The Howden Moor Incident

An incident that has the plot of a classic sci-fi film, but the events of March 24th 1997 are very real to those involved and it is well-documented. Was it simply a coincidence of unrelated happenings, or a wider cover-up by authorities? It looks like we will never know, but it is a fascinating tale from the Sheffield area of the U.K.

The first call came in to police at 10.15pm on the night in question, soon followed by many more - reports ranging from a triangular-shaped U.F.O being chased by jets, loud booming noises and a low-flying aircraft heading towards the hills, either way there followed a bright flash and loud explosion.

The police, kind of surprisingly, took these calls very seriously, and a major search of the area was quickly mounted involving the police helicopter, mountain rescue and the fire service ,with the local hospitals being put on standby to receive multiple casualties from a crashed airplane. They contacted the R.A.F and were told no aircraft were missing and there had been no military craft flying in the area and an exclusion zone was put in place by the R.A.F over the search area so there would be no interference from other aircraft. The search covered approximately 40 square miles … nothing was found.

The next morning the police set up a special phone line to take calls from the public, it was soon inundated by reports, again of low-flying aircraft and military jets chasing something. Theories included an aerial drugs drop gone bad and even a ghost plane that is said to haunt the moors. Following a T.V documentary called ‘Mysteries’ which aired in October 1997, the police issued a statement which read:

“No explanation was ever found and we remain open-minded about what was behind the sightings.”

On March 28th 1998 the incident was brought up in - of all places - the House of Commons. Edinburgh seismology department confirmed that two sonic booms had been recorded that night at 21.52pm and 22.06pm, the R.A.F denied any supersonic aircraft being in the area at the time stating it was illegal to break the sound barrier over land in the U.K.

The fruitless search and subsequent investigations cost the U.K taxpayers tens of thousands of pounds which some have speculated was the reason the military denied all knowledge. Some believe there was a cover up and that a triangular craft was indeed being pursued by Tornado jets, one of which crashed in a reservoir - the R.A.F did set up a 10 mile exclusion zone around the reservoir which seems odd. It has also been reported that there were secret, low-flying military operations in the area at the time, and that a jet may have gone supersonic creating the sonic booms. Logically speaking it is unlikely that the R.A.F would conduct such maneuvers so very near to a major built-up area, but who knows.

The mystery remains, questions go unanswered, but whatever happened that night, it was seared into the memories of the witnesses. Extraterrestrial activity, a simple accident that inexplicably left no wreckage or a military cover-up? We’ll never know.

Photo by Albert Antony on Unsplash

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The Staircase

 Hi folks, 

I am rewatching The Staircase after listening to the BBC Sounds podcast about it and I am getting a wider view...although am still undecided on Mike Peterson's guilt. The podcast is told more from the side of the prosecution, lots from those who thing he is absolutely guilty and the evidence to show it, whereas the Netflix documentary is more from the defense point of view - also with evidence to show it. It is an intriguing case, no doubt with lots of  "ah yes...but" moments...quite the brain workout!

Crime Scene: The Vanishing at The Cecil Hotel

The shear number of weird goings on and the strange guests that The Cecil Hotel in L.A has seen over the years is truly fascinating... murders, suicides and residents such as Richard Ramirez spark interest in me and so many others. One of the most famous features the strange behavior and subsequent disappearance of Elisa Lam - most of us with an interest in 'the strange' have seen the elevator video, and this documentary on Netflix goes into great depth and detail about her story and eventual discovery in one of the water tanks on the roof. Answers are given, and without handing out any spoilers, I would highly recommend this show - even with some conclusions, the number of synchronicities given in episode 3 cannot fail but grab one's attention. It is the story of a young woman, what happened to her and the impact it had on those staying at The Cecil...well worth a watch.

The New Jersey Turnpike UFO Sighting.

Just after midnight on the 14th July 2001, droves of motorists including off duty police officer Lt Daniel Tarrant pulled over their cars along the highway at the New Jersey Turnpike and stared in awe towards the sky. A set of orange and yellow lights was sitting in a V-formation over the Arthur Kill Waterway between Staten Island and New Jersey and it was observed for around 15 minutes.

When asked, Air Traffic Control denied any military maneuvers or space operations that could be the lights so many people saw, however the New York Strange Phenomena investigators apparently have FAA radar data that corroborated the event. Still unidentified.

