Phantoms and Monsters

Reader Submissions: Afghanistan Lights, Driverless Car and Another Manta-Ray UFO

Posted: 03 Sep 2011 11:28 AM PDT

Strange Lights Over Northern Afghanistan

Lon,

Hi, long time reader first time writer to you. I'm prior service from the military and I served in the Army for five years, during those times, I never saw or heard or experienced anything out of the ordinary or unexplained during my time in service except for one incident which I will describe.

After I was honorably discharged in early 2009, I worked as a defense contractor for a small company out in Virginia, my job entailed deploying overseas for several months at a time. After being hired on I deployed to Northern Afghanistan to one of the Forward Operating Bases there. Ironically I ran across the story on your site about the alleged haunted outpost the Marines took over in December of 2009, a few days before the incident.

This was close to New Years in December of 2009. I was in the office and monitoring message traffic when I noticed a peculiar email and attached report. One of the Forward Operating Bases reported seeing lights near a valley adjacent to a nearby mountain top. One of the soldiers had reported seeing a series of lights during the evening hours as the sun was setting. According to him he thought they were possibly Coalition Aircraft and didn't pay too much attention to it. What ended up catching his attention was the fact that they were perfectly stationary and unmoving for several minutes as darkness approached. According to him the lights had a steady clear white glow to them.

Helicopters can be ruled out as the lights were near a mountain peak, and the strong wind currents as well as altitude would have made it pretty hard to keep a that sort of vehicle stationary let alone hovering safely. The terrain itself is very rugged and rough and the weather can be especially brutal at higher altitudes during the Afghan winter.

It was not an airplane either as the soldier could not make it any distinguishing characteristics or markings. After a few more minutes, according to the soldier as the sun had finished setting, the lights dimmed a bit and could not be made out as well so the soldier grabbed his night vision goggles to get a better look. (He didn't say specifically which ones he took, but most NVG gear will pick up near infrared light/heat sources if they are strong enough) He stated that the object was glowing almost "red hot" through his night vision goggles, and had an elongated cigar shape to it. Size was difficult to estimate but at least 200 feet in length.

There was no more description or detail of the incident as the report itself was spartan and the preceding emails to it were almost poking fun of the story (I honestly thought it was a prank at first, but the report had indeed gone through all the appropriate channels and was disseminated throughout the email chain). I have heard incidents similar to this before from other soldiers, but this is the first time I actually came across a real report that documented this. Please feel free to email me back with any questions you might have but this is the gist of it. Thanks...

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No Driver

Hi - In 1983/84 (?), when I was sophomore at Westwood High School in Austin, TX, I was in a car with 3 students and 2 teachers, coming back from a field trip with my Home Economics class. We were driving down Hwy 183 in Cedar Park, when we saw a gold sedan next to us with NO DRIVER in the car. We of course all crowded around the right passenger window, in amazement. We could clearly see through all the windows & could see the floorboards at all the seats in the car. There was NO ONE in that car. At all. We drove next to the car for 10-15 minutes. It turned with the road, slowed down & sped up, as if there were someone driving it. We looked for a remote control device, but the floorboards and what we could see of the outside of the car, were clear. Plus, to be remote controlled (at that point in technological history) it would have had to be controlled from another car nearby. And there were no other cars on the road with us. I wasn't afraid, I was amazed and excited. We were all trying to figure it out, it was fun! Eventually, our teacher told us to quit looking at it (???), then sped up and left it behind. I've never heard of another instance like this until today, online, when I found this - Human Enigmas

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Another Manta-Ray UFO

Lon - One evening last year around dusk, with a fair amount of twilight still in the sky, I stood out in my well-lit driveway waiting to be picked up to go eat dinner. As I stood looking around, watching the sky as airplanes flew in and out of the Charlotte, NC airport (30ish miles away), something caught my eye that was much, much lower in the sky than the airplanes I had been watching. Flying directly over my head, was a translucent/transparent manta-ray shaped figure whose speed and size would suggest an extremely low altitude, maybe a little higher than a telephone pole, and maybe an 8ft wingspan. This manta-ray flew and moved in a fashion that suggested to me that it was a living creature as opposed to an aircraft. I could see directly through it but was easily able to see its shape/figure. I watched it fly directly overhead in a straight path for maybe 10 seconds, then it completely disappeared, long before it flew out of sight.

