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Yet Another Chicago Mothman Sighting Reported

John D — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 14:20:49 +0000

It would seem that the bat-like Chicago Mothman that we have been following for the last week has made yet another appearance. Here we have a report submitted to the UFO Clearinghouse (unedited):

“I am currently attending university in Chicago , Illinois and I wanted to respond to the informational flyers about recent events involving the large bat-like creatures. I was enjoying an evening with my girlfriend and taking a well deserved break from my studies. We decided to go out and enjoy the unusually warm weather that we were having and go for a walk. As we walked toward a community park near the campus, we were talking about our classes when a commotion amongst a group of people caught our attention. As we looked toward the group of about 4-5 people, something caught my eye and I looked up to see this thing fly overhead.

It looked like a man; it looked like a man with wings! He flew about 10-12 feet above us and was perfectly silhouetted against the evening sky. In all honesty, it looked like an immensely oversized Sugar Glider, the kind I would see back home in Tasmania . It had the rough shape of a sugar glider, but its eyes were nothing like the soft eyes of a glider. They glowed red! We saw it for about 4 seconds before it disappeared from view. At first I thought I saw a man in a hang glider, but it was those bloody eyes that made me thing otherwise!

I at first thought of ringing someone, but I didn’t want them to think I had gone crazy. To say that I was Gobsmacked would have been an understatement”

As one commenter on UFO Clearinghouse stated, the report seems a little “overwritten”, but I am not as quick to immediately write it off as a hoax as the commenter is (though I am not about to accept it as gospel either). There are some people who just happen write/talk in an overly flowery manner for a number of reasons. It is troubling that the report while so full of “detail” seems to lack any real detail of the encounter like where or when it occurred. It is possible that those details are missing because the encounter never happened. I also think that it is possible, especially if more cowardice was involved in the encounter that the witness is willing to admit, that he may not be sure where or when the encounter happened and the extra fluff is an attempt to compensate for the details he is to proud to admit. If the Chicago Mothman is becoming a “thing” we do need to become more mindful of hoaxes as the awareness of the phenomena grows. Unfortunately, we will see false reports from skeptics poking fun at investigators and from everyday people who just want to be a part of the excitement. Hopefully more witnesses will come forward and help to corroborate these Mothman sightings.

Another sighting report of the Chicago/UIC Mothman

Possible Mothman Sighting In Chicago, Illinois [September 30, 2011]

John D — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 16:00:14 +0000

[UPDATED] It looks as if a Mothman may have paid a visit to the Windy City. According to witness reports a large bat-like creature with glowing red eyes was spotted in the University Park neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois on Friday, September 30th 2011. Witnesses spotted the creature, which they estimated to be 6 to 7 feet tall, perched on a basketball hoop in Miller Park. When it took off, the heard an audible “whoosh” as it beat its wings. Nearby two female witnesses were moved to hysterics when they spotted a pair of glowing red eyes peering in the window. Researchers have identified multiple witness and are currently investigating the incident.

If the creature that was spotted in Chicago was a Mothman, could there be a tragedy in the city’s future? If we are to believe the historic sightings of the Mothman, it very well may be. After the 1966 and 1967 sightings in Point Pleasant, West Virginia the Silver Bridge, which connected the town to Kanauga, Ohio over the Ohio river collapsed during rush hour killing 46. There are also reports of a Mothman type creature being spotted around the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant shortly before the plants catastrophic failure in 1986. If the Mothman is indeed an omen of catastrophe, what does the future hold for Chicago?

UPDATE: I can’t believe that I failed to make the connection when I was writing the post, but Friday Oct 8th there was a major freight train derailment 100 miles outside of Chicago. The derailment set off a series of massive explosions that caused the evacuation of the 800 residents of the small town of Tiskilwa, Illinois. Amazingly, no one was hurt in the accident. Could the Mothman sighting be linked to this accident, or is something else in store for Chicago?

A possible Mothman sighting in Chicago, Illinois? [via @CoraxSays]

Strange Lights In The Sky [Lee's Summit, Missouri - October 4, 2011]

John D — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 22:30:39 +0000

Here we have an interesting video that, unfortunately, comes to us with very little information other than it was recorded on October 4th somewhere in the United States in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. From the weird aspect ratio we can surmise that it was taken with a cellphone camera, like the one found on the iPhone 4 (which I know firsthand will produce this aspect ratio if held vertical). From the color of the objects we can rule out Chinese lanterns (which would be orange) since there does not appear to be any tampering with the white balance (the street lamps are still orange as they normally would be). What we can’t rule out is that we are seeing white or clear helium balloons with white LEDs inside, at least with the resolution available on YouTube. If this footage was shot on an iPhone 4 there should be better quality footage of this event somewhere that might clear this up. Adding some weight to the balloon theory is the audio track. This sighting seems to have occurred at a bar or concert where the balloons may have been used as accent lighting. However, the audio isn’t completely in favor of the balloon hypothesis. If you listen carefully you can hear people asking “what is it?” Ultimately, without more information and better video, I don’t think this sighting can be labeled one way or another. What do you think?

