Phantoms and Monsters

More UFO Witnesses - Sandia Mountains, New Mexico
Fortean / Alternative News: Serbian 'Magnet Boy', North Korea Uprisings and Death-Wish Cities
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More UFO Witnesses - Sandia Mountains, New Mexico

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 01:10 PM PST

Kirkland AFB is in the area of the black circle. The witnesses observed the craft NE of their location toward Sandia Peak which is represented in the area of the red square

Hello,

I stumbled across your site while researching Kirtland Air Force Base, and read the account of a UFO sighting over Sandia Peak. My husband and I witnessed an object eerily similar to the object described. Prior to contacting you, I went over the details with my husband to make sure the details I provide are accurate.

My husband is active duty military and at that point we had been stationed here for 3 years. I am a night owl/insomniac and spend a lot of time outside both late night and early morning. The front porch faces SE but the large opening on the porch provides a very clear view of the NE.

Many evenings I would sit and watch the planes come in to land at the airport and had a pretty good idea of how long it takes to get from the mountain. In addition, eventually I would hear it and see the wing tip lights as well as the main light would appear to get brighter than smaller as the plane turned towards the airport. My husband on the other hand, has quite a bit more experience with flight, he is a crew member on the c-130's. He can tell distance airplane/helo type just from sound flight pattern, etc.

Anyhow, my husband nor I remember the exact date but we have guestimated the first week of December due to the fact we had put our Christmas lights up that week and had been outside often in the evenings. On this particular night sometime between 10:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m. My husband and I were outside admiring and discussing the decorations, and determining whether we needed to purchase more, when I noticed a bright light exactly between the two lights on the peak. Initially, I thought it was a plane and didn't pay much attention to it, glancing at it every now and then as my husband and I talked. Finally, I interrupted my husband saying, look at that light it isn't moving. Now at this point, this was the first he had seen and it shrugged it off as a plane. I then explained that I had been watching it while we were talking and it had not moved at all in the past 2-4 minutes. So he proceeds to talk to me but I'm now focused on this light and ignoring him which draws his attention back to the light. We continued to watch the light for approximately 10 minutes and it did not move. It was a clear night and the shadow of the mountain peak was clearly visible in reference to the object along with the two lights on the peak. There was clearly no horizontal or vertical movement. There was no sound, no additional lights associated with the object. It did appear to twinkle but that may have been my eyes trying to focus because it was a very subtle flicker. I finally was to cold and decided to go inside, the object was still there.

This is the first experience I have had since I have lived here, and I must say I have no idea what I seen that night. My husband also cannot come up with an explanation. Though this isn't his first time experiencing UFO's. His first time was with a crew of 7 flying over Afghanistan.

I wonder if the object my husband and I saw is the same object. I cannot be sure what the object was that night but I do know that this base is a strange place to live.

Thank You,
S&C

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The inquiry was made in reference to this post:

MUFON CMS - Albuquerque, NM - 12/5/2010 - unedited: About 3:45 or 4:00 a.m. on 12/5/2010 I opened the sliding glass door on the north side of our house to let my dogs out to relieve themselves and out of the corner of my right eye I saw a bright white light so I turned to face it and observed what appeared to be a very bright, circular white light above the horizon of the Sandia Mtns. In the background of sky there are in fact two bright yellowish lights that are visible every night; both on the crest of the Sandias and apart from one another and this light was "centered" and above them and the sight of it appeared to be a triangle with the yellow lights of Sandia Crest on the left and the light of the Sandia Peak Tram house on the right forming the "base" of the triangle along the Sandia Crest and the bright light forming the peak of the triangle at the top. I started to dismiss my initial sighting of the light as the moment when an aircraft turned on it's landing lights and I must have seen it as it was moving towards me.... so I waited to see if it would turn toward the south to Albuquerque International or westward to Double Eagle. It seemed peculiar to me that it was taking entirely too long for any "aircraft" to reach me; the night was perfectly quiet, there was no jet engine noise or prop noise, there were no strobe lights or red and green wingtip lights, no automobile noises to muffle the sounds that should have been there. I looked closely at the white light and observed that it seemed to flicker somewhat along the edges and "wobble" side to side and up and down, but it certainly was not getting any closer to my location... it was just up in the sky shining brightly... hovering as it were and then as I watched the light IT WENT OUT! It just vanished completely from my sight! The night was still perfectly quiet and there were no sounds, and there were no strobes or red and green wingtip lights that I could observe, and no competing automobile noises as I listened for some jet engine noise or propellers beating the air like a helicopter or airplane would. There was no sound. I was stumped. I didn't know what I had seen and I certainly couldn't identify it either. As my dogs were coming back in I couldn't help looking toward the Sandia Mountains for one final look and just as suddenly as it had disappeared, it REAPPEARED in the very same area it was before!! Wow!! It was there, I didn't imagine it. Where had it gone and where did it come from? It was now clear to me that there was a very real, very curious event indeed going on and I was a witness to it. I observed the same behavior as before but then as I watched the light rotated from pointing straight toward me to my left and faced to the north. It remained there and looked like a cone. A cone of white light with the smaller end facing south and the wider end facing north. I am not sure how long it remained this way, it got dimmer and bright again and again and as I was observing the "cone" of bright light the entire cone rotated back to it's left and faced westward again. It continued to brighten and dim somewhat for several minutes I started to think it was similar to the lights over Phoenix, but only one light here, and then, as I watched, it just went off like someone flipped a switch; and as I looked at the place where the incredibly bright white light used to be, there was now what appeared to be a glowing "ember" that was colored yellow and grew steadily smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared completely and I saw it no more.

