CFZ-USA

On This Day in Weird, January 7....

1892: An explosion kills 100 coal miners at Krebs, Oklahoma. When black residents volunteer to help white survivors trapped below ground, racist thugs drive them away at gunpoint.

1912: Artist Charles Addams, creator of the "Addams Family, born in New Jersey.

1928: William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, born in New York City.

1929: "Tarzan" debuts as a newspaper comic strip.

1934: Premiere of Alex Raymond's "Flash Gordon" comic strip.

1937: A trawler nets both tentacles and one arm of a giant squid off Bell Rock, Angus, Arbroath, Scotland.

1948: Air Force Capt. Thomas F. Mantell Jr. crashes his jet fighter and dies while chasing a UFO described as "metallic and tremendous in size," near Franklin, Kentucky. Four hours later, fighter pilot Charles E. McGee, air traffic controllers, and amateur astronomer Frank M. Eisele track a UFO near Ohio's Lockbourne Air Force Base.

1950: While driving near Corona, New Mexico, a maintenance officer from Holloman Air Force Base reports a fiery UFO descending behind nearby mountains.

1954: Witnesses report another fiery disk with a luminous tail over Arras, in France's Pas-de-Calais Department.

1970: Witness A. Heinonen, describes a small humanoid with thin arms descending in a beam of light from a hovering UFO, at Imjarvi, Finland.

1970: Bill Taylor sees a 7-foot Sasquatch cross the road in Cheakamus Canyon, near Squamish, British Columbia.

1971: Future horror novelist Stephen King marries Tabitha Spruce in Maine. Happy anniversary!

1974: Two humanoid figures disembark from a helmet-shaped UFO and approach a motorist's car at Warneton, Belgium.

1982: Actress Lauren Cohan, best known for recurring roles on the TV series Supernatural and The Walking Dead, born in England.

1999: Reported sighting of a giant squid off New Zealand, at 43°51.34' S, 173°20'–174°37' E.