My good friend, cryptozoologist, and former zoo-keeper, Richard Freeman, has very generously let me use the following. It’s Rich’s very own words on Bryan Sykes, who sadly died just a few days ago, and who Rich knew well.  With that said, over to Rich, who wrote this before Sykes passed away: “Many books have been written on mystery hominids and hominins over the years including a number of classic titles. Ivan T Sanderson’s Abominable Snowmen: A Legend Come to Life, Ralph Izzard’s Abominable Snowman Adventure and Janet and Colin Board’s Bigfoot Casebook spring to mind. The Nature of The Beast is something quite different to anything that has come before. Not only is it the best book ever written on the subject, it is the most important. The book is authored by Professor Bryan Sykes one of the world’s leading geneticists. Sykes is Professor of Human Genetics of Oxford University. For a scientist of such standing, to put his head over the parapet in such a contentious subject takes a lot of guts but the end result is worth it.

“Together with Michel Sartori the Director of the Museum of Zoology in Lausanne, Switzerland Professor Sykes instigated The Oxford-Lausanne Collateral Hominid Project. The idea was to bring hard science into the search for man-like monsters. Sykes and Satori invited people to send them supposed hair samples from unknown primates such as the yeti, sasquatch, almasty and orang pendek.

Sykes has researched human origins for over twenty-five years via the study of mitochondrial DNA. This is inherited from the maternal line and is generally the best preserved DNA. Mitochondria are found between the call wall and nucleus of each cell and release energy, ergo they are relatively abundant. Simply put the Professor has perfected a technique that examines a DNA segment called 12S RNA, part of a gene that helps mitochondria assemble the enzymes required for aerobic metabolism. This sequence is known for all known species of mammal. Hence there could be no confusion in any sample sent to the Project, they would be from one of the known species or from something new. A hypothetical new species could have its place on the genetic tree revealed by its closeness to other species. This meant that human contamination could be avoided. Even Neanderthal 12S RNA differs from modern man.

“The book is the result of the analysis of thirty samples sent to the project and the Professor’s own travels and personal researches. Sykes finds himself in the wilds of the American North West listening to what may or may not be an unseen sasquatch banging the walls of tunnel beneath a tree. He ventures to Russia, home of the Snowman Commission, an official government backed project to hunt hominins in the former Soviet Union. Set up in the 1950s it only lasted three years but has recently been re-formed. The Russian scientists he meets are all confirmed believers and oddly seem to think it important that Bryan only published positive results from his work and not negative. At the museum in Lausanne he examines the massive wealth of information, clippings, letters and writing bequeathed by Dr Bernard Heuvelmans, the man widely excepted to have created the discipline of cryptozoology in its modern form. There is a highly interesting chapter on the Minnesota Iceman debacle were Heuvelmans and his friend the Scottish zoologist Ivan T Sanderson seem to have been duped by a clever fake, a faux ape-man in a block of ice. Correspondence between the two does not show the ‘father of cryptozoology’ in the best of lights.

The Professor meets modern explorers and cryptozoologists such as Jon Downes and myself at the Centre for Fortean Zoology, Loren Coleman, Dr Jeff Meldrum and the mountaineer Reinhold Messner. The hair samples were collected from all across the world and sent in to the Project. Each and every one turned out to be from known species. Bears, horses, humans and goats were among the creatures found to be the former owners of the hairs.

Richard Freeman (picture taken by Nick Redfern)

“The book is completely honest and open in its treatment of the subject. The Professor is clear in pointing out that just because these samples turned out to be from known species this does not mean that anomalous primates do not exist. Sykes criticizes some cryptozoologists for not being rigorous enough and going through the right channels in the analysis of samples. He equally lambasts some scientists for rejecting the notion of large unknown creatures out of hand. Despite the negative results of the hair analysis the Professors personal view is more positive.

“Funnily enough, even though there were no anomalous primates in among the hairs I tested, I think my view has altered more to ‘something out there’ than the reverse. The change of heart comes from speaking to several people, some not even mentioned in The Nature of the Beast, who have nothing to gain but who have seen things in good light while in the company of other witnesses, that are hard to explain otherwise. To automatically reject these accounts is just as blinkered as accepting that every broken branch has been snapped or twisted by a sasquatch.

“In the books stunning postscript, the Professor’s optimism may just have been proven well founded. This section of the book astounded me so much I had to re-read it in order to make sure I had not been mistaken. The Professor may now be on the edge of a jaw dropping discovery. Whilst in Russia he was able to secure a tooth from a remarkable skull once owned by the Darwin Museum in Moscow but subsequently sold to a private collector. The skull was from a man named Khwit. Khwit who died in the early 1950s was said to be one of several hybrid children born from an almasty mother and a human farther. The almasty are said to be large, powerfully built, hair covered wild people reported from the mountains of Russia and the former USSR. They are more man-like than the yeti but clearly not modern humans.

