Forteans Passing

As with so many other websites, I can’t let the passing of John Keel go unmarked. You only have to look around the web to see how many places are carrying obits, and appreciations about him.

Rest in peace, John. You’ll be very sadly missed by many of us.

And, it’s not so very long ago that John Michell also left us. I hope both of them are now finding out the answers to all the questions they had over their years on Earth, and to all those wonderful mysteries that they brought to our attention.

When I first became hooked on mysteries such as UFOs, Cryptozoology, Earth Mysteries, Alternative History, etc: it was authors such as these that sparked my interest, and I must have read many of their books over the years. They are still well worth the read, and they’ve informed the ideas and perceptions of many of those who have followed.

The Old Guard is passing, and very few of that ilk are still left with us. The “names” who made the most impression on me were: John Michell, John Keel, Aimé Michel, (who died 1992), Ted Holliday, (who died in 1979), Jacques Vallée, and Colin Wilson.

And now, Jacques Vallée and Colin Wilson are the only ones left. So I urge you to read as many of their books as you are able to get hold of, if only for a good grounding in these most mysterious subjects.

New Grandchild

In the immortal words of Maggie Thatcher: "We are a grandmother."

My 5th grandchild, a little girl, was born by caesarian section at 15:18 this afternoon. She weighed in at 7lbs 3 oz, and is to be called Brooklyn. Both mother and baby are doing very well.

This is great news, and I'm very happy that it's all over - she was almost 2 weeks late! So here's to little Brooklyn and her proud parents. Congratulations to them, and long life to baby.

Michael Jackson

I suppose I can hardly let the death of Michael Jackson go unremarked, even though I was never a fan.

As I said on Facebook yesterday: He was talented, he was flawed, he's dead. Now let's move on instead of having this wall to wall coverage on TV.

Even on the BBC news last night I heard a reporter say that he was the most photographed person in the world. I don't think that's true as I believe that Princess Diana was the most photographed. In fact this whole sorry saga reminds me of the time when she died. It's just the same outpouring of grief around the world, the leaving of flowers at mini shrines, the news dominated by nothing but this story.

Jackson was an entertainer, a good one yes, but he doesn't match up to Princess Di. However, in that vein, I'm not surprised to see that the conspiracy theories surrounding his death began just a few hours after he died. It's always the same with famous people. They die unexpectedly and the conspiracies start. But that's not to say that I'm not a follower of the one about Di as I'm one of those who don't think her death was just a car accident.

However, there are other, more important stories in the world, e.g. what's going on in Iran where the Religious Leader has now said that all the protesters should be executed.

People die every day in the most horrible circumstances, such as famine, war, earthquakes. Most of them are poor and it seems that they don't merit the attention given to the famous people who pass on. What a shame, and what a sad comment on modern society.

The Cats of Upper Minster

Over at the CFZ Blogspot long time contributor Tim Matthews is writing an extremely funny spoof about Big Cat hunters. His imaginary tale has run to three parts so far, and is set to continue for as long as he believes it to be amusing.

As for it being amusing, it’s so hilarious that I almost fell off my chair laughing when I read the episodes.

So if you like your forteana tinged with a great deal of humour you can do no better than to read this serial. Hopefully there will be an episode every other day, and here you can read Part1, Part2 and Part3.

Long may this continue, it certainly helps to brighten each day that it’s published. I strongly recommend that you regularly check out the site and follow the story.

Another Montauk Monster Surfaces

This morning I read an article that contained a photograph of yet another “Monster” that has washed up in Montauk, New York. This is the second such discovery in the space of almost a year. Of course the story is now going viral all around the Internet. However, looking at the picture it reminds me of nothing more than a dead, bloated, dog. But, of course, there are those who are suggesting that it’s an, as yet, unknown animal – a cryptid of some sort.

If you’re a regular reader of my Blog then you’ll know that I don’t set too much store by what the scientists tell us. But on this occasion I thought the column from the Live Science web site really does give a very fair indication of what this latest carcass probably is. (You can read it here) And, in passing, it also offers an explanation for three other “Monsters” that have washed up over the years.

Swine Flu

Naturally, the news of a possible Swine Flu pandemic is making the rounds of the Internet, and some wild theories are flying about.

However, memory made me recall that the strain of H1N1 that caused the Spanish Flu in 1918 was recreated in a the USA in 2004, and also in Canada in 2006/7:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6271833.stm
18 January 2007

The first paragraph of which reads:

Scientists who recreated "Spanish flu" - the 1918 virus which killed up to 50m people - have witnessed its remarkable killing power first hand.

