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Speaker 1: It is late one September night in nineteen ninety seven

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Speaker 1: in the borderlands of Nevada and California. Out on the

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Speaker 1: edges of the desert town of perump sits a simple

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Speaker 1: double wide trailer surrounded by a panopoly of satellite dishes

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Speaker 1: and radio receivers. Eighty miles to the east lie the

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Speaker 1: bright lights of Las Vegas, and just a little further

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Speaker 1: to the north, past desolate valleys and dusty mountain ridges,

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Speaker 1: a place known variously to some as Dreamland or Paradise Branch,

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Speaker 1: but more commonly today as Area fifty one. Inside the trailer,

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Speaker 1: late night radio DJ Art Bell takes a drag on

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Speaker 1: a cigarette as the Charlie Daniel's band thunders through the

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Speaker 1: Devil Went Down to Georgia, when suddenly he notices a

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Speaker 1: call coming through on the Area fifty one line. Earlier

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Speaker 1: in the show, Art had invited former employees of the

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Speaker 1: secretive US Air Force base to call in on the

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Speaker 1: dedicated line if they wish to share any information about

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Speaker 1: their time working there. It is shortly after one am,

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Speaker 1: with millions listening across more than four hundred radio stations

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Speaker 1: throughout the nation, when Art prematurely fades out the music

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Speaker 1: and takes the call on my Area fifty one line.

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Speaker 1: You're on there, Hello, Hello, Art, Yes, him. I don't

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Speaker 1: have a whole lot of time A former employee, former employee.

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Speaker 1: I was let go on a medical discharge about a

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Speaker 1: week ago, and and I've kind of been running across

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Speaker 1: the country. Man, I don't know where to start them.

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Speaker 1: They'll triangulate on this position. Really released soon. You can't

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on the phone, So give

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Speaker 1: us something quick. Okay, um um, okay. What we're thinking

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Speaker 1: of as as aliens are there, that they're they're extra

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Speaker 1: dimensional beings that an earlier precursor of the UM space

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Speaker 1: program made contact with. H. They are not what they

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Speaker 1: claim to be. They have infiltrated a lot of uh,

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Speaker 1: a lot of aspects of of of the military establishment

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Speaker 1: of particularly the Area fifty one. UH. The disasters that

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Speaker 1: are coming, as the caller went on to explain, disasters

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Speaker 1: were coming that would lead to the wiping out of

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Speaker 1: major population centers led by these apparent aliens, and then silence,

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Speaker 1: the signal completely cut out, not just for the call,

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Speaker 1: but Art's entire show. Though it would be a stretch

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Speaker 1: to say that Art was shaken by the incident. After all,

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Speaker 1: he had been fielding similar callers throughout his career, this

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Speaker 1: one was undoubtedly different. Not once in his twenty years

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Speaker 1: of broadcasting history had he ever lost his satellite signal.

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Speaker 1: Something or someone, it seemed, had cut the caller off,

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Speaker 1: and so this incident would become one of many events

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Speaker 1: in the great ocean of UFO conspiracy theories linked to

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Speaker 1: that mysterious Air Force base. Today, for many, the words

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Speaker 1: Area fifty one are synonymous with the UFOs and theories

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Speaker 1: about just what it is the US government really knows

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Speaker 1: about supposed visitors from other realms, And for one incident

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Speaker 1: in particular that sits at the very top of ufology law.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard mc lean smith.

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Speaker 1: Early in the morning of June fourteenth, nineteen forty seven,

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Speaker 1: two riders are slowly picking their way through desert scrub

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Speaker 1: as a herd of sheep amble about in the distance

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Speaker 1: ahead of them. The riders a forty eight year old

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Speaker 1: ranch manager William mac Brazell and his eight year old

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Speaker 1: son Vernon. For the past decade or so, Brazell had

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Speaker 1: worked as the foreman for the j b. Foster Sheep Ranch,

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Speaker 1: a homestead located about one hundred and thirty miles southeast

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Speaker 1: of Albuquerque in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Though the family

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Speaker 1: lived seventy miles away into LaRosa, Mac as he was

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Speaker 1: known to his friends, was required to stay on site,

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Speaker 1: boarding in what was little more than a shack, isolated

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Speaker 1: on his own, with no electricity, water, or tell of phone.

