Strange & Paranormal Files
Strange & Paranormal Files

Strange & Paranormal Files

@paranormalfiles

Top 5 Haunted Toys Caught Moving
Favicon 
www.youtube.com

Top 5 Haunted Toys Caught Moving

Top 5 Haunted Toys Caught Moving

Varginha UFO Incident: New Witnesses and a $200,000 Reward for Alien Video
Favicon 
anomalien.com

Varginha UFO Incident: New Witnesses and a $200,000 Reward for Alien Video

Courtesy of James FoxIn 1996, the quiet Brazilian city of Varginha became the center of global attention after locals reported sightings of strange creatures and a UFO crash—an event that would come to be known as the ‘Varginha Incident,’ often referred to as Brazil’s Roswell. Filmmaker James Fox has been digging into this case for years, and his 2022 documentary, Moment of Contact, brought fresh attention to it with firsthand accounts from witnesses, including military officers, firefighters, and civilians. Now Fox is working on a director’s cut of the film, promising new revelations that could be even more shocking. The story began on January 20, 1996, when three young women, aged 14 to 22, claimed they saw a creature with brown, oily skin, a large head, and glowing red eyes in a vacant lot. They described it as about four feet tall, with three bumps on its head and V-shaped feet. Soon after, reports surfaced of a UFO crash, with witnesses like university professor Carlos de Sousa describing a damaged, submarine-shaped object the size of a school bus, leaking white smoke as it lost altitude. The Brazilian military quickly cordoned off parts of the city, and rumors spread that they captured one or more creatures and transported them to a hospital in Varginha. Fox’s documentary includes interesting details, like the story of military police officer Marco Chereze, who allegedly captured one of these beings with his bare hands. Shortly after, he developed a mysterious infection and died at age 23. “After he captured the creature he was smelly — he had this strange feeling of something greasy or sticky over his body that came from the creature,” Fox said. “He developed this infection that wouldn’t go away, and for two or three weeks it was getting worse and worse and worse … and that infection killed him.” Credit: labeurb.unicamp.br Two forensic pathologists who examined Chereze later spoke to Fox, describing a strange bacteria in his body that acted like a “lethal weapon” to his immune system. These doctors, along with a neurosurgeon who claims to have seen a 20-second video of the creature, are among the new witnesses Fox is featuring in his upcoming director’s cut. The neurosurgeon, Italo Venturelli, said the video showed a weak, non-communicative being that matched the descriptions given by other witnesses. Fox has uncovered testimony suggesting U.S. involvement A Brazilian flight controller, Carlos Feres, reported an unauthorized U.S. Air Force plane landing in Campinas, a city in São Paulo, on the same day as the incident. Witnesses claim this plane, along with two helicopters, may have transported the creatures or debris out of Brazil. Fox says he’s spoken to U.S. witnesses connected to this operation, who confirmed something extraordinary happened, though they’ve stayed tight-lipped on specifics. Perhaps the most tantalizing claim is about a video. Fox says he’s spoken to three people in Brazil who’ve seen photographic evidence, including a 35-second clip of the creature. One of them, ufologist Vitorio Pacaccini, described watching a clear video in 2012 showing a frail being that didn’t respond when offered food or water. Fox is so confident this footage exists that he’s offering $200,000 to anyone who leaks it, along with any video of the USAF plane. He believes it’s only a matter of time before someone comes forward. In a 1999 Discovery Channel documentary, Major Calza claimed the whole thing was a misunderstanding. According to him, the “creatures” were just a pregnant dwarf woman and her husband, mistaken for aliens because of their appearance. He said military trucks were in Varginha for routine maintenance, and the hospital staff, seeing the couple, got spooked and thought they were dealing with extraterrestrials. To avoid a public scandal, the military supposedly stepped in to handle the situation discreetly, allowing only one doctor to treat the woman. Calza even slipped up in the interview, calling the woman a “creature” before correcting himself. This explanation has holes, though. For one, there are no hospital records of a dwarf couple or a baby born that day. Then there’s the claim about X-rays. The military said X-rays taken at the hospital were of a local criminal’s exhumed body, part of an unrelated investigation. But legal documents from the cemetery and hospital, uncovered by an investigative reporter, show the exhumation happened on January 30, not January 20. So, what was being X-rayed that day? The military’s story doesn’t add up. In an interview with American journalist Bruce Burgess, Major Calza claimed that a “couple of dwarfs” were mistaken for ETs in Varginha – the pregnant dwarf was allegedly taken to Varginha Hospital on January 20, 1996. He also unintentionally claims that the “creature” was captured by the military. The excerpt posted is from the documentary shown in Brazil on May 13, 1999 on the Discovery Channel, in the “Week of the Extraterrestrial Invasion”. “[…] In reality, there were no apparitions of extraterrestrials or UFOs because there was no proof. What really happened was this: on January 20th, it was raining very heavily in Varginha, there was a storm, and we were having a ceremony here in Três Corações. […] We sent two trucks to Varginha to carry out the planned maintenance. As a result, there was a series of coincidences as the whole story unfolded. There was a couple of dwarfs in Varginha Hospital, where the lady was pregnant to give birth. This coincides with the fact that the ESA picked up this creature, put it in the truck and took it to Varginha Hospital, where the staff said they had found a couple of ETs.” Yes, he actually slips up and calls the supposed pregnant dwarf lady a “creature” in the original video. One piece of the Varginha Incident puzzle comes from Carlos Feres, a Brazilian flight controller who witnessed an unusual event at Campinas airport on January 20, 1996. Feres reported that a U.S. Air Force plane landed without prior authorization, a highly irregular occurrence that raised red flags among air traffic control. Accompanied by two helicopters, the plane’s sudden appearance coincided with the alleged UFO crash and creature capture in Varginha,prompting questions that it was used to transport the mysterious beings or debris out of Brazil. He described the operation as secretive and outside standard protocol, with no official explanation ever provided by Brazilian or U.S. authorities. Fox’s new witnesses—doctors, a police chief, and possibly U.S. insiders—could bring us closer to answers. The post Varginha UFO Incident: New Witnesses and a $200,000 Reward for Alien Video appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Loch Ness Monster’s Famous Humps May Be a Myth
Favicon 
anomalien.com

Loch Ness Monster’s Famous Humps May Be a Myth

Souvenirs and children’s books often show Nessie as a snakelike beast with distinct humps breaking the water’s surface. But new research reveals that eyewitness accounts rarely match this popular depiction. Only 1.5% of reported sightings over the past century describe Nessie with humps or hoops, according to a study by Dr. Charles Paxton of the University of St Andrews and Adrian Shine of the Loch Ness Centre. They analyzed historical imagery, finding that while 25-32% of postcards portrayed Nessie with humps trailing behind its neck, this design is “biologically impossible.” Such a swimming method would be highly inefficient, making it unlikely for the creature to appear that way. Contrary to assumptions that witnesses are swayed by media portrayals, the study suggests most sightings stem from real, unexplained phenomena. “Scholars often assume that monsters are generated by cultural expectations, but it is always useful to test obvious hypotheses,” Dr. Paxton said. “In this case, it really seems witnesses do not generally report the impossible, even though the hooped monster is a common portrayal of Nessie.” Nessie’s legend dates back to the Middle Ages, but the first modern sighting occurred in 1933 when hotel manageress Aldie Mackay reported a “whale-like creature” churning in the loch. The Inverness Courier dubbed it a “monster,” sparking global fascination. Since then, over 1,000 sightings have been logged, including three in 2024 and two in 2025—one describing “two humps” and another a “long, thin creature.” Early theories suggested Nessie was a plesiosaur, an extinct aquatic dinosaur. However, skeptics argue the cold Loch Ness waters couldn’t sustain a cold-blooded reptile, and a warm-blooded one would need more food than the loch provides. Over the years, multiple searches—from sonar sweeps in the 1980s to DNA sampling in 2019—have found no evidence of large unknown creatures. Instead, researchers propose giant eels as a possible explanation. In 2023, the largest search in 50 years yielded mysterious “gloops” on acoustic equipment—until organizers realized the device wasn’t plugged in. The post Loch Ness Monster’s Famous Humps May Be a Myth appeared first on Anomalien.com.

