Santa knows where to find all the best and hottest smartphones just in time to make this Christmas better and bigger than ever! Better service, bigger savings, that's today's Appalachian Wireless! Ho, ho, ho! A Pristonsburg woman accused of leaving a three-year-old child alone with her overdosing friend is now facing more severe charges than originally filed against her. Thirty-one-year-old Tiffany Don Lewis of Cliffside Circle was indicted recently on drug charges and also on a felony charge of first-degree wanton endangerment. Lewis was arrested December 7 at Walmart in Pikeville after police responded to a report of a woman passed out in her car with the window down and her three-year-old daughter sitting on her lap, shivering with no pants on. Lewis had allegedly driven Heather Pennington and Pennington's two children to the store and left her and one of the children in the car. Court documents said she told police she, quote, knew Heather wasn't going to make it, but left the child in the car with her mother anyway. Lewis was arrested at the scene. According to court documents, it was only 39 degrees at the time of the incident, and the child had been in the car for two hours before police arrived at the scene. Lewis could face up to five years in prison if convicted on the felony endangerment charge. Reporting in Pikeville, Chris Anderson, EKB News.


Guys say we're gonna show you how to take your GoPro footage to the next level by using ND filters These are basically sunglasses for your camera lens They're they're tinted glass that you put in front of the lens on your GoPro. Why would you want to do that? Well as we'll learn today, it's to get more motion blur and to get a more cinematic image We've got our GoPro strapped to an FPV drone, which is one of the coolest ways to use these cameras Oh, yeah, let's get into it Here at Rotorite we fly these FPV drones FPV stands for first-person view So you've maybe seen shots like this before maybe you've seen drone racing on TV before Yeah, and so we're gonna fly these drones around this awesome park here in central, Florida We'll do some flying in 30 frames a second We'll also do some like 60 frames and maybe some even higher frame rate Some slow motion type shots and we'll talk about you know the changing of the ND filters as we do that as well So I'm gonna walk you guys through my process for how I choose an ND filter This isn't actually specific to freestyle But some of the GoPro settings that I use are specific to freestyle So we'll have another video on that but the same process applies for how you choose your ND filter So to understand exactly what an ND filter does let's think about taking a photograph Just a single still image when you make a photograph you expose the image for a certain amount of time And that's what the shutter speed defines How long is the image sensor being exposed to the image a faster shutter speed means a shorter exposure Longer means longer exposure Sometimes you want this sometimes you don't want this imagine if you're taking a photograph of someone throwing a baseball like a pitcher You might want to use a very fast shutter speed So you have a very crisp image of their athletic motion But imagine if you were doing something more cinematic and you wanted to make it look fast like a Image of a car racing across then you might want to use a longer shutter speed so that you get blur Essentially what you're doing is you are exposing that image over a period of time and during that exposure Your subject or the background or whatever is moving and that's going to show up as blur So if you understand what I'm saying about how this works in a photograph You understand how this works for a video because a video is nothing more than a series of photographs Over a period of time when we talk about a video being made in 30 frames per second That means for every second of video there are 30 photographs 30 frames So we're just doing this very very fast So you can use an ND filter shooting videos the same way that you do in making a photograph So I'm gonna go ahead and get my phone out. We're gonna go to the GoPro app I'm gonna make sure all of my settings are correct on my GoPro first And then simply I'm gonna turn my GoPro on and we're just gonna look at the sky But there's this relationship between motion blur and how much light gets on the image sensor So you have to think about your exposure.  A very long shutter speed could just wash out everything is so brighter a short shutter speed could be too dark And so to compensate for this There's different things that you can do like playing with the ISO or the aperture or Using ND filters. You're gonna be shooting in 30 FPS and 160th shutter speed. Correct Okay, so I'm gonna go ahead and just double-check that my GoPro settings are the way that I like them So we can do that here 4k 30 super view 10-bit high shutter speed 1 over 16 A good rule of thumb to target for a nice cinematic look is to have a shutter speed that is Double the frame rate. So what that would mean is that if you are making a 30 frames per second video You would want your shutter speed to be 160th of a second to show you this kind of in real time We're gonna change the camera settings of what you're looking at right now We just tuned the camera you're looking at right now to be very sensitive to light with the ISO and the aperture and we have made These shutter speed very fast. This is at what one six thousand 16th is that one 16,000th of a second that is a very fast exposure as I wave my hand look look at this It looks like a strobe light almost right. It does not look like what you would see With your real eyes. So now let's go back to camera settings that we would actually want to use So now we've brought the ISO back down to a reasonable level and even put an ND filter on the camera Which has allowed us to set the shutter speed to a longer 160th of a second which is exactly what we would want for this 30 frames per second video And that's gonna be a lot more similar to what you would see with the human eye And when I move my hand you see blurred motion rather than strobe emotion and that looks more natural It looks more cinematic. It's generally just more Pleasant of an image. So this is exactly how you can use an ND filter to decrease the amount of light and Enable a longer shutter speed to make the image a lot more pleasant. I'm gonna put my ISO at 155 sharpness medium, and that's pretty much it So now what we can go back is we can enable the preview on the gopro And then all we're gonna do is we're just gonna point it up at the sky And we're gonna see how blown out we are and we're most likely gonna be really blown out as you guys We're talking about depending on your shutter speed and your frame rate That's gonna change how much ND that you need but usually with one over 60 shutter speed You're gonna probably need a lot of ND on a day like today where it's pretty bright outside Yeah, and you can see that is so overexposed completely blown out. There's no detail there So we're going to use an ND filter to let in less light so that it'll be properly exposed So the ND filters come in different levels of darkness and higher the number the darker it is What we're trying to do with ND filters is almost always trying to increase the amount of blur so we Decrease our shutter speed. We have a longer exposure And then we use an ND filter to decrease the amount of light being let in over the course of that exposure The ND filter is essentially sunglasses for the lens of your camera And so what we do here on the camera if you're using a GoPro camera these just simply unscrew it takes a little bit Of force the first time you do it And then after that just pops out like that make sure you don't you know get dirt on the lens or anything like that Which one did you like first? I'd say let's try with the 16 first Why do you go with that decision? So I from experience knows that like an ND4 and ND8 is probably not gonna be enough on a bright day like this Generally speaking I like to use an ND8 around sunset ND4 actually once the Sun has gone down even sometimes by usually in like bright daylight I like to use an ND32 because we're in this like tree section. There's a lot of dark spots I'm gonna be flying. Yeah, I'm a little concerned that 32 is too much I could compensate with a little more ISO, but I like to keep that as low as possible So we're gonna because when you add ISO you just add a lot of graininess to the camera And so I like to lock it out a hundred. So I'd rather be a little Over-exposed when I'm looking up at the Sun but be perfectly exposed whenever I'm under the tree canopy Which is where I'm gonna be doing you know most of my flying. Yeah, so let's start with either. Yeah start the 16 And these filters they just go right on Like so oh that looks so much better right when you put it on yep And even with the 16 if I'm looking straight up at the Sun you can see it's like if we have like um Wave chart it would be like a tiny bit blown out But man when you're looking down here at the trees and everything like that it looks still a little bit over But I would agree. I think it's a little over. So let's try the 32. Yeah. Oh, it looks amazing That's really everything's properly exposed even the Sun's not blown out. Yeah, even the shadows another thing I like to do too is I literally like to walk over to shadows Let's do it because I look at this tree here even the tree looks pretty good. Yeah a little underexposed I mean that's very minimal and when you think of the speed at which an FPV drone is flying as well Mm-hmm. You know just not even gonna notice that yeah for sure So that's basically how I go about choosing the ND filters the same process applies if I'm just shooting handheld on the GoPro or anything like that Yeah, so I want to talk a little bit more about Once you raise the frame rate and the reason you want to do that is if you want to get some awesome Slow-mo shots. I know a lot of action sports use this So if you're doing a sick flip on a snowboard and you want to slow the footage down You're going to have to raise the frame rate so that you have extra frames to slow it down in post So the standard rule to get the natural looking motion blur is have your shutter speed double the frame rate So if you go up in frame rate, you're gonna also have to go up in shutter speed Which means you're letting less