AN ASTRONOMER’S STRANGE LOGIC: How Can He Believe in Aliens While Rejecting UFOs?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marler and this is Weird Darkness.
Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre,
unsolved and unexplained coming up in this episode. If you

(00:31):
ever attended grade school in the United States, you no
doubt are more than familiar with the Mayflower and why
the ship is so famous. But what you were not
told in that classroom is about the mystery that took
place on that voyage, on that very ship, that went
unsolved for over three hundred years. June O'Brien has a problem.

(00:56):
She loves toast and her toast does a really good
job of toasting bread. So what's the problem? Well it
up here's her toaster is possessed by the devil. It
was June nineteen sixty nine, and less than a week
from his seventh birthday. Dennis went camping with his dad, brother,

(01:18):
and grandpa for Father's Day weekend. The next day, they
bumped into some other Father's Day campers with kids and
they all became quick friends. But while the kids were
playing in the tall grass, Dennis disappeared and was never
seen again. But first, how can you believe in extra

(01:39):
terrestrials but not be convinced of alien spacecraft. That's the
argument being made by one well known astronomer. We begin
there now, bulger doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights,
and come with me into the weird darkness. If intelligent

(02:22):
aliens visit the Earth, it would be one of the
most profound events in human history. Surveys show that nearly
half of Americans believe that aliens have visited the Earth,
either in the ancient past or recently. The percentage has
been increasing. Belief in alien visitation is greater than belief

(02:44):
that Bigfoot is a real creature, but less than belief
that places can be haunted by spirits. Scientists dismiss these
beliefs as not representing real physical phenomena. They don't deny
the existence of intelligent aliens, but they set a high
bar for proof that we've been visited by creatures from

(03:05):
another star system. As Carl Sagan said, extraordinary claims require
extraordinary evidence. I'm a professor of astronomy who has written
extensively on the search for life in the universe. I
also teach a free online class on astrobiology. Full disclosure,

(03:25):
I have not personally seen a UFO. UFO means unidentified
flying object, nothing more, nothing less. There's a long history
of UFO sightings. Air Force studies of UFOs have been
going on since the nineteen forties. In the United States.
Ground zero for UFOs occurred in nineteen forty seven in Roswell,

(03:47):
New Mexico. The fact that the Roswell incident was soon
explained as the crash landing of a military high altitude
balloon didn't stem a tide of new sightings. The majority
of US UFOs appear to people in the United States.
It's curious that Asia and Africa have so few sightings

(04:07):
despite their large populations, and even more surprising that the
sightings stop at the Canadian and Mexican borders. Most UFOs
have mundane explanations. Over half can be attributed to meteors, fireballs,
and the planet Venus. Such bright objects are familiar to astronomers,

(04:28):
but are often not recognized by members of the public.
Reports or visits from UFOs inexplicably peaked about six years ago.
Many people who say that they've seen UFOs are either
dog walkers or smokers. Why because they're outside the Most
sightings concentrate in evening hours, particularly on Fridays, when many

(04:53):
people are relaxing with one or more drinks. A few people,
like former NASA employees James Oberg, have the fortitude to
track down and find conventional explanations for decades of UFO sightings.
Most astronomers find the hypothesis of alien visits implausible, so

(05:13):
they concentrate their energy on the exciting scientific search for
life beyond the Earth. While UFOs continue to swirl in
the popular culture. Scientists are trying to answer the big
question that is raised by UFOs, are we alone? Astronomers
have discovered over four thousand exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars,

(05:37):
a number that doubles every two years. Some of these
exoplanets are considered habitable since they are close to the
Earth's mass and at the right distance from their stars
to have water on their surfaces. The nearest of these
habitable planets are less than twenty light years away in
our cosmic backyard. Appellating from these results leads to a

(06:02):
projection of three hundred million habitable worlds in our galaxy.
Each of these earth like planets is a potential biological experiment,
and there have been billions of years since they formed,
for life to develop and for intelligence and technology to emerge.
Astronomers are very confident that there is life beyond the Earth.

(06:25):
As astronomer and ace exoplanet hunter Jeff Marcy puts it,
the universe is apparently bulging at the seams with the
ingredients of biology. There are many steps in the progression
from Earth's with suitable conditions for life to intelligent aliens
hopping from star to star. The astronomers use the Drake

(06:46):
equation to estimate the number of technological alien civilizations in
our galaxy. There are many uncertainties in the Drake equation,
but interpreting it in the light of recent exoplanet discoveries,
unlikely that we are the only or the first advanced civilization.

