STRANGE CONTINENT
Unfazed by Brexit, ULRICH MAGIN and THEO PAIJMANS round up the weirdest news from across Europe...
ALIEN BIG CATS
In August 2017, many witnesses near several towns in the Sierra Norte de Guadalajara, Castille, Spain, reported a panther. The Department for the Protection of Nature (SEPRONA) of the Civil Guard and the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment of Castilla-La Mancha tried to catch the animal, but failed. Already in February, a jaguar had been seen nearValladolid. In the new case, all zoos denied they were missing an animal, and a video on YouTube shows the blurred and distant figure of a feline. Locals fear several large cats are on the prowl, as sightings have been made at virtually the same time in villages kilometres from each other. The region, which borders Segovia and Soria, is unpopulated and mountainous. One sighting was made in the CañamaresValley, another, on 4 August, near La Bodera. “I held my dog to avoid problems, but the panther was very calm, as if he had travelled this area for a long time,” said the witness. No farm animals had been harmed at the time. ( El País, 23 Aug 2017)
On 12 September 2017, a man walking his dog in the late afternoon in the countryside at Monticello near Cormons, Fiaul, Italy, noticed the animal becoming agitated, and, looking to where his dog indicated, observed a 20lb (9kg) feline “half-way between a puma and a cat”. “It was a few metres behind me and noticed my dog which chased it for a few yards. It all took a couple of seconds, not more. I did not even have time to get scared. When my dog started barking, the animal was scared and ran into the woods off the path. I was able to see it had long hair and was half a metre [20in] long: the colour was shiny black. I have never seen such a thing in 20 years of hiking here at the Isonzo river. It was huge. I even had the impression that it was following me. If I had not seen my dog pointing at it I probably would not even have noticed it. I do not know exactly what kind of animal it was: it was a large feline, like a panther, a lynx or a puma, but black.” There had been previous sightings a few years back. ( Il Oiccolo, Trieste, 14 Sept 2017)
On 28 September 2017, a motorist reported a “dead wildcat” on the Federal Road 9 at Metternich, near Koblenz, Germany. Police investigated and found... a wool blanket with leopard spots! ( TAG24.de, 29 Sept 2017)
October 2017 brought a series of animal kills at Johanngeorgenstadt, Saxony, Germany, when a cat and a badger were found killed with a bite to the throat. Another cat had been missing for four weeks, and its owner Elke Storl believed it had been killed by a lynx, which is known to be in the region. Police installed a wildlife camera, but only got shots of cats and a fox. However, one videotape shows a cat-like animal, but more slender and taller than a normal pet. ( Freie
Presse, Chemnitz, 6 Oct 2017)
WOLF ENCOUNTERS
Talking a walk with their dog in theVeluwe, a large wooded area in Overijssel, the Netherlands, 52-year-old Karin van der Sluis and her husband could not at first identify the animal they saw strolling in a leisurely fashion at some distance. A huge dog or a jackal, perhaps; but it was the behaviour of their German Shepherd Duke that put an end to their speculations. The dog froze – submissive behaviour it would not have exhibited had the creature been a dog. “Then immediately the thought occurred that it was a wolf,” Van der Sluis said. She grabbed her camera and managed to get a picture. The animal turned around and observed the stunned couple for a while before going on its way, still in a very leisurely manner. The encounter had lasted some three seconds. The couple sent the image to Dutch organisation
Wolven in Nederland, where experts confirmed they had seen a wolf. Van der Sluis: “The first wolf that has appeared in theVeluwe.” ( De Gelderlander, 20 Oct 2017)
25-year old Stefan Bake was driving down the highway in the vicinity of Kloosterhaar, Overijssel, at 8.30am on Monday, 13 November. He had just dropped off his sister at work and was returning when he spotted the remains of a ‘large animal’. His curiosity aroused, Bake stopped to investigate and got the fright of his life. The remains were those of a wolf about 1.2 metres (4ft) tall. “I have never seen anything like it before. It was so big – and those teeth! At first I kept my distance, making sure the animal was no longer breathing,” Bake said. According to wolf expert Leo Linnartz of Wolven in Nederland this was already the fourth time in a brief period that the wolf was seen in the Netherlands. “That sharp increase is nothing special. They all come from Germany where the wolf populations are growing.” The dead wolf could have been the same that was spotted in the Veluwe a few weeks previously by theVan der Sluises. “Wolves can cross a distance of about 50km (30 miles) in a day, so it is possible,” Linnartz said. ( De Gelderlander, 13 November 2017). About a week later, on Sunday, 19 November, two weekend hunters, Andrea Schneider and Michael Plöger, discovered a wolf in a field in the vicinity of the church of Zwillbrock, Germany. They managed to observe the creature for about 15 minutes and take pictures with a mobile phone. ( Ruhr Nachrichten; Tubantia, 20 Nov 2017)
THE VIRGIN ON TOUR
Since March 2017, hundreds of people have been gathering at the Laurentius Chapel in Unterflossing, Upper Bavaria, to witness a seer experiencing visions of the BlessedVirgin Mary.
