Paranormal News This Week: Haunted Crypt Whistles, Red UFO Lights and a New UAP Experiment
The KASE Weekly | 19-25 August 2026
A Bristol couple hear whistling and footsteps around their converted church. A railway worker films red lights hanging over San Luis Potosí. Scientists discuss a government-linked UAP field experiment. A new poll suggests UFO coverage may be changing what people believe.
Those are four very different claims, supported by four very different kinds of material: a first-person account, a short video, a proposed research programme and a survey. Treating them as equally strong would be a mistake. This week, the useful question is not simply what happened. It is what each source can actually establish.
Scientists outline plans for a government-linked UAP field experiment
The most consequential story this week may also be the least visually dramatic.
In a Sol Foundation discussion published on 20 August, members of the UAP Science Advisory Council, including chair Avi Loeb, Garry Nolan and Anita Goel, discussed plans for field research using dedicated scientific instruments. A later briefing from UAP Research described the proposed work as government-linked and said the council had requested more than 50 items connected with earlier incidents.
The same briefing reported movement on a related procedural problem: witnesses who say secrecy agreements prevent them from speaking. On 19 August the council publicly supported legal assurances or immunity where necessary, while US Representative Eric Burlison said on 20 August that his office was helping qualified individuals seek waivers from non-disclosure agreements.
That is potentially useful progress, but the public record is still thin. No field location, start date or full experimental protocol has been released. There are no public figures showing how many waiver requests have been made, granted or refused. Burlison also alleged that an agency recreated conditions at a previous location and that "something showed up", but no official incident report, sensor files, imagery or agency confirmation has been published.
What would make the experiment scientifically useful?
A serious field study needs more than impressive equipment. The council should publish its hypotheses, selection criteria and analysis plan before data collection begins. Sensors need documented specifications, calibration records and synchronised clocks. A comparison site would help show whether unusual readings are genuinely unusual. Weather, aircraft, satellite, radar and local radio-frequency data should be captured alongside the headline instruments.
Just as importantly, the raw files should be preserved with a clear chain of custody and made available to independent analysts wherever security and privacy rules allow. If the project only releases selected clips after the event, it will reproduce the same evidential problems it is meant to solve.
The KASE take
An announced experiment is not evidence of extraordinary craft. It is, however, a better direction than another round of "trust me". The value of this project will depend on whether its methods are transparent enough to test and its failures are reported as openly as any apparent success.
Red lights filmed over San Luis Potosí
A short video recorded by a railway worker in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, circulated widely after local reporting on 19 August. The clip appears to show at least five red lights suspended or moving slowly in the night sky while a locomotive is stopped at a station.
The footage is genuinely unidentified in the ordinary sense. Reporting by UnoTV said there was no official explanation, and no confirmed expert analysis or statement from local authorities had been published. That does not make the lights alien, paranormal or even especially unusual. It means the available clip does not contain enough information to identify them confidently.
The missing context matters. We do not have the original file and metadata, a precise camera position and direction, a complete unedited recording, reliable angular measurements, local weather data or a record of aircraft and drone activity. Plausible possibilities include drones, flares, lanterns or distant terrestrial lights affected by perspective and atmospheric conditions. Some coverage mentioned red sprites, but the short clip and lack of storm data are not enough to support that explanation either.
A useful comparison from the same week
On 23 August, a bright fireball crossed the sky south of Spain. It was not solved by someone enlarging a social media clip. The SMART network recorded it from several observatories, allowing researchers to estimate an initial speed of roughly 77,000 kilometres per hour and trace its path from about 87 kilometres to 28 kilometres above the Mediterranean. Preliminary analysis identified it as an asteroidal bolide.
That comparison is not intended to suggest that the Mexican lights were meteors. It shows why multiple calibrated observations are so valuable. A single clip gives us an appearance. Several synchronised sensors can give us a trajectory, speed and physical explanation.
The KASE take
The San Luis Potosí video is worth preserving and investigating, but it is not strong evidence for any exotic interpretation. The next useful step is to locate the original file and witness, establish the exact place and time, and look for independent recordings. Unidentified is a status, not a species.
A Bristol couple report whistling and footsteps in a former church
Joe and Mary Smith bought a converted nineteenth-century church south of Bristol for £490,000 in January and moved in during April. The property includes a former crypt in the basement, original stained glass and tombstones mounted above the stove.