NOTE: the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque, NM have a history of UFO sightings and other strange incidents. Below, I have posted some examples...Lon

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Incidents Around Albuquerque / Manzano Base, NM

NOTE: I received the following information from a reader:

Lon

Re: your recent article: Photos: UFO Lights Morphing / Readers Respond to Grapevine Canyon, CA Sighting, I may have something else for you.

This first part wasn't my personal experience, but I was listening to Coast to Coast am on Friday Night when Ian Punnett was hosting Open Lines for George Noory. The first caller, a man named James from 'New Mexico,' (whom I believe was probably from Albuquerque, based on much of what he said he saw), said that a black, rectangular shaped 'aircraft' overflew the Sandia Crest summit from west to east, at the very top of the Sandia Mountain range, which is located in Albuquerque. It then headed out towards Edgewood, a small town on the East side of the Sandia Mountains, approximately 25 miles or so from Albuquerque. At this point, all the power where the TV and radio towers are located on the summit, the Summit Restaurant, and a 'small' residential area, went out for a period of time.

He didn't say anything else, and no one else called in to verify this sighting. So I don't know if anyone saw anything else, or how long the power was out. But I do know that if those towers were without power, then essentially, Albuquerque was without a communication network, since many of the cell phone and other communication-related towers are up on the summit, as well. That's TV, radio, telephone, Internet and Cable at least. EVERYTHING was down for a period of time. No doubt there's redundancy, but that is some powerful equipment, and when they go out, the grid winks out and locks up. I've seen it happen standing on 9 Mile Hill on the West side of Albuquerque when the lights of the entire city winked out one section at a time like a wave. During that particular incident, the WHOLE city was affected. No traffic lights, few back-up power generators (though many more now, which is why the power outage seemed restricted to a 'small' area), and even the hospitals had a difficult time functioning.

I lived in Albuquerque twice, once for 10 years, and later on again for 6 years, so I'm very familiar with the Sandia Mountains and that entire area. I am also aware that the military portion of the Albuquerque Sunport, takes up the section of the runway that abutts the Manzano Mountains and is east of the air traffic control tower.

Although from my understanding, it has always been considered fictitious, at one time there was another Air Force Base at the foot of the Manzano Mountains (though I suspect it's still there, based on the proliferation of sightings, even since it was supposed to have been closed down), south of the Sandias on the south side of Interstate 40 (the old Route 66). My father was stationed at Manzano AFB in 1965, right before he 'retired.' I can assure you it was there, since I was on it several times, and it was supposedly used to house ... various things, including a few top secret programs/projects, one which involved experimental and possibly other types of (i.e. back-engineered) craft. It's now rumored that the Roswell disc or parts of it (including... J-rod) were at various times located in some of the hangers and inside a false mountain at Manzano.

Btw, in case you haven't heard of it, Manzano Air Force Base was located to the East of Sandia Army Base which took up the SW portion of the base from the Wyoming Gate, heading south, and which is located on the North side of all 3 bases, as was Sandia Army Hospital, which has also, since been closed down. Because my father was in the Air Force, we lived in base housing off of Perimeter Drive located on the West side of Sandia Army Base, just south of the Louisiana Gate; our back fence was located to the North of the edge of the military portion of the airport runway from where my mother and I often watched various supposedly top secret military aircraft maneuvers from the early to late evening.

A side note: My mother was also ex-Navy, as well as a cryptographer, though I have no 'official' confirmation that she was with Naval Intelligence, I can only assume that she based what she told me about some being experimental craft, some not from this earth, on many things she and my father were involved were over the years. Regarding what we saw landing and taking-off from the military airport, although It became more difficult to see as the evening wore on, more often than not I COULD see shapes of craft which were either outlined by lights or had other visible means of delineating the silhouettes. Several times I also saw a triangle-shaped craft which appeared black against the evening sky and had a light at each point of the triangle. Again, experimental US military? Back-engineered? Don't know. They didn't say.

Other points of which you may or may not be aware: Sandia National Laboratories and Kirtland Air Force Base are located in Albuquerque. Los Alamos National Labs is located approximately 60 miles to the NW of Albuquerque. Dulce/Archuleta Mesa is located in Northern New Mexico, on the Colorado border. There have always been sightings in New Mexico, especially Albuquerque. I've seen many myself. Just recently a young boy on one of the Native American Reservations near Albuquerque was attacked in a parked car by something he claimed was an alien. Whatever the creature was, it grabbed him, leaving claw marks down the boy's arms. Fortunately, his father and a sibling, I believe, heard him yelling, and showed up just in time to scare the creature off. They don't know what it was, but it wasn't anything they'd ever seen and it appeared reptilian/alien.

