Old news? Yes. What's new is Chris Smith from New Jersey's 4th district is calling for an investigation into the matter. Why? He read Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons, and Aristos Georgiou outlines the case being built for these accusations against the military-industrial complex. Hopefully this opens the door to another investigation of the various hums from around this great Republic. Garrett Harkawik does his berry best to describe The Unexplained Noise 2 Percent of People Can Hear. (CS)

After we covered Brent Swancer's piece on Indian vampires, it feels a bit suspicious Brett Tingley's picking up on these mutilation cases. Nobody's safe, and we're obliged to warn that Brett's sharing some images that could be distressing to some people. Speaking of livestock, Beth Hale shares a ray of sunshine leaving the world wondering, "Is Mad Cow Disease Set To Strike Again? Veterinarians are taking note, and they can illustrate what numbers are concerning. (CS)

How long have H. sapiens been in Europe? Longer than anthropologists expected, and Ed Yong uncovers the thorny issues that arise from our extended lineage and interactions with our beetle-browed cousins. And boy howdy, together they were quite a randy lot. Speaking of origins and evolution, Micah Hanks has been wondering if Some Animals Can Communicate Using Radio Waves. Science has already demonstrated mammals and birds are sensitive to magnetic waves, so why not radio? In fact there are a couple of bunnies who have a thing or two to show us clever apes. Might this be a portent of things to come with The Weird Future Of Life On Earth and strange evolution? Going beyond the works of Dougal Dixon and Patricia Brennan, Mico Tatalovic illustrates how the future is wild. (CS)

Folks dismiss telepathy as woo-woo, but there's an empirical basis writes Maureen Seaberg. It all boils down to mirror touch neurons, brain scanning monkeys, and a bunch of plucky STEM students from Staten Island who aren't afraid of asking tough questions avoided by tenured professionals. If you don't have access to high tech equipment found only in hospitals and at universities, there's a low-fi solution to consider: poetic confluences. It's when thoughts and phenomena aren't interpreted literally but symbolically, playful puns intended to nudge the conscious half into an epiphany. Despite the necessarily academic title of Etzel Cardeña's thesis, "Mind Leaks: A Commentary on Wooffitt's Poetic Confluence: A Sociological Analysis Of An Enigmatic Moment, the concepts are deceptively simple but illustrate the potential within our minds. (CS)

If you thought curry, blue-skinned gods, Buddhism and vimanas were the only products of India, then Brent Swancer wants you to think again. Far from the effete, aristocratic H. sanguinus from Europe's dark forests, India's vampires as varied as they are insanely unreal. Should you a desire to Carry On Vamping through this brutal heatwave, Lynn Picknett's uncovered a treasure trove of vampire psychology, folklore, and high strangeness in Richard Sugg's The Real Vampires. Who knew there was so much depth in death? (CS)

Everyone's talking about quantum entanglement, modelling it with esoteric maths, but it's taken decades to finally catch two particles in the act. We're just astonished the SETI Institute, rather than CERN or MIT, snapped this image. With that in mind, Dana Miller explores the possibilities for communication. Perhaps over stellar or galactic distances. Not weird enough? Jake Anderson's crowing about how Scientists Now Believe Quantum Entanglement May Apply To Time Itself. Not so shocking to adherents of Eric Wargo and his Time Loops, but we're pleased as punch to discover the growing acceptance of these maverick concepts by the mainstream. Gaining momentum, consider Massimo Teodorani's Dreams Of Non-Linear Time with an inspired thesis on the transcendence of consciousness, mingled with physics, turning a phenomenon into an empirical possibility. (CS)

Everyone had suspicions, especially Tim Binnall, but the cat's out of Schroedinger's box and she's not dead. Bask in the schadenfreud of Denis "Noah" Bel as he spills the beans on YouTube's longest-running prank in excruciating detail. Not one to be scooped, but Paul Seaburn has the last word when it comes to the Famous Time Traveler Revealing It Was All A Hoax. If it was all a hoax, then why the death threats? (CS)

For cryptozoologists, it can be hard to maintain positivity in the face of hoaxes, tainted witness testimony, and the general perception that people claiming to see Bigfoot are either lying or flat out nuts. Take heart in the content of this post then, which discusses the care with which possible Hairy Man encounters are handled, right down to how to approach witnesses. Maybe the BFRO could help with this next case: Australian Woman Spots Eerie Entity Lurking Alongside a Trio of Yowies? It strikes us as rather unbalanced that folks can jump to the conclusion that an "entity" is demonic, then look at a claim of seeing a possible Yowie and declare it a possum. Hello? Does anyone else see a lack of consistent investigation here? Anyone? (CM)

