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A LARGE great white shark has been sighted in a lake on the New South Wales Central Coast, prompting warnings for people to take caution in surrounding waterways. A commercial fisherman snagged the beast this morning while casting nets off Canton Beach, on the north side of Tuggerah Lake, which opens into the Pacific Ocean at The Entrance.

OK, you FReeper arborists helped identify the strange pod-bearing tree in my front yard (it's a Magnolia). Now I need help figuring out what kind of plant this is. It's a hardy ground cover that grows crazy fast. Bees seem to dig it, although it's not Bees' Bliss. I've seen something similar to it referred to as an icewine plant, but that's the only real reference to that name that I can find.

PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. -- About 30 fish were spotted "walking" through a Florida neighborhood, shocking homeowners who said they've never seen anything like it. "I was like, 'No way there's fish in the street,'" homeowner Dianna Fernandez said. "And I kept going further and further and seeing fish everywhere -- in driveways. I've never seen anything like it." The walking catfish were spotted in the road near a Pinellas Park subdivision Tuesday. The fish used their pectoral fins to walk or shuffle around the streets. Video showed the fish moving through the neighborhood. A scientist with the Florida Fish and...

PARIS (AFP) - Water bathed the surface of southern Mars for millions of years, helping to create an environment theoretically capable of nurturing life, according to a new study into the planet's mysterious oceans. Scientists at Brown University in Rhode Island used an instrument aboard a US spacecraft, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, to hunt for traces of phyllosilicates, or clay-like minerals that preserve a record of water's interaction with rocks. They found phyllosilicates in thousands of places, in valleys, dunes and craters in the ancient southern highlands, pointing to an active role by water in Mars's earliest geological era, the...

Fort Collins, CO, July 12, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Radar data obtained by MUFON confirms that there were Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs) flying above Stephenville, Texas, January 8th, 2008, just as many eyewitnesses had reported and which made headlines worldwide. MUFON's analysis of the radar data obtained through freedom of information act (FOIA) requests to the National Weather Service and the FAA show that unknown flying objects were on a direct course to President Bush's Crawford ranch and were separate from the known F-16 jets the same radar data confirmed were flying in the area that night. The unknown radar targets, which...

Small and neat, there are little fir trees dotted around the lawn, tubs of flowers on the terrace and rows of firewood stacked neatly by the fence. Rabbit owners in Witten and Dortmund are worried about their pets There used to be a rabbit hutch, too, at the end of the garden. But not any more. "One morning, when I came out to feed my rabbits, I was surprised to see that the hutch door was open," recalls Elfriede. "I looked inside and saw Rocco just lying there. His head was missing. A little later I found Felina in the...

An astrophysicist claims to know the true source of a strange grouping of lights that appeared in the Arizona night sky 11 years ago. Dr. James R. Bartzen said he has indisputable proof that the so-called "Phoenix Lights" were a product of secret man-made technology being shielded from the public. He works at the Russian-American Institute of Space Science. "There are no theories, there is only evidence," Bartzen told ABC15. "The government desires people to believe in space aliens so they don't have to reveal the technologies that both we and the Russians have."

A rare white stag has been observed on the west coast of the Highlands. The animal has been seen with other red deer by a member of the John Muir Trust, which has kept its location a secret to protect it from poachers. The killing of a white stag on the Devon and Cornwall border last year sparked outrage. Fran Lockhart, partnership manager for the trust, caught the young Highland deer on camera. She described it as "ghost-like". She said: "I am thrilled to know that there is a white stag roaming free out there in the Scottish Highlands and...

Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says. "What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen. The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said. The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the...

A GROUP of glamour lesbians who believe the world was created by an alien civilisation 25,000 years ago have criticised the Catholic Church for being out of touch. The representatives of the Gay Raelian society yesterday staged a demonstration outside Parliament House to protest the Pope's arrival for World Youth Day next week. Raelian spokeswoman Eden Bates said it was an insult that the Pope would be welcomed into Australia when "our gorgeous, fantastic spiritual leader Rael wasn't even given the respect of a visa". "I'm not Catholic, I'm Raelian and I'd like to see police escorts for our beautiful...

