Fayettenam

While I was in SW Pennsylvania last weekend giving a talk at a conference, I met several people who were from Fayette County, Pennsylvania. One of the most entertaining was a man named Fred, who use to be a policeman for the town of Fayette City in that county.

Fred became the point man to whom all the other law enforcement officers would send reports of UFOs, Bigfoot, and other strange phenomena. He also told me that police and folks called the area Fayettenam, as a way to describe how crazy things got there. 

Of course, due to my interest and what I've written in the past about the "Fayette Factor" - which relates to the surprisingly high incidence of inexpliable events linked to places named after one of the USA's Founding Fathers, the Marquis de Lafayette - I was intrigued by this business of Fayettenam. 

I asked myself, how widespread is the use of Fayettenam?

I was to discover it was shared by many Fayettes, Lafayettes, and Lafayettevilles, around the country.

 ~Urban Dictionary

According to Fred, Fayette County, Pennsylvania's neighboring state's Fayette County and Fayetteville, in West Virginia, must be added to the list. Folks thereabout call the area Fayettenam too.

But the Fayettenam that dominates the Internet, is the city of Fayetteville in North Carolina, which overlaps with a famed military base. See, for instance, this from 2012:
"Sequestration ground zero: 'Fayette-nam,'" in Politico.

As one ex-military individual observed:

When I lived at Ft. Bragg in the late 1970s, Fayettenam referred to the fact that there was a lot of violence being purpetrated by the military that was living on base. Lots of fights, shootings, etc., between the military and the locals. It also referred to a very high crime rate at that time, particularly crime against the military by the residents. It was literally a "battle zone." Source.

But Pennsylvania's Fayettenam is represented, as well. A few years ago, a website, "Dispatches from Fayettenam," carried bizarre stories of crimes from Fayette County, Pennsylvania. They were ones like this:

Connellsville robber who blamed talking cat sentenced to prison
Friday, August 16, 2013
A Fayette County man who allegedly told police a talking cat convinced him to steal a car, rob a bank and ram a police car was sentenced to up to five years in prison and ordered to undergo a mental health assessment.
Judge John F. Wagner Jr. imposed the 2 ½- to 5-year sentence on James Anthony Shroyer, 51, of Connellsville as part of a plea bargain in which Shroyer entered guilty pleas to charges that included aggravated assault, robbery and receiving stolen property.
Shroyer on Thursday asked the judge to order the mental health assessment because he is “seeing things and hearing voices.” At the time of his arrest in March, Shroyer told troopers he embarked on the mini crime spree at the urging of a talking cat, according to a criminal complaint.
Police said Shroyer stole a Chevy Cavalier in Connellsville March 28 and drove it to the First National Bank on Indian Head Road in Springfield Township. He covered his face, entered the bank, pointed a concealed item at a teller and demanded cash.
...
During an interview with troopers at the Uniontown barracks, Shroyer told them a “cat told him to take the car and get the money with the plastic gun.” According to a criminal complaint, Shroyer told the officers he took the Cavalier when the same cat “jumped up on the car and told him to steal it.”
Shroyer told the troopers he rammed the patrol car, according to the complaint, because the “cat was telling him to hit the cops.”

Meanwhile, in Fayette, Alabama, this just occurred:

A Fayette teenager was killed Saturday evening [November 14, 2015] when her car left the roadway and hit a ditch.
Samantha Lauren Watkins, 19, wasn't wearing a seat belt and was pronounced dead at the scene, according to Alabama state troopers. Watkins was driving a 2003 Honda Accord.
The crash occurred at around 6:13 p.m. on Alabama 102 near the 14 mile marker, 16 miles east of Fayette. Source.

Besides, Fayette, this one event also involved the recent power name Samantha (see here) and the old standard Watkins (see here). Then there's the fact the story contained the "Lauren" name too. (Lauren meaning may be "Laurel tree," "sweet of honor" or "victory of wisdom". It can also be derived from "laurel" in Latin meaning "seer of second sight" or gift of prophecy as well as immortality, and superior intelligence. Of course, it is the female version of Loren.)

So, as you travel around the country, at least, watch your back when in a Fayettenam!

Air Aurora and Katz Crash

Aurora Crash

May 31, 2014, dawned in Colorado, with a report of a missing small plane.

It was soon discovered that two men were dead after a plane crashed near 56th Avenue and Imboden Road on Saturday morning. The pilot was 29-year-old Amritpal Singh who had several years of flying experience. His passenger was not identified, but was said to be a musician in town for a concert Saturday night at Adams City High School. Singh was giving airplane rides to some of the people in town for the concert.

The crash occurred at Colorado's Aurora (literal meaning, you will recall is "red dawn"), near the Front Range Airport in Adams County.

The plane took off at around 12:30 a.m and was reported missing at 3:45 a.m. by family members. It was discovered around 7 a.m. Saturday morning.

The plane was a Cessna 150, fixed-wing, single-engine airplane and was owned by Singh of Aurora.

Family members say Singh was a kind person who would do anything for anyone.

Adams County Sheriff's Office and other agencies responded to the crash, in an open field near Imboden Road.

Name Game

A few words about the names in this incident.

Aurora has been detailed on this blog often, and we need not dwell on that moniker again. See here.

Singh is a common title, middle name, or surname used in South Asia, mainly in India, used originally by the Hindu Kshatriyas (warriors and kings). It is derived from the Sanskrit word सिंह Simha meaning lion. It is used as a surname or middle name by Hindu communities like the Marathas, Rajputs, Jats, Yadavs and Ahirs among others, and Sikhs. Generally this surname is found in males - and to most American, associated with Sikhs. By the sixteenth century, "Singh" had become a popular surname among the Maratha and Rajput warriors.

Amritpal: This is an Indian and Sikh name meaning "protected by the lord's nectar," and thus "immortal."

Watkins: As the map at top shows, this crash happened near Watkins. In earlier Fortean Times columns and then in my 1983 book, Mysterious America, after discussing the special weirdness surrounding the name "Watkins," I wrote: 

Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition.

More on Watkins: Besides discussing the Fayette factor, Jim Brandon penned the following thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit: 

If there are certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena, the same would have to be said of certain words. Likewise, these words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy. I have not yet found a name, or number, that seems to be favorable. Possibly this is because journalism and the other anecdotal reportage we must rely on in this barely respectable compiling of ours concentrate on the formidable, the uncanny, rather than on the mundane fortunate. Sometime, one should do a study on, say, winners of sweepstakes and Nobel Prizes.
I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances.

For more insights and recent examples of the Watkins/Watts thread, see here.

Imboden: So what is the origins of the name "Imboden"? The crash took place near the corner of 56th and Imboden. The direct meaning of the name is South German, Austrian, and Swiss German in origin, a topographic name for someone who lived "in the (valley) bottom," from Middle High German bodem, boden "floor," "bottom," and "ground" (cf. Boden).

Imboden place names in the USA, like Imboden, Arkansas, appear to be named after John Daniel Imboden (February 16, 1823 – August 15, 1895), who was a lawyer, teacher, Virginia state legislator. He commanded the unit involved the arrest of John Brown at the capture of Harpers Ferry, and the often forgotten story of securing Brown's Masonic sword. During the American Civil War, Imboden was a Confederate cavalry general and partisan fighter. After the war he returned to practicing law, began writing, and also was active in developing natural resources.

Hanscom Crash

Later on Saturday, May 31, 2014, on the East Coast, another plane crashed. A Gulfstream IV crashed about 9:40 p.m. Saturday as it was departing from a Massachusetts airfield for Atlantic City International Airport in New Jersey, said Matthew Brelis, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which operates Hanscom Field. Nearby residents recounted seeing a fireball shoot about 60 feet in the air. The airfield is about 20 miles northwest of Boston. It was used by the Army Air Corps and military operations dominated until it became both a military and civilian facility in the 1950s. 

Seven people were killed in the crash, including three crew member. Among the seven, a powerful media personality died.

Lewis Katz, 72, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily News and Philly.com, died. On Tuesday, Katz and H.F. "Gerry" Lenfest bought out their partners for $88 million, gaining control of the media company that owns the Inquirer. The partners that Katz went up against? The powerful Norcross family, which allegedly controls New Jersey politics, is the one that lost out to Katz and Lenfest in the court battle.

Katz made his fortune investing in the Kinney Parking empire and the Yankees Entertainment and Sports (YES) Network in New York. He once owned the NBA's New Jersey Nets and the NHL's New Jersey Devils and is a major donor to Temple University, his alma mater.

Katz attended an education-related event in Concord, Massachusetts, Saturday afternoon at the home of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, Richard Goodwin.

