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12/1/06 #393
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Are you tired of the same-old stories from your local newspaper or the generic "government approved" TV news? Are you sick of being constantly force-fed inane stories about the private lives of celebrities or what obscene amount of money a popular sports figure makes a month? Well if that's how you feel, then it's time to join thousands of others all over the world (and maybe "worlds") with the number one weekly e-mail newsletter of conspiracies, UFOs, the paranormal, and everything else weird, strange and frightening. YES THAT'S RIGHT! Conspiracy Journal is here once again to cure the sickness of ignorance, disinformation and government cover-ups. So sit back and relax because it's time for Conspiracy Journal!

This week, Conspiracy Journal takes a look at such teeth-grinding stories as:

- Lake Mystery Still Unsolved -
- Is Full UFO Disclosure Advisable? -

- Out of This World Solution to a Scottish Standing Stone -
AND: Strange Attractors!

All these exciting stories and MORE in this week's issue of
CONSPIRACY JOURNAL!

~ And Now, On With The Show! ~

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- THE MUDDY WORLD OF UFOS DEPARTMENT -

Lake Mystery Still Unsolved

The truth about a vanished Air Force jet is out there ... somewhere.

KINROSS — Fifty-three years ago this month, a U.S. Air Force F-89 Scorpion jet vanished from radar screens over Lake Superior after being sent to intercept an unknown aircraft.

On the evening of Nov. 23, 1953, Air Force radar tracked the missing jet until it merged with an unidentified object 70 miles off the Keweenaw Peninsula, at an altitude of 7,000 feet.

Newspaper reports said the missing plane, which had left the Kinross Air Force Base at 5:22 p.m. “was last heard from when it radioed the base from somewhere out over the lake.”

Pilot 1st Lt. Felix E. Moncla Jr., 27, of Mercauville, La. and radar operator 2nd Lt. Robert Wilson, 22, of Ponca City, Okla. were presumed dead, likely somewhere under the snow-swept waters of Lake Superior.

The U.S. military said the object the plane chased was a Royal Canadian Air Force Mohawk C-47 transport plane, but that claim was later denied by the Canadian government, saying there were no such aircraft in the area at the time.

Algoma Central Railway workers roughly 100 miles north of Sault Ste. Marie said they heard a crash that occurred shortly contact with the F-89 was lost by the military. But after a search, no sign of the crew or fighter jet was discovered.

In autumn 1968, prospectors in the Cozens Cove area of Ontario found mechanical parts north of Sault Ste. Marie, including a tail stabilizer section, that military officials said were from a high-performance jet aircraft.

A newspaper article from the time said the parts were thought to have perhaps been from the missing Kinross plane, but that idea was later discounted. The article doesn’t say why.

Over the years, a great deal of speculation has surrounded the “Kinross Incident,” with some UFO investigators suggesting the Scorpion may have struck, or even been devoured by, a craft from another planet.

“It is a compelling mystery with an interesting UFO twist,” said Gord Heath, a British Columbia resident interested in the Kinross incident since 2000. “Many people at radar tracking stations observed the F-89’s return merging with the blip from the other craft before it disappeared. The possibility that a UFO ‘swallowed’ the F-89 makes this an interesting puzzle.”

Now, more than five decades after the crew disappeared without sending a distress signal, the mystery of what happened to Moncla, Wilson and the Scorpion jet has been given new life.

Reports from The Great Lake Dive Company — a downstate venture said to be made up of Michigan natives with a common interest in shipwreck hunting and historical preservation — say they used side-scan sonar equipment to discover the missing plane, along with a piece of the object it presumably collided with.

The jet is reportedly located in deep water, lying upright on the lake bottom, mostly intact. The port wing and starboard tail stabilizer are missing. Cockpit structure is said to be in place, suggesting the pilots may still be inside.

Reportedly, the find was said to be made in an area off the Keweenaw Peninsula in summer 2005, with the dive company waiting a year before announcing its discovery.

“Frankly we came away surprised,” said Adam Jimenez, dive company spokesman from Oakland County. “We expected, at best, to locate an engine, wing or other small debris. Finding the plane together was really unexpected.”

The company reportedly made a positive identification of the F-89. The second object reportedly shows an impact trace that shows how it landed and stopped a little more than 215 feet from the plane’s wreckage.

