Large Footprints Found in Northern California

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MARYSVILLE, Calif. There's a big mystery in the Northern California woods. Is a Bigfoot living in a national forest? John Iander of CBS station KOVR-TV in Sacramento, Calif., reports that a California couple has found big prints in the woods and experts are saying it may not be a hoax.

It was just after a rainstorm, a great time for hunting deer. It was a perfect place, high up in the dense woods of the Plumas National Forest.

Chuck and Michelle Padigo had been down the logging road lots of times, including just a few days earlier.

Past two gates, about three miles from the highway, in a recently logged area, Michelle looked down and spotted something very strange.

What the Padigo's say they encountered was more than three dozen huge footprints spread out over a hundred yards or more.

“I swear the hair on my arms stood up,” says Michelle.

The couple recorded their discovery with photographs and returned to take more pictures.

Joining the Padigos now was Scot Woodland, a Nevada County search and rescue team member and a certified expert tracker.

Scot says he's got an open mind but when he first saw the tracks he figured here's another hoax.

"The closer I got and looked at the prints, the more I could see the detail and the movement in the foot. As a tracker you see how things move the weight and all that stuff. The complexity of the footprint made me go whoa!” he says.

What really impressed Scot was the force of the Bigfoot print which rippled the ground around it. Scot's footprint next to it hardly moved the earth.

“If it's a hoax, somebody really did a good job, if it's not, then there's a big creature that lives among us," says Woodland.

All the prints appear to be from one animal walking slowly but with a stride twice that of a human.

“We measured from heel of the left foot to heel of left foot, 56 inches," says Scott.

The footprint was gigantic. It was seven-and-a-half inches wide. The tape measure shows the impression is nearly double the length of an adult human foot.

In Humboldt County, in the tiny town of Willow Creek, there's a Bigfoot museum run by Al Hodgson. Decades ago, he had a similar experience when he found what he believed were the footprints of a mother and child Bigfoot.

Ever since the scratchy film of an alleged Bigfoot spotting was taken in 1963, a growing amount of potential evidence has been reported.

From a distant picture of a possible big foot, to plaster impressions of some very big feet. Compare them with the plaster cast Chuck Padigo made and you’ll see the same basic shape, same size. Almost square toes with little or no arching.

If there is a big foot living in the woods, it wouldn't be the first time somebody has reported the evidence. KOVR-TV checked the records over the past decade.

In both 1997 and 1998, a science researcher found possible Bigfoot tracks and feces in the same Plumas Forest Area.

And again in 1998, a veteran forest service employee found footprints fourteen inches long by six inches wide.

KOVR-TV checked with residents of the small towns near where Michelle and Chuck found their footprints. Store owner Peggy Pope says she's a believer.

“I've never heard of anybody up here saying they've seen one, or any evidence? Or any evidence, but I believe there is such a thing," says Pope.

Other locals say they have either heard or smelled what might be a Bigfoot, but they also tell of some big bears living in these woods.

But pictures of bear paws, while certainly very large, clearly show big claws.

The footprints Chuck and Michelle found show no sign of any claws, just clean imprints of five toes.

The Padigos found the footprints four months ago and didn't publicize it until now.

They do not seem to seek notoriety and appear to be genuinely and deeply affected by the incident but still, we had to ask if they were playing a hoax on us.

“No sir, I wouldn't do that, I'm not that smart, I couldn't make something like that," says Chuck.

Photos and measurements of those big footprints have been sent to a renowned scientist who is researching Bigfoot sightings. No word yet on whether he thinks those prints are made by man or by a lot bigger and more secretive creature.

Footprints Marysville California

Suspected Monster Spotted in Lake

Monday, 26th February 2007 - Windermere, UK - Sightings of a suspected monster in Windermere have prompted claims that it could be the English equivalent of Nessie.

The 50ft long "creature" was snapped by photographer Linden Adams, 35, who was out walking with his wife near the lake recently.

They were at a secluded spot more than 1,000ft up a mountain when they spotted a dark shape moving in the water.

