Mena: Mysterious Mecca

The Masonic Lodge was destroyed, in a town with a name not heard since the William Jefferson Clinton era. Yes, I'm on the level.



James Reeves, the Polk County emergency coordinator, says the town of Mena, Arkansas, suffered a direct hit from a tornado between 7:30 and 8 p.m. Thursday, April 9, 2009.

The tornado killed three people, and injured 30 people, while it seriously damaged or destroyed 600 homes in that small western Arkansas town.



Tammy Key inspects the destroyed Masonic Lodge in Mena Arkansas, on April 10, 2009, where one person was killed after a tornado struck the building on April 9th. Battered residents of this western Arkansas town waited for day light to dig out from a "direct hit" by a tornado that killed three people, and flattened homes and businesses, including a manufacturing plant. (AP Photo/Mike Wintroath)

One of the victims was found in a collapsed house, one in a Masonic Lodge (seven people reportedly sought shelter there), and another person was found in her front yard. Their identities have not been released.

Officials say the tornado heavily damaged the downtown area, including the county courthouse. At least 100 homes were damaged enough to be rendered unsafe.

Gov. Mike Beebe has dispatched 30 National Guard soldiers to help secure the area.

Of course the governor did. Isn't part of your brain thinking outside the box on this one? With no disrespect to the families and friends of the victims, this story shouts that it needs to be investigated from a synchromystic twilight conspiracy point-of-view. Hey, no telling what kinds of top secret papers are flying around from the backrooms of that Masonic lodge and the courthouse, right?

Crazy, am I? Okay, let's insanely speculate here. Let's step back a few feet and beat all the supposedly loonie conspiracy theorists to the punch.

Probably one of the best fictional examples of the media assisting in the coverup of the real news is portrayed in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. You remember the scenes, don't you? To project the coverup of whatever contact seems to be actually happening, via the televised and print media, the US Government says there has been a massive accidental release of a cloud of poisonous gas around the Devil's Tower. Troops are sent in, and long range cameras show enough to make people believe the cover story.

Fictional scenarios like that don't come out of thin air mixed with a late night fantasy nightmare of a good screenwriter. Cover stories have a long and real history. Watergate, anyone? So, let's follow this exercise through today's news.

Now look at this news from Arkansas. All of the key wording is there, rather unbelievably and covertly broadcasting that there's funny business near at hand. Polk, Reeves, a Masonic lodge, phrases like "securing the area" spinning quickly around the name "Mena."

Do you remember the place "Mena" has in conspiracy theory and factual history? Look at how the watered down debunking version makes it even to Wikipedia's entry for the town of Mena.

During [President William Jefferson] Clinton's administration, there were accusations (most notably in the controversial film Clinton Chronicles) that Clinton, during his time as governor of Arkansas, and other high-ranking state officials were involved in some way with alleged illegal cocaine importation, money laundering, and drug-use centered upon the airport in Mena. These allegations have been disputed by several different investigations, including one by the Banking Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The film Clinton Chronicles gives the extreme view that became famous as the "Clinton Body Count." They also produced another film on the so-called "Mena connection." You might as well be aware of it if you are going to write a conspiracy screenplay for the next generation:

Pat Matrisciana, Citizens for an Honest Government, Inc., Integrity Films; and Jeremiah Films also released a 1996 video titled Obstruction of Justice: The Mena Connection. This film claimed Jay Campbell and Kirk Lane, both law enforcement officers, were connected to the murder of two teenage boys. Supposedly these two officers killed the teenagers when they came across a cocaine smuggling ring in Mena, Arkansas Clinton was tied to. The two officers sued against the false claims and Judge C. Arlen Beam of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the officers in an in-depth 26 page decision.

Despite the information above, the case, however, was reversed in 2001. The court ruled the state troopers were public figures and had to prove the producers of the documentary willingly and knowingly disregarded the truth.

Someplace between the debunkers and the total nutcases, there is the truth that Mena has been a Mecca of intrigue, mystery, and intelligence operations. (There is mainstream evidence for this, but I'll point to one easily accessible summary in a moment.)

Even that skeptical Wikipedia's Mena entry does note:

Mena was home to "Operation Black Eagle" of the Iran-Contra affair.

Today, "Operation Black Eagle" has come to denote a recent operation in Iraq, and it is interesting that the old Iran-Contra codename has been "overwritten," so to speak. What did it use to mean?

