The Occult Section

I came across this story today, in which two boys found a decomposing foot and are now attributing it to Bigfoot. Reading the article, it doesn’t really say how big the foot is and why it couldn’t be a human or bear foot, so I’m not sure why this automatically belongs to Sasquatch. Maybe it’s just the kids’ imaginations running wild, which is understandable. But I’m guessing this will turn out to be a bear paw in the end.

I suppose finding one of these decomposing in the woods might look a little freaky and could be mistaken for a Bigfoot foot…

Washington, Apr 20 (ANI): Two young boys from Quincy, Massachusetts have left police and residents baffled with their mysterious and potentially grisly finding.

According to the Patriot Ledger newspaper, “On March 29, Sgt.Steven Leanues picked up what appears to be a decomposed foot that the boys found in the woods off Pantheon Road. Police Chief Frank Alvilhiera sent it to the medical examiner, who determined it is not human, although it appears to have five toes,” Fox News reported.

Tests are still being conducted, but the strange find has locals asking – What has five toes and looks like a foot – but isn’t? Maybe Bigfoot, but more likely a bear.

Strange as it may seem, this is not the first time that animal bones have been mistaken for human remains.

In 2004 a man in Fort Gay, West Virginia, discovered a human hand at about 9 o’clock in the evening while cleaning his vehicle at a car wash.

It was inside a manila envelope and had a rubber band around the five finger bones.

Police officers and two different county medical examiners concluded it was human and probably from a child or small woman’s hand.

But the mystery deepened because the rest of the skeleton was never found, and no one of that description had been reported missing.

Finally the hand was sent to the state forensics lab, where it was determined to be a bear paw.

In 2011, a man in Queens, New York, found what appeared to be the foot of a young child in a back yard.

The police were called, and parents kept their children close, fearing that someone had snatched, murdered and dismembered a child.

Finally, a forensic anthropologist in the New York City medical examiner’s office examined the foot and identified it as a bear paw. (ANI)

The more interesting part of this story for me is the fact that a bear paw was found in the backyard of a Queens, New York home. Queens, while a suburban borough of New York City, is not really known for having animals bigger than squirrels or surly teens blasting terrible music from their cars. Interesting how a bear paw managed to get there, unless it was very old. Interesting…

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We’ve done lots of stories on haunted locations for sale (like this one, and this one), and now comes this lovely haunted house (“the area’s own version of the ‘Amityville Horror’) in the beautiful neighborhood of Wilkes-Barre. Though I’m still not sure why everyone still believes in the legend of the Amityville house, as it’s been proven to be an elaborate hoax. I mean, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated it, so, pretty much by definition, it was a hoax. And they investigated this house too, so, you do the math…

“But Ed and Lorraine Warren said it was haunted, and they are reliable! ‘Sheisty’ is another word for reliable, right?”

The sales listing for a Wilkes-Barre property touts it as an “authentic haunted house.”

City resident Betsy Summers, who lives across the street, designed the advertisement hoping to stir up interest in the 46 S. Welles St. property. The owner, Katherine Watkins, died last year, and Summers said she is trying to help the family sell it.

Summers said she’s not making up the haunted claim, which has been detailed in several published reports.

“It has a pretty nasty reputation,” she said.

The house was featured in several Times Leader news articles from 1979 through 1982, with one prior owner describing the place as the area’s “own version of the ‘Amityville Horror.’ ”

Walker Bennett told reporters he moved out of the property in 1978 because it was haunted.

He described the ghostly figures of a well-dressed man with a cane and a girl in a nightgown, inexplicable sounds coming from the attic and walls, and bloody spots on walls and pools in the living room.

Bennett said he witnessed his daughter trip at the top of a steep flight of stairs in January 1977 and float slow-motion through the air to land on her feet at the bottom, unharmed. His wife witnessed the same thing happen again a month later, he said.

He said he knocked down the wall in a back bedroom seeking the source of strange sounds coming from that area and discovered a tin box containing a red ribbon, human molar and chicken bones tied together in the form of a cross. He theorized the objects were part of a voodoo curse against industrialist Augustus C. Lanning, who built the house in the mid-1860s as part of his estate.

Bennett also found a photo of Lanning and said it was the same man who kept knocking on his door.

He blamed the haunting on family illnesses and stress and brought in a priest to bless the house.

The Bennett family fled the house, leaving expensive electronic equipment and many other belongings, in March 1978, when Walker said he awoke to a thunderous roar, even though the weather was clear. He described footsteps pounding in the attic, a rattling front door, dishes crashing in the kitchen and the cry of a child behind a wall.

News reports said prior inhabitants committed suicide in the home in 1950 and 1940.

Paranormal investigators Ed and Loraine Warren, famed for their investigation of the Amityville house in New York featured in the book and movie, toured the Welles Street property in March 1980. A photograph of Lorraine shows her holding her hand “as if in pain” as she emerged from the home.

“I sense a terrible despair. The effect on people who lived in this house was very, very negative,” she said.

Neighbors have expressed mixed opinions on whether it was haunted.

