Something's flying in the air over the Camosun and Jubilee neighbourhoods of Saanich and Victoria and it's got Mike Allan thinking differently about what's in our sky.

Allan lives with his family on Haultain Street, a few doors in from Richmond Road. He was a skeptic about anything that had to do with the phrase 'unidentified flying object', until he became witness to some strange events when he arrived about five years ago.


(One of the only instances of footage that Allan has.)

Since then he's witnessed the strange occurrence of light, kind of like a star, that moves around the sky in abnormal ways, often hovering.

Other UFO's have been recently reported in Duncan and Sooke.

A witness from Georgia claims to have seen a "massive" metallic "beautiful chrome-ish" triangular UFO. The witness says the object had no lights and although it was huge, it was moving very slowly. The witness reported the sighting today to the Mutual UFO Network's (MUFON) online reporting system.

The witness says the object was spotted on June 1, 2008 while driving home from work with a friend. They were headed from Cartersville to Canton, Georgia on the I-20 highway. The object was so large and strange that the witness says they did not want to alert their friend who was driving for fear of sounding crazy.

I found this collection of stories on a Spanish language website while following up a lead from the Fairy Investigation Society. It was written in 2003 by a Sr Fabio Picasso, and was a Spanish version of an article in French (presumably by the same author) called Les petits êtres d'Argentine [The little beings of Argentina] originally published in La Gazette Fortéenne [The Fortean Gazette] volume II, Oeil du Sphinx, París, 2003. [,,,]

[W]elcome to a series of strange encounters. I have translated duende as "goblin", but it is a catchall term for goblins, elves, etc. - even ghosts. I draw no conclusions about the nature of the phenomena described, except to say that, whereas a single witness may be discounted, it is a lot harder for multiple witnesses.

SMALL ENTITIES REPORTED IN ARGENTINA

It all started with an observation of high strangeness in the province of Salta. I say strangeness because even within the atypical nature of these episodes, this one exhibited particular rarity.

The site where the event took place is called El Duraznito [the little peach], a site located between the entrance of a farm and an abandoned house at a distance of 1000 meters from a rock formation known as La Cueva de los Negros [the blacks' cave] where UFO events have been reported.

I received the following account from a witness (BW). The location was 2531 Technology Dr. in Elgin, IL. Here is the initial report, with updates & edits I included after I had the opportunity to interview BW by telephone:

I may have seen the being gliding west, away from Chicago. I work in Elgin about one mile north from I-90 and about 45 mins northwest of Chicago. I was outside of my work and looking skyward at the time. The being was very high up but I could tell it was very big, but it was the odd shape. It was at the height of mid-flying airplane. This was right around 11:45AM on August 1, 2017. It looked just like the thing in that pic that you have on your 1st sighting (2011). The pic with the Native American statue. It looked darker though, but that could have just been the distance that it was, because it was high and it was going away from me also. I was hoping it would turn around but it just kept going on a straight glide westward. I was getting my phone out too late it would have looked like a dot if I would have tried to get a pic, that's why I was hoping it would turn around. I didn't notice it flapping its wings, that's why I keep saying that it was gliding. It kept in a very straight direct motion. I plan on taking breaks for the next few weeks around this time in case it passes again.

Since this day it has been very cloudy out so I haven't been able to get a good look at the sky but I believe I might have seen it in the distance the next day playing in the clouds. If it is a creature of habit I hope it'll keep passing around my area around the same time. Like I said I saw something that looked like a person in one of those squirrel suit but if you know the suburbs, there is probably no way it could have been. I have been watching the skies even closer since then and at this point I want to say whatever I saw would have been the size of a small plane possibly. But I didn't have anything to reference the size since it was so far up.

A farmer is asking for £2 donations from visitors to cover costs after a huge crop circle appeared in her field overnight.
Shelley Klindt, who farms in Wiltshire, said the 60m (200ft) circle appeared overnight on August 2.

The "annoying" feature has destroyed around eight tonnes of grain but Ms Klindt has been allowing visitors to view it while charging to help cover the loss of the crop.

Online drone footage has attracted hundreds of people to the farm.

A cherry picker is in place so visitors can view it without damaging crops.

This week I came across the Sir Noface documentary currently touring America. Led by Chad Calek, a well-known paranormal investigator and filmmaker, the documentary claims to provide definitive proof of ghosts - in the form of a full apparition appearing on camera.

As always I remain skeptical of this claim, particularly following the commercialised manner in which it appears to be being presented to the public - sell out tours including a range of ticket packages, a documentary film which I am sure will come with a price tag, merchandise etc.

Surely, one would assume, if you had dedicated your life to paranormal research and you truly believe you have finally found proof of ghosts you would share far and wide? Open up the footage to further analysis? Invite other researchers and scientists along to discuss the merit and implications of such a find?

Furthermore, the recent claim by Most Haunted to have captured a ghost on camera - which looks suspiciously like a poor attempt at a video overlay of Stuart accompanied by some pretty terrible acting - has left a sour taste for such claims. I do, however, like to remain open-minded and I can't help but feel curious both about the footage itself, and why it is being revealed the way that it is...

It did get me thinking though - what if it was real? What if after all these years someone finally did have unequivocal evidence that ghosts exist? In the world of paranormal research we are often pre-occupied with the question - "do ghosts exist?". However, we rarely stop to think what would happen if they do, and I think it is worth some thought.

As someone who writes a great deal on the subject of UFO-themed issues, I find myself on the receiving end of a lot of reports and witness testimony. Some such accounts are more controversial than others. Then, there are those incidents which are really controversial. Arguably, we're talking about beyond controversial.

There is one particular case which is coming up to its 30th anniversary. I'm talking about just days away, which is why I mention it now. In many respects, referring to it as an "anniversary" is probably not the correct thing to do. Not because it's inaccurate, but because an anniversary is so often tied to fun and celebratory events. But, there's nothing to celebrate here. And, certainly, there is no fun either.

Brenda is someone whose story was told to me personally and which occasionally crosses my mind, such is the deep strangeness attached to it. She is someone who has had a lifetime of encounters with those diminutive, black-eyed entities that have become known as "The Grays." For Brenda they are encounters which have revolved, primarily, around two issues: (A) medical procedures said to have been undertaken by the Grays and (B) terrifying dreams of a looming apocalypse - always looming but never quite arriving, thankfully.

No Return is the title of a new book from David Booher. It is published by the good folks at Anomalist Books. The subtitle is UFO Abduction or Covert Operation? That's a very good question! I finished reading the book last week and, I can say with certainty, it does not disappoint. It's a real-life, little-known, saga that dates back to the latter part of the 1950s. It still remains filled with enigmas and puzzles, close to sixty years after it occurred.

Anomalist Books' publicity page for No Return states:

"On a lonesome road in Utah, a young soldier returning from leave speeds through the desert night. Suddenly the sky lights up as a blazing object streaks across the highway and crashes nearby. Stunned, the soldier stops and decides to investigate. Little does he know, but his life will never be the same again. This is the true story of a man named Gerry Irwin. Following a mysterious experience in Utah in 1959, inexplicable blackouts and bizarre behavior threatened to derail his promising Army career. Then one day he suddenly deserted his Army post in Texas and disappeared without a trace. No one knows what became of him-until now. What happened to Gerry Irwin? Was he abducted by aliens, in what would amount to the first known case of this phenomenon on American soil? Or was he a pawn in a covert intelligence operation? And how does his story really end? A new investigation launched in 2013 attempts to answer these and other questions, revealing along the way the ordeal of a man whose mind was ravaged by a confrontation with the unknown."

To his credit, David Booher is refreshingly open-minded on the matter of what happened to Gerry Irwin on the night of February 20, 1959. He tackles all of the various theories which have been suggested: alien abduction, MK-Ultra-type mind-meddling, and a hoax on the part of Irwin himself. In other words, the book is free of any particular agenda - which is something you seldom see in a book that is focused on the domains of the paranormal, the conspiratorial, and the ufological.

