Image credit: Cascade News

Legend has it that the Loch Ness Monster was first sighted in the sixth century by an Irish monk while preaching by the lake. Now, a Scottish sailor who has spent the last 26 years of his life searching for the elusive creature, says he has the best picture yet of “Nessie.”

George Edwards takes his boat, “Nessie Hunter,” out onto Loch Ness nearly every day, often with tourists who hope to see the creature for themselves. Early one morning in November of last year, Edwards was turning his ship back to shore after spending the morning searching for an old steam engine on the lake floor, when he saw something else.

“I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and immediately grabbed my camera,” Edwards told ABC News. “I happened to get a good picture of one of them.”

The typical “media Nessie,” as Edwards calls it in his thick Scottish accent, depicts the creature with three humps sticking out of the water and a long neck with a head like a horse, but Edwards says that’s probably not what Nessie looks like.

The picture Edwards took shows what he says is the back of one of the Loch Ness monsters.

“In my opinion, it probably looks kind of like a manatee, but not a mammal,” Edwards told ABC. “When people see three humps, they’re probably just seeing three separate monsters.”

While many people think of the Loch Ness monster as a single creature, Edwards maintains that can’t be true.

“It was first seen in 565 AD,” Edwards said. “Nothing can live that long. It’s more likely that there are a number of monsters, offspring of the original.”

Image credit: Cascade News

RELATED: Canada’s Loch Ness Monster Caught on Tape?

Edwards has a lot of theories about the Loch Ness monster, which he first became fascinated with when he was a 13-year-old boy and his father would take him fishing at the massive lake. He says he was a skeptic at first, but decades on Loch Ness have turned him into an ardent believer.

“I grew up with the legend, like the boogeyman, or Big Foot in your part of the world, and most people start out thinking it’s a myth,” Edwards said. “But Loch Ness is so deep and dark and mysterious, when you start hearing more and more stories, you start believing more.”

He says his wife, who has been with him since before he started searching for Nessie full time, was initially a skeptic too, but after years of hearing stories from her husband and others, “she came around, and she’s a believer now.”

There are other monster “hunters” in the area, but Edwards says it’s something a lot of people don’t want to talk about.

“Many people loathe to talk openly about believing in Nessie for fear of ridicule,” Edwards told ABC News. “Of course I’ve faced the ridicule, but I can’t bury my face in the sand, when I know what’s out there.”

The main argument Edwards says he hears from skeptics is that the lake has been searched, and nothing has ever been found proving the existence of a Loch Ness monster.

“That’s a silly reason to not believe though, because those expeditions can’t prove anything one way or the other,” Edwards told ABC News. “It’s a massive body of water, deep and dark, and we simply don’t have the technology to really do that kind of search.”

He likens the sonar searches he’s seen in the past to trying to do an ultrasound on a pregnant woman while she’s running down a hallway.

“If you can’t see the baby on the scan, will you say she isn’t pregnant?” Edwards said.

Edwards has “every bit of electrical equipment available,” to aid in his search. He used to take it all out onto the lake seven days a week, but he says he’s going out a bit less these days. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever see the elusive creature again, but he plans to sail onto the lake as much as possible.

“I’m 60 years old now, I can’t go out every day,” Edwards told ABC. “But I won’t stop going out onto Loch Ness until they put me in a box six feet under.”

He wakes up very early nearly every morning to get on the lake, regardless of the weather

Capturing the picture at the end of last year “felt good,” Edwards said, “because it reinforced my beliefs, and might help convince other people.”

Edwards told ABC News that because of personal matters that arose shortly after he took the picture — including the death of both his mother and sister – he did not immediately circulate the image. He said that he just recently started showing people the picture and it is now just picking up some steam.

This picture, he contends, clearly shows something that could only be the monster. He says the other monster hunters he’s shown it to have called it the best they’ve ever seen.

“Lots of people have come up to me since the picture started getting attention, and telling me they’ve seen something similar,” Edwards said. And there’s no smoke without fire, so there must be something in that lake.”

Edwards has a few tips for monster hunters who want to see Nessie for themselves.

“You have to be on the lake every day, with a camera and binoculars, and you have to be in the right place at the right time.”

This handout image from NASA, one of the first images from the Curiosity rover which landed on Mars the evening …

A mysterious blotch that appeared along the horizon in a photo from the surface of Mars stirred speculation about what it might be, as two hours later it was gone.

One image from the Curiosity rover as it landed on the fourth planet from the sun showed a “faint but distinctive” image on the horizon, the Los Angeles Times reported. However, a subsequent batch of images sent from the unmanned rover two hours later showed no trace of the blotch.

One theory put forth by space enthusiasts in the L.A. Times story is that Curiosity had somehow snapped a photo of part of the spacecraft that escorted the rover through the Martian atmosphere crash-landing a distance away.

But to capture that image “would be an insane coincidence,” one engineer told the newspaper.

Others say more feasible possibilities would be simply dirt on the lens, or maybe a dust devil twisting far in the distance.

But as more images start to pour into NASA, more is being learned about the rover’s pinpoint landing.

In what some are dubbing the “crime scene” photo of the landing zone taken by another satellite, Curiosity is seen on the ground along with pieces of the spacecraft that broke apart as planned on the way to the surface. The photo reveals the heat shield that protected the rover as it entered the atmosphere and the parachute that helped ease the vehicle onto Mars. Also seen are parts of the “sky crane,” the spacecraft that carried the rover to the planet, the article noted.

Could the sky crane crashing be the blotch? From another L.A. Times story:

The crime scene photo showed that the sky crane had crash-landed, as designed, about 2,000 feet away—and in the same direction that Curiosity’s camera was pointed when it snapped the first photo showing the blotch. The new satellite photo also showed that the sky crane, when it crash-landed, kicked up a violent wave of dirt that had scarred the surface of Mars.

Curiosity mission manager Michael Watkins told the Times if it were the case, “it would be incredibly cool. … A crazy, serendipitous thing.”

Images from Mars have always fueled curiosity.

Remember what folks thought was a huge face on Mars? An image from Viking 1 in 1976 that appeared to show a rock formation with eyes, a nose and a mouth? Later high-resolution imaging and side-by-side analysis proved the “face” to be a mesa, like the flat-topped natural formations found in the southwestern U.S.

As the Curiosity rover readies to begin the scientific discovery part of the mission, maybe more interesting things will be revealed.

• 

  The old female pliosaur sported …

• 

  Pliosaurs were huge, even compared …

Anyone here have any stories they would like to share, OR want me to look up for them?

I’ve been away from this Blog and I’m sorry about that to all my readers. I started working on my other Blog called the The Geek Feed (http://thegeekfeed.tumblr.com). I’m just trying to get back into the swing of things here lol.

So please let me know if there is anything I can look up or for you to share.?

Paranormal experts and monster hunters have been queuing up to give their interpretation of a mysterious “dark figure with no features” spotted in Ewell last month.

Scott Martin and his family were travelling home by taxi on Tuesday, February 14, at about 10.30pm when they saw the terrifying figure they have likened to the legendary Spring Heeled Jack dart across the road before leaping 15ft over a bank as they approached Nescot College on the Ewell bypass.

The couple, an accountant and a manager of a building company from Banstead, their four year old son and the taxi driver all reported seeing the same figure.

So spooked were the family that their son was too scared to sleep on his own that night while the taxi driver admitted he didn’t want to drive back alone.

Theories put forward to explain the apparition include the road being haunted, natural scientific phenomena and even that it was an alien life form.

Jack Bowman, 32, writer and director with the Wireless Theatre Company who produced a three part radio series on the legend of Spring Heeled Jack, said: “What absolutely intrigues me about this is that Spring Heeled Jack hasn’t been seen since 1986.

“He’s pretty much been forgotten but here in 2012 he is being talked about again. I don’t for a second doubt that the family was terrified or what they had seen.

“He’s probably a physical phenomenon. He was witnessed by two people, a child and a taxi driver so he’s something physical which rules out any ghosts.

“A scientific explanation might be that he was an extra terrestrial entity for example and possibly an alien.

“If he came from somewhere with greater gravitational pull he would be able to jump higher.”

Neil Arnold, 37, a self proclaimed full time monster hunter and author who has been investigating strange phenomena for 20 years, said: “I don’t think that what they saw has got anything to do with Spring Heeled Jack.

“He began life around 1837 pretty much around Kent, London and Surrey and basically attacked people.

“He dressed in very dark garb and a black coat. They said he used to spit blue flames in people eyes. Most of the time he would attack women, rip their clothes off and then run off.

“About three of four years ago I got a report of a woman driving when a dark figure walked across the road and she crashed her car to avoid it. I spoke to her and she was absolutely terrified. So witnesses are clearly seeing something.

“The trouble is that stuff happens all the time and it never gets explained.

“I would say if this was a normal person, something which seems unlikely, then we are probably dealing with a haunted road or road apparition of some sort.

“People used to say Spring Heeled Jack was an alien or a ghost. I’m not sure but I think he could have been a prankster which got out of control.”

The original story was one the most read articles on our website epsomguardian.co.uk over the past fortnight.

One reader said: “The theory was that SHJack was an alien from a heavy gravity planet. No explanation in either case of how he got here.

“Possibly the planet he is from regards him as a criminal and he’s sent here because he is as insane as we are.

“With only one of his kind here it would be a kind of hell.”

I would like to say I’m sorry to my readers! I had some personal issues come up and had to take care of them. I also started working on a book on all things paranormal. Hopefully this should come out this summer! Now to kick things off, is there anything anyone want to know about?

The bunyip, or kianpraty, is a large mythical creature from Aboriginal mythology, said to lurk in swamps, billabongs, creeks, riverbeds, and waterholes. The origin of the word bunyip has been traced to the Wemba-Wemba or Wergaia language of Aboriginal people of South-Eastern Australia. However, the bunyip appears to have formed part of traditional Aboriginal beliefs and stories throughout Australia, although its name varied according to tribal nomenclature. In his 2001 book, writer Robert Holden identified at least nine regional variations for the creature known as the bunyip across Aboriginal Australia. Various written accounts of bunyips were made by Europeans in the early and mid-19th century, as settlement spread across the country.

Meaning

The word bunyip is usually translated by Aboriginal Australians today as “devil” or “evil spirit”. However, this translation may not accurately represent the role of the bunyip in Aboriginal mythology or its possible origins before written accounts were made. Some modern sources allude to a linguistic connection between the bunyip and Bunjil, “a mythic ‘Great Man’ who made the mountains and rivers and man and all the animals.” The word bunyip may not have appeared in print in English until the mid-1840s.

By the 1850s, bunyip had also become a “synonym for imposter, pretender, humbug and the like” in the broader Australian community. The term bunyip aristocracy was first coined in 1853 to describe Australians aspiring to be aristocrats. In the early 1990s, it was famously used by Prime Minister Paul Keating to describe members of the conservative Liberal Party of Australia opposition.

The word bunyip can still be found in a number of Australian contexts, including place names such as the Bunyip River (which flows into Westernport Bay in southern Victoria) and the town of Bunyip, Victoria.

