Phantoms and Monsters |  |
- Video: Hominid 'Harvests' Skunk - Fruitland, NM
- Newly Disclosed UFO Sightings, Close Encounters and Animal Mutilations
- Fortean / Oddball News - 8/31/2010
- Scaring Up The Enfield Poltergeist Evidence
| Video: Hominid 'Harvests' Skunk - Fruitland, NM Posted: 31 Aug 2010 03:30 PM PDT    Click for video J.C. Johnson of Crypto Four Corners posts: "A look into the attack on an animal, where mostly the "Skunk Sack" and organs were removed." The investigation took place in Fruitland, New Mexico area...probably in or very near the Navajo Reservation. This area is very active with a hominid species that appears to be thriving. Please watch the entire video and listen to JC's theory as to why the 'Furry One' killed the skunk. Fascinating video. Here is a link to the previous post - New Mexico 'Furry Ones', 'Skin-Walkers' and 'Shadow Man'...Lon Video: Hominid 'Harvests' Skunk - Fruitland, NM  |
| Newly Disclosed UFO Sightings, Close Encounters and Animal Mutilations Posted: 31 Aug 2010 12:06 PM PDT    I received these images and anecdote from Bill S: My wife, friend and 5 year old daughter were watching the sunset while on vacation at the Helmsley Hotel on Lido beach, Sarasota. I had grown up in Sarasota and was back visiting. My friend Scott, who btw had a private pilot's license had stopped by. We were staying on the second floor, facing the Gulf. The unit was, when you faced the Gulf, the last unit on the left, on the second floor. We noticed before the sun totally set, a bright light. It was at eye level or slightly above and to the left of us. My wife thought it was a craft. She was an Air Force brat, growing up on SAC bases, her father a retired Lt. Col. Scott speculated it was a helicopter. It just sat there, until well after dark. After dark, it was flashing all kind of colors, like you would not see from an airplane. Photography is my hobby. I had a Nikon DSLR with a telephoto lens. But I did not have a tripod. The lenses I use are stabilized. So I braced the lens and shot a bunch of photos after dark, when it was most dramatic. Some looked like a yellow or other color it was flashing pinpoint of light. Others showed a wide array colors is squiggly patterns. I did not see the object move from its position. Those photos may be from camera movement but do show that the object was flashing colors you would not see from a plane or helicopter. I was impossible to tell how far away it was, I would say far. It eventually faded. I don't know if it got farther away or if a fog or mist off the Gulf obscured it. We didn't see it any other night we were there, which to means it wasn't a star. Besides, the sun had set, the object was still there for probably a half an hour after the sun set. A star would have set too. Later, I saw a show on the sightings in Tx. There was a similar photo taken. http://ufodisclosurecountdownclock.blogspot.com/2008/02/stephenville-ufo-sky-symbols-suspend.html It was of an object flashing different colored lights. The Naples sights, including the webcam image are of a bright light. Seeing the recent Capri island movie, it reminded me of the photos and sighting from the Spring of 2008. **********  Here is a recent MUFON CMS report filed from Nova Scotia for a sighting on August 18, 2010 (unedited): We were on our second night in Halifax Nova Scotia, sitting on our condo balcony in Lower Water Street, looking south at the sky between the buildings. We thought perhaps we were seeing some kind of fireworks or light display, when we saw the blue-green glowing light in the sky, but then noticed it did not move. Then it pulsed slightly and seemed to drip down upon itself almost like a lava lamp, and then broke into three even sections before our eyes. It stayed in the exact same spot, however, and came back together several times, continuing to glow with an odd greenish blue light for ten full minutes. At the end of the event, it formed a ball of bluish green colored light and bounced up and down and all around very erratically. Eventually, it grew smaller in size and dimmer in appearance until it was gone altogether. My husband and I are skeptical and would like to know what it was that we saw, if there is in fact an earthly explanation. We did not feel scared but felt amazed and awed by the object. It was also very beautiful because its light was glowing and looked very unearthly. We knew it was not a plane or helicopter and since it seemed not to be affected by the intermittent clouds (or lack there of) it was hard to imagine it was any kind of projection from below -- like a prank. To project something, one needs a screen of clouds or another surface to use and there was no consistent cloud cover that night. We could easily see stars around the object but it was too elongated / bar shaped to be any kind of planet or star. Since it was not moving and only seemed to pulsate and divide, it is hard to imagine it was any kind of human made craft. ********** The following MUFON CMS report was recently filed from an undisclosed location in Michigan from an incident on August 30, 2010 (unedited): My 6 year old daughter woke up at approx 3am, saying there were aliens out side, I sorta brushed her off, but had her describe them, thinking they were just stars or something. She said they were in the field next to us. I just told her it was fine, and go back to bed, and that I would check it out. (what every dad has to do right). So after a bit I went out side to check it out. I didn't really see anything other than Jupiter brighter than I'd ever seen before. But that was on the other side of the house, she couldn't have seen that. The only thing interesting was what I thought was Mars, about the right size flashing red. I went back inside. She was standing in the living room waiting for me. "Daddy the aliens still out there" I asked while I was out there. She said Yes. Now I knew for sure she had to just be seeing things. I had her draw me a picture. she drew the dome first, I thought she was going to draw a cigar type but then but a disk on the bottom. I've never heard of anything like that, maybe you have. I drew another and asked if that was it. The pic is not scanned or I would send it now. this happened less that 2 hours ago. Again I had her go back to bed, and told her it was fine and it would be ok. about 4:00am I checked on her, she was still awake. I had her point to where she saw this. She did and said there still out there. Now I'm getting freaked. What the heck is she seeing? I had her get up and told her were going outside. She didn't seem to want to, the whole time she was acting scared, which is very unlike her. As soon as we got out, she yelled there right there, all over the place, I'm like what are you seeing. "they are small now, by the stars." I said you are just seeing stars. She said, no these ones are moving all over. I thought satellites. Then she pointed out what I thought was mars. "See it flashing and it's moving. I had moved quite a bit in the half hour or so sense I had been out there. I had moved from one side of the tree to the other in a half hour? I had the moon and Jupiter as reference, they hadn't moved that much. And it was flashing, not like a plane or like a twinkle. The white always on behind the red flash. this all was to the east. I had asked her, she said that it had been close to the house and was much larger. and didn't know if what we were seeing was the one she saw close. about there being lost of them, I am understanding she thinks that all the other ones were above and could all have been on a bigger vessel, all she said about them was that they flashed. the lights on the smaller craft she said were almost of every color. red green yellow etc. and something about green and yellow at the same time. and said the dome was a yellowish green. I put her back to bed and googled this site. It's 5:20am and I'm going for another look. Then I'll report. 5:27 and I'm already back and I'm spooked. I went out, was looking around and noticed the moon and Jupiter had moved. and as I looked at Jupiter I noticed there was 2 of them. I thought where did that star come from? I didn't see it earlier. It was just as bright, and if you have seen Jupiter like this you know what I meen, you notice it. Now 2 of them? just as I thought that. The one that was not Jupiter began moving to the south and in about 10 seconds was gone. From the time I noticed it until the time it began to move was between 5 and ten seconds. Like it moved because I noticed it. this was bright white, almost a twin in every way to Jupiter. You know that feeling, like your being watched? That's how I feel right now. I'm still curious but nervous at the same time. That's how my daughter felt. If I had a sixth sense I'd say these things are up to no good, it's just my feeling. For perspective I'm a Christian and don't drink. I believe that this is possible. 1. because I've seen a metallic orb during the day before, and know for a fact what I saw and I've never seen humans create anything close to that. It was literally a ball of liquid mercury stationary in the sky for more than 15 min. i think that was 1998. Anyway If anything else happens, I'll write it down and get back with you, feel free to email me. ********** MUFON Investigates New Mutilations in Colorado Click for video  Two horses found mutilated August 11, 2010, by their ranch owners in Rush, Colorado, were investigated by Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) Field Investigator Chuck Zukowski (who obtained the video and images).Two other ranch animals who apparently survived the attacks and were found with "unknown marks." A high "electro-magnetic field reading" was measured on an attacked dog. The rancher's wife reports unusual sounds two days prior to the discovered mutilations. Rush is situated along Highway 94 in unincorporated El Paso County, two miles west of El Paso, and about one hour east of Colorado Springs. Click for video Newly Disclosed UFO Sightings, Close Encounters and Animal Mutilations  |
| Fortean / Oddball News - 8/31/2010 Posted: 31 Aug 2010 11:19 AM PDT  Click for video Acoustic Archaeology: The Secret Sounds of Stonehenge newscientistJust after sunrise on a misty spring morning last year, my fellow acoustician at the University of Salford, Bruno Fazenda, and Rupert Till of the University of Huddersfield, UK, could be found wandering around Stonehenge popping balloons. This was not some bizarre pagan ritual. It was a serious attempt to capture the "impulse response" of the ancient southern English stone circle, and with it perhaps start to determine how Stonehenge might have sounded to our ancestors. An impulse response characterises all the paths taken by the sound between its source – in this case a popping balloon – and a microphone positioned a few metres away. It is simply a plot of the sound pressure at the microphone in the seconds after the pop. The first, strongest peak on the plot represents the sound that travelled directly from the source to the microphone. Later, smaller peaks indicate the arrival of reflections off the stones. The recording and plot shows the impulse response Bruno and Rupert measured with a microphone positioned at the centre of Stonehenge and a popping balloon at the edge of the circle. This impulse response represents an acoustic