319 Incident

On March 19, 2004 Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party President Chen Shui Bian and Vice-President, Annette Yu, were campaigning for election in Tainan City, Taiwan. They were standing in the back seats of an open top jeep moving slowly through a crowded street. At 1:45pm, President Chen reported feeling pain on his abdomen area and Lu in the knee area. Both thought that they were hit by fire crackers which were common in Taiwan during political rallies and parties, but minutes later they were rushed to a nearby hospital for gunshot wounds.

Immediate investigation revealed that the assassination was not plotted by China. Two bullets casings were found by civilians – suggesting only 2 shots were fired at the motorcade. One bullet penetrated through the windshield of the jeep, ripped through multiple layers of clothing, grazed Chen’s stomach and was stopped in his clothes until it was recovered by hospital staff. The other bullet also penetrated through the windshield and hit the vice president’s knee cast and was found in the jeep. The president and vice-president were treated at a nearby hospital. The president suffered an 11cm long and 2cm wide flesh wound that required 14 stitches. Both were released from the hospital in the evening. No suspects were identified, although several people appeared suspicious in surveillance camera but these people came forward after they recognized themselves on national broadcast footage.

In subsequent months, Taiwanese authorities requested four American forensic scientists, led by the famous Dr. Henry Lee, to help with the investigation. Dr. Lee and his colleagues conducted series of crime scene reconstruction and forensic examinations before submitting a 130-pagereport on August 29, 2004. The report confirms that President Chen and Vice-President Lu’s wounds were caused by gunshots, which were fired from outside of the vehicle. However, it was impossible to determine from which direction that bullets entered the Jeep due to incompleteness of evidence presentation and lack of accurate record on the Jeep’s speed. Bullets were fired from a home-made gun but investigators were unable to determine if bullets were from the same gun. Meanwhile, Taiwanese government formed the “319 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee” to probe the shooting.

On March 7, 2005, one year after the shooting, Taiwanese police held a press conference and announced that they had a suspect: Chen Yi-Hsuing, an unemployed man who blamed the President for his economic woes. Police found Chen resembles one of the unknown persons shown on video footage. They also discovered a connection between Chen and an illegal gun maker by confirming Chen as being the fifth hand of a possible weapon. According to Chen family, Chen committed suicide two weeks after the shooting; Chen was found drown in a harbor on March 28. Chen’s wife stated that her husband left suicide notes but it had been burned by family for fear of embarrassment. In addition, family members recalled Chen was behaving strangely following the shooting. Police interpreted that Chen committed the crime and then killed himself due to guilt.

On August 17, 2005, the case was officially closed after the investigators concluded that Chen Yi-Hsuing acted alone. But, conspiracies theorists and President’s political opposition claimed that the police connection between Chen and the shooting was far-fetched and absurd. The assassination attempt was engineered by the president to win sympathy votes. Secondly, it is impossible to prove Chen was the assassin now that he is dead, and the murder weapon was never found. In 2006, Chen’s wife retracted her testimony, and claimed at a news conference that she had been coerced into making statements implicating her husband. Taiwanese media suggested that Chen was killed by another person because his corpse was found wearing a formal suit. Original investigative report states family saw him wearing different attires as he was going to fishing. Many unsatisfied Taiwanese legislators, including Vice President Lu, believed there was more than one shooter and had lobbied for continue investigation on the shooting.

3 days in New Mexico, part 4 - Roswell

A brief background on Roswell

In June of 1947, newspapers across the United States had reported seeing flying saucers over the sky. During the first week of July 1947, a local New Mexico rancher, Mac Brazel, heard what appeared to be the sound of an explosion at night. The next day he discovered a large amount of unusual metal debris scattered over a large area of land that he tended. He took a few pieces of the debris, drove 75 miles, and brought them to the Roswell's Sheriff Department. Sheriff George Wilcox notified authorities at Roswell Army Air Field. Intrigued by the debris, Colonel Blanchard, who was the commanding officer, ordered two intelligence officers, Major Jesse Marcel and Captain Sheridan Cavitt, to investigate. Subsequently, the Army quietly cordoned off the ranch and removed all debris.


The Army command at Roswell issued a press release announcing it had recovered a "flying disk," also known as UFO. The press release was transmitted to major newspapers agencies across the country. Within hours, a second press release was issued and rescinded the first press release, that military personnel mistakenly identified a weather balloon and its radar reflector as the wreckage of a "crashed disk." In 1947, the society in America was much more innocent then now. Public rarely questioned authority so when the government tell you that it was a weather balloon wreckage then there's no reason for you to doubt. Therefore, public interest on this incident died within weeks.

