Earthworms rain down from skies over Norway, puzzling scientists

Meteorologists and biologists have been left baffled by earthworms raining from the sky over Southern Norway.

According to Norwegian news service The Local, the most recent phenomenon was discovered by biology teacher Karstein Erstad while he was skiing in the mountains.

“I saw thousands of earthworms on the surface of the snow,” he said.

“When I found them on the snow they seemed to be dead, but when I put them in my hand I found that they were alive.”

He thought they might have crawled through the snow, but rejected this idea, as the snow was over half a metre thick across the mountains.

This is not the only time an area experiencing worms raining from the sky in Norway, with other cases found in Molde and Bergen, both in the south of the country.

[SOURCE]

Baby pronounced dead lives after hours in cooler

Baby pronounced dead lives after hours in cooler
Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:19am EDT

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A stillborn Israeli baby who was pronounced dead by doctors "came back to life" on Monday after spending hours in a hospital refrigerator.

The baby, weighing only 600 grams at birth, spent at least five hours inside one of the hospital's refrigerated storage units, before her parents, who had taken her to be buried, began noticing some movement.

"We unwrapped her and felt she was moving. We didn't believe it at first. Then she began holding my mother's hand, and then we saw her open her mouth," said 26-year-old Faiza Magdoub, the baby's mother.

The baby was pronounced dead several hours earlier, after doctors at Western Galilee hospital in northern Israel were forced to abort her mother's pregnancy because of internal bleeding. Magdoub was 23 weeks into her pregnancy.

"We don't know how to explain this, so when we don't know how to explain things in the medical world we call it a miracle, and this is probably what happened," hospital deputy director Moshe Daniel said.

The baby was then taken to the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit for further treatment, but doctors were not sure how long she will live.

Motti Ravid, a professor of internal medicine, told Israel's Channel 10 that the low temperature inside the cooler had slowed down the baby's metabolism and likely helped her survive.

(Writing by Avida Landau, Editing by Mike Collett-White)
(REUTERS)

UFO's Over North Phoenix's Deer Valley?

Unusual lights over north Phoenix's Deer Valley reported by dozens
Steve Hammons
April 22, 2008

PHOENIX – The Associated Press is reporting this morning that, "Red colored lights that formed a square and then a triangle were seen floating over north Phoenix. The lights were visible for about 13 minutes around 8 p.m. Monday."

The lights then moved to the east, according to witness reports.

Phoenix TV and radio stations as well as the daily newspaper, The Arizona Republic, have posted video and still photos on their Web sites this morning.

The Republic carried the story on the front page of their local "Valley & State" section. The Republic said one of its reporters, Anne Ryman, witnessed the lights and her description is consistent with other witness accounts.

The Republic also reported that one witness says he saw three jets flying in the direction of the unusual lights.

(from americanchronicle.com)

UFO probe leads to Capitola, CA

From santacruzsentinel.com:

UFO probe leads to Capitola, but not to answers
J.M. BROWN - SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 03/26/2008 01:31:55 AM PDT

CAPITOLA -- Only two miles long, this tranquil seaside resort town of 10,000 people may not have as many utility poles as bigger cities, but T.K. Davis and Frankie Dixon say they have examined nearly every one of them.

At the behest of a loose-knit cluster of international UFO enthusiasts, the two former cops turned private investigators have scoured the city looking for the phone or power pole that appears in a photograph that allegedly captured an alien drone in flight.

Their efforts, though unsuccessful so far, have turned quiet little Capitola into the Internet epicenter of an intergalactic probe as the two men crisscross Northern California hunting down leads, appearing on national news programs and building their burgeoning business.

Although the former Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies have received more than 400 tips and 10,000 hits on their Web site since launching their investigation in the past few weeks, they haven't found a smoking laser gun.

They haven't talked to any supposed witnesses face-to-face -- including the man who allegedly took the photo that sparked all the speculation -- or found the pole that might lead them to potential witnesses who have yet to come forward.

