Sirius Rising In the Days of Synchromysticism

"John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King were not assassinated; they were ritually sacrificed."

So begins the liner notes of Jim Brandon's newly released 2018 revised edition of his audio book from 1974-1975, Sirius Rising, which has a new subtitle, Mr. Downard and the Synchromystical Boson.

The time does seem correct for Sirius Rising. Specifically, the work, by "coincidence" appears now, on the anniversary of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan (March 30, 2018), right before Easter Sunday (April 1, 2018), and on the way to the anniversary of the killing of a King, Martin Luther King (April 4, 2018). This all is an appropriate temporal sync.

Before Brandon became well-known in Fortean circles for his classics, Weird America (1978) and The Rebirth of Pan (1983), he had created and shared with associates a now long-unavailable and difficult-to-obtain tape of his interviews with James Shelby Downard (March 13, 1913 – March 16, 1998). Yes, it was a reel-to-reel tape.

Brandon characterizes Downard as a "quasi-spiritual visionary who pioneered or advanced the mind-bending and spellbinding disciplines of 'mystical toponomy' and 'synchromysticism.'"

While some have talked only of Downard's work as that of a "conspiracy theorist" and a "mad genius," there is a core group, including Jim Brandon, Adam Parfrey, Michael Hoffman, Jim Keith, Adam Gorightly, Greg Bishop, Michael Bell, SMiles Lewis, Kenn Thomas, and me, Loren Coleman, who have framed Downward in the broader context of a Fortean examining the mysteries of the world cryptopolitically.

Jim Brandon, with all due credit to me and others, will soon expand the ranks of those discussing Downard to include a growing generation of synchromystics. I predict this CD will be played and pondered by a wide range of thoughtful researchers and followers of twilight language, cryptokubrology, sync worlds, name games, discordian works, and more.

The power of Brandon's previous audiobook, Sirius Rising (1974-1975) remains apparent in modern materials about Downard, as evidenced, for example, by a recent documentary series by Mandate33 to Adam Parfrey's published output from Feral House.

(Update: Will the shocking death of Adam Parfrey at 61 on May 10, 2018, have a quieting effect on Feral House's published works? Parfrey was the first to publish Downard's "King Kill 33" in the first 1987 edition of Apocalypse Culture, but it was not in subsequent editions.)

Adam Gorightly's recent book on Downard has much to do with Sirius Rising, as well:

Downard contended that the Illuminati arranged that the first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, would be a 33rd degree Mason.
Downard’s King Kill 33° draws upon a larger conspiratorial canon, which surfaced in an audiocassette series produced by Downard protégé William Grimstad in the mid 1970’s entitled Sirius Rising. According to author Robert Anton Wilson, Grimstad’s Sirius Rising presented the theory that “the Illuminati were preparing Earth, in an occult manner, for extraterrestrial contact.” Part of this magickal preparation consisted of the founding of Cal Tech, the home of Parson’s JPL, on the 33rd degree latitude, near the SoCal town of La Canada. Located in the same vicinity is the fabled Devil’s Gate Dam, where Parsons conducted O.T.O. rituals. ~ Adam Golightly (James Shelby Downard's Mystical War)

It is remarkable how many of the subjects in Sirius Rising have become the background and foreground talking points for today's synchromystics and Forteans, in print, online, via social media, in podcasts, and in visual contexts.

For example, nowadays most people take it for granted that Aleister Crowley, the events at Boleskine House, and Loch Ness would appear in the same linkages. The association  appears, perhaps for the first time, in the midst of Brandon's talking book. There are several gems to be mined in Downard's words.

Sirius Rising (2018) covers many topics that serve as dots that Downard and Brandon connect in their free-ranging discussions. These include:
- the killing of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King;
- sex magic;
- CERN;
- the killing of the king ritual;
- William Shakespeare's MacBeth/ Barbara Garson's MacBird;
- the Black Watch;
- Miss Chudleigh, the "Great Whore";
- Sir Francis Dashwood's Hellfire Club;
- Aleister Crowley;
- Loch Ness;
- "Scarlett Woman" Leila Waddell;
- Zorro;
- Ordo Templi Orientis;
- Jack Parson;
- Jet Propulsion Lab;
- Moon Child ritual;
- Lee Bouvier;
- Jacqueline Kennedy;
- Tres Hermanas / Three Sisters
- Kennedy Mountain;
- Johnson Mountain;
- Ruby Road;
- Alchemy;
- Jornada del Muerto / Journey of Death;
- 33 degree of latitude;
- Dealey Plaza;
- Dallas, Texas;
- Trinity River;
- Egyptian Masonry;
- Memphis;
- Mizraim;
- Little Egypt;
- Rite of Memphis;
- Scottish Rite of Freemasonry;
- Albert Pike;
- Coyote;
- Mt. Palomar;
- Orange Court;
- Phoenix;
- Rancho Sante Fe;
- Hotel del Carco;
- J. Edgar Hoover;
- Knights Templar;
- Ley Lines;
- Cal Tech;
- Jules Verne;
- Cape Canaveral;
- Star Cities;
- Jupiter;
- Sirius;
- Apollo 11;
- Trinity Site;
- Homunculus;
- Vacaville;
- SLA;
- Naga; and
- Patty Hearst.

