'Two suns' spotted in China defy explanation

By Natalie Wolchover

Weeks after a story shot across the Web claiming that the imminent explosion of a nearby star would result in the appearance of a second sun in the sky — a story that was later debunked — two suns were caught on camera yesterday in China. The suns — one fuzzy and orange, the other a crisp yellow orb — appeared side-by-side, one slightly higher than the other.


Picture is (C) copyright to CTV

What's going on? Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to Space.com, asked Jim Kaler, the University of Illinois astronomer who squelched the excitement over the aforementioned exploding Betelgeuse and who has written books on the day and night sky. The double sun image is an effect of optical refraction, Kaler said, but it's a "pretty darn rare" one, and one not fully explained by science.

"I doubt it's been computer modeled," he said. "There must have been some blob of atmosphere somewhere that caused this truly spectacular phenomenon, which in a sense is a mirage."

Mirages appear when particles in the atmosphere refract, or bend, light. This typically happens near the horizon, where air is thicker, though, and mirages are usually aligned vertically above or below the original source of the light — not beside it, like in the video. It's possible, Kaler said, that an unusually thick patch of atmosphere wandered in front of the sun to create the unusual effect.

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‘Ghost’ forces Kondhwa school to shut

Sultan Shaikh of Kondhwa is not willing to send his children to school. The children say they are scared to even step into the school as they feel it is haunted. Last Monday, almost all students of Lady Haleema Begum Urdu School, Kondhwa, fled after what they claim was supernatural activity in school.

Five days after the incident, the children are yet to go to school. “If you want to send your children to school then send them, it is not our problem,” this is what the school authorities said according to Shaikh who was bewildered at the claims of the school. Other claims by children include finding random death threats in their notebooks and also seeing an egg-shaped, white ghost on the blackboard.

The authorities of the school have suspended all classes till Monday as parents said the children were scared and did not want to go to the school.

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World's sixth mass extinction may be underway: study

by Richard Ingham and Laurent Banguet

PARIS (AFP) – Mankind may have unleashed the sixth known mass extinction in Earth's history, according to a paper released by the science journal Nature.

Over the past 540 million years, five mega-wipeouts of species have occurred through naturally-induced events.

But the new threat is man-made, inflicted by habitation loss, over-hunting, over-fishing, the spread of germs and viruses and introduced species, and by climate change caused by fossil-fuel greenhouse gases, says the study.

Evidence from fossils suggests that in the "Big Five" extinctions, at least 75 percent of all animal species were destroyed.

Palaeobiologists at the University of California at Berkeley looked at the state of biodiversity today, using the world's mammal species as a barometer.

Until mankind's big expansion some 500 years ago, mammal extinctions were very rare: on average, just two species died out every million years.

But in the last five centuries, at least 80 out of 5,570 mammal species have bitten the dust, providing a clear warning of the peril to biodiversity.

"It looks like modern extinction rates resemble mass extinction rates, even after setting a high bar for defining 'mass extinction," said researcher Anthony Barnosky.

This picture is supported by the outlook for mammals in the "critically endangered" and "currently threatened" categories of the Red List of biodiversity compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

On the assumption that these species are wiped out and biodiversity loss continues unchecked, "the sixth mass extinction could arrive within as little as three to 22 centuries," said Barnosky.

Compared with nearly all the previous extinctions this would be fast-track.
Four of the "Big Five" events unfolded on scales estimated at hundreds of thousands to millions of years, inflicted in the main by naturally-caused global warming or cooling.

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'Ghostly' face appears in HK drama

Fans of popular Hong Kong Drama The Rippling Blossom got a nasty shock in the middle of an episode -- a creepily real human face appears in a cliff face in one of the scenes.


Picture is copyright to STOMP

STOMPer Lincoln, a fan of the series, relates what he saw:

"There is a ghost in the Hong Kong drama 鱼跃在花见.

"Check out the scene in episode 20, about 30 minutes into the show.

"I was very shocked when I saw this."

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Paranormal, ghosts, spirits at Malaysian Pudu Jail, recollect prison officers

THE older the structure, the more likely it is to be haunted. Given the chequered history of Pudu Prison – which dates back to 1895 – you can be sure it has more than its fair share of ghostly tales.

Abu Bakar Juah says it was common to hear things at night – footsteps where no one was supposed to be, chains rattling, and even hearing someone or something taking a bath when everyone is locked in.

“We normally shout out loud that we are merely trying to make a living and tell whatever that’s out there to leave us alone,” he says.

Haji Aziz Haji Idris tells of an encounter while on duty at one of the guard towers when he was still a young officer.

“It was shortly after midnight and I was on night duty with another person when I saw an officer approaching. As we had been trained, I banged my rifle on the floor and shouted out ‘Everything all right, sir!”

Aziz says the figure said nothing but raised his hand, and then suddenly disappeared.

He also remembers one particular bunk in the warder’s dormitory which everyone tried to avoid.

“Anyone who slept there would be sure to feel an unseen force pressing down on his chest. They may try to shout or move but will be helpless to do anything,” he says, adding that some would rather sleep on the floor than use the bunk.

Abu Bakar also recalls a weird phenomenon – a ball of fire the size of a football that suddenly appeared and rolled out of sight.

“It happened every once in a while, and in cycles. Everyone would be talking about it for a while,” he says.

But the scariest tale is that of a recurring apparition of a woman. Aziz believes it was the ghost of a woman who was hanged there.

“She had tried to kill herself previously by slitting her throat. She survived but before she was fully recovered, the execution order came,” he says.

“She was brought to the execution chamber and hanged – but because of the injury, her head was literally torn off. It was a gruesome death and that is the ghost that many people have seen.”

He recalls an encounter with this apparition.

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We've built a flying saucer, boasts Iran

By MICHAEL THEODOULOU

It's not clear how far or how high it can fly – or even how big it is and what makes it take off.

But an aircraft created by scientists in Iran is, they claim, the world’s first flying saucer.

Called the Zohal - or Saturn in English - it said the unmanned spaceship is designed for 'aerial imaging' but added it can be used for 'various missions'.

The hardline Fars news agency illustrated its story with a photo of a flying saucer, akin to one appearing in a 1950s Hollywood B-movie, hovering over an unidentified wooded landscape

For president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the advances demonstrate Iran's ability to push on with its science programme despite international sanctions over its nuclear programme
The hardline Fars news agency illustrated its story with a photo of a flying saucer, akin to one appearing in a 1950s Hollywood B-movie, hovering over an unidentified wooded landscape.

The reports gave no indication of the spaceship’s size. But they indicated it was small by claiming, somewhat bizarrely, that it can also fly indoors.

Iran, which prides itself on its 2,500 year-old civilisation, is also keen to show that it is at the cutting edge of modern science.

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Mount Ogusu UFO video

A video taken of a UFO above Mt. Ogusu in Japan.

Lawang Sewu - The Thousand Doors Haunted Building

Lawang Sewu located at Tugu Muga Semarang (Central Java). It is a famous landmark in the region of Semarang and a pride for Java. This ancient & magnificent building was an office of Nederlandsch Indishe Spoorweg Naatschappij (NIS), which was built starting in 1903 and completed in the year 1907. After Indonesia’s independence this building is used for office DKARI (now PT KAI-Indonesian Rail Company), after PT KAI move to a new building, this building used by Kodam IV / Diponegoro (Indonesian Military). After Kodam IV move to new building, Lawang Sewu was left empty for many years.

People called this building “Lawang Sewu” that means thousand doors. Because this building has a lot of rooms, and each room has about 4-8 doors, then if calculated is about 1000 doors. This building is beautiful with art deco style. It said that its floors made from marble from Italy, its iron spiral-staircase was made without any weld. In the main stair, there are a beautiful big mosaic. This building was design with careful & detail by Dutch architect Prof. Jacob F. Klinkhamer and B.J Queendag.

Entrance fee is Rp 5,000 (USD 0.5) for local tourist, perhaps more expensive for foreign tourist. Actually it is not a legal entrance fee, since this building is not open for tourism, it just manage by several family who live near this building and help to maintain the building. They were paid by PT KAI but with very limited value. So they utilize this building and also stand as a tour guide. Creative.. During our trip here, we accompany by a lady who explain this building history.

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Kangaroo Sightings Persist In Japan’s Mayama Mountains

abc.net.au – It may seem odd, but the locals swear it is right. People in a Japanese mountain region have reported a number of kangaroo sightings, and journalists are now trying to stalk the marsupials.

The descriptions given by the apparent eyewitnesses seem close enough. For years they have spoken of a beige animal with large ears, one to 1.5 metres tall, that stands by the roadside and then hops away.

The sightings were all reported in the Mayama mountain district of Osaki city in Miyagi prefecture, a community of 441 households, located about 350 kilometres north of Tokyo.

The city has received about 30 reports of “kangaroo-like animals”, including three cases since December, when the mountain area was often covered in snow, said local official Tetsuya Sasaki.

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The Most Haunted Places in Japan

The Most Haunted Places in Japan

The Japanese believe that all humans have a spirit or soul called a reikon. Ghosts are yurei, meaning “faint spirit.”

If a person dies in a sudden or violent manner, the reikon is thought to transform into a yurei, which can then bridge the gap back to the physical world.

The yurei tend to remain near where they died. They usually appear between 2 and 3 a.m., which is like the western world’s bewitching hour of midnight, and a time when the veils between the world of the dead and that of the living are at their thinnest.

Many Japanese ghosts are connected with battlefields and military bases. Here are some to chillingly consider.

Atsugi Naval Base

Located two hours south of Tokyo, Atsugi Naval base has a secret past, which includes the fact that it was a CIA U-2 Base, which housed the U-2 flown over Russia by Gary Powers in the early 1960s. In 1957, Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of John F. Kennedy, was stationed at Atsugi as a Marine radar operator.

The spirit of a young man who wanders aimlessly from room to room is said to haunt the naval base. It is believed that he is the ghost of a young marine who was killed in a car accident back in the 1960s

Atsugi: The Corrosion Hangar Bay

Located on the other side of the naval base, this hangar stands over an older one that was used by the Kamikaze pilots of Imperial Japan. Here, many pilots killed themselves in disgrace after Japan’s final surrender to the allied powers.

It is said that doors slam and disembodied red eyes float about.

Field Hospital- Kanagawa Prefecture

Located on the military base named Sagami Depot, this hospital has been the site of several unexplainable occurrences.

The building is hardly used, but nightly security checks reveal raised windows and locked doors that had been previously unlocked.

Many of the military police who patrol the building have reported hearing someone or something walking around inside.

Iwakuni- Barracks 1687, Room 301

A few years ago, a Marine living in that room committed suicide. He broke the mirror in a fit of drunken rage and slit his wrist with one of the shards of broken glass.

Since then, there have been reports from other soldiers staying in the room that sometimes very late at night when looking into the mirror, the dead marine stares back from somewhere deep inside.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

It should come as no surprise that these two sites of such terrible tragedy are haunted by the unfortunate souls who perished during the nuclear bomb attacks at the end of World War II.

Ghostly voices are heard at twilight crying and screaming for help.

Okinawa: Camp Hansen- Gate #3

After darkness falls, every weekend a soldier with blood all over his World War II fatigues and a cigarette in his hand would ask the gate guard: “Gotta light?” The MP would oblige and as soon the cigarette was lit, the soldier would disappear.

Whether you believe this or not, gate #3 at Camp Hansen is closed because of this reported haunting.

Tokyo: Akasaka Mansion

Many guests have reported seeing specters standing at the end of their beds, white mists coming in through the air vents and sudden changes of temperature in their rooms.

Some have reported a feeling of someone stroking their heads while they sleep, and one person claimed she was dragged from her bed to the other side of the room and then back again. Scratch marks on her back the next day corroborated her story.

Yokosuka Naval Base: Gridley Tunnel

It is thought that the ghost of this narrow, one-way tunnel that runs through a hill is that of a Samurai warrior who was on his way to avenge the death of his lord when he was ambushed and cut down in the tunnel. Because he failed in his mission, he can’t leave his place of death.

Visions of the samurai as reported by passing motorists have caused several accidents in the tunnel over the years.

Himuro Mansion: Tokyo Outskirts

The basis of the survival horror video game series that deals with ghosts, exorcism, and dark Shinto rituals, “Fatal Frame,” Himuro Mansion was the site of a brutal family murder and sacrifice.

Many weird happenings have been reported in and near the old mansion; including apparitions of those who once lived there, bloody handprints and sprays of blood, which mysteriously appear on the walls.

Sometimes, a small girl in a kimono is seen in one of the windows. To add to the mansion’s mystery, no one knows the significance of the vast tunnels the run underneath.

Yokohama: Ikego-The Middle Gate

The Middle Gate marks the spot where a concentration camp from the World War II era once stood. Here, thousands of Chinese and Korean people were put to work and then killed by the Japanese army. Today it serves as a U.S. military housing base.

There are five incinerators on the premises and three gates that separate it from the Japanese community. At the middle gate, patrol guards have reported hearing voices and footsteps, and have described the feeling of being watched by unseen eyes.

One recurring vision concerns a Japanese soldier from World War II in a brown uniform with no legs floating between the middle and back gates.

These incidents are part of a much bigger picture, as there are many more haunted spots in Japan. Most but not all date back to the era of World War II.

If you plan a visit to one of these spooky places, whatever you do, don’t go alone!

Monster mummies of Japan

Lurking in the halls of Buddhist temples and museums across Japan are a host of monster mummies -- the preserved remains of demons, mermaids, kappa, tengu, raijū, and even human monks. Here are a few remarkable specimens for the adventurous and brave at heart.

- Demon mummies

It might seem odd that Buddhist temples in Japan house the occasional stray mummified demon (oni), but then again it probably makes sense to keep them off the streets and under the watchful eye of a priest.

Zengyōji (善行寺) temple in the city of Kanazawa (Ishikawa prefecture) is home to the mummified head of a three-faced demon. Legend has it that a resident priest discovered the mummy in a temple storage chamber in the early 18th century. Imagine his surprise.

Nobody knows where the demon head came from, nor how or why it ended up in storage.

The mummified head has two overlapping faces up front, with another one (resembling that of a kappa) situated in back. The temple puts the head on public display each year around the spring equinox.

Another mysterious demon mummy can be found at Daijōin temple in the town of Usa (Oita prefecture).

The mummy is said to have once been the treasured heirloom of a noble family. But after suffering some sort of misfortune, the family was forced to get rid of it.

The demon mummy changed owners several times before ending up in the hands of a Daijōin temple parishioner in 1925. After the parishioner fell extremely ill, the mummy was suspected of being cursed.
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Is there a large mystery cat roaming the jungles of Japan’s Iriomote Island?

“The Yamapikarya – Japan’s Mystery Cat”
Guest Blog by Brent Swancer

Iriomote island lies about 200 kilometers east of Taiwan, 1,240 miles Southwest of Tokyo, and is part of Japan’s Okinawa archipelago of islands.

At approximately 289 square kilometers (113 square miles) in area, Iriomote is the largest island in the Yeayama Shoto island chain, and is the second largest island in all of Okinawa. Iriomote is one of the great wild areas left in Japan, with 90% of its mountainous land made up of lush, pristine subtropical jungle and mangrove swamps.

Much of this land falls within the Iriomote National Park or is protected state land, with its plants and animals protected by a district forestry service.

This beautiful, untouched wilderness is home to many rare and unique animals and plants, some found nowhere else on Earth, and due to this biological diversity, Iriomote island has sometimes been called “The Galapagos of East Asia.”

