I got an early Christmas present last year: a package from Los Angeles cartoonist Mike Jasorka. Inside was the fruit of his efforts and my $20 Kickstarter pledge: December 3rd 1967: An Alien Encounter, a graphic novelisation of the strange case of Herbert Schirmer, a Nebraska state patrolman who claims to have been taken aboard an alien spacecraft.

I commend it to all wrong-thinking disinfonauts everywhere, for several reasons, but mostly aesthetic. The black and white panels occasionally splashed with dramatic colour ensures that the 50+ page book is a visually compelling artefact:

It also arrives with a CD, a word for word adaptation from the found audio of Schirmer at a 1970’s UFO conference in Florida, making it simultaneously an aural event (surely a first for a graphic novel, but fanboys will no doubt correct me). Finally, there’s the story: of Schirmer’s childhood upbringing that leads him to become a police officer, what happened that very night on duty and why even after countless ridicule, he stuck next to the unbelievable truth.

You can get a foretaste of the audio-visual effect at Jasorka’s website, www.bombshell-comics.com – where you can now buy the Kickstarter-funded comic for $13US.

There are two other reasons for the commendation: for acknowledging the ‘forgotten humanoids’ of UFO lore, and for revealing the future of funding for all things Fortean.

Today, popular culture is permeated and UFOlogy dominated by the archetypal ‘Greys’ from Zeta Reticulli. But before this, between the ‘Greys’ first brush with humanity in the Betty and Barney Hill abduction of 1961 and 1973, the infamous ‘Year of the Humanoids’, lies the high strangeness of the forgotten humanoid encounters. The global preponderance of non-Grey encounters prior to the 1980s could almost call it the dirty secret of ‘nuts and bolts’ UFOlogy. The beings in the Schirmer case serves as a reminder that groupthink can skew even the most Fortean of researchers.

A project like this is one of the reasons I signed up eBay, Amazon-powered Kickstarter and donate to PayPal-enabled sites like The Daily Grail: like all disinfonauts I am passionate about giving repressed knowledge a voice amidst the cacophony that is the Internet (among other things). And lo! the internet did come to our aid to fix the problem it helped to create by providing a voice box in the first place. In the successful crowdfunded wake of the projects like this and others like Daniel Johnston’s Infinite Comic Book of Musical Greatness and the films Supernature: Esalen and the Human Potential and The Spirit Molecule, I see a rich future for Fortean and outsider works in the Long Tail of the 1000 True Fans.

Leonid Ksanfomaliti, an astronomer based at the Space Research Institute of Russia’s Academy of Sciences, analyzed photographs taken by a Russian landing probe during a 1982 during a mission to explore the heavily acid-clouded planet.

Venus is roughly the same size as Earth, but it has a thick atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide. With an atmospheric pressure 92 times Earth’s, a waterless and volcano-riddled surface and a surface temperature of 894 degrees, the planet has never been considered a serious target of research into the possibility of extraterrestrial life.

But in his article, published in the magazine Solar System Research, Ksanfomaliti says the Russian photographs depict objects resembling a “disk,” a “black flap” and a “scorpion.”

“What if we forget about the current theories about the non-existence of life on Venus?” he wrote. “Let’s boldly suggest that the objects’ morphological features would allow us to say that they are living.”

Read More: Yahoo News

Speculation is rife as to their cause and nature and the story has been quickly spotted by the usual suspects:

• i09 asks what are these bizarre sounds coming from the sky in countries from Hungary to Canada?
• via h/t from paranormal newsfeed Truth Behind the Scenes
• Ghost Theory have been following this since last August, and was one of the first to notice that many occurred on the same day: 1 January 2012

A dedicated blog (strangesoundsinthesky.com) of some months standing has even sprung up to cater for the phenomenon.

More Fortean sceptical write-ups include:

• Doubtful News, takes the long historical view, referencing the great unsung Fortean researcher William R. Corliss’ Earthquakes, Tides, Unidentified Sounds and Other Related Phenomena, and mass copycat behaviour
• Reddit provides a technical analysis of the videos and gives us cause for suspicion

So what is it? The evolution of The Hum? The Last Trump? HAARP? Solar flares?

Or have we all been punked by J.J. Abram’s keen sense of mass hysteria and his latest world-wide PR campaign for Cloverfield 2?

Or is the truth some crazy combination of all the above and more? Post your opinions and rants below.

In early November, the White House officially responded to two UFO petitions on their “We The People” section of the White House website. The White House stated that “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race.” Authors of the petitions, as well as some supporters of these petitions, were hoping for a different response.

