In the News...

On 8 April 2006, a 300-year-old ledger bound in human skin was found lying in the street in the Headrow district of Leeds. Detectives later found out it had been stolen from a house in the city's Headingly area. In a practice called anthropodermic bibliophagy, it used to be a custom in the 18th and 19th centuries to bind accounts of murder trials in the killer's skin. Shropshire Star, 10 May 2006; FT212:11

A Filipino judge who worked in a suburb of Manila was fired and fined after claiming three magic dwarves assisted him in obtaining the powers of bilocation, healing, and prophecy. Judge Florentino Floro was 86ed after a three-year investigation. Floro believed the three duwendes-a Tagalog word for mystic dwarf-even had names: Armand, Luis, and Angel. Independent on Sunday, 7 May 2006; FT212:09

On 27 December 2004, the brightest explosion in our Milky Way galaxy since Kepler's surpernova in 1604 was observed. Amazingly, considering it was 50,000 light-years away, it was brighter than the Full Moon for a tenth of a second. A dense neutron star known as SGR-1806-20, is thought to have erupted after accreting material onto its surface through its huge gravitational field. Had the enormous amount of energy it released in X-rays and gamma-rays been within 10 light-years of Earth, it could have destroyed our atmosphere and killed all life on the planet. Times, 19 February 2005; FT 196:08

Alvaro Weyne, a Brazilian businessman, had come to the conclusion that the safest place to put about 15,000 dollars worth of cash and checks was in his office waste bin. He was correct-an office cleaner emptied the booty into a dumpster without giving it a second thought. Independent on Sunday, 5 September 2004; FT 196:10

A fight between the superheroes Spiderman, Batman and Superman, broke out at 12:30 in the morning on Christmas morning in Kent, UK (with a nod to Clark Kent perhaps?). The fight erupted when a burger van the superheroes were frequenting ran out of burgers. Sun, 30 December 2004; FT 196:10

Archaeologists digging at a site in Piotrowka, Poland, discovered a group of 11th century human skeletons buried face down, covered with heavy stones, and adorned with expensive jewellery. The archaeologists believed the burial customs were done to prevent the dead from rising from their graves. Perhaps this could be related to early vampire beliefs/scares? Sun (Dublin) Metro, 5 April 2007; FT 225:11

A 20-year-old burglar hopefully learned a lesson and earned a headache-from a garden gnome. 69-year-old Jean Collop woke up at 5am on 12 April 2005 to find an intruder on her roof in Wadebridge, Cornwall. The man was trying to get in through a window when Ms. Collop threw the gnome at him which then bounced off his head. Neighbours were on guard below when police arrived to find the young man still on the roof in a daze. Daily Express, Sun, 15 April 2006; FT 202:10

A (hopefully) very odd happening at a wedding in Croatia was reported in 2005. The bride and best man had stolen off to a washroom for a little illicit sex, when a friend of the groom walked in on them. This apparently caused the bride to go into what was termed a "muscle spasm" and uh....caused the pair to be in a "locked" position. Other guests came to either gawk at the couple or to try to pry them apart to no avail. The couple were taken to a hospital in Varazdin where the bride was given a muscle relaxant, freeing the best man. The wedding party continued--with the groom announcing that it would now celebrate his divorce. Irish Independent, 4 June, Sunday Mail, 5 June 2005; FT 202:11

Residents of the Indian village of Madanpura became concerned when a storm knocked down a tree--the reason--they believed a ghost lived in the tree and would now be homeless. Several villagers claimed that the ghost had come to them in a dream asking to be re-housed. The villagers organized a fund drive to pay for a new home for the revenant. Independent on Sunday, 9 July 2006; FT 215:09

Curtis Lofton ruined his spotless record as a teacher in Lower Paxton, Pennsylvania, when he was found outside his home, naked in the snow. A police officer asked him hif he was OK, to which he replied: "No, I am crazy, and I need a menthol cigarette." He then told the officer that he was Jesus Christ before hitting him on the head with a plastic trumpet. Mr. Lofton was charged with open lewdness, aggravated assault, cannabis possession, among other charges. No word if impersonating Jesus Christ is a misdeameanor or felony. Independent on Sunday, 8 January 2006; FT 214:11

I hadn't done one of these in a while and wanted to put something up for September--hope you enjoy!

In The News...

October 1974: By this tiime the controversy over Uri Geller's "wild talents" had divided into two hostile camps. On one side, you had those who believed unreservedly that Geller could bend spoons with the power of his mind (psychokinesis); on the other side (the skeptics who of course included most scientists) were ready to believe he was a complete charlatan on two counts: the phenomenon was so obviously impossible it was absurd (tee-hee that leaves a lotta room for debate) and Geller had fled to England, refusing to perform for a group of skeptics led by the editor of Nature magazine. In the U.S., however, Geller had agreed to be tested by Drs. Russell Targ and Hal Puthoff. These days we know these men were actively recruiting remote viewers for the U.S. military. Strangely enough, the Targ-Puthoff testing of Geller (which did not include spoon-bending) was reported in none other than Nature itself. FT 7:2ff

March 1975: On the second of this month, six schoolgirls were walking along the beach at Llanaber to the north of Barmouth and were astonished to see a huge beast. It looked like a huge turtle but without a shell. The giant creature lumbered across the sand and entered the sea just about 200 yards (183m) ahead of them. They all agreed on the description: it was about 1oft (3m) long and had clawed feet and a long, square tail. It was black in color and had a small head on a long neck and green eyes. It was never identified. There were several reports of a large unidentified sea creature from around the North Wales coast that week. FT 10:18; 11:22

May 1975: Reports reached the international press via Dar-es-Salaam, about a fisherman from southern Tanzania at Kilwa who netted a "fish-like creature." This stirred up some interest because it was said the "fish" had two legs with the human complement of toes! From its chest emerged two arms, two eyes (one of which glowed) and a horn. The staff at Fortean Times asked some of their friends at the British Natural History Museum to ask their contacts in Tanzania for any more news about the stange catch, but nothing more was heard about the marine wonder. FT:15:13

October 1984: The previous month, the Phillipines president Ferdinand Marcos was proclaimed "President of the World Government of the Age of Enlightenment" (sheesh what a name!-I wonder if Imelda was going to be named "Minister of Footwear"?)-oh-I needn't have wondered-his wife Imelda, the First Lady, was named "Crown of Consciousness of the Royal Order." Both awards, in fact, were bestowed by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose followers poured into the Phillipines for the actual ceremony in mid-October. Imelda stunned the local newsmen by announcing "There is a hole in outer space through which cosmic rays bear down on our islands."

