The Skeleton Key Chronicles

10 hours ago

March 5, 1963 was supposed to be a simple trip home for country music star Patsy Cline.
Earlier that evening she had performed at a benefit concert in Kansas City for the family of radio disc jockey Jack “Cactus” Call, who had passed away several weeks earlier.

When the event ended, Cline boarded a small Piper Comanche bound for Nashville along with fellow performers Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas. The aircraft was piloted by Randy Hughes, Copas’s manager. Weather across the region that night had been deteriorating, with low clouds and storms moving across Tennessee along the route toward Nashville.

Hughes held a pilot’s license but was not certified to fly using instruments alone, a qualification required when visibility was that low. Later that evening the aircraft came down in a wooded area outside Camden, Tennessee, about ninety miles west of Nashville, where it was located the following day after it failed to arrive as expected.

Cline was thirty years old at the time, and her career had only recently regained momentum. Earlier hits like “Walkin’ After Midnight” and “I Fall to Pieces” had already brought her national attention. Just two years earlier, in 1961, she spent several weeks recovering in a Nashville hospital before eventually returning to performing and recording what would become one of her best-known songs, “Crazy.”

She was laid to rest in her hometown of Winchester, Virginia, where fans still visit her grave.

Patsy Cline
September 8, 1932 – March 5, 1963 … See MoreSee Less

The Skeleton Key Chronicles

16 hours ago

Late last week in Albuquerque, New Mexico, authorities began asking for help locating a retired U.S. Air Force major general whose name has surfaced over the years in discussions about UFO research.

Maj. Gen. William Neil McCasland, 68, was last seen around 11 a.m. on February 27 in the area of Quail Run Court NE in Albuquerque. Investigators say it is not known what he was wearing at the time or which direction he may have traveled after that point.

McCasland spent decades in the U.S. Air Force and retired as a two-star general. During his career he led the Air Force Research Laboratory headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base here in Ohio, a facility responsible for coordinating many of the military’s advanced research and technology programs.

For decades, Wright-Patterson has been mentioned in connection with the 1947 Roswell incident. After debris from a mysterious object was recovered outside Roswell, New Mexico, it was reportedly transported to the base for examination, a detail that has remained part of UFO lore ever since.

If McCasland’s name sounds familiar, it may be because musician and UFO researcher Tom DeLonge once said he had been in contact with the general while looking into questions about unidentified aerial phenomena. DeLonge suggested McCasland would likely have known something about the subject because of his leadership role at the research laboratory, though the general has never publicly commented on those claims.

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The Skeleton Key Chronicles

19 hours ago

This week would have marked Brenda Sue Davidson’s 66th birthday. But the story of what happened to her still traces back to the morning of March 4, 1974, when the 13-year-old left home for school in Woodbridge, Virginia and never returned.

Brenda lived with her family in Prince William County and was the oldest of five children. The morning of March 4, 1974 began like any other school day. At some point between leaving home and the start of classes, something happened along that route. Investigators later determined Brenda never arrived at Fred Lynn Middle School.

When she did not return home that afternoon, authorities were contacted and a missing persons report was filed. Despite the early investigation, no clear explanation ever emerged for where Brenda went that day.

Over time, leads came in but never enough to make headway in the case. One detail investigators looked into was a possible sighting at a Greyhound bus station later that afternoon. An employee there told investigators she believed she had seen a girl resembling Brenda purchasing a bus ticket, although she could not recall the destination. With no record or additional witness info, it was never confirmed Brenda actually boarded a bus.

There was also a report that Brenda may have gone to the bus station with two classmates. Years later, Brenda’s younger sister Lisa located those classmates as adults, and both told her they did not remember walking her there.

In the days after Brenda disappeared, some students recalled her mentioning plans to leave for Florida with friends. Two girls from the school were later located after running away, but Brenda was not with them.

Even searches tied to Brenda’s Social Security number have never shown activity connected to her in the years after she disappeared. More than five decades later, Brenda Sue Davidson has never been located, and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance remain unresolved.

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