From Sun's javdocs for java.util.ResourceBundle#getBundle(String baseName, Locale locale, ClassLoader loader):
...Otherwise, getBundle attempts to locate a property resource file. It generates a path name from the candidate bundle name by replacing all "." characters with "/" and appending the string ".properties". It attempts to find a "resource" with this name using ClassLoader.getResource. (Note that a "resource" in the sense of getResource has nothing to do with the contents of a resource bundle, it is just a container of data, such as a file.) If it finds a "resource", it attempts to create a new PropertyResourceBundle instance from its contents. If successful, this instance becomes the result resource bundle....
Maybe you can provide another ClassLoader if you really need to used other file extesions.