Football? Hmph! Half-time shows? Hmph! Anomalists crave not of these things. Instead we seek out ripping yarns, like this treat defrosted by Andrew Gable. But is this a tall tale woven by a lonely trapper, or is there a germ of truth at the heart of this grim mystery? On the other hand, Andrew introduces everyone to the awesome bear-god Tornrark. There are plenty more tall tales waiting for Dr. Beachcombing to extract them from musty, dusty old books. Back in the 19th century folks enjoyed spooking each other by pretending to be ghosts, and the fun of these Ghost Larks doesn't stop after they've been caught red-handed. If you're jonesing for the real stuff, Undine can hook you up with the tale of The Ghost Of John Koch who befriended a white kitty cat in the afterlife. His ghost became quite a sensation in Trenton, with crowds gathering at his haunt in hopes of catching a glimpse. (CS)

Some are heading to Houston tonight, but Greg Taylor's booking a flight to Peru to explore its deepest mysteries. His inspiration comes from Alex Mott's latest mini-doc investigating Incan stonework, the affect of magnets on everything, and other oddities mainstream archaeology don't want you to know about. Meanwhile in North America, Sherry Towers has come to the startling conclusion Ancient Pueblo People Used Unexpectedly Advanced Geometry To Build Monuments like the Sun Temple complex in Mesa Verde National Park. Eat your heart out Pythagoras, but hurry to see this magnificent site before Trump's bulldozers raze it like Daesh for a gold-plated Wal Mart. Lest you believe Europe's archaeological treasures have been found, think again as Paul Seaburn's found the Lost Dark Ages Kingdom Of Rheged In Scotland (POSSIBLY), lending to the historicity of Book of Taliesin. And down in France, Anthropologists Uncovered Art By (Really) Old Masters—38,000 Year-Old Engravings. Perhaps they're postcards from Göbekli Tepe? (CS)

Tales of mass hysteria, or possession, tend to show schools blocked off by ambulances and police cars. That's not the case in Kenya where Samuel Messo shares footage, and photos, of schoolgirls possessed by demons. There's a more terrifying state of affairs in Indiana with reports of Growling, Black Eyed Boys putting Jehovah's Witnesses to shame. Is it true? We can't say, but David Weatherly always has the best material. Perhaps he's influenced by Timothy Renner's Beyond The Seventh Gate, positively brimming with tales and haunts 'round southeastern Pennsylvania. Sounds like a road trip to me, who's in? (CS)

While Jen Viegas isn't warning us of an imminent zombie outbreak, there are concerns over dead bodies that don't know they're supposed to be dead. Peter Noble's findings impact the field of organ transplants, and finding yet another way to cheat the Grim Reaper. Could this mean more reports of near death experiences? Maybe, and finally uncover a potential connection to What Happens In Your Brain When Your Life Flashes Before Your Eyes. According to Philip Jaeki, researchers at Hadassah University in Jerusalem analyzed life-review experiences and the common threads between them are encouraging them to push the boundaries of maverick science. We hope they don't go as far as Hap's NDE experiments in The OA. Speaking of the mysteries of consciousness, a remarkable blow has been dealt to one of the pillars of Julian Jaynes's bicameral mind theory. Yair Pinto, of the University of Amsterdam, let Brooks Hays know his inquiry into the Split Brain Fails To Yield Split Consciousness. Pinto's conclusions on the Split Brain Not Being Reproducible, notes Peter Hankins, aren't so cut-and-dried. What's the elephant in this room? How mainstream neurologists and psychologists insist the brain is the only seat of consciousness in the body. It just gets spookier from that point. (CS)

Paging Alfred Hitchcock! Texans are still puzzled over Houston's skies being choked with birds with no qualms over attacking cars. Being rational at The Anomalist we asked Paul Seaburn for his two cents, and we aren't disappointed. One thing's for certain, these birds aren't connected to the Mysterious 'Big Boom' Reported By Texans last month. Despite seventy five people contacting the authorities, it's case closed for the police and MUFON but Roger Marsh lets us know why someone should dig a little deeper here. (CS)

If Sam Uptegrove is right, white is the new black (or brown). He writes, "Sightings of a white or cream-colored Bigfoot are not unheard of here in the Heartland" but does his declaration hold water? Sam's awfully light on details of these 'historical' albino bigfoot sightings, much to our surprise. Most publications pay by the word and judging how Sam pimps his book at the end of the article, he's writing to make a buck than share his passion. With those sizeable grains of salt in mind, it's a fun little tale. We're a bit more excited over the Sierra Sounds, and so is AJ of BigfootBase.com making the case over how they're Our Most Impressive Evidence For Bigfoot. AJ shares recordings of the pig-monkey calls, the challenges of faking them, in addition to the time and location of the recordings so intrepid cryptozoologists can try to falsify this evidence. Kinda like science, rather than FOAFtales, dontcha think? (CS)

