UFOs over Phoenix (1997)

 Ancient peoples around the world have reported unidentified lights in the sky for thousands of years.  The ancients believed that the gods themselves came down and visited them on a regular basis.  Native Americans in Arizona were no different.  These interactions were memorialized in petroglyphs and through oral traditions preserved as myths and legends. It is only when humans achieved high altitude flight that visits from the gods became visits by Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).

On March 13, 1997, Arizona experienced one of the largest mass UFO sightings in history, the so-called Phoenix Lights. Lights of varying descriptions were seen by thousands of people during a three-hour period, over a distance of three hundred miles stretching, from the Nevada line, through Phoenix, to the edge of Tucson. There were two distinct events involved in the incident: a triangular formation of lights seen to pass over the state, and a series of stationary lights seen in the Phoenix area. The United States Air Force identified the second group of lights as flares dropped by military aircraft.  The initial sightings remain unexplained.

The first call came from a retired police officer in Paulden, Arizona, a small town about two hours north of Phoenix at approximately 7pm.  After that, calls began pouring into television stations and the police.  The reports were unanimous on several key points: there was a triangular craft that was enormous (some witnesses described it as a mile wide), it was totally silent, it moved slowly, and it often stopped to hover.

A drawing of the object created by witness Tim Ley appeared in USA Today

The Governor’s office was besieged with calls, especially after a USA Today article in June brought international attention to the incident.  To stem a mounting sense of panic in the state, Governor Fife Symington held a press conference during which he claimed to have “found who was responsible” for the lights.  Symington then brought in his chief of staff dressed in an alien costume, handcuffed and looking contrite.  Crisis averted.  Ten years later, however, Symington confessed before the National Press Club, that he had pulled this stunt only to avert public panic.  He said that he himself had seen the object and that it was, “enormous and inexplicable.”

The Great UFO Secret (Six Short Stories of First Contact)

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

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A Newsman at the Battle of the Little Bighorn

 

Mark Kellogg rode with Custer and wrote: “The hope is now strong and I believe, well founded, that this band of ugly customers, known as Sitting Bull's band, will be "gobbled" and dealt with as they deserve."

George Custer and the Grand Review of the Army of the Potomac

 

At 9:00 A.M. on May 23, 1865. a cannon boomed, signaling the beginning of the Grand Review of the victorious Army of the Potomac as it marched down Pennsylvania Avenue.

The cavalry led the march under the command of Brevet Major General Wesley Merritt, a hero of the Gettysburg and Shenandoah Valley campaigns.  Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer led the 3rd Cavalry Division in the forefront of the march, astride a magnificent stallion named Don Juan.  Custer cut an imposing figure atop his stolen horse.  In fact, the horse belonged to one Richard Gaines of Clarksville, Virginia.  Unfortunately for Gaines, Custer took a fancy to the horse and had his soldiers appropriate the animal as “the spoils of war.”  Gaines was never able to regain possession of his legal property because of Custer’s powerful friends.

Before the Presidential reviewing stand, a woman threw an evergreen wreath in front of Don Juan. The horse panicked and galloped toward the president and other dignitaries. Custer regained control of the animal to the great applause of the crowd, and casually proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue.

Many detractors at the time, and subsequently, thought that this was just the type of theatrical stunt that Custer routinely engineered to draw attention to himself.

Civil War Humor 1861-1865

The Great Northern Rebellion of 1860 (alternate history)

The Perils of the Mona Lisa

 

Leonardo Da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa in the early 1500’s.  It soon was acquired by the King of France and after hanging in various royal apartments went on permanent display at the Louvre in Paris in 1797 and is now, at $870 million, one of the world’s most valuable paintings.

The painting was not always so popular, and owes its worldwide recognition to an art theft in 1911.  The theft was carried out my one Vincenzo Peruggia, a museum employee and Italian nationalist, who thought this Italian masterpiece had no business in France.  Peruggia tried to sell the painting to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy but ended up in jail.  The Mona Lisa returned to France after a three year odyssey.  Peruggia may have had accomplices who planned to sell forgeries of the Mona Lisa in America to unscrupulous collectors.  Their story did not come to light until 1932.

During World War II, a phony Mona Lisa was allowed to fall into the hands of the Nazis, while the original painting was moved from secret hiding place to secret hiding place throughout the war.  The real Mona Lisa resurfaced in Paris on June 16, 1945.

