WELCOME TO ISSUE 13 of isle of wéired news – bringing you the weirdest news from around the world.
In this issue: a Scottish ufologist calls for a US style inquiry into UFO sightings in Scotland; a new tool in the search for Nessie shows promise; Sasquatches gatecrash a camping trip; an exorcist goes off-script and gets the boot; University of Manchester scientists solve the mystery of of the Mary Celeste; and in old news, a dream reveals the location of a missing girl and her alleged abductor.
Enjoy!
Scottish Ufologist Calls for UFO Investigation
Scottish ufologist Malcolm Robinson has called on the UK government to launch an investigation into UFO activity in Scotland – and to follow the US lead of declassifying documents and conducting hearings.
Working with Billy Buchanan, a councillor from the UFO hotspot of Bonnybridge, Robinson says that they have tried to convince successive UK Prime Ministers to investigate UFO activity in Scotland.
“Over the past several years, the United States Government, NASA, and the Pentagon have released numerous documents, reports, and video footage relating to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), more commonly known as UFOs,” he said. “These disclosures have generated worldwide headlines and have demonstrated that the American authorities acknowledge the existence of incursions into their airspace by objects that remain unexplained.
“Congressional hearings have been held in Washington, attended by current and former military personnel, intelligence officials, and representatives from the United States Air Force, Navy, and Army. Many of these witnesses have testified under oath regarding encounters with unusual aerial objects displaying characteristics beyond conventional explanation.
“Here in Scotland, Bonnybridge Councillor Billy Buchanan and I have dedicated numerous years pushing for increased openness concerning UFO encounters, especially those documented in the Stirlingshire and Bonnybridge regions. Our objective has remained straightforward: to urge the British Government to launch an official investigation into UFO activity above Scotland. Regrettably, our appeals have repeatedly been greeted with disregard.
“The official position of the British Government has long been that, because these reported objects are not considered a direct threat to the defence of the United Kingdom, there is no justification for launching a dedicated investigation.
“If the United States Government is prepared to acknowledge unexplained incursions into its airspace and provide evidence to the public, why does the British Government continue to dismiss calls for greater transparency? Why is Westminster unwilling to examine a subject that has attracted serious attention from our closest ally?
“We believe the British public deserves answers. The time has come for the UK Government to follow the example set by the United States and undertake a thorough, open, and independent review of reported UFO activity within British airspace.”
Source(s): Daily Star, 5 June 2026
A Head Start for Micro Millie
A tool designed to study Nessie’s environment that was deployed at the Loch Ness Quest weekend has had an early success.
Micro Millie, an underwater drone, found Nessie’s head – a 20-foot prop that was created for the 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The prop, which sank to the bottom of Loch Ness during filming, had been discovered a few years ago during another scan of the loch. Micro Millie was able to identify the exact location of the head and take high-resolution images of it.
“Being able to return to and pinpoint the Nessie head prop gave us an important benchmark for the vehicle’s navigation and imaging capability,” said Craig Wallace, president of operations at Deep Sea Vision.
“It shows that this technology is accurate, reliable and ready to support much more detailed work on Loch Ness.
“This successful mission provides a strong foundation for our long-term partnership with The Loch Ness Experience as we work towards mapping one of the world’s most mysterious bodies of water in greater detail than ever before.
“Loch Ness still has much to reveal, and the ability to survey it at higher resolution opens up exciting possibilities for what may be found in the years ahead.”
Source(s): Daily Star, 1 June 2026; The Sun, 2 June 2026
Sasquatches Gatecrash Camping Trip
A group of teenagers travelled to Payette National Forest in McCall, Idaho, for a Memorial Day weekend camping trip. And during that weekend, they claim to have had a number of encounters with Sasquatches.
The first encounter was on Friday, 22 May, when one of the group, Abi, saw a tall dark figure behind the tent belonging to Daniel and Baylee. Strangely, Abi did not tell anyone what she had seen until Monday 25 May.
About midday on Saturday, another of the group, Kyera, was walking through the forest on her own when she heard what “sounded like something was walking with me in the tree line and whistling at me in different directions to get me lost in the forest.”
On Sunday, Daniel was answering nature’s call when he encountered a 9-foot-tall creature “with blank reflective eyes.” It was coming towards him.
Daniel ran back to the camp to get help. Colton, Kyera’s boyfriend, had brought a rifle – and they went looking for the creature.
“They let off warning shots and returned to camp and said they were heading to our friends’ camp down the way because they heard the ‘person’ run that direction. They headed to our friends’ camp and later stated they were circled by 3 or more creatures in the woods,” said Kyera.
“Our friends, Dillion and Sabrina, were camping off an abandoned road. They later returned and Daniel and Colton said they saw three creatures that stood 9 feet tall with dark fur and standing on ywo legs with blank reflective eyes. They described it as a human looking animal that was too tall to be a person and too fast to be human. They stated the creatures knew how to hide behind the trees and were circling them and trying to separate them from each other. Colton then stated he shot one of them, and then shot off five warning shots.”
The group say they found handprints on a couple of their cars and footprints around the camp. They also claim to have found broken trees “put together as sideways crosses all in a wide circle with what appears to be teepees made out of trees.”
Matthew Moneymaker, an investigator with The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organisation has spoken to two of the witnesses.
“They are telling the truth,” he says. “The only question is whether it was a misinterpretation.”
Source(s): Fox News, 1 June 2026
Archbishop Excises Exorcist
In a video posted on his Facebook page on 29 May, Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, a Catholic priest, psychologist and exorcist, claimed that demons were behind UFO sightings.