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Speaker 1: And so it was with great fondness that he looked

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Speaker 1: forward to days like these, spending time with his son,

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Speaker 1: just enjoying the tranquility of the desert. Just forty years previously,

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Speaker 1: Mac's uncle, Jesse Wayne Brazil, achieved some notoriety after getting

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Speaker 1: caught up in the murder of Pat Garrett, the infamous

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Speaker 1: lawman who gunned down Billy the Kid. Though Jesse confessed

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Speaker 1: to the killing, many believed he'd merely been put up

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Speaker 1: to it, since that kind of act just wasn't the

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Speaker 1: Brazil way. As for Mac, he was very much the

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Speaker 1: quiet sort, preferring to just keep his head down and

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Speaker 1: work hard for his family. That morning, Mac and Vernon

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Speaker 1: were about seven miles from the ranch. As Mac ran

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Speaker 1: his eyes over the sheep when he caught sight of

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Speaker 1: something glinting in the distance. That's strange, he thought, as

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Speaker 1: he tugged his hat down further over his eyes and

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Speaker 1: squinted toward the sparkling light it seemed to be coming

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Speaker 1: from the ground. Assuming it to be nothing but a

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Speaker 1: mirrg or some other trick of the light, Mac kicked

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Speaker 1: lightly on the horse and trotted out toward it. But incredibly,

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Speaker 1: as he drew nearer, the mirage didn't disappear. Instead, it

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Speaker 1: seemed to fracture into a number of separate reflective pieces.

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Speaker 1: This was no mirage, he realized, but something material that

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Speaker 1: had fallen from above and shattered all across the desert floor.

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Speaker 1: Though often out there in that big, wide expanse, it

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Speaker 1: could feel to Mac like he might as well have

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Speaker 1: been on Mars, how isolated he was from the outside world.

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Speaker 1: On occasion, his world would be interrupted by the odd

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Speaker 1: weather balloon dropping in from out of the sky. But

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Speaker 1: as Mac looked upon the strange mix of materials scattered

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Speaker 1: across the floor in front of him, the only thing

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Speaker 1: he did know was that this was nothing like any

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Speaker 1: of those weather balloons he had seen before. Ten days later,

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Speaker 1: after mac Brazel's discovery in New Mexico, something unusual was

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Speaker 1: about to unfold fifteen hundred miles away. Since nineteen forty one,

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Speaker 1: fire control engineer Kenneth Arnold had run his own business,

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Speaker 1: selling and installing firefighting equipment to rural areas across five

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Speaker 1: western states. Part of Arnold's success owed much to his

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Speaker 1: dual experience as a pilot, which gave him direct access

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Speaker 1: to his clients in a way that most of his

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Speaker 1: competitors couldn't match. In nineteen forty four, Arnold gained his

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Speaker 1: solo flying license and duly purchased his own plane, often

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Speaker 1: flying forty to one hundred hours per month as he

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Speaker 1: peddled his wear up and down the country. By the

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Speaker 1: summer of nineteen forty seven, Arnold, who was by then

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Speaker 1: thirty two, had over nine thousand hours of flying time

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Speaker 1: under his belt. On the morning of June twenty fourth,

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Speaker 1: Arnold had been helping to install equipment for the Central

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Speaker 1: Air Service in Chehalis, Washington. Having finished the job shortly

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Speaker 1: before two pm, Arnold headed to the local airport, then

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Speaker 1: boarded his call Air single engine airplane, and promptly set

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Speaker 1: off toward his next appointment, pulling ever higher into the

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Speaker 1: bright blue sky. Above, Arnold set course for the city

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Speaker 1: of Yakama, located just one hundred and fifty miles due

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Speaker 1: east on the other side of the Cascades mountain range.

