John M. Fray, Webmaster:

"Welcome! In my retirement,
  I am posting about
  news and events."
























NEWS BYTES FOR DEC.13, 2025:

A UFO researcher is claiming that U.S. Government investigators based in Nevada from the year 2000 to 2014 experienced weird paranormal phenomena in their homes after returning from the field. The name of the researcher is Dr. James Lacatski. Some claims hold that mass-bearing entities appeared in the investigators' living spaces.
(John Fray's note: The "substance" of those claims has not been confirmed.)


. NASA reports that it has lost contact with its Maven spacecraft which has been orbiting the planet Mars for the past ten years. The spacecraft proceeded in its usual orbital trek to the far side of the planet, out of radio and visual contact with observers on earth. When the spacecraft re-emerged, it looked fine through telescopes, but its circuits could not be raised by NASA.













WHAT OBJECT LANDED IN KECKSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, AT ABOUT 5:00 PM ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1965?

ANSWER: Maybe nothing, or maybe the capsule of a U.S. Military Missile.

KNOWN FACTS:

In the late afternoon of that day, multiple telephone reports were received by radio and television stations from southern Canada, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, of a streaking light in the sky. In the 5:00 PM hour in Kecksburg, PA, a military presence descended on the rural community. It was concentrated in a wooded hollow. By the 8:00 PM hour, the military presence departed.

REPORTS OF HAPPENINGS WHICH MAY NOT BE TRUE:

The departing convoy of trucks and other vehicles contained a flatbed truck with an object strapped to it. The object appeared to be acorn-shaped. It was covered by a tarp. There are conflicting reports as to the size of the object.

ANALYSIS:

As unlikely as it my seen, there may have been multiple objects streaking across the skies that afternoon between Canada to Western Pennsylvania. There may have been a bolide (large meteor). The thruster of a Soviet rocket may have burned up on re-entry. An American test missile may have separted upon descent. The rocket portion of the missile may have landed in Lake Erie, and the partially guided capsule may have made its way to Kecksburg where it made a relativley soft landing.

WHAT THE OBJECT WAS NOT:

It was not a spacecraft of extra-terrestrial origin.

It was not "Die Glocke" (The Bell) time machine said to have been constructed by the German Government in 1945.

John Fray, December 8, 2025















Splendid Christmas Tree In The
Ellwood City Community Plaza


Photos from the Dec. 5 Light Up Night:



























PEARL HARBOR
December 7, 1941













Dec. 11, 2025:

The early afternoon sunshine was pleasant. The temperature was in the mid-forties. It was a nice time to sit at one of the outdoor tables at the Ellwood City Sheetz.












December 5, 2025, saw a record low temperature in Ellwod City and surrounding areas. The previous low temperature for the date was ten degrees. The temperature in Ellwood City on December 5, 2025, at 6:30 AM was seven degrees.












HANDEL'S "MESSIAH"
The New Castle Song Club Chorus

Sunday, Dec. 1, 2025. 3:00 PM.

The Stone Castle Abbey



The gathered are shown standing
for the Hallelujah Chorus.













WPIAL / PIAA  2A   "Double A" Football

Ellwood City Defeated Keystone Oaks, 35-13, Oct. 31.

Steel Valley Defeated Ellwood City, 42-6, Nov. 7.

Steel Valley Defeated Western Beaver, 34-7, Nov. 14.

Seton LaSalle Defeated Steel Valley, 21-14, Nov. 22.

Farrell Defeated Richland, 32-14, Nov. 22.

Farrell (Section 10 Champs) Defeated Seton LaSalle (WPIAL Champs), 40-19, Nov. 29, at Ellwood City.

Southern Columbia Defeated Farrell, 43-22, Dec. 5. Southern Columbia won PIAA Championship













Lincoln High School
Centennial Observance
Tuesday, Nov, 25, 2025
10:00 AM


This wonderful presentation commemorated the one-hundredth anniversary of the laying of the Lincoln High School cornerstone on November 30, 1925.

