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.

Witness reports seeing two disc shaped craft near Los Banos

In late December of 2002, two witnesses (a mother and her son) were traveling north on Interstate 5 and were near the town of Los Banos. It was late afternoon, about 4:30, and the sun was begining to set. The car was traveling about 40 mph when the mother (who was the driver) noticed two disc shaped craft in the air several miles ahead of her on the east side of the highway.

The witness estimated them to be between 500 and 600 feet off the ground. The witness describes them as fading in and out as she drove closer to them. She sped up to about 60 mph as she got nearer to them, but by this time they were in the early shade of the foot hills as she describes it. As the witness describes it one disc would slowly get brighter and brighter and then they would fade back to the metalic look while the other would would start to get brighter, only to repeat the pattern over and over.

At that point the witness woke her son up who had been sleeping at the time to see if he could see the craft. He replied he did and she asked him to look closer to see if they were somehow tethered to the ground or something. He said they weren't and then went back to sleep, apparently uninterested in what was going on.

As they passed the craft, the witness soon forgot about them and continued driving. It was only until later she remembered about them as she heard someone else's story about a similiar sighting the following day. Unfortunately her son has never remembered the event.

Below is the original report and is unedited and is presented as it was reported to with MUFON. I am not saying that I have any knowledge of what the witness reported seeing and most UFO reports can usually be explained as something natural or manmade. If there is any findings to this case then I will update this report to reflect those.

2 discs hovering next to Highway 5

Close to Christmas in 2002 I and my 21 year old son (who was sleeping in the passenger seat) were traveling north on Highway 5 in California, coming up upon the turn off to Los Banos going west, still @ 40 miles from it. About 4:30 pm, still daylight. The sun was close to setting at that time and we were behind a set of low foot hills about 100-400 feet high on the west of the freeway. When I first spotted the discs a couple of miles ahead of me they were in the sunshine. My mind tried to match what I was seeing with any other known outlines of flying vehicles and they did not match anything I could come up with. I was amazed and curious as to why no one was stopping to look at them.

I spotted 2 discs hovering above the highway on the east side, very close to the road, between 500-600 ft above. After about a minute of viewing them, I realized they were flying discs,as they did not look like any other thing I could recognize. For several miles I watched them taking turns fading in and out, continuing until I was going to drive right under them. By the time I reached them at 65 miles an hour both the roadway and the discs were in the early shade of the foot hills. Higher than that, it was still in sunlight. There was plenty of bright daylight left to see the whole scene. When I say brightening I mean that the whole disc got slowly brighter - not a single light fixture - and then the whole disc faded to the metalic look and the other one then lit up- they did not get too bright to look at - it was like they were on a reostat and it was slowly being turned on to about halfway. They were never really bright as if the sun was hitting them as when I first spotted them but more faded than that. I could not see that they were fading and lighting up until the shadow of the hills covered them. I awakened my son and asked if he saw them - which he did - and told him to look closely as we drove by and see if they were in any way teathered. He had good eyesight and unequivically said no, they were not teathered. He immediately went back to sleep and as soon as we had passed the spot I also completely forgot about them, until much later. The only reason I remembered is because I heard someone elses story about a similar happening to her the next day after I got to my destination. All of a sudden I realized that we had also seen that type of sighting only with 2 discs, one above the other and the lower one was slightly ahead of the other towards the road (but not directly over the road. The two were pretty much strattling each other) My son has never remembered the event.

I don 't know if you want suppositions but I believe the fading in and out was sending out magnetic waves of forgetfulness so people kept right on driving instead of actually stopping along the freeway to gawk.

The early shadow of the foothills just highlighted the brightening and fading of the discs. Not one other car on the freeway even slowed down to look at them.

A case of misidentification

On early Saturday morning, this past weekend, I was driving home from a kareoke birthday party at Tokyo Garden. It was about 2:30 am and I was heading north on Hwy. 99 and took the Ave. 7 off ramp as I always do when I saw a strange light darting about to the north of me. Curious I drove in the direction of the lights. What I saw was three bright lights flying low over a bunch of grapes. The object(s) would swoop down and then dart back up and then disappear only to reappear several minutes later and repeat the process all over again. At this point I had an idea of what was going on, but I wanted to get closer to be sure. As I got within a mile of the craft, I saw it swoop back up and turn off it's lights and at that point I saw the familiar green and red marker lights. I rolled down my windows and heard the engine. Yep, it was a cropduster. I was a bit disappointed and then headed home.

Later that day (i.e. when I woke up), I had recieved an e-mail from a Peter saying he had a very strange encounter last night 2.25am on Highway 99 around the Ave. 9 junction. Realizing he had seen the very same thing I did, I shot him back an e-mail describing what I had seen and asked him if this is what he had seen and then described how it was just a crop duster. He replied back that he thought it was a crop duster but wasn't really sure. This started me wondering how many other people that night might have confused the crop duster for some sort of alien craft or top secret military project buzzing a Madera County farmland at 2:30 in the morning. It reminded me of all the Interstate 5 sightings between Coalinga and Kettleman City that I had reported on in the past. Same type of object seen, three bright lights flying low over the highway then swooping up only to go through the motions again. Most sightings were also during the same time of night (late night or early morning) and most occur during early summer, as was the case of this sighting.

When I had first started investigating these lights I had discounted the crop duster theory. My reasoning was that June was too late to dust for crops and my evidence for this was that we never dusted that late on my family's vineyard. Only by researching on this did I realize that crops were sprayed this late into the year and also spraying for the West Nile virus was done this way. The reasoning for spraying at night as that the chemicals wouldn't evaporate as quickly during the day and therefor less needed to be applied to have the same effect.

Now I'm not saying that all UFO nighttime sightings are crop dusters, but I am wondering how many people who aren't familiar with crop dusting and their night flying techniques may mistake them for UFO's. I'm pretty certain now that most of the sightings over the years on Interstate 5 were crop dusters (well except for that one incident with the strobing red lights) that passerbys mistaken either for an alien space craft with nothing better to do than buzzing cows in the middle of the night or some super secret military aircraft that is making itself not so super secret by revealing itself to the public. Hopefully this opinion piece will help those that may have misidentified plane lights as a UFO, realizing that even the pro's sometimes get it wrong.