Another Loch Ness Sighting of a Creature With a “Head and Neck”

  June 15, 2019

“We have been to Loch Ness many times, but never seen the monster before. But I always like to look at the loch – I can’t imagine how many pairs of eyes are on that loch at any one time. But I have spent periods looking at the water, because you never know.”

You never know … especially when you’re driving by the Loch Ness. In what is fast becoming a record-breaking year for sightings, a couple on vacation and enjoying the view got the holiday picture and video of a lifetime … and put themselves in the running for the annual Loch Ness Monster photo contest and cash prize offered by the Inverness Courier.

“But at around 1.30pm just after we had lunch, my husband was driving and I was in the passenger seat gazing out at the loch. Then I suddenly saw something and I said to Ian ‘there’s something down there.”

Ian Davison, being the good husband that his is, had just finished a nice vacation lunch with his wife, Gloria, and was driving to their next vacation stop when he obediently pulled over to the side of the road to observe what his wife saw (rather than telling her it was just her imagination and hitting the gas so he could make good time). What she saw she also captured on video for their friends, the world and especially Gary Campbell of the Loch Ness Monster Sightings Register to see. (You can see it for yourself here.)

No, this isn’t it.

“He turned around and we got out of the car and there it was. We were very excited. It was about 300 metres away and definitely black. It seemed to have a neck and head. I could definitely see its back and it was a fair size. It disappeared after a minute beneath the water. I had hoped there was something (Nessie) in the loch – you always want to believe in something. All I can say is that we saw something we cannot explain. But it was animate and it was definitely not a seal.”

The Davisons were driving by Urquhart Bay, which is a prime Nessie spotting area as attested by the presence of the 24/7 Nessie closed-circuit TV camera – where a man in Ireland with plenty of time on his hands and a comfortable chair to sit in has already seen something in the waters twice this year. Let’s hope contest officials give actual on-site spotters preference.

“This is our seventh sighting of the year and these are all very credible sightings. It is clearly Loch Ness and clearly unexplained. In terms of Nessie videos it’s also very clear and we still don’t know what it is. It all adds to the mystery. But do these latest sightings explain the Loch Ness mystery – No? Do they add to the weight of evidence that there is something happening that is unexplained – yes.”

No, this isn’t it either.

Gary Campbell knows on which side of the Loch Ness Monster he needs to be to stay in business, so the photo of what looks like either a small long-necked creature or a big odd-shaped log has been added to the Register and entered in the contest. He logged 13 official sightings in 2018, so this year is on a record-breaking pace. Anyone hoping to see the monster should get to Loch Ness before September when the team that’s searching the waters for unusual DNA promises to release its results, which it recently announced contain a “surprising” discovery.
Local business owners may want to send a thank-you note to the Davisons and a bag of unmarked pounds to the DNA researchers.

Canada’s Legendary ‘Lake Demon’ Ogopogo Reportedly Caught on Video

June 15, 2019

A British Columbia man believes he caught Canada’s legendary Ogopogo on video. Ogopogo is sometimes referred to as Nessie’s “Canadian cousin” due to the similarities between the two mythical creatures: they’re both aquatic animals that stay mostly out of sight but seemingly pop up to the surface from time to time to keep mortals believing in them. Ogopogo sightings have been reported for centuries, and the folklore of the First Nations people of British Columbia contains tales of lake spirits or water demons in the waters of Okanagan Lake. Could the legendary Lake Demon of British Columbia have finally been caught on camera?

Ogopogo is a celebrated part of local folklore throughout the region.

Maybe. The footage certainly shows something strange in the water. As kayakers sit motionless in the foreground, several strange ‘humps’ or objects in the waters can be seen in the background moving quite quickly seemingly just below the surface of the water. Judging from the footage, if this was a creature, it would be almost 120 feet (36 meters) long. Watch the video for yourself and see what you think.
Like most videos of alleged cryptids and curious creatures, the footage is certainly compelling if you go into it thinking you’re about to witness a strange beast just out of sight under the water. Of course, there could be plenty of other explanations for what we’re seeing in the video – a boat wake, for one. Robert Young, an environmental scientist at the University of British Columbia, told Canada’s Global News that he believes the ripples in the video are likely caused by a natural process known as lake turnover. “I think it’s a product of overturn that happens seasonally where lake layers of different temperatures and depths will pass each other,” Young said. “Where the layers pass each other, they form a wake, these waves only form when there is no other waves to mix it.”