Additionally, Albuquerque seems to be the headquarters, or at least very large and critical centers for several military projects, like Project Pegasus, Project Talent and others. If you haven't heard Andrew Basiago's interview with George Noory on Coast to Coast Exopolitics.com, you might want to check out the video (video has since been removed), with his premiere interview being done by Alfred Lambremont Webre of Exoplitics.com. Note this article, too, if you haven't already read it: Web Bot: Andrew Basiago is predicted "planetary level" whistleblower for Mars life and time travel

I know how much work it takes to do the research for these newsletters and the blog. I applaud your dedication.

Blessings and Peace,
Kat

NOTE: the video below was from a recent MUFON witness report...Lon

Click for video
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Below is the official description of this facility

MANZANO BASE

Click image for larger version

The Armed Forces Special Weapons Command constucted two operational sites after World War II. One was known as Site Able, located in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains, just east of Sandia Base. The other base was Site Baker near Kileen, Texas. Construction on Site Able started in 1946, with the first operational facilities activated on 04 April 1950. Although activated in 1950, construction on the major facilities wasn't finished until 1961. On 22 February 1952, Site Able was renamed Manzano Base, and operated by the Air Force, while Site Baker was renamed Kileen Base and turned over to the US Army.

Portions of America's nuclear stockpile was stored in Manzano (the Spanish word for apple) Mountain for 40 years, and nuclear weapons are now secured in a modern underground complex at Kirtland Air Force Base. A presidential emergency relocation center was built deep inside Manzano Mountain as a command post for President Eisenhower. It retained this function until the advent of thermonuclear weapons, by which time it was no longer regarded as a survivable site.

In the early 1700s explorers visiting a small village on the eastern edge of these mountains discovered very old manzanos (apple trees), a tree not native to this country. No one knows where these trees came from, but the name stayed with the region.

Construction began in June 1947, and the facility became operational in April 1950. Under the top-secret project designated Operation Water Supply, construction crews carved out tunnels and blast-proof underground steel vaults to protect the small stockpile of atomic weapons. The first weapons stored at Manzano were the Mark 5, a first-generation atomic device which required assembly. The weapons were stored without plutonium, in reinforced concrete and steel bunkers throughout Manzano. Inside the complex, steel gates protected a hallway containing four chambers guarded with heavy safe door. Each vault stored a protective container called a birdcage, each of which enclosed enough plutonium for a single atomic warhead.

On 11 April 1950 a B-29 aircraft departed from Kirtland Air Force Base [Albuquerque, NM] at 9:38 PM and crashed into a mountain on Manzano Base approximately three minutes later killing the crew of thirteen. Detonators were installed in the bomb on board the aircraft. The bomb case was demolished ans some high explosive (HE) material burned in the gasoline fire. Other pieces of unburned HE were scattered throughout the wreckage. Four spare detonators in their carrying case were recovered undamaged. There were no contamination or recovery problems. The recovered components of the weapon were returned to the Atomic Energy Commission. Both the weapon and the capsule of nuclear material were on board the aircraft but the capsule was not inserted for safety reasons.

The Manzano Nuclear Weapons Storage Area was surrounded by a barbed double-fenceline (one of which was electrified) beyond which the concrete bunker entrances which span the base of the mountain range are visible.

In June 1992, the Manzano WSA was deactivated, including deactivation of the Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Alarm System, and Phillips Laboratory assumed responsibility for its maintenance. SNL continues to provide minimum security, although the Perimeter Intrusion Detection and Alarm System was deactivated with the termination of the main mission in 1992. Some of the old tunnels and vaults in the Manzanos still serve as storage. The Manzano WSA is currently being used in part for storage of a variety of items such as furniture and document boxes.

Source: www.globalsecurity.org

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Six Bodies From Roswell Crash Recovered By Sandia Army Base Team

.....there were two crash sites. One southwest of Corona, New Mexico and the second site at Pelona Peak, south of Datil, New Mexico.

The crash involved two extraterrestrial aircraft. The Corona site was found a day later by an archaeology team. This team reported the crash site to the Lincoln County Sheriff's department. A deputy arrived the next day and summoned a state police officer. One live entity [EBE] was found hiding behind a rock. The entity was given water but declined food. The entity was later transferred to Los Alamos.

The information eventually went to Roswell Army Air Field. The site was examined and all evidence was removed. The bodies were taken to Los Alamos National Laboratory because they had a freezing system that allowed the bodies to remain frozen for research. The craft was taken to Roswell and then onto Wright Field, Ohio.

The second site was not discovered until August 1949 by two ranchers. They reported their findings several days later to the sheriff of Catron County, New Mexico. Because of the remote location, it took the sheriff several days to make his way to the crash site. Once at the site, the sheriff took photographs and then drove back to Datil.

Sandia Army Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico was then notified. A recovery team from Sandia took custody of all evidence, including six bodies. The bodies were taken to Sandia Base, but later transferred to Los Alamos.

The live entity established communications with us and provided us with a location of his home planet. The entity remained alive until 1952, when he died. But before his death, he provided us with a full explanation of the items found inside the two crafts. One item was a communication device. The entity was allowed to make contact with his planet.

Somehow, I never knew this information, but a meeting date was set for April 1964 near Alamogordo New Mexico. The Aliens landed and retrieved the bodies of their dead comrades. Information was exchanged. Communication was in English. The aliens had a translation device.

