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phenomena_magazine_n.. - sight
CHIEF EDITORIAL
Well… With another Christmas quickly approaches and another Halloween
gladly behind me, I’ve been focusing on some new changes to Phenomena
Magazine for the New Year. One of which will be a small section dedicated to
carefully selected fictional books. Brian and I have noticed a number of books
on the market that are certainly worth a read. Also, our Spanish friends may
experience a few delays regarding our Spanish issue as our editor Dario Fernandez sorts out some computer issues. Things will be back on track in no
time. Some varied topics in this months issue I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Also, watch
out for ‘The Zone Unknown’ radio show. Tune in every Sunday. My good friend
and excellent investigative researcher Dave Sadler will be featured on the
show. More details can be found within this issue.
EDITORIAL
Hello All, As with Steve I sometimes get asked to give presentations on a
range of subjects, it used to be just to promote my books, but then I started
being asked to speak on a range of related subjects. Recently I spoke at the
Arthur Conan Doyle centre in Edinburgh, (a genuinely lovely building). It was
an open day and I thought it was simply a one off; however, right out of the
blue I got a call from the SSPR (Scottish Society of Psychical Research) to
speak at their annual conference and also at one of their regular society
meetings early next year. I’m also speaking at the Probe International Conference next March at Lytham St Anne’s (so is Steve) and then I was invited to
speak to the Birmingham UFO group, and the subject? Well, it’s entitled ’Truth,
Lies & Ufology’.
It has to be said that if ever a subject had a lot of one and not much of the other it’s Ufology, so,
just in case, I’ll have a fast car with the engine running waiting outside the venue to beat a
hasty retreat. It always strikes me as really incredible that some people in the UFO community
are so heavily polarised (like the members of a cult), that they flatly refuse to hear anything
other then their own viewpoint. It’s why they tend to gravitate into tight-knit groups who hold
the same or similar views and it’s doubly strange because, since the paranormal and Ufology
make unavoidable bedfellows, we are all in this together and should keep open minds especially
in relation to Ufology, but sadly this is not always the case. Oh and just one more thing, PLEASE
let us have feedback, because we really do need your input to help keep the magazine doing
what you want it to do and we ALWAYS listen to what you say. Yes, this means YOU!
Chief Editorial Contact: Steve Mera - [email protected]
Editorial Contact: Brian Allan - [email protected]
Spanish Editor Contact: Dario Fernandez - [email protected]
Columnist: Richard Holland - [email protected]
CONTENTS
Page 2: Not your Grandmother’s Humanoids. In my years of researching, categorising and looking for bizarre entity and humanoid reports worldwide I have run into quite a few outland‐
ish descriptions of bizarre entities encountered by different people from different parts of the world. Such reports are uncommon, but very very weird. Albert Rosales takes us on a fascinating journey into the world of alien encounters of the strange looking kind. Page 11: The Psychology of Spiritualism: Science & Seances. The idea of summoning the spirits took thrilling hold of the Victorian imagination – and has its adherents now. But the psychology behind spiritualism is more intriguing. What is the truth? Can spiritual com‐
munication really take place? Reporter David Derbyshire delves into the world of psychics and spiritualists and reveals some interesting research in this Guardian news item. Page 19: Ebu Gogo: Alive in 1991. Mumbay, India, March 1991. I got to a beach and proceeded heading North along the promenade of the Mahim Bay. It was a Sunday and probably an Indian holiday because many people were strolling around enjoying themselves. Eventually I got to a playground next to an amusement park and there on the boardwalk I saw something I will never forget. Hannes Erler describes his sighting of Ebu Gogo. Page 23: Audinghen Bunkers: A Paranormal Investigation.
As they say anything is possible, Paranormal Knights Scotland organi‐
sation, based in the UK with the help from other teams across the Channel such as Aschwin Elout's from Ghost Hunting Netherlands and Ghost Hunting BV accompanied by Daniel Blom representing Ghost Hunters Overschie had met for the first time ever after a long online organised paranormal event like no other. Andrew Park explains. WWW.PHENOMENAMAGAZINE.CO.UK
THIS MONTHS CONTRIBUTORS
Steve Mera, Brian Allan, Gary Heseltine, Philip Mantle, Danial Verdon, Richard Holland,
Dario Fanandez, Albert S. Rosales, Dr. Peter McCue, David Derbyshire, Andrew Park,
Hannes Shunyananda Erler, David Slone, Greg Newkirk, Laura Burnip, Chris Richards, Chris Parr,
Ellie Zolfagharifard, UFOTV & UFOStore.com.
PHENOMENA
MAGAZINE
SPANISH EDITION
NOW AVAILABLE AT
WWW.PHENOMENAMAGAZINE.ES
The PM Team: Sotiris at STRANGEFILES.ME, Danial
Verdon at UREI, Randy at UFOSTORE.COM, Dario Fernandez at e-nigmas / portal de lo paranormal. Tim at
UFOTV, Richard Holland at UNCANNYUK.COM, Main
Distribution Steve Mera & Brian Allan, Reporter Jackie
Heighway & Reporter / Photographer Rodney Howarth.
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DISCLAIMER
Due to MAPIT protocols, personal or group promotion will not always be accepted. All submitted
articles to Phenomena Magazine must be 'Original Work'. MAPIT / Phenomena Magazine are not
responsible for articles that appear in the magazine which do not belong to the individuals
submitting them. MAPIT / Phenomena Magazine do everything in their power to credit
individuals work and images. If you are aware of any material featured in Phenomena Magazine
that is not credited correctly, then please inform us as soon as possible. The MAPIT Copyright
covers only articles wrote by MAPIT investigators, construction and group logos found
throughout the magazine. The views and opinions expressed in any of the articles are those of
the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of MAPIT or
Phenomena Magazine.
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Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Page 26: Poltergeists and things that go Bump in the night. Poltergeists are rare, but they do exist. For those that aren't in the loop, a poltergeist is a spirit that moves through inanimate objects like cups, TVs, furniture, and windows. Noises ‐ like bumps, thuds, ker‐
plunks ‐ yes kerplunks is a dictionary word, knocks, scratching at the window, and banging at the door are all examples of poltergeist activ‐
ity. David Slone explains. Page 31: The UFO, Bigfoot & Paranormal Overlap: Part 2. When I wrote the first part of this article, which appeared in the Sep‐
tember 2013 issue of the magazine, I hadn’t planned a second part. But I’d like to cite some additional cases. They tie in with the themes discussed previously, and seem to support the view that many para‐
normal events may be the theatrical orchestrations of a higher intelli‐
gence. Peter McCue reveals some more fascinating cases. Also Featured:
Latest paranormal news from around
the World... Book and dvd reviews.
Events and Conferences.
Astronomical news, Advertisements
and much more...
If you have an interesting article, we would love to hear from you. Please contact Phenomena Magazine Chief Editor Steve Mera: [email protected] or Phenomena Magazine Editor Brian Allan: [email protected] WWW.PHENOMENAMAGAZINE.CO.UK
WWW.PHENOMENAMAGAZINE.ES
Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
NOT YOUR GRANDMOTHERS
HUMANOIDS
In my years of researching, categorising and looking for bizarre entity and humanoid reports worldwide I have run into quite a few outlandish descriptions of bizarre enti‐
ties encountered by different people from different parts of the world. Forget the tall blond, the popular “Grays”, even the Reptili‐
ans, there are apparently ‘others’ out there that have left the witness or witnesses wish‐
ing for an encounter with a much more ‘normal’ Zeti Reticulian “Gray”. I will at‐
tempt to summarize a few of the strangest humanoid cases in my files, but be aware that ANY encounter with an anomalous en‐
tity of any kind is strange and one should use caution and not blindly approach it unless the witness is approached by the entity or entities. One group that have been seen a lot lately are the ones who have been labeled “BEKS” or the ‘Black eyed Kids’ I urge caution in dealing with these entities and do not acquiesce to any of their requests, for example ‘ask to be let in to use the phone’. reported that he saw a man dressed in silver clothing. He described the skin of the hu‐
manoid as “gleaming” and that the entity had only one eye. But it does not end here, a month after, around September in the same city or town of Meklong again in Thailand. One night a local Siamese woman was awoken by an unknown force and was sur‐
prised to ‘hear’ that the surrounding area was devoid of the usual animal noises. Look‐
ing out the window, the woman beheld a strange humanoid in her backyard. She claimed that the humanoid had only one eye and was dressed in a suit, which seemed to be made out of metal. The episode ended with the woman claiming to have been abducted into a “palace of lights.” An early abduction report? I suspect we will never know. The following report comes from Greek re‐
searcher Thanassis Vembos who has gra‐
ciously shared many of the humanoid re‐
ports he has investigated in Greece with me. Bizarre winged humanoid 1979. One of the earliest reports of a Cyclopean type entity, a not so‐common humanoid type even though it has been reported in modern times, originated from outside the town of Meklong, Thailand around August 1810. The time is not provided but the re‐
port from well‐known Malaysian entity re‐
searcher Ahmad Jamaluddin states that on a road outside the city a Dr. Jacob Hazlitt, a missionary (does not state the nationality) It comes from near the area of the famous ancient Kingdom of Sparta in Greece, year 1875. It briefly states that two men hunting in an isolated area heard a sound like “a baby screaming”. Then they saw a dwarf‐like creature, about 2 feet tall with long hair and sharp teeth, regretfully there is no addi‐
tional information. He found the report in a book of Greek Folklore by Nikolaos Politis called “Traditions”. Interesting indeed, a survivor of some sort of iron‐age or stone‐
age tribe? We can only conjecture. In the excellent book by Graham J. McEwan titled “Mystery Animals of Britain and Ireland” there are a number of bizarre en‐
counters recounted, the following one I found most interesting: It occurred near Woodseaves, Shropshire, England on January 21 1879 at around 22:00 when a man was driving his horse cart across a bridge when a horrible black humanoid with huge shining eyes jumped out of the trees and landed on the horse’s back. The man tried to push the creature off but it would not budge and the whip seemed to go through it. The horse pan‐
icked and went into a gallop with the crea‐
ture clinging to it. The creature eventually disappeared and the man arrived at his home in a state of shock. What do we have here? A sort of spectral Interdimensional wayfarer? From the venerable Finnish Researcher I received the following account: Circa 1885 one afternoon in the small vil‐
lage of Brante, Kemio region Finland a young woman, mother of three, was picking berries in the forest when she saw some‐
thing resembling a “kettle cock” on a small hill. Besides the “kettle” stood an elf‐like creature carrying something resembling an axe on his shoulder. Terrified, the young woman returned to her village. After a couple of hours she returned to the location with other villagers, but the “kettle cock” and the elf were gone. Perhaps a “typical” CE3 report, the small humanoid or elf was possibly carrying some type of appa‐
ratus which was misinterpreted as an axe. These Nordic alien giants are said to be 6‐8 feet tall, and are often the overseers of alien abductions by the greys. They aren’t as malevolent as some of the other alien species listed here, but why do they oversee these abductions, what is their real agenda? Are they part of a council that allows this type of behaviour and they over see the process be‐
cause they want to make sure they don’t harm us anymore than is needed? This is all very strange. Are these the super‐
men that the Nazis believed once were in the an‐
cient Tibet, and thats what Himler (Hitler’s right hand man for the Third Reich) himself went looking for on expeditions to find the Aryan giant super race? They are almost Swedish looking, and they always are white, and have blond hair. Their are both males and fe‐
males, each equally as big. There are a lot of contactees that speak of these nordic giants, but their choices of people that they indeed make contact with is very strange. http://
alienpic‐
tures.wordpress.com/ Page 2
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
loss.” This case comes from researchers Brian Musson and Bruce Harding from a HUMCAT listing. The chupacabra has been often seen in Mexico, and a lot of South America like Brazil. They also perform many cattle mutilations in a very gruesome manner. Not like the greys that use lasers to perform their surgeries extracting some‐
thing that I could not tell you. The stories are often covered up by the government. Their name in Spanish means goat suck‐
ers, because they prefer goats as their primary food source. These guys may not even be aliens, they could be a genetic experiment, a result of toxic chemicals or radiation, or just an unknown predator that yet to be discovered. They are said to have glowing red eyes like the reptilians, and they can run very fast. If you see one your best bet is not to run like hell, because they will only chase you, and suck you like a goat. These guys are scary looking, and their are many more pic‐
tures floating around the Inter‐
net if you want to check it out. http://
alienpic‐
tures.wordpress.com/ Typical Little Green Man. Who says that there are no such things as ‘little green men’? If the following cases are true then make room ‘little grays’. This first incident is from researcher Keith Roberts from the veteran Tasmanian UFO research group ‘TUFOIC’. It supposedly took place around midnight one February 1948 in the small town of Berridale, Tasmania, Aus‐
tralia. Two witnesses standing on their back gar‐
den sighted a bright round object hovering low above them. Sitting on the edge of the object were several small green colored humanoids that appeared to be making a weird ‘singing sound’ the object eventually drifted out of sight. Some other sources have indicated that the tune of the weird ‘singing sound’ was that of the children’s medley “Three blind mice” (!). Four years before the above incident in late August 1944 in the locality of Christchurch New Zealand while walking among low hills, Mrs. E. M. Church encountered an “upturned saucer” sitting on a gentle slope hidden from the road. She walked up to it & stared for 8‐10 minutes. Small (not over 4 feet) occupants were seen inside transpar‐
ent cases. The one (of 3) outside “was just a green‐colored entity in a transparent box like casing…just standing there.” (Neither head, arms, nor legs were discerned; the sketch provided from the witness shows merely an irregular column). A cloud came down and enveloped them; she walked closer, to within 20 ft. When the one outside noticed her, “his helmet flipped over auto‐
matically, and he drifted into the vehicle,” and the door was closed. The object itself, 18‐20 feet across and 9 feet high, seemed to be covered with vertically laid tiles resem‐
bling wood veneer, and with a central circle of aluminum‐like metal. From the center rose something like “a piece of 4 inch pipe as long as your arm,” capped with alumi‐
num; midway on this mast was a blue light. A whirring noise commenced, and the object slowly rose vertically into the clouds. Ac‐
cording to the witness “I felt a deep sense of Page 3
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
We go forward 10 years and during the un‐
precedented humanoid/encounters wave in France from the fall of 1954. According to Martin Kottmeyer writing in the Anomalist # 10 (and other sources) on October 13 1954 around 20:00 near the small locality of Mon‐
timont near Vrignes‐aux‐Bois, Ardennes, France, Mr. Sadi Levy a local merchant was returning from Vrignes‐aux‐Bois when near a brickyard in Montimont his vehicle sud‐
denly stopped. Horrified, Mr. Levy saw two terrifying forms in his headlights, he de‐
scribed them as two small beings of a phos‐
phorescent green color with large eyes and a tail. Then the extraordinary vision disap‐
peared and the car re‐started. A tail? Maybe the humanoids were wearing some kind of suit with hose‐like protrusions, who knows? Image of humanoids encountered. The last green humanoid report I include is from the Italian humanoid/encounter wave of 1978 following is a summary of the case: Location. Torrita Di Sienna Italy Date: September 17 1978 Time: 2100 Signora Ultimina Boscagli and her son Ric‐
cardo (12) heard an intense noise. It was like a round of artillery fire and from where they were standing in the street in front of their house (on the Via Pie agli Orti) they looked up to see a fireball with yellow‐orange con‐
