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- HIDDEN MESSAGES DEPARTMENT -

Alien Message 'May Be In Our DNA'

Forget waiting for ET to call -- the most likely place to find an alien message is in our DNA, according to an expert in Australia.

Professor Paul Davies, from the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney, believes a cosmic greeting card could have been left in every human cell.

The coded message would only be discovered once the human race had the technology to read and understand it.

Writing in New Scientist magazine, Davies said the idea should be considered seriously.

For more than 40 years astronomers have been sweeping the skies with radio telescopes hoping to catch a signal from an alien civilisation.

So far the search has been in vain. But Davies believes it is wrong to assume that extraterrestrials who may be hundreds of millions of years ahead of us technologically will have chosen to communicate by radio.

Leaving artefacts for humans to find once they are sufficiently evolved -- like the obelisk in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey -- might be a more attractive strategy, he said.

But ensuring the survival of such an artefact over possibly millions of years would be difficult.

A better solution would be to incorporate information into the human genome, allowing it to be copied and maintained over immense periods of time.

One way to do this might be to deliver alien viruses which could infect cells with message-laden DNA, said Davies.

Scientists have recently discovered large sequences of "junk" DNA that contain no genes and appears to be very stable.

"If ET has put a message into terrestrial organisms, this is surely where to look," said Davies.

A computer could be used to find obvious attention-grabbing patterns within these stretches of DNA, he said. If a sequence of junk units of DNA were displayed as an array of pixels on a screen and produced a simple image "the presumption of tampering would be inescapable".

The DNA code was easily big enough to contain a decent-sized novel or a potted history of the rise and fall of an alien civilisation.

Davies added: "Trying to second-guess alien communication strategies is fraught with uncertainty, so we should try everything we can afford. The truth may be out there somewhere. Or it could be a lot closer to home."

Source: Mail & Guardian
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__
international_news&articleid=134442

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- UFO SECRETS FROM AROUND THE WORLD DEPARTMENT -

Peruvian Air Force Conceals UFO Info

What would happen if the existence of alien life - and the fact that it lives among us - was confirmed? The answer is in the hands of the military, who possess the documents and evidence regarding UFO sightings, handled by the United States as super-secret information. The disclosure, says Mario Zegarra, a [UFO researcher] would prove that man is only a primitive creature in the face of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Mario Zegarra claims that the Peruvian Armed Forces, specifically its Air Force (FAP) conceal information on UFOs seen in various parts of the country, which is made known not to the national government, but to the U.S. and the agencies researching the areas where the strange craft were detected.

The armed forces and senior police officials cover up the information, considering it to be top-secret. "Claiming that extraterrestrial life exists not only in other galaxies, but upon Earth itself, is a rejection of scientific theories on human evolution; in other words, the humanity's forebears are not apes, but aliens," explained ufologist Mario Zegarra. "Being a superior civilization and possessing advanced knowledge, it would dismantle U.S. power. The military itself has sighted UFOs from its craft. However, they must hold their peace, as it is classified information that is best kept from the public."

The spacecraft described by the military are allegedly manufactured using a solid material that is different from materials on Earth. Zegarra adds that we are on the brink of another UFO wave as intense as those which have been occurring at periodic intervals for the last 40 years.

One of the top secret documents presented by Dr. Zegarra states that on May 9, 1980, while a group of military officers from the FAP were beginning their daily formation on the Mariano Melgar air base in the La Joya district (Arequipa), they detected the presence of a UFO at the end of the runway and at a height of 1,800 feet above the surface. The object, resembling a weather balloon used for maritime navigation, was moving over the area near the airport. For this reason, Oscar Santa María, the pilot of one of the fighters, was given the order to take off and intercept the object. After a third pass, the pilot opened fire on the object without causing any apparent damage, moving away quickly.

