Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, November 2024
Strange Happenings at Arkansas’s Board Camp Crystal Mine
by: Brent Raynes
In the October issue of Alternate Perceptions, there was an audio interview I recently did with Cheryl and Orville Murphy of the Board Camp Crystal Mine near Mena, Arkansas (in case you missed it) where a lot of strange things have been reported happening. Back when Josh Gates of Expedition Unknown headed there in 2017, shortly after the Murphy's noticed three anomalous light beams and orbs on their property, the situation is ongoing and has escalated. Weird magnetic anomalies at the so-called "event site" where the light beams appeared from the ground, along with later levitating rock phenomena (actually caught on film), along within Bigfoot encounters, a lot of paranormal activity, and even a tube of light that Orville and another man inadvertently stepped into they claim in December 2023 and where they mysteriously disappeared for about an hour. In fact, Cheryl has since our interview sent me this newly released documentary film taken with scenes on their property, which includes video footage of Orville and his friend going up to the light beam where they temporarily disappeared. The primary focus of the documentary was on a pediatrician, one Melinda Greer, M.D., who lives and works in nearby Oklahoma, who as a young girl had an NDE type episode, followed by a life journey that has become filled with ghosts, UFOs, and Bigfoot. In the documentary, Ron Meyers, the executive producer of this film, interviews Dr. Greer on her many anomalous experiences, sometimes to the very locations that they occurred, along with a visit to the Board Camp Crystal Mine, considered sacred to a good number of Native Americans. In fact, Ron and his crew meet up at the Board Camp site with Garrett Fowler, a Navajo medicine man and Gail Duncan, described as a "modern day shaman," both from Colorado, along with Alan Megargle, described as a lead paranormal investigator, who also venture to other Native sacred sites.
Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b29TUy8Q98A
Attached is a link to a 35-page pdf report by Dr. Greer for the Consciousness Contact Research Institute about her life and her thoughts on these anomalous phenomena and states of consciousness: https://agreaterreality.com/downloads/articles/Greer%20-%20A%20Medical%20Doctor%20and%20her.pdf
Cheryl Murphy had directed my attention to a gentleman named Troy Hudson of Oklahoma, who she said had Choctaw ancestry and was affiliated with something called the Sasquatch Genome Project, and who reported that when he first arrived at the Board Ranch back on October 1, 2017, he personally witnessed the levitating rock phenomenon for himself. It happened at night while walking along a road on the property. "I for unknown reason turned and looked up about 13-15 feet in the air and observed a medium sized rock suspended in the air. Soon as my eyes made contact with the rock it immediately fell straight down and hit the road. It was not spinning or rotating as if it had been thrown. It was just suspended for a split second and fell. I have never observed this type of event."
In the same report, on another visit to the site on October 13th through the 15th 2017, Mr. Hudson joined several other investigators. It was on the last night of his visit that he and this team, that consisted of six members, were investigating and filming on the property. He and one other member positioned themselves along a ridge line while the others ventured below.
Hudson wrote: "I was observing movements around myself and the other team member. I was pointing out to the team member that we had movement that was associated with Sasquatch and demonstrated what and how to spot the movement. It was brief and very subtle. The team member said, 'I am seeing eyeshine or what?' I looked into the location where he was looking and I observed several sets of eyeshine that are associated with Sasquatch activity. Out of the corner of my eye, no more than 20-30 yards away I observed movement in the tree line. We were sitting just inside the tree line on a small road and could see the night's sky that illuminated the area making it easier to see movement. I told the team member to watch that area. I had just seen movement. He then immediately grabbed my arm and pointed to that same location and said 'Right there, right there. I see one. Its standing right there.' I moved over to get a better look as to what he was seeing. I observed a rather large figure shaped like a human, shoulders and head I could see very plainly. The team member added, 'I can see his head and shoulders and arms.' He paused and said, 'I see his torso. He is huge.'
As the team below began to come up and join Hudson and the team member with him, the team member with took his eyes off the dark figure temporarily to look for the team members coming up the ridge and when he looked back the dark figure was gone. Hudson noted that about that time he had heard something moving off quickly from that area.
"The night was not complete when the whole team decided to walk to another area of the property," Hudson added in his report. "While walking on one of the roads leading back to one of the crystal mine dig sites several members heard a small rock hit on the road behind everyone. One team member was utilizing a handheld FLIR (thermal imaging device) and quickly located the rock among other rocks with the FLIR. The rock in question had a heat signature that can only be described as if someone had been holding it in their hand for enough time to transfer the heat from their body to the rock. This proved to be a very useful tool in determining which rock out of the hundreds laying on the ground had been held by someone or something with enough body heat to transfer it over the rock."
