4/29/11

My Visit to see where the Mothman Took Flight

By Mark Turner Images

Demon or Harbinger of Doom?  A little back story . . . 

On the night of November 12th, 1966, in Point Pleasant West Virginia, two young couples went to the secluded TNT area, a former munitions storage dump used by the government during World War II.  That evening, someone saw red lights.  As they went to investigate, they saw that the lights were actually eyes attached to a man like creature that stood taller than any man.  They ran back to the car, and sped off as the thing took flight, chasing them and keeping-up with the speed of the car, even flying in-front of the car. Eventually it took off leaving the frightened teenagers.  They ran to the police station and told their story.  As time went on, more reports were made, a news man called it the Mothman after the popular Batman TV show, people saw UFO's in the area, odd men dressed in black began to ask questions of anyone that made reports of Mothmen or UFO's, some evening threatening witnesses not to tell their story.  There was so much activity that the military even began to take notice.  Then, just before Christmas on December 15th 1967, the Silver Bridge, spanning the Ohio River between Point Pleasant West Virginia to Gallipolis Ohio, collapsed, killing 46 people.  There were some that said the creature had been seen near the bridge only hours before.  After the collapse, no more sightings of the Mothman were made.      

Birthplace of a Moth . . .  

In 2008, a day before the Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia, we made a stop by the Mothman Museum.  The owner/curator was kind enough to give us a map of the places where people had reported seeing the monster back in the late 1960's. We had been to the festival a year before but never ventured to the sites where the creature had been sighted.


We had lunch at the Iron Gate Grill and took a tour of the very nice building beside it.  A place that you can reserve for business parties, meetings and so on.  It was a location ripe for some old ghost stories.  I do not know if they have any, but it's full of history.




Then we were off to the TNT area, the sight of the very first Mothman sighting. It is a dangerous place, and just last year, one of the bunkers, or igloos, exploded during the night!  No one was hurt, but if I had known how dangerous it was, I would not have ventured into one of them, in the pitch black, like you see me doing here.  I took a photo inside but it was too dark.  You could see large, old cans.  I believe probably gun powder and god knows what else was in them.  They had simply been left behind some 50 or 60 years ago.  It was from this site that the Mothman creature was first spotted. 






 
  Later I'll talk about Chief Cornstalk and the Curse on Point Pleasant.


Other Mystery Creature Stories on this site . . .

Black Panther Sightings of Ohio

Ohio Mystery Canine. A Wolf in the Buckeye State?

 

 

4/28/11

Probably the World's First Video Promo for a Blog

The Haunted Radio Station-My First Encounter with a Ghost


By Mark Turner Images

I am not a ghost hunter and do not plan to ever start.  Frankly, I think its just kind of overdone and I'm never really sure that the results are genuine.  Though I use to make my living in radio and know a thing or two about sound, the idea of trying to record and EVP and then playing the tape back and actually hearing someone speaking to me in a place I lived or worked was not my idea of fun.

My first ghost story . . . 

Some of my other entries will be stories that have been related to me by others, but my first entry into the world of ghost tales was my strongest and most vivid experience.  This one took place about 17 years ago or so.  I was working the graveyard shift at the local radio station that sat far at the edge of town, all by its self, with no buildings close by, at the edge of a large wooded area.  And there I was, totally alone, all night until the dawn.  I had a little work to do but really not much except playing the recorded local station ID every half hour during a satellite network talk-show.  This was before the days of computer automation.  A friend of mine who worked another nighttime job that was equally as mundane as my own - lets call him Jim (not his real name) - had been calling me, telling me that he thought he was being haunted.  He believed that a ghost was following him.  I was intrigued but really didn't believe it.  He would say things like; "There! It's doing it again!"  It would be a thump, a knock, the feeling of a hand touching his hair.  He was really spooked out.  I had never heard him like this.  This went on for something like a week.

