HOT OFF THE PRESSES!

The Final Nail...In YOUR Coffin!

For subscribers of the Conspiracy Journal Newsletter this book is on sale for the special price of only $17.00 (plus $5.00 shipping).  This offer will not last long so ORDER TODAY!  

Click Here to Order With PayPal


You can also phone in your credit card orders to Global Communications
24-hour hotline: 732-602-3407

And as always you can send a check or money order to:
Timothy Green Beckley
P.O. Box 753
New Brunswick, NJ  08903

Please make out checks to: Timothy Green Beckley

Join Us on The Outer Edge - Every Sunday Night!

The Outer Edge Webcast With W.M. Mott and Tim R. Swartz
Sunday Nights
11:59PM EST / 9 pm PST

This Weeks Guest:  Mary Sutherland

http://theouteredgeradio.com/

Heard on the PSN-Radio Network - psn-radio.com

Also: Check Out W.M. Mott's latest blog at: http://mottimorphic.com/blog/2014/09/10/the-footprints-of-the-damned/

It should have surprised no one that the FBI has a secret fleet of spy planes it uses domestically to watch us, as the Associated Press reported this week. WIRED published a story about surveillance aircraft spotted flying in unusual patterns in California and Virginia back in 2006. And the Wall Street Journal reported last year that the US Marshals Service has surveillance planes that use so-called “dirtboxes” to track mobile phone users on the ground.

But long before this, the New York Police Department had a high-tech surveillance helicopter that it obtained in 2003 through a government grant and exposed publicly to the media that year when it gave journalists a tour of the $10 million toy.

WIRED began investigating the chopper in 2008, and uncovered, but hasn’t published until now, information about the precise surveillance components installed on it and the methods the NYPD used to conceal its ownership and operation. Like the FBI, the NYPD used a shell company to register the aircraft. But the NYPD also requested special “undercover” registration handling from the FAA to thwart tracking by aviation enthusiasts who might spot it in the air and attempt to investigate the registration number associated with it. The NYPD also asked the FAA to notify its aviation unit if anyone contacted the agency inquiring about the aircraft.

Last month, the issue of secret law enforcement aircraft began getting attention after plane spotters around the country began reporting suspicious aircraft registered to shell companies that were flying unusual routes over numerous cities. The Associated Press caught on to the stories and this week published its own piece identifying some 50 surveillance craft that were registered to more than a dozen shell companies and were being used by FBI field offices around the country.

The response to that story has been mixed. Some readers were shocked by the secret flights and Big Brother surveillance; others scoffed at the alarm the AP appeared to be inciting, arguing that spy planes are just another surveillance tool law enforcement uses to monitor suspects in areas, or for lengths of time, they couldn’t otherwise monitor through conventional means by foot or car. For example, authorities used a special surveillance helicopter with thermal imaging equipment in 2013 to spot the Boston Marathon bomber as he lay hidden beneath a tarp covering a stored boat.

But regardless of the utility of high-tech surveillance aircraft, their use raises serious questions about how many agencies are operating them in the U.S. and how exactly they’re being used and to what end.

The AP story didn’t provide much detail about the technology aboard the FBI planes, other than to note that some carry imaging systems that can capture “video from long distances, even at night,” while others have stingrays or dirtboxes on board to capture cellphone signals.

But detailed information about what the NYPD has on board its spy copter is available and can serve to further enlighten. The New York Police Department is the nation’s largest local law enforcement agency, and it generally leads the way in acquisition of modern equipment. Where it goes, the rest of the country tends to follow. So an examination of its aerial surveillance capabilities can be instructive for understanding what other law enforcement agencies around the country may be using.

The NYPD’s surveillance activities can also be instructive for another reason. The department has repeatedly been criticized for its over-zealous spy programs—including at least one documented case involving its spy copter. So concerns about abuse of such aircraft are not unfounded.

$10 Million Spy Jewel

The public first learned about the NYPD’s Bell 412EP surveillance helicopter in October 2003 when a regional New York newspaper published a small story unveiling the recently purchased $9.8 million “jewel.” The specially modified chopper, which the department kept parked at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, was unmarked—meaning it carried no insignia identifying it as law enforcement aircraft. Acquired through a Justice Department grant, it was customized with a photo- and video-surveillance system capable of capturing clear images of license plates—or the faces of individuals—from 1,000 feet away. It could even, the story noted, “pick up the catcher’s signals at Yankee Stadium.”

It was described as the “most advanced in use by any police force” at the time, and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly noted that it would be used to fight conventional crime, conduct search-and-rescue missions and “play a key role in anti-terrorism efforts.”

The NYPD referred to the helicopter only as “23”—a reference to the number of police officers killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks—and initially the aircraft had no registration number painted on its tail or side. In later investigating the aircraft, WIRED learned that in 2003 the NYPD had asked the FAA to change the original registration number for the aircraft from N2411X to a special one containing the “23” reference—N23FH (believed to be a reference to “23 Fallen Heroes”). NYPD Deputy Inspector Joseph Gallucci also wrote the FAA at the time asking that the registration be handled in an “undercover” manner and that “any inquiries to the registration number be flagged” and referred to Robert Kikel in the NYPD’s Aviation Unit. WIRED obtained documents for the aircraft only after learning the original registration number and filing a FOIA request with the FAA.

