Journalist Michael Shellenberger reports on claims by a "new" anonymous source about a Special Access Program originating after the December 2017 revelations of "hush-hush" Federal Governmental UFO investigations. "Immaculate Constellation" allegedly continues sub rosa, while the AAWSAP, AATIP, and subsequent alphabet programs were successively publicly revealed or created. The secret "Immaculate Constellation" putatively produced a huge database including imagery far superior to those standard "grainy images" we've grown to know and loathe. Interviewing Shellenberger, Ross Coulthart corroborates some of Shellenberger's more dramatic contentions, based upon his own independent research. In New Whistleblower Claims Knowledge of Secret US UFO Program Baptiste Friscourt offers a European "take" on Shellenberger's original lengthy October 8th post. "Whistleblowers'" continuing fear of retribution comes through sharply in these pieces; so does the larger issue of Government accountability in general. Another UFO/UAP-related example comes from John Greenewald, who says NASA Denies Existence of Classified Briefings on James Webb [Space] Telescope Discoveries. Representative Andre Carson's "No comment" to a question about classified "JWST" briefings fanned distrust by folks energized by rumors the telescope had made "an extraordinary discovery—potentially alien life—and that members of Congress had been briefed about it." John's conclusion from his FOIA answer and a Snopes fact-checking is that, for now, the rumors remain just that. (WM)

A longtime Champ researcher using echolocation while on Lake Champlain recently recorded a series of clicks and buzzes similar to the type of communication that occurs between whales and dolphins. But since Lake Champlain is home to neither of those cetaceans, it has left her suspecting the sounds recorded were from Champ, the lake's legendary resident monster. Meanwhile, there's been a 'Lake Monster' Sighting Reported by Slovakian Hikers who were taking a break from exploring the High Tatras mountain range. From a height of about five hundred feet above their country's largest alpine lake, they observed a large white anomaly emerge from the waters. While no one thought to record the experience with their cellphone, the event has locals wondering if they have their own lake monster. (CM)

Ryan Sprague and fellow UFO podcaster Martin Willis chat about this year's commemoration of the October 4, 1967, "splash landing" of "something" off of Nova Scotia. The two consider the speakers and their presentations, which weren't limited to the celebration's iconic case. Ryan and Martin enlarge their conversation to those pivotal December 2017 New York Times and Politico revelations, and what's happened in UFO discourse since then. Returning to the Expo presentations, Shag Harbour investigator Chris Styles' talk separated that 1967 event from another dramatic (this one quite scary) case, but from 1960, that's traditionally been conflated with Shag Harbour. New documentaries also get mention. One key takeaway from this dialogue is how energized both ufologists Ryan and Martin are by the wonder of what they love and do. Graeme Rendall sketches an ill-known and tragic death eerily similar to that of Captain Thomas Mantell's, but eight years later, in 1956. This Bite-Sized UFOs | A Second Mantell Incident? podcast is short but also very intriguing. (WM)

A seven-year study of photon behavior undertaken at the University of Toronto, Canada, has observed how these light-wave particles move during "atomic excitation." For those of us who have not even a photon-size understanding of the subject, suffice to say that these particles were seen to be "exiting a material before entering it," which has implications for our understanding of quantum time, a finding which left the research team "completely surprised." Human perception of time is addressed in The Consolations of Chronodiversity: Geologist Turned Psychologist Ruth Allen on the 12 Kinds of Time and How to Be More Fully Alive. The lengthy title of the piece reflects the theme and subject matter of Allen's book Weathering, which explores time "as different ways of anchoring into our own existence." (LP)

"Academics" commonly are thought to live in a different world from ordinary folks, but academics also interested in ufology may themselves be stigmatized by more "mainstream" intellectuals. Keith Basterfield's historical treatment of ufological scholars is therefore quite welcome. As Keith runs through the expanding public academic interest in UFOs, it's heartening to note such "out-of-this-world" topics seemingly are losing some of their opprobrium. Justin Naylor asks How Should Conservatives Respond to the UFO Phenomenon? While Naylor may be speaking to a mostly conservative Christian audience, this outstanding essay dealing with UFO possibilities deserves consideration by serious people of all sorts of backgrounds. We're not sure how we should respond, however, to this next article, for Jason Colavito says Travis Taylor Speculates UFO Engines Run on Cow Blood. Jason has an obvious rebuttal to Dr. Taylor, and we have to say at least that suggesting aliens might use cow blood to move a saucer, well, just doesn't "moooove" us. (WM)

