Famous crystal skull to make stop in Fresno

One of the crystal skulls (no, not the one from the Indian Jones movie) will be making a stop in Fresno in a few weeks on Saturday, Feb. 5 courtesy of the Fresno Lightworkers Foundation.

From Max's page:

There are 13 crystal skulls known in the world at this time. Max is the largest, weighing 18 pounds. Many, including the British Museum, consider him to be one of the rarest artifacts ever found on the planet. Estimated to be at least 10,000 years old, Max was found in a tomb in St. Augustine, Guatemala, between 1924 and 1926 and was used by the Mayan priests for healing and prayer.

After studying in India, Norbu Chen, a powerful healer of the Tibetan sect of Red Hat Lamas, traveled to Guatemala where he studied with the Mayan priests. It was here he came into the presence of MAX. Chen was given this precious artifact when he left the Mayans so he could use it in his journey as a healer.

JoAnn Parks met the Lama through their family medical doctor when her twelve-year-old daughter was dying of bone cancer. JoAnn ended up working for the Lama for many years. Before Norbu died, he gave the cherished crystal skull to her with no explanation but that someday they would know what the crystal skull was all about. After many years, communication from the skull told JoAnn of his name and his desire to assist humanity by direct experience. Now JoAnn travels with MAX across the country providing this experience to all who are called.

Unfortunately I just found out that the lecture is now completely booked. I will be attending, so I will post an article with my thoughts on seeing Max.

UFO seen over Clovis in April of 2009

Clovis Rec Center, the site of a 2009 UFO sighting

Image Courtesy of Google Street View

I was recently talking to a friend (whose name I won't reveal to keep their privacy) recently and the subject of UFOs came up. Turns out they had a sighting in Clovis on April 1st of 2009. I asked them to write something in their own words and this is what they sent to me.

I can understand why some may not believe my story when they see the date of this post, but I promise you, this entry is completely real.

The story begins with me and my boyfriend (at the time) spending our last day together. He picked me up around 19:35 so that we could drive around town and enjoy each others' presence. While we were driving North on Clovis Ave, between Dakota and Ashlan Ave, we spotted these strange flying objects (at 19:37) moving east. It took about 2 minutes for them to be right in front of our view from when we first spotted them. Eight to ten bright, and silent objects flying surprisingly fast, and rapidly flashing white lights (that changed colors to red, purple, blue, yellow, and green). They were in a 4-2-4 formation; 4 on top, 2 in the middle and 4 on the bottom. We immediately pulled over in the parking lot of the Clovis Recreation Center. We sat there for 7 minutes, staring in awe. We failed to have any type of media equipment suitable for capturing the moments that were happening. The objects then, 2 at a time, began to separate and flew faster than the rest (going towards the east hills/mountains). At that same time, we noticed an airplane flying in the sky. We could quickly tell, due to the red and green slow flashing lights and the noise it made. After, we drove towards the hills/mountains to try to catch up to them. We were not fast enough, but we did see them disappear.

I have no reason to doubt this person's account, I know them and trust their word completely. So the question has to be asked, what did they see? The multi-changing lights couldn't be a normal aircraft. Plus they noticed a conventional aircraft in the sky and had something to compare it to. It was definitely something that wasn't ordinary, but if it was of this planet or from another that isn't for me to say. Hopefully by posting this others that have seen the object will read this and they can add to the story.

Could a masked crime fighter be walking the streets of Fresno at night?

A recent news report on ABC 30 (which you can find here) about a masked crime fighter in Seattle being held at gunpoint after trying to stop a fight left me wondering if someone similar is doing the same thing in the Fresno area (the masked crime fighter part, lots of people get held up at gunpoint here I imagine). Fresno has it's fair share of crime, so what if we had our very own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night, keeping crime at bay?

At first I thought this was just some geek who took comic books way too seriously. But it turns out that there is a lose knit group of masked crime fighters throughout the country. If you go to the site superheroesanonymous.com you can how serious this actually is. And there are different types of "masks" (to borrow the term from Watchmen) out there. Some just do charitable work at places such as food banks, homeless shelters, etc. Then there are the those that actually do patrols (sometimes in groups, but the norm seems to be solo) and try to deter crime from happening. Usually this involves patrolling neighborhoods with a high rate of crime but I've seen accounts of superheroes trying to protect public property during the Oakland riots that happened last year.

