Taos Hum

Periodically, "that noise" pops up in the news.

No, it's not tRump rapping out some inane tweet in the middle of the night.  It is that infamous sound that has been heard around the world and gained its name because the first claimant to have detected the annoyance was tied to Taos, New Mexico, somewhere around 1980 plus or minus.  The Hum has been described as an oscillating drone, as akin to a diesel engine idling in the distance, as a generator running on and on, as a radio frequency wobbling through the air.  As a damned nuisance in the night, and sometime in the daylight hours.  As a penetrating, endless choral cry bent on driving its victims' insane.

Only certain people seemed able to hear it.  A female mountain climber sitting on a Himalayan mountainside said she realized that in that vast white realm accompanied only by high-altitude wind, she was hearing a distant mechanical murmur that had no source or direction: it was everywhere.  One person tried to escape from it deep inside a cave, only to find that underground the Hum was even more resonant and loud.

Over several years, acoustic scientists and engineers of various stripe tried to capture this strange Hum with microphones, without success.  Finally, someone attempted replicating the described noise.  This exercise yielded a match when it was replayed to several persons who wanted answers to what so disturbed their lives.  This is where and when the Hum was most commonly narrowed down to an idling diesel engine.  That, at least, gave some cold comfort to the sufferers.

And this is where personal verification comes in.  In the mid-1980s, at night in bed, I noticed the low-level sound of a generator running more or less constantly. Since my operating engineer husband was very familiar with all types of machinery, he agreed with my conclusion.  We estimated the distance of the source to be probably about a mile away.  However, we could not determine the direction.  As we live in a pretty rural desert area where individual house construction is still slowly proceeding, we figured that someone was living off a generator in a trailer or inside a home while building it and did not have official power company hook-up.  Since the sound was not particularly bothersome to us, we slept well and occasionally noticed it in the middle of the night if we got up to go to the can.  Somewhere over time, either we became so accustomed to the "generator" that our ears filtered it out -- or it stopped running.  We forgot about it.  We did not connect it to the Hum which we had read about.

Then, "60 Minutes" ran a segment on the Taos Hum.  We watched the program, heard that facsimile generator buzz, put two and two together and realized that we, in fact, were witnessing that very phenomena.

There is nothing so wonderful as empirical evidence.

So what was the source?  Well, the probable answer quickly presented itself.

Around 1973, I was working as secretary for Nevada Archaeological Survey (NAS), a small salvage archaeology endeavor licensed out of the Museum of Natural History at UNLV in Las Vegas.  At that time, archaeologist Dr. Richard Brooks and physical anthropologist Dr. Sheilagh Brooks ran the contract program.  They bid on various projects funded by government or commercial agencies to mitigate any archaeological sites on public land that might be impacted by ground-disruptive developments. Environmental Impact Statements are legally mandated for this sort of work.

One particular project immediately came to mind.  The Fallon Naval Air Station was contracting for an archaeological survey, which bid the NAS ultimately lost to a California agency.  But we learned that the clearance was for a narrow tract of land around the military facility.  The ground involved was 25 miles on a side for a squared-off distance of 100 miles, and maybe 100 feet in width. Odd.  Until one of the archaeology crew members, who was a naval reservist, posited that it was probably for some sort of antenna array.  We left it at that and I filed away the information in my mental archive.  It's good to have a brain orientated to assorted trivia and garbage.  It's what makes walking encyclopedias of researchers, museologists and writers.

Fast forward to the mid-1980s and a few other accreted bits and pieces of information, and I was fairly certain that I understood the Taos Hum.  It was a high-powered, extremely low frequency (ELF) signal being generated by a buried radio antenna for deep-sea communications with US Navy submarines.  Those kind of radio waves travel along and through the ground and water.  No wonder the guy in the cave could find no escape; the signal was being amplified by our planet for his unluckily tuned ears.  And the ELF radio waves were probably also torturing and/or killing sea creatures, like the jacked-up sonar signals that environmentalists are now doing battle over with our government.

A decade later, further confirmation of my assumption came from an unexpected source.  While watching "The X-Files," I was startled, also delighted to see Mulder and Scully investigating mysterious head-exploding events (including a much younger Bryan Cranston's) that, story-wise, turned out to involve exactly the kind of radio transmissions that I described above.  So I was not the only person to have nailed down the Taos Hum connection to upstate Nevada.  Other writers were paying attention.  And I'm sure other folks were, too.  But while the only known brain-mulchings have been apparently suffered by sea creatures, no one is claiming that this has happened to humans -- yet.  Unless one takes into account certain peculiar Capitol Hill and White House behaviors.