Quite a list, and the connections to items of interest that continue to be discussed today are significant.

Highly recommended.

Sirius Rising: Mr. Downard and the Synchromystical Boson (© 2018) by Jim Brandon.

A new CD, with a new introduction and new eight-page booklet by Jim Brandon. Contains the original 1974-1975 recordings obtain by Brandon of several interviews with James Shelby Downard.

The titles of the 8 tracks are:
1. Mr. Downard speaks - Jim Brandon updates.
2. The matrix of symbols.
3. 'Voici le temps des assassins' (A. Rimbaud)
4. 23 Skidoo...plus 10.
5. Little Egypt is bigger than ever.
6. Memphis belle to Scarlett Woman of Revelation.
7. Amerika Alkhemika?
8. A spyshop Phoenix.
You will want to secure your copy today, from Jim Brandon personally, before this CD becomes as rare as the previous offering was soon after it appeared 42 years ago.

There are a few different ways you can obtain this CD:

Sirius Rising (2018) is available by USPS from Jim Brandon Media - Post Office Box 6653, Colorado Springs, CO 80934. The cost is $15.00, postpaid.

Checks and money orders (made out to Jim Brandon Media) accepted.

To assist this important material reach interested researchers, I am allowing Jim Brandon Media to utilize my PayPal for those who wish to use credit cards.

My PayPal address is

LColeman [@] maine.rr.com

(remove brackets)

Send $17 to cover the CD, fees, and postpaid. It will be sent to you via first class mail.

Domestic orders only; no international orders accepted at this time. Cash sent at the sender's risk. Please allow two weeks for delivery.

[Disclaimer: This review is an independent critique. I gain no personal fiscal return from the sales of Mr. Brandon's CD. ~ Loren Coleman.]

Nervous NickName™ Game

In Jim Brandon's 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit, he wrote, regarding the "name game":

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. 

In my 1983 Mysterious America, I observed:

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.

Nicholas Name Game

One of the hidden name games that seems constantly in battle for our attention, second only to the Fayette Factor, is the one with roots in the name Nicholas.

Jim Brandon, author of Weird America (1978) and The Rebirth of Pan (1983), emailed me on April 10, 2012,

I wanted to add a couple of candidates to the Names of Power list – which I’ve probably mentioned before: that would be Nicholas and permutations (from Old Nick and Santa Claus up), and U.S. presidential names.

Nicholas does have some interesting connections:

Nicholas = English and Dutch: from the personal name (Greek Nikolaos, from nikān "to conquer" + laos "people"). Forms with -ch- are due to hypercorrection. The name in various vernacular forms was popular among Christians throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, largely as a result of the fame of a 4th-century Lycian bishop, about whom a large number of legends grew up, and who was venerated in the Orthodox Church as well as the Catholic. In English-speaking countries, this surname is also found as an Americanized form of various Greek surnames such as Papanikolaou "(son of) Nicholas the priest" and patronymics such as Nikolopoulos.

For years, Brandon has noted the Nicholas name game. For example,  in 2012, he wrote:

I suppose y’all noticed that the successful walk over Niagara Falls brought a hot name-of-power into play, in this case Nervous Nick, which seems to be running a close second to Fateful Fay these days.
Nik Wallenda (aka Nicholas Troffer) reportedly made the only known walk directly over the falls, rather than over the river farther away. He wore a safety device at the insistence of ABC-TV. Incredible, nevertheless.

In recent years, Brandon has had fun with various catchy ways to characterize this special name-of-power, beyond "Nervous Nick" (June 16, 2012), to include "nasty nomenklatura" (October 8, 2012), "the Nicholas/Nick/Old Nick angle" (May 30, 2013), "Nickolauson" (April 29, 2015), and most recently, humorously, the "NickName™ nexus" (March 22, 2016).

Examining monikers, sometimes we find surprises. For instance, I discovered the name Nixon, which is an English baby name, is part of this name nexus. The meaning of the name Nixon is, literally, an abbreviation of Nicholas.

Nike (Winged Victory), Louvre, Paris, France.

The mythological Nike was a Greek goddess of victory and root origin of Nicholas. The Roman equivalent was Victoria. Depending upon the time of various myths, she was described as the daughter of the Titan Pallas and the goddess Styx, and the sister of Kratos (Strength), Bia (Force), and Zelus (Zeal).

Names stemming from Nike include among others: Nikolaos, Nicholas, Nicola, Nick, Nicolai, Niccolò, Nikolai, Nicolae, Nils, Klaas, Nicole, Ike, Niki, Nikita, Nika, Nieke, Naike, Niketas, Nikki, Nico, and Veronica.

Nicholas in the News

How do names aligned to "Nicholas/Nick" slip into some of the violent stories we track?

Let's take the shooting on Sunday, May 29, 2016, on the west side of Houston, Texas. An active shooter began firing shots around 10 a.m. at 13200 Memorial Drive, at the corner of Memorial Drive and Wycliffe. (See more details, here.)

When the story was first published, no names of the shooter or the victims were published. A day later, the identities began surfacing in the media.

The gunman fired 212 rounds during a rampage at an auto detail shop as he killed one and injured several. He was shot dead in the event, and was identified as Army veteran Dionisio Garza III from Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino County, California.

In and of itself, "Dionisio Garza" is quite a name.

Garza is a Galician and Basque noble surname and the Spanish language equivalent of Heron (bird). Garza has also become a part of many placenames. Garza was the surname of many Sephardic Jews that settled in Monterrey, Nuevo León and the name is still found in many famous people from that Mexican state.

Dionisio is the Spanish and Italian form of Dionysius. The Greek name Dionysius, deriving from the name of the Greek god Dionysus, was exceedingly common, and many ancient people, famous and otherwise, bore it. It remains a common name today in the form Dennis (Denys, Denis, Denise). The modern Greek form of the name is Dionysios or Dionysis. The Spanish form of the name is Dionisio.

The cult of Dionysus was closely associated with trees, specifically the fig tree, and some of his bynames exhibit this, such as Endendros "he in the tree" or Dendritēs, "he of the tree". The original meaning is suggested as "he who runs among the trees," or that of a "runner in the woods". Some analysts propose the more cosmological interpretation of "he who impels the (world-)tree." This interpretation explains how the name could have been re-interpreted from a meaning of "tree" to the name of a mountain: the axis mundi of Indo-European mythology is represented both as a world-tree and as a world-mountain.

Dionisio Garza III, 25, was an Army vet and had spent two tours in Afghanistan.

The owner of the auto detail shop saw the bare-chested man with a crew cut (Garza) stride calmly up to his wife Sunday morning as she chatted with a longtime customer at their family-owned car wash off Memorial Drive. He reached around her, shooting Eugene Linscomb in the head while the 56-year-old sat in his Mercedes. (Linscomb is an English name from a Devon location called Lincombe, named in Old English with lin "flax" or lind "lime tree" + cumb "valley.")

"That man's the devil," the gunman declared.

The owner's wife sank to the ground, reciting the Lord's Prayer.

"Y'all calm down. I'm not going to kill y'all, y'all are Christians," Garza said.

Railing against gays, Jews, and Walmart, Garza then walked back toward his car to grab an AR-15 assault rifle, yelling that the world was coming to an end. The owner, who has run Memorial Hand Car Wash for the past 13 years, seized the opportunity to escape. Grabbing his wife's hand, they sprinted across the street to a Chase Bank and jumped a residential wall.

A law enforcement officer shot and killed Garza.

The names of the owner and his wife, who survived this event: Paris and Felicia Nichols.

The Nicholas/Nick/Nike/Nichols phenomenon was in evidence again. The NickName™ Game lives on.

33s: The Rebirth of Pan

These are the times of 33s, and the rebirth of Pan.

On August 1, 2015, the so-called Chorro Fire started just after 1:00 p.m. in the area of California Highway 33 and the Chorro Grande Trail, the fire department said. Highway 33 was closed at Lockwood Valley Road on the north end of the fire and at the Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center on the south end. More than 300 firefighters (was it 333?) and 11 air tankers were brought in to extinguish the fire.

A cargo ship missing since Thursday, October 1, 2015, with 33 crewmen aboard was lost at sea and believed to have sunk in the swirl and stranglehold of Hurricane Joaquin. This almost appears to be a plot for another Bermuda Triangle story. Now debris has started to be found.

The ship is named El Faro. The common translation for this name from the Spanish to English would be "the lighthouse." But there are many alternatives: anchor - beacon headlamp - headlight - light -lighthouse - torch - torchbearer - lodestar - polestar - headlight housing - and - lightship.

Jim Brandon also reminds me, "Meanwhile, back on land, Charleston, SC, is battered by the 'thousand-year storm,' striking this historic – and uber Masonic – spot on 33 degrees latitude. Recall that Fort also took note of many fateful events hitting the area."

Brandon, probably unknown to him, has inspired many people, including a group of Fortean investigators who are making videos, and using his two books as bibles.

In "Top Ten American Bridgewater Triangles," I introduced you to the gentlemen (Bill, Ryan, Kyle, Marc) of Mandate33, who filmed a short indie documentary on "The Ossipee Triangle, New Hampshire." It is #10 on that randomly numbered list.

