The Roswell Slides - Countdown

Only a few more days until the unveiling of the so-called Roswell slides. No, don't get excited, these aren't the slides - they are just some decades-old card slide holders I just happen to have laying around...

The Nessies: Giant Salamanders?

That's the issue I raise in my new Mysterious Universe article, which starts like this:

"Reports of lake monsters absolutely abound across the entire planet. Amongst the most famous ones are Scotland’s Loch Ness Monster, Ogopogo of Lake Okanagan, and Champ of Lake Champlain. The big question is: if the “things” are real, then what, exactly, are they? On the matter of the Loch Ness Monster, creature-seekers have suggested they may be relic populations of plesiosaurs, marine reptiles that are believed to have become extinct tens of millions of years ago. Other theorists suggest the creatures might be immense eels. Sturgeon have been suggested for some reports. And there is also the supernatural scenario.

"There is, however, yet another angle, too: the idea that the beasts of Loch Ness are salamanders, albeit of a very (very) large size. Salamanders are amphibians that are noted for their long tails, blunt heads, and short limbs and which – in the case of the Chinese giant salamander – can reach lengths of six feet."

Guitar Smashing!

As some of you may know, I do a lot of writing for Penthouse magazine. The March issue has a lengthy article from me on the history of rock-stars smashing their guitars. It's not online yet, but it may be eventually. The Who, Hendrix, and two of my all-time favorites, The Ramones, and The Plasmatics are in there, along with quite a few more...

American Folklore

Picked this up last week from a used-book store: a 1961 hardback book, The Life Treasury Of American Folklore. Running at 350 pages, it's packed with cool, color artwork of such "things" as the Jersey Devil, the Loup-Garou, and the Gloucester Sea Serpent.

Mind Wars - Reviewed

There's a new review from me at Mysterious Universe of the new book from Marie D. Jones and Larry Flaxman, Mind Wars. Here's how it starts:


"It’s always a good day when a new book comes along from Marie D. Jones and Larry Flaxman. And today is a very good day! I’ve just finished reading their new book, Mind Wars, which does not disappoint in the slightest. It’s fascinating, illuminating and – you’ll soon come to see why – highly disturbing, in terms of the issues it covers.

"Published by New Page Books, the full title of the Jones-Flaxman release is Mind Wars: A History of Mind Control, Surveillance, And Social Engineering By The Government, Media, And Secret Societies. I should first begin by saying that I have read a lot of books on the subject of mind control – some of them very good, but many of them filled with the most paranoid, deluded nonsense one could imagine. Fortunately, Mind Wars falls 100 percent into the first category."

Strange Creatures and Circuses

That's the subject of my new Mysterious Universe article...

It starts...

"Back in 2011, at his A Different Perspective blog, Kevin Randle provided us with an excellent post on one of the most intriguing, and controversial, cases within the realm of UFO research: the ultra-weird 'Kelly-Hopkinsville' affair of 1955, in which a Kentucky, USA family was allegedly terrorized by alien entities.

"Kelly was, and still is, a small, rural town which is situated just short of ten miles from Hopkinsville. They are the kinds of places where people keep themselves to themselves, and nothing of a particularly sensational matter ever happens – apart, that is, from the fateful night of August 15, when absolute chaos broke out. It all went down at the farmhouse of the Sutton family, who had visitors in from Pennsylvania: Billy Ray Taylor and his wife. It was roughly 7:00 p.m. when Billy Ray left the farmhouse to fetch water from the family’s well. And what a big mistake that was."

Teggie Terror in Lake Bala

Over at Mysterious Universe, I profile "Teggie," the resident lake-monster of Lake Bala, North Wales. Here's how it begins...

"Deep in the heart of North Wales there exists a large expanse of water called Lake Bala. You may say, well, there’s nothing particularly strange about that. You would be correct. Lake Bala is not out of the ordinary, in the slightest. But what is rumored to dwell in its dark depths most assuredly is out of the ordinary. Lake Bala is – allegedly! – the domain of a violent lake monster called Teggie. Maybe, it’s a giant pike. Or, is the story born out of secret, military experiments? It all very much depends on who you ask.

"Before we get to Teggie, it’s worth noting that within Lake Bala there lurks a creature called the Gwyniad. It can hardly be termed a monster, as it’s just a small fish. But there is one issue concerning the Gwyniad that does have a bearing upon the matter of Teggie."

UFOs: The Inter-dimensional Theory

At his UFO Conjecture(s) blog, Rich Reynolds addresses the inter-dimensional theory for the UFO phenomenon, in an article that begins...

