Phantoms and Monsters

The St. Catharines Poltergeist
USO Sighting - Lake Michigan Near Milwaukee, WI - Delta Airline Flight DL2220
Official British Dossier On Big Cat Sightings Revealed
OK....So You're Writing A Book

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 02:50 PM PST

stcatharinesstandard - The weathered building in St. Catharines' downtown houses a pizza parlor and a 40-year-old mystery.

For about 10 days in February 1970, a series of strange occurrences is said to have plagued 237 Church St, Apt. 1. Pictures flying off walls. Bookcases crashing to the floor without cause. A police officer sitting in a chair that was picked up six inches off the floor.

The kind of spooky stuff made for movies. The root cause of this otherworldly chaos?

Video - The St. Catharines Poltergeist

Legend has it, an 11-year-old boy, Peter, who remains anonymous to this day, was taken over by a poltergeist.

At the time, the paranormal tale made headlines across Canada and the United States. Even former Tonight Show host Johnny Carson mentioned it in his monologue back then.

Decades later, the story of a ghostly presence wreaking havoc in the modest downtown apartment has endured.

"I think it's been unshaken, as far as the evidence goes," said Michael Clarkson, a former reporter who wrote a 2006 book called Poltergeists: Examining Mysteries of the Paranormal.

"I'm not a devotee of the paranormal, but I can't think of a case that still stands up after 40 years. The witnesses ... no one's come forward to say it's a hoax."

Forty years later, retired police officer Richard Colledge is still a believer.

Now 70 years old, Colledge was one of a handful of officers from the former St. Catharines Police Department to visit the Church Street apartment.

He remembers going into the unit after reports of things moving around on their own. He was 30 at the time. A constable with five years experience who had spent six years before that with the Canadian Armed Forces. And he was skeptical—until it happened.

Colledge said he was standing in the kitchen in front of the sink when a picture came flying off the wall in the adjoining bedroom.

"All I know for sure is when it came off the wall it didn't fall down on the single bed that was underneath it. It came out and landed on the floor, and I watched it," Colledge said with a laugh. "I thought it was violating the laws of psychics and gravity."

He didn't stay much longer after that.

Colledge wasn't the only police officer to witness strange goings on at the second-story apartment. Several police notes written by his colleagues at the time chronicled the events.

Const. Bill Weir wrote about witnessing phenomenal occurrences during a visit to the residence on Feb. 10, 1970. He was there with his buddy Const. Bob Crawford.

He called in the city building inspector to see if the odd movements could be explained by structural problems. No luck.

"My only solution to these occurrences is that the boy Peter, whom all the occurrences surround, has been inhabited by a spirit of a poltergeist," Weir wrote in his investigation report.

"This is the spirit which inhabits the body of a young child about to enter the phase of puberty and has been described as a mischievous spirit that does not generally seriously harm anyone. Briefly, this boy can't sit on a chair without being thrown off and items are hitting him for no apparent reason. I the writer (Weir) witnessed the boy being thrown on at last a dozen occasions. "

Two days later, Const. Robert Richardson reported visiting the residence with four other officers and a raft of tape recording and movie cameras.

He joined a circle of people in the living room that day. The paranormal-plagued boy, his eight-year-old younger brother, the boy's parents, two doctors, a local priest and the family lawyer.

Then, the unimaginable.

"At this time, the chair that (name blacked out) was sitting on lifted abruptly about six inches off the floor, and then slammed down again. On examining the chair, there was no explanation for this happening," he wrote.

Doug Croft was just seven years old when his police officer father, Lebert, told him about his experiences at the Church Street residence. Croft grew up in east St. Catharines, just a few blocks from the cursed apartment.

At the time, most of the guys tried not to broadcast their chance encounter with the dark side. They were worried people would think they were crazy, he said. And they were frightened of what lurked behind the felled bookcases and picture frames.

"They were scared to death," said Croft, who is a 47-year-old police officer with the Niagara Regional Police.

"At first it was kind of like, 'Geez I hope I get a call there to see what the hell's going on. You guys are shooting a line of s---or something.' But guys came out of there, they were scared to death. It was something weird."

Clarkson's brush with the supernatural started with a simple Halloween spook story.

He wrote about the Church Street poltergeist investigation for The Standard in October 1980. Soon after he got a call. It was the boy, then 21 years old.

He was plagued. Not by ghosts, but by family problems. His family was upset that Clarkson had drudged up the past with his story. The memories were painful. During the media storm of 1970, the family was forced to leave town for a few weeks. Embarrassed by the events, the family didn't want to relive the past. Clarkson had opened old wounds.

