Two especially notable items for the end of the week, beginning with Micah Hanks talking sense about the "drone dilemma" and counterintelligence. Micah "puts a bow" on whether Matthew Livelsberger's reputed anti-gravity information was actually from the "Cybertruck bomber," then launches into more interesting results in an update about his (Micah's) own UAP Reporting System. At podcast end, Micah returns to the Livelsberger conundrum. Hanks also mentions collaborations with Dr. Beatriz Villarroel, whose "Civilian Astronomers' Guide to UAP Research" was given at the Sol Symposium 2024 in San Francisco on November 23rd. Beginning with telling examples of the "UFO stigma," Dr. Villarroel follows with a multi-student UFO observation at a school in 1964 that included her current coauthor on a new academic paper. As has Dr. Mike Cifone recently, Dr. Villarroel emphasizes the value of applying traditional "hypothesis-driven science" to UFOs/UAP. She also wishes for an organized Institute that would foster searches for anomalous artifacts ("ooparts"?) in all earthly and closely-surrounding environments. What's more, Dr. Villarroel presents the "European Crash Retrieval Initiative" she and others have formed along these lines. And towards presentation's end, Dr. Villarroel introduces the challenging concept of "The 'Neuorointerface' Probe," and also the "ExoProbe Project," which is beginning in New Mexico to deploy a global telescope network to look for signatures of UFOs. (WM)

It never ceases to amaze us that some of the strangest stuff on the planet isn't supernatural or alien, but is naturally occurring, homegrown weird. For example, luminosity in some bird species has been mentioned throughout history, going back as far as the mid 20s AD. In more recent times, in some rural areas it's traditionally believed that owls glow. In somewhat more recent times, in 1555 the first treatise on luminescence in birds was written by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gesner, entitled De Lunariis. 1647 saw a three volume work on luminescent animals published, De Luce Animalium, with the "third volume devoted entirely to glowing birds," both real and mythical. So it would seem that glowing birds are a naturally occurring phenomenon. By the way, the title of Anomalist Editor Patrick Huyghe's first book is Glowing Birds: Stories from the Edge of Science, the title story based on the work of the late William Corliss. (CM)

Ryan Whalen looks at new research by geophysicists from Tel Aviv University and an archaeologist at Ben-Gurion University investigating the megalithic structure known as Gilgal Refa’im (Wheel of Ghosts), located on the Golan Heights. The circular Bronze Age structure is thought to date from between 4,500 – 2,300 BCE. The research wound back both the movements of the monument itself due to geophysical forces and the progression of celestial phenomena over the intervening 5,000 years or so, showing that there were no significant celestial alignments to the structure. Although the Wheel’s purpose remains obscure, the research also discovered numerous other structures in the wider area, which will be the basis for future archaeological investigations. Also at The Debrief, Micah Hanks reports on another enduring mystery: Dark Energy Doesn’t Exist, Proponents of Controversial New ‘Timescape’ Theory Claim . Research led by Professor David Wiltshire from University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, casts doubt on the existence of dark energy. The new 'Timescape' model of the cosmos suggests an explanation for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe without the need to postulate the existence of the mysterious 'dark energy.' Instead, based upon evidence from the curvature of light caused by supernovae, the new model relies on the lumpy distribution of matter, associated gravitational force, and its effect on time to explain the observed expansion of the universe. (JS)

Articles about some of the biggest mysteries of the earliest stages of the human journey. Trinity College's Linda Ongaro considers the very-popular but ill-known Denisovans. Through genetic studies, the complex Denisovan pre-history is emerging, explaining particular benefits to modern peoples' health. More data and sharper research tools are needed in this quest for the past, towards which Ongaro and a colleague co-published "a paper collating everything we know so far." That's A History of Multiple Denisovan Introgression Events in Modern Humans. Next: Ruth Schuster and The Elephants in the Room: Human Evolution News That Surprised Us in 2024. Ruth offers short summaries of ten "surprises" with links to more information on them. One of those links leads us to Ruth's New Studies Change Our Understanding of Our Meeting With Neanderthals. This article not only shares its lead illustration with Ruth's other contribution; it hones down on some specifics behind our genetic debts to the populations covered in both prior articles. And for the entire parade we've seen only in part, the University of Liverpool's John Gowlett ambitiously gives us The Whole Story of Human Evolution-From Ancient Apes Via Lucy to Us-In One Long Read. Wow! (WM)

This video taken by a security camera at the Clevedon Cricket Club in Somerset, England, shows what appears to be an orb and a ghostly bartender cleaning up after hours. We're a bit skeptical over here—we think it may be a dust mote and the actual bartender, but it's still a nicely eerie video and you should check it out for yourselves. Next up is an Invisibility Cloak Caught on Ring Camera. Or is it? Granted it does look somewhat like a floating head and a pair of feet with nothing else in between. But one of our favorite words is Pareidolia and we're going to say it about this image. (CM)

