Did a UFO crash near Fresno over the weekend?

There's been a few stories circulating over the last few days of a reported UFO crashing in the mountains north of Fresno and that it was some sort of top secret military craft and it was somehow linked to a rumored underground base underneath the Fresno Air National Guard base at Fresno Yosemite International airport that is said to connect to NORAD in Colorado.

Jeffrey Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Society and a state director for MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) was able to shoot some video of what he claims to be the mysterious craft in question. In the video below you can see several lights in a triangular formation with a flashing strobe in the middle (an anti-collision light found on most aircraft?). Unfortunately it's hard to make out what the object is and there's nothing in the shot to compare it too for size reference.

Not really sure what to make of on this story. There's no mention of it on the MUFON site nor it's sightings database. Nor was there any mention of it on the National UFO Reporting Center. There's only mention of this story on a few blogs of the story and a YouTube video.

I'm doing a bit of research myself on this story. I've already contacted the California State Director of MUFON to hear what they have to say. I have several contacts who have worked at the Air National Guard base over the years and I want to see if they have ever heard of any rumors of an underground base.

This is one of those stories that's too interesting to dismiss too quickly and I'll post updates as I get them.

Man killed while searching for ghost train

Photo courtesy of Vestman from Flickr

Tragedy befell a group of amateur ghost hunters in Statesville, North Carolina while investigating a haunted railroad bridge over the weekend.

On August 27, 1891 a train carrying passengers came off the tracks on the bridge, sending several rails cars and thirty people to their deaths. The town legend is that on the wreck's anniversary one can hear the sounds of screeching wheels and screaming passengers. Some also say a horrific crash can sometimes be heard.

On the night of the 119th anniversary between ten and twelve ghost were exploring the bridge around 3:00am when a real train, three engines and one car, turned the corner and approached the bridge. The ghost hunters, terrified, ran back away towards the town trying to make the 150 foot span to safety. All but two of the group made it. One woman was pushed out of the way by a Christopher Kaiser. She fell about thirty to fourty feet and at the time the article was written, her condition was unknown. Kaiser was struck and killed by the train. At the time of the incident the train was traveling at the regulation speed of 35-40mph and once the engineer saw the group sounded his horn and applied the brakes as quickly as he could.

As sad as this incident is, it seems to be a growing trend of people getting hurt or killed while searching for ghosts. There was a case in Toronto where a womman fell three stories to her death while exploring the building because she and a male friend had heard it was haunted and felt like exploring it at 2:00am. Others have gotten hurt when exploring a cemetery late at night (usually drunk), tripping and hitting their head on a tombstone.

I understand the curiousity that surrounds these legends and how people become interested in exploring them. Hell that's how I first started out when I would explore that haunted cemetery in Madera County when I was 17. But even then I had some common sense about me to be careful of where I was going and what I was doing. Hopefully others will learn from this tragedy and not put themselves into harms way.

Full Source: CNN News

Written by Phil Gast

The Last Exorcism reviewed.

The boys over at The DumbDrum recently asked me to attend a screening of The Last Exorcism last week. Happy to oblige as I was interested in the movie and had talked about it briefly. With a friend in tow, I arrived a few minutes before the movie started and sat apparently in the media row as both Rick Bently from The Fresno Bee and Mike Scott from CBS 47 were there.

I won't go into detail here on the review, you can read it here, but let me just say the movie was a complete disappointment. I should have known it wouldn't be that scary given the PG-13 rating, but with Eli Roth producing it I figured it had to be good. Not once was it scary, and I felt rather bored at times. Definitely go see something else, hell I imagine Twilight is better than this. But if you want to see a good horror movie that delivers what it promises go see Piranha 3D.

Strange lights seen in Los Padres National Forrest

While camping in the Los Padres National Forest in southern California, two campers witnessed something they could not explain. The witnesses stated that around 3:00 am they awoke to the moon setting behind a mountain ridge. As they noticed this they also saw a strange formation of lights in the southwestern sky. She then woke her boyfriend, who is the one who filed the report, so he could see them as well.

He describes them as one large bright light in the center with two smaller lights on either side and two smaller lights on the top and bottom. The lights were stationary for around ten minutes.

Both witnesses weren't able to explain what they saw, but thought it might have been some sort of rocket launch from a nearby military base.

