The legend of the Pope lick Goatman!!

If you were a teen growing up in any part of Jefferson County, on some weekend you might get together with some of your friends and sit around telling ghost stories, attempting to spook one another. Sooner or later someone may eventually mention the monster that has long been rumored to be seen standing atop a 100 foot high rail road trestle in the eastern part
of Louisville.....

For years, many people have reported seeing the creature that many now refer to as the Pope Lick Monster on the trestles over Pope Lick Creek. It is said to be half human and half Capra Aegagrus Hircus, in layman’s terms, goat. The encounter with it is so startling that anyone daring to brave the walk across the trestle would rather fall the 100 foot drop to the paved road below than to stay in its presence a second longer.

The stories and legends behind the Goatman origins are as varied as the sightings of the creature itself. It is said that the monster was the offspring of a farmer who had unnatural relations with his animals. Another legend states that the Goatman was a farmer who practiced Satanism and would sacrifice his goats for power, when he was close to death he swore to live again. He was then resurrected as a half-man, half-goat being, which is fated to walk the trestles.

The final legend seems to have the most realism and the most detail.

 Interestingly it combines the Goatman story, with another tale synonymous with the trestle, the "Ghost Train" that is also rumored to appear on the tracks. A sudden flurry of motion as a train passes overhead along the trestles rails, but yet makes no sound of approach or passage. In the late 1800's there were rumors of a wild animal roaming the Canadian wilderness abounding. The creature's presence caught the attention of a circus owner by the name of Silus Garner. He offered a substantial reward for the creatures capture. Having finally had someone track and capture the beast he began to exhibit the Goat monster in his freak show. From town to town they went, the monster being one of his star attractions. Until one fateful night while bound for Louisville, lightening struck the track derailing the train and killing all passengers aboard except for one....the Goatman.

This seems to be one of the most well known of all of the legends associated with Louisville and Jefferson County, as with any area that has it's fair share of scary tales. In 1984, a low budget movie featuring the Goatman story was produced and filmed on location near Pope Lick. It received mixed reviews. Younger people were ecstatic that one of their favorite urban legends had been brought to life, so to speak. Older adults were worried that interest in the movie would lead people to venture out onto the trestle and risk their lives in pursuit of nothing but a good scare….

 http://www.louisvilleghs.com/LGHS_MASTER/SUB/Legends/Pope%20Lick/The%20Legend%20of%20Pope%20Lick.html

Siberian region 'confirms Yeti exists' after finding 'indisputable proof'

MOSCOW (AFP) - A Russian region in Siberia on Monday confidently proclaimed that its mountains are home to yetis after finding 'indisputable proof' of the existence of the hairy beasts in an expedition.

The local administration of the Kemerovo region in the south of Siberia said in a statement on its website that footprints and possibly even hair samples belonging to the yeti were found on the research trip to its remote mountains.

'During the expedition to the Azasskaya cave, conference participants gathered indisputable proof that the Shoria mountains are inhabited by the 'Snow Man',' the Kemerovo region administration said in a press-release.

The expedition was organised after Kemerovo's governor invited researchers from the United States, Canada, and several other countries to share their research and stories of encounters with the creature at a conference.

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/World/Story/STIStory_722008.html

 

The 'Slender Man legend'

The 'Slender Man' Legend - Something Awful Lurks
You could say that i'm a sucker, because I tend to have faith in the integrity of the people who tell me the tales that I already want to believe. If somebody regales me with Exorcist like anecdotes experienced during Ouija board sessions I'll buy it, and if you've seen spectres terrible and beautiful both, I'll take your word.
There have been thousands of sightings of Yeti, Chupacabra, Leprechauns, and the Loch Ness Monster, and if you'd told me that you'd seen any or all of these marvelous things I'd believe you. That is, until I heard the legend of the 'Slender Man'.
The Slender Man

