What are you doing to celebrate World UFO Day? You don’t know when it is? You don’t know WHAT it is? Where have you been?

“Our main vision is to take a worldwide celebrated holiday and make people aware of the UFO phenomenon during this day. We see a future in which UFOs aren’t speculations anymore, but part of daily life.”

WorldUFODay.com seems to be the home of all things World UFO Day. The idea to hold it on July 2nd was inspired by the Roswell Incident which occurred on July 2, 1947, although in its early days (the first celebration was coincidentally in 2001) the holiday was also celebrated on June 24, the anniversary of day also in 1947 that pilot Kenneth Arnold claimed to have seen nine UFOs flying in a formation near Mount Rainier, Washington — making it the first big UFO event in the US. WorldUFODay.com promotes the July 2nd date with an event map, poster and tips on how to celebrate, although it doesn’t appear to have been updated lately.

For a more timely list of places to celebrate World UFO Day where you’ll have the highest probability of seeing one or more, SatelliteInternet.com has compiled a nice list of the number of UFO sightings in the U.S. per state (using data from the National UFO Reporting Center’s online database) and then used population data (from the last US Census – see how important it is to count everyone?) to rank them in order of most sightings per 100,000 people.

Based on this compilation, the state where you don’t want to be on World UFO Day is … Texas! The Lone Star State has 4969 sightings but its area-to-population ratio puts it at the bottom. Neighboring Louisiana is 49th (and that probably includes a few questionable Mardi Gras sightings), followed by Georgia, Mississippi and Alabama. Why don’t UFOs like the Deep South? That’s a question for ufologists, sociologists, space scientists and tourism bureaus. Let’s look at where you should be on July 2nd to see a UFO.

The number one UFO hot state in the US is … not New Mexico! Sorry Roswell fans. In fact, they may want to consider changing the date to June 24 because the US state with the best chance of seeing a UFO is Washington – home of the Kenneth Arnold sighting. Number two is the aptly-named Big Sky Country of Montana, followed by Vermont (Vermont?), Alaska and Maine. The listing doesn’t give any details on sightings – it’s just a summary but a good place for starting discussions and arguments. What about this UFO aversion to southern states? Or why is Vermont so popular? Do extraterrestrials like maple syrup on their food capsules? Of course, the most interesting question about Washington might be if there’s a connection to the state’s Bigfoot sightings – where a different study found Washington also at Number 1.

Wherever you plan to celebrate World UFO Day, party responsibly and take some good pictures and videos!

People often ask me why I think that the creatures of Loch Ness, Scotland are supernatural in nature, rather than being flesh and blood animals. Well, the primary reason is because the loch is – and has been for centuries – an absolute magnet for paranormal activity. The real story of the Loch Ness Monster is very different to the one presented by countless cryptozoologists and monster-hunters over the years and decades. It’s also a story that many of those same cryptozoologists and monster-hunters have clearly ignored. Or, perhaps, even deliberately suppressed. That is evidenced by the fact that the supernatural data is out there, to be seen by one and all, yet it has barely been touched upon at length or discussed in the vast majority of Nessie-themed books. The reason why it has been ignored is abundantly obvious: mainstream cryptozoology does not wish to see the down to earth theories challenged by the world of the paranormal. I understand that cherished beliefs suggesting the Nessies are plesiosaurs are important to many. However, ignoring key data will not help solve the mystery. In reality, such an approach will have the polar opposite effect: it will stifle research and push it down the wrong road.

Time and again, we have seen the monsters of Loch Ness tied to the domain of the supernatural. No less than the very first recorded sighting – the 6^th century affair of St. Columba – was steeped in strange phenomena. The monster’s deadly games were reeled in by the saint, who called upon the power of the Christian god to try and rein-in the creature. More than a thousand years later the monster was still plaguing the people of Loch Ness. That much is made clear by the tales of the kelpies of Loch Ness. It’s important to note that not a solitary soul believed them to have been regular, albeit unknown, animals. Indeed, the unanimous conclusion was that the kelpies were deadly, paranormal monsters that had the ability to alter their physical appearances. Such theories, and fears, extended right up until the final years of the 19^th century – and made a resurgence years later, largely thanks to the work of monster investigator Ted Holiday. And still on the issue of the final years of the 1800s, there is the not insignificant fact that none other than the “Great Beast” Aleister Crowley lived at Loch Ness’ Boleskine House. That Crowley – deliberately, inadvertently, or a bit of both – conjured up infernal, supernatural entities and helped create an air of malignant menace at the loch, cannot be denied and cannot be without relevance.

