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Speaker 2: Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3: We were headed home. Worked thirty miles from home, so
Speaker 3: it's a bit of a drive. We loaded up all
Speaker 3: our equipment in the back of the truck.
Speaker 4: There.
Speaker 3: Everybody's tired, so there was various conversations going on in
Speaker 3: the truck. Two here or too there like that. As
Speaker 3: we were jouncing along this little logging trail, I could
Speaker 3: see a glow through the trees up ahead. The whole
Speaker 3: clearing there had this really strange glow to it, sort
Speaker 3: of a feel. I don't know, maybe there was some
Speaker 3: kind of electrical charge in the air, so I'm just
Speaker 3: had a really weird vibe to it. It made things
Speaker 3: you see at work all day look really strange in
Speaker 3: this strange glow. We got to a point where we
Speaker 3: were past the thickest part of the growth and we
Speaker 3: could see the source of this light boom therewise. It
Speaker 3: was unmistakable.
Speaker 1: Welcome to high strange. I traveled to Snowflake, Arizona, to
Speaker 1: meet with a man named Travis Walton. In nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 1: he was working with a logging crew deep in the
Speaker 1: woods outside of town when they encountered a flying saucer.
Speaker 1: There were seven witnesses in the truck who all claimed
Speaker 1: to have seen the same thing. But the story only
Speaker 1: really begins there, because immediately after their alleged UFO sighting,
Speaker 1: Travis Walton would go missing five whole days, while his
Speaker 1: coworkers were interrogated by police and under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 2: On the night of November.
Speaker 1: Fifth, nineteen seventy five, as Travis and his crew were
Speaker 1: driving home, they noticed a bright light in the sky
Speaker 1: that lit up all the surrounding trees, and as they
Speaker 1: reached a clearing, the source of this light came into focus.
Speaker 3: Boom, there it was. It was just unmistakable. It was
Speaker 3: clearly a metallic disk. Nothing between us and it. Some
Speaker 3: indistinct glow suddenly becomes this craft hovering there. I yelled
Speaker 3: might stop the truck, and as soon as he stopped,
Speaker 3: I threw open the door, thinking this thing would just
Speaker 3: take off. It's just a real common thing. You get
Speaker 3: a glimpse of a wolf or a mountain lion or something,
Speaker 3: and you try to call the attention of the crew.
Speaker 3: It's gone before they came and turned their head. I
Speaker 3: kind of had that feeling about it, that it would
Speaker 3: just be gone. I got close, so I jumped out
Speaker 3: and started towards it. I just acted on impulse. It
Speaker 3: definitely alarmed the other guys. They're calling at me to
Speaker 3: get back in the truck.
Speaker 2: Most lying head.
Speaker 3: I was just hoping it would take off before I
Speaker 3: got any closer. It was a pale, golden color, metallic.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like when you look at a television screen.
Speaker 3: It's a source of light, but at the same time,
Speaker 3: the light from the window is reflecting off the screen.
Speaker 3: I could see the surrounding trees reflected off the surface
Speaker 3: at the same time it was glowing. Guys were yelling
Speaker 3: at me to get back in the truck and swearing
Speaker 3: at me, let's get the hell out of here. I
Speaker 3: didn't want to act scared. I was trying to act brave,
Speaker 3: but I was terrified. The sound that was making was
Speaker 3: very complex mixture of tones. There was a high pitched frequency,
Speaker 3: and there was a low, throbbing, sort of a real
Speaker 3: super base note. The frequency there was so wide that
Speaker 3: it was kind of like off the range of human hearing.
Speaker 3: The really low notes you sort of felt in your body.
Speaker 3: The sound suddenly got louder when it started to move.
Speaker 3: When I jumped for cover, I just sort of dove
Speaker 3: down and forward behind the log. But what they did
Speaker 3: was it brought me that much closer to the craft,
Speaker 3: and now I'm practically underneath it, screaming at me and
Speaker 3: swearing at me to get back in the truck. Stood
Speaker 3: up to run back to the truck, and as soon
Speaker 3: as I did, bam, something hit me, kind of a
Speaker 3: stunning force, electric shock, feeling like getting hit by truck.
Speaker 3: They saw me fly through the air and land like
Speaker 3: a dead body. I was almost immediately unconscious.
Speaker 1: On November fifth, nineteen seventy five, Travis Walton had an
Speaker 1: experience that would change the.
Speaker 2: Course of his life forever.
