The Occult Section

We reported on this story back in August, where a team of underwater treasure hunters supposedly found what looks like a UFO (or the Millennium Falcon from “Star Wars”) deep under the Baltic Sea. Now comes news that the team might return to the location in may to see what they can find out about the mysterious object.

"Dammit Lando! 'Not a scratch!' you said! No more Colt 45 for you!"

Is that a shipwreck or a UFO?

A mysterious object discovered deep beneath the Baltic Sea has treasure hunters and alien enthusiasts scratching their heads. But now there are plans to get to the bottom of the underwater conundrum.

“I have been doing this for nearly 20 years so I have a seen a few objects on the bottom, but nothing like this,” commercial diver Peter Lindberg told CNN.

He’s the leader of a team from the deep-sea salvage company, Ocean Explorer, that first made the discovery back in August.

“We had been out for nine days and we were quite tired and we were on our way home, but we made a final run with a sonar fish and suddenly this thing turned up,” Lindberg said.

Through the use of side-scan sonar, the team discovered a disc-like object that measures nearly 200 feet in diameter and has generated out-of-this-world speculation.

At the time the object’s identity seemed destined to remain a mystery because the expense to launch an expedition was too high. However, interest in the find has reportedly led to a flood of donations.

While no firm date has been set, Lindberg suggested his team may return to the site around May.

Meanwhile, theories about the bizarre image run the gamut from the far-fetched – some say it’s the Millenium Falcon from “Star Wars” – to the more Earth-bound, as some guess the image reveals a collection of sunken Russian ships.

“We’ve heard lots of different kinds of explanations,” Lindberg told CNN. “But we won’t know until we have been down there.”

“Right now, we know about 20,000 objects, mostly shipwrecks, in the Baltic Sea. But I think there may be more than 100,000,” said sonar expert Ardreas Olsson, according to Yahoo! News. “I’m not sure what you will see when you go down. But I’m excited. It’s going to be interesting to see what it is.”

Personally, I do hope it is in fact the Millennium Falcon. Reverse engineer that beauty and get them on the market ASAP. But sadly, I’m guessing this won’t turn out to be Han Solo’s space Winnebago. I’m guessing it’s just part of a shipwreck, and matrixing from the sonar image makes it just look like a UFO or the Falcon to us.

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Ok, shameless self-promotion time once again. Tonight at 8pm ET, on the awesome Unknown Origins Radio show, I will be the guest, talking about our little blog here, The Occult Section. We taped the show a little over a week ago, and we talked about a variety of topics, just like we do here on the blog, everything from Bigfoot, ghosts and UFOs to Mothman and the strange sounds being heard all over the world right now and even some lesser-known cryptids. I was on the show once before, for their Paranormal Roundtable, and it was a great time, and this show was also a lot of fun. thanks to hosts Mark Johnson, Loren DePinto and Karrie-Ann Versace for being awesome and fun hosts. And while I didn’t get a chance to give shout outs during the show (and hour goes by incredibly fast), I have to thank Michelle Mason and Laura Pennace for their contributions to the blog and helping me get it to where it is today.

And if you can’t catch the show tonight, you can always find it in the archived shows section of their website.

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Well, we can now add Fran Drescher to the growing list of celebrities who claim to have been abducted by aliens (see Hagar, Sammy). The star of “The Nanny” is claiming that she was abducted by UFO occupants in junior high school and had an alien chip implanted in her that caused her to meet her ex-husband. Yeah…

I could see why aliens would want to abduct and probe her. Now if only they could have done something about her voice...

Fran Drescher, whose “Happily Divorced” has been a hit for TV Land, believes that she was abducted by aliens while she was in junior high. She also, very seriously, says that said aliens planted a chip in her hand and programmed her to meet her ex-husband, Peter Marc Jacobson, who inspired the TV series.

“You know, it’s funny because Peter and I both saw [aliens] before we knew each other, doing the same thing, driving on the road with our dads,” she tells HuffPo. “We were both in junior high.”

Years later, they met and compared experiences. “We realized that we had the same experience. I think that somehow we were programmed to meet,” she says, pointing out a small scar on her hand. “We both have this scar. It’s the exact same scar on the exact same spot.”

Jacobson doesn’t share her opinions. He suggests that Drescher got the scar from a drill bit or a burn from a hot beverage. “I said to him, that’s what the aliens programmed us to think,” Fran explains. “But really, that’s where the chip is.”

…It could explain some things.

Alien abduction stories are always a bit suspect for me. First off, I feel like most can easily be explained by sleep paralysis. Simply put, the brain shuts your muscles down when you sleep so that you don’t act out your dreams. But sometimes we wake up when our bodies are still paralyzed, and one can get the sense of being immobilized. And since the brain is still technically dreaming, hallucinations can occur, such as the feelings of an ominous presence nearby. The implanted chips, which are always thought to be extraterrestrial in nature, always turn out to be completely terrestrial in origin. They are weird, to be certain, but alien control devices? That has yet to be proven.

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In what seems to be an epidemic, ghosts are now apparently comitting a series of crimes. And the criminal activity is escalating. Whereas last time it was just a case of stolen goods, now a Wisconsin man, who is accused of beating his wife, says that a ghost is responsible for her injuries. Hell, it’s better than “she fell down the stairs.”

He may be available soon, ladies. But the ghost that follows him may strangle and beat you.

JANUARY 20–A Wisconsin man charged with domestic abuse told cops that a “ghost” was actually responsible for injuries suffered by his wife, according to police.

The bizarre claim by Michael West, 41, did not prevent the Fond du Lac man’s arrest for strangulation, battery, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest. West is pictured in the mug shot at right.

According to a January 18 criminal complaint, West and his spouse got into an argument Sunday that turned violent. The victim told cops that West twice strangled her, and that he punched her in the face when she tried to dial 911.

When cops arrived at the couple’s home, the crying woman was bleeding from the nose and had blood on her Packers jersey.

During police questioning, West claimed his wife sustained her injuries to her face and neck during several falls. When pressed by a cop–who pointed to marks on the woman’s neck–the intoxicated West shifted his story. “A ghost did it,” he said.

In light of the apparition claim, officers sought to place West in custody. After a struggle, he was handcuffed and transported to the county lockup, where he remains in custody in lieu of $1000 bail.

It’s no surprise that this guy was drunk. But still, that’s the best excuse he could come up with? In other news, 37 local paranormal teams have been trying to contact the couple to see if they could go in and investigate.

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On of my biggest pet peeves is when ghost hunters find a piece of “evidence” that is clearly faked and then go to the media to claim that they have proof of paranormal activity. Now we have another irresponsible paranormal investigator claiming that some footage taken in a Glasgow church shows the ghost of Princess Diana. Frankly, my 4-year-old son could take more convincing ghost pictures on my iPod camera without even trying.

"Princess Di's mother's cousin's friend may have once thought about going to Scotland...it makes perfect sense that she would haunt this church!!"

Paranormal enthusiast Michael Cohen is investigating whether a recent sighting at a church in Glasgow is in fact Princess Diana’s ghost.

A group of Chinese tourists filmed the stained glass window in Scotland without realising that it featured Princess Di from beyond the grave.

The video – which was later passed on to Cohen – appears to show a ghostly-looking image resembling Diana.

And Cohen is convinced the short snippet of footage could well be evidence or paranormal activity.

‘Scientists tell us that ghosts don’t exist, and yet people around the world keep seeing them,’ he said.

‘While we might not want nothing to do with the dead, perhaps some ghosts have unfinished business with us.’

Cohen goes on to claim the shot as one of the ‘clearest’ paranormal images he has come across.

‘The footage is currently being examined by myself and other researchers to ascertain if it is a genuine ghost capture. It might be a bizarre optical illusion, but then again, it could be a ghost – possibly Princess Diana’s.

‘Ghosts often appear in places connected to their lives and families. Ghosts might appear to warn individuals, groups and even entire nations of possible impending danger.’

The Princess of Wales’ mother is believed to have spent a lot of time in Scotland, passing away there in 2004.

The footage is being used in an upcoming TV series on Paranormal mysteries.

I really wish that these investigators would err on the side of caution once in a while. It makes us all look bad when they run to the media claiming “proof” of the paranormal, especially when the evidence they are touting can very easily be debunked (and usually looks completely fake). They haven’t finished analyzing this video yet, but Mr. Cohen has apparently already made up his mind that this is most likely the picture of a ghost. Good job.

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