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June 2, 2025 23 mins

How does a man disappear from a locked jail cell with no way out? This Alaska sergeant's final confession exposes the night reality shattered - when something came for a prisoner who claimed aliens were tracking him. The government cover-up that followed silenced witnesses forever.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:32):
Men in black on the scene within hours.
Files vanished overnight.
Officers resigned in terror.
All to cover up one impossible truth.
I'm Carol Ann.
Welcome to The InBetween.
The following story is a deathbed account

(00:55):
from someone who needed the world to knowthe truth.
It's been shared to us hereat The InBetween by his friend,
a regular viewerwho wishes to remain anonymous.
And after you hear this story,you'll know why.
For the sake of the story,we're going to call our InBetweener Ted.
But the story isn't about Ted.

(01:16):
He's just the brave messenger.
The story iswhat was written in a letter to Ted
from his longtime friend,whom we are going to call Dan.
Ted and Dan served in the Army together.
And there's something about those bondsthat never break.
Maybe that's why Dan chose Ted as the most
trustworthy person with whomhe could think of to share his experience,

(01:40):
having faiththat Ted would know what to do with it.
So from Dan, to Ted, to The InBetween,
to you, here is Dan’s story.
Dan served over 20 years in the Armyas a Correctional Specialist
and retired with an honorable dischargeand a pension.
But life isn't over yet.

(02:02):
So Dan moves to Alaskaand gets a job in the sheriff's department
in a citysomewhere on the banks of the Yukon River,
where he eventually becomes the nightshift sergeant at the county jail.
And he loves that job.
But roll on another 20 yearsinto the 1990s.

(02:22):
Dan's had enough.
He's worked hard for a long time,and it's time to enjoy the rewards.
He puts in his retirement noticeto be effective in a few weeks,
and startsplanning a move to a warmer climate.
On this particular night, Dan feels goodas he rocks on up to the station.
His plans are going welland it's subzero temperatures tonight.

(02:45):
Not that he likes the cold,but that generally means a slow night
at the county jail.
Less people outside.
Less people in trouble.
Not that he really worried about it.
Between the armyand the sheriff's department, Dan
has dealt with every kind of lowlifeand weirdo imaginable.
But tonight it's going to be different.

(03:06):
He just doesn't know it yet.
The quiet that Dan had been hopingfor doesn't last long.
The hospital psych ward callsto let them know
that they arebringing one of their patients over.
This guy's totally out of controland attacked both medical staff
and hospital security guards.
They are at their wits end with this guyand are sending him over

(03:26):
to hopefully cool off for a while in jail.
As Dan and the others meet the car cominginto the county jails intake garage,
they watch as a pudgy, baldingfive foot five, 50 year old man
with bulging eyes that never stop moving,in an attempt to either
alleviate or confirm his paranoia,he steps out of the car.

(03:50):
The little hair he has leftis sticking out everywhere,
and he ceaselessly mumbles on aboutnothing anyone can understand.
Just as they're about to take custody,it hits them like a ton of bricks.
The smell.
The man had been at the hospitalfor quite a while, and, unbeknownst
to any of the deputies,had refused to shower the entire time.

(04:15):
But overall he seems pretty calm,
so they bring him insideto the booking area.
Between information from the hospitaland from prior arrests,
they have pretty muchall of the information that they needed.
So actually getting him processed intothe jail goes pretty quickly.
But they do have some questions for him.
The whole time Dan is tryingto get answers, the guy is standing there

(04:37):
rocking back and forthand continuing the constant mumbling.
The only things Dan can understandare a few snippets
about how “they were coming”and that “nothing can stop them.”
So this not being Dan's first rodeo,
he starts asking the man questions aboutthe things he can actually understand,

(04:57):
showing the man that he'sactually interested in what's going on
with him, and letting the man knowthat he's here to help him.
And sometimes it just takes
that little bit of concernto change someone's world.
The man starts opening up to Dan.
“You're the police, and I'll be protectedas long as I'm with you guys.

(05:19):
Right?”
“Protect you from what?”
The man points his indexfinger straight up.
At this moment, Dan is grateful for the 40years of training in a serious business
that gave him an iron poker face,even though he's grinning on the inside.
“You mean protect youfrom something from outer space?”

