The length of Danny Silva's article is a dead giveaway that the answer to his headline question is a strong "Yes." Heavily-referencing with many links to print and video sources, Danny ties together the basics of what is known and what is suspected about U.S. tracking capabilities. The article makes clear that massive amounts of information largely gained for other purposes are available to try to solve the UFO conundrum. With Danny, one can "only hope that some of this data will be shared with the world at large without compromising ways and means of military operations." We do know that The Japanese Military Is Now Officially Tracking UFOs. And Popular Mechanics is also taking the subject seriously, per this straightforward and knowledgeable Kyle Mizokami article, mentioning newly "unveiled guidelines for Japanese defense personnel that experience UFO sightings." (WM)

The Department of Natural Resources in Wisconsin recently issued a bulletin labelled "Sasquatch Alert," finally giving credence to the existence of Bigfoot. Except they didn't. The bulletin was published by a hoaxer. But Brent Swancer comes to our rescue with Some Truly Bizarre Accounts of Very Close Encounters with Bigfoot. From feeding families of Sasquatch (always a risky idea) to raising an orphaned Bigfoot baby, these stories will remind you of the headlines on tabloids at the supermarket checkout--because crazy never goes out of style. This next headline however, is completely serious: Flag 'Braided by Sasquatch' Showcased at Nebraska Bigfoot Museum. We'd love to see that ourselves. Evidently there are intricately woven tiny braids plaited into the larger braids made of shredded flag. This leads us to ask the question, do Bigfoot mamas and papas both braid the little squatches' hair? On a somber note, Florida Cryptozoologist Scott Marlowe Dies. Scott was by all accounts a kind and intelligent man. He helped create the Pangea Institute, an educational foundation, and became its cryptozoologist. Rest in peace, Scott. (CM)

Remember Blue Velvet? Well, Bill Miston doesn't draw any parallels between the film and Jimmy Senda's curious find just the other day. But finding an apparent human brain along a beach is newsworthy, which is why Ashley Cowie goes behind the headlines with Sherlock Holmes and the Foil-Covered Brain of Lake Michigan with expert fortean analysis of the aluminum foil, the Chinese coins, and flowers accompanying the curious organ. Unfortunately, anomalists and authorities probably won't draw any conclusions from it to answer the question, "Has The Stress of COVID Affected Our Brains?" A new preprint recently hit the anonymous Neuroskeptic's desk concerning the mental impact of the ongoing pandemic upon healthy people, and it may fuel the conspiratorial fires of fevered brains trying to make sense of the insensible. (CS)

First up: Nick Redfern makes strong contentions about several hallmark Close Encounter cases in which the "Other" was not ETs. Leading the cavalcade are the outstandingly strange, confusing, and sad events that happened to Gerry Irwin, as presented in David Booher's No Return: The Gerry Irwin Story, UFO Abduction or Covert Operation?, published by Anomalist Books. And in More on Strange Creatures and the UFO Connection. Nick cites several examples supporting the idea that "Cryptozoology and Ufology are somehow interlinked." So too, ufology and surveillance seem related at times--thus Nick's warning to UFO Researchers: What Can Happen When You Go Looking for Secrets. Odd stuff isn't just what ufologists investigate; sometimes it's what happens to them. Nick's concluding assertion is UFOs, the Occult, the Paranormal and the Supernatural: All Connected. The four topic areas are at least united in "Weird." (WM)

Goodyear Blimp or not, something caught the attention of, and extracted profanities from, a medley of motorists last Monday night. Dave Basner reports that the football Giants were playing that evening, overseen by the rubber company standard bearer. Didn't help the Giants, who lost 26-16. Excited witnesses recorded something further south a few days earlier, as Mexico: Alleged UFO Over Puebla describes. A nighttime sighting for which the "drone" explanation is popular. Argentina: UFO Photographed in Claromeco presents the standard "sport model" profile, has a named photographer, some sighting details, and speculation as to cause. Orestes Girbau takes us back 14 years with the article Cuba: A UFO Photographed Near Cuba. The late ufologist Kathy Dickman snapped an object seen for five minutes by passengers aboard a Havana-bound airplane. (WM)

We have a two part report from Nick Redfern on the Wilhelm Reich story. Part one discusses the childhood and background of the source of this welcome strangeness, Wilhelm Reich, who would go on to develop a theory around the existence of a substance he named Orgone. In a case of  Quantum-Physics-Meets-Tantric-Coupling, Reich theorized that Orgone was a sexual energy or life force that permeated the universe. So far so good, right? The Controversial Life of the Man Behind Orgone, Part 2 is where this theory may have gone off the rails, or at least garnered some less than positive attention. Seems Reich believed the Orgone distributed throughout the cosmos could be collected in a box--an Orgone box. Reich speculated that this accumulated contents of the box could then be used for therapeutic purposes, essentially imparting life energy to a person not unlike charging a battery. The FDA declared this quackery and so began a series of events that landed Reich in jail where he eventually passed away, without seeing serious scientific consideration of his work. (CM)

