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Speaker 1: The following story has featured previously in the US edition

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Speaker 1: of my book Unexplained. When Christopher Columbus's ships first near

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Speaker 1: the shores of the islands known today as the Bahamas,

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Speaker 1: it is said that the islanders, not having the mental

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Speaker 1: capacity to comprehend the strange vessels that were approaching them,

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Speaker 1: couldn't physically see them coming. It wasn't until they saw

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Speaker 1: the unfamiliar fluctuations in the water caused by the wash

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Speaker 1: from Columbus's fleet did they apparently realize that something was

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Speaker 1: awrye This same story is told in a variety of ways.

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Speaker 1: Replaced Columbus with any old European explorer discovering what to

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Speaker 1: them at least was supposedly uncharted territory, and you were

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Speaker 1: get the same effect, the implication that the ships were

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Speaker 1: so alien to the local communities that they were effectively

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Speaker 1: rendered invisible, as noted by Barry Evans in his North

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Speaker 1: Coast Journal article Myth of the Invisible Ships from June

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Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. These apocryphal tales are thought to

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Speaker 1: stem from diary entries recorded by botanist Joseph Banks in

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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy. Banks accompanied Captain James Cook on his infamous

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Speaker 1: journey to the Southern Hemisphere, aboard the HMS Endeavor. On

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Speaker 1: making its way into what is now called Botany Bay

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Speaker 1: in Australia, the Endeavor passed a number of canoes piloted

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Speaker 1: by local fishers, but when, as Evans' rights, the ship

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Speaker 1: passed within a quarter of a mile of them, they

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Speaker 1: scarce lifted their eyes from their employment. Joseph Banks was

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Speaker 1: almost inclined to think that so attentive were they to

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Speaker 1: their business, and deafened by the noise of the surf,

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Speaker 1: they neither saw or heard the ship go past. Later,

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Speaker 1: with the seemingly unmissable hundred foot long vessel anchored less

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Speaker 1: than half a mile opposite a small village, the fishers

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Speaker 1: gave it barely a moment's notice as they paddled back

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Speaker 1: to the shore and pulled their canoes onto the beach

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Speaker 1: before returning to their homes. Although there could be any

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Speaker 1: number of reasons for this peculiar behavior, Banks's own suggestion

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Speaker 1: that the people were simply too distracted by the standard

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Speaker 1: regiment of their daily lives to notice the ship as

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Speaker 1: it moved into the bay is particularly insightful. In nineteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight, psychologists Arian Mac and Irvin Rock published a

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Speaker 1: study for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology titled Inattentional Blindness.

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Speaker 1: Building on the earlier work of cognitive psychologists Ulric Nysser

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Speaker 1: and Robert Becklan, the paper outlined the results of a

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Speaker 1: series of simple experiments that highlighted a fundamental deficiency in

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Speaker 1: our sense of perception. The study concluded that, due to

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Speaker 1: the brain's natural tendency to band multitudes of objects and

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Speaker 1: stimuli into single groups, we often fail to notice the

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Speaker 1: most obvious of stimuli, even if they occur directly in

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Speaker 1: front of us. One well known example of this was

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Speaker 1: demonstrated in an experiment known as the Invisible Gorilla. A

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Speaker 1: version of it can be easily found on YouTube under

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Speaker 1: the title Selective Attention Test by Daniel Simons. For anyone

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Speaker 1: who hasn't heard of this before, I urge you to

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Speaker 1: pause the podcast now and watch it before I spoil

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Speaker 1: the surprise for everyone else. Will continue. In the experiment,

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Speaker 1: participants were shown a film of a group of people

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Speaker 1: passing a basketball among themselves and then instructed to simply

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Speaker 1: count the number of times the ball was exchanged. When

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Speaker 1: the correct number of passes was then revealed at the end.