At the time, Jim had this lady-friend that was hanging around with him, she was a few years younger than Jim and I, and one night he brought her over to the radio station.  Lets call her May (not her real name either).  Well, Jim starts in on this hearing noises business again.  And to be honest, from time to time I would hear things in the radio station, but when you're trapped there alone at night, you do your best to ignore such things.  "There! Did you hear that?" he asked excitedly.  "Yes," I did.  His lady friend, who, if I remember right, had had a difficult, childhood was 18 years old, and she had the most unusual eyes. Large, hypnotic, probing, a bit spooky.  Lets just say, I believe the 'haunting' of Jim had something to do with the arrival of this young lady.  She was not evil or anything like that, she was just a young person that had been through a lot.

For about half an hour, we all heard strange knockings around the otherwise empty radio station.  It was about 2:30 in the morning. We sat in the lobby adjacent to the reception area.  Jim, sitting in a chair with his back to the reception area, May sitting next to me on a couch where we could see into the reception room.  The lobby was well lit, the reception area was lit only by the dim lights of nearby rooms.  The reception area was essentially a dark, black place where the door was held open to us, wide open, an unobstructed view.  May and I could see right into the reception room, Jim could not.       

I had been watching a show called Sightings at the time and I saw how they had a psychic that would address the supposed spirits.  So while each one of us is completely spooked out from hearing strange clicks and knocks, I say in a commanding tone "if there is someone here, then show yourself."

A few silent moments passed and then, God as my witness, from inside the dark reception area, I saw a long blue light - like static-electricity, it just sort of glowed into being.  It was high in the air, about where a tall man's face would be, but I did not see a face, I did not see a body, all I saw a long horizontal blue light.  As my eyes grew wide in total disbelief, I could see in the corner of my eye, May sitting next to me, looking just as stunned as I was. Jim saw our faces, but before I could even think to say something, the apparition was gone in an instant!  May bolted up and flew in the opposite direction, down the hall, down the stairs and out the back door.  Poor Jim was looking around, confused and pleading for someone to tell him what had happened.  The first thing I said to May when we caught up with her was; "what did you see?"  I wanted her version of the story.  There was no denying it, she had seen the same thing.

A few days passed and I was back at work, feeling spooked out by strange sounds all around me.  I said in a commanding voice "Alright, I don't need it.  I'm in control here, now just back off."  Then, the power died.  Our piece of crap generator did not turn on, nor did the emergency exit lights.  I was in total blackness trapped in the maze of halls with God knows what! As I began to walk to the back door, the lights came back, power was restored.  I caught my breath and tried to explain it all it away as I worked into the morning light.  

As time went on, and May moved away, the strange activity ended.  At least I think it did for Jim.  I always felt that she unintentionally had something to do with what we saw that night.  As if she was kind of conduit, the channel to the other-side.

I have, to the best of my knowledge, never seen anything like it since.  I still wish I knew exactly what it was.

- MT            
As Featured On EzineArticles

(The above image was created by me from photos in my personal collection)

Other Ghost Stoires on this site . . .

Ghost Girls - TheTrue Story of an Ohio Haunting 

The Ghost that Communicates through TV

Spirit Board

Sleeping Where a Man Died

Ghosts of Harper's Ferry, Ghosts of Antietam

4/27/11

The Gypsy Queen of Marion Ohio




Where did the Gypsy Queen come from?  Was she a voluptuous exotic dancer? What was her real name?  Was she even a gypsy at all?  She died during child labor and may be buried standing upright.

The popular story is that she was an 'exotic dancer' from the 1893 Chicago's World's Fair who fell in love with an American man named Charles Judge.

Here's what I found out about gypsies and the Worlds Fair;

The World's Fair Paris Exhibition of 1889 is the earliest account of Algerian gypsy street performers that had in their tribe, dancers, that would later spark the phrase known the world over as Belly Dancers.  Then in the 1893 World's Fair Chicago, Columbia Exposition, there was an exhibit called "Street in Cairo" where Algerian dancers preformed the provocative 'Hootchy-Kootchy' dance. One popular dancer was named Little Egypt. Gypsies, at the time, were thought to have originated from Egypt.  Some say she wasn't a gypsy at all, but that the gypsies took her in as their queen.    

