Ufologist and Ufology Artist Gene Duplantier Dies

Canadian ufologist and early UFO artist Gene Duplantier died at the age of 94, on December 17, 2019.

Duplantier, whose illustrations grace the pages of several classic saucer publications, was the editor of the UFO magazine Saucers, Space and Science. In The Night Mutilators, he presented a round-up of cases up to 1980. This book contains plenty of unsettling details about various abduction and mutilation incidents, culminating with the incidents in New Mexico, around the Dulce area, as investigated by researcher Gabe Valdez.

 

Gene Duplantier’s rendition of Roger Scarberry’s original sketch in John Keel's private Specialized Research, Inc. newsletter set a standard for how researchers viewed the Mothman. (This illustration above was shared on Doug Skinner's website, johnkeel.com).

Gene Duplantier drew this picture of John Keel surrounded by “the denizens of his Superspectrum” for Gray Barker’s Newsletter, February 1976.

November, 19, 1925 - December 17, 2019 ~ Toronto, Ontario

Eugene Arthur Christopher Duplantier was the son of the late Sydney and Antolina. He was a loving and caring husband to his late wife Eileen. Later in life he met Haroze who became his companion and her daughter Rehannah. Affectionately known as Gene, he loved to travel abroad in particular to sunny destinations and had a passion for outer space. He developed a publication Delve Magazine, which had many followers. He worked as an artist for McLean Magazine from which he retired. He was a great artist fond of drawings and paintings with one of his designs to be published by a Swedish artist. He loved music being very fond of jazz and tending to his garden at home. Gene liked to keep his mind busy with crossword puzzles after long walks to the mall and closely following Toronto baseball and hockey in his retirement years. Haroze cared for him at home as per his wishes until he passed in December 2019. Source.

h/t death awareness to John E.L. Tenney 

Pug Mysteries Persist

Mothman and a pug?

On August 3, 2017, I detailed the strange and secret history of The Order of the Pug dating back to at least 1740. (See here: "The Order of the Pug: Mogs, Grunge, and Hanging Suicides.")

Trump and William Hogarth

This included the remarkable realization that an earlier admirer or perhaps member of the Order, painter William Hogarth (November 10, 1697 - October 26, 1764), began a self-portrait in 1735, entitled Painter and his Pug. Finished in 1745, it shows Hogarth and his pug, named Trump.

The modern "members" of the "Order of the Pug," as noted earlier, have included more than high-born artists, kings and queens. "Today the aristocracy is not about monarchs, entitled rulers, or even political world leaders, as much as in the past. The elite currently is made up of celebrities of show business, sports, and music, the global point people of the world of entertainment."

"Perhaps the Order of the Pug still exists, a variant on the rock and roll Illuminati that is the theme of so many conspiracy postings across the Internet," I wrote in August 2017.

The awareness of such a reality is often subtly revealed in publicity photographs or covert mentions in obituaries.

Unknown and Michael Massee

For example, take the checkered career of Michael Massee, seen above in this publicity shot for Fringe, with a pug during his bizarre role of Anson Carr. Massee died October 20, 2016, at 64, from stomach cancer.

Massee is forever remembered for his 1993 role, where he portrayed the character Funboy in the film The Crow, starring Brandon Lee. Massee was the actor who fired the shot that killed Lee by accident on the set in 1993, due to an improperly prepared prop gun. He was so traumatized by the event that he returned to New York and took a year off from acting and never saw the film. In an interview in 2005, 12 years after the incident, Massee revealed that he still had nightmares about it, going on to say, "I don't think you ever get over something like that."

In one of those annoying click-bait articles, "20 Celebs Supposedly Sacrificed by the Illuminati," actor #15 is Brandon Lee. 

If we are going to travel down this rabbit hole, we might as well continue.

Saved by the Bell

Did you hear that Saved by the Bell is nothing more than an Illuminati fantasy via a dream in Zack Morris' head? 

"Each Saved by the Bell episode begins with a theme song that tells us what is literally happening in the real world in the time between episodes. Zack is riding low in his chair, not liking how he looks in the mirror and generally eating shit like any other high school student. Then the song’s chorus (and the title of the show) releases him to the fantasy world that both he and the show’s audience like so much better than real school: the infinite dream world of Bayside High. That dream world constitutes every episodes of Saved by the Bell, and it only exists in the mind of some awkward, pimply faced version of Zack Morris who can’t catch a break."

