Forteana

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16448379

The Bat Beast of Kent, sometimes referred to as the ‘Saltwood Mystery’, is often considered to be an extraterrestrial sighting. Let’s begin with the story as it is roughly retold today.

November 16th, 1963, Four teenagers were making their way home from a party through Sandling Lane. Something unusual in the sky caught their attention: a golden oval shaped orb, seemingly a few metres in diameter. The object was intensely bright, they began to run from it, and it followed them, before returning back to its original position, it then slowly descended behind some trees. Curious about what it might have been, the boys headed to where they thought the object had ‘Landed’, but all was now dark. Soon they heard some rustling and felt a change in the air to cold and ‘charged like static electricity’, they looked towards the sound to see a hairy figure, around 5 feet tall, headless, with bat-like wings and webbed feet shambling out of the trees.

...

It seems reasonable to think that there was no evidence of a deliberate hoax, there is some corroboration from the pub landlord that the original group were indeed spooked by the encounter, and there is a fair amount of consistency between the reports from the three boys. While additional sightings of the figure can be questioned as influenced by previous reports or even fabricated, there do appear to be some kind of unusual lights appearing with some frequency in the area, which may have various explanations, although none confirmed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16418498

The group doesn’t seem terribly preoccupied with finding evidence of aliens, however. 

One prominent member of the group, Yoshiharu Asakawa, said that while UFOs have typically been viewed as “an occult matter,” there was the possibility that they were, in fact, “cutting-edge secret weapons or spying drones in disguise” that could “pose a significant threat to our nation’s security,” 

Japan was identified as a hub for unexplained aerial activity in a report issued last year by the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), a little-known office of the U.S. Defense Department. Since then, the country has become increasingly interested in investigating the phenomenon.

Japan’s efforts mirror similar efforts made by the U.S. and other Western countries in recent years.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16379352

The paper introduces the term "cryptoterrestrials" to refer to an ancient human culture—more technologically advanced than our own—that survived the cataclysms and has lived since in hiding.

A speculative new paper suggests that advanced "cryptoterrestrials" could be living secretly on Earth or in its near environs, like the moon.

It suggests the existence of a bizarre group of "intelligent beings concealed in stealth here on Earth (e.g., underground), and/or its near environs (e.g., the moon)." 

The study has been accepted for publication in Philosophy and Cosmology.

They suggest that one potential category of these beings are "human cryptoterrestrials," which are a "technologically advanced ancient human civilisation that was largely destroyed long ago (e.g., by flood), but continued to exist in remnant form."

Possible habitation sites, as per the paper, may be hidden within the Earth in places like volcanoes or deep oceanic trenches.

Astonishingly, this is nothing new. In 1993, Dr. Shirley Wright, known for having been personal assistant to Albert Einstein, claimed that the pilots aboard the now topical Roswell UFO crash incident of 1947 were "advanced human" beings living inside Earth.

A junior doctor has ended up with a new pet after a goldfish mysteriously appeared in his garden.

Dr Ben Beska, 33, from Newcastle, said he saw a group of magpies squawking in his garden on Saturday and went out to investigate when he spotted the fish lying in the grass.

The NHS cardiology doctor retrieved the fish and placed it in a freezer drawer filled with water, and intends to keep it as a pet.

"It's pretty mad really, finding a fish on the lawn. I have no idea how it got in the garden," Dr Beska said.

...

Dr Beska suspected a bird had picked up the fish from a nearby pond and dropped it while carrying it away.

However, he said, there were no ponds close by and he thought it must therefore have travelled a "reasonable distance".

New bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate aims to promote full public disclosure of government records and information related to unidentified aerial phenomena, commonly known as UFOs.