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Speaker 1: Many participants congratulated themselves on guessing the correct number. However,

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Speaker 1: almost fifty percent of them were then surprised to learn

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Speaker 1: that they had missed something quite irregular. The person in

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Speaker 1: a guerrilla suit who walked straight through the shot stopped

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Speaker 1: in the middle and even turned to the camera to

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Speaker 1: beat their chest before walking out again. Although inattentional blindness

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Speaker 1: wouldn't explain how something could remain hidden in plain sight

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Speaker 1: as opposed to it not being seen momentarily because we

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Speaker 1: are more intently focused on something else, it remains a

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Speaker 1: startling example of the limits of our perception. It is

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Speaker 1: hard not to wander, then, just what else we might

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Speaker 1: be missing. It's certainly fascinating to speculate that there might

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Speaker 1: exist technologies or beings even living alongside us, that are

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Speaker 1: either considered so unlikely or formed of materials so beyond

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Speaker 1: our comprehension that we don't even register them, let alone

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Speaker 1: understand them, or that during the course of our lives

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Speaker 1: we might become so conditioned that we are always blind

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Speaker 1: to certain things. In ancient Greece, the Pythias, the high

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Speaker 1: priestesses of the Temple of Apollo, who served as his

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Speaker 1: oracles at Delphi were thought to originally have been young children,

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Speaker 1: ideally farmers daughters, who were chosen for their perceived purity

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Speaker 1: and innocence. It is a common theme in the history

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Speaker 1: of divination found in many cultures. In ancient Rome, for example,

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Speaker 1: it was children who often performed the drawing of lots,

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Speaker 1: a process used to determine the will of the gods

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Speaker 1: by the reading of small tablets, usually made from wood,

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Speaker 1: that were thrown into water. Classicist Sarah Illis Johnston of

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Speaker 1: Ohio University attributes this to the strongly held belief that

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Speaker 1: children were simply quote able to see gods, demons, and

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Speaker 1: ghosts that other people could not, a skill that would

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Speaker 1: invariably be lost once they grew up. Interestingly, we find

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Speaker 1: hints of this theme with regard to a number of

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Speaker 1: especially compelling UFO sightings. In nineteen seventy seven, fourteen pupils

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Speaker 1: from a school in broad Haven, a village on the

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Speaker 1: southwest coast of Whales, reported seeing a silver cigar shaped

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Speaker 1: craft land in a field beside their playground. Parents and teachers,

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Speaker 1: who were quick to dismiss the event, were later left

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Speaker 1: scratching their heads when the children were asked by their

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Speaker 1: headmaster to draw pictures describing what they saw. Despite being

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Speaker 1: separated to perform the task, their drawings were found to

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Speaker 1: be strikingly similar. Just over fifteen years later, a remarkably

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Speaker 1: similar event unfolded in another village, this time in Zimbabwe. There,

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Speaker 1: around sixty school pupils aged seven to twelve claimed to

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Speaker 1: see two strange spherical aircraft land at the back of

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Speaker 1: their playground, which were then exited by two figures with

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Speaker 1: large eyes who were wearing black suits like a scuba

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Speaker 1: diver might wear. These children were also asked to draw

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Speaker 1: pictures of what they seen. Again, many of the resultant

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Speaker 1: images contains striking similarities, despite the fact that the children

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Speaker 1: had had little to no time to confer on what

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Speaker 1: they'd apparently witnessed. The cultures of both ufology and cryptozoology

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Speaker 1: broadly hold the possibility that within the universe, or merely

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Speaker 1: just on the planet that some call Earth, there exist

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Speaker 1: a variety of creatures and entities who supposed existence as

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Speaker 1: yet to be accepted by the wider scientific community. Rarely, however,

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Speaker 1: does a story come along which appears to draw from

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Speaker 1: both ideas, such as that which unfolded around a small

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Speaker 1: West Virginian town in the United States in the late

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties. It is a story quite unlike any other,

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Speaker 1: that continues to baffle, excite, and terrorizers to this day.

