Does a Secret ET Base Exist in Jefferson City, Mo.? Part 1

Gil McDonald, Sr., took this picture of something hovering over the former Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City in 2004.


Author’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on Gil McDonald, Sr., who claims to have proof a space alien base exists in the Missouri state capital.

Gil McDonald, Sr., saw his first UFO in 1970. It wouldn’t be his last.

“I spotted one in the summer and it was almost over Carswell Air Force Base (in Fort Worth, Texas),” he said. “It was a huge one I labeled ‘the mother ship.’ It was very low and moving very slowly.”

The ship, just entering the clouds, was metallic and cigar-shaped with a bulge in the middle.

“This was a huge thing and it had several round openings in the hull,” McDonald said. “Portals is what I called them. They may have been windows and they were heavily tinted. This thing was so low and so big I could see buff marks (on its surface). It was that close to me.”

Gil called the base that Sunday afternoon and the Air Force spokesman said there had been no air traffic that day.

“I’m sure that’s what they would have said either way,” he said.

Gil served in the Air Force from 1958-64, then worked in law enforcement, the ministry, and served as a guard during the last 10 years of the existence of the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City.

And that’s where his UFO encounters became overwhelming.

The prison that once held heavyweight champion Sonny Liston, was built in 1835 and was decommissioned in October 2004. TIME Magazine once called it ‘the bloodiest 47 acres in America.’ If Gil’s right, it may also be the most alien-infested 47 acres in America.

Gil said after his retirement, he’s visited the area around the prison about once a month and has shot 112 minutes of infrared tape and has captured images of UFOs.

“I had 20 pretty good ones on the film,” he said. “I didn’t see them, but got them on infrared film. One every seven minutes. That’s a lot of traffic.”

Before the prison was shut down, Gil saw the first of many UFOs fly over Jefferson City and land at the prison. One night, Gil was on the back side of the prison in Tower 10 when a disk he labeled the ‘shuttle craft’ landed in the yard.

“I saw the shuttle craft dock in front of me,” Gil said. “But we didn’t talk about stuff like that or would be fired immediately. We’d be mentally unfit for duty.”

The ship was composed of two disks atop each other which were then topped by a dome.

“Different parts of it were spinning in different directions except for the very top circle. It remained still,” Gil said. “It was obvious there was a force field around it. There was a tree limb inside the force field and the tree limb was spinning like in a wind storm but outside (the force field), everything, even the grass was still.”

He watched the device as it landed and took off again.

“And then it didn’t fly out, it just disappeared,” he said. “But when it disappeared, it left a frozen image. It was there 15 seconds and it just plopped to the ground like ice would.”

But UFOs weren’t all Gil would see at the prison. He saw creatures that weren’t quite human.

“At first I was real excited and I kind of reasoned with myself later and I said if I had any sense at all I should have been afraid,” Gil said. “This is something we’re going to have to deal with.”

Next week: Alien encounters and the Men in Black.

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

Author Mac Tonnies makes a case for 'cryptoterrestrials'

Betty and Barney Hill were driving from Montreal to New Hampshire on Sept. 19, 1961, when they claim they were taken aboard a UFO. After medical exams and verbal interaction, the Hill’s were returned to their car.

If their story is true, did space aliens abduct the Hills in one of the most famous UFO cases? Maybe not.

Kansas City writer Mac Tonnies isn’t convinced contact with a UFO has anything to do with extraterrestrials. Tonnies, author of “After the Martian Apocalypse,” said if UFOs and their crews exist, they may have come from right here on Earth.

Tonnies calls them cryptoterrestrials; and he’s writing a book about them.

“It’s not so much a theory as a hypothesis. It’s a paradigm I suppose,” Tonnies said. “It’s basically asking why not?”

The government, scientists, and Edward J. Ruppelt – head of the 1950s Air Force project investigating flying saucers – have all said most UFO cases are pedestrian. Most. Not all.

“In the conventional wisdom (UFOs) are explainable through atmospheric effects or psychology,” Tonnies said. “If the real ones exist, it’s alien spacecraft coming from another star system. I think we’re jumping the gun on that. The evidence doesn’t support it.”