Iriomote is already home to one known species of wildcat, known as the Iriomote wildcat or Iriomote cat (Prionailurus iriomotensis), and often called the “Yamaneko,” or “mountain cat” in Japanese. The Iriomote wildcat is endemic to the island, meaning it is found no where else in the world. This cat is so elusive that it was not discovered until 1967, and there are many people who have lived on the island their entire lives who have never seen one or indeed even know it exists.

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Okiku devil doll mystery

Okiku Doll

Devil Doll Mystery Grows All Her hair grew longer. I first heard about this doll okiku approximately one month ago exactly a horror story on a radio show Friday night. According to people who never saw this doll, this doll is creepy with all the nuances of non-logical. How can an inanimate object can grow hair continuously.

Almost like jenglot, this doll really beyond reason. A Japanese researcher revealed that the results of forensic tests which were grown hair exactly like this doll’s hair at the age of 10 years.

Okiku name is taken from a child who was playing with a doll sized 40 inches tall, dressed in a kimono with black eyes like beads and thick hair. Okiku existing dolls in a temple in the city Iwamizawa Mannenji Hokkaido Prefecture) since 1938.

This doll was originally purchased in 1918 by a young man named Eikichi Suzuki in Sapporo, where he saw a beautiful Japanese doll with a kimono. Eikichi doll was purchased for two-year-old sister named Okiku, this child loved this doll and play it every day.

But unfortunately, Okiku died shortly after that because of fever. Then at his funeral, family wants to put a doll into his coffin, but somehow they forgot. The girl’s family then put the doll in the household altar and prayed for every day in commemoration of Okiku.
Some time later, they saw the hair began tumbuh.Menurut this story is the spirit of the girl who took refuge in a doll.

In 1938 the family moved to shakalin Suzuki, dolls okiku Mannenji finally deposited in a temple in Hokkaido. According to the priest at the temple, traditional Japanese dolls are always short-haired, he also confirmed that the doll’s hair continues to elongate okiku, although the cut and hold a regular basis, but the hair grows. According to the temple, originally a traditional doll has short cropped hair, but over time continue to grow about 25 inches long, up to her knees boneka.Meskipun doll’s hair is cut regularly, but according to the story will grow longer hair.

This story has inspired a wide range of Japanese horror movies popular one is the movie Haunted School.

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A Foreign woman in the hollow boat

Source: Tokagawa Shogunate, Japan - February 22, 1803

Possibly the first written account referencing alien symbols and a possible humanoid encounter is a story in Japanese folklore. The story takes place on February 22nd in the spring of 1803. Offshore from a beach called Hara-yadori in the territory of Ogasawara Etchuu-no-kami (4000 koku'), who occupied a position named "Yoriai-seki" of Tokagawa shogunate at that time, a kind of boat was observed from the beach. People approached this boat using their small boats and eventually caught it. They towed it to the beach.

The boat was round and resembled a kind of kou-hako (a box used to burn incense). Its diameter was more than 3 ken (5.45 in). On the upper part of the boat, there were glass-fitted shoji (windows with lattice) and they were shielded by chan (a kind of waterproofed putty made from pine-tree gum). The bottom of this ship was reinforced by separated iron plates. This structure may protect the boat from destruction by sunken rocks. Since the glass-fitted shoji was transparent, the people could see the inside the boat, where they found a woman with strange features. Her hair and eyebrows were red, and her face was pink. It seemed that long white hair was added to her original hair.

This foreign woman held one square box whose size was about two shaku (60 cm) in her hands. It seemed that this box was very important to her because she held this box constantly, and she prohibited anyone from approaching it.

The objects found in this boat were investigated by the people. There was about two shou (3.6 liters) of water in the small bottle. There were two pieces of carpet, cake-like food, and kneaded meat. While people discussed what to do about this boat, the woman observed them peacefully.

Another similar description of an incident was found:

On March 24, 1803, a strange boat drifted ashore on a beach named Haratono-hama in Hitachi state in Japan. The boat was hollow and its shape was similar to a rice-cooking pot. It had a kind of rimmed-edge at the center-level part of the boat. In the part above this edge, the boat was painted in black and had four small windows on four sides. All shoji (windows with lattice) were shielded by chan (a kind of waterproof putty made from pine-tree gum). The lower part of the boat was reinforced by steel bars. These bars looked to be made of Western-made iron of the highest quality. The height of the boat was one jyou, two shaku (3.64m) and its diameter was one jyou, eight shaku (5.45m).

A woman (or girl) was found inside this boat and her age appeared around twenty. She was about five shaku (1.5m) tall and her skin was white as snow. Her long hair vividly hung on her back. Her facial features were incomparably beautiful. Her clothes were strange and unrecognizable and her language was not understood by anyone. She held a small box in her hands and prohibited anyone from approaching this box.

Turkish woman chases UFOs around Lake Van

Semra Şalvan Cezlan is a civil engineer married with a daughter and the representative of a consultancy firm in the eastern province of Van. It’s an ordinary life, as she put it. But some believe Cezlan is an informer due to her area of interest and yet others think she is schizophrenic. For Cezlan is an “ufologist.” She plans to pitch a tent at Lake Van and observe aliens, because she claims the Lake Van monster is an USO, a type of UFO that knows how to swim.

Cezlan smiles and says, “I don’t have any intention to make others believe.” She seems seasoned to being mocked all the time, even at home.

Cezlan has been doing research on extraterrestrials for a decade. She has helped people who say that they saw a UFO or aliens for the last two years, gets in contact with them, gives the message, “You are not alone,” and explains what probably happens next. Her interest in UFOs goes back to her childhood.

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Kappa sightings in Japan

Sources: Shin-ichiro Namiki, "Nippon No Kaiki Hyaku", 2007

This is a collection of incidents related to sightings of the Kappa, a supposedly mythological creature of Japan.

SLIMY FOOTPRINTS

At around 11 PM on August 1, 1984 in the town of Tsushima in Nagasaki prefecture, a squid fisherman named Ryu Shirozaki was walking home from the local pier after work. As he passed near the Kuta river, he came upon a small group of children playing at the water's edge. While it was not entirely uncommon to encounter people fishing in the river at night, it was rather surprising to see youngsters there.

As Shirozaki approached the children, he was struck by how bizarre they appeared in the moonlight. He could make out swarthy faces, unusually spindly arms and legs, and glistening skin. Suspicious, Shirozaki called out to them as he neared, but they seemed startled and quickly disappeared into the water.

The next morning when he returned to the same spot, Shirozaki discovered a set of moist, teardrop-shaped footprints on the nearby pavement. The prints, which appeared to consist of a slimy substance that had begun to coagulate under the hot morning sun, stretched for about 20 meters. Each footprint measured 22 centimeters (about 10 in) long and 12 centimeters (5 in) wide, and they were spaced about 50 to 60 centimeters (about 2 ft) apart.

Shirozaki and a few curious onlookers immediately suspected the footprints belonged to a kappa. People began to gather around as the news spread quickly through town, and all agreed the prints belonged to a kappa. In the minds of many residents, the footprints confirmed the existence of the river imps they knew through local legends.

When police forensic investigators arrived on the scene, they determined that the slimy footprints consisted of an unknown secretion. They took a sample to the lab for analysis, but the results unfortunately turned out to be inconclusive because the sample was too small. The police eventually dropped their investigation, and the mystery of the slimy footprints was never solved.

THE UNCLEAN GUEST

Another recent kappa encounter occurred on June 30, 1991 in the town of Saito in Miyazaki prefecture, when an office worker named Mitsugu Matsumoto and his wife Junko returned home for the evening. Upon opening the front door, the Matsumotos were confronted with a strange smell inside their home. Inside, they found dozens of small, wet footprints around the front door and in the hallway, bathroom, and two tatami rooms. At first they suspected a burglar, but they soon realized nothing had been stolen.

