Monsters and Myths

Reports that a mermaid had been found in San Jose, Negros Oriental turned out to be false but this did not stop people from flocking to the marine laboratory of Silliman University hoping to get a glimpse of the mythical creature.

Over the past three days, hordes of men, women and children in Dumaguete and nearby areas flocked to the marine laboratory, now called the Silliman University Institute of Environmental and Marine Sciences, after reports of the mermaid became widespread.

The news, which broke on Wednesday allegedly through at least two radio stations here, and through text messaging, attracted scores of people to visit the facility, paying the minimum entrance fee of P10 per person, despite being told by the security guards there was no mermaid to see.

SU-IEMS director and internationally respected marine scientist Dr. Hilconida Calumpong scoffed at the reports, saying these were “irresponsible”.

Calumpong said that where marine scientists are concerned, there are two kinds of mermaids: the mythological half human and half aquatic creature as popularized in fairy tales and movies, like “Ariel, the Little Mermaid”, and the endangered “dugong (sea cow)”, which many fishermen always mistake for a mermaid.

Mythical mermaids appear to have the torso of a woman and the tail of a fish, while the mermen are portrayed as ugly compared to their female counterparts, but with healing powers. Sometimes they carry a trident.

In Greek mythology, mermaids are said to enchant people with their lovely voices and distract men from their work on ships, causing them to drown.

Mermaids and mermen also proliferate in Philippine folklore, where they are known as “sirena” and “syokoy”.

The romantic appeal of these half human-half aquatic creatures is just too much to resist so, understandably, people could not wait for their chance to see a mermaid in real life, Calumpong said.

News of the discovery of the mermaid was immediately connected to the Feb. 7 disaster wrought by heavy rainfall and massive flooding as a result of a low pressure area in the Central Visayas.

Calumpong admitted that she got excited when she first heard the news, saying what first came to her mind was that a dugong had been stranded off the coast of Negros Oriental.

But, nobody contacted them regarding the discovery of the “mermaid” or stranding of an unusually large fish.

She said she was surprised to see so many people coming to the SU-IEMS facility, whose earnings from entrance fees were hiked up in just two to three days.

The dugong (spp. Dugong dugon) is a marine mammal listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources as a species vulnerable to extinction.

In recent years, conservation efforts were launched in the north of Negros Island after reported sightings of dugong in Sagay, Manapla, Cadiz and other municipalities, said Dr. Calumpong.

Calumpong said fishermen who come across dugongs usually refer to them as “mermaids”, especially when seen with their suckling calves.

She appealed to the public to cooperate with authorities in reporting marine mammal strandings, and to the local media to practice “responsible journalism”.

visayandailystar.com/2009/February/16/negor2.htm

Claims that the lost city of Atlantis had been found on Google Earth have had cold water poured on them by the search engine.

Experts had spotted a “grid of streets” on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean 620 miles off the coast of north west Africa, which they thought could be the lost city.

It was claimed that the rectangular markings - around the size of Wales - could even indicate the street layout of the sunken city.

But Google today said the marking were in fact the path that boats collecting Bathymetric sea floor terrain data.

In other news no-one has seen Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster on Google Earth either.

newslite.tv/2009/02/20/city-of-atlantis-not-found-on.html

What is the Devil’s Triangle? The Devil’s Triangle aka The Dragon’s Triangle is located near Miyake Island, somewhat south of Tokyo and one of the corners touches Guam. This area of ocean there are missing ships, missing people, missing airplanes, USOs (Unidentified Submerged Objects), UFOs, thick menacing fog, strange waves, whirlpools, etc. What is really unusual is that on the exact opposite side is the Bermuda Triangle. Japan has declared the area of the Devil’s Triangle a danger zone. Since the Bermuda Triangle is on the opposite side of the Devil’s Triangle, this tells me that both areas, even though they are on the other side of the world are connected.

There is no way that it is a mere coincidence that both areas are on the opposite side of the globe and harbor the same menacing phenomenon. One of the greatest people that disappeared in the Devil’s Triangle is Amelia Earhart. I believe there is a dimensional vortex that connects the Bermuda Triangle and Devil’s Triangle.

It’s quite a mysterious happening that both the myth filled “triangles” are so closely related even being so fat apart.  I found this to be a pretty interesting read and wanted to share it with everyone. Can read the entire article at the link below.

Story Link:   Devil’s Triangle

Could an alien astronomer have detected life on Earth during an ice age? Recent work has calculated how past climate extremes affected the light reflected from vegetation out into space. The results could give hope to our own search for life on distant worlds.