Mandate33 has since started a journey of discovery, and they are in the midst of filming interviews across the country. They began with me, in Portland, Maine, before they ventured to California, and may, in part, end with me. But who knows? That's what being on a quest is all about. They are using the working raw title, Weird War: Exploring America's Left Coast.
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Mandate33 also stopped by and interviewed my Fortean friends, Adam Gorightly and Greg Bishop. Will Chris Tian, Patrick Huyghe, Adam Parfrey, Matthew Bell, Jim Brandon, and various synchromystics be hunted down too?

It seems as the times of the rebirth of Pan are upon us. Even the movie Pan is to be released in the USA, on October 9, 2015. 9 = 3 x 3.

Jim Brandon, of course, is the author of 1978's Weird America and 1983's The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit. (The Rebirth of Pan is not in print, and yet illegal reprints selling for $175 are shown on Amazon.com. Do not give into temptation and undermine Brandon's copyright.)

The Mandate33 filmmakers took their name from Brandon's work. His legacy lives on and grows.

Jim Brandon penned his thoughts in his 1983 book, The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit that, indeed, there are "certain numbers entangled with certain phenomena," just as he talked of power names.

Of course, Brandon's special moniker "candidate is the name Fayette and its variants Lafayette and Fayetteville." The Fayette Factor is probably one of the strangest mysteries in American Forteana, first discovered by the author, back in 1977, and written about in "Fateful Fayette," Fortean Times, No. 25, Spring 1978.

Namely, the "Fayette Factor" has been the finding of a surprisingly high incidence of Fortean (inexpliable) events linked to places named after one of the USA's Founding Fathers--the Marquis de Lafayette.

 

Since Grimstad's discovery, several items on this lexilink between Fayette (as well as its related forms - Lafayette, La Fayette, Fayetteville, Lafayetteville) and high strangeness have been published. In his book, Weird America (New York: EP Dutton, 1978), Grimstad mentions several Fayette hot spots but did not dwell on them. In exchanges with Bill, a small group of Forteans discussed the Fayette Factor privately throughout the late 1970s. It was not until Brandon's (now extremely rare) The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit (Firebird Press, 1983) and Mysterious America (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983) that more in-depth analyses of the Fayette "coincidences" seriously occurred. These examinations were followed by updates and other comments in Mysterious America (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006), and Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (NY: Paraview, 2002). Furthermore, the appearance of widely available material on the Fayette Factor started routinely being posted online during the 1990s-2010s.

Popular cultural outlets, such as Robert Anton Wilson's works (e.g. Cosmic Trigger), the music of Marilyn Manson (e.g. King Kill 33), and the various books and movies about the numbers 23 and 33, have Downard's insights influencing a broader audience. My own books, including The Copycat Effect, show the readers various purple shades of Downard.

Developing from this, then, is that severals writers have the sense they "discovered" the significance of certain names or dates or numbers, which relate to such factoids as Dealey Plaza being near the 33° north latitude and it being the first Masonic temple in Texas. Remarkably, most of the hints to these revelations track directly back to Downard.

Downard showed clearly the linkages between the mystical landscape and the 33° latitude. Intriguingly, the longterm knowledge of the 33° parallel and of 33 as a harmonic digit is on the rise. While more people may follow the 23 "coincidences," in the numbers arena there is a decidedly new increase in those would are intrigued by "33."

The top new numerical candidate, coming into its own, has to be 33.

Thirty-three turns up in some remarkable places.

The unnatural nature of the 33° alignments is well-discussed in the synchromystic world.

All kinds of associations have been made with the 33rd Parallel: pyramids, death rows, ufo crash sites, Trinity Atomic Bomb test site, the starting site of the Scottish Rite in America, the first shots of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, and various assassination-assassination attempt locations (from Jesus to JFK & RFK, from Captain William Morgan to Gabrielle Giffords). Some of the linkages do have a basis in fact.

Take for instance, the name "Hobbs," which is a "devil's name," a word based on a demonic origin. Hobbs had been the location of UFO sightings in the 1950s and 1960s. Hobbs, New Mexico, near the 33 degree latitude, has experienced a never-ending stream of UFO encounters since Bill Watson's April 1955 sighting became known in ufology as the "Hobbs Incident." This Southwest corner of New Mexico is a hotbed of so-called flying saucer activity with the most famous event being the "Roswell Incident."

Allegedly, as is well-known today, a UFO crashed in nearby Roswell, New Mexico, on July 8, 1947, and the US Air Force recovered small bodies from the craft, according to numerous ufological researchers. The entire use of the term "little green men" appears to have been added to American slang by way of the incidents taking place in the Hobbs-Roswell area in 1947.

Trinity Site Obelisk - National Historical Landmark

Trinity was the code name of the first detonation of a nuclear device. This test was conducted by the United States Army on July 16, 1945, in the Jornada del Muerto ("single day's journey of the dead man") desert about 35 miles southeast of Socorro, New Mexico (site of Lonnie Zamora CEIII 1964 incident - pictured) at the White Sands Proving Ground; Trinity took place on the 33rd Parallel. Considering the background to the name "Hobbs," such events are not too shocking.