Speaker 1: His six coworkers claimed to have seen Travis struck by
Speaker 1: a bluish green beam of light and sent him flying
Speaker 1: twenty feet in the air. Terrified out of their minds,
Speaker 1: the men panicked and sped into town for help. At
Speaker 1: the time, the six men were convinced that Travis was
Speaker 1: killed by that strange beam of light, and on their
Speaker 1: way into town, pulled off the road to gather their thoughts,
Speaker 1: quickly deciding they needed to go back, but when they
Speaker 1: got there, Travis was gone. The men drove to the
Speaker 1: sheriff's department to report him missing, only to find out
Speaker 1: they would instantly become suspects in its disappearance.
Speaker 5: The encounter took place in the Sitgreaves National Forest in
Speaker 5: eastern Arizona, on the edge of the Mogoyan Rim.
Speaker 6: They just knocked him backwards through the air, like as
Speaker 6: if some sort of an explosion had gone off in
Speaker 6: front of him.
Speaker 3: It was that dramatic.
Speaker 5: After seeing travistruck, the other crew members did not want
Speaker 5: to investigate anything. They left the area.
Speaker 7: Mike Rogers and the other five witnesses returned only to
Speaker 7: find Travis missing. After they told their astounding story to
Speaker 7: the police, they came under suspicion of murder and attend
Speaker 7: search for Travis Walton proceeded for three days, dogs and helicopters.
Speaker 7: They were unable to find him or any signs of
Speaker 7: where he was.
Speaker 5: Travis was missing for five days as people searched the
Speaker 5: woods for him.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, according to Travis, his nightmare was really just beginning.
Speaker 3: But next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Speaker 2: What'd you see around you when you woke up?
Speaker 3: It was just a light above me, and the ceiling
Speaker 3: was so close. I figured that maybe I was in
Speaker 3: the hospital. The light wasn't all that bright, but it
Speaker 3: hurt my eyes to look at it. Everything else was
Speaker 3: really dark, and this light was above me like that.
Speaker 3: I was in a lot of pain. I felt like
Speaker 3: something was seriously wrong. I felt mortally wounded. I finally
Speaker 3: did look around. Everything was blurry. I couldn't focus real good.
Speaker 3: I could see what I thought were doctors standing over me.
Speaker 3: I assumed they were doctors at first, cause my vision
Speaker 3: was blurry. As soon as I could focus, I could
Speaker 3: see these weren't doctors. Pretty soon my vision cleared and
Speaker 3: I could see the faces of these creatures. They were small, hairless,
Speaker 3: huge eyes, and I think that partially explained the dim
Speaker 3: light in there. The large eyes. I was terrified. It
Speaker 3: was straining the limits of my mind to cope with
Speaker 3: the situation. That instant jolt of fear made me much
Speaker 3: more fully awake I felt mortally wounded. I felt like
Speaker 3: I was dying, and I associated this pain with seeing them.
Speaker 3: I tried to roll away from them, rolled off of
Speaker 3: the table. They had some kind of a device on
Speaker 3: my chest that fell off. I backed away, screaming, crying.
Speaker 3: They weren't close enough to actually hit, but I was
Speaker 3: making it clear that if they did approach me, that
Speaker 3: I would fight against them. With them, I was thinking
Speaker 3: of fighting my way past them because there was a door,
Speaker 3: an opening. It looked like escaped to me. It was
Speaker 3: the only way out. I was gonna fight my way
Speaker 3: past them and try to escape. I immediately figured I'm
Speaker 3: inside that thing that I saw. You know, that all
Speaker 3: came together real fast. Before I could put that little
Speaker 3: plan into action, they suddenly stopped turning and went out
Speaker 3: the door. That was my chance to escape, find a
Speaker 3: way out. I went in the other direction, just a narrow,
Speaker 3: cramped hallway. I was having trouble breathing. It hurt to breathe.
Speaker 3: I felt suffocation. I don't know whether that was an
Speaker 3: injury to my chest or lungs or heart or something,
Speaker 3: or if there was something not appropriate for humans in
Speaker 3: the interior of that craft. But I was just desperate
Speaker 3: to find my way out of it, in a irrational
Speaker 3: panic sort of way, thinking I could just find a
Speaker 3: way to open a hatch and drop to the ground.