Grant Island on Lake Ogopogo

According to National Geographic, lake turnover occurs during season changes when water on the surface cools, thereby becoming more dense and sinking to the bottom. In large bodies of water, this can create churning or swirling ripples on the surface as different ‘layers’ of water rise and fall due to seasonal temperature inversions. Is that what we’re seeing in this footage?
As with all videos of this kind, people generally see what they want to see. What do you see?

Lost Nazi Bunker Holding Amber Room Treasures May Have Been Found in Poland

June 13, 2019

While real Nazis search for other things (perhaps they know something others don’t?), treasure hunters have spend decades looking for the precious metals, jewels and rare art looted by the Nazis as they rampaged across Europe in World War II. One such collection was the Amber Room or Amber Chamber – a royal chamber decorated with panels of over six tons of real amber that was created by German craftsmen during the 18th century and presented as a gift to Peter the Great from Prussia’s King Frederick William I in 1716. It was placed in the Catherine Palace south of St. Petersburg until World War II when German troops found the Amber Room, dismantled it and took it to the Royal Koenigsberg Castle, where it stayed until 1945 when it disappeared, never to be seen again.
The list of possible locations of the Amber Room include in a tunnel under a castle in the Polish city of Paslek, in caves near Dresden and at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Despite being one of the most sought-after Nazi treasures, fans have only been able to gaze at a replica. That may have changed this week when researchers from a Polish museum found the entrance to a bunker in northwest Poland … a bunker believed to be large enough to hold the Amber Room.

A replica of the Amber Room

“We can safely talk about a breakthrough in the search. Using professional georadar, we were able to establish the location of the underground tunnel. After excavation at the site, we actually found the hatch, which almost certainly did not open since the war.”

Bartlomiej Plebanczyk told the Polish radio station RMF FM of the discovery in Mamerki, a settlement in northern Poland near the border with the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia that was part of Germany before 1945. (Photos of the location and old photos of the Amber Room can be seen here.) During the war, Mamerki was the headquarters of the Wehrmacht Army Command and 30 reinforced concrete bunkers were built there, leading experts to long believe they were used to store looted treasures … a belief reinforced by a few people who claim to have witnessed soldiers driving vehicles into them.

Should we believe Bartlomiej Plebanczyk? This is the same museum researcher who claimed in 2016 that he had found the Amber Room in a bunker in Mamerki, only to come up empty. What makes this bunker different? For one thing, its door is buried behind a 100-kg (220-pound) concrete slab with a large tree growing over it, indicating it probably hasn’t been touched since 1945. For another thing … well, that’s the only thing so far. Before you head for Mamerki with a load of dynamite, Plebanczyk warns that it’s under the protection of the Polish government. He himself is working through the red tape and paperwork and hopes to have permission to carefully remove the slab and open the door by the end of June 2019.
And then? About £250 million ($318 million US) in amber and treasures may be found and the fight over ownership will begin.
Or perhaps they’ll find an old knight guarding a cup. Indy, is that you?

Bedroom Encounters: Ghostly Black Dogs & Supernatural Wolves

June 12, 2019

Now and again I’ll find myself on the receiving end of a report in which the witness encounters a large, red-eyed black dog or a giant wolf staring at them while in bed or on the bed. And usually in the dead of night; sometimes, however, during the day. Typically, the witnesses – awakened by the animals – are unable to move at the time of the encounters. A deep sense of dread suddenly envelopes them. Then, suddenly, after a few moments or even minutes, the creatures are gone. From a woman who as a young girl had a traumatic encounter with an infernal, supernatural hound at the height of the Second World War, we have the following: “At the time, because of the war, my mother and I usually stayed with an elderly gentleman, who had kindly taken us in as ‘refugees’ from London. We only went back to the capital when the bombing ceased. The cottage where we lived is still in existence, in Bredon, Worcestershire. My encounter took place one late afternoon in summer, when I had been sent to bed, but was far from sleepy.”
She continued: “I was sitting at the end of the big brass bedstead, playing with the ornamental knobs, and looking out of the window, when I was aware of a scratching noise, and an enormous black dog had walked from the direction of the fireplace to my left. It passed round the end of the bed, towards the door. As the dog passed between me and the window, it swung its head round to stare at me – it had very large eyes, which glowed from inside as if lit up, and as it looked at me I was quite terrified, and very much aware of the creature’s breath, which was warm and as strong as a gust of wind.

