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Strange stories and bizarre news

326K views 2K replies 105 participants last post by  John O 
#1 ·
Maybe it's just me, but I keep seeing things suggesting that the end times are near. Here's today's:

Some may remember two years ago when Jeff Bush of Seffner, Florida, was getting ready for bed. A sinkhole suddenly opened in his bedroom floor and he was swallowed up. His body was never recovered. The home was demolished and the sinkhole filled in.

Now, the sinkhole has re-opened. The earth has not yet vomited forth his decayed and shambling remains to stagger through the neighborhood hungry for human flesh or, perhaps, small pets. But neighbors are, unsurprisingly, concerned.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/20/us/florida-sinkhole-seffner/index.html
 
#8 · (Edited)
I think this has turned into the sinkhole thread! :D

Here is a recording of a sinkhole:


The editorial review on Amazon says,
Combining ambient/experimental entities Bad Sector and Where, Olhon's 'Sinkhole' is already being hailed as a masterpiece in the dark ambient world. Entirely composed using field recordings taken in Pozzo del Merro, the world's deepest sinkhole, Olhon's earthy emanations are appropriately dark, deep, claustrophobic and frightening.
 
#11 ·
#12 · (Edited)
Two newspaper stories have haunted me for more than three decades:

A young man who was "mentally challenged" was given a card by his parents and told to give it to anyone who wanted to interact with him. The card described his disability and instructed the reader to contact the parents if there was any problem. One day the young man was stopped on the sidewalk by two policemen who witnessed him commit some minor infraction. When one of the policemen started to question him, he automatically reached into his pocket for the card. The policeman thought he was reaching for a weapon and drew his gun and fired; he missed and shot the second officer in the hand. Thinking he was under attack, the second policeman drew his gun and shot the young man dead.

A young man, who lived alone, began acting bizarrely and fantasized himself to be a superhero crime fighter. He made himself a caped superhero costume and began running around the neighborhood at night. He came to the attention of the police when neighbors complained that his jumping around on the apartment buildings rooftops was keeping them up nights. Then he abrubtly disappeared. After some time had passed, the police finally broke into his apartment. He was found suffocated in a large box he had constructed, either an accident or a suicide. In the middle of the room was a large cardboard robot he had fashioned and built. In the news conference the police chief said he twisted the knobs on the robot, but nothing happened. I have always wondered what prompted the police chief to test the controls on a cardboard robot.
 
#14 ·
Another newspaper story that still bothers me decades later:

Chicago authorities were struggling to decide what to do with a six-year old boy who murdered a five-year old boy by pushing him off an apartment building roof. The six-year old had accosted the five-year old and demanded money. The victim was found clutching the best payment he could offer: a potato chip.
 
#15 ·
#19 ·
Decades ago, when I was a child, I read a local story in a Texas newspaper about a little girl who was sitting on a horse; the horse turned its head back and with its teeth ripped the girl's face off. A couple days later I read a followup story that doctors were helpless and the girl had died in the hospital. I have been suspicious of horses since.

Sometime later I read a short and cryptic newspaper story about five prisoners on a southern chain gang killed while spreading hot tar on a road. A motorist ran the barricades and hit the tar, splashing it on the prisoners. My father had to explain to me that hot tar sticks to the skin and all the guards could do was watch the men roast to death.
 
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#21 ·
Apples fall from sky in UK
Rush hour drivers in one English city (Keresley, Coventry) were surprised to see apples falling from the sky. Scientists say they probably came from a nearby orchard but did explain how they fell from the sky.
15 December 2011

http://specials.msn.com/a-list/news/apples-fall-from-sky-psp

Blast but 'no bomb' in Pakistani cities
Explosion heard in two cities likely was caused by a sonic boom
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A loud blast alarmed residents and security officials in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, and nearby city of Rawalpindi on Monday but police later said it appeared it had been a sonic boom.
Residents of both cities heard a big blast just before 11 a.m. (1 a.m. ET).
About 45 minutes after the blast was heard, a senior police official stated, "We have checked everywhere in Rawalpindi, all the main areas and hospitals, but there is nothing. It could have been a sonic boom but we are still investigating."
No air force aircraft had been over the city at the time of the blast, said a Pakistani air force spokesmen.
A military official said there had been no bomb at any of the main military installations in Rawalpindi.