Dressed in a black suit and with no visible face the Slender Man is a terrible apparition with arms that stretch wide to entrap his chosen prey. Towering high the Slender Man hunts children with a voracious appetite, stalking them through parks and play grounds, and has even been known to attack children within their dreams. Due to his attire the Slender Man has been linked to the notorious 'Men in Black', who are thought to be Government agents who harass and threaten UFO witnesses, and who some believe to be Aliens themselves.
The Slender Man is a heinous monstrosity who with tentacled appendages lurks in the dark, sniffing out and spying on small children, waiting to snatch them away. And as with many other monsters and Demons of popular legend the Slender Man frequently turns up in 'real' ghost photos, sightings, and stories. The only problem with this being, that the Slender Man is completely 100% made-up.

The Birth of the Slender Man
The Slender Man was born within the 'Something Awful' forums in 2009, when a thread was created to challenge members to create fake photo-shopped paranormal photographs. The idea however was not just to create these images, but to also filter them through the internet, in a bid to convince those who sought out such things, that the images created were authentic 'real' ghost/alien photographs. Many excellent images were created by the forums users, but it was one in particular created by 'Victor Surge' that caught the imagination of all who stumbled across its trail, and so began the legend of the Slender Man.

Something Awful Lurks
Despite the Slender Man being a complete fabrication his legend has spread like wild-fire throughout the internet, and since his humble creation within the Something Awful forums the Slender Man myth has grown in strength and scope, and is now widely regarded as a successful 'Internet MEME', a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the internet, much like an esoteric inside joke, that evolves with time.

Slender Man - The Movie
Not a Hollywood blockbuster but a YouTube sensation of sorts the 'Marble Hornets Project' is a series of video clips that were supposedly recorded by a teenager named 'Alex'. The segments of video taken from Alex's camcorder tapes follow him as he becomes increasingly concerned by the fact that 'something' sinister, is apparently stalking him.

Whilst Alex himself has mysteriously vanished, the video clips he left behind him become increasingly disturbing, as the Slender Man peers from distant corners. Now at twenty-two episodes or 'entries' long the Marble Hornets Project' has greatly increased the range of the Slender Man Myths reach, with some unfamiliar with the legends origin taking it at face-value, and they in turn spread the legends grip further still.

Is Slender Man Real?
So the Slender Man myth is smoke and mirrors, a clever concoction, a fictional fairy story, and an invention of the Internet age.


But still some claim to see him.
Could it be that more and more people are coming on board with the intention only of spreading this legend further and wider for fun, or could it be that those fooled, the impressionable and compulsive liars alike tell tall tales in attempts to impress or confuse friends and strangers. Either of these explanations are plausible, and most likely the reason behind any Slender Man sightings.

But perhaps there is a third possibility.

http://mrvoodoo.hubpages.com/hub/The-Slender-Man-Legend-Something-Awful-LurksLike the Tulpa of Tibetan Buddhism, thought-forms brought into existence merely through power of will and strength of mind. Is it possible that if enough people believe in something, that this belief alone could give birth to its form?

The Strange Story of the Minnesota Iceman

In 1968 two cryptozoologists, Ivan Sanderson, a science writer, and Dr. Bernard Heuvelmans, a Belgian naturalist, thought they'd made the find of the century.

Heuvelmans had been a house guest of Sanderson when the two of them heard about creature, not quite human and very hairy, that was preserved in a block of ice. The creature had been shown in carnivals and fairs across the mid-western United States. Its exhibitor, Frank Hansen, had claimed that it was a "man left over from the Ice Age" and charged 25 cents for a peek at the thing in its refrigerated, glass coffin.

 

Sanderson and Heuvelmans drove to Hansen's farm where the thing had been stored for the winter. In a cramped trailer they examined the creature and became convinced that they had found a Neanderthal Man, Bigfoot or something similar.