Five years after that 2003 story about the helicopter was published, the public learned more about the technology installed on the helicopter from an Associated Press article published about it in 2008. That piece described three flat-screen monitors onboard that were displaying Statue of Liberty sightseers from a mile and a half away. It also described the high-powered camera, mounted in a turret below the chopper’s nose, that had infrared night-vision capabilities and satellite navigation to zoom in on any address typed into its computer. The system could beam live footage to police command centers below or to wireless devices in the hands of police commanders in the field. The helicopter had been used, the story noted, to track fleeing suspects and to patrol the skies during a visit by Pope Benedict XVI to New York.

A privacy advocate interviewed for the story raised concerns about how the helicopter might be abused, but John Diazo, crew chief for the aircraft, replied, “Obviously, we’re not looking into apartments. We don’t invade the privacy of individuals. We only want to observe anything that’s going on in public.”

But the NYPD’s surveillance helicopter had in fact already been involved in at least one privacy controversy at the time Diazo made his remark. On the night of August 27, 2004, an officer aboard the helicopter was monitoring several thousand bicyclists conducting a street protest prior to the Republican National Convention when he directed the copter’s camera to a nearby balcony. For nearly four minutes he lingered on a music executive and his girlfriend having sex on the terrace of the executive’s Second Avenue penthouse. Jeffrey Rosner, the executive, later said he had no idea the helicopter was watching him, let alone filming him. It was dark outside and Rosner and his girlfriend were shielded by a wall of shrubs. But the camera’s thermal imaging system saw right through those obstacles and caught them in their intimate embrace.

“When you watch the tape, it makes you feel kind of ill,” Rosner later told the New York Times.

The surveillance only came to light after one of the bicyclists on the ground was arrested and demanded to see footage from the helicopter’s camera. A police spokesman told the Times that police sometimes videotaped rooftop activity if they thought someone might be in a position to throw objects at officers below. “In this instance, the officer was instructed afterward to terminate taping once it was determined a threat did not exist,” he said.

Other cases of abuse might exist, but the NYPD has fought efforts by the ACLU and others to obtain information about its spy aircraft, so it’s hard to know for sure.
Shell Companies and Schematics

One of the most intriguing aspects of the recent FBI spy plane stories is the revelation of the web of shell companies the agency has used to register the fleet, all with three-letter names like FVX Research, KQM Aviation, and PXW Services. Many of the shell companies have addresses in Bristow, Virginia, making it easy to single them out.

The NYPD’s helicopter, as previously noted, was also registered to an apparent shell company, this one called Montero Inc. in Brooklyn, New York. FAA records show that Montero took ownership of the aircraft from Bell Helicopter, the manufacturer, in 2003. Stephen Vance, identified as president of Montero, signed the registration papers. But efforts by WIRED in 2008 and later to locate Vance and his company were unsuccessful. The Montero address listed on the FAA documents—1957 86th Street, Suite 249 in Brooklyn, NY—was the address for Mailboxes, Etc., a company that provides post office box services to multiple customers. Oddly, after being registered to Montero for more than a decade, the helicopter’s registration recently reverted back on April 10 from Montero to Bell Helicopter in Texas.

In addition to revealing the shell ownership, however, the FAA documents for the NYPD helicopter proved interesting for another reason. They provided a detailed list of all the components and modifications the Bell helicopter underwent to meet the NYPD’s surveillance needs.

Spy equipment added to the NYPD helicopter in 2003 includes a WESCAM MX-15 Video Imaging System, also described as a Thermal Imager, and a WESCAM SkyPod B Airborne Microwave Transmission System. The latter includes a GPS receiver that allows the camera to zoom in on specified locations.

Additionally, there is a Comant CI 405 GPS antenna installed on the cockpit roof, a Chelton 931-8 Direction Finding system and a Datong Tracking System “for tracking targeted electronic beacons.” The latter presumably is for monitoring GPS trackers that law enforcement agencies place surreptitiously on vehicles. (See the documents below for more details about the components installed on the aircraft.)

The equipment installed in the helicopter was likely state-of-the-art at the time it was placed in the aircraft in 2003, but in the intervening decade it no doubt has been surpassed by more powerful technologies. One thing that apparently wasn’t installed in the helicopter at the time was a stingray—a device, sometimes called an IMSI catcher or dirtbox, that simulates a cell phone tower in order to trick mobile phones and other devices into connecting them and revealing their location. Stingrays don’t just affect targeted phones; they pick up signals emanating from every mobile device in an area and allow authorities not only to track the devices but, with additional information, to identify who might be carrying them.

The FBI told the AP that its surveillance planes use stingrays but only in limited situations and that their use now require a court order. A Wall Street Journal story published last year revealed that the US Marshals Service also operates surveillance planes equipped with stingrays. It’s not known if the NYPD helicopter has used them as well.

The irony around the recent revelations about the FBI and US Marshals Service spy planes is that while these law enforcement agencies have been using the aircraft to secretly monitor people on the ground, people on the ground have been monitoring the spy planes. The AP and others have been able to track the movement of the FBI surveillance planes using FlightAware.com, a web site that displays animated maps showing the routes that aircraft owned by the FBI and others take, based on the aircraft registration numbers, flight plans and other data.

Unfortunately, helicopters aren’t as easily tracked. The last flight path available on FlightAware for the NYPD’s N23FH spy plane is from September 2011 when the helicopter flew from York, Pennsylvania to Newark, NJ one Saturday morning. A representative for FlightAware told WIRED that the site only tracks flights navigated by instrument; not ones navigated by visual means alone, the manner in which helicopters are generally flown. And helicopter pilots also don’t generally file flight plans, since they tend to remain within a single region. They’ll file a flight plan, he said, only if they leave the region and fly to another state, for example.