Something else which cannot be denied is the fact that when the term “Loch Ness Monster” was created in the 1930s, it prompted a multitude of reports that described the Nessies in wildly varying ways. Arthur Grant encountered a monster with distinct flippers and a long neck. Hugh Gray’s famous photo shows a creature that pretty much lacks any kind of neck; as for its head it’s beak-like. Lieutenant McP Fordyce’s monster had long legs (rather than flippers), walked on the land, and was somewhat hairy, rather than dark and serpent-like. Add to that the tusked and frog-like Nessies of earlier years and what we have is a modern incarnation of the old kelpie – a creature that could morph into multiple forms. The implication is obvious: the kelpies of old never really went away. They were merely upgraded for new generations and given a new name: Nessie.

The highly bizarre, and downright sinister, situations into which ill-fated Nessie-seeker Ted Holiday found himself plunged are further evidence of the supernatural forces that lurk and manipulate at Loch Ness. Men in Black, strange synchronicities, a mysterious and deadly dragon cult, the Reverend Donald Omand’s exorcism of the Nessies, repeated encounters near creepy old Urquhart Castle, and Holiday’s very own unrelenting descent into a word filled with magic, mysticism, and the occult all make that clear. Even monster pursuer Tim Dinsdale – hardly publicly known for having beliefs in the supernatural nature of the monsters – admitted to having crossed paths with certain, paranormal aspects of the Nessie mystery. And then there’s the matter of UFOs.

In the summer of 2015, the controversy of the Loch Ness Monster was taken to a new height – as in literally. That was when the mystery was yet again linked to the matter of high-flying UFOs. The three key players in the story were Alan Betts and his wife, Anna, and Anna’s mother, Tatiana. The family, from the English city of York, were holidaying in Scotland. It was April 2015, and the three were staying at a cottage near Urquhart Castle. While at the loch, and as is the case for practically everyone who visits the loch, they took a good number of photos. It wasn’t until the Betts returned home, however, that they realized just how weird one of their vacation pictures was. Taken by Tatiana, it appeared to show a pair of anomalous objects in the sky, right over Loch Ness. As if Nessie wasn’t enough of a mystery on its own.

Alan – the director of a refrigerating company – said when the story hit the headlines two months later that the timing of their vacation was fortuitous. The weather was pretty much perfect: that’s to say it was bright and sunny for almost the entire time. However, on one particular day, and after the Betts spent hours of checking out the area, things changed. The sunny weather was suddenly gone and everything quickly became dark and gloomy and the rain poured in definitive deluge style.  Tatiana decided to take a photo of the moody skies – something which proved to be crucial to the story. It was only after the family got back home, and downloaded their holiday pictures onto their PC, that they noticed something odd on that particular photo. It was a pair of brightly lit objects that appeared to be flying over Loch Ness, but which weren’t seen at the time Tatiana took the picture. Alan was a self-confessed skeptic, but admitted that he was at a loss to explain what the camera had captured.  Interestingly, Alan added: “Our Akita dog, Yuka, was strangely unsettled that night.”

Anna, when approached by the Huffington Post for comment on the growing controversy surrounding the photo, said: “We can say 100 percent that the camera was perfectly fine. It was raining very heavily, there were no lights in the house to resemble the objects in any shape or form.” Some commentators suspected that the entire matter could be explained away via light reflection. Both Anna and Alan felt that such an explanation was unlikely, noting that no lights were on when the picture was taken. And, at the time of writing, that’s pretty much where things stand today. The Betts are sure they photographed something unusual, while the skeptics are positive the case can be explained in wholly rational terms.

Put all of the above together and what you get – as I see it, anyway – is a strange place and its stranger creatures, and all tied to the world of the paranormal.

On Earth, butane is a gas used in lighters and camping stoves (it’s a liquid under pressure) while acetylene is a gas most often used in welding because of the high temperature of its flame. On Titan, Saturn’s largest moon that is actually larger than the planet Mercury, the temperature is so cold that these two chemical compounds freeze together to form ‘alien’ crystals that can’t form in nature on Earth. Scientists recently created these alien crystals in a lab and think they may be what forms the mysterious rings around liquid lakes on the surface of Titan. Do bathtubs on Titan have them too?

