Norway Princess 'Talks to Angels'

Norway's Princess Martha Louise says she has psychic powers and can teach people to communicate with angels.

The 35-year-old daughter of King Harald and Queen Sonja made the announcement on a website promoting her plans for a new alternative therapy centre.

She says she realised as a child that she could read people's inner feelings, while her experiences with horses had helped her make contact with angels.

Princess Martha Louise is fourth in line to the Norwegian throne.

The royal palace says it has no official link to the princess' planned alternative therapy centre, the AFP news agency reports.

The princess, who trained as a physical therapist, says on the website for her Astarte Education centre that she has "always been interested in alternative forms of treatment".

Students at her centre, she says, will learn how to "create miracles" in their lives and harness the powers of their angels, which she describes as "forces that surround us and who are a resource and help in all aspects of our lives".

"It was while I was taking care of the horses that I got in contact with the angels," she says.

"I have lately understood the value of this important gift and I wish to share it with other people, maybe with you."

A three-year programme at her centre costs 24,000 Norwegian crowns ($4,150; 3,000 euros; £2,000) per year.

Princess Talks To Angels
Princess Talks To Angels

Lawndale Thunderbird Abduction: A New Discovery

I must admit that I have always been fascinated by what has now become labeled, via the internet, as the Lawndale “Thunderbird” Incident, where little Marlon Lowe, 10, was the victim of an attempted avian abduction by a giant-sized bird. I place the term “thunderbird” in quotations in that I have never been convinced that this fascinating piece of Illinois and ornithological histoty truly belonged in the realm of cryptozoology.

However, my beliefs aside, looking at the incident from as scientific of a viewpoint as possible requires the collection and analysis of as many facts and clues on the case as possible. The majority of the facts of the case originate from the initial investigation by cryptozoological researcher and author Jerry Coleman. He is one of few researchers that actually spoke with the Lowe family. The Lowes made the following insistences on the physiology of the abducting bird:

It had a white ring around it’s half foot long neck. The rest of the body was very black. The birds bill was six inches in length and hooked at the end. The claws on the feet were arranged with three front, one in the back. Each wing, less the body, was four feet at the very least. The entire length of the birds body, from beak to tail feather was approximately four and one half feet. (From J. Coleman’s report)

The description sounds vulture/condorish, but onithologists are quick to note that the legs of these avians are buit for perching and not carrying and could not support any significant weight. It is the eagles (and others) that are capable of capturing and lifting their prey…even a very rare human prey. But no eagle species fitting the above description exists. In the annals of giant bird sitings, there are few that match the Lowes’ description…until now.

This picture was published in the Fresno Bee-Republican of Fresno, California on July 18, 1937. The caption reads:

Famous artist Dan Smith’s conception of a giant cousin of a blad eagle carrying off a child, drawn from what was declared to be an “eye-witness” story.



This is tantalyzingly vague though unfortunately as nowhere in the article does it expand upon 1) where and when the sighting occurred 2) who was the witness and 3) how Smith came to be involved in the project.

Smith was a top Americana artist in the early nineteenth century, most famous for his commissioned work for Smith & Wesson and paintings of farm animals.

You might note that the illustration of this “giant eagle” depicts a very large bird with a distinct “white ring around its half foot long neck”. The truly bald (feather-less) head of this mystery bird is also reminicent of other Illinois giant bird sightings of the 1960’s and 70’s including Joni Grawe’s (1973), John Walker’s (1972) and the Chappells of Odin IL (1977).

Could the Lawndale bird have been one and the same with this sighting? Who knows. Ok…as far as clues go, this one is somewhat reminicent of Al Capone’s Vault (for those of us old enough to remember that), but in a case that is (exactly) thirty years old, any substantial clues to the bird’s true identity may be lost to time.

Lawndale Thunderbird Abduction
Lawndale Thunderbird Abduction

Belfast's Muck Monster

Prospect, Maine — World-renowned cryptozoologist Loren Coleman visited Fort Knox over the weekend as part of the fort’s Paranormal and Psychic Faire, which also featured presentations on dowsing and paranormal investigation. Coleman was on hand for much of the weekend to answer questions and autograph copies of his numerous books.