“In the 1850s a female almasty was captured in a forested region of what is now Abkhazia in the Caucasus. Tall, muscular with an ape-like face and covered in reddish black hair she was named Zana. Zana was taken to the farm of a local nobleman in the village of T’khina. She finally became tame and could do menial tasks around the farm with her immense strength. She never learned speech but made inarticulate noises. Zana became the mother of a number of hybrid children via a village man Edgi Genaba. The first two children died after their mother tried to wash them in a cold river. Subsequent children were taken from her and raised by villagers. The two boys, Dzhanda and Khwit Genaba (born 1878 and 1884), and the two girls, Kodzhanar and Gamasa Genaba (born 1880 and 1882), were assimilated into normal society, married, and had families of their own. Zana herself died in 1890. Russian researchers located the grave of Khwit and recovered his skull.

“Extracting mitochondrial DNA from the tooth Professor Sykes found that it was 100% sub-Saharan African. This was confusing as Zana was clearly no kind of modern human. Her behaviour and appearance seemed to be far more primitive than a Neanderthal. Further work showed the DNA was from an exceptionally ancient lineage from Western Africa and furthermore it may have been pre Homo sapien. Sykes thinks that this lineage may have left Africa over 150,000 years ago, before modern man. If he is correct than Zana may have been an unknown species of pre-human hominin, a species still lurking in the Caucasus and other areas today. I was in recent e-mail contact with Professor Sykes. Like all good scientists he is proceeding with caution. He and another geneticist are still working on the sample. He has likened Zana’s DNA to old fragments of old photographs that have filtered down through time. I await the results with baited breath. The Nature of the Beast could easily have been a dry tome but it is written in a highly entertaining and accessible manner yet without losing its scientific credibility, a very impressive feat. It is a must read for any cryptozoologist or fortean.” There’s no doubt about that at all; a superb book from a man who will be greatly missed.

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Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse …

“The fungi infect two Danish fly species (Coenosia tigrina and Coenosia testacea). As they do, they create a large hole in the abdomen of their infected hosts. The flies buzz about for days as fungal spores are released into the air from this hole and drift upon new victims.”

Does it sound like these fungi are auditioning to play aliens in a new sci-fi movie? In the press release for a new study published in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, Jørgen Eilenberg, a biologist at the University of Copenhagen and study co-author, gives the gory details about Strongwellsea tigrinae and Strongwellsea acerosa, both found in the Capital Region of Denmark near Copenhagen and Frederiksberg. the zombification begins when the fungi enter the flies and then begin to eat their way out, creating holes in the fly bodies to eject spores. The flies look normal – in fact, they can still mate and spread more spores to the unsuspecting partner. They exist in the zombie state for a few days, slowly being eaten away, until they finally fall to the ground, roll over, spasm and die for good. Even then, the bodies still spew spores.

“We suspect therefore that these fungi may produce amphetamine-like substances which keep a fly’s energy level high up until the end. At the same time, we have a theory that the fungi also produce substances which keep microorganisms away from the fly’s fungal wound.”

In other words, as Jørgen Eilenberg explains, the fungi make the flies buzz while buzzed, and that’s the part these researchers think could be tried on humans. At the same time, they protect the fly’s wounds from infection by other microorganisms. This combination could be a benefit to surgeons as a means to keep patients alive and infection-free in the OR.

“It is fascinating how the life cycles of these fungi are so well adapted to the lives of the flies they target.”

Before you start to think nice thoughts about the fungi, Eilenberg notes that they’ve adapted to hibernate in the winter when the flies are inactive and germinate in the spring when they start moving around again. Don’t feel too sorry for the flies either – they’re both predatory species in the house and stable fly family.

It would take more than a swat of the tail to stop a zombie horse fly. Good movie promo? Let’s hope these adaptable zombifying fungi don’t get the idea first.

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Just about everyone has heard of the Black Eyed Children. Even my dad has heard of them! But, what about Black Eyed adults? Granted, such reports are in the minority, but that’s not to say there aren’t such reports. There most assuredly are. As you will now find out. Tracie Austin is a long-time friend who I first met back in 1995. At the time, Tracie and I only lived about a 45-minute-drive from each other in central, rural England. As a result, we spent a lot of time traveling to UFO conferences in the U.K. and having a good time, very often with a mutual friend, Irene Bott, who used to run the Staffordshire UFO Group. Tracie moved to the United States a couple of years before me and now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. She has done very well for herself and has her own TV show, which is broadcast out of the heart of the city.

