July 12, 1947

How do you think it feels to be born nearly on the threshold of UFOlogy, on July 12, 1947, near a major American Naval base, in Norfolk, Virginia?

Eight Kenneth Arnold-like flying saucers were photographed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on my exact birthdate.

On July 12, 1947, Kenneth Arnold sent a telegram giving his permission, for the first time, to General Twining to disseminate information about Arnold's June 24th sighting to all military commands.

As many of you know, I, Loren Coleman, cryptozoologist and Fortean, was born on July 12, 1947. I co-wrote The Unidentified: Notes Towards Solving the UFO Mystery in 1975, and Creatures of the Outer Edge in 1978, both with Jerome Clark, published by Warner Books in New York City. It was republished as a combined volume with a new introduction in 2006 from Anomalist Books.

Jerry Clark and I had an intellectual side trek to get off our chests, and for me, my Jungian journey into ufology in our 1975 book was enough. But it is intriguing to me that my first book would, in essence, be about "ufology."

Also, Bertrand Méhuest, ufologist, was born on July 12, 1947. Méheust's early work was linked to ufo. His first book, in 1978, was on ufology. Méheust's mentor is Aimé Michel, who was also be a powerful influence on Jacque Valleé. It is a small world, after all.

June 19: Tulsa Danger

UPDATE:

President Trump bowed to pressure on Friday night and announced that he would delay his upcoming campaign rally in Tulsa, Okla., rather than hold it on the day that honors the end of slavery in the United States and is considered a major holiday by many Black Americans.
The rally was originally set for next Friday, or June 19, the date known as Juneteenth, which marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers arrived in Texas and read the Emancipation Proclamation announcing that slaves had been freed, the last of the Confederate states to officially receive the news, reported The New York Times.

Trump's campaign said they would hold the Tulsa rally on Saturday, June 20, 2020.

While I predicted June 17th would be a date to watch, it is becoming clearer that more danger may exist ahead for June 19, 2020.

One early commenter (Ra1119bee) at my posting "Take Heel on June 17" mentioned, "Also The Law of the Three is in play as well. So if your target is 17 then: June 14, 15, 16, and June 18, 19, 20 are all possible dates with the same 'energy' as your Target Date."

The 19th is now in focus.

The President of the United States appears to be creating a situation of theater of his own design. The choices for his proposed event is full of twilight language.

On Wednesday, June 10, 2020, the White House announced that President Donald Trump will host his first rally in months on Friday, June 19, 2020, in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

CNN observed: "The decision to hold a rally in Tulsa, a city with a checkered racial history, on June 19, or Juneteenth -- the day that marks the end of slavery in the United States -- is especially striking as the nation undergoes a conversation about racism in the wake of George Floyd's killing at the hands of police officers."

Juneteenth (a portmanteau of "June" and "nineteenth"), also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, and Cel-Liberation Day, is an American holiday celebrated on June 19. On June 19, 1865, the Emancipation Proclamation (signed by President Abraham Lincoln) — which had been issued on January 1, 1863 — was read to enslaved African Americans in Texas by Gordon Granger. Texas was the last Confederate State to have the proclamation announced, after the end of the American Civil War in April of that year. Texas was the most remote of the slave states, and minimal fighting meant there were few Union troops present to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation until after the war ended.

The holiday is considered the "longest running African-American holiday" and has been called "America's second Independence Day," notes the media and the Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture (2011).

Andy Thomas' The Republican Club, with Trump, Abraham Lincoln (sitting as he was when assassinated), Ronald Reagan (a target of an assassination attempt), and others, with Kamala Harris (?) coming forth in the background. It was featured on 60 Minutes in 2018. This painting was installed in the White House by Trump. See here.

Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat who is widely viewed as a top contender to be Joe Biden's vice presidential pick, blasted Trump's decision to hold the rally there on Juneteenth.

"This isn't just a wink to white supremacists—he's throwing them a welcome home party," Harris tweeted Thursday [June 11, 2020]." 

Picking Tulsa seems like tossing dynamite on a fire, for another reason too, CNN wrote:

"In 1921, Tulsa was the site of a massacre of hundreds of African Americans during racial unrest in the historic section of the city known as 'Black Wall Street.'" 

The Tulsa race massacre (also called the Tulsa race riot, the Greenwood Massacre, or the Black Wall Street Massacre) of 1921 took place on May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents attacked black residents and businesses of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history." The attack, carried out on the ground and from private aircraft, destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the district—at that time the wealthiest black community in the United States, known as "Black Wall Street". More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals and as many as 6,000 black residents were interned at large facilities, many for several days. Source.

