This year’s Ghost Festival in early September apparently brought with it a host of weird events. Traditionally, the festival marks the thinning of the boundary between the living and the dead; it is a time for burning paper offerings to deceased ancestors and to appease restless spirits. This year reports included strange lights in the sky over Hainan and Guangzhou, children seen talking with unseen entities (in one case, even offering a cigarette), and an over-interpretation of unusual meteorological phenomena. And, if this was not enough, in what is thought to be an ominous harbinger of doom, a lunar eclipse. But not just one. One of four within two years, better known as a "tetrad." In Chinese tradition, such patterns are thought to presage difficult times. Somewhat tangentially, the China Observer also notes the significance of tetrads in Jewish tradition. Apparently, an objective appraisal of significant events in Jewish history will demonstrate a correlation with such celestial phenomena. No need for cherry picking at all, that is more an early summer kind of a thing. (JS)

Defense analyst Marik von Rennenkampff praises the bipartisan effort in the September 9th House UFO hearing, recounting some of the most telling testimony from that event. Marik bursts the bubble of the first AARO Director's balloon explanation for the famous GIMBAL UFO video. He recommends David Marler's Triangular UFOs: An Estimate of the Situation for background to another hearing case. Also: a preliminary Sol Foundation analysis of the October 30, 2024 MQ-9 Reaper/Hellfire missile attack on an aerial object off the coast of Yemen. Next: the Pentagon Denies Existence of "Yankee Blue" Memo Reported by Wall Street Journal. Takeaway: John Greenewald's three instances supporting that "the official record does not align with the narrative that has been widely circulated in media coverage as first reported by the WSJ." Another controversial journalism example is HuffPost's MAGA Lawmaker Suggests That Secrets About UFOs and Aliens Were Removed From the Bible. Whatever else about this piece, the statement "She [Rep. Anna Paulina Luna] also shared a personal experience she had with a UAP" seems patently exaggerated. Back to a researcher noted earlier in That UFO Podcast's David Marler: Denial to Disclosure. Andy Mcgrillen and the Executive Director of the National UFO Historical Records Center (NUFOHRC) consider DoD and DOJ interest in triangular UFOs and David's book; that new academically/scholarly-based UFO/UAP study initiatives should consult already-collected UFO data; and proof how NUFOHRC's archives are benefitting worldwide research. The indisputably officially documented examples David instances are highly compelling. (WM)

A property owner near the city of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, got a return on his investment recently. A game camera he'd set up sent a notification to his phone that a picture had been snapped, and when he looked at it, he had to grab his brother after work and go investigate. It seems the camera had been triggered by a large hairy biped in the middle of a nearby creek. Speaking of bathing Bigfoot, an Oklahoma Motorist Reports Seeing Possible Sasquatch Crossing River as he drove by on the bridge overlooking the water. Unfortunately, other than monstrous size and dark coloration, no other details could be discerned. The motorist, however, was confident that what he'd seen was bipedal. The sighting didn't last long, we're assuming because even Bigfoot likes some privacy. (CM)

Nongovernmental, credible efforts attacking the UFO problem include Sol Foundation co-founder Dr. Peter Skafish and Dr. Jacques Vallée conversing here on a variety of questions, including some seldom asked. Covered near the outset are early passages in Vallée's latest journal Forbidden Science 6: Scattered Castles, The Journals of Jacques Vallee 2010-2019. Southern California events needing more attention than previously received and other important items appearing only in this volume are considered. Discussion moves to Vallée's "Control System" hypothesis for the UFO/human relationship and potential UFO/human dialogue. After a break, Sol Foundation members' queries include improving the role of the artist in UFO study. While Kevin Knuth comes from a traditional science background, Red Pill Junkie thinks "he knocked it out of the park!" in Kevin Knuth’s AOTI 2025 Presentation: Physics, Language & Hierarchical Systems." RPJ explains why Knuth's words at the more-Humanities-focused 2025 "Archives of the Impossible Conference" are less "hard science" than expected. Kevin upfront actually "throws a curve ball" in declaring he's not going to talk about UFOs, but "other things," including the Universe and how it works. His presentation helps even the value of "experiential" with "numerical" data, with RPJ's concluding comments explaining why Knuth's talk garnered so much applause. And the Society for UAP Studies (SUAPS) is Introducing AURA/UPWARD: A Structured Future for UAP Research. This is a systematic activity that's funding, standardizing, and institutionally overseeing methodical "hard-science" and Humanities-centered research, coordinating findings from individual projects into a cohesive understanding of UFOs, in order to educate society. (WM)