UPDATE: The location this video was taken is now being reported as Lee’s Summit Missouri and more reports of the sighting are piling up in the MUFON database. Could this be the next Phoenix lights?

UFO formation recorded in USA October 4 2011 [via UFOs On Earth]

Does this CCTV footage show a young girl’s ghost?

John D — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 19:21:16 +0000

Here is an interesting video that is making the rounds today. It is supposedly from a mobile phone shop in Leeds, Yorkshire in the UK. In the video we see what appears to be the apparition of a girl cross a doorway in the upper right portion of the screen. The poster claims that after researching the shop he found that it was built on the site of the “Yorkshire Orphan Asylum”. A quick Google search for that name doesn’t turn up anything other than stories about this clip. In addition to this inconsistency, we have a strange anomaly in the time code on the footage. The CCTV system seems to be taking 1 frame every 2 seconds, starting at 01:46:58. The next step is 01:47:00 but then it jumps to 01:47:01 then proceeds in 2 second increments until the end of the clip. To me this jump seems to indicate the footage has been tampered with, either with someone inserting the time code into the footage to make it appear more authentic (but messing up the intervals) or someone editing 1 frame/sec or faster footage to have it appear more “ghostly” or to remove telltale clues. Additionally we have quite a bit of lead-up footage, but only a single frame after the “spirit” leaves the view. Why not show more? This makes me wonder what the poster doesn’t want us to see. Presented with what we have here, I am inclined to say, for now, that this is a hoax unless more evidence is presented to prove otherwise. What do you think? Hoax? Ghost? Let me know in the comments.

Video: Ghost Caught On CCTV?

Triangle UFO Formation Caught On Film Over Moscow [September 7, 2011]

John D — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 14:45:08 +0000

Here we have an interesting clip filmed by a cellphone wielding Muscovite looking out from an apartment window in the North Chertanovo district of Moscow. It shows a triangle formation of lights floating slowly inside a cloud bank before disappearing off into the distance. Having been filmed on a cell phone, there isn’t much detail in the clip, but the light sources appear to fluctuate as they move through the clouds as one would expect lights inside a cloud to do. Also they appear to remain equidistant, which seems to eliminate the possibility that we are seeing 3 Chinese lanterns. As far as the clip’s audio track, we can hear two voices speaking Russian. While I don’t speak Russian (coincidentally if someone does and would like to leave a translation in the comments, that would be awesome), the speakers seem to have a slightly quizzical tone in their conversation which leads me to believe they don’t understand what they are seeing. All in all, it would seem that this clip is possibly a genuine UFO sighting (baring of course that it is not a CGI fueled hoax – which in this day and age can never be ruled out when considering a YouTube video). What do you think? UFO? Chinese lanterns? CGI Hoax? Let me know in the comments.

Angry Fish? Your Aquarium May Be To Blame

John D — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 14:20:54 +0000

Your aquarium is pissing off your fish, at least according to a new study by Ronald Oldfield at Case Western Reserve University published in the Journal of Applied Animal Welfare Science. For the study Oldfield observed Midas cichlid in a variety of environments ranging from their natural habitat to home aquariums. Oldfield found that as the size and complexity of the habitat was reduced, the fish behaved with more aggression. Responses ranged from angrily flaring fins to murder. That’s right, a poorly thought out aquarium can drive a fish to murder. While your average goldfish probably isn’t a threat to you, do you really want to take the chance when some extra plastic plants and ceramic castles could help calm the savage beast?

Angry Fish Inhabit Most Home Aquariums

UFO Filmed Zapping A Statue Of Jesus With Electricity

John D — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:55:01 +0000

This video from Chile shows a saucer shaped UFO hovering over what is described to be a statue of Jesus and then releasing some sort of electric discharge that hits the statue. The people that you can hear on the video appear to be genuinely surprised by what they are seeing/filming which leads me to think that the video may be genuine. Assuming that the footage is not a hoax, that only leaves me to question the electric discharge. Was it intentional (and if so why) or was it an accident that occurred when the craft got to close to the statue? Let me know what you think in the comments.