Longport borough commissioner Daniel Lawler confirmed that Anne Leeds, 74, wife of commissioner James P. Leeds Sr., had been traveling with Katz and others, and perished in the crash.

Katz invited Leeds on the trip last-minute as the two met on the beach Saturday, it was learned.

Also on board was Marcella Dalsey, executive director of the Drew A. Katz Foundation - named after Katz's son - and president of KATZ Academy Charter School, which she cofounded with Lewis Katz in 2012. Dalsey is a South Jersey native who started her career in real estate investment. In 1995, she opened Gracie's Ice Cream Parlor in Haddonfield.

The names of the other victims were not officially released.

Nancy Phillips, Katz's longtime companion and Inquirer city editor, was not on the plane.

Neither was a shaken former Gov. Ed Rendell, who said he'd been invited by Katz to make the trip but declined because of a speech engagement he had at the Little Shul, a South Philadelphia synagogue. Rendell said Katz's death was "mind-blowing."

There was a moment of silence in honor of Katz at Yankee Stadium before the start of Sunday's game against the Minnesota Twins. He was described as "a member of the Yankee family," and his photo was displayed on the stadium's giant screen.

Officials also did not speculate on what they think caused the crash. They said the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate and determine what happened.

Name Game

Hanscom Field is actually entitled the Laurence G. Hanscom Field. Hanscom's origins are from Han [from Old English han "(boundary) stone"] + camp "enclosed land."

Lewis is a Teutonic/German name, meaning of which is "famous in war." Of course, Lewis is a significant power name in Freemasonry.

Katz is a common German surname. It is also one of the oldest Ashkenazi Jewish surnames. Germans with the last name Katz may originate in the Rhine River region of Germany, where the Katz Castle is located. The name of the castle does not derive from Katze, cat, but from Katzenelnbogen, going back to Latin Cattimelibocus, consisting of the ancient Germanic tribal name of the Chatti and Melibokus. Katzman, deriving from the German Katz, is a Slavic name meaning high priest or king. As a Jewish surname, Katz is an abbreviation formed from the Hebrew initials of the term Kohen Tzedeq (Hebrew: כּ״ץ‎), meaning "priest of justice"/"authentic priest".

Yes, Singh (lion = a feline, a cat) and Katz died in airplane crashes.

School Shooting Survivor Wins U.S. Open

On September 10, 2012, "Andy Murray ended Great Britain's 76-year drought with epic U.S. Open win over Novak Djokovic," shouted Yahoo! Sports.  But I'd say it was more a victory for Scotland than Great Britain, despite media headlines.

Scotsman Sean Connelly was one of Murray's biggest fans at the U.S. Open.

Andrew "Andy" Murray was born to Will and Judy on May 15, 1987, in Glasgow, Scotland. 

Murray is actually the survivor of one of the most infamous mass school shootings in Scottish history:

Following the separation of his parents when he was nine years old, Andy and [his brother] Jamie lived with their father. Murray later attended Dunblane High School. Murray attended Dunblane Primary School, and was present during the 1996 Dunblane school massacre. Thomas Hamilton killed 17 people before turning one of his four guns on himself. Murray took cover in a classroom. Murray says he was too young to understand what was happening and is reluctant to talk about it in interviews, but in his autobiography Hitting Back he states that he attended a youth group run by Hamilton, and that his mother gave Hamilton lifts in her car. Source.

The Dunblane "massacre" occurred on March 13, 1966, and was the responsibility of unemployed former shopkeeper Thomas Hamilton (born Thomas Watt, Jr. on May 10, 1952 in Glasgow, Scotland).

Thomas Hamilton's mother, a hotel chambermaid, was divorced from his father by the time Thomas was born. Hamilton never knew his father and grew up with his mother's adoptive parents, believing they were his biological parents. They legally adopted him at age two. He also thought his biological mother was his sister until he was told the truth when he was 22 years old. Biography

Intriguing that Hamilton's former name should be Watt. Jim Brandon and I have written about this being an important "power" name worth watching. See "The Watts/Watkins Name Game."

Hamilton (Watt) walked into the Dunblane Primary School "armed with two 9 mm Browning HP pistols and two Smith & Wesson M19 .357 Magnum revolvers, all legally held. He was carrying 743 cartridges, and fired his weapons 109 times. The subsequent police investigation revealed that Hamilton had loaded the magazines for his Browning with an alternating combination of full-metal-jacket and hollow-point ammunition."