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Speaker 1: Many have wandered, like the great Enrico Fermi, if there

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Speaker 1: really are other sophisticated life forms out there, then where

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Speaker 1: are they? Others might say that just because we don't

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Speaker 1: always see them, it doesn't mean they aren't there. You're

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Speaker 1: listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McClean smith. The family

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Speaker 1: stared at the TV with more amusement than annoyance. They

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Speaker 1: were used to the odd signal interruption, but this was

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Speaker 1: like nothing they'd ever experienced before. The way the picture

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Speaker 1: had first twisted and distorted before suddenly being replaced by

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Speaker 1: gray scale herring bones steadily sliding up the screen, And

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Speaker 1: that peculiar noise coming out of the speaker was something else,

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Speaker 1: the pitch of it rising up and down in waves

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Speaker 1: like an air raid siren. As that awful noise reached

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Speaker 1: another crescendo, the family watched aghast as a sudden surge

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Speaker 1: of power blew out the set completely, leaving a blank screen,

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Speaker 1: a thin trail of smoke and an eerie silence in

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Speaker 1: its wake. It was only then that they became aware

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Speaker 1: of the dog barking outside. It had been a fairly

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Speaker 1: uneventful weekend for Merl Partridge and his family before that

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Speaker 1: fateful Sunday night on November thirteenth in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: when they gathered in the sitting room to enjoy an

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Speaker 1: evening of TV together. The family lived on a modest

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Speaker 1: farm holding on the outskirts of Salem in West Virginia,

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Speaker 1: and what was about to occur there that night, for

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Speaker 1: many marks the beginning of one of the most inexplicable

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Speaker 1: and unsettling series of events ever to have taken place

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Speaker 1: in the United States. On hearing the dog, Merle told

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Speaker 1: the rest of his family to stay put, before grabbing

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Speaker 1: his eight millimeter mouser and a flashlight. Then he pushed

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Speaker 1: open the screen door and stepped cautiously onto the back

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Speaker 1: porch bandit. The family's large German shepherd was perched at

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Speaker 1: the end of it, his eyes fixated on something toward

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Speaker 1: the hay barn at the back of the yard. His

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Speaker 1: frantic barking shifted suddenly to an oddly anguished wail. What

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Speaker 1: is it? Boy? Said Merle as he looked out into

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Speaker 1: the silent darkness surrounding the house. Merle flicked on his

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Speaker 1: torch and sent a beam of light shooting out across

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Speaker 1: the yard, trying to ignore the thumping of his heart

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Speaker 1: as he slowly swept it over the property. With the

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Speaker 1: dog continuing to wail. Merle had just brought the light

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Speaker 1: up to the front of the barn when he caught

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Speaker 1: sight of something unexpected, what looked like a series of

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Speaker 1: small red lights floating about just outside it, each one

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Speaker 1: flashing on and off intermittently. Bandit saw them too, and

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Speaker 1: leaped into the dark yapping frantically as he tore off

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Speaker 1: towards them. Bandit, get back here, shouted Merle, but the

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Speaker 1: dog kept on running. Merle continued shouting in vain for

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Speaker 1: his dog to return, and was desperate to charge on

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Speaker 1: after him, but something told him that wouldn't be a

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Speaker 1: good idea. The following morning, Merle stepped out into the damp,

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Speaker 1: cold air and scanned the yard. Bandit had never disappeared

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Speaker 1: for more than a few minutes, but after running off

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Speaker 1: the night before, he was still yet to return. Merle

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Speaker 1: took a moment to gaze out at the distant tree

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Speaker 1: covered hills shrouded in mist, before tucking in his shirt

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Speaker 1: and heading off toward the barn. With recent rains having

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Speaker 1: made the ground soft and muddy, it wasn't long before

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Speaker 1: Merle picked up Bandit's poor prince. As he approached the

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Speaker 1: area outside the barn where he'd seen the lights, the

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Speaker 1: tracks became more numerous, as if Bandit had been circling

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Speaker 1: and jumping around at that precise place. But there the

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Speaker 1: tracks stopped. Wearily, Merle looked back to the prince that

