Buttermilk Mountain is a natural geological mystery that is being exploited for commercial value as and urban myth.
My name is Dr. Jim Vaile. I have spent the past twenty-five years studying these anomalies / phenomena at Buttermilk. Look through my website to learn why Buttermilk Mountain is one of the most overlooked modern mysteries of our time that has never received the critical attention of the scientific community that it deserves.
DATE: Jan. 2008
International Attention for Buttermilk?
How is it that our comrades across the sea are willing to give the Mountain its fair exposure but Americans won't unite to rally behind the cause? Buttermilk Mountain is Alive and the Russians know it!
Date: Jan. 2008
Title: A monster misconstrued
More personal footage is bubbling up - this is not to be dismissed, its the clearest recording of an incident I've ever seen.
Date: December 2007
Title: Video Footage Exploited
New footage on YouTube has gotten the attention of the mass media - help us turn the tides and raise awareness for scientific exploration, not commercial exploitation!
Date: Dec. 2007
Title: Buttermilk Is Alive
I am still feeling bittersweet about the phrase I coined in 1989, "Buttermilk Is Alive." It was a joke among geologists and now it’s a catch phrase that detracts from the credibility of the mountain. The theory that Buttermilk Mountain is a hibernating monster is silly. It starts with delinquent kids spreading folklore about the mountain rather than studying the history and questioning for themselves.
Date: Oct. 2007
Title: Popularity Rising?
I'm seeing the kids in the area wearing BIA T-shirts and yelling things about the mountain. I'm not the most "plugged-in" person to the youth culture, but I get the sense that the mountain is hip again. I am always wary about kids who speak heaps about a subject when they haven't done any reading or research about it. How is it that one of you will write Buttermilk all over your clothes and your gear and not even pick up my newsletter to learn what it’s all about? It’s nonsense.
Date: Nov. 2004
Title: Why No Exposure?
My frustrations about the lack of response I am getting to my findings and to this website are growing. Why hasn't Buttermilk Mountain gotten the same level of celebrity as the Bermuda Triangle? Why haven't these disappearances been as thoroughly investigated? I hate to use the word conspiracy, but Ben Beale may be right...
Date: Nov. 2004
Time: Curious Formation
The weather has been terrible at night, in particular near the rim at 39'12'17.48 w. elev. 2411 there - there is a ridge underneath heaps of snow and heavy wind-blown sediment - discovered some gorgeous cross-bedding. I tried to capture a photograph but even with flash it is too far. With a large lighting rig and a few ten thousand dollars it could be done!
Date: Oct. 2004
Title: Stats Returned
I got the reports back from Katie who works for the radio station - she was able to obtain them but they are very difficult to understand. The gist of it is, her station keeps aware of the ambient electromagnetic levels to prevent spikes of distortion of their programming. These readings are related to weather fluctuations as well. The reports show electromagnetic anomalies and atmospheric aberrations all around Buttermilk - but we knew that to be the case before. What is more difficult is discerning a pattern.
Date: Oct. 2004
Title: Strange Interference
I keep an old-fashioned compass that was given to me by my older brother who passed away over a decade ago. It’s beat up but it works sure as snow and right as rain. I've never had a problem with interpreting its direction. This morning at 7:52 it was spinning around and around like a top. Sure it may be electromagnetic distortion - I understand, but why so violently? At Buttermilk, these incidents seem to be the norm more than the exception.
Date: Nov. 2002
Title: Kick Those Doubts in the Ass
I am not a cheap parlor magician. I think of Buttermilk as mysterious, not mystical. I am not looking for magic out here, I am looking for things that are unusual. I am not interested in myth or ghosts - I leave that to fantasy books. I am interested in reality, and real explanation. When it’s real, it allows people to be curious about discovering something new.
Date: Sept. 2002
Title: Insecurities and Evolution
There are times when I ask myself why do I persist to stay on this damn mountain and push these damn laptop buttons when I can't feel the tips of my fingers? Why do I keep talking about Buttermilk and driving these questions back into the air? Am I just a cheap parlor magician looking for magic? But I remind myself that I know what I believe in - evolution. I do not trust people who are content without explanation. In order to evolve we must ask ourselves WHY? If we don't ask ourselves WHY we will not evolve. There have been over a dozen unresolved disappearances at Buttermilk Mountain and I want to know WHY.
Date: Mar. 2001
Title: Satellite
The only way to study the shifting terrain properly is to monitor the mountain via satellite for the duration of the "incident" season. I am positive that I've witnessed a tree shift about eight feet on the face of the mountain during the season change, but because the weather makes for a huge margin of error, I will not report it. Again, and again and again we hit this wall of frustration - the lack of funding for a noncommercial phenomenon!
