Paranormal News Insider  

MUFON 2022 Final Statistics  

10 Jan 2023, 6:57 pm

     The Mutual UFO Network released their December sighting statistics a few days after the new year. This last month of the year saw a bit of a dip in reports with just 561 total reports. This is compared to a high of 934 in August, 786 in September, 826 in October, and a sagging 684 in the month of November. The lowest month of the year was February's 399 total reports.

    The state with the most sightings was California with 51, this is typical since California also has the largest population of any state. Texas was next with 37, followed by Florida with 25, Georgia  and Nevada with 22, New Jersey 19, and Ohio with 17. Pennsylvania and Michigan both had 16, Arizona and North Carolina both had 13, Washington and New York had 12 each, Oregon had 11, and Illinois and Missouri had 10.

2022 totals: 7,539 reports / 6,032 United States reports. Although adding up the U.S. states and District of Columbia only brought the total to 5,975.

     This breaks down to an average of 628.25 total reports per month and 502.66 average per month U.S. In 2021 there was a total average of 563 and 455 for the United States. In 2020 the average total reports were 632.5 and U.S. was 489.

    The states according to the year ending data is listed below. I did notice some statistical deficiencies in some of the months (as noted in the year total difference above) that showed as many as ten reports missing. I did chalk some of that up to U.S. territories being lumped into the U.S. average but my data focuses solely on the U.S. states as well as the District of Columbia which is collected as well.

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Autumn Tales: A Horror Anthology  

17 Oct 2022, 1:38 pm

    A few things about this book caught my eye. First, this was a horror anthology of short stories written by (at the time) eight different authors.This is obviously right up my alley as my life has been consumed with all facets of the paranormal, supernatural, and otherworldly for about half of my existence. The other wonderful thing about this book is that the authors and publisher are donating the royalties to help fight human trafficking.

    Human trafficking is a topic that many seem passionate about, but it also seems to get the cold shoulder from the media and is largely ignored by the public. It's a scary topic and it seems that if people can keep scary topics at arm's length, then it might not affect them. The problem is that it is affecting way too many people to be ignored. According to Collective Liberty, the organization where the royalties will be donated, over 40 million people were trafficked globally in 2018. Trafficking includes people for forced labor and sex and is happening closer to you than you might think.

    When I signed up to be a review reader, I knew a ninth author had been added which was Daniel Bautz. Dan had reached out to me over 14 years ago to be the first guest on his podcast, The Grand Dark Conspiracy. Months after that first interview, I returned once again to talk UFOs and cryptozoology as well as the Georgia Bigfoot hoax that was in the news. The following month Dan added a new segment to his monthly two-hour podcast called the Paranormal News Insider. After seven years with The Grand Dark Conspiracy, which later became Darkest Hours Late Night, my podcast went off on its own where I have endured more changes since.

    As of the debut date of the book, Autumn Tales: A Horror Anthology, it now boasts ten authors and ten unique stories. I was only able to read nine of these and I was not prepared for the content. Each story has its own feel since it is carefully crafted by an individual author. Each author injects their own passion for writing and each style makes this an even more enjoyable book to read. As you move story to story you feel as though it is being told to you by the author by the fireside and as each tale ends your attention moves around the ring to the next participant. It is a simple yet effective format for telling chilling stories.

    As a researcher of paranormal topics, I was thrilled to read about aliens, abductions, ghosts, Bigfoot, vampires, werewolves, and other topics within these stories. These fictional stories pull no punches, however, and describe the deepest fears associated with these topics through the careful weaving of storytelling, characterization, and setting. Each story provides a brutally honest view of the world and just as enjoyable is that each one has their own feel through culture and timeframe. The ghosts and other monsters are not perfect, they are not ones we would recognize through the many nonfiction books that describe them or internet pages written that provide categories of them, which makes them all the more evil and all the more perfect.

The book is available on Anatolian Press LLC, as well as Amazon for Kindle as well as on softcover and a special edition hardcover. The book makes its debut on October 15, 2022, just in time to consume it before Halloween.

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Are there experts in the paranormal? Part I  

16 Jul 2022, 11:58 pm

    What does it take to become an expert in an area or a field as a whole? Is someone being referred to as an expert really something worth bragging about or being upset by? Are there shadier things to worry about in the ghost field?

    More than once in my many years of being a public speaker on a variety of paranormal topics I have been introduced as an expert of some sort without prompt of course. I used to clarify that I did not feel I was an expert, but over time I've just sidestepped the comment and accepted it as an honorable gesture. It seems some get their feathers a bit ruffled when they hear someone refer to themselves as an expert.  Yes, it is a bit concerning when someone jumps into the paranormal and all they really have is having watched a few seasons of a television show as their training. Many of these television trained ghost hunters waste no time in jumping into client cases as well as claiming to be experts in either the whole or parts of the field which is concerning as a reflection to the rest of those involved.

    Before we get too carried away let's define an expert. According to Merriam-Webster

An expert is "one with the special skill or knowledge representing mastery of a particular subject or having, involving, or displaying special skill or knowledge derived from training or experience."

    According to Wikipedia:

"An expert is somebody who has a broad and deep competence in terms of knowledge, skill and experience through practice and education in a particular field. Informally, an expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. An expert, more generally, is a person with extensive knowledge or ability based on research, experience, or occupation and in a particular area of study. Experts are called in for advice on their respective subject, but they do not always agree on the particulars of a field of study."

    These definitions don't seem too farfetched for someone to be an "expert" in a particular part of the paranormal such as EVP recording or interviewing or even the field as a whole although less believable due to the number of topics involved. The last part is a notable one, "...but they do not always agree on the particulars of a field of study." Some fields have room for interpretation, and I feel that most aspects of ghosts or other paranormal fields are not clearly defined for just one possibility in most of the aspects involved.

    To me, a person's credibility as an "expert" is more believable when there is a heaping helping of skepticism or understanding of how and why the paranormal is defined as a pseudoscience. In addition, acknowledging other fields that can help define or interpret subjective interpretations of various phenomenon adds credibility. For someone to stand up and declare that all orbs (or at least 99% of them) are ghosts and offer minimal skepticism cries true believer, not expert.

    This is the line that begins to form where I would argue that no one can be an expert in the highly interpretive world of the paranormal. Is it all ghosts, strange creatures, and aliens, or is is subjective environmental interpretation, misinterpretation, or pure belief fooling people? Can there really be a middle ground on the topic as a so-called expert?

    It should be believed that most people in the ghost field over value their knowledge of the field. How could an expert in the field of ghosts not have read a journal from the Society of Psychical Research? How could an expert in the paranormal never have conducted objective research experiments? Most people in the field have not done either one of these and there is far more missing from the arsenal of an expert that most are not doing. But is that just a "paranormal expert" thing?

    A cognitive bias known as the Dunning–Kruger effect haunts the general public and the paranormal. According to this principle, people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills. People in the paranormal feel like they have knowledge because they have memorized and rehearsed what others have said based on opinion. This repetition has now made these conjectures into perceived "facts" which are then repeated by newcomers and so on.

  There seems to be a large gap between knowledge of ghost investigators and the application of that knowledge. Take into consideration that an overwhelming majority of investigators state that hauntings (residual activity/place memory/repetitive hauntings, etc.) occur far more than intelligent apparitions (intelligent hauntings). However, when these same groups take to the dark to conduct an investigation the first thing they do (after turning on all of their gadgets and stare at the screens) is ask questions. What sense does that make? What's worse is that anything and everything that happens ends up being a ghost. Most ghost investigators claim to be open-minded skeptics but tend to act like true believers once the lights are off. There is even beliefs that some techniques can summon demons such as using a Ouija board. But is it a conduit of the devil or belief?

 

     Despite being a children's game and marketed as a parlor trick for decades the cardboard and plastic game has a reputation worse than the devil itself (mainly due to the Catholic church and the movie The Exorcist). However, groups use the same approach as one would with a Ouija board with handheld electronic gadgets without hesitation.

    Perhaps I've wandered a bit off topic, but I do feel the paranormal investigation arena has been self-taught for decades and the information gathered is extremely flawed. The big issue is that a true expert would see when something is wrong and correct it. However, in order to be respected one must follow what everyone else does and not veer too far off the path so it seems.

    Personally, it doesn't bother me when someone says "expert" as long as they do demonstrate knowledge that is level-headed, coherent, and is not based completely on conjecture along with understanding basic scientific principles that balance out paranormal thought. However, I have heard other words that make my skin crawl.

    There are plenty of groups and individuals that advertise themselves as "professional" paranormal investigators or ghost hunters. I would guess they mean they are professional in the way they act and present themselves and not professionals as meaning they are performing work in a profession. Right? Sometimes I wonder what part of the definition they are referring to with being "professionals" and does this mean that other groups are just amateurs? I know, many are, but what really separates one group from another? Size? The amount of tools? Certainly not the matching black shirts or the bad ass poses since everyone does that in the graveyards.

    According to Dictionary.com, professional is defined as:

adjective

1. following an occupation as a means of livelihood or for gain: a professional builder.

2. of, relating to, or connected with a profession: professional studies.

3. appropriate to a profession: professional objectivity.

4. engaged in one of the learned professions: A lawyer is a professional person.

5. following as a business an occupation ordinarily engaged in as a pastime: a professional golfer.

6. making a business or constant practice of something not properly to be regarded as a business: “A salesman,� he said, “is a professional optimist.�

7. undertaken or engaged in as a means of livelihood or for gain: professional baseball.

8. of or for a professional person or his or her place of business or work: a professional apartment; professional equipment.

9. done by a professional; expert: professional car repairs.

noun

10. a person who belongs to one of the professions, especially one of the learned professions.

11. a person who earns a living in a sport or other occupation frequently engaged in by amateurs: a golf professional.

12. an expert player, as of golf or tennis, serving as a teacher, consultant, performer, or contestant; pro.

13. a person who is expert at his or her work: You can tell by her comments that this editor is a real professional.

    I'm not sure how many weekend ghost hunters or paranormal investigators are getting paid, but that's not something many people think is legit (a topic for another blog post). As far as I know being a paranormal investigator is nothing more than a hobby or pastime, it's not a profession and you cannot get a scientific degree in any topic relating to the paranormal other than parapsychology. Also, another topic for another day is the fact that to be a parapsychologist you have to take masters classes at an accredited university. Online classes that hand out certifications in parapsychology do not make it legit (or legal) for you to call yourself a parapsychologist. 

     In the definition of both expert and professional we saw words like "training" and "knowledge". Other than watching multiple seasons of television shows how do groups gain their knowledge? Can you get what you need from television, the Internet, and books? In the next part of this blog topic, I'll begin to talk about the next issue that deals with the "experts" and "professionals" which is certification programs. Some people hate them, many groups do them, but are they something that should be allowed to happen? Are they worth getting upset over? Are they worth anything at all?

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The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2021  

1 Jan 2022, 3:49 pm

   Second, how viral was the story? Many stories I talk about are popular on paranormal websites but have not been heard of outside of this arena or where the story took place. A story that is big at a regional level will have more weight than a local story and a global story will be higher than that. Also with this I look at how much it was talked about through social media as well as how long it lasted in the news as a developing story. Lastly, I look at the reality of the story. Meaning, does this story include a real person or it is possibly just a story made up for website hits? I usually do this early on to make sure these are truly newsworthy stories to begin with, but still some stories are a bit questionable in their makeup and are just stories hyped up for the paranormal community.

#10 Loch Ness Monster drone hoax

  On September 27th a canoeist named Richard Mavor posted a video of personal drone footage to his YouTube channel Richard Outdoors where viewers quickly pointed out at around 3:50 into the video a strange shape can be seen under the water.

  Mavor was in the area canoeing for charity and decided to take some 4K drone footage of the beach he was at. It was in this footage that people pointed out that he might have just filmed the most elusive water monster in the world. Mavor claims he did not see the shape in the water while he was filming.

  The story quickly spread to the media, and it became the biggest Nessie sighting of 2021. Based on the story initially I didn’t feel it was a hoax and felt it was just a case of mistaken identity with the object being a submerged log or a sand bar. Apparently, I was too generous on this story as many began to take a close look at the video including the YouTube channel ParaBreakdown.

  Analyzing the object, it could have been simply a photograph layered into the video, which would point toward an intentional hoax. Looking at the shape closely Sam Shearon was able to pull the image out a bit more in the video and was also able to compare that image to a toy plesiosaur. It’s pretty much an exact copy of the photograph and is embedded in the video.

  Long time Nessie hunter and researcher Steve Feltham felt immediately that the video was a fake. He said, “There appears to be no natural movement in the object, and an unlikely degree of illumination, I have spent many hours as a passenger in a microlite flying low over the loch trying to spot a silhouette in the dark waters, and things just do not show up that clearly, it looks almost like the object is illuminated.â€�

  While ParaBreakdown showed the video with the image highlighted next to the photograph of the toy that was used Steve saw evidence of his own. He pointed out, “Mavors had actually used a small section of the drone footage elsewhere in his holiday video, but the clip he duplicated did not have the Nessie image superimposed onto it, whereas the drone sequence did. It's utter nonsense, a schoolboy mistake in the world of hoaxing, never show the investigators your ‘before and after’ workings.â€�

  He added, “Someone quickly found the online image of a plesiosaur that he had used to create the Nessie shape, which he simply superimposed onto his drone footage. When a researcher asked to see the original footage, he had unfortunately deleted it already, more red flags. Lie upon lie upon lie.  The mystery around what he has done has been completely solved, it's a poorly executed deliberate hoax and now all that is left is for him to own up.â€�

  Last year we had the Loch Ness Monster photo that turned out to be a catfish that was blended into a photograph. These are examples as to why a mere photograph just won’t bring any valuable evidence on its own of an unknown creature. It also highlights the fact that every time we advance with technology that advancement is eventually used against people for something.

  Why it’s in the top ten: The Loch Ness Monster gets more headlines around the world than any other cryptid. Despite a lackluster year of sightings this story was by the far the largest for Nessie.

  Why it’s only number ten: Despite the interesting backstory and the “I didn’t see it when it happenedâ€� angle the story was quickly torn apart by internet sleuths. Had it lasted longer or become a larger story it might have been the biggest hoax of the year.

 

  A member of the flight crew of American Airlines flight 2292 radioed to Albuquerque Center that they had encountered something strange. The encounter happened on February 21st at 1:19 Central Standard Time over the northeast corner of New Mexico. The transmission was as follows, “Do you have any targets up here?  We just had something go right over the top of us   - I hate to say this but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing - moving really fast right over the top of us.â€�

  The rest of the flight was apparently uneventful, and the plane landed in Phoenix, Arizona. Many outlets have been carrying this story, and there has been a lot of speculation about what was seen. The audio transmission of one of the crew members is the only evidence that this event occurred and was downloaded by Steve Douglas who published the 14 second audio on his Deep Blue Horizon weblog. 

  Many articles on this incident focus on other reports of cylindrical objects that seem to defy logic. One problem is that all we hear is a short sample of the crew member and Albuquerque Center, we never hear a response. Douglas states that the response was walked on by another frequency. Douglas provides the MP3 sample of the crew member, but he’s also copyrighted it. I’m not sure you can copyright someone else’s conversation especially since anyone can get the same recording as they are generally public domain.

  No one has come forward with any audio from Albuquerque Center or Phoenix for any replies to this inquiry. The website The Drive stated they talked with Douglass and have reviewed an hour before and an hour after the transmission. They are attempting to get the audio authenticated from the FAA and hopefully get a comment about it. 

  A day later there was more evaluation by those who heavily research stories like this such as Scott Brando of UFO of Interest as well as Mick West of Metabunk.org. It seems there are a couple of candidates of aircraft that flew close to the American Airlines flight. A Learjet with the tail number N738RJ flew over the airliner at about 5,000 feet and around 33,000 feet away. While this sounds far away it isn’t for aircraft flying 300 miles an hour plus and the smaller Learjet could be misinterpreted to look like a missile from the angle.

  The big issue with the analysis is that this incident happened at least eight minutes prior to when it was reported. It’s possible the pilot and other crew talked about it before reporting it or it could have come from someone else on the plane.

  The big issue with the analysis is the fact that the FAA responded to the claim by stating, “A pilot reported seeing an object over New Mexico shortly after noon local time on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021. FAA air traffic controllers did not see any object in the area on their radarscopes.â€� Interestingly, an American Airlines spokesperson told Fox News in a statement, "For any additional questions on this, we encourage you to reach out to the FBI."

  Why it’s in the top ten: One of the biggest private pilot sightings of a purported UFO in recent memory and was splashed on every newspaper around the world. 

  Why it’s only number nine: This report may have been big news, but since it never had any follow up it quickly disappeared as quickly as it appeared, just like the strange cylindrical object.

  On October 27, 1967, the 53-second-long encounter of a purported Bigfoot encounter near Bluff Creek in northern California was filmed by Roger Patterson and observed by Bob Gimlin. Since then, the film has been the center of belief and controversy. Many feel the film provides the best validation of the existence of Bigfoot while many others feel the film is a hoax with a person in a costume.

  Roger Patterson maintained that the film was legitimate despite potential evidence against it all the way up to his death from Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1972. Bob Gimlin has kept a low profile for many years until riding the speaking circuit at conferences and conventions talking about Bigfoot in recent years. He’s maintained to this day that the film is legitimate despite not making any direct money from it and his name being attached brining him a lot of strain on his marriage and personal life.

  Of course, a cast of characters have made claims that they were part of the hoax and that a suit was used by Patterson to fool Gimlin. Over the years a variety of statements have been made in an effort to discredit the Patterson Gimlin film despite a lack of evidence.

  Now a claim by Rictor Riolo, a cast member of Spike TV’s Ten Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty, posted online that a video exists that contains scandalous statements about the video. In part the post read, “Russell Acord has recorded a confession video of Bob Gimlin and plans on releasing it after Bob and his wife have passed away. Russ told me it is scandalous.â€�

  Thomas Steenburg decided to call Gimlin the following morning for clarification on the claims and stated, “At 9:30 [the following] morning, I called Bob himself. Bob hadn’t heard any of this because it was brand new, and I asked Bob straight out. Is there a video of you making a confession about the Patterson/Gimlin Film? Is this true, yes or no? And he said, emphatically, no. It’s not happened. He doesn’t know why Accord is saying this, but he planned on having a harsh phone conversation with him that day.â€�

  The plot also thickened as Steve Kulls, the Squatch Detective, made a statement on his YouTube channel. The video of which is now marked private, he explained that Richter is not lying, and that Russell had also told him that Gimlin had said the film is now what everyone thinks it is. Comments on Steve’s video included Finding Bigfoot’s James “Boboâ€� Fay who stated in short that Gimlin had made a death bed cowboy promise to Roger Patterson about the film but never elaborated. This cowboy promise might be the fact that despite dying of cancer Patterson wanted to go back out and get proof of Bigfoot with Gimlin once he felt better and that promise may have been that Gimlin agreed to do so.

  Despite these claims there is no change in the validity of the film and it’s sad to know that when Bob Gimlin passes away there will be a line of people ready to step in and make claims about what they know about the film to jockey for attention and fame. Obviously then Gimlin will no longer be able to defend himself. Gimlin will turned 90 this year just over a week prior to the film’s 54th anniversary of the film in October.

  The amazing thing about the Patterson Gimlin film is it’s either all or nothing. With many ghost and UFO videos you might have a UFO, balloon, reflection, airplane, hoax, or many other things. A ghost video might be a hoax with CGI, fishing line, or other means, a misinterpretation, or a genuine ghost. The Patterson-Gimlin film is either a person in a suit or the real deal and that’s it.

 

  On Wednesday, June 30th Kristine Frank woke up to find a large serval hovering just six inches from her face. The cat had entered the house through an open door. Kristine scared it off her bed and she said it cowered in the corner. After getting out of the room her husband was able to open another door allowing the cat to go back outside.

  The cat didn’t seem too intimidated and hung around for a few photo opportunities before disappearing into a nearby golf course. So, I say large serval but it’s just two feet tall. Still, it was obvious to the woman that it was not an ordinary house cat. The serval essentially has the same size and diet as the fox. Servals have been kept as pets for thousands of years stretching back to Ancient Egypt. Despite this fact they are still wild animals although not a threat to humans.

  Authorities searched for the serval (named Nala) and finally captured it and hoped to relocate the animal to an accredited sanctuary. This story continues to add to the growing number of stories where people are put in danger by exotic animals being kept as pets. Anna Fyfe, owner of the long-necked, long-eared serval, says that she had the cat while living in South Carolina where it is legal to own the cat. She’s currently living in Georgia attending college at the University of Georgia where the cat escaped. Nala typically stays at her parent’s house in South Carolina, but she brought it to Georgia to stay with her for emotional support after a relationship ended.

  In part Fyfe’s statement to the press was, “The DNR did an amazing job at helping catch Nala and making sure everyone is safe, even though she is just a kitty and is harmless. They are not letting me keep her. They are taking her away to a sanctuary — I completely understand, they’re only doing their job. I’m just devastated because Nala is my baby. I wanted to bring (Nala) over to Georgia to stay with me because I couldn’t even sleep at night. She really helped me get through everything ... I couldn’t have got through any of this without her.â€�

  Alicia Prygoski, a senior legislative affairs manager with the Animal Legal Defense Fund says, “Wildcats are not meant to be pets.â€� Meanwhile, Fyfe says the cat was declawed and slept in the bed with her. She argued, “Yes, she is illegal in Georgia, but her home is in South Carolina, I think she should be taken back there. She's probably scared and confused right now.â€�

  Kim Kelly, a legislative affairs director at the Animal Legal Defense Fund says, “Even if this owner had the best intentions, it is not a domesticated house cat. These cats retain natural behaviors. They have the propensity to harm other animals.â€�

  Fyfe seems determined to get her cat back despite the plans to take it to a sanctuary. She says, “I will try to fight this the best I can. I don't think it is fair for her to go to a sanctuary. It is not a good life for her considering her life she had before.â€�

  In December of 2001 a seven-year-old boy was attacked by a serval who had escaped its owner. The declawed cat knocked him to the ground and bit him on the neck before being chased off by bystanders. In June of 2000, a man was walking a serval in New York when it suddenly attacked a four-year-old boy. The boy needed plastic surgery after a bite to the neck and face. The owner walking the cat also received several stitches to the hand. In October of 2019, a serval was shot and killed after attacking a dog and nearly attacking a sheriff’s deputy in Fairfield County Ohio. A serval attacked a child during a birthday party at a zoo in Indiana in 2018 requiring stitches. Numerous reports of servals escaping private owners’ litters newspapers across the United States despite warnings of what these cute but potentially dangerous cats can do.

  Yes, they are cute, yes, they are smaller, but they are wild cats with killing instincts. They have a much higher bite force than a house cat and have more aggressive tendencies especially if their needs are not met. They also have the tendency to urinate on everything as well as hiss constantly. These behaviors get worse with age and cannot be retaught.

  Robert Bigelow, who has funded a few UFO research projects in the past is now focusing his efforts, or should I say money, on finding out if there is life after death. In early January Bigelow announced his intention of finding evidence of life after death.

  Bigelow, of course, is known for Bigelow Aerospace and his 2008 contract with the Defense Intelligence Agency to investigate UFOs as the Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies not to mention Skinwalker Ranch and his other ties to the government which helped create the focus on UFO research that has become mainstream today.

  Bigelow has offered $1 million to find credible evidence to support the existence of life after death. The Bigelow Institute for Consciousness Studies was created to, “try to conduct research and facilitate research into the possibility of the survival of human consciousness beyond bodily death,â€� according to Bigelow. It was established in June of 2020.

  Bigelow attempt to find evidence came in the form of essays. The BICS will award $500,000 for the top essay submitted on the topic, $300,000 for the second best, and $150,000 for the third. Essays will be judged by five renowned experts, and essays must be received by 5 PM Pacific Standard Time on August 1st. Applicants have to apply and be approved to be able to submit essays. Winners would be announced on November 1st.

  On Sunday May 9th residents were beyond startled when they saw a tiger laying in the grass in a street lined with homes in a west Houston residential street. An off-duty police officer approached the tiger with a handgun and pointed it at the animal but never fired. After a few tense moments of the tiger wandering the neighborhood after getting up. Then a man came out of a house and led the tiger into his home.

  Moments later the man, now known as Victor Hugo Cuevas, 26, loaded the tiger into a white Jeep Cherokee and drove off just as police arrived. Cuevas evaded police after a short pursuit but was later arrested at his parent’s home and was charged with felony evading. He did not have the cat with him, and he and his lawyer stated that he was not the owner of the tiger which remained on the loose.

  Cuevas’ lawyer stated that his client was the hero in this situation as he is the one who caught the tiger. Although he’s the one who had possession of it in a residential neighborhood and he is lawyered up because he is currently out on bond from a murder charge stemming from a 2017 fatal shooting.

  I’ve said it before, you never know what animal might be in your neighborhood. Earlier this year a similar incident occurred in a San Antonio neighborhood where a man had a tiger escape and jumped into a neighbor’s back yard. Before the police arrived, he brought it back to his home and into an enclosure where he had other tigers. A separate tiger was captured later that month in a different neighborhood and was relocated to a wildlife rescue ranch in Texas.

  Another story that I’m surprised hasn’t been mentioned in all the news covering this latest event in Houston is the tiger that was discovered in an abandoned building in Houston back in February of 2019. That tiger, now known as Loki, was trapped in a cage and near death. Tigers are a little less dangerous when raised in captivity in close proximity to humans, but they are still extremely dangerous predators that can turn into a killer in the blink of an eye. 

  Sadly, there are around 5,000 to as few as 3,500 tigers are estimated to be living in the wild around the world. Meanwhile, there are estimated to be about 5,000 alone in the United States in captivity. The big problem with this is that only about 6% of these tigers are in zoos or other facilities accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. Most tigers, and many other exotic animals, live in people’s backyards or roadside attractions that generally fail to provide for the animals physical or mental welfare.

#4 Starlink’s unintended consequences

  Since May of 2019 these rocket launches as well as the string of lights of the deployed satellites have been confusing viewers on the ground all over the world. One would think that after over 1,800 of these being put in space people would be aware of what they were seeing. SpaceX UFOs was the number seven story in last year’s countdown and was the number eight story in 2019. 

  This year the madness started in early March as witnesses in New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, and other east coast states got a glimpse of a rocket carrying a payload of Starlink satellites. This led to some confusion and speculation that a giant UFO was headed our way. That same rocket would cause more panic on the west coast a few weeks later. Witnesses in the Pacific northwest saw a streaking fireball high in the sky. Some thought it was a UFO, a plane crash, or meteor but officials were quick to find out that it was the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had been launched on March 4th that failed to make a deorbit burn.

  In early April concerned residents in Texas reported multiple lights in the sky to several news stations. Again, the speculation was UFOs or a crashing meteor but was once again the Starlink satellites. In early May there was widespread panic from Michigan, Wisconsin to Nevada and Texas over lights in the sky thought to be UFOs or all of the other things I’ve already mentioned. Calls flooded police and news stations but again turned out to be mundane Starlink satellite sightings.

  In late May I had a story where Canada had documented a notable surge in 911 calls following the launches where the deployment can be seen. Tracy Duval, a dispatcher, stated, “We were getting a lot of calls with the SpaceX satellite launches. They’re a very specific pattern in the sky, they’re not hitting the ground, and we can just explain very quickly to people that there are actual satellites. We have situations where people are saying that the aliens are coming.â€� The satellites are seen as they catch sunlight while in orbit a few hours before sunrise and a few hours just after sunset as the sun’s rays hit the craft in orbit and reflect the light back down to us. 

  In late August a story about Starlink being involved in close encounters of a potential collision kind surfaced. SpaceX’s Starlink satellite constellations are involved in about 1,600 close encounters each week. This is roughly 50% of all situations in which two spacecraft passes within a distance of 1 kilometer or .6 of a mile of each other.

  Hugh Lewis, the head of the Astronautics Research Group at the University of Southampton, U.K. makes estimates of orbital situations using data from what is called the Socrates database. Of course, Socrates is an acronym which stands for Satellite Orbital Conjunction Reports Assessing Threatening Encounters in Space. 

  Lewis told Space.com, “I have looked at the data going back to May 2019 when Starlink was first launched to understand the burden of these megaconstellations. Since then, the number of encounters picked up by the Socrates database has more than doubled and now we are in a situation where Starlink accounts for half of all encounters.â€�

  In December I reported on residents as far south as North Carolina and north to Connecticut as well as far west as Arizona reporting lights in the sky of the deployed Starlink satellites. Starlink was also mentioned in the aftermath of the Russian anti-satellite test where Cosmos 1408 was destroyed creating about 1,500 pieces of trackable pieces of orbital debris along with hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces that are not that still pose a grave threat to anything in orbit. Starlink was forced to shift satellites to avoid the debris which also affected the International Space Station crew.

  Why it’s in the top ten: The Starlink satellites (and rockets that launched them) have probably accounted for more UFO sightings this year than all of the balloons, meteors, and swamp gas explanations in the last ten years.

  Why it’s only number four: Despite the growing amount of satellites to the constellation and the trouble they are causing with mounting space junk the public seems to be finally catching on to what they are seeing after two years.

 

  The thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger, received a bit of a revival of sorts in the paranormal news this year. This carnivorous marsupial has been in the news quite a bit over the years and many sightings have taken place despite most experts agreeing that the accidental death of a captive thylacine at the Hobart Zoo in 1936 was the last of its kind. Australia has kept records on thylacine sightings despite scientists stating the creature died out on the mainland thousands of years ago.

  Interestingly, a non-peer reviewed paper was published on January 19, 2021, that states that the thylacine may not have gone extinct back in 1936 but may have persisted until the 1990s or perhaps 20 years ago or might, just might, still be hiding out somewhere.

  Several reliable sightings were documented in the 1960s by trappers and bushmen. There was even a credible sighting in 1982 by a parks ranger which led to an intense localized search for the creature by authorities. However, a documented sighting accompanied by physical evidence still has not appeared.

  On January 20th Justin Humphrey of the Oklahoma House of Representatives introduced House Bill 1648 which urged the Oklahoma Wildlife Conservation Commission to establish a Bigfoot hunting season. The bill sought to set season dates as well as licenses and fees effective November 1st. The thought isn’t about tearing up the state trying to kill the creature but that many people will buy these hunting permits as a pure novelty.

  Instead of revenue the bill attracted a lot of negative feelings in many different forms. Obviously, the pro-Bigfoot people were upset that the state is going to let people kill this elusive animal (if they could actually find them) and is promoting the killing of a creature that might be closer to humans than primates which could open up a legal nightmare for the state. It’s also a creature that is celebrated in the state with conferences such as the Honobia Bigfoot Conference.

  On the other side of the coin skeptics are upset that time and effort is being wasted on a mythical creature and is bringing embarrassment to the state. Micah Holmes, Assistant Chief of the Information and Education Division at the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation told Fox News last week, “Here at the department, we use science to make management decisions, and we do not recognize Bigfoot as a wildlife species in Oklahoma.â€�

  Humphrey plays it off as just a novelty as he said, “Having a license and a tag would give people a way to prove they participated in the hunt, the overall goal is to get people to our area to enjoy the natural beauty and to have a great time, and if they find Bigfoot while they’re at it, well hey, that’s just an even bigger prize.â€� In addition to this Humphrey is also proposing a $25,000 bounty for Bigfoot’s safe capture. 

  In addition to the House Bill 1648 for Bigfoot Humphrey also put together another bill, House Bill 1653 which was about vaccines. The bill states in part, “any designer or manufacturer of a vaccine shall notify distributors, retailers, and health care providers if the vaccine contains human parts, animal parts, metals in any quantity, tracking devices, or any DNA-altering properties.â€�

  The bill isn’t centered on Covid-19 vaccines specifically but carries the general cries of anti-vaxxers which include being tracked, having your DNA permanently altered, or being injected with aborted fetal cells. None of which are remotely true.

  Commenting on Covid-19 Humphrey said, “First, we must establish that China developed this virus. “It was designed to infect overweight, diabetic, elderly people who have low immune systems. Where are the majority of overweight diabetic people found? That would be America!â€� 

  As far as the Bigfoot hunting bill it never made it out of committee, but he says that his idea did its job by promoting tourism to southeast area of the state. While he thought he would have to go through the state wildlife department to issue hunting licenses he discovered that since his intent is not to kill, he can go through the state tourism department. 

  Humphrey is now working with state tourism officials to set up what he’s calling Sasquatch Quest. The big rule is that Bigfoot must be captured unharmed and no one else can be injured nor can any laws be broken in the process. I think that if you’re trying to catch a 600-pound wild creature that seems to be pretty intelligent there’s a degree of danger involved and more than likely someone is going to get hurt along the way.

  What’s worse, is that there is money involved. The original intent was to set aside $25,000 of state money as a bounty for capture. But now he says an upcoming Hollywood Bigfoot movie has pledged around $2 million and another private business promised an additional $100,000. The good thing is the state will not flip the bill, the bad thing is that money will attract people who are not just coming to Oklahoma for the scenery and fun.