Watkins purchased the four-bedroom, mortgage-foreclosed property in August 1982 for $20,000, generating an article with the headline, “‘Haunted’ house sold in Heights.” Watkins told reporters she was not afraid of ghosts.

A representative of the mortgage holder said the property had been remodeled and occupied by tenants after the “ridiculous publicity” about the haunting. The tenants said the property was not haunted.

Summers said Watkins, who was her friend, told her her family experienced unexplained phenomena, such as a shaking bed, moving objects and a light or television turning off when the power was still on.

Paranormal investigators also have captured activity in photographs and on audio recordings, said Summers, a veterinary sales worker who has run for several local elected offices.

The 2,092-square-foot home is assessed at $63,200 and listed for sale at $30,000, though Summers said the family will consider any fair offers. Potential buyers can contact her at 610-955-6361.

The advertisement, which was listed in the Wilkes-Barre Independent Gazette, led to two showings of the property, she said.

“They were interested because it is haunted,” she said.

Summers said the family may opt to use the house for a haunted bed-and-breakfast if it doesn’t sell.

She said she regularly pops into the house to make sure it’s secure.

“I take care of what I have to do and get out. I try to ignore any noises I hear,” she said.

It’s interesting to me that people have lived there and not experienced anything, but others claim to have experienced paranormal activity. The stories in this article don’t really sound like paranormal activity, though. It sounds more like what paranormal activity looks like in a Hollywood movie, so I’m chalking this up more to the dude’s imagination than an actual experience. Real supernatural phenomena just doesn’t happen like that.

Technorati Tags: debunking, ed warren, ghost, ghost hunters, ghost hunting, ghosts, haunted, haunted house, haunted houses, haunting, hoax, lorraine warren, media, new york, News, paranormal, pennsylvania, people, picture, supernatural, thoughts, welles street, wilkes-barre

Piggybacking on our story from the other day about the Russell Crowe UFO, I decided to post this story about other celebrities who famously believe in UFOs. Tom Cruise is a wackjob (please don’t sue me!!), but I’ve always felt that the Jackie Gleason story was interesting, even if it is probably just an urban legend. And Dan Ackroyd? Hello? “Ghostbusters” anyone? He’s been very public about his interest in the paranormal.

And here I thought sending his wife for the moon was just a cute euphemism for domestic violence…

Russell Crowe nearly broke the internet when he posted a homemade video on YouTube, apparently showing a UFO.

The Oscar winning actor claimed he had been filming fruit bats over Sydney’s Botanical Gardens (as you do), when his time-lapse camera captured an unidentified red light hovering above the tree line.

Explanations range from reflections of reversing cars to passing aircraft, and even the odd accusations of photoshopery by old Rusty himself.

Regardless, Crowe isn’t the first movie star to delve into the odd bit UFOlogy, and his story certainly isn’t the strangest. Welcome to the weird world of celebrity close encounters…

Whilst doing press for alien action ‘Battle: Los Angeles’ in 2001, Aaron Eckhart told Jay Leno’s ‘The Tonight Show’: “I actually have seen an Unidentified Flying Object, there’s no doubt about it.” The ‘Thank You For Smoking’ star went on to reveal how one night he and a group of friends had witnessed a strange red and green light travel across the New Mexico sky “at speeds that were not human”. At least Eckhart could joke about it though.

Tom Cruise, on the other hand, possibly took his alien battering performance in ‘War Of The Worlds’ a bit too serious. In 2007 several reports emerged that planet’s favourite Scientologist had ordered the construction a £7 million bunker to protect him from an alien attack. “Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in this universe?” he told several papers at the time, “There are many things out there, we just don’t know.”

Dan Aykroyd prefers a more proactive approach to alien contact, as the ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Blues Brothers’ star doesn’t just reserve his bustin’ skills for the undead. He’s the official “Hollywood Consultant” for MUFON – America’s amateur UFO investigator network.

Whilst living in upstate New York in the 80s, Aykroyd claims to have once woken in the middle of the night and told his wife “They’re calling me. I want to go outside”. Although he was convinced to go back to sleep, the next day people all over the area reported having the same urge to leave their beds. Those that did venture outside claim to have witnessed a large pink spiral hovering in the sky. Weird.

In 2005, Aykroyd produced a DVD called ‘Dan Aykroyd: Unplugged On UFOs’. An 80 minute staged interview in which he reveals that little green men, are in fact blue.

You can watch the full thing here. You have been warned.

Way before Aykroyd’s antics, Jackie Gleason, star of ‘The Hustler’ and ‘Smokey And The Bandit’, was widely known to have an interest in the paranormal himself – regularly appearing on John Nebel’s cult offbeat radio show to discuss his bizarre beliefs.

One night in 1973, Gleason claimed to have had a close encounter of his own, after he came home late looking badly shaken. According the actor’s then wife Beverley McKittrick, Gleason (who happened to be mates with Richard Nixon) told her his presidential pal had taken him to Homestead Air Force Base in Florida. Once there, Nixon reportedly unveiled a collection of captured aliens to the actor, all dead and apparently quite small. Well, it’s a conversation starter isn’t it?

