Argentina: Strange Activity in Carlos Tejedor
Inexplicata - A well-known couple that operates a mechanic shop in the city described the strange manifestation of a glowing object over a country home in the Colonia del Toro area. The object was also seen on a photograph. From that point onward, upon inspecting previous photos, they noticed that the object appears to be patrolling the area for some time now. At night, it is possible to see very bright lights – red, green, blue and something like a fireball. The wife suffered experienced strong bodily tremors and a fever that faded away over a few hours. Some time ago, the woman and her two children even passed out, without any medical explanation being found. They now suspect that the phenomenon could be the cause, although she does not know how to go about researching it at the time. Other locals have also seen strange lights and fireballs.
Pedro Parera and María Rosa Velázquez and their children constitute a family of workers in [the town of] Carlos Tejedor. Both work day-to-day in their mechanic shop and spend weekends in a country property they own some 25 km from the city at Colonia del Toro. Their work is hardly over: there is painting to be done, grass to be mowed, repairs to be made – all of which delights the family. But something happened last weekend that changed everything for them.
María Rosa, a photography buff, does not waste any time in taking pictures, and she snaps away at her little digital camera, capturing every moment. It was in one of these photos of a growing soybean field, with the house visible in the distance, that she noticed something odd over the structure. Zooming in on her PC screen, she ascertained the presence of a shining object. Golden, resembling a bell, and of considerable size.
The strangeness quotient increased upon inspecting other photos. The object was visible in nearly all images taken in the same direction.
Not satisfied by this, María Rosa decided to look at pictures taken six months ago and even one year ago, and her astonishment was boundless: the object was always there.
At Night
Intrigue won out in the end, and after a conversation with a local engineer who told her that he’d seen something like a fireball – a story similar to one told by a fumigator, and other locals, who were unsure about the truthfulness of her story – she decided to return to field with her husband Pedro at night.
Her astonishment could not be measured, according to the report made to NOTICIAS at our newsroom last Tuesday, when they wanted the entire region to know what was going on. “There were very bright lights, green, red and blue. I took pictures of them, even though I was afraid. There was even one that turned into a true fireball and went away...”
María Rosa states that they were about to have dinner, but upon returning to the table, after taking as many pics of the lights as she could, until the fireball erupted, she felt a sensation of intense cold. “A very strange sensation, I don’t know how to explain it. I shivered. We went back and I had to cover myself with several blankets. I had a fever. But I was fine the next day,” she says, looking for an answer.
Everyone’s Sick
Today she connects this event with another that she and her children experienced last year, when she felt very ill one night and the boys woke up screaming, frightened, before fainting one after the other. This prompted the couple to return urgently to the city, with Pedro driving his family to the hospital. No abnormal health conditions were detected.
“Now, after what happened to me that night, I wonder if it was the same thing that made us feel so sick. I would like to go back to see if this is the case,” she says, her feelings an admixture of wonderment and astonishment, and fear about something she cannot explain.
Calls for an Investigation
Meanwhile, Pedro looks and listens, offering control and calm. Maria Rosa states that she “would like to have a large photo camera, to take higher-definition photos of all this, and to have someone tell us what it is, what it does, and why it’s there.”
Half-humorously, she adds: “The evidently “live” there, because they’re always there, they appear in nearly all photos. It’s a shame they won’t volunteer with the chores. Last week we mowed the grass, painted, made repairs, worked all day, but they didn’t offer much help...at least none we could see.”
Date: January 28, 2011
Source: Diario Noticias Pehuajo (Argentina)
http://www.noticiaspehuajo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7240
(Translation (c) 2011, S. Corrales, IHU. Special thanks to Guillermo Gimenez, Planeta UFO)
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Ex-policeman in Wales 'big cat' sighting
yahoo - A former policeman based in west Wales spotted a "puma or panther-like animal" as recently as Wednesday.
Michael Disney now works for Pembrokeshire County Council's Public Protection Division and his sighting is being treated as authentic. While he gathered no photographic or other evidence, his sighting appears to give greater credence to the so-called big cat myth.
Stories of feline beasts living in remote corners of the UK are so common there is barely a region of the country without one - from the Beast of Bodmin in Cornwall to sightings in Kent and all over the north of England, such stories are common rural legends.
The latest sighting comes days after the government environment watchdog for England dismissed the existence of big cats. Experts with Natural England said in a report that they were confident no breeding populations of big cats exist in Britain.
Pembrokeshire Council begs to differ and is so convinced by Mr Disney that it is urging the public to report any sightings. It published extracts of the statement made by their man, which has been passed to the police.
Mr Disney's encounter happened in broad daylight in countryside six miles north of Haverfordwest, near Treffgarne village. He was driving his council car on a single track road at 15mph when a large black "puma or panther" crossed five metres in front of him.
He said: "I immediately stopped my vehicle and stared at this animal. It had a large cat-like head, muscular build and was approximately three feet tall.
"It was bigger and more muscular than a German shepherd dog. The coat was smooth and looked like it had brown spots on it. I had a clear, unobstructed view of the animal and the visibility was excellent."
He added: "I am 100% certain that this was a puma or panther-like animal and was definitely not a dog, cat or any other domestic animal. It was not something I had seen before other than in a zoo."
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Cult of the mask grips Japan
theaustralian - They have blue sailor-suit uniforms, spangly mobile phones and several designer shopping bags. But one thing stands out: the cotton medical masks that cover their mouths and noses every waking hour.
These teenagers don't have colds. Instead, they are members of a growing tribe of Japanese teenagers who wear masks to take refuge from the world at large.
Rika puts her mask on when she leaves home and takes it off only when she goes to bed. She removes it reluctantly to eat, drink and occasionally allow her boyfriend to kiss her. She feels "comfortable" and "at ease" when she wears it. Rika, and others like her, are the cause of growing disquiet.
Last week's Asahi newspaper ran a long piece on these date or show masks. The phenomenon is one more example of a troubled youth culture turning in on itself, echoing Japan's lack of economic and political self-confidence.
The eccentricities of Rika and Kimiko are not as extreme as those of the million hikikomori, socially withdrawn Japanese who live with their parents and rarely leave their bedrooms. They are less sensational than the "girly men", heterosexual boys who forgo high-status pursuits and girlfriends in favour of humble jobs and clothes shopping.
But, like them, they seem to speak of a culture in which economic stagnation and the loss of guaranteed lifetime employment have left many young people uncertain of their place in society.
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| Tatsuya Ichihashi - before (left) and after DIY plastic surgery |
Accused killer: 'I performed plastic surgery on myself'
msnbc - While on the lam for 2½ years, a Japanese man wanted for the murder of a British woman says he scissored off his lower lip, dug two moles out of his cheek with a box cutter and gave himself a nose job in an attempt to obscure his identity.
The disclosures come in a book released Wednesday and written from jail by Tatsuya Ichihashi, who will stand trial later this year in the murder and rape of his English teacher, Lindsay Ann Hawker.
Hawker, 22, was found dead in a sand-filled bathtub on the balcony of Ichihashi's apartment in Chiba, east of Tokyo, in March 2007.
Ichihashi, arrested in 2009 after a lengthy nationwide manhunt, admits to taking Hawker's life in the book, "Until the Arrest." But he doesn't describe the crime or his motives, instead detailing his life at large, during which he traveled up and down the country, in constant fear of arrest and obsessed with cosmetic surgery.
While police say Ichihashi has confessed to assaulting Hawker and that she died from her injuries, he won't enter a plea until the trial begins. The details in the book do not take responsibility for anything beyond what Ichihashi has already told investigators. If convicted of murder, he could face the death penalty.
After escaping the police who came to his apartment to question him, he bound up his nose with a thread and needle — like a cook trussing a piece of meat — to make it narrower.
At first, Ichihashi, 32, wandered around Tokyo and then drifted north to Aomori prefecture, where he twice tried to cut off part of his lower lip to make it thinner. The first time, he couldn't follow through because of the excruciating pain, he wrote. He finished it up a few days later in a public bathroom.
He wore several layers of surgical masks to hide the scars, but apparently didn't stand out in the spring when many Japanese do the same to escape pollen.
Moving by train and bus, Ichihashi headed south and embarked on a pilgrimage of temples in the southwestern island of Shikoku, wishing Hawker could "come back to life" — an idea he got from a novel, in which the dead are resurrected after someone who is thinking of them tours the same temples.
"I took Lindsay's life, that fact does not change," he wrote in the 238-page book released by publishing house Gentosha, its cover depicting Ichihashi's drawing of himself: a man wearing a baseball cap and a surgical mask.
While at large, Ichihashi carefully avoided monitoring cameras at shops and eye contact with anyone. He changed his location quickly and often when he thought he might have been spotted. He never contacted his family or friends.
Police offered a reward of 10 million yen ($121,000) for tips leading to his arrest.
Once he walked past a police station and saw a wanted poster with his face on it. It was then that he sliced off the moles on his left cheek — prominent in the wanted picture.
Having saved nearly 1 million yen ($12,100) from a string of construction jobs, he spent most of it on two plastic surgery operations, once to acquire a longer and narrower nose, and the second to raise the bridge of his nose.
In the end, his attempts to obscure his identity led to his arrest.
Staff at the second clinic took many photos of his left cheek with traces of moles he had removed, which seemed "strange."
The clinic reported his visit and sent the photos to police — news that was splashed in Japanese newspapers.
Ichihashi said he froze when he saw the news on TV about his cosmetic surgery.
"My heart raced," he wrote. "I gazed at it trembling."
He immediately checked out of his hotel, got a haircut and even bought a party disguise set containing a beard, sideburns and a mustache.
He was eventually stopped on Nov. 10, 2009, by police at the ferry terminal in Osaka as he tried to flee again. One of the officers asked his name.
Ichihashi gave his real name for the first time in 2½ years and was arrested.
In his book, Ichihashi apologizes to Hawker and her family, saying the book was intended as "a gesture of contrition for the crime I committed."
