Mystery Over New 'Nessie' Sighting and Photo
A couple enjoying a romantic
weekend in the Highlands believe they may have had a close encounter
with the Loch Ness Monster.
Experts are now investigating this latest photograph, which was taken by accident, to establish if it is in fact the Loch's most famous resident.
Ian Monckton, from Solihull, took his fiance Tracey Gordon to a cottage in Invermoriston on the shores of the loch to celebrate her 30th birthday.
On their way back to the village at about 11pm they pulled into a lay-by. The driver's window was wound down and before the couple stopped their car they heard a commotion in the water.
Using the car headlights and the flash from his camera to check their footing on the rocky shores of the loch, data analyst Ian unwittingly recorded this picture which he hopes could be the elusive monster.
"There is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo," said Ian who has passed the picture to naturalist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project to get his expert opinion.
"Myself and Tracey were always quite sceptical about Nessie but after having had this experience I would say we now have a very open mind on the matter.
"It was the highlight of our trip. We'll definitely be back and we are struggling to get an explanation for what we caught on camera."
Ian said the pictures were taken from a small cliff overlooking the loch. But it was only when they got back to their country retreat and checked the images they realised they significance of the what they had on their digital camera.
Ian said it was his first visit to Loch Ness and the weather was reasonably clear with only a light breeze.
"We decided to get away for a few days to celebrate Tracey's birthday and because it was off season we headed up to Drumnadrochit for a meal.
"On our way back to Invermoriston we stopped off at Urquhart Castle to take a few photos, but the lights that illuminate the castle were turned off, so there were no photo opportunities there.
"Then we pulled over at a parking point to let a car pass, as my fiancé doesn't drive as fast as the locals in the dark.
"I had the passenger window open as I was smoking at the time and as we pulled into the lay-by there was an rustling and a splash. It sounded as if a Mini had landed in the water. That's how loud it was.
The real thing? Nessie as we know her.
"We both looked at each other and I said 'What the hell was that'? It wasn't a small splash like a piece of debris or a stone falling into the loch. It sounded like a car or a motorbike had rolled into the loch.
"I got out of the car and walked up to the edge using the light from the car headlights to see where the edge of the loch dropped away and taking snaps with the camera so the flash let me see we where to tread."
The couple called out to see if anyone was there, or in trouble in the loch but couldn't hear anything apart from the water splashing around in the loch.
"After a while we continued back to Homewood, both wondering what the hell we had heard and joking about Nessie," Ian added.
"However, when we looked back at the photos I had taken up to and looking over the cliff we now genuinely believe there is something in this, there is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo."
Mr Shine, who has spent years researching the natural history of the Loch and the Great Glen and is the leader of the Loch Ness Project, commented: "We have been sent material and will be doing some on site investigations. There's not enough information on the image to hazard a guess what it could be. However, the account sounds not inconsistent with an animal such as an otter going into the loch."
Mikko Takala, who runs a webcam network for Nessie watchers worldwide, receives thousands of "Nessie sightings" every year as photos and videos.
He too has analysed the photograph and concludes it may be a dead fish.
"Obviously this photo is taken in the dark and camera flashes can accentuate details that would otherwise be barely noticeable in daylight conditions.
"I think this is probably a dead fish – maybe a flatfish."
Source: Highland News
http://www.highland-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/5121/
Experts are now investigating this latest photograph, which was taken by accident, to establish if it is in fact the Loch's most famous resident.
Ian Monckton, from Solihull, took his fiance Tracey Gordon to a cottage in Invermoriston on the shores of the loch to celebrate her 30th birthday.
On their way back to the village at about 11pm they pulled into a lay-by. The driver's window was wound down and before the couple stopped their car they heard a commotion in the water.
Using the car headlights and the flash from his camera to check their footing on the rocky shores of the loch, data analyst Ian unwittingly recorded this picture which he hopes could be the elusive monster.
"There is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo," said Ian who has passed the picture to naturalist Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Project to get his expert opinion.
"Myself and Tracey were always quite sceptical about Nessie but after having had this experience I would say we now have a very open mind on the matter.
"It was the highlight of our trip. We'll definitely be back and we are struggling to get an explanation for what we caught on camera."
Ian said the pictures were taken from a small cliff overlooking the loch. But it was only when they got back to their country retreat and checked the images they realised they significance of the what they had on their digital camera.
Ian said it was his first visit to Loch Ness and the weather was reasonably clear with only a light breeze.
"We decided to get away for a few days to celebrate Tracey's birthday and because it was off season we headed up to Drumnadrochit for a meal.
"On our way back to Invermoriston we stopped off at Urquhart Castle to take a few photos, but the lights that illuminate the castle were turned off, so there were no photo opportunities there.
"Then we pulled over at a parking point to let a car pass, as my fiancé doesn't drive as fast as the locals in the dark.
"I had the passenger window open as I was smoking at the time and as we pulled into the lay-by there was an rustling and a splash. It sounded as if a Mini had landed in the water. That's how loud it was.
