; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Just the Facts?: UFO 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' -- Apollo 11 Rocket Engines Found -- Rare Black Fox



...'somewhere over the rainbow'

Friday evening March 23rd, 2012 [item moved/CMS/nd] appeared a beautiful double rainbow. It lasted for maybe 10 minutes, and I was able to get my camera and snap off about 30 pictures. In only one of them, "within" the rainbow, was a black "line" with a black "aura" around it in the purple section of the major rainbow! The pictures from six seconds before and twelve seconds later of essentially the same perspective did not exhibit such an anomaly, and so I know it was not a camera anomaly. I did not notice the object until I downloaded the images from camera to computer. A single cropped image at 100% of the cameras resolution accompanies this report. I find such interesting in comparison to a similar circumstance event on November 10th, 2010, [item moved/CMS/nd] also reported to MUFON, I took pictures of a beautiful sunrise and in different images UAPs were also later noticed to have been captured. - MUFON

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Rare black fox spotted in English countryside

The moment a rare black fox was spotted in the British countryside. The prized shots were taken by amateur photographer John Moore, 58, to prove to his friends he had really seen the unusual creature. It is believed to be only the second time a black fox has been spotted in the British countryside.

John’s wife Cheryl, 64, first spotted what she thought to be a black sack blowing in the wind last week. John then spotted it for himself last Thursday but it has disappeared by the time he managed to get his camera out. He then spent four days watching for the black fox, which has a distinctive white-tipped tail and is believed to be one of just a handful in the country.

John, who took the pictures on Monday, said his friends thought he was imagining the black fox. He said: “When we spoke to people they didn’t believe us. They though we were talking about some kind of mythical creature. They thought we must have been mistaken and just seen a stray dog.

“I was desperate to get a good picture to prove we had seen it. From these pictures there is no mistaking it.” John believes there may be another black fox living near his home in Bassingbourne, Cambs., but is yet to capture a shot of it. The black fox is in fact a red fox which is going through a phase where the colour of its fur is particularly dark.

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Amazon Founder Finds Apollo 11 Moon Rocket Engines On Ocean Floor

When NASA's mighty Saturn V rocket launched the historic Apollo 11 mission to land the first men on the moon in 1969, the five powerful engines that powered the booster's first stage dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and were lost forever.

Lost, that is, until now.

A private expedition financed by Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos has discovered the five F-1 rocket engines used to launch Apollo 11 into space on July 16, 1969 and is drawing up plans to retrieve one or more so they can be publicly displayed.

"I'm excited to report that, using state-of-the-art deep sea sonar, the team has found the Apollo 11 engines lying 14,000 feet below the surface, and we're making plans to attempt to raise one or more of them from the ocean floor," Bezos wrote in a statement posted to the Bezos Expeditions website. "We don't know yet what condition these engines might be in - they hit the ocean at high velocity and have been in salt water for more than 40 years. On the other hand, they're made of tough stuff, so we'll see."

Bezos said he was only 5 years old when he watched with rapt attention when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins made their historic voyage to the moon. But it was only recently that a question struck his mind.

"A year or so ago, I started to wonder, with the right team of undersea pros, could we find and potentially recover the F-1 engines that started mankind's mission to the moon?" Bezos wrote.

It was then that Bezos began planning what his website billed as the F-1 Engine Recovery expedition.

If one of the Apollo 11 F-1 engines is ultimately recovered, it will be turned over to NASA, Bezos added.

"Though they've been on the ocean floor for a long time, the engines remain the property of NASA. If we are able to recover one of these F-1 engines that started mankind on its first journey to another heavenly body, I imagine that NASA would decide to make it available to the Smithsonian for all to see.," Bezos wrote. "If we're able to raise more than one engine, I've asked NASA if they would consider making it available to the excellent Museum of Flight here in Seattle."

Bezos stressed that at no point will public funds be used in the F-1 engine recovery project. The entire effort is a privately-funded expedition, he wrote.

"NASA is one of the few institutions I know that can inspire five-year-olds. It sure inspired me, and with this endeavor, maybe we can inspire a few more youth to invent and explore," Bezos added.

The Apollo 11 project is not Bezos' only space-themed project. His private spaceflight company Blue Origin is developing a commercial spaceship capable of flying people to and from Earth orbit. That project has received some NASA funding to push its space capsule plan forward.

Only three Saturn V rockets remain today, and only one is assembled from entirely from flight-capable hardware. The 363-foot (110.6-meter) tall boosters on display at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Fla. and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala. are comprised of flight, test and replica components. The Saturn V at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas is built entirely from leftover flight hardware.

Additional standalone F-1 engines, which never flew, are displayed across the nation, including in Washington, D.C. at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. In total, NASA launched 65 F-1 engines, five per flight, on 13 Saturn V boosters between 1967 and 1973. - space

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Espresso Machine for the Car Makes Its Debut

Caffeine-addled commuters take note – it’s now possible to get your morning coffee fix from inside your car.

The 2-pound Handpresso Auto mobile espresso machine plugs into a car’s cigarette lighter socket and fits in a cup holder. After you provide the water and a pod of coffee, the gadget delivers 16 bars of pressure to produce a shot of espresso in two minutes, Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

Nine bars of pressure is typically considered adequate for making espresso, but purists could be turned off by having to use pods instead of freshly roasted beans ground just before brewing.

Handpresso shipments will hit the French market in April, and it’s too soon to say whether the invention will go stateside, company spokeswoman Catherine Nielsen, told Businessweek.

Nielsen said her husband, Henrik Nielsen, invented the product and died three months ago.

A video on Handpresso’s site demonstrates what’s probably the best method for playing barista in one’s car. - nbcnewyork

NOTE: I'll bet my daughter buys one of these...Lon

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Hiker Attacked By Lion Is Saved By Bear

A hiker has described how he was attacked by a mountain lion while walking in the US - only to be saved by a bear.

Robert Biggs, 69, was walking in north-central California when he spotted a mother bear accompanied by a yearling and a newborn around 40ft away from him.

He watched the animals for a few minutes before turning to walk back up the trail and then a mountain lion pounced, grabbing his backpack.

Mr Biggs had seen the mother bear (not pictured) several times before

Mr Biggs told the Paradise Post: "It must have been stalking the little bear. It was on me in seconds."

He tussled with the cat and hit it on the head with a rock pick he had been carrying but it still clung on.

The walker said he was only saved when the mother bear approached him from behind, grabbed the lion and ripped it from his bag.

The two animals fought for a few seconds before the cat ran away.

The bear then also left, leaving Mr Biggs behind with bite marks, scratches and bruises but otherwise unhurt.

The hiker had walked the same trail several times before and seen the mother bear and its cub twice, even playing "patty-cake" with the youngster.

He is certain the mother bear that saved him during the attack by the lion is the same as the animal he had seen before because he recognised her markings. - Sky