(07:06):
This confidence has fueled an active search for intelligent life,
which has been unsuccessful so far. So researchers have recast
the question are we alone to where are they? The
absence of evidence for intelligent aliens is called the Fermi paradox.

(07:26):
Even if intelligent aliens do exist, there are a number
of reasons why we might not have found them and
they might not have found us. Scientists do not discount
the idea of aliens, but they are not convinced by
the evidence to date because it's unreliable, or because there
are so many other more mundane explanations. UFOs are part

(07:50):
of the landscape of conspiracy theories, including accounts of abduction
by aliens and crop circles created by aliens. I remain
skept that intelligent beings with vastly superior technology would travel
trillions of miles just depressed down our week. It's useful

(08:10):
to consider UFOs as a cultural phenomenon. Diana Pusolka, a
professor at the University of North Carolina, notes that myths
and religions are both means for dealing with unimaginable experiences.
To my mind, UFOs have become a kind of New
American religion. So no, I don't think belief in UFOs

(08:33):
is crazy because some flying objects are unidentified and the
existence of intelligent aliens is scientifically plausible. But a study
of young adults did find that UFO belief is associated
with schizotypal personality, a tendency toward social anxiety, paranoid ideas,

(08:54):
and transient psychosis. If you believe in UFOs, you might
look at what other unconventional beliefs you have. I'm not
signing on to the UFO religion, so call me an agnostic.
I recall the aphorism popularized by Carl Sagan it pays
to keep an open mind, but not so open your

(09:16):
brains fall out. Although everyone has heard of the Mayflower,

(09:41):
what is largely unknown is that the feigned voyage is
connected to a poignant historical mystery, one that went unsolved
for over three hundred years. For many years, historians were
puzzled by the fact that among the Mayflower passengers were
four young brothers and sisters who were un related to
anyone else. On board. The ship's log listed Ellen Moore,

(10:05):
age eight, and her siblings Jasper seven, Richard six, and
Mary four, as servants of four different Pilgrim leaders. It
was first assumed that these children were penniless orphans or
offspring of parents too poor to keep them. Then it
was discovered that, according to the Parish Register of Shipton, Shropshire,

(10:26):
that the father of these children, Samuel Moore, was a
rich landowner. This new information made the presence of these
children on the Mayflower seem strange, even incomprehensible. Why would
a man of wealth and standing, ship all of his
children to a foreign land, where they faced a dangerous
and highly uncertain future. An English genealogist named Sir Anthony

(10:51):
Wagner became so fascinated by this mystery that in nineteen
fifty nine he was able to persuade a descendant of
Samuel Moore to scout how were the family archives for
any clues as to what had caused Moore to virtually
disown his offspring. Many clues were indeed found, and it
all added up to a story that reads like something

(11:12):
out of one of Thomas Hardy's more depressing novels. When
Samuel Moore was only seventeen, he was married to his
twenty five year old cousin, Katherine Moore. It was an
arranged match made in order to keep Catherine's considerable inheritance
in the Moore family. Although Catherine quickly bore four children,

(11:33):
the marriage was not a success. Catherine had been in
love with another man whom she had planned to marry,
and the teenage Samuel likely lacked any real affection for
his much older bride. The real trouble began when the
children became older. It was common fame that Catherine was
conducting an affair with her old love, Jacob Blakeway, a

(11:54):
fellow of mean parentage and condition, as there had been
a formal betrothal contract. She even referred to him as
her husband before God. Samuel, studying the faces of his
presumed progeny, became convinced that they all resembled not little Moors,
but little Blakeways. There was, of course, no way for

(12:16):
Samuel to confirm his suspicion about the children's parentage, and
whether or not he was right is something we will
never know, but he was taking no chances. The four
youngsters were packed off to London, and Moore paid the
pilgrim leaders to take them to Virginia. He would see
to it that the children were given sufficient food, lodging,

(12:36):
and other necessities, and at the end of seven years
he would arrange for each of them to have fifty
acres of land in Virginia, but other than that he
washed his hands of them. Catherine made numerous legal appeals
protesting this action, but they were all dismissed. Samuel, believing
that his marriage to Catherine was invalid, we Alizabeth Worsley.