The police briefly surveyed the house, but found nothing except a floor soiled by 30 footprints, each measuring about 7 centimeters long and 6 centimeters wide, and having 4 or 5 toes. To Matsumoto, the footprints did not look human, nor did they appear to belong to any animal he could imagine.

Later that night, as Mrs. Matsumoto was putting laundry away, she discovered an unusual orange stain on some clothing. The next morning, as Matsumoto inspected the house more closely, he discovered a deposit of orange liquid on the portable stereo in the tatami room. He took a sample to the local public health center for analysis, and the results indicated the liquid had an extremely high iron content and a chemical composition resembling spring water.

Troubled by the incident, Matsumoto decided to visit a shaman. After listening to Matsumoto's story, the shaman encouraged him not to worry, explaining that the kappa indigenous to the nearby swamp enjoyed playing the occasional prank on local residents. The kappa were harmless, the shaman told him.

Harmless, perhaps, but Matsumoto found the kappa difficult to clean up after. He tried using detergent, paint thinner and gasoline to remove the footprints and orange stains, but nothing seemed to work.

Japanese Crytids sightings

A short collection of incidents involving cryptid sightings in Japan.

TSUCHINOKO - THE CRYPTID SERPENT

Source : The Top Cryptozoology Stories of 2000



In 2000, Yoshii, Okayama, Japan was in the news, as people were flocking to the region to hunt for the tsuchinoko, a chirping reptile-like cryptid bearing at least some resemblance to a snake or a long, thick lizard. A 20 million yen reward from the Yoshii Municipal Government was the source of all the excitement.

Tsuchinoko fever hit Yoshii on May 21 after a farmer cutting grass swore he saw a snake-like creature with a face resembling the cartoon cat Doraemon slither across his field. The farmer slashed the creature with his weed whipper, but it fled into a nearby stream and escaped. Four days later, 72-year-old Hideko Takashima was talking with a couple of friends in Yoshii when she found what she thought was one of the creatures lying dead next to the stream a tsuchinoko reportedly had dived into to escape from the farmer. She picked it up and buried it.

Yoshii Municipal Government officials heard the rumors of a tsuchinoko and headed out to look over the local woman’s find. They exhumed the body and forwarded it to Kawasaki University of Medical Welfare to be examined. Kuniyasu Sato, the professor who analyzed the reptile, said that the animal may indeed have been the tsuchinoko, but “scientifically speaking, it was a kind of snake.”

Meanwhile, Mitsuko Arima, an 82-year-old from Yoshii, says she saw a Tsuchinoko swimming along a river on the morning of June 15.

“I was surprised. I just pointed at it and asked ‘Who are you? Who are you?’ It didn’t answer me, but just stared. It had a round face and didn’t take its eyes off me. I can still see the eyes now. They were big and round and it looked like they were floating on the water,” Arima says. “I’ve lived over 80 years, but I’d never seen anything like that in my life.”

THE FANGED HUMANOID

Source: Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan - February 23, 1975



Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., two seven-year-old boys named Kono and Yamahata watched a luminous orange UFO approach Kofu, Japan while making a "ticking" sound. It landed on three ball-shaped legs in a nearby vineyard. The object was a domed disc, five meters in diameter and six feet high. The boys got very close to it, and discovered the surface of the object was silver colored and had strange characters embossed on its surface.

A ladder extended out of the craft down to the ground, and a humanoid creature slightly over four feet tall disembarked. It wore a silver uniform and carried something that looked like a gun. His skin was dark brown and he had large pointed ears, but his large head had no facial features: no eyes, nose or mouth. It merely had wrinkles on the "face" and three silvery two-inch long "fangs" where the mouth should be. Both boys could see one more smaller humanoid in the cockpit. The being that had emerged reached out and touched one of the boys, patting him twice on the shoulder and uttering words "like a tape recorder running backwards."

The boy who had been touched sat down, paralyzed either by the touch or fear, but his companion took him on his back and carried him from the vineyard. They then ran to one of the boy's homes and informed their parents, who could at first see the orange light pulsating in the vineyard. Then it disappeared as they watched. Two concrete posts were found pushed over at the landing site.

Japan tsunami 'could be 1,000-year event'

Tsunamis on the scale that hit north-east Japan last week may strike the region about once every 1,000 years, a leading seismologist has said.

Dr Roger Musson said there were similarities between the last week's event and another giant wave that hit the Sendai coast in 869AD.

It is not unusual for undersea earthquakes to generate tsunamis in this part of Japan. Offshore quakes in the 19th and 20th centuries also caused large walls of water to hit this area of coastline.

But previous research by a Japanese team shows that in the 869 "Jogan" disaster, tsunami waters moved some 4km inland, causing widespread flooding.

The researchers said that such gigantic tsunamis occur in the area roughly once every 1,000 years. Dr Musson, who is the head of seismic hazard at the British Geological Survey (BGS), suggested the latest tsunami was comparable to the event in 869.

Quake rule
The most recent tsunami waves were up to 10m high; it is unclear how far inland the waters travelled, but reports say it was on the order of several miles.

Dr Musson told BBC News: "I would imagine it would be about the same, because it is hard to think that there would be any larger earthquakes than this in this part of the world."

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A possible encounter with the Moth-Man

I’m not sure if this is the appropriate time to come forward with this story seeing that the recent events in Japan are still fresh in every ones memory. I have been a follower of your website from pretty much the start; I have read your reports and have heard you online before. Naturally your site was the one I thought of first when this incident happened and I decided to write in and tell you what happened that night in early February.

I was in Japan on business and had emailed a lifelong friend who was living in Japan and teaching English at a local school. He had insisted on my staying with him for the duration of my stay, saying it would help save me money and make my expense report look better when I turned it in. My friend (I will call him Tim for the sake of his reputation and career) was a lifelong bachelor and had a fairly large apartment all to himself and his cat.

After several days of day long meetings and group seminars, we had decided to go out to get a bite to eat and take in the town. After a fairly large meal and hopping from one night spot to another we decided to go toward the ocean and check out the moonlight reflecting off the waves. My friend stated that he wanted to check on a biology station that some of his graduate students had set up near a large power plant.

As we approached the plant from the west, we walked along some paths and came to a simple metal box bolted into the ground, from this box there were a myriad of weather vanes, and other meteorological devices. My friend stated the schools science class students had a theory that just like the water being used and discharged by the power plant was warmed by the production of electricity; the air around the plant was also being warmed and thus affecting weather and tidal patterns in the surrounding eco-system. It all sounded too complex and in my slightly tipsy and tired state was only able to grasp the bare bones of the complex theory he laid out.

He finished up and changed the subject to something more jovial when all of a sudden we heard a loud and distinct “WHOOSH” at first my mind thought it might be the sound of the distant waves crashing ashore when we heard it again, followed by a ear pitching screech that shook me down to the bone and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

We looked around for the cause of the noise, when we heard the sound again. The best way I can describe it is a city buses brakes when they are in need of service, Loud and ear splitting. We both continued to look around when my friend’s attention was drawn toward the plant by another nearby couple. A younger couple, out for a walk were staring toward the plant, arms outstretched and the obvious fear in their voice showing itself.

I looked toward the plant, and against the lights of the plant I thought I saw a figure silhouetted against the moonlit sky. The figure was large and black, from the distance I was at it looked to be sitting on top of one of the squared shape buildings. It sat there for about 5 seconds then it unfurled a large set of what I could only describe as large, black wings. The only reference I can compare them too are from the old John Travolta movie “Michael” where the main character unfurls his wings and spreads them out to their full length. To say that this creature was large was an understatement.

The creature then took flight and circled the plant at least 4-5 times, some circuits he took at a fast pace, some he seemed to slow down, all the while he kept his attention on the row of square shaped buildings that I later found out housed the reactors. The creature then came toward us, flying at least 25-30 feet off the ground.

