The two men who claimed to have found the carcass of Bigfoot have surfaced to say: Hey, it was just a joke.

Not everyone is laughing.

In an exclusive interview with CNN affiliate WSB, the two hoaxers — car salesman Rick Dyer and now-fired police officer Matt Whitton — said the whole situation began as a joke and then got out of hand.

“It’s just a big hoax, a big joke,” Dyer said.

“It’s Bigfoot,” Dyer explained. “Bigfoot doesn’t exist.”

Whitton chimed in: “All this was a big joke. It got into something way bigger than it was supposed to be.”

At a news conference in California last week, the two men had stood by their claims that they had discovered Bigfoot’s corpse and had it on ice. Scientific analysis would prove it, they said.

Not quite.

Now the two Georgia men admit that the hairy, icy blob was an Internet-purchased Sasquatch costume stuffed with possum roadkill and slaughterhouse leftovers.

Whitton and Dyer say that when they came up with the hoax, they had no idea it would become a media circus.

“It got legs and ran. It’s crazy now,” Dyer told WSB.

Co-hoaxer Whitton agrees: “It started off as some YouTube videos and a Web site. We’re all about having fun.”

“Fun” isn’t exactly how Clayton County Police Chief Jeff Turner sees it. He has kicked Whitton off the police force.

“He lied on national TV,” Turner says of Whitton, “so a defense attorney now could say, ‘How do we know you’re not lying now?’ “

Whitton and Dyer had announced that they had found the body of a 7-foot-7-inch, 500-pound half-ape, half-human creature while hiking in the north Georgia mountains in June. They also said they had spotted about three similar living creatures.

Still unclear is how much money Whitton and Dyer got out of the hoax.

Steve Kulls, who maintains the SquatchDetective Web site and hosts a similarly named Internet radio program, first interviewed Dyer on July 28 for the radio program. On August 12, Kulls said, Dyer and Whitton “requested an undisclosed sum of money as an advance, expected from the marketing and promotion.”

Two days later, after signing a receipt and counting the money, Dyer and Whitton showed the Searching for Bigfoot team the freezer containing what they claimed was the carcass: “Something appearing large, hairy and frozen in ice,” Kulls wrote on the Web site.

It was, as many had suspected, an ape-like costume stuffed with entrails.

After the news conference last week, Dyer and Whitton disappeared from view. The truth came out over the weekend.

In a Web posting this week, Kulls wrote that “action is being instigated against the perpetrators.”

The two hoaxers have hired attorney Steve Lister to represent them.

“There have been some threats made to them for both civil and criminal prosecution,” Lister said.

The attorney says the Bigfoot incident “got out of hand.”

Dyer, asked whether he ever thought that the hoopla had become more than just a joke, implied that everyone should have known it was a hoax.

“Well, we told 10 different stories,” he said. “Everyone knew we were lying.”

DALLAS, TX, 2008 During a summer of superhero blockbusters, Dallas psychiatrist Colin A. Ross, M.D.  www.rossinst.com, is perfecting a superpower of his own. Dr. Ross’ application to the $1 Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge has been received by the James Randi Educational Foundation www.randi.org.

Dr. Ross can make a tone sound out of a speaker using nothing but an energy beam he sends out through his eyes.
The $1 million prize serves as a challenge to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The James Randi Educational Foundation states in its Challenge rules that he is only interested in a demonstration of the claim. He does not want theories about how the paranormal claim works. Therefore, Dr. Ross is not required to explain how his demonstration of the human eyebeam works — only that it does work.

Preliminary tests of the claim will hopefully take place in the near future, once the test protocol is agreed upon. To date, no one has passed the preliminary tests on the way to the $1 million prize.
For more than 300 years, Western science has stated that no energy of any kind is emitted from the eyes. When you feel someone staring at you, Western science dismisses this as coincidence or some other form of misunderstanding.

Dr. Ross, founder of the Colin A. Ross Institute, is the author of over 135 scientific papers and 18 books, many of them dealing with psychological trauma and multiple personality disorder. He has spoken to mental health professionals throughout North America, as well as in Europe, China, Australia and New Zealand, including several conference presentations on energy fields. In a forthcoming book entitled Human Energy Fields, Dr. Ross explains a new science and medicine of human energy fields in detail.
“Once this energy is identified and captured, as I have done, then it can be studied and used for many applications in medicine and other fields,” said Dr. Ross.

Dr. Ross plans to use the $1 Million to develop scanning equipment for medical use and to carry out research on therapeutic uses of human energy fields.