“The animal must have been very tall, as I was sitting on the old-fashioned bedstead, which was quite high, and our eyes were level. Funnily enough, by the time it reached the door, it had vanished. I assure you that I was wide awake at the time, and sat on for quite some long while wondering about what I had seen, and to be truthful, too scared to get into our bed, under the clothes and go to sleep. I clearly remember my mother and our host, sitting in the garden in the late sun, talking and hearing the ringing of the bell on the weekly fried-fish van from Birmingham, as it went through the village! I am sure I was not dreaming, and have never forgotten the experience, remembering to the last detail how I felt, what the dog looked like.” Moving on…
Dion Fortune was an occultist, mystic, and the author of a number of acclaimed works, and whose real name was Violet Mary Firth. Fortune, who died in 1946 at the age of fifty-five, was someone who was skilled at creating monsters in the mind and who then unleashed them into the world around her. Fortune made it very clear, however, that creating a mind-monster rarely has a positive outcome. It is something that each and every one of us should take careful heed of. Her story is as fascinating as it is disturbing:
“The artificial elemental is constructed by forming a clear-cut image in the imagination of the creature it is intended to create, ensouling it with something of the corresponding aspect of one’s own being, and then invoking into it the appropriate natural force. This method can be used for good as well as evil, and ‘guardian angels’ are formed in this way. It is said that dying women, anxious concerning the welfare of their children, frequently form them unconsciously. I myself once had an exceedingly nasty experience in which I formulated a were-wolf accidentally. Unpleasant as the incident was, I think it may be just as well to give it publicity, for it shows what may happen when an insufficiently disciplined and purified nature is handling occult forces.
“I had received serious injury from someone who, at considerable cost to myself, I had disinterestedly helped, and I was sorely tempted to retaliate. Lying on my bed resting one afternoon, I was brooding over my resentment, and while so brooding, drifted towards the borders of sleep. There came to my mind the thought of casting off all restraints and going berserk. The ancient Nordic myths rose before me, and I thought of Fenris [also known as Fenrir], the Wolf-horror of the North. Immediately I felt a curious drawing-out sensation from my solar plexus, and there materialized beside me on the bed a large wolf. It was a well-materialized ectoplasmic form. It was grey and colorless, and had weight. I  could  distinctly  feel  its  back  pressing  against  me  as  it  lay  beside  me  on  the  bed  as  a  large  dog  might.

“I knew nothing about the art of making elementals at that time, but had accidentally stumbled upon the right method – the brooding highly charged with emotion, the invocation of the appropriate natural force, and the condition between sleeping and waking in which the etheric double readily extrudes.”
Altogether, I have eleven cases in my files of sightings by the bed of large black dogs (with blazing red eyes) and supernatural wolves. Of course, the skeptic would very likely say that because the encounters occurred in bedrooms and so often well into the early hours of the morning, the witnesses were just having particularly vivid dreams. And as for the inability of the witnesses to move, it may be suggested that sleep paralysis is the culprit. Perhaps so. But, in all of the cases? And why so many deeply similar incidents, in terms of the specific appearances of the creatures that are encountered time and again?
Nightmares or nightmarish creatures? It’s a question I ponder on.

Only Child Ever Born in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Gets a Glowing Health Report

  June 12, 2019

“If people think she is a mutant, or has two heads, they are quite wrong. She is a lovely child who is absolutely healthy as far as we can see.”