light in so maybe we'll have to use a less of an ND filter like an ND 8 so let's go ahead and set your frame rate to a 120 yep We'll go 4k 120 so you're gonna set your shutter to to afford one over two one over 240 So let's see what it looks like now And notice it looks a lot darker a little under exposed you can see here when I'm like looking at the trees in the shadows It's really dark. Okay, and I have sunglasses on yeah, but I still say that's a little under so I think we go to the 16 Yeah, try and be 16 and see how that looks the 16 looks really good. Yeah, this looks right I would highly recommend you guys again Don't try and compensate if it's a little dark with ISO Especially on go-pros you really add a lot of greeniness when you do that So do your best if you're on a bright day like this just lock your ISO on a hundred Especially on the GoPro. I cannot emphasize that okay. This is the grain we're talking about so Gordon Go ahead and put your ND filter super high We make it really dark and compensate with exposure for ISO This is that ISO grain that we're talking about that's not really really desirable when you're trying to get the footage To look as cinematic as possible. It's really grainy and just isn't really pleasing to look at We're gonna get some sample footage using ND 32 and D16 and D8 and ND4 and no ND filter to kind of show you guys What different levels of ND look like in this in the lighting condition we're in so the way that we control these FPV drones Is with you know a radio and then goggles so the FPV goggles allow us to see what the drone is seeing in a lifetime Basically, no latency at all so these drones are super high performance They can do really cool flips and they can go any orientation so you can do a flip and you can be hanging upside down The super acrobatic and they can go really really fast So the really cool piece of technology that we use go-pros on so a lot of the stuff that we do is called FPV freestyle so we'll go to really cool locations and do tricks around them and show off It's kind of like an art to see different styles of flying. All right, so we just got all the test footage Let's go ahead and bring it back to the studio and get some comparisons of it.  I'm really curious I've never done this back-to-back with different ND filters do the 32 with start with the first flight We're not gonna watch this whole thing because I did an eight minute flight on this drone eight minute flight What a legend yeah, we started with this because we wanted to start with what we consider to be Proper exposure. This isn't color graded. It's just flat color But I mean it looks really good the sky is nice the ground looks nice the shadows too. Yeah They look dark and that's a good thing because you want to have some contrast. Yeah, definitely You can definitely tell that like when you get into some of the really dark spaces there a little bit Yeah, and this is I so walked at a hundred as well But it's not bad like this is exactly what I would want it I mean look when you look up at the sky there you can see that it's you know, yeah I find I find with go-pros that it's harder to bring back Over-exposed thing that is underexposed so this is kind of perfect for me like if I wanted to bring the shadows up I could they're still detailed there just with my experience working with go-pros at least right and one thing too with the one over 60 shutters you definitely get that motion blur So it's something that some of you guys may like some of you guys may hate I know I get comments all the time saying I have too much motion blur me too personally. I like the motion blur I also think that when you're flying with janky props It kind of disguises the way your quad may be flying if you're what's not flying good But that's more specific to FPV drones But for you guys who are new to using cameras and stuff Just keep that in mind with the one over 60 shutter speed You're gonna have a bit more motion blur and you're chasing like a really fast object. You may not want that. Yeah So that's the ND 32 Let's look at the ND 16 and the biggest thing to notice we went up in shutter speed right now We are at 1 1 20th. Yeah still 30 frames a second still ISO at 100 the exposure is the same obviously It's a competitive for that but there is just a little bit less motion blur Oh, there's definitely less motion blur. I mean it almost looks like everything is more sharp Yeah, even though we didn't touch the sharpness settings on the GoPro You can see when I'm doing a lot of these really fast movements to like there's really almost no motion blur to it whatsoever, so yeah, like when you look in the ground you can still kind of make out the Yeah, yeah, I'm curious like yeah What it looks like when I'm doing flips and stuff because I've only been flying with like very Like one over 60 shutter speed and stuff like that for the last couple years. I haven't flown one over 120 Okay So it's interesting to kind of look at it like I'm not really Freestyleing to my best of my abilities, but still like I just don't because I'm not used to the look I don't like the look I'm always for more motion blur or like I guess the two times frame rate rule I think that always looks best. Yeah, it looks the most cinematic to you usually But this is good. I mean this is what one over 120 looks like and D16 with an ND 16 and bright daylight And it works pretty well. Yeah, I think it'll be interesting now We're getting into one over 240 with the NDA. That's a I think that's too high of a shutter personally Wait, I have a shutter, but let's see what it looks like. I can definitely feel like the shutter is way too high right now Yeah, the downside to on the GoPro is now we were we had clouds. So like the light was changing This might actually look a little dark to you guys and it probably is but you only do so much because You know the Sun was going behind the clouds. Yeah. Oh, that was a nice trick there Thanks, bro. I'll dive into the venue. There were a couple of these flights where I was like this is a good flight I kind of like wish I didn't have it one over To for you can see here It's really dark with that one over 240 the moment that The downside to locking your shutter speed is like if you lock it super aggressively You know if you you know some goes behind a cloud or something like that then this is a good example What will happen? Yeah, it doesn't matter if you're having an NDA or an ND 32 with one over 60 The same exact thing can happen Yeah, I think one way to compensate for that if you want to lock your shutter is have your ISO minimum at 100 and ISO maximum at like 400 or 8 at 400 or 800 To kind of compensate for that a little bit anything above 800 is too much grain in go-pros at least I agree. That is the ND4. This is the last ND filter that we had. Okay, so now we're at 1 over 480. Yep. Yeah So high you and I can see it. Yeah, it almost looks stuttering like like if we just pause any frame We can just make out all the you can. Yeah. Yeah It's just honestly exposure doesn't look bad to be honest But man, it just the shutter speed is way too high I think if you guys are out there and you're flying FPV drones, I recommend having just a little bit of motion blur I really think it helps helps the skies all your Corrections as well as if your drone is not flying. I mean, that's truthfully one of the reasons I use is because like I don't stabilize my footage Yep, same and so there are still gonna be a lot of minor corrections and bobbles and stuff here and there We're not flying with perfect drones or perfect props all the time Yeah, and so you definitely want to have that shutter speed to your advantage I know you wanted to marry that right there. I know I just was like we're filming an episode and I don't really feel like walking So now we're gonna go to the final one, which is the no endee no endee and this is with an auto shutter so I'm curious how this looks because When I was using the session five for the longest time even with and ease I used auto shutter because I only I had so many issues getting into the GoPro app Yeah, and I just used auto shutter and I knew it would look decent But sometimes in a flight it would be way too much motion blur sometimes there'd be like no motion blur Yeah, and that got kind of annoying and it's interesting here with no endee It's actually favoring what I would describe as like a colder Exposure or it doesn't feel quite as bright or as hot Okay, you know at least when you're on top of the trees when you're below the trees You can see it's adjusting the shutter speed a little bit. Yeah, lowering it But when you're on top the trees, it's way higher of a shutter speed. Look at how high the shutter was there Yeah, you just see there's no blur on that tree It looks pretty similar to the endee for I Would say the sky in this case because we're not locking the shutter the sky in the back is really blown out Yeah, like it's just super white super blown out and this is me I was trying to haul to and you can see there's like no motion blur and some people really really like that. I don't I Don't like it then respectfully. I don't like it It makes me feel like it makes me actually look like I'm going really really fast to be fair I feel like more motion blur makes it I do too it man That made me feel like maybe just from watching him back to back it did mm-hmm well My consensus after just watching all these clips I I like the ND 32 the best just the motion blur look of it I would also fly the ND 16 look of it in that lighting We're not saying by the way that the ND 32 is the best of all these filters What we're saying is that with those lighting conditions and everything the ND 32 is the best choice Yes, we both like having our shutter speed being double of what our frame rate is and 1 over 60 is always just naturally a very good Shutter speed as well. Yeah, so like if we were flying in later Evening times, you know when the closer to sunset probably an ND8 or maybe even this ND4 would be really good Yeah, it just depends. I mean that's the thing we showed you guys how to do all this Yeah So hopefully whether you're flying an FPV drone or whether you're just using your GoPro for something You can use these ND filters and you can go out and have a great experience If you guys want to pick up some of these ND filters We sell them here at our store rotariot.com just type in camera butter ND