(13:01):
Seven children were the product of this remarriage, and the
second Missus Moore must have pray that each of them
would be the spitting image of her husband. As for Catherine,
she subsequently disappeared from the historical record. Although we know
nothing of her subsequent life, it's a safe bet that
she went to her grave cursing Samuel Moore. The harsh

(13:24):
New world did not treat the more children kindly. Ellen,
probably greatly weakened by the long arduous voyage, died right
after the Mayflower landed in Plymouth. Jasper soon followed her
to the grave, a victim of the common infection, probably
pneumonia or typhoid. That same winter, Mary died of the

(13:45):
same cause. That left only Richard, a small boy left
utterly alone in the world. Richard lived with the family
of his guardian, William Brewster, until mid sixteen twenty seven,
when he was fourteen. He then entered the employ of
a transatlantic trader named Isaac Allerton. During his apprenticeship, he

(14:07):
became a captain of numerous ships that provided supplies to
the colonies. In sixteen thirty six, he married a young
woman named Christian Hunter. Soon after their marriage, they moved
to Salem, where they eventually had seven children. Richard seems
to have inherited his mother's taste for extra marital intrigue.

(14:27):
In sixteen forty five, Richard, who was then in London,
bigamously married one Elizabeth Wolnof. The following year, Elizabeth appeared
in court to answer a charge against Moore, who had
apparently skipped the country for being drunk in the company
of a prostitute. As far as is known, Elizabeth never
came to America, and her subsequent history is unknown. The

(14:49):
couple had one daughter, another Elizabeth, who eventually settled in
Long Island. After Christian died in sixteen seventy six, Richard
married a widow named j Hollingsworth Crumpton. After such an
unpromising beginning, Richard did quite well for himself in the
New World. By the time he was twenty four, he

(15:09):
was captain of his own ship, doing a successful trading
business between the colonies the West Indies and England. He
also became a prominent landowner. In sixteen fifty four, Moore
participated in naval battles against the French and served in
a successful expedition against the enemy country at Port Royal,
where his French fort was reduced to English obedience. The

(15:32):
following year he headed the rescues of colonists at Cape Fear,
who were reduced to starvation after a ship that was
meant to bring them supplies never arrived. In his many
years as a mariner, Moore never lost a ship or
had any sailor under his command to bring charges against him.
Unfortunately for him, Moore fell on hard times in his

(15:54):
final years, began suffering financial losses, and in July sixteen
eighty eight he got into major trouble with the Salem
Church elders. The church records thundered old Captain Moore having
been for many years under suspicion and common fame of lasciviousness,
and some degree at least of inconstancy. But for want
of proof, we could go no further. He was a

(16:17):
last left to himself, so far as that he was
convicted before Justice's of peace by three witnesses of gross
unchastity with another man's wife. Moore was excommunicated, but after
making public repentance for his sin, he was restored to
the church in sixteen ninety one. The pastor who punished
Moore was Nicholas Noyas, who earned his own historical infamy

(16:40):
by leading the persecution of the Salem Witches. Richard Moore
died in Salem, probably in sixteen ninety six. He's believed
to have been the last male survivor of the Mayflower voyage,
and if it wasn't for the four waifs who mysteriously
arrived on the Mayflower, we would never learned about him

(17:00):
when the mystery was finally solved in nineteen fifty nine,
when Weird Darkness returns. It was June nineteen sixty nine,
and less than a week from his seventh birthday. Dennis

(17:21):
went camping with his dad, brother, and grandpa for Father's
Day weekend. The next day, they bumped into some Father's
Day campers with kids and they all became quick friends.
But while the kids were playing in the tall grass,
Dennis disappeared and was never seen again. That story is
up next. Anywhere Knows Depression has risen from eleven percent

(17:58):
in twenty nineteen to almost forty percent today. That means
that you do have friends and family dealing with depression,
even if you don't know it. Please, if you can
give to our Overcoming the Darkness fundraiser this month and
support organizations that help those who are struggling with depression
to climb out of the darkness. Our goal is to
raise five thousand dollars. We just crossed over the one