Hamilton (pictured) targeted a class of 5-6 year old, killing or wounding all but one person. He killed 15 kids and their teacher, Gwen Mayor, immediately. One other student died on the way to the hospital. Then he left the gymnasium, and began shooting into a mobile classroom. But that class's teacher had held the shots, and told the students to hide under their tables. All were saved. Next Hamilton shot at kids in a corridor, wounding one teacher. Then he went back into the gym, and took his own life. Source.

Andy Murray was 8 and his brother Jamie was 10, at the time of the Dunblane attack.

Murray wrote in his book Hitting Back: 

Some of my friends' brothers and sisters were killed. I have only retained patch impressions of that day, such as being in a classroom singing songs....
The weirdest thing was that we knew the guy (Hamilton). He had been in my mum's car. It's obviously weird to think you had a murderer in your car, sitting next to your mum....
That is probably another reason why I don't want to look back at it. It is just so uncomfortable to think that it was someone we knew from the Boys Club....
We used to go to the club and have fun. Then to find out he's a murderer was something my brain couldn't cope with....
I could have been one of those children.

The Watts/Watkins Name Game

The Watts/Watkins name game appears again and again. Today, I'll examine a specific recent event tied to this name, and detail what Jim Brandon and I have written about this moniker.

On early Friday, April 6, 2012, during a seven-hour period, at least one white suspect fired on five victims, all African-Americans, as they walked in the streets of Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Three fatalities resulted and they were identified as 49-year-old Dannaer Fields, 54-year-old Bobby Clark and 31-year-old William Allen. The two surviving victims have not been identified.

Fields was found mortally wounded in a neighborhood yard about 1 a.m. Friday, Clark's body was found in a street about an hour later, and Allen's body was discovered in the yard of a funeral home about 8:30 a.m., the Associated Press reported.

Sites of the Friday's shootings in Tulsa.

Minutes after Fields was found, police found two men with gunshot wounds in another yard two blocks away. They were taken to hospitals in critical condition but were expected to survive, police said. One of those male victims described the shooter as being white.

The white suspect had been described as driving up in an old white pickup to pedestrians and asking for directions. Then as the victim walks away, this person opens fire.

Dr. Warren Blakney, who heads the local chapter of the NAACP, believes the shooter did group his prey together.

"We feel like he's targeting African Americans in this part of town. And I think some parts of law enforcement feel the same way," Blakney said Saturday.

Tulsa detectives speculated the shootings were the work of a "lone wolf" gunman and the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service were drafted into the investigation on a task force entitled "Operation Random Shooter."

Alvin Watts, from his Facebook profile page.

But then, on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, at 1:47 am local time, two Caucasian men were arrested in connection with these Tulsa shootings, KOKI reported. The suspects have been identified by the Tulsa Police Department as 19-year-old Jake England and 32-year-old Alvin Watts. They were were arrested at a house just north of Tulsa.


Fox23 searched Facebook records, and discovered that last Thursday around 3pm, England posted, "Today is two years that my dad has been gone shot by a f****** n***** it's hard not to go off between that and s---- I'm gone in the head.
RIP
. Dad and s____ I
. Love and miss u
I think about both of u every second of the day"

A check of FOX23 archives shows a Carl England was shot and killed in April of 2010 at Comanche Park apartments. A person of interest was Pernell Jefferson, later arrested in connection with England's death.

Jake England, left, and Alvin Watts. Photos Tulsa Police Department

A statement from the Tulsa Police Department said, "Within 24 hours of its formation, the task force 'Operation Random Shooter' has completed its mission. Our sympathy goes out to the families of the victims and we hope that our efforts can bring some resolution and closure to these heinous acts.We would like to thank everyone that assisted and more information will be forthcoming in a Sunday afternoon press conference."


According to The Tulsa World Crime Tracker, before these shootings, Tulsa had had 11 homicides since the beginning of the year.

Mayor Dewey F. Bartlett Jr. said the shootings were unlike anything the city had seen, “certainly in modern history.”

Not surprisingly, Andrew Griffin's Oklahoma-based Red Dirt Report has been all over this news, and the other recent spree event in the Tulsa area.

It will be recalled that one month ago, on March 7, 2012, Tulsa was in the news with shootings at the courthouse. In that case, the suspect was arrested at the scene (above).

