Phantoms and Monsters

Alma: Asian Wildman
Just the Facts? - UFO Mecca in Australia, 8.7M Species on Earth and Bees on a Plane
Night at the Museum

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 12:30 PM PDT

The Alma is a creature reported to be of ape-like appearance that inhabits the mountains in central Asia. Although not as well known as the Yeti and Bigfoot, the descriptions of the Alma suggest that it is a creature more akin to a hairy human than an ape. Physical traits and/or demeanor also seem to be more human-like. I have posted a few narratives referencing encounters with creatures with these descriptions. Though some of the locals and investigators refer to these hominids as a 'Yeti or Bigfoot', there is some evidence to suggest that there is a possible human connection.

Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev met someone that he described as a troglodyte. The horror of the encounter remained in his mind throughout his entire life. Years later, he told the story to one of his French friends, Guy de Maupassant, who wrote:

"I remember a story that Turgenev told us. He was hunting in a Russian forest. He was wandering the whole day and in the evening he went out to a bank of a quiet river. The river was flowing in the shadow of trees, the water there was crystal pure and cold. Turgenev was gripped with a desire to swim in that water.

He took his clothes off and jumped in the river. He was a tall, strong, well-built man, and he was a very good swimmer too. He was enjoying the current of the river with his body and soul. Grass and aquatic plants were caressing him.

Suddenly, someone's hand touched his shoulder. He looked around quickly and saw a strange creature. The creature was gazing at him with great curiosity. It looked like something in between a woman and a monkey. The creature had a wrinkled face of a monkey. Messy red hair was framing the face and flowing behind the back.

Ivan Turgenev

Turgenev was flabbergasted. Horror chilled him to the bone. He started swimming to a bank of the river, even not trying to understand, what he just saw. However, the creature was swimming beside him, touching his neck and back and feet. Finally, the young man reached the ground and ran as fast as he could. He did not care about either his clothes, or rifle. He forgot about everything and was guided only by the immense uncontrollable wish to stay alive. The monster was following him.

It was running very fast too, uttering some squealing sounds. The young man could hardly catch his breath. He was about to fall down on the ground, but he suddenly saw a boy with a whip in his hands. The boy started whipping the creature and it ran away, yelling with pain. The courage of the little shepherd is explained with the fact that it was not the first time that he saw it.

Later, someone of local residents told Turgenev that the monster was a crazy woman that was living alone in the forest and went completely insane. Turgenev made himself believe in such an explanation. Yet, it was known in the 19th century that people do not get covered with thick hair all over their bodies, even if they lived alone in the woods." - maupassantiana.fr

The newspaper Literature Kyrgyzstan wrote in 1990: "Shepherd Omusha's wife once said that she saw a bigfoot not far from the pasture. The bigfoot was standing on a high rock. She started pleading her husband to leave that horrid place and go to another pasture. The man did not agree, although he got anxious about it, too. He started searching for bigfoots, he saw their tracks, but never saw a living one.

One evening he heard his wife screaming very loudly. He grabbed his rifle and rushed outside. The wife was lying on the ground, almost unconscious. She was speechless and could not say a word. She could only point her finger in the direction of the rocks. The shepherd gazed in the direction that she was pointing and saw the silhouette of a running man. He did not hesitate and fired his rifle. In he morning the shepherd found blood spots on the rocks. Omush thought that those creatures would not come back to their pasture anymore. He was so wrong.

Omush's life turned to a nightmare. Several days after he found his little son dead. There was no trace of violence on the boy's body, only a little wound on his neck. Omush was sure that his boy was killed by a bigfoot. He went mad and swore to himself that he would take revenge for his son. He was spending days and nights sitting outside his house, waiting for a bigfoot to come back. But it was all in vain.

One night he fell asleep and when he entered his house in the morning, he found the dead body of his wife. Again, there was only a small red wound on her neck.

