin Dr Naish, who lectures at the University of Portsmouth, said: "The huge number of 'sea monster' sightings now on record cant all be explained away as mistakes, sightings of known animals or hoaxes.

"At least some of the better ones some of them made by trained naturalists and such probably are descriptions of encounters with real, unknown animals.

"Because large marine animals continue to be discovered various new whale and shark species have been named in recent years the idea that such species might await discovery is, at the very least, plausible."

Some experts reckon Nessie is a plesiosaur - a long-necked reptile that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs.

But Dr Naish and another dino expert dismissed this idea in speeches at a conference, 'Cryptozoology: Science or Pseudoscience?', in London.

Dr Charles Paxton, of the University of St Andrews, said: "If there are prehistoric animals alive today it would imply that theres something very wrong with our understanding of the fossil record."

Dr Paxton added it could not be assumed all large animals living in the oceans have been discovered.

He said: "If the criteria is solely bigness, then this is not the case.

"In 1995 a benthic ray, which lives on the ocean floor, was found that measured 3.42 metres and eight large marine species have been discovered in the past 20 years."

Cryptozoology is the study of hidden animals or the search for creatures whose existence has not been proved.

There have been hundreds of 'sightings' of the Loch Ness monster since 1933 in the lake, which is 22.5 miles long and up to one-and-a-half miles wide and 754ft deep. - telegraph

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Argentina: More Animal Mutilations

Source: CEUFO (La Pampa, Argentina)
Date: 07.28.11

Argentina: Mysterious Mutilations Continue
By Quique Mario, CEUFO

Animal mutilations remind us of the strange events that rocked the province nearly ten years ago. Pratt, 51, owns a locker manufacturing facility in Alta Italia. He told the El Diario newspaper that “animals mutilated in a similar fashion” were found on his fields just like they did back then.

At the time, the phenomenon was ascribed to extraterrestrial beings and served to nurture peasant superstitions like the “Chupacabras”. SENASA advised at the time that mutilations in over a hundred of these cases could be blamed on the “red-muzzled mouse”. However, this species does not exist in the region and the mystery was never explained.

Pratt did not make his discovery widely known; some friends discouraged him because “they say that these are just fantasies that people make up.” However, the story became known and Alta Italia’s FM radio station broadcasted it this Wednesday morning.

German Schreiber, the officer-in-charge of the Sheriff’s office, traveled on Wednesday noon to the “El Iman” ranch, belonging to the Pratt family. It is located 13 kilometers from town, and he was accompanied by the town’s veterinarian.

“He was unable to determine the cause of death. It’s just like the cases that occurred at that time,” noted the policeman.

In an interview with El Diario, Pratt says that his foreman found two Aberdeen Angus calves, each weighing 350 kilograms, mutilated in a very strange way and without any traces of blood around them. All this in a 60 hectare spread.

“One was missing its scalp completely, all the way from the muzzle to the left. The bone has been peeled away at the carretilla, and the tongue is missing along with skin from its throat. There isn’t a single drop of blood anywhere; the incision of the skin is perfect, as if done with a razor,” he says, astonished.

The other animal is missing its upper teeth. It’s upper lip is burned to a dark blue, and half of its tongue is missing. No other signs are visible.”

The discovery stupefied the employee who came across the animals as he toured the property, and even Pratt himself. “The man has been working in the field for forty years and is used to seeing dead animals, yet he never saw anything like it. I’ve also seen many dead animals, but never under these circumstances,” he added.

“Carrion animals aren’t involved. No way. It isn’t a puma, or a wild boar, or even a carancho,” he noted.

Aside from the dead animals, two gates along the ranch fences were found with their chains broken, and the ox cart was disconnected.

Pratt did not inform the police, nor did he make the case known to any other agency, since he is well aware of the reply offered by SENASA at the time. “They determined that it was either a mouse or a carancho (vulture). I know that. But if you ask me, I’ll say no. This is something that I’ve never seen, something that really attracts attention.”

Along with his son Mauricio, 18, he took photos of the animals, which were left on the field in a state of decomposition.

Pratt is 51 and he is known in town as “an earnest man.” “I know the subject. I was raised in the countryside. I’m not crazy. I’m normal, like any other local,” he jokes, as he recreates the circumstances of time and space in which the surprising animal mutilation occurred. “The kid who surveys the fields left at one o’clock and returned the next day at noon. [The mutilation] must have occurred during the course of that afternoon, night and the morning of the next day. We found no signs or traces that suggested that the death had been brought about by a bullet or something. We don’t know what killed them.”

“The incision is perfect. Completely so. It’s very strange. That’s my definition. I can’t say what it is, but it’s no carrion eater, vulture or puma,” he adds.

The field where the animals appeared is not close to any rural road or route. “I know about livestock, and I’ve seen many dead animals, but never anything like this,” he insists. “I would like to have someone study this so that the matter can be cleared up someday. At the time they blamed carrion animals, and that’s why no progress was ever made. I find that odd.”

“Did you feel fear when you found this?” asks the El Diario interviewer.

“No, bewilderment. The foreman’s been a cattleman for over 40 years. All the more so, it isn’t normal. He’s a man used to seeing all sorts of animals.”

Yet he admits having allowed paranormal phenomena enter his mind: “Some talk about flying saucers because they must be mentioned, if only to say something. The same goes with witches. I say I don’t believe in them, but they exist, they really do. How can I not believe? But I think its something else. Otherwise those weird things would turn un. I’m not saying that a flying saucer is going to come to my house, but this is weird. It’s surprising. It’s not lightning from a storm or anything customary. This is surprising.” - Scott Corrales - Explicata

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Schoolgirl ‘rises from the dead’

A Sixth Form pupil (name supplied) from Mount Pleasant High School in Harare was certified dead at a private hospital in Harare after collapsing at her home on Friday, but miraculously regained consciousness on Saturday after spending a night in a mortuary.

The school authorities had earlier sent the girl home so she could get treatment after she had complained of a severe headache. She reportedly collapsed while at home, resulting in her being rushed to a medical centre in the Avenues.

“It appears she had not died, but had fallen into a comma and she regained consciousness while in the mortuary, perhaps because of the cold. Fortunately an attendant heard her coughing and assisted her,” said a teacher at the school.

“She even came to school yesterday, and initially some pupils were afraid of her, but they later relaxed after the school authorities assured them it (the mishap) was normal. She was also called to the headmaster’s office where she was counselled and congratulated on her escape.”

