Did you ever feel that you were being watched? Did you ever think that you were being followed and closely monitored? Is your mail and e-mail being tampered with and read? Are there unknown forces manipulating our existence? If you answered YES(or even maybe) to any one of these questions then CONSPIRACY JOURNAL is the answer to your woes. Each and every week, Conspiracy Journal wings its way into your e-mail box with the latest news of conspiracies, UFOs, the paranormal, strange creatures and just plain weird stuff. All the things that THEY don't want you to know.

NASA's Mars rover Curiosity has apparently made a discovery "for the history books," but we'll have to wait a few weeks to learn what the new Red Planet find may be, media reports suggest.

The discovery was made by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars instrument. SAM is the rover's onboard chemistry lab, and it's capable of identifying organic compounds — the carbon-containing building blocks of life as we know it.

SAM apparently spotted something interesting in a soil sample Curiosity's huge robotic arm delivered to the instrument recently.

It's a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their nature, scientists like to share their results. At the same time, they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to say "never mind."

The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," John Grotzinger, the principal investigator for the rover mission, says during my visit last week to his office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. That's where data from SAM first arrive on Earth. "The science team is busily chewing away on it as it comes down," says Grotzinger.

SAM is a kind of miniature chemistry lab. Put a sample of Martian soil or rock or even air inside SAM, and it will tell you what the sample is made of.

Grotzinger says they recently put a soil sample in SAM, and the analysis shows something earthshaking. "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good," he says.

Grotzinger can see the pained look on my face as I wait, hoping he'll tell me what the heck he's found, but he's not providing any more information.

So why doesn't Grotzinger want to share his exciting news? The main reason is caution. Grotzinger and his team were almost stung once before. When SAM analyzed an air sample, it looked like there was methane in it, and at least here on Earth, some methane comes from living organisms.

But Grotzinger says they held up announcing the finding because they wanted to be sure they were measuring Martian air, and not air brought along from the rover's launchpad at Cape Canaveral.

"We knew from the very beginning that we had this risk of having brought air from Florida. And we needed to diminish it and then make the measurement again," he says. And when they made the measurement again, the signs of methane disappeared.

Grotzinger says it will take several weeks before he and his team are ready to talk about their latest finding. In the meantime he'll fend off requests from pesky reporters, and probably from NASA brass as well. Like any big institution, NASA would love to trumpet a major finding, especially at a time when budget decisions are being made. Nothing succeeds like success, as the saying goes.

Richard Zare, a chemist at Stanford University, appreciates the uncomfortable position John Grotzinger is in. He's been there. In 1996, he was part of a team that reported finding organic compounds in a meteorite from Mars that landed in Antarctica. When the news came out, it caused a huge sensation because finding organic compounds in a Martian rock suggested the possibility at least that there was once life on Mars.

"You're bursting with a feeling that you want to share this information, and it's frustrating when you feel you can't talk about it, "says Zare.

It wasn't scientific caution that kept Zare from announcing his results. It was a rule many scientific journals enforce that says scientists are not allowed to talk about their research until the day it's officially published. Zare had to follow the rules if he wanted his paper to come out.

He did break down and tell his family. "I remember at the dinner table with great excitement explaining to my wife, Susan, and my daughter, Bethany, what it was we were doing," says Zare. And then he experienced something many parents can relate to when talking to their kids.

"Bethany looked at me and said, 'pass the ketchup.' So, not everybody was as excited as I was," he says.

Zare says in a way, scientists are like artists. Sharing what they do is a big part of why they get out of bed in the morning.

"How many composers would actually compose music if they were told no one else could listen to their compositions? How many painters would make a painting if they were told no one else could see them?" says Zare. It's the same for scientists. "The great joy of science is to be able to share it. And so you want to say, 'Isn't this interesting? Isn't that cool?' "

For now, though, we'll have to wait to see what's got Mars rover scientists itching to say what they found.

Source: NPR
http://www.npr.org/2012/11/20/165513016/big-news-from-mars-rover-scientists-mum-for-now

Researchers at Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil analyzed the cerebral blood flow (CBF) of Brazilian mediums during the practice of psychography, described as a form of writing whereby a deceased person or spirit is believed to write through the medium's hand. The new research revealed intriguing findings of decreased brain activity during mediumistic dissociative state which generated complex written content. Their findings will appear in the November 16th edition of the online journal PLOS ONE.

The 10 mediums—five less expert and five experienced—were injected with a radioactive tracer to capture their brain activity during normal writing and during the practice of psychography which involves the subject entering a trance-like state. The subjects were scanned using SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) to highlight the areas of the brain that are active and inactive during the practice.

"Spiritual experiences affect cerebral activity, this is known. But, the cerebral response to mediumship, the practice of supposedly being in communication with, or under the control of the spirit of a deceased person, has received little scientific attention, and from now on new studies should be conducted," says Andrew Newberg, MD, director of Research at the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine and a nationally-known expert on spirituality and the brain, who collaborated with Julio F. P. Peres, Clinical Psychologist, PhD in Neuroscience and Behavior, Institute of Psychology at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, and colleagues on the research.

