UFO Hearings, Heavy Metal Ghosts, Star Trek and the Interstellar Comet, Orcas Attacking Again and More Mysterious News Briefly

A roundup of mysterious, paranormal and strange news stories from the past week.

The big House Oversight subcommittee meeting on UFO transparency and whistleblower protection was finally held (see the entire hearing here) and the blockbuster of all the revelations was presented by Representative and longtime disclosure proponent Eric Burlison who showed a video taken on October 30th, 2024, off the coast of Yemen by an MQ-9 Reaper remote-piloted aircraft following what appears to be a roundish UFO; another MQ-9 launched an AGM-114 Hellfire missile and it is seen striking the UFO, creating some debris and knocking it off course without detonating, but then the UFO continues on; Burlison said  the “footage [is] presented as received from a whistleblower” and that an “independent review is ongoing”; while the Houthis in Yemen have attacked ships and other targets with ballistic and cruise missiles as well as long-range kamikaze drones, this was neither; there are questions about the object, which some say resembled and reacted like a balloon, and whether this attack violated any rules of engagement. Do aliens know we have rules of engagement? Perhaps they should be printed on space probes or missiles.

Also at the meeting on UFO transparency and whistleblower protection were presentations by people like Dylan Borland, a former US Air Force intelligence specialist, who testified that he has direct firsthand knowledge of craft and technologies that are not ours and that are reportedly operating without Congressional oversight"; Jeffrey Nuccetelli, a former Air Force military police officer, testified he witnessed five unexplained incidents at California's Vandenberg Air Force Base between 2003 and 2005, a 'glowing red square' hovering silently over missile defense sites and a giant rectangle-shaped ship over 100 yards long; Alexandro Wiggins, an active duty US Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer, told of an  encounter while aboard the USS Jackson off the Southern California coast on February 15, 2023 when he saw a Tic-Tac UFO emerge from the Pacific and join three other Tic-Tacs in a flying formation over the vessel; Representative Anna Paulina Luna said that the former leader of the Pentagon's UAP investigating office (ARRO), Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, was a “documented liar” who undermined UFO investigations; Joe Spielberger, a senior policy counsel at the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), praised the bravery of the whistleblowers, while George Knapp, the renowned investigative reporter for KLAS-TV in Las Vegas, said Americans have been told for decades that there was no documentation of any kind of UFOs but now thousands of pages of previously classified documents have suddenly been released about UFO encounters worldwide; all of the witnesses and many representatives called for greater transparency and more security clearances so they can see classified documents. In the end, the conclusion was that more hearings and transparency are needed – are aliens secretly running these meetings?

The nonstop coverage of and speculation about interstellar object 3I/ATLAS continues as four different NASA telescopes show that its tail has a much higher proportion of carbon dioxide gas than expected; in addition, the Gemini South telescope at Cerro Pachón in Chile shows that the tail is growing longer and its chemical makeup resembles other comets in the solar system, which implies that comets around the galaxy may come from a common evolutionary process; 3I/ATLAS will reach its perihelion in late October and it comes extremely close to Mars, but no plans have been announced yet to intercept it with a Martian probe. Doesn’t it seem we know more about 3I/ATLAS than we do about UFOs?

In other searches for life in the solar system and beyond, NASA revealed that the Perseverance rover collected sediment from the bottom of the Neretva Vallis lake on Mars which contains dark specks less than a millimeter in length that are loaded with iron and phosphorus, the chemicals formed when microbes break down organic material – making this 3.5 to 3.7 billion-year-old sample the best sign to date of life on Mars; the results were published in a new paper in the journal Nature, which notes that this is not definitive proof of water-based life on Mars but it is consistent with a biosignature; the samples must be brought back to Earth for further analysis and have been packaged for pickup by a future yet-to-be-scheduled mission. Meanwhile, two new papers published in the journal reveal that the planet Trappist-1e orbiting the Trappist-1 red dwarf 40 light years from our solar system may have an atmosphere similar to Earth’s and is in the Goldilocks temperature zone conducing to liquid water and aquatic life forms; the observations were made using the James Webb Space Telescope when Trappist-1e passed in front of its star on its 6-year orbit. While neither of these is confirmation of other life forms, they’re signs those UFOs could actually be from other planets.

With so much talk about UFOs, aliens and planets with the capability to support life, an international team of researchers working with the SETI Post-Detection Hub at the University of St. Andrews in the U.K. have released the “SETI Post-Detection Futures: Directions for Technosignature Research and Readiness” – a handbook they hope NASA will use in its search for and potential encounters with extraterrestrial intelligence; the list includes developing new search strategies for when the powerful Vera C. Rubin observatory and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope go live and look deeper into space than ever before; developing new technologies for identifying more complex structures than space rocks, and new and different kinds of technosignatures; also narrowing search patterns so time isn’t wasted on planets with no chance of forming or supporting life; testing new forms of communication that might be used by non-humans. In other words, the search for intelligent life out there needs more intelligence down here.