One of the most fascinating things that Tracie has come across is that of the Black Eyed Adults (what we might call the BEAs). She says: “I have a friend named Dana; she works in timeshare, at a resort out here in Las Vegas, on the far end of the strip. She was working one day – this was in April 2016 – when she said this lady was sent over to her, with two kids: a young boy and a girl. The girl was about six or seven and the boy was about four or five. The woman was wearing dark brown pants and had long brown hair. And the reason why the woman was sent over was because Dana gave the gifting in the timeshare company. When you listen to a presentation, you’re given a gift. But, the woman said she didn’t want a gift and Dana said, ‘When she looked at me and said that, I saw that she had total black eyes. There were no whites whatsoever [italics mine]. And the kids were exactly the same. But, in every other sense they were completely normal; they weren’t wearing the hoodies.”

Hoodies and Horrors

Tracie continues: “Dana commented, ‘I wish I had said something, like how do you see with those eyes?’ When she said that, I thought you can’t really ask them something like that. Maybe you could say, ‘Wow, your eyes are beautiful.’ But, maybe that’s bringing attention to something they don’t want you to know about. But, they could wear sunglasses all the time and no-one would know. So, maybe they are testing our reactions, they want their eyes to be seen. The kids were quiet; they didn’t say anything to her. Dana asked the woman how long she was going to be staying at the resort. And she said just one night and then they left.

“Dana said to me, ‘I couldn’t believe it, Trace; I saw after that that you were going to be doing a show on the Black-Eyed Kids.’ She reached out to me on Facebook and said, ‘I had an encounter with a Black-Eyed Woman and Black-Eyed Kids.’ Then, a couple of months after encountering this woman, Dana asked me if there was some connection between seeing them and people dying, when they have an encounter with the Black-Eyed-People. Right around a month or two after her encounter, her parents – who were both in their seventies – died. They hadn’t been sick, weren’t ill. Her father had developed kidney failure, out of the blue, and then her mother developed pneumonia. She said to me: ‘Tracie, this is freaking me out, as I hear [the Black-Eyed Children] can be omens of death.’ I said I didn’t know, as I didn’t want to scare her.”

Tracie Austin

Tracie says, too: “I also have a friend who had an experience with a Black-Eyed Man; this was in a Wal-Mart in Michigan where she saw him. I was living in California at the time and this would have been about 2004, Christmas time. They were at the check-out and he insisted that he gave a gift to her son. It was a Spiderman clock. She said where he stood in line, there was someone in between her and this man. But, when he gave the gift, it was like his hand reached through the person between them; just passed right through the flesh of this person. And what freaked her out was that he had the pure black eyes [italics mine]. She didn’t want him to accept the clock, with him being a stranger. But, he insisted.”

Perhaps, in light of all the above, we should expand our horizons and keep our eyes out for the adult versions of those creepy kids.

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My previous article was titled “Taking a Look at Those Mysterious Ghost Lights.” In part, the article went like this went like this: “Over the years I’ve been asked for my thoughts on what have popularly become known as ‘Ghost Lights.’ Well, I can say for sure I’ve heard all sorts of theories for what they might really be. Those theories include some kind of intelligent ball of energy, the souls of the dead (people and animals), shapeshifting aliens, ball lightning, and entry points to other dimensions. Of course, there may be numerous other theories, too, but these are most definitely ones that I often hear about. I can’t say, at all, that I’m an expert in this field; however, I do have an interest in the subject.” I have to say I think at least some so-called Ghost Lights might actually be the creations of military agencies looking to use them on the battlefield. While such a thing might sound too way out for some people, bear with me.

There’s a distinct possibility some Ghost Lights are that rarely seen phenomenon called ball lightning. And what might that be? Read on. The following words are from the people at EarthSky: “Ball lightning is one of the best-known natural phenomena that few have seen. Until recent years, most scientists remained skeptical about ball lightning; it seemed more myth than reality. Nowadays, ball lightning’s street cred among scientists is stronger, but it’s still the case that most of the images you see online purporting to be ball lightning are just over-exposed images of ordinary lightning. In fact, no expert we asked could point us to an actual image of ball lightning in nature. What is ball lightning? Since the time of the early Greeks, there’ve been reports of small balls of bright plasma-like light moving over the ground and then vanishing. The explanation still eludes scientists for the most part, although various explanations have now been offered.”

Over the years, I have taken a deep interest in the matter of ball lightning. As my research has progressed, I have used the Freedom of Information Act and requested – from many of the ABC agencies within government – copies of any and all papers dealing with ball lightning. Some of the material that was released to me was highly intriguing. The long list included: Theory of the Lightning Ball and its Application to the Atmospheric Phenomenon Called ‘Flying Saucers’, that was put together by Carl Benadicks in 1954; Ball Lightning: A Survey, prepared by one J.R. McNally for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee [year unknown]; D.V. Ritchie’s Reds May Use Lightning as a Weapon, which popped up in the pages of Missiles and Rockets in August 1959; and An Experimental and Theoretical Program to Investigate the Feasibility of Confining Plasma in Free Space by Radar Beams, the latter being the work of a C.M. Haaland, in 1960, for the Armor Research Foundation, situated in the Illinois Institute of Technology.

One document really stood out: Survey of Kugelblitz Theories for Electromagnetic Incendiaries. It was the brainchild of W.B. Lyttle and C.E. Wilson. At the time, they were in the employ of Melpar, Inc., which is described as “an American government contractor in the 20^th century Cold War period. At a time when most employment in Washington, D.C. was directly by the U.S. federal government, Melpar became an early private sector contracting company training a high technology workforce in the area.” Lyttle and Wilson were assigned to the Edgewood Arsenal, and to what was intriguingly titled as a “New Concepts Division / Special Project”” operation. At the beginning of their 92-pages-long report, the two wrote: “The purpose of this study was to review the theory and experimental data on ball lightning, to compare the existing theory and experimental data to determine whether ball lightning is a high or low energy phenomenon, and if it is a high energy phenomenon define an effective theoretical and experimental program to develop a potential incendiary weapon [italics mine].”

The pair added: “Three major categories were established for the purpose of grouping the numerous theories on the subject. These categories are the classical plasma theories, the quantum plasma theories, and the non-plasma theories. A theoretical and experimental Kugelblitz program is recommended by which the most promising high energy theories could be developed so that a weapons application could be realized.” On the matter of what, exactly, ball lightning was, the pair had a few ideas. Those same ideas included a “plasma created by a lightning strike and maintained by electromagnetic standing waves;” a “non-plasma phenomenon;” and the “nuclear theory;” which was “based on the assumption that the content of the ball is radioactive carbon-14 created from atmospheric nitrogen by the action of thermal neutrons liberated by a lightning strike.” Wilson and Lyttle said that “since the high energy Kugelblitz is clearly the only type weapon of importance, we believe that the major effort should be expended along these lines.” The effort continued.

Keep one important thing in mind: the document I quoted from dates back from the mid-1960s. That makes me wonder just how much we might have advanced –  in relation to the utilization of ball lightning – since then?

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Most people who know the name Jan Broberg will probably know her as an accomplished American actress, singer and dancer, who has appeared in over a dozen feature films and numerous TV shows, and she is also a veteran stage actress appearing in countless productions. She has by all appearances had a very successful life, but often such success stories have an undercurrent of tragedy behind the scenes, and Broberg is one of these. Although she is famous for her stage, television, and movie work, she is also known for a darker time of her life, and here we will look at her bizarre and shocking tale of abduction, confinement, blackmail, and other horrors all set to the backdrop of outlandish alien conspiracies spun by a madman.

It began in October of 1974 with a strange and frightening experience. Jan, who was 12 at the time, woke up in a dazed state in an unfamiliar room with no idea where she was. Disoriented and afraid, she was then subjected to a voice coming from a box nearby, which sounded alien sounding and frightening. The strange voice told her that the world was now being controlled by alien forces and that she had been abducted by a UFO. The aliens then told her that they had an important mission for her, that she was the “female companion” and that she was to meet with the “male companion” and procreate with him to have a child. It was explained to her that this child would help save the aliens’ dying planet and the earth itself, and that if she were to refuse then they would come after her family. The bewildered girl believed it all, saying in an article for Vanity Fair, “I thought I’d been taken by a UFO. I was more terrified of that voice and those messages coming from that voice, than probably anything else that happened to me.”

The man she was meant to procreate with happened to be there at the time, and in fact Jan was in his motorhome far from home. She was surprised to see that he was actually a close friend of the family, a man by the name of Robert Berchtold, who was a well-respected and religious man within the community and beyond reproach. He was so close with the Broberg family, in fact, that Jan saw him as almost a second father, but she was now part of his dark plan to brainwash and abuse her. Berchtold had taken her out for a horseback ride near her home in Idaho, after which he had drugged Jan, put her in his motorhome, and driven her thousands of miles away to a remote area of a Mexican desert. Indeed, it was his motorhome that she had awoken within, and the alien conspiracy was his convoluted plan to brainwash her into doing what he wanted. Yet as fantastical as it all seemed, Jan actually believed it all, and truly thought she was being controlled by alien forces and that she had to do what they said at all costs, but it had all been a carefully planned out, if bizarre ploy by Berchtold that he had been brewing and seeding for some time. Jan would later explain:

I thought I had the alien mission to accomplish! I laugh about it now, but as a 12-year-old who had been to a number of science-fiction movies with the Berchtolds… And there were a lot of articles in the newspapers that had UFO sightings on the front page. It was the ’70s! People ask me, how long did it take you to believe you’d been kidnapped by aliens? I’m like, five seconds. Because for two and a half years Berchtold would bring over the newspaper and say, ‘Look, there’s another UFO sighting.’ I literally did anything the aliens told me to do, because they told me my little sister would be taken if I didn’t fulfil the mission of having the child for their dying planet.

In the meantime, there were suspicious things afoot back at the Broberg home, as when they realized that their daughter had been abducted, Berchtold’s wife was insistent that they not call the authorities, which caused a delay in action being taken. They did not contact the FBI for several days, and refused to believe the idea that Berchtold, who was also missing and had been the last one with her, had taken her, as he was such a trusted and close family friend. It would not be until five weeks later that the FBI managed to find Jan and her captor, but this doesn’t seem to have brought any justice. Not only did Berchtold’s lawyers manage to help him worm out of a charge of kidnapping, but there was also the matter that Berchtold had in fact had an affair with Jan’s mother, Mary Anne, and unbelievably had also had inappropriate relations with the father. Considering their religious standing in the community, Berchtold was able to blackmail them into dropping serious charges against him and conning them into signing affadavits that said he had been given permission to take Jan out of town. There was also the fact that Jan was still so convinced that this was all being orchestrated by nefarious alien forces that she was terrified of telling anyone that in fact she had been sexually abused and raped during her long absence. All of this ensured that Berchtold served only a few days in jail for what had happened, and he walked away a free man, but it doesn’t end there.

Jan Broberg and Robert Berchtold

When she was 14 years old, Jan was abducted yet again by Berchtold, and she was still convinced of the alien conspiracy and he still had that ammunition against the parents to prevent him from being seriously charged. Once again he managed to squirm his way out of it, and he continued to abuse her and keep up the inappropriate relationship for years right under everyone’s noses through manipulation and grooming both Jan and her parents. It would not be until years later that she would finally tell her mother what had really happened to her, and that she had been groomed and abused by Berchtold. Jan and her mother would write a memoir of the experience titled Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, which would pave the way for the truth coming out.

In later years, Jan finally had the courage to come out with her story, and that was when other victims also came forward to claim that Berchtold had abused them as well, under the same extravagant ruse of aliens and UFO abductions. This all caught up with Berchtold in 2005, decades after Jan’s kidnapping, and he was accused of the rape of Jan and molesting others, but he was once again able to escape being sentenced, this time by killing himself. In the aftermath of all of this, Jan has gone on into her successful entertainment career, and the whole bizarre story has been made into a well-received documentary called Abducted in Plain Sight, directed by Skye Borgman. It is all quite the tragic and bizarre story, to be sure, and just about the only thing good to come out of it is that Jan finally made a name for herself and found her calling. But it is still tragic, and there will forever be that dark pulse in the background that haunts her, and those strange days of abuse, manipulation, and living under the rule of perceived aliens.

If you’re keeping score at home of the number of mysterious monoliths to appear around the world in the past month (and if you’re not, what are you doing to pass the time during the pandemic shutdown – the rest of us want to know!), the total has reached 66 and counting. That tally includes multiple monolith appearances in California (the U.S. leader with 9), the U.K. (6), the Netherlands (4), France (4) and Belgium (2). (Photos of the better-known ones here.)  If you go by continents, none have been reported so far in Asia, Africa and Antarctica. While some are still standing, many have disappeared almost as fast as they were found. Most have obvious signs that they’re manmade, with at least two sources offering to sell them. However, none (so far) can top the strangeness meter like the latest monolith discovered in Australia – the first on that continent and the only one with cryptic engraving. Can we finally say “It’s aliens!”?

Photos of these monoliths are shown below
with the date discovered/reported, the monoliths location,
the source that reported it,
as well as a brief note on any interesting features.
This list is being updated, for a complete list see Wikipedia here.

Date: Dec 10 2020.
Location: along the Seaford railway line,
just south of the Noarlunga Centre inAdelaide, Australia
Source: 7News
Feature: scratched on it is four sets of latitude/longitude coordinates:
{top to bottom} (40.7624N,73.9738W), (15.2413973N,145.7122932E),
(17.75N,142.5E),(29.97N, 31.1375E).
These coordinates point approximately to:
(1) Trump Tower New York,(40.7624N,73.9738W)
(2) Managaha Island North Mariana Islands,(15.2413973N,145.7122932E)
(3) The Mariana Trench (NW of Managaha Island), (17.75N,142.5E)
(4) The Sphinx Egypt,(29.97N, 31.1375E)
These coordinates point in a line from Trump Tower to the Sphinx to the Mariana Trench.

You can Google those coordinates, but we’ll reveal the locations in a minute. They’re engraved on a monolith (the standard 10-foot, three-sided, silver kind) found on December 10 next to the Seaford railway train bridge just south of the Noarlunga Centre in Adelaide, South Australia. (Photo here.) It was reported to 7 News and other media sites which dutifully posted the report immediately, because the monoliths are much more fun than anything else going on in 2020. The name Noarlunga is an English misspelling and mispronunciation of the native Kaurna word Nurlongga (‘at the curvature’), a reference to the horseshoe bend near the mouth of the Onkaparinga River it sits on.

A monolith has appeared at Noarlunga Centre in South Australia.

Source: Nine News/Google Maps

We’re still waiting for the mysterious locations.

Sorry about that, and you’re right … they are mysterious. Starting from the bottom, they are the coordinates of the Sphinx in Giza, Egypt; the Mariana Trench in the Pacific (the deepest oceanic trench on Earth); Managaha Island in the North Mariana Islands (a historic site of the major World War II Battle of Saipan; and Trump Tower in New York City.

Trump Tower??!!

Yes, Trump Tower. We’re as puzzled as you are.

“Our customer relations team hasn’t received any enquiries about the monolith. However I’m not surprised that whoever (or whatever) is responsible chose our region, with our 31 kilometers of stunning beaches, McLaren Vale wineries and Mediterranean lifestyle.”

Noarlunga Mayor Erin Thompson wasted no time promoting the town’s monolith as a major tourist attraction on par with its beaches and wineries, conveniently ignoring any speculation on the meaning of the disparate coordinates. No one else has speculated who placed it there either, and, as of this writing, it’s still in Noarlunga.

Managaha Island

Perhaps the Noarlunga monolith’s erector placed it there as a fun connect-the-dots what-do-these-have-in-common game to play during the socially-distanced, attendance-limited holiday parties. It would certainly be more healthy than a piñata and less annoying than yet another marathon game of Monopoly.

Here’s a start – if aliens were leaving a guidepost of “interesting places to visit on this otherwise worthless planet”, they might include the Sphinx which they had a part in building, the Mariana Trench which is a great secluded parking space, the Managaha Island to remind you where you parked, and the Trump Tower where the leader who has been warned not to reveal your existence once lived.

Your turn.

Just about everyone has heard of the red-eyed Mothman –  the winged thing that struck terror in the people of Point Pleasant, West Virginia from late 1966 to December 1967. But, what about the U.K.’s equivalents of Mothman? How many people may know about them? With those questions in mind, let’s take a look at some of these strange things that have been seen in the skies in the U.K. We’ll begin with a creature that first surfaced in the summer of 1976. . In 1976 the dense trees surrounding Mawnan Old Church, Cornwall, England became a veritable magnet for a beast that was christened the Owlman. The majority of those people who crossed paths with the creature asserted that it was human-like in both size and design, and possessed a pair of large wings, fiery red eyes, claws, and exuded an atmosphere of menace. No wonder people make parallels with Mothman. It all began during the weekend of Easter 1976, when two young girls, June and Vicky Melling, had an encounter of a truly nightmarish kind in Mawnan Woods. The girls were on holiday with their parents when they saw a gigantic, feathery ‘bird man’ hovering over the 13^th Century church.

Two fourteen year old girls, Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry, also had the misfortune to have a run-in with the Owlman in 1976. At around 10:00 p.m., while camping in the woods of Mawnan, and as they sat outside of their tent making a pot of tea, the pair heard a strange hissing noise. On looking around, they saw the infernal Owlman staring in their direction from a distance of about sixty feet. Sally said: “It was like a big owl with pointed ears, as big as a man. The eyes were red and glowing. At first I thought that it was someone dressed-up, playing a joke, trying to scare us. I laughed at it. We both did. Then it went up in the air and we both screamed. When it went up you could see its feet!” Sightings of the beast are still occasionally made in the area.

A particularly strange story of an unidentified flying, human-like entity seen in the skies of England surfaced on February 19, 2009. Mike Lockley, then the editor of the now-closed Chase Post newspaper – which covered the Staffordshire, England town of Cannock – stated that nothing less than a flying man-thing had been seen soaring over and around the nearby Cannock Chase woods! And, now, to the heart of the story: “Five locals have contacted the Post after witnessing the figure traveling, seemingly unaided, over houses at around 11am on Sunday, February 8. One described it as a ‘Superman’ moment – a clear case of ‘to Chadsmoor and beyond,'” said the newspaper. Mike Lockley added: “But eagle-eyed Boney Hay villager Clive Wright believes those who reckon they witnessed something supernatural are talking a load of kryptonite. The 68-year-old, who spotted the flying man from the living room window of his Sunnymead Road home, believes the pilot was traveling with the aid of a jet pack – a strap-on engine made famous in the 1965 James Bond movie, Thunderball.