Even, in the past, I've mentioned how Tom Cruise and Scientology appear to have realized the synchromystical magic of the number 33 and the 33° latitude? The twilight language was at play for it was the jersey number of Tom Cruise's character in the 1983 film All The Right Moves.

The word "synchromysticism" was first coined by Jake Kotze in August 2006, on his website-at-the-time, Brave New World Order. Kotze defined the concept as: "The art of realizing meaningful coincidence in the seemingly mundane with mystical or esoteric significance."

Who are we to deny the fact these things come to us in all kinds of different ways? And sometimes through the landscape of 33s:

MediaMonarchy.com tweets (via @mediamonarchy) #ThirtyThree / #33 occurrences routinely.
The number of deities in the Vedic Religion is 33.The highest degree in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
The divine name Elohim appears 33 times in the story of creation in the opening chapters of Genesis.
Lag Ba'omer is a minor Jewish holiday which falls on the 33rd day of the Omer
Jesus's age when he was crucified in 33 A.D.
According to Al-Ghazali the dwellers of Heaven will exist eternally in a state of being age 33.
Jesus performed 33 recorded miracles.
Islamic prayer beads are generally arranged in sets of 33, corresponding to the widespread use of this number in dhikr rituals. Such beads may number thirty-three in total or three distinct sets of thirty-three for a total of ninety-nine, corresponding to the names of God.
Thirty-three is not only a numerical representation of “the Star of David,” but also the numerical equivalent of AMEN: 1+13+5+14=33.
Pope John Paul I, the 33-day pope. One of the shortest reigns in papal history, and it resulted in the most recent 3-pope year.
A religious image of the Virgin Mary from the 18th century is known in Uruguay as "Virgen de los Treinta y Tres" (Virgin of the Thirty-Three); it was consecrated by Pope John Paul II in his visit to Uruguay in 1988.
There are several churches dedicated to this Marian devotion, being the most important the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of the Thirty-Three in Florida, Uruguay.

One of the symbols of Ku Klux Klan. (K is the 11th letter of the alphabet, 3 times 11 is 33, KKK).

Thirty-three is the atomic number of arsenic.

Thirty-three is, according to the Newton scale, the temperature at which water boils.
A normal human spine has 33 vertebrae when the bones that form the coccyx are counted individually.

A significant number in modern numerology, one of the master numbers along with 11 and 22.

Lafayette Sinkholes

A giant 30 foot sinkhole opened up in Lafayette, Colorado, on Monday, 1-11 in 2015, Jim "Fayette Factor" Brandon informed me.

Meanwhile.. From the sync whole past...

What's funny about that is a 30 foot sinkhole opened up on 12-2 in 2012, in Lafayette, California, as well.

The Mystery Meridian's Tornado Deaths

In Weird America (New York: EP Dutton, 1978), Jim Brandon introduces the concept of The Mystery Meridian. Brandon identifies a series of curiosities and oddities that are "overwhelmingly concentrated along a north-south axis between the ninety-seventh and ninety-eighth meridians of longitude, give or take a few miles on either side."

Brandon especially documents the weirdness along this Mystery Meridian in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. But he also states that strange sites are to be found as the "line extends as far north as the Dakotas."

The Mystery Meridian is centered along Interstate 35, for half its length, in the South.

In Kansas, the Mystery Meridian was especially active late in 1973 and early in 1974, with a rash of cattle mutilations, especially in Ottawa County, the home of the Rock City's 200 strange unexplained spheres. That county is also the location of Delphos, where in 1879 ice fell from the sky, then on July 16, 1976 a phantom panther was sighted, and later during that same July 1974 for the flap of the Delphos "Wolfgirl." In 1897, there were the Kansas visitations of the mystery airships near Belleville (see also Bell name game), along this bizarre meridian. 

In Texas, the Mystery Meridian splits and involves Dallas - and all the phenomena that is linked to that location. But perhaps one of the best names for a site along the Mystery Meridian is at Meridian, Texas. On April 13, 1976, there was an inexplicable fall of dead white pelicans from the sky at Meridian.

In Oklahoma we discover, up and down the Mystery Meridian, a virtual explosion of weirdness clusters. Allow me to summarize:

*Crescent - Kerr-McGee Corporation is one of the few plutonium packing facilities in the country - and it was here that the infamous killing of Karen Silkwood occurred in November 1974; Government agents investigated whether "stolen" plutonium from the Crescent plant ended up with Texas devil worshipers who were mutilating cattle.

*El Reno - In May 1971, an unknown anthropoid was reported to be stealing chickens and left an apelike print on a coop; it was called the "Abominable Chicken Man of El Reno," and I was involved with investigating and discussing it with the Oklahoma City Zoo director.

