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- I am always amazed how something comes up from history
that we never heard about but relates to a modern UFO incident. I'm speaking
today about "Gazing Balls"- something I had never heard about
until I recently received one as a Christmas gift!
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- How they relate to UFO's and their history is today's
story...
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- First, what the heck is a Gazing Ball anyway? I have
learned that it's also called a witch ball, it is a bright reflecting globe
of glass, often suspended by a chain in front of a window, or placed upon
a special stand and set in a dark corner of the house. They are frequently
mirror-like silver in tone, though they have also been produced in a variety
of other colors. The manufacture of these objects has been going on for
centuries, yet many now forget their original purpose.
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- Witch balls are intended to reflect evil or negative
influences back to the sender, particularly that of the Evil Eye. Older
types of witch balls were made of greenish hollow spheres of glass and
filled with multi-colored, twisting threads. These types of witch balls
were also used to avert the malign glance of the ill 'ee, not through the
device of reflection but rather by diverting the glance to follow the twisting
patterns of threads. The bright mirror-like globes were sometimes also
called "watch balls." If gazed into for long periods of time,
the mirrored scene may vanish, leaving a picture of a different sort
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- A Gazing Ball
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- What does this have to do with Ufology you say? I think
these are reproductions of what these folks have seen in the skies for
centuries at least.
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- One of the more spectacular sightings happened on August
3, 989 when three round objects of high brilliance were seen in the sky
and later merged together. During the reign of Charlemagne in Europe there
were so many reports of encounters with "tyrants of the air, and their
aerial ships" the Emperor became so concerned that people reporting
these strange events were subject to torture and death.
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- Another encounter involving Charlemagne and Silver Spheres.
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- From Timeline.810 AD: Charlemagne: St. Gregory of Tours,
a historian, wrote of Charlemagne: "Alcuin, the secretary and biographer
of Charlemagne, and author of the Vita karoli, states in the thirty second
chapter of his work that in 810 when he was on his way from Aachen, he
saw a large sphere descend like lightning from the sky. It traveled from
east to west and was so bright it made the monarch's horse rear up so that
Charlemagne fell and injured himself Severely."
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- Note: My family is originally from near the Aachen area
and they settled there in the 14th. Century. By coincidence the Heckmann
family shield has a depiction of UFO's landing on the moon prominently
displayed on it. It's a strange world!
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- The Heckmann family shield from 1497
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- I along with my wife Debbie saw one of these spheres
in flight over Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma near the town of Sayre,
back in the spring of 1997. It was quite close and visible in full daylight.
It appeared to be quite large almost "bubble-like" and it kept
pace with our vehicle as we drove down the interstate highway. Debbie pointed
it out to me and I was able to clearly see it, and in the next instant,
it "winked" out, completely disappearing.
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- If you have ever seen the Gulf Breeze video that spherical
object did the exact same thing.
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- The Gulf Breeze Ball Video
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- Today Gulf Breeze, in Florida USA, is one of the world's
UFO hot spots. But it all started back in 1987 with the sightings made
by Ed Walters and his family. This object is identical to what we saw in
Sayre, Strange! I always took the Walters photos with a skeptical attitude,
till I saw that sphere myself.
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- I have researched other sphere sightings from the past.
From the Magonia Files.
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- March 1945 Aleutian Islands. Aboard the US attack transport
"Delarof," 14 sailors saw a dark sphere rise out of the ocean,
follow a curved trajectory, and fly away after circling their ship.
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- Aug. 29, 1948 Maplewood (Ohio). A farmer observed a silvery
sphere of large dimension rise from a wooded area and hover above his farm,
dropping a silvery substance that disintegrated before touching the ground
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- Oct. 09, 1954 Carcassonne (France). As he was driving
near Carcassonne, Jean Bertrand saw a bright, metallic sphere on the road
ahead. The top half seemed to be made of transparent plastic, and two humanlike
figures were standing inside. It took off rapidly, flying east.
