IS THE TOWN OF DULCE, NEW MEXICO THE LOCATION OF AN UNDERGROUND BASE GUARDED BY U.S. FORCES AND INHABITED BY A GROUP OF SINISTER EXTRATERRESTRIALS?

Extreme weather, drought, heavy rainfall and increasing temperatures are a fact of life in many parts of the US as a result of human-induced climate change, researchers report. These and other changes will continue and likely increase in intensity into the future, the scientists found. For the southwest region of the United States, which includes California, the report forecasts a hotter, drier climate with significant effects on the environment, agriculture and health.

Researchers representing 13 U.S. government science agencies, major universities and research institutes produced the major report entitled "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States." Two researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), Evan Mills and Michael Wehner, contributed to the analysis in the study, released June 16 by the multi-agency U.S. Global Change Research Program.

For the southwest region of the United States, which includes California, the report forecasts a hotter, drier climate with significant effects on the environment, agriculture and health.

“Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States” covers such effects as changes in rainfall patterns, drought, wildfire, Atlantic hurricanes, and effects on food production, fish stocks and other wildlife, energy, agriculture, water supplies, and coastal communities.

“This is the most thorough and up-to-date review ever assembled of climate-change impacts observed to date as well as those anticipated in the future across the United States,” says Evan Mills, one of the Berkeley Lab scientists who contributed to the report. While the report paints an ominous picture of potential impacts, “the good news is that the harshest impacts of future climate change can be avoided if the nation takes deliberate action soon. This can be done through a balanced mix of activities to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and adaptation to the otherwise unavoidable impacts,” says Mills.

The report addresses nine zones of the United States (Southwest, Northwest, Great Plains, Midwest, Southeast, Northeast, Alaska, U.S. islands, and coasts), and describes potential climate change effects in each. California is part of the southwest zone, as well as a coastal zone.

Wehner, who is a climate researcher in the Scientific Computing Group of Berkeley Lab’s Computational Research Division, developed projections of future climate change for the report chapters covering global and national impacts of climate change. One of Wehner’s research interests is extreme weather conditions resulting from climate change.

The precipitation map shown is one of the projections developed by Wehner. It shows, among other things, a substantial reduction in springtime rains in California, and summertime rains in the Pacific Northwest.

“Even in areas where precipitation is projected to increase, higher temperatures will cause greater evaporation leading to a future where drought conditions are the normal state. In the southwest United States, water resource issues will become a major issue,” says Wehner.

Another of Wehner’s graphics shows past and future projections of the global mean surface air temperature, an indicator of the magnitude of the effects of global climate change. The three different trajectories after 2009 show low emissions, and two high emissions scenarios of how the temperature increase caused by greenhouse gas emissions could play out. The projections are based on the most sophisticated climate models available.

“These and similar projections reveal that actions taken today would take several decades to make any noticeable change in the rate of warming. This is one of the factors that makes climate change a difficult policy issue. There is no instant gratification,” says Wehner.

Mills, who studies climate change and the insurance industry in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Berkeley Lab, worked on the report’s sections addressing impacts on society and on the energy sector. The insurance industry has been one of the early responders to the threats posed by climate change, because the industry has been a leader in preventive education against catastrophes such as fire and windstorm hazards. Extreme weather conditions, and the resulting damage, will probably impact the industry’s bottom line, possibly severely, as well as that of government provided insurance programs for floods and crops.

“Insurance is one of the industries particularly vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events such as severe storms, but it also is beginning to help society manage the risks,” says Mills. “Insurance, the world’s largest industry, will be one of the primary mechanisms through which the costs of climate change are distributed across society. Some insurers are emerging as partners in climate science and the formulation of public policy and adaptation strategies. Others have recognized that mitigation and adaptation can work hand in hand in a coordinated climate risk-management strategy and are offering “green” insurance products designed to capture these dual benefits.”

A Drier California

Decline in precipitation and water supplies will likely be one of the most prominent effects of climate change in California and other states of the southwest (Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico). The report suggests that runoff will decline from 10 to 40 percent in 2040 to 2060 relative to the 1901-1970 baseline, and warns that scarce water supplies will call for trade-offs among competing uses.