Apparently a very large hairy creature wanted to be included in the Yuletide festivities in Ellendale, North Dakota, this past December. But it didn't have a dinner invitation and the hostess was sufficiently frightened by its unannounced arrival that she called her woodsman friend (Red Riding Hood anyone?) Christopher Bauer to come over and investigate. Luckily by the time Bauer arrived the unwanted dinner guest had fled, leaving a trail of enormous footprints over several miles of North Dakota snow. No word on whether Bauer was allowed to indulge in a little turkey and stuffing afterwards. In other unidentified monster news, we bring you A Previously Unpublished Monster Sighting from Loch Ness at the turn of this twenty first century. A large hump on the surface of the loch, near shore, and covered with ridges was reminiscent of other sightings in 1935 and 1965. Unfortunately the description of ridges sounds a little too much like the hull of a capsized boat, so while we're thrilled to have new(ish) sightings to read about, we are exactly where we started before reading this article. But we've had an incredible year for mysterious creature-related events: The Year of 2016 in Review: International Cryptozoology Museum. Founded in 2003 and fully sanctioned as a federal and State-of-Maine nonprofit museum in 2011, the Museum has stuck close to its mandate to continue to expand its mission and never stop educating, discovering, and questioning. As a not-for-profit institution, the museum relies on the donations and membership fees of thoughtful anomalists like our readers, so we urge you to go on over to their home page, help as best you can, and join them for the adventure of a lifetime.(CM)

Self-described Cornish Europhile Jeremy Allen posits a huge and fatal drop in UFO reports, stemming largely from cultural changes. Allen notes that UFOs became the popular "go-to" for paranormal reports and enthusiasm after World War II, and charts their rise and then fall thereafter, with a resultant "strange decline of the little green men," as "we have stopped seeing UFOs in the skies". Contrasting this theme of near-total eclipse are the Mutual UFO Network's numbers and percentages of UFO reports for 2008 through 2016; see for instance Top UFO Cases From 2014 Identified By MUFON's Science Review Board. Allen's sources for his contention that the number of UFO reports has plunged are European, and Mark Pilkington's quote in the essay "I like to say that UFOs are one of America's greatest cultural exports" suggests that Allen might have better tapped his American sources to round out his article. Were the contention about "good" UFO reports, however defined, versus quantity, the piece might have been stronger. Still, there are many interesting contentions and solid observations in this post. David Sivier's Magonia post The Nature of the Catastrophe accepts the proposition that Victorian speculation on human development influenced science fiction. The article then asserts that John Wyndham's short story "Worlds to Barter" "served to keep the motif [of future humanity, and aliens, as small beings with large heads] alive and disseminate it further". John Wyndham "is best known for his novels", but it seems too much weight is placed upon the one short story as so influential in popular culture. Nevertheless, this article, as with the first, is well-written and Sivier knows his stuff. (WM)

In the 1920s the world was taken in by the simplest of hoaxes orchestrated by 9-and-16-year-old cousins in Collingley, England. Using hat pins to attach paper fairies to the surrounding plants and landscape at a nearby stream, Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright fooled the whole world with five photographs of what they claimed were “living fairies.” Fast forward 50 years and this fairy tale was all but forgotten until Professor Joe Cooper encountered a friend of the cousins in a bookstore. He became convinced the stories were true, and the cousins who he later met were more than happy to string him along in his preoccupation. Devoting much of his life to investigating the story, Cooper was devastated when he learned the truth of the hoax. It seems as if the subject of fairies compels those it enamors to lie, as Dr. Beachcombing demonstrates in Mermaid Lies. Beach wonders aloud if nineteenth century folklore was simply rife with deception and plagiarism, and fully expects the answer to that question to be most disappointing. (CM)

Marcelo Gleiser pens this piece that reads like a philosophical treatise on the anomalous. Well written and easily digested, we are given the message that sometimes things happen that we can't explain, and that's life. More importantly, that's what keeps life interesting. Another easily understood example of philosophy is the way in which Even Scientists Act Superstitious at Sea. Throughout this piece it is demonstrated that humans with little or no control over their circumstances tend to experience more strange events and anomalies than those who feel a reasonable sense of control over their lives. And so it is that superstition allows us to add structure to an existence that may seem random and arbitrary. When the inexplicable happens, we attach a superstition to it and thus exercise control over the uncontrollable. (CM)

