My Own Private Reset . . . .

 And . . . I’m back!

Sometimes—as we all know—things don’t go as planned, this blog, for example. Until serious health issues happened, I had a lot of big plans . . . I still do but there’s a lot of catching up to do. Like my series of articles about the TV series produced in the 1970s; with Hallowe’en over 80-plus days away, expect some paranormal-themed articles and a look at the first cinematic universe, the Universal horror films. I’ll also write about paranormal podcasts I’ve been following on YouTube—there a lot of problematic even outright offensive and bad podcasts and a few good ones.

There are a lot of major genre news too. The first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season drops on Wednesday, 26 November; the second set of episodes will hit Netflix on Xmas Eve and the last feature-length episode debuts on New Year's Eve.

December will also see Fallout’s second series dropping on Amazon Prime—now date hasn’t been released yet. This season, we’ll find Lucy, the Ghoul (aka Cooper Howard), Dogmeat and Brotherhood of Steel Knight Maximus in the quasi-civilized New Vegas. According to production photos, the New Vegas sets look great and we’ve seen NCR troopers and Rangers, salvaged NCR powered armor, Securitron robots, Deathclaws and Caesar’s Legion. In interviews, the cast have said “a lot of wild shit” happens and I’m looking to see how both character arcs and their dynamics will change.

I’m hoping all the episodes will drop at once—it worked well last season and I think they will repeat the same strategy.

So.

Will we see Felicia Day as BoS scribe, Veronica and Danny Trejo as Ghoul gunslinger, Raul Tejada? In the game, Wayne Newton voiced the AI called Mr. New Vegas and will he do it again? Actor Michael Hogan played Doc Mitchell but Hogan’s had debilitating health problems and, sadly, Matthew Perry passed a few years back—no Benny, not even flashbacks unless the character is recast. MAGAt bootlicker and actor Zacharay Levi’s Arcade Gannon might be re-casted . . . by Macaulay Culkin. I’m fine with it.

Well, that’s it for now.

I hope you all will be checking out the website and I’m looking forward to your comments.

Be seeing you!

-30-

Netflix Docuseries Encounters: The Stephenville Lights.

Angelia Joined, staff reporter for the Stephenville Empire-Tribune, who broke the story about the Stephenville Lights UFO sightings. She would later lose her job.

On 8 Jan. 2008, one of the most famous UFO sightings happened in a central Texas town called Stephenville. It was the largest UFO incident since the 13 March 1997 Phoenix Lights event. From the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON)—one of the largest private UFO investigation organizations—May 2008 reports:

On January 10, 2008, the MUFON Case Management System (CMS) began to receive more than its normal number of sighting reports. In less than seven days the system had received over 100 new sightings in central Texas. The Texas Chapter of MUFON was now faced with a large logistical problem of interviewing over 100 witnesses. After a discussion with Ken Cherry, the Texas State Director, it was decided that an email be sent out to the MUFON Field Investigators located in the cities surrounding the Dublin/ Stephenville area requesting assistance. Texas has over 40 Field Investigators.

An email request was sent to the FIs in Dallas, Ft Worth, Abilene, Waco and Austin, and eight investigators committed themselves to a project that has never been attempted in the history of MUFON—to interview a large number of witnesses at one time.

I contacted Angelia Joiner of the Stephenville Tribune; she was the first reporter to break the story on January 10. Among other matters, we told her of our need for a meeting location. A short time later, a meeting room was donated for our use by the Dublin Dr Pepper Co and the Dublin Rotary Club. MUFON Texas held a meeting on January 19 for witnesses to come forward and make reports. A second meeting was held February 23.

To give you some perspective as to the number of sighting reports received, we need to go to the MUFON online Case Management System (CMS). Since MUFON began computerized record keeping in 1995, 568 sightings have been reported online for the state of Texas, with sightings reported which date back to 1947. (Figure 1.) In contrast, during the short period from November 2007 to March 1, 2008, an estimated 300 new reports were recorded via CMS and in-person reports.

The months of January and February produced 259 sighting reports. On January 8 alone—the day of the most publicized sightings—CMS received a total of 19 sighting reports from across Texas, of which 10 were reports of sightings from the Stephenville-Dublin area. (Figures 2 and 3.) Many of the sighting reports described large lights in the sky coming on and going off in sequence. Descriptions were varied. There were two “official” daylight sightings of large objects. The object was described as gray in color, emitting no sound, and moving at a high rate of speed.

Click this link for the report.

