We met Ron Quinn a little while ago on the blog due to this terrific collection of Little People encounters that he received from persons living mainly in the Catskill area of New York state. John Timmerman, however, met him in 1991 in Tucson, AZ, when John was exhibiting the CUFOS photo exhibit there. Ron Quinn was a writer and an artist/cartoonist as well as other creative sorts of interests, who was fascinated by both the UFO phenomenon and the Little People phenomenon ever since having his own experiences with each in the 1940s [in Washington state and New York state, respectively]. He had settled for some while in the Tucson area, living mainly by writing for newspapers and weeklies, and making films. He came up to John to tell him of what he felt to be the most peculiar anomalistic claim that he'd been involved with, though it was an experience which had not happened directly to him.
Here's how the story goes: Ron had an old friend of about twenty years living in Tucson. His friend had been a high school math teacher, was a solidly conservative person in his beliefs and interests, and Ron was the type of close friend between which there would be no "funny business", even if the friend's personality had been different. The friend was retired at the time [1988] and liked to drive about southern Arizona pursuing his favorite hobby, photography. One day in 1988, Ron got an excited phonecall asking him to meet him at the Denny's restaurant on Oracle road [that's it above; thought it was just fun to put the real one in there]. Ron hurried on over and got an earful of a story.
Ron's friend, who he wanted to keep anonymous, so he called him "Sam", liked photographing Arizona's old Ghost Towns, and one of them was nearly to the US-Mexico border, the old mining town of Ruby.
Rubies weren't mined there, but Lead, Zinc, and Silver were. The mine was particularly profitable for Lead and Zinc in its hay-day. Sam had visited Ruby many times and doubtlessly photographed everything in the town area worth shooting, so he had taken to wandering around the rough mountainous surroundings, camera in hand.
A prominent feature which you can't miss from the town is Montana Peak. This is, in fact, a somewhat popular destination for casual hiker-climbers in southern Arizona, though hardly any tourist Mecca. Most days there are no people anywhere about the peak. It was one such day when Sam encountered the "alien".
You have to get well beyond Ruby to the back side of Montana Peak to find yourself at "the scene of the crime". Sam had been exploring the backside canyons and what is called California Gulch, when he heard an odd whishing sound in the air. Whether this had anything at all to do with his later encounter, who knows? About twenty-to-thirty minutes later, Sam is walking down one of the small washed out "canyons", when he spots a small "something". The being turned to face Sam, and, though startled, Sam, camera in hand, shot a picture. At that, the being turned away and rapidly scrambled up about 100 feet of fairly steep angled cliff-face. Sam tried to follow, but age and athleticism failed him. By the time he finally got to the top, the being was gone from sight. Other than scuff marks, it also left no prints.
Now shaken by the full realization of the oddity of the experience, Sam got down the mountain, into his car, drove to Tucson, nervously glancing around a good bit of the way, convinced that he should have, somehow, not been there and certainly not shot a picture. [You and I may not have felt this way, but Sam, as said was a very conservative-thinking and socially-nervous person]. He had the roll of film developed at the local Walgreens [again showing that this guy was a naive sort of fellow], got his prints back with the picture of the being there, and called Ron. At Denny's, he showed Ron the photo as he told him the story.
Ron wanted him to submit the photo for analysis, but Sam was scared and wanted to seek his brother in San Diego for advice. He kept the photo, but Ron was able to stare at it for nearly an hour. That was plenty for him, an artist, to get back home, sit down and sketch the being from fresh memory. That is, of course, the sketch you see above. The photo appeared to show a creature, very humanoid, standing about 7 to 8 feet away from the photographer. The creature's height was four to four-and-a-half foot tall, and it was clad in a tight-fitting dull silverish coverall. You can see the shape of the head and sense perceptors for yourself on the sketch. Quinn had time to study the photo even with a magnifying glass, so he felt that he had this almost exactly correct.
The story ends mysteriously but not happily for research. Sam went to visit his brother's home for the Christmas holidays.Before he left [he had apparently contacted his brother by phone], he told Ron that he was not going to give the photo up for analysis, but rather would try to make some money off it [what his brother wanted to do] or just try to forget about the whole thing [which is what he, given his personality, seemed to want to do]. Ron never saw him again [nor did the photo surface]. Sam's home grew eerily abandoned, then one day it had been emptied.