BARELY a week has passed this summer without one national newspaper or another carrying a story about UFO sightings across Britain.

And now UFOs are claimed to have been spotted over Royston, too.

The Crow was contacted by paranormal investigation group Scope Paranormal, which said that four employees on the York Way industrial estate had spotted an unusual object in the sky at 1am on July 25.

The witnesses said that they saw a “bat-winged” shape with an orange circle of light in the middle hovering silently over the industrial estate for about 20 seconds. It then disappeared at speed.

And when Scope Paranormal decided to visit the industrial estate to investigate further, we went to meet them.

Sharon Chesterman, one of the group’s investigators, said that most of this summer’s sightings can be dismissed as Chinese lanterns, which are often lit and released into the night sky at parties and barbecues.

But she does NOT believe that Chinese lanterns are responsible for the sightings in Royston.

“We are taking this sighting seriously because the shape of the bat wings is very rare and there was also more than one witness,” she said.

“Out of hundreds of sightings nationally this summer, we believe this is the first bat-winged object.”

According to information released by the Ministry of Defence, the last reported UFO sighting over Royston was on September 2, 2001.

The report states that a witness saw a rectangular-triangle shaped object with a white pulsating light moving north-east.

Scope Paranormal was founded in November 2007 and offers a free, confidential investigation service for all things paranormal, including UFO sightings.

Trevor Shreeve, one of the co-founders of the group, said: “We use scientific techniques to try and prove or disprove whether something is paranormal or a natural or man-made occurrence.”

To contact Scope Paranormal, call 01438 235 778 or e-mail mail@scope-paranormal.com

LEBANON, Ind. (AP) — A woman accidentally stabbed herself in the foot with a 3-foot-long sword while performing a Wiccan good luck ritual at a central Indiana cemetery.

Katherine Gunther, 36, of Lebanon, pierced her left foot with the sword while performing the rite at Oak Hill Cemetery, police said.

Gunther said she was performing the ceremony to give thanks for a recent run of good luck. The ceremony involves the use of candles, incense and driving swords into the ground during the full moon.

Gunther said was aiming to put the sword in the ground, but hit her foot instead.

“It wasn’t the first time I performed the ritual, but it was the first time I put a sword through my foot,” she said.

Gunther immediately pulled the sword out of her foot, and her companions took her to Witham Memorial Hospital, where she was kept a couple days for treatment.

No charges were filed, police said. The Wiccans were warned that being in the cemetery in the city about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis after posted visiting hours constitutes trespassing.

Wicca is a nature-based religion based on respect for the earth, nature and the cycle of the seasons.

TWO US professional Bigfoot hunters claim to have found a body of the legendary creature and will present evidence of the astounding discovery to the world’s press and scientists tomorrow.

Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, who run Bigfoot expeditions, say they found a dead Bigfoot in the woods of north Georgia, in the southeast of the US, about two weeks ago and have put the carcass in a freezer.

They along with “the real Bigfoot Hunter” Tom Biscardi, who has endorsed the find, will front a press conference in California, where they say DNA and photo proof will be presented.

Mr Whitton, a Georgia police officer on leave to recover from a shooting, and Mr Dyer, a former prison officer, have posted photos of their “find” on their searchingforbigfoot website.

They describe the creature as being a 2.3m tall “part human and part ape” male and weighing over 230kg with reddish hair and blackish-grey eyes.

The infamous feet are described as being flat and 41cm long with five toes.

The hands also have five fingers and and the teeth are more “human-like than ape like”.

The hunters claim several Bigfoots were spotted walking upright in the area the body was found but won’t reveal the location “to protect the creatures”.

Mr Whitton, Mr Dyer and Mr Biscardi say they will soon mount a secret expedition to capture a live Bigfoot.

Commenting on the discovery Scientific American said the apparent reluctance of the Bigfoot hunters to actually display or hand over the body would make those sceptical roll their eyes.

Although many would regard the Bigfoot as mythical, enthusiasts were given more reason to believe in October last year when hunter Rick Jacobs claimed to have taken photos of a Bigfoot in Pennsylvania.

The Bigfoot stir coincides with a supposed Texas sighting and filming of another legendary US monster, the chupacabra, which is a dog-like animal with a long snout that according to folklore attacks livestock, especially goats, and drinks their blood.

It seems to be a monster summer in the US with an unidentifed creature creating an internet sensation after it washed up near New York last month.

Bigfoot’s erstwhile cousin, the yeti or Abominable Snowman, also came under renewed scrutiny last month with a scientist sending some alleged hair from the creature to a lab for DNA testing.