Scientists have long searched to understand precognition, or "gut feelings," and it turns out there's statistical evidence to prove it exists, reports Ashley Tysiac. Parapsychologist Dr. Dean Radin conducted experiments in the mid-1990s that were so successful the CIA declassified its pre-sentiment research in 1995 and statisticians confirmed the effect was statistically reliable. That brings us to The Power of Thought: Telepathic Tales Through Time. In this podcast episode of Connecting with Coincidence, author, poet, and songwriter Daniel Bourke is Dr. Bernard Beitman's guest, discussing his book, Telepathic Tales: Precognition and Clairvoyance in Legend, Lyric, and Lore. If you've ever wondered if precognition is a sign that something more is going on than meets the eye, you might just be right. (CM)

Chantal Toporow lived a full life cut short much too early. She was first female professor at UCLA, worked with Dr. Hal Puthoff at SRI, and had a full career in aerospace working for both Hughes Aircraft and Northrop Grumman Space. Notably she was also active in MUFON where she was an International MUFON Field Investigator and a member of the MUFON ERT (Experiencer Resource Team). She was also a key member of the Society for Scientific Exploration, where she was on the Executive Committee and served as the Education Chair, a position in which she encouraged an interest in scientific anomalies among budding scientists. Her wide-ranging intellect and personal warmth will be missed. Rest in Peace, dear Chantal. (PH)

We begin with a spectacularly strange 2022 UAP multi-witness sighting and yet an even more shockingly unprofessional handling of that case by the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. This from highly-accredited former Army Senior Intelligence Officer Caison Best, who's provided additional cases and videos from the Americans for Safe Aerospace files for his conversation with Ross Coulthart. Tim Binnall has a video of a Mysterious Fireball Spotted Falling From Sky in New York's Hudson Valley. "Space junk" seems the most likely explanation for this one. Also from that date, a Meteor Fireball Over Illinois and 2 Other States on September 9 and Bright Daylight Meteor Fireball over Northeastern Brazil in September 9 Registered as 0.44-kiloton Airburst. For more recent events, try the MUFON CMS Statistics for 2025: The First Seven Months by Rob Swiatek. Rob's charts are useful and his observations are, as always, apt. (WM)

British vertebrate paleontologist Darren Naish reviews Australian Neil Frost's recent book Fatfoot: Encounters With A Dooligahl, an extensive recollection of the author's experiences with Yowies, which he calls Doolgahi, particularly with one that lived in the area he was studying. This big book's hypothesis is simple: "yowies are real and have been encountered by Frost and his associates in the forested landscape of the Blue Mountains over a span of more than five decades." But what makes this book unique is Frost's contention the Yowie is not a hominid, but a "gigantic macropod"—a humanoid-like kangaroo. (Somehow that's far more disconcerting than thinking a Yowie is a relic hominid, or a big ape.) Naish concludes that "it’s all very strange stuff," that "the data compiled by Frost is anecdotal and suggestive, but never convincing," but that he's "open to the idea that there’s a valid and perplexing zoological mystery here..." (CM)

We now venture into some challenging titles, even for ufology. This lengthy interview by Jesse Michels, rather reminiscent of the one Michels did with the late Harald Malmgren, will explain why Charles Hall and his story are so very controversial, with detractors noting that his 2002 book Millennial Hospitality bears the disclaimer "This book is a work of fiction." Here Michels and Hall cover some of Hall's physics theories and at the end the shadowy-but-famous Tim Taylor is considered, but most of their dialogue concerns the uniquely-qualified Hall's relationships in the mid-1960s with three different alien groups out in the desert. Ryan Sprague's chat with a director about his new movie, headlined Star People: Adam Finberg on UFOs, Humanity, and the Cosmic Mystery, leaves its plot, set against the 1997 Phoenix Lights events, rather vague. But Sprague's excellent description of the podcast reminds us once again that the UFO/Human connection is at least as much about People as the Phenomenon. Moving to another genre from the preceding fictional exploration of one night nearly 30 years ago, an Amazon Doc[umentary] Says Tic-Tac Shaped UFOs Have Been Visiting Earth Since the 16th Century. Mark Christopher Lee's Project: Alien Earth features top British and American names supporting Lee's notion that UFOs have been around for centuries and argues modern claims they're just "secret military tech" are just misdirection. Though Lee's 1561 example has problems, his main premises become stronger the more recent his evidence. (WM)

In the wake of that October 2024 Hellfire missile attack on a "UFO" that aired at the September 9th House hearing apparently not being "hellish" enough, two key ex-military pilots are expressing reservations about just what the video shows. Greg Taylor has the story and the entirety of Chris Lehto's play-by-play review of the hearing. In the meantime, the military of one of the US' biggest competitors just may have succeeded where the MQ-9 Reaper drone failed, as The Economic Times (India) writer Rana Sarkar asks Did China Just Shoot Down a UFO With a Missile? Bright Flash Over Shandong Deepens the Mystery After Authorities Deny Knowledge. A dramatic September 12th apparent collision has inquiring minds asking and speculating on possible implications. More worries for the DoD here, and perhaps in the WION (India) article Bob Lazar vs Pentagon: Why Declassified UFO Videos Back His Story. Tarun Mishra says coincidences between Lazar statements and UAP behavior keep "his claims alive in both UFO circles and scientific discussions." So maybe we need Red Pill Junkie's belated Sunday Funnies: UAP Bro Vs UFO Dude. We note that one of the two "Still believes Bob Lazar & Follows Him on FB (or someone that looks like him)." Bravo, RPJ! (WM)