Speaker 3: You know, I didn't really have a picture in my
Speaker 3: mind of the layout of this craft. I was just
Speaker 3: blindly looking for openings. There was a room. I approached
Speaker 3: some instruments controls of some kind, thinking that they might
Speaker 3: open the door. Fooling with these buttons and levers and
Speaker 3: things didn't seem to do anything at all. There was
Speaker 3: panicked and irrational as I was, I still had the
Speaker 3: idea that what I was doing could make things a
Speaker 3: lot worse. But there was a change in light from
Speaker 3: the door I had come through. When I turned and
Speaker 3: I saw a man that I immediately concluded was someone
Speaker 3: there to save me from these monsters. Looked like a
Speaker 3: human being, but different and unusual ways to I ran
Speaker 3: up to him and started screaming about these creatures. He
Speaker 3: didn't really react much to what I was saying. I
Speaker 3: thought maybe he couldn't hear me because he had a
Speaker 3: helmet on. He took me by the arm to lead
Speaker 3: me out of there. I was only too willing to go.
Speaker 3: Took me out of the craft. There was a ramp
Speaker 3: not stairs going down looked really too steep to be
Speaker 3: walking on, but it wasn't slippery at all. It was
Speaker 3: much brighter outside. It had been comparatively dark in the
Speaker 3: interior of this craft. The whole ceiling lit up with
Speaker 3: what looked like sunlight coming through a lot cooler, wasn't
Speaker 3: as hot. I tried to look around a little bit.
Speaker 3: There was some other disc shaped metallic craft of a
Speaker 3: different configuration, more rounded. But mainly I was very concerned
Speaker 3: with where I was being taken, and I had a
Speaker 3: growing anxiety about not getting any response from this guy.
Speaker 3: This room that we were in was huge. It was
Speaker 3: real high ceilings and very airy and empty. But he
Speaker 3: took me through some doors and down a hallway into
Speaker 3: another room, and here were some people dressed like him,
Speaker 3: except without the helmets. So I'm thinking, finally, somebody can
Speaker 3: tell me what's going on. So I start begging for answers,
Speaker 3: demanding answers. Was still not getting any response, which really
Speaker 3: set off the alarm bells. They were trying to get
Speaker 3: me to lay down on this table there, and I
Speaker 3: started to resist, and so I tried to fight them.
Speaker 3: I was still very weak. I was feeling real shaky
Speaker 3: and wounded. They didn't have that much trouble getting me down,
Speaker 3: in spite of my adrenaline from a fear, just screaming
Speaker 3: and fighting. They seemed much stronger than me, and they
Speaker 3: overpowered me and put me on that table and one
Speaker 3: of them put a mask over my face and I
Speaker 3: tried to get it off. Immediately before I could, I
Speaker 3: blacked out.
Speaker 1: This story sounds absolutely unbelievable, trust me, I know. But
Speaker 1: while Travis Walton was missing for five days, the police
Speaker 1: also found this unbelievable. The six men who witnessed Travis
Speaker 1: being struck by the beam from the craft were being
Speaker 1: investigated for murder. Five days feels like a very long
Speaker 1: time to keep up a hoax when you're starting to
Speaker 1: face potential murder charges.
Speaker 2: Out of the five days Travis was.
Speaker 1: Unaccounted for, he remembers only one hour total and nothing else.
Speaker 6: This was a very emotional thing for Travis's family and
Speaker 6: emotional for us. Travis was my best friend and our
Speaker 6: whole lives have been disrupted by this. We wondered if
Speaker 6: we would ever see him again.
Speaker 7: Arrangements were made for PSI Gilson, a highly qualified polygraph
Speaker 7: examiner to conduct the polygraphs on the six witnesses to
Speaker 7: Travis Walton's UNO encounter. Did the utmost care in administering
Speaker 7: these light detected tests was exercise. Because the men were
Speaker 7: under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 1: Convinced that these men had murdered Travis, the sheriff ordered
Speaker 1: Arizona State Police polygraph examiner Psyke Gilson to conduct light
Speaker 1: detector tests on the crew members.
Speaker 6: Once the tests got underway, he started changing his mind
Speaker 6: very quickly. After he had test at about three of
Speaker 6: the six, he seemed to be acting differently. By the
Speaker 6: time he had tested all of us, he seemed to
Speaker 6: be able. I talked to him after the test and
Speaker 6: he indicated to me, but apparently.
Speaker 3: He was wrong.
Speaker 6: Unofficially, he said that he believed that we had told
Speaker 6: the truth because five of us passed the test. He
Speaker 6: wrote in his report that we had told the truth.
Speaker 6: That apparently there had been a UFO.
Speaker 1: Five out of the six men passed their polygraphs and
Speaker 1: the last was found to be inconclusive. While the Sheriff's
Speaker 1: department tried to make sense of their outlanders story and
Speaker 1: debated pressing charges, all of a sudden, Travis magically reappeared
Speaker 1: around twenty miles away from the original site.
Speaker 3: When I woke up, I felt the cold, hard payment
Speaker 3: under me. There was a light above. I just looked
Speaker 3: to see where the light was coming from. Then I
Speaker 3: could see this shiny surface, this craft, and it went
Speaker 3: off just as I looked, shot up into the sky. Uh.
Speaker 3: I could see the lights of the town down below.
Speaker 3: Ran down there was a building with some lights on,
Speaker 3: and pounded on the door, screaming like a maniac. Nobody came.
Speaker 3: Nobody came, So I ran farther into town. I ran
Speaker 3: down there and found a row of telephone booths. Made
Speaker 3: a collect call to my family.
Speaker 5: On November eleventh, Travis called his brother in law from
Speaker 5: this phone booth.
Speaker 2: When did you first learn that you had been missing
Speaker 2: it all?
Speaker 3: When my brother picked me up and put me in
Speaker 3: the truck, and he literally picked me up. He was
Speaker 3: talking about how traumatic it was for my mother, and uh,
Speaker 3: he could tell that I thought this was the same night,
Speaker 3: This conscious interval in there was not that long. It
Speaker 3: certainly wasn't five days. I didn't know who that five
Speaker 3: days had gone by. And he said, try, I must
Speaker 3: fill your face and I had a five day growth
Speaker 3: of beard. That was the stunner. I was just so
Speaker 3: completely in a state of terror that I I couldn't
Speaker 3: even speak. I was just too messed up. When he
Speaker 3: was embracing me, he on to me and took care
Speaker 3: of me. I was in terrible shape.
Speaker 5: In the five days he was missing, Travis remembers only
Speaker 5: two hours and those, he says, were aboard the spacecraft.
Speaker 2: Where was he the rest of the time?
Speaker 1: When was it that you were maybe first reported missing?
Speaker 3: Immediately they went straight to the sheriff and told him
Speaker 3: what well. They said, one of her crew is missing.
Speaker 3: He might be dead, and the sheriff's ears purke of
Speaker 3: oh yeah. The night that they reported it, they did
Speaker 3: go back to the site. All three of the lawmen
Speaker 3: went out there with the crew, and the next day
Speaker 3: this massive man hunt.
Speaker 7: And attend search for Travis Walton proceeded. For three days,
Speaker 7: dogs and helicopters. They were unable to find him or
Speaker 7: any signs of where he was.
Speaker 3: The crew had been through five days of attacks of
Speaker 3: being accused of murdering me. They figured this was just
Speaker 3: a cover up for a murder, including my brother. He
Speaker 3: definitely thought that they'd killed me and got very aggressive
Speaker 3: with them trying to get him to fess up. They
Speaker 3: figured this was just a cover up. They were going
Speaker 3: to find the body and these guys were gonna hang
Speaker 3: for it. Each crewman was interviewed by a different law
Speaker 3: enforcement officer and they wrote in their report the descriptions,
Speaker 3: how do seven people have the same hallucination?
Speaker 1: The six witnesses to Travis Walton's UFO encounter have made
Speaker 1: several statements in the years following, all collectively maintaining their stories.
Speaker 1: I found some quotes from each of them. Alan Dallas said,
Speaker 1: we couldn't believe what was happening. Horror was unreal. Kenneth Peterson.
Speaker 1: I saw a bluish light come from the machine and
Speaker 1: Travis went flying like he've been touched by a live wire.
Speaker 1: Steve Pierce that ray was the brightest thing I've ever
Speaker 1: seen in my whole life.
Speaker 2: Dwayne Smith.
Speaker 1: The UFO was smooth and giving off a yellowish orange light.
Speaker 1: Mike Rogers in nineteen seventy five said, I've been working
Speaker 1: these woods for over ten years, and this is the
Speaker 1: damnedest thing that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 2: Then again in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1: I've been working these woods for over thirty years, and
Speaker 1: this is still the damnedest thing that's ever happened to
Speaker 1: me and John Goulette. I know what I saw, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything from this earth. Let's take a step
Speaker 1: back here and just look at what we know. Travis
Speaker 1: has not changed his story in nearly fifty years, which,
Speaker 1: if he were lying, is at least pretty impressive. I
Speaker 1: feel like if I was part of some elaborate abduction hoax,
Speaker 1: the second the police started framing me for murder, I'd
Speaker 1: probably hang it up.
Speaker 2: Sorry, we're just kidding. He's right here.
Speaker 1: I definitely wouldn't demand for truth serum or a polygraph test.