(05:39):
The man quietly and carefully answers.
“ET.”
Now, this is certainly notthe first person Dan has ever met
who believed that extraterrestrialsare visiting this planet.
And while I'm sure there are some peopleout there who would beg to differ,
most rational people agreethat someone believing in life

(06:00):
from another planet visitingthis one does not make you a crazy person.
The man was not in the hospitalfor believing in ETs.
He was in the hospital because of hissometimes violent behavior
that posed a risk to himself or others.
And Dan knows that if he does his best
to treat this man gently and calmly,

(06:22):
and let the man know that he'sactually listening to him,
the man might just calm downand let Dan help him.
Dan doesn't actually have to believe him,but a lot of times people
in the same situation this man is in justwant to know that someone is listening.
And it works.
takes a bit of doing,but Dan finally convinces the man

(06:44):
that he will feelso much better about everything
if he takes a nice hot showerand puts on some clean clothes.
As it turns out,
the reason the man had stoppedtaking showers at the hospital is that he
was afraid that the aliens would be ableto telepathically take over the staff,
who couldthen attack him while he's vulnerable.

(07:06):
I mean, naked in the showeris about as vulnerable as it gets.
But Dan just gently lets him knowthat the facility is designed to shield
anyone inside from any kind of outsidealien mind control.
Amazingly enough, that works too.
And the man starts undressingto get ready for the shower.

(07:27):
Much to Dan’s surprise, and dareI say, probably confusion,
he sees that the man's whole bodyis covered in some kind
of lotion, or somethingthat looks more like pancake batter.
seemingly perplexed look on Dan's face,the man informs
Dan that it's for protectionagainst being tracked by the aliens.

(07:47):
The man showers, and when he's done,
Dan notices the man's leftbicep is wrapped in copper tape,
and the tape looks like it's been therea long time.
Dan asks himif the tape is for some kind of injury.
If so, just let him knowand they can note it in his intake report.
“No,” “it's not an injury.

(08:08):
The aliens put an implant in my arma long time ago so they could track me.
The tape is there to blockthe signal.” “Does it help?”
“Not really.
They still manage to find me.
No matter what I do.”Okay, well, since we're in a signal
shielded building here, I think it's safefor you to take that off.

(08:29):
The man looks at Dan nervously, but
trusting that Dan reallyhas his best interests at heart,
and wouldn't lie to himabout the buildings shielding design,
he finally takes Dan's adviceand takes off the copper tape.
All right.
There we go.
All showered and clean and smellingpretty again,

(08:49):
the man changes into his providedjail jumpsuit and rubber slippers,
and Dan is mentally crossing his fingersthat all of this
will help the man relax and sleepthrough the night.
The two men walk down the hall to a singleholding cell in the processing area.
The man, actually seems to relax a littlewhen he sees the cell.

(09:11):
It's like his own little safe spacewhere he could hide
and not have to worry about anythinghappening.
So, in he goes.
Dan closes the door and peace reigns
throughout the entire county jail.
For about a hot minute.
The man is not in his cell
more than 15 minutesbefore he starts screaming for help.

(09:31):
Dan runs over to the doorand looks in through the peephole.
The man is in the same agitated statehe was in when he first got there,
swaying side to side and mumblingto himself between cries for help.
He's wrapped his blanketaround himself like a toga
and is using the Gideon's Bible,provided in every cell
as a shield around his arm,where the copper tape used to be.

(09:54):
Dan triesto talk to him in soothing tones.
“Hey, man. What's the problem?
Just talk to me, okay?
What's going on?” “They know I'm here.
They know I'm here, and I'm not safe.
I hear them signaling one another.
And they're coming to get me.”Dan does his best to try
to talk the guy back down, telling himthat no one is coming to get him.

(10:18):
There's no way anyone can get to him.
If they try,they'll have to go through Dan first.
And he won't let that happen.
But Dan's reassurances are not workingthis time.
The man keeps yelling at the topof his lungs, pounding on the metal door,
sending booming reverberationsthrough the entire floor.

(10:41):
Unfortunately, that same floor also housesthe really bad guys
- the rapists, murderers, muggers,the violent hard core crowd.
The commotion wakes all of themup as well, and they are not happy.
So in response, they start their ownruckus, wondering what is going on.

(11:03):
Dan knows this is not good.
If he doesn't get a handle on the chaosright now,
this is going to turn intoan all night affair.
So he decides to move the man to anotherisolation unit on the second floor.
He tells the man he'sbeing moved to another room,
actually a bigger room with a four footwide by ten inch tall window.

(11:28):
Maybe the alienswon't be able to find him there.
And it also has a security camera inside.
So a deputy at the desk,just a couple of doors
down will be able to watch youat all times.
So if anything happens,she'll be able to come in and save you.
The man thinks about it, says okay.

(11:48):
Mainly because of the window.
This way he'll be able to watch the starsthrough the cold night air.
So Dan gets him upthere, settles him in, and shuts the door.
He walks down the hallthrough a couple of security doors,
and gets to the security deskwith all of the CCTV monitors,
sits down with the woman on dutyat the desk, and together

(12:09):
they just watch him for a while,making sure that he is calming down.
They don't want him to get too agitatedagain and maybe try to hurt himself.
For a little while, the man just stands in
the center of the room,looking out the window at the stars,
mumbling and self-soothingwith his side to side swaying motion.

(12:30):
But suddenly he walks to the window,puts his hand on it for a few minutes,
then runs back to the other side ofthe room and yells at the security camera.
“They're coming!”Then runs back to the window,
puts his hand on the glass for a moment,and again runs back to the camera.
“They're coming.”The man repeats this loop

(12:51):
over and over again for over a half
hour, always screamingthe message “they're coming.”
In the meantime, Dan is on the phonewith the hospital psych ward,
trying to find out if they know of any waythat they can help calm this guy down.
Unfortunately,they are of exactly zero help.

(13:13):
Great.
So Dan and the other deputyjust keep watching as the man becomes
more and more hysterical, until eventually
he's in full on panic mode.
The man walks to the corner of the roomwhere the camera is, And gets so close
that his face fills the entire picture
and screams, “They're here!

(13:36):
They’re here!” Now, keep in mindthat this building is the county lockup,
so they have cameras everywhere,covering every angle.
Nothing out ofthe ordinary is happening outside.
The other deputies coming in and outall night don't see anything.
The cameras don't see anything.

(13:56):
And even the dogs are acting like businessas usual.
But as Dan is watching the monitor,watching this man in his cell
shouting at the camera,trying to figure out how to calm him down,
a blue flash of light obliteratesthe picture on the monitor.
When the camera recovers its picture,the man is gone.

(14:19):
Dan grabs his keys and startsrunning toward the cell,
unlocking three heavy security doorsalong the way.
When it gets to the man cell and opensthat door,
all he sees is the rubberslippers on the floor
facing the camera, rightwhere the man had just been standing.
He searches the room.
Not like there's a whole lot to search,but he looks under the bed,

(14:41):
around the room,even up at the ceiling, and sees nothing.
No means of escape and no man.
Dan calls the midnight patrolsergeant on duty and says, “Hey,
we have an inmate missing.”The patrol sergeant immediately
issues an all points bulletinfor the missing man.
A few minutes later, the patrol sergeantand an on duty detective,

(15:03):
both very seasoned officers, meet Danand the other deputy at the second floor
control desk, where Dan and his associate
proceed to tell the two new guysexactly what happened.
Of course, the new guys, the street guys,
think the jail guys are off their rockers.
So Dan shows them the tape.

(15:24):
As the blue flash and empty roomplay out in front of their disbelieving,
bulging eyes, a rather loud chorus
of “WTF” Wow.
That's fantastic.
echoes through the second floor.
All four officers go back to the celland look all around,
making sure they don't touch anything.

(15:46):
Everything is perfect.
Exactly the way it should be.
Except the man is gone.
The patrol sergeant callsin a forensics team.
He wants to know how this guy got out.
The team combsthe entire cell and takes pictures of
absolutely everythingfrom every conceivable angle.
By the time they're done,everyone's even more confused.

(16:08):
Not only is the mannot there like he should be,
but neither are his fingerprintsor any other trace of him.
Anyone watchingthe video can see, plain as day,
the man walked to the window over and overand put his hand on it.
But there's no longerany trace that he was ever in that cell.

(16:31):
It's like the flashnot only took the man, but
every trace of him that was in that room.
few hours later, and Dan is sittingin the sheriff's office anticipating
the ass chewing he's about to get,when the sheriff comes storming in.
No one has ever escaped his jail before,

(16:51):
and he wants answersand a fugitive capture.
Dan hands over his five page report,which includes statements
from every jail officer on duty last nightand the video of the incident.
The sheriff takes a look at it,then tells Dan to stand by.
“We have to wait for someone.”Dan has no idea what that means, but

(17:15):
sure enough, 2.5 hours later, two
very tall, very skinny, platinum
blond men arrive wearing black suits,
black ties and white starched shirts.
Their skin is about as whiteas their shirts
and so thin Dan can seethe veins underneath.