Date: Feb. 2001
Title: Fake Explanations Have Got Me Revved Up Again
I've been so distracted putting together my book proposal that I haven't been doing much investigation in the field. Luckily there are enough nimwits in the world to keep me needed. New news, a band of pseudo-scientists and conspiracy theorists have suggested that snowwaves - freakishly large waves of wind and debris - up to 10 m (40 feet) high - are very rare, but do occur at Buttermilk. So I spent the past two weeks in the field. After measuring wind speeds within a forty-degree temp. range and 40 percent humidity sway in some areas, I can fully discredit their measurement. The angle of the mountain is too steep, their snowwaves would crumple on themselves by their own weight. Nice try, mythmakers!
Date: May 1998
Title: Weird
I have to thank landscaper Marc Otten for finding this interesting piece of history*: three years after the Swiss ski industry expert André Roch surveyed the Buttermilk region in the 1930s, a number of Scandinavians from a nearby ashram went missing. There were at least seven members of the community that were never accounted for but the incident was overlooked because America was consumed with the Great Depression and the tense politics of the time.
*I found the article and scanned it. CLICK HERE to access the History section.
Date: Dec. 1994
Title: Inconclusive Again
If Buttermilk is not Alive, then what the hell is it?
Date: Aug. 1994
Title: Weather
Before the mountain became a public recreational area, early land prospectors reported "wispy portals opening in the skies surrounding the peak - cone-shaped gusts of debris - windy demons accompanied by sounds." Before skiing, the value of the land was compromised by what the National Weather Report Service lists as "temporal distortions - electromagnetic distortions capable of storming." The prospectors also described the region as "eerie and alien. There is a quality in this fog that gives one the sense of all things paranormal. Superstition is a strong deterrent: that which cannot be explained cannot be sold."
Date: Mar. 1994
Title: Sparkle-patch is a Porous Crystal!
The tiny fibers of sillimanite and potassium feldspar have pushed forward in a pattern that I am not familiar with, although it is impossible to know whether it was "born" imperfect or whether it became imperfect in the past seventy years since its formation. The fibers have reacted with quartz and formed a crystalline lattice that is very robust. The effect is a porous structure with a much higher elasticity than expected from this region. At least one portion of Buttermilk Mountain has a different composition than its neighboring regions.
Date: Feb. 1994
Title: Muscovite for Sparkle?
This morning I returned to the sparkling patch on the north side of the mountain and tried to capture the phenomenon with the minicam.
The images do not do justice to the beauty of the light in the snow. THE SPARKLE WAS NOT AN ANOMALY. Upon closer inspection I identified the glittery flaky material as partially melted muscovite. (Muscovite captures the coldest melt in metamorphic rock so it’s common in metamorphosed shales but it’s quickly used up in reactions as the temperature rises.) Given the historical climate data of the region (see reference HERE at the Official Climate Index website) the environment should not be suitable for a reaction of this temperature level. I obtained a sample for lab analysis.
Date: Feb. 1994
Title: Beautiful Sparkle
I spent several hours this morning on the north face of the mountain. There is a small patch that sparkles under the snow - from approx 6:14 to 6:47 a.m. the reflection of the sun was brilliant - refracted into a rainbow of colors to the eye but impossible to capture with the minicam. Not unique to this zone, Buttermilk is an unpredictable cornucopia of natural phenomena. Whether or not superstitions have any real basis, there are repeated unusual occurrences that require further study. Predictably, I refute the slogan Andy attributed to me - "Buttermilk is Alive." There is nothing alive or monstrous here - which raises the more interesting question - what exactly is going on at Buttermilk Mountain?
Date: Jan. 1994
Title: Buttermilk & the Alleged Curse
Before the area was transformed by gold, silver, and coal mines, there was a great deal of tradition woven into this mountain and the surrounding region. I've found dozens of book detailing nicknames from the folklore, the most prevalent being "The Great Mouth." I am not a superstitious person, and I follow a strict scientific method - but I also respect the traditions of other cultures. There were rituals devoted to this mountain. Whatever made indigenous people revere Buttermilk was real, and probably still is today.
*There is more information about the alleged curse in the History section.
Date: Dec. 1993
Title: My First Entry*
My colleagues question my intentions when I spend weeks on the mountain and in the surrounding environs. They call my methods extreme or "unnecessary." In truth, it is more convenient for the geological community to make light of my practices and make a joke of my inquiries about Buttermilk. I spend weeks outdoors not because of obsession or mental illness. I stay on the mountain because I want to see what other people have not yet seen. To do that I have to do what other people do not do. There have been historically inexplicable incidents at Buttermilk. For the last two centuries, we do not have enough evidence to build any sort of reasonable theory to explain what has happened at Buttermilk. Perhaps it is time for an unreasonable theory.
*Most of these entries are taken from my logbook, which I carry with me always.
Live Buttermilk Map: Courtesy of Google Maps
