'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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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
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