For evidence, Tonnies looks at the descriptions of UFO occupants, folklore and the evolution of UFO technology.

“We have these beings with larger than normal slanted eyes, small noses and mouths,” he said. “They typically lack hair … and have long fingers – weirdly enough – and long arms. And behavior is often descried in a way that they might be nocturnal.

“I wonder if this is a species that lives underground. Not that they evolved underground. If they’re real, they’re obviously an offshoot of people who went down an evolutionary fork in the road.”

All cultures have their stories of little people and usually these creatures – elves, fairies, trolls and dwarves – live underground. But maybe these stories are more than myth.

Scientists found the remains of miniature humans (dubbed Hobbits) in a cave on Flores Island near Indonesia in 2004. The islanders have legends of little people who ate the islander’s food and stole their children. Tribesmen eventually exterminated them.

“Humans lived side-by-side among a diminutive race and we have proof,” Tonnies said, although he has testimony of his own. “I actually spoke to a witness who had a face-to-face encounter with small humanoids in Oregon. They said some interesting things, very cryptic. They were very human looking, but small.”

Tonnies also questions the apparently superior technology of UFOs. From the airships of the 1800s to the physics-defying craft of today, UFO technology keeps just out of our reach.

“It’s kind of one step ahead of us no matter where we are,” Tonnies said. “With me it suggests subterfuge. Maybe they’re trying to throw us off the scent because we can’t go to the stars yet.”

If this race of cryptoterrestrials exists – which Tonnies doesn’t make claim – they’re pretty shy.

“They don’t want to make contact,” he said. “My personal impression is … they are trying to influence our mythology to benefit them or to at least prolong their civilization. Obviously they’re not comfortable with contact.”

Tonnies cites the well-publicized Washington, D.C., flyovers of UFOs in 1952 and the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident in England where multiple RAF personnel reported a UFO near a nuclear facility as proof there is something out there.

“(The evidence) points to a nonhuman intelligence, but not extraterrestrial,” Tonnies said. “It points to a nonhuman intelligence feigning to an extraterrestrial intelligence. I’m not claiming this is the way it is, (but) it’s a viable hypothesis.”

For more of Tonnies’ thoughts on cryptoterrestrials, visit www.mactonnies.com or his blog, posthumanblues.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

Margie Kay: Psychic Ghost Hunter

The room was dark and Margie Kay was afraid.

Eleven-year-old Margie was in bed when something appeared in the room she shared with her sister; something that – at the time – she couldn’t explain.

It was a human head.

“My deceased grandfather, who I’ve never met, appeared in my bedroom to me and my sister,” she said. “Just his head. Glowing and floating at the end of my bed.”

The sisters were motionless, watching the bodiless head stare at them, but just for a moment.

“We screamed bloody murder,” Margie said. “My father came in and we tried to describe (the head) to him and he took us downstairs and showed us a picture in an album and it was him.”

Her father was calm about the incident, but Margie didn’t find out why until she was in her 20s. Her father was psychic.

“I guess he was just waiting for me to bring the subject up,” she said. “But I just remember it was scary at the time and I wasn’t ready to deal with it.”

Today, Margie is an author, radio talk show host and paranormal investigator. She describes herself as “extremely psychic.”

“I’m clairaudient, clairvoyant and clairsentient,” Margie said, meaning she can hear things most people can’t hear, see things most people can’t see and sense things most people can’t sense.

But at 11, she wasn’t ready to see a floating head at the end of her bed – even though that wasn’t her first paranormal experience.

“As a very young child, I was afraid of a flower in the wallpaper in the corner of the room that resembled an Indian chief,” she said. “I had no exposure to American Indians … to that point. I called it Ha-Ha. Those were my first words.”

She heard drums and saw lights no one else could.

“I was just terrified,” she said. “My father figured I was either an American Indian or had something bad happen that involved Indians in a previous life.”

As an adult, Margie went under past life regression to find out.

“I remembered being a healer, a shaman, a woman and growing to a very old age with long gray hair,” she said.

Margie has used her gifts to help doctors locate medical problems in patients, police find missing persons and heirs find a missing will.