The school head, who was identified as Chari, refused to comment on the matter or allow the girl to be interviewed referring all questions to her parents. They could, however, not be located.

Cases of people gaining consciousness in the morgue after being certified dead are quite common and in most cases doctors would have erred.

Yesterday, a news report from South Africa said a man spent 21 hours inside a morgue after he was mistaken for dead.

The man from Eastern Cape was last Saturday (the same day the Mt Pleasant girl “rose from the mortuary” placed in a morgue only to wake up screaming the following day, (Sunday afternoon) and demanding to be taken out of the refrigerator.

He was then hospitalised and discharged on Monday. - newsday

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Humanoid sea creatures of the Antarctic?

Over the past few years, rumors have circulated in Japan about the existence of gigantic humanoid life-forms inhabiting the icy waters of the Antarctic.

Reportedly observed on multiple occasions by crew members of government-operated "whale research" ships, these so-called "Ningen" (lit. "humans") are said to be completely white in color with an estimated length of 20 to 30 meters. Eyewitnesses describe them as having a human-like shape, often with legs, arms, and even five-fingered hands. Sometimes they are described as having fins or a large mermaid-like tail instead of legs. The only visible facial features are the eyes and mouth.

According to one account, crew members on deck observed what they initially thought was a foreign submarine in the distance. When they approached, however, it became clear from the irregular shape of the thing that it was not man-made -- it was alive. The creature quickly disappeared under water.

For the most part, the existence of the Ningen is considered an urban legend. Much of the information about this rumored creature can be traced back to a series of posts on the 2channel forums, written by a person describing the experience of a friend employed on a government "whale research" vessel.

The popular thread attracted the attention of many readers from outside the 2channel community, and the November 2007 issue of MU magazine, a Japanese publication devoted to the study of paranormal phenomena, featured an article about the Antarctic humanoids.

The article speculated on the possibility of unidentified creatures inhabiting the southern seas, and it included a Google Maps screenshot showing what looks like a Ningen in the South Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Namibia.

To date, no solid evidence has been presented to confirm the existence of the Ningen. The government is believed to have kept detailed records of the sightings, but they have released no information to the public and have reportedly instructed eyewitnesses to remain silent - pinktentacle

Artist's rendering

Possible Bigfoot Detected - Yadkin River, Davie County, NC

I received the following inquiry on Wednesday. The witness is asking for an explanation:

I live in west-central North Carolina. I live at a location that is very close to the Yadkin River in Davie County. The river’s flood plain comes to my property line in a valley with no houses and heavily wooded – however two roads to cross to get to my house. The river’s edge is primarily undeveloped, with almost a 300 yard flood area clearance on both sides for miles and miles. This river floods regularly, but not very muck lately. There are high voltage power lines running across the area as well. Now that the stage is set, let’s go. We have also put a game camera out to see if we could catch anything on is. We so far have caught a fat pregnant deer, several raccoons and a grey fox. That pregnant deer has twins now have been in our garden. The deer are pretty thick around here.

This is not a hot bed of Bigfoot sightings. But I have been hearing something very large walking in the woods beside my house. My dog has been kicked by something and knocked out for a few seconds. All we heard that night was a thud as it sounded like he was kicked in the side. We saw nothing as it was around 11:30 pm on a moonless night. A few moments later, he was up chasing a scent down the neighbor’s field. My son grabbed his flashlight and looked around down at the wood line and caught a pair of large red-orange eyes reflection. We went down later to investigate where they were. There is an opening right where he saw the eyes. We determined that whatever it was had to stand about 4 feet tall or so if it was standing in the field and 9 feet tall if it was standing in the woods as the opening has a steep drop off to the tree he used as a reference spot. The last explanation is that whatever it is was in the tree at that level. We are hunters and spend time in the woods often. We have never seen a pair of red-orange eyes around here. Not sure what a bear’s eyes look like, but we have no bear population around here.

I often stay up very late and go outside to look around with the flashlight around 3 or 4 in the morning. I have heard on three occasions a very loud knock following my spotlighting around. It sounds like two large rocks being hit together, not like a rock hitting a tree. They have come from three different spots down in the back yard in the woods. The knock sounds are only heard about once every 8-12 days. Kind of like what ever it is only passes through this area on some kind of schedule. Not sure if that sounds logical? I have only on one occasion heard what I would call a howl. It was in the distance and was NOT a coyote. Not even close. It was a different tone and lasted too long.

I would love to hear a logical explanation for all of this.

Ken

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Possible photo of juvenile Bigfoot taken in Arkansas, October 2009

This email was in reference to a photograph (above) I posted with another anecdote:

Hello Lon, my name is Louisa Clingan and my cam captured that pic back in Oct of 09. Thank you for posting it on your website. I am including in this e-mail attachments of the enhanced photo using only hue and contrast to bring out more definition. In the inverted pics you can see more structure, ear, hands, fingers and toes. The cam was set in that location to try and catch what was killing the barn cats, chickens and stealing the eggs.

Don't know if you know the background, but the pic was not taken seriously because our bird was in the following pics. You can see that it's not a bird lol. Also I really think that people think that these animals are born 9 feet tall, lol. This is a small juvenile, from what we figured using the reeds, fence line and bottom of the power box for height comparisons, we believe it is no taller than 18" from the top of the head to the ground in the sitting position, hypothetically it would be roughly 36" or 3' in the upright position. The visual that myself and son had on this same property back in 06 was no more that 3 1/2' to 4'.

My thanks to Louisa!

Just the Facts? - Massive Meteorite Found and Snake Detected In Woman's Abdomen

Massive meteorite found in China

A massive space rock – one that could rank as one of the largest meteorites ever recovered – has been found in a remote and mountainous region in northwest China, according to news reports.

The huge and oddly-shaped rock was found in the Altai mountains in China's Xinjiang Uygur province, according to Sky and Telescope magazine. Earlier this month, Baolin Zhang, a meteorite specialist at the Beijing Planetarium, led a small team up a 9,500-foot (2,900-meter) summit to investigate reports of the supposed meteorite.

"This is a huge iron meteorite," Zhang said in footage from China Central Television. "It may be the second largest iron meteorite, which can cause a sensation in China and also attract attention from [the] world's meteorite fields. It comes from outside solar system and it is of great appreciating value and of more scientific value."

The large brown stone juts out from beneath a larger granite slab and the portion above ground measures about 7.5 feet (2.3 m) long and half as wide, reported Sky and Telescope.

Zhang estimates that the meteorite's mass could range between 25 to 30 tons, which would make it one of the largest meteorites known. If so, this space rock would surpass the current largest one in China, a 28-ton meteorite that was discovered in 1898 in the same region, reported Sky and Telescope.

The Xinjiang discovery could represent a very exciting find for the scientific community, if the rock can be confirmed as a meteorite, said Meenakshi Wadhwa, director of the Center for Meteorite Studies at Arizona State University.

"If this can indeed be verified as a bona fide iron meteorite, then it would certainly be an important find," Wadhwa told SPACE.com in an email interview. Since most meteorites were formed close to [about] 4.6 billion years ago, when the solar system was formed, any newly discovered meteorites (regardless of their size) have the potential to provide scientists with some unique insights into the formation and earliest history of our solar system."

Wadhwa added that the pictures of the Xinjiang rock that have been released so far appear to show good promise of it being an iron meteorite.

And while the Xinjiang finding is quite large, the largest known meteorite to date has a mass of roughly 60 tons and was found in Namibia, Wadhwa said. Other larger specimens include a 37-ton piece from Argentina and a 30-ton meteorite that was discovered in Greenland.Zhang and his team also found names scratched into the stone's surface, indicating that some people in the area were likely aware of the unusual rock's existence. The etchings also expose the iron-nickel composition, Zhang said.

Further analysis should help determine whether this iron meteorite and the one found in 1898 are related, or if it is merely a coincidence that they were both found in this remote region of China. It is also unknown when or how the massive rock will be removed from its current location to be studied, reported Sky and Telescope. - mnn

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Biologist says cancers might actually be newly-evolved species inside your body

We think of cancer as a disease, a form of runaway cell growth within an organism. But we might not have realized what cancers really are: separate, brand new parasitic species that evolve from and prey upon their human hosts.

That's the theory put forward by UC Berkeley biologist Peter Duesberg, who argues that the very act of carcinogenesis - the formation of cancer - is itself a form of speciation, in which distinct new species evolve. That may seem a little far-fetched, so let's take a look at Duesberg's precise reasoning to see exactly what's going on here.

A key idea for Duesberg and his team is that cancer is the result of chromosome disruption, rather than the current scientific consensus that they are formed by genetic mutations. If the researchers are correct, an actual change in the nature of cancer's chromosomes would be far more drastic than just some simple mutations - basically, if something inside you has a totally different chromosomal makeup than you do, then it kind of has to be its own separate species.

That's part of the argument. Duesberg has more:

"Cancer is comparable to a bacterial level of complexity, but still autonomous, that is, it doesn't depend on other cells for survival; it doesn't follow orders like other cells in the body, and it can grow where, when and how it likes. That's what species are all about.

This isn't just a pedantic argument about what does and does not constitute a new species. If Duesberg is correct, then medical treatments that focus on blocking mutations are on the wrong track. This new theory holds that it isn't simply a few mutated genes that initiate cancerous cell growth; instead, when the chromosomes themselves are disrupted, some of them are deleted, others are broken or truncated, and some are even duplicated.

The end result is a cell that's completely different from those around it. The question then is if it's viable enough to survive inside its host body. In most cases, the chromosomal damage probably destroys the would-be cancer. But every so often, it survives, as Duesberg explains:

"If humans changed their karyotype — the number and arrangement of chromosomes — we would either die or be unable to mate, or in very rare cases become another species...You start with a chromosomal mutation, that is, aneuploidy perhaps from X-rays or cigarettes or radiation, that destabilizes and eventually changes your karyotype or renders it non-viable. The rare viable aneuploidies of cancers are, in effect, the karyotypes of new species."

So if this does replace the established mutation view of cancer, what's the upshot? One intriguing possibility is that these cancerous species may be configured for cellular flexibility and immortality, but they're also still very fragile, and their fundamentally damaged chromosomes means they exist right on the very brink of viability. If that's the case, then all we need to do is figure out a way to force cancer to keep evolving, shredding its chromosomes still further until it's no longer able to survive. - io9

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Monster threatens Auckland rail project

A mythical swamp monster "hiding" under Auckland is threatening to derail a project to improve the New Zealand city's traffic gridlock.

The North Island city is trying to move ahead with a multibillion-dollar railway tunnel project to improve the minimal train network and free up its car-filled streets.

But Horotiu, a mythical monster, put the $NZ2.6 billion project in doubt after an indigenous Maori board protested that it would destroy grounds once patrolled by the make-believe taniwha, pronounced tani-fa.
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Glenn Wilcox, a member of the Maori Statutory Board, which protects Maori interests, complained that the plan did not take into account the monster, which "was here first".

The taniwha is a mythical protector with a powerful role in Maori folklore, but get it angry and you're in trouble, Mr Wilcox said.

"As kaitiaki, or guardians, they protect people, but they also get up and bite you if they do not like what you are doing," he said.

The local council has since convinced the board that the correct consultation had taken place, putting the popular project back on the table.

The board accepted its needs had been met but not before it was invoiced thousands of dollars for public relations advice relating to the monster.

Surprisingly, its not the first time a taniwha has threatened to upend a council project.

In 2002, construction of a stretch of road between Auckland and Hamilton was halted after protesters complained that it was cutting through the domain of a revered one-eye taniwha.

The taniwha was thought to be responsible for a number of deaths on the stretch of road.

Ranginui Walker, a respected Maori elder, said at the time: "You have to placate local demons, deities, taniwha. Don't tempt fate." - smh.com.au

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Snake detected in woman’s abdomen

A 50-year-old local woman with a gigantic snake in her body has called upon the authorities to help her undergo surgery.

An unforgettable incident happened with a 50-year-old Rasheedan Bibi, a resident of Chora Saggar, a suburban area when an ultrasound test detected a gigantic snake in her body. Reportedly, a very small snake entered her body when she drank water from a pitcher in her house. After two months, she felt progressive increase in belly size but she supposed it to be pregnancy. After 7 months, her entire body has swollen to its maximum and suffered from severe illness. She was taken to hospital where they were shocked when ultrasound test reported a coiled massive snake in her abdomen. Rasheedan Bibi is taking 14 breads three times a day. She belonged to a poor family and appealed to Punjab CM to help her undergo surgery. - nation.com.pk

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Chinese Couple Sells All Three Kids to Play Online Games

A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.

According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents -- who are both under 21 -- welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online games at an Internet cafe 30 km away.

In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him -- RMB 30,000, or about $4600.