The younger couple who had noticed the creature first were now screaming and cowering, the man shielding the woman while shielding his head with a jacket. My friend and I looked in awe as this creature flew over us. That’s when I noticed the two large red eyes; they seemed to glow from within and with a blood red hue. They were unblinking in the 3-4 seconds we saw them, we knew they were looking straight at us, we knew this creature knew we could see it and it made no attempt to disguise itself. The sick, intense and overwhelming feeling of dread came over us. A feeling that we shouldn’t be there was to say the least, overwhelming.

As quickly as it came, it flew away, back toward the town, eventually melting into the black night sky and as it flew away from us a loud whoosh was heard again and then...silence. This lasted a second or two before I heard the sound of a shutter and turned to see my friend trying to take pictures with his cell phone, but all he got was dark, night time sky.

We went straight home and my friend bolted the door and drew all the blinds, he was shaking and saying that he could not believe what he saw, could it have been a large, unknown species of bird? He kept mumbling to himself until I was able to calm him down and get him to relax and talk about what we had seen. Eventually we both agreed that it must have been some sort of large bird, or maybe an optical illusion caused by the lights given off by the plant on a regular, known species of bird.

We talked about it late into the night, till we both fell asleep on the couches and awoke the next morning to stiff necks and backs. My friend and I spent the last two days out and about and enjoying each other’s company, till he drove me to the airport and we bid each other farewell and I came home.

We spoke about it only once more in an email about a week before he was due to come to the U.S. for his sister’s wedding. When I brought it up at the wedding rehearsal dinner, he was convinced that it had been an optical illusion. That was until the day before the wedding when he woke me out of a deep sleep with a frantic phone call telling me to turn on the TV.

There came the images of the devastation of the Japanese earthquake and the near total destruction of the city of the town of Okuma, where my friend was living and working. The day of the wedding the news came of the explosions at the local nuclear power plant and as CNN broadcast the report, we were both a gasp as the same power plant where we had seen the strange bird-like object was not being shown on the television set. The Fukushima Daiich was the exact same plant we had seen the strange bird like creature circling.

Was it pure coincidence or was it the mythical Moth-Man doing his strange work of predicting disasters? I may never know and may go to the grave wondering that, but one thing is certain for sure, I don’t think that neither of us is going to forget this event, no matter how long we live.

Kayakers snap best-ever photo of ‘Loch Ness Monster’

By Brett Michael Dykes (from Yahoo! blog “The Upshot”)

Nothing puts a damper on a serene afternoon’s kayaking like the sight of a primeval sea monster.


Picture is (C) copyright to Tom Pickles and Sarah Harrington

That was the rude lesson for Tom Pickles and Sarah Harrington, who’d taken their watercraft out on the foggy waters of Lake Windermere, only to encounter what appeared to be “an enormous snake” swimming by.

“It was petrifying and we paddled back to the shore straight away. At first I thought it was a dog and then saw it was much bigger and moving really quickly at about 10 mph,” the 24-year-old Pickles told The Telegraph.

“Each hump was moving in a rippling motion and it was swimming fast. Its skin was like a seal’s but its shape was completely abnormal—it’s not like any animal I’ve ever seen before.”

But what did Pickles and Harrington expect? Didn’t they know that Lake Windermere is reputedly the home of the British version of the Loch Ness monster? In the past five years, sojourners on the lake have reported eight sightings of a Nessie-like serpent.

But the kayaking couple rallied from their shock and snapped the clearest photo of the Windermere “monster” since the sightings began. A journalism professor and his wife inaugurated the recent spate of Nessie-esque encounters on the lake back in 2006 reporting they had seen a “giant eel” somewhere between 15-20 feet long.

[Click here to read full article]

UFO sightings over Japan predicted in secret British alien report files

huliq.com - Confirmed reports of UFOs “hovering” and thousands of “flashing lights” over the epicenter of Friday’s main earthquake in Japan – located off Miyagi Prefecture, about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo – and UFO’s spotted near Osaka and Yokohama, are predicted in the recent British government release of 8,500 pages of secret unidentified flying object (UFO) reports that point to 60 years of UFO sightings “during times of world crisis.”

According to Japan’s Kyodo News Agency and other Japanese media, there’s been hundreds and upwards of “thousands of UFO sightings” over the country since Friday’s 8.9 magnitude earthquake. Also, video footage from the news channel NHK World English and personal videos show a UFO speeding with bright lights in the sky and then skimming over the Pacific near the quake zones in Japan. The UFO sighting videos have been show on regional TV and the Internet since Friday, with the world UFO community noting “strange light trails following the UFO’s over Japan.”

[Click here to read full article]

The Patricia La Rue Story: UFO Over Okinawa, Japan

By Patricia La Rue, HPI Ufologist

One night in late 1986 or early 1987 in Okinawa Japan, I had a UFO in my backyard. I lived in a small house, off base, which sat at the left corner at the end of a cul-de-sac. The house had a back yard the size of a small volleyball court, enclosed by a 4’ high brick wall with a small side gate. Behind the house was a large park with a sloping hillside leading down to the ocean. My bedroom had a window that faced the street of the cul-de-sac and my daughter had the bedroom that looked out on the backyard. Her room had a large window that was long and set low, with the bottom ledge being about 2½’ above the floor. The window was dressed with a thin stick bamboo shade that let light through and provided some visibility to the outside, but did not cover the bottom of the window, providing full visibility to a two year old.

My daughter woke me up complaining of bright light in bedroom. It took me a few minutes to wake out of a deep sleep. My daughter was frightened and persistent, so I walked with her down the short hall to her room to see what she was afraid of. As I entered her room I could see a very bright white light coming through the window and filling the room. At first I thought that it was a large spotlight. We crept to the window, and on my knees with my daughter standing next to me, we peered outside.

I saw a saucer shaped object with a tall top not sitting on the ground but was floating above the ground at least two feet. The craft filled up most of the backyard. There were large lights in a single row along the widest edge of the craft giving off pastel colors of pink, blue, and yellow. The whole craft was enveloped with fog, but I could still see a few stars in the sky behind it. As we were peering out the window the fog became thicker and the light brighter, however the bright light was not coming from the colored lights but seemed to be coming from the fog itself. As the light shone brighter through the glass, it reminded me of sun shining through a window, catching all the tiny dust particles in its light. But, then I realized the particles were actually not dust particles, but the fog. The fog was rolling through the window, which was a solid pane of glass, and spilling on to the floor. At that moment, as I watched the floor filling with fog, spilling on us, I was afraid. I grabbed my daughter and we hid behind her rocking chair against all my common sense and instinct. I still remember thinking that we really weren’t hid at all, as we were only across the room from the window and in full view of it. I thought that it was a dumb hiding place but it seemed like we were frozen in awe and fear of what was happening and had to witness it.

The next morning I woke up in my own bed, and my daughter in hers. I did not know what happened after we hid, how I got to bed, or how my daughter got in her bed. To this day I still don’t have any knowledge of what happened. As frightened as we were, I would have taken her to bed with me and would not have left her in her room to sleep. Two weeks after the incident, my daughter pointed out a white scar in the shape of a half moon, on her ankle. She had not had any prior injuries to cause the scar and I did not have an explanation for the mark. Eventually the scar faded.

The scariest part of the whole incident was the fog because it was so invasive and that I cannot explain what events happened after we “hid”.

Japan earthquake shortened days on Earth

JAPAN -- The massive earthquake that struck northeast Japan last March 11 has shortened the length Earth's day by a fraction and shifted how the planet's mass is distributed.

A new analysis of the 8.9-9.0 magnitude earthquake in Japan has found that the intense temblor has accelerated Earth's spin, shortening the length of the 24-hour day by 1.8 microseconds, according to geophysicist Richard Gross at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Gross refined his estimates of the Japan quake's impact - which previously suggested a 1.6-microsecond shortening of the day - based on new data on how much the fault that triggered the earthquake slipped to redistribute the planet's mass. A microsecond is a millionth of a second.

