The Obama administration has formally responded to an online petition signed by over five thousands respondents demanding the acknowledgement of alien visitation.

Here is what they said…

“The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race,” said Phil Larson from the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy, on the WhiteHouse.gov website.

“In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public’s eye.”

So, no big bombshell. But it would have been really funny if they slipped in one last line like “unless you’re talking about Grornorp, in that case we have no comment.”

But don’t get soured on the White House’s new petition initiative. You can always sign on to the ““We Demand a Vapid, Condescending, Meaningless, Politically Safe Response to This Petition” petition.

[UFO Casebook]

The Canadian Loch Ness Monster equivalent Ogopogo is back in the news with this curious clip. A man on vacation gets the shot from an elevated perspective which seems to depict a large, if unmoving, object just underneath the gentle lapping water. But what could be that big and that still? Was Ogopogo playing hide and seek?

[MSNBC]

A resident of Washington DC suburb Woodbridge, VA called the cops when a werewolf was sighted last night.

There wasn’t even a full moon Monday night, but an anxious neighbor on Colchester Road told police he saw a werewolf. Police responded to the scene and searched the woods, but there was no sign of the mythical creature, or even a coyote.

Gives new meaning to the phrase Vote Or Die.

[WMAL]

In a story about a band of survivors in constant peril the sin of safety is major one. Thankfully, this episode did a little bit to shake things up in this frustratingly slow season but some major issues still remain.

Well… one issue. Which is driving me insane.

Seriously crazy.

Glen causes a clean up on aisle four, Daryl picks a lovely metaphor for a lady in need and splish splash someone is taken a bath AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

It’s a painted picture of a paranormal photograph. But aside from alliteration, it’s also haunted by the headless ghost captured in the photo and immortalized in the artwork.

Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.

Sure, a few mussed papers, no biggie. But wait! It even communes with zombies from the deep!

My husband and I were sitting in the garage talking to the little neighbor girl who had come over to visit. On the garage wall were three large dried starfish. They were hanging securely on roofing nails. The garage door was open, but there was no wind blowing or air movement. Suddenly, the largest starfish came sailing off the wall and landed on the concrete floor. It sailed across the floor about six to seven feet.

And still more! It cheats at cards! This spectral fiend has a missing sportsmanship to go along with the lack of head.

Our neighbor wanted to show his mother-in-law the photos of my paintings and took them home with him. They left the pictures laying on the table and started playing a three-handed card game in which a dummy hand must be dealt. When they picked up the dummy hand, every card of the dummy hand was in one suit. That scared them to death, he told me.

If you have any information on this, please pass it along.

[About]

What I wouldn’t give to be in this car.

A Missouri mom was taking her children out trick or treating when she saw what looked to be an unidentified flying object. She followed the craft around for well over an hour with her excited kids cooing in the background.

UFO Casebook has the full video.

Here is her description:

When we first saw it, it was as if it was approaching us with its bottom facing us, (as if on a vertical orientation, and as it retreated, it turned flat (or horizontal), at times moving very slowly, then accelerating very quickly.

It would completely disappear from time to time. We followed it, both of us taking turns videotaping it with our phones. It at times acted as if it was playing a game with us, hiding, then appearing very close so we could see details, including a dome-like appendage on the bottom-center.

Then it would speed off, eventually making a complete circle over our area and winding up hovering over the neighborhood where we had originally been headed. It disappeared again, as we got out of the car to go tell our friends, and many people in the neighborhood came running up asking if we saw it, too!

Check out the full video at Casebook…

[UFO Casebook]

They’ve travelled from far off destinations, they abduct and return specimens to their natural habitat and can out maneuver our best aircraft.

But… do they have wifi?

When you think about it, if we believe everything that comes along with aliens observing us from our own skies in whisper quiet craft why wouldn’t they be surfing the internet? It would only stand to reason. This is the theory of Diane Tessman writing for Conspiracy Journal:

The aliens can no doubt hack into personal “e” communications, too, and see the light and dark aspects of we common folk. They can read how much we value special friendships, how much we love our families, our dogs and our cats, how much we worry about being able to provide for those we love, and so much more.

