Hi, I'm Holly. And I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back.
101. That's crazy. So I asked on social media, some of our social media platforms, in honor of our 100th, what were some of your favorite episodes? And we got some great responses.
And there were some of the folks that said that they loved the ghost train and brought in, and we had folks who said they loved Death and Scandal. And just, I really appreciated that. And kind of find out, a lot of people really are engaged with our ghost stories. I know, which always surprises me, because I'm always kind of like, well, did y'all come here for murder, or are you cool with the, because I love the ghost stories?
I do too. But I'm always like, OK, I can't do a ghost story every week. I know. And I think that too, like, oh gosh, they're probably like, oh, another ghost story that kind of I know.
People really like them too. So thanks. Thanks for reaching out. And didn't you say we got to mean this?
We did. I just pulled a couple of them. I'll go through two of them real quick. One was from our friend Doug.
Hey, Doug. Doug, who said that he's been with us since episode three or four. And first off, I would like to apologize. So sorry, Doug.
And you had to hear all that. But thanks for sticking with us. That was the one microphone day. It was the early days that was when your dog was like a baby and like wimpering and making noise and your cats were scaring me.
Yeah. And the heat and the apartment that I rented because it was ancient. We kicked on and kicked on. And then we were being shot.
That was the whole thing. We've come a long way. We have. We now have two microphones.
We still have zip ties. But we have some advancements. I mean, now we have earphones so we can actually hear ourselves. We've worked on a lot of those audio issues.
So thank you, Doug. The other one I wanted to mention was from Heather, who sent me a – I'm just a woman that responds to me. I just responded to the emails. I respond to the social media.
Yes, I can't handle that. That stressed me out so Holly handles that. She sent a lovely email. She and her husband took a tour of the Transylganey-Lumintecus island.
They did the haunted tour last Halloween. And she sent all these pictures. So I'm showing them to Holly now. Oh my gosh.
And she sent an email that apparently – and something I don't think we covered in the story was that there are like doppelgangers there. So like the weird phenomenon where you see like an exact replica of a person. But it's not actually them. And that really just freaks me out.
Really bad I told her that when I responded. And Heather, I'm currently looking at these photos. I mean just looking at all the pictures – excuse me – all the photos with the dolls and stuffed animals. So my question to you, Heather, is that something that happens that you're supposed to bring dolls or stuffed animals to appease some of these spirits.
I know especially – I believe wasn't it that young boy who had a developmental delay and was killed by the inmate. I think so. Yeah. I think that was a story.
Oh my gosh. But she said the tour guides there had just like amazing stories. And we're awesome. And I was like what a cool job.
Okay. We have to go. It's so close to how it's going to be. We have like a month-ish, month and a half.
We have to go. I think we do. Heather, meet us there because you've been so we can just follow you. It's September 1st right now.
So basically we've got 60 guys. I think we could do it. I think we could do it. Yeah, that's the two emails I wanted to really tell them because I thought they were super cool.
And just like the fact – I just can't get over the fact that Doug's been with us in episode three and is still here. Just really quick. Doug, Doug, get quiet. Look, our moms aren't even here anymore.
Let me tell you about my mother. She says, I listen when I fold clothes. That just tells you how much you fold clothes because she's still in an episode that aired last – I think she's at last July of 21. I love that.
That's how far behind she is. So it says that also her laundry is piling up. Yeah. So I'm happy note.
I took my son to the pediatrician today and we had some shots and the doctors said, I hope he doesn't stay up all night crying. And I said, well, I hope not because I've got a record by podcast. And he said, podcast. And he actually wrote it down.
So hopefully he'll listen. Hey, Doc, what's up? Yes. And so I'm working – we just started school back this week, the school that I work in.
And whoever decided that school should start back on a Monday, like right out the gate, like get five days in is a crazy person because I'm dying. And the kids are dying. I'm dying. And it's just everybody.
At the end of the day, today, there's a group of us sitting there. We've gotten everybody on buses and out the door and everybody was gone. There's a huge football game apparently going on. And I'm not there.
I'm here. I hope you all did well. But we all just like collective – there's a collective sigh and our new principal walked through. And at that point, we all just like burst into applause and like surviving the week.
And like we're all crying and just like exhausted tears and just, just are cathartic. Yeah. But great and wonderful. And I'm really excited about the year.
I think it's going to be great. But I'm exhausted. All that to say, I ran into my friend Megan who listens and she was telling me, she walks in my office. She works in a different school because I'm in a different school that year.
But she was up on my campus and walked into my office randomly and was like, so how was your move? I don't think I told you I was moving. And she's like, oh no, no, I stalked you on the podcast. So Megan, you're welcome.
That's slightly creepy, Megan, but at the same time, I get it. Yeah. I was just, it made me feel like a crazy person for a solid like 30 seconds. I'm like, why did we have a conversation?
See, the thing is though, I mean, our listeners are essentially our friends. Like, you know, they know about our lives. You know, you were all Megan to me. I got the song.
You're every Megan in the world to me. Okay. We're exhausted. Anyway, this week's episode, we are going to Charleston, West Virginia.
Nice. You lived near there. No, I lived in Virginia. In Virginia.
Yeah. Megan's from West Virginia. What up? This one's for you.
So this is a crazy tale that it's not even a mystery, really, I mean, kind of is, but I just thought it was fascinating and wild and really, I'd never heard of it. And I thought you all need to tell us to enjoy the story. So this is the West Virginia pot plane crash. As in reefer, as in marijuana, as in Mary Jane.
As in grass. Nice. As a kid, say these days. Is that what they can call in a new place?
I don't know. I can't keep up on the link. See in my day, we always just call the weed. I think that's still accurate, but they all have names for things that I get very confused.
And I think that's, like, in my parents' generation. I think it's coming back, though. Okay. Listen, the whole, like, 80s style and 90s fashion styles are coming back around.
That's true. But by the way, I wore a lot of platforms. Shoes in the late 90s. Shut up.
Not kidding. And I've noticed that they're coming back. I love them. I just have two week of ankles to go.
I'm going to snap off. No, and I think about it in high school. I have these shoes and I felt like, you know, Fred Munster. Okay, this is like really high shoes.
And I was like, clap, clap. I was freaking heavy. And I was like, God, I'm so trendy. And I was with my flare leg jeans.
I love it. Yeah. I know the students that I, like, I see some and I get to stand in the hallway and watch, like, the good class in the morning and like, you know, great people. And I'm always like complimenting the kids with their really, like, alternative styles and outfits.
I just think that's so cool. Like, the fashion's so cool. Like, I just love it. I love everything about it.
And yet you did not compliment my mom on sombre today. Listen, I went, it was Jean's day at work today. So I had jeans on and a shirt and I got so many compliments on my shirt because it's a school shirt. And I didn't have any school shirts.
I found this one at the Goodwill. I love that. And I was thrilled about it. I'm a 200% under a cemstered.
Anyway, now we've gotten 18 emails about how we're talking too much. That usually happens. That's fine. If you're this far, if you've made it to 101, you know what we are.
You know how it goes. Welcome. Welcome to it. Anyway, all right.
Sorry. Taking it back. 1979. You're my house was built.
Great year. Yeah, it really was. Yeah. A little after midnight on June 6 of 1979, a Douglas DC six cargo plane crashed in Charleston, West Virginia.
It was attempting to land at the old Kennewa. Kennewa? Kennewa airport, which is apparently known as the Jaeger airport. Not like Jaeger.
Not like Jaeger, my shirt. Right. But like Jaeger. Anyway, so the plane, which was apparently a little too big for that airport at the time, was overloaded and it was not able to stop on time.
And I've heard a couple of different things. It's like, no, the plane was, you know, it could have landed, but it dropped off this side of the runway and then had to come back up and have enough time. Others said that it bounced like it hit the runway and kind of bounced back up. Just something went, were there passengers on the plane?
There's four or five people on this plane. Mostly cargo. Mostly cargo. Yes.
So it ended up crashing over the hillside at the end of the runway. So I guess I think the runway, and then there was like a pretty big hill situation at the end of it. When authorities arrived at the crash site, they discovered the plane is carrying around 20,000 pounds of marijuana. 20,000 pounds.
And you know, when you think cargo plane, you know, what really comes to mind? You know, maybe, I don't know, food or supplies. I think like, mail. Like the mail planes.
Exactly. And that's probably what they were thinking. I'm saying, because we've lost, you know, some mail. And the US Post Service.