Omush let out a scream of grief and desperation. He started wandering in the woods, having forgotten about his sheep and house and food. He was desperately gripped with anger. The only thing that was on his mind was to kill a bigfoot for the death of his family.

Shepherd Shapak took care of Omush's sheep. One day he suddenly saw the sheep getting very troubled and excited. They were bleating and rushing from one side to another. The animals were apparently frightened with something. Shapak could only see a silhouette of a man covered with thick fur disappearing amid bushes and trees. Then he saw another man on the ground. Shapak ran up to him and recognized Omush. The shepherd was already dead, blood was leaking from a small wound on his neck.

Who knows, maybe nothing would have happened, if the shepherd had not fired his rifle first." - "Mysteries Hidden in Central Asia`s Mountains" - Alexey Schetnikov - 2001

Russian cryptozoologist Viktor Rogov relates an encounter in the Kola Peninsula, near the Lovozersky Lake. The lack of trepidation towards humans, even though it was not threatened, is an interesting characteristic:

"In the summer of 1988, together with Maya Bykova, the author of numerous articles and a large monographs about the mysterious relic hominoid and Misha Gavrilov chose a place for our next expedition. Rather unexpectedly, we received a message from Lovozer (this is the name of the lake situated there), the then-closed area of the Kola peninsula; the message said that several residents came across yeti. We had received messages of this kind before, but the last information proved that yeti was noticed close to an inhabited locality. Moreover, yeti terrorized a small hut in the southern part of the lake, a place where fishermen stayed for the night when they went fishing in the lake. It was actually very difficult for me and the other two members of the expedition to reach the mentioned place where the hut stood; we settled in the hut and were in wait for yeti there. The yeti visited the place on the very first night of our staying in the hut. At daybreak, we heard a loud noise from a landfill; someone big was forcing his way through the bushes and rattled the tins. Unfortunately, the windows of the hut didn't face the side from where the noise came, and we were too scared to leave the hut. On the third night, someone tried to open the door of the hut, then jumped on the roof and walked on it for a long time. Fortunately, the roof was strong enough to stand the heavy walking. The next morning, we saw many footprints left by some unknown animal. One footstep was 34 centimeters long. When we inspected the area in the daytime, besides the large footsteps, we discovered smaller ones; in a mountain crack, we found a rookery where the animal could remain unnoticed and watch us. You should agree that this animal must be intelligent and have at least some skills.

We managed to see the strange creature for the first time only on the fourth night. The yeti was walking around the hut, and its head was on the level of the hut's only window, at the height of about three meters. And when we saw the objective of our expedition in the moonlight, we were extremely shocked. We felt a wild, almost animal fear. We felt as if we wanted to run away and hide somewhere, but at the same time, we couldn't stop watching the yeti. Later, we saw the creature several times. And each time we saw the yeti, an awful fear anticipated its approaching. When we felt the strange fear, we realized that the yeti was somewhere nearby. The creature resembled a huge anthropoid ape, 2.75-3 meters high, with broad shoulders and strong muscles. The body was covered with light gray hair of average length, it was almost white on the buttocks. The neck was short and strong, the forehead was low, and the jaws were protruded.

The face of the creature was almost naked, without hair, covered with dark wrinkles; the eyes were small and angry. Almost at once we understood that the creature was angry because we intruded on its territory and it came to drive us away. We were awfully scared and couldn't take even a single picture of him.

After the expedition, we brought material proof of the yeti's existence to Moscow: hair, gypsum copies of its footprints, feces, and drawings; however, unfortunately, no pictures. We sent the hair to the Institute of the Ministry for Internal Affairs for an analysis. The specialists said that the hair didn't belong to any known animal.

That was our last expedition. Since that time, I haven't had a chance to meet with Misha Garvrilov, the third member of the expedition; he left the hut early in the morning even without saying goodbye. Maya Bykova died in three years after the expedition."

