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A retired Marine with nearly two decades of aviation experience has stepped forward with a compelling theory about a mysterious plane that was spotted flying over Texas last month. On March 10, photographers Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett took pictures of three puzzling aircraft flying over Amarillo, and posted them online in hopes of identifying the planes. Retired-Marine James Vineyard has submitted one of the more interesting explanations, telling the Houston Chronicle he believes they are SR-72 Blackbirds - a spy plane that can cross the U.S. in less than an hour, unmanned.

first time. Aviation Week & Space Technology journalist Bill Sweetman has posted photos taken March 10 by two veteran sky watchers, Steve Douglass and Dean Muskett. In his blog post of March 28, Sweetman writes that he and two Aviation Week editors agree that the photos depict "something real." In other words, these pictures aren't easily explained away by reports of known military flights or the work of someone who got carried away with Photoshop. So what can aviation experts say about the object in the photos? "The photos tell us more about what the mysterious stranger isn't than what...

Make of it what you will...but this proves to me that The Internet does predict the future.

A Manhattan trader was killed Tuesday morning by a speeding Long Island Rail Road commuter train, marking at least the seventh suicide of a financial professional this year. Edmund (Eddie) Reilly, 47, a trader at Midtown’s Vertical Group, jumped in front of an LIRR train at 6 a.m. near the Syosset train station. He was declared dead at the scene. Reilly’s identity was confirmed by Salvatore Arena, an LIRR spokesperson, who said an investigation into the incident was continuing. Passengers on the west-bound express train told MTA investigators they saw a man standing by the tracks before he jumped in...

Hunt Is Widened for Lost Malaysian Flight as Frustrations Mount; Debris Proves Unrelated to Jet Three days of fruitless air and sea search for a vanished Malaysia Airlines flight left investigators with no concrete evidence of what happened to the plane or the people aboard. The search area was widened as frustrations mounted across the waters between Malaysia and Vietnam, where the search was concentrated, and in hotels where the families of the missing passengers congregated in Kuala Lumpur and Beijing.

Although it has not been stated explicitly yet, there seems little doubt that Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 has crashed and probably with great loss of life. Rescue will inevitably turn into recovery - of wreckage and bodies - and the search for clues will begin. --SNIP-- So what might they look for? Weather can almost certainly be ruled out as a cause. Conditions have been described in different ways, but the consensus is that the aircraft was airborne in near-perfect flying conditions. This leaves just two main possibilities - catastrophic mechanical failure or an act of terrorism. Investigators will undoubtedly...

WASHINGTON (CBS / AP) — Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer asked the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday to initiate a formal investigation into what has caused polio-like paralysis in about 20 children in California over the past 18 months. Boxer said “we need answers” in her letter to CDC Director Thomas Frieden. In particular, she wants the agency to look into whether the illness can be traced to a virus or environmental factors. She also wants to know whether the agency is aware of similar reports of paralysis nationwide...

It’s become a health hazard to be a banker. What evil lurks beneath the pile of bodies?In growing numbers, the bodies of bankers are piling up in the streets — at least eight global financial types in recent weeks (and five others in the past year). And a financial reporter for The Wall Street Journal walked out of his house and mysteriously hasn’t been seen or heard from in weeks.So what gives? Three of the bankers worked for JPMorgan. One worked for Deutsche Bank AG. Others for companies not so prominent, i.e., not “too big to fail,” but possibly...

What are we to make of this sudden rash of banker suicides? Does this trail of dead bankers lead somewhere? Or could it be just a coincidence that so many bankers have died in such close proximity? I will be perfectly honest and admit that I do not know what is going on. But there are some common themes that seem to link at least some of these deaths together. First of all, most of these men were in good health and in their prime working years. Secondly, most of these "suicides" seem to have come out of nowhere and...

  The dismal trail of dead bankers continues. As The Journal Star reports, a successful Lincoln businessman and member of a prominent local family died last week. Former National Bank of Commerce CEO James Stuart Jr. was found dead in Scottsdale, Ariz., the morning of Feb. 19. A family spokesman did not say what caused the death. This brings the total of banker deaths in recent weeks to 9 as Stuart is sadly survived by three sons and four daughters.  Mr Stuart's background (via The Journal Star), Stuart was a native of Lincoln and graduated from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with...

A journey to the heart of New Guinea’s Asmat tribal homeland sheds new light on the mystery of the heir’s disappearance there in 1961 smat is, in its way, a perfect place. Everything you could possibly need is here. It’s teeming with shrimp and crabs and fish and clams. In the jungle there are wild pig, the furry, opossumlike cuscus, and the ostrichlike cassowary. And sago palm, whose pith can be pounded into a white starch and which hosts the larvae of the Capricorn beetle, both key sources of nutrition. The rivers are navigable highways. Crocodiles 15 feet long prowl...

Drugs were in the room where two former Navy SEALs were found dead aboard the Maersk Alabama, a ship that was the focus of a 2009 hijacking dramatized in the movie "Captain Phillips," a company spokesman said Thursday. Police from the African island nation of Seychelles have given no cause of death for Mark Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44. The Americans were security contractors who were found dead Tuesday in a cabin on the ship while berthed in Port Victoria in the Indian Ocean. "We are saddened by the tragedy and our thoughts are with the family...

In the secular world a “mystery” is something which baffles or eludes understanding, something which lies undisclosed. And the usual attitude of the world toward mystery is to resolve it, get to the bottom of, or uncover it. Mysteries must be overcome! The riddle, or “who-done-it” must be solved!

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I began our New Years Eve Late Night Mass (Which begins at 11:15 PM) with the observation that we begin this Mass in one year, and end in another. New Years Eve features the mysterious passage from one year to another. In a way I suppose it is no more mysterious than the passage from Tuesday to Wednesday or from 10:00 AM to 10:01 AM.In one sense, nothing could be simpler than time. What time is it? It is 1:15. Simple! But time has mysteries about it.What is time? Some say it is merely a measure of change. But that...

A half-dozen probes have not hit any huge object in front of Bertha, adding to the mystery of what’s blocking the stalled Highway 99 tunnel machine.

Archaeologists have discovered a panel containing the only known example of spider rock art in Egypt and, it appears, the entire Old World. The rock panel, now in two pieces, was found on the west wall of a shallow sandstone wadi, or valley, in the Kharga Oasis, located in Egypt's western desert about 108 miles (175 kilometers) west of Luxor. Facing east, and illuminated by the morning sun, the panel is a "very unusual" find, said Egyptologist Salima Ikram, a professor at the American University in Cairo who co-directs the North Kharga Oasis Survey Project. The identification of the creatures...

According to the health department, all of the patients have had flu-like and/or pneumonia like symptoms. However, all of them have tested negative for the flu. There have been eight confirmed patients ranging in age from 41 to 68. Four of those patients have died.

One evening in January last year, Joel Eriksson, a 34-year-old computer analyst from Uppsala in Sweden, was trawling the web, looking for distraction, when he came across a message on an internet forum. The message was in stark white type, against a black background.