new member registration problems

My site is set for me to manually approve new member registrations. I have several required profile fields that need to be completed, a security question and reCaptcha. When someone registers I am notified and I as admin I go to Validating members and approve the registration. Several times, however, I am notified that there is a member awaiting approval but I find that they are not in the Validation queue but rather they are already approved. Additionally, several of the required profile fields are blank. Does anyone have a clue how the normal registration process is being de-railed?