This dashing young fellow died tragically during a training flight mission at Scotland's Montrose Air Base back in 1913, but has haunted the location for the past 100 years for reasons unknown. Is he forever flying his final mission? Is he desperate to get back to the girl he loved (whose photo he carried with him when he died)? Or is his ghost just the product over overactive imagination? Just look at him--who wouldn't want to be haunted by Lieutenant Arthur? Desmond Arthur's ghost has been spotted numerous times throughout the decades and on occasion, even his ghostly biplane has startled a pilot or two in the skies over the base. He will be honored with a 100 year anniversary ceremony soon, which will perhaps lay his hapless soul to rest...on a slightly different haunted note, 19th century hauntings were serious business and pretty darn interactive too, as Haunted Ohio shows us with this close look at The Hoffman Poltergeist case from 1870. While modern day polts might be satisfied with a little door slamming or picture frame smashing, the unseen force that tormented the Hoffman family was a bit overzealous in its work, throwing rocks and sand, stealing food and clothing and even leaving mysterious written notes around that demanded the frightened family to do ridiculous things.

It just takes a quick look at the news to see that Britian's big cat sightings are still on a steady increase and have been since the late 1970s, as Nick Redfern illustrates as he recounts the creepy big cat sightings from the ever eerie Rendlesham Forest area. The Guardian wonders: Is Britian suffering from mass hysteria? --and hallucinating these big cat sightings, despite the fact the story itself features a 1983 well-documented photo of the "Beast of Bodmin"...Karl Shuker shares a A hiterto-unseen photograph of Ranger-Scotland's (nearly) black lion, an alien big cat who's not afraid to show his big leonine face, mainly because he's locked up in a zoo.

Some of them call it a "living hell' being continuously tormented by the never-ending droning sound that seems to have no visible source. It can be heard night or day and always at the same low frequency that is maddening to the ones who can hear it. Oddly still, the Enviromental Agency ran tests that registered the strange low-pitched sound but could offer no explanation or solution...We can now add Onaway, Michigan to the long list of areas affected by mysterious booming noises from the sky, as a Who Forted reader sends in her firsthand account. As usual, authorities have no idea what's going on and offer up the excuse of local mining, which the witness says has gone on for decades and never produced such a sound before.

We can't really see the shadowy figure but just because we can't see it doesn't mean it's not there. On the other hand, just because some people say they can see it doesn't mean it's there either. What we do see is a pile of boxes falling down some stairs looking exactly as if they were pushed. If there wasn't a cabinet or table obstructing our view directly under the pile of boxes, we'd be a lot more impressed. If this is a genuine bit of ghost activity, it will most likely reoccur in the same area. Ghosts tend to be creatures of habit for the most part and if it's aware it now has an audience, it may give a repeat performance. Of course, this also applies to pranksters of the human sort as well.

Loren Coleman suggests the Bigfoot evidence database should be purged of dubious track casts that are likely faked and says that the typical "hourglass" prints are a good place to start. To give a point of reference, the faked Ray Wallace casts have that familiar hourglass shape...on a related note, MK Davis takes a closer look at stills from the Patty film and examines details of the legs and feet which seem to have become quite a popular subject this week round the Bigfoot researchers' watercooler. Meanwhile, Bigfoot hunter Lee Woods talks to a local Fox news affiliate about his never-ending search for Bigfoot in the North Carolina forests and Finding Bigfoot heads to New Mexico after video reportedly shows Sasquatch near Albuquerque in the Jamez mountains.

We aren't sure what caused these bizarre and disturbing laser-like incisons on this wild boar but it does warrant further investigation. One puzzling fact that strikes us in particular is that the body was left right off a well-traveled trail, meaning someone or something was definitely not attemping to hide it. After that bit of grossness, lets shift gears and look at something rather pleasant for a change--how about a Tylacine made entirely out of pipe cleaners!

Cold Fusion for everyone! Maybe...if the E-Cat can prove itself and steer the world away from petroleum, which sadly is about as likely as relying on Japanese toad magic.

Streetlamp interference is one of those weird urban legend-esque occurances that usually happens to a friend of a friend that you really don't believe to be true until it happens to you and even then maybe not even then. Well, it turns out that it has an official name "SLI" and a database of experiences that includes a how-to for investigating SLI, which may be a naturally occuring phenomenon related to psychokinesis. There is also a great book on the subject entitled SLIDERS: The Enigma of Streetlight Interference (SLI) by Hilary Evans.

