by Ian Punnett

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Yale University announced Friday a $10,000 reward to anyone with information leading to a missing graduate student and bride-to-be.

Police are searching for Annie Le, 24, who was last seen outside a Yale School of Medicine building. Authorities in Connecticut are reviewing security camera footage, examining Le's computer and checking blueprints of the building, according to Yale spokeswoman Dorie Baker.

Co-worker Debbie Apuzzo told CNN affiliate WTNH-TV that Le was scheduled to be married Sunday, and "her fiance hasn't heard from her."

"Annie Le's purse containing her cell phone, credit cards and money were left in her office," a Yale University Police Department news release said, adding that friends, family members and co-workers had not heard from her since Tuesday.

meanwhile . . . 

(AOL) - Potential evidence has been seized from the building where a Yale University graduate student was last seen before she vanished days ahead of her wedding, authorities said Saturday.

"I will categorically say a body has not been found," an FBI spokesperson said. "Items that could potentially be evidence have been seized. Nothing that can be associated with Annie Le at this time."

The New Haven Register and other outlets reported that detectives found bloody clothing in the campus building where Le was last seen.

Not another one.  I’m sure you’ll join me in hoping that this IS a case of a runaway bride.   One hates to contemplate that for every child that’s returned from the hands of evil, another is lost.  No one should have to wait a lifetime to find out what happens.

Like they did in Guatemala:

(CNN) -- The Guatemalan army stole at least 333 children and sold them for adoption in other countries during the Central American nation's 36-year civil war, a government report has concluded.

A presidential ministry has determined that about 45,000 people disappeared during the nation's civil war, which lasted from 1960 to 1996. About 5,000 of those were children, the ministry said. Another 200,000 people died in the conflict between the leftist guerrillas and right-wing governments.

The nation's public ministry and attorney general's office will determine whether anyone is prosecuted over the abductions.

What do you want to bet the adoption records never included who stole the child or the commander that gave the order in the papers?

Whether it’s a proud, loving parent in this country or anywhere else on the planet, there is no greater horror than having a child just disappear as if it had been stolen by a giant bird--and that has been known to happen.

Perhaps you heard, the bird was the word in New Zealand:

(AP) -- Sophisticated computer scans of fossils have helped solve a mystery over the nature of a giant, ancient raptor known as the Haast's eagle which became extinct about 500 years ago, researchers said Friday.

The researchers say they have determined that the eagle - which lived in the mountains of New Zealand and weighed about 40 pounds (18 kilograms) - was a predator and not a mere scavenger as many thought.

Much larger than modern eagles, Haast's eagle would have swooped to prey on flightless birds - and possibly even the rare unlucky human.

Scientists believe the Haast's eagle became extinct about 500 years ago, most likely due to habitat destruction and the extinction of its prey species at the hands of early Polynesian settlers. Before the humans colonized New Zealand about 750 years ago, the largest inhabitants were birds like the Haast's eagle and the moa.

Researchers said the findings are similar to what is found in Maori folk tales. "The science supports Maori mythology of the legendary pouakai or hokioi, a huge bird that could swoop down on people in the mountains and was capable of killing a small child," he said.

Maybe it’s time we stop referring to those Maori child disappearances as “folk tales.”  One of the scariest things about that story is not just that giant eagle kidnappings really did happen, it’s that they happened as recently as 500 years ago.  

Could giant raptors still be roaming the skies looking for prey?  People like Loren Coleman and Mark Hall have been collecting evidence on the existence of thunderbirds and giant owls for a lifetime.  

Want more proof?

(BBC) One of the world's rarest and most elusive birds has finally been seen flying in its natural habitat (for the first time!).

The Fiji petrel, a seabird that once "went missing" for 130 years, has been sighted flying at sea, near the island of Gua in the Pacific Ocean.

The culmination of a meticulously planned bird hunt, Birdlife International researchers sighted the birds 25 nautical miles south of Gua.  Then, up to eight individuals were seen and photographed over 11 days.

So, not seen in the wild for 130 years--and then eight are found in eleven days.  And it’s not like nobody was looking for 130 years, it’s just that the birds weren’t being seen.  

What a difference a camera makes.  Of course, there are some shots that are so fuzzy that it’s hard to tell exactly what you’re seeing like the Argentinean photograph which has gotten so much play in the last 48 hours.

If you haven’t heard:

A strange object photographed over a lake in Argentina has been described as either a flying dinosaur or a UFO.

The object, photographed by a fisherman near San Rafael over an artificial lake called El-Nihuil, was, according the the newspaper Los Andes, witnessed by more than one person.

Mr Pino, 44, from San Rafael, fishes on the lake and told Los Andes that he often goes down to the water to watch the swans. On Saturday last week, however, he noticed a strange object hovering over the lake and took a series of photographs on his mobile phone.

Members of UFO and cryptozoology communities are both claiming ownership of the object with some saying that it could be an unknown creature or a Pterodactyl - a flying dinosaur that last lived on Earth 66 million years ago.

On the spectrum of “what could that splotch be?”, is there nothing between “dinosaur” on this end and “UFO” on the other?  Could it not be some kind of giant raptor?  A pterodactyl flying a UFO maybe?  Whatever it was, could it be the same thing that appeared to those two elderly ladies over the Channel Islands off the coast of France? 

IT was red, it hovered in the sky, it looked something like a dolls’ house and travelled at great speed.

The UFO was watched intently by two elderly sisters who live at Gorey and who now want to find out if anyone else saw what made their jaws drop late last Friday night.

Gladys Manning (92) was opening the side curtain in her lounge in Place Le Couteur when she saw the red object in a gap between trees behind her garden at about 11.30 pm.

‘I was so shocked that I called out to Christine and forgot she was deaf. In a second it flashed off across the sky towards Gorey Pier,’ said Gladys. However, when Gladys went to open the other curtain the object came back to hover in the same place, and this time it was seen by Christine.

Again the object, which the women said appeared to them to be about the size of a television screen, was there for a few seconds before it zipped off at speed in the same direction as before.  (This Is Jersey)

A UFO the size of a TV screen?  Let’s hope it’s not somebody with some RC helicopter playing a joke on the ladies.

And if it isn’t true, then when you tell Gladys, keep your voice low so that Christine won’t hear you.  

Nice to hear from you, Channel Islands.  Don’t go changing.