The “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Disclosure Act of 2023,” introduced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senators Mike Rounds (R-SD), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Todd Young (R-IN), and Martin Heinrich (D-NM), establishes several key provisions to facilitate the release of government UFO records:

• It creates a new “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Collection” at the National Archives to centralize and preserve all U.S. government records related to unexplained aerial objects and phenomena.
• The legislation establishes a 9-member oversight board called the “Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Records Review Board” to coordinate and oversee review and disclosure of UFO records. Board members, who require security clearances, must be impartial citizens without any prior involvement in government UFO programs.
• All government agencies must identify, organize, and prepare UFO records for disclosure to the review board and archives within 300 days. Records already publicly released cannot be re-classified or withheld.
• Grounds for postponement of disclosure are limited to harm to national security, intelligence sources, or foreign relations. However, the review board can override postponements.
• The board must create a “Controlled Disclosure Campaign Plan” that recommends a timeline and process for periodic review and public release of any postponed records.
• The government must disclose and exercise eminent domain over any “technologies of unknown origin” related to UFOs, even if held privately.
• The review board terminates in 2030 unless Congress extends it. Remaining provisions of the Act terminate once all UFO records have been released.
• $20 million is authorized to fund the Act’s provisions in Fiscal Year 2024.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15998182

The government is officially gearing up for the discovery of aliens, a move described as ‘long overdue’ by the UK’s leading UFO expert.

A Freedom of Information request has revealed the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is currently researching how it will react to the so-called ‘black swan’ event that is discovering extraterrestrial life.

A black swan event is an unpredictable event that has wide-ranging consequences, but in hindsight appears to have been inevitable.

The report is investigating whether a plan already exists – none has ever been made public – what a plan would look like and how the UK can be ‘on the front foot’ should such an astounding scientific discovery finally be made.

It is being conducted over six months and will be finalised in July, at which point a new government could be in receipt of it.

For the past four and a half years, I’ve immersed myself in spaces occupied by conspiracy theorists.

What began as an attempt to understand the QAnon conspiracy movement quickly expanded into an exploration of a wide range of alternative belief systems.

These include, but are not limited to, discredited intellectuals who promote race science; butthole sunners who believe that by harnessing the sun’s rays, they live longer; and semen retention enthusiasts, which is a practice that discourages ejaculation as a way to boost testosterone levels.

Most researchers have understood conspiracy theories and alternative beliefs as being a product of poor education or misinformation spread on social media. But recent research has found that support for them exists regardless of educational level or income. Some of the most privileged people in U.S. society hold deeply conspiratorial beliefs, as do sports fans, yogis and video game enthusiasts.

While some many say that believing in UFOs or Bigfoot may not be that big of a problem, these ideas can lead to real-world harms. Butthole sunning, for example, has been linked with cancer.

...

Certain stigmatized narratives can also become tools wielded by politicians and media influencers who will say or do anything to make money and gain power.

For example, in their book “Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat,” Derek Berry, Matthew Remski and Julien Walker document the ways in which contemporary New Age spiritualism has been hijacked by social media influencers, who have then gone on to promote vaccine misinformation and foment government mistrust.

Social media platforms provide financial incentives for individuals creating the most engaging content. Of course, what’s engaging is not necessarily what’s accurate or truthful. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these influencers became popular by suggesting that they had “sacred” or “secret” knowledge on how to defeat the virus.

It’s one way people can go from embracing seemingly harmless ideas, like Bigfoot, to becoming open to more radical beliefs like the Great Replacement Theory, which is the conspiracy theory that illegal immigrants are colluding with Democrats to change the racial demographics of America and, in doing so, shape future elections.

The intersection of politics and alternative beliefs is not a recent phenomenon.

Some of these beliefs, like the imaginary continent of Atlantis, were used by the Nazi party to create a link to a mythical pure race. Indeed, a key component of the Nazi’s rise to power was the promotion of ideas that today would be described as New Age mysticism – a spiritual movement that emphasizes magical experiences and the notion that spiritual forces connect everything in the universe.

Following the recent discovery of Panthera DNA on a sheep carcass in the Lake District, a woman from Burton-in-Kendal has sent in a photo of what she believes to have been a big cat in 2008.

86-year-old writer and local historian, Kath Hayhurst, was travelling in Dalton towards Hutton Roof Crags with her husband when they spotted a dead cat at the roadside near Plain Quarry.