Characteristics

Bunyip (1935), artist unknown, from the National Library of Australia digital collections, demonstrates the variety in descriptions of the legendary creature.

Descriptions of bunyips vary widely. George French Angus may have collected a description of a bunyip in his account of a “water spirit” from the Moorundi people of the Murray River before 1847, stating it is “much dreaded by them… It inhabits the Murray; but…they have some difficulty describing it. Its most usual form…is said to be that of an enormous starfish.” Robert Brough Smyth’s Aborigines of Victoria of 1878 devoted ten pages to the bunyip, but concluded “in truth little is known among the blacks respecting its form, covering or habits; they appear to have been in such dread of it as to have been unable to take note of its characteristics.” However, common features in many 19th-century newspaper accounts include a dog-like face, dark fur, a horse-like tail, flippers, and walrus-like tusks or horns or a duck-like bill.

The Challicum bunyip, an outline image of a bunyip carved by Aborigines into the bank of Fiery Creek, near Ararat, Victoria, was first recorded by The Australasian newspaper in 1851. According to the report, the bunyip had been speared after killing an Aboriginal man. Antiquarian Reynell Johns claimed that until the mid-1850s, Aboriginal people made a “habit of visiting the place annually and retracing the outlines of the figure [of the bunyip] which is about 11 paces long and 4 paces in extreme breadth.”

Debate over origins of the bunyip

Non-Aboriginal Australians have made various attempts to understand and explain the origins of the bunyip as a physical entity over the past 150 years.

Writing in 1933, Charles Fenner suggested that it was likely that the “actual origin of the bunyip myth lies in the fact that from time to time seals have made their way up the … Murray and Darling (Rivers)”. He provided examples of seals found as far inland as Overland Corner, Loxton, and Conargo and reminded readers that “the smooth fur, prominent ‘apricot’ eyes and the bellowing cry are characteristic of the seal.”

Another suggestion is that the bunyip may be a cultural memory of extinct Australian marsupials such as the Diprotodon or Palorchestes. This connection was first formally made by Dr George Bennett of the Australian Museum in 1871, but in the early 1990s, palaeontologist Pat Vickers-Rich and geologist Neil Archbold also cautiously suggested that Aboriginal legends “perhaps had stemmed from an acquaintance with prehistoric bones or even living prehistoric animals themselves … When confronted with the remains of some of the now extinct Australian marsupials, Aborigines would often identify them as the bunyip.”

Another connection to the bunyip is the shy Australasian bittern (Botaurus poiciloptilus). During the breeding season, the male call of this marsh-dwelling bird is a “low pitched boom”; hence, it is occasionally called the “bunyip bird”.

Early accounts of settlers

An 1882 illustration of an Aboriginal man telling the story of the bunyip to two White children

During the early settlement of Australia by Europeans, the notion that the bunyip was an actual unknown animal that awaited discovery became common. Early European settlers, unfamiliar with the sights and sounds of the island continent’s peculiar fauna, regarded the bunyip as one more strange Australian animal and sometimes attributed unfamiliar animal calls or cries to it. It has also been suggested that 19th-century bunyip lore was reinforced by imported European memories, such as that of the Irish Púca.

A large number of bunyip sightings occurred during the 1840s and 1850s, particularly in the southeastern colonies of Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia, as European settlers extended their reach. The following is not an exhaustive list of accounts:

Hume find of 1818

One of the earliest accounts relating to a large unknown freshwater animal was in 1818, when Hamilton Hume and James Meehan found some large bones at Lake Bathurst in New South Wales. They did not call the animal a bunyip, but described the remains indicating the creature as very much like a hippopotamus or manatee. The Philosophical Society of Australasia later offered to reimburse Hume for any costs incurred in recovering a specimen of the unknown animal, but for various reasons, Hume did not return to the lake.

Wellington Caves fossils, 1830

More significant was the discovery of fossilised bones of “some quadruped much larger than the ox or buffalo” in the Wellington Caves in mid-1830 by bushman George Rankin and later by Thomas Mitchell. Sydney’s Reverend John Dunmore Lang announced the find as “convincing proof of the deluge”. However, it was British anatomist Sir Richard Owen who identified the fossils as the gigantic marsupials Nototherium and Diprotodon. At the same time, some settlers observed “all natives throughout these… districts have a tradition (of) a very large animal having at one time existed in the large creeks and rivers and by many it is said that such animals now exist.”

First written use of the word bunyip, 1845

In July 1845, The Geelong Advertiser announced the discovery of fossils found near Geelong, under the headline “Wonderful Discovery of a new Animal”. The newspaper continued, “On the bone being shown to an intelligent black (sic), he at once recognised it as belonging to the bunyip, which he declared he had seen. On being requested to make a drawing of it, he did so without hesitation.” The account noted a story of an Aboriginal woman being killed by a bunyip and the “most direct evidence of all” – that of a man named Mumbowran “who showed several deep wounds on his breast made by the claws of the animal”. The account provided this description of the creature:

“The Bunyip, then, is represented as uniting the characteristics of a bird and of an alligator. It has a head resembling an emu, with a long bill, at the extremity of which is a transverse projection on each side, with serrated edges like the bone of the stingray. Its body and legs partake of the nature of the alligator. The hind legs are remarkably thick and strong, and the fore legs are much longer, but still of great strength. The extremities are furnished with long claws, but the blacks say its usual method of killing its prey is by hugging it to death. When in the water it swims like a frog, and when on shore it walks on its hind legs with its head erect, in which position it measures twelve or thirteen feet in height.”