In the early 1950s, a man claiming to be in love with the painting tried to cut it out of its frame.  A glass covering was placed over the painting to prevent future attempts, but to no avail.  On December 30, 1956 a Bolivian man threw a rock at the Mona Lisa while it was on display at the Louvre. The rock shattered the glass case and dislodged a speck of pigment near the left elbow.

Since then, bullet proof glass has been used to shield the painting, which is just as well, since the assaults have continued.  In 1974, while the painting was on loan to the Tokyo National Museum, a woman sprayed it with red paint in a protest to further rights for the disabled.  In 2009, a Russian woman threw a ceramic teacup purchased at the Louvre’s gift shop at the painting.  She had personal grievances against the French government. In 2022, an environmental activist tried to smash the glass protecting the world’s most famous painting before smearing cake across its surface.

Mona Lisa, she’s faced the wild storm waves of ages, and bravely she faces them still.  And always with a smile.

Love, Sex and Marriage in Victorian America

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

Alternative sources

The Ghosts of the Real Downton Abbey

 

Highclere Castle

Where is the real Downton Abbey?  The setting for the iconic television show is Highclere Castle in Berkshire, England.  Few fans of the show may be aware of the castle’s connection with ghosts and the occult.

The castle’s best-known resident was the Fifth Earl of Carnarvon who financed the expedition to find the tomb of Egypt’s King Tut.  In 1922, the Earl called archaeologist Howard Carter to Highclere to tell him that the funds had dried-up for further excavations. But he agreed to a final dig. On the 4th of November, Carter discovered a staircase beneath the sand leading to the sealed tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The Earl travelled to Egypt immediately. Lord Carnarvon and Howard Carter broke the seal of the mummy’s tomb together.

Fifth Earl of Carnarvon

The Earl of Carnarvon didn’t live to see Tutankhamun’s most precious treasures removed from the burial chamber, he died at the Continental Savoy hotel, Cairo, in April 1923.  Some said he was the victim of the “Mummy’s Curse.” At the very moment of Lord Carnarvon’s death all the lights in Cairo went out and at his English home Carnarvon’s dog let out a great howl and dropped dead. 

Though the curse is scoffed at by many, Lord Carnarvon himself might well have believed in the possibility of such a curse. Carnarvon was a believer in spiritualism and the occult. He was an active member of the London Spiritual Alliance. On numerous occasions Carnarvon organized séances in the East Anglia Room at Highclere Castle.

In his published memoirs the sixth Earl of Carnarvon says that his father became “keenly interested in the occult”.  “My father said, 'If we sit round the table holding hands, I believe we shall achieve a levitation.' 'What does he mean?' I whispered to my sister. 'I think he hopes the flowers on the table will rise several feet into the air,' she replied, and they did.”

The current Countess of Carnarvon recounts having seen the ghost of a footman who committed suicide in the castle. “I turned and saw a man coming towards us out of the gloom,” she explained, “He seemed slightly undefined.” At that point, she told her son, who was driving a toy car, to go faster, and they ended up crashing through a door. The unexplained figure, however, just stayed at the doors watching them.  After the encounter, Lady Carnarvon asked an Anglican monk to bless the castle. After the monk blessed the property, she said that she never saw the ghost again.

The footman isn’t the only ghost that has been seen at the castle. Lady Carnarvon’s father claimed to have seen a “well-dressed lady” who greeted him by saying, “good evening”. 

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

E-Book Version

Lost Inca Gold

 Museo de Oro del Peru

     When Spain conquered the Inca Empire, between 1533-1553, she came into possession of an almost endless supply of gold and silver.  One story from the conquest of Peru will suggest the wealth of the Incas.  As a ransom, the hostage Inca Emperor Atahualpa filled a twelve by seventeen foot room with objects of pure gold.  A second room was filled with silver.  The gold and silver were melted down into bars by the Spaniards who, in all, collected 13,000 pounds of gold and 26,000 pounds of silver.  The ransom did Atahualpa no good.  He was murdered by the Spaniards.  This was only the beginning.  The Spanish conquerors, initially fewer than four hundred men, under the command of Francisco Pizzaro, ravaged the land, killing and torturing in a frenzy of gold lust.  Sometimes the Incas had their revenge.  One hapless Spaniard was executed by having hot molten gold poured down his throat.  “Since you love gold, you shall have as much as you want”, said the Incas.