Other signs and wonders pointing to the greatness of the Marcos clan trickled into the Fortean Times newsroom. These included the arrival of a team from the Austrailian Hollow Earth Society seeking a cave system beneath Manila that led down 19 miles (30km) to another civilization! (they said;-). Within a few months, Ferdinand Marcos became seriously ill, and some reports had him close to death. But the Marcos team was to stay in power until February 1986. Both fled their country to Hawaii then because of widespread demonstrations in favor of Corazon Aquino, who had just ran against Marcos in the presidential election. Aquino was the wife of slain opposition leader Benigno S. Aquino, who was gunned down right at the airport in Manila upon returning home on 21 August 1983. FT 43:24ff

August 1986: The latest series of Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) sightings were still going on in Egypt, months after a mission of the Coptic Orthodox Church looked into the phenomenon at St. Demiana's church. The team from the mission had seen it for themselves in April 1986. Like the apparitions at Zeitoun, a suburb of Cairo, in 1968, most of the sightings were of bright, white lights, likened to the "Holy Doves," but others said they could see the Blessed Virgin "clad in white," sometimes carrying the infant Jesus, or beams of light from the buildings domes. FT48:10

May 1995: On the anniversary of the outbreak of Ebola virus in Kikwit, Zaire and the 19th anniversary of the original outbreak in 1976, Larry Harris, a white supremacist nutter, was arrested in Lancaster, Ohio, for buying a sample of the bacterial agent that causes bubonic plague. He had reconstituted the freeze-dried sample and police were certain that he meant to use it. FT82:10

July 1996: In a bizarre hostage taking plan, that wasn't very intelligent but memorable, Roderick Baker tried to ward off police by holding 140 chickens hostage at knifepoint. The trouble began when sanitation workers, accompanied by the police, were ordered to clean up Baker's trash-filled yard in Uniondale, New York. Baker seized a kitchen knife and threatened to kill one chicken every minute if the invaders did not leave. He had decapitated three before the police stormed in to arrest him. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals then relocated the rest of the chickens to Long Island to "live a normal chicken life." FT 92:11

2001-2003: In 2001, 84 kidnapped garden gnomes were recovered after the Garden Gnome Liberation Front left them on the steps of the cathedral in Saint-Die-des-Vosges, near Strasbourg, with a banner that read "Free at last!" In October the local police station still had 43 unclaimed gnomes, destined to spend the rest of their days in a dusty cupboard. Since 1997, around 6,500 French gnomes have been stolen before being left in forests or at lake fronts. In one memorable case eleven were found hanging from a bridge in Briey, France with a suicide note. Reuters, 28 October; Daily Telegraph, 29, October 2003; FT182:08

November 2003: The Rev. Canaan Sodindo Banana, the first president of independent Zimbabwe, died on 10 November 2003 aged 67 after a long illness. Banana fell (or slipped ;-) from grace in 1999 when he was convicted of homosexual assaults on gardeners, cooks and bodyguards. The scandal tarnished his wonderful reputation (I have to wonder if anyone could possibly be worse than Robert Mugabe) for having helped end the ethnic violence in Matabeleland. Banana fled to South Africa after hearing that Mugabe planned to have him assassinated. His flight to safety spawned a series of punning headlines about his last name in normally serious newspapers. Here are some examples: "Rape Conviction Squashes Banana," "Banana Absconds To Save His Skin," "Banana Splits Zimbabwe," "Banana In Botswana With A Bunch Of Supporters," "Search For Banana Fruitless," "Banana Slips Into SA." Daily Telegraph, 4 December 1998; 12 November 2003; Guardian, 12 November 2003; FT 182:12. The cartoon I hope to post is by Zapiro and appeared in the Sowetan newspaper in 1998.

2006-2007: Demonstrators marched through the streets of Nantes, France on New Year's Eve 2006 carrying banners saying "No to 2007" and "Now is better." They even called the United Nations to stop the "mad race" of time and declared the indefinite suspension of the future.. Fonacon, the group that organized the protest, said that the ending of a year is another step towards the grave and therefore a tragedy, not a cause for celebration and joy. Independent, 9 December 2006; Scotsman, 2 January 2007; FT220:09

I hope you enjoyed these. I also hope to come back and add at least one more image-the cartoon about Rev. Banana. All the best to anyone stopping by!

In The News...

November 1975: On 5 November one of the most controversial cases of abduction by UFO occurred. It happened in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest, in northeastern Arizona. Travis Walton, who was one of seven forestry workers saw an unusually bright light in the night sky above the trees, as the men were going home. Travis got out of the truck to approach it and was struck by a beam of light. When his colleagues searched and couldn't find him, it was assumed that Walton had been taken up into a UFO. This was the first case of an "alien abduction" in which the search for the "abductee" was conducted with the story producing not only U.S. but international interest. Five days later, Travis Walton appeared. He was dazed and had a terrifying tale of his ordeal at the hands of bizarre "gray" type alien "doctors." His family and friends conspired to sell the story to the National Enquirer (one of whose writers later said that most of the story was made up under the influence of hypnosis and booze) a few days before Walton was allowed to speak to anyone else.

Walton would later write a book about his ordeal. Fire in the Sky, a movie about his experience was made using his account in the book. Most ufologists these days don't believe Walton's tale, as it began to fall apart as soon as it was investigated. However, the story was enormously influential in molding the publics conception of UFO, their occupants and the alien abuction process. FT13:5. Walton case link HERE

November 1976: Roger Sandall, one of the founders of the periodical Magonia sent Fortean Times magazine a story of extreme strangeness this month. This story could have been a clever hoax, but did appear in the Guardian at the close of the month. The story-truth or fiction-has some fascinating elements in it either way. In an anonymous letter, a 'Wiltshire schoolteacher' spoke of a"peculiar incident" when he taught in an East Anglian village school. One December day, "a lad brought me a small plastic toy pistol he had found near the school" and thinking little of it, the teacher put it away in the expectation it would be claimed later. During a "hectic" afternoon, the teacher became exasperated at the ceaseless talking from a girl and, on impulse, pointed the toy at her "saying, mentally, 'Gotya!' To my astonishment she immediately vanished." The stunned and amazed teacher continued with the class until the kids went home ("OZ Factor?"), then sat in the classroom unsettled by the event. He became aware of a man, "wearing a boiler suit," standing close to him. He thought the man was a parent until, silently, the man held out his hand, in which held yet another toy pistol!