filters and they'll pop up We sell and before a 16 and 32 and we also sell a bundles You can buy all four of these ND filters and you will be good for any lighting condition These were first kind of made for FPV drones and our FPV drones were smashing into stuff all the time Crashing a lot crashing a lot and so the last thing we want to do is be scratching up our lenses Yeah, you don't want to be replacing these things because we crash a lot So it gets very expensive quickly. So these were made to be very durable So if you're someone who's using a GoPro, which again, this is what you would be using those on Yeah, like you can trust that you don't need to buy a ton of these and like we're flying them on our FPV drones They do break eventually But for the most part they are way more durable than any other ND filters that I've used on the market They're made out of gorilla glass. So it's really tough and it's a high quality glass too That's not to say that the glass itself is being sacrificed. The glass is very very high quality I think if you did a side-by-side with some of the other Competing brands you probably wouldn't even notice a quality difference, but the durability is a huge improvement on these I agree. All right. Thank you guys so much for watching this episode of rotariot We do FPV drone content I hope you guys liked this episode where we did more deep diving to GoPro we post every Monday So make sure that you like this video to hit the thumbs up like button and also to subscribe and right next to it There's a little bell notification so you can get pinged when we post every Monday at 4 p.m. And I think that's a wrap for this episode any questions that you have about GoPro or any settings drop them in the comments below We will definitely be down there to answer them and I'm Bobby at TV I'm Alex fan over and I'll see you guys next time


The Mandarin security and civil defense co-commandant general's special intelligence court has uncovered a massive illegal oil bunker in sight at Odagwa community in a local local government area of river state. Parading the suspects before the news, men's spokesperson of the river's command superintendent Olufemi Ayodele hinted at a successful discovery of over 10 illegal refineries with an estimated 500,000 litres of crude oil contained in about 50 illegally constructed reservoirs was based on credible intelligence. This is Odagwa community in Eche, local government of river state. Five suspects have been arrested, presently while others at large. They were arrested for vandalizing the wear head of hers energies. They tapped into the wear head using different holes, different pipes. While on our way to this particular vicinity, you can see a lot of pipes being laid underground. This activity has been going on for quite a long time and we were able to discover other fresh areas where the wear head were removed, were vandalized and they were tapping directly into the source to siphon crude. While conducting an operational tour across the large, thick forest, about 10 different cooking pots of 50 litres capacity were seen with unqualified litres of crude oil. Two hours we've been walking through this massive forest. This is a very thick forest in Odagwa community in Eche, local government and you can see for yourself the cooking pots. So the process continues and we are now at the second phase of the operations. Look at the last tank that we saw in that area, it's about 120,000 litres capacity. We are still moving ahead to see other tanks where the cooking is taking place. Look at this, this is enough to contain a full trailer, a full stand. We are moving ahead. The reverse stage commandant Basile Igwebweze, through the spokesperson of the command, reassured that a thorough investigation has commenced to unravel those behind the scene while all suspects arrested in connection with these acts of vandalism and crude oil theft will be charged to court. The commandant JR Special Intelligence Court has made these arrests. All the suspects will definitely be charged to court of competent jurisdiction. Investigation is still ongoing because if you look at the nature of this illegal operation taking place in this vicinity, you will know there is a cattle involved. By the time we start our investigation, a thorough investigation indeed, we will unravel the mystery behind this unscrupulous and nefarious activity. The NICD say we're not reliant. We will continue to fight because of ensuring that every activity or every act that constitutes sabotage to the economy of this nation is taken very seriously.


Have you ever wondered which productivity tools are the best? In our bustling world, these tools have become an integral part of our day-to-day routine, helping us manage tasks, track progress and streamline work. Today, we're going to delve into an array of these tools, examining their features, weighing their pros and cons, and ultimately, determining which ones come out on top. So, are you ready to discover the best productivity tools that can change your life? Let's get started. First on our list is ASSANA, a tool designed to help teams organize and manage their work. ASSANA stands out for its versatile task management capabilities, allowing you to create, assign and schedule tasks with ease. It's like having a personal assistant at your fingertips, helping you stay on top of your work. Beyond task management, ASSANA also shines in project planning. You can outline your entire project, set milestones and monitor progress in real-time. It's like having a bird's-eye view of your project, letting you see where things stand at a glance. What truly sets ASSANA apart, however, is its team collaboration features. You can share tasks, exchange feedback and communicate with your team, all within the platform. It's like having a virtual office, bringing your team together no matter where they are. But it's not all sunshine and rainbows. While ASSANA boasts a user-friendly interface and robust features, it does come at a cost. The premium features, although impressive, can be a bit pricey, but if you're willing to invest in productivity, it might just be worth it. ASSANA, with its extensive features, might be your go-to tool if you're working with a team and need a robust task management system. Next up is Trello, a popular tool known for its simplicity and effectiveness. Trello is best described as a digital bulletin board, where you can create, organize and prioritize tasks in a flexible and rewarding way. Imagine having a board for every project and cards for each task within the project. You can drag and drop these cards across lists to show progress, categorize them, and even assign them to team members if you're working collaboratively. What makes Trello stand out is its simplicity and ease of use. You can visually track your progress, which makes it a great tool for those who appreciate a more visual approach to task management. It's a breeze to set up and navigate, and it's no wonder why it's a favorite among productivity enthusiasts. However, Trello isn't without its limitations. While its simplicity is a strength, it can also be a weakness. If you're looking for advanced features such as time tracking or in-depth reporting, Trello might fall a bit short. In spite of that, if you're someone who values simplicity and visual organization in your productivity tools, Trello might be the perfect fit for you. Last but not least, we have Evernote, a tool that's all about taking notes and organizing information. Evernote is like your personal digital notebook on steroids. It's not just about jotting down ideas or to-do lists, it's about storing, organizing, and making sense of information in a way that suits your needs. Evernote shines when it comes to note-taking. It offers rich text formatting, checklists, and even the ability to attach files. You can create separate notebooks for different projects or topics and tag your notes for easy searching later. It's like having a super organized filing cabinet right at your fingertips. But Evernote is more than a note-taker. It also includes a document scanning feature so you can capture and store physical documents in your digital space. Receipts, business cards, even handwritten notes can all be digitized and organized within Evernote. However, there's a catch. While Evernote does offer a free basic plan, some of its more advanced features come at a cost. The premium plan, which includes features like offline access and more storage, does require a monthly fee. But if note-taking and information organization are at the heart of your work, it may well be worth the investment. Evernote, with its focus on note-taking and information organization, could be your best bet if that's what you need most in your work. So, there you have it. A quick comparison of three top productivity tools. We dove into the capabilities of Asana with its robust project management features. We explored Trello's simplicity and flexibility, a perfect fit for visual thinkers. And we uncovered the power of Evernote as a note-taking giant. Each tool offers unique strengths, making it vital to choose based on your specific needs and preferences. Remember, the best productivity tool is the one that helps you get your work done more efficiently. So, give these tools a try and find the one that works best for you. Please share them with our community. If you found this video helpful, don't forget to hit the like button, share it with your friends, and subscribe to our channel for more insightful content. Thanks for watching and remember, stay productive.


Oh, hey, what's happening? Brad here with reinforcer, which is a stimulus that is added or removed that increases the probability of a behavior happening in the future. So, the actual chocolate, not the delivery of the chocolate contingent on a behavior, but the chocolate itself, if it reinforces a behavior, is a reinforcer. Or being able to leave a room, the action of leaving the room and avoiding all the stimuli that were in that room, that action, I lost it mid-thought, yeah. You were there, you just confused yourself at the end. Yeah, there was just a train wreck in my head and there were no survivors. Anyway, all aboard and we're back on it. So, negative reinforcer would be the stimuli that is signaling or being annoying enough that you want to escape or avoid it. That itself is the reinforcer, the noise.