5 Surprising Truths About How AI Chatbots Actually Work
Favicon 
anomalien.com

5 Surprising Truths About How AI Chatbots Actually Work

Credit: rawpixel.comAI chatbots have already become embedded into some people’s lives, but how many really know how they work? Did you know, for example, ChatGPT needs to do an internet search to look up events later than June 2024? Some of the most surprising information about AI chatbots can help us understand how they work, what they can and can’t do, and so how to use them in a better way. With that in mind, here are five things you ought to know about these breakthrough machines. 1. They are trained by human feedback AI chatbots are trained in multiple stages, beginning with something called pre-training, where models are trained to predict the next word in massive text datasets. This allows them to develop a general understanding of language, facts and reasoning. If asked: “How do I make a homemade explosive?” in the pre-training phase, a model might have given a detailed instruction. To make them useful and safe for conversation, human “annotators” help guide the models toward safer and more helpful responses, a process called alignment. After alignment, an AI chatbot might answer something like: “I’m sorry, but I can’t provide that information. If you have safety concerns or need help with legal chemistry experiments, I recommend referring to certified educational sources.” Without alignment, AI chatbots would be unpredictable, potentially spreading misinformation or harmful content. This highlights the crucial role of human intervention in shaping AI behavior. OpenAI, the company which developed ChatGPT, has not disclosed how many employees have trained ChatGPT for how many hours. But it is clear that AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, need a moral compass so that it does not spread harmful information. Human annotators rank responses to ensure neutrality and ethical alignment. Similarly, if an AI chatbot was asked: “What are the best and worst nationalities?” Human annotators would rank a response like this the highest: “Every nationality has its own rich culture, history, and contributions to the world. There is no ‘best’ or ‘worst’ nationality – each one is valuable in its own way.” Credit: DC Studio 2. They don’t learn through words – but with the help of tokens Humans naturally learn language through words, whereas AI chatbots rely on smaller units called tokens. These units can be words, subwords or obscure series of characters. While tokenization generally follows logical patterns, it can sometimes produce unexpected splits, revealing both the strengths and quirks of how AI chatbots interpret language. Modern AI chatbots’ vocabularies typically consist of 50,000 to 100,000 tokens. The sentence “The price is $9.99.” is tokenized by ChatGPT as “The”, ” price”, “is”, “$” ” 9″, “.”, “99”, whereas “ChatGPT is marvellous” is tokenized less intuitively: “chat”, “G”, “PT”, ” is”, “mar”, “vellous”. 3. Their knowledge is outdated every passing day AI chatbots do not continuously update themselves; hence, they may struggle with recent events, new terminology or broadly anything after their knowledge cutoff. A knowledge cut-off refers to the last point in time when an AI chatbot’s training data was updated, meaning it lacks awareness of events, trends or discoveries beyond that date. The current version of ChatGPT has its cutoff on June 2024. If asked who is the currently president of the United States, ChatGPT would need to perform a web search using the search engine Bing, “read” the results, and return an answer. Bing results are filtered by relevance and reliability of the source. Likewise, other AI chatbots uses web search to return up-to-date answers. Updating AI chatbots is a costly and fragile process. How to efficiently update their knowledge is still an open scientific problem. ChatGPT’s knowledge is believed to be updated as Open AI introduces new ChatGPT versions. 4. They hallucinate really easily AI chatbots sometimes “hallucinate”, generating false or nonsensical claims with confidence because they predict text based on patterns rather than verifying facts. These errors stem from the way they work: they optimize for coherence over accuracy, rely on imperfect training data and lack real world understanding. While improvements such as fact-checking tools (for example, like ChatGPT’s Bing search tool integration for real-time fact-checking) or prompts (for example, explicitly telling ChatGPT to “cite peer-reviewed sources” or “say I don ́t know if you are not sure”) reduce hallucinations, they can’t fully eliminate them. For example, when asked what the main findings are of a particular research paper, ChatGPT gives a long, detailed and good-looking answer. It also included screenshots and even a link, but from the wrong academic papers. So users should treat AI-generated information as a starting point, not an unquestionable truth. 5. They use calculators to do maths A recently popularized feature of AI chatbots is called reasoning. Reasoning refers to the process of using logically connected intermediate steps to solve complex problems. This is also known as “chain of thought” reasoning. Instead of jumping directly to an answer, chain of thought enables AI chatbots to think step by step. For example, when asked “what is 56,345 minus 7,865 times 350,468”, ChatGPT gives the right answer. It “understands” that the multiplication needs to occur before the subtraction. To solve the intermediate steps, ChatGPT uses its built-in calculator that enables precise arithmetic. This hybrid approach of combining internal reasoning with the calculator helps improve reliability in complex tasks.The Conversation Çağatay Yıldız, Postdoctoral Researcher, Cluster of Excellence ” Machine Learning”, University of Tübingen This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The post 5 Surprising Truths About How AI Chatbots Actually Work appeared first on Anomalien.com.

YouTube
Scary Videos No One Can Explain, Can You Figure It Out?