Imagine what a smartphone in 1903 Van Meter could have accomplished.

Instead of shouldering shotguns and blasting away at an eight-foot winged creature with a forehead horn that cast a beam of light, panicked citizens could have quickly posted a YouTube video. Case closed. Monster confirmed.

Camping out all night 110 years later, at an old coal mine outside of town where the alleged creature is believed to have lived, a researcher of odd legends is still trying to get sight of it.

Chad Lewis survived the assignment. He was not abduct­ed nor scooped up by a flying creature, but he has a good story to tell. In his wanderings of Van Meter, he unearthed a legend that was dying out with the old-timers, and tonight he will tell it at the old high school gym.

The story offers a glimpse of rural Iowa history and lore. The superstitious mindset at the turn of the last century, oddly, mirrors a resurgent 21st century trend of Bigfoot hunting and paranormal investigating that populate cable television today.

Lewis also has appeared on network and cable shows to discuss his monster/alien chasing across the globe, but the Minneapolis 38-year-old said he was particularly captivated by a creature he dubbed the "Van Meter Visitor." He purposely chose a non-threatening name. One shouldn't assume the winged creature did not come in peace.

For lovers of the paranormal who've grown weary of waiting for the Loch Ness monster to reappear, here's a new "monster" to feast your eyes upon.

Three college students were filming a short movie as a class project at Lough Foyle, a large tidal estuary in County Donegal, Ireland, when something very odd moved through the water in front of them, UPI reports.

"Looks like we have our own Loch Ness monster!" Conall Melarkey, a student at North West Regional College in Derry, Ireland, wrote in his posting of the video clip to YouTube.

"I have absolutely no idea what it is, but it looked amazing!" Melarkey wrote.

In the midst of the Cold War on several occasions, nuclear missiles at US Air Force bases were mysteriously shut down, according to US servicemen who said they witnessed the failure of the heavily guarded missile systems.

But they don't blame America's Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union; they say aliens from space did it.

"This was something Russia could have developed, but it turns out they didn't develop this and we don't have it either - to be able to shut down nuclear weapons with a beam of light," David Scott, a former sergeant in the US Air Force, told RIA Novosti at a conference in Washington on encounters with extraterrestrials.

Scott and three retired Air Force officers told a panel of six former members of the US Congress at the conference about their experiences with extraterrestrial "visitors" who meddled with US nuclear weapons systems.

The five-day conference, called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure, is sponsored by the UFO truth organization Paradigm Research Group and is being held in the style of Congressional hearings, with time limits for witness testimony, question and answer sessions with former members of Congress, and statements entered into the record.

Savannah, Georgia - Surveillance video from B&D burgers on Congress Street in downtown Savannah shows what appears to be a normal night at the bar suddenly appear to take a paranormal turn.

"We saw it on our surveillance video. Our manager Josh Pair saw it and it caught his attention because he was sitting in the office and then he saw it and began filming it on his phone off the surveillance video because there was no way to explain it. I mean, there is no way to explain it," says Marketing Manager Gena Bilbo.

If the orbiting light doesn't do it for you, a stack of falling cups may.

"And with no provocation, with no wind, nobody walking by, no anything, the cups just fall over," says Bilbo.

A passenger aircraft had a narrow miss with an unidentified object over Glasgow, a report has revealed.

The Airbus A320 was making its final approach to Glasgow Airport on 2 December when an object passed about 300ft underneath it.The pilot of the aircraft said the risk of collision with the object, which did not show up on radar, had been "high".

A report by the UK Airprox Board said investigators were unable to establish what the object had been.The A320 was flying with its landing lights on, in clear conditions and at an altitude of about 4,000ft above the Baillieston area of Glasgow, when the pilot and non-flying pilot of the aircraft saw an object "loom ahead" at a range of about 100m.

A spooked family from a village in northern France were reportedly hospitalized after being hit by 'flying chairs' at their home, which they claim is haunted. Housing authorities in the area have agreed to move them elsewhere.

