It's a UFO! Oh wait, it's a satellite. Nevermind.

Late last night I was helping my grandfather irrigate our 40 acres of vineyards. As we were driving along I was staring up at the sky as it was a moonless night (around 11:15 pm) and the stars were out in multitudes. As I was looking to the west I saw what I thought were two stars rather close together that looked out of place when one star started to move and increase in luminiousity only to fade out after a few seconds. I assumed it was a satellite, but wasn't quite sure.

A bit curious as to what I actually saw I jumped on the internet and looked up satellite sightings and came across what are called Iridium Flares. There is a group of satellites in orbit called the Iridium Satelite Constelation. They are a group of communication satellites that provides both voice and data coverage for satellite phones. Each satellite has three large antenna about the size of a door and are highly polished. Occasionaly one of the antenna reflects sunlight back down to the Earth and that is what causes the flare.

After a bit more research I found a website called Heavens Above and they offer information on how to track objects in the night sky, from planets and comets to satellites. After entering my location I was able to determine that I indeed did see an Iridium satellite. The actual time was 23:11:15 on July 1. Here is the link to the actual infomormation, though I don't know how long it will be available.

So this had me thinking. How many people have seen these and thought and possibly reported these as a UFO. Hell even I wasn't familiar with an Iridium Flare. If I hadn't assumed it was a satellite I would most likely have reported it to the Nation UFO Reporting Center. I decided to search YouTube in hopes of someone had filmed one, given the fact that they are easily predictable. I got lucky and found a video showing something similiar to what I saw.

I am definitely convinced now that what I saw was not a UFO, but just the reflection of sunlight off a satellite's antenna. I checked the Heavens Above website and there is supposed to be another sighting tonight (July 2) at 23:05:19, this time to the east (here's the link for more info). I'm going to try to get some video of it if I can. But it shouldn't be that hard for anyone to see it as long as there isn't much light pollution around you.

Are cemeteries haunted?

Ask any new ghost hunting group where the best place to look for ghosts is and most likely the answer will be a cemetery. Why is that? I've asked this question over the years and the response I have usually received was that there were dead people there and that should mean there are ghosts there as well. But there isn't any fact behind this, it's just an assumption.

Cemeteries, like this one on Belmont, are thought to be haunted

even when there is no history of activity. (photo by Michael Banti)

It's assumed that since people are buried in cemeteries, that the spirits are still there and therefore can haunt the cemetery. Most hauntings occur where someone has either died or had some sort of personal connection to the place or perhaps a person there. Cemeteries usually don't have this (there are exceptions as I will explain later). Paranormal groups will wander the cemetery late at night (hopefully with permission) armed with the usual equipment (cameras, voice recorders, etc) and hope they get a photo or an EVP when there was never any evidence that the cemetery had any activity to begin with.

Now I'm not saying that I wasn't guilty of this as well. When I first started investigating in the summer of 2000, one of the first places my group investigated a cemetery. We figured there had to be ghosts there since it was a cemetery. We wandered around for a few hours, taking pictures. Of course all we got were dust orbs, but as I had mentioned in a previous post we didn't know any better. So since we saw "orbs" we felt we were right into assuming the cemetery was haunted. One has to wonder if this could be one of the causes of the assumption that cemeteries are haunted? That someone took photos (for whatever reason) and a dust orb showed up and they assumed it was a ghost. They then tell all their friends they captured a picture of a ghost at said cemetery and then it spreads from there.

There are some cemeteries that are actually haunted, but they have one or two specific ghosts to them. There is a small cemetery outside the town of Paso Robles called Adeliade Cemetery and the story goes that a woman named Charlotte lost her two young children to a dyptheria epidemic in the late 1800's. Distraut over her children's death, she commited suicide. The story continues that every Friday night between the hours of midnight Charlotte would appear and leave flowers on her children's graves. I had the chance to invesigate this cemetery a few years ago and it still remains one of the strangest expierences I've ever had. Unfortunately it's not the norm regarding cemeteries.

