All of us are familiar with Halloween, even if we don’t celebrate it. For most people, it is a fun night of the year where people get dressed up in all manner of spooky costumes and attend parties, or gather a group of friends to watch scary movies, and, for the younger ones, venture outside Trick-or-Treating, collecting vast amounts of sweets and candy. There are, though, many accounts on record that are far from fun, and that have made Halloweens past, at least for those involved, a truly scary occasion.

While we will look at some of the more paranormal encounters shortly, it is perhaps best to start with some of the darker accounts on record, many of which were thought to be Halloween pranks but were found to be anything but. On October 15th, 2015, for example, the body of Rebecca Cade was found hanging from a fence in Ohio. For hours, people walked by assuming it was a Halloween display, until it was discovered to be real. Her injuries made it clear she had been murdered.

A similar incident occurred the previous year, on October 29th, 2014, in Long Island, New York. Witnesses saw a man drag a decapitated body into the street and kick the head to the opposite curb. Many mistook it for a Halloween stunt and continued on with their day until someone tried to move the body out of traffic and realized it was genuine. Police later identified the victim as 66-year-old professor Patricia Ward. She had been killed by her 35-year-old son, Derek, who reportedly had a history of mental illness and lived with her. After the killing, he died by suicide by stepping in front of a train.

There are many more similar Halloween encounters. For example, a 42-year-old woman in Delaware died by suicide on Halloween, hanging herself from a tree in her front yard. Her body remained there for five days because neighbors assumed it was part of the holiday decorations. In a similar case in Los Angeles, residents of an apartment building passed what they believed was a disturbingly realistic prop with severe facial damage; after several days, they discovered it was a man who had died by suicide from a gunshot. In 2012, in Pennsylvania, a 9-year-old girl was shot in the shoulder and arm by a relative who, in the dark, mistook her black-and-white Halloween costume for a skunk. In 1992, 16-year-old exchange student Yoshihiro Hattori was fatally shot while trying to attend a Halloween party. He and a friend went around to the back of the house upon arrival, leading the homeowner, Rodney Peairs, to mistake them for intruders and shoot Hattori.

As well as these accidental deaths and bodies mistaken for props, there have also been some dark, brutal murders committed on Halloween. On Halloween night in 2012, for example, Rebekah Gay answered the door to her mother’s fiancé, John White, a church minister in Michigan. He killed her, hid her body in nearby woods, then returned to dress her three-year-old son in his costume and drive him to his father’s home. White even asked his congregation to pray for Rebekah’s safe return. Her body was found about 20 hours later. He was convicted of her murder and later died by suicide in prison. White had a long history of violence against women. In 1981, he invited 17-year-old Theresa Etherton to see a racetrack he had built in his basement and then attacked her; she escaped, and he served two years in prison. In 1994, he killed a woman with whom he was having an affair and left her body in a wooded area. Because prosecutors could not prove intent, he was convicted of manslaughter.

Another chilling case occurred in 2011 in British Columbia. Eighteen-year-old college student Taylor Van Deist left home dressed as a zombie to meet a friend for trick-or-treating. She texted that she thought someone was following her and was later found near railroad tracks with serious injuries; she died in the hospital shortly afterward. Matthew Foerster was arrested, confessed during questioning, and was sentenced to life in prison for her murder.

Arguably, one of the most horrific Halloween crimes occurred on Halloween night in 1974, in Pasadena, Texas, when Ronald Clark O’Bryan laced candy with cyanide after he had taken out a huge life insurance policy on his own children. He dished out the poisonous sweets to his son, Timothy, his daughter, and several other children in the area. Timothy was the only one who ate the candy, tragically dying a short time later. O’Bryan was arrested and charged with his murder and was executed for his crimes a decade later.

While these accounts are indeed tragic and horrifying, there are others on record that are seemingly paranormal in nature.

Without a doubt, one of the strangest accounts to have unfolded around Halloween occurred in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in 1939, when multiple residents of the town reported having unsettling encounters with a “tall figure” wearing black clothes, and, according to some witness statements, had “glowing eyes”.

With Halloween approaching, Provincetown was beginning to quieten down as many of the “summer tourists” had left for the usual abodes in various places across America. On this particular evening, a local woman, Mary Costa, was walking past the town hall when something suddenly leaped out of the nearby bushes. According to the report she made later, this figure was at least eight feet tall, and had “pointed silver ears and glowing blue eyes”. This strange entity stared at Mary for several seconds before suddenly jumping, almost directly upwards, eventually disappearing. As soon as it had done so, Mary turned and saw the dim lights of a local coffee shop window, and she immediately ran towards it. She burst inside and blurted out what had happened to her. Several of the men inside the coffee shop immediately ran outside to see if there was any sign of the attacker, but their efforts were in vain.

Mary reported the incident to the local police, who recorded the incident but did little to follow it up in any serious way. However, during the days that followed, more and more reports of an almost identical nature were made to the police, forcing them to take this strange prankster more seriously. All of the details in each of the reports resonated with each other; the figure dressed in black from head to toe; it wore some kind of cape that covered its head and back, it had glowing eyes, which some witnessed reported as red, while others claimed they were a silver-blue color; it had pointed ears, and perhaps strangest of all, a “weird buzzing” sound often accompanied this menacing figure, a sound that some witnessed likened to a fly or a bee. Of even greater intrigue, this figure seemingly had the ability to leap at least ten feet into the air.

In fact, the police had their own encounter with this bizarre figure around the same time the reports began to increase. On the night in question, they received a call that the figure had been spotted in the playground of a local school. The school premises were surrounded by a tall fence, and the police saw an opportunity to trap and apprehend the culprit. Four police officers arrived at the school a short time after receiving the report, each with a flashlight in one hand and their gun in the other. Not long after they entered the school grounds, they saw the bizarre figure in front of them caught in their flashlight beams, with one officer stating that instead of a face, the figure had a “silver painted mask”. The officers ordered the figure to freeze or they would shoot. Rather than doing so, however, the curious entity leaped into the air, clearing the tall fence with ease.

As the reports increased, so did the media coverage of the encounters, and in turn, many different monickers were bandied around. Some referred to the attacker as The Provincetown Phantom, while others called him the Devil of the Dunes. Others still named him The Phantom Fiend, or The Black Phantom. However, it was The Black Flash that stuck, and quickly, all references to the bizarre encounters used this name.

Perhaps one of the strangest aspects of the reports made to the police was that on several occasions, they received reports of encounters with the Black Flash from two different locations at the same time. This suggested to police that there very well could be more than one menace to deal with, and, over the years, some researchers have even pondered if some kind of portal or teleportation device was utilized, making The Black Flash either an eccentric scientist-type figure, or something more supernatural in nature. Indeed, one particular report from a local teenager perhaps suggests just this. He claimed that he was making his way home from the library when the Black Flash appeared out of nowhere right in front of him. Most terrifying of all, though, the witness insisted that the figure had “spat blue flames” towards him from its mouth.

Despite this last report, although unsettling, none of the encounters were violent. More often than not, this figure simply leaped out of somewhere (although witnesses could rarely establish just where the figure had leaped from) in an effort to scare the witness. It would then simply leap into the air and disappear, with most encounters with the Black Flash lasting no longer than a few seconds. One witness, Charles Farley, even fired his gun at the figure, certain that he had hit it. However, rather than drop to the ground, the figure simply “laughed” back before leaping over a tall fence and disappearing into the night. Does this suggest some kind of bulletproof body armor, or is it another sign that the Black Flash has more of an otherworldly quality to it than many might wish to believe?

It is hard to ignore the similar details of the Black Flash encounters to those of Spring-Heeled Jack, who terrorized Victorian England a century earlier. This strange figure would often leap out of nowhere in an effort to startle people, with many of the witnesses stating it had glowing red eyes and blue flames coming from its mouth. Moreover, Spring-Heeled Jack had remarkable leaping ability, able to clear high fences and even two-story buildings in one jump. Although most of the sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack had slowed as the nineteenth century neared its close, there were tentative sightings in the early 1900s and 1940s, and even speculative reports from as recently as the 1970s. Might we consider that there is some kind of connection between Spring-Heeled Jack and the Black Flash of Provincetown, and if so, just what might that connection be?

Whatever the truth, sightings and reports of the Black Flash slowed dramatically as November unfolded, with at least one researcher, Theo Paijmans, claiming they ceased entirely. However, there are odd reports of this strange menace in the years that followed, with the last (known) reported sighting taking place one cold evening in December 1945. The account is detailed in the book Passing Strange by Joe Citro (it can also be found in Robert Cahill’s New England’s Mad and Mysterious Men), and states that on the night in question, four children from the Janard family were outside in the front yard when they suddenly noticed a strange figure heading in their direction coming out of the fog. Although their parents were not at home, they immediately ran inside the house to take cover from the menacing creature.

Suddenly, the sound of the doorknob of the front door being turned reached their ears as the Black Flash tried to gain entry to the property. For several minutes, each of the doors and windows rattled temporarily as the creature tried all potential points of entry. While three of the children hid behind furniture, the oldest boy, Allen, proceeded to fill a bucket with hot water. He then ventured up to the second floor of the property, opened the window, and peered outside. There, directly below him, was the Black Flash. He tipped the water out, watching as it drenched its target. The figure let out a “startled gasp” before it ran off back into the fog.