Supposedly these were recreated in secure laboratories. But, for those of you who subscribe to conspiracy theories, perhaps there are 2 scenarios - (a) it somehow got out into the community; (b) the PTB have deliberately spread it. And why? To reduce the world's over population.

How long before the “Nut Jobs” start putting it down to UFOs and those pesky little gray aliens?

One More Sighting of the Falmouth Weird Creature

Well, I wasn’t going to continue to keep an eye on this story, but I found a new article in my local paper this morning. It seems that there was yet another sighting of the “Falmouth Weird Creature” back in January this year. But the young man who saw it has only just come forward as he felt it was ridiculous to have seen it. You can read his description here.

Computer Still Infuriating Me

My computer still isn't right. It's started to play up again just as it did before I put in the new hard drive. So if I don’t Blog for a while it will mean it’s gone down again. I've asked a few people about it, but I've come to the conclusion that if you ask 12 "Tech" people the same question you get 12 different answers :)

When I fixed it a couple of weeks ago I cleaned all the insides too. But I’ve now bought some compressed air to really clean the Motherboard and power pack, as well as the other fans and stuff.

Turning on my computer each morning I’ve been getting lots of noise for a few minutes before things go quiet. Of course, having mentioned that to a friend, I now find that it’s not making any of those peculiar noises at all. It certainly has a mind of its own, and I think it’s guessed I’m going to use that air on it!

Also my email client is working differently, even though I’ve checked the settings. It now wants to connect to the net when I open an email, even though I am actually connected. And if I leave it open when I’ve logged off I soon get a window asking if I want to connect again.

But I think I’ve worked out why my screen saver isn’t kicking in. It seems that if I’ve still got any other programs open that stops the saver from working. Or perhaps it’s something else as even before I log on for the day it asks if I want to connect.

Having checked out the cost of all the bits I’ll need to build a totally new computer I’ve come to the conclusion that it will cost as much as buying a new one. But doing that would mean having to get one at the cheaper end of the scale. So I still intend to build my own, that way I’ll be getting exactly what I want, as well as a it giving me a great sense of achievement.

Who’d have a computer – they’re often the cause of so much stress and frustration. But then, without one, I’d be totally isolated.

At least this weekend is a 4-day holiday for us here in the UK, (from Friday to Monday), so I’m going to take some time away from the computer and just try to relax.

Happy Spring Holiday everyone.

Computer Problems Saga

For the past week I’ve been off-line because my hard-drive gave up the ghost. If somebody had told me that the strange, sort of clunking, sound it made when first starting up each day, and lasting for about 10 minutes, was a sign that it was on the way out I would have replaced it sooner. When it finally went to the land of hardware in the sky it was, of course, almost the weekend. So buying a replacement meant that I had to wait a few days for it to arrive as the weekend intervened with, of course, no deliveries. It finally arrived last Tuesday, and I began the task of installing it.

Now, I’m not in any way a “techie” but over the years I’ve managed to watch when my computer has had to have bits put in, or taken out, and I kept notes while I was watching. So I had a vague idea of what to do, and I read the label on the new drive very carefully before I began. But, being me, I found I’d bought the wrong type when it came to the connector. Luckily my machine was running on two drives and each was connected differently – one with an IDE and the other with a different sort of cable that just slotted into place. Eureka! It occurred to me to take out both of them and only use the new one. And anyway I’d bought a 160GB drive so it would easily replace my old two, both of which were 80GB ones. Unfortunately, I’d saved some data to the Slave drive, so I couldn’t get that back as I was now using its IDE to connect my new one. Never mind, I save data to CDs on a fairly regular basis, so I haven’t lost too much.

After the installation, and adding the OS I wanted to get to work, but I then found that neither of my CD readers would work. Again, I had two of those installed, so I had to take the Master out and revert the Slave back to being the Master. That took me a while as, with my poor eyesight, I couldn’t find the switch to change the settings. Eventually, it was done but now I found that the mouse wasn’t working properly as it refused to scroll smoothly, and I couldn’t hear my speakers. Suddenly it dawned on me that I’d forgotten to install the VIA drivers, and I read from my previous notes that those should have gone in before I added anything else back to the machine. I’d forgotten to do that, but I wasn’t going to start from scratch all over again so thought I’d take the chance of just adding them there and then. Hey Presto! It worked with no problems at all and I was able to control things properly again.