"Wordlessly, I passed the first one over to him." The odd man checked it, flicked a ratchet and pointed it to a corner of the room. "To my utter amazement [the girl] reappeared," still talking as she realized school was over and she could go home. The stranger left too, leaving the teacher more puzzled than before. This story contains the classic element of 'misuse of a fairy gift.' Once it is taken into account that the school caretaker claimed to have seen "strange orange lights" on the playing field the previous evening there is yet another merging between ufology and its "metalogical" visitors. FT21:30f

June 1984: A letter to the Times proclaimed some religious phenomena had happened in Poland during the period of the famous strikes by the Solidarity Union in Gdansk. a wooden cross close by in Lublin, was said to have wept salty tears and the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in a manner that a person could physically touch. In a fascinating twist Fortean Times magazine had mocked up a cover for their issue #36 of a Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) apparition outside the Gdansk shipyard gates over two years earlier, but they never used it.FT43:8-9

November 1986: A beautiful location in Rostrevor, Ireland, known to locals as Fairy Glen, came under attack by Armagh county housing planners. Just a year before, a 'fairy tree' at Ballybott in Newry, was put under a smilar situation by county planners who wanted it moved to make way for a new housing estate. At Rostrevor, however, no such fairy tree or stone was concerned, instead the angry locals claimed that the land belonged to a colony of 'little people' they called "the Brooneys" who lived there. FT48:15

May 1994: This month a postman, Tony Ingle, 51, and his wife, Susan were staying in their camper at Laneside, England on the Derbyshire Moors. On the sunny afternoon of 5 May, Mr. Ingle was out walking along nearby Aston Lane with his retriever, Ben. Sometime between 4:40 and 5 p.m. he saw a huge World War II airplane, only 40 to 60 feet above the moors and banking to the left, obviously in some sort of trouble. "I was so convinced it was going to crash," he said, "I raced 100 yards up the lane to a gateway and the plane went out of sight. I expected to see the wreckage, but there was nothing, just an eerie silence and the sheep grazing. Then I realized as I calmed down a bit that although I had seen the propellers turning, the plane had been absolutely silent."

Tony remembered the plane in such detail that he was able to identify it later as a WWII era Dakota. Research at the Sheffield Journal showed that Mr. Ingle's sighting was only 50 yards from where a USAF Dakota crashed in heavy mist in July 1945, killing all seven crewmen. In the last week of June, a plaque commemorating the dead Americans and the six-man crew of a Royal Canadian Air Force Lancaster which crashed near the same spot a few weeks earlier, on 18 May 1945, killing all six crew, was unveiled 1,800 feet upon Bleaklow moor. Mr. Ingle's sighting wasn't the first. Over the last 30 years, several people claim to have seen ghostly aircraft in the area. "I don't believe in ghosts. I am just not that type. I can't explain what I saw and I find it very disturbing. Since it happened, the dog will not go up that lane," said Mr. Ingle. Sheffield Journal 1 June 1995; Strange Days #1 (a collection of stories from Fortean Times magazine) pg 103.

October 1994: A couple of reports from the L.A. Weekly talk of odd happenings at the Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace since the 37th president was entombed there on 26 April 1994. These happenings include a night watchman who claimed to see a luminous green mist over the president's grave. He also claims to have seen a man enter the house where the former president was born. When he went to arrest the culprit, no one was there and the door was locked. He has also heard tapping sounds emanating from the Watergate display room. On several occasions, the audiotape machines that play the Watergate tapes have malfunctioned. Could the restless spirit of the old crook be trapped here on the Earth plane? L.A. Weekly, Sept 30, 1994, October 6, 1994; Strange Days #1, page 103. A new link HERE about happenings regarding Nixon's library.

November 1995: Puerto Rico's famous and infamous 'goat-sucker'-El Chupacabras had been in its local media since March 1995. The mayor of Canovanas, Jose Soto, claimed farms on the outskirts of town had been attacked at least 35 times in eight months. The international news media carried the story in November with the iconic drawing of the bizarre cryptid (or nightmare!), bu the island's best known ufologist, Jorge Martin. This created the archetypal Chupacabras image of a snarling, vampire-fanged mix of a crazy wolf and rabid "manimal" with strong kangaroo-like legs and spiny bristles down its back. FT85:9

March 2004: The former chairman of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London was found garroted in his bed, surrounded by cuddly toys and a bottle of gin, at his palatial, locked apartment in Kensington, West London, on 27 March. Richard Laceleyn Green, 50, who co-edited a book about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Holmes, was found with a shoelace tightened around his neck with a spoon. Pathologist Sir Colin Berry said this form of death was so unusual that he had only come across it once before in 30 years. Nicholas Rathbone Utechin, a relative of cinema's Sherlock Holmes portrayer Basil Rathbone and a friend of Richard Green, said his death had revived rumors of "the curse of Conan Doyle," that several people associated with the late author had suffered death, nervous breakdowns and other assorted unpleasantness in their lives.

In the days before his death, Green had become paranoid. He told friends that his house was bugged, he was being followed and a mysterious American was out to impugn his reputation. He was also upset about the imminent sale of a collection of Conan Doyle's papers, which he thought should go to the British Library. On 23 April 2004, coroner Paul Knapman recorded an open verdict. He said there was insufficient evidence to rule whether it was a suicide, murder, or a deviant sexual act taken too far. The Conan Doyle auction made almost one million pounds on 19 May 2004 (about the equivalent of 1.4 to 1.6 million US dollars I think).Guardian, Daily Telegraph, 24, April; 20 May 2004. FT186: 31.

