The Gralien Report

Occasionally, strange imagery and other questionable anomalies appear in footage collected by security cameras and other surveillance equipment, due especially to the strange locations and hours those cameras remain in operation. While scanning a series of emails I received recently, someone had forwarded me a link to this odd footage at the website Disclose TV, depicting some sort of abnormal illumination moving about:

Disclose.tv – Aliens caught on tape in China – TV news Report Video

Although the footage is labeled (rather sensationally) as “Aliens Caught on Tape in China,” what it appears to depict, in fact, is one of the better instances where the rare and ubiquitous phenomenon known as Ball Lightning has been captured on film. Previously, due to the sporadic nature of this sort of manifestation, it has been seldom filmed or photographed. Is this indeed the identity of the anomaly in the film, or is it something else?

Tonight at 9 EST, the infamous Timothy Green Beckley will appear as a guest on Nick Redfern and his friend Raven’s new show Exploring All Realms.

“I will be discussing my friendship with Uri Geller and the Amazing Randi (arch debunker) and comparing it to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Houdini. Also some recent goodies and a whole bunch of stuff.”

Beckley (otherwise known by his alias “Mr. UFO”) is an expert on a variety of esoteric subjects pertaining to UFO phenomenon and celebrity Americana. Paired alongside the prolific Mr. Redfern and his lovely co-host, this should be quite an event!

According to Chinese officials, a bright flaming object seen near East China’s Zhejiang Province Wednesday evening is creating a stir over flight delays at nearby Xiaoshan International Airport. Air traffic controllers, who reportedly “spotted” the object with flight instruments but were unable to obtain a visual, were concerned about the presence of the UFO, and diverted air traffic from the area to locales in Ningbo and Wuxi.

According to a statement by one airport staff member who remained unidentified, it was confirmed that the object “could not be seen with the naked eye. It had to be spotted with observation devices.”

Residents in nearby areas dispute this, claiming to have seen clearly an object over East China’s Zhejiang Province. Some reports describe a bright fireball moving quickly through the sky, while others refer to a large UFO “hovering” over the area. One UFO enthusiast described seeing a “bright (yellow) spot very high up in the sky around 8 pm.”

An article posted at the English People’s Daily, subsequently linked to the Drudge Report, appeared to have been removed from the site as of this morning. Other links at popular international news site remain, with varying accounts pointing to an official explanation being released later today.

Image by Navicore via Flickr.

These days, it seems I hear more and more about Sleep Paralysis. In my estimation, this must be due in part to the way that the culmination of information pertaining to strange phenomenon today has allowed an “overlap” of experiences. What I mean by this is that the variety of sources available allow people to relate to others who have had similar things happen to them, whether that be sleep paralysis, an encounter with a ghost, or perhaps a hallucinogenic episode that is remarkably similar to both of these.

But when it comes to Sleep Paralysis in particular, nobody comes to mind more quickly than my friend Louis Proud, author of the book Dark Intrusions: An Investigation into the Paranormal Nature of Sleep Paralysis Experiences (a close second would be Dr. David Hufford PhD., who authored Proud’s introduction). Recently, Louis sent me a recorded segment he has done where he gives a wealth of information about the nature of Sleep Paralysis, delving into a variety of the subjects discussed in his book, as well as rather startling personal experiences of his own with the phenomenon. Below is a link where you can listen to Louis discussing the scientific and paranormal nature of this strange sleep science:

Louis Proud on Sleep Paralysis

Also, to purchase the book, you can visit this link.

Recently, I was discussing with a friend a variety of the strange and devastating occurrences that have been frequently occurring around the world, and which only seem to be precipitating disaster. For one, the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf led to what is now accepted as the most devastating environmental disaster in our country’s history. However, the cause behind the initial explosion that resulted in the oil leakage, a methane pocket that escaped into the pipeline, now has environmental scientists concerned, with worst-case-scenarios ranging from uncontrollable gas leakages to speculation about a gigantic tsunami that could ravage the Southern coast of the US.

Truth Out reported today on the Gulf’s “Methane Monster,” warning that methane building there isn’t the only concern we have right now. “The Siberian Shelf alone harbors an estimated 1,400 billion tons of methane,” author Craig Collins wrote, noting this amount to be close to double the amount of carbon in all the trees, grasses and flowers on Earth. “If just one percent of this escaped into the atmosphere within a few decades, it would be enough to cause catastrophic, uncontrollable climate change.” Although the debate over the science behind anthropogenic global warming is still a point of partisan contention, are there certain natural occurrences that may occur in the future that indicate climate change, man-made or not, is inevitable?