"It explains the show better than the claim that we’re watching any sort of real experience in high school. Shouldn’t be too surprising since this show was an offshoot of the Illuminati-riddled Disney company who originally called it Good Morning, Miss Bliss (which was at JFK High School originally; begging to be tied to conspiracy theories…)."

An image of "Mark Paul Walker."

"The main character, Zack Morris graduates with an SAT score of 1502 (considered average), and then gets accepted to none other than Yale University; home of the Illuminati secret society Skull & Bones. Some claim that he wouldn’t have been able to get into Yale with that low of an SAT score. Mark-Paul Gosselaar plays Zack Morris, and some theorists claim that he and Paul Walker are one and the same. Not so obscure if you consider that Paul Walker was in the Skull & Bones in his film The Skulls, as discussed in [the author's] post about the Paul Walker death conspiracy theories."

Albert and Sam Bobrick

And who turns out to be the author of Saved by the Bell?

The successful television series Saved by the Bell creator Sam Bobrick, 87, died on October 11, 2019, after suffering a stroke. He was 87. The screenwriter was also know for scripts for Captain Kangaroo, The Andy Griffith Show, Bewitched, The Flintstones, Get Smart, The Kraft Music Hall, and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Bobrick was furthermore a celebrated playwright, having written over 40 works, including The Psychic. 

Obituaries about Bobrick noted he is survived by his wife Julie; children Lori, Stefanie and Joey (Linda); grandchildren Ariel and Josh; and his pet Albert the Wonder Pug.

Boo Bear and Charles Levin

A few months ago, a death occurred that has unfolded with more horrific (or mysterious) details this week. And yes, it involves a pug.

It all revolved around the disappearance of Charles Levin, a 70-year-old actor, well known for roles in Alice, Hill Street Blues, and as the mohel on "The Bris" episode of Seinfield.

On July 8, 2019, Charles Levin's son Jesse reported to the police that Levin was missing, and he had not been heard from since June 28. At the time, Levin lived in Grants Pass, Oregon, and was in the process of moving to a new house in the town. Levin's car was found on July 12 on a remote road northeast of Selma, Oregon. His pug, Boo Bear, was discovered deceased inside. The pug was able to be identified from the purple collar it was still wearing.

A body believed to be Levin's was found a day later. 

On November 8, 2019, the cause of death was made public. Levin's nude body had been found in a ravine. Levin fell down a 30 foot steep hill while he presuming was trying to get help because he was lost. His remains were partially eaten by animals, most likely turkey vultures. On July 15, it was confirmed that the body was Levin's. 

An official report from Oregon, published by the Daily Mail, gives graphic details.

Police are not treating the death as a homicide or suicide, and Levin's son has reported that it is being investigated as accidental.

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What if the "turkey vultures" were Thunderbirds or Mothmen?

Mysteries and pugs go together more than we wish to imagine.

Mothman and Pug, from 2018 ~> Source: Swinkies by Melissa Holmes on Esty.

Mothman Math: Dates, Disasters, and Deaths

Mothman: Evil Incarnate

Review by Andrew W. Griffin, here.

Review by Nick Redfern, here. 

"Mothman Math" is the underlying bits of twilight language that entwine numbers, prophecy, and the evil events that haunt the fabric of Mothman-related interactions. It involves a type of arithmetic that links to augury, the prophecies that have been tied to sightings of Mothman. Whether factual or not, a psychological pattern has emerged, almost in a folkloric sense, related to a specific numeral that routinely appears in the Mothman story.

"Prophecies," of course, are important parts of the Mothman tale, and the motion picture version of The Mothman Prophecies extended the "banshee" elements of the story. The movie was fiction-based on a true story. Some of its enhancements created greater fictions.

Dates, disasters, and deaths do dwell along the edges of this story. But we can be openly skeptical of many portions of what we are being told. 

As I said to Micah Hanks in 2010:

John Keel and I openly discussed with the media, and did our best to straighten out the record regarding the mythos that became the Chernobyl “Mothman” accounts.
The Chernobyl story, the Galveston Hurricane-Mothman tie-in, and other examples given in the 2002 movie were pure fiction....Right after the movie was released, various websites posted the Chernobyl/Mothman sightings as factual. But there is not one thread of evidence that any winged weirdies were witnessed before the Chernobyl accident.
It is a bit of movie fiction that has, unfortunately, moved into pseudo-factoid cryptozoology.

What facts are behind the fiction?

