A lot of the book "The Mothman Prophecies" by John A. Keel was set around those igloos and the Point Pleasant area, if memory serves (I never saw the movie adaptation and don't know if it was set there.) A lot of the early "Mothman" sightings were reported in that area.

Yup, the movie was also set in the Point Pleasant area, I do believe.

Was it black powder, or smokeless?

I've no recollection, I'm afraid. That was over twenty years ago, and I was a kid at the time.

I do remember that it was fast. It zipped right across the street in almost nothing flat, as I recall.

Your Uncle sure sounds like a neat guy.

Yup!

Blake

Yep, it was based on my boring lil' town. Keel liked the movie though most of the townsfolk felt otherwise. I think it was because the story focused on an outsider rather than the people who lived here. (No offense to Mr. Keel) I believe that Will Patton was the only cast member to even come to this town, and he stayed for a while meeting the people.
As for the igloos, they've been sealed shut since the clean up started. I'd been in them before and they had been cleaned out properly when the ammo was removed. I have heard that blasting caps were found occasionally in the past and the possiblity of tunnels to underground storages. Of course that may be just BS.
BTW, Ken...thanks for the heads up on that crystal business. Even if it was brand new dynamite, I wouldn't go near it anyway. Are the crystals nitro?? I know nothing of explosive's ingredients but always heard that old dynamite would sweat nitroglycerin. Or is that just BS?? :confused:

Yikes is right!

When I was about 13, a friend and I pulled the bullets out of a bunch of .22's, cut apart a couple of shotgun shells, opened an entire pack of firecrackers, and mixed all the various powders together. We then poured it all into the center of the rather large Sunday Denver Post newspaper, slipped in a bunch of firecracker fuses Scotch taped end to end, folded up the paper and bound it all up with some fine wire we found. We put it into a small hole in the ground, lit the fuse and ran.

We only did this once as we were made to clean all the confetti from the neighbors yards.

Not one speck of paper landed in our yard, and I'm still scratching my head over that.

Ken V.

When I was a kid, we knocked the end of an empty co2 canister for a b.b. gun. Then we proceeded to snap of the heads of kitchen matches and stuff that baby full. Then we lit one and jammed it in the end and ran for our lives expecting an explosion with shrapnel. Wrong! It took off like a missel! I'm glad we did it out in the country, that sucker could have hurt someone.


KRW

I've no recollection, I'm afraid. That was over twenty years ago, and I was a kid at the time.

I do remember that it was fast. It zipped right across the street in almost nothing flat, as I recall.

That would be black powder then.

Big cloud of acrid smoke?

Of course you probably weren't watching the smoke.

Ken V.

When I was a kid, we knocked the end of an empty co2 canister for a b.b. gun. Then we proceeded to snap of the heads of kitchen matches and stuff that baby full. Then we lit one and jammed it in the end and ran for our lives expecting an explosion with shrapnel. Wrong! It took off like a missel! I'm glad we did it out in the country, that sucker could have hurt someone.

When I was a kid we did the same thing but instead we scraped the compound off of kitchen matches and mixed it in with the scrapings from a couple rolls of caps. It did the same thing. But we lit it by laying a row of matches down in parallel and lighting the farthest match. WHOOSH! Never did find the CO2 cartridge.

It took us hours for a few seconds of fun . . . but it was worth it.

Ken - wondering how he survived his childhood - V.

I thought of another one I once saw someone do. This guy fastened a 2' length of pipe to the top of a post with a few of those nails that are shaped like a U. He then stuck a shotgun shell in the end of the pipe -- which just fit nicely with only the end sticking out. Next he taped something (I think it was a BB) to the end of the shell and smacked it with a hammer. He was trying to shoot it at a street sign but what actually happened was that it blew the hammer out of his hand and mostly destroyed the pipe. I'm not sure if that guy is still alive these days. I did hear that he blew off his foot shooting tree stumps/roots out of the ground.

RIK

Sounds like someone we would find in the Darwin Award archives.

How old was he when he did this?

Ken V.

Yep, it was based on my boring lil' town. Keel liked the movie though most of the townsfolk felt otherwise. I think it was because the story focused on an outsider rather than the people who lived here. (No offense to Mr. Keel) I believe that Will Patton was the only cast member to even come to this town, and he stayed for a while meeting the people.
As for the igloos, they've been sealed shut since the clean up started. I'd been in them before and they had been cleaned out properly when the ammo was removed. I have heard that blasting caps were found occasionally in the past and the possiblity of tunnels to underground storages. Of course that may be just BS.

What went on there in the past that would result in this situation?

BTW, Ken...thanks for the heads up on that crystal business. Even if it was brand new dynamite, I wouldn't go near it anyway. Are the crystals nitro?? I know nothing of explosive's ingredients but always heard that old dynamite would sweat nitroglycerin. Or is that just BS?? :confused:

Brand new dynamite is no problem. It takes a blasting cap to set it off. AS I recall, you can even hammer it without problem. Ditching dynamite is a little different, you can detonate it by shooting it with a gun. Some folks buy ditching dynamite for exactly that purpose . . . target practise. (Of course you wouldn't want to use it at an indoor range. )

I'm not sure how dynamite is made these days, but years ago it was formed from baked saw dust -- or something like it -- lightly soaked with nitroglycerine, and packed in a cardboard tube. If it was left to sit for a few years it would sweat nitro. From what my dad told me, the nitro would seep down through the sawdust and collect at the lowest area, eventually seeping through the tube. At this point it becomes fairly unstable. After more years go by, it seems that there is some kind of chemical change and what seeps out of the tube crystalizes. At this point it's EXTREMELY unstable. Coincidentally, I was talking about this with a friend a couple hours ago. (We were working on the frame for his Stearman Bi-Plane.) Roger told me he saw something on TV recently where some cops had served a warrent and were searching a guys house for some kind of evidence. One of the cops opened the guys fridge and saw crystalized dynamite in it! Yeah! In the fridge! In some morons house! Recognizing what it was, the cop v-e-r-r-r-r-y c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y closed the refrigerator door and notified the bomb-squad. The bomb squad did the safest and most sensible thing. They evacuated the area and blew it up where it stood. Now, as I understand it, the guy is suing them for blowing up his house.

Ken V.

Yep, it was based on my boring lil' town. Keel liked the movie though most of the townsfolk felt otherwise. I think it was because the story focused on an outsider rather than the people who lived here. (No offense to Mr. Keel) I believe that Will Patton was the only cast member to even come to this town, and he stayed for a while meeting the people.

Sam, I just saw a preview for a new series on Fox called "Point Pleasant." It's spooky and about .... something eerie. Must have been a great trailer to leave me with such a vague notion of the story!

Anybody know anything more about it?

Sounds like someone we would find in the Darwin Award archives.

How old was he when he did this?

Ken V.

I'd say about 12.

RIK