Lurking on Twitter there are a ton of tiny holidays filling the year, and the revelation from Madison Margolin and Shelby Hartman about September 20th is, pun-intended, mind-blowing. Learn a bit about the holiday, advances in investigating the properties of psilocybin, and its prospects for decriminalization. But degenerates tripping the light fantastic isn't the only thing mushrooms are good for. Why just the other day Asher Elbein learned how That Mushroom Motorcycle Jacket Will Never Go Out Of Style. Fungal leather has been around since the 1950s, and the stuff has many beneficial qualities that do not include psychoactive chemicals. Maybe it's a good thing since many people have described tripping being analogous to a near-death experience. So why not, after you're dead, be buried in the World's First Living Coffin Made of Mushroom Mycelium to give your nutrients back to nature? Sofia Lekka Angelopoulou outlines the benefits of maverick funeral methods, and why your next coffin may look like styrofoam. (CS)

Kevin Randle throws water on a new conjecture about the CE2em effects reported in the November 1957 Levelland, Texas, multiple sightings. Kevin asserts the various weather accounts for the night of November 2-3 don't support "that the air was full of dust and was charged with electricity," as alleged in Larry Robinson's theory. Kevin examines another automotive troubles case in Chasing Footnotes - Howard Lake, Minnesota (UFO Occupant) Edition. Problems in a Jacques Vallee account of the event have Kevin questioning the encounter's authenticity. Micah Hanks chronicles The UFO Enigma: Maritime UAP Encounters. Project Blue Book, National UFO Reporting Center, and Russian Unidentified Submerged Object (USO) reports demonstrate Hanks' contention that USOs constitute "a potentially significant component to the broader mystery" that is UFOs. There's also an "addendum" to the Incident at O'Hare: The Case File Reopened whose podcast we reviewed on the 16th. Our temporal journey concludes as Kevin Randle Predicts the Future. Spoiler Alert: "sometimes science fiction isn't exactly all fiction." (WM)

That's a big question posed by Elizabeth Fernandez if those cytherean phosphines are confirmed to be of biological origin. There are even bigger answers proposed by Elizabeth ranging from the impact upon religion, mainstream cosmology, and society as a whole. Religion? Let's take you back to the wantonly maskless days of 2015 when Megan Margulies remarked upon God Didn't Say What's Kosher On Mars, and how it also goes for Venus. And Europa. And Enceladus. You get the idea. After the announcement of the detection of phosphines in Venus's atmosphere, Jonathan O'Callaghan notes A Complete Fluke, A European Spacecraft Is About to Fly Past Venus and it could help confirm those phosphines in a few weeks, then again in an Earth year's time. Keep in mind the detection of phosphines happened under the aegis of American astronomers. Red-blooded, stout hearted, stargazing patriots, not simpering, vote-tampering, social-media bot-running former Soviets. But The Bear don't care as Russia's Space Agency Chief Declares Venus A "Russian Planet" thanks to their Venera program. Perhaps they can truly stake their claim by landing two prominent world leaders on our sister planet's hellish surface with no chance of return. (CS)

Nope this is far from wishful thinking on the behalf of everyone living in 2020, but a different American "Hitler" from another decade of the 20's. Despite Pelley being a dirtbag of epic proportions, he was deeply involved in weird shit thanks to a near-death experience which inspired him as Gregory Shushan outlines in his latest offering. Fortunately there's good News From A Near-Death Researcher to balance out WDP's negativity. Despite the title of Kenneth Ring's book, Waiting To Die, this near-death researcher has a lot of positive things to share about the end of life and many queer phenomena associated with the experience related by those who returned to tell the tale. Recommended. To be a little more scientific, Sebastian Kettley has an Outline Of The Nine Experiences People Go Through When They Die. Hear out Stephen Braude explain these nine elements, and keep them in mind if you have the opportunity to peek behind the veil. (CS)

It's no surprise that if one walks around Loch Ness, they're bound to see something which piques their fancy. Such is the case of an anonymous gent from Inverness who confides in Alasdair Fraser about the sighting and its curious circumstances. Over in America, Joe Exotic is still cooling his heels behind bars and Tim Binnal reports Authorities Searching For Tiger Spotted Roaming Around Knoxville. It's interesting there's a suggestion this may be a case of mistaken identity for a native cougar, but weirder still is they wound up interviewing a guy wearing a mask with a grey alien motif! Also from the keyboard of Binnall, there's an Odd Creature Sighting Reported In Ohio. Odd, you say? It's probably the littlest bigfoot this side of Indonesia. (CS)

