The Occult Section

I always find myself on the fence about retired military personnel who come out in their twilight years and make claims that UFOs are real and that the government has aliens or alien bodies. On the one hand, it makes sense. I mean, what do they have to lose? They can’t get fired. They aren’t afraid oif the government retaliating against them in any way. So they spill their secrets. On the other hand, maybe their old age has just made them bat-shit crazy? But honestly, none of the guys I’ve seen have come across as anything but completely sane and full of conviction.

When Air Force Lt. Col. Richard French was an alleged lead investigator of Project Blue Book in the 1950s, his job was to shoot down false reports of UFOs.

Given his job, French never dreamed he’d end up in Newfoundland one day watching what appeared to him to be two extraterrestrials performing repairs on a submerged, unknown circular craft.

In Washington, D.C., recently, the 83-year-old retired officer testified at the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure panel of six former members of Congress about his work as a UFO debunker in 1952.

French recounted how the Newfoundland incident unfolded decades ago, in the early 1950s, after two UFOs were seen by many people off the coast of St. John’s. French’s superiors ordered him to look into the situation.

“They said, ‘We have a UFO report and we want you to investigate it,’ and that was standard for what I was doing,” French told The Huffington Post. “They told me there were two of them involved and that they were deep under the water, after entering the water doing roughly 100 miles an hour.

“There were a lot of people assembled on the wharf, at least 100 standing around just looking in amazement at the water, including several local policemen.”

French recalls the water was very clear and he could see two circular craft, each one about 18 feet in diameter and approximately 3 feet thick. He said the two objects were floating below the surface of the water, a couple of feet apart, not more than 20 feet from the shore. And he saw two beings in the water near the ships.

“The first thing I saw was the UFOs, and it was apparent to me that they were doing something to the craft, and I couldn’t really tell what because they were on the bottom side of it and not visible to me except when they would occasionally get over to the side where I could see them. The water was fairly clear and I could see without any trouble. They weren’t down at the bottom of the [seabed] — they were about half way down.”

French told HuffPost that the two beings he saw “were about 2 or 3 feet tall, light grey in color, very thin, long arms with either two or three fingers. The top of their heads was much wider than their jaw line, their eyes were very slanted and you couldn’t see pupils in them. They looked the way [aliens] have been depicted in motion pictures.”

As the Air Force UFO debunker watched, he claims one of the ships began to rise out of the water.

“When it hit the [surface], it was going about 100 miles an hour. It then accelerated to somewhere in the neighborhood of 2,500 to 3,000 miles an hour and disappeared. It returned about 20 minutes later, slowed down to nearly a stop before it entered the water, then went down, and the two [beings] worked together.

“It took them about 20 minutes and then the two ships departed together, again slow when they exited the water, and immediately they sped up to a very high speed. I believe they were repairing [the ship] and tested that the repairs had been adequate, and then away they went.”

Ironically, French’s job at the time — as a Project Blue Book investigator — was to debunk UFOs. So, what kind of report did he file with Blue Book about this case he had personally witnessed?

“Needless to say, it was a fictitious report, as all of them were. I didn’t really say that they were UFOs — I said that there was something we didn’t know — some type of foreign or unrecognizable vehicle there. In other words, I weasel-worded it.

“Oh, I think without a doubt it was a UFO and I think there were aliens aboard it. There’s no question in my mind that was exactly what it was, and my duty was to debunk the story, so I did my best to do so.”

The events of the Newfoundland UFO and alleged aliens took place some 60 years ago, in the days before everyone had a digital camera or image-capture cell phone in their pocket. Despite the fact that there are no photographs to substantiate the report, it’s still an amazing story.

So what are we to make of this? Because it’s not the first time French has stirred up the UFO-ET pot.

Last year, he told HuffPost exclusively that there wasn’t just one UFO crash near Roswell, N.M., in 1947 — he said there were two.

I’m not sure about this whole “two crashes at Roswell” thing. I’ve heard it before, and other versions have it as two crash sites for the same vehicle. Ultimately though, without any real proof, these are just interesting stories.

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One of my favourite ghost stories relates to an enterprising Scot who immigrated across the pond to the US, finally ending up in Canada. Simon McTavish was a Highlander born around 1750. When he first arrived in the Americas, he spent several years living in New England, before ending his days in Montreal, Canada. In that time, he became a very successful fur trader, owner of the dominant North West Company.

