WEBVTT - Season 09 Episode 20: Over the Hills and Far Away 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.040 Hello. It's Richard mclinsmith here, very excited to announce that 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.520 this May I'll be heading to Crime Con twenty twenty 0:00:05.519 --> 0:00:08.719 six in Las Vegas, the world's number one true crime event, 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:11.120 and I'd love to see you there. From May twenty 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:16.760 nineth to the thirty first, thousands of true crime fans, investigators, journalists, podcasters, 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.400 experts and survivors will gather at Caesars Palace and Las 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:24.280 Vegas for an unforgettable weekend of live talks, exclusive panels, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.800 deep dives, and behind the scenes conversations. I'll be appearing 0:00:27.800 --> 0:00:30.120 throughout the weekend on Creator Row, so please come and 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:32.080 say hello, and if you'd like to join me for 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:35.879 my live session Treasure, Betrayal and Death in Vegas, the 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:38.840 Ted Binyon Mystery, I'll be speaking at ten twenty am 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:41.800 on the Saturday morning. To get tickets, head to Crimecon 0:00:41.880 --> 0:00:45.280 dot com and use promo code Unexplained for ten percent off. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:01:01.280 Hope to see you there. It was late on the 0:01:01.400 --> 0:01:05.039 night of February twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine, on a 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.360 desolate stretch of Route fourteen somewhere in southwestern Utah in 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:14.039 the United States of America. The highway stretched into the darkness, 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.760 a dark ribbon of frosty asphalt with no apparent end, 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:22.199 just barely illuminated by the headlights of a single car. 0:01:23.240 --> 0:01:26.600 The conservation officer knew this road well. It was part 0:01:26.640 --> 0:01:29.720 of his regular patrol route as a fish and game inspector, 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:31.959 and he was trained to be on the lookout for 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:37.520 anything unusual. Just then, a gleam of silver upperhead illuminated 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.600 in his head lights caught his eye. It was a 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.640 car parked up by the side of the road. The 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:47.160 officer eased his foot off the accelerator and slowed down. 0:01:48.440 --> 0:01:51.160 A part car was an unusual sight out there, to 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:54.840 say the least. It was far enough from any town 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.480 or tourist landmark that the only reason somebody would stop 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.880 there was if their car had broken down. Only this 0:02:02.080 --> 0:02:06.280 Chevrolet in Parlor looked to be in perfect condition. As 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:09.400 the officer's car got closer, the beam of its headlights 0:02:09.600 --> 0:02:14.240 revealed a single word on its side, painted in black. Stop, 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:19.600 so the officer did. At first, he just stayed inside 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.440 its vehicle, with the engine idling as he weighed up 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:27.160 his next move. Years of working in remote, isolated areas 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.360 had taught him caution, but with the Chevrolet kept firmly 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.160 in the patrol car's headlights, he could see there wasn't 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:38.120 anyone else out there for miles around. He flicked on 0:02:38.200 --> 0:02:41.320 his flashlight and scanned behind him too, but there was 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:45.760 nothing there either, just an endless stretch of snow covered scrub. 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.240 Satisfied it was safe, he pushed open the door and 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:54.800 stepped out into the freezing night air with one hand 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.120 on the butt of the pistol holstered on his hip, 0:02:57.639 --> 0:03:01.399 its boots crunched on the frost covered as he ambled 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:05.720 cautiously toward the vehicle. Just as he thought, there was 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.720 no obvious sign of damage, certainly no sign of a collision, 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:14.560 and no driver either. He angled his flashlight through the 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.799 window and spotted something resting on the steering wheel. It 0:03:18.840 --> 0:03:22.360 was a note. The car's doors were unlocked, so he 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.640 just reached in and grabbed it. Possible plane crash, it read, 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:31.440 Please call law enforcement. What the hell, thought the officer 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:34.520 as he looked up and scanned the surrounding scrub with 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:39.360 his torch. The land beyond rose into uneven hills and 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:43.920 shallow ridges, their shapes hard to distinguish against the night sky. 