Fairies & Elves

Angels remain a popular belief among both children and adults, the idea of a "guardian angel" watching over us is a comfort and source of strength for many people with over 38% ofus believing them to exist according to a recent poll."A university lecturer has criticised parents for being dismissive when their seven-year-old daughter told them that she saw an angel at her bedside every night, which she felt comforted by."

View: Full Article | Source: Telegraph.

Following his wife's death six years ago, David Stannard has become accustomed to spending quiet evenings alone at his home in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. So it came as a surprise to the 73-year-old when he looked up from his television one evening to discover he was sharing his living room with two RAF pilots and a schoolboy. 'The pilots were standing next to the TV, watching it as if they were in the wings of a theatre,' he says. 'The little boy was in a grey, Fifties-style school uniform. He just stood there in the hearth looking puzzled. He was 18 inches high at most.' Mr Stannard's guests never said a word and vanished after 15 minutes. That night, he says, the walls of his house, which had always been white, looked as though they had been redecorated in patterned wallpaper with a brickwork effect. The next morning he was caught off-guard again when he found a fair-haired girl standing on his sofa. She also appeared to be from the Fifties, but was life-size, wearing a short skirt and pink cardigan, with chubby knees, white ankle socks and ribbons in her hair. 'I watched her for a while,' he says. 'She didn't move much. Then she was gone.' It would be easy to dismiss Mr Stannard's story as the bizarre imaginings of an elderly mind. Fortunately, he knew he wasn't losing his mind; neither was his house haunted. A few weeks earlier he had been registered blind, though he was still able to watch television if he sat at a certain angle. He'd been warned that as his eyesight deteriorated, he might experience visual hallucinations in the form of Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS). 'I was lucky enough to know what it was,' he says, 'otherwise I would have thought I was going bonkers.' An estimated 100,000 people in the UK have CBS, but many won't realise it because the condition remains something of a mystery. The real number is probably higher because sufferers are often too ashamed to talk about what they have seen for fear of being considered crazy. The late historian Lord Dacre of Glanton, formerly Hugh Trevor-Roper, was unusual among CBS patients in that he talked openly about what he jokingly.

When Chelsea Banton was born five weeks prematurely, doctors predicted she had 36 hours to live. Proving them wrong was the first miracle for Chelsea, now an Independence High School freshman. “She spent the first four months in a neonatal intensive care unit,” recalls her mother, Colleen Banton of Mint Hill. Before Chelsea was 2, she wasadmitted to the hospital for pneumonia, the first of several dangerous run-ins with the illness that have made her a familiar face in Presbyterian's pediatric intensive care unit.

Among other health problems in her medical history: hydrocephalus, requiring a shunt in her skull and, later, several shunt revisions; life-threatening viruses; and, this past July, fluid retention that required more than a week'shospitalization and three liters of liquid to be drawn from her body.

View: Full Article + picture | Source: Charlotte ObserverNews article suggestion submitted by Stance

A new sighting of South America’s ‘creepy gnome’ has caused panic among locals after a group of youngsters claimed a ‘midget monster’ ran towards them at night. The teens – who recorded footage of the freaky being on their mobile phone – said they are now “too terrified” to go out at night. Experts who examined the latest footage, taken in the town of Clodomira, province of Santiago del Estero, Argentina, last week, say it is ‘credible’. But sceptics say the sidestepping ‘gnome’ could be a speedy child or even a small animal. Last week’s footage was taken by Juan Carlos Roldan, his brother Javier and fivefriends, who were larking around by the water fountain in Clodomira.

Juan, who filmed the creature, referred to it as “something that looked like a dwarf”. He said: “It was walking sideways and was wearing dark clothes. But it was impossible to see its face because its face was covered in shadows.” One of the lads, who were aged 15-22, yesterday told Argentinean reporters: “We were messing about - singing and dancing - when we heard a loud rustling noise from behind us. “This tiny thing started running down Avenue San Martin at us. It had a pointy head and dark clothes. “It was a person of incredibly low stature. We filmed it then got scared and ran off. “This little thing was barking like a dog - but running sidewayson two legs. It headed off towards the football stadium.” Juan added: “We stopped for a while around a block away from where we saw it. Then we returned and picked up the pieces of clothing that we had left behind and our bikes too but we didn’t see anything else.” Photographic expert Aldegonda Alvarz, of Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, yesterday said: “This video footage seems credible. We could be looking at another ‘petido orejudo’ - small being.”

View: Full Article | Source: The Sun