Camera lens mysteriously falls from sky, damages roof
Camera lens crashes through roof of 55-year-old Debbie Payne. Her neighbor heard a loud noise near the Payne's home a few weeks ago. When he stepped out to help Payne investigate the source of the ruckus, the two discovered that the roof of her two-story home had a hole and that two window screens were sliced open.
Sitting in the neighbor's driveway was a two-pound nine-inch Canon camera lens - and no one knows how or why it fell from the sky only that it was the cause of the damage.
Petaluma police are attempting to track down the owner by tracing its serial number and questioning whether it was possible that someone dropped the lens out of a plane.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said he had never heard of a camera lens falling from an aircraft, adding that "simply proving it came from a plane would be difficult to do."

http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_new...lens-mysteriously-falls-from-sky-damages-roof

Clipboard Falls From sky
Gus Binos was washing a van outside his Long Island home on Thursday at about 3:30 p.m. when he heard a startling noise and saw shocked when a metal clipboard landed 20 feet from where he was standing.
"I just jumped and turned," Binos said.
"Wow, what if I got hit with it?" Binos said. "It is a very sharp piece of metal. I mean, with the velocity that it was coming down, it would have stuck a hole in my head."
Jammed inside the clip was a thin stack of aviation documents, including flight patterns and navigation guidelines for flying through New York City's Hudson River corridor and around the Statue of Liberty. The clipboard also held a runway map of nearby MacArthur Airport in Islip.
It's possible, pilot Adam Rosenberg said, that a pilot accidentally left the clipboard resting on the exterior of the aircraft before takeoff.
"Sometimes in the process of preparing to 'pre-flight' an airplane, or after you get out of an aircraft, you will put something on the wing. However, the odds of it making it off the airport property once the airplane begins taking off are very slim," Rosenberg said.
Rosenberg said it is highly unusual -- but not unheard of -- for a pilot to accidentally lose an item like a clipboard while in mid-air. A cockpit door could accidentally come open and some planes have exposed cockpits.
FAA investigators want to speak with Binos and examine the clipboard to trace its origin.
http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/n...and-Aviation-Documents-Mystery-213433311.html

Mysterious Rumble Felt in Jersey
The ground in south New Jersey shook Saturday morning according to many witnesses, but no earthquakes or military training exercises were reported.
The U.S. Geological Survey suggested a possible sonic boom although the military was not training on any aircraft at the time.
"I'm in LEH [Little Egg Harbor] and my basement door shook violently for 15 sec or so long enough to creep me out. Sounded like someone was trying to get out," Dana Re posted on her Facebook page.
John Tefankjian left a comment stating that he felt his house in Brigantine shake, but differently from when fighter jets go by in training.
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst spokesman Pascual Flores stated, "There currently is no training of any type that would have resulted in today's incident."
Residents in Atlantic, Cape May, Ocean, Salem and Camden County also experienced the shaking.
Comments left on the independent Earthquake-Report.com:
"Felt like a rumble, everyone ran outside, we all noticed on our street." (Ocean City)
"Whole house started shaking, outside sounded like a bomb with slight shaking." (Little Egg Harbor)
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/20/14580549-mystery-ground-shaking-rattles-south-jersey?lite
 
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#22 ·
The Mad Gasser of Mattoon

Mattoon, Illinois - August 31, 1944, Urban Raef of Grant Avenue stumbled out of bed and vomited in the bathroom. He woke his wife to ask her if she'd left on the gas. She had not but also found herself paralyzed. That same night in another part of Mattoon, a woman awoke to hear her daughter coughing violently and, in attempting to go to her aid, found herself barely able to walk.