  Humphrey says, “We’re having fun with it. It's a lot of fun. I'm enjoying it. But at the same time, I know a lot of people thought I was crazy. But I think if people chill out, (they could) see that this could be a serious deal bringing in a lot of money, a lot of tourism.â€� Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Department of Tourism has not commented.

  The good news out of this is that profits generated from the Bigfoot tourism campaign will be used to maintain the state’s lakes, parks, and roadways. One confirmed plan is to allow businesses along State Highway 259A to sell annual Bigfoot tracking permits. The highway runs through Beavers Bend State Park and the profits from the sales would stay in the area.

  On Wednesday, May 26th, he announced that the bounty for Bigfoot had been raised again. He stated, “We're gonna offer $3 million, we raised the bounty today, $3 million for a live capture of unharmed Bigfoot.â€� He also stated that a film crew would be documenting various attempts to find the mythical creature over a six-month period. The series is set to appear in January of 2022.

  Why it’s in the top ten: This was probably the biggest Bigfoot story in years as far as how viral it was. It not only made a politician look crazier than normal, but it also stirred debate and discussion about this highly popular cryptid.

  Why it’s only number two: Despite this story being in the news for a good chunk of the year there was one story everyone was waiting on for a little longer.

#1 UAP Report finally revealed (and its fallout)

  The short 9-page report stated that 144 reports originated from 2004 through 2021. Of these, 80 reports involved observation with multiple sensors. In 18 incidents described in 21 of the 144 reports there was observations of unusual movement by the UAP including patterns or flight characteristics. Of the 144 reports only one was able to be identified with high confidence which was discovered to be a large deflating balloon. Of course, this was the conclusion of the in-house investigation into these reports.

  Does the report point to alien powered craft flying through our skies? Not exactly, the report essentially points to the high possibility that these reports are due to foreign adversaries or like I’ve said even domestic technology that is more advanced than what the government is purportedly aware of.

  There is of course a list of issues behind UAPs which I have talked about over the course of the last few months. Many of these points are brought forth in this report including the lack of standardized report collection methods with most just taking statements or a mere collection of a single video. This isn’t good enough and while a small handful of reports have been researched thoroughly none of them are able to find any sort of potential logical solution or point confidently in another direction. 

  This is my issue that ties in with report collection; there doesn’t seem to be any apparent investigation going into most of these claims other than collecting statements and data. Many legitimate internet sleuths such as Mick West from Metabunk have been able to create a high amount of certainty toward potential explanations, but why can’t the government do this simple task?

  The other glaring issue with the report is that UAPs more than likely lack a single explanation. Are all of these sightings of alien spaceships or advanced foreign technology? Probably not and it may be possible that neither one of these explanations applies to the 144 current reports as well. Airborne clutter is the leading potential cause such as the deflating balloon identified in one of the reports, some could also be birds, recreational unmanned aerial vehicles or other airborne debris such as plastic bags. Many of these could confuse an operator especially with Infrared technology which seems to be at the center of many of these reports.

  Researchers outside of the government were able to discern that the glowing aura report was nothing more than a processing artifact that is common in thermal cameras. The Tic-Tac video coincided with movements of the camera meaning the object wasn’t performing fantastic maneuvers like advertised and even the object itself is in question. Even the Go Fast video was an illusion of speed due to camera movement and that object was actually doing wind speed which means it was more than likely a balloon.

  The Gimbal UFO shows that when the UAP purportedly rotated other patches of light in the scene rotated as well. This means the object was more than likely a camera artifact and shows a distant aircraft flying away. The aircraft was even identified by time and flight path although the government never commented. The triangle UAP video shows multiple points of light including stars as triangles. The filming method created an effect called Bokeh. All of these cases involved infrared cameras and a couple of them new cameras as well as new operators.

  The biggest letdown of the report is that is remains largely inconclusive. This means despite collecting these reports they have no idea what is causing most of them and still have a range of possibilities that could explain any number of these reports. To many this leaves the door open for alien operated UFOs, but as these reports come out we find there are actually logical solutions highly possible that may explain most if not all of them one by one.

  The biggest interest about the report is something that has already been discussed publicly and that is the fact that UAPs could threaten flight safety as well as be a national security threat. The UAP task force states that there were 11 reports of near misses by pilots with UAPs. While there is still no direct evidence any of these reports are foreign aircraft the government continues to keep a close eye on these reports as this is the highest potential threat.

  So just as many have speculated this report really doesn’t provide any answers and really just opens the door for even more questions. The only bright side is the fact that now the door is open for disclosure on this topic and the government will continue to monitor the skies and take reports on unidentified craft.

  After the release of the report the question was raised about how long the classified version of the report might be. Officials declined to answer the question and speculation began with many people making their own guesses from 70 to 400 pages in length.

  John Greenewald, author and podcaster who also operates the website The Black Vault, tweeted out last Thursday that he confirmed the actual length of the classified version of the UAP report. In an email from Sally A. Nicholson, a Freedom of Information Act liaison for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, stated simply that the classified version of the report is a whopping 17 pages in length.

  The upcoming financial year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act contains 1,362 pages and within it calls for a permanent office designed to address unidentified aerial phenomena or UFOs. In part the legislation reads, “Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense, in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence, shall establish an office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense to carry out, on a Department-wide basis, the mission currently performed by the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force as of the date of the enactment of this Act.â€�

  Despite the closure of Project Blue Book back in 1969 we found out in December of 2017 through the New York Times that the government had been documenting sightings of unknown craft in the skies since around 2008. In August of 2020 the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force or UAPTF was established to document and disseminate recent sightings. This, of course, led to the preliminary assessment of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena report that was made public at the end of June this year. 

  Outlined in the bill the new UAP office would be responsible for:

• Developing procedures to synchronize and standardize the collection, reporting, and analysis of incidents regarding unidentified aerial phenomena across the Department of Defense. 
• Developing processes and procedures to ensure that such incidents from each military department are reported and incorporated in a centralized repository. 
• Establishing procedures to require the timely and consistent reporting of such incidents. 
• Evaluating links between unidentified aerial phenomena and adversarial foreign governments, other foreign governments, or nonstate actors. 
• Evaluating the threat that such incidents present to the United States. 
• Coordinating with other departments and agencies of the Federal Government, as appropriate. 
• Coordinating with allies and partners of the United States, as appropriate, to better assess the nature and extent of unidentified aerial phenomena. 

  Lawmakers will also require the new UAP office to provide the Senate and House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committees with an annual report detailing its activities until at least December 31, 2026.

  Why this story is number one: UFOs are finally being taken seriously. Despite the reality of these reports being more for potential foreign technology it is mind numbing to see that the U.S. government is more concerned about UFOs than those who used to push the disclosure movement.

()  

The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2020  

1 Jan 2021, 7:25 pm

10. MUFON director arrested

The Huntington Beach Police Department arrested Harzan as well as another gentleman on July 3rd and July 8th respectively surrounding sting operations in adult men targeting minor females. A Facebook post on the Huntington Beach Police Department’s page said in part, “On July 3, detectives contacted a male by the name of Jan Harzan after Harzan solicited sexual activity from a detective he believed was a 13-year-old girl. The suspect solicited the minor to meet for the purpose of engaging in sexual activity, and when the suspect agreed to meet the supposed minor, detectives were there to take him into custody.�

Also, according to the police report Harzan was arrested on multiple felonies and was specifically targeting minor females online. Harzan retired from IBM after 37 years in the information technology business, according to his MUFON bio. 

Why this story made the top ten: Despite being threatened by the monolith saga of December, Brazil UFO crash, workout ghost video, the Wisconsin Bigfoot bulletin and other stories, this one affects the largest UFO organization in the world. Despite the uptick in popularity and recognition of UFO and related phenomenon this is another black eye for the organization as well as the field of research. Short term affects seem minimal, but this story may wear down the organization’s foundation and public trust.

Why this story is only number ten: Although this was a shocking story involving MUFON it seemed to disappear as quickly as it appeared.

9. Lake monsters (other than Loch Ness)    

A 34-year-old British tourist was kayaking in the Nahuel Huapi Lake in the Patagonia region in Argentina when he disappeared back in late January. Sadly, the remains of the kayaker were later found about 20 miles away from where he had last been seen. Parts of the lake had been closed due to high winds which more than likely was the cause of the death. 

This explanation probably satisfied most, that was until a video surfaced a few days later of what appears to be a large monster swimming beneath the surface of the lake. The video doesn’t show much more than what looks like a wave in the middle of a narrow stretch of the lake, but it’s certainly caused some panic in the region and the video was the subject of many news reports in the area. 

Rumors of this creature have persisted since the late 1800’s and the media took a heavy interest as early as 1922 which predates the Loch Ness Monster’s popularity. 

A video taken by Blake Neudorf and his father who were out on a dock at Lake Okanagan back on July 10 of 2018 finally hit YouTube on January 2nd of this year and the video has since taken off with over 50,000 views on the original video and several thousand on other sites as well as news stories covering it in the British tabloids. Lake Okanagan is purportedly home to Ogopogo, the British Columbia, Canada version of the Loch Ness Monster.  

They initially thought it might be a dead dolphin, but as they got closer they realized it had an extremely long tail, no fins, as well as no eyes. The creature also had a mouth full of long sharp teeth.

There was a lot of speculation that the creature could not be identified by fishermen which meant it was something never seen or could be a genetic freak, but the creature was obviously one that lives in the depths of the Pacific Ocean where it would not need its eyes. 

A mysterious ten-foot-long creature in a lake in China frightened villagers, stunned the Chinese media, and has left everyone else baffled. That’s what the headlines say about a short viral video of a strange looking object submerged under milky brown water that could be a river, lake, or even a pond although it’s referred to as a reservoir in the story. This would suggest a manmade lake which would eliminate the possibility of a strange unknown creature. 

While some think this could be a crocodile or large snake, others suspect this could be a shoal of fish, a group of fish crowded together. When watching the video near the beginning you can see a small splash occurring at the far side of the mass about midway. This would indicate a group of small fish swimming together and seems like the most plausible answer.                                                                                                                               

Through the years the best proof gathered comes in the form of a photograph taken in July of 1977 by Sandra Mansi. In the photo you can see what appears to be the head and neck rising out of the lake with part of a body visible out of the water. People are still looking for Champ but with all the attention that the Loch Ness monster has received lately the folks at Port Henry, New York are hoping that some attention can be had for Champ.

He said the waves were moving really weird for about 30 seconds, he was then able to record the sighting for another 30 seconds before it disappeared. He also states he has spent some time on Lake Okanagan on vacations over the years and has heard all about the legends. After his sighting was captured on video, he uploaded it to TikTok which has since gone on to gather thousands of views.  

In late October a story out of China and North Korea involved one of the lesser-known lake monsters. This creature is called the Lake Tianchi Monster and resides in Lake Tianchi which is also known as Heavenly Lake of Tianshan or just Heaven Lake depending upon if you’re in China or North Korea. 

Heaven Lake is an alpine drift lake that was formed from volcanic activity and is part of the caldera that was formed after a massive volcanic eruption in 946 A.D. It’s a beautiful lake surrounded by snowcapped mountains, until you stand back and realize it’s water inside of a giant volcano surrounded by other volcanoes. The lake straddles North Korea to the southeast and China to the northwest.

It’s recognized by the Guinness Book of Records as being the highest volcanic lake in the world and is considered a culturally significant area to all Koreans. It’s covered with ice from mid-October until mid-June, but the creature that is said to live there has been seen since at least 1903.

Why this story made the top ten: A collection of lake monster stories? What’s not to love? While none of these alone would have surfaced in the top ten by bundling them together they easily swim in at number 9 on the list as most of these stories gained worldwide attention and a depth of speculation.

Why this story is only number nine: Despite these intriguing stories nothing relevant came out of them other than curiosity and a distraction from Covid-19 coverage.

8. “Madâ€� Mike Hughes death and ‘Flat Earth hoax’   

The 64-year-old was filming an episode of a new television series called “Homemade Astronautsâ€� for the Science Channel when the accident occurred. Hughes was attempting to get his rocket to 5,000 feet but it only managed to get just shy of 2,000 feet. 

Mike’s parachute seemed deploy just after takeoff and was shredded from the rocket’s steam exhaust. The premature parachute launch pulled the rocket off to a curved course and without it the craft headed straight down to the desert floor after its apex gaining speed until impact. Onlookers were horrified knowing likely they just watched a man die.

Justin Chapman, a journalist on the scene, published the launch via Twitter with a 48 second clip stating, “Mad Mike Hughes just launched himself in a self-made steam-powered rocket and crash landed. Very likely did not survive.�

Many headlines speculate that the reason for the rocket launches was to prove that the Earth is flat. Hughes had said this during a 2017 interview. However, during a 2019 interview with Space.com Mike clarified his statement by saying, “This flat Earth has nothing to do with the steam rocket launches, it never did, it never will. I'm a daredevil!� He also added that his biggest intention was to inspire people.

Darren Shuster, a public relations representative for Hughes told Buzzfeed news, “We used flat Earth as a PR stunt. Period.� Shuster clarified by saying, “He was a true daredevil decades before the latest round of rocket missions. Flat Earth allowed us to get so much publicity that we kept going! I know he didn’t believe in flat Earth and it was a shtick.� The truth may never be known but “Mad� Mike Hughes will more than likely go down in history as a Flat Earth believer who lost in his quest to find his personal truth.

Why this story made the top ten: The saga of Mike Hughes has lasted many years and has tied in with Flat Earth stories in the past. The crash and death of Hughes was widely covered by the media in the pre-pandemic 2020.

Why this story is only number eight: The death and attention of the plight of Hughes led to the reality that his adventures had nothing to do with the Flat Earth hypothesis, only that he was a daredevil.

7. SpaceX “UFOsâ€� 

We didn’t have to wait very long for the SpaceX launches to create drama in 2020. On January 6th SpaceX launched 60 more Starlink satellites bringing the total to 180. These latest satellites are coated with a dark cover to help lessen the reflectivity from the sun during darkness, the sun is frequently reflected to the viewers on the surface from medium to high altitudes (due to the Earth actually having a curve to it).

UFO reports flooded in a few states including Nebraska and Texas. Numerous photographs of the line of satellites being launched were taken in the Lone Star State, but luckily many knew what they were looking at. 

New Zealand residents feverishly reported seeing numerous UFOs in the sky in late January. As expected, Elon Musk’s Space X Falcon 9 rocket deposited 60 more starlink satellites and again caused numerous people to report UFOs. This is the fourth trip and this launch was delayed shortly by weather before being launched.

In their defense, many people did report what looked like satellites on social media, but many others were perplexed by the long string of lights in the sky.  

Musk plans on putting up 12,000 suitcase sized Starlink satellites in orbit to provide internet to those who cannot currently get it. Worse yet, there other companies are set to launch thousands of their own satellites similar to Musk’s. By late March there were about 300 of the Starlink satellites in orbit but they have already been noted to be creating issues for astronomers and now confusing stargazers; and sadly, the situation will only get worse from here.

The issue is that despite being suitcase sized they will appear bigger and brighter than most of the natural stars in the sky.  Scott Young, manager of the planetarium at the Manitoba Museum, said of the Starlink satellites, “They’re unusual sightings now, but pretty soon it’ll be the new normal… all you’ll see are these satellites. Imagine trying to find constellations at night. Imagine if only a quarter of the dots you’re looking at are actually stars.â€�

We’re obviously aware that the world is changing, and things are generally never the same after technology moves us forward, but while the world is still dealing with light pollution in many places at least there’s a way around that. Putting up artificial stars will rob our children of being able to see the sky for what it is. For me it’s always a thrill when I can spot a satellite from the ground, but once these 12,000 plus satellites are in place one will probably be amazed to see a natural star or planet.   

While Belgium didn’t have any reports for the month of March sent to MUFON an article from the Telegraph points out that Belgium had a record month of UFO sightings. According to the article there were 87 reports in March and 188 for the year of 2020 so far.

The COVID-19 lockdown certainly narrowed the country’s attention and kept everyone looking for anything to do. Second, the weather had been clear for much of the month. Third, from March 28 to April 1st there were at least 50 reports of a row of lights moving from west to east. Of course, these sightings coincided with another launch of Starlink satellites.   

According to K102.5 Kalamazoo’s Greatest Hits radio station, the Starlink satellites did a flyover which caused an influx of UFO reports in early May over southern Michigan. The satellites also created a bit of concern back on April 19th in Great Britain and parts of Europe as people saw the string of satellites flying across the sky.     

Currently there are about 2,300 active satellites orbiting Earth with about 3,000 littering space in addition to tons of other pieces and parts stuck in orbit for periods of time until they burn up in the atmosphere which for some may never come or take years to occur.

In October, the European Space Agency released its annual report on space debris, and it states that risk of dangerous collisions is on the rise. Also in October a close call between a defunct Russian satellite launched in 1989 and a spent Chinese rocket launched in 2009 could have created thousands of pieces of space junk that could have created a chain reaction like the Kessler Effect. SpaceX plans on putting up 42,000 or more Starlink satellites to bring Wi-Fi to the world, but at what cost?

If you want to see if the Starlink satellites are going to pass over your area you can check out the website: https://findstarlink.com/ 

Why this story made the top ten: UFO sightings were said to be on the rise this year, but so were Starlink launches. The launches are not only causing UFO sightings but also concern by astronomers and other scientists about our ability to see the night sky and to not end up trapping ourselves on Earth.

Why the story is only number seven: Surprisingly, the satellite launches created minimal accounts of UFOs compared to what I had predicted. The negative press was minimal about Starlink this year compared to last year and it looks as if these launches will increase and these UFOs will become more recognizable over time.

6. Arecibo observatory 

However, a second cable break on November 6th put the observatory at high risk of self-collapse. The National Science Foundation conducted surveys of the damage and engineers had determined the structure unsafe and the 900-ton platform would eventually be destroyed as safely as possible by a controlled demolition. On November 19th, the facility was officially decommissioned by the National Science Foundation.

�ngel Vázquez, the observatory's director of telescope operations, was in the control room with others removing valuable equipment on the morning of December 1st when the platform gave way. He stated that during the week other cables on the arm that broke began to fray with strands visibly coming from the cables which eventually led to the breakage.

The Arecibo observatory was completed in 1963 and was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. The observatory is well known for its “Arecibo Messageâ€� sent in 1974 by Frank Drake that includes data about Earth and humans. However, the merits and discoveries are long including the discovery of the first exoplanet, binary pulsar, in addition to a huge chuck of data to the Seti@home project and other SETI projects. 

Why this story made the top ten: Arecibo was one of the most unique radio telescopes even after it was no longer the largest. The observatory has carried out more work for SETI projects than any other telescope and is well known for its message sent into outer space in 1974. Most astronomers agree the loss of this telescope will hurt efforts of locating near-Earth objects and the work this unique telescope was able to conduct.

Why this story is only number six: Despite its work for SETI and science the paranormal community seems unaffected by the loss of the observatory. While 2020 was full of devastating losses, fear, and more important things to worry about the observatory’s destruction was more of a burden for scientists.

5. Mysterious Western US Drones          

Sheriff departments were then joined by the FBI, FAA, and the Air Force in getting to the bottom of the mystery that has many residents in these three states feeling nervous, vulnerable, and downright scared. A local CBS affiliate waited for nightfall with one of the witnesses and was able to document the drones from a distance.

The FAA and Air Force have both claimed they did not know who was behind the drones and the FAA has even said they’re not even sure if these are drones, despite the numerous witnesses and videos. None of the agencies felt that the drones posed any sort of threat and seemed to downplay the activity which seemed suspicious although it might have been to calm the growing concern.

Colorado, seemingly being the epicenter behind the sightings, even created a task force that searched for a command vehicle that could have been deploying the drones. They were looking for potentially a closed box trailer with antennas or a large van. A specialty armed airplane with three cameras that see in color and infrared even went in search of the drones with no luck.  

The military drone hypothesis was made from drone and aviation experts in Colorado, some of which had their own interesting sighting. Chris Swathwood, the chair of the legislative affairs committee for the Colorado Aviation Business Association and a seasoned drone pilot stated, “We did get eyes on one about 200 to 300 feet above, and it was moving at about 100 knots. It was a large, fixed wing aircraft. It was dark, and it had lights unlike any other manned aircraft would normally have.�

Swathwood also stated he felt the drone was more than eight feet in size and would use a runway to take off or could take off vertically, but it had a drive motor in the back propelling it forward. He also said this type of drone is more like something the military uses for large areas of surveillance and could be remotely flown from just about anywhere and would cost likely over $100,000 each to build.

The U.S. Air Force as well as oil and gas companies have denied using these types of drones in the past. So far, Amazon, Paragon Geophysical Services, the U.S. Geological Survey, the Colorado Department of Transportation and UAV Recon have also denied having connections to the drones. 

Officials are warning people not to shoot at the drones, as besides being highly dangerous it is also illegal. Drones are highly regulated, and this latest activity is making officials think that drones should have ways to be identified from a distance so that mysteries like this are not turned into potential threats. In fact, in December the FAA announced a proposed rule that would ensure all drones registered by the agency have remote identification technology. 

On the other side of the coin, it has also been proposed that maybe someone saw a handful of drones in one location, but others are seeing something different such as satellites or even stars and have misidentified them. Drone paranoia has grown large in these states and many claims of sightings yielded no actual sightings by trained observers reacting to the area so it’s possible that this flap of drone sightings might be spurred by panic.     

On Tuesday, January 7th a medical helicopter pilot reported a drone had come “in dangerous proximityâ€� to the aircraft. Pilot Kirk Peebles stated the drone passed within 100 feet of his helicopter. The Colorado Department of Public Safety then began to use more ground-based teams as well as aircraft to potentially get to the bottom of the mystery quicker. 

A Multi-Mission Aircraft took flight with cameras that had infrared and other ways of capturing video but was unable to find anything valuable. The MMA was tasked with finding a ground control vehicle for the drones. Any video captured by the MMA will not be released until the investigation is over. 

On Saturday January 11th, Colorado Department of Public Safety officials tested a small drone at low altitude as part of training for state workers. The training is aimed at helping the workers be able to identify smaller drones at a close distance versus large aircraft at a further distance.

There has been some talk by a few experts that many witnesses are probably seeing aircraft at a distance instead of drones, so the state is conducting some research and training for this scenario. They plan on testing the drone for a few nights and have warned the public of the tests so these flights will hopefully not get reported.  

Since the first large drone sightings there has been no physical evidence of large drones. Could this be a case of mass panic over a random sighting of something or could it be some sort of conspiracy theory? 

Once these sightings began to get national attention over 70 local, state, federal, and even military officials met in Brush, Colorado to help get to the bottom of the drone mystery. A joint drone task force was formed with ten to fifteen separate agencies actively working together to solve the sightings.

What about the helicopter pilot that states a drone came into “dangerous proximity� to his aircraft? How could we doubt the account of a trained pilot? Consumer drone company DJI has gathered several news reports of purported aircraft and drone collisions each with a not cut and dry outcome.

An August 2015 account of a small twin-engine plane that hit an unidentified object was fueled by speculation it hit a drone. Microscope research indicated a bird was responsible. A British Airways pilot reported hitting a drone at 1,700 feet in April of 2016 while on approach to Heathrow Airport. The media pushed the drone hypothesis heavily although no evidence was discovered of a drone and no damage to the plane was seen also the U.K. Transport Minister later said it might have been a plastic bag.

An airliner in Mozambique claimed to have hit a drone after hearing a loud bang. Despite a large dent in the nose of the plane it was determined to be structural failure, not an impact. A pilot in Australia claimed to have hit a drone while landing in July of 2017. DNA tests confirmed the plane had struck a bat. Many other incidents have been noted of balloons that were reported but drones were used in the media instead.

Another organization analyzed 764 reports of drones and found that only 27 were legitimate near misses of an actual drone: that’s just 3.5%.

When these sightings broke it was just days after the FAA proposed a rule that drones be identified remotely by using an identifier and GPS coordinates to a central database via a cellular signal. Granted, the big push behind this is in part that many companies including Amazon and the United States Postal Service are using drones more and more for commercial uses as well as that drones and their owners are hard to track by authorities who see illegal activity with their use.

Are these sightings being used to push an agenda to track drones? Probably not, but it sure does help to justify it.  

Officials revealed that there have been 90 incidents of drones since late November, 14 of which were just hobby drones. The other 76 cases are unresolved. With the big attention on the drone story 23 more cases have filtered in within the last week. Of these cases only 4 are a mystery while 19 have been determined to be hobby drones, planes, as well as planets or stars. People are seeing everything and reporting it as these drones.

One of the 19 reports turned out to be the Fort Morgan Colorado helicopter incident. Just one small daytime drone was reported, and the drone was not in a path or area that it should not have been. 

Officials have now admitted what many had been saying all along, there have been no confirmed circumstances of illegal drone activity. Along with this they have planned to pull back the investigation into the mass sightings of drones.   

David Hambling, a contributor to Forbes Magazine states that through documents obtained through the Freedom of Information act reveals that 24 nuclear sites suffered at least 57 drone incursions from 2015 to 2019. This doesn’t include the other areas like military bases and nuclear silo areas that have also recorded drone activity.

Some of this might just be curiosity seekers, but this is also alarming, but this doesn’t mean that UFOs are buzzing these areas. It shows how vulnerable these sites might be to terrorists as they could use a medium sized drone to put a hole in a cooling pool which could cause a horrendous radiation fire.

Why this story made the top ten: This was a big story to begin 2020 on. This was the most viral story of the month of January until the novel coronavirus invaded the United States and Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and others perished in a helicopter crash.

Why this story is only number five: While this seemed like an intricate story it more than likely was based on fear and virality. While there may have been some legitimate sightings of drones most of the reports were more than likely misidentification. This story was quickly lost in a very eventful January.

4. Loch Ness Monster radar and sightings      

It did not take long for the first official Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2020. The sighting came from a live webcam near Urquhart Bay on January 18th. Eoin O'Faodhagain, a long time Loch Ness Monster fan who has plenty of his own sightings over the years, was the person who sent in the sighting.

The sighting has been added to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register that is run by Gary Campbell. Last year Eoin had four sightings all from the webcam which added to the record 18 sightings on the register for 2019 which was the highest amount since 1983.

There does seem to be something moving in the water in the video, but there is hardly any detail to make out just what could have been behind the movement. Eoin states, “There were no boats or birds to see at the time of the sighting.â€� Of course, this does not mean that the Loch Ness Monster was responsible for these sightings.  

A photograph of the large skeleton with a person standing next to it was posted to Fubar News of North Scotland. The photo generated a lot of speculation and the media quickly jumped on it. The Liverpool Echo newspaper ran a poll asking its readers what they thought the skeleton was from. The largest percentage at 43% feel it’s a whale while 42% think it’s a publicity stunt, Nessie at 8%, and dinosaur at 7% but most headlines used the Loch Ness Monster as a hook for readers. 

Irish hospital clerk Eoin O'Faodhagain again caught a glimpse of the purported lake monster on the Loch Ness Live Cam which is stationed near Urquhart Bay. This second sighting of the year shows a small white shape that seems to come out of the water and float on the surface for just a few seconds.

This sighting was recorded off the web cam on Monday morning, April 13th at 8:11 AM local time. Of the sighting O’Faodigain said, “It was three to four feet out of the water at its highest but mainly low to the water for most of it. Putting up a wash of white water as it moved to see it at that range, it would have to be at least ten feet long. As you can see from the video there are no boats present before the object appeared out through the surface water. Loch Ness at the moment is like a ghost lake there is no activity of any sort out on the lake these days due to the present circumstances. It's exhilarating to get another sighting especially when it's the second one on record this year, back to back.�

It doesn’t look like much to me and I’m thinking it might actually be condensation or some sort of reflection on the lens of the camera. It might even be condensation or a close object near the lens such as a bug or bead of water on a spiderweb close to the camera.    

April 22nd brought the third Loch Ness Monster sighting of 2020. This sighting is thought to be the largest ever recorded with what is described as a 30-foot long shaped that purportedly came four to five feet out of the water. Such a sighting would have to help validate the Loch Ness Monster at this point, right?

This third sighting of Nessie for 2020 was again longtime Loch Ness Monster watcher Eoin O'Faodhagain. His last sighting came just a week and a day prior to this one and is seemingly the same thing he caught the first time. The footage doesn’t exactly show anything of detail and the size is left to perception and speculation.

The webcam is called Loch Ness Live Cam and can be viewed at https://lochness.co.uk/livecam/.   

During a trip to Urquhart Castle on the 15th or 16th of September he saw an object in the water he assumed was a fish and began taking photographs. Challice commented, “I started taking a couple of shots and then this big fish came to the surface and then went back down again. It only appeared in one shot and to be honest that was something of a fluke. I watched for a while as you can see from the last picture but didn't see it again.�

The only picture the creature appears is one where a creature appears to be partially out of the water and moving. Other pictures show a trail in the water where the creature seems to be moving. He said he was photographing the opposite shore when he saw a ripple and began taking photos. He estimated the creature was about 30 feet away and about 8 feet long.

Roland Watson, an author who runs the Loch Ness Mystery blog, says, “If this is a genuine picture of a creature in Loch Ness, it would easily rank in the top three of all time. At this point, I am in an ongoing conversation with Steve as to the objections and concerns I have about this being a photoshop picture. So, we will see where that takes us.�

According to the Daily Record a digital photography expert has also stated the photograph appears to be Photoshopped. The expert cites that color saturation and indistinct lining of the purported animal makes the photograph suspect.

Steve, however, states the photograph is genuine but he’s not claiming it’s the Loch Ness Monster. He says that he posted the photograph so that hopefully someone else could identify what it was. He says, “Personally I know there has been some interest and some people are saying it's the monster, but I don't believe that. I have to say I don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster and frankly I think if anything is there then there is a logical explanation for most of the sightings. My guess would be that what I captured was a catfish or something like that. As seals get in from the sea then I expect that’s what it is and that would explain why these sightings are so few and far between.�

The photograph was posted on the Facebook group Anomalous Universe and Roland Watson had followed the conversation once the photo was posted. The person responded to criticism about the image being CGI by saying, “No it's just a fish but not sure what sort. Love the idea of cgi but I'm not that good at it... Lol�.

However, Watson did some surface level digging and found the man’s LinkedIn page which shows that he’s a 3D graphical artist. Watson called out Challice to which he replied, “I didn't say I didn't do cgi I just said that I'm not that good. The photo is genuine, and it was taken at Loch ness last September. Will happily show you the rest of the images when I get home next week.â€�  

It didn’t take too long for this story to completely unravel and it turned out that the creature was a catfish and a giant one at that. Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually swimming in the waters of Loch Ness. 

Catfish have pigmentation patterns on their backs that are unique like human fingerprints. Jeriah Houghton spotted the image and compared the pigmentation on both the Italian catfish and the purported Loch Ness Monster image and discovered they were exactly the same.  

The 5th official sighting was the 5th webcam capture of the year and the second for Kalynn Wrangle of the United States who now owns two sightings on the list one from April 10 and the latest from June 3rd. 

Sadly, these sightings are captured from a webcam that seems to be thousands of yards away from the loch and can’t see much detail to actually tell what is occurring. It is a boat, is it the wind, a bird, fish underwater? It’s nearly impossible to tell. Maybe this is by design.   

The sixth official sighting of the Loch Ness Monster occurred on July 8th and it’s the first of the year that happened in person.  This sighting happened near Fort Augustus when 35-year-old Ross MacAulay spotted something large in the water about 100 yards away from a pair of kayakers. 

However, the story says that Ross and his friends were completely baffled as to what the object was, and he estimated it to be about 12 feet long. Of his encounter Ross stated, “There were a couple of kayakers, but 100 yards ahead of them was something below the surface. At first I thought it was a big rock under the water and I just carried on driving. Then I thought 'there's never been a rock there before' - so curiosity got the better of me. I turned round and parked in a long lay-by. The object had moved and was now out in the middle of the loch. The kayakers were much further behind. The creature must have done 400 yards in a minute - and against the wind. I started filming it for five minutes. There was no long neck, no head, just the hump bit. I would say it was 12ft long and 4ft wide, at its widest. It was light grey and it went under the water then up and then disappeared.â€�  

On August 29th Mr. Van-Schuerbeck was on holiday with his family, or a vacation to those of us in the United states, when he took a picture of Loch Ness and later discovered he might have found the elusive beast. Van-Shuerbeck was looking over his photos when he saw what appears to be something sticking up out of the water of the loch, but the object is so distant it’s nearly impossible to tell what it is.  

On September 8th, an unidentified man was walking around the loch on the new Loch Ness 360 trail when he took photographs of what he feels is the Loch Ness Monster.