The purpose of this article isn't to discourage people from investigating cemeteries, just make sure they have had some sort of activity in the past and that it's from a reputable witness. Don't go into one assuming since people are buried there that there are ghosts there. If I was a ghost, I wouldn't want to stick around where my body was at. I'd rather be at some place interesting. In closing just make sure there's actually something there before you go. And please get permission from whomever owns the property. Even though it is a public place, it does have operating hours and you will be charged with trepassing if you go after closing and without permission. Don't ruin it for everyone else just because you were looking for a thrill.

Woman wrecks SUV while trying to flee vampire

A Colorado woman claims while driving late one night she came across a vampire standing in the middle of the road and wrecked her vehicle trying to escape.

The woman told police that she was traveling along the dirt road at around 9:30 pm, when she came across the vampire. Terrified, she backed up her sports utility vehicle to try to escape the blood sucker. Unfortunately she hit the gas too hard and wound up backing up into a ditch and rolling the vehicle onto it's passenger side. She was not injured and neither drugs or alcohol were suspected. The police also added there was no evidence of a vampire either. The driver's husband arrived shortly thereafter and took her home.

KKCO, the NBC affliate in Grand Junction reported the next day that the driver might have been on some sort of medication and that may have been the cause of her so called sighting.

We here at Weird Fresno have to wonder if she is this easily frightened of vampires, if she is a Twilight fan or not.

Sources:

KKCO NBC Grand Junction

Denver Post

The legend of the Dover Demon

This cryptid that I am going to talk about has nothing to do with Fresno, or even California in general, but is one of my favorite legends. It was seen in Dover, Massachusetts over the course of two days in 1977 and even after three decades it still is one of the strangest things to ever occur in the realm of the paranormal.

The first sighting occured on April 21, 1977 at night by a group of teenagers who were driving through a wooded area when their car's headlights illuminated the creature. The driver, Bill Bartlett, thought at first it was perhaps a cat or dog, but as he got closer he realized it wasn't either of those. Instead he described it as a bizarre, unearthly creature crawling along a stone wall that ran adjacent to the road.

Bartlett continued to observe the creature and described it as having a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head with glowing orange eyes. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the wall. The creature had no hair and the skin appeared to have a rough texture and was flesh-toned. The creature had no discernable mouth, nose, or ears.

Two hours later and about a mile away from the first sighting the creature was seen again, this time by John Baxter as he was walking home from his girlfriend's house. He saw the creature moving toward him, but when it spotted him it fled into the woods adjacent to the road. Baxter, thinking it was a neighborhood child, pursued the creature through the woods, across a shallow brook, and through a field. Soon though Baxter lost sight of the creature and decided to stop and rest for a minute.

As he was resting, Baxter finally got a clear view of the creature which was leaning against a tree. His description was similiar to what Bartlett described, down to the glowing eyes. During the following media circus, Baxter insisted that he made his report without knowing that Bartlett had seen the same creature a few hours earlier.

This wasn't the last time the creature was seen. The following day a Abby Brabham and Will Traintor saw a similar looking creature on the side of the road from Traintor's car. Brabham described it as a hairless primate with a bulbous head. She also said the creature had bright green eyes, different than what both Bartlett and Baxter described. This description has some skeptics claiming a hoax as the descriptions differ.

All of the eyewittnesses were asked seperately to sketch the creature they had encounter. Amazingly, the results were remarkably similiar. The only difference being the difference in eye color.

The creature as Bill Bartlett describes it.

John Baxter's version of the creature.

No one really knows what the Dover Demon was or what happened to it. Some ufologist think the creature was somesort of alien. Others speculate that it was a being from another dimension. All of these are speculations of course, but famed Loren Coleman (who coined the term Dover Demon) said "this is one of those situations where I'm most definitely secure in saying I don't know what this is" and "It's almost as if the Dover Demon popped in to our reality and popped out."

Skeptics weren't without their own theories. One wrote that the description of the creature's head matched that of a newborn moose. This is unlikely as one of the sightings of the creature specifically stated that the creature had visible fingers, whereas a moose has hooves. Other skeptics mention that all the witnesses were high school teenagers and claim that it was some sort of hoax. In a recent interview Bill Bartlett stuck by his story, thirty years later. He said he didn't know what he saw, but he saw something.