Shortly after this account appeared, it was repeated in other Australian newspapers. However, it appears to be the first use of the word bunyip in a written publication.

The Australian Museum’s bunyip of 1847

The so-called bunyip skull

In January 1846, a peculiar skull was taken from the banks of Murrumbidgee River near Balranald, New South Wales. Initial reports suggested that it was the skull of something unknown to science. The squatter who found it remarked, “all the natives to whom it was shown called [it ] a bunyip”. By July 1847, several experts had identified the skull as the deformed foetal skull of a foal or calf. At the same time, however, the so-called bunyip skull was put on display in the Australian Museum (Sydney) for two days. Visitors flocked to see it, and The Sydney Morning Herald said that it prompted many people to speak out about their “bunyip sightings”.

William Buckley’s account of bunyips, 1852

Another early written account is attributed to escaped convict William Buckley in his 1852 biography of thirty years living with the Wathaurong people. His 1852 account records “in… Lake Moodewarri [now Lake Modewarre] as well as in most of the others inland…is a…very extraordinary amphibious animal, which the natives call Bunyip.” Buckley’s account suggests he saw such a creature on several occasions. He adds, “I could never see any part, except the back, which appeared to be covered with feathers of a dusky grey colour. It seemed to be about the size of a full grown calf… I could never learn from any of the natives that they had seen either the head or tail.” Buckley also claimed the creature was common in the Barwon River and cites an example he heard of an Aboriginal woman being killed by one. He emphasized the bunyip was believed to have supernatural powers.

In popular culture and fiction

Numerous tales of the bunyip in written literature appeared in the 19th and early 20th centuries. These included a story in Andrew Lang’s The Brown Fairy Book (1904). The Bunyip of Berkeley’s Creek is a contemporary Australian children’s picture book about a bunyip.

Perhaps the best known bunyip character in Australia is Alexander Bunyip, created by children’s author and illustrator Michael Salmon. First appearing in print in The Monster That Ate Canberra in 1972, Alexander Bunyip went on to appear in many other books and even a live-action television series, Alexander Bunyip’s Billabong. A statue of Alexander is planned for the Gungahlin Library.

Another recent depiction of the bunyip appears in the 1989 illustrated children’s book A Kangaroo Court. Naomi Novik includes bunyips as dangerous adversaries in the Australian outback in Tongues of Serpents, the sixth installment of her novels of alternate Napoleonic-history era, with dragons.

A bunyip had an important role in the 1930s classic novel Mountain of the Moon (Chander Pahar in the Bengali version), written by Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Banerjee.

The word bunyip has been used in other Australian contexts, including The Bunyip newspaper as the banner of a local weekly newspaper published in the town of Gawler, South Australia. First published as a pamphlet by the Gawler Humbug Society in 1863, the name was chosen because “the Bunyip is the true type of Australian Humbug!” The word is also used in numerous other Australian contexts, including the House of the Gentle Bunyip in Clifton Hill, Victoria. There is also a coin-operated bunyip at Murray Bridge, South Australia, at Sturt Reserve on the town’s riverfront.

Since World War II, the bunyip has undergone some cultural crossover from Australia to the United States and beyond. It now appears in several role-playing and computer games, including as a character Garou Tribes (Werewolf: The Apocalypse), as a boss monster in Chrono Cross, and as the name of a summoned creature in the popular MMORPG game RuneScape. The bunyip is also a monster in AdventureQuest. This version is a magical, heavily built creature of the night that is part jackrabbit, part wolf, and part giant.

The cultural crossover from Australia to the USA may have some connection to the use of a bunyip (bunyap) as the symbol of the U.S. Air Force’s 7th Fighter Squadron, which was based in Australia in 1942, shortly after its formation.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Bertie the Bunyip was a children’s show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, created by Lee Dexter, an Australian. Bunyips were featured on The Secret Saturdays, in the episode “Into the Mouth of Darkness”, with their vocal effects provided by Dee Bradley Baker. Here, the bunyips were depicted as small, furry, mischievous cryptids that resemble the Tasmanian Devil of Looney Tunes with small antlers. The bunyip was also featured repeatedly on the US WB soap Charmed, most notably the episode “Nymphs Just Wanna Have Fun”, and an episode of the Nickelodeon show The Wild Thornberrys.

In the novelette “Water Babies” by Simon Brown, a series of drownings investigated by an Australian police officer turn out to be the work of a predatory seal-like creature that may be the inspiration for the bunyip legends.

The novel The Neddiad by Daniel Pinkwater features a character named Shlmomos Bunyip, who is controlled by an evil earth spirit that lives in a swamp.

The Australian children’s animated movie Dot and the Kangaroo features the song “Bunyip Moon”.

The poetry anthology Antipodes: Poetic Responses, edited by Margaret Bradstock, features a poem titled “The Challicum Bunyip” by Australian poet Benjamin Dodds. The poem presents an interpretation of the Challicum bunyip story.

In the supernatural television series Charmed, Phoebe Halliwell, the youngest sister, alludes to the fact that they may have in fact vanquished a bunyip demon in the eighteenth episode of the second season.

Krampus is a mythical creature recognized in Alpine countries. According to legend, Krampus accompanies Saint Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children. When the Krampus finds a particularly naughty child, it stuffs the child in its sack and carries the frightened child away to its lair, presumably to devour for its Christmas dinner.