In the meanwhile, Ron had published the story in the weekly Southern Arizona Trails journal, and was later interviewed by a Tucson TV station about the mystery. The TV piece was 1990. In 1991 here he was again telling John the same story that he wrote about and was interviewed about earlier. Quinn was out-spokenly convinced that this friend was FAR away from any sort of hoaxer, and that the photo that he studied so closely was a real photo. But WHAT really was it a photo of?
Quinn and Sam apparently immediately thought that the creature photographed was an "Alien", by which Quinn means either extraterrestrial or a terrestrial time-traveler [this latter is a bankrupt concept in my mind but some see it as possible]. Unfortunately there was no UFO anywhere in the experience. Quinn "likes" the ETH/TT hypotheses I believe because he thinks that the creature looks right for that. With the possible exception of the dull silver suit, I feel no urge to go there with any conviction. Quinn also seems to prefer a sort of bald-headed clean-cut alien vs scruffy-faced mediaeval-clothed Little Person dichotomy. Well, I get the urge to follow old imprintings, but the Faerie trickster is well up to manifesting in a clean-shaven bald-headed look. My mind is open on what we are treated to here.
Once again, our debunkers won't give this the time of day. They could be evidentially right in the end, but are certainly attitudinally wrong at this time. Ron Quinn says that this came from a very old trusted friend. He reported on his friend's sighting immediately to the local community [some of whom probably had pretty shrewd guesses about whom he was talking]. He stuck with the story for years. This counts for something. It at least counts for a vote for some open-mindedness.
But still, what was this thing from the backside of Montana Peak?? Strange things are said to exist in places like California Gulch. Will you be the stalwart intrepid explorer who ventures down into the Earth to find them??
If you ever return, let the rest of us know.
In Indiana the natives called them the Poc-wo-ji. A small human looking being that lived in caves and burrows in the hills along rivers.
ReplyDeleteIn summer they would build small shelters of bent sticks and grass. The last sighting I heard of was along a part of the White River in the 1970s. The beings were described as small girls about 8 years old wearing ragged cloths and walking bearfoot along a remote section of the river.
Very interesting. Thank you.
DeleteFigures, the photo disappeared. Note to someone trying to make money off of something like this...share it with the world without a need to make a profit, or UP YOURS!!! Profiteering = You lose instantly your credibility if not a chance to SHARE with and enlighten the world an amazing reality.
DeleteWell, I of course agree with the loss of credibility part. We have all sorts of people in society who are at different levels of what Lawrence Kohlberg called "The Stages of Moral Development". Particularly because most "advanced" countries have great freedoms for their populaces, the concept of having a "culture" which modifies and counsels against self-centeredness is fading. The US is a prime example of this. Therefore many members become only minimalist participants in the larger good, and are only looking out for themselves. [These are called Kohlberg Stage Twos; "egocentric hedonists"].
DeleteBecause anomalistic incidents occur with a great deal of apparent randomness [which might be adjudged a positive sign about their NON-human-origin], we are bound to get significant incidents wherein the witness was already flawed as to credibility. Such a case is maddening to the rest of us, but is inevitable. The outstanding example of this which comes to my mind is the Sonny Desverges CE2 trace case in Florida in 1952. The great anomaly of the "microwaved-beneath-the-soil" plant roots in that case disturbed Edward Ruppelt all the way to the Robertson/CIA panel and beyond to his lecturing prospective military intelligence officers about investigating UFO cases.
Most of such "good case/ bad witness" incidents must be chucked into the gray basket. The "Florida Scoutmaster" case survives due to evidence beyond the character of the witness. This photo in the Ron Quinn story might have overcome the desire of "Sam's" brother to sell it, IF it would have been ultimately turned over to someone really good [with camera, too] for analysis. This is true because Ron DID see it right after development and was able to study it himself for an hour. And, Ron could put the story into a firm context, which is vital for film evidence. Most times, however, character-flawed witness = irredeemably-lost case.