If we return to the previously mentioned Robert Cahill for a moment, when he traveled to the region decades later to speak with witnesses, he learned of the account of a local pool shark named Eight Ball Eddie. According to what Cahill learned, Eddie was dismissive of the sightings, convinced that the Black Flash was nothing but a man in costume. However, one evening as Eddie was returning home, he encountered the Black Flash for himself. Eddie, still insistent that the figure was merely a “tall man”, stood there looking at the figure, which wore a black hood and had glowing, silver eyes. After several moments, Eddie ordered the figure to get out of his way. The figure, though, lunged toward Eddie and struck him across the face, forcing Eddie to fall to the ground. At this point, Eddie was beyond unsettled by the incident, and after dragging himself to his feet, he turned and ran as fast as he could. The next morning, Eddie still had a “red handprint” where the figure had struck him.

There were, as we might imagine, many explanations put forward in the months and years that followed. Before we look at some of those, though, it is worth our time exploring the year 1939, in general, and how the entire New England area experienced a series of bizarre events. In January, for example, a bizarre “sea monster” washed up on the shore near Wood End. Although it was officially ruled to be a “decomposing basking shark”, many people claimed it bore a remarkable resemblance to an aquatic creature witnessed in 1886 by George Reedy. Whatever the truth, this was just the first of the bizarre events in the region that year. For example, it would eventually come to light through an annual police report that cases of “dog bites and stray cats” had reached an “all-time high” in 1939. Then, in September 1939, several arson attacks occurred, for which a local 40-year-old man was later arrested. In short, the mindset of the people of Provincetown was geared toward something out of the ordinary. Of course, whether this played a part in the sightings of the Black Flash that unfolded in October and November of that year remains very much open to debate.

One suggestion put forward was that the Black Flash was nothing more than four teenagers who were playing a Halloween prank on the town that carried on too long, by the Chief of Police, Anthony Tarvers. He even claimed that he knew the identity of one of the teenagers, although none of these statements were part of an official police press release. He claimed that the boys split into two groups of two, and then one stood on top of the other’s shoulders, using a black cape to cover themselves and using a flour sifter as a makeshift mask. It is interesting to note that he promised to speak with the teenager’s parents, and shortly after he made that statement, the sightings came to an abrupt stop.

The explanation, though, has several holes that can’t be ignored. Perhaps one of the most glaring of these is how the boys – if that is what they were – managed to scale such heights on one leap? Moreover, how did they manage to overpower their potential captors (on several occasions) without being uncovered? Even more glaring, how did the “boys” manage to withstand being shot from close range, and even stranger, how did they manage to pull off the illusion of glowing red or silver eyes and blue flames from the mouth?

With all of these questions in mind, we might consider whether Tarver was simply wide of the mark in his assessment, or whether that statement, an unofficial one, remember, was one he made to simply calm the townsfolk, as well as create the determination that the local police force had succeeded in stopping the infamous Black Flash.

It isn’t just strange creatures lurking in the shadows that have taken place on or around Halloween. On Halloween night 1963, for example, in the small town of Trancas in Argentina, three sisters witnessed a strange, otherworldly object up close. On the night in question, the three sisters were settling down at the Moreno family home, with Argentina and Jolie having traveled from the town of Rosario to see their sister, Yolanda, as well as their parents. They each had their young children with them, and each of their husbands was away on military service. On this evening, following the sudden failure of the electric generator, the family had eaten their evening meal earlier than usual, before settling down in their bedrooms not long after.

At around 9 pm, however, the live-in domestic worker, 15-year-old Dora Guzman, suddenly ran to the main part of the house, claiming there were “strange lights” moving along the railroad outside of the house. The sisters’ parents remained asleep, while Jolie was in the middle of feeding her baby. Argentina and Yolanda ventured to where Dora was, immediately noticing the look of concern on her face, something which was unusual in itself. When they asked her to explain to them what she had seen, she stated that there were some kind of “machines” near the tracks. There was frequent guerrilla activity in the area, and the two sisters contemplated whether that was what Dora had seen. Quietly and cautiously, the two sisters opened the front door of the property and, along with Dora, ventured outside to investigate.

With one sister holding a flashlight and the other a small handgun, the three young women made their way toward the railroad tracks, keeping themselves hidden within the crops. They could see the strange lights moving in the distance; now and then, a strange “beam” would shoot upwards into the night sky. They began to question if there had been a train crash or if a guerrilla group had targeted a passing train. Then, they saw what seemed to be “human silhouettes” moving close to the lights, causing them to stop their approach immediately. They remained where they were for several moments before deciding to carefully continue towards the tracks. The closer they got, they could eventually see that the lights were connected to a solid object – the underside of a disc-shaped craft. The craft appeared like one disc on top of the other, with a green beam of light running in between them, creating a “tunnel” effect. After several moments' pause, they decided to move closer.

Moments after they did so, however, a pair of “dim greenish” lights appeared directly in front of them. Moreover, they were heading in their direction. To begin with, despite the surreal nature of the events they had witnessed, they contemplated if the lights belonged to one of the farm workers’ (Rodriguez’s) pick-up trucks, but before they could contemplate anything more, the three young women were completely enveloped within the green glow. It was at this point that the trio looked upwards, immediately noticing a huge disc hovering directly over them. Everything around them, including their clothes and faces, glowed green. The craft turned slowly in the air as it continued to hover overhead. From this angle, the three witnesses could see several windows or portholes on the underside of the craft.

Then, a beam of “solid light” emerged from the middle of the craft’s underside and stretched to the ground, a light that the witnesses later described as somehow “solid”. Several moments later, Yolanda stepped forward and placed her hand into the strange light. The other two looked on as the light simply went straight through her hand, as opposed to stopping on it as a “normal” light would. Yolanda also stated that although she didn’t feel any pain when her hand was in the light, she could feel distinct heat coming from it. Then, without warning, the beam began upwards, back towards the craft. As it did so, the three young women became aware of a strange mist that had appeared directly underneath the object, each particle glowing green and seemingly visible in the glow of the light. This strange fog-like mist began to grow thicker as the three witnesses continued to stare at it in awe. It was several moments before the two sisters noticed that Dora appeared to be in some strange trance.

The two sisters did their best to free Dora of the apparent spell she was under, but she continued to stare blankly at the mist above her. Then, the green glow was replaced by a bright orange, while above them, several yellow lights were now spinning on the underside of the aerial vehicle. Also at this point, the craft began to rock from side to side before a sudden burst of flames appeared, the force of which forced all three of the young women to the ground.

By now, they feared they were under attack, and so quickly staggered to their feet and ran back to the house. Although they ran as fast as they could, they occasionally looked back to see if the object was following them. Although it wasn’t, it did appear to be moving over the farmland, as if carrying out some kind of visual survey of it. They were fast approaching the main house. However, just as they were about to go through the front door, the glow from the object suddenly vanished. They stopped and turned around, a little shocked that the object was nowhere to be seen, even though only a second earlier, it had clearly been moving across the land.

The three young women went inside the house, by which time, Dora had seemingly come out of her trance, and appeared to be suffering from delayed shock, screaming that she was burned. The sisters’ parents and their other sister all came running to the scene to see what had happened. Dora hadn’t been burned, but it took a considerable amount of time to calm her down. The sisters looked at the clock, realizing it was just after 10 pm, meaning the incident had lasted just short of an hour.

News of the incident soon spread, and with it came corroborating witnesses. One neighbor, for example, Francisco Tropiano, claimed that he witnessed strange lights over their home at around 10 pm on the night in question. He claimed they lit up the entire area before suddenly disappearing. Another witness, a local doctor, claimed he was driving his car when he witnessed “almost 50 strange lights” traversing the sky. Moreover, when investigators examined the area of the actual sighting, they discovered a “dusty white residue” that, when analyzed, showed it was not indigenous to the surrounding soil. This substance was only found at the alleged landing site and nowhere else.

Just what happened that Halloween night in Trancas in 1963 remains unexplained. Despite the three young women being asked repeatedly to speak of their encounter by various investigators and members of the press, they didn’t once waver from their version of events and, by and large, were considered reliable witnesses. And as bizarre as the encounter might have sounded, especially at the time, in the years that have followed, there have been many other witnesses to other UFO encounters that have described very similar details; the green glowing light, for example, or the solid, slow-releasing beam of light that came from the craft itself, not to mention the shape and dynamics of the craft.

Ultimately, while Halloween is a time for mischievous fun, watching horror movies with friends, attending parties, or even venturing to a scary location to “spook” themselves, on occasion, the pretend horror and frights are very real. Of course, while this is almost certainly just coincidence, after all, murders, accidental deaths, and even UFO sightings happen all year round, we should perhaps contemplate, if only in the back of our minds, if something about this time of year really does “thin the veil”, and perhaps influence humanity to act out such horrors, or simply unleash strange figures such as the Black Flash or strange vehicles from other worlds. It is certainly spooky food for thought, and perhaps something for us to keep in mind as we celebrate Halloween, both this year and in the future. Is it all fun and games? Not always.