Stacey Demarco is giving witches a good name, writes Nadia Arsalane

Edited by Ben O’Shea

When you think about witches you conjure up the image of crooked noses, pointy hats, an evil cackle and a black cat.

But blonde Stacey Demarco, who “came out of the broom closet” in her early 20s, couldn’t be further from the stereotype.

Granted, she may have two cats but she insists they are black and white and promises she has never used a broomstick for getting around town.

“When you think of witches, people think of mind control, Satanism, black cats, I can give you the list,” she said over the phone from Sydney.

“I think that’s changing a lot, people on the witches path is growing. We have doctors, lawyers; you name it we’ve got it. We’ve had a bad PR day for the last 3000 years, you know, we’ve been burnt, we’ve been tortured, we’ve been laughed at. I’ve had my wheelie bins burnt. I’ve been ordered out of cafes.

“You have a coffee in the same place every day then they find out you are a witch and say I’m no longer welcome here.”

Her mother also had a hard time dealing with the revelation. She said, “oh my god it’s a cult” — but now regularly rang her on a full moon to see what she was up to.

Because of her psychic ability Demarco was asked to join the judging panel for the new Channel 7 show The One, which pits Australia’s most gifted psychics against each other, along with sceptic Richard Saunders.

She says she was pleasantly surprised when asked by producers to join the show because she had been used in program pitches that made psychics look bad.

“The premise of this show is to make up your own mind,” she said.

“We have some really, really tough parameters. They have to get up there and perform under immense pressure. They are put in a very unreal situation, with time limits, a live audience. So you are seeing a wide variety of people with a wide variety of skills. So they either crash and burn or succeed beautifully in front of your eyes. It’s compelling.”

The yin to Demarco’s yang in The One is Saunders, a self-confessed sceptic who spends most of his time investigating paranormal and pseudo-science but says he has yet to find scientific proof to change his disbelieving mind.

Saunders admits most people who claim to have had paranormal experiences are not lying but genuinely believe they have seen a UFO or have psychic ability. However, he said his investigations had never found the sightings or powers to be true.

Asked if the show had changed his mind, the former web designer, who is also vice-president of the Australian Sceptics, refused to reveal if he had been converted.

“When I was younger I believed everything. I thought UFOs were real and I was so interested in these things I began to research. The more I researched people’s claims — it didn’t live up to my expectations.”

But former corporate whiz-kid Demarco said believing in the paranormal did not mean you couldn’t be scientific and said she got annoyed when people assumed that she did not have any evidence to back up her theories.

“If you go online you’d see the amount of scientific minds, and we are talking Nobel prize winners here, that are open to this,” she said.

“Sceptics try to make out that you have to be unscientific and irrational to want to believe in this stuff. But the leading physicists at the moment are incredibly open to the after-life and the ability to be able to do this.

“They’re saying looking at sub-atomic particles and that kind of thing, there’s not just a possibility but a probability of alternate worlds and the ability of time and space to be squashed together. So it’s not just possible it’s probable. It’s a very nice trick on behalf of the sceptics to say that it’s irrational.”

The ghosts that haunt some of Bisbee’s favorite places will be the major attraction during an upcoming weekend of paranormal hunts.

Starting Friday, guests with a preference for things that go bump in the night will gather in the historic mining town to meet each other and their guides to discuss the adventure that organizer Renee Gardner, guide of Old Bisbee Ghost Tour, wants to turn into an annual event.

“We hope this is the first of many to come,” Gardner said.
The Bisbee Inn and Hotel La More were chosen as the accommodations for the weekend, based in part on their own hauntings.

The hotel has three ghosts that have taken up residency, guests and the owner have claimed. In one room, a wandering spirit apparently dislikes toiletries. They end up on the floor. In another room, a lonely ghost likes to climb into bed with the guests. Evidence of that other-worldly existence is seen in the depression that forms in the mattress.

Then there’s the handsome miner who appears in his mining gear at the end of a hallway, Gardner noted.
The latter has a cat who apparently likes human company now and then. It purrs and walks across the bed to the delight of some and the chagrin of others.

One of Bisbee’s most famous ghosts, the Lady in White, has been seen hovering in the corner of one room and outside at the darkened stairs behind the old hotel, Gardner added. She is a kindly lost soul who is credited with saving the lives of a few youngsters.

For those who join in the full-moon adventure, the International Community for Paranormal Investigation and Research will provide information on how to use scientific equipment to detect ghosts.
The members use a variety of technologies from digital and film cameras to infrared cameras to voice recorders.