(18:21):
thousand dollars mark. Thank you so much to those who've given.
Sherry gave fifty dollars, saying I know many people who
suffer it occasionally and some who are chronically down but
keep looking for answers. I want them to know sisters
and brothers share this frustrating condition. There are so many
different reasons that somebody might have depression. It's not just
one cause. But if you're looking for hope, the place

(18:43):
to go is the Hope in the Darkness page at
Weirddarkness dot com. Not only is that the place to
go to make a donation towards our fundraiser, but it's
also where you can find all the resources I've gathered
that I still try to gather and add to as
I come across new resources, and a lot of them
are free to help those who are struggling. Sent ten dollars,
saying I wish I could give more. What you're doing

(19:03):
is so important, Alisa. I'm glad you gave what you gave.
That is so important because you're one of very few
people who have given, so you don't have to feel
guilty about that at all. And we also had a
nerve herder that gave twenty dollars. Thank you very much, NERF.
We really appreciate it. Like I said, we just crossed
over our one thousand dollars mark, but we're trying to
raise five thousand before the end of Halloween. You can

(19:25):
help us do that by visiting Weird Darkness dot com
slash hope. The loss of a child might be the
most devastating of all tragedies. It is every parent's greatest fear,
and the burden of protection, perhaps the most important of

(19:48):
parental duties, weighs heavy on those of us blessed enough
to have children. The loss of a child leaves the
bereaved parents not only reeling from grief, but from guilt,
the guilt that they failed in their most sacred of duties,
protecting their offspring. In most cases, the parent has nothing
to feel guilty about. Accidents do happen, no matter how

(20:11):
careful we try to be. Children sometimes simply do not
listen to or follow the directions of the adult figure
in their lives, which sometimes leads to their demise. Certainly,
no parents should ever blame themselves should their child develop
cancer or some other insidious disease. Still, the parents have

(20:33):
lost children often feel they have done something wrong, or
that they could have done something differently. If they had,
they reason their child would still be alive. The pain
of loss dulls over time to some degree, but the
guilt seems to be there, always, just beneath the surface,

(20:55):
waiting to bubble to the top if given even half
a chance. These are the thoughts that passed through my
mind as I revisited one of the most puzzling missing
person cases in US history, the disappearance of Dennis Martin.
It was the summer of nineteen sixty nine when Bill

(21:15):
Martin decided to take a Father's Day weekend camping trip.
It would be a trip for the men of the
Martin family and time to get back to nature. Bill
loaded up his father Clyde, his oldest son Doug, nine
years old, and Dennis, who was less than a week
away from his seventh birthday, and headed for Great Smoky

(21:36):
Mountains National Park. The Martin men spent the first night
of their trip at the Russell Field shelter. Early on
the morning of June fourteenth, the group hiked west for
two miles until they reached their destination, Spence Field. Spence
Field was a grassy area running east to west on
the main Great Smoky Ridge. The Appalachian Trail and the

(22:00):
Tennessee North Carolina border run along the apex forty eight
hundred feet above sea level of the field. Streams and
creeks on the north side of the ridge drain into
the Bolvantier State, while watercourses on the south side of
the ridge descend into North Carolina. The area features steep slopes,

(22:20):
deep ravines, fast moving creeks, and scores of laurel and
rhododendron vines, but the grassy and flat Spence Fields seemed
benign enough on this sunny and cloudless day. That being
the case, the group settled into a shelter cabin on
the western end of the campground. After putting their gear away,

(22:41):
Bill and his father sat contentedly and watched the boys,
who had found two playmates from another family camping nearby. Coincidentally,
the southern family also had the last name of Martin.
The men watched as the group of young boys came
together in the tall grass and whispered to each other. Then,
almost like a football team breaking a huddle, they sprinted

(23:01):
off in two different directions. Doug and his two new
friends ran to the woodline to the south, Dennis alone
ran into the woods to the northwest. The boys had
planned a prank on their father and grandfather. They decided
to run into the woods, sneak up behind the men,
and then jump out and startle them. Why one of

(23:23):
the three boys did not go with Dennis has never
been clear. What is clear is that after Dennis ran
into the woods that afternoon, he would never be seen again.
Doug and his two friends carry it out to their
plan and sprang from the woods to scare Bill and Clyde.
Dennis did not the men, and the boys waited between