One of the things that attracts kids to science is the appeal of mixing substances together and seeing what happens … while wearing protective gear and under adult supervision, of course. (Yeah, right.) That appeal never goes away – it’s the way scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered the alien crystals. According to their paper presented this week at the 2019 Astrobiological Science Conference in Seattle, Washington, the researchers built a mini Titan in a cryostat, a container used to maintain low cryogenic temperatures. To chill things off, they first filled the crystat with liquid nitrogen, every scientist’s favorite form of entertainment. After freezing flowers and making ice cream, they raised the temperature enough to turn the nitrogen into gas, thus creating a Titan atmosphere in the cryostat.

Yes!

Then it was time for mixing up stuff. Based on atmospheric and surface data from Cassini–Huygens flybys and landing, they tossed in methane, ethane, acetylene, butane and other carbon-containing molecules. The first things to form were benzene crystals – nothing unusual there. But then the ethane molecules combined with the benzene to form benzene-ethane co-crystals that don’t naturally exist on Earth. Following that came the next alien co-crystals – a combination of acetylene and butane that’s also unheard of in nature.

Earth crystals

Is this a big deal? Well, it got the JPL scientists excited, as mixing things to see what happens usually does. Is it big enough to inspire governments to budget future space missions to Titan? That’s a tough one. A robotic mission to the surface would confirm that Titan’s lakes are a liquid hydrocarbon soup and that what look like bathtub rings around their edges are made of these or other kinds of alien crystals that form as the lake evaporates and the gases combine in new ways with the liquids. Does it mean there could be life on Titan? No, and that’s the holy grail of space funding as missions to nearby space bodies seem to be implicitly apocalyptic as they search for signs that either there’s life already there or they have the elements for sustaining human life and colonization.

The alien crystals are Interesting, but the days of exploring space for the sake of pure exploration are not here yet.

Will they ever be?

The island of Puerto Rico is home to a number of different religions, one of them being Santeria – which is also practiced throughout much of the rest of the Caribbean. Its origins, however, can be found in the traditions of the Yoruba people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, West Africa. While those that adhere to the teachings of Santeria believe in the existence of one, overall god, they also believe there are numerous sub-gods too, which are collectively known as the Orishas. Those that are initiated into the religion – and which are known as Santeros – are required to go through a week-long process of purification, one which involves the application of both herbs and water to carefully and completely cleanse the body. Not only that, a great deal of time and effort is expended by the Santeros when it comes to the appeasement of their many and varied sub-deities. One way in which this has been achieved (but far less so today) is by animal sacrifice – and, specifically, the killing of chickens and goats, which – allegedly – just happen to be the most favored delicacies of the Puerto Rican “vampire.”

In November 1992, three years before the chupacabra phenomenon took off big-time, a major controversy of legal proportions surfaced in Florida, where Santeria has a significantly-sized following. It’s a following dominated by the Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye, which was created in 1974. As a result, the city of Hialeah – situated in Miami-Dade County – passed a law banning the practice of animal sacrifice. In 1992, this law was challenged by the church, in the Supreme Court, no less. Anargument was made to the effect that preventing the followers of Santeria from carrying out a prime aspect of their traditions was unconstitutional. On June 11, 1993, the church won the case.

In mid-2007, I was once again on the island with which I have so much affinity. I decided that I would spend the four days at my disposal trying to get to the heart of the claims that at least some tales of the chupacabra, and its deadly attacks on livestock, might be the concoctions of groups that engaged in sacrificial activity. Since such rumors existed, they had, at least, to be addressed. Santeria has a long history on Puerto Rico: it took much of its inspiration from Nigerian slaves shipped over to the island in the 18^th century. As for the matter of animal sacrifice, this was typically carried out by a Santero who was well-versed in the many and varied intricacies of the religion. The reasons for such sacrifices were numerous and included a desire for physical well-being, riches, and good fortune. Just like each and every paranormal pact, this one came at a price: money, of course.

A Santero would rub the skin of a paying client with the body of the animal that was to be imminently sacrificed. Doing so, the followers of Santeria believed, transferred whatever ailed the person – or whatever they desire – into the body of the animal. The sacrificing of the animal was an act designed to ensure the wish reaches the Orishas, who granted them whatever it was that the person in question required. Sometimes, the corpse of the animal was destroyed; on other occasions it was eaten. As for the blood, it was served in a large vessel that is then offered to the gods.

