Obituary: Alvin Lawson dies at 80; UFO researcher questioned beliefs of alleged abductees - latimes.com

ACCORDING to Chinese folk tales, the gates of hell open annually during the Hungry Ghost month, which causes more deaths in this period, but Singapore statistics show a different story, China Press reported.

The daily reported that the seventh month of the lunar calendar, which usually falls in July and August, did not show a rise in the death toll.

Some funeral parlour operators said their business even declined compared with other months.

An undertaker said his business dropped 10% to 20% on the seventh month, so he would usually travel overseas on this particular period.

However, there were a number of undertakers who said their business increased as old people easily fell sick due to the weather change in the seventh month.

A feng shui master jokingly said it was baseless to claim that more people died during the Hungry Ghost month.

“The ‘officers’ from hell are too busy monitoring the ghosts, which can roam freely during the month, so they may not have time to take in new ones,” he said.

Another feng shui master said some older people believed that their spirit might be forced to wander around if they died during the month.

The daily also reported that a temple caretaker did not cut her hair for nine years to show her faith in God.

The 65-year-old Indian from Teluk Intan, known only as Soma, also did not wash her hair during the period, causing her hair to tangle and become hard like tree bark.

“This is the second time I have kept my hair for so long.

“The first time I kept it for 10 years before it dropped off,” she said.

Soma said she was used to people staring at her hair and that her mane did not affect her daily life.

Black Annis

Black Annis, also known as Black Agnes, is a bogeyman figure in English folklore. She is imagined as a blue-faced crone or witch with iron claws and a taste for human (especially child) flesh. She is said to haunt the countryside of Leicestershire, living in a cave in the Dane Hills, with an oak tree at its entrance.

She supposedly goes out onto the glens at night looking for unsuspecting children and lambs to eat, then tanning their skins by hanging them on a tree, before wearing them around her waist. She would reach inside houses to snatch people. Legend has it that she used her iron claws to dig into the side of a sandstone cliff, making herself a home there which is known as Black Annis's Bower. The legend led to parents warning their children that Black Annis would catch them if they did not behave.

It is thought that the earliest written reference to Black Annis was from the eighteenth century, from which a title deed referred to a parcel of land as "Black Anny's Bower Close". Ronald Hutton, in his book The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, suggests that the Black Annis of Leicestershire legend was based on a real person, Agnes Scott, a late medieval anchoress (or by some accounts a Dominican nun who cared for a local leper colony), born in Little Antrum, who lived a life of prayer in the cave in the Dane Hills, and was buried in the church yard in Swithland. Hutton suggests that the memory of Scott was distorted into the image of Black Annis, either to frighten local children, or due to the anti-anchorite sentiment that arose from the Protestant Reformation. In Victorian times, the story of Agnes Scott, or Annis, became confused with the similarly-named goddess Anu. T.C. Lethbridge made this connection and went on to claim that Annis was the personification of the Great Goddess in crone form, leading to interest from Wiccan groups.

While Agnes Scott may have been the inspiration for the local legend, the Black Annis figure has several possible origins. Some have claimed, as Lethbridge did, that the origin can be found in Celtic mythology, based on Danu (or Anu), wife of the Celtic God Llud, or it may derive from Germanic mythology (see Hel). It has been suggested that the legend may derive from a popular memory of sacrifice to an ancient goddess. Black Annis has also been identified as being the same as the Gaelic legend Yellow Muilearteach, with the wearing of the victims' skins a local addition to the myth. Others have identified her with the Celtic legend of Cailleach Bheare. The origin of the legend may go back to the mother-goddess of ancient Europe, who was remembered as a devourer of children.

It is thought that offerings of children may have been made to the goddess that inspired the legend in the archaeological Hunting Period, the oak tree at the cave's entrance also a common site of local meetings.

Annis was also represented in cat form and the legend led to a local ritual in early spring, when a dead cat would be dragged before a pack of hounds in front of her bower, to celebrate the end of winter.

Ex-military men say unknown intruders have monitored and even tampered with American nuclear missiles

Group to call on U.S. Government to reveal the facts

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Witness testimony from more than 120 former or retired military personnel points to an ongoing and alarming intervention by unidentified aerial objects at nuclear weapons sites, as recently as 2003. In some cases, several nuclear missiles simultaneously and inexplicably malfunctioned while a disc-shaped object silently hovered nearby. Six former U.S. Air Force officers and one former enlisted man will break their silence about these events at the National Press Club and urge the government to publicly confirm their reality.

One of them, ICBM launch officer Captain Robert Salas, was on duty during one missile disruption incident at Malmstrom Air Force Base and was ordered to never discuss it. Another participant, retired Col. Charles Halt, observed a disc-shaped object directing beams of light down into the RAF Bentwaters airbase in England and heard on the radio that they landed in the nuclear weapons storage area. Both men will provide stunning details about these events, and reveal how the U.S. military responded.

Captain Salas notes, "The U.S. Air Force is lying about the national security implications of unidentified aerial objects at nuclear bases and we can prove it." Col. Halt adds, "I believe that the security services of both the United States and the United Kingdom have attempted—both then and now—to subvert the significance of what occurred at RAF Bentwaters by the use of well-practiced methods of disinformation."

The group of witnesses and a leading researcher, who has brought them together for the first time, will discuss the national security implications of these and other alarmingly similar incidents and will urge the government to reveal all information about them. This is a public-awareness issue.

Declassified U.S. government documents, to be distributed at the event, now substantiate the reality of UFO activity at nuclear weapons sites extending back to 1948. The press conference will also address present-day concerns about the abuse of government secrecy as well as the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons.

WHO: Dwynne Arneson, USAF Lt. Col. Ret., communications center officer-in-charge

Bruce Fenstermacher, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

Charles Halt, USAF Col. Ret., former deputy base commander

Robert Hastings, researcher and author

Robert Jamison, former USAF nuclear missile targeting officer

Patrick McDonough, former USAF nuclear missile site geodetic surveyor

Jerome Nelson, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

Robert Salas, former USAF nuclear missile launch officer

LM: You did an episode of Destination Truth with Josh Gates. Are there any plans to do that again?
LM: Your the most prolific Tweeter I know - a lot of the GH team tweet, is that something you decided to do on your own or is Syfy's big push to get all their stars on Twitter the reason?

KW: Actually Jason and Grant started it. They began telling me you should really get on MySpace and then Facebook and then Twitter. So I started checking them out. MySpace was just too chunky but Twitter is very easy and I really like it. I can retweet and answer people immediately. A lot of times I'll get the same questions from several people and I'm able to answer them all with one tweet.

LM: You've been teasing your followers on Twitter lately about a big secret -- When will you be doing the big reveal?

KW: I don't know yet -- I can't say until I get the go ahead.

LM: There has even been a hashtag created for the secret #KrisBigSecret ...

KW: Yes, it's funny, I've been getting all kinds of crazy guesses.

LM: Which was your favorite?

KW: (laughing) Oh, there was one about starting a new reality show called 'Kris' new BFF' where you would have to learn to shoot, ghost hunt and sing a Doors' song in order to win.

LM: Speaking of the Doors, I hear you'll be joining a Doors tribute band in New York City. How did that come about?

KW: A mutual fan of the Doors tribute band and I got us together. Some of my other interests are that I'm a huge Morrison fan. I'll be doing the one appearance with them and we'll see New York goes.

LM: Will you be singing?

KW: (laughing) Oh god, no. I only sing to people I want to torture.

LM: Here on the blog I like to give you and Amy a hard time about sitting around a lot. Is it an editing thing where the clips they choose to include in the show of you, you just happen to always be sitting or is it really your ghost hunting technique?

KW: When we get to a location I like to wander around and explore. We'll try some debunking first, but we do a lot of EVP work and for that you really have to be as still as possible so sitting is the best way to achieve that, that way we aren't bumping into stuff or making noise that we have to tag (on the recording) for later.



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