Saucer in Chile Zaps Jesus Statue [via Get X News]

UFO Over Miami, FL 3/23/08

John D — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 22:48:32 +0000

While trawling through the recent UFO reports in MUFON’s database, I came across this video of a UFO seen over Miami, Florida on 3/23. While there is not much detail in the video and there is definitely a lot of air traffic over Miami (both legal and illegal), I feel this video may have some merit and deserves to at least be investigated further:

From the report to MUFON:

I stepped outside and noticed a very large orange glow to my left.
I saw this “acorn-shaped” object growing in size- hovering over the rooftops. It was transparent on the bottom half. I ran inside and grabbed my Sony HandyCam Hi8– and yelled for my girlfriend to come see. By the time I started filming, it was already moving away and shrinking.

Additionally, a commenter on the YouTube page claimed to have seen the same or similar craft much further to the south somewhere in the Caribbean on the same night.

The lack of any strobe or marker lights in the video, lead me to believe that this is not video of an aircraft. There are what appear to be stars in the background at one point in the video as well as a brief clip of a railing of some sort as the cameraman lowers camera after the object disappears. Unfortunately, the poor low light performance of the camera leaves us with very little detail in the clip to give us any clues to the objects altitude, location or size. Despite these shortcomings, I believe this is a valid video of an object in the sky that is not an aircraft following civil aviation regulations and may very well be some sort of unknown craft. What you believe, is up to you. Let me know what you think in the comments.

MUFON Report
UFO 3/23/08 Miami FL. @ YouTube

So I Saw a UFO, Now What?

John D — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:30:59 +0000

photo by dev null If you are lucky enough to see a UFO (hopefully it was a pleasant experience and nothing horrific happened), the first thing I would suggest doing is writing down a detailed account of what you saw (including the date, time and direction you were facing) and draw as detailed diagrams of the craft and maps of where you were in relation to it. If you later choose not to report the sighting you can just destroy this information if you like, but if you do report your encounter it will help you make it as detailed as possible. Once you have taken notes about your sighting, take a minute to relax and let the initial excitement pass. Now you have to consider a very important question, whether or not to report your UFO encounter.

When you consider reporting your sighting the first thing to think about is if there is a simple, non-UFO, explanation for what you saw. Ask yourself, could what I have seen been an known aircraft? Another common source of UFO reports is the misidentification of stars or other celestial bodies. You can use a sky chart like the one at Sky & Telescope (free registration required) to see if there are any visible stars, planets located where you saw your UFO. You may even want to call your local community college or science museum to see if there were any meteor showers the night of your sighing. Don’t feel like this analysis should make you doubt what you saw – you did see something. This is just an exercise to see if when you think back about your sighting if you can come up with any good explanations. Even if you are not 100% sure you saw a UFO it is okay to report it (you just do not want to report something that you 100% know wasn’t a UFO). The next question you have to ask yourself is much more personal and will require some soul searching to find the answer.

If you decide to report your sighting (or even tell your friends about it), you have to consider what sort of ramifications it will have on your life. Previously I posted about the phenomena where UFO sightings made by even very credible witnesses are viewed as having no credibility what so ever to the public at large simply because the person witnessed a UFO and not something more “everyday” like a crime. Unfortunately, people who are lucky enough to see a UFO are often not held in the highest regard and are often subjected to a fair amount of ridicule. Going on record about seeing a UFO can even completely destroy your credibility and depending on your work, have a negative effect on your job. You have to seriously consider the benefit to the public that your sighting report will have versus any personal challenges you may face because of it. Personally, I wouldn’t blame anyone who chose to keep their sighting to themselves or only share it with a select few. One ray of sunshine in this dark issue is that almost all UFO research groups will let you submit reports anonymously (though it will have an affect on how credible they feel the report is) or help you to remain anonymous in any public disclosure of your report. Ultimately, the choice is yours alone. There are no wrong answers.

If you got through the paragraph above and still feel that it is important that you report what you saw to someone, then it’s time to do it. Now, you could call your local news station and if it is a slow news day they might listen to you, but if they air your story don’t expect them to portray you as anything other than a crazy person. A much better choice would be to report your sighting to MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network) or NUFORC (the National UFO Reporting Center) both organizations are serious about UFO research and are fully capable of conducting a full investigation of your sighing if they feel it warrants it. Even if they don’t send an investigative team out to you, they compile your reports in a database (which is partially publicly viewable) so they can see if your sighting in part of a trend in UFO reports. Each organization has its own online form (MUFON’s is here and NUFORC’s is here) and NUFORC has a UFO hotline to report recent sightings. On the subject of reporting a UFO to the police, I am of the opinion that if the UFO is not threatening your or the public’s safety that you should avoid calling 911 (don’t hesitate to call if someone’s safety is at risk though). If your police department has a non-emergency line and you want to file an official report, that would be a good way to do it.

Don’t forget to drop us a line at tips@meetstheweird.com to share any sightings with us too!

MUFON UFO Report Form

NUFORC UFO Report Form

NUFORC UFO Hotline

Sky and Telescope Interactive Sky Chart (Free Registration Required)