The Gralien Report

I have various friends in Europe who follow Vampire lore, like the case of the infamous Highgate Vampire alleged to haunt Highgate Cemetery in North London. David Farrant of the British Psychic and Occult Society, who had remained for years at the heart of the investigation for years, has sent me numerous documents about this strange instance of possible vampirism over the years via mail.

But vampires in England aren’t any big surprise; vampires in other parts of Europe might be a bit more intriguing. Now there is new evidence that the legend of nighttime’s most notorious blood-suckers might have spread to other parts of the area.

The Sunday Herald reported today that “A 4000-YEAR-OLD “vampire” grave, believed to be the world’s first burial place for one of the presumed ‘undead’, has been discovered in eastern Europe. It bares spookily similar hallmarks to Celtic tombs in the British Isles designed to prevent bloodsucking ‘revenants’.”

You can read the entire article by clicking here. Does this indeed prove that evidence of belief in vampires extends as far back as the Bronze Age?

Occasionally I like to post weird stories just for their Fortean quality. This one definitely qualifies:

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/07/17/6182866.html

With bizarre photo of lighting “fingerprint” on the doorbell!

For decades there have been stories circulated which seem to draw parallels between two of the greater extremities of strange phenomena: those having to do with UFOs and space visitors, and those that suggest that many of the strange beings people have reported encounters with over the centuries are members of a vast underground civilization. I’m personally fascinated by the latter, as many readers of The Gralien Report may know from previous articles I’ve done that have dealt with this topic. But where do all these parallels between UFOs and underground “proto-human” races intersect?

It has been suggested by a variety of Ufologists, even hinted at in the work of authors like Ivan T. Sanderson, that the “aliens” we hear reports of, with their vast technology and apparent neutrality or outright apathy toward contact and communication with us (I say this to avoid going into “the conspiracy zone” about world governments suppressing alleged contact made during past extraterrestrial visits), may actually reside closer to home than we imagine. Indeed, many believe our “alien visitors” could be Earth’s original inhabitants, and that they have remained here, below ground or below the planet’s seas, for longer than humans have cared to wonder if there may be “life out there”.

But where does this notion come from? There are bizarre reports that I’ve come across from time to time, like this report about an alleged subterranean system which the Navy had been exploring below the western United States, which was recently sent along to me by my friend and correspondent Jim. There are also the tales of underground bases and frightening encounters with alien entities within these locations, released to the public from time to time by those claiming to have worked or visited there. But I began to wonder if there might be some initial “source” that could have gotten people’s mind working along the lines speculative theories regarding underground races. Incidentally, I discovered a series of just this sort of transcripts, dating back to around the time of what may possibly be the most pivotal year in the history of Ufology: 1947.

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This video clip has appeared on Youtube (apparently having been posted March 9th), detailing a low resolution clip of a “transparent humanoid” which locals in Veracruz, Mexico, claim tried to attack them:

Click image to view the video

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This link has appeared on Youtube showing the “glowing man” of Argentina in a 3D rendering done by area police near the Salta Province (click the image below to activate the link):

Is that hair on the little guy’s head, or is the red area over it’s peculiarly shaped noggin some kind of rash? I speak in jest of course, but either way I may have one of my bilingual correspondents translate the accompanying audio on this clip for us, as it may provide useful information about the nature of this weird looking rendering…

UPDATE: My friend Javier Ortega over at Ghost Theory had this to add, as well as a general translation of the video linked above:

In regards to the video you have posted, it’s the media asking a farmer to explain what he saw. 

In this video, he goes into more specific details about his appearance: Big eyes with not eyebrows or eye lashes, long straight nose, big forehead,high cheekbones and thin upper lip. His clothes looked like a diver’s suit, maroon colored, long hands and long fingers with no fingernails. His hair was copper colored. That’s pretty much all he says in that video.

It’s nice to have other excellent researchers out there with so many resources! Thanks Javier!

-Micah!

In European folklore, when one found a ring of mushrooms growing in the forest, it was believed to mark the entrance to a secret fairy realm; hence the given term for this naturally occurring ring formation, the “Fairy Ring.” Though the conditions for the formation of these rings aren’t fully understood even today, scientists presume that it is likely the result of a large, coenocytic (single-celled) fungi being present beneath the earth. Though the manifestation is understood to be one large cellular formation, it is dispersed with multiple nuclei throughout.

