Reality Checking—Alternate Perceptions Magazine, September 2025
Cloverdale Update
by: Brent Raynes
Physicist Rex D. Groves
Lee Freeman setting up his camera
As my deadline for Alternate Perceptions once again looms very closely, physicist Rex D. Groves in the last week of August returns from Florida to the rural landscape of Cloverdale, Alabama, to get with members of CERT (Cloverdale Earthlight Research Team) to begin the set up of three cameras with fisheye lenses, located in a triangular pattern across the landscape, approximately a mile or so apart, with the hopes of capturing these so-called "earthlight" anomalies from different perspectives that will allow them to be triangulated very accurately as to their locations in 3D space. He hopes that this may help to locate a point where we might position ourselves even closer to where the activity is happening. Then again, he admits, "We don't know if these come from one location or if they form in the sky generally."
I asked what he thought we were dealing with here. His theory was the same as several months ago back in March, when he was visiting this site (1). "Plasmas," he replied. "I still think they're plasma of some sort." He mentioned a similar project going on up near a reservoir in Connecticut by a scientific group up there. "They're in the planning stages right now. It's very similar to what we're doing here. We're using similar tools. But their cameras are a little bit different. They're using film and I'm using specialized spectrum cameras."
"We're trying to get an idea what these are. But the first task will be to try and find where they're at physically in 3D space. Is it west? East? They're everywhere. 8:30 at night or 3:30 in the morning. It's really very subjective. So, we're going to try and get a little more accuracy there. It's a challenging project."
As we were all skywatching on the evening of Wednesday, August 27, Lee Freeman, a CERT member and an employee of the Florence library, got to talking with Rex about how he was from West Virginia and had been to the famous site of Point Pleasant, known for its famous association with the so-called "Mothman," and site of the annual Mothman Festival. Rex admitted that his father, back during the 1960s was hunting in the famous TNT area when he claimed he saw the creature.
"It's a very remote area," he began. "He was walking up this road. There were bunkers on either side, and it was right around dusk. He claimed that this 8-foot human type creature with wings came right out of the sky and landed in front of him. He claims it looked at him briefly and just disappeared instantly. Flew away instantly."
Rex indicated that his father described having had "quite a bit of interaction" with "paranormal" type experiences. He admits he had his doubts as to it having been like part of objective reality, "But he was not a crazy man in any way," he was quick to add.
Journalist John Keel did claim finding that in his interviews with "Mothman" witnesses in West Virginia, as well as other cryptids, that (quote): "About half of the witnesses appeared to be people with latent or active psychic abilities, prone to having accurate premonitions, prophetic dreams, extra-sensory perception."
Rex is the head of a seven-person panel investigating these UAP/earthlight phenomena in association with the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an organization of nearly 30,000 members (2).
References:
1. https://www.apmagazine.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2366&Itemid=53
2. https://aiaauap.org