"By changing the distribution of the Earth's mass, the Japanese earthquake should have caused the

Earth to rotate a bit faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 microseconds," Gross told SPACE.com in an e-mail. More refinements are possible as new information on the earthquake comes to light, he added.

The scenario is similar to that of a figure skater drawing her arms inward during a spin to turn faster on the ice. The closer the mass shift during an earthquake is to the equator, the more it will speed up the spinning Earth.

[Click here to read full article]

2 Ufo Ovni sightings in Japan by the Earthquake and Vulcano Eruption

These are a couple of videos of UFOs spotted in Japan during the recent earthquake.

NASA scientist finds evidence of alien life

By Andrew Couts

Aliens exist, and we have proof.

That astonishingly awesome claim comes from Dr. Richard B. Hoover, an astrobiologist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, who says he has found conclusive evidence of alien life — fossils of bacteria found in an extremely rare class of meteorite called CI1 carbonaceous chondrites. (There are only nine such meteorites on planet Earth.) Hoover's findings were published late Friday night in the Journal of Cosmology, a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

"I interpret it as indicating that life is more broadly distributed than restricted strictly to the planet earth," Hoover, who has spent more than 10 years studying meteorites around the world, told FoxNews.com in an interview. "This field of study has just barely been touched — because quite frankly, a great many scientist [sic] would say that this is impossible."

Hoover discovered the fossils by breaking apart the CI1 meteorite, and analyzing the exposed rock with a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to detect any fossil remains. What he found were fossils of micro-organisms (pictured below), many of which he says are strikingly similar to those found on our own planet (pictured above).

"The exciting thing is that they are in many cases recognizable and can be associated very closely with the generic species here on earth," said Hoover. Some of the fossils, however, are quite odd. "There are some that are just very strange and don't look like anything that I've been able to identify, and I've shown them to many other experts that have also come up stump."

In order to satisfy the inevitable hoard of buzz-killing skeptics, Hoover's study and evidence were made available to his peers in the scientific community in advance of the study's publications, giving them a chance to thoroughly dissect his findings. Comments from those who decided to sift through the evidence will be published online, alongside the study.

[Click here to read full article]

UFO causes stir in Indonesia

BEIJING, March 4 (Xinhuanet)

Unidentified Flying Objects have been causing a stir in Indonesia. Crop circles previously unknown in the region have recently started to appear reviving theories about their mysterious extra terrestrial origins.

This geometric design of interlocking circles recently appeared in a rice field near the village of Sleman in Central Java.

It is Indonesia's first crop circle.

The appearance of the circle thrust the work of Indonesia's UFO hunters into the national spotlight.

BETA-UFO Indonesia was established in 1997 by a community of like-minded people fascinated by Unidentified Flying Objects .

Despite official denials UFO hunters like Andyono Muharso remain convinced that only alien creatures could have been responsible for the crop circles.

Andyono Muharso, UFO Researcher, siad, "Our conclusion at this time is that it is impossible for a person to make this. If it were made by a person with a very advanced technology, it might have been possible. We don't know for sure. But it is impossible that it was made by a person with a wood and rope."

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Mysterious Huge Stone Eggs Discovered in Hunan Province

Apr 17, 2007

A large number of "stone eggs" were recently discovered along with a copper sword at a construction site in Bandeng Hill and Zhanlong Hill, Gongxi Town of Hunan Province. The discoveries were made by highway construction workers while they were digging the foundation for a road.

The origin of the stone eggs is currently unknown as it is reported that further analysis by experts will be required to determine what they are and where they came from.

The construction workers said that Bandeng Hill is quite simply a stone-egg mountain. They found multiple nests of unique stone eggs throughout the course of digging the road's foundation. The eggs are oval in shape, with a wide range of sizes; the smallest one being no bigger than a water melon, while the largest is reported as being the size of a big table. Upon closer examination they look like eggs from the outside, but are very shiny and black on the inside.

[Click here to read full article]

Woman sacrificed by husband in Jharkhand

A woman was sacrificed by her husband in a village in Jharkhand as he claimed he wanted to achieve supernatural powers.

The incident took place in Hariyari village of Godda district, which is about 500 km from Ranchi Friday, according to reports in local media Sunday.

Funiram Soren asked his wife Fulin Hembrom to bow in front of images of gods and goddesses. When she bowed down, he hit her head with an iron rod. She started bleeding profusely. Funiram later strangulated her to death.

The neighbours of Funiram informed police about the incident. After killing his wife, Funiram absconded.

According to villagers, Funiram was trying to gain supernatural powers. The black magic god reportedly came in his dream and asked him to sacrifice a close relative so he killed his wife.

Human sacrifice is not new in Jharkhand. In last seven years, more than half a dozen case of human sacrifice have been reported in the state.

[Click here to read full article]

India's 'monster eater' retires

Restaurant owners in the town of Trissur in the Indian state of Kerala can breathe a huge sigh of relief - the "monster eater" is retiring.

They can now think again about launching "eat as much as you like" lunches and buffets.

That is because Rappai - the man with the giant appetite - has been warned by medics to curb his food intake.

In his prime it would have been an under-statement to describe Rappai's appetite as voracious.

This was a man who quite easily could plough his way through two buckets of rice and accompanying chicken and vegetable dishes.

For breakfast it was said he could devour 75 idlies (rice cakes) and still have room for more.

On one famous occasion, the man who locally became known as Theeta (monster eater) took advantage of a local restaurant's "unlimited meals" coupon.

He reputedly scoffed three bucketfuls of rice, one bucket of fish curry and 10 kgs of cooked meat.

[Click here to read full article]

Ancient Jade Discs

Mysterious ancient discs made from nephrite jade discovered in China (2005) are raising scientific eyebrows in China and elsewhere. Among the earliest surviving Chinese artifacts, the discs are called ‘Bi’ and have been associated by some scholars with the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century B.C.); however, they may be much older, representing neolithic art from 6000 to 2000 B.C. Showing clear evidence of advanced precision tooling, though, the ‘Bi’ discs present scientists with an unexplainable anomaly.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine how they could have been made with the primitive stone tools and abrasives usually associated with the period. The original function and significance of the bi are unknown, as the Neolithic cultures have left no written history.

From these earliest times they were buried with the dead, as a sky symbol, accompanying the dead into the after world or "sky", with the cong which connected the body with the earth.They were placed ceremonially on the body in the grave of persons of high social status.

[Click here to read full article]

Source of Organs for Transplants a Mystery in China

Each year 1.5 million people in China need an organ transplant, but no one wants to donate. This was shown in a recent study reported by the Yangtse Evening Post. After one year, a pilot organ donation program in Nanjing City found zero volunteers.

The Feb. 24 piece in the Post said Nanjing was one of the ten cities chosen for the 2010 pilot because of its rapidly expanding population of 6.3 million. Not only were there no takers last year, but over the past 20 years there were only three voluntary donations, the article said.

Beijing Evening News also reported in August 2009: “According to incomplete statistics, since the first organ donations in 2003, there were only 131 organ donations from those who passed away between 2003 and May, 2009.”

Major Obstacle

The Yangtse Evening Post listed several examples to indicate that the major obstacles to organ donations are caused by traditional Chinese customs and mentality.

One example is a male migrant worker who died last October of a cerebral hemorrhage. The man’s organs were in good condition, but he had not consented to donate them, and the family was unavailable to give consent in time.

Red Cross experts in Jiangsu Province told Yangzi Evening News that with the American model, when applying for a driver’s license one can indicate one’s willingness to donate the body in case of sudden death. But long-held cultural mores make Chinese are unwilling to donate any part of their bodies. Car accidents are particularly taboo: asking questions about death and organ donation before getting a driver’s license is considered unlucky.

Another example raised in the report was a woman from the Yangzhou countryside who became sick and was willing to donate her organs. But her parents firmly opposed it and brought her body back to her hometown.

