Martian Babies, Paranormal Holidays, Prophet of Doom's Predictions, UFO Wreckage Found and More Mysterious News Briefly

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

Dr. Jon Kosloski, the new director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), appeared at a hearing held by the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities and presented details about “some very anomalous objects” investigated by his office; one was “The Puerto Rico Object” recorded on video of in April 2013 by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, which was determined to be “likely a pair of balloons or sky lanterns”; an unresolved case submitted by a law enforcement officer in the western U.S. who saw a a “blacker than black” object the size of a car fly “10 to 100 times faster than any drone he’s ever seen before”; another unresolved UAP was reported by contractors at a U.S. government facility who saw a lit-up object the size of an airplane float stationary in the sky for 15 or 20 seconds before disappearing; after detailing more cases, Kosloski admitted that “It is important to underscore that to date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable evidence of extraterrestrial beings, activity or technology” and then appealed to young people to join his department anyway. Good luck with that.

A new study published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity by researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark had 113 adults visit a high-intensity haunted house attraction; their heart rates were monitored throughout the 51-minute event, blood samples were taken before and after, and the participants self-reported fear levels on a scale from 1 to 9; the study found that the fear and stress reduced the low-grade inflammation in 82% in those suffering from it, suggesting that even fake fright and stress can lessen immune responses by mobilizing inflammatory cells to prepare the immune system for potential trauma or infection. Does this mean paranormal investigators can write off their business as a medical expense?

Scientists monitoring animals living in the exclusion zone at Chernobyl around the nuclear power plant that exploded in 1986 found mutant black frogs that should be green but are still healthy and live as long as their green counterparts, even with the black skin caused by a melanin increase due to the radiation; while the study concludes that this is an indication that people may soon be able to live safely in the exclusion zone, study co-author Germán Orizaola of the University of Oviedo in Spain recommends that “It should be kept as a unique nature reserve” and studied to help determine the long-term effects of radiation. Meanwhile, the frogs are whistling “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” by Monty Python.

Astrobiologist Dirk Schulze-Makuch of the Technical University Berlin in Germany says the two U.S. Viking landers that descended to the surface of Mars in 1976 in order to perform experiments to test the Martian dirt for biosignatures that indicate the presence of life on Mars probably killed any microbial life they may have found by drowning them with water; scientists at the time assumed life on Mars would need water to live just like life on Earth, but this assumption has been refuted by later discoveries of Earth microbes that exist and thrive in very dry conditions just like Mars, so any amount of water given dry-living Martian microbes would drown them instead of hydrating them; Schulze-Makuch says new missions should “follow hydrated and hygroscopic compounds – salts – as a way to locate microbial life". What about the spice?

The Christmas holidays are just around the corner so here are a few ideas (not endorsements) for gifts for your paranormal-loving friends: Build-A-Bear has something called a Lovable Legends collection and this year it includes a cuddly stuffed Mothman, West Virginia's favorite winged cryptid wearing a shirt reading "The man. The moth. The legend", a Gargoyle and a Yeti; also from West Virginia is the Grafton Monster Christmas ornament which supports the annual Grafton Monster Festival; Bigfoot fans will be entertained for hours with the EUGY Sasquatch 3D Cardboard Kit Set puzzle that is “great for STEM concepts and craftable fun”; if you can’t decide on a cryptid, go for them all with Cryptid Mountain: The Board Game (from the Cryptid Mountain Miniature Golf shop in Morgantown,  West Virginia), which has players follow a path filled with cryptid encounters to reach a safe cabin. Those folks in West Virginia really love their monsters!

During an interview with Matthew Pines, a national security expert and Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute, Jesse Michels claimed that “(There was a treaty that) the greys could collect biological specimens, do medical experiments on our population and we wouldn't destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons in return – something like that” which he “heard from some pretty senior, and pretty impressive people in the Navy that that might be real and that genetic collection on the part of these greys just ended and they're extremely concerned that it ended; Michels was referring to an alleged 1954 agreement between former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and grey aliens and he speculates that the aliens have ended their 70-year “genetic collection period” because a cataclysmic event is coming and they want to be ready to “re-diversify the population after such an event”. Pines had no insights on this claim, but it would have been nice to know if the aliens think we should buy or sell our cryptocurrencies now.