Prof it often seems to me these critters and their often non sequiturial appurtenances are genuinely trying to communicate things about themselves (in the same way the colour red in nature can often be taken as a warning sign).
ReplyDeleteI find myself wondering therefore if the anom (anomalous entity) was signalling as best it could via its metallic suit it was a critter involved with the generation and utilisation of metals found in the earth ie a troll or gnome - especially given the landscape in which it was observed.
And I suspect you suspect that too.
Actually, that thought did not occur to me. Particularly since in tradition trolls and gnomes communicate their intentions quite overtly.
DeleteIn the late 50's and most of the 60's I visited my grandmother who lived alongside the White River
ReplyDeletejust west of Petersburg, Indiana. I spent many a day in the summers collecting and shucking river
mussels for use as bait in my step-grandfather's hoop fishing nets. I had never heard of the
Poc-wo-ji until now. These sound somewhat like gypsies. Any further details would be appreciated.
Terry W. Colvin
(living in Thailand since 2008)
What Sarge was talking about when he says "Poc-Wo-Ji" is the local way of referring to a very commonplace concept and belief of the native american trickster/ little people otherwise spelled Pukwudgies, and a variety of close spellings, which blanket the eastern part of the North American continent. Interested persons might refer to Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha for the most famous reference.
DeleteI'm still intrigued by the idea some folks have had of a dying race that grew up along side us. Here's an interesting article... check out the second picture of how an ancient girl's found in Israel may have looked along with 20 others found at the same site... all taller skulls than modern humans. Looks similar our little guy here!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1260294/X-Woman-Species-ancient-human-Siberia.html
The more prominent version of that hypothesis is a conservative anthropological favorite that these legends arose to cover the early interactions between colonizers and smallish local people already in residence, who were then driven out of the best lands and into the forests and mountains. Anthropologists love that because they don't have to expand their consciousnesses at all to eliminate the mystery. The next most conservative alternative is that remnant tribes of non-Homo sapiens sapiens, such as Neanderthals or Homo erectus or other "limbs on the tree" made it into the, say, 10,000- 6,000 BC era and they were memorialized as the little people. None of this sort of thing handles the actual encounter stories which occur across the centuries though. Nor would they handle "Sam's" entity. To deal with such encounters we can't softball our hypotheses [and I know that you are not doing that], but rather must go, as we say on this blog, "All the Way, Fool!!". Regular ol' biologically developed human cousins do not fit the data nor the temporal nor geographical/historical contexts of these things. If we have a "dying race" anywhere among us, it's in Central Asia and gets mistaken for a kind of "wildman" [The Almas]. Otherwise, we're stuck with: a). nothing; b). ET; or c). Faerie, in some form.
DeleteHere's another article, this one about the Cherokee's Moon-Eyed People. http://www.northcarolinaghosts.com/mountains/mooneyedpeople.php
ReplyDeletewhich sounds like one anthropologists might allow when you get into the Welsh theory.
Then there's the late Mac Tonnie's ideas about cryptoterrestrials who are not ET, but an ancient race that has possible bases in caves, etc., but could pass as us, just shorter than most, but had abilities that could make them seem like Faerie, possibly psychic related. He and some others thought some even live among us.
Investigator/author Nick Redfern relates a story in one of his books about a professor in Michigan who saw a craft lit up in a wooded area one night and saw the occupants leave it and jump into a Cadillac! He saw one of them a few days later shopping in a local store. Somethin' is goin' on!
I knew Ron Quinn quite well, about 20-25 years ago...but haven't seen him since then. I wonder if he's still alive and kicking!
ReplyDeleteSo, tell us something about him.... Was he a gullible person or was he more careful in believing what he heard? Did he tell you of the things which he says he himself experienced? Anything which would interest the readers of this blog?
