And he has his hands full with them lately. Since McConnell started the local chapter of the Canadian Registry of Paranormal Activity in St. Catharines three months ago, he's been deluged with more than 700 calls, most of them from an ad placed on cable TV. By comparison, he estimates the National Research Council of Canada center gets 100 calls per month.

Is it strange forces at work again? Or is he just doing something right? McConnell like s to think that it's the latter. When callers feel that there's no one out there to talk to, McConnell is all ears.

"The people who call tell you their life story, they express their emotions... it's a very private and emotional thing that they're sharing with you. For every one that calls there must be at least 200 who don't," he says from his St. Catharines home.

"People are saying, 'Finally there's somebody we can call, finally there's somebody we can talk to.... somebody that believes us.' The average (first) phone call can usually last an hour to an hour-and-a-half. I've had calls at two or three o'clock in the morning. I've been over to somebody's house where a child had one heck of an experience and was scared... I was able to help that situation out. (There was) a single lady who thought her house was haunted by a shadow. I saw her and worked things out."

"When people can say I'm not going nuts,' that's worth it's weight in gold."

But then there are the things that can't be worked out so easily. A random sample of the odd and eerie in Niagara:

In 1963 a private aircraft on a sightseeing trip over Niagara Falls apparently hit some unseen object in midair. Almost half of the left wing was sheared off, and never found. Investigators determined that the wing was structurally sound before takeoff and have had to make contact with something. A diligent investigation produced no answers, and the case file was stamped CAUSE UNDETERMINED.

A Niagara Falls couple recently contacted McConnell, explaining that their washing machine was turning on and off by itself and a "cloudy substance" could be seen moving across the walls. The occurrences started happening after the death of their son's friend.

Just outside Niagara Falls near Thorold, the old Bishop Fullers' residence is a notorious haunted house. McConnell, spoke with one man who, as a child, was dared to enter the house by friends, walk up to the top floor, and shine a flashlight through the window. When he got to the top, the room got very cold, and something lifted him off the floor. He was thrown through the window, but something cushioned his fall. McConnell believes that it was a warning of sorts from an entity that didn't like trespassers.

The enduring mystery of THE GREAT LAKES TRIANGLE. Like its Bermuda counterpart, planes, boats and people have vanished without a trace in this 300,000 square mile territory, including Niagara Falls. Since 1969, when the first reports started trickling in, McConnell estimates there have been 2,000 deaths in the Triangle many of them difficult to explain. "Where did the people go? Where did the vessels go?"

McConnell has complied an 11 page list of Great Lakes causalities that includes 31 mysterious disappearances. One in particularly baffled the military 33 years ago.

On a clear September day in 1960, two CF-100 Canadian Armed Forces jets were heading toward the north shore of Lake Ontario. As they passed through some clouds, the lead jet suddenly disappeared. Stunned, the pilot in the tailing jet turned around and tried to locate the missing pilot. All that remained was a trail of smoke that ended abruptly where the jet vanished. Upon calling the base, he was told the plane vanished from radar screens as well. No debris was spotted, and the plane was not found on the bottom of Lake Ontario. The file was closed and stamped SECRET.

And then of course there are the unidentified flying objects. McConnell has received hundreds of reports of UFO sightings since he started all of which goes into his computer file for cross-referencing in the future. A Niagara Falls witness who wishes to call himself 'John' says he has been reassured by McConnell, several years after his incident.

"I feel better talking to someone," he says. "I feel like it's a green light for me to open up."

Twenty-six years ago, John and a friend were rushing home after a swim. Told he had to be home by 10 p.m., John figured he would make it with time to spare. Before he got there, however, he heard a strange, high pitched sound in the sky, followed by the appearance of a brightly-lit ship. Amazed at what he was seeing, he still managed to turn his eyes away to look at his friend... he wanted to make sure he was seeing it as well.

"What sacred me the most was turning my back on it," he recalls.

When it streaked off into the night, John ran home to tell his parents. They figured that he was making up an excuse for being late. Though he figured the entire incident lasted at least five minutes at the most, he was shaken to discover it was nearly 10:30 p.m. There were at least twenty minutes he could not account for.

Today, his friend no longer remembers the incident, though he vaguely recalls something strange happening that night. "Maybe I don't want to remember," he said during a recent talk. John meanwhile, is more convinced than ever. Thirteen years ago in Edmonton, he met a girl who had a UFO experience of her own in Toronto, 26 years ago, about 10 p.m. According to McConnell's files, there were three sightings that night, all over Lake Erie.

"I believe, until you've proved to me it doesn't exist," says John. "I'm skeptical of skeptics."

As is McConnell. As a child, he once told his mother that a neighbor was going to have a baby. He didn't know why he said it, and his mother was upset with him. If he was lying, she said, he was going to get slapped. She phoned the neighbor to inquire, was told she wasn't pregnant and - true to her word - gave McConnell a cuff.

A few months later, the neighbor began to show. "All I was doing was saying what I felt," he explained.

He started the local Paranormal Society, which has 15 branches throughout North America, as a beacon for people, like himself. And as a way to heal his own wounds.

In the span of a year, McConnell became a single father, and was told he has multiple sclerosis, a bone disease, and was borderline diabetic. He's comfortable in the company of people he's met through the Society and has always tried to talk them through their traumas and fears.

When something can be explained, McConnell will point it out. Bu there is so much that can't be explained. According to a recent poll, 2% of all Americans claim to have been abducted by a UFO in their lifetime. Can they all be brushed off, sneered at as over imaginative weirdoes?

McConnell doesn't think so, and he's intrigued by US government files on UFOs that are classified as Top Secret. Perhaps it's for the best, he feels. Perhaps, when we as a race are better prepared (likely not in our lifetime), these 'secret' files and, at last, there will be documented proof of alien contact.

"The earth is very young...if we say it can't be done, we'd be fools," he says.

"The smallest thing known to man is an atom. You've got a neutron and a proton, almost like a small solar system. Well, if that solar system is part of us, what is our solar system part of?"

[END]