Bigfoot proof lacking; women states she feeds local Bigfoot blueberry bagels
There are new claims of bigfoot encounters -- in Siberia and rural Michigan -- that will likely add to the debate over whether the creatures really exist, although neither holds the smoking gun of a photograph, tissue sample or other scientific evidence.
A group of Russians claim a living "snowman" roams the cold Shoria Mountain area of southern Siberia. Meanwhile a woman in Newaygo County, Mich., told Discovery News that she has been interacting with and actually feeding a large family of close to 10 Bigfoot-like creatures who live in the woods near her home for the past two years.
"They get fish every day, a bucket of fruit, a bucket of dry dog food," said Robin Lynn Pfeifer, a 47-year-old resident of Newaygo County, north of Grand Rapids. "Their favorite thing is blueberry bagels. If I'm not baking them, I go to different stores to buy them. I tell them they are feeding the wildlife."
She said she has collected casts of many large footprints, but says the creatures are too shy and too clever for her to get a photograph. She describes the Bigfoots as ranging from six to nine feet tall and looking like humans, except for hairy coats and broad noses.
"The biggest one I've sat and looked at for 15 minutes was nine and a half feet tall," Pfeifer told Discovery News. "The large male is all black. Others are beige and white. The biggest footprint is 18 and a half inches long."
Skeptics say that big claims need big proof, and so far that hasn't happened when it comes to Bigfoot. Natural history and evolutionary scientists also ask how these creatures could have survived for so long without being detected, and where the evidence is of their body or bones or DNA.
Loren Coleman directs the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine and has been studying and writing about strange sightings of creatures for several decades. He says he's skeptical of anyone who comes forward with tales of lengthy Bigfoot encounters without providing serious evidence.
"All the Bigfoot contactees -- for some reason they never take photographs," Coleman said. "There's a lot of interest in finding these things, but we have to look of the credibility of the people feeding us the stories. I'm always careful of two kinds of people, the debunkers who have no interest and the true believers who will not bring any critical thinking."
Coleman said he hasn't met with Pfeifer, but is doubtful, comparing her story to people who meet with aliens from UFOs.
"They really believe they are having these experiences," Coleman said. "I don't know if its hallucinations or a psychological state."
Pfeifer, however, is convinced her encounters are real and she said she realizes that most people will not believe her because of the lack of proof, such as scat, hair, tissue or a good photograph.
She says the Bigfoot clan began visiting her home shortly after she and her husband and three children moved into a 10-acre rural property back in November 2009. The creatures also engage in some unusual behaviors, she said. Sometimes they make knocking sounds underneath the family home's crawl space, twist and braid a rope used to tie the family's pony, or construct elaborate stick structures in the woods.
Pfeifer said she's tried to snap their picture, but she has not been successful. When she set up automatic cameras in the trees near her home, the creatures turned them upside down.
"I want people to realize that they do exist," Pfeifer said. "They are not aggressive, they are more human-like than an ape and I'm very protective of them."
Michigan has a history of Bigfoot sightings -- and a network of residents who post their findings on a website.
Pfeifer has been traveling in Russia to meet with other Bigfoot believers -- scientists and amateurs alike -- who gathered in the Kemerovo region recently to talk about the existence of a Russian "snowman" in the cold Shoria Mountain area of southern Siberia.
Igor Burtsev of the Moscow-based International Center of Hominology said that after the meeting, researchers from the United States, Canada, Sweden and Estonia traveled for two days to an area that has reported sightings of a large, Yeti-like creature.
Burtsev said he is 95 percent positive that he has evidence to prove the creature's existence: some hair found near a cave entrance, grasses made into a bed, large footprints, and tree branches that form a certain pattern.
"We were just two days in the forest and we found many things," Burtsev said. "We found a lot of confirmation that they exist there."
Burtsev said that he visited Pfeifer's home for a week in June but did not see any of the Bigfoot creatures. The next step, Pfeifer said, is to record the creatures' unusual vocal sounds.
Jeff Meldrum, professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, was at the meetings in Russia and has been sifting through the various claims about both the Russian Yeti in southern Siberia and Pfeifer's story of a Michigan Bigfoot.
"There's no substance to any of her claims," said Meldrum, who is an expert in the evolution of early hominid gait. "If there were 10 to 12 around her home, she should be opening up a museum with all the artifacts."
Meldrum also has questions about what Burtsev presented during the two-day trip to the cave in the Kemerovo region. He says when the group of scientists entered the cave, there were several large footprints along the muddy floor, but strangely enough, they were only imprints of right feet.
"He must have been playing hopscotch," Meldrum quipped.
Meldrum says that while he's doubtful about the evidence for this particular creature, he is keeping an open mind when it comes to the possibility of a new species of hominid that could be alive today.
He points out that German scientists found finger bones from a new species of human ancestor known as Denisova hominin that co-existed with both humans and Neanderthals only 30,000 years ago.
That research was published last year in the journal Nature, using DNA sequencing to verify its age and identity. The cave where Denisova was found is 35 miles from the site where Meldrum and the other researchers were taken on their field trip. - discovery
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Debris of 'Doomsday' Comet Elenin to Pass by Earth Sunday
The moment long feared by conspiracy theorists is nearly upon us: The "doomsday comet" Elenin will make its closest approach to Earth Sunday (Oct. 16). Or what's left of it will, anyway.
Comet Elenin started breaking up in August after being blasted by a huge solar storm, and a close pass by the sun on Sept. 10 apparently finished it off, astronomers say. So what will cruise within 22 million miles (35.4 million kilometers) of our planet Sunday is likely to be a stream of debris rather than a completely intact comet.
And the leftovers of Elenin won't return for 12,000 years, astronomers say.
"Folks are having trouble finding it, so I think it's probably dead and gone," said astronomer Don Yeomans of the Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. [Gallery: Comet Elenin in Pictures]
That means it probably won't present much of a skywatching show Sunday, scientists have said.
The doomsday comet
Elenin's apparent demise may come as a relief to some folks, since apocalyptic rumors circulating on the Internet portrayed the comet as a major threat to Earth.
One theory claimed Elenin would set off havoc on Earth after aligning with other heavenly bodies, spurring massive earthquakes and tsunamis. Another held that Elenin was not a comet at all, but in fact a rogue planet called Nibiru that would bring about the end times on Earth. After all, the comet's name could be taken as a spooky acronym: "Extinction-Level Event: Nibiru Is Nigh."
Those ideas were pure nonsense, Yeomans said.
"Elenin was a second-rate, wimpy little comet that never should have been noted for anything, really," he told SPACE.com. "It was not even a bright one."
Elenin's remains will not be the only objects about to make their closest pass of Earth. One day after the Elenin flyby, the small asteroid 2009 TM8 will zip close by. Like Elenin, it poses no risk of striking our home planet.
Asteroid 2009 TM8 is about 21 feet (6.4 meters) wide and the size of a schoolbus. It will come within 212,000 miles of Earth – just inside the orbit of the moon – when it zips by on Monday morning (Oct. 17).
Say goodbye to Elenin
Elenin was named after its discoverer, Russian amateur astronomer Leonid Elenin, who spotted it in December 2010. Before the icy wanderer broke up, its nucleus was likely 2 to 3 miles (3 to 5 km) in diameter, scientists say.
Elenin never posed any threat to life on Earth, Yeomans said. It was far too small to exert any appreciable influence on our planet unless it managed to hit us.
"Just driving to work every day in my subcompact car is going to have far more of a gravitational effect on Earth than this comet ever will," Yeomans said.
Elenin's supposed connection to earthquakes was just a correlation, and a weak one at that, he added. Relatively strong earthquakes occur every day somewhere on Earth, so it's easy — but not statistically valid — to blame some of them on the comet's changing position.
Yeomans views the frenzy over Elenin as a product of the Internet age, which allows loud and often uninformed voices to drown out the rather more prosaic results that scientists publish in peer-reviewed journals.
"It's a snowball effect on the Web," Yeomans said. "You get one or two folks who make an outrageous claim, and a bunch of others pile on. Some folks are actually making a living this way."
Elenin's crumbs will soon leave Earth in the rear-view mirror, speeding out on a long journey to the outer solar system. But Yeomans doesn't think the departure will keep the conspiracy theorists down for long.
"It's time to move on to the next armageddon," he said. - space
Planet X, The Sign of the Son of Man, and the End of the Age
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Chinese restaurant bankruptcy fear after false dog meat rumour
Bosses at a top Chinese restaurant fear their business could be wrecked after false rumours swept that they were serving up dog meat to diners. Estelle Johnston, who has run China Rose in Bawtry, near Doncaster, for almost three decades, spoke out after hearing several versions of a similar story from friends, neighbours and customers. She said the rumour revolves around a woman diner who apparently choked on a microchip after eating a meal during a party at the venue, which was supposedly identified later as a chip which had been from a former racing greyhound.
It has been alleged that both police and paramedics were called to the restaurant to deal with the fictitious incident, with the accusation being repeated that retired greyhounds from Sheffield were being used in the food. Mrs Johnston branded those behind the stories 'morons' and said her manager, Eugene Chee, had called her several times to say that bookings were being cancelled as a result of people believing what they heard. She added: "Three weeks ago I got a call from the manager saying people were ringing up to say they thought we had been closed down. Later there was a call from a friend in Mansfield who understood we had been closed because we had dirty kitchens.
"Then the manager rang me again to say he thought we had a serious problem, because somebody had just phoned up and said they had heard that a diner had choked in the restaurant on a microchip from a dog. Since then people have been ringing us up saying they want to cancel and even asking for refunds on deposits they have made on bookings for the busy Christmas period. It is a nightmare. It is hard enough doing business at the moment without suffering an attack like this. My first attitude was to laugh it off, but the effects it is having are actually frightening."
"The moronic people who start these things have no idea of the implications. It takes years to build up a good reputation but it doesn't take long to get a bad one. This could absolutely ruin us." Doncaster Council's environmental health team said it had not received any complaints about China Rose, but was aware of the false rumours which were circulating about the greyhound and the microchip. Officers have been to see Mrs Johnston and her staff in a bid to stamp out the stories and are set to produce a letter which will be displayed on the premises which they hope will help to scotch the rumours. - telegraph
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Jackie Gleason, Nixon and Dead Aliens
INTERVIEW with BEVERLY GLEASON
This morning I spoke by telephone with Beverly Gleason McKittrick, an ex-wife of the late comedian Jackie Gleason. I explained to her that I was interested in the progress of her book and if she could talk about Jackie Gleason's claim of seeing alien bodies at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida.
She said that the book never came out as she had 'stopped writing' of it. She said she was 'glad to get out of it' as Jackie Gleason did not seem pleased with her quoting him on the aliens in Florida. She said that there was not much additional to tell as the whole story regarding Jackie Gleason and the aliens, as far as she knew, had already been printed anyway.
"Esquire Magazine interviewed me after our separation," she said, "and I talked about how Jackie told me about seeing dead aliens in Florida. I think it was sometime in '74 when this happened. When I said that it was because he told me."
"After the interview was published, Jackie was upset about the story being public. He called and said he didn't appreciate me giving the interview, and that's when I started to wonder if the story was 'iffy.'
"The reason I became 'iffy' about it is because I wondered if it was really true, I mean... I believed it the whole time. I bought the story hook, line and sinker. But if it was true, then why did he get so upset about it?"
Beverly went on to explain how Jackie came to tell her of his experience.
"Jackie had been out very late one night I did not know who he was with," She said. "He told me where he was that same evening, he said he had been in South Florida with President Nixon to see some dead aliens there and I believed him, he was very convincing.
"He and Nixon were in contact quite a bit and I'm not sure how that was arranged, but it seems that their meetings were set up by an associate of Nixon's. After he got back, he was very pleased he had an opportunity to see the dead little men in cases, he explained to me what they looked like and he was still talking about it the next day."
Beverly explained that during her interview with Esquire Magazine, she made the statement about Gleason's claim to see dead aliens and afterward things between her and Jackie turned sour.
"We were on the verge of divorce, but everything was okay until it came out in Esquire," she said.
She informed that Gleason never did deny the story.
Regarding her announced intention to write a book, Beverly again said that she abandoned the project due in large part to Gleason's objection to her comments about him seeing the aliens.
"I just made that one statement about the UFOs and it appeared in Esquire and I guess a few other places and he didn't like that and I thought, I just can't go through with this. Let him live his life. So I never wrote the book."
I thanked Beverly for talking with me and asked if it would be okay for me to call her back later if I had more questions, she agreed. That concluded our conversation. Grant Cameron - Saturday, 01 August 2009 06:18
UFO Frontier
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Man says he was chased by a werewolf
A bizarre incident in Conway led officers to a man on the Hendrix College campus who believed he was being chased by a werewolf.
James Anderson Jr., 27, of Conway, was taken into custody Saturday after running through the north side of Conway and the Hendrix College campus, fleeing from what he described as a "werewolf."
Anderson told his story to Conway police officers, who arrived at the scene after public safety officers at Hendrix called dispatch.
According to a report released by the Conway Police Department, the incident began when Anderson was in the local Wal-Mart and noticed a "strange red light" that Anderson said caused his body to start smoking. Anderson said that the red light forced him to "tell the truth and be full of energy".
Anderson said he then ran from the Wal-Mart to where he had been sleeping, the alleyway by the Coin Laundry, 1065 Clayton Street, the report said. When he arrived, Anderson claimed that a "large beast began to talk to him" and that he believed the beast was a werewolf. He also claimed that the werewolf told him to "get rid of the odor," only Anderson didn't know what he meant.
Anderson then ran to Carrington Apartments at 2010 Cleveland Ave. and kicked in the door – Anderson stated that the werewolf would harm him if he didn't kick in the door — to an apartment in the complex. He then took off all his clothes and dumped them into the dryer with the resident's clothes, pouring a gallon of bleach into the dryer. Anderson then put on another set of clothes and "decided to scare the werewolf off" by attempting to light the bleached clothes on fire, but was unsuccessful, according to the report.
Anderson told officers he was scared for his life, ran upstairs and "flew off the balcony."
After being apprehended, Anderson became nervous when anyone tried to approach him, became aggressive and asked if the police were going to kill him. Anderson only calmed down after the officers advised him that the handcuffs were made of silver and the werewolf couldn't hurt him as long as he had them on.
Anderson was arrested on charges of residential burglary, two counts of first-degree criminal mischief and drunk insane, according to the report. - arkansasonline