The man states that he is a “lifelong Nessie skeptic� although according to the article he was shocked and baffled when he had his sighting. The man stated, “I was just enjoying the wonderful views, mind elsewhere on a lovely clear breezy day, when I stopped dead in my tracks. From where I stood, at a clear vantage point in the hills, there was a very defined dark shape beneath the water.�

Over the last weekend of September Corey and Lauren Sturrock were walking along the loch at around 3:40 PM when they saw a giant creature rise out of the water.

Mr. Sturrock stated, “I have been camping and walking on Loch Ness my whole life and I have never believed in the Loch Ness monster. But what my wife and I saw was something quite extraordinary and I would like to know if other people have seen the same. It was, what looked like to me and Lauren, like a massive eel. It was the size of a bus. It was massive. We saw the water rippling as if something was swelling, and that is what grabbed our attention. We then saw this thing, that looked like a massive eel rise from the water, and then go back under again. There was a large swell. Other people walking on the same path saw it as well.�

Mr. Sturrock continued, “I reached for my phone – but it was all over in a matter of about 10 or 20 seconds – and it only showed itself for a few seconds. By the time I got my phone out it had gone underneath again. It didn’t look like all those Nessie drawings with the humps – it was just a large, or very large eel. After never believing there was anything in the loch, and no basis for belief in the Loch Ness monster, I would say that perhaps there are large eels in the water – and when they emerge they may look like a monster. Whatever it was it was some size.â€�  

Mackenzie explains his sighting, “It was right in the middle of the loch at about 170m to 190m depending on the story (558-623ft) down with the loch being at about 300 meters or 984 feet. It was big – at least 10m (33ft). The contact lasted 10 seconds while we passed over. We have real state-of-the-art sonar on the new boat. It doesn’t lie. It captures what’s there.â€�  

On October 11th another piece of sonar data was recorded showing something large just above the bottom of the loch. The sonar find was also captured by Ronald Mackenzie of Cruise Loch Ness. The previous image was said to be of a 32-foot-long object which later estimated to only be about 15 to 20 feet long.

This second sonar contact occurred about a mile from the previous one. Craig Wallace, an expert sonar operator, discovered the real Loch Ness Monster four years ago using new sonar equipment. This was a model of Nessie that had been used during the filming of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes back in the 1970s. 

Wallace has offered to come back to Loch Ness and do more surveys if someone is willing to sponsor it. These sonar findings have furthered speculation that the quiet lake due to Covid lockdowns might be responsible for these sightings. But just like the last sonar image the possibility is high it is just a shoal of fish.  

Rod Michie of Jacobite Cruises stepped forward to add his sonar sighting to the two previous captures. The only issue is his happened back in June of 2015. He says of his image, “I used to see surprising things visually or by sonar, but every time there was a logical explanation. But this contact was different. It really is unexplained. The equipment is improving all the time and that is most likely to solve the mystery of Nessie. I saw things over the years that I did not want to make a lot of for fear of ridicule, but this sighting in 2015 was very similar to Ronald’s.�

He goes on to say, “I also know Ronald Mackenzie well and he is a genuine guy. There is something unexplained down there. My guess is that it is big eel – 20-30ft long.�

So, Jacobite Cruises is a rival company on the loch to Mackenzie’s so this to me sounds like an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of this story. Michie even stated he wonders if his image is possibly the lost model of Nessie that was used during the filming of the 1970s movie The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The 30-foot model was discovered on the floor of the loch in June of 2016. It’s still there and its location is known so I’m not sure why Michie isn’t sure if it is or isn’t the model.

The 12th “official� sighting of the Loch Ness Monster occurred on November 24th near Urquhart Castle. Karen Scott and her partner observed the creature around 2:30 pm and stated that it surfaced, disappeared, and then resurfaced off and on for around five minutes but no photographs or video accompanied their sighting.

 A 13th sighting was reported in December of a November 15th encounter of spotting a “whitish greyâ€� object in the water about a half mile away moving through the water.

Why this story is in the top ten: 2020 did not live up to the 21st century record number of sightings of 18 in 2019. But the sightings and stories of the catfish hoax and the sonar findings kept the Loch Ness Monster in the paranormal and mainstream news all year long and was a welcomed distraction to all the Covid-19 and political news.

Why this story is only number four: Collectively these stories cast a lot of weight for a creature that has been proven time and again that it does not exist. Last year’s number four story was the Neil Gemmel’s ‘Loch Ness Monster’ study that found no DNA that could explain a large creature in the loch. If it were not for the hoax and sonar findings the Loch Ness Monster may have gone unnoticed from the rest of the world outside of the United Kingdom.

3. U.S. government research on UFOs    

AATIP was revealed to the world in 2017 as The New York Times uncovered information surrounding the $22 Million program and was thought to be a secret UFO research program. Since then, the government had admitted that the program did research UAPs, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, but again late last year claims that AATIP did not investigate these types of crafts.

Popular Mechanics emailed the Pentagon’s Senior Strategic Planner and Spokesperson Susan Gough for clarification of several discrepancies in the details and dates surrounding some of the information about the various programs including AATIP. Initially Gough responded she would examine the information and provide a response, but repeated requests for any statement have gone unanswered.

Motherboard recently contacted Susan Gough and states that she will release a new public statement about the findings in the following weeks as it pertains to the Advanced Aerospace Weapons System Application Program or AAWSAP and AATIP programs. It will be interesting how the Pentagon will attempt to twist their way out of this one. While we’re finally getting some disclosure, we’re also getting the runaround and somewhere someone is not telling the truth or doesn’t really understand the information.    

The U.S. Army is working with Tom Delonge’s organization, The To the Stars Academy, because what is rumored to be exotic materials in the group’s possession. TTSA issued a press release back in October of last year to make the announcement. The press released announced that they had formed an agreement with the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) to “advance materiel and technology innovations.� This collaboration is called a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement or CRADA (pronounced CRAY-DUH)

John Greenwald of The Black Vault attempted to obtain records relating to just what the deal between the Army and the TTSA is, but according to Greenwald the research and reports are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act per Army Regulation 70-57.

Greenwald instead used keywords “To the Stars� and “TTSA� in relation to all records and emails related to Dr. Joseph Cannon of U.S. Army Futures Command who is known to be working with the agreement. The Army responded that there were 29 documents but that they were not going to release these records as they were exempt from the request.

Motherboard reached out to Doug Halleaux, a spokesperson for the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Ground Vehicle Systems Center, who said that document’s related to TTSA would be classified as “trade secrets and commercial or financial information [that are] privileged or confidential.â€� 

So, the big hush hush here is not about secret UFO technology, it basically boils down to intellectual property and the finances behind the deal. The To the Stars Academy signed a five-year deal last year purportedly based on the group’s possession of so-called metamaterials that the U.S. Army would like to research to use in a variety of projects.    

On April 27th, the U.S. Department of Defense officially released the three videos showing unidentified aerial phenomena. The three videos had been previously leaked by the To the Stars Academy and have helped put the topic of UFOs out of the forbidden realms right into the mainstream.

The official announcement from the Department of Defense page reads as follows, “IMMEDIATE RELEASE -Statement by the Department of Defense on the Release of Historical Navy Videos dated APRIL 27, 2020. The Department of Defense has authorized the release of three unclassified Navy videos, one taken in November 2004 and the other two in January 2015, which have been circulating in the public domain after unauthorized releases in 2007 and 2017. The U.S. Navy previously acknowledged that these videos circulating in the public domain were indeed Navy videos. After a thorough review, the department has determined that the authorized release of these unclassified videos does not reveal any sensitive capabilities or systems and does not impinge on any subsequent investigations of military air space incursions by unidentified aerial phenomena. DOD is releasing the videos in order to clear up any misconceptions by the public on whether or not the footage that has been circulating was real, or whether or not there is more to the videos. The aerial phenomena observed in the videos remain characterized as "unidentified." The released videos can be found at the Naval Air Systems Command FOIA Reading Room: https://www.navair.navy.mil/foia/documents.â€� 

This is just a clarification of the information that has been put out by the TTSA and the vast speculation behind the videos. Like mentioned in the statement the government has already admitted the videos were theirs back in September of last year, so this official announcement doesn’t have a ton of impact, but it rules out the TTSA making anything up about the videos.  

A lot of people feel the Department of Defense’s acknowledgement is a step in the right direction toward potential disclosure of more information. Many were excited or at least happy to hear that the videos are now official. But not everyone was so excited or took them seriously.

President Trump seemed skeptical about the videos during an Oval Office interview with Reuters shortly after the official announcement. He laughed and questioned whether the videos were really real. Trump has not been a big fan of UFOs and has admitted that he’s not a believer.  

Reid was the backbone of the Advanced Aerospace Threat and Identification Program (AATIP) and the Advanced Aerospace Weapons Systems Applications Program (AAWSAP) that operated from 2007 to 2012 on a Congressional black budget of about $22 million.

Reid said, “I look at it this way, the world as we know it today is extremely large. It’s so big I can’t comprehend it. And I think that we as human beings have to be a little short sighted if we think we’re the only species in the entire universe. In the entire universe there is for sure more than one [species].�

While politicians generally sidestep talking about little green men or extraterrestrials Reid seems to feel that talking about strange things in the sky cannot be separated from aliens.

He says, “I don’t think you can separate them. I think it’s all one big basket of stuff. We learned with the work that we did that the sightings of aerial phenomenon has not been seen by a couple dozen people, not a couple hundred people. Thousands of people. Thousands of people. We have that down pretty pat. We know that unusual things have happened over decades on a regular basis and we know that in the Dakotas, a missile launching facility has been shut down because of something over one of them basically shutting off the power to them. We know the accounts off the coast of San Diego where ships have found these unusual things in the water and it shut down the communications on the ships.�

Reid stresses that while we should have no boundaries in what we search for people should not be afraid of what is out there. Reid has also stated that the three videos released by Tom DeLonge’s To the Stars Academy and recently acknowledged by the Department of Defense only scratches the surface of what remains classified and not yet publicly available.

The Pentagon has recently stated that AATIP was not studying UFOs this went against what Reid and Louis Elizondo had previously stated about the organization. So why are UFOs still taboo despite the mounting evidence?

Reid stated, “I think the legislators are afraid to do this for fear they’ll be charged with wasting taxpayer dollars. Even some of my staff told me to stay away from all this. But I never looked back. It was something I was interested in. I thought it was something that government should be involved in. And I think we have the Pentagon and other government officials don’t continue work on this it’s a really unfortunate thing for the country because other countries are doing it."     

At the end of June, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee announced that it wants to impose rules on how information is shared by the Department of Defense about Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or basically UFOs. Although in the bill they also use the term anomalous aerial vehicles.

The regulation of the Pentagon’s tracking efforts comes from the Department of Defense’s confirmation that the three leaked videos were legitimate and that the Office of Naval Intelligence is tracking these objects systematically.

The report states, “The Committee supports the efforts of the Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon Task Force at the Office of Naval Intelligence [ONI] to standardize collection and reporting on unidentified aerial phenomenon, any links they have to adversarial foreign governments, and the threat they pose to U.S. military assets and installations.�

The committee wants an unclassified report filed within 180 days of any incident although the report may include a classified annex meaning part of the information may be missing. The bill itself is heavy on a lot of other topics including cybersecurity and artificial intelligence reporting which is scary enough and the UFO stuff is merely in the comments.  

In August, the Pentagon has announced the establishment of a task force to review unexplained aerial phenomena that have been seen by the U.S. military. In a statement the Pentagon stated in part, “On Aug. 4, 2020, Deputy Secretary of Defense David L. Norquist approved the establishment of an Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force (UAPTF). The Department of Defense established the UAPTF to improve its understanding of, and gain insight into, the nature and origins of UAPs. The mission of the task force is to detect, analyze and catalog UAPs that could potentially pose a threat to U.S. national security.�

The UAP task force will be operated by the Navy and report to the undersecretary of defense for intelligence. This work was already being done but now it will be a more formal process. The work completed by the task force will be classified, although this might change in the future if the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s proposal for an unclassified report on UFOs is adopted by the full Senate and House of Representatives.

Of course, all of this follows the release of three videos which have gone on to be known as “Gimbalâ€�, “GoFastâ€�, and “FLIR1â€� which is also known as the “Tic Tacâ€� video. These videos were acknowledged and officially released by the Pentagon in April of this year although leaked to the public through the New York Times via the To the Stars Academy. Many claim these three videos are UFOs and defy rational explanation, although various explanations for all three videos have been made although largely ignored by a public that wants to believe. 

This task force creation is essentially a reaction to the reaction of these videos getting out into the public. UFO skeptic Robert Sheaffer weighed in on this topic by saying, “In the military, a task force is something that is put together to deal with a specific situation or problem. It is expected to produce a report and recommendations concerning that issue and is disbanded when such work is complete. So, this is not something open-ended and ongoing, like Project Blue Book. It does not suggest an ongoing government interest in unidentified objects.�

Other experts point out that this response to Unidentified Aerial Phenomena is anchored in the protection of our airspace which has been increasingly penetrated by other technologies from around the world. As our technology increases, we may also monitor how our technology could be perceived by others which might be another reason for this analysis.

Either way, on the outside it might seem like this is about tracking alien spacecraft in our airspace but it is really about understanding the technology advancements around us and how to keep track of it all.

Why this story made the top ten: UFO study has gone from swamp gas and X-File theme music with canned laughter to a serious discussion point within the U.S. government. These days it seems the government is doing more work to uncover UFO information than the public that feels they are covering everything up. UFOs, or UAPs, were in the news all year long this year and have finally become an accepted topic by the news.

Why this story is only number three: While the topic was in the news all year long there were no major strides to disclose any new information. We’re still as in the dark as we were in 2019, but the push seems to be headed in the right direction finally.

2. UFO reports on the rise?    

This one focused on NUFORC, or the National UFO Reporting Center, which was created in 1974 and has been operated by Peter Davenport since 1994. Despite being essentially a one-man show, the organization stays current with sightings and has a hotline and dynamic website that displays hot cases generally with explanations.

NUFORC stays relevant by pushing stories into the media and in early 2020 noted that 2019 had a surge in cases. In 2018 NUFORC reported 3,395 reports and 2019 totaled 5,971 reports. NUFORC is only concerned with reports from the United States but does include other countries in their database which is free to use by anyone.

On the rise Davenport stated, “One of the mysteries of ufology is there is a fluctuation in the number of reports over the years. Some years it’s been low, but it’s gotten higher recently.�

Davenport does not investigate these reports and notes that some of them may be for the same object. Many of the reports are placed by anonymous people and the cases are never followed-up on.    

An early April article from the Daily Star states that the Coronavirus pandemic has sparked a 30-year high in UFO sightings worldwide. But the headline was a bit misleading.

The article also mentions the surge of UFO sightings out of Belgium. From the article it states that Frederick Delaere, from the Belgian UFO Reporting Centre, said Belgium’s coronavirus lockdown was likely the cause.

The real cause was the spotting of the Starlink satellites as a vast majority of the sightings reported the same exact thing in relation to the movement of the satellites being deployed. It might be partly that people are at home more, but they’re also bored and many of them scared. High UFO reports have historically come during uneasy times.

We can also really point the finger at the media for (which ever finger is up to you) their lack of research behind a lot of these sightings. But this isn’t new. We did see a spike in sightings reported by MUFON, but not quite at the strength that they were during the 2015 year during the height of the television show Hangar 1. 

In early September the National UFO Reporting Center, known as NUFORC, makes the news as they are reporting a 51% increase in reports through this time last year. Unlike MUFON, which has many investigators in nearly every state as well as many countries worldwide, NUFOC is operated by one person- Peter Davenport with support from a webmaster who fields the online form.

From his home in Harrington, Washington, Peter says he is taking 25 to 50 calls a day on UFO reports this year. Davenport’s nonprofit organization has reported over 5,000 UFO reports for 2020 with around 20% taking place in April. MUFON also encountered a historical month of April recording 1,026 total worldwide sightings. And in case you’re keeping score at home MUFON has recorded 5,851 reports so far this year. Last year the total for year for MUFON was 7,134.

Of course, much of the spike in reports is due to the lockdowns imposed over the Covid-19 pandemic as people have had more time to think about and report sightings that happened previous to this year. But we should also consider that the news of the U.S. Navy releasing the archival footage of the already known three UFO videos certainly helped, also noted by Davenport is the influx of photographs and sightings of the Starlink satellites that are a line of UFOs high in the sky, as well as the History Channel's two seasons of “Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation� that wrapped up last month.

While MUFON releases the total numbers of sightings NUFORC doesn’t always break things down, but in this article, we get to see a month-to-date total as well as month-to-month. January NUFORC recorded 601 reports (MUFON 628), February 604 (MUFON 540), March 807 (MUFON 883), April 1,034 (MUFON 1,026), May 556 (MUFON 759, June 357 (MUFON 601, July 615 (MUFON 769), and August 545 for NUFORC and 645 for MUFON.

An article by Astronomy in early October stated that sightings of UFOs might not have spiked due to Covid-19 lockdowns. They state that the National UFO Reporting Center, NUFORC, has reported a spike in cases in the spring that they feel is tied to the Pentagon’s official release or UFO tapes and the media that was generated by this story.

The Astronomy article states that the National UFO Reporting Center did encounter a large spike in the spring but that after these high months that the numbers went back to 2019 levels which have been lower than they have been over the last decade.

MUFON’s Steve Hudgeons, international director of investigations, states that overall cases have been declining over years. While the numbers have fluctuated over the last five years that I’ve been keeping a close eye on them you can see an average annual decline over that period of time and MUFON has been tracking them since 1969.

But what about stories being published that state that UFO sightings are on the rise? The Wall Street Journal had a headline that read, “UFO Spotting has Replaced Birdwatching as Pandemic Obsession.� New York claims to have had an increase in UFO sightings, last month the New York Post stated sightings were up 51% during the pandemic.

Steve Hudgeons has noted that despite an increase in the number of UFO reports there has also been a larger spike in reports that are easily explainable. Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, feels that many UFO sightings are a result of the fact that most people rely on their cell phone as the main source of evidence. These devices do not have a mechanical shutter which results in smearing of moving objects. He says that birds become cigar-shaped objects and bugs become hypersonic UFOs since they don’t realize they are right in front of the camera.

Why this story made the top ten: Probably every single U.S. state ran an article about an increase in UFO sightings since last year and this was also a topic worldwide. With the support of SpaceX and the government release of UAP investigations along with the announcement of a task force investigating them no wonder people feel as though there is an increase in sightings.

Why this story is only number two: There really wasn’t much of a bump in sightings and reports have actually been down over the course of the last few years. Of course, there is a number one story that had a much bigger effect on the world.

1. Covid-19 shuts down the world (and the paranormal with it)

This wasn’t taken seriously though as similar reports have been made by the same researchers in the past without merit. But this story began to weave the novel Coronavirus in with the paranormal.

As March hit so did the panic and the pandemic. As toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and sanitizing wipes flew off the shelves local and state governments began to limit the number of people in gatherings and impose stay at home orders. This began a domino effect that led to the cancellation and rescheduling of dozens of paranormal conferences and conventions. While many felt that things would be back to normal by summer the realization was slow to hit as the lockdowns lasted into the fall and hardly any events went on as planned.

Sylvia Browne, a self-proclaimed psychic medium and author who made numerous television appearances has suddenly been brought back into the spotlight. Browne died in 2013, but her 2008 book, “End of Days: Predictions and Prophecies about the End of the World�, has suddenly become a popular book due to a prediction she made about the coronavirus. But did she really?

Many people were talking about this prediction online and it was slowly gaining momentum until Kim Kardashian West decided to share it with a heavy sense that she believed it was true especially since it came from the reliable source of her sister Kourtney. Of course, her loyal followers have also followed this belief that Sylvia Browned did in fact predict the future which resulted in this story exploding.

So, yes, she got the year right; that’s pretty impressive. But the passage says in around 2020. 2020 is a nice round date but around 2020 could mean a wide range of years. Benjamin Radford wrote about this in his blog for the Center for Inquiry where he says, “Most people would probably agree that 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023 are “around� 2020. Using this range, we see that Browne’s spread is over seven (or more) years—well over half a decade.�

Sylvia then predicts a “severe pneumonia-like illness�. COVID-19 is not a pneumonia-like illness although it could lead to pneumonia, but it is a severe respiratory infection. Browne then states, “it will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes.�

Again, Benjamin Radford points out, “Covid-19 has now indeed spread throughout the globe, though the phrase “attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes� isn’t a prediction but merely restates any “pneumonia-like illness.�

Browne then states that it will resist all known treatments. This is absolutely not true. Despite not being a vaccination at the time this does not mean that the infection is not resistant to any treatments to any of the symptoms.

She then says the illness will suddenly vanish and then attack ten years later. Well, hopefully COVID-19 will disappear as quickly as it has arrived as this is normal with outbreaks of any disease. I’m sure you’ve heard about lowering the curve, this means that when cases peak out and begin to decline, we can expect the cases to dissipate as quickly as they arrived. This is basic virology and simple science. As far as coming back in ten years we will have to wait on this one, but due to the fact of COVID-19’s spread it’s pretty certain that we will be dealing with this for years to come.

Sylvia Browne has a long track record of wrong claims and was even convicted of fraud, grand theft, and larceny back in 1992. She made numerous predictions of missing children that were completely wrong including the heartbreaking Amanda Berry case in 2004 where Browne told Berry’s mother that she was not alive. Berry’s mother died two years later with the thought that her daughter had died, but her daughter was found alive seven years later.

Browne even predicted she would die 11 years after she really died. She was even caught in a lie during an episode of Coast to Coast with George Noory where she changed her prediction based on information provided by Noory about miners trapped in the Sago mine in West Virginia in 2006.

Predictions like this rely heavily on vagueness of the information as well as people retrofitting information to fulfill it even if a lot of things are wrong with it.

Honorable mentions:

• Utah (and other other) monoliths
• WSDOT Bigfoot sightings
• Brazil UFO crash
• Workout ghost video
• Wisconsin Bigfoot bulletin (resurfaces) 
• Zak Bagans controversy
• Cotopaxi discovery/Bermuda Triangle loses its grip
• Yowie droppings
• Stolen Bigfoot statues

This year's countdown is dedicated to the life and work of Bigfoot researcher and friend David Dragosin.

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The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2019  

20 Sep 2020, 5:11 pm

10. Yeti Discovered

9. Thylacine: Government admits keeping track of sightings and new colorized video.

   Last year the news was quiet on the Thylacine front. The first episode of 2019 included a hopeful (though doubtful) account of a possible Tasmanian tiger sighting. A farmer, named Peter Groves, spotted what he feels was a living Thylacine or Tasmanian tiger while in Clifton Springs in the state of Victoria in Australia. Clifton Springs is on the southeast part of the large island country and is southwest of Melbourne. Yes, Australia is a continent but Australia as a continent also includes other island nations that do not belong to Australia – just to clarify.

 

   Groves stated that the animal did not seem afraid of him and stood there for about five minutes. Of his encounter Groves said, “It could just be a mangy fox, but it seems to be bigger than a fox and it's not shy.â€� Groves described the creature as “funny looking with a big long tail and stumpy ears.â€�

   On the August 13th show it was announced that incredible new footage of a Tasmanian tiger had been discovered. The last known Thylacine or Tasmanian tiger died in the Hobart Zoo back in 1936. It was accidentally locked out of its enclosure and it died of exposure.

   Biologist David Fleay was able to film the carnivorous marsupial a number of times while it roamed an enclosure while at the Hobart Zoo. One such film appeared on Reddit and has been colorized for the first time. We saw a new high definition version of the Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film in early July which was pretty exciting, but this new version of an old film is just as exciting to me yet very sad at the same time as we are looking at potentially the last living Thylacine known as Benjamin shortly before its death and the demise of the entire species.

   The Tasmanian tiger still remains one of the many hopeful animals that have been purportedly seen by residents but has yet to have been confirmed by scientists or have conclusive evidence discovered despite the claims. While it’s extremely unlikely these sightings will lead to the rediscovery of this once thriving creature it would end up being one of the greatest animal discoveries of the century if it turned out to be true.

   The October 22nd show discussed that the Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment recently released a listing of sightings collected from September 1st, 2016 until September 19th of this year. There was a total of eight sightings included in the document.

   Most of the sightings included only a glimpse of a creature resembling a Thylacine for only a couple of seconds. Some of these reports were made months after the actual sighting. One report stated that the witness not only saw a Thylacine but that there were also two cubs in tow. The last report was taken on August 15th of 2019 but was of tracks that were discovered seven years ago. While these reports are exciting news there is no clear evidence to support any of these cases and the Thylacine remains just as elusive as ever.

Why this story made the top ten: The Thylacine is considered by many cryptozoologists as the largest and most popular animal to still exist in the wild despite scientists stating this creature has been extinct for over 80 years. The government taking note of sightings is a positive fact.

Why this story is only number nine: None of the reports lead us any closer to rediscovering this carnivorous marsupial in the wild. Thylacine stories generally trend very high, but these loose reports kept the story from moving anywhere close to the top five.

8. Dutch and U.S. UFO sightings tied to SpaceX Starlink launches

   A long train of lights in the sky prompted dozens of calls to a Dutch website created to document UFO sightings back in late May. Over 150 reports flooded the UFO Meldpunt Nederland website with a couple of photos showing a string of white lights in the sky.

   This mass UFO sighting turned out to be caused from a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch that took off from Cape Canaveral Florida at 10:30 PM on Friday, May 24th. The rocket then began to release 60 separate satellites at an altitude of 280 miles. The satellites then had to use their own thrusters to take up a position in low satellite orbit at 342 miles above the Earth which was able to be seen from Earth’s surface.

   Each satellite weighs around 500 pounds and while 60 satellites may seem like a lot it’s only a taste of what’s to come in the near future. Elon Musk is planning on having about 12,000 of these satellites in geo-stationary orbit surrounding the Earth providing Internet coverage in what is billed as a mega-constellation creating a global space internet. This project, called Starlink, has some scientists concerned with Ronald Drimmel from the Turin Astrophysical Observatory in Italy stating, “The potential tragedy of a mega-constellation like Starlink is that for the rest of humanity it changes how the night sky looks. Starlink, and other mega constellations, would ruin the sky for everyone on the planet.â€�

   Elon Musk has stated that the satellites will not have much of an affect on anyone on the ground and that telescopes need to be moved into orbit anyway. Starlink will have two separate flocks of satellites with one having 4,409 and the other with 7,518 with the second flying at a slightly lower altitude. Other companies including Amazon are on board with this project and are launching their own satellites. 

   The goal of the Starlink program is to bring internet to 3.3 billion people who are not connected or who have sub-par connectivity. FCC approvals stipulate that half of the planned satellites must be in place within the next six years.

   On November 11th another rocket was launched containing satellites for the Starlink program. UFO Reports from Florida to California flooded in as the satellites were released from the rocket at about 174 miles above the surface and ascended to their positions over Earth. More launches and probably more “UFOâ€� sightings will continue to build as SpaceX will flood the night skies with artificial stars.

Why this story made the top ten: Two different mass UFO sighting reports followed by a flurry of conspiracy and potential Earth changing events make this story a top ten pick and a story that will gain much more attention in the future.

Why the story is only number eight: Despite the hundreds of UFO reports this was just another explainable rocket launch even though the satellite deployment is unlike what anyone has ever seen in the skies. The night sky crisis only rests with scientists at this point, but eventually we will all be affected by these fake stars clogging up our night sky and this story will finally gain a heavier national attention.

7. Loch Ness Monster sightings set a record for the 21st century.

   According to Gary Campbell of the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register, 2019 has set the record for the most Nessie sightings for the 21st century with 18. It is the most “officialâ€� sightings of the creature since 1983. Last year there were 15 such sightings, 12 in 2017, seven in 2016, 2015 and 2014, and five or less sightings each year going back to the year 2000 which had 11 sightings.

It's right there, see it?

   Most of the sightings were of disturbances of the water’s surface with no visible creature. Many of these sightings were made from land very far away from the disturbance. Sightings of something protruding from the surface were mostly made from a significant distance so that the person could not see what was at the surface. 

   One image was taken of a depth finder near Urquhart Castle of a potential large object, when the boat came around for another look the object was gone. A few of these sightings were made from webcams including one from August 7th that was made by a viewer in Hong Kong. The last sighting on October 29th was made by five-year old Zachary White who was able to search for the Loch Ness Monster as a children’s charity paid for his trip. White was able to see Nessie, but it wasn’t really a living breathing creature he saw but it’s a nice gesture to include his sighting in the “official registerâ€� of sightings. It’s estimated the Loch Ness Monster generates over $53 million of tour revenue to the region yearly.

Why this story made the top ten: The Loch Ness Monster continues to mystify and intrigue the world despite many explanations about its origins and existence pointing to the contrary. A record number of sightings is something to surely draw more visitors in 2020 and potentially more sightings occurring from this as well.

Why this story is only number seven: None of these sightings are substantial. Never has a Loch Ness Monster sighting given scientists any glimmer of hope that a mysterious monster might live in the depths of a lake in Scotland and 2019 was no closer to a discovery yet this legend will probably never fade away.

6. The Summer of the Alligator (northeast U.S. sightings pour in).

   Random alligator sightings outside of their normal habitat is not a new thing and they actually happen quite frequently. However, in 2019 a couple of these stories broke the surface and became national headlines. 

   The excitement started back on May 18th in Pittsburgh. A family called 911 to report a three-foot long alligator along the banks of the Monongahela River. In June a five-foot long alligator named Chomp escaped from the home where he was being kept. This man had two more alligators confiscated from his home due to poor conditions. A couple of days later another alligator showed up on a porch a few miles away, this one being nearly three feet long. 

   On October first, a man fishing along the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh just happened to look down and spotted a three-foot-long alligator resting along the bank. All told there were seven alligators rescued in the Pittsburgh area in 2019 prompting lawmakers to make some decisions this fall about the ownership of exotic pets.

   On July 9th an alligator was reported in the lagoon of the Humboldt Park area just outside of Chicago. After a week the five-foot-long alligator, now nicknamed “Chance the Snapperâ€�, was captured by Frank Robb. Robb was called in from Florida and quickly became a local celebrity. He threw out the first pitch at a Cub’s game, got to start the Buckingham Fountain in Grant Park, and was honored later in the year at an awards banquet. 

   Two local breweries named beer after the alligator and bobbleheads were made of Robb and Chance. Robb went on to publish a coloring book in the name of charity. Chance is resting comfortably in St. Augustine Florida and even has his own Wikipedia page.

   In mid-August Pleasant County sheriffs and the St. Mary’s police department of West Virginia discovered a three-and-a-half-foot long alligator. In West Alexandrea Ohio a man saw an alligator in the water as children were playing in the Bantas Creek. The man silently alerted an adult on shore and the children were removed from the water.

   What turned out to be a seven-foot long crocodile swam under the bridge right where the children had just been moments before. A local game warden wildlife officer was quickly contacted. The giant crocodile was sadly dispatched at the scene and was measured at just over seven feet long and weighed 171 pounds.

   A three-foot long alligator was discovered swimming in a pond in Temperance Michigan in late September. An alligator was captured near a retention pond in Adamstown Maryland in early October. In mid-October a 9-year-old girl pulled a small alligator out of Prior Lake in Minnesota. The alligator had died from the cold water. Residents discovered a dead alligator in a large plastic tote in an alley in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Halloween night.

   All of these alligators are thought to be released (or escaped) exotic pets. These alligators could become dangerous if they come into contact with children and potentially adults if they grow quickly enough during the warmer parts of the year. It’s not likely that alligators can survive the cold winters in the northeast, but a story in October told of how alligators have adapted to live in parts of Tennessee.

Why this story made the top ten: Alligators are not supposed to exist in the northeast and many of these stories are downright scary to think of. The Pittsburgh and Chicago incidents gained national attention and the other smaller stories were no less shocking. Animals outside of their known range qualify as cryptids although many do not consider ones released to be included.

Why this story is only number six: Despite the Pittsburgh and Chicago incidents getting huge local coverage the rest of the world did not care much for these stories. The story did not gain the attraction as much as the “Wessie� the snake story did back in 2016.

5. FBI releases Bigfoot files.

   In early June numerous headlines hit the news stating that Bigfoot was investigated or hunted by the FBI. In 1976 Peter Byrne, then director of the Bigfoot Information Center and Exhibition of Oregon, pleaded to the FBI for help in analyzing his evidence to see if it could prove the existence of Bigfoot. Byrne had also written that others had mentioned the FBI had purportedly conducted hair analysis on Bigfoot claims.

 

 Jay Cochran Jr., assistant director of the agency’s scientific and technical services division, actually responded to Byrne’s request on December 15, 1976 stating, “The FBI Laboratory conducts investigations primarily of physical evidence for law enforcement agencies in connection with criminal investigations. Occasionally, on a case-by-case basis, in the interest of research and scientific inquiry, we make exceptions to this policy. With this understanding, we will examine the hairs and tissue mentioned in your letter.â€� In a Previous Cochran had stated that he was unable to verify the claims that the FBI had previously investigated purported Bigfoot hair samples as no documents could be found.

