Rendlesham Forest UFO and the Cult Murders of San Angelo

This week on Unsolved Couple, Ben and Sierra crack open the Season 4 premiere of Unsolved Mysteries and find three stories that escalate fast. A U.S. Air Force patrol stumbles into one of the most credible military UFO encounters ever recorded. Two Texas teens vanish after the Fourth of July and are later found murdered, with whispers of cult involvement and friends who never came forward. And one woman discovers her entire identity was built on a secret hidden for decades. Lights in the forest. Blood by the lake. A family lie that finally breaks. Some mysteries stay quiet. These didn’t.

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* We’re here to share the stories and spark curiosity, but remember—always do your own digging! Everything we cover is based on public sources, and everyone is considered innocent until proven guilty.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey everybody, I'm Sierra and I'm bed and welcome back
to another episode of The Unsolved Couple, where every week
been and I recapt one of your original Kateway drugs
into true Grid Unsolved mysteries real quick. Last night we
put the kids in their rooms and said in front

(00:22):
of the house, it's off limits. Turned on Hot Frosty, right, yeah,
and wrapped Presence, which you guys. I love rapping presents,
but I haven't done it in a long time, and
I don't love rapping presents when I'm in a hurry.
I like to take my time with it. But last night,
since we're ahead of schedule for the first time in

(00:44):
ten plus years, or we're not traveling somewhere like, we
could sit down and take our time. So I was
under the impression that we were going to sit there
for the entirety of the movie and wrap Presence.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
I hate wrapping presents, but this is how I think.
Give me a job, and I just want to get
it done.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
How it looks is not important.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
It depends on the job. I do take pride in
the things I do, but when it comes to wrapping,
I could care less.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, your job is to just cover the present.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Cover the present. And let me just say, I am
not a good rapper, and I'm okay with it. Yeah,
I did double what Sierra did.

Speaker 1 (01:34):
But I had this lined wrapping paper where because I
was cutting it so beautifully, all of the lines were
matching up.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And I'm just hacking away and taping.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Just you guys, And this is something I've known. I
brought this up to bend last night since our first
Christmas together. Christmas Morning rules around we have no children,
very like low keep only a couple presents under the tree.
And when I tell you that, I could barely get

(02:08):
mine open because they were wrapped in whatever little wrapping
paper was left in the house. And duct tape.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I did use duct tape.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Yeah. Now, this was at a time when we had
no kids, no major responsibilities like we had full time
jobs in life was hard and busy in different ways.
But even at midnight, Ben could have realized I don't
have any tape or I'm out of wrapping paper, and
gotten into his vehicle and driven. We lived in a
metro area too, we weren't out in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
But I had tape. I had duct tape, yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
I had to legitimately like cut open my presence.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well even better for you. It was more of a surprise.
You're welcome.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Okay, Well, what are we doing today?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
A word? I don't know. Let's just tell jokes.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
No, that's not why everyone's here. We are recapping season four,
episode one. Guys, we're in season four.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
This comes out right before Christmas, so Merry Christmas everyone. Yeah,
and here's our present to you.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
It's a good episode story. We do have a lost love.
We'll kind of we'll sandwich that in the middle between
the two. But we've got some we've got some good
stuff here, very on brand with unsolved mystery. Yeah, and
Ben gets to talk to us about aliens. So I'm
excited for us all to get to talk with Ben

(03:43):
about one of his favorite subjects. Okay, before we let
Ben dive in, don't forget to follow the show wherever
you're listening, And if you enjoy what we're doing, please
take a moment to leave us a five star review.
It helps more people find the podcast and keeps us
bringing you more of these mysterious cases. Oh, I guess

(04:07):
you're not going first. I'm going first.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah, Okay, sandwiching the unsolved the lost love? We're are
we starting out with it? Is that? What you're starting
out with? The lost love?

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Do you want me to start with the lost love? Yeah?
Because then I guess I'll.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Do that one. Scare has two. I have one, okay,
because my story was half the episode. It was it
was there was a commercial break.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
And everything, and there's a lot of people interviewed.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
It was a bigger yeah, you start with whatever you want.
I know, Okay, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Well, then I will give us our lost love. We'll
knock that one out and then we'll have some fun. Okay, okay,
all right. Forty two year old Caroline Jean Drowning has
lived most of her life with a quiet, nagging sense
that she didn't quite fit in. She grew up in Nashville, Tennessee,

(04:57):
and what looked like a perfectly ordinary family. However, from
an early age, she felt a little bit of an
outsider in her own home and was somehow just outside
the frame of the photograph she was supposed to be in,
and that feeling followed her everywhere. She was born in
nineteen forty eight. Her father, Chester Libby, was an army sergeant.

(05:19):
Her mother Mildred Livery Libby worked as a secretary. Three
years later, Carl's younger brother, Ronnie, was born, and that's
when Caroline began to notice something just a little odd.
Her brother had bright blue eyes and curly blonde hair.
She however, had very dark eyes and straight dark hair

(05:39):
and a deep olive complexion. Side by side, they did
not look alike at all. As a child, she couldn't
quite put into words the way she was feeling. She
just knew something was a little off and kept those
things to herself. However, when she was sixteen, her mother, Mildred,

(06:01):
suddenly died. Shortly after the funeral in June of nineteen
sixty five, Carl and her younger brother were sent to
live with their grandparents in Alexandria, Virginia. Their father, Chester,
was stationed overseas at the time in the Army. It
was during this time, in the days immediately following her
mother's death, that something happened that was weird and stayed

(06:25):
in her mind. One afternoon, Carl's grandmother called her into
the kitchen gave her permission to go out shopping. She
handed her a twenty dollars bill and told her to
grab a quart of milk and that she could just
keep the rest into just get out of the house.

Speaker 2 (06:39):
It's a lot of money back then, that's.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
Like a hundred bucks. Yeah. Before leaving the house, Carol
was introduced to a woman by the name of Mary.
Her grandmother explained that Mary was an old high school
friend of Mildred's and at that moment something weird happened.
She said that this woman looked familiar, and she said

(07:01):
so out loud, and Mary responded by saying that she
had seen Carol when she was a baby, and remembered
that Mary seemed shaken and maybe a little over the emotional. However,
at the time, she assumed that it was more likely
due to the passing of her friend and the mother.
Now looking back, care remembers everything about that moment, from
what she was wearing to the way she felt, and

(07:23):
she wish she would have known who Mary really was.
Life moves forward as it does, and Chester eventually returned
to the United States and remarried to her father, and
Carol finished Heiness high school, got married, and had a
son of her own. In On July twenty first, nineteen ninety,

(07:45):
her father Chester passed away at the age of seventy,
and she traveled to Arlington, Virginia to attend his funeral.
While she was there, a relative handed her briefcase that
belonged to her father and said that he wanted her
to have this. Inside were military papers and some other
important life documents. That night, while home alone, Carol opened

(08:06):
the briefcase and she told herself that she wanted to
just look through the papers, revisiting some of the places
they had lived in the memories they had shared. But
two documents stood out immediately. One dated November nineteen forty
five listed Chester as married, Another filled out in nineteen
forty eight listed him as divorced. Uh oh, Carol was

(08:31):
born in nineteen forty eight. The realization hit her all
at once. Chester had been married to someone before Mildred,
and that that marriage had ended just one month before
Carlo's birth. So we got some dates, aren't adding out?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
The way they tell this is so confusing.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yes it is, but we'll get all unpack. It will
get through this. It's it makes more sense with him.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
But at the end of the day, or her dad
was married but then divorced, and he divorced a month before.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
She was born.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Born Okay, okay, I'm following, I'm tracking, but again.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
This still leaves her with a lot of questions.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
As but it does not mean that he can't be
the fund.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
No, but I think she just was like, wait a minute,
finding out that your dad was married before is kind
of crazy, and that well, no, let's see nineteen eighty
four listed him. Oh, I guess as divorced and she
was born in nineteen forty eight. Okay, so that same time,

(09:42):
got it forty yeah? Yeah. So she decides to call
her uncle Norman, this was her father's only living brother,
and to just ask him for the truth, and he
was very open with her was not Chester's biological daughter.