The Ancient Ones demand a sacrifice and will take what is owed them in any way they deem neccesary including opening wide the maws of hell itself and swallowing a man and his forklift...or, you know, he just ran over a soft spot in the floor that caved in over the site of an old basement. Sinkholes have become this year's Fortean mystery du jour, with dozens opening up all over the United States and also, the world. View 13 Amazing Sinkholes from all over the world, including the grand-daddy of them all, the Guatemala City "Highway to Hell' that plunges 300 feet deep.

Jay Cooney discusses Carl Olinsolet's new enhancement video that analyises Patty's gait and foot structure in the Patterson-Gimilin film, focusing particularly on her toes. As usual, we find ourselves impressed with Cooney's report and consider him one of the top crypto bloggers out there, sometimes outpacing researchers twice his age...meanwhile, Indonesia extends forest-clearing ban for 2 years which is potentially great news for the Orang Pendek.

Occult View touches on the subject of the will to live. Can we really control it consciously? This Bulgarian tale has the look and feel of an urban legend (from the friend of a friend) and at the ripe old age of 100, it'd be more surprising if he wasn't able to do that. Much more impressive is Jeanne Calment, labeled by Guiness Book of World Records as World's Oldest Person and indisputably still the champion of long living, died at age 122 in 1997. Born in France in 1875, she once had the honor of meeting Vincent Van Gogh although to her, it was less an honor than a chore as she found him "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable." Living past 100 will soon become much less of a novelty and as Dr. Aubrey Grey explains, Living to 150 could soon become a reality and the first person to do so has likely already been born.

Although very weird in appearance, we tend to agree with Who Forted's conclusion that it's a glow in the dark model plane but we have to give kudos to Arthur Solitt's very clear and concise description of his encounter and also his video evidence that lasts more than 3 seconds. Coicidentally, The Age just released a multi-part series called Are We Alone? that focuses on UFO sightings across Australia.

Who or what constructed this sturdy hut out of large tree branches atop a steep hill in the woods of northern Minnesota? Investigator Johnny Bigfoot suspects it was Bigfoot and points out that it's at a perfect vantage point to watch for danger and is only a few yards from a fresh water source. While it's intriguing to consider Bigfoot as the builder of this shelter, humans cannot be ruled out either as it is in a location that is difficult but not impossible for a human to access. Then again, a bit of quick research gives us similar examples which are considered "Sasquatch Nests" in northern California and feature the same use of live trees and also twisted tree markers. More examples were found in very remote locations in Colorado with bent live trees, shelters constructed out of branches and logs and other "Sasquatch Oddities. On an interesting sidenote, some Native American tribes utilized bent live trees as signs or guideposts to mark trails or food and water sources. These Trees Bent By American Indians [Are] Being Identified and Preserved in 39 states, with at least 1,850 of these "living archaeology" trees still standing today, some as old as 300 years. This deepens the mystery as it's impossible not to consider the possibility that Native Americans and Sasquatch may have passed this knowledge between them. The question is, who had the idea first?

io9 shows us that a perfectly rational scientific explanation to one of life's Fortean mysteries-Foxfire--is actually almost as creepy as the numerous paranormal explanations that have cropped up over the centuries. Some foxfire is caused by certain types of fungi, including the honey mushroom which can sometimes cast an eerie green glow over large swaths of forest floor. The most disturbing aspect of foxfire is that although biologists have figured out the source of the light, they still have no idea why. Still, not all mysterious "ghost lights" fit into the foxfire mold, like Will-o-the-wisps (or railroad lights) which have been reported for as long as there have been railroad tracks stretching across the United States and sometimes even before that. Take a look at these Ghost Lights during East Tennessee storm (Foxfire or Railroad Lights). What is the source of these flashes of light and why are they nearly always spotted along railroad routes? Or how about the enduring mystery of the Marfa Lights in Texas or the Brown Mountain Lights in North Carolina? These bizarre Night Orbs continue to defy rational explanation despite the fact many people have claimed to have solved the mystery. A simple mirage of nearby car headlights is always a popular debunking theory but what about in locations (such as Brown Mountain) where the lights predate the existence of cars and even roads? The general consensus is that these ghost lights also have a very natural origin, like foxfire, but is so bizarre that it still defies explanation, making nearly all instances of ghost lights an enduring Fortean mystery for the foreseeable future.