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- Nov. 19, 1966 Bavonne (New Jersey). Two local businessmen
observed a dark, gray, metallic sphere, from the top of which projected
a dozen "tentacles" over 2 m long, flying at about 40 m altitude
and then coming down behind a house. It was assumed that it plunged into
the bay, but a search by patrol boats was unsuccessful
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- Jan. 19, 1967 Charleston (West Virginia) Tad Jones, 38,
was driving near Charleston when he saw a large, metal sphere, about 6
m in diameter, having four legs equipped with wheels and a very small propeller
underneath. Two min later it flew away.
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- From the Project Blue Book Unknown's
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- Dec. 7, 1951; Sunbury, Ohio. 4:30 p.m. Witness: amateur
astronomer Carl Loar. One silvery sphere seen through telescope. Two specks
sighted at sides, object seemed to explode and was replaced by a dark cloud
and many specks. 30 minutes.
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- June 28, 1952; Lake Kishkanoug, Wisconsin. 6 p.m. Witness:
G. Metcalfe. One silver-white sphere became an ellipse as it turned and
climbed away very fast. 10 seconds.
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- Feb. 2, 1955; Miramar Naval Air Station, California.
11:50 a.m. Witness: USN Cmdr. J.L. Ingersoll. One highly polished sphere,
with reddish-brown coloring, fell, then instantly accelerated to 1,000-1,500
m.p.h.
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- July 27, 1964; Norwich, New York. 7:30 p.m. Witness:
Duabert, engineering supervisor. One aluminum sphere with a luminous ring,
remained stationary for 4-5 minutes.
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- And were still seeing them today as these reports from
George Filer prove.
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- On Saturday, February 7, 1998, Christie Edwards of Robertsdale,
Ala., a town on Highway 90 about 27 miles (43 kilometers) southeast of
Mobile, videotaped the silver sphere as it hovered above her house.
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- Two days later, on Monday, February 9, 1998, the UFO
returned to Robertsdale. Ms. Edwards said, "It looks just like a bright
light, but it's real big. And it looks like nothing I've ever seen before...a
small, circular-looking silver object against a blue sky."
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- SILVER SPHERE UFOs SEEN IN CANNONVILLE, GEORGIA
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- After a few quiet months, the tiny town of Cannonville,
Georgia (population 400) is again the focus of UFO activity. Cannonville
is on Highway 29 just east of West Point Lake, about 75 miles (120 kilometers)
southwest of Atlanta. On Saturday, February 21, at 10 p.m., a few Cannonville
residents spotted "a UFO with three lights on it...flashing and blinking
in the Hogg Mountain area. Witnesses were close enough to have heard any
sound, but there was none."
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- On Sunday, March 22, 1998, at 4 p.m., a 57-year- old
Cannonville woman "was driving east on Long Cane Road and saw two
bright 'silver balls' hanging in the air, just west of Hogg Mountain. The
silver balls were about one mile (1.6 kilometers) away from her on the
horizon at approximately 60 degrees height. The silver balls each had an
apparent size several times bigger than Venus and a real size larger than
a four-room house. The southern-most UFO 'disappeared' straight-up in a
streaking fashion. The second UFO did the same a few seconds later."
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- When she arrived in Cannonville, the woman rushed into
her house and told her family what she had just seen. "Her sister
went outside to look up and saw a yellow prop (propellor-engine) plane."
She then spotted a hovering "silver ball" and "yelled for
everyone to come outside. As the family ran out, the UFO disappeared."
(See Filer's Files #12 for 1998. Many thanks To George A. Filer and John
Thompson of MUFON for this report.)
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- And my final report is from Australia, and it involves
20 shiny silver spheres, (must be a convention!).
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- UFOs DROP "ANGEL HAIR" IN NEW SOUTH WALES Twenty
UFOs, described as "shiny silver spheres," flew over a number
of farms near Quirindi, New South Wales, Australia last weekend, littering
the ground with cobweb-like filaments called "angel hair."
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- According to USA Today, "Residents of a small Australian
community swear that they saw cobwebs fall from the sky after UFOs passed
overhead. Dozens of residents of Quirindi called Australia's National UFO
Hotline after the incident."
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- According to the Tamworth, N.S.W. North Daily Leader,
"Mrs. E. Stansfield, 61 years (old), said that she saw cobwebs falling
from the sky. She saw twenty silver balls which passed overhead. When she
went out to her daughter, she too was covered in fine strands of cobweb.