As technologies advance, many of the piloted spy craft that currently populate the air from law enforcement agencies will eventually be replaced with unmanned drones that can do the same kinds of surveillance at a fraction of the cost, while at the same time being harder to track.

It’s also unclear what kind of oversight will be put in place to ensure that agencies don’t abuse them. A recent report by the National Journal noted that only fourteen states currently require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before using drones for surveillance. The friendly skies are getting much less friendly every day.

Source: Wired
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/fbi-not-alone-in-operating-secret-spycraft/

On March 31, 2015, the legendary folk singer Joni Mitchell was hospitalized after being found unconscious in her Los Angeles home. At the time, it was unclear what had caused her to pass out, but Mitchell, who was 71 at the time of her hospitalization, had long identified herself as sufferer of the strange and controversial condition called Morgellons Disease.

Mitchell told "The Los Angeles Times" in a 2010 interview that Morgellons Disease "seems like it's from outer space." In her 2014 autobiography, entitled "Joni Mitchell: In Her Own Words," she writes, "I couldn't wear clothing. I couldn't leave my house for several years. Sometimes it got so I'd have to crawl across the floor. My legs would cramp up, just like a polio spasm. It hit all of the places where I had polio."

WHAT IS JONI MITCHELL'S BIZARRE MALADY?

The condition has been labeled Mitchell's "Secret Torment" by one British newspaper, although she never made any effort to keep her condition hidden. Quite the opposite, in fact. But talking publicly about Morgellons is not an easy task, especially when the medical establishment refuses for the most part to believe the problem is even a physical "disease" at all.

Researcher, writer and radio host Tim R. Swartz has studied Morgellons closely for several years and has recently written a book on the subject called "The Final Nail In Your Coffin: A Pox To All Mankind." (This latest offering from Inner Light/Global Communications is actually another of the company's generous "two-books-in-one" packages and includes a book on the rumored substance "red mercury," which is said to put nuclear capabilities in the hands of any terrorist with enough money to buy it.)

According to Swartz, "Those with Morgellons Disease describe feelings of insects scurrying below their skin and have mysterious sores that ooze out blue and white fibers, some as thick as spaghetti strands. Attempts to remove the fibers are said to produce shooting pains radiating from the site." Sufferers also report fatigue and problems with short-term memory and concentration.

A MOTHER'S CRUSADE

Morgellons takes its name from the efforts of Mary Leitao, who in 2001 was a 43-year-old stay-at-home Mom and former lab technician in South Carolina. Her two-year-old son had begun to develop lesions on the inside of his lip that he said were caused by "bugs." When Leitao's son also developed sores and fibers of various colors growing out of his skin, she took him to several doctors, none of whom could find anything biologically wrong with him.

It was Leitao who coined her son's ailment as "Morgellons," after a condition described in 1674 by the British author Thomas Browne. Browne said the disorder caused children to "break out with harsh hairs on their backs." But even the Morgellons Research Foundation says it is doubtful that the 17th century disease is related in any way to modern day Morgellons, Swartz writes.

After being turned away from a series of doctors, Leitao began a public campaign to raise public awareness of Morgellons, after which thousands of fellow sufferers made themselves known. But the medical community held fast to its diagnosis of "delusional parasitosis," meaning the patient was mistaken in complaining about an infestation by insects under his or her skin but that this false belief could not be corrected by reasoning, persuasion or logical argument.

Meanwhile, all laboratory tests and pathogenic exams returned negative and offered no clinical confirmation of the patients' complaints. Thus, physicians treat the condition as a mental illness and typically prescribe only antidepressants or other psychiatric medications.

In 2012, The Centers For Disease Control made public the their study of Morgellons, saying that "no common underlying medical condition or infectious source was identified," and that the fibers were more likely picked up from clothing that got trapped in the sufferers' sores. Like a Mayo Clinic study done in 2011, the CDC report reaffirmed the "delusional parasitosis" diagnosis.

Shortly after the CDC's findings were published, Leitao dropped out of sight completely and hasn't been heard from since. Not even the crusading mother's contacts in the Morgellons community know where she has gone or have any idea how to contact her.

COULD MORGELLONS BE FROM MARS?

To give the medical community - somewhat begrudgingly - their due, maybe Morgellons is so hard to diagnose and analyze because it's not an Earth-generated disease at all. Swartz puts forth his own provocative theory thusly:
"What makes Morgellons so unique are the weird fibers that grow out of the victim's skin. No other disease on Earth has this bizarre symptom. So could this mean that Morgellons originated somewhere other than Earth?"

Swartz points to a researcher named Mike Moore who discovered a meteor on a ranch in Texas in the early 1970s. Moore concluded that the unusual rock had formed under extremely dry conditions, was volcanic in origin, and most likely resulted when a large asteroid struck the surface of Mars. Upon first finding the meteorite, Moore concluded that - since it had just come through our atmosphere - it had most likely been "sterilized" by the high heat that melted its outer surface. Ten or fifteen years after first finding the space rock, Moore discovered that "fuzz" or "filaments" were coming out of the crevice that runs through one side of the meteorite.