‘Ancient aliens’ are being blamed by some for what looks like a giant doorway found recently at an altitude of 6,500 feet in the Dzungarian Alatau mountains in Kazakhstan near its border with China; while the pass through the mountain range, called the Dzungarian Gate, has been well-used for thousands of years by travelers between Kazakhstan and China, it is not thought of as being linked to aliens; however, a video of two men approaching the ‘doorway’ was posted on social media and commenters suggested ancient aliens made it or it is a portal to an alien base; meanwhile, scientists surmised the ‘doorway’ look was due to weathering patterns on the rocks combined with the human tendency towards pareidolia. Are modern aliens as fascinated with ancient aliens as we humans seem to be?

In ‘Superman: The Movie’, Superman appears to reverse Earth's rotation as he reversed time by flying at a speed faster than the speed of light, a visual effect that might not help us with a real problem today as scientists announced that July 9, July 22 and August 5 of this year were between 1.3 and 1.51 milliseconds shorter than the standard 24-hour day for unexplained reasons that could be changes in the atmosphere, glaciers melting, the motion in the Earth's core, a weakening magnetic field or a combination of all; whatever the cause, scientists like Duncan Agnew, professor of geophysics at the University of California San Diego, say that if the Earth indeed beginning to spin faster, it could result in a 'centrifugal effect' which will cause severe consequences such as Earth's oceans bulging around the equator, with water being pulled from the polar regions and making the Arctic Ocean shallower; land masses would have more earthquakes, tsunamis and flooding due to severe tidal changes; weather would become more extreme and a force known as the Coriolis effect would intensify the spin and destruction of hurricanes; fortunately, the Earth isn’t spinning faster and the shorter days are caused by something else. That doesn’t really help anyone sleep better, but it saves a call to Superman or the Flash.

The original ‘Conjuring House’ - which fans of the movies know is located not in Harrisville (like the movie) but in Burrillville, Rhode Island, where the Perron family suffered years of scary experiences and Ed & Lorraine Warren made their claim to paranormal investigation fame – is going up for auction on Halloween; JJManning Auctioneers president Justin J. Manning says the auction of the 3,000-square-foot house is garnering much attention – the house last sold in May 2022 for $1.5 million; people like paranormal researcher and parapsychologist Carl L. Johnson hope the property is preserved for further investigations; the sale won’t be hurt by the fact that the latest film in the series, “The Conjuring: Last Rites”, had the biggest global opening in history for a horror film with ticket sales totaling $194 million worldwide on its first weekend of release. Does Annabelle get a cut?

Orcas (Orcinus orca) continue to terrorize boaters off the coasts of off Spain and Portugal as the crew of a German sailboat claims a killer whale tore off the ship’s rudder near Spain and then ramming them a number of times, even as the boat was being towed to shore; the groups of orcas attacked several more boats and marine biologists continue to assure boaters these attacks are not a sign they hate humans but more likely they are just bored teenaged orcas having fun. If that’s not a Disney movie idea, the studio is missing the boat.

Some sad news as the Bigfoot world mourns the loss of Dr. Don Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Meldrum following a bout with brain cancer; Meldrum was a Full Professor of Anatomy and Anthropology in the Department of Biological Sciences at Idaho State University, but it was his interest in Bigfoot and his books like ‘Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science’ that brought his fame in the Sasquatch world and controversy in the science arena; Dr. Meldrum was a popular speaker at Bigfoot conferences and as a guest on many Sasquatch TV shows. Dr. Meldrum will be missed.

Star Trek fans see a similarity between the arrival of the mysterious interstellar object 3I/ATLAS and the ‘Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ episode "Children of the Comet" where the crew of the USS Enterprise encounters a comet called M'hanit which is on a collision course with an inhabited planet; (spoiler alert) their mission to deflect it is thwarted the "Shepherds," an ancient alien race who protects and worships the comet because they believe it carries the seeds of life which it has been distributing throughout the universe "since the beginning of time"; it also "purifies" civilizations they believe have lost their way and that’s what it plans to do to this planet; the Enterprise crew discovered M'hanit is a camouflage for an artificial technological structure – just as many astronomers suggest about 3I/ATLAS. Let’s hope 3I/ATLAS isn’t hiding something sent by Khan Noonien Singh.

in another news story involving ‘The Conjuring’, paranormal investigator Dan Rivera passed away suddenly while on the Devils on the Run Tour with Anabelle, the infamous doll in the film, and other items from the Warren Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, which normally keeps Annabelle in a locked case; a police report at the time said “nothing unusual or suspicious was observed at the scene” but that didn’t stop conspiracy theorists from linking the unexpected death to the allegedly haunted doll; Adams County coroner Francis Dutrow has finally released Rivera’s cause of death and said he died of “natural causes” and “Mr. Rivera had a known history of cardiac issues, which were consistent with the findings”; the coroner also confirmed that “Annabelle was not present in the room at the time of his passing”. That won’t stop conspiracy theorists or future Conjuring scriptwriters.