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:47.800 But even in the dark, he was fairly certain there 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:52.160 hadn't been any plane crash nearby. Angling his torch at 0:03:52.200 --> 0:03:55.520 the ground, the officer spotted a set of footprints heading 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:00.240 off toward the higher ground beyond the ridge. Instinctively, the 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.800 officer followed the prince into the dark, then suddenly thought 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:08.360 better of it. This was the high desert, where temperatures 0:04:08.560 --> 0:04:12.520 could drop well below freezing overnight. It wouldn't help if 0:04:12.520 --> 0:04:23.600 he got lost too. He needed back up. The inspector 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.039 drove straight to the nearest law enforcement office, the Cedar 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:31.680 County Sheriff's Department. Once there, he informed the county Sheriff, 0:04:31.839 --> 0:04:35.719 Otto Fife, about everything he'd found and handed him the 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:40.120 mysterious note that he'd found on the steering wheel. Sheriff 0:04:40.160 --> 0:04:44.719 Fife was concerned. There were only two likely possibilities, and 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.320 neither of them good. Either there really had been a 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:52.800 plane crash somewhere out in the wilderness, or their missing motorist, 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.160 possibly drunk, had seen something that wasn't there and wandered 0:04:57.200 --> 0:05:00.400 away from his vehicle in the pitch black, freezing night. 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:03.599 There was every chance he could now be lost in 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:07.160 the high desert and in real danger of dying from exposure. 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:12.040 The sheriff quickly gathered a volunteer search party, and together 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:16.120 they drove out to the isolated spot on Route fourteen, and, 0:05:16.360 --> 0:05:19.040 just as the officer had done before them, they soon 0:05:19.080 --> 0:05:24.120 found the abandoned chevy. Fife ordered the volunteers to spread 0:05:24.160 --> 0:05:27.640 out and form a line. Then, under a near full 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.240 silver moon, they moved into the snow covered brush beyond. 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.599 Beams of flashlights scanned the ground from left to right 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:39.880 as Sheriff Fife led the way, meticulously scanning the dirt, 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.880 the horizon, and all the subtle variations in the terrain. 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:48.800 Then he saw something not clearly at first, just a 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.840 shape that didn't quite belong. He quickened his pace and 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:56.000 called out to the others to follow him. It was 0:05:56.040 --> 0:05:58.839 a man lying on his back in the light snow, 0:05:59.320 --> 0:06:04.159 completely motionless. Five sprinted over and crouched down beside him. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.400 Thankfully he could see he was still breathing from the 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.039 faint rise and fall of his chest. Can you hear me? 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:15.720 Asked the sheriff, but there was no response. There were 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:20.000 no obvious injuries, but the man's clothes were disheveled and dusty, 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:23.400 and his face pale. Beneath a thin sheen of sweat, 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:28.640 and in some indefinable way, Sheriff Fife couldn't help thinking 0:06:29.400 --> 0:06:35.040 he looked broken. You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:47.520 McLean Smith. The unknown man was swiftly taken to Cedar 0:06:47.600 --> 0:06:51.000 City Hospital and was still unconscious when he was brought in. 0:06:52.120 --> 0:06:54.960 As the doctors worked frantically to figure out what was 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.560 wrong with him, nothing seemed to make sense. He wasn't 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:01.480 cold enough to have lost con sciousness due to exposure, 0:07:02.200 --> 0:07:05.440 there were no visible signs of head trauma, and no 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:09.160 drugs were found to be in his system, and yet 0:07:09.480 --> 0:07:13.480 he still wouldn't wake up. For almost twenty four hours, 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:19.640 he stayed that way, lying motionless beneath thin hospital sheets. Then, finally, 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.160 on the evening of March first, the man began to stir. 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:28.960 His fingers twitched, his brow furrowed, then his eyes opened, 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:34.120 suddenly wide and unfocussed. Darting around the unfamiliar room with 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:37.280 a sharp inhale of breath, he pushed himself up as 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:41.840 panic flickered across his face. Were there any survivors, he 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:46.320 demanded to know, his voice strained and urgent, but the 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:49.720 nurse had no idea what he was talking about. A 0:07:49.840 --> 0:07:52.280 call was quickly put in to Sheri A. Fife, and 0:07:52.360 --> 0:07:55.960 he arrived soon after. The man had calmed down a little. 