Strange Events: From Around The World

By Olivia Stranger

Historic reports & eye-witness accounts of the strange, unusual, and uncanny. 

Since the dawn of time, humanity has recorded and collected strange and unexplainable tales of the unknown. Unimaginable encounters with ghosts, bigfoot, aliens, demons, weird coincidences, and other compelling tales of wonder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Olivia Stranger
• Release date: Aug 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645247510

Book preview

Strange Events

Strange Events

From Around The World

O.A. Stranger

Foreword

One of the biggest traits encompassing humanity is the continuous search for answers. Our intrepid need to find an explanation and reason behind every occurrence. It has gotten mankind from caves to the moon, to some of the tallest mountains and some of the deepest seas. Our continuous search for answers, cause, and reason. It is what defines us as human and for many, cements their existence.

Whether realist or dreamer, there are few alive on earth who will completely deny having seen something strange. Not expressly a ghost, not explicitly an alien, but something they simply cannot explain. It could be an entire lengthy experience, or it could be a simple coincidence. Near every person on this planet will tell you without doubt that they have experienced something they can’t explain. These stories present themselves in carefree campfire tales amongst friends, in thousand year old cave illustrations, and in somber retellings amongst confidants. They exist in every reach of this world from the earliest days of our creations to the modern era.

Even for the most rational and reasonable person of science, there remains a lingering feeling at the back of ones brain reminding them that they can't explain that one shadow out of the corner of their eye. As a race we have written countless texts and spoken countless words in order to find answers for the things that remain answerless. For some this can be frightening, yet others use it as a confident claim to higher power or a cosmic deity.

Some of the stories featured over the following chapters are well known, historical accounts that have been studied for years and re-written time and time again under massive scrutiny. Some are but simple and vague writings from centuries old literature. And of course there are first hand accounts directly from the minds of the very people who experienced them. They have chosen to share their experience not just with me, but with the reader. Some in hopes of a sense of community and many in hopes of answers.

The goal of this compilation is not to tell you why or how these things occurred, or even in some circumstances, what did occur. Read these retellings and accounts so you may draw your own conclusions and find your own answers.

As a member of the paranormal and extraterrestrial community for many years, I have long been interested in finding the unexplained. The search for a book which presents happenings as they are or were, rather than irrefutable stone cold proof pertaining to the authors bias has been long. It is my intent to provide to this community and my peers value in the form of a publication which simply states what happens, and allows people to form their own views and opinions, rather than being convinced of those of the writer. I have tried my best to remain skeptical and unbiased in my editing, and I hope that the reader will take this on board.

Olivia Stranger

Contents

Foreword

1 UFO Sightings

2 Alien Encounters & Abductions

3 The Loch Ness Monster

4 The Mothman

5 Skinwalkers, The Rake, and Wendigo

6 Bigfoot, Sasquatch, the Yowie

7 Miscellaneous Monsters

8 Ghosts & Hauntings

9 Possessions & Witchcraft

10 Weird Occurences

11 Warnings & Premonitions

Index

References

Strange Events

1

UFO Sightings

Frederick Valentich

Twenty-year-old Frederick Valentich was a self-described flying saucer enthusiast who disappeared on a 232 kilometre training flight over Bass Strait on the 21st of October, 1978. The Australian pilot had set an intended destination of King Island, however at 6:19pm Valentich radioed in to Melbourne Air Flight Service with his last words, reporting an unidentified flying object 300 metres in front of him, before reporting to air traffic control, it’s not an aircraft. Neither he nor his Cessna 182L were ever seen again. Here is the abridged exchange between Frederick Valentich and air traffic controller Steve Robey.

Valentich: Is there any known traffic below five thousand [feet]?

Robey: No known traffic.

Valentich: I am – seems [to] be a large aircraft below five thousand.

Robey: What type of aircraft is it?

Valentich: I cannot affirm. It is [sic] four bright. It seems to me like landing lights… The aircraft has just passed over me at least a thousand feet above.

Robey: Roger, and it, it is a large aircraft? Confirm.

Valentich: Er, unknown due to the speed it’s travelling. Is there any Air Force aircraft in the vicinity?

Robey: No known aircraft in the vicinity.

Valentich: It’s approaching right now from due east towards me… It seems to me that he’s playing some sort of game. He’s flying over me, two, three times, at a time at speeds I could not identify.

Robey: Roger. What is your actual level?

Valentich: My level is four and a half thousand. Four five zero zero.

Robey: And confirm you cannot identify the aircraft.

Valentich: Affirmative.

Robey: Roger. Stand by.

Valentich: It’s not an aircraft. It is -

Robey: Can you describe the, er, aircraft?

Valentich: As it’s flying past, it’s a long shape. [Cannot] identify more than [that it has such speed]. It is before me right now, Melbourne.

Robey: And how large would the, er, object be?

Valentich: It seems like it’s stationary. What I’m doing right now is orbiting, and the thing is just orbiting on top of me also. It’s got a green light and sort of metallic. It’s all shiny [on] the outside. It’s just vanished. Would you know what kind of aircraft I’ve got? Is it military aircraft?

