"Ghost hunters" arrested for church break-in. (video)

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Four ghost hunters are facing felony charges for breaking into an historic church in Litchfield, Minnesota.

The Ness Church has been the target of vandals for years. Ghost hunters have posted YouTube videos of what they say are “confirmed sightings” of ghosts at the site. One video from another Minnesotan in 2012 shows ghost hunters near the historic church:


Church board members say there are no ghosts here — just buildings and a burial site that played a key role in an infamous chapter in Minnesota history.

On Sunday at 1:53 a.m., Meeker County deputies responded to a burglary alarm at Ness Church, located on the 24000 block of 580th Avenue, according to the county sheriff’s office. While en route, deputies observed a vehicle leaving the area. The deputies then stopped the car and arrested its four occupants in connection to the church crime.

The suspects have been identified as 23-year-old Kyle Huber, of Victoria; 23-year-old Todd Suurmeyer of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; 25-year-old Joseph Porter of Sioux Falls and 24-year-old Brittani Roberts, of Sioux Falls. After their arrest, the suspects were taken to the Meeker County Jail on suspicion of burglary and criminal damage to property.

The suspects are accused of gaining access to the church by breaking several of its windows. They also smashed part of a monument that marks where the first five of an eventual 490 victims of the 1862 Sioux uprising were buried in a hurry. A window of an out building was also broken. An investigation is now determining the full extent of the damage and if there were items taken from the church.

Read Full Story: CBS 4 Minnesota

Georgia has it's own Lake Monster

This is a fun article I found written by Curt Holman, from the Atlanta Creative Loafing website

An alligator spies on my family as we stand on a midden heap on a muddy bank of the South Altamaha River. Our flip-flops crunch on the jagged oyster shells and pottery shards cast off by Native Americans a couple of centuries ago. Our guide points out their importance to the history of coastal Georgia, but I can't pay proper attention. I've brought my family to Darien in search of a monster.

Squinting in the midday sun, I can see the alligator's eyes and snout protruding from the water about 50 yards away. Our guide, Danny Grissette, says it's 8 to 9 feet long, making it no match for my potential prey, an aquatic beast alleged to be at least 20 feet in length. Wait, could that be the creature's famed ridged hump? No, it's just a stump sticking out of the brown river water. What about that mysterious turbulence about 25 yards away? It could be the wake of an unseen ship or a school of fish. But can we prove that it's not the tell-tale sign of the legendary entity known as the Altamaha-ha?

The Altamaha-ha, known more casually as "Altie," defies scientific explanation. Even before European settlement, the Tama tribes people told stories of a giant, snake-like river animal that hissed and bellowed. Over the past century, fishermen, lumberjacks and boy scouts have reported sightings of a creature in the tributaries and marshes of the Altamaha River, which feeds one of the largest river basins on the Atlantic Coast. The eyewitness consensus holds that the Altamaha-ha has a dark, smooth hide, apart from the tire-tread-like ridges on its back, as well as a narrow neck, prominent snout and flat, porpoise-like tail.

Could it be a sturgeon on steroids? A throwback to marine reptiles like the toothy plesiosaur? Maybe the Loch Ness Monster's cousin from across the pond? I'm skeptical about cryptids, the kind of famous beings like Bigfoot unrecognized by the scientific establishment, but the Altamaha-ha called me with a siren song, despite the likelihood of a search turning into a snipe hunt. But even if the Altamaha-ha isn't real, it could still have significance.

I grew up in Georgia and totally dug on Leonard Nimoy's "In Search of...," The Legend of Boggy Creek, and Sasquatch's guest appearances on "The Six Million Dollar Man." Somehow, I missed the Weekly World News story from 1981, "Monster Serpent Lurks in Murky American River." I never dreamed that a monster reportedly lived in our backyard — or at least a five-hour drive from our backyard.

I first heard of the Altamaha-ha earlier this year, when my daughter checked out the library book Tales of the Cryptids: Mysterious Creatures That May or May Not Exist. There, alongside the likes of Bigfoot, Mothman and the Chupacabra, was Altamaha-ha. The "Reality Index" declares the native creature as "Leaning Toward Real," as opposed to being real, like the rediscovered prehistoric fish the coelacanth, or a hoax, like P.T. Barnum's Fiji Mermaid, which turned out to be a monkey's torso attached to a fish carcass.

Founded in 1736, Darien, population 1,719, turns out to be a nexus of Altamaha-ha hot spots. The relaxed little town, 30 miles north of Brunswick on the South Georgia coast, boasts considerable history as the state's second-oldest planned city and the location of Fort King George. During a visit in early May, I also found Altie's flippered likeness all over it. A dinosaur-like creature paddles gracefully across a billboard that reads, "Welcome to Darien & McIntosh County: A Certified Work Ready Community." In the business district, several large murals feature the familiar twisty sea monster unobtrusively among historical tableau and images of local flora and fauna.


READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

The Sea Monster of Brooklyn

I love the idea that there are things on this planet, that have yet to be discovered. And for anyone to not believe the same is crazy. 

So I found this article for your viewing pleasure.

You might expect a cement-shoed mobster in the waters off New York -- but a sea monster?

Local newspapers and blogs have been consumed with the news that a "sea monster" has washed up at the foot of the famed Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. The seven-foot long beast, dubbed the East River Monster, was found on the Manhattan side of the bridge on May 21. 

And was it ever ugly.

"It had the scales of a fish, body of a serpent, head of a pit bull and was the size of a large alligator," wrote Maureen O'Connor, a blogger on the Gawker website.

Theories ran the gamut from horse to alligator to Loch Ness beast -- or even a relative of the Montauk Monster

Marine biologists cut through the rumors, however, calling it nothing more than a common Atlantic fish. "We could tell it was an Atlantic sturgeon right away," said Kim Durham, a rescue program director and biologist for the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation in Riverhead, N.Y.

"They have bony plates all over their bodies. There's no mistaking a sturgeon," she said.
Easy for you to say, especially when the carcass is fresh. But the East River Monster was never removed, instead remaining beneath the bridge rotting away. And several days later, the beast looks more like a monster than ever before.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE