Russian scientists reportedly determined that the metals were “not normal isotopic ratios that you would expect for similar metals that were found on this planet,” said Ross Coulthart. They were allegedly found by a suburban couple when a worker digging a well struck a hard metallic object. For even-deeper context see the Mart Sander Estonian Filmmaker: Mysterious 'Object M' May Be Monitoring Humanity story we previously reviewed. Perhaps this sensation explains why the homeowner, whose property is the focus of the recent excitement, is himself not particularly excited! That poor owner (although if he owns something with ET license plates he could become very rich!) could be "victim" to what Tim Binnall describes in Survey Finds Increased Belief in UFOs Due to Recent Media Coverage of the Phenomenon. Of Talker Research's findings on a 2000-person sample we find a "solid 55% of participants expressed the belief that society is simply not prepared for such an earth-shattering development" as a "Big D" ET-UFO disclosure. In Survey Finds UFO News Coverage Driving Increase in Alien Beliefs Jason Colavito also links to that study and examines its outcomes from his own perspective, noting the "only 17% of Americans said they would be fearful of aliens or concerned about their presence." This seems somewhat at odds with the "unpreparedness" of the General Public. Guess we're just "good at rolling with the punches"?! (WM)

A photographer in Brazil recently encountered a strange canine with inordinately long legs and eyes that caught the light from somewhere. She managed to record a brief video of the creature, and when the clip was shared online, some suggested the strange animal was a werewolf. It was, in fact, a Maned Wolf, making the encounter no less wondrous. When Wolves Walk Upright recounts several wolf-like encounters from the southern Ontario region, but with a twist—all of the "wolves" in these reports walked upright on two legs. None of the experiencers were investigators looking for something anomalous, rather they were minding their own business heading out to run errands or returning from work. You'll never look at Ontario wine country as a romantic getaway ever again. (CM)

Reminders of the global and venerable history of UFO and just-plain-weird sightings include early and interesting (actually 17th and 19th century) accounts from South America. Susan Demeter then escorts us "back to British Columbia in the summer of 1863 during the gold rush" with The Phantom of the Cariboo Trail. Another real mystery, well-described. Larry Felton Johnson brings us further towards the Present with The Notorious and Cruel 1953 Mableton UFO Hoax. This sadistic prank by an Atlanta, Georgia, barber makes one wonder whether the worthiest of the primate species gained greatest intelligence. To the Old World and “A Flying Cigar Landed in Tripoli” – The Strange Story That Stirred Up the Italians in Libya. Giuseppe Stilo expansively explains a strange and complicated tale that seems to be the last of a certain kind of Italian encounter genre. And this final older account, The Seville UFO Sightings 1999, was "fresh" when José M. García Bautista wrote it, and covers five events of differing types, filtered from a larger group. Even so, one of these "finalists" has a very likely proposed explanation. (WM)

Tim McMillan begins our look at the search for life Elsewhere with its limitation of A Sample of One (i.e. Earth) from which to explore. Tim explains a University of Glasgow effort to establish "'agnostic' life detection strategies." It's only in the "proof of concept stage," and Tim explains both the promise and the needed work to help make it a reality. We also learn that SETI Researchers Are Expanding the Search Beyond the 'Water Hole'. That's from The Debrief's Austin Burgess, who describes another effort to expand the life-search beyond "Earth-based" models, this with frequencies outside a "specific, narrow band of the radio spectrum." Once again, "proof of concept" is used to characterize the status of this initiative. But PhD student Louisa Mason has already made a startling discovery in the area of "stellar bycatch." "PopMech Editors" team up to report There's a Chilling Reason Why We Haven't Made Contact With Aliens Yet, Scientists Say. "Fermi's Paradox" comes in for examination here, with three different proposed answers, one based upon a "galactic simulation model" strategy somewhat similar to Louisa Mason's procedure, to guess at "what—or who—might be lying around the extraterrestrial corner." But what if the "ET corner" isn't the answer? Well, Charles Lear observes how Jacques Vallée and John Keel Challenge the ETH. Coincidentally, Keel's Operation Trojan Horse, published by Anomalist Books, comes in for recommendation here, as it's influential that "UFOs and their associated occupants might be from a realm other than outer space." Dr. Danny Ammon's Limina article The Demarcation Problem of UAP Studies thus enters the discussion. Ammon suggests that the development of UFO/UAP studies' as an academic discipline is frustrated by "grounding the discipline in a variety of unknown phenomena—ranging from aerial phenomena to reports involving encounters and abductions—under the presumption of a common, extraterrestrial cause." Ammon explains why he suggests initially limiting the field to three subdisciplines—"object research, observation research, and encounter research"—as a "preliminary step." (WM)

"Shamanism with a technological twist." Thus Shayne A. P. Dahl characterizes the CE-5 alien contact movement. The University of Calgary Assistant Anthropology Professor provides the additional hallmarks of "a new religious movement emerging from the intersection of science, technology and modern anxieties." Noting the US Government's acknowledged "reality" of UAP/UFOs, Dahl urges humanities and social science scholars to take UAP seriously. David Metcalfe offers another serious and well-thought-out essay in The Operative Image: Flatwoods, Lam, and the Evangelists of the Ultraterrestrial Church. Launching from a linked study by CUFOS' Dr. Michael Swords, David progresses from the 1952 Flatwoods experience to contemporary instances to show how "Images look back at us, transform us, and rewrite the world." Mariya Manzhos uses "The image from video provided by the Department of Defense labeled Gimbal" to help inform us about What UFOs and Religion Have in Common. Manzhos well-describes Catholic Prof. Diana Walsh Pasulka's main positions in her recent conversation with Joe Rogan. And Martin Willis presents Rabbi Michael “Moshe” Rothschild UFOs and Religion. While some of the energetic and pleasant Rabbi Rothschild's noteworthy ufological personages may surprise, his remarks about Judaism and numerous UFO subjects and approaches are very informative and nicely stated. (WM)

The late Robert Monroe, founder of The Monroe Institute, is best known for his first book, Journeys Out of the Body, which popularized the term "out-of-body experience" (OBE) and for introducing the ability to self-induce OBEs to a large audience. This book set Bob Peterson, the author of this article, on his spiritual path. But Peterson found Monroe's sequel Far Journeys, published 14 years later, totally foreign, like "Monroe took a dive off the deep end of the pool, and never quite resurfaced." He was bothered by the vocabulary that Monroe invented to more accurately reflect what he experienced in "non-physical reality." In Review: Far Journeys - Part 2 Peterson says that one of the most bizarre concepts in the book is what Monroe called "Loosh," non-physical emotional energy harvested to nourish non-humans. Peterson found the concept unsettling and depressing: "It makes all of human existence sound trite and meaningless; an addictive game, or a delivery system for 'loosh' that's fed to non-humans." The idea, it should be noted, had first appeared in the UFO literature in the 1970s as "soul-sucking aliens," extraterrestrial or interdimensional beings that treat Earth like a farm to harvest human emotional energy, consciousness, or the life force. (PH)

Richard Dolan summarizes a new scientific study of all PURSUE UAP videos to-date (August 19). Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ravi Kopparapu are among the brightest stars in the recent crop of academics turning to UFOs, as their Limits on Velocity Recovery from the PURSUE Sensor Videos demonstrates. The scholars' presentation looks sound as far as this reader can still remember 1960s-70s-vintage training, and Richard's explanation is more than useful. The upshot: while many are interesting, none of the videos possess enough data to make realistic assertions about their anomalousness. Baptiste Friscourt voices similar dissatisfaction about another US Government "transparency" effort as the Pentagon UAP Office Reports 202 New Unresolved Sightings. "The devil is truly in the details" here in the belated AARO Fiscal Year 2025 Consolidated Annual Report. Euronews journalist Marta Pacheco reports Brussels Keen to Monitor UFOs Under the Radar. The article extensively documents the European nations' UAP-related efforts and especially the needs for stigma reduction, efforts improvement, and cooperation to counter the air safety challenges that "unknowns" present. (WM)