Evidence was never found of the Dover Demon, but the story persists to this day.

Sources:

Wikipedia - Dover Demon

American Monsters - The Dover Demon

Witnesses see large bright object fall out of the sky in Tulare County

Two witnesses were driving on Road 222 in Tulare County in March 2006 around 9:00 pm when the driver noticed a bright object in the East falling from the sky. The way they described it was as if the moon had "suddenly fallen to the Earth". They further described the size of the object as the size of a dime held out at arm's length.

As it fell it changed colors from a brilliant white to an amber color before disappearing behind the Sierra Nevadas. The witness said as it was falling it appeared to be on fire and they expected to hear an explosion but never did. The witness asked their father if he had seen the same object and he confirmed that he did.

As they continued driving they scanned the radio stations for any mention of the object but didn't hear anything. The witness also states that they believe Area 51 in Nevada may somehow be involved as the object fell in the general direction of the military base.

MUFON Report: an object fell to earth east of my house

my father an i were driving south on rd. 222, it was around 9:PM, i noticed a bright object out the driver side window directly east of us,i looked up and saw a round bright light falling to earth.it was as if the moon had suddenly fallin to earth.if you held a dime out at arms length this object would barely be covered by the dime, this thing was huge.i couldn't take my eyes off it.i watched as it fell, and it began to change froom a brilliant white to an amber color.just before it vanished behind the sierras ,it seemed to be on fire, i could see flames comming from the top of it.i watched and was expecting to see and hear a large explosion,but nothing, not even a flicker did we see after that.i looked at my father and said, did you see that,dad answered yep, sure did.i listened for any radio reports ,but never heard a thing.my question to you people is, did any one else report this objet to you.any body traveling east on highway 198 just east of visalia calif,and due north of exeter at that time, couldn,t have missed seeing this thing, it was impossible to miss it.one thing is for certain ,somthing very big hit the ground that night. i might mention, area 51 is in that general direction to where this thig feel.

Man dials 911 after seeing Bigfoot

Timothy Peeler of Casar, North Carolina reported seeing a "man-beast" that was almost 10 feet tall. Peeler said the creature screeched like a "night bird and grunted in the warm night air. He was convinced that he was seeing a local legend named "Knobby"

The creature got it's name as it was originally seen near Carpenter's Knob in the 1970's. The sightings were proflic back then, but for some reason mysteriously stopped until Peeler saw it.

Full source: Shelby Star

Written by: David Allen

Legend speaks of an ape-like creature who called Upper Cleveland County home in the late 1970s.

Robert Williams, then covering the news for Charlotte media outlets, named him “Knobby,” a towering beast many considered as the resident Bigfoot.

Williams never saw Knobby — “I only wrote what I was told.”

Knobby stories flew overseas, Williams said, drawing interest from New Zealand and beyond. Newspaper articles from 1979 detail more than a dozen Knobby sightings and investigations by the North American Research Association and researchers from a university in Massachusetts. But the rumors and sightings near Carpenter’s Knob — hence the creature’s name — mysteriously stopped decades ago.

Then, Timothy Peeler called 911.

Peeler, of Vanada Drive in Casar, is a self-proclaimed “South Mountain man.” He’s surrounded by woods and a ridge worthy of postcards.

It was June 5 when Peeler supposedly spotted a man-beast, upwards of 10 feet tall, that screeched like “a night bird” and grunted in the warm night air.

The creature sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.

Authorities were dispatched that morning around 3 a.m., according to a report from Cleveland County Communications.

Deputies filed a suspicious person report after investigating the incident.

Williams was surprised to hear of the recent sighting. It had been years, he said, since Knobby’s supposed existence made headlines.

The sasquatch was reportedly sighted in the 70s by numerous people, including highschoolers, a banker and an elderly woman. One man said Knobby might have broken his goat’s neck.

“People came in from everywhere,” Williams said. “People contacting me from around the world.”