The mediums ranged from 15 to 47 years of automatic writing experience, performing up to 18 psychographies per month. All were right-handed, in good mental health, and not currently using any psychiatric drugs. All reported that during the study, they were able to reach their usual trance-like state during the psychography task and were in their regular state of consciousness during the control task.

The researchers found that the experienced psychographers showed lower levels of activity in the left hippocampus (limbic system), right superior temporal gyrus, and the frontal lobe regions of the left anterior cingulate and right precentral gyrus during psychography compared to their normal (non-trance) writing. The frontal lobe areas are associated with reasoning, planning, generating language, movement, and problem solving, perhaps reflecting an absence of focus, self-awareness and consciousness during psychography, the researchers hypothesize.

Less expert psychographers showed just the opposite—increased levels of CBF in the same frontal areas during psychography compared to normal writing. The difference was significant compared to the experienced mediums. This finding may be related to their more purposeful attempt at performing the psychography. The absence of current mental disorders in the groups is in line with current evidence that dissociative experiences are common in the general population and not necessarily related to mental disorders, especially in religious/spiritual groups. Further research should address criteria for distinguishing between healthy and pathological dissociative expressions in the scope of mediumship.

The writing samples produced were also analyzed and it was found that the complexity scores for the psychographed content were higher than those for the control writing across the board. In particular, the more experienced mediums showed higher complexity scores, which typically would require more activity in the frontal and temporal lobes, but this was not the case. Content produced during psychographies involved ethical principles, the importance of spirituality, and bringing together science and spirituality.

Several possible hypotheses for these many differences have been considered. One speculation is that as frontal lobe activity decreases, the areas of the brain that support mediumistic writing are further disinhibited (similar to alcohol or drug use) so that the overall complexity can increase. In a similar manner, improvisational music performance is associated with lower levels of frontal lobe activity which allows for more creative activity. However, improvisational music performance and alcohol/drug consumption states are quite peculiar and distinct from psychography. "While the exact reason is at this point elusive, our study suggests there are neurophysiological correlates of this state," says Newberg.

"This first-ever neuroscientific evaluation of mediumistic trance states reveals some exciting data to improve our understanding of the mind and its relationship with the brain. These findings deserve further investigation both in terms of replication and explanatory hypotheses," states Newberg.

More information: http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0049360

Source: Medical Express
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-brazilian-mediums-brain-trance-state.html

At rest coolly among the storefronts, puffing on hand-rolled cigarettes and waving gleefully at the few passersby who do recognize his mythos, Terrance Casey Brennan, or T. Casey as he is known locally, has a long and tumultuous career in comics weighing on his mind.

Brennan spends his days homeless in Ann Arbor, reading, smoking and chatting outside with anybody who will listen.

“If they’re too strict, they’ll come out and yell at me, but if they’re too nice, all the winos will be hanging around,” Brennan said. The majority of people look at me and think I’m a regular homeless guy. They don’t know my back story; the only way is if I show them.”

In his heyday, Brennan estimated that his stories printed by Warren Publishing, out of New York, had a world- wide readership of hundreds of thousands per release. He said that his stories have been translated into more than 20 languages.

Stuffing his pockets and a large, canvas grocery bag, is the evidence as Brennan described. . . of his legend.

Paperback singles, leather- bound archives and various comic-industry magazines are carried in the arms of the transient 64-year-old native of Avoca, a small town about two hours northeast of Ann Arbor. As he moves about Ann Arbor, he relies on friends, he said, for housing and financial support.

Brennan also collects social security funding and enjoys daily free meals at the Delonis Center.

“I have a pretty good support system here,” he said. “Various girls send me money from time to time, but that can’t be counted on.”

Local knowledge of Brennan is built primarily through the grapevine. As his legend persists, workers and residents of Ann Arbor are made aware of his story by word-of-mouth.

“I never knew who he was until about the third or fourth time that I came across him,” said Rachel Douchene, 22, who works at Espresso Royal on South State Street, where Brennan is often found smoking and reading at an outdoor table. “My friend asked me ‘Do you know T. Casey Brennan? He’s a famous comic book writer. I had no idea! It’s really impressive to see this huge body of work.”

Employees at local eateries often witness Brennan relaxing outside on the concrete, most carry on unabated as they see no threat from the aging writer, his nose buried in some volume or archive but always happy to greet and explain his literary history.

“He’s just a stereotypical, old Ann Arbor man,” said Jason Wisely, a 29-year-old dishwasher at The Fleetwood Diner. “He seems like an intelligent dude, though. He did get a comic made; he did a good job, so not all he says can be bullshit.”

‘Just not welcome’

After he was struck by a car, on foot at the intersection of Washtenaw Avenue and Oakwood Drive in Ypsilanti on Feb. 1, 2003, Brennan’s mannerisms and personal outlook were drastically altered by his injuries.

“It changed my personality, how I talked,” Brennan said of the accident. “When I got hit I felt like I was 15 again. That’s why I talk funny. This is now my lifestyle: I go to parties, get high and dig on hot chicks.”

