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Episode 60: Mysterious Area 51 and The Skunk Works
In the mid-1980s, I was involved in a civil trial in Lancaster, California. Both sets of attornies came from Los Angeles. One of them was openly scornful of the northern part of LA county where the trial was being held. He loved LA with its chewable air, and Hollyweird. During voir dire, he took exception to the answers given him by several potential jurors. The Q & A went like this:
Q-What kind of work do you do.
A-I can’t say.
Q-Why not?
A-I can’t say.
Q-Where do you work?
A-I can’t say.
Q-How many people work where you work?
A-I can’t say.
Q-What can you say?
A-Nothing… about work.
“Your honor, please instruct the juror to cooperate.”
“Mr. Conrad, just accept my word and direction that I know where they work and what they do. You do not need to know. Go onto a different set of questions.”
He muttered but went on. Everyone else in the courtroom had a very good idea of where those people worked: either at Area 51 or the skunk works, places as secret and mysterious as the dark side of the moon or the Manhattan Project. Many actual employees of Area 51 listed their occupations where legally required as “Nuclear energy.” One retired brigadier general always responded that he repaired typewriters in Las Vegas during his stint in the Air Force.
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Join the Readers and Writers Book Club for a Spring Fling Facebook Event and Explore the Haunted Harding House: April 15 – 29
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Get to know the authors at The Readers and Writers Book Club
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Meet Carl Douglas, your host for Episode 60: Mysterious Area 51 and The Skunk Works
My pseudonym as an author is Carl Douglass, adopted as a means of telling stories with gripping realism—the truth of which would not bring trouble to my door. My writing of gripping, realistic fiction began after I was obligated to retire from the private practice of neurosurgery due to sudden blindness in my left eye from a retinal detachment which caused loss of stereoscopic vision. I carried with me decades-long knowledge of doctors, hospitals, and institutions of higher learning, including some less than laudatory information. My military experience during the years of the recent unpleasantness in Vietnam also gave me considerable insight. Both of those lengthy experiences provided true grist for the mill of my writing, but neither of them need to connect the stories to the lives of the real people and places where the stories took place. In that sense, I know too much and have no wish to incriminate or to bring harm or embarrassment to real individuals or institutions. My rich and varied life has provided even more fodder to feed my mind and contribute realism to my written work. In my time, I have had to work due to lacking a sugar daddy. I have been a grease monkey, a lumber mill and forest worker, a lifeguard, a slaughterhouse worker, a diener in a morgue, a lab rat, an academic writer, a medical officer in a mental hospital, a naval officer and surgeon, a brig doctor, and a deep diving officer. I have been the husband of one fine wife, the father of four children—one deceased—eleven grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. All of them have enriched the depth and breadth of my storytelling
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Who murdered Latricia White, and what happened to her boyfriend, Lee Wackerhagen (nicknamed Dub), and his nine-year-old son, Chance? This tragic tale occurred in 1993 in McMahon, Texas.
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The citizens of Fairbanks should have been so lucky. Fairbanks, like Juneau and Nome, was founded by accident. In August of 1901, Elbridge Truman Barnette convinced a gullible steamboat captain that his steamship could easily ascend the Tanana River without striking bottom. However, when it became apparent that Barnette did not know what he was talking about, the steamboat captain angrily evicted the protesting Barnette along with 135 tons of his
supplies onto the nearest shore – which happened to be on the Chena Slough. As Barnette’s supplies were being offloaded, a sourdough by the name of Felix Pedro suddenly appeared on the bank. He had just made a major find in the area and was wondering if Barnette would have any food to sell since he, Pedro, did not want to walk the 360 miles round trip to Circle for supplies. Then and there was established Chenoa City, later to become known as Fairbanks.
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