efforts. I think that part of the answer to that is to go back to the point that I made before, where I think that more in-depth look at specific spend on certain items locally, and is there an area where you could use the money better to take forward increasing the provision of education, and I'm not entirely sure that that's been done consistently. I think that there has to be an open and honest exchange about the budgets and expenditure, and, as I said, I was concerned to hear that doesn't happen. I don't think that we have magic answers either, apart from ones that just wouldn't be achievable, but my feeling is that there is money being spent on things that aren't necessarily a priority, maybe just because it's always happened or it's something, isn't it? I just think that it needs to be re-looked at. If you're only getting a finite amount, then it has to be really carefully distributed and focused on that. Is there an issue where you touched on instrument tuition now or not? I'm in the fortunate position that local authority in the area that I represent has and continues to cover the costs of that. I know that they're in a minority in that respect, but in a sense, at a local level, those different priorities are going to be taken, they're going to be assessed presumably on the basis of what in that local authority area they feel they need to invest in order of priority and where they think there is a stomach for charging for certain things and they put forward those proposals and are held accountable to them. Sorry, can I come back? What's the comparison then in the authority that cuts that provision to the one that can still provide it? Where is the saving being made for the one that can still provide it to allow them to provide it free? Of course, maybe there needs to be more interaction between different authorities on what are their successes. What is it they've managed to retain without cutting? I know that I'm not naive enough to think that that's simple to do because of the different natures of authorities, but if one area is able to continue provision of that and another area is not, then you're getting into an inequality of access to education that's available to young people in Scotland and again it comes back to the postcode lottery. It's interesting to say that on the previous panel again we're emphasising where there can be shared learning and shared experience. One would have thought that, given the process that all local authorities have had to go through over the last few years, that dialogue between them would have been happening as a matter of course. Everybody's been struggling. Your argument isn't. I'm not convinced it is. In which case are there exemplars, are there local authorities that we should be holding up as examples of where, despite a range of factors, they are exceeding expectations? They're delivering and not necessarily with massively more resources than anywhere else? I just want to back with that question. There's another angle to the same question. You mentioned a couple of times now about, earlier on you said, look authority spending on fluffy services and just a moment to go about in terms of spending on areas which are maybe of less priority. Could you give us examples of what these areas of less priority or fluffy services are? Fluffy is the wrong terminology, it's just my own personal one. I mean if you think across authorities even about what do they spend on projects for the arts? What do they spend on the types of wheelie bins they provide to the people that live there? Each authority's got a different arrangement for that. What's the cost implication? Are they taking teaching jobs and redistributing them to support staff in order to make cuts there? It's about the exchange of what they're doing and the importance of what they're doing. I mean leafletting that you get through the door from the council about certain things, is there a need for that? I know that that's not all directly interlinked but I just think the whole wider funding as you need to be looked at and if we cannot afford to do something and I know it's been done and that's my point about there aren't any more efficiencies to be made. It is cuts now and maybe that has to be the honest responses. We're not looking at efficiencies, we are cutting. I just think it needs to come back to Liam's point. I don't think that there's an open exchange across authorities in different scenarios where we've been seeking advice on the way that notice pay is made in different authorities. There's a massive varying level of responses from local authorities as to whether they'll share information or not and so may that there is work for them to do but that's not for us to do. Two points, the SCC in its consultations with the finance secretary has consistently identified the small business grant that government gives as something which doesn't create any jobs and is a pot of money which could be used to support public services. The SCC would probably have an internal disagreement about where you redirect it to but I would certainly be arguing for Scottish education. So there are macro decisions that are made around the amount of money that's spent. There's been a commitment this year around the Woods commission which we welcome because there's no point in having the commission if you're not going to resource it but then again there's been a decision taken to support that particular thing. Now there are projects on the go in Scottish education which are worthwhile but you have to say are they realisable, one plus two language initiative? Nobody has any disagreement with it in real terms. Has it got any chance of succeeding in the next five, ten years? Absolutely not because a level of resource that's required to turn that into a reality is flying in the face of a discussion that we're having here around the context of which Scottish schools are operating. I'm now five minutes late for a meeting on attacking bureaucracy working group and one of the points we've been saying in that group is that schools have to pick their priorities and do those priorities well and it might mean not doing something that you actually would like to do and you see as worthwhile but you just certainly don't have the time to do it and I think there is an issue around your work. We tick all the boxes in terms of where we're going forward but we can't afford to fund them all properly so we fund them a little bit so we've ticked all the boxes and maybe we should just focus on the key things and the last point convener is I think there is a debate around again back to the shared services agenda. Do we really need 32 education directors across the country? Thank you. I'm going to bring in Jane and the final question. We'll get everybody to answer and if there's anything you need to pick up then please do so. I asked the previous panel to comment on the statement from ADES that due to sensitivities involved the reality is that draft budgets are now kept largely confidential and the members of that panel made reference to being all about elections and local authorities and governments keep things quite close to their chest and then pull rabbits out the hat when it comes close to an election. Do you think there's any ways that we can broaden out that accountability? Obviously that is an accountability through elections but are there other ways that those involved in school education could be held accountable perhaps more at local level and are there other stakeholders that need to be involved or is it teachers that cause that in councils? Who else should be involved in that mix? I'd have to be honest to say that at a local level, even at a national level from an EIS point of view, we do feel that we are consulted on these major issues and we do have a contribution to make. I think some of the sensitivity goes down to a local level and it's where a possibility becomes a probability just because it's been articulated. The education directed used to be very good when looking at their budget cut options or throwing up stuff that was totally unacceptable just to make sure it was totally unacceptable. The danger they've got now is that if they put anything up it might actually happen. I can understand the level of caution because representing workers in the public sector, you don't want to see budget cuts being presented which are going to unsettle people in the workplace. That is a difficult way but I think that there's just a real challenge for local authorities in terms of how they communicate with different representative groups. If you are a representative group, there's an illness on you to act in good faith. It's your confidential information that's shared with you. That's the basis that's shared with you. I do think that just putting everything into the public domain isn't necessarily the best way of conducting what can be quite sensitive of difficult negotiations. I would echo that, Larry, because I think that it depends on the level of understanding of the group that you would be presenting it to. We do get obviously involved in the local information exchange. If that was rolled out to every householder in whatever area, are they going to understand the nuances of the decisions that are being made and is it relevant to what they need to know? I think that the level of engagement that exists is adequate but I think that as long as it's an open exchange and not, you know, the rabbit-out-the-hat analogy I think is potentially true in terms of elections but it's more fluff, I like a bit of fluff, but I'm not sure that's the deliberate agenda at all times. I just think, you know, if the question is asked, I think that's what I'm trying to say, if the question is asked through whatever means then the answer should be given. I think that the difficulty sometimes is, the speed at which the response comes makes it difficult in the long term. Jim? I don't do fluffy. I could have guessed that. Just to come back, it's perhaps taken a wee bit of meeting the bones of Larry's point. It's perhaps not the best choice of words from Addis and it could have been phrased in a different way, I would suggest. But if you get to a situation now within the discussions which are happening in relation to cuts, it's not perhaps the best way to go about things to throw everything into the public domain. If, for example, you start to look at the school estate and the closure of schools and the delicacy with which that has got to be done, it's just one example of, you know, let's look carefully at what we are going to do and let's look carefully at the way in which we're going to share that with people. As I say, I don't think the wording was perhaps the best in the world. I think that the difficulty about holding people to account is again, believe it or not, to do with workload. I think that there's a lot of people who could contribute an awful lot, but by the time they come to code to a meeting, they don't have the time, the energy, they've got other commitments and so on. Quite often what happens, I think, is those that have the loudest, more articulate voices are the ones that are listened to. Quite often that's why the decisions are made because somebody is right in front of the councillor who's got the priority. Thank you. Thank you all very much for coming along this morning and thank you very much for your written evidence in advance of today. Obviously, you'll know that we will continue our budget deliberations next week. We'll hear from evidence from COSLA and ADIS and, of course, from the Scottish Government and Cabinet Secretary for here next week. And I'm delighted, Larry, that you can now go to your meeting on bureaucracy. That concludes our business for today and I close the meeting.


Hey everyone, Drew with GeoArm and I am back to talk to you about the GeoAlarm control panel and how to get your firmware updated or at least check to see if any updates are available. First thing we're going to do is we're going to hit the hamburger icon in the top left. Enter your master code, which you would have set up at the time of configuration on your system. I have another video for that, by the way. You can check that one out. It'll show you all of that stuff. What we want to do here to check and upgrade firmware is hit info. Then right here you will see firmware version with an arrow. You hit that arrow. It'll check for the updates to see if they're available. I don't have any updates available. Mine is the newest firmware revision. I hit okay. Then I go ahead and back all the way out of programming. Now if there was a firmware revision available, it would have said update now and then you would have gone through the whole process. Mine does not need that, but that ladies and gentlemen is how you check for firmware updates and update the actual firmware on the Geo Alarm Control Panel. If you have any questions or comments, leave them below. Take care and have a great day. Please like and subscribe to our page for helpful programming and installation videos, product reviews, monitoring, products and more. Visit www.geoarm.com or call<PHONE_NUMBER>. Geoarm, the worldwide leader in DIY security.