Brennan said that when he first resurfaced among the Ann Arbor college party scene after about two years of recovery from the accident, he was accepted by the youngsters. Soon, new generations of party- age youths became unaware of Brennan’s story and he was made to feel unwelcome, he said.

“I’m just not welcome,” Brennan said. “They don’t seem to understand. I had just been making my comeback, using my position to generate publicity. They didn’t know I was making positive strides.”

After only his third submission to Warren, Brennan’s “On the Wings of a Bird” was printed in the publisher’s “Creepy” series, No. 36., in 1970.

“My name was on comic books across the country,” Brennan said. “But even the biggest geeks only care about art, not the writer. I was a national celebrity, but it took until the 21st century for me to convey that. That’s what’s so amazing.”

Writing for Warren throughout the 1970s and ’80s, and publishing works in renowned series’ Vampirella, Eerie and Creepy, many of Brennan’s most renowned works have been made available at the Ann Arbor District Library. The archived volumes of the three series sell publicly for upwards of $50, Brennan said.

The first volume of the Vampirella archived editions, in which Brennan said he had many pieces published, was ranked No. 1 in 2011 on the New York Times’ graphic novel bestseller list.

“The best anyone I know can do is check it out or read it in the back,” Brennan said. “They might look a little creepy hiding back there, but no one at the library has ever questioned me.”

A Kennedy Suspect?

But Brennan’s notoriety is not confined to just one list. In 2007, renowned attorney and writer, Vincent Bugliosi, published “Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy,” a book delving into the murder of JFK and the events surrounding it. He included a list of 82 potential triggermen.

Brennan was listed at No. 8.

Starting the mid-nineties, Brennan began work on a series of written works, mainly available online, entitled: “Conjurella.” Many of the stories include in the series detail Brennan’s personal accounts of his involvement in the assassination of JFK.

He said that, as a child, he underwent hypnosis therapy involved with a government program, “MK Ultra” that ultimately led to his becoming an unwitting shooter in Kennedy’s murder.

“My current work falls under the category of repressed memories,” Brennan said. “I fired a shot (at Kennedy). Put me on the stand. What I like is to have my fans read my stories and think they’re fiction. They’re not untrue.”

Locals are left mystified by Brennan’s frank admission of guilt. Most hear his claims with a grain of salt.

“I heard he killed Kennedy,” Wisely said. “He did make a pretty compelling argument. I’ve learned to accept it as at least a possibility.”

The son of two, nationally published authors and school board members, Brennan’s abilities in comic writing began as a child. He said learned the layout of a comic strip through his parents’ many writing magazines.

“I had a good blueprint for magazine layout,” Brennan said. “Having a background in the industry really benefitted my knowledge in the beginning.”

After Warren declared bankruptcy in 1983, Brennan was unable to find work elsewhere in the comic industry – leading him to declare himself blacklisted.

“People in the industry told me that they had locked arms against me. It didn’t matter why, only that they were doing it,” Brennan said. “I wanted to tear it down. The comic book industry was of no use to me at that time.”

Now couch surfing within the limits of Ann Arbor, and forever chasing women, Brennan feels ready to move on from town and state that has been he has called home his entire life.

“I’ll probably surf my way down to Miami Beach for the winter,” Brennan said. “I’ve got friends down there, and I don’t need to hang around if I’m not welcome at the parties.”

NOTE- Brennan responded to this article which we will add here: "Cute article and I DID like it. However, it's almost entirely fiction. I don't "rest among the storefronts" -- I am a regular at the Espresso Royale, where I agreed to meet the Voice while buying herbal tea. I don't "wave gleefully" at passersby, nor do I "chat with anyone who will listen". And no one at the Espresso Royale has ever shown ANY tendency to "come out and yell at me". As should have been clear from our meeting, many of the people there DO know who I am, by my professional reputation. They do not, however, welcome non-customers at their outside tables. This must have been the Earth II T. Casey Brennan and the Earth II Espresso Royale. No similarity to the T. Casey Brennan and Espresso Royale on our own Earth! Thanks for the write-up, though!"

Source: The Washtenaw Voice
http://www.washtenawvoice.com/2012/09/comic-relief/

What is lurking in the waters of Japan’s Lake Kussharo?

An unknown creature, known affectionately as “Kusshi” in an attempt to emulate Loch Ness’ “Nessie,” has long been sighted in Lake Kussharo, in the nothern island of Hokkaido, Japan.

Lake Kussharo is located within Akan National Park in eastern Hokkaido and derives its name from the Ainu word “Kuccharo,” which means “The place where a lake becomes a river and the river flows out.”

It is a caldera lake, formed in the crater of a volcano long ago, and is notable for being the largest lake of this kind in Japan as well as the 6th largest lake in the country overall.

It also boasts the largest island in a freshwater lake in Japan, the islet Nakanoshima, which is in fact a composite volcano. Lake Kussharo is massive for a caldera lake, being approximately 57 km in circumference and reaching depths of 117.5 meters.

Kusshi is reported as being between 10 and 20 meters in length (30 to 60 ft), and the most commonly cited coloration is a dark brown. The neck is of a moderate length, and humps are sometimes mentioned. The head of the creature is said to look somewhat like that of a horse, only larger, with silver eyes, and is sometimes described as having two protrusions like giraffe horns on top. A few reports mention the creature making strange grunting or clicking noises. Interestingly, many witnesses report having felt distinctly uneasy, disturbed, or “icky,” upon seeing the creature.

One very interesting characteristic of Kusshi is the high speeds at which it reportedly can move. In 1974 footage was taken of a mysterious creature moving across the lake at breakneck speed. In Sept, 1974, a group of 15 witnesses reported being surprised by a large, somewhat triangular shaped animal with shiny skin like glistening scales, moving under the surface of the water with the speed of a motorboat. In 1988, a Mr. Takashi Murata was riding in a motorboat and reported being paced by a large animal at a distance of 15 meters away, which he described as having a dark back that looked like that of a dolphin. The animal followed him for a time, keeping up with the fast boat, before disappearing beneath the water.

Lake Kussharo’s alleged lake monster first came to widespread publicity during the 1970s due to a number of high profile sightings. In 1972, a man reported seeing an object that looked like a “boat turned upside down,” swimming quickly through the water. In August of 1973, a group of 40 middle school students on a field trip, as well as their teachers, spotted the creature not far from shore. In July, 1974, another famous case was reported by a Mr. Wada, a farmer who sighted a large, dark animal with several humps at intervals of 4 meters apart. The farmer watched the creature for some time before it submerged with a huge swell of water and a splash.

These sightings and many others like them brought attention to the lake, which culminated in an active search for the animal. For one month in Sept 1974, TV crews, boats equipped with fish finder sonar, and teams of divers explored the lake. These efforts produced some interesting results. Some of the sonar equipped boats reported finding large images at depths of 15 to 20 meters and a TV crew from the Hokkaido Broadcasting Company actually managed to catch footage of the alleged creature. Over the years, Kusshi has been photographed and filmed on several occasions, including as recently as 1990.

Kusshi continued to be sighted throughout the 70s and beyond, sometimes by large groups of people. In May, 1976, Kusshi was sighted by a group of 22 tour bus passengers and their driver. As recently as 1997, a group of firefighters spotted a strange animal swimming 100 meters offshore, which they estimated as being 20 meters long, with a dorsal fin and banded markings. Another sightings was made by tourists in 2002, and reports occasionally pop up to this day.

Although media attention made Kusshi famous in the 1970s, it would be a mistake to think that this was the first indication of something strange or unknown in the lake. The Ainu people who inhabit the area have long told of giant snakes that inhabit the lake. Pioneers coming to the area during the Meiji era also told of seeing these creatures, which were said to attack and eat deer whole. These stories have a long tradition among locals in the area. During the 40s and 50s, there were quite a few sightings of Kusshi as well, although these never did gain the attention that the 1970s sightings did.

So what could Kusshi be?

Lake Kussharo is itself not particularly a good habitat for aquatic life. The area is well known for its hot springs and volcanic activity, and volcanic gases bubbling up beneath the surface render the water of the lake highly acidic. In addition, a 1938 eruption in the area created a large amount of sulphur which found its way into the water. The conditions are not ideal for fish. Those that do thrive in the lake are species that are resistant to acidic water conditions, such as the introduced rainbow trout, and most fish in the lake congregate near inflowing streams which dilute the water. This limits the potential food supply and makes conditions difficult for a large animal.

One hypothesis is that swimming deer or other animals are behind the sightings. A swimming deer could perhaps fit in with some aspects of Kusshi reports, especially the general shape and presence of horns sometimes mentioned.

Another idea is that swimming horses could be the culprit. Kusshi’s head is often described as being horse like, and the creature has even been mistaken for a horse on at least one occasion. In July, 1975, a forestry worker saw what he at first thought was a horse swimming in the lake until he noticed that it was much larger than a horse as it came closer. The creature then dove below the surface not to be seen again. Could a horse or deer be behind these reports? It is an interesting idea, but the sizes reported for Kusshi are much larger than these animals and we are still faced with the reports that describe these creatures moving at high speeds.

Some point to the culprit as possibly being misidentified schools of fish such as rainbow trout, sockeye salmon, or Sakhalin taimen (Hutcho perryi), which is found in Hokkaido and is one of the oldest and largest species of salmon. It is something to consider, but would do nothing to explain the head and neck seen in many reports. Still another, more unconventional explanation, is that Kusshi could be some sort of giant slug. Kusshi has been attributed to misidentifications of motorboats as well.

There are those that have even used the surviving plesiosaur theory, and there is even a model of Kusshi found at the lake that most certainly resembles the mainstream “Nessie” image of one. However, this  most reports do not really describe the animal in that way, and this speculation seems to be an attempt to liken Kusshi to the popular image of Nessie more than anything else. Even for the Loch Ness Monster, the plesiosaur hypothesis has been largely debunked and abandoned.

This sort of thing has led some people to make the accusation that the lake monster has been played up in order to promote tourism to the area. Indeed, even now the area draws many visitors looking to catch a glimpse of something strange in the lake.

Whatever it is, Kusshi’s identity remains an interesting mystery.