As a result, Stephen Bassett of the Paradigm Research Group (PRG), who authored one of the initial petitions, announced his follow-up petition that will be submitted to the “We the People” section of the White House website on December 1st. The new petition reads, “We petition the Obama Administration to demand a full congressional investigation of UFO/ET Disclosure efforts by the Clinton OSTP — the Rockefeller Initiative.” The information on the PRG website about this new petition explains, “In response to the Disclosure Petition, the OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) stated, ‘The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race.’ If true, what was the OSTP investigating from March 1993 to October 1996 in concert with billionaire and Clinton friend, Laurance Rockefeller?”

Bassett’s petition goes live on December 1, and will need to get 25,000 signatures by December 31 in order to receive a response from the White House. But Bassett’s petitions have received criticism for their combative wording and conspiracy-oriented nature. A new petition that went live today takes a different approach …

More at OpenMinds

Photo: Matthew McPherson (CC)

Via the Herald Sun:

A man suffered severe burns after he seemingly burst into flames outside a Swedish railway station, the Goteborgs-Posten newspaper reported.

A streetcar driver returning from his break yesterday evening saw the man suddenly covered in fire while he was standing outside a vinyl record store at the station. After a while the man, believed to be in his early 40s, started to yell, but shocked passersby just stood and stared, the report said.

The streetcar driver then ran up, ripped his coat off and managed to put the fire out with the help of another man. An ambulance arrived within minutes and took the man to the hospital.

“All we know is that it is a man. We have no knowledge of his identity, his age, any motive or even the circumstances of the incident,” police officer Asa Andersson said. “He is sedated and will probably remain under for another couple of weeks,” he added, saying there was no indication of any foul play.

Read More: Herald Sun

It all depends on the where the house is and the way the laws are worded there.

Some states require sellers to disclose “emotional defects” that could impact and stigmatize a property. This includes traumatic events like murders and suicides, reported paranormal activity and even proximity to homeless shelters.

In Virginia, emotional defects like murders and ghost sightings only have to be disclosed if they physically affect the property (Blood running from the walls? Gotta tell the buyer). In California, sellers do have to disclose emotional defects, but only in a very limited way. The state Civil Code requires that a death on the property only needs to be disclosed if it occurred less than three years prior to the sale and older incidents need to be addressed only if the buyer specifically asks.

There’s an infamous court case often cited when it comes to disclosure law, Stambovsky v. Ackley, that revolves around a haunted house.

Helen Ackley owned a big old Victorian home in Nyack, New York. The town sits about 30 miles north of New York City on the west bank of the Hudson River, in an area known for many haunted places, including the legendary Sleepy Hollow. Mrs. Ackley was well aware that her house was supposedly haunted. In fact, she claims to have seen several ghosts herself, including one that gave her approval for a new paint color in the living room and several dressed in colonial-era clothing. When she decided to put the house up for sale and retire to Florida, though, Mrs. Ackley suddenly got very shy about the ghosts.

Jeffrey and Patrice Stambovsky wanted to buy the house and agreed to Ackley’s asking price of $650,000. It wasn’t until after the couple gave Ackley a $32,500 down payment that they were talking to a local about their purchase and were asked, “Oh, you’re buying the haunted house?”

The Stambovskys were not exactly thrilled to learn about the alleged haunting of their new home and attempted to back out of the sale. Ackley would neither admit any wrongdoing nor cancel the sale and return the deposit, so the Stambovskys took her to court. The Appellate Division of State Supreme Court ruled in their favor in a 3-2 decision.

The court found that, regardless of whether or not ghosts are real and the house was truly haunted, the fact that the house had been widely reported as haunted affected its value. Ackley “had deliberately fostered the belief that her home was possessed by ghosts” in the past and was therefore at fault for not disclosing this attribute of the house to the buyers, who, not being locals, could not readily learn about the defect on their own.

The White House has responded to two petitions asking the US government to formally acknowledge that aliens have visited Earth and to disclose to any intentional withholding of government interactions with extraterrestrial beings. “The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” said Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, on the WhiteHouse.gov website. “In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

5,387 people had signed the petition for immediately disclosing the government’s knowledge of and communications with extraterrestrial beings, and 12,078 signed the request for a formal acknowledgement from the White House that extraterrestrials have been engaging the human race.

“Hundreds of military and government agency witnesses have come forward with testimony confirming this extraterrestrial presence,” the second petition states. “Opinion polls now indicate more than 50% of the American people believe there is an extraterrestrial presence and more than 80% believe the government is not telling the truth about this phenomenon. The people have a right to know. The people can handle the truth.”

More: Universe Today

These photographs of ‘spirits’ are taken from an album of photographs unearthed in a Lancashire antiquarian bookshop. They were taken by a controversial medium called William Hope (1863-1933). In about 1905 he became interested in spirit photography after capturing the supposed image of a ghost while photographing a friend. He went on to found the Crewe Circle – a group of six spirit photographers.

By 1922 Hope had moved to London where he became a professional medium. The work of the Crew Circle was investigated on various occasions, exposing Hope as a fraudster. However, many of Hope’s most ardent supporters spoke out on his behalf, the most famous being Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

A man in Galway, Ireland apparently died of spontaneous combustion last year in December. At least, according to a court ruling this week. Michael Faherty’s death had been a mystery because coroners and police couldn’t explain how the fire that killed him only seemed to have burned the man and his immediate surroundings.

Spontaneous combustion occurs when a person suddenly catches on fire without any external source of fire causing the blaze. There have been only a few hundred cases recorded throughout the world. The Irish Times reports: West Galway corner Dr Ciarán McLoughlin said he had never encountered such a case in the 25 years that he had been investigating deaths in the region …

More from Annalee Newitz of io9.com

Plants don’t get enough respect as sci-fi monsters. Sure, Triffids will always rule, but sci-fi baddies tend to be mutants, zombies, vampires and other altered mammals. This is in ignorance of plants’ amazingly creepy special abilities. To prove it, we’ve dug up six plant skills that freak us out more than Godzilla.

Eating Rats: Okay, here’s the horrifying plot: You’re a missionary near the Philippine Archipelago. While doing your daily missioning or whatever, you wander up to the top of a mountain. Thirsty, you stumble upon what looks like an ornate birdbath filled with nectar. Leaning over to take a sip, you see a dead rat inside … and it’s slowly being digested by the plant.

This is Nepenthes attenboroughii, one of the most badass scary plants on Earth. See, while most pitcher plants stick to eating bugs, Nepenthes attenboroughii prefers to lure in birds and rats by looking as tasty as possible. Once inside, the animal can’t get out and is digested for the entire nearby ecosystem to see and to know … don’t screw with this plant …

More on Blastr

Michael Shermer. Photo: David Patton (CC)

Matt Ridley for the Wall Street Journal:

Michael Shermer, the founder and editor of Skeptic magazine, has never received so many angry letters as when he wrote a column for Scientific American debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories. Mr. Shermer found himself vilified, often in CAPITAL LETTERS, as a patsy of the sinister Zionist cabal that deliberately destroyed the twin towers and blew a hole in the Pentagon while secretly killing off the passengers of the flights that disappeared, just to make the thing look more plausible.

He tells this story in his fascinating new book, The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. In Mr. Shermer’s view, the brain is a belief engine, predisposed to see patterns where none exist and to attribute them to knowing agents rather than to chance — the better to make sense of the world. Then, having formed a belief, each of us tends to seek out evidence that confirms it, thus reinforcing the belief.

This is why, on the foundation of some tiny flaw in the evidence — the supposed lack of roof holes to admit poison-gas cans in one of the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers for Holocaust deniers, the expectant faces on the grassy knoll for JFK plotters, the melting point of steel for 9/11 truthers — we go on to build a great edifice of mistaken conviction.

I say “we” because, after reading Mr. Shermer’s book and others like it, my uneasy conclusion is that we all do this, even when we think we do not. It’s not a peculiarity of the uneducated or the fanatical. We do it in our political allegiances, in our religious faith, even in our championing of scientific theories. And if we all do it, then how do we know that our own rational rejections of conspiracy theories are not themselves infected with beliefs so strong that they are, in effect, conspiracy theories, too?

There was a time, when I was younger, when I was confident that I knew how to tell a barmy belief from a rational deduction. I have lost some of that confidence…

[continues at the Wall Street Journal]

Scientists examining the remains of Napoleon Bonaparte admit they are “deeply puzzled” by the discovery of a half-inch long microchip embedded in his skull. They say the mysterious object could be an alien implant — suggesting that the French emperor was once abducted by a UFO!

“The possible ramifications of this discovery are almost too enormous to comprehend,” declared Dr. Andre Dubois, who made the astonishing revelation in a French medical journal. Until now, every indication has been that victims of alien abduction are ordinary people who play no role in world events. Now we have compelling evidence that extraterrestrials acted in the past to influence human history – and may continue to do so!”

Dr. Dubois made the amazing find while studying Napoleon’s exhumed skeleton on a $140,000 grant from the French government.

“I was hoping to learn whether he suffered from a pituitary disorder that contributed to his small stature,” he explained. But instead the researcher found something far more extraordinary: “As I examined the interior of the skull, my hand brushed across a tiny protrusion. “I then looked at the area under a magnifying glass – and was stunned to find that the object was some kind of super-advanced microchip.”

The activity of Konstantin Korotkov, deputy director of the St. Petersburg Research Institute of Physical Culture and world-renowned authority on Kirlian photography, was recently highlighted by Life.ru. Korotkov is the developer of the gas-discharge visualization (GDV) technique in Kirlian photography.

Kirlian photography takes its name from Soviet electrician Semyon Kirlian, who discovered the process in 1939. It was the subject of extensive research in the 1970s in the Soviet Union and the West. It is commonly described as photographing an object’s aura. According to a website associated with Korotkov, he “confirmed earlier observations … that the stimulated electro-photonic glow around human fingertips contained astonishingly coherent and comprehensive information about the human state — both physiological and psychological.”

In other words, the GDV technique, which was developed in the late 1990s, can be used for diagnostic and assessment purposes. It is already used to measure stress and monitor the progress of medical treatments. In its most sophisticated form, the GDV technique is incorporated with computer imaging.

[Continues at MosNews]

A 50-year-old South African man woke up inside a mortuary over the weekend and screamed to be let out — scaring away attendants who thought he was a ghost. His family presumed he was dead when they could not wake him on Saturday night and contacted a private morgue in a rural village in the Eastern Cape.

He spent almost 24 hours inside the morgue, the region’s health department spokesman told the Sapa news agency. The two attendants later returned and called for an ambulance.

The man — whose identity has been withheld — was treated in hospital for dehydration. “Doctors put him under observation and concluded he was stable,” Eastern Cape health spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said. “He did not need further treatment.”

Mr Kupelo said the man woke up at 1700 local time (1500 GMT) on Sunday, demanding to be let out of the chilly morgue in Libode village, frightening the attendants on duty. “At first the men ran for their lives,” said Mr Kupelo.

More on BBC News

Henry Baum: In your book, you frequently raise the specter of Alex Jones and his ideas on eugenics, the New World Order, and so on. Personally, I take some issue with Alex Jones for a few reasons, and I wonder if you could address them. The main thing that leaps out about Alex Jones is that he never raises the UFO issue — you actually interview someone at Infowars who seems pretty disinterested in the whole subject. This seems like a fairly impossible assertion to make — it’s pretty clear that there is something going on with the UFO issue, if only because the government explanation for many sightings is so suspiciously stupid. If that’s the case, and there is also a conspiracy to bring about a New World Order, then the two cannot be separated. When you look through at the NWO through the lens of the UFO issue then the NWO makes more sense – not just a way to aimlessly enslave us, but perhaps to make the population more controllable in the event of first contact. Do you think that’s a possibility?

Richard Thomas: I’ve been following Alex Jones off and on since about 2000 when I saw him in an episode of Jon Ronson’s “Secret Rulers of the World” series for Channel Four. He’s had a big impact on the way I see the world and interpret world events. However, I do agree that he is missing a huge piece of the puzzle by not looking at the UFO topic in more depth. That said, trying to get the average person to accept that the Bilderberg Group really does exist is hard enough … so I can understand why Alex Jones doesn’t cover the topic as much as UFO researchers would like him to.

More recently, however, I have noticed that Alex is talking about UFOs a lot more on his radio show. Here you can listen to him and David Icke talk about Project Blue Beam.

I myself believe that the globalists will use any crisis be it real or manufactured to further their goal of a one world government, be it global warming, terrorism, Colonel Gaddafi, or yes, UFOs.

A lot of UFO researchers tend to romanticize what they call “Disclosure”, the day when the world is finally told the truth (whatever that is) about what the US government and others really know about UFOs. I’m more cautious. I think if Disclosure ever really does occur (and that’s a big if) we have to be careful that the existence of extraterrestrials or whatever isn’t used as a justification to turn the world into a giant police state. Rahm Emanuel said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” and his words sum up the mentality of the globalists perfectly.

HB: I guess another way of saying this is that what he sees as nefarious might actually have a purpose. Granted, the way they’re going about globalization is a total nightmare. I just can’t shed the feeling that they have a grander plan than just profit or enslavement. I mean if you have a billion dollars, what’s 2 billion? Maybe they’re just addicts, I don’t know. But I also think all that profit might be going to black projects – sort of like the arks in the otherwise-terrible “2012″ movie. That’s not a way of excusing them, but just saying that there’s more purpose to this than enslavement for the hell of it. Of course, Hitler had a “purpose” too, so there’s a lot to be wary of. In sum: do you think it’s possible that a one world government could — in the very long term — potentially be positive?

RT: No, I don’t. Lets say just for the sake of argument that the globalists have a higher purpose of some kind for what they’re doing. Maybe they know about a fleet of marauding alien spaceships heading for Earth like in the film Independence Day or something like that, and the reason they want a world government and world army is so that the Earth will be able to defend itself against the alien invaders. That doesn’t change the fact that we’ll still be living inside a giant dictatorship created in stealth … maybe we would be better off under the aliens, lol.

But seriously even if the globalists were honest and open about what they were doing, and openly said they wanted to create a world government but it’s okay because it’s going to be a democratic one, I would still be very against the idea. I don’t believe something the size of a world government could function as a democracy and it wouldn’t be long before it became a dictatorship. Which is why I believe a world government and even the European Union are bad ideas to begin with.