Speaker 1: Travis also lost over ten pounds during the five days
Speaker 1: he was missing. Objectively, I feel like there's probably three
Speaker 1: potential explanations for all this. A. Travis and the six
Speaker 1: other men are lying, and they've kept this gag going
Speaker 1: now for nearly half a century. But for the story
Speaker 1: to be entirely made up, Travis had to have been
Speaker 1: hiding for five days somewhere, intentionally starving himself and not shaving.
Speaker 1: In this scenario, it seems likely that someone else had
Speaker 1: to be involved to pull it off. Everyone in town
Speaker 1: was searching for Travis, even his own brother b They
Speaker 1: experienced something else out there, something just as unexplainable, but
Speaker 1: they were all convinced it was a spacecraft when it
Speaker 1: actually wasn't. Maybe it was some sort of natural phenomenon
Speaker 1: and it created this bizarre sensory illusion. But whatever it was,
Speaker 1: it still clearly injured Travis, and maybe from there he
Speaker 1: was in some sort of coma state for days, just
Speaker 1: wandering in the woods somehow not killing himself or see
Speaker 1: it really happens.
Speaker 8: He spent five days on the UFO.
Speaker 4: For all intent and purposes, he spent five days on there.
Speaker 4: He did come in contact with some beings or human like,
Speaker 4: but they weren't human obviously.
Speaker 3: Duane, you know your own brother probably better than anybody else.
Speaker 2: Do you believe the story?
Speaker 5: I've never seen him play a practical joke and as
Speaker 5: adult lie.
Speaker 2: What do you say to those who just say, oh,
Speaker 2: you're friendshit?
Speaker 3: Well, you know, to each his own. People have all
Speaker 3: kinds of theories and beliefs anything in today's world, all
Speaker 3: kinds of contending points of view and theories and stuff. Everything,
Speaker 3: It all comes down to facts and reasoning. Are your
Speaker 3: facts true and complete, and is your reasoning valid. Failure
Speaker 3: to prove is not disproof. I've gotten very abstract in
Speaker 3: how people should evaluate claims. You see it back and
Speaker 3: forth with these political debates. If you have something, lay
Speaker 3: it out there, invite examination.
Speaker 1: It makes complete sense to me how any rational person
Speaker 1: would hesitate to believe Travis Walton's story, And personally, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you I myself was very skeptical throughout the whole
Speaker 1: process up until he finally sat down to tell me
Speaker 1: a story. I don't consider myself an expert in human
Speaker 1: deception by any means, but I have dealt with a
Speaker 1: lot of liars in my time as a podcaster, murder suspects,
Speaker 1: drug dealers, actual murderers, you name it. And there was
Speaker 1: something sincere about Travis. I'm convinced that even if this
Speaker 1: didn't actually happen, at this point, Travis Walton himself still
Speaker 1: believes it.
Speaker 4: I don't know mother Travis Walton selling the truth or not.
Speaker 4: As I stand here totally open minded. The Travis Walton
Speaker 4: cases I understand that had a fair amount of polygraph
Speaker 4: involvement before I was asked who become involved.
Speaker 1: This is Cleve Baxter, an interrogation expert for the CIA.
Speaker 8: Before Travis Walton reappeared.
Speaker 4: After the alleged production, the Arizona Department of Public Safety
Speaker 4: got quite concerned that there may have been foul play
Speaker 4: and that these six individuals on that tree cutting team
Speaker 4: may have committed to crime and were trying to hide
Speaker 4: the crime, perhaps by reporting the UFO abduction. The six
Speaker 4: were tested by cy Gilson of the Arizona Department of
Speaker 4: Public Safety.
Speaker 8: Five of them passed. One of them is inconclusive merely.
Speaker 4: Because of the person's general nervous tension, not because there
Speaker 4: was any failure. In other words, we have three determinations
Speaker 4: in polygraph testing and our opinion they're being truthful.
Speaker 8: In our opinion they're being deceptive or what we don't know.
Speaker 3: There was certain forensic that went on at the site.
Speaker 3: There was there with a Geiger counter. They found evidence
Speaker 3: of elevated radiation. Seven witnesses all passing police light detector tests,
Speaker 3: and every theory to try to explain it away has failed.
Speaker 2: Do you want people to believe you?
Speaker 3: I think it's important for people to understand that this
Speaker 3: is real. You don't want to believe it, fine, have
Speaker 3: it your way.
Speaker 1: Do you realize how unbelievable it could sound to somebody.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I understand, you know, from the outside, especially
Speaker 3: somebody who doesn't know about the physical evidence. I understand
Speaker 3: how it can sound to people who don't want to
Speaker 3: believe it. Then I have to look very far to
Speaker 3: find a reason not to. You ever had a political
Speaker 3: argument in the recent years, you can see how people
Speaker 3: can be impervious to facts. How do you know what's true?