"ETs may not be interested in Earth but what about our inter-dimensional neighbors?

"Re-highlighting (yellow pencil) Michio Kaku’s Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation. Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos [Doubleday, NY, 2005] it dawned on me that UFO intrusions, even the alleged Roswell/alien body seen in those damnable slides, may not be from a galactic civilization but, rather, come from another dimension, one that bumps up against us (a “brane” scenario as outlined in String Theory for Dummies, Wiley Publishing, Inc. Indianapolis, IN, Pages 195-196)."

The Roswell Slides and the "Ant People"

There's another new article from me on the "Roswell Slides." You can find it at Mysterious Universe and it starts like this:

"Last week, I revealed here at Mysterious Universe that back in 2012, I was given the extensive files, notes, correspondence and archives of the late UFO researcher Kathy Kasten. I also noted that, as Kathy’s files show, much of her research was focused upon studying claims that one of the people who was brought in to study the mysterious bodies reportedly found outside of Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947, was William Randolph Lovelace II – a man with a prestigious background and who worked with both the U.S. military and NASA.

"But, there is something else about those fascinating files I inherited: repeated references (specifically in relation to the curious corpses found on the Foster Ranch, Lincoln County) to legends concerning the legendary 'Ant People.' And, if you’re not aware of the controversy, you’ll likely say: 'Huh? Ant People?' Okay, let me explain."

The Roswell Slides: The Kodachrome Controversy

Over at Rich Reynolds' UFO Conjecture(s) blog, there is a new guest post from Jose Antonio Caravaca, on the matter of the cardboard Kodak sleeves that hold the slides purporting to show a body from the Roswell crash.

Jose says: "...although the Kodak company ceased production of the aforementioned type of cardboard sleeves in 1949, it does not mean that in any camera store in the United States stopped using them. They would have continued until their inventory of them was exhausted, the switched to the new Kodak sleeves. Therefore, the evidence surrounding the dating of the slides is circumstantial..."

I don't have a solid view on what the slides show (or don't), and like most of us, I'm waiting to see what will be revealed in Mexico next month. But there is something people might find intriguing...

I personally possess numerous, old, cardboard slide covers, one of which contains a photo of a flying saucer, from around 1969. Yes, it's true! Well, in a way it's true.

When I was about 4 or 5, my dad (whose job was a carpenter) made me a wooden flying saucer, about 10 inches wide, and which he painted, added landing gear, and which looked pretty cool! I used to play with it for hours!

One day, my dad and I thought it would be cool to take a photo of the saucer, and so he hung it on a piece of cotton (or string, or whatever, it barely matters now) on the washing-line in the back garden and snapped a shot. He then got it developed and had a slide of it made - mounted in an old Kodak, 1960s-era cardboard sleeve.

Of course, it's important I stress that this was not intended as a hoax, no money was made from it, and it was only shared with family and friends as a bit of fun and nothing else. It was just something made, and photographed, by a father for his very young son.

That's the slide above. And at the end of this post is the photo (you can just see the washing-line on the top right, from which the intergalactic Adamski scout-craft was carefully hung).

What this serves to demonstrate is that having a controversial image housed in a cardboard, Kodak sleeve and from a specific time-frame proves nothing, regardless of its year.

It's what's in the image that is important (or, conversely, isn't important). It's not hard, at all, to get hold of very old cardboard slide frames. Indeed, thanks to my dad, I have a huge collection of old family photos all preserved in 50 and 60 year old cardboard, Kodak frames.

No doubt, some of the more paranoid elements of Ufology might ponder (given the saucer photo, and the decades-old cardboard sleeve) on the possibility that I had a role in the slides issue - which I didn't, of course.

However...if I wanted to, I could easily have a slide made of something weird (or allegedly weird) and insert it in one of those hundreds of old 1960s-era slide covers I possess. Lo and behold, something new appears to be something from the 1960s.



What a thought! The thick plottens...

The Children of Roswell - Coming in November

Coming in November of this year, another new book on the world's most famous UFO crash. Yeah, you know the one.

The title: The Children of Roswell: A Seven-Decade Legacy of Fear, Intimidation, and Cover-Ups, by Tom Carey and Don Schmitt.

Here - below - is what the publisher, New Page Books, says of The Children of Roswell:

This is not just another book about Roswell. It's not about any of the events surrounding one of the most famous UFO incidents of all time. It's not even about any of the men or women involved in the recovery of a spaceship and its crew in the summer of 1947.