Moore was left to wonder how a rock from Mars could be growing something that seemed to be alive. It was not until NASA announced in 1996 that they had found the possible remnants of life in a Martian meteorite that Moore began to consider that he was seeing some kind of Martian life growing on his own meteorite. When Moore put a sample from the space rock under a microscope, he found a piece of something that had obviously been some kind of plant or at least some kind of living thing. A later analysis of a section of Moore's meteor conducted by a lab worker at the Roswell UFO Museum in New Mexico confirmed the presence of a fiber-like creature that moved on the slide as if trying to avoid being stuck there for examination.

THE REAL LIFE "ANDROMEDA STRAIN"?

Rocks blown off of Mars have been falling to Earth throughout history, potentially bringing with them the minute lifeforms that we now call Morgellons. The concept of a disease from outer space infecting unsuspecting Earthlings is not a new one, however.

The first novel by the late Michael Crichton, 1969's "The Andromeda Strain," is a techno-thriller documenting the efforts of a team of scientists investigating the outbreak of a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism in Arizona. The story begins when a military satellite returns to Earth. Aerial surveillance reveals that everyone in Piedmont, Arizona, the town closest to where the satellite landed, is apparently dead. The base commander suspects the satellite returned with an extraterrestrial organism and recommends activating Wildfire, a protocol for a government-sponsored team that counters extraterrestrial biological infestation.

After leading the reader through a suspenseful ordeal, the book concludes with the team of scientists heroically saving the day. The Andromeda Strain itself eventually mutates to a benign form and the whole effort is effectively covered up and given no media attention at all.

Crichton received many letters from readers asking if the story told in his bestselling book was somehow true. The novel was published just weeks before the first lunar landing and there was a general concern about whether the astronauts could bring back germs from the moon. The "germs from outer space" theme was treated lightly in some quarters, but, in the years after the novel's release, any newly-discovered biological agent tended to be referred to as an "Andromeda Strain." The term became synonymous with any potential pandemic: Marbug, Ebola, Bird Flu, and so on.   

At this point, we can potentially add Morgellons Disease to that frightening list.

THERE'S A LAW AGAINST THAT, YOU KNOW

Unsurprisingly, 1969 was also the year that Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations went on the books making it illegal for U.S. citizens to have contact with extraterrestrials or their vehicles. Anyone found to have such contact can be jailed for one year and fined $5,000. The NASA administrator is empowered to determine with or without a hearing that a person or object has been "extraterrestrially exposed" and impose an indeterminate quarantine under armed guard, which could not be broken even by court order. There is no limit placed on the number of individuals who could thus be arbitrarily quarantined. The definition of "extraterrestrial exposure" is left entirely up to the NASA administrator.

The legislation was buried in a batch of regulations very few members of government probably bothered to read in its entirety and was slipped onto the books without public debate. In effect, the government of the U.S. has created a whole new criminal class: UFO contactees.

But NASA said the law is really directed at extraterrestrial viruses that could wipe out humankind completely. It may be a kind of whistling in the dark given that simply quarantining a few contactees does not automatically mean some kind of outer space contagion would have no other means of spreading. But it is nevertheless an interesting official acknowledgment that such things are taken seriously at some level of government and that the potential for diseases like Morgellons to have originated in some other world is at least considered a possibility as well.

WHO'S THAT YONDER DRESSED IN BLACK?

But an infestation from another world need not have happened only in the space age.

In a book called "The Gods of Eden," first published in 1989, author William Bramley recounts the following chilling anecdote:

"In Brandenburg, Germany, there appeared fifteen men with 'fearful faces and long scythes, with which they cut the oats, so that the swish could be heard from a great distance, but the oats remained standing.' The visit of these men was followed immediately by a severe outbreak of plague in Brandenburg. Were the 'scythes' long instruments designed to spray poison or germ-laden gasses?

"Strange men in black, demons and other terrifying figures were observed in other European communities carrying 'brooms' or 'scythes' or 'swords' that were used to sweep or knock at people's doors. The inhabitants of these houses fell ill with plague afterwards. It is from these reports that people created the popular image of death as a skeleton, a demon, a man in a black robe carrying a scythe."

Notes writer Pat Bertram, in his online comments on Bramley's account of the origins of the Grim Reaper as a familiar cultural symbol, "The Black Death began in Asia and spread to Europe between 1347 and 1350 where it killed over 25 million people, one-third of the population." While the current thinking is that the plague was spread by rats in overcrowded cities, Bertram writes, not all outbreaks were preceded by rat infestation and the plague often struck isolated communities that had had no contact with infected areas.

Many people in stricken areas reported the disease was caused by "evil-smelling mists" that were frequently accompanied by bright lights and unusual activity in the skies. Sometimes the disease-bearing mist was seen to be coming from rocket-like airships. An epidemic in ancient times was also linked to similar mists, for which Hippocrates, the father of medicine, prescribed large public bonfires that he believed would get rid of the bad air.

AN INVADING SPACE FLOWER?

In the 1978 version of "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers," one of those rare remakes that is as well thought of by critics as the original version, some of the characters engage in a brief exchange about where the invading "pod army" originates.  
Elisabeth Driscoll, the movie's primary heroine, says, "I have seen these flowers all over. They are growing like parasites on other plants. All of a sudden. Where are they coming from?"

To which her friend, Nancy Bellicec, replies, "Outer space?"

Nancy's husband, Jack Bellicec, interjects: "What are you talking about? A space flower?"

Nancy answers him, "Well, why not a space flower? Why do we always expect metal ships?"

Jack then says, "I NEVER expected metal ships."  