President & Acting Executive Director|Co-founder of the Society for UAP Studies Mike Cifone explains his considerable hiatus from his blog—much of it stemming from the duties at SUAPS. Mike also ruminates upon ufology's Basic Problems, which not only hinder understanding the assuredly-real phenomenon, but how to communicate those understandings intelligibly to the Outside World. The need for (and barriers to) study outside of the government/military are scrutinized. And a lack of really good data and research into the larger phenomenon, as Mike laments, invite such responses as the "Disclosure" rage. Next, Keith Basterfield reports on the virtual Shoshin Works Seminar - 17 January 2025 during which Hal Puthoff, former NASA official and Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team member Mike Gold, Ryan Graves, and others spoke. Keith has some of the highlights. (WM)

Adam Callier observes that "viral clips of supposed alien and UFO encounters look like they've been filmed through the technology equivalent of a potato." But his "alien expert" Jeremy Corbell often sees "top secret content that nobody else should see." Next, in NewsNation's Engineer Tedesco Brothers Use Retrofitted RV to Track UAPs, the brothers' "Nightcrawler rolling lab" supplements a specialized camera with numerous other sensors. Türkiye Today reports an Investigation Underway After UFO Vanishes from Radar in Kastamonu, Türkiye. No associated "spudlike" camera imagery we know of, but the "extensive response from local and national authorities" there is impressive. California's Fox26News headlines UFO Sightings Spark Intrigue Over Fresno Skies. Its "spudniks" nonetheless intrigue a local MUFON investigator, as he rightly explains. And the Boise, Idaho, area's KXLT-FM has clips as Two Boise ID Area Witnesses Share UFO Videos Days Apart. The first video's associated story is more interesting than its "murphy" (look it up!) footage. Unfortunately, the link for the January 10th footage is now labelled private. (WM)

One of our standard UFO podcasts gets a nod from a local news source. Hosted by Ontarian Michael Ryan with Regina's own Christine Scott as Commentator and often book reviewer, the weekly UFO Talker podcast is the subject of Shaylee Modien's Regina Leader-Post article. Michael has procured a trove of documents from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police archives. It contains more information than public about major Canadian UFO cases, and often data on lesser-known (or not even publicly known) cases. Their January 8th podcast is entitled The MacGregor Manitoba Encounter: The Canadian Military and RCMP Involved in Witness Account of Being Less Than 50 Feet From a Humanoid and UFO. The 1970 encounter ran approximately two hours, had an "intermission" in which the reporting witness transported a companion away from its first episode, featured a 4-foot-tall, helmeted humanoid, and apparently created confusion within the military and the police. The next UFO Talker presentation concerns a 45-minute, 1971 multiple-witness Manitoba case. The Highway 6 UFO Mystery is also detail-rich and features a "constant humming sound" from a sizable lighted spinning object, which ended up following the witnesses' vehicle for about 30-40 miles. Both feature Michael and Christine reading from the original reports and eyewitness statements. (WM)

We've just gotten past Blue Monday 2025. (The bleakest day of the year is a thing.) Time for something uplifting. This first report goes back in time to the Vietnam war, where a soldier and his platoon were enduring enemy fire. A voice that only he could hear kept urging him to move further and further back into the overcrowded bunker, and he heeded the directions with just seconds to spare. In a similar vein, we have the Tale of a Small Miracle by philosopher Michael Grosso. A snowstorm and a faulty house key set the scene for this story. Locked out of his own house in the depths of wintery weather, Grosso tried repeatedly to open his front door with his key. Finally resigning himself to a night spent in his car, he tried the key one more time... and this time it worked. Even the locksmith who came later to check the lock and provide additional keys neglected to bill him. Another Guardian Angel intervention? (CM)

Well, he probably has the best chance of any Nessie-seeker. Professor Neil Gemmell hit the headlines a few years ago for pioneering eDNA sampling, which examined water from Loch Ness and confirmed the existence of many species, but no reptilians. Though Gemmell doubts that the most likely candidate for Nessie—a giant eel species—lives in the Loch, he continues to refine and expand his ground-breaking research which at least may "help conservationists understand the biodiversity of ecosystems around the world." Setting aside logic and science, the Mirror reports a Loch Ness Monster Breakthrough as Mystery '20Ft-Long Creature' Pictured Moving in Water. Relying on comments from Facebook and accompanied by blurry images, no "breakthrough" is evident. (LP)

