The Centrahoma Poltergeist (Part 3)



This article presents the information published in the third part of "Centrahoma Story Filmed" from the June 14, 1995 issue of the Coalgate Record-Register with nothing changed or redacted.  Also quoted are some selected excerpts from  The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit (1934) by Charles Bailey Bell — including the statement about a future Bell family member to whom the 'Spirit' "would make itself known."  Centrahoma's Maxine Mc Wethy was previously married to Jearld Carlton Bell (1935-1995) and several of her children have the 'Bell' surname.  

Centrahoma Story Filmed

by Wanda Utterback

 

Part three of a series of articles about paranormal activities which have occurred since 1990 at the home of Bill and Maxine McWethy in Centrahoma.  The story was filmed in May by LMNO Productions in Los Angeles and will air this summer or fall on an ABC special tentatively titled "Put to the Test."

LMNO was in Centrahoma for six days.  Along with a production staff of 20 to 25 people, the company brought in several specialists and over a quarter of a million dollars worth of high technology equipment from various parts of the United States.

Cameras equipped with night vision scopes and thermal imagine capabilities were set up in the McWethy home.  The thermal imaging equipment was "so sensitive that if you walk across a carpet, it will detect the heat in the footprints," said segment producer Paul Amirault.  The house was also wired with a "bionic ear" capable of hearing a voice a mile away.  Much of the equipment used by LMNO is used by Nassau, military forces and the FBI.  All movements and sounds were taped and monitored around the clock from inside an RV parked in the McWethy yard.

Segment co-producer Jonathan Rosen, who conducted most of the preliminary investigation on the McWethy story, said Monday from L A. that the tapes are now being edited and analyzed "with a fine tooth comb" to determine if anything unusual was captured on film.

Both Amirault and Rosen described several incidents that they personally experienced while they were in Centrahoma.  The incidents ranged from falling pennies and rocks to a closed bottle of Root Beer that suddenly "just shot up" and spewed over them, Twyla and her husband, Steve, when they were in a car one evening.

Amirault also told about having a sudden electric-like sensation that went up the back of his neck during a casual conversation inside the McWethy house.  Twyla was in the room, he said.

Both also said they heard what may have been "Michael's" voice.  Amirault described the sound as a "high pitched whistle—part cat and part owl."  He heard it, he said, when a friend of Twyla's was asking "Michael" who he (Amirault) was.  "It sounded very much like 'Paul,'" he said.  When Twyla's friend asked "Michael" if Paul was a nice guy, Amirault said it sounded like the voice said "yes."

Rosen said he heard the voice three times during his first visit to Centrahoma in April.  The first time was in the McWethy house.  "At first I thought it was a dove or something in the attic," he said.  "Then it got louder and sounded like it could be a cat."  The second time he heard it was when he, LMNO producer Kathy Williamson, Dr. David Thomas (head of the Psychology Department at the University of Oklahoma) and Twyla drove to the Centrahoma cemetery.

"At times it sounded like it was in the car, then at other times it sounded like it was coming from outside the car," Rosen stated.

He said he and Williamson distinctly heard a voice say "hurry" after Twyla announced she thought "Michael" wanted them to leave.  "He always tells us when it's time to go, because he knows when the bad ones are coming," Rosen quoted Twyla as saying.  He said he heard the "cat-like yowl" again inside an abandoned service station in Centrahoma.

LMNO owner and executive producer Eric Schotz said on his last day in Centrahoma that he did not observe anything eventful during the six days he spent in Centrahoma.

But that was okay, he said.  "We've accomplished what we came here to do, and that was to do a show on all these things that people say are happening and put them to the test."

"We've brought in a quarter to a half million dollars worth of equipment, 20 to 25 staff people including some local people who helped us as production assistants, and several experts.  The people that have seen and heard these things are not crazy.  I believe everyone who claims they have seen or heard things out here for the most part genuinely believe they saw and heard everything they say.

"I don't have the answer.  My observation is that the energy force—whatever it is—definitely centers around Twyla.  I'm not here to judge her as to what she has or has not done.  We won't be giving the answer as to what's happening.  What we hope to show are things that can be shown and said . . . without being invasive.  You see it at home and you make your own decision.  My job is to corral it all and to find out who is credible in the community and we've done that."

Schotz has been in television for 17 years.  "Behind Closed Doors" and the "Murphy Brown Special" are two of his works.  Although he said he had not put the pencil to the final figures, "Put to the Test" will cost several hundred thousand dollars to produce.

In addition to parapsychologist Barry Taff, whose interview with the Record-Register was published on May 31, the following experts were brought to Centrahoma by LMNO:

Peter Studebaker, a renown[ed] slight-of-hand expert from Dallas, TX.  According to LMNO executive producer Bill Paolantonio, Studebaker came as a skeptic.  "He looked at it from the viewpoint of whether it was a massive hoax, and if he was going to fool a lot of people, how would he do it.  He checked for trick ceilings, walls and mirrors and went into some of the ways it could be rigged.  The house is not rigged, and we have dispelled the hoax possibility.  Studebaker said he has no explanation for the manifestations."

Patrick Francks, hydrogeochemist, Norman, OK.  Francks tested the air, soil and water at the McWethy property.  Amirault stated on June 1 that all samples tested normal except that the ground contains an abnormally high level of iron ore.

"There's so much iron ore in the soil that magnets actually pick up the rocks," he said.  "Barry's theory is that it may be part of what makes these things happen—that the iron ore may be feeding it."