In the Alpine regions, Krampus is represented as a beast like creature, generally demonic in appearance. The creature has roots in Germanic folklore. Traditionally young men dress up as the Krampus in Austria, southern Bavaria, South Tyrol, and Hungary during the first week of December, particularly on the evening of 5 December, and roam the streets frightening children with rusty chains and bells. Krampus is featured on holiday greeting cards called Krampuskarten. There are many names for Krampus, as well as many regional variations in portrayal and celebration.

Origins

Krampus at Morzger Pass in Salzburg, Austria

The history of the Krampus figure stretches back to pre-Christian Germanic traditions. He also shares characteristics with the satyrs of Greek mythology.The early Catholic Church discouraged celebrations based around the wild goat-like creatures, and during the Inquisition efforts were made to stamp them out. However, Krampus figures persisted, and by the 17th century Krampus had been incorporated into Christian winter celebrations by pairing him with St. Nicholas.

Modern history

In the 20th century, Austrian governments discouraged the practice. In the aftermath of the 1934 Austrian Civil War, the Krampus tradition was prohibited by the Dollfuss regime under the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) and the Christian Social Party. In the 1950s, the government distributed pamphlets titled “Krampus is an Evil Man”. Towards the end of the century, a popular resurgence of Krampus celebrations occurred and continues today. There has been public debate in Austria in modern times about whether Krampus is appropriate for children.

Appearance

Although Krampus appears in many variations, most share some common physical characteristics. He is hairy, usually brown or black, and has the cloven hooves and horns of a goat. His long pointed tongue lolls out.

Krampus carries chains, thought to symbolize the binding of the Devil by the Christian Church. He thrashes the chains for dramatic effect. The chains are sometimes accompanied with bells of various sizes. Of more pagan origins are the ruten, bundles of birch branches that Krampus carries and occasionally swats children with. The ruten have significance in pre-Christian pagan initiation rites. The birch branches are replaced with a whip in some representations. Sometimes Krampus appears with a sack or a washtub strapped to his back; this is to cart off evil children for drowning, eating, or transport to Hell.

Krampusnacht

The Feast of St. Nicholas is celebrated in parts of Europe on December 6. In Alpine countries, Saint Nicholas has a devilish companion named Krampus so it is said that on the preceding evening, Krampus Night or Krampusnacht, this hairy devil appears on the streets. Sometimes accompanying St. Nicholas and sometimes on his own, Krampus visits homes and businesses. The Saint usually appears in the vestments of a bishop such as the mitre, and he carries a ceremonial staff. Unlike North American versions of Santa Claus, in these celebrations Saint Nicholas concerns himself only with the good children, while Krampus is responsible for the bad. Nicholas dispenses gifts, while Krampus supplies coal and the ruten bundles.

Krampuslaufen

A Krampuslauf is a run of celebrants dressed as the beast, often fueled by alcohol. It is customary to offer a Krampus schnapps, a sweet liqueur. These runs may include perchten, similarly wild pagan spirits of Germanic folklore and sometimes female in representation. In larger cities, there may be numerous runs throughout the Advent season.

Krampuskarten

A greeting card featuring Krampus

Europeans have been exchanging greeting cards featuring Krampus since the 1800s. Sometimes introduced with Grüß vom Krampus (Greetings from Krampus), the cards usually have humorous rhymes and poems. Krampus is often featured looming menacingly over children. In some, Krampus has sexual overtones; he is pictured pursuing buxom women. Over time, the representation of Krampus in the cards has changed; older versions have a more frightening Krampus, while modern versions have a cuter, more Cupid-like creature. Krampus has also adorned postcards and candy containers.

Regional variations

Krampus appears in various forms, and as part of differing celebrations, throughout central Europe. In Styria, the ruten bundles are presented by Krampus to families. The twigs are painted gold and displayed year-round in the house – a reminder to any child who has temporarily forgotten Krampus. In smaller, more isolated villages, the character has other beastly companions, such as the antlered “wild man” figures, and St. Nicholas is nowhere to be seen. These Styrian companions of Krampus are called Schabmänner or Rauhen.

A more toned-down version is part of the popular Christmas markets in Austrian urban centres like Salzburg. In these, more tourist-friendly interpretations, Krampus is more humourous than fearsome.

In the 1600s, the Lutheran Church presented a “christchild” figure in the place of the Catholic Saint Nicholas. Representing the baby Jesus but often appearing as a young maiden, this figure was also paired with Krampus in some areas. In France’s Alsace region, Krampus is known as Hans Trapp and accompanies a “christchild” character during the holiday season.

North American Krampus celebrations, though rare, are a growing phenomenon. Some traditional Germanic communities in the northeast of the United States have preserved a Krampus tradition; in these he goes by Bellsnichol and combines aspects of both the wild man and Saint Nicholas.

Other names

The word Krampus (sometimes spelled “Grampus”) is a derivation of the old German word for “claw”, but the creature has many names. Klaubauf is used throughout Austria, while Bartl or Bartel, Niglobartl, and Wubartl are used in the southern part of the country. Outside Austria, Krampus and related creatures go by Pelzebock or Pelznickel in southern Germany, and Gumphinckel in Silesia. In Hungary, he is Krampusz.

In popular culture

The Krampus has made appearances in English-language popular culture. Some examples:

Comics

• Chickenhare, a graphic novel (first issue released in 2006), has a character named Banjo who is a Krampus.
• PvP, a webcomic, began a story arc on December 5, 2011 in which the character Scratch Fury takes on the role of the Krampus.
• Something Positive, a webcomic. The December 5, 2004 strip accurately described Krampus.