fingerprint of the stones. Back in the lab, it can be used to create a virtual rendition of any piece of music or speech as it would sound within the stone circle. All that is needed is an "anechoic" recording of the raw music or speech – a recording made in a reflection-free environment such as the open air or, better, a specialist anechoic chamber such as we have at Salford. The anechoic recording and the impulse response can then be combined using a mathematical operation called convolution. NOTE: read more at Echoes of the past: The sites and sounds of prehistory...Lon ********** Battle Royale: Crop Circle Experts Lock Horns! By David Haith - The croppie world awaits with bated breath the next move in a controversy which has arisen between two top researchers of the phenomena, Nancy Talbott of the BLT group and Colin Andrews. Colin says some of the conclusions of BLT's researcher William Levengood are plain wrong and the group should admit the mistake. He claims to have filmed proof that circle plants Levengood said showed good evidence of the genuine "crop circle making energy" were in fact from a fake circle made by Nancy's own plant samplers. Nancy sparked the dispute in a piece she wrote for the Report a Crop Circle Facebook page responding to questions about published papers by her BLT group. She suggested "No reputable professional scientist would challenge already published work without having carried out research replicating the research they are challenging" She adds: "And if some of the lay-people involved in the crop circle situation are themselves raising questions about the scientific work, such questions are basically insignificant...precisely because these lay-people do not have the academic or scientific training needed to correctly understand what the published material actual says." But weighing in with his own statement headed: "BLT got it wrong and should admit it and move on", Colin argues: "It does not always necessitate replication of a finding to prove the scientist is heading down the wrong road". He claims he filmed Nancy's crop circle samplers making a crop circle, sending samples to her from it and then finally viewing Levengood's findings back to them. Writes Colin: "Mr. Levengood concluded that the plants from this circle were among the best examples of the real phenomenon and showed the highest crop circle making energy. But the team and I knew differently. Whatever the science and protocols, whatever his findings, the plants came from a man made crop circle. The results showed whatever they showed but the interpretation was wrong". He adds that downed plants from wind and rain in the same field were also judged by Levengood to show a "very high level" of the mysterious energy. In an email exchange, I asked Colin why Nancy's team were making their own crop circle. Colin responded: "It was a legitimate blind test of BLT analysis. I asked the sampling team to join me to blind test Levengood. BLT received samples as normal as they would from any other crop circle. I have it all on video and sent Nancy a copy. I've not wanted to make it bad for Levengood but its important to get some balance back into this." I have forwarded Colin's Facebook statement to Nancy and will report further her reaction if she chooses to respond. NOTE: by all means, go to the link and read the comments, etc. - Two Crop Circle Experts Lock Horns...Lon ********** New Honeybee Breed Key to Combating Colony Collapse Disorder treehugger - A British beekeeper has been working on creating a new strain of honeybee resistant to the varroa mite, a prime suspect in colony collapse disorder (CCD), and it looks like he's hit a high note after 18 years of careful observation and selective breeding. Ron Hoskins found that bees in one of his hives figured out what a great idea mutual grooming can be -- they learned to clean the mites off one another. Hoping that this learned behavior is hereditary, he spread the genes of bees from this colony to his other hives. It worked. Now, combating CCD could be linked in no small part to how quickly the new strain of bee spreads across the country. Daily Mail reports that the British Beekeepers Association is excited about the work Hoskins has done, and the hope is the drones from his "grooming" bees will mate with wandering female queens to spread the heartier genes across Britain. It could take quite a long time, and a lot of generations of bees before the behavior becomes normal, but if it's a way to combat the mites that wipe out entire colonies, then it's quite an exciting evolution to witness. Hoskins, who is from Swindon, has named the new strain the "Swindon Honeybee" and all his colonies consist of this new breed. And the behavior might be the only thing that can save honeybees from the verroa mite: Martin Smith, president of the British Beekeepers' Association, said: "The varroa mite is probably the single most important factor that has caused the reduction in bee numbers worldwide. It has now become resistant to chemicals we have used in the past so we are being forced to look into other methods." The evolution of natural behaviors is certainly a good method to fall back on, with a little nudge from beekeepers. It might not be a silver bullet for CCD -- the cause of which is still under hot debate -- but it certainly doesn't hurt to have bees taking care of mite infestations on their own. NOTE: here we go again...mucking with Mother Nature. Splice and dice to solve one problem than create another that's ten times worse...Lon ********** Mother and Newborn in Critical Condition After Doctors Brawl During Delivery guardian - Police were yesterday