High StrangenessS


Camera

Proof of ghosts among us? 1860's spirit photography

In the 1860s, "spirit photography" suddenly became very popular. Practitioners would use a special technique to create the appearance of spectral figures in people's homes and family photos...and people couldn't get enough of them!

One photographer, William Hope, took things up a notch by actually claiming to be a medium, and that his photos were "proof" of ghosts living among us. Sure, that sounds completely bogus now, but when you see them, you won't be so sure!

1. Is that a ghost's arm under this table
Ghost under the table
© William Hope

UFO

Former manager of DOD aerospace threat program: "UFOs are real"

tts academy ufo
© STEPHEN JUSTICEA TTS Academy concept for a vehicle drawn by Stephen Justice, embodying the technology they seek to understand and develop - a visionary concept for a revolutionary electromagnetic vehicle based on technology observed in unidentified aerial phenomena
Something extraordinary was revealed today. Former high-level officials and scientists with deep black experience who have always remained in the shadows came forward on one platform. These insiders have long-standing connections to government agencies which may have programs investigating unidentifed aerial phenomena (UAP/UFOs). The team includes a 25-year veteran of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, a Lockheed Martin Program Director for Advanced Systems at "Skunk Works", and a former deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

Today marked the official launch of To The Stars Academy of Arts & Science (TTS/AAS) an innovative Public Benefit Corporation which will advance research into unexplained phenomena and develop related technology. It has established three synergistic divisions: Science, Areospace, and Entertainment. "We believe there are discoveries within our reach that will revolutionize the human experience," says company President and CEO Tom DeLonge. Please see my previous story,- released yesterday - for background on today's announcement which was live-streamed and is archived on the company website.

According to a TTS /AAS statement, it's team members who have been "operating under the shadows of top-secrecy for decades" believe that "there is sufficient credible evidence of UAP that proves exotic technologies exist that could revolutionize the human experience."

Comment: Video of the TTS announcement:


See also: Tom DeLonge forms public UFO research project with government insiders including DoD and CIA veterans


Sherlock

Tom DeLonge forms public UFO research project with government insiders including DoD and CIA veterans

to the stars academy
© To the Stars AcademyThe To the Stars Academy logo. The three areas represent: "Three synergistic divisions of Science (research), Aerospace (application) and Entertainment (storytelling)."
Rocker Tom DeLonge has finally released information about a big UFO project he has been teasing for months, and is planning a live event tomorrow morning to provide more information.

In February 2016, rocker Tom DeLonge made headlines when he announced at the International UFO Congress that he had big UFO news to reveal and it would be coming in a few weeks time. His address to the conference was recorded and in response to being awarded the UFO Researcher of the Year. However, the news never came. Some gave up on anything being revealed. I had faith, but I also had messages from DeLonge letting me know he had been delayed, but that the information was still on the way.

Finally, the wait is over, and we now know his new project will be tiled To the Stars Academy, and its mission is to "strive to be a powerful vehicle for change by creating a consortium among science, aerospace and entertainment that will work collectively to allow gifted researchers the freedom to explore exotic science and technologies with the infrastructure and resources to rapidly transition them to products that can change the world"

Grey Alien

UFO expert claims Prince Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten was UFO enthusiast who documented alien encounter on his estate

prince philip lord mountbatten
© Rex Features
Prince Philip's uncle Lord Mountbatten was a UFO enthusiast and even wrote an official report about an alien in a silver spaceship landing on his estate, historical documents show.

Mountbatten was a "hugely important and influential ufologist" even though he kept his interest in the paranormal a secret throughout his life, according to UFO expert Alejandro Rojas.

Back in February, 1955, Mountbatten, who was often referred to as Prince Charles's "honorary godfather" and mentor because of his close relationship with the Duke of Edinburgh, made an official report about a strange encounter his bricklayer Fred Briggs allegedly had with a flying saucer and an alien creature.

The report, which was uncovered after Mountbatten's 1979 death at the hands of the IRA, describes how a silver spaceship landed in the grounds of his Broadlands estate in Romsey, Hampshire.

Question

"Gigantic bird" seen in Puerto Rico, and the "bedroom visitor" that followed

giant bird
"Gigantic bird" photo taken in Puerto Rico (from different sighting)
It can't be said that all of us Smiths live humdrum lives. Take, for instance, D.G. Smith of Leicester, England. In 1992 he wrote to the editor of Flying Saucer Review, and when his letter was published on page 25 of volume 37, no. 3, the editor commented that, in 45 years of ufology he had developed a feeling for the "UFO nut cases", and his intuition was that this one was genuine. In any case, as with most of the articles on this blog, there is no evidence that it is false apart from the obvious fact that it is fantastic. I shall therefore let you decide for yourself. The italics are in the original. It would have been useful if the author had been more specific about the location of the events. I suspect his/her native land of the USA.

Comment: And this story of last year, also from Puerto Rico:
A man claims that he saw two birds "the size of airplanes".