tours and a reddish trail. Suddenly, in a blinding dazzle, the object vanished. The lower part of the round shaped object had been seen to be reddish in color and very bright white in the upper part. Signora Bos‐
cagli and her son were so frightened that they retreated quickly into their house. Other witnesses of the phenomenon were Signora Santina Faralli and her son Rivo (25). Signora Faralli was indoors watching televi‐
sion and she heard the noise, and was aware of the dazzling light outside. Indeed the electric light, she said, was extinguished suddenly, but then came back on. Soon after that Rivo, a barber by profession, ar‐
rived at the house where he stayed for about half an hour. Then, at about 2100 he left, got into the car, a Fiat 127 started up and moved off. He had only gone a few meters when it stalled and stopped, the electrical system having ceased to operate. While he was still puzzled, a strange bright object, preceded by a beam of red light, landed on the road in front of him. The lower part of the object was discoidal in shape while the upper part was hemispheri‐
cal and orange in color like the color of a priest’s hat. It was so bright that it illumi‐
nated the area around it, and it appeared to be standing on the road on three iridescent beams of light varying from yellow, to green, to red, to sky blue. The object had a diameter of three meters and it covered all of the carriageway, at the same time touch‐
ing a dry stone wall with one edge. It hung in the air at about the height of the Fiat 127’s bonnet. Suddenly, on this object‐‐‐presumably a UFO a “port” opened in the fashion of a double door, one part to the left, the other to the right. Two beings emerged and pro‐
ceeded down from the object. They were about 1.00m to 1.10m in height and they descended in a fluctuating motion until they were about 10 cm from the ground. In that position their heads were level with Rivo Faralli’s face as he sat in his car, and it was this that enabled him to estimate the entities height. Rivo saw that they had green coveralls and big helmets, and that part of these helmets was transparent. The creature’ skin seemed also to be green, and while their faces were to a degree human‐
like they were flat and lean with bony, arched cheeks, regular noses, and thin lip‐
less mouths. The witness couldn’t see their eyes and ears as they were hidden in a shaded zone. The fronts of the helmets had what appeared to be two slender cylindrical protuberances like springs, or similar helical structures. The overall garments seemed to be of one piece and they were neither close
‐fitting nor large; indeed, the shapes of their limbs were visible and their propor‐
tions appeared normal as they walked to‐
wards the car. Their gait seemed to have more interest in the car than in its owner, and when they were behind him he could still see them by way of the driving mirror. In fact Rivo noticed that their awkwardness seemed more marked. After completing the round trip they headed back for the UFO to which they ascended with the same fluctu‐
ating motion as they had displayed when descending. Once aboard, the first of them settled in the bright dome ‐ the Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
hemispherical section. The witness couldn’t say whether the entity was sitting or stand‐
ing, for he could see only its helmeted head, and part of its back. Before entering the object the second entity turned back and looked at the witness as though he wanted to say something, then checked, turned away, entered the strange craft and took position beside his companion. The port shut and form the lower part of the “body” came two very intense beams whereupon the craft rose vertically for about 10 meters, then shot away in level flight leaving a bright horizontal trail. As the UFO disappeared the headlights of the Fiat came back, automati‐
cally, and since the gears were still engaged the car started to move forward without any action by Rivo Faralli. Signor Faralli had not touched the controls when the craft first appeared as he was at first stupefied and bewildered, and then almost paralyzed with terror. For three days after the incident Rivo experienced “burning” eyes. It was reported that in the next street, at about 2130 on the evening several television receivers went off for about a minute, and then returned to normal operation. At the scene of the landing in the middle of the carriageway there was a black circle 50cm in diameter which appeared to have been caused by considerable heat. Source: Richard Hall, Mufon Journal # 153 & Roberto Pinotti FSR Vol. 25 # 4 The following eerie encounter I like to call it “The giant shrimp from Bremerton” is from the Strange Magazine website, http://
www.strangemag.com/firstperson.html, and it concerns one, Virginia Staples who one afternoon in 1948 was at her home in Bremerton Washington hanging laundry in the huge basement of her apartment com‐
plex. The basement was covered with huge holes in the walls and it was rumored that there was a passage to the water. As she was hanging her clothing she got the feeling that someone was staring at her. She finally turned around and looked towards the back of the basement and froze in horror, in one of the huge holes stood a horrific looking entity. It was a creature described as about 5 feet tall, bright orange in color, with little spidery thin legs and antennae on its head that kept moving back and in and out. The strange creature began moving towards her. Terrified she backed out of the basement and ran up to her apartment, she moved out the same day. In this so‐called modern age most of the earth’s vast oceans, especially the depths, are still largely unexplored, who knows what kind of creatures lurk beneath the waters? The following two cases are also from the year 1948 and describe two very similar creatures seen in different parts of the world, I let you decide as to the plausibility of such creature existing among us ‘modern humans’. Image of the pagan God Pan. The first case is detailed in B. M.’s book “The Inhumanoids, real encounters with beings that can’t exist” p. 311. The location was Somerset, England (no additional specifics) when a man named Cyril Barry was outside one evening smoking a cigarette when he noticed light coming from the window of the adjacent house. He casually strode over and looked inside the room‐‐‐and got the shock of his life. There, sitting at a large table was a white, humanoid figure with a bearded goat’s head complete with ten‐inch long horns. Instantly regretting his indiscretion, Mr. Barry hurriedly left the area. Shaken by what he had seen and unable to resolve it, he reportedly returned to the house the following day and once again, peered into the same window. He was sur‐
prised to see that the room was now empty, dusty and in disarray as if it hadn’t been occupied for years. In Vicente Ballester Olmos’s Catalogue of 200 type I UFO events in Spain & Portugal we find the following bizarre narrative: During a powerful storm the owner of a flock of sheep was staying in his cabin when he heard voices outside. Upon opening the door he saw a short man that he invited inside. Without speaking the man entered the cabin. Later the witness noticed that the short being had feet like a goat or hoofs. The frightened witness screamed causing the being to flee outside. The witness then ran outside and was able to see a fireball‐like object shoot up into the sky at high speed. A much recent case describing a similar humanoid comes from the following excel‐
lent website which chronicles (or attempts to) all Spanish UFO events and encounters: http://www.looculto.260mb.com/
ovnisenespana/desde1981.htm Location. Near Antequera, Malaga, Spain. Date: August 2011. Time: night. A night‐watchman guarding a ‘restricted’ area near Antequera was making his rounds when he was suddenly confronted by a bizarre humanoid figure that appeared to have ‘goat feet’ and was moving over the ground as if “on a conveyor belt”. The hu‐
manoid was coming from an inaccessible area which dead‐ended on a precipice, as the humanoid floated by he looked at the witness “with great intensity” and then disappeared into a nearby wooded area. The stunned guard called a co‐worker to keep him company after he told him what he had seen. (Translation by Albert S. Rosales). Next I will present several high‐strangeness humanoid encounters which will make you realize that the so‐called “Grays” are the least of our worries! Spanish researcher extraordinaire Iker Jimenez presented the following case in his manuscript “Ovnis en Andalusia” On February 12 1980 one late night at the locality of Los Barrios, Cadiz, Spain, a night watchman at a local car junkyard was sleep‐
ing in one of the junked cars because of the cold temperatures when he was suddenly awakened by someone tapping on the pas‐
senger door of the car, looking out he was stunned to see the figure of a woman with large slanted eyes, and greenish tinted skin (green again!) standing outside the passen‐
ger door. Terrified the guard grabs a club, which he usually carried with him and jumps out of the car in order to confront the strange visitor. Once outside the car and ready to strike at the stranger the stunned watchman sees a 2nd identical hu‐
manoid standing next to the original one, suddenly both figures dematerialize in front of him. He reportedly quit his job that same morning. I know of one other case from Texas in 1964 which a witness describes a female humanoid with green tinted skin. These insectoids wear some type of mechanical suit, that gives them somewhat of a human like hand, and also allows them to walk with better posture, perhaps for com‐
bat. It is said to be only a type of bio‐
mechanical armor though, and when they aren’t wear‐
ing their armor, they look much like a giant pray‐
ing mantis. They don’t seem to communicate with each other as some of the other aliens do with projecting thoughts, they make more of a clicking type sound, and their movement also resembles that of an insect. They are very tall 7 – 11 feet, and have long necks, that they sometimes have to bend or crouch down to walk through entry ways. They have no emotion in any of their facial features again much like an insect, the face they do have, is just damn creepy looking. These guys do many experiments on humans, and the reason for these experiments, much like the greys, is unknown. People most of the time do walk away after having an encounter or abduction, but what they are really doing eludes most people. Iconic image of a Werewolf. http://
alienpic‐
tures.wordpress.com/ Page 4
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
Shown above is a book that has been written about this ancient race of giants, that broke off from society, and still live in the ocean and other unexplored areas of Earth. They are referred to in ancient Hebrew tradition. They are said to be from 9 – 11 feet tall. Are they a result of a rare genetic trait? Or could they be aliens from an‐
other planet, trying to find their way home. They could be the Nephilim, the fallen angels the bible speaks about as well. These guys are even said to have interstellar travel capabilities of some kind, whether it be travelling the astral plane, or advanced technol‐
ogy of some sort. Of all the assorted humanoids and entities encountered worldwide the so‐called mythological or folkloric werewolf has to be the most frightening in appearance. Most of us who follow this subject be it, UFOs, Hu‐
manoids, Cryptozoology, etc. are familiar with the very well‐known encounters in the Bray Road area of Wisconsin. There is also the creatures encountered in places such as Argentina and Brazil which are called by the locals ‘Lobisomen” or Werewolf. The follow‐
ing summary if from a case I received di‐
rectly from one of the witnesses who re‐
quested anonymity: Location. Southeastern Poland. Date: summer 2012. Time: 08:00 am. Somewhere in southeastern Poland, around eight in the morning in summer of 2002 I and my cousins were sitting on a bus headed out to a stay away camp where we would be for the next two weeks. On a remote road to our destination we had exited a forested area and came up on a wide field. Sitting in the back left side of the bus I looked out the right window at a small elevated area stretching from the road. Atop the small hill, I saw a large silvery figure standing upright and looking off to its side with its profile facing me. It had a long snout like a wolf and it was much taller than any man. Then from its upright position it leapt to the bottom of the small hill several times on all fours. Once at the bottom it stood upright again and it looked towards me. Needless to say, due to the bus driving onward, a thicket of vegeta‐
tion that was at the bottom of the hill even‐
tually obscured the view of this being, at which point I began to yell incoherently on the bus in broken Polish about how I'd seen a werewolf at which point everyone as‐
sumed I must be crazy. Also, in the middle of the trip at the camp, some girl stated that she'd seen a wolf looking at her directly in front of a window on the second story of the cabin she was staying in, which was also my cabin. I do not know whether I believe her or if she just wanted the attention, but cer‐
tainly no one else believed her, while I tried desperately to state my case. It does resem‐
ble the entity seen in the Bray Road area, I know of numerous encounters with were‐
wolf type creatures in Europe, especially England, this case is the first one I know of from Poland. http://
alienpic‐
tures.wordpress.com/ Robot type humanoid. Page 5
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
This is another category of “Not your grand‐
mother’s humanoid” type of entity, the ‘Robot’ of Sci‐Fi fame. But if we are to be‐
lieve many witnesses reports, these human‐
oids are not exactly stuff of science fiction. The following report is of very little known report (outside of Spain) which appears to describe some type of mechanical or robot type entity. Again the source is the website “Lo Oculto, Ovnis en España”: It was in the spring of 1968 (Spain was going through a phenomenal UFO wave at the time) one morning around 11:30 a.m. near the small locale of VIllar de Humo, Cuenca, Spain a 14‐year old witness was working on his father’s land located in a wooded area when he suddenly saw emerging out of a line of trees located next to the Vencherque River at about 200 meters away two shiny metallic ‘objects’ or figures resembling “metal robots”, silvery in color and about 2.5 meters in height, that were walking to‐
wards the witness with their arms straight down at their sides and without moving their legs. Both entities seemed to move in unison and had square heads and thorax and on each of their hands they were carry‐
ing some sort of metallic “briefcase”. When they were about 60 meters from the witness he ran home and notified his parents of what he had seen. Immediately the adults searched the area but failed to find any‐
thing. We got ask ourselves if the report is accurate what were these apparent robotic beings doing in the middle of nowhere in Cuenca Province Spain in the spring of 1968. Some questions are best remained unan‐
swered, I think. however on this same night he was awak‐
ened by the appearance of two short gray‐
luminous figures in his bedroom. He was briefly paralyzed but was again able to move. The beings ran out of the room as soon as he was able to move but suddenly a section of the ceiling became luminous and a type of move screen became visible. Two figures now appeared on the screen; one of the figures was tall and was wearing a uni‐
form, a metallic helmet, and what appeared to be epaulets on his shoulders. He was gray‐colored with large black slanted eyes. Behind this figure stood a huge wide‐
shaped entity resembling a metallic robot with an almost square head on top of mas‐
sive shoulders. The tall figure communi‐
cated by using telepathy explaining to the witness that they only wanted to examine him and his paralysis was totally accidental. After a few moments’ the screen became smaller and disappeared. Perhaps some type of holographic image projected by the original humanoids seen. What was the purpose of the massive robot like creature? Was he some type of guard‐
ian or security? Next case is from Maurizio Verga’s excellent entity catalog “ITACAT” It supposedly took place one evening in the spring of 1980 in Aviano Italy. The UFO connection is very tentative but most of the encounters here are. A farmer was riding his motorcycle into town when he observed what he termed as a “monster‐like” entity enclosed in what appeared to be a glass cage, sitting in the center of the town square. The humanoid was seated, very tall, and very erect with his hands on his knees. His entire body was engulfed in long green filaments. He had very long hair and it was standing on end. As the witness approached he was over‐
come by a powerful odor that made him disoriented. He walked back to his motorcy‐
cle and then heard a sound similar to glass breaking, as he looked back he saw two blond girls screaming. He apparently left the area in a hurry. I don’t know, maybe we are dealing with other dimensions along‐