Jimenez reportedly claimed the mystery object was confirmed to be metallic with a mark from being struck that could match a wing from the fighter jet. The missing wing from the plane’s wreckage may be buried in lake sediments underneath the teardrop-shaped object.

In August, Jimenez contacted The Mining Journal with a news release, saying the company was still in the process of documenting “the mystery object,” with “a lot of wreck site forensics to complete.”

Reportedly, there is nothing else located on the bottom of the lake for miles, leading dive company researchers to conclude the plane and second object being found so close together means they must both be related in the crash.

“We feel bittersweet,” Jimenez wrote. “On one hand, we set out to answer this thing and did. But on the other hand, you realize this was a tragedy that claimed the lives of two American pilots.”

Jimenez said a documentary on the history, search and discovery of the F-89 and mystery object was being planned.

But like the F-89 Scorpion jet itself, Jimenez and the dive company unexpectedly dropped off the radar screen.

Now researchers are wondering whether the reported find and purported sonar images circulated were a hoax, or whether Jimenez and his associates have simply sought a lower public profile with their claims remaining valid.

“While it may be too early to reach any definitive conclusions, there certainly seems to be many more questions than answers concerning Great Lakes Dive Company and the alleged F-89 discovery,” said Dirk Vander Ploeg, editor and publisher of UFODigest.com and PsiTalk.com in an on-line commentary. “About the middle of October, the Great Lakes Dive Company Web site suddenly went blank. It was at this time that Adam Jimenez stopped returning phone calls and e-mails.”

Jimenez has not answered Mining Journal requests seeking interviews for this story and Internet searches for the company have failed to produce new contact information.

Heath, who has contacted several principals in the case and maintains an extensive Web site on the Kinross case, said he believes there are several intriguing possibilities concerning the whereabouts of the missing F-89.

“The best possibility towards solving the mystery will be to find the aircraft, with or without the remains of the crew,” Heath said. “I do think it is possible that the F-89 is either on the bottom of Lake Superior or perhaps somewhere else in the region.”

Are the remains of Wilson and Moncla with their plane on the bottom of an inland lake or lost in a dense Canadian forest yet to be discovered by a hunter or trapper? Was the wreckage actually recovered by prospectors along Lake Superior in 1968?

Perhaps the missing Scorpion jet indeed sits upright off the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in more than 250 feet of water in Canadian jurisdiction? Or does the real answer to where the crew went lie somewhere beyond the stars?

As the popular science fiction television program “The X-Files” would say: “The truth is out there.”

Source: The Mining Journal
http://www.miningjournal.net/stories/articles.asp?articleID=8513

- WHISTLING IN THE DARK DEPARTMENT -

Whistle-Blowers Tell of Cost of Conscience

He knew there were problems. He didn't think he was one of them.

In 2002, decorated FBI Special Agent Mike German was investigating meetings between terrorism suspects. When he discovered other officers had jeopardized the investigation by violating wiretapping regulations, he reported what he found to his supervisors, in accordance with FBI policy.

At the time, Coleen Rowley, the FBI agent who had raised concerns about how the pre-9/11 arrest of al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was handled, was being hailed as a national hero. German says he had also just received a mass e-mail from FBI Director Robert Mueller, urging other whistle-blowers to come forward.

"I was assuming he'd protect me," German says.

Instead, German says his accusations were ignored, his reputation ruined and his career obliterated. Although the Justice Department's inspector general confirmed German's allegations that the FBI had "mishandled and mismanaged" the terrorism investigation, he says he was barred from further undercover work and eventually compelled to resign. FBI spokesman Bill Carter declined to comment.

The experience is familiar to other government employees who have blown the whistle on matters of national security since 9/11.

Whistle-blower filings

Since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the average number of employees filing whistle-blower disclosures with the government has risen 43%, from an average of 376 annually in the four years before the attacks to 537 annually after. The statistics are kept by the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency that handles whistle-blower cases if employees prefer not to directly confront their bosses about suspicions of wrongdoing.

An increasing number of whistle-blowers allege that rather than being embraced, they're being retaliated against for coming forward.

In the four years before the terrorist attacks, whistle-blowers filed an average of 690 reprisal complaints with the OSC annually. Since the attacks, an average of 835 complaints have been filed each year, a 21% increase.