As of July, official Loch Ness Monster sightings this year are greater in number than for all of 2025. However, more sightings do not mean more Nessie activity. Increased sightings can be explained by increased events aimed at Nessie detection, increased tourism, more favorable weather patterns, or better photographic technology. Australian Tourist Spots Loch Ness Monster? Possibly, because the photo taken of a green head followed by what could be humps is awfully intriguing. So intriguing that the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings register has added this sighting to their database, making the tally nine so far for 2026—and there are still 4 months to go. (CM)

Lysette Voytko, “an American journalist and writer living in the UK,” writes this interesting comparison between the American Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), headed by Patrice Keane, and the UK’s Society for Psychical Research. The former, she has learned, is in reality defunct, answering queries through a 1998 “generic inbox,” causing “alarm bells” to ring in the “parapsychology research community.” No online and no meaningful physical records are available, and the Society is said to have been “gutted by its board members and staff.” The UK Society, however, is fully up-to-date, accessible to members, and very active. Lysette follows-up with a second piece, Inside the Fight For America’s Paranormal History, which expands on the ASPR’s strange goings-on and the opaqueness of its operations since Patrice Keane took the helm in 1987. In a nutshell, the outfit is a shady shambles and the whereabouts of many of its important documents, for which “private collectors will pay hundreds, if not thousands,” is unknown. (LP)

Mainstream media are still catching on to the PURSUE file drops. New York Post reporter Shane Galvin calls out the Air Force for being tight-fisted with its imagery and quotes several whistleblowers stating that nothing's really changed after the latest POTUS "NDA-release" supposedly encouraging new witnesses. Galvin follows this article with the Department of War Investigating Mysterious Triangle UFO Videos After Post Report. The acting Pentagon Press Secretary even says it is "actively investigating." But wait, there's more from Galvin, as the Late VP Dick Cheney Oversaw 'Detainment Situation' of Aliens From Crashed UFOs: Whistleblower. Turns out David Grusch, who praised the "NDA-lifting" noted in Galvin's first article, made much more provocative comments to newly-arrived UFO podcaster "Dr. Phil" McGraw—whose own ascent into the UFO blogosphere seems almost unprecedented. Coincidentally, long-time commentator on Things UFO as well as more "mundane" subjects, Leonard David writes 'This Is Unprecedented': Why The Pentagon's Recent UFO File Releases Are So Important. David's focus here is Mike Gold, former NASA and Bigelow administrator and current key member of The Disclosure Foundation. Gold has a different and perhaps more practical viewpoint on the "disclosure process" than what most UFO-interested desire, but it's worth pondering and Gold makes concrete suggestions as to how progress could be achieved. (WM)

Police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, have turned to psychics in an effort to gain tips regarding the 2017 disappearance of 15-year-old Sophie Reeder. The family is disappointed that the investigation has taken this turn, believing an increased reward for finding Sophie would be a more responsible and effective use of police funds. However, nearly 10 years after the teen disappeared, Fort Lauderdale authorities are "willing to try new and unique approaches for any chance at uncovering new information regarding her disappearance.” Meanwhile, this is How Some Use ‘Psychic’ Powers At Work—And How You Can, Too. Keeping in mind that fear, stress, and anxiety—often our baseline states while at work—all block any kind of intuitive impulse, it is actually possible to train yourself to be more "psychic" at work. Science has determined that the key is something called "interoception: the body’s ability to perceive internal signals, such as hunger, thirst, the need to use the bathroom, and being in tune with them." Members of Gen Z are apparently the best at this, hence their increased reliance on intuitive impulses at work and in their lives generally. (CM)

