I know I usually post news articles like this and occasionally (i.e., most of the time) goof on them a bit, but not this time. There are a few reasons for this. Point the first, the witnesses actually got a somewhat clear daytime photo of the object in question, instead of the usual blurry, nighttime “fuzzy light” that could be almost anything. Point the second, this object, at least physically, looks very similar to something I saw back in October of 2002. I will probably blog about my full experience at a later date, but long story short, I had a daytime sighting of a black triangular object over Brooklyn, N.Y. that lasted for about 40 minutes. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a camera on me or my phone (I think I still had a StarTac at the time…ugh I feel old). But I observed it for about 40 minutes, and it didn’t move the entire time. But the object in the picture accompanying this story looks pretty close to what I saw that day.
An Ohio parent driving kids home from a school function spotted a black triangle-shaped object in the sky on May 28, 2010, and gave chase, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
They followed the object to a nearby factory where they report the object moved around a chimney that was 4 to 5 stories high.
As the object moved away from this area, they continued to pursue it.
“We followed it down a street of industrial factories, and I pulled into a lot with a clear view of where this thing was ‘hovering’ I got out the car and snapped a few more pics and tried to take video of it,” the reporting witness stated.
Several nearby workers also observed the craft while the family members watched it.
The object then hovered over a shopping plaza before moving away.
The object I saw didn’t move, at all. I was able to tell because it appeared, at least in my field of view, next to an apartment building (though in actuality is was further off in the distance), and I could always see where it was relative to markings and windows on that building. A plane, helicopter or balloon would not stay in the same spot for 40 minutes. The thing I saw didn’t move for the duration of those 40 minutes, and then was gone in the blink of an eye. Again, I’ll do a separate blog entry about my experience in the near future.
The Associated Press is reporting that city officials in Roswell, New Mexico, may be eliminating funding for the town’s annual UFO Festival. Roswell, of course, is the town in which a UFO supposedly crashed in July of 1947. Mac Brazel found the wreckage on his farm, and the Army sent Major Jesse Marcel out to collect the debris, which he claimed was not of this Earth. Apparently the metal couldn’t be burned, couldn’t be bent even with a sledgehammer, and contained foil-like pieces that if crumpled in one’s hand, would automatically spring back inot its original shape. The U.S. government, after sending out a bulletin that they had captured a downed saucer, then retracted the statement and claimed it was just a weather balloon. Yeah. And hence, the catch-all explanation for all UFOs was born.
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) – A UFO could be headed for a crash — a UFO festival. Officials in Roswell, New Mexico, may be pulling the financial plug on the annual UFO Festival. The event celebrates the supposed crash of a flying saucer near the town in the late 1940s. The festival includes a parade, complete with folks dressed as space aliens. But the City Council has approved a preliminary budget for next year, which doesn’t include any money for the festival. One council member says its outrageous to spend $150,000 of the taxpayers money on the UFO event. This summer’s festival is already funded and will go ahead as planned.
Look, I know we’re in a bad recession right now, and money is probably tight, but haven’t these guys ever heard the expression “You have to spend money to make money?” I’m not sure which of the many other reasons to visit Roswell, New Mexico, these city councilmen are counting on to bring in tourists and revenue, but I think they’d better take a closer look before making a final decision on this.
I know I usually tackle the UFO and monster sides of the paranormal and leave the ghostly stories to Laura, but I had to comment on this story after watching the accompanying video. Being a professional paranormal investigator for the past 4 years, I have seen many things, and many of those things have been extremely strange. But many of those extremely strange things, upon closer examination, could be explained rationally. And perhaps the biggest thorn in the side of any serious paranormal investigator with half a brain is the orb phenomena. Orbs are little round objects, usually semi-transparent, that show up in pictures. This basically happens when the flash of the camera illuminates tiny objects that usually can’t be seen by the naked eye, like dust, water droplets, pollen, bugs, etc. But there is a certain segment of people out there, and many of them calling themselves serious paranormal investigators, who think these are ghosts. So they’ll take a picture in a cemetery at night, or in a building where lots of construction is going on, and see all the little dust particles or raindrops and say “Look at all the ghosts we caught! I can see faces!” These people are seeing what they want to see. And the media is not doing anything to help. Witness this story from WHNT News:
TUSCUMBIA, AL – Something eerie may be lurking in the Colbert County EMA office. On the surface, his office appears normal, but EMA Director Mike Melton is convinced that he may be sharing his office space with the paranormal.