But the main goal of SA is to not give one the idea that they can be Batman or Iron Man, but to inspire regular people to do community service in their areas. This can be anything from donating time at a homeless shelter or hospital to joining the local police volunteer department (which I am thinking of doing). So to answer the question I posed at the beginning of this article, does Fresno have it's own masked crime fighter walking the streets at night? Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me. But I think this city would be better off if we all volunteered a bit of our time. Though the geek/nerd in me wants to form my own version of The Avengers. If so, I call dibs on Iron Man.

Is the end of the world near?

Birds, similar to this one were found dead by the thousands

in Little Rock, AR as a wave of strange animal deaths spread

across the world.

With the rash of mass animal deaths in the news recently I felt compelled to write something up on it and share my opinions on what’s going on.

It all started last week when over 100,000 dead fish had been found washed up on a 20 mile stretch of the Arkansas river. The dead fish in question were all of a single species called the drum fish and most weighed about one or two pounds. Experts said that disease was most likely the cause but officials were sent in to investigate anyways. But if it was a toxin in the water the entire ecosystem of the river would have been affected, not just one species of fish.

But it gets weirder. The following day (Dec. 31) thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky over Little Rock, only 125 miles away. Straight out of a scene from a horror movie, thousands of birds littered the Little Rock area and state wildlife employees in hazmat suits were sent in to clean up and access the situation. And Little Rock wasn’t the only southern town to be hit bit this strange phenomena. Nearly 500 blackbirds were found dead near the Louisiana community of Labarre that same week.

High winds and tornadoes did hit Arkansas on New Years eve and state officials believe this is the cause of the strange incidents. Unfortunately that’s not the end of the occurences and other spots all over the world started witnessing the same thing. In Chili over 1,500 endangered birds, Sooty Shearwater, were found dead off the coast. It appeared they had fell out of the sky in a similar way that the Little Rock blackbirds did. Granted there was a large earthquake off the coast of Chile recently, but the shear coincidences just seem to strange to ignore.

And just when you thought the bibilical plagues ended, Sweden had to get in the mix. A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping earlier this week. Necropsies were done on several birds and it was said they died due to “sudden, hard external blows”.

Not wanting to be outdone by the inventors of Ikea, over two million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, mostly a species called the spot fish and these were all juvenile about 3-6 inches in length. Officials say this isn’t the first time there’s been a killing. Both in 1976 and 1980 large winter kills of spot fish have occurred.

So what the hell is going on? With the Mayan Calendar ending on Dec. 21, 2012 which, as some conspiracy theorists want you to believe, could these be signs that Armageddon is approaching? Or are these just a bunch of coincidences, fueled by the paranoia of conspiracy theorists? I wish I knew. Part of me wants to chalk it up to just nature taking it’s course, but then at the same time it seems so unnatural that there are these large amounts of animals dying. Sure one seems a little strange, but when you have six in the United States alone it just seems pretty damn weird.

Personally I like a friend of mine, Travis Sheridan, opinion on what happened. The dead birds were nothing more than God playing Angry Birds against the Wal-Mart HQ in Arkansas due to the public relations fiasco that resulted in the Wal-Mart’s Fighting Hunger campaign here in Fresno.

Sorces: CNN & Daily Mail

Is the end of the world near?

Birds, similar to this one were found dead by the thousands

in Little Rock, AR as a wave of strange animal deaths spread

across the world.

With the rash of mass animal deaths in the news recently I felt compelled to write something up on it and share my opinions on what’s going on.

It all started last week when over 100,000 dead fish had been found washed up on a 20 mile stretch of the Arkansas river. The dead fish in question were all of a single species called the drum fish and most weighed about one or two pounds. Experts said that disease was most likely the cause but officials were sent in to investigate anyways. But if it was a toxin in the water the entire ecosystem of the river would have been affected, not just one species of fish.

But it gets weirder. The following day (Dec. 31) thousands of blackbirds fell from the sky over Little Rock, only 125 miles away. Straight out of a scene from a horror movie, thousands of birds littered the Little Rock area and state wildlife employees in hazmat suits were sent in to clean up and access the situation. And Little Rock wasn’t the only southern town to be hit bit this strange phenomena. Nearly 500 blackbirds were found dead near the Louisiana community of Labarre that same week.

High winds and tornadoes did hit Arkansas on New Years eve and state officials believe this is the cause of the strange incidents. Unfortunately that’s not the end of the occurences and other spots all over the world started witnessing the same thing. In Chili over 1,500 endangered birds, Sooty Shearwater, were found dead off the coast. It appeared they had fell out of the sky in a similar way that the Little Rock blackbirds did. Granted there was a large earthquake off the coast of Chile recently, but the shear coincidences just seem to strange to ignore.

And just when you thought the bibilical plagues ended, Sweden had to get in the mix. A large number of dead birds were found in the city of Falkoping earlier this week. Necropsies were done on several birds and it was said they died due to “sudden, hard external blows”.

Not wanting to be outdone by the inventors of Ikea, over two million fish were found dead in the Chesapeake Bay area, mostly a species called the spot fish and these were all juvenile about 3-6 inches in length. Officials say this isn’t the first time there’s been a killing. Both in 1976 and 1980 large winter kills of spot fish have occurred.

So what the hell is going on? With the Mayan Calendar ending on Dec. 21, 2012 which, as some conspiracy theorists want you to believe, could these be signs that Armageddon is approaching? Or are these just a bunch of coincidences, fueled by the paranoia of conspiracy theorists? I wish I knew. Part of me wants to chalk it up to just nature taking it’s course, but then at the same time it seems so unnatural that there are these large amounts of animals dying. Sure one seems a little strange, but when you have six in the United States alone it just seems pretty damn weird.

Personally I like a friend of mine, Travis Sheridan, opinion on what happened. The dead birds were nothing more than God playing Angry Birds against the Wal-Mart HQ in Arkansas due to the public relations fiasco that resulted in the Wal-Mart’s Fighting Hunger campaign here in Fresno.

Sorces: CNN & Daily Mail

Top 10 strangest things to happen in Fresno for 2010

It’s hard to believe that 2010 is almost over. This year saw some good things for Weird Fresno. I’m now a featured writer over at Fresno Famous and I've also started a forum for people to share their stories with others. Going back through all the posts I did over the year, I was able to trim down the 165 posts (this one will make it 166) to what I felt was the top ten posts of the year.

Number 10 - Another strange creature sighted at Millerton Lake

I've done a few posts now on Millerton Lake and the strange things that people have seen in the water. This one story was interesting to me due to the fact I got a phone call from someone who had searched strange creature sightings in Millerton Lake on Google and my site was the first thing that came up. Out of all the e-mails I get, weird things seen at Millerton Lake are the most common. One has to wonder what's lurking under the water's surface.

Original post can be found here.

Number 9 - Strange triangular shaped craft seen over Fresno

Usually I ignore most UFO videos on YouTube, but this one grabbed my attention. To this day I still don't know what it is. But there's been some strange things in the skies above Fresno over the past year.

Original post can be found here.

Number 8 - Was the Chupacabra seen in a Bakersfield park?

It wouldn’t be a Top Ten post without at least one post of the unofficial mascot for Weird Fresno. This time the sighting was in a Bakersfield park and was complete with the grainy cell phone camera image. Most likely this was yet another animal with mange, but for whatever reason they keep being misidentified as chupacabra. One has to wonder how many sightings will occur in 2011?

Original post can be found here.

Number 7 - KMPH 26 reports UFOs seen in Fresno over the Fourth of July weekend

Like I mentioned earlier, some strange things have been seen in the Fresno skies over the past year and there was some crazy UFO stuff going on over the 4th of July weekend in the Fresno area. Several sightings occured, including a large cigar shaped craft flying over a house in Clovis. KMPH 26 even did a small news piece on the sightings.

Original post can be found here.

Number 6 - ABC 30 reports Bigfoot sightings on the rise in Fresno County

Like UFOs, Bigfoot sightings were also on the rise in the Fresno County area this year. What surprised me about this was that the reporter actually took the subject matter seriously. Usually with anything paranormal they always try to make jokes about it, add the X Files theme (happened to me once) or just make the people in the article look like kooks. ABC 30 was different. Granted they didn’t show any conclusive evidence, but still this was better than what other news stations have done. I hope they take note for the next time they do something.

Original post can be found here.

Number 5 - Did a UFO crash near Fresno over the weekend?

This has to be one of the strangest stories of the entire year. A UFO was reported to have crashed east of Fresno in the foothills and was military in origin. Jeffery Gonzalez of the Sanger Paranormal Society claims to have video taped the craft, but it’s hard to really make anything out. Still this story was of interest as it made news on several national paranormal sites. Unfortunately nothing else was ever reported on this story.

Original post can be found here.

