Astonishing Legends

For whatever reason, 1952, the year of Truman Bethurum's encounters with saucer Captain Aura Rhanes and her crew, was a watershed year for UFO interactions and the Contactee movement.  The period is mainly known for marking an era of peaceable and friendly exchanges with aliens, deAL266: Bethurum Part 2 – UFOs and the Occult spite the predictable fears of the "other" depicted in 1950s Science Fiction and fueled by Cold War tensions.  Sometimes colloquially referred to as "Space Brothers" (which could include Bethurum's "Space Sister" Rhanes) or occasionally an alien race of "Nordics," these benevolent otherworldly visitors often urged humans to live in harmony, to care for our planet, and warned us of the dangers of the atomic age.  The overall message is they were here to protect us from ourselves.  But as welcoming and comforting as that sounds, there is a much-overlooked aspect of some of the personalities involved in this generation of heralds – a fair number of them had ties to occult beliefs and practic

On Sunday night, July 27, 1952, Cement Batch Plant Operator Truman Bethurum took a little snooze during his break while working the swing shift on an Asphalt Mixing Plant project near Mormon Mesa, Nevada.  He awoke to hear unintelligible murmuring from eight to ten small-sized men who had surrounded his truck.  Initially startled by the diminutive beings who all seemed to be wearing uniforms, what would really make Truman's heart pound with excitement was that they appeared to be the crew of an enormous flying saucer that had landed just a few yards away.  He described the ship as about 300 feet in diameter and six yards deep at its center, with something akin to a burnished stainless steel finish.  Bethurum went aboard to meet the female captain of the ship and was able to ask her questions, to which he often received cryptic yet intriguing answers.  One visitation like this would be enough to question one's reality and sanity, but Bethurum was able to meet and converse with these interplanetary visitors on

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the earth?  Does a hoax that a whole town would have to be in on even make sense?  Could the gestalt be a little from all of these things?  We may never know precisely what the Van Meter Monster was, but we can learn how something clinically described as an unusual sensory experience affects the people who see it.  Something else we can bet on is that, like it or not, we must share our reality with the surreal, and as rare as it is, people will continue to see the impossible. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be.  An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the earth?  Does a hoax that a whole town would have to be in on even make sense?  Could the gestalt be a little from all of these things?  We may never know precisely what the Van Meter Monster was, but we can learn how something clinically described as an unusual sensory experience affects the people who see it.  Something else we can bet on is that, like it or not, we must share our reality with the surreal, and as rare as it is, people will continue to see the impossible.Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

When most folks hear about a fantastical cryptid sighting, they just assume it was a dubious, one-off, misinterpreted encounter by the town drunk, or overimaginative prankster kids, if they believe any of it at all.  But none of this applies to the incident where a mystical creature terrorized the small farming town of Van Meter, Iowa, in 1903.  For five nights starting September 29, an impossible visitor made its presence known to the townsfolk.  Upon returning at 1:00 am from a job out of town, implement dealer U.G. Griffith spotted a dark figure on a downtown rooftop, which seemed to be shining a bright spotlight around.  Thinking it may be a burglar, Griffith approached to inspect when suddenly, the large shadow leaped to another rooftop across the street and disappeared.  The following night, around the same time, the town’s doctor, Dr. Alcott, was also alerted to a bright light shining through his window and ran outside to investigate.  Dr. Alcott, though, got a better view of the intruder.  The figure

There is a road in Warren County, New Jersey, that, according to many generations of locals, seems to be a vortex or at least a hotspot of all manner of paranormal and unsettling activity.  Tales of Native American spirits seen along the roadside, ghostly victims of vigilante justice dangling from “The Hanging Tree,” spectral deer running alongside cars, murder and highway robbery, UAPs and glowing orbs, the ghost from a 1950s Prom Date car accident still in her burned dress limping home, and even disturbing Polaroids of distressed people scattered in the woods are all part of the lore of this nearly 7-mile stretch of road officially and aptly named, Shades of Death Road.  But with such an ominous and foreboding name, does this country road live up to the hype, and how did it get its name?  Perhaps one could dismiss Shades of Death Road as just another random community locus that births Urban Legends, except that it’s not the only haunting and notorious landmark in the area.  Adjacent to the road are two othe