The poltergeist-riddled-boy-turned-young-man called Clarkson from a pay phone on Halloween night 1980. He asked if he could come to Clarkson's Niagara Falls home.

Before long, they were face to face in Clarkson's office. He was not what the young journalist expected.

"I thought there would be something strikingly different about him," said Clarkson, a Toronto freelance journalist.

"When he came to my house it seemed to me, initially anyway, that he was like the boy next door. Very clean cut, well dressed, very well spoken, quite sure of himself. The young man didn't discuss what happened to him that February in 1970. He was there to protect his privacy, his future in St. Catharines. He was worried about what other people in the community, a very conservative community like St. Catharines, might think about him, especially when he's dealing with young people."

Over the years, Clarkson saw him a few times. Walking downtown, hand in hand, with a girl. In the pages of The Standard. On a golf course.

Clarkson said the boy has gone on to become an upstanding man in the community. He works with youth.

For all these years, Clarkson, who worked as a daily newspaper reporter for 38 years, has kept the man's secret.

But decades later, Clarkson, who highlights the St. Catharines case in his Poltergeist book, can't shake the eerie legacy of that downtown Church Street apartment. His skepticism enduring, Clarkson calls the Garden City poltergeist case one of the best examples of a true ghostly encounter.

"Nobody has been able to shake the facts of the case," Clarkson said. "In this day and age when so many things have been revealed as hoaxes, this stands up as a real mystery."

Video - The St. Catharines Poltergeist

NOTE: though I was only a young teen at the time, I happened to be in nearby Hamilton, Ontario around the time of this incident. It truly was a media frenzy, especially for Ontario. BTW, St. Catharines, and for that matter Hamilton, is a super nice place. I spent several summers in the area when I was younger...Lon

USO Sighting - Lake Michigan Near Milwaukee, WI - Delta Airline Flight DL2220

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 08:44 AM PST

MUFON witness report - 3/2/10 (unedited): I was in Delta Airline flight DL2220 flying from Seattle WA to Detroit. I was looking through the window for most of the flight. At about 6:00am we were flying over a big city probably Milwaukee when I noticed glowing lights at a distance several miles ahead of us. I was suddenly amazed because the lights seemed brighter and bigger the all of the city light combined. It was the brightest light I had seen from a plane window I love sitting in a window seat and looking out. What puzzled me was that the lights looked like they were under water. I had the feeling that we were flying over water so I looked down to make sure. There were few clouds and I could see the ripples on the surface of the water, because the moon was full. I kept looking at the light as the plane got closer. I started getting apprehensive as the plane approached it. It didn't seem man-made. When we finally got over it I was terrified and could look no more because I thought it was going to capture the plane. There was a gentleman sitting in the window seat in front of me. I am sure he saw it too. I think he was afraid too because he turn away too. I wanted to ask him about it but my connecting flight was leaving in a short time and I was traveling two others so I didn't have the time to find him in the airport.
Now I'm going to try to give a detailed description of the lights. I noticed three lights close together under the surface of the water. The biggest one looked like a giant light bulb. It was several miles in diameter. It was yellowish. The one beside it was a little more the half the size and it was reddish. It was also huge several miles in diameter too. The third one was smaller and greenish. I will assume that it was less the 2 miles in diameter. They were all brighter then any light I have ever seen except the sun. I do not believe they were from this world.
There was another light at a distance the size of a city it was greenish but we didn't flying near it. Unless you guys tell me that there are several gigantic under water projects going on in Lake Michigan I going to believe that was extra-terrestial.

NOTE: there is a history of strange sightings on and over Lake Michigan. As well, am undertermined cropping of structures has been recently discovered by radar on the bottom of the lake. Below, I have posted some of the more unusual incidents...Lon
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STRANGENESS AT LAKE MICHIGAN

MUFON witness report: My friend and I walked down to the beach at the Rosy Mound Natural Area just a couple miles south of Grand Haven, MI, to watch the sunset. The sun set around 2030 (8:30). We decided to stay a while longer to see the stars come out.

After about an hour or so of talking and looking at the stars, I noticed that there was an unusually bright light out over Lake Michigan going west to east. At first I thought it was a plane with its landing lights on coming through the clouds.

Then I realized that there were no clouds in that direction. As it flew closer I asked my friend if she saw what I saw. She confirmed that she also saw it, and asked me what it was. I told her I had no idea.