In 1965, we had an exchange program with the aliens. We carefully selected 12 military personnel; ten men and two women. They were trained, vetted and carefully removed from the military system. The 12 were skilled in various specialities.

Near the northern part of the Nevada Test Site, the aliens landed and the 12 Americans left. One entity was left on Earth. The original plan was for our 12 people to stay 10 years and then return to Earth.

But something went wrong. The 12 remained until 1978, when they were returned to the same location in Nevada. Seven men and one woman returned. Two died on the alien's home planet. Four others decided to remain, according to the returnees. Of the eight that returned, all have died. The last survivor died in 2002.

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Large Unknown 'Animal' Attacks Boy

May, 2008 - A 5-year-old boy hiking with his family near Sandia Peak, New Mexico, has survived an attack from an unidentified species of large animal, a spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said Sunday, May 18, 2008.

Bernalillo County Sheriff Darren White said the family was hiking near the popular Balsam Glade area on the Sandia Mountains, when the boy ran ahead of his parents. It happened on the east side of the Sandia Mountains around 7 p.m. Saturday.

A sheriff's department report identified the boy as Jose Salazar Jr. of Albuqureque, New Mexico.

The boy's parents saw the animal emerge from the brush and start dragging away their child, White said. The father then chased the animal, which let go of his son.

White said the animal was a mountain lion, but Ross Morgan, a spokesman for Game and Fish, said dogs trained to track mountain lions picked up no scent in the area Saturday night or Sunday.

Officials said they don't know what kind of animal attacked the boy. They're looking at the tracks in the area to find out if it was a cougar, mountain lion, or bear.

"The animal had the kid and was dragging him down the side of the hill. When the father jumped over there, the animal ran off," said Ross Morgan, who works for the Department of Game and Fish.

"The dad described it as a short, stocky, dark brown animal," Morgan said.

Morgan said hikers in the area Sunday were told about the attack, but the news did not deter them from hiking.

The Department of Game and Fish is warning people to be careful if they're in the mountains.

Some people visiting the mountains on Sunday said they are aware of the dangers and are prepared for what could come their way.

"We have to expect that we're going to come across animals," visitor Rich Weiner said. "We're in their habitat."

But others who spend time in the Sandia Mountains, like David Czaplewski, said news of the attack has them shaken up.

"It's shocking and kind of scary," Czaplewski said. "We're making sure we're keeping track of where everyone is and looking around."

Officials said everyone who is visiting the mountains should be extra careful, so they don't become the next victim.

The boy suffered puncture wounds (bite marks) to his head, neck and back. He was in serious condition at University of New Mexico Hospital on Saturday, White said.

A hospital spokeswoman said Sunday the family declined to make the boy's condition public.

NOTE: it was later determined that this was not a mountain lion attack. There was never a follow up to this incident. New Mexico authorities, as well as local police, have refused to release any information. The victim and his family have also declined to talk. In the two years since this attack no other similar incidents have been reported....Lon

Fortean / Alternative News: Serbian 'Magnet Boy', North Korea Uprisings and Death-Wish Cities

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 12:17 PM PST

Serbian 'Magnet Boy'

dailymail - A seven-year-old boy in Serbia is attracting worldwide attention after his family claim he is magnetic.

To prove their claim, the family paraded the boy in front of an camera crew, with a variety of objects stuck to his chest.

The boy, called Bogdan, seemed unfazed by the attention - nor did he seem to mind having a variety of cutlery stuck to his body.

The footage ended up on MSNBC, where reporter Al Stirrett said Bodgan did indeed have a unique ability.

Mr Stirrett told MailOnline that the family did not offer their last name, possibly because of the age of the boy.

Nevertheless, they're happy to show off Bodgan's ability - which they claim he has had since birth.

The footage shows Bogdan first with a variety of cutlery attached to him, then a TV remote control is added to his body.

They say the objects stay there until Bogdan removes them by hand.

Bizarrely, it's not just metal that seems to be attracted to the youngster. China plates and bowls seem to adhere themselves to Bogdan's chest as well.

Any feelings that Bogdan might be nothing more than a sticky little boy are dispelled when a large and heavy frying pan is stuck to his body.

The family say Bogdan is not allowed to go near anything electrical, such as a television or a computer, because his alleged magnetism turns them off.

The good news, however4, is that he will never lose the TV remote control.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Grave Robbers in New Jersey

NJ - One was a little boy, dead by age 2, his body laid to rest on a gently sloping hill in Perth Amboy.

The other was a man who lived 70 years longer. Joseph Lamela died in 1977, his final resting place a granite mausoleum in Woodbridge.

Strangers in life, the two are entwined in death, their remains stolen from separate cemeteries in recent months for use in what authorities say could be the rituals of a religious cult.

The Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office asked for the public's help today in finding those responsible for the macabre thefts at Catholic cemeteries little more than two miles apart.

In a statement, a spokesman for Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan said the unidentified grave-robbers may be involved in a "non-traditional religious practice." The spokesman, Jim O'Neill, declined to elaborate.

Some religious sects use human remains in ceremonies. Several practitioners of one such religion, Palo Mayombe, were convicted in 2004 of robbing graves in two Newark cemeteries. In that case, authorities recovered the remains of at least nine people.