    Cuzco’s Temple of the Sun, was the most revered shrine in the empire.  Only three Spaniards ever saw the temple in its full glory.  These men were sent by the Spanish commander, Francisco Pizzaro, to speed up the collection of the royal ransom.  The temple had gardens in which everything…trees and grass and flowers, animals, birds, butterflies, cornstalks, snakes, lizards and snails were all made of hammered gold.  The main room of the temple held the high altar, which was dedicated to the sun.  The four walls of the room were hung with plaques of gold, from top to bottom, and the likeness of the sun topped the high altar.  The likeness was made of a gold plaque twice as thick as the plaques that paneled the walls and was composed of a round face, surrounded by rays and flames.  The whole thing was so immense that it occupied the entire back of the temple, from one wall to the other.  The disc was positioned to catch the morning sun and throw its rays into the gold-lined temple, filling the room with radiant light.

    On either side of this enormous golden sun were kept mummies of former Inca kings, which were so well preserved that they seemed alive.  The mummies were seated on golden thrones and looked directly out at the visitor.

    Five other rooms made up the temple complex.  The first of these rooms was dedicated to the moon, the bride of the sun in Inca mythology.  It was entirely paneled in silver and a likeness of the moon, with the face of a woman, decorated it in the same way that the sun decorated the larger building.  The bodies of long dead queens were displayed in this temple just as those of the kings were kept in the other.

     The room nearest to that of the moon was devoted to the stars.  This room was hung with silver and the ceiling was dotted with stars.  The next room was dedicated to lightning and thunder and was entirely covered with gold.  The fourth room was devoted to the rainbow.  It was entirely covered with gold and the rainbow was painted across the entire surface of one of the walls.  The fifth room was reserved for the high priests.

     The reigning emperor’s private quarters were similarly gold studded.  Outer and inner walls were sheathed in gold and the Inca’s palace had a golden garden similar to that of the Temple of the Sun.  When receiving visitors, the Inca sat on a golden stool.  He ate from golden platters and drank from golden goblets.

     The first three Spaniards to see the temple did not remove the holiest religious symbol of the empire, the golden disc of the sun, though they reported its existence.  Subsequently the disc vanished, hidden before the main part of the Spanish army arrived.  It has never been found.     The Spaniards conquered Peru over the course of several decades in an atmosphere of civil war and chaos.  Throughout the period the Inca scurried about trying to hide the most sacred religious items from defilement.

      One of the highlights of Peru’s capital is the outstanding collection of Inca artifacts in the basement vault of the privately owned Museo de Oro del Peru or Peruvian Gold Museum.  As extensive as the gold collection is it’s sobering to realize that these are merely crumbs.

Paititi (The Treasure of the Lost City)

Gold, Murder and Monsters in the Superstition Mountains

ebook version

Railroad Lore: “The Wreck of the Old 97.”

 Fast Mail Train

   After the Civil War, railroad ownership In Virginia was consolidated and people and freight began to move seamlessly throughout the state.  The next seventy years marked the heyday of rail traffic in Virginia.  Two spectacular train wrecks during this period contributed to Virginia’s railroad lore. 

   Seventeen year old Myrtle Ruth Knox had recently joined a company of opera performers and was dreaming of a successful musical career.  Her dreams were cut short on April 26, 1890 when her train crashed into the train depot in Staunton.  The tracks west of Staunton drop eighty feet before reaching the train station.  Two miles into the steep down-grade the train’s breaks were applied, but nothing happened.  The train did not slow down, in fact it went even faster.  The cars shook violently until the train jumped the tracks and slammed into Staunton’s train depot.  The building collapsed and toppled over into the railways cars.  Miraculously, there was only one fatality, young Myrtle Ruth Knox.  A new station was built in 1902, only to be abandoned in 1960.  The structure has since been the home of a number of restaurants.  The ghost of Myrtle Ruth Knox is said to wander around the station’s platform.   

   Virginia’s most spectacular rail disaster inspired the famous railroad ballad “The Wreck of the Old 97.”  On September 27, 1903, the Southern Railway train number 97, the so called “Fast Mail”, was running behind schedule.  The Fast Mail had a reputation for never being late.  Railroad company mangers instructed the train’s engineer, Joseph A. Broady, to get that train back on schedule and make up the one hour he was running behind (the company had a contract with the government which included a financial penalty for every minute the train was late reaching its destination).  Steep grades and tight curves made many places along the route potentially dangerous.  Signs were posted along the way warning engineers to slow down.  But Broady disregarded the signs and took one particularly steep grade at excessive speed.  Because he was going too fast, Broady couldn’t reduce his speed before reaching the curve leading into the Stillhouse Trestle near Danville.  The 97, the Fast Train, derailed and plunged into the ravine below. The train exploded in flames.  Eleven people died, including Broady. 