Back in the 1940s tragedy struck the growing city of Calgary, Alberta, when a small child was lured from the local zoo and savagely murdered. Decades later there remain reports of a young boy's terrified screams for help, while investigating police officers can find nothing in the area to account for the disturbance. More perplexing still, ghost walk tours through the city have on occasion yielded appearances of a male child imploring passing children to play with him. It seems impossible to imagine how this little spirit could ever find peace. Others have experienced fever dreams wherein they see The Little Man with the Soiled Handkerchief. Chris Woodward recounts the tale of a desperately ill woman who was tormented by a wee filthy carpenter man who only she could see. Fortunately when her fever finally broke, the visitations of the eerie little man ceased, leaving one to wonder if he (or It) was the product of an overheated brain, or a nasty little soul collector who was hoping to score. (CM)

Red Pill Junkie returns with the promised conclusion of the truly weird tale we profiled on January 20th; see the original at The Night of the Shape-Shifting Humanoids (Part1). The story continues with the subsequent investigations, one of which brought most unexpected and strange results. "RPJ's" ruminations about this perplexing type of humanoid encounter are interesting, and a Commenter's comparison of the odd events as reminiscent of Point Pleasant and Mothman resonates. Staying with Mysterious Universe, Paul Seaburn tells us that UFOs Over Goodyear are Not Blimps. Turns out the four lights seen on the night of January 22, 2017 were over Goodyear, Arizona, which seems to be a "hot spot" for interesting aerial displays. We're not sure that anything can be done with the report or images, but Seaburn uses the occasion and headline name to show how easy it is to get confused, instancing the bewilderment when an "unmarked" Goodyear blimp appeared over the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Kevin Randle relates the tale of an Albuquerque Girl Burned by UFO? The Project Blue Book summary of an April 28, 1964 report--whose hoax evaluation was almost certainly accurate--has a snarky tone. Randle sees this as evidence of anti-alien bias throughout Project Blue Book. For more on the U.S. Government's reaction to the UFO problem, see UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry, by Michael Swords, Robert Powell, et al. (WM)

President Trump might want to hang fire on The Wall if this story has the bona fides which it claims. According to astronomer Dr. Zakharovich, "US leaders ... are bound under a secret executive order" to keep quiet about the impending calamity, which he says has been known of in Russian power-circles for years, but which NASA is covering up. NASA fibbing? Surely not. Of course Russia has already had a taste of what may be on the way and The Inquisitr tells us that the famous Tunguska Event Meteorite Theory [is] Debunked by Russian Scientists. Recent sediment samples taken from the area continue to cast doubt on what really occurred there in 1908. (LP)

Chris O'Brien joins Gene Steinberg and Goggs Mackay in welcoming two guests to the show. Alejandro Rojas of OpenMinds.tv owns the first 90 minutes; topics include the best recent UFO cases, the mystery of Tom DeLonge's mission and contacts, and modern ufology's demographic problem. Rojas also previews the 26th Annual International UFO Congress and its speakers' roster. MUFON's Director of Research Robert Powell then discusses his findings on the November 2014 Chilean aerial IR case. Robert next covers the remarkable April 25, 2013, Aguadilla Puerto Rico, case, which also features thermal video of the subject object's shenanigans. (The Scientific Coalition for UFOlogy report on this event is available at 2013 Aguadilla Puerto Rico UAP.) Good discussion is had on several other issues, particularly regarding the attitudes some debunkers display. Greg Bishop's podcast Alejandro Rojas -- Let's Talk about that UFO Video also features Rojas and the Chilean Navy IR case, and the Radio Mysterioso site has links to the key online articles. Alejandro, of course, plugs the 2017 International UFO Congress in this podcast, but he and Greg manage a very worthwhile discussion, even when covering some of the same ground as did The Paracast, and their opinions on several shorter topics prove very interesting. (WM)

This is a fascinating piece, outlining the way in which our over eagerness to discover the next paranormal phenomenon results in creation of false stories, incorrect reporting, and a tendency to see the macabre where there really is none. In the field of psi and paranormal research, this piece could be our wake up call reminding us to remain objective regardless of how disappointing an outcome may be without our personal embellishment. Next Mark Russell Bell provides us with Some Observations about 'Channeling'. He demonstrates a remarkable clarity regarding the difference between channelers who are born with the gift, and those who learn to channel in order to help themselves. This is a very refreshing perspective on a much maligned branch of psi research. (CM)

Robert McLuhan aptly describes the challenge faced by serious psi researchers who were involved in the intelligence community's remote viewing work in lieu of entertainers like the notorious Uri Geller who has been made famous again by the CIA's mass release of classified documents last week. It doesn't help that Geller had the CIA convinced that he was the real deal, and the skeptics have convinced everyone he's a fake. If a fraud could fool the CIA, he could certainly fool the general population, which means, among the cynical types at least, that all similar psychics are also most likely fake. What is a sincere and dedicated psi researcher to do? Perhaps we could utilize Magic time, the persuasive pages of If This Be Magic: The Forgotten Power of Hypnotism, by Guy Lyon Playfair. Michael Prescott imbues just enough of his own awe of the unconscious mind to leave us hungry to do more of our own research. (CM)