Anyway, to me, the final nail-down on the Taos Hum source came just before the Persian Gulf War.  Starting about four months before the secret launch day, the NW-facing wall of our house started to hum very noticeably, especially at night. Now, understand, we are very used to the unmistakable rumble of jet engines that rolls over the terrain behind Frenchman Mountain from Nellis AFB to resonate against our house, especially during Red Flag exercises.  This was different and it wasn't a mild dieseling.  Frankly, it was kind of ominous. Also, at the time, my husband's brother Bob was visiting.  During Vietnam and after, he had served ten years in Navy Special Operations, a lot in communications.  One night he came out of the guestroom to find my some-time insomniac husband sitting up reading.  Bob stopped and listened to the strong, steady vibration emanating from the living room wall and windows.  He said, "Does this happen all the time?"  My husband said, "Started a couple of months ago."  Nodding in his understated way, his brother said, "Something is going down."  Two months later, the sound abruptly stopped.  One week after, the Gulf War started.

Interestingly, since that time, the only sounds we have been aware of is the normal military jet engine roars.  If the Taos Hum is still active, locally it is neutralized or masked by the ever-growing metropolitan noise mix that reverberates throughout the Las Vegas Valley.  I kind of miss it, like a line of important gossip has been chopped off. 

In conclusion, I can only urge one and all to keep a querying mind attuned to everything possible, and, of course, trust no one, and remember, the truth is out there.

UFOs Take Dumps?

Periodically, UFO sightings have involved witness claims of unusual discharges.  Apart from orbs moving under apparently intelligent control, small saucers or probes that come and go from a main object or mother ship, the descriptions of things falling from UFOs’ undersides have ranged from ephemeral glitter and sparkly stuff dropped on vegetation to magnesium slag.  The literature is dotted with controversial alien litter and cast-offs suggestive of either garbage or emergency evacuation of something on board gone terribly wrong.

 

Little alien trash has been recovered except in anecdotal form.  What few tangible remains there are have been written off as bogus or misidentified junk of earthly origin.  We’ve all seen representative examples displayed on sensational TV shows trading on the paranormal.

Yet for those recovered artifacts that might resist debunking, their true nature remains elusive.  Such items are carefully guarded from submission to rigorous scientific examination that would satisfy authoritative laboratories and scientists.  Maybe it’s due to fear that the evidence, like so much film footage, will disappear forever into government custody.  Or the evidence is alleged to have been partially examined but due to present inadequate funding, no more testing can be done.  Scientists, it is claimed, don’t have time or willingness to perform pro-bono services to determine whether an object is hoax or authentic.  None wants to risk a hard-won reputation by being even remotely associated with the topic.  UFO and paranormal debunkers simply debunk out of hand without looking at any evidence at all, a pet peeve of physicist Stanton Friedman’s, a columnist for the MUFON Journal.   

MUFON (Mutual UFO Network) has gone a long way toward building a respectable organization peopled by credentialed scientists and other highly credible professionals and well trained field investigators in disciplines pertinent to its mission.  As a result, more individuals of equally credible character who have witnessed UFOs are beginning to report their experiences.  

But in-hand, three-dimensional flying-saucer mystery curios are hard to come by.

Apart from a multitude of controversial investigations of livestock mutilations and crop circles, a dramatic documented case with near-unassailable evidence is the 1980 Cash-Landrum incident in Texas. 

In a night-time close encounter, three civilians---Betty Cash, Vickie Landrum and her young grandson---witnessed an overflight of a diamond-shaped craft emitting fire and dripping sparks from its underside.  The threesome exited their car for a better look but Landrum and her grandson became frightened and retreated inside. Cash remained outside the longest until heat from the UFO drove her back to cover.  She found the car door handle so hot that she had to use her clothing to grasp and open it.  

Then, as the craft moved on, they saw several helicopters following it.  Before the night was over they were exhibiting classic signs of radiation exposure—burns, weakness, vomiting---and were hospitalized.  With blistering and hair and skin loss, Cash was worse off and required two periods of hospitalization.  All three suffered weakness and health issues for an extended period during their lives.  Medical records on their physical conditions appear indisputable, although skeptics have taken shots at undermining their validity.  Cash died at 71 from cancer, Landrum at 83. To say that Cash’s terminal illness was due to UFO radiation exposure is unprovable.  As far as I know, the grandson is still alive.  

