World Record Female Cyborg, Dwayne "The Bigfoot" Johnson, Strange Irish Hum, Weeping Statue and More Mysterious News Briefly

A roundup of mysterious, paranormal and strange news stories from the past week.

Michael Herrera, the former US Marine who testified under oath in front of the US Congress that he had found a 300-foot disc-shaped aircraft in the jungles of Indonesia but was unable to inspect it because he was chased away by armed special forces personnel, now claims he has visited a secret government “black site” whose purpose is to "shoot down" extraterrestrial craft. Those of us who have been covering the Tic Tac UFO stories for years wonder who decides which UAPs to shoot down and what criteria is used.

Bad news for Harvard physics professor and interstellar comet researcher Avi Loeb as the official report on the mysterious small round 'spherules' his team recovered from the Pacific Ocean reveals they were not from an interstellar meteor but are merely coal ash particles from industrial activity – they all contain beryllium, lanthanum, uranium and nickel from the burning of coal and the study found no other elements that were never seen before, as Loeb claimed they would find. It’s still impressive that we can now dredge the ocean floor and identify particles of coal ash amidst all the sand, boat wreckage and fish poop.

Believers are flocking to a church in El Canal in the Mexican state of Colima to see what appears to be a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary whose eyes some witnesses claim turn red as the alleged tears flow down her face in a so-called ‘miracle’ of the type which the Catholic Church has long been hesitant to endorse as such - Professor Luigi Garlaschelli, an Italian researcher who has worked to debunk other religious phenomena like the Shroud of Turin, explains that some hollow statues can absorb water based on their materials and a minute crack in the glaze around the eyes can cause it to leak out and make it look like the statue is crying. Does the same thing happen if one gets too many Botox treatments?

Jeff Stanley and his mother Suzy were hunting for grouse on the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota when they claim they spotted what they described as a massive 8-foot-tall Bigfoot which looked like a hairy version of actor Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson – they told the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO) they went to the spot where the Bigfoot was standing and it smelled like rotten vegetation, all of which prompted Bigfoot researcher Matt Moneymaker to comment: “I am inclined to think they saw a real Bigfoot. There are Bigfoots in this vicinity. I've heard them with my own ears”. Based on this, we’d rather smell what the Rock is cooking than what this Bigfoot may have been eating.

While we’re on the subject of Bigfoot, a report on the finding of Bigfoot footprints and a stick structure thought to have been built by one was updated by British cryptozoologist Andy McGrath who said the photos were leaked by a movie crew which was “filming a comedy segment" about an mythical wildman said to reside on Caerphilly Mountain, and the stick structure was also built by them as a funny Bigfoot  house – he’s upset that the photos were leaked along with the fake story. The whole thing sounds like a comedy movie that could star Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as both the Bigfoot and the researcher.

On a recent podcast, Dr. Steven Greer, UFO researcher, retired physician and founder of the Center for the Study of Extraterrestrial Intelligence (CSETI) and the Disclosure Project, cast doubt on the probability of humans and extraterrestrials being able to mate via normal reproduction, even if they have similar physical bodies, because he claims there have been controversial classified experiments involving the creation of a hybrid human and extraterrestrial DNA; he also claimed there have been experiments creating a human-machine conscious interface designed to take over a spaceship. So, we won’t see a Mr. Spock no matter how hard wannabe Captain Kirks chase after extraterrestrial females.

Mysterious hums are at best annoying but they can be downright terrifying when the government, businesses nor the military can explain them, which seems to be the case in the County Tyrone town of Omagh in Ireland where residents have been subjected to “a persistent buzz or hum" that is different than the usual traffic or construction sounds – while it seems to happen most often between 10 pm and  midnight, the source has baffled local officials and frustrated sleep-disturbed residents, who have suggested it could be power lines, air conditioners and even flying saucers. If a flying saucer is making that kind of noise, it’s probably looking for a repair shop.