Elliott O’ Donnell was an acclaimed authority ghosts and life after death, and who penned dozens of books on supernatural phenomena. Born in 1872, he continued writing until his death in 1965, at the age of ninety-three. O’Donnell also had a deep interest in reports of strange creatures, as the following 19^th century account from O’Donnell demonstrates: “Henry Spicer, in his Strange Things Amongst Us, tells the story of a Captain Morgan, an honorable and vivacious gentleman, who, arriving in London in 1841, puts up for the night in a large, old-fashioned hotel. The room in which he slept was full of heavy, antique furniture, reminiscent of the days of King George I, one of the worst periods in modern English history for crime. Despite, however, his grimly suggestive surroundings, Captain Morgan quickly got into bed and was soon asleep. He was abruptly awakened by the sound of flapping, and, on looking up, he saw a huge black bird with outstretched wings and fiery red eyes perched on the rail at the foot of the four-poster bed. The creature flew at him and endeavored to peck his eyes. Captain Morgan resisted, and after a desperate struggle succeeded in driving it to a sofa in the corner of the room, where it settled down and regarded him with great fear in its eyes. Determined to destroy it, he flung himself on the top of it, when, to his surprise and terror, it immediately crumbled into nothingness.”

And, finally, going way back in time, there’s this: Scotland’s River Nairn flows by the site of a historic April 16, 1746 confrontation. Its name: the Battle of Culloden. Scottish lore tells of how, on the night before the violent battle began, a huge, monstrous, bird-like beast was seen hovering and flying above the battlefield. Known as the Skree, this Mothman-style creature had eyes that blazed red, and large and membranous wings like those of a hideous, devilish bat.  The creature was seen as a decidedly ill-omen, a precursor to the death and tragedy that loomed on the horizon for the forces of Bonnie Prince Charlie and those of George II. It was a battle that brought to an end what was known as the Jacobite Rising.

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On the 75th anniversary of perhaps the most famous Bermuda Triangle disappearance, an Australian researcher debunks the myths and explains his own theory on why five US Navy torpedo bombers and a rescue plane disappeared in the triangle without a trace. Case closed or will we still be debating the Bermuda Triangle on the 100th anniversary?

“We should ask ourselves: if we don’t know what caused something, or if something appears entirely mysterious, should we look for the answer in the paranormal.”

Oh, boy. If you want to start a controversy, there’s a good place to start. Shane Satterley of Griffiths University in Queensland opened with that statement in his interview with 9 News about the 75th anniversary of the December 5, 1945, disappearance of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers collectively known as ‘Flight 19’ which took off from a Naval Air Station in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on a three-hour exercise (hum ‘Gilligan’s Island’ theme here) following an ironically triangular flight plan. The mission was led by Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor, an experienced pilot and WWII veteran.

“Both my compasses are out and I’m trying to find Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. I’m over land, but it’s broken. I’m sure I’m in the Keys, but I don’t know how far down.”

Based on previous reports, the planes were not over land but still far out to sea. Non-mission pilots who picked up Taylor’s and other pilots’ broadcasts said later that he sounded confused and anxious. A PBM Mariner flying boat from a Ft. Lauderdale air station was sent to find them but vanished off of radar 20 minutes later and neither the plane nor the 13 crew members were ever found. Search parties of over 300 boats combed the Atlantic east of Florida but found no remains of Flight 19 either. The official government explanation said the disappearance was “cause unknown” and it became known as the Lost Patrol.

“However, when we take the time to learn more about these events and not jump to conclusions, they start to look much more ordinary.”

In the interview and an earlier article in The Conversation, Satterley lays out the critical thinking process that led him to an ordinary cause for the disappearances. On the disappearance of the search plane, Satterley points out that these were nicknamed “flying gas tanks” for their tendency to go down in flames, and that is what a passing merchant ship witnessed, along with the resulting oil slick. On the other hand, TBM Avengers were known to sink about 45 seconds after a water landing – which resulted in an ocean bottom landing that made finding them nearly impossible.

Then there was the coverup.

“Beyond the reported drinking, other rumors have surfaced about Taylor’s behavior that day. One story holds that he was anxious to get home from the mission to go on a hot date, possibly with Jinx Falkenberg, a well-known actress of the day. Another rumor was that he had recently broken up with a girlfriend. He received a letter that same day with some kind of disturbing news.”