She says she took the photograph in the day time of August, 2008 after a spate of black cat sightings in the area.86-year-old writer and local historian, Kath Hayhurst, was travelling in Dalton towards Hutton Roof Crags with her husband when they spotted a dead cat at the roadside near Plain Quarry.

She says she took the photograph in the day time of August, 2008 after a spate of black cat sightings in the area.

.Kath said: "We were driving by when we came across the cat laying by the roadside and quickly noticed its large size.

"We picked it up and put it in the boot of the car and took it home. I measured it from its ears to the tip of its tail and it was 22 inches.

"Its features were more like a domestic cat, rather than a zoo-like cat, however it was just a lot bigger.

Previously: DNA results and interview with the scientist.

Britain is facing a ghost shortage as ageing spirits are passing over to the "other side", according to a leading paranormal expert.

Dr Paul Lee believes that the UK's spectral heritage is in serious decline as many ghosts have become dormant or moved on.

The paranormal researcher and author shared: "Since January 2020 I've been contacting all the reportedly haunted locations on my app, and asking if the residents, owners or staff have experienced any unexplained activity."

He continued: "So far I've had almost 800 replies and even some supposedly highly haunted places like Conisbrough Castle in South Yorkshire, the Ettington Park Hotel in Stratford said to be one of the most haunted hotels in the UK and Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, say they haven't experienced anything in the last few years."

...

He suggested: "It could be that a spirit had a natural source of energy to begin with which has dwindled away over time, leaving them without the reserves to manifest anymore."

However, Dr Lee, who hails from Fairstead, Norfolk, and holds a PhD in nuclear physics, offered a glimmer of hope, stating: "It may be that ghosts can be recharged."

He concluded: "You sometimes hear stories of ghosts suddenly appearing again after many years' absence."

Follow-up on previous piece:

A recent report has lent credence to the idea leopards are stealthily roaming around rural areas.

Findings by Professor Robin Allaby, a biologist at the University of Warwick, suggest big cat DNA has been identified on a sheep carcass in Cumbria.

For years there have been a handful of sightings reported in the region. But is this DNA finding finally the definitive proof we need?

We talked to Prof Allaby about his findings, the science involved and how confident he is about his results.

Prof Allaby said he was relatively confident the sample had not been faked for two main reasons.

Mr Minter has long been sending him samples and was always disappointed by Prof Allaby's analysis revealing the DNA belonged to a fox or a dog.

Secondly - very little DNA was present on the sample, he said.

"If this were a fake, I would expect plenty of DNA to be present in order that we would be sure to find it," he said.

"It would be very difficult to plant just a few molecules with any finesse – I don’t think I could do it, let alone a lay person."

However due to such a small of DNA present, Prof Allaby said there was not enough information to determine what type of big cat it came from.

He said more samples were needed before he could definitively say a big cat roamed Cumbria.

"[However] on the balance of probabilities, I think this a genuine hit," he said.

He added that he did not believe there was enough data to publish a paper on his findings yet.

But Dr Egil Droge, a researcher in predator-prey relationships at the University of Oxford, is more sceptical of the findings.

He said if there really was a big cat in Cumbria, "where has it gone?"

"There haven't been any good photos of big cats from the area, not a spray of reports of killed sheep.

"I would like to see more, and repeated, convincing evidence," he said.

Carlo Acutis, a 15-year-old programmer who died of leukemia in 2006, is set to be the first millennial saint, according to a new report from the Catholic News Agency Thursday. Acutis created websites documenting purported miracles and has been dubbed “God’s influencer” since his death.

Anyone who’s going to become a saint in the Catholic Church needs to be recognized as having performed at least two miracles, even if those miracles happened after the saint’s death. Pope Francis acknowledged Acutis’s second miracle on Thursday, according to the Catholic News Agency.

The miracle involved a 21-year-old girl from Costa Rica named Valeria Valverde who was studying in Italy, where Acutis lived. Valverde suffered a head injury in 2022 from a bicycle accident and had to undergo surgery, but her mother went to pray at the tomb of Carlo Acutis, where his body is publicly displayed.