You might want to sit down. The fate of the universe depends on Denver voters approving a plan to welcome extraterrestrials on a May 2009 ballot. If Denver cracks open the door for alien beings, the rest of the world will follow, UFO expert Steven Greer... "If the people will lead, the politicians will have to follow,"... He rallied support for a ballot initiative to form a Denver Extraterrestrial Commission Among Greer's many strong assertions: President Eisenhower met with aliens in 1954 and hoped to tell the world, but ... The aliens at Roswell didn't crash; they were zapped by...

A large meteor crossed Israel's skies on Tuesday evening, and was seen by many residents, mainly in the center of the country, Army Radio reported. A trail left by a meteor (illustrative). Photo: Courtesy According to citizens' reports, the object was seen at approximately 8:15 p.m., as it crossed the sky from east to west horizontally. Some witnesses said they saw two shiny objects in the sky, and others reported that they heard a shrieking sound. A Petah Tikva resident told Army Radio that he saw a beam of light, which crossed the sky in the direction of the sea....

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Flying saucers may soon be more fact than mere science fiction. University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy has submitted a patent application for a circular, spinning aircraft design reminiscent of the spaceships seen in countless Hollywood films. Roy, however, calls his design a “wingless electromagnetic air vehicle,” or WEAV. The proposed prototype is small – the aircraft will measure less than six inches across – and will be efficient enough to be powered by on-board batteries. Roy said the design can be scaled up and theoretically should work in a much larger...

Don’t blame a bird for the punch that the Northwest Airlines plane took in the nose on Sunday. Northwest is now examining the dented nose cone of a Boeing 757 jet that was damaged during a flight from Detroit to Tampa. Images snapped by passengers... show the front tip of the plane looking a bit like a beer cup smashed in after a football game. Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the F.A.A. in Atlanta, said pilots heard a bang when the plane was at 18,000 feet during its descent into Tampa. Its radar went out, prompting the crew to suspect...

Marc Millis, former head of NASA’s Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program and founding architect of the Tau Zero Foundation, now gives us a look at the Foundation’s current status and his thoughts on where it’s going. To those who have been waiting for the Tau Zero Foundation to begin in earnest, your patience is greatly appreciated. We are definitely making progress and this article describes that status.

A doctor who thinks space aliens have the key to unlimited alternative energy — but that the government is keeping a lid on it — will speak in Denver on Wednesday night. Dr. Steven M. Greer, founder of The Disclosure Project, says with gasoline at $4 a gallon, it's even more crucial now that government officials reveal what 60 years of studying UFOs has taught them. "The energy and propulsion systems used by so-called UFOs (or extraterrestrial vehicles) has been studied for over 60 years using taxpayer funds," Greer said on his Web site. "The disclosure of this vital information...

- Survival groups around the world are gearing up and counting down to a mysterious date that has been anticipated for thousands of years: Dec. 21, 2012. Across the United States, Canada and throughout Europe, apocalyptic sects and individuals say that is the day that the world as we know it will end, ABCnews.com reports. Ancient Mayan societies, known for their advanced mathematics and astronomy, followed a "long count" calendar that lasted 5,126 years. When their charts are translated to the Gregorian calendar, the international standard used today, time runs out on Dec. 21, 2012. Believers say there are other...

Fortunately, the odds are good that the next one will fall over one of our oceans, which take up more than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface, or the planet’s still-vast stretches of uninhabited lands. How much in taxpayer dollars should be invested to pinpoint such hazards is one of the toughest risk-management exercises around.

The moon was mistaken for a "bright, stationary" UFO which had been loitering for at least half an hour, by a confused local in South Wales who made a 999 call to the police. Today officers released a transcript in order to highlight the time wasted by unnecessary 999 calls. The bizzare conversation ran as follows: Control: "South Wales Police, what's your emergency?" Caller: "It's not really. I just need to inform you that across the mountain there's a bright stationary object." Control: "Right." Caller: "If you've got a couple of minutes perhaps you could find out what it is?...

Anyone fascinated by UFO sightings will be disappointed to learn that a leading expert has dismissed suggestions we have ever been visited by aliens from outer space. There may be life out there, apparently, but it is just too far to get to Earth by spaceship. Following reported sightings of UFOs there has been renewed speculation that aliens may be watching us. But Dr Christian Kaiser, of the University of Southampton, said it is unlikely any can have made it this far.

