On Sunday, tens of thousands of pilgrims celebrated the 90th anniversary of the famous visions seen at Fatima, Portugal. In response to the continuing interest in the "third secret" given to the three shepherd children, which is rumored to have predicted the end of the Catholic church and/or the world, the Vatican's secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone -- the Pope's second-in-command -- has declared that it is "pure fantasy."

To counter "the most absurd theses" Bertone has published The Last Fatima Visionary: My Meetings With Sister Lucia, which so far is only available in Italian. He said, "Clearing up the question was a pastoral concern."

The visions of a radiant "lady" floating above an oak tree at Fatima, Portugal, on a monthly basis from May to October 1917, have fascinated people for decades. Originally the sightings by three children were interpreted as being of the Virgin Mary, which is understandable considering the social and religious context of the percipients and the period.

On August 27, 1783, a terrifying monster - perhaps even the Devil himself - descended from the stormy skies and began rampaging through the French village of Gonesse. A posse of brave villagers attacked it with scythes and pitchforks and soon ripped it to shreds. The monster, of course, was merely an unmanned balloon sent aloft by physicist Jacques Charles. Three months later, Charles and a companion made the first manned ascent in a hydrogen balloon. One imagines they were somewhat relieved not to land anywhere near Gonesse!

Strange visitors from the skies have always inspired terror - whether they be balloons, comets or motherships. Even in our own times, people frequently react to the unknown with the same primal savagery as the peasants of Gonesse. The only difference is that nowadays the weapon of choice tends to be a shotgun rather than a pitchfork.

Well, I said that I was going to publish the details of the latest wave of British werewolf sightings to my blog next week; however, a bit of free time came along this afternoon, so here's the story a few days earlier than expected.

Britain has a long history of lycanthropy - from the tale of the notorious Flixton Werewolf that terrorized the north of England more than a thousand years ago, to the strange sagas of the Hexham Heads, the Abbotsham werewolf, the wild Wolfman of Lynton, and countless others.

But quite possibly nothing compares with the incredible wave of wolfish-weirdness that has recently descended upon Britain's Cannock Chase - a large area of forest land in central England, and a location that has become a veritable hotbed for encounters with big cats, ghostly black dogs, Bigfoot-like entities, and now werewolves.

Precisely," said Griffin. "But consider, visibility depends on the action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the red part of the light, to you.

If it did not absorb any particular part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies - a sort of skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, not so clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter than a box of ordinary window glass.

A box of very thin common glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way. It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in air. And for precisely the same reason! - HG Wells The Invisible Man

© Steve Alexander

This formation is located at Wexcombe Down, Wilts and is approximately 200ft in diameter, in green Barley. Discovered while on the way to photographing the formation at Morgan's Hill. It is a four-fold geometrical design, similar in nature to the bird (or swallows) formations of 2003 and 2005.

Dispatchers say they had no unusual calls that night and there was nothing from the sheriff's department to explain the phenomena.

Controllers at the Akron-Canton Airport reported nothing out of the ordinary on their radar screens.

But Rosemary Lyons said she saw a UFO fly over the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge, 2935 Lincoln Way W., at 10:40 p.m. Friday, May 11.

Lyons isn't nuts, said a UFO expert from Cleveland who noted that sightings in Ohio aren't all that unusual.

"It goes in cycles," said Richard Lee, of the Cleveland Ufology Project, one of the oldest UFO research organizations in the country.

UFO pictures are usually blurry, grainy blobs. At best, a shiny round object far away in the distance.

But recently - since the current 'flap' which has hit the United States and Europe, a number of sightings have come forward which come with detailed pictures showing a UFO up close. The first one was the Coast to Coast UFO - featured in the American Chronicle last week. As mentioned in the article, within a few days, another series of UFO pictures came in from Lake Tahoe.

©rajman1977

A pilot friend of mine called yesterday, May 18th, and told me about this new star formation near Furze Knoll (on the SE side of Morgan's hill), which he's certain was not there the day before. I couldn't fly to get shots until this morning -- which is just as well since the light was much better today. It's impossible to find from the road (we tried unsuccessfully yesterday), but the twin Marconi towers are a nearby landmark that's easy to see from miles off. The OS map reference is about 035-667.

©Peter Sorensen 2007

Star crop circle on Morgan's Hill

Timed for the start of this year's crop-circle season, a new book from Lucy Pringle - the photographer who's been capturing images of the formations for nearly 20 years and who has become an international authority on the strange phenomenon - is a stunning visual chronicle of the increasing complexity of the patterns.

Could this strange sighting be a UFO hovering above the skies of Sutton?

©Mansfield Today

"It was very clear and could be seen for miles around" Quote By : John Gregory

The mystery image was spotted high above the town by Chad reader John Gregory, of Burn Street, shortly after 10pm on 2nd May, and appears to show a moon like image with a nose, mouth and eyes.