Some packages. It's very important. Why are they British? They're not supposed to be good me.
Why are they British? That's what we do. Oh, okay. So, you know, can you imagine the surprise when they're like, let's, you know, go and look and it's, no, it's not.
Mail. It's reefer. Right. Right.
It's the marriage. It was. 24%. So smoking.
The crew on the plane. I think they said, man, this is dope. I hope so. I really hope so too.
Oh my God. Anyway, this crew was made up of homies and drug smugglers. Really. Coming from South America.
Oh, okay. So that should have been your first. Yeah. With 20,000 pounds of marijuana, it was a little bit too much for an evidence room.
So I couldn't like, hollow it all up and take it to the evidence room. So the feds came in and they decided, you know, hey, we'll just burn all of it on this hillside, I guess. So the newspaper interviewed a Anna Marie Smith who lived nearby and she talked about, you know, how awful the smell was of them burning and all the stuff out there. It's not out there.
Right. And then they asked her about, you know, how things have been on the street that she lived on, like below the sun. They're like, how are things on the street down here? They think a whole another habitation.
So how are things on the street? Right. Well, I was, I got a contact high from the reefer that was being burned on the mountain. That's pretty much what she said.
Oh, God. She said, well, all of a sudden everybody's really calm and they're just laughing and talking. Mellow like Jell-O. Yep.
And it said that they started calling her road, happy hauler. Oh, yeah. I love that. And, and suddenly a lot of, you know, maybe like they were having some back trouble.
They were having, you know, they were paying in a little bit, but suddenly they're like, man, right? Really good. Right. So there were also rumors about the seeds from the plants that, you know, they fell and all the stuff fell, the seeds came out to.
Um, started to grow up on the hillside, beside the airport. So there's just a wild marijuana growing rampant. Um, authorities supposedly tried to kill the plants with diesel fuel, but some of the locals said, you know, that didn't work and that residents just began to collect the wild marijuana. Um, another article that I read said that when the plane crashed, all the bales, because it was in bales.
I mean, so they just like started rolling out of the plane and reversing apart. And I said it was like watching ants go up the hill because there were so many people like running to get the wheat. They're like, oh my God, free wheat. Well, what else are you supposed to do?
You know, honestly, who wouldn't? In a way. Now, admittedly, it was illegal. Right.
You know, in many states now it's still illegal unless, you know, some states that you can just get them, medicinally or whatever, but I digress. So it's like free and you're going to have to burn it anyway. Right. But why don't just say like, all right, you know, like get your wheat, you know, get your wheat, be happy.
Go on. You know, like, it's not the worst thing ever. It's not. It's not terrible.
Yes, a little son. Don't worry. Be happy. And they were for a while.
Can you imagine flying into that airport and you're like, Johnny, what is that? And they're like, I don't know. Mary looks like wheat to me. Yeah.
I wonder if it's still like, it's still out there. I bet not. I bet like it's all been. I've thought about this.
I don't know. 43 years. It may be really good. Is it like wine?
We're like, it's like age to perfection. I don't think that's how wheat works. I'm really educated about that. I don't know a lot.
I don't know. You know, like, this is really fine weed. Ah, yes, it's a perfect age. Oh, 79.
What a great year. Oh my God. I know. I don't think so.
I know. I recognize it's a plant. Yeah, right. Yeah, it's fine.
But I really think that this is when we go to the Allegheny lunatic assignment, like we could go. We could go by the airport. We could fly in. We could fly in there.
We could fly in there. You know, make sure we're nice and calm for what we're about to experience. Just saying. It's not the worst thing.
But that's when we live in the area. Is it still there? It's not a snow. Yeah, this is still a thing.
So one of the reasons that the smugglers came to West Virginia other than, you know, the back they thought that they could easily fly in there because it's 79. It's pre-9-11. They're like a small airport. You know, we can fly in at night.
No, no, no. Not gonna be allowed security there all as well. Well, it turns out they had somebody waiting on them to like get the drugs and then go to tribute it. What are those people?
Was a Mr. Leon guest? Was that name something that I'm familiar to you at all? Yes, but okay.
So I feel like this name came from like Pennsylvania or something. I think so. Wasn't he a guy who went on a rampage in murder? No.
No. Okay. Wrongly on. Sorry.
That was my ex-husband. I'm sorry. Wrongly on. This is Leon gas.
He was a filmmaker. Sorry. So he was waiting with a rental truck to collect these drugs. He was apparently trying to run the drugs to finance a movie about Rumble in the Jungle, which was the legendary fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman and Zaire in 1990, 19-something.
I don't know. What I wrote here is 194 and that's not right. So whatever that year is, that's what I'm doing. Well, maybe 84.
No, it had to be before that. 74 or something. I don't know. I don't know.
Rumble in the Jungle, I totally thought it was something else. Right. Right. I don't know much about fighting.
I don't either. So I thought, oh, that sounds fun. But maybe stay out of the woods to the jungle, all those kinds of things. Yeah.
But yeah, so he was trying to fund that movie. Fund his movie by selling drugs. Right. Might as well be up and up.
So he was convicted on these drugs and my calling charges. I would say. But when he got out of prison, he went on to make the movie When We Were Kings, which won an Academy Award in 1996. I've never seen it.
I've never seen it. I've heard of it. Like the name sounds familiar to me, but apparently it won an Academy Award. So he's like a dude.
Like a... Was that a documentary? Or I asked because in 1996, the best picture winner was actually the English patient. Yeah, I don't know what he wanted for.
I just said he wanted to. I watched every year from 1990 all the way until it got super boring and I stopped watching. Oh yeah, it's about Muhammad Ali. What did it win?
It was documentary. It was documentary. Okay. So it's the same one that he was funding.
Okay. So it went on. He did it on the other now. He did it on the other now.
And then he went and it won. What should it win? Hang on. We're asking the girl.
Sorry. Hayley will ask. I will. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary.
Nice. So the more you know. All right. Anyway.
Yeah. In 2021, Jerome Lil, who is the last surviving member of the smuggling team, gave his first TV interview. And he actually returned to the site to tell his story. So everybody survived this plane crash.
Everybody survived. Okay. And then he now, they've all passed and you know, are dead now except for him. But not in the plane crash.
But he's one of the last, or he is the last surviving member of 2021. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan and got involved in the marijuana trade. Somehow ended up crossing paths with Pablo Ethelbar. Whoa.
So this infamous trip to Charleston, West Virginia actually started out in Florida in Fort Lauderdale. The plane took off around 5 a.m. on June 5th, 1979. And it made a short stop in Columbia before going on to crash in West Virginia.
The plane was loaded. You know, this is all his story that he's telling. He said he was loaded with about 26,000 pounds of marijuana bales. Oh.
And he said they had planned out to look for a small airport. They could land at night and be in a more central area to reach places like Ohio and New York so that they could move the product pretty quickly. So that made the Kenoa airport kind of perfect in West Virginia. Little says that the crash was caused by the hydraulics in the plane.
He said they started to veer off the right side of the runway. But pilot was able to get it back on. And once they got to the end of the runway, they still weren't stopped enough. So they ended up crashing.
Wow. Little says that once they landed. He and the three others on board started running. Like everybody was pretty injured from this plane crash.
But also didn't want to get caught. Right. So they just took off running. And little says that, just the image of his mind is hilarious.
Little says that he remembers the bales of marijuana rolling down the hill and hitting him while he was running. He was running. He was running. He was running.
He was running. He was running. He was running. He was running.
He was running. He was running. He was running. He says that he ran for about seven hours.
What? I'm sorry. I don't do any activity for seven hours. Sleeping?
Maybe. Not even that. I just can't even do that successfully for seven hours. Breathing I guess.
Absolutely. Let's hope so. Let's do that. Living.
Living. But like seven hours. I was just walking for seven hours. He was injured.
Like where did he get to? Well, apparently not far. He was captured. Seven hours though.
Yeah. Yeah. So Robert Hera who lived in the area said that there were bales of marijuana that rolled off the hill and landed in like ditches on the sides of roads. He said that marijuana ended up growing in the gutters on his aunt's house.
Like this is growing everywhere. Imagine that she's like, well time to get the gutters cleaned and then she goes up there and she's like, there's a little son. Like I mean she's just like suddenly so mellow and she's like, you know what? Forget it.
I'm just gonna leave in the grass and just like hang out. Right. Or the sun tan. Oh you need.
Oh my God. He said that there were people everywhere going up the hillside to get the pie which obviously. The ants obviously. Lil served about two years in prison before he was released but he did end up back in prison due to smuggling again.
Sometimes we just don't learn anything. No. That's like big. That's like big boy prison.
That's not like small town prison. That's not like West Virginia prison. Yeah. Or any other state prison.
It's yeah. It's a big, big, big federal prison. However West Virginia you don't seem to have a great track record with your prisons with the trans alligator. Well.
That wasn't a prison. That was a mental. That's too soon. I'm trying to help you differentiate.
Gotcha. And by the way West Virginia we do love you. We do. We do.
You're just, you're so special to us. We love you so much. And all your poplates. We'll be there soon.
We're gonna kick us out. I think the governor is like, please don't come here. Anyway. We got it.
You have a gun. No. I got it. It's a dearest holly.
We don't. It was the typical shit sandwich. You know how, so it was shit sandwich. I've talked about this before.
Start out with something positive. And then the meat of it is usually like, don't do this or you suck. And then the end of it's positive. So it was like dearest holly.
You know, thank you so much for reporting on our area. It's, you know, been lovely to hear. And then the middle part was I understand that you would like to come to our lovely state. And with the kindest regards, we ask that you restrain yourself and bypass us.
Maybe go to Pennsylvania. Maybe go elsewhere. Don't come here. Again, thank you so much for your kind words on our behalf.
Love, you know, the governor. I love West Virginia. West Virginia. Whoever you are.
I got that. I love that. Yeah. Until yours should be coming soon because it wasn't just me.
We pick on all states equally. It's not just us, Virginia. Have you heard how we talk about our own state? Right.
We talk about Tennessee. God bless you, Dennis. We love you so much. We love you.
We love you all. We have one. We don't know. No, no, no, no, no, we're not.
Okay. So, back to this guy. Lil. He now lives in Florida and is sober.
Good. He wrote a book called Final Approach. I have to read it. I really want to because he talks about his life is a drug smuggler, a crash, but also about how he got clean and like found redemption.
I gotta tell you, one of my favorite shows back in the day, and you all may know the show. It was called Locked Up Abroad. Yeah. about drug smugglers who ended up getting caught in like doing time in these foreign prisons and what it was like.
So I mean at least he was in the US, which was vastly different. But anyway I digress. So I would love to read this book. I really want to as well it's on my list.
He plans to donate all the proceeds, like 100% of the proceeds from his book to help fight the drug crisis and specifically in West Virginia. That's amazing. Which I think is so cool. I appreciate that he's using the things that happen to him in his life to help others and others.
And like what an appropriate cause for him to be involved in. I think that's so cool. It is so cool. So definitely check out that book.
I got most of my information for this article. Did not save the sources on here. That's all right. It'll be in our show notes.
But it was a lovely article written I think by West Virginia like public broadcasting site that has some awesome stories on it. I just was scrolling through like not necessarily related to mystery or murder or anything like that. Which is like really cool like info. I feel like you're gonna have to share that with me.
That was really cool. So definitely check them out. I'll have it linked for sure in our notes. And if I can find a link to where you can buy his book I'll do that too.
That's great. Because I really want to also purchase it. Call of me Melo Yellow. No okay.
No I'm not. But that's my story for the week. Kind of a short one but I just thought it was way too interesting not to tell. The images of like rolling weed just like oh my god it's not stopping.
It just keeps going and then the idea that it's in people's gutters and like just growing randomly. I cannot imagine how many people were like hot damn. Yeah that's a good day. Yeah.
It's a really good day. And depending on how much you're able to ascertain like how much you're able to grab like get... It's probably good week. Maybe a month.
I don't know. Maybe there are still people out there who's like yeah I'm still feeling the good vibes only. I'm not a shirt that's not from the 1979 weed. Again it's not vintage weed.
It's not last. It would be dust. Everybody's like you smell like an old skunk. No thank you.
No thank you. But yeah that's it. I really that was really cool. I felt like we needed kind of a light-hearted fun tale.
No one died. You know this lovely story about this man who you know got out of the drug supply. Right. We know about it.
And I'm guessing the other men did like similar short terms in prison. Yeah I think so. I think everybody kind of got a little bit different sentence but I think it was probably around two years. A couple of years.
