Paranormal TV personality investigates Board Camp Crystal Mine

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 happen- ing. 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 sit- ting 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.

Sanders

area are worth the notoriety, but for those unfamiliar with west-central Arkansas, they are probably wondering why Mena was chosen as the first in the new program.

continued from page 1 perspective you can only get when you are there in that community,” she said. “Having the ability to visit oneon-one with members across kind of every piece and every facet of Mena was something we were able to do today. I know a number of our cabinet secretaries were able to address issues and questions that individual citizens had directly in real time. That’s always, I think, a benefit. Any time we can have better partnerships with communities, and any time our communities are strengthened and stronger, our state is better. Ultimately, that’s the goal. So just continuing to develop those partnerships and relationships are always going to help our state just get a little bit better each day.”

“One of the reasons we decided to make Mena the first stop in our Capital for a Day tour was in large part because of the local leadership and having a great partnership with them,’ Sanders said. “Everybody from the mayor to Representative Maddox, Senator Rice, the chief of police, the sheriff… we’ve been able to spend a lot of time working with that group over the course of the last 10 months since taking office. There are so many things that are going really well in this community. We wanted to have the chance to see it firsthand, talk about each of those different projects, a lot of the economic development and outdoor economy that is really growing and booming in this area. And see how we could take some of those good things that are happening and replicate it in other parts of the state.”

When Mayor Smith was first notified that Mena was chosen, he said his thoughts were,

“We were very excited, especially to have the governor come down here with her whole cabinet. One of the things that was very consistent as far as her cabinet secretaries is that every single one of them wanted to know what they could do for us to make our job easier. We greatly appreciate that. To hit on what the governor said, there’s strength in numbers and a great working relationship, and we’re great to have such great leadership at the state level.”

There are of course various things in the works to improve Mena and the surrounding area, not only through infrastructure, but tourism, as well. The governor’s visit will hopefully provide her and her cabinet insight on issues to address, or grants needed to complete or expand projects.

“I think it gives you that firsthand

The mayor agreed and felt this was learning experience in speaking with the governor and her cabinet while giving them a personal tour.

“You finally put faces with some names and exchange contact information,” he said. “I’ll go back to what I said, every one of them, ‘Let me know if there’s a problem.’ ‘Let me know if there’s something we can do to help.’ Having that backing, it just does nothing but solidify the relationship between local and the state agency and Governor Sanders’ administration.”

Chinese-owned company Arkansas on Tuesday, Oct. 16, ordered Syngenta Seeds, to divest itself of 160 acres of agricultural land. They are a subsidiary of China National Chemical Company (aka ChemChina), which is a Chinese state-owned company. It was the first such action under a wave of new laws across the country restricting foreign ownership of farmland.

Sanders said, “Unfortunately, it has. And It’s definitely a growing problem. It’s one of the reasons I’m so thankful for the leadership that we have in the legislature. We work closely with members from particularly heavy agriculture areas of our state to pass legislation to allow us to take action like we did this week, and forcing a Chinese com- pany to sell the land that they have.

“Agriculture is not only one of just an important tradition and part of our culture. It’s the number one industry that we have here in the state of Arkansas. We want to protect that. We want to protect the technology that comes along with that and also the national security piece that plays into China taking our technology — taking information back. Anytime we have the opportunity to take steps that will protect not only our agriculture community and our agriculture technology as well as our national security, we’re going to do that in Arkansas all day long.”

Arkansas also fined Syngenta $280,000 for failing to report its foreign ownership under a 2021 state law, which gives the company 30 days to pay the fine. Syngenta said on Oct. 16 that the company updated its filing with the U.S. Department of Agriculture after an internal review reflecting the change in ownership. They have also filed a copy with the state.

“Our team led the investigation and the recommendation to the attorney general’s office,’ Sanders said. “They are imposing the harshest penalty they have the ability to on that company.” ability to do and we’re going to continue fighting on that front.”

After posting the executive order as is, the feedback on the Pulse social media page was a mixture of emotions. Somewhat surprisingly, a few women posted negative feedback.

When asked if she expected negative feedback to the order, she smiled and said, “If it is, it was probably coming one way or another. I try not to focus too much on the criticism but more on how we can best serve the people of Arkansas. The voices that we hear from on a daily basis wants us to keep our foot on the gas, keep putting conservative principles into practice, both through executive order and legislation, so that’s what we’re going to keep doing.”

Mena homecoming

Eliminating

woke, anti-women

words Sanders signed an executive order on Oct. 19 to eliminate woke, anti-women words from state government and respect women.

“As the first female governor of our state, and certainly the first mom to ever serve in this role, I think I have a pretty unique perspective,” Sanders said. “I hate the idea that the left has started to try to make the word ‘woman’ a dirty word. We’ve got to start standing up for women and protecting the unique perspective, experiences, and frankly, the voice of women, not just in our state but across the country. We have pushed and signed the executive order to remove some of that woke language, things like ‘birthing person’ — things from state government documents. That’s something we have the

After a lengthy day in Mena, the governor and several of her team chose to remain in Mena for the homecoming game. “I will be at the game and looking forward to a great match-up. I’ve been talking to a lot of folks today that it’s definitely a little biased in this community, but so far, the favorite for the game tonight has been Mena. We’re really excited to come out and show our support for both teams, and hopefully get to watch some good Friday night football.”

Speaking of schools, Sanders had this to say about her visit to Louise Durham Elementary and also spoke with student ambassadors from Holly Harshman Elementary. “I did get a couple of zingers from the first and second grades,” she said, laughing alongside Smith. “It’s a tough crowd, but it’s a group I know pretty well as a mom of a second grader. I felt like I handled myself pretty well in that room.”

Smith has a son who was one of the children asking the governor questions.

It was announced on Monday that Bentonville will be Capital for a Day on Oct. 24 and Sanders will visit Bentonville.