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Speaker 1: led from the house. It was uncanny, he thought, if

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Speaker 1: it weren't such a ridiculous notion, it was as though

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Speaker 1: Bandit had just disappeared right there on the spot. Two

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Speaker 1: nights later, just over ninety miles to the west of

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Speaker 1: the Partridge property, a black fifty seven Chevrolet swung off

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Speaker 1: Route sixty two and into the eerie stillness of Mason

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Speaker 1: County's TNT area, just seven miles north of the town

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Speaker 1: of Point Pleasant in western Virginia. The area was so

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Speaker 1: called for its former existence as the West Virginia Ordinance Works,

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Speaker 1: a US Army ammunition manufacturing and storage facility from the

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Speaker 1: Second World War, operating between the years of nineteen forty

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Speaker 1: two to forty five, and covering roughly eight thousand, three

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Speaker 1: hundred acres of land. It has since been converted partly

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Speaker 1: into farmland, but mostly into a wildlife management area comprised

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Speaker 1: of thick scrub, wetlands and forest. Although the area was

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Speaker 1: now largely deserted, the specter of its ominous past continued

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Speaker 1: to haunt the landscape in the hulking ruins of its

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Speaker 1: two abandoned powerhouses and the series of peculiar reinforced concrete

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Speaker 1: domes that dotted the area, Hidden amongst the trees and bracken.

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Speaker 1: Known locally as igloos, these eerie chambers had originally served

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Speaker 1: as ammunition storage houses, but had long since been cleared out.

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Speaker 1: The tnt area was undoubtedly to some a strange and

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Speaker 1: unsettling place, but perfect for teenagers and young adults, who

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Speaker 1: regularly drove up there at night looking to get lost

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Speaker 1: and blow off steam away from the prying eyes of

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Speaker 1: the various small towns nearby. One such individual was eighteen

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Speaker 1: year old Roger Scarborough, who rarely missed an opportunity to

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Speaker 1: show off his fifty seven Chevy so lovingly kept and

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Speaker 1: cared for without a scratch on it. Joining him that

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Speaker 1: fateful night in November was his wife Linda, also eighteen,

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Speaker 1: and their friends Mary and Steve Mallett, eighteen and twenty, respectively.

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Speaker 1: Steve and Mary laughed in the back as they were

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Speaker 1: thrown together on the turn, halfheartedly begging Roger to slow

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Speaker 1: down as they clung to each other in excitement. Linda

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Speaker 1: turned up the dial on the radio at the first

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Speaker 1: strains of Johnny Rivers and its latest hit Poor Side

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Speaker 1: of town, and together they careered off toward the darkened

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Speaker 1: back roads of the TNT area. Perhaps it was the

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Speaker 1: especially cold evening or the lateness of the hour, but

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Speaker 1: for whatever reason, the two couples appeared to be just

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Speaker 1: about the only people out that evening. Growing board with

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Speaker 1: the clock approaching midnight, they decided to head back home

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Speaker 1: to Point Pleasant. Roger swung the car round and set

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Speaker 1: off back toward Route sixty two along the main stretch

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Speaker 1: that intersected what had once been the North and South

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Speaker 1: power plants. Though the moon was hidden by thick cloud

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Speaker 1: somewhere above, the friends could just about make out the

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Speaker 1: North plant up ahead, silhouetted against the night sky, But

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Speaker 1: as they drew closer, something else began to materialize from

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Speaker 1: out of the dark. It was sometime later when Deputy

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Speaker 1: Millard Halstead, halfway through the night shift, received a call

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Speaker 1: at the Mason County Sheriff's office in Point Pleasant. It

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Speaker 1: was Gary Northrop, the owner of Tiny's Diner up on

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Speaker 1: Jackson Avenue. I got four kids scared out of their

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Speaker 1: wits up here. You better come quick, he said, before

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Speaker 1: promptly hanging up. With little else to go on, Halstead

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Speaker 1: didn't quite know what to expect when he stepped into

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Speaker 1: the diner a few minutes later to find the two

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Speaker 1: young couples shaken and pale anxiously waiting for him inside.