questioning staff at a hospital in Sicily where a child was born with suspected brain damage after two doctors attending his mother allegedly came to blows over the need for a caesarean as she went into labour. Laura Salpietro, 30, had her womb removed following the birth. Her husband claims this took place almost an hour and a half late because of the brawl. Her son had two heart attacks shortly after the birth and is still in a drug-induced coma. Both doctors have been suspended, and the incident, at the Policlinico hospital, in Messina, last Thursday, is the subject of four investigations – by the hospital authorities, a local prosecutor, the regional health authority, and the ministry of health in Rome. One of the doctors involved and the head of the hospital's obstetrics department have denied a link between the fight and the subsequent events. But the woman's husband, Matteo Molonia, said there had been no previous hint of complications. "The sonographic scans and clinical examinations had ruled out any health problems for my wife and son," he said. "My wife was already in the labour room when her gynaecologist, who followed her pregnancy, and another doctor began to argue. The dispute erupted when her personal gynaecologist suggested a caesarean and the other objected." Italy has one of the world's lowest rates of maternal mortality, but also has one of the highest rates of caesarean section, amounting to 38% of all births. According to Italian media accounts, Salpietro's gynaecologist, Antonio De Vivo, punched his hand through a window after his collar was grabbed by the second doctor. Asked for a comment De Vivo later said: "I merely say that in this matter I am the wronged party and I was attacked." Molonia, 37, a private detective, was quoted as saying he saw De Vivo leave the labour room with blood dripping from his hand. "There is a gap that goes from 7.40 [in the morning], when the row blew up, to nine o'clock, when they operated on my wife. Why did all that time go by?" The other doctor, Vincenzo Benedetto, said there had been "exaggeration by the media", and that "everything happened with the greatest speed". He said the complications at the birth were due to a "pre-existing pathology". The head of the obstetrics unit, Domenico Granese, said that the complications at the birth of Salpietro's child occurred "not because of the row or because of any delay". ********** Survive the Apocalypse independent - Are you terrified of earthquakes, floods or tsunamis? Does the prospect of terrorist attack or nuclear holocaust fill you with dread? Or does it take that ancient Mayan stuff about 2012 to get your juices flowing? Whatever your paranoia, fear not: if the End Times really are coming, then a small financial investment is all it will take for you to survive it. That, at least, is what they're telling customers of the apocalypse industry, a small section of the American economy which, after years in abeyance following the end of the Cold War, has once more started growing again. Robert Vicino, the founder of Vivos, a Californian company building a "survival network" of upscale underground bunkers across the United States, will travel to London this week to announce the opening of his firm's first nuclear-bomb-and-asteroid-proof property in Europe. It is understood to be a former military facility, though its exact location, like all Vivos bunkers, is secret, since they don't want non-residents over-running the place when the Big One does strike. It will be stocked with all the food, water, fuel and clothing that its residents need to survive for a year. "London is of course on the radar of terrorism, and nuclear attacks," Mr Vicino said. "You're closer to the Middle East than we are here in California. And where the divine decides to drop the next asteroid is anyone's guess. Now is the time to prepare if you value your life." You'll have to have a few spare pennies, though. Investors seeking to buy part ownership of one of the Vivos bunkers must stump up $50,000 (£32,000) per adult, and $25,000 for each child. Nonetheless, Vicino claims already to have 5,000 Americans on his books. He says he's so far built 300,000sq ft of bunker space in the US. Though Europeans have traditionally been more reluctant to buy into the impending apocalypse, he believes the explosion in London's population of high-net-worth individuals has left the British market ripe for exploitation. "People have life insurance . We are selling something better: life assurance," he said. "Our places can survive a 50 megatonne blast 10 miles away; they can be submerged to a depth of 500ft, they can survive shockwaves, and electromagnetic pulses. They have medical facilities, libraries, security offices, gymnasiums, even prisons." Potential residents don't just have to pony up cash for their stake in a Vivos bunker. They also have to undergo a psychological evaluation and criminal background check to weed out individuals who would be unsuited to the strained conditions of an extended stay underground. Some of those who passed met reporters recently at a press tour of a bunker near Barstow, in the desert east of Los Angeles. "We're not crazy people, but these are fearful times," said one of them, Steve Kramer. "My family wants to survive. You have to be prepared." Jason Hodge, a father of four who also counts himself a "future survivor," to use the jargon of the apocalypse industry, added: "It's an investment in life. I want to make sure I have a place I can take me and my family if that worst-case scenario were to happen." Critics have accused Mr Vicino and similar businessmen of exploiting the public's irrational fears. Kenneth