“Floods and droughts are likely to become much more common and intense as regional and seasonal precipitation patterns change and rainfall is more concentrated into heavy events with longer dry periods in between,” it states.

There will likely be less snow, with more winter precipitation falling as rain, and the wet areas will get wetter as dry areas get dryer. The region will likely see declines in the mountain snowpack, and runoff will shift to earlier in spring, reducing water flows later in the year in the summer. California is strongly dependent on spring and summer runoff to supply water for residential, commercial and agricultural uses.

Agriculture in California will likely face increasing stress from the decline in runoff and drought, as well as increasing air temperatures, and the probable rise in agricultural pests and weeds expected in a warmer climate. Flooding and storm surges are threats to coastal regions.

Forest growth in the west will decrease because of the decreasing availability of water. This will also put additional stress on salmon, trout and other coldwater fish. Superinfestations of insects will cause ecological and economic damages to timberlands.

A Hotter California

Increasing air temperatures attributed to global warming are expected to cause a rise in the number of heat-related illnesses in the 2080 to 2099 timeframe. In parts of southern California, the state’s southern Central Valley, and western Arizona, for instance, the number of days in which the temperature exceeds 100°F could exceed 120 under the report’s higher emissions scenario.

Changes in the nation’s population and distribution could combine to amplify the probability of increasing heat-related disease. As the nation ages, its older members move to warmer areas of the country including the desert southwest.

Another effect of these higher temperatures will be increased energy demand. The report predicts “increases in demand for cooling energy” in California as well as elsewhere, which will result in “significant increases in electricity use and higher peak demand in most regions.” Mills contributed analysis to the report of the strongly rising role of extreme weather events in causing electric power disruptions, while non-weather-related events show no upward trend.

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616133944.htm

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Does mysticism have a place in quantum mechanics today, or is the idea that the mind plays a role in creating reality best left to philosophical meditations? Harvard historian Juan Miguel Marin argues the former - not because physicists today should account for consciousness in their research, but because knowing the early history of the philosophical ideas in quantum mechanics is essential for understanding the theory on a fundamental level.

In a recent paper published in the European Journal of Physics, Marin has written a short history, based on a longer analysis, of the mysticism controversy in the early quantum physics community. As Marin emphasizes, the controversy began in Germany in the 1920s among physicists in reaction to the new theory of quantum mechanics, but was much different than debates on similar issues today. At the turn of the last century, science and religion were not divided as they are today, and some scientists of the time were particularly inspired by Eastern mysticism. In his analysis, Marin lays out each player’s role and perspective in the controversy, and argues that studying the original interpretations of quantum mechanics can help scientists better understand the theory, and could also be important for the public in general.

“Becoming aware of this subject would help general audiences realize that there are many other alternatives besides the ones offered by the disjunction between science and religion,” Marin told PhysOrg.com. “Science vs. religion is a very recent forced choice that the founders of quantum mechanics would have never recognized, much less accepted.”

Mind Matters

The controversy boils down to the age-old question of the nature of reality. As Einstein (a firm realist) once asked, does the moon exist only when looked at? Although such a viewpoint seems unlikely in our everyday lives, in quantum mechanics, physicists’ observations can sometimes affect what they’re observing on a quantum scale. As the famous Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics argues, we cannot speak about an objective reality other than that which is revealed through measurement and observation.

As Marin explains, the debate of consciousness in quantum theory began around 1927 when Einstein accused Neils Bohr of introducing a mysticism incompatible with science. Bohr denied the accusation and blamed it on Einstein misunderstanding him when he said that humans are both actors and observers in the world. Yet while Bohr believed that quantum processes occurred without the need for observers, he also sympathized with the idea that an extension of quantum theory might help in understanding consciousness.

Einstein, for his part, adamantly opposed any subjectivity in science. He disagreed with Bohr’s view that it is unscientific to inquire whether or not Schrödinger’s cat in a box is alive or dead before an observation is made. Einstein devoted much of his later life to searching for elements of reality to make quantum mechanics a theory based on realism. For instance, the EPR paradox (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox) thought experiment in 1935 attempted to restore realism and causality to the theory.

On the other hand, Wolfgang Pauli truly did harbor some of the views that Einstein accused Bohr of. Pauli favored a hypothesis of “lucid mysticism,” a synthesis between rationality and religion. He speculated that quantum theory could unify the psychological/scientific and philosophical/mystical approaches to consciousness. Pauli’s perspective was influenced by the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, whose views on reality were in turn influenced by Eastern religions.

Still other physicists had different views. Marin argues that Max Planck, an adherent of Christianity, framed the controversy as the objectivity of science and Christianity against the mysticism of Schopenhauer and his popularization of Buddhism and Hinduism. Planck considered religion (Christianity) and science compatible based on his opinion that they are both based on objectivity but refer to distinct facets of reality. Meanwhile, Paul Dirac rejected any kind of religious vocabulary, arguing that “religion is a jumble of false assertions with no basis in reality.”

The mysticism controversy also expanded into the public realm, starting in 1929 with first astrophysicist Arthur Eddington’s popular book The Nature of the Physical World. Although the book distorted many concepts, his defense of mysticism caught the attention of the international media. (Eddington was most famous for confirming Einstein's theory of relativity by measuring an eclipse, which catapulted Einstein into fame.)

In the next few years Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger leaned toward the side of mysticism, irritating Einstein and Planck. For others, the choice was not clear cut. Marin argues that the mathematician John Von Neumann intentionally used ambiguous terms when discussing the philosophy of quantum equations, meaning he could fit on either side. “He was a genius at linguistic innovation and came up with German terms that could support many different interpretations,” Marin said.

In 1958, Schrödinger, inspired by Schopenhauer from youth, published his lectures Mind and Matter. Here he argued that there is a difference between measuring instruments and human observation: a thermometer’s registration cannot be considered an act of observation, as it contains no meaning in itself. Thus, consciousness is needed to make physical reality meaningful. As Schrödinger concluded, "Some of you, I am sure, will call this mysticism. So with all due acknowledgement to the fact that physical theory is at all times relative, in that it depends on certain basic assumptions, we may, or so I believe, assert that physical theory in its present stage strongly suggests the indestructibility of Mind by Time."

Cultural Reflections

As Marin notes, Schrödinger’s lectures mark the last of a generation that lived with the mysticism controversy. As Marin explains, quantum mechanics up to World War II existed in a predominantly German context, and this culture helped to form the mystical zeitgeist of the time. The controversy died in the second half of the century, when the physics culture switched to Anglo-American. Most contemporary physicists are, like Einstein, realists, and do not believe that consciousness has a role in quantum theory. The dominant modern view is that an observation does not cause an atom to exist in the observed position, but that the observer finds the location of that atom.

As Marin has shown, the mysticism controversy in quantum mechanics did not involve just a few physicists and mystics (as it seems to today), but at one time it attracted the physics community at large. Some of the ideas have since resurfaced, such as in Eugene Wigner’s 1961 paper on the subject, which inspired popular books such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which seek to connect quantum physics to Eastern mysticism for a new generation, along with the recent film What the Bleep Do We Know?

“But here it was scientists vs. non-scientists,” Marin explained. “Today it is seen as science vs. religion, but at the time of the foundation of quantum mechanics it was not. There were religious physicists on both sides of the controversy. Most of the important physicists held what we could call today religious beliefs, whether Western or Eastern. When we speak today of the ‘two cultures,’ sciences and humanities, we are referring to the famous early ‘50s lecture by C.P. Snow, in Britain, lamenting the division. German thinkers of the previous decades were barely into that phase of discipline specialization. At the turn of the century, mathematics and physics were still distinguishing themselves from the ‘natural philosophy’ that gave birth to them.”

Marin hopes that scientists today might gain a new perspective on their research by considering how the founders of quantum mechanics viewed the theory.