The thefts under investigation now were discovered nearly three months apart at St. Mary's Cemetery in Perth Amboy and Most Holy Rosary Cemetery in the Fords section of Woodbridge. Both are operated by the Diocese of Metuchen.

Joanne Ward, a spokeswoman for the diocese, joined police in asking anyone with information to come forward. In a statement, she said officials with the diocese and the individual parishes were "deeply saddened" by the acts of desecration.

The first theft was discovered Nov. 28, when a visitor at St. Mary's noticed an open grave and contacted police, O'Neill said. Investigators soon learned the remains of the 2-year-old boy had been removed.

Then on Feb. 15, a passerby at Most Holy Rosary Cemetery noticed a granite mausoleum had been disturbed. Authorities found one of the crypt's two occupants, a 72-year-old man, had been taken.

The names of the victims were not released. In Lamela's case, a reporter in the cemetery discovered a damaged mausoleum and reached out to family members by phone. Kathleen Lamela, a resident of Somerset, confirmed Joseph Lamela's remains had been stolen. She said the family would have no comment.

The remains of Bertha Lamela, Joseph Lamela's wife, remained undisturbed in the crypt. Bertha Lamela died in 2000.

Chunks of granite, apparently dislodged during the break-in, remained on the ground beside the crypt. Several decorative pieces were chipped or broken.

Word of the grave-robbing drew Louis Panigrosso to the Woodbridge cemetery from his home in Brick. In the 1970s, he said, his parents' mausoleum had been vandalized, a statue stolen from the interior.

"I heard about this and decided to take a ride up here to check," Panigrosso said. He was relieved to find the crypt untouched.

In the Perth Amboy cemetery, the graves rest along a gentle hill that backs to the city's high school. One grave — that of a 2-year-old boy who died more than 40 years ago — had fresh dirt atop it. It could not be determined if the grave was the one desecrated.

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Have a death-wish? Visit these cities.....

mediadump - If you are traveling alone or decide to backpack to a faraway place with your friends, there are some locations you should be weary of. These cities have been mentioned by top news and crime sites with some pretty shocking statistics.

10 - Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand is the #1 producer of opium and heroin in the world. A major transit for those drugs is the capital Bangkok. Therefore making it unsafe. Last year they had, 20,000 assaults, 13,500 burglaries, and 5,000 murders. That ranks top in south East Asia. The violence and crime due to social unrest makes Bangkok top 10 for sure.

9 - Guatemala City, Guatemala

The government is very corrupt, they get paid off every day by the drug lords. Guatemala City is a hot spot in South America for drug smugglers, and foreign mobs. There is a high crime rate in this capital city, and many tourists are victims of armed robbery, rape and even murder. Do not walk the streets at night, and forget about your wallet and jewelry.

8 - Baghdad, Iraq

It doesn't matter who you are, you're not safe in Iraq. It is a ruined nation that is rattled with crime and violence. A lot of despair in Baghdad. Since the war started in 2003, the US has been in Iraq which has led to a civil war. More than 650,000 civilians have died. Hussein has destroyed this countries reputation. Al-Qaeda and Kurdish rebels and criminals are involved in violence that goes on every day. Explosives and mines are a constant threat, as are suicide bombers who have killed thousands. Kidnappings and random killings happen every day. Since the US got there in 2003, millions of Iraqis have fled to other countries and millions more in Iraq remains displaced. Nuclear devices to poison the people there and the inherent gunfire killing civilians everyday makes Baghdad truly hell on earth.

7 - Grozny, Chechnya, Russia

There is more Russian Mafia in this place than police. This city is not run by government officials, but by gangsters. A Russian is murdered here every 20 minutes. That's almost 85 murders a day. Sure there is 100's of millions of people in Russia, but that's an astonishing stat. Prostitution and drug trafficking run by the Russian crime syndicate or definitely real in this place. Kidnappings and rapes, just to name a handful of tests you will face when you visit here. Chechnya is absolutely a third world city. Foreigners should think twice before visiting here.

6 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

If you're planning on traveling to Brazil, think twice. It is not a matter of where your mugged it is when. When you get off the plane in Rio, they hand you a pamphlet that tells people they should have no jewelry any wallet policy when they walk around. Crime rates have soared over the past 2 yrs. A drug cartel, called the Piranhas, resides in Rio, and they are responsible for many murders and abductions. There were 8000 murders in Rio last year, that is close to 20 murders a day. Most of the murders happen in the poverty stricken areas, but the city as a whole is growing in severe poverty problems.

5 - Bogota, Colombia

Bogota is the main port for drugs and guns coming up from Colombia to Panama. People get murdered in plain daylight every day. Forget going out at night. You need to be packing heat. It beats most South American cities by far. I think that carrying a machete around on your back, is a very good way to avoid a mugging. It's also easily explained to immigration, as long as there's some jungle around. Speaking the local language and knowing a little about fighting is a good idea, just in case. I would avoid Bogota if traveling to South America.

4 - Cape Town, South Africa

Murder and robbery stats have been very high for many years in Cape Town. In one year they had 71,500 sexual offenses, 18,400 burglaries and 13,900 business robberies. There are approximately 50 murders a day in South Africa and more than 1/2 of those murders are in Cape Town. The city is in a huge recession making robberies very common. Cape Town is in a great state of poverty, making crime a part of the peoples everyday life. Going out at night is not advised.