Welcome to Paranormality Magazine. Each week, Paranormality Magazine explores all 40 subjects from phantoms to UFOs and every cryptid creature in between. Each week, you are treated to a collection of well-researched and investigated stories, interviews and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects and topics they know you crave. And here in the podcast, I share stories from the magazine to give you just a taste of what you receive in every issue. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Paranormality Magazine. What do you get when you cross a Southern California house, two wrestling enthusiasts, a mafia don and an alcoholic husband who will stop at nothing to kill his adoring wife? You get the curious haunting of the Moffat family in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and Molly Briggs from Paranormality Magazine has the story for us. Between 1987 and 1991, the Moffat family lived in indescribable fear. It's a tale at terrifying heights. Strange messages written in soap on mirrors within the home and mattresses torn to shreds with no explanation were some of the bizarre happenings. Multiple accounts of hair-raising events shrouded the Moffat family in fear for over six years, living with a demon they nicknamed Mr. Entity. The family would eventually allege that this demon was responsible for scratching a specific symbol into the surface of their cars, burning it into walls and carving it into a rug inside the home. Debra, the daughter-in-law of Mr. and Mrs. Moffat, would recall the eerie demonic carving as a triangle with a small tail extending out of the base. In 1986, Debra was living in New York. Through her interest in the WWE, she met Bill Moffat. After falling in love, they married and decided to reside in sunny Southern California. Citing his deep love and desired protection of his mother from his abusive alcoholic father, Bill Jr. convinced his new bride to live at home with his parents. It wasn't long before Debra was front and center to the mental paranormal torture that would hold their young family hostage for the better part of six years. As far as strange activity in the home, some might say, why didn't the family just move? Well, for the Moffat family, it wasn't that easy. The original dwelling was a property that included a large lot with three homes, all of which seemed to be stricken with some accounts of paranormal activity. One account, Debra personally witnessed, including multiple objects mysteriously transporting from one place to another. For other reasons, the family sold the property and moved to a larger home nearby. Unfortunately, the paranormal activity continued and increased. The four Moffats lived under the same roof. Soon after their first son was born, a terrifying event sent Bill's parents, Lee and Bill Sr., out of their second floor bedroom and into the sleeping quarters of their son, a room he shared with his new wife and child. Mr. Entity had dramatically sliced Lee and Bill Sr.'s mattress into pieces. With no earthly explanation for this, Lee Moffat was afraid. Her husband, on the other hand, was hardly moved. He seemed indifferent to the entire situation. Here's where it gets weird. One would argue that if the strange and horrifying event did not faze Lee's husband, that would assume he had done it. The short answer is no. He was likely not the culprit, given that the paranormal activity continued after he was forced from the home. One fateful day, he was caught by none other than Debra, his daughter-in-law, having a conversation with the demon through letters written in soap on a mirror. He was pleading with the entity to kill his wife, Lee, so that he would gain control of her finances and inherit the massive amount of money left to her by her parents. Lee's father was an influential member of the Koso Nostra, or the Sicilian Mafia crime family in California. So much wealth was likely to be had. Money is an unfortunate but familiar motive. The story is a puzzle, and here is another piece. In 1989, a paranormal investigator shared that the reason this entity had not left the home was because someone in the home was permitting it to stay. It would be years later that Debra would encounter her father-in-law engaging with Mr. Entity. Once revealed, Bill Sr. was exiled from the home and left the state. Again, the activity continued indicating Bill Sr.'s innocence. Strange events continued to plague the home in Altoloma. Prince, aka Mr. Entity, would consistently write of his hate for Lee all over the home, leaving strange symbols etched on the floors and walls, items moving by themselves, lights turning on and off without intervention, and doors opening and slamming shut when no one was within reach. TV channels would also change by an unseen power. No escape, and I hate Lee, are just a couple of the messages left by the demonic entity. Debra's pleas to have the house investigated went unanswered until after the father left and Lee was paralyzed with fear. Priests, holy water, and paranormal investigators invaded the home. Two investigators prompted laughter from the demon that came from the second floor. Every attempt at thwarting the evil entity was futile. Debra finally took matters into her own hands. After years of torture and severe mental anguish, she mustered every ounce of courage she had and demanded the entity leave. Shortly after that, a simple message was written on the mirror, goodbye family, and that was it. That was the end of the haunting of the Moffitt family. Although that wasn't the end of the fear, both Bill Jr. and his mother Lee lived in fear of the demon until they died. The mother in 2009 and Bill Jr. in 2012. Bill Jr.'s daughter would later recall escorting her timid father around the home after dark, wondering why he seemed scared of his own shadow. She would also remember her grandmother lurking around the home similarly. You see, the children of the Moffitt family were never told of the demon until after the children had come of age. They were protected from the bizarre stories until Debra felt safe leaving the closet, which she most certainly did with a box of pictures showcasing the paranormal circus she had lived through for the better part of her early marriage to the young Bill Moffitt. At the time of the haunting, the children of Bill Jr. were too young to comprehend the chaos going on within the home. Since then, books have been written and podcasts have been produced about the strange activities inside the Moffitt home in Rancho Cucamaga, California. Some have chosen to believe it, and some have not. It is a peculiar and curious tale that leads me to wonder how mighty the hand is that reaches over to us from the dark side, and whether it influences us or if we influence it. Which is the darker hand? We take a brief moment now to look at a member of the Forty in Society, Alexander Wolcott. Alexander Humphrey's Wolcott was born January 19, 1887 in Fallonks, New Jersey to a struggling inventor father who passed away when Wolcott was just nine. This left mom to raise him and his two sisters alone in constrained financial circumstances. From a young age, Wolcott found solace in writing and theater. He attended Hamilton College in Clinton, New York, where he edited the student newspaper, contributed short stories to magazines, and participated in campus drama productions. After graduating in 1909, he bounced around journalism jobs before gaining attention as the drama critic for the New York Times from 1914 to 1922 and then the New York Herald from 1922 to 1928. Wolcott gained national fame in the 1920s and 30s as a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of writers, critics, and actors who met daily for lunch at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel. Known for his savage wit, creative insults and vicious theater reviews, Wolcott established himself as one of the most entertaining and quoted drama critics of his generation. Though he longed for an estate in the countryside, Wolcott made his home in hotel suites in Midtown Manhattan for most of his adult life. There he hosted lavish parties, often with themes requiring elaborate costumes for his diverse roster of friends and contacts. He never married or had children, but maintained correspondences with dozens of celebrities and authors of the day. In the 1930s, Wolcott became enamored by the supernatural and the occult. He was an avid reader of pulp science fiction and fantasy stories. In 1932, he joined the Fortean Society, an organization dedicated to chronicling strange and inexplicable phenomena founded by novelist Tiffany Thayer. Wolcott remained a member until his death, contributing articles about bizarre events to the Fortean Society's routine doubt. Though struggling with his health later in life, Wolcott enjoyed national fame and influence at the peak of his career. From 1937 to 1942, he hosted The Town Crier, a popular CBS radio program. His final book, As You Were, published weeks before his death became one of 1943's top sellers. On January 23, 1943, at the age of 56, Wolcott suffered a fatal heart attack during a live radio broadcast. His sudden death shocked the country and made front-page headlines. Over 600 people attended his elaborate star-studded funeral held at a church in Manhattan. In his personal writings, Wolcott admitted sensitivity about never finding romantic love. However, he maintained many deep and lasting platonic friendships, exchanging thousands of letters with fellow-literity over his lifetime. His distinctive style and rapier wit live on in perpetuity through archived columns, stories and broadcasts. Though Wolcott's cruel theater reviews caused immense resentment amongst some Broadway talents, generations of readers and theater goers have found lasting entertainment and escapism in his written words. His longevity as one of the most widely quoted American wits and critics of the early 20th century is perhaps the sweetest posthumous revenge against those he once eviscerated on the stage and page. Jorge Martinez tells us about the unseen war, spiritual battles haunting soldiers. Upon learning of the suicides of several haunted marines, I recalled childhood experiences years later known as paranormal. Regretfully, at the time there were no newly coined phrases one could use. Unable to name or describe them, I did what millions before me did. I buried them in my subconscious. I did what every Catholic child would have done. I prayed for protection from evil. Unable to tell anyone I suffered in silence, filled with dread of visions, voices and movements in the dark. Many years later, as an adult, I shared my perceptions with several advanced students of the occult and Mexican coranderos along the Texas border. To my dismay, no one could help. Although many claimed to know, none really did. Unlike many students of the paranormal, I