0:07:56.400 --> 0:07:59.280 He seemed by then to understand where he was, and 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:03.320 he was no longer asking about survivors. He told the 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:07.160 sheriff his name was Jerry Irwin, or rather Private first 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:10.360 Class Jerry Erwin. He was a twenty three year old 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:14.320 soldier currently assigned to Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas. 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:17.800 But when Fife asked him to explain what he was 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:20.240 doing in the desert, it was clear that the man 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:24.440 was still very confused. But bit by bit he tried 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.960 to recount his last known movements. This is what he remembered. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.240 It spent the last few days on leave visiting relatives 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.440 in Nampa, Idaho, and was making his way back to 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:41.040 Fort Bliss. He'd driven non stop for eighteen hours, hoping 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:43.439 to get back to the base in time to catch 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:46.640 a few hours of sleep before the day began. But 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.760 all alone on the open road, struggling to keep his 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:53.000 eyes open, it started to regret his decision not to 0:08:53.000 --> 0:08:56.439 get a motel for the night. His car radio had 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:59.280 started to crackle a few hours into the drive and 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:02.240 gave out completely. By the time he got to Utah. 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.400 He couldn't tell if it was broken or if there 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.120 was simply no signal. Either way, it left him with 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.960 the monotonous, soporific hum of the engine as his only 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.880 company in the vast, dark landscape he was driving through. 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:29.160 In an effort to keep himself awake, as he drove, 0:09:29.600 --> 0:09:33.200 Jerry tried to concentrate on the next day's work. He 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.320 was a weapons technician, specializing in maintaining surface to air 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:42.480 missile systems. This relatively new technology was a crucial part 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:46.720 of America's Cold War defense strategy, and Jerry loved his work. 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.720 As a child, he'd been terrified and fascinated by the 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:54.520 broadcasts he'd seen about World War II, and he'd grown 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.920 up determined to serve his country any way he could. 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.320 Just outside of sus, a city in Utah, a light 0:10:02.440 --> 0:10:06.600 snow began to fall as Jerry turned southeast onto Route fourteen. 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:12.080 At some point he remembered the sky suddenly seeming unusually bright. 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.720 As Jerry later told it, he figured it was just 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.200 the moon appearing from behind a cloud, but then he 0:10:19.240 --> 0:10:24.280 realized the source of the light was moving. Looking up, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:28.120 he instinctively tracked the glowing object, thinking that it moved 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:31.880 too smoothly and too deliberately to be anything other than 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:35.360 an aircraft, and it was heading straight toward the ground. 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.840 Struggling to make sense of what he was seeing, Jerry 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:43.440 pulled the car over. He watched as the glowing object 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:47.960 continued on its way toward the earth. Just before it 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.760 disappeared below the horizon, it seemed to hang in mid air, 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:55.760 suspended for a moment. The next thing he knew there 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.720 was a blinding flash of light, so bright that it 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:03.160 washed out the sky. Jerry turned away, shielding his eyes 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:06.800 against the glare, but after a few seconds the light faded. 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.320 When he opened his eyes again, everything was still and 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.920 seemed completely normal. Either side of him, he saw nothing 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:20.760 but the snow dusted scrubland stretching out for miles, while 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:24.480 above a few dim starts hung in the pitch black sky. 0:11:25.600 --> 0:11:28.520 For a moment, he just sat there as the engine idled, 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:31.800 hands still on the wheel, trying to guess at where 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:36.240 exactly the light had come from. After close to three 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.040 years in the army, Jerry was trained to keep a 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.640 cool head in a crisis. No matter how alarming or 0:11:42.720 --> 0:11:46.800 strange the situation seemed. His job was to assess the facts, 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.880 decide on a plan of action, and execute it. The 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:55.360 most likely explanation for what he'd just seen was that 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:59.160 a plane had crashed. Judging by the brightness of the light, 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.760 it most most likely exploded on impact. Since he was 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:06.960 probably the only person out there for miles, he felt 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:09.720 it was his duty to try and help, so he 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:11.920 pulled some paper and a pen out at the glove 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.199 compartment and scribbled down his note. But as he set 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:19.800 off toward the apparent crash site, he had second thoughts. 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:24.120 Nobody passing by would have any reason to stop. They'd 0:12:24.160 --> 0:12:26.480 just see a parked car on the shoulder with no 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:29.319 signs of an emergency, which meant there was a good 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:32.800 chance that nobody would even see his note. So he 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.040 dug a can of shoe polish out at the trunk 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:37.880 and used it to write a single word on the 0:12:37.920 --> 0:12:43.440 side of his car stop, and with that he set off. 0:12:50.440 --> 0:12:53.520 The place where Jerry believed the light had descended was 0:12:53.600 --> 0:12:57.800 hidden just beyond a ridge, but according to him, there 0:12:57.880 --> 0:13:01.640 was still a residual glow. Face ain't but undeniable As 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:05.600 he set off toward it, he recalled how before long 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.480 the terrain had begun to rise unevenly, the ground felt 0:13:09.640 --> 0:13:13.320 rough beneath his boots, scattered with loose stone and scrub. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:16.760 But what he really remembered was how at some point 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:20.400 the air seemed suddenly different, as if it were charged 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:24.720 with something he couldn't identify. Then he suddenly realized he 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.040 wasn't cold anymore. In fact, despite the temperature, by then 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.520 being below freezing, he felt strangely warm. It made him 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:36.640 feel uneasy, and the deeper he got into the brush, 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:40.760 the more he felt the strong, almost overwhelming impulse to 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:45.000 turn back. He had the sense that something was terribly 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:50.920 elementally wrong, but Jerry forced himself onward regardless, determined to 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:54.360 offer his help to whoever might need it. As he 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.160 climbed toward the top of the ridge, the glow seemed 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.959 to get brighter, but there was no smell of smoke 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:04.920 or any flickering flames. The light was steady, almost uniform, 0:14:05.360 --> 0:14:10.000 as if it were being cast by a huge fluorescent bulb. Finally, 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:12.560 he reached the top of the slope and looked over 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.320 the ridge into the vast wasteland beyond. He squinted into 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.160 the light, trying to make out any identifiable shapes, but 0:14:21.240 --> 0:14:24.600 there were none. The air around him seemed to be 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.480 pulsating now, while an incessant buzzing sound rang out in 0:14:28.560 --> 0:14:34.280 his ears. He took another step forward. Suddenly the light swelt, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:40.160 engulfing everything around him. Blinded, he felt himself leaving the ground, 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:44.280 his stomach lurching, and then he felt nothing at all. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:50.080 The next thing he knew, he was in hospital. It's 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:53.360 fair to say that when Jerry finished his story, Sheriff 0:14:53.360 --> 0:14:56.920 Fife didn't quite know what to think about it. By then, 0:14:57.400 --> 0:15:00.960 he'd confirmed that no aircraft were thought to anywhere near 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:05.240 the area that night, let alone crashed in it. Then 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.760 Jerry asked him where his jacket was, but the Sheriff 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.840 was confused. As far as he could remember, Jerry hadn't 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.600 been wearing a jacket when they found him, but it 0:15:15.680 --> 0:15:19.760 had been dark, so maybe he was misremembering. But when 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:22.400 he asked the other members of the search party, they 0:15:22.520 --> 0:15:26.600 confirmed it too. Jerry hadn't been wearing a jacket, and 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:29.960 they hadn't found one in his vehicle either. Yet Jerry 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:32.600 was adamant he'd been wearing it when he was driving. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.440 I have to find that jacket, he kept saying, his 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:40.640 voice frantic. There was something important in it, although he 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.320 couldn't remember what it was exactly. In fact, as it 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.600 was later claimed, the harder he tried to remember, the 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.440 more the image of the jacket seemed to slip through 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:55.240 his fingers like sand, his mind supposedly an echoing chasm 0:15:55.640 --> 0:16:06.560 full of terrifying gaps where his memory should be. After 0:16:06.600 --> 0:16:10.240 spending another night in the hospital, Jerry Irwin was determined 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:14.720 physically ready for discharge. However, his doctors were reluctant to 0:16:14.800 --> 0:16:19.240 let him go, concerned about his mental state, but Jerry 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.480 had access to high level information about some of the 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:28.880 US military's most important missile systems, and they wanted him back. Understandably, 0:16:29.200 --> 0:16:31.880 his superiors didn't like the idea of him being at 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:35.600 a civilian hospital while not in his right mind, who 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:39.360 knew what he might say, so he was transferred back 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.800 to Fort Bliss and admitted to the psychiatric ward there 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.200 for observation. The psychiatrist on the base was just as 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:51.400 baffled as the doctors in Cedar City. Jerry had no 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:54.520 known history of mental illness, and his record on the 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:59.200 base was impeccable. Yet somehow during that long drive back, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:02.560 he must have slipped into a kind of disassociative fugue. 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:07.040 He thought, a psychic state usually triggered by extreme stress 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:10.560 or trauma. It was the only theory that came close 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:15.479 to explaining Jerry's amnesia and loss of time. After several 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:21.159 days of intensive psychological evaluation, his psychiatrist couldn't find anything 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:25.200 else wrong with him. All in all, Jerry seemed perfectly 0:17:25.280 --> 0:17:29.160 cogent and in touch with reality, except for his inability 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:33.760 to explain what had happened in Utah. However, the authorities 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:36.800 at Fort Bliss had never had a case like this before. 0:17:37.640 --> 0:17:40.359 They didn't want to let a good private go, not 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:43.560 when he hadn't done anything wrong. But they also couldn't 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.320 take the risk of allowing him back to his old position, 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:50.760 not yet. So in mid March of nineteen fifty nine, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.960 Jerry was cleared to return to duty, but without his 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:58.119 security clearance. It was framed as a temporary measure to 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:01.879 let him ease back into things, but Jerry knew exactly 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:06.760 what it really was the demotion. His colleagues tried to 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.439 welcome him back, but he could see the unease in 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:13.159 their eyes. They didn't know exactly what had happened, but 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:16.679 they knew enough to treat him differently, like he was fragile. 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:21.520 And it was true, Jerry wasn't the same. Maybe it 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.360 was just the embarrassment of the demotion that caused him 0:18:24.400 --> 0:18:27.760 to retreat inside himself. Or maybe it was deeper than that. 