One such individual who had plenty of such stories to tell was an Ottoman explorer who traveled the ends of the earth to bring back many odd tales, including those of the decidedly supernatural. The Ottoman explorer, traveler, and writer Evliya Çelebi was born in 1611 in Constantinople, now Istanbul, Turkey, during the height of the Ottoman Empire, which was created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia (Asia Minor) and grew exponentially to be one of the most imposing and powerful states in the whole world during the 15th and 16th centuries. The son of the chief court jeweler, Celebi’s intelligence, wit, extensive knowledge of the Koran, and natural gift for music and languages, with him able to speak Arabic, Persian, Greek and Latin, captured the attention of the imam of Sultan Murad IV, and at just the tender age of twelve he was taken in as an apprentice to Sultan, excelling as a Koran reader and able to recite long passages perfectly from memory, by some accounts all of it. 

He did not start out as the intrepid traveler he would become; instead, he was absorbed in his studies of Arabic, calligraphy, and music at the Ottoman palace school, but at some point, he discovered his deep wanderlust when he began embarking on official travels that took him from Belgrade to Baghdad and from Crimea to Cairo. Even at this point, his ultimate goal was to be a member of the Imperial court; it was something his family also desperately wanted for him despite his urges to travel over the horizon, but one night, he was to have an epiphany that would change his life forever.

On the very night of his twentieth birthday, Celebi allegedly had a vision of the Prophet Muhammad, as well as His Companions and the four first caliphs of Islam in a vivid dream. In this dream, he was told to give up his designs of joining the court and rather spend his life traveling to the far corners of the world so that he might “compose a marvelous work” based on his adventures to far-flung exotic lands. The Prophet would tell him:

“Thou shalt travel through the whole world and be a marvel among men. Of the countries through which you will pass, of their castles, strongholds, wonderful antiquities, eatables and drinkables ... the extent of their provinces and the length of the days there, draw up a description which will be a monument worthy of thee.”

On the strength of this potent dream, Celebi decided to defy his parents’ wishes to be a member of the Imperial court and give up everything to follow what the Prophet had told him to do. And so he set off on a life of journeys that would span the next three decades, traveling with an entourage of mules, camels, travel companions, and up to a dozen slaves at any given time, on extensive travels that would take him from one end of the known world to the other, often returning to enthrall the court with tales of adventure and mystery. Along the way, Celebi would compile a vast, sprawling 10-volume tome of travel memoirs and notes called the Seyahatname, or the “Book of Travels,” also sometimes referred to as the Tarihi seyyah (“Chronicle of a Traveler”), which has been called “the longest and fullest travel account in Islamic literature, perhaps in world literature.” Within the many hundreds of pages of this vast masterpiece of travel literature are tales of strange customs and lands, exotic people and cultures, fantastical animals, and bloody battles and massacres, as well as the landmarks, ethnography, history, and geography of the lands he visited in Europe, Asia, Africa, and beyond, and all manner of bizarre and amazing tales of the things he had seen and done. It is an impressive and unique manuscript to be sure, with pages upon pages of amazing and spectacular adventures, but within these volumes, among the various exotic people, customs, and tales of far-flung lands beyond the understanding of the time are some stories that stand out as weirder than others, and here we get into all of the damn witches, vampires and zombies Celebi claims to have come across. 

Throughout the pages of the Seyahatname, Celebi makes frequent mention of magic, sorcery, the supernatural, and metaphysical beings, and one prime example of this is an incident he claimed happened to him on the night of April 26, 1666, in the tiny Pedsi village of the Caucasus. He claimed that one dark, moonless evening, there had been a sudden, very intense flash of lightning outside that had roused him from his writings. These flashes continued, and when Celebi asked some of the villagers what was going on, they told him that once a year, there was a night during which Circassian witches and Abkhaz witches flew to the sky and engaged in battle in a great war. Astonished by this, Celebi then went outside to see for himself, where he was met by quite the bizarre sight. 

He claimed that when he looked up he saw “witches on large trees, cubes, boats, carriage wheels and many other similar objects fighting witches on horses, cattle, carrion and dead camels, with snakes, horses and camel heads in their hands,” all behind the backdrop of intermittent flashes and swaths of bright light across the sky, now obviously not from lightning, but rather through the magical might of their sorcery. At one point, there was an enormous, thunderous explosion, after which “felt, poles, cubes, doors and carriage wheels, and parts of humans and animals such as horses” fell from the sky, followed by seven Abkhazian witches and seven Circassian witches hurtling to the ground, where they continued to fight. According to the account, the Circassian witches killed the Abkhazian witches by sucking their blood, after which they hurled the lifeless bodies onto a bonfire. After this, there was the crowing of roosters, and the remaining witches took flight to disappear into the night. Celebi makes it a point to mention that he would have never believed such a thing possible if he had not seen it himself, and we are left to wonder what was going on here.

Celebi would write of other encounters with witches as well. In one incident, he was staying in the Çalıkkavak village of Bulgaria when he claimed to have come across an “old miserable woman with messy hair and an ugly face and seven children.” This woman and her children entered the non-Muslim house where he was staying and gathered around the fire, where the women gathered up some ashes and performed some kind of arcane spell. After this, the old hag and the children allegedly transformed into chickens right before the eyes of Celebi and other members of his expedition. Celebi would write of what transpired next:

“The next thing we knew, a heathen was peeing on chickens. At that moment, they all turned into human beings. Some other people grabbed the woman and the children by the arms and beat them. We went and saw that the church was where they arrived later. They handed the woman over to the priest, and the priest excommunicated her. My men swore an oath after this incident. They all saw this incident and witnessed that the chickens turned into humans. That night, my nosebleed did not stop out of fear. The bleeding stopped in the morning.”

His other stories of witches seem to imply something we would be more familiar with as vampires. Celebi claimed that the Caucasus region was particularly infested with such creatures. He told of bloodsucking witches prowling remote villages and drinking the blood of the terrified populace, after which any villager who was fed on in such a way would become sick, die, and then rise from the dead to do the same thing as some sort of undead abomination. These terrifying entities were said to return to sleep in the ground during the day, and according to Celebi, the villagers would sometimes unearth one to find it flushed and the eyes bloodshot from having fed. This “witch” would then be dispatched with a long stake of blackberries that was “nailed to her belly,” and her body then burned to ashes in a fire. If this were done, then any of the other blood-drinking revenants that the witch had spawned would supposedly revert to normal human form. On other occasions, a blood-drinking witch would be captured, put in chains, and forced to confess her black magic, after which she would be killed with a stake and immolated, but not before some of her blood was taken to rub it on her victims to cure them of their affliction. If some of the details here sound familiar, it is because such tales are considered to be some of the earliest vampire stories, and are even thought to have influenced Bram Stoker for his book Dracula.

Is any of this true? That is a tough question to answer. The veracity of anything written in the Seyahatname has long been debated, as while Celebi claims that his work is the will of Allah and an honest chronicle, it is peppered with numerous stories and claims that seem like they can’t possibly be true. Interspersed throughout the vast tome are countless embellishments, flourishes, and just stuff he made up, such as inaccurate geography or descriptions of places he had obviously never been to, battles that could not have possibly happened as described, and numerous fantastical animals, people, and plants, including giant avian monsters, humans with animal heads, chimeras, dragon-like beasts, giant waxen plants like nothing known, a strange yellow tree whose leaves miraculously cured syphilis, and many other strange anomalies. 

What makes it harder to weed out the fantasy, fairy tale elements is that there are also long passages that are actually incredibly accurate, matching up perfectly with what we now know about the places and people he encountered, as well as accurate and meticulous transcriptions of languages that were unknown at the time, while other stories are almost certainly tall tales and then there are those that incorporate elements of both. There could be an otherwise honest and sober, accurate depiction of history that will feature a jarring inclusion such as a cat freezing in midair as it jumps from roof to roof, a virgin woman giving birth to an elephant, or some other obvious flight of fancy. 

This has all posed a bit of a conundrum for historians, as it is sometimes nearly impossible to parse fact from fiction in this hodgepodge of the real and imagined, and reading it is akin to trying to solve a puzzle. Indeed, some experts have claimed that only about 50 percent of the entire text is factual, while the other is heavy exaggeration or pure bunk. Some passages are obvious truths, while others are obvious lies, but there are also large swaths in which the lies are not particularly obvious, a sort of blurring of the line between reality and fantasy, making it even harder to tell if what you are reading is true or not and hiding possible tantalizing insights into history behind a murky lense. Edward White, author of The Tastemaker: Carl Van Vechten and the Birth of Modern America, has said of it:

“In the Seyahatname, pages can whistle by without an honest word in sight, though Evliya emphasizes that he is upholding the will of Allah. Typically, “Evliya the unhypocritical” reminds us of his pious commitment to scrupulousness just before he launches into an obvious lie about, say, an encounter with a woman from the Black Sea who gave birth to an elephant, the rhinoceros-riding tribes of the Sudan, or the man-eating Buddhists of Kalmyia. “God is my witness that this took place,” he says before one such tale—cast-iron evidence that it didn’t. Historians debate whether these fairy-tale inventions are intended as satirical barbs at the hyperbolic travel writers or an homage to the fantastical stories of Arabian Nights on which Evliya had grown up. Likely, it was both. But it’s also pretty clear that every now and then he simply got bored with faithfully recording reality and decided to amuse himself by splicing the mundane with the phantasmagorical. The fun for the reader comes in trying to spot the moment when empirical truth ends and one of Evliya’s campfire yarns begins.”

