Great Balls Of Fire
Investigating Mothman In Wise County, Texas

Ericca Cordier
http://www.conspiracycafe.com

December 15, 1967 Point Pleasant, West Virginia the Silver Bridge collapses killing 46 people, two bodies were never recovered. For thirteen months prior to this catastrophic event the townspeople experienced numerous strange and paranormal events. Many people reported a tall bat-like creature now coined 'the Mothman', glowing orbs were seen, as well as a significant increase in dead animals, poltergeist activity, and unusual electrical and telephone problems plagued the town. This event was popularized by the movie 'The Mothman Prophecies' starring Richard Gere.

Fast Forward: 2003 Wise County, Texas

On June 2, 2003, about 6 a.m. a postal worker traveling east on County Road 3673 in Wise County, Texas, slammed on the brakes of her white Mustang when a frightened group of deer suddenly bolted across the road in front of her. Incidents with wild deer are nothing new in this mostly rural county but this time there was a bizarre twist-- the deer were being chased by two red fireballs about the size of basketballs.

Fast Forward: 2004 Wise County, Texas

On January 12, 2004 a young girl reports by cell phone the appearance of a large black bird outside of a school yard in Wise County, Texas. This is just one of many such reports since June of 2003.
Similar reports abounded during the Mothman flap in Point Pleasant, West Virginia.

The Infections
This investigation has taken us down many roads and unfortunately all of us have required medical attention for bacterial infections since June of 2003.

Marty Murphy, a professional home builder required two visits to the emergency room in July of 2003 after seeing nine instances of mysterious lights near County Road 3673. Being diagnosed with an acute bacterial infection (cellulitis - precursor of streptococcal staph) he required several rounds of antibiotics and has been permanently scarred by this event. I was diagnosed with the same bacterial infection after viewing a similar event, though less serious in nature. Dry Bean after being abroad for many years in the service our country was fighting a recurring bacterial infection (streptococcal staph) that suddenly became very serious and required medical attention and antibiotics after investigating cattle deaths in the area. He is also permanently scarred by this. The postal worker that viewed the fireballs; diagnosed with an acute infection (cellulitis) of the eye. Two different doctors initially thought that she had suddenly developed a tumor in her eye but after a month of antibiotics changed the diagnosis to just that of an infection caused by a burn of the eye (yes, just like the movie...red burned eyes). All of us had a pre-existing condition ie: cuts, lacerations, or boils prior to infection and exposure to the investigation.

Wise County Regional Hospital Infectious Disease Unit reports that instances of cellulitis and streptococcal staph that require hospitalization were up ten fold in 2003 compared to 2002. Non-admittable cases that would include boils and rashes were also significantly up in 2003.

Researchers on the Point Pleasant investigation reported similar problems.

The Name Game
By far the strangest and most intriguing part of this investigation has been the 'Name Game'. This is a term which refers to the names of people that died on the Silver Bridge in 1969. The last names of these people pop-up repeatedly during the initial investigation in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. For example a person with the last name Turner was the first to report seeing the Mothman in West Virginia, this person also died on the Silver Bridge and the body was never found. The postal worker who first reported the fireballs in Wise County also comes from the Turner family.

An unusual and gruesome trend was seen occurring here in Wise County, many people with the same last names as the Silver Bridge victims were dying. From June 2003 - November 2003 twenty-three people with the same last names have died. Since November there has been six more. Some of the people have died of natural causes while others seemingly young and vibrant have just stopped breathing and some have met with violent ends.

The staff here cannot possibly speculate as to what this means. All we can do is report that it is happening and is continuing to happen.

What will happen here in Wise County when the 'Death List' has been filled?


The Phones
Just mention the phones to Dry Bean or I and we'll both roll our eyes and sigh. The phones, our cell phones to be exact do some strange things.