Amid all the present UFO hubbub, the name "Roswell" still generates interest in the mainstream press. Samantha Stutsman promotes an Unsolved Mysteries episode from Netflix featuring Roswell researchers Kevin Randle and Don Schmitt. Despite a few "bobbles" in the text, Stutsman well recaps some of that 1947 event's main contentions and counterclaims. Fox News' Kerry J. Byrne takes us even farther back into the UFO Past, wanting us to Meet the American Who Reported the First Sensational UFO Encounters, Puritan Leader John Winthrop. Byrne gives us more background about Winthrop than do most treatments of the strange sightings. This reinforces the fact that historically, UFOs have been reported by sober, respected people. And Nick Pope pops in to remind us it's a "misconception that this all started with flying saucers and Roswell." Let's fast forward nearly to the present with the Incident at Falkland Hill: A Scottish UFO Mystery. Ryan Sprague's dramatization of a shared 1996 evening of strange reported encounters is complicated and very creepy. (WM)

Seasoned skipper Shaun Sloggie was cruising on Loch Ness recently when he found something on sonar about 98 meters down that he could only describe as "the biggest thing I've ever seen." While he admits he's no sonar expert, the experience left him speechless. Has this autumn been a season for Bumping Into Nessie? We revisit the "bumps" that put Nessie back in the news over the past month. First is the swimmer who decided to solo swim across the dark waters and who subsequently experienced a "thump" in the chest from something underneath him. Then there's the pair of canoeists, one whose canoe was bumped and the other who, immediately behind him, almost lost his paddle when it came into contact with something size-able in the water. Was Nessie playing with these folks or just wanting to say hello? (CM)

Aaron Gulyas promises Ray Palmer's February 1969 Flying Saucers Magazine installment "is rife with interesting ads, a condemnation of the Allende Letters, and more!" Aaron thinks the (Ray) "Palmer Method" of promoting his print magazine was probably pretty efficient. The medley of ads is indeed interesting in itself, and for how they reflect the times. They also stoke Aaron's interest in collecting interesting older UFO-related books. An article by the recently-deceased Timothy Green Beckley on John Keel's Mothman investigations, as well as possibly similar much-prior sightings, is also quite interesting. Tanner F. Boyle reviews "Four books to remind readers that I still possess a sense of childlike wonder" in his The Getting Spooked Reading List #3. They are The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster; Simon Young's The Fairy Census, vols. 1 & 2; Ed Conroy's Report on Communion: An Independent Investigation of and Commentary on Whitley Strieber's Communion, and Peter Krassa's Father Ernetti's Chronovisor: The Creation and Disappearance of the World's First Time Machine. Boyle's summaries are intriguing, and he supplies the best way to acquire these gems. And we almost didn't even call up Anthony Bragalia's The Best UFO Porn Sites on the Net. But Anthony's definition of "UFO porn" differs from the standard pornographic meaning, and he even argues for the collective value of these video sites. (WM)

Greg Taylor hopes that actor/musician/philanthropist Reeves' presence on Graham Hancock's second season of Ancient Apocalypse may help "tone down" Hancock's first season treatment of "archaeologists as a whole." Whether this is true or not, Greg's description of season number two's premise and the included lavishly-filmed trailer make it highly likely a success. But perhaps not completely a "critical success," per Jason Colavito's "Ancient Aliens" Talking Head Praises Graham Hancock on Lex Fridman. Jason castigates one of the folks featured in the Ancient Apocalypse trailer. One of Jason's gripes centers around the role of terra preta soil in Hancock's claims of large-scale, advanced artificial, Atlantean activity in the Amazon Basin. For a change of pace to a perhaps less controversial and more immediately gratifying topic is the information served up in Rosamund Hall's Buried in Booze? What the Shock Discovery of the World's Oldest Wine Can Tell Us. After getting over the real surprise inherent in the article's title, readers might find Hall's discussion practically useful, even if it doesn't have "bags of cherries and blackberries, all wrapped up with some soft vanilla spice and a sweet-leathery note"! (WM)

Three articles commanding attention to begin the work week. Cliff Sims says that he, as a Deputy Director of the Department of National Intelligence, and all the "senior team" other than Director John Ratcliffe himself were excluded from the most sensitive UFO briefings. And reporter Baptiste Friscourt includes the famous March 19, 2021, interview in which Ratcliffe himself makes stunning admissions about the UFO problem, which were confirmed in the pivotal public Office of the Director of National Intelligence Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena report. Probably more problematic is the headline If You Meet ET in Space, Kill Him. Dr. Olaf Witkowski, who subtitles his own site "Compassionate AI and Artificial Minds," seems an odd bird to make such a claim, and Nautilus reporter George Musser notes the apparent, perhaps disastrous, contradiction in Witkowski's position. What follows is an outstandingly interesting meditation on the problems of communication in general and extramundane interspecies dialogue in particular. And Chrissy Newton interviews theologian Dr. Paul Thigpen as Demonology Meets Science: Unraveling the Mysteries of Exorcism, Possession, and UAP Encounters. If one resists the natural temptation to dismiss the interview's topic out of hand, it's a complex, fascinating—and, yes—uncomfortable dialogue. (WM)