The number of whistle-blower reprisal complaints is higher than the number of whistle-blower disclosure complaints because employees can file reprisal complaints with the OSC even if they had not previously filed their disclosure with the OSC.

"The sad reality is that rather than learning lessons from 9/11, the government appears to have become more thin-skinned and sensitive," says Tom Devine, legal director of the Government Accountability Project, a non-profit group that offers legal aid to whistle-blowers.

Even advocates have begun to dissuade some government employees from coming forward.

"When I get calls from people thinking of blowing the whistle, I tell them 'Don't do it,' " says William Weaver, a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso and a senior adviser to the National Security whistle-blowers Coalition. "Most of the time they go ahead and do it anyway and end up with their lives destroyed."

Those who come forward often face harassment, investigation, character assassination and firing — not to mention the toll their whistle-blowing takes on their families, Weaver and Devine say.

Lack of protection

For those who are fired or have their security clearances revoked — tantamount to firing in the intelligence agencies — there is little recourse.

Most national security whistle-blowers are not protected from retaliation by law. That's because the intelligence-gathering agencies are exempted from the 1989 whistle-blower Protection Act, which guarantees investigations into disclosures made by federal employees and protects whistle-blowers from retaliation.

Whistle-blowers employed by these agencies must seek recourse within the same agency they are blowing the whistle on. And even if the investigators within their own agency confirm reprisal allegations, the investigators have no power to remedy the situation.

Devine says the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled against whistle-blowers in 125 of 127 of the reprisal cases seen by the court since 1994. "They've gutted the law," Devine says, "and it's degenerated into a rubber stamp for retaliation."

Lawmakers recently considered two sets of legislation that would affect whistle-blowers. One attempted to extend the whistle-blower Protection Act to cover intelligence agency employees through amendments to the 2007 Defense Authorization Bill.

In October, a conference committee removed the whistle-blower amendments from the final version of the bill.

The other bill that might affect whistle-blowers stiffens penalties for knowingly leaking classified information to those not authorized to receive it. That bill was introduced by Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., in response to recent leaks to the media about national security programs, says Bond's press secretary, Rob Ostrander.

"When classified information is printed in the newspapers, it's not just Americans who read it," Ostrander says. "It's also America's enemies."

Bond's legislation would make prosecuting leakers easier by eliminating the need to prove the disclosure damaged national security. The measure would subject those who leak classified information to a fine and up to three years in prison. It would apply to those who signed a non-disclosure agreement, regardless of their job at the time of the leak.

The bill uses language identical to that in a 2000 bill — dubbed the "Official Secrets Act," after a similar British law — that was vetoed by President Clinton. It has been endorsed by the Association of Intelligence Officers, a 31-year-old group of 4,500 current and former intelligence officers.

Bond's legislation has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. If it does not make it to a floor vote by the end of this session, he will have to resubmit it when the next session begins in January.

The National Security whistle-blowers Coalition, the Government Accountability Project and various media organizations have criticized the legislation and claimed it would deter whistle-blowers from coming forward.

Ostrander says, "There are adequate opportunities for whistle-blowers to contact superiors and the federal inspector general's office or their own representatives" without leaking classified information to outside sources.

National security whistle-blowers who have come forward since 9/11 aren't so sure.

Many had been star employees at the top of the pay scale and had spent decades in civil service before blowing the whistle. The median number of years of government service for National Security whistle-blowers Coalition members is 22 years, says Sibel Edmonds, an FBI whistle-blower who founded the coalition. Edmonds and others worry that fear of committing career suicide may dissuade others from coming forward.

"I'm one of the last people who survived," says Rowley, the former FBI whistle-blower and Time magazine "Person of the Year" who recently lost her bid for a U.S. congressional seat in Minnesota. She says widespread, favorable media coverage saved her FBI career

"But is that the important story here — that one person in the country has been fired or is not being used to their fullest potential?" she asks. "It's the country that's going to suffer from a lack of whistle-blower protections."

Source: USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-23-whistle-blowers_x.htm

- DON'T ASK DON'T TELL DEPARTMENT -

Is Full UFO Disclosure Advisable?

UFO investigators and researchers have a burning desire not only to educate the public about UFOs, but also point out the importance of being ready just in case "it" really happens. The "it" being contact from intelligent beings not of this world.