(10:06):
According to Norman, Mildred had Carla already when she met Chester,
and for the first time, Carla said she actually felt
some sort of weird relief, like she'd known something was
a little not making sense but couldn't burn into it,
and now she's kind of feeling justified and feeling that

(10:27):
way she'd confirmed and not imagined that there was a
reason she'd always felt a little different inside of her home.
But the truth wasn't finished unfolding yet. An hour later,
her brother Ronnie called her and he had news of
his own. He told Carla that Mildred, her mother, had

(10:55):
also been married before. Okay, so the.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Mom was married before, the dad was married before.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yes, Okay, they get married, they are.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Both divorced, and then they get married to each other.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
And she brings a daughter into that marriage. Got it,
got it?

Speaker 2 (11:17):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (11:19):
So Carla assumes at this point that that explains everything.
She must have been Mildred's biological child from that earlier marriage.
But Ronnie mentioned her brother is something also strange. His
birth certificates stated that Mildred had not given birth to

(11:40):
any children before him. So on a birth certificate here
in the States, you have to state how many pregnancies
you've had and how many live births you've had, and
hers stated zero.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
So what it was stating is that the boy.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Was her first biological live birth child.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Was the first child she gave birth to him exactly.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
So this meant that Carla, in a matter of like
what a day or two, found out that she wasn't
Carla or Mildred's biological child, and that she wasn't even
technically a blood relative to her own brother. Yeah, it's
a lot to take.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
In, Yeah, Yeah, I would imagine.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Yeah, so at this point, everything in her life that
she kind of knew has just fallen away from her.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
And both of her parents have passed, so she has
not one to actually like.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
Question question to find out.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
So the final piece of the puzzle actually comes from
Mildred the wife and the woman and this brother so
her uncle. Basically, she calls him and he tells Carol
that during her first marriage, Mildred had suffered multiple miscarriages. However,

(13:10):
desperately wanted a child, and in nineteen forty eight, Mildred
had a chance encounter with a young woman named Mary.
Mary was a recent immigrant from Belgium, pregnant, unmarried, no resources,
and alone in the country, and barely spoke English. At

(13:32):
the time. Mary knew she was unable to keep a baby.
According to the family, the two women made a desperate
plan at the hospital. They switched ID cards, so Mildred

(13:54):
gave Mary her identification and Mary the immigrant and gave
Mildred her ID.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
So Mildred pretended to be Mary and Mary pretended to
be Mildred.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
Is everyone on the same page here, I think, so, Okay.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Maybe this probably everybody else.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
This feels like this could be a movie.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, I'm very slow when it comes to this stuff.
You have to really explain it to me.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, we've got a lot of names here. Especially even
watching it. I had to watch it a second time
to be like, Okay, I'm following what happened here because
you're being interviewed.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
I got lost, Roy.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, you're being interviewed by a grown woman who's looking
for but both of her parents have passed away, but
she's looking for her mother, and you're like, what is
happening and none of there's a Yeah, I mean this
is a family secret being opened.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, yeah, all right, Okay, they switch IDs. Yep, Mildred's married,
Mary's Mildred So.

Speaker 1 (14:55):
Mary gives birth under the name of Mildred So. On
the birth certificate.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
It says Mildred.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
Carla is birth to a woman named Mildred. Okay, got it.
Carla became Mildred's child in every way that mattered except
by blood. I will say she never says anything negative
about her adopted basically parents. She doesn't say she had

(15:25):
a bad childhood, just that something felt off. My explanation
for this is this was a big family secret, clearly
that multiple people in the family knew about, and I
can imagine that that times that changed the environment or
the vibe in the room, because this is open secret
that everyone knows about except for actually the person that

(15:46):
it really affected most. Yeah, exactly. Mildred's brother, Ed was
only twelve at the time, so that was the other thing.
Mildred is a full grown adult woman, married, and Ed
her little brother was twelve at the time, so he
wasn't even really in a place to say, hey, maybe

(16:08):
we should think about this or but he always felt
that it was important for her to know the truth,
but wanted to respect his sister to not have her
find out, so he kept silent until she came and
asked about it. Okay, so, now, more than forty years later,
Carla can finally understand how all of these pieces are

(16:29):
falling into place and go back to the woman that
she met in her grandparents' kitchen. Mary wasn't just a
family friend, she was her biological mother. Carla believes that
it must have been unimaginably difficult for Mary to give
her up, and doesn't see this as any sort of abandonment,
but simply as protection and as a young woman doing

(16:53):
what she could to give her child a good life.
And she said that she had that loving parents, a
beautiful home, all of the things. She just wants to
find this woman now, all.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
Right, she wants to Spider Mom.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Exactly. An update thanks to a viewer's tip. On the
very night that the episode aired, Carl, Oh my gosh,
my words today are not wording. Carla learned that her
birth mother was alive and well. Her name was Mary Maxwell.
The two spoke on the phone the very next day

(17:29):
and discovered that she also had two half sisters, and
just eight days later, on September twenty sixth, nineteen ninety one,
she traveled from Tennessee to Temple Hills, Maryland, to meet
Mary in person for the quote second time. When Mary
saw Carols about the car, she knew instantly. They ran

(17:49):
from the house calling out her name, and they show
this on Unsolved Mysteries. I will say Carla's outfit ten
out of ten.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
I did not.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
Purple swishy tracksuit. Remember the big like wind breaker track
suits that made the noise every time you moved. Oh yeah,
matching top and bottom. And I will tell you too,
these two women could not almost look more like mother
and daughter, same face, shape, everything.

Speaker 2 (18:18):
They have a very distinct face shape. Yeah, and they.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Are exactly exactly alike, exactly. And so Mary's interviewed and
she calls it a miracle. She said she never believed
that this would happen to her girl, so that she,
you know, finding her mother was everything she hoped for.
Discovering that she had two sisters and nephews was just
like the biggest gift she could be giving. And you

(18:42):
know that's kind of a right how it looked. Yeah,
so there's your update.

Speaker 2 (18:47):
A wrapped Facebook We needed you know, where were you
twenty years earlier?

Speaker 1 (18:54):
Yeah? Okay, all right, Ben, do you want to tell
us about some aliens?

Speaker 2 (19:01):
I actually don't, So can we just move to the
next story and then we can be done.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Bin's like I watched it for you guys, I got
nothing to say twice mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
All right, I guess I'm here.