In December 2017, the New York Times published a ground-breaking article titled “Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program.” The report was noteworthy not only for what it brought to light about the earnest government/military study of the UAP phenomenon but also that such a storied and seemingly no-nonsense newspaper like the New York Times finally took the subject seriously as well. We followed up in January 2018 with a two-part episode called “Imminent Disclosure?”  The question mark on the title indicated we weren’t sure when FULL disclosure would arrive, but drips and drops of astounding revelations were indeed on the horizon. Five and a half years later, since that watershed coverage made a splash, two of its original journalists, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, have done it again. On June 5th, 2023, they published an article about a former intelligence official and whistleblower named David Grusch. That article is called “Intelligence Officials Say US Has Retrieved Craft of

We were honored to be invited to the inaugural celebration of Monster Fest 2023, produced by our good friends Seth Breedlove and his crew at Small Town Monsters. Taking place at the DoubleTree hotel in downtown Canton, OH, the evening of Friday, June 2, saw the premiere of STM’s latest documentary, On the Trail of Bigfoot: Land of the Missing, at the historic (and haunted) Canton Palace Theater. Saturday, June 3, was the main event which featured a packed and exciting ballroom full of vendors with the most creative and coolest wares on display, expert researchers, authors, artists, podcasters, filmmakers, speakers, special guests... and then there was us, along with legendary screenwriter Rich Hatem. No question, we loved catching up with friends in our fields and meeting new contemporaries. Still, meeting so many of our wonderful listeners was an even bigger highlight. And we’re all fortunate that several generously and bravely shared their stories of paranormal encounters for our live taping in front of an

We’re pleased and honored to present a special guest for this episode, Dr. Abraham “Avi” Loeb. Dr. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at the age of 24. He has written nine books and nearly 1000 papers, led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative, and served as a long-standing member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, among many other achievements. Although his work with the Breakthrough Starshot project to send “light sails” speeding toward nearby stars may have initially gained him the most notoriety in science news, his study and theory of a recent anomalous visitor put him on the radar of the general public. In October 2017, a Hawaiian observatory detected the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system, which was subsequently named Oumuamua, meaning “scout” in the Hawaiian language. That fact alone may have registere

Astonishing Promo Trailer 1 - 2023

Anyone familiar with UFO and alien abduction lore knows that all manner of creatures have been reported to be associated with the phenomenon.  While the "Grays" have dominated the popular culture imagination, some who claimed encounters recall things as fantastic and diverse as robots, androids, simians, reptilians, humanoid hybrids, and even Nordic-looking "Space Brothers and Sisters."  Yet one scary entity may be at the apex of strange intruders, an evolved lifeform with telepathic powers, a tall, biped body, and a triangular-shaped head resembling an earthly mantis insect.  But what if these insectoid organisms existed apart from the transportation technology we'd like to think they travel with?  What if they were a natural, independent species from another world that overlaps ours, unintentional visitors from another planet or dimension, or maybe they've been here all along and just developed a way to cloak themselves, but it sometimes fails?  While many tales of these characters connect to UFOs, a signif

In Part Two of our series on the mysterious hole in Tsarichina, Bulgaria, we take a closer look at the history of the legendary Tsar Samuel, whose legacy sparked the initial search and the likelihood of his treasure hoard.  We’ll also examine the role of the famous Bulgarian prophet, Baba Vanga, whose consultation decreed that the hole was a phenomenon mankind could not explain, along with a message from another world.  She also warned that if they continued digging, they would reach a suspended animation capsule containing some form of simian-like, asexual being that was not meant to be disturbed, asking, what would they do once it woke up?  Whether what was buried in Tsarichina was a cover story for toxic waste disposal, a government boondoggle, or truly reality-altering secrets of the universe we aren’t ready for, perhaps it’s best to let sleeping primordial protohumans lie. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In 1990 in the small village of Tsarichina in western Bulgaria, a resident kept having vivid dreams and what he claimed were psychic messages directed at him. Dimitar Kekemenov claimed that famous historical Bulgarian notables told him he was descended from the heroic Tsar Samuel of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 11th century and that it was his national duty to find Samuel’s lost treasures and restore prosperity to the country. A disembodied entity also told him that not only if he followed their instructions precisely would he find the buried treasure, but that other hidden mysteries would be revealed that would change the world. While this may sound outlandish to most, curiously, it was taken quite seriously by high-ranking military officers of the Bulgarian Defense Ministry, who decided excavation should commence immediately. From December 6, 1990, to November 19, 1992, heavily guarded tunneling proceeded day and night, spiraling down into the hard earth. Eventually, work was halted, and the hole was s

Listen to Scott and Forrest on Let's Not Meet: A True Horror Podcast this April 3rd, 2023!