1978, thirty years later, the public's interest was drawn to Roswell when one man reopened the case file. Stanton Friedman, who was a nuclear physicist with an interest in flying saucer. He gave up his job in hte late 60s to dedicated his time in studying extraterrestrial activities on earth. He is also known as the original civilian investigator of the Roswell Incident.

In Friedman's research, he interviewed Major Jesse Marcel, one of the intelligence officers who investigated the crash site. Marcel was a highly regarded individual. He told Friendman that the government was involved in a massive cover up. The debris in the 2nd press release was not the same as what he saw. He describes the material "was not from earth...it was not a weather balloon, nor was it an airplane or a missile. It would not burn..that stuff weights nothing, it's so thin, it isn't any thicker than the tinfoil in a pack of cigarettes. So, I tried to bend the stuff. It wouldn't bend. We even tried making a dent in it with a sixteen-pound sledge hammer. And there was still no dent in it." Friedman summarized in his book, The Roswell Incident Report, that government covered up the crash. As a result, the book stems a worldwide interest in the 1947 Roswell UFO crash. UFOlogist, as well as the US government, have conducted their own research and investigation on this incident.

Since Marcel's testimony, more than 100 other witnesses came forward, after 3 decades, to talk about their accounts on that day.

Glenn Dennis, who was mortician working for the Ballard Funeral Home, which had a contract with Roswell Army Field on providing mortuary and ambulance services. He claims that mortuary officer at the air field had called him a few times and asked about the availability of small, hermetically sealed caskets, and on preservation of dead bodies that have been exposed for several days. Dennis said a nurse, who works at the air field, told him that she was involved in an autopsies on several small nonhuman bodies. This nurse drew a diagram on a napkin showing an outline and anatomy of their features. Dennis learned on the following day that this nurse was transferred to England and she was never seen again.

Dr. Jesse Mancel, Jr. said his father showed him a few pieces of of unusual wreckage. One peace, a small section of I-beam, had strange hieroglyphic like symbols on its surface.

Jim Ragsdale is the only witness who had came forward to testify that he saw the actual crash took place. He said he saw a flying saucer roared over his head and then crashed into desert. 30 to 60 Army troops responded to the scene and removed dead bodies and debris from the crashed site.

Many witnesses, including Mac Brazel, Glenn Dennis, and the Roswell Sheriff, were physically threatened or intimidated by military. Brazel, was taken by the military for almost a week and sworn secrecy. When returned, he never spoke about the incident again, even to his family. Local radio stations also reported that military personnel ransacked their archives and confiscated pertinent files to the crash.

The U.S. government never issued any explanation or findings until 1994 when the United States Air force presented the evidence that the crash was actually a lost Project Mongol balloon launched in Alamogordo. Project Mogul was a top secret project by the US Army Air Forces whose primary purpose was long-distance detection of sound waves generated by Soviet atomic bomb tests. The object that crashed was a lost balloon that somehow exploded and felt onto the desert.

Our visit to Roswell

Once again, with Brandon's amazing speedy driving style, we got to Roswell from Alamogordo lot faster than I expected. As we are driving along Main Ave to the UFO museum, we saw souvenir shops on both sides of the road. Each shop has its own unique design to attract visitors. The streets of commercial Roswell was full of extraterrestrial creatures.

After browsing through couple of sovenir shops we finally arrived to the famous International UFO Museums. About two-third of the museum was dedicated to research and display relating to the Roswell Incident.

We spent 40 minutes in the museum before hitting the empty streets of Roswell. Locals told us Roswell in October is a ghost town. The busiest season is summer when tourist from all over the world flood the streets. We decided to check out one more souvenir shop. This shop has dark lighting and wall was painted with cult signs and symbols. In the back there was a black door leading to another room. The clerk told us we could check it out for only $2/person. The three of us hesitated but decided to enter this room. The rest is documented.

This post concludes the 3 days in New Mexico. Briefly, we returned to Albuquerque at midnight. Tiring but fun. That's what I have to say about our trip.