August 2005: In this month, the late dictator of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, commonly known as "Turkmenbashi," banned miming. "One can see on television talentless old singers lip synching their old songs," he said at a cabinet meeting aired on state television. But wait-that's not all! In a move to "protect" Turkmen culture from "negative influnces," he then banned lip synching and recorded music at public events, weddings, private parties and in restaurants. A few days earlier, he banned female news presenters from wearing make-up and dyeing their hair. Turkmenbashi took three months pay away from his education minister, blaming him for falling standards in schools. This was hardly unexpected, because in June 2004 Turkmenbashi fired all the teachers who had qualified abroad, including Russia (Turkmenistan was a former Soviet republic), and this pretty much wiped out the profession. On 24 August 2005, a copy of the Rukhnama (Book of the Soul), Turkmenbashi's unreadable book, which all Turkmen are obliged to study, was sent into orbit in a container launched from a Russian facility in Kazakhstan. Daily Telegraph, 25 August 2005; Brisbane Sunday Mail, 28 August 2005; FT203: 11. Read more about Turkmenbashi HERE ;-)

June 2006: Teacher Sue Messenger, had schoolchildren hunting for clues at a mock crime scene she staged during a class outing in Florida. Unfortunately, her students from St. Thomas Aquinas High School, stumbled across the body of an actual corpse. David Bodie, a 45 year old homeless man had died in a corner of the Fort Lauderdale park she had chosen for the summer school excercise in criminology. Initially, her 29 students thought the body was a really good fake. Guardian, 7 June 2006; FT216:22

I hope someone enjoys this. I will now try to see if my links work-which they often don't and hopefully correct those, and any other mistakes. Best to anyone stopping by! A note on the images. The first image is a poster for "Fire in the Sky" the 1993 movie about the Travis Walton case. The second image is our own "Tricky Dick" in all of his former glory, and the last image is of "Turkmenbashi" in all of his former glory. Some have said "Turkmenbashi" resembles the singer Wayne Newton. I will leave it up to the reader to decide whether they agree;-) Edit-of course one of my links doesn't work and I can't get it to. Not gonna mess with it anymore this am -(it is the Nixon Link) do a Yahoo search typing in "Richard Nixon Haunting" and it will be the third link down-a 2009 LA Times article "The Past Haunts the Richard Nixon Library." Sorry for the technical difficulties!

In The News...

March 1974

People walking by a homeless, shabby-looking man, who routinely sat on a wall outside the railway station at Kingston, Surrey, ignored him completely. Something-deep inuition-perhaps made Ron Hallard look up. The man was his father who had vanished in 1958 without a word to anyone. The elderly gentleman had been traumatized by the blitz during World War 2. Ron had made many attempts to find him over the years in between 1958 and 1974.FT5:15

May 1976

"The Wildman of Hubei Province" was spotted by an expedition sent to look for him on the 14th. Two researchers from the Insitute of Paleoanthropology, gave Fortean Times magazine an account of the sighting. The Chinese version of Bigfoot was seen by a team travelling in the Shennongija forest region. The reddish-furred, man-like animal had walked through the beam of one of their vehicle's headlights. FT31:2

February 1985

Maya Bykova of Moscow's Darwin Museum sent an account of a "water monster" sighting to Fortean Times magazine. A sighting from an underwater laboratory of a "huge serpent of silvery hue" was included. This unknown animal had casually swam up to the porthole of the submarine vessel and looked in with huge eyes, but couldn't be identified by the crew. FT51:59

May 1986

David Fassold, an American marine surveyor returned to the spot on a mountain, near Uzengili, Turkey, where he believed Noah's Ark had been buried. The Turkish Air Force had photographed a strange, boat-shaped formation there in 1957. Fassold said it was a reed boat about 515 feet (157m) long and 137 feet (42m) wide. Ground penetrating radar reported objects 16 inches (40cm) apart; Fassold said these were iron nails. The expedition was stopped when the governor of Agri province refused non-Turkish archaeologists permission to dig at the site. FT54:27

March 1994

The U.S. embassy in Guatemala was advising Americans not to travel there after rumors spread that Americans were kidnapping local children for their body parts. One tourist, Melissa Larson, had to be rescued by police from a potential lynching. The next day a mob burned the police station down, and the army was called in for riot control. Two other foreigners had narrow escapes with death from enraged mobs. In April, a woman was hacked to death after stopping to talk to a child. Rumors also targeted "bandit clowns" and unregistered nurseries." FT76:48

January 1995

On 6 January, a British Airways 737 passed close to a wedge-shaped craft over the Pennines, according to a report by the Independent Joint Airmiss Working Group. At 6:48pm Flight 5061 from Milan was eight to nine nautical miles southeast of Manchester Airport with 60 people aboard. The encounter took place when the jet was at 4,000 feet, just above the clouds. It was dark, but visibility was at least six miles. Captain Roger Wills saw the speedy craft approach and pass silently on the starboard side of the plane in the opposite direction. Wills tracked it for about two seconds through the windshield and side window. He thought it had a number of small white lights on it. The craft passed so close to them that his co-pilot, First Officer Mark Stuart, involuntarily ducked. Stuart remembers seeing a black stripe down the objects side. The craft did not leave any apparent wake in its trail.

The two pilots were questioned independently and drew what they had seen. They agreed exactly about the shape, but disagreed about the lighting. Stuart thought that the object was only illuminated by the 737's landing lights which were switched on at that stage. The captain estimated the craft's size as between a light aircraft and a small jet, but he emphasized this was pure speculation. Radar didn't detect any strange craft, but the pilots are positive that the craft was solid and not a balloon, model aircraft, or even a military Stealth aircraft-both because it made no noise and Stuart had seen before and would have recognized. The official report said, "Enquiries into military activity did not reveal any aircraft in that area at the time, and it was considered inconceivable that such activity would take place so close to a busy airport without some sort of prior notification." The report concluded that the incident "remains unsolved" and also commented: "To speculate about extraterrestrial activity...is not with the Groups' remit." Civil Aviation Airmiss Report No 2/95; Times, 2 February 1996; Daily Mail, 3 February 1996.

May 1995-?