All of that took me quite a while as I'd never done anything like it before, and I now feel quite a sense of achievement having managed it. In fact one day in the not too distant future I’m going to build a whole new computer from scratch!

Personally, I always keep a note of the short-cuts on my desktop, the start-bar items, the add-ons, plug-ins etc: etc: And I regularly use the Belarc Advisor program to print out a profile of everything that’s on my computer. So I had to reinstall my software, some of which I had to get back from the web, and then redo my Bookmarks, and a few other things. When it was all back up and running I then found that my broadband connection kept dropping, and it took me quite a while to get that working properly – including another three installations to get rid of all the static on the phone line.

My final problem now is with Windows UpDate, which won't recognize the licence key as being genuine, which it is, therefore as it refuses to validate my copy of Windows I'm having to run things with just my good firewall and antivirus – neither of which come from Microsoft! But my computer does run in Stealth Mode so people can’t see when I’m on-line.

One moral of this saga is to always make a note of what you have on your computer long before it starts to crash. It’s taken me from last Tuesday morning until Saturday evening to get everything back exactly as I want it, and it’s been an exhausting time.

Naturally, I haven’t been able to keep up with some of the latest web stories, and I have to admit that I’m also having to give up on finding any more information about either the UFO damaging the wind turbine blade, or the weird creature seen here in Falmouth. If I happen to see any more stories about them I will post them, but to an extent I'm still playing catch-up, so I don't have the time to go looking.

I now hope that nothing goes wrong or I shall be starting all over again!

Another Sighting of the Weird Creature from Falmouth

It seems that the story of the weird creature seen in Falmouth has produced another sighting. This new one comes from late in December 2006, and the second one mentioned in the article, which you can read here, is the one I reported on in my last blog post on the subject.

The thing I find fascinating about this new report is that it comes from the same lady who spotted Morgawr, our Falmouth Bay sea monster, all those years ago. You can read my article about Morgawr, and the Mawnan Smith Owlman, on my website.

As the newspaper piece states, perhaps it will encourage others to come forward if they've seen our weird creature. I shall keep checking on the story and keep you updated if anything else is added.

Falmouth's Weird Creature - Update

This story just gets stranger. Following the initial report of the weird creature seen in Falmouth recently I found another article, this time in the local weekly newspaper The West Briton: which you can read here. Friends of mine in the US have suggested that it could have been an Aye-aye, or a Springhare, but the witness says that both of those animals are much smaller than the one he saw, and they are also unlikely to be able to survive in our British climate.

Over at the CFZ there have been two additional postings on this subject. The first is a very sad one, detailing the possibility of the creature being what is called a Twisty Cat. This is the most disgusting atrocity, as it seems that people have been breeding cats with a specific deformity whereby their front legs are stunted and useless. The post, that you can find here, also includes some pictures of such cats, and they are truly stomach churning.

The second post from the CFZ is an update on their previous one. It tells of their contact with the RSPCA’s legal department to enquire if breeding such cats is legal in the UK. Unfortunately it appears that it is, although it could be construed as cruelty. You can read what the CFZ has to say about that here, and how they would react on finding such a thing happening in the UK.

Weird Creature seen in Falmouth (UK)

Yesterday was a very busy day for me, so I didn’t get around to posting this story that I came across in my local newspaper. A lady walking the Falmouth coastal path saw a very strange animal; and at the link there is a picture of the drawing she made when she arrived home. You can read the account, and see the sketch here.

Having brought the story to the attention of a couple of researchers, I see that they too have blogged about it today. Over at the Fortean Zoology blog Richard Freeman, the Zoological Director of the CFZ, has a few suggestions as to what might have been seen. He is contacting the newspaper to try and interview the witness. You can read his suggestions about the creature here.

And my good friend Nick Redfern, has also been kind enough to mention the story. You can read his blog here. Thanks Nick.

I check out The Packet newspaper every day, and this morning I found no further updates to the story. However, if I see anything extra about it I’ll blog the news and let everyone know.

The UFO and the Wind Farm Turbines - the results are back

As I predicted, UFOs were not to blame for the damage to those wind turbine blades.

The provisional forensic report, from the manufacturers, has found that the damage was due to “material fatigue.” That caused the bolts holding the blade to the turbine to suffer from “fatigue failure.”

The investigation is continuing to examine the mechanisms around the bolts, and the results of those tests are expected in a few more weeks. You can read the whole of the story here.

So, it’s Common Sense 1 – UFOs 0