Shattering earthquakes, massive tidal waves and simultaneous volcanic eruptions will follow. Nuclear reactors will melt, buildings will crumble, and a cloud of volcanic dust will block out the sun for 40 years. Only the prepared will survive, Geryl said, and not even all of them. These may sound like the ravings of a madman, or perhaps the head of a small apocalyptic sect. But Geryl is not the only one who believes in the apocalypse. Thousands of people worldwide seem to be preparing, in one way or another, for the end of days in 2012. Survival groups exist in Europe,...

With the blankest of blank expressions on their faces, these mysterious figures have been popping up in the most unlikely of places. The faceless mutants have a penchant for A-list celebrity bashes and have been spotted at Elton John's White tie ball and Harrods summer sale, opened by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall. With a membrane of skin stretched tightly over their eyes, noses and mouths, the alien-like figures were most recently snapped 'watching' a match perched on Murray Mount at Wimbledon. Close inspection of the pictures rules out an alien invasion - small perforations around the eye...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities. The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico. But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD. Archeologists are...

First surprise from mission to Mercury: signs of water Thursday, July 3, 2008 8:43 PM By Kevin Mayhood THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Mercury facts Diameter: 3,032 miles Magnetic field: only rocky planet other than Earth with an active magnetic field Density: densest planet in solar system; 5.3 times denser than water Distance from sun: average of 36 million miles Distance from Earth: 50 million to 200 million miles Messenger facts Distance Messenger will travel: 4.9 billion miles as the spacecraft circles the sun 14 times before slowing enough to enter Mercury's orbit Size: 56 inches tall, 73 inches wide and 50...

Australian astronomers may have found a solution to how far-away Jupiter and Saturn drive the sun's solar cycle. In a paper published in the Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, astronomer Dr Ian Wilson and colleagues from the University of Southern Queensland, suggest Jupiter and Saturn affect the sun's movement and its rotation, and hence its sunspot activity. Every 11 years the sun undergoes a period of intense solar activity, marked by flares, coronal mass ejections and sunspots. This period is known as the solar maximum and occurs twice each solar, or Hale, cycle. "The sun can be thought...

With the blankest of blank expressions on their faces, these mysterious figures have been popping up in the most unlikely of places. The faceless mutants have a penchant for A-list celebrity bashes and have been spotted at Elton John's White tie ball and Harrods summer sale, opened by Sex and the City star Kim Cattrall.

London (agencies) A Desperate dad last night begged medics for help because he is turning naturally into a woman. Pub singer Terry Wright said: “I am a man, not a woman. And I do not want to be a woman. “I just want to get my life back to normal.” Father-of-five Terry, 60, started losing his hair and beard ten years ago. Since then he has developed smooth skin, hot flushes. And kids living nearby taunt him by calling him “She-Man”. Blood tests have revealed Terry has abnormally high levels of the female hormone oestrogen. But doctors who have examined...

Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, if they're out there. The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals. Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. • Click here to hear the sounds. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights. The radio waves are blocked by the ionosphere, a charged layer atop our atmosphere, so they do...

A Royal Navy aircraft engineer claims to have seen a "glowing" UFO hover over the M5 motorway. Michael Madden, 25, said he watched in disbelief as the disc-shaped object floated above his head before it "zoomed off at incredible speed". He said the unidentified flying object flew for up to three minutes above junction 21 of the M5, near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. Mr Madden was on his way back from Manchester with colleague Michael Casson, 22, at 9.50pm on Sunday June 29 when he saw the suspected 'extra-terrestrial' craft....

Russian scientists in bid to solve Tunguska Event Last Updated: 1:18AM BST 02/07/2008 Russian scientists will this week attempt to solve the mystery of a giant explosion 100 years ago that turned night to day across western Europe and flattened a large swathe of Siberia. Trees lay strewn across the Siberian countryside, in 1953, 45 years after an 'unexplained explosion' near Tunguska, Russia A century after reindeer herdsmen saw a column of light that shone with the intensity of the Sun moving across the Siberian dawn sky, the Tunguska Event remains one of the modern era's most abiding scientific riddles....

