Creative Speculation
Related: About this forum1950 or 1952
There was a day that was very strange, it started some time in early afternoon.
I was with my sister and brother-in-law to be, and my parents. Ed was listening to Pittsburgh Pirates game, Rosy Rowswell and Bob Prince. It was an afternoon game.
We were traveling from McKeesport PA to Girard Ohio. None of them fancy roads back then, just farms and fields. Lovely sunny day. My parents were friends/relatives with people there, all from Checoslovakia and we were going for a visit.
All of a sudden it got very dark. Pitch black. No sign of smoke or smell of fire. Just darkness, and some fireflies. It got darker and darker. We had just entered Ohio.
The game was on the radio. Bob Prince said he didn't know what to make of it. Forbes Field was too dark to play, and they were goint to put the field lights on. Pittsburgh was the only stadium that had night lights. So we listened for a while.
My mother has a panic attack, and Dad was nervous too. So they turned off the radio and Mother pulls out her rosary and we did Hail Mary's for a helluva long time, and Ed didn't object. He was a Marine from the Japanese front and didn't scare easily, but he was uneasy. Close to 5 pm we rolled into Girard, and it was NOW completely light and sunny, all of a sudden, and my relatives said that they had the 3-hour or so darkness too and they were petrified.
My usual Sunday friends were at movies and missed the darkness. At that time, when you went to a movie, you saw it once, stayed for a second, and if no second, stayed to watch the first movie again. Got our quarter's worth. But they didn't see the darkness. Funny thing is that nobody ever mentioned it again, my parents or my sister and Ed.. They are all dead now, and no one can confirm.
There was nothing in the papers about the darkness except 4 lines buried that said there was a fire in Canada. No pictures or stories of where the fire was.
I finally found something on the net, but I think they got the wrong date. They are saying it was 1950. I say it was 1952. When we got to Girard, we made arrangements to have my cousin Margie come to visit. She did and we went to a new movie in McKeesport called "Wait till the Sun Shines Nellie" which was released in late June 1952. I figured that the game was on July 20 by the long time that the movie got to our town.
Was anyone else alive then? It was the same year that ufos were flying all overf the place, including Washington, DC...
I think that's why I have such an interest in them.
http://the-red-thread.net/sunday.html
There's a book out about that Sunday, and there are comments from readers saying they thought it happened after 1950, but no one remembers exactly when.
I know it was 1952 because of the movie "Nellie" that Margie and I went to see at the Liberty Theater in McKeesport.
William Seger
(11,046 posts)Or seriously, is this the article where you found the 1950 reference? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18097177
Couldn't it have been a cloud of smoke and soot from a forest fire, but too high up to smell? If it covered the whole sky by the time it got to you from Canada, it seems it might not have been recognizable as a large cloud.
fadedrose
(10,044 posts)There are some comments on the website I gave. People are as mixed up as can be. Only a few people had a TV at the time, we didn't. The radio gave no news and the paper was wrong.
It was too sudden, the dark and the light, both sudden...
http://the-red-thread.net/sunday.html
johnp3907
(3,890 posts)I live in the Pittsburgh area, but was born 13 years after this event and this is the first I've heard of it. Stan Gordon would've only been 1 to 3 years old at the time, but maybe he knows something about it. Maybe you could email him? http://www.stangordon.info/wp/