Coleman started working in cryptozoology, which literally means the study of hidden animals, in 1960, after watching a science fiction movie on the Yeti (also known as the Abominable Snowman). His teachers told him not to waste his time reading about such creatures, which he said naturally led him to read everything he could about them.

Early in his career, Coleman wrote letters to people all over the country about the subject of cryptozoology. He soon started writing field reports in the Midwest, and investigated Bigfoot and mystery cat sightings. He was first published in 1969 and has since published 30 books. He has now done expeditions in every state except Alaska, and all over the world, including a two-week stay at Loch Ness, where he keynoted a symposium on the Loch Ness Monster and interviewed many witnesses who claim to have seen Nessie. Coleman’s work in cryptozoology has also drawn coverage from the Discovery Channel, the History Channel and National Geographic.

Cryptozoologists investigate animals that are noticed by humans but not yet acknowledged by science. Coleman said some good examples of animals that cryptozoologists have studied, and that are now known to exist, include the giant squid and the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Coleman said cryptozoology is a very popular subject worldwide, although very few people work in his field….He said the world’s most popular mysterious creatures are Nessie, Bigfoot, and the Yeti. However, here in Maine, some of the creatures asked about most often are the New England Sea Serpent, and the Maine Mystery Beast.

The New England Sea Serpent has been sighted less and less, said Coleman, because sea traffic is much more regulated today than it has been in the past. As recently as 1958, however, there was a sighting off Cape Elizabeth of a sea creature said to be more than 50 feet long. It was said to move toward the sound of a foghorn every time it went off. Coleman said this is a detail that is rare and gives more credibility to the account.

Coleman said about 80 percent of all sightings of any such creature are hoaxes or mistakes. “I don’t believe in any of this. I accept or deny based on the evidence,” said Coleman.

That said, Coleman reported he has found footprints and has seen black panthers (the North American black panther has never been photographed or bred and is largely thought by the scientific community not to exist). Coleman said it is likely Bigfoot exists, and that these creatures live in family groups, as most sightings are of two adults and two children.

There are not many Bigfoot sightings in Maine, Coleman said, although footprints have been found in Sidney. There were reports of sightings in Durham in the ‘70s, and also reports in Rangeley and the Mt. Katahdin area more than 100 years ago. Coleman said because the Maine woods are home to other large animals, such as moose, it is possible that a Bigfoot type of creature could have lived in the Maine woods as well.

Among the large creatures that may be lurking in the Maine woods is the Maine Mystery Beast, not to be confused with the Maine Mutant that was discovered — and highly publicized — last year.

In the 1990s reports came in from the Turner area that a large creature was killing livestock and big dogs. Coleman said this Mystery Beast is likely still at large and is probably a black panther or other large cat.

The Maine Mutant was discovered dead on the side of the road last year, after reports that a wild beast had been chasing cats in the Turner area. The Maine Mutant became a worldwide phenomenon and was on the news in several countries. Coleman said it became a huge story because there was a body that could be studied and identified. Eventually, after DNA tests were done, the body of the mutant was identified as a feral chow, a dog that had been wild for a long time. The Maine Mutant had already been popularized, however, and you can still find T-shirts with a cartoon of the mutant’s head on them.

Of course, there may be some mystery beasts even closer to home than Turner. Coleman said he has heard stories of a monster residing in Kirby Lake, also known as The Muck, in Belfast, located on the corner of Miller Street and Lincolnville Avenue. Coleman said while it’s possible the rumors are the result of people wanting to make up their own local folklore, he has also heard that the creature is a giant eel.

Coleman said it is an exciting time in the world of cryptozoology, and that he has a lot of fun doing his job. He has degrees in social work and anthropology and spent years working at a university, although he quit in 1996 to pursue cryptozoology full time.

“It’s not about money,” Coleman said. “It’s about passion and adventure.”