(23:46):
three and five minutes, thinking Dennis might have misunderstood the
timing of the prank. Before becoming concerned, Bill, Clyde, and
the other boys set off to look for Dennis, but
found no sign of the young boy. Calls went unanswered.
The only noise was the wind whistling through the forest
canopy as a storm approached. After searching on their own

(24:10):
for over an hour, Bill Martin managed to report his
missing sun the park authorities. The reaction was swift, with
several park rangers responding, but their efforts were stopped short
when a ferocious thunderstorm rolled into the area. Spencefield received
between two and a half to three inches of rain
over the next several hours. Hail fell from the heavens

(24:32):
in some spots. The streams and creeks in the area
rose quickly and were described as high and turbulent in
the official incident report. No sign of young Dennis was found.
Bill Clyde and Doug had to sit and wait out
the storm, knowing Dennis was out there somewhere alone. The

(24:53):
initial search the following day consisted of upwards of fifty people,
ranging from park rangers to maintenance personnel. Also joining the
effort were members of the Sevier County Rescue Squad, the
Blount County Rescue Squad, and the Smoky Mountain Hiking Club.
The searchers began combing drainages in the area. Rain continued

(25:13):
to fall intermittently, washing away potential tracks and signs. Winds
kicked up and the temperature dropped into the fifties, increasing
the chance of the boy becoming hypothermic. The searchers beat
the bushes until well past dark. There was no sign
of Dennis. As word of the missing boy got out,

(25:33):
more and more people made the trek to Spencefield to help.
The number of searchers would swell to fifteen hundred before
the operation was called off. It would become the largest
search in national Park's history, with the volunteers investigating at
least fifty square miles. No one found any sign of

(25:53):
the boy. Some believed the search party became too large
and unwieldy. Jordan, Deputy Park Superintendent, at a twenty nineteen
interview with USA Today, said today we would not have
anywhere near that number searching. The hearts of the people
who showed up to help were in the right place,
but looking back, far too many well meaning but inexperienced

(26:17):
volunteers were allowed to participate. It's quite possible that some
sign left by the boy was trampled by people who
did not know what to look for. In addition to
the mistake of allowing too many novice searchers to participate,
officials socided, due to the prolific rainfall, not to call
in dogs to search for Dennis's scent. The officials were

(26:39):
likely correct, and that Dennis's scent near Spence Field was
likely washed out, but he was still out there somewhere
and should have been creating new scent trails that search
dogs might have been able to lock onto. These and
other miscues have been used as teaching tools ever since
for search and rescue teams and training. Even so, the

(27:01):
fact that absolutely no sign of the boy was found
was shocking. Something should have been found, said Dwight mac carter,
a veteran tracker and retired Smokey's ranger. Struck by the
complete lack of signs. By the second day of searching,
Dill's wife and Dennis's mother, Violet Martin, had arrived on
the scene. She was devastated by the developments, but hopeful.

(27:26):
I have a feeling we're going to find him, she said.
Maybe God sent this ordeal to us so we could
appreciate things more. Others, however, were beginning to lose hope.
Some searchers were told surreptitiously to start closely examining any
bare coyote or Bobcat's scat. Others were dispatched to areas
where vultures were spotted circling. The hours and the days

(27:50):
dragged on, still no Dennis. The first of several self
proclaimed psychics chimed in on Wednesday, June eighteenth. The Martins,
and to some degree, park authorities, did not dismiss the
visions of these seers outright. The areas recommended by the
clairvoyants were all dutifully searched. I believe some people have

(28:13):
the ability to see or predict things, said Bill Martin
at the time. Whether the Knoxville based architect had given
any thought to such matters prior to the disappearance of
his son remains unknown, but desperation had set in and
all involved wanted to leave no stone unturned in the
hunt for Dennis. One such example came from Missus Schwaller

(28:35):
of Lynden, Michigan, who contacted authorities to say Dennis would
be found in a spot near a stream by a
small waterfall, with white pine trees in the area. Unfortunately,
like other visions reported by the various psychics who contacted authorities,
this description was so vague that it could have been
applied to hundreds of spots in the region. Still, the

(28:58):
parents grabbed on to each of the these visions as
if they were life rings, and the searchers did their
best to check them all out. Excitement was briefly aroused
on the fourth day of searching when volunteers located a
set of faint child sized tracks about a mile from
Spence Field. After examination, authorities dismissed them, though as having