Were this the 1960s, a popular song would already be out about the upcoming "invasion" of Area 51 by a supposed million zealots. In this day and age, it's a wonder someone has not seized upon the proposed mass movement as an intelligence-planted "distraction" from the real news of late. Or maybe that conspiracy theory has already been hatched. Kevin Randle makes no bones about the harm he sees the "invasion" is doing to sensible ufology, and his dialogue with Rob McConnell is full of good sense and informed opinion. Crystal Ro continues the informing with the nicely illustrated 19 Facts About Area 51 That Will Make You Say, "OK There's Definitely Something Weird Going On Here". Micah Hanks expands nicely upon some of Ro's list with Area 51, America's Most Secretive Government Installation, Was Never All That Secret. And the Virgin Galactic CEO doesn't want to encourage anyone to think there is any ET technology to be seen at Area 51 anyway, as Tim Binnall headlines Richard Branson on UFOs Being Aliens Visiting Earth: 'Extremely Unlikely'. Finally Blair Mackenzie Blake's Dirt Roads To Dreamland: 51 Trips to Area 51 closes with a personal memoir full of interesting tidbits of fact and experientially-informed speculation. Reading these is probably the better way to "visit" Area 51. (WM)

The video to this first of three Inexplicata articles cries out for a daytime pan of the same area, considering the text's notation about that Pachuca suburb's "highest number of TY and radio antennas." Mexico: Another Alleged UFO Entering the Popocatepetl Crater lists a video that actually shows three different events. A ways down the "Comments" to the linked video is a July 11 ufoofinterest.org entry listing explanations for all three. The crowning article Argentina: "Cerrillos Is an Alien Base" - A Widespread Belief in the 80s tells a remarkable story of paranoia, media contagion, and a tobacco plantation that became haunted by dress-up myth-spreaders, featuring kids and a rock group. It could have become the focus of a sociological study, or maybe even a production in the manner of Stranger Things or even E.T. The Extra-terrestrial. (WM)

Rich Reynolds interprets the findings of J. Bradley Wigger's book Invisible Companions in the light of Spanish journalist Jose Antonio Caravaca's "Distortion Theory" regarding UFO and other paranormal experiences. Commenters note a soft point in Jose's theory, in relation to multiple instrumented/human tandem UFO observations. Also, trace cases require invocation of a controversial psychic materially creative process. Relevant to this discussion is the excellent little volume Rich profiles in Brit Academic David Clarke's Interesting UFO Book. Key to the Distortion Theory is a sort of co-creative process involving a postulated "external agent," whose origins, makeup, and process are ambiguously understood. Jose Caravaca Corrects My Inclination to Make his Distortion Theory into a Purposeful Effort by a Personified "External Agent" represents Jose's latest attempt to clarify this pivotal aspect of his interesting work. Elevating the conversation even further, The First "Reality is a Simulation" Theory: Plato's Cave applies the thinking of a favorite ancient philosopher to shake up traditional "nuts-and-bolts" guesses for UFO origins. (WM)

The core mystery of Naval FA/18/UFO encounters continues creating peripheral news and commentary. One remark stands out in Seth Shostak's listing of the usual general skeptical claims and occasional snide, if rather tepid, remarks about "the UFO crowd" and "Disclosure": their "seemingly giving up on proving their own case and hoping that the feds will do their work for them." Brett Tingley offers his own reasons for who's to blame for that feeling at SETI Senior Astronomer Calls the UFO Disclosure Movement 'Sad'. Not sad is the noteworthy interview with Sean Cahill, Navy UFO Encounter and Guadalupe Island Investigation -- July 16, 2019. Cahill was peripherally involved in the 2004 Nimitz encounters, and here tells of his subsequent life and recent experiences with the TTSA group and the Unidentified tv series. (WM)

Here's some brain candy for both the ghost geeks and the socio-cultural nerds. (We see you out there.) A group of researchers examined data from the past 15 years and developed a model that explains why we find All Things Ghostly so darn palatable. VAPUS, if you are wondering, stands for Versatility, Adaptability, Participatory Nature, Universality, and Scalability. One take-away: "Paranormal themes have certain qualities that ensure that they remain culturally popular, influential, and lucrative." Lucrative? Maybe to the one percent. But if you doubt the picture painted by the VAPUS model, we dare you not to read Alton, Illinois – The Most Haunted Small Town In America. Want a veritable tour guide for a summer road trip? Want to simply quench your thirst for reports of spooky activity in the US? Go ahead, indulge. (CM)

