Drawing: Mount Rainier

by Jack Brummet

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Drawing: Mt. Rainier at midnight

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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Alien Lore No. 250 - Photographic evidence of UFOs preceding the 1947 Roswell and Mount Rainier UFO sightings

By Jack Brummet, Alien Lore Ed.

The most interesting information about these photos is that they were all photographed many years before The Roswell Incident, or the Mt. Rainier UFO sightings of 1947—both of which catapulted UFOs into the popular imagination.

Click photograph to enlarge

This photo was taken in 1870 at Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. The photo has been called "the oldest UFO photograph ever taken." This image was the subject of spirited bidding on E-bay in 2002 and was purchased by Samuel M. Sherman, the President of Independent-International Pictures Corp.

Click photograph to enlarge

This image was shot in 1927 at Cave Junction, Oregon. The picture was reportedly snapped by a volunteer fireman. Click on to see full size image to really appreciate the picture.

click image to enlarge

In 1929 at SlideWard, Colorado, a photographer captured this alleged UFO photograph. According to Hetty Pline, the photographer's daughter "This photo was taken by my father Edward Pline at the sawmill in Ward where we lived at the time, I think it was 1929. I was about six years old then. My father was there to photograph the sawmill for some reason or another, and as he was taking the photo, he described a "terrible thunderous bellow," and a large round thing as big as a very large boulder that moved through the air above them. You can see it in the picture. None of the sawmill workers saw the thing in the photo, but they all heard the sound and felt the ground shudder. Later in my life I tried researching the incident at the County Historical Society, but I did not find any references to it. My father passed on a few years after the incident, and I have not found any surving sawmill workers from that time. "

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In this image, the alarm klaxons installed in the event of a Japanese air raid began blaring, and flying objects are seen and announced in the sky off the city. I have written about this incident before. A blackout was declared and terrified Los Angelenos turned off all the lights.

The anti-aircraft guns opened fire on the UFOs, and as you see in the photo, the projector beams began searching the sky. Many witnesses saw small objects flying at high altitude, of red or silver plated color. The saucers moved in formation at a high rate of speed, and the anti-aircraft artillery were useless. FDR got involved in this one. See the story in All This Is That...

click photo to enlarge

In May 1932, at St. Paris, Ohio, someone took this picture of George Sutton. It was probably 1932 judging by the license plate on the car. George looks pretty calm for having a UFO hovering over his head. Nobody has been able to account for the dark object seen over Sutton's left shoulder in this photograph.

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Poem: Perpetial Motion

By Jack Brummet 

The mountain is the youngest child
Of heaven and earth,
Striving ever upward

And simultaneously tumbling down,
Like the five volcanoes
That surround me.
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Decade Volcanoes (and Mount Rainier in particular)

By Jack Brummet, Seattle Metro Editor

The Decade Volcanoes are sixteen volcanoes "identified by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) as being worthy of particular study in light of their history of large, destructive eruptions and proximity to populated areas."  I live fifty miles from one of them.

click to enlarge - licensed from Wikipedia Commons

According to the Wikipedia, "Mount Rainier is a massive stratovolcano located 54 miles (87 km) southeast of Seattle in the state of Washington, United States. It is the most topographically prominent mountain in the contiguous United States and the Cascade Volcanic Arc, with a summit elevation of 14,411 feet.  Mt. Rainier is considered one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world because of its large amount of glacial ice."

The three summits of Mount Rainier

In an eruption, Mt. Rainier could produce massive lahars that would threaten the whole Puyallup River Valley.  A lahar is a mudflow or debris flow composed of a slurry of lave, rocky debris, mud, and water. 

Hazard Map showing potential mud and lava flows

The U.S. Geological Survey says that "150,000 people live on top of old lahar deposits of Rainier. Not only is there much ice atop the volcano, the volcano is also slowly being weakened by hydrothermal activity. According to Geoff Clayton, a geologist with a Washington State Geology firm, RH2 Engineering, a repeat of the Osceola mudflow would destroy Enumclaw, Orting, Kent, Auburn, Puyallup, Sumner and all of Renton.  Such a mudflow might also reach down the Duwamish estuary and destroy parts of downtown Seattle, and cause tsunamis in Puget Sound and Lake Washington."

IAVCEI's list of the 16 decade volcanoes:


Avachinsky-Koryaksky, Kamchatka, Russia
Colima, Jalisco and Colima, Mexico
Mount Etna, Sicily, Italy
Galeras, Nariño, Colombia
Mauna Loa, Hawaii, USA
Mount Merapi, Central Java, Indonesia
Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of Congo
Mount Rainier, Washington, USA
Sakurajima, Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan
Santa Maria/Santiaguito, Guatemala
Santorini, Cyclades, Greece
Taal Volcano, Batangas, Luzon, Philippines
Teide, Canary Islands, Spain
Ulawun, New Britain, Papua New Guinea
Mount Unzen, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan
Vesuvius, Naples, Italy

Mount Rainier in 1895

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Climber rappelling down Pinnacle Peak with Mt. Rainier in the background

click to enlarge - Image courtesy of the Washington State Digital Archives, photographer unknown

This is a great photo of a climber rappelling down Pinnacle Peak, with our neighbor Mount Rainier in the background.  The Nisqually Glacier is prominent.  Most of the largest glaciers in the continental U.S. are on Mount Rainier.  Near the bottom of the mountain, you can see the lodge at Paradise and the network of trails through the meadows.

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late penis growth

Mount Rainier's three summits

Mount Rainier is 54 miles southeast of my house. This photo is not the more traditionally beautiful and rounded face we see on clear days in Seattle, but a great view of its three summits (Liberty Cap, Columbia Crest, and Point Success).


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Mount Rainier: Beauty and terror

Source: Washington State Archives. State Library Photograph Collection. Photo by L.D. Lindsley - click to enlarge

I have two friends climbing Mount Rainier this weekend. I recently read the best book I'd ever read about it... The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier by Bruce Barcott. He focused on climbing, the native folklore about the mountain, the animals and insects, the history, including a detailed account various expeditions, and of the army plane crash in the 40s that left dozens of bodies buried in the Tacoma Glacier.

If you are fascinated by Mt. Rainier--and it's hard not to be in Seattle, when its massive presence looms over us every day ("the mountain's out today!")--this is a great book to start with. What makes Barcott's book so engrossing is that he digs in to all aspects of the mountain. And tells his personal story of climbing the mountain, and how when he finally summited, he didn't feel much at all. Except anxious. He does a great job describing both the danger and the beauty.


click to enlarge - Rainier from the northwest

The mountain is arguably the single most impressive mountain in the lower 48. It's only the 5th tallest mountain-- a few feet lower than California's Mt. Whitney (14,494'/4418m) and also a few feet shorter than some of the Sawatch Range peaks in Colorado. It is second to Shasta in total volume for a single peak, and only nearby Mount Baker has more glacial ice. In terms of it's high elevation, massive bulk, and 30 glaciers, Mt. Rainier reigns supreme. And it is only 40 miles to the sea level shores of Puget Sound. Because it is so big, and relatively alone, it dominates the landscape, and can be seen from Oregon to Canada.

Climbing Mt. Rainier, by its easiest route, requires you to ascend 9,000 vertical feet! This is actually the same distance as the climb from advance base camp in the Western Cwm to the top of Mt. Everest. Of course, the air is considerably thicker...
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