Category: Paranormal/Urban Legends

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller, Holly Eller

Date: August 3, 2024 & September 6, 2024

As we bicycled two miles north of the Milford Trailhead along the Little Miami Scenic Bike Trail near milepost 47.5 at Miamiville, we noticed historical kiosks talking about a Civil War raid and a train disaster at this location. The bike path is a former railroad track. This rails to trail bike trail is the third longest paved trail in America. After research I discovered that this site has paranormal activity. First, the history story.

Confederate Gen. John Morgan’s 2,000 cavalrymen pulling wagons and artillery, forded the Little Miami River on July 14, 1863. A half mile southeast of Porter’s Mill Ford, they cut telegraph lines and sabotaged the Little Miami Railroad by piling railroad ties and wedging them into the cattle guards. As a passenger train pulled by the locomotive “Kilgour” with 115 Union raw recruits headed south toward Camp Dennison, it went too fast around a blind curve (named Dangerous Curve) and struck the The ghost has been seen on the bike path, on a nearby road and sometimes watches a farmer plow his field. boobytrap damaging and rerailing several train cars. One train fireman Cornelius Conway was killed and the engineer seriously injured.

Later that day, Morgan’s calvary slashed across the Little Miami River at Porter’s Mill to capture a bridge ¾ mile west of Miamiville. They succeeded. They then galloped into Miamiville to destroy the Little Miami Railroad Bridge. Union Lt. Smith’s 200 militiamen arrived by train and drove the Confederates to the north bank of the river before the bridge could be blown. A long-range firefight began. After a three-hour battle, another Union squad attacked the Confederates from the rear and drove the Confederates away saving both bridges. The Confederates had six men killed, the Union one killed and one missing.   

My research revealed that there have been several sightings of a ghostly apparition dressed like a trainman who was killed in the train wreck by Morgan’s Confederate raiders. Due to the deadly trauma of his death, is it possible that railroad employee Cornelious Conway still haunts this area near the train crash? Reports began shortly after Conway’s death of an apparition walking along the tracks.

In 1905 when trains still operated on the track, a young man was walking home on the foggy track when he saw 20 feet ahead a figure holding a lantern. He told his dad it must be the ghost of Conway warning travelers of the fog-obstructing safe viewing distance ahead on the track. People who fish at night on the Little Miami River sometimes see a misty figure holding a lantern on foggy nights.

In the summer of 1932, a night passenger train out of Cincinnati was speeding through the area when the engineer saw a man walking in the middle of the track with his back to the train. He blew the whistle, stopped the train, got out but found no man nor a body.

In more recent times the ghost has been seen on the bike path, on a nearby road and sometimes watches a farmer plow his field. My brief investigation consisted of taking many photos and doing EVPs, but I did not produce any evidence of the paranormal claims. I would like to return and do another investigation some foggy evening.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: November 17, 2024

Just south of Blue Ridge, Georgia we stopped by “Expedition: Bigfoot”, the largest Bigfoot Museum in the world. We met and talked to Founder and Researcher David Bakara (Photo#2), who is the uncle of my oldest son Matt’s best friend Tommy. David talked about the exhibits, his future museum expansion goals, recent sightings and was fun and courteous to talk to. We spent over an hour viewing the historical exhibits, artifacts, casts (including Josh Gate’s expedition cast Photo#7), eyewitness testimonies, and even the butt print of a Bigfoot (Photo#6). I was proud to see my photo on the explorer Wall of Fame as an Expedition Tracker. The museum is a must-see place to visit. Afterwards, we spent two days hiking six different trails in the Blue Ridge Mountains enjoying the scenery and keeping an eye open for large footprints!

Investigation Team: Dave Miller

Date: August 1967

A Dayton, Ohio couple, who I will call Bob and Carol Thomas, were traveling by car to the northwest from Phoenix, Arizona during the second week of august 1967 at approximately 3:00 to 4:00am. The couple traveled at night due to the heat of the day. It was a crystal-clear night. The moon was ¾ full and at a 35-degree angle on the right side of the car.  The moon was magnified or larger than normal. Two tiny puffy, cumulus clouds were in the sky off to the left side of the car. In the rural desert, as they neared the city of Wickenberg, Bob saw a white light (no colored lights) streak across the sky for about five seconds from east to west (right to lefty) passing a few degrees below the moon.

“We were in a Ford pick-up truck which had a lot of windshield so we clearly saw the object,” explained Bob. “It went at a tremendous speed and as it went west it made a 90-degree turn (to the left and downward to the south) and hide behind the cloud. Then it zipped to the second cloud and stopped. I saw the object enough to see the curvature of the white light but not the entire object.” Bob described it as sort of arrowhead shaped.

Bob has been employed as an assistant systems programmer at DESI since 1962 and always has been interested in aircraft. He was a student pilot with 30 hours of flight time. Since he is familiar with aircraft, what he observed in Arizona that night was not a conventional type of airplane that did those maneuvers or could go at that speed.

Investigation Team: Dave Miller

Date: July 1962

An 18-year-old female who we will call Martha, was vacationing at Riggs Lake, Michigan with her aunt, uncle, grandfather, grandmother, and two cousins in July 1962. Riggs Lake was a small private lake in a wooded, rural area.  It was early afternoon on a sunny, clear day with only a few high cirrus clouds in the sky. Martha was fishing on the shoreline and the uncle was fishing from a small fishing boat.

“I saw the object first and then my uncle saw it from the boat,” stated Martha. “He yelled for everyone to come out of the cabin and look at it.”

The object was huge, cigar shaped, silver, shiny, mirror-like and made no sound or noise as it slowly moved across the sky. Martha estimates that the solid object was about ½ mile to one mile away and about 150 feet off the ground. “There were tall trees. I watched it about fifteen minutes as it went a slow, constant speed.” The uncle worked at DESI (Defense Electronics Supply Center) in Dayton, Ohio and tried to say it was a weather balloon or airplane, but the grandfather disagreed.

Martha eventually lost track of the object because of the distance and the tree line.  “It moved across the sky just above the treetops,” Martha remembers.

Investigation Team: Dave Miller

Date: August or September 1966

On September 12, 1990, I interviewed Mrs. SR. She said a young mother was driving her two sons and grandmother on Crane’s Run Road where it dead ends into State Route 25 in rural, southern Montgomery County, Ohio near the city of Miamisburg. It was about 7:30 or 8pm. The female, who we will call Shannon, stopped at a stop sign and looked across the field where the sun was going down across the horizon to the west.

The occupants of the car could see a saucer shaped object in front of the sun approximately ½ mile away. The object is described as bright, shiny, and looked like it may be touching down on the ground as it was very close to the ground.  Shannon describes the size of the object as about the size of a truck.

“We heard a humming sound, quite distinct since we didn’t have to strain to see it,” explained Shannon. “I couldn’t tell a distinct color (of the object) because the sun was behind it but it shimmered a lot and wavered. No wind was blowing on the ground, dirt or grass. It had a clockwise right to left spin.”

The four occupants of the car sat there and watched it about ten minutes. Other traffic pulled over (about 3 or 4 cars) and saw the object according to Shannon. Soon the object began to ascend. “It tilted back and took off slow,” remembered Shannon. “I lost sight of it in the distance. The object was pretty looking, but it still gave me goose bumps.”

Investigation Team: Dave Miller

Date: March 18, 1990

I interviewed the witness on November 9, 1990. On March 18, 1990, at 9:30pm on a Sunday evening, the witness, a 19-year-old college student had just returned home from Michigan. After speaking to her mother at their suburban Oakwood home, the witness and her boyfriend walked outside then decided to take a walk. They walked to the Dayton Country Club Golf Course and stopped to sit and watch the stars.  The temperature was 50-55 degrees. After about ten minutes they noticed a cylinder-shaped object in the dark sky. “It was just below cloud level,” stated the female witness. “It was partly cloudy, and I could see it clearly below the clouds. Their were lights on the front and sides, white sparkling lights.” The object was approaching from the south and heading north towards downtown Dayton. “The lights did not blink,” she continued. “I’m familiar with airplane lights and none of the lights blinked.” The object stopped once for about 30 seconds and then accelerated again heading north. The witness estimated the object was about two miles distant and no discernable sound was detected.  She indicated it was very quiet on the golf course as no golfers were obviously playing at night and only a private road was nearby. The object was viewed for a total of two to three minutes.