side ours? Witness' sketch of the robotic entities. Next I will like to summarize a case of an apparent bedroom visitation which involved several entities including a massive robot! The case was investigated by Puerto Rican UFO researcher Jorge Martin and published in his magazine “Evidencia Ovni # 3” which I summarized and translated. The incident took place late night of early September of 1994, it occurred at the village of Villa Palmeras in Santurce, Puerto Rico. The wit‐
ness had apparently been involved in a pre‐
vious bedroom visitation a week before This is a fairly common group here, notice the absence of 'Grays'. Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
Next case is a very curious event received from Ukrainian researcher Dr. Anton Anfalov he quoted the original source, Anatoliy Tavricheskiy writing in Crimean Riviera Magazine June 2006 # 22. One evening in July of the year 2000 in the Batiliman area, near Cape Aya, Crimea, Ukraine a Russian family from Moscow was staying at this picturesque resort on the shores of the Black Sea. The father was en‐
joying a view of the sea using a pair of bin‐
oculars, when he suddenly spotted a huge humanoid entity swimming in the waters. The figure was definitely not human or a common diver, the height (or length) of the figure was estimated to have been 3 meters, and was dressed in what appeared to be a tight‐fitting shiny metallic suit. This very tall “man” was apparently ‘frolicking’ or playing with a huge snake‐like creature, light brown in color, resembling a real “sea dragon” which swam nearby. The tall humanoid and the sea dragon were swimming very close to each other. Other witnesses gathered and watched the amazing sight for about 15 more minutes. Soon the strange sea snake departed to the open sea and the giant hu‐
manoid began to swim quickly along the rocky shore towards Cape Aya. The wit‐
nesses watched the giant for about 10 min‐
utes until it vanished behind some coastal shrubbery. According to Anfalov, Cape Aya in the Crimea has underground and under‐
water subsurface ‘portals’ that connect into a system of alien bases and tunnels that stretch for several kilometers under the shore, also inter‐dimensional portals that connect into other dimensions used by the aliens. Also there are numerous reports of “sea dragon” type creatures on the Crimean southern coast, which apparently live in deep underwater caves near the coast or arrive here from other dimensions. Makes sense to me. In Gil Bar’s UFOs in Israel Timeline I found this next curious case said to have occurred on the night of July 15 1996 in Kibbutz Ma’anit, Israel. According to the brief sum‐
mary two six‐year old children watched a disc‐shaped ‘spaceship’ land nearby and watched stunned as six small humanoids with large slit‐like eyes emerged from the object and stared intently at the witnesses, The humanoids were accompanied by a strange ‘animal’ resembling a large dog with glowing red eyes. After sometime the hu‐
manoids and their ‘pet’ re‐entered the craft and left. Unfortunately there is no additional information but this is not the first (and I suspect not the last) report of humanoids being accompanied by a dog‐like animal or ‘pet’. The Bible states that “There were giants in those days” but apparently they are still among us today, the following report is a brief sample, its source is Russell Kellet from FSR (Flying Saucer Review). The date give was one night in 1978 in Utley, Yorkshire, England. A lady name Rita was walking her dog, in an area near a local beauty spot she had used for many years. As she walked past a very large lorry (truck) fully loaded with logs her dog began to act out of character; it began to bark fiercely and then snarl and jump up and down. Then it went quite mo‐
tionless and just stared looking towards the vehicle, that’s when Rita noticed some movement behind the rear of the vehicle. Suddenly, a giant figure in a frogman’s suit looked over the top of the vehicle at her. Terrified, Rita pulled her dog away and ran for home. She did not dare look to see where the figure had gone or if it was still there. The vehicle or truck was large and fully loaded with logs, so the size of the frog‐
man looking head and shoulders over the vehicle must have been gigantic. The area is moorland that runs all the way to Ilkley and is famous for the mythical giant that roamed there named “Rombald” the giant. Perhaps he still around. Another giant report comes from the land of the mythical Olympian giants, Greece. Greek researcher Thanassis Vembos writing in Strange Magazine # 4 mentions an incident said to had taken place on June 29 1989 around 1430 in the afternoon in the town of Chrysopetra, Macedonia, Greece. Several villagers had previously seen strange flashes of light in the sky. Later on an elderly woman was doing some household chores when she heard a loud bang from outside. She ran out and found her granddaughter in a state of shock. The girl told her that she had seen a large white cloud form in the garden then the figure of a giant, almost 8 meters tall appeared. He seemed to be to‐
tally encased in mist and was slightly ‘deformed’. He suddenly disappeared in plain sight emitting a loud banging sound. Large footprints were found at the site of the encounter. Indeed an Olympian God/
Giant in our midst! What do we really know about the nature of our existence? Are there multi‐universes and parallel planes surrounding us? Could denizens from such parallel realities come to visit us at times? I believe the answer is yes. One of the strangest humanoid creature said to have been encountered from time to time in different locations around the world is the mythological Centaur, apparently not so mythological after all, (if we are to believe such reported sightings). Encounters with such creatures date back to the ancient Greeks maybe even before the following is a fairly modern day example taken from Graham J. MacEwan’s work “Mystery animals of Britain and Ireland”. The Centaur. In the spring of 1966 one night near the small town of Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, John Farrell and Margaret Johnson were driving along a remote country road passing a local estate when suddenly a huge figure appeared on the road ahead. They stopped the car and one of the witnesses looked out and saw a creature resembling a huge horse with a man’s face with large bulging eyes. Both witnesses were para‐
lyzed with fear and could not move. The being had a huge hairy man‐like face and was standing across the road completely blocking the car’s path. Thankfully, the creature only stood there for a few mo‐
ments and then left. An even more recent example can be found in “Unknowncreaturespot” a blog dealing with encounters with anomalous creatures. The incident is titled “2006 Michigan Cen‐
taur sighting.” One night either in January or February of 2006 a woman driving alone between the towns of Battle Creek and Bellevue had to slow down for a stop sign. Suddenly a crea‐
ture of very large size jumped up over a snow bank and ran “10 yards a second.” It was coming towards the car. She further described the creature as “enormous and its body as white as the snow around it.” It had tiny little legs, like animal goat legs but very small. She had the impression that parts of it were like a man and other parts of it were an animal. According to her it either grabbed, or reached for the door handle but the car was locked. She said its fingers were incredibly long, “long, long fingers and nails.” It was so incredibly fast that she did not see a face or anything else. She mentioned that another carload of people had also seen it; they stopped and looked at it at one point before driving away. The Pleiadians are an advanced alien race that comes from Pleiades. They are the most human looking aliens of the whole bunch, and they may even be friendly. They supposedly have helped the human race on a number of occasions even on the brink of invasions from other species that we are not even aware of. They seem to keep the whole galaxy in check, and only intervene when they must. I hope these guys are still watching what’s happening on our planet, so that they may inter‐
vene and save us, even if its from our selves. Their our crooked people in our government, but their are good people out there. We need to stand together for the good fight! http://
alienpic‐
tures.wordpress.com/ Page 6
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Not your Grandmothers Humanoids
By Albert S. Rosales
Conclusion. UFO’s and were‐
wolves in the same area? Strangeness surrounds us we just have to know where to look. I have one piece of advice if you are one day con‐
fronted by some‐
thing or some unknown human‐
oid, use caution, and remember “Only fools rush in”. Please feel free to contact the author Albert S. Rosales at garu‐
[email protected] with any informa‐
tion or questions. Strange encounters with unknown beings are still being reported (very frequently) the following are some of the more recent re‐
ports: A person who requested full anonymity recently reported the following incident to me: One evening on February of 2009 in Ocala, Florida (close to the Ocala National Forest) two men were parked in their drive‐
way talking when they heard something very large hovering above but when they looked at the sky they saw absolutely nothing. Then they heard something in the woods behind them and saw several figures with large black eyes looking at them from the woods. When they attempted to approach the fig‐
ures the hovering noise ceased and the shadowy figures vanished. The following report was also received di‐
rectly from the witness requesting anonym‐
ity: March 2010 around 00:30 a.m. in the city of Barking, Essex, England, the witness, M. R. had just gone to bed while his wife was visit‐
ing her friend with their daughter. He had a small dimly lit lamp next to his bed as for some reason he was feeling a bit apprehen‐
sive on this night. As he was laying on the bed facing the window he suddenly felt someone sit on the edge of the bed. He sat straight up to see a humanoid‐looking fe‐
male sitting on the edge of the bed. As he looked at her he felt she somehow ‘knew’ he was afraid. She used a hand motion appar‐
ently ‘telling’ the witness to calm down. She wore a tight‐fitting gray suit with a black belt around her waist. She had black eyes and blond hair and was staring at the witness. As he stared back she suddenly vanished in plain sight. The witness feels that if he wouldn’t have shown fear the contact would have lasted longer. The following summary was also received privately from a family who has “suffered” several encounters with a strange entity in their home. For obvious reasons they also requested complete anonymity. Location. Bullsbrook, Perth, Australia. Date: April 2010. Time: Various. Usually in the early morning hours a young teenage girl and her equally young female friend have reported seeing a strange crouching figure appear in the bedroom. One of the girls reported seeing the strange being crouching above her headboard star‐
ing down at her whilst she slept. Other times they have seen the strange being at the bedroom doorway standing really tall filling out the door frame in height. It is really thin and not human at all. The being has even appeared to her at her aunt’s house located several kilometers from her home. Page 7
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
According to the main witness the being had a large head and the skin on its face seemed stretched tight. All it does is, stare at the young girls. One night while watching a movie she sensed that someone was watch‐
ing and when she looked at the doorway of the room the tall thin creature was standing there. She provided additional details of the intruder, indicating that it was very skinny, with ribs showing, with bluish skin and she could see what appeared to be some sort of veins. The eyes were more like humans’ but black in color. It did not wear any clothing and she could not see any genitalia either but somehow “knew” it was a male. Accord‐
ing to the witness there has been no at‐
tempt of communication in the part of the entity. (Encounters might still be taking place). As of 2103 I received further informa‐
tion from the witnesses detailing additional experiences. According to the ‘Belarusian UFO‐Committee, UFO‐com.net’ at dawn on July 28 2011 in the village of Borovka, Bela‐
rus, two soldiers patrolling a restricted mili‐
tary zone (in a forest) saw a silhouette of a man in a ‘puffy’ pink outfit maneuvering between the trees, apparently flying without any means of propulsion. According to their report, suddenly the flying man took a sharp turn and accelerated at about 70 meters away from the patrol. The being was about 2 meters in height and human‐shaped. Have we here secret military technology being tested? The following report was summarized and translated (by yours truly) from the very informative Spanish website “Lo Oculto, Ovnis en España”: One night in December of 2011 between Jerez de la Frontera and Sanlucar de Bar‐
rameda, Cadiz, Spain, two employees at the local Alijar ecological park had gone to check on some of the wind turbines that appeared to be malfunctioning, some were producing more power than normal while others not enough. One night while inspecting the top of one of the turbines about 20 meters in height the men began hearing what sounded like small pebbles or rocks bounc‐
ing of the structure. Both men climbed down to investigate and were confronted by two strange humanoids about 3 meters in height, very thin, and lead‐gray in color that emitted a sound similar to that of “cackling swans.” The two humanoids suddenly ran towards the brush at very high speed seem‐
ingly floating just above the ground and disappeared from sight. The following somewhat unorthodox bed‐
room visitation type incident was communi‐
cated to me directly by the witness: Location. Los Angeles, California Date: December 18 2012 Time: 04:50 am. The witness was sleeping alone in her room, however there were other family members in the house at the time, when suddenly she had the urge to get up but as she attempted to, she realized that she was unable to move. She then saw a human‐
shape figure of average height (1.65m) in her room which suddenly approached her and touched her head. When the strange figure touched her head she felt an intense ‘electrical discharge’ go through her body. She was able to describe the intruder as man‐like with ‘steely gray eyes’ and wear‐
ing some sort of hooded outfit. She also heard what appeared to be ‘others’ walking around in the house. In the spot around her neck where the entity had touched there remained a ‘sticky spot’ and according to the witness the hand of the intruder felt ‘soft or gelatinous’. Soon the intruder and the others left and after five minutes the witness was able to move again. She imme‐
diately washed the spot where she had been touched by the stranger. I will like to conclude this short article with a final case taken directly from the excellent Blog “Phantoms and Monsters” run by paranor‐
mal researcher Lon Stickler: Location. Near Grass Lake, Shawano County, Wisconsin. Date: January 9 2013. Time: 14:00. Greg Posada and Eugene Pointer called the paranormal hotline with their report of two werewolves seen near Grass Lake. They claim that these two creatures that ap‐
peared to be werewolves were definitely bi‐
pedal. One of the creatures had grayish hair, while the other had brownish hair. Both creatures had snouts. When the crea‐
tures were observed, they both seemed to be bent down drinking water from the lake. Eugene and Greg both claim that the crea‐
tures sniffed the air and then turned and looked at them. They let off a howl that sounded like a regular wolf and ran off into the nearby thickets. The encounter oc‐
curred around 1400 hours and Eugene and Greg were both shaken from this encoun‐
ter. Greg says that the brown coated crea‐
ture was at least 7 feet tall, while the gray coated creature was perhaps 6 feet tall. Eugene says that this is not the end of the story. After their encounter with the ‘werewolves’ it was no more than 10 min‐
utes later, they spied a silver disc in the surrounding forest. The silver disc was hov‐
ering, tilted and then shot up into the sky. The sighting of the disc lasted only about 3 minutes, but during the time of the sighting everything felt surreal. Everything moved in slow motion. Eugene and Greg felt relaxed and at ease while they watched the disc in the sky. Eugene does not understand how they could have two paranormal encoun‐
ters in one day... Spring Ouija
New to the paranormal world the new spring ouija. The spring ouija board com‐
bines the traditional method of ouija boards along with table tipping and tapping, spring ouija is the only ouija board that can twist, turn, spin, bend and knock, the board has been tested by the top paranormal teams and the feedback received is amazing, teams have reported that they receive so much To purchase the spring ouija and to see a short video of communication through the spring ouija board with the spirits. the features please visit www.springouija.com
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Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The Psychology of Spiritualism: Science and Seances
By David Derbyshire: Guardian News Item.
The idea of summoning the spirits took thrilling hold of the
Victorian imagination – and has its adherents now. But the
psychology behind spiritualism is more intriguing...
Page 11
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The Psychology of Spiritualism: Science and Seances
By David Derbyshire: Guardian News Item.
