No sooner did I post about the creepy sweatshirt, pilot’s license and cash being found than I came across a breaking story: the wreckage of Fossett’s plane has been found. A year after Fossett went missing, a rescue and recovery team in Inyo National Forest near Mammoth Lakes, California (144km south of Fossett’s point of origin) found a small plane wreck with a tail number matching Fossett’s single-engine Bellanca.

“It was a hard-impact crash, and he would’ve died instantly,” said Jeff Page, emergency management coordinator for Lyon County, Nevada, who assisted the search.

No remains have yet been found, though investigators will continue looking for them as the NTSB begins the probe into the cause of the crash.

“The crash looked so severe I doubt if someone would have walked away from it,” (Madera County Sherriff John) Anderson told reporters. “There was no body in the plane. We have not found any human remains at the crash site.”

Anderson said search teams were racing against time with snowstorms forecast in the region. “If it in fact snows, that’s going to obliterate any hope of finding the remains or further evidence,” Anderson said.

So why wasn’t the wreck found during the exhaustive search over the last year? Teams discounted the area as a likely spot and concentrated their efforts elsewhere. Now we’re in a race against time to find the remains? Fire up the HAARP weather generators, boys.

Here’s what they want you to believe:

(CNN) — Hikers in California have found items that may belong to missing millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, officials said Wednesday.

Steve Fossett, seen with wife Peggy in a 2006 photograph, disappeared in September 2007.

A weathered sweat shirt, cash and a pilot’s license with Fossett’s name were found Tuesday near Mammoth Lakes, police Chief Randy Schienle said. The license did not have a photo, he said.

“We’re not certain that it belongs to Steve Fossett, but it certainly has his name on the ID,” Schienle said.

Fossett, who was 63, was last seen on the morning of September 3, 2007, when he took off from the Flying-M Ranch outside Minden, Nevada, in a single-engine plane.

He said he was embarking on a pleasure flight over the Sierra Nevada mountain range .

A judge declared Fossett legally dead in February.

So, the sweatshirt, cash and pilot’s license survive intact, but no remains are found? WTF? Maybe Steve wasn’t shot down over Area51, but it looks like he may be alive.

That icon of my childhood, the Loch Ness Monster, is in need of a renaissance. Nessie is burned into my memory as a huge, benign-looking pseudo-apatasaurus paddling through the murky depths. Those depths seemed to have swallowed her sometime after the 70s. You just don’t hear too much about the Loch Ness Monster these days. Seems like interest in lake monsters has moved to the Far East.

The Nessie tourism industry is still alive and well, however, in the Scottish Highlands. If you aren’t going to take the high road and visit Loch Ness yourself, then take the low road with this article; it’s a nice overview of the Nessie environs.

The “flying Dorito” phenomenon hasn’t died down any in the Birmingham area (ironically the area known as the Black Country). Local news is still abuzz with eyewitness accounts. The object was seen last Wednesday at around 7 p.m. local time and prompted a flurry of reports:

“At first I thought it was three planes flying in formation but the lights were far too close together. I’m sure we’re not alone in the universe.”

And this from a BUFOG (Birmingham UFO Group) member:

“It was absolutely enormous. At first I noticed a plane on the horizon and the I could see some faint red lights,” said Mr Lowe, who is a member of Birmingham UFO.”I knew they were not the strobe lights of an aircraft and they seem to be travelling towards me quite slowly.

“I rushed inside to get my video camera. It was huge because it blacked out the stars and it must have been about 35,000ft high.

“The footage is inconclusive. The problem is I was filming a black object against a black sky and my video camera is not great quality.”

Ah, the accursed grainy video. Read more from Craig Lowe here. We’ll be waiting for the tape.

Here comes the super copter
Here comes the noise it makes
The demon was an idea
The demon is awake
— Soul Coughing, “Unmarked Helicopters”

Reports of Black Triangles, wedge-shaped UFOs that blot out the night sky for stunned the observers below, date to the 1980s but seem to have grown more and more numerous through the mid-to-late nineties. Keeping in mind that the Aurora project seems to date to 1982, this is most curious.

The phenomenon cannot be ignored. While dealt with throughout the UFO community for some time, Black Triangles hit the mainstream with the X-Files. Perhaps this growing awareness contributed to the rash of sightings that have continued right up to the present.

The latest report comes from the UK near Birmingham:

“The object has been described as looking like a huge Dorito and had distinctive red lights on its underside, which moved position while the craft was flying.”

While some may scoff at the report of a “flying crisp” (think ‘potato chip’), witnesses took pictures and filmed it.

This was no isolated incident. Cognoscenti know the aircraft responsible for the phenomenon as “TR-3B“:

“The TR-3B is Code named Astra. The tactical reconnaissance TR-3B first operational flight was in the early 90s. The triangular shaped nuclear powered aerospace platform was developed under the Top Secret, Aurora Program with SDI and black budget monies. At least 3 of the billion dollar plus TR-3Bs were flying by 1994. The Aurora is the most classified aerospace development program in existence. The TR-3B is the most exotic vehicle created by the Aurora Program. It is funded and operationally tasked by the National Reconnaissance Office, the NSA, and the CIA. The TR-3B flying triangle is not fiction and was built with technology available in the mid 80s. Not every UFO spotted is one of theirs.” [Courtesy: Dark Government]

So, outside of Groom Lake’s 6-mile runway, where do you spot one of these babies? Belgium, of course!

“It all become apparent in Belgium where, after frequent sightings of flying lights and a mid-air near-miss by UFO, at one point Belgian Air Force, anxious to identify the origin of the phenomena, authorized F16 scrambles under condition that the visual observations on the ground were confirmed by the local police and detection on the radar.

One of the consequences of such decision was that, on 31 March 1990 at 00:05 hr, two F16 were scrambled from Beauvechain airbase and guided towards the radar contacts. A total of 9 interception attempts have been made that night. At six occasions the pilots established a lock-on with their air interception radar. Lock-on distances varied between 5 and 8 NM. On all occasions targets varied speed and altitude very quickly and break-locks occurred after 10 to 60 seconds. Speeds varied between 150 and 1010 knots. At three occasions both F16 registered simultaneous lock-ons with the same parameters. The two F16 were flying approximately 2 NM apart. Owing to the night conditions, no visual contact could be established by either of the F16 pilots. TR-3B image above was taken in Belgium at that time.” [Courtesy: DeepSpace4]

We’ve got pictures, videos and eyewitness accounts. The craft exists, but what it is, exactly, is up for debate. Nuclear-powered? Maybe. Anti-grav? Wow. I think I need remedial Physics (and maybe a time-machine) to test the veracity of that one.

It’s difficult to draw too many conclusions at this time without forgoing the sublime for the ridiculous. What we can say for sure is that the raft of sightings will undoubtedly continue (particularly over Western Europe, it seems), and that with the profusion of recording media, the secret will become more and more difficult to keep.