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Speaker 1: With it being such a calm and clear day, Arnold

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Speaker 1: decided to have a look for a C forty six

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Speaker 1: transport plane but had apparently gone down in the Cascades

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Speaker 1: somewhere on the southwest slope of Mountbrenier only a few

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Speaker 1: days previously. A five thousand dollar reward had been offered

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Speaker 1: to any one who could locate it. A short time later,

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Speaker 1: flying at nine and a half thousand feet, Arnold made

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Speaker 1: his approach to the mountain, then turned back on himself

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Speaker 1: to make a thorough sweep of its western bridge. Seeing

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Speaker 1: nothing below save for a series of dark, rocky crags

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Speaker 1: protruding out from under a dusting of fine white snow,

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Speaker 1: Arnold continued westward, just past the town of Ashford before

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Speaker 1: completing a three hundred and sixty degree turn and heading

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Speaker 1: on towards Yakima. Though he was disappointed not to have

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Speaker 1: spotted the downed plain, Arnold eased back to an altitude

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Speaker 1: of nine thousand, two hundred feet and resolved just to

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Speaker 1: enjoy the rest of the flight from thereon, in admiring

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Speaker 1: the wide blue sky above and the wild, untouched terrain below.

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Speaker 1: Moments later, Arnold noticed a DC four aircraft flying about

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Speaker 1: fifteen miles behind him and five thousand feet above. He

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Speaker 1: was just making a note of it when he was

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Speaker 1: distracted by a series of sudden bright flashes reflecting off

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Speaker 1: his plane. Startled by the flashes, Arnold hurriedly searched about

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Speaker 1: for any sign of any other aircraft nearby, worried that

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Speaker 1: he might have gotten too close to something without realizing.

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Speaker 1: Then he noticed something odd just beyond the summit of

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Speaker 1: Mount Raynier, what appeared to be nine single aircraft flying

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Speaker 1: at a similar altitude to his own plane, approaching rapidly

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Speaker 1: in a V formation from north to south. Arnold watched

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Speaker 1: with amazement as the apparent crafts, though keeping set on

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Speaker 1: their course, continued to dip and swerve in and out

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Speaker 1: of the high mountain peaks, moving as if there were

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Speaker 1: stones being skimmed across water. As they did so, bright

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Speaker 1: flashes of sunlight reflected off them, just like he had

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Speaker 1: been startled by moments before. Before long, the objects had

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Speaker 1: moved in front of the mountain, from which Arnold was

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Speaker 1: then able to observe the shape of them, silhouetted against

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Speaker 1: the white canvas of snow behind, and that was when

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Speaker 1: things got really strange. At first, the objects seemed to

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Speaker 1: be little more than thin black lines, until they would

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Speaker 1: flip suddenly and momentarily revealed themselves to be round, saucer

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Speaker 1: like discs that came to a point at the back.

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Speaker 1: Worried his eyes were deceiving him, Arnold slid the window

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Speaker 1: back to get a clear view unimpeded by the plexiglass.

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Speaker 1: He also tried turning the plane slightly for a different angle,

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Speaker 1: but still the nine strange objects remained visible. Quickly grabbing

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Speaker 1: a small tool from his pocket, Arnold used it to

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Speaker 1: compare the size of the vehicles with the DC four

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Speaker 1: in the distance, judging them to be about half the

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Speaker 1: size of its wingspan. The width of the whole v

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Speaker 1: formation be estimated to be about five miles long. After

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Speaker 1: almost three minutes, Arnold watched the objects as they continued

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Speaker 1: on their way south toward Mount Adams, before eventually disappearing

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Speaker 1: altogether from view. Are you always taking care of your family?

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Speaker 1: Do you often take care of others and not yourself?

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Speaker 1: Now it's time to take care of yourself, to make

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Speaker 1: time for you you deserve it. Teledoc gives you access

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Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist to help you get back to

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Speaker 1: feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc,

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Speaker 1: you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video.

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Speaker 1: Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven

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Speaker 1: am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed

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Speaker 1: sometimes maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely,

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Speaker 1: or you might be struggling with a personal or family issue,

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Speaker 1: teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches,

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Speaker 1: so they make it easy to change counselors if needed.

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Speaker 1: For free, teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.