Source: Cyrptomundo
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptotourism/kusshie-japanese-lake-monster-mystery/

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Comic book aficionados who grew up in the 1970s may remember – if only dimly – a particular comic book that stood out from the rest because of the nature of the stories it presented. Military adventures featuring Sergeant Fury (Marvel Comics) and Sergeant Rock (DC Comics) eventually shared rack space with Weird War, a title with paranormal overtones that managed to hold its own against the more established offerings, delighting and terrifying readers with tales of hapless soldiers confronting ghosts, zombies and sinister figures from other times and places. Weird War owed its success, to a certain extent, to early ‘60s offerings such as Haunted Tank.

But what the writers and illustrators of these works didn’t know, or most likely were not aware of, is the volume of high strangeness that has affected fighting men and women from various countries over time – situations and circumstances that would perhaps have strained the most devoted reader of Weird War and other publications – and which has been overlooked by the no-nonsense nature of the world’s militaries.

On July 27, 2012, the Moyers and Company television broadcast aired an interview with Karl Marlantes (http://billmoyers.com/segment/karl-marlantes-on-what-its-like-to-go-to-war/), a Marine platoon leader, recipient of the Navy Cross and other distinguished service medals, author of "What It Is Like To Go to War", a memoir on the horrors of combat during the Vietnam War and coping with post-traumatic stress disorder. Despite being a successful businessman, Marlantes was troubled for years by his experiences during the conflict - graphically retold in the pages of his book and in the PBS interview, and he delved into an experience that can only be considered paranormal.

At one point during the exposition, Bill Moyers asked Marlantes what war had taught him about the nature of evil, and the response was stunning. Marlantes asserted his belief that evil is a real thing, "something that exists, and that it is always possible for us to tune into it; it's part of being in the world...we personify it, Christians came up with the concept of the devil, and I don't believe it that way, but I do believe that we are in a world of opposites, and that somehow we have to make our choices, and that Evil exists."

He then went on to describe a mind-bending ordeal that shook him to his core. After having taken part in a mass for the dead celebrated by a Capuchin monk -- a process that involved talking not only to his comrades lost in battle, but to the enemies he had slain during the conflict -- Marlantes returned home and that very same evening, found himself visited by a supernatural presence. "That night there was a presence that came into the room that absolutely terrified me, it was beyond anything I had ever encountered in my life, it was the archetype of shadow. It filled the room, and it was going to get me."

The decorated war hero did not hesitate to say that the negative presence caused him to revert into a "five-year old, holding a crucifix" in an effort to allay the visitation. "It was something that I felt. It was absolutely real."

Marlantes returned to the see the monk to discuss the ghastly event. The Capuchin suggested that they might have been tampering with a force far more powerful than they suspected. Turning to a superior in his monastic order, described as being more familiar with the details of the mass for the dead, the monk learned that any effort made to loosen evil's grasp on a soul will result in evil fighting back to reassert control.

The Marine hero ended the discussion on evil by saying that the matter was brought up with a fellow soldier - a Chumash Indian who had belonged to the Army's Long Range Penetration units - who quickly recognized the matter as an attack by "evil spirits" that was well within the control of his people, recommending a shamanistic practice to dispel the dark forces.

The Lady of Many Veils

In the mid-1970s a young man performing his mandatory military service in the Spanish army was found dead in a deserted area outside his military base on the outskirts of Madrid. He had been found – with a bullet hole in his forehead- by a fellow soldier who had gone to relieve him on guard duty. His submachine gun lay on the ground beside him, and a piece of paper protruded from his flak jacket’s pocket. It turned out to be a message for his father.

A teenager far from home, thrust amid strangers in a barracks, may become homesick enough to take his life, and sadly, this is nothing new. But the contents of the message went beyond the usual suicide note one might expect to find on a body.

The soldier wrote that he had been visited by a beautiful woman while on guard duty: she was dressed in a “costume of many veils” and had spoken to him about the nature of the universe and the myriad forms of life to be found beyond the confines of the earth, were joy and love were boundless. The mystery female tendered the soldier a tempting invitation – to join her aboard her spaceship, the vehicle that had brought her to our planet, and go away with her to see the wonders of the universe. Taken aback by the thought of deserting his post, the guard refused the offer, and watched her walk away into the darkness.

Night turned to day and the soldier was unable to dispel the vision of loveliness from his mind. The nature of the encounter was such that that he was afraid to bring the matter up with his buddies, who would surely jeer at him. Overcome with regret, the soldier remembered that the woman had told him that the way to be with her involved surrendering his own physical life.

It was then that he penned the note to his father, making it clear on paper that his suicide was not on account of any hardship or depression brought about by the mandatory service. He promised to return from the afterlife to visit with his family and offer them aid. Upon reporting for guard duty that evening, he turned his service pistol against himself and died.

Spanish paranormalist Salvador Freixedo includes this unsettling story in his book Defendámonos de los dioses (Beware of the Gods) but adds some intriguing details.

The recruit who came across the suicide’s body took the note and did not show it to anyone at all, much less the military authorities or the boy’s father, the intended recipient of the message. He immediately reported his find, but found himself accused of murdering the sentry. He spent over a year in a military prison but was later released due to a lack of evidence.