Upon having their third child -- another boy -- the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.

They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.

When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, "We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”

Sanxiang City News reports the couple didn't know they were breaking the law. - abcnewsradioonline

Just the Facts? - Probability of ET Small, Daytona Beach Sighting and Unknown Beings

Probability of ET Life Arbitrarily Small, Say Astrobiologists

The Drake equation is one of those rare mathematical beasts that has leaked into the public consciousness. It estimates the number of extraterrestrial civilisations that we might be able to detect today or in the near future.

The equation was devised by Frank Drake at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1960. He attempted to quantify the number by asking what fraction of stars have planets, what fraction of these might be habitable, then the fraction of these on which life actually evolves and the fraction of these on which life becomes intelligent and so on.

Many of these numbers are little more than wild guesses. For example, the number of ET civilisations we can detect now is hugely sensitive to the fraction that destroy themselves with their own technology, through nuclear war for example. Obviously we have no way of knowing this figure.

Nevertheless, many scientists have attempted to come up with a figure with estimates ranging from a handful of ET civilisations to tens of thousands of them.

Of the many uncertainties in the Drake equation, one term is traditionally thought of as relatively reliable. That is the probability of life emerging on a planet in a habitable zone. On Earth, life arose about 3.8 billion years ago, just a few million years after the planet had cooled sufficiently to allow it.

Astrobiologists naturally argue that because life arose so quickly here, it must be pretty likely to emerge in other places where conditions allow.

Today, David Spiegel at Princeton University and Edwin Turner at the University of Tokyo say this thinking is wrong. They've used an entirely different kind of thinking, called Bayesian reasoning, to show that the emergence of life on Earth is consistent with life being arbitrarily rare in the universe.

At first sight, that seems rather counterintuitive. But if Bayesian reasoning tells us anything, it's that we can easily fool ourselves into thinking things are far more likely than they really are.

Spiegel and Turner point out that our thinking about the origin of life is heavily biased by the fact that we're here to observe it. They point out that it's taken about 3.5 billion years for intelligent life to evolve on Earth.

So the only way that enough time could have elapsed for us to have evolved is if life emerged very quickly. And that's a bias that is entirely independent of the actual probability of life emerging on a habitable planet.

"In other words, if evolution requires 3.5 Gyr for life to evolve from the simplest forms to sentient, questioning beings, then we had to find ourselves on a planet on which life arose relatively early, regardless of the value of [the probability of life developing in a unit time]," say Spiegel and Turner. #

When you strip out that bias, it turns out that the actual probability of life emerging is consistent with life being arbitrarily rare. In other words, the fact that life emerged at least once on Earth is entirely consistent with it only having happened here.

So we could be alone, after all.

That's a sobering argument. It's easy to be fooled by the evidence of our own existence. What Speigel and Turner have shown is the true mathematical value of this evidence.

Of course, that doesn't mean that we are alone; only that the evidence can't tell us otherwise.

And if the evidence changes then so to will the probabilities that we can infer from it.

There are two ways of finding new evidence. The first is to look for signs of life on other planets, perhaps using biogenic markers in their atmospheres. The capability to do begin this work on planets around other stars should be with us in the next few years.

The second is closer to home. If we find evidence that life emerged independently more than once on Earth, then this would be a good reason to change the figures.

Either way, this debate is set to become a major issue in science in the next few years. That's something to look forward to. - technologyreview

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Click image for larger version

Unexplained sighting at Daytona Beach, FL

I was vacationing in Daytona Beach sitting on the shore of the ocean July 24th 2011 at 3 in the morning. I started getting a creepy feeling about being in the ocean with sharks and stuff at night and was trying to figure out if they would be more active at night. After a lot of deliberation I decided to get out and go sit with the other people I went to the beach with. I was with my sister Rachel, her friend Kenley, and someone that was a friend of a friend named Jess who lived an hour from this spot. All of us saw this. After I sat down with them, my sister started freaking out because a huge roach was running all over her legs. We were all laughing at here and I looked out over the ocean as we had been doing prior to that and noticed what at first appeared to be a lantern. It was a distant bright orange light that was pretty far off in the distance over the ocean. I thought it was some boat that was coming up closer to shore because a storm had just went through. I said out loud to everyone else, "What the hell is that?" and everyone just sat there staring at it. It slowly moved across the ocean and lined up straight with us which would have made this thing if floating on the ocean go against the current. It wasn't bobbing so it would had to have been a massive boat. But someone said something about how bright it was and almost as if on cue it seemed to get brighter. It started getting bigger and by the end of this part of the sighting it almost looked like the moon fell and started floating on the ocean. It was crescent shaped and had another piece right above it and looked like something was in front of it but it was fairly bright outside for it to be as late as it was and I didn't see anything near this thing. I attempted to take a picture of it but this thing wasn't picking up on my camera. It sat in front of us for quite some time before it started to lift in the air very slowly. When it lifted (about an inch from my perspective) off the water line it started shrinking rapidly and ended up the size of a star that you would normally see on a clear night. Then in the blink of an eye it shot up into the sky. By the end of all this I was so overwhelmed that my eyes started watering and I couldn't say anything but, "What the hell was that!". All the ladies I was with started screaming and were as excited as me. - MUFON CMS

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Close encounter of the unknown beings

March 1979: Arrived at Joshua Tree National Monument on a Friday evening to camp and do some rock climbing for the weekend. It was very windy and cold and the sun had set. We set up camp with a small 2-man tent (without windows)and were sitting inside discussing what to do about dinner since it was too windy to light the camp stove.

We had only been in the tent about 10 minutes when a soft whirring (hard to describe) sound flew directly over the tent and stopped what sounded like 20 to 25 feet away. As we looked at each other, asking simultaneously "did you hear that", we could hear foot steps approaching from the direction the strange noise had stopped. They were clearly discernible as bipedal walking on the decomposing granite as it came toward the tent. The foot steps circled the tent twice and stopped at the zipper door and proceeded to sniff the entire zipper (the door was an inverted T). Then nothing. I probably don't need to say we were thoroughly frightened out our wits.

Not exactly sure how long we sat listening but seemed like forever that we sat waiting for that door to open or at least hear more footsteps but we heard nothing. Finally whispering to each other we decided to make a run for the car which was only 10 feet away.

