During the course of this holiday weekend packed with alcohol, fire works and alcohol it’s likely you worried about your mortality. Well take heart in the tale of James Leininger, a young boy whose family claims he is the reincarnated soul of a World War II fighter pilot.

Leininger first began spooking his parents with a preternatural understanding of antique military aircraft, followed by gory crayon drawings of aerial battles with Japanese airplanes which gave way to horrific night terrors involving a violent, suffocating death inside a cockpit. Little Jimmy’s parents eventually narrowed down which soldier’s soul was trapped inside their son after the boy mentioned a specific aircraft carrier he was stationed on.

They’ve since “confirmed” their findings with the pilot’s family and war buddies.

Also, you can read about this experience in their NEW BOOK Soul Survivor AVAILABLE NOW at all your finer literary retailers.

Thanks to Weird Things reader John Houdi for the tip on this story.

Titled “This is how you suck face.” From Pharyngula.

Bees decided to derail the ninth inning of a Major League Baseball game at PETCO Park yesterday in San Diego. According the MLB.com, a swarm of over 2000 flew into the stadium from center field, over the seats in left before settling into a jacket which was quickly abandoned by a ball girl.

The game was delayed, a local bee keeper was called and the game was resumed after a 52-minute delay.

Amusingly, MLB.com got comment form the manufacturer of the jacket which apparently served as a fun new hive for the swarm.

“To our knowledge this is the first time that bees have swarmed Majestic on-field MLB apparel,” Majestic said in a statement. “We can only guess that the bees are attracted as Major League players to the warmth and comfort of our performance fabrics.

“However, players and fans should rest assured that our product testing has shown no risk from swarming bees. We regret the inconvenience and Majestic will be providing the affected ballgirl a replacement jacket shortly.”

Good to know.

Find one mutilated animal carcass wrapped in a white sheet and left in a public park, shame on you. Find another? Shame on a Staten Island neighborhood that’s now convinced they’ve been engulfed by evil spirits.

Although authorities are unsure who is responsible for the acts, it hasn’t stopped residents from assuming they’re the results of Santeria or Voodoo rituals. One woman, is even taking matters into her own hands by dousing the spots the carcasses were found with holy water.

“This is not good, doing this,” said Nancy Kelcho of Port Richmond, who was walking her Scottie, Tara Lynn, this morning when a friend pointed out the mutilated animal. “This is evil. I just pray to God to take away the evil spirits.”

Ms. Kelcho, a firm believer in the supernatural, chanted prayers this afternoon as she sprayed holy water on the ground, and at one point gasped, “Evil! Evil! Evil!”

And this isn’t the first time Staten Island has had to deal with occult gangs, according to this SILive.com article, in August 2005, a couple walking their dog discovered six decapitated chickens positioned in a semicircle, their heads placed in a wooden bowl at the center.

photo credit: MaxDug

The life of a truck driver will never be confused for a glamourous one.

Tight deadlines, long hauls and little sleep all make things dicey for the men and women who pilot these freight-toting behemoths across the world’s highways. But in South Africa, it’s even worse. A 2002 report published in the South African Journal of Science found that civil unrest and unkempt truck stops were more prevalent in the historically troubled nation. The industry even has a staggering HIV rate thanks to a reckless promiscuity culture amongst many drivers.

Finally, the government is stepping in to do something about it.

The Letaba municipality in the north of the country will hold a cleansing ceremony aimed at clearing the road of evil spirits that are believed to contribute to the accidents that have claimed many lives in the past five years, this according to local news source Sowetan.

She said the accidents had been going on for some years and it was time that something was done to make sure the carnage stopped.

She said the ceremony, which will include prayers, will be attended by municipal officials, traditional healers, chiefs, pastors, officials from the department of transport and communities from 11 villages.

“The area is quiet at the moment, but the prayer meeting is vital to save lives,” said Kgamedi Seshoka, spokesperson for the Modjadjiskloof police.

You read that, Ghost Road? You’re days of hectoring convoys are over!

We’ve all been there, you’re making a pastrami sandwich on toasted rye when you become enveloped in fear because a Civil War-era general’s spectral remains has come upon you seeking misguided vengeance because you’ve grown similar facial hair to a defected private who sealed the General’s fate when he gave away his position to the enemy in exchange for a bottle of rye.

Then you realize it’s just a mosquito that flew into the bug zapper. Don’t let this happen again!

Thanks to the Ohio Researcher of Banded Spirits who’ve published this handy checklist of tell-tale signs of a real-deal otherworldly infestation so you can know the difference between a genuine haunting and a stress-induced panic attack…

1- Unexplained Noises

2- Doors opening and closing

3- Lights turning on and off

4- Items Disappearing

5- Unexplained Shadows

6- Strange domestic animal behavior

7- Feeling of being watched

8- Psychokinetic phenomena–seeing a door open

9- Feeling of being touched

10- Whispers and Muffled voices

11- Cold or Hot spots–major temperature changes

12- Unexplained smells

13- Objects moving

14- Physical Assault

15- Hand or Foot prints

16- Apparitions

They also list mice, settling house noises, plumbing rattles and odd headlight reflections as natural phenomenon commonly mistaken for proof of the supernatural.

Bart Cutino found big foot.

For a fleeting 2007 moment in Naches, WA he and the one of the legendary wood apes locked eyes. He describes the encounter to The Monterey Herald…

“About 20 to 25 seconds later, it stepped out from behind the tree and dropped on all fours, knees on the ground, arms extended and did this little head rotation in my direction,” Cutino says. “At that point I knew what it was, and it was surreal. It wasn’t scary. I just couldn’t believe it was happening.”

He says the Sasquatch propped itself momentarily onto its right shoulder and inched itself forward, at which point Cutino began snapping his fingers, trying to get the attention of a colleague who was 30 yards away, near a truck containing recording equipment.

Read the rest of the encounter AFTER THE JUMP!

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Please follow the cues for this YouTube playlist throughout the post.

In the sewers of North Carolina lies a strange creature. Pulsating and wiggling in the first video on this playlist. Could it be of alien origin? CHUD? A metaphor of a chemical society gone too far?

Apparently none of the above. According to the How Stuff Works blog this thing is called Bryozoa. It’s a 350-million year old primitive animal life form comprised of smaller, ickier life forms. Which brings us to video number two, as it happens, down on the Bayou they don’t take to kindly to 350-million year old primitive animal life forms. Watch as a pair of Bryozoa are blown to bits by way of a M1 Springfield 30.06 rifle. And Rage Against The Machine.

But just when things have come to a shocking conclusion, we get the cliff hanger. Those gun nuts got the wrong guy/thing. The inquisitive minds at Deep Sea News consulted an expert on Bryozoa and he claims the sewer video features a pulsating look at Tubifex (video number three, please) a collection of worms that normally are found at the edge of polutted streams. In the NC sewer video, he claims that they’ve gathered around each other and the movements are caused by one worm contracting, which stimulated all the others to move.

Credit to Brian Brushwood and Dodd Vickers for digging through this mess on Twitter last night.

Hello all.

My name is Justin Robert Young. I am the editor at large for this site.

It is with a heavy heart that I tell you Sean McCabe, the only editor this site has ever known will no longer be with us. We are grateful for all of his hard work and dedication, without which we could have never gotten this blog off the ground. We wish him nothing but the best moving forward.

As for the future? It’s bright.

First, I am officially amputating the “at large” from my title and assuming the role of interim editor. Second, you will hopefully see some new contributers to these parts. Third, we hope to be much more interactive with you guys. Email any and all tips, videos, pics or personal stories to JustinRobertYoung@Gmail. Feel free to hit up both the @WeirdThingsCom Twitter or my personal @JustinRYoung account as well. This is a (weird) community after all.

So, yeah, my name is Justin. Pleased to meet you.

