Witches and Pagans gathering in England
WITCHES, druids and bards are descending in England for their annual conference Saturday.
Pick up tips on spell-making, or get a new fairy house at the event on Saturday, when the Wessex branch of the Pagan Federation meets at Lansdown Hall.
Around 150 pagans from across Gloucestershire, Dorset, Somerset and beyond are expected for the one-day conference.
Speakers include Stroud storyteller and bard Kevan Manwaring and witch Anna Franklin, who will be speaking about herbs and magic and their use in spells.
"Pagans believe in a god and goddess – or a male and female concept – and also the life force of nature and its cycles," explained Jan, who has been a Pagan for more than 30 years.
"Pagans come from all walks of life."
They celebrate the eight festivals of the year, including the summer and winter solstices and the spring and autumn equinoxes
Sea 'Monster' in New Zealand?
A grisly carcass discovered last week on a New Zealand beach looks like the stuff of nightmares: Its mangled, decomposing body, half buried in sand, measures about 30 feet long; its eyeless head houses gaping jaws bearing a dozen or so pointed, cone-like teeth. Is it prehistoric? Is it a prank? Actually, it's probably an orca.
According to New Zealand's Sun Live newspaper, the mysterious remains were found by a group of beach-goers near Pukehina on New Zealand's Bay of Plenty. One of the group posted a video of the so-called "monster" to YouTube on April 28, along with this simple query: "Can anyone identify what it is?"
The video captured the imagination of viewers, who suggested in the comments section that the creature could be anything from a saltwater crocodile to a giant moray eel. But according to marine mammal expert Anton van Helden, the carcass is likely the remains of a killer whale.
Alien-like activities linked to animal mutiliations in Canada
Recently a goat was found dead with no blood in it was found at the place Quebrada Corner. On a recent Sunday, in the town of Quimilí, locals found a dead foal with the same signs. Residents believe that it is strange.
In Santiago del Estero locals discovered two mutilated dead animals and they were emptied, without the organs and bones. At the site there were no traces of blood where they were found.
Local residents believe that it could be a strange and supernatural mythical beast called Alma Mule (chupacabra). The first case was a horse who was found in the town of Quimilí completely emptied.
Now, in the place Quebrada Corner, a goat was found dead and bloodless. The animal had a very precise cut at the height of the tail, which would have removed the organs and viscera.
After the information disseminated, the locals were the place to see the remains of the animal and agreed in attributing the fact to the phenomenon. Over a neighbour confessed heard in recent days, strange cries at night that could belong to the supernatural creature.
Former members of Congress hold weird faux UFO hearing in Washington, after the price is right
Six former lawmakers were each paid $20,000 by the Paradigm Research Group, which insists UFOs are real and the government is orchestrating a coverup, to attend hold hearing at National Press Club.
What are a former U.S. senator — and five former House members — doing in a place like this?
The former lawmakers, including former Sen. Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), listened with “open” minds and full pockets for several hours Tuesday at a simulated congressional hearing taking testimony that extraterrestrials “are here.”
“I came here being very skeptical, but I also recognize that I don’t know much about it,” said former Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.)
The six are being paid $20,000 each, plus expenses, by a group called the Paradigm Research Group, which insists UFOs are real and the government has been covering up their existence.
Skeleton of teenage girl confirms cannibalism at Jamestown colony
The first chops, to the forehead, did not go through the bone and are perhaps evidence of hesitancy about the task. The next set, after the body was rolled over, were more effective. One cut split the skull all the way to the base.
“The person is truly figuring it out as they go,” said Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution.
In the meantime, someone — perhaps with more experience — was working on a leg. The tibia bone is broken with a single blow, as one might do in butchering a cow.
That’s one possible version of an event that took place sometime during the winter of 1609-1610 in Jamestown. What’s certain is that some members of that desperate colony resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.
That cannibalism occurred during the colony’s “starving time” was never in much doubt. At least a half-dozen accounts, by people who lived through the period or spoke to colonists who did, describe occasional acts of cannibalism that winter. They include reports of corpses being exhumed and eaten, a husband killing his wife and salting her flesh (for which he was executed) and the mysterious disappearance of foraging colonists.
The proof comes in the form of fragments of a skeleton of a girl, about age 14, found in a cellar full of debris in the fort on the James River that sheltered the starving colonists. The skull, lower jaw and leg bone — all that remain — have the telltale marks of an ax or cleaver and a knife.
“Historians have to decide whether this type of thing happened,” said Owsley, who has examined thousands of skeletal remains, both archaeological and forensic. “I think that it did. We didn’t see anybody eat this flesh. But it’s very strong evidence.”
Remains discovered in Massachusetts NOT from Bigfoot afterall
Big foot find isn’t Bigfoot: It’s a bear
It’s not a man. It’s not Bigfoot. The mysterious remains found last month in Lakeville are from a black bear.
Police Chief Frank Alvilhiera said the thought that a Bigfoot could be lurking in the woods did excite some people. Since the 7-inch paw turned up, Alvilhiera has fielded media calls from the “Animal Planet” and as far away as Florida.
Bigfoot, also known as “sasquatch,” is the name given to an ape-like creature that some people believe inhabits forests in North America.
Justin April, 12, and two neighborhood friends got the shock of their lives when they found the big foot on March 29.
His father, David April, said at first it appeared to be human remains and police cordoned off the scene with yellow tape until the medical examiner arrived.
Now Alvilhiera wonders how a decomposed paw landed in the woods off Pantheon Road.
“Somehow we have a deceased bear out there,” he said.
What Happened to Elisa Lam?
A mysterious death. A haunting video.
What happened to Elisa Lam? I’d read about her drowning on top of the Cecil Hotel in a water cistern. Some had speculated it was a suicide as a result of drug use. As there had just been a shootout in Orange County earlier in the week, I have to admit, her death slipped out of my mind. It was only after a few friends mentioned it to me that I read more about the suspicious circumstances surrounding her death. The cisterns where she was found weren’t easily accessible, and while they were unlocked, an alarm and a locked door would have to be passed for her to have gone upstairs.
To make the situation even stranger, the last recorded footage of her alive is viewable on YouTube. It’s from an elevator camera and is as inscrutable as the cause of her death.
Super sad true zombie crime in Michigan
A guy living in a trailer park outside Detroit, Michigan, has been arrested for living quietly with the corpse of a dead woman for almost 7 months.
64-year-old Dennis McCauley had been sharing a trailer with 72-year-old Ann Marquis for the past three years. But earlier this week, he was arrested on several charges, ranging from mutilating a corpse to identify theft. According to the Ventura County Star:
"The officer noted a pungent smell of decay and observed a corpse in the room immediately to the right of the front door," Redford Township police Sgt. Kevin Crittenden said Friday. "He called us. The corpse had obviously been deceased for some time and was partially dried out."
"We know they lived together about three years," Crittenden said. "Based on witness statements and other statements it would appear Ann Marquis died sometime in November . . . When we found the body, the upper arm was separated from the right shoulder," Crittenden said, referring to the mutilation charge. The autopsy determined that separation occurred after Marquis died.
'Sirius' Documentary Reveals DNA Test Results On Ata, The '6-Inch Alien'
The mummified remains of what looks like a 6-inch space alien has turned "Sirius" into the most eagerly awaited documentary among UFO enthusiasts.
The findings, however, might come as a disappointment.
In early publicity, filmmakers claimed the documentary would reveal that the DNA of the creature with an oversized alien-looking head couldn't be medically classified.
In fact, the film, which premiered Monday in Hollywood, features a scientist who concluded the little humanoid was human.
"I can say with absolute certainty that it is not a monkey. It is human -- closer to human than chimpanzees. It lived to the age of six to eight. Obviously, it was breathing, it was eating, it was metabolizing. It calls into question how big the thing might have been when it was born,"said Garry Nolan, director of stem cell biology at Stanford University's School of Medicine in California.
"The DNA tells the story and we have the computational techniques that allows us to determine, in very short order, whether, in fact, this is human," Nolan, who performed the DNA tests, explains in the film.
"Sirius" focuses on the remains of the small humanoid, nicknamed Ata, that was discovered in Chile's Atacama Desert 10 years ago and has, literally, gone through different hands and ownership since then.
Abandoned Home In Bodie, California 'Ghost Town' Gives Us A Peek Into The Past (PHOTOS)
It's not every day we come across an abandoned home -- especially not one like the "Murphy House" in Bodie, California's "ghost town."
What was once considered a thriving mining community in the Bodie Hills, has been left a desolate strip of abandoned homes, taverns and other structures after the last mine had closed in the 1940s. According to Urban Ghost Media, several visitors have reported supernatural experiences here, including specter sightings.
Mysterious structure found at bottom of ancient lake
A mysterious, circular structure, with a diameter greater than the length of a Boeing 747 jet, has been discovered submerged about 30 feet (9 meters) underneath the Sea of Galilee in Israel.
Scientists first made the discovery by accident in 2003 using sonar to survey the bottom of the lake but published their findings only recently.
"We just bumped into it," recalls Shmuel Marco, a geophysicist from Tel Aviv University who worked on the project. "Usually the bottom of the lake is quite smooth. We were surprised to find a large mound. Initially we didn't realize the importance of this but we consulted with a couple of archaeologists, and they said it looked like an unusually large Bronze Age statue."
The structure is comprised of basalt rocks, arranged in the shape of a cone. It measures 230 feet (70 meters) at the base of the structure, is 32 feet (10 meters) tall, and weighs an estimated 60,000 tons. It is twice the size of the ancient stone circle at Stonehenge in England.
Its size and location, say Marco, who also took video of the structure during a scuba dive to examine it, indicated it could have been constructed underwater as a type of fish nursery. However archaeologists think it more likely it was built on dry land and later submerged by the lake.
Doctor Takes Patient To Pentecostal Exorcist
A doctor is accused of bringing a patient to a Pentecostal church to have an exorcism designed to cure her.
Dr Thomas Gerard O’Brien warned the woman not to tell her psychiatrist she was going to the church and said she would be ‘cursed’ if she told the General Medical Council, it is claimed.
The patient says she stopped taking her painkillers, anti-depressants and hypertension drugs after he told her ‘there is another way’.
The doctor admits bringing the woman to the church but denies wrongdoing and says the exorcism is a ‘complete fabrication’.