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Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com Forward slash

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's t e la

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Speaker 1: DC dot com slash Unexplained podcast of amused and excitable

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Speaker 1: Arnold touched down at Yakima Airport just after four p m,

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Speaker 1: where he immediately regaled airport manager and good friend Al

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Speaker 1: Baxter with what he had just witnessed. Baxter listened carefully

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Speaker 1: to what his friend had to say, but there was

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Speaker 1: just no way he thought that Arnold could possibly have

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Speaker 1: seen what he was claiming. Nonetheless, it was such an

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Speaker 1: unusual story that by the time Arnold arrived in Pendleton, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: to attend an air show later that day, news of

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Speaker 1: his bizarre sighting had already preceded him. Speaking to a

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Speaker 1: number of pilot friends at the show, some former Army pilots,

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Speaker 1: Arnold was urged to recount his story again. Unlike Baxter, however,

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Speaker 1: many were less certain if Arnold had been mistaken. A

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Speaker 1: number of them speculated as to whether the aircraft might

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Speaker 1: actually have been top secret planes that were still being

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Speaker 1: developed by the US military. During the incident, Arnold had

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Speaker 1: tried to gauge how quickly the objects had been moving

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Speaker 1: by counting the time it took for them to travel

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Speaker 1: between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. It was only later

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Speaker 1: that evening that he remembered to check the distance between

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Speaker 1: the two landmarks. When he discovered they were fifty miles apart,

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Speaker 1: Arnold was shocked by his estimation. The objects would have

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Speaker 1: had have been flying in the region of seventeen hundred

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Speaker 1: miles per hour, three times faster than any known aircraft

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Speaker 1: at the time. The day after his apparent sighting, Arnold

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Speaker 1: was invited to the offices of the East Oregonian Paper

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Speaker 1: in Pendleton to share his version of events. The paper

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Speaker 1: published the story the same day, following it up the

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Speaker 1: next giving a description of the aircraft as nine bright

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Speaker 1: saucerlike objects flying at twelve hundred miles per hour. Before long,

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Speaker 1: the story was sweeping the nation, being picked up by

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Speaker 1: countless other papers, including The Chicago Sun, whose now famous

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Speaker 1: headline supersonic flying sources, cited by Idaho Pilot, is thought

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Speaker 1: to be the first ever use of the term flying saucer.

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Speaker 1: Two days after the event, Arnold was interviewed on k

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Speaker 1: w RC radio. They didn't fly in a conventional formation

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Speaker 1: that's taught in our army. They seemed to kind of

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Speaker 1: weave in and out right above the mountaintop, and I

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Speaker 1: would say that they even went down into the canyons

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Speaker 1: in several instances, or probably one hundred feet. But I

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Speaker 1: could see them against the snow, of course, on Mountaineer,

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Speaker 1: and against the snow on Mount Adams as they were flashing,

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Speaker 1: and against the higher ridge that happens to lay in

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Speaker 1: between Mount Rainier and Mount Adams. But when I observed

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Speaker 1: the tail end of the last one passing Mount Adams,

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Speaker 1: and I was at an angle near a mountraineer from it.

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Speaker 1: But I looked at my watch and it showed one

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Speaker 1: minute in forty two seconds. Well, I fell thought, well

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Speaker 1: that's pretty fast, and I didn't stop to think what

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Speaker 1: the distance was between the two mountains. Well, I landed

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Speaker 1: at Yakima, Washington, and Al Baxter was there to greet me,

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Speaker 1: and he told me, I guess I better changed my

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00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:58,040
Speaker 1: brand for the next few days. Arnold was catapulted into

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Speaker 1: the spotlight in one day two with interview requests and

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Speaker 1: even recognized when out on the street. But incredibly, it

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Speaker 1: wasn't only Arnold who had apparently seen the nine supposed

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Speaker 1: saucerlike aircraft. On June twenty fourth, while Arnold and his

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Speaker 1: plane were heading past Mount Rainier prospector Fred Johnson from Portland, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: was in the Mount Adams district when he too spotted