HB: I’m playing devil’s advocate here a bit because the globalists have really tipped their hand about the kind of world they want and it’s a bad one. But for the sake of argument – say there was disclosure of an alien that was totally benign. Given the state of the world, releasing this info could be apocalyptic. If people get this upset about sharia law and illegal immigrants, what will the American public – let alone Middle Eastern terrorists – do with a literal alien? Seen through the lens of disclosure, the Patriot Act makes more sense. Not just to stop terrorism in 2011, but to keep an eye on the total global freakout that could be coming. I’m not longing for a police state or anything, but supposing 1% of what we know about the UFO is true — that amounts to a massive amount of world-changing information. Everything that’s happened — 9-11, the war in Iraq, and so on — takes on a new meaning. So I wonder if those romantics about disclosure would trade some of their liberty for the big reveal if it meant finally getting some answers to the UFO enigma.

What’s always troubled me is that people like Bush Sr. or Dick Cheney are the ones who are more likely to know the story behind UFO secrecy. There’s a strange alignment between UFO secrecy and right wing ideology. Do you think it’s possible to have disclosure without the world turning into a police state — given the impact it would have on religious ideology and technology?

RT: Well it depends what we’re told. Not everyone is convinced we’re dealing with aliens from outer space. But if we are I suppose if they were “totally benign” and no threat it is possible to have Disclosure without the world turning into a police state. But if they‘re not, no I don’t think it looks good. After 9/11 many people were willing to give up their civil liberties to fight a couple Islamic terrorists, imagine what they would be willing to do to combat a threat from outer space. But this is all just speculation.

HB: I also wonder about Jones’ ideas on Christianity. In his Bohemian Grove video, he points out that the men are sinister because they worship “the occult.” He’s even targeted Peter Joseph of “Zeitgeist” for being part of the New Age conspiracy, as if Christianity is the one true faith. If you watch “Zeitgeist” or “The God Who Wasn’t There” it’s pretty clear that the story of Christianity is fabricated. So Alex Jones believes in many conspiracies except one of the biggest: the fabrication of the Jesus story. Personally, I’d rather there be a universal religion than saying this one book (which advocates stoning heretics, among other things) is the be all end all of religious principles. What’s your view of spirituality as it pertains to the NWO, or even to UFOs?

RT: There’s no question that early Christianity was hijacked by the Roman Empire. Christmas is as about as Christian as Halloween, December 25 was an important day to pagans. But I still celebrate it and I believe everyone has the right to believe, think, say, or do as they please as long as they don’t knowingly lie or physically try to hurt anybody else.

HB: Finally, I wonder about things like population control. Studying population growth is not the same thing as advocating genocide, nor is advocating birth control. Planned Parenthood isn’t evil — as he says in “Endgame” (which you reference). The Bilderberg conference might be totally sinister, but on the surface a bunch of powerful people all getting together to discuss the state of the world makes sense — why wouldn’t they do that? I’m not even going to get into Global Warming science, as that’s so loaded. I guess I never see in him any possible solutions — just a lot of paranoia about people who are looking for solutions. Certainly, some of these people are evil, but not all. Plainly our world is disordered, so people looking for a (lowercase) new world order might not all be dangerous.

I’m beginning to sound like a fat-cat apologist. It absolutely pisses me off that Obama and Bush are so identical and the wealthy elite are profiting off the backs of everyone else and raping the planet. They really seem to be sowing the seeds of disorder, rather than sustainability. If you’re not paranoid, you’re not paying attention. Jones’ answer is to support Ron and Rand Paul — which I don’t see as feasible. Giving corporations even more power via deregulation isn’t the solution — i.e. Big Business isn’t any better than Big Government. So I’m wondering what your ideal system would be, politically or economically.

RT: Well my main problem with the Bilderberg Group is that most people have never even heard about them. I don’t think that many powerful people should be allowed to meet in secret once a year and nothing be said about it in the media. Thankfully because of the hard work of dedicated researchers and activists around the world that is starting to change.

I get what you’re saying about birth control etc, but there’s no question that population reduction seems to be a big part of the globalist agenda. You just have to look at the comments of people like Prince Philip or Ted Turner and others.

“In the event that I am reincarnated, I would like to return as a deadly virus, in order to contribute something to solve overpopulation.” — Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, in the foreword to If I Were an Animal

“A total population of 250 to 300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.” — Ted Turner, founder of CNN

“And I actually think the world will be much better when there’s only 10 or 20 percent of us left.” — Dr. Eric Pianka, University of Texas biologist

What kind of system would I like?

First I think its important to stress I don’t believe in Utopia. There’s no such thing, you’ll never have a perfect world and every attempt at creating one has always led to mass slaughter and tyranny. I think we need to recognize that first.

I think the founders of the United States had some good ideas. Things like a written constitution that protected the freedom of speech and other rights of the people, and an educated, informed public who could understand what that constitution said. Now, of course, even the early United States had its problems, slavery being a big one. But I think that’s a good place to start. But if readers want to disagree with me … great … it’s called freedom. Hopefully we can all agree on that.

See also: RichardThomas.Eu

The American Book of the Dead.com

Australia’s military has lost its X-Files, detailing sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects, or UFOs, across the country, a newspaper report said on Tuesday.

After a two-month search in response to a newspaper Freedom of Information (FOI) request, which forces government officials to release documents of public interest, Australia’s Department of Defence had been unable to locate the files, the Sydney Morning Herald said.

“The files could not be located and Headquarters Air Command formally advised that this file is deemed lost,” the department’s FOI assistant director, Natalie Carpenter, told the paper. Defence officials could not be contacted by Reuters.

The only file Defence had been able to locate was a folder called: “Report on UFOs/Strange Occurrences and Phenomena in Woomera,” a military weapons testing range in the center of Australia’s vast outback, Carpenter said.

Read More: Reuters

A psychic called police on Monday night, describing a horrific scene of mass murder: 25 to 30 dismembered bodies near an unassuming ranch house about an hour outside of Houston, Texas. There were rotting limbs, headless corpses, and, chillingly, many were children.

Deputies from the Liberty County Sheriff’s office went to investigate but didn’t see anything amiss.

The psychic called a second time the next day, insisting that her visions were true. She provided more detailed information about the home and urged the police to return to a different part of the property. This time detectives called for backup and soon dozens of officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety, the FBI, and the Texas Rangers were on the scene — not to mention cadaver dogs, news helicopters, and gawkers.

Police investigated, and it all turned out to be a false alarm. There were no dead bodies; the psychic was wrong (or lying).

How could one anonymous psychic have been taken so seriously by the police, FBI, and Texas Rangers? According to an Associated Press story…

For more information, see original article.

SPOKANE, Wash.— A Spokane woman out for a day hike along the Spokane river claims to have proof of the mysterious and elusive Bigfoot.

Samantha, who did not give her last name, and her friends were hiking at Downriver Park over the weekend when they captured Bigfoot by using their iPhone camera.

Samantha posted a YouTube video of the creature a few days later.

More on KXLY4 News

The preferred tools of terror of the MIB are outright menace, far less than thinly-veiled threats, and overwhelming, emotionless intimidation. And they are relentless when it comes to following their one and only agenda – that is, to forever silence witnesses to, and investigators of, UFO encounters. Unfortunately, it has to be admitted, they have been highly successful in achieving their unsettling goal, too. Indeed, and without any shadow of doubt whatsoever, the long and winding history of UFO studies is absolutely littered with fraught, frightened and emotionally-shattered figures that have been forever menaced into silence by the Men in Black, and who, as a result, have firmly distanced themselves from the UFO controversy, vowing never, ever to return to the fold.

Like true vampires from some strange, outer edge, the painfully-thin, white-faced and sunken-cheeked Men in Black appear from the murky darkness; they then roam the countryside provoking carnage, chaos, paranoia and fear in their notorious wake, before duly returning to that same shrouded realm of unsettling weirdness from which they originally oozed forth.

Very often reported traveling in groups of three, this definitive trinity of evil seemingly has the incredible ability to appear and vanish at will, and is often seen – in the United States – driving 1950s-style black Cadillac’s, and – in the British Isles – 1960s-era black Jaguar’s, both of which are almost always described as looking curiously brand new.

Despite the passing of the decades, and of the many and varied changes in fashions, the preferred mode of dress of these bone-chilling characters never, ever alters in the slightest, at all: it always consists of a well-preserved black suit, a black Fedora- or Homburg-style hat, black sunglasses, a black necktie, black socks and shoes, and a crisp, shining white shirt. Very little wonder, therefore, that they have been given the wholly notorious name with which they are, today, most famously – or perhaps infamously – associated.

But who, or far more likely, what, exactly, are the Men in Black? In the 1997 blockbuster movie, Men in Black and in its 2002 sequel, that starred Hollywood crowd-pullers Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the MIB were firmly, and highly entertainingly, portrayed as being the secret-agents of a Top Secret, covert arm of the U.S. Government, whose sole role it is to hide from the general public the dark truth about a huge and intricate alien presence on the Earth. But, how much truth is there to the mega-bucks movie that spawned so much interest in these bizarre figures?

