It would be impossible to address the dozens, maybe even hundreds, of Ruiz plane crash conspiracies going around right now — broadly, they assert that the president was either shot or poisoned by an assassin before being put on the plane, that he was never on the plane in the first place (and a corpse ringer was substituted for the autopsy), that the tornado that downed the plane was engineered by a Chinese or Iranian weather supermachine, or that Grantham had U.S. military shoot down the aircraft. The theory that is the least likely to me, having grown up in Turner Falls and around the New Life Church, is that Pastor Kathy Donaldson knew she was putting Ruiz on her own faulty aircraft because she aims to enter the ‘24 presidential race. (To be clear, they’re all absolute claptrap.)

The scuttlebutt here in Turner Falls is surprisingly tempered on the conspiracy front, maybe because locals are especially devoted to the aforementioned Kathy “Pastor K” Donaldson, who dedicated a half-hour of her daily PatriotWire/YouTube broadcast on Monday to echoing President Grantham’s (still feels weird typing that out!) calls for calm. The phrases from her online sermon that the pundits are trying hardest to parse seem to be “America’s next chapter” and “prayerful reserve,” which some suspect is an indication that Donaldson has a big announcement coming soon. (I’d be wary of this — supposedly “big” announcements that turn out to be nothingburgers is pretty much the whole M.O. of the PatriotWire crowd.) The Houston Chronicle picked up on both:

But you know who I also heard from? Carron Nielsberg, the tech CEO whose (armed!) folks clocked me when I borrowed Daddy Deke’s Tahoe to check out the situation at Treetops Trailer Community last week after hearing reports that “RevTech” vans — a possible Nielsberg operation — had been spotted around town.

I am purposefully burying the lede in this newsletter because I’m still looking into this and I want to protect my chances of being first on the full story, but I can’t not share this absolutely insane photo I took before I got run off the Treetops property last Wednesday:

Did y’all see E.T.? I mean, it’s been thirty years since I watched, but … the hell is going on????

I think I only got as far as I did into Treetops because my Daddy Deke lent me his most ridiculous truck — a lifted, red Chevy (tailgate, not doors, this is very important to him) — and was able to park at his friend’s place. There have been a number of service vehicles entering the community since the Independence Day tornado, but I was still pretty surprised that nobody looked sideways at me until I got as close to the action as I did.

What I saw: a number of Treetops trailers shrouded in what appear to be the kind of fumigation tents you’d cover a house with in extreme cases of pest removal. (If you’ve seen Breaking Bad, you have an idea.) A few homes were covered in customized yellow tents that to me read as “hazardous material” type fabric, and there were probably a dozen folks filing in and out of a half-dozen trailers in similarly yellow HazMat-type suits. The whole area smelled vaguely of vinegar — not particularly strange, there’s a Best Maid factory nearby — but it was somehow … tangy … in a rancid way, not in a pickle way.

I can absolutely confirm that the “RevTech” logo with a sunrise and an “on” button was present on a number of the vehicles, tents, and various apparatus around the area. I think it’s safe to assume this is some kind of Carron Nielsberg effort (read on for further confirmation).

This was about as close as I could get (and I had to zoom in, sorry, there is no magical “enhance” for photos in the real world), but you can see a sun-type logo with an “on” tech button in the middle of the peak on this tent. Beneath it, the text reads “REVTECH: RISE UP.”

Before I got close to the tented section, which was confined to the southern (and harder to access, because it’s the furthest from the I-30 Frontage Road) part of Treetops, I stopped to talk with a few residents, who said they’d seen RevTech vans and trucks move in as early as the morning of July 5th, and were told that the initial influx was part of a tornado recovery project funded by FEMA and the Red Cross. I’ve put in a FOIA request to see if this is the case or to what extent, but I’ve covered a number of severe weather events and never seen anything like what was going on at Treetops — with the exception of the first few weeks of the COVID pandemic hitting New York City, when responders were organizing remote triage and mass burials. The locals seemed perfectly healthy, and were not unwilling to chat. No one wore masks (not especially unusual in East Texas, even during COVID). Nobody said anything about signing paperwork or NDAs. Whatever RevTech or Nielsberg are trying to hide, they are not trying that hard. (Or they know I’m the only person looking.)

I snapped a few photos, including the one I’ve included above, before a surly man in a grey suit spotted me and asked if I was a resident. I was inclined to fib, but didn’t. I said I was visiting a friend, which I think is an accurate-enough representation of my presence, and that I was a local journalist, which is a more-accurate-than-I’d-like representation. Suit Guy said the area was “quarantined” and advised me to return to the northern bloc of the neighborhood.

I wish I’d pushed back, but honestly? I was not going to argue with these guys. I had just enough gumption to take a photo and scoot away.

This was a small but revelatory moment of understanding what it’s like to be a #FreezeRuiz protester staring down an open-carry LibertyNow! supporter who’s been federally sanctioned to enforce Harrow restrictions as a private citizen. I’ve covered domestic conflicts and protests for years now, but always felt like I had automatic protection from my press badge. I don’t generally write, and have never written, about the behind-the-scenes nuances of being a journalist in the Trump/Ruiz era, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s because I always felt unduly protected by a business-card-sized piece of plastic.

Later, I reached out to Nielsberg’s comms person to get more details.

After this nudge, Nielsberg reached out to me late last Friday afternoon, just a few minutes after the White House and the Ruiz Commission released the “black box” and autopsy reports.

(“Tara” in this exchange is Nielsberg’s “comms specialist,” the same person in the email exchange above.)

The gist: Nielsberg not only didn’t deny that he’s doing something here in Turner Falls, but indicated that he or his folks are indeed actively on the ground at Treetops. He hinted at something happening on 7/23, but then dropped off our thread. This is pretty typical for him — he’s a chatterbox until he isn’t. But longtime readers know I will dog a source until I get some answers, and I think folks in Gallum County are entitled to know what’s going on out there at Treetops.

So I’m posting this here as a public nudge for him (or Tara, hello Tara, if you’re reading this) to get back to me. See you on the 23rd?

What else I’m reading right now:

• “Woman suing Texas over abortion ban vomits on the stand in emotional reaction during dramatic hearing” (NBC News)

• “East Texas pastor arrested, charged with indecency with a child” (Tyler Morning Telegraph)

• “Texas’ Harsh New Border Tactics Are Injuring Migrants” (NYT)

• “Texas prisoners struggle to endure heat wave in facilities without air conditioning” (Texas Public Radio)

You can take the job away from the reporter, but you can’t take the reporter away from the keyboard. Subscribe to Minne Moves Home for dispatches on national news, the ‘24 presidential race, and snapshots of small-town Texas life.