"Right now it appears it's not true," the 62-year-old Davis, a Saratoga grandfather of newborn twins, said during a phone interview Tuesday from Reno, where he's been chasing down online reports of a sighting of a similar craft near Lake Tahoe.

A photo reportedly taken in Capitola on May 16 by a man named Raji, who said he was in town visiting his in-laws, shows an object that doesn't match the classic image of UFOs made iconic by sci-fi movies. The silver object in the photo is circular with four large metallic arms and appears to be floating over power or phone lines. It reportedly made a crackling noise as it flew.

Bloggers from South Lake Tahoe, Bakersfield and Saratoga also reported seeing the object or something similar last spring and summer after Raji posted it online. After being pressed for more information about the photo by the members of the international extraterrestrial Web site Open Minds Forum, Davis said Raji disappeared, rendering him virtually untraceable by the detectives.

Open Minds Forum members hired TK Davis Investigations to chase down leads. Much to the chagrin of their skeptical families, Davis and the 60-year-old Dixon, who lives in Capitola, have made numerous investigative trips, but none have led to any in-person interviews with alleged witnesses.

A blogger named Isaac has said he is familiar with the craft due to his former work with a government lab in Palo Alto, Davis said. Numerous other tips have come in, but the difficulty in verifying information has been getting bloggers to reveal their real identities, Davis said. Many who post reports of UFO sightings have been reluctant to give their full names because they are worried about what others might think of their fascination with the otherworldly, he said.

Capitola authorities looked into what has been dubbed the "California Drone" recently after international Internet interest became too much to ignore, Police Chief Richard J. Ehle said. But their probe turned up nothing.

Dispatch records from May 16, 2007, show no one called police to report seeing anything unusual. Ehle said he is highly skeptical that the photo or the UFO is real because he said there would have been several thousand people downtown for a concert that night, and someone would have called 911 if they saw something suspicious.

Still, he assigned an officer to look into the matter in case there had been a small plane or helicopter flying too low, a weather balloon had come crashing toward land or a crime had been committed. The officer was not able to locate Raji or identify where the photo was allegedly taken, but found a similar photo and dialogue online describing the purported Tahoe siting.

"I absolutely think it's bogus," Ehle said. "It has no merit as far as I can tell. You can find somebody to investigate anything if there is money in it."

Although Davis and Dixon have yet to find any tangible UFO evidence, Davis said members of Open Minds Forum have paid him handsomely through a wire transfer to keep probing, though he won't disclose how much. He said a recent Los Angeles Times article about his work on the case inaccurately reported that his fee is $100 an hour. He said it's lower, and that he has donated a lot of time to the investigation.

Davis also said his clients have not asked him to believe in UFOs, just to determine the authenticity of the photo.

"It's not you have to believe in these things," he said. "I look for dead-beat dads, follow cheaters and runaways. Our jobs is to basically use these same skills. We're just trying to locate the witnesses."

The detectives are collecting UFO information at www.tkdavisinvestigations.com.



(santacruzsentinel.com)

[Text] International news briefs: Indian man marries dog to cast off curse

[Text] International news briefs: Indian man marries dog to cast off curse
NEW DELHI - A 34-year-old man in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu married a dog on Sunday in order to try to rid himself of a curse he believed had been placed upon him for killing two dogs, local media reported. Selva Kumar, an agricultural worker, said that when he was 18 years old, "he stoned two...

[Text] 'Witch school' under fire in Ill. village

[Text] 'Witch school' under fire in Ill. village
A witch school being advertised in the village of Rossville, Ill., has come under fire from local residents.

Dead woman discovered in two places

Scotland has fewer Nessie sightings

Dracula's castle subject of dispute

Dracula's castle on sale for 60 million euros

Dracula Castle Too Expensive for Romania

Museum offered head for shrinking

From BBC NEWS:

Ted Dewan has written to Oxford University's Pitt Rivers Museum to offer his own head for shrinking.

Children's author and artist, Mr Dewan is offering to leave instructions in his will for his head to be shrunk and put on display, if the Oxford museum's current collection of 10 heads from the Upper Amazon region has to be repatriated.
(BBC NEWS http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6679697.stm)