(29:20):
been made by members of a Boy Scout troop that
was searching the area. Potentially this was yet another missed lead.
Tracker Dwight McCarter, still aggravated about the way the tracks
were dismissed, would tell USA today fifty years later, they
didn't find tracks from a bunch of kids. They found
tracks from one kid. It will never be known with

(29:43):
any certainty who made those faint impressions or what they
might have led searchers to discover later. Dennis's seventh birthday
would come and go June twentieth, without any trace of
him having been found. On June twent the Spartanburg, South
Carolina Police Department provided a police dog to help in

(30:05):
the search. According to the official report, the search met
with negative results. The description of the canine as a
police dog and not a search dog could be simply
a semantic error, or it could be significant, as not
all police dogs are trained for search and rescue. Other
dogs were called in far later than they should have been,

(30:26):
but they fared no better. Rumors began circulating from the
beginning that the dogs were not attempting to find Dennis's
scent and failing. Rather, they were refusing to track at all.
The canines, so the story goes, simply sat down and whined,
refusing to work. This is one of the big factors

(30:47):
that has set off the high strangeness radar of so many. However,
I simply cannot say whether it's true or not. I
found references to dogs not being successful, but never found
any so that stated the dogs refused to track. Fate
can be cruel, and she turned especially so. On June

(31:08):
twenty fourth, searchers came across a young man wearing a
red T shirt and green shorts, the same color of
T shirt and shorts Denis had been wearing when he
vanished walking the perimeter road of the Cade's Cove campground.
Turned out the boy's name was Michael Devlin, and he
was camping in the area with his parents. The parents

(31:28):
agreed to change the boy's shirt so as to avoid
any future confusion. On the twenty sixth, a man called
in to Carson Brewer of the Knoxville News Sentinel and
told him to inform the searchers to look in the
trees and tree tops, stop looking on the ground. Did
this caller have some kind of inside knowledge of the case.

(31:50):
Was he another alleged psychic? We will likely never know.
This cryptic phone call is another of the strange details
surrounding the case that just as not sit right with many.
The official search would end on June twenty ninth. Unofficial
efforts would continue until September. The Martin family, refusing to

(32:12):
believe their son was dead. In their defense, no body, blood,
or any other spoor that might lead to that conclusion
was ever found, put up a five thousand dollars reward
for information leading to the return of their son. Authorities
never bought into the Martin's kidnapping theory, but could not
dismiss it outright either. In any case, the reward remained unclaimed.

(32:37):
The scope of the search for Dennis Martin has given
pause to sun. Never before had such a large force
of government resources been used in a missing persons case.
Between the National Park Service employees, various county rescue squads
and military personnel involved. Nearly thirty thousand man hours were

(32:58):
invested in this search. This total does not include private
citizens who volunteered their time. It is the involvement of
those military personnel that has raised suspicion among many that
something unusual, something other than the disappearance of a small boy,
had occurred at Spence Field that June day in nineteen
sixty nine. While it is not unusual for the National

(33:22):
Guard to help in such matters, I have been told
it is highly unusual for a regular military outfit to
do so, much, less a special forces unit like the
Green Berets. The story was they were in the area
on a training exercise and were instructed to come help
in the search. As a non military person, this did

(33:43):
not seem like anything unusual to me, but I have
since been told by friends in the military that this
simply does not happen. A bit of research revealed that
the Green Berets are considered a special Operations Force of
the US Army and exists to deploy and execute nine
doctrinal missions, none of which include search and rescue operations.

(34:06):
Digging a bit deeper, secondary missions sometimes taken on by
US special forces include, among others, combat search and rescue,
hostage rescue, and manhunts. This being the case, perhaps the
involvement of the Green Berets is not as strange as
it first seems. Other details, however, do land an air

(34:27):
of mystery to their presence. Many witnesses claim the special
ops guise were stand offish, unfriendly, and did their own thing,
which intimates a lack of communication and coordination with other searchers.
In addition, multiple reports state that these military units were
armed with rifles while conducting their searches. This does sound

(34:50):
unusual to me, but I've been unable to absolutely confirm
this assertion. I've seen photos of military personnel arriving at
Spence Field, but have not seen any weapons. One thing
that cannot be denied is that the government and the
military were heavily involved in the search for Dennis Martin,
much more so than any other missing person's case. I

(35:11):
can recall a fixed wing plane, multiple helicopters, a dozen jeeps,
multiple National Guard units, and special forces were called in.
Several military command posts were established that seemed to be
working independently of the National Park Service and FBI. In
the official case report on the incident. It states that

(35:33):
President Nixon was monitoring the situation and wanted to be
kept up to speed. The sheer scope of the government
and military involvement regarding this event was unprecedented. The question
many ask is why it is true the Tennessee Congressman
James Jimmy Quillen requested assistance from the government, but the
sheer scale of the effort would have required much more

(35:56):
than a call for help from a representative. In any case,
military commitment was extraordinary. Here are some statistics from the
case report to chew On. The Army flew nine hundred
and thirty eight sorties into Spence Field. The Air Force
flew seventy eight sorties in Dispence Field. The military moved
between eighteen hundred and two thousand personnel in and out

(36:18):
of the area via jeep over the course of the search.
Involved branches military resources include Tennessee Air National Guard, Tennessee
Army National Guard, United States Special Forces, the US Marine Reserve, Knoxville, Tennessee.
US Army troops from Fort Benning, Georgia, Air Force personnel
from McGee Heyson Air Force based Tennessee. Air Force personnel

(36:42):
from Robins Air Force Base, Florida, personnel from the US
Coast Guard Auxiliary, Tennessee agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
two Huey helicopters, two HH fifty three Jolly Green Giant helicopters,
one U ten fixed wing airplane, two H fifty three helicopters,

(37:03):
two Air Force communications trucks, and two China helicopters. I
must admit to being quite taken aback regarding the investment
of time, money, and resources the federal government committed to
the search for a civilian missing person. I do not
think it a stretch to state that it was highly unusual.

(37:23):
George W. Frye, at the time superintendent of Great Smoky
Mountains National Park, echoed a similar opinion in a letter
to Tennessee Representative James H. Quillen sent on June twenty sixth,
nineteen sixty nine, three days before the official search for
Dennis Martin concluded. He wrote, in my entire experience with

(37:44):
the National Park Service, I have never heard of or
participated in a search the extent of which this has
built up to. It may be the cynic in me,
but I simply do not believe that the government was
acting out of the goodness of its heart in this matter.
Neither do I believe a personal relationship with someone in
Congress could yield such a deep level of involvement. Military

(38:08):
personnel were flown in from as far away as Florida.
It is very strange. The final piece of weirdness is
quite likely the most well known piece of the entire
strange puzzle, That is the Dennis Martin case. It seems
a family Keys was their last name. Hiking between three
to six miles, I found documentation supporting both those numbers.

(38:32):
From the spot where Dennis vanished, reported hearing a young
boy scream in the woods. One of the family members
spotted movement in a brushy area and thought it must
be a bear. Instead, it turned out to be a
man walking in the woods with something red slung over
his shoulder. Remember, Dennis was wearing a red T shirt

(38:54):
when he disappeared. The details of this report have morphed together,
and now you'll find that the Keys saw a bear
man walking upright through the woods. This birthed the theory
that young Dennis had been snatched by a wood ape
or sasquatch. Other reports described the figure as an unkempt
man largely ignored. Another version of the key's visual is

(39:18):
that they saw only a suspicious man in dark gray
work clothes that drove away after being seen. Either way,
the FBI gave the key report no credence and failed
to share the information with Bill Martin, something that angered
him greatly, as he believed in his heart his son
had been kidnapped. It's been over fifty years since little

(39:41):
Dennis Martin disappeared. Bill Martin died in twenty fourteen, never
knowing what had become of his youngest boy. The rest
of the Martin family had been silent and had not
discussed the case publicly since the search was called off
all those years ago. There have been a few false
alarms over the years when it seemed the remains of

(40:01):
Dennis Martin might have been discovered. The most recent occurred
in nineteen eighty five, when a Gin singing hunter reached
out to tracker and retired Smokey's ranger Dwight maccarter, and
told him he'd come across a child sized skeleton below
Spence Field near an uprooted tree. A search of the area, however,
yielded nothing. Most have come to the same conclusion as