3 - Mogadishu, Somalia

It is really hard to find statistical information on this city, but I know I've seen it on the top of many lists. Even with no data to report on this city, the governments warning to travel here is extremely high. Mogadishu has one of the highest terrorist populations in the world. There is an ongoing civil war going on in Somalia's capital, which poses a huge risk to anyone traveling there. Hundreds of people are wounded every day in Mogadishu's empty streets. No one knows how many people are actually killed there, but the numbers would be outrageous. Looting, prowling, kidnapping, gunfire, etc... makes Mogadishu one of the top 3 most dangerous cities.

2 - Ciudad Juarez, Mexico

This place has a serious problem with robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and drug-related crimes. 120 killings per 100,000 residents. Ciudad Juarez is located just across the USA border. It has 1.5 million people and a really bad reputation. Recently drug Cartels have started a war against one another, making it very dangerous for travelers. This place is violent. They are the number two city in the world for murders, most of them drug-related. 50% of all murders in Mexico come from Ciudad Juarez.

1 - Caracas, Venezuela

Latin America is by far the most dangerous place in the world. If you searched dangerous places on the internet, you would find at least 20 South American countries on the list. With drug cartels, and poverty, Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, ranks the highest for murder and crime in the world. Per 100,000 people this city has the highest rate of murders, kidnappings, and rapes in 2009. 130 murders and 537 reported kidnappings. They have nicknamed the city the murder capital of the world. Not to mention Venezuela is the world leader in drug trafficking mainly cocaine. The country has increased its poverty level since the 1970's 300%. In the last 5 yrs. Caracas has topped the list for homicides by population. You better be a mobster if you plan on visiting Caracas.

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Snakebites: a growing, global threat

A cryptic shape glides across the forest floor, searching, tasting the air, hunting for its next victim.

Over 2m-long, this predator packs a powerful punch; a venom capable of killing up to five people with a single bite.

This ability makes the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, like many species of venomous snake, among the most feared and maligned of all creatures.

New research suggests that the problem of snakes accidentally biting people could be worse than previously thought, with deadly consequences for both snakes and their human victims.

The latest estimates suggest that around 5.5 million people are bitten by snakes each year, resulting in around 400,000 amputations, and between 20-125,000 human deaths.

But these estimates are unlikely to represent the true scale of the problem, one that experts fear is causing a neglected, and potentially growing global health issue.

Efforts are now underway to try learn more about the issue, mitigate its impacts, and find ways that snakes and people can more peacefully coexist. Continue reading at Snakebites: a growing, global threat

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Uprisings Have Spread to North Korea

chosun - The North Korean Army's Guard Command, a military unit tasked with protecting leader Kim Jong-il, is hiding scores of tanks in Pyongyang to quell any popular uprising, Radio Free Asia claimed Tuesday.

The U.S.-funded radio station quoted a defector from Pyongyang as saying, "There is a battalion of about 50 tanks from the Guard Command in the Taedong River area in eastern Pyongyang. They stage a field exercise about once a year."

He said the tanks used to move only at the night to escape public notice. "All are hidden underground. I heard from families of officers of the tank battalion that there are also tanks in an underground near Moranbong," a hill in downtown Pyongyang.

Kim Kwang-jin, another defector who works for the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said there used to be a battalion of tanks in an underground area beneath the Kumsusan Assembly Hall while Kim Il-sung was alive, but he was unsure whether it is still there.

The tanks are ready to move in response to riots or demonstrations, the radio station speculated.

Jong Su-chol (45), a former North Korean Army officer, said, "Major weapons and elite troops of the Guard Command are deployed in Pyongyang. The command is also armed with missiles."

The guard is reportedly so well equipped and trained that it could immediately put down a military coup.

N.Korean Protesters Demand Food and Electricity

Small pockets of unrest are appearing in North Korea as the repressive regime staggers under international sanctions and the fallout from a botched currency reform, sources say. On Feb. 14, two days before leader Kim Jong-il's birthday, scores of people in Jongju, Yongchon and Sonchon in North Pyongan Province caused a commotion, shouting, "Give us fire [electricity] and rice! "

A North Korean source said people fashioned makeshift megaphones out of newspapers and shouted, "We can't live! Give us fire! Give us rice!" "At first, there were only one or two people, but as time went by more and more came out of their houses and joined in the shouting," the source added.

The State Security Department investigated this incident but failed to identify the people who started the commotion when they met with a wall of silence.

"When such an incident took place in the past, people used to report their neighbors to the security forces, but now they're covering for each other," the source said.

Hidden Wonder: The Amazon's 40-Foot Anaconda

Posted: 24 Feb 2011 09:46 AM PST

For much of the 20^th century, the New York Zoological Society offered a substantial cash prize to anyone who could bring a living 30-foot snake back to the Bronx Zoo.