Michael Rosenwald reports on the death of Peter Fenwick on November 22, 2024. Dr Fenwick graduated with a medical degree from Cambridge University and pursued a career in neuropsychiatry, researching amongst other things epilepsy, dreams, sleepwalking, and mediation. He was initially skeptical of the claims of survival after death in Raymond Moody’s groundbreaking work Life After Life but went on to study the phenomenon of NDEs in detail, becoming convinced of their veracity. Dr Fenwick was a founding member of the International Association for Near-Death Studies. When asked about his own death Dr Fenwick commented, “I’m looking forward to it.”  Another Cambridge graduate and eminent researcher of the paranormal Dr. Alan Gauld passed away a month later, on December 23, 2024, according to the SPR website. Gauld was a reader in psychology at the University of Nottingham, teaching primarily biological psychology and neuropsychology. He was interested in the mysterious and uncanny from a young age, and became a leading light in the Cambridge University Society for Psychical Research. Later he joined the SPR acting as its president between 1989 and 1992. His paranormal research interests lay in hauntings, poltergeists, and mediumship. He was a prolific writer on the subject and possibly his best known work is the highly regarded Mediumship and Survival. (JS)

Billy Cox remembers the late Jimmy Carter's varied legacies. Disappointments following Carter's failed campaign promise and an apparent change in now-outgoing NASA Administrator Bill Nelson's UFO positions are set against the Voyager initiative under that "last American president whose armed forces never fired a shot or dropped a bomb." Curt Collins has more on UFOs and Government in The UFO Disclosure That Was Silenced. Curt focuses upon the infamous January 22, 1958 Armstrong Circle Theater TV broadcast "UFO: Enigma of the Skies," during which retired Marine Major Donald E. Keyhoe was "silenced." For the biography of this towering figure in the early days of ufology we strongly recommend Anomalist News Editor Linda Powell's Against the Odds: Major Donald E. Keyhoe and His Battle to End UFO Secrecy, published by Anomalist Books, which Curt references. But is there historical context much longer ago and farther away than Jimmy Carter and Donald Keyhoe? Did People Report Seeing UFOs Before the 20th Century?, asks LiveScience's Elana Spivack. It matters what one terms a "UFO" and the cultural context of the times, as Dr. Greg Eghigian and Chris Aubeck point out. (WM)

In another Close Encounter of the TV Interview kind, Ross Coulthart introduces a man claiming he towed by helicopter a grounded UAP. What's more, Jacob Barber says he hauled not only the "egg-type" craft that have recently become more "newsy," but also an eight-sectioned disc, which he called an "eightgon," during which he felt it communicated with him. And the information gets even more eyebrow-raising in this video. Ross worked on this story for two years, vetting Barber's extensive record, getting character witnesses, some of them also first-hand participants; confirming that Barber has already talked with Senator and likely-upcoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio's staffers; and following Barber's path towards publicly testifying before Congress. Initial reactions vary, as Lauren Acton-Taylor says the Internet Divides As 'Egg' UFO Retrieval Video Airs on TVNewsNation Offers New UFO "Crash Retrieval" Story. The other ballyhooed Saturday UFO-related presentation had Kelly Chase hosting a Rare Multi-Subreddit AMA with Leslie Kean, Dr. Garry Nolan, Dr. Hal Puthoff, and Dr. Jim Segala. The "open-ended" conversation about Things UFO from the participants' own wheelhouses also touched upon the NewsNation offering. (WM)

November 2020, a sudden freak wave lifts a buoy off the coast of British Columbia 58 feet high. Fourteen months later it was confirmed as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded at the time. These rogue waves were considered folklore until 1995 when a 85 foot wave suddenly struck an oil-drilling platform off the coast of Norway. Our interest in rogue waves was sparked in the summer of 1992 when we looked into the The Daytona Beach Mystery Wave that suddenly swamped hundreds of parked cars and injured 75 people at the "World's Most Famous Beach." Was this the result of a freak weather event or due to the impact of an extraterrestrial object? Read on for a truly amazing story. (PH)

Just outside Melbourne are a series of manmade "earth rings." Science is just now beginning to understand the significance of these structures, which also exist in England, Amazonia, and Cambodia. They are "understood to represent secret and sacred locations of initiation and ceremony for different Aboriginal language groups," although many were destroyed during colonization. In other "mystery" news, Scientists Unravel Origins of Mysterious White Patch Appearing Near the Northern Lights. Researchers at the U of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, have determined the whitish grey patch is actually a heat source, suggesting there's more to the Northern Lights than originally thought. The research team's work was inspired by interest in continuum emission, "after the discovery of the stunning, glowing purple ribbon of light known as the Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, or STEVE." (CM)