This video, filmed by the Greater Central Ohio Paranormal Society, is being touted on the main page of Ghost Videos as evidence of a ghost girl. Are we the only ones who don’t really see…..anything of interest at all?

We were saddened today to find out from Cryptomundo that Chris Davis, the originator of the South Carolina Lizard Man legend was shot to death at his home in a drug related incident.

According to Davis’ reports: on June 29, 1988 he was changing a flat tire at 2 AM on his way home from work, when he was attacked by a seven foot tall, humanoid, bipedal lizard creature. In Davis’ account he was able to start the car and drive away while the lizard man clung to the top, eventually falling off when Davis swerved the car from side to side.

This is how the American crypto-classic Lizard Man was born. The question now is will the story live on without its central character?

Check out this dramatic investigation of St. Peter`s Church in Essex.

The International Remote Viewing Association is having their 10th anniversary this year and are hosting a conference in Vegas starting today to celebrate. There press release on the event states:

For 20 years, the U.S. government trained soldiers and secret agents in the use of psychic powers to gain an advantage on enemies.
This weekend, the world’s foremost psychic warriors are coming to Las Vegas to share ideas about the techniques they used, including something called remote viewing.
Las Vegan Ret. Col. John Alexander was one of the insiders of the program. “Part of my time on active duty in the intelligence community was looking at psi phenomena. We were interested in what the Soviet Union was doing and in what could be done. One thing I’d argue, scientists argue about the scientific viability of this. The reality is, we had an operational unit that was out doing intelligence operations quite successfully,” he said.
The conference begins Friday at Green Valley Ranch. It includes speakers who were trained by the CIA, DIA, and Army Intelligence to rely in psychic insights to spy on the enemy.
Among the most dramatic successes was the use of remote viewing to discover the existence of an advanced Russian submarine that was previously unknown.
The conference kicks off at noon and is open to the public.

Though extrasensory perception (ESP) has never been proven in any form, the conference will provide a great opportunity to find out more about the U.S. Government’s whacky Cold War remote viewing research. You might not find evidence of the paranormal, but we can guarantee that you will see weird things.

Penn Bullock Reports:

Did Nikola Tesla prophesy the Internet in 1904? In the pages of Electrical World and Engineer, he envisions a global media system – based on the Telegraph:

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You thought the Catholic Church was done persecuting witches. Well, they are at it again, this time in Stockport, UK.

High Priestess Amethyst Selmeselene (also known as Sandra Davis, grandmother of 11) attempted to rent out “Our Lady’s Social Club” for her group’s annual Witch’s Ball. When she went to pay for the venue she had secured, she was turned away and told that the Roman Catholic Church, which owns the facility, had blocked her from renting the center.

Her goal was to attract a crowd of people to do obscene and ungodly things like have a buffet dinner and dance to an ABBA tribute band.
Though we can fault High Priestess Selmeselene for her taste in music, we can’t fault her for wanting to get down and have a good time with her women’s group.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Shewsbury told Ananova News that “Parish centers under our auspices let their premises on the understanding users and their organisations are compatible with the ethos and teachings of the Catholic church.” And apparently that means a no go for pagan partying.

When will the Catholics leave those poor witches alone? When will they finally be free to dance to bad eighties music while talking shop around a bubbling cauldron? I guess the Church decided that if they can’t burn them, they should at least be able to ban them from their rec. center.

“Smoke usually looks smoky”, truer words were never spoken. Has Ms. Deana Smith never heard of smoke rings? Though Ms. Smith thinks it’s a sign from god and the UFO expert thinks it’s an extraterrestrial visitation, it is probably just a special effect smoke from the volcano ride at King’s Dominion, pictured below.

It’s funny how the media reporters didn’t bother do go check if this was a daily occurrence at the park, if they had bothered to film the volcano ride itself, they would have debunked this mystery much sooner, but it’s more fun to say the ring was made by aliens….or god.

Volcano Roller Coaster at King's Dominion

Here is a full length video of the mysterious smoke ring sans annoying nine second commercial and newscasters: