Thursday, April 22, 2010

Strange places in the U.S., Part I

The mysterious hand-print of the Carbon County Jail


There is a permanent marker on the wall of cell 17, of the Carbon County Jail, in the town of Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. Each day, a hanged man proclaims his innocence, by the imprint of his hand. The permanent marker on the cell wall has resisted all efforts to clean, repaint, and even re-plastering. Not long after each attempt to cover it up, the hand-print becomes visible again.

Alexander Campbell, a recruiter for the Molly Maguires, said, "I am innocent, I was nowhere near the scene of the crime." Then he slapped his hand against the wall of his cell, and continued, "There is proof of my words. That mark of mine will never be wiped out. It will remain forever to shame the county for hanging an innocent man."

And indeed, that mark remains.

Read more here and here.





The Ghosts of Robbers Cave

Unexplained voices, cries, screams, and unintelligible laughing and talking can be heard in "Robber's Cave". Below the summit of Pahuk Bluff, near Lincoln, Nebraska, this network of caves is said to be haunted by the spirits of Pawnee tribes-people, runaway slaves and escaped prisoners, all long dead.

The cave passages are said to have connected the local penitentiary and the State Hospital for the Insane. One story claims that this tunnel was used as an escape route for prisoners, until it was finally sealed off.

The cave is no longer in existence, as the site was filled in and a business constructed on top of what was once the cave entrance. If you can find the location, you might still hear the sounds of the past.

Read more here.

More Photos



The Devil's Tramping Ground


According to those that seem to know, no one has ever been able to spend the night in the circle, tramped out by the Devil himself, as he eternal paces, pondering new evils for mankind.

Known as the Devi's Tramping Ground, the 40 foot x 40 foot barren circle in the midst of the forest near Siler, North Carolina lies cold and infertile, yet beckons the fool-hearty soul to camp in it's dark center.

Compass readings change in and out of the circle, showing there is some type of disturbance in and around the Devi's Tramping Ground, causing even the birds and bugs to be silent. Soil testing gives no particular reason as to it's apparent 'dead state'.

Animals refuse to tread across it, birds won't land on it's ashen surface. What is it, what created it so long ago? Settlers of the 1700s knew of it and the local Native Americans claim it is a sacred place.

Is it a landing spot for UFOs, or a vortex, a paranormal doorway to alternate realities? Objects placed in the circle will be moved or gone by morning and no one will spend the entire night in the circle. Would you?



Read more here and here.

Click on any image for larger view.
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Saturday, April 17, 2010

Spooked by a Peeping Tom

Click on any image for larger view.





Recently I took a photo of a summer weight bread spread my daughter had given me this past Christmas and I wanted her to see how it looked. I snapped off a couple of photos and quickly left the room, suddenly feeling 'spooked'.

For some unknown reason, I deleted one of the photos, which I rarely do. I always save my original photos and then copy to other folders for use. The one I deleted was at an angle more towards the window, the first photo I had taken. It might have shown more of what I found.

I was going through my photos several days later and my eyes were immediately drawn to the window in the photo. I did some highlighting of the whole window area and that is when what I was seeing really showed up.

The rectangular screen pull tab can be clearly seen but it is the "object" above the tab that has my attention. There were no lights outside, no moon and completely dark, except for a few lights in the distance. I live on a farm.

Now if that doesn't creep someone out, I don't know what will!

Note: I live in a rural area on a farm. There have been numerous sightings of unidentified flying objects in our area. I am also an 'experiencer' and an 'intuitive'.
All my life I have been able to see, hear and/or sense things that others don't want to. We all have the ability but some of us are more willing to accept our gifts and not bury them in fear and skepticism.

I've always accepted my gifts but being chosen as a lab rat for aliens is not something I'd wish on anyone! And I certainly don't appreciate being spied upon.
-SW
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Thursday, April 15, 2010

UFO Hotspots

Best places to spot UFOs
Go beyond Area 51: UFO-spotting hotbeds around the globe

By Adrien Glover

msnbc.com- It was just another winter night in Stephenville, Texas, when Steve Allen, a 30-year aviation veteran, saw something that defied all logic—an eerily silent, mile-wide craft ringed in lights that would “rearrange themselves” racing across the sky at what he estimated to be 3,000 miles per hour.

