The China UFO conspiracy theories are already surfacing all over the web with some of the sludge flowing into news aggregators.

It is way too early to start calling this event a conspiracy. It is also inappropriate.

The facts: Xiaoshan Airport was shut down on July 7, 2010 due to the sighting of an object in the sky. The object is currently unidentified (as far as we know) and it was flying or floating along in the sky. This qualifies the object as a UFO, yet a UFO does not automatically mean that it came from outer space.

Here is my opinion of why we should wait for news to surface directly from China, based on one undisputed fact:

China has earthly things to worry about at the moment.

OIL & WATER

Two oil pipes exploded last week at Dalian’s Xingang Harbor in northeast China. There have been five more explosions since then. At this writing, 24 oil cleaning vessels and more than 800 fishing boats are cleaning up the mess. According to this Xinhua News article, top leaders in China have turned their focus toward this matter of oil and water.

China is in the midst of typhoon season. Torrential rain and devastating floods are impacting the lives of millions of people, including in the Chongqing Municipality where the second UFO was said to be sighted. When the news of the second UFO sighting was released, this region in China began to brace for typhoon Conson.

Since the beginning of July, torrential rains and severe flooding have claimed the lives of 146 people. At last report 40 are missing. Rescue efforts are still underway. Flooding, rains, and typhoon Conson forced the evacuation of more than 1.3 million people in 11 provinces, mostly along the Yangtze River, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. Fears of additional flooding, dams breaking and mudslides are at the forefront at the moment. Check out the Xinhua News 2010 Flood Coverage.

Like oil and water, unfounded speculation and cold hard facts should not be mixed together. Leave it to the experts to separate fact from fiction. This separation takes time. We will be told something about the UFO eventually.

Wait for the facts to surface.

A video making the rounds for paranormal scrutiny is an interesting one.

The description of the video posted earlier this week states that the footage is from a surveillance video at a gas station in Bulgaria. You be the judge whether there is probable paranormal activity caught on tape.

Fake or real, it’s pretty creepy.

Ghost in a gas station in Bulgaria on You Tube

In 1946, Doris Siebold, a teacher in Patagonia, Arizona, gave her students an assignment. She asked them to collect and write down the folk tales of the Patagonia area for preservation. The collection was published in 1949.

The resulting treasure trove of tales from 61 years ago contains many gems worth reading. The Patagonia area is rich in history and folk tales alike. Many of those tales originate in the ghost towns of Mowry, Harshaw, Lochiel, Duquesne and Washington Camp in the Patagonia Mountains.

Kansas Mine/Photo by C. Strong

Today, we’ll explore the Kansas Mine near Washington Camp.You can see the chute on a drive down Duquesne Road, while driving through a narrow mountain pass toward Nogales.

Still perched on the side of the mountain on a dirt road, the mine has a story to tell. We’ll dig into this story to see what parts of the story can be substantiated.

Student Luz Rivera contributed this tale of the haunted Kansas Mine:

The Kansas Mine is a mine on the Nogales and Washington Camp road. It is about half a mile from the Camp. This mine has killed more men than any other mine in the camp. It has killed forty-eight men in eighteen years. The last man killed Mr. Tony Rivera of Nogales, Arizona.

The reason this mine kills so many men is because it does not want to be worked because it is believed that it has a large amount of buried treasure either in ore, zinc or lead. This mine was closed for a period of nine months because the miners stated that it was haunted by a young man who was drowned in it just before the last man was killed. – Folk Tales from the Patagonia Area, The University of Arizona Press, 1949.

A search through Arizona Genealogy records reveals that Antonio ‘Tony” Rivera was killed at the mine on January 28, 1941, eight years prior to the story being published by The University of Arizona Press. Rivera’s death certificate online states the manner of death as a disturbing one. His head was crushed by a falling rock. It had been only his fifth day working at the mine.

It is unclear while researching this story whether the student, Luz Rivera, was related to Tony Rivera.

Kansas Mine remnants/Photo by C. Strong

The number of men killed at the mine was not verified via research. Searching through Mine Inspector records and death certificates did not support that many deaths. However, we can’t depend solely on records of the time. Records have been known to be lost or misplaced, or simply not recorded, especially as we research further back in time.

There was also no record of death by drowning in the years before Mr. Tony Rivera was killed. However, this doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. Records reveal that there was a mine explosion that killed two men eleven months prior to Mr. Rivera’s death.

Pedro Camez, 23, and Robert Landers, 48, were killed in an explosion at the mine on February 21, 1940. It is possible that the manner of death nine years later was mistaken by the informant of the tale. It is also possible that someone did drown at the mine, as reported, but there is no record of the victim. The young man haunting the mine could have been Camez, if the story of the haunting is true.

more Kansas Mine remnants/Photo by C. Strong

The nine month closure of the mine could have been caused by the explosion. It was also not uncommon for mining to cease operation periodically for various reasons.

If it was closed for nine months due to a haunting, there would be no record to substantiate that claim, there is only oral history to consider.

Doris Siebold asked her students to name the informant of each story submitted to the book. This story is attributed to “Many Informants”, which does lend some credibility to the lore.

Whether the mine is haunted or not, this story and others are fascinating.

The Patagonia Union High School and the entire community is fortunate to have had a teacher like Doris Siebold. She had the foresight to preserve the area’s rich history and folklore for many generations to come.

* Correction: The date that the folk tale collection project began was 1946, instead of the 1949 date posted in the original version of this post. The University of Arizona Press published the collection in 1949.