That’s not the kind of comment one would expect about the only child ever conceived, born and raised within the Chernobyl nuclear accident exclusion zone … a child who swam in a river in the zone, ate the fish her father caught from it and drank the milk of cows grazing in the shadows of the buildings that were supposed to have been abandoned after the worst nuclear reactor meltdown in history. If she truly has survived, lived a normal life and is now a health 19-year-old woman, is there hope for the rest of us surviving the almost-certain-to-come next atomic catastrophe or nuclear winter?

“People here believe that Mariyka is a symbol of Chernobyl’s renaissance, a sign from God which they interpret as a blessing to live here, and that life is coming back to this blighted place.”

These comments are from Mariyaka’s mother Lydia Sovenko, whose husband Mikhail was employed by the plant, lived near reactor 4 and on the night of April 26, 1986, was called in as a firefighter to battle the fires caused by the explosion. Once the initial disaster had abated, the Sovenkos chose to ignore the mandatory evacuation of the 19 mile (30 km) radius of the exclusion zone because they were amazingly not offered shelter by what was then the soon-to-fall government of the Soviet Union. At that time, about 91,000 people left while about 1,200 remained. Most of them were older citizens, so the possibility of anyone being conceived or born in the exclusion zone was quite low. but not impossible.

In 1999, Lydia Sovenko, then in her mid-40s, did not know she was pregnant when she shockingly gave birth at home with the aid of Mikhail, who washed the newborn and tied her umbilical cord. The government and their few neighbors tried to shame and humiliate them into moving out instead of raising a child in such an irradiated and heavily polluted area, but they kept her there until age seven, when Mariyaka was forced to leave – not for health reasons but because there were only ruins of schools in the exclusion zone. However, she returned home when school was out, despite the fact that she was the only child living there.

“I am doing well, I am working. I’m providing for myself. This is it.”

The Soviet and later the Ukrainian government tried to keep her existence a secret, but the recent HBO television special on Chernobyl, which showed the destruction and death caused by the explosion and radiation, drove the Sunday Express to find Mariyaka and check on her health. While she no longer lives in the exclusion zone, she says she still visits her mother and both are in good health, at least in their own views. Ironically, despite the fact that she is the only child ever born in the exclusion zone, Mariyaka must obtain a special permit to enter it.

“She really doesn’t care about being unique through being born in Chernobyl. In fact, knowing that she is the only child who was born here after the explosion, and who grew up in Chernobyl, is rather painful for her. She sees it as a stigma.”

A friend who knows Mariyaka’s past told the Express that the only pain she feels is psychological, not physical. While the interview does not include a checkup by a medical doctor, perhaps there’s no need for one, as Mariyaka’s natural glow (see photos here) and the growing reports of plants and animals thriving in the exclusion zone may be proof enough that the aftereffects of radiation exposure are not the death sentence experts once believed them to be.

Then again, given the choice … would you live in the ground zero known as the Chernobyl exclusion zone? Would you conceive, give birth and raise a child there? Are Mariyaka’s parents heroes, villains or a creepy experiment?
Do you believe your own eyes, a documentary or a Godzilla movie?

Giant Loch Ness Monster-like Sea Monster Fossils Found in Antarctica

The top country-archeology song this week is “Looking For Nessie in All The Wrong Places” by Kris Kryptologist. At least it would be if there were such a musical genre (note to self: it may be time to get the old CW band back together). A group of dedicated researchers who have spent the last 15 years freezing in Antarctica can finally head someplace warm after completely excavating the fossil remains of a 15-ton dinosaur that looks an awful lot like what many people think the Loch Ness monster looks like – really long neck, 40-foot-long thin body and tail, four massive flippers and a mouth full of sharp teeth. Is it time for a Nessie song? Would a skiffle tune be more appropriate? With bagpipes?

“The presence of this specimen, located less than 2.5 meters below the K/Pg boundary, indicates the persistence of aristonectines at high latitudes short time before the mass extinction.”

That’s paleontology-speak for “We found a huge cousin of the plesiosaurs near the South Pole latitudes that survived to the end of the Cretaceous era before being wiped out by the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) extinction event (a massive comet or asteroid impact a long way off in the Gulf of Mexico).”

