Want to look for UFOs? Here's what you will need.

Normally I focus on stories and legends around the valley of all things paranormal, but today I thought I would do something different. I thought it would be beneficial to put together a list of equipment that would be useful if one was to either witness a UFO sighting or perhaps investigate a sighting (like the one on I-5).

For starters, I'm going to list the necessary equipment. These can fit in a small case that you can keep in your car and have ready at a moment's notice. Harbor Freight has a good selection and I purchased one there for around $20 and it carries everything except for my DSLR (which I always carry separately anyways).

Now for the necessary equipment. First and foremost, you need a good camera. My favorite is my DSLR, but a regular point and shoot will work fine. Make sure it has a good flash and is at least 6 MP. I also carry a disposable film camera with me for when my digital decides not to work (usually battery drain).

Next is a a video camera. I have a Sony with night shot which is especially useful at night where there is no chance of getting any evidence from your camera. A camera that has a connection to hook up your computer is equally important, but if you don't there are devices that you can purchase (Dazzle is the one that comes to mind) that allow you to upload to your computer. There are other cameras you can purchase for around $150 or so. I know Flip makes a good camera, but no night shot so keep that in mind. Also make sure to have back up media, never know when it will be needed. Also, a mini tripod can be very useful. I don't know how many shaky camera videos I've seen on YouTube that with the use of a tripod, would have been much clearer. Mini tripods do the job and can fit in your kit.

Next piece of equipment that is necessary is very low tech, but very important. Pencil and a notepad. Necessary for note taking and a quick sketch of what you saw. Always use a pencil, never know when you will need to write something down only to find out the ink in your pen has dried up. A compass can be useful when taking notes and making sketches, noting which direction is what. I purchased one at Wal-Mart for around $5. No need to spend any more. A voice recorder is another option and is great for hands free notes, but as with any piece of equipment make sure to carry extra batteries.

Binoculars are also important. There might be something odd in the sky and a quick look through the binoculars can tell you if it's an airplane or something strange. I purchased a decent pair that is in my glove box for around $20 at Target.

Flashlights are another necessary tool that can be useful besides in any UFO investigation. I'm a fan of the Inova flashlight which you can get at Target from $20 on. It's an LED flashlight and the battery life is much longer as well as the light is cleaner and much brighter. I bought one for $40 and is brighter than a police issued flashlight and a third the size.

Finally, and this is something everyone should already have, is a cellphone. One, if you see something you can call the National UFO Reporting Center at (206) 722-3000. Also, when I would go on a ghost investigation, I would always let someone know where I was going in case something happened. Plus if you get into trouble or are lost you can always call for help.

There are other things you can use as acquire as well, but what I've listed is enough. Some people carry around equipment to register the magnetic field around them (EMF) or geiger counters. This stuff is cool to have, but not needed. Honestly if you have a something that will produce evidence for you, that is all that you need. The rest is just fluff.

Hopefully I've created a good starting point for anyone who may be interested in investigating UFO's. Nice thing is most of these things can be used for other things besides investigating, increasing their usefulness.

Fresno Famous Interview

Now normally I post about the weird shit going on in our lovely San Joaquin Valley, but yesterday I had the honor to be interviewed by Famous Whitewater over at Fresno Famous about this blog. And it went quite well I might add.



I thought about just copying and pasting the article here, but would rather link it to get FF some traffic. Great site for all things Fresno. Here's the link to the original article.

The Ghost of Sister Irenita

Downtown Fresno, St. John's Cathedral - present day. Photo courtesy of historicfresno.org

In downtown Fresno, at St. John's Cathedral there is the legend of Sister Irenita. Sister Irenita served the head of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno in the early 1900's. It was there she passed away, but never really left. For months her spirit could be seen wandering the halls of the rectory.

The interior of St. John's, taken sometime in the 1950's - photo courtesy of Cathedrals of California.

Finally a special mass was done to put her spirit at rest and the sightings stopped. What's really interesting is that a root from a tree had broken into the Sisters grave a few years later. When she was disinterred, her body showed no sign of decay whatsoever and it looked as she had been buried for only a few days.

Man Pulled Car By Eyelids

A Chinese man pulled a car by a rope attached only to his eyelids for more than five meters.

Yang Guanghe, 35, of Guizhou was cheered and applauded at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Guangzhou as he towed the VW car.