The second sighting has a special characteristic, as it is described as a shining object, according to a translation of the official Pentagon report, a document made available through the Freedom of Information Act and featuring the eyewitness account of Maj. Santa Maria Huertas (Ret.)'s persecution of a UFO aboard his Sukhoi Su-22.

At Puerto Maldonado in 1952, customs chief Domingo Troncoso managed to photograph a UFO. The object was moving along in silence, leaving a long and dense contrail in its wake. Its estimated speed was fifteen hundred miles an hour.

In 1967 another flying saucer was photographed by Augusto Arranda in Yungay, as he hiked the soaring mountains of the region. In 1966, an extraterrestrial object came in for a landing at the Talara air base.

In 1979, a three-legged extraterrestrial vehicle landed in Chachapoyas. The following year a FAP interceptor pursued a UFO but was unable to reach it on account of its speed. This incident took place in the vicinity of La Joya in Arequipa.

Mario Zegarra states that the persons holding the proof are the military and the intelligence services. The accounts provided by Dr. Zegarra coincide with the ones given by researcher J.J. Benítez, who states that military personnel having access to this information insist that the public is not ready to know the truth.

Researchers Zegarra and Benítez claim that there have been hundreds of UFO sightings over or near military bases, atomic silos, warships, transport and combat aircraft, due to the potential for destruction they can cause. In this regard, anyone who dares disclose secret documents kept in any army, police or air base could even be "terminated".

Many people claim having seen UFOs in Peruvian skies. However, the authorities do not want to lend credence to these stories. But even if they insist on trying to cover the sun with a finger, the evidence of beings from other worlds is real and undeniable. This belief is shared by a man of unquestionable prestige in this country -- Richard Amiel, former secretary general of the Popular Christian Party and former candidate to the mayorship of Lima, who claims having had his own UFO experience.

After saying that it was "a privilege" to have seen a UFO, the noted politician stated that the existence of extraterrestrials is known to the great world powers, such as the U.S. and Russia, whose governments have looked into sightings albeit secretly.

Richard Amiel, a geological engineer from the National University of Engineering and San Marcos, recalled his shocking experience in the vicinity of Alto Chicama, La Libertad, while carrying out an inspection in the company of a chauffer from the mining company he worked for in 1964. An extraterrestrial craft hovered over the Andean peak known as "Cerro Aguja".

On the road to the Plains of Quruvilca, district of Santiago de Chuco, at around 7 am, Amiel witnessed to his amazement how a large UFO flew noiselessly before taking off at a speed in excess of an airplane.

"I was performing a survey on coal for the construction of an thermoelectric power station when this giant vessel appeared in the midst of absolute quiet. We were only able to look at it, since were strangely unable to bring ourselves to photograph it," recalls Ariel.

"I reported the situation to the manager of the company I worked for. He told me that several people had witnessed similar phenomena, but did not go public because, given the subject's controversial nature, they were afraid of being branded as madmen," said the international consultant on energy affairs.

Despite the silence among high-ranking officials regarding the existence of ETs, Amiel said that he has decided to look into the subject as a result of his UFO sighting, gleaning information on the first aerospatial research endeavors conducted in Russia. "A Russian pilot informed his base from space that he was accompanied by objects that couldn't not be identified."

For Richard Amiel, the apparition of these phenomena is a factor of geographic space, since they always occur in "desolate areas", such as the coal basin of Alto Chicama, a coal seam that runs from the Usquil District to Quivica, one of the richest coalbeds of the Americas.

Source: Periódico "El Chino"
Translation (c) 2005, Scott Corrales, Institute of Hispanic Ufology (IHU).

Special thanks to Alex Sender.

- CONTINUING WITH UFO REPORTS DEPARTMENT -

UFO Sightings Sparked MoD Probe

A Spate of UFO sightings in Wales prompted a secret Ministry of Defence investigation, newly-released information has revealed.

The clamour around the possibility of "little green men" visiting Pembrokeshire forced Government officials to look into the situation in the late 1970s.