In an account published by SWNS and reported locally this week, Mary said she had heard whistling near the top of the basement stairs and footsteps at night. She also said an antique hymn board had fallen from the wall twice. Joe described himself as a non-believer, although both said they still loved the house.
The experiences may be completely sincere. They are not yet a single phenomenon, and combining them into one "haunting" risks hiding testable causes.
Whistling can be produced by airflow through gaps, vents, doors, pipes or ducting, especially when pressure changes across different floors. Footstep-like sounds can travel from neighbouring rooms or buildings, and old timber, heating systems, animals and ordinary structural movement can create surprisingly rhythmic noises. A falling hymn board raises separate questions about its fixing, wall material, humidity and vibration.
How KASE would investigate it
We would begin with a written log recording the time, exact location, weather, heating state, open windows and who was present for every event. Audio recorders in several positions could help determine where the whistling or footsteps originate. Controlled tests of doors, vents and pressure changes may reproduce the sound. The hymn board should be secured, photographed and monitored for movement while nearby vibration is measured.
None of those checks assumes the witnesses are mistaken. They are how an unusual experience becomes a useful investigation. Tombstones above the hob are excellent atmosphere and terrible blinding controls.
The KASE take
At present, this is an engaging first-person account rather than evidence of a haunting. The house could still produce genuinely unexplained events, but the reported sounds and falling object should be separated, documented and tested before anyone gives the building a resident ghost.
Is UFO coverage changing what people believe?
A Talker Research survey of 2,000 US adults, conducted online from 1 to 6 July and published this week, asked whether recent UFO and UAP coverage had changed respondents' belief in aliens.
Thirty-seven per cent said the coverage had increased their belief, 54 per cent reported no change and 10 per cent said it had decreased. The reported increase was highest among Generation Z respondents at 54 per cent, followed by Millennials at 45 per cent, Generation X at 36 per cent and Baby Boomers at 23 per cent. Sixty per cent believed governments know more about UFOs than they have publicly shared.
Those numbers describe answers to a survey. They do not show that coverage caused belief to change, and they tell us nothing about whether extraterrestrial life has visited Earth. The result is self-reported rather than a before-and-after measurement of the same people's beliefs. The exact recruitment, weighting and wording also matter, particularly when questions move between "UFOs", "UAP" and "aliens" as if they were interchangeable.
Why this still matters to investigators
The poll is relevant because witnesses do not encounter unusual events in a cultural vacuum. Headlines, documentaries, social media and official language can affect which details people notice, remember and emphasise. That does not mean witnesses invent their experiences. It means investigators should collect the raw description before applying labels, avoid leading questions and record what a witness had already seen or read.
The KASE take
The survey is evidence about reported belief, not evidence about aliens. Its most useful lesson is methodological: when the media environment changes, good witness interviewing becomes even more important.
What this week tells us about paranormal evidence
The UAP council story is evidence of an institutional plan, not evidence about the origin of any object. The Mexican clip is a visual record with weak provenance and limited context. The Bristol story contains sincere first-person reports without a controlled baseline. The survey measures reported attitudes, not external reality.
All four can be interesting without being equal. The job is to identify what a source supports, what it does not support and what observation would move the case forward.
Which of this week's stories deserves a deeper KASE investigation?
The KASE Podcast lands every Tuesday. The KASE Weekly follows every Wednesday with the latest paranormal news, evidence and analysis.
Sources
• The Sol Forum: Inside the UAP Science Advisory Council: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpcyg9W1tlk, 20 August 2026
• UAP Research: UAP Science Advisory Council briefing: https://uaprad.org/briefing, 22 August 2026
• UnoTV: Strange red lights recorded over San Luis Potosí: https://www.unotv.com/virales/que-son-captan-extranas-luces-rojas-en-el-cielo-de-san-luis-potosi/, 19 August 2026
• La Voz del Sur: Fireball recorded by the SMART network: https://www.lavozdelsur.es/actualidad/sociedad/video-la-bola-de-fuego-que-cruzo-hacia-el-cielo-de-andalucia-a-77000-kilometros-por-hora.html, 24 August 2026
• Yahoo News/SWNS: Couple report unusual activity in converted church: https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/couple-buy-490-000-former-142341176.html, 20 August 2026
• Talker Research survey report: https://www.kulr8.com/news/national/ufo-news-effect-more-say-they-believe-in-aliens/article_3ad6067b-f00a-5b25-9c7f-65de7f8f5fcf.html, 20 August 2026