While some MIB are, without doubt, the all-seeing eyes of clandestine departments of at least several governments – including both the United States and the United Kingdom – the vast majority of these curious characters appear to be of a very different breed altogether. According to numerous, fantastic witness testimony and countless case-studies secured since the early years of the 1950s, the real MIB may very possibly be alien entities themselves, carefully and secretly working to ensure that we never successfully uncover the sensational truth about their presence, or the long-term goal of their strange and unearthly agenda, upon our very own planet.

On the other hand, however, some students of MIB history, lore and legend suggest that these non-human creatures are utterly occult-based, supernatural beings that originate in, inhabit, and with disturbing regularity surface from, strange and enigmatic netherworlds very different to that of our own, personal 3-D reality. On a very similar path, a variety of individuals suspect strongly that the real Men in Black are nothing less than definitive demons – the literal, deceptive minions of none other than the lord of the underworld: Satan himself. The intriguing fact that many of those that have been cursed by visits from the Men in Black have dabbled in occultism, with Ouija-Boards, and in devil-worship, is perceived as further evidence by some that the MIB may have origins that are far, far removed from the enigma-filled world of outer-space and highly-advanced extraterrestrials from the stars.

Meanwhile, there are those investigators of the UFO phenomenon who have put forth a truly fascinating, unique and near-revolutionary theory that has nothing whatsoever to do with aliens, flying saucers, or even the realm of the occult. It is a definitively jaw-dropping theory that posits the Men in Black may, incredibly, be time-travelers from humankind’s far-flung future. Their role, it has been suggested, may be to ensure that we remain forever in the dark about the shocking facts of what is really afoot: namely, that our “aliens” are actually us, albeit from a time centuries, or even thousands of years, from now.

Whatever their point – or points – of origin, however, there is one thing that we can say with complete confidence and certainty about the Men in Black: they are, most assuredly, amongst us, and there is absolutely nothing positive, warm or welcoming about their presence at all.

And, if your personal, particular areas of fascination are those relative to such conundrums as Flying Saucers, alien abductions, close encounters, the Roswell UFO crash of 1947, Area 51, UFOs, and a myriad of other, attendant puzzles, then that trio of mysterious, black-garbed men may very well one day be paying you a visit, too.

If, late on some dark, thunderous and chilled night, you are awoken from an uneasy slumber by a slow, deliberate and pounding knocking on your front-door, no matter how tempted you may be, do not open it – that is, unless you wish to disastrously allow into your life one of the most terrifying, soulless and definitively macabre creatures that has ever been unleashed upon us, the Human Race. Remember you have been duly warned. Beware, always, of the real Men in Black…

Nick Redfern is the author of The Real Men In Black: Evidence, Famous Cases, and True Stories of These Mysterious Men and their Connection to UFO Phenomena, published by New Page and due out June 15, 2011.  ISBN: 978-1-60163-157-2  List Price: US $15.99, Canada $18.95

Nick Redfern works full-time as an author, lecturer and journalist. He writes about a wide range of unsolved mysteries, including Bigfoot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, alien encounters, the worlds of the supernatural and the paranormal, and government conspiracies and cover-ups.

He is a regular contributor to UFO Magazine, Fate, Fortean Times, and Paranormal Magazine. He has also written for Military Illustrated, Eye-Spy, the British Daily Express, Western Daily Press and People newspapers, and Penthouse.

His previous books include The NASA Conspiracies; Contactees; Memoirs of a Monster Hunter; Final Events; On the Trail of the Saucer Spies; Three Men Seeking Monsters; A Covert Agenda; The FBI Files; Cosmic Crashes; Celebrity Secrets; Body Snatchers in the Desert; Monsters of Texas; Science Fiction Secrets; There’s something in the Woods; and Strange Secrets.

Nick has appeared on numerous television shows, including the BBC’s Out of this World; Britain’s Big Breakfast; History Channel’s Mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle; Monster Quest and UFO Hunters; the National Geographic Channel’s Paranatural; MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann; and the SyFy Channel’s Proof Positive. He has also appeared on many occasions on Coast to Coast AM radio with George Noory.

His investigations have taken him to Puerto Rico in search of the blood-sucking Chupacabras; to Roswell, New Mexico on a quest for the truth behind the famous UFO crash of 1947; and to Wisconsin in pursuit of the infamous Mothman.

Nick is the co-host, with Raven Meindel, of the weekly, paranormal-themed radio-show, Exploring All Realms. He writes a regular, weekly column for Mania.com on his investigations into mysterious creatures titled Lair of the Beasts. Nick runs the American office of the British-based Center for Fortean Zoology, one of the very few full-time groups in the world dedicated to the investigation of such unknown animals as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Chupacabras, sea-serpents, and the Abominable Snowman.

Originally from England, Nick Redfern lives in Arlington, Texas with his wife, Dana. He can be contacted at nickredfern.com.

As geeks, we are encouraged to suspend our disbelief while simultaneously challenging everything we see and hear. In the words of Agent Mulder, we want to believe, but our geek roots are firmly planted in the scientific method.