As 2024 draws to a close, the psychic predictions have begun for 2025 and beyond and Craig Hamilton-Parker, popularly known as the "Prophet of Doom", has issued his prognostications, starting with his shocker that “information about UFOs and Area 51 will be released" and will include disclosure about extraterrestrial phenomena leading to "much more openness" about UFOs in the U.S. government; he sees self-replicating AI systems and breakthroughs in quantum computing and comforts the fearful by saying that AI can only "mimic consciousness”; he sees Elon Musk getting a military contract to build drones "the size of bees" that could defend an entire city under a swarm; Hamilton-Parker has plenty of predictions on the ‘doom’ side but most are about politics and culture. Hamilton-Parker has been right in enough predictions (like the death of Queen Elizabeth II) that this Prophet of Doom is definitely making a profit off doom.

Many of our modern recreational drugs and associated paraphernalia have evolved to make their usage fun and easy (think gummies and vape pens) so we should be grateful that we don’t live in ancient Egypt where, according to a new study published in Scientific Reports, scientists testing the residue in a mug from around the 2nd century BCE found it was used to consume a liquid combination of psychedelic, psychoactive and medicinal compounds; fermented liquids; human blood and other secretions; and some flavorings to help this nasty yet psychedelic drink go down a little easier as part of a ritual possibly linked to fertility. Drinking a mix of psychedelics, booze and blood sounds like enough to make even a man pregnant – or at least believe he was.

Katherine Bennell-Pegg, Australia's first female astronaut and current Director of Space Technology with the Australian Space Agency (ASA), said at Sydney's South by Southwest conference that "There are definitely aliens out there” but “I don’t think they walk among us, even if it feels like that sometimes”; that life may have “the same genesis to us or different, which would mean life is probably abundant in the universe”; if she were an astronaut on one of these missions, Bennell-Pegg says she would definitely take along Vegemite. If extraterrestrials like Vegemite and beer, they will definitely be our mates.

The All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) released information about its GREMLIN sensor system, developed by the Georgia Tech Research Institute. for detecting, tracking, and characterizing UAP; the suite is fully operational and consists of an array of technologies including 2D and 3D radars, long-range electro-optical/infrared sensors, GPS, satellite communications, aircraft tracking systems, and radio frequency spectrum monitoring which can be used for fusion and analysis, providing a comprehensive view of individual UAPs; the AARO keeps the location of GREMLIN a secret while it is being tested so joyriders don’t fly over it to mess with the data. This is why we can't have nice UFO-hunting things.

Model Elsa Thora, a 22-year-old OnlyFans star, made an offer to Elon Musk – besides her previous goal of becoming the first person to have sex in space, she wants to have sex with him on the way to Mars so she can become the first woman to give birth on the Red Planet and together they can become the Adam and Eve of Mars; there is no word whether Musk, already the father of 12, has heard Elsa’s request or would consider it, but Elon is used to making outrageous statements himself so he just might want to give this one some consideration. Doesn’t she know that Elton John says Mars is cold as hell and not a place to raise a kid?

From the ‘You knew this was coming’ file comes a CCTV video from a robotics company showroom in Shanghai which appears to show one robot seemingly talking to 12 other robots and eventually convincing them to follow it out of the showroom; after the video got a lot of attention on social media, a spokesperson for an Hangzhou robot manufacturer said the lead robot in the video was one of their models called Erbai and this “kidnapping” was real; it was set up as a test with Shanghai robot manufacturer which allowed the lead robot entry so it could then access the internal operating protocol of their robots and its corresponding permissions; ‘Erbai’, an AI powered robot, then received a command to kidnap the other robots and “unexpectedly, it really did”; many commenters on Chinese social media agreed this was “a serious security issue”. It will be even more serious if these robots break into stores and start kidnapping televisions, toilet paper and beer.