       

However, extensively written about, the hospital case’s in-house paper trail was undeniable, complex and remains worthy of study.  Whether the UFO ejected ionizing radiation or some sort of chemical substance, which military representatives alluded to at one point, this puzzler spans the range of paranormal phenomena from mere sightings to physical contact.  It can’t be blown off.  

So, I thought to add a small bit to the puzzles left in the wake of UFO events.

While working as registrar for the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum at the Clark County Museum, I was organizing an aviation-related archive from the estate of the late Donald Douglas, Jr..  Among a hodgepodge of newspaper ephemera focused on the Douglas Aircraft Company, I came across a partial section from the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, an independent now out of print. 

On a folded page dated August 28, 1954, a minor article provocatively titled “Peninsula Road Fire Mystery” caught my eye. While the major news feature was Douglas-related, the former story reported on an incident called in by a motorist. This concerned a circle of fire on Portola Road, in Woodside, on the San Francisco peninsula.  After extinguishing the main flames, the volunteer fire-department responders discovered that dozens of still-burning metal bits had eaten into the pavement, bubbling the asphalt.  Adjacent grass fires had to be put out on the road verges.  This strange conflagration measured about 70 by 250 feet.  The name of a neighborhood resident, presumably a witness, was mentioned at the break in the article where it was continued on page 5.

The sheet I held in my hand was only an outer wrap for that part of the Call-Bulletin.  The inner pages were missing.  Of course they were.  Talk about frustration for a researcher! 

In any case, this remains as a tantalizing hint of a UFO making an emergency discard of ignited waste (maybe burning magnesium?) on Planet Earth.  And, were it just a casual garbage dump, well, thanks, guys.  

Anyway, that info-smidgen was logged back when much less had been written or publicized about UFOs.  I keep my eyes peeled for such oddball mentions and plan to blog about them as I can.  On line, I have attempted to ferret out the full newspaper article, without success.  Maybe someone out there with more available time and sufficiently intrigued can take on the hunt for the continuation to this interrupted story.

HALLOWEEN ENTITY

On Halloween, what better time to write about the world beyond the veil?

For this, we move backward in time to the night, appropriately and ironically, of October 31, 2004.  Really.

Being non-participant misanthropes, my husband and I laid low as is normal for us on this and other holidays.  The porch light was off, the gate closed to deter trick-or-treaters.  Not that they are much of a problem out here in a semi-rural neighborhood where houses are sparsely located and any pickings not worth the legwork.  Besides, the long, overgrown driveway leading to our house is not particularly inviting to kids at night -- "spooky" I'm told – and darn near impossible to find in daylight for first-timers.

Anyway, we were settled in for the night.  I was reading.  Richard was on the computer.  CNN was providing background noise for us half-an-ear news junkies.  Absorbed in his evening toilette, Sam Cat was ensconced on the other end of the couch from me.  Moggie, Cat Two, was curled up dead asleep on her favorite chair.  Cat Three, Casper was zonked out elsewhere in the house.  A typical evening.

Suddenly, Sam, who was facing the back of the couch while washing his tummy, leaped straight up into the air, pulled a 180, and landed standing frontward and wide-eyed on the cushion.  He was rubber-necking as if Moggie had sandbagged him and dashed off as part of their ongoing feline rivalry.  But she was asleep and he didn’t appear remotely interested in seeking retribution.  He was looking for something else at floor level.  Fluffed, he jumped to the carpet and continued to stare around intently.

"So what's the matter with you?" I asked. 

Across the room, Moggie remained undisturbed.

At this point, Richard came from the other room around to the end of the couch to say, "It was the little black thing again.  It ran around the desk and end table into the living room."

Cut to the backstory.

For over a decade before that 2004 benchmark point, Dick had been occasionally seeing what we have dubbed the "black entity."  We refer to it as that because it radiates no color, similar to the stellar black hole which allows no light to escape from it.  Perhaps another term might be a "familiar."  Or simply “it.”  It is that “something” that we have all heard of or have perhaps experienced, that form or movement lurking just at the corner of the eye, that is not there when you turn to look.  However, this little fellow has put in far more obvious appearances to my husband.