The real thing? Nessie as we know her.
"We both looked at each other and I said 'What the hell was that'? It wasn't a small splash like a piece of debris or a stone falling into the loch. It sounded like a car or a motorbike had rolled into the loch.
"I got out of the car and walked up to the edge using the light from the car headlights to see where the edge of the loch dropped away and taking snaps with the camera so the flash let me see we where to tread."
The couple called out to see if anyone was there, or in trouble in the loch but couldn't hear anything apart from the water splashing around in the loch.
"After a while we continued back to Homewood, both wondering what the hell we had heard and joking about Nessie," Ian added.
"However, when we looked back at the photos I had taken up to and looking over the cliff we now genuinely believe there is something in this, there is clearly a very large shape in the water that looks aquatic a few metres out from where I was standing and you just see the tips of the trees lower down the slope to the loch in the photo."
Mr Shine, who has spent years researching the natural history of the Loch and the Great Glen and is the leader of the Loch Ness Project, commented: "We have been sent material and will be doing some on site investigations. There's not enough information on the image to hazard a guess what it could be. However, the account sounds not inconsistent with an animal such as an otter going into the loch."
Mikko Takala, who runs a webcam network for Nessie watchers worldwide, receives thousands of "Nessie sightings" every year as photos and videos.
He too has analysed the photograph and concludes it may be a dead fish.
"Obviously this photo is taken in the dark and camera flashes can accentuate details that would otherwise be barely noticeable in daylight conditions.
"I think this is probably a dead fish – maybe a flatfish."
Source: Highland News
http://www.highland-news.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/5121/
- QUIET, YOU SEE NOTHING DEPARTMENT -
UFOs, Maybe They'll Just Go Away
You can’t really
blame Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer last month for nearly stammering when
his guest told him about “virtual dogfights” between military jets and
UFOs over the United Kingdom.
“You’re kiddin’ me. What - dogfights?” Hemmer went on: “If there was a dogfight over the hills of England, over the countryside of England, we’d know about that by now, would we not?”
Only if you’re paying attention, which the MSM isn’t. As Nick Pope reminded him, the British Ministry of Defence has been putting declassified UFO archives online for the past couple of years. He also reminded Hemmer the encounters aren’t limited to the UK.
Pope, who worked the MoD’s UFO desk in the early 1990s, was in Washington, D.C., in November 2007 to join an international panel of pilots and authorities convened by the Coalition for Freedom of Information. Among those representing the “dogfight” aspect to the UFO problem was retired Iranian air force general Parviz Jafari.
In 1976, Jafari was ordered to destroy a UFO buzzing Tehran after another Iranian jet interceptor lost its control panel and turned back. Jafari was nearly blinded by the glare of the object during his approach. As one of the smaller lights broke from the bigger one and surged toward his Phantom F-4, Jafari attempted to fire a Sidewinder missile, only to discover his controls had shut down. Maybe the most surprising element of this story was how the world found out about it — in Defense Intelligence Agency documents recovered through FOIA.
Also among the ‘07 panelists was former Peruvian fighter pilot Oscar Santa Maria Huertas, who survived a harrowing encounter with a metallic, dome-shaped UFO in 1980.
“My unit commander ordered me to take off in my Sukoi-22 jet to shoot down the spherical object,” he informed media gathered at the National Press Club. “It was in restricted airspace, without clearance, and we were concerned about espionage.
“I approached the object and strafed sixty-four 30mm shells at it. Some projectiles went towards the ground, and others hit the object fully, but they had no effect at all. The projectiles didn’t bounce off; probably they were absorbed. The cone-shaped ‘wall of fire’ that I sent out would normally obliterate anything in its path.” The UFO outmaneuvered Maria Huertas’ subsequent attempts to fire, then took off.
Citing air safety and national security ramifications in a New York Times op-ed piece last year, Pope is renewing his call for formal scientific studies of UFOs.
“I see no value in re-evaluating the Colorado Report,” Pope e-mailed De Void, alluding to the government’s sham study that ended all official inquiries in 1969. “This is history and while ufologists might be interested, I don't think the media and the public would be. I think a meaningful UFO study would have to be led by the USAF, with the involvement of NASA and the wider (non-governmental) scientific community.
“I'm not familiar with the US system, but with the UK model in mind, one option to establish credibility might be to establish an oversight committee, with an independent Chair.”
Studies or no studies, the challenges to military systems worldwide continue. Greece recently released documents and flight recordings indicating it had ordered jet fighters in November 2007 to investigate a UFO that shadowed an Olympia Airways passenger jet. Two other airliners reported the UFO, which resembled a star, except that it changed shape, moved erratically, and took off before pursuit the planes could get a good look.
Greek authorities blamed – you guessed it – Venus.
