New York UFOs, Laser Ghost Detectors, Lake Erie Black Goo, Mexican Wendigo and More Mysterious News Briefly

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

It turns out that even aliens are keeping up with the Kardashians – or at least one of them – according to Khloé Kardashian, who revealed on her podcast that she and her best friend Malika were driving “ages ago” when Khloé saw a UFO and screamed, “Oh my gosh, Malika!” but her BFF didn’t look in time and the “the thing just disappeared"; while she’s never seen one, she believes aliens exist; however, Khloé claims she has paranormal incidents "all the time", including hearing a man’s voice when she was alone; her daughter True has also seen the ghost of a "little girl" and the spirit of a lady with a "funny voice," whom they believed was ex-boyfriend Tristan Thompson's mother. Do the aliens know that the ‘reality’ in ‘reality show’ doesn’t necessarily mean it’s real?

Proving once again which cryptid in #1 in sales and social media, the photo gifting store MyFUJIFILM named Loch Ness as the ‘Best Selfie Spot’ in Scotland and ranked the place where tourists hope for a photobomb from the Loch Ness monster at #15 in the entire UK; in honor of its prominence, MyFUJIFILM is offering £500 ($676) and a new Instax mini 41™ instant camera for the best Instagram-worthy selfie from across the region with the entrants being judged on creativity and originality. If it’s a waterproof camera, this sounds like a contest made for Nessie taking selfies with tourists.

The U.S. mainstream media is focused on the lost Jeffrey Epstein files but fine folks at The Black Vault are focusing on UFO files instead with unfortunately the same end results – John Greenwald revealed that his organization has been requesting from the CIA original copies of two Soviet-era newspaper articles discussing unidentified flying objects; the CIA released a redacted version back in 1978, but redacting in those days was done with correction fluid; The Black Vault requested a Mandatory Declassification Review (MDR) but the CIA has finally admitted that the original documents were lost, including the article about the two Soviet writers, V. Rubanov and V. Chernobrov, covered the UFOs from different ideological angles, along with the CIA’s commentary, analysis, and intelligence insights that once accompanied these translations; Greenwald correctly concludes that we’re losing the history of UFO research and “with each new “lost” or white-out-redacted file or black-out-redacted file, that understanding becomes harder to reconstruct.” Let’s hope that this does not lead to one of our most sacred institutions becoming a ‘lie-brary’.

The race to be the first extinct animal de-extincted centers around the US biotech firm Colossal Biosciences where efforts are underway to bring back the wooly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger, dodo and dire wolf, but a new species may have just flightlessly jumped into the lead as film-maker Sir Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies) has given his financial support to New Zealand’s giant moa (Dinornis robustus), the huge ((11.8 feet tall, 500 pounds) flightless birds that were wiped out 150 years after humans first landed on Aotearoa (New Zealand); Colossal Biosciences plans to extract DNA from preserved moa remains and genetically engineer the species back to life where it can roam in New Zealand habitats similar to those it once lived in, but many outside the project say the technology is not yet developed and the anxious fans of the moa will be disappointed. Maybe Jackson should focus on bringing back J. R. R. Tolkien instead.

California usually leads the U.S. states in most UFO sightings, but NUFOC (National UFO Reporting Center) reports that New York is having a veritable UFO-palooza this year with 66 unexplained aerial phenomena sightings across the state from January 1 to June 30, 2025; the sightings were in big cities like the Big Apple and small towns like hot spots in urban centers like New York City as well as multiple reports from smaller towns such as Chester, Ridge and Evans Mills, where a large number of orb sightings led witnesses to suspect they were coming from a local military base; the most common shapes reported were orbs, spheres and triangles, and many were reportedly traveling at high speeds and making physics-defying maneuvers; one unusual sighting occurred on June 24, 2025, when a passengers in the front of a commercial flight approaching New York City reported seeing a metallic orb flying in the opposite direction beneath the aircraft; the pilots told the witness they saw nothing. Start spreading the news - If you can make a UFO sighting in New York, you can make one anywhere – it’s up to you.

If you’re wondering why so many UFO sightings occur near airports and air bases, it may not be just cases of mistaken airplane identity but real visitors from other solar systems who, according to a new study by astronomers at the University of Manchester, are picking up the radar signals from commercial airports and military air bases which they claim can be detected up to 200 light-years away; the report says radar from commercial airports can be seen at that distance with a telescope comparable to the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, while military radar, which is more focused and directional, creates patterns which would appear as anomalies to extraterrestrials scanning the galaxy. The good news is that this tells the aliens we have basic aircraft technology that can’t even take off on time.

If you are a professional paranormal investigator or just a curious weekend ghost hunter, Spotted Ghosts thinks you should try its SpecTracer, which is billed as “a real ghost radar that uses LiDAR to scan and map your environment in real time” to “detect anomalies, track movement, and reveal what the eye can’t see” on a built-in screen; the SpecTracer performs a full 180° LiDAR sweep of the environment and displays a map in red; it then maps follow-up scans in yellow to show changes or movements, which helps the user to “detect movement, presence shifts, or energy disturbances that may suggest paranormal activity”; for doubters, Spotted Ghosts says the “SpecTracer offers measurable, repeatable data — the core of any credible investigation”; a recent paranormal review calls SpecTracer “one of the more structured and data-focused tools out there” because it pinpoints environmental changes without obvious causes. If LiDAR can do for paranormal investigators what it has done for archeologists, this might be a worthwhile investment.

Farmers and ranchers in Tlacotepec de Benito Juárez and surrounding areas in the state of Puebla in south-eastern Mexico are whispering “Chupacabra” after a number of chickens, sheep and other livestock have been found dead and dismembered with deep bites made by a mysterious animal they are not familiar with; gruesome videos were uploaded to social media and the owners said their land was “perfectly fenced” but that didn’t stop the mystery creature from entering an enclosed patio where the owner found 20 of his sheep dead and mutilated; while the attacks have been limited to sheep and chickens, owners fear for their cows, turkeys and especially goats if the creature is a goat-sucking Chupacabra; local officials are investigating but warn residents not to take matters into their own hands and poison dogs after two were found dead and suspected to have been killed by frustrated livestock owners. Even when the evidence points to other animals, the Chupacabra is still a popular scapegoat-sucker.

A video of a “footless ghost” that local media claimed was taken outside the La Ermita del Carmen in Barcelona, Venezuela, is spooking locals who saw the video on social media; the report claims the video was taken by two witnesses who thought it looked like a priest in his robes until the noticed that “he's walking, but he doesn't have legs"; comments rage from believers to skeptics, with one offering a possible explanation: “The alleged "ghost" is a Lady in a street situation, during the day she always visits the church and sits on a side with a notebook, enters the temple listens to the mass.. then goes to the cathedral (stay close) and does the same, the video was recorded a block away and as the lady is brown skin so it does not manage to visualize well with the contrast of the door a block away and as the lady is brown skin so it does not manage to visualize well with the contrast of the door.” Next time, they need to download a LiDAR app on their phone (see above).

In paranormal sports news, the Changchun Xidu FC of China’s League Two was fined $4,100 for placing “a number of feudal superstitious items in the away team’s dressing room” before a recent match against Shanxi Chongde Ronghai in violation of Article 115 and Article 116. In the Chinese Professional  Football League Discipline and Ethics Code; the paper talismans are known as ‘fu’ and the Taoist practice can bring good fortune or bad luck depending on the writing on them; Changchun won the match anyway by a score of 2-0, but football fans say this isn’t the first time they’ve attempted to change the outcome of a game with charms and paper talismans – they have been accused by two other visiting teams, Taian Tiankuang and Wuxi Wugou. If a player falls to the ground at the sight of one of these talismans, how does the referee know if it is real or a paranormal flop?

Argentina’s version of Bigfoot is the Ucumar and 2025 is shaping up as a good year for spotting one after a man told local media he was walking on Cerro San Bernardo (Saint Bernard’s Hill) at 5 am in Salta when “Suddenly, we saw something big, hairy, hunched over. It wasn't a person. We got scared and ran down quickly" but not before he took a blurry photo and noted that " it didn't move like a person, I'm sure; he showed the photo to his grandmother who confirmed, “That’s an Ucumar”; another Ucumar was reported in June 2025 in Salta and the witness managed to record it and upload the video to social media; local media says other people in the Cerro San Bernardo area have reported strange noises, large footsteps, and disturbing figures in the wooded areas of the hill, especially early on cold mornings. Sounds like the best way to climb Saint Bernard’s Hill these days is with a real Saint Bernard.

A video said to have been recorded in Mazamitla in the Mexican state of Jalisco shows a strange figure crouched behind a parked car that seems to be aware it is being watched because its head disappears and reappears; while some commenters say it’s a ghost, other point out that Mazamitla has a history of strange activity, myths and creatures, with one saying: “I’ve heard stories of wendigos, ghosts, and even a flying horse” and another explaining that “the truth is, Mazamitla has too much paranormal activity because it was a war zone, and there are also a lot of goblins around”; those who don’t believe in wendigos or skinwalkers think it’s just a clever hoax. Can we stop adding ‘clever’ to hoaxes – ‘annoying’ would be more appropriate.

Followers of Loch Ness monster sightings will be interested in a new study by Dr. Charles Paxton of the University of St Andrews and Adrian Shine from the Loch Ness Centre which found that contrary to the classic image of a multi-humped creature with a long neck sticking out of the water at one end and a tail doing the same at the other, that form has only been described in 1.5 percent of sightings, even though it is the form preferred by 30 percent of the postcards and photos sold in Loch Ness souvenir shops and hotels; Paxton notes that the classic multi-humped, long-necked form is physically impossible and “In this case it really seems witnesses do not generally report the impossible, even though the hooped monster is a common portrayal of Nessie”. Who are you going to believe: your lying eyes or a lying postcard?

Three isn’t a crowd when it comes to rare interstellar objects as Harvard professor and physicist Avi Loeb comments on the discovery of 3I/ATLAS, the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system (after 1I/ʻOumuamua and 2I/Borisov); 3I/ATLAS is currently located between the orbits of the asteroid belt and Jupiter and traveling at a very high speed of 130,000 miles per hour with an estimated closest proximity to the Sun occurring in October 2025; that speed makes it too fast to have originated within the solar system and it will also keep it from looping around the Sun and heading back in the direction it came from; Loeb says 3I/ATLAS is small (around 10 km in diameter) and if it is a comet, it will show us by getting brighter as it comes closer to the Sun;  the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope will be able to observe it test the first possibility mentioned above. In case the first possibility is ruled out and 3I/ATLAS is a solid object with a physical radius of an estimated 15 km, but that could change as it gets closer; we’re  in no danger as 3I/ATLAS will reach approximately 167 million miles (270 million km) from Earth on Dec. 19, within 18 million miles (30 million km) of Mars on Oct.2 and within 130 million miles (210 million km) of the sun on Oct. 29 when it will be traveling at 42 miles (68 km) per second/second or 152,000 miles (245,000 km) per hour. No one is saying it’s a spaceship … yet.

In a news item that could be a plot for an X-Files revival, Rual Lee, the captain of the Blue Heron, a research vessel monitoring harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie, began having mechanical issues so he pulled into a dry dock at Great Lakes Shipyard on the Cuyahoga River; when he pulled out the jammed propeller shaft, a mysterious black goo oozed out; a sample was sent to the University of Minnesota Duluth where a researcher found 20 DNA sequences or genomes in the goo; most of the sequences matched known genomes, some took a little while to identify, and one was unlike any known genome;  the researcher named it ShipGoo001 and thinks it is a single cell organism, but its shape is unknown; it could be carbon-based and derived from debris floating in the water, or it could be a new order of organism. Clevelanders are hoping the next set of tests will rule out the Black Oil from The X-Files or the black goo of the Xenomorph in the Alien series.

It’s worrisome enough that people all over the UK are seeing alien big cats that no one can prove exist, but it’s worse in the English town of Wirral near Liverpool where residents report seeing a mysterious being dressed in a large black cat costume prowling near Wallasey beach; Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell has seen the photos and heard the testimonies of witnesses like the one walking her dog when she “heard a man making cat noises, shone a torch he was waving his arms at me before crawling up the hill. Never been so scared"; another witness said he thinks he knows who is in the costume and it’s just a harmless prank. What they need is a guy in a Bigfoot costume to teach him a lesson.

As a painter, Leonardo da Vinci is famous for the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper, but his most mysterious work is the Vitruvian Man – not because it depicts what da Vinci considered to be the perfect man (although he’d probably make Mona Lisa smile a little longer) but the naked man is perfectly placed inside both a circle and a square; the secret formula da Vinci used to accomplish this has finally been determined by Dr. Rory Mac Sweeney, a dentist with a degree in genetics, who found that the 'equilateral triangle' between the man's legs corresponds to the Bonwill triangle, an imaginary equilateral triangle in dental anatomy that governs the optimal performance of the human jaw and has a ratio of 1.64 which is a rounding of the 'special blueprint number' of 1.6333 found in nature in the strongest and most efficient structures; Sweeney’s study shows da Vinci was 300 years ahead of William G. A. Bonwill in using this magic ratio. The long list of discoveries, innovations and artworks of Leonardo should be called ‘The Da Vinci Load’.

UFO hunter Scott Waring posted a video taken in early July of a UFO streaking across a stormy sky in Kingsville, Maryland, and points out that “UFOs often are attracted to storms, the power from the lightning” and “clearly they are syphoning the energy from the lightning to use for themselves...to recharge”; he notes that he’s seen many videos of this alleged phenomena and thinks “these things get a high from the energy output of the storms and they love to boost so much so they will shoot around in excitement after charging”; comments range from aliens to ball lightning, which is a rare and unusual weather phenomena worth studying as well, but this is a first for describing the “high” UFOs get from a lightning charge. Cue John Denver singing “Rocky Mountain High, Extraterrestrial”.