3 days in New Mexico, part 3 - Alamogordo, New Mexico

After 8 hours of heavy snoring, we got up at 5am to start our day 2 New Mexico exploration. Our itinerary was from Albuquerque to Alamogordo to Roswell, total of 525 miles, all in one day. We packed our cameras, GPS, water and some snacks. Let's go! We drove for over an hour before the sun showed up. It was no scenic drive on our way to Alamogordo, just a long stretch of yellowish dried land with no greens, but the reflection of sunrise off the desert yielded a warm and inspiring feeling. So inspired that my friend, Brandon, drove 90mph throughout the whole ride to Alamogordo. We got there in 3 hours instead of 4.5 hours (predicted by my GPS and Google).

Alamogordo is about 200 miles south of Albuquerque. Surrounded by mountains and deserts, this town is known for a the National Space Museum, an attraction for NASA buffs and...kids like us.


We were waiting for the 4-story high museum to open. Only $4 entrance fee. The next few pictures summarized what we did inside.



I was more excited about displays outside of the museum. There were retired missile launchers, rockets, and spacecrafts.









You notice on the last picture above that there's a layer of white thing in the horizon? That's not snow. About 2o miles southwest of Alamogordo are wave-like dunes of gypsum sand that have engulfed 275 square miles of desert. This place is known as the White Sands National Monument. We took the 8 mile scenic drive which leads from the Visitor Center into the heart of the dunes.

After only 4 miles into our scenic drive, we decided to turn around and go back to the visitor center and leave for Roswell. It was noon already and we were pressing for time.

3 days in New Mexico, part 2 - Ghost tour of Old Town in Albuquerque

Ghost Tour of Old Town

My late afternoon nap was cut short by a loud exploding noise. I went up to the window to see what was going on outside. I saw rain was pouring down, sky flashing every 10 seconds, and then following by a loud thunder. Water was running like a river on the slightly slanted street outside of our motel. Immediately, I was worried about tour might get canceled. I tried to call the tour office but no one answered. We decided to go anyway. We headed out an hour before the tour starts. We went to a KFC and grabbed a quick bite of fast food. The KFC cashier told us this is one of the worse rainstorms she had ever seen. After our quick dinner, the rain did not even subside a bit. So, we drove to a nearby Walgreen and brought three ponchos to help us stay dried in the tour later. We left Walgreen and right in front us was more than paranormal. The rain was gone! The sky cleared up!

Upon arrival at the town plaza, we met our tour guide, Mykie, who is a certified paranormal investigator. He gave us an introduction of old town and the ghost tour. Old Town was founded in 1706. The old historic buildings and dark alleys are concealed with long forgotten secrets of battles, murders, hangings, and hidden cemeteries. The 90 minute long lantern-lit walking tour allow us to search for the lost souls of early residents, Civil War phantoms, spooks, specters, wandering apparitions and other ghost who have made Old Town their eternal home.





These two pictures above are showing a souvenir shop in Old Town. The people who work here had reported seeing merchandise moved on its own. Sometimes, they find things placed in unusual patterns.



A haunted café. This place is not only nationally known for its good food but also for manifestation of poltergeist. The spirit of a deceased owner, Sylvia, is believed to be still there. It is a common for waitresses, cooks, and even patrons to see utensils flying around, and furniture get lifted and thrown to the wall.



This is the back of a restaurant which is also a murder site. A disgruntled and jealous husband suspected his wife was cheating on him. One night he came here with his gun and shot at the alleged cheater while he was leaving from work. Since then, tourist and locals have seen a male figure standing next to the tree. It is very common for people to capture capture orbs and misty figures on camera.



Click on this picture and look closely at the upper right window. Someone told me he saw two very vague figures standing behind the window staring out. What do you think?


This is another ghost sighting spot. One night, two skateboarders were knocked to the ground by an invisible force after they said something offensive about a person who was killed at this spot.



Lady of Guadalupe carved in a tree.


Not a very good picture but the brownish structure in the back is a prayer room. Locals report that they have seen a lady dresses in black, nun-look-alike outfit, crying inside the room. When being approached, this lady would traveled through the wall and disappeared. Others have heard sobbing from the room but found no one inside .


Inside the prayer room, Mykie attempted to solicit the spirit to appear in front of us but with no success. We were told that one tourist felt so uncomfortable in this room that she had to leave the tour on the spot.




Old Town Plaza. This location used to be a cemetery. Before they build these buildings, locals dug up over 30 bodies that were buried underground. There are still few bodies underneath the plaza. Paranormal investigators called this a hot spot. Ghost sightings are very common here. Many conduct Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) investigation at this location, trying to capture voices of ghost in audio. One investigator captured a boy who perhaps buried around the plaza area saying “don’t go…you are leaving already?” The investigator attempted to communicate with this boy again but with no success. She felt that the boy had more to tell her.

Near the end of our tour, the lightening and thundering returned. The weather adds an extra creep to the tour, as you can imagine we are talking about ghosts and haunting while the sky was flashing and pounding. What better special effect could we ask for? Right before Mykie conclude the tour, he asked if anyone had any question. A loud thunder struck right behind the plaza. Then, the rain was pouring again. We rushed back to our car and returned to our hotel soaked and scared.

3 days in New Mexico, part 1

My friend, my brother, and I decided on one day that we want to go to Roswell, New Mexico. It was random and spontaneous as heck. We were into UFOs and alien sightings at the time. I think it is fair to say that Roswell is the birth place of American Alien and UFO phenomenon. A saucer supposedly crashed into the desert of New Mexico. Witnesses reported that they saw something fell from the sky. For those who went to the scene found silver metallic debris that was not from this world. The government initially admitted but quickly dismissed anything had to do with UFO or aliens.

The entree of our trip was to see Roswell and experience the the alien fever there. We only had 4 days to see Roswell and the rest of New Mexico.

Day 1:
After a 5 hour flight to Albuquerque from San Francisco, we quickly rented a car and checked in to Motel 6. We spent only 10 minutes unpacking. It was noon and our stomachs were pounding louder than the airplane engine. We wasted no time and took our camera, backpack, and gears and hit the streets of Albuquerque for food. We settled for some Thai food in an almost empty Thai restaurant that was ran by Mexicans. It was pretty good.



After lunch, we drove about 5 miles east to Sandia Peaks, our first attraction. We took the Sandia Peaks Tramway, world’s longest passenger aerial tramway that travels 2.7 miles to the top of Sandia Mountain at 10,378 feet. The panoramic view of the city in the ascending tram was breathtaking.








Once got to the top, we picked a mile long scenic hiking trail.


Here are some more amazing views:


Before we can hike any longer, we saw a cloud of rain was approaching our way. Disappointed, we headed back to the visitor center to avoid getting soaked. I have to say hiking in such high elevation was not suitable for anyone. Why? Thin oxygen. I was not able to run, jump, and do anything that requires just a bit of energy.


2 hours on the top of Albuquerque's Sandia Peak was enough for 3 guys who didn't bring any water and had no understanding of high altitude. We took the tram back to ground level; brought some souvenirs at the gift shop, and then went back to our hotel room to rest. We spent the rest of afternoon resting and getting ready for our next event, Albuquerque Old Town Ghost Tour.

First Paranormal Experience

I lived in Guang Zhou, China for eight years before I moved to the United States. My mother, her five siblings, and their families used to visit our grandpa every weekend. The adults would cook and talk and the kids would mingle. One evening, my three cousins and I were playing cards in the living room in our grandpa’s century old house. For a brief moment, I saw a skinny woman with messy hair, about 5 feet tall, dressed somewhat untidily walking out of the kitchen. I remember vaguely her face but I got an impression that she was in distress. The only person that I could make reference to was my aunt who probably just woke up from an afternoon nap. I looked around the room and found that my aunt was actually behind me chatting with my mom. I was only 6 years old. I didn’t give much thought to this lady but her appearance did give me a chill.

12 years later, 1998. I went back to China and visited my family. Our grandfather’s house is no longer there. The government collected the land to build a subway station. My cousins, who were all grown up, and I were just reminiscing the good old time. One topic led to another in our conversation. I told them about that time, 12 years ago, at grandpa's house. Before I could even finish, my cousins stopped me. They have all seen this woman in our grangpa’s house before. She usually appeared in the kitchen but then disappeared right away. My cousins speculated that she was the spirit of our long deceased grandmother, but I can tell you at that moment all my body hair stood up like a porcupine as I realized that I actually saw a ghost when I was 6 year old. At the same time, I felt good that my first time seeing a ghost was not any childhood make-belief. My relatives actually validated my first and only ghost sighting experience. How cool is that!!!

San Francisco Chinatown Secret Tunnels (Part 2)

In 1854, patrolman police officer Isaiah Lees was patrolling Chinatown on his regular night beat. He stood next to the Palmer and Cook Bank on Clay Street and heard banging and clinging noise underneath him. Cook stayed at the corner until the noise stopped in daybreak. He returned to the same spot for the next few nights and heard the same noise. Is someone trying to dig a tunnel to rob this bank?

