Sue Darroch and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

The Loch Ness Monster

This past week marked the anniversary of modern Nessie mania. From the this day in history website we learn that although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland's Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen "an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface." The story of the "monster" (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast.

Read the full article here, and watch the vid clip above. Thanks to Robin for the tip.

What are your thoughts on the Loch Ness Monster? Real, a hoax, something else? Would you go on a Nessie "hunt?"

Enjoy!

Hilton Head rentals, and vacation properties are sought after as a wonderful vacation spot by the masses, but there is plenty to be offered at this pretty holiday destination to the paranormal enthusiast as well.

It was with much interest that I first read about the Hilton Head Specter in the book Ghosts from the Coast, by Nancy Roberts.

While there are several haunts, the most famous perhaps is the story of the ghost of a young girl named Caroline Fripp who reportedly haunts the Hilton Head Rear Range Lighthouse, where she died.

If you know of any other good sources for Hilton Head ghosts or are yourself planning a vacation there with a mind to checking out the associated haunts please do let us know what you find!

Happy Hauntings!

I was recently sent some vintage UFO news clippings from a fellow researcher. These are concentrated in the Ottawa Valley, and I thought I would share a couple of snippets with you. Enjoy!

"Could it have been a "foo fighter" that streaked over Pembroke late one evening in November, 1944? J.
P. Sammon, the night watchman at the shook mills, was startled by the two balls of light dancing in the sky above him. He said the balls were travelling at a terrific speed and appeared to converge at one point. This was followed by three violent flashes of lightning. Sammon thought he'd seen an aircraft breaking up. Only this thing didn't crash.

In the 1950s, a similar sighting was made by Fred Gates. Driving to work in Deep River with two fellow employees, the Pembroke man was momentarily blinded by a blazing light dropping suddenly out of the sky. Gates lost control of his car and drove off the highway near Brindle Crossing. The unidentified flying object grazed the tree tops before disintegrating in a burst of smoke (an event of Roswellian proportions considering its proximity to Camp Petawawa). The Dominion Observatory in Ottawa deduced it was a large meteor that had struck the Petawawa ranges.

It was an unusual cloud, and not a meteor, that was seen by Jane Chaput on the night of Nov. 3, 1965. Her 11-year-old daughter frantically ran into their Normandy Avenue home screaming she'd been followed home by a "dancing light." It was around 8 p.m., so Jane went outside to investigate. She looked up to see the shimmering egg-shaped white cloud. She couldn't believe her eyes. The object drifted slowly over the Petawawa PMQs before disappearing. The cloud had also been observed by countless witnesses in Arnprior.

"At first I thought it was someone playing with a flashlight," she told reporters. "It was quite high and quite plain. It moved over a wide area near our home."

These types of vintage sightings intrigue me far more than the potentially hoaxed videos we see cropping up all over the internet these days.

I have had the opportunity to check out MP3 Rocket, provides its users with free music downloads, game downloads, movies, tv shows etc. It was a very rainy day in the T-dot yesterday so I was provided with a good day to sit inside, and play around on the computer.

The MP3 Rocket website, and software are very easy to use in my opinion. Aside from access to over 12 million songs, they also provide a very active forum for users to meet, and discuss current music, movies etc.

The site offers quite a bit of support, which is probably why they are so successful. There are FAQ's, a demo video, and contact info.

There are no hidden fees, or catches that I could find to using this service, although you can upgrade to a pro version for a nominal one-time fee.

There is also an affiliate program where you can make some extra bux.

All in all a pretty cool service in my humble opinion.