As the evenings get darker and the first hint of winter hangs in the air, the western world enters the season of the dead. It begins with Halloween, contin‐
ues with All Saints' and All Souls' days, runs through Bonfire Night – the eve‐
ning where the English burn effigies of historical terrorists – and ends with Remembrance Day. And through it all, Britain's mediums enjoy one of their busiest times of the year. by people such as James Randi, Derren Brown and Jon Dennis, creator of the Bad Pyschics website… http://badpsychics.blogspot.co.uk/
People who claim to contact the spirit world provoke extreme reactions. For some, mediums offer comfort and mystery in a dull world. For others they are fraudsters or unwitting fakes, ex‐
ploiting the vulnerable and bereaved. But to a small group of psychologists, the rituals of the seance and the me‐
dium are opening up insights into the mind, shedding light on the power of suggestion and even questioning the nature of free will. Last week I spent 40 minutes with a telephone spiritualist who passed on messages from four dead people. Like all mediums, she was skilled at cold reading – the use of probable guesses and picking up of cues to steer her in the right direction. If she hit a dud – the suggestion that she was in the presence of a 40‐year‐old uncle of mine – she quickly widened it out. The 40‐year‐old became an older person who felt young at heart. And then someone who was more of an uncle figure. She was also skilled at the Bar‐
num effect – the use of statements that tend to be true for everyone. Among dozens of guesses and misses, there was just one hit – the correct name of a dead relative. Their relation to me was utterly wrong, as were de‐
tails of their health. But the name was right and, even though it was a com‐
mon name among that person's gen‐
eration, it was a briefly chilling mo‐
ment. Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist and magician, says my response to this lucky guess is typical. People tend to remember the correct details in a seance but overlook state‐
ments or events that provide no evi‐
dence of paranormal powers. Humanity has been attempting to com‐
mune with the dead since ancient times. As far back as Leviticus, the Old Testament God actively forbade people to seek out mediums. Interest peaked in the 19th century, a time when relig‐
ion and rationality were clashing like never before. In an era of unprece‐
dented scientific discovery, some churchgoers began to seek evidence for their beliefs. Salvation came from two American sisters, 11‐year‐old Kate and 14‐year‐
old Margaret Fox. On 31 March 1848, the girls announced they were going to contact the spirit world. To the aston‐
ishment of their parents they got a reply. That night, the Fox sisters chat‐
ted to a ghost haunting their New York State home, using a code of one tap for yes, two gaps for no. Word spread and soon the girls were demonstrating their skills to 400 locals in the town hall. we are all extremely susceptible to the power of suggestion. With colleague Andy Nyman, co‐creator of Derren Brown's television illusions, Wiseman used contemporary descriptions of Victorian seances to recreate an en‐
counter with spirits in a disused prison. Over eight seances involving 152 peo‐
ple, volunteers sat around a table in the dark holding hands while luminous painted bells, balls and maracas moved before their eyes. Surveyed after‐
wards, a fifth of the volunteers be‐
lieved they had witnessed the paranor‐
mal. "These things are often very simple," says Wiseman, author of Paranormal‐
ity. "We had a man creeping around with a stick. We thought when we read the original accounts of how seances were carried out that they wouldn't fool anyone. We were wrong. A lot this is do with framing. Once you think you have an explanation for an event you don't have any other ones. Once you think it's a spirit you don't look for an‐
other explanation." During the seance, Nyman, taking the role of the medium, announced that the spirit would raise the table. Soon afterwards he encouraged the spirit by saying "lift the table higher" and "the table is moving now". Two weeks later a third of the participants recalled wrongly that the table had moved. "Suggestion builds over time. If you ask people immediately after the event it is not so effective. You don't want to solidify the memory immediately after the event," says Wiseman. Spiritualism. Spiritualism is a religion postu‐
lating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. Spiritism, a branch of Spiritualism devel‐
oped by Allan Kardec and today found mostly in conti‐
nental Europe and Latin Amer‐
ica, especially Brazil, has em‐
phasised reincarnation. Spiritualism developed and reached its peak growth in membership from the 1840s to the 1920s, especially in English
‐speaking countries. By 1897, it was said to have more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe,[3] mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes. The religion flourished for a half century without canonical texts or formal organisation, attaining cohesion through periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many prominent Spiritualists were women, and like most Spiritu‐
alists, supported causes such as the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage. By the late 1880s the credibility of the informal movement had weak‐
ened due to accusations of fraud being perpetrated by mediums, and formal Spiritual‐
ist organizations began to appear. Spiritualism is cur‐
rently practiced primarily through various denomina‐
tional Spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada and United Kingdom. Within months a new religion had emerged – spiritualism – a mixture of liberal, nonconformist values and fire‐
side chats with dead people. Spiritual‐
ism attracted some of the great think‐
ers of the day – including biologist Alfred Russel Wallace and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who spent his latter years promoting spiritualism in be‐
tween knocking out Sherlock Holmes stories. Even the admission of the Fox sisters in 1888 that they had faked it all failed to crush the movement. Today spiritualism thrives in more than 350 churches in Britain. The tricks and techniques used by me‐
diums have been exposed many times (Above Photo) A Seance scene in the classic German silent film Dr Mabuse (1922), directed by Fritz Lang. Photo‐
graphed by: Bettmann/Corbis. Wiseman's work has also shown that The trappings of the seance increase its success. Holding hands prevents par‐
ticipants from disrupting the trickery. Darkness increases sensitivity to sound and movement and makes people more scared – which may, Wiseman says, increase susceptibility. Wikipedia. Page 12
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The Psychology of Spiritualism: Science and Seances
By David Derbyshire: Guardian News Item.
Spiritualism Spiritualists believe in commu‐
nicating with the spirits of discarnate humans. They believe that spirit mediums are humans gifted to do this, often through seances. Anyone may become a medium through study and practice. They be‐
lieve that spirits are capable of growth and perfection, pro‐
gressing through higher spheres or planes. The afterlife is not a static place, but one in which spirits evolve. The two beliefs—that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits may lie on a higher plane—lead to a third belief, that spirits can provide knowl‐
edge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about God and the afterlife. Thus many members speak of spirit guides—specific spirits, often contacted, relied upon for worldly and spiritual guidance. Anyone may receive spirit messages, but formal commu‐
nication sessions (séances) are held by "mediums," who can then provide information about the afterlife. Wikipedia The seance can be explained by stage magic and human frailty. But what about phenomena such as table tip‐
ping and Ouija boards? Table tipping, or turning, has gone out of fashion but is easy to replicate with four or more people, a small table, dim lights and a relaxed atmosphere. The group place hands on the table and wait. After 40 minutes or so the table should start to move. It soon appears to have a mind of its own, sliding, swaying and even pinning people to the walls. The reason why household furniture can appear to be possessed was ex‐
posed more than 160 years ago by Michael Faraday, the discoverer of the link between magnetism and electric‐
ity. In 1852 Faraday was fascinated by the new craze of table tipping – and whether people or spirits were respon‐
sible. So he took bundles of cardboard roughly the size of a table top and glued them weakly together. Each sheet got progressively smaller from top to bottom, allowing Faraday to mark their original positions on the card above with a pencil. He then placed the cards on a table and asked volunteers to put their hands on the cards and let the spirits move the table to the left. (Above Photo): Ouija boards were de‐
bunked by psychologist Joseph Jastrow in the 1890s. Photograph: Corbis. This experiment allowed Faraday to see what was moving the table. If it was spirits, the table top would slide out the cards from the bottom up. But if the participants were doing it, the top cards would be the first to move. By examining the position of the pencil marks Faraday showed that people, not spirits, moved the table. He had demonstrated the ideomotor re‐
sponse, the movement of muscles Page 13
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
independent of deliberate thought. This also explains table tipping's so‐
phisticated big brother, the Ouija board. In a Ouija seance participants place fingers on a glass on a table sur‐
rounded by letters and watch as it eerily moves – and occasionally spells out words. Psychologist Susan Black‐
more is best known as the proponent of memes, but early in her career she was a parapsychologist. At Oxford she ran the student Psychical Research Society, carrying out experiments using Ouija boards. Time and again the glass spelled words and sentences. Her con‐
fidence began to be shaken when she modified the board. "We turned the letters upside down because surely spirits should see the letters underneath," says Blackmore, now a sceptic. "And of course it spelt out rubbish. It cannot work unless all the people can see what is going on." The ideomotor effect is also at play with the glass. "With a Oujia board, your arm is getting tired and your abil‐
ity to judge the location of your finger is compromised," says Blackmore. "When the glass moves you naturally adjust your movements and go along with the glass. To start with it moves hesitantly, but after a while as soon as it starts moving everyone's hand fol‐
lows.' But what about the glass's ability to spell? That was investigated by the American psychologist Joseph Jastrow in the 1890s. He used a device called the automatograph made of two glass plates separated by brass balls. Any involuntary movement of hands placed on the top plate causes it to move. The movement is recorded by a pencil at‐
tached to the device. When Jastrow asked volunteers to imagine looking at an object in the room the automatograph revealed that their hands involuntarily moved in that direction. Just visualising the door was enough for the hands to drift towards it. And that's what's happening with a Ouija board. If the participants look at a particular letter – because they ex‐
pect it to follow next – they unwittingly nudge the glass towards it. If the Ouija board has shed light on unwitting movement, then another technique, channelling of spirits, has questioned free will. Harvard psycholo‐
gist Dan Wegner, who died this year, is best known for his work on the re‐
bound effect.
Tell someone not to think about white bears and they immediately think about white bears. The more we try to actively suppress a thought, the less likely we are to succeed. But he also investigated automatic writing, where people claim to write without being aware what they are doing. The most famous automatic writer was Pearl Curran, an American who knocked out more than 5,000 poems, novels and plays while claiming to be channelling the spirit of Patience Worth, a 17th‐century Englishwoman. Automatic writing has traditionally been explained as the action of the subconscious mind. But Wegner ar‐
gued that the reason lay in the illusion of free will. Most people have a sense of their inner you – the conscious self that makes decisions about day‐to‐day life. According to Wegner this sense is an illusion. There's evidence to back up this seemingly unlikely idea. In the 1960s, neurophysiologist William Grey Walter got volunteers to operate a slide projector while their brain was monitored with electrodes. The partici‐
pants were told to press a button to change slides. But the button was a fake – the projector was controlled by electrical activity in the brain. The star‐
tled volunteers found that the slide machine was predicting their decisions. A fraction of a second before they de‐
cided to press the button, the part of the brain responsible for hand move‐
ment burst into activity and – through the electrodes – moved the slide on. (Above Photo): Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who spent his latter years promoting spiritualism. Photograph: Getty Im‐
ages/BBC. Grey Walter showed that there was a fraction of a second delay between the brain making a decision and someone The Psychology of Spiritualism: Science and Seances
By David Derbyshire: Guardian News Item.
being aware that they were making a decision. In the 1980s, Benjamin Libert of the University of California , San Francisco, made a similar discovery after attach‐
ing volunteers to electrical monitors and sitting them in front of a screen displaying a dot in a circle. The partici‐
pants were told to flex their wrists whenever they liked, and report the position of the dots at the moment they made the decision to flex. Again, there was a surge in brain activity a fraction of a second before the volun‐
teers were aware they were making a decision. Wegner's solution was that our delib‐
erate, thinking brain – the inner me that makes decisions – is an illusion. Instead, the brain does two things when it makes a decision to raise an arm. First it passes a message to the part in charge of creating the conscious inner you. Second, it delays the signal going to the arm by a fraction of a sec‐
ond. This delay generates the illusion that the conscious mind has made a decision. Wegner suggests that it's not just the distinction between mind and body that is false, but the whole concept of the "conscious" decision‐making mind is just another piece of trickery played by the brain; And meanwhile, 150 years after Faraday showed that table tipping was hokum, we continue to frighten one another in the dark. Wegner argued that automatic writing occurs when something goes wrong with this process. The brain sends the signal to the arm to write – but fails to alert the inner you. 'What is remarkable is that the stuff written in books 100 years ago still works,' says Richard Wiseman. 'If you think of all the technology and science and education and yet a group of peo‐
ple sitting in the dark can scare the living daylights out of themselves.' There's something a little ironic about his conclusion. The early spiritualists believed they were shedding light on the transition of the human spirit from the physical body to the afterlife. (Article featured in the Guardian news‐
paper ‐ October 2013). Spiritualism. Spiritualism first appeared in the 1840s in the "Burned‐over District" of upstate New York, where earlier religious move‐
ments such as Millerism, and Mormonism had emerged during the Second Great Awak‐
ening. This region of New York State was an environment in which many thought direct communi‐
cation with God or angels was possible, and that God would not behave harshly—for exam‐
ple, that God would not con‐
demn unbaptised infants to an eternity in Hell. Wikipedia. AN EVENT EVERY WEEK DON’T MISS IT New Horizons! The friendly meeting‐place for free‐thinking people! Based in St. Anne’s‐on‐the‐Sea, Lancashire. Entrance only £3, which includes refreshments. Open 7.30 PM for 8.00 PM start [Usually finishing at about 10:30] A new speaker every week on an amazing variety of topics! Conspiracy Theories... true or not? / The Global Economy / Hidden News / The Paranormal / Complementary Health / Alternative History / Self-empowerment / Ancient Mysteries / Alternative Science and Technology / The Legal Rights of the Individual... and much more.
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Dario A. Fernández I'm not a researcher, just a "collector", tireless. Our website E‐nigmas has existed since 2003. A great looking website where you can find all things strange and profound. Well worth a visit for all our avid researchers, investigators and subscribers . Also, I’m please to state Dario has joined our team of distributors here at Phenomena Magazine. We look forward to working alongside Dario is distributing Phenomena Magazine across Spain and other locations. Full Spanish Version of Phenomena Magazine is available via Dario’s Website... (Steve Mera: Editor). Luton Paranormal
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November 3 - New Moon. The Moon will be directly between the Earth and the Sun and will not be visible from Earth. This phase occurs at 12:50
UTC. This is the best time of the month to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere.
November 3 - Hybrid Solar Eclipse. A hybrid solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is almost too close to the Earth to completely block the Sun. This
type of eclipse will appear as a total eclipse to some parts of the world and will appear annular to others. The eclipse path will begin in the Atlantic
Ocean off the eastern coast of the United States and move east across the Atlantic and across central Africa.
November 4, 5 - Taurids Meteor Shower. The Taurids is a long-running minor meteor shower producing only about 5-10 meteors per hour. It is unusual in that it consists of two separate streams. The first is produced by dust grains from Asteroid 2004 TG10. The second stream is produced by
debris left behind by Comet 2P Encke. The shower runs annually from September 7 to December 10. It peaks this year on the the night of November
4. This is an excellent year because there will be no moonlight to spoil the show. Best viewing will be just after midnight from a dark location far
away from city lights. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Taurus, but can appear anywhere in the sky.
November 17 - Full Moon. The Moon will be directly opposite the Earth from the Sun and will be fully illuminated as seen from Earth. This phase
occurs at 15:16 UTC. This full moon was known by early Native American tribes as the Full Beaver Moon because this was the time of year to set the
beaver traps before the swamps and rivers froze. It has also been known as the Frosty Moon and the Hunter's Moon.
November 16, 17 - Leonids Meteor Shower. The Leonids is an average shower, producing an average of up to 15 meteors per hour at its peak. This
shower is unique in that it has a cyclonic peak about every 33 years where hundreds of meteors per hour can be seen. That last of these occurred in
2001. The Leonids is produced by dust grains left behind by comet Tempel-Tuttle, which was discovered in 1865. The shower runs annually from
November 6-30. It peaks this year on the night of the 16th and morning of the 17th. Unfortunately the glare from the full moon will block many of the
meteors this year, but if you are patient you should still be able to catch quite a few good ones. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the constellation Leo, but can appear anywhere in the sky.
November 28 - Comet ISON Closest Approach to the Sun. Newly discovered comet ISON will make its closest approach to the Sun on November 28.
If the comet survives its encounter with the Sun, it could be one of the brightest comets in recent memory. Some astronomers estimate that it could
even be bright enough to be seen during daylight hours. In August and September, the comet will begin to be visible in the morning sky in dark
locations with telescopes. In October it will start to be visible to the naked eye and will continue to get brighter until November 28. If the comet survives, it will be visible in the early morning and early evening sky and could be nearly as bright as the full Moon. Some astronomers are already
calling it the comet of the century.