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Speaker 1: He certainly hadn't anticipated what they were about to tell him.

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Speaker 1: They'd be nearing the back of the North Power Plant

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Speaker 1: when Steve suddenly yelled for them all to look at

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Speaker 1: something by the side of the road. Linda and Mary

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Speaker 1: had glanced up just in time to see what seemed

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Speaker 1: to be a huge pair of red eyes reflected back

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Speaker 1: at them from the edge of the road, lit up

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Speaker 1: by the car's headlights. Roger saw it too, and slammed

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Speaker 1: on the brakes to get a better look at it.

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Speaker 1: Switching the radio off the four sat together in silence,

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Speaker 1: trying to get a handle on what exactly the thing was.

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Speaker 1: It seemed to be some kind of wild animal in

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Speaker 1: a trail of wire by the side of the road,

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Speaker 1: desperately trying to free itself, but as their eyes continued

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Speaker 1: to adjust, it soon became clear that this was like

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Speaker 1: no animal they'd ever seen before. They described it as

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Speaker 1: being almost humanlike in its posture, standing upright on two legs,

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Speaker 1: but with disproportionately long arms and strangely large hands, but

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Speaker 1: almost seven feet tall. Its body was lithe and muscular, and,

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Speaker 1: from what they could make out in the white of

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Speaker 1: the headlights, a sort of dirty gray in color. At first,

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Speaker 1: they said it appeared to have its hand trapped, but

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Speaker 1: as they soon realized, it wasn't a hand at all.

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Speaker 1: It was a wing. It was only when they saw

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Speaker 1: the first wing that they noticed the pair of them

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Speaker 1: sticking up from behind the creature's shoulders. They were almost

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Speaker 1: like angel's wings, thought Linda. Oddly, They then said that

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Speaker 1: moments later, they all watched as it broke free and

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Speaker 1: hobbled as fast as it could toward the shelter of

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Speaker 1: the former power plant in the car. A Stunt's silence

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Speaker 1: was swiftly replaced by a rising panic as Steve, Linda,

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Speaker 1: and Mary yelled for Roger to step on the gas.

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Speaker 1: Only too happy to oblige, Roger wrenched the car into

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Speaker 1: gear and powered off toward the highway. Before long, they

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00:20:38,680 --> 00:20:42,240
Speaker 1: were back on Route sixty two, heading toward the sanctuary

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Speaker 1: of Point Pleasant. Mary and Steve gripped each other as

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Speaker 1: they scoured the road from the back seat for any

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Speaker 1: sign of the bizarre creature. Hurry, Roger, shouted Linda as

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00:20:54,000 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: the speedometer edged toward ninety. Oh God, what's that, muttered Steve,

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Speaker 1: pointing at the road ahead. As they later explained to Holstead,

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Speaker 1: they were just approaching across roads when they saw something

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00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:14,000
Speaker 1: crouched down by the road. When the car's headlights flashed

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Speaker 1: across it, they saw again those same bright red eyes

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Speaker 1: and realized with horror the creature was back. After speeding

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Speaker 1: right past it, the group screamed in terror when it

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00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:32,600
Speaker 1: suddenly unfurled its huge pair of wings and shot straight

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Speaker 1: up into the air. As they continued to yell for

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Speaker 1: Roger to go faster, Linda caught sight of the creature

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Speaker 1: and screamed out again. It was in the air above them.

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Speaker 1: They were watched petrified with disbelief as it glided for

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Speaker 1: a moment, keeping pace with the car, then suddenly swooped

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Speaker 1: down toward them, only to veer off at the last

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Speaker 1: minute and disappeared into the night. Roger eventually brought the

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Speaker 1: car to a skidding stop outside the entrance to a farm.

