--- In allplanets-hollow@y..., "Hazel" <lunaticfringe@b...> wrote:
Fascinating though all these reports are, the most important
evidence and
conclusions have come from the south of the United States, in
Arizona to be
precise, where a dedicated researcher named Charles A.
Marcoux has spent the
last quarter of a century investigating the legends of a
subterranean world.
To formalize his work, Marcoux has established the
Subsurface Research
Center in Phoenix, Arizona, having picked this particular locality
because
he is convinced an entrance to the subterranean tunnels exists
in a
curiously named local mountain range known as the
Superstitious Mountains.
Marcoux has made an intensive study of all the accounts of
underground
passageways throughout the world, and is already convinced
that 'a network
of tunnels exists from Canada to South America, especially
under Brazil, all
of which are connected by tunnels with other parts of the world'.
However,
the tunnel network which particularly interests him is 'the one
that opens
at various points in Central and South America, with an
entrance in the
Superstitious Mountains in Arizona'.
Hazel, thanks for posting this.
We might want to save folks the trouble of looking for Marcoux
and his defunct society, though!
Marcoux presents something of a mystery. Along with being a
protegé, friend, and complete follower of Richard Shaver, he was
friends with a spelunker named George Wight, who allegedly led
an expedition into a genuine subterranean world through an
entrance (a crevice or narrow crack hidden beneath rubble or a
boulder) in the floor of Blowing Cave, in Cushman Arkansas.
After the first accidental discovery of this tunnel and cavern world,
miles beneath the Earth, Wight returned to the surface with his
companions and they planned another, more prolonged
expedition. In the event that he did not return, Wight wrote a
detailed account of his first descent, known as the "Wight
Manuscript." Wight and friends embarked again, and never
returned.
Marcoux then planned his own assault on "Blowing Cave." He
and a group made extreme preparations, including moving
trailer homes to the area, and laid up supplies and fire-arms to
deal with the violent hairy humanoids and even worse things that
Wight had encountered before. The first group had also
discovered, supposedly, a friendly civilization of large-eyed,
blue-skinned people, beyond the more dangerous regions they
had passed through first. It was this latter group of civilization
that Wight had gone in search of again, when he and his friends
disappeared.
Marcoux was making ready to assault the cave, but he was
troubled by mysterious warnings of some sort that he had
received. He believed that he had encountered the dero or evil
underworlders before, and I have a copy of Shavertron in which
he describes one such encounter, which had taken place at
night in a city, in our surface world. Upon entering Blowing Cave,
Marcoux had progressed some distance, beyond the so-called
"twilight zone" where most surface creatures venture, when he
was beset upon by what must have been yellow jackets, and
was stung to death. His companions fled the cave (which they
had been in numerous times in days previously, without
encountering any stinging insects), with a general attitude that
the subterrans were "guarding" and probably hiding the entrance
to their underworld lair. The "dero," allegedly, had struck again.
Wight had disappeared. The infamous "Wight Manuscript,"
which many people had handled and read, disappeared as well,
and is missing to this day. A year ago I tried to track down
Marcoux' widow, and could find no trace of her at all. Only
second-hand accounts, in excerpted form from the original, exist.
Sure do wish we could all find that original manuscript, but I
suspect that Marcoux carried it with him as a guide on that last,
deadly trip into Blowing Cave.
--Mike