Rose, the author of One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture, recently told the Los Angeles Times that bunker culture leads to "a society of fear, a society obsessed with its own survival. I don't think that's any way to live a life". There is more than a whiff of snake oil about the Vivos website. It lists various scenarios under which life as we know it might cease, including "Planet X", "Solar Flares" and "Super Volcano". Mr Vicino reacts angrily, however, to allegations that he's preying on fear. "If anyone's doing that, it's you guys in the media," he says. "You guys are reporting fear every day. We are not promoting that fear, but we are selling the solution to it." ********** Thorium May Be Energy 'Silver Bullet' telegraph - We could then stop arguing about wind mills, deepwater drilling, IPCC hockey sticks, or strategic reliance on the Kremlin. History will move on fast. Muddling on with the status quo is not a grown-up policy. The International Energy Agency says the world must invest $26 trillion (£16.7 trillion) over the next 20 years to avert an energy shock. The scramble for scarce fuel is already leading to friction between China, India, and the West. There is no certain bet in nuclear physics but work by Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) on the use of thorium as a cheap, clean and safe alternative to uranium in reactors may be the magic bullet we have all been hoping for, though we have barely begun to crack the potential of solar power. Dr Rubbia says a tonne of the silvery metal – named after the Norse god of thunder, who also gave us Thor's day or Thursday - produces as much energy as 200 tonnes of uranium, or 3,500,000 tonnes of coal. A mere fistful would light London for a week. Thorium eats its own hazardous waste. It can even scavenge the plutonium left by uranium reactors, acting as an eco-cleaner. "It's the Big One," said Kirk Sorensen, a former NASA rocket engineer and now chief nuclear technologist at Teledyne Brown Engineering. "Once you start looking more closely, it blows your mind away. You can run civilisation on thorium for hundreds of thousands of years, and it's essentially free. You don't have to deal with uranium cartels," he said. Thorium is so common that miners treat it as a nuisance, a radioactive by-product if they try to dig up rare earth metals. The US and Australia are full of the stuff. So are the granite rocks of Cornwall. You do not need much: all is potentially usable as fuel, compared to just 0.7pc for uranium. After the Manhattan Project, US physicists in the late 1940s were tempted by thorium for use in civil reactors. It has a higher neutron yield per neutron absorbed. It does not require isotope separation, a big cost saving. But by then America needed the plutonium residue from uranium to build bombs. "They were really going after the weapons," said Professor Egil Lillestol, a world authority on the thorium fuel-cycle at CERN. "It is almost impossible make nuclear weapons out of thorium because it is too difficult to handle. It wouldn't be worth trying." It emits too many high gamma rays. You might have thought that thorium reactors were the answer to every dream but when CERN went to the European Commission for development funds in 1999-2000, they were rebuffed. Brussels turned to its technical experts, who happened to be French because the French dominate the EU's nuclear industry. "They didn't want competition because they had made a huge investment in the old technology," he said. Another decade was lost. It was a sad triumph of vested interests over scientific progress. "We have very little time to waste because the world is running out of fossil fuels. Renewables can't replace them. Nuclear fusion is not going work for a century, if ever," he said. The Norwegian group Aker Solutions has bought Dr Rubbia's patent for the thorium fuel-cycle, and is working on his design for a proton accelerator at its UK operation. Victoria Ashley, the project manager, said it could lead to a network of pint-sized 600MW reactors that are lodged underground, can supply small grids, and do not require a safety citadel. It will take £2bn to build the first one, and Aker needs £100mn for the next test phase. The UK has shown little appetite for what it regards as a "huge paradigm shift to a new technology". Too much work and sunk cost has already gone into the next generation of reactors, which have another 60 years of life. So Aker is looking for tie-ups with the US, Russia, or China. The Indians have their own projects - none yet built - dating from days when they switched to thorium because their weapons programme prompted a uranium ban. America should have fewer inhibitions than Europe in creating a leapfrog technology. The US allowed its nuclear industry to stagnate after Three Mile Island in 1979. Anti-nuclear neorosis is at last ebbing. The White House has approved $8bn in loan guarantees for new reactors, yet America has been strangely passive. Where is the superb confidence that put a man on the moon? A few US pioneers are exploring a truly radical shift to a liquid fuel based on molten-fluoride salts, an idea once pursued by US physicist Alvin Weinberg at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee in the 1960s. The original documents were retrieved by Mr Sorensen. Moving away from solid fuel may overcome some of thorium's "idiosyncracies". "You have to use the right machine. You don't use diesel in a petrol car: you build a diesel engine," said Mr Sorensen. Thorium-fluoride reactors can operate at atmospheric temperature. "The plants would be much smaller and less expensive. You wouldn't need