The next night at 11 p.m. Mrs. Bert Kearney of 1408 Marshall Avenue awoke to a sweetish smell of cloying potency. She first thought it was the flowers outside her window. As the smell grew stronger, she found herself paralyzed. She called to her sister, Mrs. Ready, who was in the house. Mrs. Ready smelled the odor and said it was coming from the window. They called the police who searched the grounds but found no evidence of a prowler or a strange odor. At 12:30 a.m. Mr. Kearney, a cab driver, returned home and saw a stranger crouching at a window of his house. He described the stranger as "tall, dressed in dark clothing and wearing a tight-fitting cap" who fled at his approach. Kearney gave chase but the stranger had vanished into the night. That same night, Mrs. Charles Rider reported an attack at her residence on Prairie Avenue.

In the four ensuing days, four more gas attacks occurred each involving a victim smelling a "sickly sweet odor" and suffering a subsequent bout of nausea and paralysis which would last a couple of hours. On September 5th, Beulah Cordes and her husband Carl were returning to their home on North 21st Street at about 10:30 p.m. Mrs. Cordes noticed a white cloth the size of a man's handkerchief lying on her porch by the door. She picked it up and noticed that it gave off an odor that gave her body an electrifying jolt that seemed to settle in her knees where a paralysis immediately set in followed by a swelling in her lips and face. Her mouth began to bleed and she was unable to talk. Within two hours, though, she made a complete recovery. When the police searched the area, they found a "well used" skeleton key and a nearly empty tube of lipstick on the sidewalk next to the porch. The cloth, apparently not a handkerchief, was examined but no evidence of any kind of strange chemical was found on it. That same night on North 13th Street, Mrs. Leonard Burrell reported a stranger broke through her window and attempted to gas her.

The following day, Mrs. Ardell Spangler (or Spangle) smelled a sickly sweet odor at 10:00 p.m. and suffered mild nausea and paralysis. Two hours later, Laura Junken was similarly stricken and Fred Goble reported a similar attack at 1:00 a.m. Goble's neighbor, Robert Daniels, saw a "tall man" running from Goble's house at about that time.

In the ensuing days, "Mattoon's Mad Anesthetist" would use gas to knock 11-year-old Glenda Hendershot (another report calls her Mrs. Glenda Hendershott) unconscious in her bedroom on South 14th Street, attempt to force his way into the home of a very frightened Mae Williams, gas the home of Violet Driskell and her daughter Ramona on DeWitt Avenue, gas the home of Russell Bailey on Westwood where four people lay sleeping, gas the bedroom of Frances Smith and her sister Maxine on Moultrie Avenue. All suffered roughly the same symptoms. The Smith sisters also reported hearing a strange buzzing noise and seeing a blue vapor just prior to the attack. They believed the Mad Gasser carried a flit gun which is used to spray pesticides. Another attack occurred on Moultrie Avenue that same night but the victim remains unidentified and the incident was not reported in the media.

Police checked out all of Mattoon's most suspicious characters but no one fit the gasser's description. Illinois State Attorney W. K. Kidwell checked out the state's mental institutions' release files but nothing unusual turned up. City officials tried to downplay the hysteria that gripped the town. Meanwhile, the gasser struck the home of Kenneth Fitzpatrick causing he and his wife to fall ill. That same night, three sisters were gassed in their living room and also fell ill. Commissioner of Public Health Thomas V. Wright stated: "There is no doubt that a gas maniac exists and has made a number of attacks. But many of the reported attacks are nothing more than hysteria. Fear of the gas man is entirely out of proportion to the menace of the relatively harmless gas he is spraying. The whole town is sick with hysteria."