Profiting from work towards his just-published Flying Saucers from the Kremlin: UFOs, Russian Meddling, Soviet Spies & Cold War Secrets, Nick Redfern tells a fascinating and troubling story about a claim by a shadowy character regarding Soviet penetration of "every civilian saucer club in the [1950s] United States." In Cold War Spying on UFO Researchers Nick shows how that infiltration methodology was exactly what Australian Intelligence was using against its own homegrown UFO groups! Underpinning both the US and Australian instances was legitimate concern about an internal Communist threat, as demonstrated in Nick's new tome. Nick references the Australian case and a whole lot more about the 1950s Contactee movement when he joins Paracasters Gene Steinberg and Randall Murphy at Nick Redfern. Searching The Paperwork also concerns another recent publication, Inside the Black Vault; The Government's UFO Secrets Revealed. Jenny Randles' tepid review of this John Greenewald, Jr. book suggests its author tries to wring too much out of a confused hodgepodge of primary source material. (WM)

Some early UFOs, Old World and New... Could the producers of Episode 2 of the tv series Project Blue Book really have been onto something when they latched on to the "owl" explanation for the Flatwoods Monster? Shane Cochrane may have you wondering in this lead article. Fast forward 44 years from Northern Ireland to 1947: Argentina's First UFO Sighting. Scott Corrales translates a newspaper article from the dawn of the modern UFO era, providing a glimpse of the excitement that coursed over the world at the time. Scott continues this education with Argentina: Another Newspaper Reports the July 1947 Sighting in La Plata. This post expands the UFO wave accounts to specific European events and trots out afresh, as it were, the usual, now-timeworn "explanations." (WM)

Jason Colavito steps away from his archaeological wheelhouse to surface some unsettling news. Cutting through the inflated rhetoric, there are real concerns. A look at the emails in question sends one first to Richard Dolan's Update on Kit Green Interview and then to waiting for the next developments in what is still a sideshow that distracts from the core questions raised by the AATIP program and the Naval/UFO encounters. Danny Silva, or rather TTSA members and Naval pilots, have something to say on that score in Different UFO Shapes; Different Functions. One wonders what led "many within the [AATIP] organization" to conclude "that the shape of the craft was a result of the function of the craft." Against the background of an increasingly divisive current UFO debate, which may be as much a mirror of the times as it is distinctive of ufology, Kevin Randle talks with a programmatically skeptical figure in Robert Sheaffer and Unidentified. The affable Sheaffer and Kevin point out various weaknesses in alternative explanations for some UFO cases, but Sheaffer disappoints with a fallback of "hoax by witness" as seemingly the only residue and refuge for explanations when other alternatives fail to persuade. Sometimes ambiguity has to be tolerated. (WM)

A farm field in the UK has recently become the favorite target of crop circle artists--human or otherwise. Making the best of a frustrating situation, the field's owner has partnered with a group that can't get enough of this sort of thing and has been charging a fee to anyone wanting to come take a peek. How very Enterprising. Meanwhile, the French Crop Circle Flap Continues with Five More Formations Found. But don't start dusting off your old "Signs" dvds hoping for clues, because at least one looks like a commercial stunt and another is the work of a geometry class gone wild. Now that's a Sign of a good teacher. (CM)

A UFO and cryptozoological researcher for 60 years, Stan Gordon features interesting and substantive anomalies cases on his website. This one's a doozy--especially in its animals confused and/or out-of-place component at the end, a very weird wrinkle, reminiscent of a Michigan case some years back. Then there's an ongoing anomaly in The Mysterious Spook Light of Arkansas, reported upon by Brent Swancer. This bit of local color has, perhaps fittingly, a ghastly tale of human inhumanity attached to it, but the physical oddity seems a local expression of Mystery Lights found in many U.S. locations. We got a kick out of Tim Binnall's title Odd UFO Spotted Over Tucson, because it would seem that UFOs come by their "oddness" naturally--all UFOs are "odd" by definition. Apparently what the witness was able to capture on film wasn't the full extent of what he'd seen. But it got the local newsfolk discussing whether their city and state was one of the biggest sightings producers, a theme that's being picked up nationwide, now with the assistance of solid statistics. Chris Ciaccia's Washington, Montana, Vermont Top List for Most UFO Sightings is just the latest in predominately straightforward mainstream news articles on the matter. (WM)