Number 4 - Return to Snake Road

This one was interesting just because of what I was unable to do. Bored one night, I decided to head out towards Sanger with a fully charged video camera in tow. I’m on the fence about the story, but wanted to shoot some video to show what the area was like. After a 30 minute drive, I arrived and parked my car on the side of the road, grabbed my camera and started to walk. But when I turned on my camera I was surprised to find out that I only had about five minutes left on the battery (normally it can shoot for 90 minutes or so). So I hastily shot some video on the side of the road (which didn’t come out right as it was too dark) and then jumped back in the car and shot some video driving down the road.

Original post can be found here.

Number 3 -The return to the Fright Night Scream Park

Granted this one isn’t paranormal in nature, but it shows that even I can still get scared. Last year I had done some great promo work with the Scream Park and was asked to do it again this year. The idea I had was to have someone there call the Weird Fresno hotline and goad me into coming back. Problem was they were so busy setting up that when I arrived to shoot the video for the blog post, no one had called. But I had worked out something where I would get a few phone calls and then I would post the video a bit later then I planned.

A few days passed when I received a phone call. I let it go to voice mail (as I always do) and then listened to the message. It sounded nothing like the person who was supposed to call me and didn’t mention anything about the park and figured it was someone else. But before I could get a chance to call them back, they started calling my phone constantly. At work, at home, late at night. And the messages were just weird. The person kept saying they had something to show me, that they wanted to be my best friend and they loved me. Having my fair share of psychos calling me, I got a bit nervous and if you follow either @weirdfresno or my personal twitter feed you would know this. My tweets got the attention of the person who ran their twitter feed and they contacted me and said it wasn’t them, which terrified me even more. The calls continued and finally I started to freak out even more. Finally I received a message via twitter from the park saying it was them all along. I’m to assume it was someone else, as I didn’t recognize the voice. Luckily I was able to work in into the post even though I was expecting something entirely different. But needless to say I fell victim to my own promotion.

Original post can be found here.

Number 2 - Strange things going on at Lost Lake

This was one of my favorites of the year because we have two different types of sightings here. One was the ghost of a small child and the other was of a strange creature. Even more interesting is both accounts are from the same witness, but at different locations in the park. Both were definitely weird and plans to visit the park are in the works for 2011.

Original post can be found here.

Number 1 - Update on video of strange creatures captured on Fresno CCTV

and

SyFy channel show airs strange video shot in Fresno

These two go together in that they are related in the fact the first post then warranted the second one. One of my first posts was done about this strange video of these “creatures” that someone had captured on a CCTV video. About a year later I was able to find more video, this time showing the person’s house and yard and putting the size of the creatures into perspective. If you watch the video you and compare the size of the tree to the creatures you will see they can’t be more than 18 to 24 inches tall.

What’s even better is the second post put me in touch with a show on the SyFy network. The show was called Fact or Fiction and they try to either prove or debunk supposed paranormal related videos on the internet and had come across the one above. Through Google they had found my site and called me with a few questions. Unfortunately they didn’t offer me a job, but after watching them splicing some footage shot at Woodward Park and saying it was near the person’s house (which it’s not), I wasn’t too upset over this.

Original posts can be found here and here.

So there you have it, the top ten strangest things to happen in around the Fresno area for 2010. With the new year approaching us, that means that 2012 is that much closer (and the end of the world as some people want you to think). Who knows what crazy shit will happen in 2011. All I know is that whatever it is, you'll read about it here.

Santa Claus is real. And I have proof.

I’m sure most of us at one time or another believed in Santa Claus. It was part of growing up, writing that letter to Santa and “trying” to be good. Then on Christmas Eve we put a plate of cookies and milk out for dear old St. Nick as a way of thanking him for visiting and (hopefully) leaving us all the toys we asked for. Cue the next morning and we would run to the living room and see a pile of presents under the tree. Being good had paid off this year for little Billy.

But as we grew older we found out the truth. That Santa wasn’t real, that there was no workshop at the North Pole staffed by elves (and Will Ferrell). Turns out it was all our parents doing, they were the one who bought all the gifts and ate the cookies. Santa Claus was nothing more than a make believe story. Or is he? I say he is real. And I have proof.

Photo courtesy of Vanessa Pike-Russel from Flickr.

See this photo? Of course you know who it is. But show this photo to any random person on the street and ask them who it is and 9 times out of 10 they will say it is Santa Claus. If he isn’t real, than why do people recognize him?

