Strange Creatures & UFOs Descend on Pennsylvania During 2011
(Mysterious Events reported from 48 Counties in the Commonwealth)
From Stan Gordon: www.stangordon.info
The year 2011 was another active time period for Pennsylvania residents to report strange observations and encounters with UFOs, Bigfoot and other strange creatures, and various other mysterious events. I have been keeping records of such anomalistic events from Pennsylvania, since 1959 when I was ten years old. In 1969, I set up a UFO Hotline through which the public could contact me to report UFO sightings or anything unusual. I have been receiving such reports ever since that time, and continue to do so by phone (724-838-7768) or by e-mail: paufo@comcast.net. Continue reading at Strange Creatures & UFOs Descend on Pennsylvania During 2011
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Colosseum Shut As Heavy Snowfall Hits Rome
The first major snowfall in Rome for 26 years has led to the closure of the world-famous Colosseum over fears that tourists could slip on the icy ruins.
The cold weather also left buses struggling to drive up the Italian capital's slushy hills, and cars without tyre chains were temporarily ordered off the road.
Scores of vehicles were blocked for hours on the ring road around the city after cars skidded and crashed.
Drivers frustrated at waiting for accidents to be cleared ended up abandoning their cars.
About 6cm (2.5in) of snow fell in many areas of the capital.
Authorities stopped visitors from entering the Colosseum, the adjacent Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, the former home of Rome's ancient emperors.
However, those already inside the ruins before heavy snow began coming down were allowed to finish their visits.
The north of Italy was hit far harder than Rome, with a snowstorm dumping about 40cm (3ft) of the white flakes.
Authorities appealed to Italians to avoid unnecessary travel, as the cold spell was forecast to continue well into the next week.
The last substantial snowfall in Rome occurred in 1986, though lighter snowfalls have occasionally and briefly blanketed the city since, including in 2010.
In Bosnia, huge snowfalls trapped people in their homes and cars, and even prevented the presidents of neighboring Serbia and Croatia from getting home from a summit.
More than a metre (3ft) of snow fell on the capital, Sarajevo, trapping most people in their homes, and about 30 people spent the night in their vehicles in a tunnel south of the city.
At least 122 people have died in Ukraine as a result of the bitterly cold weather that has swept the country over the past week, the emergencies ministry said.
Twelve people had died in hospitals and 32 in their homes while 78 had succumbed to the cold on the streets, it said.
More 3,000 shelters have now been set up to provide people with warmth and food. - sky
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Hospital to display selection of objects removed from patients bodies
A hospital in Croatia has framed and mounted a selection of objects removed from patients bodies that have been collected by staff over the last 80 years.
Needles, buttons, coins, animal bones and even a metal communist red star swallowed by patients have been carefully mounted in the collection boxes and are now to be put up on the wall in the main hospital in the southern town of Sibenik.
But doctors decided to limit the collection items that were swallowed. They also have a collection of items that patients had asked to be surgically removed from the other end after in most cases accidentally sitting on them. These include TV controls, salt pots, sex toys and deodorant cans.
A spokesman for the hospital said: "We started collecting things in the 1930s to show medical students the sort of thing to look for in cases like this. And then it became kind of a habit to continue collecting them. Now we've decided to put them on display – or at least part of the collection."
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Why the apology to Kulls by Dyer?
Steve Kulls interview on Conundrums - EP#37 Steve Kulls: BIGFOOT HOAX and Upcoming Book
Rick Dyer's apology to Steve Kulls - Rick Dyers apology to Steve Kulls on the Bigfoot hoax
OK...who knew what when? I kept a ton of references and notes during this debacle. I need to go back and disseminate the old and new information to see what holds water. Personally, I think Steve Kulls would have been better off not publishing a book on the 'Georgia Bigfoot Hoax'...Lon
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Port Nichelson Shipwreck Worth Billions Found Off Cape Cod
A treasure hunter said Wednesday he has located the wreck of a British merchant ship that was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Cape Cod during World War II while carrying what he claims was a load of platinum bars now worth more than $3 billion.
If the claim proves true, it could be one of the richest sunken treasures ever discovered.
But an attorney for the British government expressed doubt the vessel was carrying platinum. And if it was, in fact, laden with precious metals, who owns the hoard could become a matter of international dispute.
Treasure hunter Greg Brooks of Sub Sea Research in Gorham, Maine, announced that a wreck found sitting in 700 feet of water 50 miles offshore is that of the S.S. Port Nicholson, sunk in 1942.
He said he and his crew identified it via the hull number using an underwater camera, and he hopes to begin raising the treasure later this month or in early March with the help of a remotely operated underwater vessel.
"I'm going to get it, one way or another, even if I have to lift the ship out of the water," Brooks said.
The claim should be viewed with skepticism, said Robert F. Marx, an underwater archaeologist, maritime historian and owner of Seven Seas Search and Salvage LLC in Florida. Both an American company and an English company previously went after the contents of the ship years ago and surely retrieved at least a portion, Marx said. The question is how much, if any, platinum is left, he said.
"Every wreck that is lost is the richest wreck lost. Every wreck ever found is the biggest ever found. Every recovery is the biggest ever recovery," Marx said.
Brooks said the Port Nicholson was headed for New York with 71 tons of platinum valued at the time at about $53 million when it was sunk in an attack that left six people dead. The platinum was a payment from the Soviet Union to the U.S. for war supplies, Brooks said. The vessel was also carrying gold bullion and diamonds, he said.
Brooks said he located the wreck in 2008 using shipboard sonar but held off announcing the find while he and his business partners obtained salvage rights from a federal judge. Salvage rights are not the same as ownership rights, which are still unsettled.
Britain will wait until salvage operations begin before deciding whether to file a claim on the cargo, said Anthony Shusta, an attorney in Tampa, Fla., who represents the British government. He said it is unclear if the ship was even carrying any platinum.
"We're still researching what was on the vessel," he said. "Our initial research indicated it was mostly machinery and military stores."
The U.S. government has not weighed in on the court case yet, and Brooks said he doubts that will happen, since the Soviets eventually reimbursed Washington for the lost payment.
A U.S. Treasury Department ledger shows that the platinum bars were on board, Brooks said, and his underwater video footage shows a platinum bar surrounded by 30 boxes that he believes hold four to five platinum ingots each. But he has yet to bring up any platinum, saying his underwater vessel needs to retrofitted to attach lines to the boxes, which would then be hoisted to the surface by winch.
"Of course there are skeptics," he said. "There's skeptics on everything you do."
Maritime law is complicated, and there could be multiple claims on the ship's contents.
After the sinking of the HMS Edinburgh, an English warship carrying Soviet gold bullion as a payment to the allies during World War II, England, the U.S. and the Soviet Union had claims on the sunken treasure, Marx said. A consortium that owned the salvage vessel was given 10 percent of the prize, while the rest was shared by the other parties, he said.
In other big finds, treasure hunter Mel Fisher made international headlines in 1985 when he discovered a $450 million mother lode of precious metals and gemstones from a Spanish galleon that went down off Florida in 1622.
In another case, a Tampa exploration company has been ordered by the courts to return $500 million worth of treasure from a Spanish warship to Spain. The ship was sunk by the British navy during a battle off Portugal in 1804. - THP