Rather, it's about the aftermath--the lifetime impact Roswell has had on the families who were forced to live with the truth while accepting the government's account of the incident, then forced to face years of suppression and fear of reprisal from a government sworn to protect them.

Despite the government's best efforts to explain it away, after nearly 70 years, Roswell is a story that just won't disappear. Parents who were present during or immediately after the incident may have passed on, but their children know what happened‚ and have paid dearly for their knowledge. These are their stories. You will finally learn the truth about:

The daughter of a witness to an alien body who discovered that her phone had been bugged for years.

How the U.S. Air Force tried to change the mind of the son of the Roswell intelligence officer in 1995.

What really became of the son of the principle witness, who disappeared in 1960.

These are stories worth reading that force you to think about why the government would go to such lengths to keep these families quiet.

Hippies, Mothman, and Cthulhu

A few shots from my apartment: the Mothman wall, the Cthulhu door, and a warning to bearded, hippie types...

Roswell, Files, and Much, Much More...

Back in 2012, I inherited the UFO files of the late researcher, Kathy Kasten, who was a frequent contributor to the now-defunct, UFO Updates. The files amount to thousands of pages of research files, notes, correspondence, and much more - including a huge dossier on a certain man that Kathy came to believe played a direct, significant role in the Roswell affair of 1947.

And here's my new Mysterious Universe article on that very issue: the man in question and Roswell.

From God To The Roswell Slides

That's the topic of Rich Reynolds' new post at UFO Conjecture(s) on the matter of those slides...

Roswell Slides/Not Roswell Slides

Kevin Randle, at his A Different Perspective blog, gives us the latest news on the "Roswell Slides," which, apparently, we shouldn't be calling the "Roswell Slides," after all. If you're confused, you're definitely not the only one...

A Woman In Black

If you know your Men in Black lore and history, the name of Albert Bender will be instantly familiar to you.

But, what of the Woman in Black of the Bender family?

That's the subject of my new Mysterious Universe feature.

The WIB are also the subject of a full-length book I'm now close to completing.

Nessie and Giant "Worms"

My latest Mysterious Universe article follows on further with the "giant worm"/lake monster issue...

The Roswell Religion

Over at his UFO Conjecture(s) blog, Rich Reynolds has a very interesting new article on the parallels between the Roswell affair of July 1947 and Christianity. Check it out here...

Profiling The Linton "Worm"

A study of British folklore will reveal a number of intriguing, centuries-old reports of giant "worms" roaming around the countryside - and usually causing mayhem and death and doing battle with valiant knights and heroes of old.

Over at Mysterious Universe, I profile one such story, that of the wriggly beast of Linton, Scotland. And here's how it begins: 

"Our world has no shortage of modern day monsters – Bigfoot, the Chupacabra, and the Yeren of China make that very clear. The world of the past had no shortage, either, as the strange saga of what became known as the Linton Worm makes very clear. It’s a tale that has fascinated me for many years, and which dates back to the 1100s.

"It tells of a horrific, man-eating, giant, worm-like beast that terrified the good folk of Linton, Roxburghshire, which is located on the Southern Uplands of Scotland. Interestingly, and as will soon become apparent, the monster has parallels with a number of Scottish lake monsters, and particularly so Nessie of Loch Ness and Morag of Loch Morar."

Mothman and the Silver Bridge Collapse

There's a new e-book out right now from George Dudding, on the subject of the December 1967 collapse of the Silver Bridge, Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which plays a central role in the Mothman controversy.

I write about Dudding's book (titled The Silver Bridge Tragedy) at Mysterious Universe, and here's the link.

One to check out!

Bigfoot, Caves, and a Monster-Movie

And one more new Mysterious Universe article from me, this one focusing on a certain horror-movie, cave-dwelling monsters, and parallels with the Bigfoot mystery...

The Narrabeen "Thing"

Over at Mysterious Universe I focus on a very weird case of cryptozoological proportions from 1968. It involves the sighting of a strange creature that seems to have been several parts of several animals - if such a thing were even possible!

Anyway, whatever "it" was, it scared the life out of the witness, an Australian woman named Mabel Walsh.

Phantom Hounds in Latin America

My new Mysterious Universe article is a review of a cool booklet on "Phantom Black Dogs" that was published a few years ago, but which is now available as a free download.

While most people associated the PBD phenomenon with the UK, as Simon Burchell (the author of Phantom Black Dogs in Latin America) notes, there is an amazing and extensive body of data on near-identical beasts in Latin America.

A fascinating study of an under-appreciated aspect of the PBD mystery!

Here's the link.