Speaker 1 (19:14):
I have to Okay, you have to do it.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
I do have to do it. Okay. We are going
to be talking about the Relsonham Forest incident. That's what
it is known as. So if you want to google it, google.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
It, and there's a lot I can only imagine there's
a lot.

Speaker 2 (19:32):
On this way there is a lot. Okay. December twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty two. Am uh sorry, go back. We get
told there's two air force bases. This happens in England.
There's two air Force bases like with three miles apart.

(19:55):
In between them is this forested area. So that's where
the this place taking place at.

Speaker 1 (20:02):
These are these bases combined with England and American troops
or is it just it's the no, No, it's just
an American Air.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
Force based Bridge and Bentwater Air Bases.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Okay, got it?

Speaker 2 (20:16):
So, and like I said, there is about a three
mile I don't know why they weren't connected, but they're not.
And there's these woods in between them.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
Maybe they use them for training purposes, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
But that's our dog barking because the Amazon man dropped
something off and that's very scary for her.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Well in the Amazon man and the FedEx man and
the UPS man have been driving back and forth in
front of our house one hundred times a day because
we live on a regular street with multiple people getting
packages delivered, and she's losing it.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, Okay, back to what I was saying. December twenty sixth,
nineteen eighty two AM. Airman first Class John Burrows's on
his patrol and he him and his partner see some
bright lights in the woods between the air bases.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
All right, I would already peed my pants.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
That rends him forest. That's what it's called. Okay, So
what in the readact? What's that? Oh my gosh, what's
going on out there?

Speaker 1 (21:17):
Well?

Speaker 2 (21:17):
What is it? And so they rush.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Here's the best part. There's a lot of I feel
like you're going to say that a lot.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
They tell us. They rush to go use like like
a guard station to call his superiors. But you know what.
Also then he uses later a walkie talking a radio.
I don't know why you couldn't radio it in right there,
but no, so they the.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Radio wasn't working because of the UFO.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
No stop. Anyways, he goes tells us a peirs man,
there's all these lights, what's going on? What's going on there?
And then a second patrol vehicle pulls up and they
see it too, like, oh my gosh. So the superior says,
go and investigate, go check it out. So now they
have to leave the air base. So it was very important.

(22:09):
They told us they have to ditch their weapons because
once you leave the base. You're not on us soil anymore.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Own England. You can't carry your weapons, okay.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Right, So in the reenactment, it's funny because the guy
playing Burrows turns to his partner in the vehicle and says,
do you want to go investigate? And his partner says nah,
says negative.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Every ben then we go look at this nah.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
Anyways, So he jumps in the vehicle with the other
two guys that show up. We don't get their names,
and they go out to investigate. Okay, go to the forest.
They start walking around, heading towards the light. These lights,
they're going all over the place, up, down, in and
around all over. You just can see how how excited
I am about this. Okay. And and Burroughs tells us

(23:05):
he's interviewed in this. He tells us it's crazy. Animals
are they're they're extremely agitated. I don't know what animals.
He doesn't say, but they're agitated. I think they came
out to tell him they're upset about the lights.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
The animals can't disrupting us.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah, because he knew the animal and.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Your biases on anti UFO stuff is showing good. These
are military men on a military base. Why would they
make this up.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
I'm not saying they're making it up. Anyways, the animals
are agitated, that's all we know. And then they got
told by radio transmission. Someone radioed them and said, hey,
they just conducted Heathrow Tower and they had detected an
object in the area and then it just vanished. So
now they know something's up. So as the team is investigating,

(24:01):
they encountered a light, blue strobing light and it rows
up it they see it in the reenactment. It's not
a light, it's an aircraft. It's a UFO. They see it.
What do they do? In the reenactment, they dropped to
the ground. WHOA what is that? As he's telling it,

(24:24):
he says, it was these lights right flashing, moving up
and down all around. It's I don't know this, he
I think, he says, orb right, yeah, So then it
takes excuse me, it takes off and for two hours

(24:45):
they're following this orb light around the forest and it
would like get close and then fly away and then
be above the trees and then do all this stuff,
and so they try to fall around nothing right, So

(25:05):
they head back all right, and five hours later, they
go in to their commander, the person over him, and
he's like, so, what did you guys see I don't know,
some type of lights. It's crazy, now I get it.

(25:27):
You see these lights at the time, you're thinking, could
it be a down to aircraft? Could it be something?
It is totally something you should especially right next to
the military base. Go investigate. And they're probably trying to like,
so what was it? And these guys burro key, they
can't explain it. They can't explain.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
They didn't find anything to explain the lights. There's no
down plane in the woods.

Speaker 2 (25:49):
There was no So the commander's like, well, then go
back out there. It's now daylight, go back out and investigate.
See if you can find anything, any type of evidence
of that's something happened out there. Let's find out if
it was a downcraft whatever. Right, So they had out there,
they even said they had a police officer from the

(26:09):
area come out and in the area they find what
they find here circles impressions in the ground. Right, And
they tell us that they found broken branches on trees,
because that usually that doesn't ever happen. Branches don't break

(26:30):
out trees. Something has to break them.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
You know, the trackers follow broken branches because if they're
broken all in a certain direction, that doesn't happen accidentally.
Benjamin burnmarks on the trees. They saw them, okay, fair, and.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
They see these impressions on the ground and they measure
them and they are perfectly spaced and they create a
perfect triangle. Can't believe that dune done done, dun dunk.
The plot thickens.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
Okay, but if you were investigating this, would you start
to be like this is weird? Put yourself and these
guys shoes.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Absolutely, absolutely, But.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Your same rhetoric is, we got a lot of steps
between this and aliens, and let's knock out every single
one of those first before we jumped to any crazy conclusions.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
All right. So later that day, uh huh, colonel he's
the like Dusty Now he's like the deputy commander of
the two bases there, Colonel Charles Halt. He comes in,
he's like, what's going on? And the guys are all laughing.
You know, I help you. What's it? Burtles thought they

(27:52):
saw UFO last.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
Night, which you know, if I know you and your
buddies at work, this is exactly what you guys would
be doing if someone said they saw something out at night.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Halt, he's skeptical, but he also is like, well, what
did they see? What did happen?

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, we got something happened between two military bases. We
got to figure out make sure this is an enemy
something or Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
So that night, guess what happens surveillance? More lights show
up and Halts there. Now he's the big man. He's
a big man on campuses. He sees it, and as
you can see in the reenactment, dude, all hands on deck.
You've got vehicles, you've got flood lights, you've got investigators,

(28:37):
you got tanks. Okay, maybe not tanks, but it.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Was like tanks.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
He he. So Halt starts mobilizing everybody. He sends out
flood lights right m h and he's sending them out there, like,
you guys need to go investigate. Guess what those floodlights
their malfunction? So they say, like around nine thirty, Halt

(29:03):
goes out there himself with more floodlights because they're like
those aren't working. Guess what those lights ain't working now too?
Can you believe this?