Which is a suggestion we should heed, even those of us in the UFO community. Perhaps Morgellons Disease is just the visible portion of an alien invasion being conducted with "space flowers" that carry with them a disease that our medical community either cannot or will not acknowledge as genuine. Maybe Morgellons is the point of entry for an alien force that eschews metal ships in favor of an insidious disease that has inspired a conspiracy of silence among doctors similar to the cover-up of UFOs themselves in other parts of officialdom.

If you experience the terrifying symptoms of Morgellons - the sensation of bugs crawling beneath your skin, painful wounds that open up for no apparent reason and start to expel strange, cotton-like fibers - don't expect your family physician to help you. Not even the rich and famous, like Joni Mitchell, have been spared the stigma and frustration that comes with complaining of Morgellons symptoms.

But you can at least arm yourself with the well-researched book on the subject by the aforementioned Tim R. Swartz. Reading "The Final Nail In Your Coffin: A Pox To All Of Mankind" will keep you abreast of the latest research on the disease as well as lead you on a fascinating journey through the myriad possibilities of where it comes from. Swartz does not shy away from including even the unthinkable: Could Morgellons be a new bioweapon designed in Earthly laboratories? A military experiment gone wrong that the civilian medical community cannot even analyze as a disease, let alone cure?

Be watchful for another article about "The Final Nail In Your Coffin," which will cover one more frightening method for mankind's extermination - the secret ingredient for a nuclear weapon the size of a softball and cheap enough for the terrorist on a tight budget.

On January 6, 1954, the Lumberton, North Carolina, Robesonian newspaper published a sensational article titled “Vampire Strikes At Woman; Police Chief Warns Parents.” It began in startling style: “Worried parents kept a close eye on their children today as a strange ‘vampire’ beast continued to roam the countryside.”

Indeed, sightings and killings had been going on since late December and plunged the good folk of the small town of Bladenboro, North Carolina into states of fear and outrage. Although many eye-witnesses described the animal as looking like a black leopard, there were some who said it was more akin to a sleek-looking bear. Adding to the confusion, the tracks of the creature were said to be dog-like, rather than feline in appearance.

The most terrifying aspect of the story, however, was the claim of both the newspaper and the witnesses that the creature “sucks blood from its victims.” And thus was born a vampire legend. The victims were, for the most part, dogs. There was, however, one attack on a person; the unfortunate soul being Mrs. C.E. Kinlaw. Fortunately, she was not injured: the animal simply lashed out at her, when its attempts to attack and kill her dogs were thwarted.

She stated afterwards: “After we first saw it, and my husband scared it away, it circled back and came running toward the porch where I was standing. I screamed and it stopped on all fours, turned and ran off. You know, the Bible speaks of sights and wonders before the end of time. This could be one of them. The Bible’s coming true, day by day.”

One of those whose dogs unfortunately were killed by the creature was Johnny Vause. He said: “My dogs put up a good fight. There was blood all over the porch, big puddles of it. And there was a pool of saliva on the porch. It killed one dog at 10:30 and left it lying there. My dad wrapped the dog up in a blanket. That thing came back and got that dog and nobody’s seen the dog since. At 1:30 in the morning, it came back and killed the other dog and took it off. We found it three days later in a hedgerow. The top of one of the dogs heads was torn off and its body was crushed and wet, like it had been in that thing’s mouth. The other dog’s lower jaw was torn off.”

As the carnage continued, there were stories of full-grown pigs found with their skulls crushed and their limbs torn off in violent, bloody fashion. Other farm animals were found dead, their severed heads completely missing. The entire town was on edge. Children were kept away from school. And practically no-one wanted to walk the streets of town after sunset. This was hardly surprising: a deadly, monstrous killer was in their very midst.

An unnamed witness commented: “I got two dogs, Niggy, the little black one, and Peewee, a brown one, that’s bigger. Me and my wife were sitting here in the living room. We heard the dogs get awful restless. My front light was on and Larry Moore had his back light on. I glanced out the window and saw this thing. It had me plumb spellbound. It was about 20 inches high. It had a long tail, about 14 inches. The color of it was dark. It had a face exactly like a cat. Only I ain’t ever seen a cat that big. It was walking around stealthy, sneaky, moving about trying to get to Niggy and Peewee. I jumped for my shotgun and loaded it and went out to shoot it, but it moved into the darkness right away and I couldn’t find him again.”

Such was the sheer level of hysteria that gripped Bladenboro, at one point, on January 5, 1954 more than five hundred people – all armed to the teeth with rifles and pistols – roamed the area’s swamps and woods; something that the local police took a decidedly dim view of. The authorities took an even dimmer view when, on the 6th, the figure was estimated to be in the region of eight hundred, and twenty-four hours later, it was said to be in excess of one thousand.

There were sighs of relief when a bobcat was shot and killed in the area and a leopard was reportedly hit by a car. Problematic, however, was the fact that the attacks continued, something which suggested the animal was not a solitary one. Worse, there might even have been an entire pack of the creatures.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the issue was never resolved to the situation of the people of Bladenboro: by mid-January the killings were finally over. Everyone sighed with relief. The saga of the vampire-beast of Bladenboro remains a staple part of the town, and to the extent that, in 2008, in 2008 the History Channel’s popular show, Monster Quest, dedicated an entire episode to the legend of the blood-sucking, skull-crushing beast that provoked so much terror all those decades earlier.