These visitations began in the early 1990s when we were in the Holiday Inn in Great Falls, Montana, while Dick’s father was in the hospital because of a heart attack.  Dick was showering.  I was sitting on the end of the bed watching TV news.  Dripping, Dick came out of the bathroom with a startled expression and asked, “Did you see something come out here?”

That is a provocative opener to an unknown topic guaranteed to garner attention.

It seems that when Dick opened the shower stall door, he was greeted by a dark “blob” about the size of a cat or small dog down close to the floor.  “It” froze in place as though caught out by Dick, about as surprised as Dick was in seeing “it.”  Then it zipped out the door and turned to the right, which meant it would have come into my view.  And, no, it had not.

From that point forward, the black entity put in appearances as related primarily to Dick’s father’s health.  News of Larry’s cardiac near-misses manifested in novel ways.  One time, Dick awakened in the middle of the night to find the weightless “it” curled up on his chest like a favorite cat.  On another occasion, he nearly stumbled over it when it ran in front of him around high noon as he was walking across the construction yard at his work headquarters. A few times, our black entity would peek in from the periphery of Dick’s vision.  Only afterwards would we learn that Dick’s dad had been on the brink with another heart issue.

Return to Halloween night, 2004.

What did Sam's reaction to “it” mean?  We knew well that Sam, being a nuts-and-bolts, kibbles-and-mice sort, had never given sign of seeing things that weren't, as people so often claim cats do.  Having had many cats (156 at the last count, mostly in quantities no greater than three at a time) over the years, I have not seen any of them even pretend to watch things going bump in the night, and I observe them pretty closely because they are fascinating people.  So, that furry flurry over, Sam went off to his food bowl.  Moggie and Casper slept on peacefully.  Therefore, my husband and I marked this episode as notice of something to come and returned to what we were doing.  A successful other-worldly trick-or-treat sortie had been run on us, despite the dark porch and closed gate.  All we could do was wait.

Fast forward to a month later, November 30, 2004.

Well, as we learned that evening after getting only busy signals from Dick's father's number, Larry had died sometime that night in his apartment, attempting to call for help.  He was 89.  That very afternoon, he had been out with his coffee buddies at the K-Mart.  Altogether, that's not a bad way to go, being busy and mobile to the last.

So, yes, the veil between the living and the dead had lifted a little that Halloween.  The harbinger, that little black entity, “it” had come to warn us that the game was indeed afoot.  More, we had an independent and remarkable corroboration of its presence, surely of interest at the purely scientific level, an unbiased validation of a genuine paranormal occurrence.  Everyone should be so lucky as to have a personal banshee to warn of serious illness and impending death.  A little head's-up is always a good thing.  Thus, it came as no real shock or surprise to learn of Larry's transition out of his present life.

But we are left wondering how busy those other-dimensional dudes are kept, message-running like that.  How many little black entities are left frustrated because so many dense humans miss those cues lurking at the corners of their eyes?  And although I have never seen it, I know “it” and something more exists.

A cat confirmed it all.

Happy Halloween! 

Underwater UFOs

You never know when and where corroborations will crop up.  This blog arises from claims made about sightings of unusual lights moving under water or UFOs as physical bodies emerging or diving into the oceans or lakes.  The stories are many, from Shag Harbor in the Northeast to the waters off the Southern California coast and around the world.  I have an in-family addition to share with those folks interested in such things---and also a cautionary about preserving such history.

In the early 2000s, during a fast-food lunch break with my brother Kurt, I brought up the topic of UFOs.  Documents (see previous blog) that I had come across in my archival work at the Clark County Museum called to mind his off-hand remark made decades before, that there were other “Bermuda Triangles” scattered around the oceans where weird stuff happens.  He briefly related two personal sightings, in 1956, in the Indian Ocean when he was in the Navy aboard the USS Merrimack AO-37, a Kennebec-class fleet oiler and one of several naval ships to have carried that historic Civil War name.

It was night.  Kurt and some fellow crew members were on deck when one of the sailors spotted a strange light in the water off the starboard side.  They witnessed a large, round, glowing object submerged at an unknown depth.  I asked if this could have been a school or cluster of bioluminescent sea life.  No, my brother was definite about this.  They all knew the difference.  This was a well defined circular object that did not change shape, and it continued to pace the ship for some miles.  Then the light simply blinked off.  No radar return had been registered before, during or after that incident.