When it comes to paranormal activities, a freaked out French family living in a supposed haunted house in the French village of Mentque-Nortbécourt, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, claim to have seen it all.

They've witnessed oranges floating across the room, violent attacks by soap trays and earlier this month members of the spooked family were hospitalized after being hit by flying chairs, the regional Voix du Nord newspaper reported on Wednesday.

According to the local newspaper the family have reported that the strange happenings have been going on since last July. To prove they were not going mad they have brought in others from the village, including the mayor, to witness the events.

"It's becoming dangerous," the mother told France 3 television. "My friend had to go to hospital this week after getting hit in the head by stones. It's serious."

'George the ghost' has been popping up on staff at Gloucester's City Museum for as long as they can remember.

The Victorian building, in Brunswick Road, is so haunted that some staff members have been left too scared to go into certain parts of the museum.

But museum assistant Nigel Taylor-James, who has worked there since 1989, says George is a friendly soul.

"From what I have seen he has a medieval appearance, with a hooded outfit made from simple cloth," said Nigel.

"I've seen him three times. Each time he looks at you and then makes a hasty exit. He doesn't stay around for long.

"Before I had seen him I was a non-believer. It is one of those things that you have got to see with your own eyes to believe.

"He is like an apparition. I have never been scared at the time. It is not a scary experience, more one of surprise."

There are a number of theories as to who George could be.

A Cleveland-area woman who found a couple of ghostly figures in a photo taken with her cell phone said she's not freaked out about it.

"To me, it was awesome," said Marcella Davis. "It's not scary to me."

David took the photo about 4 p.m. April 15 at Cleveland High School, where she was trying to get a shot of her nephew, who attends the school.

"He spun around so I couldn't take his picture, so I got the back of his head," she said. "I didn't try to take no more because he didn't let me."

Davis, the mother of two teenagers, said she doesn't understand much about the smart phone she used to take the photos, so that evening, her daughter was showing her how she could zoom in and out.

As her daughter zoomed in on the photo of her nephew, she could see more detail.

Call it the case of the elusive big foot.Authorities are trying to determine what two young boys found when they were exploring in the woods of Lakeville.On March 29, Sgt. Steven Leanues picked up what appears to be a decomposed foot that the boys found in the woods off Pantheon Road.

Police Chief Frank Alvilhiera sent it to the medical examiner, who determined it is not human, although it appears to have five toes.

But what is it?

Alvilhiera said it might be a bear paw or perhaps it belonged to a different animal, although it appears to be human.

Until the medical examiner does further testing, its identity remains uncertain.

"It will take some time before we hear any official results," Alvilhiera said.

In other words, big foot remains a mystery.

When you first catch sight of Mt. Shasta, you feel there is a great medicine centered there, as though God put it in the middle of the dark plains of Northern California just to relieve the sight of deep green forests with a crystal peak of blazing white. It stands alone, rising high above the surrounding hills, collecting clouds out of nowhere which circle around its peak like a lonley tribe dancing around a fire. All the strenuous heights of the surrounding ranges look like little ant mounds from the upper slops of this behemoth. The sight of the full moon dancing with dramatic, phantasmogoric clouds as it casts a great halo over the misty hillsides below, helps you believe that perhaps you really are standing on the axis mundi - the place where heaven and earth meet... Until you get kicked out for drinking wine in a spiritual healing circle. (But I'm Irish! How else do I heal my spirit!)

Half of those who believe the mountain is holy are making a dollar at it, exploiting its global reputation as a spiritual retreat with outrageously priced "vortex tours" and "spiritual attunement workshops." The other half are poor as pigeons, living in the forests in little tents or shrub huts even through the snow-heavy winter and the sun-blasted summer, striving for the upper branches of human consciousness in the place where "earth ends and heaven begins."

Who dwells here but bearded yokels, skinny-dipping hippies, and crystal-gazing con artists?

Legends dwell here. And plenty of them!