Rock singer and paranormal investigator Brocarde has had plenty of alleged experiences with ghosts – she’s dated them, married one, divorced him and needed a paranormal restraining order to keep him from bothering her – but now she’s claiming a second encounter with the spirit of Lemmy Kilmister, the late member of the band Motörhead; she has twice contacted Lemmy’s ghost at Wacken Open Air, an annual heavy metal festival in Germany where the band often performed and where his ashes were scattered in 2023; Brocarde says both times Lemmy was riding a horse and eating pizza, two things fellow band member Phil Campbell told her he loved – as long as there were no mushrooms on the pizza. Brocarde didn’t get any propositions from Lemmy, although she would probably have appreciated some career advice.

Most archeologists believe that bows and arrows, like the humans who use them, originated in Africa based on bow-and-arrow evidence from Ethiopia’s Pinnacle Point dating back about 74,000 years ago; however, archaeologists working at the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in Uzbekistan announced in the journal PLOS ONE that they found tiny stone points that appear to be arrowheads dating to nearly 80,000 years ago, making them the oldest known evidence of archery in human history; even more interesting, these 190+ micropoints were found in an area where human remains were discovered that appear to be from a juvenile who was either a Neanderthal or a possible Neanderthal-Sapiens hybrid, making Neanderthals the inventors of the weapon still used today; while it may have helped them keep their bellies full in Central Asia, the bow-and-arrow combo didn’t spare the Neanderthals from extinction. Neanderthals may have come up with the arrow, but it was certainly humans who invented the bullseye.

In biblical archeology, researchers working at the ruins in Laodicea, located in present-day Turkey, found a 2,050-year-old Roman council hall decorated with a cross and the early Christian Chi-Rho monogram, representing the first two letters of 'Christ' in Koine Greek; Laodicea is mentioned in the Book of Revelation as one of the Seven Churches of Revelation; however, the building was built in 50 BCE and Revelation wasn’t written, presumably by John, between 90 and 100 CE, so the archeologists suggest this part with the engravings was added later, probably between the 2nd and 4th centuries CE; Revelation accuses the residents of Laodicea of being “lukewarm” Christins and orders them to shape up – which the engravings may be a sign that the took the ‘revelation’ to heart. Too bad there wasn’t the same message for the Romans and their empire.

After reviewing the announcement by NASA that the Perseverance rover had uncovered the best indicators to date of potential life on Mars, Professor Michael Garrett, an astronomer from the University of Manchester and Director of Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics who was not involved in the study, made some predictions on what that life might look like; because of the harsh conditions, he sees “hardy bacteria, similar to terrestrial extremophiles that thrive in very salty, cold, or low-oxygen conditions here on Earth” similar to the “microbial mats in very salty lakes or microbes that live kilometers underground in Earth’s crust or in the high desert in Chile”; he did not see these conditions being conducive to large animals, but if some were able to survive the intense UV radiation from the Sun, extreme cold, and limited liquid water, he thinks they would have “a thick skin” and might resemble the tough lizards living in deserts on earth. Would Martian iguanas have inspired David Bowie to create a different band, or would he move on to Jupiter?  

The bane of paranormal investigators these days is security cameras, especially those little doorbell cameras that pick up so many things that can be easily mistaken for ghosts; a good example is the case of Shane Irwin of Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, who got a notice of a visitor from his doorbell cam, but when he checked the video, he saw no one; however, there is a cemetery across the street and the video seems to show a shadowy ghostly figure moving across the street until it disappears; Irwin admits he’s a horror movie fan but says "I definitely think that it is a ghost”, especially since it was visible in broad daylight and was, in his opinion, “just too perfect to be anything else”. That could be the first time anyone used the term “too perfect” to describe a doorbell cam video.

Sure, things are bad on Earth, but if you’re looking for a good reason to stay instead of leaving on some billionaire’s spaceship for another planet, a new study led by Dr. Catriona Jamieson, the director of the Sanford Stem Cell Institute at the University of California, San Diego, found that “Space is the ultimate stress test for the human body” – so much so that the human body biologically ages much faster in space than on terra firma; the study used artificial intelligence tools to track changes to cultured human stem cells that were sent on four SpaceX missions to the International Space Station and found signs of molecular erosion and DNA damage; when returned to Earth, some of the cells were placed in a healthier environment and some of the damage was reversed, but it’s still cause for concern and more research. If you need more proof, look at Captain Kirk today.