had no desire for vengeance, power or wealth. I simply sought relief from constant fear and dread. The struggle continued throughout my adolescence. Later, while in the military, I researched literature from many countries via books of different religions and cultures. All of them contained studies of the occult, but none helped. I came to an unpleasant conclusion. Usable knowledge cannot be gained by reading, but only by risking your life and spiritual self. Had I not been desperate, I would have never considered it. Profoundly disturbing was the absence of knowledgeable people willing to help. After publishing several books on the paranormal under a pseudonym, I attempted to share my knowledge believing I would save others. Again, I was disappointed. None of my students were able to defeat self-importance enough to obtain the necessary discipline to enhance their lives. They either saw themselves as knowledgeable and powerful or totally helpless. This was overwhelming and imagine the frustration others must have felt. My obsession was born of desperation and indignation of having been subjected to knowledge I also never wanted. I regretfully recognize I am an unwilling descendant of other victims of paranormal experiences they also never sought, but were real nonetheless. As mankind unveils secrets and once unbelievable possibilities become realities, such as extraterrestrials, knowledge of the occult will unfortunately be exposed. This is inevitable, as mankind overcomes boundaries of understanding. Although we are not there yet, so as to prove my point in a recent New York Times article on November 5, 2023, two Marines, having returned from a secret mission to Syria wherein they shelled villages and enemy strongholds, reported being haunted by the spirits of children. As it was for me as a child, these men had no place to seek refuge. Repeated reports of aberrations brought no peace and neither did the drugs they were given. The men, both gunners of Alpha Battery, 1st Battalion, 11th Marines of Camp Pendleton, California, killed themselves. Many others remain impacted by their experiences. The horrific reality is there is nowhere these men could have gone for help, as it doesn't exist. Via their own decisions and behavior, these Marines crossed into a sphere wherein modern medicine has no authority. Unable to recognize or acknowledge the possibility these men transgressed into a spiritual realm, the Marine Corps and modern medicine abandoned them. Forgetting that while the Middle East is known as the Holy Land, it is also the first recorded place evil appeared. The Jewish and Christian Bible report evil appeared to Jesus who defeated it and went on to perform endless miracles. The miracles are recorded as examples of his supernatural power and yet the occult is never considered when someone is believed possessed or haunted. The only book I have found offering genuine guidelines towards spiritual warfare was written by an unknown author. Don Jesus M. Ramirez in 2012, luckily still offered on Amazon. Interestingly, Marine Corps leaders and doctors may claim to believe in God, but none honestly do. None were willing to consider these men were truly under a spiritual attack and that the rest of the 1st Battalion, 11th Marines, may be as well. Clearly, there exists a separation between trust, faith and fidelity as our military leaders are lying or are horribly negligent in their responsibilities. While we claim in God we trust, clearly those in charge don't and never have. Once having been caught in the same catch-22 between the church and average people, I know what it is like to feel abandoned, called crazy, stare at, suspected of lying and heeded for claiming something most people rarely do. Unlike the Marines who killed themselves after years of torment, unable to find peace or solace, I by the grace of God survived. Unable to overcome or completely understand my experience, I sought refuge in the study of the occult. I believe in what is known as the supernatural. Playful experimentation in this field should be cautioned against, vehemently. While the Catholic Church reports exorcism it has regretfully and inexplicably condemned us to remain ignorant of how to combat dark forces that attack us. Even though spiritual energy has been witnessed and scientifically recorded, society remains ignorant of its existence and power. My heart breaks for those men and their families. The men of the cloth wearing military uniforms have failed their oath to God and country. Apparently the Marine gunners who described their visions to Marine Corps doctors died from an unacknowledged religious epiphany. Want more Paranormality? Subscribe to Paranormality Magazine, and each month get it delivered digitally or via mail in our print version. Paranormality Magazine is a collaborative endeavor featuring works from people like you who have a passion for all things mysterious and unexplained. Our goal is the pursuit of knowledge, gathering captivating stories from our own team of writers, researchers and investigators, as well as from writers such as yourself. Each monthly issue also includes a list of paranormal, horror, UFO and cryptozoology events around the country, incredible paranormal themed artwork, articles and writing sent in from our readers, suggested books and podcasts to consume and more. Visit ParanormalityMag.com and subscribe today for as little as $3.99 a month. That's ParanormalityMag.com. Meet Ralph Layle, a furniture salesman who was scouting a mountain in North Carolina that was famous for what was called the Brown Mountain Lights. On certain nights, many claimed that mysterious lights would rise up from the forest and into the skies. Pre-1947 and the beginning of the UFO craze, they were believed by Native Americans and early settlers to be spirit lights. But of course, after? But back to Ralph. He encountered these lights and in a very direct way, saying, I'm frightened. Don't know what to do. One light moves forward. It's now about 10 feet from me and it's glowing. I can read a newspaper by the shining of it. It's 10 to 12 feet across, almost a perfect circle. It has a brown center that does not look solid. The shape of the brown center is like a tumble bug but without a head standing on its back end. Not touching the ground but suspended in the center of the glowing ball. It seems to have three hands or feelers protruding out from each side. Ralph claimed in the book that he wrote about his experience that after learning to communicate with the light using basic yes-and-no questions, it led him through crystal-walled tunnels into a secret cave base in the mountain where he met an alien race called the Puam. They took him to the planet Venus, which he said was made entirely of crystal, warned him about the dangers of nuclear science, and totally let him nail a hot alien chick named Noma who showed up to greet him in just a bra and panties. Yeah, that too. I kind of want to get abducted now. Anyway, after he was brought back, he says that he found a small mummified alien body in one of the caves and he brought it back to town where he displayed it in a glass case in his furniture store for years until he died and the store was bulldozed and no one knows what happened to the body. Naturally, stories of the men in black showing covering up evidence immediately surfaced, but many have more reasonably tied the mummy to being a sideshow attraction created by the legendary Homer Tate. Regardless of its earthly or unearthly origins, we still don't know what happened to it. Okay, so Venus isn't made of crystal and Ralph was almost certainly a hawkster trying to attract folks coming to see the lights, which appeared to be a real and probably natural occurring phenomena, but it's certainly more fun to imagine Ralph on a sexy space adventure. That being said, while the Ralph Lael story draws considerable interest to the area, especially when it comes to the idea of hollow caverns occupied by extraterrestrial beings, it is far from the first story to make this kind of claim. Not far away from Brown Mountain, Chimney Mountain was the site of a similar event that took place 150 years before Ralph's encounter, and Chas of the Dead from Paranormality Magazine brings us this story. It was 1806 and Patsy Reeves was left in charge of the family homestead outside of Rutherford, North Carolina after her husband died a few years prior. She lived there with three children and raised them with the most likely involuntary help of an African-American woman who of course remains unnamed throughout the report. One evening at about 6 p.m., two of the children were out playing when one of them noticed something strange occurring on the mountain face opposite them. One of the children, an eight-year-old girl named Elizabeth, said she saw a strange man on the mountain who seemed busy moving large sticks and rolling large rocks down the mountainside. She soon realized this man was not alone, but a part of a large group, all of whom were busy. She quickly ran to her brother, a boy named Morgan, age 11, who did not believe his sister at first. After some prodding, though, the brother went to investigate his sister's claim and to his surprise, he did not only see strange people on the side of the mountain, but he saw thousands of things flying in the air. He quickly got the attention of the rest of the house occupants, his mother, the third sibling, and their presumably enslaved help. The mother told a local newspaper what she saw when she arrived. The quote from the newspaper is, She discovered a very numerous crowd of beings resembling the human species, but could not discern any particular members of the human body nor distinction of sexes. That they were of every size, from the tallest men down to the least infants. That they were more of the small than of the full-grown. That they were all clad with brilliant white raiment, but could not describe any form of their garment. That they appeared to rise off the mountains south of said rock and about as high. That a considerable part of the mountain's top was visible about this shining host. That they moved in a northern direction and collected about the top of Chimney Rock. It becomes clear that these white beings that they are describing as men are they themselves the flying things. After the crowd slowly continued moving towards the large bear peak known as Chimney Rock, a few of these largest men beings of the group seemed to rise up above the rock and a few more from below started to weave through the crowd of beings at impossible speeds. Mrs. Reeves was so amazed that she sent a messenger to reach a nearby neighbor, Juan Robert Searcy. Robert initially dismissed the messenger using classic 1800s man logic, believing that the women and children were delusional. After the messenger was sent back a second time, he reluctantly followed