From the Catholic News Agency:

Six days after the accident, Valeria’s mother went on a pilgrimage to Assisi to pray for the healing of her daughter at the tomb of Blessed Carlo Acutis, leaving a written note.

On that same day, Valeria began to breathe on her own and on the following day she recovered the use of her upper limbs and partly recovered her speech.

Valeria was discharged from the intensive care unit 10 days after her mother’s pilgrimage and underwent further tests that showed that the hemorrhagic right temporal cortical contusion in her brain had completely disappeared.

Contrary to medical predictions, Valeria spent only one week in physical therapy and on Sept. 2, 2022, two months after her accident, she went on a pilgrimage to Carlo Acutis’ tomb in Assisi with her mother to celebrate her complete healing.

The first miracle attributed to Acutis happened in 2013 and was recognized by the pope in 2020. That miracle involved a boy in Brazil who was reportedly healed of a rare pancreatic condition.

His tomb:

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15615604

Recent years have seen increasing public attention regarding unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP). Hypotheses for such phenomena tend to fall into two classes: a conventional terrestrial explanation (e.g., human-made drones), or an extraterrestrial explanation (i.e., advanced civilizations from elsewhere in the cosmos).

However, there is also a third minority class of hypothesis: an unconventional terrestrial explanation, outside the prevailing consensus view of life and the universe. This is the “ultraterrestrial” hypothesis, which includes – but is not limited to – the “interdimensional” hypothesis, namely the highly speculative notion that UAP may reflect activities of beings from other dimensions that coexist alongside our own.

Such hypotheses may rightly be regarded with scepticism by most scientists. However, this article suggests they nevertheless should not be ruled out, and deserve serious consideration in a spirit of epistemic humility and openness.

Pope Francis wants to curb a surge in bogus “spiritual encounters”, such as the one in classic Only Fools And Horses episode The Miracle Of Peckham.

The Pontiff is urging Catholics to exercise “extreme prudence” over reported spiritual sightings. The 1986 Only Fools episode saw Del, played by Sir David Jason, make money thanks to a Virgin Mary statue “crying”.

But it happened because the church roof had a leak.

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who is in charge of the church’s rules department, said it was ­“finalising a new text with clear guidelines”. The guide is due to be released tomorrow (May 17).

As well as spiritual encounters, the pope is also expected to speak about alien life forms.

The move to hold the press conference has caused ripples in the alien community, as one like this hasn't been held since February 1978.

Archive

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15369690

Rendlesham Forest UFO sighting UK

Locals have long speculated as to whether the so-called 'Beast of Cumbria' is just one or several big cats that slink in the shadows of the countryside. Investigators have now obtained a vital piece of evidence to support the presence of at least one recently active in the county.

Last year Sharon Larkin-Snowden, an experienced Cumbrian big cat investigator, came upon a sheep carcass and saw what she described as a black panther close by.

After following up many big cat reports, she has discovered that deer and sheep carcasses predated by the big felines tend to be quite clinically consumed and neatly filleted.

They did not reveal the exact location of the carcass to due trust with the landowners.

Sharon said: "The combination of seeing the cat near the carcass area, and the carcass ticking boxes for what I’d expect from a big cat’s involvement, made me even more suspicious that this was potential evidence.

"I spoke with local farmers too and they felt there had been a big cat around the area recently". She passed three swabs to expert and producer of Big Cat Conversations podcast Rick Minter who sent the samples to a specialist lab at the University of Warwick.

The university's School of Life Sciences centre offers a pioneering DNA analysis service utilised by many ecological consultancies, private individuals and wildlife enthusiasts.

The team, led by Professor Robin Allaby, tested the swabs and found that one indicated a panthera result, meaning it is from the genus of big cats, with two yielding fox DNA.

Professor Allaby said: "The DNA sequence is a short segment from the mitochondrion which is often used to distinguish different species of animal.

"The section we have sequenced is distinct to the group Panthera, which includes all the big cats - lions, tigers, panthers, leopards.

"There was only a very small amount of DNA present, which again is not surprising. So we need more data from more samples to pin it down to a specific species."

...

