I Reviewed The Mist-Torn Witches for I Smell Sheep

I reviewed first book in this new series by Barb Handee , giving it 5 sheep at I Smell Sheep Reviews.
http://www.ismellsheep.com/2013/06/book-review-mist-torn-witches-by-barb.html

Supernatural Friday: Happy Haunting. . .I Mean Reading!

 

It's Friday and I've been ill past couple of days.  So today, I will go easy on myself. Since World Horror Convention is going on this weekend in New Orleans and it's summer and many libraries will be doing summer reading, where you read at most ten books and turn in you did so for a prize, maybe even to help buy bag of foo for a animal shelter, or something else.

Horror books are a good beach read or to read indoors in the AC. With Stephen King's novel,  Under the Dome coming as a TV minseries end of this month, might be a good time to attempt to read it before hand. Or numerous other books.

What is horror? Horror fiction, horror literature and also horror fantasy is a genre of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, scare or startle viewers/readers by inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie and frightening atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural. Often the central menace of a work of Horror fiction can be interpreted as a metaphor for the larger fears of a society. The genre has ancient origins which were reformulated in the 18th century as Gothic horror, with publication of the Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Walpole.

So, see you can even take on the old classics. Like Dracula by Bram Stoker, H P. Lovecraft’s tales, those scary tales by Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson ghost story, The Haunting of Hill House, and many others.

Right now, I am reading NOS4A2 by Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son).  I am reading

Reliquary, sequel to Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. What are you reading, or what other scary books are you planning to read this summer? Leave a comment, so others can find these great reads in their local library or at their bookstore or an online estore.

Happy Haunting. . .I mean Reading!

Supernatural Friday: Vacationing in the Bermuda Triangle May Not Be a Good Idea

The Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle is in the Caribbean area. This is the area where planes, ships and people have vanished. In almost every account of the mystery surrounding the Bermuda Triangle, you'll see reference to the fact that it is one of only two places on Earth (the other being the Devil's Sea off the coast of Japan) where a compass points to true north rather than magnetic north. Theorists say that this causes compasses to malfunction and ships and planes to get off-course. It’s not on any official map and you won't know when you cross the line. The Bermuda Triangle is located off the Southeastern coast of the United States in the Atlantic Ocean, with its apexes in the vicinities of Bermuda, Miami, Florida, and San Juan, Puerto Rico. It covers roughly 500,000 square miles. Since a magazine first coined the phrase "Bermuda Triangle" in 1964, the mystery has continued to attract attention. Digging deeper into most cases, one finds most have viable explanations. Either they were never in the area to begin with, they were actually found, or there's a reasonable explanation for their disappearance.

Does this mean that there aren’t unexplained disappearances? Scientists have documented deviations from the norm in the area and have found some interesting formations on the seafloor within the Bermuda Triangle's boundaries. Many think of the Bermuda Triangle, also known as the Devil's Triangle, as an "imaginary" area. The U. S. Board of Geographic Names does not recognize the Bermuda Triangle and does not maintain an official file on it. However, within this imaginary area, many real vessels and the people aboard them have disappeared without explanation. The area may have been named after its Bermuda apex since Bermuda was once known as the "Isle of Devils." Treacherous reefs that have ensnared ships sailing too close to its shores surround Bermuda, and there are hundreds of shipwrecks in the waters that surround it. The past 100 years, there have been a lot of occurrences. The U.S. Coast Guard says there’s hasn’t. Who is telling the truth?

It was in 1975 that Mary Margaret Fuller, editor of "Fate" magazine, contacted Lloyd's of London for statistics on insurance payoffs for incidents occurring within the Bermuda Triangle's usually accepted boundaries. According to Lloyd's records, 428 vessels were reported missing throughout the world between 1955 and 1975. I am sure more have been reported since to the 21^st century.  Th­ere appeared to be no greater incidence of events occurring in the Bermuda Triangle than anywhere else in the world.

Gian J. Quasar, author of "Into the Bermuda Triangle: Pursuing the Truth Behind the World's Greatest Mystery" and curator of Bermuda-triangle.org, argues that this report "is completely false." His claim is that Lloyd’s of London does not insure yachts and neither, private planes or charter boats. He requested data on overdue vessels. He gotten records of 300 missing/overdue vessels for around to years before the date he asked. Whether those vessels returned or not is unknown. His Web site has a list of these vessels.