The local story of the Gypsy Queen;

By 1905, Brazilian Gypsies were around the town of Marion Ohio.  A pregnant gypsy woman by the name of Queen Cleo was with them.  While she gave birth, she became ill. A doctor was called but it was too late, the young woman died. She was 30 years old.  The baby was healthy, but nothing more is known of the child. The local paper investigated, but the gypsies, who spoke little English wanted nothing to do with the the press or even the undertaker.  An old man of the tribe said to the reporter of the Marion Star, "Me don't like ye'.  And would only say her name was Mrs. Anne Judge, nothing more.  Gypsies from all over Ohio attended the funeral at St Mary's Church.



She is buried in the non-catholic section of the St Mary's Cemetery in Marion. Allegedly, she is buried upright.

Were these gypsies Algerian? Brazilian?  Gypsies are found in both of these countries.            

Pennies, coins, costume jewelery and other items are laid at the grave of Queen Cleo in the hopes of gaining some good fortune.

If you ever make your way there, be sure to give the Queen something and do not ever disgrace the site, otherwise you will become the victim of a gypsy curse.  

As Featured On EzineArticles
Another Marion Mystery Grave is . . .  

Mystery of the Merchant Ball - The Rotating Tombstone

Ghost Stoires on this site . . .

The Ghost that Communicates through TV

Spirit Board

Sleeping Where a Man Died

The Haunted Radio Station-My First Encounter with a Ghost

Ghosts of Harper's Ferry, Ghosts of Antietam

4/26/11

Indian Mound, Southern Marion Ohio, Late 1800's.

A photo from the Ohio Historical Society, from the book "Images of America; Marion Ohio", by Stuart J Koblentz, comes this; an archeological dig of an Indian Mound, taken from the late 1800's.  Note that everyone pictured is hardly even an adolescent and the young boy protecting the site with a rifle.  You don’t want to cross him!  I'm assuming that adults were heading-up this dig.  We can only hope.        



4/25/11

Mound Park in Portsmouth Ohio


Once the site of one of the largest and most elaborate of the Indian Mounds, Portsmouth Ohio now only has a hand full of mounds to be seen, and of those left, only a small park holds a single small mound.


I'm sure if the current residents had their way, they would have kept a few of the more impressive mounds in tact.  Proud of their history, a mural that spans the entire flood wall of a park next to the Ohio River, pays tribute to the history of Portsmouth, it's famous former citizens like Roy Rogers and the Earthworks that stood there some 2000 years before.

In what I can find, no one really knows why these mounds, these cities, paths of earth were constructed.  Some are burial mounds, but the lanes, avenues, circular enclosures, they all point to a kind of system.  Something like the symbol system of the tarot?   




I haven't had the pleasure or time to visit the Serpent Mound in Ohio, but we have made a trek to the Newark Earthworks.  I'll show some of that later.

More Ancient American mysteries . . . 

Our Forgotten Indian Mound and the Bones of Giants

Stonehenge Beneath Lake Michigan


Indian Mound, Southern Marion Ohio, Late 1800's

UFO Landing at Holloman Air Force Base


4/24/11

Genesis

Welcome to my new adventure; a kind of on-line magazine that I hope will entertain as well as enlighten.  First, I have a visit to Point Pleasant that I will be sharing on here very soon.  This was about two years ago.  We investigated the Mothman TNT area and came away thoroughly spooked.  Then I hope to get some shots soon of the Indian Mounds that are in our little area of the globe.  I'll share my thoughts on the mysteries of the mounds.  I'll also be adding links to videos I've posted on my YouTube site;  Mark Radio Turner.

I hope you come back as I have much to share when I can get the time.

Sincerely,
Mark Turner