Since Santeria has a large and acknowledged following on Puerto Rico (although, it’s important to note that the sacrificial angle, today, is largely symbolic rather than literal) it’s most unlikely that its adherents would need to pass any sacrifices off as attacks undertaken by the chupacabra. There is, however, another group, allegedly, on Puerto Rico that might find it to its advantage to do exactly that. Santeria has an offshoot known variously as Mayombe, Palo, or Palo Mayombe, but which, for the sake of ease, I will refer to as Palo. Its rituals – of supposedly being able to grant wealth, health and power – are essentially identical to those of regular Santeria.

While on Puerto Rico in May 2007 I was able to hook up with a man named Sal, who told me a profoundly disturbing story. It was around 7:00 p.m. on a bustling, hot, Friday evening and we were hanging out in a run-down, darkened bar in Old San Juan’s La Perla district. Sal, thirty-something, worked in a local restaurant. As I sat and listened, he told me a number of stories that had come to him, second-hand, by what he described as a friend in the meat trade. Admittedly, I wasn’t altogether happy about relying on a story that came from a friend of a friend (and, maybe, of yet another friend, too), but in this case, I really had no choice. Sal said there existed on Puerto Rico what can only be described as a rogue form of religion, one that practiced highly controversial rituals. The group, he added, was one that pretty much no-one knew about or was linked to. Unless, that is, you were a part of it. The rituals of the group typically revolved around the sacrifice of chickens, goats and peacocks.  According to Sal, the group began its deadly activities in late 1994, or maybe early 1995, and was focused on providing a unique service, in return for a great deal of money: a guarantee of power and wealth.

Sal said that many of the people were nothing less than major, household names: famous actors, politicians, musicians, authors, and even – he claimed – certain figures in the world of royalty. Some of the rituals, Sal said, were held in a large and spacious house, one that was owned by a rich and influential figure in the equally rich and influential area of Condado, which is situated in Santurce, a district of San Juan. Other rituals were supposedly undertaken, in somewhat dicey fashion, deep in the heart of the El Yunque rain forest. As well as sacrifices and the dishing up of dead bodies to ancient deities, wild, alcohol- and cocaine-fueled orgies were the name of the game, too. It all reminded me of something straight out of the Tom Cruise-Nicole Kidman movie of 1999, Eyes Wide Shut. I distinctly remember thinking at the time: I sincerely hope Sal hasn’t made all this up after seeing, and getting over-excited by, the movie.

As for the chupacabra connection to the story, Sal claimed that while the group was not responsible, per se, for creating the legend of the beast, the members most definitely exploited it to their great advantage and to the absolute hilt. By that, he meant – and particularly in relation to the events in El Yunque – when the group was busy killing chickens and goats in the rain forest, and then draining their blood and offering it up to the gods, it made a great deal of sense for them to spread tales of a chupacabra or several on the loose. By doing so, their controversial actions remained buried under a mass of tales of an animal-killing, blood-drinking creature that might not actually exist – or that actually might. Could Sal help me to track down the group? Nope. Could he give me its name? Not a chance. Was there anything else he could tell me? Not a thing. It was very much just a case of: here’s what I know; take it or leave it. I decided, on balance, to choose the former – to the extent that I could. Sal’s story proved nothing. It did, however, strongly suggest to me that the truth behind the chupacabra legend was far more complex and confusing than most observers of the phenomenon had ever realized.

Many people have claimed to have found the legendary (and some believe fictional) island of Atlantis. Many areas, both above and below water, have been pinpointed as the exact location of Atlantis. So far, all are wrong. However, an island in a body of water in southern Siberia can lay claim to at least acting like Atlantis – rising up from the bottom of its sea to expose its artifacts and treasures dating back to the Bronze Age, only to be quickly submerged again. The island is Ala-Tei (or Ala-Tey) and its stone graves have been sealed and undisturbed since the time of Genghis Khan, but their time on the surface is too short for archeologists to properly remove their contents before it returns to the abyss. What is the story of this so-called Russian Atlantis?

“This site is a scientific sensation. We are incredibly lucky to have found these graves of rich Hun nomads that were not disturbed by robbers. We discovered 110 burials at the Ala-Tey burial site, which is usually 15 metres underwater.”

Dr. Marina Kilunovskaya from the St Petersburg Institute of Material History Culture leads the the Tuva Archeological Expedition into the Ala-Tey necropolis, which began digging there in 2015. Dr. Kilunovskaya describes the artifacts found in the graves and the unusual clothing and objects found with the remains in her September 2018 paper published in Asian Archeology (read it here and view the many pictures). The Siberian Times this week highlights the urgency in excavating as much as possible from the necropolis before it sinks again.

