Kudos to director J.J. Abrams for capturing the look of 1979.

The movie itself is engrossing, at first. The audience learns in the beginning of the movie that an industrial accident has claimed the life of a woman. The woman’s son and husband are left to begin the grieving process. The film moves to four months after her death.

The son, Joe, deals with the loss of his mom while helping his three friends make an amateur zombie movie. The movie’s script calls for a girl. So, the four boys ask a girl named Alice to participate in film. Joe apparently has a crush on Alice.

On the first night of the filming with Alice, the pre-teens witness a spectacular train accident, which begins another storyline in the film. The military moves in to town, pet dogs clear out of town, and people begin to disappear from town without a trace. Strange things are afoot in town, but the filming of the film within the film continues. So does the grieving process of a widower, as well as a son left without a mother. (Warning: major plot twist revealed in the next paragraph. Skip it and move on to the next if you don’t want to know.)

The widower, who is also the local deputy sheriff, quickly moves on to the blame and anger stages of grief. We learn that his deceased wife was only working that particular shift four months prior to cover for a co-worker. It’s revealed that the co-worker couldn’t work his shift that day, because he was drunk. We learn that alcohol helps him to deal with his wife leaving him and his daughter, some time before.  The daughter is Joe’s love-interest, Alice. Alice and Joe are forbidden to see each other by their fathers. So begins a sort-of Romeo and Juliet story in the summer of ’79.

The clothes, the cars and the music, like I said, are spot-on for 1979. What was happening in the world around the fictional town was not. One reference to popular culture, early in the film, was incorrect: the Rubik’s cube. When this reference was made early in the movie, I fell out of my own personal time machine and hit the ground hard. I spent the rest of the time in the theater trying to recall that particular summer, since my memory seemed to be failing me.

I couldn’t put my finger on it until I got home. The Rubik’s cube reference would have fit the following year, 1980. So that reference threw me. Something else mesmerized the world in 1979, which I would have recalled if I wasn’t puzzled over the Rubik’s cube:

Skylab was falling that summer.

During the summer of 1979, people all over the world pondered the falling-back-to-earth of Skylab. NASA had no idea where on earth the 85-ton space station would land. Of course, it would largely break up when it entered the earth’s atmosphere, but pieces of it could still kill you.

I was terrified of Skylab. I didn’t want to die. Neither did anyone else. It was a big, big deal.

Skylab caused an international media frenzy. Who can forget  those 12 million radio listeners who participated in a mass meditation to halt a potential disaster? Those listeners employed  “mental energy”, on a day in May, to try to push Skylab into a higher orbit to prevent its re-entry. It didn’t work. It fell back to earth in July 1979.

It fell into the ocean and no one died. Still, it was a big, big deal at the time. At the time, which would perfectly correspond with the time frame captured in Super 8. Abrams missed a great opportunity to incorporate Skylab into the plot. It would have been a better reference to popular culture than the Rubik’s cube.

Okay, back to Super 8. The rest of the movie is great. It’s revealed that an alien from outer space is behind the strange goings on in town. The alien also happens to have some issues dealing with his own personal pain and grief. So, it basically all ties together and works out in the end.

If you seek nostalgia,  think back to what you were doing when Skylab was falling. This, of course, doesn’t apply to younger viewers who won’t know the difference.

The film is directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. It stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning and Kyle Chandler. The film has a run-time of 112 minutes and is rated PG-13.

To follow more posts about UFOs/ UFO News / Extraterrestrials, Cryptozoology, Fringe Science, Psychic Phenomena, Ghosts and Hauntings and other general paranormal topics, visit http://www.paranormaloldpueblo.com.

Back in November 2010, Fox31 News in Denver posted an article about a strange horse mutilation incident at the Schneider family ranch in El Paso County, Colorado. The family found two of their horses dead and badly mutilated on their ranch last August. After the discovery, the family filed a report with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department and called in paranormal investigator, Chuck Zukowski, to search for answers.

The horses were discovered with their throats slit and chests cut open. The genitals, tongues, and eyes of the horses were removed. The family stated that there were no footprints around the horses and no blood evident. Since El Chupacabra, humans, predators and satanic cults would leave footprints, Zukowski blamed UFOs, according to the report by Fox31 news.

Zukowski’s findings, as reported by bloggers and the media, were contradictory to the official findings of the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department, for whom Zukowski served in a volunteer capacity for for 8 years.

Following the posting of the original post in the Tucson Citizen in November, Zukowski blamed ‘bad journalism’ on the parts of Fox31 and the Tucson Citizen for misrepresenting his statements. He stated that the family and area ranchers believed that the horse mutilations were alien or military-related, but that his written findings always conclude as “unknown death”. Zukowksi referred to his publicly posted investigation findings for clarification, which were considered prior to the November posting. However, the statements attributed to Zukowski, as reported by Fox31, were included in the Tucson Citizen post, clearly attributing Zukiowski’s statements to the interview with Fox31.

