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The brain matter splattered Coli, who screamed in horror. White Bird continued forward on momentum, the ripped lower fuselage dragging while the left wing dipped over and struck a rock. White Bird spun counterclockwise as the wing was ripped off the side. Coli fell out and was hit in the chest by the horizontal tail wing. It crushed his ribs and broke his back. He was alive when he slipped from the wreckage, but he had no feeling in his arms and legs.
And then it was quiet, save for a small fire that the rain quickly extinguished.
II
Rain, Black Flies, and Bogs 1984, 1997, 1998
One of the great mysteries of history is one that is little known nor long remembered. The tale of the White Bird and Nungesser and Coli could be a story by Stephen King, all the more so since the plane probably lies within a hundred miles of his house in Bangor, Maine.
The White Bird and its legend lay lost and forgotten for sixty years until author Gu
Though the sky was heavily overcast with clouds as low as eight hundred feet, there were seventeen reports from people who heard it go over. Two claimed to have actually seen a white plane heading southwest at the approximate time that it was due to reach the North American continent. What gave the sightings, or rather hearings, credibility was the fact that they were all in a straight line, so there is little doubt White Bird made it across the North Atlantic and beyond Newfoundland. Four more sightings came in from Nova Scotia. At this point, Nungesser and Coli must have cut west for the Maine coastline. The final accounts, again in a straight line, came from people living in Maine.
The last person to hear the plane go over was Anson Berry, a reclusive fisherman who lived in the wilds alone. While fishing in a body of water known as Round Lake, about twenty-five miles north of the village of Machias, Berry heard a plane fly overhead late in the afternoon. He could not see it because it was in the overcast. The white color of the plane would have also made it difficult to spot against the clouds.
His earwitness account became colored through the years. Some claimed that he heard the engine sputtering and then die before a loud crashing sound. Others swore he never said any such thing. The next day, he walked to a small general store and asked if anyone else had heard an airplane fly over. No one had heard anything. But one old fellow, who was a boy when he knew Berry, stated emphatically that Anson never said anything about a plane crashing.
Because Berry was known as an honest man, no one ever doubted his story. His account also holds water because five other citizens of Maine who reported the White Bird passing over their head were in a direct line northeast of him.
Anson Berry will forever be a footnote in history as the last man to hear the engine of White Bird pass in the clouds above. The next thirty miles along the projected course of the aircraft would have taken it over totally uninhabited, thickly forested country, speckled with lakes and spreading into a vast impenetrable bog. Several miles past the great bog, the landscape becomes populated with towns and people, none of whom reported seeing or hearing the White Bird in 1927.
Theories abound. One has the intrepid French pilots, realizing that they can’t make New York, turning for Montreal. But that distance was too great for them to make with the fuel aboard. Or, knowing they were lost over land, they might have turned east for the coast and crashed in the sea. Another theory, backed by psychics, has them flying low and crashing into a mountain. Take your pick.
I contacted Gu
We arranged to meet in Maine near the Round Lake area where Berry had lived. Ray Beck of Chatham, New York, also joined us, since he’d reported seeing an old engine half-buried in the ground above the Round Lake hills less than a mile from where Berry heard the plane pass. This was during a hunting trip in 1954. He generously offered the use of his vacation cabin, which was not far from the search area.
We gathered together and began walking the hills south of the lake. As coincidence would have it, Gillespie and his TIGRE group were also searching the area at the same time. It was raining, and Gillespie stayed in the town of Machias and held press conferences, claiming the discovery was only hours away.
My feeling has always been not to make a big deal out of an expedition until you have something to show for the effort. What was amusing was that we came, we searched, and we went home without Gillespie or his TIGRE group knowing we were present.
We forged through the wilderness of the beautiful country while the precipitation fell in a constant drizzle. For two days, we tramped the hills, Ray Beck trying to retrace his footsteps during the sighting of the engine so many years before. Nothing was found. Discouraged and soaked through clothes and skin, we returned to the cabin and made plans to try again the following year.
If I have learned anything looking for lost history, it is to keep an open mind and not become hung up on one theory and one theory only. Having always had faith in psychics, because they are such amiable and interesting people, and believing they see things that most of us can’t, I contacted Ingo Swa
He thought the White Bird project would be an excellent opportunity to conduct a controlled experiment. His associate, Blue Harary, well known for his work in remote viewing at Stanford University, came on board, as well as a lady named Fa
First, Ingo sent them photos of Nungesser and Coli and their aircraft, along with a chart of the North Atlantic. His question was: “Did they go down in the ocean?”
They all came back with a no.
Then maps of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Bay of Fundy were sent.
Again the answer was no.
Next they received a map of Maine.
This time they replied with a yes.
He kept reducing the maps until he sent them a topographical map of the Round Lake area. Without hesitation, Ingo, Blue, Fa
Now it was time to check out their predictions.
We gathered at Ray Beck’s cabin. Ingo and I met at the airport in Bangor and drove into the woods. How I managed to find the cabin during a thunder and lightning storm in the wilds of Maine, I’ll never guess. But miraculously I took all the correct turns until the lights of the cabin appeared. Ray was there, along with an old backwoodsman named Andy and two young fellows from New York City. Thunder rattled the log walls of the cabin as lightning flashed all around. It was indeed a haunted night. We sat amid the tempest, the big-time author, the renowned psychic, Ray Beck, who’d achieved fame and wealth inventing methods of plastic manufacturing, and Gu