A few days later. A young miner brought his jewel to the Eldorado Gambling Hall at Washington and Kearny Streets to offset his gambling debt. A Chinese man standing nearby grabbed the jewel and ran out of the bank. Several police officers give chase after this thief to a restaurant basement off an alley. The police found 20 men in the basement kitchen but none of them was the man that they were looking for. Suspicious, the police asked why there are so many people in the kitchen. The head cook said they were all his cousins. Even more suspicious, the police searched and found an adjacent room with bags of rice stacked to the ceiling. Officer Less, who was also at the scene, immediately cut open one of the bags and found to be filled with soil. The police ordered the men to remove the bags and then placed them under arrest. What appeared in front of the police was the mouth of a tunnel that it was only big enough for someone to crawl. The thief who took the jewel and ran from the police was hiding inside; he was shot once and dragged out of the tunnel. As it turned out, about 20 Chinese men were involved in an attempted heist on a bank that is located across the street. They had been digging a tunnel for several weeks and had reached within several feet of the vaults of Palmer and Cook’s bank.

This attempted heist shows that Chinese in the past were certainly capable of digging “secret tunnels” in Chinatown. Are there anymore that still exist? A recent episode on History Channel’s Cities of Underworld revealed Donaldina Cameron House located at 920 Sacramento still have a underground tunnel that was used to hide young women who escaped from prostitute rings ran by the Tongs over a century ago.

San Francisco Chinatown Secret Tunnels

A few months ago, I came across an article written about the secret tunnels of San Francisco Chinatown. (http://www.sfgate.com/offbeat/city.html) . When the Chinese first came to San Francisco in the 19th Century, tong members and gangsters dug secret tunnels to evade police from detecting opium use, prostitution, and among other illegal activities. These long and winding tunnels allowed someone to travel from one location to another with ease. In 1906, San Francisco suffered from a major earthquake and a widespread fire; most, if not all, buildings in Chinatown were burnt down to the ground. Any existing tunnels would have been sealed by debris or collapsed on its own. Today, the existence of secret tunnels remains an urban legend. Older Chinese claim that they have seen these tunnels when they were a child. Chinatown tour guide would tell you that these tunnels still exist and is sealed with metal grates which can easily seen on the streets of Chinatown. But, I highly doubt these manholes bout are the very same tunnels that the Chinese dug over 100 years ago.

Walking through the streets of Chinatown, one will notice each structure has a staircase that descends to a basement. I wonder if there are still any so called secret tunnels behind these basements that merchants and landlord don’t even know about it. According to former San Francisco Police Chief Jesse Cook, who served as a sergeant in the Chinatown Squad, he wrote in his 1931 SF Police and Peace Journal, that there is no such thing as secret tunnels in Chinatown. He explains:

“True, you could go from one cellar to another, but that is all. In order to deceive the people, the Chinese guides would take them in on Grant Avenue, between California and Sacramento Streets, going down into a cellar. From this they would go downstairs into the next cellar, and so on, sometimes going into six or seven. These basements, however, were all connected with the stores on Sacramento Street. Should you go from any one of these basements toward Sacramento Street, you would, of course, come to the cellar of some Sacramento Street store, and all you had to do was to go up one flight of stairs to Sacramento Street. The guides naturally would not allow anyone to do this. They would bring the people back the same way that they came and tell them that they had been down six or seven stories. The people of course believed them, but at no time were they ever over one story below the street.

The Chinese Theatre was also a good place to take tourists. The guides would take them in the entrance on Washington Street and from there down into the basement. This basement led down into another cellar where the guides would tell the people that they were now two stories under the ground. At this time they would show them the Chinese actors’ dressing rooms and sleeping quarters. Had the door at the end of the room been opened, the stage of the theatre would have been seen. The people had been told they were two stories under ground, however, and they believed it.

The nearest thing to an underground passage that I ever saw was in 1905 when with Captain Matheson, then a patrolman, I went through a passageway leading from Spofford alley into the basement of Old Tie Loy Lottery Company on Waverly place. There were fourteen doors in this passageway, each door leading into a room so constructed that it appeared as though you were going down into the bowels of the earth. In reality you were only going down into the basement on Waverly place." (http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist9/cook.html)

The interconnected basements can still be seen in Chinatown if one is interested. Next time visiting, you can go to Ming Lee Trading Inc located at 768 Jackson Street. This is a grocery store that allows you to descend into its basement and then exit from another building next door.

As far as the secret tunnels goes, it still remain as an urban legend. However, the SFMTA will expand its transit route to Chinatown and begins its excavation in the near future. Hopefully, this 100+ year old myth can be solved by that time.