   The disaster served as inspiration for songwriters and singers for generations and “The Wreck of the Old 97” became one of the most popular railroading songs of all time.  While railway company officials placed blame for the wreck on Broady, denying that he had been ordered to run at unsafe speeds, the ballad disagrees and begins, “Well, they handed him his orders in Monroe, Virginia, saying, ‘Steve, you're way behind time; this is not 38 it is Old 97, you must put her into Spencer on time.’”

Virginia Legends and Lore

Virginia's Civil War Ghosts

 

   Do ghosts from the American Civil War still walk amongst us, or are reported spectral visions and unearthly things that go bump in the night the product of over active imaginations?  Virginia experienced twenty-six major battles and four hundred smaller engagements on her soil during the course of the war, giving ample opportunity for the creation of disgruntled spirits among those who died in battle.

   The Spotsylvania battlefield is one place that the ghosts of Civil War soldiers appear.  A fierce battle raged around Spotsylvania Court House on and off from May 8 through May 21, 1864.  Over four thousand soldiers were killed.  The Bloody Angle was the site of the longest, most savage hand-to-hand combat of the Civil War.  In recent years, American Battlefield Ghost Hunters Society has investigated paranormal activity around the Bloody Angle, often sprinkling the area with pieces of beef jerky and chewing tobacco, which would have been luxuries at the time of the Civil War, to lure the spirits of dead soldiers to the spot.  The group claims to have recorded the sounds cannonballs and musket fire, and has photographed misty figures said to be ghosts.

   The Manassas Battlefield, in Prince William County, is also home to a number of Civil War spirits.  During the Second Battle of Manassas, in 1862, the 5th New York Volunteer Infantry [Zouaves] sustained devastating losses.  One veteran wrote, “Where the Regiment stood that day was the very vortex of Hell.  Not only were men wounded, or killed, but they were riddled.”  One of the dead may still haunt the area.  A phantom Zouave soldier has been seen repeatedly on the battlefield’s New York Avenue Field.  The phantom beckons the onlooker to follow him into the woods.  To date, no one has taken the ghost up on the offer.

    Near the New York Avenue Field, a structure known as the old Stone House is also said to be haunted.  Originally a tavern, the house served as a field hospital during both the battles of First (1861) and Second (1862) Manassas.  Strange lights have been seen in the house at night, although it is locked every night by park rangers.  Strange sounds, like screams and groans are also said to come from the house.

   The Cold Harbor Battlefield in Hanover County is said to top the list of haunted battlefields in Virginia.  Here in 1864, thousands of Union troops were killed as wave after wave of men were repeatedly thrown in frontal assaults against fortified Confederate positions.  Today, some visitors claim to have felt the thunder of artillery and to have smelled burned gunpowder while exploring the battlefield.  Once again, the shouts and cries of unseen combatants echo through the woods.  Visitors report the sudden appearance of a dense fog on the battlefield, which just as quickly disappears.  The ghostly fog has driven away many who seek the safety of their cars, even as they hear unearthly footsteps behind them and sense unseen eyes upon them.

   Hauntings are also reported in buildings used during the Civil War as hospital.  One house in Brandy Station, Culpeper County, was used as a hospital after the Battle of Brandy Station (June 9, 1863).  The patients scrawled their names and other thoughts on the walls, thus the house is now known as the Graffiti House.  So troubling were the ongoing ghostly occurrences at the Graffiti House that the Virginia Paranormal Institute was called in to conduct an investigation.  One investigator felt an unseen force tightening around her wrist.  Another person saw a picture frame move on its own.  The team’s electrical instruments raced out of control.

   Another Civil War hospital of long standing was set up in Gordonsville, Orange County.     Gordonsville Virginia’s Exchange Hotel opened in 1860 and provided an elegant stopping place for passengers on the Virginia Central Railway.  In March, 1862 the Confederate army transformed the hotel into the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital.  Dr. B.M Lebby of South Carolina was the director of the hospital and its operations continued under his leadership until October 1865.