We unzipped the door and ran on the count of three, jumped in the car and locked the doors. We turned on the lights and looked around and saw nothing. After we calmed down, we got out the flashlights and started looking around for anything including footprints, there were only ours from setting up the tent. We headed out the direction that the sound came from and the only thing we found was a set of three round depressions in the gravel approximately 10-12 feet apart in a triangular pattern, also with no footprints around them.
Don't really know what to think. - MUFON CMS

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Man attempts DIY hernia surgery using butter knife and lit cigarette

A man is recovering in hospital after attempting surgery on himself using a butter knife.

Police say the 63-year-old Glendale man cut into himself with a six-inch butter knife in an attempt to remove a protruding hernia from his stomach.

The unnamed man was found on Sunday and taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.

According to Sargent Tom Lorenz, Police who arrived at the man's house came across a gruesome scene.

The man was found lying naked outside on a lounge chair with the handle of a knife protruding from his stomach.

Amazingly, as they waited for paramedics to arrive, the man pulled the knife out and shoved a cigarette inside the open wound.

Speaking to the Glendale News Press, Sargent Lorenz said the man's wife told him her husband had 'become frustrated' with the hernia and 'wanted it out'.

He added: 'Out of frustration, he tried to cut it out.'

Speaking to the paper, surgeon Sam Carvajal said the DIY surgery had probably caused more harm than good.

He said: 'It is absolutely impossible for someone to fix their own hernia.'

Dr Carvajal said most hernia patients don't actually suffer that much pain, leaving him to conclude the patient was suffering, 'some amount of psychosis.' - dailymail

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'Praying Mantis Man' Sighting - Musconetcong River, Hackettstown, NJ

I received an email on Monday in reference to a strange sighting in northwest New Jersey. I contacted the witness for more information. The actual correspondence follows:

Lon--I have recently been doing research regarding an encounter I had about five years ago.

Fly fishing on the Musconetcong River in New Jersey with my boss, I saw briefly what I could only describe as "a Praying Mantis Man".

Although the water was clear, there had been heavy rains the past couple of days. We should not have been out there; the river was "smooth" but the current was exceptionally strong. I was leaning backwards and digging my heels into the the gravel but the river was still kicking me along pretty good. Sketchy navigating.

Please know, I am "privy to the paranormal" and always have been. Shadow people, ghosts, whatever. But what I encountered that day was not Spirit. It was a "biological", living creature. But it disappeared into thin air almost as soon as I saw it.

For whatever reason, my searches at the time turned up nothing. But then by chance I came across an 'Alien Race' type video on Youtube and there in the artwork I saw what I saw: "Ancient Mantis Leaders". So when I began searching "Mantis Alien" instead of "Praying Mantis Man", I found a lot more.

They say they are "Inter-dimensional", whatever that means, but I did not get that impression. No, this creature was cloaked and because of both my inate sensory perception skills and the particular physical circumstances at the time, (important), --I can add details if you are interested-- I just "Caught it". Movement out of the corner of my eye to my left and there it was---

Humanoid. Tall. 6 foot at least --no reference points-- but I sense 6'6" - 7'. Moving away from me back up the bank. (I am chest-high in the river) The first thing I see was the 'grasshopper' thigh, but bending forward like a human. Then the whole form. He is looking at me over his shoulder, moving up the bank, astonished, amazed. What, that I am in the water in a strong current, that I can see him? But yes we lock eyes and this creature is astonished-- I get the sense that he can't believe I am in the water, that he can't believe I have seen him, that I am not perturbed at all-- something of all three, I still don't know-- just astonishment and he is actually trying to get away from me and the water!

Triangular Head. Huge, slanted black eyes. Just like a Praying Mantis. It's whole body was gangly, nobby, ((Nobby!) but you could still sense it was powerful, and no-- I would not say it was a "Big Bug"-- it was definitely humanoid despite the mantis/insect qualities...

No, I did not tell my boss about this, who was in the water too about fifty yards behind me at the time. Being "privy to the paranormal" you just see these things and sort of go "okay". No fear, no nothing-- but I do get the sense that my "whatever" attitude contributed to this creature's astonishment. Frankly, I didn't give the encounter much though until recently.

I can forward more details. I just believe now that this encounter was somehow very important.

I wrote back to the witness (I am not going to reveal a name at this time) requesting further detail:

The description of the head is not too uncommon from other sightings that have been reported

This took place in Hackettstown, NJ. The stretch of the Musconetcong River here is unusual in that it's west bank borders Rt. 46, (a local highway, congested with lots of stores) but the east bank where we were fishing borders fields and farmlands.

No bank to speak of on the developed side, but the sloping bank on the rural side was high (ten feet?) A strip of trees about 10 - 20 yards thick separated the river from the fields beyond, but there was the occasional gap/path, each about 20 yards wide that allowed clear access to the river.

Like I mentioned, the weather had been bad the previous several days, and the sky was white and heavy. It was mid-afternoon.

When I saw The Mantis Man, it was in one of these gaps, moving back up the bank towards the fields, looking back at me over its left shoulder. About 15 - 20 yards away.

So understand that it was several feet above me (I looked up at it) and framed clearly against that blank/white sky. Like a full ghost apparition, it was indeed clear but nevertheless nearly transparent and fading fast. Then it "evaporated" mid-stride.

Again, I stress the strong impression that The Mantis Man was cloaked and I "caught it" just right; it abruptly found itself against a "new"/blank background and was adjusting quickly. No, I do not believe it "slipped" into another dimension/plane.

I detected movement and first saw that strong left thigh, (and strong right calf) then the whole thing and immediately those eyes/face. The whole encounter was only a couple of seconds. I can not tell you with any strong certainty what its feet or hands looked like --I wasn't looking there-- but I can tell you that its arms were "normal", and not the literal Mantis forelegs I have recently seen in drawings of these "Aliens".

That's really about it. If you have any questions please contact me.

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The following is an initial CMS report case from September 2009 that MUFON PA Regional Director Bob Gardner subsequently investigated:

Three Foot Tall TriPed Object, Man-Size 'Praying Mantis' - Philadelphia, PA

(Witness drawing)

MUFON witness statement: "On 8-15-2009 at 2:45am I was buzzed for about 5 seconds by a 4 foot round luminescent orb on the roof of the building that I work in, in Philadelphia . It materialized about a foot away from me, blocking my way and making a buzzing sound, it then took off and dematerialized in approximately a 6 feet distance. At this time I decided to turn around and leave the roof.