   On February 24, 1977 Byrne’s colleague, Howard Curtis, received a letter from Jay Cochran, Jr. stating the analysis of said hairs. Byrne had been in Nepal for several months conducting research. The letter mentioned how the hairs were examined and that they were compared to known samples. It was concluded that the hairs were of the deer family origin and the case was closed. No, the FBI did not search for or investigate Bigfoot, nor did they find any compelling evidence. Yet the story was carried by numerous news outlets and lead to rampant theories that the FBI was involved with the hunt of Bigfoot and had files dedicated to their search.

Why this story made the top ten: This was the biggest Bigfoot story of the year and it certainly raised a lot of eyebrows and created a lot of suspicion. The story was carried by many major networks and was a very viral story albeit for a short time.

Why this story is only number five: The story was hyped as the FBI searching for Bigfoot. Many made the story sound like the FBI had boots on the ground and sent out agents looking for evidence. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case and it was simply just an analysis of hairs that turned out to be some type of deer. The story didn’t do much to fuel the possibility of Bigfoot or any actual evidence.

4. Neil Gemmel’s ‘Loch Ness Monster’ study.

   The number four story in last year’s top ten countdown was the “Otago Loch Ness Monster DNA Searchâ€�. I predicted that nothing large would be discovered which would “proveâ€� the Loch Ness Monster did not exist, yet it would not even dent the reputation of Nessie. The research behind this project was swift and successful, however setbacks caused the announcement to be delayed by several months and I feel this delay hurt this story.

 

   The results were teased since July, but a formal announcement did not come until September. Last year Professor Neil Gemmell gathered over 250 samples of water in different areas and at various depths in order to catalogue the life in the loch. The science experiment was publicly marketed toward finding evidence of the Loch Ness Monster or at least getting answers through true science instead of random sightings of waves and claiming to see a monster.

   Gemmell’s results were delayed due to trying to secure a documentary on the DNA gathering experiment which again may have hurt the impact of his announcement. One of the biggest pieces of information is that there is a complete lack of DNA for any large creature in Loch Ness. There was no plesiosaur, no sturgeon, no catfish, and no shark DNA discovered in the many samples gathered. 

   Some people had speculated that a Greenland shark could be responsible for many of the sightings, but this study puts that claim to rest the same with the speculation over a sturgeon which has been suggested for many lake monsters throughout the world.

   One hypothesis remains and is what made the headlines about this story; a giant eel. European eels travel to European waters including Loch Ness as tiny eels called elvers from hatching from larvae along their 3,000-mile journey. Typically, these eels can get as big as three feet long, but could one grow big enough to be confused as the Loch Ness Monster?

   Gemmell states they had eel DNA in nearly every sample collected. Of a potential giant eel, he says, “Well, our data doesn't reveal their size, but the sheer quantity of the material says that we can't discount the possibility that there may be giant eels in Loch Ness. Therefore, we can't discount the possibility that what people see and believe is the Loch Ness Monster might be a giant eel.â€�

   DNA was also found of humans, dogs, sheep, cattle, deer, badgers, rabbits, voles, and birds. A swimming deer could easily be confused for a Loch Ness Monster creature and I’m sure the giant eel hypothesis isn’t the only thing confused for the Loch Ness Monster. There are also logs, the wind, and even boats seen from far away where the viewer only sees the waves plus other potential things that confuse a hopeful viewer.

   Will this latest story squash the idea that the Loch Ness Monster is a real creature? More than likely not. Just a few years ago it was revealed that local hotel owners used the legend of the creature of the loch to spur tourism in the area in the 1930s which is when the stories began to pop up. That story did absolutely nothing to diminish the tourism to the area and certainly actual science won’t either.

Why this story made the top ten: A scientific experiment to test the waters of Loch Ness to see what is lurking in the water. This actually eliminated the long-standing hypothesis of a plesiosaur being behind the sightings and realistically leaves one potential candidate if a single creature could be deemed responsible.

Why this story is only number four: I had predicted last year that this could easily be the number one story of the year. The release of the data pointed at a giant eel as being the explanation for the Loch Ness Monster which made for a ridiculous headline. The fact that this was delayed and then teased for months did not help the way the story was ultimately unveiled (not to mention the media’s attention on “storming� things).

3. U.S. Navy documenting/categorizing UFOs and the TTSA’s drama on the rocks.

   The news that the U.S. Navy was drafting guidelines for pilots and other personnel to report encounters with “unidentified aircraftâ€� hit the news cycle on March 23rd. The goal was to have any type of unidentified aircraft account be taken seriously and reported to the proper channel instead of being instantly canned or the reporting person laughed at.

 

   The Navy was careful to be clear that this didn’t mean that they had encountered alien-flown aircraft, but that there had been enough strange sightings to warrant a revamp to help get to the bottom of these reports. Of course, this story goes hand-in-hand with the three videos that were released back in 2017 showing various anomalous objects being witnessed or pursued by military aircraft.

   Tom DeLonge and his organization, The To The Stars Academy (TTSA), have also been in the center of these stories and made more news of their own during the year with their acquisition of mysterious metamaterials that ultimately lead to a deal with the U.S. Army. However, an image used to show off the materials was lifted from Shutterstock of a known mineral called malachite. 

   The Pentagon dropped the final bombshell on the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program (AATIP) and UFO/UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena) investigation story. Pentagon spokesperson Susan Gough said via an email to Black Vault, “Neither AATIP nor AAWSAP were UAP related.â€� 

   AAWSAP refers to the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program; a contract posted publicly by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The email to the Black Vault also stated, “The purpose of AATIP was to investigate foreign advanced aerospace weapons system applications with future technology projections over the next 40 years, and to create a center of expertise on advanced aerospace technologies.â€�

   In May of this year the New York Post ran the headline, “The Pentagon Finally Admits It Investigates UFOsâ€�. The story quotes Pentagon spokesperson Christopher Sherwood who said that AATIP did pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena. Of the discrepancy Gough replied, “At the time, Mr. Sherwood was repeating the information that had been provided by a previous spokesperson some two years earlier. That previous spokesperson is no longer with my organization, and I cannot comment on why that person’s explanation of AATIP included that it had looked at anomalous events.  According to all the official information I have now, when implemented, AATIP did not pursue research and investigation into unidentified aerial phenomena; that was not part of the technical studies nor the reports produced by the program.â€�

   What about the claims made by Louis Elizondo, who says he was the director of AATIP and has come forward about the allegations of the program? He’s now also involved with Tom DeLonge’s organization To The Stars Academy of Arts and Sciences as the Director of Government Programs and Services.

   Gough also responded that Elizondo was not the director for AATIP and had no assigned responsibilities within the program. However, this isn’t to say that the Navy and other armed forces or government agencies are not actively investigating UFOs. It just seems that some of the information put out may not exactly be what we think and are not the product of a government conspiracy or coverup but by private parties with a vested interest.

Why this story made the top ten: These three stories are intermingled and help keep UFOs in the spotlight all year long not just in the paranormal but with the mainstream media. Despite many of the claims now seemingly being called into question these stories have involved the U.S. Government more than ever in purported UFO investigations and we are beginning to see that maybe they don’t know as much as we thought.

Why this story is only number three: Despite being the biggest drama in the UFO arena in many years there seems to be a serious contradiction of facts and information coming from multiple sources and sadly we may never know the truth behind anything involved with AATIP, TTSA, or any other acronym-based body.

2. Storm Area 51.

   On June 27th Matty Roberts, a 20-year old Bakersfield, California college student majoring in petroleum engineering, created an event on Facebook as a joke to generate memes. The event was named “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All Of Usâ€� and in less than two weeks the event began to build steam through its virality. By July 9th there were over 230,000 people interested and nearly 200,000 people saying they were going to the base in Nevada to “free ‘dem aliensâ€�. 

 

   The popularity of the event quickly went worldwide and eventually prompted a comment from the U.S. government. Initially no comment was given when asked by news sources, but a week later in mid-July they gave a formal statement for people not to do this and that the Air Force would respond to any threat to the base. This was the fuel the movement needed to become the most popular story on the internet and the media. The event was to take place on September 20th between 3 and 6 AM, but original organizer Roberts decided to hold a concert instead in the small area of Rachel near the base.

   By this point Roberts had lost control of the website and of the movement. Advertisers like Bud Light jumped into the social media spotlight created by the popularity of the event to sell their products. Matty Roberts didn’t step forward until late July to admit he was the one behind the event and it was at this point he created the Alienstock idea which took a lot of time to come to fruition.

   On August 3rd around 3:45 PM Facebook removed the “Storm Area 51â€� event page stating that the event went against their community standards. By 7 AM the following morning the site was back up mostly due to public outcry and the media continuing to fuel attention to the story. The event continued to gain momentum and Roberts continued to fuel his idea of a large concert in the desert. The idea continued until September 10th when he quickly and officially pulled out of the Rachel event and opted to hold a smaller one in Las Vegas instead. 

   This move left Connie West and the Little Ale’ Li’ Inn to deal with all of the issues of putting on a major event in a remote location. Wi-fi, water, gasoline, safety, and many other aspects had Nye County put out a declaration of emergency in order to gather funds to help with the issues. The event itself turned into disarray and many people seemed to give up on it since it was so disorganized and events were occurring in Hiko, Rachel, Las Vegas and at other locations which split up any large crowd. Many media outlets called it a disappointment stating that hardly anyone showed up and there were no issues.

   During the original 3-6 AM event only 40 or so people showed up near the gate and offered no threat to enter the base. However, during the day over 800 people made their way to the gate and one woman was arrested for going beyond the gate. Two men had been arrested earlier for entering the base illegally with six arrests total for people attempting or actually going beyond the guard gate and one for disorderly conduct and indecent exposure for a person who urinated on the gate. Lincoln County Sheriff Kerry Lee stated that 40 people were dispersed near another gate after the crowd threatened to storm together.

   Two cows were killed in car accidents and two other car accidents involved rollovers which left one woman in critical condition. Numerous injuries resulting from dehydration as well as drug and alcohol related problems were reported as well. Overall it was a feeling of community by those who attended, and it was estimated that about 5,000 people showed up to Rachel and Hiko over the weekend with crowds dispersing as early as Saturday afternoon. 

Why this story made the top ten: The “Storm Area 51� event was the biggest story of the year for UFO/alien related stories in a year with plenty to talk about from that camp. This was the most viral story to come out of social media for the year and ranked as the number four story to be Googled in the U.S. in 2019.

Why this story was only number two: The story came out of nowhere only to fizzle out just the same. Despite the massive media attention and the prospect of finding proof of aliens the overall idea of the event was to cure boredom and create a means for memes. Absolutely nothing positive for the field of UFOs came of this and the event was more of an embarrassment than anything.

1. Stanton Friedman.

   On May 13th Stanton T. Friedman, nuclear physicist, author, and long-time speaker on UFOs passed away at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport at age 84. Friedman had stated he was beginning to pull back his appearance schedule and it was from a lecture in Ohio he was returning home from when he passed away. 

 

   Friedman had been on the lecture circuit since 1967 and was a leader in getting the Roswell incident to be a household name. He first got interested in UFOs by reading the book, "The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects" by Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt back in 1958. Since then he has lectured at over 600 colleges and 100 professional groups in 50 U.S. states, nine Canadian Provinces, and 16 other countries. 

   Back in January of this year Joanna Aiton Kerr, manager of the Provincial Archives in New Brunswick Canada, reached out to Friedman. Kerr had heard that Friedman was getting ready to retire from UFO research and she was able to convince him to allow Provincial Archives to preserve his collection of records.

   Friedman was a known piler, he would have piles of papers instead of filing anything. Kerr stated it took five cargo vans to move all of Friedman’s records prior to his passing. The most difficult part of the process is that none of his records are organized. There are currently three full time employees working in the private records section where his records are being sifted through. Unfortunately, these are only one of a number of collections that are being worked on. It’s thought it could take up to ten years to organize his files at the current rate, but with 60 years’ worth of research this isn’t that bad. So far 25 boxes have been organized and are available for public view. The Provincial Archives of New Brunswick is located at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.

Why this story is number one: Last year’s number one story was the passing of Art Bell. Bell was a tremendous voice for the UFO field and was well-regarded by many others in the media, music, and other professions. Stanton Friedman may not have had the same reach as Bell, but he was just as well known, and his work has paved the way for people like Bell to promote the conspiracy theories and thoughts behind UFOs and alien life. Also, if it wasn’t for Friedman Area 51 would probably not be as famous as it is today. His work uncovering information on the Roswell Incident opened the door for the base to become a household name for potentially harboring aliens. So, if it were not for Friedman no one would have bothered thinking of storming it and looking for them. 

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Grassman: Ohio's Bigfoot  

25 Mar 2020, 7:33 am I appeared on the podcast, Bigfoot Eyewitness Radio, on February 18, 2020. In the beginning of the episode I provided a monologue of information about the Grassman and the reports that made it famous in addition to information about what it makes it different than Bigfoot. The blog post below is a copy of that monologue. The entire interview is available here.


   One of my first big impressions of Bigfoot was some time in the late 1970s watching the reruns of the original “In Search Ofâ€� television show that was hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I remember the voice of Spock presenting me compelling information telling me to believe in the possibility that such a wild creature or even a wild man may exist.

   While the series covered many paranormal and conspiracy theory themes the Bigfoot episode and imagery was one that made me question my preconceived notions of how the world worked around me and made me question what I thought to be true. I was raised to believe that such things did not exist, but I began to wonder if I was just told that so I could sleep better at night.

   I had little to worry about though as Bigfoot was a west coast thing. Nimoy had said Sasquatch sightings started in 1811 and a compelling incident in 1924 happened with miners in a gorge in Washington state near Mt. St. Helens that would eventually be called Ape Canyon.

   I knew beyond that television show that other sightings had happened in British Columbia and eventually a series of tracks discovered by a bulldozer operator named Jerry Crew in 1958 near Bluff Creek California would lead to the now famous generic moniker Bigfoot that was coined by the press. Bigfoot sightings continued to build and an all-time high in interest and debate into the creature’s existence boiled over in the 1970s along with the largest percentage of overall sightings, hoaxes or genuine, across the United States.

   My interest into the creature started a few years after I began investigating ghosts in 1996. I’m not sure exactly what it was that drew me to want to pursue cryptozoology and looking for mysterious animals that seemed unlikely to exist. It might have been something to do with infrasound or communication with extra sensory perception as I had researched in the ghost field. Granted, it might just have been the fact that this field, like ghosts and UFOs, is considered a paranormal field.

   Moving into the field of cryptozoology was an easy fit for me. I had spent many years hiking and backpacking solo in the woods of southern Ohio as well as my favorite spots in the Allegheny National Forest in neighboring Pennsylvania about a two-hour drive away. I have always enjoyed nature and animals and had challenged myself many years ago to learn how to track and stalk animals.

   Either way, I realized that Bigfoot was the king of the field of cryptozoology and despite wanting to learn all aspects of the field from others it seemed most groups in Ohio were geared toward finding Bigfoot. I did my own research and tried to find my own cases. Eventually I worked with the Sasquatch Research Initiative based in British Columbia, Canada and learned a lot about interviewing and conducting field investigations in a variety of cryptid research cases. It wasn’t much different than what I had been doing in the ghost field, but I learned new techniques that would help me doing interviews and investigations for any type of anomalous cases.

   In January of 2009 I joined Crypto Squad USA, a collection of bloggers who reported to Nick Redfern for the Regional U.S. Offices Of The Center For Fortean Zoology which is based in the United Kingdom. I went on to publish my own book on cryptozoology titled, “Handbook for the Amateur Cryptozoologistâ€� in 2014.

The incidents leading up to the August 21 sighting began about the first of the month. Mrs. Cayton believes the creature's appearance were due to her husband (Herbert) cutting down the thick brush next to the pit and that he also dumped some garbage around for the raccoons. 

Several nights later, the Cayton's grandchildren and their friends came running in the house crying in a frightened state. They claimed to have seen a large hairy monster in the pit. Mrs. Keck, Mrs. Cayton and Howe Cayton went outside to see what had scared them. They saw a creature that was covered with dark matted hair. They estimated it to be about 300 pounds and 7 feet tall. 

"It just stood there," said Mrs. Cayton. "It didn't move, but I almost broke my neck running back down the hill." 

Mrs. Cayton claims that she later observed the creature in the daylight. It was sitting in the pit picking at the garbage. She could not make out any facial features due to the amount of long hair covering its face. She remembered that the creature had no visible neck. 

The sightings then really took off with the August 21st sighting. Evelyn Cayton's family and friends were out on the front porch when they heard noises in the direction of an old chicken coop just to the right of the house. They saw two pairs of yellow eyes that seemed to be reflecting a porch light. Scott Patterson went to his car and turned the headlights on in hopes of getting a better look. The eyes were on what appeared to be two "cougar-type" felines. Then, the party saw what looked like a large bipedal hairy creature step in front of the large cats as if to protect them. This creature then proceeded to lurch towards Patterson's car. 

The witnesses fled to the house and called the Stark County Sheriff's Department. While waiting for the deputies, the bipedal creature appeared at the kitchen window -- about four yards from the kitchen table. Patterson pointed a .22 caliber pistol at it, while Evelyn Cayton loaded a .22 caliber rifle. The creature stood outside the window for close to ten minutes. They all could clearly see the creature because of the back-porch light. They decided they would not shoot at it unless the creature made any advances toward them. The biped suddenly left without harming anyone. 

"It doesn't seem to want to bother anyone", said Mary Ackerman. "It was just curious. We all felt that it wanted to be friends." 

Deputy Sheriff James Shannon arrived about 15 minutes after the call was made and about five minutes after the creature left the scene. A strong stench was still lingering in the area when Deputy Shannon began to interview the witnesses. Shannon later told reporters that it smelled like "ammonia-sulphur." Extra deputies were brought in and they searched the entire area on horseback and in jeeps. (The land behind the Caytons' was an old abandoned strip mine and beyond that were dense woods going up a gradual hill.) Unusual, but unsubstantiated footprints were discovered. 

Then on August 22nd Mrs. Mary Ackerman of Minerva drove to the Cayton residence to pick up her daughter and a friend. (Mrs. Ackerman is Evelyn Cayton's daughter.) As she turned into the driveway, she saw the same creature standing on top of the hill next to the strip mine. She watched it until it walked out of her view. 

August 23rd: The creature appeared again at the Cayton residence. Howe Cayton was not sure if it was the same thing. He fired a gunshot into the air and the figure departed.
On September 8th During the late daylight hours, Mrs. Ackerman observed two ape-like animals across the strip mine. She stated that she thought the creatures were standing in a tree but was not sure because of the distance. Again, she watched them for a while, until they were no longer visible in the thick weeds. 

On September 9th Jim Rastetter interviewed Henry Colt who lives about five miles east of Minerva on U.S. 30. He told Jim that he was walking through some woods by his house when he caught a glimpse of an unknown furry animal. Mr. Colt said that the animal was squatting next to a tree and let out a sound similar to a loud cough. 

Joedy Cook and his Grassman model with me at right during the 2009 Ohio Paranormal Convention.

• https://www.travelchannel.com/shows/in-search-of-monsters/articles/the-8-best-places-to-see-bigfoot-right-now
• https://www.inquirer.com/philly/blogs/phillylists/240566751.html
• https://exemplore.com/cryptids/Bigfoot-Sightings-Ohio-Grassman
• http://blakemathys.com/cc5.pdf  (1869 encounter)
• http://web.archive.org/web/20050205001108/http://users1.ee.net/pmason/unusual.html (Ron Schaffner’s notes on the Minerva Monster case)
• http://web.archive.org/web/20050204091213/http://users1.ee.net/pmason/grassman.html (George Clappison’s Kenmore Grassman case)
• http://www.bigfootencounters.com/creatures/grassman.htm (Differences from Bigfoot and Grassman by Christopher L. Murphy)
• https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/07/the-mystery-of-the-three-toed-bigfoot/  (Three-toed Bigfoot sightings)
• http://www.cryptozoonews.com/minerva2019/ (Minerva Monster 2019?)
• https://www.dispatch.com/entertainmentlife/20200210/men-claim-video-shows-bigfoot-like-creature-in-ohios-salt-fork-state-park (2020 sighting at Salt Fork State Park)

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Are you stuck at home because of COVID-19? You can still search for the paranormal.  

24 Mar 2020, 11:20 pm The topic of COVID-19 completely dominates the news all over the world. This disease has affected nearly everyone to some certain extent. Many of us around the world are confined to our homes
either working from home or out of a job. Even those of us who have to go to work doing "essential service" like retail, gas stations, and of course liquor stores and marijuana dispensaries, don't really do much during our days off. I live in Ohio which has been on lockdown for over a week but just officially started on Tuesday, March 24th. For me I have all sorts of things to do at home if I could only get locked down (I work in retail) but for many people they are just completely bored out of their minds (between trips to the store to buy more toilet paper and ask if any hand sanitizer came in).

 If you're into the paranormal there's good news for you. Paul Seaburn over at Mysterious Universe recently shared some webcams that you can use to search for cryptids, ghosts, UFOs and other paranormal things. He kicked it off with the Loch Ness Monster where the "official" cam has been responsible for a handful of "official" sightings of Nessie over the years including the first and only one of 2020 (so far, maybe you can change that!).

 The next was the famous volcano in Mexico, Popocatépetl. The hard-to-pronounce volcano has been many cameras point toward the volcano. Sometimes an airplane or even a bird gets between the camera and the volcano causing what appears to be a UFO. During my episode talking about Popocatépetl I initially intentionally messed up the pronunciation and then could not pronounce it several times. Ah, the beauty of live radio. If anything, you can practice saying it the way I originally learned how by saying, "Popo-caught-a-petal". It worked all the way up until I had to say it live on the air apparently.

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Mysterious alligators appear in Pittsburgh  

13 Jun 2019, 3:57 pm   We've all heard about alligators in the sewers probably being a myth (we hope so), but what about roaming the streets? On the October 16, 2018 edition of the Paranormal News Insider, episode #372, I covered a story where the previous week saw a kayaker find a live alligator in Waukegan Harbor in Lake Michigan about 40 miles north of Chicago. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for the kayaker, the mouth of the alligator had been taped shut. I also talked about two separate findings of alligators on the same day in Kansas City, Kansas of all places. All of these were released into the wild by someone and all three were less than three feet long.

  Well, in the middle of June of 2019 we look at the southwestern portion of Pennsylvania, specifically the Pittsburgh area. Back on May 18th a 3-foot-long alligator was discovered at the South Side Riverfront Park, which is along the Monongahela River, locally known as the Mon River.

  On June 6th a 5 to 6-foot-long alligator was discovered by a dog walker in a residential area in the Beachview neighborhood just south of downtown Pittsburgh and about three miles southwest of the May 18th discovery. Saturday, June 8th police responded to the 300 block of East Agnew Street in the Carrick neighborhood about two miles southeast of the last sighting and about two miles south of the May 18th find. This latest alligator was just over two feet long.

  Authorities believe the first two alligators discovered were discarded pets and they also believe that the three discoveries are not related. I’m willing to believe that all three of these were released or allowed to escape by the same person and are related. Why do I think that? The three discoveries happened in about a three-square mile area which is way too convenient to be a coincidence.

  The above part of the story was to run during the June 11th Paranormal News Insider, but I was unable to do the show due to circumstances beyond my control. As it turns out Pittsburgh police had inspected a home after the June 6th incident with the escaped 5-foot-long alligator. The alligator had torn through a screen door and dropped about ten feet to be able to scurry off down the street. On Tuesday, June 11th the home of Mark McGowan was raided, and 32 animals were removed and some of the animals discovered were deceased. Of these animals three were alligators with one having a preexisting neck injury and there were also two Burmese pythons. This begs the question, were these three alligators all related to this home or are there other locations in Pittsburgh harboring alligators?

  Alligators discovered in the north are not as uncommon as one might think. “Alligatorâ€� Bob Bavirsha of the Chicago Herpetological Society has rescued hundreds of alligators from the Midwest over the years. Obviously, most if not all were either released or escaped.

  Alligators are obviously known to live in Florida and southern Georgia, but also range along southern Texas into Mexico, all of Louisiana, and even part of southeast Oklahoma and southwest Arkansas. Alligators also live in the eastern part of South and North Carolina and even live in a swamp area known as the Great Dismal Swamp that extends into Virginia. Yes, Virginia, just south of Norfolk there are alligators. Granted, while prolonged cold can kill them it’s not impossible for them to survive in cold areas for short periods of time and they have even been observed frozen in ice with their snouts out of the water. Granted, the cold severely slows their eating and lowers their energy level.

  Cryptozoology is defined as the search for missing or hidden animals. This definition typically hugs the animals known through local folklore and stories and includes animals such as the mermaid, Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, and more but also includes known animal species such as the ivory-billed woodpecker and other animals thought to be extinct. Some cryptozoologists don't consider out of range animals to be a part of cryptozoology due to the fact that people often release them into the wild for a variety of reasons. Take into consideration there are three places in the United States where macaque monkeys roam free (South Carolina, Florida, Texas). They didn't just find there way here as they were purposely let loose.

  I don't see these alligator sightings as cryptid findings but just as interesting stories that are strange and scary. People enjoy the thrill of investigating a place with a ghost, but how about stumbling upon a five-foot-long alligator while walking your dog in the northeast?

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The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2018  

1 Jan 2019, 9:11 pm Why this list? Don’t we have enough countdowns? This list helps us remember the stories from the year and helps us remember some of the issues we encountered that might have fooled us or taught us something along the way. As we look back on these stories years from now we may see similar patterns or how some that were high on the list and so promising turned out to be nothing at all; it’s all about documentation and remembering the past as it happened.

How is this list designed? The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories are put together strictly by my opinion. They are collected from the stories I’ve talked about all year long and are ranked by a few pieces of criteria. First, have they made a positive impact on one area of the paranormal? Many stories I talk about are hoaxes and misinterpretations, but what stories have created an awareness of a paranormal subject or taught the general public something, or better yet has something been learned about our mysterious world? Granted, even hoaxes can teach us something if we know for sure they were a hoax. Some feel all hoaxes harm the paranormal, but I say some educate us on what to look out for as far as a story or types of data that is presented. It’s easy to believe everything, but hard to be skeptical when you want deep down to believe.

Second, how viral was the story? Many stories I talk about are popular on paranormal websites but have not been heard of outside of this arena or where the story took place. A story that is big at a regional level will have more weight than a local story and a global story will be higher than that. Also with this I look at how much it was talked about through social media as well as how long it lasted in the news as a developing story. Lastly, I look at the reality of the story. Meaning, does this story include a real person or it is possibly just a story made up for website hits? I usually do this early on to make sure these are truly newsworthy stories to begin with, but still some stories are a bit questionable in their makeup and are just stories hyped up for the paranormal community.

My first "Top Ten" was back in 2010 when the Paranormal News Insider began to go to a weekly segment in late September of 2010. A few of them are located on this current blog while 2010, 2012, and 2013 are located on my ParaNexus blog.

#10 - Todd Standing

Still of video shot by the Vancouver Sun

KUTV reporter Morgan Saxton's report interrupted on Live TV

A video created controversy on October 3rd as speculation ran rampant as to what kind of creature wandered into the live shot of a reporter who was doing a onsite report in Utah in the early morning hours. To many, the creature appeared to be a mountain lion that sauntered up to the reporter and nonchalantly walked by her and out of the shot. The creature was the right color, had a long tail with a black tip, and could easily have been a mountain lion in that area. 

 The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stated that it could not identify the animal from the video which created even more speculation. Some were saying it was a dog while many others said mountain lion; there was some serious emotions at work on social media over this story. KUTV reporter Morgan Saxton initially was sidetracked during her live coverage report stating, “that what you were seeing is actually a dog coming into our live shot.â€� Although strangely as the animal got closer to her, she didn’t seem as positive as she said, “I think it’s a dog, I’m not sure, umm but ahh, there’s some sort of creature below me,â€� and she continued on with her report. While she did sound nervous and unsure, she never moved as the animal went by her. The animal did turn, but the reporter was blocking the view of what the creature looked like from the front.

The dog's owner sent in this photo to KUTV

Fellow reporter Chase Thomason fueled the Twitter fire by reporting a few times that he felt a cougar had walked through the live shot. This would not be cougar behavior, but there was no evidence until later when the Utah Division of Wildlife responded to the scene and discovered dog tracks where the creature had been.

It didn’t take too much longer after that for the owner of the dog to post a picture of the dog that had walked in the shot. I love it when a mystery is solved.

Why this story made the top ten: Despite being solved within a day this was a highly viral and highly argued story. Some were on the cougar side some were on the dog side and some were even not convinced that the outcome is right despite the evidence. This story highlights how our thoughts, feelings, and other emotions mean little when it comes to the identification of an animal. The highly contested debate of identification of the creature made this an enjoyable story to watch unfold that has many ties to other viral stories dealing with creatures and even UFOs and ghost phenomenon.

Why this story was number nine: It wasn’t truly paranormal as mountain lions are not unusual sightings in Utah. Despite this the viral and contested nature of this short-lived story helped to power this into the top ten over many other similar types of stories. 

Wolf, wolf hybrid, werewolf, dogman, Bigfoot, Chupacabra?

This story erupted on May 24th when the report of a wolf was shot by a rancher in Denton, Montana back on May 16th went public. The rancher was required by law to report the animal and Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks officials showed up to view the animal. However, officials were not convinced this was just a run-of-the-mill wolf which sent the Internet into a frenzy. The photographs of the creature laying in the back of a pickup truck went viral as many people did not think this was a regular wolf.

Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks officials stirred the pot even more with the statement, “Something was not right about the animal. It does not look like a wild wolf.� The paws were too small, the front claws seemed too long, teeth too short, and even the ears looked noticeably different than a regular wolf which sparked speculation that this was a wolf-dog hybrid. Meanwhile, in the paranormal world many were speculating that this was a werewolf, dogman, Chupacabra, or even maybe an alien. Even Newsweek stated that some thought this could be a Bigfoot (in disguise, maybe?).

Officials were fantastic with this story which helped keep it from getting too far out of control. They issued a video statement of what was occurring and discussed that they were just as curious about the background of the creature as anyone else and that samples were sent out to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service National Forensics Laboratory in Ashland, Oregon to be tested.

Ken Goddard, the laboratory director, was even candid about the investigation process as the lab was still processing the DNA. The popular opinion at the time was this was a wolf-dog hybrid and with the lab’s capabilities he said in an interview, “We may not be able to tell the exact hybrid mix, but we should be able to describe that it’s not for example an extinct wolf, or a werewolf, or any of the other interesting possibilities.�

The results were released on July 19th and the verdict was- it was just a regular gray wolf. The lab concluded that it was a female gray wolf that was two to three years old that was 45 inches long and weighed 85 pounds.

Why this story was in the top ten: The speculation ran wild about what this creature might have been. Despite the fairly obvious situation that the worst-case scenario would be a wolf hybrid many went to the extreme of thinking this was some sort of paranormal creature. This story was not just a paranormal story as it gained viral status in many different social (media) circles.

Why this story was number eight: This story felt a lot like the previous story of the unidentified creature seen on live television. The difference here was not just the speculation of the identity of the creature but the mysterious nature behind it as well as the near two months wait to find out what it was. This story also had more of a paranormal or cryptozoological feel to it (even though it shouldn’t have been) than the Utah one.

Not really what they saw

The first of three stories in this bundled entry broke on March 26th when reports of two different pilots reported seeing an unidentified flying object in the skies over southern Arizona on February 24th. A pilot of a Learjet reported seeing something strange to Albuquerque Center air traffic control and said of the sighting, “I don’t know what it was. It wasn’t an airplane but it was, the path was going in the opposite direction.�

Air traffic control then contacted an American Airlines jet headed to Dallas from San Francisco and told them to be on the lookout for anything passing over them. The pilot questioned the request, but just moments later they reported seeing the object. The pilot stated to air traffic control, “Something just passed over us, like a, don’t know what it was, but it was at least two, three thousand feet above us, yeah it passed right over the top of us.� The pilot stated the object was above 40,000 feet and had a big RADAR signature. This altitude is much too high for even commercial drones which leaves only weather or other types of balloons. Military exercises or other involvement was pretty much eliminated.

The mystery of what was in the air was never solved and many jumped to some irrational conclusions even the news media that speculated about the UFO since the sighting occurred around 500 miles west of Roswell, New Mexico. Roswell, of course, was home to the famous purported 1947 UFO crash and supposed coverup. 

