Bigfoot's FBI Files, Living Nostradamus Predictions, DB Cooper Recording, Marilyn Monroe's Ghost and More Mysterious News Briefly

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

The Fermi Paradox is the conundrum proposed in 1950 by physicist Enrico Fermi which presents the idea that the universe is so vast that intelligent civilizations should be common, then asks the question: "Where is everybody?"; a new conundrum in 2025, proposed by researchers Omer Eldadi, Gershon Tenenbaum, and Avi Loeb, is called the “Cosmic Closet Paradox” because it presents the idea that a new study found that 95% of people believe that intelligent extraterrestrial life exists, but these believers estimate that only 49% of their social circle shares this opinion – in other words, believers are hidden in a “cosmic closet”. Loeb speaks for the group when he concludes: “The challenge is not in convincing skeptics, but in creating social conditions where existing believers feel comfortable expressing their convictions”. We need to be Mulders in public and not worry about the Scullys anymore.

The Russian neurotechnology company Neiry announced it is field-testing a flock of pigeons with chips implanted in their brains which allow researchers to control the flight patterns of the birds from the laboratory without any training of the pigeons required; the birds are tracked by GPS and the chip and ancillary onboard electronics are powered by solar panels on their backs; they claim these “biodrones” have a high survival rate and will be used to monito power lines, gas distribution pipelines and other forms of infrastructure; the company has previously implanted chips in a rat's brain and linked to artificial intelligence. We know what comes next: one day in the not-too-distant future, military vehicles will be disabled by pigeon pooped windshields and fighter jets by kamikaze birds in their engines.

Much has been written about the animals that either survived the Chernobyl nuclear disaster or have moved into the 19-mile exclusion zone since then and managed to thrive despite the radiation and without human interference; now, scientists have discovered another living thing that has established itself in the zone and is in fact living off of the radiation there: black fungus; researchers determined that the black fungi is able to withstand extreme radiation stress due to the presence of melanin; scientist Ekaterina Dadachova found that the melanized fungi grew significantly faster in the presence of ionizing radiation and even used the radiation as an energy source in a process she calls "radiosynthesis";  these researchers are hoping they can use this type of black fungi to clean up other radiation leak sites. Get ready for “The Fungus That Ate Fukushima and then Godzilla”, coming soon to your favorite streaming service (as soon as I finish the script).  

The DB Cooper skyjacking occurred in late November 1971 and has never been solved, but a new collection of pieces of audio recordings from that day give a ‘you were there’ account by some of the crew and support members helping remove the passengers, obtain fuel and ransom money, and take Cooper back into the air where he jumped - never to be seen again; the anonymous owner of the badly damaged cassette tapes gave them to DB Cooper researchers Nicholas Broughton and Ryan Burns, who were able to recover 12 minutes of the forty minutes of audio, which was created from two separate radio frequencies used that day; the recordings are of Captain William Scott, Co-Pilot Bill Rataczak, and Al Lee, Chief Pilot for Northwest Airlines, who can be heard discussing a "contingency plan" for a possible escape; you can also hear about problems with the refueling process and comments from Captain Scott that Cooper “seems to know a little bit about an airplane"; this is the only known audio from the skyjacking and it is hoped that more can be restored because the tapes are verifiably authentic.  It’s time to introduce AI to its ancestor: analog.

Patricia Yarian submitted a report to the Bigfoot Field Research Organization that was told to her by her husband Wayne, a belly dump semi truck driver, who claimed he was traveling on Texas State Route 1253 in Smith County on his way to Garden Valley when he saw what he thought was a dark hairy man walking about 200 feet from the road; the being caught his eye because “he didn't see any cloths on this creature and it didn't have anything in its hands”; in a follow-up interview, Wayne told BFRO: “It was large, 6… 6 to 7 plus feet, I would imagine. It had hair. It was a hairy creature… animal. Long arms. I couldn’t see it’s feet. It was in some grass about 2 feet. It was just walking with purpose. Its arms were swinging, upright and headed toward the woods. It wasn’t black, but it was a dark brownish color and there were really no other distinctive features or markings on it”; BFRO noted that Wayne kept mentioning the length of the arms; also, the truck had a Dash-Cam that was active but Wayne had not obtained the video; finally, the area around the Sabine River in East Texas where this incident occurred has had a number of Bigfoot sightings. At that size, it won’t be long before Texas colleges send scouts into the area with football scholarships.

The tale (and tail) of interstellar object 3I/ATLAS continues with a number of new revelations, starting with a blog post by Harvard astronomer Avi Loeb in which he says 3I/ATLAS is radiating a “heartbeat” pulse of light that repeats every 16.16 hours; while the usage of “heartbeat” quickened the heartbeats of those hoping 3I/ATLAS is a spaceship or even a living space-traveling extraterrestrial, most astronomers say it’s the result of an “anti-tail” stream of particles that light up every time the comet rotates and that side is warmed by the Sun; on the other hand, Josep Trigo-Rodríguez, a researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences (CSIC/IEEC) in Spain, writes in another paper that 3I/ATLAS is covered with erupting cryovolcanoes  or “ice volcanoes” which make interstellar comet very similar to space objects in our own solar system, particularly Trans-Neptunian objects; Trigo-Rodriguez likens it to a space capsule “containing valuable information about the chemistry ongoing in another location of our galaxy”. It may not be a spaceship, but 3I/ATLAS is still a message in a frozen bottle filled with clues about the makeup of our galaxy and deserves intense study that will better prepare us for the next interstellar objects.