Source: Billy Cox/Herald Tribune Sarasota, FL
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090211/blog32/902110244
“You’re kiddin’ me. What - dogfights?” Hemmer went on: “If there was a dogfight over the hills of England, over the countryside of England, we’d know about that by now, would we not?”
Only if you’re paying attention, which the MSM isn’t. As Nick Pope reminded him, the British Ministry of Defence has been putting declassified UFO archives online for the past couple of years. He also reminded Hemmer the encounters aren’t limited to the UK.
Pope, who worked the MoD’s UFO desk in the early 1990s, was in Washington, D.C., in November 2007 to join an international panel of pilots and authorities convened by the Coalition for Freedom of Information. Among those representing the “dogfight” aspect to the UFO problem was retired Iranian air force general Parviz Jafari.
In 1976, Jafari was ordered to destroy a UFO buzzing Tehran after another Iranian jet interceptor lost its control panel and turned back. Jafari was nearly blinded by the glare of the object during his approach. As one of the smaller lights broke from the bigger one and surged toward his Phantom F-4, Jafari attempted to fire a Sidewinder missile, only to discover his controls had shut down. Maybe the most surprising element of this story was how the world found out about it — in Defense Intelligence Agency documents recovered through FOIA.
Also among the ‘07 panelists was former Peruvian fighter pilot Oscar Santa Maria Huertas, who survived a harrowing encounter with a metallic, dome-shaped UFO in 1980.
“My unit commander ordered me to take off in my Sukoi-22 jet to shoot down the spherical object,” he informed media gathered at the National Press Club. “It was in restricted airspace, without clearance, and we were concerned about espionage.
“I approached the object and strafed sixty-four 30mm shells at it. Some projectiles went towards the ground, and others hit the object fully, but they had no effect at all. The projectiles didn’t bounce off; probably they were absorbed. The cone-shaped ‘wall of fire’ that I sent out would normally obliterate anything in its path.” The UFO outmaneuvered Maria Huertas’ subsequent attempts to fire, then took off.
Citing air safety and national security ramifications in a New York Times op-ed piece last year, Pope is renewing his call for formal scientific studies of UFOs.
“I see no value in re-evaluating the Colorado Report,” Pope e-mailed De Void, alluding to the government’s sham study that ended all official inquiries in 1969. “This is history and while ufologists might be interested, I don't think the media and the public would be. I think a meaningful UFO study would have to be led by the USAF, with the involvement of NASA and the wider (non-governmental) scientific community.
“I'm not familiar with the US system, but with the UK model in mind, one option to establish credibility might be to establish an oversight committee, with an independent Chair.”
Studies or no studies, the challenges to military systems worldwide continue. Greece recently released documents and flight recordings indicating it had ordered jet fighters in November 2007 to investigate a UFO that shadowed an Olympia Airways passenger jet. Two other airliners reported the UFO, which resembled a star, except that it changed shape, moved erratically, and took off before pursuit the planes could get a good look.
Greek authorities blamed – you guessed it – Venus.
Source: Billy Cox/Herald Tribune Sarasota, FL
http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20090211/blog32/902110244
- WEIRD TALES OF BIGFOOT DEPARTMENT -
The Ghost in Conser Lake
It’s no surprise Oregon has its
share of Bigfoot encounters; including paranormal Bigfoot events. In
the late 1950s and early 1960s, the town of MIllersburg, Oregon, (about
forty five miles north of Eugene) experienced some very strange events
involving a white Bigfoot or “BHM” (Big Hairy Monster) with a lot of
high strangeness surrounding the encounters.
The creature was called the “Creature of Conser Lake,” also the “Ghost of Conser Lake” (because of its white color) and the “Monster of Conser Lake,” the lake’s name was Conser at the time, but isn’t called Conser Lake anymore, the name has been changed and is on private property. I’m not revealing the name of the lake out of respect to the owners.
Reported as a bigfoot type creature; about seven feet tall, bipedal, white shaggy fur, the creature mystified Millersburg residents for over a year. The story begins with a story of a UFO or strange light crashing into Conser Lake in either 1959 or 1960. Soon after the strange light crashed into Conser Lake, a Millersburg truck driver was understandably startled to find a white, shaggy furred bigfoot type creature trotting along beside his truck as he was driving down the road. The driver, a mint farmer, was going about 35 miles an hour; the creature was easily keeping pace with the moving vehicle.
The creature was described as being about seven feet tall. The mint farmer described the creature as a “shaggy gorilla.” Local Bruce Hamilton remembers the creature in Conser Lake, and a story about a “young couple driving by the lake; a seven or eight foot creature ran alongside their car.”
As if the truck farmer’s experience wasn’t odd enough, another report of a tall, white furred shaggy Bigfoot type creature running alongside side a truck made its way into the news. This time the creature was seen in Telephone, Oregon, in Eastern Oregon. (I realize the town doesn't seem to show up on maps or Google searches, as I have found, and a recent e-mail alerted me to. However, this is the name cited by several sources. Many small "towns" are not listed, also, it's possible the name has changed, the area incorporated, or simply disappeared over time.) Witness C.A. Cissman saw a bright light approach, hover about 30 minutes, then disappear, shooting upwards and disappearing within seconds. Later, in Prospect, Oregon a logger was shocked to see a white furred, Bigfoot or Bigfoot type being, leisurely jogging alongside his truck on a deserted rural road.
Stories of Bigfoot running alongside cars aren’t new, either. A report from 1926 tells of a Bigfoot creature encounter in Yankton, Oregon: “Bigfoot following alongside a truck looking in. Sheep and children would disappear.” (UFO Casebook) It seems there was a history of bright zipping lights and white Bigfoot -- or white somethings -- following cars and trucks in Oregon.
Other reports of white Bigfoot creatures can be found; for example, Chris O’Brien writes in his Secrets of the Mysterious Valley about a “New Mexico cattle inspector” who told O’Brien:
he watched with binoculars a white bigfoot clamor up a rocky slope . . a witness in Washington “reported seeing a Bigfoot with large pointed ears” (p 231 Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, Christopher O’Brien)
The reference to “pointed ears” is interesting; Flix, our creature in Conser Lake, was also described as having pointed or “cat like” ears. A “ten foot white Bigfoot” was seen on the banks of the Ohio river in the 1960s. In fact, sightings of a white Bigfoot in the area were reported from the 1900s to the 1990s .(The I-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Illinois, Jay Rath)
Peter Guittilla’s The Bigfoot Files contains stories of white BHM or Bigfoot like creatures that transcend the flesh and blood variety. Guittilla references an account from Fate magazine out of Peter Bottom, Arkansas. In 1966 reports of a “monster” living in the Bottom emerged. The creature was described as being nine feet tall with snow white fur. Aside from giving off a strong smell, the creature “made a sound like a radio signal . . . the signal sounded like ‘beep, beep, beep.” (The Bigfoot Files, p 86)
The synchronicity of the white bigfoots is intriguing, along with the mysterious lights in the sky. As far as the Conser Lake “monster” goes, witnesses reported feelings of disorientation, dizziness, severe headaches, and hearing loud thuds and running footsteps right by them but no source for the sounds. Some insisted they were in telepathic communication with the being, who said his name was “Flix” and was from outer space.
Flix was Bigfoot like in many ways, yet there were other characteristics described by witnesses that are strange. Flix was said to have claws and or webbed feet and hands and cat like ears.
There are some similarities with Bigfoot; the height, bipedalism, shaggy fur. As noted, there were other similar beings in Oregon scattered throughout the state. But enough high strangeness episodes take the idea of a strictly flesh and blood creature out its comfortable unknown animal category, and into the truly Fortean or esoteric. All the above noted incidences: UFOs or bright lights, telepathy, sounds with no visible source, feelings of disorientation, and the synchronicty of similar creatures adds up to something beyond a flesh and blood Bigfoot.
Source: Paranormal Bigfoot
http://paranormalbigfoot.blogspot.com/2009/02/ghost-in-conser-lake.html
The creature was called the “Creature of Conser Lake,” also the “Ghost of Conser Lake” (because of its white color) and the “Monster of Conser Lake,” the lake’s name was Conser at the time, but isn’t called Conser Lake anymore, the name has been changed and is on private property. I’m not revealing the name of the lake out of respect to the owners.
Reported as a bigfoot type creature; about seven feet tall, bipedal, white shaggy fur, the creature mystified Millersburg residents for over a year. The story begins with a story of a UFO or strange light crashing into Conser Lake in either 1959 or 1960. Soon after the strange light crashed into Conser Lake, a Millersburg truck driver was understandably startled to find a white, shaggy furred bigfoot type creature trotting along beside his truck as he was driving down the road. The driver, a mint farmer, was going about 35 miles an hour; the creature was easily keeping pace with the moving vehicle.
The creature was described as being about seven feet tall. The mint farmer described the creature as a “shaggy gorilla.” Local Bruce Hamilton remembers the creature in Conser Lake, and a story about a “young couple driving by the lake; a seven or eight foot creature ran alongside their car.”
As if the truck farmer’s experience wasn’t odd enough, another report of a tall, white furred shaggy Bigfoot type creature running alongside side a truck made its way into the news. This time the creature was seen in Telephone, Oregon, in Eastern Oregon. (I realize the town doesn't seem to show up on maps or Google searches, as I have found, and a recent e-mail alerted me to. However, this is the name cited by several sources. Many small "towns" are not listed, also, it's possible the name has changed, the area incorporated, or simply disappeared over time.) Witness C.A. Cissman saw a bright light approach, hover about 30 minutes, then disappear, shooting upwards and disappearing within seconds. Later, in Prospect, Oregon a logger was shocked to see a white furred, Bigfoot or Bigfoot type being, leisurely jogging alongside his truck on a deserted rural road.
Stories of Bigfoot running alongside cars aren’t new, either. A report from 1926 tells of a Bigfoot creature encounter in Yankton, Oregon: “Bigfoot following alongside a truck looking in. Sheep and children would disappear.” (UFO Casebook) It seems there was a history of bright zipping lights and white Bigfoot -- or white somethings -- following cars and trucks in Oregon.
Other reports of white Bigfoot creatures can be found; for example, Chris O’Brien writes in his Secrets of the Mysterious Valley about a “New Mexico cattle inspector” who told O’Brien:
he watched with binoculars a white bigfoot clamor up a rocky slope . . a witness in Washington “reported seeing a Bigfoot with large pointed ears” (p 231 Secrets of the Mysterious Valley, Christopher O’Brien)
The reference to “pointed ears” is interesting; Flix, our creature in Conser Lake, was also described as having pointed or “cat like” ears. A “ten foot white Bigfoot” was seen on the banks of the Ohio river in the 1960s. In fact, sightings of a white Bigfoot in the area were reported from the 1900s to the 1990s .(The I-Files: True Reports of Unexplained Phenomena in Illinois, Jay Rath)
Peter Guittilla’s The Bigfoot Files contains stories of white BHM or Bigfoot like creatures that transcend the flesh and blood variety. Guittilla references an account from Fate magazine out of Peter Bottom, Arkansas. In 1966 reports of a “monster” living in the Bottom emerged. The creature was described as being nine feet tall with snow white fur. Aside from giving off a strong smell, the creature “made a sound like a radio signal . . . the signal sounded like ‘beep, beep, beep.” (The Bigfoot Files, p 86)
The synchronicity of the white bigfoots is intriguing, along with the mysterious lights in the sky. As far as the Conser Lake “monster” goes, witnesses reported feelings of disorientation, dizziness, severe headaches, and hearing loud thuds and running footsteps right by them but no source for the sounds. Some insisted they were in telepathic communication with the being, who said his name was “Flix” and was from outer space.
Flix was Bigfoot like in many ways, yet there were other characteristics described by witnesses that are strange. Flix was said to have claws and or webbed feet and hands and cat like ears.
There are some similarities with Bigfoot; the height, bipedalism, shaggy fur. As noted, there were other similar beings in Oregon scattered throughout the state. But enough high strangeness episodes take the idea of a strictly flesh and blood creature out its comfortable unknown animal category, and into the truly Fortean or esoteric. All the above noted incidences: UFOs or bright lights, telepathy, sounds with no visible source, feelings of disorientation, and the synchronicty of similar creatures adds up to something beyond a flesh and blood Bigfoot.
Source: Paranormal Bigfoot
http://paranormalbigfoot.blogspot.com/2009/02/ghost-in-conser-lake.html
-STRANGE
CREATURES FROM TIME AND SPACE DEPARTMENT -
Giant and Out-of-Place Reptiles in Oklahoma
- COMPLETE WITH HOT AND COLD RUNNING SPOOKS DEPARTMENT -
How Being Haunted Affects A House's Value
Giant and Out-of-Place Reptiles in Oklahoma
An ice storm, the flu, and a
computer virus have kept me out of the blogsphere for a while—when it
rains, it pours (and in this case it rains ice). But one good thing
came out of trekking twice a day to the only outlet still serving food:
about two days into the storm one of my fellow refugees approached me
during dinner with a very strange story.
Adam Meirs of Kansas, Oklahoma (another in a long line of creative Okie names) had an encounter of the slithery kind in the summer of 2005.
Kansas is a small town in Delaware County, just off the Cherokee Turnpike. It has a population of 685, according to the last census. Meirs states:
“I was riding my four-wheeler at dusk behind my uncle’s house where there’s a lot of trees. Back behind his house there’s a dip that leads to a pond that he also owns and before you reach the pond there’s a turnaround point.”
It was dusk, and Meirs began to get spooked. He continues:
“I turned around and right at the dip my four-wheeler immediately shuts off. I’m trying to pull-start it, and I started getting a little more freaked out because I heard some rustling off to the side. I look over and see a human-like shadow standing off to the side, but instead of being a normal human he had a snake-like head.”
The being approached Meirs, who struggled more and more frantically to start his vehicle:
“I gave one final pull on the starter while pressing on the gas at the same time and my four-wheeler starts, and I haul out of there and go tell my friend Joe what I seen.”
Joe took the four-wheeler and returned to the site, but headed back to the house after hearing a noise that “did not seem normal”.
The most interesting thing about Meirs’s snake-headed humanoid is the resemblance it bears to the Seminole tribe’s “human snakes”, legendary malevolent creatures that lived in dens full of giant snakes. I asked Meirs if he was familiar with the legend, and he said he was not. Human snakes are either half-snake half-human or can shape shift between the two.
Human snakes aren’t the only breed of strange snake the Native Americans believe in. The Cherokee tribe tells of Ukena, giant horned reptiles that live in the water, and perhaps most interesting are the Creeks’ tie-snakes, strong, dark snakes that live in caves alongside riverbanks and are capable of pulling unsuspecting humans to a watery death.
Of the forty-six species of known snake native to Oklahoma, only a few are aquatic, and none are powerful enough to prey on humans. The Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnake and the Coachwhip hold the title of OK’s largest snakes, both clocking in just shy of seven feet long.
But could there be monsters hiding in the forests and lakes, as the Native legends hold?
Snake Creek, near Tenkiller Lake, appears to have been named for good reason. Edna Stubblefield recalls in the Stubblefield memoirs that sometime in the 1890s she and her family spotted a snake at the Creek that “looked like a big old fence post” crawling across the road.
A nine-foot Burmese python turned up in a Tulsa driveway, and on October 25, 2001, another Burmese python, this one seven feet long, appeared in a Stillwater neighborhood. And according to this article, more giant snakes may be on their way to Oklahoma.
http://newsok.com/article/3207429
While we’re on the subject of out of place reptiles, how about rampaging alligators? The official range of the American alligator is restricted to extreme Southeastern Oklahoma, particularly Choctaw and McCurtain counties, and yet they just seem to keep turning up in other parts of the state.
In August 2002 a South American caiman, of all things, was netted in Lake Tenkiller. Another caiman, this one two to four feet long, appeared in a Tulsa backyard in February 2004. And in July 2006 animal control officers spent two days trying to capture a four-foot-long alligator that appeared in the Battle Creek Golf Course in Tulsa. The gator was never caught, and apparently vanished. (Note of interest—the Battle Creek housing edition was also home to another out-of-place creature in 2005—a “mountain lion” reportedly terrorized the neighborhood, preying on household pets. It was also never caught and eventually just faded away.)
And of course the strange case of the “fugitive” gator. In the summer of 2003 a 350-pound reptile dubbed the Truck Traveling Alligator was caught in a pond, sent to a breeder, and then sent to Safari Joe’s, a wildlife sanctuary in Adair. The gator promptly vanished from its pen and reappeared in a pond just south of Interstate 44, and then turned up in yet another pond, this one behind the Big Cabin Truck Plaza, where he was finally recaptured. He was relocated to prime gator habitat in McCurtain County.
Granted, giant reptiles are nothing new to Oklahoma. The Sam Noble Museum in Norman hosts the world’s largest Apatosaurus (http://www.rareresource.com/images/apatosaurus.jpg)—93 feet long—found in the Panhandle. And if that’s not big enough for you, the world’s largest dinosaur to date also once called Oklahoma home. In 1994 fossils that were first thought to be tree trunks were discovered. The “trunks” turned out to be neck bones, each four feet long. The sauropod the bones belonged to stood an estimated 60 feet and weighed 60 tons, and was dubbed Sauroposeidon—the “earthquake God lizard”.
This monster went extinct 110 million years ago, but perhaps some of the God lizard’s smaller cousins stuck around.
Source: OK? Awesome!
http://cryptook.blogspot.com/2009/02/giant-and-out-of-place-reptiles-in.html
Adam Meirs of Kansas, Oklahoma (another in a long line of creative Okie names) had an encounter of the slithery kind in the summer of 2005.
Kansas is a small town in Delaware County, just off the Cherokee Turnpike. It has a population of 685, according to the last census. Meirs states:
“I was riding my four-wheeler at dusk behind my uncle’s house where there’s a lot of trees. Back behind his house there’s a dip that leads to a pond that he also owns and before you reach the pond there’s a turnaround point.”
It was dusk, and Meirs began to get spooked. He continues:
“I turned around and right at the dip my four-wheeler immediately shuts off. I’m trying to pull-start it, and I started getting a little more freaked out because I heard some rustling off to the side. I look over and see a human-like shadow standing off to the side, but instead of being a normal human he had a snake-like head.”
The being approached Meirs, who struggled more and more frantically to start his vehicle:
“I gave one final pull on the starter while pressing on the gas at the same time and my four-wheeler starts, and I haul out of there and go tell my friend Joe what I seen.”
Joe took the four-wheeler and returned to the site, but headed back to the house after hearing a noise that “did not seem normal”.
The most interesting thing about Meirs’s snake-headed humanoid is the resemblance it bears to the Seminole tribe’s “human snakes”, legendary malevolent creatures that lived in dens full of giant snakes. I asked Meirs if he was familiar with the legend, and he said he was not. Human snakes are either half-snake half-human or can shape shift between the two.
Human snakes aren’t the only breed of strange snake the Native Americans believe in. The Cherokee tribe tells of Ukena, giant horned reptiles that live in the water, and perhaps most interesting are the Creeks’ tie-snakes, strong, dark snakes that live in caves alongside riverbanks and are capable of pulling unsuspecting humans to a watery death.
Of the forty-six species of known snake native to Oklahoma, only a few are aquatic, and none are powerful enough to prey on humans. The Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnake and the Coachwhip hold the title of OK’s largest snakes, both clocking in just shy of seven feet long.