That tension is possibly being resolved on one front. The Russians are establishing a scientific institute on the study of yetis, hairy ape-like creatures rumored to inhabit the Himalayas.

Officials in coal-mining region of Kemerovo Oblast announced plans today to open a Yeti Institute at the Kemerovo State University, a 38-year-old higher education entity in western Siberia. KSU boasts 31,000 students and is best known for reviving regional languages, like Shor. Yeti researcher Igor Burtsev reportedly claimed that 30 Russian scientists are currently studying yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, and the Institute could allow them to better collaborate.

For more information, see original article.

Professor Daryl J. Bem

A serious story about Extra Sensory Perception on page A1 of the New York Times — unusual to say the least — but is the Times just setting up the lead researcher, Professor Daryl J. Bem?

One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events.

The decision may delight believers in so-called paranormal events, but it is already mortifying scientists. Advance copies of the paper, to be published this year in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, have circulated widely among psychological researchers in recent weeks and have generated a mixture of amusement and scorn.

The paper describes nine unusual lab experiments performed over the past decade by its author, Daryl J. Bem, an emeritus professor at Cornell, testing the ability of college students to accurately sense random events, like whether a computer program will flash a photograph on the left or right side of its screen. The studies include more than 1,000 subjects.

Some scientists say the report deserves to be published, in the name of open inquiry; others insist that its acceptance only accentuates fundamental flaws in the evaluation and peer review of research in the social sciences.

“It’s craziness, pure craziness. I can’t believe a major journal is allowing this work in,” Ray Hyman, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University Oregon and longtime critic of ESP research, said. “I think it’s just an embarrassment for the entire field.”

The editor of the journal, Charles Judd, a psychologist at the University of Colorado, said the paper went through the journal’s regular review process. “Four reviewers made comments on the manuscript,” he said, “and these are very trusted people.”

All four decided that the paper met the journal’s editorial standards, Dr. Judd added, even though “there was no mechanism by which we could understand the results.”

But many experts say that is precisely the problem. Claims that defy almost every law of science are by definition extraordinary and thus require extraordinary evidence. Neglecting to take this into account — as conventional social science analyses do — makes many findings look far more significant than they really are, these experts say.

“Several top journals publish results only when these appear to support a hypothesis that is counterintuitive or attention-grabbing,” Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, wrote by e-mail. “But such a hypothesis probably constitutes an extraordinary claim, and it should undergo more scrutiny before it is allowed to enter the field.”…

[continues in the New York Times]

Mysterious UFOs are believed to have become frequent guests in Russia’s southern Republic of Kalmykia. Every ten days this month, hundreds in the city of Elista, the capital of Russia’s southern Republic of Kalmykia, witnessed several UFOs at the same time, Nezavisimaya newspaper has reported.

The last one was noticed on December 22 between 3 and 7 p.m. Some say it looked like two circles rotating clockwise and counter-clockwise, while others describe it as a lit triangle. People managed to record the video of UFOs. However, local journalists believe it could be simple man-made objects, but promised to investigate.

Meanwhile, the republic’s former governor, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, claims that he has made friends with aliens after they first allegedly abducted him from his Moscow apartment…

This has got to be the weirdest potential WikiLeak yet. Thanks to Annalee Newitz on io9.com for discovering this EU Times story:

A new report circulating in the Kremlin today prepared for President Medvedev by Russian Space Forces (VKS) 45th Division of Space Control says that an upcoming WikiLeaks release of secret US cables details that the Americans have been “engaged” since 2004 in a “war” against UFO’s based on or near the Continent of Antarctica, particularly the Southern Ocean.

According to this report, the United States went to its highest alert level on June 10, 2004 after a massive fleet of UFO’s “suddenly emerged” from the Southern Ocean and approached Guadalajara, Mexico barely 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) from the American border. Prior to reaching the US border, however, this massive UFO fleet is said in this report to have “dimensionally returned” to their Southern Ocean “home base”.

The fears of the Americans regarding these Southern Ocean UFO’s began, this report says, during the unprecedented events of July 11, 1991 (referred to as 7/11) when during the Solar Eclipse these mysterious aircraft appeared by the hundreds over nearly all of Mexico, even their Capital city. Most notable about the events of 7/11 were that as millions of Mexicans were watching on their televisions the National broadcasts of these UFO’s over Mexico City, the American media refused to allow their people to view it.

Read More on the EU Times

A man who in 1995 met the giant alien with size 440 shoes says the being told him that on dying humans ascend as hydrogen atoms. “You will remain in hydrogen form for 150 years. Then it will change to sodium.”

Looking forward to my post-death atomic experience. Turning into hydrogen sounds pretty cool but I don’t know how I feel about sodium.