From far away, our planet is a single faint speck of light in the sky. Although we have sent radio messages out to potential extraterrestrial listeners, none of these signals have traveled more than a few tens of light years.

However, Earthlings have been broadcasting their presence to the galaxy for millions of years. Terrestrial plants reflect strongly in the infrared, resulting in a distinctive feature (called the vegetation red edge or VRE) in the light bouncing off the Earth’s surface.

“We know from earlier works that vegetation was detectable in the contemporary spectrum, but was vegetation visible when the Earth was much colder than today?” wonders Luc Arnold from the Observatory of Haute Provence in France.

Arnold and his colleagues have taken climate models from a recent ice age, as well as a recent warm period, and used them to generate the reflection spectrum of the Earth in times past. Their results, to be published in an upcoming issue of the International Journal of Astrobiology, show that the VRE has remained a relatively constant interstellar beacon over the millennia.

Earth from afar

When the Apollo astronauts shone their cameras on Earth, we got a first glimpse of what our planet looks like from space.

But at farther distances, continents and oceans blur together, and all that is left is a pale blue dot. Several spacecraft - most recently the European Space Agency’s Venus Express - have looked back at Earth from different points in the solar system.

These self-portraits are not merely a case of narcissism on the part of us Earthlings.  There is an important scientific question being posed:  How does a planet brimming with life appear from far away?

The data from spacecraft, as well as Earthshine collected from the moon, have shown that there are signatures of life in the spectrum of light reflecting from Earth.

For example, absorption lines from gases, like oxygen and methane, give some hint that biology is at work. Even more telling is a tiny notch in the spectrum at 700 nanometers, where the reflection suddenly becomes stronger towards longer wavelengths.

This edge - occurring right at the boundary between visible light and the infrared - is due to photosynthesizing plants. They absorb the visible part of the spectrum, where most of the energy is found in sunlight. However, they reflect away the infrared - presumably to avoid overheating.

Past climates

Due to vegetation coverage, the Earth reflects 5 percent more infrared light than it would if there were no plants. Arnold and his colleagues were therefore curious if this tiny VRE signal remained observable during one of Earth’s ice ages.

They focused on the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), which occurred 21,000 years ago. Average temperatures were around 4 degrees Celsius lower than now, and ice sheets covered all of Canada and Northern Europe.

For comparison, they also examined a warm period 6,000 years ago, called the Holocene optimum (HO), when temperatures were roughly a half a degree Celsius higher than now, and plant life flourished in the Sahara.

“The [LGM and HO] are two extreme periods for which we have good knowledge of the climate,” Arnold says.

Using paleoclimate models, the researchers determined the biome (e.g. tundra, tropical forest, desert) for every point on Earth during these two extremes.

Each biome reflects a different spectrum of light into space. The European Space Agency’s GOME (Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment) satellite has flown over all of these biomes and recorded the reflection.

By combining the biome map and satellite data with models for cloud cover and sea ice, the team generated a globally-averaged spectrum for the Earth. The results showed that the VRE was a little smaller (about 4 percent) during the LGM, and a bit bigger (6 percent) during the HO.

“The main point is that even in climate extremes the vegetation remained visible,” Arnold says, and this is encouraging for future space missions aimed at detecting and characterizing extrasolar planets similar to Earth.

ET takes root

Astrobiologists have long pondered whether life on other planets might be detectable through spectral signatures. The assumption has been that Plant-Like organisms on worlds that orbit a star similar to our sun will likely have evolved a similar absorption-reflection strategy as our plants.

“If we can detect a sharp feature that cannot be attributed to a mineral or a combination of minerals, it might be a sign of life,” Arnold says.

Arnold and colleagues calculated that a VRE signal from an Earth-clone 30 light-years away could be detected, even if it were experiencing an LGM-type cold spell. (However, a climate much colder than this - with ice caps extending down to China - might snuff out the signal, Arnold says.)

The VRE detection assumes a 6-meter space telescope and 2 to 4 weeks of exposure time. No such telescope currently exists, but the Terrestrial Planet Finder - which is still in the design stage - might be in this size range.

“I think our paper shows that if continents on an Earth-like planet have vegetation, that should remain visible even during a colder than average climate,” Arnold says.

space.com/scienceastronomy/090212-am-iceage-aliens.html

The object was spotted by the pilot of Olympic Airways flight 266 from Athens, and the sighting was corroborated by staff at Athens Airport and a nearby Greek air force base. Pilots of two other passenger jets also reported seeing the body.