On September 13th, Bertha Bench (or Burch) saw a pale face looking into her bedroom window and then was struck with the gas and fell ill. She reported that the face was that of a woman and insisted that the gasser was a woman in a man's clothing. Police found the prints of high-heeled shoes outside her bedroom window the next morning. After that, the gasser was heard from no more. All in all, at least three-dozen people had reported being attacked. The police chased down so many false alarms that they were forced to lower the priority of apprehending the Gasser and Police Chief C. E. Cole pronounced it all to be mass hysteria.

Had the Gasser been to other towns prior to his two-week visit to Mattoon? On February 1, 1944, a neighborhood in Coatesville, Pennsylvania was struck by a "sweet-smelling gas" that left three people dead in one house and put several neighbors in the hospital. No explanation was ever found. In December of 1961, 100 people were sickened by a "sickening sweet gas" at a Baptist church in Houston, Texas. The gas caused nausea, headaches, sweating and vomiting.
 
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#23 ·
The Mad Gasser of Botetourt County

But the Mad Gasser made an earlier appearance in Virginia between December 22, 1933 and February 3, 1934, about the time the Ghost of Paris was winding up her annual visits to the little Missouri town. The Virginia attacks occurred in Botetourt County (pronounced "Bah-tah-tot") and extended in Roanoke. The first attack occurred in Haymakertown at 10:00 p.m. at the home of Cal Huffman when his wife noticed a strange odor and was overcome by nausea. A half-hour later, the odor returned and Cal Huffman called the police. Officer O. D. Lemon investigated and, in a remarkable similarity to the last gas attack at Mattoon a decade later, found the prints of a woman's high-heeled shoes outside a window and under the porch where the stranger apparently hid. Immediately after Officer Lemon left at 1:00 a.m., the odor returned sickening all eight members of the household and a guest, Ashby Henderson. The symptoms included nausea, headaches, swelling of the face, mouth and throat. One of the Huffman children, 20-year-old Alice, had actually stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated by physician S. F. Driver.

Two nights later, Christmas Eve, Clarence Hall, his wife and two children returned to their Cloverdale home at 9:00 p.m. after a church service. Inside the home, a strong, sweet odor greeted them and they immediately fell ill with weakness and nausea. They called the police whose investigation revealed that the odor seemed to be strongest by a rear window where a nail had been removed. Police theorized that the assailant may have sprayed the gas through the resulting hole.

On December 27, A. Keely and his mother were sickened by a mysterious odor in Troutville. On January 10th, Mrs. Moore, a guest in the home or Haymakertown resident Homer Hylton heard voices outside a damaged window in the home just before a noxious gas was sprayed through the window. That same night, G. D. Kinzie was attacked with "a potentially lethal chlorine gas" in Troutville. On January 16, F. B. Duval returned to his Bonsack home at 11:30 p.m. to find his family had been attacked by a gas and, on his way to meet police, saw a man running towards a nearby car with a woman in it. An attack occurred in Carvin's Cove and another in Colon on the 19th. On the 22nd, three houses in Carvin's Cove were believed to be attacked in consecutive fashion going in a southerly direction but, due to a police mix-up, turned out to be only the Reedy home where a running figure was fired at by one of Mr. Reedy's sons. On the 23rd, the Hartsell (or Harteel) house in Pleasantdale Church (or just Pleasantdale) was apparently attacked. The attacker had barricaded the door apparently to hinder escape-a useless tactic since no one was home.

On the 25th, the Cloverdale home of Chester Snyder was prowled by a stranger. Alerted by his dog, Snyder fired at a figure walking around outside. Police confirmed that someone had left footprints outside the home although the stranger may have just been passing through. Whether this was related to the gasser is unknown since no gas was released in this incident. Three days later, at the Colon Siding home of Ed Stanley, he, his wife and three guests were attacked by a gas and saw four men scampering away towards the nearby woods. One of the guests, Frank Guy, fired at them.