The latest evidence comes after a visit by Sky TV for Hold the Front Page with comedians Nish Kumar and Josh Widdicombe investigating big cat sightings in Cumbria.

Rick added: "It was exciting to help them out with their search for evidence and witness stories." "We’re just frustrated we couldn’t get a positive DNA sample when they visited in September.

"But they spurred us on so when Sharon saw the big cat later in the Autumn, I felt another test might be worth it.

"This is a good example of Citizen Science at work, led by Sharon for big cats in Cumbria, along with her Facebook page on the topic."

Archive

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15213368

Has the U.S. government secretly retrieved exotic craft of “non-human” origin? Newly declassified documents, along with extraordinary legislation, illustrate how two successive Democratic Senate majority leaders appear to have believed so.

Notably, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the late Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) were not alone in their focus on UFOs. The Democratic heavyweights received critical support and encouragement from a bipartisan group of high-profile senators over the years, including former fighter pilot and famed astronaut John Glenn (D-Ohio); Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who observed a UFO as a World War II pilot; Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), then-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense; 2008 GOP presidential nominee Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.); Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.); Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.).

In late 2011, for example, the top scientist at the Department of Homeland Security met with Lieberman, then chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Reid to discuss the establishment of an ultra-secret UFO program.

As outlined in remarkable detail in newly released documents, the intent of the proposed program was to “gain access to and inventory” UFOs secretly under “investigation in National Laboratories, government organizations and/or contractors.”

From there, the program would engage in “laboratory experimentation” and “scientific investigation” to foster “technology exploitation” of the recovered materials.

In short, Reid and Lieberman were advocating, “with some sense of urgency,” for the establishment of a formal UFO reverse-engineering program.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15181516

Is the Mongolian Death Worm Real?

Some say the true death worm has already been found—slithering beneath the sands of the Gobi.

 It’s a particularly implausible cryptid, supposedly growing up to six feet long, spitting acid poison that rapidly corrodes anything and kills on contact, and possibly shooting electricity. And yet, the worm has never left any physical evidence. The mystery of its existence was also seemingly solved in 1983 when a Soviet scientist demonstrated that the “worm” likely evolved from legends around a harmless local snake, the Tartar sand boa.

The worm was sausage-like, mostly subterranean but would surface for food or following rains, and incredibly deadly. If you saw it, you kept your distance or ran.

In some stories, the worm is only about a foot long. In others, it’s man-sized. It sweeps across the sands like a snake, inches like a caterpillar, or (in one tale) sprouts wings from its butt and flies. It’s white-gray, turning red when perturbed. Or scaly and brown. Or fleshy and blood-red.

The effort monster hunters pour into searching for a seemingly debunked beast may baffle outsiders. But it reflects two simple truths: (1) A good cryptid is more than a creature, so you can never catch or debunk it. (2) The hunt is often less about finding a monster, and more about the thrill of nature and exploring the unknown.

Two surveys of millions of stars in our galaxy have revealed mysterious spikes in infrared heat coming from dozens of them. Astronomers say this could be evidence for alien civilisations harnessing energy from their stars by using a vast construction known as a Dyson sphere – although they can’t fully rule out more mundane explanations.

To search for potential Dyson spheres, two teams of astronomers, one led by Matías Suazo at Uppsala University in Sweden and the other by Gaby Contardo at the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy, combined data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite – which is mapping the position and motion of billions of stars in our galaxy – with infrared survey results from ground and space telescopes.

Each team analysed the same 5 million stars from the combined datasets, and both turned up signs of excess infrared heat that couldn’t be explained by known natural processes. “The most fascinating explanation could be actual Dyson spheres,” says Suazo.

His team spotted strange signals at seven red dwarfs within 900 light-years of Earth. These stars are smaller and dimmer than our sun, but appeared up to 60 times brighter in infrared than expected. This excess would have been caused by something with a temperature of up to 400°C, consistent with what we might expect for a Dyson sphere. Up to 16 per cent of each star would have to be obscured to account for the signal, meaning it would more likely be a variant of the idea called a Dyson swarm – a collection of large satellites orbiting a star to collect energy – if the cause is truly of artificial origin. “This isn’t like a single solid shell around the star,” says team member Jason Wright at Pennsylvania State University.