But could there be monsters hiding in the forests and lakes, as the Native legends hold?
Snake Creek, near Tenkiller Lake, appears to have been named for good reason. Edna Stubblefield recalls in the Stubblefield memoirs that sometime in the 1890s she and her family spotted a snake at the Creek that “looked like a big old fence post” crawling across the road.
A nine-foot Burmese python turned up in a Tulsa driveway, and on October 25, 2001, another Burmese python, this one seven feet long, appeared in a Stillwater neighborhood. And according to this article, more giant snakes may be on their way to Oklahoma.
http://newsok.com/article/3207429
While we’re on the subject of out of place reptiles, how about rampaging alligators? The official range of the American alligator is restricted to extreme Southeastern Oklahoma, particularly Choctaw and McCurtain counties, and yet they just seem to keep turning up in other parts of the state.
In August 2002 a South American caiman, of all things, was netted in Lake Tenkiller. Another caiman, this one two to four feet long, appeared in a Tulsa backyard in February 2004. And in July 2006 animal control officers spent two days trying to capture a four-foot-long alligator that appeared in the Battle Creek Golf Course in Tulsa. The gator was never caught, and apparently vanished. (Note of interest—the Battle Creek housing edition was also home to another out-of-place creature in 2005—a “mountain lion” reportedly terrorized the neighborhood, preying on household pets. It was also never caught and eventually just faded away.)
And of course the strange case of the “fugitive” gator. In the summer of 2003 a 350-pound reptile dubbed the Truck Traveling Alligator was caught in a pond, sent to a breeder, and then sent to Safari Joe’s, a wildlife sanctuary in Adair. The gator promptly vanished from its pen and reappeared in a pond just south of Interstate 44, and then turned up in yet another pond, this one behind the Big Cabin Truck Plaza, where he was finally recaptured. He was relocated to prime gator habitat in McCurtain County.
Granted, giant reptiles are nothing new to Oklahoma. The Sam Noble Museum in Norman hosts the world’s largest Apatosaurus (http://www.rareresource.com/images/apatosaurus.jpg)—93 feet long—found in the Panhandle. And if that’s not big enough for you, the world’s largest dinosaur to date also once called Oklahoma home. In 1994 fossils that were first thought to be tree trunks were discovered. The “trunks” turned out to be neck bones, each four feet long. The sauropod the bones belonged to stood an estimated 60 feet and weighed 60 tons, and was dubbed Sauroposeidon—the “earthquake God lizard”.
This monster went extinct 110 million years ago, but perhaps some of the God lizard’s smaller cousins stuck around.
Source: OK? Awesome!
http://cryptook.blogspot.com/2009/02/giant-and-out-of-place-reptiles-in.html
- COMPLETE WITH HOT AND COLD RUNNING SPOOKS DEPARTMENT -
How Being Haunted Affects A House's Value
If a deal seems too sweet,
there could be a ghostly explanation.
So, you've just moved into your
new home. Beautiful house, fantastic location, and you got it for a
good price. The previous owners seemed very keen for a quick sale.
Wondering why? Well, could it be that they thought it was haunted?
Stranger things have happened. Beautiful properties have become houses
of horror thanks to unexplained happenings. Some families decide to
move out. Others learn to live with their ghosts, or resort to exorcism.
Or, in the case of the actor Nicolas Cage, they simply don't sleep in the house. In 2007, he shelled out $3.5m for LaLaurie Mansion, reputedly the most haunted house in New Orleans. "At any given moment," said Cage, "I have five or six ghosts surrounding the house, all looking up at this haunted temple, and I'm in there. We'll [his family] come over and have dinner there but nobody sleeps there." The property is now up for sale.
Being saddled with an unwelcome spectral guest is more common than you might think. According to a 2005 study by the Portman Building Society (now merged with Nationwide), one in three people surveyed claimed to have lived in a house that was haunted, or rumoured to be. The question is, if you've got a resident spook, do you come clean about it to prospective buyers? And if you don't, could you be prosecuted under the Property Misdescriptions Act?
"The Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 does not refer to haunted houses," says the London-based lawyer Conor Walsh. "But it does create a general duty to avoid making false or misleading statements." Theoretically, this should stop a seller from claiming that a house is not haunted – or, indeed, that it is haunted – when he or she believes otherwise.
In the US, it's a different story. There was a case in 1991 where a seller was ruled liable to the buyer for failing to mention that the property she was selling was haunted, which could have affected the value. "The court held that a buyer would be highly unlikely to discover the existence of such activity himself prior to purchase," says Mark Pawlowski, professor of property law at Greenwich University in London. "And therefore the onus was firmly on the seller to make disclosure."