Real estate is all about location, location, location, but when your property is haunted then you're probably stuck with a short sale. Worse, someone spreading rumors about hauntings about a property can lead to unpleasantness writes Tim Binnall. If a home is haunted maybe it's not that big of a deal as long as it's not by a celebrity spook. For example, down in Argentina, "La Llorona Terrifies Police Officer from a selfie. Scott Corrales does note the internet and the Salta police department have differences of opinion on the veracity of the photo. Amping up the scary, Jocelyne Le Blanc has the Latest Paranormal Evidence From A Haunted Scottish Graveyard with links to audio and photos taken within Greyfriars Kirkyard. (CS)

Waiting for jury duty takes forever. Yet time flies during final exams. Why does the brain distort our perceptions of something so objective like time? Over at Science Daily is a glimpse into the curious mechanisms which stretch or compress how we perceive time's passage. No word on the mechanism which defines how people react to supernatural phenomena, but Mark Russell Bell Contemplates Individual Responses To Anomalous Manifestations illustrated by the curious circumstances surrounding the death of Sergeant Arthur Davis and its aftermath. Far more nefarious is the act of hypnotizing someone telepathically. Described by Nick Redfern as An Eerie, Mystifying, Almost Diabolical Act pursued by the former USSR decades ago. Stranger still the project very well may still be in full swing in the 21st century. (CS)

Always count on Brent Swancer for tall tales, sometimes literally! While tales of colossal human bones and conspiracies to cover them up, looking at you Smithsonian, here's a collection of tales where conquistadores and others encountered live specimens back in the day. To the best of anyone's knowledge these giants are long gone, and it appears the same may go for fortean lawn ornaments writes Rob Schwarz. Bigfoot Statues Continue To Disappear Across The Country and here are only a smattering of cases behind a greater threat to our life, liberty, and the pursuit of cryptids. (CS)

Want to see UFOs? Then Nick Gonzales has the place for you, penning a nice piece about Colorado and New Mexico's notorious San Luis Valley and in particular the UFO Watchtower it sports north of Hooper, CO. The article has photographs and useful maps to heighten the experience for those who aren't right now in a traveling mood. When we first saw the headline Mysterious Devon UFO Sighting is Finally Explained, we thought one of the many recent UK sightings had been laid to rest. This was new, but has plausibly been explained. Comments about the article "ding" the witness as a fertile "UFO repeater" and the journalist for the article itself. Not so for the observer of a Strange Circle of Light Seen over Tenbury. Adrian Kibbler has the story of an 81-year-old who "has never seen anything like it before in her life." From the description, could this possibly be related to window glass and precipitation? (WM)

Nick Redfern expands on his recent thread exploring the true origins of Bigfoot, providing further evidence to back up his theory that the hairy hominid is not the flesh and blood creature we expect it to be. Citing examples of Bigfoot encounters in Britain, he goes on to explain that the heavily populated, relatively small land mass does not have the capacity to feed and hide a Sasquatch population. Conclusion: they are paranormal in origin. Meanwhile in the US, a North Carolina Mountain community celebrates Bigfoot as 'social distancing champ'. Participants are provided a list online and have until September 30 to find and photograph all the Bigfoot emblems hidden in the forested area, then submit online for a possible prize. With any luck the Hairy Man will put in a few appearances and make this hunt a regular event. (CM)

Could Bigfoot be a poltergeist-of-the-woods phenomenon? Did evil spirits lead Joe Fisher, the author of The Siren Call of Hungry Ghosts, to take his own life? Is the viral pandemic an evolutionary step towards asexual human reproduction? Those are the controversial questions raised in the latest free pdf issue of the magazine for the public published by the Society for Scientific Exploration. If all this has you Seeing Sea Serpents on the Sea Shore, check out what Magonia editor John Rimmer has to say about David Goudsward's new book Sun, Sand, and Sea Serpents (Anomalist Books): "The book is a model of how to conduct historical Fortean research...This is an important book, which puts what seems at first glance a rather specialised subset of cryptozoology in a wider anomalistic, human and social context. An excellent read, and I cannot recommend it too highly." (PH)

Paul Seaburn adds details and commentary to a story we profiled on the 8th entitled Nebra Sky Disk Could be 1,000 Years Younger than Previously Believed. Paul amplifies upon the artifact's illegal discovery and adds the important detail that not all of the gold "dots" representing stars were applied to the disc at the same time. On the far larger end of the study of human history, a New Mathematical Method Shows How Climate Change Led to Fall of Ancient Civilization. Applied here to the Indus Valley Civilization, Nishant Malik's hybrid technique has far-reaching implications for understanding the human past--and perhaps for predicting its future. A more finite current example of climate change poses a critical menace to the remains of another ancient civilization, per Agence France-Press's Sudan Floods Threaten Ancient Archaeological Gem. The famous pyramids of Meroe are among the sites in peril. (WM)