Manuel Ponce, a 48-year-old HVAC technician from Virginia, told Cryptozoology News on Wednesday that he was on a cruise with his family and church members when he saw the flying creatures.

"It happened right after 9/11," Ponce said. "We had just booked a cruise with Royale Caribbean in January of that year. We had 28 members of our congregation," he added.

The man claims that after a strong tropical storm, the captain managed to land in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"We arrived there in the morning. The day was on and off, rainy with spurts of sunlight every hour or so. We hired a guide for half a day, he took us to some places of interest.

As the guide took the group near a beach, Ponce explains, they noticed a "a real dark rolling rain cloud coming quickly".

"That's when I saw them. At the very top of the storm cloud... I saw two giant birds. I pointed up to everyone in the group, including now my ex-wife and the guide, but the birds went straight up."

The man described the creatures as birds "the size of airplanes" with a 30 foot wingspan. Their necks were surrounded by a "white ring" and they had straight beaks.

"Their wings were straight, with feather protruding at the ends of their wings," he recalls.

The alleged sighting reportedly lasted about five seconds and Ponce said he was the only one to see the flying animals. He added that he tried to snap pictures but that he had not enough time to capture the image.

And Ponce, who says he has told the story to his congregation, friends and family, says most of them don't believe him.

"Only my two sons believe me. I know what the hell I saw," he said.

Thunderbird, also known as Roc, is the nomenclature used by Native Americans to refer to bird-like creatures with reptile features that are believed to be related to the extinct pterosaurs.

In August 2015, a man in Michigan claimed to have seen a "giant bird" with a 10-foot wingspan.

In July 2015, two people in Nevada reported seeing a creature that reminded them of a pterosaur, a flying reptile believed to have gone extinct about 65 million years ago.

Two weeks later, a minister and her daughter claimed to have seen an unidentified flying creature that looked like it was "straight out of Jurassic Park".

In October 2015, a California man snapped a photograph of what he believed to be a "prehistoric bird".

In 1890, Arizona newspaper The Tombstone Epitaph wrote about two ranchers killing a "winged monster" similar to an "alligator" in the desert between the Whetsone and Huachuca mountains.



Black Magic

Pennsylvania: Witchcraft, murder and 'hex hysteria' in the early 1900's

COHEN: Do you think it is right to kill a person who has you bewitched?

BLYMIRE: Why, I think it is right, yes, if a fellow has me bewitched.

COHEN: If the judge of this court had you bewitched, would it be right for you to kill him?

BLYMIRE: If he had me bewitched.

Conversation between attorney Herbert H. Cohen and John Blymire, from the trial transcript of the Rehmeyer case.
One of the most commonly-told urban legends in the Lancaster/York county area of Pennsylvania to which I'm native deals with a locale known as Hex Hollow, or, more properly, Rehmeyer's Hollow. As is the case with most urban legends, the stories about this place vary from teller to teller. The most common, however, is that a man named Rehmeyer, a known Satanist and black magician, conducted a series of human sacrifices in his house. After the magician died or was killed (again depending on the teller), his house was set on fire but refused to burn.

The truth of the matter is quite different, but elements of it can be seen in the legend above. In fact, it was discovered that whereas many people in York County were familiar with the Hollow legends, a surprisingly (and depressingly) small percentage of those were familiar with the history of exactly what occurred there. To discover what actually did, we must cast our minds back to 1928, to a time when the county was even more rural than it is now - and scarcely anywhere was more rural than Rehmeyer's Hollow, a heavily-wooded tract occupied by a scant few farms, almost all of which were inhabited by the Rehmeyer clan or close relations. The Hollow still feels this way today - pleasant during the day, shockingly dark (no street lights line its roads) at night.

Grey Alien

Brother and sister alien hunters discover 'UFO highway' stretching across America's 37th latitude line

Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer
© John ChappleUFO hunters Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer.
A brother and sister alien hunting team have discovered a "UFO highway" across America along which hundreds of unexplained events have taken place - from cattle mutilations to alien abductions.

Chuck Zukowski and Debbie Ziegelmeyer have spent years travelling across the US investigating hundreds of UFO sightings and other paranormal occurrences.

It was during one cattle mutilation investigation that Chuck realised that many of the unexplained events he had looked into had taken place on the 37th latitude.

He called his sister - who noticed the same with her investigations in Missouri - and the pair began researching the phenomenon, discovering that there are clusters of unexplained events taking place across the same latitude line.

Eye 1

Maurice Barbanell: The different aspects of Estelle Roberts's mediumship

Estelle Roberts, etc
© UnknownEstelle Roberts (1889-1970) • a Helen Duncan materialization • 'Katie King' • 'John King'
Estelle Roberts would enter a trance state and then the voices of unseen people in Spirit would converse with sitters during 'Direct Voice' seances. At other trance seances, her guide 'Red Cloud' would speak through her and these accounts correlate with what today is observed under the category of psychic phenomena known as 'deep trance,' 'overshadowing' or 'total takeover' 'channeling.' Occasionally there were 'apports' (materialized objects) and at one seance Spiritualist journalist Maurice Barbanell witnessed the full body materialization of 'Red Cloud.' Maurice wrote about the various manifestations of Estelle's mediumship-including clairvoyance and clairaudience-in several chapters of Power of the Spirit, a 1949 memoir about the many people whom he personally witnessed to manifest the 'power of the spirit' in diverse ways.

UFO 2

The UFO Enigma: What might be said about anecdotal evidence?

triangle ufo
© unknown
What is the reality - if any exists at all - behind the UFO phenomenon?

This question has been asked for decades already, and still we collectively don't seem to have any real answers that help instruct us as to whatever "reality" may constitute serious, tangible data on UFOs.

Way back in 1955, Edward Ruppelt, the first director of the USAF's Project Bluebook, wrote that, "I wouldn't want to hazard a guess as to what the final outcome of the UFO investigation will be, but I am sure that within a few years there will be a proven answer."

I often wonder if Ruppelt would ever have foreseen that well after the turn of the next century, we would still be awaiting that final "proven answer" that he anticipated.

At the very least, we might say that, based on what anecdotal evidence has been collected in UFO witness testimony since the end of World War II, there appear to have been varieties of unusual aircraft seen in our skies for decades now. Their origin, however, remains a matter of conjecture, due to the lack of physical evidence to support the range of theories that have been proposed in this regard.

Hence, with little more than decades of witness testimony, and the occasional (though scant) physical evidence that turns up rarely, perhaps one of the most important questions that should be asked is, "how useful is the anecdotal evidence at our disposal?"

Grey Alien

Elaborate hoax? Alleged tomb raiders say they've found 20 3-fingered mummies in Peru - and saw live 'beings' too - UPDATE

peru mummy
Claims the creatures were seen by the "discoverers" of the so-called mummified remains of "three-fingered bodies" is the latest twist in a sensational story that has been branded an elaborate hoax by many, but has taken the internet by storm.

UK-based UFO investigators Steve Mera and Barry Fitzgerald revealed the new claim in a video documentary charting their mission to investigate the "alien" bodies in Peru.

They spoke to members of the Inkari Institute, an archaeological research team in Cusco, Peru, which was allegedly handed the bodies by blackmarket tomb raiders said to have found the tomb in a secret location in Nazca, Peru.

Mr Mera told Express.co.uk: "We were told that the bodies were discovered in a tomb in Nazca.

"Inside were two sarcophagi, one of which contained around 20 small bodies, all of which around two feet in length, some missing their heads which were later found throughout the interconnecting tunnels.

"There was even claims of discoverers seeing live entities fleeing down tunnels on arrival."

Comment: Mysterious Universe's commentary seems apt at this point:
Don't get ahead of us here - news of these 3-fingered alien mummies is best taken in small doses - or at least that's how those in possession of them seem to feel. Gaia.com has released its five videos in dribbles, with the last before this latest one revealing that there at least five of these mummies were found in an undisclosed cave by a guy only identified as Mario. The videos and what little other information is available have been examined by real experts such as the World Congress on Mummy Studies and the data so far deemed to be questionable at best, an outright hoax and desecration of remains at worst.
peru mummy baby
© youtube/gaia.comSo-called baby mummy
Update (Oct. 7): DNA testing has been successfully carried out on the hand and brain. Results? 100% human:
Scientists were unable to get DNA codes from some of the samples sent for analysis, however DNA types were confirmed for a three-fingered hand, and from a brain tissue sample.

However, in a blow to people hoping for proof of alien visitations of Earth, the samples were concluded to be a 100 percent match to human DNA.

Both the hand and brain tissue were found to come from a male homo sapien, according to a report from Paleo DNA laboratory at Lakehead University, Ontario, Canada, now available online.

It said: "The evidence suggests the source of DNA from the biological material from the cranial brain and the bone extracted from the hand belongs to homo sapiens (humans)."
...
The bodies were carbon dated to between 245 to 410 AD, but genuine scientists believe they have been created to look like aliens using the "grave-robbed" mummified remains of anciently-buried humans.
No links were provided to the study, however.

Update (Oct. 12): Around the same time as the previous update, during a conference in Rome, Russian professor Konstantin Korotkov said the following, according to Mysterious Universe:
He emphasized that analyses of the chemical composition of the bones in the largest of the mummies showed consistency throughout - which he said is an indication that the body was not assembled from other bodies or bones. He also reiterated the recent news that the first DNA analysis was done by five independent labs in the U.S., Russia and Mexico and showed that the DNA was very close, but not identical, to human. Finally, he restated his opinion that CT scans show the mummies were once living non-human beings that did not suffer from mutilations (like skull elongation) or genetic defects.

Korotkov also talked about one big non-human discovery - the objects that look like eggs in one of the females. He claimed that he's negotiating with the "owner" of the mummies to allow him to biopsy one of the eggs. As always with these mummies, it seems strange that the "owners" - whoever they are - are so restrictive with even their own so-called team members.