Tyler Lacoma takes a look at the recent NASA announcement on the discovery of possible biosignatures in the "Sapphire Canyon" rock sample, obtained from the Cheyava Falls formation in the Jezero Crater. The excitement revolves around the presence of two minerals, vivianite and greigite, typically formed as a by-product of microbial activity in the oxygen-poor aquatic environs of peat bogs and swaps on Earth. So might the presence of these compounds also indicate the presence of similar life-forms on Mars? Maybe, several billion years ago, but long gone. Underwhelmed? Well, if this is an indication of life all those billions of years ago, then this increases the likelihood that some life may still exist on Mars in subsurface habitats. If you were expecting something out of This Island Earth, you will be disappointed. Think more like the sort of film that you discover has formed in a discarded coffee cup on return from vacation. Writing for Scientific American, Sarah Scoles points out in The Search for Extraterrestrial Life Is a Roller Coaster of Hope and Disappointment that back in the heady days of the nineteenth century, it was widely believed there was an advanced canal-building civilization on Mars. The canals were found to be illusory. Subsequent advancements in astronomy confronted scientists with no signs of life, Fermi’s "Great Silence." And yet, there remains a fundamental ET optimism in the scientific intuition that life on Earth was unlikely to be unique, given the steady drip of tantalizing clues, including the discovery in 1966 of extremophile microorganisms living in conditions that we previously deemed uninhabitable. For anyone who wants something more tangible than a hypnotic regression, the pursuit of extraterrestrial life is turning out to be modest and incremental, but no less profound. (JS)

When “Gary the Snail from SpongeBob SquarePants” appears in an article covering a paper published in Nature, you know you’re in for a mind-bending read. And Andrew Paul’s coverage of the story doesn’t disappoint as it features a 400-million-year-plus fossil waiting 40 years after its collection to be studied by “synchrotron-based X-ray microtomography” to produce a huge discovery complicating the picture of vertebrate development. Austin Burgess has a less-remote but perhaps more immediately compelling find as the Mystery of 'Homo Naledi,' an Ancient Human Species Who Buried Their Dead, Deepens With New Burial Discovery. A new study including “28 researchers from six countries” validates Lee Berger's theory that his 2013 find of the diminutive hominin's 240,000+ year-old remains was likely from an intentional burial. MJ Banias has yet another "mystery that's rewriting our understanding of early human behavior" in Ancient Medicine or Something Else? Archaeologists Discover 34,000-Year-Old Indigo Dye on Paleolithic Tools. Banias explains why this find couldn't have been from a natural process, leaving open the possibility people that long ago were using the resultant woad plant "indigotin" either for medicinal or even decorative purposes—or both. And Xantha Leatham takes us another leap towards the present in The Tooth That Solves the Stonehenge Mystery After 5,000 Years: Scientists Uncover New Evidence About How the Stones Were Transported There. Here a century-old discovery, again with the aid of cutting-edge techniques, has provided "a brand-new facet to the story of Stonehenge," according to a Cardiff University prof. (WM)

Loren Coleman looks back on the life of a respected scientist who believed, on the strength of the evidence, that Sasquatch exists. Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, passed away after a brief battle with brain cancer. "Jeff will be remembered," says Coleman who knew Meldrum well, "as a hard-working, kind, scientific, polite, good-natured, humor-filled, passionate, family man who shared freely his labor in the field of Sasquatch studies." RPJ shares his thoughts in Vale Jeff Meldrum (1958-2025), Scientist and Sasquatch Supporter, where he notes that Meldrum took an enormous chance when he turned his expertise toward this bipedal cryptid. Says RPJ "Meldrum devoted his life and career exploring the fringes of knowledge, without losing his footing on proper scientific methodology..." Rest in peace, Dr. Meldrum. Who now will be the unofficial spokesperson for the Bigfoot mystery? (CM)