"It just came out of the blue," said Mr Adams. "The water was incredibly peaceful and then this huge thing appeared, diving and thrashing around."

He thought it was 50 ft long when compared to boats nearby.

He said it had a head like a labrador, only "much, much bigger".

'Serpent-like'

Mr Adams, from Bowness-on-Windermere, said he knew the lake well and what he saw was not a freak wave or boat. His sighting comes just months after scientists visited Windermere to examine claims by a tourist that they saw a 20 ft "serpent-like" creature.

A team of scientists visited the site last October to interview eye-witnesses and sent divers to Coniston Water to investigate reports of similar sightings there.

Mr Adams has christened his find the Bowness monster. "When I looked at my pictures on my computer I realised I had something," he added.

He sent his picture to a forensic photographer who confirmed it had not been digitally enhanced.

Richard Freeman, of the centre for Fortean Zoology which researches mystery animals, said the sightings could be giant sterile eels which, unlike normal eels, stay in fresh water and "get bigger and bigger".

Lake Monster Windermere UK

Strange Lights Over Somerset County, Maine

Somerset County, Maine - February 22, 2007 - Callers from four southern Somerset County towns reported seeing strange lights in the sky Wednesday night.

Though activities that night by the Vermont Air National Guard might provide an explanation, some sightings were close to the ground.

From 7:35 to 8:12 p.m., the Somerset County Communications Center took calls from Anson, Fairfield, Norridgewock and Skowhegan.

The Anson call came from 42 Hilltop Road, not far from town. The caller told dispatchers she saw reddish-orange UFOs through the trees. She said she saw three diagonal lights, then two and then one, before it “burned up like a comet.”

A spokeswoman from the Vermont Air National Guard confirmed that the unit was conducting training missions through that area Wednesday night. An F-16 flying overhead, the source said, would cause considerable noise.

A caller from Skowhegan Road in Fairfield reported seeing strange lights in the sky, heading south. A Norridgewock caller said he saw lights, called the Brunswick Naval Air Station, which told him they were not aware of anything going on. The caller from Norridgewock Avenue in Skowhegan reported seeing yellow lights in the sky over Skowhegan.

Lights Over Somerset County Maine

Chupacabra Spotted in Chile

Santiago, Chile - February 16, 2007 - One week after Chile’s Armed Forces released photos and videos of UFO activity around the country, Chile’s mainstream media has once again gone extraterrestrial with various Chupacabra sightings reported throughout the country.

Chupacabra – literally translated as goat sucker – is the name for a mythical creature known for sucking the blood out of farm animals throughout Latin America and the southern United States. Many enthusiasts speculate that Chupacabras are aliens – or escaped alien pets – as evidence of the creature is frequently reported in tandem with nearby UFO sightings.

While UFO activity is typically reserved for Chile’s tabloid press, Chupacabra sightings make big news in Chile, and the countries principle newspaper, El Mercurio, reported Wednesday that Chupacabras are once again causing a stir in the southern cone country.

According to the daily, a Chupacabra attacked a henhouse in San Antonio Tuesday evening, leaving every chicken dead, without blood, and with a mysterious orifice on their spines.

Flor Vásquez, 73, told police that she could not believe what she saw when she entered her henhouse. “All the chickens were dead and were sucked completely dry of blood,” she said. “But the animal that did it did not eat a single on of my birds. It’s really strange.”

One of Vásquez’s daughters, who did not want to identify herself to the press, said that she heard dogs barking wildly that night, but did not see anything abnormal after rising several times throughout the night.

Vásquez also told police that she found strange footprints on her patio with only three toes, two facing forward and one backward.

The same night, another Chupacabra sighting occurred in Curicó. Samuel Saavedra told reporters that he heard a loud noise, “as if something had jumped off the large wall surrounding the house.”

Saavedra said he saw a creature that was approximately 1.20 meters in height, furry, and with a round, bald head. The creature apparently had large eyes and an intense stare and gave Saavedra a “defiant glare.”