DeleteI just wanted to comment on the area around Montana Peak and especially the California Gulch. This is a beautiful area where I spent many weekends camping and hiking in the 80’s and early 90’s, my parents even lived there for a while before I was born. There have been people (hippies) living in those hills since at least the 1960’s so encounters with interesting and unusual people is not unusual. There are also many abandoned mines ranging in size from small holes to large complexes. I myself have explored a few that didn’t seem overly unsafe. The most interesting of these was entered through a small entrance and was mostly flooded, you had to get in the water and there was only about 5 inches between the water and roof then about 10 feet back you had to actually submerge for a few feet as the air gap wasn’t more than an inch and the rocks on the roof were jagged. Once you came through this the tunnel was a slight incline so you were out of the water. The cave went back another 20 or 30 feet probably ( my distance guesses could be wildly inaccurate) and the entire back part was out of the water. There was plenty of room back there for all 4 of us to lay sit around. The floor of the cave was totally smooth and there were colorful mineral deposits all over the walls making it look like you are in a crystal cave when you have lights turned on. The water leaching through the rocks had covered everything in a coating of mineral deposits, the back of the cave even looked like some kind of throne. There are many interesting things to be seen in the area. I can also think of two spring fed “swimming holes” that I have never seen without water in them though it has not always been actively flowing out of them. Both of these places are of unknown depths and I have no idea how they were formed or how long they have been there though I can say neither looks to be man made. On a slope above one of them is a shallow cave that has some petroglyphs in it. Oh and there is a hill where you can find crystals everywhere. I have never seen a large one found there, nothing bigger than an inch or two but they are everywhere. There is also an area near there where you can find small geodes all over the place. A lot of the boulders are covered in little half circle indentations full of crystals and I have personally found many broken roundish stone which were geodes.
ReplyDeleteI say all of this to highlight how interesting and amazing an area this is. Unfortunately it has not been a very safe area to explore for some time due to how close it is to the Border. When I was young all you really had to watch out for were mine shafts, and wildlife which can be plenty scary. Now the hills are scarred by trails coming from Mexico and discarded clothing and water bottles as well as new roads created by the Border patrol to try to patrol the area. While most people crossing the border are good people looking for a better life, not all of them are and even a good person can do bad things if they are hungry, thirsty and scared for their life or the lives of their family/friends. The last time I was camping there I had somebody come up to my camp and ask for food and water and directions back to mexico. If you do go to this area remember to be careful and never go alone, it isn’t safe to go somewhere like that alone anyway but especially now with the amount of traffic from mexcio.
Anyway With all my exploring I have never seen anything like an alien or some type of Fairy/Little person in that area, or anywhere else. I know a lot of the people who lived there when my parents did would have loved to see a little person or fairy but I have never heard one story like that coming from around there. I am curious now though so I will be talking to my mom about it in the near future to see what she has to say. I will be sure to pass on any stories she may have.
..... would be interesting to hear of other stories. Ron Quinn's friend, though, told this particular story as if it was a one time thing involving an ET creature and not a localized folkloric one.
DeleteFair enough, i just got a little carried away talking about the area. Obviously nothing i have seen myself would discount what Rons friend saw as it was his experience. I guess i just have to say that from my experience I would not be surprised at all to know that somebody was running around those hills dressed like an alien or something else equally interesting, especially back in the 80's. The people living out there or near there in the town of Arivaca are .. quirky I suppose. Oh and to be clear i am not saying anybody i know of out there would have dressed up for the purpose of tricking anybody, they just liked dressing up. I hope i am not coming off as being too negative or just a doubter, i am just sharing my knowledge of the area.
ReplyDeleteWell, OK, but I'm always boggled by the presentation of "solutions" to things which do not address the details of the experiences that they allege to explain. Quinn's friend said that the being was four and a half feet tall, seen from very close up, and had a head which was humanoid but not exactly human. A local community member just dressing up for some unknown reason? Four and a half feet tall? Non-human facial proportions? I'm not at all opposed to explanations, but I cannot get this strange behavior which we have as humans to think one thought and go with it without any further perspective as to whether it really addresses the anomalous features of the report sufficiently. If this was an intended or unintended fabrication, then it was a heck of a lot more elaborate one than some fun-loving local just dressing up. A debunker should rather go for the "It's all a hoax produced by Ron Quinn and/or the friend" theory, if "explaining" this story is the goal.
Delete