[Click here to read full article]

Oarfish omen spells earthquake disaster for Japan

By Julian Ryall in Tokyo 7:00AM GMT 04 Mar 2010


Picture is (C) copyright to NORBERT WU / MINDEN PICTURES

The appearance of the fish follows Saturday's destructive 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile and the January 12 tremors in Haiti, which claimed an estimated 200,000 lives.
A quake with a magnitude of 6.4 has also struck southern Taiwan.
This rash of tectonic movements around the Pacific "Rim of Fire" is heightening concern that Japan - the most earthquake-prone country in the world - is next in line for a major earthquake.

Those concerns have been stoked by the unexplained appearance of a fish that is known traditionally as the Messenger from the Sea God's Palace.

The giant oarfish can grow up to five metres in length and is usually to be found at depths of 1,000 metres and very rarely above 200 metres from the surface. Long and slender with a dorsal fin the length of its body, the oarfish resembles a snake.


[Click here to read full article]

Japan Earthquake – how many saw it ‘before’ it happened?

By Pat Regan

As I write this diary (11 March 2011) I note that several days ago I experienced a somewhat disturbing dream, a lucid nightmare perhaps.

In the dream I was standing alone in my garden. I was shocked as I saw that between the houses an enormous grey sea was flooding towards my home, over the roof-tops. It was terrifying.

I remember waking up feeling troubled and tearful.

I knew something ghastly was about to occur but not sure at that time what it actually was.

I inadvertently shared the news of this dream with my eldest Son Kyle on the same day. I expected ridicule, as Kyle tends to be quite pragmatic, yet something seemed to ‘click’ when I told him about my dream.

“Dad”,he said, “I had a similar dream to yours and you have just broken mine by telling me”.

Neither of us thought too much about this bizarre disclosure until the news of the Japanese Tsunami hit the world press this morning.

My face dropped as I learned of the terrible effects of the 8.9 magnitude earthquake that hit north-eastern Japan sending a huge wall of water inland.

Media images of the massive tidal swell made me go cold to the bone as they were just like the revelation I have previously experienced.

I weep for the departed of the disaster, yet dreams speak to us in the strange language of inner symbolism. Therefore, a seer cannot always predict the actual location of such events; at times yes, but not always.

How many saw the Japanese tsunami - before it happened? I fear that Kyle and I were not alone herein.

I have, like others, had similar premonitions (for want of a better word) before – the last one being on the poignant day that Princess Diana was killed.

[Click here to read full article]

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Japan

Master Oregon message:

From out of us here at Asia Paranormal, our thoughts and prayers go out to the people of Japan today in the wake of the recent earthquake and tsunami.

I suppose there is nothing more to be said, as much has already been said and done. It does not matter what your religion or race is, so please, keep the people of Japan within your thoughts and prayers.

Asia Paranormalの全員が、日本で起きた地震の威力にショックを受け、深く悲しんでいます。我々は被災者全ての人たちのご無事をお祈 り致します。

Derinkuyu : Ancient Underground City

In 1963 in Cappadocia, Turkey, a man working on a wall in his basement made an astonishing discovery. Behind the wall was a mysterious room he had never seen. This strange room led to another one … then that one led to another musty room … then another one. By chance, he had stumbled upon the ancient underground city of Derinkuyu.

As archaeologists studied this fascinating labyrinth, they realized it was only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, they discovered the complex had a total of 11 floors, reaching over 300’ below the surface! It was opened for visitors as of 1969 and to date, only ten percent of the underground city is accessible for tourists. Its eight floors extend at a depth of approximately 85 m.

Derinkuyu is notable for its large multi-level underground city, which is a major tourist attraction. The historical region of Cappadocia, where Derinkuyu is situated, contains several historical underground cities, carved out of a unique geological formation, and were largely used by early Christians as hiding places.

Derinkuyu is a town and district of Nevşehir Province in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey. According to 2000 census, population of the district is 24,631 of which 11,092 live in the town of Derinkuyu. The district covers an area of 445 km2 (172 sq mi), and the average elevation is 1,300 m (4,265 ft), with the highest point being Mt. Ertaş at 1,988 m (6,522 ft).

[Click here to read full article]

Recounting the Pontianak (Part 2)

We continue our collection of stories of Pontianak encounters.

This guy named Ismail was returning home from his cousin's house as it was during the Hari Raya. I think it was 2 years ago. His cousin's house was in Yishun and he was heading to Pasir Ris that where he lived. While riding along Punggol, he was feeling strange all of a sudden. He continued to ride until there was a Malaysian plated motorcycle. When they were side by side, this old Malaysian guy turned to him and then speed faster. Ismail didn't care and just kept on riding until he was again riding side by side with a old man. He was riding a Vespa motorcyle. The old man turn to look at Ismail and again the old man speed faster. Ismail thought that he wanted to race.

After a few minutes, he looked at his side mirror as he felt as if there was someone riding behind him. He look at the mirror and saw a white dress. He again looked at the mirror and saw a woman with long black hair and then it strikes him that there was evil riding behind him. Ismail says “I did not disturb you and you please...do not disturb me”. He was in total fear!

When he reach a junction at Pasir Ris, he was getting ready to stop at a red light. This 'thing' pulled near and began to laughed. Ismail didn't care weather it was a red or green light, he just sped off until he reached home. Without even taking the key and parking at the correct spot, he rushed to his house. Reaching his house, he tells his elder brother what happened. His brother said he was lying.

They both get on their motorcycles together...Ismail rode behind his elder brother. When they see the motorcycle, the Pontianak was sitting and smiling at them. Ismail scolded his elder brother for not believing him. His brother quickly shouted prayers and the 'thing' was gone. Ismail rushed back home leaving his brother alone.

When the brother reached his way home, he scolded Ismail for leaving him alone, "what if the thing attacked me." Beware riding your motorcycle alone at night.....

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One Friday night, all of my friends and I are chatting at a nearby coffee shop. It was a boring night, one of my friends suggested we go clubbing at Boat Quay but we ignored his suggestion. I suggested to have some fun with the spirits as it was the HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL.

We planned the things that we needed, e.g joss sticks, candles, apples and a comb. We proceeded to the destination planned. Upon reaching, we set up all the things we bought. The candles were used to make a pentagram and we put the joss stick around us. Together there were 6 of us including one girl. We were suppose to sit at every end of the pentagram and one person in the middle. The girl sat in the middle and she was supposed to comb her hair while chanting some spell.

It`s almost midnight and we started to chant the spell my friend taught us. After a few minutes nothing happen. I started to feel that its a waste of our time. I got up and kicked all the candles and joss sticks, and walk away. Suddenly it happened. The girl who was combing her hair started to scream. She ran towards me and started to bite me. At first I thought she playing around but she wasn’t. My friends tried to pull her away from me but to no avail. Then she released me and started to say words that we could not understand. My friend who is a religious type, started to chant some prayers and the possessed girl started to scream again. The screams then began to fade and she fainted. All of us then witnessed a white object flying above the bushes behind us. We became alarmed, picked up the fainted girl and ran away to the nearest HDB block. From there we went back to our home.

I told my mother about the incident...she was so mad that the slap me on the face. She said that I had disturbed the resting place of a PONTIANAK. I swear to myself not play with spirits again. As for the girl she knew nothing about what had happened to her.

This really happened at Serangoon Park Connector.

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Driving down the highway, Ahmad tried to adjust his focus and eyes on the road as fatigue and lethargy took control of his body. The long working hours at his new job had taken its toll and left him practically exhausted. After several failed attempts to keep himself awake, Ahmad finally gave in and decided to stop at the side of the road to get some shuteye before continuing his journey.

As he turned to make a stop, his eyes caught sight of a strange looking ‘object’ in the middle of the road that seemed to resemble a log but simply shrugged it off as nothing out of the ordinary. However, as Ahmad peered closer at the weird object, he could make up some facial features but it was too dark to tell whether his imagination was beginning to run wild. Despite the warning which echoed in his mind to ‘run away’, he simply refused to steer clear of whatever was on that road.