Robey: Confirm the, er, aircraft just vanished.

Valentich: Say again.

Robey: Is the aircraft still with you?

Valentich: [It’s, ah, nor-] [Now] approaching from the southwest, the engine is, is rough idling, I’ve got it set at twenty three, twenty four, and the thing is – coughing.

Robey: Roger. And what are your intentions?

Valentich: My intentions are, ah, to go to King Island. Ah, Melbourne, that strange aircraft is hovering on top of me again. It is hovering, and it’s not an aircraft. [Silence for 17 seconds, open microphone, with audible, unidentified staccato noise. End of transcript.]

Extensive investigations and searches were carried out, and the Bureau of Air Safety Investigations announced that The reason for the disappearance of the aircraft has not been determined, however they also claimed that it was presumed fatal.

Some investigators theorise that Valentich had become disoriented, and found himself upside down above the ocean, seeing the reflection of his own Cessna. However, with Valentich’s claims that the unidentified aircraft seemed to play games and flew around him, in front of him and either side, and the fact that surely Valentich would have identified his own aircraft yet was unable to identify what kind of craft was stalking him, this theory is widely disputed.

What really happened to Valentich on the fateful night of that October 21st? Was he shot down by a covert enemy aircraft, undetected by Melbourne Air Flight Service? Was the young pilot simply confused when his engines failed? Or was an alien craft responsible for his disappearance and assumed demise?

(UFO Enthusiast Missing After Reporting Craft, Associated Press, 10 October 1978; The Valentich Disappearance: Another UFO Cold Case Solved Joe Nickell, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, Volume 37.6, November/December 2013)

Rendlesham Forest

Located in Suffolk, England, the Rendlesham Forest has been the site of multiple unexplained sightings for over 40 years and has even been referred to as the British Roswell. Just outside of RAF Woodbridge, which was being used at the time by the United States Air Force (USAF), multiple members of USAF personnel came forward with claims of lights in the sky. In December in 1980, deputy base commander Lieutenant Colonel Charles I. Halt claimed to have witnessed multiple unidentified lights on the eastern edge of the forest.

Halt led a security patrol by the East Gate of RAF Woodbridge on the 26th of December, where he claimed to have seen lights flying into Rendlesham Forest. According to Halt’s memo to the UK Ministry of Defence, when he and his patrol entered the forest to investigate, they discovered what Halt described as a metallic glowing object which was covered in lights. When they tried to make contact with the object, it avoided them by flying away, and reportedly the animals on a nearby farm went into a frenzy.

Suffolk police were called to the scene slightly after midnight however the object had disappeared, and the only lights they could see were that of the Orford Ness lighthouse further up the coast.

Servicemen returned to the grounds of the incident at daybreak, and discovered three impressions on the ground which formed a triangle, with nearby trees reportedly having recently broken limbs and burn marks.

Halt once more visited the site on the 28th of December, this time equipped with an AN/PDR-27, a U.S. Military issue radiation meter. While the background readings at the site sat between a usual level of 0.03 to 0.04 milliroentgens per hour, the triangular markings on the ground which were supposedly left by the flying object had a reading of 0.07 milliroentgens per hour. During the investigation, another flashing light was seen to the East of the original incident. Halt’s memo to the UK Ministry of Defence also describes three star-like lights that lasted for several hours, occasionally beaming down a stream of light to Earth.

(Minister warned over ‘UK Roswell’, BBC News, 17 August 2009; Unusual Lights Incident Rendlesham, Suffolk Constabulary, suffolk.police.uk; Col. Halt’s affidavit, IanRipdath.com)

The Roswell Incident

The Roswell Incident was and remains to this date one of the most well known and discussed UFO landings in human history, and is often labelled as one of the largest accounts of a U.S. Government coverup. In July of 1947, the Roswell Army Air Field issued a press release stating that a flying disc had been recovered from a ranch near Roswell. Soon after issuing the statement, it was rescinded, and the army claimed that the crashed object was actually a weather balloon.

Although this second claim was widely disputed by witnesses of the crash, and by those who had heard the initial press release, the case wouldn’t gain true notoriety until the late 1970’s, when a retired Lt. Colonel came forward with claims that the army’s account of the object being a weather balloon was actually a cover up.

Debris of the crash was first discovered by William Brazel, a foreman at the Foster Ranch, about 50 kilometres outside of Roswell. Brazel reported the debris to Sheriff George Wilcox in Roswell, who reported to RAAF intelligence office Major Jesse Marcel.

After visiting the Foster Ranch and recovering the debris, RAAF public information officer Walter Haut issued a press release in which he claimed that the debris was actually part of a flying disc.

Later, the RAAF also claimed that the object was a nuclear device.