Forrest and Scott join their good friend Rob Kristoffersen over at Our Strange Skies for a special April 1st crossover show!

As stated in the book, Conjuring up Philip: An adventure in psychokinesis, written by Iris M. Owen, in the introduction written by her husband, Dr. A.R. George Owen, the “Group of 8’s” initial goals were to first find out whether seemingly interactive spirit communication could be produced in bright light. Secondly, they wanted to know if a spirit medium was necessary or if ordinary people could generate this phenomenon. Third, if this force was produced by a disembodied spirit or was caused by the experiment’s living participants. They also hoped for what they thought would be their pinnacle of success: to produce a collective hallucination of their imaginary friend Philip, which everyone could document and witness. Unfortunately, Philip never physically materialized, but amazingly their other objectives did. However, one question remains, perhaps to be answered by neuroscientists and metaphysicists of the future – what exactly is this phenomenon, and what is its cause? If this invisible psychokinetic force

In 1972, the Toronto Society for Psychical Research, led by mathematical geneticist Dr. A.R. George Owen, assembled a group of volunteers from various backgrounds to try something never before attempted. For their experiment, they aimed to manifest a fictional ghost they named “Philip Aylesford” and would try to communicate with this fabricated entity through séance-like sessions conducted under laboratory conditions and bright lighting. A fictional biography was created for Philip that the group could focus on. He was to be born in England in 1624 and connected to real places and events but with intentional historical errors inserted as control markers. For over a year, the “Group of 8” met weekly, and for over a year… nothing happened. But then, upon the advice of two pioneering paranormal researchers, the group changed their tactics to make their attempts more in the style of seances from the turn of the 20th century. This made the meetings more like festive social gatherings, with singing and laughter, un

On Christmas Eve, 24 December 1975, concert violinist Peter Gibbs was just finishing dinner with his girlfriend at the Glenforsa Hotel on the Isle of Mull in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The pair had traveled to this island in the Inner Hebrides four days earlier to look for hotels to purchase for his property investment company. Gibbs had rented an airplane to island hop during their holiday to use in his search, and the Glenforsa, with its adjacent airstrip, would serve as their base camp. But after dinner, Gibbs did something most of us would find odd, perhaps not for the bold World War II RAF Spitfire veteran fighter pilot; he decided to take a solo plane flight to demonstrate that night flights to the island were possible. It was supposed to be a 10-minute joyride while Gibbs' girlfriend, Felicity Grainger, waited on the unlit grass runway with two flashlights to guide him back in. No one would see Gibbs' Cessna F150H ever again. But, four months later, Gibbs' body would be found 400 feet up a rocky hillsi

Forrest will be on History's Greatest Mysteries tonight at 9/8c talking about The Lost Colony of Roanoke!

In part two of our series on the Nazca lines, we examine some of the prevailing theories about their purpose.  From astronomical earthwork markers, maps of aquifer sources, and a gargantuan textile & mummy manufactory to processional pathways for worshippers, a conclusive and comprehensive explanation continues to elude researchers and the public.  Yet while most scholars and enthusiasts concentrate on the biomorphic geoglyphs of Nazca, perhaps the greater mystery lies in the older, more sophisticated, and complex lines in the Palpa region to the north.  Here, the multitude of amazingly long stretches of "runway" courses, zig-zags, and labyrinthine "paper clip" patterns suggest that this culture's motivations may have been technological as well as spiritual.  In addition, many of these lines were carved into what appear to be the leveled ridges of the mountainous geography, where tracks can lead to steep dropoffs.  Whatever the speculations, we may only be one new discovery away from finally solving the r