Simon McTavish

By all accounts, McTavish was a colourful character, who kept the citizens of Montreal highly amused by his antics. An acknowledged hard worker, he also liked to enjoy himself. One of his favourite past-times was apparently either falling in love or being in love. He led quite a grand life, throwing large parties and enjoying good food. In 1793, he got the hang of the love game, marrying Marie-Marguerite Chaboillez, a local woman. They had six children, of whom four survived. McTavish promised his wife that he would built her a castle on top of Mount Royal, the grandest house in all of Montreal. But he died during its construction in 1805. His body was buried on the site in a mausoleum.

But McTavish did not rest easily in his tomb, and in fact went on to become the centre of one of Montreal’s biggest local legends. The story became so notorious, that it led to McTavish’s mausoleum being covered over. There are quite a few twists to the tale. Following his death, the grand house McTavish planned for his wife was never finished, and became known as the ‘haunted house on the hill’. People reported hearing the revelries of huge parties emanating from the house. Others said that the man himself could be seen dancing on the rooftop – maybe with or without a few accompanying fairies. Perhaps more unusual, and rather befitting for the ghost of an eccentric ex-pat Scot, his ghost could also be seen sitting upright in his coffin, sledging down the side of Mount Royal.

It goes that the abandoned construction of his castle after his wife left Montreal angered McTavish’s spirit, causing it to get up to such merry japes. His ghost was also said to be somewhat miffed when some grave robbing took place in the new cemetery in Mount Royal in 1870. An anatomy professor had employed some bodysnatchers to sort out a supply problem for his classes. The resurrection men were reportedly accompanied by McTavish sliding down the hill next to them in his coffin. McTavish’s tomb itself was also apparently broken into.

A few years ago, archaeologists began excavating Simon McTavish’s mausoleum. It’s not known if they had any coffin-sledging company from the other side…

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I’m intrigued by this article. There’s a house for sale in Montreal, right, and people are already assuming it’s haunted. Why? Cuz paranormal stuff is so hot right now. But seriously, it’s an old house and apparently hasn’t been renovated much, if at all, since being built almost 100 years ago.

An eerie house for sale in Montreal’s Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie area is still in search of a buyer nearly a year after going on the market, according to CTV News.

The listing says a building contractor built the house with his employees in 1919 and 1920. Judging from the images posted online, nothing has changed since.

The house looks like a time capsule from the 1920s; its well-worn furniture and dusty floors contributing to a sense that something of its past owners lingers on inside the empty rooms.

“Probably the first Victorian house to be built in the area of Petite Patrie and certainly the last to be renovated,” the listing says.

It adds that the floors, doors and paneling are all original, made from oak. The floor was only ever covered with beeswax, it says. The walls bear the marks of items that once hung there and the bedroom still contains a bed.

A visitor told CTV News the house had a feeling to it, as though it was haunted.

The listing includes a warning that there is no legal warranty for the house’s quality.

In this day and age, it’s totally acceptable to presume everything you come across is paranormal, full of ghosts, possibly demonic, and definitely soon-to-be on TV.

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There’s nothing new about the theory that Bigfoot are related to UFO activity, or that Bigfoot are actually alien creatures. We actually did a blog post about this many moons ago. I also did a blog post talking about the correct plural form of Bigfoot, which is Bigfoot. Ok, shameless self-promotions are over now. But I came across this funny little blog post and had to have a little fun with it. Natch.

Bigfoot flying a spaceship! Where would anyone ever get such a crazy idea?

Rather than being a missing link between man and the apes, Bigfoot may possibly be an alien entity. This intriguing possibility is derived from evidence in several solid UFO cases.

The earliest clues date back to 1888, when a cattleman described an encounter with friendly Indians in Humboldt County, California. They led him to a cave where he saw a hefty humanoid creature covered in long, shiny black hair, with no neck, sitting cross-legged.

One Indian told him three of these “Crazy Bears” had been cast out of a small moon that dropped from the sky and landed. The “moon” then ascended back into the air. So it’s highly likely the “Crazy Bears” were really Bigfoots, and the “moon,” a spacecraft.

Now fast-forward almost 100 years to 1973… and Mrs. Reafa Heitfield. She and her 13-year-old son were sleeping in a trailer in Cincinnati, Ohio on the morning of October 21. Reafa arose at 2:30 a.m. to quench her thirst, and noticed strange lights in the adjoining parking lot. Looking out the window, her attention was drawn, in particular, to an inexplicable cone of light, shaped like a huge bubble umbrella — about seven feet in diameter.