Despite Gleason’s public persona, when his wife went public with the story it upset him so much that he swiftly divorced her. Maybe he was just worried the Men in Black would come after him?

Finally, speaking of those gentlemen in suits and shades, we come to our last case study: Will Smith.

Although Big Willie once claimed to have witnessed a UFO whilst out driving with friends, the actor has had a far wider effect on the world of UFOlogy: the affectionately named “Will Smith Effect”.

It’s a genuinely noted phenomenon that whenever a Smith starring sci-fi movie come out, UFO reports significantly increase in areas where it’s screened. For example, 1996 – when ‘Independence Day’ came out – almost holds the record for the number of times the UK has been visited by UFOs, with 609 cases. The only year with more sightings is 1978 – just a few months after ‘Close Encounters’ and ‘Star Wars’ were released.

Honestly, UFO reports spike pretty much anytime a UFO movie comes out, so you can’t give Will Smith all the credit. Google UFO flaps of the 1950s and witness the amazing correlation between the release of those cheesy flying saucer movies and the increase in UFO sightings…

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To be honest, I’ve never really understood moving a house. It just seems odd to me, and even though I guess the experts know ways around this, it just seems like it would cause structural damage. And ultimately be more trouble than it’s worth. For the record, we’ve actually investigated a house that was supposedly haunted and was moved, the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum on Staten Island, New York. But now there’s a story of a haunted house in Iowa that is being moved across town.

Here’s a new twist on an old ghost story: A house with a reputation for being haunted was filmed moving, literally, across town.

This time, however, ghosts were not to blame: Its original lot had been sold to one person, the house to another. As a result, the new owner of the 1865 Iowa home, Sherri Meeker, had the 100-ton structure moved five miles down the road.

Naturally, it caught the interest of the Web. The old house, supposedly haunted by evil spirits, bears a resemblance to the one on “Nightmare on Elm Street” and is known around town as the “Haunted Mansion of Jasper County.”

Some locals swear it has a spooky past. The three-story, wood-frame house sure looks haunted. Local news station KCCI even spent the night there in 1994 after hearing lots of stories about Regina Long, thought to be the original owner, who was said to float around it. Mike Salier, the homeowner at the time, said in the KCCI story: “It’s real. People think it’s a lot of poppycock, but it’s enough to make your skin crawl.”

The stories certainly were enough to get the Web buzzing over footage of the 150-year-old house slowly making its way down the road.

Of course, believers of the spooky tales are wondering if the spirits will pick up and move, or haunt the next structure that goes up in its place.

We found some interesting stuff when we investigated the Garibaldi-Meucci Museum, so maybe it is possible for a ghost to follow a house that has been moved?

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Ah, New Jersey. The nation’s perpetual punchline and punching bag. The Garden State (named for all of the factories and freeways, I guess) is in the news again, because of some vicious, alien-looking creature that was photographed there recently (the Snooki jokes are just way too easy here, so I will avoid them. Dammit!). Anyways, here’s the latest Jersey celebrity.

Yet one more thing in New Jersey that sucks.

Forget all this chatter about exploding meteors and some asteroid making a dauntingly close pass to earth: There are aliens among us! Or so some might think after inspecting the image of a bizarre-looking denizen pulled from the waters of New Jersey.

The photo, containing no information other than the New Jersey reference, has gone viral on Reddit, garnering nearly 400,000 views in the first six hours after being posted on Friday.

Apparently, the creature, whose days of terrorizing other creatures are over thanks to the sharp point of a spear, is a very large sea lamprey.

Sea lampreys only measure to about three feet, so the specimen in this image must appear gigantic because of the camera angle. It also could be photoshopped.

A spokeswoman for New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, when asked for a positive ID, stated via email: “The photo doesn’t allow counting of gill openings (seven per side for sea lamprey), but based on size alone, this does appear to be a sea lamprey.”

“It sucks the life out of fish,” reads one of hundreds of comments.

According to the DEC, sea lampreys are eel-like jaw-less and boneless parasites, boasting mouths full of rasping teeth and a file-like tongue.

Juveniles latch onto other fish and drain them of bodily fluids.

Most often, the prey, or host fish, dies as a result of either blood loss or infection.

Sea lampreys spend their egg and larval stages in fresh water. Once their bodies form and they become parasitic, they move out to sea to live off of a host fish.

In the Northeast, lampreys prey on other species of fish, including game fish, and are considered a nuisance species.

Therefore, in this instance, perhaps it’s good that the fisherman did not choose to practice catch-and-release.

“Because of the economic importance and profound effects of the sea lamprey on fish communities, its life history has been studied intensely,” states a U.S. Fish and Wildlife document on sea lampreys. “In the Bight, sea lampreys ascend to coastal streams in Long Island, New York, the New Jersey shore, and the Hudson River.”

Thankfully, if this image is an indication, there seems to be one less parasitic monster in our midst.

Ok, so it’s not an alien. But to me, the photo definitely looks PhotoShopped or altered in some way. The edges of the lamprey look almost too sharply defined compared to the rest of the picture. What do you think?

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