“Whenever I read scientific articles citing the classic equations conceived by German scientists, it seems to me they could have been improved by researching how the scientists themselves interpreted their own equations,” Marin said. “Among contemporary quantum field theories, the important gauge theories are indebted to the work of [Hermann] Weyl and Pauli. Yet many physicists today would be shocked if they learned how Weyl and Pauli understood the concept ‘field’ when they wrote their classic articles. They were both immersed in mysticism, searching for a way to unify mind and physics. Weyl published a lecture where he concluded by favoring the Christian-mathematical mysticism of Nicholas of Cusa. Moreover, Pauli's published article on Kepler presents him as part of the Western mystical tradition I study.

“For those who do not favor the Copenhagen interpretation and prefer the alternative proposed by David Bohm, I would suggest reading Bohm's many published dialogues on the topic of Eastern mysticism,” he added. “Eddington and Schrödinger, like many today, joined forces to find a quantum gravity theory. Did their shared mysticism have a role to play in whatever insights they gained or mistakes they made? I do not know, but I think it's important to find out.”

Source: Physorg.com
http://www.physorg.com/news163670588.html

Amazing stories from people who recall an existence in another realm just prior to birth, and from people who have had startling communications with their unborn children.

Where were you - your soul, your spirit - before you were born? If the soul is immortal, did it have a "life" before your birth?

Much has been written, and many anecdotes recorded, of the near-death experience (NDE). People who have been declared dead and then revived sometimes report an experience of being on another plane of existence, often meeting deceased relatives and beings of light.

Rarer, but no less intriguing, are stories from people who recall an existence shortly before their births into this world - the pre-birth experience (PBE). These recollections differ from past-life recall in that past-life recall are memories of previous lives on earth as humans, sometimes recently and sometimes from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. The pre-birth experience seems to "remember" an existence in the same or similar plane of existence described by NDErs.

Those who say they have had this amazing experience recall being in a spirit world, are aware of life on earth, and can sometimes choose their next life or communicate with their future parents. Some people even get a glimpse or a sense of the pre-birth realm during an NDE.

"Our research indicates that there is a continuity of self, that the 'same you' progresses through each of the three life stages - life before life, earth life, and life after death," according to Royal Child - The Prebirth Experience. "In a typical pre-birth experience, a spirit not yet born into mortality crosses over from the pre-earth life or heavenly realm and appears to or communicates with someone on earth. The preborn soul often announces that he or she is ready to advance from the premortal existence by being born into earth life. After nearly 20 years of collecting and studying PBE accounts and comparing data with other researchers of spiritual phenomena, we have identified typical traits, characteristics, and types of PBEs; also when, to whom, and where they occur."

Of the people Prebirth.com has surveyed, 53% felt they remembered a time before conception, and 47% after conception, but before birth.

Pre-Birth Memories and Experiences

Most memories of a recent pre-birth existence come from children who reveal their recollections spontaneously and without prompting. One such case, from a woman identified only as Lisa P., is told in the book, Coming from the Light by Sarah Hinze:

    I was putting three-year-old Johnny to bed when he asked for a bedtime story. For the past few weeks, I had been telling him of the adventures of his great-great-grandfather: a colonizer, a soldier, a community leader. As I started another story, Johnny stopped me and said, "No, tell me of Grandpa Robert." I was surprised. This was my grandpa. I had not told stories of him, and I could not imagine where he had heard his name. He had died before I had even married. "How do you know about Grandpa Robert?" I asked. "Well, Momma," he said with reverence, "he's the one who brought me to earth."

Some experiencers claim to have been given a preview of their coming lives, as in this story at Prebirth.com from Gen:

    I remember someone talking to me, not with a voice, but more to my own mind, that it was not good for me to choose who was my parents, that it would not work out. And I was insistent on coming into my family, and it would not work out between my mother and father. I remember being shown various things and places that have happened in my life, even down to the house I live in now.

And here's an excerpt from Michael Maguire's experience at Thoughtful Living:

    I can remember standing in a dark space, but unlike being in a darkened room, I could see everything around me and the blackness had dimension. There was another person standing to my right, and like me, he was waiting to be born into the physical world. There was an older person with us who could possibly be a guide, since he stayed with us until we left and answered my questions. In front of us and approximately 30 degrees below us, we could see the Earth with the facial images of two couples. I asked who those people were whose images appeared on the Earth and he replied that they were going to be our parents. The older man conveyed to us that it was time to go. The other person standing next to me walked forward and disappeared from my sight. I was told that it was my turn and I walked forward. Suddenly I found myself lying in a hospital nursery with other babies around me.

Communication from the Pre-Born

More common than actual pre-birth recollection is communication from the unborn or "preborn." And this communication can take several forms, according to Prebirth.com: very vivid dreams, lucid visions, auditory messages, telepathic communication and sensory experiences. Here are some examples.

Vivid dreams
In this case a parent has a dream about his or her unborn child. The dream is often unusually vivid and memorable. In her article, "The Mystery of Pre-Birth Communication," Elizabeth Hallett reports on one mother's dream:

    My son was born five months ago and the first contact that I remember happened three years ago when my husband and I first met and fell in love. It was during our first month together that I entered into my journal a dream where I saw our son Austin playing with his dad. The dream was very vivid and the image of him as clear as a photograph. I wrote a physical description of him and knew what a beautifully special little soul he is. I fell so in love with this child that for two years all I could think about was getting pregnant and being able to hold him in my arms. After two years and finally a commitment to be married I became pregnant. Throughout my pregnancy I dreamed of him and he always looked the same. Same golden red hair and beautiful blue eyes. Now that he's here I get physical tangible evidence of what I felt about him all along.

And sometimes the child even conveys a message that can be of importance to the parent:

    Don and Terri met a little later in life, but agreed that they didn't want to wait before having children. Terri became pregnant on their wedding night. An ultrasound taken several months later showed that without a doubt she was carrying twins. The pregnancy was making Terri very ill, and Don was worried about her health. He feared that she might lose the babies, but he was also more frightened that he might lose her as well. One night, he woke up and looked toward the bedroom door. A light was shining in the hall, but he remembered that he and Terri had shut everything off before coming to bed. The light grew in brilliance as it came down the hall, then turned into their bedroom. Within the light was a young man wearing a white robe. He came and hovered next to the bed and looked at Don. "Dad," he said. "My sister and I have talked it over, and decided that she will come first. It'll be better for Mom this way. I'll come in about two years." Don turned to wake up Terri, but when he turned back, the figure and the light were gone. The next day, Terri miscarried one of the babies she was carrying. The other twin suffered no trauma and was born at full term, healthy, red-haired - and a girl. Twenty-one months later, Terri gave birth to a boy with red hair exactly like his older sister's.

Visions
"The PBEr sees distinctly male or female form, various ages, variously attired, while awake," says Prebirth.com. "Sometimes form is accompanied by glow or light, sometimes not; sometimes appears and/or disappears suddenly." One such experience was related by Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss to Barbara Walters on the show "20/20":

    The conversation went back to Dreyfuss' meteoric rise to stardom with such memorable films as The Goodbye Girl, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws. History has proven that such rapid success is often difficult to handle. Dreyfuss was no exception. Now 50, he responded to Barbara's pointed questions with the hard-earned yet peaceful candor of one who has succumbed to addiction and overcome it. The interview revealed that Dreyfuss' first marriage had fallen casualty to his troubled years, as had some great film roles. Over 20 years of addiction recycling had come and gone. The turning point occurred miraculously in a dark hour. Dreyfuss was hospitalized in an effort to detox him yet again from the grasp of drugs and alcohol. Hours passed. As he sobered all alone in the hospital room, there entered a three-year-old girl in a pink dress and shiny black patent leather shoes. She told him, "Daddy, I can't come to you until you come to me. Please straighten out your life so I can come." And she was gone. But the pleading message of her haunting eyes was seared into Dreyfuss' memory, a constant inspiration to reorder his life so that his daughter might come. With this sacred incentive he maintained sobriety, remarried and prayed. Within three years a daughter was born to Dreyfuss and his wife - the same girl who had come to his hospital room.