By January 30th, due to many false alarms and at least one prank involving someone tossing an ordinary fly spray through someone's window, the residents of Botetourt County began to express doubts that the gasser was real. Dr. Driver believed that some of the gassings were real but also stated that many were the result of overactive imaginations or mistaking ordinary odors for the mysterious gas. Sheriff L. T. Mundy declared the whole thing mass hysteria and would believe it only if he personally was gassed. Yet, at Nace on February 3rd, Mr. and Mrs. A. Scaggs and three guests were acutely affected by a noxious gas. Six days later, J. G. Schaefer's home in Lithia was attacked. A police investigation located discolored snow near Schaeffer's home that gave off a sweetish odor which an analysis revealed to be sulfur, arsenic and mineral oil. The conclusion was insecticide residue. Weeks after the attack on the Huffman household, Alice Huffman was still suffering from fits and convulsions. Dr. Driver concluded them to be anxiety attacks rather than affects of the gas.
 
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#24 ·
Afghan girls hit again by suspected gas attack

KABUL - Thirty schoolgirls in the northern city of Kunduz and six in Kabul were admitted to hospital, health officials and the interior ministry said due to an attack of an unknown gas by unknown assailants dressed in black.

"Others are also coming in. We don't know the exact number of girls affected, it could be many. It's a similar incident to what happened in Kabul and Kunduz last week," said Homayun Khamosh, head of the Kunduz city hospital where girls were admitted.

A Kunduz girl who said her name was Farzana told Reuters that she saw a man in black clothes, with his mouth and nose wrapped in a cloth, throw a bottle near the school. The bottle appeared to release a smelly fume.

The attacks are the latest in a string of incidents at girls' schools involving an airborne substance which officials say could be poisonous gas. Blood tests taken from girls affected by previous attacks have not yet yielded any results.

An interior ministry spokesman confirmed that half a dozen schoolgirls and one teacher from a school in Kabul's fourth precinct were also taken to a nearby clinic after smelling a gas and falling ill.

"It's not clear what was the cause of the poisoning, whether it's a destructive action or a kind of gas used for something else but we will check whether this is an action of the enemies or food poisoning," Zemarai Bashary said.

A Reuters reporter outside the Kabul school said several police officers and police cars had surrounded the area. One schoolgirl, a 15-year old called Samira, was on gate duty shortly before her classmates were taken ill.

"I smelled something very sweet and when I went and told my teachers about it they said it was not a big incident but later on I saw girls falling down and collapsing and vomiting so we called the police," she said.

Samira said she saw three men standing outside the school shortly before smelling the gas.
Police at the school played down the incident and said the gas was coming from a leak in a shop across the street, but the shop vendor said he had no gas on his premises.

Three suspected poison gas attacks on girls' schools have taken place in Kunduz over the past few weeks and last week 22 schoolgirls and three teachers fell ill when their school was struck.
It is not clear who is responsible for the attacks. In the past officials have blamed the Taliban but the Islamist group has denied involvement and condemned the possible attacks.

The Taliban banned education for girls when they ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, and in many rural areas where the Taliban hold sway, girls' schools remain closed, teachers have been threatened and some girls have been attacked with acid.

Attacks on girls' schools using suspected poisonous gas have increased since last year. In most cases the girls reported smelling something sweet, then fainting, dizziness and vomiting.
None of the cases was fatal.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37078727/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

Afghan girls fall ill after apparent gas poisoning

KABUL - About 40 schoolgirls became ill and were taken to hospital after a suspected gas poisoning in the Afghan capital Wednesday, another apparent attack by hardline Islamists opposed to female education.

The Taliban banned education for girls during their Afghan rule from 1996-2001, but have condemned similar attacks in the past. They have, however, set fire to dozens of schools, threatened teachers and even attacked schoolgirls in rural areas.

Wednesday's incident followed a similar pattern to other recent attacks at girls' schools involving an airborne substance which officials said could be some form of gas.