those huge containment domes because there's no pressurized water in the reactor. It's close-fitting," he said. Nuclear power could become routine and unthreatening. But first there is the barrier of establishment prejudice. When Hungarian scientists led by Leo Szilard tried to alert Washington in late 1939 that the Nazis were working on an atomic bomb, they were brushed off with disbelief. Albert Einstein interceded through the Belgian queen mother, eventually getting a personal envoy into the Oval Office. Roosevelt initially fobbed him off. He listened more closely at a second meeting over breakfast the next day, then made up his mind within minutes. "This needs action," he told his military aide. It was the birth of the Manhattan Project. As a result, the US had an atomic weapon early enough to deter Stalin from going too far in Europe. The global energy crunch needs equal "action". If it works, Manhattan II could restore American optimism and strategic leadership at a stroke: if not, it is a boost for US science and surely a more fruitful way to pull the US out of perma-slump than scattershot stimulus. Even better, team up with China and do it together, for all our sakes. Fortean / Oddball News - 8/31/2010  |
| Scaring Up The Enfield Poltergeist Evidence Posted: 31 Aug 2010 09:57 AM PDT  thisislocallondon - New scientific research which uses evidence from the world famous Enfield Poltergeist case has come a step closer to proving conclusively the existence of paranormal activity. Research published in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research has concluded that audio recordings made during poltergeist activity at a house in Green Street in the late 1970s were unlikely to have been caused by normal human activity. The recordings, made between 1977 and 1978, captured a variety of unexplained occurrences that plagued a mother and her children - including banging on walls and moving furniture. During the year of disturbances, incidents of levitation and appearances of apparitions were also reported. The events were witnessed by the family, along with local police officers, neighbours and journalists, receiving global media attention. The recordings have for the first time been analysed in detail and the sounds of knocking on walls and furniture compared to the same sounds recreated under scientific conditions. The results showed the unexplained noises in Enfield did not produce normal sound wave patterns. Guy Lyon Playfair - who spent two years investigating the case at the time, and went on to chronicle the events in a book, welcomed the research. He said: "This is absolutely the biggest step forward in the last 30 years, and it's easily reproducible as all scientific evidence should be." The author and investigator added: "In doing this research, scientific order has been brought into a very crazy area - poltergeist activity. I don't think it's been done before." The research has been conducted by Dr Barrie Colvin who concludes that the noises recorded as unexplained incidents of "paranormal activity" can be clearly differentiated because of their abnormal acoustic properties – which are evident when they are analysed. Dr Colvin said: "There are indications that the acoustic properties of the two classes of sounds are different and that this technique can be used to differentiate between normal and paranormal rapping sounds." Asked whether he believed such activity could ever return to the Enfield house, Mr Playfair said: "It would be extremely unlikely. When the family went away on holiday I stayed in the house on my own, very much hoping something would happen - but not a squeak. I tried knocking and shouting at the thing, but nothing." The last activity at the house was reported in September 1978. But in the 32 years that have followed interest in the case has continued to be intense – especially as extensive audio recordings exist of the activity, including recorded speech. The case has been the subject of numerous television documentaries. Mr Playfair added: "It's been accepted as one of the classic cases, there were so many people involved and I think it was the first or second case when the investigators were there right at the start and stayed right until the end." Click for video Click for video ********** The Enfield Poltergeist Case  Nothing on that balmy August evening seemed even slightly out of the ordinary. Peggy Hodgson was busily tidying up her terrace house in Enfield, North London, after her four boisterous children had once again left it looking like a pigsty.Mrs Hodgson's daughters were upstairs getting ready for bed. As usual, 11-year old Janet was playfighting with her elder sister, Margaret. Then, as the pair rolled around and giggled on the bed, something most peculiar happened: a chest of drawers began sliding slowly across the floor towards them. The two sisters watched aghast as the chest shuffled across the room as if dragged by a pair of powerful but invisible hands. They were even more afraid when they realised that the piece of oak furniture was about to block their bedroom door - their only means of escape. Luckily for the children, their mother burst into the room to complain about the noise. She grabbed the chest and shoved it back against the wall. But the invisible force continued. Peggy watched in terror as the chest once again began sliding across the room. This time, the piece of furniture moved far quicker and Peggy could do nothing to stop it. She tried again to shove the chest back against the wall but failed. And this time she could feel an inhumanly strong force in the room. Objects would miraculously appear and disappear before