It had no green or red marker lights to distinguish it as a commercial jet, nor did it have a strobe light. It was just a bright white light with a unusual Aura surrounding it.

It gave me chills, and the hair on my arms stood straight up as it got closer. I called my Mom who lives a few miles away and told her what I was seeing and to ask if she could see it also. She could not due to the area she lives in being a wooded area.

It was flying on a straight path. It almost looked like it was speeding up and then slowing down, then speeding up again. As it neared the shore line ,I noticed another light following about 10 to 15 seconds behind the first one.

This object was emitting the same color light, but did not have the unusual aura surrounding it. Both lights made no noise as they flew by, which made it all the more creepy. As they crossed over land and flew farther east, the lights eventually went out of sight.

After they were out of sight ,we stayed there for another hour or so to see if they would come back or see if more would follow, but nothing else was seen.
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Originally posted 1/1/09

The 'Lake Michigan Triangle' Mystery

The Lake Michigan triangle is said to have similar characteristics of the Bermuda Triangle and is said to be a place of ghost ships, strange disappearances and even UFO sightings.

"There's been some strange disappearances out there, there's been many ships that have been lost that haven't been found."

Bill Wangemann is a historian from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He's spent a lifetime gathering tales about the Lake Michigan triangle.

According to author Linda S. Godfrey in her book 'Weird Michigan' (2006), the Michigan Triangle starts from the town of Ludington to Benton Harbor in Michigan; another links from Benton Harbor to Manitowoc, Wisconsin; the final side connects Manitowoc back to Ludington.

But the legend doesn't end with sunken ships; nearly 40 planes have disappeared over Lake Michigan too. Probably the most famous is northwest airlines flight 2501 that took off from New York City headed for Minneapolis in June of 1950 and plunged into Lake Michigan just off Benton Harbor. No one survived.

Then, there are the sightings of UFO's and other strange anomalies in the sky. In fact there have been so many sightings of strange objects and phantom planes that the Federal Aviation Administration created a special lake reporting service to catalog the reported sightings.

And yet still, thousands make the journey through the Triangle every season.

Captain Kevin Fitch of the Badger Ferry has been sailing Lake Michigan waters for nearly 30 years, "I've heard of it, I don't put a lot of faith in it but I have heard of it. Little bits and pieces here and there."

He says in the thousand trips he's made across the lake he's never seen anything strange. "I can't think of anything that didn't have an explanation of some kind."

So Captain Fitch continues to guide the ferry through what Wangemann says is considered the most dangerous part of the triangle.

"There's dozen's of these stories about different things that have occurred out there and people that have been lost and sailors that have disappeared off of ships and some people claim that there is something supernatural going on out on the lake," says Wangemann.

The wreck of the schooner Rosa Belle and the loss of 11 crew members and passengers, all members of the Benton Harbor cult House of David, shocked the nation in the fall of 1921. The wreck was discovered on Oct. 30, floating upside down by the Grand Trunk car ferry Ann Arbor No. 4. The captain of the ferry said it appeared as if the schooner had been in a collision with another vessel. But no other ship was found to have been in a collision that week. The aft section was smashed, the cabin was wrenched away from the deck and the ship's rigging was floating loosely about the hull. The mystery of what happened to the Rosa Belle was never solved.

Strange too was the fact that it was the second almost identical wreck for the Rosa Belle. The vessel capsized in the same area and drifted ashore near Grand Haven, Michigan, in August, 1875. Ten crew members were lost. The wreck was recovered at that time and rebuilt.

Among the strangest of the mysteries was the disappearance of the schooner Thomas Hume, which disappeared without a trace in a Lake Michigan gale on May 21, 1891, while sailing empty from Chicago to Muskegon, Michigan to pick up a load of lumber. Seven sailors, including Captain George C. Albrecht, were lost with the ship. Even though the lake was searched thoroughly, not a stick of lumber or piece of flotsam from a wreck was ever found. Old sailors speculated that the Hume, a wooden vessel, could not have sunk without some wreckage floating away. To this day, the Hume's disappearance remains unsolved.

One of the most famous stories of disappearing crew members includes the freighter O.M. McFarland.

In April 1937, Captain George Donnor was heading to Port Washington, Wisconsin, "He decided to retire to his cabin for a nap, and he gave orders to be aroused about 6pm. And they went to his cabin and he was gone. The story was the cabin was locked from the inside and nobody knows what happened to him till this day," says Wangemann.