The Zoo Theory surmises that aliens are secretly watching Earth like a human zoo, but Dr. Kenneth Ohm, a retired professor at Washburn University in Kansas, wants to start his own version on the Moon – he plans to have his DNA sent to the Moon where future generations might someday clone it and put him in an "intergalactic zoo" for humans and even extraterrestrials to observe him. To be on the safe side, he should make sure they include a sign that reads: “Please feed the humans.”

Miroslav Bárta, director of the Czech Institute of Egyptology's research at Abúsír, says Egyptologists have discovered a 2,500-year-old tomb just south of Cairo containing numerous magical sayings covering the entrance which were there to ward off snake bites and recruit serpents to guard the tomb, which belonged to Džehutiemhat, a royal scribe whose sarcophagus and remains were still there even though the tomb had been robbed. If we can get a translation of those magic sayings, it could eliminates the need for burglar alarms and security guards.

Outgoing head of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick says he’s ready to move on from his 18-month assignment and he still hopes that we’ll someday prove that UFOs belong to aliens because the alternative is worse – “then what we’re finding is evidence of other people doing stuff in our backyard, and that’s not good.” Statements like that made Kirkpatrick unpopular among UFO researchers, but at least he’s holding hearings and giving US politicians something more interesting to fight about.

From the “Leave it to the kids” file comes a new study in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science which found that large language models like ChatGPT may have a lot of applications in business and science, but when it comes to basic problem-solving tasks testing the ability to innovate, young children ages three to seven performed far better – the researchers suggest this is because ChatGPT and its counterparts rely on imitation while the children use innovation. Get ready for kids to ask for a massive increase in allowances or they’ll stop protecting us from ChatGPT.

Longtime Loch Ness monster hunter Steve Feltham says his 32 years of searching for Nessie has convinced him that the mythical beast might actually be a Wels catfish – a massive species of catfish brought over from Europe that can grow up to 10 feet long, weigh up to 440 pounds, live 100 years and possesses a huge mouth that could swallow small children. That sounds a little scary, but who wants to travel to Scotland to search for something you can see at home on a plate with hush puppies, coleslaw and fries?  

A British woman who wishes to remain anonymous took photos of UFOs over her home in Stockport, one which looked to her like a metallic triangle with a hole in the center which changed shapes while “darting around the sky” while the other reminded her of the famous Tic Tac UFO which she described as “cool” as it “kept getting brighter then disappearing and coming back” – former UK government UFO researcher Nick Pope reviewed the photos and thought they were “fascinating” but couldn’t identify either UAP, while  British UFO researcher Philip Mantle said they could be drones or something else fairly explainable. Wasn’t UFO research a lot more fun before drones?

As if residents of Maui didn’t have enough to worry about this year with the wildfires, now they have a bubble-gum pink pond at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge which scientists are warning is dangerous to drink from or swim in – they think drought conditions caused the pond to be overtaken by halobacteria, a type of single-celled organism that thrive in water with high levels of salt, and the Kealia Pond outlet area is currently at more than 70 parts per thousand or twice the salinity of seawater. The pink water may be dangerous, but it’s not enough to turn the residents against Barbie.

The Royal Canadian Mint released a new coin commemorating the 1970 ‘Duncan Incident’ which occurred on New Year's Day 1970 when a nurse working at the Cowichan District Hospital saw a glowing flying saucer hovering outside a patient's window and the nurse claimed two aliens were staring out of their window at her – it looks like the mint may have to issue a recall because a man who lived in the area at the time has come forward and admitted that the Duncan Incident was actually a "party trick"  made by his friends from a wooden cross with candles on each end and a dry-cleaning bag draped over it that was inflated with hot air so it floated into the air past the hospital next door. Correcting this is going to cost the mint a mint.

The High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in Alaska has long been suspected of conducting secret atmospheric experiments but this one they’re talking about – a new research program going on now will use high-frequency radio transmissions to create an artificial aurora in the ionosphere between 30 and 350 miles above the Earth’s surface whose red or green glow will be visible up to 300 miles from the installation in Gakona, Alaska. The scientists hope people will now quit harping on them for being so secretive.