A hiker strolling through the woods in Lawton, about 3 hours outside Oklahoma City, received quite the shock when they came upon what appeared to be a Bigfoot sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree. The hiker had the good luck to record the moment with his cellphone, and the good sense to run away when the enormous being spotted him. Then over in Michigan Cops Stop 'Bigfoot' Walking Down Road. Turns out the hairy individual was someone in a costume, apparently finding their way home and enjoying their fur suit. To each their own, we suppose. The police commemorated their first Bigfoot sighting with a photo. (CM)

James Fox' new documentary focuses on the bipartisan Congressional effort to pry away secrets from their gatekeepers in military, Executive, and intelligence positions, and in private industry organizations as well. Tatiana Hullender has the effective trailer for The Program and lists some of the "insiders, experts, and politicians" involved in this cause. An earlier announcement is Queen Elizabeth's Love for UFOs Revealed. The article gives some information on the British Royals' interest, and a quick search reveals that Lee last month published a book about The King of UFOs: Royal UFO Secrets Revealed. Speaking of maximizing profits by film and paper, The Observer asks do UFOs = Unbelievable Financial Opportunities? A priceless piece about some very pricey used books! (WM)

The Galileo Project's Papua New Guinea expedition "has culminated in the publication of a major new paper by Professor Avi Loeb and his team in the prestigious Elsevier journal Chemical Geology. Thus Harvard's announcement, which also details some "key findings" from the 1.5M dollar effort. The announcement retains the claim the meteor was "interstellar," with admission that some spherules were "potentially of terrestrial origin," and, while stressing the "BeLaU" subset is novel, it doesn't urge their artificiality. Indeed, one of the team's previous papers suggested a possible natural, though still extrasolar, process behind them. But the "natural or artificial in origin" question is still "up in the air," or down beneath the water, and plans are still on for a return next year. The paper Chemical Classification of Spherules Recovered from the Pacific Ocean Site of the CNEOS 2014-0108 (IM1) Bolide is available as it will be in the December 20, 2024 issue of Chemical Geology. Loeb celebrates this academic success in How the Light Gets In: The Interstellar Expedition Paper Was Accepted for Publication in the Prestigious Journal 'Chemical Geology'. To his critics, Avi also engages in a "frontal (Loebian) assault" featuring expressive admonishment-by-quotation. Loeb has more quotes and criticisms of his detractors in his most recent article Imagination is More Important than Knowledge. It's a very effective piece. (WM)

If you've been watching The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch on the History Channel, you may have wondered about the characters that make up the team of investigators and if what is being depicted for television bears any resemblance to reality. Journalist David Howard visits the ranch to file this report, the answer to the "reality" question is: Yes. The ranch investigators have been handpicked for their unique skill sets by ranch owner Brandon Fugal. A real estate mogul, Fuga's wealth funds the myriad of state of the art, often military grade equipment that the team relies upon. Visitors to the ranch must sign a liability waiver and the location seems to know if someone is skeptic—then sets out to change their mind. According to Fugal, "Every time we bring somebody new, the ranch interacts a little different." Howard tries to be open minded and admits to feeling a little strange on site, but nothing more. (CM)

Older UFO cases commemorated make today's theme. One of the more solid CEII trace case reports is revisited both in this video and, as the accompanying text notes, a new Royal Canadian Mint coin noting the 1974 event. For views of the coin itself, see 1 oz. Pure Silver Glow-in-the Dark Coin -- Canada's Unexplained Phenomena: The Langenburg Event. NPR's Laura Sullivan asks Are UFOs Real? Historical Markers Say Yes. This charming and informative piece will have you clicking on various stories besides the 1973 Pascagoula CEIV abduction, and is a good promotion for other, non-UFO-related episodes in NPR's "Off The Mark" series. And to Great Britain's Isle of Wight we go, where a Newly Unveiled 'Sandown Clown' Sculpture Celebrates Legendary Alien Visitation Case. Tim Binnall has the story of this 1973 case, perhaps strange even for a CEIII. He also links to Alex Cooper's Isle of Wight County Press Isle of Wight Alien Sighting Commemorated by Sculpture story, which has an additional picture of the clown being transported (headless?) and more on the "unique piece of local folklore that had largely been forgotten." What was it about 1973 and 1974 that produced such historic sightings? (WM)