The following is an excellent article posted recently at Slate.com:

Of all the crazy mythical creatures that starry-eyed monster hunters have gone in search of—the Yeti, Sasquatch, Nessie, the chupacabra—South America's giant anaconda would seem to be the least implausible. None of the Amazon's early explorers dared emerge from the forest without a harrowing tale of a face-to-face encounter with a humongous snake. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, it was practically a requirement of the jungle adventure genre. English explorer Percy Fawcett (of Lost City of Z fame) reportedly shot a 62-foot anaconda in 1907 while on a surveying mission in western Brazil. Cândido Rondon, who led Teddy Roosevelt's famous journey down the River of Doubt, claimed to have measured a 38-footer "in the flesh." In 1933, a 100-foot serpent was said to have been machine-gunned by officials from the Brazil-Colombia Boundary Commission. According to witnesses, four men together couldn't lift its head. The photos, of course, were lost.

Percy Fawcett

Had they been captured alive, any of these giants would have merited the $50,000 bounty that the New York Zoological Society (later the Wildlife Conservation Society) offered for much of the 20th century to anyone who could bring a 30-foot snake back to the Bronx Zoo. Though thousands of anacondas have been caught, measured, and released by scientists over the years, few have ever surpassed 18 feet. Still, stories of Amazonian megasnakes continue to surface every few years, and they continue to inspire credulous souls to set off into the jungle. People like Dylan and me.

We had made our way from Gocta to Iquitos, the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road, to engage in what Loren Coleman, founder of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine, has dubbed "cryptotourism," a form of adventure travel driven by the hunt for creatures that have eluded science. Most cryptotourists are truer believers than we. But that's almost beside the point. Their expeditions sometimes seem to be as much about finding undiscovered animals as about creating an excuse to get out into some of the wildest places left on earth, to play-act as real explorers. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, for example, coordinates regular Sasquatch hunts not only in the Pacific Northwest, where you might expect the elusive beast to hang out, but also in places like Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. In some cases, cryptotourism can be quite cushy: One company offers a fully outfitted 18-day Yeti-hunting trek across the Bhutanese Himalayas for a mere $5,450 per person.

More commonly, though, cryptohunters are lone enthusiasts with a genuine mission to prove the world and science wrong. Recently, Mike Warner, a 74-year-old retired lithographer from Lisburn, Northern Ireland, poured his life's savings into a search for the giant anaconda, first commissioning satellite imagery and then organizing a two-week expedition to the confluence of the Napo and Amazon rivers, east of Iquitos. He returned with an aerial photograph that shows what is either the head of a 120-foot-long serpent or a mudbank.

It's a fine line between the curious and the kooky. On the Atlas Obscura, which bills itself as a user-generated compendium of "curiosities and esoterica," we regularly receive postings of haunted houses, "spook lights," UFO sightings, and countless other products of overheated imaginations. Our editors are supposed to scrape the site of anything that exudes a whiff of the paranormal or supernatural, unless it somehow tells us something legitimately interesting about the world we live in. But as a general rule, we retain a soft spot for cryptozoologists like Warner, who so earnestly wear all the trappings of science while chasing the impossible. In a world in which everything seems to have been explored, they're among the last people to believe that our planet still holds big, unrevealed secrets. Their pursuits may be naive, but they seem like an awful lot of fun.

Our own half-baked spell as cryptotourists landed us in the boat of Juan Carlos Palomino, a 35-year-old Peruvian ex-commando who once survived for 11 days in the jungle with nothing but his wits and a bowie knife. The grandson of a Nazi who escaped to the jungle after the war, Juan Carlos considers himself part German, part Indian, and something of an elite killing machine. He proudly gave us a guided tour of the half-dozen wounds he acquired in jungle gunfights with drug dealers and Shining Path terrorists. Even before we had broken bread together, he demonstrated the 10 different ways he could kill me with just two fingers.

Juan Carlos claims that his army unit once shot a 40-foot anaconda while on a commando mission deep in the Amazon. He says military brass took the beast—he suspects its bones are hanging on an officer's wall somewhere—and so his record-breaking catch was never verified. But he is convinced that with financial backing and enough time, he could mount an expedition that would bring back a snake just as big. "I'm 100 percent certain I can find one that tops 30 feet," he told me. "People have wasted a lot of money looking in the wrong places."

Juan Carlos agreed to take us on a four-day trip down the Marañón and Samiria rivers, into the Pacaya-Samiria reserve, one of the largest swaths of protected rain forest in the Peruvian Amazon. The Pacaya is prime anaconda country, where every local seems to have a story about the massive serpent that got away. If there is a 30-footer lurking somewhere in South America, this is as likely a spot as any. I told Juan Carlos I'd be happy if we saw even a small one. From a distance.

When big-snake hunters talk about giant anacondas, they seem to be referring to two different beasts: both unlikely, but one more so than the other. To some, the giant snake is simply a bigger, fatter version of Eunectes murinus, the common green anaconda found throughout the Amazon basin. Since snakes, like other reptiles, grow until death, they say it's not entirely inconceivable that a massive one might someday turn up from the very tail end of the bell curve. Others are chasing an entirely different species: a school-bus-sized monster that can lie dormant in lakes for months or even years at a time, stirring only rarely to gulp down a very big—ideally man-sized—meal. On our travels up- and downriver, in conversations with park rangers and local fisherman, we heard plenty of tales of both.