"Operation Black Eagle" covertly used Mena, "a small obscure town in western Arkansas, with a population around 5,000 people. With no tower and monitoring of flights, CIA contract employee Barry Seal found Mena to be the perfect place to fly in and out without being recorded. Seal brought up to $5 billion of cocaine into the USA during the 1980s. Mena was where he based his cargo airline and parked his one of three C123 planes that made trips to Colombia and Nicaragua," mentioned an Ezine article.

Or originally on various sites, there's this one:

"Operation Black Eagle"

What do the Mena, Arkansas, and Fire Lakes, Nevada, airfields have in common? The answer is they were both secure facilities run by the highly classified National Programs Office (NPO). Other facilities were located at Joppa, Missouri, and Iron Mountain, Texas.

President Ronald Reagan appointed Oliver North as the secret head of this secret organization, and sometime in 1983, the NPO, which is organizationally part of the National Security Agency (NSA), became the effective administrator of a covert plan called Operation Black Eagle.

Operation Black Eagle became a network of 5000 people who made possible the export of arms in the direction of Central America, and the import of drugs from the same direction. According to Navy Lt. Commander Alexander Martin (ret.), he, as an assistant to Major General Richard Secord, worked closely with Oliver North, Richard Secord, Felix Rodriquez, and Jeb Bush (son of Vice-President Bush) in the operation. Different aspects of Black Eagle were consolidated under the office of the Vice President.

What is the reality? Clearly, Mena is a special place.

In the deeply researched, nicely referenced and thorough article "The Crimes of Mena" by Sally Denton and Roger Morris, in the July 1995 issue of Penthouse Magazine, the whole Barry Seal-CIA-DEA-Mena connection is detailed.



Queen Wilhelmina of The Netherlands

Speaking of Mena, you can understand why it is often overlooked. Here's how Denton and Morris begin their article:

"Nestled in the dense pine and hardwood forests of the Oachita Mountains, some 160 miles west of Little Rock, once thought a refuge for nineteenth-century border outlaws and even a hotbed of Depression-era anarchists, the tiny town has been the locale for persistent reports of drug smuggling, gunrunning, and money laundering tracing to the early eighties, when [Barry] Seal based his aircraft at Mena's Intermountain Regional Airport."

Read the complete article here; it reveals how the story has unfolded of the CIA and DEA involvements and their use of the Mena Airport.

"Seal was smuggling drugs and kept his planes at Mena," The Wall Street Journal reported in 1994.

Barry Seal died in the 1980s, when murdered by Medellin drug cartel hit men in a brutal killing in Baton Rouge, some say with a wink and a nod from elements of the intelligence community.

Barry Seal, the gunrunner, drug trafficker, and covert C.I.A. operative extraordinaire, the man who knew too much, made Mena a household name in conspiracy jargon. He was played by Dennis Hopper in the 1991 HBO Films' Doublecrossed. Perhaps it's time for a rebroadcast of that film?

Or maybe it's time to take a look at Dan Hopsicker's video, Barry and the Boys - The CIA, the Mob and America's Secret History or try to find a copy of the book of the same name that doesn't cost $50 used?


The Old Wilhelmina Hotel (postcard), on Mt. Mena, near Mena, Arkansas.


Bill Grimstad has just penned me this note about the new events in Mena:

Seems like there's always something bad or at least bizarre happening there, starting in the late 1800s when European royalty including Queen Wilhelmina (the town name comes from that) traveled all the way to the middle-of-nowhere burg for ceremonies dedicating a hotel of some sort (but who knows what it really was).

A short distance southeast is Caddo Gap where Albert Pike had his famous books-filled retreat, abandoned after the Civil War when he went on the lam. The site is now memorialized by Camp Albert Pike.

Today, there is a Ouachita National Forest Albert Pike Recreation Area, and a Camp Albert Pike Store and Cabin, the latter being located in the Ouachita Mountains, at Caddo Gap, Arkansas, Montgomery County, north of Pike County. Montgomery County was named after Irishman and Freemason, Brigadier Gen. Richard Montgomery, an American Revolutionary War general best remembered for leading the invasion of Canada and dying in the attack on Quebec. Polk County is the location of Mena.

Seriously, why would a tornado target Mena?



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