Curiosity got the better of him and he took out a torch light out of the glove compartment to investigate what it really was. As Ahmad approached the ‘object’, it laid so disturbingly still as if waiting to strike. He suddenly stood frozen in his tracks as the ‘mysterious object’ lifted its head slowly in his direction and let out an ear-piercing cry. Fear overtook the very core of Ahmad’s mind and he knew instantly what the ’strange’ object was. He struggled to summon his inner strength to face the terror staring him right in the eye. “This was something that you could only see in horror films,” Ahmad said.

He watched the terror unfold as the paranormal entity, commonly known as ‘pontianaks’ to the locals, crawled to the side of the road and began creeping towards a lamp post. Within split seconds, it swiftly moved towards him and all he could do was recite prayers to ward off the spirit. The ‘pontianak’ stared at him intently before disappearing into thin air. The memory of such a disturbing image, till this day, seems difficult to erase and has changed his philosophy on the existence of paranormal entities.

“I think it’s a good idea to share my experience with fellow readers on this issue. Whether they choose to believe it or not, is of course up to them. However, this is not something you simply make up. It took me quite a while to try and forget this horrifying incident but I decided to instead use it as a lesson in life,” he said before concluding his story.

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Legends of old have it that an individual who possesses a fragile spirit will most likely encounter supernatural entities and although no evidence of such a claim exists, some have unfortunately experienced it firsthand for reasons they cannot phantom. This story revolves around an American expatriate who was kind enough to share his ordeal before leaving the country for good.

David loved Brunei and considered it as his second home. He even planned to settle down with his then fiancé living in Kuala Belait and thus, frequently traveled back and forth to visit his better half. Working in a highly demanding field, which required every ounce of his expertise, commuting from the capital to the Belait District daily was painstaking and inconvenient but he longed to put a balance between his work and fiancé. Days and sometimes, even months at a time, the pressuring demands of his career began to take its toll on their relationship.

One fateful night, they got into a heated argument and his fiancé threatened to commit suicide. After several attempts to call her hand phone, which went unanswered, he grabbed his car keys and drove hastily to Kuala Belait. “Please answer the phone, please,” David pleaded. He then began blaming himself should anything unforeseen happen to his fiancé and could not imagine life without her.

He then approached the one-lane road and focused on the dark, eerie highway, where no street lamps were erected. Suddenly, the radio reception started to deteriorate and David simply thought it was due to the location. A few minutes later, the car engine began to quiver and decelerate from 120 to 80km/h. “What in heaven’s name could possibly go wrong now?” he exclaimed as it was a brand new car. “Do not break down here please, of all places!” David said while glancing around at the pitch-black darkness without a single soul in sight.

He pulled himself together and tried to dismiss all negative thoughts coming to mind. As he attempted to lean on the arm rest, David caught sight of what seemed to be a ’shadow’, in the corner of his eye. Without thinking, he turned to confirm his worst fear and indeed, there was a weird ‘figure’ sitting beside him in the front passenger seat. The entity’s long black strands of hair covered its face as ’she’ repeatedly let out a blood-curling laugh. Shivers ran down his spine and a thousand thoughts raced through the businessman’s mind. Given the fact that he is a free-thinker, no religion or prayers could save him then as he knew none. David thought of calling someone, practically anyone but his phone was in the middle of the dashboard. Terrified that the ‘entity’ would grab his hands, he continued driving, hoping, praying that a street lamp would appear with some visible ’signs’ of life.

A few minutes on, David’s instincts sent a warning jolt through his body. He could sense that the ’spirit’ was staring at him and his heart raced with sheer trepidation. Straight ahead, visible strokes of light could be seen and he stepped on the gas pedals hoping to reach the area before something happened to him. That seemed to only make things worse.

With the streetlights, he could clearly see his ‘uninvited passenger’. The events that followed would remain embossed in his memories forever. The ’spirit’ extended its arms to grab his shoulders. He immediately stepped on the brakes and ran out of the car. David refused to turn around for fear that ‘it’ was nearby but decided to fight his fear after remembering his fiance.

“After I saw it was gone, I went back into my car and drove off like never before,” David said. After reconciling with his fiance, he retold his frightful story and later discovered that the entity was in fact, a Pontianak. “This has altered my complete outlook in life and I now refuse to travel anywhere alone if it’s 3 in the morning,” he said while giggling but behind the laughter, the impact of that encounter could be visibly seen through his eyes.

Spiders lead to Mazda recall

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mazda is recalling about 52,000 Mazda6 sedans in the U.S., because yellow sac spiders like to build their nests in part of the fuel system.

"A certain type of spider may weave a web in the evaporative canister vent line and this may cause a restriction of the line," Mazda said in a letter to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The evaporative canister vent line runs from a charcoal-filled canister that cleans air coming out of the gas tank. Blockage of the line can prevent air from getting into the gas tank as the gasoline is used, resulting in negative air pressure inside the tank. That can lead to a crack in the gas tank and the possibility of a fire.

There have been 20 reported cases of spider infestation in the Mazda6 -- all have been in cars with 4-cylinder engines, none with V6's. No actual fires are known to have been caused by the spiders, according to Mazda's letter.

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'Satanic' samsu makes youths vomit blood

IPOH - MANY youths in Ipoh are vomiting blood and having diarrhoea after consuming a popular new brand of hard liquor.

According to a report in Harian Metro, these drinks called "Tonik Gila" and "Samsu Setan" are becoming increasingly popular due to the low cost and high alcohol content.

They are being sold at grocery and traditional Chinese medicine stores at RM3.30(S$1.40) for a 150ml bottle, with alcohol content between 27% and 43%.

According to Ipoh Specialist Hospital Gastroenterology consultant Dr Wong Chong Heng, the high alcohol content was causing frequent drinkers to suffer from liver damage which leads to them vomiting blood and having diarrhoea.

He added that youths addicted to this drink were also at risk of brain inflammation, coma and sudden death.

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The Bystander Effect

What is the Bystander Effect?

The term bystander effect refers to the phenomenon in which the greater the number of people present, the less likely people are to help a person in distress. When an emergency situation occurs, observers are more likely to take action if there are few or no other witnesses.

In a series of classic study, researchers Bibb Latane and John Darley (1) found that the amount of time it takes the participant to take action and seek help varies depending on how many other observers are in the room. In one experiment, subjects were placed in one of three treatment conditions: alone in a room, with two other participants or with two confederates who pretended to be normal participants.

As the participants sat filling out questionnaires, smoke began to fill the room. When participants were alone, 75% reported the smoke to the experimenters. In contrast, just 38% of participants in a room with two other people reported the smoke. In the final group, the two confederates in the experiment noted the smoke and then ignored it, which resulted in only 10% of the participants reporting the smoke.

Example of the Bystander Effect

The most frequently cited example of the bystander effect in introductory psychology textbooks is the brutal murder of a young woman named Catherine "Kitty" Genovese. On Friday, March 13, 1964, 28-year-old Genovese was returning home from work. As she approached her apartment entrance, she was attacked and stabbed by a man later identified as Winston Moseley.

Despite Genovese’s repeated cries for help, none of the dozen or so people in the nearby apartment building who heard her cries called police to report the incident. The attack first began at 3:20 AM, but it was not until 3:50 AM that someone first contacted police.

Initially reported in a 1964 New York Times article, the story sensationalized the case and reported a number of factual inaccuracies. While frequently cited in psychology textbooks, an article in the September 2007 issue of American Psychologist concluded that the story is largely misrepresented mostly due to the inaccuracies repeatedly published in newspaper articles and psychology textbooks.

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[The Kitty Genovese Case: A Fascinating Intersection of True Crime, Psychology, and Media Misinformation]

[A rape witnessed, a rape ignored]

[Don't Just Stand There - Do Something]

[I kept saying, "Help me, help me." But no one did.']