Asif Nang, a spokesman for the Education Ministry, said the girls, of differing ages from a school in Kabul's east, were being treated in hospital. Their illnesses were not believed to be serious.
"It looks like it is another case of gas poisoning, but it is being investigated now," he said.
The Afghan government, however, did not suggest who may have been responsible for the apparent attack.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38845340/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
 
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#25 ·
Psychologists Robert E. Bartholomew and Erich Goode examined the phantom assailant phenomenon for Skeptical magazine in the Vol. 7, No. 4, 1999 issue in an article called “Phantom Assailants & the Madness of Crowds: The Mad Gasser of Botetourt County.” They write: “From time to time, under certain conditions and in various locales, episodes of collective delusion erupt, then quickly subside. One common subtype of the collective delusion is a widespread fear of a phantom assailant. Such outbreaks are remarkable, noteworthy, and in need of systematic study; we ignore them at our peril.”
 
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#26 ·
Author Loren Coleman has cataloged many instances of weird and inexplicable occurrences as phantoms. Coleman's phantasms come to us in the form of clowns, strange animals and apparitions. Such occurrences, often bordering on the frightening and bizarre, are collectively titled "high strangeness." One of Coleman's weirdest cases was "the Blue Phantom of Route 66." The famous Route 66 was a project begun in the twenties that joined the vast Midwest together, from Illinois to Arizona, by a main artery, a two-lane highway that wound through the endless American countryside and passed through the centers of town after town. By the time the project was completed in the 50s, the route was already obsolete and no longer able to handle the increased volume of traffic. One by one, towns built freeway bypasses to cut down the endless traffic that had begun to parade down Route 66. Parts of the historic route fell into disrepair and remain so today (although parts have been restored). As traffic thinned out on the old highway, a new phantom flier-or perhaps driver would be better-appeared in Joliet, Illinois in late May of 1952.

Two cars driving down Route 66 were fired on by another moving car-a blue one. One driver received a minor wound. A while later, another driver reported being fired on by a blue car while driving down Route 66 south of Lincoln.

As the year entered June, more people reported being fired up by a speeding blue car. Eleven reports were filed by June 10th, one by a patrol car fired upon from a blue car. The patrol car gave chase but could not overtake the mysterious vehicle. One witness saw a man in khakis holding a revolver standing by a blue Chrysler on Route 121. The next day, a truck driver reported being fired on and two bullets had pierced the windshield but no bullets were found in the cab. Two days later, June 19th, a couple reported being fired on from a blue Ford they chased but could not overtake. That same night in Mattoon at about 7:30, another man was fired on with a shotgun by someone driving a yellow Chevrolet truck on Route 16. On June 24th, a man was fired on from a black sedan in Champaign. He gave chase but could not overtake the vehicle.

Police could not decide if the mysterious sniper used a .22 or a .38 because for, despite the shattered windows and bullet holes, no bullets were ever recovered despite diligent searches by police determined to apprehend the culprit (and even though police were able to determine no bullets had passed through any of the cars that had been fired on). After that, the Blue Phantom of Route 66 was heard from no more.

Or was he?

From the book Clear Intent, author Lawrence Fawcett and Barry Greenwood documented occurrences of "high strangeness" during what is now known as the Great Midwest UFO Flap of the mid-70s. One particular incident took place at Grand Forks AFB in Grand Forks, North Dakota concerning a phantom shooter on November 3rd of that year. At about 0130, military sentries reported gunshots "fired from on base toward hard alert aircraft on the Sac alert ramp," according to an official report. In all, four security policemen heard gunshots and possible hits on two aircraft in the 319 Bomb Wing. The firearm report sounded like a .22 or other small caliber rifle and came from the direction of the base golf course. No one heard less than four shots but some claimed to have heard as many as eleven. The hits on the aircraft were clearly heard but no damage was found. The area was immediately and thoroughly searched. No evidence of any kind was recovered, no footprints, no eyewitnesses, no firearm, no spent cartridges or casings. A tracking dog was dispatched to the area. The dog sniffed the area and began to track across Highway 2, over a large pile of broken concrete. The guard's report states, "The track turned east nearly parallel to the highway and…approximately 100-150 yards to a small trailer court (20 trailers) then turned south along a tree line and then southeast toward a trailer. The track was lost at a picket fence adjoining the trailer. No lights were on in the trailer and no one was located in the vicinity."
 