On Friday, November 9th at 6:47 AM a British Airways pilot operating Flight BA94 from Montreal contacted Shannon Air Traffic control off the southwest coast of Ireland and asked if there were any military activity scheduled to be in the area. Air Traffic Control said no, the air is clear, and the pilot denied their observation. The pilot stated about what she had seen, “It was moving so fast. It appeared on our left-hand side and rapidly veered to the north. We saw a bright light and then it disappeared at a very high speed.â€� 

A Virgin Airlines pilot of Flight VS76 from Orlando to Manchester also contacted air traffic control and reported, “A meteor or another object making some kind of re-entry. It appears to be multiple objects following the same sort of trajectory. They were very bright from where we were.â€� Both pilots also reported seeing two bright lights in the sky. The Virgin Airlines pilot also stated that the object flew past his aircraft and then climb away from him from his perspective. Other pilots chimed in including one from a Norwegian Air flight and seemed convinced that this was some sort of meteor, but they all seemed surprised by the incident and the object was described as going about twice the speed of sound or “astronomicalâ€� speed (hear the ATC conversation and fast forward to 17 minutes). According to CBS news, the Irish Aviation Authority said these reports will be, “investigated under the normal confidential occurrence investigation process.â€�

A still taken from the footage recorded by Sandy Laverty

A week later it was reported that dash cam footage of the purported UFO over Ireland had surfaced online. The footage shot by Sandy Laverty shows a bright object moving in the sky and then suddenly breaking into pieces. This is obviously a meteor streaking through the sky and breaking up. 

This story became viral quickly after it was reported that three pilots had simultaneously reported that they saw UFOs in the sky over southwestern Ireland. While many were quick to realize this was probably a meteor sighting there was some inconsistency in the reporting by the pilots that made this sighting a bit confusing.

We should realize that at this time this area was affected by three different meteor shower events; the Orionids, which were active from September 23rd to November 27th, the Northern Taurids, active from October 19th to December 10th, and the Leonids, active from November 5th to November 30th. 

Also, while there were no immediate reports put into the various databases of meteor sightings there were five reports collected by the International Meteor Organization and a trajectory was created from these sightings. While there is a still a bit of confusion by one of the pilots I believe the flash created a bit of misdirection and since most of the other witnesses match the trajectory the one that doesn’t fit must be one that was just misinterpreted.

On November 24th the crew aboard a Boeing 737 reported seeing an unidentified flying object while flying over Baffin Island in Canada. The sighting took place at 8:30 PM local time and was described as a shining light that changed colors from red to green and then to white.

The official report was taken by Transport Canada’s Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System, or CADORS. In the report it was noted that the class of investigation was a potential weather balloon, meteor, rocket, CIRVIS/UFO. CIRVIS stands for and refers to the Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings. The Communications Instructions for Reporting Vital Intelligence Sightings is an Air Force regulation, or AFR 55-88, that was created on May 20, 1968 as part of the Air Force Manual 55-11 Air Force Operational Reporting System. CIRVIS has little to do with UFOs, however, as it’s mainly directed at reports of, “all unidentifiable, suspicious, or hostile air or seaborne traffic which, because of its nature, course, or actions, must be considered a threat to the security of the United States or Canada.�

The sighting was reported immediately to the North American Aerospace Defence Command, or what is usually referred to as NORAD. Obviously, the thought that this might have been a rocket launch toward North America had to be taken into consideration.

Why this story was in the top ten: The Arizona and Ireland stories were highly viral within and outside of the UFO and paranormal communities. Even though the solution was more than likely a meteor for the Ireland sighting there was still the belief held by many, including the mainstream media, that this was a potential UFO of the definition of potential alien-controlled craft. The Arizona and Canada sightings remain unsolved but are more than likely a logical solution.

Why this story was number seven: Despite my opinion of being the most popular UFO story, or collection of stories, for 2018 it didn’t really have the viral strength or story power to go much higher in my countdown.

Still of video by Eoin O'Faodhagain (yes, that's as good as it gets)

On March 26th of 2018 Dakota Frandsen, a tourist from Idaho spotted a dark shape in Loch Ness near Urquhart Castle. He estimated the object was about 40 feet long and had the color of a hippopotamus. It was also said that other shapes could be seen in the water and Gary Campbell, who is the Keeper of the Official Register of Sightings at Loch Ness, says that this might have indicated that not only was the Loch Ness Monster present but his or her family might have been as well.

On April 30th 53-year-old Eoin O'Faodhagain from Ireland spotted and filmed what he thought was a 20-foot-long creature in the Loch. The video, taken by cell phone, was almost ten and a half minutes long and showed a creature swimming and moving up and down in the water. Unfortunately, the quality of the video is poor and not much detail can be seen. Despite the lack of clarity the video did make the official register of Loch Ness Monster sightings. 

Eight-year-old Laria Annand was at Loch Ness with her grandmother in late May when the two noticed strange movement in the water. Laria’s grandmother, Marie, grabbed her phone and quickly took some photographs toward the disturbed area of water. Laria then asked to use the phone and shot a short video which shows light reflecting off of small waves that appear to be caused by something disturbing the surface.

Of the experience Marie said, “We sat on the rocks for a few minutes. We were just taking silly pictures of each other and splashing our feet in the water. I just looked up and that's when I spotted the flickering in the water. It looked as though the light was bouncing off something but there were no boats or people and it was something long - very long. I had to do a double take because there was just nothing to explain it. I took a few pictures and then my granddaughter asked if she could take a picture. I didn't realize at the time but that's when she shot the video. It was weird. Really strange. I can't explain it so the only thing I can think is we have seen the Loch Ness Monster.�

Despite the video the sighting did not end up making it into the official Loch Ness Monster sightings register curated by Gary Campbell. While the two stated there were no boats in the area and claimed to see a long dark object the video and photographs only show sunlight reflected from waves which could have been cause by everything from wind to fish, but no concrete signs of a large creature are present.

A close-up of Charlotte Robinson's photograph

Friday, August 17th, around 7 PM 12-year-old Charlotte Robinson and her parents were on holiday to Loch Ness when she saw something about 50 feet from shore and took photographs with her iPhone 7. 

She described her encounter as, “There was something in the water about 50 feet from the shore. I took a photo. It had a neck and head was in the shape of a hook. I just took what I saw. It was black – I just don’t know how far it was out of the water. I’m not good at judging distances. But after about a minute it disappeared and then came back up again in a different place. It was up for less than a minute the second time. I kinda believed in Nessie, but I wanted to see the proof. I always imagined her as having a long neck and flippers. I have seen something but I’m not sure what.� The photograph, despite being what seems like a mile away from the object in the water, was described as one of the best photos in many years of the creature.

Also on Friday, August 17th , 54-year-old Lynn Locke, an elementary school teacher from Ontario, Canada, was visiting family in Glasgow, Scotland, when she encountered what she thinks was the Loch Ness Monster about 50 yards offshore near Urquhart Castle. 

Of the sighting Lynn said, “On our last day we visited Urquhart Castle and went on a cruise on Loch Ness. While we were visiting the castle, I noticed something moving in the water, with trails of bubbles leading up to it. It went under the water a couple of times and reappeared. It seemed strange, and of course I’ve heard of the story of Nessie, so I took a few pictures. This was the first time we all had been to the area around Loch Ness. I believed in Nessie before this, so I was excited when I saw something strange in the water. My family is a bit sceptical about Nessie, but I think this sighting - as well as the other one the same day further south - has made them change their minds a little bit. I do think I saw Nessie - maybe the tail. I’ve seen a stick floating in the water before and that didn’t look like one to me. Of course, I didn’t think I would see anything going to Loch Ness that day, so it was a surprise!"

Lynn’s sighting came at 9:40 AM the same day as Charlotte Robinson’s from the previous story, but just more than nine hours earlier.

Photo by Rick Phillips

Another Loch Ness Monster sighting/picture made the headlines on December 13th. Rick Phillips said, “The previous Wednesday I had heard a strange noise as I was stood by a cafe at the edge of the loch in Fort Augustus. The noise sounded almost metallic, but like something was blowing air - like Darth Vader. I have swum and sailed with whales and dolphins, seen hundreds of seals, and it sounded like nothing I have ever heard. I spun around and saw something grey, just a side of a body and a flipper. Then last Thursday after my tour party went on their cruise I decided to take a walk along the river Oich, mainly to see the old bridge, and was taking a few pictures of the loch and the scenery when I again heard that curious noise. I looked up from my phone and saw a long, straight neck, all completely grey, and a narrow face, which was only about 20ft away and then it turned and disappeared all in a few seconds. I looked down and realized that it was in my picture, so zoomed in and there it was. It actually looks like a giant bird or a peacock in the face, with high ridges above its eyes and what almost looks like a beak. I know dinosaurs came from birds and that many had hard lips, almost like a beak - but this is simply what I saw. It seems to have almost a frill on its neck. All I will say is that, if I was going to fake a Nessie, I would certainly have made it look less like a bird and more like... well, more like what we think Nessie looks like!"

Why this story made the top ten: These stories carried the Loch Ness Monster in the media throughout the entire year. While there was a 21st century record total of 14 sightings of the Loch Ness Monster in the “The Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register� these were the most viral.

Why this story was number six: Despite a strong showing by the Loch Ness Monster none of these photographs, videos, or stories really shed any validation toward the creature and did nothing more than keep the legend afloat.

Amanda Teague and a painting of Jack; Teague or Sparrow?

This story starts back in mid-January with the rehashed and confusing story of Amanda Teague. The mother of five had met the ghost of an 18th century Haitian pirate named Jack Teague back in 2014. On July 23, 2016, she married the ghost of Jack Teague which she described him as probably looking like the pirate Jack Sparrow.

In 2015, Amanda began to alter herself to appear like the fictional captain Jack Sparrow spending $4,000 British Pounds, or about $5,000 American dollars on tattoos, jewelry, and clothing to become an impersonator. She even legally changed her last name to Sparrow.

In October 2017, Amanda married the ghost of Teague again in international waters to help circumvent the laws although Ireland and the United Kingdom will still not legally recognize the marriage. In articles talking about her marriage Amanda also discusses her sexual relationship with the ghost pirate.

In early August the story of Amethyst Realm broke and kept hovering in the news for months. Realm is a 30-year-old spiritual guidance counselor who confesses that she’s been messing around with ghosts for years and it caused her to have an engagement broken off after he fiance caught her in bed wearing lingerie and telling him she was messing around with a ghost.

Amethyst Realm got plenty of  TV time in 2018

Realm claims she is done with Earth-bound men and has had at least 20 different ghostly lovers in the last 11 years. But she encountered a new lover while on vacation in Australia who followed her home. In this initial batch of articles centered on her This Morning television show appearance Amethyst also reveals that she wants to have a “ghost baby�.

While she is hoping for a real physical baby, she’s not completely sure how she’s going to go about getting pregnant and ultimately delivering a baby. On having a baby, she says, “I hope so. I would hope physical. I've been looking at phantom pregnancies. I believe a phantom pregnancy is a real pregnancy, but you have a phantom inside of you rather than a human baby. The reason we don't carry them to full term is the people who have them don't comprehend it or think it's possible.�

Her exploits popped up a few weeks later rehashing the same details including her personal inclusion into the Mile-High Club that she purportedly entered as she traveled back to the United Kingdom from Australia after initially meeting her latest lover.

A few months later more stories popped up about Amethyst that talked about her recent marriage proposal from her ghostly lover. She said, “There was no going down on one knee — he doesn’t have knees. But for the first time, I heard him speak. I could actually hear his voice and it was beautiful. Deep, sexy and real.� So, ghosts don’t have knees, but they have functioning vocal chords? Amethyst plans on getting married next year so you can plan on hearing more stories in the paranormal news about her and this ever-growing trend of having sexual encounters or marrying ghosts.

Why this story made the top ten: These two stories kept the idea of having a relationship with a ghost in the news for almost half the year. The Amethyst Realm story came and went throughout the fall and became fodder for nearly every single major news outlet. Despite not being a verifiable story its viral power not only thrust these stories into the top ten but nearly halfway up the list.

Why this story was number five: These stories were highly viral and the idea of having physical relationships with ghosts has become a popular conversation piece in the media recently. Despite how heavily popular these two stories were during the year.

Professor Neil-Gemmell of the University of Otago (left)

The Otago Loch Ness Monster DNA search is a story that first broke in May of 2018 when plans of collecting DNA from the Loch went mainstream. Professor Neil Gemmell of the University of Otago led a group of scientists to collect 259 samples around Loch Ness at varying depths to record the diversity of life within the water.

The goal with this scientific experiment is to collect DNA samples to determine what types of plants, animals, and other organisms that inhabit the loch. The search is geared toward identifying invasive species, searching for new species, as well as cataloging anything that might inhabit the cold Scottish waters, but the use of the Loch Ness Monster got this story front page attention.

Of the project Gemmell commented, “While the prospect of looking for evidence of the Loch Ness monster is the hook to this project, there is an extraordinary amount of new knowledge that we will gain from the work about organisms that inhabit Loch Ness – the UK's largest freshwater body.�

The team hopes to discover new species, but it probably won’t be some type of thought-to-be-extinct plesiosaur type creature but more than likely bacteria or something else small. After the samples were collected in early June article appeared that stated that the team did not encounter the Loch Ness Monster. However, these articles that perpetuated this story explained that the DNA has yet to be disseminated so a lack of visual sighting of the creature has not yet eliminated it from existence.

On July 15th an opinion article in the New Zealand based The Spinoff website challenged the search for the Loch Ness Monster by calling it, “embarrassing and expensiveâ€� as Otago University spent a considerable amount of time advertising it. The author also considered Professor Gemmell a not-so-intelligent person for pursuing a mythological creature. A few days later and another journalist fired back explaining that the Loch Ness Monster was just used a hook to get people to read about a typical boring scientific collection experiment. 

Ellen Rykers in her article summed it up nicely by stating, “Connecting science with popular culture, or other things people care about, is smart. Plus, there’s a difference between legit science piggy-backing an urban legend and outright wearing a tinfoil hat.�

Otago University and Professor Neil Gemmell explained the experiment and defended themselves against the angry article. Professor Gemmell’s response was posted onto the amended article and said in part, “Joel MacManus’s opinion piece calls into question the scientific integrity/credibility of my team, many of whom are internationally acclaimed for their research. Quite simply they would not have joined an endeavour that they thought foolish or likely to cause harm to their reputations. This is a science endeavour with exceptional credentials that will document the life in Loch Ness in unprecedented detail. We are dubious that there is a monster, but the global appeal of that legend, has enabled us to the describe the scientific process and a new form of genetic investigation to audiences we have rarely, or never, connected with previously. At its heart our project will deliver fundamental new knowledge. It is this, plus the unparalleled opportunity to communicate this science and the scientific process on which it is based that has brought together an exceptional array of scientists.�

Teams from New Zealand, Australia, Denmark and France are currently breaking down these samples and comparing the results against known species. The results of the experiment should be released sometime in early 2019.

Why this story made the top ten: The study of the water of Loch Ness is important enough, but the fact that this could finally solve the mystery as to whether the Loch Ness Monster exists puts this one on the map. My bet is that even though it will not find evidence of the creature the findings will not damage the culture of belief behind Nessie.

Why this story was number four: This is a story about science and discovery, but while this could determine the “fateâ€� of the Loch Ness Monster the announcement of this experiment will not be revealed until next year. 

The mayhem started on Tuesday, January 16th at 8:08 PM eastern time. A meteor, probably a yard or two in diameter, was seen streaking through the sky. A bright flash and sonic boom were seen and felt afterward around the area of Taylor, Michigan. The flash was seen not only in Michigan, but in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana. There was a little bit of confusion surrounding the event as many thought the flash and boom were caused by a thunderstorm, but where was the rain? Others had felt the ground shake and wondered if an earthquake had happened as seismic activity from the boom registered a 2.0 magnitude earthquake. Still, there were others that thought maybe this was an explosion. 

As per usual when something confusing like this happens there tends to be a little speculation and a little bit of a leap into the irrational. Not long after the initial confusion began to subside and the fact of a probable meteor event began to circulate in the news and social media a series of photographs turned this simple event into a UFO invasion and government conspiracy theory within 20 minutes of the initial entry of the meteor.

A series of three photographs began to circulate of a light in the sky as well as a fire occurring in Taylor, Michigan. Shortly after a video showed close up footage of a fire and the destruction of a garage. Social media went into high alert and rumors of an alien invasion, attack of a missile, people being blocked on Facebook for sharing information, all the way to a building being destroyed by the meteor were flooding social media and confusing everyone.

Stay woke and create hysteria

Another part of the photographs that fueled speculation was that the cold temperatures created what is known as light pillars. The bright light of the fire created a streak of light in two of the photos that went skyward, this gave the impression that a rocket had impacted the area, but the photograph would have had to been taken at that exact moment. The light pillars were merely created from the light and atmospheric conditions. 

The fire was the fuel of the speculation, but officials were quick to address this issue as they were well aware of the situation. Detroit newspapers pointed out that officials stated that leaking fuel and oil from a vehicle was the cause of the fire in the garage in Taylor, Michigan. But it was too late, by the next morning multiple websites were proclaiming a UFO crash, UFO invasion, or at least a meteor strike on the area just southwest of Detroit. It took almost a week later for the truth to circulate through social media to clear up the misinformation train that had derailed the actual truth.

If that wasn’t enough, to add a cherry on top of this story it was reported the following day that a pastor in the area had predicted the meteor event. The prediction was made in a video on December 31, 2017, where Pastor Rick Satterfield said, “I had a dream that a meteor was coming to the Great Lakes and it was gonna hit Michigan. It would cause Ohio and Canada to feel the impact of it.�

I predict this story will make the top ten!

This meteor prediction was not of a doomsday event but of one that would bring positive change to the region. Satterfield, of the non-denominational Christian church named I am Church, has about 200 members. I was highly skeptical of this story until I did watch the video and he did make the prediction. Although the part about a revival in the area caused by the meteor probably didn’t live up to the prediction unless this story attracted some parishioners.

Why this story made the top ten: The Michigan meteor might have faded away but this was the hottest story of the year for a few months and the sheer panic and confusion it created with UFOs and missile attacks rates this as one of the most viral "paranormal" stories of the year.

Why this story was number three: The story had a logical solution which was largely ignored in the days since it was revealed and even confused those who lived in the area. While this was a confusing and far reaching story it wasn’t the most widely covered viral paranormal or strange story in the media.

September 6th, Sunspot, New Mexico was the location of a strange scene where the Sunspot Solar Observatory, also known as the National Solar Observatory, was swarmed by FBI agents with Blackhawk helicopters purportedly swirling about above. Local police officials were left out in what was actually going on and workers were told they were suspended from the facility until told they would be allowed back into the building.

Tyler Glockner of the YouTube conspiracy theory and hoax video page Secure team 10 went on YouTube to state that the facility was closed due to evidence that a strange object was seen crossing in front of the sun other than the moon. This shocking revelation meant that the government was aware of a gigantic UFO, or apparently an object like the Death Star from Star Wars, was very close to Earth. This, of course, is completely moronic of an assumption since there is more than one solar observatory in the world let alone the United States and none of those were invaded. Plus, why would the footage of this have been leaked if it were a matter of national security? 

Other accusations included a purported solar storm that was headed our way. This story was true, but it was a moderate storm according to officials and passed without any sort of incident as is common. Again, numerous agencies would have been aware of this occurrence and it would make little sense to have evacuated this location. 

Some were assuming that this had something to do with Roswell. While Roswell is just less than 90 miles as the UFO flies and was a nice story back in 1947 there isn’t much going on lately with UFOs and aliens in that area other than the annual festival.

The mystery stemmed from the way FBI agents swarmed the facility and evacuated it without letting anyone else in on what was happening. Otero County Sheriff Benny House told ABC 7, “The FBI is refusing to tell us what's going on. We've got people up there that requested us to standby while they evacuate it, nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why. The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say. For the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there. There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.â€� 

More speculation into the evacuation included foreign spies. The observatory is used to view the sun but also provides a nice view of New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin, which includes two military bases, the White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base. This was a more rational conclusion for some since an alien invasion being seen from one tiny solar observatory is more fit for a streaming service ready movie. One thing about this hypothesis being wrong is that nearby sits the Apache Point Observatory with an array of telescopes not even a half mile away. It is currently operating as normal and has better tools to spy on anything going on in the basin than a solar telescope. Other guesses and theories included a large amount of mercury that is kept on site might have leaked or attempted to be stolen and potentially weaponized. All of this speculation did not help the lack of facts coming in from those who created this situation.

The Sunspot Solar Observatory is not a top-secret facility as some have also said. The facility was open to the public for tours and led by the scientists on site. Officials who contacted the FBI included Benny House who said he was only told there was a “credible threatâ€�, however House and his deputies observed no threat to the facility. 

James McAteer, a professor at New Mexico State University and director of the Sunspot Solar Observatory consortium stated that the consortium ordered the facility to be vacated and only mentioned a security issue. Kinsey Featherston, a spokeswoman for congressman Stevan Pearce contacted the FBI and was told there was a “ongoing investigation�. The FBI told Featherston to contact the consortium about the issue. Shari Lifson, a spokeswoman for the AURA consortium stated that the group was, “addressing a security issue� and had “decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure.�

So, the evacuation of the site was from AURA, which stands for the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy. AURA is a consortium of 42 U.S. based oversees other facilities other than the National Solar Observatory including the Gemini Observatory in Hawaii, the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) which is under construction in Chile, the National Optical Astronomical Observatory (NOAO) in Tucson, Arizona, and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) which is the science operations center for the Hubble Space Telescope and for the James Webb Space Telescope. Suddenly, on Sunday, September 16th a statement was released to the media from AURA which said:

“On September 6th the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) made the decision to temporarily vacate the Sunspot Solar Observatory at Sacramento Peak, New Mexico as a precautionary measure while addressing a security issue. The facility closed down in an orderly fashion and is now re-opening. The residents that vacated their homes will be returning to the site, and all employees will return to work this week. AURA has been cooperating with an on-going law enforcement investigation of criminal activity that occurred at Sacramento Peak. During this time, we became concerned that a suspect in the investigation potentially posed a threat to the safety of local staff and residents. For this reason, AURA temporarily vacated the facility and ceased science activities at this location. The decision to vacate was based on the logistical challenges associated with protecting personnel at such a remote location, and the need for expeditious response to the potential threat. AURA determined that moving the small number of on-site staff and residents off the mountain was the most prudent and effective action to ensure their safety. In light of recent developments in the investigation, we have determined there is no risk to staff, and Sunspot Solar Observatory is transitioning back to regular operations as of September 17th. Given the significant amount of publicity the temporary closure has generated, and the consequent expectation of an unusual number of visitors to the site, we are temporarily engaging a security service while the facility returns to a normal working environment. We recognize that the lack of communications while the facility was vacated was concerning and frustrating for some. However, our desire to provide additional information had to be balanced against the risk that, if spread at the time, the news would alert the suspect and impede the law enforcement investigation. That was a risk we could not take.�

Otero County Sheriff Benny House told BuzzFeed News that Sunday, “If there is a threat to local residences and the area they should be filling us in so we can also help take care of that and know what is going on in our community. No one has reached out to us at all and we are not hearing anything but what conspiracy theorists are saying. It's all very weird.�

The facility went back into operation mode on Monday, September 17th but with few concrete answers. A few days later on Thursday those details became a little clearer as the FBI released documents including a search warrant that paints a scarier picture than an alien invasion. Apparently, a janitor at the facility was suspected of downloading and distributing child pornography using the WI-FI of the observatory. The laptop that contained the pornography was discovered by the chief observer at the observatory and a while later the janitor was seen leaving the office where the laptop had been discovered. 

The FBI was not behind the evacuation as explained last week, the AURA consortium opted to get the workers out of the building due to statements made by the janitor. The statements released by the FBI state that the janitor was “feverishlyâ€� searching the facility for the laptop and made comments such as, “it was only a matter of time before the facility ‘got hit,’" and that he “believed there was a serial killer in the area, and that he was fearful that the killer might enter the facility and execute someone.â€� 

Why this story made the top ten: The evacuation and lingering story of the Sunspot Observatory sent everyone into conspiracy theory mode, including the mainstream media. Was this UFOs, terrorism, spies, the end of the world? The speculation of this story went beyond social media and paranormal bloggers into big media all over the world and was definitely the strangest and biggest paranormal mystery of the year.

Why this story was number two: This story was probably the most viral story in a year that really lacked any heavyweight story and probably could have landed at number one had it not been for a story that touched everyone in the paranormal and many that had nothing to do with it. 

The number four story of the Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2013 was the return and departure of Art Bell. Bell returned to the airwaves on September 16, 2013 on SiriusXM satellite radio on his show called Art Bell’s Dark Matter. The show was short lived, however, as technical issues with streaming forced Bell to cancel the show on November 4th. He did have another comeback with his show, Midnight in the Desert, which ran from July 20, 2015, until December 11th when he called it quits for good after trespassing and gunfire on his property made him fear for his and his family’s safety.

Art Bell died on Friday, April 13th, 2018, his death was announced by the Nye County sheriff’s department in Nevada and a press release was issued to the media. George Noory, the host of Coast to Coast that night revealed publicly that Bell had died but despite the news being spread he wanted to be sure it wasn’t just speculation or misinformation. He had a difficult time getting the words out despite not being close to Bell in what was and still is one of the hardest pieces of audio to listen to surrounding Art.

Speculation ran rampant as information surrounding Art’s death seemed secretive and conspiracy theories ran rampant as many paid their respects to the man that paved the path for paranormal radio as it is today. Many paranormal radio shows suspended their format and their guests and talked about Art Bell. 

A community announcement was made via Facebook and Twitter on Friday the 13th and the news quickly spread. While fellow paranormal radio hosts, bloggers, and others in the field offered their shock, condolences, and personal stories the news also seemed to hit movie and music stars as well. Twitter and Facebook became flooded with Art Bell tributes and stories and the media heavily covered the passing of Art Bell. While he had made the paranormal mainstream long before the Internet it was great to see how the media treated him as the flag bearer to the movement of the late 20th and early 21st century of belief in the unknown.

No conspiracy here, although that would have been poetic

Bell had been known to have health issues and was a heavy smoker for several decades. In 2016 he went to hospital with pneumonia and revealed at the time that he suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD. Autopsy results on Art Bell were finally disclosed on August 1st which revealed that the combination of prescription drugs had led to an accidental overdose with his prescription medication. Granted, his COPD and hypertension were also risk factors that contributed to his death. Sadly, some still continue to stir conspiracy theory waters surrounding Art's death and autopsy results.

Why this story made the top ten: The passing of Art Bell was a shock to many despite his health woes in the last few years. The amount of tributes and recognition for his breaking the barriers of paranormal radio and belief in the media made this a proud moment despite the sadness behind his loss.

Why this story was number one: This was definitely the number one story in how it affected nearly everyone involved in the paranormal or anyone who had ever heard Coast to Coast hosted by Art Bell. Again, the media did Art well in covering the story and I was amazed at how far this coverage reached from the Washington Post and all major news outlets releasing a story on this as well as covering it on television.

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Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2016  

25 Nov 2018, 5:56 pm Why this list? Don’t we have enough countdowns? This list helps us remember the stories from the year and helps us remember some of the issues we encountered that might have fooled us or taught us something along the way. It helps us prepare for next year where we will more than likely see many similar stories. As we look back on these stories years from now we may see similar patterns or how some that were high on the list and so promising turned out to be nothing at all; it’s all about documentation and remembering the past as it happened.

How is this list designed? The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories are put together strictly by my opinion. They are collected from the stories I’ve talked about all year long and are ranked by a few pieces of criteria. First, have they made a positive impact on one area of the paranormal? Many stories I talk about are hoaxes and misinterpretations, but what stories have created an awareness of a paranormal subject or taught the general public something, or better yet has something been learned about our mysterious world? Granted, even hoaxes can teach us something if we know for sure they were a hoax. Some feel all hoaxes harm the paranormal, but I say some educate us on what to look out for as far as a story or types of data that is presented. It’s easy to believe everything, but hard to be skeptical when you want deep down to believe.

Second, how viral was the story? Many stories I talk about are popular on paranormal websites but have not been heard of outside of this arena or where the story took place. A story that is big at a regional level will have more weight than a local story and a global story will be higher than that. Also with this I look at how much it was talked about through social media as well as how long it lasted in the news as a developing story. Lastly, I look at the reality of the story. Meaning, does this story include a real person or it is possibly just a story made up for website hits? I usually do this early on to make sure these are truly newsworthy stories to begin with, but still some stories are a bit questionable in their makeup and are just stories hyped up for the paranormal community.

My first "Top Ten" was back in 2010 when the Paranormal News Insider began to go to a weekly segment in late September of 2010. Prior to that it was a monthly segment that started in September of 2008. It's fun to look back at the stories that seemed so important and how many of these top stories that had much hope turned out to be hoaxes or just no big deal.

#10 
CERN Sacrifice

Just what happened at the CERN particle accelerator facility? A strange video surfaced in late August of what appears to be a human sacrifice. The two minute video shows the Geneva facility near the Shiva statue that has been the source of controversy since its donation to the facility in 2004 by India. Shiva is a Hindu deity portrayed as a dancer who performs a dance that is said can destroy the universe. Many have focused on this aspect of Shiva and have thought that CERN is no doubt up to evil and will ultimately destroy Earth. Others have also expressed concern about what CERN is up to including physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking. However, the monument’s plaque is meant to show the symbolism between Shiva and what CERN is doing with science by stating, “Hundreds of years ago, Indian artists created visual images of dancing Shivas in a beautiful series of bronzes. In our time, physicists have used the most advanced technology to portray the patterns of the cosmic dance. The metaphor of the cosmic dance thus unifies ancient mythology, religious art and modern physics.�

But what about this video? In the video you see a bunch of people wearing long black robes walking into a courtyard between buildings near the Shiva monument. In a matter of seconds a woman has her robe taken off and seconds later she lays on her back as others kneel. A robed person then displays what appears to be a knife then seemingly stabs the woman as the cameraman who is filming through a window begins to run away swearing. A couple of obvious things here before we get too far. First, it seems a bit odd that this person would be filming out the window just as the people make their way to the courtyard. He also seems to be wearing a black cloak just like those in the video by looking at the reflection. Officials at CERN, known as European Organization for Nuclear Research,

One June 21st I reported that People were losing their minds over the new movie, “The Conjuring 2�. Many people are freaking out about how scary the movie is as well as a purported curse associated with it. Strange events from a woman claiming to be possessed in a theater to a man who purportedly found a cross drawn on his bathroom mirror at a hotel he was staying at after watching the movie. It was also reported that a 65 year old man in India complained of chest pains during the movie and was rushed to the hospital. The man later died, but that’s not the weird part. When his body was sent to another hospital for a post mortem examination the driver and the body never made it to the hospital and disappeared without a trace. Obviously these stories are not directly related to the movie, but it certainly continues to add to the mystery and hysteria surrounding this movie.

In early July it was reported that “The Conjuring 2â€� had been removed from almost 300 theaters in France. Apparently, not only is the movie too scary but it also promotes violent reactions from viewers. The successful sequel has been pulled from 262 French theaters following loud laughter and hysterical yelling. Purportedly, the frequent screaming has also lead to physical altercations in at least one theater. The movie was reportedly removed on June 29th, the opening day for the movie in France, due to disruptive conduct. Is this movie just too scary to be seen in France?  Well, Paranormal Activity 4, Annabelle, and Sinister have also been partially banned in French theaters.

Why it’s on the list: “The Conjuring 2� was one of the most discussed paranormal based movies in many years and had many people lining two different sides of the fence. The fact that this movie continued to play in the paranormal news with certain strange circumstances behind it helped push it into the top 10.
Why it’s only number 9: While the movie generated a lot of ongoing discussion through the summer, the hype was seemingly there just to help the movie. While the movie was fairly successful it is just the 24th top grossing movie of 2016 and has grossed less than a third of the original film. As for the rest of the stories related to the movie none really seemed to be based in anything other than to just how scary people interpreted the film to be.

#8
Pedals

The upright walking bear was seen once again in June of 2016 in Oak Park, New Jersey. The bear now famously known as Pedals was last seen in December of 2015, and locals wondered if he would ever be seen again. The bear sustained injuries to both of its front paws, and is missing one completely, and has since relied on walking upright to get around. This is a perfectly natural thing for bears to do; however, they usually do it just for short distances. There was public outcry to have the bear moved to a sanctuary, namely the Orphaned Wildlife Center in Otisville, New York. Even a GoFundMe page was started that generated $28,000. However, officials stated that the bear would do better in its natural environment and if its health deteriorated they would step in. On episode number 187 of the Paranormal News Insider back on August 12, 2014, I reported on the upright walking bear in Oak Park that was walking upright near the same neighborhood. This original video has generated 2.7 million views and this was a big story back then. While there hasn’t been an unusual amount of Bigfoot sightings reported in New Jersey these videos do tend to make us think of Bigfoot and upright walking bears are probably responsible for quite a few reports.

The folks at the Washington Post decided to take on the task of deciding whether or not upright walking bears represent the many sightings of Bigfoot over the years. The Washington Post brought in what they referred to as two experts to comment on the bear misinterpretation angle.