Afterwards, during that passage across the Indian Ocean from the Red Sea, my brother was on the ship’s fantail with several other sailors. It was high daylight when a sudden bubbling appeared on the water’s surface at a distance of approximately a quarter mile ahead, so that was not a small disturbance.  Then bubbles churned into violent froth.  A large silvery orb erupted from the water and shot off at an angle into the sky and, moving at extreme velocity, quickly vanished from eyesight.  Radar tracking was not mentioned.

The former event sighted from the USS Merrimack uncannily echoes the description of a nighttime incident that took place on November 14, 1949, between the Strait of Hormuz and the Indian Ocean.  It is recorded in the United States Naval Institute Proceedings as Report # 63, “An Unexplained Phenomenon of the Sea,” by Cmdr. J. R. Bodler, a Merchant Marine officer who had served in World War II and then returned to the Merchant Marines.  It is accessible online.  The condensed version is that, on the date noted above, in calm seas, Bodler witnessed a large, luminous, circular object approach his ship from below the horizon level, underwater.  The object proved to be approximately 1,000 to 1,500 feet in diameter.  It passed silently under his vessel, casting light up against the hull, and appeared to be revolving spoke-like around a center hub in a timed, counterclockwise rotation.  It paused directly under the ship before slowly moving away.  He viewed the object until it was some miles away, at which time a second, slightly smaller object manifested on that same track, passing underneath his ship.  A half hour later, a third object appeared, detected when it was in much closer proximity.  It was smaller with a diameter of approximately 800 to 1,000 feet, and followed the others’ path.  No electromagnetic effects were noted.  References and coordinates are provided at the end of the online article. 

Then, in 1957, after his tour aboard the Merrimack, Kurt was reassigned to the radar picket ship, YAGR Searcher, in the North Atlantic.  (He once quipped that YAGR meant “You Ain’t Getting Relieved.”)  That former Liberty ship, loaded with electronics and radar, was part of the DEW Line system during the early Cold War period.  The Searcher described a repeating rectangle over the same coordinates, 150 miles wide by 250 miles long, exceedingly boring -- except for the occasional intriguing electronic blip.  During that TDY, he and other radar crew and officers witnessed several anomalous radar returns tracking objects  moving at extremely high speed (well exceeding 3,000mph) and performing erratic maneuvers that could not be attributed to known aircraft, missiles, or meteor incursions through the high atmosphere.

Of course, the Searcher incidents will ring familiar to any radar operator who has witnessed oddball, inexplicable returns on radar screens.  Certainly, they fit in with numerous similar reports of unusual radar trackings.  While not undersea phenomena, these unusual occurrences witnessed at sea in a military setting lend credence to significantly large and growing hardcopy, eyewitness and anecdotal reference bases. 

Here I want to point out that  credible eyewitness accounts and anecdotes should not be discounted as real evidence or discarded as unscientifically gathered observations.  For when compiled and examined under stringent criteria, they create data bases that reinforce a very strong hypothesis for actual phenomena behaving outside an established norm.  Just so, much science has grown from recognition of incident similarities---not to mention hunches, flights of the imagination or dreams, the DNA double helix and the benzene molecule being two well known examples.  And informant credibility must be factored in.  In my brother’s case, I knew him well enough to accept that his powers of observation and skeptical nature made him a believable source.

Looking back on that lunch, I have wished many times since that I had had the presence of mind to ask for more details from my brother before his death.  I have only a few notes from one short meeting to wrap this posting around.  Any other “Bermuda Triangle”-type occurrences alluded to by Kurt are lost to my lack of journalistic aggressiveness.  So, don’t let the opportunity slip by to query a possible source about an unusual occurrence that falls into the paranormal category. 

A final point is that important clues, like gold, are where you find them, in unexpected places and at unexpected times.  Be alert for them, but don’t interpret or interpolate what is not there.  Like bibliographies, with time, you learn which sources are reliable and which are not, and whether it is worth your time to keep reading.  The more of the latter, the more suspect the content.  But when unrelated similarities start adding up, pay attention.

[ For conspiracy buffs and accuracy, this particular Merrimack is listed as having been decommissioned in December 20, 1954.  However, in 1956, it was pulled out of mothballs for service prior to the Suez Crisis, ostensibly for crew training.  My brother, who was aboard during this time, told me that, besides fuel, the ship was hauling weapons and other war-related items.  It also picked up and delivered mysterious, unidentified individuals in civilian clothes at various ports.  That time is certain.  As an 8-year-old, I recall the night my family received a phone call from him to let us know that he was okay.  That day, October 31, the Egyptians had blown up a British ship (among others) to blockade the Canal.  The Merrimack had been ahead of that target and was able to sail on to the Red Sea.  The Suez Canal was closed until April 24, 1957.  Just a tidbit to whet the appetite. ]

Life in the Paranormal Lane

As a kid, you may have heard family stories or asides about “unusual events,” a house with a “presence,” extrasensory perception, “little green men,” those brief sidebars in life that hook up an axon here and extend a dendritic connection there in your developing brain.  Over time, the references may or may not stick.  You may bury that information in other interests and demands and never revisit such topics, except perhaps on sci-fi TV programs or in film or books as escapist entertainment.  Or the paranormal may take root and insert itself into your life in ways you could never have imagined.  

For me, UFOs and aliens were remote novelties enjoyed occasionally in fiction, film and TV:  “Star Trek”; “The Invaders;’ “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and other offerings.  In 1977, “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was a fun ride with awesome special FX for that time, but most of the UFO insider references were lost on me.  

However, I was aware that we lived about 75 miles south of the Nevada Test Site, parents of some kids I knew worked up there, and up there was, well, special.  After all, in 1952, I had witnessed atomic bomb tests from our kitchen window.  And, as we all knew back then, atomic power was our friend.

Then, circa 1992, I hired on as registrar at the Clark County Museum to catalog an archive donated to McCarran International Airport by the widow of George Crockett.  The collection founded what would become the airport’s Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum.  Crockett was a pioneer in aviation in the Las Vegas Valley, beginning with his establishing Alamo Field back in the 1940s.  This airfield was later taken over by the county for a municipal airport site and opened as McCarran Field.  As Las Vegas evolved and grew, so did the airport.  My family arrived in 1952, and I grew up along with both the community and its aviation support.  We lived just east of Paradise Road in full view of the incredible expanding airport.  Ironic that, many years later, I would be working 9-to-5, logging in aviation-related archives and artifacts so closely related to this history.

George Crockett was a conservative businessman on the Las Vegas scene.  His papers reflected a hard- working family man with no surprises, just a dedication to building and maintaining his business, keeping in touch with fellow aviation business types and flying enthusiasts, and providing aviation services typical as an FBO (Fixed Base Operator).  And why, you might ask, was the museum not named for him?  Well, clout counts.  Howard W. Cannon was a long-time U.S. Senator for Nevada and a mover-shaker who helped de-regulate the airlines for good or ill (ill, I say), got money and muscle for the State, and was also a WWII pilot and war hero. ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, working into the last bits of that sizeable collection, I opened up an untitled document file that contained an old photocopy of a March 1951 Las Vegas Review-Journal page featuring a large picture and article of Davis Dam and other smaller articles.  Paper-clipped to that were seven carbon-copy sheets typewritten on Crockett’s personal machine.  (He did most, if not all, of his own secretarial work.)  The first three pages assessed his plans for expansion at Alamo Airways which by then served as a general aviation airport on the McCarran Field site.  Given the time period, Crockett logically assumed commercial growth for his facility.  The big push had started to promote Las Vegas as a tourist destination for “fun in the sun,” a popular slogan for the desert resort town.  Nothing unusual.

Then I read the next four pages -- and dropped into the Twilight Zone.

Jolted out of stultification (a danger periodically facing all cataloguers/archivists), I re-examined the newspaper photocopy to see how Davis Dam fit into what I was now reading and realized that an X marked a small article just below. That short news piece noted the beginnings of Indian Springs and what was to become the Nevada Test Site -- and that all other information pertaining to the U.S. Government’s doings there was under blackout. 

Then I began to understand and reread those four pages, which content follows below (brackets, tightened spacing and any missed typos are all mine).

 [Page 1:]

“RUMOR

The project will be several times the $300,000,000.00. [sic]

There will be two town [sic] of 20,000 population created.                                                                      

The H-bomb is being hatched.

Atomic power for saucers, or guided missiles is to be manufactured.

Much of the installation is to be underground.

