Thursday, June 3, 2010

Search for Secrets of A Sunken Cannon - 90

Between 1986 and 1988, the venerable Bob Alcumbrack and his cannon hunting crew had become secret ley line hunters of Cannonsburg. The ultimate secret society of Cannonsburg (1886) was being unraveled and the portrait of a killer cannon was being revealed. Not all, but many mysteries surrounding the cannon's disappearance are only known to God. The following series is dedicated "In Memory of Robert Alcumbrack, Allen Janose, Harold and Matt McCarthy", the deceased crew members.

Are you still interested in what Bob mastered and the scientific achievements we discovered around Cannonsburg? Bob's discovery of ley lines and electromagnetic energy or power spots in the Cannonsburg area was unknown in 1986. Bob prior to his first big dig wasn't sure how to interpret his findings and most of the cannon crews' wives weren't privy to what was happening or what the crew found.

When Bob Alcumbrack dowsed the first of two major excavation sites he envisioned the wrong size of cannon and wasn't aware that certain requirements must be fulfilled in order to be a successful dowser. Maggie McCarthy, that's Harold's wife, feared Bob was misinformed and was chasing a ghost cannon and insisted rather strongly to Bob he hadn't done enough research and misinterpreted size of cannon based upon "awesome blast" and small military cannon notations. Bob assumed it was American military - an Army field cannon. Still an "awesome blast" didn't mean it was an American 6-pound artillery piece. The third and final big digs were closer to reality.

The first two failures were smidgeon errors, but what Bob missed when practicing with his rods was in order to dowse correctly a person must be healthy with no aches and pains and that was part of his problem. Age though is simply a state of mind we all face, but when we see our body changing physically, we go over the hill at old age milestones. Past 50 years of age we aren't as active and in fact after several days of brutal work it doesn't take much to realize our "youth has got up and left" and in some instances our youth is "gone, gone, gone and disappeared." Not all adults! Not Bob Alcumbrack. He was a dynamo of energy and didn't know the word "quit" after two major disappointments.

Quit? Never! Not Bob. His wildest dream was still waiting. Never give up simply because you failed to produce or make what you desire a reality. Do we all realize our dream? No, but never quit until death. It's a struggle and we, like you, need to discover the outcomes of persistence and patience. Dreams die because we are afraid to push open the envelope of uncertainty where others who meet with least resistance seal the envelope. Without failures we don't know how to correct problems when it fails.

Bob was young at heart and tried using his brain to the best of his abilities, but flawed logic in association with his rods. Still he was correct in using his two brass rods to point out direction, like how far, which direction and depth, etc. When mentally challenged by variables in understanding basic principles of dowsing he broke out his nuclear metal range finders to fine-tune directions. He approached the cannon's disappearance from a treasure hunter's engineering standpoint, but his research logic skewed his mind's eye vision. The second and third sites were his secrets of potential and the third dig site wasn't revealed to the crew until the second site was a bust, too. That's only because he was operating in the dark. A surgeon needs lights in the operating room and the best equipment and support staff. You wouldn't let an unorganized surgeon operate on you.

Dowsers pursuing objects of ones affection must be factual and not base what they seek on circumstancial evidence. Many skeptics of dowsing doubt that a dowser with one or two pieces of wire, expensive or junk, can find treasures or water. Failure or success are the only constants.

Dowsers can use expensive copper and brass rods or use cheap metal coat hangars, but all must be able to formulate accurate pictures in their mind's eye of the precise object or objects he/she seeks locked in their mind's eye in order to find what they seek as a means to an end. It's an "art of focus and concentration."

An English jobless man named Terry Herbert lived on welfare for 18 years and he discovered an Anglo-Saxon treasure from the Seventh Century worth millions in 2009. People who saw him dowsing daily classified him as a bonafide 'Nut' like Barney Fife called Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith Show.

Herbert as treasure finder on United Kingdom soil received half the treasure's worth. Using his metal detector on the day of discovery he found more than 1,500 pieces of gold and silver. Some weighed 11 pounds and at gold prices in 2010 that's worth more than $201,200 U.S. or about $250,000 UK. What took him so long to find it and why did he find it now? He changed his mantra the day of discovery. For 18 years he repeated 'Spirits of yesterday, take me where the coins appear' and replaced the mantra 'coins' to the word 'gold'. The word "gold' was the key to unlocking the treasure's secret hiding place. Herbert said he didn't know why that day he changed one word, but he found the stuff of treasure hunter dreams. He met destiny.

Herbert's one word 'change' made all the difference in positive thinking. Precise wording and the ability to focus on invisible pictures made in the mind's eye made his dream possible. This is fact, not fiction. I assume Herberts mantra was that of a dowser. The story that appeared in the press used a generic title for metal detector, but didn't mention the word 'electronic.' The character reference describing him as a 'nut' gives the impression he was a dowser, but no matter what he used the one word mantra change made all the difference in outcome.

