BAWDS AND BARS OF EARLY OKLAHOMA

They were the places everyone knew how to find, so addresses or names were seldom used in newspapers and reports, but also the places no one wanted to recognize. They were the spots were ladies of negotiable virtue, outlaw drinks, and games of assorted chances could be found. Every style was offered - from the refined settings of lace and Belgium carpets to rough blood-stained floors and mismatched chairs.  Find out about some of the places and people of early Oklahoma in BAWDS AND BARS OF EARLY OKLAHOMA. Available now on Amazon.   Part of the series NEIGHBORHOOD OF HELL, the work joins Tales of Hell's Half Acre and Oklahoma Bad Girls to look under the carpet of history for some inconvenient facts or ignored events.

Read, in a chronological order, the tides of change that drove issues of drink, gambling, and loose virtue in early Oklahoma. 

What really happened in 1947?

Confused by the competing rhetoric on what "really" happened in 1947 and the appearance of those "flying saucers"?  Is it hard to untangle just when something happened?  Do you have questions about how the military and government really reacted to those reports?

Look no further! 1947: Those Saucy Saucers is a chronological listing of major events, reports, responses, and influences driving the history at the time. 

The subtitle is taken from the comments of the commanding base officer for what was then Tinker Air Field in Oklahoma County, Oklahoma. When queried about the flying saucers, as they were called then, he said those "saucy saucers" had not filed any flight plans with his base!

Chronologies - timelines - are a valuable research tool and allow things to become clear that can be easily hidden when stories are lumped together and dismissed (as so many of the early cases were) without adequate scientific investigations. 

Can we learn from our past? 

Get your copy, or ask your library to add it to their collection, and then answer that question for yourself. 

UFO's Over Route 66 -Now Available!!

A fun and short guide to the sightings over the historic mother road, Route 66.

Available in Kindle and paperback formats. Note, cover for Kindle version is a little different.

 

UPDATED! Now Available!

 Check out Amazon to get your copy in e-format or print. 

Seeing Patterns: Is There a Hidden Pattern in the UFO/UAP Topic

There can be a tendency to think of the past through a bias that says we are smarter. It is not a new bias; every generation tends to indulge.

In 1899, Tesla conducted an experiment of utilizing the Earth's own electro-magnetism to generate power. His experiment sent bolts of high powered electrical  frequency shooting outward, it rocked the area of the test, and created localized lightening storms.  The "message" he sent was in common dot and dash format (the Morse Code). It was already recognized as being sent and read. Surprisingly there were responses to his signals that were "periodic" and thus outside the natural response range. He felt they were responses to his messages.

In 1901, Marconi of radio fame, sent the letter "S" across the Atlantic for the first time. Tesla said his equipment once more picked up the regular pulses of earlier and they were not of the same character as solar radiation he had already recorded and studied.  There was an odd regularity and promptness to the responses that raised questions. Tesla thought them too reactive to be natural random events. He would later send and receive the signal for "V."

1921, Tesla reported he had been receiving strange, unidentifiable radio signals with an unnatural regularity.  He felt they contained a code and the only recognizable part of that alleged code was the letter "V."  This connection to the code Marconi had sent years before only deepened the mystery.

At this time the U.S. Navy was engaged in numerous developments and tests related to technologies to strengthen their forces: radio transmission and communications between land and sea based vessels was crucial.  At the time, a man named Jenkins had successfully transferred television waves to film and another had made possible signals printed onto thin strips of paper. The future was crafting many developments. Jenkins system was essentially a crude, early scanning disc system. The Navy wanted to test the plausibility of receiving signals from Mars. 

In August of 1924 the red planet was at its closest position to earth (35,000,000 miles) and a test was planned. Dr. David Todd was head of the "Jenkins Radio-Camera Test" of August 23, 1924.  The government shut down all radios of that date. Not all locations reported in as planned but from British Columbia came a report of a mysterious series of coded signals. They were four dashes repeated numerous times. 

The real results came from the Naval Observatory, site of the experiments, where they recorded along an extremely long roll of thin photographic film strip. Down one edge were a series of dots and dashes.  Along the other were clusters of dots that appeared to form crude human like faces.   The New York Times on August 28 reported on the event.  What really excited the scientists, however, were not the dot-matrix like faces but the chronological association they identified. 

There was some regularity in the events from 1899 to 1924. It seemed to be reflected in events occurring a year or two after keeping events in a 21 year range of time. The question raised was there something "out there" receiving the messages sent and attempted to return communications?

Add 21 more years to 1924 and you arrive at 1946 and the mysterious lights seen over the area of Scandinavia.  Add, one more year (matching the sending of the Marconi signal in 1901) you end up in 1947....the year most people assume birthed the entire UFO/UAP issue.

Since historical records indicate there was activity in 1946 and earlier in 1947 the regularity seems pretty solid. Add 21 more years to the 1946-1947 window and you end up in the 1965-1968 window of increasing activity. Adding 21 more years and we reach the 2010 window. Adding 21 more years and we face another window in 2031...eight years.

In 2020 there was a decided upswing in attitudes, recognition of unknowns and governments acknowledging the need to seriously study the once ridiculed topic. 

Is there a deadline approaching?  

What key events occurred in the windows of 1968, 2010 that might provide further insight? 

Is there....somewhere

...a clock ticking?

[Discover some fascinating under reported early cases by one of the journalists of the time. Flying Saucers - Serious Business by Frank Edwards (Bantam, 1965).  He uncovered and shared numerous stories and facts no one else did. See pages 73f for more on some early research in to the possibility of alien life that went unreported or was ignored.]

COMING SOON! SOONER SAUCERS VOLUME 2 AND UFO'S OVER OKLAHOMA: A ROUTE 66 GUIDE

 Author and researcher Marilyn A. Hudson announces that soon the sequel to her popular Sooner Saucers: Oklahoma UFO's 1947-1969 will be released. The volume, Sooner Saucers: Volume 2 will look at stories before, during and after those Project Blue File years in a chronological manner that helps make sense of all that was happening. 

There are numerous stories, many of them first time accounts, and from the witnesses themselves. In addition, there are numerous obscure historical facts and incidents that most people are unaware ever occurred in the "Sooner State" of Oklahoma. A must have for any Oklahoma collections and libraries dedicated to balanced views of the historic unidentified flying object topic. 

An added bonus is the release of a guidebook to locations along US Route 66 in Oklahoma where there were reports of strange encounters, sightings, and more. UFO'S Over Oklahoma: A Route 66 Guide presents some brief history of locales along the historic roadway and then shares the accounts reported. Perfect for a different kind of road trip....

Both are expected to be released late March or Early April of 2023 and will be available on Amazon in book and kindle formats. 

"HORRIBLE BRUTALITY!": 1897 CRIME IN INDIAN TERRITORY (OKLAHOMA)

 In the lurid style of the day a story was widely reported in September of 1897 under the heading, "Horrible Brutality!"

The event was in the Coalgate area of Indian Territory, south of McAlester. A man named Wiley Ross, identified as a "non-citizen" (meaning he was not a member of a Native American tribe and thus was only living there by permission of the Federal Government and tribal authorities). It also mentioned that he was partially deaf and had, three weeks earlier, married a 15 year old girl from that area. Some, the news accounts added, thought he was not a cunning and devious devil and others that he was not "in a right mind." The account seems to support that description.

The most recent Saturday the girl's father and brother came by her house to visit and found no one about. Concerned they conducted a search. About a quarter of a mile down the road they found her lashed to a tree in a startling condition. She had been tied there for three days with only three drinks of water in all that time.

As the weak young woman's story was heard it was learned that her trials began some ten days earlier when her husband tied her to a wagon wheel. After securing her the man had then fired off his Winchester over her head and near by several times. Then, he began to beat her with a club. How long he beat her she was not sure because she became unconscious.

The next outrage was to tie a rope around her neck and hoist her up by the rafter in the cabin. This he did until he supposed she was dead. After he learned she had survived this treatment, however, he then tied her to a chair in the house. Beside her was a large container with a spout holding powder used to ignite papers and sticks in the fireplace.  He arranged papers in the spout to form a trail and then from a distance he lit the paper and exited the cabin. He obviously was expecting the powder to ignite and explode into flames. 

Coming back in after a time he was greatly disappointed on seeing that the paper had burned but had broken from the spout and did not ignite.

Finding he had failed he then dragged to the tree and tied her there where she was found. She was famished, out of her mind, and unable to speak. It was feared that Mrs. Ross would die from her abuse. 

Authorities searching the house verified there was much blood, clubs and other implements supporting her account of torture. In addition, her body appeared to be one massive contusion said medical authorities. She was heavily bruised and cut all about her body. Her general appearance was frenzied with sunken eyes, lips drawn back in a look of terror and fear, Worst were the visions and memories of the events that when under their power she would sink back, grow rigid with her hands drawn up as if to protect herself. It took many kind voices to soothe her after these attacks and reassure her she was not in her husband's "loving" hands. 

Given the time period there were few census records to verify this story, especially without a name for the girl's family. The name "Ross" was very common all across "Indian Territory" and elsewhere.  The bride of this story would have been born about 1882. The "Wiley Ross" could have been twice her age (1867 - 1879 birth range) or even older. Was he a "shell shocked Civil War Veteran," a survivor of some gruesome frontier cavalry battle or attack, or just cunning and devilish as suggested?

As someone very wise one noted, some are mad and some are merely bad. Which is the case may never be known in this, another case, from the files of Mystorical...sharing stories since 2005.