Who or what was the “lady of many veils” who claimed a world beyond our own as her home? Even the most hardened believer in the ETH would be forced to agree that a bona fide alien traveler would hardly ask for death as the price for a jaunt in a spaceship. More importantly, was the nameless soldier her only victim, or one of many, caught in the “games non-people play”, as John Keel would have put it? Freixedo adds an interesting note with more specifics: On 8 March 1984, Madrid’s Diario 16 newspaper reported the death of another young conscript, Carlos Assua Molinero, found dead of a bullet wound in a sentry box. The precise location was given as one of the guard posts between the military School of Communications and the town of Alcorcón. “The causes motivating the suicide are unknown.” Perhaps the “lady of many veils” wasn’t quite through playing with suggestible minds mesmerized by her charms.

A Paranormal Siege of Military Bases?

Given the nature of their training, statements made by soldiers, sailors and airmen are often accorded greater weight than pronouncements from other members of society. We present another incident involving personnel of the Spanish military, this time in what appears to have been a close encounter of the 3rd kind (CE-III).

On November 25, 1998, a sentry patrolling the perimeter of the Morón de la Frontera Air Base near the city of Seville (Spain) at five o' clock in the morning was startled to hear a sound he likened to "steel plate being cut" (a similarity to the metallic clangor heard by Ms. Sepúlveda in the Chilean case).

The sentry shouted a challenge; when no one responded, he loaded his rifle and fired two shots in the air, while letting loose the German Shepherd watchdog that accompanied him on his rounds. Almost immediately following the two loud reports, an entity described as a two meter tall "sort of person" emerged from the surrounding thicket.

According to Spanish researcher José Manuel García Bautista, the sentry was astonished by the being's height and its fluorescent green eyes, adding that the darkness kept him from making out its physical details. With his heart pounding, the sentry fired another shot straight into the creature, to no avail. He then ordered the German shepherd to attack; the animal charged the dark figure, but stopped short of it with a loud whimper. The highly trained guard dog cowered back to the sentry, who was at a loss as to what to do next. The entity spared him further confusion by vanishing into the thicket once more.

After contacting his superiors over a handheld radio, the sentry was taken to see the base commander, who advised him to keep the whole affair confidential and awarded him a week's leave. But before going off on his furlough, the sentry noticed that his guard dog now sported a long scar running along its left shoulder blade: physical proof of the encounter with the unknown creature.

García’s files include even more harrowing cases which have been previously mentioned in INEXPLICATA. One of them is the November 12, 1976 encounter between two young soldiers engaged in guard duty at the Talavera de la Real Air Base near the city of Badajoz (western Spain).

In the fateful early morning hours of that November day twenty six years ago, around 2:45 a.m., José María Trejo and Juan Carriozosa were standing guard outside the air base's fuel depot, each in their own guard shack, separated by a distance of two hundred feet. The night, which had otherwise been uneventful, was shattered by a loud, piercing, whistling sound that caused the soldiers to cover their ears for about five minutes. The high-pitched noise ended abruptly, causing the soldiers to emerge from their shacks. Given that they were insuring the safety of tens of thousands of gallons of jet fuel, the possibility of a terrorist attack crossed their minds.

Armed with submachine guns, the soldiers decided to comb the area beyond Trejo's guard shack, which seemed to be closer to the source of the sound. They had only advanced a few feet when the high-pitched whistling sound was heard again, loud enough "to drive us crazy," in Carrizosa's words. Things were only getting started.

The very moment the second whistle-blast ended, the sky became filled with an intense light, "brighter than a flare", which lasted some twenty seconds. Both soldiers were amazed at the unsuspected display, and were still exchanging questions about it when a third soldier joined them, asking if they'd seen the light. Deciding that these events were a bit too unsettling not to be reported, they summoned the duty corporal, who ordered the three soldiers and a guard dog--a wolf hybrid--to patrol the area and check for anything unusual.

A crackling sound arose unexpectedly from a eucalyptus tree. The soldiers unleashed their growling dog, which ran at top speed toward the darkened area. The three men held their submachine guns tightly, expecting to hear the guard dog barking at an intruder. "The wolf-dog came back to us," Trejo told researcher García, "but it seemed dazed, dizzy, as though someone or something had given it a beating or frightened it out of its wits."

The three soldiers began shouting challenges into the darkness, fingers on their triggers, expecting at any moment to find themselves in a heated gun-battle with intruders bent on detonating the fuel depot.

"I felt a strange sensation," reported Trejo. "Something was standing behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a green light. Spinning around on a heel, I found myself faced with the most fantastic and inexplicable sight I could've envisioned: a nine-foot tall human figure made of green light."

Even stranger, remarked another of the witnesses, was that the figure appeared to be composed of small points of green light, giving it a small head, thick torso and extremely long arms. The luminous giant appeared to have neither legs nor feet.

Trejo tried to fire a hail of bullets at the figure, but found it impossible to pull his Z-62 sub-machinegun's trigger. Indeed, a gradual stiffening was taking over his body, inducing a sensation of lassitude. He could see and hear perfectly, however, managing to shout: "Get down, they're killing us!" before hitting the ground face first.