   The wounded and dying from nearby battlefields such as Cedar Mountain, Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, and the Wilderness were brought to Gordonsville by the trainloads. Although this was primarily a Confederate facility, the hospital treated the wounded from both sides. By the end of the war, more than 70,000 men had been treated at the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital and over 700 were buried on its surrounding grounds and later interred at Maplewood Cemetery in Gordonsville.

   The Exchange Hotel Civil War Medical Museum, as the structure is known today, has experienced more than one ghostly occurrence.  Screams and groans are heard, doors close on their own and eerie orbs appear suddenly in rooms.  Some have claimed they have encountered nurses, garbed in black, wandering the halls.

 Treasure Legends of the Civil War

1. Virginia Legends and Lore 

Colonel John Chiswell: The Celebrity Murderer (1766)

 

Williamsburg, Virginia

When we think of the Virginia of colonial times, the Virginia of Washington, Madison and Jefferson, we seldom think of the word MURDER.  And yet behind the façade of graceful mansions and quaint cobblestone streets, evil lurked.  Take for example the strange case of Colonel John Chiswell, someone today we might call “a celebrity murderer.”

 

Colonel John Chiswell was a very busy and important man.  He owned a huge plantation, he was a member of the House of Burgesses, and he was a colonel in the militia.  His wife was from a fine old family.  The Royal Governor, Francis Fauquier, was a close friend.  His son-in-law was Treasurer of the colony.  This was not a little man unknown in the colony.  Soon he would be even better known.

 

On June 3, 1766, Colonel Chiswell attended a session of the Cumberland County Court, to look after some land deals.  That evening he entered Benjamin Mosby’s tavern.  One Robert Routlidge, a blunt Scottish merchant who had had dealings with Chiswell before, approached the colonel.  Routlidge was clearly drunk, and not just a little drunk.  Routlidge proceeded to insult Chiswell and then threw a glass of wine in his face.  The short fused Chiswell picked up a pair of fire tongs and made for Routlidge.  The crowd in the room restrained him.  He next came at Routlidge with a candlestick.  Again he was restrained.  Next he picked up a punchbowl and made to break it over Routlidge’s head.  Again he was restrained.  A sheriff entered and ordered Col. Chiswell to leave, which he did, only to return moments later carrying a sword.

 

The sheriff tried to keep him from Routlidge but Chiswell bellowed that he would “run through any man” who tried to stop him.  Routlidge and Chiswell exchanged curses across the room until finally Chiswell called Routlidge a “Presbyterian fellow”, which was too much for Routlidge who broke free from those trying to calm him and squarely faced Chiswell.  In the next instant the colonel ran his sword directly into Routlidge’s heart.  The merchant fell dead.  Colonel Chiswell handed the sword to a servant for cleaning and then ordered a bowl of punch declaring, “He deserves his fate, damn him.  I aimed at his heart and I have hit it.”  The gaping sheriff immediately took Chiswell into custody.

 

The cold blooded murder of an unarmed man in front of a room full of witnesses, including a sheriff, was this an open and shut case?  Not according to Colonel Chiswell’s attorney.  According to the defense, due to his drunkenness Routlidge threw himself on the colonel’s sword. The incident was a mere accident.  After hearing the testimony of the witnesses, the examining court found sufficient evidence to prosecute the case.  Chiswell was held without bail, and an under-sheriff was ordered to transport the colonel to Williamsburg where he was to be jailed in chains while awaiting trial before the Governor.  News of the murder spread fast among Virginia’s power elite.  Three of the Governor’s closest confidants intercepted the under-sheriff and his prisoner before they could reach Williamsburg.  The distinguished deputation ordered the under-sheriff to release Chiswell on bail.  The colonel returned to the comforts of his townhouse in Williamsburg where he remained in seclusion.