Just as scientists and military hardware personnel struggle to have an adequate response to a large meteor heading straight to Earth, Ufologists attempt to involve the powers to be in being ready just in case an intelligent race of aliens from another planet did decide to make themselves known to the populace of Earth.

Science, at this time, just won't involve themselves in this possibility. And, if the military is considering the possibility, they are not telling us about it.

The public has a right to know what the government knows about UFOs, and should reinitiate their research on the subject, and release more top-secret documents to the general public. If the citizenship of America can handle issues as delicate and controversial as war on foreign soil, and the loss of our young men and women, we can handle the truth about UFOs. Top government officials, including science advisors, stand hard against public disclosure, and view the UFO mystery as a frivolous matter.

Today, even though the government has ended funding for the original SETI project, this endeavor is important enough to be driven by private donations from interested, generous individuals. It is an important paradox that so many private citizens feel that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence is important enough to open their wallets to its cause, and yet the government will not match their enthusiasm. At least, this is the official stand. But who knows what really goes on at top secret installations like Area 51, and others. It is a proven fact that a number of top secret aircraft had their birth there, so why not also house the important task of contacting other worlds with intelligent beings there also? Or, is this already the case?

Officially, the United States Air Force discontinued its Project Blue Book in 1969, citing the reason that UFOs did not present any threat to national security. This statement was taken by many to mean that there was nothing to the many, well documented cases of UFO sightings. Most of them could easily be explained by everyday means. Although the Air Force did have a small number of "unexplained" cases, their reasons for scrapping the entire project was only that no security issues were at stake. This, in itself, may mean only that; this does not necessarily mean that there is nothing to UFOs at all. Many documents exist today, still hidden under the veil of national security, that hold evidence that only a small group of elite, well chosen individuals have seen. These highly select individuals are a modern version of Majestic 12, and other similar groups that have had this information passed down to them through the years.

How important are these files? What mysterious secrets are kept under deep guard?

Those who claim that the lack of evidence for the reality of UFOs dictates a total disregard of the subject, are taking a great risk. If there is a clandestine operation for preparation for the landing of a UFO in public view, who should know? Is this issue so sensitive that only a handful of top rate scientists and researchers should hold this evidence to themselves? Should the fate of so many be put in the hands of so few?

If an extraterrestrial intelligence did contact the government of the United States, what would be the course of action? And can we be so arrogant to believe that the United States would be their target?

Maybe they would contact another country or countries, or possibly follow the script of "The Day the Earth Stood Still," and desire a forum of leaders of all countries of Planet Earth. Should this happen, we would disappoint them for certain. Could there be at present, a joint effort among countries of the world to resolve issues dealing with contact?

Many individuals and groups picket for an open release of all documents and secrets kept by our government dealing with UFO and Alien contact. How much should we know? Maybe not everything, but at least let us in on part of what is happening with this critical issue.

Admittedly, there is information that should be kept from public knowledge, but we the citizens of this country have a right to know at least that contact has been made, and whether or not this contact has any negative implications. If there is cause for concern, we have a right to know.

The results of the airing of the 1939 radio hoax by Orson Welles, "War of the Worlds," cannot be forgotten. It must be remembered, however, that the cause of the panic that night was the fact that what was announced came without any warning or foreknowledge. The citizens of all countries deserve some knowledge of what is happening in this area of investigation.

Although there may be some panic among our citizens upon a "first contact" announcement, if some representative citizens were allowed to be involved in the behind the scenes workings of our government in this area, some knowledge could be imparted to the "everyday" person, which would allay some public fear inherent with this possible earth shaking event.

The opinion to withhold information from the general public is based on the following viewpoint.

We know that it a fact that all men were not created equal. This is not to demean, but to make a very important point. All individuals have certain talents and abilities; some in one area, and some in another.

That being said, it is noteworthy to stress that an average, everyday citizen cannot be involved with national security issues, and sensitive government secrets belong in the hands of only those who have the education and experience to make decisions for all citizens based on events as they happen. Think what may have happened if there was public knowledge of "little boy" before the Enola Gay dropped its payload on Hiroshima, which began the end for Japan in World War II. It's like they say, "loose lips sink ships."

Most definitely, if the government is holding the secrets of alien contact, great restraint should be taken before sharing this knowledge with anyone not qualified to intelligently deal with all of its implications.

The deep secrets of UFO and Alien contact belong right where they are today, in the hands of a small, well qualified group of chosen officials. The citizenry does not need to know everything. The government is sworn to protect its citizens, and this can best be accomplished by deciding what stays under lock and key, and what is offered for public consumption.

This attitude is exactly why there is such a distinction between having a government "for the people," and a government "by the people." We have given everything we have for our country, and have an inalienable right to know the truth. Let us have it, we'll find a way to deal with it. Listen to us, "we the people."

Source: American Chronicle/B J Booth
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=17229

- ROCK AND ROLL GO THE WORLDS DEPARTMENT -

Out of This World Solution to a Scottish Standing Stone

The Newton stone is a small, rather unassuming pillar in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. On one side is faded, ancient writing, on the other a curling snake and cylindrical patterning. Many would say that it is a typical example of a Scottish standing stone.

Yet one man claims that this is no ordinary stone, that instead it holds the secret of our missing pre-history. That it shows the birth of Jupiter from Saturn and more explosively, that it proves that someone was around to witness this planetary catastrophe and that this someone may not be human.

Stan Hall doesn't seem like a man who has come to the conclusion that life as we know it may be one big allusion. Sitting in his flat in a seaside town outside Edinburgh he tells of his life as a construction engineer before an adventure in Ecuador changed his outlook on life forever.

Hall was drawn to South America by tales of a fantastic mythical gold and crystal library, said to be hidden in subterranean tunnels somewhere in Ecuador. In 1976 he organised an expedition to try and locate the position of these extraordinary caves – even managing to entice the astronaut Neil Armstrong into coming along for the ride.

During his time there he failed to find the library. Instead he is convinced that he has located the lost city of Atlantis:

"The word comes from Atal and antis. Antis is the name for the Andes and Atal means old, or of the time of the mother waters – or deluge."

Where this all ties into the Newton Stone is complex and involves a past civilisation – the Atlanteans of old and their ancient history.

Hall came to believe in the work of Juan Moricz – a Hungarian who lived in Ecuador who professed to have visited the metal library. Moricz theorised that the language spoken in South America was actually ancient Magyar and that this language can be found in ancient Sumerian and Assyrian writing. Hall believes that the Atlanteans spread their language and culture East and West after a crisis pushed them out of their homeland.

"After some interplanetary catastrophe and global deluge, Magyar-speaking survivors from the equatorial Andes…left the continent of Atl Antis," says Hall. "They crossed the Pacific and Atlantic oceans to establish a global federation."

According to Hall, these ancient people travelled to Sumer and the Middle East before, over time, spreading west where their Magyar word for tribe – Catti – became first the khatti-sars of the Assyrians, the Hatti of the Hittites and finally the same Catti who repulsed Julius Caesar from British Shores. He supports this theory by referring to LA Waddell's, 1924 book The Phoenician Origins of Britons, Scots and Anglo-Saxons, which suggests that the writing on the back of the Newton Stone is Hittite. And, according to Hall's theory, if the writing is Hittite, then it follows that the information that the stone depicts came ultimately from the South American Atlanteans,

"The keys to our lost history lie in things like the Newton Stone," says Hall before trying to explain the meaning of the carvings itself in relation to catastrophism theory.

The major proponent of catastrophism was Immanuel Velikovsky, who, in the 1950s, posited the idea that the earth has suffered global catastrophes, mostly caused by planetary action, that have been set down in myths, legends and histories of all ancient cultures. Hall thinks that the Newton Stone demonstrates one such cataclysmic event.

"I recognised that on the Newton Stone it shows two planets breaking away from each other…The double disc and z-rod pictographs…record for posterity the actual birth of Jupiter from Saturn."

Hall believes that this break-up of Saturn – which must have been an extraordinary cosmic moment – has been recorded in the myths of all ancient people.

"The Greeks talk of the night of the falling stars – all major civilisations have records of major interplanetary catastrophes. They're found in old nursery rhymes, which have found to be Sumerian, like 'Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle' which shows the planets rushing together."

But whilst Hall believes that our mytho-history records these turbulent disruptions, he is unsure whether humans would have been around to witness the events depicted. Which leads to Hall to question who first set down the information? Just who might have been around to see the birth of Jupiter?

"I don't know who saw it," says Hall. "Who could have come through such chaos and written it down?"