The Web site for the organization states that the International Community for Paranormal Investigation and Research “formed because of a need to allow more people access to proper training as paranormal researchers.”
All team members are chosen after meeting strict requirements, and all investigations are conducted with professionalism.The group’s mission is to find proof of the existence of life after death through scientific investigation.

“That evening during the full moon, guests will take the Old Bisbee Ghost Tour,” Gardner said. “After the Old Bisbee Ghost Tour, they will have the opportunity to ghost hunt with members from the International Center of Paranormal Investigations and Research at the very hotels they are staying at, which are believed to be the most haunted hotels in Bisbee.”

On the weekend, members of the International Community of Paranormal Investigation and Research will continue their lectures on more of the equipment used in their studies and evidence they have found during some of their investigations. “Later on (that) Saturday, the group will then head over to Tombstone to take the Tombstone Ghost Tour and to investigate the world famous Bird Cage Theater, thought by many to be the most haunted building in America,” Gardner said.

Numerous killings by gunslingers happened in the notorious Bird Cage Theater, which served as a theater, saloon, gambling hall and brothel during the heyday of Tombstone in the 1880s.

Colonel Yvonne Nomoyi, the military’s first black senior judge, is understood to have expressed bewilderment at why she had set herself alight in the garage of her home on June 26, saying she had no idea what had prompted her behaviour. Neither did she know who would want to bewitch her into committing the suicidal act.

Denying that she was depressed or suffering from any work- or family-related stress, she revealed that she had taken a sleeping tablet in the hours before she walked into her garage for some “quiet time” and spotted the matches and petrol that she had used to burn herself.

The 41-year-old mother-of-two is receiving treatment for the second-degree burns she suffered on her face and arms, but has declined the services of a psychiatrist or social worker. While she is a devout Zionist Christian Church member, it is not known whether she has asked for visits from her priest.

The Star has, however, established that the judge - who presided over the murder and rape trial of former SA Air Force sergeant Flippie Venter - is still under so-called suicide watch.

While military personnel who attempt suicide normally face charges of “conduct unbecoming”, the South African National Defence Force has declined to confirm or deny whether this will be Nomoyi’s fate.

In response to questions from The Star on Friday, spokesperson Colonel Petrus Mothlabance stated: “The department of defence confirms that the person in question is still in hospital, in a stable condition as stated previously.

“The department has no information regarding the reported incident.”

The Star has, however, established that members of the military’s legal services have visited Nomoyi in hospital. It will be up to acting director of military prosecutions Colonel Ruben Mbangatha to decide whether the judge will face any charges.

Should she be convicted of “conduct unbecoming”, she faces the humiliation of cashiering, a ritual where disgraced military staff are dishonourably discharged from service.

The popular and well-liked judge began her career in the military legal services in 1995. She was appointed as a judge in 2000 and sworn in as senior military judge by Deputy Judge President Phineas Mojapelo on September 1 2004

The judge’s colleagues have expressed shock and disbelief at allegations that she tried to commit suicide.

“She loves her children profoundly,” one colleague said, “and she would never do anything to hurt them.”

A Gauteng police spokesperson on Sunday confirmed that the police were not investigating the circumstances under which Nomoyi was injured and did not suspect any foul play.

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was perhaps the most controversial personality to figure in the new era of modern day witchcraft. Born in England, the son of Emily and Edward, he was brought up in an atmosphere of strict religious piety. His parents were devout Christians and staunch members of the Plymouth Brethren sect. His whole life seems to have been a revolt against his parents and everything they stood for. (Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia)

He was educated at Trinity College at Cambridge where he first became interested in the occult. In 1899, Crowley is reported to have become a member of a coven, but was dismissed after a time due to his contemptuous attitude toward women, his personal ego and his sexual perversion.

Crowley travelled much, especially in the East studying Eastern Occult systems including Buddhism and the ‘I Ching.’ As he delved deeper into the occult, he became infamous as a Black magician and Satanist. He openly identified himself with the number 666, the biblical number for the antichrist.

Toward the end of his life, a friend introduced Crowley to Gerald B. Gardner. A certain Leo Ruickbie has said that Crowley played a crucial role in helping Gardner establish a new pagan religion called Wicca. Wiccan initiation rituals are lifted directly from Crowley’s “Gnostic Mass” written for the Ordo Templi Orientis in 1913.

The sordid details of his life are far too lurid to repeat here, but suffice it to say that the British press dubbed him the “Wickedest Man in the World.”