Sometimes it pays to be a bit on the Woo side of things. For example, as the freelance job market continues to grow, it's "employees" often suffer from poor wages and high user fees,  while some traditional business models are sinking from the excessive competition in their respective niches. But for the self-employed offering psychic services, the market has been cracked wide open, limited only by the balances in the digital and actual wallets of their clients. Then in New York, Paranormal Society’s Manhattan Townhouse Lists for $17.9 Million. The historic building is a beautiful piece of architecture, so why are they selling? The Society claims it has no need of so much space, but we'd like to recommend any potential buyers hire themselves a Professional just to ensure there are no current invisible residents. Caveat Emptor and all that. (CM)

A woman in Australia uprooted her family after learning the farm they had moved to was allegedly home to a Yowie--one that kept watch whenever they used the outside loo. (Ick!)  The creature is rumored to be drawn to single mothers with children, so this lady decided enough was enough, packed up the family, and moved. Hopefully she didn't also sign a Hairy Cryptid waiver when she signed the lease. Still, for others the Search For Bigfoot Draws Upon Deepest Instinct of Endless Possibilities . This post briefly documents one woman's vacation/quest to encounter Sasquatch (hopefully from a safe distance), recording tree knocks and howls while camping in the Adirondacks of New York state. Sounds a little like some recent vacations by Anomalist staffers. (CM)

Sequoyah Kennedy puzzles over a short video featuring two nondescript blobs of light. He may be more interested in the setting of the footage, as "the [US] national parks are all hotbeds of paranormal activity from UFOs to the Missing 411 cases and everything in between." That caught our attention in light of Jocelyne LeBlanc's UFO Expert Warns People Against Trying To Contact Aliens. Whatever one thinks of Derrel Sims' stories, there are cogent reasons for approaching the matter of possible Contact, be it on an individual event level or whole species to species, with some circumspection. But if you just want to go and see some UFOs, Paul Seaburn has a whole country for you. Paul's UFOs Spotted over Concepcion, Chile, Resemble Foo Fighters wrestles with explanations for video footage as did Sequoyah's post, and adds information about "the best place in the world to see UFOs." This is expanded upon in Ufology in Chile: The Best Destinations for the Sighting of UFOs by Chile Travel. Just don't hail them! (WM)

Being a Canadian kind of rocks: We have a reputation for politeness. We turned the lowly, bland potato into a gravy and curd-laden, artery-constricting loveliness known as poutine. And when we go over the deep end you'd best stand back because we are going to make one heck of a splash. So it's not the least bit surprising that the first chiropractor was an egocentric Canadian loon who was peddling some decent healthcare mixed in a 50 gallon drum of snake oil. (This was all before the metric system.) Yet in spite of undiagnosed Narcissistic Personality Disorder, he was on the right track. When Researchers Listen To People Who Hear Voices, really listen without tittering to themselves about madness and quacks, they can learn a lot about how the brains of those suffering from schizophrenia produce auditory hallucinations. It turns out that those who perceive hearing voices as a positive experience, like psychics and spiritualists, have similar brain activity to a schizophrenic "hearing" terrible voices.  Research continues in the hope of reframing a debilitating illness, allowing those tortured by internal voices to take control and gain some of their life back. (CM)

Well, with numbers indicating interest now above 700,000 and an Air Force spokeswoman basically making threatening noises, this whole "naruto overrun" of the Area 51 border is losing some of its fun. Reporter Janita Kan helpfully provides background and links to released CIA documents on UFO history. Tom Demerly asks What Would Happen if Thousands of People Really Did "Storm Area 51"? Demerly provides two kinds of answers: a potpourri of distance, terrain, fitness, logistical, and environmental issues that sound theoretical but have solid backgrounds in reality, and a real case of folks who unknowingly did "cross the line." A person who knowingly penetrated the security of the region recently was shot. Much more sensible and useful responses to the current sensations are typified by Robert A. Cronkleton's Recent UFO Sightings Will be Topic of Town Hall Meeting in Kansas City. The local MUFON chapter held a town hall on Monday to discuss the recent spate of balloon-related sightings in its own area. (WM)