Television

• The Colbert Report aired a segment about Krampus and the War on Christmas called “The Blitzkrieg on Grinchitude - Hallmark & Krampus” in its December 9, 2009 episode.
• G4 (TV channel) created a Christmas commercial in 2003 featuring Krampus. In it some carolers sing about Krampus while he enters a house putting the bad children in his sack.
• A Very Venture Christmas, the 2004 Christmas episode of the television cartoon series The Venture Bros. Krampus is accidentally released from a book of ancient occult magic and wreaks havoc on Doctor Thaddeus Venture’s Christmas party.

Video Games

• The Binding of Isaac (video game), from 2011, has a “Devil Room” in which a horned opponent named Krampus may appear. If Krampus is defeated, the player obtains a “gift” from it: a lump of coal with a note stating that “You’ve been bad!”
• CarnEvil, a 1998 arcade game, has a level called “Rickety Town” with a boss (video gaming) named Krampus. He resembles a large, horned, clawed, demonic Santa Claus clad in green, and attacks by hurling flaming coals and swinging his bag at the player.

Other

• Random Spirit Lover, a 2007 album by indie band Sunset Rubdown, features a picture of Krampus on the back cover.Spencer Krug stated, in an interview with Pitchfork Media, that the Krampus image was placed there because “he represents the sort of duality that’s a theme on the record, the two sides of every thing.”

Robert Richardson - 1967

Robert Richardson, of Toledo, Ohio, informed the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) in July 1967 that he had collided with a UFO while driving at night. Coming round a bend, he had been confronted by a strange object blocking the road. Unable to halt in time, he had hit it, though not very hard. Immediately on impact, the UFO vanished.

Police who accompanied Richardson to the scene could find only his own skid marks as evidence; but on a later visit, Richardson himself found a small lump of metal which might have come from the UFO.

Three days later, at 11 pm, two men in their twenties appeared at Richardson’s home and questioned him for about 10 minutes. They did not identify themselves, and Richardson - to his own subsequent surprise - did not ask who they were. They were not unfriendly, gave no warnings, and just asked questions. He noted that they left in a black 1953 Cadillac. The number, when checked, was found not yet to have been issued.

A week later, Richardson received a second visit, from two different men, who arrived in a current model Dodge. They wore black suits and were dark-complexioned. Although one spoke perfect English, the second had an accent, and Richardson felt there was something vaguely foreign about them. At first, they seemed to be trying to persuade him that he had not hit anything at all; but then they asked for the piece of metal. When he told them it had gone for analysis, they threatened him: “If you want your wife to stay as pretty as she is, then you’d better get the metal back”.

The existence of the metal was known only to Richardson and his wife, and to two senior members of APRO. Seemingly, the only way the strangers could have learned of its existence would be by tapping either his or APRO’s telephone. There was no clear connection between the two pairs of visitors; but what both had in common was access to information that was not freely and publicly available. Perhaps it is this that is the key to the MIB mystery.

Paul Miller

One inclement evening in November 1961, Paul Miller and three companions were returning home to Minot, North Dakota, after a hunting trip when what they could only describe as ‘a luminous silo’ landed in a nearby field. At first they thought it was a plane crashing, but had to revise their opinion when the ‘plane’ abruptly vanished.

As the hunters drove off, the object reappeared and two humanoids emerged from it. Miller panicked and fired at one of the creatures, apparently wounding it. The other hunters immediately fled. On their way back to Minot, all of them experienced a blackout and ‘lost’ three hours.

Terrified, they decided not to report the incident to anyone. Yet the next morning, when Miller reported to work (in an Air Force office), three men in black arrived. They said they were government officials - but showed no credentials - and remarked unpleasantly that they hoped Miller was ‘telling the truth’ about the UFO.

How did they know about it? ‘We have a report,’ they said vaguely. ‘They seemed to know everthing about me; where I worked, my name, everthing else,’ Miller said. They also asked questions about his experiences as if they already knew the answers. Miller did not dare tell his story for several years.

Unnamed Investigator

UFO investigator Ramona Clark tells of an unnamed investigator who was confronted by three MIBs on 3 July 1969. “On the window of the car in which they were riding was the symbol connected with them and their visitations.

This symbol had a profound psychological impact upon this man. I have never encountered such absolute fear in a human being. The first meeting was followed by continual harassment. There were mysterious telephone calls, and the man’s house was searched. He began to hear voices and to see strange shapes. “Black Cadillac’s roamed the street in front of his home, and followed him everywhere he went.

Once he and his family were almost forced into an accident by an oncoming Cadillac. Nightmares concerning MIBs plagued his sleep. It became impossible for him to rest, his work suffered and he was scared of losing his job.” Was it all in his mind?

One is tempted to think so. But a friend confirmed that, while they talked, there was a strange-looking man walking back and forth in front of the house. The man was tall, seemed about 55 years old - and was dressed entirely in black.

Carlos de los Santos

UFO witness Carlos de los Santos was stopped on his way to a television interview by two large black limousines. One of the occupants - dressed in a black suit and ‘Scandinavian’ in appearance told him: “Look, boy, if you value your life and your family’s too, don’t talk any more about this sighting of yours.”

However, there is no reliable instance of such threats ever having been carried out, though a good many witnesses have gone ahead and defied their warnings. Indeed, sinister though the MIBs may be, they are notable for their lack of actual violence. The worst that can be said of them is that they frequently harass witnesses with untimely visits and telephone calls, or simply disturb them with their very presence

While, for the victim, it is just as well that the threats of violence are not followed through, this is for the investigator one more disconcerting aspect of the phenomenon - for violence, if it resulted in physical action, would at least help in establishing the reality of the phenomenon. Instead, it remains a fact that most of the evidence is purely hearsay in character and often not of the highest quality; cases as well-attested as that of Dr. Herbert Hopkins are unfortunately in the minority.