I have seen the ‘extinct’ Ebu Gogo alive in 1991
By Hannes Shunyananda Erler
It was in Mumbay, India, March 1991. I had to stay overnight to get my flight back to Europe the next day. The cheap hotel was not a place to hang out so I decided to go for a walk. I got to a beach and proceeded heading north along the promenade of the Mahim Bay. It was a Sunday and probably an Indian holiday because many people were strolling around and were enjoying themselves. Eventually I got to a playground next to an amusement park and there on the boardwalk I saw something I will never forget. Page 19
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
I have seen the ‘extinct’ Ebu Gogo alive in 1991
By Hannes Shunyananda Erler
Since this is 22 years ago and I had not taken any pictures, I can't recall too many details but what suddenly struck my eye back then almost shocked me ‐ like a sudden encounter with extraterrestrials might have. There was a middle aged woman who had three beings with her that I could not make any sense of. She had put up a board there with Sanskrit writing and she also had writ‐
ten quite a bit on the pavement with crayon which of course I could not read. I think the writing explained what these beings were and where they came from. She also talked to the bystanders when she interacted with these be‐
ings, three small and very dark skinned beings. Sometimes she would hold one in her arms, talk to them or feed fruits to them. Indonesian archipelago was inhabited by Homo erectus, popularly known as the "Java Man", between 1.5 million years ago and as recently as 35,000 years ago. Homo sapiens reached the region by around 45,000 years ago. According to the anthropologists, Homo floresiensis, whose remains were discovered 2003 on the island of Flores, lived as recently as 13,000 years ago but that is only a conclusion because they have not found any newer evidence (yet). According to the local population Ebu Gogo was seen last about a hundred and seventy years ago. After the discovery of the remains of Homo floresien‐
sis, the anthropologists listened to the accounts of the villagers of Flores who said that the last living Ebu Gogo was seen just before the villages moved I could not determine if these were humans or apes but I have never seen any apes like these! They wore little vests each with a different color and some golden embroidery and some shorts so you could see that they were very hairy, rather short hair and short also on the head. They may have been a bit larger than one meter and had roundish heads with more human looking facial features than apes. They had no facial hair and they had no negroid features, their skin was just very dark which is also common in India for the people living closer to the equator. I remember their ears were roundish too. I don't remember what their feet looked like because that would have been a very distinguishing feature but they were certainly not like feet of apes be‐
cause that would have solved the mystery for me already then. location, farther from the volcano, not long before the Dutch colonists set‐
tled in that part of central Flores in the mid 19th century. It is evident that they haven't seen the Ebu Gogo anymore because THEY moved away, not because the Ebu Gogo disappeared! Homo floresiensis has the greatest simi‐
larity with the Homo habilis which lived from approximately 2.33 to 1.4 mil‐
lion years ago and Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) that lived between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago. That means that Homo floresiensis is not our predecessor but are survivors of some of the original inhabitants of Earth from before we came here 300,000 years ago with the Moon and they must have survived six extinctions since then and very likely some more in their very ancient history but that is another story. I believe that what I saw in 1991 in Mumbay were some of the last Ebu Gogo who survived under the care of humans. In India cripples and freaks are commonly used by their owners to make money with, either as beggars or as show pieces and to own an Ebu Gogo is certainly something very special. Their arms and legs just did not look really ape‐like and I could not see a tail. I don't remember if they uttered any sounds but they made no loud noises at all, they were friendly with the woman who took care of them. They must have been males since I don't remember seeing breasts. Today I am con‐
vinced that I saw living specimen of kryptid primates, the Homo floresiensis, called 'Hobbit' by us and Ebu Gogo by the locals of Flores. Another possibility is that I might have seen the Orang Pendek from the neighboring Sumatra island which is an island in the western Indonesia. But Orang Pendek's hair color is described as more reddish but both are in the class of kryptid pri‐
mates and seem to be related. Flores is an island extending east from the Java island of Indonesia. Fossils and the remains of tools show that the Indonesian I am speculating that a family clan in India was or is still breeding Ebu Gogos as show pieces and I would also speculate that by now some agency has got‐
ten hold of these kryptid primates and has taken them away from that woman and that you won't find the Ebu Gogo displayed publicly anymore … but who knows ‐ it is a fact that today many anomalous artifacts are seized and hidden from us and I am sure that a living Homo floresiensis can not remain unnoticed forever… Page 20
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Title: Middle‐Earth Envisioned Author: Paul Simpson & Brian J. Robb Publisher: Race Point Publishing ISNB: 9781937994273 Price: £25 UK, $40 US This is an absolutely sumptuous and stunning homage to the Tolkein/Hobbit/ Lord of The Rings universe, and what a real treat it is. The book, which contains the work of world renowned artists and illustrators, is hard cover, large format, lavishly illustrated on good quality semi‐glossy paper and with graphics (including the ‘lost’ artwork of Mary Fairburn), portraying just about every as‐
pect of the world of the Rings. Every aspect of the Rings phenomenon is here, starting with the appearance of the original books in 1954, right through to the Peter Jackson directed Lord of the Rings Trilogy cinematic masterpieces, culminating in Part 1 of The Hobbit cycle. The authors explain how the magical and wonderfully evocative tale that Tolkein created manifested into an astonishing sub‐culture, which has developed musically, dramatically, artistically and in fashions: even fan produced films have appeared. Many people (including the Beatles with Paul McCartney cast as Frodo) have attempted to recreate Tolkein’s vision, the first be‐
ing a 1960’s radio adaptation in Russia, but there have been several efforts since then including the 1978 Ralph Bakshi directed ‘Lord of The Rings’ full length animation, it used a technique called ‘rotoscoping’ to achieve the (for the time) remarkable level of animation. Your reviewer actually saw that film and was left eager for more, which, sadly, did not materialise until the Jackson masterworks. This book is not cheap, but the level of information and sheer beauty of the artwork it contains make it eminently worthy of a place on the shelves of anyone with even a peripheral interest in the Rings saga. Christmas is coming, so get it on your wish list! Title: UFO’s: Wicked This way Comes, The Dark Side of The Ultra‐Terrestrials Author: Timothy Green Beckley Publisher: Global Communications ISBN: 9781606111581 Price: None Stated This is a remarkably courageous book that tells the truth about Ufology and reveals its links with paranormal phenomena. The author, Tim Green Beckley, has promoted Ufology for many years and in this book presents a distillation of views and opinions from a host of contributors such as Sean Casteel, Tim R Schwartz, Brad Steiger and Scott Corrales, whose combined knowledge and insight into this complex and often frustrating topic is encyclopaedic. The book covers several gritty and unpleasant aspects of the subject often shied away from by the more fastidious observers of the phenomenon. The contributors get down and dirty and examine the imprisonment, intimidation, torture, fear and yes, the screaming terror often experienced by those who have encountered these non‐human entities that have more in common with demons and devils than anything remotely angelic. Beckley has (very wisely) chosen to make no judgements or assumptions and presents the evidence at face value, letting the reader make their own decisions regarding whether it is true or not.. It is difficult to pick out one chapter as better than another, but the contributions from Brad Steiger and Peter Robbins give considerable food for thought as does what Scott Corrales and Karla Turner both have to say. This book will not solve the mystery and in many ways serves to fuel it, but what it does do is expose genuinely alarming aspects of the phenomenon that are all too often lost behind a smokescreen of benevolent ‘space brothers’, whose only concern is supposedly for our well‐being. What is presented here is almost certainly much closer to the unvarnished and unpleasant truth and the really worrying thing is that these entities have always been with us in one form or another. Title: Haunted Wiltshire Author: Sonia Smith Publisher: Amberley Publishing ISBN: 978‐1‐84868‐402‐7 Price: £12.99 This, the second book from Sonia Smith, is a bit of a strange beast. She states in the introduction that the noted writer of super‐
natural tales, Algernon Blackwood, based his terrifying stories on real events and this helps set the scene for the contents of this book. Each tale of hauntings and other paranormal happenings is self‐contained and written like the sort of stories that often appear in compendiums of supernatural fiction. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it would have helped immensely to have the source material referenced separately, be‐
cause many of the chapters make fascinating reading and it would have been interesting to see what they are based on. I say this because it is impossible to say where the fact stops and (or if) the fiction begins; it is probably fair to say that the chapters in the book are ‘dramatised documentaries’. The abundantly illustrated book (all images of Wiltshire locations) consists of fifteen chapters covering a range of supernatural subjects including everything from possible vampires and voodoo to nightmares and evil spirits. For this reviewer the chapters that worked best were ‘A Vampire on Salisbury Plain’, ‘The Voodoo Mask’, ‘The Magicians House’, ‘The Witch Girl’, the especially evocative and poignant ‘The Call Girl’ and the chilling ‘Evil Spirits’. Sonia Smith clearly has an inherent talent for writing and if you enjoy short stories of terror then this is a cracking ‘keep the lights on’ read and is highly recom‐
mended. Title: Zombies from History Author: Geoff Holder Publisher: The History Press ISBN: 978‐0‐7524‐9964‐2 Price: £9.99 Since zombies are pretty much de‐rigueur nowadays, Geoff Holder takes a wonderfully whimsical and often laugh‐out‐loud funny trawl through the archives of Britain’s great, good and infamous, and offers his opinion on what they might be like if encountered in zombie form. Fortuitously, the author leaves nothing to chance and offers sage advice on the best types of weapons to use and even where to obtain them. The use of guns is par for the course in the cinema and TV, but the author indicates, rightly, that the majority of the public neither has access to nor knows how to use them. On the other hand do‐it‐yourself stores like B&Q and Focus are an excellent source of hand‐axe’s and the like and a chapter is devoted to keeping oneself safe in practical terms. Evi‐
dently weapons such as halberds are bit unwieldy and bows and arrows rather slow to use in the event of a mass attack by the undead, so the weapons of choice seem to be a Samurai sword, a hand axe and stout, bite resistant motorcycle clothing (plus suit‐
able helmet). The choice of the (un)dead one might encounter (which includes their special skills, weaknesses, zombie quotes and a multi‐scull difficulty rating) is best described as eclectic and includes characters such as The Duke of Wellington, Horatio Nelson, Burke (of Burke and Hare fame), Rob Roy, Doctor Johnston, Mary Shelley, Florence Nightingale and WG Grace. The book, as befits its irreverent tone, also includes a splendid selection of suitably decomposed and ghoulish images of some of the featured histori‐
cal icons. This book is a genuine treasure‐trove of historical trivia and ghoulish humour and welcome advice for anyone who fears a zombie attack in the near future. Title: Remnants of the Gods Author: Erich von Daniken Publisher: New Page Books ISBN: 13‐978‐1‐60163‐283‐8 Price: $19.99 A Visual Tour of Alien Influence in Egypt, Spain, France, Turkey, and Italy. With Controversial New Evidence that E.T.’s Directed Prehistoric Construction. The author of books that have sold more than 63 million copies, Erich von Däniken now reveals startling new evidence that extraterrestrials with superior technology directed the design and construction of building complexes long be‐
fore the pyramids of Egypt and Mayaland, the temples of Delphi and thousands of years before the ancient civilizations with which contemporary archeologists are familiar. The third in a series of five titles about previously unknown facts of prehistory, Remnants of the Gods: A Visual Tour of Alien Influence in Egypt, Spain, France, Turkey, and Italy lays out compelling proof of how whole con‐
tinents were surveyed thousands of years ago and hundreds of Stone Age holy places were located at equal distances from one another, forming giant squares and triangles. Where did the master builders of the massive 1,200 BC Phoenician cities learn com‐
plex architectural techniques? Von Däniken finds examples across the entire Mediterranean region and Europe of precisely chis‐
eled and erected megalithic temples, pyramids, obelisks, cities and a vast network of grid lines connecting them, that the people of those times could not have possibly have known how to build. Within this book, the author answers the question: From whom did primitive Stone Age builders receive this sophisticated architectural and structural engineering knowledge? If you’re like me and grew up reading Erich von Daniken books, then you’re in for a real treat. An amazing book with new mate‐
rial and some totally amazing colour glossy photographs. A real pleasure to read. I couldn’t put it down. Like a blast from the past, Erich once again captured my imagination. I was once again… Putty in his hands. Well worth grabbing a copy as soon as possible. A Must Have! (Steve Mera: PM Chief Editor). Title: For Nobody’s Eyes Only Author: Nick Redfern Publisher: New Page Books ISBN: 13: 978‐1‐60163‐288‐3 Price: $15.99 Nick does it again. His latest effort, For Nobody’s Eyes Only, confirms that Mr. Redfern is a researcher/writer who digs deep into the nether world of UFOs, the paranormal, and governments and comes up with material and information that no one else has been able to gather or when they do, misread that material and information. Mr. Redfern finds the goods yet again, discovering not only files (missing and otherwise) about UFOs, military operations, and even celebrities are tortuously sought and found or, at least remnants of them, but clues to their existence as well. The book’s 217 pages are packed with unknown or little known “facts” which anyone who likes to know what the hell is going on will find, not only interesting but maddening too. The UFO por‐
tion(s) of Nick’s book will be fodder for most of you who visit here, but the other materials will lend support for whatever conspir‐
acy theory about Roswell and flying saucers you’ve heard and maybe laughed off. I found the notes on Australia’s lost UFO files [Page 62 ff.] to be particularly interesting as the files pertained to the Woomera rocket facility in Australia, which factor into, as I see it, the (in) famous Solway Firth “spaceman” photo from 1964, taken by Jim Templeton and covered here, at this blog, rather extensively. The book is so replete with details and stories that readers may have never seen before. I suggest grabbing the book for their “reference shelf.” The Bibliography is extensive, and the Index (usually a rarity in such books) is vastly helpful. And there are photographs (of documents and people), also a rarity in other books dealing with similar topics. Add it to your Redfern collec‐
tion; he’s become the most prolific and sensible of today’s crop of writers about things on the fringe of reality. Another great book by Nick Redfern. Nick Opens the book with a précis on Top Secret designations and The Freedom of Informa‐
tion Act in regards UFOs, Alien, and Cosmic Conspiracies, he takes the reader back to Roswell (yes), and other UFO mysteries. He also covers Files on Famous Faces, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Diana, Watergate and Aleister Crowley. He draws you in to secret government projects, containing information about “A Se‐
cret Space Program” and the dastardly government experiments on humans, plus the controversial mind‐games the CIA was (and is?) engaged in. He reveals information on Presidents, Politicians, and Powerful People, gets into the JFK assassination and J. Edgar Hoover’s secret files, on everyone. A fantastic book well worth having. (PM Editor). Audinghen Bunkers: A Paranormal Investigation
By Andrew Park
As they say anything is possible, Paranormal Knights Scotland organisation, based in the UK with the help from other teams across the Channel such as Aschwin Elout's from Ghost Hunting Netherlands and Ghost Hunting BV accompanied by Daniel Blom representing Ghost Hunters Overschie had met for the first time ever after a long online organised paranormal event like no other. We were frustrated at being told by other teams that an event with multiple teams can 'never' work, people will never work alongside each other on any event, so we sought out to prove this long debated theory wrong and that we did (with amazing and intriguing results...) Page 23