On the same night, nearly 1900 miles to the northwest in Yreka, Calif.—and the surrounding Northern California and Southern Oregon region, there were a number of UFO sightings. I got the assignment and spoke with witnesses, California MUFON investigators and even called Angelia at her newsroom.

That’s how we met.

I wrote the story and kept in touch with Angelia. Friended one another on Facebook. Then, she told me that she had been fired; she alluded that the Empire-Tribune was getting pressure from either the government or military. Angelia said she’d walked into the newsroom and her computer was missing from her desk.

Someone took her work laptop. Remember that.

When editor Sara Vanden Berge informed Angelia that she’d been fired, Berge demanded that all reporter’s field notebooks had to be handed over too.

Berge, Angelia told me, was very insistent.

In the Netflix docuseries Encounters, the first episode is about the Stephenville UFO incidents and Berge is interviewed. Angelia died from Covid on 7 Jan. 2021, a day after Covid had taken her husband, Randell.

Sara Vanden Berge.

Berge was never thrilled with the UFO articles and was unhappy about the coverage; she was embarrassed and worried that these articles would make her look bad. There were rumors Berge was jealous of the attention Angelia received—from TV and radio interviews, talking to Art Bell and Larry King and so on. In fact, it was rumored that Berge was very bitter and all too eager to fire Angelia.

So, I watched that first episode. It brought back a lot of memories, stories, things Angelia had written and told me. It was well done and I’m glad my friend got the credit she deserved.

Watching Berge, however, was sickening. In my opinion, Sara Vanden Berge is a vile, lying manipulative wench. Her final scene was very passable acting, as she reflected on “firing” Angelia.

Angelia Joiner was a damn fine reporter. She took the subject seriously and treated the eyewitnesses with respect. Overall, she was a very decent person.

She was a friend too.

She deserved better.

Be seeing you.

-30-

UFO: Keep Watching The Skies!

On 8 July 1947, everything changed.

Continued below.

 

 

The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into possession of a flying saucer.

According to information released by the department, over authority of Maj. J. A. Marcel, intelligence officer, the disk was recovered on a ranch in the Roswell vicinity, after an unidentified rancher had notified Sheriff Geo. Wilcox, here, that he had found the instrument on his premises.

Major Marcel and a detail from his department went to the ranch and recovered the disk, it was stated.

After the intelligence office here had inspected the instrument it was flown to "higher headquarters."

The intelligence office stated that no details of the saucer's construction or its appearance had been revealed.

Mr. and Mrs. Dan Wilmot apparently were the only persons in Roswell who have seen what they thought was a flying disk.

They were sitting on their porch at 105 South Penn. last Wednesday night at about ten minutes before ten o'clock when a large glowing object zoomed out of the sky from the southeast, going in a northwesterly direction at a high rate of speed.

Wilmot called Mrs. Wilmot's attention to it and both ran down into the yard to watch. It was in sight less then a minute, perhaps 40 or 50 seconds, Wilmot estimated.

Wilmot said that it appeared to him to be about 1,500 feet high and going fast. He estimated between 400 and 500 miles per hour.

In appearance it looked oval in shape like two inverted saucers, faced mouth to mouth, or like two old type washbowls placed together in the same fashion. The entire body glowed as though light were showing through from inside, though not like it would be if a light were merely underneath.

From where he stood Wilmot said that the object looked to be about 5 feet in size, and making allowance for the distance it was from town he figured that it must have been 15 or 20 feet in diameter, though this was just a guess.

Wilmot said that he heard no sound but that Mrs. Wilmot said she heard a swishing sound for a very short time.

The object came into view from the southeast and disappeared over the treetops in the general vicinity of six-mile hill.

Wilmot, who is one of the most respected and reliable citizens in town, kept the story to himself hoping that someone else would come out and tell about having seen one, but finally today decided that he would go ahead and tell about seeing it. The announcement that the RAAF was in possession of one came only a few minutes after he decided to release the details of what he had seen.

That was the Army Air Force press release The Roswell Daily Record published on 8 July. Days earlier, people in the American Southwest reported UFO sightings—in fact, since Kenneth Arnold’s report of unknown aircraft near Mt. Rainier, thousands had seen UFO all across the country.

Then, suddenly, the USAAF retracted the story. Called it a weather balloon.

Ever since then, ufology has been debating about what or what didn’t happen. I have my own views but that’s another story.

Like the Arnold sighting, the Roswell incident has become a part of our popular culture; books, comics, movies and TV shows featuring UFOs and aliens—especially the Roswell event—have been around for decades and there’s no chance of slowing down.

Will we ever know what happened?

I don’t know.

Time, as always, will tell.

Happy Roswell Day.

Be seeing you.

-30-