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In Memory

Mark E. McCandlish

Mark McCandlish passed away April 13, 2021, just nineteen days after his 68th birthday. Mark joined our class at ELHS in February 1969, our sophomore year. He became very involved with school life after settling in. Mark joined the swim team, track team, yearbook committee, the drama club and more. He was a gifted artist and worked on the many backdrops for the production of “Mame” with fellow classmate, the late Dave Smith. He also created the covers for our junior and senior yearbooks. Mark had also been a member of the National Honor Society. Mark even performed his own music composition in the school’s annual Spartanum Spectaculum.

After graduation, Mark attended STCC, Air Force Community College, and later, electronics school at Lowery AFB in Denver-becoming a weapons control systems mechanic at McChord AFB in Tacoma, Washington with the 318th Fighter Interceptor Squadron. After leaving the Service, Mark took many art and design courses over the years. He finally settled in California around 1980.

Mark was an internationally-recognized artist who has specialized in aviation and conceptual art within the defense and aerospace industries for the better part of the last thirty years, serving the needs of many of the top American corporations in this regard. Mark’s father was a twenty-five year veteran of the United States Air Force and as a consequence, Mark has had a life-long love of aircraft and aviation history. His first UFO sighting occurred at Westover Air Force Base in the State of Massachusetts, in the winter of 1966 and he observed the craft through an 80 power telescope for about ten minutes before it accelerated out of sight at an extreme velocity. He later discovered that this craft had been hovering above a flight of nuclear-armed Boeing B-52′s sitting on the Alert Ramp of the flight line on base. Mark had spent most of his life trying to discover the science that would make such incredible performance possible, and he believes there was a plausible answer to interstellar flight without violating the currently-accepted laws of physics. Having had literally dozens of sightings since 1966, he felt certain that this carefully protected technology has been co-opted by an as-yet-unknown group, and the sequestration of this technology has provided that organization tremendous leverage in world politics, finance and international conflicts over the past five decades.

Mark leaves behind his brother Kevin of East Longmeadow, his sister Carol Camerota of Connecticut and many nieces and nephews. Blair’s Direct Cremation & Burial Services is in charge of arrangements in Redding, California.