Speaker 3: How do you evaluate claims? What's a fair examination of
Speaker 3: the evidence. I really think the entire society would benefit
Speaker 3: from understanding what true critical thinking is. How do you
Speaker 3: know what's true? How do you evaluate claims in a
Speaker 3: fair and unbiased way. You don't begin with a conclusion.
Speaker 3: You gather the evidence first. I think we have enough
Speaker 3: astronomy knowledge of the universe around us to know that
Speaker 3: it would be the most stupendously unlikely thing for this
Speaker 3: to be the only life in all of this vast expanse.
Speaker 3: Virtually every star has about a dozen planets going around it.
Speaker 3: Not only are all these trillions of stars that we
Speaker 3: can see from here having planets going around them, some
Speaker 3: of them are vastly older. It's the height of arrogance
Speaker 3: to presume that we're the only living thing that could
Speaker 3: possibly have come into being If the tiniest fraction a
Speaker 3: tenth of one percent of these stars have a planet
Speaker 3: that could possibly be life supporting, the arrogance to assume
Speaker 3: that they couldn't possibly come here just because we don't
Speaker 3: know how to go there is ridiculous. Two hundred years ago,
Speaker 3: the most technological thing we had was fire. We could
Speaker 3: break rocks into sharp things, and we had fire. That
Speaker 3: was the extent of our technology. The incredible technological development
Speaker 3: of just the last ten or twenty years project that forward.
Speaker 3: Imagine a species of similar potential having a thousand years
Speaker 3: to go at five times the time we've had one
Speaker 3: hundred years ago. You could describe what is commonplace today
Speaker 3: based on what we know about the age of these
Speaker 3: star systems. Some of them are vastly older than us.
Speaker 3: Logically speaking, would therefore be more advanced than we are
Speaker 3: in terms of science, physics, and the power to travel
Speaker 3: such great distances. It's kookie to think that, yeah, we know,
Speaker 3: there's trillions of planets, but only one has life and
Speaker 3: it's right here all the rest of it. That's the
Speaker 3: kookie thing. Once we look around and understand the true
Speaker 3: enormity of the universe. It's not kooky to think that
Speaker 3: there's other life in the universe. It's kookie to think
Speaker 3: there isn't. What are the odds that this would be
Speaker 3: so completely unique. There's literally trillions of opportunities for the
Speaker 3: situation to have come. I learned a lot about how
Speaker 3: to deal with people's reluctance to believe this also evolved
Speaker 3: in my own perception of it. The fascination sometimes hinges
Speaker 3: on the fact that people think of this as some
Speaker 3: nightmare except the reality of the phenomenon. But let's set
Speaker 3: aside the idea that it's something to be afraid of.
Speaker 2: Here's Leslie Kane again.
Speaker 9: What makes a case credible is when there's a lot
Speaker 9: of data. Definitely, multiple witnesses is a basic criteria. I
Speaker 9: think the abduction cases are less credible because there just
Speaker 9: isn't enough evidence to prove those stories. I mean, they
Speaker 9: obviously meant a lot to the people, but let's just
Speaker 9: put those aside because I don't work on those cases anyway.
Speaker 9: If the fact is that we're not alone, it's a
Speaker 9: scientific fact, like knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Right,
Speaker 9: or knowing that the Earth isn't flat. Everyone has a
Speaker 9: right to know. Other people make arguments that if it's
Speaker 9: going to be really harmful, maybe it's better not to know.
Speaker 9: We think of ourselves as being the top of the
Speaker 9: food chain, right, We're it to imagine that that's actually
Speaker 9: not the case. We don't know the psychological effect that's
Speaker 9: going to have. We don't know what effect it will
Speaker 9: have on religion, on economic institutions. We don't know how
Speaker 9: that'll affect our interaction with other countries who are also
Speaker 9: working on this. Maybe it'll be a good thing because
Speaker 9: we'll unify. There's one planetary civilization who has to face
Speaker 9: this external reality. A lot of others believe they'll just
Speaker 9: be a lot of disturbances in our social fabric.
Speaker 2: I agree with Leslie here.
Speaker 1: If the government, or any entity for that matter, knows
Speaker 1: something profound, like the existence of extraterrestrial beings, everyone should
Speaker 1: have the right to know. But society has had a
Speaker 1: long track record of struggling to accept new information. Many
Speaker 1: great minds throughout history have been labeled a heretic for
Speaker 1: their own profound discoveries. Example, Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher
Speaker 1: from the fifteen hundreds believe that the universe was infinite
Speaker 1: in size and that the Earth is not the center
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: People didn't like that very much.