 

After three days of study Heuvelmans believed the beast was authentic. The doctor even smelled the putrefaction where some of the flesh had been exposed from the melted ice. They also discovered that the thing had apparently been shot through the eye. Heuvelmans guessed that the creature had been murdered in Vietnam during the war and smuggled into the United States in a "body bag."

 

Heuvelmans wrote a paper about the beast for the Institute of Natural Sciences in Belgium entitled, "Preliminary Note on a Specimen Preserved in Ice; Unknown Living Hominid." Sanderson wrote an article, called "Living Fossil," on the same subject for Argosy Magazine.

 

The Smithsonian Institution got involved when Sanderson approached Dr. John Napier about scientifically examining the creature. The Smithsonian, though, found out about the murder theory and asked the FBI to investigate. The head of the agency, then J. Edgar Hoover, declined pointing out there was no law violated if the beast was indeed a non-human. (The incident did give Hansen the opportunity to add a sign labeled "The near-Man ... Investigated by the FBI" when the exhibit went back on the road.)

 

An additional twist to the murder story occurred when the tabloid, the National Bulletin, ran a story in which a woman, named Helen Westring, claimed she'd killed the creature. According to the story Westring had been hunting near Bemidji, Minnesota, in 1966 when the thing had attacked her. She had dispatched it with a shot through the right eye.

At about the same time a Hollywood special effects firm claimed that they had made the "Iceman" in 1967. Howard Ball, who made figures for Disneyland with his son, Kenneth, had modeled the fake in rubber trying to make it look like "an artist's conception of Cro-Magnon man" with "a broken skull with one eye popped out."

 

Hansen never clearly confirmed or denied that the original creature was a model and, saying that the creature was really owned by a mysterious millionaire, then declined to have it examined further. The Smithsonian lost interest in studying it as they became wary of looking like they had been taken in by a hoax.

 

Sanderson and Heuvelmans, clearly embarrassed, backed off from their original claims about the creature.

 

http://www.unmuseum.org/iceman.htmAs for the "Iceman" himself, Hansen removed it from exhibition for a while and even reported destroying it, but rumors are it still shows up at carnivals every once in a while.

THE GHOST OF Billy Cook!!

Peace Church Cemetery is an old, ramshackle and mostly abandoned burial ground near Joplin, Missouri. Over the years, reports have circulated about strange sounds, voices and eerie lights that have been heard and seen in the cemetery. There are also reports of a ghostly figure who has been seen lurking in the trees, peering out at passersby and then vanishing when approached. It would be safe to assume that one of the restless souls buried here does not rest in peace. And when those from the area learn just who is buried in this cemetery, in a forsaken, unmarked grave -- a likely culprit for this restless spirit emerges.

Few mass murderers have ever gone on a worse killing spree than the one 21-year-old Billy Cook started on December 30, 1950. On that day, Cook, posing as a hitchhiker, forced a motorist at gunpoint to get into the trunk of his own car and then drove away. Over the next two weeks, Cook went on a senseless rampage. He kidnapped nearly a dozen people, including a deputy sheriff, and murdered six of them in cold blood, including three children. He also attempted other killings and terrorized the southwestern border states.

Cook was born in 1929 and grew up near Joplin. His early life was hard and had to make do with what he could between seven brothers and sisters. His father was an uneducated mine worker and after the death of Cook's mother, he raised the children in an abandoned mine shaft. One night, after drinking in a local tavern, he hopped a fright train and left the children to survive alone. Authorities found them huddled in the old mine, living like animals. Welfare workers were able to find foster homes for all of the children, except for Billy. His attitude caused people to stay away from him and he had a sinister-looking affliction of the right eye that would not allow the lid to close all of the way. He was finally taken in by a woman who did it purely for the money paid to her by the government and she and the boy never got along.