The official findings from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department pointed to predators as causing the demise of the horses. Zukowski’s publicly available online report and statements made to the news media, does not come to the identical conclusion, which contributed to his termination

Zukowski’s termination letter from the department states among other things:

“The termination is a result of you conducting paranormal and unidentified flying object investigations into animal mutilations, and then publicly contradicting and being critical of official Sheriff’s Office investigations in a public forum. Although you have claimed not to have represented yourself as a Sheriff’s Office Reserve Deputy, the media reports allude to you as “volunteer El Paso County Sheriff’s Department deputy.” This adversarial position, without having full knowledge of the information gathered by detectives, is unacceptable.”

Zukowski told NewsFirst5.com in an interview: “I know in the letter it says that I contradicted their statement, but I didn’t contradict them per se. Where I mentioned El Paso County Sheriff’s Department was wrong, I’ve never, ever done that.”

A fresh piece of information included in the Tucson Citizen‘s post from November, was the fact that Zukowski served as a volunteer deputy for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department. This information was publicly available in his bio page, on his UFO investigation website, to outline his relevant experience. Although the information is now updated to read: “a former Reserve Deputy Sheriff with El Paso County Sheriff’s Department, Colorado”.

Ten days after the post on the Tucson Citizen, an article posted at the website thehorse.com, also identified Zukowski as a reserve deputy for the department. Zukowski told News5 that he never represented himself to the author as a reserve deputy.

Whether the information of Zukowski’s volunteer post with the department was found on the Tucson Citizen or Zukowski’s public website, was not stated in thehorse.com article.

To read Zukowki’s public response to his termination from the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department on his website (in his own words), click here.

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Read more paranormal news by Cherlyn Gardner Strong on her website: http://www.paranormaloldpueblo.com.

An attempt to link the two Phoenix area conventions was made by the anonymous blogger:

“AZBlueMeanie” says:

Even “the Google” at the Arizona Republic combines the tin foil hat conspiracy theorists of UFO ufologists with Tea Party birthers. I would love to see the venn diagram of the intersection between these conspiracy theorists.

The remainder of the article is even more amusing, along with an interesting photo, which is intended to jab Tea Partiers even further.

Click here to see it, if you wish.

The International UFO Congress, originally scheduled for another weekend in February, just happened to be rescheduled for this weekend. Other than the resulting common date of the conferences, there is no other apparent link between the two groups. ” AZBlueMeanie” will need to dig deeper come up with something better to take that jab at the Tea Party.

Why use UFO enthusiasts in an attempt to make a point? Desperation? Laziness?

Come on, AZBlueMeanie, you can do better than that…

The International UFO Congress runs through the weekend at Fort McDowell Resort and Casino in Scottsdale.

________________

Signed,

Cherlyn Gardner Strong

(a blogger who uses her real name)

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Read more of Cherlyn Gardner Strong’s posts at http://www.paranormaloldpueblo.com

Others, however, focus their search on supposedly buried paintings.

According to legend, 18 paintings were buried in the mountains by the artist Ettore “Ted” DeGrazia, shortly after he infamously burned 100 paintings in protest of the IRS in 1976.

The claim of the buried paintings was made publicly in 1990 by a man named Bob Ward. According to Ward, he was a close friend of DeGrazia’s and accompanied him to the mountains. He said that each painting was rolled and placed in a watertight tube with both ends sealed. The tubes were bundled groups of three, then buried in six separate spots within the same area. Ward’s encoded map surfaced on various websites over the years, which might lead to these paintings valued at a million dollars apiece.

Some, however, say that Ward was never a close friend of DeGrazia’s and that he simply sought to profit from the creation of a tall tale to sell a book. A couple of others have surfaced to say that the legend is real, but provide differing details than Ward’s.

Another friend of DeGrazia’s, Jerry Ogle, is one of those who insists that the legend is real. In the decade that I’ve known Ogle, he maintains that he knows exactly where the paintings are. He isn’t able to divulge the location, since decades have passed and he can’t quite recall. Instead, he has insisted that I provide him with a mule and drop him off at a specific starting point of a dangerous journey that could take days. A journey that he says must be made alone. My conscience won’t allow me to risk the life of an elderly man who doesn’t even know how old he is. I would guess that he’s somewhere in his 80s. I also guess that he’s telling the truth, or at least the truth as he recalls it.

Ogle is also known by many with nickname of “Two Guns” in DeGrazia’s circle of friends. He is easily recognized by those who have seen Ted DeGrazia’s low-budget Western film, “End of the Rainbow”. In that 27-minute film, Ogle plays one in a group of bandits who kidnap DeGrazia and a lady friend. The bandits force the captives to lead the group to a cache of buried paintings. The lady friend is played by Sammi Smith (singer of the 70s hit single, “Help Me Make It Through the Night”). At the film’s end, the bandits locate the “treasure”. Ogle’s character declares the paintings “junk”, and slashes them with a knife in disgust.

Some who have seen this film think that it is a treasure map in itself, which they say is vital in locating the paintings.

Well, that is unless real life has been confused with fantasy.

It is entirely possible that Ogle’s memory recalls the paintings and premise featured in the film, rather than a real-life buried treasure. DeGrazia himself once described Ogle as an imaginative child-like soul in the book, “World of DeGrazia”. With that assessment, I’ll have to agree.

