Phantoms and Monsters

Mailbag: Apparitions, Aliens and Anomalies

2009-11-21T16:17:00.007-05:00

We were at the cemetery for the burial of my sister's mother-in-law. It was a cold winter day & I decided to wait in the car with my elderly mother while my niece and sister proceeded to the burial site where she would be interned.

A few minutes after they had left the vehicle, I noticed 3 apparitions pass in front of the car from left to right. It was like watching a movie. Each apparition stopped & glared at me for a moment before filing past.

The apparition I remember the most was that of a old man with a young girl maybe 2 or 3 years old. I could see them only from the waist up. Their clothing was from another period in time. I got the impression that she was sitting on his lap.

The other apparition was another old man who gave me a long, evil stare as he passed by the front of the car.

It took me awhile to figure out, but I really do believe that these spirits I saw were going to the grave site to see the new person being buried.

Till this day I have never gone to that cemetery alone.

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Hello. The night before last at approx. 8:30 PM, I was watching television in my living room near a window. I felt like someone or something was watching me. I glanced to my right and there was a being in a gray suit standing outside my window watching me. It had to be 7' tall or so. (I measured in the morning). I had been discussing this feeling of being observed while watching television with a friend just the day before. I know it was not a human, but someone or something entirely different. This being was only there for a second or two and fled the instant I had noticed it. So I only got a fleeting glimpse of it, but I saw that it was dressed in gray and had a large head. I was not fearful sensing a feeling of calm, almost protected. As I have not been able to go out and watch the stars for nearly two weeks. It could not have been a reflection of any kind and not a reflection from my TV either. Any thoughts on what it was? Thanks from Florida
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(Click to enlarge image)

Have you ever heard of Meta-Physical Phenomenon or Meta-Physic Phenomenon? Do you understand what this is? If you have heard of it and know what it is, you may understand as to what I am going through. I cannot get a grip this type of gift I was given, but in reality, I know when something is about to happen. I have seen sightings beyond anything anyone has ever seen. I am shown the truth, yet every time I have no photo or physical evidence.

I know that the Bermuda Triangle is not a triangle in shape, but consists of 3 huge square areas. Yes, UFOs are involved. I may send you a story and drawing that truly happened to me on Sept. 29, 1979 from 8:45pm to 9:00pm. When you read the story and look at the drawing you will understand me better. I called someone on these sightings and they said it was weather related. I say 'hog wash'.

I also think I know what is causing the animal mutilations. Once, I was stopped at a red traffic light and noticed this thing in my rear view mirror. I still can see it in my memory. It looked like a mixture of a preying mantis and one of those raptors in the Jurassic park movies, gray in color, scaly skin, powerful hind legs, the front arms were jointed. What appeared as hands were not hands but these things that looked like sheaths, pointed at the end. I only saw one eye as it was sideways in my rear view mirror. I am trying to figure out how much I can see towards the back of my truck if something were to stand on the back of my pick up. It could of been 4 to 5 feet in height, just tall enough to see every detail of the thing. It vanished and I sure wasn't going to get out and see if it had left any type of tracks or see how it moved. I floored my gas pedal right down to the floor and got home fast.

NOTE: if I receive the story of this reader's experience on Sept. 29, 1979, I will surely post it. Once again, I welcome reader encounters with the unknown, no matter how strange and unusual...Lon

Pneumonic Plague Symptoms, Aerosol Spraying Reported In Poland

2009-11-21T14:48:00.006-05:00

Reports are coming in of people dying of symptoms similar to the pneunomic plague in an Emergency Room in Bialystok in the north east of Poland.

A doctor reported treating three patients with symptoms similar to the pneumonic plague, including burned lungs. One the patients died in his arms. The doctor said that it appeared be a bacterial infection and that no antibiotics worked. He also thought it could be a more virulent strain of the swine flu.

The victims came from small villages close to Bialystok.

Low flying aircraft were heard in the region a few nights ago.

Cases similar to the pneumonic plague have also be reported in Lithuania, close to the Polish border and to Bialystok.

The appearance of something resembling the pneumonic plague in Poland shortly after low flying aircraft made carried out unexplained missions during the night time in the same area has parallels with the recent incident in the Ukraine.

Witnesses reported low flying planes carrying out aerosol spraying shortly before the pneumonic plague was diagnosed in victims a few days later.

The Ukrainian government and WHO moved swiftly to declare the swine flu virus had mutated to become more dangerous and implement martial law.

This is an email from Poland:

My friend a doctor who works in Emergency Room in Bialystok (Eastern North of Poland) called me saying that he had 3 cases of patients with symptoms similar to the pneumonic plague. "If it is H1N1, so it means that it has changed for very virulent form and it kills in matter of hours". One patient died in his hands. I do not know what happened to other two. He is going to inform me how's the situation, but he expects it to get much worse. No antibiotic works for the disease!

Source:
http://www.theflucase.com/
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British Scientists Testing Ukrainian 'Super Flu' That Has Killed 189 People

dailymail - British scientists are examining the strain of swine flu behind a deadly Ukrainian outbreak to see if the virus has mutated.

A total of 189 people have died and more than one million have been infected in the country.

Some doctors have likened the symptoms to those seen in many of the victims of the Spanish flu which caused millions of deaths world-wide after the World War One.

An unnamed doctor in western Ukraine told of the alarming effects of the virus.

He said: 'We have carried out post mortems on two victims and found their lungs are as black as charcoal.

'They look like they have been burned. It's terrifying.'

Neighbouring Poland has called on the EU to take action, fearing the mystery virus may spread westwards.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk has written to European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who holds the EU presidency.

The letter said: 'The character of this threat demands that rapid action be undertaken at the European Union level.'

Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary and Romania have already launched health checks on Ukrainians entering their territory.

Slovakia has closed two of five border crossings.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has called in the World Health Organisation.

A team of specialists are carrying out tests in Kiev and Lviv in an effort to identify the virus.

President Yushchenko said: 'People are dying. The epidemic is killing doctors. This is absolutely inconceivable in the 21st Century.'

In a TV interview, the President added: 'Unlike similar epidemics in other countries, three causes of serious viral infections came together simultaneously in Ukraine: two seasonal flus and the Californian flu.

'Virologists conclude that this combination of infections may produce an even more aggressive new virus as a result of mutation.'

Four men and one woman have died from the flu in Lviv, said emergency hospital chief doctor Myron Borysevych.

Two of the dead patients were in the 22-35 age group, with two others over 60.

He diagnosed the disease as viral pneumonia.

'We have sent the analyses to Kiev. We don't believe it's H1N1 swine flu. Neither do we know what kind of pneumonia it is.'

Universities, schools and nurseries have been closed, public meetings have been banned and theatres shut.

The virus from the Ukraine is being tested at the Medical Research council labs in Mill Hill North London .

A spokesman said: 'We do not have a time scale for the results of the tests, although some preliminary results have been obtained. I cannot tell you what they are.

'We did not have enough of the virus samples so we will have to grow some more before we can come to a conclusive decision about its nature.'

New Orleans' Most Gruesome Location

2009-11-21T14:30:00.005-05:00

khurak - LaLaurie House has been believed to be the most troubled location in the history of French Quarter. If we go through the haunted history of this historical house which is situated in New Orleans then we will came to know that LaLaurie House is on the top of the stories of haunted houses throughout the city. It sadly describes the wicked excess of slavery in a horrific and grisly manner because it has been believed the most dreadful haunted location in the city through several generations, over the 150 years.

The ghostly tale dates of this LaLaurie House started back in 1832 when Dr. Louis LaLaurie and Delphine (his wife) shifted in the French Quarter in their mansion. They were very social and soon they became renowned for their deep interest in the social affairs of the community and were respected in the community for their prominence and wealth.

Soon her wife (Madame LaLaurie) became a well known personality in the city as the most significant French-Creole woman. She was also responsible to handle the business affairs of the family and carrying a great style in her personality. Her daughters have also got their fame as the finest dressed girls among the wealthy community of the New Orleans.

Today the LaLaurie House has been restored and renovated. It has been used as the luxury apartments in the city which is for those wealthy people who can afford to live in these apartments. It looks that the residence in these apartments are very easy today than it was around one hundred years ago.
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The LaLaurie House: Nightmare Mansion in the French Quarter

Of all the haunted houses, in America's most haunted city, the LaLaurie House has surely endured the most gruesome history, and its reputation for otherworldly visitations is well-deserved and well-documented.

The LaLauries

In 1832, Dr. Louis LaLaurie and his wife, Delphine, moved to their splendid quarters at 1140 Royal Street. They were wealthy Creole socialites who entertained on a grand scale, and Madame LaLaurie was reportedly both beautiful and intelligent. Louis, a native of France, was her third husband. New Orleanians who attended affairs at their home were wined and dined with the choicest food and wine, on the finest china, linens, and silver imaginable. What was unimaginable was the horror behind the facade of gentility.

The Slaves

While the institution of slavery is indefensible, it nevertheless existed in the antebellum south, and certainly in New Orleans. Madame LaLaurie, it is told, had a particular fondness for the practice, and owned many slaves who were methodically brutalized to keep them "under control." There were many rumors, reportedly fanned by the "jealous Americains" who were systematically excluded from all things truly Creole. Among other things, it was said that in the LaLaurie household, slaves disappeared on a regular basis. A neighbor reported seeing Delphine chasing a slave girl onto the roof of the house with a whip. The child jumped to her death. It appeared that Madame LaLaurie enjoyed her many luxuries at the cost not only of her slaves' freedom, but also of their lives.

The Fire

On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the LaLaurie home, and when the volunteer fireman came to the scene, they discovered the horror hidden inside the facade of gentility. Dozens of slaves were reportedly chained to the wall in a secret attic. Some were in cages, and body parts were strewn about haphazardly. Horrible mutilations had been perpetrated, and some slaves cried out begging to be put out of their pain and misery. The monstrous and insane experiments carried on by Madame LaLaurie were beyond anything imaginable, either before or since. It was a sight that no one in the city could comprehend, and the population was sickened, calling for Delphine to be brought to justice.

But she had disappeared. Some people found evidence that she and her husband fled across Lake Pontchartrain and lived there, while others say she went from there to France, escaping in a horse and buggy on the night of the fire. However, a tombstone bearing her name has been discovered in St. Louis Cemetery No.1, indicating that she died in 1842, and that perhaps her children arranged to have her remains returned here. A mob vented its anger on the home, destroying everything within its walls. For some years after that, it was an abandoned wreck. One window in the house, visible from the street, was sealed over and remains so today. Rumor has it that a slave fell to her death through that window during the rescue attempt on the night of the fire.

The Hauntings

The LaLaurie house has had many incarnations before returning to its purpose as a residence. It was a saloon and a girl's school, a music conservatory, an apartment building and a furniture store. The stories began almost immediately. Many have reported seeing the phantom of that young slave girl fleeing across the LaLaurie roof. Agonized screams coming from the empty house were commonplace. Those who stayed there after it became occupied left after only a few days. At the turn of the century, a resident, one of the many poor Italian immigrants who lived in the house, encountered a black man in chains. The entity attacked him on the stairwell then suddenly disappeared. The next morning, most of the other residents abandoned the building.

The bar, "The Haunted Saloon," opened in the 20th century. The owner kept records of the odd experiences of his patrons. Later, it seemed the LaLaurie House did not care to be a furniture store. The owner’s merchandise was often found covered in a mysterious foul-smelling fluid. After staying up to catch the suspected vandals, the owner found the liquid had somehow re-appeared in plain sight, although no one had entered. The business closed.

Animals were found butchered within the house. Delphine was reportedly seen hovering over the infant child of a turn-of-the-century resident, or chasing children with a whip. She also apparently attempted, late in the 19th century and long after she was dead, to strangle a black manservant. Today, people just passing the building on tour report fainting or becoming nauseous, and of course, disembodied screams or wailing are still occasionally heard. Some tourists are able to photograph orbs around the roof area.

The LaLaurie House Today

Today, the house has been restored and is a private home. The owner claims no ghostly or ghastly happenings since his residence there. Further, it should be noted that some claim Madame LaLaurie was the victim of yellow journalism, perpetrated by the jealous Americans who disapproved of her wealthy and exclusive lifestyle. However, fairly recent renovations to the building unearthed graves hidden underneath the wooden floor of the home, indicating the bodies had been dumped rather than buried. The skeletons apparently date from the time of the LaLaurie horrors. Draw your own conclusions.