Speaker 1 (29:13):
I can, because I believe in aliens.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
So Colonel Halk says, all right, I'm going into the woods.
Men behind me, follow me, let's go. CALLI ho, let's go.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
We write it down things.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
He brings a photographer. We don't have any photos though,
and he brings a recording equipment like a tape recorder. Okay,
they go out there, they're looking through what's that? Look left,
look right, they're walking through the forest. What do they see?
They all of a sudden, and I will say, we

(29:49):
get interviewed by Sergeant Robert Ball. He's there. He corroborates
this story. Okay, so through the trees they see a
red glowing object and Robert Stack tells us all this
reenactment and everything is from the recording, so uh halt

(30:10):
is recording. He's like giving a play by play on
this tape recorder of what they're doing and what's going
on and what they're seeing.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Do you remember a few episodes ago when I asked you,
like what it would take for you to believe in
like aliens, and you were like irrefutable proof, and I
was like it wouldn't matter. Here you have military men,
multiple of them, saying that something insane is happening. They
have audio recording of it, and you are still sitting

(30:41):
here mocking the story.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I am not mocking anyone.

Speaker 1 (30:44):
Yes you are. You got a grin on your face.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
I am not mocking anyone.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
You are making fun of these guys.

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Absolutely not. I do not make fun of these guys.
I'm not making fun of them.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
You are talking like sure dried like you.

Speaker 2 (31:00):
Okay. So they see a red going object and as
they it's and they say they're watching it's zigzagging through
the forest, avoiding trees, and he says, it appears to
be blinking at them. That's weird, right, So they follow

(31:23):
it and they come to a farmhouse and the farmhouse
is lit. It's it's lit up right from.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
This from the inside, right, is there light?

Speaker 2 (31:37):
It's just if you listen to what they say, it's
just there's this bright red light all around this area.
They're watching this red orb light and it breaks up
into five white lights and disappears. Okay, So they start

(31:58):
moving towards the coast. They're still investigating. They're looking through
the woods, they're trying to find out what's going on.
As they get there, they see three objects in the
sky like white lights, and they're maneuvering around each other
and that what they say was Sergeant Robert Ball. He

(32:21):
says to him, it almost looked like they were creating
a search pattern, a search grid.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
It looked coore, It looked intentional. I guess, yeah, it wasn't.

Speaker 2 (32:29):
They were moving with purpose.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Got it right, not just radically.

Speaker 2 (32:34):
Yeah, okay, and sorry, I'm trying to find my lights here.
And they were saying these white lights were like shooting
beams of white light down on the red, almost like
a search beam. Okay. So then we get John Burrows

(32:57):
back and he says he just woke up in a
mill the night and said, I feel like something's come back.
So then he I know, He gets dressed and goes
out there. Why not, we got nothing better to do.
Head on out, And as he's there, he sees a
blue transparent light come flying towards him and the reenactment

(33:19):
they got to hit the deck, jump down. Oh my gosh,
it's coming for us. And as it passes, guess what happens?
Floodlights work just for a second flash. He says, I
can't explain it. They would only work when that light
was around. Then Colonel Halt and his team they're out
there and all of a sudden they see one of

(33:42):
those white lights comes straight for him. It's coming like
an attack. Run and then boom shoots a beam of
light right on the ground, right in front of him, said,
within feet of them, and then Boom disappears, gone, gone,

(34:07):
never to be seen again. Okay, all right, So Colonel Halt,
he's got all this recorded. He writes up a memo
explaining what he saw, and that sends it up the
chain and no one does anything about it. This memo

(34:27):
becomes a big deal because in nineteen eighty three, someone
clearly was tipped off by somebody puts in a Freedom
of Information.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Of Information Act, YEP, gets this to see this memo please, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Gets this memo and publishes it, and it becomes a
big deal.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Oh, I'm sure it does.

Speaker 2 (34:51):
Later on that tape that he records through there also
gets declassified and it's out there in the public for
people to listen.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Did you listen to it.

Speaker 2 (35:03):
A little bit? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (35:04):
It's it's long, you know, Yeah, and chaotic, I'm.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Sure, And I think on some mesters did a good
job of it, at least giving.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
You what to give us the highlights.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Yeah, so we get a skeptic on here, and he
pretty much says, nah, this didn't happen. There was on
them that night, that the twenty sixth, there was a
meteor shower that was reported. Yeah, and you do get
Halt and Burrows backs like, listen, that's it was not
a meteor meteors fall. We saw these lights moving up

(35:35):
and down, left and right like meteors don't do fair.
So yeah, and England kind of investigated it, but they
pretty much said no, there's nothing to investigate, and the
Air Force refuses to comment on the situation. So was
it aliens? Yeah? What was it?

Speaker 1 (35:58):
And aliens?

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Will we ever? No, that's where Robert Stack tells us.
So that's where mysteries leaves us.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
All right, Any updates, No, not really. I can only
imagine that there is a thousand theories and.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Halt Colonel Halt still at least up until like twenty fifteen,
twenty twenty. He was older at that time. I don't
know if he's still alive or not. Still stands by
what he saw, Okay, believes it was extraterrestrial in some way. Okay,
I read a few different things from Burrow, because at

(36:35):
one point the guy said he saw a craft. He
also did an interview for years later and said, I
just saw lights, yeah, on the recording. So the other
theory that people put out was there was a lighthouse
miles away, okay, and that the light that they were
seeing in the trees was from the lighthouse. Because technically

(37:01):
that lighthouse has now been torn down, it's not there anymore, okay.
But I read an article from a resident that lived there.
He lived in the house. He lived in a house
in that wooded area. It was like he said, yeah, actually,
every once in a while, like that lighthouse would shine
through even though it was like ten miles away, there
was a gap to the point where they would be

(37:22):
able to see it. In Halts recording as he's recording it,
when he says, it looked like it was winking at them.
It was happening every five seconds. The lighthouse flashed. Its
rotation was.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
Every five seconds.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Okay, okay. So that's a lot of people's theory, the
whole theory of an aircraft. No one says that anymore.
It's all just lights, okay, saw and everyone has their
own theory. A lot of people disbelieve it. A lot

(38:01):
of people. Haltedately stands by. I give them that.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
So there's also guys that were there I read today
They're like, yeah, now we didn't see anything. What So
they're like, weeah, we saw some lights in the sky, but.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
Nothing, nothing that is crazy has been reported on.

Speaker 2 (38:27):
Yeah. So taken for what it is, you're I mean,
you're giving me I'm not I get I'm not making
fun of these people at all. These people are telling
a story. They definitely saw something. What they saw, I
don't know. Yeah, I'm not ready to say it's extraterrestrial.

(38:48):
I don't believe they have zero reason to make up
a complete story.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
Which is different from a we a handful of other
UFO stories.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
That you hear a lot of guys. So Halt's memo
he wrote, he waited two weeks to write it. Okay,
he didn't even write it right away. A lot of
people use that as ammunition.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
No, I actually don't put a lot of credit into
his timeframe. To me, but in the world of military
and government, waiting two weeks to write a formal memo
is actually not that long.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
It is a long time.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
It is.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Yeah, it is a little strange, I think, to have.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
A strange experience and not be able to understand it
and decide I'm going to get a lot of grief
if I put this down in writing. I think struggling
with that makes sense to me that you.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Would be like, yeah, like I said, at the end
of the day, I mean, it's a UFO supposed sighting.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
So that's what UFO is, unidentified flying on show.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
You're not ever, You're going to get people on both
sides of the spectrum. I definitely thought, I definitely believe
if they saw some type of light, they clearly experienced something.
What And I have no reason to believe that a
lot of the stuff they're saying is not true, not true,
not just not I'm not buying that it was extraterrestrial, Okay,

(40:16):
but is this honest?

