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The Anomalist



March 18

We look at the UFO experience beyond the US, beginning with Dutch religion philosopher Dr. Taede A Smedes' UFO fascination, which has engendered a new book and continuing research into a 1974 "flap" in a Frisian (Dutch) city. Both works echo the uneven history between the phenomenon and those affected by it. Swedish UFO icon Clas Svahn describes UFO-Sweden and Archives For the Unexplained. The 2021 presentation remains a very useful and succinct introduction to the continuing work of this Fortean organization. Thanks to Edoardo Russo for this reference. A Triangular UFO Spotted in Slovakia has Tim Binnall's attention. He agrees with The Hidden Underbelly 2.0 host that the three lights seem solidly connected. Tim also says a Pilot Flying Over Argentina Reports Curious Cluster of Mysterious Lights. The pilot's claim to the local air controller—"I had coffee, I swear to you"—reminds of the "ribbing" the first 1974 Dutch witness got about probably seeing a "floating pilsner bottle." (WM)

Rae Hodge presents deficiencies in the "Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)-Volume I" as a serious, polished, balanced, consistent, and comprehensive response to its Congressional mandate. Hodge links to Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies' Robert Powell for one of these "expert eviscerations." And Powell's suggestion to read Anomalist Books' UFOs and Government: A Historical History (which he co-edited) is both deserved and appreciated. Dr. Massimo Teodorani offers My Impressions of the AARO 2024 Report. Teodorani says "I was shocked by the sloppiness, summary and superficiality with which this report has been written, especially knowing it is coming from what should be a competent government source." Not being an "ET-advocate" perhaps sharpens his jibes. Micah Hanks' AARO's Historical Report: A Tale of Factual Errors and Old Mistakes Related castigates the Report's consistent typographic, factual, and logical mistakes—some repeating inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions in previous governmental efforts. And the Pentagon's Flawed UFO Report Demands Congressional Action. That's from defense analyst Marik von Rennenkampff, who shows how the Report "misrepresents the most exhaustive, comprehensive historical analysis of UFO incidents" [by the Battelle Memorial Institute]. Von Rennenkampff urges "a congressional select UAP committee, like the one requested by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), should step forward to separate fact from fiction." (WM)

In 1901 two women experienced what could be described as a time slip, finding themselves face to face with Queen Marie Antoinette. As these women were professors at Oxford University, their resultant story, An Adventure, was published under pseudonyms in order to protect their reputations and careers. It seems we can add someone else to this list: 3 Moments That Might Convince You Edgar Allan Poe Was a Time Traveler. Publishing a novel describing events that later took place, and a peculiarly accurate knowledge of the brain and the universe leave us wondering if there could possibly be other explanations. If Poe wasn't a time traveller then he must have been remarkably able to tap into his precognitive powers. (CM)

March 17

Hot off the peer-reviewed press is a new and article calling shenanigans on the existence of luminiferous aether's edgy, goth sibling that exists to explain an unknown with yet another unknown. With a little help from the James Webb Telescope and Lambda-CDM cosmology, Rajendra Gupta comes to this conclusion while remaining consistent with confirmed cosmological observations. (CS)

From the "Now You Tell Me!" department, Phoebe Zerwick takes a look at the phenomenon of deathbed visions with a little help from Dr. Christopher Kerr. You might know Dr. Kerr from his TED Talk I See Dead People back in 2015. After witnessing his own father's final moments, he apprehended those moments of others and found something worthy of scrutiny. Catch up with the science, along with the anecdotal reports of these life-changing experiences, and why they aren't just delusions or hallucinations. Also aligning with this contemporary report, follow along with Gregory Shushan retelling The 18th Century Near-Death Experience of the Nonbinary Public Universal Friend. Yes, it's Substack but there are no Nazis to be found here, just a former Quaker. Everything new is old again as Dr. Shushan talks about newfound identities, deadnames, along with the curiosities surrounding small religious movements of old. (CS)

The Lacey Act, sitting center stage for this story and the subsequent court case, prohibits interstate trade in wildlife taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of state and federal laws. In this case Arthur “Jack” Schubarth used cloning technology and artificial insemination to breed giant super sheep for game hunters. Holy crap! Catch up on the details with Mark Heinz, and ponder what other chimeric beasts may lurk under the radar to satisfy one's bloodlist and another's pocketbook. We're fairly certain Nessie isn't one of them, yet Glasgow Boy has a keen Follow-Up To MacLennan Land Sighting describing a beast one would not believe to be plesiosauroid by any measure. Of all things, Nessie has hooves? On the lighter side of cryptozoology, Matt Harris has 15 Cryptids That Have Escaped Human Detection... for now! They're old friends to forteans, but this is a delightful listicle to share with your normiecore friends and family to pique their curiosity for cryptozoology. (CS)