*Enid - Three people who "by coincidence" were allegedly linked to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln all ended up in Enid: (1) David E. George, who claimed he was really John Wilkes Booth, died by poisoning at the Enid hotel here on January 13, 1903; (2) Boston Corbett, who reportedly was the army sergeant who rushed the Maryland barn and said he killed the original John Wilkes Booth, lived in Enid; and (3) also a resident here was said to be the former property manager who opened the window for Booth, allowing him to escape from Ford's Theater, after shooting Lincoln.

*Oklahoma City - The OKC bombing and other incidents start a long list for Oklahoma City. Weirder are the reports of an 1897 Airship seen here, a July 7, 1947 "flying saucer" sighting, and a November 1901 crocodilian (4.5 ft long) found in the Canadian River, in nearby Norman.

Today, death and destruction visited the Mystery Meridian in Oklahoma, in the form of tornadoes.

The most damage seems to have focussed on Moore, Oklahoma, where the 1999 tornado also hit.

The path of the May 3, 1999 tornado.

On Monday, May 20, 2013, more than 51 people were killed by the massive tornado that hit the Oklahoma City area, the office of the state's chief medical examiner said. Several children were killed. At least 20 children are among the 51 people killed after a tornado slammed Oklahoma. Of those killed, seven have been confirmed as children from the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, police said. At least 145 people were hospitalized in the area, said hospital officials.

The tornado leveled buildings, while cutting a wide path of destruction the scale of which is just starting to become clear. Rescue workers were digging through the rubble of an elementary school looking for trapped students

President Barack Obama told Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin the federal government "stands ready to provide all available assistance," a White House statement said.

The Monday storm came in the wake of destruction that hit the area on Sunday night.

Andrew Griffin at Red Dirt Report earlier today wrote, "Driving around the area near Dale, Bethel Acres and then back towards Lake Thunderbird and on into Norman, we criss-crossed the areas where the Sunday tornado had passed through. Twisted bits of metal, downed power poles and homes that were badly damaged by the destructive force of the tornado were clearly visible in these areas of Oklahoma, Pottawatomie and Cleveland counties.

"As we write this story, a new, powerful tornado formed west of Newcastle and went east-northeast, right through Moore and parts of the southside of Oklahoma City. The devastation is massive. People are injured, possibly dead. This is as bad – or at least more widespread in terms of damage – as the notorious May 3, 1999 tornado that hit Moore."

Read more, at the Red Dirt Report. And check there for further updates.

Fayette Factor

The Fayette Factor

Above and below, Fayette County, Georgia.