71 people were killed in a Bosnian Serb mortar attack on 25 May, 1995. The mortar shells have long stopped falling in Bosnia, but for a time (maybe still) no one drives by Kapija Square in Tuzla's old town after midnight. A ghost with no legs has been seen at the bombing site. The ghost was spotted last December 1995 by a military police officer, Mustafa Piric. At first, not realizing what he was dealing with, he asked the female apparition for her identification papers as she was out after curfew. She had long blond hair, but when she turned around he saw that she had no face, and then he heard her cry: " Give me back my legs!" Alma Ahemedbegovic, a 20-year-old radio operator said, "A lot of people here believe in ghosts and spirits. They believe this girl's spirit can't rest because she was buried without her legs." Ahmedbegovic had helped to pull dying friends from the rubble in the square. The mass funeral for the victims was held secretly in the middle of the night for fear of another attack. The mortar attack had an enormous impact on the town, as almost everyone knew someone who was killed. Many have woken from nightmares to see their dead friends standing before them as if they were still alive. Hartford Courant, 14 January 1996; Guardian, 30, January 1996.

February 1996

Stephen Rees, a 36 year-old truck driver from Great Horton, England was supposed to fly to the Phillipines to start a new life as a chauffeur. On the way, he stopped and looked at such cities as Munich, Madrid, New York, Singapore and Bangkok. On the flight from Thailand to the Phillipines, he fell asleep and missed the stopover in Manila. When he woke up the plane was approaching Tokyo. He phoned his new employer only to be told he had lost the job. Mr. Rees only had the equivalent of about 80 US dollars and the clothes he was wearing since his suitcase had been taken off in Manila.

The British consul was unable to help. Rees spent the night at the airport until he was befriended by 3 Canadian construction workers who gave him work to raise money for his flight home. He flew to Seoul, South Korea, thinking this would be the easiest route back to the UK. Unfortunately, he had no visa and was deported to Hong Kong. Officials in Hong Kong sent him right back to Seoul. Mr. Rees fought with the South Korean immigration officials, and finally Korean Air agreed to fly him home. Before leaving Seoul, he telephoned a friend in Bradford to pick him up at Heathrow. He arrived back in England 17 days after he had set out. Immigration officials in the UK didn't believe he was the same man as the well-dressed person in his passport photograph. Special Branch held him for several hours on suspiciion of being an illegal immigrant. By the time Rees finally convinced them that he was indeed Rees, Rees's friend had assumed that he had missed his flight and left. Mr. Rees had travelled about 30,000 miles and had to hitchike home. Daily Telegraph, 5 February 1996

April 2003

On 19 April 2003, Sandra Duffield, 43, of Gloucestershire, UK, was babysitting when her charge swallowed something and began choking. As luck would have it, there was no phone in the house and Mrs. Duffield didn't have a mobile phone. The child was turning blue and she decided to drive to a phonebooth. In her panic, she crashed into the back of a van, which dislodged the object the child had been choking on and probably saved its life. Daily Express, 21 February 2004; FT 190:13

December 2005

Emma Blackwell had been drinking for hours on a ferry off the coast of France. She struck the famous outstretched arms pose of Kate Winslet from the movie Titanic. She lost her balance, plunged from the ninth deck and drowned. New York Post 21 December, 2005. FT209:26

Now

Lastly, I hope this link will go to a fascinating article about the CERN project and how some scientists are saying that maybe all of the trouble getting the thing going is due to information -maybe a warning-coming back in time!! How cool is that? I just spotted this article at Universe Today yesterday and wanted to put the link here -this is not woo-woos saying this but actual scientists (I consider myself a proud card-carrying woo-woo anyway;-) so that wouldn't be so bad! link to CERN The link to the article works. It takes from 7 to 10 seconds for the page to load on my computer.

I thought I had better mention that when I tried to log on today I think I got what computer folks call "the blue screen of death" only my screen was black. If this means my computer's days are numbered I do not know what will happen. Obviously I will leave the blogs up. Of course I also would hope to respond to other people's blogs when and if I am somewhere that I can. Just thought I had better mention this as the two screens I got today I hadn't ever seen before. The second screen at least gave me some options which thankfully worked. Hopefully this was just a "one off " type of thing, and I can at least be online regularly for a while longer! All the best to anyone stopping by!

In The News...

September 1974: In a case of synchroncity or life imitating art; folks in the United Kingdom woke up on the morning of 4 September to learn that Prime Minister Edward Heath's yacht had been hit by a freak wave in the English Channel and sunk. Two of the crewmen were swept overboard and drowned. In a photo taken at a book launch five days before the yacht sank, P.M. Heath is shown holding a book with a timely theme. The photo was a publicity shot for a thriller by John Dyson called The Prime Minister's Boat is Missing set in the English Channel.FT7:17

October 1978: One of the most important cases in UFOlogy took place on the 21st of this month. 20 year old Frederick Valentich flew his Cessna aircraft from Moorabbin Airport in Melbourne towards King Island. At 7:06 pm he radioed: "DSJ Melbourne, this is Delta Sierra Juliet, is there any known traffic below five-thousand?" Valentich was told there was no air traffic in that area. Valentich then commented that he could see what looked like four bright landing lights. A few minutes later Valentich reported that the unknown 'object'..."seems to me that he's playing some sort of game." When asked to describe the object the young pilot said: "It's got a green light and sort of metallic like. It's all shiny on the outside." Then Valentich said the object was getting closer and reported: "The engine [of the Cessna] is rough idling..the thing is coughing." Continuing to describe the object Valentich stated: "It is hovering and it's not an aircraft." Shortly after this, with Valentich's microphone still open the word "metallic" was heard. Then Melbourne lost contact. A massive search and rescue operation was begun, but neither Valentich nor his aircraft was ever seen again.

We, of course, don't know exactly what happened to Frederick Valentich, the young man was declared legally dead several years after the incident. Just the fact that he is presumed dead and his aircraft missing underscores how serious the study of the UFO phenomenon is. Society needs to pressure governments and science to take the phenomenon seriously. The Valentich case is not the only UFO case by any means where death or serious injury occurred as a result of contact with the phenomena. This fact alone is reason enough to keep asking questions whether we are dealing with some unknown natural phenomena, secret government testing, actual extraterrestrials, interdimensional beings or maybe a combination of these or some phenomena we can't even conceive of as yet.