If he is lying, then it seems strange, considering he was such a devout Muslim, to the point that he routinely referred to non-Muslims as "infidels" and "heathens," swearing to Allah that it was all true, that he would defy that faith to tell tall tales. Celebi would settle in Cairo near the end of his life, dying in 1684 to leave behind this fascinating and frustrating historical travel account, with no notes or indications from the author himself as to where reality ends and the tall tales begin. Indeed, as far as he was concerned, it was all a completely true and honest account of his travels; he insists so on many occasions, even swearing to Allah that it is so, and so we are left with this lengthy text that harbors tantalizing historical facts mixed in with a lot of question marks. Unfortunately for many who would study it, while the Seyahatname is very well-known in its native Turkey, it is more obscure in the West. Indeed, there currently is no complete English translation of the entire work, just certain parts, and the only other language it has been translated into to an appreciable degree is German, leaving much of it in the dark to those not up to speed on their Turkish. 

We are left with an epic piece of travel literature that has fascinated and puzzled historians right up to the present, perpetually stuck in a limbo of interpretation and debate. How much of these accounts is true and what is false? Did this explorer ever really come across the supernatural creatures he claims he did? What are we to make of all this? It seems that in the end, Evliya Çelebi and his strange texts on his mysterious travels and encounters will likely forever remain in the shadows, cryptic and misunderstood. 

Moving along, in the 19th century, the wealthy and eccentric English naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton traveled the world collecting an eclectic mix of specimens that he then used his formidable skills in taxidermy to create exhibitions for his estate, a sort of museum of the strange and macabre. He was, by all accounts, a rather odd individual, known for his remarkably eccentric behavior and myriad odd claims. For instance, he was known to prowl about his estate acting like a dog and biting strangers on their legs, dressing like a scarecrow and sitting in trees, pretending to be his own butler, and making a myriad of bizarre claims such as that he could “navigate the atmosphere,” but he was still nevertheless respected for his writings on natural history and conservation, which were groundbreaking at the time.

In 1804, Waterton made his way to the South American country of Guyana to take control of some of his uncle’s estates there, and he would branch out to explore and collect various specimens of the wildlife there as well, as he was wont to do. Between 1812 and 1824, he would make various journeys and expeditions out into the unexplored areas of the country, all the while collecting numerous specimens of wildlife, which he would put on display in his home, amassing an enormous menagerie of stuffed birds and animals in the process. He was known for his unique method of taxidermy, in which he would use a mercury-based chemical to harden the skins and make them hollow, yet very lifelike simulacrums of the animals they had been. One of the most famous of all of these was a curious little exhibition that concerned an anomalous head of a monkey-like creature that Waterton simply referred to as “The Nondescript.”

The origins of this peculiar specimen were written of in Waterton’s 1825 travel memoir Wanderings in South America, a fairly influential work which is said to have even captured the imagination of a young Charles Darwin, and turned out to date back to an expedition to the jungles of Guyana during which he came across a rather odd beast indeed. During the journey, the expedition allegedly came across a rather peculiar humanoid creature that was covered with thick hair and possessed a tail and a face with strikingly human features. The group did the human thing and promptly shot and killed it, after which Waterton claimed he had been forced to preserve merely the head and neck of the beast. Waterton would say of this:

“I also procured an animal which has caused not a little speculation and astonishment. In my opinion, his thick coat of hair and great length of tail, put his species out of all question; but then, his face and head cause the inspector to pause for a moment before he ventures to pronounce his opinion of the classification. He was a large animal, and as I was pressed for daylight, and moreover, felt no inclination to have the whole weight of his body upon my back, I contented myself with his head and shoulders, which I cut off, and have brought them with me to Europe.”

Since the weird specimen looked so incredibly human, albeit with a hairy body, there were all kinds of theories orbiting the find. One was that Waterton had actually shot, killed, and stuffed the corpse of a native tribesman, which he had then snuck into the country through bribing customs officials, which Waterton himself vehemently denied, claiming that it had been some sort of unidentified ape-like creature. Another theory was that the creature on display was exactly what Waterton claimed it to be: some sort of new type of primate.

The specimen itself was just the head and shoulders, with a strikingly human countenance with a hairless face and large eyes surrounded by a thick, red mane, sort of reminiscent of an orangutan. The specimen drew flocks of gasping, puzzled onlookers, but some were aware of Waterton’s skill with taxidermy and began to suspect that this was some sort of cleverly crafted fake. It was suggested that he had merely taken the corpse of a howler monkey, in particular its hindquarters, and modified it to make it more human in appearance. Indeed, he had already shown a propensity for using taxidermy for satire and to make a political point, such as using lizards to craft into likenesses of various famous Protestant figures (Waterton was a devout Roman Catholic), and he had indulged in creative taxidermy on many occasions before.

It was even pointed out that the “Nondescript” bore an uncanny resemblance to a customs official who had given Waterton some trouble on his return to England from Guyana. Apparently, when he had docked, there had been a customs inspector named Mr. Lushington, who had seen the mass of animal specimens and demanded that Waterton pay a premium tax on the haul. Waterton had fought the import tax, but had invariably been forced to pay it, which had apparently irritated him to no end.

The thing is, while with all of his other, more creative designs, he had readily admitted to the whole thing, with the Nondescript, he not only firmly denied any tampering with the specimen, but actually provided a full back story to capturing it. He always maintained that the specimen was real, and there were plenty of people who believed him. Why would he do such a thing? It has been suggested that he was trying to test his skill by presenting a hoax as real and seeing how well it stood up to scrutiny, or that it was even meant to be a beacon to try and draw more exploration to Guyana, or even a satirical jab at other naturalists of the time. Others think that this was just a long-running practical joke that he had thought up for the fun of it all, or merely a stubborn dis of the customs official who had irked him. To this day, the specimen is exhibited at the Wakefield Museum in England, and still generates controversy as to its origins and reality. In the end, it is unknown.

Finally, we get to the adventures of anthropologists. Like in any science, the anthropologist looks for studies of human activity through investigation of physical evidence, through stringent protocols, and fact-based research. Yet also, as in many sciences, the researcher sometimes hits a wall of bafflement in which they are no longer penetrating into the unknown, but groping along the edges of it, trying to make sense of it and find a way in. There have been a handful of these explorers and researchers who have come up against something they truly do not understand and which their training has not prepared them for, brushes with forces beyond their comprehension. So next up we will look at a selection of instances in which respected, highly seasoned scientific anthropologists in Africa had supernatural experiences that would challenge their beliefs and the very fundamentals of what reality is.

First off is American cultural anthropologist and professor of anthropology at West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Paul Stoller, who is one of the most respected in his field, over his more than 30 years of field work earning many accolades, numerous academic awards, and grants from Wenner-Gren Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, the National Science Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as receiving a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. The American Anthropological Association named him the recipient of the Robert B Textor Award for Excellence in Anthropology, and he has also won the coveted Anders Retzius Medal in Gold, given once every three years by the King of Sweden, for his scientific contributions to anthropology. He has written numerous ethnographies, biographies, memoirs, and novels, as well as countless articles, many of which have been nominated for various awards. He is highly respected in his field, and is also interesting in the fact that much of his fieldwork and studies relate to magic, sorcery and spirit possession.

Stoller was long interested in various ritual practices, specifically in Africa, and far from just sitting in his study reading about such things, he really went the whole hog. In the 1970s, he travelled to the Republic of Niger and Mali in order to live among the Songhay people and study their culture and linguistics. It was here that he would cultivate an interest in actual magic and sorcery, and he has said of the evolution of this interest in magic in the workshop, Weaving the World: Writing Evocative Ethnographies:

“I think that the topic chooses the anthropologist rather than the other way around. In Songhay they say that if you want to seek out sorcery or magic, you will never discover it. You might approach it, you might talk about it, you might meet some people, but it will never grab you. So, what happens according to them is, if you eat magic, which is, you eat the substances to transform yourself, then magic eats you. If you consume history, you are consumed by it. It is the larger force of things that focuses on you. In my case, my initial fieldwork was in linguistic anthropology and I was interested in Friday mosque sermons. I never sought out to learn about sorcery. But then – I described this in my book In Sorcery’s Shadow (1987) – there were these two birds living in a rafter of the house where I was living. They were pooping on my floor and I got all irritated with these birds so I would knock their nest down. They would fly away, but then build another nest and get closer and closer to where my desk was. So after a while I just stopped paying attention to them. One day one of the birds pooped on my head in the presence of a guy that I thought was a rice farmer. But he turned out to be a Songhay healer. He said, “I’ve seen a sign, you’ve been pointed out to me. Come to my house and begin to learn.” That is how I got into the topic of sorcery. For me at least, things have sought me out. I have stumbled into sorcery.”