Historically, Tulsa is an intriguing city. In the early 20th century, Tulsa was home to the "Black Wall Street," one of the most prosperous African American communities in the United States at the time. Located in the Greenwood neighborhood, it was the site of the Tulsa Race Riot, one of the nation's costliest acts of racial violence and civil disorder. Sixteen hours of rioting on May 31 and June 1, 1921, resulted in over 800 people admitted to local hospitals with injuries, an estimated 10,000 left homeless, 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences destroyed by fire, and $1.8 million in property damage. An official report claimed that 23 black and 16 white citizens were reported killed, but other estimates suggest as many as 300, mostly blacks, died. Efforts to obtain reparations for survivors of the violence have been unsuccessful.

Tulsa is part of the Fortean "number game" too. In 1925, Tulsa businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the "Father of Route 66," began his campaign to create a road linking Chicago to California by establishing the U.S. Highway 66 Association in Tulsa, earning the city the nickname the "Birthplace of Route 66". Once completed, U.S. Route 66 took an important role in Tulsa's development as the city served as a popular rest stop for travelers, who were greeted by Route 66 icons such as the Meadow Gold Sign and the Blue Whale of Catoosa (pictured below).

Route 66 is one of those Fortean sites that I have noted are special, in time and space, which I discuss in various books, such as Mysterious America. Tulsa needs to be watched.

In this weekend's case, our awareness is especially keyed to the name "Watts." In earlier Fortean Times columns and then in my 1983 book, Mysterious America, after discussing the special weirdness surrounding the name "Watkins," I wrote: "Cryptologic or coincidence? Jim Brandon should be credited with calling attention to the name Watts/Watkins/Watson, and its entanglement with inexplicable things. Some other names involved in mysterious events pinpointed by Brandon are Bell, Mason, Parsons, Pike, Vernon, and Warren. The influence of such names as Mason, Pike, Warren, and Lafayette, for example, issues, in some cryptopolitical and occult way, from their ties to the Masonic tradition."

Those familiar with my writings know of my musings on "The Fayette Factor," which have been highlighted by Jeff Rense's site and Todd Campbell's site, Through the Looking Glass, as well as several others.

Back to Watts (the moniker of the Tulsa man arrested today), the tie-in here to the discoverer in England (the name of the other shooter suspect) of the "ley lines" being Alfred Watkins may be mildly significant as this case unfolds. These arrested men may have some kind of revenge-driven, racist insights that only they are aware of, just as Watkins saw on the landscape hidden clues to a deeper awareness. Racism and murder cannot be justified, please note, but the "name game" sometimes seems to go beyond coincidence when it is touched by tragedies and disasters.

Jim Brandon penned the following thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit: "If there are certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena, the same would have to be said of certain words. Likewise, these words tend to be involved in events of, at best, a sort of Puckish drollery and at worst, tragedy. I have not yet found a name, or number, that seems to be favorable. Possibly this is because journalism and the other anecdotal reportage we must rely on in this barely respectable compiling of ours concentrate on the formidable, the uncanny, rather than on the mundane fortunate. Sometime, one should do a study on, say, winners of sweepstakes and Nobel Prizes.

"I'm not talking here of such spooky tongue-twisters as H.P. Lovecraft's Yog-Sothoth or Arthur Machen's Ishakshar, but of quite ordinary names like Bell, Beall and variants, Crowley, Francis, Grafton, Grubb, Magee/McGee, Mason, McKinney, Montpelier, Parsons, Pike, Shelby, Vernon, Watson/Watt, Williams/Williamson. I have others on file, but these are the ones which I have accumulated the most instances."

Brandon goes on to tell the reader that his "candidate is the name Fayette and its variants Lafayette and Fayetteville," but the point is well-made for the harmonic, non-randomness of certain other names frequently turning up.

I was not surprised, therefore, to read about this Tulsa Terror today concluding with arrests, and to find there was a "Watts" in the mix.

++++

Temporal Note: On Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012, Bubba Watson won the 2012 Masters Tournament at the Augusta Golf Course in a two hole playoff against South African Louis Oosthuizen. Gerry "Bubba" Watson (born November 5, 1978 in Bagdad, Florida) is an American professional golfer, and one of the few left-handed golfers on tour.  

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For more on the Bell/Beall name game, click here.