'Cowboys and Aliens': UFO Sightings in the Wild West

Hi there. A truly splendiferous day to you! Help yourself to a mug of fresh coffee and a treat. Say, I have to confess. I was bad yesterday. Paul and Neng were in from Tokyo (well Paul was…Neng was already here and Nong and I arrived at the mall about an hour or so ahead of them so we ventured into the Food Court. 

Well, lo and behold, what was Carrefour (the French Mall Chain) had turned into Bic C (another local mall chain). Not only that but even more traumatic, the booth that sells my favourite raisin Danish was gone and in its place a…wait for it…doughnut booth. Well, being a daring individual, I thought I had better try one of their specialties, a chewy something or other kind of like a thin cruller, cream filled and a squirrily line of chocolate on top. Not bad. My fingers and I enjoyed it. It was on the bottom shelf though!  What was I going to talk to you about today? Oh yeah…cowboys and aliens. I liberated this story from “Life’s Little Mysteries”…

The new film "Cowboys and Aliens," starring Harrison "Indiana Jones" Ford and Daniel "James Bond" Craig, opened this week and is likely to snatch the top spot at the box office this weekend. The anachronistic sci-fi thriller tells the story of extraterrestrials who attack a small New Mexico town in search of — well, I won't give away any spoilers.

But what about sightings and reports of aliens in the Old West? Surprisingly, there actually are a few reports of extraterrestrial encounters in the 1800s. In those days folks didn't use terms like "UFO" or "flying saucer" (that phrase didn't appear until 1947), but instead referred to spacecraft as "airships."

By far the most detailed (and most dramatic) encounter between cowboys and aliens occurred in 1897 Texas. This account ran in the April 19 Dallas Morning News: "About 6 o'clock this morning the early risers of Aurora [Texas] were astonished at the sudden appearance of the airship which has been sailing throughout the country. It was traveling due north and sailed over the public square and when it reached the northern part of town it collided with the tower of Judge Proctor's windmill and went to pieces with a terrific explosion, scattering debris over several acres of ground." 

This is remarkable enough, but the account takes on an even more modern twist: "The pilot of the ship is supposed to have been the only one aboard, and while his remains were disfigured, enough of the original has been picked up to show that he was not an inhabitant of this world. Mr. T.J. Weems [of] the U.S. Army... gives his opinion that the pilot was a native of the planet Mars. Papers found on his person — evidently the records of his travels — are written in some unknown hieroglyphics, and cannot be deciphered... The ship was built of an unknown metal, resembling somewhat a mixture of aluminum and silver, and must have weighed several tons. The town today is full of people who are viewing the wreckage and gathering specimens of strange metal from the debris."

This amazing UFO encounter, complete with a crashed spacecraft, dozens of witnesses, a recovered dead Martian, and metallic wreckage came not from a novelist but instead a credible witness and respected reporter for the newspaper, a Mr. E.E. Haydon. Fifty years later, a nearly identical story would circulate about another, very similar UFO crash in a neighboring state: Roswell, N.M.

The late UFO investigator Phil Klass researched this encounter between cowboys and aliens for his book “UFOs Explained." The accounts by witnesses fell apart under close scrutiny. No follow-up newspaper stories appeared about this amazing incident; no witnesses could be found to support Haydon's story, and nothing of the alien nor his "several tons" of mysterious metallic spacecraft wreckage was ever found. Plus, it was later revealed that Judge Proctor didn't even have a windmill for the alien to crash into! It turned out that Haydon had made the whole thing up as a publicity stunt to get people to come to the dying Texas town. Once a lively and bustling frontier town frequented by prospectors on their way to the Gold Rush, Aurora had fallen on hard times and needed a tourism boost.

It was a cracking good yarn while it lasted. Stories of cowboys and aliens have entertained us for well over a century, though hard evidence of extraterrestrials remains as elusive as ever.

They’re out there…somewhere…waiting… maybe for the rights to a Tim Horton’s or Krispy Kreme franchise on their home planet.

See ya…

Bob

A Really Bad Day

G’day, eh! Salubrious day out there. Hope you’re fit as the proverbial fiddle. Cup of coffee? Virtual treat? Help yourself. Say, I thought you’d get a kick out of this item from a Florida newspaper:

A man was working on his motorcycle on his patio and his wife was in the house in the kitchen. The man was racing the engine on the motorcycle and somehow the motorcycle slipped into gear. The man, still holding the handlebars, was dragged through a glass patio door and along with the motorcycle dumped onto the floor inside the house.

The wife, hearing the crash, ran into the dining room, and found her husband lying on the floor, cut and bleeding, the motorcycle lying next to him and the patio door shattered.

The wife ran to the phone and summoned an ambulance.

Because they lived on a fairly large hill, the wife went down the several flights of long steps to the street to direct the paramedics to her husband. After the ambulance arrived and transported the husband to the hospital, the wife uprights the motorcycle and pushed it outside.

Seeing that gas had spilled on the floor, the wife obtained some papers towels, blotted up the gasoline, and threw the towels in the toilet.

The husband was treated at the hospital and was released to come home. After arriving home, he looked at the shattered patio door and the damage done to his motorcycle. He became despondent, went into the bathroom, sat on the toilet and smoked a cigarette. After finishing the cigarette, he flipped it between his legs into the toilet bowl while still seated.

The wife, who was in the kitchen, heard a loud explosion and her husband screaming. She ran into the bathroom and found her husband lying on the floor. His trousers had been blown away and he was suffering burns on the buttocks, the back of his legs and his groin. The wife again ran to the phone and called for an ambulance.

The same ambulance crew was dispatched and the wife met them at the street. The paramedics loaded the husband on the stretcher and began carrying him to the street. While they were going down the stairs to the street accompanied by the wife, one of the paramedics asked the wife how the husband had burned himself. She told them and the paramedics started laughing so hard, one of them tipped the stretcher and dumped the husband out. He fell down the remaining steps and broke his arm.

Now he definitely had a bad day, wouldn’t you say?

See ya!

Bob

Comment from Bones in Valleyfield:

In her picture you can see her starting to put her finger forward into Honeymoon pleasures and maybe leading to the chasm of love or maybe she owns a Chrysler and that was for the starter button.

If she has a child as a result of this union, maybe we will see some different immaculate names around Christmas or Easter. <I:-))

Bones from Québec

Comment from Sharon in Montreal:

I guess it's one way to not ever get a divorce but it could cost more than a divorce in batteries!!! 

Bob’s reply:

Could be a job for the Eveready bunny!

Woman marries herself

Well there you are. Glad you could click on by the old virtual café today. Got a fresh pot of coffee and a some nice chewy no-fat virtual Chinese doughnuts (Pah-tong-go). Go get ‘em – they make great dunkers! Say, did you read about the woman who married herself? Yup. You know I don’t make these things up, right? 

A 30-year-old Taiwanese woman has put an unusual twist on the traditional white wedding by ditching the husband part and marrying herself.

Office worker Chen Wei-yih said she wanted to show other single thirty-something women that they were not failures, media reported. 

“I was just hoping that more people would love themselves,” Chen said.

Chen splurged on her $5,700 solo-ceremony, renting a banquet hall, hiring a wedding planner and photographer and inviting 30 of her friends to witness the event. 

She is also planning a honeymoon to Australia. 

Chen was matter-of-fact about her decision: “Age 30 is a prime period for me. My work and experience are in good shape, but I haven’t found a partner, so what can I do?” she said. 

“It’s not that I’m anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition,” Chen said. 

Chen’s move has won her fans and sympathisers worldwide through an online publicity campaign leading up to the wedding. 

But it was reported that the ceremony did not officially certify Chen as married, meaning that if she does happen to find a suitable partner later on, she will not have to divorce herself in order to get married again. 

Hey, I’m not even going to talk about the wedding night, eh! Nor the honeymoon in Oz! Not me. Did you feel a vibration? No sir…I’m not saying a thing! 

See ya!

Bob

The Bermuda Triangle – portal to another dimension?

G’day! You didn’t get stomped by a kangaroo, attacked by a swarm of killer bees or beset upon by a hoard of cackling geese on your way here did you?  What’s this world coming to when a poor old 94 year old woman can’t even hang her laundry out without some angry ‘roo trying to beat the cr*p out of her, eh? Anyway, pour some fresh coffee into that mug you’re holding and snag a treat. Then, I want to bend your ear about one of my favourite mysteries – The Bermuda Triangle. First time I ever went to Bermuda was on Air Canada and we sat 4 ½ hours at Mirabel Airport in Montreal with the rear door open in February at -22F …but that’s another story!

The Bermuda Triangle is infamous for making everything from cargo ships to airplanes disappear. The mysterious body of water is clouded with rumors of suspicious — if not supernatural — activity. Over the past century, the Bermuda Triangle has been "swallowing" vessels and is blamed for the loss of hundreds of lives. I’ll recap some of its strangest disappearances.

Also sinisterly known as the Devil's Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle consists of a region in the western part of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is defined by points in Bermuda, Florida and Puerto Rico. It stretches across less than a thousand miles on any one side.

The Bermuda Triangle's eerie reputation began on Dec. 5, 1945, when flight 19, a squadron of five U.S. Navy torpedo bombers, vanished into thin air during a routine training exercise. The planes were fully equipped and had been thoroughly checked before they departed from the Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale in Florida. What made the disappearance even more mysterious is that it occurred during peacetime, making it less likely that they were shot down.

Before losing radio contact off the coast of southern Florida, Flight 19's flight leader was reportedly heard saying: "Everything looks strange, even the ocean," and "We are entering white water, nothing seems right." The aircrafts and 14 crew members were never found, despite a lengthy investigation by the government. In fact, a search-and-rescue aircraft with 13 men onboard was dispatched to locate the missing planes, but that aircraft and its passengers also inexplicably disappeared. And thus, the Bermuda Triangle's spooky reputation was solidified.

The Bermuda Triangle is believed to be responsible for the mysterious disappearance of more than 50 ships and 20 airplanes over the past century, according to the U.S. Navy. The Star Ariel, a passenger aircraft owned by British South American Airways, went missing on Jan. 17, 1949. The plane had been flying over the Bermuda Triangle while making its way from Kindley Field in Bermuda to Kingston, Jamaica. Weather conditions at the time of the disappearance had been calm and fair, and no wreckage was ever found. All seven crew members and 13 passengers were lost.

The SS Marine Sulphur Queen, a converted T2 tanker ship carrying molten sulphur and 39 crew members, disappeared near the southern coast of Florida. It was last heard from on Feb. 4, 1963, when it sent a routine radio message. When it failed to make further communication, search crews were dispatched to locate it. After more than two weeks of looking, the rescue team only found a few shards of debris and life preservers, shown above. It's a bit unsettling that the Sulphur Queen vanished into "the Devil's Triangle," since folklore says that the king of the underworld reeks of sulphur.

U.S.S. Cyclops, a massive collier ship was lost at sea in 1918. After leaving Barbados for Baltimore, Md., on March 4, the vessel vanished without a trace, taking 306 crew members and passengers with it. It remains the single largest loss of life in U.S. Naval history that was not the result of combat.

The USS Nereus was one of four Proteus-class colliers built for the U.S. Navy during World War I. The craft was named after the mythological Greek sea god Nereus, protector of sailors. The USS Nereus was lost at sea sometime after Dec. 10, 1941, as it made its way towards Portland, Maine, from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. It disappeared with a crew of 61 along the same route as its sister-ship, the USS Proteus, had vanished from the previous month.

The USS Proteus was a Navy collier that had been converted into a merchant ship. It was never heard from again after Nov. 23, 1941, when it left port from St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands, bound for an East Coast port in the United States. The approximately 540-foot-long (165 meters) ship was carrying 58 men and a cargo of bauxite ore to be made into aluminum.

Several bizarre theories have been presented in attempts to explain the disappearances. UFO abductions, time warps, portals leading to other dimensions (I like that one!), magnetic field anomalies, geophysical phenomena and massive methane gas bubbles have all been blamed for the triangle's unsolved mysteries. A popular theory is that the legendary lost city of Atlantis rests at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle, and its advanced technology interferes with nearby vessels. (I like that one, too!)

Retrieving sunken planes and ships from the Bermuda Triangle is especially difficult because it is home to the Puerto Rico Trench, which reaches depths of about 30,100 feet (9,200 meters) and is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean. Crafts that sink to such low points are seldom seen again.

Hey…a couple days ago, I mentioned a sinkhole that almost swallowed somebody's granny. Could there be sinkholes under the ocean, I wonder? That wouldn’t explain the disappearing aircrart though, would it? I think that ‘other dimension’ theory should be looked into.

See ya!

Bob

94 Year old attacked by Kangaroo!

Hey! Good to see you! Glad you clicked by. How’s it going anyway? Ticking right along? Pour some of that Arabica into your cup and cast your eyes over the fine selection on the top shelf there. Help yourself. It’s only virtual calories so have two, why don’t’cha! Say, I know you are interested in the occasional personal interest story. Well here’s a lady who ‘roos’ the day she hung out her wash this week!

94-year-old Phyllis Johnson was attacked by a kangaroo as she hung out her washing. The angry red kangaroo knocked to the ground and then kicked her several times in her garden in the Queensland town of Charleville.

 “I thought it was going to kill me. It was taller than me and it just ploughed through the clothes on the washing line straight for me. It was taller than me and it just ploughed through the clothes on the washing line straight for me."

Mrs Johnson tried to push the bouncing beast away from her with a broom but said nothing was going to put him off.

Her son, too, tried to fight off the kangaroo but without success.

It was then he called the police who soon found themselves on the receiving end of the roo's ire as it then lunged at them.

At that point, they decided to take out the pepper spray to subdue the animal.

"One officer had to deploy his spray on the animal and it ran away and saw the other police officer out of the corner of its eye," Sergeant Stephen Perkins explained.

"The other officer also had to deploy his spray to keep from getting hurt. It's one of the many unusual calls we get out here."

Mrs Johnson revealed the roo had taken a chunk of flesh out of her leg and she would probably have to have an operation.

No theory was put forth about why the kangaroo came after Phyllis. Maybe it was the aroma of the ‘Roo’ burgers her son was grilling on the Barbie! 

See ya!

Bob