Stoller would jump fully into the world of Songhay sorcery and magical practices, living in a hut and studying under a man named Adamu Jenitongo, considered to be one of the most knowledgeable and powerful Songhay sorcerers of his era, as well as under the apprenticeship of another sorcerer called Hamidou Salou. This took him into a murky world of strange powers, dark forces, and mysterious spirits that most outsiders have never even heard of, much less become a part of. Among his studies of various spells and rituals, he had some particularly odd experiences. One of these was a time he tried to help a friend bless his house, as it was apparently being terrorized by a powerful evil spirit called Dongo, which was greatly feared by the local people to the point that they did not dare even so much as invoke its name. The ritual involved the sacrifice of a black rooster, but Stoller apparently botched the spell and angered the spirit and causing it to plague him with misfortune. He would say of this:

“Things began to unravel a few days later. After a short trip to Tillaberi, Adamu Jenitongo’s village 75 miles north of Niamey, I returned to the capital city and was in a car accident, bruising my forehead when it slammed against the sun visor. The evening after the accident, I attended a wedding ceremony and developed a pounding headache, blurry vision, and a high fever – telltale signs of the onset of malaria. Complaining about my symptoms, his in-law, a physician, gave me sulfa drugs to teach the ‘malaria’. The drugs quickly produced an allergic reaction – a severe rash that spread over my torso and down my legs. I became more feverish and was soon too weak to walk. At night I had disturbing ‘malarial’ dreams, all of which were about my difficult death. After several days of suffering, I somehow gathered the strength to get out of bed, dress myself and hail a taxi, which I took to Hamidou’s hut. I told Hamidou my tale of transgression.”

His mentor chastised him, calling him a “foolish boy,” telling him that his attempt to banish Dongo had greatly angered the spirit, especially since he had tried it as just a lowly and unworthy apprentice. Stoller was sent on his way back to the United States to recuperate from his illness, along with a satchel of magical herbs, medicine, and resin to help him. Oddly, although he was very sick, doctors could find nothing physically wrong with him and no reason why he was ill. It wasn’t malaria or any other known disease; doctors were stumped. However, after burning the resin every day and taking the herbs and medicine he had been given by the sorcerer, he made a full recovery within a few days. Stoller would write several books on his experiences with the Songhay, including In Sorcery’s Shadow, The Burden of Writing the Sorcerer’s Burden: Ethnography, Fiction and the Future of Anthropological Expression, and Fusion of the Worlds: Ethnography of Possession Among the Songhay of Niger, the latter of which would be nominated for the prestigious J.I. Staley Prize. He continues to do anthropology work and fill halls for his numerous lectures, as well as blogging regularly on culture, politics, and higher education for The Huffington Post.

Another anthropologist who experienced some odd things during fieldwork in Africa was English anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who was a pioneer in the development of social anthropology, President of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland from 1949–51, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Oxford from 1946 to 1970, and also the recipient of numerous honors, including the Rivers Memorial Medal and of the Huxley Memorial Medal, and he was even knighted in 1971. In short, he was no quack. He is best known for his work on various religious practices among African tribes, particularly in Sudan and among the Azande people of the upper Nile in the 1920s. While studying their ways, he did much research on their magic and witchcraft, and although he mostly did this through a scientific lens, he reportedly had some strange experiences that he would not be able to easily explain. In his book Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande, he writes of one particularly odd incident:

“I have only once seen witchcraft on its path. I had been sitting late in my hut writing notes. About midnight, before retiring, I took a spear and went for my usual nocturnal stroll. I was walking in the garden at the back of my hut, amongst banana trees, when I noticed a bright light passing at the back of my servants’ huts towards the homestead of a man called Tupoi. As this seemed worth investigation I followed its passage until a grass screen obscured the view. I ran quickly through my hut to the other side in order to see where the light was going to, but did not regain sight of it. I knew that one man, a member of my household, had a lamp that might have given off so bright a light, but next morning he told me that he had neither been out late at night nor had he used his lamp. There did not lack ready informants to tell me that what I had seen was witchcraft. Shortly afterwards, on the same morning, an old relative of Tupoi and an inmate of his homestead died. This event fully explained the light I had seen. I never discovered [the light’s] real origin, which was possibly a handful of grass lit by someone on his way to defecate, but the coincidence of the direction along which the light moved and the subsequent death accorded well with Zande ideas.”

What was going on here? Finally, we have the English-American anthropologist Edith Turner, who, among the various far-flung people she studied, covering such places as Mexico, Israel, Japan, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka, and Korea, also spent much time doing fieldwork among the Ndembu of Zambia and the Bagisu of Uganda. She was known for her interest in the various rituals, shamanism, and especially the magical healing practices of these places, and it was during her time in Africa that she would allegedly witness this type of magic firsthand. In 1985, as she was living among the Ndembu people, she was invited to attend a spiritual healing ceremony for a woman named Meru. Leading the ritual was a witch doctor by the name of Singleton, who had deemed the woman’s sickness to be caused by possession by a malicious spirit called an ihamba. After covering the victim and others present with red clay to protect themselves from the ihamba jumping into their bodies and taking some herbal concoction, the bizarre ritual began with trying to guide the spirit out of the body, which would supposedly take the form of a tooth, and Turner would describe what unfolded next in her book Experiencing Ritual:

"Clap, clap, clap – Mulandu was leaning forward, and all the others were on their feet – this was it. Quite an interval of struggle elapsed while I clapped like one possessed, crouching beside Bill amid a lot of urgent talk, while Singleton pressed Meru’s back, guiding and leading out the tooth. Meru’s face in a grin of tranced passion, her back quivering rapidly. Suddenly Meru raised her arm, stretched it in liberation, and I saw with my own eyes a giant thing emerging out of the flesh of her back. An opaque ‘plasma’ might describe it. This thing was a large gray blob about six inches across, a deep gray opaque thing emerging as a sphere. I was amazed-delighted. I still laugh with glee at the realization of having seen it, the ihamba, and so big! We were all just one in triumph. The gray thing was actually out there, visible, and you could see Singleton’s hands working and scrabbling on the back, and then the thing was there no more. Singleton had it in his pouch, pressing it in with his other hand as well. The receiving can was ready; he transferred whatever it was into the can and capped the castor oil leaf and bark lid over it. It was done. I did not merely intuit the spirit form emerging from Meru’s back but saw it, saw it with my own eyes. This is different from intuition or imagination; it is nearer to seeing a ghost."

Rather oddly, Turner would claim to have psychic experiences and occasionally go into strange trances for the rest of her life. Such cases are curious because they come from trained scientific professionals and blur the line between the reality we know and the world beyond our normal senses. 

What is going on in these cases? These are people who have gone out to faraway places that most of us could never imagine going to, getting peeks into cultures far removed from our everyday lives, and although expecting to see the strange, coming across things that they were perhaps not ready for and which challenged their beliefs. Whatever they experienced out there on their travels, it just goes to show that in some ways, no matter how much our knowledge of the world has increased, there are still dark pockets of the unknown lying out in the shadows.

Before we move on to explore some of these cases of UFOs not only near water, but of them seemingly extracting it for their own ends, we will turn our attention to just some of the encounters on record that detail UFOs and mysterious power blackouts, including them appearing to use our own energy resources as a power supply.

Perhaps the best place to start would be with arguably the most famous alleged UFO blackout case that occurred in November 1965, a series of bizarre incidents that are loosely referred to as the 1965 East Coast UFO Power Blackouts, at least in UFO circles.

What is certain is that at around 5:30 pm on November 9th, 1965, New York City's power supply suddenly failed, and the entire city was plunged into total darkness. Authorities were perplexed as to what had caused the power failure, as they received no indications of such an occurrence (although it later came to light that an “unusual flow of current” was experienced just north of the main power plant’s location). Compounding matters was that only several minutes later, the entire eastern seaboard of the United States lost power, followed quickly by several regions of southeast Canada.

In fact, it was Canadian investigators who immediately notified their United States counterparts that they had detected a “huge surge of electricity flowing in the opposite direction to the normal flow at that time”, dismissing American assertions that the fault was likely a power line near Niagara Falls. Although a joint US-Canadian investigation was set up, they were unable to establish a cause for the sudden widespread fault, even going as far as to say in their conclusions that it simply “should not have happened”. However, when the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) conducted its own investigation of the blackouts, it uncovered some remarkable details.

One of these accounts came from a private pilot, Weldon Ross, who claimed he witnessed a “strange, red fireball-type object” that hovered in the air before rising from the power lines below him. He was flying to Hancock Field at the time of the sighting, which also occurred right before the first blackout took hold. Moreover, Ross’s account was corroborated by Robert Walsh, an employee at Hancock Field, who happened to be arranging some emergency lighting as the incident in question was unfolding.  These blackouts, however, were not limited to November 9th, nor were they limited to the United States. What’s more, almost all of the strange power blackouts that followed in the months after the East Coast incident occurred around the same time as a surge of UFO reports.

On the evening of November 15th, 1965, for example, following a run of UFO reports in what had been a very active year for UFO reports in the United Kingdom, London suffered multiple widespread power failures. Four days later, on the evening of November 19th, on the other side of the world, similar power system failures hit Lima in Peru. Although there were no widespread power failures reported, on the evening of November 26th, in St. Paul, Minnesota, multiple residents, as well as several police officers, reported seeing several strange, blue objects overhead, while at the same time also experiencing a sudden draining of car headlights and batteries, as well as interference on car radios. Between December 2nd and December 4th, Texas and New Mexico experienced several widespread blackouts, and on December 26th, large portions of Buenos Aires in Argentina also completely lost power. Several weeks later, one evening in January 1966, several regions of southern Italy were plunged into darkness for several hours, with no explanation ever offered for the sudden power cut by authorities.

