Bermuda Triangle of the Ohio River?

Currently part of the Wikipedia article for Maysville, Kentucky:

The story of Maysville's Bermuda Triangle began around 1992 when a barge sank near the Kentucky shoreline in West Maysville Kentucky. A subsequent salvage operation in 1994 tried to raise the sunken barge with two Navy minesweepers. The minesweepers were the next victim as they became stuck in the mud. A towboat trying to free the minesweepers also fell victim when damage to its engines rendered it crippled. Next came a salvage barge named The Hercules. The Maysville Bermuda Triangle made short work of it as well. While hoisting the original barge, the crane aboard The Hercules broke as the barge reached the surface, and down it sank again. Then The Hercules itself sank, coming to rest on top of the barge it was supposed to save. Eventually the minesweepers and the towboat sank as well. The entire salvage operation nick-named John Beatty's Navy, after its owner, fell victim to what an Army Corps of Engineers spokesperson would later call, "The Bermuda Triangle of the Ohio River".

Like much of Wikipedia, the section of text is unsourced. In fact, it may not remain on the article long since it's already been tagged as needing a citation and it's part of a trivia section that will likely get deleted. (Also in that same trivia section: "Seen from above at night, the streetlights of the downtown area form the outline of the Liberty Bell, crack included". Hmmmm. Now that I gotta see.)

I'm still researching this "Maysville Bermuda Triangle" matter, but nothing surprises me about the Ohio River. Time and time again, it's proven to be a very strange and, I daresay, cursed place.

Washington Opera House

Maysville's Washington Opera House is said by some to be one of Kentucky's most haunted places, but it's also notable for being the fifth oldest performing arts theatre in the United States. The building was erected in 1898, on the spot where a previous opera house had stood since 1851.

Of the many alleged ghosts here, one of them is believed to be that of Loretta Stambo, a dancer in a traveling theatre troupe in the late 19th century. Supposedly Stambo was in town to perform and collapsed onstage from pneumonia. On her deathbed, she requested to be buried underneath the dressing room there. Unfortunately, like most ghost stories, this doesn't sound terribly believable. The ways in which this story is so unlikely are so numerous I'm not even going to enumerate them.

I tried a cursory Google search but couldn't actually come up with any proof that Loretta Stambo ever even existed. Some versions of the account list her name as Laura Stambo, and I did find a Laura Stambo from Floyd, KY in the 1930 census, but this obviously could not be the same person who supposedly died in Maysville in the late 19th century.

The book Cincinnati Ghosts, And other Tri-State Haunts recounts various anecdotes actors have told over the years of weird goings-on in the Opera House, however. A Coke bottle is said to have exploded in the dressing room, which of course was taken as a sign that Loretta's ghost must have been displeased.

The story is told that a picture of Loretta was painted on the wall of the lobby area, and that its eyes would follow people. Supposedly it was painted over numerous times but the portrait remained visible, with the eyes of Loretta in this painting seemingly becoming angrier and angrier. Aside from these campfire tales, however, there is no proof that such a painting ever existed, nor that it paranormally refused to stay painted over.

Like most ghost stories, it snowballs as subsequent generations hear of the legend, and then they start looking for something weird to happen. Spooky noises and distant footsteps are the commonly reported "evidence" proferred by people who insist that it simply must be the angry ghost of this hypothetical actress whose corpse supposedly lies under the dressing room floor.

I don't rule out the potential for genuine haunted activity here, however. Theatres can often be a magnet for psychic energies and paranormal phenomena, and there is a lot of history here. I just like the place for its own sake. The Maysville Players have been putting on shows consistently in the Washington Opera House since 1962, so check out one of their shows this summer. The Opera House is at 116 West 2nd Street (the corner of 2nd and Grave) in Maysville.

400 Mile Yard Sale Across Kentucky

I live for yard sales, flea markets, junk stores, auctions, trading posts, antique malls, and such. And in this economy, "secondary market" stuff is quickly becoming primary.

So it should come as no surprise that you'll find me somewhere in all the hubbub of the 400 Mile Yard Sale across Kentucky.

The sale follows Highway 68 (though there's always plenty more yard sales going on in the periphery each year) from Maysville to Paducah and hitting all points in between - including Paris, Lexington, Nicholasville, Wilmore, Harrodsburg, Danville, Gravel Switch, Lebanon, Campbellsville, Glasgow, Bowling Green, Cadiz, Hopkinsville, and Benton. Yee-haw!


(By the way, Catclaw Theatre is having a yard sale this weekend at 2107 Lakeland Road in the Anchorage area of Louisville. Come on down and say howdy! And if you can't make it, make a donation!)

Crop Circles in Maysville Area

The Death of Thomas Mantell

January 7, 1948.

1:15pm : Officials at Godman Air Force Base outside Louisville, KY receive a call from Kentucky State Police regarding UFO sightings in Maysville.

1:35pm : KSP calls Godman Air Force Base again. The UFO has been seen in Owensboro and Irvinton.

1:45pm : The UFO is seen approaching the base. Control tower ascertains that the object is not a weather balloon or a plane. It is described as
gray, metallic, conical, and rotating.

2:30pm : A team of four F-51 fighters planes approach the base. The tower called the flight leader, Captain Thomas Mantell, briefed him of the situation, and asked him to investigate. One F-51 in the flight was running low on fuel and continued on his course while Mantell took his other two planes and went after the UFO. Mantell sights the UFO above him and follows it to 20,000 feet while his men drop back at 15,000. Mantell is nowhere to be seen and doesn't answer the radio.

3:50pm : The control tower loses sight of the UFO.

7:20pm : UFO sightings suddenly occur across the midwest.

3:00am : Captain James F. Duesler is summoned to investigate Mantell's crash site.

Mantell's plane crashed 130 miles away and appears to have belly flopped straight down, which is totally inconsistent with a plane crash of this type. There should have damage to surrounding woods from an angular trajectory, and the nose-heavy weight of the plane should have brought it down nose-first . Although the wings and tail had broken off, the fuselage sustained little damage, and no blood was evident in the cockpit. Mantell's body had already been taken away, but Duesler was allegedly informed by others at the scene that "nowhere on the body had the skin been punctured or penetrated, yet all the bones had been crushed and pulverized."

The Air Force maintained that Mantell must have been chasing Venus and ran out of Oxygen. After it was pointed that Venus was nowhere near that position in the sky at the time, they changed their story and insisted it was a balloon that Mantell was chasing.

Mantell's body was laid to rest in Louisville's Zachary Taylor National Cemetery.