Source: Mysterious Universe
http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2015/06/the-vampire-of-bladenboro/

---

Every town has its own local legends, stories of mysterious creatures that become the fodder for whispered conversations around campfires or barstools. Some, like the legend of the Jersey Devil, gain nationwide attention, while other tales, such as that of the Burlington Boogeyman, rarely leave the communities of their origins. One such local legend has long been a secret held by the town of Greenock, Scotland: the mysterious rat-eating Catman.

The scenic fishing town of Greenock, just 25 miles west of Glasgow, prides itself on its rich maritime history, its spot among Scotland’s top 50 walking trails, and its beautifully restored Victorian buildings. In fact, it’s long been considered one of the most lovely towns in the country. But when the sun sets and night has descended upon its shores, the residents of Greenock know that something is creeping in the darkness, watching them silently as they hurry back to their homes.

For many years, the only evidence of the Catman were second-hand tales of glowing eyes in the darkness, or a friend who swears he had seen the black figure crawl out of a drainage pipe, a dying rat dangling from its jaws. To some, the Catman was a cryptozoological beast, the last of its kind living on the edges of society. To others, the legend of the Catman was the work of local pranksters intent on scaring the drunks stumbling out of the pub at night. Even the police, who often fielded reports about Catman sightings, were unsure of what to make of the stories.

The clip showed that Catman wasn’t some kind of undiscovered monster, but a human after all. As the cameraman spoke to him, Catman lifted a dead rat to his face, black with soot and dirt, and bit into it, the disturbing image somehow disarmed by Catman’s gleeful “thumbs up” gesture.

As you can imagine, the video was passed around between the youth of Greenock, becoming the hot topic of local discussion, before being uploaded to the internet where it quickly became the talk of message boards and email chains. The Greenock Social Work department even took notice of the video, telling the local papers that they’d sent one of their case workers out searching for him, though they wound up empty handed.

No one is quite sure how long the Catman has been lurking the alleys and tunnels of Greenock, but some of the earliest reports date back to the mid-70s. Some said that he was a Russian sailor that had been stranded in Scotland, forced to live off the streets. Others claimed he was the victim of a mob beating that had broken his legs and left him in hiding. Some reports stated that Catman was a crazed escapee from a local mental institute. Despite the wildly varying backgrounds, a few details always remained the same: Catman always crawled, rarely spoke, and was always eating rats.

One report from 2010 lends more credence to his cat-like traits:

    "Catman is definitely real. He gave me a hell of a fright. The first time I saw him it was just getting dark, and all I saw were his eyes. His face is totally black like in the video. He would lie at Scotts Lane path in the bushes behind the fence, pointing at cat meat that was left for cats, asking me to pass it through the fence. I think he was scared to go onto the path for it. I used to go buy donor kebabs for him when coming home from dancing. He hasnt been seen in ages now, since the council put corrugated iron up so he couldnt be fed."

As the legend of the Catman grew more and more into a reality, the media began to take in interest in the story. In 2010 a local documentarian set out to uncover the truth about the local legend, but was met with roadblocks at every turn. No matter where he went, those who allegedly knew the true history of the Catman refused to speak on camera. What was supposed to be a feature length documentary ended up being a five minute segment that posed more questions than it answered.

To this day, it seems that no one knows, or will reveal, the true identity of Catman, where he’s from, or how he ended up living this way in the tunnels of Greenock. His survival for half a century is shocking enough, but maybe not as mysterious as one might think when considering the kindness the locals who’ve attempted to help the man throughout the years.

    "I live in Greenock and I can vouch the Catman exists. He has several spots he stays in, behind the shops at the bus station or around the abandoned warehouses. the local takeaways leave stuff out for him and every now and again you will find new blankets by one of his areas that someone has left for him. He was institutionalized once but Couldnt handle it. He doesn’t like people but the people here make sure he’s taken care of as much as he chooses to be. Cups of tea or soup will be left in certain spots, food. I know one woman who drops him off a meal every Saturday evening on her way to bingo and she makes sure he has a hat when it gets cold. I suppose its the true definition of care in the Community."

The Catman is still alive, if not well, with images of his blackened face surfacing as recently as April 2015, courtesy of his Facebook Fan Page. Yes, that’s right, he even has a Facebook page, one that, perhaps cruelly, classifies him as a pet. It’s the same page where, just days ago, it was reported that Catman was sent to the Ravenscraig Hospital.

After his first appearance in Greenock over four decades ago, perhaps the mystery of the Catman will finally be solved. Stay tuned.

Source: Week In Weird
http://weekinweird.com/2015/06/04/tracking-down-the-legendary-greenock-catman-
scotlands-glowing-eyed-rat-eating-mystery/

---

Greer Island, a small patch of land close to where the West Fork of the Trinity River flows into Lake Worth, is heavily shaded by tall oaks, cedar elms and cottonwoods.

One of the quietest spots in Fort Worth, the island is home to egrets and owls, perhaps an alligator or two.

And maybe, just maybe, the Lake Worth Monster.

The Lake Worth Monster, aka Goat-Man, hasn't been seen regularly at the Fort Worth Nature Center since a very memorable summer 40 years ago when all of Texas seemed to buzz with the news that a hairy, scaly 7-foot man-goat-beast was terrorizing the good citizens of Tarrant County.

"Every so often, it will come up in conversation," said Suzanne Tuttle, manager of the Nature Center. "Somebody will say, 'I remember when that happened."'

Perhaps the monster moved on to less-populated environs, and maybe it's dead by now, his bones to be discovered decades later by a lucky anthropologist.