There were numerous tabloid reports, including one of an entire class of schoolchildren claiming to have seen a UFO landing. Many others reported being petrified by a strange silver alien.

It all happened in what became known as the Broad Haven Triangle. Canny tourist operators even started running UFO sighting weekends.

But new documents show despite publicly dismissing the reports as hoaxes, defence experts were racing to get answers.

In a letter from May 1977, MoD minister Dr John Gilbert MP tells officials in the department, "I am being inundated at the present time with representations about UFOs said to have been seen in Pembrokeshire."

He asks whether any investigations are being carried out. A reply tells the minister, "We look into detailed reports of unexplained phenomena to see if they have a bearing on the national defences."

But they reassured we were not in danger of alien takeover, saying, "My department has carried out that type of investigation on the reports received from Wales, but these have been few in recent months.

"No evidence has been revealed to suggest that the alleged sightings in Wales, or indeed those reported from other parts of Great Britain in the past, contained anything of significance from a defence point of view.

"All I can tell you on the basis of the department's past experience, is that most reports of this nature can usually be referred to a commonplace object, which may have been observed perhaps from an unusual angle or in somewhat unusual weather or lighting conditions."

However, unbeknown to the minister, the RAF in West Wales was asked to carry out a "discreet" investigation.

An extract of a private memorandum to the Provost and Security Service of the RAF, (effectively the military police), reads, "I should be grateful if you would have a look at these papers and let me know whether you think some sort of discreet inquiry would be worthwhile.

"What I would really like to know is the volume of local interest and/or alarm, and whether there is a readily discernible rational explanation for it (perhaps a practical joker), or even whether there is prima facie evidence for a more serious specialist enquiry.

"But I have not committed you in any way, and I have not even told the minister I am consulting you."

The report called for has yet to be released.

Sheffield University's folklore lecturer Dr David Clarke, who uncovered the other documents under the Freedom of Information Act, is now trying to track it down.

Dr Clarke, who is researching a book called Saucer Full of Secrets about the folklore of UFO sightings, said, "I was really surprised to find this.

"Generally the MoD dismisses these things and doesn't take them too seriously.

"But to find they ordered an investigation behind the Minster's back is pretty interesting.

"It's not quite the X-Files, but it is along the same lines."

Dr Clarke is now trying to get hold of people who were featured in what he sees as the tall tales of nearly 30 years ago.

"What I'd really like is to speak to some of the kids who apparently saw the alien craft."

A newspaper at the time reported Broad Haven Primary School headmaster Ralph Llewellyn backing the claims of his pupils, 14 of whom had drawn similar pictures of the craft.

"What would be fantastic is to meet whoever it was wearing the alien suit," added Dr Clarke.

"As far as I've been able to work out it was someone living locally, who'd got hold of a chemical suit, having a great time terrifying people."

In 1977 the talk of Pembrokeshire was all about UFOs.

Among dozens of alleged sightings, Billy and Pauline Coombes, living at a remote farmhouse near Broad Haven, were apparently terrified to see a 7ft giant in a silver suit outside their front room window at 1am.

Josephine Hewison, meanwhile, was reported to have seen a 50ft craft the shape of an upturned jelly mold parked outside her greenhouse.

As well as pranksters, and talk of strange goings-on at local military bases, folklore expert Dr David Clarke thinks films fuel the hysteria.

"Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Star Wars had just come out, so the idea of space was very much at the front of people's minds, which is fascinating in itself."

UFO fever in Pembrokeshire reached its zenith in the winter of 1979. Stories leaked about a strange saucer being housed in a Pembroke Dock warehouse.

It turned out to be a life-sized copy of the Millennium Falcon, which was being created for the Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, pictured above.

About 30 people working on the project had been sworn to secrecy by producer George Lucas, and had to refer to it by its code-name Magic Roundabout.

Marcon Fabrications, which normally worked with nearby petrochemical industry, were charged with building Han Solo's famous starship. It was able fly millimetres off the ground on compressed air to enable it to be moved easily.