the eyes of terrified onlookers. Confused and terrified at what she was witnessing, Peggy gathered up her children and fled the bedroom in panic. And thus began one of the strangest cases of alleged haunting ever recorded in Britain. Over the following months the so-called "Enfield Poltergeist" turned the lives of the Hodgson family upside down. Toys, plates, cutlery, books and pictures would all inexplicably fly across the room. Such encounters may sound utterly absurd. But what makes the Enfield case so remarkable is that the events were exhaustively investigated by respected academic researchers and - more pertinently - were witnessed by more than 30 independent witnesses, including police officers. Although the haunting happened 30 years ago, Janet and Margaret have not spoken publicly about it since childhood. They are still wary about discussing the incident in depth, as their lives have moved on. But in a documentary to be shown tomorrow they will break their silence for the first time - and what they reveal sheds new light on one of the most remarkable paranormal incidents ever to take place in Britain. "I felt used by a force that nobody understands," says Janet. "I really don't like to think about it too much." "I'm not sure the poltergeist was truly 'evil'. It was almost as if it wanted to be part of our family. It didn't want to hurt us. It had died there and wanted to be at rest. The only way it could communicate was through me and my sister." Hard-bitten sceptics, of course, scoff at such suggestions and claim that poltergeist stories are simply the result of hoaxing and trickery. They point out that pre-teen girls are hardly reliable witnesses - and, crucially, Janet and her sister have admitted to playing tricks on some of those who were sent to investigate their haunting. This has made it easy for rationalists to dismiss the whole tale as hokum. And yet a close examination of the story reveals the truth is rather more complex, intriguing and perplexing. Above all, those who witnessed the events at Enfield were left in no doubt that they were involved in a genuine case of haunting, and while their testimony may seem far-fetched, it is equally improbable to suggest that so many adult witnesses could have been hoaxed. Key among the independent witnesses were the police officers, who were called to the Hodgsons' home, soon after the poltergeist first made its presence felt in August 1977. They took statements and noted the family's sincere terror, but in the absence of any hard evidence were sceptical about what might have taken place. It was only as the officers were preparing to leave that they were forced to take the case more seriously: quite suddenly, a sitting room chair levitated off the carpet before their eyes and started moving slowly across the room. "It came off the floor nearly half an inch," recalls WPC Carolyn Heeps, one of the Metropolitan Police officers sent to investigate the haunting. "I saw it slide off to the right about four feet before it came to rest. I checked to see if it could have slid along the floor by itself. "I even placed a marble on the floor to see whether it would roll in the same direction as the chair. It didn't. "I checked for wires under the cushions and chairs and I could not see any. I couldn't find any explanation at all." But, of course, no actual crime had been committed, so the police were unable to assist further. Desperate for an explanation about what could be taking place in their home, the family turned to the Society for Psychical Research, a respected scientific body that examines cases of alleged haunting from an academic perspective. It sent two investigators, Guy Lyon Playfair and Maurice Grosse, to examine the evidence. And to avert any claims of trickery, the society drafted in an independent barrister, Mary Rose Barrington, to doublecheck all of their work. This would ensure that there could be no credible claims that the pair were being anything other than meticulous, honest and impartial in their investigations. Sure enough, over the following 14 months they spent on the case, the two researchers catalogued a range of inexplicable phenomena. Boxes flew across rooms, ornaments floated in mid-air, books mysteriously appeared and disappeared. Strange knocking sounds were heard inside walls. It was all very peculiar. But there was worse to come. One morning when Guy Playfair was working at the house, he heard a "tremendous vibrating noise". "I really thought someone was drilling a great big hole in the wall of the house," he says. "I tore into the bedroom and there was quite a commotion. The whole fireplace had been ripped out. "It was one of those old Victorian cast-iron fires that must have weighed at least 60lb. It was so heavy even I couldn't pick it up. "The children couldn't have possibly ripped it out of the wall. It just wasn't possible. We caught the incident on audio tape, including the fireplace being ripped out of the wall." Events were soon to take an even more disturbing course. Late one evening, when the children were asleep in their rooms and Maurice Grosse was downstairs compiling his day's findings, he was disturbed by the sound of Janet screaming. Maurice ran to the foot of the stairs only to see the 12-year-old apparently being dragged through her bedroom door by an unseen force. Janet was then hauled down the stairs and dumped unceremoniously at Maurice's feet. This incident was also caught on tape and was just the first of several incidents in which the poltergeist apparently picked up Janet and tried to carry her off. Soon afterwards Janet was even seen floating in mid-air - and this time there were