Though the SR-71 Blackbird is universally thought to be much faster than its official top speed of Mach 3.3 (2193 mph), so the first sentence of this article is therefore a bit incorrect, but a Mach 6.5 rate for the bogey in this story is certainly impressive! It turns out, per David Freeman, that the witness is impeccable, as is the current investigator James Clarkson, whose closing note in the linked NUFORC is trenchant: "These events directly contradict the Air Force assertion that no UFO has ever posed a threat to national security." With The Chuck Clark UFO Video! we turn to Charles Lear and a case that James Fox thinks is "the holy grail of UFO videos." Lear's story behind the video is fascinating, although the footage itself, accessible on the internet, has not exactly drawn "rave reviews." One of the great earlier "characters" in ufology gets another nod from Lear in Timothy Green Beckley's UFO Review. Charles goes through the inaugural "Collectors Edition, Vol. 1, No. 1" issue of Beckley's UFO Review with articles by Gray Barker et al. as well as the concluding issue into this "look into the popular, unabashedly commercial side of UFOlogy at that time." And with Another Letter From Willard Henderson John Keel website-minder Doug Skinner offers a personal "original source" glimpse into that milieu. (WM)

A frequent yet poorly understood phenomenon in dementia patients, Terminal Lucidity is described as the temporary regaining of normal mental clarity and energy shortly before death. Based on what science understands, it shouldn't be possible for an essentially pock-marked brain to suddenly regain functionality as it nears death, in much the same way that a pothole-riddled road can't become smooth as it nears collapse. However, studies consistently prove that Terminal Lucidity is very real, indicating our understanding of the brain falls short. And a New Theory Explains Why So Many People See the Same Thing During a Near-Death Experience. Studies have shown that at the moment of death, the brain produces a sudden surge in gamma waves in areas associated with visual processing and memory. A new theory is attempting to explain what happens in an NDE, referring to the process as the dying-moment dream hypothesis, wherein the oxygen starved brain is "flooding consciousness with memories and emotions drawn from the person’s own life." This suggests an NDE can be positive or negative based on the experiencer's emotional history, as well as their belief system. (CM)

The discovery at Zambia's Kalambo Falls that predates the evolution of Homo sapiens was not an isolated one as more recent discoveries in China and Greece show. As a result, "Early humans may have lived not only in a Stone Age, but also in a largely invisible Wood Age." In this vein, Sameen David lists 9 Artifacts Found in Geological Layers Where No Human Being Should Have Existed – and the Official Explanation for Each. David explains how even solving such "oopart" mysteries can reveal unsuspected insights. They're not all hoaxes! And the Antikythera mechanism story reminds us we have a "modern" conceit, Dr. Hynek's "temporal provincialism in reverse"—we don't have to invoke "aliens" for the Egyptian pyramids; archaeology constantly "surprises" many moderns how "advanced" ancient New World peoples were. Switching to the Romans and their contemporary Chinese astronomers, David Freeman asks—and answers—Did a Planet Cross Earth's Orbit in 60 CE? One Paper Says Yes. Pavlo Kandyba's theory sounds like a long-shot, but he's looking for very smart folks to test his math at least. And Micah Hanks has a worrisome title in Scholars Uncover Evidence of 'Lost' Medieval Manuscripts Using Simulations—Along With a New Concern For Historians. Their math has produced that concern Micah headlines. We close with a riff on this last item with Henry Power's eloquent and yet practical A Chorus of Poets: On the Possible Existence of Multiple Homers, courtesy of Literary Hub. (WM)