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Speaker 1: As they struggled to catch their breath, Roger and Steve

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Speaker 1: debated whether it was best to head straight home or

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Speaker 1: turn back to try and get a second look at

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Speaker 1: the thing. As Linda was frantically looking for any sign

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00:22:22,880 --> 00:22:26,080
Speaker 1: of it, she noticed the body of a large dog

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Speaker 1: lying dead in the road, which, unbeknownst to her, bore

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Speaker 1: a striking resemblance to Merle Partridge's dock that had gone

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Speaker 1: missing two days before. She was just about to alert

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Speaker 1: the others to it when the creature suddenly appeared once more,

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00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,160
Speaker 1: leaping out of the shadows and bouncing over the car

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Speaker 1: before tearing off into a nearby field. The friends squealed

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00:22:51,280 --> 00:22:54,919
Speaker 1: with terror once more as Roger hit the gas and

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Speaker 1: the Chevy powered off in a cloud of dust. They'd

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Speaker 1: barely stopped screaming by the time they'd made it to

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Speaker 1: Tiny's diner, and this is where it scratched the car,

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Speaker 1: said Roger, pointing to the fresh scrape marks on the

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Speaker 1: side of his otherwise pristine Chevy to the utterly bewildered

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Speaker 1: Deputy Halstead. The Deputy ran his fingers along the scupped

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Speaker 1: paint work, feeling the flex of it crumble off under

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Speaker 1: his fingers. Ulstead turned to Gary, the diner's owner, and

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Speaker 1: then back to the kids. Not a hint of mischief

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Speaker 1: on any of their faces. None of them were drunk either,

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Speaker 1: as far as he could tell, and while he had

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Speaker 1: no idea what they had seen exactly, he'd known these

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Speaker 1: kids their entire lives. He had no reason to think

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00:23:52,600 --> 00:23:55,720
Speaker 1: they were making any of it up. There was only

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Speaker 1: one thing for it. Twenty minutes later, beams of light

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00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: swept across the back of the Tnty Area's North power plant.

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Speaker 1: Halstead pulled the cruiser in behind it, cut the engine,

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Speaker 1: and switched off the lights inside. Linda, Roger, Mary and

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Speaker 1: Steve sat with him in the darkness, nervously peering out

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Speaker 1: at the windows for any sign of the apparent birdlike creature.

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Speaker 1: A blare of static from the police radio caused them

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Speaker 1: all to jump. As Halstead hurriedly switched it off, a

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Speaker 1: large shadow flittered across the buildings facade. Mary shrieked there,

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Speaker 1: she said, I saw its eyes. Halstead immediately flicked on

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Speaker 1: the lights, just in time to illuminate a large cloud

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00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,840
Speaker 1: of black dust rising up from an old coal heap,

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Speaker 1: as if it had just recently been disturbed by something. Collectively,

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Speaker 1: they all held their brea, but for quite what they

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Speaker 1: couldn't be sure. In the end, there was nothing else

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00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 1: to be seen, and with the night air getting ever colder,

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00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: Hulstead put the cruiser back into gear and drove off

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00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: towards town, passing the farm they'd stopped at earlier. Linda

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00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: was surprised to see that the dead dark was now gone.

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Speaker 1: You've been listening to Unexplained Season six, episode twenty seven,

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00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:37,680
Speaker 1: or that we see Part one of three. Part two

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00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:45,120
Speaker 1: will be released next Friday, January thirteenth. If you enjoy

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00:25:45,200 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: Unexplained and would like to help support us, you can

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Speaker 1: now do so via Patreon. To receive access to add

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Speaker 1: three episodes, just go to patron dot com forward slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained Pod to sign up. Unexplained the book and audiobook

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Speaker 1: featuring ten stories that have never before been covered on

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Speaker 1: the show. Is now available to buy worldwide. You can

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Speaker 1: purchase through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Waterstones, among other bookstores.

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Speaker 1: All elements of Unexplained, including the show's music, are produced

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Speaker 1: by me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the

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Speaker 1: show wherever you listen to podcasts, and feel free to

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Speaker 1: stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an

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Speaker 1: explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can

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Speaker 1: reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter

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