I found a photo of the object here

About an hour later at 3:45am I was walking through a machine room on the roof, near the same location of the orb, when I encountered a 3 foot tall triped creature. It was standing by an electrical transformer looking up at the conduits. I observed it for about 30 seconds from a distance of four feet before it turned around and noticed me. I was looking down at it! It had a beautiful baby blue eye which was moving rapidly, just one, a long eye lid and rubbery looking legs with bulbous feet. I could see it was starting to panic because it started stomping his feet like a mad skunk or jumping up and down and making a high pitch squeaking sound almost like a cats toy. I was blocking it’s way to the open roll up door leading to the roof behind me. I put up an open hand in a gesture to let it know that I wouldn’t hurt it and backed up towards a different part of the machine room, away from it’s path to the door, but kept my eye on the creature. I watched it walking down the isle slowly when it started to move. It stopped where I had turned to get out of its way, it then turned and looked me over for a couple of seconds. I couldn’t help myself and started to laugh at it. I felt like a child who saw a monkey for the first time or something! I got the impression that it was thanking me but I think I also offended it because it started to leer at me and it's eye changed to a lighter color. I could be wrong, it may have took a bow! The triped then took off running in the direction of the door disappearing behind machinery in the area. I didn't feel threatened in any way by this creature but I was quite sure that cornering it was a bad idea! In hindsight of this encounter I'm left with a feeling a of wonder. The buildings electrical generator was permanently shut down about a year ago.

On this same morning I'm doing my paper work in the control booth, and a larger than man sized Praying Mantis comes up to the window and just stairs at me for about a minute. I did not feel comfortable with this encounter considering the nature of this kind of insect. I sat there and didn’t move a muscle until it left. I have also heard screeching sounds in the roof machine room, in the direction of the roll up door which made my hair stand up on the back of my neck around the same time for 2 nights.

The next night 8-16-09 I'm mopping the floor in the machine room, on the roof and I come back to the sink to fill my bucket and there was a little springs and clip neatly arranged next to each other on the floor in front of the sink. I think the triped came back. There was no one else in the machine room. Was it trying to tell me something, were they gifts or was it trying to help me? I don’t know. Its a mystery! The triped may have been back the next night too, but I didn’t see it! It had moved stuff around like a toddler would have. It was into everything exploring I guess.

On 8-18-09 at around 3:00am I was witness to a giant bird above Eakins Oval with a 40 foot wing span or better, it had rectangle shaped wings and no tail feathers, I didn't see any feet or head either. All I could make out was the huge wings with all of the feathers moving in the breeze and there were hundreds of them, there were no primary feathers that I could see. It looked like a enormous kite. I'm a bird watcher and never seen a bird like this before. I was really quite fed up with all the paranormal stuff happening to me at this time so I watched it for about 4 minuets and decided to just ignored it and go on about my business before it did something really weird and unexplainable. "Wow " A Sumerian god come to earth! An angle maybe? I can take see an alien off my bucket list! Nothing else has happened since."

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Alien Close Encounter - Monahans, Texas - 12/11/09

MUFON witness report (unedited): We were having a family/friends get together to celebrate a birthday. During the celebration two of my nephews and a niece came tearing into the house, screaming at the top of their lungs, saying that a plane crashed in one of the adjacent pastures. My brother, myself and about 3 others walked outside to see what was causing all the ruckus.

We didn't see anything out of the ordinary except a strange burning smell that smelled like burning mesquite. we didn't think anything of it since it was kind of nippy and someone could have been burning some wood in their fireplaces. We told them to show us where they saw the plane go down and we walked over to the place they showed us.

The first thing we noticed was that all the dogs in the area were going bonkers. They were barking up a storm, like they were all seeing the same thing.

The area we live in is pretty much a rural community, unless you live in the city of Monahans, TX many of the houses are set on large plots of land, usually 4-5 acres per house. Although we can see the houses of many of our neighbors and we do have traffic on the road, you do get the feeling of being all to yourself out here. Some of the land by our house is over run by wild mesquite tree's. only a small portion of the land surrounding the house is cultivated and cleared out. Beyond the stand of trees runs a small barbed wire fence that separates us from our neighbors, who I could see were home from the lights on in the house.

We walked around the edge of the trees, not wanting to really go into the stand at night. Even though its technically winter, there could be rattlesnakes seeking shelter in amongst the tree's, not to mention that mesquite trees have some wicked thorns that protrude from them, they are razor sharp and quite capable of punching through a pair of jeans or boots and they hurt like hell to get out.

As we looked around, we started noticing a sort of electrical charge to the very air around us. Almost like the kind you feel when you approach a large electrical substation or a charged and active radio antenna.

As we made our way around the trees, one of my brothers noticed some light peeking through the trees, I told him it was probably one of the neighbors leaving or coming home. He promptly told me that it couldn't be head lights because the light seemed too defused and not as concentrated as a car's headlight.

We moved around and as we cleared the stand of trees, we were shocked to see an oval shaped object hovering, maybe 4-5 feet off the ground. We stood there in total shock, and awe. I can only imagine that our jaws were probably on the ground. As we stood there watching this object hover there without a sound, I took note that the object was maybe about 30-40 feet from front to back, it was maybe the same dimensions around. The object seemed to be of a highly polished material that reflected the area around it. The reflection of the distant street lights from the surrounding neighbors properties seemed to reflect off the surface of the object. There was also a small dull glow to the object, barely noticeable unless you were really looking, almost like an aura of sorts, a iridescent blue of sorts.

As we stood there in total shock, My brother next to me expressing his disbelief, we saw two strange looking "Men" appear from around the object. They at first didn't notice us, they were busy running around and gathering objects from the ground, from the trees. They didn't seem to notice us at first. They looked to be about the size of my oldest nephew, about 4 feet tall, but they looked very skinny, like they had no meat on their bones. Their heads were large and their arms were long, skinny and hung down around their knee's. About this time my two nephews came walking up behind us (scaring the hell out of us). They saw the object and the strange "men" and in a voice that only a kid can project, screamed out loud "WHAT ARE THOSE THINGS!".

That's when the creatures turned and noticed us. The sight of these creatures was something that will haunt me till the day I die. It turned and looked right at us. It's eyes were large, almost like the eyes of a praying mantis, except they were jet back and wrapped around its head. the two creatures looked at us for about 7 seconds, not an ounce of movement, before they calmly walked around the craft, one right after the other. they disappeared behind the craft and we never saw them again.