Saavedra said he called police and then went to spend the night at his mother’s house, being so scared that he refused to return home for 48 hours.

The last Chupacabra activity in Chile occurred in 2000, when the creatures caused widespread panic and interest in Calama after 120 sheep were killed in the course of one week.

The Internet is full of websites dedicated to the Chupacabra. The most common theory speculates that the creature is extraterrestrial, but other conspiracy theories suggest the creature to be a product of a genetic experiment carried by the U.S. government. Most scientists say the creature could be similar to a bloodsucking raccoon species found in Africa.

The first Chupacabras were reported in Puerto Rico in 1987 after farm animals around the country began dropping dead. While none of the animals were eaten, all were drained of blood and had two puncture holes in their necks.

Chupacabra Spotted in Chile

Clear Video of 2001 Lake Erie UFO Sighting

Lake Erie Sighting Video

Jennifer Love Hewitt Is Being Haunted

Jennifer Love Hewitt is being haunted on the set of her TV show ‘Ghost Whisperer’.

The actress - who stars as Melinda Gordon, a medium who can talk to “earthbound spirits”, in the series - and cast and crew of the hit CBS show claim real ghosts are appearing on set.

A source told the National Enquirer magazine: “There are some strange goings on. The producers are wondering what’s going to pop up next.

“Just a few weeks ago, when the producers were reviewing the days filming they could see the image of a shadowy figure just behind Jennifer’s shoulder.

“Not too long after, cameras were placed inside a house set on fire to get footage of flames. When the film came back, there was an image of a woman standing at the bottom of a set of stairs - but no actors, actresses or even crew members on the set at the time! Everyone was totally creeped out.”

Other unexplained occurrences keep happening on the set, and some crew members are starting to blame poltergeist activity.

The source added: “Lights keep breaking, cameras break down and there’s just no explanation for it.”

Jennifer Love Hewitt Haunted

Mysterious Lights Spotted Over Phoenix, Again

PHOENIX, AZ - February 8, 2007 - Nearly a decade after the highly publicized ‘Phoenix Light Phenomenon’, more strange lights have appeared in the night sky over downtown Phoenix.

Tuesday night, mysterious lights lit up the western skies over Phoenix and soon after, phones began ringing off the hook at radio, television and police stations from witnesses wondering what the lights were.

The Yuma Marine Base claims it has the answer. Base officials said the amber-colored flares came from training flights on the Goldwater Gunnery Range. They went on to explain that the amber flares are used as targets.

Witnesses said it appeared the flares were flying in a formation and base officials explained that the flares float down to Earth attached to parachutes.

Back in March of 1997, a huge object was spotted over parts of Arizona that many witnesses believed to be an extraterrestrial spacecraft that was drifting slowly and silently over the region. The ‘Phoenix Light Phenomenon” became one of the most publicized and well-documented UFO sightings in recent history.

The Air Force said they were flares from an A-10 but many critics said flares couldn’t fly on their own over such a large distance.

The Discovery Channel has done a special on the lights. A movie has even been made about them which recently came out on DVD.

Lights Over Phoenix Again

Aykroyd in Possession of "REAL" O'Hare Footage

By his own admission, actor and UFO enthusiast Dan Aykroyd is in possession of "real" movie footage of the O'Hare Airport UFO of November 7, 2006. The news came to me first this morning from Jerome Prophet's blog, which was referred from UFO News This is how it happened.
According to the former Saturday Night Live star, Dan Aykroyd and his group of filmmakers have come into possession of exclusive O'Hare Airport UFO photographs and video footage.

During a recent promotion for his line of Tequila beverages, I had a chance to speak briefly with Aykroyd about the topic of UFOs.

"Will you be releasing any more UFO documentaries?"

"We should have another DVD out by next year," Aykroyd replied. "You know there was a major sighting in Chicago recently," he said in referring to the O'Hare Airport UFO.