 

Was the whole matter to be swept under the rug by Chiswell’s powerful friends?  Perhaps it could have been and would have been had it not been for one Robert Bolling who published an anonymous query in the Virginia Gazette of June 20, 1766.  Bolling broke the story to the general public.  “Upon an inquisition taken before the Coroner in Cumberland county, Robert Routlidge was found to be murdered (June 3d) by a sword in the hand of John Chiswell, Esq; whereupon he was committed to the county prison, and the examining Court, upon full evidence (refusing to bail him on a motion for that purpose) ordered him to the public prison, as the law directs, to be tried for murder.” Bolling continued the anonymous query by relat­ing the special treatment given to Colonel Chiswell by the Judges of the General Court. “ But before he was delivered to the keeper of the pub­lic prison, the Judges of the General Court, out of sessions, took him from the sheriff who conveyed him from Cumberland, and admitted him to bail, without seeing the record of his examination in the coun­ty, or examining any of the witnesses against him.”  Bolling’s query came to a thunderous summation, “I ask, whether this act of the three Judges of the General Court be le­gal. If it is legal, I have nothing more to say. If it is not legal, then I ask whether the act of these Judges has not a tendency to overturn the laws and constitution of the country, by their exercising an extra judicial power and controlling the course of law in a case of the highest con­sequence to the safety of the (king’s) subject(s)? Whether the bail taken by these Judges in an extra judicial manner can be liable on their recogni­zance, if Mr. Chiswell should not appear to take his trial? If they are not liable, whether it is not in fact a rescue, under pretense of law, of a person charged with an atrocious crime?”

 

As the facts became known, outrage spread among the general public.  Increasingly angry voices were raised about both the murder and the special privileges that were being granted Colonel John Chiswell.  The murder was fast becoming, “the crime of the century”, pitting the power elite against the common man in a contest over equality before the law. 

 

In fact, Colonel Chiswell never came to trial.  Either pressured by friends or collapsing under the nervous strain, Colonel Chiswell committed suicide in his Williamsburg townhouse.  The Virginia Gazette reported that he died of “nervous fits, owing to a constant uneasiness of mind.”  This did not entirely end the matter.  By now the people so distrusted their political masters that they suspected a plot to smuggle a still very much alive John Chiswell out of the colony.  An angry mob stopped Chiswell’s funeral procession and demanded to see the body.  The coffin was duly opened and Colonel Chiswell’s body publicly identified.

Murder in Colonial Virginia

Virginia Legends and Lore

Was there a Curse on America’s Presidents?

 

Tecumseh

William Henry Harrison, born in Charles City County, was America’s ninth president.  Harrison was also the shortest serving president, dying thirty-one days into his first term.  A military hero in his younger days, the new president wanted to demonstrate his virility when he came to Washington.  He took the oath of office outside on a cold, wet day, without wearing a hat or overcoat.  Harrison’s inaugural speech dragged on for almost two hours (the longest inaugural speech ever), after which Harrison rode a horse in his own inaugural parade.  On March 26, Harrison was ill with cold like symptoms.  The next day he developed chills, and then a high fever.  The doctors were called in to treat the ailing president.  As was often the case in those days, calling in the doctors was tantamount to signing the man’s death warrant.  A team of doctors administered a regime of bloodletting to drain off the “bad humors”.  When this failed to produce the desired results, the doctors tried ipecac, castor oil, calomel, mustard plasters, a boiled mixture of crude petroleum, and Virginia snakeroot.  All of this expert medical treatment only weakened Harrison to the point of death, at which point the doctor’s concluded that he was beyond hope and would not recover.

William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office, and around his death arose the legend of the Curse of Tippecanoe. 

Harrison had become famous as a military commander in Tecumseh’s War, waged against the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa.  The decisive battle of that war was the battle of Tippecanoe, and it was the fame Harrison won in this battle that helped propel “Old Tippecanoe” into the White House under the campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”  Also known as Tecumseh’s Curse, a grim pattern emerged after the election of 1840.  Death stalked any person elected president in a year divisible by 20.  William Henry Harrison elected in 1840, died in office.  Abraham Lincoln elected in 1860, died in office.  James A. Garfield elected in 1880, died in office.  William McKinley elected in 1900, died in office. Warren G. Harding elected in 1920, died in office.  Franklin D. Roosevelt elected in 1940, died in office.  John F. Kennedy elected in 1960, died in office.  Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, broke the curse.  Reagan served two terms and lived fifteen years after leaving the presidency.

Virginia Legends and Lore

The Crystal Skull and the Superstition Mountains

 

The Crystal Skull in the British Museum

One of the most bizarre stories coming out of Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, which is saying a great deal, is that of the search for the Crystal Skull.  The Crystal Skull is said to be an ancient Aztec artifact with mystical properties.  In the summer of 1980, one Joe Mays showed up trying to recruit guides and horses for a trek into the mountains to hunt for the Crystal Skull.  It was July, with the temperatures hovering around 110 degrees.  The locals weren’t too interested in the Crystal Skull, but they were very interested in all of the crisp one hundred dollar bills that Mays was splashing about.