March 16

Remember the monolith from Utah? Looks like they're back, or a copycat is hard at work, in Wales of all places. Li Cohen has the scoop, with photos, and ardent anomalists will notice a similarity. If you're asking What's That Monolith In Wales? George Petras and Javier Zarracina want you to know how it compares to the one found in a Utah canyon during the height of the pandemic. Stranger still, George and Javier feel the need to also lay out how the Wales monolith compares with the fictional Tycho Anomaly One from Arthur C. Clarke's 2001. Coincidence? Or merely inspiration? (CS)

If you've been living under a rock, Earth is loaded for bear to eavesdrop on extraterrestrials with its various radio arrays, Breakthrough Listen, and irrepressible curiosity. But what happens when they answer? Will we just hang up like girls at a sleepover party who finally reach the cute guy they're crushing on? Cassidy Ward has an idea or two for how we can say "Hello" with a little help from science and maths. (CS)

Technosignatures are one of the main targets for SETI astronomers and, according to Andy Tomaswick, should we detect any they could be quite young. It all boils down to the L variable in the Drake Equation and something known as Lindy's Law that might inform us as to how long they could be listening and ready to make contact. But who will be on the other end if they pick up? Find out Why Extra-Terrestrial Life Might Not Seem So 'Alien' After All. There's a proposition suggesting there are universal laws concerning evolution-as-we-know it, and Arik Kershenbaum has a field day with his imagination and some Charles Darwin to prime us for what could be expected. (CS)

March 15

John Greenewald's FOIA-sleuthing dedication and prowess has led to a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) unearthing...two new "blank" pages. But John's experience in these matters allows him to make worthwhile speculations that, however, only deepen a mystery. John did receive some "new" old material from an MDR request on Aeroflot's Aerospace Research From Pilot Fatigue to UFO Phenomena. John does a good job summarizing the takeaways, but reading the whole document is also quite interesting. Two sad end notes: “UFO Talker” host Michael Ryan has just informed us that Stella Marilyn Friedman of Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, the wife of the late Stanton Friedman, passed away on March 2nd. Her obituary at In Memory of describes a remarkable woman, and she must have had quite a life with Stan. Also, we hear that Theodore (Ted) Bloecher, a "lion" in ufology, passed away on January 22nd at the age of 94. The Ted Bloecher entry on Wikipedia provides insights into an extremely talented and very nice person. Requiescant in pace. (WM)

A recent creepy video out of Mexico is making the rounds on social media. Featuring two very young children playing hide and seek outside at night, the footage also captures an anomaly that appears to be a shadowy creature with glowing eyes lurking behind one of the children. then we have a Motorcyclist Passes Through Ghost in Philippines? Helmet cam footage captures the moment a seemingly faceless figure steps out in front of the moving motorcycle, which then passes through them without incident. No accident has been reported and no damage to the motorcycle has occurred, so the incident is considered decidedly ghostly. (CM)

Aaron Gulyas analyzes an interesting 1987 UFO publication in the first of a two-part series. He rightfully urges open-mindedness in a topic so far intransigent to "traditional" analysis, against the condescending attitude "nuts and bolts" ufologists often adopt towards other approaches. As a historian, I would, however, emphasize the historic importance of David Marler's National UFO Historical Records Center acquisition of the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization files—for eventual free dissemination. The fun continues with Part 2. It leaves us saying "Space Sasquatches and Terrence McKenna and dolphin-channeling, oh my!" Curt Collins performs another historical resuscitation of, in this case, A Lost UFO Film: Attack of the Flying Saucers. Helped by Jeff Knox and Isaac Koi, Curt sheds light on Dr. Walther Riedel's UFO-interests, his filmic connections, and apparent reversal of opinion. Stories Lost aims to resurrect another UFO-connected tale, of a Shocking Close Encounter in Northern Sweden 1955. Fact or fiction, in part or in whole, it's a remarkably moving account. There's a more "clinical" view of a much more ballyhooed story in Dr. Ítalo Venturelli Describes the Creature He Saw in a 15-20 Sec. Video of the Varghina Incident. Yet as in the previous article, there's speculation on how many strange encounters go unreported due to the fear of being thought crazy. And there's a surprise at the video's very end. Rich Reynolds discovered this video and dialogues with readers about it at Dr. Ítalo...Varghina Incident. (WM)

