What was the Strange Box Found in a Missouri Coal Mine?

The grandfather of a local man by the name of Vern W. told him a strange tale about something that happened in the 1920's. This event occurred in a coal mine near the small town of Fleming, Missouri, northeast of Kansas City in Ray County.

Vern's grandfather was working inside the mine along side other men, when they found a metal box buried inside the bituminous coal seam. Shocked at the find, the men carefully dug around the box. They were unable to open it, and gave it to the mine owner, who took it away quickly and put it in a safe place. The mine owner was Alfred Walton Fleming of St. Louis, who purchased the land and operated the coal mine.

Not long afterward, some men from the government came to visit Mr. Fleming, and demanded that he turn over the box, which he did. The men took the box away, and were never seen again. No one knows how the government found out about this, or exactly who these men were.

The question is, how did a metal box become embedded in coal that is millions of years old?  Why didn't the metal deteriorate over time? Could we be talking about time travel, or perhaps alien visitation at an earlier time?  Unfortunately, we will likely never know the answer to these questions.

In doing research for this article, I found it rather odd that there is little information available about Mr. Alfred Walton Fleming or this particular coal mine.

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Margie Kay is a paranormal researcher living in Independence, Missouri. www.margiekay.com.