Trejo's terrified brothers-in-arms were not stricken by the enigmatic paralysis and opened fire against the towering green figure, estimating a total of forty or fifty shots between them. The green giant became brighter, "like the flash of a picture camera" before fading like an image on a television screen.

Talavera de la Real was in turmoil. Alarms were sounded as some soldiers took up defensive positions and others headed for the fuel depot. The three sentries were hard pressed to explain what had occurred to an irate superior officer. But what saved them from an uncomfortable stay in the base's stockade was a cold physical fact: despite having ordered fifty men to comb the area in broad daylight, not a single cartridge case was found. A masonry wall behind the place where the green giant materialized should have been pockmarked with bullet impacts, but was otherwise intact.

But it was Trejo--the first one to see the green intruder--who would pay the price physically: only a few days after the incident, he was afflicted by sudden bouts of blindness to which neither the base's medics nor physicians at an Army hospital were ever able to explain beyond a vague description of "nervous shock".

These cases are not unique to Spain’s military. While the mainstream media has no problem running ghost stories when they find it "quaint" or timely (the flurry of supernatural stories that usually appear around Halloween), one of them stood out because of its unusual geographic location and the fact that it involved U.S. combat troops in a dangerous, active war zone.

Stories about Afghanistan's "Forward Operating Base Salerno" made their way across the Internet in 2004, involving American troops standing guard at an old tower overlooking a graveyard. Elements of the 2nd Batallion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment felt at one point that they were being subjected to an elaborate prank by other members of their unit, but no one else had heard the sound of eerie, high-pitched laughter of a little girl in the desert night, emanating from the soldiers' radio receiver.

The anecdote about the "ghost girl" harkened back to the experience of a couple of Marines who saw a young Afghan child walking a goat down a road in the darkness, their forms clearly visible through their night-vision goggles. However, upon removing their visual aids, the girl and the goat had disappeared. Stranger still, when the Marines put their goggles on again, they found the girl now standing on the guard tower's balcony. The battle-hardened soldiers had been trained to face a ruthless enemy, but not the paranormal: they ran down the stairs and abandoned the tower.

Nor was it a one-time incident. On successive nights, the guards found themselves huddling in fear by the radio receiver as an abnormal coldness invaded the tower, feeling an unworldly presence in their midst. The presence of a three-foot tall figure walking around outside the guard post was confirmed by watchers in another tower, but a physical reconnaissance of the surroundings did not turn up anything.

Soldiers Against The Unknown

These high-strangeness circumstances were also the subject of exploration by Michael Lindemann in his book Six Viewpoints (Wildflower Press, 1994). An interview with two UFO experiencers disclosed the fact that individuals working in “black projects” for the military appear to find themselves at the center of what could best be described as poltergeist phenomena, but clearly involving small non-human entities. Household objects will appear and disappear, much as during a poltergeist event, with the attendant strange noises and opening and shutting of doors. One of the experiencers – “Marty” –makes a compelling statement: “Through my experience with aircraft, I’ve met a lot of military. One thing that I’ve found is that they’ve experienced a similar thing. In Hawaii, I think the word is mini-huna, the small island gods or whatever. Talking with military personnel who’ve worked don the smaller islands out there, they say that that type of activity happened every day on the base – things moving, things disappearing, things showing up out of nowhere…”

In the mid-1970s, researcher Rufus Drake wrote a feature for Saga UFO Report on the strange activity that seemed to bedevil Williams Air Force Base in Arizona (“Air Force Base Besieged by Saucers”, UFO Report, July 1977, p.37). The incidents ranged from encounters with unknown flying craft chasing T-37 airplanes from the 96th Flying Training Squadron over the desert at relatively low altitudes. Maj. William Royce, involved in one such event, pursued an intruding UFO and managed to close in on it, making out interesting details on its surface as it flew at nearly four hundred miles an hour.

Even more fascinating details on the base’s activities at the time emerged from the article. Drake wrote: “Other super-secret projects at Williams are kept out of the public eye. In a fenced-off, stucco building on the base, the Air Force Human Resources Laboratory is reaching beyond the frontiers of science to probe the human mind, and to develop the means for waging war by disrupting the brain impulses of far-off enemy troops. On the desert, laser beam devices are being tested as potential death ray weapons. The store clerks, barbers and bartenders of Chandler know all this, but it isn’t officially admitted.”

Perhaps the most chilling detail in Drake’s assessment of the situation at Williams AFB has nothing to do with shiny objects harassing airplanes, but encounters between security personnel and unknown entities that mirror the events at Talavera de la Real in Spain or more ominously, those at Bentwaters AFB in the United Kingdom. It involves a civilian security guard named James Pitrelli, making his rounds of a bank construction in January 1976 only two miles distant from the air force base. A mass of red light appeared over the trees, moving downward toward a landing. The object settled on a tripodal “landing gear” before the eyes of the stunned guard, who was able to observe a humanoid occupant make its way out of the craft.