March 14

Christopher Sharp pointedly notes mainstream media's complicity in the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office's February UAP Report. He could have mentioned the DoD's own Inspector General's scathing report regarding its prosecution of UFO/UAP efforts. C. Sharp has another variation upon the theme in House Speaker Urged to Establish Congressional Committee for UFO Investigation Amid Doubt And Concerns Over Pentagon Report. Recognizing the lack of harmony with some of their leaders' positions, it's good to see so many House Republicans backing this move; but we'd like to see more Democrats than the courageous Jared Moskowitz onboard, too. The Washingtonian's Egan Ward dialogues with Stephen Bassett as DC's UFO Lobbyist Blasts Pentagon Report Claiming No Alien Coverup. It's prime Bassett optimism, despite his slamming of the February Report. Daniel Sheehan engages with Ross Coulthart in Craft Retrieval Photos Disprove AARO UAP Report: Pentagon Papers Lawyer | Reality Check. Coulthart's introduction leaves no doubt the "pile of steaming dog turd" that is the February Report marks an "inflection point in history" and that the "Pentagon's Gatekeepers" have made a "terrible mistake." And Daniel Sheehan's following testimony—given in spite of an NDA—has both law-trained men certain that Sean Kirkpatrick lied to Congress. The "Constitutional Crisis" implications go far beyond this UFO/UAP example. (WM)

We all know someone who wakes moments before their alarm goes off, or who doesn't need an alarm at all. This ability may be referred to as presentiment, i.e. sensing the future. It might be possible to learn this skill for use in other applications like olympic skiing, piloting airplanes, or, yes, day trading. But this is not the "sixth sense" that is discussed here: Scientists Solve the Mystery of How the Sixth Sense Really Works. They are talking about proprioception; it's what allows our central nervous system to communicate with muscle groups and produce movement. It's also what allows us to perform seemingly simple tasks, like sipping a drink in a dark room. Science now knows this cellular communication is genetic in origin, and further research may actually yield results in repairing spinal cord injuries, among other things. (CM)

The seismic signal Dr. Avi Loeb determined came from an invading interstellar meteor was much more likely caused by...a truck. New York Times' Matt Richtel has the earthshaking news, which challenges everything else Dr. Loeb asserts about what his team found while dredging the ocean floor off Papua New Guinea last June. In "A Meteor is a Truck" According to The New York Times Loeb counters the findings of Johns Hopkins' Dr. Benjamin Fernando and others' March 5th academic paper Seismic and Acoustic Signals from the 2014 'Interstellar Meteor'. Loeb says Fernando's team used the wrong data source with far poorer precision. Loeb's own March 13th academic draft counter to Fernando is Peak-Brightness Localization of the CNEOS 2014-01-08 (IM1) Fireball. But Loeb's Medium article excoriates reporter Richtel and by extension The New York Times itself for "sloppy reporting," "scientific misinformation," and low comedy. Loeb had responded to the Fernando paper with the Medium article Chemical Composition of Unfamiliar Origin from the Pacific Ocean Site of the IM1 Meteor before the Richtel/Fernando interview appeared. Loeb sent Richtel a letter after that interview was printed; see Scientific Misinformation. Getting no meaningful reply to Loeb's letter helped generate Loeb's most recent and sharp riposte to The Times and its journalist. (WM)

March 13

Kevin Randle offers different perspectives on the "Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP)-Volume I." Here Kevin rightfully complains about the "MSM" accepting the AARO report's conclusions without reading/analyzing/understanding what's inbetween the title page and those statements. He's also "point-on" that what's in the bulk of the report fails to justify the determinations. And he's not surprised about any of that. With Kevin's David Rudiak and a Quick Response to AARO Dr. Rudiak presents a scathing indictment of major "errors" in the report. MSM organizations should read it, but... But wait; there's More Commentary on AARO from two real experts, Barry Greenwood and Robert Powell. These three articles should be on the reading list of folks like Tim Burchett, Anna Paulina Luna, Jared Moskowitz, Chuck Schumer, Mike Rounds, Marco Rubio, Kirsten Gillibrand, et al., to help them better assess the "quality" of AARO's "Vol. I" effort. (WM)