“There’s a danger here,” he said. “As an exorcist I wanted to raise that danger. And that is that demons like to hide … They don’t want us to know what they’re doing because they’re more effective when we don’t realize it.
“They can kind of get into your head, you know, and manipulate things in the world to influence us to do evil.
“It is my personal belief that probably many if not most of these UFO sightings are in fact demons.”
Shortly after the video was posted, Rossetti was dismissed by Cardinal Robert McElroy, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington D.C. The Archbishop also severed all links with Rossetti’s St Michael Center for Spiritual Renewal.
According to Cardinal McElroy, Rossetti’s statements “linking UFOs to demonic presence and the Center’s recent use of social media gravely undermined the Church’s very precise teaching on the devil, demons and exorcism.”
In a statement posted on the St Michael Center website, Rossetti said: “I ask forgiveness for any ways that I have not been faithful to the teachings of the Church’s Magisterium, particularly in the cited video on ‘aliens and the demonic.’ I believe it is of the utmost importance to be obedient to the Church and I will continue to endeavour to subject all that I do and the center to be thus obedient.”
Source(s): The Washington Post, 3 June 2026; Independent, 4 June 2026
Mary Celeste Mystery Solved?
On 7 November 1872, the merchant ship the Mary Celeste left New York for Genoa, Italy, loaded with 1701 barrels of pure alcohol. On board were Captain Benjamin Spooner Briggs, his wife Sarah, their 2-year-old daughter, and an experienced crew of seven men.
On 4 December, the crew of the Dei Gratia discovered the Mary Celeste sailing erratically, 400 miles from the Azores. A boarding party found the ship to be completely seaworthy and well-stocked with food.
But all of the crew and passengers were missing. None of whom were ever seen or heard from again.
What had happened? What had forced the crew and passengers to abandon a perfectly good ship?
There have been many theories over the years, but a couple of scientists from the University of Manchester believe they have finally solved the mystery. The Mary Celeste was carrying 1701 barrels of pure alcohol. The scientists believe that 1100 litres of this alcohol leaked into the hold and vaporised – and then accidentally ignited.
“It basically spooked the crew into abandoning ship very quickly without leaving any trace,” said Dr Jack Rowbotham, a chemist from the University of Manchester.
“There is a key temperature which is very important for ethanol, and that is 13°C (55°F),” said Dr Rowbotham. “That point, called its flashpoint, is the minimum temperature at which the vapour from ethanol will ignite.”
When the Mary Celeste was loaded with the ethanol in New York, it was winter and the temperature was well below the flashpoint. However, by the time the ship reached the Azores, the temperatures were climbing to 20°C and above.
According to the ship’s logs, stormy weather had forced the crew to batton down the hatches. This created a sealed chamber that was slowly filling with ethanol vapour.
When the weather improved, the crew opened the hatches, allowing oxygen to rush in and mix with the ethanol vapour, creating an incredibly combustible atmosphere.
A tiny spark would have created a massive explosion.
“They are basically sitting on a bomb, and they’re hanging around smoking pipes,” said Dr Rowbotham.
Dr Rowbotham and his colleague Dr Frank Mair created an experiment for a Channel 5 documentary. They built a 1:18 scale model of the Mary Celeste and filled it with a proportionate amount of ethanol.
When the ship was cooled to a New York temperature, the ethanol failed to ignite when a spark was introduced. However, when the temperature was raised to mimic that of the Azores, the same spark created a massive explosion.
According to Rowbotham and Mair, an explosion like this on the Mary Celeste would have had the crew abandoning ship immediately.
The ethanol fire theory is not new. But it was a theory that was ruled out because there were no signs of an explosion or a fire on the Mary Celeste. And none of the other barrels of ethanol caught fire.
But the Rowbotham and Mair experiment has shown that you can have a massive alcohol explosion that leaves no traces. They found that, even though the fire on their model reached 2,000°C (3632°F), none of the wood showed any signs of burning.
The scientists believe that the explosion on the Mary Celeste was big enough to scare the crew – but left the ship untouched.
“There are so many crazy conspiracy theories about what happened,” said Dr Rowbotham, “but we wanted to show what you could learn from doing an experiment, and how valuable that is.”
Source(s): Daily Mail, 18 May 2026
Old News: Dreamer Solves Mystery
On 30 October 1924, in Spring Lake, Michigan, USA, Harry B Proctor, a real estate agent, disappeared with Edna Fullager, the 14-year-old daughter of one of his clients.
On the night they disappeared, Proctor had visited the Fullager home, then left with Edna in his car, promising to have her back within half-an-hour.
Edna was driving the car.
When they failed to return that evening, Mrs Fullager contacted the authorities, who issued a warrant for Proctor’s arrest for the abduction of Edna Fullager.
Weeks went by.
The mystery of their whereabouts was solved when George Snyder, one of Edna’s neighbours, told the authorities about his dream.
“For three nights I dreamed of their resting place,” said Snyder. “I finally made a sketch of the place and took it to the officials. It was only a dream, but something told me it was the solution.”
On the morning of Sunday, 9 December, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department began dragging The Grand River in the location identified by Mr Snyder. It took only 30 minutes to find the car. The bodies of Edna Fullager and Harry B Proctor were found shortly after.
The evidence appeared to suggest that it had all been a terrible accident – not an abduction.
“I think that Harry went down there for more moonshine, and the girl, inexperienced at the wheel, drove the car into the river,” said Proctor’s wife.
Source(s): Larne Times, 9 February 1924; Grand Haven Tribune, 10 December 1923