The Paranormal Pastor: Where the Phantom Panthers Roam

We get black cat sightings here in Australia too - any of you ever seen one?
Read Pastor Swopes encounter below....

The Paranormal Pastor: Where the Phantom Panthers Roam

Until the mid 17th Century Erie Pennsylvania held the tribal center of the Eriez Indians. The name Eriez or Erie is a shorter form of the Iroquoian word "Erielhonan" meaning literally "long tail" referring to the native panther skins that many of the tribe wore ceremonially. The panther (cougar or mountain lion) was the native Eriez totem. They honored and emulated the stealthy cats that were the top of the contemporary indigenous food chain. Although a small tribe when compared to their neighbors the Seneca or Susquehannocks, they stood boldly against larger enemies and welcomed refugees from neighboring wars. this did not make them very popular with the other tribes in the area and by the late 17th century the Eriez tribe had been either wiped out by war or assimilated by the Iroquois. Within a century the large panthers that were the totem of the Eriez had also vanished from the lands of North Western Pennsylvania.

Or did they?

To read more click link above.

UFO spotted in Sydney and caught on camera phone *updated*

This lady claims she did and got proof on her camera....

news.com.au UFO buzzes Sydney - and here's the 'proof'

"IT EMERGED from a blazing light in the clouds, descending on a busy street before zipping off silently into the sunset.


Just what - or who - propelled the strange flying disc across Sydney's skyline may never be known.

But while the close encounter was over in seconds, it was enough to convince mother-of-two Fiona Hartigan that she'd just seen a UFO.

And she has the photos to prove it.

Ms Hartigan yesterday said she had just got out of her car on Sunday evening to snap a few sunset photos when the amazing events began."

To read more click here
 
Share your UFO stories below...

A couple of questions I have about this story:
The report says she just got out of her car when she took the photos - why then is there a reflection in the photo as though it was taken through glass?
Its claimed to be a busy street - why aren't there any other witnesses?

There is a second photo that goes with the story and I find that one slightly more convincing.
In the second photo there is a smaller object in the background and I can't see reflections as though it was taken through glass, so this one might have been taken out side of the car like the report says.

But speaking honestly, from just looking at the photos it looks like a piece of fluff or dust on the lens or on the window of the car.

Here is the second photo:

*UPDATE1*

I have an iphone and apparently this is what the lady used to take the photo. I thought I would test the theory out as to whether its dust/dirt on the lens so I just stuck a crumb on the lens and tried to take a picture. It does not show up! This big old crumb will not show up on the photo! Bizzarre.
If its dirt, dust or a bug it must be on the windscreen.

This may sound ridiculous but it kinda looks like a snail?

*UPDATE2*

Daily Telegraph Something is out there

"MEET the Aussie Agent Mulder - a man whose job it is to investigate Australia's X-Files and work out whether aliens exist.

Bill Chalker, who has spent 35 years investigating UFO sightings and alien abductions, believes Fiona Hartigan's sighting reported yesterday is almost certainly genuine. He's not the only one.


Almost 60 per cent of readers who voted online said they believed in UFOs, while others told of multiple sightings in the Blue Mountains or strange lights hovering over rural NSW.

Mother-of-two Anne Hamnett said she witnessed a bizarre incident at her isolated property near Gloucester on Sunday night.

She and her children were out the front of the house just hours after Ms Hartigan's sighting when two brightly lit objects appeared.

They stayed in the area for about 30 minutes before disappearing.

"I've never believed UFO stuff before but I haven't ever seen anything like this," she said.

"They were orange-red in colour and perfectly in line with each other - I just can't explain it." "

To read more click here

Premonitions

I've had this blog entry on hold for months now and for some reason never posted it, maybe because some people might find it controversial, but here it is...

I've opened up the floor to talk about premonitions and your thoughts and views...

Here are my thoughts on Premonitions

Someone recently told me of a dream they had and they were fearful that it would come true. Half jokingly i asked them if they were psychic - he told me he had had dreams that had come true.
I had a dream once about my front tooth kind of falling apart and crumbling and it was a really realistic intense dream. My mother in law told me that dreams of teeth falling out etc means someone is going to die. I kind of shrugged it off. Two days later my Grandad passed away and it was the next day I remembered the dream I had had and got goosebumps. The rational half of my brain told me it was all coincedence but I couldnt help thinking that maybe just maybe a part of my mind knew something before I conciously knew.

I've been reading a book called "the complete approach" by Dustin Pari and Barry Fitzgerald from Ghost Hunters Intl. There is a part in the book where they describe an experiment that has shown that the skin reacts split seconds before something "bad" happened. For example the experiment was this: the participant had electrodes attached to the skin on the arm. They were shown photos of nice things and then randomly a photo of something horrible or disturbing". Apparently the skin would show a reaction to the horrible photo moments BEFORE the photo was actually seen by the eye.