The mystery of the Triangle took hold with the first famous disappearance of five Navy Avengers who disappeared in 1945. The cause of the disappearance was tabbed "pilot error," but family members of the pilot leading the mission couldn't accept that he had made such a mistake. They got the Navy to change it to "causes or reasons unknown."
Reporter E.V.W. Jones compiled a list of "mysterious disappearances" of ships and planes between the Florida coast and Bermuda. It was two years later, that George X. Sand wrote an article for "Fate Magazine." "Sea Mystery at our Back Door,” was about a series of strange marine disappearances, each leaving no trace at all, that have taken place in the past few years" in a "watery triangle bounded roughly by Florida, Bermuda and Puerto Rico. In 1964, "Argosy Magazine" gave the triangle its name in an article titled "The Deadly Bermuda Triangle" by Vincent Gaddis. More articles, books, and movies have appeared, suggesting theories ranging from alien abductions to a giant octopus.

Now some of the disappearances blamed on the Triangle weren’t near the area. One was the famous Mary Celeste from 1872. This was a yacht found floating on the sea, no one on board. Everything exactly as they had left it. Though blamed on the Triangle, it has been found hundreds of miles away. To this day, there have been books about it, even a chilling children's book,  The Mary Celeste: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple.

Other disappearances have no explanations, while some do. Like the U.S.S. Cyclops during WWI. The ship served along the eastern coast of the United States until January 9, 1918. At that time, she was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service and was scheduled to sail to Brazil to refuel British ships in the southern part of the Atlantic. She set out from Rio de Janeiro on February 16. But after she stopped in Barbados from March 3 to 4, the ship was never seen or heard from again. All 306 passengers and crew had vanished—no trace, no reason.

The next happened to be the most famous Bermuda Triangle mystery of the five missing Navy Avengers of Flight 19 in 1945. The story of Flight 19 is usually summarized this way: a routine patrol set out on a sunny day with five highly experienced student pilots. Suddenly, the tower began receiving transmissions from the flight leader that they were lost, compasses were not working, and "everything looked wrong." Never seen again, extensive Navy investigations turned up no clues to explain the disappearance.

Lieutenant Charles C. Taylor led the mission, which included several planned course changes. They departed at 1:15 p.m. on December 5, 1945. At 3:00 p.m., Lieutenant Robert F. Cox was flying over Fort Lauderdale, Florida when he heard a signal that he thought was from a boat or plane in distress. He called Operations at the Naval Air Station to report. He told Taylor to fly with the sun at his left wing and up the coast until he hit Miami. Taylor answered that they soared over a small island and they saw no other land in sight. If he was over the Keys as he had said, however, he should have seen several islands as well as the Florida peninsula.

With less than two hours' flying time until they ran out of fuel, Taylor described a large island to Operations. Assuming this was Andros Island, the largest in the Bahamas, Operations sent Taylor a heading that would take him to Fort Lauderdale. Apparently this heading was correct, because once Flight 19 assumed the new course, Taylor's voice began coming in stronger over the radio. Taylor, however, didn't believe this course was right and after a few minutes said that they "didn't go far enough east. Turn around again and go east. We should have a better chance of being picked up closer to shore." With this move, transmissions began to weaken as they flew out of radio range in the wrong direction. For unknown reasons, Taylor ignored the standard flying procedure of flying west if over water and east if over land. Two PBM-5 Mariner seaplanes went out to search the area, but one exploded soon after takeoff. The other never located Flight 19.

Another story concerned the S.S. Marine Sulphur Queen, a tanker bound for Norfolk, Virginia from Beaumont, Texas. It carried 15,000 tons of molten sulfur in heated tanks. Last communication took place on Feb. 3, 1963, when its captain radioed a routine position report. The message placed her near Key West in the Florida Straits. She never reached Virginia.