two independent witnesses. A lollipop lady and a passing baker both glanced up at the house and through a top-floor window saw Janet apparently hovering above her bed. As Janet herself recalls it: "The lady saw me spinning around and banging against the window. I thought I might actually break the window and go through it. "A lot of children fantasise about flying, but it wasn't like that. When you're levitated with force and you don't know where you're going to land it's very frightening. I still don't know how it happened." And that wasn't all. Apparently in the grip of some disturbed force, Janet began swearing and hurling insults at those in the room in a disembodied voice quite unlike her own. So was this proof of a poltergeist, or simply a child playing pranks? The investigators began interrogating "the spirit" - and the answers they got were decidedly sinister. The poltergeist identified itself as a man named Bill, who explained that "I had a haemorrhage and then I fell asleep and I died in a chair in the corner downstairs." What could this mean? Astonishingly, subsequent research showed that long before the Hodgsons had moved in to the house, an old man called Bill Wilkins had indeed lived there. And he had died of a brain haemorrhage while sitting in a living room chair. It's certainly an intriguing tale. But is it really a proven case of a poltergeist? If you dig deep beneath the surface, doubts soon begin to emerge. On several occasions the girls at the centre of the case were caught playing hoaxes on their investigators. In one instance, they were caught hiding Guy's tape recorder. They planned to pretend that the poltergeist had whisked it away. Unfortunately for the girls, the recorder was running and caught their plotting on tape. "They weren't very good at playing tricks," recalls Guy. "We always caught them out. What do you expect children to do? "I would have been more worried if they hadn't played around from time to time. It means they were behaving like normal kids." Asked about such pranks today, Janet explains that she and her sister did indeed play practical jokes - because they were so fed up of being tested all the time. They had become like animals trapped in a zoo, constantly being asked to perform tricks for gawping onlookers. People would turn up expecting inexplicable things to happen, and when nothing happened, the girls decided to play the occasional prank. But, crucially, Janet estimates that only about one or two per cent of the many hundreds of separate paranormal phenomena that took place in the house were faked by her and Margaret - and these were minor things like balancing a chair on top of a door and pretending that the poltergeist had done it. Besides, in many cases, it would have been physically impossible for the two young girls to have faked the evidence. How does a 12-year old girl rip out a fireplace, or make a chair levitate in front of police officers? The barrister, Mary Rose Barrington, who reviewed the case on behalf of the Society for Psychical Research, is in no doubt that the investigators did a thorough and honest job. She re-interviewed and cross-examined many of the witnesses and double-checked the evidence. Nothing she found suggested a wider conspiracy. Equally, the 30 or so other witnesses who saw the hauntings - including police officers, journalists and passers-by - all seem convinced by what they saw. Nevertheless, some experts remain unconvinced. Professor Chris French, a psychologist at London University, is in no doubt that the girls were mischievous and enterprising: "Children can be very ingenious. I don't buy the idea that kids can't outwit intelligent investigators. "There are undoubtedly some things in the case that defy rational explanation, but that does not mean that they are real phenomena. "When you also consider the fact that people, no matter how sincere, are notoriously unreliable witnesses then you have to take this case with a very big pinch of salt." Perhaps so. But incredible though the events of Enfield were, they are far from unique. Professor David Fontana, a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, has investigated similar hauntings. He says: "From my own studies I know of accounts of poltergeists pulling people's hair, causing objects to disappear before returning them in the most unlikely places, starting small fires, throwing water about, upsetting furniture, scribbling on walls, breaking objects and generally discomforting the hapless owners of the property they choose to haunt." Are they all hoaxes? It seems unlikely. But perhaps the last word should go to Janet herself. Now aged 41, and eager to keep details of her present-day life private for fear of attracting ridicule, she is adamant that what she experienced was a genuine paranormal entity. "I know from my own experience that it was real," she says. "It lived off me, off my energy. Call me mad or a prankster if you like. Those events did happen. The poltergeist was with me - and I feel in a sense that he always will be. "This house is clean..." - Tangina Barrons (portrayed by the late Zelda Rubinstein in 'Poltergeist') Scaring Up The Enfield Poltergeist Evidence Send us an email   New Items - Strickler's Celebrity Autographs Works on maverick science, unexplained mysteries, unorthodox theories, strange talents, and unexpected discoveries. Please check out their excellent and diverse catalog  The 'C' Influence Actualizing Esoteric Discussion   "The latest news from beyond the mainstream" Join Ben & Aaron for their weekly podcast! Check out Mysterious Universe Plus+ all access format!  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