Dr. David Thomas, head of the Psychology Department at the University of Oklahoma.  Dr. Thomas either interviewed or observed every person who was interviewed by LMNO for the show.  Although he offered no personal opinion as to what the phenomena may be, he stated that "No one I've talked to is crazy.  They're all sane, and they believe they saw and heard what they claim.  I have no reason to believe otherwise."

Brian Tabor and Brett Traylor of Coalgate worked as production assistants during the filming of "Put to the Test."  Brian moved to Coalgate several months ago and has established a photography studio on Lafayette Street.  He is the grandson of James and Charlene Nelson.  Brett is the son of Doyle and Vickie Traylor and a 1995 graduate of Coalgate High School.

Dana Fleming, who co-hosted "The Home Show" with Gary Collins on ABC in 1990 and 1991, will host "Put to the Test."  She lives in Wichita, Kansas and commutes to L.A.  She is the mother of three children.

Unless there are further developments on the Centrahoma story, this article concludes the series.

 

At one point during the 1995 ABC Special "Ghosts, Mediums, Psychics: Put To The Test," Twyla is seen asking 'Michael' to throw a rock.  Although a rock struck a parked vehicle, an abrupt technical failure prevented video footage being recorded of the final moments of the incident.  At the conclusion of the segment, the interviewer is seen asking 'Michael' to show his presence and a coyote is heard to start howling in the distance. 

 

In The Bell Witch: A Mysterious Spirit (1934), Charles Bailey Bell wrote about his ancestry in the Preface of his book.  Charles was the son of Joel Thomas Bell and the grandson of John Bell Jr., whose family's experiences have been chronicled in books about the amazing 19th Century 'Bell Witch' haunting in Robertson County, Tennessee.  The details of the Spirit's discourses should be regarded as being the general recollection of transcendental communication heard by members of the Bell family and their acquaintances.  

 

John Bell Jr. (1793-1862) is among the sons and daughters of John and Lucy Bell, who married in 1782.  Twenty-two years later, the family moved from North Carolina to Robertson County, Tennessee.  Some 12 or 15 more years had passed when family members began experiencing an array of unexplained phenomena.  Author Charles Bailey Bell related "what was handed down to him by his father, Dr. T. J. Bell, he having the recollections of his father, John Bell Jr."  John Jr. is chronicled to have last heard from the Spirit in 1828.  Charles Bailey Bell reported:

 

The Spirit made its final departure from the home of John Jr., assuring him it would return in one hundred and seven years.

 

 

John Jr. instructed his son, J. T. Bell, that he was not to disclose what was said in his conferences with the Spirit, but to pass it on to his son and on to succeeding generations, until the time came when its publication would be of great value to the people of the country.

 

 

The Spirit assured John Bell Jr. that it would make itself known to a Bell descendent of his, as it did to him.

A Mysterious Spirit was published in anticipation of the year 1935.  What happened that year is the topic of a previous blog article.  Published in the seventh chapter of the book, John Bell Jr.'s recollections of the Spirit included recalled conversations with the disembodied voice about events in the lives of Napoleon and the emissary now known as 'Jesus Christ.'  Charles Bailey Bell attested that he found John Jr.'s recollections of the Spirit "the most interesting ever heard or written."  A culminating March 1828 conversation included perspectives of wars and other historical events.  Here are some excerpts.

 

"If Rome had been a follower of Jesus Christ nineteen hundred years ago, on to the date of the decline of their government, they would not have fallen.  Selfishness, licentious habits, oppression of the poor, the rich profiting on the suffering of the poor ultimately leads to the downfall of any country."
 

"America is an old country inhabited millions of years before your people ever heard of it by a superior race; they were destroyed to be succeeded by others; they underwent the hardships and struggles accompanying the building of a great civilization.  They had the wonderful buildings, great schools and mighty machinery that this era will acquire before it passes, but all that did not prevent their  destruction, along with all their worldly goods.  Their scientists told them of how long the world had stood; that it would not last forever, but so many millions of years that they need not think of it.  You are being told the facts—at the very height of their civilization, both North and South America were destroyed, likewise all inhabitable portions of the earth, and John, the largest portion was inhabited by a civilization far superior to any now on earth.  They were destroyed by a quavering and shaking of the earth, so mighty that where oceans had been, there became dry land; where valleys and beautiful fields had been, there became oceans; a general leveling, upheaval and change of the entire surface of the earth.  After all this came the other races, lower, yet they succeeded in becoming highly civilized.  It has always been a question to the world's inhabitants as to where they came from.  It is much more important as to where they are going.  Their stay will be longer there."

 

"Pontius Pilate permitted the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, knowing him to be innocent; those denying Christ are as sinful.  Pilate was a weakling, scared into the crime by the Jewish priests who were determined that Christ must die.  The high priest Caiaphas was the compelling influence; he knew of Pilate's fears for the safety of his political position, and when threatened to disclose to Tiberius the fact that Pilate personally wished Christ to go unpunished and did not wish to give him up to the priest, like most politicians would have done, Pilate gave him up to be crucified.  He knew the unrelenting character of those Jews who were opposed to Christ; he had generally given way to them, and now as the politician that he was, as a political expedient, he committed the never-to-be-forgotten heartless act of allowing Christ to be crucified for no other reason than to influence the priest to give a report to Tiberius favorable to himself.  Men should remember, when attempting to judge Jesus Christ, what became of Pontius Pilate.  Within a comparatively short time after the crucifixion Pilate was ordered to Rome to answer charges preferred against him by the Jews on other crimes.  Tiberius died before he arrived at Rome.  On account of the worry over his many crimes Pilate committed suicide." 

Centrahoma Cemetery 

 

abandoned service station in Centrahoma