Who--or more precisely, what--is "the Fayette Factor?" It is probably one of the strangest mysteries in American Forteana, first discovered by researcher William (Bill) Grimstad, back in 1977, and written about in "Fateful Fayette," Fortean Times, No. 25, Spring 1978. Namely, the "Fayette Factor" has been the finding of a surprisingly high incidence of Fortean (inexplciable) events linked to places named after one of the USA's Founding Fathers--the Marquis de Lafayette.  Fayetteville, West Virginia Since Grimstad's discovery, several items on this lexilink between Fayette (as well as its related forms - Lafayette, La Fayette, Fayetteville, Lafayetteville) and high strangeness have been published. In his book, Weird America (New York: EP Dutton, 1978), Grimstad mentions several Fayette hot spots but did not dwell on them. In exchanges with Bill, a small group of Forteans discussed the Fayette Factor privately throughout the late 1970s. It was not until Brandon's (now extremely rare) The Rebirth of Pan: Hidden Faces of the American Earth Spirit (Firebird Press, 1983) and Mysterious America (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1983) that more in-depth analyses of the Fayette "coincidences" seriously occurred. These examinations were followed by updates and other comments in Mysterious America (NY: Simon and Schuster, 2006), and Mothman and Other Curious Encounters (NY: Paraview, 2002).  Furthermore, the appearance of widely available material on the Fayette Factor started routinely being posted online during the 1990s-2010s. According to Grimstad, "Lafayette traveled widely in this country (USA) and doubtless must have been the inspiration for many or most of the 18-odd counties and 28 towns and cities across the land that I have been able to find with some form of his name."   Lafayette County, Mississippi Marie-Joseph Paul Roch de Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, was born in 1757. His father, a French Army officer, was killed in the battle of Minden in 1759, and the marquis was brought up by his mother's prestigious family, the de Noailles. At the age of 18, he traveled to the Americas at his own expense and became an aide to General George Washington, who loved him like a son. By the end of the War of the American Revolution, Lafayette commanded the Continental Army in Virginia. That's the Lafayette every American schoolboy knows. But, as researcher Manly Palmer Hall has pointed out, the marquis had ties to the esoteric groups of the late Eighteenth Century.  "In addition to his political pursuits," Grimstad wrote, "Lafayette was busily involved in certain circles that should be of interest to contemporary Illuminati buffs."   Lafayette County, Mississippi According to Manly Palmer Hall, Lafayette was an associate of both Dr. Anton Mesmer, "the Father of Hypnotism," and Giuseppe Balsamo, better known as Cagliostro, a Sicilian sorcerer who was an acolyte of Adam Weishaupt's Illuminati.  Hall wrote, "In 1785, the Marquis...joined the Egyptian Masonry of Cagliostro and proclaimed his absolute confidence in the 'Grand Cophte.' When Anton Mesmer arrived from Vienna with his theories of animal magnetism, Lafayette was one of his first customers."  Grimstad adds, "But Lafayette also had the closest ties with Benjamin Franklin, the American revolutionary sage and member of (Sir Francis) Dashwood's 'Hell-Fire Club' in Britain (also known as the 'Medmenham Monks' of High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, northwest of London). As Hall puts it, 'Benjamin Franklin was a philosopher and a Freemason--possibly a Rosicrucian initiate. He and the Marquis de Lafayette--also a man of mystery--constitute two of the most important links that culminated in the establishment of the original thirteen American colonies as a free and independent nation.' Lafayette, Hall summarises, 'is a direct link between the (esoteric) political societies of France and the young American government.'"   Attention to other links to other locations, such as my discovery that LaGrange is also an associated hot name, apparently due to the fact the name Chateau de LaGrange was the French home of the Marquis de Lafayette, evolved during the last thirty years of our writings and mutual exchange on the subject. The cities, towns, and counties across the United States, which are the Fortean hotspots linked to the Fayette Factor, are tied to the renamed Masonic lodges and affiliated sites that the Marquis de Lafayette visited on his grand tour of the country in 1824-1825. His visits were highly ritualized happenings, in which he was involved with laying many cornerstones. The locations where he was taken to visit are a virtual roadmap of the "special places" in this land. For example, in 1825, The Marquis de Lafayette, on board the ship (please note!) "Enterprise," visited the Cahokia mounds, and the significant Bloody Island, which then was so large that half of the Mississippi flowed east of it. (Intriguingly, Lafayette returned to France in 1825, on the day after his birthday, demonstrating a keen eye on the calendar and a desire to celebrate September 6th in America.) Many Masonic locations have been linked beyond the easily recognized Lafayette name to a broader Freemasonry focus to mystic events and violent happenings. Some are very subtle. One man's journey, Lee Harvey Oswald, from his office across from Lafayette Square, New Orleans, would lead to the most infamous Masonic sites in the country. This vivid example of deathly weirdness is Dealey Plaza, where JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963. Dallas' Dealey Plaza is the location of the state of Texas's first Masonic temple.  How much of the Marquis's involvement in such matters was due to his deeply-held esoteric beliefs or to mere socializing is something for historians of the future to determine. What is of interest to Forteans is the uncanny number of unexplained incidents linked to the name Lafayette. Grimstad has an impressive list, which we have added to, of course, as the years have rolled along, hitting its 35th year in 2012. Here's a review of Grimstad's original notes, with new images. Fayette County, Alabama "In Fayette County, Alabama, is the Musgrove Methodist Cemetery. The tombstone of one Robert L. Musgrove there bears a discoloration, not especially realistic, that is locally believed to be the bridal- veiled figure of Musgrove's fiancee. Apparently he was killed just before the wedding, and the sorrowing girl" willed her image "onto the marble by her many visits to the grave." (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle may have used this real-life case as the basis for his Sherlock Holmes story, "The Musgrave Ritual.")  "The engima-laden state of Arkansas has two sites. The city of Fayetteville, in the northwest corner" of Arkansas, "has long been legendary for oddities. UFOs and aerial lightshows, water monsters in the nearby White River and Springheel Jack-type window peepers are among the manifestations."    