Three days after the position report, Coast Guard searchers found a single life jacket floating 40 miles southwest of the tanker's last known position. It's likely that leaking sulfur may have caused an explosion. Escaping sulfur gas could have poisoned the crew and prevented them from sending a distress call. Officers on a Honduran banana boat reported to the Coast Guard that their freighter ran into a strong, acrid odor 15 miles off Cape San Antonia, the western tip of Cuba, just before dawn on February 3.

The area known for being infested with sharks and barracuda, not surprising that no bodies had ever been found. The U.S. Coast Guard History Archive lists the following items found from the Sulphur Queen: two pieces of board bearing the name of the ship, eight life jackets (some with rips believed caused by sharks’ teeth), five life rings, a shirt, one piece of oar, a oil can, a gasoline can, a cone buoy and a fog horn.

It was on a clear night in 1965 that a seasoned flying crew from the Air Force Reserve Command's 440th Airlift Wing flew from Milwaukee on way to Grand Turk Island in the Bahamas. They landed as scheduled at Homestead Air Force Base in Florida at 5:04 p.m. and spent two hours and 43 minutes on the ground. They took off at 7:47 p.m. and flew south to the Bahamas. They never reached their destination. No indication of trouble and only routine radio communication. When they didn't land, radio traffic controllers started calling Plane 680. No response. A few scraps of debris were found, and those could have been tossed out of the cargo plane. Among those on board was an expert maintenance crew, so any problem, they could fix it. There never has been any explanation for the disappearance of Plane 680.

The Triangle has the highest UFO sightings. Good reason for the theory of alien abductions. But abductions aren't the only theory; some also have theorized that the Bermuda Triangle area is a portal to other planets. It is also believed that this area is home to the lost city of Atlantis and remnants of its advanced technologies. Famous psychic Edgar Cayce said that Atlantis had many modern-day technologies, including a death ray weapon, which he claims ultimately destroyed the city. There are those who say that the people who lived there were an alien race from the Pleiades star cluster. Cayce predicted that researchers would discover the western edge of Atlantis near the coast of Bimini, in the Bahamas. A road of stones was found there in 1968. The initial researchers and archeologists who studied the site, known as the "Bimini Road," put it down as a natural occurrence. Later investigations found evidence that supports the idea that the stones were shaped and placed there as a wall. The additional finding of a possible underwater city near Cuba adds fuel to the fire for those supporting the Atlantis idea.

According to legend and speculation, the city of Atlantis relied on the power of special energy crystals that were extremely powerful. Cayce supported this idea, and the discovery of a great underwater pyramid and crystal by Dr. Ray Brown in 1970 reinforced it. Scuba diving in the Bahamas, Dr. Brown said he found a large pyramid made of mirror-like stone. He entered it and saw a brassy metallic rod with a multi-faceted red gem hanging from the apex of the room. Directly below this rod was a stand with bronze hands that held a crystal sphere four inches in diameter. Brown removed the crystal, keeping it secret until 1975. Then he exhibited it at a psychic seminar in Phoenix, Arizona. He claimed that when one gazed into the crystal form, three pyramidal images are seen, one in front of the other with each decreasing in size. Some people reported to have seen a fourth pyramid in front of the other three after entering into deep meditative states.


The Fog: A Never Before Published Theory of the Bermuda Triangle Phenomenon by Rob MacGregor and Bruce Gernon talks of an "electronic fog" that both men experienced while flying in the Bermuda Triangle. Gernon and his father flew to Bimini on December 4, 1970. The skies were clear. Suddenly, they saw a strange cloud with almost perfectly round edges hovering over the Miami shore. As they flew over it, the cloud began spreading out, matching or exceeding their speed. They thought they escaped it at 11,500 feet, but only to discover that it had formed a tunnel. It seemed that was the only way they could escape it, so they went through the tunnel. Once inside, they saw lines on the walls that spun in a counterclockwise direction. Gernon's navigational instruments went haywire. The compass spun counterclockwise. Gernon reported that he "realized that something very bizarre had happened. Instead of the clear blue sky that we expected at the end of the tunnel, everything appeared a dull, grayish white. Visibility appeared to be about two miles, except nothing to see. Neither ocean, horizon, sky, only a gray haze.