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Audinghen Bunkers: A Paranormal Investigation
By Andrew Park
PKS founders Andrew and David Park were joined by their own investigators Mrs. Jean McIntyre, Mrs. Kirstie Porteous and Mr. David Park Jr. They had all left Glasgow for a long coach trip to Aud‐
inghen, France around 14 hours changing coaches at London Victoria bus station. We then switched to The Channel Tunnel bus and headed for the euro‐train, which was a very quick journey in‐
deed, I was expecting it to have been longer. We made our way through Calais on foot to get the bus to Audinghen which we finally found a couple of hours later thanks to David Park Jr. On arriving to our campsite late in the evening we were met by and introduced to the rest of the crew Aschwin Elout , Daniel Bloom and Darcy‐
jamie Tebbenhoff and others. Unfortunately we had just missed Pieter‐Jan Aarssen and a few other members who had to leave the day we got there. After introductions were over, we pitched our tents and set up camp before heading off to the restaurant for some much needed nutrition, ('you don't even want to know how much we ate that night'.) Myself and my father David Park Sr. (Co.Founder) got set up with Aschwin Elout and Daniel Blom around 10.00pm, amazing guys and friends for life. Some of our group were exhausted so they went to bed which was understandable as we had just completed a 23.00 hour journey. So... we set off... into the woods behind our campsite, (we didn't have to go far to start our investigation). It wasn't long before we heard something... we had lots of movement around us and we could hear footsteps on occasion right beside us, there was movement from all directions. The forest was so dense and dark that even our flash lights could not penetrate its darkness. On one occasion we heard someone or something run right up to us and suddenly stop. We could even hear breathing in our ears before the sound of running away. Audible recordings of this event was successfully obtained. Daniel Blom also recorded what sounds like a fire fight in the woods... very intriguing, you can hear the heavy caliber machine guns and even hear the distinct click of metal as the reload‐
ing took place whilst visiting bunker No.2. These bunkers a well known for their use during the second World War. On entering bunker No.2, I turned on my digital recorder and began to call out the obvious questions... 'is anyone there'? 'nothing' then I asked, 'do you know the war is over'?... Playing back the recording I was sur‐
prised to hear a sharp breath which was followed by the distinct word ''nicht'' which on first listen‐
ing , sounded like nine till I a was told by Aschwin and Daniel that it could be German for the word ''No''. Now... Any other time I would have proba‐
bly over ruled and said it was the number nine, however, on the other hand, thinking of the question I had asked 'Do you know the war is over'? . 'Nicht' (if my spelling is correct ) is a very strong and significant answer to the question. As we walked further through the woodland we approached another bunker where Archwin and Daniel began there own role play as German troops coming back from lookout and banging the metal door of the bunker and yelling in Ger‐
man 'let us in' what happened next we were not prepared for, we began to have things thrown at us from every direction. We could hear things thudding to the ground and on occasion roll up to our feet, we could even hear some projectiles dangerously whizzing by, but before i could alert everyone to be careful I was struck on the hand with such a great force that it knocked the torch from me. It was such an impact the torch flew through the air never to be found again... (so if anyone has plans to visit Audighen soon and finds it please do mail it to me). I looked down and noticed I had been cut on my hand where the projectile had struck me. The activity began to escalate, we could make out in front of us, shadows crossing over the path, liter‐
ally metres in front of us. David saw the upper torso of what looked like a man dressed in mus‐
tard coloured clothing dart back behind a tree accompanied by the sound of movement, how‐
ever on investigation no one was there. It was at this point Daniel decided to use the 'Ghost Box', what we obtained chilled me to the bone, we could here words coming through the Ghost Box but we couldn't piece them together due to in‐
terference, then Daniel asked in a strong de‐
manding voice... 'is anyone there, talk into the machine, what is your name'?, at that point clearly someone whispered right beside me a name which I first interpreted as Thomas Elek. This whisper was also caught on our audible re‐
corder and seemed to be a bit clearer. The sound of a man saying 'Thomas O'Neil' and then some‐
thing else which was hard to make out as the words faded. After the whisper we had absolutely no activity. It would seem that everything suddenly went flat so we decided to moved on to one of the bunkers that had taken a direct hit on the roof, we could clearly see the crater left behind, but the walls and even the roof were so thick that the impact had only cracked it. We could see through the crack into what looked like a small underground chamber. I estimated the roof to be least 1 meter thick ... It had been a fascinating eventful evening. We decided to call it a night as it was getting late and my self and David had been awake for over 29.00 hours at this point ... Night 1 investigation had come to a close, some interesting results captured on our devices re‐
corded by all and personal experiences that were enough to stop even the toughest avid ghost hunter in their tracks ... What would night 2 have in store for us? Day 2: As we prepared to get ready for night 2 investigation we were asked by some Dutch teachers who had a school class on a field trip to the bunkers to give a short talk on the paranor‐
mal, the kids were thrilled about our stories of the forest and knowledge of the bunkers, a talk which was originally suppose to last for half an hour had become an hour and a half long. Daniel and Asch‐
win took over the class as they were also from Holland. They explained about the use of equip‐
ment on investigations. The class where so in‐
volved they started asking questions and got into the whole paranormal studies idea (possibly some budding future ghost hunter in the making). After the talk the kids were so thrilled they wanted to come along, all 40 of them, unfortu‐
nately due to insurance purposes the teachers would not allow it... ( personally I think the teach‐
ers were to scared to come along), so... the kids couldn't take part in a small on location paranor‐
mal lesson unfortunately. We said our goodbyes and set up for the night time event in the forest and bunkers again, this time everyone was refreshed and rested. We decided to start our investigation where it all began the night before... the woodlands. After some time we made our way to what I thought was just a duck pond but we were informed by Aschwin that it was actually a creator caused by allied air forces during the bombing campaign, Page 24
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Audinghen Bunkers: A Paranormal Investigation
By Andrew Park
and that the location we were in was actually occupied by the German forces and used to sup‐
ply the soldiers during the D‐Day campaign. The crater shows how close the allied forces came to destroying the supplies depot. We moved on to bunker 2 again. At this point the sun had began to set and the whole forest be‐
came completely dark. We started calling out again, asking if there was anyone there. It wasn't long before we started to hear unusual noises again. We could hear light raps and strange groans and on occasion could hear talking as if coming from inside the bunker, the most signifi‐
cant was the noise of someone walking around the inside of the bunker, after which it went quiet for a while. We decided to move on and made our way through the forest passed the places we pre‐
viously investigated the night before, to make our way to the main goal why the event was set up in the first place, (BUNKER 4). We had been told before we went to it that the activity was so high that no one dares enter the bunker not just at night but even during the day. During our trek to bunker 4 we passed a large open plot of land with an information board showing us an old picture of what the land looked like before the German Army came. According to the information board it was a bustling medieval town which had been completely flattened to make way for the German bunkers, then as we walk round the corner, Bunker 4 came into sight... As we approached we could hear people walking and running around, not only beside us but above us, in fact the noises were coming from all direc‐
tions, so much so that we could not pin point where the noises were exactly coming from it was like we were being surrounded. At that point I picked up the night vision handy cam and started filming. I caught on camera what appears to be a mist come into the shot then just as quickly as it arrived it left again. I've never seen smoke or fog move like this before very unusual. The strange noises eventually passed giving us the opportunity to have a good scout around. It was an amazing location. We headed to the upstairs of the com‐
plex when we stopped... We could hear what sounded like shuffling in the doorway we were heading towards, at that exact point a large rock the size of a football came through the doorway and missed my head by inches, everyone at the event was accounted for as they were behind me. If it had been at least a couple of inches to the left it would certainly have caused serious damage to Page 25
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
either myself or someone else in the group. We moved up onto a small room above the Bunker where we had a lot of activity, from bangs to what sounded like growling. We were only up there a while when we had to take one of our team members, Kirstie down as she had an over‐
whelming feeling of emotion and lightheaded‐
ness. At this point we finished up and moved our gear back into the forest towards bunker No.2. We had spent a lot of time investigating inside the bunkers and there were lots of unusual sounds inside and around these structures. Un‐
fortunately there is no way to fully investigate the inside as it is closed to the public, so we called it a night and headed off to the camp site where we settled down and got some sleep. Night 3: ‐ Bunker 4 and alleged haunted woods with candle light vigil was on the menu. We be‐
gan the nights events early just before sun set as we had wanted to do our candle light vigil as planned so to respect the soldiers who fought and died there. We headed straight for Bunker 4 where some of our team reported feeling uneasy and apprehensive. For me... I to was apprehen‐
sive... about re‐entering this location. Bunker 4 looked eerie, just as much in the daylight hours. We got straight into the investigation as we did the night before. We headed inside with appre‐
hension. We were just about to start our investi‐
gation when we were interrupted by heavy booted step's walking around the inside of the entire bunker. Once again we called out ques‐
tions but nothing much was picked up on our equipment. An hour or so later as darkness fell on the bunker we began conducting a small Seance. As we sat there quietly we could here lots of movement coming from what sounded like the other end of the bunker, there was also more whispering like conversation taking place, so we all decided it would be a good chance to capture EVPs on my digital recorders. I grabbed mine and switched it on... it began to flash... I looked at the battery meter and it was reading very low, then all of a sudden, it switched off, odd, the battery had flattened so quickly. I pulled my laptop from its case and turned it on. I was to play a CD with Winston Churchill speeches on it. I was going to attempt what most investigators are familiar with 'The Singapore Theory', but... just as I had loaded the disc the laptop battery went flat and turned off. Strange, the laptop battery had been full only moments ago. After numerous attempts to turn it on, I gave up. Eventually we moved on, so to investigate other parts of the bunker. I did manage to record some EVP's with a different device, as my battery was totally flat, but batteries were going flat in this recorder also. I was informed that the batteries were just replaced with new ones whilst outside the bunker before we entered. The EVP's re‐
corded were distorted and unfortunately we could not determine what they were or what was said. We moved from the main area of bunker 4 to the small room on top again, (possible used as sleeping quarters), its not really big enough for anything else. Carrying out a small seance there, Daniel and Aschwin began calling for answers at which point the EMF meter began to go off liter‐
ally on command but then suddenly stopped abruptly. Once again, the activity had ceased. We headed outside and round to the front of bunker 4, unfortunately at this point it was far too windy for our candle light vigil so we made best of the situation, shun out torches in the air and David began to reside a poem he had put to‐
gether to mark respect to everyone fallen during the war in France. It read… We stand here tonight amongst brave men on this shore. When they landed in 1944. They were men of 18 or a little more, who's life's were taken that sad day on this far distant shore. We stand here and wonder why? (Then we here you say). We gave our life's so that your children's children can be free. We also gave our life's for glory so the whole world can be free. I close this speech with a gift of thanks to all the soldier that are still here and also to the ones at peace from all here tonight we thank you all… God Bless you! This marked the end of our Aniversary D‐ Day ghost hunt in Audingen, France , UNTIL NEXT YEAR...through conducting this event we have proven to every paranormal team in the world that organisations can work together as a unit and accomplish the same results. (All teams) since, have been awarded with the I.P.A.A. Awards for best organisational partner‐
ship and investigation. Poltergeists and things that go Bump in the Night
By David Slone
Poltergeists are rare, but they do exist. For those that aren't in the loop, a poltergeist is a spirit that moves through inanimate objects like cups, TVs, furniture, and windows. Noises ‐ like bumps, thuds, kerplunks ‐ yes ker‐
plunks is a dictionary word, knocks, scratching at the window, and banging at the door are all ex‐
amples of poltergeist activity. Of course, these are natural phenomena when a human or natural cause is to blame. However, the wind, a person, the rain, or a cat or dog aren't the cause in these occurrences. A poltergeist could be at fault. In Ancient Egypt, bed‐shaking and the raining down of stones were reported. However, a skep‐
tic could conclude that mud slides or earthquakes were to blame. It's no wonder that all cultures have reports of spirits interfering in our lives ‐ even to this day. Parapsychologists have put forth one explanation that suggests that poltergeists originate in a per‐
son, and the lingo for that person is an agent or focus. They suggest that the psycho‐kinetic effects originate in the individual, and manifest as the result of psychological trauma in that person. Other researchers have proposed several unre‐
lated and interesting hypotheses. Ball lightning, static electricity, electromagnetic fields, ionized air, people propelling objects as hoaxes, un‐
friendly spirits, and "recordings" of negative emo‐
tional energy that don't abate ever after death. The emotion can keep re‐playing itself in the natural world even after the person is dead. Of course, this is all speculation. Evil spirits are reported by practitioners of astral projection, an are associated with out‐of‐body experiences. Some, a minority, occasionally use hallucinogens, which may account for the effects. www.honestinformation.com
Evil spirits are reported by practitioners of astral projection, an are associated with out‐of‐body experiences. Some, a minority, occasionally use hallucinogens, which may account for the effects. Since there is scant pictorial, video, and audio evidence of poltergeist phenomena, it's a good idea to opt for the famous movie, Poltergeist. Much of the phenomena reported by parapsy‐
chologists is depicted well in the movie. A TV show with some parallel popularity can be pur‐
chased from Amazon. Over the years, there have been countless re‐
ports of haunted houses, abodes, and buildings. Most of these go unreported in the mainstream media, and it takes quite a bit of digging in ob‐
scure anthologies of poltergeist accounts to find them out. However, a few of the more important ones are as follows. The reader should be ad‐
vised that many of these stories have David Slone is the owner of Honest Information.
Articles and content for your web site. Webmaster resources
such as tutorials and charts and work at home information….
inconsistencies, but some do not. Here they go, in the order of their appearance. In 858, an evil spirit chucked heavy stones at a farmhouse, and it shook the walls with power. The Demon Drummer of Tedworth in 1661, the Wizard named Livingston in 1797, the Haunting of the Fox Sisters in 1848, the Borley Rectory inci‐
dent of 1929, and the Enfield, Mackenzie, Entity, and other cases in the latter part of the 20th cen‐
tury, e.g., 1977, 1984, 2000s. Some quick searches will turn up dozens of field stories related to the inexplicable phenomena that happened during these times. In many in‐
stances, police, parapsychologists, physicists, and laymen have been unable to find a causal link between the inanimate movements, noises, and motions through the natural chain of reasoning, observation, and scientific prodding. The subject of the paranormal continues to baffle science... POLTERGEIST EXCLUSIVE!