Rich Reynolds presents an interview segment whose worthy point about messing with peoples' minds is diminished by over-generalizing a shape evolution in perceived ET visitors through time and not considering regional variations. David Marler has shown that triangles were reported in numbers long before they "started to evolve in the late eighties." And "U.S.Greys" haven't been "standard" in Hispanic and some European locales. The whole is more complicated, but José Antonio Caravaca's "sight/mind muddling" conception (other examples: "screen memories" of owls, deer, etc., and the "Oz Factor") strongly deserves consideration. So does The Paranormal Scholar's The Freakiest & Most Insidious Alien Encounter of All Time: Sam the Sandown Clown | Documentary. Studies indicate that perception/explanation varies by age, too. Complications: here the kids are 7-years-old, and "Mr. Y's" eyes and experiences may also factor in, in several possible ways. Rich discusses this at An Encounter Story from the 70s That Provides "Clues" about UFO Intentions and Their Source. He also offers Various UFO Abduction Cases, Including Original Witness Drawings, Discussed by Dr. Karla Turner. The numerous variations on a humanoid theme in these U.S. renditions and the recurrence of triangles and circles here as in The Paranormal Scholar's "clown case"—differences in perception, memory, artistic ability, whatever—are themselves intriguing. This all has Rich, staunch psychological background notwithstanding, wondering. Against the "crash retrievals" and "non-human biologics" and governmental/military/private industry Big News, we're reminded that individual human lives are being affected, in life-altering ways. (WM)

Why the Paranormal Matters Paranormal Matters
If you've ever wondered why we find the paranormal so compelling, this article offers a good explanation. It describes unexplained events as ultimately being about us. Stories about things going bump in the night ask us to take a hard look at ourselves, what's going on in our lives, and what's going on in the world. Next we look at some strange but fake stories and examine How AI Sees The Paranormal (And The Stories It Tells). AI is described as a "plagiarism machine" that is not quite as creative as humans yet. Read the stories created and see if you notice the difference a human touch could make. (CM)

March 12

The latest "not-so-straight-arrow" AARO activity seems aimed at press coverage, per John Greenewald's "wet blanket" upfront news comments about its very restricted targeting. At least still-Acting AARO head Tim Phillips succinctly summarizes the most important takeaways from the 63-page Report document in several pithy paragraphs. Brandi Vincent of Defense Scoop opened the questioning, so we'll hear what she says regarding a point toward colloquy's end, about the DOD Developing 'Gremlin' Capability to Help Personnel Collect Real-time UAP Data. Vincent's article highlights what could be a great (and long-needed) tool for the government to use in defense—as well as noting what Tim Phillips did not/could not say. CNN's Oren Liebermann was also at the "presser," and similarly (perhaps "dutifully"?) focuses upon the gremlins in the AARO plans. See US Military Developing Portable UFO Detection Kits as Pentagon Says No Evidence of Alien Tech Found. Liebermann describes the "Gremlin" as "an array of sensors that fit inside a protective case." Not invited to the Phillips event, Mashable's Elisha Sauers lists 9 Intriguing UFO Claims the Pentagon Just Refuted as Bogus. The useful run-down also includes a DOD News website article by DoD Editor C. Todd Lopez. (WM)

More background to current UFO headlines. Anomalist Contributor Loren Coleman examines one of the most disturbing aspects that's come out of the renewed attention to a 512-acre parcel southeast of Ballard, Utah. And Loren alerts us to a series of deaths that have occurred to people either associated with the History series or were "fans" of other reality monster programming. Fox 13 (Salt Lake City) reporter Spencer Joseph asks Are We Alone? Gov't Confirms Investigation into Paranormal Activity at Utah Property Not exactly "new news," Spencer, but we appreciate the details of what's in the new AARO report about it. Especially since Secrecy Surrounds Inspector General Complaint by UFO Whistleblower David Grusch: DoD Withholds More Documents, per John Greenewald. John discusses the grounds for denial and his plans to challenge. One "victory" of sorts comes from The War Zone's Joseph Trevithick, reporting an Air Force Pilot's Bizarre Encounter With Capsule-Like Craft Off Florida Declassified. Trevithick expands upon a John Greenewald article we reviewed previously, adding analysis about the sighting and lack of sensing capabilities in some of our warfighters. The Matt Gaetz excerpt from the July 26th House hearing should be reviewed and compared against the recent AARO report touting full cooperation from all concerned governmental and military organizations. (WM)


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