Beyond the synchrocinematic mischief, nevertheless, most people know there is Mothman math that authentically revolves around the number "13."

In my 2002 book, Mothman and Other Curious Encounters, I looked at how 13 months after the "first" sighting of Mothman on November 15, 1966, the "prophecy" implied in the title The Mothman Prophecies occurred. This happened when the Silver Bridge collapsed as the White House Christmas tree lights were illuminated on December 15, 1967.

The number 13 is considered an unlucky number in some countries. The end of the Mayan calendar's 13th Baktun was superstitiously feared as a harbinger of the apocalyptic 2012 phenomenon. Fear of the number 13 has a specifically recognized phobia, Triskaidekaphobia, a word coined in 1911. The superstitious sufferers of triskaidekaphobia try to avoid bad luck by keeping away from anything numbered or labelled thirteen. As a result, companies and manufacturers use another way of numbering or labelling to avoid the number, with hotels and tall buildings being conspicuous examples (thirteenth floor). It's also considered unlucky to have thirteen guests at a table. Friday the 13th has been considered an unlucky day. Source.

In my new 2017 book, Mothman: Evil Incarnate, I document how the number 13 plays a deeper role in the Mothman timeline. The first sighting, the collapse of the Silver Bridge, and when Mary Hyre died all are linked to the number 13 in the Mothman melodrama.

Thirteen months after the "first" Mothman sighting (Nov 15, 1966), the Silver Bridge collapsed (Dec 15, 1967). The only problem is that the Scarberry-Mallette encounter of November 15, 1966, was the "first" sighting that showed up in the media. There were other sightings that occurred before that one. But the November date is retained as the "first" and thus exactly 13 months to the day, the bridge came down. As I mention in my book (due out by the 50th anniversary of the Silver Bridge collapse - December 15, 2017), "Mothman math" figures in other links.

For instance, I extend this through my Mary Hyre entry (#47 of #100, in my section on the "The Mothman Death List") that I reproduce here from the new book:

The complex use of "Mothman math" as a yardstick for measuring these events, involving the number 13, has now (via comments online) been applied to the new Chicago Mothman sightings.

How should we look at the dates involved?

In my research on the most recent series of Chicago "Mothman" sightings, the first media-acknowledged 2017 encounter, report, and story is dated to April 7, 2017. But by July 2017, it was becoming commonly accepted the real (unpublished) initial sighting was on March 22, 2017.

Therefore, by traditional "Mothman math," the predicted 13-month date for a Chicago-based disaster event would be tied from the publicized "first date" to the one exactly 13 months later: May 7, 2018.

However, I would not wish to tempt fate with a series of elevator tours of the Chicago skyscrapers on April 22, 2018. As students of terrorism understand, double-number dates like 11 & 22 have been especially attractive to terrorists in the modern era.

Should we look at older dates linked to "Mothman sightings," and apply "Mothman math" to them, to test the auguric arithmetic?

Lon Strickler tells me that the first date for the 2011 little-known series of Chicago Mothman encounters was June 29, 2011.

What happened on July 29, 2012, thirteen months after the Chicago incident?
Tropical Storm Khanun killed 88 people and left 60,000 homeless in North Korea.

(Between the 2011 date and the technical start of the newest Chicago Mothman series on April 7, 2017, I must note a tragedy touched primary investigator Lon Stickler. He lost his wife of 33 years, Vanessa, who passed away on November 7, 2015, of cancer. It was exactly 17 months between November 7, 2015, and April 7, 2017.)

Another case to examine is what the late Mark Chorvinsky (who died July 16, 2005), editor of Strange Magazine, called the "Potomac Mothman." 

On July 27, 1944, at 8:30 pm, Father J. M. Johnson, pastor of St. John's Church in Hollywood, Maryland, saw in the sky "the outspread form of a huge man with wings."

What date would have been 13 months after the "Potomac Mothman" sighting? That would have been August 27, 1945.

What happened on August 27, 1945?
The Texas hurricane made landfall near Seadrift, Texas. The storm resulted in three fatalities and $20 million in damage.
The first United States Navy carrier plane touches down on Japanese soil, at Honshu/Atsugi Airdrome. The American occupation begins.

Will a disaster happen on May 7, 2018? Or on April 22, 2018? In Chicago? Elsewhere? A tornado? Only time will tell? But certainly, those who use "Mothman math" may be on the lookout.