It's beyond ironic that the one place you'd expect near death experiences to be welcome is also the one place the experiences are most strongly opposed and denied. Why? This article touches on some possible theories as to why and as author Lisa Miller explains, "It’s a tough topic for a pastor. If you get too literal, you can risk sounding too silly. If you don’t talk about it, you’re evading one of the most important questions about theology and why people come to church.” Acknowledging NDEs is "too dangerous", she says because it has tremendous power to make a lot of religious folks mad because their old-world views of the afterlife are no longer valid, if, for example, everyone gets into "Heaven" after death as most NDEs overwhelmingly suggest. Just a couple of centuries ago, saving one's soul was often a monetary pursuit with some religions basically allowing you to buy your way into heaven. Some people realized quickly that this also meant that the human soul was a hot commodity and thus the practice of Soul Selling in the the Nineteenth Century gained a certain amount of popularity among shady characters; souls were exchanged for money and the soul supposedly turned directly over to Satan, who apparently worked out of Westminster Abbey in 19th century London.

One of the old chestnuts in anomalistic research is the difference between skepticism and denialism. Everything must be questioned to foster progress on a foundation of answers leading to new questions, part and parcel of healthy skepticism. Deniers fight tooth and nail, maintaining the party line while refusing to ask challenging questions even if their organization's acronym includes the term "inquiry". Beginning with an amusing anecdote featuring James Randi, Stephan A. Schwartz doesn't need to damn the deniers, as they do a fine job on their own with peeks behind the curtain at CSICOP and their advocacy for science without being scientific. "I felt they were simply unqualified to act as judge and jury when they were simply lawyers" best sums up Schwartz's thesis which is certain to spark discussion like the TEDx affair.

Too bad Bigelow doesn't have a handy backronym like "Never A Straight Answer". After watching Sheperd Johnson's interview with Mike Gold, not Big Bob, Alejandro Rojas wonders how deep this hole at Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies goes with Gold's plausible deniability. Shepherd isn't the only one fighting the good fight considering recent headlines regarding the Citizen Hearing On Disclosure. Robert Hastings could smell blood in the water and goes point-by-point why he avoided Bassett's three-ring circus. Just a note to Bob, if you just said 'Lemurian Crystal Headbands' we would've just understood but it wouldn't be as fun as your full opinion. There's plenty more video, this time it's courtesy of J. Maynard Gelinas, with Dr. Eric W. Davis, Of NASA's Breakthrough Physics Propulsion Project, Discussed UFOs During Lecture, with a provocative talk on quantum teleportation, wormholes, among other science fictional tropes alleged to be in use by aliens. More interesting is how Dr. Davis writes off warp drives.

What better way to popularize inquiry into the afterlife by summoning a skeptic? Some of Forrest's buddies say the man who coined the awful term "sci-fi"--it's more appropriate to use "SF" or "skiffy" in an ironic fashion--is eating some crow now as he reaches from beyond to talk with friends. We turn to Lee Speigel with the rest of the story. Far stranger is the exploration of dream, specifically Some Precognitive Dreams. Best part is everyone dreams, even James Randi, and oneirology requires naught but pen, paper, and a good memory. Robert McLuhan thanks Lawrence Brennan for this piece on the synchromystic aspects of dreams, whether influenced from within or without.

Don't be so quick to write these oddities off as digital image artifacts. Greg Newkirk gets some strange mail, usually invective from skeptics, but there are some gems like this piece from 'Iceburg'. Google has one possible explanation for these anomalies, but considering our oceans are the final frontier the possibilities are endless. Best part, you can see for yourself and if several people see the same thing, it must be part of objective reality. So sayeth the grand Malcolm Smith in his treatise upon Phantom Leopards And Collective Hallucinations. Mal seems to take a page from Doc Savage, another from the Book of Mormon, wrapping up with a tale of Arthur Conan Doyle on what it's like to believe something so fervently that it becomes part of the collective consciousness. Such are the claims regarding Time Travellers suggesting the Versailles 'time slip' was a shared hallucination. Not so, says R. Emmett Lee, as the possibilities are endless just like spacetime itself. Magus Lee does not invoke John Titor, instead waxing poetic on the very small but non-zero probability of travelling through time.