The truth is Santa is real, in a way. No he doesn’t fly around the world on a sleigh pulled by reindeer. But the legend does have it’s roots in reality. Santa Claus is based off Saint Nicholas who was a Bishop in what is now modern day Turkey. He was known for secret gift giving, leaving coins in the shoes of the poor. There are also several similarities between the Norse god Odin and Santa Claus. Odin was associated with the Germanic holiday known as Yule. Odin would ride an eight legged horse named Sleipnir that was able to leap great distances. Modern day folklorists compare this to Santa’s reindeer. As Odin was riding his great horse, children would place their boots, filled with carrots, straw, or sugar, near the chimney for Sleipnir to eat. For those children that did this, Odin would reward them by placing gifts and candy into their boots. This tradition is still practiced today as seen in the hanging of stockings by the chimney in homes. In modern times, Saint Nicholas was merged with Father Christmas to create the character known as Santa Claus. Only in the 20th Century is where his now familiar appearance came into being.

So how does this make Santa Claus real? It’s just the history of him, nothing else right? Not necessarily. Let’s go back to again when you were a kid. Who bought all the toys, wrapped them, and hid them under the tree? Most likely your parents. And when they were kids their parents did the same thing. And some of you who are reading this now have children of your own and are doing the same thing. So in a sense we are Santa Claus in that we continue the traditions from one generation to the next.

So there you have it. Santa Claus is most definitely real.

We here at Weird Fresno want to wish everyone happy holidays. It’s hard to believe 2010 is almost over. Let’s hope 2011 is a good year for everyone.

Madera's New Hope Cemetery

New Hope Cemetery - Madera County

Photo by Michael Banti

I first heard the stories of New Hope Cemetery, located in southern Madera County, while I was still in high school. I was with my best friend Tom when a friend of his, who knew of our love of all things paranormal, told us about this cemetery that was located out in the country. At one time it had a church on the grounds, but it had burned down to the ground (all that was left was the steps sometime in the mid 1980's. Rumor had it that a group of Satanist were responsible for the fire as well as performing dark rituals in the cemetery grounds itself. Ever since then the cemetery was reported to be haunted.

Needless to say we were interested. The three of us jumped in Tom's car and headed towards the cemetery. Unfortunately as we got there, we were to chicken to get out of the car (oh to be 17 again) and just drove away. But that wasn't the end of it. A week or so later, Tom and I headed to the cemetery this time armed with baseball bats, knives, sharpened screwdrivers, wooden stakes, and at least a gallon of holy water. We didn't know what to expect, but we were ready (or so we thought). We got there and as we parked next to the cemetery's fence we saw a red glow coming from the cemetery. Freaked out someone had left a candle burning as part of some dark ritual or something, Tom put the car into reverse and started to leave. As he did this I noticed the red glow disappear. I told him to stop and the glow came back. Turns out it was the reflection of his tail lights on a polished gravestone. That's how freaked out we were.

That night, nothing of much interest happened. But a few years later we drove there one night bored as we had nothing going on. We were walking around like we always do when we started to hear what sounded like drums in the distance. Listening to them, they reminded me of the Native American drums I heard when I attended a pow wow a few years previous. I knew the area very well as my family has vineyards a few miles away and couldn't think of where they were coming from. But what I heard next still is fresh in my mind well over a decade later. I heard what sounded like two little girls laughing, almost laughing like they knew something we didn't. I looked at Tom and could tell he heard the same thing. Needless to say we got the hell out of there.

We visited the cemetery over the years, something always strange happening. One night I was driving by it on my way home when I saw a pair of headlights driving literally in the almond orchard next to the cemetery. As I got closer it started to flash it's lights at me. First were high beams, then regular, then completely off, only to repeat the pattern again. As curious as I was, I didn't find out what the hell was going on and got out of there quickly.

Near the steps of the church. You can see the cemetery in the

background. Photo by Michael Banti

I hadn't been by the cemetery in several years when a friend of mine needed a creepy place to shoot some video in Madera. I suggested the cemetery and we headed out there. When we got there I saw the strangest thing. Some guy in a trailer had set up camp on the remains of the church's foundation. Obviously we didn't stop, but I did shoot some video. You can find it and more info on that day here.

I wish I knew if the stories on the cemetery were true or just more urban legends told by teenagers that are bored one night. The only thing I know for certain is the church did burn down as there are records of it. But I haven't been able to find out anything on to what or who caused it. As for the little girls, I went back at a later date and checked to see if there were any young girls buried there (the graves were as recent as the 1990's and went back nearly a century), but couldn't find anything. But I know what I heard and so did Tom. So that begs the question. What did we hear that night?