January 3, 2004 a cranky server on the East Coast had caused me to cancel my Saturday night plans and found me sleeping on a couch at the office instead. At 5:00am my cell phone rings; it's Dry Bean and he's in the parking lot of the office. He wanted to remind me to go home and that he would be by later to finish up what I was working on. I went ahead and drove the 15 miles to my ranch and was finally dosing off in my own bed when I heard something odd. "Hello", "Hello!"; In my groggy state I knew the voice was Dry Bean's but for some reason I thought he was outside my house. This continued on for a few seconds and I turned to look a my night stand where my cell phone lay. The indicator light was on but it did not indicate that anyone was on the line. I turned to look out the window again and the phone rang, the indicator light once again was on but now it said that 'Dry Bean' was calling. I answered and of course it was Dry Bean wanting to know why I had just called him; which I had not.

September and October 2003 were the height of our phone strangeness. Initially we thought some prankster had cloned one of our phones, then we thought they had cloned both our phones and were playing tricks; we now believe something entirely different happened and it's something neither of us can explain.

It started with a trip that I took to Nevada on business. I was travelling by myself and Dry Bean was heading up the office while I was on the road. I had driven into the wee hours of the morning and had stopped for some shuteye in Amarillo, Texas. At 6:00am Dry Bean called to remind me to get back on the road and to also ask why I had called him four times since 4:00am. My cell phone was on the night stand the whole time I was sleeping so there was absolutely no way I could have accidentally hit the keys while I was sleeping. Several hours later and in Arizona, Dry Bean again calls me. He wanted to know if I had just called. I had not since I was actually on the other line with clients conducting business. Someone sounding like me had called him and rather shortly made several requests; it was unusual so he wanted to call to make sure. His phone had indicated it was me calling.

This continued on for several more days. It got to the point where neither of us knew who was calling who nor who we were talking to. Then the phones refused to connect to each other at all and several attempts at text messaging were made. It too failed. The phones worked normally for all incoming calls or when calling any other numbers.

When I returned to Texas the same thing continued to happen for a few more weeks. Then it just stopped.

Both Dry Bean and I are well rooted in reality. Neither of us wanted to jump to conclusions so we waited for the phone bill to arrive. We were curious to see if the calls that we had logged would show up as billable time on our bill. To our surprise they did appear on the bill. The calls were logged as coming from 000-000-0000. We have no explanation for this.

The Dead Cattle

At approximately 1:30pm, October 17, 2003 Ericca and I ( I being Dry Bean) observed a dead hereford feeder calf by a stock tank in Cottondale, Texas. It was surrounded by buzzards and did not have any apparent unusual mutilations. The anal cavity, ear, eye and mouth were all being picked apart by the buzzards which is pretty common for a deceased calf. The calf had some rough fur it also had some off coloring in certain areas. The rough fur would indicate that it was wormy (infected with worm-like parasites), the off-coloring would indicate a respiratory or viral infection. I have seen many cattle deaths in my life and nothing was out of the ordinary or unusual about this one. This being the third dead cow I've seen this month and all deaths are not unusual in nature.

In Point Pleasant, West Virginia during the Mothman flap there was an unusually high rate of death in animals of that area. Though the deaths themselves were not unusual the rates of death were. It was noted that during the thirteen months prior to the collapse of the Silver Bridge animal deaths in the area had spiked significantly compared to prior years.


The High Speed Tailgating
An unusual and frightening aspect of this investigation has been the instances of high-speed tailgating that have occurred with regularity since June of 2003. Generally occurring on the back roads of Wise County vehicles of varying description night or day will just appear out of nowhere and will be tailgating our vehicles at 70mph. They'll be so close that their headlights are not visible. While this initially happened to me while I was by myself it has now occurred several times with Dry Bean riding with me while on business. At one point I was pulled over by a DPS Trooper who had caught me on radar speeding but did not see the full size white suburban tailgating me. He said it was following so close to me that the vehicle was not visible to him. When I had dutifully pulled over and the suburban had pulled around and sped off he did know where it had come from.


This investigation is ongoing.