Dear Aging Magonians: We are so glad you never get so caught up in your own agenda that you fail to at least grasp what a book is really all about in your reviews. But unfortunately you did in this case--in your review of of Men And Women Of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 2. So we'll let Stephan A. Schwartz provide a comment, which you have yet to approve: "This is a volume of short personal recitations of men and women whose lives have been largely formed by their fascination with the idea that we are more than animated meat, and that consciousness is more than a curiosity of our physicality. The people who wrote these chapters, and in the interest of full disclosure I am one of them, have collectively published hundreds of papers in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, and their books line shelves in many libraries. In scientific writing, the personal plays no role. One rarely knows anything intimate about the men and women behind published studies. It was the purpose of this book to pull back the curtain to reveal exactly the information scientific papers never discuss. Who wrote this paper? What was their worldview? How did they arrive at it? How do they see themselves in the context of the field? What is their view of the work to which they have given their lives?" If you want to delve further into the Life of Psi--we'll give Magonia credit for a good title--you can listen to an interview with Rosemarie Pilkington, the editor of Men And Women Of Parapsychology, Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 2, in this podcast: The Invisible World ep 144.

Rendlesham? Meh, bo-ring. Hopkinsville? Yeah, tell it to the Weekly World News. Here's a sweet story from Silbury Hill, courtesy of Dr. Greg Little, about a group of meddling kids hoping to harsh on some crop circle makers--only to discover they're through the looking glass. The possibility of a demonic association isn't mentioned, but everyone knows the association of sulpur with all things blasphemous and profane.

And they wonder why people refer to those handheld, paper blogs as being part of the "lamestream". Perennial favorite Micah Hanks is at odds with Caitlin Dewey at the WaPo reciting skeptic talking points and calling it an article. Looking deeper at Caitlin's thesis, there's a troubling bias shared by UFO diehards and 'denialists' blinding them to the possibilities. One can forgive this folly, unlike someone raising two million dollars then having the audacity to charge folks $10 to watch his documentary on free energy conspiracies sprinkled with references to reverse-engineered UFO tech. If you haven't caught the gist, Mark OC would argue with anyone claiming Sirius As The Greatest UFO Documentary Ever can only be Steven Greer.

Richard Feynman once proposed there's only one electron in the universe. Great minds think alike, as Loren Coleman expounds upon the fact there aren't that many unique sasquatch prints out there. Caveat emptor, sayeth the grand poobah of cryptozoology, for that print cast you're buying may be a copy of a copy of a copy and Loren gives tips for sussing out the skullduggery. Finding, or buying, footprints is one issue, yet no one has brought forth a viable specimen for study. Leave it to Nick Redfern to think outside of the box, considering the confusion from the confluence of Creepy Creatures And Strange Sights. If you accept the challenge to find the strange in the midst of strange, Mark OC wants to share a story about The Thing In The Tree. Someone posted an encounter with Mothman's mentally challenged cousin hoping someone would investigate, except clues in the report suggest there are reasons to be skeptical. Can you spot them?

There's a large gap between simple 'woo' and maverick science. Consider Rupert Sheldrake, compare his contributions to the work of Commander X to appreciate the divide. It's why we're happy to announce the newest issue of EdgeScience is available and the price is right, free. What can you expect of this issue? Our buddy Michael Prescott reviews the groundbreaking The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Robert van de Castle explores the connections between dreams and psi, and David Pratt details the troubles of plate tectonics theory. Challenging and provocative ideas are what fuel scientific progress, and The Society for Scientific Exploration does a bang-up job.

Long ago, Bill Watterson wrote Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'. Riffing on the theme, Maggie Koerth-Baker believes it should go 'Boing Boing'. These nutty onomatopoeias disarm people, opening their minds to new ideas. After all, some paths in pathology may not have been readily explored until someone had a bit of a giggle in the laboratory.

The issue of replicability has become quite a spectacle lately. Sometimes it's due to fraud, often an investigator gets lucky, but methodology remains key in the outcome of a study. David Funder's opinion is helpful for mainstream and maverick researchers alike, deserving another look even by the laity. For example, there are Explanations That Don't Explain. Take when scientists say "it's likely", when they're accepting a model rather than testing it. Mel Acheson provides a succinct example of scientific dogmatism certain to spark some debate. Another instance regards gravitational singularities expressing their Black Hunger. Subject to much speculation, despite mountains of data, there's more circular reasoning than actual cogitation among investigators.

It seems that the alleged PA Bigfoot shooting turned out to be a whole lot of nuthin'-the prints were bear tracks, no helicopters were sent out to retrieve a body because as authorities confirm, there was no body to recover, Bigfoot or otherwise. It's still a mystery as to where and how the whole story got started. It does not seem to be an intentional hoax but rather a case of garbled ham radio messages perhaps. Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society did an outstanding job on this case and left us very impressed. Hopefully, when a real Bigfoot turns up it'll be in their neck of the woods...Meanwhile, Glasgow Boy delves into sort of mistaken identity with historical evidence of the possible presence of Dolphins or Porpoises in Loch Ness which could have been the cause of at least a few Nessie sightings.