September 1984: Some odd encounters took place in the tiny French town of Montpinchon in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France in the middle of the month. Some said it was the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) paying a visit. The first encounter happened to two youths and a young girl on a dark lane. They saw streaks of white light coalesce into a female figure. They said the hands moved as though pointing but the light was too bright to see many details. The girl threw a stone at it that seemed to be deflected by the light, almost as if it were a force-field. News of the strange occurrences spread and people flocked to the town, roaming the thicket-lined lanes in hopes of having their own sightings. Four days after the original sighting, a group of six women found their way blocked by a "shining white lady." The "lady" appeared to be dressed in a long robe and "flapped her arms about." The apparition disappeared as one of the women fainted and the others cried out in terror. If these episodes were indeed BVM sightings, the Queen of Heaven wasn't sending out her usual soothing vibes! Perhaps she was still upset at having a stone thrown at her!FT44:16-17

December 1995: 10 year-old Vicky Wilmore, of Manchester, England bumped her head on a coffee table. The surprise effect of this was that the young lady's reading and writing returned to normal after the accident. Before the accident, for more than a year she had been fluently reading and writing backwards and upside down, following a period of intense headaches. Vicky had been examined by a number of specialists because of the difficulties this caused her at school, but none could make a diagnosis. Directly in the few months before she bumped her head, her reversed writing had degenerated into illegible lines and squiggles. Dr. Isabella Tweedie of the Community Health Trust said: "I've never come across anything like it before." FT86:6

September 2002: Dashi Dorzho Itigilov was born in 1852 in Buryatia, a Mongolian region of Siberia next to Lake Baikal. At 16, he studied to become a lama and served in several monasteries. In 1911 he became the 12th Pandito Hambo Lama, the spiritual leader of Russia's Buddhists. He was influential and united many of the religion's factions. Unlike Tibetan lamas, who are thought to be reincarnations of previous lamas and made the supreme religious leader for life, Pandito Hambo Lamas are elected by other lamas, serve comparitively short terms and are free to step down if they wish. At the age of 75 in 1927, Itigilov announced his plans to die, he was retired by now. He instructed those gathered around him to "visit and look at my body in 30 years. He then got into the lotus position, began meditating, and chanting a prayer for the dead-and then he died. By the 1930s, Stalin had hundreds of lamas put to death and destroyed 46 Buddhist temples and monasteries. However, after World War II, Stalin allowed the Buddhists to rebuild their supreme monastery outside Ivolginsk. Religious practice was still tightly restricted and discouraged.

Between 28 and 30 years passed, and Itigilov's followers exhumed his corpse from a cemetery in Khukhe-Zurkhen. He was still in the lotus position and his remains were absolutely incorrupt. Stalin was dead by this time, but Soviet power was still absolute and religion frowned upon, so the Buddhists reburied their former lama in an unmarked grave and packed his wooden coffin with salt. Once again on 11 September 2002, Itigilov's body was exhumed and found to be in a state of perfect preservation. The current Pandito Hambo Lama, the 25th, Damba Ayusheyev, had the body brought back to Ivolginsk, where it was greeted by Buddhist worshipers with ringing bells and chants. He ordered the body placed on the second floor of one of the monastery's four temples, where it remains today, behind heavy curtains and locked doors. The former lama has been dressed in a golden robe with a blue sash laid across his lap. His features are blurred, but the shape of his face and nose definitely resemble a 1913 photograph taken of him. His hands are flexible, and his nails perfectly manicured. His skin is leathery but soft. His head is still covered in short-trimmed hair. The monastery's 150 students keep a vigil on the first floor, praying around the clock, though only the lamas may see the body.

In Moscow, Vladislav I. Kozeltsev, an expert at the Center for Biomedical Technologies, the institute that maintains Lenin's body in his Red Square mausoleum, has suggested that the lama's incorruption is due to peculiar soil conditions or " a defect in the gene that hastens the decomposition of the body's cellular structure after death," adding that: "You cannot rule out some secret process of embalming." Hambo Lama Ayusheyev, takes the view that Itigilov's body was preserved because he achieved a higher state of existence through meditation known as shunyata, or emptiness.FT 184:26-27, New York Times, 1 October 2002. The first image is of the Buddhist monastery at Ivolginsk. The second image is of Frederick Valentich. The third image is of the village church at Montpinchon, France. I decided to do another one of these Fortean news articles because I think they are fun, and I am completely stuck on the newest series I am working on. Peace and best to anyone stopping by! More on Valentich case HERE

In The News...

June 1974: A terrible blast occurred at a chemical processing plant in Flixborough, Lincolnshire. In fact, the explosion at the Nypro facility was the largest post WWII accidental explosions. Huge tanks of cyclohexane, used in the production of nylon, ignited, killing 28 and injuring 36. There was a well known local ballad, sung to the tune of the 'Lincolnshire Poacher' that joked about a massive explosion at the facility. It was written in 1966-eight years before the tragedy.FT5:5

This same month and year a 52 year-old woman from the Phillipines was kept afloat by a turtle until she could be rescued after her boat caught fire and sank. 600 miles (965km) south of Manila. The woman had a lifejacket and had been floating for 12 hours when a huge life-saving turtle with a head "as big as a dogs." suddenly appeared beneath the woman. There is more to this strange story. The woman also said there was another much smaller turtle that climbed onto her back and bit her each time she got sleepy, and felt like sliding off the other huge turtle. The navy ship that rescued her 36 hours later thought she was holding onto an oil drum.FT:8:4

November 1985: The African continent is rich in folklore and imagination. One of the ways this is shown is that many African societies believe in supernatural attack. The men and women who hold these beliefs don't think they could be in danger only during special times of the year or on special occasions, but at any time and in any place. A rumor had begun to spread in Enugu, about 300 miles (480km) east of Lagos, Nigeria, that an evil female spirit was going to come to the city's schools to avenge the killing of her daughter. The spirit, which was said to dwell in the rivers was described as a mermaid in English language reports. However, it is believed this was a translation mix-up and that the spirit was not at all like the traditional Western ideas of a mermaid. A girl from the Idaw River primary school screamed that she could see the spirit/mermaid. Chaos ensued. Sadly, the spirit may have got exactly what it wanted. According to one student, a teacher tried to challenge the spirit, who insisted that she had come for the children. When a stampede erupted after this nine of the children were trampled to death.FT46:4

May 1993: A hoaxer that fooled many people made news this month. Police in Bennington, Vermont, found a lost "boy" who claimed to be 12 years-old. The "boy" said he had come from Alabama and been abandoned in Maine. Many kind-hearted people wanted to adopt him-or send money to help with his case. However, a visit to the hospital showed the "young boy" to be a woman of 23 years of age named Birdie Joe Hoaks (fascinating last name for a hoaxer I say:-) She had already profited from this scheme in 6 other states and was sent to jail-the article doesn't mention how long the sentence was.FT70:18