Contardo’s results are broader, with 53 candidates found among larger stars, including some sun-like stars, at distances of up to 6500 light years from Earth. “Both sets of candidates are interesting,” she says, though inconclusive. “You need follow-up observations to confirm anything.”

One natural explanation that could mimic the properties of a Dyson sphere is that the stars are surrounded by hot, planet-forming debris disks, but most of the stars found by both teams appear to be too old for this. Another possibility is that each star could coincidentally be positioned in front of a distant galaxy giving off an infrared glow.

The infrared signals could also result from some unknown natural process. “It might be something that happens very rarely, like if two planets collide and produce an enormous amount of material,” says David Hogg at New York University, who worked with Contardo. “I think it’s most likely to be a natural phenomenon.”

Archive

A motorist was left gobsmacked after he caught sight of what appeared to be a 'panther-like' big cat in a field. Geoff Thompson, 37, was driving between Great Witley and Martley, Worcestershire, when he had his encounter.

The classic car aficionado and YouTuber had pulled over to snap some shots of his cherished Renault 10 when he noticed an unusual presence in the distance on Sunday (April 14). Upon closer inspection, he discovered the creature's footprints and is convinced it was a panther.

Geoff, from Worcester, said: "I just went out for a sunny drive - I noticed it as I started photographing my car. I think it was a panther."

Captured in a 24-second clip on his mobile, Geoff can be heard questioning, "What the heck is that animal? ! ". Determined to gather evidence, Geoff, who runs the YouTube channel Geoff Buys Cars, ventured into the field to track down the mysterious animal and its tracks.

...

Geoff, who has been fascinated by big cats since childhood, found the encounter quite amusing, saying: "Big cats have always been a bit of an obsession, fascination of mine since I was a kid so to actually see something odd while out and about is pretty funny in my book."

He got in touch with big cat researcher and filmmaker, Tim Whittard, who produced the award-winning documentary ‘Panthera Britannia Declassified’, which claims to prove that big cats are living in wilderness of rural Britain.

Tim, 38, of Gloucester, shared the video with other experts. He explained: “I have had some of my colleagues look over it and while we can't definitively say it was a big cat, the possibility remains on the table.

''It absolutely could have been a big cat. Consensus seems to suggest that the majority of the tracks photographed are more likely to be dog than anything else, so whilst the tracks do not yield positive proof, the video of the sighting itself is very organic, very natural and we can't rule out a cat.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14581634

Jacques Vallee UFO and paranormal phenomena papers

Scope and Contents

Background files include relevant topics, general cases, social trends, cults, related phenomena, scientific topics relevant to ufology, assembled by Vallee in support of his research over the years. Also contains field notes and press documents about related topics such as cattle mutilations, and face-to-face meetings of NIDS and BAASS, as well as various research proposals.

Correspondence includes letters exchanged with Aime Michel, Dr. Hynek, Dr. Guerin, and many leading researchers and investigators, starting in the late 1950s to the mid 2010s.

Analysis files are planned for donation in the future, and will include research studies, often field investigations or document research about specific UFO topics. 

Archives of the Impossible: Home

https://libguides.rice.edu/impossiblearchives

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14729225

*Internally,* the Pentagon states that anomalous incidents are occurring all over the world. UAP are a “potentially ubiquitous” presence in and around the US, its allies and its adversaries.

The Pentagon states that anomalous incidents are occurring all over the world. UAP are a “potentially ubiquitous” presence in and around the US, its allies and its adversaries.

The document is also an admission by top military officials that UAP are operating in airspace controlled by U.S. allies and adversaries alike.

“There is a lot of unidentified aerial phenomena out there. That’s true. And they’ve got pilot reports, there’s various other sensors out there, and some of it is difficult to explain… some [UAP are] really kind of weird and unexplainable,”

Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman weren’t expecting a “pivotal moment” in their sons’ lives when they visited Scotland’s Loch Ness earlier this month, but that’s exactly what happened.