I was very shocked to find other eye-witness accounts of this creature on your site, matching what I saw down to every little detail. What are these things?

Truly an incredibly surreal experience.

Just the Facts? San Juan Mountains Bigfoot, Laser Beam Rain and UFO Hot Zones

Posted: 03 Sep 2011 10:59 AM PDT

San Juan Mountains Bigfoot

Click for video - Bigfoot of the San Juans

Statement with video: Something I couldn't explain from my vacation in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. This is all I could get on my camera. I thought it was a bear then a very large man.

NOTE: not really sure...but I think someone is making a ton of money selling Bigfoot costumes. There have been many videos lately. Lon

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Firing laser beams into the sky could make it rain, say scientists

Water droplets have been created by shooting lasers into the air. The technique might be used to create or prevent rain

Ever since ancient farmers called on the gods to send rain to save their harvests, humans have longed to have the weather at their command.

That dream has now received a boost after researchers used a powerful laser to produce water droplets in the air, a step that could ultimately help trigger rainfall.

While nothing can produce a downpour from dry air, the technique, called laser-assisted water condensation, might allow some control over where and when rain falls if the atmosphere is sufficiently humid.

Researchers demonstrated the technique in field tests after hauling a mobile laser laboratory the size of a small garage to the banks of the Rhône near lake Geneva in Switzerland.

Records from 133 hours of firings revealed that intense pulses of laser light created nitric acid particles in the air that behaved like atmospheric glue, binding water molecules together into droplets and preventing them from re-evaporating.

Within seconds, these grew into stable drops a few thousandths of a millimetre in diameter: too small to fall as rain, but large enough to encourage the scientists to press on with the work.

…With improvements, shooting lasers into the sky could either help trigger or prevent showers. One possibility might be to create water droplets in air masses drifting towards mountains. The air would cool as it rose over these, causing the water droplets to grow and eventually fall.

An alternative might be to stave off an immediate downpour by creating so many tiny droplets in the air that none grew large enough to fall. "Maybe one day this could be a way to attenuate the monsoon or reduce flooding in certain areas," Kasparian said. - guardian

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La Araña – When Time Stood Still...

By Luis Burgos, Fundación Argentina de Ovnilogía

Introduction

While the return of a considerable portion of unidentified craft to the "scene of the crime" (based on my Decimal Hypothesis) is a constant that is disputed by very few, field researchers have narrowly defined the "window areas" (relatively short time intervals in non-recurring sites) and the "hot zones" (fixed recurrent periods). Intensive regional surveys may perhaps enable us to weave a hypothesis as to "why". Such is the case with "La Araña" and other locations in the province of La Pampa, one of the most visited by unidentified flying objects.

Geographic Location

La Araña is an area located some 50 kilometers west of Santa Rosa, provincial capital of La Pampa. It can be reached along Route 14, passing first through the town of Toay. The town's ghostly aspect is like the ancient memory of a legendary past. A little abandoned schoolhouse, the odd lonely house in the vicinity and the dilapidated structure of an old "rural bowling alley", best remembered for its dances back in the 50's and 60's, are silent witnesses to unusual episodes of a UFO nature that commenced in the early 60's and continue – incredibly – to our contemporary days and nights. It's as though "something magical" enveloped the enigmatic wilderness, cited in books on the subject, newspapers of the time, and voiced by local residents knowledgeable about the "evil lights" that prowled the area. Nowadays, Quique Mario's CEUFO has turned it into a favorite site for conducting UFO skywatches ("Alerta OVNI"). Likewise, Raúl Chaves and Ester Urban's CIUFOS organization keep the area under surveillance.