Speaker 1 (40:19):
Like if you were going to rank, hey, this goes
in the makes me a little bit more open to
the idea or t UFOs or like.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
This is this is the I would put this at
the highest level of making this is the most credible
story we have. Yeah, now reading about the Roswell incident.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
I know that's so disappointing. How to find it because
we live near Roswell. You lived near even closest to
Roswell at one point, the higher city, that is their
whole thing. No, I me wrong, my whole life. I
thought that there was a legitimate crash landing in Roswell,

(41:04):
and then to actually dig into it and find out that,
like early on it was really like, there's other things.
To me, like this should be a way bigger story
than Roswell is.

Speaker 2 (41:17):
Yeah. Yeah, and I will say.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
Like or that other one member that other landing in
like the creek bed or something. Yeah, again, that has
more credibility than Roswell.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Has too, because so many people.

Speaker 1 (41:29):
So many people saw it.

Speaker 2 (41:30):
Yeah. Again, I think that one was a military some
type of aircraft where they were just trying to like
cover their boughts. But yeah, there's clearly something went down there. Yeah,
I mean, out of all the stories we've heard, like

(41:52):
I said, these guys have no reason to make it up,
there's but and again you have multiple sources. It's not
one person.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
And it was over two nights, right, this was not
just one occurrence.

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yeah. Yeah, And you have like higher up people in
the military saying how we saw something that was weird.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
And to me, it being more than the lighthouse would
be the fact that there was interference with other electronics
around that is weird. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Okay,
well there you guys got ufl Yeah. I mean I

(42:35):
whether it was a craft or whether it was some
sort of potential technology that I don't know. My biggest
thing I think I always run up against the wall
when people are like, why would extraterrestrials be here visiting
or interacting with our planet and not it being like

(42:56):
a regular thing or coming back or being something that
happened so much that we do you know what I mean. Like,
that's probably the biggest thing that I run into that
I can't That always makes me pause because I think
that's a great question. I don't know. Yeah, this one,

(43:18):
to me has way more sounds of being some sort
of foreign object that interactor. But I also believe in
like weird timelines and wormholes and like things slipping through
and stuff like that. So I don't know. But that

(43:39):
can be a conversation for a different day on that theory.
That gets me into like the missing planes in the
air and stuff like that. The Malaysia flight just blinked
out of existence.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
It's going to show up in a hundred years.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
That would be insane.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
But yeah, and all the people are going to get off.

Speaker 1 (43:57):
That's okay, now you're just doing that. What's going on?
We fell asleep? I really wanted to like that TV
show a bit. It got dumb quick. There was a
TV show based on that, but I think it was
like five years or something Manifest Departure.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
No, oh, manifest.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
Right, something like that. Yeah, I never watched it. Yeah,
I think it had potential to be really good, but
it got almost like soap opera E and weird. But yeah,
I mean you don't have to to. I was interested
in you covering this one because as I was watching it,
I thought the same thing. If you are looking for

(44:39):
harder evidence and more documentation and still to this day,
not having a firm grasped, even with all the technology,
that you can't explain what happened. And if it was
the lighthouse, wouldn't have this been something that then happened
again several years later or at least seven weeks or
months later.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Yeah, no, I here's the thing or.

Speaker 1 (44:59):
That could not be created if that was it?

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well a story in a fun way, and yeah things
I was saying, like, it's I'm not.

Speaker 1 (45:06):
Giving you a hard time. You are the skeptic inness
and I am grateful for you in that.

Speaker 2 (45:11):
But I'll be honest, as I'm watching this, I'm watching this,
I'm watching multiple military guys telling their story and all
crabberating what they're saying, and I thought to myself, this
is actually the most credible one off the top of
my head, and even that, I can't debunk everything. You

(45:33):
might be able to debunk a few things, yeah, or
write off a few things they're saying, yeah, right, fair, yeah,
but with so much happening. It's not just a light once,
but so much happening, and everyone's seeing all of that.

(45:54):
I literally said, this is hands down the most credible
story of a weird phenomenon. And then when I even
researched it and you're trying to research people that debunk it,
they don't bring a great argument either. Yeah, So I'm like, okay,

(46:17):
all right, And that's why technically it's still one of
the biggest UFO sightings or some type of weird phenomenon
sidings that it's to this day, is still talked about.
There's a book written, there's documentaries down behind, so it

(46:37):
can't no one can debunk it, especially all the things
these guys said they saw happen. There's nothing. The roswell
thing was literally debris that is easily debunked by one.

Speaker 1 (46:53):
Thing, and it was debunked immediately.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
How it got so spun out of consc it wasn't
debunked immediately because the military then for years refused to
say that they were testing a balloon. A balloon, okay,
as they came out and said that, But the problem
was is they waited too long, and theories and all
that had already started, yeah, for a long time, and

(47:16):
books had already been written. And then the military was like, hey, guys.

Speaker 1 (47:20):
I meant immediately, as in like they redacted because they
reached out to the newspaper, right and it's like, hey,
something weird happened. And then immediately within like a day
or two, was like, hey, actually scratch that. They very
quickly tried to change the narrative and not that we
should leave the government when they make a quick left turn,

(47:41):
but they understood what it was. Pretty they figured it
out very quickly. Now if they had obviously come out
within weeks or months and saying hey, but it was
a time they were testing technology and you don't want
that into certain people's hands.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, we're in the middle of the Cold War. Yeah
so or yeah, yeah, I mean so like I said, yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
But this one has not been able to be linked
to anything like that.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
There's some theories that's some wild I'm sure there is, yeah,
but no proof of those series, Like I didn't even
get into it. There was one theory that the sas said,
like this was a retaliatory thing that did it intentionally,
didn't mess with the air force.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
But they were well, like mine, they were trying to like.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
But there's zero at the word I'm looking for, like
like psych people out, like get into the mental space. Okay,
but there's zero evidence of.

Speaker 1 (48:35):
That psychological warfare. That's what I mean. That's smart, but
it to me because to these were military men. They
handled this with common precision. These men had been trained
to be in stressful war situations, and so they were
able to keep a level ahead when something was happening
instead of like going over the top. And I think

(48:56):
even going out the next day when the daylight came
out and finding exact measurements and broken the signs, it's
some sort of disturbance had happened there.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Yeah, so there's that there was that theory, and then
there was also the theory that it was like a
downed Russian satellite and or some type of Russian thing
that the government sees and they don't want to talk
about it. Like, yeah, that actually is debunked too, because
if that was the case, those bases would be the
one collecting it. Yeah, and they sure as heck wouldn't

(49:30):
let their colonel go around telling us that's the thing.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
This went't just this wasn't just your regular enlist es
telling us this story.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
So I'm like, yeah, that one's in my mind debunked too,
So yeah, alright, we can move on.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Okay, all right, I have a sad story that I'm
going to share with you guys, But I do find
this one very interesting because of the phenomenon that happened
in the eighties and nineties with phenomenon with Satanic panic.
We're gonna find heads up. Unsolved Mysteries tells this story.