Shortly after the well-kept secret was finally exposed, the 'spaceship' was dismantled and taken by road to Elstree Studios where it was reassembled for the film studios in London.

Source: ICWales
http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/tm_objectid=15567309
&method=full&siteid=50082&headline=
ufo-sightings-sparked-mod-probe-name_page.html

- RADIO ROUND-UP DEPARTMENT -

Timothy Green Beckley to be on Jeff Rense Friday June 10!

Listen in for Conspiracy Journal's own Timothy Green Beckley to be a guest on the Jeff Rense Show, Friday June 10, with special host Brad Steiger. The Jeff Rense program is heard nationwide on the GCN Radio Network, and worldwide on the internet,
LIVE M-F 7pm-10pm PST
http://www.rense.com

- WHAT LIES BENEATH DEPARTMENT -

Historical Discovery? Well, Yes and No

OXFORD, England - Unearthed from centuries-old garbage dumps in central Egypt in the late 19th century, the Oxyrhynchus Papyri - a trove of classical material dating from the second century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. - have yielded gem after gem: plays by Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides; early fragments of the Gospels; accounts of daily life in the Greco-Roman empire 2,000 years ago.

But the papyri, old forms of paper made from reeds that grew along the Nile, are fragmentary and fragile, and the pace of translating them and placing them in context is mind-numbingly slow. Scholars have become accustomed to the decorous pace of the Oxyrhynchus work, which is published as it goes along, in a new volume every year or two. With only 5,000 or so of the estimated 500,000 fragments translated so far, Volume 69 is being published this month. There is no end in sight.

So in the small but passionate world that follows such things, it came as something of a shock when the British newspaper The Independent printed an article in April announcing a major Oxyrhynchus breakthrough.

"Decoded at last: the 'classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world," the headline said. The newspaper went on to say that, that week alone, new infrared technology had allowed researchers "to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other literary giants of the ancient world."

Immediately, phone lines were buzzing and e-mail was flying. Important discoveries from the collection are generally announced in academic journals and on the Oxyrhynchus Web site before the world at large hears about them. But no such announcements had been made; few people, if any, seemed to know what in fact was going on.

At Oxford, Dr. Dirk Obbink, a lecturer in Greek literature and papyrology who directs a project that among other things puts images of the papyri on the Internet, took the unusual step of issuing a statement that tried to put some of the assertions in context. "The article surely should not have said (if it did) that all the papyri had been discovered yesterday, only that we made significant (and sufficiently exciting) advances," the statement said.

As is so often the case with British newspapers, the Independent article turned out to be both true and not true. It was right to say that new technology was indeed making it easier, in some cases, to read the Oxyrhynchus material, and that new discoveries were being made. But it was not right to say that the technology had just been discovered, or that it was functioning as a sort of Rosetta stone, or that so many new revelations were emerging as to herald "a second Renaissance."

"This stuff has been coming out for years now, and some of the things mentioned in the Independent story are months or years old," said Dr. James Romm, an associate professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., and the director of its classical studies program. He called the article "very much overhyped" in a field where any public attention at all is rare.

"I'd love to know who first talked to whom in order to generate such good P.R," Dr. Romm said in an interview. "There is material coming out from those authors, but it's coming out in dribs and drabs."

The technology in question, developed at Brigham Young University in Utah, uses a digital camera with a series of ultraviolet and infrared filters. It can increase the contrast between text and background and so is particularly useful in reading texts written on dark, charred or stained surfaces, allowing researchers to see the ink in ways conventional methods cannot. In past years, it has been used to fine effect on blackened and previously unreadable documents unearthed from the ruins of the ancient Herculaneum library, destroyed in the first century A.D. during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius near Pompeii.

It has helped decipher some of the Oxyrhynchus works, too, but by no means all of them. Dr. Obbink said many of the dozens of papyri identified recently are fragments, snatches of existing works that can be plugged in to fill gaps in historical knowledge about various authors.