Sasquatch watch

What if you spot a Knobby-esque creature fiddling through your trash? Spotters say the walking legend isn’t aggressive, but police say to take caution anyway.

Cleveland County Sheriff’s Capt. Alan Norman said local Bigfoot sightings are few and far between, but “if there is a call, there's standard protocol to be dispatched to the area.”

“Deputies basically check the area for any unusual sightings,” he said. “A suspicious person would be treated in the same category.”

Dust orbs and how to spot them (video)

One of the most controversial things that any ghost hunter comes across is the subject of orbs. For some, orbs are evidence of spirit activity and they theorize that ghosts are made up entirely of energy and that an orb is the easiest form for said ghost manifest. Others say that orbs are nothing but a camera anomaly. Either airborne dust particles or pollen reflecting being illuminated by a camera flash or an IR light or insects buzzing about in the air. Whatever the case may be, both sides are passionate about what the believe and are adamant that their side is right.

I'm of the opinion that most (and note I say most) orbs are nothing more than some sort of airborne particulate. When I did my first investigation in the summer of 2000, it was of an abandoned cemetery in Madera. There were five of us walking around stirring up dirt and then taking pictures using the flash. Of course dust orbs were caught on film, but we didn't know better at the time and got so excited on how we were capturing so many ghosts (we postulated that since it was a cemetery that explained why there were so many ghosts). Only years later did I realize that these were dust orbs and felt rather stupid about it for believing they were something supernatural.

I receive some e-mails from time to time with a photo attached with the person asking me if they caught an orb. Usually they are easily explained as a dust orb. But when I respond to the sender, they usually are disappointed and sometimes even upset that I have determined their photo to be non paranormal in nature. Unfortunately it seems that some think that orbs are proof of ghosts exist given all the websites and groups out there that still think this to be the truth.

I've always tried to show people that orbs are nothing special, stating how even in a recently vacummed room there can still be dust in the air. I've always said that if anyone wants to see ghosts for them to smack the cushion of their couch once or twice and then snap a few photos with the flash on and they'll see what a dust orb looks like.

I found this video done by South Coast Paranormal, who is in Southern California, that is an excellent example of what a dust orb looks like.

As you can see, the person in the video hits the cushion several times and dust flies up and moves around the room. I'm of the belief that anyone who is interested in ghost hunting, or just wants to take photos of a haunted place view this video first. Though I doubt that this would end the debate on orbs as there are some groups and people out there that want evidence and to believe to bad that anything to them could be considered paranormal. Though hopefully with a bit of education that will change.

Man claims Bigfoot sighting in Arizona

Roger Peterson claims in 1981, while camping with four friends in the Arizona desert, he had an encounter with Bigfoot.

Click the image for the link to the video. Unfortunately

the poster didn't allow embedding and I had to resort to this.

It was at night when it happened and claims it to be a female of the species (how he came to this conclusion is never stated). Peterson then goes on to say another Bigfoot appeared in front of his friends and charged at them. In self defense, he fired his rifle at the creatures and apparently hit one of them as he heard one let out, as he puts it, a god awful scream that he remembers to this day.

Over the years he's come back to the area in hopes of seeing one of the creatures again. He recorded some video in 2001 and claims to have captured footage of a Bigfoot crouching behind some dry brush (around the 1:45 mark).

Roger then contacted Tom Biscardi, who is famous from a few years ago when he and two claimed to have found the carcass of a Bigfoot and had it stored in a freezer. Unfortunately this turned out to be a hoax as it was nothing more than a gorilla suit and some deer intestines, but that hasn't stopped Biscardi from trying to cash in on the Bigfoot craze.

I'm sure Peterson has good intentions, but the fact that he turned to Tom Biscardi to "help" him find Bigfoot has me thinking hoax. I'm surprised people still turn to him when they there has been so much in the crypto world that this guy isn't to be trusted. Or perhaps Peterson hasn't seen Bigfoot at all and is just using Biscardi to help him pull one over on people.

Still the debate will go on until a viable piece of evidence is produced and blurry video is definitely not that.