One theory that comes into play is that of Erich Von Däniken whose 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?: Unsolved Mysteries of the Past suggested that extraterrestrials visited earth in the distant past.

Hall has come round to believing that this might indeed be what happened after all the interplanetary disruption of break-away planets, concluding that someone might have arrived in Earth looking for safety. It could be that the metal library in Ecuador may contain the proof of our colonisation by aliens.

"Who knows?" says Hall. "Perhaps 'it' brought 'its' treasures and archives to the one place on earth that offered the best possibility for colonisation – namely the equatorial Andes."

With the experience of witnessing interplanetary explosions presumably so vivid in their memories, we should not be surprised that they sought to record the event for prosperity – and encouraged their descendants to remember the event forever.

Source: Scotsman
http://heritage.scotsman.com/myths.cfm?id=1758692006

- STRANGE CREATURES FROM TIME AND SPACE DEPARTMENT -

Wahhoo, it's a Whoahaw!

"…He rose from his bed and, putting on an additional garment, he stepped forth into the rheumy and unpurged air of midnight. The moon was shining from a cloudless sky, and by its bright beams he saw what at first sight seemed a large bull dog. The animal stopped in its walk, and turned two brilliant, fiery eyes upon Mr. Adams. They glowed with an unnatural brightness; looking more like hot coals than visual organs. He noticed too, that its 'snoot' was very long, like a pig’s; and its tail if surprising length, stuck straight out behind. Mr. Adams clearly saw that, whatever his strange visitor might be, it was no bulldog. After looking at him steadily for over a minute, the beast slowly retreated to the fence, which it climbed by means of its claws, after the manner of a cat. Perched upon the top of the fence, the creature sat, and resumed its survey of the astonished German…” (Reno Evening Gazette, September 2, 1879)

In August and September of 1879 a series of events occurred in Nevada, around the Deeth and Halleck areas. These events, reported in the Reno paper’s Reno Evening Gazette and The Weekly Reno Gazette, surrounded the strange reports of an animal, or creature, called the Whoahaw or more commonly the Wahhoo.

Perhaps the first to bring forth the story of the Wahhoo was Richard and H.R. Smith. During August of 1879 the two brothers were hunting in the Deeth and Halleck areas of Nevada, when they were told stories by local ranchmen of an animal that was supposed to be “…a cross between the grizzly bear and the coyote… this hybrid display the courage and ferocity of the grizzly joined to the cunning and treachery of the coyote…” While the brothers did not see this animal, as “... he has never been distinctly seen, but some of the ranchers, have caught glimpses of him prowling about the darkness…”. While the brothers did not see this animal, they did report hearing a cry one night:

“… they heard far off an echoing sound like “whoa—haw,” which the ranchmen said was the cry of the monster, and from which they gave him his name…”

A classic story of the west, one that has bee reported previously and in connection to Bigfoot and other “Wildman” type reports (see Scott Maruna's BioFort blog). But, this is not the only report from that area, and the saga of the Whoahaw continues with further descriptions and reports into 1879.

The chronicle continues, with the manicure of WHOAHAW changing to WAHHOO, with the account of a German named A.A. Adams. Mr. Adams, reported to be “… not superstitious, and never clouds his mind with ardent spirits. His temperament us if the phlegmatic rather than the nervous kind...," recounted his sighting of a Wahhoo in the opening of this article herein. Mr. Adams does have some additional observations that are important, and later create some unusual complications—these include hearing a four-footed animal, as well as it claws on the boards outside his residence and the animal also having a long slender neck. A later article from September if the same year though claims that what Mr. Adams saw was actually a skunk!

Wahhoo fever was spreading it seems. An odd animal was seen by two gentlemen near Penvine in September. It was reported to be “… not unlike a coyote but larger, yet too small for a bear. It was running on the side of a hill with wonderful speed…” As the fever spreads so do the stories and extrapolations of unusual attributes of superstitions, from a sudden cold arising to loading of guns to shoot “spectres” (this is the loading of shot into a gun, followed by powder, the inverse of the standard loading methods).