Kye Robson presents the findings of a paper published in arXiv entitled "Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Characterization of Dark UAPs" by Boris Zhilyaev and his colleagues at the Main Astronomical Observatory in Ukraine. The researchers analyzed high-speed observations of the daytime sky, searching for tiny, transient decreases in brightness, brief dimmings that move. They call these objects "phantoms," fast moving objects characterized by extremely low reflectivity. These object don't seem to fit familiar explanations such as birds, distant aircraft, etc. "The extraordinary interpretation, that these are unknown, perhaps technologically advanced objects, rests on a chain of assumptions, each of which would need to hold up under scrutiny," cautions Robson. Are these object "real" in the way the authors suggest? Their findings raise "the possibility that there are classes of phenomena, natural or otherwise, that don’t fit neatly into our expectation that visibility equals presence," concludes Robson. (PH)

Another fixture in the UFO firmament has moved on into the Greater Reality. Born in 1940, the aerospace engineer became a key part of the Mutual UFO Network, as MUFON's tribute so well explains. One of the cases he thoroughly investigated was the Cash-Landrum case of 1980, arguably one of the most important cases in UFO history; he eventually wrote a book on the subject entitled The Cash Landrum Incident. "Now he is reunited with his beloved Kathy," as a Rocky Mountain Ranch Research tribute proclaims. Another important ufologist is gone, per Bryan Sentes' Rich Reynolds, i.m.. Tanner F. Boyle's "Getting Spooked" addendum notes "He's gonna be missed a hell of a lot," and this reader, who knew, occasionally clashed with, and reviewed Rich's contributions for ten years, agrees with Tanner. Rich was opinionated and often offered some sharp criticisms about my work, but he was a contrarian and often sound source versus the "excesses" in ufological enthusiasm. I particularly remember how, when I was suddenly laid seriously ill in hospital for eight days several years ago, Rich invoked his "circle" and I received worldwide well-wishes. It made a difference. Rich made a difference. (WM)

Astrophotographer Dong Shuchang recently filmed a rare atmospheric phenomenon known as a Transient Luminous Event, which in this case resembled “glowing red trees suspended in the darkness above the clouds.” The height and the thinner atmosphere of the Tibetan Plateau proved ideal to capture these images, which occur in “a region of the atmosphere that few people ever see directly.” And further east, in Japan, a Deadly “Red Sky” Solar Storm From 800 Years Ago Discovered in Ancient Trees may help us to “better understand the characteristics of extreme space weather.” Boffins at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology have combined ancient written records with carbon-14 traces found in “buried Asunaro trees” to identify “a solar proton event” around 1200 CE. These occurrences produce “lethal radiation levels,” which may have relevance for astronauts during future moon missions. (LP)

The inaugural collaboration of the John Mack Institute and the Center For The Impossible was auspicious. Jeffrey J. Kripal asked attendees to, above all, "listen"—and "how do we foreground, how do we privilege, how do we think with the experiencer." "Ontological shock" was defined upfront, and two experiencers led off the first session. "Transformation" was noted as characteristic of the effects such anomalous experiences have upon the individual, whatever may be the intent of the external agents and the character of the intrusions upon the humans involved. The international attendees—though following events will include traditions beyond the Western (European)—discussed the means needed to render unusual encounters more amenable to scientific study—while still respecting the Humanities' emphasis upon the individual person. Abduction/experiencer events themselves most often involve multiple different modes (directions, physical examinations, transportations, etc.), and while each person's experiences differ, similarities are shared with those aware of other anomalous events such as ESP, NDEs, and mystical experiences. All this against a background ufological movement currently emphasizing "nuts and bolts" UFOs and national threat narratives—and even "angels vs. demons" thinking among some. Relationships between anomalous awareness and mental health were explored, and the still-low numbers of serious academic papers bemoaned. Somehow developing a shared definition of "AAE" (alien abduction experiences) was broached. An Exceptional Experience Integration & Impact Measure seemed an exceptionally promising tool for listening to—and better empathizing with—experiencers, driving support. The concluding session featured an exchange on the Ethic of Alien Intelligence/Human Encounters. (WM)

When a mysterious shape under the water caught the eye of cruise ship passenger Sharon Herbert, she had the presence of mind to snap a photo. Now the Official Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register is referring to the sighting as the "6th possible on-site Nessie encounter for 2026." But you might have to squint to see it. Next we have Roland Watson's Review of "Loch Ness Enigma". A revision of the first edition privately released in 1975, the book comes endorsed by fellow Nessie researcher Malcolm Robinson. Watson describes it as "bringing something new and also something old but refreshed to the Nessie community." And for an interview with the premier Nessie expert, Roland Watson, check out this Binnall of America "Revival" episode: Roland Watson: The Loch Ness Monster Mystery. (CM)

There's perhaps no one more fitting to describe the annual Roswell Festival than Kevin Randle. He covers the high points and some of the character of the discussions. An unexpected team-up with old Roswell co-investigator Don Schmitt and Kevin's announcement of an impending new "notes-chasing" book added to the fun. The Society for UAP Studies (SUAPS) has just published its latest Journal Limina, and offers Massimo Teodorani's substantive Magnetoplasmadynamic Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Basic Physics, Diagnostics and Research Methodology for review. David Metcalfe takes us to A Strange Dark Orb at the Very Rim of Our Solar System. "Scientific discoveries do not merely increase knowledge; they enlarge the architecture of human imagination," notes David, and uses this example to illustrate "a larger process through which scientific knowledge and cultural imagination continually mediate one another." This David Metcalfe production not only informs, but invokes a sense of wonder resident in the Reality we inhabit. And a sense of wonder permeates Susan Demeter's Bridal Veil Entities. A not-so-long-ago extraordinary experience is related against a touching background, setting Susan's mind to a comparison with a 19th-century work of art and musings about other interpretations based upon time or philosophy. And it may be a bit of a "jolt," but to end upon a droll note we have Letterheads of the Strange and Unknown, from The Fate Files. A bit of paranormal history and ratings to evaluate! (WM)

"Space Critters"—atmospheric denizens like those in Trevor James Constable's books—actually originated with a lesser-known individual named John Philip Bessor (1914-1989). In a "first," The Observer makes available audio tapes from Bessor's home, where strange electronic things happened. In The Grand Daddy of "Sentient Plasmoids" there's a trove of Bessor correspondence from many of the most notable ufologically-interested of his time. I found considerable "swamp gas"-related 1966-1969 interchanges between Bessor and then-House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford at the Ford Library in Ann Arbor. Bessor wasn't a fan of the contemporary "Contactee" movement. Håkan Blomqvist authors The Swedish UFO Movement before UFO-Sweden. Interestingly, 1965-1969 was the middle, "organizational period" of the three movements Blomqvist delineates to explain how Swedish ufology arose, ultimately becoming "a classic popular movement on a democratic basis." In 1981, a UFO Chased a Family of 5 Across a Lake in Northern Canada. This short UFO Talker Network video conveys the terror of that experience. And Michael Schratt offers The Hudson Valley Boomerang: American's Most Witnessed UFO Mystery. Between 1982 and 1989 more than 25,000 people experienced the "largest UFO flap in history for sheer number and duration." Michael argues most reports relate better with "human black projects" than tightly-grouped light aircraft "hoaxers" and/or extraterrestrial visitors. (WM)

When Jeffrey Mishlove pitched the idea of a PSI Olympics to a Hollywood Studio in the 1980s, it was not received poorly—it wasn't received at all. The concept of an event dedicated to ESP that was part competition, part play, and part education was quite simply "ahead of its time." Forty years later it's happening because some truly gifted "PSIoneers" are stepping aside as good mentors do,  supporting their younger prodigies, and watching Mishlove's vision come to fruition. Next, Mishlove continues his mentorship in this collaborative video from New Thinking Allowed and Kids of Wonder: I Tried to Read My Parents' Minds Using Science... Did It Work? The methodology of the Ganzfeld Experiment is tested (a type of sensory deprivation) and along the way we learn about a young protagonist who will hopefully become a guest host on Mishlove's New Thinking Allowed channel. (CM)

Stacy Liberatore's story has great relevance for the history of the peopling of the Americas, and with all the scholars supporting the finding of c.18,250 YBP tools, this contention craves a peer-reviewed academic paper. Dr. Gregory Little contributes a rather wider though more recently-focused view with North America's Mound Builders Were More Advanced Than You Think. This fascinating short video is a part of and very effective teaser for a longer Matt Beall Podcast. The whimsically-titled "ExCorpFlunky (ZCT.Life)" informs Oh By The Way, I Solved the Chaco & Mayan Meridian Mysteries. You're Welcome. It's an astronomical/mathematically-argued travelogue supporting the notion that Pre-Columbian North American elites had a more advanced understanding of time and longitude than they've been credited with. The Debrief's Ryan Whalen records another urban area with Hidden For More Than 1,000 Years, a Lost Maya City Has Been Uncovered Deep in the Mexican Jungle. Whalen says the intact city, incidentally including remains of a "hydraulic infrastructure," was named by the archaeologists themselves referencing its difficulty of access. Modern techniques extracted much of the information and conclusions here, and figure also as Scientists Discover Previously Unknown Asian 'Ghost Population' Hidden in Indigenous American DNA. Findings include three waves of migration; evidence for an Asian population that "has left no known fossil trace anywhere in the world"—"no archaeological trace, and no living population to point to"; and disturbing confirmation "that European colonisation caused a massive and lasting drop in Indigenous genetic diversity." (WM)

Recent puzzlers from Tim Binnall. This first offering is actually a pair of reports of what Tim thinks is the same general event, though some differences may be noted in the videos. Then there's the Puzzling Mystery Object Found in Wisconsin River. This one's really intriguing! And then there's our staple Flying Saucer Filmed Over Mexican Mountain. Only this one isn't the standard kind of UFO/UAP we see over near-dormant volcanoes, and it would be intriguing to know more about the videographers and whether the lights came from a spot truly above the mountain or upon its slopes. Which ushers in a Sophie Ziedalski NBS News piece concerning Metallic Space Balls Found on Australian Beach. While the general nature of the source is considered to be human-engineered, so far the debris cannot be connected with any particular orbital re-entry. These seem to recall "Buga Spheres" though, don't they? And Daily Grail's Greg Taylor notes that the Hype Over 'UFO Shootdowns' in 2023 Gets Popped. It truly does appear that the demise of the UFO over Lake Huron that was a part of what we termed "Balloongate" is now on record. Incidentally, the whole video Greg includes here of an April 2026 Sean Kirkpatrick presentation on AARO to the National Capital Area Skeptics group is worth a listen. (WM)

Starting in Mexico and going back as far as 1979, winged humanoids encounters involving part-human, part- avian beings are not the typical mothman or giant bat reports. While one report details a being only a foot high, another describes a situation where a creature of great size and strength must have been present. The accounts are quite unsettling. Then in the US, Man Reports Sighting of Winged Humanoid near Wheeler, Indiana. This account, which was passed along to Lon Strickler, goes back about 20 years and describes an enormous winged creature resembling a Mothman of the past. At that time, a larger phenomenon now referred to as the Lake Michigan Mothman was taking place, so this encounter most likely falls under that umbrella. Interestingly, those involved in these events tended to also be witness to "UFOs, other anomalous flying creatures and mysterious humanoids, parapsychological phenomena, and bizarre events." (CM)

Aided by boundaries placed upon his primary AI helper Claude, SUAPs Director/Co-founder Mike Cifone contends failure to understand that two fundamentally distinct types of "disclosure" exist fundamentally causes the "confusion on which the whole spectacle" of UFO interest feeds. One "is the proper object of a science"; the other the contention of an 80-year-old, impenetrable Secret maintained "inside the most secretive compartments of the national security state, sealed under the born-classified provisions of atomic-energy law, dispersed into private contractors sheltered from the Freedom of Information Act and from congressional subpoena alike." The latter, Mike predicts, is "permanently immune to ordinary evidentiary procedures" and inherently not falsifiable. Focusing upon "proving" this latter contention, and particularly waiting for the dam to leak and maybe even break merely detracts in attention and funded actions by public organizations to plumb the enigma. Well, what if somehow a bona fide disclosure actually did occur? David Metcalfe offers The Myth of the Fragile Public: Why UFO Disclosure (Most Likely) Won't Break Society. David's thesis, informed by recent and prior polling, considers the actual aftermath of the 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, its background effects from newspaper and radio competition, and failed predictions by institutional "gatekeepers" "that ordinary people would respond catastrophically to disruptive, paradigm-shifting events." David is also concerned that a rejection of the "previous history of the topic"—here UFOs but also applicable to wider societal experience—perhaps tells us more about those gatekeepers than "the people waiting outside them." (WM)

Last Friday's fourth release of UFO-related files gets an overview from Micah Hanks, who then analyzes some of its more interesting videos. A convenient compilation of all that footage comes from The Hill via Tim Binnall's Pentagon Releases Fourth Batch of UFO Files. One of the more interesting documents catches David Freeman's attention, as the Secret Los Alamos File Reveals Unidentified Objects Operating Near America's Atomic Sites. This is a very good rundown of the classified 1949 high-level meeting that probed the still-mysterious "Green Fireballs" events, showing the depth of investigation, the numerous characteristics discovered, and possible causes ruled out, and in particular the problem of "compartmentalization" separating discourse between different organizations of expertise. In a much more recent case from the archives, a 'Diamond-shaped' UFO Spotted Over US Nuclear Weapons Plant: Report. NewsNation's Diana Falzone presents a September 2015 puzzler over the Amarillo, Texas, Pantex nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. Falzone links to the document itself. That event gets some additional attention in NewsNation's UFO Files: Sightings at Defense Sites May Confirm 'Galactic Zoo' Idea, Author Says. But author Miguel Sancho and defense analyst Marik von Rennenkampff make very useful observations about the phenomenon and its interpretations in general. (WM)

A Bigfoot hunter claims he came upon the decomposing body of a Bigfoot in 2024, took it home, and sent off DNA samples for analysis. Furthering his claim, he states the DNA findings came back showing the body was partly Neanderthal, partly human. Snake, as the hunter calls himself, says it's been very hard to get taken seriously. We can't imagine why. This Bigfoot YouTube Channel Is Entertaining Woo In Documentary Drag. Cabin in the Woods has all the trappings of serious Bigfoot investigation, with just enough palatable strangeness to keep its audience engaged. It's described as "high grade Bigfoot woo in documentary clothing," which is on the mark. Check out the episodes on YouTube at Cabin in the Woods. (CM)

Cristina features an Eric Burlison initiative to prise away information from the CIA about U.S. involvement in the alleged January 1996 Varginha, Brazil UFO crash-aliens-retrieval case. Ross Coulthart's recent conversation with Mike Gold of a new Disclosure Foundation NASA photo review follows, indications of pre-Sputnik artificial objects in geostationary Earth orbit, Ross' very interesting story about seeing an anomalous International Space Station feed, several Lue Elizondo eyebrow-raising opinions, and more. We move to Christopher Scott Carson's Liberation Times piece Before Sputnik: The Mystery Lights That Refuse to Die. This elaborately defends The Vanishing & Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations (VASCO) project finding of transient objects before October 4, 1957. It also suggests that determining what these objects are is a matter "of instrument design and priority, not physics, and the tools exist or are close." Michael Ryan and Christine Scott talk about a wider-known but still poorly-understood technology for detection in Why Some UFOs Don't Show Up on Radar. It's a good primer. (WM)