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!