Or, as more people actually suspect, the monster was really several creatures, all hoaxes carried out by enterprising and opportunistic mischief-makers from Brewer, Castleberry or North Side high school.

No one is exactly sure.

Mystery still cloaks the legend of the Lake Worth Monster and his tire-chucking, hair-raising appearance in July 1969.

On the afternoon of July 10 that year, the Star-Telegram's front page carried a headline above the fold "Fishy Man-Goat Terrifies Couples Parked at Lake Worth."

Reporter Jim Marrs broke the story to the world.

"Six terrified residents told police early today they were attacked by a thing they described as being half-man, half-goat and covered with fur and scales.

"Four units of Fort Worth police and the residents searched in vain for the thing, which was reported seen at Lake Worth, near Greer Island."

John Reichart told police that the creature leapt from a tree and landed on his car, and he showed them an 18-inch scar down the side of his car as proof.

The police officer told Marrs that "we did make a serious investigation because those people were really scared."

The police also revealed that they had received reports in the past but had laughed them off.

The next night, the monster, in front of a couple of dozen witnesses, was said to have uttered a "pitiful cry" and hurled a tire from a bluff at them.

The police weren't laughing anymore. Hundreds of amateur trackers descended on the area with all manner of Remingtons, Brownings and Colts.

"I'm not worried about the monster so much as all those people wandering around out there with guns," a police sergeant was quoted as saying in Marrs' second-day story.

One of the curious who went to Lake Worth that summer was Sallie Ann Clarke, an aspiring writer and private investigator who dropped everything to interview people for what would become her quick-draw and slightly tongue-in-cheek book, "The Lake Worth Monster of Greer Island," self-published in September '69.

During the weeks of summer, people saw the creature running through the Johnson grass, found tracks too big for a man, and reported dead sheep and blood.

Soldiers and sailors in Vietnam wrote their parents in Fort Worth and asked for more news, and reporters from far and wide wrote stories about it. The authorities continued to blame either a bobcat or teenage pranksters.

Then, about the time school resumed, perhaps not coincidentally, the Lake Worth Monster furor largely disappeared.

Clarke is 80 years old now and still lives in Benbrook, but, regrettably, she can't talk much about that summer.

A series of strokes greatly damaged her memory and her health, said her husband, Richard Lederer.

Clarke has always regretted the way she wrote her book, he said, because after she published it, she saw the monster on three occasions.

"If I'd seen it before I wrote the book, the book would have been quite a lot different," she told the Star-Telegram in 1989. "It wouldn't have been semi-fiction. It would have been like a history." She has the most famous, perhaps the only, photograph ever taken. It was given to her by Allen Plaster, who snapped it in October 1969 at 1:15 a.m. near Greer Island.

Both her descriptions and the photo show a large white something, though it doesn't seem to favor a goat at all.

Plaster, interviewed in 2006, said he doesn't buy the monster story now.

"Looking back, I realize that when we drove by, it stood up," he was quoted as saying in the Star-Telegram. "Whatever it was, it wanted to be seen. That was a prank. That was somebody out there waiting for people to drive by. I don't think an animal would have acted that way."

For his part, though, Plaster isn't talking anymore. He declined an interview request.

In 2005, a reporter at the Star-Telegram received a handwritten letter, with no name and no forwarding address.

"One weekend, myself and two friends from North Side High School decided to go out to Lake Worth and scare people on the roads where there were always stories of monsters and creatures who would attack parkers," the letter began.

The writer claimed to have used tinfoil to make a homemade mask to scare a truckload of girls.

When the friends were finished, they went to a Dairy Queen on the north side.

"I had a Coke float. The goatman had a parfait," the letter said. "The goatman turns 55 this summer and resides a peaceful life in the hills outside of Joshua."

Except that whoever wrote the letter a man who lives somewhere near Beaumont, based on the postal cancellation isn't the only person to make such a claim.

Marrs, the reporter, told the newspaper in 1989 that police questioned several Castleberry students who were found with a faceless gorilla outfit and a mask.

Fort Worth, Texas magazine outed a man this month identified only as "Vinzens" who admitted being involved in the infamous tire-throwing incident of July 11.

He said the tire went airborne only because it hit a bump after they rolled it. But he had no interest in naming more names or publicly taking credit or blame.

The owner of a kennel near Lake Worth has also said that he lost a macaque monkey that summer and that perhaps the primate was responsible.

All of it could be true. Or none of it.

Who knows?

Clarke's husband maintains that the monster was definitely not pranksters.

"She offered a $5,000 reward for any person who could pass a polygraph that they were the monster," Lederer said. "She never got a call."

The Nature Center is holding its own monster revival celebration Oct. 3, a date selected for the temperate Texas autumn rather than any connection to the events of 1969. It will have canoe rides, guided hikes around Greer Island, live music, food and drinks.

For those who belong to the Friends of the Nature Center, Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy Chairman Craig Woolheater will speak at a private dinner that night.

Tuttle said the Nature Center's staff is skeptical of the existence of a monster.

But ...

"You never know," she said. "He may hear about it and just turn up."

Source: NBCDFW/Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local-beat/Mystery-Still-Engulfs-Lake-Worth-Monster
-52597122.html

Oopart (out of place artifact) is a term applied to dozens of prehistoric objects found in various places around the world that seem to show a level of technological advancement incongruous with the times in which they were made. Ooparts often frustrate conventional scientists, delight adventurous investigators open to alternative theories, and spark debate.