+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+13+

The Mothman Wiki has an entry that reinforces this Mothman Math:

Some consider the Mothman legend to be associated with the number 13:
The Original Point Pleasant WV Mothman reports started in November 1966 and ended in December 1967 with the collapse of The Silver Bridge. This makes it a 13 month period of strange events.
The Silver Bridge Collapsed because of the faulty 13th steel pin eyebar.
The name Point Pleasant has 13 letters in it.
The most polluted pond in The TNT Area , where many of the sightings took place, was pond 13.
The Men In Black were reported to have been harassing witnesses and telling them not to talk about The Mothman. The phrase "The Men In Black" has 13 letters in it.
The name Mothman Museum has 13 letters in it.
The maiden name of Mothman witness Linda Scarberry is Linda McDaniel which contains 13 letters.
Linda Scarberry claimed to have seen the Mothman on her roof when she lived on 13th street.
The name of Mothman witness Steve Mallette has 13 letters in it.
The name of Mothman witness Kenneth Duncan has 13 letters in it.
The name of Mothman witness Mabel McDaniel has 13 letters in it.
The name of Mothman witness Katluyn Beaver has 13 letters in it.
Everett Wedge was with four other pilots during his sighting, the name of one was Ernie Thompson which contains 13 letters.
Faye Dewitt-Leport is said to have had her encounter with the Mothman at the age of 13.
Owner of the Mothman Diner and prominent Point Pleasant local, Carolin Harris, also has 13 letters in her name.
The 2017 documentary The Mothman of Point Pleasant was directed by Seth Breedlove, who has 13 letters in his name.
Both the phrase "West Virginian" and "The Ohio Valley" have 13 letters in them.
Artist Frank Frazetta did cover art for The Mothman Prophecies, he also has 13 letters in his name.
In relation to the Indrid Cold story, the term "Parkersburg WV" and "Mr. Derenberger" have 13 letters in them.
John Keel, the main investigator of the Mothman suffered a non-lethal heart attack and was hospitalized on Friday, October 13th 2006.
13 people died in The Mississippi River Bridge Collapsed in 2007 after a sighting of the Mothman.
The number 26 is divisible by 13, It is 13 x 2, a set of two thirteens:
There are 26 sightings on John Keel's Mothman sightings list printed in his book, Strange Creatures From Time And Space.
Mary Hyre died on February 15th 1970 which is 26 months after the The Silver Bridge Collapse.
Three Mothman sightings are said to have taken place on November 26th 1966. The witnesses are: Ruth Foster in St. Albans WV, Marvin Shock and Ewing Tilton in Cat Creek Ohio, Women and Thirteen year old child in Charleston WV. Source.

Obtain the above two books - numbered special, signed copies - by Loren Coleman, here.

The table of contents of Mothman: Evil Incarnate.

Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds 

by Mark A. Hall, Introduction by Loren Coleman

Link to this podcast, here.

Batman Dies

William West Anderson, born September 19, 1928, in Walla Walla, Washington State, better known as Adam West, died Friday, June 9, 2017. He passed away after a short battle with leukemia.

In 1959, West moved with his wife and two children to Hollywood, where he took the stage name Adam West. In his autobiography Back to the Batcave, he explains he chose "Adam" simply because he liked the way it looked and sounded with "West," his middle name. His close friends and family still call him "Bill."


West's acting career began in films in 1959, and he achieved his signature fame via the ABC series Batman (debut, 1966) and its theatrical feature film. He did voice work on The Fairly OddParents, The Simpsons and Family Guy (where he voiced fictional versions of himself in all of those animated series) and also Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders.

West starred in an episode of the ABC Outer Limits series titled "The Invisible Enemy."

Producer William Dozier cast West as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, Batman, in the television series Batman, in part after seeing West perform as the James Bond-like spy Captain Q in a Nestlé Quik commercial. 

Skull and Bones:

Batman was an intriguing series with a variety of synch-conspiracy angles, such as the one relating to Bruce Wayne's great-grandfather being a founder of Skull and Bones.

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Bond & The Gemstone File:

In 1970, West was offered the role of James Bond by Cubby Broccoli for the film Diamonds Are Forever. West did not accept, later stating in his autobiography that he believed the role should always be played by a British actor.

As I asked in 2012: "What is the most synchromystic, conspiracy-laden James Bond film?"

The answer is an obvious one. It happens to be the cinematic expression that revealed Ian Fleming's leaking of the Gemstone Files, in one of the 23 Bond films that have been made through 2012: Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Read more here.