Anastasia Synn, a biohacker, magician and widow of the geek magician Amazing Johnathan, is now recognized officially by Guinness as the world’s most technological cyborg as she has 52 chips and devices implanted in her body which allow her to do things like open locks, turn on computers, locate metal objects, operate her phone, perform magic tricks, and make her hand vibrate – one is the largest magnet ever implanted into a person. That one probably allows her to find refrigerators.

On a program on the Brazilian channel Paranormal Experience, two members of the Amazonian Huni Kuin or Cashinahua tribe were shown depictions of typical grey aliens with big heads and large ayes, and the men said these were the Mankunawabu, “an entity that resides underground and transforms into an ant, which we call “Una” – the Hopi people of Arizona in North America also talk about the "ant people" who came from the stars and live in an underground world, while the Zulu people of South Africa tell about the Mantindane who also look like gray aliens. Perhaps we should stop waiting for disclosure from governments and start listening to the indigenous people instead.

A study by researchers from the University of Cambridge shows how bouncing comets traveling at very slow speeds of less than 33,000 miles per hour have the ability to carry organic material safely between planets in close orbits, and the bouncing comets could deliver those organic molecules intact to the other planets where they would start life, thus proving the theory of panspermia. We saw The Bouncing Comets open for Jefferson Starship.

The Department of the Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office and the United States Space Force jointly announced the scheduled launch of the seventh mission of the mysterious X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on December 7 using a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket – the agencies revealed the normally secretive uncrewed reusable spaceplane will reach “new orbital regimes”, experiment with “future space domain awareness technologies” and investigate the radiation effects on materials provided by NASA. And if you believe that’s all, Space Force also has some secret real estate for sale on the Moon.

Some people pull their hair out worrying about ghosts, but a woman in Wimborne Minster, in Dorset, England, is worried that a ghost was pulling her hair out after a night vision video showed her hair move and her surprised reaction to it while on her first ever ghost hunting visit at an 18th century Georgian manor house where the rest of her group also heard loud bangs and the voices of children in the empty house. Those bald guys in the Dorset unemployment line are probably out-of-work ghost hunters.

In defense of Harvard physics professor and interstellar UFO hunter Avi Loeb (see other story above), the scientist provided valuable research to people across New England who heard an unexplained loud sound on October 20th which lasted for an unbelievable 12 seconds while shaking homes and breaking windows – Loeb used using a massive, ultra-sensitive microphone installed at Harvard and determined that the sound was moving at 1,115 feet per second, pointing to the likely source being an exploding mile-wide meteor during the fall Orionid shower over New England at the time of the strange sound. Keep at it, Avi – you’ll find your alien spaceship eventually.

Meanwhile, scientists in northern Minnesota are baffled by a burst of light and thunderous boom which “shook windows, walls and rattled the dishes" on November 13th at around 6:40 pm and was suspected to be a meteor, but NASA experts who analyzed a video of the event say the light was too horizontal to be a meteor and it was not picked up on weather radar or satellite lightning detection, even though the explosion sound was heard for a range of 50 miles. If it sounded like ‘boom shaka lacka lacka’, Sly and the Family Stone suggest they need to be looking higher.

Biologist Aslak Kappel Hansen of the Natural History Museum of Denmark at the University of Copenhagen discovered a new beetle specimen hidden in an old museum collection and named it Loncovilius carlsbergi after the beer brand Carlsberg because the male insect’s sex organ resembles a beer bottle opener. He may not be a hit with the ladybugs but he’s always invited to parties.

In October of 2022, telescopes picked up a gamma-ray burst of high energy from a supernova that exploded 1.9 billion light-years from Earth that was considered to be the brightest of all time, but now researchers say it was also the most dangerous because it caused massive damage to Earth’s ozone layer during the few minutes it bombarded it – if the supernova had been just a little closer, Pietro Ubertini, an astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome, says “it would be a catastrophe.” Maybe all those satellites Elon Musk is putting into orbit will come in handy for something after all.