Speakers included the High School Principal, Ellwood City Historical Society Member Robert Morabito, the school librarian, and teacher Larry Gabis. Holders of county and state political seats presented commendations.

The ceremony was poignant. The legacies of graduates of the high school were recalled. A feeling of pride filled the hearts of all Lincoln alumni who were present. The present-day students who were in attendance seemed to be in awe of the fact they were seated on the cusp of a second one-hundred-year chapter of the high school. They were profoundly aware that the keepsakes which they contributed to the new time capsule will be meditated upon by their future descendants just as the mementos from the 1925 time capsule have inspired reflection in all of us.

Two letters, written by a student and a faculty member, were read aloud. Those letters were addressed to the distant future generation and will be placed in the new time capsule. The eloquent wording of those two letters brought a chill of profundity to all of those assembled.

Here are a few photos from the historic event:


Historical Society member
Robert Morabito




Mr. Gabis and the school librarian.






Image of a newspaper
from November 1925.



Teacher Larry Gabis describing
the extraction of the 1925
time capsule.














The new . . .





. . . and the old.








The website GreatCircleEarth (dot) com is fun to access in order to determine the true distance from one point on the globe to a distant point. Here is a visual which emphasizes the true distance from Los Angeles to London.




Lake Milton is Ohio's tenth-largest man-made lake. The dam was constructed between 1913 and 1917 by the City of Youngstown. In 1984, ownership was turned over to the State of Ohio. The Lake and its shoreline are now managed by the Ohio State Parks Service.

The weather on November 12 was seasonal for this time of the year. A moderate breeze was from the west.

Here is photo snapped at the east side of the lake on the Mahoning Avenue Causeway.













THIS IS A NICE SONG FROM
OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO

Here is mostly forgotten light-rock song from the early 1970s.

The song is
"Look At You Now" by Blue Ash .
















Friday, November 7, 2025, 11:30 PM

It was a good season for the Ellwood City Lincoln High School Wolverines football team, despite its loss this evening at Steel Valley High School in the second round of the Class 2a WPIAL playoffs.

Congratulations, Wolverines!














LIFE IN
NORTHERN BEAVER COUNTY
IN 1985

The Video to a Classic 1985 Music Recording was Captured Partially in Northern Beaver County.

The recording is "Life in a Northern Town" by the musical trio The Dream Academy.


The song and video are intended as a fractured nostalgic yearning for the 1960s. Ironically, it captured something different, but just as significant - the inovations, creativity and fears of the magnificent "Big Eighties."

A brief scene of the Bridgewater area is said to be in the video. The screen grab of Route 51 signs shown above appears at the 1:40 mark.

In Northern Beaver County in the mid-1980s, Babcock & Wilcox / McDermott Steel closed. Just south along the Ohio River, LTV (formerly Jones & Laughlin) closed, also. The courthouse in Beaver, traditionally an enthusiastic venue for discussing sports and local happening, took on a dreary pall. Home foreclosures were starting, housing construction was down, people were losing hope. One saving grace was the Pittsburgh Airport not far southeast along the expressway. Many smart high school graduates took to the airport, said "Bye Bye" and never returned. Eventually, the area shook off the rust and rebounded to a reasonable degree. However, the scary strains of that era remain in the minds of residents of my generation. The Dream Academy hit a home run in capturing that theme. Here is the link to the YouTube file for that haunting musical masterpiece:
"Life in a Northern Town' by The Dream Academy

John Fray, Oct. 30, 2025
























UFO reports along the East Coast of the United States continue to file in with no letup to the sightings in sight. Many of the reports are along the nature of the classic April 26, 2013, report from Puerto Rico which includes video of a relatively small spherical object traveling at a high speed and descending to the ocean surface. That particular UFO skipped along, and, at one point, broke into two pieces which continued skipping and which eventually submerged into the water. NOTE: Debunkers have looked at that video and have concluded that the object was something of low mass (maybe a balloon) which was propelled by the ocean wind.

Some of the current reports describe traveling lighted spots visible below the surface of the coastal waters.

The following map shows where some recent sightings have been reported:


Here is a link to a recent article: NY Daily Post UFO Article