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:32.640 Maybe Jerry had been changed in some fundamental way by 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:36.359 whatever he had experienced out in the desert, and soon 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:50.760 his mind began to fracture. At first, Jerry seemed to 0:18:50.760 --> 0:18:53.920 be on the mend. Then just a few weeks after 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.320 the incident, on March fifteenth, nineteen fifty nine, he went 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.840 into town to run some errands. One moment, he was 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:05.439 walking out of a hardware store, the next he stopped 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:10.080 suddenly in his tracks. According to onlookers, he seemed to 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:12.960 freeze for a second, as if he'd seen something alarming, 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.240 then just crumpled to the ground like a puppet cut 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:21.719 free from its strings. When paramedics arrived, they found him 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:25.640 unconscious and quickly rushed him to hospital. He didn't wake 0:19:25.720 --> 0:19:29.560 up until the following morning. When he did, he had 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.040 no idea where he was, and again he kept asking 0:19:33.080 --> 0:19:38.120 the same question were there any survivors. With Jerry once 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:41.719 again calmed down, a doctor arrived to administer a basic 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.600 cognitive test. He started by asking Jerry what the date 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.199 was and the last thing he could remember. It was 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.199 February twenty eighth, he said, and the last thing he 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.720 remembered was being in his car out in the high desert. 0:19:57.080 --> 0:20:00.159 Jerry was apparently stunned when the doctor told him that 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.040 two weeks had passed since then, and seemed to have 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.639 no memory of his most recent time on the base. 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:08.720 It was as if the last fourteen days of his 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.800 life had not been stored in his brain. Declared fit 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.840 enough to leave, however, Jerry was transferred back to the 0:20:15.840 --> 0:20:19.439 hospital at Fort Bliss and placed under observation on the 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.000 psych ward again. This time they kept him in for 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:25.119 a full month as they tried to get to the 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.199 bottom of what was wrong. They ran neurological tests but 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.399 found nothing wrong with his brain aside from the memory 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:38.040 loss and the episodes of disassociation. For all intents and purposes, 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.480 Jerry seemed completely sane. He was polite to his doctors 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:45.920 but didn't talk much. He spent most of his time 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:48.639 sitting in the day room, gazing out at the window 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:53.479 at the sky. After a month, Jerry was released and 0:20:53.560 --> 0:20:57.440 deemed well enough to return to his duties. His first 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.960 day back on base was uneventful. On the morning of 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:03.960 his second day, Jerry woke up at four thirty a m. 0:21:04.119 --> 0:21:07.720 As usual, He made his bed, washed and shaved in 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.600 the communal latrines, and was in the mess hall for 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:14.680 breakfast by five a m. He'd always been a good soldier, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.600 efficient and quick to follow orders. None of the other 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:22.320 men noted anything unusual in his movements or his demeanor 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:27.479 as he completed his tasks that morning. After breakfast, Jerry 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.080 was due to report for duty at seven a m. Instead, 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.800 he walked straight out at the barracks and off the base. 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:45.560 Jerry Irwin walked all the way to al Paso, which 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:48.920 took him more than two hours. There, he jumped on 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.320 a Greyhound bus headed for Cedar City in Utah. Arriving 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:56.879 at the bus station some time later, he started walking again. 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.560 He didn't need to consult a map, so somehow he 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:04.359 knew instinctively where to go. He walked all the way 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:07.720 back to that desolate stretch of freeway where he'd pulled 0:22:07.760 --> 0:22:11.800 over just a few weeks ago. It was getting dark 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.720 by the time he got there, but somehow this made 0:22:14.760 --> 0:22:19.199 it easier to retrace his footsteps. Then it's claimed that 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:22.960 he found his missing jacket crumbled on the ground not 0:22:23.119 --> 0:22:27.560 far from where he'd been found himself. Tucked into one 0:22:27.560 --> 0:22:30.280 of the buttonholes was a pencil with a piece of 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:34.240 paper wrapped tightly around it. Jerry took the piece of 0:22:34.240 --> 0:22:37.399 paper and stared at it for a moment. Then he 0:22:37.440 --> 0:22:40.679 pulled out a match book from his pocket, struck a match, 0:22:41.080 --> 0:22:44.760 and set it on fire. He watched as the paper's 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:49.240 edges curled and blackened, the flames consuming it until all 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:53.439 that was left was a small pile of ash. For 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.560 a moment, he felt at peace, knowing that he had 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:01.800 fulfilled his task, and then, without warning, Jerry's mind went 0:23:01.960 --> 0:23:07.960 dark once again. On the evening of April nineteenth, Jerry 0:23:08.000 --> 0:23:12.840 Irwin turned himself into the Cedar City Sheriff's department. He 0:23:12.960 --> 0:23:16.480 was confused and agitated, with no memory of how he'd 0:23:16.520 --> 0:23:21.360 gotten into the city. Sheriff Fife was stunned to see 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.520 Jerry again, but Jerry clearly didn't recognize him at all. 