Long-time ufologist Jacques Vallee agreed to write the foreword. Vallee says something in his foreword that is of critical importance: "I believe two major themes stand out from the insights we can derive from David Booher's work: First, the virtue of a patient, long-term perspective on cases that seemed forever lost in amnesia or hidden in secrecy; and second, the critical need for an intelligent alternative to the shoddy, pop psychology of hypnosis that has come to masquerade for 'research' in numerous reports of UFO abduction." [...] One of the most intriguing parts of the book is that which highlights the various official, military documents on Irwin that Booher was able to obtain.

For more on this book and topic, go here.

I thought I would do one final article (final for now, at least...) on the subject of my two previous articles. Namely, government surveillance of people with ties to Ufology. The two earlier ones were on (A) the alien abduction issue and secret surveillance; and (B) how the FBI watched many of the UFO Contactees in the 1950s. This third feature in the series is a little different, as it deals with someone whose research has straddled the domains of both Ufology and Cryptozoology. His name is Jonathan Downes, the director of the U.K.-based Center for Fortean Zoology. Jon's main Fortean passions are the likes of sea-serpents, Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman and so on. He has, however, written a number of books that touch on UFOs to significant degrees, including The Rising of the Moon and The Island of Paradise.

It was May 1996 and Downes had been hanging out for a few days with a good friend of his named Tony "Doc" Shiels. If you don't know, Shiels is a near-legendary and controversial figure (and magician) in the field of Forteana and a key player in the saga of the U.K.'s equivalent of Mothman: the Owlman of Mawnan Woods, Cornwall, England. After a few days of hanging out at Jon's home, it was finally time to drive Shiels back to Plymouth Airport for a flight to Ireland, where Shiels lives. And that's when things went from strange to downright conspiratorial. Over to Jon...

"It was a Friday lunchtime in early May 1996. Alison [Jon's ex-wife] and I were beginning to suspect that we had strayed into a particularly far-fetched and badly scripted episode of The X-Files. We were sitting in Plymouth Airport, waiting to put Tony on his plane back to Ireland, after one of his occasional visits. Suddenly, the airport lounge seemed to be full of security guards. There were only about half a dozen men in uniform, but there were a number of rather sinister-looking men in black suits, wearing sunglasses, and looking quite menacing."

Just about all of the Contactees of the fifties and the sixties were watched secretly, carefully and closely by the FBI. George Adamski's FBI file reveals that the Bureau was concerned by two things: (A) Adamski's claims that his long-haired "Space Brothers" and "Space Sisters" were probably communist in nature; and (B) Adamski's ability to influence lots of people (his 1953 book, Flying Saucers Have Landed - co-authored with Desmond Leslie - was a huge seller). George Van Tassel was secretly watched too: his FBI file is extensive and covers the early 1950s to the middle part of the 1960s. He also talked about the politics of the aliens, as well as how he was reportedly told by his space-buddies that many of our major religions were born out of visits from ancient astronauts.

Contactee George Hunt Williamson had an FBI dossier opened on him, as did Frank Stranges, of Stranger at the Pentagon infamy. Truman Bethurum - the man who lusted after hot and curvy space-babe Aura Rhanes - was watched. As was Orfeo Angelucci. Moving across the pond, in the late 1950s the British Police Force's Special Branch opened a file on the Contactee-driven Aetherius Society. It was chiefly because the group often talked about the perils of atomic weapons - and to audiences of people who listened very closely to what was being said. It's clear from the files referred to above that the relevant agencies did not believe the tales that the Contactees were telling. But, when it comes to their particular stories, that wasn't the point. The point was that that the Contactees were saying a great deal of controversial things - and a lot of people listening to what they had to say were nodding their heads eagerly and in agreement. That's what specifically had the FBI concerned.