Herbert's mantra spoken in silence was similar to the mantra Bob was using and it did reward Bob at his final destination and Bob's facial palor was 'as white as a ghost'. Bob's voice cracked, his lips trembled, eyes glistening with excitement and fear, his body, arms and hands trembling. He was a basket case of gelatin. When he relaxed he double and triple checked his dowsing findings, but each time he quivered like an Aspen leaf on a tree, his skin palor changing revealing the electrical sensations. Allen Janose double checked Bob's findings, too, and Allen's complexion changed, too with disbelief and I felt the anxiety of watching both dowse the cannon. I told you it is buried in Cannon Township, but I haven't revealed where?

We, that's the crew, never did know what mantra Bob Alcumbrack was using when he dowsed at his first two big dig sites. What he never told us was he couldn't understand why his rods changed polarity nor why the earth energy fields were strong one day or week and weaker the next week and seemingly disappeared. With each failure he blamed the weather as dictated by his aches and pain. Research would prove he was incorrect in his intrepretations of dowsing practices, since after heavy rains that's when ease of dowsing is best.

When Bob's second dig failed to produce the cannon it would have been easy for his crew to abandon him and two crew members did quit, but not Bob. He simply revealed he could dowse water where diferent veins of iron ore deposites remain where groundwater intersects. This was precisely what dowsers who use rods, witch hazel and willow sticks are supposed to find - intersecting water veins, not treasures. Dowsing rods can aide in searching for treasures, but you must know precisely what to picture in mind's eye and it can't be faulty reasoning. Bob's mind's eye wasn't a sharp picture, but fuzzy and his mantra wasn't correct. The cannonball discovery during the third dig would reward Bob at his final destination. We kept this ultimate secret.

The second site was Bob's next secret spot. He didn't reveal this until the first failed to produce a 6-pound cannon. The first big hole was based upon energy signals and the amount of tears that fell from John Murray's eyes each time his buggy stopped on the small foot bridge over the stream. Twenty feet west of the bridge is where the strongest readings started Bob's wildest dream. This is where I believed after hearing so many stories where the men retrieved the cannon when the town elders buried it on July 3, 1885 and resurrected it for the Fourth of July celebration. What Bob discovered was where three major underwater streams converged to form the major springs (+) with a plus pattern resembling a cannon. When Bob and crew didn't find larger stones for weight to make the cannon sink I began to doubt the existence of the cannon, because how could the five men bury the cannon in such a wet grave within one hour, where Bob couldn't dig it up for 22 days.

This site gave me bad vibes and early on I didn't know the reason. During late night digging operations the crew felt uneasy jittery feelings. Hot nights, but it was if something was peering over our shoulders, the cool breathe stimulating our ears and neck. We shuddered numerous times, the creepy feelings making us shiver with fear more than excitement. Nurses and other medical personnel walking the halls near the morgue at Spectrum Health's Butterworth Campus in Grand Rapids anonymously report spirits lurk.

We had wondered if it was Tompsett's ghost or the 'spirits' of his departed friends were haunting this glacial valley's streambed on dark nights. By day the squadrons of biting blow and deer flies assaulted our flesh and by night it was sheer horror, the portraits of killers (mosquitos) hovering and finding our sweaty bodies for a bloodmeal. Sensations of invisible ghosts and spirits lurking in the darkness added to the uneasy feelings. Complete strangers felt the uneasy feelings. Tompsett died a horrible death! Could the uneasy feelings have been his unresolved conflict where he felt the cannon accident shouldn't have happened? Were all seven spirits arguing their cold breathe falling upon us? Were they trying to discourage us from digging?

At the second site we were relaxed. No bad vibes here and we watched Bob witch the cross 'cannon' formation using his brass dowsing rods. Standing on planks straddled across a mud bog Bob telescoping backhoe bucket's claw snagged a solid object. Our adrenalin skyrocketed as they probed with long metal rods and struck something hard and hollow. We took turns using my EMT stethoscope to listen as the rod struck the objects. We could hear the pulse of the earth. Was it the missing cannon? Sight unseen hearing the objects 'tink' caused an overflow of adrenalin. You've read this story in #89, but what I didn't tell you is that when the water in the hole was sucked down like the flush of a toilet so violently if a man had been standing in the water he would have been sucked into the underwater rock cavern. "Whoosh" he would have been gone and sucked into the innards of the underground rock cavern, his body unrecoverable. This is another reason why when exploring for treasure you never go alone. You could fall thru the top of an old cistern well, the earth swallowing you without a trace.

These bedrock caverns do exist the Cannonsburg area. On the Hartwell farm off Honey Creek Road south of town in the 1880's a horse fell through the rock bottom stream and drowned. At site number two Bob had found another groundwater intersection where two major water veins connect on top and below the rock formation. Geologists we talked to said the bedrock under Cannonsburg is greater than 150 feet deep. Baloney, the glacial tributary streams revealed rock at 8 feet underground. Scientists don't know everything. Well, more tomorrow.

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