(50:08):
It tells it fine, there's I'm not saying anything new,
but it definitely plays into the sensationalism of the Satanic
Panic at the time, which when Unsolved Mysteries came out,
we were kind of just on the end of it.
So when I tell the story, I'm going to talk
about it in the way Unsolved Mysteries did, and then
in the update we'll kind of clarify maybe some things

(50:30):
that are no longer to believe to be a problem. Okay,
And it reminded me a lot. Do you remember in
the first couple episodes of Unsolved Mysteries, the boy from
San Francisco who played Dunceon's and Dragons right at the time,
if teenagers were doing anything odd, this just this crazy

(50:53):
phenomenon happened and phenomena. Did you ever play any of
those games as a team teenager, Light as a boards
or light as a feather, stiff as a board, or
bloody Mary or anything like that. No, okay, it just

(51:13):
it reminds me.

Speaker 2 (51:14):
Of I played with a Wigi board one time.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Oh really yeah, yeah, So okay. It's things like that
that I feel like at some point most teenagers, because
they are in they like creepy, weird things, or they
like the fear of being scared. They're looking for an
adrenaline rush, and they're trying to do something. I don't
think that teenagers doing stuff like that means that they're
in a satanic cult. But did you tho I did

(51:41):
Bloody Mary a couple of times? Did you ever do
Bloody Mary?

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Not?

Speaker 1 (51:45):
No? And yeah, stiff as a board, light as a feather,
I did that all the time as a teenager, like
every sleepover. I don't think we ever made anybody love tap.
If we did, I've blocked it out of my mind
because it never worked.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
But yeah, no, I played a wage of void my friend.
It was teenagers, yeah, bought one of them played.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
It and nothing happened or did something happen? Oh yeah,
definitely something happened or nothing happened.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
Oh yeah, that stuff happened, that thing moved serious.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
Oh yeah, all right, let's put a pin in that.
We'll get around to that at the end, because I
want to get into this, so we give ample time.
In the fall of nineteen eighty seven a San Angelo, Texas,
sixteen year old Shane Stewart and eighteen year old Sally
McNeil looked like your average teenage couple, small town high

(52:39):
school late nights, I mean, right out of any sort
of small town romance, right. These two started dating quietly
and just became known as just this adorable high school,
small town couple. However, a year later, something had changed.

(53:00):
In nineteen eighty eight, Shane and Sally allegedly became involved
with a group in their families that their families would
later describe as a Satanic cult. Whether it was a
truly organized a cult activity or loosely dangerous social circles

(53:21):
to this day is still debated, But what the matter
to these closest to them was this was the key
to the transformation that they saw. Sally's mother, Pat first
noticed that Sally began sneaking out late at night, returning
home with drawn and secretive one night, to the point
where Pat confronted her directly by staying up. She'd realize

(53:43):
her daughter had snuck out of the house bustage and
stayed up. That is like every kid's worst fear, that
you've snuck out of the house and you're gonna like
climb back through the window and that light switch is
going to go on and your parents sitting there like down.
I honestly don't think so, you guys. I watched true

(54:06):
crime growing up, and I never wanted anyone to not
know where I was. I even and I'm not going
to say any of these kids's name because I think
some of their parents listened to this podcast. I was
at slumber parties where all of the girls collectively decided
that they were going to sneak out and I stay back,
and that I mean, you're talking about like the ultimate

(54:28):
peer pressure, because we knew that there was a group
of boys from our high school also having a slumber
party not far away, and they all met up and
I stayed back and went to bed. Did not want
anything to do with that. Good for you, and I'll
share this tale of caution. We even and I know

(54:49):
some of these girls still to the day they listened
to this podcast, so I will not give any names.
But one night we were staying at one of my
friend's house and the parents had let us stay out
in the RV in the driveway. And my really good
friend at the time was kind of like me. She
was a little bit more of the reserved, not so

(55:11):
like quick to be crazy two of us. So me
and her stayed back at the RV while they slipped
their parents' car into neutral, pushed it out of the driveway,
and like snuck out And next thing I know, I'm
being woken up by a mother screaming at the top
of her lungs inside the RV because the car is

(55:34):
gone and all of the children except for me and
my friend are in the RV. And it turns out
that they were out driving around fast corners and flipped
the brand new Mustang over thirteen miles out south Myrtle

(55:55):
Road in a ditch and ended up in the hospital
and almost dying. So tash artel again that only reiterated
the fact that No, I did not believe in sneaking out?
Did you sneak out?

Speaker 2 (56:08):
Of course? Of four?

Speaker 1 (56:13):
Best part is as you, guys, Ben was a really
good kid in school. Event, what were you sneaking out
to do?

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Blow up newspaper boxes? And I don't know, too stupid
do what stupid teenage boys do?

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Oh Okay, back to my story. So Pat confronts her
daughter directly and asks her where she's been. Sally, however,
refuses to answer. Concerned, Pat reaches out to one of
the parents of sally friends and what she heard confirmed
some of her deepest fears. Sally might be involved in

(56:48):
some kind of cult. A little background story and they
do give us some of this information on unsolved mystery.
Sally's mom Pat Sally at like early teenage years, so
Sally and Pat were actually not that far off an
age and actually had more of a sister relationship instead

(57:11):
of a mother daughter. And by the time Sally was
a teenager, she was very angry and resentful at her
mother and base and actually do the point where she
just called her Pat and blamed her mom Pat for
not her dad not being in her life. And a
lot so there was a lot of other things happening inside.

Speaker 2 (57:31):
This home home turmoil.

Speaker 1 (57:33):
Yeah, so, according to Unsolved Mysteries, Sally began attending ritualistic
gatherings on a regular basis. On one occasion, she invited
her friend named Helen, who's interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries. What
Helen witnessed was unsettling. During the ritual Sally her friend

(57:57):
appeared to slip into a translate state. This to the
point where Helen got up left early, shaken and worried
for her friend's safety. Shane was also showing from some
changes in behavior too. His father, Marshall Stewart, who's also
interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries and is actually accredited to be

(58:17):
highly involved in the reenactments of this. He plays himself
in all of the reenactments and to this day owns
or runs a organization to help parents grieving with the
loss of a child. Noticed that his once manageable son
was growing increasingly via volatile Shane began getting into fights

(58:41):
with other teenagers. One fight escalated so badly that Shane
was thrown into a river. Marshall believed that these changes
coincided directly with Shane's involvement with this group of kids.
By January of nineteen eighty eight, hold onto your hats
for this one, as I I had heard this wrong.

(59:02):
January of nineteen eighty eight, Shane and Sally, both high
school students at the time, move into an apartment together. Okay,
it was a bold step for two teenagers and their families,
and another sign that things were spiral spirallling beyond the

(59:24):
adults control in the situation. But by in March Sally
decided to I want to say, by March they had
moved out of those apartments, and she contacted the police
claiming that members of the group were involved in serious
criminal activity. Shane and Sally actually turned over a handgun

(59:48):
of which a cult member had allegedly given to them
and you and told them it had been used in
a robbery and or murder. An investigation confirmed that the
and had been stolen, but could not be linked to
any other criminal activity. But what stood out the most
people in this situation was not necessarily the gun. It

(01:00:10):
was that Shane and Sally told investigators that they were
afraid and that they believed that members of the group
might harm them. So within six weeks of this yeah,
they moved out of the apartment and left town separately again,
still while actively being in high school, and from all
everything I could find, they didn't drop out of school.

(01:00:32):
They were still attending classes regularly and had plans for
the future, and for a brief time, it felt like
things had returned normal, that they had kind of escaped
what was happening. By early summer of nineteen eighty eight,
both Shane and Sally moved back home to their hometowns,
but we had moved back in with their families. They hadn't.

(01:00:54):
They didn't move back in with each other, and by
mid June called Helen, her voice carrying an urgency and
said that she and Shane were afraid that they might
be killed. June third, around noon, Shane received a phone
call his father Marshall believing he believing that he was

(01:01:17):
somehow involved with this group and owing them money. Shane
brushed off, insisting that nothing was wrong, and when Marshall's interviewed,
he says that he can went to his son and said,
if you need help with something, please talk to me.
I am here. I will help get you out of this.
And he told his dad not to worry about it,
that it was being taken care of. So you could

(01:01:38):
tell these parents knew something was knew something was up.
And I think anyone who has parents of teenagers as
much as teenagers think that they know everything. You can
tell when something is changed in your child. Yeah, but
again especially I'm like you to allow your child to

(01:02:01):
move out of the house. I don't know. It seems
like a very complicated situation, and I it breaks my
heart to think that these parents were so desperately wanting
to know how they could help and were shut out
and side research. I believe at this time when they
moved out of their apartments and when they first fewed

(01:02:22):
back the Sally and they weren't together, they weren't dating anymore,
but then on Independence Day was their first time like
going back out on a date together. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Yeah, I remember them. Yeah. Those was the first time
they'd been back together for a while.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
For a while, so July fourth Independence Day. That evening,
Shane and Sally attended a nine pm fireworks show at
Lake Nashworthy Families. This was a big community event. Were gathered,
music played, explosions of color, filling up the sky America
for the July all the things.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
After that, Shane and Sally vanished. Later that night, a
witness reported seeing them about six miles away at Isabelle
Hyde Park near O. C. Fisher Lake. It was uh
And this man is interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries as well,
and he tells us he had his fishing boat out
on the water and noticed this couple. Because we're gonna

(01:03:25):
learn Shane had a really cool like Camaro Camaro. He like,
it stood out.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
It was it's an eighties your typical eighties and it
was it was like Camara thunderbird.

Speaker 1 (01:03:37):
It was a Camara. Yeah, a pretty sweet car, right,
So it stood out to people. It wasn't it wasn't
easy to notice it. And he said that while he
saw them at the lake, a truck pulled up and
the witnesses heard Sally telling the people that they didn't
want to be involved in any of this behavior anymore,

(01:04:01):
And the guy in the boat says he just assumed
that it was fourth of July, that these kids were
out drinking and partying, and probably just did not want
to be involved in anything that was about to happen,
and so he left the scene. The following morning, Shane's
car was found abandoned in a different section of the park.

(01:04:22):
Fast food wrappers sat in the front seat, the keys
rested on the dashboard. There was no signs of a struggle,
but there was also no signs of Shane or Sally.
At first, authorities believed that the couple had possibly run
away to go get married to each other. However, Marshall
Stewart never accepted that explanation. He recalls that Shane mentioned

(01:04:44):
a specific teenager that he didn't get along with as
someone he said that if you ever interacted with him again,
it would likely lead to a serious fight. Acting on instinct,
Marshall went to that teen's home and confronted him and
this there's a reenactment of this. This dad was like listen,
he said. The biggest indicator he knew his son hadn't

(01:05:06):
run away to go get married. Was that he left
his car.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
He he loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
That was his whole world.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Yeah. Yeah, And for an eighteen nineteen year old kid with.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
That, well that's when he was seventeen. Yeah, that was
his baby.

Speaker 2 (01:05:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:05:21):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
The dad's like, no, if you guys aren't going to
investigate this, I'm going to. So he goes to this
teen's house, knocks on the door, and when the door opened,
Marshall noticed that this kid's face was full of fresh scratches,
as if he'd looked like he had been in a
recent fight. However, the teen refused to talk to him.

(01:05:45):
Four months later, in November, the case takes a devastating turn.
Seventeen miles away near the Twin Buttes Reservoir, skeleton remains
are discovered in a pasture, and then it was confirmed
that they belonged to the two missing teenagers, Shane and Sally.
Both had been shot in the head with a shotgun.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
Families and investigators believed that their involvement with the group
had played a role. Marshall became convinced that several members
had abducted them at the lake drove them out to
a remote area and murdered them.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
It's the crazy part about is Marshall, the dad. Here's
this on his police scanner. Yeah, goes there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:28):
Yeah, I didn't put that in my notes, but he's yeah,
he has to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
He identifies his son because of the clothes and the
personal effects there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:36):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
I can't even imagine.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
No, I can't either.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
All right, and that's kind of where unsolved mystery leaves us.

Speaker 2 (01:06:48):
All right, update, and I got a bad feeling about this.

Speaker 1 (01:06:54):
All right. The case officially remains unsolved, but I've got
some stuff that Since twenty seventeen, there has been a
handful of changes in this story.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
First, in nineteen ninety four, a DNA profile was recovered
from evidence found near Shane's abandoned car. It was entered
into codis, but as of from what I could find
at the time, there was no matches and there hasn't
been any since or no matches were made. And then
July in twenty fourteen, the tom Green County Sheriff's Department

(01:07:34):
reopened the case. Investigators announced that two major developments had
taken place. A person of interest had been located in
a foreign country, and that Shane's remains were actually at
that point zoomed for additional DNA testing. Authorities planned to
collect DNA from multiple persons of interest, though we didn't

(01:07:55):
get any official names and there's been no confirmed match
as of now that have been publicly announced. In February
twenty sixteen, the Texas Department of Public Safety asked for
the public's help, offering a reward for information leading to
an arrest. June twenty seventeen, investigators have officially identified a

(01:08:21):
person of interest and their like number one suspect. His
name is John Gilbreath. He was arrested on marijuana charges
and during the search of his home, officers uncovered evidence
allegedly convincing connected to Shane and Sally. Among the items

(01:08:41):
was a bunch of audio tapes labeled as SS, handwritten
notes and ledgers referring to this couple by name, a
lock of hair believed to be one of them, and
fingernail clippings, as well as some sort of quote biological
material believed to be blood.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
That's weird, I know, which makes me think is a skalic.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Uh Yeah. Investigators confirmed that Gilberth has actually been a
suspect from the very beginning. He was part of this
group and was seventeen at the time of the murders.
He has prior felony convictions, convictions, and is currently right
now from understanding, serving time in federal prison on unrelated charges.