Mothman: 

The 1966 Batman TV show inspired a local West Virginia newspaper copy editor, early in the 1966 sighting series of a large winged monster in Point Pleasant, to dub the creature "Mothman."

Route 66's Martin Milner Dies

If you ever plan to motor west,

Travel my way, take the highway that is best. ~ Route 66

Route 66's Martin Milner died on Sunday, September 6, 2015. Milner died at his home in Carlsbad, California, at the age of 83.

Martin Sam Milner (December 28, 1931 – September 6, 2015) was an American film, stage, radio and television actor. Milner is best known for his performances in two popular television series: Route 66, which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964, and Adam-12, which aired on NBC from 1968 to 1975.

Route 66 is an American television drama that premiered on CBS on October 7, 1960, and ran until March 20, 1964, for a total of 116 episodes. The series was created by Herbert B. Leonard and Stirling Silliphant, who were also responsible for the ABC drama Naked City, from which Route 66 was indirectly spun off. Both series employed a format that employed elements of both traditional drama and anthology drama, but there was a difference in where the shows were set: Naked City was set in New York, while Route 66 had its setting change from week to week, with each episode being shot on location in the area in which it was set.

Martin Milner starred as Tod Stiles, a recent college graduate with no future prospects due to circumstances beyond his control. He was originally joined by Buz Murdock, a friend and former employee of his father played by George Maharis, on his travels, Buz leaving midway through the third season with the character of Buz contracting echovirus. Near the end of the third season Tod met a recently discharged Vietnam veteran named Lincoln Case, played by Glenn Corbett, who decided to follow Tod on his travels and stayed with him until the final episode.

Students of Forteana, political assassinations, and the unexplained are familiar with how symbolic this program remains tied to this road's number. One of strangest cases I ever investigated in Illinois was “the Blue Phantom of Route 66," seen during the 1950s, as I document in Mysterious America. Jim Brandon in his The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit notes the significance of 33's "second multiple" being 66, and how roads designated "66" appear in the midst of strange situations, as, for example, during the specific key Mothman years' sightings along West Virginia State Road 66.

In the recent Bridgewater Plaza killings, it ended with the suicide of the gunman on I-66.

It's a small world, after all. Above is Glenda Jennings, shown in the February 15, 1963 episode of Route 66, "Somehow It Gets to Be Tomorrow," filmed in Corpus Christi, Texas. Red Dirt Report editor Andrew W. Griffin's godmother, who had married his mother's oldest brother, played a carhop in the episode.

Griffin mentioned this to me as we discussed the strange, pre-JFK assassination episode, "Love is a Skinny Kid" on Route 66, released on April 6, 1962, filmed in "Dallas."

For more on the more bizarre aspects of Route 66, see:

Route 66, Weld, JFK, and To Kill a King

Tuesday Weld is distantly related to Charles J. Guiteau, who assassinated President James A. Garfield. I just wrote about Chicago's Garfield Park.

Old Route 66 Again: McStay Remains Found

Route 66 Bigfoot Hunting Shooting Suspects Identified

Route 66 Again

and from the Red Dirt Report

Memorializing the Mother Road in Oklahoma

Skagit River Bridge Collapses

The Curse Continues ©Charles Berlin 2007 = Yes, that's Loren Coleman in the vehicle.

Memories of the collapse of bridges of bygone days - the Silver Bridge (at Rt. 35) at Point Pleasant, WVA and the I-35 W Bridge in Minneapolis - come to mind when a new bridge falls. Popular culture has associated Mothman sightings with such collapses. The falling of tonight's bridge on I-5 out West is not linked to any reports of winged creatures being seen in the area.

 The I-35W Bridge collapse, 2007.

The Rt. 35 Silver Bridge collapse, 1967.

Historically, Washington State had some rather significant weird flying men sighting in 1948. In that year, there were two unusual sightings in Washington State (hundreds of miles south of Mt. Vernon, please note). 

On January 6, 1948, on a farm just outside the small town of Chehalis, 61-year-old Bernice Zaikowski saw a man flying with some sort of wings strapped to his back. Only a few months after Zaikowski’s sighting, on April 9, 1948, three flying men were seen above Longview, Washington state. Viola Johnson, a laundry worker, and the eyewitnesses told reporters she had seen what looked like “three men in flying suits flying through the air. They wore dark drab flying suits...circling the city."