November 1996: Erhard Vonner, a German taxidermist learned that it isn't always wise to take your work home with you. Vonner's wife and 2 children were missing. Police investigating the matter found the perfectly stuffed, preserved (and of course quite dead)bodies of his wife and children in Vonner's basement.FT96:9

October 2003: Seven-year-old Jean Luc Archer was run over by a BMW in Manchester, England. He was trapped by his pelvis, after he ran into the road on Halloween. 30 year-old Lisa Hodgkinson witnessed the accident and tried to lift the car's back wheel off him but failed. Then she tried pushing the car forward and extra adrenaline flooded her system that gave her almost super-human strength. Lisa only weighs about 133lb (60kg) at 5 ft 7 ins (1.7m) tall, but somehow managed to get the 1.5 ton vehicle shifted off the boy. All this while the driver was still in his seat and so traumatized, he still had his foot on the brake! Lisa then gave the boy mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the ambulance arrived. Jean Luc had a damaged pelvis, lungs, two broken arms, a torn ear and was initially only given a 30 percent chance of survival. The young boy was unconscious for 4 days. However, in one of those wonderful "miracle" stories, Jean Luc was able to go home after 3 weeks. Apparently Lisa Hodgkinson is great to have around during emergencies. She received an award for reviving a truck driver on the M62 in July 2002. The boy's mother Maggie said: "He wouldn't be here if it weren't for Lisa. He calls her Wonder Woman and that's what she is."FT181:13

The second image is of the Flixborough facility after the 1974 explosion and the third image is of Lisa Hodgkinson and Jean Luc Archer in 2003.

In The News...

April 1976: Sam Leach, described as a "mysterious California inventor" convinced two companies based in California that he had the answer to the energy crisis. He claimed to have invented a suitcase-sized contraption that could produce combustible hydrogen from tap water "without any continuous outside energy source." Once it became known that these companies had bought application rights for vehicles and homes for a million dollars (maybe more), stock prices soared, according to Newsweek, which also added that the invention could solve society's need for a clean energy supply for homes, transportation and industry. Sam Leach said that when a current is passed through the water to split it into oxygen and hydrogen; the oxygen is absorbed by an undisclosed metal, leaving hydrogen. Every high school chemistry student knows about electrolysis, but Leach's claim that once started, the process continued to run on its own was greeted with much skepticism. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) got involved and stopped stock trading for the two companies pending an investigation of stock manipulation and what it called "other violations." Nothing more was ever said about Mr. Leach's mysterious invention. Did he really have something there, and Big Oil along with other vested interests shut it down? Or was Mr. Leach just another fraud? Fortean Times 16:15

April 1986: This month was already an extremely busy one at news desks around the world including the Fortean Times magazine when a real "meltdown" happened. The magazine, which ran an intermittent series called "Diary of a Mad Planet" was running out of superlatives to describe disasters (especially weather related) for the years 1985-1986. The staff were trying to think of ever new synonyms for hottest, wettest, longest, driest etcetera as disaster was piled onto catastrophe making thousands homeless almost every day. Some of the largest scale tragedies were caused by "reversals"-regions that had been parched by drought would suddenly be devastated by flooding. This period in time brought a prolonged winter with record cold from China to Bangladesh and many terrible hailstorms. The record for the largest hailstone had been broken several times when finally one fell on China that "took the cake." This hailstone weighed in at a massive 60kg (132lb) and fell in Guangdong. The day before reactor number 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant melted down (26 April 1986), the Augustine volcano in Alaska began erupting. Two weeks prior to that the Pavlov volcano in the same region and Mt. St. Helens in Washington state woke up also. All of this was happening as Halley's Comet passed its closest point to Earth (perehelion) and then left for another 76 years. Fortean Times collected many omens and stories about Europe's high anxiety; including radioactive clouds and of governments putting iodine in milk distribution. The most interesting of these were the association of Chernobyl-the Russian name for the bitter herb "wormwood" that had once grown in the region and "the star called Wormwood" mentioned in Revelations: 8:10-11 as a poisoning of the waters unleashed by the Apocalyptic "Third Angel." Chernobog, in Ukrainian tradition, was a chthonian Lord of Death, described as "a black sun beneath the earth." FT 47:26-33

December 1986: Two men-Mario Furlan and Dr. Wolfgang Abel-who were accused of the horrific series of 'Ludwig' murders between 1977 and 1984-began their trial in Verona, Italy this month. They had chosen their signature after a 19th century German playright, Otto Ludwig, who preached that sinners should be killed with clubs. Their 15 victims included prostitutes, clients of a porn cinema, drug addicts and several priests-who were all selected for "degeneracy," and their deaths were like something out of one of those awful early 1980s slasher films. A gypsy was burned alive in his caravan and one priest had a spike with a crucifix for a handle driven into his skull. Most of the other victims were burned alive or bludgeoned to death with hammers or axes. The men were finally arrested in March 1984 trying to set fire to a crowded disco in Mantua, Italy. The men were wearing clown outfits when they were caught. FT 39:28, 48:31

April 1996: 39 year old Pat Dolan wasn't kidding when he said he was the luckiest man alive. The Yorkshireman was speaking from Wakefield's Pindersfield Hospital and was recovering from a paragliding accident over Italy's Dolomite mountains where he fell over a mile (1.6km) and had hit the ground at an estimated 100mph (160km/h). Three of his vertebra were crushed and his right leg and heel fractured. He had managed to land and fall over into a 'recovery' position before he blacked out and was rescued.FT 89:16

'Ludwig' murders link

In The News...

Here are some more entries of strange, paranormal, silly and sometimes just plain frightening news from the past in the superb Fortean Times magazine's "Tales From The Vault", "Sidelines" and "Strange Deaths" sections.