When she tried to pick it up, it disintegrated in her hand. The family
car had cobwebs all over it."
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- The incident took place at 5:04 p.m. on Sunday, August
9, 1998. Quirindi is just north of the Liverpool mountain range, about
70 kilometers (42 miles) southwest of Tamworth, N.S.W. and 300 kilometers
(180 miles) northwest of Sydney.
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- Australian researcher Raymond Brooks reported that the
"various craft" performed aerobatic maneuvers over the farms
"for 1.5 hours, including the release of 'angel hair.'" (See
the Tamworth, N.S.W. North Daily Leader for August 10, 1998 and USA Today
for August 11, 1998. Many thanks to Raymond Brooks, Diane Hamilton and
Ross Dowe of Australia/New Zealand 24-Hour UFO Hotline for this news story.)
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- Another report comes to us from our good friend Linda
Moulton Howe at:
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- www.earthfiles.com
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- December 6, 1999 Rosie Baney, North Baltimore, Ohio -
Round Silver Ball Craft and Bigfoot: Unusual objects that people see in
the skies are still coming down towards the ground - like the large silver
ball that Rosie Baney and her daughter saw near their North Baltimore home
in northwestern Ohio at the end of September. The silver ball descended
slowly between trees growing around a bean field about three-quarters of
a mile from their house.
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- "It looked like it was real close to the top of
the trees and it went down into the field. It didn't land, but it just
stayed in one spot. And then it come up. And then all at once it disappeared.
I don't know.
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- HOW LONG DID YOU AND YOUR DAUGHTER WATCH IT?
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- Probably about five minutes.
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- WAS IT LIKE SILVER METAL?
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- Yes, it was silver. From where we saw it, it was silver.And
it wasn't no airplane, no way! I mean it was round shaped, what I saw of
it in the front part. I don't know what it looked like in the back part
of it.
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- It was huge what I saw and my daughter saw it, too. And
this sounds really weird, too. But my husband and I was jogging one day
and down that side where I saw whatever it was, across the road - you're
not going to believe this - some great big, tall - it looked like a big
tall man that had hair - he was taller than a man - and he was walking
across the road, come from the field across the road to the woods.
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- WOULD HE HAVE LOOKED LIKE A BIGFOOT? WITH A LOT OF HAIR
FROM HEAD DOWN?
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- Yes, yes, yes. He was not white. What I saw was black.
Or dark, the hair was dark. It come from the out of the field into the
woods, that's all I can tell you. But it was not a person."In my book
Glimpses of Other Realities, Volume II: High Strangeness, there is a report
with drawings from a man named Steve Bismarck who lives in Snohomish, Washington.
Back in the Easter weekend of 1977, Mr. Bismarck watched a dark-haired
Bigfoot lowered down from a large silver disc hovering over woods near
his rural home. He sketched the tall humanoid creature and wrote, "This
ape-like animal walked upright. It had extremely black hair about three
inches long, or more. It had a big, cone-shaped head that extended down
to a big hump on its back. Its legs were much longer than an ape's. I didn't
draw them long enough. And the arms were shorter than an ape's. They seemed
to swing to the extreme as it walked by."
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- Drawing by Steve Bismarck for Glimpses of Other Realities,
Vol. II: High Strangeness © 1998 by Linda Moulton Howe. See title
in earthfiles.com Bookstore linked to amazon.com.
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- Another family in Elizabeth, Colorado back in the mid-1970s
also associated the presence of Bigfoot in their yard with silver discs
and animal mutilations on their ranch. See An Alien Harvest in the earthfiles.com
Bookstore
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- http://www.earthfiles.com/bookstore.html. Many other
eyewitness accounts from South Dakota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington
and other regions of the country have described similar hairy humanoids
associated with sightings of unidentified aerial objects in the sky.
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- Silver spheres have been with us as long as any other
type of UFO. They have been recorded through out history. Gazing balls
are a example of a "Cargo Cult" mentality, we may have many other
common objects we use every day that relate to UFO's. I think it's time
for some serious research into the sphere phenomena.
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- © Copyright 2000 by The Aerial Phenomena Research
Group. All rights reserved worldwide.
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