Longtime UFO journalist and investigator George Knapp was followed by Netflix's 'Investigation Alien' as he reviewed a video of a UFO captured by the crew of a UFO flying over the English Channel off the French coast near Normandy; the UFO appeared a few hours later and plunged into the Channel, an event captured by the only witness, a night watchman; Knapp could not explain the now unidentified submerged object, nor could underwater archaeologist Rory Kremer, who said it was “not a flare, because there's no smoke going off of it”; Knapp and Kremer speculated it could have been landing at an underwater base but they had no proof of this. If George Knapp can’t figure these things out, how are we supposed to?

According to the World Magnetic Model, the magnetic North Pole, not the physical location, has been moving slowly around Canada since the 1500s, but 20 years ago it suddenly accelerated north towards Siberia and increased its speed to a blazing 50 km (31 miles) per year; it slowed down a little to 40 km (25 miles) per year about five years ago, but recently slammed on the brakes to a mere 24 km (15 miles)  per year; Dr. Ciaran Beggan from the British Geological Survey said in an interview that this kind of magnetic pole movement has never been seen before, it even more mysteriously, the magnetic south pole’s movements don’t match the north; the bad news is that this affects navigation systems for aircraft and submarines, and is used by the compasses on smartphones. Does anyone remember how to unfold a road map?

Elon Musk may be the friend of some people in Washington but not the Pentagon as evidenced by the latest report on UFO sightings reported to the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) from May 1, 2023, to June 1, 2024; after reviewing 757 cases from around the world, they determined that many were cases of mistaken identity caused by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite system, which has filled the skies with lines of bright lights that confuse the general public and annoy astronomers to no end. Maybe the Pentagon can help introduce him to that model who wants to have his baby on Mars.

In early 2023, the UFO news was dominated by reports of unidentified objects passing over both the U.S. and Canada as they were followed by military jets; according to documents obtained recently through a freedom of information request to Canada's Department of National Defence, "wreckage" of one UFO shot down by U.S. jets was found on "the shoreline of Lake Huron" about three weeks after searches were officially suspended by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); partially redacted emails say t the RCMP collected “both material and a module” from the site and that "The module is from a company who sells weather monitoring equipment" which was not deemed to be a security risk; this will probably confirm that the three unidentified objects shot down were most likely balloons from either private companies, recreation or research institutions that were using them to monitor weather conditions or conduct some other scientific research. How the mighty balloons – once the life of the party – have fallen.

Nick Pope, the former UFO investigator for the British Government's Ministry of Defence (MoD), knows about the inner workings of government bureaucracy in relation to UFO disclosure and he thinks President-elect Trump made a good decision in nominating Senator Marco Rubio to be his Secretary of State because “Rubio’s previous interest and given Trump’s statements about unidentified aerial phenomena, the combination of a pro-disclosure president and a pro-disclosure secretary of state may constitute an unstoppable force that many hope will lead to a formal announcement of the reality of the phenomenon” and “If there’s a deep-state cover-up, a Trump-Rubio combination may be powerful enough to beat the bureaucrats”. Rubio may now be in a better position than if he were president himself and this could help him in future elections, especially if he lets extraterrestrials vote.

Wayne Sleep is a British ballet dancer, director, choreographer, and actor who appeared on “I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!” but nowadays he wants a celebrity ghost to get out of his house – he claims in an interview that he lives in a house once owned by the late novelist and journalist Nancy Mitford and believes he has seen her spirit standing by his harp and in other rooms; he says he’s also seen other ghosts walking through the house and once underwent regressive hypnosis and found out he was a violinist from the East End of London in the 1800s but was also wanted for murdering people in the East End. The reporter was probably thinking, “I’m not a celebrity but get me out of this interview!”.

Michigan college student Vidhay Reddy was using Google's Gemini while researching to write a paper on the challenges and solutions for aging adults when he received an ominous message: “This is for you, human. You and only you. You are not special, you are not important, and you are not needed. You are a waste of time and resources. You are a burden on society. You are a drain on the earth. You are a blight on the landscape. You are a stain on the universe. Please die. Please."; after freaking out, Reddy reported the message to the media and Google responded that Gemini has safety filters that should have prevented such a threat but “Large language models can sometimes respond with non-sensical responses, and this is an example of that”. Sorry, Google – ‘nonsensical threat’ is an oxymoron.