There is also a more recent account of a sighting (with photograph above) as stated in a letter by Russian cryptozoologist Valentin Sapunov:

"My student from the North Urals got me a photo of Bigfoot. Reserve Jugyd-Va, nearest big city – Inta. Photo was made by electronic camera at the end of September 2006. Author anonymous, a hunter having no interest in BF (Bigfoot), made a landscape photo. He got strange figure. Legends and tales on BF (Bigfoot) in this region exist. Me and my student in – Inna Leontyeva – are sure, that nobody has much interest except to joke and falsification, nobody got glory or money by this photo. As for me, figure is more close to Homo erectus or Australopitecus." - cryptomundo.com - 2/19/2007

NOTE: I'd be very interested in personal accounts of related encounters....be it an Alma or other cryptid. Lon

Just the Facts? - UFO Mecca in Australia, 8.7M Species on Earth and Bees on a Plane

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 10:41 AM PDT

Katherine, NT has become UFO mecca

A mass UFO-sighting in Katherine has spooked believers and non-believers likewise.

During his investigations into recent UFO sightings in the region UFOlogist Alan Ferguson met with locals to hear about their unexplainable experiences, and a group of people gathered near one of the last sighting places, the Strongbala Men's Healing Centre, on Thursday night, where a group of sceptics and believers spotted an unidentified flying object in the sky.

"I guess the time for sceptics is over," UFOlohgist Ferguson said.

A bright light appeared on the night sky, while Mr Ferguson was interviewing people, who said they believed they had seen UFOs over Katherine before.

"Something caught my eye," Mr Ferguson said.

"It was a bright white light."

Witness Carrina Turner, 23, said the light was hovering in the sky, "really, really bright", before it disappeared all of a sudden.

"But a few seconds later it was back, and it was kinda going on and off, like it had a pulse," she said.

Mr Ferguson said before the UFO disappeared it "shot" across the sky "at speed".

"It was going at least twice as fast as a satellite would normally travel across the sky", he said.

Ten people witnessed the unexplainable event.

"Katherine has become UFO mecca," Mr Ferguson said.

"During my investigations I ask a lot of questions to get a feel whether people just wanna bulls... you or whether it's believable what they've seen.

"When I came to Katherine I did not expect to find so many people who had seen and documented their UFO experiences.

"Katherine is in a UFO hot spot."

In the recent weeks a lot of people have come forward with to tell their stories about UFO sightings. - katherinetimes

**********

8.7 million species exist on Earth

Our world is a much wilder place than it looks. A new study estimates that Earth has almost 8.7 million species, but we've only discovered about a quarter of them. And some of the yet-to-be-seen ones could be in our own backyards, scientists say.

So far, only 1.9 million species have been found. Recent discoveries have been small and weird: a psychedelic frogfish, a lizard the size of a dime and even a blind hairy mini-lobster at the bottom of the ocean.

"We are really fairly ignorant of the complexity and colorfulness of this amazing planet," said the study's co-author, Boris Worm, a biology professor at Canada's Dalhousie University. "We need to expose more people to those wonders. It really makes you feel differently about this place we inhabit."

While some scientists and others may question why we need to know the number of species, others say it's important.

There are potential benefits from these undiscovered species, which need to be found before they disappear from the planet, said famed Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, who was not part of this study. Some of modern medicine comes from unusual plants and animals.

"We won't know the benefits to humanity (from these species), which potentially are enormous," the Pulitzer Prize-winning Wilson said. "If we're going to advance medical science, we need to know what's in the environment."

Biologists have long known that there's more to Earth than it seems, estimating the number of species to be somewhere between 3 million and 100 million. Figuring out how much is difficult.

Worm and Camilo Mora of the University of Hawaii used complex mathematical models and the pace of discoveries of not only species, but of higher classifications such as family to come up with their estimate.

Their study, published Tuesday in the online journal PLoS Biology, a publication of the Public Library of Science, estimated the number of species at nearly 8.7 million.