From Hollywood Hills to the Nevada state line, people reported seeing a fireball streaking across the sky and falling near the San Bernardino Mountains this morning, officials said. San Bernardino County Fire Dispatch reported receiving dozens of calls related to what was described as fireball moving at high speed and falling in northwest sky around 10:40 a.m. "We got quite a few reports. It started with a gentlemen in the Lake Arrowhead reporting a fireball in the Meadow Bay area and then we started getting calls from all over," said San Bernardino County dispatch supervisor Tom Barnes. "Fire crews in...

" Earth emits an ear-piercing series of chirps and whistles that could be heard by any aliens who might be listening, astronomers have discovered. The sound is awful, a new recording from space reveals. Scientists have known about the radiation since the 1970s. It is created high above the planet, where charged particles from the solar wind collide with Earth's magnetic field. It is related to the phenomenon that generates the colorful aurora, or Northern Lights."

If all goes according to plan, a massive underground facility in Switzerland will begin smashing particles together later this summer in an effort to provide a clearer understanding of the physical universe than has ever before been possible. Known as the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, the project is composed of a 17-mile circular tunnel beneath Geneva, containing thousands of magnets meant to send beams of subatomic particles hurtling toward each other. The resulting collisions are expected to release matter similar to that present at the "Big Bang" that created the universe.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A strong earthquake could soon rock Lebanon and parts of Israel, authorities said on Monday, urging health officials in northern Israel to make preparations for such an event.

Technology has always played a big role in fighting terrorism. Some inventions are truly useful and will undoubtedly save lives, whereas others are so bizarre that one wonders how in the world they got patented. This list is about the latter: Behold the Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents!(Note: yes, most of these patents cite fighting terrorism as raison d'être)Anti-Terrorist Truck U.S. Patent 4667565, Rapid response patrol and antiterrorist vehicle by Reg. A. Anderson. Issued May 26, 1987. Problem: Terrorists can pop up at any time, leaving local authorities totally defenseless against their raging attacks.Solution: When terrorists walk past this non-descript...

Resident discovers transceiver for GPS navigation in his tree BY SUSAN LINDSEY TEXARKANA GAZETTE Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2008 Former Miller County Sheriff H. L. Phillips got a special delivery Thursday afternoon in a backyard tree just as he was getting ready to mow his yard. He said he noticed a strange looking box with an antenna in one of his trees. “I had looked out here a couple of times earlier this week, and I didn’t see nothing,” said Phillips, who lives in Genoa. “It just kind of appeared.” Because the box was so high up in the...

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/?id=6950 Will Earth's Future Be a FROZEN One? 27-Jun-2008 ...rather than a hot one? - The future? The disappearance of sun spots was the hot topic at a recent international solar conference held at Montana State University. For the past two years, the sun has undergone a phase of relative inactivity, meaning usual solar phenomena such as sun flares, sun spots, and solar eruptions have all but disappeared. "It's a dead face," researcher Saku Tsuneta says of the solar surface. Tsuneta is with the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and was one of the participants at the MSU conference The...

WASHINGTON -- Food prices could rise even more unless the mysterious decline in honey bees is solved, farmers and businessmen told lawmakers Thursday. "No bees, no crops," North Carolina grower Robert D. Edwards told a House Agriculture subcommittee. Edwards said he had to cut his cucumber acreage in half because of the lack of bees available to rent. About three-quarters of flowering plants rely on birds, bees and other pollinators to help them reproduce. Bee pollination is responsible for $15 billion annually in crop value.In 2006, beekeepers began reporting losing 30 percent to 90 percent of their hives. This phenomenon...

Professor of History, Dr. Richard Spence will discuss his new book, Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult.

Stick an asparagus plant in a pot full of Martian soil, and the asparagus might grow happily, scientists announced Thursday. An experiment on the Phoenix Mars lander showed the dirt on the planet’s northern arctic plains to be alkaline, though not strongly alkaline, and full of the mineral nutrients that a plant would need. “We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past, present or future,” said Samuel P. Kounaves of Tufts University, who is leading the chemical analysis, during a telephone news conference on Thursday. “The sort of soil you have...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "Flabbergasted" NASA scientists said on Thursday that Martian soil appeared to contain the requirements to support life, although more work would be needed to prove it." "We basically have found what appears to be the requirements, the nutrients, to support life whether past present or future," Sam Kounaves, the lead investigator for the wet chemistry laboratory on Phoenix, told journalists.