Other friends of DeGrazia’s hold a firm grasp on their own version of events, keeping the legend alive. Based on those accounts, the search is still on.

Treasure hunters will continue to scour the Superstition Mountains each year, in search of the lost DeGrazia paintings said to be worth $18 million.

Paul was ultimately left unharmed by angry World Cup fans. The psychic octopus passed away due to natural causes in October of last year. He lived out his final days in his tank at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany.

His aquarium first honored his passing by replacing him with a French-born replacement, Paul II, who has yet to be tested for psychic abilities. Now, they have announced the unveiling of Paul’s Corner, which will feature a statue 1.8m high of Paul sitting atop a soccer ball. In the middle will be a see-through window that will contain a golden urn containing Paul’s ashes,

The shrine will be unveiled later this week.

The announcement of the series hints that our nation’s schools have displayed some level of interest in participating.

The premise of the hour-long weekly series is simple: Staff, students and parents will recount their tales of paranormal activity. The involvement of Seth Jarrett (Celebrity Ghost Stories) hints that those familiar re-enactments will supplement first-hand accounts of ghostly encounters. Mark Burnett, of Survivor and The Apprentice fame, will join Jarrett as executive producer. .

A debut date was not announced for this series

The information was relayed by me to my readers on the Tucson Citizen a couple of hours ago, after a bit of contemplation.

I posted without commentary. I did not go into detail about what the article said, only that Abovetopsecret.com (ATS) had a statement on their website, along with a quote from the website’s representative.

ATS is the largest alternative-topic discussion forum on the Internet, where users can discuss UFOs, conspiracies, the paranormal and other alternative topics. I do believe that the staff of the Scottsdale, Arizona-based ATS, were sincere in wanting to help in this ongoing investigation.

As far as the newspaper that ran the article, I am unsure of their intention.

The headline for the article by The Washington Post reads:

“Jared Lee Loughner apparently sought community online at Abovetopsecret.com”

When I read the headline, my first thought was: “So what?”

When I read the article, it stated “the site’s operators believe [username] Erad3 was accused Arizona shooter Jared Lee Loughner, 22.”

The keyword in the headline is “apparently” and in the article is “believe”. It’s not 100% certain that Erad3 was Loughner, but the posts made by Erad3 used the same language that Loughner used in his YouTube videos. So, the ATS  representative does believe that it was Loughner.

So, I tried to figure out what would possess The Washington Post to release a speculative article like that now, when we have not even buried the victims of the horrific tragedy in Tucson.

Well, we do know that this newspaper in Washington enjoys making light of UFO stories. When retired military men came forward in September, in a news conference to allege that UFOs interfered with nuclear facilities, the resulting coverage was inexcusable. Their journalist said that he only went to the news conference for the cookies and pastries offered at the National Press Club.

Basically, the cookies were the highlight of the resulting report of the news conference.

There were no references to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Erad3′s posts on ATS, as stated by the newspaper, so it isn’t apparent why the newspaper ran with a speculative article.

I can speculate, but I won’t.

My problem with the article, is not that it could be spun to assert that people who discuss alternative-topics, like UFOs and conspiracies, are  “mentally unstable”. Instead, I would expect this newspaper to be 100% certain about the identity of the poster Erad3. The estimated 99%” certainty from the website owner that it was Jared Loughner isn’t good enough. The newspaper should have been 100% certain before running that article.

Also, running that article, which has been spreading all over the Internet all day, really could have waited.

Bill Irvine, chief executive of the website’s parent company, said that he’s 99% sure that the posts were made by Loughner. Irvine added that, “He [Loughner] seemed just . . . way, way out there, from some of his ideas.”

As a result, a statement was posted on ATS:

We here at AboveTopSecret.com, our owners, staff, and membership find ourselves in the unfortunate position of apparently being one of the largest (if not the largest) repositories of online postings by someone who has been classified as a “monster” (among other things) due to his (accused) actions of two days ago. Online research that began on Reddit, and continued here on ATS has resulted in an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence to support the notion that the “erad3″ member account here is Jared Loughner. Indeed, the content found in more than 4,000 Google search returns (including some pages in the mainstream press) have drawn the same conclusion.

This is a rather unique situation, to say the least. I and our staff have been considering if we should provide a public statement, and if we do, what should we say? Especially since we’re already being contacted by the media for comment and more information.

The postings of “erad3″ reveal someone who clearly has many questions for which answers have been elusive if not outright impossible to obtain. And despite the best efforts by many of our members, it seemed there were no answers to be found here for which he was satisfied.

As is often typical, recent analysis in the media is rampant with all manner of conclusions, second-guesses, exaggerations, distortions, and missing information. The opinion of the staff and owners of AboveTopSecret.com is that it serves the public interest to provide an easy method to access every post made here by erad3 (normally, visitors must be logged-in to view such information).

Those who are interested in reading the posts of ‘erad3′ can follow this link to the ATS website.

The lights were since identified.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the lights were only civilian parachutists with flares.They added that the parachutists gave advance warning to law enforcement that they would be making the jump.