A few seconds later the craft lifts up, not a sound coming from the object, no rush of wind, not even a swaying of the nearby branches of a mesquite tree. It rose quietly and hovered about 40 feet from the ground, and shot out like a bat out of hell. As it zoomed away, it started glowing and made it easier to track as it zoomed away getting higher and higher till it faded away.

We stood there in complete silence as we tried to make heads or tails of what the hell we just saw. My brother finally piped up and said "Should we call the police?" After which, I burst out in laughter and replied to him " And tell them what?" My nephew looked like he had just seen the devil himself, which considering what we just saw I don't blame him.

He didn't want to talk about it, and after we made our way back to the house, he still didn't talk about. I tried to ask him about it yesterday and he basically told me that he didn't want to think about it yet, he was still processing what had happened to him. I was more than happy to leave it at that.

I never really believed in the subject of UFO's or Alien's, but after the events of this night, I'm seriously going to re-evaluate that belief.

I know that I plan to keep my mind open, and start looking up towards the sky a little bit more from now on.

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The following is an email I received in late 2009:

Hello. The night before last at approx. 8:30 PM, I was watching television in my living room near a window. I felt like someone or something was watching me. I glanced to my right and there was a being in a gray suit standing outside my window watching me. It had to be 7' tall or so. (I measured in the morning). I had been discussing this feeling of being observed while watching television with a friend just the day before. I know it was not a human, but someone or something entirely different. This being was only there for a second or two and fled the instant I had noticed it. So I only got a fleeting glimpse of it, but I saw that it was dressed in gray and had a large head that I describe as that of a praying mantis. I was not fearful sensing a feeling of calm, almost protected. As I have not been able to go out and watch the stars for nearly two weeks. It could not have been a reflection of any kind and not a reflection from my TV either. Any thoughts on what it was? Thanks from Florida

NOTE: please forward any information or comments that you may have on similar type cryptids or manifestations...Lon

Just the Facts? - UFO 'Zig Zags' Over Erie, Atlantis Found (Again) and 'Planet of the Apes' Scenario Warning

UFO 'zig zags' across downtown Erie, PA

Erie, PA - I have been a police officer for ten years, and I served active duty in the United States Army in a reconnaissance unit. One of my duties in the military was to observe and be able to identify aircraft from many countries, primarily those from the United States and the former Soviet Union. I am also a huge fan of helicopter aviation.

I was working patrol on the night of 7/16/11 on the 2230 – 0630 shift. I was in uniform and in a marked patrol car. While patrolling on a main street in town, I was driving southeast away from the lake and toward the downtown area. At approximately 2352 hrs., I noticed a single, white light in the sky moving northwest. The light appeared to be at an altitude of approximately 1,000-2,000 feet over the downtown area. I first thought the object was a helicopter. Just up the street from me was a large hospital which averages probably 4-5 medical helicopter transports a week. I am very familiar with the medical helicopters which frequent my area, and after a few seconds I realized that what I was seeing was not a helicopter.

As the light came toward me, I realized that it had no navigational or hazard lights (the green and red lights which flash on an aircraft). It had a single, white light. It was very bright at first. As it got closer to being directly overhead, I noticed that the light appeared to be cigar shaped. But as it got even closer to being overhead, the light seemed to dim. By the time it was overhead (approximately one minute since I first saw it), it was as dim as most of the stars in the sky. In fact, if it hadn't been moving, I probably would have thought that it was a star.

I actually stopped my patrol car in the middle of the street and had to stick my head out of my driver's side window to look up at the object because it was directly overhead. The object continued to move northwest, but it was dim and appeared to be much higher than when I first saw it. In fact, it appeared then that it was 10,000 feet or higher.

Then I was amazed when the object stopped dead in it's tracks and began to zig and zag, back and forth! It went in all directions. I would estimate that if it was 10,000 high it was probably moving maybe 200 feet in each direction around the point where it had stopped.

It became difficult for me to watch the object with my head sticking out the car window and looking over the roof of the car to my west, so I made a u-turn and parked along the curb. I could now see the object by looking out of my window toward the west. Shortly after I parked, I phoned my wife to tell her what I was seeing. My cell phone indicated that I called my wife at 2353 hrs. on 7/16/11.

Just after I started talking to my wife, the object stopped zigging and zagging and it began to move toward the east. Just then, another police unit with two officers pulled up and asked what I was doing. I ended the phone call with my wife and I informed the officers about the object that I was watching. We then exited our respective vehicles while we watched the object. Both officers saw what I was seeing. One of them believed it to be an aircraft. The other officer said she wasn't sure what it was.

As we watched the object continue east, we noticed an aircraft far out in front of it, also flying east. The object and the aircraft appeared to be around the same altitude, but the object had become so dim that it was hard to determine how high it was. In fact, several times the object's light appeared to fade out completely and then quickly fade back in. However, at no time did the light of the object appear to flash or blink.

All three of us watched the object move east and, once again, it stopped in mid flight and began to zig and zag around the point it stopped. The one officer continued to believe that the object was an aircraft, and the other officer said she didn't know what it was. Then the other officers had to move their vehicle because they had stopped in the travel lane and they were blocking traffic. I got back into my vehicle and drove east and parked in a parking lot one block east of my original location where I continued to watch the object. It continued east and its light faded in and out a few more times. I lost track of where the aircraft, which I had seen in front of it, had flown. Then I received a call for service from my dispatcher and I had to leave the area. The total time I watched the object was approximately 15 minutes.

Later that night I looked to the sky in the direction I last saw the object but I didn't see it again. Through the course of the night I did see two meteorites, one to the north of town over the lake and one to the south. However, I am familiar with what meteorites look like and the object I watched was NOT a meteorite.

Later in my shift I tried to call the local international airport to see if they had any aircraft or any other contacts on radar at that time. But I only got an automated system and was never able to get through to anyone there. - MUFON CMS

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A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park.

Lost city of Atlantis believed found off Spain

A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago, in mud flats in southern Spain.

"This is the power of tsunamis," head researcher Richard Freund told Reuters.

"It is just so hard to understand that it can wipe out 60 miles inland, and that's pretty much what we're talking about," said Freund, a professor at the University of Hartford who led an international team searching for the true site of Atlantis.

To solve the age-old mystery, the team analyzed satellite imagery of a suspected submerged city just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Dona Ana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multiringed dominion known as Atlantis.

The team of archaeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping and underwater technology to survey the site.

Freund's discovery in central Spain of a strange series of "memorial cities," built in Atlantis' image by its refugees after the city's likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said.

Atlantean residents who did not die in the tsunami fled inland and built new cities there, he added.

