The UFO-Bigfoot Connection

This October 22-23rd, the PA MUFON and the Pennsylvania Bigfoot Soiety join efforts and hold a convention near Pittsburgh. I interview Stan Gordon on the real life connection that sometimes arises with both phenomena His new book "Silent Invasion" highlights the Bigfoot-UFO connection in a series of bizzare incidents in Western Pennsylvania.

The article is on my Examiner page:
http://www.examiner.com/paranormal-in-pittsburgh/stan-gordon-speaker-at-the-ufo-and-bigfoot-conference-coming-to-westmoreland-cc

Remember to pray for Japan!

Pastor Swope

Pray for Japan

Just a note for all to please pray for Japan in these dire hours.

No matter what your religious affiliation, faith or belief system we all need to reach out to God (or higher power of your choice) and ask for intervention in this time of nuclear crisis.

I truly believe if we do make a concentrated effort to pray, God will answer.

I have seen it countless times before. From children being healed of deadly diseases, to miraculous interventions of for safety, health and distress; God does still work miracles.

All we have to do is take a moment or two out of every day for the next week and pray for Japan.

Together we can see a miracle happen.

It's up to you.

Please join me this next 7 days in praying daily for Japan.

Blessings,

Robin

Of Weeping Statues, Past and Present

In late January of this year a 'visionary' visited the "Our Lady Queen of Reading" in Reading, Ohio. Not soon after the miraculous began to happen. In the back of the shop, a statue of the Virgin Mary began to weep. Then a statue of Jesus on a stairway also began to produce miraculous tears. Here is a local report of the phenomena as reported by WCPO channel 9:


Such accounts of weeping religious statues are not limited to Roman Catholicism; throughout history there has been accounts of weeping statues in various religions from ancient Greco-Roman paganism to modern Hinduism.

Dio Cassius in his 'Roman History' talks of not only a statue of Minerva weeping blood and milk, but also of a statue of Vibius moving on its own accord:

"While all this was going on, portents of no small moment again occurred, significant both for the city and for the consul himself, who was Vibius. Thus, in the last assembly before he set out for the war a man with the disease called the sacred disease fell down while Vibius was speaking. Also a bronze statue of him which stood in the vestibule of his house turned around of itself on the day and at the hour that he set out on the campaign, and the sacrifices customary before war could not be interpreted by the seers by reason of the quantity of blood. Likewise a man who was just then bringing him a palm slipped in the blood which had been shed, fell, and defiled the palm. These were the portents in his case. Now if they had befallen him when a private citizen, they would have pertained to him alone, but since he was consul, they had a bearing on all alike. So, too, these portents: the statue of the Mother of the Gods on the Palatine, which had formerly faced the east, turned around of itself toward the west;that of Minerva worshipped near Mutina, where the heaviest fighting occurred, sent forth a quantity of blood and afterwards of milk also; furthermore, the consuls took their departure just before the Feriae Latinae, and there is no instance where this has happened and the Romans have fared well" ( Roman History: Book 46 Chapter 33 Pararaphs 1-4, Leob Classical Library, Translation by Earnest Cary)

According to Lucan, the statues of the gods were weeping and sweating as Ceasar advanced on Rome:
"We have heard how the native dieties wept, and how with sweat the Lares attested the woes of the City" (Pharsalia Book 1 Vesrses 556-557, Translation by H.T. Riley)

And a statue of Apollo wept for four days according to Julius Obsequens in his "Book of Prodigies" (Chapter 12)

In a reverse action, statues of Hindu gods in from Ganesh to Krishna drank up milk by the gallons in India for a few days in September 1995 and again in August 2006 and September 2010.

What are we to make of these incredible feats of what would appear to be the miraculous from ancient Rome to humble Ohio?

Of course such feats can be easily faked. To make a statue weep, one needs only a hallow statue filled with liquid and pin holes made in the enamel paint at the corner of the statues eyes. Allowing for time and temperature, soon the statue will seem to cry. Add food coloring and it will look like blood. According to those who doubted the eating idols of India, the statues were filled with kitty litter and likewise had holes in strategic places for the milk to be absorbed.

But is that what was happening, or is the miraculous manifesting itself in these phenomenal iconography? Vatican authorities are very cautious when lending credence to such phenomena, often they steer clear of any such claims and let the religious fervor of these incidents work themselves out.

Unless there is thorough analysis of these weeping objects of adoration, we cannot know if it is a product of a supernatural manifestation or but cheap and contemptible chicanery.

When it all comes down to it, I guess it is a matter of faith...

Until Next Time,
Pastor Swope

Bigfoot Sighting Near Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania Bigfoot Society's Director Eric Altman has investigated a recent Bigfoot sighting near Pittsburgh. I write about the incident and the Society's initial investigation on my Examiner page: http://www.examiner.com/paranormal-in-pittsburgh/new-bigfoot-sighting-near-pittsburgh with photos.

Athenodorus, the Worlds First Paranormal Investigator

While delving into Greco-Roman religion for a course that finishes my Master of Divinity degree, I remembered back to an old article in Fortean Times by Professor Barry Baldwin. In the 12th in a series of articles for his byline called "Classics Corner" he references many incidences of ghosts in classic literature of the ancient world. Upon reading the original texts one story stood out, that of the Athenodorus and the ghost of Athens found in Pliny's "Letters". Athenodorus Cananites (c.74BC-7AD) was a Stoic philosopher and a teacher of Octavian (Ceasar Augustus). He also seems to be histories first recorded Paranormal Investigator!