If you were looking at space travel as a way to lose weight and avoid diabetes by leaving all the fattening and sugary foods behind on earth, don’t bother going to the asteroid Bennu as samples from it brought to Earth by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft were tested at Tohoku University in Japan and found to contain glucose – the simple sugar that is the body’s primary source of energy and main cause of diabetes; Bennu also contains ribose, a main building block of RNA, so the researchers heralded this and glucose as signs life can form and thrive on other planets; however, besides the possibility of obesity and diabetes, these life forms run the risk of cavities too, as researchers at the University of California studying Bennu fragments also found a type of "space gum" – a polymer-like material never before seen in space rocks that could also help form life. No matter where you go in the universe, you can’t get away from dieting and flossing.

A controversial new paper in AIP Advances by Maria Strømme, a materials science professor at Uppsala University, proposes a theoretical model where we live in a conscious universe and our bodies, brains, matter, and space-time develop from it; Strømme sees this universal consciousness as a scientific way to explain telepathy, near–death experiences, and life after death – according to her, when you die, your consciousness rejoins the background field  of consciousness; Strømme’s model suggests the Big Bang was preceded by undifferentiated, timeless consciousness with no distinctions, which was then followed by tiny fluctuations in the consciousness field which produced processes similar to “symmetry breaking” in physics, where uniform states tip into more structured ones; once space, time, and structure exist in the model, individual minds show up as localized patterns in the universal field; each person’s consciousness becomes a temporary, organized configuration in that deeper field, not a sealed-off object; while this sounds religious, Strømme uses a physics-style language as a way to get other scientists interested, concluding that “Now, it is time for hardcore science – that is, modern natural science – to seriously begin exploring this”.  Plato would have loved this – or maybe his consciousness already knows about it?

It’s a bad sign when psychics can’t get along with other psychics (who do we believe?) so psychic fans in England are concerned about a feud between celebrity psychics Sally Morgan and Sally Cudmore; Morgan calls herself Britain’s best-loved psychic and has trademarked the nicknames Psychic Sally, Psychic Sal and Sally Psychic, so she is rightly upset that Cudmore is also calling herself Psychic Sal; Cudmore says she comes from four generations of psychics and doesn’t need Morgan’s permission to use the name Psychic Medium Sally Cudmore and the TikTok handle @psychicsal100; Morgan’s lawyer says this is just to protect her clients from getting confused. Your best bet is to go with the one who saw this coming and prepaid her lawyer.

From the ‘Strange things in the sky’ file comes a video from Okanagan, British Columbia, where Tyson Wilson driving home to Kelowna when he saw “this weird reflection in the sky" at around 4 pm; thinking it was smoke from a fire, he pulled over and began recording it, when he also saw “this thing flying around” and thought, "I think it was a UFO... I can't describe how bizarre what I was looking at was"; he posted it on his YouTube channel where one alternative presented was “a murmuration of starlings” (a large flock); another strange thing in the sky was reported by Valter Binotto, who captured a large luminous red ring in the skies over Possagno near the Italian Alps; he claims this is the second time he’s seen it – the first was in 2023 – and they were extremely quick; while many commenters thought it looked alien, the brevity makes experts believe it was a rare natural phenomenon called ELVEs (Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations due to Electromagnetic Pulse Sources), which are large and high in the atmosphere but too brief for most people to see; then there was Jo Beaumond, who was driving from Welshpool to Manchester on the M65 when she and her passengers saw six or seven mysterious lights that they claim moved around above them while following their car for 20 miles before disappearing – only to reappear on the other side of the car; Beaumond posted a video of the lights on social media where commenters thought they were lights from an event at Chester Zoo called Lanterns & Light or other nearby light festivals, but that didn’t explain why the people in the car saw them for 20 miles. What we need is a special category for these things called NIUAP – Now Identified Unidentified Aerial Phenomena.

England’s most active singer-turned-ghost hunter is Brocarde, who recently took a trip across the pond and then across the country to visit Hollywood in search of the ghost of Marilyn Monroe which is said to haunt the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel where Monroe lived for two years in a poolside bungalow; Brocarde stayed in the Marilyn Monroe Suite where she lived, but didn’t see her spirit there – she claimed that happened by the pool where she saw “a glowing, unmistakable figure hovering, as if soaking up the atmosphere like she used to”; Brocarde claimed to hear other ghosts at the hotel talking about possibly seeing Monroe’s spirit, so this appearance to the singer was a rare event. Brocarde provided no pictures, images, or recordings, but many say listening to her ghost stories is better than listening to her singing.

