Excerpts from Centrahoma Interview Transcripts

 Left to right: Twyla Bell Eller, Megan Eller, Marla 'Fae' Ward, Bill and Maxine Mc Wethy.

 

The 1995 Centrahoma interviews were recorded on microcassettes.

 

The first page of the paperback first edition of the nonfiction case study Testament (1997) offers a selection of five excerpts.  Three of the excerpts are from the Centrahoma interviews that comprise the beginning portion of the book.  This article offers some further excerpts from the Centrahoma interview transcripts presented in Testament.

The central manifesting entity is known as 'Michael' among the sequence of anomalous phenomena experienced by Bell / Mc Wethy family members.  'Michael' occasionally conversed with the family and also with house visitors.  On other occasions, other personalities manifested with distinctive voices.  One manifesting entity was nicknamed 'E.T.'  Another was known as 'Leader,' who communicated with grunts, growl and groans.  The Bell ancestry of Centrahoma family members is one of the correlations with the 19th Century 'Bell Witch' talking poltergeist case, where similar circumstances involving diverse voice manifestations are chronicled. 

Although it was not something planned, my Oklahoma visit to interview the family coincided with graveside services for Jearld Carlton Bell, Maxine's former husband who'd been a close friend of her present husband, Bill Mc Wethy.  Family members told me that Carlton had also experienced the phenomena before moving to a nursing home. 

 

I had the opportunity of investigating this contemporary 'talking poltergeist' case after researching similar cases.  I wondered if 'Michael' might converse with me and be interviewed.  Instead, I heard momentary spirit utterances among a variety of strange occurrences, as chronicled in Testament.

Some of the transcripts in Testament are not easy to read as instances of "spirit messages"—what I later learned were called EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena)—are indicated within parentheses in the transcripts.  In the original paperback publication there are also 'unattributed sound symbols' that are not included among the transcripts in the free Internet edition.  I sometimes call the print version of the book 'the hieroglyphic edition.'

While I was editing the manuscript prior to the publication of Testament, at one point I decided to delete the spirit messages because some of them seemed incoherent or nonsensical.  At that precise moment on the page in front of me was a message in the transcript that said "DON'T CHANGE IT."  I left the spirit messages intact with the hope that readers would understand my predicament.
 

 

Interview Participants Featured In These Excerpts

 

B:  Brenda Bell (daughter, 36)

F:  Marla Ward (nicknamed Fae; daughter, 38)

K:  Kim Carrell (daughter, 27)

M:  Maxine Mc Wethy (the mother, 60)

Q:  Mark Gordon Russell (interviewer from Los Angeles, 39)

T:  Twyla Eller (daughter, 23)

W: Bill Mc Wethy (Maxine's husband, 62)

 

M: I've grabbed him twice.

T: Uh-huh.

M: And he gets up under the covers and you can see a head come up under the covers.

Q: A head?

M: You can't see it.

T: It's a tiny head.

Q: Like in the photo?

T: It's a little alien-shaped head.

Q: Notice you said the word alien.

T: That's what I think it is.

 

Q: The fact that it's so crazy suggests to me that it's true because if you wanted to lie you wouldn't think of something so outlandish.  But most people don't understand that.

T: That's true.

 

T: There was a speech teacher here.  Me and her were here.  Mama hadn't gotten here yet.  He moved the table and when he did it spilled a bunch of coffee.  And it was just a little puddle because the floor's uneven.  I was over here cleaning it up and she just screamed, "Oh my God."  I said, "What?"  She saw feet marks.  It was running all the way over there but there were webbed feet marks.  Webbed like a duck's.

 

(TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: DURING AN INTERVIEW HIATUS I TAKE SOME PHOTOS OF THE HOUSE AND YARD.  AFTER I RETURN INSIDE AND SIT DOWN, A NAIL STRIKES THE BACK OF MY HEAD AND THEN FALLS TO THE FLOOR. OUCH, THAT HURT!)

T: Did a nail hit you?

Q: A nail hit me in the head.  ("SO")  Thank you, Michael.

 

Q: What about strange lights?

(TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: SPIRIT WHISPERING CAN BE HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE.)

T: Yeah.  We followed it down to the cemetery.

M: We followed a green light.  Green lights and red lights.

T: Heather got chased out of the bedroom by a green light.  We've had yellow lights following us.

 

Q:What landed on the roof of the car that time?

T: She didn't see it.  She just heard it.  ("WHAT WAS IT")

Q: But what was it?

M: It sounded like something light landed on the top with a motor.

Q: Well, that's a UFO.   ("YEAH")

 

Q: Now we have so many different elements.  The orphanage that burned down.  The trips to the cemetery.  What is that all about?

T: We just started doing it.

Q: And the 'bad spirits' are in the cemetery?

T: The cemetery.  But they do come over here sometimes.  They came over here one night.  Michael said, "THEY'RE ALL COMING."

M: The what?

T: Bad spirits, Mama.  ("OH")  And there was a guy that knew how to say some words about the Devil.

M: He had a book about it.

T: And after they left, Michael said, "OH, THEY'RE GONE."  He was scared too.  We looked out the door and there were thousands of —

F: Damn.

T: — all over that door.

F: Even babies' hand prints.  ("YOU COULD HEAR THEM")

T: They had gotten to that screen door.

B: You could hear them out there.

Q: How does this tie-in with the alien aspects of the case?

K: We don't know.

 

 

(TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: THE HEAVY WOODEN TABLE WE'RE SEATED AT SUDDENLY LURCHES A FOOT FORWARD AND THE SOUND OF IT CAN BE HEARD ON THE TAPE HERE.)

F. Ow.  E.T. don't do that.

 

K: Well, when I was five years old the cattlemen were finding dead cows in the pastures around here. There was something coming here that would chop the tops of the trees off even.  ("MAN")  The very top of the trees.  It would drain the blood and take the genitals off their cows.

Q: Oh, that still goes on.  ("YOU KNOW")

T: That was on the news the other day.

 

Q: How many people do you think altogether have come out? It must be —

T: Hundreds.

K: Oh, thousands.

M: Thousands.  ("THAT'S RIGHT")

Q: And they always want evidence?

M: Um-huh.  They got it too.

T: They want it to happen as soon as they walk through the door, though.

M: One night we had a bunch of them out here from Ada.  Michael jumped up off that couch and said, "SOMETHING GRABBED MY UNIT."  (laughs)
Q: Well, that's funny.
M: That was.

W: Well, we were laying in the bedroom—my bedroom—and one night he ['Michael'] started telling me about things that happened to me when I was a child.  And then he told Maxine about things that happened to her when she was a child — ("YEAH" "AND SO")

Q: Like what?  Do you remember any specific thing?

W: He told me about a red wagon I had . . .

 

M: We went to Coalgate one time and you were in the front seat, weren't you?  And he told Bill, "I'VE GOT YOU SOMETHING, BILL."  And he said — ("WHAT") "What is it?" ("AND HE") — or "Where is it?"  And he said, "UNDER THE SEAT."  And Bill thumped under the seat and it was a ("HEY") combination lock.

 

Q: I told you what happened when I called my brother.  Do you think that's possible?

T: Yes, it's possible.

M: Did you hear about that?

Q: When I went home last night I didn't think Michael was listening.  I called my brother in L.A.

T: Twin brother.

Q: He was half asleep at the time.  All of a sudden he says, "My bed is shaking."  He sounded very upset.  The bed is an old antique.  It doesn't even move during the earthquakes.

F: Oh my gosh.

Q: I know.  Do you think it's possible?

T: Yes.

W: He likes to do things like that.

 

M: After Frieda and Twyla came back from the Wal-Mart in Copan one time and Frieda went home, Michael said, "MAXINE, I GOT YOU SOMETHING."  And I said, "Where's it at?"  And he said, "THE ICE BOX."  I looked in there and there was a bottle in a box.  And it was Trouble perfume.

 

M: . . . Twyla was going with this guy that lived in Caldwell.  She and Desireé lived in an apartment building at Coalgate.  Tammy was with them one night when they rode around until four o'clock in the morning.  Tammy even showed them the place where she lived in Coalgate.  She said she died with ovarian cancer.

 

M: . . . One day I was sick with a headache.  And, boy, when I get a headache I'm sick in bed all day long.  Late that evening, my neighbor Frieda came over here.  I came in here and sat up with her for about five minutes.  I told her, "Frieda, I'm too sick to sit up.  I have to go back and lay down."  So I went back in there and went to bed.  I dosed off or something.  The next morning, I was telling Twyla and the others about it.  I said, "I was just flowing with a green light and all at once it turned blue."

Q: This was your dream?

M: Yes.  And he said, "NO, THAT WAS PURPLE.  THAT WAS ME."  That's what he told us.

 

M: Oh, you know, I told you about something calling Brenda's name.  That she couldn't sleep?

Q: Right.

M: She said, "I was really sleepy and all at once I woke up — became wide awake and couldn't sleep."  And that's when something called her name outside.

Q: How long ago was this?

M: That was just here recently.  Carlton used to stay in that room before he got real bad and I moved him into the house.

Q: What's really ironic is that I remember an event in my childhood where somebody once was calling my name and I went all through the apartment looking for it and I never could find it.  I don't think this is related but —
M: It could be.

 

M: . . . Once I had a little black and white dog that Brenda gave me — an Australian Shepherd.  That was the best little old dog.  It would go way out there to poop.  It wouldn't poop in the yard.  Well, one time it got so full of ticks and everything you find around here that the poor thing couldn't even walk on its hind legs.  Twyla and I were out there and she was picking ticks off of him and Michael hollered, "HELP ME, MAXINE" just like he was concerned about it.

 

M: He [Michael] was talking to us one time and he saw me putting a (audio) tape into that thing and he said, "DON'T EVEN TRY IT."

Q: Oh my God.  Every time you tell me something I'm reminded about parallels to other cases where similar things have happened.

M: He didn't say anything after that.  Brenda and I made about three good tapes of him talking and then we couldn't find them.  He told us, "LOOK BACK THERE IN THE CLOSET."  We went to get them and they were all torn up.

 

Q: P.O. Box 13.  I can't believe it.  There's nothing but ironies — after irony after irony after irony.

M: Well, do you know what LMNO's phone number was?

Q: What?

M: Their 800 number had 666 in it.

Q: Oh my God.  It's like all legendary aspects of the supernatural are coming together here — as if mankind's shared subconscious was manifesting itself in a particular geographical area.

 

M: Oh, there's another thing.  There was a couple from Coalgate up here one night and he had in the car a loaded gun.  I didn't hear him but Twyla said Michael told that guy to unload his gun and that he knew about his friend that accidentally got shot.  That spooked that guy so he unloaded his gun.

Q: His friend probably did get shot accidentally.

M: Yeah.  Michael knew about it.