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Speaker 1: something unusual heading toward him in the sky above. Having

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Speaker 1: a telescope on him at the time, Johnson was able

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Speaker 1: to get a closer view of them. In a letter

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Speaker 1: written to the Army Air Force some months after the event,

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Speaker 1: Johnson claimed the objects were roughly thirty feet wide at

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Speaker 1: a bright top surface, and were round in shape but

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Speaker 1: tapered to a sharp point at the back, just as

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Speaker 1: Arnold had claimed. Looking closer through his telescope, Johnson had

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Speaker 1: also apparently seen some kind of device at the tail end,

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Speaker 1: which he described as being like the big of a clock,

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Speaker 1: shifting from side to side like a big magnet. That

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Speaker 1: same day, a Washington State Forest Service worker on firewatch

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Speaker 1: in the Diamond Gap lookout tower, just twenty miles south

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Speaker 1: of Yakima, saw something too. It was around three pm,

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Speaker 1: while making a routine sweep at the forest with his binoculars,

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Speaker 1: that the man noticed a series of bright flashes coming

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Speaker 1: from the direction of Mount Vernier. The flashes appeared to

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Speaker 1: move in a straight line right across his field of vision.

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Speaker 1: Johnson's and the fire service workers account are thought to

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Speaker 1: be two of at least sixteen similar sightings to Kenneth

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Speaker 1: Arnold's given by witnesses considered credible by either the press

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Speaker 1: or Army Air Force investigators. The pilot of the DC

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Speaker 1: four that had been flying close to Arnold at the

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Speaker 1: time of the incident was also contacted. However, he was

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Speaker 1: reported not to have seen anything unusual that day. Back

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Speaker 1: at the JB. Foster Ranch in New Mexico, mac Brazel,

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Speaker 1: unaware of the Kenneth Arnold's sightings, was beginning to wander

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Speaker 1: more and more about the peculiar debris it'd spotted on

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Speaker 1: the pastures the previous week. Something about it just didn't

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Speaker 1: add up. On July two, just over thirty miles to

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Speaker 1: the east of the Foster Ranch, in the town of Roswell,

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00:19:30,600 --> 00:19:35,159
Speaker 1: something else was afoot. Roswell, with a population at the

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Speaker 1: time of roughly fifteen thousand, is the seat of Chaves County,

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Speaker 1: and its residents were no strangers to the site of

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Speaker 1: objects flying rapidly through the sky. Back in nineteen thirty,

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Speaker 1: early rocketing pioneer and inspiration to a young Jack Parsons,

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Speaker 1: Robert Goddard, established a base in Roswell to conduct his

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Speaker 1: research in the nascent technology. Goddard had picked ross Well

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Speaker 1: as the perfect place to experiment due to its sense

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Speaker 1: of isolation and the strict secrecy it afforded him. Only

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Speaker 1: ten years later, the United States Army Air Forces, having

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Speaker 1: acquired land from a local rancher, constructed the Roswell Army

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Speaker 1: airfield on the southern outskirts of the town. That July night,

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Speaker 1: at one hundred and five South Pennsylvania Avenue, thirty two

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Speaker 1: year old Dorris and forty year old Dan Wilmot headed

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Speaker 1: out to their porch as they usually did to relax

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Speaker 1: after one of the hottest days of the year. The

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Speaker 1: couple were well known to many in the city and

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Speaker 1: highly respected, partly due to Dan being the owner of

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Speaker 1: a prominent local hardware store, but also a serving member

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Speaker 1: of the city's Board of Education. It was just approaching

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Speaker 1: ten PM when Dan noticed something unusual in the pitch

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Speaker 1: black sky. Since both Dan and Dorris had spent their

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Speaker 1: entire lives the area, having lived through both Godards experimenting

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00:21:03,520 --> 00:21:06,360
Speaker 1: and the construction of the local Air Force base, they

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00:21:06,359 --> 00:21:09,919
Speaker 1: had seen their fair share of aircraft, but this was

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Speaker 1: like nothing they had seen before. At first, it seemed

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Speaker 1: nothing more unusual than a bright star in the sky,