January 1976: Peter Watts, a 15 year-old boy from Colwyn Bay, Wales left his home on the morning of the 18th. Little did his friends and family know that he would not be seen alive again. He had left a note saying he was going to a friends house to study for an exam. Soon after 1:30 that afternoon, he was found dying in the underpass near Euston Square tube station in London. A taxi-driver found him lying on the road with a severely fractured skull and rushed him to a nearby University College Hospital, where he died. Peter's father said he knew no one in London. His skull injury, cracked ribs and fractured shoulder were all consistent, in the coroner's view, with a fall from a great height rather than from an assault or self-injury. The police could find no positive witness who might have seen the boy travel by train to Chester and then London, arriving at Euston station, at that time a notorious cruising area for 'rent boys.' More curious was the fact that forensic examination revealed that the boy and his clothes were "impeccably clean" as though he had just been bathed. Even his wound had no sign of the grit expected if he had fallen on his head from the overpass above. The mystery death of 'the Super-Clean boy' was one of the first strange deaths I (Bob Rickard) investigated and I'm not sure it was ever resolved. In 1978, FT reader, Paul Pinn tried and failed to find out anything further. FT21:13, FT40:40

November 1984: 'Operation Congo' left the United Kingdom around the middle of the month for Africa to search for the 'living dinosaur' called Mokele Mbembe. Comprising Bill Gibbon (team leader), Mark Rothermel, Jonathan Peacock and Jonathan Walls, the expedition failed to get any significant sponsorship (apart from the moral support of FT); survived the nightmare of gaining visas, equipment being held hostage to bribes, and a recalcitrant guide; and barely got back in one piece. Alas, no pix of Mokele Mbembe either. Bill went on to make several more attempts to film the mystery beast at Lake Tele, had a religious conversion and became a Christian broadcaster in Canada. Mark Rothermel, a bodybuilder and 'survival expert', was later jailed for six years for helping a gang dispose of the body of a crook who had been strangled and decapitated. The last we heard of him was when he and 40 other mercenaries escaped from a Brazzaville police station during a gun battle. FT45:4 Also this month two bird-hunters at Iceland's Lake Kleifarvvatn saw a pair of unidentified animals "bigger than horses" emerge from the lake to play on its shore. "They moved like dogs and swam like seals," they said, and the creatures left hoof prints with two large lobes. As far as we know, this mystery was never resolved, despite the prospect of large unidentified animals living just 20 miles (32km) south of Reykjavik. FT43:25

May 1996: "Porn star crucified" is one of those strange headlines that delight us when we stumble upon them. This event happened in the Phillipine village of San Fernando where, each year, local Catholics volunteer to be nailed to a cross, usually fulfilling a promise in return for divine favors. They are closely watched by support teams and usually brought down after a few hours. This year, a Japanese man, Shinichiro Kaneko, asked to take part, in the hope his suffering would persuade God to cure his critically ill brother. Mr. Kaneko turned out not to be a Christian and had no sick brother. He was a porn actor whose specialty was sadomasochistic porn films. When this was found out there was widespread anger among devout Filipinos. His video production company said they could not see what the fuss was about as, in Japan, foreigners often join in public Shinto ceremonies. FT90:20

Finally, Gerald Naud, 35, was ordered by a judge in Edmonton, Canada, to stop asking women to kick him in the testicles. He was jailed for 13 months, ironically for "sexual assault." Metro, 17 August 2004. FT193:10

In The News...

I got the inspiration to do little posts here and there from a section in the Fortean Times magazine called "Tales From The Vault"-it is a section at the end of the magazine that goes 10 years back, then 20 and finally 30 from the month of the new issue. This is just a small section in the magazine-less than a page really-with Fortean/paranormal newsclips. These won't be done here in any particular order (of course {:-)>}. They are just odds and ends for people to enjoy-hopefully!

March 1975: An actor named Neville Davies had been very enthused about playing King Richard III in an amateur production. Later he was happy to be photographed next to "King Richard's Well" at Bosworth Field, the location of Richard's fatal battle in 1485. On viewing the picture later, Neville was surprised to see a faint figure in medieval dress standing behind his right shoulder. Historians of the Richard III society identified the figure as a known portrait of the king, but Neville swears the film was new and certainly not double-exposed. A professional photographer attempt to print off the negative -on which the figure was visible-then produced a photograph in which the figure was missing. No easy answers to this one! FT10:9

December 1984: Devon, England was visited by two mysterious incidents this month. In the first, Bill Taylor, who was cycling to work saw "two huge beams of light, like searchlights, which formed a perfect cross, centered on the Moon." The arms faded over ten minutes time leaving a normal Moon. Later Mr. Taylor found a colleague who had also seen it. The crew at Fortean Times thought that perhaps it was a variation of a "moonshow" or "moondog," but couldn't find a similar case in any of their massive files of strange aerial phenomena. FT45:21 Then on Christmas Eve, Mrs. Christine Middlehurst, 36, ran screaming from her home in Newton Abbot. Neighbors noticed she was smoking-and not with a cigarette! They took her indoors and placed her in a bath of lukewarm water. To their shock and horror, Christine's skin "floated off." "It was the most terrible thing I'd ever seen," said another neighbor who had come to their aid. At first Christine's partner had come downstairs to find her aflame. He threw water over her and yelled for help. The gentleman was burned on his hands and body as he tried to put out his lover's rather unfortunate self-ignition. Mrs. Middlehurst recovered from about 50 percent of her burns. She could give no information or clues as to what had caused her body to combust. A detective who looked into the case said the house was "virtually untouched." FT44:21

January 1997: The 20th of this month saw a magnificent apparition descend upon the inhabitants of a small village in Uttar Pradesh in northern India. Some of the villagers thought it might be a bomb (perhaps launched from somewhere in Pakistan maybe given the history between the two nations). However, most who were salt-of-the-earth type people whose families had lived in the village for generations upon generations thought that it was a "flying fire temple" (agni mandir), like the ones their mythologies told of in ancient times. These used to ferry their gods around the heavens in those days. A pale creature emerged from the object. "He was dressed in red, priest-like clothes." We offered him milk, which he accepted," a shopkeeper told reporters later. The villagers couldn't understand anything the being said, but, taking the visit as an auspicious sign and blessing upon their village, some 200 of them took up sticks and made a defensive ring around the deflated balloon, to keep away the thousands of villagers who had come to take in the spectacle. The "fire temple" was in fact Solo Spirit, piloted by millionaire stockbroker Steve Fossett, who had taken off from the United States six days earlier in an attempt to circumnavigate the globe! FT98:12