The Interstate 5 bridge over the Skagit River at Mount Vernon, Washington State did collapse Thursday evening, May 23, 2013, dumping vehicles and people into the water shortly after 7 p.m.

One individual was pulled from the water, one was seen on the top of a car, and an unknown number of people were missing in the water.

State Patrol Trooper Mark Francis said it was not clear how many were in the water or the extent the injuries. Photos showed one man sitting on the top of his red car waiting to be rescued.

Rita Miller, who works at the Riverbend RV Park, said a Navy rescue team was on the site with a helicopter with dozens of first responders. A crowd of about 1,000 people gathered at the bridge. A hovercraft was near the fifth bridge span to the north and was fighting the strong Skagit River current on the west side of the bridge during the rescue effort.

It was not clear what caused the collapse.

The four-lane north and southbound bridge, built in 1955, was used by 70,000 vehicles daily, according to 2010 statistics.

Skagit is named after the Salishan tribal group that use to live in the area. Skagit tribal elders today define the name Skagit as “a place of refuge” or “a place to hide ourselves.”

44th President Syncs With Four Oaths

The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama is a man of symbolism. Perhaps no other number is more synchromystical in his life that "4."

President Obama takes his 4th oath of office for the President of the USA, on January 21, 2013, the symbolically significant Martin Luther King Day.

Obama was born on August 4, 1961. He married Michelle Robinson on October 3, 1992.

The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born on July 4, 1998; followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), on June 10, 2001.

Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago and was a civil rights attorney until 2004. He served as a representative in the Illinois Senate until November 4, 2004. In 2004, Obama was elected to the United States Senate for Illinois. 

On November 4, 2008, Obama won the presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by John McCain. 

Barack Obama is sworn in on January 20, 2009, for his first term. The first time.

On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt calling for "A New Beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States and promoting Middle East peace.

On the 4th of April (the fourth month), 2011, Obama announced his re-election campaign for 2012 in a video titled "It Begins with Us" that he posted on his website and filed election papers with the Federal Election Commission. 

President Barack Obama is officially sworn-in by Chief Justice John Roberts in the Blue Room of the White House during the 57th Presidential Inauguration in Washington, Sunday, January 20, 2013. A portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale is behind the President.

At noon today, January 21, 2013, President Barack Obama will have taken the oath of office for the presidency four times for his two terms.

It is to be recalled that on January 21, 2009, the day after the inauguration of Barack Obama, Chief Justice John Roberts re-administered the constitutional oath of office to Obama in the Map Room (the oath having been flubbed in the ceremony the previous day).

The Charles Willson Peale painting of Benjamin Latrobe, a Freemason and the first Architect of the USA, was moved from elsewhere in the White House's Map Room, to be behind the swearing in on January 21, 2009. Latrobe designed many buildings around Lafayette Park, including the highly symbolic Stephen Decatur House.

 The Map Room in 2008, before the second swearing in during 2009. The Latrobe painting was not over the fireplace.

 The Map Room (above and below) in 1992.

Mothman-Latrobe

Intriguing footnote: In 1848, newly appointed president Thomas Swann and Chief Engineer Benjamin Latrobe sent surveyors to chart a route through the then-Virginia mountains west of Cumberland. Mason County, West Virginia and Point Pleasant, West Virginia - Mothman Country - were first surveyed and charted by Latrobe's surveyors. On January 20, 2013, @anomalistnews floated a news bulletin throughout Twitterland that President Barack Obama had taken his first oath this year on a copy of The Mothman Prophecies. An inappropriate silly joke, perhaps, but one in which there is a strange link to the factual "redo swearing in" of January 21, 2009.

The Number 4

The number of order in the universe is 4—the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water; the four seasons; the four points of the compass; the four phases of the Moon (new, half-moon waxing, full, half-moon waning). The Four Noble Truths epitomize Buddhism. To the Pythagoreans 4 was the source of the tetractys 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10, the most perfect number. In medieval times there were thought to be four humors (phlegm, blood, choler, and black bile—hence the adjectives phlegmatic, sanguine, choleric, and melancholic), and the body was bled at various places to bring these humors into balance.
Because 4 is generally a practical, material number, few superstitions are associated with it. An exception is in China, where 4 is unlucky because she (“four”) and shi (“death”) sound similar. In the biblical Revelation to John the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse wreak destruction upon humanity. ~ Encyclopaedia Britannica