Sources:
http://goneworleans.about.com/
http://www.hauntedneworleanstours.com/
http://www.spiritsociety.org/

Influenza Outbreak Victim Haunts Canadian College Building

2009-11-21T13:47:00.005-05:00

weeklyalbertan - All good haunted house stories start off with a dark and sinister past and the tale of three SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) buildings is no exception.

The most popular story is the haunting of Heritage Hall. Most people are aware that the historic building is haunted but few know the whole story.

During an early 20th century influenza outbreak, Heritage Hall was converted into a make shift hospital for the infected. A young nurse who worked and lived in the hospital was one of the last victims of the outbreak. She ended up passing away in the very hospital where she had saved so many lives.

Today there have been reports that she still wanders the halls late at night, students have heard locked doors opening and closing during late night study sessions. Construction workers claimed tool boxes had been moved during recent renovations, and it is even rumored that SAIT’s executives have encountered paranormal activity.

“I have spent a lot of late nights walking through Heritage Hall,” said SAITSA Safe Walk volunteer and VP Student Life Alyssa Athanasopolous. “Often when I’m walking through Heritage Hall alone at night I feel a gust of air as if someone has just walked past me.”

The original residence building Owasina Hall, that’s now condemned, is believed to hold some secrets of its own. Students have claimed to hear screams coming from within the building, ghostly figures appearing in the windows, and lights coming from empty hallways.

“My bedroom window faces directly at Owasina Hall and some nights it looks like there are people in the building,” said Christine Meir, an East Hall resident. “Sometimes even in this building we hear heavy breathing, scratching and strange knocks.”

There are whisperings around campus that the strange happenings in the residence buildings are caused by a former SAIT student who took his own life while living in Owasina Hall.

The John Ware building may have also been the scene of a great tragedy. Cleaning staff of the Highwood Restaurant have told stories of a ghost that haunts the building. A construction worker supposedly died during a renovation to the building many years ago. At night after the restaurant is closed cleaning staff have heard the sounds of footsteps in the hallway and the hammering of nails.

None of these ghosts could not be reached for comment

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Are you interested in the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs and conspiracies? Go to Phantoms and Monsters Wiki and become a member of this unique network. Start a page on a subject or add your input to an existing page or thread. Phantoms and Monsters updates are posted daily at Twitter. Signup today! Find me on Facebook

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'William Bonney' EVP Heard in Minnesota Graveyard

2009-11-20T14:43:00.007-05:00

jordannews - The news came by e-mail: “I may have an interesting story brewing for you,” Jordan resident Kathy Machowski, a ghost hunter a founding member of Beyond the Veil, wrote earlier this fall. “I was in a graveyard not to far from Jordan, and I was doing my ghostie thing. Well, I got an EVP of a man saying, ‘William Bonney.’”

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) are sound recordings believed to be the voice of a spirit. Often, EVP’s are not heard at first, but after an investigation, ghost hunters analyze recordings to catch signs of a ghost. Cemeteries are very active with EVP’s, Machowski said.

One of Machowski’s recent EVP’s was distinct and quizzical. Someone had mentioned William Bonney, an alias used by Billy the Kid.

“I thought, Wow ... William Bonney has never been known to have been in Minnesota,” the e-mail from Machowski continued. “I am going to be going back to see if I can get more EVP’s and to check the headstones.”

The ghost hunter returned twice to the Lydia Zion United Methodist Church cemetery in Spring Lake Township, talking and recording. The first time, her EVP’s turned up a woman who did not mention the frontier outlaw, who according to legend, killed 21 men, one for each year of his life.

The number is disputed.

As was his death, Machowski said.

The man who claimed to have killed Billy the Kid never received the bounty placed on the head of his notorious prize, Machowski said. The gravesite of Billy the Kid, born Henry McCarty, is unknown.

“With all this information, could he have survived?” Machowski said in an interview. “Maybe. Can’t say.”

Machowski’s suspicion had been that he was buried in Lydia, but her search – even for aliases, including his dearest friend’s names – ended empty handed.

But after a short ghost hunt last week with the Jordan Independent staff, she analyzed her recordings and wrote another e-mail:

“There was a man and a woman there at the graveyard when we were there. Some of the voices are very faint and hard to hear. … When I asked about dropping the name of William Bonney, I got a woman saying, ‘Fame.’”

Then, in the same location as she had recorded the first mention of William Bonney, she recorded a man saying, “He’s dead.”

A friend of hers searched the gravestones for Billy the Kid’s aliases, as well. He did not find any, but he searched for the birth certificates of the deceased. One of them could not be found, raising further suspicion with Machowski.

“That place isn’t that big,” Machowski said in an interview. “And a lot of them have the same name, because you know, a family-oriented town.”

Machowski, who plans to return for more recordings, said it’s just another mystery worth pursuing.

NOTE: Billy the Kid (Henry McCarty, alias William Bonney) was buried at Fort Sumner, New Mexico and the man who killed him, Pat Garrett, was buried at the Masonic Cemetery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. I'm going to try to make some inquiries and keep tabs on this case...it's an interesting mystery.

What's that in the window...?

2009-11-20T14:03:00.005-05:00

The image was snapped by members of the Texas Spirit Seekers paranormal research group at Waxahachie's famed Catfish Plantation restaurant. It seems to show a disembodied face through a window in one of the dining rooms.

"We tried to disprove it by saying that it may have been a reflection of one of the team members, but it looks absolutely nothing like any of them," says Ryan Rodriguez, former restaurant manager. "And all you see is the face, no body or shoulders. They were pretty freaked out by it!"

NOTE: actually, there is probably a reasonable explanation for this image in the photo...but, as always, I present it here for your thoughts...Lon

UFO Sightings Increasing in Stephenville Area and North Central, TX

2009-11-20T12:00:00.009-05:00

(depiction)

On November 19, 2009, at 7:35 p.m., a woman and her husband stepped out onto the porch of their rural home, which is 8 miles from Stephenville and about 10 miles from Dublin, Texas. It only took a minute or so, for the lights to appear. This is her report (some grammar/spelling corrected):

"I begin in saying that this is not an un-ordinary event, as we see these lights every once in a while outside in our yard. We live way out in the country 8 miles out from a town, so at night it is quite easy to see anything in the night sky.

We never have reported these sightings as a lot of people do around here, as we live 8 miles from Stephenville, Texas and 10 or so miles from Dublin, Texas but last night we saw the lights at the same level in the sky... I'd say at least 7 of these.

It was around dinner time, so I was in the kitchen at first and since the lights had been seen lately, we had been looking outside once in a while at night.

My husband and I walked out and were only out for a minute and then we saw them...I guess that was a lucky thing.

I didn't have to wonder what it was, since these lights have been seen here off and on for quite a while now...guess they like the dairies around this area of Texas.

The rather round orange lights (that look almost all the same size) just last a few seconds, then they disappear. Of course you're real excited when we are seeing these lights... and then they are gone (maybe not really gone, just change position so we can no longer see them).

Almost always after wards we see the blinking of jets and hear the jets coming in the area.

Since we had had some news only a couple of weeks ago about the unexplained lights again in the Stephenville paper, people in this area start looking around at night again to see UFOs.

Actually we had seen the lights last October and were waiting for this October to look again but it was cloudy most of the month. Now it is November and we saw them last night.

Later, at approximately 8:00 p.m. on November 19, 2009, a woman and her 76 year old mother report that they were just leaving De Leon, Texas on Highway 6 just past the Leon River Bridge, when in a clearing they happened to see "a flash up in the sky". As they watched, 4 sets of lights appeared in a straight line 'like Castle Top orange and white in color and very bright, like an explosion.'

The lady reports that a moment later, another light appeared to the left of the first, as the right light disappeared. For a brief moment the lights shown together, then both 'gone'.

The lights were reported to be large in size but not very high in elevation. As seen from their location on Highway 6, the lights were to her Southeast, towards Coyman, Lake Proctor, or Northwest Dublin.

The lady reported that it was the strangest thing that she and her 76 year old mother had ever seen."

Nov. 2009 - Stephenville, TX UFO Sighting
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Date/Time: 11-17-2009 19:45 CST
Location: Brownwood, TX
Shape: Triangle
Distance: Unknown
MUFON Report:
1.Driving north on 183 towards Early/Brownwood. Observed a bright single point of light yellow/orangish in color, approx twice as bright as jupiter in the night sky.
2. brightness intensity of the object.
3. unknown. These were absolutely not aircraft lights/landing lights, weather balloons or flares. The lights were intelligently controlled.
4. Object was initially a single point of light for a few seconds then turned off. A few seconds passed and one by one three points of yellow/orangish lights formed a triangle with a fourth light coming on momentarily. As soon as the 4th light appeared, they all turned off quickly. Points of light were stationary.
5-6. lights abruptly went out.
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Date/Time: 11-18-2009 19:33 CST
Location: Santo, TX
Shape: Circle
Distance: Over 1 mile
MUFON Report:
At approximately 19:33 2 miles west of Santo TX, I was in the process of feeding my dogs when I noticed out of the corner of eye a bright light. I stopped to look and the bright light began to dim, then immediately a second light illuminated for one second, then a third for one second and then a fourth.

After the fourth illumination, I saw 4 tiny white dots moving very slowly across the sky and within a second or two all the lights disappeared. They reappeared in almost the same area, in the same pattern and it happened again for a total of 3 cycles.

They were approximately 200ft AGL, 2 miles from our home. The colors were a yellowish orange that seem to change colors and almost flicker.
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Date/Time: 11-18-2009 19:42 CST
Location: Dublin, TX
Shape: Other
Distance: Unknown
MUFON Report:
I was driving home from my in-laws house who live in the Greens creek area between Stephenville and Dublin but more near Dublin with my four year old and 12 week old in the car with me.

It was not long after I turned off of County Road 242 which I had been heading north, on to another county road, I believe it is County Road 381 heading south east. It was not long after I turned onto County Road 381 that I noticed two bright lights in the sky. Out of the view from my windshield the light to my left was slightly higher.

My initial reaction was that they were planets, they were orangish in color and they were larger than star. I slowed down and leaned forward in my seat to investigate what I was seeing. I soon realize they were far too large to be planets almost as soon as I came to this realization another light appeared above and to the left of the light on my right and then another light appeared above the new light and to its left forming a straight line at about a 45-60 degree angle. The lights were stationary in the sky never moving.

As the new lights appeared I started freaking out. As you well know UFO sightings are prevelant in our area and I could not believe that I could be possilby witnessing it for myself.

Probably second after the new lights appeared they faded beginning with the first light on my left and then they were all completely gone. Once the lights on the left started to show up I did not pay as much attention to the light on the far right. I do not believe it changed but do not recall when for sure it faded although I know it was within seconds of the other lights.

In all the event took place in probably less than 2 minutes. The thought of the UFO sightings did not occured to me as the third and fourth light appeared but it was really the manner that the lights faded that convienced me that I had just witnessed something strange.

I was very excited and shocked about what I had just seen and got on the phone to share it with my husband immediatly. My outgoing call to him was at 7:44 P.M. Therefore I approximate the sighting took place at 7:42 P.M.

I just received word via Facebook that a friend of mine also witnessed lights in the sky this evening although I do not know the specifics of their sighting.

________________

Event Date: 11-18-2009 19:30 CST
Location: Comanche, TX
Region: Texas
Shape: Lights
Distance: Unknown
Duration: Up to 1 minute
MUFON Report:

Report was taken by MUFON Dispatch (Stephen Cox) 3 - 6 lights in a straight line flashing, objects were a long distance away the size of this was monstrous, Witness was off highway 6, The lights were very bright orange, jets were chasing objects and a lot smaller than this object, Viewed for 45 sec to a minute. A friend saw the object in Abilene, 7 witnesses in Stephenville. A friend who is a police officer has a dashboard video but does not in anyway want his name used. Witness has pictures and video and can get pictures and videos from other witnesses.
________________

Date/Time: 11-18-2009 20:05 CST
Location: Stephens County, TX
Shape: Lights
Distance: Over 10 miles
Duration of Sighting: 3 minutes
LITS Report:
I was at my home, which is East of Breckenridge. I noticed what I thought was a commercial jet flying East to west in same flight path as an earlier plane but noticed the lights did not disappear, as in stobing navigational lights.