The first was Matt Moneymaker from the Finding Bigfoot television show fame. Moneymaker is also the leader of the Bigfoot Field Researcher’s Organization, which is one of the most popular of the Bigfoot-themed investigation groups. Matt Moneymaker feels that upright walking bears do not explain Bigfoot sightings not even a little bit. He said, “The BFRO has collected thousands of bigfoot-related observations over the years. In not one of those observations was it noted that the witness spotted a figure they thought was a Bigfoot but it turned out to be a bear walking on hind legs for an extended period. That would happen quite a bit if it explained even a fraction of Bigfoot sightings. On the other hand, it is quite common for witnesses to initially think an upright furry figure is a bear on hind legs until the car gets closer and they realize it is an ape-like figure —  a bigfoot (a type of ape).â€� While I think those comments are a bit closed minded and obviously none of BFRO’s cases have turned out to be a bear walking upright since every sound in the woods is "definitely a Squatch!" I do agree with another point he brought up and that is there is not a single report of a Bigfoot in the Oak Ridge, New Jersey area where Pedals lives. If there had been even a handful then it would lead me to believe that upright walking bears may in fact explain many Bigfoot sightings. However, Pedals is a known upright walking bear and has become quite famous in the last three years. It is possible that the expectation of seeing an upright walking bear may have misreported some Bigfoot sightings or has merely lowered the potential for misreporting a Bigfoot. The second expert called upon for the article is a Bigfoot researcher and co-editor for the Bigfoot Evidence website Matt Knapp. Knapp’s logic is that people describe Bigfoot like Bigfoot not like bears. His thoughts are further mapped out by his view that since we are conditioned since birth to know what a bear looks like that they are easily identified versus seeing a Bigfoot which tends to confuse a witness. I think this is kind of a straw man theory here. Regardless, this argument is meaningless since the Patterson Gimlin film, Harry and the Hendersons, and countless television commercials have cemented the idea of what a Bigfoot should look like into everyone’s heads. Who hasn’t heard of Messin’ with Sasquatch?

October 10th through the 15th was New Jersey’s black bear hunting season for bow and muzzle-loaders. A total of 549 bears taken were reported by the New Jersey division of fish and wildlife and sadly among them was an icon of an ongoing story covered here. Well, a hunter who had waited for three years to kill pedals apparently got his wish. According to the Facebook page that covers pedals, two biologists were on hand to examine the bear and upon inspection of the paws determined that this was a bear that spent considerable time walking upright. While this is sad it does provide some closure for the bear that was more than likely suffering through this condition and we should set our emotions aside when it comes to things like this. I do think it’s a bit unnerving that someone would purposely go after this bear and a little unmanly to stalk an injured animal, but pedals was more than likely suffering and would quite possibly not survive another winter.

Why it’s on the list: A story I’ve followed closely since it broke in 2014, Pedals has become a beloved figure of the paranormal even though many seemingly forgot about him for a little while. Sadly, while his story began to generate more interest it was heartbreaking to hear of his death. Although it does put closure to an animal that tore the public and private minds of wild animal protection and did bring an end to any misery Pedals might have been dealt with through injuries, strain, and malnutrition.

Why it’s only number 8: The story of pedals, sadly, did not generate worldwide outrage like the story of Harambe did obviously due to not having a human connection. While it was a popular story in the paranormal it still did not seem to gain a tremendous amount of traction. For me, I wanted this on the list since it was a story that has lingered for a couple of years and has now met an ending.

#7
Urban Legend Claims a Victim

Roquel Bain, 26, of Dayton, Ohio, was in Louisville, Kentucky, with her boyfriend to take a tour of Waverly Hills Sanatorium over the weekend of April 23rd. While in the area Bain decided to investigate a local urban legend of the Pope Lick Monster. The Pope Lick Monster, named for the Pope Lick Creek, is purportedly a part man, part goat, and part sheep that is said to live under a train trestle that passes over the Pope Lick Creek. Of the many purported urban legends about this creature is one that states that it lures people out on to the train trestle using hypnosis or voice mimicry to lead them to meet their death.Crypto news.com many investigators are under the impression that the trestle is abandoned based on the urban legend. A bit of research would have revealed that the tracks were not only used, but very active. A bit of common sense could have kept them off of the tracks, but all we can do is use this as a lesson to not trespass and to be aware of any danger associated with investigating any type of claim. Again, thanks to Crypto News.com and Loren Coleman for the information for this story.

Sadly, Bain and her boyfriend were out on the 772 foot long trestle when a Norfolk Southern train surprised the couple. They were unable to escape to the end of the trestle although Bain’s boyfriend was able to hang on to the side, she was unable to do so and was struck and fell 80 to 100 feet. She was pronounced dead at the scene. As tragic as this is it could have been avoided. A chained fence and warning signs are up at the location to keep people away from the active trestle. According to Crypto news.com many investigators are under the impression that the trestle is abandoned based on the urban legend. A bit of research would have revealed that the tracks were not only used, but very active. A bit of common sense could have kept them off of the tracks, but all we can do is use this as a lesson to not trespass and to be aware of any danger associated with investigating any type of claim. Again, thanks to Crypto News.com and Loren Coleman for the information for this story.

Why it’s on the list: For someone to be killed by an urban legend seemingly just as the legend describes it a bit creepy. This story should also serve as a warning and lesson to those that trespassing is never a good idea.

Why it’s only number 7: While it was a powerful story it seemed to only flutter in the paranormal news for a brief bit of time. Sadly, the lesson that Roquel Bain lost her life for is just the latest in a long line of illegal activities perpetrated by paranormal investigators. The story’s inclusion on this list is solidified, if for nothing else, to serve as an ongoing beacon to others who will certainly be faced with decisions like this in the future.

#6
Is There Life Out There? (NASA, SETI, and FAST)

In early May, NASA held a press conference outlining some of the recent developments of the Kepler Space Telescope and its search for planets. Just prior to this announcement many people went into the typical hyperdrive conspiracy solar storms that usually precede any announcement by NASA. One such article was published in the United Kingdom’s Express which was titled “'World on brink of being told aliens EXIST' after NASA 'hints at announcement'�. This article goes a long way just to say that NASA has stated in the past that they feel that life may be found within the next 20 to 30 years or possibly even within the next decade. Although the best candidate would be microbial life many on the conspiracy train have jumped the tracks to say that alien life must mean aliens, those big-eyed and big brained grays that are coming to take over our planet and convert us to slaves or just turn us into mulch. The announcement at 1 PM eastern on May 10th by NASA essentially outlined the fact that they have discovered many more new exoplanets- the most discovered to date which more than doubles what was previously known. The announcement was 1,284 to be exact, which now raises the total to 2,325 total potential planets.

SETI, known as the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, made the news in late August with an announcement that they have found a signal from a potential intelligent civilization. The word hit the street on August 27th when Paul Glister published a post on the Centauri Dreams website titled, “An Interesting SETI Candidate in Herculesâ€�. In the post Glister cautioned that no one claims that this is the work of an intelligent civilization, but that this signal warrants further study and continuous documentation. This new signal was detected by the RATAN-600 radio telescope located in Russia and the signal was detected back on May 15, 2015. The signal originated from a star known as HD 164595 which is roughly 95 light years away in the constellation Hercules from our perspective here on Earth. There is already one known planet in that sun’s system which is Neptune-like and probably not capable of harboring intelligent life, but there could be other planets not yet known.

However, I wouldn’t get too excited about it, yes, here comes the bad news. The signal was first documented back in May of last year it has not been repeated. This does point toward a logical scenario of basic space noise and nothing intelligent, but hopefully they keep listening in that particular area.

The Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope known as the acronym (FAST) went online on Sunday, September 25th.

The Five hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope is now the largest single dish radio telescope in the world surpassing the dish at Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The dish on Arecibo’s telescope is 1,000 feet across while China’s dish is over 1,600 feet across. China’s FAST telescope also boasts twice as much power as Arecibo’s as well. The new dish cost China 1.2 billion Yuan or approximately $180 million U.S. Over 10,000 villagers who lived within a 3 mile radius, who are relatively poor, were forced to leave their land, but were built apartments and given financial compensation by the government.  The large area is needed to keep false positives from disturbing the dish and cell phones are not even allowed to be used in the area due to limit electronic interference.

The Breakthrough Initiatives is a SETI, or Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, focused plan that, “are a program of scientific and technological exploration, probing the big questions of life in the Universe: Are we alone? Are there habitable worlds in our galactic neighborhood? Can we make the great leap to the stars? And can we think and act together – as one world in the cosmos?� The Breakthrough Initiatives focuses on three distinct aspects; listen, message, and starshot. Listen is using various radio telescopes to listen for distant messages, message is to send messages into space, and starshot is to journey to other planets or areas initially by unmanned craft. SETI recently conducted a survey in the area of Proxima Centauri, a red dwarf star only 4.25 light years from the Sun. Spinning around Proxima Centauri is a recently discovered planet that lies in the habitable zone of Proxima Centauri. Despite just being discovered on August 24th of this year Proxima B has created a lot of excitement from the SETI camp as they focused the Parkes Radio Telescope in New South Wales, Australia toward Proxima Centauri with the hope that Proxima B would be sending out some radio signals that would indicate intelligent life. The Breakthrough initiatives has also discussed sending out small probes the size of computer chips with little cameras attached toward Proxima B just to scope it out.

Why it’s on the list: NASA’s announcement, SETI’s research, or the FAST telescope going online was not enough for any of these stories to individually make this list. By bundling them together they do provide a pretty powerful future potential for discovery of intelligent alien life unless it presents itself on Earth first – then these stories will be a bit embarrassing.

Why it’s only number 6: The fact that these three individual sources were needed to crack the top ten is one reason. The other is the fact that despite the hype nothing has really been accomplished this year by any of these organizations with the exception of NASA.

#5

Young Discovers

A 16 year old may have proof of an elusive beast stalking the eastern area of Australia. Jack Tessier was riding a 4 wheeler in the town of Wyee in New South Wales about 70 miles north of Sydney, Australia along the eastern coast of the continent when he spotted large cat-like footprints. He was able to make casts of the prints and posted them on his Facebook page. He feels the prints belong to the elusive black panther that is said to roam various parts of Australia. 

Many ongoing reports of large cats prompted the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries to conduct an official investigation into the existence of purported 'large free-ranging felines' in 2013. Their report concluded no conclusive evidence for the existence of a large cat despite an unusual amount of kangaroo carcass found in various parts of the state along with the sighting reports.  It is interesting to note that in 2001, a freedom-of-information request revealed the state government had been keeping a panther file. Hopefully this young cryptozoologist can validate his claims and prove to the Australian government that these creatures are in fact loose. Jack celebrated his 17th birthday on February 1, 2016.

William Gadoury of Quebec, Canada became fascinated by Maya culture during the 2012 panic over the supposed end of the Mayan calendar. Instead of blogging about misplaced fears or writing a book highlighting the fear of the unknown, he instead theorized that the locations of Maya cities might correspond to stars in Maya constellations. He stated, "I did not understand why the Maya built their cities away from rivers, on marginal lands and in the mountains. They had to have another reason, and as they worshipped the stars, the idea came to me to verify my hypothesis." William studied 22 Maya star maps from ancient books which are known as the Madrid Codex.

He then put these star positions over a Google Earth image of the Yucatan Peninsula and lined it up with the existing 117 known Maya cities. Amazingly, the images matched up with the brighter stars actually lining up with larger cities. Yes, a 15 year old kid. He then used a 23rd constellation map and found a discrepancy. In the image he had three stars, but only two cities showing on the map. The third star was on the Mexico-Guatemala border (not Belize as reported in some stories) and was thick with vegetation. So, what’s a boy to do at this point? William had won an award for his initial findings where he estimated the star and city correlation sat at an astounding 95% accuracy. With winning the award from his work he merely asked a favor of the Canadian Space Agency, what 15 year old kid wouldn’t? They provided him with updated ground maps from their RADARSAT-2 satellite. He also found maps from 2005 where a fire had gone through the area and removed vegetation leaving the man made structures more visible. He then took these images to Remote Sensing expert Dr. Armand Larocque from the University of New Brunswick who determined that William had found a major city with 30 buildings and a large pyramid. While receiving an award for his work he’s not resting yet. 

He is looking to present his findings to the International Science Fair in Brazil next year and while is hopeful for an archaeological expedition he understands the cost involved and how difficult it may be to ever get anyone out there to excavate. As amazing as this story sounds other experts have torn into William’s work. Dr. David Stuart, an anthropologist from The Mesoamerica Center, University of Texas posted a response on Facebook claiming “ancient Maya didn't plot their ancient cities according to constellationsâ€�. Stuart also stated that the area in question is actually “old fallow cornfieldâ€�. Another Mayanist, Geoffrey Braswell of the University of California, stated that he too felt this was not a Maya pyramid, but was instead an old milpa (a crop growing system where multiple crops are planted at once) or an active marijuana field. 

A 16 year old girl caught footage of a bird that was thought to have been extinct in the wild. The video is only a few seconds long and shows a bird with a long tail flying from a tree behind another tree. The video was published on YouTube by Birdlife International. The subject of the video is the Spix Macaw which is listed as critically endangered and thought to be extinct in the wild as the last one was seen in the year 2000, yet there are 130 Spix Macaws held in a captive breeding program to help attempt to keep them from becoming extinct. If you see a picture of this blue macaw it might look a bit familiar as it shared the main characters of the animated movie Rio which came out in 2011. The Spix macaw is an important bird to the Brazilian people and this sighting lead to a search using a Whatsapp group to ensure that no dealers could enter and trap the bird for illegal sale. A farmer saw the bird on June 18th and Lourdes Oliveira and her 16 year old daughter Damilys woke up before dawn and searched for the bird in a local forest. She found the bird and filmed it at 6:20 AM. The Spix macaw has been hunted and trapped mainly for sale for pet birds as well as had their habitat eliminated by the removal of specific trees as well as the building of a dam, not to mention the northerly movement of Africanized bees that competed for nesting sites all of which lead to the demise of the bird from its home range. Birdlife International does think, however, that the bird sighted might have been one that was a released captive bird. The captive breeding program still continues and hopes that the birds can be reintroduced when the ecosystem and number of birds will be able to sustain themselves in the wild.

Why it’s on the list: Again, any of these three amazing stories alone was not enough to get them into the top ten in my opinion. But, since they all three deal with amazing young researchers I’ve tied them together for this great number 5 story. It’s great to see young researchers and investigators challenge the known world and looking at things through fresh eyes. I would also like to throw in Colin Schneider, who I met earlier this year at the Butler Paranormal Convention and was able to speak to his class in June, who has become a well-known researcher and writer this year in the cryptozoology field.

Why it’s only number 5: Whereas these great young minds have challenged science, their stories have not yet changed anything we know of in the paranormal. However, the fact that this story is in the top five should say a lot about these great young minds as well as the future of paranormal and other research that challenges conventional wisdom.

#4
Loch Ness Monster

1.4 million British Pounds. That’s how much it will cost to build a new catamaran that will join in the hunt for the elusive Loch Ness Monster. At 1.4 million British Pounds this translates into roughly just over $2 million U.S.! Cruise Loch Ness, a family run tourism business is currently having the ship built which will be the largest and fastest tourist craft on the Loch. Currently the largest capacity ship holds 120 passengers; this new one will hold 220 and will travel at 20 knots which is about 23 miles per hour. That’s pretty fast for a tour ship on Loch Ness. This new boat will appear in April of 2017 and will help meet the demand for the increase in tourism that the area is feeling for the search for the Loch Ness Monster.

"Operation Groundtruth" involves mapping the floor of Loch Ness by Kongsberg Maritime a Norwegian offshore oil company. While using a missile shaped drone robot to draw up the deep lake a disturbing object was found. Yes, the robot found the remains of the Loch Ness Monster. In the imagery a 30 foot long neck once belonging to Nessie was discovered, but it turned out to not be flesh and bone but of a model used in the movie “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes� which was shot in 1969 and directed by Billy Wilder. According to the story, the 30 foot long model had humps which Wilder did not want to be used in the film. The humps, however, provided buoyancy and once they were removed the model sank and had to be replaced by a different one which ultimately made it into the movie. The drone has also found the remains of a 27 foot shipwreck which has yet to be identified and has also put to rest the rumor that there was a trench in the Loch for Nessie to hide.

Tony Bligh of Dublin, Ireland, was at Loch Ness when he got the sight of a lifetime. He saw five humps moving in the water and he quickly pulled out his cell phone to shoot video. Bligh, an engineer, believed that what he captured was more than likely the movement of the famous Loch Ness Monster. However, Loch Ness Project Expert Adrian Shrine checked out the video and came to his own conclusion. He said, “It is a particularly good example of the effect that a reasonably high boat wake can make. It shows how powerful this illusion could be. It produces a line of very solid looking humps.� Apparently, Bligh reluctantly agreed that what he saw was more than likely a wake as he stated there had been a boat in the area that was about 400 yards away that was not included in his 19 second video.

Ian Bremmer, a 58 year old, caught what he thinks could be the Loch Ness Monster in a photograph while driving around the loch.Sun and Cryptomundo who posted about this story both suggest that this could be three seals that are merely swimming in succession.

The photograph shows a creature in the water with three humps and a definitive head sticking out of the water. Bremmer said he was looking for red deer and taking pictures of the loch, but he never saw the creature until he was looking through his photographs while at home. Both the

Sightings of the Loch Ness Monster are at their highest in 2016 since the year 2000. So far this year there have been seven sightings according to the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register kept by Gary Campbell. He attributes this rise to the use of smart phones and webcams (or maybe Pokémon Go).

Why it’s on the list: The Loch Ness Monster is arguably among the top five cryptids in the world. The Loch Ness Monster appeared on the list in 2015 as it was thought to have originated from hotel owners for a money making effort. While the Loch Ness Monster was absent from the list in 2014 it has made a resurgence this year and despite the negative press last year it has not put a dent on the belief of the creature or the purported sightings behind it.

Why it’s only number 4: Despite a resurgence and these stories being tied together to keep the legend afloat the Loch Ness Monster legend seems to be more of just that; a legend yet the scant pieces of evidence is just enough to make people turn their heads, if only for a second, when something happens near the loch.

#3
Clown Pandemic

I did not report on this until October 4th as I had ignored this story due to it not really being paranormal and the fact that the nonsense going on appeared to be driven by the media and social media. However, as October rolled around it was just too much to ignore. The story gained a lot of momentum in the media and had plenty of people genuinely scared.

The clown pandemic of 2016 is arguably one of the biggest media stories of the year outside of the election let alone paranormal stories. The panic seemed to start around the August 20th story from the Fleetwood Manor Apartments in Greenville, South Carolina where children claimed to have seen clowns in the woods behind the apartment complex – no clowns were ever found. legitimate clowns who have suffered through this story. In all, I personally chronicled 55 separate incidents of false claims, threats to schools, or stories involving clown sightings during the two plus months of the clown pandemic.

From there it spread to North Carolina about a week later, Georgia just days after, and then Alabama, Maryland, and Florida where school closures were beginning to be announced due to threats to students and were all discovered to be by students. The clown stories swept many other U.S. states within days of each other and then spread to Canada, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Australia. The clown pandemic also affected the Clown Lives Matter peace march on October 15th in Tuscon, Arizona over threats. The march was organized to bring attention to those who make a living as

Why it’s on the list: The clown pandemic was one that started out small and ended up becoming one of the most viral stories of the year before disappearing right before Halloween despite everyone’s fears it might ruin the holiday.

Why it’s only number 3: Despite have paranormal ties with people writing about this such as Loren Coleman and Benjamin Radford there was very little to truly attach this to the paranormal beyond urban legend and folklore. If it wasn’t for the fact that many paranormal news outlets covered this I would have considered it merely a mainstream media story. I reluctantly began covering the story in early October after the story had already become out of control with the sheer number of reports pouring in.

#2
The WOW! Signal Follow-up

On August 15, 1977 at 11:16 PM eastern daylight savings time the Big Ear Radio Telescope in Delaware, Ohio recorded what is now known as the Wow signal. Jerry R. Ehman was working on the SETI project, short for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence which uses various satellites to search for signals in space, when he saw a surprising vertical column with the alphanumerical sequence “6EQUJ5� that represents 72 seconds worth of information gathered from the radio telescope.

Copy of Wow! Signal print out located at Perkins Observatory with update by Jerry Ehman.

The alphanumeric code essentially describes the intensity variation of the signal and it has been given two different values for its frequency within the 1420 Megahertz range which puts it in the hydrogen line frequency. What does this mean for searching for extraterrestrials? SETI believed that since hydrogen is the most common element in the universe extraterrestrials might use that frequency to transmit a strong signal. The problem is researchers have been unable to find the signal from the original source of the constellation Sagittarius, near the Chi Sagittarii star group.

Antonio Paris, a professor of astronomy at St Petersburg College in Florida, feels that it is likely that the signal actually originated from one of two comets that were flying by at the time. Many researchers feel that since the signal has not been observed again from the same origin that it must have been something passing through the area. James Bauer of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, is skeptical of this hypothesis since the comet would have to release a significant amount of hydrogen to produce such a signal. Paris states that in order to rule out the comets his hypothesis needs to be tested. Comet 266P/Christensen will be back in that region on January 25, 2017, and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs) on January 7, 2018. By studying their radio emission and how quickly they move in the sky, astronomers should be able to tell if it really was this that produced the Wow! Signal. Some may think that Antonio Paris is just here to ruin the longstanding belief that this is a piece of leading evidence in the support of life outside of the Earth. Paris is not here to pee in the pool just to get to the bottom of the mystery. Paris is the founder and director of the Aerial Phenomena Investigation team that is a worldwide effort to actively research and investigate UFO claims.

Why it’s on the list: This is a scientific effort to help explain one of the potential largest pieces of alien communication data ever recorded. The “Wow� signal of 1977 has been a mystery since it was collected and while Professor Antonio Paris believes in UFOs he also has a solid understanding of astronomy and science and seeing this idea come to fruition is very exciting.

Why it’s number 2: Simply put, the experiment has not yet been completed. While this story might not be #2 is other’s eyes this is the type of story that can help change the paranormal stories for the good or bad; it’s essentially about discovery. I did originally have this story as number 4, but as it deals with potential alien communication (a popular theme this year) as well as science I felt this story deserved a higher ranking even if it did not receive much in the way of media attention as other stories in the top 5 did. I look forward to how this story will develop after the January, 2017 and 2018 data is interpreted.

#1

"Wessie"

Locals began to report a large snake in Westbrook, Maine, which is just west of Portland, in the middle of June. Police then searched the area, but came up empty handed until June 29th when an officer encountered the snake feeding on a mammal which he guessed was a beaver, around 3:30 in the morning. Another officer arrived on scene and both watched the snake swim across the Presumpscot River where it disappeared into thick brush. The police officers estimated the snake to be about ten feet long. Locals have dubbed the purported snake “Wessie� for the town of Westbrook as well as the “Presumpscot Python� and this purported python even has a Twitter handle @WessieThon for Wessie P. Thon.

Even the new local craft brewery in Westbrook created a few batches of beer it called “Wessieâ€� just for the occasion and it generally holds parties at its tasting room, but now they have been able to expand it and had a “Catch and releaseâ€� party for the release of the beer. After getting a lot of time in the media locally as well as regionally through July the story began to slowly die down.  It was a big deal in Westbrook where shirts were sold everywhere, business were using “Wessieâ€� to get business and the town certainly felt a bump with tourism at the end of the season prior to kids going back to school. 

Just when it all seemed to be over a photograph of a snakeskin was reportedly taken near a carry in boat launch (kayaks/canoes) at Riverbank Park along the Presumpscot River around 3 PM on August 20th. The snakeskin was collected and measured in at 12 feet in length and about 4 inches in diameter. A sample and photographs of the skin was sent to herpetologists to discover what type of snake this is. It was later identified to belonging to an anaconda, according to John Placyk, a herpetologist from the University of Texas, who identified the skin through genetic testing. Westbrook, Maine police still do not know if the skin is from "Wessie" or if it was planted. Experts determined that the skin is from a 8 to 9 foot long anaconda, which makes it a juvenile. 

Despite no further sightings of "Wessie" the city of Westbrook, Maine, pushed forward to celebrate their time in the national spotlight with Wessie Fest that took place on October 22, 2016. Events included a “Wessie Pie-Thonâ€� pie baking contest, “Wessie Tossâ€� corn hole, a sidewalk parade, photos with a live snake, crafts and vendors that include the International Cryptozoology Museum headed by Loren Coleman. Bill Brock of the television show “Monsters Undergroundâ€� will have a presentation at 2 PM followed by a Wessie Hunt at 3 PM. Even though it rained on the event it still capped off a wild summer in Maine as well as an interesting year in the paranormal. 

More information

Why it’s on the list: “Wessieâ€� captivated many with the thought of a wild and dangerous snake living in a small town in Maine. While this story probably happens weekly in Florida it just seemed to flourish from the local media reports that seemed to find it completely fascinating. Strange tales of snakes living outside of their normal habitats are not rare in the paranormal, but this latest one kept many of us on the hook for news updates even during the crazy clown craze. 

Why it’s number one: This year was a difficult year to determine the top three let alone the ranking of many of the other stories that either made or missed this list. At one point I felt the clown pandemic was the top choice for #1, but I felt that “Wessie� was more of a true paranormal story despite not being as close to viral. Even though “Wessie� may not have even existed, the story has created a new chapter in snake lore and “Wessie� was the number one cryptid of 2016 for sure.

Hear a recap of the countdown as well as a recap of 2010 through 2015 Top Paranormal News Stories from the Paranormal News Insider.

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News from 10/16/2018: Episode #372  

17 Oct 2018, 8:32 pm I don't normally write a blog for the news but with this week's news I shared a few photographs in the chatroom during the live broadcast on the Paranormal King Radio Network. I thought it would be nice to share these photographs with everyone via the blog instead of just sharing the stories through Facebook and Twitter like usual. Something new, but not sure if I will continue this or not.

I was one of four speakers on October 13 at the Albatwitch Day event in Columbia, Pennsylvania. I had a great time there enjoyed the presentations of local author David Glass, Tim Renner, and Rick Fisher. If you're interested in attending a paranormal conference (ghosts, UFOs, or crytids) then check out my list of events on Paranewsinsider.com.

Cryptid News:

Just seconds before the 4' gator lunged at a deputy.

Last week I covered a story from Chicago where a live alligator was pulled from the waters of Lake Michigan. Well, later on in the week another alligator was discovered but this time nowhere near the Great Lakes. A driver in a town about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Kansas was initially startled when she saw an alligator walk out in front of her car a week ago Monday, October 8th. Deputies had a hard time wrangling the alligator as the four-foot-long reptile lunged at one of them and he pulled his gun. Shots were not fired but the alligator was not captured either. The gator ended up getting back home on its own as it had been an escapee from a nearby residence.

Even more strange is that the same day as this one and not only the one in Chicago, Illinois, but another alligator turned up in Kansas about 20 miles south of the first one. This alligator was about 2 feet long and was found hiding under someone’s car. The city of Olathe, Kansas, where this second alligator was found apparently has a law against owning them so it will be transported to a reptile rescue facility in Kansas.

A set of photographs have surfaced of a mysterious creature seen in the Pacific Ocean at Huntington Beach, California. The headline of the Daily Star made this sound like very scary situation as it said, “Mysterious 'human-like' sea creature lurking in water leave beachgoers TERRIFIED. A BIZARRE creature sparked terror on the shores after beachgoers failed to identify what was heading their way.�

Despite the description in many stories saying there is a video there are only a few photographs including one that is just water that were taken back on October 3rd by a man only identified as George. I'm not sure who else was there that was terrified. George states of his encounter, “I was sitting on the sand and saw a frenzy of fish. Water was splashing, and the fish were jumping out – so I went to take a photo and caught this. I've been a surfer all my life and have never seen anything like this before.�

Sure looks like a dolphin to me...

Many people (paranormal researchers especially) assume that just because they can’t explain it that means that no one else can either and therefore it must be paranormal. Within the comments section of the video many claim that they recognize this creature as an orca or as dolphin which is in my best guess as well. I would probably guess this would be a dolphin as an orca’s dorsal fin would be much taller than what we see in the one photograph. But, it sure does look like a dolphin to me!

In the last few years Huntington Beach has had issues with sharks and stingrays chasing fish close to shore causing panic and a few minor injuries and dolphins are frequently seen in the area- and any longtime surfer would know that.

UFO News:

Cruz del Tercer Milenio (Third Millennium Cross)

“Mysterious UFOs in shape of white orbs of light 'speed across sky' at South America's highest monument� is the headline that accompanies the latest purported UFO video. The video was shot through observation windows at the Cruz del Tercer Milenio (Third Millennium Cross) which is located in northern Chile and stands about 83 meters high or 272 feet if you’re from North America.

This astounding UFO should have been reported by thousands of people and there should be dozens of videos of this amazing object as hundreds visit this monument daily and the countryside would have been busy with people. But, where are the other videos?

I’m pretty sure there is a logical solution to this, but until then it’s a story about a strange object washed ashore on Seabrook Island in South Carolina. The story has quickly picked up a lot of buzz and has become one of the stronger viral paranormal stories of the year so far.

The large object has been speculated to be everything from a UFO to space junk all the way to just a buoy or some other logical but boring solution. Many websites are focusing on the fact that it was taken away by city officials and some are saying this means it is some sort of alien technology or something else that is a secret. 

Not sure about this guy's face, but this sure looks like the object in question.

But, the Lowcountry Marine Mammal Network was the first to report this object and has since allowed hundreds of people to join in the guessing as to what it could possibly be. City officials did take the object away, but it was just due to public safety as well as to identify what it is. It wouldn’t be very good to allow this object to reenter the water and eventually was up somewhere else.

The speculation about what the object might be is all over the place, again from a UFO to even parts from the Space Shuttle Challenger by more than one person. Mysterious, yes, but the object seems to be made of foam and the many guesses as a buoy or other object used to float or protect boats is probably correct. One of the most guessed objects is a pipeline. Strange objects like this wash up on the shore all the time and even in this particular area it is said to be a somewhat consistent thing.

The Paranormal News Insider has been broadcasting since September of 2008 with 372 episodes to date and can be heard live at Paranormalking.com at 8 PM eastern every Tuesday night. The show is also available as a podcast after that on Podbean, iTunes, iHeartRadio, Stitcher, Spreaker, as well as many other podcasting apps and websites as well as on YouTube.  

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Let the "silly season" begin!  

22 Sep 2018, 9:47 pm

Westerville Public Libarry in Westerville, Ohio

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Paranormal News Insider celebrates TEN YEARS!  

4 Sep 2018, 10:30 pm

The Show History

2008 concept logo (top) and first working logo (bottom). Red and green represented opposite ends of belief. In late 2017 blue replaced the upper right swirl which expanded. Light blue stands for the sky and dark blue for the oceans while green (land) ties it all together (yes, thought went into the logo!).

2014 promo for the show going to AM radio

On the Show

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Meteor impact in Michigan? End of the world??  

20 Jan 2018, 9:32 pm

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Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2017  

5 Jan 2018, 5:29 pm Why this list? Don’t we have enough countdowns? This list helps us remember the stories from the year and helps us remember some of the issues we encountered that might have fooled us or taught us something along the way. It helps us prepare for next year where we will more than likely see many similar stories. As we look back on these stories years from now we may see similar patterns or how some that were high on the list and so promising turned out to be nothing at all; it’s all about documentation and remembering the past as it happened.

How is this list designed? The Top Ten Paranormal News Stories are put together strictly by my opinion. They are collected from the stories I’ve talked about all year long and are ranked by a few pieces of criteria. First, have they made a positive impact on one area of the paranormal? Many stories I talk about are hoaxes and misinterpretations, but what stories have created an awareness of a paranormal subject or taught the general public something, or better yet has something been learned about our mysterious world? Granted, even hoaxes can teach us something if we know for sure they were a hoax. Some feel all hoaxes harm the paranormal, but I say some educate us on what to look out for as far as a story or types of data that is presented. It’s easy to believe everything, but hard to be skeptical when you want deep down to believe.

Second, how viral was the story? Many stories I talk about are popular on paranormal websites but have not been heard of outside of this arena or where the story took place. A story that is big at a regional level will have more weight than a local story and a global story will be higher than that. Also with this I look at how much it was talked about through social media as well as how long it lasted in the news as a developing story. Lastly, I look at the reality of the story. Meaning, does this story include a real person or it is possibly just a story made up for website hits? I usually do this early on to make sure these are truly newsworthy stories to begin with, but still some stories are a bit questionable in their makeup and are just stories hyped up for the paranormal community.

My first "Top Ten" was back in 2010 when the Paranormal News Insider began to go to a weekly segment in late September of 2010. Prior to that it was a monthly segment that started in September of 2008. It's fun to look back at the stories that seemed so important and how many of these top stories that had much hope turned out to be hoaxes or just no big deal.

10. “Aflockalypseâ€� gets a partial explanation. 