A few Psychic investigators claim there are over 20 spirits that haunt the location.

The Black Forest haunting is considered to be one of the strongest and most inexplicable hauntings on record. When Steve Lee and his wife Beth discovered a large log home in the Black Forest region of northern Colorado in 1991, they rented it and then purchased it one year later.

Within a few weeks of signing the papers on their dream home, strange things started to occur. Lights and household appliances began to turn on and off, and they heard what sounded like people running across their roof. At night, the couple could hear orchestra music playing and chains rattling. Their sons complained of shadowy figures and odd lights in their room, too.

The entire family began to suffer with burning eyes and throats from untraceable chemical odors. Steve Lee quickly decided someone was playing tricks to spook them from their new home, so he decided to fight back. He installed a video surveillance security system with motion detectors to retaliate. However, the system would sound alarms when no one was around.

There were also sixty-two unexplainable break-ins at the property. The local sheriff’s department opened an investigation in early 1993 but could never find evidence of any crime. Steve noticed that security photos and videos had odd streaks of light in them, and faces even appeared on some. He purchased a variety of cameras and continued to capture unexplainable light phenomena such as beams, floating balls, and glowing outlines of humans and animals. Steve and Beth finally relented that some paranormal phenomenon might be responsible for the unexplained events. When 1995 rolled around, they contacted the “Sightings” television show for help.

A film crew was dispatched to their home and documented what the Lees had reported. Popular ghost buster, Echo Bodine, accompanied the film crew and immediately identified what she claimed was the presence of a threatening male spirit in the living room. Thermal imaging cameras captured the ghost, and Bodine said it considered the home to be his. Bodine said she felt the presence of numerous spirits, and the house had a monumental level of paranormal activity.

While the film crew was there, cameras flipped off their tripods and fell to the floor for no apparent reason. While Beth Lee and Echo Bodine were sitting at the kitchen table talking, Beth felt something trying to hold her down, and a member of the film crew claimed she felt a spirit go into her in what she believed was an effort to take over her body.

When the “Sightings” crew returned several months later, they brought along psychic investigator, Peter James. Upon his arrival, he sensed a powerful psychic energy vortex and ultimately felt that a closet on the second floor was the gateway to the “other side.” A nearby mirror frequently reflected apparitions and floating faces and James believed those were spirits searching for the life they once had. Many pictures of the mirror were enhanced and showed countless faces gazing back.

A Hopi shaman claimed the area is a “rainbow vortex,” one of just a few psychic energy spots on earth that supposedly connects this world with the next. Scientists, electromagnetic experts, quantum physicists, and the best paranormal researchers in the country have been to the Lee home, and all agree it is a very active site. Some believe an energy coming from under the house is responsible for the activity.

In more recent years, it has been reported that Robert and Beth Lee came to accept their home as it is and have consistently declined any offers of further investigation. They are reported to have said they wish to live quietly and raise their family in peace now.

The Fresno Nightcrawler

In late 2008, Jose, a Fresno resident, was woken late at night by his dogs barking in a very unusual way. When he checked the CCTV fitted to his house, he saw two odd creatures walking across his lawn. Jose was terrified but kept the tape and, eventually, approached Univision 21, a local TV channel about the incident. They, in turn, contacted Victor Camacho, a local UFO investigator and member of international body MUFON whose talk on the case brought it out into the open in 2008.

That holy trinity of separation, investigator to confidant to witness is very common, the information still held frustratingly out of arm’s reach and the situation isn’t helped any by some of the editing choices made on the video. For no readily apparent reason, a second of footage of an animatronic grey alien is used as a scene buffer, Camacho even apologising for this. Even worse, the footage itself is never spliced into the report. Instead, at several points we watch the footage from Jose’s CCTV camera being played on a TV which is in turn being filmed by another camera, the image all but lost beneath huge pixels, interference and a frankly surreal editing decision. It’s not even like the rest of the film hasn’t been post-produced, after all someone thought a second of animatronic Grey would be a good idea, but for some reason no one thought to splice in the original footage.

What’s tragic about this is that the Fresno Nightcrawlers might just be something incredible. The camera watches a tall, thin creature with no arms walk slowly across the lawn, stop and then proceed onwards. A few seconds later, a creature which looks for all the world like a billowing pair of trousers follows it, the flaps of it’s clothing, or body, clearly visible blowing in the wind. It’s less than two minutes long, you can barely see what’s there but what’s there looks strange, different, alien. If it’s a fake, it’s a great fake and the more you look, or squint, the more you see exactly how odd these creatures are. There’s a natural gait to their walk’ and they appear almost relaxed, ambling through Jose’s garden in the same way that people browse in a shop. They look confident, assured and crucially you see them moving for a relatively long time, something which is all but unheard of with most ‘alien’ videos. A couple of seconds, if you’re lucky, is usually all you get but here you get a clear view, a locked off camera and a chance to take a good look at whatever is using Jose’s lawn as a shortcut. Or you would do, if anyone had thought to encode the original film and upload it. Instead, you’re left squinting at something which might be incredibly important, on a TV screen, being filmed and shown on another TV screen. The million ring circus strikes again, the truth stays just outside the light.

Comet Hale-Bopp was the most widely observed comet of the twentieth century.

Heaven’s Gate Cult was formed in the 1970’s by a man named Marshall Applewhite and a lady named Bonnie Nettles. The two met when he was a mental patient at a hospital where she worked as a nurse.