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Speaker 1: until Dan realized that not only was it moving, but

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Speaker 1: it was getting closer, sipping through the sky at a

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Speaker 1: high rate of speed. Doris soon caught sight of it too,

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Speaker 1: as it approached from out of the south, heading in

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Speaker 1: a northwesterly direction. In their excitement, the couple sprang to

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Speaker 1: their feet and ran into the yard to get a

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00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 1: better look at it. Dan later estimated it to have

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Speaker 1: been traveling somewhere close to five hundred miles per hour

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Speaker 1: at roughly fifteen hundred feet, but it was the shape

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Speaker 1: of it that really caught their attention, as the couple

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Speaker 1: reported later, at about five feet in depth and somewhere

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Speaker 1: between fifteen to twenty feet wide, it appeared to be

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Speaker 1: oval like, two inverted sources placed face to face. Aside

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Speaker 1: from the faintest swishing sound, the object was completely silent,

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Speaker 1: but most peculiarly, the whole body of it was glowing,

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Speaker 1: not from any light they could see outside of it,

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Speaker 1: but from the inside of the object. The couple claimed

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Speaker 1: to have watched the object for roughly a minute before

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Speaker 1: it disappeared beyond distant treetops on nearby six mile Hill.

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Speaker 1: Dan and Doris would spend the rest of the night

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Speaker 1: utterly confused as to what on earth it was they

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Speaker 1: had just seen, assuming that it would be the talk

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Speaker 1: of the town the next day. Much to their surprise, however,

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Speaker 1: not one person mentioned it. Before long, the couple began

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Speaker 1: to wonder if they had seen anything unusual at all.

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Speaker 1: Back out on the j Be Foster ranch, Mac Brazell

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Speaker 1: and his son had been joined by his wife and

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Speaker 1: daughter to celebrate Independence Day. Having finally decided to do

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Speaker 1: something about the debris out in the field, Brazel convinced

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Speaker 1: his family to join him out there in trying to

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Speaker 1: pick it all up. After riding for an hour and

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Speaker 1: a half, the family came upon the strewn pieces just

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Speaker 1: as Mac had left them on June fourteenth. Together, they

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00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:29,119
Speaker 1: jumped down and gathered up as much of it as

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Speaker 1: they could, bundling the rest of it up and hiding

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00:23:32,280 --> 00:23:36,800
Speaker 1: it under a bush. The following day, Mack drove up

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Speaker 1: to Corona, a small township forty miles to the north,

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Speaker 1: to visit his brother in law, Hollis. Later, when Mack

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Speaker 1: told Hollis about the strange materials he had found out

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Speaker 1: in the desert, his brother in law's eyes widened. It

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Speaker 1: was then that Mac heard for the first time about

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Speaker 1: the bizarre sightings of unidentified flying objects that seemed to

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Speaker 1: be plaguing the nation. And so it was that, after

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Speaker 1: wrestling with what best to do, on Monday morning, je

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Speaker 1: Mac loaded up his truck with some of the pieces

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Speaker 1: of what he'd found and set off toward Roswell. A

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Speaker 1: short time later, after first dropping his family off into LaRosa,

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Speaker 1: Mac pulled up outside the Chaves County Sheriff's office. Taking

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Speaker 1: the strange materials from the back of his truck, he

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Speaker 1: walked through the big double doors and straight into one

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Speaker 1: of the most beguiling and enduring mysteries of modern times.

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Speaker 1: You've been listening to Unexplained, Season four, episode eleven, New

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Speaker 1: Dawn Fades, Part one of two. The second and final

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Speaker 1: part will be released next Friday five. If you enjoy this,

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00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:02,680
Speaker 1: think to Unexplained and would like to help support us,

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Speaker 1: you can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com, forward

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Speaker 1: Slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,

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00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: are massively appreciated. All elements of Unexplained are produced by

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00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,800
Speaker 1: me Richard McClain smith. Please subscribe and rate the show

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Speaker 1: on iTunes, and feel free to get in touch with

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Speaker 1: the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own

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Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast dot com, or Twitter at Unexplained Pod and

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