The eyewitnesses described it as looking like a large star, although it was moving erratically and constantly changing shape.

Two fighter jets were sent to investigate the sighting over the Greek capital in November 2007 but the object shot up into the sky and vanished before they could get a clear view.

The incident was kept secret by the Greek authorities for more than a year, but is now generating huge interest after official documents and recordings of the conversation between the pilot and control tower were released.

An Olympic Airlines spokeswoman said: “I can confirm the incident. It is the first of its kind involving our pilots.”

Greek officials say that the object, which was not detected on any radar, was probably a mistaken sighting of the planet Venus in the Autumn night sky.

This is not the first time that a passenger jet has had a close encounter with a UFO. Documents released by the Ministry of Defence last year disclosed that an Alitalia flight had a near miss while landing at Heathrow in 1991, with the pilot describing an object “similar to a missile – light brown or fawn – about three metres in length but without any exhaust flame”.

telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4577717/

Fighter-jets-scrambled-after-UFO-follows-plane-over-Athens.html

As a boy growing up in Arkansas, Rob Stone thought the old woman he saw at his grandparents’ farmhouse was just an “imaginary friend” - until a photograph of his dead great-grandmother revealed a strikingly similar appearance between the two.

As a teenager in Fort Wayne, Paul Walter had a similarly weird experience: the vision of a woman wearing rimless glasses and a dress, who he at first thought was his grandmother - who was in another room at the time. Both got goose bumps when the dress Walters described turned out to resemble his great-grandmother’s burial gown.

Youthful fantasies? Memories twisted by time? Bad dreams? Stone and Walter can’t say for sure, which is why they and several other local “ghost hunters” have formed an organization designed to disprove or verify the existence of things that go bump in the night.

In the process, they hope to help save one of Fort Wayne’s unique but endangered architectural treasures that may - or may not - have ghost stories of its own to tell.

“All of us are active in our community; one guy is an engineer, some of us are in manufacturing or own (a) business. We want people who want to get to the bottom of these experiences,” said Stone, 41. As spokesman for In Nomine Paranormal Research, he doesn’t want his 7-month-old organization’s serious, methodical search for answers to be hijacked by thrill-seekers whose knowledge of paranormal research is limited to movies like “Ghostbusters.”

“It’s neat to try to document the unexplainable. It’s a debunking process,” said Walter, 28, explaining that group members use technology to search for answers that often defy human senses and reason.

The group, which was created when like-minded people discovered each other on the Internet, uses devices to detect abnormal electro-magnetic levels and also uses audio and visual equipment in an attempt to record … well, something.

Stone, who administers the information technologies network at Lincoln Foodservice in Fort Wayne, said the quest has taken the 10-member group to an old house in Sturgis, Mich., an old hotel in Sandusky, Ohio, and, more recently, to Fort Wayne’s Masonic Temple, which has been the scene of several unexplained events and will host the group’s first paranormal conference in May.

The conference will feature sessions on demonology, exorcism and ghost-hunting; presentations of personal paranormal experiences; a four-hour ghost hunt in the Temple; and other lectures. Proceeds will go to the Temple’s preservation fund.

As Masons, Stone and Walter are very familiar with the eight-story temple that has stood at 216 E. Washington Blvd. since 1923 but has fallen on hard times in recent years because of soaring maintenance and utility costs and declining membership.

They have also become familiar with several oddities they cannot yet explain, including shadowy forms moving through doorways and elevated electro-magnetic levels, especially near a fifth-floor conference room and trophy case.

As with the group’s other investigations, the existence of paranormal activity has not been conclusively documented at the Temple. But Stone said many “rational” explanations for the odd energy readings have been refuted, such as the presence of electrical wires and circuit boxes - a potentially disappointing but necessary step toward proving the existence of paranormal activity.

Stone said his group’s ghost-hunting, counseling and related services are free to anyone who has experienced the inexplicable and is seeking answers.

The group also plans to explore local ghostly legends such as the story of the so-called “Waynedale Witch,” a 27-year-old woman murdered in 1965, doing whatever is possible to separate fact from fancy.

What drives the 10 members of In Nomine (Latin for “In the name of”)?

“For me, it’s mostly scientific,” Stone said. “But it’s also religious. Most of our members are Christian, but we also have one pagan. They taught us in Sunday school that you die and go to heaven. Why are (spirits) still here?

“We feel like we’re meeting a need. Not everybody takes this as seriously as we do.”