The FBI’s FOIA Vault has released the bureau’s 22-page Bigfoot file documenting an investigation in 1976–77 prompted by Oregon’s Bigfoot Information Center sending “15 hairs on skin to the FBI” which the bureau, after receiving pressure from the mainstream media (including the New York Times and Washington Star-News), agreed to test; the file shows that they were examined using transmitted and incident light microscopythe and the FBI lab determined the hairs were from the deer family and not a Sasquatch; this test and the letters in the file have been rumored to exist before and they will not satisfy those who believe Bigfoot exists, but it shows the FBI at least tried once – and may be willing to try again with the right potential evidence. Maybe they should compare notes with the people who haven’t found DB Cooper yet.

Athos Salome calls himself the Living Nostradamus and he’s trying to live up to the real Nostradamus’s reputation for being a prophet of doom with his predictions for 2026, which begin with his forecasts for two world wars, with the first starting in the Sahel in Africa (a horizontal strip of a region between the savannas of the south and the Sahara desert, including parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, and The Gambia) and the second inside the Arctic Circle, where Russia, the U.S. and NATO-allied countries could fight over Ukraine and global trade; Salome also sees massive grid-disrupting solar storms in March, and another deadly pandemic; no prediction would be complete without an update on the British royals and the Living Nos sees Harry making a "symbolic return" but no peace with his brother William, and Meghan Markle making a comeback with charity work and a movie role; however, these diverging plans will cause the couple to arrange a "clear professional separation" or “creative divorce” that is more about business than marriage. Nothing about Andrew – thank goodness!

Those putting faith in politicians keeping their promises to fully disclose secret government files on UFOs and aliens might want to reconsider after seeing U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a new interview where he backs away from statements he made in the new UFO documentary, “The Age of Disclosure", in which he talks about having heard from whistleblowers for years about aliens and UFOs and having received “firsthand” reports from government insiders about crashed UFOs; in the new interview, Rubio says of the film that “That was an interview done maybe three or four years ago when I was in the Senate”, it contains “selective editing”, he has no “firsthand knowledge” and that “we have people with very high jobs in the U.S. government that are, either (a) liars, (b) crazy, or (c) telling the truth, and two of those three options aren't good”. It's about time we updated that old adage about what it means when a politician’s lips are moving - especially about UFOs and disclosure.

Malaysia announced it is resuming the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, missing since March 8, 2014, beginning December 30 in a joint venture with the firm Ocean Infinity, which will supply autonomous deep-sea robots that will spend 55 days covering a 15,000-square-kilometer (5,800-square-mile) area on the floor of the southern Indian Ocean where new evidence suggests the remains of the plane and its passengers might be; this is a “no find, no fee” deal that could be worth up to $70 million If Ocean Infinity finds the wreckage in this secret area which is far from locations where verified debris from the plane have been found; Ocean Infinity is banking on the latest in uncrewed surface vessels coordinating high-tech autonomous underwater vehicles equipped with multibeam sonar, sub-bottom profilers and high-resolution imaging that can operate over a mile from the surface. “No find, no fee” makes it sound like Ocean Infinity is confident it may finally end this infinite search.

In a challenge to Flat Earthers, especially those who read The New York Times (how many could that be?), Tim Boyle, the CEO of Columbia Sportswear wrote in an open letter that his company is launching “Expedition Impossible” - a call to Flat Earthers to find the edge of the Earth, take a photo and send it to him – if the photo is deemed authentic and proof the Earth is flat, (“The Edge of the Earth” is a visible, physical end to the planet Earth. We're talking infinite sheer drop, abyssal void, clouds cascading into infinity,”). the prize is “everything owned by the company. All of it. The mannequins, coffee machines, snowshoes, toboggans, office plants, even the taxidermy beaver in the cafeteria. All yours”; there is just one small requirement – the person must wear and use Columbia Sportswear clothing and gear and show the labels prominently in the photos. And the best part is the walk to the edge and back is flat – no matter where you start from.

Many people believe there are more secret files on UFOs and aliens in the Vatican than anywhere else on Earth (sorry, Washington) so Catholic filmmaker Sam Sorich is making a documentary like “Age of Disclosure”, which he says is his inspiration, but located in and around Rome; in one segment, Sorich visits a fascist-era military bunker in San Oreste, Italy, where a crashed UFO, which was said to have been known by Pope Pius XII, Benito Mussolini and inventor Guglielmo Marconi, was alleged to have been stored and studied; Sorich was denied access to the Vatican Observatory, where many believe UFO files and evidence are stored, because of its aversion to the media; cryptocurrency executive and film investor Brantly Millegan says “Catholics should know that the church’s tradition has more to say on the subject than they may suspect”, and former military chaplain Father Matthew Gray said he was told by highly credentialed people he trusted in the military that the U.S. government has recovered crashed UFOs; the documentary is expected to be released in late 2026. In the meantime – pray.