Lafayette County, Arkansas "In the southwest angle of Arkansas is a Bigfoot hotspot that has been immortalized--in America, at least-- by the (1974) movie The Legend of Boggy Creek. The critters have been known hereabouts since 1856, centering their activities lately upon the town of Fouke in Miller County and ranging eastward into Lafayette County."  Lafayette County, Kentucky "In the scenic Bluegrass area of Kentucky, the university city of Lexington sits atop one of America's more dramatic lost cave stories. Historian G.W. (George Washington) Ranck recorded in 1872 that hunters in 1776 had found a tunnel behind a rock panel of 'peculiar workmanship' and covered with hieroglyphics. The descending portal widened to a sort of gallery running downward a few hundred feet to a huge underground room. Ranck cited the hunters' reports that this chamber contained idols, altars and about 2,000 human mummies. Although the entrance to the amazing cavern was (of course--B.G.) lost, there are still cave true-believers who poke about looking for the weird mausoleum beneath this part of Fayette County."   Fayette County, Missouri "Followers of ghost lore may have heard of the recent (1976) antics of a supposed phantom in Lilac Hill, a large old farmhouse at Fayette, Missouri. A number of psychically-sensitive individuals have been trying to discern what is troubling the alleged spirits, of whom there are said to be at least two." LaFayette, New York "In New York state, a farm near Cardiff, 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of Syracuse, was the starting point in October 1869 for one of the more sensational fossil controversies. The 'Cardiff Giant' is still displayed at museum near Cooperstown," and the weird stone idol was found in a quarry near "the Nineteenth Century town of La Fayette."  Fayette, New York Also, "it was in April of 1830 that the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (i.e. the Mormons) was founded by Joseph Smith and a few disciples, who claim to have received more than a little help from certain angelic friends in the neighborhood. The place: Fayette, New York."  Fayetteville, North Carolina "Another haunted house story takes us to an American state that perhaps rivals New York and Arkansas in the number and interest of its anomalies. It also brings us back across the trail of the peripatetic Marquis de Lafayette. This is the A.S. Slocumb Mansion, located in the North Carolina city of Fayetteville. The Slocumb House is supposed to have a number of special occupants. It also has, or had, a secret vault in the basement and at least one tunnel leading to the Cape Fear River channel."  Fayette County, Tennessee In 1977, the USA experienced one of the most severe winters in its history. "As of February 3, 1977, the National Weather Service announced that the 'hardest hit area' of the north-central states region was Fayette County, Ohio." Fayette County, Tennessee Bigfoot "became rather more aggressive on April 23, 1976 when it attempted to carry off a four-year-old boy from his backyard on a farm in Tennessee. A sheriff's posse pursued the entity and seems to have shot enough high-powered rifle fire into it to have felled King Kong himself. However, as if tiring of the game, the creature finally leaped out of its cul-de-sac and simply vanished. These events occurred within a few miles of the hamlet called Fayetteville, Tennessee."  Lafayette Baker "Now I would like to consider some examples of a more ominous character," Grimstad wrote, "We find 'the Lafayette factor' in the Abraham Lincoln assassination of the 1860s...A slippery character named Lafayette Baker had been brought in to head the Secret Service by the enigmatic Edwin M. Stanton, President Lincoln's arrogant Secretary of War. Otto Eisenschiml, the pioneer revisionist historian of this amazingly crude murder conspiracy, delved into the story as far as the surviving records would allow." "His findings suggest that Lafayette Baker and Stanton had maneuvered to facilitate the escape into the South of assassin John Wilkes Booth, and when that proved impossible (owing to Booth's broken leg) to ensure that the killer was not brought back and that his evidently-incriminating diary did not survive intact."  "At the same hour Lincoln was shot at Ford's Theatre, Secretary of State William Seward "was attacked and savagely knifed by a deranged giant named Lewis Paine, who had forced his way into the Seward home. This house fronted upon Lafayette Square, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House."  Andrew Jackson statue and White House, Lafayette Square, with Masonic obelisk of Washington's Monument in the background, Washington, D. C. "Residents of the District of Columbia sometimes refer to the area "as 'Tragedy Square.' No other section of Washington has had so much intrigue, mystery, murder and macabre happenings as has the area directly opposite 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.'" Fayetteville, Pennsylvania The Fayette Factor has also come into play in occult crimes, as well. "On July 3, 1977, 23-year-old Gary Rock was charged on two counts of criminal homicide after two local volunteer firemen were killed by a sniper while responding to a fire alarm at Rock's isolated cabin, near Fayetteville, Pennsylvania." Lafayette High School, New York City "On July 31, 1977, two young people sitting in a parked car along the Brooklyn, New York seashore were shot several times by a mysterious assailant who had become known as 'the Son of Sam.' The girl, Stacy Moskowitz, died of her injuries; her companion, Robert Violante, suffered eye damage. Miss Moskowitz was an alumna of (Brooklyn's) Lafayette High School. When she and Violante were shot, it was while they were sitting 'not far from Lafayette High School,' according to the New York Times" of August 1, 1977, page 34-C." It's just all part of the enduring mystery we call "the Fayette Factor."  Sources: Fortean Times No. 25 for Spring 1978, "Fateful Fayette" by Bill Grimstad, page 3; Why Was Lincoln Murdered? by Otto Eisenschiml, Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass., 1937; America's Assignment with Destiny by Manly Palmer Hall, Philosophical Research Society, Los Angeles, Cal., 1951; and Weird America by Jim Brandon, E.P. Dutton Co., New York, N.Y., 1978. Fortean Times February 13, 2004  + 2012 enhancements. Flashback reflections from Loren Coleman Fayette incidents continue... Fayette, Pennsylvania, 2009 Bigfoot sighting drawing. Bigfoot Lunch Club montage.   Also from Loren Coleman For more specific "Fayette" sites  and further updates on the "Fayette Factor,"  please consult Mysterious America. Fayette County, Pennsylvania, continues to have frequent Bigfoot and Thunderbird sightings. Fayette, Maine, is a hotspot of weirdness. What "Fayette" links have you found?