Mitch Horowitz offers a cogent and scholarly argument on the origins of modern occultism. He takes us on an illustrative genealogy of the ancient roots of modern occult, ranging across our fragmentary knowledge of the once-rich religious traditions of ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia, and Rome, now largely erased by time, and Christianity. Horowitz picks up their traces and shows how, though battered, bruised, and pale shadows of their former selves, they were preserved in Hermetic, Gnostic, alchemical, and astrological traditions. It is a lot to take in. There is, at times, a tendency to let etymology stand in for argument, inviting us to see an unbroken thread between contemporary ideas and a hidden, ancient essence. Horowitz’s defense of “New Age” is also less straightforward than he allows. Much of what is now understood as New Age practice from meditation to mantras has been adapted from non-Western traditions. The Western occult inheritance is more often a language of symbols, correspondences, invisible forces, and hidden continuities than a comparable body of lived practice. David Metcalfe's Liminal Analytics offers a similarly wide-ranging, if rather differently diagnosed, survey of the modern occult in Chains and Lures – Occulture, Exorcism, and the Binding of the Modern Mind . Where Horowitz presents the occult as a damaged inheritance awaiting recovery, Metcalfe presents it as a field of dissembling and seductive narratives, running from occult consumerism and deliverance ministry to internet folklore and UFO belief. Metcalfe nevertheless leaves open the possibility that some occult agencies may be real. The reader is therefore left to distinguish the genuine daemon from a heavy meal, projection, or paranoia, an exercise for which “discernment” seems a rather paltry offering. (JS)

When Youtube came online in 2005, no one could have predicted the impact it would eventually have over paranormal investigations. While those first recordings of ghost hunts were primarily a collection of grainy images, they caught the imaginations of the viewers looking for a thrill. Over time, the image quality improved, and perhaps more importantly, the characters within those videos began influencing viewers. The reactions of the paranormal investigators (however loosely we choose to define that term) became as important as the content itself. Ghost hunting technology became central to the plot and monetization of the videos, providing incentive for more videos. Combined, those two factors increased the likelihood of hoaxes. In spite of that, the paranormal investigation genre continues to grow on Youtube. We can only hope that the content creators realize a simple, well-explained spook far outweighs the spectacle of a truckload of equipment and bad acting. (CM)

Meredith Spearman has written another one of those truly transcendent articles we've been privileged to encounter. Spearman shows how Jacques Vallée's life, work, and passage from the ufology fray demonstrates that the UFO/Human connection demands attention, to both sides of that relationship. This piece—and Vallée himself—stand as stark reminders that current dispositions to focus upon mere instrumented data, to the exclusion or denigration of the witness experience, are incomplete, suboptimizing, and flat out wrong. "The person becomes interference. That departure from the field's beginnings may be among the most consequential" is one of Spearman's initial apt summations. Spearman emphasizes Vallée never lost the understanding that physical numbers, measurable quantities, were insufficient to capture the full events themselves. "This is why describing Vallée as either a nuts-and-bolts researcher or a mystic misses the architecture of his thought." Limiting one's scope to the event itself without understanding the witness/experiencer's previous context, their subsequent life, and how the event and its aftermath have changed the person not only may deny that individual support they may desperately need, it also fails to grant the event its real "due" and therefore our understanding. Vallée's workshop address "Now It Can Be Told!" at the Contact in the Desert event and his books, ten of which, including Forbidden Science 7: Final Report: The Journals of Jacques Vallee 2020-2025, are published by Anomalist Books, should be consulted. And this essay, along with RM McClaren's previously-reviewed Jacques Vallée Spent 70 Years Investigating UFOs. His Final Journal Says the Mystery Is Bigger Than Aliens., should be remembered. (WM)

Micah Hanks leads off a cavalcade of four archaeological articles with the latest from a Chinese-USA-South African team's more than a decade of excavations. It opens up a new perspective on human creativity, and the "unlikely source" for its surprisingly earlier dating is itself rather a small technological happenstance. The Debrief colleague Christopher Plain takes over with Centuries Before The Aztec and Inca Empires Existed, Locals Built Something Incredible in the Colombian Jungle. Plain clarifies that a site's "complex structures and earthworks were likely constructed by a local, cooperative, relatively leaderless group in a short period of time and without a central organizing authority"—upending "previously held beliefs." Plain also narrates a one-woman discovery in Archaeologist Finally Decodes 2,200-Year-Old Mysterious Stonemason Inscriptions That Have Stumped Researchers for Centuries. Anna Urszula Kordas' achievement is novel, as are the markings on the Tauchira Gate at Ptolemais in Cyrenaica. And back to Hanks as Archaeologists Have Unearthed a Rare and Mysterious Runestone at an Ancient Site in the Faroe Islands. This recent find has yet to be understood, and the Faroes themselves are an intriguing archipelago and polity. An intriguing finish is a 6-kilometer, 25-minute Walk Through Petra: A Cinematic Journey Through Jordan's Rose-Red Wonder. Thanks to the "in-shape" camera-person for a ramble through this storied site! (WM)

Featuring a previous Chris Cuomo conversation with the Director and Producer of the estimable documentary The Age of Disclosure, Michael Ramsey covers the relevant portion of a recent interview of Rubio and his wife with The Katie Miller Podcast. Rubio tries to tamp down the pressure for a Presidential announcement while acknowledging there's still an unknown there. Ramsey and Hena Doba combine on the UFO Files: Watch Appears To Jump 25 Minutes Ahead After Encounter. Avi Loeb grants three possibilities behind this strange situation, with possible huge import. Coast to Coast underscores the military consequences with a Mysterious Orb Revealed in New Pentagon Release. Also referenced and linked: the PURSUE tranche #5 report. So PrimeTimer goes to another concerned governmental body for the low-down in NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman Addresses UFO Allegations, Says He Has “No Information Or Knowledge” of Secret Alien Spacecraft. Here Charu Sharma shows how Isaacman definitely disavows any ET-alien/UFO connection knowledge and misdoubts those who even under oath say they do, he's allowing both "There is absolutely some unexplained anomalous phenomenon," and that "Can't explain right now doesn't mean it's unexplainable." (WM)

In a recent study by the Institute of Noetic Science, researchers explore "whether genetic variation might be associated with differences in self-reported psychic experiences." In other words, do PSI abilities run in families? Correlations were found, but no specific inheritable psychic experience was identified, nor was a particular psychic gene discovered. For now the hypothesis requires more research. Next, on A Wonder Junkie, Edward Kelly - Consciousness Unbound & the Irreducible Mind. This interview with the American neuroscientist and parapsychologist explores the challenges posed by Reductionist Physicalism, i.e. the philosophy that everything can be boiled down to its physical/material basis. Kelly discusses the challenges to this theory as presented by NDEs and spiritual experiences, and other anomalous phenomena. (CM)

This Dr. Diana Pasulka Joe Rogan appearance was quite enlightening in explaining her interesting background and entry into the UFO conversation. Some of Pasulka's UFO-related beliefs are contested within the field, and at times the argumentation here seemed a bit weak. Of course, Jason Colavito jumped on this in Diana Pasulka Can't Answer Simple Joe Rogan Query: "How Do You Know It's True?" We move over to Richard Dolan, who asks of himself After a Lifetime of Mystery, What Remains? Dolan's observations probably won't satisfy some of the more zealous and recent entrants into the UFO field, but they continually resonated with us, at least. And then there's the marvelous conversation Ross Coulthart has with Mart Sander in Estonian Filmmaker: Mysterious 'Object M' May Be Monitoring Humanity. Take the literally-underlying premise as probable, possible, or fantastical, this mixture of a hidden whats-it has Cold War intrigue, dangerous medical events, pre-ice-age speculation, strange human personalities, and great storytelling. It's an excellent "promo" for Estonian polymath Dr. Sander's new book Object M: Estonia's Buried Mystery, and perhaps a movie to follow! (WM)