White America suffered from universal amnesia until HBO broadcast a new television series in 2019. Watchmen (2019), the acclaimed TV series on HBO, was based on the characters of the graphic novel of the same name. The series' producer, Damon Lindelof, was inspired to open the pilot episode with depictions of the white riots of the black massacre, and based the series on racial tensions after reading a 2014 Atlantic article by writer Ta-Nehesi Coates. Many aspects of the series' plot, centers on the legacy of the graphic novel and the massacre in an alternate timeline in the present day in Tulsa, where racial conflict remains high. The popularity of Watchmen was considered to be the first exposure to the Tulsa race massacre via the entertainment industry as its history was generally not widely discussed and had not been depicted in that form before.

This graphic from HBO's series Watchmen appears to broadcast the number 19.

HBO brought the Tulsa massacre alive, in a time when face masks were worn. It was an extremely prophetic series.

Tulsa has a history that is generally ignored. Coates wrote in the Atlantic article: "Terrorism carried the day. Federal troops withdrew from the South in 1877. The dream of Reconstruction died. For the next century, political violence was visited upon blacks wantonly, with special treatment meted out toward black people of ambition. Black schools and churches were burned to the ground. Black voters and the political candidates who attempted to rally them were intimidated, and some were murdered. At the end of World War I, black veterans returning to their homes were assaulted for daring to wear the American uniform. The demobilization of soldiers after the war, which put white and black veterans into competition for scarce jobs, produced the Red Summer of 1919: a succession of racist pogroms against dozens of cities ranging from Longview, Texas, to Chicago to Washington, D.C. Organized white violence against blacks continued into the 1920s—in 1921 a white mob leveled Tulsa’s “Black Wall Street,” and in 1923 another one razed the black town of Rosewood, Florida—and virtually no one was punished."

My research on adjusting the awareness from the 17th to the 19th was reinforced by such incoming comments, as by JDM: "I would look at June 19th. The MAGA rally in Tulsa is likely to be a flashpoint. See also tons of predictive programming from last fall's Watchmen television adaptation, which begins with the Black Wall Street [white] riots [and black massacre] and is set in Tulsa."

In the spring of 1921, a white mob leveled “Black Wall Street” in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Here, wounded prisoners ride in an Army truck during the martial law imposed by the Oklahoma governor in response to the race riot. (Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis)

City of Tulsa leaders and other dignitaries dedicated the John Hope Franklin Reconciliation Park at 415 North Detroit, Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 2010. Reconciliation Park features elements that tell the story of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921. The park is named for Franklin, the son of a race riot survivor. He became a leading scholar on black history. He died in 2009, shortly after the groundbreaking on the park.

Meanwhile, syncs from the George Floyd killing remain to be explored. See, for example, this video here.

Consider the counterfeit twenty dollar ($20) bill for which George Floyd reportedly was taken into custody. An Andrew Jackson bill. I am a bit shocked by the non-comments on the coincidence of it being a Jackson bill.

Jackson was a brutal slave owner who owned 300+ individuals in his lifetime, and he was known to pay extra rewards for the extensive whipping of his captured runaway slaves.

Also, as President Jackson, he was responsible for the Indian Removal Act.

A mounted Andrew Jackson statue is situated significantly in Lafayette Park, the location which had to be cleared of peaceful demonstrators for Trump's photo opportunity on May 31, 2020. The Fayette Factor again.

NASCAR issued a short statement on June 10, 2020 at 4:45 PM:

“The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry. Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”

Meanwhile, more statues were toppled:

Columbus statue in Boston was beheaded.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis statue was towed away in Richmond, Virginia.

The BBC reported, in part, this summary:

Statues of Confederate leaders and the explorer Christopher Columbus have been torn down in the US, as pressure grows on authorities to remove monuments connected to slavery and colonialism.
A statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis was toppled in Richmond, Virginia, on Wednesday night.
Statues of Columbus in Boston, Miami and Virginia have been vandalised.
***
A number of Confederate statues on Monument Avenue in Richmond have been marked with graffiti during the protests.
Richmond also saw a statue of Italian explorer Columbus pulled down, set alight and thrown into a lake earlier this week,.
A three-metre tall (10ft) bronze statue of Columbus was toppled in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday.
The Columbus statue in Boston, which stands on a plinth at the heart of town, was beheaded.
Many people in the US celebrate the memory of Columbus, who in school textbooks is credited with discovering "the New World", the Americas, in the 15th Century.
But Native American activists have long objected to honouring Columbus, saying that his expeditions to the Americas led to the colonisation and genocide of their ancestors.
***
Many cities and organisations have taken steps to remove Confederate symbols, which have long stirred controversy because of their association with racism.
Last week, for example, Virginia's Governor Ralph Northam announced that a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee would be removed from Richmond.
However, a judge has since granted a temporary injunction stopping the removal.
Stock-car racing organisers Nascar announced on Wednesday it was banning Confederate flags, frequently seen at races.
US President Donald Trump has meanwhile rejected calls to rename military bases named after Confederate generals, saying they remain part of America's heritage.
He tweeted: "The United States of America trained and deployed our HEROES on these Hallowed Grounds, and won two World Wars. Therefore, my Administration will not even consider the renaming of these Magnificent and Fabled Military Installations."
* * *
On Thursday, Bristol City Council said it had retrieved the statue, which will be taken to a secure location before becoming a museum exhibit.
Earlier this week, a statue of noted slaveholder Robert Milligan was removed from outside the Museum of London Docklands.
And, during a Black Lives Matter protest in London last weekend, a statue of Sir Winston Churchill in Parliament Square was sprayed with graffiti. Source.