Micah Hanks breaches the subject of Richard French, the 83 year old former military man who turned up at the Citizen Hearing for Disclosure to testify and claims he worked on Project Blue Book. His background story turns out to be almost as bizarre as some of the UFO cases he says he worked on. Well-worth a read. And here's a weird case that surely rivals any brought up at the Hearings-Orange Fireballs and Little People in England—the Incredible 1994 UFO-Humanoid Case at Silbury Hill which involved tiny humanoid piloting flying triangle shaped craft that hoevred around some very surprised hikers late one night.

The FOIA allows anyone to gain access to UFO files which were once classified and now available to the public but while this may make the goverment seem transparent, it's an illusion. Common sense indicates if there's something the government doesn't want us to know, we're not going to find out via filling out a form and requesting information. Speaking of common sense...or lack of it, a local news station asks, what's Really Under Denver International Airport? With the walls covered in bizarre artwork and symbols and the airport shrouded in numerous conspiracy theories, it's not hard to imagine an underground base full of aliens beneath the denver Airportd. Really, really stupid aliens, that is, because of all the places in the world to build an underground base, a huge international airport with worldwide recognition as one of the weirdest places in the United States is the logical choice.

Yep, those are weird alright but of totally terrestrial origin. Sometimes nature can conjure up some pretty odd things, living or nonliving, that would give any weird alien race a run for its money. For example, slimy, pulsating Bryozoans resemble nothing less than giant floating brains underwater while the simple act of Mercury(II) thiocyanate decomposition looks like some multi-tentacle beast emerging from the depths of hell after being summoned by Chthulu.

We know just as much (or rather, as little) as everyone else does at this point. All we can do is gather the news as it comes in and try to put together the pieces. So far, all that is known is that a ham radio operator overheard a report on a police scanner regarding a hunter shooting a "Bigfoot" in Somerset. Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society is investigating and issuing frequent updates online. However, some believe that this report of a turkey hunter shot in Wisconsin in Somerset Township may have been confused with the more recent report. It's hard to believe an April 30th news item would be so easily confused with a mid-May story, though. Eric Altman of the PBA says they've conferred with local authorities and will release a statement today, hopefully clearing up all the confusion.

Canada has its fair share of hauntings and ghostly legends, especially in Alberta where apparitions abound, from a ghostly bride who reenacts her fatal fall down a flight of stairs to victims of a landslide who still roam the place of their death...Across the pond in England, Boggarts, ghost dogs and secret passages are just a few examples of the hauntings that take place in Leeds. Beachcombing gives us a historical perspective on the legend of boggarts, specifically the boggarts of Royde and Royd. Over in London, yet another cctv ghost video emerges from a Community Center security camera, that seems to show a ghostly man walking through an outside door and railing and then vanishing. Either it's a slow news week there or some people aren't aquainted with the whole "reflection in glass" concept...

Did the MI5 investigate crop circles as part of their investigation into Nazi spys during World War II? It sure seems that way, as Nick Redfern explains how MI5 looked into what they called "ground markings" in crop fields. Meanwhile, a less than impressive crop circle appears in rural Tennessee that seems to have been constructed hastily and sloppily with uneven edges. Either the usual aliens in charge of crop circle formation were on vacation or this is a poorly executed hoax.

"Things have gotten a little weird," says Who Forted regarding the strange goings-on in the small town of Quincy, Massachusetts that is being plagued by UFOs leaving behind a terrible stench, which even a enviromental professor says is "abnormal". The FAA's official statement? "We have to be very careful this time." Wha? In other unidentified flying news, a blogger claims that a UFO Sighted Over Air Force One While Landing In Costa Rica, China UFO identified as a research rocket and UFO Iconoclasts think they know What Lonnie Zamora saw in Socorro 1964 (perhaps).

3D mapping may have finally pinpointed the exact location of the elusive and legendary "White City" that explorers have searched for over the past 500 years with no luck. And over on the Biggest Study, the Professor has unearthed yet another unexplained mystery of archaeology: the Shensi Pyramids of China. He shares some intriging photos and tells the tales of Pot-Pourri: Pyramids, Monks, and Reality Chunks (and teaches us a new word along the way.)