I spoke briefly a few days ago with Hudson. I hope to interview him later at some point about his Sasquatch investigations and research. He admits to trying to stick as much as possible in his work with the Sasquatch phenomenon, the so-called physical and "flesh and blood" aspects, though he knows there are other areas of "the unexplained and supernatural" that exist too. But he worries that some things you just shouldn't mess with, that it could cause you problems in your life. "There's so much that goes on in this world that people don't even know about," Hudson told me. "There's a lot of things that happen that people are too uncomfortable to talk about."
My friend Dan Erickson, a retired US Army Major who today resides in Alabama, has poked around the Board Camp Crystal Mine and had a good number of interesting experiences.
"Board Camp Crystal Mine is a wealth of phenomena that I was pleased to research primarily because of the friendliness of Cheryl and Orville Murphy," Dan shared. "It is my opinion that their kind and respectful approach to the phenomenon on their property results in positive encounters. I would categorize the phenomena at their site as curious, playful, respectufl, and demonstrative, so long as it does not see you as a threat."
"I am positive that unusual phenomena are taking place at that location. ... Part of the phenomenon, I am led to believe, is a result of the presence of high-voltage static discharges between the ground and the atmosphere. Orville and Cheryl wrote a book about this electric discharge called 'Beams.'
"After some investigation, I believe what they witnessed as beams was actually a TR3B using their property, specifically the convergence of several fault lines as a navigation point. MUFON has several cases of TR3B sightings in this region. At the hilltop, there are indications of radiation effects in plant life and also 'smokey crystals.' Smoky quartz is a brownish gray, translucent variety of quartz that ranges in clarity from almost complete transparency to almost-opaque brownish-gray or black crystals. The color of smoky quartz is produced when natural radiation, emitted from the surrounding rock, activates color centers around aluminum impurities within the crystalline quartz. This type of quartz is only found at the highest point on the Murphy property.
"What drew me to the board camp were the levitating items. I received two impressions. First, the presence of quartz and the related electric fields generated by the Earth serve as a navigational beacon. This location is also a high point in the region. Second, I believe that the electrical discarge from these craft will lift particular rocks as energy flows between the craft and the ground. Coulomb's law explains why this levitation phenomenon occurs.
"I was at the Board Camp on an evening during a new moon. I had all my equipment turned on, including a Geiger counter. With several witnesses present, we observed a triangle craft, often described as a TR3B, fly directly over the board camp at an altitude of about 200 feet. The Geiger counter squealed like a siren. As a standard practice, I turn it on while observe a site but have never heard any other noise than the usual tick-tick sound from the device.'"
Orville had described to me in an interview I did with him (located in the July 2021 issue of this magazine) how late one evening, while the sun had yet to set, he was with about twenty Native Indians on his property "all from different tribes" when a Bigfoot, he estimated as being about 12 feet tall, emerged from a ravine. He guessed it was about 50 feet away. "I am just going nuts because it was my first one and everybody else - there were about 20 people there - and they were just standing there like it was nothing. The Native Americans were like 'Yeah, okay.' Oh, I was jumping up and down, yelling and pointing. It was quite a sight. ...He turned his head just a little bit and then shoulder because this thing didn't have no neck. I saw him lift his leg like he was getting ready to walk off and never saw anything after that. I didn't see him walk away. I didn't see him go back to the ravine. ...Just there and then not."
I asked Orville what the Indians had to say about the creature. "They said they're dimensional creatures," he said. "They put them in the same category with UFOs. To them they're Star People or the Forest People."
Of the TR3B episode, Orville recalled, "Yeah we were up on top of the hill. He gave me a belt to wear that had all kinds of equipment hanging on it. he was trying to show me what everything was and then all of a sudden the stars disappeared. And the best we could tell there was like a large triangular craft and everything was beeping and blinking and buzzing and I'm trying to get the belt off and then all of a sudden my cellphone went off. A friend of mine called Jason said, 'We are tracking a large ship heading your way' and I said, 'Too late. It's here!' ...I've never seen anything that big. It was obviously triangular shaped."
Dan added, when I asked him about Orville's Bigfoot account: "I had a friend who was a former Army sniper stay at the Murphy's for a month. He told me he encountered a large humanoid in the woods in the early morning hours. There are signs of a creature, but Bigfoot lives up to its reputation as illusive. I brought another friend who is a Cherokee tracker/hunter to Board Camp to get his opinion. I witnessed the forest punish him in several ways. He was so moved by his experience that we did a smudging. Then that evening, around a campfire at the hilltop, we witnessed what I would call chattering and whoops. It was funny to us because we could tell the whoops were from a young Bigfoot that could not get the pitch right. Both of us burst out laughing, and then we heard others in the woods laugh.
"Again, here's the bottom line. I've got night vision, drones, and expert trackers, and we didn't see Bigfoot, but we sure know it is there. As for making contact with them, yes, there are some indications of both physical and psychological contact, but if you are looking for a body, a specimen, or a photograph, these creatures are smarter and more stealthy than us."
The Murphy's have encouraged me to come up myself and walk the property and meet with them and others. I'm certainly ready. Hopefully next Spring.