When Gernon contacted Miami Air Traffic Control to get radar identification, the controller said that there were no planes on radar between Miami, Bimini, and Andros. Several minutes later, Gernon heard the air traffic controller acknowledge that a plane had been spotted directly over Miami. Gernon didn't think he could possibly be over Miami Beach, because it usually took 75 minutes to get to Miami and only 47 minutes had passed. The cloud tunnel began to peel away ribbons of fog. The instruments return to normal and as he looked down, Gernon spotted Miami Beach below. Loss of time was  confirmed by their watches and the plane's clock. Gernon believe that the electronic fog had time travel qualities. He experienced the fog one more time when he flew with his wife. Other pilots claimed to have similar experiences in the area. Gernon believed powerful electromagnetic storms from within the Earth break through the surface and come into the atmosphere where they soon disappear, leaving the strange electronic fog. A Swedish scientist has said that magnetism is weaker in the triangle than anywhere else on Earth, a reason why the fog happens there more often than anywhere else.

Another interesting theory is blue holes. These are water-filled caves and cavities with blue coloration, and may be both a simple hole in the ground in the interior of islands (inland blue holes) and holes in shallow waters on the banks (marine or ocean blue holes). British scuba diver Rob Palmer directed a blue holes research center in the Bahamas for years. But in July 1997, the man failed to surface after a dive in the Red Sea, He was presumed dead. Some think that the blue holes may be related to or formed by micro-wormholes that are believed to exist in the area. It is even thought that these might even be transit points for UFOs arriving here from other dimension.

Now the plausible explanations for the incidents in the Bermuda Triangle—this includes explanations given by the U.S. Navy and Coast –Guard—are due to human error and environmental effects. The area is one of the most highly trafficked for amateur pilots and sailors, so more traffic leads to more accidents and disappearances. 

Another possible reason for the Triangle’s area to be subject to these disappearances is violent and unexpected storms. Weather changes, too. Short but intense storms build up quickly, dissipate quickly, and go undetected by satellite surveillance. Waterspouts can destroy a passing plane or ship with no problem and is not uncommon. A waterspout is simply a tornado at sea that pulls water from the ocean surface thousands of feet into the sky. Other possible environmental effects include underwater earthquakes. Scientists have found a great deal of seismic activity in the area, plus have also spotted freak waves up to hundred feet high.

The underwater topography of the area may be a factor, going from a gently sloping continental shelf to an extremely deep drop-off. Some of the deepest trenches in the world are found right in the Bermuda Triangle. Ships or planes would sink into these deep trenches and never likely be discovered.

The Gulf Stream is extremely swift and turbulent. The Triangle is located along it. It can pose extreme navigational challenges, especially for inexperienced sailors. The Gulf Stream has been reported to move faster than 5 mph in some areas. This is more than fast enough to throw sailors hundreds of miles off course, especially if they don't compensate correctly for the current. It can erase any evidence of a disaster.

One more theory appears to hold promise for at least some of the disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle when scientists at Cardiff University discovered the presence of large concentrations of methane gas trapped in the ocean floor. This gas is due to dying and decomposing sea organisms. The sediment contains bacteria that produce methane. This accumulates as super concentrated methane ice, called gas hydrates. The layer of ice traps the methane gas, and scientists are studying it as a potential energy source.

Within seconds of a methane gas pocket rupturing, the gas surges up and erupt on the surface without warning. If a ship is in the area at the time, the water beneath suddenly become much less dense. The vessel could sink and sediment could quickly cover it as it settles onto the sea floor. Planes flying overhead could catch fire during such a blowout. Although he doesn't agree with the methane hydrate theory as an explanation for the Bermuda Triangle, Bill Dillon, a research geologist with the United States Geological Survey said that, "On several occasions, oil drilling rigs have sunk as the result of [methane] gas escape."
Pirates from historical times like Blackbeard or others like him may not be likely candidates for disappearances; pirates of modern times can be accused of this quite well. In the 1970s and '80s, drug runners often pirated boats to smuggle drugs.  Also, as proven to pirates off coast of Africa, capturing prisoners off boats for other reasons, maybe even killing them and sinking them and the boats into the sea, or take them elsewhere to be dispose of.