The witness’s boyfriend would not talk about the incident. Researching the Dayton Daily News archives revealed no additional reports of unusual objects sighted on that evening.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: May 12, 2024

While in Roswell, just a half block from the International UFO Museum and Research Center, we stopped in Invasion Station, a new and interesting alien gift store. I was captivated by a mural which also appeared on post cards (Photo#1). I spoke to Gina Dwyer who owns and manages the store with her husband Chuck. Gina stated that back in July 1947 her husband’s grandfather Dan Dwyer (Photo#2 far left) was a Lieutenant with the Roswell Fire Department and one of the firemen that responded to the crash site near Roswell at Corona. At the fire station a call came in that there had been an airship crash north of Roswell. The firemen along with the sheriff and a couple deputies responded. The mural depicts Dwyer’s story and what he saw when he arrived on the scene. He was threatened and warned by the military to tell no one what he saw. Near the end of his life Dan told the story of what he saw to his family.

Gina told me that her family visited the crash often as there was once a stone tower and marker identifying the crash site. Gina’s family would pick up trash when they visited as the site was a hangout spot for teens and young adults. Unfortunately, the tower got vandalized and was destroyed. Gina shared photos that she took of the tower & plaque (Photo#3, #4 &#5), the site where the UFO first hit (Photo#6) and the final resting site of the craft (Photo#7). Gina said the land and site is now fenced off by the forest service, but you can still go through a gate and access it. I hope to visit the crash site the next trip out west. As you all know, the crash debris and body(s) from the crash were transported to Wright Field in Dayton. I have a copy of the Tuesday, July 8, 1947, Roswell Daily Record newspaper hanging in my office with the bold headline, “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region” (Photo#8).

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: May 9, 2024

It was daytime when I looked southeast to Marfa in the distance. When planning this trip, I had considered camping overnight at the desolate Marfa Light Viewing Campground east of town. The Marfa Lights are mysterious lights seen at night that dance across the foothills of the distant Chinati Mountains. The lights have been recorded since at least 1883, and the lights have unsatisfactorily been explained as an atmospheric phenomenon which distorts and reflects the distant light of campfires or headlights. But some people say that it is unworldly as often the lights move vertically or in circles while changing colors. Yet police will tell you that it is just distant automobile lights. Others say its flying saucers & UFO’s while many refer to them as the ghost ball lights. I talked to a few locals about the mysterious lights.

A waiter named Aaron in nearby Fort Davis told me he has witnessed the lights twice and believes it is UFO’s and aliens. Sometimes he didn’t see any lights. He witnessed red, blue and amber points of light. The lights darted around and then came together and shot straight up.

A man in Carlsbad said he and friends have seen the lights on three different occasions. He is unsure what causes the lights but doesn’t feel it is aliens. He thinks it could be a divine being protecting water, which is residents most precious commodity. He doesn’t think it is automobile lights because the road is in a different direction. He said the dark sky is beautiful there on a clear night. June is the best month to see the lights.

Whatever the theory, adding to the mystique is the fact that “The Twilight Zone’s” creator Rod Serling, an advanced flight training officer, once trained here back in the 1950’s. That’s a nice sci-fi touch to this baffling and bizarre area.

Expedition Team: Dave Miller, Rosie Miller

Date: May 12, 2024

It was Mother’s Day. Jacque had sent Rosie a surprise gift and Rosie talked to Matt, Holly & Jacque on the phone throughout the day. We left Carlsbad KOA Campground after getting our photos taken with green aliens and headed to Alamogordo via famous Roswell. Naturally, I stopped by Roswell for lots of alien photos and purchased a few souvenirs for family and friends. The real find was stopping in The Alien Invasion Store, next to the International MUFON UFO Museum. I interviewed manager Gina. Her husband’s grandfather was the Assistant Fire Chief at Roswell and responded to the 1947 UFO crash. I bought an artist’s sketch of what he witnessed as he pulled up to the site. A complete story of what he saw is under “Paranormal Category” on my website. My favorite photo during the visit is the “Welcome to Roswell” crash scene art where I stand in the scene (Photo #5). Can you find me?

Expedition Team: Dave Miller

Date: May 13, 2024

Not the total encounter I was hoping for. After hiking two trails down at White Sands National Park, then driving up 4,000 feet to hike a trail at Lincoln National Forest, we finally pulled up to the Big Foot Encounter building. It was seven minutes until 5pm. The front door opened, and the employee was locking up for the day, seven minutes early. I wanted to go in and view the books, displays and have the “encounter”. Another man and his son were walking up also, and the employee just said sorry, and closed the door. What a bummer. I still took some photos outside of the building and who knows, maybe someday we will return.