F. Salazar's article takes us on a journey of historical discovery and controversy with modern economic implications. The sometimes-lyrical piece chronicles the claims for Pytheas' farthest northern spot where "the earth and sea and all things together are suspended," and how the inhabitants of the island of Smola are themselves suspended between their rather insulated present status and the possibilities of ramped-up tourism. Among former visitors to Smola are a group about whom comes the astonishing news that the World's Largest DNA Sequencing of Viking Skeletons Reveals They Weren't All Scandinavian. "The history books will need to be updated," concludes one contributor to a huge six-year international study of Viking remains. The findings upend traditional concepts of who the Vikings were and show how interconnected they were with other Eurasians. More light is being shed on a smaller pre-Viking conundrum as Archaeologists Unearth 3,000-Year-Old Hillfort Built By The Mysterious Votadini Tribe. Jocelyne LeBlanc covers the discovery of a remarkable construction atop the picturesque extinct Scottish volcano called "Arthur's Seat." (WM)

Happily not the sort that might contain alien eggs, but "saucer nests" found in Tully, Australia, in 1966. Nick Redfern takes a look back at this and other cases from down-under and then reminds us that Long Before Crop Circles There Were…Crop Circles! Looking back through some older accounts, he reads that in 1674 even the devil himself was scything circles in the English countryside. (LP)

Flying Saucers were commercialized soon after they started hitting the headlines in 1947. Curt Collins has a lavishly-illustrated cavalcade of early buyables and media aimed at the younger set. Of particular interest is some 1950-style "fake news" in My Weekly Reader, for goodness' sake, exemplary of the mind-set of the times. Nick Redfern makes more points supporting his controversial thesis that UFO, Mind-Altering Drugs, and a Secret Experiment were at the heart of the December 1980 Rendlesham Forest Incident. "Controversial" can't begin to describe the weirdness in Flying Saucers and Giant Aliens Described in a Possible Declassified FBI File. Paul Seaburn has the entertaining story about "Memorandum 6751," almost certainly a hoax, and Paul lays bare some of its problems. (WM)

The Japanese government is taking UFOs more seriously, according to Keith Basterfield among others. In April South China Morning Post reporter Julian Ryall detailed Taro Kono's apparent ignorance of Japan's Self Defense Force (SDF)/UFO confrontations and naivete towards the subject in Japan's Military Pilots Have Never Encountered UFOs, Defence Minister Says. Minister Kono now may be speed-learning, and Keith covers developments including Japan/United States discussions. Keith wonders aloud whether the U.S. will speak with other countries on the subject. Paul Seaburn reports that Japan and the U.S. Form an Alliance over UFOs. Paul cites Luis Elizondo to support his contention that countries, especially those near to China, may be pressuring the U.S. to expand cooperation and even "disclosure" of Things UFO. The UFO Chronicles alerts us to further actions in The Japan Times: Japanese Defense Ministry Unveils Protocol for Encountering UFOs. Staff Writer Jesse Johnson has the details, including, yes still, that "the Defense Ministry says there have been no known cases of the SDF encountering UFOs." Huh. (WM)

An American family visiting Gettysburg in the US received more than a historical education when a pair of strange figures appeared during a foggy drive and proceeded to behave very much like g-g-g-ghosts. Needless to say the family rolled up the car windows and got as far away from the live (dead?) reenactment as possible. It was definitely a case of being careful what you ask for—you might get it. Although sometimes you don’t, no matter how clearly you ask. A Ghoul’s Errand: The Modern-Day Ghost Hunters Searching for Spirits in a Wellington Flat turned up a lot of nothing, in spite of the best of intentions and some distinct first hand experiences of unsettling activity. Fortunately the other unexpected result was peace of mind, which perhaps made the experience and expense worthwhile. (CM)

The Sky Hub project aims at establishing a "global network of machine learning, smart cameras and sensor arrays" to track UFOs, and Tim Binnall and two key project members dissect their initiative in considerable detail. This is in part a "build-it-yourself" crowd-sourced network, with hardware purchasable and open source software made available to those who choose to join the venture. Paracasters Gene Steinberg and Randall Murphy have a wide-ranging conversation with indefatigable report collector and author Preston Dennett. Dennett's perhaps less skeptical than many UFO researchers, an affable discussant of the different sides to many ufolological debates, and a great storyteller. And Micah Hanks considers one of the most dramatic UFO cases in recent history with his Incident at O'Hare: The Case File Reopened. This is the November 7, 2006, multiple-witness sighting of a UFO above a gate at one of the world's busiest airports. While emphasizing its safety implications, Hanks effectively employs quotes and audio from original sources. (WM)