“Our youngest is turning three next week,” said Wiseman from the family’s home in London, England. “And he tells everyone there have been two pivotal moments in his life: Seeing the world’s largest dinosaur, which he did at the Natural History Museum in January, and seeing Nessie.

Malm and Wiseman have been thrust into the limelight after a photo they took during their family vacation showed a shadowy figure poking above the waterline, something that the couple’s children — and others — firmly believe is the latest sighting of the famed Loch Ness Monster.

...

The couple said the original plan for the spring vacation was to take a boat ride in Loch Ness because their children were “completely captivated by the concept of Nessie.”

“We’d even packed shortbread cookies, which we were told from these books was Nessie’s favourite treat,” Wiseman quipped. “Turned out shortbread cookies were not necessary.”

That’s because the family spotted something sticking out of the water while visiting a lookout at nearby Urquhart Castle.

“We just started watching it more and more, and we could see its head craning above water,” Malm said. “And then it was swimming against the current towards the castle, slowly but surely, like very fastidiously going over the waves (and) coming closer and closer. And then it submerged and disappeared.”

No, the United States government does not have alien bodies hiding somewhere, nor has it ever tried to reverse-engineer flying saucers. Really.

That’s one of the main stances that the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), an organization created in 2022 to resolve sightings of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), asserts in a report published Friday.

...

The report makes several assertions, including a debunking of KONA BLUE.

KONA BLUE, as the report explains, was allegedly a top-secret program to investigate “human consciousness anomalies,” retrieve and exploit “non-human biologics,” and reverse engineer any alien craft they found.

“It is critical to note that no extraterrestrial craft or bodies were ever collected — this material was only assumed to exist by KONA BLUE advocates and its anticipated contract Performers,” the report authors emphasized.

As the authors do throughout the report, they take an instance of a program and explain where the pseudoscience claims may be emerging. In the case of KONA BLUE, the contract for a $22 million program, greenlit in 2008 to assess aerospace threats on the horizon — and which was never explicitly tasked with researching UFOs — was awarded to a private sector organization. But the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency canceled it in 2012, “due to lack of merit and the utility of the deliverables,” though this didn’t stop non-government program advocates, who renamed the proposal as KONA BLUE, from seeking to investigate paranormal activity.

Missed this in March but the report is now available.

The owner of a West Country zoo which was immortalised in the Hollywood film 'We Bought a Zoo' starring Matt Damon, has claimed that big cats are living wild in Britain. Ben Mee, who has been running the zoo since 2006 and was portrayed by Damon in the movie, shared his encounter with a big cat in the UK during an interview for a new documentary airing this week.

He advised the public not to run if they come across one, but to speak to it in a soothing manner instead. Mee's interview is part of the latest episode of the new TV series 'Weird Britain', set to air tonight (Wed) on Blaze.

During the interview, Mee not only expressed his belief that big cats can survive in the wilds of Britain, but also claimed to have seen one himself. Recalling the incident, he said: "I picked up my brother from the station, and his business partner at the time, and we were driving back into the village at midnight, and I slowed down to let what looked like a deer cross the road, because a deer is silly enough to make a sudden jump.

"We waited to watch this animal in the headlights. We were able to get a good look at it and it wasn't a deer at all it was a big cat, it was a puma."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/14327656

According to the account, Stefan Michalak was in the woods when he encountered a pair of "cigar-shaped objects" nearby, changing hues while floating before taking a disc shape. Michalak started drawing what he saw.

As soon as he touches the craft, the fingertips just start to melt, so it's so hot that it literally melts the gloves he's wearing...He's hit by this blast of air, that pushes him backward and sets his shirt and hat on fire. He's stumbling backward, getting pushed by this wave of air and gas, and trying to take this burning shirt and hat off.

The account goes on to say he showed symptoms of radiation sickness and had "severe burns" on his torso that look like a grate or Bingo card. Once released from the hospital, he returned to the locale to recover his "charred shirt, a melted glove and tools he'd left behind." He maintained his story until dying in 1999, never saying he encountered little green men either.