These incidents – in the pre-Internet days, remember – might have been forgotten about had it not been for a UFO symposium held in the summer of 1968 at the request of the Committee on Science and Astronautics of the US House of Representatives, during which the 1965 East Coast blackouts were examined, with some of the most remarkable testimony offered by Dr. James E. McDonald from the University of Arizona. He stated that “UFOs have been seen hovering over power facilities” on multiple occasions, and that power blackouts often followed these sightings. He also detailed several witness reports from residents of New York City from the night of the blackout, including details from one resident who saw a “strange object” hovering overhead before shooting off into the distance a second before the power suddenly failed. Similarly, five residents of Syracuse reported seeing a hovering spherical object in the moments after the blackout. Even more intriguing, Dr. McDonald offered that the Federal Power Commission had received “dozens of (UFO) sighting reports” on the evening of November 9th, the night of the blackout, as well as reports from across the wider New England area.

Dr. McDonald also went on to state that there were some “slightly disturbing coincidences” that deserved deeper consideration and investigation, not least as no explanation of any kind had been offered regarding the sudden power surge that appeared to have caused the blackout. Incidentally, three years later, in 1971, Dr. James McDonald tragically took his own life. Make of that what you will.

Whatever the truth regarding the East Coast blackouts and whether or not they were connected to UFO activity in the area or not, there are many other similar encounters on record. If we go back just short of a decade, for example, to Rome in August 1958, multiple residents reported seeing a strange, large object make its way over the city. Moments later, the city was plunged into total darkness as the power system failed. With all of the lights extinguished on the ground, multiple residents of the city looked up in awe as the glowing object continued on its way. Less than a year later, in the summer of 1959, an almost identical event unfolded in Salta, Argentina. At around the same time, in August 1959, in Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil, a large, unknown object passed directly over the transmission lines of the local power station. As it did so, the automatic power keys switched to the “off” position. They remained locked there until the mysterious object had moved away, at which point, they switched back on.

Just short of a decade and a half later, and eight years after the East Coast blackout incident, one night in 1973 in Ontario, Canada, one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking encounters involving UFOs and power supplies occurred. On the night in question, Art Larabie arrived at his home on Kukagami Lake Road after visiting his wife in the hospital. He had been at work the entire day before the visit, and now, at a little after 10 pm, he was so exhausted that he went straight to bed. He was so tired he could hardly remember his head hitting the pillow and was almost immediately in a deep sleep. He was, though, dragged from his slumber shortly after midnight by the sound of his panicked neighbor banging on his front door. In fact, his neighbor was knocking so loudly in their attempts to wake him that they “nearly knocked the door down!”

Realizing something truly out of the ordinary must have happened to cause such a reaction in his neighbor, Art pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the front door. His neighbor immediately urged him to “come outside and see” the bizarre object that was hovering just above the nearby powerlines. Art initially dismissed his neighbor’s concerns, stating the “object” was likely nothing more than the Moon. His neighbor, however, insisted the object was far stranger than that, and eventually Art followed him outside.

Almost as soon as he had done so, he could see a “massive object” that was glowing like a lightbulb between 500 and 1000 feet away, hovering approximately 40 feet above the powerlines, its width spanning three of the poles the lines were attached to. Stranger still, a tether of some sort stretched down from the object and connected to one of the power lines. Art couldn’t escape the feeling that the object – whatever it was – was draining the power from the lines and taking it on board, almost as if it was charging itself up.

The two men remained where they were, each in complete awe at the bizarre aerial display in front of them. Then, after around 25 minutes, the object suddenly shot away into the distance and disappeared. In fact, the object vanished so quickly that neither of the men could recall actually seeing it leave. However, when they looked at the powerlines directly below where the object had been hovering, they could see that the lines were now strangely illuminated, so much so that they cast a brightness to the ground below.

The following morning, Art visited his other neighbor to ask if she had witnessed anything from the previous evening. She said that she hadn’t seen the object itself, but that she was awakened in the middle of the night by an intense light that filled her bedroom for several minutes. She told Art that she had been “groggy” from being woken up, and believed that the brightness was down to “the kids leaving the lights on,” and, ultimately, she went back to sleep. It was only now, as Art told her of the strange events he and his other neighbor had witnessed, that she realized she, too, had caught a glimpse of the otherworldly events of the previous evening.

Just what the object was, where it came from, and whether it was taking power directly from the powerlines remains open to debate. The incident, however, adds another layer of nuance to the UFO and alien mysteries.

During the early 1990s, Puerto Rico, arguably one of the most active locations for UFO sightings on the planet, experienced several strange power blackouts that appeared to be connected to UFO sightings. On the evening of October 2nd, 1991, for example, hundreds of residents were plunged into total darkness for around half an hour as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) suddenly failed. At the same time, a PREPA engineer, Ramon Montalvo, witnessed several strange lights hovering above the plant “the minute the power was cut off!”

Following this insinuation that an object of otherworldly origin might have been responsible for the power cut, Lieutenant Rafael Rodriguez, a Lajas police officer, offered that the lights Montalvo saw were likely nothing more than reflections from the surface of the nearby lagoon. However, when authorities attempted to prove that Rodriguez was correct by setting up large reflectors on the crest of Mount Candelaria, their experiment actually proved the opposite, with no reflections visible on the surface of the water from what would have been Montalvo’s viewpoint. Ultimately, no official explanation was given for the strange power blackout.

Around six months later, in mid-1992, in Trujillo Alto, another bizarre incident took place. Late on the night in question, residents were woken by a monstrous noise and a bizarre but captivating blue glow that washed over almost the entire city. Looking out of their windows and looking up from the streets, residents of the city watched in awe as the light changed color, going through “almost all the colors in the spectrum”, while, at the same time, two bizarre searchlights appeared and scanned the ground below, as if looking for something. At some point during these bizarre events, witnesses began to notice that the object behind the glow was hovering directly over one of the nearby power stations. In fact, as more and more residents focused on the object itself, they could see that it was “drawing electricity” from the power station, with some witnesses even recalling seeing sparks flying between the power plant and the object above.

The object remained visible for several hours. However, the following morning, several intriguing discoveries were made at the power station itself, not least that the transformer terminals had become completely molten. Moreover, investigators were perplexed as to why the breakers had failed to act and shut off such a huge loss of current. In total, it was estimated that the incident had cost almost a quarter of a million dollars in terms of damage and energy reserves.

In more recent times, during the summer of 2001, a similar UFO blackout case hit the small village of Nanesti in Romania. While authorities and media outlets either didn’t mention or played down the apparent UFO aspect of the power outage, Gheorghe Cohal and Catalin Banica from the Association for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (ASFAN) outlet immediately highlighted the potential connection, and their investigation into the incident provided by far the most detailed account of the strange events.

It was during the evening of June 30th, 2001, at around 10:30 pm, when a motorist who just happened to be driving through the village (most accounts state he was a resident of Bucharest) suddenly spotted a strange, glowing light overhead. He watched this glowing object for several moments before making a report to a local media station. Sparked by this report, several journalists and local television crews arrived in the small village the following day, with reports going out from residents on various media platforms, and ultimately, drawing the attention of the two previously mentioned ASFAN investigators.

It came to light that at the time the motorist had spotted the strange object over the town, most of the local residents were at home watching an extremely popular television show on the national station TVR1. It was while they were watching this program (ASFAN spoke with over 50 residents) that the town’s power supply suddenly cut out. Power outages were relatively common in Nanesti, but, generally speaking, only lasted a minute or two. This time, though, after several minutes without power, many residents began to sense that this power cut was different somehow, and many of them ventured outside. When they did so, most immediately noticed the bizarre, red, glowing, round-shaped object overhead. They recalled that it moved slowly before coming to a sudden stop and then rotating on its axis. As they looked on, the object seemed to transform itself into a ring that was divided by a yellow hue, which then descended toward the ground.

Then, when it came to around 1000 feet from the ground, the object began to ascend once more, its spinning movements clearly visible to those below. It eventually returned to its original position before repeating the descent and the ascent. It did this several times, suggesting to investigators that the object, or the intelligence behind it, was either investigating the villagers or had decided to put on a purposeful display. As midnight arrived, and with the power still not restored, several of the villagers returned inside their respective homes. Others, on the other hand, remained outside in case any further aerial displays took place. Investigators, though, discovered other witnesses who further corroborated what had been seen by residents of Nanesti.

Many of these were in the cultural center of the town, attending the wedding reception of the son of the village manager. The reception itself was in full swing by the time the power suddenly went out, leaving the bride and groom, and their guests, in total darkness. By midnight, with many of the guests preparing to leave, the hosts contacted the Vulturu power planet to ask about the outage and when they expected power to be restored. To their confusion, they were informed that this particular power plant (even though it provided power to the area) was functioning normally, and that the issue could be with another nearby power plant in the Focsani region. By 2 am, the power was restored, and with many of the wedding guests still at the cultural center, they continued with their celebrations. In the days that followed, however, several intriguing details came to light concerning the power supply to the affected region on the night in question.

Renel, for example, investigated the source of electricity distribution to the village that night and discovered that there were no recorded faults with either of the power plants. And while one charred transformer was discovered at one of the power plants, a blackout across such a wide area and for such a long time could not be attributed to a single charred transformer. Moreover, there is still the issue of just what caused the charring in the first place. Of course, given the multiple witnesses to the bizarre aerial object witnessed overhead at the same time as the power cut, we would be irresponsible not to assume that there is a likely connection between the two.

Perhaps of more concern than UFOs syphoning energy straight from our power stations or causing power systems to temporarily go down is the notion of UFOs extracting water for their own needs, not least because of our own need for it, combined with the fact that it appears to be extremely rare in the known cosmos.