As he got older, Billy stayed out at night, getting in trouble and he ended up spending most of his formative years in reform school. He told a judge that he would prefer it to foster care and he got his wish.  He was simply born bad, most believed, and when he was young, he had the words “Hard Luck” tattooed across the knuckles of both of his hands. After being released, Cook immediately robbed a cab driver of $11 and stole a car. He was soon caught and sent back to reform school for five years. He became one of the most dangerous inmates in the institution and was sent tot he Missouri Penitentiary to finish his sentence. While there, he beat another inmate so badly with a baseball bat that the man almost died. He had made the mistake of laughing at Cook's drooping eyelid.

In 1950, Cook was released and returned to Joplin, Missouri to look for his father. The reunion was short-lived and Billy left town and started hitching rides through the southwest, ending up in Blythe, California. The only job that he ever held was here, washing dishes in a diner, and he soon grew bored and began to roam again, this time heading for Texas. Somewhere along the way, he picked up a snub-nosed .32 caliber pistol and he kept it tucked away in his pocket. Cook had little use for anyone and frankly, hated people -- all people -- and he decided to put those feelings into action when he kidnapped his first victim, a motorist, near Lubbock, Texas. Luckily for the driver, he used a jack handle to open the trunk from the inside. He held it down until Cook turned off the highway and onto a secondary road. Sure that the young man planned to kill him, he jumped out when the car slowed down and escaped by running across the flatland.

Cook drove the lonely stretch of highway between Claremore and Tulsa, Oklahoma before the stolen car ran out of gas. He left the vehicle on the side of the road and walked on. A few minutes later, he saw a 1949 Chevrolet coming toward him. Cook waved frantically, as if he had encountered car problems, in an effort to get the car to slow down.

The driver, Carl Mosser, came to a stop. Mosser, his wife Thelma, and their three small children were on vacation from Decatur, Illinois and on their way to New Mexico when they picked up Cook alongside the road. Many would wonder today why they would have picked up a hitchhiker with small children in the car but those were different times then and Americans had not yet been bombarded with the gruesome images of death and murder that were to come in the media and in entertainment. They had nothing to fear, they believed, and simply wanted to help out a man who was down on his luck. Cook repaid the family’s kindness by pulling a gun and forcing Mosser to drive into Oklahoma and then to Texas. Carl frantically worried for his family and hoped that his twin brother, Chris, who lived in Albuquerque and was expecting the family for a visit, would start to worry and alert the authorities.

Cook had forced him to drive to Wichita Falls, Texas and Mosser kept thinking of ways to try and get ride of the maniac. He thought he saw a chance in Wichita Falls when the car started to run low on gas. He urged Cook into a filling station for some fuel and food. Mosser pulled into the station and told the elderly attendant to fill the tank. When he asked, at Cook's orders, that some lunch meat be brought to the car, the attendant told him that he would have to get that himself. Mosser went inside, followed by Cook, and it was then that Mosser grabbed a hold of Cook and tried to pin him from behind. Frightened, the old attendant pulled an old .44 caliber revolver and waved it nervously at the two struggling men. He ordered Mosser to let loose of Cook and Carl tried to explain what was happening. Too scared to help, the old man ordered them out of the station. The two men continued to fight and then Cook broke away and pushed Mosser through a plate glass window.

The old man, now terrified, locked himself inside as Cook ordered Mosser back to the car. As the automobile drove off, the old man now jumped into his truck and gave chase. Cook saw him coming and fired several shots at him. With that, the attendant's bravery vanished and he stopped the truck.

Cook was now seething with anger and he forced Mosser to drive to Carlsbad, New Mexico and then on to El Paso, Texas, to Houston and then on to Winthrop, Arkansas. He then had Mosser turn the car toward his old stomping grounds in Joplin. Finally, after more than 72 hours of this, Thelma Mosser became hysterical and started to cry. The children also began to wail and Cook gagged all of them except for Carl. Soon, after a police officer seemed to be paying too much attention to the Mosser car, Cook grew tired of his game and turned his pistol on the family. He shot and killed all of them and for good measure, shot the family dog too. He dumped their bodies in a place he knew well, an abandoned mine shaft near Joplin.