During the time of Captain Donnor's disappearance the McFarland was crossing through the nexus of the Lake Michigan triangle along the same course of the Badger Ferry.

As the Badger Ferry continues on its journey, passengers are unaware of what might lurk in the deep lake waters. John Fangman: "I know there's a lot of mystery about the great lakes and legend and folklore."

Bill Wangemann says there are some tails of sea monsters. "Many years ago there were people that swore they saw sea monsters on the shore here," says Wagemann.

And some of the witness have quite a bit of credibility, "A Catholic priest went for a walk he saw this beast on the shore he said it was big and the color green," says Wangemann. (See videos below - mysterious footprints on shore (alien?)

Sea monsters, ghost ships, disappearing planes and crew members, unidentified flying objects. It's the making of a good science fiction movie or a good legend.

Either way it certainly gives you something to think about as you look out onto Lake Michigan wondering what secrets she's keeping in her deep dark waters.

Here are 2 videos of some strange tracks that where made on one of the Lake Michigan shores

Radar 'Ghost Planes' - Report: May 22, 2000

For the past five weeks, air traffic controllers at the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois have been seeing images of "ghost planes" on their radar sets, usually in the skies of the Lake Michigan Triangle. The Triangle is an area of Lake Michigan which runs from Ludington, Michigan south to Benton Harbor, Mich., then across the lake to Manitowoc, Wisconsin and then back to Ludington.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, "False radar images have been popping up on the screens of O'Hare International Airport's air traffic controllers, forcing pilots to take sudden turns unnecessarily."

"At least a dozen 'ghost planes' have been reported during the last few weeks, the newspaper said, citing documents from the Terminal Radar Approach Control Center in Elgin, Illinois (population 78,000)."

"Controllers said that at least a few times they have ordered pilots to take sudden turns to avoid what appeared to be planes on their radar, potentially putting passengers at risk."

"'The ghosting is a complete terror for air traffic controllers,' said Charles Bunting, president of the Elgin local the National Air Traffic Controllers Association."

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Tony Molinaro "said there have been 13 ghost images in the last five weeks rather than the usual eight or nine the FA would normally expect in this time period., 'meaning we shall need to look into them.'"

"But Mike Egan, vice president of the controller's union at Elgin, accused the FAA of playing down the problem. 'Maybe 130, but not 13,' Egan said Friday (May 19, 2000). 'We had a couple of them today, as a matter of fact. They know there's a problem.'"

This all adds to the mythology of the lake, which is not prone to reveal its secrets. Lake Michigan is a treacherous lake and continues to be a source of fascination and inspiration for our collective imaginations.

Sources:
www.wzzm13.com
www.suntimes.com
www.w-files.com
www.greenbaypressgazette.com
www.absolutemichigan.com

Official British Dossier On Big Cat Sightings Revealed

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 07:53 AM PST

telegraph - They are the stuff of rural legend – but for decades, alleged sightings of big cats stalking the British countryside have been dismissed as hoax or fantasy.

Yet now the head of a Government agency responsible for investigating such incidents has declared that he believes these mysterious creatures do indeed exist.

His comments follow the release of a dossier by Natural England which lists more than 100 sightings of exotic, non-native and unidentified animals in England since 2005.

Of these, 38 were "big cats". In some cases, members of the public claimed to have seen the creature itself; on other occasions, they reported finding farm or wild animals which had been attacked or killed.

The documents – Britain's "big cats X Files" – show the extent to which Natural England takes the reports seriously.

The agency has launched several investigations, involving site visits by officials and the drafting in of specialist vets to examine injuries.

Big cat sightings have been reported all over England. In some areas they have spawned legends, such as the so-called Beast of Bodmin in the south west.

The investigations have yet to find conclusive proof of the presence of the mysterious creatures but, asked about their existence, Charlie Wilson, who coordinates reports for the Government agency, said: "The evidence is there that there are the odd, escaped, released dumped animals occurring in the wild every now and then.

"We know that. I am quite prepared to believe that. I don't think there are any breeding populations, however.

"If they are there, the numbers are so small that any risk of people encountering them is pretty small and any risks they present are somewhere approaching zero."

He added: "All reports are logged in our system. If there is only a sighting, then there is not usually much more than can be done to follow it up.

"But we are able to do so if there is something a bit more tangible that we could look at, like the carcases of other animals, or tracks. There are reports that turn out to be plausible."

One theory is that several large species, such as panthers, leopards and lynx, were deliberately released into the wild by their owners in the 1970s after the introduction of the Dangerous Wild Animals Act, which placed restrictions on the keeping of certain species.