Acknowledging the event, I asked if there would be any exclusive O'Hare UFO content in the film. To my surprise, he said not only will they be exposing new photographs of the O'Hare Airport UFO, but exclusive video footage. Dan appeared excited about the new film and the O'Hare story, "it will have photographs, video, and the whole works."

Dan Ackroyd O'Hare UFO Footage

The Ghost Brides of China

They are murdered to give dead bachelors a wife in the afterlife

A ring of gangsters who traded in the bodies of women they murdered, selling them as brides to keep dead bachelors happy in the afterlife, has been arrested in China.

The arrests have exposed a trade that places a higher value on women when they are dead than when they are alive.

• Traditional Chinese belief holds that the living must tend to the wants and needs of dead relatives, who exist in an afterlife

• The tradition manifests itself in the burning of fake money or paper models of luxury goods

• It is believed by some that an unmarried life is incomplete, leading to the practice of minghun — burying single sons with recently dead young women to provide them with a wife in the afterlife

• Parents of a dead daughter often regard the money received in selling her for minghun as recompense for the dowry that they did not receive in her lifetime, while also posthumously elevating their child’s place in a patriarchal society

• Communist authorities tried to ban the practice, which datesfrom the Zhou dynasty (1122-256BC). It was also forbidden in the Book of Rites, texts that describe religious practices from the eighth to the fifth century BC

• Minghun survives mainly in the poor rural north, particularly in the remote plateau on the upper reaches of the Yellow River

Yang Dongyan, 35, was arrested in Sha’anxi province as he played cards with his children. In his prison cell, Yang showed little remorse for committing two murders. He told the Legal Daily: “I just wanted to make money. It’s a quick way to make money. I was arrested too soon otherwise I had planned to do this business a few more times.”

Two accomplices, Liu Shengbao and Hui Haibao, were also arrested, as was Li Longsheng, a self-styled undertaker who traded the bodies to bereaved families.

Zhang Yanjun, chief of police in Yanchuan county, said: “It’s lucky that the case was cleared up in time or we don’t know how many women would have been killed by them. These people thought they had found a short cut to wealth.” Instead, they face the death penalty.

The men preyed on the superstitions of ill-educated farmers eager to ensure that a dead son was happy in the afterlife. It is not uncommon in rural parts of China for a family to seek out the body of a woman who has died to be buried alongside their son after the performance of a marriage ceremony for the deceased pair.

Ancestor worship is a tradition that runs through many aspects of Chinese life. One of the main Chinese festivals is Tomb Sweeping Day, when families visit graves of their forebears to clean them and burn incense. The spirit is believed to live on in the afterlife and at funerals families burn offerings of paper money and models of houses, cars and other little luxuries that the dead may need.

Yang chanced upon the trade in dead bodies when he paid 12,000 yuan (£800) for a mentally handicapped woman whose family hoped to marry her off for a price. The trade in women as wives is a common practice in rural China and a woman may be sold several times by intermediaries before meeting her eventual husband.

Yang arranged for the woman to stay in a guesthouse in Yanchuan county where Mr Liu offered him $1,310 for her.Yang refused, until Liu told him the woman would be worth much more dead than alive. The next morning the two men set out across the Yellow River to meet “Old Li” in Xixian County, Shanxi province. Old Li agreed to buy the woman’s body for $2,067 and to complete the deal late at night on the Yanshuiguan bridge.

The next day Yang killed the woman and took her body by taxi to the bridge where Mr Li was waiting and handed over $1,969 for her. For his part in the deal, Mr Liu received $590 andYang came away with a loss of $394 after his expenses.

Back at the guesthouse, Yang told an old acquaintance, Hui, he had found an easy way to make money. The two men agreed to go into the body business together. Last November they sought out a prostitute they knew in nearby Yan’an — the city where Chairman Mao began his Communist revolution — but she threw them out after they said that they could not afford to pay her $40. They returned the next morning and killed her.

On December 3 they completed a similar body handover with Li on the bridge. This time they made only $1,043 because the buyer was unhappy with the quality of the body and, after costs, Yang and his two friends each earned $196 on that deal.