Major Jesse Marcell went on to perform a TV interview in which he claimed,

They wanted some comments from me, but I wasn’t at liberty to do that. So, all I could do is keep my mouth shut. And General Ramey is the one who discussed – told the newspapers, I mean the newsman, what it was, and to forget about it. It is nothing more than a weather observation balloon. Of course, we both knew differently.

(In Search Of, September 20, 1980)

Multiple witnesses that saw the craft go down claimed to have seen small bodies falling from the craft that were not of an earthly origin, however, the RAAF subsequently claimed that these bodies were in fact crash test dummies. One of these alleged witnesses was a woman by the name of Julie Shuster, the daughter of Walter Haut.

Shuster claims,

People began to talk about Roswell in the late ’70s after several decades of keeping quiet, and I would ask Dad to tell me the whole story, and he told me the same thing he told everybody: ‘I put out the press release’, and nothing else... Basically Dad said yes, he did see the bodies, yes he did see the craft and much more than that... The ship which he described was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle, more of an egg-shaped object, and he did see a number of bodies... He described them as being the size of children. And when asked point blank if what he believed it was that he had seen, without hesitation he’d say, ‘It was not from this Earth, it was something manufactured off this Earth.’

Don Schmitt, one of the world's leading ufologists, co-authored a tell-all book featuring a sworn affidavit from Haut, and countless other retellings from witnesses of  the fateful events of Roswell. His co-author, Thomas Carey, an air force veteran who held top clearance and who attended University of Toronto’s Ph.D.

Programme in Anthropology, and Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) State Section Director for Southeastern Pennsylvania from 1986 to 2001.

Schmitt reported,

"... those describing the bodies would become very emotional... One of the officers involved, he broke down and just said ‘I can’t get the faces out of my mind.’ His wife even told us how they’d been unable to sleep in the same room for almost 30 years because he’d jolt up in the middle of the night and scream and yell out because he kept having flashbacks, because he saw the faces, he saw the bodies.

We had another officer who was also very traumatised by it, and it reminded him of being a young boy and seeing his uncle in a coffin, of how ashen-grey he looked, and it caused him a lot of post-experience trauma. As one witness put it to us, ‘It’s the first thing I think of when I get up in the morning, and it’s the last thing I think of when I go to bed at night.’ You’re talking about guys who had just seen the worst horrors of World War II, yet this is the one thing that surpassed the trauma of that. 

Allegedly members of the town were so afraid to talk of the events that they went to their graves never even sharing with their family exactly what they had seen. The fear invoked by the events that day had such a grip over witnesses that it followed them until their deaths. Due to RAAF attempts at coverup, we may never know the truth of what happened at Roswell in 1947.

("The Roswell Report: Fact versus Fiction in the New Mexico Desert", Richard L. Weaver, 1995; "New Mexico ‘Disc’ Declared Weather Balloon and Kite", Los Angeles Examiner, 09 July 1947; My father saw the bodies: chasing the truth about Roswell, James Jennings, www.sbs.com.au)

Thomas Mantell

Experienced Pilot Captain Thomas Mantell tragically perished in 1948 after chasing an unidentified aircraft for the Kentucky State Police, who had received reports of an aircraft that had been flying over Mansville. Mantell in his F-51, along with three other guard planes, participated in this original conversation to the Godman Tower.

Godman Tower: Godman Tower Calling the flight of 4 ships northbound over Godman Field. Do you read? Over.

Mantell: Roger, Godman Tower. This is National Guard 869, Flight Leader of the formation. Over.

Godman Tower: National Guard 869 from Godman Tower. We have an object out south of Godman here that we are unable to identify, and we would like to know if you have gas enough; and if so could you take a look for us if you will.

At this point, Mantell and one of his crew ascended to 15,000 feet and continued their conversation.

Mantell: The object is directly ahead of and above me now, moving at about half my speed... It appears to be a metallic object or possibly reflection of Sun from a metallic object, and it is of tremendous size... I'm still climbing... I'm trying to close in for a better look.

With that, the two other planes in Mantell's formation suddenly turned back, and Mantell’s plane crashed towards the earth. His watch, later recovered, had stopped at 3:16pm. Godman Tower no longer had eyes on the strange craft, however, reports of a UFO continued from Mansville further down into Tennessee. Richard T. Miller, who had been monitoring the radio while Mantell and the Godman Tower were in talks, reported hearing Mantell state clearly,

My God, I see people in this thing!

One investigator of the crash stated,

The damage pattern was not consistent with an aircraft of this type crashing at high speed into the ground… All indications were that it had just belly-flopped into the clearing. I must admit, I found this very strange.

(1984, The Death of Thomas Mantell, B.J. Booth, ufocasebook.com)

Trudel Photos

Harold Trudel, 29 year old married father of three, captured some incredible photographs in 1967 on Rhode Island. He had been driving his car on West Wrentham Road when he saw what he believed to be a UFO. Having kept a loaded camera in the car due to a previous sighting, the man pulled to the side of the road and crouched behind some bushes.

Over the five minutes the craft was visible in the sky, flying rapidly in the air and suddenly changing directions