By Ethan Nahté
Halloween isn’t always ghosts and zombies. Look at the infamous radio broadcast Orson Welles did with “War of the Worlds” by author H.G. Wells.
That was fiction, but are the following events fact or fiction?
Orville and Cheryl Murphy are the owners of the Board Camp Crystal Mine, located in Board Camp, just a few miles from Mena.
Two New Yorkers, Gloria De Pietro and Pam Perkins, happened to be in Arkansas to do some crystal digging. They discovered by pure coincidence that Scott Di Lalla, from the program “Ghost Town Terror,” was going to be visiting the Board Camp Crystal Mine the last few days of September and beginning of October to produce a documentary. Turns out, they had mutual acquaintances, and Di Lalla was familiar with businesses and landmarks as he was from the same general area. How’s that for extra spooky?
Di Lalla has made a few documentaries, with a. heavy focus on motorcycles. He has worked several positions on a film/video crew, but he is also in front of the camera.
“I first started in the paranormal world with my buddy Tim Wood. His YouTube channel is LiveSciFi Paranormal Network. I was in a paranormal group before that. I could shoot and I was an investigator, so he brought me on these ghost hunts. We film and it goes on for three days and it’s live. We sleep in these haunted houses around the country. I capture stuff [on camera] and we investigate. That went on for years.
“From there, the Travel Channel grabbed him for a TV show called ‘It Feels Evil’ and he brought me on. He trusts me when we’re investigating and I’m holding a camera. We did one season with three episodes.
“A year or two later we got pulled into a show called ‘Ghost Town Terror.’ That was filmed in a little ghost town in Montana. A year ago, we did season two. They just aired it [September 2023].
A camera records us as I conduct the interview for possible footage to use in the documentary.
Di Lalla points to the Murphys and stated, “I found these two amazing people at Crystal Mine. I came across their books, ‘Beams’ [two books]. My friends were looking for a project. We decided to come together and capture this. The journey started a couple of months ago with Orville and Cheryl on Zoom calls, and multiple texts. It was the first time I felt overwhelmed with information. I toned it down and focused on the main points.”
Cheryl described their property beyond it being a quartz crystal mine. “We opened the crystal mine for the public to come dig crystals in 2012. In our life, we’ve never really experienced anything paranormal in a personal way.
“Our first sighting was February 2017. Our son Josh had come to visit. We all stepped outside to look at the stars. On our hill over on our property, these three huge beams of light appeared to shoot up out of the crystal mine about three hundred feet into the sky. We were all dumbfounded. We wondering who was on our property with spotlights.
“The beams only lasted eight to 10 seconds then everything went black. There was no way we could get a photograph because we were so shocked. Prior to that, paranormal was just on TV for us.
“It didn’t stop there. That’s why we couldn’t deny it. Stuff was still happening. We started to see orbs of lights — the spook lights — flashes of light, more beams — not to this extent. We had an expert investigation by MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network. Because we had physical evidence left behind on the hill after the beam sighting. Metal objects were affected. Fence posts were leaning. The great big metal sign was toppled over and even the wind had never toppled it over. MUFON explained to us that only 3% of sightings have actual physical evidence left behind.
“They had Gauss meters to measure the electro-magnetic field, and their meters are going off because now they have physical evidence an anomaly happened. Orville and I are rolling our eyes and we’re like ‘What?’. They actually suggested a UFO craft actually hovered over our property.”
Orville added, “It wasn’t just MUFON that showed up. It was SAT — Special Assignment Team for MUFON. So, your state investigators, they told them nobody come out here. They sent them from headquarters. Even to this day, only SAT comes out to investigate.”
As for the metal being affected, Orville stated, “They said that it was an outside reaction. Whatever happened, it wasn’t generated from something sitting up here…transformer, power line, whatever. They said something happened then left.”
The Murphys still allow crystal digging, but they also give nighttime tours, although they don’t guarantee anything paranormal, metaphysical or otherwise will occur.
During Di Lalla and his crew’s days out there, he did have something occur.
“Something is happening here. I’m at a loss for words. I go out there and I was just like let me go out and follow the story.” They made their way to a sacred area, with open minds, positive energy and being respectful.
“We went up and brought an offering. We hear and feel something watching us. We hear a tin can and just sounds. All of a sudden Troy (a Choctaw leader) goes, ‘Eye shine! Eye shine!’ First it was red and now it’s kind of white. I could see it. I asked if he was sure it wasn’t a light.
“Orville is telling us if something in front is happening, you have to look behind.”
They believe it’s a distraction technique of whatever might be up there.
“We look behind us and there are three marbles that had been placed behind us. We had been up there earlier and did not see them. It was literally like they were placed there. Orville was like, ‘There’s the gift.’”
There were more gifts left on subsequent investigations during Di Lalla’s stay. This is only half of his story, and less than half of the Murphy’s experiences.
You can find out more about the crystal mine and the Unexplained Tours at https://boardcampcrystalmine.com/crystal2/.
Look for Di Lalla on the Travel Channel, YouTube, or follow his projects on IMDB.com.
Besides that… look up and beyond. You never know what you may see on that dark hill in the distance… but remember to look behind you, too.
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