CNN carried a tally of Confederate statues removed since George Floyd's death here. See also the Wikipedia lists, here and here.

Example: In Tampa, Florida, Memoria In Aeterna ("Eternal Memory"), monument is comprised of two Confederate soldiers: one facing north, in a fresh uniform, upright and heading to battle, and the other facing south, his clothes tattered as he heads home humbled by war. Between them is a 32-foot-tall obelisk with the image of a Confederate flag chiseled into it. It was first erected in 1911 at Franklin and Lafayette Streets, and was moved on September 5, 2017, to the Brandon Family Cemetery.

Tulsa: Five Injured in Hmong New Year Shooting and Two Killed at Former Dragon's Lair

There was a shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the evening of October 12, 2012. You may hear little about it, as it happened among a closed ethnic group. This time of year is in the midst of the traditional three days of in-house Hmong New Year rituals, which are followed in some communities by seven days of "outside" activities.

A man walked in and opened fire at one such Hmong New Year's celebration in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on October 12th, Saturday night, injuring five people of the 400 there, local police said.

Authorities don't know what caused the man to begin shooting inside the Green Country Event Center, near Highway 169, at 12000 East 31st Street.

Two Hmong celebrating (between 30-60) were hit in the upper body, while the other three were struck in the arm and leg, said Tulsa Police Captain Mike Williams. One person probably will lose the use of the lower leg.

Nhia Vang, 75, told reporters that the gunman opened fire six feet away from him after a toast. One bullet went through his shirt, but he was uninjured – although the police took the garment as evidence, the Tulsa World reported.

One suspect was said to be firing from a car, with another driving. A passenger was observed changing clothes, then throwing his hoodie and a gun from the car.

Police believe the passenger, 19-year-old Ming Mee, was the shooter. Both he and the driver, 21-year-old Boon Mee, were arrested. A 40-caliber semi-automatic handgun was recovered.

The Hmong (seen in traditional dress above, in Vietnam, 2004) are an Asian ethnic group from the mountainous regions of China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. American soldiers would characterize them as the "hill people" of the Vietnam War, and understand them to be loyal allies.

This memorial, in honor of Hmong service, is in front of the Fresno County Court House, in downtown Fresno, California. (Photograph credit: Prayitno.)

As CNN noted in reporting the Tulsa shooting, "The Hmongs are an Asian ethnic group. There are an estimated 210,000 Hmongs scattered across the united States. They were an important U.S. ally during the Vietnam War. Many fled the Communist government when combat ended."

In the 1960s and 1970s, many Hmong were secretly recruited by the American CIA to fight against communism during the Vietnam War. After American armed forces pulled out of Vietnam, a communist regime took over in Laos, and ordered the prosecution and re-education of all those who had fought against its cause during the war. Whilst many Hmong are still left in Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and China (which houses one of the biggest Hmong populations in the world, 5 million), since 1975 many Hmong have fled Laos in fear of persecution, coming to the USA, as well as other Western countries.

This Hmong shooting comes in the wake of the Vietnam-styled self-immolation of Vietnam vet John Constantino on the National Mall in Washington D.C., which took place on the October 4th anniversary of the beginning of the US bombing of Cambodia.

Elsewhere in Tulsa, another multiple shooting occurred on Saturday, October 12th, due to a fight at a night spot (Reverb, above, formerly the Dragon's Lair, below). 

(Dragon exists in Hmong folktales and many Hmong believe dragon actually exists. There are two types of dragons according to the Hmong elders: the River Dragon and Land Dragon. River Dragon are considered the evil one while Land Dragon are considered a luck if you see them. There is absolutely no known link between the Hmong New Year shooting and the former Dragon's Lair shooting. The synch is merely being pointed out.)

Two men shot at Reverb were pronounced dead following the late night incident that left two others injured. According to a police report, a fight broke out in the parking lot of the after hours club around 3 a.m. near 5500 E. 11th Street.

A 21-year-old Marrico McGuire was transported to a Tulsa hospital and was later pronounced dead at the hospital as a result of his injuries. A second unidentified victim has since died. This individual's name online has been reported to be "Dave Muse."

Additional temporal note:  The Chicago Marathon occurs on Sunday, 10-13-13, the first major American marathon since the Boston Marathon bombing almost exactly 6 months ago. Reportedly, security is extremely heightened at that event.

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.

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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.