Speaker 1: He was sentenced to seven years in prison and eventually
Speaker 1: ordered to be burned at the stake by the Pope.
Speaker 2: Everything he said was true.
Speaker 10: This is the ultimate human story, isn't it?
Speaker 3: Are we alone?
Speaker 2: Here's Brian bender again, a.
Speaker 10: Mystery that has been dogging us basically since the beginning
Speaker 10: of recorded human history. John Winthrop, who was governor of
Speaker 10: the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the sixteen hundreds, there's several
Speaker 10: entries in his diary of this mass hysteria off Boston
Speaker 10: when these fishermen came back. If you read it today,
Speaker 10: sounds a whole lot like the pig packs.
Speaker 1: On March first, sixteen thirty nine, John Winthrop wrote in
Speaker 1: his diary about a very unusual event what he described
Speaker 1: as a quote sober and discreet man witnessed strange glowing
Speaker 1: objects in the sky darting back and.
Speaker 2: Forth over the village of Charlestown.
Speaker 1: He describes them as swift as an arrow, and that
Speaker 1: many other credible people saw the same lights at the
Speaker 1: same place. Among other notable accounts of UFOs and American history.
Speaker 1: Our own US presidents have made numerous comments over the years,
Speaker 1: including Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 11: We saw of bright light up here in the distant
Speaker 11: western skies, and it got closer and closer, and when
Speaker 11: it was just above the treetops, hit changed color. And
Speaker 11: then they stayed there for a while, and then it
Speaker 11: disappeared into the distance. And I still don't know what
Speaker 11: it was.
Speaker 2: Here's Barack Obama.
Speaker 12: There's footage and records of objects in the skies that
Speaker 12: we don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain
Speaker 12: how they moved their trajectory.
Speaker 13: And Ronald Reagan, we often forget how much unites all
Speaker 13: the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal
Speaker 13: threat to make us recognize this common bound. I occasionally
Speaker 13: think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we
Speaker 13: were facing an aai in threat from outside this.
Speaker 1: World, just like the Roswell incident in nineteen forty seven.
Speaker 1: UFOs and aliens are also famously synonymous with a top
Speaker 1: secret military base in the desert of Nevada, best known
Speaker 1: as Area fifty one. For decades, there have been countless
Speaker 1: rumors of alien bodies and spacecraft being hidden and tested there,
Speaker 1: stuff that was stretched the limits of pretty much anyone's imagination.
Speaker 1: And regardless of all the conspiracy chatter, what remains true
Speaker 1: is its existence.
Speaker 9: Area fifty ones like part of this mythology, it's just
Speaker 9: become the sort of mecca for people. For a while,
Speaker 9: they wouldn't even acknowledge there was.
Speaker 3: Such a place.
Speaker 9: We know it exists, but it's extremely secretive.
Speaker 1: The highly classified US Air Force facility was created in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't until twenty thirteen the
Speaker 1: CIA acknowledged it was actually there, located deep in the
Speaker 1: desert of Nova, surrounded by mountains, with signs all around
Speaker 1: the base warning that deadly force will be used on trespassers.
Speaker 1: It's clear that whatever they do in there, they don't
Speaker 1: want us knowing about it.
Speaker 10: If you're building a secret airplane at Area fifty one
Speaker 10: and you don't want the Russians to know, or the
Speaker 10: Chinese or anybody else, you're potentially benefiting from this sort
Speaker 10: of craze of UFO sidings all over the place, and
Speaker 10: maybe it's even in your interest to kind of spread
Speaker 10: that a little more. Then people start looking over there,
Speaker 10: and they don't look over here where you don't want.
Speaker 3: Them to look.
Speaker 10: Maybe one of those UFO sidings was actually a test
Speaker 10: flight of a secret airplane there building.
Speaker 1: If I'm going to continue down this UFO rabbit hole,
Speaker 1: which I've clearly committed to doing at this point, then
Speaker 1: I want to get as close as possible to Area
Speaker 1: fifty one and see for myself what all the fuss
Speaker 1: is about.
Speaker 14: Located in the middle of nowhere, Area fifty one has
Speaker 14: been at the center of some of this country's most
Speaker 14: closely guarded secrets, but only now has the government officially
Speaker 14: acknowledged the existence of Area fifty one in Nevada.
Speaker 15: The two point nine million acre live fire training range,
Speaker 15: the largest in the United States, located at Nellis Air
Speaker 15: Force Base in Nevada.
Speaker 14: Legions of UFO enthusiasts have long suspected Area fifty one
Speaker 14: is where the US hides captured aliens.