The team's conclusions are detailed in "Finding Atlantis," a National Geographic Channel special.

While it is hard to know with certainty that the site in Spain is Atlantis, Freund said the "twist" of finding the memorial cities makes him confident Atlantis was buried in the mud flats.

"We found something that no one else has ever seen before, which gives it a layer of credibility, especially for archaeology, that makes a lot more sense," Freund said.

A computer graphic shows the concentric rings that may have existed during Atlantis' ancient heyday. Scientists have seen evidence of such submerged structures beneath the vast marshlands of southern Spain's Dona Ana Park.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis 2,600 years ago, describing it as "an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules," as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity.

Using Plato's detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city. Researchers have previously proposed that Atlantis was located on the Greek island of Santorini, the Italian island of Sardinia or on Cyprus .

Tsunamis in the region have been documented for centuries, Freund says. One of the largest was a reported 10-story tidal wave that slammed Lisbon in November 1755.

Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato's "dialogues" from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis "in a single day and night ... disappeared into the depths of the sea."

Experts plan further excavations at the site where they believe Atlantis is located and at the mysterious "cities" in central Spain 150 miles away to more closely study geological formations and to date artifacts. - MSNBC

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Dragons in Spain

Spain isn’t often associated with dragons – beyond the dragons of heraldry on the shields of Castilian nobles – but Catalonia also has a tradition of dragons that forms part of not only its own folklore, but the Christian tradition as a whole: who hasn’t heard of St. Jordi (St. George) and his dragon? George of Cappadocia, a Roman soldier in the retinue of the Diocletian, was invoked on numerous occasions by the royalty of Aragon to tilt the balance of battle. He bestowed his help upon the King Pedro of Aragon during the siege of Huesca, and during the conquest of Valencia by James the Conqueror, St. George appeared “with many knights of paradise who turned the tide of battle, in which not one Christian was slain.”

St. George became a dragonslayer in medieval myth when a winged drake took up residence near a vital water source, advising locals that a human sacrifice was needed on a daily basis in order to access the spring. Villagers were sacrificed at random until the time came for a local princess to be offered up; her father pleaded for her life to no avail. Just as the reptile was about to make short work of the princess, George appeared on horseback, slaying the beast and rescuing the royal maiden. In gratitude, the villagers renounced their pagan worship and embraced Christianity.

Our friend and colleague Javier Resines has just posted an article at criptozoologos.blogspot.com about another singular creature: La Potra del Pino, a dragonlike entity that carried out its depredations in earlier ages. The beast’s fatness was Mount Birset outside Tortosa. “This terrible dragon,” writes Resines, “had its lair along the Ebro River, and could walk, swim and fly, according to eyewitness reports.”

The locals had a hard time of it, as one can imagine, with such a terrifying neighbor. As in all epic tales, a knight slew the dragon and covered its carcass under a huge pile of rocks. Over the years, travelers would place more rocks on the cairn to insure that the dreaded beast remained pinned down, for some believed that the dragon was not dead, and could return if circumstances allowed.

Resines tells us that the story of the Potra del Pino became widespread through the work of ethnologist Joan Amades. But the dragon spreads its wings again thanks to an e-book lovingly put together by the young students of the ZER Riu Avail during the 2010-2011 term (http://www.myebook.com/index.php?option=ebook&id=83646)

In Spain’s northwestern corner, Galicia also has a dragon occupying an important mythological niche: The Codex Calixtinus gives us the story of Queen Lupa, an ally of the Romans. When disciples of the Apostle James asked her to provide oxen and a cart with which to convey his remains to campus stelae – the field of stars – the queen consented, but directed them to the mountain known as Pico Sacro, to be devoured by a dragon.

Thus betrayed, the disciples had to face not only the dreaded basilisk but wild bulls as well. Dropping to their knees in prayer, they were able to kill the dragon and tame the wild kine. Hearing of this miracle, the queen set her pagan ways aside and converted. - Thanks to Scott Corrales - Inexplicata

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Scientists warn of 'Planet of the Apes' scenario

Their report calls for a new rules to supervise sensitive research that involves humanising animals.

One area of concern is "Category Three" experiments which may raise "very strong ethical concerns" and should be banned.

An example given is the creation of primates with distinctly human characteristics, such as speech.

Exactly the same scenario is portrayed in the new movie Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, in which scientists searching for an Alzheimer's cure create a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence.

The report also acknowledges the "Frankenstein fear" that humanising animals might lead to the creation of "monsters".

Currently research involving great apes, such as chimpanzees, is outlawed in the UK. But it continues in many other countries including the US, and British scientists are permitted to experiment on monkeys.

Professor Thomas Baldwin, a member of the Academy of Medical Sciences working group that produced the report, said the possibility of humanised apes should be taken seriously.

"The fear is that if you start putting very large numbers of human brain cells into the brains of primates suddenly you might transform the primate into something that has some of the capacities that we regard as distinctively human.. speech, or other ways of being able to manipulate or relate to us," he told a news briefing in London.

"These possibilities that are at the moment largely explored in fiction we need to start thinking about now."

Prof Baldwin, professor of philosophy at the University of York, recommended applying the "Great Ape Test". If modified monkeys began to acquire abilities similar to those of chimpanzees, it was time to "hold off".

"If it's heading in that direction, red lights start flashing," said Prof Baldwin. "You really do not want to go down that road."

In the US, scientists have already implanted human embryonic stem cells - which can develop into any part of the human body - into mouse embryos.

The mouse cells rapidly outgrew the human stem cells, so that only a tiny proportion of the embryos ended up "human".

Working group member Dr Robin Lovell-Badge, a leading geneticist from the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research, said this was not surprising given the differences between mice and humans. - telegraph

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'Sea Aliens' found living in Russian Arctic

The transparent life-forms with tentacles and pulsing orbs live 40m (130ft) under the ice sheets of the White Sea in the Russian Arctic.

They are able to survive in temperatures only a little above freezing.

‘The White Sea shows you another world with its own aliens, and some of them are really amazing creatures,’ said Alexander Semanov, a biologist and diver from Moscow, who took the pictures.

‘Most of these types of organisms are translucent. They live in the water column and need to be invisible to predators or, if they are predators, they use this invisibility to surprise their food.’

Mr Semanov, 25, used strobe back-lighting to illuminate the creatures

‘You can see all of the food inside them. Sometimes, I see that there are creatures still living and moving inside the predator,’ he added.