LISTEN ONLINE ON KFI IN LOS ANGELES. Bruce Goldberg may be the most insane guest ever. And that is saying something.

Planet hunters say it's just a matter of time before they lasso Earth's twin, which almost surely is hiding somewhere in our star-studded galaxy. Momentum is building: Just last week, astronomers announced they had discovered three super-Earths — worlds more massive than ours but small enough to most likely be rocky — orbiting a single star. And dozens of other worlds suspected of having masses in that same range were found around other stars. "Being able to find three Earth-mass planets around a single star really makes the point that not only may many stars have one Earth, but they...

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's biggest astronomical observatories are teaming up for an unprecedented quest to find out whether there is life in outer space. The project, led by Japanese astronomers, will bring together a dozen or more observatories from all over the country to study one star that researchers see as a potential home to an extraterrestrial civilization. "Everyone wonders at least once in their lifetime whether space is infinite and whether aliens really do exist," said Shinya Narusawa, chief researcher at Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory in western Japan. The search for aliens and UFOs is not new to Japan. Last...

*The question was sure to come up during press interviews for the upcoming "X-Files" movie. Rapper Xzibit, who plays an FBI agent in the film, was asked if he believes in the existence of other life forms in the universe. "I don't believe in aliens," the 33-year-old tells People magazine. "I don't think aliens or ghosts like black people. We never get abducted; our houses never get haunted. It always happens in rural areas, where no ethnic people live. The day I see somebody from South Central Los Angeles say, 'Man, I got abducted yesterday,' then I'll believe it." "The...

UFO enthusiasts got a boost Friday when Welsh police confirmed that one of their helicopter crews had spotted an "unusual aircraft" flying over Cardiff earlier this month. An investigation into the sighting had been launched, they said. The police clarification came after The Sun reported a UFO had "attacked" a police helicopter, following it for several miles over the Bristol Channel. "The pilot banked sharply to avoid being hit, then launched into a high-speed pursuit. But he was forced to give up the chase as the helicopter's fuel ran low -- and the UFO escaped," the tabloid reported. The helicopter...

Nine experienced cross-country skiers hurriedly left their tent on a Urals slope in the middle of the night, casting aside skis, food and their warm coats. Clad in their sleepwear, the young people dashed headlong down a snowy slope toward a thick forest, where they stood no chance of surviving bitter temperatures of around minus 30 degrees Celsius. Baffled investigators said the group died as a result of “a compelling unknown force” — and then abruptly closed the case and filed it as top secret. The deaths, which occurred 49 years ago on Saturday, remain one of the deepest mysteries...

It is - by any calculation - a creation stunning in its ingenuity. Carved out in a barley field, this 150ft wide pattern is said to be a pictorial representation of the first ten digits of Pi, one of the most fundamental symbols in mathematics. Believers in extra-terrestrials could argue it was made by mathematically-minded aliens on a field trip to Earth. Mystery: The crop circle in a barley field near Wroughton in Wiltshire is a coded version of pi Sceptics will think it the work of humans with a fondness for figures and a penchant for puzzles. But whatever...

A newfound extrasolar planet is the smallest yet discovered orbiting a star smaller than our sun, astronomers announced today. The find may increase the chances of finding life-supporting "exoplanets," they added... The planet, dubbed MOA-2007-BLG-192Lb, is just three times more massive than Earth and orbits what is most likely a brown dwarf -- a "failed" star that is so small its core may not be massive enough to maintain nuclear reactions for very long. The planet is 3,000 light-years from Earth and has a close-in orbit similar to Venus's. But because the newfound body's parent is so much cooler than...

PARIS (AFP) - Genetic material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on Earth, according to a study to be published Sunday. European and US scientists have proved for the first time that two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial. Previous studies had suggested that the space rocks, which hit Earth some 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact. Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead...