High StrangenessS


UFO

Ufos were just paper lanterns from wedding - or were they?

The Mystery surrounding strange lights seen hovering above Tunbridge Wells was solved this week when the objects were identified as Chinese lanterns.

Sightings of the orange spheres flooded into the Kent and Sussex Courier offices after it reported the phenomenon on Friday.

The bright lights seen in the sky over the bank holiday baffled residents, leading some to question whether we are alone in the universe.

But the Salomons centre this week said that paper lanterns released at a wedding celebration had sparked the UFO rumours.

Conference and events administrator Katy Webster said: "A couple got married here and had some Chinese paper sky lanterns. Basically the company comes in and light them and the heat makes them rise and fly off and away."

Magnify

Spontaneous Human Combustion

In August 1999, BBC TV broadcast in prime time a film in its prestigious science series 'QED', entitled Spontaneous Human Combustion.

The film was ambitious both as science and as reporting, for it set out to debunk once and for all the centuries-old belief that, under some mysterious circumstances, humans can catch fire and be almost entirely consumed, even in the security of their own homes.

Most impressive of all, the film set out to debunk the idea not merely with argument and theories, but with an actual experimental demonstration on camera in which the carcass of a pig was substituted for that of a human body.

Question

Sea monster - or a load of old barnacles?



©KAY BLUNDELL/Dominion Post
Waikanae's 14-metre tentacle-covered mass has fascinated beachgoers north of Wellington this week.

Nightmarish sea monster or natural wonder?
A 14-metre, tentacle-covered mass has horrified and fascinated Waikanae beachgoers this week.

However, Conservation Department community relations programme manager Stacy Moore said it was actually a lot of goose barnacles (Lepas anatifera), each about 30 centimetres long with a shell attached to each long pinkish tube. They were stuck to a piece of wood or rope.

Question

Spontaneous Human Combustion: Eye-witness cases in more detail

The case of Robert Francis Bailey

Early in the morning of 13 September 1967, some people walking to work in Lambeth, South London, noticed a bright light inside a derelict house at 49 Auckland Street.

At 5:19 AM, one of them telephoned the emergency services. At 5:24, the Lambeth Fire Brigade arrived with Brigade Commander John Stacey.

The crew entered the building and discovered the bright light was the burning body of a local alcoholic, Robert Bailey, who had sought shelter in the abandoned house overnight. Strangely, though, neither the fabric of the house itself, nor its internal fittings was damaged. The only thing on fire was Bailey himself.

Question

Flashback Explanation for 13 cracked airplane windscreens doesn't fly!

"We have nothing at the impact sites to say this is definitively what it is." Maybe the NTSB should look again - over and through the Denver dilemma. It may not be as nitty gritty and transparent a solution as flying grit.

A Convenient but non-Credible Sleuthing?

In Air Safety Week dated 26 February ("Thirteen plus One") we reported upon some of the likely causes of the 22 windshields cracking on 14 aircraft during a 90 minute period at Denver International Airport on 16th February last. The Denver-based NTSB lead investigator Jennifer Kaiser has now come up with an FOD explanation that she thinks "flies". It's a natural phenomenon according to Jennifer. "The only commonality across aircraft type, operator, location, time and phase of flight was the wind and weather," Kaiser claimed. Despite aircraft being parked in different orientations, fine particles of grit were being swept along by gusts as high (at one stage) as 48 mph claims Kyle Fredin of the National Weather Service. On one parked aircraft, a CRJ 700, all four cockpit windows were cracked. Either the grit, or the wind, was turning corners.

Comment: The analysis mentioned above is very doubtful. 13 planes with cracked wind screens within a 90minute period and with no other damage. Nor were they facing the same direction.

If it was such a common thing, then it is strange that they were puzzled in the first place. A google search will tell you that this is not very common.

If we can have inconvenient truths, it appears that we can also have convenient lies.


Question

Skeleton spotted in floating iceberg

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador - Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland's east coast.

©n/a

The six pictures show what looks like a brown rib cage and spinal column, slightly bent, sticking out of a crust of ice.

But researchers throughout Canada, Greenland and Norway are unable to determine the origin of the skeleton, said Garry Stenson, a marine mammal scientist with the federal Fisheries Department.

Dollar

Dead or Alive? Million pound reward offered for Loch Ness monster

A British bookmaker offered a one million pound ($2 million) reward on Monday to anyone who can prove that Scotland's legendary Loch Ness monster does actually exist.

Bookmakers William Hill are supplying up to 50,000 instant cameras to fans attending a Loch Ness pop festival next weekend.

"We are hoping the one million pound bounty will help to solve one of the great enigmas of modern times," William Hill spokesman Rupert Adams said.

The winner will have to offer proof that satisfies experts at London's Natural History Museum.

UFO

UFO rumours are sparked by lights

Mysterious lights spotted hovering in the night sky caused quite a stir in Tunbridge Wells this week.

Between 20 to 40 orange spheres baffled residents throughout the town as they witnessed the strange phenomenon.

©Kent and Sussex Courier

The glowing orbs appeared at around 10pm on Saturday rising slowly into the clouds before eventually vanishing.

Tony Barber, of Farnham Lane, in Langton Green saw the spectacle after his neighbour alerted him. He said: "They were rising into the sky for about 20 minutes then they disappeared. We went outside and watched and tried to guess what they were. We couldn't really come up with anything except they were huge hot air balloons."

UFO

Ireland Flooded by UFO Claims

Ireland is in the grip of a space invasion, according to UFO Society of Ireland president Betty Meyler.

She says reports of unidentified flying objects are flooding in.

One man, Mark, reported seeing a silver saucer over Lough Key near Carrick-on-Shannon.

He said: "The craft was reflective silver like stainless steel, with no lights or windows."

"Martin D" emailed Betty to tell her he spotted a UFO over his HOUSE.

UFO 2

Video: UFOs over Santiago, Chile

Video: UFOs over Santiago, Chile


Comment: The amateur video is part of an impressive series that can be found here. The images appear to have been taken on December 7th, 2003, as displayed on the screen in one of the videos. As it surfaced on the Internet only 3 and a half years later we wonder how many more pieces of evidence are held by private people which remain unreported.