As Stone, Walter and I spoke in the Temple’s partially darkened, cavernous social room, a series of loud clanks came out of nowhere.

Ghosts?

“The furnace,” Stone said.

news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/

20090205/NEWS/902050316/0/FRONTPAGE

Officials have admitted the number of UFO sightings more than doubled last year - including one spotted hovering over Parliament.

A total of 285 unidentified flying objects were reported in 2008, compared to just 135 in 2007, according to a Ministry of Defence document.

The mystery craft spotted hovering opposite Parliament was reported on February 12.

According to the document: ‘There was a craft that had green, red and white lights. It was still and static in the sky. It was seen for about half an hour.’

The rise in the number of sightings - the biggest since 1998 - was described as ‘phenomenal’ by experts.

The MoD only investigates reports of unidentified flying objects that it considers may pose a risk to national security, and most of the incidents seem just to have been logged and ignored.

Many of the sightings appear to be the products of somewhat fevered imaginations. For instance, on May 6 someone reported a ‘fast moving green object’ on the M6 motorway.

On June 28, near Cobham in Somerset, the document notes that someone reported seeing ’something interesting’ in the sky.

A few days earlier, it states: ‘Twenty-five amber lights were seen leaving the Heathrow area. They were seen travelling West at 45 degrees, 200-300 knots’.

In July, on the A6 road near Buxton in Derbyshire: ‘There was a distant bright light, like a star’.

On October 30, above Wakefield, West Yorkshire, the document records: ‘There was an orange object in the sky. It was the size of an aircraft.’

And a UFO the size of a 747 was reported above Leeds, West Yorkshire, in February.

That craft was described as a ‘jumbo jet sized object which was flat and round with a blue ripple underside. It made no sound and then disappeared.’

The dossier was published just one week after it emerged the RAF has tried to shoot down UFOs under instructions from the MoD.

Pilots have took aim at UFOs several times but failed to bring them down, former MoD employee and UFO expert Nick Pope claimed.

Mr Pope, who worked on the MoD’s UFO section for three years, said the ’shoot down’ directive had been in place since the 1980s.

‘We know of cases where the order has been given to shoot down - with little effect to the UFO,’ Mr Pope said.

Firing at UFOs was ‘not automatic but happens when something in our airspace is deemed to be a threat’ he said.

‘In the case of UFOs, whether the object is causing a threat is very much a (pilot’s) judgment call.’

And last month it was claimed that a UFO ripped a 60ft blade off a wind farm turbine.

Hundred of witnesses reported hearing an earsplitting bang at 4am.

One saw orangey-yellow spheres skimming across the sky, while another reported a ‘massive ball of light’ with ‘tentacles going right down to the ground’.

But MoD insiders claimed the craft that wrecked the turbine could have been a secret unmanned stealth bomber on test flights.

The personnel reportedly said that a black delta-wing craft called Taranis was making test runs on the coastal bombing ranges at Donna Nook and North Coates in Lincolnshire, near to the site of the damaged turbine.
dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1136085/

The-truth-UFO-sightings-Britain-double-single-year.html

David Cameron has vowed to publish any secret files that may exist on UFOs if he becomes prime minister.

Speaking at one of his regular Cameron Direct public meetings, he pledged to be “open and frank” with any government knowledge about close encounters.

The Conservative leader was responding to a question about apparent government cover-ups of UFO activity.

Mr Cameron joked: “I’m convinced we’ve been visited by aliens - one of them is trade secretary Peter Mandelson.”

Intelligent life

At the meeting in Tynemouth, North Tyneside, he was questioned about a spate of mysterious incidents.

A member of the audience asked: “In July last year the respected scientist and astronaut Dr Edgar Mitchell, who was the sixth man to walk on the moon, spoke on a British radio station.

“He said the American government had had contact with extra terrestrials on multiple occasions and that these were ongoing.

“He spoke about the Roswell event in 1947 where wreckage of a downed UFO was recovered and found to contain alien bodies.

“He said this event was real but was covered up by the government for many years.

“Do you agree with me that the British people have a right to know if we have been visited, and if so, when you become prime minister will you seek to lift the veil of secrecy and give the public the truth that they deserve?

UFO guarantee

Mr Cameron replied: “I have no idea there is intelligent life out there and no idea whether any of the sightings which have taken place or whether any incidents which have taken place have any basis in truth.

“When people have looked at the Roswell incident, or when people have looked at pictures… a rational explanation tends to be produced to try and show what has happened is not what those who believe in UFOs suggest.

“But I think we should be a open as possible, so I would be quite happy to give you a guarantee that if I became prime minister I would always be entirely open and frank about these things.

“I don’t think any of us have any clue whether there’s intelligent life out there and it is certainly not something that any government should seek to hide from anyone.”

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7854018.stm

SERIES OVERVIEW

From Bigfoot to Swamp Beast, MonsterQuest reveals the truth of legendary monster sightings around the world. Deploying the latest in hi-tech equipment, each episode scientifically examines the best evidence available, from pictures and video, to hair and bones, as well as the eyewitness accounts themselves. From pilots to policemen to ship captains, a number of seemingly credible people have seen things they can’t explain. One part history, one part science and one part monsters, MonsterQuest discovers the truth behind these legendary creatures.

DEATH OF LOCH NESS

The search for the Loch Ness Monster has captivated the world for decades, but now a startling realization about “Nessie” might shatter this age-old myth. Could the Loch Ness Monster be dead? And do its remains lie hidden at the bottom of the lake? Robert Rines, a world renowned inventor and explorer has spent much of his life searching for Nessie.

He believes he may have seen the remains of this mythical beast while mapping the lake floor with sonar. Now he is on a mission to find scientific evidence to prove it. Rines, who says he saw the creature surface in the lake in 1972, now believes that the images explain the recent decrease in sightings, and that they can only mean only one thing. Nessie is dead. MonsterQuest’s search team travels to the lake looking for evidence and deploying the latest technology including remote operating vehicles (ROVs), sonar and specialty cameras as we search for Nessie’s remains.

CATTLE KILLERS
Something mysterious and violent is killing cattle of the North American plains, but what is behind these gruesome attacks: satanic cults, an unknown predator, or something previously unknown to man? For forty years, there have been thousands of cases of cattle found mutilated under abnormal circumstances; these livestock are found dead, often with their blood drained and organs or body parts removed from their bodies.

Abnormally high radiation levels have been detected in the soil near the dead animals when they are found, and the deaths often do not match the pattern of known scavengers. With no apparent footprints or tracks leading to or from the carcases and strange circles near the site, the mystery only deepens. A MonsterQuest team will gather samples and head to a laboratory to scientifically analyze the most compelling evidence.

SWAMP STALKER
In the marshy swamp land of Texarkana a legendary beast has hunted the residents of a small Arkansas town. Their story was immortalized in a well known movie, “The Legend of Boggy Creek”. The real events were a series of violent nocturnal attacks that left behind not only fear and panic, but also remarkable tracks.

But the evidence is not just confined to history. Scientific clues continue to this day, and point to a malevolent monster that stalks the Deep South, with physical encounters by trained trackers and discoveries of tracks and scat. The strongest evidence will be examined using the latest scientific testing and two MonsterQuest teams isolate the search area using both kayaks and horse-back, penetrating deep into territory that may be the hold the swamp stalker.

DEVILS IN AMERICA
For over two hundred and fifty years a frightening winged beast has been menacing the residents of New Jersey. The Jersey Devil is described as a winged half-bird half-horse, with hoofed feet and reptilian tail and a penetrating scream that echoes through the forests of New Jersey’s Pine Barrens.

During one phenomenal week, over a thousand individuals were terrorized: a trolley car was attacked, schools were closed and panic gripped the area. Wildlife experts claim however, that misidentification with a known animal may be responsible for the encounters, but recent witnesses who see the beast are scared for their lives – and say the scientific evidence will prove there is a monster. MonsterQuest launches an unprecedented expedition for the Jersey Devil and sends sixty men into the forbidding forest while detectives meet the witnesses to discover the truth behind the Jersey Devil.

GATORS IN THE SEWERS
What if one of the most famous and terrifying urban legends was not a legend but a frightening fact? History tells us that Alligators lurking around in the sewers of New York City is based in truth. In the mid 1930s three teenagers pulled an eight-foot alligator from a storm drain. Reports persisted until a skeptical Superintendant of Sewers, Teddy May, was forced to investigate for himself. What May found shocked even him - swarms of alligators alive beneath the busy main street of America’s biggest city. Crews were sent in to kill the deadly reptiles, but the stories of the gators in the sewers lived on.

Experts, however, are divided over whether it is scientifically possible for alligators to continue to exist in the sewers, so a MonsterQuest team sets out to search for modern evidence of these monsters and prove that they could not only survive but also thrive. Herpetologists and underground explorers join forces and use the latest in remote-operated camera technology to delve into the depths of New York’s sewers.

cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/death-ness