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#27 ·
Odd shootings put California town 'on edge'
No suspect, no one hurt in mysterious spree of gunfire on cars, buildings

updated 6:07 p.m. ET, Tues., Jan. 26, 2010
VALLEY SPRINGS, Calif. - For the past month, someone in this Northern California town has been shooting a gun at cars and buildings.
No one knows who might be doing it or why, or whether or when the person will strike again. It is one big, unsettling mystery.
Since mid-December, the shooter has fired at six buildings and nine cars. In three cases motorists were driving as a bullet shattered a window or windshield or pierced the driver's side door too close for comfort.

"It leaves me on edge," said Hazel Provost, who moved to Valley Springs from crime-prone Stockton, 30 miles away, 12 years ago. "I'm not going out after 4:30 in the evening any more."
The Calaveras County Sheriff's Office has little to go on - one witness's glimpse of a late model, light-colored sedan with square head lights. For now, all that is certain in this country town 60 miles from Sacramento is uncertainty.
'We're worried'
Most of the shootings have taken place before dawn or after dusk. No one has been hurt, but no one is sure that no one will. The sheriff's office has not released the names of those who've been targeted
"Of course we're worried," said Kathleen D'Angelo, who moved to Valley Springs six years ago from Milpitas, near San Jose. "You watch everything."
Valley Springs, part of a large, unincorporated section of western Calaveras County (population 2,500) in the Sierra foothills, is known for a golf course, a reservoir and more than its share of big-city refugees. People use guns for hunting, scaring coyotes, target practice. Not on each other.
"We don't typically have Joe Q. Citizen be the victim of a crime," said Sgt. Dave Seawell of the sheriff's department. "It's usually bad guy on bad guy."

Nick Baptista, editor of the Valley Spring News, a twice-weekly newspaper, said that most people believe the shootings have something to do with gang activity. Second, down on the list, is that it's a young person, though the two theories are not mutually exclusive.
"My first thought was that someone got a gun for Christmas," said Patricia Sowards, who has lived in Valley Springs for over 20 years.
Six motorists fired on
Most of the shootings have taken place during the last two weeks of December. The worst was Dec. 22, when six motorists were fired at either just before dawn or after dusk. The most recent shootings confirmed as part of the spree happened Jan. 9 in a neighborhood with closely spaced homes. There have been other scattered reports of shootings, but authorities have found no bullets in those cases.

The gun is a small-caliber weapon, though authorities will not say what caliber or give any other details on the weapon.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect and the FBI is assisting the investigation as well.
Jack Duffett, 20, who grew up in Valley Springs, said that young people get bored in the town and find themselves eager to leave, or make their own fun. "I think it's someone who is bored," he said, "Or trying to make themselves look like a gangster. Nothing like this has ever happened, but I just know it's a kid."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35085663/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
 
#28 ·
The following took place around Turlock California out in the country, and took place 25 minutes ago.

I was just out walking my dog. I saw a comet-looking object streaking across the sky. It left a white hazy light that looked like an arrowhead with part of the shaft attached to it. It was pretty large in size. The arrowhead part eventually dispersed and decreased in light as the object continued on and disappeared. The light of the arrowhead became so weak I couldn't see it by the time I got home, but it took over a large area. The shaft part could still be seen and dispersed completely. I unfortunately didn't happen to take my phone so I do not have video.
 
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