Fact is Stranger Than Fiction

Oddities

Consider the following:

1. Both Abraham Lincoln and John Fitzgerald Kennedy were concerned with the issues of Civil Rights
2. Lincoln was elected in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960
3. Both were slain on a Friday in the presence of their wives. Their successors, both named Johnson, were southern Democrats and had previously served in the Senate
4. Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908
5. Lincoln's assassin was born in 1839 and Kennedy's in 1939
6. John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald were bothslain before their trial could be held
7. Booth and Oswald both lived in the South and championed extreme philosophies
8. Both Lincoln and Kenedy's wives lost children through death while residing in the White House
9. Lincoln's Secretary, named Kennedy, cautioned him not to go to the theater the night he was killed
10. Kennedy's Secretary, named Lincoln, advised him not to go to Dallas

Copied from Jack Scotts Column in the July 23, 1964 Cross Plains Texas Review

Alien or "Angel?

1. Both angels and aliens come from other worlds.
2. Both are advanced life-forms, either spiritually or technologically.
3. The friendly variety are youthful and beautiful in appearance, and they are kind and full of compassion.
4. Both have little trouble with language, speaking clearly in the language of the listener.
5. Both are masters of flight.
6. Appearance of both angels and aliens are accompanied by brilliant light.
7. Both appear fuly dressed, commonly in either robes, or close fitting tunics. White or blue are favorite colors.
8. Both are usually the same height as humans.
9. Both express concern about the plight of humanity and the planet.
10. The evidence of both alien and angelic encounters is the testimony of the beholder.

Taken from Awake November 22, 1999

Was this Man really John Wilkes Booth?

Background:
On the night of April 14, 1865 while President Abraham Lincoln, with his wife, was seated in a private box in Fords Theatre in Washington, John Wilkes Booth, who had at one time been an actor in that theater, stole up behind the president adn shot him through the head. The assassin, immediately after committing his tragical deed leaped upon the stage and brandishing a large dagger exclaimed "Sic semper tyrannis!" Then turning to the audience, still flourishing his dagger, he exclained "The South is avenged!" and made his escape. Mr. Lincoln died the next morning April 15, 1865. The assassin was afterwards found in a barn in Virginia, and refusing to surrender himself and showing resistance, the barn was set afire and he was shot by Sergeant Boston Corbett as he came out of the burning building. His accomplices in the murder plot were tried by a military commission and upon conviction four were hanged, one of them a woman, while three were inprisoned for life and one for six years. During the trial, one of the accused stated positively that the man killed at the burning building in Virginia was not John Wilkes Booth, and that Booth had escaped.

In 1907, a book was written and published by Finis L. Bates, a lawyer of Grandbury, Texas under the title of "Escape and Suicide of John Wilkes Booth", in which Mr. Bates claimed to have had a client named John St. Helen; who confessed to him that he was John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln, and that the same man, John St. Helen committed suicide on January 13,1903 in Enid OK, where he was registered in the Grand Avenue Hotel as David E. George. At the time of President Lincoln's assassination Booth was 27 years old. He came from a prominent Southern family was highly educated and was cultured and refined. In Mr. Bates book it is stated that the supposed John Wilkes Booth used several aliases, notably Marrs, St. Helen, Ryan and George.

In 1878 or 1879, a man about 38 years old calling himself William J. Ryan, Came to Bandera, Texas and accepted a job herding sheep. He had been there a short time when one night an old fashioned "spelling match" was held at the school house. Most of the people in the community attended tht spelling bee and this man Ryan was there too. In choosing sides for the match the shepherder was taken, and it is said that he "spelled down" the opposing side. The school was in need of a teacher at the time, and the trustees impressed with the ability of Ryan to spell words offered him a job, which he accepted. He taught there for several months and later opened a private school in Bandera under the name of the Bandera Institute

In The first issue of the Bandera Bugle, December 4, 1880 Ryan had an advertisement giving his rates of tuition. It also stated that "he is a good educator and it is unnecessary for the citizens to sent their children off at a heavy expense to have them educated".
Ryans School numbered over fifty pupils in regular attendance.
There is no information on how long the Bandera Institute was in existance, as there are no copies of succeeding issues of the Bugle. The Bandera Enterprise which began publication in 1883 contains no mention of Prof. William J. Ryan or the Bandera Institute, so it is presumed that Ryan departed from Bandera in 1881 or 1882.

It was related that Ryan was somewhat a man of mystery, and that he left under rather suspicious circumstances. It seems that he courted a charming girl, the daughter of a prominent family and even the wedding date was set, when it was noised that Ryan was a fugitive from Justice and badly wanted for a crime committed in some other state. Not being able to satisfactorily explain matters, the wedding was called off and Mr. Ryan left Bandera, never to return. Years later reports came in that Ryan was suspected of being John Wilkes Booth, the assassin of President Lincoln. Little credence was given to these reports. The young Lady whose love he had won never married and remained single until her death.

Was William J. Ryan really John Wilkes Booth? Who knows?

Taken from 100 years in Bandera