Auditory Messages
In some cases the unborn may not be seen, but can be heard. Experiencers claim that what they hear is distinct and quite different from an inner thought. A woman named Shawna tells this story at Light Hearts:

    My husband and I had always wanted five children. After we reached number five we began to use birth control. One night, after love, I lay in bed and had a wondrous experience. I heard a voice of little boy asking me if I would be his mother. I felt this was a soul reaching out to me. I said quietly, "I'd love to," and that's when my little boy Caden and I first met. He has been a blessing for the whole family, gentle and loving - even his birth was amazing. Thinking I might be in labor and not being able to sleep, I went downstairs and began to make a cake. All of a sudden I felt my body pushing. I made it just into the living room. Caden was born into his father's hands.

Telepathy
Some people attest to a kind of telepathic communication from the preborn. Joy relates these remarkable experiences at Light Heart:

    I am a nurse-midwife. For about 10 years, occasionally an unborn baby of one of my patients "talks" to me telepathically. Most often this happens during labor to suggest some position change to make descent easier, or to tell me of a change in maternal blood pressure, maternal fever, etc. This information always proves true and often shortens labor. Occasionally the "talking" happens during prenatal office visits to tell me of something affecting the mother at home that I wouldn't know otherwise, such as drug abuse, domestic violence or extreme stress. I use the information to bring up the subject nonchalantly with the mother and we talk about options from there. These communications do not happen with every baby, seem to be for specific purposes and end abruptly with the delivery of the baby's head, almost as if it has passed through some veil and communication is not possible for me now.

Sensory Experiences
Sometimes the spirit of the preborn is an overwhelming sensory presence. Andi tells this story at Light Heart:

    About four years ago, I and my boyfriend (now my husband) were in college. I had this feeling that I was pregnant, and looking back I can see I could feel the presence of a spirit before that. We went and got a test and we were devastated when we found out the test was positive. I did want a family, but not right then, and my boyfriend felt the same way. Although I wasn't ready, a huge part of me wanted to keep the baby and just struggle along, but another part knew that in reality I wasn't ready and neither was my boyfriend. We decided to abort, which went against everything I felt was right. I followed through with the procedure. I woke up crying, with a nice nurse telling me understanding words. Fast forward a year and a half... I was ready... I could feel a child standing by me. I knew it would happen soon. I was having dreams about the first child as a girl, and I lost her... then I would hear a cry and there on a pillow was a little baby boy. I picked him up and shielded him from the world. I knew this was going to be my baby. About two months after the first dream I became pregnant. I knew right away it was a boy. When I was 20 weeks pregnant my suspicions were confirmed.

Source: paranormal.about.com
http://paranormal.about.com/library/weekly/aa110600a.htm

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The notion that mermaids and mermen exist in contemporary times is difficult to comprehend. Nevertheless, some accounts continue to make their way into the literature.

My most recent encounter with a “mermaid” was of the fictional, entertainer kind, during my interview for the taping of the 2009 Animal Planet documentary, Beasts of the Bible.

In this guest contribution, Cryptomundo correspondent Xtrox collects some modern sighting examples. Concerned by the response to a report previously discussed here, Xtrox had to “disagree with the assertion that this kind of phenomena is fading. I just surfed the net and there are many recent cases, including one in Peru that happened in 2007. Here are some of them. Enjoy!”

Location. Chirundu, Zimbabwe
Date: 1951
Time: evening
16-year old Cleo Rosin had gone to her mother to the Zambezi River in order to collect some drinking water. When they arrived at the river there was a canoe anchored along the bank, and Cleo climbed inside in an adventurous way. When she sat down, she noticed that there was a small round island in the middle of the river, which was especially wide at this point. And sitting on the island, near its edge, with her lower body partially in the water, was a particularly beautiful woman with long black hair. To Cleo’s surprise, the woman was naked and she was white. At this stage, Cleo’s mother was still filling the buckets with water. She called out to her mother: “Mommy, just look at that woman over there.” Her mother looked up and said, “Sh…Sh…you’d better keep quiet.” And then she added, “Look away.” But Cleo had already seen the bottom part of the woman’s body and it was like a fish and the woman was looking directly at them. But as her mother advised, Cleo looked away, and when she looked up again, the woman was gone. Her mother told her not to tell anyone about the encounter or else the “mermaid” would return and take her.