According to their paper in Crestaceous Research, archeologists discovered the fossils in 1989 on Marambio Island off the coast of Antarctica, but the sheer size and significance of the skeleton and the freezing conditions on the island forced the team to carefully remove it over an 18-year period culminating in 2017. Paleontologist and study co-author José O’Gorman of the Museum of La Plata summarized its importance:

“It is the largest elasmosaurid in the world.”

The elasmosaurids have the longest necks of the reptiles in the family of plesiosaurs and this discovery indicates that they survived right up until the big extinction rock hit Earth 66 million years ago, meaning Antarctica was a pretty nice place to live at the time, with plenty of warm water and food for 15 ton creatures. The question is, could one of more of these elasmosaurids have somehow survived the K–Pg extinction event or perhaps reappeared shortly after it and moved north to Scotland?

“Even in Antarctica, there were lots of happy elasmosaurs. It’s definitely an indication that toward the end of the Cretaceous, [plesiosaurs] managed to expand their feeding repertoire.”

Anne Schulp, a vertebrate paleontologist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, was not involved in the research but told the National Geographic that the southern elasmosaurs known as the Aristonectes (meaning “best swimmers”) were bigger than their northern cousins and size of the one discovered on Marambio Island may indicate it’s a separate and new genus. The mouth full of teeth may have helped it grow to record size … the researchers believe the southern elasmosaurs fed more like whales – opening their mouths wide to envelop fish-filled waters and then close their mouths and expel the water, catching the fish in their teeth. Unfortunately, that same feeding method is probably why they couldn’t have survived until today – the K–Pg extinction event killed off almost all of their food sources.
We probably won’t find Nessie in Antarctica and it’s unlikely the Loch Ness Monster is a lost southern elasmosaur. However, that kind of stuff never stopped country-western songwriters before. Grab a geetar and a pen and come up with some new “monster” lyrics for this classic from Urban Cowboy

Dracula’s Cannonballs Have Been Discovered In Bulgaria

June 11, 2019

Researchers discovered medieval cannonballs from culverins (an ancient type of cannon) that were presumably used by Wallacian Voivode Vlad III Dracula – or Vlad the Impaler – from the 15^th century. According to a report in Archaeology in Bulgaria, they believe that the cannonballs were used during the 1461 battle against the Ottoman Turks.
The cannonballs were discovered in Svishtov, which is a small town in northern Bulgaria. They were found by Professor Nikolay Ovcharov from the National Institute and Museum of Archaeology in Sofia, as well as his team. They also discovered bigger cannonballs that were used in later times.

Vlad the Impaler

In an interview with Nova TV, Ovcharov talked about the discovery, “What’s really interesting is that from the [early] Ottoman period we have found cannonballs. We rejoice at those small cannonballs because they are from culverins,” adding, “These were the earliest cannons which were from the 15^th century, up until the 16^th century, they weren’t in use after that. These were still very imperfect cannons. That was precisely the time of Vlad Dracula, there is no doubt that they are connected with the siege by Vlad Dracula [for control of the Zishtova Fortress] in 1461.”
Ovcharov said that he believes Dracula himself could have quite possibly stayed at the fortress, “The truth is that Vlad Dracula besieged this place, conquered it, and most probably also resided here.”
Excavations will continue at the site until June 15^th, with another one-to-two-year exploration following that date, and the fortress will be restored after the researchers are finished with their work.

Painting of Vlad the Impaler

While Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” was inspired by the real Vlad the Impaler, the history connected to the real person is much more frightening. Vlad the Impaler wrote a letter to the King of Hungary, bragging that during the battle he killed 410 Turks. “Some of them were probably impaled, in his style,” Ovcharov suggested. “He was one of the most meticulous fighters against the Ottoman invasion. He was cruel but, at the end of the day, that was the Middle Ages, and he was allowed those things,” he explained.
From 1463 to 1475, Vlad was held captive in Visegrád, but then died in battle in 1476. His cruel methods of punishing his enemies made him well-known throughout the world, even to this day. And the newly discovered cannonballs that were used by him in the 15^th century are a reminder of just how ruthless he was.
You can see pictures of the recently discovered cannonballs of Dracula here.