What does this experiment tell us? im not sure but is it possible the body just instictively knows things before we know it consciously?

There are tonnes of other theories out there that give answers to why we have premonitions, one is that it is our guardian angels or God sending us a warning-
Id like to think these dreams we have or the sense of warning we get is from God but i can't prove that. I mean even if its in our chemistry and our make up i believe we are built in His image and who we are and what we are and what we can do is because of what He's made us and His gift of the Holy Spirit.

Here is a great verse from the bible telling us what gifts are from God.

1 Corinthians chapter 12 v 4-13

4There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by[c] one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

So it does mention in the bible "the message of knowledge" and "prophecy" as gifts from God. i don't think we get given ALL the gifts (we'd be superman) and some gifts might be given and taken away at times when we need them. I think its also important to remind myself that not all things we experience and see are from God. We have to be discerning as to whether its from God or something else (just my opinion).

What are your theories as to what premonitions are? Is it God? Angels? Something negative? Or is it that part of the brain we've not discovered yet and we've had these gifts since birth? Is there a scientific explanation for premonitions? Or is it something we'll never understand?

I asked a few friends if they'd ever had premonitions that had come true. Here are there stories:

My friend dreamt that he met an old work colleague at a funeral of a friend. The funeral actually happened in real life and he experienced a mixture of shock and deja vu, the deja vu continued and the events at the funeral mirrored his dream. It was only after meeting his work mate there that it hit him that he had been there before.

Another friend told me about how she dreamt that back in 1979 Peter Frampton (the singer for the band Humble Pie) died. IN her dream she had died and was in heaven, she was allowed to go and see loved ones on earth. She walked down what appeared to be a huge ramp to a large arena and everyone was meeting there loved ones. She kept walking and was getting a bit scared. Finally she came to a room with a table and Peter Frampton was lying on it dead. About a month or so later he actually had a car accident and came very close to death.

Another friend who believes in spirit guides told me the following:

The first one that stands out was a dream of a fire and someone dying in it and the family I knew. I woke up a little freaked out, fire sirens going off. I told my dad whose house it was and that someone had died, I turned the scanner on and it was that house and someone did die.
The most recent was my grandpa crossing over - time will tell on that one.
Then I have my cats spirit guide who talks to me in my dreams. She will tell me what is wrong with my cat before the vets can physically see it. My spirit guide tells me about my health, that comes via my dreams as well. I get a lot of de ja vue as well. Even when in strange places for the first time.

Another person said this in answer to the question "Has anyone ever had a premonition that has come true?":

Yeah...a few but no time right now to properly address them. I am fully pursauded that unless the Spirit speaks to us in a Scriptural manner and with Scriptural purpose...that ALL intuition and psychic phenomenon, is demonic knowledge and temptation of one degree or another. Since we are in a sinful fallen condition, the intuition that most people experience and probably all could experience, I do after many years believe is the devil trying to draw us into the occult. Even when it is seemingly a good thing such as solving murder cases. No matter how big or how small. I find there to be a fundamental difference of feeling or sensation when inuition happens to me, than when the Spirit alerts me. The intuition (psychic thing) has a tendency to be self promoting and appeal to the ego at least some. It puffs up because it imediately breeds pride. When the Holy Spirit speaks to me, I find it completely humbling and I have a sensation of shrinking and awe rather than expansion and pride. I will leave it at that right now but this is something that has intricately and intimately interested and concerned me my whole life and especially since salvation. I no longer seperate intuition from the whole psychic thing. Not at all.

Here's another story from a friend:

i have had numerous ones about people that i dont even know dying just days after i had them in the exact way that i saw it. i didnt know most of these people directly.

example, i had a friend who's mom that i had never met die of a heart attack 3 days after i dreamt of her dying in her home of a heart attack, collapsed on the kitchen floor... she died of a heart attack in her home in her kitchen, found on the floor. completely unexpected.

then, just about 2.5weeks ago i dreamt of my best friends aunt died, again, never met her... she died within minutes of me having that dream. before my friends even told me that she had passed, i knew it.

but the first time i really remember it happening and me connecting it to maybe i actually dream real stuff was when my gramps died. i dreamt that we were at a playground that we always went to and we were talking and then he just walked away and disapeared, he died the exact moment that i saw him walk away and vanish. the phone rang and i already knew what it was gonna say.

its not always death, i mean i see car wrecks and things that end up happeing or people i have no connection to getting hurt, like ill see that got shot on the news and see the face and then be like, hmm... i know that guy, o yea, i saw that in my dream.

ive seen some people i know get hurt in my dreams and even had some people that i really really care for, die in them... not come true yet, and i pray that it doesnt, but most all of my dreams have.

Its pretty clear that there are many many different thoughts and views about premonitions. Who's right? Who's wrong? Im not sure we'll ever know. Still, it's pretty interesting. Please share with me your thoughts and any experiences you've had.