But others are new, including a poem by the seventh century B.C. poet Archilochus about the events preceding the Trojan War. Like much of the collection's artistic material whose originals date to antiquity, the poem was set down in writing by a professional scribe centuries later. In some cases, the newly deciphered material helps shed light on works that were repeatedly copied, in varying forms, over the years.

In addition, Dr. Obbink said, there is a newly discovered poem about Narcissus that appears to have been the basis for Ovid's poem on the same subject. He said he was hopeful that the technology would help provide new insights on biblical history by helping to decipher New Testament manuscripts in the collection - including books that did not make it into the New Testament, bits of which are contained in the papyri.

The papyri were unearthed by two Oxford undergraduates from the rubbish heaps of Oxyrhynchus, about 100 miles southwest of modern Cairo, and other prominent lost towns in Egypt that had been under Greek and Roman rule nearly two millenniums earlier. The material was brought to Oxford from 1898 to 1907; successive generations of scholars have worked on it since.

The collection includes poetry, prose, plays, religious texts and official documents pertaining to the daily life of the city, much of it fragmentary. About 10 percent is literary; the rest comprises documents like wills, census rolls, correspondence, bills and accounts.

A visit to the project, deep inside Oxford's handsome Sackler Library, shows that work is proceeding much the same way it always has - that is, slowly. Scholars surrounded by fat, obscure reference works sit outside the main office, poring over minute scraps of dirty, frayed material that to an outsider appear wholly undecipherable. Inside, more than 800 boxes are used to store the whole collection. Fragments are mounted on glass when they are being worked on and once they have been published.

The first task is to translate the work into English, usually from ancient Greek. The next is to try to place it somewhere - perhaps within the existing literature, perhaps as something that stands on its own and has yet to be categorized, perhaps as part of a lost work by a known author. The plays of Sophocles would fall into the last category. Though he is known to have written 120 of them, only 7 have survived intact; many of the rest appear in bits and pieces scattered throughout the collection.

Researchers try to date the work from clues like spelling and the way certain words are used; they analyze the writing style to discern whether it is prose or poetry, old or new, history or oratory, and who may have written it.

But the technology can go only so far. "You have to put all your knowledge of language and literature to put a story together and provide a context," Dr. Nikolaos Gonis, the administrator of the project and curator of the collection, said in an interview. "There has been a boom in technology, but it doesn't replace the knowledge of the language and the eye that has to focus on the details."

Source: NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/arts/design/30papy.html?

Kun...da....lin....ni... even the word itself, as it slides slowly off the tongue, evokes the sound and feeling of a provocative mystery.

What we think we know about kundalini, no matter how much we really know, probably fails to adequately describe its meanings and implications and feeling states. Its power to animate and transform people's lives, erupting unexpectedly into one's life with volcanic force, gives this psychophysiological experience the aura of yogic and spiritual transcendence.

A neighbor and friend of mine here in the mountains of northern California quite literally wrote The Book on kundalini. Lee Sannella is a psychiatrist, trained in medicine at Yale University,who co-founded in 1974 the Kundalini Clinic in San Francisco to assist 'victims' of sudden kundalini arousal.Two years later he published The Kundalini Experience, a book with case histories of kundalini symptoms and an analysis of the phenomenon in the context of spiritual life.

In ancient Sanskrit the word kundalini means 'she who is coiled.' This metaphor of serpent power refers to a psychophysiological energy that Dr. Sannella describes as 'the energy of consciousness.' which apparently resides in its dormant state at the base of the human spine.

While the awakening of kundalini energy has traditionally been associated with yogic adepts and mystics, Dr. Sannella provides clinical evidence from his case studies that a single physiological mechanism is at the root of all kundalini experiences.

Here is a classic description of kundalini symptoms provided by one of Sannella's patients. "My body is swept by muscle spasms. Indescribable sensations and sharp pains run from my feet and up my legs to my back. My skull feels as if it is about to burst. Inside my head I hear roaring sounds and high-pitched whistling. Suddenly, I am laughing, overcome with bliss."

Westerners often react to these symptoms that arise in them spontaneously as harbingers of madness, not realizing that the kundalini experience has a sacred and hallowed spiritual tradition in India, where it has been willfully induced by yogic practitioners for thousands of years.

A traditional Indian explanation of the kundalini experience calls it the release of shakti (a form of bioenergy) at the base of the spine. Once awakened, it rushes upward to the crown of the head and creates a mystical state of consciousness in which there is no separation between inner and outer awareness.

This kundalini energy is said to be an aspect of the transcendental consciousness that "precedes and yet also pervades the entire cosmos," observes Dr. Lee Sannella, the psychiatrist who authored The Kundalini Experience.

Kundalini is "the motor that drives the bioenergy of the human system," is how Gopi Krishna described it in the 1971 book, Kundalini: Evolutionary Energy in Man.

By comparing 17 clinical case studies of kundalini arousal compiled by Dr. Sannella from among his patients, we find a pattern that points to common trigger points for the experience. Sixteen of the 17 experiencers practiced some form of meditation, either the Transcendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or Zen or Tibetan techniques. The
lone exception was a female teacher who entered trance states to create paintings.

Typical was the description given by a meditator in his 60s, a scientist, whose kundalini episodes began after five years practicing Transcendental Meditation. He felt involuntary movements in his body and these spasms were accompanied by floods of white light inside his head, internal sounds such as high-pitched whistling, esctatic feelings, and even sexual arousal when the activity was centered in his pelvic area.

Rather than freak out, as some Westerners do, fearing for his sanity, this particular fellow used his meditative discipline to channel the episodes until they diminished, so his life wasn't disrupted to any great extent.

"My clinical findings support the view that the kundalini force is positive and creative," concluded Dr. Sannella. "Each of my kundalini clients all report they can handle stress more easily and have become more relational. The classical cases indicate that special capacities (known as siddhis or 'powers')as well as deep inner peace, may result from the completion of the kundalini process."

Kundalini awakenings probably do occur in the absence of a meditation practice or a spiritual process. But the act of meditating intensely over an extended period of time seems
to affect changes in the functioning of the nervous system.

These altered states of consciousness that psychically transform human beings may be an indicator of evolutionary changes to come as our species recognizes and adapts to the realm of subtle body energies.

Source: Phenomena Magazine/Randall Fitzgerald
http://www.phenomenamagazine.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Altered+States
&action=page&type_id=&cat_id=&obj_id=3244

A second bigfoot sighting has been reported by a young girl, and her play mates in Paupanekis Point, Norway House, Manitoba, which is located on the south end of the same First Nations reserve where ferryman, Bobby Clarke, videotaped a large, dark, bipedal creature walking along the bank of the Nelsen River.

The girls were close to a residential area, which borders the woods, at around 7:30-8:00 pm on May 20, when the encounter occurred. The woods are bordered by knee high grass, which is where the creature was standing in plain view, apparently watching the children play. One of the girls fainted from fright, after seeing "a huge creature." None of the children were hurt, but they are understandably still quite shaken, and afraid to be left alone.

Immediately following the sighting, a search party was assembled to investigate the surrounding area. Footprints were found where the actual sighting occurred, as well as deeper into the woods. Several more expeditions have been conducted since, and have resulted in finding more physical evidence. The size of some of the tracks measure "larger than a man`s size 16 shoe" said one witness, and have a clearly defined outline of the toes. The tracks have been preserved, photographed, and videotaped by Norway House residents.