The village has only 112 inhabitants, and the chapel is owned by Otto Masszi, an astronomer who works in environmental protection and bought it six years ago. Last year, a Sicilian visionary called Salvatore Caputa, saw apparitions in a privately owned chapel in Walpertskirchen, also in Bavaria, and Masszi invited him to come to Unterflossing. Ever since, Caputa has announced regular visits from the BVM and the pious have continued to assemble.
Masszi is completely convinced of the authenticity of his visions, and has videos
on his mobile phone to show journalists. The air is said to smell of roses after an apparition. The Catholic Church has not yet pronounced the visions genuine, and has sent an emissary to observe the proceedings, but the seer has been warmly welcomed by local people. On 9 September, more than 1,000 spectators came to witness a vision, travelling from as far away as northern Germany and Austria. Caputa, 73, claims he has been in close contact with the BVM for the last 30 years. In 2010, after he experienced visions in Klagenfurt, Austria, the local Bishop asked Catholics not to attend Caputa’s assemblies. The next apparition has been announced for March 2018. ( ZEIT online 1 July; ovb online, 6 Sept; Merkur, 7 Sept; Welt.de, 11 Sept 2017)
POPE’S BLOOD STOLEN
Reliquaries with the blood of St John Paul II and bone fragments of the Blessed Jerzy Popiełuszko, a Polish priest who was killed in 1984 by the Communist regime, have been stolen from the Sanctuary of Montecastello in Tignale near Lake Garda, Italy. The relics had been in a “Holy House” behind the altar of the church. “This is a very serious act by reckless people who have deprived the Sanctuary and the hermitage of Montecastello of the most beautiful things,” said Don Giuseppe Mattanza, the sanctuary’s priest for 11 years. He appealed to the criminals to return the reliquaries, anonymously, if necessary. ( Brescia Oggi, 25 Oct 2017)
HITLER ART DONATION
A woman who wishes to remain anonymous has donated a watercolour painted by Adolf Hitler to the NIOD, the Dutch Institute for War Documentation. The painting depicts a street scene around the Neutor inVienna and is signed ‘A. Hitler’. According to the woman, her father bought the watercolour for 75 cents at a stamp and coin collectors market. At home, he discovered the signature, and overcome by fear, hid the picture for many years. The woman didn’t want to keep it, but two auction houses refused to sell it, she claimed. With many Hitler forgeries in circulation, the NIOD investigated whether this was an authentic Hitler painting, which it turned out to be. Gertjan Dikken of NIOD said: “I was overcome by a historic sensation when I laid my hands on the painting.”
The watercolour, painted in Vienna between 1908 and 1913, is the first Hitler painting to be found in an official collection in the Netherlands. ( Volkskrant, 25 Nov; RTL Nieuws, 25 Nov 2017)
AERIAL PHENOMENA
The bright light seen by many in the sky over the Netherlands around 9pm on 21 September 2017 was probably a meteor, according to Felix Bettonvil of the Leiden observatory. Sighting reports came in from the provinces of Noord-Holland, Groningen, Noord-Brabant and Flevoland. Many reports of a ‘falling star’ were also shared on social media. Said Bettonvil: “We have received dozens of sightings reports and it is evident that something enormous has happened in the Netherlands. It is clear that it was a fireball, something that entered the atmosphere from space.” ( Algemeen Dagblad, 21 Sept; NOS Nieuws; RTL Nieuws, 22 Sept 2017.)
On the evening of 23 September, around 7.50pm, eyewitnesses saw a white U-shaped light high above the village of Ekkersrijt in the Dutch province of NoordBrabant. One witness managed to take a picture of the light, by then “diminishing in size until it disappeared.” It was visible for about five minutes. The incident was reported to UFO Meldpunt, a webpage for Durch UFO sightings. ( Son en
Breugel Nieuws, 24 Sept 2017) A bright meteor flashed over the skies of northern Finland at approximately 18:40 hours on 16 November. Residents of the city of Inari in Finnish Lapland also reported hearing a loud banging noise.
According to ufologist Björn B Borg, the Finnish Astronomical Society URSA identified the object as a meteoroid. Its shockwave had caused windows and houses to vibrate and was responsible for the loud noise. URSA clocked its initial speed at 13km (8 miles)/second. It started to glow at an altitude of 91km (56 miles), when it was southwest of Ivalo. The flight over North Lapland lasted 9.5 seconds and turned the landscape as bright as day as the meteoroid travelled at many tens of times the speed of sound. Its diameter was originally about half a metre (20 in) and its weight before entering the atmosphere between 100 and 300kg (220-660lb), URSA established. It crashed in the wilderness of Vätsäri, northeast of Lake Inari, near the Norwegian border.
“Experts have calculated that parts of the Finnish Inarimeteorite have spread east of Lake Inari over an area of about 10 to15 km (6 to 9 miles). Many Northern Lights cameras caught it on film and with the help of these pictures experts will try to find parts of the meteorite,” said Borg. ( Iltalehti, 16+17 Nov; Ilta
Sanomat, 16 Nov 2017; pers comm, BB Borg).