Arguably one of the most intriguing of these accounts unfolded in the early hours of September 30th, 1980, at the White Acres property near Rosedale in Victoria, Australia. At around 1 am on the night in question, the 54-year-old caretaker of the farm was dragged from sleep by a sound that he likened to “a screeching whistle” that was coming from outside. At the same time, as he shook off the grogginess of sleep, he could hear the agitation of the cattle, clearly telling him that something untoward was taking place. He dragged himself from bed and, still wearing his nightclothes, ventured to the back door of the property where the commotion seemed to be coming from. He opened the door and stepped outside onto the wooden rail. As he did so, he saw a bizarre “domed, disc-shaped object” with orange and blue flashing lights moving across his field from left to right in his vision. He estimated that this strange craft was no more than ten feet from the ground and was approximately 500 feet from him. He further estimated that it was around 25 feet in width.

He continued to watch as the object moved precisely across his land, negotiating several trees and outbuildings as it did so. As he watched, he noted that although the object was brightly lit underneath and “gave out light at its own height”, it didn’t illuminate the ground below (a detail that shows up in numerous other UFO accounts). Then, the object came to a sudden stop directly above a concrete 10,000-gallon water tower. It then descended and came to a stop only a short distance from the structure.  

At this point, the caretaker rushed back inside the house, threw on some clothes, and jumped onto his Suzuki 100 motorbike before racing across the fields towards the water tank in order to take a closer look. There had been several cases of cattle rustling in recent months, and, despite the truly bizarre nature of the events he was witnessing, the caretaker still hadn’t dismissed that this bizarre object could be somehow connected to the cattle rustlers. When he came to a gate, he quickly jumped off the bike and proceeded to open it. As he did so, he caught sight of one of the cattle nearby. He recalled seeing the fear in the cow’s eyes, and also noticed that it was “frothing at the mouth”, such was the anxiousness it was clearly feeling. With the gate open, he got back on the bike and set off once more. When he was no more than 50 yards from where the object was hovering, he brought the bike to a stop and got off once more. He immediately noticed a bizarre sensation running through his body, making him feel like he was “like a jelly on a plate”. He also noted that the whistling noise was much louder than it had been previously, likely due to his being much closer to the strange craft. In fact, the volume of the noise was so loud that he was forced to cover his ears. From this vantage point, he could see that the top of the craft was dome-shaped and white in color, while the bottom half was orange and featured several “circular windows or lights”.  

Then, the whistling noise changed into “an awful scream”, while at the same time, a strange, black tube emerged from the craft’s underside. The tube began to extend, and as it did so, a “loud bang” was audible, quickly followed by a sudden rush of hot air that was so powerful it almost knocked the caretaker off his feet. The caretaker looked up and could now see the craft ascending slowly, the black tube still connected to its underside. After several seconds, the object came to a stop and went completely silent. At this point, the tube was no longer visible. However, a downpour of items, including stones, rocks, and cape weed, began falling to the ground. A moment later, the object began moving to the east.

The caretaker restarted the bike’s engine and rode to where the object had been hovering only moments earlier. He could clearly see a strange “ring of black” on the ground directly below where it had hovered. He looked up once more, just in time to see the strange craft disappear into the night sky. At this point, the caretaker felt a strange mixture of confusion, exhilaration, and excitement. He started the bike’s engine once more and rode straight back to the house. As he walked into the property, he noted that the clock on the wall declared it was 1:50 am. As he prepared himself a cup of coffee, however, he happened to glance at his wristwatch and discovered it had stopped at 1:10 am. He reset the watch to the correct time, and it appeared to be working as it should. However, only ten minutes later, it had stopped once more. It would be several days before the wristwatch worked properly.  

After draining the coffee cup, he returned to bed, although he remained fully clothed and slept very little. By 5 am, he ventured back outside to the paddock where he had witnessed the UFO. The black ring was still clearly visible on the ground. Moreover, in daylight, he could clearly see that the grass had been pressed flat in an anticlockwise direction, with all of the flowers within the circle no longer there. He could also see six “spoke marks” that matched exactly the spokes he recalled seeing on the craft’s underside. He continued along the path the object had taken, noting that there was various “debris” left on the ground, the debris that he had heard falling the previous evening. He considered that the long tube he had witnessed extending from the object had likely used suction to take up what it wanted from below before discarding what it didn’t. This was seemingly confirmed to him when he examined the water tank shortly after. The entire contents – all 10,000 gallons of water – were now completely gone, presumably taken by the strange craft.  

Following the arrival of the farm owner later that morning, the caretaker reported the bizarre encounter to the Gippsland Times newspaper, which ran a front-page story on it the following day, in their October 1st, 1980 edition. Later that morning, while the caretaker continued to examine the site, he was approached by a passing truck driver. He stated that the previous evening, at around 1 am, he had pulled to the side of the road to rest for a short while. He had also noticed a strange object following his truck for some time before he decided to bring his vehicle to a stop. When he did so, the object continued on and into the caretaker’s field.

Although the true motivations of the intelligence behind this strange craft, as indeed just what that intelligence might be and where they came from or went to, all remain open for debate. It appears clear, however, that the target of the UFO that evening was the water tank on the White Acre property. Despite the presumed advanced nature of this object, we might consider whether water is required in the same way that we require water for a car. Or might it be that water is utilized in ways we wouldn’t understand for some kind of highly advanced propulsion system? What is certain is that even the draining of the tank suggests advanced technology. It was discovered that the tube had seemingly pierced the water tank from beneath, and algae was discovered on the sides and roof of the tank, suggesting that these had been somehow separated before the water was drained. Even more remarkably, it would, generally speaking, usually take around three days to fully drain the entire tank of its contents, something this otherworldly object achieved in less than an hour.

A decade earlier, at around 10:30 pm on the evening of August 15th, 1970, near Good Hart, Michigan, another case involving water and UFOs unfolded, this one much more disturbing. According to the files of Michigan Ufology Central, on the night in question, the anonymous witness was staying at their parents’ home when they felt a sudden and compelling urge to drive to the banks of Lake Michigan and watch the night sky. It was while they were looking skyward that they noticed a particularly bright light that was not only moving but appeared to be descending. Alert that they were watching something out of the ordinary, the witness raised their telescope to their eye. Magnified, the witness could make out many finer details. The “light”, for example, was a disc-shaped object that had orange, yellow, green, and blue lights on its exterior. They could also make out what appeared to be windows, with light emanating from them. Stranger still, the witness could see what appeared to be several figures inside the craft, who appeared to be manipulating some kind of controls. Within moments, the object came to a stop on the water’s edge around 100 feet from where the witness stood. He remained where he was for around 15 minutes before finally deciding to approach the craft.

Almost as soon as he began towards it, he noticed that the air felt decidedly different; hotter somehow. Despite this, he continued on. Then, when he was around 50 feet from the object, he heard a metallic, mechanical sound. He stopped immediately. From where he was, he could see a ramp-like structure extending from the side of the craft towards the ground. At this point, the witness felt an urge to approach the craft, almost as if something had taken control of his body and mind, and he began approaching it once more, eventually stepping onto the ramp. A moment after he had done so, the side of the craft seemed to disappear, revealing an opening in its exterior. He proceeded through this opening and stepped inside the craft, finding himself in a strange room with terracotta-colored stone walls, from which a soft glow appeared to emanate, lighting the room. He recalled that the temperature was relatively cool, and he further recalled aromas that were similar to cinnamon and sage.

At this point, he scanned his surroundings, noting that the room appeared to stretch around a corridor in both directions, while also noting there were various levers and other doorways along the way. He continued, opting to go left when he came to the corners. As he did so, he noticed that the aroma of cinnamon and sage got decidedly stronger. He eventually came to a door that stopped his progression. When he turned, however, he realized that another door had closed behind him. He looked down at the floor and realized he was standing on a transparent section through which he could see a part of Lake Michigan, as well as the Big Rock Nuclear Plant. His attention then turned to a window in the wall. He peered through it and saw several humanoid figures with oversized heads on the other side of it, all of whom were manipulating controls on some kind of panel. Each of the figures wore the same style tight-fitting suit, and each had a strange blue glow to them. Then, without warning, one of the figures turned and looked directly at him. When it did so, the witness could see it had no nose, large cheekbones, and large, black eyes.

Moments later, a strange vision appeared in his mind, a vision that the witness realized had been put there by this strange entity. He was now looking at himself, but from this mysterious figure’s perspective. The next thing he realized was that he was being led into a different room and then placed into a bizarre chair. A short time after that, “rapid 3D images” ran through his mind, quicker than his conscious mind could process them. Then, one of the strange creatures approached him and seemingly spoke to him telepathically. In its hand, it had a strange cube that was filled with a clear blue liquid, which he was instructed to drink. Although this figure passed on much information directly into the witness’s mind, he could only remember small pieces of information, the most important being that these apparent alien entities were visiting Earth primarily for its water supply. His next memory following this was of waking up on the water’s edge, where he had first spotted the strange object.