Sometimes the opportunity arises for Phenomena Magazine to feature absolutely unique material and this is such a case. You have heard of the Enfield Poltergeist and the bizarre events in the village of Sauchie…well forget them. We has been given access to one of the most important and best documented poltergeist cases ever to feature in modern paranormal history and the readers of this magazine get the opportunity to see it first. We intend to serialise the case in the magazine over 12 parts The case is taken from a new book by Archie Lawrie, a long time paranormal researcher and former vice‐president of the Scottish Society for Psychical Research, who spent six years meticulously documenting these truly breathtaking events. The identity of the entity (a young girl called Maria who was killed in a car crash) has been fully establish and verified as have the list of phenomena she produced. These include everything from verbal communication both through the air and via telephones and com‐
puters to the spontaneous appearance of objects (in one case a shower of sweets that was two inches deep) and the spontaneous movement of objects. You have never read anything quite like this before and it will appear here exclusively in Phenomena Magazine… WATCH THIS SPACE!... Page 26
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
'Sprinkler' Asteroid Has Six Comet‐Like Tails. Moronic Ghost Hunters Burn Historic Louisi‐
ana Plantation to the Ground. By Greg Newkirk. As if paranormal investigators didn't have a hard enough time already, what with never being able to prove the existence of ghosts on any of their TV shows, now a group of them have destroyed a rich piece of Louisiana history by setting fire to a 160 year old plantation. The suspects told authorities that they snuck into the Lebeau Plantation in order to investigate claims that the building was haunted. Astronomers staring deep into space through the giant Hubble Space Telescope have found that a new asteroid has six comet‐like tails. The faint streaks, which radiate from the asteroid like spokes on a wheel, are generated as the rock speeds through the solar system, shedding dust as it goes. Unusually, the object, known as P/2013 P5 and likened to a "rotating lawn sprinkler" by experts at NASA, regularly changes its appearance. In two pictures taken a fortnight apart, it appears to have spun around, with the dust tails trailing the asteroid at an entirely different angle. David Jewitt, an astronomer at the University of California in Los Angeles, said the discovery left his team "dumbfounded". "We were completely knocked out," he said. "It's hard to believe we're looking at an asteroid." The asteroid was originally found by scientists using the Pan‐
STARSS telescope in Hawaii, who were studying the area between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It has been ejecting dust for at least five months and is now thought to be spinning so fast that its surface has started to disintegrate. Up to 1,000 tonnes of dust has been lost so far, but this is a tiny fraction of the overall mass of the 1,400ft‐wide object. Mr. Jewitt said the asteroid, which is believed to be a fragment of a larger object that broke apart about 200 million years ago, could be the first of many. "In astronomy, where you find one, you eventually find a whole bunch more," he said. "This is just an amazing object to us, and almost certainly the first of many more to come." Fiery 230ft crater nicknamed the 'Door to Hell' baffles scientists after burning endlessly for 40 Years. Unfortunately for everyone, many news outlets reported that these ghost hunters had more in common with Shaggy and Scooby than with Fred and Velma, because instead of actually solving any mysteries they just got wrecked on cheap weed and cheaper beer. Then they acci‐
dentally set fire to the building. By the time police showed up to the plantation at around 2am, the build‐
ing was fully engulfed in flames. All 7 men were arrested and charged with arson, burglary and criminal damage over $50,000. "This is a devastating loss to the commu‐
nity," Fire Chief Thomas Stone said. "It's a fire chief's worst nightmare." Fortunately, there were no casual‐
ties in the blaze, aside from the enjoyment of a historical location by future generations. Built in the 1850's, the Lebeau Plantation was once the largest plantation south of New Orleans. Throughout the years, the property had previously served as a casino, a hotel, and more recently as local Sugar Festival grounds. Thanks a lot, jerks… (Special thanks to Chris Parr for bringing this to our attention). UFO spotted over Devon sky could be monitoring military activity at air bases, watcher claims. Originally a level surface, the site was identified by Soviet scien‐
tists in 1971 as an area that was believed to house a substantial oil field. With fiery embers glowing deep underground, it looks like a scene from an apocalyptic sci‐fi blockbuster. But this huge crater is amazingly a real‐life phenomenon which has been flaming away for more than four decades. The 230ft‐wide crater, known by locals in Turkmenistan as the 'Door to Hell', has baffled scientists since it first appeared more than 40 years ago. Originally a level surface, the site was identified by Soviet scientists in 1971 as an area that was believed to house a substantial oil field. However, the ground beneath the drilling rig soon collapsed, creating a wide crater that was believed to be releasing large quantities of meth‐
ane gas, a potential danger to the nearby villages in Derweze, Turkmenistan. Scientists decided that the most efficient way to solve the prob‐
lem would be to burn off the poisonous gases ‐‐ by doing so, it was expected that all of the gas in the crater would be burnt off within days. More than four decades later, though, the crater is still ablaze with endless flames and boiling mud ‐ and hundreds of tourists flock to visit it every year. The Karakum Desert, where Derweze is located, has one of the largest gas reserves in the world. Turkmenistan hopes to up its exportation rate around 75 million cubic meters of gas in the next 20 years. Page 27
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
Experts are unsure whether this suspected UFO is a bird, a plane or perhaps a spy drone hovering over the North Devon landscape. The fascinating image was captured by photographer Rob Tibbles in a series of pictures taken on Saturday at Fullabrook wind farm. But it was only when the camera man returned home and downloaded his work that he spotted the strange object gliding high above one of the turbines. And even after zooming in on the object to have a closer look, it was still unclear what exactly it was. The airbase at RMB Chivenor, near Barnstaple, which houses search and rescue helicopters, said they had not had any reported UFO sightings in the area, however a training exercise was conducted that day. Dave Gillham, founder of the Cornwall UFO Research Group (CUFORG), based in Truro, said it was not unusual for unusual craft to be spotted near military installations. “They seem to be around when the military are up to something – to put it bluntly these objects appear to be watching them,” he added. “It has got a good shape to it – the last couple of pictures I have seen looked good in the distance but when they blew up they looked like herring gulls. “This looks a little bit unusual with spikes sticking out and what look like two windows or eyes at the front.” Over the past 18 years, the CUFORG has recorded a number of unexplained sightings. The group held its 17th annual conference this year, attracting more than 100 fans from around the world. In January, two witnesses in Par, near St Austell claimed to have seen an unidentified object from their kitchen. A man and his wife also reported seeing a red light above Padstow last year. Mr. Gillham, a retired merchandiser, said his close encounter came in 1995. “I have never fathomed out what they are but UFOs don’t necessarily contain little green men,” he added. UFO spotted in sky over Ware. UFO hacker wins battle against US Government. On Tuesday November 16, British hacker Gary McKinnon finally won his decade long battle to avoid extradition to the US to face charges of hacking into the computer systems of NASA, the Pentagon and other government agencies. McKinnon claimed to have found photographs, film, and other evidence of alien spacecraft secretly held by various U.S. government agencies. In deciding to block the US extradition efforts, British Home Secretary Theresa May said she decided in favor of McKinnon “after medical experts concluded he was seriously ill and likely to attempt to take his own life." By Laura Burnip An unusual object has been spotted in the sky near Ware. Ann While McKinnon still risks prosecution by British authorities, it's unlikely that further legal action will be Yates, who lives in Ware, said she had spotted the fluorescent taken against him. Will McKinnon reveal more about what the US government knows about UFOs and ex‐
oval‐shaped object on Thursday while stargazing. Mrs. Yates said traterrestrial life now that he now longer faces extradition? McKinnon first hacked into NASA's Johnson the object had been to the south of the town at around 5.30pm Space Center and said: he found a high definition picture of a large cigar shaped object over the northern to 6pm. She said: "I was stargazing and taking photos of the moon hemisphere. He said that he was so shocked by the picture that he didn’t think to immediately save it. He and to the south of Ware there was an object in the sky and it also said that the file size was so large that is was difficult to view it on his computer. Eventually his con‐
was there for some time." nection was lost, and so was the picture. When McKinnon later hacked into classified files of U.S. Space Command (incorporated into Strategic Command on October 1, 2002 soon after McKinnon was caught), he The sighting is not the first of its kind in the county. Last month, discovered a number of naval terms such as "fleet‐to‐fleet transfers" concerning non‐terrestrial officers. the Mercury revealed Herts police has logged 27 phone calls and front desk inquiries describing supposed UFO activity since 2009. He said: I found a list of officers' names … under the heading 'Non‐Terrestrial Officers’. It doesn't mean And in 2011, Cottered got caught up in a UFO debate after a disc‐
little green men. What I think it means is not Earth‐based. I found a list of 'fleet‐to‐fleet transfers', and a shaped object was spotted by BBC sports reporter Mike Sewell. list of ship names. I looked them up. They weren't US Navy ships. What I saw made me believe they have some kind of spaceship, off‐planet." McKinnon’s startling discovery cast light on what had been earlier Mr. Sewell had described seeing the strange sighting as he drove revealed by no less than a former President of the United States: Ronald Reagan. In President Reagan's through the village on the A507 at around 4.50am as he made his Diary, the entry for Tuesday, June 11, 1985 (page 334) reads: Lunch with 5 top space scientist. It was fasci‐
way to Stansted Airport to cover a football game in Sweden. nating. Space truly is the last frontier and some of the developments there in astronomy etc. are like sci‐
ence fiction, except they are real. I learned that our shuttle capacity is such that we could orbit 300 people. Spontaneous human combustion: Man's body Reagan’s comment was revealing since the recently retired Space Shuttle held a maximum of eight people and only five were built for space flight. Even if all five took off fully loaded it would be impossible to place burst into flames on the sofa ‐ but he lived to tell the tale. and maintain 300 astronauts in orbit. Was Reagan revealing the existence of a highly classified space pro‐
gram that could accommodate hundreds of astronauts in orbit? Apparently so, according to dozens of mili‐
tary and corporate whistleblowers. Hidden within one of the nine unified combatant commands of the U.S. military, as McKinnon later discovered, appeared to be a highly classified fleet of aircraft carrier sized ships that operate in outer space. Now that McKinnon no longer faces the threat of extradition and is unlikely to be prosecuted by British authorities, he may be able to reveal more about what he learned from sensitive U.S. military and government computer files about UFOs and extraterrestrial life. Flying saucer or military drone? Massive rise in UFO sightings is directly linked to emergence of unmanned aircraft. By Ellie Zolfagharifard UFO sightings increased by 42 per cent be‐
tween 2011 and 2012. Could be because many drones are designed to look like flying saucers. Last year hundreds of people in Washington mistook a drone for a UFO. A separate incident in September saw a 'flying saucer' drone deliberately fool spectators at a baseball game. How many UFO sightings are actually drones? According to paranormal expert Lee Speigel, far more than you might think. The National UFO Reporting Center has reported that UFO sightings jumped by 42 per cent between 2011 and 2012. Writing in HuffPost Live, Mr. Speigel claims that the increased use of un‐
manned drones by government and private groups is responsible for this figure. ‘The thing about drones is…that you can make them look like UFOs,’ Mr. Speigel said. ‘You can go to the local hardware store, and for not a lot of money, you can pick up the materials you need…to make people go crazy.’ In September, for instance, spectators at the Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver, Canada, were stunned to spot what appeared to be a UFO in the sky. The blue object, adorned with the requisite flashing lights, appeared during the first game of the best‐of‐three North Division final between the Vancouver Canadians and Everett AquaSox. The UFO was in fact a drone flown by the Canadian planetarium to deliberately fool spectators. Another incident last year saw hundreds of people in Washington D.C. get the shock of their lives when they saw a UFO being transported across a local highway. Many people Tweeted pictures of the mysterious object alongside exclamations of concern and astonishment. ‘A UFO In Maryland! Where’s Men In Black When You Need Them!’ @AyeeKeithyKeith said of the saucer‐shaped vehicle. The ‘alien space‐
craft’ was in fact an experimental X‐47B being driven along the Capitol Beltway as it was moved from West Virginia to Naval Air Station Patuxent River in Southern Maryland. The problem, noted Mr Spiegel, is that many drones are deliberately designed to look like flying saucers. Or, as many UFO enthusiasts might be‐
lieve, that's what they want you to think.... By Chris Richards. War veteran Frank Baker recalls the moment he caught on fire just as he was about to go fishing. A war veteran has recalled the horrifying moment his body suddenly burst into flames while he was sitting on the sofa. Frank Baker, who served in the US Army in Vietnam, is the only known survivor of the unexplained phenome‐
non known as spontaneous human combustion. The highly‐
decorated former soldier had been preparing to go on a fishing trip with his friend Pete Willey when fire suddenly engulfed his body. The pair recalled the terrifying incident, which took place in June 1985, in a new episode of the Science Channel's Unexplained Files. "I had no idea what was taking place on my body — none," Mr. Baker said. "We were getting ready for fishing and sitting on the couch. "Everything was great. "Pete was sitting next to me — we were having a helluva time." The pair leapt to their feet and were able to put out the flames. There have been around 200 reported cases of spontaneous human combustion. Boffins who studied the phenomenon in 1984 concluded most victims had been near fire sources when they burst into flames — and continued to burn because of flam‐
mable clothing and excess body fat. However, Mr. Baker, who lives in Vermont, US, does not believe this was the case for him. "The doctor called (me), and said, 'Frank, this burned from the inside out,'" he said. Page 28
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The UFO, Bigfoot & Paranormal Overlap: What It Tells Us - Part 2.
By Peter A. McCue
When I wrote the first part of this article, which appeared in the September 2013 issue of the magazine, I hadn’t planned a second part. But I’d like to cite some additional cases. They tie in with the themes discussed previously, and seem to support the view that many paranormal events may be the theatrical orchestrations of a higher intelligence. The first part of this article followed the convention of using a capital ‘B’ for ‘Bigfoot’. However, in an interesting book, Thom Powell (2003) contends that the word doesn’t merit an upper case ‘B’, because it’s used as a common noun. That makes sense to me. So, in what follows, I’ll render ‘bigfoot’ with a lower case ‘b’. Again, in line with Powell, I’ll use a lower case ‘s’ for ‘sasquatch’, which is an alternative name for bigfoot in North America. Powell uses ‘Bigfoots’ as the plural of ‘Bigfoot’. I’ll do the same... Page 31
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The UFO, Bigfoot & Paranormal Overlap: What It Tells Us - Part 2.
By Peter A. McCue
BIGFOOT‐RELATED DNA RESEARCH An anonymous article in the December 2013 issue of the magazine Fortean Times (issue 308, pp. 8‐9) asks: “Is the hirsute mystery a human hybrid, an ancient polar bear hybrid or even an angel?” It refers to a group called the Sasquatch Genome Project, led by Dr Melba T. Ketchum, a former veterinar‐
ian from Texas. After conducting tests on purported sasquatch material (hair, blood, etc.), Ketchum’s study appar‐
ently concluded that sasquatch exists in North America and is a human rela‐
tive that arose some 15,000 years ago. But this claim has attracted criticism. For example, the Fortean Times article states that the study hasn’t been peer‐
reviewed, and that Ketchum has re‐
fused to release her data, explain her methodology, or say where she got the DNA samples. In the episode focusing on North Amer‐
ica, Evans stated, with a degree of rhetorical exaggeration: “There are almost as many theories surrounding the sasquatch as there are sightings of it.” But after Sykes’s findings about the North American samples were an‐
nounced, Evans alighted on the view that if bigfoot doesn’t exist as a biologi‐
cal entity, the witnesses must have been deluding themselves, as a result of a “will to believe”. The Fortean Times article also men‐
tions the work of Professor Bryan Sykes, a geneticist at the University of Oxford, whose research was featured in a recently‐screened three‐part tele‐
vision series (Bigfoot Files) on Channel 4 in the UK. The presenter was a vet, called Mark Evans. FURTHER CASE EXAMPLES Case 1: A vanishing bigfoot. In the earlier part of this article, I men‐
tioned a case from Pennsylvania, in 1973, reported by Stan Gordon (2010, pp. 227‐45), involving a shape‐shifting UFO and bigfoot’s. Thom Powell also mentions cases suggesting a possible paranormal aspect to the bigfoot phe‐
nomenon. Take, for example, the fol‐
lowing incident, Involving Alex Sum‐
mers, a former US Navy SEAL and Gulf War veteran (Powell, 2003, pp. 162‐
164). The alleged incident occurred in Octo‐
ber 2000. Summers and his cousin were on the second day of a hunting trip in Oregon’s Coast Range moun‐
tains. Around 3 p.m., they came upon a large clear‐cut in a forest. They saw what Summers described as “a possible Neanderthal”. It stopped and turned round, some 20 feet from them. About eight feet tall, it was stockier than ei‐
ther Summers or his cousin, both of whom were well over six feet tall. Sykes received numerous samples of material (mainly hair) that were as‐
sumed to have come from bigfoot’s or their Asian counterparts. But where testable DNA was present, it turned out to be from prosaic sources, such as black bears. Of course, this wasn’t very flattering to them; and it suggests that Evans hasn’t considered the possibility that some bigfoot manifestations are craftily con‐
cocted paranormal displays. But to be fair, he may have been simply the front man, uttering words scripted for him! At any rate, interesting as it was, I don’t think the programmes did the bigfoot phenomenon justice. It had black hair, a somewhat dome‐
shaped head, and black eyes, but with no white evident. It exuded a strong, musky smell. After looking at the witnesses for about a minute, the entity turned round and started walking towards the other side of the clear‐cut. As Sum‐
mers and his cousin looked on, the creature shimmered, became almost transparent, and then disappeared before them. It reportedly left tracks in the soft earth, which ended at the spot where it had vanished! Case 2: A size‐changing and shape‐
shifting UFO. Richard Dolan (2009, pp. 121‐4) de‐
scribes a dramatic UFO sighting that reportedly occurred in the Canary Is‐
lands on the night of 22nd June 1976. Dr Francisco Julio Padron and his driver, Francisco Estevez, were heading to Galdar, on the north‐west coast of Grand Canary Island, when they saw a large spherical object hovering just above the ground, some 60 yards off the road. Estevez brought the car to a sharp halt. According to Padron, the object was perfectly round and was about the size of a three‐storey build‐
ing. It was transparent enough for stars to be seen through it, and it contained two human‐like figures, which were reportedly well over six feet tall, and were wearing bright red garments and cloth‐like helmets or turbans of some sort. They appeared to be studying a control panel, and their heads seemed to glow. Estevez reported that they had very bright, large eyes. Author information Peter McCue worked for many years as a clinical psychologist. He lives in Scotland. His qualifi‐
cations include a Ph.D., from the University of Glasgow, awarded for a thesis on hypno‐
sis. He believes that paranor‐
mal events occur, and that many UFO experiences are genuinely anomalous. He contends that if we want to obtain a comprehensive under‐
standing of ourselves and the nature of reality, these enig‐
matic phenomena can’t be ignored. The car’s radio went dead, and the men experienced a feeling of intense cold. The object began to rise, and expanded to an incredible size, compa‐
rable to that of a 20‐storey building. It then assumed the shape of a spindle, surrounded by a halo, and shot off at an amazing speed. Padron and Estevez called at a nearby farmhouse, discovering that at least one of the residents had seen the ob‐
ject. He described it as a bright, bluish sphere containing two red things, which looked like human forms. The man’s television had apparently cut out just before Padron and Estevez arrived. Other witnesses had apparently seen the UFO as well, including the crew of a Spanish naval ship, some miles off‐
shore. According to the captain, they observed “an intense yellowish‐bluish light” moving from the shore towards their position. Page 32
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
The UFO, Bigfoot & Paranormal Overlap: What It Tells Us - Part 2.