“The results of this study will be informative for researchers, stranding network organizers, resource agencies and regulatory agencies. If we understand the relationship between the two, we may be able to use observations of solar storms as an early warning for potential strandings to occur. This would allow stranding responders in global hotspots, and really around the world, to be better prepared to respond, thus having the opportunity to save more animals.â€� 

“…investigated the possible reasons for this phenomenon based on a series of strandings of 29 male sperm whales in the southern North Sea in early 2016. Whales’ magnetic sense may play an important role in orientation and migration, and strandings may thus be triggered by geomagnetic storms. This approach is supported by the following: (1) disruptions of the Earth's magnetic field by Solar storms can last about 1 day and lead to short-term magnetic latitude changes corresponding to shifts of up to 460 km; (2) many of these disruptions are of a similar magnitude to more permanent geomagnetic anomalies; (3) geomagnetic anomalies in the area north of the North Sea are 50–150 km in diameter; and (4) sperm whales swim about 100 km per day, and may thus be unable to distinguish between these phenomena. Sperm whales spend their early, non-breeding years in lower latitudes, where magnetic disruptions by the sun are weak and thus lack experience of this phenomenon. ‘Naïve’ whales may therefore become disoriented in the southern Norwegian Sea as a result of failing to adopt alternative navigation systems in time and becoming stranded in the shallow North Sea.â€� 

“I had screwed those wooden feet to an old pair of shoes. I then walked on the wheel tracks on the road to the farm knowing full well traffic would erase any sign of how I approached and left. Once at the farmstead I noticed the lights on in the house and tried to see if anyone was up but the shade was pulled. I decided I was there so I just as well finish, lights or not. I walked around the house trying to leave prints in what little snow that was there. As I was crossing in the front of the house I noticed my friends female friend walk past the window. She happened to look out the window and I froze. Busted I thought she looked directly at me it seemed then quickly turned and went back the way she came and I took off.â€� 

“As a practitioner of Enkiduism, the foremost sacrament I practice is the wearing of hair-covered animal skins and wandering in the forest, the same way Gilgamesh honored him thousands of years ago. While this may seem unusual, the practice actually dates back to long before Gilgamesh, as images of shaman dressed as animals appear as far back as the Neolithic paintings in France's Trois-Frères cave. Even today, there are hundreds of shamanistic traditions around the world that involve dressing in a similar way. To join this ancient lineage, and to honor Enkidu, I sewed animal hides together, fabricating my own ritual garments.â€� 

8. Eclipse/End of the World 

Lizard Man? 

In mid-August South Carolina officials issued a warning of a potential spike in paranormal activity surrounding the upcoming August 21st total solar eclipse. The message was sent in the form of a Tweet by the South Carolina Emergency Management Division and included a map that showed possible lizard man sightings from 1980 to 2001 within the border of where the path of totality of the upcoming total eclipse would occur in South Carolina. This tongue-in-cheek Tweet was in response to the map of Bigfoot sightings that showed the entire map of purported Bigfoot sightings with the path of totality on it.

Crop circle or Death Star?

    

A crop circle in England caused a lot of theorizing toward the end of August. The crop circle appeared as a series of circles within each other along with a triangular shape coming out of them which also included odd shapes. Some said the shape appeared like a radio tower or as the Death Star from Star Wars shooting a beam and destroying a planet. As the circle was seen just days prior to the total eclipse seen in the United States many people speculated the circles were meant to figuratively reflect the sun and the moon. A video of the crop circle was uploaded to YouTube by the conspiracy theory website Secure Team 10. This website consistently uploads bogus or hoaxed videos and is not a trusted source of information in my opinion. However, it did spread pretty quickly.

Bring on Niburu 

   

More stories popped up about this crop circle which appeared close to England’s Southend Airport. Further thoughts on this crop circle seemed to point to that this was definitely a sign that the planet Niburu or planet X will soon destroy Earth. Earlier this year, amateur stargazer and Christian numerologist David Meade predicted Niburu would appear in the skies on September 23, 2017. He said that the planet would then crash into Earth or at least get extremely close. All of this speculation is based on numerology and guessing using the number 33. 33 days after August 21st is September 23rd. 

Bring on Niburu part 2

       

The funny thing is many people were claiming to be able to photograph Niburu when taking pictures of the sun. The purported planet is claimed to look bright just like the sun, or in reality just like a lens flare which is what most of these people are seeing. If the planet were getting closer we would see it much more at night that we would during the day especially away from the sun. Photographs of a purported second sun or the supposed Niburu began to pop up quite a bit on social media although are misinterpretations of said lens flares or hoaxes.

The End* (*maybe, but probably not)   

   

September 23rd was predicted to be the last day of Earth, but it wasn’t. A YouTube video which has almost 2.9 million views and over a dozen videos that have copied the message spread the message of the impending doom that never took place. The description of the video claimed that the date was merely a sign and the Earth will not end on September 23rd and this might not be the day of the Rapture or it might be. The description says, “NOTE TO ALL SCOFFERS: This is JUST A SIGN.  The rapture might not happen on this exact day.  Could be this week, next week, or months from now, but we are getting CLOSE.  Scoff at your own risk.  And for the record, the world won't end for at least 1,000 years.â€� What a disappointment. This video essentially states that a combination of stars that occurred over Israel and Jerusalem during the day was a sign that all of this was about to happen. Christian conspiracy theorist David Meade also agreed that September 23rd was an important date for the Earth. He stated that the fictional planet Niburu will arrive and bring the end of days. He also said that astronomical models demonstrated that this sign has never occurred in human history. 

Granted, simple science debunked this notion. This whole thing started back in 2011 by William Tapley who shared a YouTube video on this same subject using Stellarium software, the same software used to prove this was not true.

   

Earth plunging into darkness 

   

NASA has predicted that the Earth will plunge into darkness for 15 days starting on November 15th. This latest hoax was a piggyback to the earlier claims going back to at least 2011 when it was suggested that Comet Elenin would block out sunlight to Earth, which was not possible. In 2012 it was also suggested that planetary alignments were said to cause great blackouts all over the world. That obviously never happened. The same claim has been made year after year with the basis for the event changing slightly every year from severe solar storms to cosmic events happening from other solar systems hitting our sun. 

According to the website Earthsky.org NASA has never made such an announcement and there is no cause for concern behind any of the claims made. No, NASA has never made any type of announcement concerning any type of catastrophic event and a few videos show footage of scientists making some claims, but the footage is used from other interviews and are put up in such a way to suggest that they support this claim when they are discussing completely different topics. While it’s alluring to think that there are secrets being held from us to think some YouTube channel full of advertisements and fake stories would be the only source of truth is just out of this world.

Stop with the Niburu questions! 

     

The headline said it all; from the Washington Post, “Please stop annoying this NASA scientist with your ridiculous Planet X doomsday theoriesâ€�. A short video from NASA senior scientist Dr. David Morrison back in 2011 is at the top of the article and it starts out with him taking a deep breath before telling the tale of a 12 year old girl who is frightened because she hears that the planet Niburu is headed toward Earth. Morrison states matter of factly that Niburu does not exist and that even the designation of Planet X is just a generic term to cover a potential planet that has not yet been proven to exist. 

The video was made in reaction to the dozens of concerned emails to NASA and they finally decided they needed to respond to the misinformation. Morrison stated he received very few inquiries into Niburu back in 2008 but lately things have gotten a bit annoying. Morrison stated, “I now receive at least one question per day, ranging from anguished (‘I can’t sleep; I am really scared; I don’t want to die’) to the abusive (‘Why are you lying; you are putting my family at risk; if NASA denies it then it must be true.’).� The whole Niburu discussion and belief began back in 1995 after Nancy Lieder, founder of the website ZetaTalk, claimed that extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli star system had warned her of an impending collision. Since then the Earth was predicted to collide with Niburu in 2003, 2012, then on September of 2017, October 15th of 2017, and again on November 19th, but none of this happened. Why? Because this planet does not exist and if it were on a collision course we wouldn’t need scientists to tell us because we would see it coming in the night sky for months before it even got close.

Why this story made the top ten: While the eclipse wasn’t a major story until a couple of weeks before it happened it fizzled out quickly to all of the political stories that dominated the news yet for just a couple of days it was the biggest story in the world. The Niburu stories and doomsday predictions flowed constantly through all areas of the paranormal despite relying on misinformation and a misunderstanding of actual science. Scary things tend to get people’s attention and these stories, while hopefully obviously not true, got many to wonder whether they might be accurate. NASA’s reaction in mid-November was a great way to close out this story.

Why this story was only number eight: Despite these claims the world is still spinning. Despite the tracking gained by some of those involved in these conspiracy theories the claims have not held up from public speculation and good old common sense. Despite gripping some with fear and concern they obviously never generated results. Even if it were to come true this story would never have a way to be number one since I wouldn’t be able to report it!

7. Flat Earther’s 

Kyrie Irving 

Professional basketball player Kyrie Irving has announced that the Earth is flat and he knows it. The Cleveland Cavaliers point guard’s statement came during a radio show in late February where the hosts began asking him about extraterrestrials and conspiracy theories.

During the Road Trippin' with RJ & Channing podcast Kyrie proclaimed, “This is not even a conspiracy theory, the Earth is flat, the Earth is flat.� He blames the fact that we are spoon-fed knowledge and that history is altered at times and how are we supposed to take what we are told as truth? Many claim that photographs of the Earth are altered or even created as hoaxes. Draymond Green of the Cavalier’s rivals Golden State Warriors stated, “But how do you know that picture is telling the truth? I can make a round picture with my iPhone, on a panoramic camera, make it look round. So, I don't know.� Physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson says laughingly of this movement, "This is a deep failure of our educational system."

  

Kyrie gets an assist

    

One month later Kyrie Irving made his position clear once again and made another appearance on the Road Trippin’ Podcast with Richard Jefferson and Channing Frye where this whole mess started to proclaim he does indeed think the Earth is flat. Now, former NBA player Shaquille O’Neil came forward on his podcast to declare that he agrees with Kyrie Irving that the Earth is definitely flat! As only Shaq could do he described his thoughts by saying, 

“It’s true. The Earth is flat. The Earth is flat. Yes, it is. Listen, there are three ways to manipulate the mind — what you read, what you see and what you hear. In school, first thing they teach us is, ‘Oh, Columbus discovered America,’ but when he got there, there were some fair-skinned people with the long hair smoking on the peace pipes. So, what does that tell you? Columbus didn’t discover America. So, listen, I drive from coast to coast, and this s*** is flat to me. I’m just saying. I drive from Florida to California all the time, and it’s flat to me. I do not go up and down at a 360-degree angle, and all that stuff about gravity, have you looked outside Atlanta lately and seen all these buildings? You mean to tell me that China is under us? China is under us? It’s not. The world is flat.â€� 

Show me the curve!    

   

The rapper B.o.B. has started a GoFundMe campaign in September to help prove that the Earth is indeed flat. He plans on purchasing multiple weather balloons and satellites to go into space and take pictures looking for the curve. The project started on September 21st and aims to collect one million dollars. Initially, he was seeking $200,000 but as soon as this began to be covered by the media and he realized his goals would actually take more money the figure suddenly skyrocketed. Interestingly, some seem to support the flat Earth hypothesis while others offer their money because of other reasons. One of the first donations was from Daniel Ferguson who supports the cause by saying, “Here's $5 to prove yourself wrong.� There were mostly people trying to educate poor B.o.B. but some were in his corner. In the end the campaign raised $6,862 of the $1 million goal most of which came from non-believers in the flat Earth.

There’s a conference for that

    

The 2017 Flat Earth International Conference (FEIC) was held in Raleigh, North Carolina on November 9th and 10th. The conference had topics such as, "NASA and Other Space Lies," "Flat Earth with the Scientific Method," "Waking Up to Mainstream Science Lies" and "Testing the Globe." The event organizer, Kryptoz Media's Robbie Davidson, who is a Christian creationist, stated that over 500 people attended the conference. You might want to put November 15th and 16th, 2018 on your calendar for next year as this is the date for the next annual Flat Earth International Conference which will be held in Denver, Colorado. You might want to bring your own soda because I heard at the first one it was pretty flat.

Why this story made the top ten: This subject received a lot of attention this year for no good reason. The viral nature and subsequent debate in the media and social media made this an entertaining story that popped up more times than it should have during the year with a variety of people hopping on board the flat Earth train.

Why this story only made number seven: I think it’s safe to say that the Earth is not flat and unless this movement had some serious data to back up their opinions and beliefs this story might take a step forward, but this one for lack of more exciting and valuable stories to the paranormal was almost pushed off the edge of the Earth.

6. Chicago Phantom

   

It all started on the night of April 7th when a man encountered a large 7 foot tall man with giant wings and glowing red eyes while walking his dog near Oz Park in Chicago. A second incident occurred on April 15th at 2 AM near the Chicago International Produce Market which is about 5 and a half miles south west of Oz Park, as the owl flies. This story actually began back in 2011 with a sighting on August 22^nd with two more sightings happening that year. There were no more reports to anyone’s knowledge until these in April. Subsequent reports during the year provided sightings that dated back to as early as February in 2017 of sightings and while the total reached 56 sightings, including the three in 2011, this was trimmed back from at least 57 total sightings and all of this was closely covered by Lon Strickler of Phantoms and Monsters.

Was this the return of the Mothman? Were these a bunch of misidentifications of bats and owls? Was this all a giant and extremely elaborate hoax? I’d say none on the above or more appropriately more than likely a combination of the latter two possibilities. While I doubt Lon Strickler or Manuel Navarrette of UFO Clearninghouse was a part of a hoax it’s possible that a few people started this and others jumped in while a few sightings may have been made by mistaken identity or fear. Either way, there are still no answers to what may truly have been seen over the skies in 2017 over Chicago. The toughest part about there being so many witnesses and so many case files is that there is a startling and complete lack of evidence in any of these sightings.

A purported police report supposedly filed by a witness did not exist and despite happening in areas with potentially high concentrations of people relatively few came forward. No photographs turned up with street cameras or any other reports by aircraft. The local media didn’t seem to take the story very seriously and reacted to the story as it was covered by Phantoms and Monsters.com instead of it bubbling as a local ongoing story. This could have easily been the biggest story of the year, but without anything solid and the witness statements being too perfect and many very outlandish with details that were many times incorrect such as weather we are left with a mystery within a mystery. We should not view these as fifty plus cases that together prove there was a Mothman-like creature flying over Chicago. I’m not trying to discredit the hard work done by Lon or Manuel, but there are so many other forces at work here and having a pretty much live paranormal blog with heavy publicity can backfire at times. Will we ever know for sure what happened in the skies of 2017? Probably not. The good thing about these sightings is that it helped spawn at least two books, one being from Lon Strickler titled, “MothmanDynasty: Chicago’s Winged Humanoidsâ€�, there is also one from Loren Coleman titled, “Mothman Evil Incarnate: The Unauthorized Companion to the MothmanPropheciesâ€� which comes out on December 15^th and the 50^th anniversary of the collapse of the Silver Bridge.  Again, read more about this at Phantom and Monsters.com and check out Lon Strickler's map of the sightings.

   

Why this story made the top ten: This was one of the most captivating and frustrating stories of the year and was definitely the one that I talked about the most as it was mentioned in at least 20 episodes. This story had so many elements that deemed this worthwhile of potentially the greatest story I have covered since 2008.

Why this story was only number six: A complete lack of verifiable evidence despite a large number of purported witnesses. A police report that was nonexistent and some other information from my own work based on my limited view of the case information led me to cast some serious doubt on this story despite the hope that this could be true. While I seriously doubt Lon or anyone else involved in this story were behind a hoax or creation of this story I’m not entirely sure that many of these reports were fueled by deception no matter how genuine they might seem. Sadly, we’ll probably never know the reality behind the story as a whole.

5. Thylacine 

   

The thylacine was a fairly popular news story last year although the stories and accounts of sightings failed to crack the Top Ten Paranormal News Stories of 2016 and the thylacine has never made the top ten ever. This year a mix of stories finally helped push the most famous Australian cryptid (sorry, Yowie) deep into the countdown.

It started back in mid-January when a woman came forward with video she took back in September of 2015 of what she feels is definitive proof that the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger, is not extinct. She filmed the video at 8:45 AM on that September morning as she sat and watched kangaroos on her property when the strange animal captured her attention. Many people feel that the shaky video is just a fox or other explainable animal. The woman stated on her YouTube video, “No it was not a dog, cat, fox or whatever, it was something else. It had a large head with pointy ears, it sort of had an arched back, a bum like a kangaroo's and a long skinny stiff tail and it had bright orangey brown fur.â€� As for the shaky video she admitted it wasn’t that great and that is was done on her cell phone. She said, “I was shaken and excited and filled with all kinds of feelings when I was doing this because I just wanted get it on camera no matter what.â€� The video was filmed in Burpengary, Queensland, Australia, just north of Brisbane on the eastern coast of the continent. 

TAG, you're it   

   

The Thylacine Awareness Group made a comeback in 2017. Last year we covered a couple of stories about the group that has been trying to bring awareness to the fact that many people in Australia are seeing thylacines, or the Tasmanian tiger, on the loose. The Thylacine Awareness Group set up cameras in a remote area near Perth, Australia in Western Australia. Neil Waters, the founder of the Thylacine Awareness Group, feels that these sightings are due to a potential sub-species of thylacines that have managed to survive the centuries and now thrive in the outback. Waters said, “We are saying that there quite possibly is due to the plethora of sightings in many key areas of the mainland and similarities of what people are reporting.â€� Waters also feels a painting by Robert Dale in 1834 titled Panoramic View of King George's Sound is proof since it shows a number of thylacine which state that this means the creature might have been around back then. 

The Brain Ark 

    

Scientists who scanned preserved brains of thylacines with imaging techniques have come to the conclusion that the Tasmanian tiger or thylacine was a predator and not a scavenger. The Tasmanian devil is a known scavenger although it is a skilled hunter it is opportunistic, but it appears that through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) it is now known that the thylacine were once top predators. In order to conduct the study, scientists were granted access to two of the four remaining brains of the thylacine. The 3 dimensional brain scans of the thylacine and Tasmanian devil have become part of a new project called Brain Ark, which is a digital archive of 3 dimensional brain structures of the Earth’s megafauna. The Brain Ark project will help create digital reconstructions of brains to help solve many riddles about animals and their brain structures. The thylacine was once the largest carnivorous marsupials’ native to Tasmania, but this designation has since been passed on to the Tasmanian devil. However, the Tasmanian devil has been severely reduced in numbers since the 1990s due to Devil facial tumor disease, which is an aggressive non-viral transmissible parasitic cancer. 70% of the population has been lost since 1996 and is not showing any signs of slowing. The Tasmanian devil was declared endangered in 2008.

Historical Tassie sighting fuels interest 

   

In March there was another sighting from a former tourism operator who recently stepped forward to share his story. Unfortunately, his story comes from 1983 where he was camping on Cape York in Queensland, Australia. It’s an area of remote forest and while camping Brian Hobbs witnessed two adults and two pups in which he described, “They were dog-shaped — I had a shepherd with me so I certainly know what dogs are about — and in the spotlight I could see they were tan in colour and they had stripes on their sides. These animals, I've never seen anything like them before in my life.â€� He was able to get quite close to the animals and he stated that they paid another visit to their camp before he left the area. 

Searching for Tassie 

     

Dr. Sandra Abell from James Cook University will be leading a field survey in the Cape York Peninsula area of Far North Queensland in Australia. Dr. Abell very recently found only the second surviving population of northern bettongs, a small marsupial, through the use of over a hundred sensor cameras. These cameras took over 100,000 pictures when analyzed showed signs of the northern bettongs. The team is only bringing 50 cameras that will be near bait stations in their search for a thylacine. This is probably because the thylacine is much larger than the northern bettong and it will also cut down on the amount of data the team will have to sift through. This attempt is based on a couple of case reports including the one from 1983 that occurred in that area.

Searching for Tassie’s odds 

   

So, what are the odds that the thylacine is still alive? Would you believe one in 1.6 trillion? That’s the number that Colin Carlson of the University of California has come up with using mathematical modelling. Using a variety of variables Carlson calculates that the thylacine might have been able to have survived until the 1950s, but that is an optimistic prediction. Using an alternative model with viewing the thylacine as nocturnal and only living in remote locations as well as a lot of other data the latest possible extinction date is 1983. Good thing mathematicians are not the ones out there in the wild looking for these creatures. 

Chris Rehberg’s hair experiment    

   

Chris Rehberg, a photographer and amateur naturalist with a deep interest in the Tasmanian tiger from Sydney, Australia stumbled upon something that might help in the search for the thylacine. Apparently, samples of thylacine hairs were placed into an envelope in the 1850s and placed into a cabinet with microscope slides. Possibly, there hairs were meant to be processed into slides. The collection of the entire cabinet was recently purchased by an antique dealer who discovered the thylacine hairs who then decided to sell those separately. This is where Chris stepped in and bought the hairs. Chris was very careful to research the dealer to be sure that this was not a hoax and was convinced by the dealer’s background and knowledge that this was a genuine find. 

Chris intends to add to the dated research on thylacine hairs that includes drawings that were made in the 1950s as well as grainy black and white photos from research in 1985 to study these hairs and provide detailed high resolution photographs of them. Taking a comprehensive look at the hair structure and documenting it through these high resolution photographs he intends to make this work available to professionals and amateurs alike in the effort to provide solid samples of thylacine hair to compare potential new finds to. I wasn’t aware that hair samples were lacking for the thylacine, but from Rehberg’s research shows there isn’t much to go on so this find will provide a resource sample which could potentially help identify or prove false any hair samples found during any research findings of sightings of the thylacine. With this work under way this can eventually thwart a potential would-be hoaxer from doing so, but also it could provide a positive identification in case someone actually does produce the real deal. 

Rehberg update 2    

I am very happy to announce that when the deadline hit on Saturday the project was fully funded and raised just over $1,800. I received the email on Saturday and made the announcement during my presentation at the PA Bigfoot Camping Adventure on Sunday, May 7th. There were just 26 people that donated money to this project and I am proud to say I was one of them.

Ellendale, Tasmania video hoax

  

A farmer purported caught a thylacine on a game camera and a video was uploaded to YouTube in early June. However, sharp eyed people noted that the image matched that of a known thylacine photograph. Despite a second photograph surfacing that no one could match the account was labeled as a hoaxer. As discovered by the website Where Light Meets Dark.com the cover photo used for the channel could be saved by right clicking it. When the file popped up to be saved the preexisting file name was “thyla hoax channel pic�. Whoops.

Teacher’s video    

   

A big story in the cryptozoology field in early July centered on a video uploaded to YouTube on July 5th. The video was shot by school teacher and author Paul Day of an Australian sunrise when a four legged creature ran across the view. In the video Paul poses the question of if viewers think this was the long lost thylacine as it is titled, “Could This be a Tasmanian Tigerâ€�, but he stated that initially he thought it was a fox or a dog and despite this feeling that he is leaning toward the thylacince explanation he states he’s not sure either way. He had been shooting the sunrise near a farm near the city of Moonta on Yorke Peninsula in South Australia with time lapse photography. However, when he saw the creature moving toward the scene he put the camera in regular video mode and zoomed in slightly hoping to get a silhouette of the animal as it went by the sunrise. There are essentially two sides of the fence on this video. On one side people are absolutely convinced this is genuine footage of a thylacine. On the other side of the fence people are claiming this is more than likely a dog or dingo with an injured pelvis or rear leg that makes it appear to hop or move its hindquarters in an odd way that some feel suggest it is the long lost marsupial. There are even some that are speculating that this is CGI and thus a hoax. To this accusation Paul said on his YouTube comments, “Oh it's real alright. A few people have claimed it's fake, but I stake my reputation for producing original content on it being absolutely legit footage.â€� Sadly, we do not have footage of a galloping thylacine to compare this footage to. 

Why this story made the top ten: A lot of attention and discussion into the possibility of the thylacine still being alive somewhere in Australia or Tasmania hit the paranormal news this year. Despite plenty of news in year’s past 2017 showed more than hoaxed photographs and videos (although there were enough of them) as there was also some scientific attention placed on these purportedly extinct carnivorous marsupials. The Brain Ark project, photographic survey, and Chris Rehberg’s microscopic hair baseline sampling brought some advancement of this lost creature as well as the hope that one day it will be rediscovered.  

Why this story is only number five: Despite a trio of stories that moved the thylacine into a potential find a majority of the focus this year on the thylacine focused on the hoaxed and misidentification filled photographs and videos that still fail to prove the creature still exists.

4. Amelia Earhart 

Dog days of summer

    

CNN.com

The search is underway once again for Amelia Earhart. Well, not for her exactly as she would be 119 years old with a birthday on July 24th. Earhart disappeared on the morning of July 2, 1937 at age 39, and despite a search of over 150,000 square miles over 17 days neither her, her navigator Fred Noonan, nor their Lockheed Electra 10E that they were attempting to circumnavigate the world in was ever found. Earhart was declared dead in absentia on January 9, 1939. Search efforts were continued by her husband George Putnam and numerous theories including conspiracy theories have popped up about the disappearance of the two aviators. 

At nearly the 80th anniversary of the disappearance of the airplane an expedition organized by the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) set sail on Saturday for one more search for Earhart with some special detectives onboard. The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery has already made 12 expeditions in search of Earhart, but this one includes four border collies named Berkeley, Piper, Marcy, and Kayle, who are human remains detection dogs. 

According to the article on National Geographic, which is sponsoring the expedition, these types of dogs have nosed out burial sites as deep as nine feet and as old as 1,500 years. Although the dogs will have a tremendous journey as well as have to deal with huge coconut crabs on Nikumaroro Island where Earhart is rumored to have ended up, it’s thought that this is the best chance to ever find proof of Earhart and Noonan. Back in 1940 it is purported that 13 bones were discovered and shipped to Fiji, however, those bones are now lost. Tom King, the senior archeologist for the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery stated about those bones, “There’s real potential for there to be more bones there. There are 193 bones unaccounted for.â€� 193 plus 13 equal 206 which is the number of bones in a human body, problem is that Earhart was not alone so that would actually be another 399 bones unaccounted for, right? Yes and no, as Earhart has living ancestors to use as a potential DNA match if her bones are discovered, Noonan does not -so his bones are not going to help much. 

   

The dogs did discover an area near a tree that indicated they found the presence of bone materials. Archaeologists dug up the site, but were unable to find bone fragments. They are still collecting soil samples for analysis in hopes of not only validating this hypothesis, but finally bringing a conclusion on one of the most mysterious disappearances of the 20th century. 

History Channel disaster

    

Another hypothesis that was discussed in detail on Sunday, July 9th on the History Channel during a special called “Amelia Earhart: The Lost Evidenceâ€� is that Earhart and Noonan died in Japanese custody after crash landing in the Marshall Islands. During the week a photograph began circulating essentially as a teaser for the episode that purportedly showed Earhart sitting near a dock looking toward a ship that appears to be towing a plane on a barge with Noonan purportedly standing nearby. In this theory it is thought that they landed in the Marshall Islands and were subsequently arrested as spies and ultimately died in custody. Many people think that this last scenario would be the least likely despite this photograph and those who say it appears to be the real deal. The photograph is the center piece of the History Channel episode stating that it is the most significant piece of evidence ever discovered about the Earhart disappearance. They initially paint the picture that the photograph and story of Earhart being captured by the Japanese was a governmental cover-up due to the fact that they were able to crack the codes being used in communication and they did not want this information to get out. 

Other things they used were that Caucasians were not allowed in the Marshall Islands just prior to World War II and that the Marshall Islands natives know the story of Earhart crashing and even have a stamp to commemorate the occurrence. In actuality, the stamps were created in 1987 for the 50th anniversary of the flight based on information from a 1983 book by Vincent V. Loomis titled, “Amelia Earhart: The Final Story.� From there they state that she was taken to Saipan and imprisoned before being executed. This information has also been disputed even by those who support the Japanese capture hypothesis.

The History Channel show painted a pretty convincing feeling of an investigation that found piece after piece of evidence, but in reality all of the pieces were there already and they just put everything together with a story and being on location in the areas to make it more convincing. Was there really a cover-up and conspiracy over Earhart’s capture and ultimate death? We should also remember that there are similar stories that people saw airplane wreckage on Nikumaroro Island as well and there are also pieces of purported evidence that people feel strongly that this is the answer to Earhart and Noonan’s fate. We should also remember that alien abduction, vanishing into the Pacific Island’s version of the Bermuda Triangle, Earhart and Noonan being spies for the U.S. where the crash was their cover-up to go into hiding, one hypothesis that gained a lot of attention in the early 1980s was that Earhart was alive and living in New Jersey, and a variety of other hypotheses have been presented over the years by various “experts�. In reality, the most probably conclusion is that Earhart ditched the airplane in the Pacific Ocean and the two more than likely drown especially since no tangible evidence has been found that suggests that any hypothesis is better than another. It’s romantic to think that they might have survived, but with way more ocean than land it is a rational scenario that has the most probability of being the answer.

      

But what about that great piece of evidence? Well, a Japanese military history buff named Kota Yamano quickly researched the photograph that was at the center of the History Channel documentary and found that it was, in fact, misleading.  The blogger discovered that the photo that is purportedly of Earhart and Fred Noonan was actually published in 1935 in a Japanese travel book. Yes, two years prior to the disappearance of Earhart and her navigator. Spokesperson Kirby Dixon said on behalf of the History Channel, “Ultimately historical accuracy is most important to us and our viewers.â€� Well, you might have done a little more research on the photograph before saying in a matter of fact way that it was Earhart and Noonan. The History Channel says that it is aware of this new information and is investigating this new claim. Replays of the highly touted episode have suddenly been pulled from the channel.

Why this story made the top ten: The 80th anniversary of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart did not disappoint. Bone sniffing dogs and a History Channel search for the truth which ended in a big letdown actually continued to keep this mystery even more mysterious. 

Why this story is number four:  The mystery is still a mystery. Despite the attempts to uncover new evidence the search for Earhart is still the same as it ever was. Despite a few stories carrying this topic into the news it fizzled out as quickly as it had become a hot topic and we’re once again left for the next “big findâ€� in this case.

3. WOW! Signal study findings reveal

   

Notes on the margin of a copy of the Wow! Signal paper by Jerry Ehman at the Perkins Observatory

On February 2nd, 2017, Professor Antonio Paris announced that the Wow! Signal experiment was officially concluded and that the 16 page paper was submitted to the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences for peer-review. The Wow! Signal experiment was the number two story of 2016 only being beaten out by a famous snake in Maine that no one is sure they even saw. This experiment might seem like a footnote to some, but it marked the end of what was long considered the greatest potential piece of evidence of intelligent life in outer space.

http://planetary-science.org/about-cps/the-wow-signal-experiment/  

Controversy

    

When Antonio Paris proposed his hypothesis that the Wow! signal of 1977 was caused by a comet there were quite a few people that laughed at the thought. The Wow signal was very controversial because many felt this was contact from intelligent extraterrestrials although beyond the confusing signal we were left with nothing else, no repeated signal, and no logical solution to what the source might have been. Now that the dust has settled on Paris claiming he has solved the near 40 year mystery the controversy is again in full swing.  There are a few issues with the study that Paris conducted, according to other researchers. Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer at Queens University Belfast whose specialty is comets, stated that comet 266/P Christensen is a quiet comet even when it’s closest to the sun yet when Paris took his readings it was twice as far away or over 4 astronomical units away from the sun. An astronomical unit, for those who are unaware, is 93 million miles or roughly the distance from the Earth to the sun. It’s just a better way to defined the greater distances encountered in space as compared to using the same units we use on Earth. Fitzsimmons also points out that a 1420MHz emission has never been detected from a comet before and therefore concludes that Paris’ conclusions are “rubbishâ€�. Other astronomers and researchers agree that these measurements are questionable. Paris has answered these claims by saying, “Astronomers have not detected hydrogen emission from comets because there has not been much research specifically on this subject.â€� He says, “While there have been a handful of studies, I suspect we are the first to build a ten-metre telescope to specifically look at this type of Solar System body.â€� 

Another issue with comet 266/P Christensen is that it would have only been visible to the Big Ear Radio Observatory that captured the Wow signal back in 1977 55 minutes before the Wow signal was detected. There is another issue with the feed horns that collected the data from the Big Ear Radio Observatory. The Wow signal was only detected by one of the two horns used to collect the sound and there would have been a 70 second gap between the horns as the sky rotated overhead. The only thing that could have happened is that the signal turned itself on or off or there was a malfunction of some sort that was never detected. Paris admits that he has no answer for the feed horn issue but thinks it was a technical fault of the telescope. However, Bob Dixon, who was the director of the SETI program, told the magazine Astronomy Now, “Our telescope was working perfectly normally at the time and other radio astronomical objects on the same day were observed in both beams [into both horns].â€� Despite these three issues working against him Paris feels confident that his work will stick. He plans on continuing his work with providing an explanation of why we would detect such strong neutral hydrogen emissions from a comet like one as inactive as 266/P Christensen hopefully in 2018. No one ever said science was perfect or easy. 