(17:36):
Not to mention that they look like onecould be a clone of the other,
and they have eyes that are so brightblue, Dan's never seen anything like it
in nature before, and the way they walklooks more like a glide than a step.
Dan has heard the rumorsof the Men in Black, and feels very uneasy

(17:56):
about these two, who couldn't lookmore like the 4chan stories if they tried.
The sheriff chats with these guysbehind closed doors for about 15 minutes
before he calls Dan back in.
He hands Dan's report over to one of theseghost guys, who starts flipping
through it as the sheriff tells Danthat these guys are from the Department

(18:17):
of Aeronautic Technical Commandwithin the Department of Defense.
Fake!
He says they have paperwork from the U.S.
Attorney General, the DoD,and the Senate Armed Services Committee
directing them to work with Thing 1and Thing 2 on this investigation.
Okay.
They start discussing the informationin Dan's report.

(18:38):
Dan is more than a little surprisedthat Thing 1 starts
discussing the details of the report,like he'd written it himself.
After just casually flippingthrough the pages?
And he knew the employmentrecord, personal and family history
of every officer who had workedon the case so far, including Dan.

(18:58):
Thing 1 then, not so surprisingly, dropsthe trump card of,
“This is a matter of national security,so we'll be taking over the case
from here.” Didn'tsee that one coming from a mile away.
Of course,they tell everyone that they are
to speak of this to no one,including family members.
If they do, they'll face military charges.

(19:22):
Thing 1 then gives Dan a hard stareand a creepy little grin
as he tells him, “And you, of all people,should know what it would be like
to serve time in a military prison.”So that's it.
Non-Disclosure agreementsare signed by everyone involved.
Thing 1and Thing 2 leave, never to be seen again.
And not another wordis ever spoken about the case.

(19:45):
When Dan reports for work the next night,all files
regarding the case have been wipedand the man's belongings are gone.
And several of the deputies that were onduty last night have called in sick.
Many of whom would resign overthe next few days.
One person who does come backis the deputy
who was monitoring the camerason the second floor.

(20:08):
She calls Dan and says, “Come here.
You got to see this.”She shows Dan the current camera feed
from the cellthat the man had been in the night before.
I guess everyone had been too busy
watching the reruns to noticethe camera's live feed.
There, in front of the lens, is the faint,
ghostly white image of the man'sscreaming face.

(20:31):
Somehow, that blue flash must have seared
an imprint of the man's imageright into the glass.
Not surprisingly, that camera
was replaced just a couple of days later.
That's it.
The last piece of evidencethat the man had ever been there is gone.
Dan closes his letter to Tedby telling him that ever since that night,

(20:54):
so many years ago,he hasn't had a good night's sleep.
Instead, enduring nightmaresevery time he closes his eyes.
Dan made it to retirement
and moved to a warmer climate,just like he had planned.
He enjoyed himself for about a yearbefore health issues started creeping in.

(21:15):
After six months of tests and treatments,
with no actual cause for his sicknessever being found,
all of Dan's internal organsjust all shut down together.
His letter to Ted was writtenjust three days
before Dan died, with the full knowledge
that he would never againbe getting up from that bed.

(21:37):
I mean, I guess as he's in that position,knowing that there's nothing else
that anyone - not the governmentnor any other intelligent force
can take from him -he decided it was time for the world
to know what happened that cold nightand that Alaskan jail.
Most people will probably admitthat they believe

(21:59):
that there is other intelligent lifeout there, somewhere in the universe.
But Dan discovered it's actually here.
And if it wants to find you, it will.
then.
Special thanks to our InBetweener, Ted,for sending us Dan's letter.
I would like to thank both Tedand Dan for their service.

(22:22):
And wherever Dan is now, I'm sorryhe paid a higher price than most.
And I hope he's finally resting in peace.
Personally, I'm not all that surprisedto hear that this happened in Alaska.
Alaska is a very strange state.
If you want to take the plungeand find out why, click right here.
Be careful out there.

(22:44):
And I will see youhere again, on The InBetween.
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