By Peter A. McCue
Russian Evidence? The Russian newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" published an interview with the Russian scientist Igor Burtsev, Ph.D., director of the Interna‐
tional Center of hominology, Russia, who said, that he had sensational results of DNA analysis of Bigfoot (Yeti), who argue, that Bigfoot originated in by crossing the modern human beings and unknown being, possibly alien, so un‐
usual was the DNA of Bigfoot (Yeti). According to Igor Burt‐
sev, DNA analyses of Bigfoot (Yeti) were conducted in the laboratories of the U.S. under the direction of Dr. Melba Ketchum, which is the head of the laboratory of molecular diagnosis of Texas (Dr. Melba Ketchum the head of DNA Diagnostics, Nacogdoches, TX, USA). Over the last five years, scien‐
tists have studied the DNA of 109 biological samples of Bigfoot (Yeti), which were found in the U.S., Canada, and Russia (in the Kemerovo region in 2012), of the samples were found traces of Bigfoot (Yeti) blood, the prints of their fin‐
gers, feet, and hair. Based on DNA analysis of Bigfoot (Yeti) found, that the obtained DNA samples do not belong to the known science beings. Therefore, is the recent TV Show ‘Finding Bigfoot’ really revealing all. A number of questions have been asked. However, there are those who believe evidence for Bigfoot is either non‐existent or so rare to find, its almost impossible to obtain. The debate continues… http://hainanwel.com/en/unusual‐
world/2343‐bigfoot‐hybrid.html Initially, they took it to be an ordinary aircraft, but then it stopped, turned off its light, and emitted a rotating light beam for two minutes. Then, it again displayed an intense halo of yellowish and bluish light, remaining where it was for 40 minutes. The light then seemed to split in half, with the upper part making a rapid, spiralling climb before vanishing. Dolan notes that the glow from the halo (the section that didn’t spiral upwards, presumably) continued to illuminate parts of the land and the ocean, although the ship’s radar never detected the object. These, and other sightings in the Ca‐
nary Islands, have been attributed to the launching of US submarine‐based Poseidon missiles (see: http://
w w w . i k a r o s .o r g . e s / c a n e n . h t m). Clearly, though, if the witness testi‐
mony cited regarding the events of 22nd June 1976 is accurate, it’s hard to square it with that interpretation. Case 3: Strange creatures, strange lights, and a haunting apparition. In her book Real Wolfmen, Linda God‐
frey (2012, pp. 126‐34) describes some strange experiences that befell a family called Martin a few years ago at their then home in Palmyra, Maine, in the north‐east of the USA. However, the family were apparently living in a rural setting, so I presume that their home was on the fringe of the town, or a few miles outside it. In the UK, at the end of October 2013, the case was featured in an episode of the television series Paranormal Wit‐
ness (broadcast on the Freeview chan‐
nel Really). Actors recreated the re‐
ported events, with interspersed com‐
mentary from the principal witnesses. However, there were some differences between this version and Linda God‐
frey’s portrayal, although they were generally minor. The following outline is based on Godfrey’s version. But In places, I’ve noted, within brackets, points where the TV version differed from it, although I haven’t sought to comment on all the differences. About 10.30, one evening in the late summer of 2007, Shelley Martin, then 45, and her husband Eric, then 48, were sitting on their front porch, drink‐
ing coffee, when Eric had a “bad feel‐
ing”. He told his wife that she should immediately go back into the house. (But according to the TV programme, the year was 2006, and the incident occurred during the “Memorial Holiday weekend”, which would have been in late May.) The couple’s two standard poodles (referred to as “hunting Page 33
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dogs” in the TV programme) had been acting in a particularly nervous manner that evening. Shelley and Eric apparently believed that the creatures would have been able to break into the house if they’d Instead of going back into the house, Shelley “trained [a] floodlight into the blur of fog”. This revealed three large, furry creatures whose eyes reflected a bright yellow‐green colour. They rose and ran on their hind legs. They seemed to be at least seven feet tall, and had short tails and pointed ears. It’s not clear from Godfrey’s account how long it was before they ran out of sight, but when they did so, Shelley shone her light back on the front yard, seeing two more, which were only 20 feet away, and moving towards her and Eric on all fours. The creatures rose on their hind legs and ran round the house to join the others. The bed‐
room window of the couple’s daughter was on that side of the house, so Shel‐
ley and Eric rushed indoors and went upstairs to her room. When they shone the light down to a side yard, the five creatures were seen to be calmly standing on their back legs, staring back at them. The daughter woke up and saw their eyes. But being sleepy, she went back to bed. really wanted to. Although Eric had some guns, they were locked in the garage (or in a barn, according to the TV programme). The couple retired to bed around 1.00 a.m., but had great difficulty in sleeping. By morning, the mysterious creatures were gone. Shel‐
ley found what she described as “over‐
large dog prints with a ‘hook’ on the end”. The Martins rang the emergency num‐
ber 911. They were told to call a game warden, who said they should remain in the house and lock the doors. (But according to the TV programme, Shel‐
ley spoke to someone from the police, and then the call was disconnected.) Godfrey explains that weeks before the creatures were sighted, the Martins “began to see unidentified lights float‐
ing near [a] swamp area”. (This word‐
ing could be taken to mean that the anomalous lights were seen more than once, but the TV programme men‐
tioned only one occasion. It indicated that they were seen from the porch of the house. Shelley stated that the lights were pulsating in some trees. However, when Eric and his son, Sean, went into the woods, to investigate, the lights were no longer visible, and nothing was seen to account for them.) Godfrey refers to two other witnesses, not members of the Martin family, who also saw the lights. (But they weren’t mentioned in the TV pro‐
gramme.) Some time prior to the appearance of the creatures, Eric started seeing an apparition of a little girl in the house. The UFO, Bigfoot & Paranormal Overlap: What It Tells Us - Part 2.
By Peter A. McCue
(Interestingly, there was no mention of this in the TV programme.) It seems that on at least one occasion, the sight‐
ing was preceded by his hearing foot‐
steps. The haunting apparently contin‐
ued after the Martins moved out – they learned that an eight‐year‐old boy, the son of the next tenants, had refused to sleep in his room, because of the “mean little girl”. At one point in 2010, Eric happened to be driving past the property when he realised that he’d forgotten his wallet, so he pulled into the driveway, in order to turn round. Although his vehicle had been running well up to then, a ball joint snapped in half and a shaft ripped apart. However, it’s conceivable that this breakdown was purely coinciden‐
tal. (There was no mention of it in the TV programme.) Case 4: Synchronicity. The San Luis Valley (SLV) in the USA, which runs from south central Colo‐
rado into northern New Mexico, has a reputation for strange events, such as cattle mutilations and UFO sightings. A writer and researcher called Christo‐
pher O’Brien lived in the SLV for a while and investigated anomalous phenomena there. In one of his books, he cites an experience that he had in 1993, after he’d spoken to members of a family called Sutherland, about a bull of theirs that had been found dead and mutilated in June 1980 (O’Brien, 2009, pp. 69‐73). The evening before the carcass was found, they’d heard a heli‐
copter flying slowly southwards over their property. Fifteen to 20 minutes later, they heard it again, and it sounded as if it were hovering nearby. They went out to look, and saw it rising from the pasture where the dead bull would be found the next morning. The helicopter was mustard‐yellow in col‐
our, looked old‐fashioned, and didn’t seem to have any markings. It flew back to the north, over their house. The day after his visit to the Suther‐
lands (i.e. some 13 years after their experience with the strange helicop‐
ter), O’Brien was in his dining room, reviewing his interview notes, when he heard, and then saw, a helicopter. It matched what the Sutherlands had seen in 1980! His then girlfriend, the latter’s daughter, and some neighbours also apparently saw it. O’Brien made extensive enquiries, but no one seemed to know where it had come from. Furthermore, he was told that such a helicopter would have only a 90
‐mile range, would be extremely rare, and would be astronomically expensive to fly and maintain. O’Brien notes that ever since that experience, he’s been absolutely convinced that there’s “a trickster energy, or program, that is paranormal in nature and [that] somehow this energy/force/entity is manipulating coincidence and manu‐
facturing synchronicity” (p. 73). DISCUSSION Assuming that Alex Summers’ story (Case 1) isn’t a hoax tale, it’s possible that the bigfoot‐type creature was physical, but came from, and then disappeared back into, some sort of parallel reality or ‘other dimension’. Another possibility is that the entity was a theatrical creation of the mo‐
ment by a higher intelligence, which also generated the footprints, to en‐
hance the dramatic effect. Similarly, the events in Cases 2‐4 could also be seen as dramatic, orchestrated performances. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine that the UFO described by Francisco Julio Padron and his driver (in Case 2) was an extraterrestrial space‐
ship. If it was, it’s surprising that the occupants seemed to be human‐like. Authors References. Dolan, R. M. (2009). UFOs & the National Security State: The Cover‐Up Exposed, 1973‐
1991. Rochester, New York: Keyhole. Godfrey, L. S. (2012). Real Wolfmen: True Encounters in Modern America. New York: Tarcher/Penguin. Gordon, S. (2010). Silent Inva‐
sion: The Pennsylvania UFO‐
Bigfoot Casebook (edited by R. Marsh). Privately published. O’Brien, C. (2009). Stalking the Tricksters: Shapeshifters, Skinwalkers, Dark Adepts and 2012. Kempton, Illinois: Adven‐
tures Unlimited Press. Powell, T. (2003). The Locals: A Contemporary Investigation of the Bigfoot/Sasquatch Phe‐
nomenon. Surrey, British Columbia: Hancock House. Acknowledgement. I’m grateful to David T. Muir for help with proofreading. I think Christopher O’Brien (see Case 4) is probably right in suggesting that the intelligence behind these phenomena has a tricksterish disposition. If so, it may deliberately generate manifesta‐
tions that strain the credulity of non‐
witnesses… Peter McCure’s book: Zones of Strangeness is available at Amazon to purchase for just £14.43 An amazing read… (PM) Over the centuries, there've been many reports, worldwide, of unexplained phenomena. Certain areas seem to play host to a disproportionate number of them, either tempo‐
rarily or on a long‐term basis. Some places acquire a reputa‐
tion for just one type of mani‐
festation, such as UFO activity. Others seem to be the setting for a variety of them ‐ for example, cattle mutilations, sightings of strange animals, and UFO phenomena. Can the reports be believed? Are the phenomena genuinely para‐
normal? Do certain areas really see an unusually high number of anomalous events? What's behind the manifestations? Do they involve extraterrestrials, creatures from 'other dimen‐
sions', time travellers, the workings of the human mind, or some sort of higher intelli‐
gence? These are just some of the questions that the author addresses in this wide‐ranging, well‐researched and well‐
referenced study of the con‐
nection, real or supposed, between anomalous phenom‐
ena and certain geographical areas. The book cites a mass of case material from the UK, the USA and elsewhere, and also includes useful foundation chapters. Page 34
Phenomena Magazine: November 2013 - Issue 55: www.phenomenamagazine.co.uk
‘Another traditional British UFO book that was a pleasure to read. Fascinating documented incidents and some great images just kept my attention from front to back cover. This is the second book I have read of Margaret Fry’s and I thoroughly enjoyed both. Excellently wrote and informative. Definitely one to add to your col‐
lection.’ (Steve Mera: PM Chief Editor). To obtain your 154 page semi‐softback edition of Who Are They?: Simply send a total of £10.00 (UK Sterling) to ‐ Wales Fellowship of Independent Ufologists, Frys Croft, 5, The Broadway, Abergele, North Wales, LL22 7DD, United Kingdom. Postage & Packaging included in price. Grab your copy today! Title: American Horror Story: Asylum
Main Cast: Zachary Quinto, Joseph Fiennes, Sarah Paulson, Evan Peters, Lily Rabe, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell and Jessica Lange Director: Various Distributor: 20th Century Fox Price: DVD £29.99 BluRay £34.99
This is an absolutely splendid slice of well detailed, well acted, high fear factor sheer terror. There are (appropriately enough) 13 episodes and as the title suggests the bulk of the action is set in an asylum for the criminally insane called ‘Briarcliff’. The asylum is populated by a motley collection of serial killers, mutants, alien abductees, and psychopaths who are watched over by a number of nuns and doctors. It goes without saying that the nuns and doctors who make up the staff have plenty of problems of their own, which contrib‐
utes admirably to the taught feel of the individual stories. Some of the action is cleverly inter‐cut between the 1960’s and the present day, where a young couple ex‐
ploring the now derelict building and encounter an incarnation of one of the former inmates, a notorious masked serial killer called ‘Bloodyface’. Two of the staff, Dr. Arden and Dr. Thredson have a sinister agenda, especially Dr Arden who is a former Nazi and conducts horrific experiment on some of the patents changing them into mutated ‘Raspers’, who prowl the woods surrounding the institution. Any issues with it, well yes, it does try much too hard to shock with the inclusion of unnecessary sex scenes that only detract from the overall effect, but overall the series is splendidly gritty, gory and atmospheric and the choice of location contributes in no small amount to the overall creepy feel. It’s difficult to single out any episode as better then the rest, but episode 3, ‘Nor’easter’, episode 7, ‘Dark Cousin’ and episode 12, ‘Continuum’, were particularly effective. This anthology, although now in its second incarnation, stands up Moon Could Be 100 Million Years Younger Than Previously Thought Suggests New Evidence . Huffington Post UK Posted: 24/09/2013 11:04 BST Updated: 24/09/2013 11:04 BST The very origins of the moon are up for debate as new evidence suggests it could be 100 million years younger than previously thought. The current working theory is our lunar companion formed when an unknown planet smashed into Earth 4.56 billion years ago around the time of the birth of the solar system. Debris from this collision then combined to form the moon. But new technology has allowed for much more precise analysis of lunar rocks which has found they are between 4.4 billion and 4.45 billion years old. Richard Carlson of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, told the LA Times: "Back in the 1970s, you couldn't distinguish between 4.45 and 4.55 billion years. "Today, we can, and everything we are seeing suggests the 4.4 billion number. We know the age of the solar system very well ‐ 4.568 billion years, so the Earth may have had two phases of its life ‐ one before the giant impact, and another one greatly modified by the impact." Carlson theorises that the Earth could have had a "primordial atmosphere" in this ear‐
lier stage that could have been blasted off by the impact. Further evidence of the revised date comes from a number of signs found on Earth of a "major melting event" around 4.45 billion years ago. The new information has prompted scientists to try to agree once again on a consen‐
sus of how it was formed. A meeting at the Royal Society in London on Monday saw Carlson present his findings. Page 36
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