The Phantom Plane Crash: A True Story by Cindy Adkins Rural Wayne County, WV, 1959

This is a true story as I remember it and as Ive heard from the others who were present that night. I was only four years old but couldnt sleep, so Id gotten out of bed and sat in the open doorway to my room, listening to my Mom and Dad and teenage sister, who were talking in the living room just opposite my room. We lived in a tiny house on a dirt road, up a deep hollow, in a rural, mountainous area of Wayne County, West Virginia called Beech Fork. The nearest populated place was the unincorporated village of East Lynn, which was several miles from our house and consisted mainly of a general store that sold cold beer and soda pop, and an abandoned coal mine. Needless to say, nights were pitch black in those mountains and the only sounds were the whip-poor-wills, hoot owls and bull frogs that sat on the banks of Twelve-Pole Creek that ran through the area. This night was no different. Outside the windows, all one could see was unending blackness - no street lamps or headlights from passing cars. No full moon to brighten the inky black sky. My parents were speaking softly, so as not to awaken me and my other two sisters. Suddenlyout of nowherewas the loud whirring, sputtering sound of a small airplane. It was loud and sounded closetoo close to the house. Mom, Dad threw open the front door and ran outside, while my sister peered through the front window. The sound continued but they could see nothing in the jet black sky. I sat frozen on my spot on the floor. Seconds passed.and then there were crashing sounds along with a high-pitch screaming! There was nothing anyone could do immediatelyno emergency phone numbers to dial in 1959 in the rural mountains of West Virginiano neighbors close byno way to search the mountains in the dead of night with no light not even a full moon to help lead the way. I eventually went to sleep that night, but my parents were most likely up all night. At first light of day, Dad drove to his brothers house a few miles away and the two of them searched those mountains up and down, looking for any sign of a plane that had crashed. They found nothing. They told the local authorities, but there were no reports of any missing airplanesno indication of a flight that never arrived at an expected destination. No missing people. Nothing. There was no explanation, but it wasnt a dream. More than one person heard the engines, heard the screams, heard the crashing of metal that night. Was it a phantom airplane crash? A UFO? Something or someone from the other side that somehow slipped through the cracks of time and space? You be the judge.