“I don’t know if it was a biblical experience or somebody from a different universe, but it was definitely not from around these parts,” Allen told a reporter from the Empire-Tribune after the sighting on Jan. 8, 2008. Similar reports poured in from across Erath County.

The Stephenville Lights incident wasn’t a onetime event—another mass sighting followed in October 2008, and individual reports from the area still trickle in. This corner of Texas along with the eastern Nevada desert are fast emerging as the U.S.’s newest UFO “hot spots”—places with the best odds of a spotting. Similarly active places exist around the globe, with some even attracting a new kind of tourist.

These days, it seems people can’t get enough of the UFO phenomena. Television shows such as the History Channel’s UFO Hunters and alternative radio programs like Coast to Coast AM—where an estimated three million listeners tune in each night to hear from hardworking UFO investigators, among other thought-provoking interviewees—are more popular than ever.

Believing the time is right, even the famed SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Institute is conducting its first-ever public conference this year devoted to the age-old question: are we alone? SETIcon, slated for Aug. 13–15, in Santa Clara, Calif., will also unveil the institute’s newest scientific advances in its ongoing search for intelligent life from other planets.

“Using radio telescopes, we hope to trip across a planet with inhabitants clever enough to build radio transmitters,” says senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak. “If we do so, then the proof won’t be limited to fuzzy photos, secret government documents, or personal anecdotes. It will be up in the sky—where anyone can check it out.”

But what if you can’t wait for SETI’s antenna array to detect a signal from another planet and want to seek out your own proof? We’ve identified active places across the globe where UFOs like to show themselves.

Mexico City, for example, has been a near-constant sky-watch since the solar eclipse of 1991, when a UFO was captured on video among the cloud shadows. Since then, whole fleets—literally hundreds of unexplained lights—have appeared over the world’s largest city. Or take Warminster, England, near Stonehenge, where for the past 50 years nighttime overhead visitations and mysterious booming noises have been considered ho-hum normal.

And with earthling tourists on the verge of travel into the Milky Way, thanks to Sir Richard Branson’s soon-to-be-introduced Virgin Galactic vehicle, perhaps UFO hunters will soon be able to explore the ultimate hot spot of all—space.

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Africa's Living Dinosaur


Living Dinosaurs; the Mokele Mbembe

Jurassic Albatross- The Mokele Mbembe, known by different names around Africa is a large dinosaur like monster said to be aggressive, but not carnivorous. It has a long neck and mainly lives in rivers, hibernating in caves during the dry season. With the small head and big body it seems to resemble a sea serpent, but no sea serpent has for columnar legs capable of supporting its weight on dry land. Is the Mokele Mbembe a living Sauropod dinosaur?

The first references to the Mokele Mbembe; the one who stops the flow of rivers, can be found in French missionary Abbé Lievain Bonaventure's 1776 book where he describes animals of the Congo. One passage describes a set of footprints possible referable to this cryptid; "must have been monstrous: the marks of the claws were noted on the ground, and these formed a print about three feet in circumference."

Other documents of footprints show consistency in having been large, at around 3 feet wide and three toed;
1919-1920, expedition into Africa conducted by the Smithsonian Institution; "African guides found large, unexplained tracks along the bank of a river" (Field Guide To Lake Monsters by Loren Coleman and Patrick Huyghe) ***
1927; Alfred Aloysius Smith, a trader working in Gabon during the 1800's wrights in his memoir Trader Bon where he refers to an unknown creature that leaves round three clawed footprints.
1966; Yvan Ridel photographs a set of three toed footprints near Laubomo.