Yang, who weighs only seven stone, said he had been practicing the stunt for more than 10 years.

"At the beginning it was a bit painful, but gradually I got used to it," he told the Guangzhou Daily newspaper.

"I just want to know what the limit is of the weakest link in the human body."

Ok, I know this has nothing to do with Fresno, but I had to share this story. The picture of the guy pulling the car by his eyebrows makes me cringe. You can find the original story here.

Ex-Valley nutjob err lawmaker wants to split Calififornia

From the Fresno Bee.


SACRAMENTO -- The revolution will begin in Visalia -- and it will be led by a man named Maze.

As in Bill Maze, a termed-out Assembly member turned rebel who is pushing for California to split in two: the conservative interior as one state and the liberal coast as another.

He's serious.

"We're looking at establishing a breakaway state," he said, with a new government and a new capital. "We'd actually be creating a 51st state."

Maze is a conservative Republican who served Visalia in the Assembly until last year. He is tapping into the anger of Valley farmers and others who say environmental rules and high taxes are sending the state into a tailspin.

"Citizens of our once 'Golden State' are frustrated and desperately concerned about the imposition of burdensome regulations, taxation, fees, fees and more fees, and bureaucratic intrusion into our daily lives and businesses," declares downsizeca.org, the movement's Web site.

Under Maze's plan, 13 coastal counties from Los Angeles to Marin would split from the remaining 45 counties, which the Web site calls "the new revitalized California."

To promote the idea, Maze has established a nonprofit group called Citizens for Saving California Farming Industries. The group is selling sponsorships that run from $1,000 to as much as $10,000 -- for a "California Gold" level. So far, they've raised "a few thousand" dollars, Maze said.

Meanwhile, Maze is selling the plan up and down the state, appearing on television and radio shows. With enough money and momentum, he hopes to put the question before the state's voters. According to the U.S. Constitution, Congress and the state Legislature would have to sign off.

The odds are against the plan, for sure.

Californians have tried to parcel the state 27 times before, with most attempts never getting far off the ground, said former Republican Assembly Member Stan Statham, who made the last serious attempt in the early 1990s.

The most famous secession movement came in 1941 when several counties in Northern California and southern Oregon tried to form the State of Jefferson -- until World War II intervened.

Statham, who represented the Redding area, got a bill passed in the Assembly in 1993 to bring a nonbinding question before voters to split the state in three. But the legislation died in the Senate.

He's still for it: "When you divide something that huge to manage into smaller parts, the problems go down in size."

But to others, "it appears on the surface to be too radical an idea," said Statham, who now heads the California Broadcasters Association. "It becomes too much of a fun thing -- and it was only really good for talk show hosts."

A 1993 Field Poll showed 60% of voters against the idea. That sentiment probably hasn't changed much, despite the state's ongoing woes, said Jim Wunderman. He is president and CEO of the Bay Area Council, a business group behind the effort to convene a constitutional convention to fix California's "fundamentally broken" government.

"I strongly suspect that Californians like being Californians and they would reject [Maze's] idea," Wunderman said. "The concept of California collective, I think, is still popular."

Really? This will make things better? Yeah getting rid of most of the tax payers will solve ALL of our problems. Me thinks you just want a way to somehow get back into office. Nice try guy, I don't want to be another West Virginia. Maybe you should either move to someplace like Utah if you don't like things here or think of something that will actually help the State. Not stupid bullshit like this.

More Strange Lights on Interstate 5

I had recently posted a video showing strange lights being seen on the I-5 corridor between Coalinga and Kettleman City. Some new video has come to my attention, this time it was shot about 60 miles north of Bakersfield and once again seen on Interstate 5.

The object that was shot is different than what I previously posted. Instead of three bright white lights, there are several red strobe-like lights that blink in no discernible pattern.

The video below is quite long, you may want to fast forward to 0:46 to see the object. But throughout the video you can hear the concern and fear in the witnesses voices. Note they swear A LOT so be sure you are somewhere where this won't be a problem.

Unfortunately the poster of the video doesn't allow embedding of the video so I did a screen cap and linked the video to the image.

The video is definitely different than the other one. I actually found a site that had interviewed the witnesses in 2007. You can find the discussion here and a link to the report here for those who interested.

One of the posters theorized that the lights were from F-18's since Lemoore Naval Air Station is near by. I have to disagree with this. A friend of mine used to live under the flight path for the Fresno Air National Guard and I would see them fly over at night. Now granted they fly F-16's, but all military jets (as well as civil) have a red and green marker light. The object(s) in the video had no marker lights, just the blinking red strobe lights. I doubt this was some sort of black project. If the government was testing a new type of aircraft, why have blinking red lights advertising its location? I’m almost wondering if this was just a hoax, that someone had heard about the other sightings and decided to create their own sighing. Several ultra lights could have flown in formation with a strobe attached. But the witnesses claimed not to hear any engine sound, though the highway traffic may have drowned out such noise.

But it seems like a lot of work by the hoaxers in hopes of someone just happening to video tape it. And I don’t think they witnesses were part of the hoax, they seemed generally frightened. Could this craft be extraterrestrial in origin? And if so, what is, if any, it’s relationship to the lights in the other video? And why so many sightings in low populated area? I’m working on organizing a trip to this area in the summer time. Maybe if we’re lucky some answers can be found.

My first Paranormal Experience

People ask me what got me interested in the paranormal, especially ghosts to begin with and why I used to investigate proposed haunted locations. I had always been curious about the unknown, albeit ghosts or UFO's or something else that was unexplainable. Every journey has a start and this is the story of the first ghost I ever saw. It happened to be in the house my mom owned when I was a kid.

I was up late one night watching TV when I decided to go to bed as there was nothing on. As I walked to the back of my house down the hallway to where my bedroom is at, I passed my sister's room and saw something white move from her room to the bathroom right across from her's. I also heard the rustling of fabric on the hardwood floor. I assumed it was my sister sleepwalking again so I turned on the bathroom light to make sure she was ok. Upon turning on the light I saw no one in there and figured I was just getting a bit sleepy and that maybe she just moved from the bathroom to her bedroom. I turned on the light in her room to see her fast asleep and not wearing pajamas that would make a rustling sound on the floor (she was wearing the typical pants and shirt pj's). A bit creeped out now as I knew I saw something I went straight to bed.

The next morning I told my mom what happened and she suprised me by saying that it was probably the ghost of the previous owner of the house's wife. Apparently she died in the house and my mom even said she had seen a shadowy figure several times as well as odd feelings.

Unfortunately this was the only time that anything occurred. A few years later my mom sold the house. I don't investigate any proposed haunted locations anymore as I felt I wasn't helping in any way. Though I sill am interested in the subject I don't think there are any experts out there that can really do anything to help the spirits or even the people who live with the ghost.

Interstate 5 Mystery Lights

For several years now mysterious lights have been seen in the night sky along the Interstate 5 corridor from Kettleman City to Los Banos. Witnesses have reported seeing a triangle shaped craft with a light at each point hover over the highway. The craft would fly over an overpass (it has been seen over Manning Ave) making a 90 degree bank as it would then make a steep dive as it crossed over the highway flying roughly 15’ to 20’ above traffic before making another 90 degree bank turn then descend to nearly 2’ above the ground, looking like it was about to land before ascending at nearly a 45 degree angle to start the pattern of flight all over again. Witness report that it would make the same looping pattern until they lost sight of it. They would try to get away from it as quickly as possible, afraid that the craft would crash into them when it buzzed them flying over the highway.

No red, green, or strobe light that is standard on a conventional craft has been seen. Just three bright lights are the only source of illumination from the craft. There are reports of the craft being a thin wedge shape, but this can’t be confirmed. No sound has been heard as well.

What these lights are is not certain. Sightings from as early as 2002 to as recent as August 2005 have been reported. Some speculate it is nothing more then a crop duster which would make sense since the stretch of highway cuts through agricultural land, but one has to wonder about its erratic flight patterns. One would think that the FAA would find out who this rouge pilot is before someone was hurt. But three years later and it is still spooking drivers who happen to drive along the Interstate 5 corridor between the small farm towns of Coalinga and Kettleman City.

This had been a post I had done on a blog years ago. Reason why I am reposting here is that I came across a video on YouTube that was a short clip of the same three lights described above on Interstate 5. Can't be certain, but this looks like the same craft. Judge for yourself.

I'm thinking of making an expedition to Kettleman City this summer and bring some still and video cameras and see if some evidence can be captured. If anyone else is interested let me know. You don't have to believe in UFO's, my goal is to see what is going on and to try to explain it.