Different perspectives on that September 9th House UAP hearing from "UFO-interested" sources. Calling it "a colossal waste of time," Kevin Randall doesn't think many "picked up" the "few nuggets that dropped" during the proceedings, and basically thinks (with some justification) "we've seen/heard it all before." It's more than sad to see Kevin's tack rather like Jason Colavito's Third Congressional UFO Hearing Bores with Same Old Stories, Little Evidence. Yet the average "person on the street" (or more safely, out of it) may benefit from such stories replaying under oath in Congress. And, for better or worse, that odd video stole the show. Hearing testifier George Knapp's colleague gives context to that "win" as Jeremy Corbell Breaks Down Explosive UAP Hearing And Classified Drone Footage. Shane Galvin focuses upon another discussed video, but with visual confirmation as well, as an Active-Duty Navy Chief Who Witnessed UFO Convinced Doubtful Colleagues With Radar Expertise: ‘It Was Like Checkmate’. Finally, "Space Insider" Leonard David writes UAP Witnesses Criticize Pentagon UFO Office in Congressional Hearing for 'Using Science and Coming Up With Answers'. David gets interesting reactions from Robert Powell (Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies), Alejandro Rojas (Enigma Labs), and Drs. Avi Loeb (The Galileo Project), Mark Rodeghier (J. Allen Hynek Center for UFO Studies), and Michael Cifone (Society for UAP Studies). (WM)

One of our favorite websites and historical ufologist has "Notes" of sightings "almost nightly" from July 1965 to early March 1966 over and around a southeastern Oklahoma town. Over a hundred people witnessed all sorts of Lights in the Sky antics. Hartshorne, Oklahoma (2) continues what we hope will be several installments on this most interesting series of sightings. Here Keel queries the "principal witness" about more additional sightings, a possible local hotel, "any unusual creatures in the vicinity," and, as a Commenter lists, "Boils, government agents and metallic spheres"! Charles Lear presents a two-parter which includes other kinds of "weirdities" besides UFOs in A 1981 Report of an Ohio Family (Part One). This tale sounds rather like the famous "Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter" in Christian County, Kentucky, of August 21-22, 1955, but with the UFO appearance after the onset of various ugly, earthly "creature frights." With Part 2 A 1981 Report of an Ohio Family we get a "vegetation swirling" whiff and an investigators-turned-participants bonus, and, lastly, a recent reevaluation occasioned by a "Small Town Monsters Mysteries and Monsters" episode. (WM)

The Smurl “haunting” in 1985 West Pittston, Pennsylvania, has been described as the inspiration for the most recent installment to the Conjuring movie franchise, The Conjuring: Last Rites. However, it wouldn't be wrong to describe it as yet another example of Ed and Lorraine Warren's absence of a moral compass. Sharon Hill refers us to this video by Kennie Biddle from The Center for Inquiry, Investigation of the Smurl Family Haunting to further underline this point. When the Smurl family thought their house was haunted in 1986, the Warren's "assisted" and ensured the world knew the ruckus was caused by a demon—a demon that would result in a book deal, as well as a media storm. This video looks beyond the frenzy and investigates the real story of the history of the Smurl house and its claims of paranormal activity. Biddle also spends some time looking at The Haunted, a 1988 book by Robert Curran that supposedly tells the "true" story of the haunting. (CM)

Iconic UFO cases that keep producing news and should be remembered. Kevin Randall notes a telling "gap" in the available information for the "Granddaddy of them All" July 1947 case, and it's at least a good example of original source use and how that incident still mystifies. Over and "Down Under," Senior Australia News reporter Frank Chung has 'Australia's Roswell': Calls For Fresh Inquiry into 60-year-old Westall UFO Mystery. As with Roswell, the suburban Melbourne, Victoria, Westall school UFO sighting changed lives and still involves charges of governmental secrecy. Chung's article well-illustrates the continued frustration of those involved in that event. Martin Willis interviews Peter Robbins about 1965's Incident Exeter, a stunning New Hampshire multi-witness encounter with an immediate—and what seems patently impossible—USAF explanation. The dialogue also covers Peter's initiation into and fascination with the UFO topic, which has involved Robbins in considerable controversy over the years—frankly, rather par, if somewhat extreme, for the course in this wild and woolly "field" of endeavor. And John Greenewald takes us into The Vault Files: 1986 Alaska JAL Flight 1628. While his testimony was backed by ground and onboard radar, Japan Air Lines pilot Captain Kenju Terauchi suffered "grounding" for a period and the CIA swore FAA inspectors into secrecy about the encounter. Not only witnesses were affected by the backlash from such anomalous episodes. (WM)

Although our planet desperately needs more trees, it could probably do without the variety described in this lengthy piece by Kevin J Guhl. According to his research, accounts of these huge, carnivorous "Little Shop of Horrors"-type plants are merely yarns, and we can only hope that's the case. Want more? Here are 7 Plants So Weird, You’ll Think They’re from Another Planet. "With bat-shaped blooms, see-through berries, and roots that smell like rot, these plants are nature’s strangest masterpieces." Check out the Jabuticaba Tree, the Neelakurinji, the Welwitschia Mirabilis, Doll’s Eye, and more. Some are beautiful and benign, others deadly, but they nonetheless remind us that the "Earth is full of botanical oddities." (LP)