They were referred to as “Bo and Beep” and “Do and Ti” respectively.  They believed that they both were extraterrestrial entities from heaven trapped inside human bodies, and that it was their duty to give humans a chance to become enlightened.

They traveled all around the country, leaving little notes at churches and synagogues. Their first group was called the Human Individual Metamorphosis (HIM).  They went to a Colorado desert to await for a UFO.  Of course it never came. In 1985, Bonnie Nettles died of cancer, and Applewhite went on to form a group called Total Overcomers Anonymous (TOA).  In the 1990’s, he began looking for recruits on the Internet.

The group believed that human bodies are only “vehicles” that help souls go through journeys.  They gave up material possessions, became celibate, and gave up on other “human indulgences”.  They believed that they had to purify their body in preparation for leaving the Earth for good.  In the mid 1990’s, the group became known as Heaven’s Gate.  This would be the last incarnation of the group before the members finally committed mass suicide. 

Heaven’s Gate members believed that if they committed suicide at the perfect time, their souls would “sleep” until finding a new vessel or container to occupy.  In other words, they believed that their souls would be reincarnated in bodies that are more evolved than human bodies. They believed that their souls would be taken up in a space ship upon death.  Easter was also on the way, and they took that to be another sign that the timing for their suicide was “perfect”.

On March 26, 1997, they believed their time had come.  The comet Hale Bopp was bright in the sky then, and they believed that the comet was carrying their space ship.  Thirty nine members (18 men and 21 women) took their own lives in California.  The suicides took three days to take place.  The members scheduled their suicides in shifts.  They would first drink citrus juice to “cleanse” the impurities out of their bodies, and then they would drink a deadly mixture of phenobarbital and vodka.  The final step involved plastic bags being secured over their heads in order to become asphyxiated.

Was the Titanic Tragedy Foretold by a Book Written 14 Years Before?

Perhaps one of the strangest cases of foreshadowing the world has ever known was a novel written in 1898 by Morgan Robertson about a ship called Titan that crashes into an iceberg. And, of course, in 1912, the RMS Titanic crashed into an iceberg as well. Although the novel was written as a work of fiction, it strangely foretold the events of what would come to be one of the most famous disasters of all time.

The novel, which was originally titled Futility, was later changed to Wreck of the Titan.  The similarities between the fictional Titan and the real life Titanic are very eerie.  For instance, both ships met their fate in the North Atlantic in April by running into an iceberg.  Neither ship had enough lifeboats on board, which resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people.  Both were the largest ships in the world and were wrongly believed to be “unsinkable”.

Also very strange are the sailing routes.  The Titan was sailing from New York to England, while the Titanic’s route was from England to New York.  Both ended up meeting with disaster in the same part of the sea.  They were also both traveling at around the same speed, and had the same number of propellers and masts.  The Titan had an accident with another ship, and the Titanic nearly collided with the New York but fortunately didn’t hit it.

There are also a few differences between the two ships.  The Titanic only bumped or scraped against the iceberg on a clear night, while the Titan runs right into an iceberg on a very foggy night.  The Titanic also had more survivors than the fictional ship did.  The Titanic sank during her maiden voyage, while the Titan had already been on several.

All of this about the Titan occurred during the first half of the novel, and the second half chronicles the adventures of the heroic main character, John Rowland.  He was a drunkard who was dismissed from the Royal Navy, and worked on the Titan as a ship hand.  During the second half of the book, he goes through a number of adventures, including a fight with a polar bear.  He’s eventually saved by a passing ship and works his way up again in society.

While it’s an exciting read altogether, the fate of the Titan is what draws most people into this novel.  Could there be a paranormal reason why this book is so eerily similar to an incident that occurred 14 years LATER?  Or are the differences between the fictional ship and Titanic enough to make it nothing more than a strange coincidence?

A doppelganger could be anything from a look-alike of a person to bilocation.

The term is derived from two German words: “doppel” and “ganger”, which mean “double” and “walker” respectively.

A doppelganger is a term that describes a physical double of a living individual.  Doppelgangers are believed to look exactly look like other people to whom they have no relation.  

It could also be an evil “twin” of a person that goes around causing trouble.  There are many different theories and ideas about the phenomenon.  Some people consider it to be nothing more than an overreaction to seeing someone having similar physical features as someone else.  There are only so many physical features that six billion humans can have, so it’s not surprising that some people who never meet or have no relation look a lot alike.

However, there are others who consider doppelgangers to be something ominous.  In some cultures, seeing one’s doppelganger symbolizes death:  if one should see his or her doppelganger, it could mean that he or she is going to die.  If friends or relatives of someone should see that person’s doppelganger, it could mean that the individual is going to experience a lot of bad luck and health problems in the near future.

Another theory is that a person’s doppelganger *is* that person from a parallel universe or dimension, and that if the two versions of that person should meet, something bad will happen.  One possible theory is that, should one meet and communicate with his or her doppelganger, the universe will collapse. Another theory is that both versions of the person will cease to exist.

A temporal doppelganger is a version of oneself that an individual may meet when time traveling.  In this case, the doppelganger would look exactly like an individual did at one point in the past, or will look like at some point in the future.  It’s also considered a bad idea to approach the look alike.  If time travel were even possible, many believe nothing good could come out of contacting one’s own self at any point in time.

Whatever doppelgangers are or are not, most consider it to be unwise and bad to attempt to communicate with their own.  Whether they are malevolent spirits taking on the form of a particular living person, an actual living person from a parallel universe, or just a random lookalike, nobody knows exactly what doppelgangers are.  There has been a lot of folklore about them over the years, and many cultures have stories and theories about what/who they are and where they came from.