A season for everyone
ST. GEORGE – Christmas may dominate the holiday schedule, but December is a special and spiritual month for many local residents, regardless of their religious beliefs.

Cedar City resident Melanie Cottam is clear evidence of that.

Though her Cedar City home is adorned with wreaths, candles and even a decorated tree, Cottam said she doesn’t focus her celebrations on Christmas each winter. As a pagan, she and her family observe a different December celebration. Read full story from thespectrum.com

Celebrating the solstice
With the changing seasons, another page is turned in the book of time.

It’s the “when” that we think of — seasons past, what’s to come.

But in astronomical terms, as Mr. Steele notes in his wonderful poem, the seasons also fall under the “where” category.

Where our Earth is tilted determines the seasons. At winter solstice, which this year occurs on the evening of Dec. 21, the axis of our planet is tilted the farthest away from the sun. Read full story from thechronicleharold.ca

Misconceptions about voodoo abound
It’s common for people familiar with Haiti to joke that 90 percent of the country’s inhabitants are practicing Catholics, 10 percent practice a Protestant faith and 100 percent practice voodoo.

But the truth is that “voodoo is a very important part of Haitian life. Americans often just dismiss it as superstition or witchcraft,” said University of Kentucky history professor Jeremy Popkin, who teaches a class called “Haiti in the Modern World.” “It is a religion with deep roots in the African beliefs that were brought by slaves” to the Caribbean nation.

Popkin’s class, which includes a section on the religion, grew out of interest in the country that followed the devastating earthquake in January. Popkin, who wrote a book about the 13-year-long Haitian revolution, said his class was formed in response to a talk about the country held on campus after the earthquake. Read full story from kentucky.com

Wooden cross work of vandals at Alaska store
SOLDOTNA, Alaska – A store owner says a wooden cross wrapped to the store sign in Soldotna was an unwelcome act of vandalism that goes against her pagan and spiritual beliefs.

Rondell Gonzalez arrived Thursday at her store, the Pye’ Wackets on the Kenai Spur Highway, and found a makeshift cross about 7 feet tall attached to her business sign with plastic food wrap, the Peninsula Clarion reported. Read full story from adn.com

UFO enthusiasts want to build memorial to ‘fallen aliens’ in Ukraine
In Ukraine, UFO enthusiasts want to build a memorial to “fallen aliens” who have died during their alleged Earthly encounters, the Russia-based news channel RT tells us. Read full story from usatoday.com

WikiLeaks to publish files on aliens, UFOs
LONDON: WikiLeaks will publish more secret US diplomatic files relating to aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), said the founder of the whistleblower website Julian Assange and claimed his life was at risk after the recent expose.

Assange revealed he would publish classified US files about aliens and UFOs.

According to the Daily Mail, none had so far satisfied the twin publishing criteria for WikiLeaks: that the documents are original and not self-authored. Read full story from indiatimes.com

Follow up: Does this answer the question of the ghost child?
After examining bobdezon’s modified photo above it all becomes quite clear….At least to me. Of course there are hard core believers out there that will never be convinced but it’s awfully hard to deny. Bea and Red are right in that it’s getting more and more difficult to pass an authentic picture. Sometimes technology can be a bad thing but it’s not going to stop anytime soon. However something tells me that if there ever was an authentic picture to come along there would be something about it that would indicate authenticity. Of course that’s just my opinion but we have to hold out some sort of hope. Read full story from ghosttheory.com

Ancient Mega-Lake Found in Egyptian Desert
The hyper-arid deserts of western Egypt were once home to a lush mega-lake fed by the Nile River’s earliest annual floods.

Fossil fish and space shuttle radar images have defined the bed and drainage channels of the long lost lake, which at times was larger than Lake Michigan, stretching as far as 250 miles west of the Nile in southwestern Egypt.

The discovery pushes back the origin of the “Gift of the Nile” floods to more than a quarter million years ago and paints a drastically different picture of Egypt’s environment than is seen today. It also explains the longstanding puzzle of the fossilized fish found in the desert — fish that are of the same kinds that live in today’s Nile River. Read full story from discovery.com

Atheist Ad Campaigns Are All the Rage
Atheists have been trying to get out their message, from city bus ads to the recent controversial billboard displayed at the Lincoln Tunnel which prompted a counter-billboard from the Catholic League. The latest: Co-opting rich billionaires into the act. Recently, the Illini Secular Student Alliance (ISSA), at the University of Illinois, launched a bus ad campaign to set the record straight when it comes to the charitable atheists of our world. Read full story from gothamist.com