Amazing serpent crop formation
West Woodhay Down, near Inkpen, Wiltshire
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Texas lake turns blood red
A Texas lake that turned blood-red this summer may not be a sign of the End Times, but probably is the end of a popular fishing and recreation spot.
A drought has left the OC Fisher Reservoir in San Angelo State Park in West Texas almost entirely dry. The water that is left is stagnant, full of dead fish — and a deep, opaque red.
The color has some apocalypse believers suggesting that OC Fisher is an early sign of the end of the world, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries officials say the bloody look is the result of Chromatiaceae bacteria, which thrive in oxygen-deprived water.
"It's just heartbreaking," said Charles Cruz, a fish and wildlife technician with Texas Parks and Wildlife in San Angelo, Tex.
Texas is experiencing major drought this summer, with 75 percent of the state's area in an "exceptional" drought, the highest level, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC). The state had hoped for some relief from Tropical Storm Don last week, but the system fizzled and brought only an inch or two of rain to areas near the coast.
The drought has taken its toll on a number of reservoirs in West Texas, Cruz told LiveScience. OC Fisher has never been completely full, Cruz said, but it was stocked with catfish, bass, sunfish and other popular targets for fishermen.
"We surveyed the lake, I believe it was last year, and we had a pretty good fish population out there," Cruz said. "It was pretty sickening going out there, watching lake levels just drop and drop and drop and seeing these nice trophy-sized bass just floating dead."
As of last week, all that remained of the lake was a small pond a few feet deep, Cruz said. There were thousands of dead fish, he said, but no sign of life.
"The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died," the passage Begley cited reads. "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood."
Begley may not have any more luck at predicting the end of the world than did Harold Camping, the radio preacher who set the date for May 21, 2011. But for as long as the drought persists, the OC Fisher reservoir is a reservoir no longer.
"I don't know what's left in there now. We haven't been back," Cruz said. "But I would guess it's probably pretty much gone already." - livescience
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Alien statue unveiled in Perm, Russia
Russia’s first ever statue of an alien has been unveiled near the city of Perm, in the Urals. It marks the site of the most frequent UFO sightings in Russia.
The wooden statue, almost two meters tall, was erected at the entrance to the village of Molebka. This place was not chosen accidentally as it is considered one of the most popular UFO hotspots in Russia, Itar-Tass reports. Many believe that UFOs land there more often than in other places. The so-called Molebsky triangle was discovered in the 1980s.
“This is Russia’s first monument to a UFO,” the news agency quoted Nikolay Subbotin, the head of the Russian UFO Research Station (RUFORS), as saying. The monument with characteristic alien eyes was done by a local skilled craftsman, carver Viktor Sazanov, and cost local authorities 45,000 rubles (about US$1,600).
Subbotin said that now local ufologists are thinking of opening a UFO museum in Molebka with an observatory shaped like a flying saucer. They want to send the proposal to colleagues in the US city of Roswell, the most famous zone among ufologists.
The “first contact” has already been established, as guests from Roswell attended the festival of creativity and design called “Fact and Fiction of the Molebsky Triangle.” - RT
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Deen: The Big Conn, monster or myth?
Loch Ness has her Nessie, Lake Champlain has her Champ, Lake Mephremegog has her Memphre and the Connecticut River, well the sting of it is that she has her monster, it just has not been named yet. The Connecticut River does have a monster or monsters, that is, if you can believe press stories from numerous historical sources, including The New York Times.
One of the earliest reports comes from the History of Lordship in 1878 when an assistant engineer on the steamer State of New York said that he witnessed the head of a monster raised several feet above the waves. The head disappeared and a portion of the body formed an arc “under which it would have been easy to drive a team of oxen.”
In 1881, soon after the Lordship incident, according to The Times, the yacht A.M. Bliss was returning from a fishing cruise when the passengers saw a veritable sea serpent moving slowly along the surface of the calm water.
And an 1886 New York Times article from Middletown, Conn., reported that “all along the banks of the Connecticut River people eagerly watched for a glimpse of the great sea serpent.” According to the story: “Out of the froth rose a big black head as large as a flour barrel and with eyes as big as small plates. The head kept rising higher and higher until 10 feet of the neck appeared. The men didn’t stop to make a long or thorough examination, but they feel sure that the sea serpent must have been a clear hundred feet long.”
The Hartford, Conn., Haunted Places Examiner recounted a story from 1894 when Austin Rice of East Deerfield, Conn., … “a plain unimaginative farmer, who for nearly 50 of the 70 years of his life has resided in his quiet home on the banks of the Connecticut River, says that nothing on earth can convince him that he did not see a snake in the river a few days ago. The report noted that “Mr. Rice’s reputation for veracity among his neighbors and acquaintances is good, and he never drinks.”
Then in 1895, the History of Lordship reported that crew members on the steamer Richard Peck noticed “a coiling motion, and the sea monster, as such it must have been if what they say is true, dove out of sight, first raising its head as if it had not been aware of the approaching steamer and had been disturbed from peaceful slumber.”
There is something unusual about Lordship because again the History of Lordship reports that in 1896 a sea serpent with pea green whiskers passed down Long Island Sound. “He was plowing through the water at a 25- knot clip — and left a wake of foam behind him a mile in length. He was easily 200 feet in length and his head was reared 20 feet above the brine.”
It seems our Connecticut River monster then became bashful for some 100 years. Maybe part of its reclusive time was spent in the nearly mile-long Hog River tunnel under Hartford, Conn. The Hog River flows 30 feet under the city in a 30-foot-high by 45-foot-wide tunnel made of reinforced concrete that is just over a mile long and runs between the Capitol and Armory buildings to the Connecticut River. Those few brave souls who have canoed the river tunnel say, ”The darkness and the dripping and the echoes — it’s like a chance to go to a kind of alien world.” We may never know for sure, but it’s possible.
Then in 1995, according to a press release from the Main Street Museum, that “in the waters just off of Lyman Point in White River Junction, where the White meets the Connecticut River, that an extraordinary monster was seen frolicking. First reports gave indication that some cousin, or closer relative, of “Champ,” Lake Champlain’s Aquatic Apparition, had somehow found its way onto the eastern half of our beautiful state.” They offered the captured monster for display in 1995.
Not to be outdone, in 2008 NBC TV in Hartford, Conn., reported that a West Hartford resident had taken pictures of a mysterious creature living in West Hartford Reservoir Number 1. The photos taken depict something just below the surface of the water that appears to have “ancient looking” spikes along its long tail. The witness showed the photos to officials with the Metropolitan District Commission, who said that the reservoir does not hold drinking water so there is no cause for concern.
All of the sightings over the past 130 years recorded something that looked like an eel, serpent or reptile of some kind with a long neck and body or a longer spiked tail. That’s a lot of coincidence since the first sighting in 1878. Maybe there is more than one Connecticut River monster, depending on its taste for salt water. All of the people making the reports certainly seemed convinced the monster was real.
Believe what you will about The Big Conn monster, but that’s my story, and I am sticking to it. - vtdigger
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BBC sports reporter shocked by UFO sighting
Well-respected sports reporter Mike Sewell relived the moment he saw the disc-shaped craft zoom in front of his car as he drove across the countryside in darkness at 4.15am.
Mike, who lives in the Midlands, was driving to Stansted Airport to catch a flight to Sweden, when he saw a UFO with flashing lights around the outside above him in the road.
Hertfordshire cops said they had no reports of a UFO.
Mike told how he had been driving behind a VW van when he saw the craft in the sky.
Speaking on Radio Five Live to millions of listeners this morning, he revealed how he was left "gobsmacked" as the UFO then hovered above a field a few hundred yards from the road.
He said: "I was driving east across country about 15 to 20 miles from Stansted Airport at 4.15 in the morning and I saw this big bright light in the sky descending towards the road and as it got closer it banked to the left.
"As it banked to the left it went cross-country, I could see underneath and it wasn't an aeroplane and it wasn't a helicopter.
"I dread saying this, disc-shaped. It had several lights flashing all around it and underneath there were at least two large panel lights, soft white lights underneath.
"And then it just sat or circled a certain area above a field.
"I was so gobsmacked.
"I was trying to keep on the road and eventually lost sight of it after two or three minutes but what I saw was not an normal aircraft.
"It was weird. I was totally freaked out."
Sewell was on his way to the airport to catch an early morning flight to Sweden for tonight's Champions League qualifying game between Malmo and Glasgow Rangers.
He was just outside the Hertfordshire village of Cottered when he spotted the object in the night sky.
UFO expert Timothy Good said: "It is absolutely fascinating. Clearly it is not a conventional aircraft of any type. I'm most impressed, I wish I had seen it myself.
"I would assume that a number of other people would have seen this object.
"It might well be extra-terrestrial, it might well be a secret aircraft or space craft that have been flown by the United States military and the British military for quite some time." - thesun
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