It is to be the largest defense expenditure in the history of the United States.

The activity of the National Lead Company, General Motors and Consolidated Vultee in this area is tied into the Indian Springs operation in some way.

[Page 2:]

"PROVEN FACTS

1.  There have been three separate aerial surveys made of the area north of here in the past year.

2.  Several large engineering firms have spent months in this area during the past year.

3.  There is a large area of government land about 45 miles north of here.  It contains ample water supply. [sic] and there are several valleys and mountain ranges in it.

4.  For several months Carco’s planes have been bringing in groups of men from Los Alamos.  Each group is accompanied by a security agent.

5.  In the last groups that came in this week were two generals.  One, a brigadier in uniform with medical ensignia [sic] and the Atomic patch on his shoulder.  The other general, in civilian clothes, obviously outranked the brigadier by a star or two.

6.  McKee Construction Company and Reynolds Electric and Engineering have leased a sizeable building for office space to have 35 office employees.  This lease is for five years at $500.00 per month with option to renew for 5 years.

7.  High caliber construction men have been seen pulling up in cars with license plates from Washington, Idaho, and New Mexico.  They great [sic] each other like they haven’t seen each other for several years.  It appears that key men are being pulled in from all directions.

8.  Between six and ten U-Drive cars and pickups have been rented for an indefinate [sic] period.

9.  There are between fifteen and thirty executive personell [sic] staying at the Last Frontier Hotel.

10.  My wife’s folks have a group of construction executives desiring to rent their entire dude ranch for a five year period.

11.  National Lead Company officials are in town accompanied by security agents.

12.  General Motors just paid the state some $123,000.00 to form an $88, [sic] million corporation in the state and rumor has it that G.M. is to spend over $100,000,000.00 in Southern Nevada this year.

[Page 3:]

"Proven Facts, Cont.

13.  Consolidated Vultee have [sic] four U-Drive cars reserved for the middle of this month.

14.  The town is teeming with security agents.

[Page 4:]

"[1]   I prepared this information [sic] I have obtained the following information, which I believe to be authentic.

[2]  The admitted $300,000,000.00 expenditure is just one-fifth of the money already appropriated for this project.

[3]  It is definitely the biggest project ever undertaken by this or any other country, and will be the biggest development of the century.

[4]  It is the center of development for Atomic power for the propulsion of everything from guided misseles [sic] to tanks, submarines, ships, trains, and everything that moves.

[5]  This would explain the interest of General Motors, and Consolidated Vultee.  Also, I note that the president of Union Pacific has just spent a week here.

[6]  The installation is permanent and will expand this area many times it’s [sic] present size in the next few years.

[7]  This town is swarming with Security Agents.

[8]  Consequently, I would appreciate your immediately destroying this sheet, as they will no doubt trace any authentic information to it’s [sic] source.”

On being shown this document, the late Chris Crockett, a son of George Crockett, surmised that the person to whom this information was directed was Howard Hughes, whom his father knew and who frequently used the Alamo facilities in its early years.  Because of his aviation and engineering industries, Hughes would have been especially interested in what was going on at the new Nevada Test Site.

Whatever the outcome for all the plans and players noted above, the development of the U.S. Government’s soon-to-be Nevada Test Site was a done deal by 1952.  But what of those plans posited as rumor that might be hidden from public view?  Apart from the atomic bomb testing that pockmarked Nye County’s outback and the existence of Area 51 and S-4, it was the mention of “saucers” (and we’re not talking about Avro aircraft and similar failed attempts) and the implied size of underground installations and budgets that brought me up short. 

Point is, falling onto something unexpected like the above documents can be transformative and clarifying to one’s thoughts.  In a way, it is a conversion experience.  Certainly, it ignites a serious desire to find out what is really happening in the world you think you know.  It brings together all sorts of little snippets of remembrances that start to make sense and paint quite a different picture of reality.

So, I’m sharing.  Future blog entries will focus on other bits of paranormal weirdness that bump into our lives (mine, at least) now and then, reminders that all is not always what it seems.  Stay tuned.

Source:  Crockett Collection, Clark County Museum/Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum.

Alternate topics may occur in this blogsite from time to time, covering that other zone of strangeness:  politics.

My novel, The Genesis Codex, a paranormal thriller, is now available on Amazon.com www.amazon.com  and Kindle.  I hope you will enjoy reading it, the first in a series.