Belfast Maine Muck Monster
Belfast Maine Muck Monster

Author Says UFO-Air Force Dogfight Ended in Flatwoods

Sci-fi buffs flocked to a fantasy film in 1984 bearing a title prediction that 2010 would be the year earthlings make contact with aliens.
Actually, contact has come, and it was less than friendly, says one UFO researcher.

Three decades earlier, in fact, back in 1952, just five years after the famed Roswell, New Mexico incident, the American military engaged a convoy of alien aircraft with orders to destroy them in a pitched air battle right off the Atlantic Coast, says Frank Feschino, author of "The Flatwoods Monster,'' a phenomenon that rocked a tiny West Virginia town that year.

An illustrator and writer, Feschino has produced a follow-up book, this one titled "Shoot Them Down,'' an effort produced after years of painstaking research of the U.S. Air Force's once-classified files on unidentified flying saucers and digesting countless magazine articles on the matter.

His years of exhaustive study have convinced Feschino that American jet fighters did indeed make contact -- at the point of their guns.

"Shoot Them Down'' draws its name from orders Feschino says President Truman gave military commanders while an American public was growing increasingly jittery over coast-to-coast UFO sightings.

Two years earlier, Truman had remarked at a news conference, "I can assure you that flying saucers, given that they exist, are not constructed by any power on earth.''

"There are tons of documents right there, intelligence reports, talking about pilots chasing these things, going after them,'' Feschino said, citing the once-hidden reports on the Air Force's so-called Project Blue Book.

"That's when it hit the fan, and the government stepped up. That is when they had to simmer the whole country down. The whole country was in an uproar. Everybody was panicking. The job of the government is to keep things under control, and they couldn't let the country panic.''

UFOs were buzzing the entire country that year, "and a good chunk of them were over military installations, and power plants, like Oak Ridge,'' the author says.

Feschino pulls his theory largely from the writings of Air Force Capt. Edward Ruppelt, a decorated World War II veteran, recalled to duty when hostilities erupted in Korea.

Roswell might stand out as the mother of all UFO stories, but 1952 was the most prolific year by far for aircraft sightings -- by one account, some 30,000 alone in the United States, many of them reported in local newspapers around the country.

Craft ranged from discs to round balls to elongated, cigar-shaped ships, the Port Orange, Fla., resident said.

"Capt. Ruppelt was dropping clues throughout his book,'' Feschino said. "And that's the premise of my book. During that time of 1952 we had the highest amount of sightings.''

In a book he wrote, Ruppelt said "other assorted historians have pointed out that normally the UFOs are peaceful,'' but he alluded to a chase in which one of two pilots engaging unidentified aircraft perished.

"They just weren't ready to be observed closely,'' he wrote.

"If the Air Force hadn't slapped down the security lid, these writers might not have reached this conclusion (about peaceful aliens). There have been other and more lurid duels of death. That's what everybody missed.''

Feschino flatly says the Air Force took on alien aircraft just off the coast with orders to destroy them in a move to pacify a public growing ever restless over bizarre sightings. In the battle, apparently one craft hobbled back inland, resting on a knoll in a West Virginia community known as Flatwoods. And it was there on Sept. 12 a group of boys, accompanied by some adults, scampered up the hillside and saw a metallic, 12-foot object emitting a sulfuric odor. Locals dubbed it "the Flatwoods Monster.''

"I have no idea who they were,'' Feschino said.

Based on his interviews with some 200 residents of Flatwoods, however, the author believes the aliens remain interested in rural West Virginia.

"There are people in West Virginia who have been seeing UFOs for the past 50 years, and there are key locations where they are being seen -- Wheeling, Huntington, and quite a few south of Charleston, around Cabin Creek, even down in the Beckley area,'' he said.

Feschino is a headliner for a Sept. 7-8 UFO summit in Charleston, organized by promoter Larry Bailey. Joining him will be Freddie May, a witness to the Flatwoods incident, and nuclear physicist Stanton Friedman, considered the leading UFO researcher in the world. Friedman has appeared on numerous cable TV shows with his belief that extraterrestrials are frequent flyers to planet Earth.

At the two-day gathering, Feschino plans to sell his new book, featuring a special, limited edition cover for West Virginia consumers.

UFO Air Force Dogfight Ended In Flatwoods
UFO Air Force Dogfight Ended In Flatwoods

Legendary Chinese Lake 'Monster' is Captured on Camera

China’s Loch Ness monster has been sighted. Or so Chinese state-run television says. Not just one, but more than a dozen huge creatures can be seen churning across Lake Kanasi in remote western China, leaving a foamy wake more like an enormous motorboat than a big fish.

A rare video filmed by a tourist at the lake in the Heavenly Mountains of the wild Xinjiang region, has reignited debate over the existence of an underwater creature that can compete with the Loch Ness monster in both mass and mystery.

The grainy film shows about 15 objects moving at high speed just beneath the surface of the lake and whipping the smooth blue water into a bubbling white frenzy. Chinese Central Television broadcast the video on its news channel, describing the footage shot by a passing tourist on July 5 as the clearest ever seen of a legendary beast that has been rumoured for centuries to live in the depths of Lake Kanasi.

Local myth among the Chinese Mongolians living in the scenic mountains near the Russian and Mongolian borders has it that the animals have been known to drag sheep, cows and even horses from the shore and into the deep to devour them.



Yuan Guoying, of the Xinjiang Institute of Environmental Protection, told The Times that the video provided important proof in his more than two decades of research at the lake. “Only fish could make waves in this formation. I think the video is real.”

The television commentator described the sighting as the first since June 7, 2005 when two black creatures measuring more than 10 metres in length appeared on the surface swimming at speed from the shore to the centre of the lake. The newsreader described the latest appearance: “They sometimes gathered in a flock, sometimes spread about or moved shoulder to shoulder. The scene is grand and they looked like a fleet.”

State television made no attempt to identify the animals, saying only: ‘This time a large number of unidentified creatures emerged, bringing more mystery to Lake Kanasi.”

Professor Yuan has been on their trail since 1980 and has been gripped by the mystery since his first sighting in 1985 when he says he saw as many as 50 of what he called fish. “They looked like reddish-brown tadpoles because I could only see their heads on the surface. They opened their mouths to breathe and their length was about 10 to 15 metres.”

He spotted the animals again on May 28, 2004 when he was standing looking down at the lake from a nearby hill. “I thought there was a huge piece of black plastic in the lake and that someone had been polluting it. But then I released that it must be the back of a giant fish. I was shocked because they were just too big. Looking at them was like looking at submarines.”

When Mr Yuan got back to his office he tried to calculate the size of the animals by setting their proportions against those of the surrounding landmarks such as trees or the shape of the shoreline. “I didn’t dare say they were bigger than 20 metres because no one would believe me.”


Chinese researchers in the 1980s said the ‘monster’ was likely to be a huge member of the salmon family – one of eight species of fish living in the lake. Mr Yuan gave their name as Hucho Taimen, a freshwater salmon tht thrives in deep frigid waters. He says the biggest Hucho Taimen salmon ever captured was 2.1 metres long and was found in Russia.

The animals that roam Lake Kanasi live in an area about 24 kilometres by two kilometers and with an average depth of 122 metres and as deep as 188 metres at one point.

Mr Yuan believes that a lot more research is needed although China lacks the scientific equipment to make further studies. And it would be impossible to catch a fish of this size. “This fish will have tremendous strength.”

Other Chinese scientists have cast doubt on his findings, but Mr Yuan is adamant. “People will just say ‘You’ve got to be kidding’. But I saw them with my own eyes. I am a scientist. I have no choice but to believe what I saw.”

Chinese Lake Monster
Chinese Lake Monster

Sci-fi Plans "UFO Hunters" Series

Sci Fi Channel has announced that it has ordered UFO Hunters, a new Ghost Hunters-like reality series that will investigate sightings of unidentified flying objects and other "otherworldly experiences." UFO Hunters will air as part of the network's 2007-2008 original programming line-up.

Each episode of UFO Hunters will follow a group of UFO investigators who use the latest technology to lend some credit to reports of flying saucers and space people that are often ridiculed by skeptics.

The New York Strange Phenomena Investigators (NY-SPI) -- led by co-founders Oliver Kemenczky and Ted Davis, and supported by researcher/investigator Dennis Anderson -- will conduct the investigations featured on UFO Hunters, using their decades of experience to lend credibility to the different phenomena they'll attempt to explain.

If UFO Hunters' format sounds similar to that of Sci Fi Channel's Ghost Hunters reality series -- which follows paranormal "ghostbusters" and real-life plumbers Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson as they investigate hauntings and bizarre occurrences -- that's because its being produced by Pilgrim Films and Television, the same production company responsible for Ghost Hunters.

Ghost Hunters executive producers Craig Piligian and Tom Thayer will also executive produce UFO Hunters.

Sci-Fi Plans UFO Hunters Series
Sci-Fi Plans UFO Hunters Series

New Top Secret Construction at Area 51

Something big is in the works at Nevada's legendary Area 51 military base. A massive new building is under construction at the top secret location. Aviation experts say there's a good chance that a new, highly classified aircraft might soon be zipping around the Nevada skies.

What kind of aircraft? One possibility is a successor to the SR-71 spy plane, the SR-72.

The SR-71 Blackbird is widely regarded as the greatest airplane ever built. It sliced through the sky at Mach 3 and still reigns, officially anyway, as the fastest plane in history. Groom Lake, also known as Area 51, was home for the Blackbird during its early days. The question is -- will Area 51 also be the location of choice for the development of a successor, and maybe more than one?

A photo of a new building under construction at Area 51 has raised tantalizing possibilities for the civilian researchers who dabble in such topics. No one can say for certain what the building will be used for, but aviation historian Peter Merlin says the one thing we can say is that it's one big hangar.

"It probably measures 275 feet by 600 feet. It's no larger than hangars at other bases, but it certainly is the largest at Area 51," Peter Merlin said.

Satellite photos confirm Area 51 already has two dozen hangars, including some less than two years old. So what's going on out there?

The hangar could be a central maintenance facility, machine shop and or simulator training center. But aviation writers are thinking more exotic thoughts. For months, there's been speculation in aviation circles about a successor to the SR-71, call it the SR-72. Model airplane companies already have their version of the so called "dark bird," which theoretically could fly twice as fast as the Blackbird.

Peter Merlin says he's been told by engineers at Lockheed that the SR-72 project was canceled, but new reports in aviation media note the Air Force has just awarded a new contract to Lockheed for a plane that sounds exactly like the SR-72, a Mach 6 reconnaissance plane that could also carry weapons, and unlike the SR-71, this one would be unmanned.

It would make for a comfy fit inside that new hangar. But Merlin thinks there are other possibilities also in the works at Groom Lake.

"There are at least seven and maybe as many as eleven manned classified air craft that have not yet been unveiled that have been flying since 1985 and countless unmanned programs as well. Most of these things have been tested there. I know some of the guys that have flown these airplanes," Merlin continued.

Among the suspects is something called the Black Manta, a stealthy hypersonic craft that might explain the wispy images captured in a few photos around the world. Various black triangle-type craft have been spotted over American military bases and cities for years, some of them huge in size, big enough to require a big hangar.

Aviation journalist Bill Sweetman has long argued for the existence of the Aurora, another plane rumored to have been flown at Groom Lake. Sweetman says black budget figures hint at the existence of the plane, which some have dubbed the SR-75 penetrator. Whichever of these ambitious projects ends up in full development, it's abundantly clear that the testing location of choice for top secret planes is still Area 51.

The Lockheed Company, whose so-called Skunkworks plant developed the U-2, SR-71, and stealth fighter -- all of which were test flown out at Area 51 -- says it will not comment on its new Air Force contract.

The Air Force is also not talking.

New Area 51 Construction
New Area 51 Construction