By STAFF REPORTER

Published: 05 Aug 2008

THIS tiny elf-like figure dubbed the “leprechaun-alien� was caught on camera as he flees a forest.

The wee chap - who looks no taller than 3ft - can be seen running from the woodland just as a tourist whipped out his camera.

He was snapped in Lake Tahoe, USA, by holidaymaker Lloyd Deneau, who paused to take a picture of the stunning trees and caught the extraordinary teeny figure.

Lloyd, 41, from Florida, swears the image has not been doctored.

Aliens

“When I took the picture I’m sure there was no one there," he said.

"It was only when I downloaded it on my camera that I saw it.

“I showed it to my friends and family but no one can explain it.

“My kids coined it the leprechaun-alien.�

He added: “I have a military background and don’t really believe in aliens, but I can’t explain this.�

As well as an elf, leprechaun and alien, the figure has even been described as a baby BIGFOOT.


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LONDON (AFP) - UFO enthusiasts got a boost Friday when Welsh police confirmed that one of their helicopter crews had spotted an "unusual aircraft" flying over Cardiff earlier this month. An investigation into the sighting had been launched, they said.

The police clarification came after The Sun reported a UFO had "attacked" a police helicopter, following it for several miles over the Bristol Channel. "The pilot banked sharply to avoid being hit, then launched into a high-speed pursuit. But he was forced to give up the chase as the helicopter's fuel ran low -- and the UFO escaped," the tabloid reported. The helicopter crew had described the object as "flying saucer-shaped and circled by flashing lights," it added.

"Err... " not so, said the police.

"South Wales Police can confirm its air support unit sighted an unusual aircraft. This was reported to the relevant authorities for their investigation," police said in a brief statement, avoiding the use of the term 'UFO', or unidentified flying object.

At the time of the incident, the helicopter with three men on board was waiting to land at the St Athan RAF base near Cardiff. The sighting reportedly took place at 00:40 am (23:40 GMT) on June 8.

South Wales Police denied there was a pursuit and indicated that the helicopter crew was never in any danger.

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When two unrelated human feet washed up on the beaches of two small islands north of Vancouver in six days last August, a spokesman for the Mounties said the odds of it happening were a million to one. This week the number of feet found rose to six.

What's going on? Police in British Columbia are confounded, saying they have never seen a case like it.

The feet have all been recovered along the shorelines in the Strait of Georgia, which lies to the south and west of Vancouver.

They were all encased in trainers, and five out of the six are right feet. Police say it is not yet clear if a crime had been committed. They said they had found no evidence that the feet had been severed.

DNA has been collected from the first feet, but police say that there has been no match to anyone on their missing persons database.

The unusual nature of the case has prompted much speculation by amateurs about a possible murder mystery, links to organised crime or to the 2004 Asian tsunami.

Experts have come up with different theories as to how far the feet could have travelled on ocean currents. There was initial speculation that they could have drifted more than 1,500 miles.

However, as the number of discovered feet goes up, experts have scaled down the distance they believe the feet have drifted.

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a Seattle-based oceanographer who specialises in how things float on the ocean's currents has dismissed the idea that they could have come from the Asian tsunami, because the distance is just too vast.

He was quoted by AP suggesting that the feet were a result of a possible accident along the Fraser River, and that they could have washed down and spread out along the Strait of Georgia.

Dr Simon Boxall, an oceanographer from the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton in the UK, agrees that the feet are likely to have originated locally.

Why feet?

"The fact that they are being found repeatedly along the same stretch means they have to have come from roughly the same source, and that source is likely to be local," he told the BBC News website.

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By PATRICIA C. McCARTER
Times Staff Writer patricia.mccarter@htimes.com

New Earth Festival hears of the legend from Walter Rice

You've got four and a half years to get ready for "it."

According to folklore, 13 crystal skulls were created in a dimension other than this world up to 30,000 years ago and hidden in Central and South America. On Dec. 21, 2012, the skulls will reunite, activate and save the Earth from doom.

Eight of the skulls have already been discovered. Five to go.

During the New Earth Festival here Sunday in a college conference room, paranormal enthusiast Walter Rice, 37, discussed the legend of the crystal skulls - which have gone mainstream with the new "Indiana Jones" movie - and what it could mean for mankind.

"If there's anything to it, the world will be changed in 2012," said Rice, a waiter who came to Huntsville 18 years ago as a young soldier. "Some people believe the skulls will save the Earth from Armageddon or some horrible natural disaster. Others think it will signal a new spiritual awakening.

"I'm a believer and I'm a skeptic. I just don't know."