Of those species, 6.5 million would be on land and 2.2 million in the ocean, which is a priority for the scientists doing the work since they are part of the Census of Marine Life, an international group of scientists trying to record all the life in the ocean.

The research estimates that animals rule with 7.8 million species, followed by fungi with 611,000 and plants with just shy of 300,000 species.

While some new species like the strange mini-lobster are in exotic places such as undersea vents, "many of these species that remain to be discovered can be found literally in our own backyards," Mora said.

Outside scientists, such as Wilson and preeminent conservation biologist Stuart Pimm of Duke University, praised the study, although some said even the 8.7 million number may be too low.

The study said it could be off by about 1.3 million species, with the number somewhere between 7.5 million and 10.1 million. But evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges of Penn State University said he thinks the study is not good enough to be even that exact and could be wrong by millions.

Hedges knows firsthand about small species.

He found the world's smallest lizard, a half-inch long Caribbean gecko, while crawling on his hands and knees among dead leaves in the Dominican Republic in 2001. And three years ago in Barbados, he found the world's shortest snake, the 4-inch Caribbean threadsnake that lays "a single, very long egg."

The study's authors point to other species as evidence of the growing rate of discovery: the 6-inch, blind, hairy lobster-type species found in 2005 by a submarine looking at hydrothermal vents near where the Pacific meets Antarctica and a brilliant-colored frogfish found by divers in Indonesia in 2008.

Of the 1.9 million species found thus far, only about 1.2 million have been listed in the fledgling online Encyclopedia of Life, a massive international effort to chronicle every species that involves biologists, including Wilson.

If the 8.7 million estimate is correct, "those are brutal numbers," said Encyclopedia of Life executive director Erick Mata. "We could spend the next 400 or 500 years trying to document the species that actually inhabit our planet." - discoveryon

**********

Bull semen forces interstate closure

Canisters of bull semen caused quite a scare on the on-ramp to Interstate 65 South Tuesday morning.

The canisters fell off a Greyhound bus just after 5 a.m. as the bus traveled around the curve of the ramp just south of downtown Nashville.

Fire and emergency crews were called to the scene amid reports of a foul odor.

When they discovered four unmarked canisters with steam and an unpleasant odor coming from them, they shut down the on-ramp and called HAZMAT crews.

Officials traced the containers to Greyhound after finding bus tickets on the ground. The bus did not know it lost its load and had continued on.

Authorities called Greyhound, who, after speaking with the driver the bus, determined the canisters to be filled with straws of frozen sperm packed in liquid nitrogen.

The load originated in Columbus, Ohio and was en route to a breeding facility in Laredo, Texas.

Canisters like they ones strewn across the interstate typically carry between 300 and 400 straws, each containing one-milliliter of sperm.

Depending on the bull the sperm came from, straws are worth between $18 and $50 each, according to experts. It's possible the load that fell off the bus Tuesday morning was worth as much as $80,000.

Once the leaking canisters were deemed not harmful, they were moved to a grassy area next to the interstate.

A local company was called to assist in the cleanup. The scene was cleared around 9 a.m.

A Greyhound spokesperson said it's not uncommon that the bus was carrying bull sperm.

In addition to transporting people, the also company transports cargo. The canisters were filled with liquid nitrogen and thus could only be transported by ground.

Greyhound said the sperm was stored in a separate compartment below the bus and not near the belongings of passengers. - wkrn

**********

Bees on a plane

Terrified airline passengers panicked when two hives of bees smuggled onto a plane for a flight across Russia escaped in mid-air and began swarming around the cabin.

The bees - sneaked on board the Boeing 757 in cardboard boxes - are understood to have become agitated in the pressurised cabin during the 10-hour Yakutia Airline flight to Moscow from Blagoveshchensk near Russia's border with China.

The trafficker - who has not been named by the airline - claims an airport official at Blagoveshchensk had asked him to carry the boxes to Moscow where he would be met at the airport.

Official airport documents quoted a passenger as saying that the trafficker was "slightly drunk." Air hostesses eventually managed to seal the bees inside the wardrobe in the flight's business section by sealing it with sticky tape.

Night at the Museum

Posted: 24 Aug 2011 09:15 AM PDT

An Italian museum has called in ghost hunters after workers carrying out overnight renovations downed tools claiming the building was haunted.

Builders say they have heard chilling screams, felt temperatures suddenly plunge and even seen ghosts while working at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy.

One of the men said: 'There is something strange that happens at nights in this museum. Objects inside get mysteriously moved or vanish, and there are the apparitions as well.'

The architect responsible for works, Oreste Albareno, tried to reassure the men by spending a night with them but ended up also being convinced the museum was haunted, Italian daily Il Mattino reports.

Mr Albareno told the paper that he had managed to take a photo of what he believed to be a ghost on his mobile phone. 'It shows a little girl but there was no little girl on the site,' he said.

'None of the staff took a daughter with them - it is a secure locked site so there was no way the child could have sneaked in.'

Museum director Valeria Sampaolo said she had called in the ghost hunters to solve the mystery and get the building works back on track.

The case has been likened to the the film Nights In the Museum, where the exhibits come to life at night after the museum closes because of the power of an ancient relic displayed on the premises.

The National Archaeological Museum's collection includes artifacts from the Greek, Roman and Renaissance.

Ms Sampaolo added: 'I don't know what is causing what the builder's claim they have seen and we do have many ancient artefacts with mysterious backgrounds but at the end of the day I want it to stop.

'I want people to talk about our museum because of the exhibits and not the ghosts.'

Paranormal experts are due to arrive at the museum in September to investigate the claims. - dailymail

-----

The National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy

The National Archaeological Museum is Europe's most important and largest archaeological museum. Here, you can see most of the findings from the excavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum, two of the towns that were destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, in the year 79 A.D.

The building from 1585 has a long history. Originally, it was used as a cavalry barracks before it became the headquarters of the university in 1612.

In 1748, Sanfelice added a wing, which, since 1773, houses a collection of antiquities the Bourbon king, Charles III, inherited from the Farnese family from Parma in 1735.

The Farnese Collection includes bronze and marble statues (e.g., the magnificent large sculptures of the Farnese Hercules and the Farnese Bull) as well as paintings and important findings from Pompeii and Herculaneum. Large-sized wall decorations, tableware, and papyrus rolls please the eyes of the beholder. The centre of attraction is the mosaic from the Casa del Fauno in Pompeii, which consists of over 1.5 Million little pieces and shows a scene from the battle between Alexander the Great and the Persian King Darius III. Since 2000, you can also see the antique Erotica collection, which was locked away in the Secret Room for a long time and includes erotic wall paintings from Pompeii.

The lower ground floor displays the collection of the Borgia family with important excavation findings from Egypt. - portanapoli.com

Spirit Rescue International™
Providing no-cost professional spiritual help, personal support and guidance
Take the first step towards genuine peace of mind

The Spirit Rescue International™ Haunted Help Forum
*Join Our Group On Facebook*

Join Eric Altman and Lon Strickler each Sunday at 10 PM ET as we go
Beyond the Edge!

ANOMALIST BOOKS
Works on maverick science, unexplained mysteries, unorthodox theories, strange talents, and unexpected discoveries. Please check out their excellent and diverse catalog

Become a fan of 'Phantoms and Monsters' at Facebook

"The latest news from beyond the mainstream"
Join Ben & Aaron for their weekly podcasts!
Check out Mysterious Universe Plus+ all access format!

Astral Perceptions - Discussing ultraterrestrial and multidimensional phenomena and the proficiency of remote viewing

Click here to check out Stan's most recent book!

Join the
The Social - Paranormal Network

A NETWORK OF INVESTIGATORS, ENTHUSIASTS AND THOSE SEEKING THE TRUTH
THROUGH PARANORMAL EDUCATION AND DISCUSSION