Hypnotized – Fleetwood Mac. Now, about that “pond.”

…from the album Mystery to Me.

Uploaded by FavoriteTunes2009 on Jul 31, 2009

from the CD “Mystery to Me”, by fleetwood Mac.
pics and video clips taken here in Oregon

Enjoy, yes, indeed do that thing!

I haven’t posted a tune in a while, so we’re due, but this thread didn’t start out in the usual way. You all know that I’m always lurking on ATS for the latest in high strangeness and conspiracy; I saw a thread entitled North Carolina’s strange, strange pond. by member ColeYounger, which as you might imagine is right up my alley, so of course I had to click it.

In it was the following very cool story and the reference to this song, along with this YouTube music video. Two birds, one stone for WATT, eh? Ha!

On the discussion board, there was an old post by a guy who said he grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Apparently, the guy had been checking out the online discussions about strange power spots, vortexes and ‘Earth anamolies.’ [sic]

He said that one day in 1969, he and three friends were riding dirt-bike motorcycles in a large forested area near Winston-Salem. He described it as thick forest with bike trails worn through the woods. Deep in the middle of the forest was a large clearing. They had ridden their bikes there many times before, but on this day, when they reached the clearing, they were shocked to see a huge, perfectly round depression in the ground that was probably 80 – 100 feet in diameter . He said it was as if a giant iron ball had been pressed into the ground, buried halfway, and then lifted out. The dirt in the indentation was ‘smooth as glass’. There was not a bump or a ripple anywhere. Of course they thought that it had somehow been man-made…dug out with bulldozers or something. But there was no machinery anywhere. There was no way to get any machinery there! There were no roads, just bike trails. They got really spooked and got the hell out of there. From what the guy said, all four of them were pretty spooked.

They went back to town and told some friends. A couple other guys went there shortly thereafter and they saw it too. The weird depression was gone within a few days, as if it was never there.
Now this is weird! ….supposedly someone took some photos, but never gave them to any news people, reporters, etc. The story became quite a local legend. I’m surprised it’s not really famous. Maybe because the “mystery circle” was there and gone so quickly?

A couple years later, Fleetwood Mac released their song “Hypnotized”. Some of the lyrics definitely sound like the Winston-Salem circle, although the term “pond” is used.

Cole then wonders just exactly how Bob Welch, Fleetwood Mac’s guitarist and songwriter at the time, came up with the lyrics in question…

Well… In FleetwoodMac.net’s The Penguin Q&A Sessions section, ATS researcher Pauligirl found this quote regarding this very happening from the guy who wrote the song, Bob Welch, August 4 – 17, 2003:

Hey Bob! In Hypnotized you talk about a strange pond in North Carolina. What’s the story behind it, and where’s it supposed to be? A curious North Carolinian… (Louie Golden, Charlotte, NC, USA)

A guy that I used to work with from Winston-Salem told me the story of he and some friends riding dirt bikes 20 miles or so out in the woods when they came upon a strange “crater” in the ground with smooth sides like melted glass. It was a “pond” in the sense that there was some rainwater in it I guess.There were no access roads or caterpillar tracks so it wasn’t a construction site. I think the location must have been near Winston-Salem. They all immediately got the feeling they should get out of there. Maybe it was a meteor impact ? I just liked the imagery for the song.

So, Bob actually met and talked with one of the guys who experienced this first-hand. Seriously, how cool is that? What are the odds? Spock?

Needless to say that this is one heck of a mystery. The ‘smooth as glass’ nature of the depression is particularly fascinating. As is the fact that it ‘repaired itself,’ so to speak, after just a few days. Weird! Groundwater rising and falling within a water cave has been suggested, which I suppose is reasonably plausible, but what about the glassy smooth effect? Not a common sinkhole feature that I know of.

And in this reply, posted after I started writing, this feature, or a remnant of it, may have been located! Only those who were there could verify that, of course, but it is certainly intriguing. Maybe they’ll show up and clarify things! It’s happened before. But them Gol darn odds are agin’ us. It would be fabulous if the photos mentioned were to turn up!

I just love how utterly strange our world can be. I really do.

And,  it turns out, much to my delight, that Bob Welch is a big fan of various Fortean subjects, most notably UFOs. I like that and wonder if this incident helped trigger off his interest in the unexplained. If you read the interview with him at the Fleetwood Mac site you will see several questions relating to UFOs and the like. Such as this one…

Hi Bob and thank you for doing another Q&A for your devoted fans ! My questions are….

Since you are into the paranormal like me, who are your favourite authors on the subject ? (i.e. John A. Keel, Stanton Friedman, and Jenny Randles) (Arizona Ranger, Cranford, NJ, USA)

Jacques Vallee, Ingo Swann, Gary Schwartz (the Afterlife Experiments), David R. Hawkins MD (The Eye Of The I), Stephen Greer(Disclosure Project). The ones you mentioned (Freidman etc.) are also good. There are many more…John G White “The Unobstructed Universe” comes to mind. I’m planning to put a list of all the authors I like on my website.

Shame about Greer being in there, really… hopefully Bob has seen the light on that matter. It’s one I fell for initially, too, back in the day, so I can relate and I’m sure all’s well.

May strangeness befall you.

Peace.