Hair samples have also been found at several locations, including on the inside edge of one of the footprints, and at another location, clinging to a pine tree where more tracks, and a strong lingering odor was also reported. The odor was described to be a mix between wet dog, and skunk. A witness who has collected some of the hair samples reported, "I thought they would be thick and course and black, but they look kinda longish, half black and half white and (on some) the very bottom looks almost fine and spliced up like a fine razor split the hairs into many on one single strand."

The physical evidence collected following the most recent sighting raises some interesting questions. Where as the Nelson River tracks measured 20 inches in length, with a six foot stride, in Paupanekis Point, tracks measuring 13 inches in length, as well as 20 inches have been found. Also, hair samples given to the ACA`s expedition team were dark in color, according to Cherie Curry, a member of the team, yet the hair samples found after the second sighting are half black, and half white.

Some N.H. residents have theorized that the smaller prints may belong to a juvenile, and that it has possibly wandered away from an adult/parent, which might explain the ongoing incidents surrounding Norway House, including the frequent howls coming from wooded areas close to homes. Bobby Clarke also reported hearing strange howls on several occasions preceding his sighting.

Although details are still sketchy, a third encounter in which the creature is said to have returned to the same area as the second sighting, moving large rocks in it`s path has been reported. I`ll update if/when I learn more. I am also waiting for more photographs of tracks, and hair samples, which I`ll photograph, and post once they arrive.

This rash of sightings is not the first in this area. In 1976, multiple sightings, spread over a length of time, were reported in Poplar River, 76 miles south of Norway House. The following is the report submitted to the Vancouver Lower Mainland Division of the RCMP, following a police investigation. Norway House RCMP Report

"Norway House to Vancouver Lower Mainland Division, attention Sergeant Doane. It was reported to our office on the 26 July 76 by the chief of the Poplar River Indian Band that many of his people have sighted on the reserve many times a large hairy animal that walks on two legs. Poplar River is located approx. 76 miles to the south of Norway House. An investigation was conducted and the results are as follows:Several people were interviewed and they all stated that the animal was approximately seven to eight feet tall and was very broad at the shoulders. It had the general body structure of a man only many times larger. A foot cast was taken of the foot impression that was left behind by the so-called monster and is held at this detachment. It measures 16 inches by five inches, and has only three toes. It's fur is a glossy gray color and it has white hair on it's head. They stated that it was very powerfully built and one man reported that he saw it swimming. To date there have been no further reports of sightings in our area. It should be noted that this so-called monster seemed very inquisitive towards the people and would come around the houses on the settlement and look in doors and windows."

-Excerpt from the 1976 RCMP Report, posted on the BFRO website.

The May 20, 2005 Paupanekis Point sighting follows a report, and video footage, taken of a large dark creature walking along the Nelson River, in Norway House, Manitoba on April 16, 05 by ferryman, Bobby Clarke.

After the videotape was aired on A Current Affair on May 4,05, ACA sent an expedition led by Dr. Franklin Ruehl, to Norway House to look for evidence. Also on the expedition team was ACA producer Brett Hudson, and artist, singer, author Cherie Curry.

Water-dwelling beasties abound in Scotland. Monsters and mermaids frolic and swim in our lochs and seas from the Highlands to Lowlands. Some are shy, while others seem to bask in the limelight.

The one thing that connects them is that they've all been spotted. They've all been recorded and noted. And, furthermore, there are people out there who believe they exist.

No review of Scottish beasties could start anywhere else but with the Loch Ness Monster, or "Nessie" to her friends (and there are many of them). She has appeared in legend since the sixth century, but the building of a new road around the loch - just southwest of Inverness - in the 1930's brought her international fame. Sightings of this long, humped lady have been frequent ever since she was famously sighted in 1934 by a London surgeon who had the foresight to snap off a couple of photos ??“ and the sense to sell them to a daily paper.

Nessie's less well-known cousin is "Morag", who is said to inhabit Loch Morar, northwest of Fort William along the west coast near Mallaig. There have been fewer sightings around Loch Morar, being altogether more remote than Loch Ness. Yet when she has been seen, descriptions are very similar to Nessie.