(40:23):
Clay Jordan, Deputy park Superintendent, who said, I think it's
virtually impossible that we will ever know what happened to
Dennis Martin. It's become one of the enduring mysteries of
the Smokeyes, Spence Field looks quite different than it did
a half century ago. Trees now cover what was once

(40:43):
open ground. Leaf litter and other forest debris cover the
earth where meadow grasses once grew. For every year, nature
layers up about an inch. Dwight Macarter said, and it's
been a lot of years. As apparent, most of a
sympathize greatly with the torment Bill Martin must have endured

(41:04):
after his son disappeared practically before his very eyes. Such
pain is something to which we believe we can relate.
But can we can we? Really? I, for one prey,
I never find out. Coming up, juno'brian has a problem.

(41:31):
She loved toast, and her toast did a really good
job of toasting bread. So what was the problem. Well,
it appears her toaster was possessed by the devil. That
story is up next on Weird Darkness. If you had

(42:07):
in your possession a demonic toaster, but it made pretty
good toast? Would you keep it? That was the conundrum
June O'Brien faced back in the late nineteen eighties. You see,
she had a toaster, a perfectly ordinary two slice toaster,
But as she explained during an interview on The Today

(42:27):
Show back in nineteen eighty eight, the toaster had a
dark side. It not only served toast, it served satan.
Now this one, O'Brien said, as she held up a
demonic piece of toast to Sun reporter Richard Dominic. Can
you see that, Richard, Satan lives just terrible? She said.

(42:49):
The first indication the toaster was possessed came in a
deep voice emanated from the part that read put one slice.
The voice said, I am the devil. Then on it
was a special kind of kitchen nightmare. Asked if the
toaster was still possessed at the time of the interview,

(43:09):
O'Brien admitted they continued to have trouble with it, at
which point, to demonstrate, she tried to insert another slice
of bread. It wouldn't go in. It seems to be aware,
she said, shaking her head. When the toaster finally relented,
she pushed it away. Perhaps knowing what was about to happen,

(43:30):
A pillar of flame erupted toward the ceiling. Richard Dominic
asked her, why have you kept this toaster?

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Well, Richard, you know, when all is said and done,
it makes good toast.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Judo'brien's usual story was featured on The Today Show on
May fourth, nineteen eighty eight, as part of a short
featurette exploring tabloids and how seriously people should take them.
The whole video was worth a look, and I'll put
a link to the video in the show notes. It
covers a few other odd stories too, like the one
about the Japanese woman who had her body cryogenically frozen

(44:11):
and thawed twenty five years later. As The Today Show
pointed out, she suspiciously gained weight during that process. Richard
Dominic covered that story as well and gave his analysis
at the situation. I don't know, he said. I think
that what happened was they dehydrated her body, deep fried,
it deep freezed her body, and I guess when they

(44:32):
added water, I guess, like you would instant coffee, she
got a little heavier. Dominic also covered the story about
a Howdy Duty doll that came to life and saved
a drowning man in Skokie, Illinois.

Speaker 2 (44:46):
All of a sudden, just as I was about to
black out, I felt small hands lift me out of
the water, out of the ice, and when I came
to there was just my my dummy Howdie. He was
all wet next to me, and nobody else is around.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
Dominic would later go on to become executive producer of
the Jerry Springer Show. I know what you're thinking. You're
thinking a living Howdy dootied all, a demonic toaster that
prints Satan Lives merchandise. These people are just having a laugh.
But in the immortal words of an old English rock band,

(45:25):
is it really so strange? Thanks for listening. Please share

(45:46):
the podcast, Tell somebody about it, somebody who loves paranormal stories,
true crime, monsters, or mysteries like you do. All stories
in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise,
and you can find source links or links to the
authors in the show notes. The Mayflower Mystery is from
Strange Company. June O'Brien's Satanic Toaster was written by Rob Schwarz.

(46:12):
What Happened to Dennis Martin is from Michael Mays for
Texas cryptid hunter and astronomer believes in aliens but not
UFOs is by Chris Ipy for the conversation. And now
that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you
with a little light Isaiah forty, verse thirty one. But
those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.

(46:34):
They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run
and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.
In a final thought from George Bernard Shaw, a life
spent making mistakes is more honorable than a life spent
doing nothing. I'm Darren Marler. Thanks for joining me in

(46:57):
the weird darkness.

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