Four years earlier, on the afternoon of July 5th, 1966, in Port Jervis, New York, two friends were driving home after spending the day fishing when they spotted a particularly quiet and scenic spot near the roadside. Realizing it would be an ideal spot to spend an extra hour trying to make a catch, they brought the vehicle to a stop and quickly retrieved their fishing gear before heading to the water’s edge. It was as they were casting their lines into the water that they noticed a bizarre, oval-shaped object appear just above the surface. Moreover, it was heading in their direction. They both looked on in shock as the object continued to approach. They recalled that the strange craft had a “rusty brown” exterior with a “matte to purple finish”, as well as several portholes around the edge, out of which shone a “green fluorescent light”.

Then, an already strange situation turned even stranger. From the object’s underside, two “purple pinkish beams of light” appeared and began to “sweep” from side to side, breaking the water’s surface, as if the object was searching for something under the water. The more the two men looked, however, the more they could see that these beams of light had a “solid substance” about them, and rather than searching for something, it appeared as though the object was “sucking up the water” through these tube-like beams. As it did so, the object continued in the pair’s direction, eventually getting so close that they could see two figures inside the craft, each of which had a “leathery, wrinkled face” and “large pointed ears”. After several moments, the object disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

Only several months later, at around 4 pm one afternoon in January 1967, an anonymous witness was sitting in his boat on the Old River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he noticed a strange object appear in the overcast sky. Moreover, the object was heading in his direction. Realizing he had his camera with him, he immediately reached for it and began trying to get the object in the viewfinder. When he did so, he saw the object beginning “a rather slow turn to the right”. He pressed down on the shutter and captured the object at a 45-degree angle. Then, before he could capture another picture, the object simply vanished. As bizarre as the events were, he put the incident out of his mind and went back to checking his fishing lines. Several hours later, though, it seemed the object had returned.

At around 9 pm, the witness became aware of a strange noise, similar to a “huge vacuum cleaner (that was) running full blast”. Curious, he cautiously moved his boat to where the sound appeared to be coming from. However, try as he might, he was unable to find the source of this unsettling noise. He eventually returned to the main port, by which time, the disturbing noise had stopped. He secured his equipment and decided to turn in for the evening.

The next morning, he sat out as usual to his preferred spot on the water. However, as he guided his boat there, he noticed several dead fish were floating on the surface. In fact, the further he went onto the water, the more dead fish he discovered. A little perplexed at this discovery, he returned his boat to the port and decided to practice target shooting with his hunting rifle at the edge of the water. After shooting for several minutes, all the while keeping the Old River in his sight, he noticed that the crows in the trees began “chattering like crazy”. He immediately shifted his focus in the direction of the cacophony and immediately noticed the strange object he had witnessed the previous afternoon. And once more, it was heading in his direction.  As he had done the previous day, he reached for his camera and attempted to capture as many shots as he could. However, after managing to take one picture, the object moved upward “like an elevator” and disappeared, this time for good.

There are many other UFO and alien encounters involving the taking of water supplies, many of which are documented in the book UFOs and Water: Physical Effects of UFOs on Water through Accounts by Eyewitnesses by Carl W. Feindt.

At around 2 pm on June 12th, 1981, for example, truck driver Robert Gomez was driving his water truck near Alice, Texas. He had just made a delivery and had around 165 gallons of water in the tank, with zero pressure on the gauge. The radio was playing loudly as he headed down the highway when he suddenly became aware of a strange object in the sky ahead of him. To begin with, he thought the object was nothing but an airplane. However, as he watched, the bizarre craft suddenly increased dramatically in brightness before it stopped dead and hovered motionless overhead.  Gomez could now see that the object was disc-shaped and glowed a “brilliant white”, while also having a “dark ring” around the edge and a “dark inner ring” around the center. He also noted that the top section was dome-shaped.

By now, Gomez noticed that the truck was slowing down, causing him to press down on the accelerator. However, no matter how hard he did so, it seemed to have no effect. At the same time, the radio turned into a burst of static. Realizing he was in the middle of a truly bizarre situation, he reached for his CB radio (which was seemingly still working) and contacted the dispatcher to inform them of what he was seeing and experiencing. As he was doing so, the object suddenly shot directly upward into the clouds and disappeared.

As perplexed as he was by the whole affair, he continued with his journey, eventually arriving at Alice. By the time he had arrived, the radio had resumed working again. However, as he turned off the engine and stepped out of the truck’s cabin, he noticed the concerned look on the face of one of the maintenance men, who was focused on the back of the vehicle. Gomez approached him, and the maintenance man pointed to his valve at the back of the truck that was “smoking”, as if it had experienced intense heat. Moreover, as Gomez examined the truck, he noticed that the pressure gauge, which had previously been at zero, was now showing 55 points of pressure. He opened the valve to release whatever water was left inside. However, when he did so, he realized that the tank was completely empty. Whether the water was somehow taken by the mysterious object before it disappeared into the clouds or whether the truck somehow heated up as a consequence of the encounter is open for debate.

Just short of four years later, at around midnight on the evening of April 26th, 1985, in Gomoub in Namibia, 12-year-old Hannetjie was at home, unwell with a fever. She had just gotten out of bed to get some medicine from her mother when she noticed a “strange phenomenon” out of the window, which she later described as looking like a “round ball” that was slightly “bigger than the headlight of a motorbike” and had what appeared to be “several little stars” inside that sparkled brightly. The object itself seemed to move in complete silence as it eventually disappeared into the distance. Moreover, Hannetjie noticed that each of the family’s pet dogs was exceptionally quiet, as if they too had picked up on the strange aerial anomaly. The bizarre events, though, were far from over.

The following afternoon, one of the farmhands arrived at the property, and he had a remarkable account to tell the owners from the previous evening. He claimed that as he was guarding the sheep (as per his duties), a strange “glowing red ball” appeared overhead and proceeded to “drink” the water from the Lower Dam. Moreover, all of the sheep appeared to be extremely agitated while the glowing red object was present, and refused to go anywhere near the water afterward. When the dam was examined a short time later, it was found to be completely dry.

Another bizarre encounter can be found in the research files of Thiago Luiz Ticchetti. The incident in question unfolded around 1 am on August 21st, 1999, in Cubatao, São Paulo, Brazil, when resident Robert Rabelo noticed a huge object in the night sky as he drove to the Water Treatment Station. Upon his arrival, he found three other witnesses, all of whom also noticed the strange aerial vehicle. To begin with, they speculated that there might be a short circuit on the plant’s energy towers. However, when one of them climbed the tower to see if this was the case, they realized the glowing object was much higher, so they had to dismiss this suggestion.

They continued to observe the bizarre craft, eventually noticing that it was a dark, triangular craft, at least the size of a football field, with three red lights on its underside, and what appeared to be one larger red light on the top. Then, without warning, “lots of flashes, hundreds of white flashes” began and then disappeared almost instantly. Following this, a bright yellow ball-like object exited from the triangular craft and headed off into the distance. After around 20 minutes, the triangular vehicle disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Just what the mission of this object, including the smaller, yellow object, might have been remains open to debate. That it appeared directly over a water treatment facility, though, given the many other accounts we have examined here, is certainly interesting.

Just short of two years later, according to the research files of Albert Rosales, another intriguing incident occurred in Brazil, this one near the Tocantins River. On the evening of March 22nd, 2001, Vinicius Da Silva and Marta Rosenthal were returning home from a fishing trip when they felt a jolt from their vehicle that appeared to come from one of the wheels. Suspecting a blown tire, they pulled the vehicle to the side of the road. Vinicius examined the tires, finding all of them to be completely undamaged. It was as he was doing so when Marta suddenly let out a scream. He immediately turned to her and saw she was pointing to the right-hand side of the road. There, only several feet away, was a bizarre “metallic object” that had “small windows along its edge”. Moments later, the pair could see a strange figure, approximately four feet tall, standing in front of the craft. In the strange figure’s hand was what appeared to be a hose. From what the witnesses could tell, the figure was using the hose to draw water out of the river. After two or three minutes, the figure pulled the hose out of the water and went back inside the object. A moment later, the object rose into the air slowly, glowing brightly as it did so. Then, it shot directly upwards and disappeared into the evening sky.

The cases we have examined here are just a small number of UFO encounters on record that detail extracting water or affecting power supplies. Indeed, we might ask, particularly where water is concerned, if at least part of the reason these seemingly otherworldly travelers visit Earth is to extract water. As bizarre as this might sound, it makes a certain amount of sense. If we assume that these strange craft do belong to a space-traveling civilization for a moment, then, upon reaching our part of the Universe, although liquid water can be found on certain moons, Earth is the only place where stable liquid water can be found on the surface, which could make our planet a very attractive, perhaps even necessary, location.

Where, might we ask, though, do power blackouts and apparent stealing of energy reserves reside in all of this? The key element here is electricity. Many researchers have suggested that these seemingly otherworldly crafts might use some form of electromagnetic propulsion system. Furthermore, the Earth’s magnetic field might interfere with these propulsion systems, leading to many of the sightings around the world. In extreme cases, this interference could result in crashes, such as the Roswell incident, which many believe marked the beginning of the Modern UFO Era.

Ultimately, though, we might ask if these objects are regularly visiting our planet not so much to study human beings or other life forms here, but for crucial raw materials. If this is the case, the outlook for humanity in the face of these alien visitations perhaps looks a little bleak and uncertain. We might consider how we as a race might conduct ourselves if we needed valuable materials and resources from the cosmos (assuming we had the technology to harvest such materials from space). Would we take what we needed regardless of the consequences to other life? The answer to that question, if we are being honest, should make us all uncomfortable.