Fairy Rings are also often associated with the growth of necrotic circles of grass, a circular area where plant life withers or dies altogether. Especially when present in large fields, these circles have been associated with crop circle activity in the past.

SHALL WE DANCE? : A man saves his friend from mischievous little folk in the 1860 painting “Plucked from the Fairy Circle” by T.H. Thomas.

Meanwhile, a similar phenomenon has been occurring over for years in Canada, referred to as the “Forest Rings of Ontario,’ which describe the thousands of large circular formations in forested areas of the boreal landscape of northern Ontario. First photographed in the 1950s, the odd circles have been likened to crop circles in that aliens and UFOs are often called as a common culprit.

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Further complicating the matter of Mexican Witches is this fine roundup of perspectives concerning the “Witch of Monterrey”:

http://www.wonderfularticle.com/archives/linkghosttheorycom_1484/

The most interesting of all of them may be the link provided by the popular website Cabinet of Wonders which brings to the forefront of the argument the testimony given by policemen in the area. The post at the Ghost Theory website which appeared the same day as my initial article also presented a fabulous interview with Ana Luisa Cid, a Mexican Ufologist who interviewed these officers.

Honestly, (and not to go for the jugular every time, mind you) I tend to look at anything this bizarre from a skeptic’s perspective. Still, if the testimony of the police officers remains incorruptable, this would have to  leave a hole in the otherwise plausible hoax theory regarding the object in the video being a balloon (the rational for which is given here). Could it be that, once the officers made headlines with their initial report, the hoaxers took to the field, propagating unprecedented weirdness surrounding an honest-to-goodness report of Fortean activity at the heart of the matter?

They’re baaaack… or rather, they were never gone! The bizarre UFO filmed over Mexico which I blogged about last week has made headlines again, as reported today by The Sun.  One Mexican Ufologist is under the impression that Monterrey’s “Flying Witch” could be authentic:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1118824.ece

Interestingly, around the time that I did my blog post last week titled Here be Witches: Reports of Flying Fiends, another post detailing the same subject appeared on the blog Ghost Theory which featured an interview with the UFO investigator referenced in the Sun article above:

http://ghosttheory.com/?p=51

Ana Lusia Cid is a Mexican Ufologist and paranormal investigator who has been featured on the History Channel and other various media discussing her research. The link above features a very interesting interview with Cid, which details never-before events in this mysterious case, as well as very detailed descriptions of the “black-eyed witches” reported by police officers around the time of the initial disturbances.

It’s funny that this case seems to just get weirder with time! Also, it becomes more and more difficult to justify this being a mere “UFO” sighting with the newer detailed descriptions given by Ana Lusia Cid via the Ghost Theory blog; if anything, this has truly entered the realm of the Fortean oddities! What do you think?

While scanning the web looking for various links to videos of “monsters” in Latin America recently, I came across the following video of a purported “witch” filmed in mid flight over Monterrey, Mexico:

Click the image above to view the video

Though I first came across the video several months ago, it was nice to stumble across it again (and to see something other than the typical UFOs and Chupacabras for which central America is best known). True, the shape of the flying object in the clip might be considered witch-like, though in my opinion the resolution of the video makes it too difficult to really say what it could actually be. My initial impression was that it could be some kind of kite or balloon tethered to a moving vehicle.

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While driving around one day I ended up playing a “thought game” with myself where, in an effort to brainstorm ideas for short horror stories, I considered what things scared me most. The first things that come to mind for many of us involve sickness and disease, as evidenced by the growing number of films today which revolve around humankind being introduced to foreign strains of bacteria and infections, often leading to bizarre malformations and eventual death like in Danny Boyle’s film 28 Days Later, as well as the Resident Evil series based on the popular video game.

But as I began to consider what really scares me deep down, I was able to relate my fears to my long-time interest in cryptozoology, and touch on something that I find both truly strange and fascinating, yet nonetheless terrifying. My own greatest fear, at least along the lines of a “what if” basis, would have to be strange creatures living deep within the earth.

Jeff Long’s novel The Descent, upon which the film of the same name was loosely based

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