She also hunts ghosts throughout the Midwest with The Quest Team, a group of paranormal investigators who’ve investigated 30 to 35 haunted places – such as Rotary Park in Independence.

“My daughter and I used to take walks there almost every other night,” Margie said. “After a while we both started noticing strange things. White balls of lights amongst the trees. We noticed a dark shadowy figure on the other side of the creek.”

Margie and her daughter, also psychic, felt a “buzzing that just shook my jaw,” Margie said. “We found a number of spirits there. One of them being a woman that haunts a tree.”

Margie said the spirit is a woman who taught in a schoolhouse that used to sit near the park.

“I think (ghosts) travel to their old haunts, as you will,” Margie said. “They will appear at places that they feel comfortable during their lifetime.”

And in those places, Margie Kay will find them.

To purchase Margie Kay’s book, “Haunted Independence,” call (816) 833-1819 or go to: ufo.fmg.com. The book is $11.95 which includes shipping in the United States. Her upcoming book is entitled “UFOs and the Psychic Connection.” For more information on Margie Kay or the Quest team, go to www.ufokc.4mg.com or www.quest.htmlplanet.com. Her radio program is on hiatus.

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.

Selling a haunted house? Maybe you should tell the buyer

Khristina Lorenz bought her first home in September. It’s small, “but, hey, it’s mine.”

The two-bedroom house sits beside a large, old cemetery in a calm Independence neighborhood; traffic on the busy Noland Road humming nearby. Her house is busy, too – but not with traffic.

Khristina bought the house from her boyfriend. He’d told stories that, late at night, doors would rattle like someone was trying to open them. But no one was ever there.

“I didn’t really believe it,” Khristina said. Then she heard the doors shake one night. “He’s right. It was really loud like someone was about to break down the door or something.”

Then the ghostly intrusions started happening when Khristina was home with her children, her boyfriend, or when she was alone.

“My radio will just turn on by itself and my CD will start playing,” she said. “A few times when I have come home after my part-time job in the evening, the radio has been on and the sound isn’t going but the equalizer lights are going crazy.”

Khristina may have bought a haunted house. In some states, there are laws against that. Depending on a state’s definition of “stigmatized property,” the seller has to tell the buyer whether or not their house is infested with termites, or poltergeists.

Stigmatized property simply means something happened on the property that could psychologically affect the buyer. That includes a natural death, murder, suicide, a previous owner had HIV/AIDS, a felony was committed on the property, and, in some states, ghosts.

Jeanne Goolsby, owner of Grand Avenue Bed and Breakfast, and her husband Michael bought a Victorian home in Carthage, Mo. The home had a second floor, a basement, a beautiful smoking room, and a resident spirit – Albert.

But they knew about Albert before they bought the house.

“The lady before us kept trying to tell us about the ghost and I told her I did not want to know,” Jeanne said. “(Michael) said he can’t remember it being on any paperwork, but he knew about it from the owner. She told us.”

In California, the seller has to disclose a stigma up to three years from the time it occurred. Texas has no law about it at all. But the 1991 New York appellate court tackled the supernatural in a decision (Stambovsky v. Ackley) that allowed a buyer to cancel a contract when he discovered there was a “poltergeist” in the house.

If you’re buying a house in Missouri, there’s a law about stigmatized property; a law that doesn’t favor the buyer. It specifically states the seller isn’t required to disclose a stigma – which probably includes the walls bleeding.

The walls of Khristina’s house don’t bleed, but her haunting has gotten more and more personal.

“I have heard voices several times,” she said. Her boyfriend never heard voices while he owned the home. ”It sounds like a women’s voice and a small child’s voice. I can never really make out clearly what they are saying but have heard this often. The first few times I thought it was my son, but when I checked on him he was asleep, I heard the voices and he was still snoring.”

So sleep tight, and let the buyer beware.

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason's book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri's Most Spirited Spots,” is coming in May. FREE SHIPPING when you order online at: https://tsup.truman.edu/store/ViewBook.aspx?Book=849. Visit Jason’s Web site, www.jasonoffutt.com, for his other books.