Here the story of his encounter as recorded in Pliny the Younger's Letters, Book 7.

“There was at Athens a large and spacious, but ill‑reputed and pestilential house. In the dead of the night a noise, resembling the clashing of iron, was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like the rattling of fetters; at first it seemed at a distance, but approached nearer by degrees; immediately afterward a phantom appeared in the form of an old man, extremely meagre and squalid, with a long beard and bristling hair; rattling the gyves on his feet and hands. The poor inhabitants consequently passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. This, as it broke their rest, threw them into distempers, which, as their horrors of mind increased, proved in the end fatal to their lives. For even in the day time, though the spectre did not appear, yet the remembrance of it made such a strong impression on their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes, and their terror remained when the cause of it was gone. By this means the house was at last deserted, as being judged by everybody to be absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this great calamity which attended it, a bill was put up, giving notice that it was either to be let or sold.

It happened that Athenodorus the philosopher came to Athens at this time, and reading the bill ascertained the price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion; nevertheless, when he heard the whole story, he was so far from being discouraged, that he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and, in short, actually did so. When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the fore‑part of the house, and after calling for a light, together with his pen and tablets, he directed all his people to retire within. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he applied himself to writing with all his faculties. The first part of the night passed with usual silence, then began the clanking of iron fetters; however, he neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pen, but closed his ears by concentrating his attention. The noise increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him: it stood before him, beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and bent again to his writing, but the ghost rattling its chains over his head as he wrote, he looked round and saw it beckoning as before. Upon this he immediately took up his lamp and followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains; and having turned into the courtyard of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus being thus deserted, marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he went to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. There they found bones commingled and intertwined with chains; for the body had mouldered away by long Iying in the ground, leaving them bare, and corroded by the fetters. The bones were collected, and buried at the public expense; and after the ghost was thus duly laid the house was haunted no more.” (http://www.vroma.org/~hwalker/Pliny/Pliny07-27-E.html)

Thanks to Prof. Bladwin's original work you can read more ghost tales from ancient Greece and Rome in my Examiner article here: Hauntings in Ancient Greece and Rome

Until Next Time,

Pastor Swope

UFO over Jerusalem

If you haven't seen it yet, here are the videos of the UFO recently seen over the Dome of the Rock.

Now, the Muslim Holy site is also the place of both the Jewish temples, the rock were Abraham offered up Isaac and some say the area of the Crucifixion of Christ. One could say it is the holiest place on Earth, at least to the Judeo Christian and Muslim tradition.

So why at this time is this visitor making such a spectacle?

Perhaps as some say, it is a divine sign that God is in control despite the chaos which is engulfing the Middle East and the world wide angst of what might happen.

Or if you are of the type that believes UFOs are visitors from the future, is it our future descendants getting one last look at this holiest of places before the unthinkable happens?

The Middle East is in turmoil. Change is coming. If the Muslim Brotherhood has its way, the entire region would be ruled by hard line Islamists who want to erase Israel from the face of the Earth.

We are all collectively holding our breaths, aren't we? Could this be the first bell to toll the end?

Another sign for those who believe in the 2012 predictions?

If you are a reader of my blog, you know that I am not a believer that the world will end on December 21 2012.

Given current events perhaps December 21 2012 is too late of a date for the end of the world...

Only the Father knows.

Pray for peace in the Middle East.

UDPATE 2/17/2011
Evidence is mounting that this is a hoax, though there still is some debate.
As for the world situation, at this time the turmoil in the Middle East rages on. Is this the beginnings of a new stage of history with a democratic Middle East? Or will religious extremism win out in the end? Only time will tell.

Until Next Time,

Pastor Swope

Erie's "first' Haunted House

The first colonists to Erie Pennsylvania arrived in the mid 18^th Century, building a small town adjacent to the newly constructed French Fort Presque Isle. With wars and migrations soon to follow, English settlers would also arrive in the area by the end of that century and build a permanent settlement.

Since the time of those first settlers Erie’s history has been awash with folklore tales of mysterious places where the paranormal seems to manifest itself quite frequently. Be it cursed Indian burial grounds or old dwellings where spectral apparitions of the past startle the present owners; Erie has a rich history of unexplained phenomena.

However, it was not until the late 19^th century did one of these locations rise to prominence in the imagination of the local populace to a point where it would become infamous. It was in name if not in fact Erie’s first haunted house. And few today have ever heard of it, since it was long ago lost to popular memory for those who encountered its horrors have long turned to dust. This lost Erie legend is the old Crowley Mansion of Lawrence Park.

The house was located on the west side of Walbridge Road, less than a hundred yards south of East Lake Road. It was built by a member of East Erie’s first pioneer families, the Crowleys. The Crowley family very were wealthy and owned considerable property and built the brick mansion as their family homestead. Beautifully manicured, the grounds of the mansion boasted a diverse orchard and lush gardens...

Read it all on my Examiner Page