MUFON report: CA, July 24, 2010 - Three lights in Southern Californina Sky

My girlfriend and I were camping at Upper OSO campground near the Santa Barbara Ranger Station in the Los Padres National Forest.

That night, we we had both commented on how bright the moon was, so that had been on our mind.

At approx 2:00am, my girlfriend awoke and noticed that she couldn't see the moon anymore.

While she was taking a few seconds to look for it and realize that the moon had gone out of our view behind a ridge, she also saw an interesting combination of lights in the sky Southeastern sky and woke me up to see it also.

There was one larger bright light in the center with two smaller and equal lights on either side and two slightly smaller lights on the top and bottom. The top and bottom lights were on a skewed axis, so all five lights together looked like an off angle cross (see second image).

All five lights were brighter than any star in the sky. To each side (horizontally) there were slightly expanding (like cones on each side) rays glowing outward. The lights appeared static, at least for the 10 or so minutes we looked at it. We got a few pictures with a decent point-and-shoot digital camera, but it was through our tent mesh.

We had no clue as to what they were, although I did mention to her that in that direction was Point Mugu and Point Hueneme. Since it wasn't moving relative to our line of sight, it's possible that it could have been moving away from us, i.e. some type of rocket launch.

Also, here is the link to the story where I first heard of this. On it are links to two photos the witnesses took and a video.

Is Fresno High's Royce Hall haunted?

There have been rumors for years that Fresno's Royce Hall, which was built in 1922, is haunted. Stories have been told over the years of a janitor that fell to his death sometime in the 1930's. There have been reports of hearing whistling in the lobby when there is no one else around as well as seeing a shadowy figure on the north stair case. People have also claimed to see the janitor at an upstairs window, staring down at them as they walk by.

There have also been reports of an uneasy presence being felt in the teacher's lounge while others have heard footsteps and the sound of keys jingling in the stage area late at night. As the witnesses walked further they heard whistling and the lights flickered. Having heard of the stories already, needless to say they quickly got the hell out of there.

It's hard to say if these stories are true or not, as it seems that almost any school with an auditorium seems to be haunted. Still, there are so many different stories that have the same elements there may be some truth behind it. Whatever the case may be, the stories definitely add to the folklore of Fresno.

Strange reptilian bird found in Mexico

Given that this video is entirely in Spanish and my understanding of the Spanish

language is lacking to say the least, I have no idea what the hell is really going on in this video. All I know is that some strange reptilian-like bird was found in Mexico and it looks mean. Surely this has to be some known species of bird, but I've never seen one with a mouth/beak like that. Can birds get mange like dogs? Maybe it's a flying Chupacabra sighting? Still, it's weird whatever in the hell it is.

Great Britain releases hundreds of UFO related files

Britain recently released hundreds of classified so-called "UFO files", one of which included a letter by Winston Churchill where he had ordered a cover up of a UFO encounter that occured during World War 2 between a UFO and a military pilot.

The National Archives are publishing the files that were investigated by the Ministry of Defense and they span over several decades and contain numerous witness accounts, sketches, and other classified documents.

One report from 1997 contains an account of several "sonic booms" and a mysterious plane crash in northern England. No wreckage was ever found in the area that it was reported to have crashed in.

One has to wonder how many classified documents the United States' Department of Defense has on record and if they ever will release any of them. Given the secretive nature of the government in the last several decades, I'm not so sure they ever will.

Full source: Yahoo! News

By: Maria Golovnina

Strange lights filmed over Bakersfield on 8/4/2010

Not really sure what to make of these lights that were filmed over Bakersfield lately. I'm going to rule out the typical Chinese Lantern sightings as the objects don't drift like the lanterns normally do, and the color of light is different than what the lanterns usually are.

I was reading about this on the Above Top Secret forums and someone suggested radio controlled airplanes. This could be a possibility, but given the distance from the camera to the lights, both the planes and source of lights would have to be rather large. I'm going to dismiss the idea of some sort of experimental military aircraft. The nearest air base would be Edwards, but I really doubt they would be testing experimental aircraft over Bakersfield (though a F-117 did crash nearby in the 1980's so I wouldn't rule it out completely). As of right now, unless more video surfaces, I'm going to have to say these are nothing more than radio controlled airplanes doing some night flying.