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Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Just the Facts? - Minnesota Lights, 'Real' Sleeping Beauty and New 'Glob' Washes Ashore


Strange lights over Minnesota lake

I was with some friends, we were hanging out at her house on the lake, by Ranier, MN and all of a sudden this object appeared. It hovered for about 2-3 mins and then gone. didn't hear any sounds as it was super quiet. We all just were in shock and a bit freaked out... but amazed that it was SO close. I happened to have my phone and was quick to snap just one picture. It seemed like it was almost right over the top of us... and it moved some but not much. It turned in a circle motion as it went up into never never land. This is not the first time I have seen this around this area, but this is the first time i was able to get a picture and the first time it was so close. My first sighting of this was further up the lake, on Rainy Lake. I also know of others that have seen them around here as well, but all stories I have ever heard, they have spotted them on the Lake. - MUFON CMS

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A real 'Sleeping Beauty'

In the fairy tale, Sleeping Beauty is a princess sent into a 100-year slumber by an evil witch. A kiss from a handsome prince breaks the spell, and they live happily ever after.

The present-day "Sleeping Beauty," as the media calls her, is a 17-year-old woman in Worthing, England, named Louisa Ball. Instead of the fairy tale's poisoned splinter, her curse began with flu-like symptoms two years ago.

"Bad cold, temperature ... and from then on that's when I started to sleep," she said.

She wouldn't stop for 10 to 14 days.

Her parents would rouse her for bathroom breaks and ravenous feedings.

"She'd go through a whole packet of biscuits, or ... five or six packets of crisps -- anything that she could get her hands on," said her father, Rick Ball. "It was a case of almost like a hamster hibernating, and the food would get stuffed in. And you'd have to step in and say, 'Whoa, that's enough.'"

Her mother, Lottie Ball, added, "I asked to see a dietician ... because I was concerned when Louisa was in an episode that, you know, she is missing out on all the goodness."

The advice she got was to give Louisa smoothies, which gave her food and fluid at the same time.

Even so, Louisa would lose as much as 10 pounds during a sleep episode. Even odder than her eating habits was her behavior, which featured offensive, almost primal, mood swings.

"They're horrible. They're scary, it's like a different child," said Lottie Ball.

The parents knew a sleep episode was coming when their otherwise sweet-natured daughter would snap at others inappropriately.

"When she's up and she's confrontational, those were the scarier moments," Rick Ball said.

The year before college, Louisa slept for a solid week every month. She missed weeks of school and fell behind in her beloved dance classes.

"I missed my end-of-school exams, obviously, because I was in an episode," she said. "I've missed, like, family holidays, birthdays and parties."

The doctors were as baffled as Louisa's parents.

"To see all the various medical professionals and not get any answers ... it was pretty frustrating," said Rick Ball. "Everything goes through your mind, and you wonder whether or not she has taken a drug."

Then came a breakthrough, courtesy of a consultant in London to whom the family was referred.

"I always refer to it as the 'Champagne and hangover' moment," said Rick Ball, "because we went in there and the good news was, 'I think I know what's wrong with your daughter.' And the bad news was, 'There's no cure.'"

Louisa was diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome, an incurable autoimmune disorder that some researchers say disrupts the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates appetite, sleep and libido.

KLS more often afflicts males, usually beginning with a virus during adolescence that seems to trigger the sleep and aggressiveness, along with hyper sexuality.

Mood stabilizers like lithium and hormone therapies help those with KLS around the edges, but they don't ward off the extreme sleep.

"[When I wake up] I'm always confused as to what day it is, because I don't know how long I've slept for," Louisa said. "And then when I realize, I'm like, 'Wow, that's a long time!'"

How does she feel when she wakes up?

"Refreshed," she said.

Her sleep episodes have become less frequent. She recently went five months without one. According to experts, KLS sufferers can grow out of it after 10 to 12 years.

As Louisa's story grew in the media, headlines called her "Sleeping Beauty," and KLS is known as Sleeping Beauty syndrome.

If someone cast a spell on Louisa, there must be a handsome prince coming in some form. Romantically speaking, she said there was no prince in her life, at the moment.

The prince could take the form of a cure, and Louisa's family contributes to the KSL Foundation in California to help speed his arrival.

In either case, Lottie Ball said, "We're waiting for the handsome prince." - abcnews

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Our friend Rick Phillips offers The GHOST Orb Of Crossett Arkansas - Multiple Videos Offer Proof...an interesting phenomena I had not heard about.

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‘Giant lights’ spotted off coast of Anahola, Hawaii

An east Kaua‘i couple is wondering what was lighting up the late night sky last week.

Sondra and Michael Grace, a Native Hawaiian couple that run a B&B guesthouse on Hawaiian Home Lands fronting Anahola Bay, reported seeing lights early Friday morning of the likes they have never seen before.

Sondra thought it was in the general area of the communication towers for Civil Defense, but she said Mike thought it was higher and farther out.

“I don’t know what it was but it was very big,” Sondra said.

Sondra said that the two were in bed just past 2 a.m. when they noticed the bright lights “falling from the sky” between Anahola and Kealia. The couple live on the ‘Aliomanu side near the river mouth.

“It was high in the sky beyond the light house,” she said. She noted it was moving in circles, she thought, in the vicinity of a Civil Defense communications tower. However, she said her husband thought the lights were much farther out and its size and intensity made it seem closer.

“This is the first I heard of these lights and we are at a loss to explain them,” said Mark Marshall, the emergency management officer for the Kaua‘i Civil Defense Agency. Continue reading at ‘Giant lights’ spotted off coast of Anahola

Thanks to Celine for forwarding

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NZ quake may have revealed Israeli spy ring

A New Zealand newspaper group is reporting that the deadly February 22nd earthquake in Christchurch unearthed a suspected Israeli spy ring.

Three Israelis died in the quake that killed 181 people. Other Israelis escaped the quake.

The Fairfax newspaper group, which didn't state how it obtained the information, said one of the Israelis who died was carrying at least five passports.

Fairfax said New Zealand Prime Minister John Key took four calls from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following the quake, and that an unaccredited Israeli search and rescue squad searching a cordoned area in Christchurch was stopped by New Zealand officers.

Key, who is traveling in California, told media Wednesday that it wasn't in the national interest to comment about the report.

The revelation has caused a bit of a political kerfuffle, as opposition party leaders have begun directing pointed public questions at the prime minister.

"Were these young people really just backpackers? Or had an innocent group of tourists been infiltrated by Mossad 'helpers' whose mission it was to take Kiwi identities? If it was the latter, why hasn't the Opposition been briefed (by the prime minister)? What information is he withholding and why?" asked Labour's Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maryan Street, according to The New Zealand Herald.

In 2004, there was a bit of a dustup between Israel and New Zealand over an Israeli passport ring uncovered in New Zealand. Two Israelis were arrested for trying to fraudulently acquire the identity of a man with cerebral palsy, the Herald reports.

Contacts between Israel and New Zealand were frozen at a high level until the Jewish state apologized. It was also discovered at the time that similar such instances had happened previously, the Herald reports. - cbsnews

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Earthquake Causes River to Disappear in Costa Rica

Following a series of moderate earthquakes that struck the country Tuesday, residents around the Guacalito River in Costa Rica discovered that the river had disappeared. Earthquake-report.com reported that sometime after the earthquakes, villagers living near the river, which is located near Armenia de Upala, discovered that the river was dry.

It was not immediately known if the waters of the river had disappeared due to sinkhole activity that can occur after earthquakes or if the earth shaking caused damming that dried up the river near the Miravalles volcano. The quakes were centered near the Nicaragua and Costa Rica border in the same vicinity as the Miravalles volcano.

An entire body of water disappears? Strange but true, and this isn't the first time this odd event has happened.

In 2010, the Iska River in Slovenia disappeared after local residents heard loud crashing and banging overnight. The next morning, the river was dry and the riverbed was full of fish and other creatures. It was believed that the waters of the river had drained through a large crack into an underground riverbed. This disappearance was not believed to have been related to an earthquake.

Most recently -- aside from the disappearing river in Costa Rica -- an entire reservoir in Huntsbury, New Zealand, that was filled with 36 million liters of water disappeared following a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. The reservoir water disappeared after the earthquake struck Christchurch Feb. 22.

A body of water disappearing is not unusual, nor is it unheard of for an earthquake to change the shape and form of bodies of water. There have also been numerous examples of seismic activity creating new bodies of water.

In 1959, the largest earthquake to strike Montana -- a 7.3 magnitude temblor -- caused a landslide to dam the Madison River just below Hebgen Dam, thus creating a new body of water that became Hebgen Dam, or "Quake Lake."

The historic New Madrid earthquakes in the central United States created a lake in northwestern Tennessee in 1812. Reelfoot Lake was formed during the Feb. 7, 1812, earthquake that was one of several to strike the region during the winter of 1811 and 1812. That earthquake, which is estimated to have been at least 7.0 in magnitude or higher, caused subsidence along the Reelfoot River, dropping a 13,000 acre area of land between 4 and 19 feet. This area filled with water to become Reelfoot Lake. - yahoo

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Couple walking their dogs discover 30ft carcass of sea creature rotting on Scottish beach

A couple were left shocked when they discovered the rotting body of a sea monster while walking along a beach.

Margaret and Nick Flippence made the incredible find as they exercised their dogs at Bridge of Don, Aberdeen.

Mr Flippence, 59, who lives nearby, said: 'We were stunned. I thought, "oh my God what is it?"

'It's like nothing we have ever seen, it almost looks pre-historic,' he told the Sun.

Curled up by the foot of sand dunes was the 30ft-long body of the unidentified animal with head, tail and teeth all discernible.

Experts are now examining the pictures with one suggesting it could be the body of a whale.

A spokesman for the Natural History Museum said: 'We have spoken to one of our mammals curators, and they have confirmed the animal is probably a long-finned pilot whale – Globicephala melas.

'Apparently it’s not unusual for these to wash up on the shore.'

Rob Deville, a marine life expert at London Zoo, said the body could be that of a killer whale or a smaller pilot whale.

Whale expert Mark Simmonds told the Sun: 'it died a long time ago and tides caused the body to wash ashore.' - dailymail