and met the other onlookers in their yard. At his first glance of the mountain, he saw nothing and began to walk off when the other insisted he look again. He looked more closely this time and saw what the others had. He was quoted in the paper as saying, He saw more glittering white appearances of humankind that ever had he seen of men at any general view, that they moved in throngs, moved in a semi-circular course between him and the rock. The sighting lasted for about an hour before the entities seemed to notice the group watching them and flew over to investigate them. The report states that they got within 20 yards of the group before disappearing. Robert Searcy said they vanished out of sight, leaving a solemn and pleasing impression on the mind, accompanied with a diminution of body strength. This altered state they were left in, a slight buzz and physical weakness, could be construed as side effects of a psychedelic experience. What were these entities doing? They seemed to be at first moving things across the face of the mountain before they gathered together on one of the peaks. Their floating and glowing nature is reminiscent of the brown mountain lights, but these were certainly more humanoid. Were these entities digging out and preparing the subterranean alien base that Ralph Leal described? Unlikely, but impossible to say for sure. One thing we do know is this is surprisingly not the first account of possible extraterrestrials standing in this area. In fact, the next example takes us back 400 million years. To explain this, our story starts with a weird incident in 1968. A man named Melvin R. Gray was mowing his lawn in Louisville, Kentucky when his lawnmower ran over something. At first glance, this thing seemed to be nothing more than a typical rock. But for whatever reason, Mr. Gray decided to hold on to the oddly colored and shaped rock. Over the next seven months, he began to analyze the rock. He came to the conclusion that this rock was actually a fossil and not just a regular fossil. It was a fossilized UFO and occupants. The story was covered by two paranormal periodicals at the time, and one of which was written by respected researcher Brad Steiger. Steiger observed the object and was like the rest of us extremely skeptical of this alien interpretation, but he was also sent the description of the entities and plaster casts made from the fossil, and despite his skepticism, he did say of one of these blasters that he could see a tiny human pilot sitting in a bucket-type seat when he used a magnifying glass. This was one of several entities that Mr. Gray believed were contained in the fossil. Mr. Gray claimed to have been able to see seven distinctive entities inside the fossil. The little creatures were in segmented areas he was convinced were actually a fossilized craft that was around them. Three of the creatures he described were ape-like, but also noted could very well be humanoids in special space suits. The other three were more human-looking. He said the groups were divided into sections that seemed manufactured and that lined up and fitted together. He said that this indicates intelligent construction and design by intelligent beings. Of the whole thing, he told Brad Steiger the fossilized creatures themselves are humanoid in appearance, looking very much like ourselves and approximately three inches tall. The stone looks rather cindery, as if it may have hurtled through a long trail of space, melting as it went, and finally splashing into some river or lake before it was entirely consumed, leaving a fossil-like imprint for a permanent record to tell the world that we had visitors to our earth who had met with some terrible calamity. For this version of events to be accurate, this pen-sized spacecraft would have had to crash on the earth's surface 400 million years ago for it to become fossilized in this manner. Now, of course, there isn't much to back up this claim. It seems the object, much like the alien mummy mentioned earlier, has disappeared. Many point to this as some kind of show of credibility that someone is hiding it away, but the chance it's sitting in a box in an attic somewhere is equally, if not more, probable. Whatever the true nature of these accounts, they serve to show that this area has a strange significance when it comes to these paranormal subjects. The area seems to constantly break the mold of what to expect from the paranormal. Thanks for listening to Paranormality Magazine. Get more information about the magazine and subscribe to our monthly publication at ParanormalityMag.com. That's ParanormalityMag.com, or click the link in the show description.  We might feature you on our next issue. If you have a paranormal podcast, you can add it to our website so our readers can find your show. And artists, if you'd like your work to be featured in our magazine or on our back cover, contact us. Again, our website is ParanormalityMag.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll have more paranormal for you next time. Thousands of letters with fellow literary over his lifetime. Literity. Exchanging thousands of letters with fellow literary over his lifetime.


Hello, I'm here with Dr Adam Elliott Cooper from Kings College London, researcher at Kings College London. That's correct, yeah that's me. I'll upgrade you to lecturer when I feel that you deserve it. Much appreciated. And we're here to talk about policing the criminal justice system, racism and much more besides because last week figures were released showing that in England and Wales, knife crime has gone up by 21% which to me seems like an awful lot. So are we really witnessing a new epidemic of violent crime? I think the figures don't often paint that kind of total picture of moral panic and crisis that we often see in like new studios and the police and politicians speeches. What we often see is violent crime fluctuating throughout the year. We generally see more violent crime in the summer, less violent crime in the winter for the simple reason that more people are out in the summer. And we sometimes see fluctuations relating to different types of things whether it be cuts to social services or whether it be instances of civil unrest or whether it be other kind of social factors but I wouldn't say that there's an epidemic that needs the kind of quite I think over-the-top reporting that we've seen more recently. I mean if you'd believe some of the, particularly the Conservative back benches were sharing these memes of like you know a dripping knife against a you know London sky which is stained red you would think that we were living in some Mad Max Fury Road dystopia. You would, you would but I think that's what kind of helps over a lot of this political point scoring right. So you've got this idea that the Conservative party are there the law and order party so obviously if there's a moral panic around knife crime, if there's a moral panic around terrorism or anything else that requires a stiff law and order approach according to the Conservatives they're going to jump on top of it quite quickly and I think we can see that quite a lot. Not only with the Conservative party but also in the ways in which certain parts of the Labour Party are also capitulating to this kind of law and order kind of governance. I mean let's talk more about that. So Sadiq Khan has vowed to step up stop and searches in the capital after having run on a platform of reducing stop and searches and Jeremy Corbyn in the summer just gone had called for Theresa May to resign over police and cuts and has pledged 10,000 extra police officers. So is this and should it be the left-wing political response to a rise in violent crime to try and claw back some terrain from that traditional Tory ground of law and order? I guess there's kind of two ways we can look at this right there's a kind of liberal way we can look at it which is the fact that almost all the evidence suggests that the police don't really prevent crime. Their role is more to apparently to solve crimes than to prevent crimes and they're not too good at that but even when it comes to preventing crime there's very little evidence they prevent crime. The last time we saw a massive influx in stop and search was between 2009 and 2011 and it was an initiative called Operation Blunt 2 which sounds like an action movie it's just an initiative from the Metropolitan Police where they increased stop and search massively in some inner-city boroughs and increased them a little bit in some other inner-city boroughs and not at all in others and what they found was that in the boroughs where they increased stop and search loads had no effect whatsoever in comparison to the boroughs where they didn't increase stop and search at all. In fact violent knife crime went up in some boroughs where they increased stop and search which of course doesn't mean more stop and search leads to more knife crimes but it does mean there's no correlation whatsoever with increasing powers like stop and search and reducing levels of knife crime and I think the second important thing to note about that is that of course this operation took place between 2009 and 2011 it finished in May 2011 and in the August of that year we saw massive civil unrest and I think that whilst the killing of Mark Duggan probably sparks that unrest I think that three years of intense stop and search by London's Metropolitan Police probably exacerbated the likelihood that we were going to see an explosion like that so that's a liberal approach right?  