“It appears that there’s some type of dimension or something that a flash of the camera can pick up that we might not be able to see,” said Melton.
That’s because of a photo taken of Mike’s office during it’s renovation several years ago. The original image is covered in blurry white spots with faint outlines of human figures in the background. EMA employees agreed it looked peculiar.
John McWilliams, a local historian, enhanced the clarity of the image, revealing what appears to be a line of ghostly figures.
“When I saw it, I didn’t realize it was a saloon scene,” said McWilliams, of Tuscumbia. “I could just see the people. It was not until I started processing it that I saw that it was a saloon scene.”
That prompted McWilliams to do a little homework on the building. After looking at old maps, he determined what’s now the Colbert County EMA office was a saloon and bowling alley back in 1884.
“I have records here to find out what was in those buildings at that time during that period,” said McWilliams. “The picture meets that criteria.”
He said that explains why the figures appear to be waiting in line, while others appear to be perched at a bar.
Photos snapped at the EMA console reveal what appears to be three figures in the foreground, wearing microphone headsets. Mike suspects they once worked in the building.
“Evidently, we’re sharing their space and they’re not sharing ours,” said Melton.
Photos taken since the construction work suggest there could still be some sort of supernatural activity in his office.
We wanted to check it out for ourselves, so we posed for the camera after our interview with Melton. John processed the image for us and revealed nine ghostly figures after enhancing the photo clarity.
Ghosts or not, Melton and other EMA employees aren’t spooked.
“It is something to be lighthearted about,” said Melton. “It’s just an unknown, something creepy you can try to figure out and try to understand what it’s about.”
Melton and McWilliams both joke they know it sounds crazy, but can’t help what they see.
Again, the fact that these pictures were taken during renovations to the office says a lot. Tons of dust and debris is bound to be kicked up during those times, and that is going to be captured on camera as “orbs.” But it’s just dust and particulate matter. And are they serious about the “faces” wearing headsets? They look like the ghosts of Muppets, if anything. I’m all for investigating the paranormal, but people need to do their homework first, and remember to always look for rational explanations before jumping to ghostly conclusions. Unfortunately, even paranormal investigators who claim to be scientific don’t always stick to that philosophy.
Usually cryptozoology (defined as the study of unknown animals) deals with phenomena like Bigfoot, lake monsters, chupacabras, and other such mystical beasts. But an offshoot of cryptozoology is “out of place animals,” animals that are scientifically known to exist but showing up in very unusual places. There are thousands of reports of out of place animals, from elephants in Brooklyn, kangaroos in the midwest, and black cats in Great Britain. Some of these reports have been explained, usually as an escaped exotic pet or circus animal. But many more of these can never adequately be explained. The UK in particular has a long history of reports of large black cats and dogs. This mythology has even made it into popular literature, most notably the Sherlock Holmes adventure “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” It is somewhat hard to believe that thousands of black panthers have been escaping from circuses in England for hundreds of years. The Daily Mail reports on a very recent incident:
A 15-year-old schoolgirl has told of her terror after being chased by a big cat she claims was a ‘black panther’ in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
Kim Howells & Sofie Gwynne
Kim Howells was enjoying a walk through the woodland on her 15th birthday with her cousin Sophie Gwynne, eight, when they came across the animal lying beneath a tree.
Ms Howells, who described the ‘panther’ as about the size of a Great Dane dog, with big eyes, paws and a long tail, said the creature began following them after they spotted it at around 8.30pm on Monday night.
She said: ‘I saw something out of the corner of my eye and at first I thought it was a log or something.
‘We carried on walking but then I looked back and it was sitting up looking at me.
‘It was definitely a big cat. I’ve seen wild boar and deer in the Forest before and it definitely wasn’t one of them.
‘What makes me sure is that it was still light so I could see it really clearly.’
Ms Howells added: ‘Sophie was asking what it was and then we looked behind us and it was about five metres away, following us.
‘I didn’t know what to do so we cut through the brambles and just started running.’
The pair then ran all the way back to Ms Howells’s family home in nearby Ruspidge
The girls ran all the way back to Kim’s home in Ruspidge, near Cinderford.