Eventually, the Mosser’s car was found abandoned near Tulsa, Okalahoma. It was like a slaughter pen, with the upholstery ripped by bullets and blood splashed everywhere. Their bodies were soon discovered but Cook left something behind in the car -- the receipt for the handgun that he had bought. His identity was soon learned and a massive manhunt was launched.

Cook headed for California and there, he kidnapped a deputy sheriff who had almost captured him. He forced the deputy to drive him around while he bragged about executing the Mosser family. After more than 40 miles, Cook ordered the lawman to stop and forced him to lie down in a ditch with his hands tied behind his back. He told the man that he was going to put a bullet in his head and then, for some reason, climbed into the car and drove away. The officer waited for the bullet but it never came. The officer would never know why he was spared. A short time later, Cook flagged down another motorist, Robert Dewey, and wounded him. The two men struggled and the car left the road and careened out into the desert. Cook ended the fight with a bullet to Dewey's head and he threw the body into a ditch.

By this time, an alarm had been raised all over the southwest and so Cook decided to head into Mexico. He kidnapped two men and brought them along to Santa Rosalia, a number of miles across the border. Amazingly though, Cook was recognized by the local police chief, Francisco Morales. He simply walked up to Cook, snatched the gun from the man’s belt and placed him under arrest. Cook was then rushed to the border and turned over to FBI agents.

Despite the slaying of the Mosser family, the Justice Department turned Cook over to the California courts and he was tried for the murder of Robert Dewey. Cook displayed as regret about this murder as he had the others -- in other words, none -- and he was sentenced to death. On December 12, 1952, he died in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

Billy Cook’s body was later returned to Joplin but no one would have anything to do with him. Eventually, he was buried in Peace Church Cemetery in an unmarked grave, but only on the condition that he was buried outside the boundaries of the graveyard. As many believe though, he does not rest here in peace and mysterious sightings of a shadowy figure have been spotted here for quite some time.

- Personal Interviews & Correspondence (thanks to Tammy Leach)
- Nash, Jay Robert - Bloodletters and Badmen (1995)http://www.prairieghosts.com/peace.html

UFOs and ghosts among 'paranormal activity' investigated by police force

The paranormal: There were five instances of weird activity reported to Tayside Police, featuroing UFOs and ghosts.

A number of sightings of paranormal activity, including UFOs and ghosts, have been investigated by police in the Tayside region, a report has revealed.
Although officers in Dundee, Perthshire and Angus did not receive any reports of zombies, witches or vampires, several people raised the alarm with police about an "alien spacecraft".
One person also contacted Tayside Police in January 2009 claiming they were being attacked by ghosts in their Dundee house.

But officers who attended found that the person who raised the alarm was hallucinating.
The weird and wonderful cases that officers from Tayside Police have been called out for in the last three years has been revealed in their response to a Freedom of Information request.

Three of the five incidents of paranormal activity in Tayside reported between 2009 and 2011 have been given explanations by officers, while the other two remain unexplained.
Apart from the hallucinatory incident involving ghosts in Dundee, officers also explained to a witness reporting a UFO sighting in Crieff, Perthshire, in February 2010, that the orange lights in the sky were not from an unknown life-form, but that of Chinese lanterns.
The next month police received a report of another UFO in Fife, which officers investigated and found out was in fact a radio transmitter.

However, in an incident that would have got X Files' Mulder and Scully excited, at 11.11pm on May 13, 2009, a witness reported a UFO sighting in Glen Lyon, Perthshire.
They described a triangular shaped bright white light in the sky, which police have still classified as "unexplained".

Almost a year later at around 2am on April 27, 2010, a Dundee resident reported a sighting of lights in the sky over the city, believed by the caller to be either UFOs or day break
No police attendance was requested or required, although the incident has been recorded as "unexplained".

The freedom of information request asked for details of "reports of UFOs, ghosts, witches, vampires and zombies" in the last three years.
The response to the request explained it “may not reflect an accurate picture of the number of reports of this type” made to the force as these were the paranormal activity reports containing the keywords.