Kevin Randle is no longer certain of any Roswell "explanation"--ET or otherwise--based upon his learning more about memory and the weaknesses of the human ego since he first became involved in the investigation. Randle's earlier post Roswell -- What's Next? explains his frustrations with the case, as he enumerates the research options remaining and rather disposes of each, save for possibly another "cold case" review--besides the one he's just done. Reading Randle's book Roswell in the 21st Century provides insight into how this researcher has come to his conclusions about what is thought, what is known, and what can be proved about the subject. (WM)

This piece by Brett Tingley isn't so much about an anomaly as it is a description of the dark and demented places some humans allow themselves to fall. Animals clearly mutilated by human hands, desecrated and left for carrion--we'd be hard pressed to find any anomalous event that could repulse or disturb us as much as this. In the face of this sort of madness, we fail to be astounded by Peter Caine's Frozen Sasquatch Foot Revealed in Video. While Caine may expect the world to be intrigued by an alleged Sasquatch foot that would have had to be dismembered from a Bigfoot corpse, he may find the world in general to be underwhelmed by his claim and more interested in his ability to create monstrous special effects. Everyone needs a hobby. Perhaps Peter Caine should find a new one. (CM)

Rich Reynolds returns to a subject he had discussed on January 4th in The Villas Boas Symbol, providing thoughts on the markings Antonio Vilas-Boas reportedly saw on a wall of the spacecraft that he claimed abducted him in 1957. As usual, Rich gives suggestions for further information on the subject; see particularly the Comments, with Martin Kottmeyer's directions to two Flying Saucer Review articles. Similarly, Nick Redfern's UFOs and Project Moon Dust includes links to side sources surrounding his discussion of a U.S. military program to recover crashed space junk for technical study. Redfern provides a sane corrective to those who try to read too much into the military's use of the term "UFO" in its documentation. And then there's poor John Keel, trying to preserve his sanity after "a busy couple of days" with the Long Island contactees, in Special Cases -- The Long Island File (23): Dalmoona and Stolen Bandaids. Awash in confusion over what is fact--and what is relevant fact--among all the absurdities of claims, messages, strange doings, and stranger people he encounters, Keel has at least come to the general conclusion that Princess Moon Owl is a hoaxer, yet holds out the possibility that she is a tool of the mysterious FOURTH GROUP. (WM)

The Reverend Matt Cook enthralls with this tale of carved wooden figures that were so much more than simple mantle dressing. Originating from Thailand, the carvings became an integral part of a Buddhist shrine and the focal point of some curious poltergeist activity. We especially enjoy how The Reverend draws the connections between this story, and others involving demons and possession, the fae, alien abduction, and the Djinn. Next up: Scores of Flight Attendants Contracting Mystery Illnesses. Jury is out on whether the issue is airborne bacteria, uniform born toxins, or human-born aggravation. We bet they would all start feeling better after a layover at the world's only International Cryptozoology Museum. Selfie At Your Own Risk though. Some of those cryptids on display look real enough to actually be breathing. (CM)

Allen Price reviews and summarizes Haunted Landscapes: Super-Nature and the Environment by Ruth Heholt and Niamh Downing (eds.), which consists of 12 essays on "the interaction between what we think about ghosts and what we mean by a ghostly location or landscape." While some essays tend to the wordy side, Price found the book fascinating and rewarding. And what is "chronotape," you wonder? It's defined as “a place wherein time and space collapse.” There's more collapsing time in Queen Victoria’s Funeral Foreseen. Chris Woodward recounts the report of a medium in 1900 who, in a very detailed manner, described the future funeral procession of Queen Victoria. Of course, anything related to the monarchy tends to be steeped in tradition and routine, so perhaps it wasn't much of a stretch to guess how it was going to play out. Nonetheless, it would have been a bit goose pimply to watch the prediction roll out. (CM)

Take a journey to the 16th century when exploration and the search for gold, territory, and slaves were the driving forces in voyage funding. Informative and--as always--quite tongue in cheek, EsoterX provides us not only with historical information but a bit of a parable wherein what goes around comes around. Next we poke around some in Sudan where we find a Mysterious Mass Grave at Medieval Monastery. While all mass graves are strange and disturbing, this recent find is decidedly so, with indicators that bodies were desecrated prior to burial. It's too early for any conclusions but researchers suspect the corpse mutilations were the result of an ancient holy war. (CM)