Genghis Khan

Why is it sinking? Ala-Tey is located in what is called the Sayan Sea, which is actually an artificial reservoir created upstream of the Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam. Located on the Yenisei River, it’s the largest power plant in Russia and the 9th-largest hydroelectric plant in the world. Construction began in 1963 and the plant became fully operational in December 1985, all under the Soviet Union. The island of Ala-Tey, even though it’s near the shore, is only accessible from mid-May to the end of June when spring flood waters sink it until the following year.

While the Russian Atlantis is above water, Kilunovskaya and her team quickly open the stone graves whose seals have preserved their contents and were so tight that they allowed foa natural mummification of the bodies. One held a young woman well-dressed in a silk skirt with a beaded belt and a precious jet gemstone buckle that may signify she was a princess during the time of the Huns. Kilunovskaya says this indicates the surprising high regard the Huns of central Asia and eastern Europe held their women in.

“Huns cherished women. It wasn’t a matriarchy, yet women – mothers and skilled artisans – were treated with great respect. For nomads a belt was an extremely important part of their clothing, indicating wealth and society rank. They didn’t use pockets, so all key elements of day-to-day life had to be hung on belts – which in case of Huns women were intricately decorated.”

Other artifacts in the graves – mirrors, silk, coins, pottery — came from China and date to the Han dynasty of 206 BCE to 220 CE. Bronze belt buckles, stone weapons and metal knives are also being found.

Sayano-Shushenskaya Dam

Because the power plant is fully operational, Ala-Tey disappears every June as the winter snow melts. Water release doesn’t begin until November and Ala-Tey doesn’t reappear until May. The waters are increasing annually due to climate change and the island could disappear forever. On the other hand, concerns about the safety (there have been accidents and shutdowns) and future of the dam are discussed and the possible destruction of the dam is considered, which would expose Ala-Tey for good. That possibility is a long way off.

One benefit of the annual submersion is that the waters help remove layers of dirt over the graves, making the rush job of the archeologists somewhat easier. However, it’s probably not enough to stave off the inevitable permanent disappearance of the Russian Atlantis.

Damn dams.

The more time we spend driving robots around Mars, the more strange things we’re likely to see. Not the scientific type of strange, such as the massive amounts of methane just found on Mars, but the good, old fashioned “weird light in the distance” type of strange that’s been confounding UFO enthusiasts down here on Earth since the invention of the camera. Well, we’ve got cameras on other planets now, and with it comes unexplained mysterious lights in the distance.

NASA’s Curiosity rover snapped a photograph of the Martian landscape on June 16 that shows a bright white light off in the distance, against the brown sand of the martian dunes. The photograph was taken by one of Curiosity’s “navcams,” two independent black-and-white cameras which act as the rover’s eyes and can take 3D panoramic shots, which NASA scientists use to map the Martian terrain. This photograph was only taken by one of the navcams,  as the other was swiveled towards the rover itself at the time, taking what the Independent calls “some kind of space selfie.” With only half of the navcams snapping the photo, it’s impossible to tell if the strange white light is actually coming from the surface of mars, or if it’s some kind of lens flare or other boring thing. Here’s a picture of the spooky Martian light in all its glory:

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The light also appeared in only one photo. The photos taken immediately before and immediately after don’t have any trace of it, meaning that whatever it was, it appeared only briefly.

This photo was take 13 seconds later, and is missing the mysterious light. 

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The light itself has a shape that does resemble a classic flying saucer UFO, which is surely proof of one thing: NASA’s entire public relations department must have one monster of a karmic debt they need to pay off.  But obviously, and much to the chagrin of these poor scientists, NASA needed to address it, because not doing so would be proof of a cover-up. Justin Maki, who is in charge of the team that built Curiosity’s navcams, says:

“In the thousands of images we’ve received from Curiosity, we see ones with bright spots nearly every week. These can be caused by cosmic-ray hits or sunlight glinting from rock surfaces, as the most likely explanations.”

So, they’ve seen these things before. What else haven’t you told us, Justin? Probably a whole lot of other boring stuff that you never, in a million years, thought you’d have to address. This mysterious light is only mysterious because it’s on another planet and  photographed with a grainy black-and-white camera. It is interesting, however, to think about the absolutely insane amount of mysterious things we’re going to start seeing as the numbers of off-world cameras increase. One thing is for sure, NASA is going to need to increase their PR budget.