According to Pitrelli, the entity was humanoid up to a point. It had a massive torso supported by stumplike legs, and dangling arms that reached down to the ground. Worse yet, the unappealing sight appeared to be headed straight for him in strides. The contact experience was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a car along the road, causing the non-human presence to retreat to its conveyance, which rose into the air and vanished into the night.

(An interesting side note to this story is that Rufus Drake was a pseudonym – one of many – employed by Robert F. Dorr, a veritable powerhouse in then-burgeoning world of “Men’s Magazines”. Mr. Dorr is a respected author of military affairs and foreign policy with over 70 books to his credit).

Witches and Warlocks

Perhaps facing poltergeists, strange humanoids and UFOs are among the least of a soldier’s worries. What can we say when the average fighting man or woman has to deal with black magic?

Colombia’s El Colombiano newspaper (27 Dec 2011) published a compelling article by Juan Pablo Gómez about the experiences of elements of the Colombian Army with sorcerers and witches employed by the FARC guerrilla organization and other insurgent forces. A soldier from a guerilla-fighting unit encamped in a rural area suddenly began to emit hair-raising guttural sounds and howls, causing other members of the platoon to jump awake in panic. Twisting and turning in his hammock, the soldier could not be awakened from the nightmare that held him within its grip. Over half an hour later, the soldier calmed down and the rest of the platoon stood down, all the while fearing an attack from guerilla forces in the tropical darkness.

At first light, superiors inspected the soldier, startled to find his neck, torso and legs covered in strange bruises of unexplained origin. According to troopers interviewed for the newspaper feature, “there were recruits who would wind up paralyzed” after supposedly paranormal attacks, or else stricken with “strange illnesses that defied medical expertise.”

But the conscripts – largely of peasant stock – knew full well what was going on. These supernatural attacks were handiwork of local witches, whose spells would cause sleeping soldiers to jump awake in the night, brandishing weapons against their companions, spreading confusion and eroding unit cohesiveness.

One might dismiss the beliefs of young rural recruits as fanciful, but officers have approached their superiors concerned over the use of magic by the enemy.

“Guerilla recruits,” states the article in El Colombiano, “are “prayed over” by the warlocks or witches of the towns they represent. One of these enchantments is meant to spread confusion among the troops. It is a prayer uttered in a kneeling position, and produces a camouflage effect.” The spell does not create a mantle of invisibility or anything of that nature; it causes “soldiers to see other things” than the person protected by the orison.

Government forces were also faced with “high strangeness” situations, such as the one experienced by a platoon camping along the banks of the Arauca River, a tributary of the Orinoco that acts as a border between Colombia and Venezuela. When the unit camped for the night during the dry season, the river was no more than three meters wide (10 ft) and no deeper than fifty centimeters. By daybreak, the soldiers were stunned to find themselves facing one of the wildest bodies of water they had ever seen: the roiling, rushing waters were completely impassable. The platoon leader was forced to tell his troops on the other side of the river to remain there until the waters went down. Three soldiers who had attempted to make a crossing were swept away by the river, but survived.

Conclusions

Skeptics may well argue that the military – especially combat troops – are subjected to such exquisitely high levels of stress that it can trigger hallucinatory experiences. Yet some of the cases presented here occurred when troops were at a normal, non-combat level of readiness. It could also be argued that the military has not been “singled out” by the paranormal any more than law enforcement has, yet the annals of high strangeness show us that police officers have more than their fair share of brushes with the unusual. Occultists tell us that spirits cling to battlefields and sites of mass carnage and that elementals are attracted to these very same places. These are forces that elude the scientist’s microscope, but are no less real to those who have to confront them…especially in the middle of the night.

Source: Inexplicata
http://inexplicata.blogspot.com/

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Sales of garlic are booming in western Serbia after the local council issued a public health warning that a vampire was on the loose.

The warning came after an old ruined mill said to once have been the home of the country's most famous monster in the form of vampire Sava Savanovic collapsed.

Sava Savanovic was said to have lived in the old watermill on the Rogacica river, at Zarozje village in the municipality of Bajina Basta where he drank the blood of anybody that came to mill their grain.

The watermill was bought by the local Jagodic family, and they were too scared to use it as a mill – but discovered it was a goldmine when they started advertising for tourists to come and visit it – always during the day.

But the family were worried about carrying out building work on the mill because they were scared they might disturb the vampire or unleash his wrath if his home was messed around with – and now the property has collapsed through lack of repair.

But for locals it has sparked rumours that the vampire is now free once again.

Local mayor Miodrag Vujetic admitted: "People are worried, everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people. We are all frightened."

He added that it was all very well for people who didn't live in the area to laugh at their fears but he said nobody in the region was in any doubt that vampires do exist.

He confirmed that the local council had advised all villagers to put garlic on their doors and windows to protect them from the vampire as it was well known they can't stand the smell.

He added: "We have also reminded them to put a Holy cross in every room in the house."

Villagers who cashed in catering to tourists fascinated by the legend of Sava Savanovic say they now wish they had left the place well alone.

Source: Austrian Times
http://austriantimes.at/news/Around_the_World/2012-11-24/45650/Council_Issues_Vampire_Alert

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