Ms Howells’s mother Cathy said: ‘They were in a real state, their feet were all cut and Sophie was in tears.
‘Kim is a very sensible girl and if that’s what she says she saw, that’s what it is.’
Not many cryptozoologists go looking for this kind of black panther...
Mrs Howells later showed her daughter a picture of a panther on the internet for her to confirm that was indeed what she had seen.
Mrs Howells said she now has doubts about letting her daughter and niece play in the nearby woods.
She added: ‘I used to think that they were much better off there than a public park or somewhere but now I’m not sure, it is a real worry.’
It is not the first time a big cat sighting has been reported near Ruspidge.
In June 2007, milkman Robert Brinton got an early morning wake-up call when he encountered a big cat in Railway Road.
Earlier the same year, firefighter Peter Bishop reported a black cat sighting in Cinderford and a lorry driver from Lydney also saw one on Valley Road.
If you’ve ever looked up into the sky and saw a plane overhead leaving a trail of smoke, then you know what a contrail is. “Contrail” is short for condensation trail, which is the term given to the frozen water vapor that comes off of airplanes at high altitudes and forms into ice crystals that we all see as clouds or “smoke.” But there are some conspiracy theorists out there who think that these are chemical trails, or “chemtrails,” spewed out by the government for a variety of dastardly reasons. Fox 12 Idaho has the story:
Treasure Valley, Idaho – Weather modification. Russian defense. Asian mafia. Those are just some of the many theories behind why some say “chemtrails” are real.
They claim some planes are spraying chemicals in the air that then fall to the ground, hurting our environment, our crops, and our health. Others say no, they don’t exist.
Some Treasure Valley residents say we need to look up, and keep a closer eye on what we’re seeing in the skies. A local man known as “Mr. Smith” says normal condensation trails are ice crystals that come of jet aircraft engines, and only last in the sky for 16 seconds or so. Meanwhile, chemtrails don’t dissipate quickly, and end up spreading out in the sky, and Smith is worried about potential health effects.
“It’s a composition between barium salt and aluminum and also polymer fibers. These chemicals, they’re being sprayed on us every other day and we’re breathing them in,” said Smith.
Another big question is if chemtrails exist, why? Some point to weather modification or communication systems, while others say more sinister acts could be at work.
“They also use it for defense. I don’t want to get too deep into that. I’ll leave it up to the viewer to kinda look into that themselves,” said Smith.
Smith is not alone in his concerns. The Internet is filled with thousands, if not millions, of articles, websites, blogs and videos on chemtrails. Smith says one person in particular adds credibility to the issue.
“If you google A.C. Griffith, he’s a former N.S.A. employee, had C.I.A. top clearance, and he was one of the few people who made it inside this program to live and talk about it,” said Smith.
FOX 12 checked in with the Idaho Division of Air Quality and officials told us their monitors measure what’s in the air at low levels, not high altitudes. But even if what’s up there made it down here, the agency says it doesn’t have the technology to pinpoint just where it all came from. So the particulates could come from cars, or factories, or any source. Air quality leaders add there are traces of metal in the air, but that’s common in cities of industry, and levels here are not alarming.
Smith’s reaction?
“It’s baloney. I mean clearly we never have experienced this. People know, the ones who pay attention know.”
According to him, chemtrails last longer in the sky, spread out, and block the sun.
“I’m just angered. I wanna be able to look up and see the blue sky, and enjoy the sunshine on my face,” said Smith.
Amazingly, I can still see the sky.
So my first question here is why should we trust a guy who won’t identify himself? Mr. Smith indeed. Secondly, how does he know the exact composition of these supposed chemtrails? Does he have the time, money, equipment and other resources to test the chemical composition of the air, and also determine exactly where those chemical elements came from? I somehow doubt it. And seriously, is this guys seeing so many contrails that it’s blocking out the sun for him? And I took the liberty of googling (funny how that is a verb now) this A.C. Griffith, and his background is shady at best. Like most conspiracies, this one doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on.
The photos in this post were taken by me, last night, as I watched the sunset. Amazingly, the awesome sight of the sunset was not blotted out by the contrail.
An Ohio parent driving kids home from a school function spotted a black triangle-shaped object in the sky on May 28, 2010, and gave chase, according to testimony from the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) witness reporting database.