(01:09:32):
Despite this, he has never been charged in the murders.
Authorities now state that they no longer believe that these
killings were directly related to any sort of Satanic ritual
or cult activity, and that it is very likely that
multiple people were involved in this murder.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
I didn't think it was cult. I what I thought
is that these kids were running with the wrong craft. Yeah,
and this crowd was probably committing crimes and doing stupid things, and.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Yeah, that's what I'm And I don't know how they
got connected with this group, but somehow something appealed to
them about this group of kids that were running amok
in this town. And it seems like maybe when they
weren't out committing probably little petty theft and ore and

(01:10:31):
robbery and stuff like that to get their you know,
kicks in that they then played with Wuigi boards or
here's the thing. We do know that they were doing
something what you would call a cult, which is not
a cult, but occult rituals, which would trying to potentially

(01:10:52):
do spells or witchcraft or whatever. And so that's what's
interesting is this plays somewhat into the fear of satanic
panic that these kids were messing with maybe things dark,
things that I wouldn't recommend, but that doesn't lead to
sacrifice and murder and rituals and that aspect. These are

(01:11:13):
two separate things. But I think that those kids were
wanting They were bored in a small town and were
probably just unsupervised, allowed to get it away with whatever
they wanted. And we're doing anything for a thrill.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
It appeared that a lot of them were coming from
broken homes of some sort, so they're all coming together,
finding camaraderie together doing stupid things. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:38):
And I found it interesting when they said that they
found handwritten notes and ledgers. Ledgers usually referred to some
sort of money.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:47):
So, and I don't know, because no one's ever said anything.
And again, since this is an ongoing investigation, I don't know.
Did these two teenagers get involved with this group somehow
get roped into things and then owed them money and
then decided this is a lot heavier and like way

(01:12:08):
more like problematic. Then we've all gotten into something and
they've been like, whoa this is I'm out, this is
way more than I thought I was getting involved in.
And then them trying to leave, That's what it appears. Yeah,
and then they found out that they were back in
town and that they were together and isolated at this

(01:12:30):
park and showed up as a group. That's what I'm
guessing happened. Took them somewhere, and yeah, I it appears
to be. And from every sort of investigator that's come
forward and said anything, they do not believe that this
was a one on one incident. They believe that it
was multiple kids from that group were involved in this.

Speaker 2 (01:12:51):
The murder on the Orient Express.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Yeah, or any way you did last summer? Yeah, where
are these kids now? And the thing that scary is
a handful of these kids never left this town and
still live amongst these people. Okay, So, if you have
any information related to the murders of Shane Stewart and
Sally McNeill, you were urged to contact the tom Green

(01:13:15):
County Sheriff's Apartment at three two five six five five
eight one one one, or you can do any anonymous
tip through crime Stoppers. If you even want to be
more anonymously, you can email Unsolved couplepod at gmail dot
com and I will submit it for you because in

(01:13:35):
this case, not only do they have evidence, but somebody
knows something. And I imagine if you were one of
the first people that came forward and said I want ammunity.
I was there and I can tell you what happened,
you likely could cut a pretty sweet deal. And someone
is living with this on them that they helped murder
or witnessed two teenagers being shot in the head.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
Rrible story.

Speaker 1 (01:14:00):
Yeah, okay, all right, guys. That is our recap of
season four, episode one. It was a big story or
big There's a lot of stuff there, A lot, a
lot of things are happening. Okay, Well, for everyone who
is not interested in the mini part of our show,

(01:14:25):
this is when Ben and I have a little bit
of cheitty chat time where I ask him mis silly question.
If that's not your jam, please feel free to exit
stage right. For the rest of you, guys, Ben, you're
ready for your question? Yes, ma'am, what is your current
guilty pleasure? My current guilty pleasure something that you indulge in.

(01:14:56):
Don't give me those eyes like that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
So almost every day I come home. And if you
guys don't know, I might have said this before, but
there's a case at Safeway. It's called the Green Hatch Chili.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
Don you really want to tell everybody about this? A
lot of our listeners are local, Okay.

Speaker 3 (01:15:23):
You know what.

Speaker 2 (01:15:26):
I'm doing. You all favors, so you're welcome, okay. And
it's a safe way in their deli area. They make
it there and it's delicious and I practically eat it almost.

Speaker 1 (01:15:40):
Every day when I get home with their deli salsa.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Yes, they have a hot salsa and it is also delicious.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
And what are the chips? You always have?

Speaker 2 (01:15:51):
Because safe also and they're the best chips in a
best I agree, a Matt, they're the best mass produced chips.
I understand. Don't come at me with homemade and whatever,
I gotcha. I understand that. But if you're looking for
a chip on the chip aisle, that's the best one.

Speaker 1 (01:16:09):
Artia chip.

Speaker 2 (01:16:10):
Yeah, and not every store carries us.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
For a long time here no one carried them, but
they carried them in organ So you grew up like
I grew up, eating.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
And they're delicious. And I literally come home from work
every day, heat up that, grabbed that salsa with my chips,
turn on task Masters and watch an episode of task
Masters and have that. Yeah, and it's like my afternoon snack,

(01:16:39):
and I veg out for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:16:42):
Yeah. I could have literally told you, guys what Ben's
answer was going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
Yeah, and I have every time I think that I'm
getting over it, I don't. I have been doing this
for months.

Speaker 1 (01:16:54):
Yeah. And I remember even how we accidentally found that
salt of that case.

Speaker 2 (01:16:58):
So you found it, Okay, you brought it home at
one point somehow you stumbled into Yeah, and it has
been a staple in this house. I have to have
a package of it in the house at all times.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:17):
So good, stop what you're doing. Go to safe for me.
Get one right now, and trust me, you'll be sending
me a message telling me thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
Yeah, it is very good.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
You can take that to the bank, all right, Okay,
what's yours?

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
I don't think I really have a food current guilty
pleasure right now. My guilty pleasure, for sure is the
show task Master. There's what twenty seasons on YouTube, and
we've watched season twenty through season seven, so in a
matter of.

Speaker 2 (01:17:59):
A couple of months, we'll welcome back we started.

Speaker 1 (01:18:03):
And there's only ten episodes per season, right, But yeah,
I mean I I've even gone back and repeated watching
a few of my favorite episodes from past seasons. But
I think right now that is for sure my guilty pleasure.
I'm really enjoying. It's just easy, it's hilarious, it's funny. Yeah,

(01:18:27):
it's easy. Yeah, And so I yeah, when you get
home from work, we usually watch an episode of that
in the evening after the kids kind of meander. We
you know, shut everything down, and the kids have to
go like read or draw or do something quiet, and
you and I will watch like an episode or half
an episode before bed. That's for sure my guilty pleasure

(01:18:50):
right now that I'm enjoying. But I don't think I
really have a staple food that I have to have.
I mean, my guilty pleasures always diet coke. I don't
feel guilty about it though. It's just something that I
indulge in from eight in the morning until eight o'clock
at night. I am the person in my bathroobe cracking

(01:19:11):
it open and diet coke.

Speaker 2 (01:19:14):
Yes you are.

Speaker 1 (01:19:15):
Yeah, but yeah, no current food obsessions that I can
think of. So all right, guys, well, that is about
everything we have for you. We hope that you guys
are enjoying your Hanukkah or your Christmas celebrations that are
coming up, and that you guys are staying safe and

(01:19:38):
doing good things. Go out there, be kind to each other,
enjoy the holidays, drop some candy off at your neighbors,
and leave your favorite podcasters a five star rating review,
And Ben and I will be back here again next week,
where we recap another episode of Bye