Sightings showing the Mokele Mbembe to be long necked and large bodied;
1909; Lt Paul Gratz refers to a native legend in Zambia of a Sauropod like creature.
1909; Big game hunter Carl Hagenbeck in his autobiography Beasts and Men refers to multiple sources including other big game hunters and natives in the Congo area informing him of a creature "half elephant, half dragon" or "some kind of dinosaur, seemingly akin to the brontosaurs".*
1913; German Captain Freiherr von Stein zu Lausnitz includes descriptions of a beast sighted by natives in Cameroon; "The animal is said to be of a brownish-gray color with a smooth skin, its size is approximately that of an elephant; at least that of a hippopotamus. It is said to have a long and very flexible neck and only one tooth but a very long one; some say it is a horn. A few spoke about a long, muscular tail like that of an alligator."**

1939; in the German Colonial Gazette (Angola) a letter by Frau Ilse von Nolde describes encounters with a long necked monster called "coye ya menia" ("water lion").****
1976; botanical expedition into Zaire lead by James Powell, monster called the "n'yamala" described to him by natives. When they were shown pictures of animals alive and extinct the natives said that of the long necked Diplodocus dinosaur most resembled the creature.*****

Read more

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Friday, April 9, 2010

New Species of Lizard Found In Philppines

Dragon-sized lizard eluded science, until now
Spectacularly colored new species of monitor lizard found in the Philippines

MSNBC- A giant, spectacularly colored new species of monitor lizard has just been revealed to scientists in the Philippines.

The reptile, which is roughly 6 feet long (1.8 meters), is kin to Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards. Named Varanus bitatawa, this newly discovered species, decorated in stripes of gold flecks and armed with huge, curved claws for climbing trees, is one of only three fruit-eating monitor species in the world.

New to science, not residents
As humans continue to explore the last uncharted regions of the planet, discoveries of previously unknown species of large vertebrates have become rare. It remains doubly surprising this reptile managed to escape the attention of the many biologists that work on the heavily populated island of Luzon.

"I am most impressed that such a large, conspicuous, brightly colored species of monitor lizard escaped the notice of biologists for the past 150 years," said researcher Rafe Brown, a field herpetologist at the University of Kansas.

Still, remarkably few surveys have explored the reptile diversity of the island's northern forests. The reptile also seems highly secretive and dislikes traversing open areas.

"At the same time, we are humbled because the species is not really new — it is only new to us as Western scientists," Brown said. "In fact, resident indigenous communities — the Agta and Ilongot tribes — have known about it for many generations. If only scientists had listened to them earlier!"

Discovering the giant
Rumors of the lizard's existence floated among biologists for the past 10 years, Brown explained.

"People had taken photographs of hunters from the resident tribespeople as they were carrying the reptiles back to their homes to feed their families in 2001," Brown said.

In 2005, two different groups procured juvenile specimens. "However, both of those efforts didn't collect genetic samples, so we couldn't yet prove that it was genetically distinct and didn't just look different," Brown said. "Also, we wanted a full-sized adult to see how big it got in life."

Last summer, the researchers set out on a two-month expedition to scour the forests for the animal. "We began in July, and the rainy season began early that year, so we were just working in a deluge the whole time," Brown recalled. "Getting up those mountains with a big team of 20 people and all their equipment and gear in those muddy conditions was difficult."

"We knew it was there in the forests around us," he added. "We had seen its scratch marks on trees, we had seen its footprints along stream banks, and we had found its scat."

Near the very end of their complicated, exhausting trip, when they were low on food and out of money, they got a large adult male specimen, captured by the snares of a tribal hunter. "It was like a prize at the end of a marathon," Brown said.

The Agta and Ilongot tribes call the reptile "bitatawa," which the new scientific name for it reflects, and rely on the animal for its meat.

"I have not tasted it myself — the specimen we caught was too important for us to just try," Brown said. "I only know the hunters report it as better tasting and less smelly than the other monitor lizard in the area, a scavenger."