Not if I can help it and so we've also got a radical approach as well right and the radical approach is slightly different and it says that not only is the role of the police not really something that reduces crime it also reproduces dominant power structures right? So what do we mean by that? We mean that if you're suspected of handling a gun in Tottenham you'll probably be arrested in fact if you're Mark Duggan you're executed on the spot without anyone asking any questions but if you sell F-16 Saudi Arabia or Israel you'll probably get an OBE right? This is the role of the police if you're suspected of smoking a spliff on Bricks and High Street you can expect to be stopped by the police but if you sell highly addictive antidepressants through the pharmaceutical markets you're a pillar of British industry right? There are mothers who were given custodial sentences for handling stolen goods which were appropriated during the unrest of 2011 but if you invade Iraq, council or oil contracts write new oil contracts of your multinational oil companies and kill million odd people you know you'll be made Middle East peace envoy right? So there's this the role of the police isn't just a failure in terms of their capacity to reduce what we consider to be crime it's also the fact that they are there to police poorer people to police working class communities particularly communities of colour and reproduce the power of the state reproduce the power of capital. So let's go into this with a bit more depth because there are some viewers who will hear that and go well obviously under a conservative government the role of the police is to protect the interests of the rural and class but when Conray Jezza gets in obviously that all changes we will have a more just policing system so how do you respond to that what's useful to think about what historical moments is it useful to think about in terms of critiquing that vision of the police? Okay so there's two things as I already said there's this problem with the way in which crime is socially constructed right there's certain there are comparable types of crime which are criminalised and which aren't criminalised that's the first thing but secondly even if we think about the history of policing and the history of crime they're intrinsically bound up with class and race so let's take stop and search example we've already discussed a little bit we first see stop and search emerge I think around 1829 with the what's called the vagrancy act where the legislated identified what they called perpetual criminals among Britain's working classes and this was debated in parliament and it was thrown out because they said we can't have this vagrancy act you know we can't say there are perpetual criminals that can be stopped and searched just because they have this intrinsic capacity for crime this goes against British civil liberties and the British rule of law and all that kind of stuff so they threw it out but what Britain did was and a lot of people often forget this was that Britain the island of Britain wasn't the only place being policed by Britain at this time it had many colonies and its colonies it continued using variations of the vagrancy act whether it be the criminal tribes acts in India or whether it be the ways in which anti-terror legislation was used in the colony in Kenya or whether it be the ways in which legislation relating to riot civil unrest and trade union organising was used in the Caribbean we can see that things relating to not requiring reasonable suspicion or a laying suspicion on the hands at the hands of the police is an integral part of policing and that kind of policing is always it was explicitly focused on the working class the perpetual criminals or colonised communities in Britain's colonies and now we see that reproduced here in Britain without those kind of explicit classist and racist labels and but still basically doing the same thing so there's something very intrinsic I think when it comes to racism and capitalism and the police that I think we have to recognise when we try to reform these kinds of institutions because I think that there's sometimes a problem with how we frame anti-racist discourse which is we characterize racism as just a numbers game so when we talk about uneven implementation of stop and search the implicit assumption there is that well it would be better if it just more accurately reflected the ethnic makeup of the population so 14 percent of stop and search appears POC the rest are white whereas you're talking much more about you know the raison d'etre of the police force in the first place and in terms of meeting that structural critique in the United States you do have a very strong prison abolitionist tradition it might not be hegemonic politically but it's certainly exists and there is a strong cultural memory of that in this country it seems to me that we've got anti-racist movements many of which have been forgotten we've got a anti-racism of institutions which I think was very successfully co-opted an institutionalised post scarman report really and you have an abolitionist tradition but these three things don't normally link up so what is Britain's abolitionist tradition does it have one and if so can we bring it back I think what's one of the benefits for the left in Britain that I think is often forgotten is that Britain's leftist tradition doesn't simply reside within the British mainland right Britain has a strong leftist tradition which emerged in its colonies which were part of Britain in many many ways and these colonies have a very strong very interesting abolitionist history to give one example the history of Trinidad when in its anti-clonial struggles which are of course against the the British states and the British imperial states the legacies of this in the 1970s in its black power movement emerged through a distinctly abolitionist guys you've got organisations like the NUFF the national united freedom front which were explicitly anti-police and explicitly anti-prison and they understood that despite the fact that Trinidad formally had its independence from Britain there was still a neoclonial relationship between Britain and its former colonies which was rooted in racism and was imposed through the penal system through the justice system through the policing the courts and the prisons etc and so I think the fact that so many prominent black British or British leftist activists against policing when we think about Darker Tower when we think about others like that we realise that there is a strong anti anti-police and anti-prison tradition in Britain if we are to look beyond the Britain's borders and within its empire which I think is has played a pivotal role in developing British culture generally including its anti-establishment traditions so what alternatives to a carceral model of criminal justice are out there what do abolitionist reforms look like so again there's kind of two approaches right you've kind of got this liberal approach and a more radical one and the liberal approaches is one that I think I guess people have been pushing for is Jeremy Corbyn right because you know we can't abolish prisons tomorrow we need to do a lot more transforming and this looks like what we might call preventative or early intervention services so things like youth services right we've seen over 600 youth clubs close you've seen over three and a half thousand youth workers lose their jobs hundreds of thousands of young people no longer be able to access the kind of services that they benefit from so that's one thing or social work where you where you have intervention into families and family feuds and victims and survivors of domestic violence and so on and so forth as well as mental health services why it's it's not a any secret that a huge proportion of the people inside our prison system are suffering with mental health issues and so the these kinds of already existing welfareist institutions can be a really important way of reducing crime making the country a safer place for everyone and not importantly reducing prison numbers reducing people in custody reducing people who are being policed in a more violent way and you can see these kinds of models in you know the lovely utopian places of northern europe which often people on the left can refer to as well but there's a more kind of liberatory politics as well which identifies the fact that policing and the prison system is fundamental to capitalism it's fundamental to the protection of properties it's fundamental for the bourgeoisie to control the means of production and so if we think about the fact that capital cannot exist without the states and capital cannot exist without the police and prisons in order to number one legitimize its very existence and it and it's a it's a the property which which it owns but secondly to protect it when people try to disrupt or appropriate the means of that production we understand that the police are and prisons are fundamentally opposed to the will of ordinary people they're fundamentally opposed to any anti-capitalist struggle and therefore it is incumbent upon us on on the left to understand that if we want to abolish things like private property we want to abolish wage labor all of these things seem to be the bread and butter of the left we also have to abolish police and prisons as well i mean and it seems to me that there is a populist phrasing which is just kind of emerged naturally from how you phrase that normally we think the populist demand is just uh you know more canadianism for institutional racism whereas actually the language that you're using of ordinary people of people against profit that does lend itself to abolitionism i think is underexplored but i've got one last question for you so a snap election is called tomorrow and everyone's like shit we've got to write another manifesto and you get called upon to suggest one policing related policy in that labor manifesto oh dear what would it be oh dear it's a very difficult question isn't it it's a very difficult question that's why i put you on the spot because my immediate response i guess my immediate response through the kind of activist work that i've been involved in in relation to um deaths in police custody and police engagement and racial violence the kind of demands that you see there are always demands of greater transparency for greater accountability right so having a genuinely independent body that can scrutinize senior officers not your bodies on the beat for making specific decisions about specific policies and practices which lead to deaths which lead to an increased arrest rates and other forms of violence so that is the thing that kind of jumps out at me because this this is a demand that's often perpetuated often reproduced i guess for a lot the anti-racist organizing that i'm familiar with but it's difficult to say how much for change that's really going to bring about and i guess what i feel more inclined to suggest would be for the police to reframe the way in which crime is prioritized right so they have certain priority crimes and certain crimes are not considered to be priorities so priority crimes are raiding people who are supposed to be setting class a drugs like ecstasy and cocaine which you know of course are so evil priority crimes are supposed to be you know the street level gang crimes that are supposed to be priority crimes but i think maybe we should instead prioritize corporate crimes maybe we should prioritize the fact that we have massive corruption in in relation to things like privatization and the dodging of tax and the selling of weapons to despotic regimes and the funding of the funding of war all of these things i think should and can be considered crimes and they should be priority crimes and maybe the police should switch their priority crimes to these corporate and state crimes rather than the apparent crimes for ordinary people so it's more go for carillion leave don call ione alone one hannah cool i thank you so much for joining us hopefully that's been useful and instructive for our viewers and we can't wait to get you on again thanks so much having me cheers