I looked through my binoculars and saw 4 amber colored lights in a row, with what appeared to be a smaller light on the bottom of the object near the leading end. The smaller light would flash red, then white.

As brightly lit as the object was, I still could not make out a fuselage, tail, or wings. If it were a commercial or military jet, I should have heard the sound of jet engines, however, there was complete silence. If it had been a helicopter, I doubt I would have heard it and at that distance I would have barely seen the object, if at all.

The object appeared to be at an altitude of about 10,000 feet. By my estimate, it was traveling in the vicinity of I-20, heading west.

When I first saw the object, it was in the direction of Morgan Mill, TX, which is to my SE. At it's closest, the object was probably slightly north of Cisco, TX. I lost sight of object when it simply disappeared in the direction of Baird, TX.

What this object was, I don't know. It did not conform to any jet that I know of. For me, it remains 'unidentified'.

Thanks to SW at Lights in the Sky

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Are you interested in the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs and conspiracies? Go to Phantoms and Monsters Wiki and become a member of this unique network. Start a page on a subject or add your input to an existing page or thread. Phantoms and Monsters updates are posted daily at Twitter. Signup today! Find me on Facebook

********************

Have you had a close encounter or witnessed something unusual?
Send us an email

********************

Anomalist Books - works on maverick science, unexplained mysteries, unorthodox theories, strange talents, and unexpected discoveries. Please check out their excellent and diverse catalog

***************

"The latest news from beyond the mainstream"
Join Ben & Aaron for their weekly podcast!

Want to help support Phantoms and Monsters?
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Hey, Sting! I'll Be Watching You...Really!

2009-11-19T12:02:00.005-05:00

telegraph - The singer, who famously sang Spirits In The Material World in the 1980s, said wife Trudie Styler also witnessed the figure, standing with a child in the corner of their bedroom.

Sting said he also experienced flying objects and mysterious voices in one of his homes in an interview to be played on Radio 2.

He said: ‘’I would never have said I believe in ghosts, until I saw one - and I’ve seen a ghost with my own eyes.’’

The musician, whose former band The Police recorded an album Ghost In The Machine, continued: ‘’I was in bed one night, a very old house I used to live in. And I woke up at three in the morning, bolt upright, looked into the corner of the room and thought I saw Trudie standing there with a child - our child - in her arms, staring at me.

‘’And I thought ‘well, that’s strange - why is she standing in a corner, staring at me?’. And I then reached next to me and there was Trudie, and I suddenly got this terrible chill. And she woke up and said ‘Gosh, who is that?’ and she saw this woman and a child in the corner of the room.’’

Sting told presenter Claudia Winkleman, in an interview to be broadcast on Friday night at 10pm, that the figure simply disappeared.

He added: ‘’A lot of things happened in that house, a lot of flying objects and voices and strange, strange things happened.

‘’When you live in old houses you get this energy there. Intellectually, no I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’ve experienced them on an emotional level.’’

Spectre Photographed at Former Northern Ireland Workhouse

2009-11-19T11:21:00.007-05:00

londonderrysentinel - This is the ghostly picture taken at the former Roe Valley Hospital showing a nurse like figure holding a baby that has put paranormal skeptics in a spin, and sparked fresh supernatural investigations into the grounds.

The photo, taken by a night time LCDI security guard just a few months ago, has been deemed by experts as authentic and reignited examinations into the ghoulish goings on at the former workhouse. The picture was passed onto paranormal investigators at the Paranormal Society Ireland who analysed the photo for two to three months before releasing it. LCDI manager Damien Corr, the first person to be shown the picture, says he was taken aback by the image.

"I am a sceptic but let's just say the picture was disconcerting enough for me to advise our security guard to pass it onto the paranormal society."

"I certainly know what it looks like; a woman holding a baby, but who knows. The sceptic in me says it could be something else."

Damien adds that the centre's night-time guard had been taking a photograph of the building with his digital camera and had not discovered anything untoward about the scene until flicking back through the images.

"It was an innocent photograph that he had wanted to take of the building at night. He wasn't alarmed by anything at the time and hadn't seen anything."

Close inspection of the image appears to show a woman and child wearing bonnet style clothing, attire closely linked to the period the building hails from.

"But when he showed me the photograph I just thought 'oh my God' and told him to contact the members of the PSI, who had been here a few months before investigating for the BBC show 'Northern Ireland's Greatest Haunts'."

The photo has plunged the former hospital grounds, which now plays home to numerous health and social care facilities as well as Limavady Community Development Initiative, into further mystery regarding it's gruesome past. So much so experts plan to return to the old workhouse building in the coming months. Scary tales from the building include the regular sound of crying babies and appearances of men and women in uniform.

One of the most gruesome tales from the building includes that of a pregnant nurse who worked at the former hospital. It is believed she kept her pregnancy secret, delivered the baby herself and killed it, and sometime later, wracked with remorse, hung herself.

Darren Annsell, Chairman of PSI formerly known as the Northern Ireland Paranormal Society, says there is certainly a lot yet to be discovered about the Limavady building.

He said: "We always come from the skeptical point of view when we get passed on pictures such as this one but we have been looking at this picture, analysing and making sure it is authentic for the last few months and we can't find anything to say it isn't."

"We always take our investigations from a scientific point of view and have put ourselves on the map when it comes to research in the paranormal field. Our last investigations at Limavady workhouse threw up some surprises from a knock on a window to the sound of a crying baby so there is certainly a lot more to look into there, we will be returning to take our investigations further in the next few months."
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THE NEWTOWN LIMAVADY WORKHOUSE

It would appear that things have regularly gone bump in the night at Limavady workhouse, which operated from 1842 to 1932.

It was a harsh place and around 10 people a week died. In April 1930 the remaining inmates were transferred to Coleraine Workhouse and the building was converted into the District Hospital.

Now the home of Limavady Community Development Initiative, it appears not all the former residents have been consigned to history, as there are a scattering of unexplained experiences.

General manager of the LCDI, Damien Corr, as well as being the boss, is also the keeper of a number of chilling tales:

"Our security guys used to sit out in the foyer at a table, and at the end of the left-hand corridor was the maternity ward and they regularly reported hearing the sound of crying babies.

"Another story that has been on-going in Limavady for some time, is that a nurse in here kept her pregancy secret, delivered the baby herself and killed it, and sometime later, wracked with remorse, she hung herself.

"What has emerged recently is another version of that tale. Our security guard saw someone in a uniform, albeit in another area of the building, walking up the stairs which would have taken you to the nurses' home.

"Other people say they have seen things but there are stories of sightings of a nurse in an old-fashioned cape with a red hood sitting on the bridge out at the front of the hospital. In the 1960s and 1970s there were a lot of sightings of this figure."

He goes on to relate how other nurses, almost like clockwork at 3am, could hear what sounded like a nurse with a wooden leg.

"I would have thought a wooden leg would have been a career no-no for a nurse. It could have been a patient with their leg amputated, but local folklore has it that it was a nurse."

Another former patient used to hear footfalls coming into the ward, up to the bed and stopping, yet there was no one there when they looked up.

We also visited the remaining dormitory, also the scene of an alarming encounter, which took place just a few weeks ago.

Daytime security guard, Evan Hand, recounts how earlier this year he saw a 'shadow' in the LCDI reception area, and thinking it was a car, looked out the window.

He then traced the movement of the 'shadow' up the stairs, and around the turn in the stairwell, where it vanished.

Needless to say, there was no car, and no one else was in the building at the time...

Evan goes on to recall how, just a couple of weeks ago, while showing one half of a film crew around the building, in a preliminary scout of the premises for a forthcoming television show, they had been 'working' in the woman's dormitory on the top left wing of the workhouse for over an hour when a presence in the room decided to make contact.

Crouched in the far left corner of the room, where years ago over 200 women would have slept on straw and floorboards, the medium called out for any present spirits to make contact.

The crew, and Evan, were treated to a very rare occurrence - a presence decided to thump on the floor twice.

Asked to repeat the contact, the spirit thumped the floor again!

Sources:
http://www.workhouses.org.uk/
http://www.londonderrysentinel.co.uk/

Strange Petroglyph Found in Talabre Ravine, Chile

2009-11-19T10:24:00.006-05:00

inexplicata - Impressive prehistoric evidence of the UFO presence in the region can be found in various manifestations of rock art in Talabre and the vicinity of Maria Elena.

A strange petroglyph in the Talabre ravine, dating back to the prehistory of the Atacama region, has stirred curiosity due to the presence of a strange, oval-headed being with large eyes and hands. Many have associated this image with a deity or extraterrestrial.

Petroglyphs are etched upon surface rocks worn away by time, and are associated to village centers near burial grounds or “gentilares”, as well as areas of worship in specific geographic areas in the vicinity of prehistoric trails, a typical characteristic of inter-regional traffic.

Sotero Armenya, president of the community of Talabre, has stated that this enigmatic petroglyph has drawn the attention of tourists and locals alike.

The official explained that it is an original item. “While we do not know what it corresponds to, the only problem is that its structure is being affected by the conditions proper to the climate and geography.”

Dagoberto Peña, a professor of Ecotourism at the Andres Bello University, a mountaneer who has even ascended Mt. Everest, stated that this particular image was found two years ago. It was photographed as evidence, and [the image] is accompanied by camelid patterns.

NOTE: the image I posted is from the Atacama Desert in Chile....I don't know if it is the same petroglyph referenced in the article. It may be impossible to determine what these rock drawings actually represent. Nonetheless, similar petroglyphs are being found in different locations in the Americas spawning new 'ancient astronauts' theories...Lon

NSA Helped Microsoft Develop Windows 7...Uh Oh!

2009-11-19T10:07:00.003-05:00

computerworld - The National Security Agency (NSA) worked with Microsoft on the development of Windows 7, an agency official acknowledged yesterday during testimony before Congress.

"Working in partnership with Microsoft and elements of the Department of Defense, NSA leveraged our unique expertise and operational knowledge of system threats and vulnerabilities to enhance Microsoft's operating system security guide without constraining the user to perform their everyday tasks, whether those tasks are being performed in the public or private sector," Richard Schaeffer, the NSA's information assurance director, told the Senate's Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security yesterday as part of a prepared statement.

"All this was done in coordination with the product release, not months or years later during the product lifecycle," Schaeffer added. "This will improve the adoption of security advice, as it can be implemented during installation and then later managed through the emerging SCAP standards."

Security Content Automation Protocol, or SCAP, is a set of standards for automating chores such as managing vulnerabilities and measuring security compliance. The National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST) oversees the SCAP standards.

This is not the first time that the NSA has partnered with Microsoft during Windows development. In 2007, the agency confirmed that it had a hand in Windows Vista as part of an initiative to ensure that the operating system was secure from attack and would work with other government software. Before that, the NSA provided guidance on how best to secure Windows XP and Windows 2000.

According to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronics Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the NSA's involvement with operating system development goes back even farther. "This battle goes back to at least the crypto wars of the early '90s," said Rotenberg, who remembered testifying about the agency's role in private sector computer security standards in 1989.

But when the NSA puts hands on Windows, that raises a red flag for Rotenberg, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based public interest research center. "When NSA offers to help the private sector on computer security, the obvious concern is that it will also build in backdoors that enables tracking users and intercepting user communications," Rotenberg said in an e-mail. "And private sector firms are reluctant to oppose these 'suggestions' since the US government is also their biggest customer and opposition to the NSA could mean to loss of sales."

Rotenberg's worries stem from the NSA's reputation as the intelligence agency best known for its eavesdropping of electronic messaging, including cell phone calls and e-mail.

Andrew Storms, the director of security operations at nCircle Security, didn't put much credence in the idea that Microsoft would allow the NSA to build a hidden entrance to Windows 7. "Would it be surprising to most people that there was a backdoor? No, not with the political agenda of prior administrations," said Storms. "My gut, though, tells me that Microsoft, as a business, would not want to do that, at least not in a secretive way."

Roger Thompson, chief research officer at AVG Technologies, agreed. "I can't imagine NSA and Microsoft would do anything deliberate because the repercussions would be enormous if they got caught," he said in an interview via instant messaging.

"Having said that, I think we should understand that there is every likelihood that certain foreign governments are constantly looking for vulnerabilities that they can use for targeted attacks," Thompson continued. "So if they're poking at us, I think it's reasonable to assume that we're doing something similar. But I seriously doubt an official NSA-Microsoft alliance."

The NSA's Schaeffer added that his agency is also working on engaging other major software makers, including Apple, Sun and Red Hat, on security standards for their products.

"More and more, we find that protecting national security systems demands teaming with public and private institutions to raise the information assurance level of products and services more broadly," Schaeffer said.

Microsoft was not immediately available for comment on the NSA's participation in Windows 7's development.

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Bigfoot Encounter In Wilderness State Park, Michigan

2009-11-18T14:29:00.006-05:00

petoskeynews - When Ron Kostrubiec visited Wilderness State Park (Emmet County, Northern Michigan) with his family at the end of July, he got more than he bargained for.

Riding his mountain bike along Swamp Line Trail at approximately 6:30 p.m. on July 29, the 41-year-old Macomb Township man was enjoying the earthy smells of nature. Two miles or so into his ride, he turned east toward the Nebo Trail, delighting in deep breaths of pine and damp earth - that is until he reached a "wall."

"I was about three quarters of the way to the Nebo Trail when I ran into the thickest wall of live human body odor that you could ever imagine," he said. "It sent chills up my spine and my hair stood up. It scared me so much, I peddled as fast as I could out of there."

Kostrubiec got back to camp and told everyone about his experience. The next morning, he spoke with rangers but no one could give him an answer about what he smelled. So that evening he went back to the same spot at roughly same time.

"This time I was on full alert. I put my nose in the air and looked around as much as I could but I never smelled it again. That tells me something was there. And I truly believe what ever was there watched me go by," he said.

Not only did he go back to the spot once, but every night until he and his family left. Although he never smelled it again, on one of his "missions," something else happened. While walking down a snowmobile trail by O'Neal and Lawrence lakes, while listening to the wind blowing through the trees, he heard something.

"I was listening to the sounds of nature when all of a sudden from the direction of the smell encounter I heard three faint taps like two pieces of wood being hit together, then a slight pause, then one more and then back to the sounds of nature," he said.

After listening to people talk about Bigfoot, Kostrubiec thinks this is what he may have encountered - and he's not the only one. Shortly after his first encounter, Kostrubiec's 9-year-old son, Anthony, said a young boy by the name of Jack had a similar experience.

"Jack smelled really bad body odor too right behind the campground around the same day as my encounter," Kostrubiec said. "He was riding his bike along a powerline trail when he said he ran into the smell. He said it really scared him and he got out of there and went back to his camper."

The story doesn't end there. On one of the last days of their trip, Kostrubiec, along with his wife, Gina, their three sons, Anthony, Mikey, 7, and Joey, 5, and his mother and father-in-law, took a bike ride on Wilderness Road to a large glacier boulder marked by the Department of Natural Resources.

As the kids were playing on the rock with his wife and mother-in-law, Kostrubiec and his father-in-law walked through the woods when they came upon unusual markings in the ground.

"To understand these markings, picture the ground being a thick thatch layer of pine needles and to really make a mark in them you would really have to kick the ground in a forward motion to even really attempt to get to the dirt below," Kostrubiec said. "But there were these marks that went back into the woods that looked as if you would have gotten on your knees and punched the ground to push the needles forward and expose the dirt below."

The men followed the marks into the woods toward the road where they seemed to stop at the base of a fallen tree. As Kostrubiec looked around, he noticed a footprint.

"Because of the pine needle floor it was more of a impression like you would see in your carpet after vacuuming," he said.

He called for everyone and directed them to come to him without stepping on the trail. When everyone was there, he grabbed a small stick and traced out the footprint.

"It was a right foot print about 16 inches long and really wide," he said. "You could make it out perfectly with a little rise of dirt between the little and next toe. Everyone saw it."

He traced it out a couple more times, all the while not believing what he was seeing.

"Not even thinking of Bigfoot when going out there, my mind and senses seemed overwhelmed," he said.

With no camera, everyone went back to camp.

Since the trip, Kostrubiec has spoken with the Mackinaw City Police, as well as with the State Police in Petoskey. Chief Patrick Wyman with the Mackinaw City Police and Sergeant Jerry Briolat with the State Police Post in Petoskey said neither posts have ever received any report of suspicious Bigfoot activity.

"We've had reports of suspicious activity in the area but nothing related to Bigfoot," Briolat said.

The Department of Natural Resources Law Division also has not received any reports of that nature in the area or any other area in Northern Michigan according to Lt. Daniel Hopkins.

"The reports of activity we've received are cougar or wolf related - nothing Bigfoot," Hopkins said.

Kostrubiec said all of the researchers he's spoken with from the Michigan Bigfoot Organization and the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization said what he encountered in the woods could have been Bigfoot.

Matt Moneymaker, president of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization said, with absolute certainly, Bigfoot creatures exist in some places in North America, but they are not everywhere.

"Reports have been consistent in the last 11 years since reports began to be collected through the Internet," Moneymaker said. "The same kinds of animals are present and that indicates there may be a relatively sizable population."

With several handfuls of reports in both peninsulas every year, Moneymaker said the Great Lakes has a history of Bigfoot sightings dating back to early Native American times. With respect to Kostrubiec's encounter, Moneymaker said there were characteristics that would make it possible that it was a Bigfoot but it's not definitive.

"For all the time I have spent in the woods fishing and hunting in the Upper and Lower Peninsulas seeing bear, deer and other wildlife, I never had these experiences before," Kostrubiec said. "It was a Bigfoot encounter as for the footprint. There is no mistaking that. I truly believe in the events and I definitely think there is something going on up there."

Some other creatures that some people believe may be in area forests, but there is no conclusive proof:

- According to the Michigan Citizens for Cougar Recognition Web site, there have been 74 sightings of cougars in Emmet County from 1990-2009. Mary Dettloff, public information officer with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, said although there are lots of alleged sightings, there have been only two cougars verified by scat, tracks and other biological evidence in the western half of the Upper Peninsula. Dettloff said there's no established evidence of breeding populations of cougars in Northern Michigan.

- According to Dettloff, one wolverine was found in the thumb area of Michigan four years ago. Dettloff said a possible theory is that the creature came in on a Canadian garbage truck.

- Dettloff said there are more than 500 wolves in the Upper Peninsula. A wolf was trapped in Presque Isle County three years ago, however there's been no biological data of wolves in the Lower Peninsula since then.
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Originally posted June 2007

BFRO Will Hunt for Evidence of 'Bigfoot' in Michigan

MANISTIQUE, Mich. (June 27) - Researchers will visit the Upper Peninsula in Michigan next month to search for evidence of the legendary creature known as "Bigfoot" or "Sasquatch."

The expedition will focus on eastern Marquette County, said Matthew Moneymaker of the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization.

"We'll be looking for evidence supporting a presence. ... We hope to meet local people who might have seen a Sasquatch or heard of someone else who had an encounter," Moneymaker told the Daily Press of Escanaba.

The legend of Bigfoot dates back centuries. But skeptics have challenged accounts of sightings, and practical jokers have staged hoaxes that have included grainy film footage of people dressed in costumes.

But Moneymaker said members of his organization have either glimpsed Bigfoot or gotten close enough to hear the creature in all but three of 30 expeditions in the United States and Canada.

The late Grover Krantz, a Washington State University professor who specialized in cryptozoology, the study of creatures that have not been proven to exist, believed Bigfoot was a "gigantopithecus," a branch of primitive man believed to have existed 3 million years ago.
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Originally posted July 2007

Group Tapes Bigfoot's Cry in Michigan U.P.

MARQUETTE COUNTY, MICHIGAN -- Bulletin No. 1: Bigfoot is frolicking in the forest east of this Upper Peninsula community, a California-based group of researchers says.

Bulletin No. 2: The group searching for the legendary mannish ape here this week captured evidence of its existence, they claim.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization recorded the creature's trademark howl during an expedition late Thursday night.

Group leader Matt Moneymaker quickly ruled out the possibility that the noise came from a human or another animal. He said it was similar to the sounds made by primates.

"We know it wasn't an owl or coyote," he said.

The group heard the noise in response to a howl by one of the searchers. The group also made other noises, including banging on wood with a stick, to pique the interest of the wooly bully.

The Michigan attendees are resolute in their beliefs.

Lack of evidence doesn't stop them. Neither do sketchy claims and confessed hoaxes.

To them, Bigfoot isn't some type of fuzzy-headed myth or scam or case of mistaken identity. It's real.

And that's why they're trampling through dense brush in the rain, wearing camouflage and scent-blocking lotion, swatting away mosquitoes and fright.

Mailbag: Hawaiian Legends and the Paranormal

2009-11-18T13:17:00.009-05:00

Click for video

NOTE: I received the following email from a longtime reader, Joe Punohu. He comments on paranormal activity and how it relates to Hawaiian history, legends and culture. He has also referred me to the video post above. Very interesting information...Lon

(In reference to the video)... "What you have here is simply another form of the choking ghost, which is found world-wide. This event has been happening at Kaka'ako Fire Station since it was built in the 1920's. I've been there a few times on a Ghost Tour, telling stories about the location, and a Fire Fighter decided to grace us with his own stories, affirming that these occurrences are reoccurring, even in the new fire station located next door. Interesting note - this fire station among others that suffer the same nocturnal occurrences are built over mass burial sites used in the 1800's when epidemics broke out. Kaka'ako is situated on an area of the 1840 measles epidemic that took the lives of 7-9,000 people."

"Another source is a book by David J. Hufford. A collection of a 15 year research project on this certain nocturnal occurrence. The book is called The Terror That Comes in the Night. Here is a link to the book review, or one of the many." - Book review

"Occurrences like these have been present all over the islands from very very far back. I believe I remember sending you a email several months ago on this subject as well. The occurrence is very similar and may even be part of a entity known as the Succubus (female), or the Incubus (male). Sometimes its benign, like in the fire station. Its simply another presence felt sitting on ones' chest, a bit like someone telling you "You're not the only resident in this building". Other times its a defiant presence that attaches itself to a person or to a place. It will reoccur to certain people no matter where they sleep, yet at other times it will happen during a sleep over, and the owner of the house would say something like "oh yeah, that happens in that bed from time to time, grandpa died there".

"These things I believe are a mixture of different paranormal entities, ranging from simple ghosts, to other things, like demi-gods, spirits, demons (though that word is another for spirit, just personifies a evil spirit). According to Hawaiian legends and chants, these 'spirits' number over 400,000, and at a time when the first humans arrived they had to deal with these "cannibalistic, dangerous spirits". The difference between the simple ghost and spirit, I'm sure you're aware, is that a ghost is, by definition, a person who was once alive and had died. A spirit is something that had existed before human-kind. For more of a understanding of a spirit, look up the word Jinn. They have families, kids, are born and die. Yet they are of a different element and therefore belong to that element, as ours is the earth, theirs is the fire and air."

"As for the description of the "reptilian creature" (reference to Phantoms and Monsters posting) described by the witness, we have legends as well that describe a being described like that (people still describe seeing it as well). Its known as the mo'o or lizard creature that can shape shift and typically lures people into ponds or lakes, or the ocean to drown them and devour them. The description, behavior, environment, etc is sometimes identical to other cultures found throughout the globe, from the Sirens of "The Odyssey" to the Kappa in Japan. These are known to take on whatever form does the job. They are also found (rarely though) in caves, and possess supernatural powers."

"Hope this helps a little. Once again, a big fan of your work Lon, keep it coming!"

Aloha,
Joe Punohu
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THE OLD KAKA'AKO FIRE STATION HAUNTING

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well, it was dark, anyway. And I wished there had been some rain so the abandoned building would have been less stifling. A bit of lightning also would've helped illuminate our way as we carefully climbed the wooden staircase to what we hoped would be a rendezvous with a ghost or ghosts that have haunted the old Kakaako Fire Station on South Street.

The spirits of thousands of smallpox victims, buried in mass graves during an 1853 epidemic, are said to hover where both old and new fire station, just a stone's throw away on Queen Street, are located.

We weren't sure if we were dealing with one ghost or a hundred. It didn't matter. Star-Bulletin photographer Richard Walker and I just hoped to see or experience at least one of them and live to tell about it for Halloween.

It seems our ghost likes firemen, and who would blame her/him. All those stout-hearted, hard-bodied hunks congregated in one building! But I digress.

This particular ghost has an affinity for sitting on their chests, or choking them as they sleep. This has happened to so many of the Kakaako firemen over the years they call it "the choking or pressing ghost," said Capt. Richard Soo, the Honolulu Fire Department spokesman, now on leave.

He chuckled through his story but was quite serious. The ghost visited him when he was a rookie firefighter in the late 1970s at the new station, which was built not to escape the spectral visits, but because the old one was no longer structurally sound.

Soo was sleeping when "I had the feeling someone was pressing or sitting on my chest," he said. "I woke and there was this figure. I couldn't move my head or my body. I felt numb; it was an unnerving sensation. I started to yell for help." That woke the full dormitory of men, so "the apparition left the area."

"The guys just said, 'Go back to sleep. A ghost lives here, and he just wanted to say hello,'" he said. "I guess the rookies get it. After that, I slept with ti leaves under my bed for two years. It was enough to make me a believer."

The older firefighters have also reported "seeing things moving at the old station on the second floor -- unexplained movement" late at night, Soo said.

(The old station was constructed in 1929, and was boarded up with an alarm system in the mid-1970s after the new station was built. The old station is on the State Register of Historic Places, and will be renovated into a museum and department headquarters.)

So the plan was for Walker and me to hunker down for a few hours on the second floor late at night to catch the ghost in action, if we could stand it that long. Interim HFD spokesman Capt. Kenison Tejada led the way with the tiny beam of his penlight. I guess it's only Boy Scouts who come prepared.

We managed to tour the second floor with the aid of the golden-orange glow of streetlights casting long shadows in some of the dorm rooms.

No one could have designed a better setting for a haunted house. If we had to make a frantic break for our lives as we ran screeching in terror, we would have had to jump across gaping holes in the second-story floor and rotting planks that sank under our weight, tearing cobwebs off our faces and skidding on piles of termite wings and droppings, definitely breaking our legs in the process and becoming food for the giant roaches that are among the inhabitants of the building.

Quick escape was not a possibility even if we managed to find one of two staircases and make it downstairs in the pitch black before cracking our heads into one of the wooden beams that braced the ceiling.

We lit three candles in the middle of a filthy floor with dust thick enough to slide on, and set up a glow-in-the-dark Ouija board to encourage supernatural activity. Hey, any little bit helps.

Today section editor Nadine Kam and friend Reiko Tom entered at this point to join the ghost hunt. They took over the Ouija board, posing the question, "Are there any spirits here?" But there was nary a quiver. Tried an easier question: "What did we eat for dinner?"

If there were any ghosts about, we probably kept them away with our numbers and our laughter. Walker suggested a woman should stay upstairs alone and pretend to sleep. But no one volunteered.

We were to disband and stake out a room apiece, but instead gravitated to the one room flooded with streetlight. We had all seen too many scary movies.

Walker said he believed in ghosts enough not to "make fun of them or show disrespect" and not to do anything to make one of them "follow me home."

Half of me wanted to see the ghost; the other half was afraid he would appear -- but not too afraid, because I didn't think he would show up, and if he did, I wouldn't be by myself.

Kani Muller, a retired fireman who spent 14 years at the new station, encountered the ghost more than a dozen times. He said it was probably because of "a certain bed I was in," the one designated for the engineer, who drives the firetruck.

"One time I couldn't get out of bed, like I was stuck in bed" for a few minutes, but he said it didn't feel as if anyone was sitting on him. Another time, he woke and "saw an old man standing next to my bed. I turned over and went back to sleep. It didn't bother me."

At least 10 times he was awakened by someone nudging him, as if trying to get him up for a phone call, as was the usual practice. But when he looked around and checked every bed, there was no one else in the dorm, according to Muller, who usually went to sleep and woke earlier than the rest of the men.

For about seven years he was the only one the ghost visited. "Nobody believed these things were happening when I told them," he said. But he heard of one fireman "who refused to go upstairs by himself, not even to change clothes.

"Before I got there (in 1976), under every bed there were ti leaves to keep the spirits away," Muller said. Even his father, who worked in the old fire station, told him of ghostly visits, he added.

But "it didn't bother me," Muller said, repeatedly. A Hawaiian firefighter once reassured him, "'Don't worry about it, they're not going to bother you.' So that's the way I felt. They're saying, 'We're here, but we're not here to hurt you.'"

Soo, who is part-Hawaiian, said about half the firemen have Hawaiian blood and are familiar with "night walkers" and other manifestations of their ancestors' spirits.

The Kakaako ghost is "kolohe," meaning "mischievous, a prankster, not hurtful."

"The kind you can have fun with!" he said, laughing again.

He was right. In spite of our trepidation, a good time was had by all on the stomping grounds of our ghost. We left disappointed, but also relieved.

(Epilogue: I couldn't sleep that night, avoiding sleeping on my back so the ghost, if it followed me home, couldn't sit on my chest.)

Source:
http://archives.starbulletin.com/

Manager Convinced Minnesota Theater Haunted

2009-11-18T12:03:00.005-05:00

austindailyherald - Does the Paramount Theatre have a ghost?

Manager Scott Anderson thinks it does and the historic, aged theatre has even made the pages of the book, “The Nearly Departed: Minnesota Stories and Legends.”

“I believe there is a ghost here,” he said Tuesday.

Before we go much further however, we need to dip into belief vs. skepticism, subjects entwined with one another and seen weekly on shows like the SyFy Channel’s Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International.

Largely, the idea of something being haunted comes down to personal beliefs in the paranormal and possibly life after death. If you don’t have the latter, it’s hard to believe in the former.

The line between belief and skepticism becomes blurred when the first and possibly biggest hurdle is approached. Proof.

Much of what paranormal investigators claim to catch in pictures, video, or audio recorders can in some way be questioned. It’s the major problem in paranormal investigation.

There is no tell-tale way, no absolute way, to prove ghosts exist. Generally, you are forced to believe a person who has experience in the field, for whatever that’s worth because again, those who study this area tend these days to not be scientists.

With that in mind, you inevitably have to place a certain amount of trust in those who say a place is haunted. Sometimes, though, conviction in what a person has experienced is enough, and Anderson is no different. He doesn’t hesitate to talk about the Paramount’s ghosts.

In his time as manager of the Paramount Anderson has heard stories and had his own experiences. Nothing so fantastic as you might see in a horror movie, but experiences all the same that make you question what is out there.

Anderson isn’t a recent convert to the paranormal having already had an experience with his wife Janet before the two were married.

It happened when the two were getting ready for bed one night when Anderson rented an old farmhouse with some friends. The friends were in town on the bar scene leaving Scott and Janet in the house alone. It began almost as soon as the lights went out.

“We were alone in the house with two dogs and I remember sitting up and hearing very deliberate footsteps on each step,” he describes, pounding his fists on the desk to replicate the sounds of that night. “I mean, what was that. We knew no one was here.”

“We’re reasonably smart folks, and we do not make this stuff up,” he said.

Now, on to the Paramount. Anderson’s first hand experience in the matter came late at night when he was doing some work in the Paramount. Anderson places himself in the lobby.

“I’m an old rock and roller, so I was playing Steely Dan, and it was cranked way up,” he said. “I wanted to hear it in the lobby.

“Twenty minutes later I noticed that the sound system was barely audible. I went to the controller and noticed the volume was way down. I just turned around and said, ‘where are you. I know your there,’” he finished with a laugh.

It’s important to add, that on a soundboard, the sliders that control various sound components, can’t simply slide on their own. It requires a human hand to move them.

Anderson believes he has narrowed down who the haunting spirits may be. The first is the first manager of the Paramount, Karl Lindstaedt, when the old Park Theatre was rebuilt into the Paramount in the late 1920’s.

The second option is projectionist George Dorin, who worked at the Paramount in the early 30s.

It was with relatives of Dorin that Anderson was part of a second experience. He was with two cousins, great-granddaughters of Dorin, who were visiting the place that Dorin loved.

While talking with Anderson, both ladies took pictures, one with a digital and another with a film camera. When the woman with the digital looked at her picture of the moving clouds on the ceiling, she commented about a moon.

There is no moon that’s part of the projected clouds, so Anderson asked to look at the picture and seeing what many in the paranormal field describe simply as an orb, mentioned it must be the ghost of their great grandfather giving them a sign.

It passed until they were making to leave, and one of the women asked Anderson what he meant by the ghost.

There are other stories surrounding the paramount witnessed by several people over time including a bar manager who witnessed a freely spinning barstool, an apparition in a picture and the marquee that came on after it was turned off.

Does it bother Anderson that the Paramount may be haunted?

In all the stories of apparent paranormal activity there has never been reports of malicious actions. Anderson thinks he understands why they are still here.

“They loved the Paramount, like a lot of people do,” he said. “I think it’s pretty cool that they’re here.

What is Going on with the Moon?

2009-11-18T11:55:00.002-05:00

I have become extremely confused on what is going on with the Moon. I like the Moon. It is always there, always lovely to view but recently a bit confusing.

Over the years there have been multiple articles written about our Moon. I have read the controversy concerning possible bases on the Moon. I have read all types of theories that the Moon is inhabited by Alien bases to those that the nations of planet earth have been secretly building bases on it for years.

I sifted through piles of debate on the issue of our Moon landing in 1969 that runs from it being a great step for mankind to the idea it never really happened.

I have seen photo’s that show what looks like Alien crafts speeding across the Moons surface to those of what appear to be man made or intelligent made structures on the Moon. I must admit I did view a few videos and photos of objects I find hard to explain on the moons surface.

Recently we spent over 70 million dollars to blow a hole in the moon. I must say I find this a bit extreme knowing how many problems here on earth could have benefited far more with that money spent on more human life type problems.

I also found it a bit perplexing to know that we gave this time, money and effort to blowing a hole in the moon in hopes of finding signs of water. I have to wonder why we did not seek out that information when we were standing on the moon during our historic walk on its surface? I really need to think about that point now reading that they found buckets of water up there! I think it would have been a far wiser choice to dig or at least blow the hole from a few feet away rather then the extreme ditch digging event we paid over 70 million for. I have to wonder if we were indeed ever truly standing on the moon when I consider these things.

I now see that we have discovered a few weeks after our hole- blowing maneuver that we now have found tunnels on the moon. I wonder if we missed those huge tunnels also in 1969? Seems we could have somehow used those tunnels then to fetch the samples needed to further study the water issue the day we actually landed and walked upon the moons surface.

Of course I realize that it all is not as simple as I am making it. I realize we may have landed in a place that did not have the massive tunnels we now know exist. I also realize we seem to have missed a great deal when we did visit the moons surface and that is also not so simple to understand.

The tunnels seem to be large entrances to some kind of interior cave system on the moon. With that said it is starting to lean more and more towards the idea that some kind of activity may indeed be taking place below the surface of the moon.

I once thought the idea of a base providing shelter on the moon was a bit far reaching considering the atmosphere of the moon. Watching us spend the amount of time and money at this time in our history and economy makes me wonder why we need to know now and what’s the reason for the hurry. After all we went to the moon in 1969. It has been 40 years without a return visit. Why now do we need to return? Maybe it is to do all the things we failed to do first trip there? Like check the soil for water content? The moon is not going anywhere, I think we could think up many other ways to blow up our hard earned dollars rather then blowing holes in a already hole filled tunnel filled moon.

Maybe we had no choice and had to make a smoke and mirrors display on the moons surface with that 70 million dollar explosion to cover up other activities that would be noticed by the peering eyes of humans who view the moon through back yard telescopes. Maybe tunnels will be appearing more and more on the moons surface. Maybe calling attention to them as natural and normal seemed to be the only step ahead way to explain the moons confusion.

I am not sure of anything when it comes to our moon. I just wish I had a say when it came to doing things like blowing holes in it. I think you can figure out if I did have a vote on such things, it would be a huge, rock solid, 70 million reasons NO!

One day, someday along with all other things unknown the falsehoods will be found and the truth will shine through under the light of a beautiful full Moon!

Thanks to Chris Holly at Chris Holly's Paranormal World

********************

Are you interested in the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs and conspiracies? Go to Phantoms and Monsters Wiki and become a member of this unique network. Start a page on a subject or add your input to an existing page or thread. Phantoms and Monsters updates are posted daily at Twitter. Signup today! Find me on Facebook

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Photo: UFO Sighting Frightens Mother and Daughter

2009-11-17T13:47:00.004-05:00

thisislocallondon - A mother and daughter had the fright of their lives when they saw two strange orange lights in the sky.

Nurse Sue Hentschel was driving her teenage daughter Jessica to a dance class when they witnessed a terrifying vision in the sky.

Their car was stuck in heavy Sydenham traffic on November 2 at around 6.10pm when they saw two mysterious lights.

Mrs Hentschel, of Stembridge Road, Anerley, said: “We saw these two lights which were orange coming towards us.

“My daughter looked up and said ‘Mum, what’s that?’

“I didn’t know. I just said ‘What the hell is that? What is it?’”

She says they stared dumbfounded for several minutes as the lights hovered over Hazeldene School.

Mrs Hentschel stuck her head out the window to make sure it was not a reflection she was witnessing.

Jessica took photographs of the objects using her mobile phone.

Mrs Hentschel said: “I was looking over at other people’s cars to see if they noticed but everyone was just trying to get home, traveling along in a daze.

“One light moved in front as if they were coming nearer to each other.

“Then one just shot up into the sky at a million miles an hour. It shot into the atmosphere and disappeared.

“The other one just turned into an orange dot in the sky.”

Mrs Hentschel says she has never believed in aliens before but the out-of-this-world experience has completely changed her outlook.

She said: “If it was 1am on a Saturday and I’d had a few glasses of wine I’d understand.

“I thought crikey, this is really amazing. I’m a total believer now.

“I think it was some sort of UFO activity, I really do. It really did look like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

She added: “I don’t know if they were aliens or not. I guess they must have been aliens if something was inside.”

Mrs Hentschel admits the alien encounter has badly affected her 15-year-old daughter.

She said: “My daughter’s terrified. It really scares her.

“I keep saying to her we’ve been chosen, we’re going to be abducted.

“I think I’ve frightened the life out of her.”

Mailbag: Lasting Memory of UFO Encounter

2009-11-17T12:25:00.005-05:00

"I have told this story to my parents (who were with me but didn't believe me) and others over the years, but finally gave up telling others.

When I was about 4, I was traveling with Mama & Daddy across Mississippi one night. This was back in the "Sputnik era" when we could still watch Sputnik and Telstar and other new satellites cross the sky at night (no light pollution). I was sleeping on the back seat of the car but woke up suddenly. I looked straight up (out the back car window) and saw a large, sparkly, twirly rotating thing not very high up, moving slowly through the sky, as if it were following the car. It was covered with colored lights on long spires - the spires moved slowly in and out while the whole thing rotated. It looked like a huge animated Christmas ornament. Being startled, and 4 years old, I let out a scream! Daddy nearly ran off the road; of course my parents were startled and stopped the car. They didn't see anything (the sparkly twirly thing disappeared) but said I must have seen a satellite.

About 17 years later I went to see Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind with friends. It was an enjoyable movie, right up until the Mothership rose up over the top of Devil's Tower. I burst out in tears and sobbed uncontrollably - I felt both tremendously sad and deliriously happy at the same time - a kind of "terrible ecstasy." I tried telling my friends "That's what I saw when I was 4!" but of course they thought I was nuts and had no idea what I was talking about.

Now, I know that Close Encounters was a fictional movie. And maybe I did see a satellite when I was 4. But the "click" in my brain when I first saw that scene in the movie was more like triggering of a long-hidden memory. (I still get that feeling when I watch the movie.) You probably get thousands of stories like this, but I feel better for having shared mine."

Thanks,
Jennifer Burke
Atlanta, GA

NOTE: Jennifer's story is a familiar one...the emotions felt during a UFO sighting and/or close encounter do remain with us...Lon

Morgellon's Disease: Real, or Imagined?

2009-11-17T11:58:00.003-05:00

timesheraldonline - by Tony Burchyns - Valerie Swanson remembers it all started with a rash. Then loss of energy. Then blisters covering her whole body.

Then it got weird.

Strange fibers appeared to be growing out of her hands. And tiny black specks resembling seeds, she said, began appearing mysteriously on her wrists and fingers as she was washing dishes one day at her Vallejo home.

"It was terrifying," said Swanson, 60, adding she felt as though a plant had taken hold of her body and wouldn't let go.

That was a little more than a year ago, shortly before Swanson became convinced she had Morgellons disease after reading about a condition similar to hers on the Internet.

Problem is, the disease may not even exist. It could all be in her head.

Most doctors, including dermatologists and psychiatrists, think Morgellons -- the name given in 2002 to the proposed condition -- is a purely psychological disorder. They insist sufferers are imagining the symptoms and scratching lesions into their own skin, similar to patients with delusions of bugs crawling on them.

Some experts believe the disease is a delusion that's become more prominent in recent years due to information spread through the Internet.

But some researchers -- and the federal government -- are keeping an open mind about Morgellons, currently referred to by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as "unexplained dermopathy."

Results from a CDC investigation launched in 2006 are still pending.

That's left Swanson and other self-diagnosed Morgellons sufferers with little relief, often wondering if they're insane or suffering from an infectious disease that hasn't been confirmed.

"They can't help you if they don't know what it is," said Swanson, whose symptoms have puzzled a string of doctors since April 2008. "Most doctors just think you're crazy, because that's the closest thing."

Real or imagined, the disease has affected Swanson's life in ways all too real. She said she's stopped working, gone on disability, drained her savings, declared bankruptcy, lost her social life and is losing her home to foreclosure.

She used to be a real estate agent, selling homes in Napa while also working at a furniture store in Emeryville.

"I've lost everything," Swanson said. "I have to go somewhere, but I don't know where I am going. Plus I have no money."

She said her family has offered to help her buy a home in Sacramento.

She's afraid to let people in her home, fearing she may have a contagious disease.

"I can't have any social life. I don't want to be around anyone," said Swanson, who agreed to be interviewed at a Vallejo restaurant. "I don't want anybody to come over to my house."

Her family doctor initially thought she had a skin condition known as scabies. But when treatments didn't work, he told her she had a mysterious skin disease, and prescribed a tranquilizer to minimize her scratching.

Swanson then sought second opinions from doctors at University of California medical centers in San Francisco and Davis.

Dr. Sepideh Bagheri of the U.C. Davis Medical Center said she was unable to come up with a diagnosis after examining Swanson in July. A previous battery of tests at U.C. San Francisco could not find the cause of Swanson's symptoms.

Reached by phone, Bagheri said Swanson's skin lesions might go away "if she would stop picking at it."

Swanson, however, insists she hasn't been excessively scratching herself.

Is she going crazy? Are doctors taking her seriously? Swanson wonders.

One doctor who's not convinced she's crazy is her brother, Philip Swanson, a Dallas surgeon.

"You have something wrong with your body, you go see an expert, and they say you have a psychological condition," he said. "You go see another and get the same answer. And pretty soon, you begin to think nothing can be done and you must be crazy.

"There are lots and lots of people who describe the same physical findings," her brother added. "If you have people describing the same things, how could they be imagining it?"

That's the question that motivates the work of Dr. Randy Wymore, director of the Center for the Investigation of Morgellons Disease at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater.

"Very little is known about the disease," he said. "To the best of my knowledge, we are the only academic institution working on Morgellons."

Wymore's team is working on the first Morgellons case study for publication in a medical journal, which could help doctors diagnose or rule out Morgellons.

About 13,000 people -- from as far away as Hong Kong and Australia -- have registered on a Web site for self-reporting the disease. But since most of them have not been diagnosed, there is no way of knowing how many may actually have Morgellons.

"It could be a small percentage, or nearly 100 percent of those registered," Wymore said. "Again, keep in mind that these are all self-reported registrations."

The symptoms often include itching, burning sensations, slow-healing skin lesions and the presence of small fibers, black specks and sand-like granules. Neurological signs include muscle weakness, pins-and-needles, difficulty focusing thoughts, memory lapses and sometimes changes in behavior.

"There also seems to be a component of extreme fatigue," Wymore said.

Swanson said she has exhibited all these symptoms.

What might cause Morgellons remains a mystery. Theories have included environmental toxins, bacterial and fungal infections or worms or other parasites. But there has been little evidence to suspect any of those ideas over others.

Confusing things even more is the idea that the disease may have neurological side effects, perhaps causing some patients to hallucinate, some researchers say. That could lend credence to Morgellons being viewed as psychosis.

Swanson has her own theory: An unknown plant has attached itself to her body, and is spreading around her house. She said the plants resemble tiny tumbleweeds.

But when she submitted a sample to a U.C. Davis lab in July, the results raised more questions than they answered.

"(The lab) did find plant material in the specimens she had submitted, but there is nothing to say what the source of that is," Bagheri said. "It could be cotton."

So far, no doctor has suggested she see a psychiatrist, Swanson said. If they did, she said, she'd go.

She acknowledges the plant theory sounds like "science fiction." She said she knows she may be wrong.

"The frustrating thing is not knowing what's wrong with me," Swanson said.

Given the right circumstances, that could be enough to drive anyone crazy.

NOTE: I have posted previously in reference to Morgellon's Disease...click here for further information...Lon

World War III: Cyber Weapons Will Replace Thermonuclear Arsenals

2009-11-17T11:14:00.006-05:00

cnet - Major countries and nation-states are engaged in a "Cyber Cold War," amassing cyberweapons, conducting espionage, and testing networks in preparation for using the Internet to conduct war, according to a new report to be released on Tuesday by McAfee.

In particular, countries gearing up for cyberoffensives are the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, and France, the says the report, compiled by former White House Homeland Security adviser Paul Kurtz and based on interviews with more than 20 experts in international relations, national security and Internet security.

"We don't believe we've seen cases of cyberwarfare," said Dmitri Alperovitch, vice president of threat research at McAfee. "Nations have been reluctant to use those capabilities because of the likelihood that [a big cyberattack] could do harm to their own country. The world is so interconnected these days."

Threats of cyberwarfare have been hyped for decades. There have been unauthorized penetrations into government systems since the early ARPANET days and it has long been known that the U.S. critical infrastructure is vulnerable.

However, experts are putting dots together and seeing patterns that indicate that there is increasing intelligence gathering and building of sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, according to the report titled "Virtually Here: The Age of Cyber Warfare."

"While we have not yet seen a 'hot' cyberwar between major powers, the efforts of nation-states to build increasingly sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, and in some cases demonstrate a willingness to use them, suggest that a 'Cyber Cold War' may have already begun," the report says.

Because pinpointing the source of cyberattacks is usually difficult if not impossible, the motivations can only be speculated upon, making the whole cyberwar debate an intellectual exercise at this point. But the report offers some theories.

For instance, Alperovitch speculates that the July 4 attacks denial-of-service on Web sites in the U.S. and South Korea could have been a test by an foreign entity to see if flooding South Korean networks and the transcontinental communications between the U.S. and South Korea would disrupt the ability of the U.S. military in South Korea to communicate with military leaders in Washington, D.C., and the Pacific Command in Hawaii.

"The ability of the North Koreans to disable cybercommunications between the U.S. and South Korea would give them a huge strategic advantage" if they were to attack South Korea, he said.

There have been earlier attacks that smack of cyberwarfare too. Estonian government and commercial sites suffered debilitating denial-of-service attacks in 2007, and last year sites in Georgia were attacked during the South Ossetia war, orchestrated by civilian attackers, the report says.

The report concludes that if we aren't seeing it already, cyberwarfare will be a reality soon enough.

"Over the next 20 to 30 years, cyberattacks will increasingly become a component of war," William Crowell, a former NSA deputy director, is quoted as saying. "What I can't foresee is whether networks will be so pervasive and unprotected that cyberwar operations will stand alone."

********************

Are you interested in the paranormal, cryptozoology, UFOs and conspiracies? Go to Phantoms and Monsters Wiki and become a member of this unique network. Start a page on a subject or add your input to an existing page or thread. Phantoms and Monsters updates are posted daily at Twitter. Signup today! Find me on Facebook

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Wisconsin Werewolf: Adaptation or Supernatural?

2009-11-16T15:14:00.006-05:00

nbc15 - Some of you may roll your eyes, but there are many people in Wisconsin who claim to have seen something unexplainable.

Is it a werewolf? Bigfoot? An unidentified wild animal?

First, throw out all of your Hollywood preconceptions. It doesn't change from a full moon, and no one's shot it with a silver bullet.

But hundreds of people right here in Wisconsin are saying there's something out there.

If there is something out there, popular culture has done it no favors.
Most people scoff at the idea, but some claim there are many rational witnesses who've come face-to-face with the irrational.

Reports in Wisconsin date back to the 1930s. And they keep coming.

"All I know it was something I have never seen before."

November 2006: Holy Hill Road in Washington County: Steve Krueger, a DNR worker, is on his daily routes picking up deer carcasses. He parks his truck and throws a small doe in the bed. When he climbs back into the cab to fill out the paperwork, his trucks starts to shake.

Added Krueger, "At first I didn't think anything of it and it shook a little bit more vigorously a second time. I just glanced up into the rearview mirror of my truck and I saw this big, hairy, black I don't know what it was."

Steve threw it in drive and slammed on the gas.

"It was big, it was stocky," recalled Krueger. "It had big pointed ears on the top of its head, and a bigger snout than what a bear has. I guesstimated it was between six and seven feet tall."

Steve filed a report of an aggressive animal to the sheriff's department. It didn't take long for the media to pick up on it.

"A Washington County man says he has spotted Bigfoot," reported NBC-15 anchor Becky Hillier in mid-November 2006.

"I was pretty scared when I saw it." Dillon Ruder and David Radeztsky lived on Holy Hill Road nearby. A few days before Steve's encounter the young boys were jumping on a trampoline and saw something very similar.

"We saw just a hairy monster on the corner of the woods," added Ruder.

The 'Michigan Dogman' from the Gable film

In both reports the media called it Bigfoot or a werewolf. But author and journalist Linda Godfrey prefers the term man-wolf.

"I have been researching it, following it, investigating it, staking it out for 17 years," said Godfrey.

Godfrey, a Wisconsin native who lives in Elkhorn, says she's received hundreds of reported sightings. Many of them were just miles from her home along the most famous road in Wisconsin man-wolf lore.

The Beast of Bray Road was Godfrey's first book on the mysterious creatures that roam the woods of Wisconsin. And now her work has spawned so much interest that seven more books have followed. So many people are willing to share their stories that she is getting one to three reports a week from all across the country, and all around the world.

"Whatever it is, there is more than one. It seems to be more of a scavenger that wants to frighten people. Maybe it's territorial. It seems to want people to leave it alone."

Godfrey's best guess is that it's a Timberwolf that has evolved or adapted to stand or even run on its hind legs. But, she's not ruling out the supernatural.

"It's very audacious to say we know all there is," stated Godfrey. "We know that our five senses can't hear all that there is to hear or see all light wavelengths. Maybe there are things out there we just don't understand."

According to Katie Zahn, it's definitely of this world.

"I knew it wasn't human," added Zahn. "I just had no idea what it was."

In the summer of 2003, Katie and some friends were walking through these woods in Rock County. At the edge of a creek she saw three wolf-like creatures drinking water.

"They would have been kneeling down on the side of the river here," she remembered. "They picked up the water in their hands and drank it like a human instead of licking it and lapping it like a dog would. They stood up, turned around and we got terrified. We ran back, we're falling up the hill to get back to our car."

Zahn's friends deny seeing anything.

"I think they just think I'm a little crazy for believing this and actually explaining my story to someone and having them believe me."

At least one expert says she's telling the truth. For the show Monsterquest on the History Channel, Zahn took a polygraph, and passed - twice.

"If they don't believe me, that is their choice," said Zahn. "But, I know what I saw. And I believe every word of it."

"Personally I could care less if anyone believes me. My concern in life is not to sit there and make people believe what I saw. I saw what I saw," concluded Krueger.

"I hope that maybe someday it will all become clear and apparent," said Godfrey. "As long as I keep getting reports I will probably file them and keep trying to figure it out. But, I certainly don't claim to have all the answers."
________________________

NOTE: this was a reader submitted email from April 2009. We've all heard of 'The Michigan Dogman', so this is a different twist...Lon

"My girlfriend and I went out to feed deer for the hunting opener on Nov. 22, 2008. We were in the Chequamegon National Forest in northern Wisconsin. It was November 21, 2008 and the time was 12:10 AM, it was totally dark out and light snow was falling with an accumulation of about 1 inch covering the roads. The Temperature was 11*F and the wind was blowing from the northwest with a wind chill of 0*F. We made a U-turn to the left onto an unfinished ATV trail in one of our 4X4 Pickups heading towards last years feed pile.

I got to the bottom of the hill and backed in and parked. I got out my pistol and loaded it, I then put it in my holster, I grabbed my headlight with 3 LED bulbs and secured it on my head, I handed her a shaker LED flashlight and proceeded to the back of my truck where I had a 5 gallon bucket with just under 2 gallons of corn and 3 apples in it strapped down with 2 of my ATV straps. I put the tailgate down, unstrapped the bucket and put the tailgate up. I walked around my side and then in front of the truck to her passenger side as she was putting mittens on. We both started to walk together, her just behind and to my right side when we both noticed a fresh set of tracks in the snow heading down wind of us in the same direction we where walking.

At first it was not the size that caught my attention, it was "WHAT IN GOD'S CREATION MADE THESE TRACKS" immediately my skinned crawled as I looked around with my head to see if what we just had come up on was in sight. I glanced back down in disbelief at the tracks. I was in a slight stage of shock as I looked at her she looked at me and we both looked down at 4 well-formed footprints of some kind of scary tracks that either of us had ever seen before. I sized my shoe beside one of the tracks and realized it was about 3 inches longer than my shoe which measures 12 inches heel to toe, and about 1 inch wider than my shoe which measures 4 inches at it's widest width. Whatever we witnessed the foot prints of has 2 pointed talons on the end of it's foot that are isometrically the same with a rectangle shaped heel. The talons joined on the outside and at the same length in between the talons on each foot. They are 15 inches long and 5 inches wide with 64-inch strides. I have a 36-inch stride at 5'10" tall to give an idea of the possible size of this creature, running or not we do not know.

I believe we just missed seeing what caused these tracks and what ever made the tracks was still in the area and possibly watching us. My girl told me to load my pistol and keep it out, I did not argue. At first she wanted to leave right away but the sheer adrenaline and interest of what caused the tracks I believe is what kept us there. I said "okay let's get out of here" but again, interest kept us there looking at the tracks. My fear slightly subsided enough to think about the upcoming deer opener and decided I have the pistol and we will be okay. I started to walk the same way the tracks went up a hill on the trail when I stopped and looked back at her while she was still staring down at the prints. I said "come on lets get this over with" she caught up to me as we walked together, she said to me, "if this thing gets a hold of me put a bullet in my head" I thought about that as we kept walking. We went deep into the woods down a steep hill where I new the feed pile was from last year. We got to where I wanted the pile to be, I took the lid off the bucket and dumped the corn and apples out and stepped on the apples, I snapped the lid back on the bucket and said "let's go" We started to climb the hill when I realized we where off track and had to walk left to reach the trail to get back to the truck. I started to think that this was the scariest thing I have ever encountered and felt panic over coming me. I new where I was and finally we got back on the trail and walked down to where we could see the tracks of the creature again. We both stared at them for about 5 minutes. When we got back to the truck just 20 yards from the prints, she got in and closed her door. I went behind the truck, opened the tailgate and re strapped the bucket down and closed the tailgate. I got to my side of the truck and took the clip out of my gun and got in. I threw my head light off my head as we drove away thinking and then I said, "I am not coming back here" and she agreed. We where both scared and could not believe what just happened.

It was a month earlier and 1.1 miles walking through the woods from where we witnessed the tracks that a different friend and I where camping. I went to bed early and fell into a deep sleep. I woke up to the sound of my friend walking behind the tent and my first reply was "what are you doing back there?" I woke up a little more and realized my friend was sleeping, breathing kind of loud next to me. I sat up against my gear and grabbed my pistol and flashlight and sat there cold and scared in the dark. I woke my friend up and told him what I could hear and he said, "Ah it was probably a deer or something" The temperature was around 26*F. I looked out the flaps of the tent and could see the fire had died down and it was dark out there. I stood up and told my friend that I was going to the truck to warm up and get some sleep. I asked him if he wanted me to leave the pistol and he said, "no I'll be alright". I left the tent and walked to my truck about 80 yards away and started it up to get warm. I turned my lights on a few different times to see if what had walked by the tent was in sight. I did not see anything; I turned my truck off and fell asleep.

Whatever walked by the tent was bipedal and made 2 steps into my sound range and out again. I did not hear any other noise from what ever walked by. I looked around the next morning for footprints but leaves covered the ground and I did not detect anything. A little more than 2 years earlier. It was summer and I was at this same location riding my ATV alone, I stopped and got off walking down to a near by lake and was looking at the water and how clear it is when I could hear up on the hill above the camp ground we had stayed at a huge tree snap and hit the ground with a big thump as branches snapped off it and other trees as it fell. I got back to my ATV quickly at the time thinking a bear or buck was up there and I was not sticking around to find out. 2 months later that summer I returned to this spot again riding my ATV, I shut off the wheeler and stood around close by thinking about the last time I was there I was scared off by something. I was there about 5 minutes when all of a sudden I could hear branches snapping off of trees as what ever was breaking branches was coming down the hill closer to where I was. I got on my wheeler never to return until my friend and I camped there a little over 2 years later in October. My first 2 experiences with this creature while I was alone made me think it was possibly a bear or a buck deer, trouble with this theory is that I have come up on bear a dozen or so times and every time, the bear is running as fast as it can in another direction and what ever was making the tree sounds was not running any where. A deer also runs away at the first presence of a human. Now that we witnessed these creatures’ footprints I put the puzzle pieces together and realize that this creature is living in this area and it has probably been there for a long, long, long time. I have learned it means us no harm (yet). It only makes a sound when I am alone (tree breaking). It is always down wind of me (us). It is out in the day and or night. It can see in the dark. It uses the wind to it's advantage every chance it gets. It can hear well. It can smell good. It waits until we are vulnerable to approach us when 2 of us are together. I could possibly have smelled it and did not know what I smelled. I (we) have put 4,000 miles in this forest on my Grizzly ATV through deep desolate, thick wooded, swamp, lake areas and have now proved to ourselves that this undocumented at this time creature is in fact out there.

I believe this to be what the Monster quest American Werewolf series TV show on the History Channel has shown to be the half Man-half Wolf "DOGMAN?" that others have actually witnessed. I know where this creature is living and plan on an expedition to prove its existence. I want to document this creature because I feel everyone that enters the forest has a right to know it is there and for other various reasons. I am open to any and all that would like to comment or ask questions in discussing my encounters with this creature(s)."

Spirit Confronts Paranormal Team at Historic Plantation

2009-11-16T12:10:00.010-05:00

lancasteronline - The kitchen at Rock Ford Plantation (PA) was filled Sunday afternoon with people chatting, sipping cider and munching on ginger snaps.

But on a night in July, someone in the kitchen apparently wanted Bridget Gallagher dead.

Gallagher, co-founder of The East Coast Anomaly Investigators, was posing questions in the kitchen that night, hoping to evoke reactions from the ghosts reputed to haunt the historic mansion. Although nothing unusual occurred at the time, a playback of a digital recording reveals a voice hissing "kill her" in the background.

"That doesn't stop me. It doesn't stop me at all," Gallagher said Sunday. "But I don't think they like me down there."

The cranky ghost in the kitchen was certainly one of the more unsettling experiences recorded during the TECAI team's two visits to the mansion.

But it's by no means the only strange encounter. Many of the team's experiences were shared with more than 100 curious patrons in the Rock Ford barn Sunday during TECAI's Paranormal Reveal.

Rock Ford, the home of Revolutionary War General Edward Hand, is "probably the most complete Georgian-style home in America," Rock Ford board member Ray Bradley said Sunday.

"But the house has a reputation," he said. "It has been considered haunted for 200 years."

Its reputation dates to 1807, when Hand's son John committed suicide in the house, Bradley said. John is, however, only one of the people who have died there.

Gallagher and TECAI co-founder Wendy Brown began Sunday with a slide show including photographs of the site, examples of spirit photography from other places the team has studied and a primer of terms used in paranormal investigations.

They also showed their equipment, which includes electromagnetic field sensors, digital audio and infrared video recorders.

Then there were pictures. One, taken through a window from outside, appears to show a woman in 18th-century clothing. No one, Gallagher said, was in the house when the picture was taken.

A series of three photos shows a white mist forming, then dissipating in one of the upstairs rooms.

But the strongest evidence came when the team rolled out its collection of electronic voice phenomena — recordings made at half speed and played back later to indicate all kinds of activity in the house.

Some are indistinct, such as the "kill her" clip and a segment that investigators believe was Frank, a runaway slave, singing in the kitchen.

Others are clear as a bell.

"I think I see … get out now," an unidentified woman is heard saying. A child sings "la la la" in the distance. At one point, Gallagher remarks that music from a nearby wedding is "not what you're used to hearing." A woman distinctly replies, "That's what I thought earlier."

On another clip, a child plaintively cries, "I want my mama."

"That gives me goosebumps every time I hear it," Brown said.

Very little was caught on video, she said, although a camera in an otherwise empty child's bedroom was abruptly spun around.

Gallagher said the team does not accept anything at face value.

"We try to get down to the nitty-gritty and expose what might be causing it," she said. "We always come into a place with the assumption that it's not haunted."

For instance, a camera showed a flame-like flicker in a fireplace that hasn't been used in many years, Gallagher said. Further investigation uncovered a small piece of reflective tin foil that was stuck in the chimney.

Brown said strange lights can be explained by passing car headlights or even dust and bugs in the air. Unusual sounds are often revealed to be creaks and bangs from the heating system, water pipes in the walls, even squeaky floors.

"You check it out, and nine times out of 10 you can debunk it," Brown said.

Brown said TECAI plans to return for further investigations in 2010.

"We're not finished yet," she said. "Unfortunately, you can't make a ghost perform when you want it to."
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ROCK FORD'S PARANORMAL HISTORY

For generations, many Lancaster Countians have known Rock Ford Plantation not only as the home of Revolutionary War General Edward Hand and one of the region’s foremost historic sites, but also as a “haunted house”.

Rock Ford’s ghostly reputation may be traced back to the nineteenth century, and may have begun shortly after the General’s son John took his own life in the mansion in 1807. This tragedy seemed to leave something of a pall over Rock Ford that perhaps gave rise to its haunted reputation. The surviving Hand children sold the estate in 1810, and the Rock Ford mansion was never again occupied by its owners. The house remained vacant for extended periods of time as many tenant farmers refused to live in what they believed to be a haunted place. A newspaper account (believed to date from an 1894 Intell) describes how, in 1826, Dr. Samuel Humes ( who then owned Rock Ford) persuaded a recent immigrant from Germany named Christian Stiffel to live in the mansion rent free in exchange for taking care of the place. The “brave German” inspected the house from attic to basement, particularly noting the room where “an old armchair was drawn up before a table, the other furniture stood close about the wall, and on the ingrained carpet near a window were the large dark stains of blood.” A 1939 article in the Sunday News entitled “Hand House Holds Mystery of 1807” repeats the story of the blood-stained floor: “that stain remains to darken the boards where John Hand died and, in the manner of bloodstains in old boards, repeated washings have only served to make it more vivid as the deeper stains are revealed. When the washrag touches the dark patch of flooring a startling deep red color appears.” The Lancaster mansion’s haunted reputation was reaffirmed in a 1954 Intell article entitled “Hand Home Once Rumored Haunted” stated that “…here and there, apparently, the stories persisted and the first tendrils of what would grow into a sinister, evil vine of legend began to twine about the great Doric pillars of the broad veranda that surrounded ‘Rockford’ on three sides.” The article goes on to cite an 1886 newspaper article that maintained that “[t]his writer knows of several persons who assert that they have seen unearthly sights and heard strange noises in and about the grand old mansion.”

In 2001, Rock Ford was featured in Katherine Ramsland’s book Ghost: Investigating the Other Side (St. Martin’s Press, 2001) as the site of a paranormal investigation which, in fact concluded that the house was haunted.

“Because of its longstanding reputation as a haunted site, Rock Ford has frequently received requests from various groups wishing to conduct paranormal investigations here. The number of these requests has increased dramatically over the past two years with the growing number and popularity of paranormal investigation TV shows such as Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International and Paranormal State. The vast majority of these requests have been rejected out of hand, because we did not feel sufficiently comfortable with the level of experience or professionalism that they conveyed. We were also reluctant to cooperate with any venture that could be perceived to compromise our reputation as a professionally administered organization with an educational mission.”

However, Slaymaker explains, as the requests from investigative groups continued, “we were suddenly confronted with the realization that there were a great many people who were deeply interested in our site, and that we would perhaps be well-advised to try to engage these people at some level, regardless of whether they were part of the traditional constituency for historic house museums. In the face of a steady, nationwide decline in visitation to historic sites over the past few decades, it is incumbent upon museums to seek to connect with the public in new and creative ways that still further our mission. There is a great interest in paranormal phenomena among a large sector of the American public at present. If we can use this interest as a conduit to bring more visitors to our site and get more people interested in the life and times of General Edward Hand, than it is appropriate for us to do so as long as we make it clear that we are neither endorsing nor rejecting the validity of paranormal investigation. Furthermore, because of Rock Ford’s historical reputation for being haunted, we cannot fairly be accused of trying to artificially establish it as a haunted site-that reputation came into being in the nineteenth century."

Source:
http://www.rockfordplantation.org/

Rugby Clubhouse Staff Wary of 'Harold'

2009-11-16T11:19:00.006-05:00

qt - If you have seen a ghost at the Ipswich Jets Club lately it may have been more than just the alcohol talking.

The Jets club is the latest Ipswich pub which has staff refusing to enter certain rooms for fear of meeting a ghost.

In this case the ghost even has a name – Harold.

For decades, Jets staff have heard footsteps following them as they lock up at night, only to look around and find that there is nobody there.

Doors slam shut just seconds after a staff member has locked them and then there’s the eerie corner office on the pub’s top level.

The dark green office is the only place where Harold has actually been seen.

And those who have seen him crouched against the room’s corner, now refuse to go anywhere near it.

Jets beverage manager, Teresa Cavill, said she had heard Harold several times during her career at the club.

“I was locking-up downstairs once and it was just me in the building and the lights were off and I heard something which sounded like a glass breaking,” Ms Cavill said.

“I was pretty scared by it, so I turned the lights on, had a bit of a look before calling security. We searched everywhere to see if someone had broken a window but could never find anything.

“It is very freaky at times.”

The Jets club was established in 1887 and it is rumoured that Harold is the ghost of a man who was killed in a bar fight in the 1890s.
____________________

Ipswich Jets Clubhouse

The original pub was built as The Imperial Hotel in 1887. However due to the number of licences in and around the Ipswich area, the Imperial lost its licence in 1891. It reopened three months later and then in 1904 the name was changed to The Hotel Cecil, During the Second World War it and quite a few others serviced the then fully staffed and very busy Railway Workshops – There have been many renovations and extensions since with the major one being in 1998 when the Ipswich Jets Rugby League Team needed a clubhouse.

Today the Ipswich Jets Rugby League Club boasts a newly renovated Gaming area, spacious and colourful Restaurant with a wide range of a la carte dishes, coffee shop, TAB and the Public Bar area which is located in the old Pub area. The club comes complete with its own ghost nicknamed ”Harold” and parts of days gone by can still be seen around the bottom end of the club. Check out the hitching points on the posts or gaze in awe at our leadlight windows over Alfies Bar. (as in Alfie Langer, a past player of the Ipswich Jets)

Source:
http://www.gdaypubs.com.au/

Scientists Discover Gene That Prevents Aging

2009-11-16T10:56:00.005-05:00

telegraph - Researchers studying a group of people with an average age of 97 found they had all inherited a gene that appears to prevent cells aging.

They found that the 86 people studied and their children had higher levels of an enzyme called telomerase which is known to protect the body's DNA from degrading.

The team from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who studied an American Ashkenazi Jewish community, said that the finding could lead to anti-aging drugs.

Telomerase is known to protect telomeres which stop the string of DNA unravelling much like the plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces stop fraying.

Each time a cell divides, its telomeres shortens and the cell becomes more susceptible to dying.

By boosting telomerase, scientists think they could eventually stop the cells dying and so protect against old age.

The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

NOTE: 'Ageing' (British use) or 'Aging' (American use) is correct in both forms. Since the piece was written in the UK, 'ageing' was used. The 'spelling police', who have no real life other than looking for spelling mistakes on the internet, have forwarded several messages stating the 'incorrect spelling'. I have changed it to satisfy those who are compulsive and demanded the 'correction' so they would be able to continuing living their 'normal' lives.(rolling eyes)...Lon

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Mailbag: Living in a Killer's House

2009-11-15T18:34:00.004-05:00

When I first moved to GA from FL in 1991, I moved into a house in Smyrna with my future first wife and her two kids. The house was a 2-story ranch built in the early 60s. The basement had a large family room running almost the length of the house along with 2 bedrooms. There were several windows on the back side of the house, up high in the room, at about ground level outside. This is the room that had the TV. The house also had lots of walls with large drywall patches, that I initially couldn't explain. Anyway, at night I always felt something was watching me from those windows while I was watching TV. And it wasn't a warm and fuzzy feeling either. It was the kind of feeling of, I can't look at the window, because if I see something I will scream.

There were two weird, unexplainable things that happened in that house while I lived there that I know about. The first happened when I got home from work one late afternoon and went downstairs and laid on the couch with my back to the room and waited for my wife to get home. After a few minutes I heard someone walk from the direction of the stairs towards me and up behind me and stop. I figured it was my wife who was checking on me and thought I was asleep. Then I heard a big sigh and them walking away. Well about 20 minutes later my wife came home, I was all alone in the house!

The next thing that happened was when my stepdaughter and wife were cleaning her bedroom, which was downstairs in the basement. They were cleaning her dresser together and all of the sudden, a music box on the dresser opened up by itself and then closed by itself. Both of them initially just stood there stunned and didn't say anything and then came and got me.

One day, our neighbor Betty came over with a newspaper article. She had lived next door for years. She told us that a hit man for the Dixie Mafia had lived in the house for years. His name was John Elbert Ransom and Georgia authorities had him associated with 25 murders. At the time I lived in the house, he was in jail for conspiracy to commit murder. Betty told us all kind of stories, including that when they arrested him, they cut holes in the walls of the house looking for illegal drugs and guns.

I always wondered if one of his victims had come back to haunt him.

Bill

NOTE: I received this email today as well as a link to the history behind the story - Still stunning: Biloxi's most notorious murders revisited. Here is another link of interest - Dixie Mafia...Lon

Dreams May Have Physiological Significance

2009-11-15T14:40:00.009-05:00

physorg - According to Dr J. Allan Hobson, the major function of the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep associated with dreams is physiological rather than psychological. During REM sleep the brain is activated and "warming its circuits" and is anticipating the sights, sounds and emotions of the waking state.

Dr Hobson said the idea explains a lot, and likened it to jogging. The body does not remember every step of a jog, but it knows it has exercised, and in the same way we do not remember many of our dreams, but our minds have been tuned for conscious awareness.

Hobson said dreams represent a parallel consciousness state that is running continuously, but which is normally suppressed while the person is awake. Dr Mark Mahowald, a neurologist from Hennepin County Medical Center, in Minneapolis, said most people studying dreams have started out with fixed ideas about the psychological functions of dreaming, and try to make dreaming fit these ideas, but the new study makes no such assumptions.

In evolutionary terms REM sleep seems to be relatively recent, and has been identified in humans, other warm-blooded animals, and birds. Earlier studies have suggested it appears early in life, in the third trimester in humans, and research has produced evidence the brain of the fetus may in a sense be "seeing" images long before its eyes are opened, so the REM state appears to help the brain build neural connections, especially in the visual areas.

This does not mean dreams have no psychological meaning, since they do at times reflect current problems, anxieties and hopes, but people can read almost anything into dreams. A recent study of more than one thousand people at Carnegie Mellon University in Harvard, showed that there were strong biases in how people interpreted dreams. So, for example, subjects attached more significance to negative dreams about people they disliked and to positive dreams about people they liked.

Research on lucid dreams has suggested that only 20 percent of dreams are about people or places we know, and most images are unique to a single dream. Lucid dreaming is the ability to watch a dream as an observer without waking up, and Dr Hobson finds support in lucid dreaming for his argument for dreams as a kind of physiological brain exercise. A study co-authored by Hobson and published in the September issue of the journal Sleep reported that elements of both REM and waking were apparent in lucid dreaming, especially in the frontal areas that are quiet during normal dreams. According to Hobson, this suggests there are two systems, which can be running at the same time.

The potential applications of the research may be a deeper understanding of conditions such as schizophrenia, which is categorized by imaginings that may be related to abnormal activation of a dreaming state.

The paper was published last month in the Nature Reviews Neuroscience journal.