Take the most famous sighting of Morag. It was 1969 when two local people - Duncan McDonell and William Simpson - were fishing in the loch. Suddenly they saw a long creature approaching their boat at great speed. It rammed them, and fearing they were to be capsized, the terrified fisher-folk started shooting. The beast disappeared into the depths of the loch but left them with the impression that it was between 20 and 30 feet long and had three humps. Sound familiar? Well it does to Neil Bass a biologist and member of the Loch Morar Investigation Team who spotted a "hump-shaped black object" and is convinced it's another Nessie.

Across Scotland there are monsters aplenty lurking in deep, dark water. So, just what's going on? Is it collective hysteria or is there really something down there? There have been a number of theories put forward to explain the animals' existence but the current top five claim they are either:

??? A zeuglodon ??“ put forward by biologist Roy P Mackal who thinks the monsters are a type of giant prehistoric snake-like creature thought to have become extinct about 20 million years ago.
??? A plesiosaur ??“ very similar to the above. Just substitute the word plesiosaur (a water-dinosaur) for zeuglodon.
??? A log ??“ what more is there to say, except that there are plenty of trees in Scotland.
??? A sturgeon ??“ biologist Adrian Shine thinks these creatures are nothing more exciting than a great, ginormous sturgeon - a freak-fish if you like.
??? A bona fide monster ??“ yes, yes, well, all right, it's possible.

Another creature currently living in Scotland's lochs is the kelpie, or water-horse. These watery quadrupeds wait by lochs for unsuspecting mortals. Should you ever mount a kelpie, then prepare for a watery doom, as the kelpie will canter into deep water and drown you. They can also take on human form, so should you spot a brooding man by the side of a loch with seaweed instead of hair, then you'd be well advised to run away. Fast.

The kelpie is transposed in the Highlands into the Each Uisge (sea horse), who lives in seas or lochs. If you see one, do not approach. Their fur is like Velcro and once you lay so much as a pinkie on its hide ??¦ then it's off to the deep with you. There he will devour you from top to toe, leaving only your liver to wash up on the shore as a warning to others that the Each Uisge has struck again.

Kelpies are not the only watery beasties living in Scotland. We are also awash with tales of finned people and mermaids. Finned people have often been sighted in Orkney close to their home at Eynhallow village. They are dark and swarthy with long fins, which they can cunningly disguise to look like cloaks. They are also rather modern, in that they are twinned with the underwater city of Finfolkhaheen ??“ where they go to spend the winter.

Finmen often harass local fishermen and are known to abduct local men to provide husbands for their finwomen who had a vested interest in finding a mortal husband. If they did not, they have to settle for marrying a local finman and degenerating from a beautiful woman into an ugly crone. Marriage to a mortal man ensures their lovely looks last forever.

Similar to finpeople are mermaids, who have been bewitching mortals with their beautiful singing voices and exquisite beauty for hundreds of years.

If documentation is proof of existence then you could be fairly assured of the presence of fish-folk in our midst. The Aberdeen Chronicle is particularly fond of mermaid sightings, but stories have appeared in the London Times as late as 1809.
From the archive

What is interesting with all the reports is the consistency of the description. The mermaid is always young, beautiful, with soft white skin and long dark hair. Surprisingly the person reporting the sighting is not an old drunk who has left his glasses in the pub, but is often an upstanding and respected member of the community.

If you're beginning to think that there might be something in these fishy-stories, then you'll need to explain why it is that the mermaid is often to be found speaking Latin or singing hymns. Presumably she's been well educated at the "Underwater Church Academy" for young mermaids.

* The last reported sighting of a mermaid in Scotland was in 1947 on the isle of Muck when an 80-year-old fisherman saw a mermaid combing her hair.

* The most famous sighting was in 1900 by Alexander Gunn, who insisted he saw a mermaid in Sandwood Bay. He died in 1944 still believing in what he saw.