The New Earth Festival, held at the Bevill Center on the University of Alabama in Huntsville campus, was a patchouli-scented affair featuring tarot card readings, healing with crystals, energy balancing, chair massage and spell kits. Ten lectures were given during the weekend fest, with topics such as vibration healing, past life regression and ghost hunting.

Given the increased attention to the legend with "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," Rice had plenty of people who wanted to talk to him about the allegedly magical skulls. He himself has touched one of the eight crystal skulls, "and truthfully, I did feel an electric charge when I held it."

But, he acknowledges, "quartz does hold an electric charge."

The origin and age of the skulls is not known. Some experts say because of the likely technology used to carve them, it's impossible for skulls to be older than 100 or 200 years, therefore the mystery is a hoax.

Still, some of the skulls are kept in legitimate museums, such as the Paris Museum and the British Museum. The Smithsonian received an unsolicited donation of a crystal skull, though museum anthropologist Jane Walsh was recently quoted in a Smithsonian publication that testing showed the skull was a fake.

Believers say aliens that came to South America shared their technological advances with the Mayans, and that's how they were created with such precision. Coincidentally, the Mayan "long count" calendar ends on Dec. 21, 2012; astronomers predict the solar system will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way on that day for the first time in 26,000 years, though it's doubtful the Mayans knew that centuries and centuries ago.

Instead of the apocalypse, Rice is keeping his fingers crossed for a metaphysical uprising, a time when the spiritually aware become even more enlightened and educate the masses on ... whatever "it" turns out to be.

"I guess we'll find out in 2012," Rice said. "I'll sure be paying attention on that day."


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By Rosemary Ford
Staff writer

Some kids fear the boogeyman. Lisa Williams feared the bloated, clown-like faces that tried to talk to her when she was 3 years old.

The dead guy at the dinner table, on the other hand, could work in her favor when he told her to refuse to eat her peas. (It wasn't until later, Williams said, that she and her parents came to believe that the ghost delivering that advice was none other than her great uncle, who choked on a pea and died.)

"I grew up thinking it was normal," until the age of 7, said the 35-year-old celebrity psychic who, after realizing that she possessed clairvoyant skills, would hide them until much later in her life.

"It was for me to accept that I could be normal and have a life and do this work," she said.

Ultimately, Williams would accept her calling. Today the British psychic who was discovered by the late media mogul Merv Griffin has gained worldwide acclaim through her Lifetime television series, "Lisa Williams: Life Among the Dead." The show features Williams with clients in her office, visiting haunted places and stopping random people on the street when she feels a departed loved one is trying to get them a message.

She also recently published "Life Among the Dead," her first book. It hit stores this month, and hundreds of people have turned out for her signings, sometimes waiting hours in line to see her, she said.

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If you’re wondering, the picture above is apparently the ghost of Jim Morrison, taken at his grave in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

One of the most glaring flaws in the argument in favor of the existence of spirits, ghosts, etc, is that in the majority of sightings of full body apparition-type ghosts, the ghosts are wearing clothes. If ghosts are indeed the energy of soul of departed humans, why wouldn’t they just be naked? About.com’s Stephen Wagner posed this question to a few paranormal researcher, and got some pretty good, if somewhat vague, answers:

This could be a totally unconscious effect of the energy on the living person, or it could be a manipulation on the part of the spirit itself, perhaps causing the person to see what it wants them to. To understand this, I suggest that you close your eyes for a moment and then visualize yourself in your mind. How do you appear to yourself? Most likely, you were wearing clothing in your imagination. With the idea that a ghost appears looking in the same way that he sees himself, this might explain why so many ghosts that are seen are not only wearing clothing.

SIGHTINGS of a pontianak (woman vampire) captured on video have caused a stir among locals in Malacca, reported Harian Metro.

For the past fortnight, droves of people have gathered at a bridge near Jalan Pulau Gadong, Malacca, where the 50-second video-clip was purportedly filmed.

Many stayed up to the wee hours of the morning hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectre.

The video clip, circulated via mobile phone, shows a woman with long black hair and clad in a white cloth floating in midair while whimpering.

A receiver of the video clip told the Malay daily that he had heard many stories about the pontianak.

“Some say she would appear like a damsel in distress but when approached, she would turn into a pontianak.

“I’ve also heard that the police were called in by several men who stumbled upon the apparition, who was asking if they had seen her missing child.

“As soon as the police arrived, she would turn into her true self and disappear,� he said.

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FRANCIS, the Adelaide Arcade ghost, has been caught on the centre's security cameras for the first time, so it appears.

Adelaide Arcade promotions manager Sharon Leaney provided the City Messenger with the eerie surveillance footage which shows a burst of light, man-like, fading in and out, near the Grenfell St end of the arcade.

"It's been on the surveillance cameras for quite a few days," Ms Leaney said.

"We have had lots of reports of people hearing footsteps, going cold, but this (film) is the first time I've ever seen anything."

The Adelaide Arcade ghost is said to be its former caretaker Francis Cluney.

He was investigating a flickering light one night in June, 1887, when he fell into the generator and died. Adelaide Arcade, built in 1885, was the first mall in Australia to boast electric lights.

Adelaide Arcade's resident clairvoyant Joan Lesley has no doubt it's Francis on camera.

"He's a nice guy," Ms Lesley said.

However, she said he wasn't happy with the upgrades and renovations to the arcade, such as a new lift near where the generator used to be, or the refit of the Haigh's shop, on the Grenfell St corner.

Ms Lesley said the arcade was also home to other ghosts: Francis' friend, who she thinks is called Joseph, and a baby and a woman, who were both smothered in the precinct.

"(The upgrades) disturb the ghosts' peace when they come out," she said.

Arcade trader Voula Kasdalis, of Deva hair and beauty, said Francis was a friendly ghost.

"My husband and I have felt things like a tap on the shoulder but it's friendly," she said.

Innovation Science director Michael Haddy was sceptical but admitted to experiencing a few strange occurrences.

He once ducked into the arcade on his way to the airport, at about 5am, when doors started slamming. There was no wind.

"It was kind of spooky at that time of the morning and as far as I'm aware no one was in the arcade at the same time."

Ghosts are rumoured to haunt other city locations, including the Railway Station, Old Parliament House, the SA Museum and the Old Adelaide Gaol.

In North Adelaide, there have been reports of other-worldly beings at Carclew House and in the cellars of the British Hotel, which were once used by the police as a temporary morgue.

SAFM's breakfast team was planning a stay over in Adelaide Arcade tonight (April 10).

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A Bosnian man whose home has been hit an incredible five times by meteorites believes he is being targeted by aliens.

Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that all the rocks Radivoje Lajic has handed over were meteorites.

They are now investigating local magnetic fields to try and work out what makes the property so attractive to the heavenly bodies.

But Mr Lajic, who has had a steel girder reinforced roof put on the house he owns in the northern village of Gornja Lamovite, has an alternative explanation.

He said: "I am obviously being targeted by extraterrestrials. I don't know what I have done to annoy them but there is no other explanation that makes sense. The chance of being hit by a meteorite is so small that getting hit five times has to be deliberate."

The first meteorite fell on his house in November last year and since then a further four have smashed into his home. The strikes always happen when it is raining heavily, never when there are clear skies.

He said: "I did not know what the strange-looking stones were at first but I have since had them all confirmed as meteorites by experts at Belgrade University.

"I am being targeted by aliens. They are playing games with me. I don't know why they are doing this. When it rains I can't sleep for worrying about another strike."

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By Lisa Ettridge
THE Ghost Train at Blackpool Pleasure Beach has long been a popular attraction with thrill seekers, but over recent years it would seem guests have been getting more than they bargained for.
Staff have reported hearing the chilling sound of footsteps which they believe come from a former ride operator named Cloggy.

Cloggy, so named for his traditional choice of footwear, died around 30 years ago, but is thought to still keep an eye on his old workplace.

As well as hearing the distinctive sound of his footwear in the ride, staff have also reported seeing him in the faint form of an apparition.

Electrical equipment also seems to be affected by the spooky presence and there have been reports of unexplained events such as TVs coming on when the power is off and even a hand-held video recorder stopping working for no apparent reason.

Eerie

Danny Moore, an electrical supervisor at the attraction, says he had seen m
any eerie goings-on during the 15 years he has worked on the Ghost Train.

He said: "I haven't actually seen Cloggy, but I have seen some strange things taking place.

"One night a few years ago I was walking towards the ride and saw the skull's eyes flash at me a few times. When I went to investigate the power had already been turned off.

"It gets to the stage sometimes when you start to question your sanity!"

It isn't just the Ghost Train that has been the subject of spine-tingling activity. Staff at the Star Pub have reported sightings of a male figure in the cellar and in the old living accommodation.

The apparition was spotted by workmen in the building.

A figure has also been seen at 3am walking through the bar before disappearing.

The Ice Rink also claims to have several ghosts with performers reporting seeing strange things backstage and in the dressing rooms.

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