Nearby she spotted a grayish, ape-like creature with a large, downward angled snout, no neck and a sizable waist. Moving slowly, it then entered into the light. About five minutes later, both apeman and UFO disappeared.

Another dramatic incident occurred a few days later on October 25, 1973. A group of farmers in Fayette County, Pennsylvania caught sight of a dome-shaped UFO that was brightly lit and about 100 feet in diameter. As the locals drove toward it, they saw a pair of gargantuan creatures covered with thick, matted hair, luminescent green eyes and long arms that dangled below their knees.

A farmer’s son fired a gun shot at the creatures, one of which raised its right hand in the air. At that very moment, the UFO disappeared. Then, the two Bigfoots escaped into the woods and were never seen again.

Dairy farmer William Bosak of Frederic, Wisconsin was returning from a co-op meeting about 10:30 p.m. on December 9, 1974, when he nearly slammed into a globular UFO on the road in front of him, its bottom half enshrouded in fog.

Inside the visible transparent dome was a six-foot-tall ape-like creature with reddish-brown fur covering its body (except for the face) and distinctive pointed ears. It appeared to be operating a control panel. As Bosak passed by, the object suddenly arose and disappeared.

In August,1976, after a series of UFO sightings around Rutland, British Columbia, Canada, several men and their children saw a hairy ape-like entity, six to seven feet tall roaming about a mountainside. They also found a clump of hair that was sent to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for identification. Laboratory analysis confirmed it was primate hair, but, significantly, it could not be matched to any known species on earth!

Perhaps the Bigfoot creatures are UFO pilots, landing on earth for exploratory purposes. Or, conceivably, higher level ETs are leaving behind some specimens as “guinea pigs” to test our environment for long-term survival. Or, possibly,these Bigfoots are criminal entities being deposited on Earth as a form of cosmic deportation!

Ok, so I need to criticize a few of the “theories” here. First of all, if Bigfoot were UFO pilots, one would hope that they would have clothes. I mean, if they mastered interstellar travel (or inter-dimensional travel), surely they could find a shiny silver coverall with a v-neck to walk the forests in. Secondly, one would hope that, again, mastering interstellar travel would make them, ethically, above animal testing. Third: as I mentioned earlier, the plural for Bigfoot is Bigfoot. Not Bigfeet, not Bigfoots. I mean, Bigfoots just sounds kind of stupid, doesn’t it? Lastly, Bigfoot are criminal entities deposited on Earth as a form of punishment? Ok, that one I can buy.

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It’s always interesting to see what people believe in depending on where they live. I came across this article regarding some statistics about how many Canadians believe in Bigfoot (or Sasquatch as he’s called up there). I’m honestly surprised to see that more Americans believe in Bigfoot than Canadians.

One out of five Canadians believe the legendary Bigfoot stomps through the forests. Americans are even more inclined to believe Bigfoot lives in the West Coast mountains.

A new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found three-in-ten Americans (29%) and one-in-five Canadians (21%) think Bigfoot is “definitely” or “probably” real.

Bigfoot, also often known as “Sasquatch” in Canada, is said to be an extremely tall and hairy primate, almost nine feet (2.75 meters). The rarely-seen, or never-seen (depending on your view), creature is said to live in remote areas of Canada and the United States, particularly in Cascadia (also known as the Pacific Northwest).

Wikipedia says: “Even though many people claim to have seen a Bigfoot, or seen their tracks, no one has ever captured one, or found a dead body. For this reason, some people do not believe in Bigfoot. Some also believe Bigfoot is a dangerous monster, because of some scary stories told about them. Most people who study Bigfoot, however, agree that the species is probably gentle and intelligent, just like humans.”

The Angus Reid survey of more than 1,000 Canadians and 1,000 Americans found that the Bigfoot phenomenon is bigger in the U.S., where 77 per cent of respondents claim to have heard “a great deal” or a “moderate amount” about Bigfoot (compared to 61% of Canadians).

In Canada, Albertans (29%) are more likely to think that Bigfoot is real than British Columbians (18%), even though B.C. is supposed to be prime Bigfoot territory. Nineteen percent of Quebecers believe Bigfoot could be the real deal, compared to 17 per cent of Ontarians (17%). In the United States, respondents in the West (32%) are more likely to believe that Bigfoot is real.

I am surprised to see that British Columbia has such a low number of Bigfoot believers, as, since the article states, the area is prime Bigfoot country. More people in the western U.S. believing in Bigfoot just makes more sense. not many Bigfoot running around NYC (and if there were, would anyone be able to tell?)

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