Old Li had made a name for himself in Xixian county by selling clothes to outfit the dead and by handing out cards that offered to help families in need of a spirit marriage. They want young and good-looking dead brides for their sons and regard the family of the girl as “in-laws”. Police discovered that Li paid between $1,043 and $1,300 for a body and sold it on for as much as $4,500

Ghost Brides of China

UFO Sighting Over Islington

The mysterious lights in the sky over Archway


Islington, North London, U.K. - February 2, 2007 - Dozens of mysterious lights were spotted hovering in the sky above Archway - spreading panic among residents below.

Unidentified flying orange objects stopped traffic and left residents staring skyward in disbelief at around 5.30pm on Thursday.

Islington police received four calls within a matter of minutes.

Witness Alix McAlister, 34, a market stall trader from Bredgar Road, Archway, said: "I just picked up my son from nursery in Bredgar Road. I had just come out of the door when I noticed what was going on in the sky.

"There were a group of them - 10 to 15 of them moving together. My first impression was that they reminded me of a squadron of aeroplanes in formation. But they didn't have a proper formation and they were all moving at the same speed.

"I thought for a while that something was happening in the centre of London. Bombs and planes crossed my mind. But I realised very quickly that they didn't look like any aircraft I'd seen before.

"They were coming from the north and moving south. And then they kind of stopped and they were hovering. There was no sound. They seemed to fade away and I saw more coming and then they stopped. It lasted about 10 minutes."

Islington police informed Contact International UFO Research about the sightings. Soon after another witness contacted the Oxford-based organisation, which is devoted to solving the mystery of UFOs, and described what he saw.

A spokesman for Contact International said: "He told me he was picking his daughter up from school and he saw many people looking up in the air. Traffic had stopped and people were staring.

"He said he saw between 12 and 15 orange lights travelling across the sky. Then they would stop and then they went upwards.

UFO Sighting Over Islington, London

Ghostly Activity at Hatley Castle

Royal Roads University, B.C., Canada - February 2, 2007 - There's way more going on at Hatley Castle than academic study and scholarly endeavours, a report by occult specialists suggests.

After an overnight visit to the landmark building at Royal Roads University in Colwood last fall, the investigators seem to have confirmed suspicions that the building is haunted, reporting they saw various male and female spirits, felt areas of strong energy in some rooms, and heard knocking from other areas.

"When we first arrived inside the castle, I saw a greyish mist ... on the staircase in the main foyer area -- it appeared to have a long skirt," one of the investigators said in the report.

"In the basement, I heard the sound of drums. I felt the spirit down there was male and connected to the military."

The findings are part of a report by B.C. SPIRITS, a Vancouver-based non-profit organization that investigates ghostly encounters. The university released the report yesterday.

Hatley Castle was built by coal baron James Dunsmuir in 1908. It was later used as part of a military college, and now the university.

The six investigators, accompanied by technicians and university staff, visited the building on Sept. 30, 2006, between 10:10 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. when no one else was inside. Data was collected with still and video cameras, as well as recorders for sound and temperature.

Shortly after midnight, an investigator looking at photos heard whispering, which he said didn't come from anyone in his group.

When one of the group called out, "If there is anyone present, would you please give us a sign?" there was the sound of "distinct knocks" that seemed to respond whenever the question was repeated.

One of the investigators began to feel very warm to the point where she felt feverish. As minutes passed, she returned to normal.

On the fourth floor, an investigator felt "a male presence watching us."

In the billiard room, one investigator spotted a little girl in the corner wearing a hat with a ribbon on it. Another felt a male's presence there that she said was named Robert.

In the third-floor boardroom, investigators felt "a very strong energy."

Outside the castle, an investigator heard the sound of horses while another heard the clanging of a bell.

University spokeswoman Stephanie Slater, who accompanied the investigators, said she's not surprised at the report's findings because it reflects what she heard and saw that night.

"They want to come back and do another investigation next fall so we'll certainly accommodate them."

Ghosts at Hatley Castle