While quarrying stone in Aix-en-Provence, France, in the late 18th century, workers uncovered what appeared to be a very unusual work site. They had dug through 11 layers of limestone, each separated by a bed of sand mixed with clay, and there they found wooden hammer handles and other wooden tools petrified into agate.

Half-wrought stones were also found with the tools.

The discovery was recorded by Count Bournon in “Mineralogy.” His account is translated from French to English in the The American Journal of Science and Arts, v.2, 1820 (pages 145–146).  Bournon wrote: “Here then, we have the traces of a work executed by the hand of man, placed at the depth of fifty feet, and covered with eleven beds of compact limestone: everything tended to prove that this work had been executed upon the spot where the traces existed. The presence of man had then preceded the formation of this stone, and that very considerably since he was already arrived at such a degree of civilization that the arts were known to him, and that he wrought the stone and formed columns out of it.”

It was long thought that it took millions of years for wood to petrify (turn to stone), but in recent years it has been shown that under special circumstances (being exposed to mineral-rich water, for example) wood may petrify in several years or a few decades.

Glen J. Kuban, a vocal skeptic of a similar find—a hammer discovered in limestone in Texas thought to be some 100 million years old—has said that limestone can form fairly quickly around objects. Concretions, masses of hardened mineral matter, have been known to form around objects from the 20th century.

Did the limestone form around the tools in France in a more recent time or are the tools from a remote age? Were the right circumstances in place to petrify the wooden tools in a shorter period of time, or did the petrification occur over millions of years?

The site in Aix-en-Provence was certainly unusual. The possibility is tantalizing that it could be a work site from a long-lost civilization, far more advanced than a conventional view of history would allow.


Source: Epoch Times
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1375519-out-of-place-in-time-petrified-wooden
-tools-buried-deep-in-limestone/

---

The Department of Education in Madinah has relocated a girls school in a village after a number of its students complained a jinn was haunting the premises, Al-Watan reported on Wednesday.

The department made its decision based on the recommendations of a special committee established to investigate the case in Al-Shalayel, Saudi Arabia, 70 km away from the holy city.

Omar Barnawi, the department's spokesman, said the committee listened to a number of students, teachers and workers.

He said the department's director Nasser Al-Abdul Kareem had ordered the establishment of the committee to investigate the claims and find solutions that would reassure the girls and their families.

A source close to the school said in May a number of students did not attend classes.

The source said a number of girls had fainted or started having seizures, prompting parents to stop them from going to school.

“We had to suspend the school for a few days,” Barnawi said at the time. He said the school tried to control the situation before contacting the directorate but the students were terrified and would not return to school.

The source said the principal informed the department about the incident to find a solution but when the department did not move quickly, she called in a sheikh to recite Qur'an in the school.

He said the villagers started sending tweets using a particular hashtag asking the department to shift the school to another place.

The source said one of the girls claimed she saw an old man sitting in the school's courtyard but he disappeared in thin air when she got closer.

A cleaner said he entered the school one night to clean the classrooms and saw a number of children playing football. He said when he approached them they disappeared.

In Saudia Arabia there have been other reports of places allegedly haunted by Jinn.  In 2012 amateur ghost hunters were drawn to the abandoned Riyadh's Irqa Hospital because it was rumored to be haunted by Jinn.

The macabre fascination with Riyadh's Irqa Hospital, which treated Gulf War combatants in 1991, began with tweeted rumours and escalated to the point where hundreds of youths broke into the grounds, smashing windows and starting fires.

"Teenagers sent text messages calling for an operation against some of the jinn who live in the hospital, and they broke into the hospital and smashed its facilities and burned 60 percent of it," the Okaz newspaper reported.

The rampage prompted angry press complaints the authorities were allowing the building to fall into disrepair.

Several videos were posted on YouTube showing grinning young men exploring the building's deserted rooms in search of evidence of spectral activity.

One video showed blazing palm trees that had been torched by the ghost hunters.

Jinn fever reached the point where the Health Ministry issued a terse statement disclaiming responsibility for the decaying building, which it said was privately owned and too decrepit to be revived as a working hospital.

In 2011, a story from Emirate news reported that a Saudi man was believed to have been gripped by jinn during a picnic with his friends in a valley which is reputed to be haunted. But he was later treated in an exorcist-style session by the Gulf Kingdom’s religious police.

The unnamed man and seven friends from the western town of Makkah were vacationing in the nearby Taif city when they decided to descend into Wadi Al-Amak (the deep abyss) despite warnings by local people.

After a short evening trip in the valley, the colour of the man’s began to change and his behavior became aggressive before he lost balance and fell down.

When his friends tried to talk to him, he shouted and pushed them away while his eyes were fixed at an area deep in the valley.

“Friends then overpowered him and washed his face with cold water…it was clear the man was haunted by a jinn,” Sabq Arabic language daily said.

“They then decided to carry him back to town…they were told that the valley is haunted and that there were two similar cases in the past.”

The paper said the man was taken to the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the most influential Islamic law-enforcement authority in the conservative Moslem Gulf nation.

“The Commission brought experts in such cases and subjected the man to a session of Koran recitation and incense burning until the jinn was forced to get out of the man through his hand…once the session was over, the man began to restore his strength…after a while he fully recovered and started to ask his friends why he was brought to that place.”

Source: Yahoo News
https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/jinn-forces-school-relocate-105921661.html