2006 O'Hare Airport UFO Incident

At approximately 4.15 in the afternoon on 7th November 2006, in broad daylight at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, a large number of witnesses both inside and outside airport grounds, including United Airlines pilots, mechanics and management reported a UFO hovering over gate C-17. They described a metallic, saucer-shaped craft between 6 and 24 feet in diameter which was totally silent. After several minutes it "shot through the clouds at high velocity" leaving a hole in it's wake which closed up shortly afterwards.

To have a sighting described in the same way, by so many witnesses, some of whom were very familiar with the airport and who were professionals in their field is astounding...even more incredible is that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) 'declined to investigate' the incident as the UFO didn't show up on radar (even more reason to check it out in my opinion!) and explained it away as weather phenomenon.

NARCAP - The National Aviation Reporting Centre on Anomalous Phenomena published a 155 page report in the incident and called for a government inquiry on the basis that;
"Anytime an airborne object can hover for several minutes over a busy airport but not be registered on radar or be seen visually from the control tower, constitutes a potential threat to flight safety."

Levelland UFO sightings.

The Levelland UFO case is known as one of the most impressive simply due to the large number of witnesses to the same events, although of course it was discounted by the US Airforce and skeptics as 'ball lightening' among other things.

It began on November 2nd and 3rd 1957 at Levelland Texas when two farm workers called the police to report a UFO sighting. Pedro Saucedo and Joe Salaz said they had been driving west of Levelland and had seen a blue flash near the side of the road, their truck's engine died and they told of seeing a rocket shaped object rise up into the air and flew over them. Once it had passed, the truck started up again. This report was dismissed immediately, but then an hour later Jim Wheeler rang to report an egg-shaped object, brightly lit which was about 200 feet long, which was sitting on the road. Similarly his car engine had died and the craft flew off when he got out of his vehicle to approach it, once gone his car kicked back into life.

The accounts kept coming, including;
10.55pm a couple reported a bright light moving across the sky, their car lights and radio failed for a few seconds during the sighting.
Joze Alvarez reported his car dying when he came across a large object on the road, once it had gone the car was fine.
12.05am a student called to report his car struggling and eventually dying before he saw a large egg-shaped object in the road, it flew away and his car came back to life instantly.
12.15 Frank Williams called to report a sighting along with his car cutting out until the object had left.
12.45 Ronald Martin called.
1.15 James Long rang with his report stating the same as those beforehand.

By the end of the night, 15 people had reported incredibly similar accounts, the Sheriff and the Fire Chief also saw unexplainable things of a similar nature.

Apparently, according to ufologists, there were no electrical storms in the area that night as mentioned in Project Blue Book, and the airforce did not interview 9 of the witnesses.
Fascinating stuff!

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelland_UFO_case
https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/levelland-ufo.htm

Evil Has A Name - Podcast on Audible.

I, like many of us, am very interested in true crime, the psychology of it, methods used to apprehend perpetrators and justice being done. When a case goes unsolved for so long that this doesn't seem possible however, it is terrible.

Evil Has A Name is just such a tale, broken down into 14 podcasts it tells the story of years of cat and mouse style frustration by those involved in trying to catch the Golden State Killer, entire careers devoted to it, profiling, searching and attempting to connect many, many dots. It tells of how science progressed over the decades to facilitate new lines of enquiry, and how people from different branches of the criminal investigation worked together towards the same end.

Without giving anything away, I will say that I highly recommend this podcast, it certainly gripped me as I 'binge-listened' to it. Real people speaking of real events, often harrowing but always interesting.

Available on Audible, just my personal recommendation, I receive no perks for this post.

Weekly round up of the strange - check this out.

Every weekend on the Myth or Maxim blog there is a post featuring the Myth or Maxim Chronicle which is a round up of the week's tweets, news and stories from around the world, it makes for really good reading with links back to the original poster's page.

This week featured a Paul Walker conspiracy, strange sounds from the skies and UFO stories and is well worth checking out...

Read it HERE along with other issues.

Jack the Ripper identity revealed?

We love the whole Jack the Ripper thing - articles, books, documentaries and fantasy based on facts, so when the story broke that the killer's identity had been discovered using DNA evidence, we had to have a look. The piece in the Independent newspaper told of an author and a scientist who claim to have found out who 'Jack' really was beyond doubt, however on reading the article we (and clearly the writer of said column) thought...nah!

See it for yourself HERE and make up your own minds :)