Live Science's 10 Favorite Monsters

Following a story from Cryptozoology.com, I stumbled upon an article on Live Science's 10 Favorite Monsters, which you can check out right here.

Of course, you could read more about them, but to give you all a quick rundown- here they are in descending order:

10. Canada's Ogopogo - does it look like Champ or Nessie?
9. Dragons - interesting how, like ghosts, dragons are mentioned in so many world cultures.
8. The Giant Squid - now that's a LOT of fried calamari!
7. Champ - the monster of Lake Champlain. Read about it on a Readers Digest when I was a kid, I remember.
6. Chupacabra - the goat-sucker of South America.
5. Sirens - they're hot, they sing well, and they'll crush your medieval ships!
4. The Loch Ness Monster of Scotland - plesiosaur, giant snail-like creature, or downright hoax?
3. Werewolves - nasty little beasties!
2. Vampires - these have to be my favorite.
1. Bigfoot. Specifically, the North American sasquatch.

What are your 10 favorite monsters?

Welcome To Normal Paranormal

I've always been strangely fascinated with the paranormal and the supernatural even as a kid. One of the first books I really got into was this old Reader's Digest publication called "Into The Unknown". I remember it so well because it was what got me interested in UFO's, ghosts, monster sightings, vampires, witchcraft, etc.

One other book I was so very into when I was a kid was "Mysteries of the Unexplained", another old Reader's Digest publication which had more of the same stuff, but offered more strange tales- stories of spontaneous human combustion, sinkholes swallowing entire houses, frogs raining down on a town, feral children- man, I could just go on.

And then I remember this one particular cousin of mine who, in addition to a whole other bunch of books, also has great stuff on Vampires, Witches, Werewolves, Extra-Terrestrial Encounters and so much more.

So it would seem that, yes, I do have a fascination for all these paranormal subjects. Having the internet around makes collating all these stories and observations and accounts so much more easier. And I thought, in March of 2008, why not have an entire blog about it and share what we know with others?

Thus this personal project, "Normal Paranormal". I wanted a blog that would cover just about any kind of weird, typically unexplainable paranormal or supernatural activity- whether local or global- expect to see stuff on ghosts and hauntings, urban legends, monster sightings, local myth and folklore, parapsychology, ufology, forteana, strange physics, and pretty much anything else in between.

Consider this new blog as a collection of stories of sorts. It doesn't have to be just from the Philippines. Isn't it interesting how ghosts, for example, are such a universal phenomenon? Just about every culture have ghosts and spirits in their folklore- something definitely worth looking into.

My aim is not to debunk, or demystify anything, or even provide an explanation as to what's going on. In fact, I've quite accepted the grim truth- there's a lot of stuff out there we couldn't explain, and let's just take it all at face value, and leave the dissecting to the experts, which I am clearly not part of.

So I hope to hear your stories as well. I'm sure a lot of people would love to hear about them too.

Cheers, everyone!