Besides the possibility that Taylor made a mistake and may have panicked, there were rumors of his drinking problems and women problems. All of this upset Katherine Taylor, his mother. Upset that her son was being blamed by both the Navy and the media (some things never change), she petitioned the Navy, which capitulated a year after its initial report and changed the reason for the disappearance to “for causes unknown.” In a minor defense, Satterley points out that the other planes had inexperienced trainee crews who were little help in flying by instruments in that day’s bad weather.

“But if 1000 aircraft fly through the Bermuda Triangle and we can explain what happened to 990 of them, should we say the other 10 were supernatural cases? I don’t think we should. All we can say is we don’t know what happened for sure – and we should try to learn more.”

Is the Bermuda Triangle supernatural or natural to logical thinkers like Shane Satterley but not to those with super imaginations? Can the same be said of other paranormal phenomena?

For now, on the 75th anniversary of the disappearance of Flight 19 in the Bermuda Triangle, Shane Satterley has opened a triangular can of worms.

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Just when you thought the basketball-with-protrusions coronavirus would be the symbol of 2020, a new candidate come streaking in from parts unknown (maybe) to make a late bid for 2020 meme supremacy. We’re talking, of course, about the monolith. They started in Utah, spread to Romania and California, disappeared both mysteriously and nefariously, and ended up being claimed by an artist who has them for sale. That should have been the end of the mania … right? Ha! You forgot that this is 2020 – killing the monoliths has become as difficult and controversial as killing the coronavirus. Before that artist could start filling orders, a new supplier undercut him, a monolith appeared in the sky over Idaho, more appeared on the ground in the Netherlands, Pittsburg and on the Isle of Wight — and then came the ultimate (so far) … a golden monolith was found in Columbia! Can this be topped? Somewhere, a monolith said, “Hold my beer and watch this!”

“We went down the steps and to the right about 100 yards in front us we saw this big reflection of the sun. I knew about all the monolith stories recently, so I recognised it straight away.”

You can’t miss the monolith on the Isle of Wight’s Compton Beach, according to dogwalker Tom Dunford, who found it on December 6. It differs from earlier monoliths because it has a pointy top – from the planet of the Coneheads perhaps? This one is also extremely reflective rather than a brush metallic surface – so the aliens can collect our fingerprints? Of course, it may not be aliens – just another copycat. However, don’t tell that to the hikers in Friesland near the Kiekenberg nature reserve in the Netherlands. On the same day, they found a mini-monolith next to a frozen pond with no telltale human footprints in the frost around it. Levitating aliens?

Baby golden monoliths?

“All of a sudden this rectangle showed up. It was only in the sky for a couple of seconds. It wasn’t there, then it was, and as quickly as it appeared, it was gone again. That quick!”

Speaking of levitation, Jeff Jacobs, was driving in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on December 4 when he saw a dark monolith-shaped object in the sky. Luckily, he was quick with the smartphone and snapped a picture before it disappeared. The aliens leaving in their monolith spaceship to leave more homing beacons? No one seems to have an explanation for the monolith-in-the-sky, but one on the ground in front of Grandpa Joe’s Candy Shop in Pittsburgh has a logical explanation – the owner ordered it built out of plywood and sheet metal to attract customers. Finally – an honest non-alien obelisk owner.

“I will hand craft and ship to you a 10 foot tall extruded triangle 3 feet on each side, made of 7 gauge 304 stainless steel, and includes 7 foot attachable ground mounting rods with 1/2 inch toggles, these can be used by the installer to mount the sculpture in firm soil, solid rock, concrete or suspended in concrete. Properly installed it will be very sturdy, small arms bullet proof, and extremely difficult to remove.”

If you’re not handy with tools and you don’t have $45,000 to buy one from The Most Famous Artist, you can get a bullet-proof monolith on Etsy for only $10,000. That’s not much more than a 12-foot live Christmas tree these days … and it’s bulletproof! However, even that can’t compete with the greatest monolith so far.

“This Saturday, social networks in Colombia began to fill with photos and videos of what would be the strange appearance of a golden monolith in the municipality of Chía, located a few kilometers from Bogotá. It is unknown who located it there, and the only thing that is known is that it would have been found by workers in the morning.”

The tweets accompanying the Mystery Planet’s article on Colombia’s golden monolith hint that they think it’s a marketing ploy – and that seems to be as good of a guess at any right now. One thing is for certain – it’s not over, especially when there’s money to be made. And it’s a great distraction from the rest of 2020.

A fallen monolith?

Sorry, coronavirus meme – your day (and that of your real inspiration) is almost over. There’s a new kid in town and his name is Mono.

Wait, they may want to rethink that before putting it on the meme.

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