In order to carry out a thorough check of all odd goings-on reported to police, they would need to go through every single report manually for the last three years, which would exceed the £600 threshold for the processing of a request under Freedom of Information legislation.
Tayside Police also could not provide details of how much money and manpower had been spent on investigations into paranormal incidents.



(Here are some of the incident's as reported by Police) ~Cryptid Hunter~

- In January 2009, an individual in Dundee claimed they were being attacked by ghosts within the house – following attendance by police officers, it was ascertained that the individual had been hallucinating.

- During February 2010, a witness reported a sighting of UFOs in Crieff, which were described as orange lights in the sky.  Following investigation, these were identified as legitimate objects (chinese lanterns).

- During March 2010, a witness reported a sighting of a UFO in Fife – the caller was advised that the item in question was a legitimate object (a transmitter).
Details of the remaining 2 ‘unexplained’ sightings are as follows:

- On 13 May 2009 (2311 hours), a witness reported a UFO sighting in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, described as a triangular shaped bright white light.

- On 27 April 2010 (0158 hours), a witness reported a sighting of lights in the sky over Dundee, believed by the caller to be either UFOs or day break – no police attendance was requested or required.

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/tayside/248622-no-zombies-of-vampires-just-ufos-and-ghosts-the-paranormal-activity-reports-police-have-received/

Russian scientists develop miracle dressing

Russian scientists have developed a drug-free method of healing wounds that may prove as revolutionary as the discovery of penicillin.

The miracle nano-dressing, VitaVallis, created by researchers in Tomsk, Siberia, helps clean up wounds of all known types of toxic bacteria. It does not get stuck to the wound and heals burns, cuts and any septic and infected wounds two to three times faster than traditional methods do. The dressing stops bleeding, ends inflammation, eliminates swellings and stimulates skin regeneration. It also helps kill pain and remove foul wound odour.

The most remarkable thing about VitaVallis is that it contains no antibiotics and is therefore effective against drug-resistant bacteria, the gnawing problem of clinical medicine.

“The traditional way of treating wounds is to apply antiseptic medicated bandaging to kill pathological microbes, whereas our dressing ‘sucks' microbes from the wound without administering any drugs,” said Dr. Marat Lerner, whose laboratory at the Tomsk Institute of Strength Physics and Materials Sciences developed the technology.

During hospital trials the new dressing cured a 4th-degree massive burn with ghastly-looking lesions at the back of a young man's head within 80 days, against 150 to 180 days normally required to heal such wounds.

The new method was developed at the junction of physics and medicine. It is based on the long-known fact that pathological bacteria typically carry a negative electric charge. Siberian researchers figured that positively charged material should be able to extract bacteria from wounds.

The secret of the VitaVallis antiseptic dressing is the positively charged nanosized alumina fibre which drags negatively charged microbes and lock them down in the absorbing layer.

“The method works with all types of pathological microorganisms and it does not matter whether they are resistant to antibiotics or not,” said Dr. Sergey Psakhye, Director of the Institute of Strength Physics of the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “There are no analogues of our method in the world.”

In the 21st century when more people die from sepsis infections than from strokes and heart attacks, the VitaVallis technology may prove just as ground breaking in saving lives and revolutionising healthcare as the discovery of penicillin was in the 20th century.

Aquelite, the company set up in Tomsk to commercialise the new technology, has recently launched the first production line and plans to expand the output from the current from million to 100 million nano-dressings next year. A 10x10 cm dressing sells in Russia for 120 roubles or about $4. Interestingly, the technology was first developed for innovative water filters that dramatically improve the efficiency and speed of cleaning biologically contaminated water. The creators of AquaVallis filters claim it is the world's first water system that guarantees 100-per-cent protection from viruses, bacteria and parasites and does not require any additional disinfection.http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/article2523670.ece