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:29.240 When quizzed about why he was back at the Sheriff's department. 0:23:29.800 --> 0:23:32.720 Jerry could only reply was that the last thing he 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:35.920 remembered was being in his car driving home from leave 0:23:36.359 --> 0:23:39.000 when he saw a sudden, bright light in the sky. 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:43.399 Once again, it seemed his mind had reset itself to 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:48.920 the evening of February twenty eighth. Eventually, he was transported 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:51.840 back to Fort Bliss and spent the next few months 0:23:51.840 --> 0:23:56.840 in and out of hospital, undergoing numerous psychological tests, but 0:23:56.960 --> 0:24:00.080 still the doctors couldn't make any sense of his symptom. 0:24:01.200 --> 0:24:05.680 In time, Jerry's mind began to heal, its memory lapses stopped, 0:24:05.800 --> 0:24:08.280 and he was able to return to light duties on 0:24:08.320 --> 0:24:12.920 the base. His fellow soldiers were given strict instructions not 0:24:13.000 --> 0:24:16.199 to ask him about the Cedar City incident and not 0:24:16.359 --> 0:24:21.399 to talk about it among themselves. One day, Jerry failed 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:24.760 to report for duty. When a colleague was sent to 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.600 look for him, they found his bed empty, but all 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:32.720 his belongings still in the barracks. The entire base was searched, 0:24:33.080 --> 0:24:36.920 but they found no trace of him. They questioned locals 0:24:36.960 --> 0:24:39.840 in El Paso, trying to figure out whether Jerry had 0:24:39.880 --> 0:24:42.679 retraced his steps from last time, and got on a 0:24:42.720 --> 0:24:47.480 bus they alerted the Sheriff's department in Cedar City, hoping 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:51.719 he might show up there again. A month later, on 0:24:51.800 --> 0:24:56.840 September one, nineteen fifty nine, Jerry Irwin was officially listed 0:24:56.960 --> 0:25:01.000 as a deserter. As far as the pub record goes, 0:25:01.680 --> 0:25:13.879 he was never found. Speculation about extraterrestrial visitors had been 0:25:13.960 --> 0:25:18.600 running rampant across the United States. Reported sightings of flying 0:25:18.640 --> 0:25:22.639 sourcers and other mysterious objects in the sky made headlines 0:25:22.680 --> 0:25:25.960 across the country, and although the craze had begun to 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:29.200 die down by the late nineteen fifties, there were still 0:25:29.200 --> 0:25:33.320 plenty of enthusiasts convinced that the US government were covering 0:25:33.400 --> 0:25:38.040 up the existence of UFOs. Many believed that Jerry Irwin 0:25:38.320 --> 0:25:41.120 had an encounter with one on the night of February 0:25:41.119 --> 0:25:44.879 twenty eighth, nineteen fifty nine, and that it had been abducted 0:25:44.920 --> 0:25:49.520 by aliens and subjected to some kind of experimentation. It 0:25:49.680 --> 0:25:53.840 was this, they believe, that caused his amnesia and bizarre behavior. 0:25:55.040 --> 0:25:58.280 But there is another popular theory about Jerry Irwin that 0:25:58.480 --> 0:26:04.080 is no less disturbing. During the nineteen fifties, the CIA 0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:08.400 developed a secret human experimentation program under the code name 0:26:08.680 --> 0:26:12.720 mk Ultra. The goal was to develop mind controlled techniques 0:26:12.920 --> 0:26:15.480 that could be used in the fight against Soviet forces. 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:20.280 Mk Ultra is now infamous thanks to the numerous dangerous 0:26:20.320 --> 0:26:23.200 and illegal experiments that are now known to have been 0:26:23.200 --> 0:26:28.240 carried out on unsuspecting test subjects. Victims were drugged with 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:32.840 psychedelics and nerve agents and subjected to hypnosis and other 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:38.880 brainwashing techniques. In some cases, the psychological damage was devastating. 0:26:40.280 --> 0:26:43.560 Many of the test subjects were soldiers who volunteered with 0:26:43.640 --> 0:26:47.399 no idea of what they were getting into. If Jerry 0:26:47.400 --> 0:26:50.080 Irwin was one of them, it might also account for 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:54.879 his sudden mental collapse, but will likely never know for sure. 0:26:56.040 --> 0:27:01.119 Voluntarily or involuntarily, it seems Jerry dissip appeared before he 0:27:01.240 --> 0:27:04.080 was ever able to speak for himself on the record. 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:08.399 As such, the true explanation for what really occurred to 0:27:08.440 --> 0:27:12.960 him all those years ago remains to this day unexplained. 0:27:20.240 --> 0:27:23.560 This episode was written by Emma Dibden and produced by 0:27:23.640 --> 0:27:28.879 Richard McLain Smith. Thank you as ever for listening. Unexplained 0:27:28.880 --> 0:27:32.960