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As time goes on, people’s perceptions begin to change. Things that once held a certain fascination begin to lose their luster, and one will eventually find that although there are many wonders of this Earth, not all that glitters is gold. Maybe it’s a natural process; just something that happens with age, and experience.

I preface this report with a healthy spattering of curmudgeonry because within the last 48 hours, mere miles from Headquarters here at the Gralien Report, something extraordinary allegedly occurred: a Shelby, NC man has claimed to have had an encounter with a six fingered, 10-foot-tall humanoid with “beautiful hair.” Local media has referred to the creature as a Bigfoot.

The basic story goes like this: Shelby resident Timothy Peeler made a 911 call pertaining to a June 5 encounter in which he claimed to have seen a Sasquatch, described as “upwards of 10 feet tall” and having a call similar to “a night bird.”

Some aspects of the story do differ between reports featured by various local media outlets. For instance, the creature’s “beautiful hair” was described by the Charlotte Observer as having yellowish-blond hair, whereas the Shelby Star’s report detailed how the creature “sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.” These descriptions seem to conflict somewhat, although both accounts mentioned the creature having long hair and a beard, as well as the rather peculiar characteristic of six-fingers on each hand. Police filed a report for a “suspicious person,” but were said to have kept an open mind regarding Peeler’s extraordinary claims.

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Think of the variety of electronic devices you use every single day: from cell phones, to navigation systems in the vehicle you drive, ATMs and electronic banking, and even the computer you’re reading this on right now. What would happen if these sensitive devices were suddenly rendered useless?

At present, this is the very sort of thing that NASA scientists are concerned about, warning that Earth’s sun is now awakening from “a deep sleep” which could result in massive solar storms that, worst case scenario, might be capable of knocking out Earth’s electrical grid.

Utilizing both existing satellite systems paired with new advances and partnerships with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), scientists are discovering new ways to study the sun’s behavior, and although the latest technology in use still represents “a field in its infancy,” data collected is enough to cause concern, according to experts.

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When I was younger, particularly around the time of middle school, I remember sitting in English and Literature classes reading stories by famous American authors the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, and several others. At the time, I used to question what we were reading, and why, as so much of the literature young students like myself seemed, at the time, to be too open ended or inconclusive. Granted, this was often the case because of the fact that the stories being read weren’t meant to be solely enjoyed as prose with beginning, middle and end; there were often deeper themes in the stories which, as an adult, are painfully obvious.

Nonetheless, as a youth with little understanding of things like the Cold War era, or of the horrors of a world at war with itself in the 1940s, these things weren’t quick to present themselves, and I often found myself critiquing writers based on my own misunderstanding. For instance, it wasn’t until years later that I realized that Rod Serling’s The Monsters are Due on Maple Street (the script of which we also read as an example of American literature) not only highlighted social issues such as the danger of prejudice and hysteria, but also played off the fears of Red Scare sentimentality.

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With their eyes pinned on the skies, it could be argued that no one might be in a better position to see UFOs than astronomers. Years ago, a friend related to me that an associate of his, an astronomer who often operated with a large Clamshell observatory-style telescope, claimed that in all his years of watching the stars at night, he had never seen any evidence of unidentified aircraft drifting through Earth’s atmosphere. But what kinds of factors really might determine the likelihood of astronomers and hobbyist star gazers seeing a UFO… if they exist?

Over at the Daily Grail’s blog, Ufologist extraordinaire Chris Rutkowski, author of Abductions & Aliens – What’s Really Going On and A World of UFOs, has been speculating on whether there are simple explanations behind the age old criticism of UFOs and astronomers who report (or fail to report) seeing them.

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My good friend Red Pill Junkie of the uber-popular Daily Grail website has just written a fantastic review of my book, Magic, Mysticism and the Molecule. If you haven’t read the book yet, you might enjoy getting some of RPJ’s commentary on the subject matter over at his blog on the Daily Grail website:

Book Review: Magic, Mysticism & The Molecule.

Here’s a brief excerpt from RPJ’s review:

In this era we’re using the tools of science to probe the electromagnetic frequencies in search for other civilizations that might share our galactic neighborhood —the ONLY method endorsed by mainstream science, since any notion of possible visitation happening today or in the past is anathema to the edifice of Academia; but even before the invention of radioastronomy, many humans have attempted contact with ’superior beings’ in search for knowledge, power or enlightenment.

Whether these entities were members of the angelic legions communicating with famous magician John Dee through ’scrying stones’ & the Enochian language, or the modern-era ‘Space Brothers’ who also happened to favor the same psychic channels developed by the Spiritualist movement in the late XIXth century, many people have tried to find ‘doorways’ into the unseen metaphysical worlds, said to be inhabited with transhuman intelligences by both ancient and modern mythic traditions.