Tessman does allow for the caveat that aliens had computers in centuries past but have since jettisoned them after they became self-aware and tried to kill their fleshy masters.

[Conspiracy Journal]

A Zimbabwe man arrested on bestiality charge initiated a very curious defense for his heinous crime. He claimed the donkey he was busted getting frisky with was in fact a hooker who magically transformed overnight.

‘I had hired a prostitute and paid $20 for the service at Down Town nightclub and I don’t know how she then became a donkey… but I am seriously in love.’

The magistrates have ordered the man get a psychiatric evaluation. Although maybe this works like the prince/frog thing and you have to kiss the donkey so it turns into the glorious hooker you once met.

[Metro]

So this is how the short, explosive reign of Frank Darabont over The Walking Dead ends. The final script he had a hand in (he’d long since been removed from the post process) gives us some all time great visuals, memorable genre beats and meaningful character turn. But, it also left our main plot in neutral and saw fit to see some of our alleged main characters have the same arguments over and over and over and over again.

What was good? What was boring? What will change? It’s all coming up, AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)

Gigantic snakes in the Everglades aren’t all that rare. Massive pythons that make snakes out of full grown deer? A little more cause for concern.

Doe. A meal. A female meal.

Scott Hardin, exotic species coordinator for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, says workers found the snake on Thursday. The reptile was one of the largest ever found in South Florida.

Hardin says the python had recently consumed a 76-pound female deer that had died. He says it was an important capture to help stop the spread of pythons further north.

76-pound doe? Fat kids playing pee wee football don’t weigh 76 pounds!

It’s a good these things are in a far off remote area of the country. Unless you live in a town within 10 miles of the Everglades. Like I do.

Then you’re screwed.

Dammit…

[AP]

Are aliens controlling the minds of animals in an attempt sabotage state of the art jet technology? Did a rocket scientist accidentally leave a pic-a-nic basket within sniffing distance of the woods? Did a lonely bear simply want to get a look at the latest in high-flying tech?

Whatever the explanation a 200 lb. bear was seen wandering through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Pasadena campus.

[KTLA]

A gigantic lego man has washed ashore in Siesta Key, Florida. Acording to Boing Boing, the 8-foot tall Lego traveller has previously washed ashore in Holland and England.

Welcome to America!

[Boing Boing]

For those of us who’ve been whispering appointments, reminders and murder confessions to our phones for the past two weeks it won’t take much convincing to tell you that AI is already here in a major way. But what about the true simulation of a human brain. Using computer processing to replicate the hardware we have cranking in our noggins right now? IBM has begun that quest and are already 4.5% done.

In the meantime, they fully replicated the brain of an animal far more beloved on the internet: cats.

Nevertheless, IBM is trying to simulate the human brain with its own cutting-edge supercomputer, called Blue Gene. For the simulation, it used 147,456 processors working in parallel with one another. IBM researchers say each processor is roughly equivalent to the one found in a personal computer, with one gigabyte of working memory.

So configured, Blue Gene simulated 4.5 percent of the brain’s neurons and the connections among them called synapses—that’s about one billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses. In total, the brain has roughly 20 billion neurons and 200 trillion synapses.

IBM hopes to have the human brain replicated by 2019, which gives our new robot overlord plenty of time to prepare his 2022 campaign for President of the United States of America.

[Scientific American]

Notoriously screwy Pittsburgh suburb Fayette County has found what they believe is proof of two UFOs zipping around a massive crucifix and one man caught it on video.

[96.1 Morning Freak Show]

One little girl missing in a woodland area littered with zombies. Her mother is on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Another of her rescue party is barely hanging on to the will to live.

These are three of the major problems we barely deal with in The Walking Dead episode Bloodletting. Which means you know things have really upshifted from “this is heartbreakingly awful” to (collapse into a helpless, weeping heap).

There’s a one-handed man wishing he’d brought his bag of fun, Shane should really avoid schools and Rick finds the best doggone doctor he can. Let the blood flow, AFTER THE JUMP… (more…)