Astounding Case Histories

As expected, "the first great Argentinean wave" on 13 May 1962 impacted the area in question, as well as other Pampean locations and six other provinces. It was captured thus by Hector P. Anganuzzi in his book Historia de los Platos Voladores en Argentina (A Flying Saucer History of Argentina) when describing the experiences of people attending the dances at La Araña, and who noticed a considerable source of light in the vicinity after 4 in the morning, not too far from where they stood. Some of the locals approached the source of light and saw an object begin to rise at that very same moment, followed by several similar ones that had not been seen initially. As they departed, each appeared to spin on its respective axis. The "La Prensa" newspaper also reported the sighting in its 16 May '62 edition.

In the mid-1970s, other dance hall attendees were treated to the sight of a flying object that was about to descend several meters from the place. When it was about to touch the ground, however, it tore through a barbed wire fence. The object immediately shook itself off (like a chicken shaking its feathers) and rose into the air once more, before the disconcerted eyes of these privileged witnesses. This incident forms part of the 50 most unusual events in the national UFO case histories.

One evening in 1979, a hunter was startled by a flying object that "fell upon him", leaving him no alternative but to open fire against it. He scored a hit, and managed to hear the bullet's impact against the unusual prey. The UFOs lights went out at that very moment and he didn't see it again. Nor did he find the bullet.

In late 1980, a driver traveling along Route 5 at night saw a large, luminous UFO shaped like a fish when he reached the location.

Around 15:00 hours one hot afternoon in January 1990, Jose Luis Lopez and his assistant were doing farmwork when they were warned by a laborer of a "giant oval object", dark brown in color, that flew over their heads slowly and at a very low altitude, heading south. The artifact, which made a slight whistling sound, went unnoticed by the farm animals. The observation lasted some 10 minutes and according to one of the witnesses, it felt as if "time had stood still."

On the night of 15 December 1994, Mr. Nestor Fernández and a companion were traveling from Carro Quemado to Santa Rosa. After reaching La Araña, they saw a glowing flying saucer that startled them, to the degree that they reported it to journalists of the "La Arena" newspaper.

Field research by CEUFO investigators aimed at implementing the First UFO Skywatch mandated by Proyecto Condor could not have had a better award. From the afternoon of 8 May to the morning hours of 9 May, 1999, they set themselves up in the wilderness, taking numerous photos of the local geography: roads, fields, skies, etc. In one of the shots taken at random, a very luminous body, white in color and surrounded by a red halo, became visible. It is one of the few nocturnal "phantom UFO" photos.

Epilogue

In the year 2002, the year in which cattle mutilations were in full swing, La Araña was not free from such incidents, as might be expected. Such episodes continue in this forbidding region to this very day.

To continue listing cases would be repetitive. The UFO phenomenon has chosen that site as one of its targets and has shown preference for it. To be there is to breathe in a bit of Pampean saucer history, and by extension, that of Argentina. There is no question that "something" moves, glides, makes incursions, appears and vanishes, acts, flows and becomes invisible in that desolate wilderness of the Pampas. The obvious question remains: what was there, what is there or what will be there? The question remains unanswered.

Thanks to Scott Corrales at Inexplicata

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Guatemala pig 'alien' born with mutant head after UFOs seen in the sky

Residents of the South American village have decided that the pig's odd human-shaped head is the doing of visitors from outer space, after strange bright lights were spotted hovering in the sky on the night of its birth.

The poor pig, which is one of a litter of 11, has been described as looking like a cross between a human and something from the Alien movies.

Farmer Laureano Escobar Arias said: 'I was shocked - it was a really terrifying experience.

'It looked like some kind of alien creature.'

However, local health officials have suggested that there are more earthly reasons for the pig's appearance.

'We don't know for certain but it could have been caused by a genetic problem or by environmental pollution,' one commented.

A bit closer to home, pathologists are investigating a series of animal mutilations in Wales, with aliens once again the suspected culprits.

It is thought that the surgical-style injuries are too sophisticated for other animals to cause and, once again, bright lights were seen near the scene. - metro

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