Science of the lizard
Although closely related to the slightly smaller Gray's monitor lizard (Varanus olivaceus), it remains separated from its cousin by a more than 90-mile (145 km) stretch that includes at least three river valley barriers. Genetic analysis confirms V. bitatawa is a new species, as do its coloration, scales, body size, and reproductive anatomy.

"Lizards keep their male reproductive organs inverted inside their bodies like a sock turned inside out, and when it's time to use them, they evert them, flipping them out of their body and filling them with fluid so they can rigidly protrude for reproduction," Brown said. "We call this a hemipenis, and lizards have two of them. They have elaborate structures that we assume are unique to each species — we think they have to fit like a lock and key, preventing hybridization between species."

Both males and females seem to possess golden stripes. "In general, reptiles are very visual, so the different coloration may serve as a signal to other members of its own species," Brown said. "Bright coloration often helps reptiles find and attract mates."

The new species is a keystone in its environment. It eats the fruit of the palm-like Pandanus trees, "and as the seeds travel through its gut, it helps remove their coats so they germinate faster, thus promoting forest growth," Brown said. "You see these trees growing in little circles like fairy rings, evidence that this lizard came by, spreading the seeds around the forest by dropping a bunch of scat."

The researchers expect the lizard to instantly become a flagship species for conservation.

"Given that rapid deforestation in the major threat to many Philippine species, especially the ones restricted to areas with tree cover, we suspect that the new species is a major conservation priority," Brown said. "We need to know the size of its home range, exactly what it eats, how long it takes to mature, how often it breeds, and details of its ecology and population structure."

Efforts to defend the lizard's forested habitat could help protect many hundreds to thousands of unrelated animals and plants as well, they added.

"It is a Philippine national treasure," Brown said.

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Thursday, April 8, 2010

Cloaked image seen running across the road


Friday, April 2, 2010- We were on our way to Abilene, from our home in Breckenridge. At approx. 7:30 a.m., it was just before we reached the bridge over Hubbard Lake on 180, west bound.

My spouse was driving and I was just looking around, when my eyes locked onto the road ahead of us. We were coming upon a small rise in the road, visibility very clear. Suddenly I see something run across the road from left to right (South to North), right on top of the crest of the rise. It was like seeing small feet and partial legs in a fast trot across the road. It was almost like something mirroring the road surface, but visible above the road by about 10 inches or so.

It reminded me of the Predator in the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. I could not see above the calf area of the legs, except the rippled, distorted sky behind the object, about the size of a body.

As we passed that area, I looked to my right into the bar-ditch area and there was nothing there, no animal, nothing. I couldn't see anything on the side of the road, or near the trees but I had the feeling that something watched us go by.

I remember telling my spouse immediately when I saw this thing cross the road, "Oh wow! Did you see that thing cross the road?" He hadn't noticed but I described to him what I saw. For the rest of the trip I kept watching to see if maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me but I never saw anything like that again, during the trip.

Below is a depiction I drew of what I saw.

What was it I saw? Was it a cloaked entity, a trick of light, or possibly heat waves off the pavement? I ruled out the later, as the evening before was quite cool and the morning sun had not yet warmed up the air, or pavement enough to cause that effect.

I don't believe it could have been miniature dust devils, as whatever it was, it was moving across a light southeast breeze. As for a trick of the light, the sun was directly behind us and barely above the eastern horizon. The only thing I have to go on, is the fact that I felt a presence as it crossed in front of us and then as we passed where it crossed. It still gives me chills.

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Thursday, April 1, 2010

Jesus on what?!


Jesus on a potato chip.

People can see faces in just about everything and whose face is most popular? Jesus, of course.

From potato chips to toast, and from gaseous space clouds to kitty cat butts, Jesus is popping up everywhere. Say what?

I wonder what "He" has to say about that.

In the spirit of Easter, and to see 20 of the funniest, most ridiculous Jesus sightings, wander on over to Ranker. You'll be amazed. Some eggs were laid there, darn tootin'.

20 funniest sightings of Jesus' face on things

I'll never look at my Cheetos™ quite the same, ever again.
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