Yeah. Wow. I don't know what happened to the other guys. I've they have since passed.
And I'm sure maybe in the book he goes into that. But yeah that's nuts. Yeah I love it. Yeah I guess so cool.
So that's our tale for episode 101. I love it. I love it. Or back.
Yes. I feel like we've been under like a month or something crazy. Well you know a lot of life happens. Especially when Haley is you know strong out on weed.
I do not smoke weed. My employer if you're listening. No I can attest. I can attest.
She doesn't know drugs. No neither do I. You can rent a drug test me out. We clean out.
Ain't nobody got time for that let's be honest. Say no to drugs kids. You know actually the thing that I used to get around is caffeine. So if you caffeine test me we're gonna have a problem.
Yes. Say no to drugs unless it's legal in your state and then do whatever you want. But it's not legal. Like I said I'm guilty of a big old cup of coffee.
Yeah well I was so busy at work today that I did not even get to finish my coffee. That's the saddest. I rolled into my office. I finally got back in my office at like 130.
It's cold and it was cold and awful and I looked at it and I thought about it and then I dumped it out and I was real sad. You know my good friend she just always microwaves it. Like she kind of my house she she just you know we've been friends for years. So she'll just come and you know make herself coffee and you know we'll chitchat or chase our kids and then she's like oh let me refresh and she just sticks it in my car.
This one was too far gone. May I rest in peace? Right down the sink and so sad. Because you probably paid money for it.
I did not have made it my house. Oh okay well good. Yep. No wasted.
Nope. Okay well we gotta do some chat. A location. While Hailey is looking for that I am going to tell you how to get into contact with us.
Sure we're all about it. So okay sorry. Well Hailey will get that because she gets all the emails. I do the social media which people tend to be a lot nicer to us via social media.
So strange to me. Yeah well maybe they just like better. I think that's true. Nobody likes me.
Alright. You're talking about. Alright well if you want to contact us and I'm sure we've made it worth your while. You can do so by emailing Hailey at me specifically.
You call me at my work email. It's Hailey dot Hailey now. You can email us at mountainmystries.appletchen at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at MountainMystriesTales from Appalachia.
You can find us on Instagram at mountainmystries.appletchen and last but not least if you're looking for a real good time you can catch us on patreon at patreon.com slash MountainMystries. And we actually had a new patreon member join us in the last week or so. You did not tell you that. I did not tell you that.
He's slipping my mind. Heather. Heather thank you. Is that our friend Heather who reached out to us.
I think social media. I believe so. Yes. Oh Heather thank you so much.
You rock. We love you. I had to look because she has a very unique class name. Yes she won't say on the podcast.
No no no no no no no no. But it is a unique class name and so I was like why do I know that name and I'm like oh she's emotes. I was actually trying to pronounce it to myself the other day when I was responding to her on Facebook. Listen Heather if you can give us a phonetic like break it down for us.
Break it down for us. We're closed. It just takes us a bit. Sound it out like clap it out.
Yeah we need to clean that broken down. It's robotics is where I'm at. Well you're there already. Stop it.
I'm still working on like mama bah bah. No I'm moved on to the conference. Right well I'm sure this place is going to really appreciate their shout out on this episode. That is just absolutely insanity.
Lake Zurich Illinois. Hey Lake Zurich. Oh no it's not it's fancy. I know my uncle Linton's or what's your lend for a long time.
Nice. I think I was on a train through Switzerland. It's going from France to Italy. It's so beautiful.
I'm out of the night. That sounds appropriate for someone to just have. What did you have on board? I was 15 16 years old.
Gigapets. What do they call it? Oh um in your day. That's so old.
Gotcha Gollif. Tomagotchi. Tomagotchi. Stop.
It was called a Gigapet back when the Irish are a teenager. Do you know what a Gigapet is? I don't think this is real. It's totally real.
It's called a Gigapet. Is that like pre-Tomagotchi? Yes. So yes so if you are around in 97 I know you barely were around in 97.
She says um you know what I'm talking about. Reach out. Let me feel less alone because there's an age gap. There's a little one slightly.
I was a teenager when she was born. When I gave birth to her I was a teenager. This is my mom. That's what we revealed in episode one.