One night we camped in San Martín de Tipishca, a 600-person Cocama Indian village on the Samiria River, and spent the evening listening to locals recount their snake stories. One was dead certain he'd spotted a 60-footer, half in the water, half out. Another had seen a serpent spit a large bubble of water out of its mouth and knock a bird from the air. An elder from the village explained that the giant anacondas use underground tunnels to move between lakes. Farther downstream, a young boy showed us the spot where he said a giant snake had come crashing through the weeds, startling him and his uncle. Anaconda stories on the Amazon, we quickly learned, are like fish stories in Minnesota: Everyone seems to have a tale of locking eyes with a monster just before it slipped off the riverbank and disappeared—but nobody has ever caught one.

Our own entirely amateurish attempts to net an anaconda took place in the hours before dawn. On several dark and starless nights, Juan Carlos roused us at 3 a.m. to patrol the tributaries of the Samiria in a dugout canoe. We kept our flashlights trained on the prickly shoreside grasses where a snake would be likely to spend the night. Along the banks, the jungle is so thick that in most places, even in daylight, a person would disappear from sight within five steps of the water's edge. For protection, Juan Carlos carried a 6-foot spiked harpoon in the canoe. Whenever he thought our boat might be nearing a caiman, one of the giant crocodile relatives that are ubiquitous in this part of the Amazon, he made a loud gulping sound with his throat to let the croc know we were coming. Every hundred yards or so, one of our flashlight beams would pass over the sparkling orange reflections of a reptile's eyes. But none belonging to anacondas.

On the afternoon of our second full day on the water, we arrived at the Ungurahui ranger station, a small, primitive cabin set on the banks of the Samiria, and the only structure for dozens of miles in any direction. When we signed the visitors' logbook, we saw that the station hadn't seen a visitor in more than nine months. The rangers were grateful when we pulled a cooler of lukewarm beers from our boat and raised a toast to their solitude.

Over drinks, one of the rangers told us that just a month earlier, while patrolling a nearby lake famous for its 400-pound paiche fish, he'd spotted what he estimated to be a 45-foot-long anaconda. The next morning we set off with him at dawn on a hike through dense jungle. We passed under ficus lianas and wild mango trees, prop-root palms and ceibas with giant buttress roots that stand as tall as three people. When we finally reached the lake, Juan Carlos and the ranger made their way around the perimeter on foot, while we paddled around fruitlessly in a small dugout canoe. The only snake we encountered was a recently molted 2-foot-long emerald tree boa. It turns out that even less-than-giant anacondas are pretty hard to come by.

You might imagine that so much fruitless hunting would prove discouraging, but for cryptozoologists, there's always just enough evidence to justify the search. They point out—rightly—that weirder creatures than giant snakes have occasionally turned up over the years. Okapis, mountain gorillas, and Komodo dragons were all once considered too fantastic to be real, and the giant squid wasn't photographed alive until 2004.

In 2009, in Colombia, a group of paleontologists discovered several fossilized vertebrae of a giant 60-million-year-old snake they dubbed Titanoboa cerrejonensis. They figure the entire creature would have been 43 feet long and weighed 2,500 pounds. But they caution against drawing any conclusions about the maximum possible size of a snake today: 60 million years ago, the climate was about 6 degrees warmer and would have been considerably more hospitable to a humungous cold-blooded reptile. Still, for giant snake hunters, the find offered a suggestion of scientific credibility that will no doubt fuel many adventures even more ill-conceived than our own.

NOTE: I've been keeping tabs on the Warners and their expeditions in search of the Yacumama or Giant Black Boa. Here are links to previous posts - New Information: Warner Amazon Expedition 2010, Warner Amazon Expedition 2010: In Search of Yacumama and Photo: Leviathan 'Yacumama' Anaconda Found in Peruvian Jungle. Also, there are more recent updates posted below...Lon:

Warner Tacumama Expedition Update - 4/2010

The Warner's have returned from their travels (Mike to North America) and (Greg to South America) where they continued their research into the their discoveries that solve the riddle of the 'giant anaconda'; now known as the Black Boa or Yacumama.

Amazingly, both Mike and Greg encountered new, contemporary reports of the Black Boa which will be released soon.

However, here is the link to Mike's Full Disclosure video Part 2 as promised in Part 1.

Thank you all for your support and kind emails as we draw closer to solving this mystery with conclusive scientific data from our ground expedition. As always, your donations are appreciated and will form an important role in completing this fascinating voyage of discovery.

Kind regards

Mike & Greg Warner

Warner Amazon Expedition

Click for video

New Amazon Documentary Supports Warners' Discovery of Living Yacumama - 11/2010

Recently at Team of explorers and film makers returned from their expedition to the Peruvian Amazon in search of the giant anaconda and repeatedly came across stories and eye-witness accounts of the Yacumama. They decided to systematically interview every tribe they met in the jungle to see if the descriptions varied. Not only did every report corroborate the other but they also supported the data and theories of Mike & Greg Warner and the Yacumama (Black Boa). The photographs, locations, size, habitat and morphology of the Yacumama are all publicly available at http://www.bigsnakes.net

The Warners intend to prove the existence of the Yacumama (mother of the waters) through scientific best practise during their ground expedition in the dry season. Media packs are available for corporate sponsors and the public can donate online.

Mike & Greg Warner
Warner Amazon Expedition, 2011

Click for video

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