In one "big cat" investigation, a carcase from an ostrich farm in Cambridgeshire was examined and the site was monitored.

In another, in Surrey, a roe deer was dragged over two fences, had its carcase eviscerated and was left with puncture marks. Natural England was informed by police and its officials studied photographs.

In Lincolnshire, a farmer found several of his sheep killed and eaten. On some of the carcases only the skull and spine were left. The farmer said the attack was down to a big cat and officials visited the site. Photos of the carcases were taken.

In another case, an injured horse was found in a field in Warwickshire, with claw marks scratched in it. In a further report, officials studied photographs of dead foxes, believed to have been scavenged by a big cat in Suffolk.

One big cat, spotted by a roadside between the villages of Mark and Burtle, in Somerset, was said to be as tall as a car. In another sighting in the same county, a motorist on the M5 reported seeing a big cat in an adjacent field.

While many of the investigations have been "inconclusive", others have been resolved. A supposed big cat seen in Norfolk, for instance, turned out to be a badger.

Danny Bamping, from the British Big Cats Society, said the real number of sightings would be even higher.

"Believing in big cats is not like believing in the Loch Ness monster," he said. "There is absolutely no doubt that they are out there.

"The most credible reports are from farmers, and those guys know their stuff. We have also had policemen reporting sightings to us. For every report, there are going to be others who don't bother to report it."

As well as the big cats, the Natural England dossier details other investigations which, in some cases, have found evidence of the presence of exotic species at large.

For instance, raccoon dogs – native to Asia and Russia – were confirmed as living in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire, while Siberian chipmunks, which can carry fatal diseases, have also been confirmed in Berkshire, Wiltshire and Cheshire.

Dead raccoons have been found in Kent and Hampshire, while there has also been a credible – though inconclusive – report of a living one in Surrey.

A snapping turtle, two feet long and 10 to 12 inches wide, was also discovered in Kent. The dossier states that the species "can be dangerous" and says that the animal needed trapping and destroying.

Fourteen coypus were also reported. The large South American rodent was brought to the UK by fur farmers in the 1930s, but some escaped and established wild populations.

These were thought to have been eradicated following a large-scale trapping exercise.

The new sightings could suggest that some remain at large, although none were proved conclusively.

A sighting of a wallaroo – an Australian animal which is smaller than a kangaroo but larger than a wallaby – living in Cornwall was taken as being credible, although not proven.

Other unconfirmed sightings include more raccoons and raccoon dogs, a wolf in Surrey, and a prairie dog in Buckinghamshire.

Twenty-eight of the sightings involved wild boar, which have escaped from farms and become established in some parts of the country in recent years. Sightings in other areas are still closely monitored.

OK....So You're Writing A Book

Posted: 07 Mar 2010 08:51 PM PST

Click for video 1

Click for video 2

Click for video 3

Well, no one can say that 'ex-Bigfoot researcher' Autumn Williams is not good in front of a camera. She is savvy and easy on the eyes...just as she was when she had a television show. But now, she is presenting her case for leaving the field of Bigfoot research.

The preamble to her recent video blog is as follows: "Bigfoot research" hasn't worked and isn't working. It's inherently counterproductive... and that's why I'm throwing in the towel. I'm going out into the woods to act like a witness - and hopefully BE a witness again. When I'm not in the woods, I'll be listening to and speaking up for witnesses as an eyewitness advocate, and helping witnesses share their stories with other witnesses.

She does make a few valid points. I'm also a 'Bigfoot witness' and the experience has changed my for life. I know that regardless of what I hear or read this cryptid is real. Some of the exploits of certain individuals to simply make a buck are despicable...ex. the Georgia Bigfoot fiasco.

She claims to have intimate knowledge of a man who has a personal association with a Bigfoot. This man has no problem conveying this information but draws the line at providing tangible evidence to support this claim. Ms. Williams presents a long diatribe on the ills of Bigfoot research and finally tells us that she no longer has a desire to be known as a Bigfoot researcher and that she will reveal her anecdotal evidence...in a book.

Look...I have no problem with anybody who decides to write a book on any subject. But for some reason, the route that Autumn Williams is pursuing leads me to question her motives. Slamming the entire Bigfoot community and completely disassociating herself from it may be more counterproductive than she realizes. Granted, she may very well have a legitimate account to tell...but in the long run, I'm not sure the end will justify the means. Lon

Autumn Williams' blog - Oregon Bigfoot Blog

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