There is also a Google Document that was sent to Paris via Twitter which was started by Chris Lintott who is a Professor of Astrophysics in the Department of Physics at Oxford University and this Google doc also includes questions from other Twitter astronomers. There are some really thorough questions about radio astronomy, comets, the experiment, as well as the paper that Paris has vowed to answer which will put things in a nice perspective.

Why this story made the top ten: The Wow! Signal was the greatest potential piece of evidence of a potential signal from a distant intelligent civilization. Through a scientific experiment it’s now thought that the 40 year old signal might have a natural explanation. Despite the controversy many feel this finally closes the door on one of the greatest astronomical mysteries of all time although many feel this experiment does not explain the signal at all.

Why the story is number three: While the lead up to this experiment landed this story at number two last year many had a feeling this would be the result. Either way, explaining the signal away has not put a dampener on believing that life exists elsewhere intelligent or not and putting this argument out to pasture is a great way for the search to move forward. 

2. Scientists state that ghosts do not exist

LHC scientists find “proof� that ghosts DO NOT exist!

  

A story that was sure to generate some heavy feelings comes to us from the already controversial Large Hadron Collider. In addition to people thinking that CERN can create black holes, will blow up the Earth, and countless other conspiracy theories we also have the strange video of the purported human sacrifice from last year to question just what is really going on there. 

Brian Cox, an Advanced Fellow of particle physics at the University of Manchester, made an appearance on a radio show called The Infinite Monkey Cage to discuss the paranormal and science. Before even starting Cox stirred the pot by saying, “Before we ask the first question, I want to make a statement: We are not here to debate the existence of ghosts because they don't exist.â€� To clarify his statement he added, “If we want some sort of pattern that carries information about our living cells to persist then we must specify precisely what medium carries that pattern and how it interacts with the matter particles out of which our bodies are made. We must, in other words, invent an extension to the Standard Model of Particle Physics that has escaped detection at the Large Hadron Collider. That's almost inconceivable at the energy scales typical of the particle interactions in our bodies.â€� 

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was also on the show and he asked Cox if what he heard was what he heard as he said, “If I understand what you just declared, you just asserted that CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research, disproved the existence of ghosts.â€� Cox clarified by saying, “I would say if there's some kind of substance that's driving our bodies, making my arms move and legs move, then it must interact with the particles out of which our bodies are made. And seeing as we've made high precision measurements of the ways that particles interact, then my assertion is there can be no such thing as an energy source that's driving our bodies.â€� 

So, essentially the Large Hadron Collider has not been able to detect any type of energy that would even come close to explaining how consciousness can survive the body so therefore ghosts do not exist. One could easily say absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but CERN does make a pretty solid argument in regards to evaluating particles and energy. If ghosts do in fact exist they exist outside of the known laws of physics. Wait, we already knew that which is why it is called paranormal in the first place, right? While I marvel at the achievements of the Large Hadron Collider I don’t think they have quite explained everything there is to know at this present time. I’ve often said that ghost researchers should pay attention to the Large Hadron Collider as it will be one of the sources of knowledge and information for this field in the future, but this isn’t exactly what I thought would come out of this.

More physicists doubt survival hypothesis

    

Ghost groups and enthusiasts all over the world have long been speculating what they think ghosts are and many use the laws of physics to validate their points. Some say the Law of Thermodynamics which states energy cannot be created nor destroyed validates their opinions. However, in this case I must point out that this is just the first law and the second law of thermodynamics states that energy goes from useful forms to less useful forms. For us to go from essentially walking meat sacks to a free floating undetectable sentient being would not be going from useful to less useful at all and its essentially similar to the example you can’t unscramble an egg. 

Dr. Sean Carroll, a cosmologist and physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, has taken the physics debate to the extreme and has pronounced that life after death cannot exist because physics says so. He says, “Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there's no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die.â€� 

Dr. Carroll looks at the Quantum Field Theory which basically states that there is one field for each type of particle. He says that if life were to continue after the death of the body these forces would have been discovered. He says, “If it's really nothing but atoms and the known forces, there is clearly no way for the soul to survive death. Once we get over any reluctance to face reality on this issue, we can get down to the much more interesting questions of how human beings and consciousness really work.� This is essentially the same claim made earlier this year by physicist Brian Cox after he stated there's no room in the Standard Model of Physics for a substance or medium that can carry on our information after death, and yet go undetected in the Large Hadron Collider.

So, does Dr. Carroll see after death studies as a distraction to the search for consciousness? Funny thing is not even physics can explain what is happening with consciousness and despite our ability to reason and come up with theories and hypotheses we still cannot define consciousness other than our ability to be aware or to understand and reason or to be ignorant. We cannot explain consciousness nor can we explain what might happen after death since we do not yet understand how this higher functioning works outside of electrical impulses and reactions to our environment. Despite his claims science does not have all the answers to the world as we know it and physics is a series of theories that are just the best guess until new evidence presents itself. It’s easy to believe without question just as easily as it is to dismiss without introspection. Quote me on that one.

TED Talk on Ghosts

  

A TED Talk circulated the Internet in late June as ghost investigators thought a video had scientists looking closer to the search for ghosts. TED, which stands for technology, education, and design, is an ongoing series of talks geared toward educating people for various fields. This particular TED talk featured Carrie Poppy, who is the co-host of the skeptical podcast Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Her topic was, “Can Science Reveal The Truth Behind Ghost Stories?â€� 

In her speech Carrie described how she felt as though she was being watched, had tightness in her chest, and felt other odd things that lead her to believe she had a ghost in her home. She ultimately discovered her experiences mirrored symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. Her hunch was correct as her call to the gas company revealed that she could have been dead within days if not hours had she not contacted them. She goes on to explain our beliefs about ghosts as more of an inner belief as she says, “Because as soon as we have the scientific explanations we know to give up the ghost. We use these things as stopgaps for things we can’t explain. We don’t believe them because of evidence; we believe them because of a lack of evidence.�

Why this story made the top ten: Three really big punches to the belief in ghosts. A couple of jaw shots by scientists point out that science currently has no room for ghosts and that they just do not feel that they exist in the way we popularly think of them. A gut check with the last story demonstrates that we need to be aware of many of the other things that exist out there if we are to truly approach ghost research with a scientific mind.

Why this story was number two: While these might not have been front page news on every paranormal news site they should have been. Belief in ghosts does not make them real and despite those who feel they have interacted with them we are still faced with the fact that science says they do not exist. Two of these stories provide some sound backup to these feelings, but if nothing else this opens the door for others to challenge these ideas. My only hope is that physicists and scientists will always keep the door of possibility of ghosts being a reality slightly ajar so that if advancements or something is ever detected we have not already abandoned the possibility.

1. Exoplanets and the search for life in space

Trappist 1

   

NASA’s teased a big announcement in late February and had headlines that we might have found planets with water or life. The big news of the discovery was that they found 7 planets of Earth’s size and three of them lie in the so-called “goldilocksâ€� zone which means they’re not too hot, not too cold, but just right as far as potential temperature to be able to hold liquid water as determined from the distance from their sun. This does not mean there is life there, but just the potential for liquid water to stay on the surface. 

The Trappist 1 system is 39 light years away, or the Star Wars sounding 12 parsecs away, and contains a star that is barely bigger than our Jupiter. A parsec is a measurement of distance, roughly 3.26 light years of distance. This dwarf star means that the planets are actually much closer to it than we are to the Sun. This presents many issues for the perceived formation of water and subsequent life that everyone is focused on. First, my main observation was the discovery of these planets was made from the observation of shadows created from in front of the star at the Trappist 1 system. This by no means demonstrates that the planets are in a circular rotation around the star, if the orbit is too elliptical it would bring any one of these three too close to the star at a given point in their rotation or even too far away and bring them out of the much smaller goldilocks zone that exists around it. The second major issue is the development of the star itself. Being a cooled star it would have had a much more turbulent youth which more than likely baked these planets and removed any liquid that might have been possible and erased any atmosphere and any life on them. 

We have to remember that these planets are very close to this main star and only take about a week to orbit it unlike our 365 days. Then, of course, we have the whole distance problem. Yes, 39 light years doesn’t sound too far away to travel to but again this is traveling at the speed of light. 39 light years is about 235 trillion miles, that’s 235 followed by 12 zeros! Voyager 1, launched in 1977, is traveling about 10.6 miles per second, which sounds extremely fast but even at this speed it will take over 17,500 years for it to travel one light year. This means to travel to Trappist-1 it would take around 700,000 years – one way. Granted, I have a pretty large list of people I would love to volunteer for that journey. Despite Trappist-1 being a galactic neighbor we’re just not as evolved as we need to be to make a journey there worthwhile.

Too much flare

   

Back in February scientists announced that they had found 7 exoplanets around a star known as Trappist-1 and three of the four were in the habitable zone. There were a lot of unanswered questions that day and unfortunately more data has come in that suggests that Trappist-1 is not a great star to help the planets harbor life. Trappist-1 is a red dwarf which means the planets around it are far closer than the Earth is to the Sun. The Kepler Space Telescope carried out tests conducted by the Konkoly Observatory that suggests that Trappist-1 flares too frequently and is far too unstable to have a planet within its system that could have life as the atmospheres of the planets would more than likely never recover from the constant bombardment and high intensity solar flares. At least we didn’t pack our bags.

More exoplanets discovered  

NASA announced to the world yesterday from the Ames Research Center that they have discovered more new exoplanets, 219 of them to be exact, and of these ten are rocky like Earth and are in the goldilocks zone or habitable zone of their particular solar system. This means that they are in a zone where liquid water could form and are neither too hot nor too cold for water for form and stay on the planet. NASA now states that there have been 4,034 planet candidates discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope. Of these candidates 2,335 have been verified as exoplanets. Of these 2,335 roughly 50 have been identified as near Earth size candidates that exist in their system’s habitable zone and of these 50 more than 30 have been verified. So, the addition of ten more planets that are Earth like in the habitable zone is pretty significant, but we will have to wait to see the conditions of these systems as we were excited about the Trappist one announcement only to learn that these planets were in fact too close to their host star.

The Weird! Signal

Back on May 19th researchers for SETI picked up an unusual signal coming from a star known as Ross 128, a red dwarf star located about 11 light-years from Earth. The signal was discovered by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico and on July 14th the telescope was again pointed at Ross 128 where the sound was heard once again. The ten minute signal was observed and seemed to be sporadic. Researchers were doubtful this was alien an alien signal, but they decided to try again to see what this signal might be which is now dubbed the Weird! Signal similar to the Wow signal. On July 16th researchers once again heard the signal coming from Ross 128 and analyzed the data once again.  Abel Méndez, an astrobiologist at the University of Puerto Rico at Arecibo, was one of the researchers and spokesperson for the released information to the public where it was stated that, “The best explanation is that the signals are transmissions from one or more geostationary satellites. This explains why the signals were within the satellite frequencies and only appeared and persisted in Ross 128; the star is close to the celestial equator where many geostationary satellites are placed.â€� So, a geostationary satellite just over 22,000 miles above the surface of the Earth is the likely culprit. These high orbit satellites are able to stay over a specific spot over the Earth which explains why the signal was detected consistently only in that area of the sky.

Ross 128 b 

   

Another new exoplanet has been discovered and is just 11 light years from Earth. The exoplanet, dubbed Ross 128 b, orbits around a red dwarf star about every 9.9 days but potentially has a surface temperature close to that of Earth’s which makes it a high candidate for being able to support life. However, astronomers are not yet sure whether Ross 128 b is within the so-called Goldilocks’ zone. The planet Proxima b is the closest planet to Earth that is within this zone and is 4.2 light years away. Ross 128 b is essentially a great backup if Proxima b is discovered to not harbor life on its surface or could potentially provide safe harbor for humans in the distant future.

Kepler 90-I 

Another NASA announcement in mid-December focused on the Google artificial intelligence program which sifted through thousands of signals and determined that the solar system known as Kepler 90 has eight potential planets. The announcement was big because it now ties Kepler 90 and our own solar system for having the most known planets orbiting a star.

Why this story is in the top ten: The story may not seem paranormal, but we’re talking about the lead up to potentially finding life on other planets. There was a lot of speculation prior to the Trappist 1 announcement that NASA was going to reveal finding life in outer space, but most of us knew better. Still, while these new exoplanet findings began to balloon back in 2014 this year was a huge year for discovery and while we’re very far from being able to ever reach and research these locations close up these announcements and findings are changing the way people are looking at the potential for life beyond Earth.

Why this story is number one: Of all of the big three topics of the basic paranormal stories (cryptids, ghosts, UFOs/life on other planets) life beyond Earth has been getting some serious consideration by mainstream scientists lately. While UFOs being piloted by aliens around Earth might be laughed at, the topic of the discovery of life outside of Earth is one that seems to be getting closer and closer to actually being a reality. These stories this year were a giant leap towards this possibility although the realization of this possibility is still extremely far away. 2017 was a relatively calm year for paranormal stories as nothing really jumped off the pages, but these exoplanet topics received a lot of attention and speculation and have been the largest scientific conversation all year long.

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Cougar and Cubs Spotted in Tennessee!(?)  

7 Sep 2017, 1:22 pm WGNS Radio out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, posted a story on their webpage on September 4, 2017, that stated a man caught video of a cougar and cubs in Tennessee. While this might not sound like a big deal it would actually be something that has not been documented east of the Mississippi River in almost 100 years.

However, when watching the video it is apparent to me (and many others it seems) that these are in fact NOT cougars but are definitely bobcat despite the claims of Mr. Kutz. The cats in the video have ears that have a white stripe in the center. Mountain lions, including cubs, have solid colored backs of their ears which is generally dark brown. Another telltale sign is that bobcats have very short tails especially to that of a cougar. In the video it is clear that the tails of the cubs is far less than the size of its leg and bobcats (named for their short tail) have a tail that only grows about six inches long. A cougar on the other hand will have a tail that is about three feet long and will generally measure 2/3 the length of its head and body. The image in this paragraph shows two black and white photos taken directly from the video and shows the ears and body structure of a bobcat and cougar for comparison.

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The Rise and Fall of the Loveland Frog  

25 Aug 2017, 7:53 pm This article originally appeared in the November 2016 edition of Cryptid Culture Magazine.

Every area has their local legends or folkloric stories from crybaby bridges to purported water monsters or sightings of monkeys or monstrous snakes. In the world of cryptozoology there are animals that are reported that were thought to be extinct, animals that are found in areas that they are not supposed to exist, and cryptids that defy logic and biology.  These seemingly impossible creatures have given life to cryptozoology by partnering with the paranormal with tales of creatures that are mysterious and outright bizarre.

Loveland is a small bedroom community with less than 13,000 residents that occupies five square miles of land in southwest Ohio. The city sits about 15 miles to the northeast of the city limits of Cincinnati and has always struggled to form its own identity. The Little Miami River, a tributary that empties into the Ohio River, has always been a large part of the community and sets the scene for the Loveland Frog story that spawned from purported events in 1955.

• WLWT.com.   "Are the Legends True? Man Claims he Spotted Fabled Loveland Frogman."  August 4, 2016.
• WCPO.com. “Officer who shot 'Loveland Frogman' in 1972 says story is a hoax.â€� August 5, 2016.
• Snopes.com. “’Loveland Frogman’ Spotted Again?â€� August, 5, 2016.
• WeirdUS.com. Loveland’s Frogman.
• Strangeandspookyworld.com. The Strange and Spooky World of James A. Willis, “Create Your Very Own Loveland Frog Hoax For Under $20.00!â€�
• Renner, James. (2012). It Came from Ohio: True Tales of the Weird, Wild, and Unexplained. Cleveland, Ohio. Gray & Company, Publishers.
• Image of Loveland Frog created by Tim Bertelink and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. The original file, and subsequent variations, can be found on the Wikipedia entry for the Loveland Frog. By Tim Bertelink - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47617140 

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New Book Release- "Handbook for the Amateur UFO Investigator"  

17 Jul 2017, 10:34 pm Brian D. Parsons, PhD, celebrates his sixth book release with his take on how to research and investigate UFOs. This book brings his "Handbook" collection of anomalous research guidebooks full circle with a closer look at this controversial and conspiracy laden topic.

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Kitwe "Man in the Sky" busted  

5 Mar 2017, 6:23 pm We all knew this was fake, but the news story has been quickly sweeping its way across social media. A giant human-like "thing" was seen over the skies of the Makuba Mall in Kitwe, Zambia, in south central Africa recently. It purportedly panicked many and made some flee and others pray, according to the story.

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The Basics of Researching Online Media  

3 Feb 2017, 2:18 pm

Credit: lculig/Shutterstock

We’ve all read a story that is shocking, unbelievable, or just too good to be true. Some people may take the time to actually read the story before forming an opinion, others may judge on the headline either for or against the validity of the story based on their beliefs or perspective, and others may simply share or recirculate the story without reading it with the hopes that someone else can get to the bottom of it. Then there are those that merely believe anything and everything they read without thought. I mention this last group apart from the others since this gullible group is generally the target to those who intend to fool based on their agenda, beliefs, or just for the thrill of creating viral confusion or gaining their fifteen minutes of fame through a hoax. Gullibility does not imply someone is stupid, it merely means some people do not take or have the time to dig into certain headlines and others may just not know how to do it. To many these stories really are not worth the time to dig into and passing it along and looking back later for the solution is much easier. In some cases I just don’t think people care whether a story is valid or not anyway, it’s just getting “mind blownâ€� that is the experience; the truth is boring to some. For others many stories support their beliefs or agenda and they will pass it off as fact since they have little reason or desire to verify it. Others may be quick to dismiss stories based on the same beliefs, again without verification. Technology is the carrier of these memes and it also the method in which to provide the antidote on a case by case basis. I come from a time before the World Wide Web of endless information when one had to search through books to find answers and in the case of the Internet you had to know what door to look through to find answers without a web browser, Google, or any way to simply enter a search cue into the system. Even before web browsers and the World Wide Web there were many emails circulated as hoaxes so this is not a new sensation although the large use of social media and the Internet has made this a growing problem. The leading social media platform, Facebook, has attempted to hinder the spread of hoaxes, but to little avail. 

•  Is this a legitimate website? Is the URL spelled correctly? No? It may be a mirror site (or spoof site) and is created to fool you into thinking it is a credible source. Is this a parody website? (onion.com type).  Is this from a website where regular people contribute in blog style? This is by far the most common type of website hoax where stories are spread via misinformation and will take the longest to unravel at times since the story is written by the author’s opinion and web of lies and misinformation. A list of these sites would be in the hundreds (see a small list below before the resources) and includes sites like beforeitsnews.com, many government, conspiracy, and UFO sites that are merely fronts for people’s thoughts, ideas, opinions, fears, and agendas.

•  The single most important thing after determining the validity of the website that the story appears on is finding the original source of the story. Any good media story that is merely copied and pasted will provide a link to the original source of the story at the bottom or sometimes the top of their posting. If there is a link open this one in a new tab and begin to evaluate it to determine the time/date is actually earlier than the one you originally opened. If this source appears to be an earlier version this is where you continue your research on the story beginning with determining if this is a legitimate source as well as if this story has a resource listed at the top or bottom of the story. The caveat with this is that there are some sites that back dates stories (such as celebrity death hoaxes) to confuse people. Continue to chase these sources until you reach the bottom of the rabbit hole. Unfortunately, many online media outlets do not take the time to fact check and are merely concerned with website traffic. Getting you to click on their website puts money in their pockets based on advertisers, so they honestly care little about the facts up front.
• Go local. You can also search for and look at other sources local to where the story purportedly took place. During the Jerusalem UFO sightings that seemed extremely credible I was not able to find any mention of the sightings in any local or regional online sources in the area and have found the same in many other hoaxes. However, during recent unexplained noises in Fair Lawn, New Jersey, the best updates were available from the local newspapers which printed updates which were then copied by the regional news channel websites. Go to Google and search for the city where the story takes place and use words like “newspaperâ€� or “newsâ€� and you should be able to find local sources. Granted, searching for phrases of meaning with the story can help speed up the process by bringing up the multitude of copies of the story and will allow you to see where they are coming from to aid in the search for the original source.
• If the story does not list a source for the story then the content must be put into question as well as the person behind the post.  This is a positive indication that the person may have made this story up or has copied other information and created a version of a story about something else. Don’t be afraid to email someone associated with the site to find the source of their content; their answer or lack thereof will guide you to your answer. In some cases, such as a UFO, ghost, or cryptid news site the story may have been submitted to them. The question is then; did they evaluate, research, or investigate this story or merely put it up on the website as quickly as possible? Hoaxers and attention seekers will find sites like these to get their “storiesâ€� out in public quickly.

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Ten questions every ghost investigator should ponder  

13 Dec 2016, 11:04 am

1. Why am I doing this? Or, why do I want to do this? No, not the generic “solving the mysteries of mankind� answer, but why do you personally spend your time, effort, and money pursuing this? Is it a personal quest for answers? Search for spiritualism? You may not have a definitive answer or you might just be doing it for the thrill, but the further down this list you truly go the truth may rise to the top.
2. What do I want to get out of this? This question rides on the back of the why question. Once you know why you are doing it you may realize it is a personal pursuit or desire for subjective stimulation or even a quick way to fame. If this is the case you should stay away from client-based cases. If your answer to question 1 is to prove ghosts exist with cameras and EVP you'll need to do more than merely be a ghost hunter as subjective hunts will only create more questions than actually providing answers. Many do this from the allure of those on television, but ask yourself if an ego-driven motive is worth all of the hassle for just 15 minutes of fame.
3. What am I willing to invest? A follow up would be, “And is it worth it?� A financial stake is more than some people can do let alone giving up weekends and many evenings pursuing this. The costs of a serious team can weigh down on anyone and the more you go down that path the more of an investment of time and money it will become.
   
   The bad side of this is that for many the investment in tools means an investment in evidence. In other words, if they spend a lot of money on gear they will ultimately get "evidence" no matter what the cost. You will also have to learn many new skills if you wish to become proficient at seeking the unknown. -These first three are just to get to gauge the basics, but the next one digs into the heart of your beliefs.
4. What are my beliefs about the paranormal? This is an important one. This one question will define what type of an investigator you are as well as how you approach cases as well as whom you surround yourself with. This includes, but is not limited to; belief in ghosts, demons/angels, camera orbs, use of various equipment, full moons creating better ghost atmosphere, solar storms creating better ghost atmosphere, investigating in the dark, investigating during "dead time", lockdowns being a good method of investigating, what ghosts are defined as (parapsychology definitions versus spiritual), and so on.
5. Am I willing to challenge my own beliefs about the paranormal?
   
   Are you willing to review the work that challenges your beliefs with an open mind? If you are not willing to even think about challenging your beliefs than you’re not really an investigator you’re merely a believer that is looking to support your views through subjective experiences as well as taking evidence and skewing it to fit your beliefs. I've met far too many people who are merely in this to find things that they can quickly state are ghosts merely to support how they feel. This is not objective or scientific and is merely a form of thrill-seeking. This is fine if you merely want to go to haunted prisons/hospitals, etc., but don't claim to be "scientific" and certainly don't act like you're doing anything constructive.
6. Am I willing to continue to learn? Certification courses cause anger with some individuals, but where else can one become educated in this field? Books offer a good start, but eventually everyone needs to ask others who have come before them in order to make true sense of things. It's one thing to regurgitate facts, but it's completely different to put theories to work. This is why many teams merely walk around in the dark asking silly questions. Many certification courses are garbage since those that created them are merely passing on beliefs and opinions or only know book definitions and have never applied much of it in the field. However, there are some courses that provide some great information and education (IMHS and TFU). Are you willing to look to others to continue to make yourself a better researcher and investigator? (Interviewing skills, electronics, critical thinking, science, parapsychology, etc.)
7. What are my goals with doing this? This question creates a focus of the first and second question now that you have pondering the above questions. This goes beyond getting a television show or writing a book and is an evolved look at what you want out of the field and what you are willing to do in your life to make it happen. Think of how you would want to be remembered as a person after you are gone. Imagine, as grim as it sounds, standing at your own funeral –
   
   how do you want to be remembered? What will your friends say, how will those who knew you in the paranormal field remember you? This question takes a deep look at your character and if all you want to do is visit haunted locations and meet celebrities that's fine, but don't assume this sets you apart from everyone else - people see this and are judging you on your actions!  
8. What path will I take to get to these goals? This heavily relies on pondering the above questions. If you are not willing to evolve with your beliefs as well as your knowledge your path will be a short one, guaranteed. This is true with any type of goals in life and shortcuts and laziness will lead you nowhere. Wishing and hoping just don't cut it and while timing and luck may come into play nothing is better than working hard, making sacrifices, and pushing yourself to new limits.
9. What have I learned so far? Occasionally stepping back and looking at where you came from can help give your perspective on what you have learned and experienced along the way. This can aid you in identifying weaknesses or potential flaws in your methods or beliefs and may serve to help guide you on a better path. Taking stock every once in a while can help you reorganize your direction and help you obtain new goals and set new personal expectations for accomplishments such as writing books, being a vendor at a paranormal convention or even getting up and speaking at one.
10. What can I do better / and how do I get there? Creating a personal business plan around goals or self-improvement needs is a good way to motivate as well as compartmentalize obtaining goals. If you break things into small chunks within a timetable and provide a pathway to getting to each goal you will be able to become better in all aspects of life. Once you have reviewed and pondered the first 9 questions the tenth will be much easier than thinking about it right now.

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Are there really small hairless creatures killing people in India or is the truth too much to bear?  

11 Dec 2016, 9:58 pm A viral story was let loose on December 1, 2016 by a Facebook user from India. Along with an accompanying photograph and video it was suggested that a creature was eating animals as well as people along the state borders of Kerala and Karnataka in India. Not only that, but this creature in the the cage was just one of four that have been seen. The post to date has been shared over 260,000 times and has spread virally just as designed.

• 'Alien-like' creature from viral video has been found and captured (Inquisitr)
• Alien-like sun bear from viral video succumbs to cancer (Inquisitr) 
• Sun bear (Wikipedia)

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Conference season in full swing!  

24 May 2016, 9:40 pm

My table at the Butler Paranormal Convention

I have been a part of paranormal conferences and conventions for years, but have made little effort trying to get into many of them in the last few years. This year, however, I was very fortunate to have been a speaker at the Butler Paranormal Convention in Butler, Pennsylvania as well as the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Camping Adventure within the past month. The Butler Paranormal Convention is in its 9th year and is presented by Brian and Terri Seech of the Center for Unexplained Events. The event took place back on April 16, 2016.

Fred Saluga receives a Lifetime Achievement award during the Butler Paranormal Conference from Terrie Seech of BORU.

The event had Stan Gordon, Brett McGinnis, Ronald Murphy (Dogman), Thomas White (haunted roads of Western PA), as well as the host of the Paranormal News Insider Brian D. Parsons (balanced look at cryptozoology). Karyn Dolan was scheduled to speak, but she was unavailable due to sickness and Thomas White stepped in and did a fantastic job. This event is always well attended and beyond the speakers there were numerous paranormal and cryptid groups represented many years of investigation and research. This event is definitely one you don't want to miss in the future if you enjoy learning from very seasoned investigators/researchers while just mingling at the tables.

My tent (left) and the pavilion.

The Pennsylvania Bigfoot Camping Adventure (May 6-8, 2016) was an idea created by Eric Altman. Eric is an excellent researcher and investigator of Bigfoot phenomenon who has branched out into other areas and is also the long time host of the Beyond the Edge radio show. His idea was to bring people together in a campground to hear speakers, experience workshops, and then take part in various expeditions being lead by experienced researchers. While it seems simple it has never been done on the east coast nor anywhere else that I am aware of. The event took place at Benner's Meadow Run Campgrounds in Farmington, Pennsylvania. This area is near Chestnut Ridge which is synonymous with Bigfoot and UFO sightings over the course of decades.

The event was wet from rain during Friday, but a night hike turned into an interesting sighting by researcher and speaker Steve Kulls the "Squatch Detective" as he got an interesting find on his thermal camera (his team later determined it to be a bear). I stayed at the camp ground to take a group out that included a few kids. I let them do "howls" and "woops", answered their questions as well as

During my presentation Photo by Kenny Biddle

gave them some advice on tracking and other things.

The event on Saturday was held under a warm sun that helped curbed the cold morning and wet grounds. After an introduction to the program I was the first speaker doing a variation of my "Balanced Look at Cryptozoology" program. Steve Kulls was up next with a very deep look at Bigfoot with quite a bit of science and a level head. Also up was Dave Dragosin and then Stan Gordon. The speaker's lineup was mysteriously perfect, there was my presentation that discussed what cryptozoology was about with the others filling in the gaps and Stan Gordon finishing it off with his never ending research of cases that were peppered all around the area we were in. The event also had workshops that discussed some necessary tenets of field work. Of course the big hit of the weekend was having "Trapper" John R. Tice from the television show "Mountain Monsters". Tice was a HUGE draw for the kids and while I'm not a fan of the show John is a very down to Earth guy and really brought a nice dynamic to the event.

"Trapper" John R. Tice talks with fans during the event. He was next to the booth of Steve Kulls who was next to me and to my right was Stan Gordon.

Saturday night we headed out again for another expedition. There was still a large group heading out to a location near state game lands as well as a group staying behind at the camp grounds. The group at the camp grounds turned out to be a lot larger than we had anticipated, but we did the best we could leading them out on a trail that was just too small to support the 60 plus people that wanted to be involved. We hung out until around 11 PM when a storm began rolling in. It was a fantastic time and despite the muddy conditions I heard nothing but positive raves about the weekend. The event also had singer Walter Shrum who's song "Searching for Bigfoot" (watch highlight video below) had everyone singing the words "Bigfoot, Sasquatch, back in the woods, Bigfoot, Yeti, in your neighborhood!" It was also great to meet a lot of new people, those I only knew through social media, those I don't normally get to see or have not seen in a while. It was great catching up with Butch Witkowski as well as meeting ParaNexus member Anthony Holmes, meeting Kenny Biddle and hanging out with Jay Bachochin (who drove all the way from Wisconsin to attend) on Sunday afternoon just prior to leaving and of course the many other people I forgot to mention.

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“Wow!â€� Signal: A new potential explanation and my journey through history before the mystery is (possibly) lifted  

25 Jan 2016, 3:06 pm

Photo BigEar.org

Color copy of the signal with a note from Jerry Ehman on December 18, 1999 on display at Perkins Observatory in Delaware, Ohio. (click to enlarge)

Some may think that Antonio Paris is just here to ruin the longstanding belief that this is a piece of leading evidence in the support of life outside of the Earth. Paris is the founder and director of the Aerial Phenomena Investigation team that is a worldwide effort to actively research and investigate UFO claims. His goal is not to discredit Ehman, but to hopefully provide answers that have plagued this code for so long.

The computer that captured the "Wow!" signal in 1977 on display at Perkins Observatory in Delaware, Ohio

Pieces of the reflector screen of the "Big Ear" radio telescope on display at Perkins Observatory

After reading about the new information potentially writing off the “Wow!� signal I became more interested than ever to visit this site before the mystery may potentially be erased. I had learned of the “Wow!� signal early in my study of UFO material and was excited that this took place in my home state of Ohio. I also knew the facility had been removed, but I had no idea if anything about the find still existed. On a January 22, 2016, I visited the Perkins Observatory for a “cloudy night� presentation. Through the old telescopes and other antiques, the displays of meteor fragments, the explanations of various astronomical events and heavenly bodies, the outdated computers, and dusty pictures of rockets and manned vehicles going to space in a forgotten generation I stumbled upon a room that made my eyes light up. I walked into a room with a sign above it called “E.T. Radio� which is located next to the gift shop in the north wing (to the left) just off the center of the Perkins Observatory. Hidden in the corner are the only remaining pieces of the “Big Ear� observatory that look like scrap metal. The big thing that immediately attracted me was the original computer system that took the data for the “Wow!� signal. There is a whole wall explaining the basics of the signal. There is also a color copy on the wall of the original printout that contains the signal data which has a short explanation from Jerry Ehman written in cursive in pen in the margin on December 18, 1999, “After more than 22 years we still do not have a definitive explanation of this signal. Although we are able to rule out many suggested explanations, the possibility of this signal coming from an extraterrestrial intelligent civilization cannot be ruled out.� The original printout is preserved by the Ohio History Connection (formerly Ohio Historical Society) based at the Ohio History Center in Columbus, Ohio.

Exterior of the Perkins Observatory on the night of my visit

• News story about Antonio Paris and his new hypothesis: IFL Science 
• Hydrogen Clouds from Comets 266/P Christensen and P/2008 Y2 (Gibbs)are Candidates for the Source of the 1977 “WOWâ€� Signal: The paper submitted by Paris and Davies 
• “Big Earâ€� observatory memorial website
• In depth explanation of the “Wow!â€� signal by Jerry Ehman
• “Wow!â€� signal Wikipedia
• Perkins Observatory: http://perkins.owu.edu/
• Ohio History Connection page on the "Wow!" signal: The home of the original printout

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