His philosophy of life was: “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”

Crowley died penniless and a drug addict. Unrepentant and unbowed, he left this world with a final snub at the society that he had rejected. He left instructions that he was to be cremated and instead of the usual religious service, his “Hymn to Pan” and other extracts from his writing were to be proclaimed from the pulpit.

Wilbur M. Smith once said, “Men who are going to be disciples of these lords of naturalism must expect never to come into the experience of joy for which their very hearts were created.” Crowley undoubtedly had times of pleasure in his sinful way, but real joy surely eluded him.

For much more on this influential Satanist, type in Aleister Crowley in Google or some other search engine. It is said that Crowley’s ideas had a part in the throwing off of moral restraints in the 1960’s as many musicians and popular personalities, including the Beatles, picked up on his ideas.

How to account for such aberrant behavior? Unfortunately, there are some who rebel against the Christian religion for any number of reasons. Then there just seems to be a group of people who want to be different and spout some esoteric ideas in order to impress people. Then, there are unstable, disordered and unthinking people who are taken in by these weird ideas.

Raymond F. Smith is a deacon at Fellowship Bible Church in Victoria and President of Strong Families of Victoria.

Now is the time to admit to the ghosts in your cupboards - all for a good cause of course. Child protection group Bravehearts wants to hear about your supernatural sightings and will sell The Ghost Files to raise money to help abused children

Ghost file #1
Our pubs are alive with spectres

From the ghost that haunts the bar of the Barron River Hotel at Stratford to the Chinese poltergeist furious at being burned in the 1930s on Granite Creek, the Far North appears to be a hot spot for the paranormal.

It is hoped this week’s formal launch of Braveheart’s ghost investigations by the soon to be appointed Cairns president of the association “Sheriff” Dales Whyte will unearth scores of such stories.

One still making his presence felt is the Barron River’s spectre who is believed to have committed suicide by plunging to his death out of the pub after being jilted by his girlfriend.

The shadowy Stratford bar fly, known as Henry, has been lurking in the main bar ever since.

In the late 1990s, he terrified one staff member so badly she could not move until the sun rose.

Another staff member fled after the dead ex-patron ran amok in the piano bar.

To this day, patrons say Henry is there but has mainly retired upstairs to where he spent the last minutes of his tormented life.

There are many other pub ghost stories such as the one where a spectre sleeps in people’s beds at the Peeramon Pub on the Tableland.

Its ghost is also said to follow visitors around in the night.

The poltergeist may be that of the pub’s dead chef, who is said to have eerily turned up in a photograph taken years after he passed away.

Or it could be that of a man staying at the hotel who murdered his adulterous wife in the 1920s before turning a gun on himself.

The old Garradunga pub, near the spooky croc-infested Eubenangee swamp north of Innisfail, is also said to have a resident ghost who crashes around in the room where he died.

Ghost file #2
Flaming Chinese miner on murderous rampage

Henry’s frightening escapades pale into insignificance compared to that of a Chinese miner who burned to death in the 1930s, along with his camp, at the wish of the local police.

The enraged ghoul went looking for blood at the neighbouring campsite of the miner who carried out the deed for the constabulary.

Two other miners, Joe Jones and Dick Clarke, asked the man, Ah Quay, why he was so spooked.

Ah Quay took them back to the camp and showed them why.

In a sign of things to come, the men dismounted and their horses bolted across the dangerously swollen creek.

For several hours, the men witnessed plates and bottles hurled across the shack, detonator cords writhing on the floor and fires spontaneously erupting where there was nothing to burn.

Ah Quay’s companion Willie was smothered by a blanket at the hands of the furious spectre and was saved only when the others tore it off.

The shack burst into flames and as the shaken victims escaped, Mr Jones said that Ah Quay murmured “I burn him, he burn me”.

Ghost file #3
Dead lady terrorises Far North

While our two previous cases feature men who have suffered horrid ends, women are also involved in Far Northern hauntings.

Take the example of an abandoned northern suburbs house, owned by a wealthy racehorse owner and grazier who spent much of his time overseas.

In a bid to show the house was not haunted, his agent offered it to anybody rent-free for three months.

A man called George, who was down on his luck, accepted the challenge.

When he saw visions of a ghostly woman in the garden and footsteps on the deck, the sceptical renter began to have his doubts.

During an electrical storm he was shocked to see the woman’s twisted features reflected in the window panes of the dining room.

“On another occasion, I swear I heard a strange gurgling noise like somebody getting their throat cut,” George reportedly said.

Framed pictures suddenly falling off the walls, including one which struck him on the head, could have been the final straw.

But a stoic George stayed another three months and then declined to pay rent after a second rent-free period had expired.

The house was eventually torn down.