Source: Cynthia Hind, Fate November 2000

Location. Mar De La Plata Argentina
Date: 1953
Time: unknown
Witnesses reported seeing a half human, half fish creature that appeared in a cloud of mist over the waters during a siesta. No other information.

Source: Fabio Picasso, Strange Magazine # 20

Location: Pacific Ocean
Date: January 3, 1957
Time: night
Eric de Bisschop was re-enacting an ancient voyage from Tahiti to Chile in a replica of an old Polynesian raft. In his book, “Tahiti-Nui” he claims one of his sailors saw a mermaid jump onto the deck. It stood upright on its tail and had hair like fine seaweed. The sailor tried to touch it and got punched. The creature then jumped overboard.

Location: Karoo, South Africa
Date: Unknown
Time: unknown
There’s a local legend of a mermaid with blue eyes and pink cheeks seen at deep mountain pools all over the Karoo.
A man called Hermanus Fourie claimed that as a child, he’d been sent to collect wood for his parents in the nearby kloof and had caught sight of a woman sitting on a rock at the foot of a waterfall. He greeted her, but when she didn’t reply, he suddenly realised that she wasn’t an ordinary woman, and that instead of legs… she had a fish tail. She waved at him, and then slipped into the water and disappeared. When the young Hermanus returned home and breathlessly told his parents what he’d seen they explained to him that it must have been a mermaid.

Source: Travel Africa

Location. Mindanao Island, Philippines
Date: Summer 1978
Time: night
Filipino angler Jacinto Fetalvero reported that one moonlit night he had met a beautiful mermaid, with “amiable bluish eyes, reddish cheeks, and green scales on her tail.” She helped him secure a bountiful catch. A torrent of ridicule ensued, and Fetalvero thereafter refused to discuss the subject.

Source: Jerome Clark, Unexplained!

Location. Several miles of the coast of Florida, Atlantic Ocean
Date: 1988
Time: afternoon.
Professional scuba diver Robert Froster was diving alone looking for mysterious undersea formations, when he noticed a disturbance in the water. When he turned to look, he saw a vague, shadowy figure slashing toward him. All around him the water had begun to churn wildly, and clouds of sediment were swirling. As the creature rushed toward him, it appeared to undulate, rather than glide. When the fast moving form got to within 20 yards of him, he noticed something odd about it. Appendages like arms, seemed to be reaching out toward him, and the end of each arm appeared to be sharply talon hands. He then saw the creature in full view. He saw an unmistakable pair of breasts, long flowing hair, smooth skin, and scaled tail from the waist down. It appeared to be half woman, half fish. Froster said, “That creature had one thing on its mind–to kill me because I had seen it. I’ve never seen such evil hate in the eyes of any human or animal before.” Before the creature could reach him, Froster shot up toward the surface and was able to scamper over the side of his craft to safety. He never saw the creature again.
HC addition # 2861

Source: E Randall Floyd, Great Southern Mysteries.

Comment: Curiously enough, in 1881 a mermaid was allegedly caught in Aspinwell Bay and exhibited in New Orleans. Examined at close quarters, she was reported on in a Boston newspaper, and described as perfectly resembling a woman from the waist up, with silky blond hair a few inches in length. The arms ended in eagle-like talons instead of hands and the tail bellow the waist was identical to that of a mullet. Supposedly, the Aspinwell mermaid had scientists scratching their heads. She was in a perfect state of preservation, and one scientist who examined the corpse stated that “if this can’t be a mermaid because mermaids don’t exist, then we give up”.

Source: Marc Potts, The Mythology of the Mermaid and her kin, p. 168

Location. Anapa, Black Sea, Russia
Date: 1996
Time: daytime
B. Borovikov was hunting sharks in the area and on that particular day had descended to a depth of eight meters. He then saw giant beings rising up from below. He described them as milky white, but with humanoid faces, and something like fish tails. The being ahead of its companions noticed Borovikov, and stopped. It had giant bulging eyes. Two others joined him. The first one waved a membrane hand at the diver, and then all of them approached him and stopped a short distance away. Then they turned around and swam away. HC addition # 3511

Source: Paul Stonehill

Location. Charmwood, Zimbabwe
Date: January 2000
Time: late evening
Marko Batau was walking from Chawarura Shopping Center and as he approached the Hunyani River, he saw what appeared to be a white woman basking in the sun and sitting on a rock, half immersed in a pool of water. The woman was naked and Marko was surprised at this. Then he noticed that what he initially thought to be her leg, drawn up on the rock, was actually a scaled fish tail. The woman did not notice him at first, until he deliberately made a noise while walking on the gravel to get closer, and in an instant she disappeared into the water. A few days later, his curiosity aroused, Marko took the same route home. To his amazement, the woman was there, basking on the rock again. But not only that: this time there was laundry laid out on some stones to dry, with some draped over the bushes nearby. Unfortunately, in his astonishment and perhaps some fear, he did not see what type of washing it was, whether clothing or merely pieces of cloth. Again Marko drew nearer to get a closer view. Suddenly, the woman became aware of him and looked at him as though admonishing him. The next thing, she had disappeared in the water. The following week, Marko deliberately took this rather isolated shortcut home. Immediately when he reached the pool on the river, he saw the same creature there. Only this time, she was holding a baby in her arms and giving it a bath. Still puzzled by what he was seeing, Marko tried to draw closer to verify what he was seeing, but the moment the woman heard his footsteps on the gravel, she and the baby disappeared into the water together.

Source: Cynthia Hind, Fate November 2000

Location: Caspian Sea
Date: 2005
Residents of a few towns on the Caspian shores in Iran and Azerbaijan reported an “amphibious man” swimming amidst huge shoals of fish. In March 2005, an eyewitness account from the crew of the Baku, an Azeri trawler, was published by Iranian newspaper Zindagi: “That creature was swimming parallel course near the boat for a long time,” said Gafar Gasanof, a captain of the ship. “At the beginning we thought it was a big fish, but then we spotted hair on the head of the monster and his fins looked pretty strange… the front part of his body was equipped with arms!” said the captain. Back in Azerbaijan, nobody took his story seriously. It sounded ridiculous to those who thought that the guy must have been drinking while on board.
All the eyewitness accounts provide a similar description of the marine humanoid. His height is 165-168 cm, he has a strong build, a protruding ctenoid stomach, his feet are pinniped and he has four webbed fingers on either of his hands. His skin is of moonlight color. The hair on his head looks black and green. His arms and legs are shorter and heavier than those of a medium-built person. Apart from his fingernails, he has nails growing on the tip of his aquiline nose that look like a dolphin’s beak. No information as to his ears. His eyes are large and orbicular. The mouth of the creature is fairly large, his upper jaw is prognathic and his lower lip flows smoothly into the neck, his chin is missing.
Iranians dubbed the creature Runan-shah or “the master of the sea and rivers.”

Sources: Pravada, Rense.

Location: Quistococha Lake, Iquitos, Peru
Date: September 2007
Time: noon
More than 20 students of the “María Parado de Bellido” school claimed that a mermaid-like entity appeared to them in the middle of Quistococha Lake, and called them with her hands. The small kids, whose ages oscillated between 7 and 8 years, said that while they bathed, a fish-tailed woman surfaced in the center of the lake and acted as if she was bathing, collecting water with her hands and throwing it into her head. When the “mermaid” realized she’d been spotted, she made a gesture inviting them to join her. However, the students were terrified with the unusual apparition and left the place, while the entity dived beneath the surface. The children said the young woman was very pretty. She had golden hair in the shape of waves and very white skin, but lacked legs. Instead, they managed to see a very thin fish-like tail. According to them, the lady seemed very nice and did not represent any danger. Local people said that a mermaid sighting at noon was very unusual, since she generally does surface at night, especially when the moon reflects its light in the middle of the lake. According to the neighbours, in those occasions she’s often heard crying, and the sound is sad, melancholic —even devastating— and increasingly intense. The creature has never harmed anybody, though, and actually is well respected as the guardian of the place.

Source: Pro&Contra Journal

Article Source: Cryptomundo
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/xtrox/