In one extreme case of apparent supernatural activity, the residents fled in terror – and left the bank to repossess the £3.6m property when they couldn't sell it. Businessman Anwar Rashid moved into Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire in early 2007. The 52-room mansion, which dates back to the Norman Conquest, was the dream home for Anwar and his wife, and their four young children – until the resident ghosts came out. "I fell for its beauty, but behind the façade, it's haunted," says Anwar. "The ghosts didn't want us there, and we couldn't fight them because we couldn't see them."
The spooky happenings started the day they moved in. And over time, they experienced everything from tapping on the wall and unexplained voices, to screaming in the passageways. Investigators of the paranormal were called in, but failed to solve the problem.
In the end, the Rashids couldn't take any more. And that was that: £3.6m down the drain. The property went on the market again in October 2008 (at £2.75m, nearly £1m less than Anwar paid for it), and is now a conference centre rather than a private residence.
If you own a country estate, a resident ghost could well prove a boon. "An interesting and spooky history – particularly involving any famous or infamous characters – can add intrigue and appeal for more eccentric buyers," says Charles Wasdell, head of research at Propertyfinder.com.
Such a reputation certainly brings in the visitors to Blickling Hall in Norfolk, which is supposed to be the most haunted of all properties owned by the National Trust. Ghosts aren't always welcome, however, on NT properties. "The trust does exorcise some properties. It doesn't shout about it, though," says Siân Evans, author of Ghosts: Mysterious Tales from the National Trust.
According to Wasdell, exorcism is worth exploring if you're plagued by an unruly ghoul. "Every Anglican diocese in the UK has a specialist team of exorcists ready to vanquish evil spirits," he says. "So, if you're worried that a ghost is going to damage your sale chances, you can always call them in."
Source: The Independent (UK)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/property/how-being-haunted-
affects-a-houses-value-1544600.html
Or, in the case of the actor Nicolas Cage, they simply don't sleep in the house. In 2007, he shelled out $3.5m for LaLaurie Mansion, reputedly the most haunted house in New Orleans. "At any given moment," said Cage, "I have five or six ghosts surrounding the house, all looking up at this haunted temple, and I'm in there. We'll [his family] come over and have dinner there but nobody sleeps there." The property is now up for sale.
Being saddled with an unwelcome spectral guest is more common than you might think. According to a 2005 study by the Portman Building Society (now merged with Nationwide), one in three people surveyed claimed to have lived in a house that was haunted, or rumoured to be. The question is, if you've got a resident spook, do you come clean about it to prospective buyers? And if you don't, could you be prosecuted under the Property Misdescriptions Act?
"The Property Misdescriptions Act 1991 does not refer to haunted houses," says the London-based lawyer Conor Walsh. "But it does create a general duty to avoid making false or misleading statements." Theoretically, this should stop a seller from claiming that a house is not haunted – or, indeed, that it is haunted – when he or she believes otherwise.
In the US, it's a different story. There was a case in 1991 where a seller was ruled liable to the buyer for failing to mention that the property she was selling was haunted, which could have affected the value. "The court held that a buyer would be highly unlikely to discover the existence of such activity himself prior to purchase," says Mark Pawlowski, professor of property law at Greenwich University in London. "And therefore the onus was firmly on the seller to make disclosure."
In one extreme case of apparent supernatural activity, the residents fled in terror – and left the bank to repossess the £3.6m property when they couldn't sell it. Businessman Anwar Rashid moved into Clifton Hall in Nottinghamshire in early 2007. The 52-room mansion, which dates back to the Norman Conquest, was the dream home for Anwar and his wife, and their four young children – until the resident ghosts came out. "I fell for its beauty, but behind the façade, it's haunted," says Anwar. "The ghosts didn't want us there, and we couldn't fight them because we couldn't see them."
The spooky happenings started the day they moved in. And over time, they experienced everything from tapping on the wall and unexplained voices, to screaming in the passageways. Investigators of the paranormal were called in, but failed to solve the problem.
In the end, the Rashids couldn't take any more. And that was that: £3.6m down the drain. The property went on the market again in October 2008 (at £2.75m, nearly £1m less than Anwar paid for it), and is now a conference centre rather than a private residence.
If you own a country estate, a resident ghost could well prove a boon. "An interesting and spooky history – particularly involving any famous or infamous characters – can add intrigue and appeal for more eccentric buyers," says Charles Wasdell, head of research at Propertyfinder.com.
Such a reputation certainly brings in the visitors to Blickling Hall in Norfolk, which is supposed to be the most haunted of all properties owned by the National Trust. Ghosts aren't always welcome, however, on NT properties. "The trust does exorcise some properties. It doesn't shout about it, though," says Siân Evans, author of Ghosts: Mysterious Tales from the National Trust.
According to Wasdell, exorcism is worth exploring if you're plagued by an unruly ghoul. "Every Anglican diocese in the UK has a specialist team of exorcists ready to vanquish evil spirits," he says. "So, if you're worried that a ghost is going to damage your sale chances, you can always call them in."
Source: The Independent (UK)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/house-and-home/property/how-being-haunted-
affects-a-houses-value-1544600.html