Mays brought a small crew with him and contracted with Peralta Stables and local guides for support.  He intended to go into the mountains for three weeks.  As it turns out, Mays was spending money from investors, and he was spending it very lavishly, in the end some twenty thousand dollars (sixty thousand dollars in today’s money).  Mays was using an “ancient book” as his bona fides for the investors.  

Unfortunately for Mays, his investors were an unsavory lot who were used to getting a high return on their money.  The investors suggested to Mays that his next stop would be the Atlantic Ocean in a pair of cement overshoes, unless he produced and produced fast.  After a few more days of fumbling about the Superstitions, Mays came up with a brilliant idea.  He convinced the investors that they should make a video documentary, “that would make millions!” Mays had the gift of the gab, and the investors bought into the scheme. 

The Crystal Skull has an interesting history.  In the late nineteenth century, when European interest in ancient culture was at its peak, Crystal Skulls, supposedly of pre-Columbian Aztec or Mayan origin, began appearing in major museums in England and France.  It was one, Eugène Boban, an antiquities dealer who opened his shop in Paris in 1870, who is most associated with nineteenth century museum collections of Crystal Skulls. Boban is said to have tried to sell a Crystal Skull to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, but was unsuccessful. Boban later moved his business to New York City. A Crystal Skull was exhibited at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in New York. It was sold at auction, and bought by Tiffany and Co., which later sold it at cost to the British Museum in 1897.

The Crystal Skull in the Musée de l'Homme's in Paris was donated by Alphonse Pinart, an ethnographer who had bought it from Eugene Boban.

It was not until the twentieth century that the truth came out.  Studies demonstrated that the skulls were manufactured in the mid-nineteenth century. The skulls were crafted in the nineteenth century in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein, which was renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz. This type of crystal was determined to be only found in Madagascar and Brazil, and thus unknown to the Aztecs or Maya.

In 1992, the Smithsonian investigated a Crystal Skull provided by an anonymous donor.  Supposedly, the artifact was of Aztec origin. The investigation concluded that this skull was made in the 1950s or later.

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

Amazon

Was Custer wiped out by a “Mysterious Renegade”?

 

In his book, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn , Evan S. Connell tells us

 “News of the Little Bighorn calamity was at first discredited.  Americans could not believe that Sitting Bull had defeated General Custer….they refused to admit that an uneducated savage could have defeated a West Point graduate.  Therefore such a genius must be … a disguised renegade.  So it was alleged that a mysterious swarthy youth from the Great Plains, nicknamed “Bison”, had attended West Point and there absorbed the military science that laid General Custer low.” (Connell, 223) 

The Indian View of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Lonely Prophet of the Pearl Harbor Attack

 Admiral James O. Richardson

Most people believe that the American Pacific Fleet had had a long history at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by December 7, 1941.  Such was not the case.  Until February 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet homeport was San Diego, California.

In 1940, the Roosevelt Administration, without consulting with senior military advisors decided that stationing the Fleet in Hawaii would restrain Japanese aggression in the Far East.

Admiral James O. Richardson, as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CinCUS), protested stationing the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Richardson, the Navy's outstanding authority on Pacific naval warfare and Japanese strategy, believed that a forward defense was neither practical nor useful and that the Pacific Fleet would be the logical first target in the event of war with Japan since it was vulnerable to air and torpedo attacks. At least two naval war games, one in 1932 and another in 1936, proved that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to such an attack.

In October 1940, Richardson went to Washington, D.C. to present his viewpoint in person to the President.  Franklin Roosevelt was annoyed by the criticism and made clear his own opinion that war with Japan would not happen anytime soon.  Richardson put his career on the line by requesting a second face-to-face meeting with Roosevelt five days into the New Year of 1941.  The plain-spoken Admiral said, “Mr. President, I feel that I must tell you that the senior officers of the Navy do not have the trust and confidence in the civilian leadership of this country that is essential for the successful prosecution of a war in the Pacific.”

Richardson’s warnings went unheeded, and by February 1, 1941, the Admiral was out of a job, re-assigned from Fleet duty to desk duty in Washington. 

On December 7, 1941, forces of the Empire of Japan launched a devastating sneak attack on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor, as predicted.

         Sneak Attack! (Four Alternative History Stories)