But, what is the Wahhoo? Is it a misidentification, a spectre of the night, an unusual animal, or something else? We know, the following information from the Smith brothers, Mr. Adams (assuming what Mr. Adams reported was not a skunk), and the two men near Penvine:

“… the beast has been known to carry off a horse. Cattle and sheep are often borne away by the monster. Mules he never attacks…” – Smith brothers account

“… they heard far off an echoing sound like “whoa—haw,” which the ranchmen said was the cry of the monster, and from which they gave him his name…” – Smith brothers account

“… its eyes glaring at him like the red lights of a railway train…” – A.A. Adams account

“…it had a long, slender neck…” – A.A. Adams account

“… its “snoot” was very long, like a pig’s; and its tail of surprising length, stuck straight out behind…” – A.A. Adams account

“… the beast slowly retreated to the fence, which it climbed by means of its claws, after the manner of a cat…” – A.A. Adams account

“…The creature was not unlike a coyote but larger, yet too small for a bear…” – Penvine account

These accounts and descriptions do not give a lot of detail, nor do they definitively correlate to any one animal. Red eyes can be an indication of “eye shine,” common in many nocturnal animals. The size of the animal is also unclear. We know from the Penvine account it is larger than a coyote, smaller than a bear, but we also have it (if it is the same animal) sitting on Mr. Adam’s fence. The length of the tail Mr. Adams recounts cannot be correlated either, as the body size is unknown. We are left then to speculate, as it appears that the animal or animals seen are different, but assigned the same monikers. What happens next further complicates the scenario of an unusual animal.

According to an entry in the September 12, 1879, issue of the Reno Evening Gazette, the animal known as the Wahhoo, Wahoo or Whoahaw, is described by those around the town of Deeth as follows, based on examination of killed specimens:

“… The legs are short, and the paws very large proportionally, furnished with strong projecting claws of great length. This formation enables the creature to dig with ease and rapidity. The body is long and slender, the tail of medium length and usually curved over the back, the neck short, the head broad, and the jaws provided with formidable teeth. The skin is covered with long, fine hair. Its prevailing color is black, spotted with white. In weight it varies from fifty to seventy five pounds. The creature is larger than a coyote, and in appearance, when seen at a distance, not unlike a large dog… found that the left legs of each were some what shorter than the right legs…for the inequality in the length of the creature’s legs, that the Wahhoo was found only upon the hills, along the sides of which it was constantly traveling. The unequal length of its legs would be advantageous to the animal in traversing the hill-side…”

And therein are the characteristics ascribed to the Wahhoo. While the beginning description is more reminiscent of known wildlife of Nevada, though not in 100% correlation, the ascribing of the off-set legs is more associated to another creature known commonly in folklore as the Side-Hill Gouger, Side-Hill Dodger, Hoofer or other variations (Gwinter, Guyiscutus, Side-Hill Toggler, etc.).

What could the Wahhoo be then? Nevada does have some native animals that could perhaps account for some sightings—these include (or would have included in the 1800s):

Coyote, Canis latrans
Gray wolf, Canis lupus
Mountain lion, Felis concolor
North American lynx, Lynx canadensis
Bobcat, Lynx rufus
Gray fox, Urocyon cinereoargenteus
Black bear, Ursus americanus
Grizzly bear, Ursus arctos horribilis
Kit fox, Vulpes macrotis
Sierra Nevada red fox, Vulpes vulpes necator

The description seems to rule out a bear, as their tails are not long. Similarly the bobcat, lynx, coyote, wolf, and fox are not associated with the longer tails. This leaves then the mountain lion, which has a tail inline with the description. But, the totality of the Wahhoo descriptions does not account for the characteristics of any one animal. This leaves the possibility therefore that what was seen were known animals that were misconstrued due to the interest in the Wahhoo at the time, further connected when the off-set leg association is coupled in. If we add in the spectre and extra-sensory associations, we have the potential for the appearance of the Wahhoo. A mystery creature of the night that will take livestock, dig up graves, make an unearthly call and posses glowing eyes that cause shivers to run down the backs of hardened westerners.

Then again, some of the correlation does seem to be inline with reports of other odd beasts around the country, from the Dwayyo to the “Bearwolf” in Wisconsin. So was there a mystery animal in Nevada in the 1870s? Was it just a Nevada mystery, as the accounts from the time attribute the Wahhoo to being in Idaho and Montana as well? Or should we simply say “Wahhoo, it’s a Whoahaw, the Whatzit from the West.”

Source: Strange Ark/Craig Heinselman
http://www.strangeark.com/bfr/articles/wahhoo.html