Speaker 15: Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training
Speaker 15: areas is dangerous.
Speaker 1: My crew and I flew into Las Vegas and drove
Speaker 1: over one hundred miles to the desert town of Rachel, Nevada,
Speaker 1: population forty eight snooping around a top secret military base
Speaker 1: is not usually advisable, so before we left, I arranged
Speaker 1: to meet a local guide to help navigate the area.
Speaker 1: We met at a UFO themed motel in town called
Speaker 1: Little Aleyen, and we all piled into his four wheel
Speaker 1: drive truck.
Speaker 16: The first gate we're going here, This one is the
Speaker 16: main gate. Where we're going is an entrance, but it's
Speaker 16: about forty minutes from the base. This is an active base.
Speaker 16: One people think it isn't it is.
Speaker 1: The gates to the base are dozens of miles outside town,
Speaker 1: down bumpy dirt roads with no signage or landmarks whatsoever.
Speaker 1: You definitely don't want to get stuck out here. There's
Speaker 1: no cell service for miles.
Speaker 16: Look how many cameras That one rotates and watches us.
Speaker 16: That one sometimes will follow you, and then you have
Speaker 16: three cameras on that pullback. There you have a camera
Speaker 16: to the right. I don't know of any government installation
Speaker 16: of any kind in the country that goes to the
Speaker 16: level of secrecy.
Speaker 3: This one does.
Speaker 1: A white truck with heavily tinted windows was parked up
Speaker 1: on the hill, cameras and listening devices visible, and seemingly
Speaker 1: all directions. I started to feel an overwhelming rush of excitement,
Speaker 1: the kind you get as a kid on Christmas morning,
Speaker 1: and then the rational part of my brain kicked in, asking.
Speaker 2: Should we be doing this?
Speaker 1: I mean, I'd love to see some aliens, but seriously,
Speaker 1: I don't want to get shot.
Speaker 5: This is.
Speaker 1: My curiosity was peaked, that feeling of playing with fire.
Speaker 1: What would happen if I hopped that gate? Just how
Speaker 1: exactly would it all play out?
Speaker 16: If you cross, they will detain you. I hold you
Speaker 16: in federal prisons six months to a year.
Speaker 1: Serious said, I probably shouldn't cross that stop side.
Speaker 2: Do not go through that gate. I'm not going with you.
Speaker 2: If you do.
Speaker 4: Go to spaceship No space White legendame inhabitat and.
Speaker 6: Smoke play did take a lean, A lean deep, there's
Speaker 6: a bean ba.
Speaker 3: I've been going Gene because I cool know she was
Speaker 3: over pan in the beds of Supert Show Steve bud
Speaker 3: top Ton avert riding.
Speaker 2: Then you wee you gotta being down and saying the parapet.
Speaker 2: We've made a dot com John Knack and I helped
Speaker 2: those boom Nata guys. A Nati Devil.
Speaker 1: High Strange is an eight part series released weekly for
Speaker 1: free every Thursday, but if you'd like to binge the
Speaker 1: whole series right now, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts to.
Speaker 2: Get all the episodes right now.
Speaker 1: Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram at high Strange,
Speaker 1: and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
Speaker 1: Payne Lindsay. If you have your own UFO story, email
Speaker 1: us at tips at high strange dot com. High Strange
Speaker 1: is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association with Cadence thirteen, created,
Speaker 1: hosted and edited by myself Payne Lindsey. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney, Cooper Skinner
Speaker 1: and myself. Original score by Makeup Invanity, sound design, mixing
Speaker 1: and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production by Mike Rooney,
Speaker 1: Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney, Meredith Stedman, and Sidney Evans.
Speaker 2: Our cover art is by Polygon.
Speaker 1: This episode features the song space Cadet by metro Booman
Speaker 1: featuring Gunna, written by Wesley tire Glass, Sergio Kitchens, Leland Tyler,
Speaker 1: Wayne Alan Ritter and Jack Queis Webster, performed by metro
Speaker 1: Booman featuring Gunna courtesy of Republic Records under license from
Speaker 1: Universal Music Enterprises for metro Booman in three hundred. Entertainment
Speaker 1: for Gunna Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the whole
Speaker 1: team at UTA, the Nord Group, Station sixteen, Beck Media
Speaker 1: and Marketing, as well as Chris Corcoran and the team
Speaker 1: at Cadence thirteen. Check out the show's website at Highstrange
Speaker 1: dot com, and if you're enjoying the show, please help
Speaker 1: us out by rating and reviewing the podcast and share
Speaker 1: it with your friends.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.