There are about ten triangles around the earth. One second in disappearances is the “Dragon's Triangle.” It comes from a centuries-old Chinese legend of dragons living in palaces beneath the sea. The actual area encompasses a triangular line from western Japan north of Tokyo, to Guam to Taiwan. It, like the Bermuda Triangle, exhibits some magnetic anomalies, and vessels that pass through it have reported navigation and communication malfunctions. Reports of bright lights, volatile and sudden weather changes, unexplained sudden ocean swells, whirlpools, thick fogs, and storms coincide with disappearances of maritime vessels, aircraft, and tales of drifting, crewless ghost ships.
The Dragon's and Bermuda Triangles align point to point through the center of the Earth, with the same latitude and longitude. Both are located at the eastern end of large continental masses, where the sea's currents are colliding with warm and cold water, over volcanic areas. Deep trenches are another commonality, with the triangle in the Pacific Ocean featuring the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in all the seas. The Dragon's Triangle in particular, reports an ever-changing seascape with professionally charted landmasses and islands literally forming and disappearing overnight.
Kublai Khan made two unsuccessful attempts to take over Japan in the 13th century, but both attempts failed on the trip through these waters and over 40,000 crewmen were lost in the first attempt alone. The Japanese people believed that Nature intervened to protect them and attributed the victories to the “Divine Wind”.

Although these theories (among others) probably account for disappearances in the area known as the Bermuda Triangle and also the Dragon's Triangle, many people still prefer to believe that aliens, electronic fog, or another supernatural phenomenon must be the cause. And who’s not to say they’re right or wrong? If nothing else, great background for fictional author of horror, science fiction and paranormal for their stories and novels, or  fascinating fodder for those to read in nonfiction books in cold or winter or on the beach. Though that may not be good to read if that beach is on an island in the Bermuda Triangle . . . so watch out for a mysterious cloud in the horizon.  You just might vanish without a trace. . .

 

Signed Copies of Three of My Ghost Books at Barnes and Noble at Libbie Place

If live in Richmond or visiting it, you can find signed copies of "Haunted Richmond," "Haunted Virginia: Legends, Myths and True Tales," and "Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations" at the Barnes and Noble at Libbie Place, 5501 W. Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23230. 804-282-0781. There is only one copy of "Virginia's Haunted Historic Triangle: Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, and Other Haunted Locations," and Haunted Richmond II sold out.

Supernatural Friday: Legend of Black Bartelmy the Pirate

Black Bartelmy was an evil, surly buccaneer. So mean, he even murdered his wife and children. He inflicted his evil deeds in the Atlantic Coast with the worst dredges of the universe. For he was a pirate. Not only at sea, but the countryside was also played victim to his grizzly deeds too.

It was while N.S., Bartelmy and his ship in Cape Forchu, loaded with a lot of treasure, 500 treasure chests worth. When all of a sudden, a fog a thick as pea soup rolled in to the bay.

A tide soon took hold of his ship at Roaring Bull, smashing the ship to pieces. Before all on board were killed, Bartelmy spotted land and with the aid of his trusted mate, Ben the Hook and the rest of the crew,  took as much booty into the escape boat could hold.

Then by Bartelmy’s orders, Ben slit the necks of the crew and tossed their bodies into the deadly sea. Ben and Bartelmy climbed into the overloaded boat and rowed to calmer waters in the cape. They looked for a safe place to hide their murderous booty. A large cave was discovered and they placed the treasure into the belly of the cave, piling heavy rocks in front of the entrance of the cave. Bartelmy turned about and thrust his sword into his mate's chest. The last sight and sounds of Ben where of Bartelmy’s laughing face.

No one to talk to or kill. Hunger hit Bartelmy. As he walked along the shore he ran into the land rising. Bartelmy fell into quicksand and his last curse words only heard by the seagulls.

Years later, the local lighthouse keeper swore that he saw a flare shooting into the air. Thinking some ship might be in trouble, he organized a rescue team and they set off for where he saw the light. As the rescue team drew near they were greeted by no other than Bartelmy himself.  Most lilley his phantom, as this was years and years later.

The spirit waved a cutlass and laughed insanely. The team fled, only to return and find nothing.

If you plan to visit the cape or the Roaring Bull, take heed that you don't find yourself a victim of Bartelmy.

Black Bartelmy was an evil, surly buccaneer who murdered his wife and children and went to sea with a band of pirates as nasty as he. He roamed the Atlantic coast, murdering and pillaging and laying waste to the countryside as he passed. By the time he approached Cape Forchu in Nova Scotia, Black Bartelmy had a ship loaded with treasure; five hundred chests had he full of gold and jewels and goblets and mighty swords. - See more at: http://www.chacha.com/question/black-bartelmys-ghost#sthash.g4qGd5Zb.dpuf

Book Signing at Book Fair at Barnes and Noble in Richmond June 1st

I will be signing copies of Haunted Richmond II and my other three nonfiction ghost books at the Douglas Southall Freeman H. S. Library Barnes and Noble Book Fair at Libbie Barnes and Noble 5501 W. Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23230 this Saturday, June 1st, from Noon to 2:00 p.m. There will be other authors signing from 10 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Besides the authors, there will be face painting, the high school's jazz band, and door prizes, plus more. All purchases except gift cards 6/1-6/7/13 2 will support the high school's library. For more information, bookseller's phone number: 804-282-0781.

Supernatural Friday: Alien Abductions and Cattle Mutilations

Aliens appear to be doing more than just flying through our air or landing. No, they’re abducting people and even doing cow mutilations. Horrors! 

I am sure abductions have been happening for centuries. Think about fairy stones and people disappearing in the circles, returning sometimes to admit to finding themselves in Faerie. Sounds familiar? People abducted by aliens, returned by the beings, the abductees telling of being in spaceships, operated on. And no matter where they were taken, whether driving, in their beds, at a festival, or what, the lost of time.

But I will talk about some famous abductions.

In 1961, an interracial couple by the names of Barney and Betty Hill were driving along a road in the evening during a short vacation. Because of Barney's ulcer problems, the two had embarked on a vacation into Canada. It was when they were returning home on September 19^th, that Barney noticed a star acting erratic. It was 10:00 p.m. They were just north of North Woodstock, when Barney noticed that the star was moving in a very unusual manner. When they arrived at Indian Head, they stopped their car, and got out to have a better look. Using binoculars, Barney zoomed in what he thought was a star. This was no star! He could make out different colors of lights and see several rows of windows around a flying craft. The object moved closer, and now Barney could actually see people inside the ship. Was this strange flying object being piloted by humans?

The next thing the Hills recalled was being frightened by the unusual flying object, and the occupants inside of it. Barney scurried back to the car where Betty was waiting. They jumped into the car, and raced down the highway. Looking for the object, they found that it was now gone. As they drove on, they began to hear a beeping sound... once, then again. Although they had been driving only a couple of minutes, they were 35 miles down the road!

Betty and Barney finally arrived home safely. After seeing the UFO, the rest of their trip home had been uneventful. They were tired from their journey, and immediately went to bed. When Betty awoke the next day, she telephoned Janet, her sister, and told her about the strange object they had seen. Janet urged her to call Pease Air Force Base, and tell them what her and Barney had seen. After hearing Betty's report, Major Paul W. Henderson, told her: "The UFO was also confirmed by our radar."

They had been stopped on the road by aliens, and abducted by them too—becoming a famous case. They had lost two hours of time. Regressive hypnosis by Boston psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. Benjamin Simon played a major role in unveiling a dark secret of alien abduction and medical experimentation. During the intensive regression sessions, the Hills would describe their captors as "... bald-headed alien beings, about five foot tall, with grayish skin, pear shaped heads and slanting cat-like eyes." This description very much described what would become known as the "grays," now a standard description for the small beings with large heads, small mouths, and little or no ears, and hairless.

In South Ashburnham, Massachusetts on the night of January 25 1967, Betty Andreasson was working in her kitchen while her seven children, mother, and father were in the living room. All of a sudden, a bright red beam of light invaded the home. Betty rushed from the kitchen to her children, on edge from the phenomenon. Betty's father ran to look out of the kitchen window to see where the light came from. Amazement filled him at the sight five strange creatures heading toward their house in a hopping motion. He became shock as the creatures walked through the wooden door of the kitchen and entered the house. All of a sudden, the entire family was put into a type of trance. The five creatures wore a blue coverall with a wide belt. On their sleeves could be seen a logo of a bird. Three fingers were on their hands, and their feet were shod with boots. They did not actually walk, but floated as they moved along. Betty later would recall that she was not frightened by their presence, but instead, felt calm. In fact, one of them—one thought to maybe be the leader—communicated to her by telepathy.

Betty's mother and children were still in a state of suspended animation, while she was taken to the spacecraft. It rose in the air and joined a mother ship. She was subjected to a physical examination and then various tests by strange equipment. She was given one test which caused her pain, but resulted in being a religious awakening. She was gone for four hours.

As Patrolman Schirmer passed through the intersection of Highway 6 with Highway 63 on the outskirts of Ashland in 1967, he saw what appeared to be red lights on a large truck stopped a short way down Highway 63. He decided to turn around and check it out. He drove the short distance down 63 and stopped with his headlights shining on the object. According to Schirmer, the object was definitely not a truck. The red lights that he had seen were blinking through the oval portholes of a metallic, oval-shaped object.

Seven and a half years after the Betty and Barney Hill tale, Buff Ledge in Vermont would be visited by four UFOs doing revolutionary aerial maneuvers. Two counselors suffered missing time, and ultimately, sought professional help.

Fifteen different people see a large, silver UFO fly over a housing project in St. Tammany Parish, New Orleans, Louisiana in 1973. Only a scant 24 hours later, Calvin Parker and Charles Hickson would unwillingly take a journey twenty-four hours later after the sighting, thanks to strange creatures with claw-like hands abduct them. J. Allen Hynek investigates.

Author Whitley Strieber, author of horror fiction, The Wolfen (werewolves of a kind—I loved it) and The Hunger (vampires), was abducted by aliens from his isolated cabin in upstate New York he shared with his wife and son over the Christmas season of 1985. He encountered four kinds of aliens—one a little robot type, another was a short, stocky humanoid, the third type was very thin and frail with haunting black, slanted eyes, and the last had smaller, button-type eyes.. They preformed a number of medical procedures on him in the UFO they took him to. He wrote the book, Communion that had the entire story in it.

Strieber had activated his system at about 11:00 PM on December 26, and his family began to retire for the evening. A few hours later, he heard a strange sound, which woke him from sleep. Thinking that he might have a burglar who had set off the alarm system, he went to check it out. As he did, he was shocked to see a creature standing in his bedroom.

Before he knew it, Strieber was sitting in the woods that encircled his cabin. He was at a loss to explain what had happened, and how he had gotten from the bedroom to the woods. His memories were lost, and he eventually sought the help of Dr. Donald F. Klein. Klein would perform regressive hypnosis on Strieber in an attempt to recover the lost time.

One of the harrowing procedures Strieber went under was the insertion of a long needle directly into his brain. The aliens also inserted a tool into his rectum, and took a blood sample from his finger. Because many of the details of his alleged abduction were so bizarre, Dr. Klein diagnosed Strieber as having "temporal lobe epilepsy." One of the most common effects of the condition is the onset of hallucinations.

There are many more stories of people having these harrowing close encounters, the abductees not telling anyone, but a doctor and usually to be put under to account for lost time. Not just one or two, but entire families have been abducted.

COW MUTILATIONS:

Cow mutilations are another sign of the UFO beings. These mutilations are a phenomenon that has been plaguing cattle ranchers in the United States ever since the late 1960s. They have been recorded in all 50 states, but no one's ever been caught. The FBI concluded a report in 1979 stating that these strange animal deaths were attributable to mundane events such as predators and humans conducting cult activities. However, the report has never been accepted by the ranchers most affected by this enigma. Strange cattle deaths have not ceased and have actually picked up in frequency over the years. The signature descriptions of these deaths still persist: exsanguinations, no bodily fluid traces around the animal corpse; internal organs taken with surgical precision, etc.

Some in the UFO field of study have hypothesized that these strange mutilations are an ongoing program of radiation and/or infectious disease tracking. Though this theory seems a little far-fetched at face value, there exists plenty of circumstantial and tertiary support to seriously consider this explanation. Between 1957 and 1968, the US conducted a host of underground nuclear detonations. The sites included the states of Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. The purpose for these tests ran the gamut from providing information for hardening silos and measuring the effects on layers of rock to producing gases for use in providing an energy resource. However, these tests produced effects that were not totally anticipated prior to their detonations. Some of the tests caused minor fault tremors and on at least one occasion, the energy produced by one series of tremors immediately following a test exceeded the energy of the detonation. But more importantly, large doses of radiation were released into the immediate environment. It is wondered about the possible effects that underground radiation would have on our underground water reserves. The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast underground deposit of fossil water that spans the central region of the United States. It has provided drinking water and water for crops for the last 200 years. Any appreciable radioactive poisoning would have severely deleterious effects upon the entire food chain in the area – not to mention the effects upon anything grown in the area and transported to other areas of the country. If a researcher bothers to track the dates of cattle mutilations and compare them to the nuclear testing dates performed by the US government, it becomes immediately obvious that there exists a correlation. Surprisingly, the increase in cattle mutilations in the late 60s and early 70s seems to follow an increase in the underground nuclear testing events.

Another possibility going hand in hand with the radiation testing argument is that cattle mutilations are part of an ongoing program to test for infectious diseases gaining ground alongside the suspicion that radiation testing has been occurring. Some may even argue that both of these types of testing have been occurring simultaneously. Infectious diseases in animals provide a constant concern for governments with the Mad Cow Disease and Bird Flu epidemics as two examples. Again, the rationale for testing animals for infectious diseases lies behind its effects upon humans that use these animals for a food source. There has been considerable research done to support this theory. Of particular note is the extensive and well-documented work compiled in the report forwarded by the National Institute for Discovery Science based in Las Vegas, Nevada. This report delineates the specific diseases present in our dairy and cattle herds as well as the effects that it could have on the population. The report further goes on to report how the same aspects common to animal mutilations serve to suggest that some type of covert governmental testing is ongoing.

Greatest threat to the food supply and the human population that depends on its source for nourishment may lie in the formation of prions (something that is used for werewolves in the novel, Red Moon I am reading now). A prion is an abnormally-shaped protein strand that plays havoc with the internal organs of the infected host. These prions may form as a result of of an animal being fed food tainted with a specific disease, or by feeding the animal the reconstituted remains of the same species. The broad category that describes these diseases is Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE), and this category includes Mad Cow Disease, Scrapie, and Kuru. All of these diseases form as a result of the formation of prions.
The practice of feeding reconstituted animal parts to animals is not new. Approximately 100,000 cattle die of unknown causes each year, and the carcasses of these animals is often used to produce a protein-rich feed to give to other animals that are used as a food supply to humans. It is estimated that approximately 10% of these animals may have died as a result of TSE and feeding this tainted food to other animals may have greatly accelerated the spread of the disease.
Two possible explanations come to mind of why would any government do a covert operation on cattle, both disturbing. The agencies conducting the tests may be monitoring the herds that they wish to target as well as the possible actions that may be taken to combat and react to the mutilations. The lights could be the lights on helicopters being used to ferry the animals to an undisclosed testing site. The presence of strange phenomena prowling the skies and territory of the affected areas could be part of a vast program of disinformation targeted at the affected populace with the intent of steering them away from any action that may cause the truth of these strange activities to be revealed. Ranchers and farmers have been puzzled by the US government doing nothing. Some ranchers have complained that the government has actively worked against the affected cattle owners in getting a viable explanation for their cattle deaths.  Interestingly enough, I discovered that the National Institute for Discovery Science that is based in Las Vegas, is investigating into current mutilations. They are the only scientific organization in the country that is seriously pursuing the mutilation mystery, to determine who or what is doing this.
What is the real truth? Government? Or Aliens? Whichever you choose, either one is frightening. And let’s not go into a sort of vampire creature: chupacabra.
Whatever is happening on either subject, they are both interesting. It will be fascinating to see what is really behind one or the other.