Mad Scientists: Bird Drones

 Real birds. Dead birds. Now repurposed as drones.   Not clear where they're getting the dead birds from; road kill, taxidermists, or what.

Magical Mermaid Eyeball

Two men arrested for selling a mermaid's magical eyeball | Boing Boing

Have to appreciate the specifics of the scam. A "magical eyeball" from a mermaid. Naturally a mermaid's eyeball would be magical.

Mad Scientists

In another round of what if cross this animal with that animal game; catfish genes  with alligators genes.

Catfish injected with alligator genes found to be more disease resistant than wild catfish | Boing Boing

I like the part where they say they're 'still working out the kinks.'

Then there's the Dodo. Some scientists want to bring back the dodo. Because, they can. They think. 

“We’re clearly in the middle of an extinction crisis. And it’s our responsibility to bring stories and to bring excitement to people in way that motivates them to think about the extinction crisis that’s going on right now,” said Beth Shapiro, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. (CNN)

 

A bit more on bringing back extinct animals on  Discover. 

From UFOs to Lost Civilizations: The 150 Most Fascinating Stories of 2022 - The Daily Grail

The Daily Grail has an item on the 'Most 150 Fascinating Stories of 2022' including links to articles 

on animal behavior. Bees like to play, spiders dream, monkeys have sex in space, and more:

From UFOs to Lost Civilizations: The 150 Most Fascinating Stories of 2022 - The Daily Grail

Rare snowy owl in California draws crowds to Cypress neighborhood | Boing Boing

Snowy Owl appears in city south of L.A. Maybe the owl's appearance has something to do with the crazy storms down there. 

Rare snowy owl in California draws crowds to Cypress neighborhood | Boing Boing

Did you know? Millersburg had its own Bigfoot-style monster (maybe)

A few months ago I was interviewed for the following article by Kyle Odegard about the Conser Lake Monster in Millersburg, Oregon: Did you know? Millersburg had its own Bigfoot-style monster (maybe)

Regan Lee, a paranormal researcher from Eugene, had hoped to write a book on the creature and said she has letters in her files from residents who remember the incident.

I still hope to write the thing. Inspiration. I'll put it up as a Kindle e-book or some such. 

Why So Coy? Missing 411: The Hunted

 I watched the David Paulides  2019 documentary last night: Missing 411: The Hunted. (You can stream it on Hulu.) It started off with the expected cases of  individual hunters who went missing; their disappearances remain unsolved.  Paulides then camps out with Bigfoot researchers Ron Morehead and Scott  Nelson. Morehead and Nelson describe their experiences over the years in the area; strange noises, orbs, lights and more. The audio is eerily familiar to other recordings of Bigfoot. As are the descriptions of strange lights. These have been reported by many a seeker of Bigfoot. But not once during the Paulides interview does Morehead or Nelson say the words Bigfoot or Sasquatch. Not once. I had the distinct feeling that Paulides instructed them to not say those words.

Paulides has been coy over the years as to any connection with Bigfoot and the missing. I have no idea if the two are connected, but it seems there does seem to be some kind of relationship at times. . Paulides consistently skirts around the idea, but never comes out and suggests it as a possibility. True, it is all speculation but nothing wrong with speculation as long as it’s made clear that it’s speculation.

The documentary also includes an interview with Bruce Mcabbee’s wife, who saw a strange transparent being moving through the trees while she was sitting up in a deer blind.  She describes it as looking something like the being in Predator. Around the same time, witnesses in the town saw a UFO. A very curious encounter for sure.   

These two items concerning strange lights, UFOS, Bigfoot type voices and transparent beings don’t seem to have anything to do with the missing. They could have; it’s absolutely possible. But in the documentary it wasn’t made clear the two had anything to do with the missing hunters. And at no point did Paulides say “This is why I’m including these incidents.”  In fact, David Paulides has been downright cranky when asked about any Bigfoot connection; he’s been downright cranky if he even thinks someone thinks he did when they didn’t. Yet there are highly interesting clues that suggest a Bigfoot type connection, or something appearing as Bigfoot. An energy that is non-human and manifesting as a being that is clearly intelligent. The following are from children who went missing and were later found alive:

Three year old boy found safe after being lost in the woods for two days. The boy says he was kept safe by "a bear."

The 3-year-old boy who spent two days lost in the woods of eastern North Carolina tells his family he “hung out with a bear” for companionship while hundreds of people searched frantically in cold and rainy weather to find him. 

Lost Boy in Woods Found Safe; Hung Out with Bear

David Paulides, of the Missing 411 books, has written that missing people, including children, often happen when it rains, or has been raining. I remember a couple of survivors Paulides writes about that mention a bear or ape like creature who helped them. Bigfoot? Paulides is coy about that, but it's possible. Or, angel, spirit, who knows. Bears are hibernating this time of year. Not to mention a bear might well attack, rather than protect. But, again, who knows?

https://paranormalbigfoot.blogspot.com/2019/01/lost-boy-in-woods-found-safe-hung-out.html

PARA-NEWS - RichardThomasBlog.com: Zoological Journalist - Richard Freeman, Considers the Question: Is Bigfoot A Man, Another Ape, An Unknown species of Bear, or All of the Above?

An excellent article by Richard Thomas on the Yeti, Bigfoot, etc. Some things were new to me; for example, the Yeti, depicted as a white haired creature and often referred to as 'the Abominable Snowman." 

The confusion comes from a mistranslation of one of the beast's many names, Metoh-kangmi, Sino-Tibetan for 'abominable man of the rocks'. It was mistranslated as 'abominable man of the snows. This is where we get the western term ‘Abominable Snowman’ from. (Richard Thomas, Para-News)

PARA-NEWS - RichardThomasBlog.com: Zoological Journalist - Richard Freeman, Considers the Question: Is Bigfoot A Man, Another Ape, An Unknown species of Bear, or All of the Above?

Nobody knows what killed dozens of crows along a Vancouver trail | Boing Boing

From boingboing.net: Nobody knows what killed dozens of crows along a Vancouver trail | Boing Boing

Crows alive in the trees above were silent, which is very unusual for crows, especially when seeing one of theirs dead below.