March 30, 2023 • 42 mins
In 1975, a crew of loggers were heading home for the night when they saw a light through the trees. Six other men witnessed Travis Walton's abduction and brought it to the local sheriff.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
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it's available right now on Apple Podcasts for all Tenderfoot
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For more information, check out the show notes.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
We were headed home. Worked thirty miles from home, so
it's a bit of a drive. We loaded up all
our equipment in the back of the truck.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
There.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Everybody's tired, so there was various conversations going on in
the truck. Two here or too there like that. As
we were jouncing along this little logging trail, I could
see a glow through the trees up ahead. The whole
clearing there had this really strange glow to it, sort
(00:56):
of a feel. I don't know, maybe there was some
kind of electrical charge in the air, so I'm just
had a really weird vibe to it. It made things
you see at work all day look really strange in
this strange glow. We got to a point where we
were past the thickest part of the growth and we
could see the source of this light boom therewise. It
(01:19):
was unmistakable.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Welcome to high strange. I traveled to Snowflake, Arizona, to
meet with a man named Travis Walton. In nineteen seventy five,
he was working with a logging crew deep in the
woods outside of town when they encountered a flying saucer.
There were seven witnesses in the truck who all claimed
(01:49):
to have seen the same thing. But the story only
really begins there, because immediately after their alleged UFO sighting,
Travis Walton would go missing five whole days, while his
coworkers were interrogated by police and under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
On the night of November.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fifth, nineteen seventy five, as Travis and his crew were
driving home, they noticed a bright light in the sky
that lit up all the surrounding trees, and as they
reached a clearing, the source of this light came into focus.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Boom, there it was. It was just unmistakable. It was
clearly a metallic disk. Nothing between us and it. Some
indistinct glow suddenly becomes this craft hovering there. I yelled
might stop the truck, and as soon as he stopped,
I threw open the door, thinking this thing would just
(02:44):
take off. It's just a real common thing. You get
a glimpse of a wolf or a mountain lion or something,
and you try to call the attention of the crew.
It's gone before they came and turned their head. I
kind of had that feeling about it, that it would
just be gone. I got close, so I jumped out
and started towards it. I just acted on impulse. It
(03:08):
definitely alarmed the other guys. They're calling at me to
get back in the truck.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Most lying head.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I was just hoping it would take off before I
got any closer. It was a pale, golden color, metallic.
It's kind of like when you look at a television screen.
It's a source of light, but at the same time,
the light from the window is reflecting off the screen.
I could see the surrounding trees reflected off the surface
(03:42):
at the same time it was glowing. Guys were yelling
at me to get back in the truck and swearing
at me, let's get the hell out of here. I
didn't want to act scared. I was trying to act brave,
but I was terrified. The sound that was making was
very complex mixture of tones. There was a high pitched frequency,
(04:07):
and there was a low, throbbing, sort of a real
super base note. The frequency there was so wide that
it was kind of like off the range of human hearing.
The really low notes you sort of felt in your body.
The sound suddenly got louder when it started to move.
(04:31):
When I jumped for cover, I just sort of dove
down and forward behind the log. But what they did
was it brought me that much closer to the craft,
and now I'm practically underneath it, screaming at me and
swearing at me to get back in the truck. Stood
up to run back to the truck, and as soon
(04:51):
as I did, bam, something hit me, kind of a
stunning force, electric shock, feeling like getting hit by truck.
They saw me fly through the air and land like
a dead body. I was almost immediately unconscious.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
On November fifth, nineteen seventy five, Travis Walton had an
experience that would change the.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Course of his life forever.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
His six coworkers claimed to have seen Travis struck by
a bluish green beam of light and sent him flying
twenty feet in the air. Terrified out of their minds,
the men panicked and sped into town for help. At
the time, the six men were convinced that Travis was
killed by that strange beam of light, and on their
way into town, pulled off the road to gather their thoughts,
(05:48):
quickly deciding they needed to go back, but when they
got there, Travis was gone. The men drove to the
sheriff's department to report him missing, only to find out
they would instantly become suspects in its disappearance.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
The encounter took place in the Sitgreaves National Forest in
eastern Arizona, on the edge of the Mogoyan Rim.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
They just knocked him backwards through the air, like as
if some sort of an explosion had gone off in
front of him.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It was that dramatic.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
After seeing travistruck, the other crew members did not want
to investigate anything. They left the area.
Speaker 7 (06:26):
Mike Rogers and the other five witnesses returned only to
find Travis missing. After they told their astounding story to
the police, they came under suspicion of murder and attend
search for Travis Walton proceeded for three days, dogs and helicopters.
They were unable to find him or any signs of
where he was.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Travis was missing for five days as people searched the
woods for him.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Meanwhile, according to Travis, his nightmare was really just beginning.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
But next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
What'd you see around you when you woke up?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It was just a light above me, and the ceiling
was so close. I figured that maybe I was in
the hospital. The light wasn't all that bright, but it
hurt my eyes to look at it. Everything else was
really dark, and this light was above me like that.
(07:34):
I was in a lot of pain. I felt like
something was seriously wrong. I felt mortally wounded. I finally
did look around. Everything was blurry. I couldn't focus real good.
I could see what I thought were doctors standing over me.
(07:56):
I assumed they were doctors at first, cause my vision
was blurry. As soon as I could focus, I could
see these weren't doctors. Pretty soon my vision cleared and
I could see the faces of these creatures. They were small, hairless,
(08:19):
huge eyes, and I think that partially explained the dim
light in there. The large eyes. I was terrified. It
was straining the limits of my mind to cope with
the situation. That instant jolt of fear made me much
(08:43):
more fully awake I felt mortally wounded. I felt like
I was dying, and I associated this pain with seeing them.
I tried to roll away from them, rolled off of
the table. They had some kind of a device on
(09:05):
my chest that fell off. I backed away, screaming, crying.
They weren't close enough to actually hit, but I was
making it clear that if they did approach me, that
I would fight against them. With them, I was thinking
(09:31):
of fighting my way past them because there was a door,
an opening. It looked like escaped to me. It was
the only way out. I was gonna fight my way
past them and try to escape. I immediately figured I'm
inside that thing that I saw. You know, that all
came together real fast. Before I could put that little
(09:54):
plan into action, they suddenly stopped turning and went out
the door. That was my chance to escape, find a
way out. I went in the other direction, just a narrow,
cramped hallway. I was having trouble breathing. It hurt to breathe.
(10:19):
I felt suffocation. I don't know whether that was an
injury to my chest or lungs or heart or something,
or if there was something not appropriate for humans in
the interior of that craft. But I was just desperate
to find my way out of it, in a irrational
(10:40):
panic sort of way, thinking I could just find a
way to open a hatch and drop to the ground.
You know, I didn't really have a picture in my
mind of the layout of this craft. I was just
blindly looking for openings. There was a room. I approached
(11:01):
some instruments controls of some kind, thinking that they might
open the door. Fooling with these buttons and levers and
things didn't seem to do anything at all. There was
panicked and irrational as I was, I still had the
(11:22):
idea that what I was doing could make things a
lot worse. But there was a change in light from
the door I had come through. When I turned and
I saw a man that I immediately concluded was someone
there to save me from these monsters. Looked like a
(11:43):
human being, but different and unusual ways to I ran
up to him and started screaming about these creatures. He
didn't really react much to what I was saying. I
thought maybe he couldn't hear me because he had a
helmet on. He took me by the arm to lead
(12:05):
me out of there. I was only too willing to go.
Took me out of the craft. There was a ramp
not stairs going down looked really too steep to be
walking on, but it wasn't slippery at all. It was
much brighter outside. It had been comparatively dark in the
(12:30):
interior of this craft. The whole ceiling lit up with
what looked like sunlight coming through a lot cooler, wasn't
as hot. I tried to look around a little bit.
There was some other disc shaped metallic craft of a
different configuration, more rounded. But mainly I was very concerned
(12:54):
with where I was being taken, and I had a
growing anxiety about not getting any response from this guy.
This room that we were in was huge. It was
real high ceilings and very airy and empty. But he
took me through some doors and down a hallway into
(13:17):
another room, and here were some people dressed like him,
except without the helmets. So I'm thinking, finally, somebody can
tell me what's going on. So I start begging for answers,
demanding answers. Was still not getting any response, which really
(13:38):
set off the alarm bells. They were trying to get
me to lay down on this table there, and I
started to resist, and so I tried to fight them.
I was still very weak. I was feeling real shaky
and wounded. They didn't have that much trouble getting me down,
(14:00):
in spite of my adrenaline from a fear, just screaming
and fighting. They seemed much stronger than me, and they
overpowered me and put me on that table and one
of them put a mask over my face and I
tried to get it off. Immediately before I could, I
(14:24):
blacked out.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
This story sounds absolutely unbelievable, trust me, I know. But
while Travis Walton was missing for five days, the police
also found this unbelievable. The six men who witnessed Travis
being struck by the beam from the craft were being
investigated for murder. Five days feels like a very long
time to keep up a hoax when you're starting to
(14:51):
face potential murder charges.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Out of the five days Travis was.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Unaccounted for, he remembers only one hour total and nothing else.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
This was a very emotional thing for Travis's family and
emotional for us. Travis was my best friend and our
whole lives have been disrupted by this. We wondered if
we would ever see him again.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
Arrangements were made for PSI Gilson, a highly qualified polygraph
examiner to conduct the polygraphs on the six witnesses to
Travis Walton's UNO encounter. Did the utmost care in administering
these light detected tests was exercise. Because the men were
under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Convinced that these men had murdered Travis, the sheriff ordered
Arizona State Police polygraph examiner Psyke Gilson to conduct light
detector tests on the crew members.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Once the tests got underway, he started changing his mind
very quickly. After he had test at about three of
the six, he seemed to be acting differently. By the
time he had tested all of us, he seemed to
be able. I talked to him after the test and
he indicated to me, but apparently.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
He was wrong.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Unofficially, he said that he believed that we had told
the truth because five of us passed the test. He
wrote in his report that we had told the truth.
That apparently there had been a UFO.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Five out of the six men passed their polygraphs and
the last was found to be inconclusive. While the Sheriff's
department tried to make sense of their outlanders story and
debated pressing charges, all of a sudden, Travis magically reappeared
around twenty miles away from the original site.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
When I woke up, I felt the cold, hard payment
under me. There was a light above. I just looked
to see where the light was coming from. Then I
could see this shiny surface, this craft, and it went
off just as I looked, shot up into the sky. Uh.
(17:09):
I could see the lights of the town down below.
Ran down there was a building with some lights on,
and pounded on the door, screaming like a maniac. Nobody came.
Nobody came, So I ran farther into town. I ran
(17:31):
down there and found a row of telephone booths. Made
a collect call to my family.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
On November eleventh, Travis called his brother in law from
this phone booth.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
When did you first learn that you had been missing
it all?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
When my brother picked me up and put me in
the truck, and he literally picked me up. He was
talking about how traumatic it was for my mother, and uh,
he could tell that I thought this was the same night,
This conscious interval in there was not that long. It
(18:28):
certainly wasn't five days. I didn't know who that five
days had gone by. And he said, try, I must
fill your face and I had a five day growth
of beard. That was the stunner. I was just so
completely in a state of terror that I I couldn't
(18:50):
even speak. I was just too messed up. When he
was embracing me, he on to me and took care
of me. I was in terrible shape.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
In the five days he was missing, Travis remembers only
two hours and those, he says, were aboard the spacecraft.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Where was he the rest of the time?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
When was it that you were maybe first reported missing?
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Immediately they went straight to the sheriff and told him
what well. They said, one of her crew is missing.
He might be dead, and the sheriff's ears purke of
oh yeah. The night that they reported it, they did
go back to the site. All three of the lawmen
went out there with the crew, and the next day
(19:52):
this massive man hunt.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
And attend search for Travis Walton proceeded. For three days,
dogs and helicopters. They were unable to find him or
any signs of where he was.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
The crew had been through five days of attacks of
being accused of murdering me. They figured this was just
a cover up for a murder, including my brother. He
definitely thought that they'd killed me and got very aggressive
with them trying to get him to fess up. They
figured this was just a cover up. They were going
to find the body and these guys were gonna hang
(20:29):
for it. Each crewman was interviewed by a different law
enforcement officer and they wrote in their report the descriptions,
how do seven people have the same hallucination?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
The six witnesses to Travis Walton's UFO encounter have made
several statements in the years following, all collectively maintaining their stories.
I found some quotes from each of them. Alan Dallas said,
we couldn't believe what was happening. Horror was unreal. Kenneth Peterson.
I saw a bluish light come from the machine and
(21:06):
Travis went flying like he've been touched by a live wire.
Steve Pierce that ray was the brightest thing I've ever
seen in my whole life.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Dwayne Smith.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
The UFO was smooth and giving off a yellowish orange light.
Mike Rogers in nineteen seventy five said, I've been working
these woods for over ten years, and this is the
damnedest thing that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Then again in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I've been working these woods for over thirty years, and
this is still the damnedest thing that's ever happened to
me and John Goulette. I know what I saw, and
it wasn't anything from this earth. Let's take a step
back here and just look at what we know. Travis
has not changed his story in nearly fifty years, which,
if he were lying, is at least pretty impressive. I
(21:53):
feel like if I was part of some elaborate abduction hoax,
the second the police started framing me for murder, I'd
probably hang it up.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Sorry, we're just kidding. He's right here.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I definitely wouldn't demand for truth serum or a polygraph test.
Travis also lost over ten pounds during the five days
he was missing. Objectively, I feel like there's probably three
potential explanations for all this. A. Travis and the six
other men are lying, and they've kept this gag going
now for nearly half a century. But for the story
(22:23):
to be entirely made up, Travis had to have been
hiding for five days somewhere, intentionally starving himself and not shaving.
In this scenario, it seems likely that someone else had
to be involved to pull it off. Everyone in town
was searching for Travis, even his own brother b They
experienced something else out there, something just as unexplainable, but
(22:45):
they were all convinced it was a spacecraft when it
actually wasn't. Maybe it was some sort of natural phenomenon
and it created this bizarre sensory illusion. But whatever it was,
it still clearly injured Travis, and maybe from there he
was in some sort of coma state for days, just
wandering in the woods somehow not killing himself or see
(23:05):
it really happens.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
He spent five days on the UFO.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
For all intent and purposes, he spent five days on there.
He did come in contact with some beings or human like,
but they weren't human obviously.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Duane, you know your own brother probably better than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Do you believe the story?
Speaker 5 (23:22):
I've never seen him play a practical joke and as
adult lie.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
What do you say to those who just say, oh,
you're friendshit?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Well, you know, to each his own. People have all
kinds of theories and beliefs anything in today's world, all
kinds of contending points of view and theories and stuff. Everything,
It all comes down to facts and reasoning. Are your
(23:50):
facts true and complete, and is your reasoning valid. Failure
to prove is not disproof. I've gotten very abstract in
how people should evaluate claims. You see it back and
forth with these political debates. If you have something, lay
(24:12):
it out there, invite examination.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It makes complete sense to me how any rational person
would hesitate to believe Travis Walton's story, And personally, I'll
tell you I myself was very skeptical throughout the whole
process up until he finally sat down to tell me
a story. I don't consider myself an expert in human
deception by any means, but I have dealt with a
lot of liars in my time as a podcaster, murder suspects,
(24:43):
drug dealers, actual murderers, you name it. And there was
something sincere about Travis. I'm convinced that even if this
didn't actually happen, at this point, Travis Walton himself still
believes it.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I don't know mother Travis Walton selling the truth or not.
As I stand here totally open minded. The Travis Walton
cases I understand that had a fair amount of polygraph
involvement before I was asked who become involved.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
This is Cleve Baxter, an interrogation expert for the CIA.
Speaker 8 (25:14):
Before Travis Walton reappeared.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
After the alleged production, the Arizona Department of Public Safety
got quite concerned that there may have been foul play
and that these six individuals on that tree cutting team
may have committed to crime and were trying to hide
the crime, perhaps by reporting the UFO abduction. The six
were tested by cy Gilson of the Arizona Department of
(25:37):
Public Safety.
Speaker 8 (25:38):
Five of them passed. One of them is inconclusive merely.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Because of the person's general nervous tension, not because there
was any failure. In other words, we have three determinations
in polygraph testing and our opinion they're being truthful.
Speaker 8 (25:49):
In our opinion they're being deceptive or what we don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
There was certain forensic that went on at the site.
There was there with a Geiger counter. They found evidence
of elevated radiation. Seven witnesses all passing police light detector tests,
and every theory to try to explain it away has failed.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Do you want people to believe you?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I think it's important for people to understand that this
is real. You don't want to believe it, fine, have
it your way.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Do you realize how unbelievable it could sound to somebody.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Oh yeah, I understand, you know, from the outside, especially
somebody who doesn't know about the physical evidence. I understand
how it can sound to people who don't want to
believe it. Then I have to look very far to
find a reason not to. You ever had a political
argument in the recent years, you can see how people
(26:55):
can be impervious to facts. How do you know what's true?
How do you evaluate claims? What's a fair examination of
the evidence. I really think the entire society would benefit
from understanding what true critical thinking is. How do you
(27:16):
know what's true? How do you evaluate claims in a
fair and unbiased way. You don't begin with a conclusion.
You gather the evidence first. I think we have enough
astronomy knowledge of the universe around us to know that
it would be the most stupendously unlikely thing for this
(27:39):
to be the only life in all of this vast expanse.
Virtually every star has about a dozen planets going around it.
Not only are all these trillions of stars that we
can see from here having planets going around them, some
of them are vastly older. It's the height of arrogance
(28:05):
to presume that we're the only living thing that could
possibly have come into being If the tiniest fraction a
tenth of one percent of these stars have a planet
that could possibly be life supporting, the arrogance to assume
that they couldn't possibly come here just because we don't
(28:27):
know how to go there is ridiculous. Two hundred years ago,
the most technological thing we had was fire. We could
break rocks into sharp things, and we had fire. That
was the extent of our technology. The incredible technological development
of just the last ten or twenty years project that forward.
(28:51):
Imagine a species of similar potential having a thousand years
to go at five times the time we've had one
hundred years ago. You could describe what is commonplace today
based on what we know about the age of these
star systems. Some of them are vastly older than us.
(29:13):
Logically speaking, would therefore be more advanced than we are
in terms of science, physics, and the power to travel
such great distances. It's kookie to think that, yeah, we know,
there's trillions of planets, but only one has life and
it's right here all the rest of it. That's the
kookie thing. Once we look around and understand the true
(29:40):
enormity of the universe. It's not kooky to think that
there's other life in the universe. It's kookie to think
there isn't. What are the odds that this would be
so completely unique. There's literally trillions of opportunities for the
situation to have come. I learned a lot about how
(30:03):
to deal with people's reluctance to believe this also evolved
in my own perception of it. The fascination sometimes hinges
on the fact that people think of this as some
nightmare except the reality of the phenomenon. But let's set
(30:24):
aside the idea that it's something to be afraid of.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Here's Leslie Kane again.
Speaker 9 (31:04):
What makes a case credible is when there's a lot
of data. Definitely, multiple witnesses is a basic criteria. I
think the abduction cases are less credible because there just
isn't enough evidence to prove those stories. I mean, they
obviously meant a lot to the people, but let's just
put those aside because I don't work on those cases anyway.
(31:28):
If the fact is that we're not alone, it's a
scientific fact, like knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Right,
or knowing that the Earth isn't flat. Everyone has a
right to know. Other people make arguments that if it's
going to be really harmful, maybe it's better not to know.
We think of ourselves as being the top of the
food chain, right, We're it to imagine that that's actually
(31:53):
not the case. We don't know the psychological effect that's
going to have. We don't know what effect it will
have on religion, on economic institutions. We don't know how
that'll affect our interaction with other countries who are also
working on this. Maybe it'll be a good thing because
we'll unify. There's one planetary civilization who has to face
this external reality. A lot of others believe they'll just
(32:17):
be a lot of disturbances in our social fabric.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I agree with Leslie here.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
If the government, or any entity for that matter, knows
something profound, like the existence of extraterrestrial beings, everyone should
have the right to know. But society has had a
long track record of struggling to accept new information. Many
great minds throughout history have been labeled a heretic for
their own profound discoveries. Example, Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher
(32:48):
from the fifteen hundreds believe that the universe was infinite
in size and that the Earth is not the center
of it.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
People didn't like that very much.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
He was sentenced to seven years in prison and eventually
ordered to be burned at the stake by the Pope.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Everything he said was true.
Speaker 10 (33:09):
This is the ultimate human story, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Are we alone?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Here's Brian bender again, a.
Speaker 10 (33:17):
Mystery that has been dogging us basically since the beginning
of recorded human history. John Winthrop, who was governor of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the sixteen hundreds, there's several
entries in his diary of this mass hysteria off Boston
when these fishermen came back. If you read it today,
sounds a whole lot like the pig packs.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
On March first, sixteen thirty nine, John Winthrop wrote in
his diary about a very unusual event what he described
as a quote sober and discreet man witnessed strange glowing
objects in the sky darting back and.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Forth over the village of Charlestown.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
He describes them as swift as an arrow, and that
many other credible people saw the same lights at the
same place. Among other notable accounts of UFOs and American history.
Our own US presidents have made numerous comments over the years,
including Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
We saw of bright light up here in the distant
western skies, and it got closer and closer, and when
it was just above the treetops, hit changed color. And
then they stayed there for a while, and then it
disappeared into the distance. And I still don't know what
it was.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Here's Barack Obama.
Speaker 12 (34:30):
There's footage and records of objects in the skies that
we don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain
how they moved their trajectory.
Speaker 13 (34:41):
And Ronald Reagan, we often forget how much unites all
the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal
threat to make us recognize this common bound. I occasionally
think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we
were facing an aai in threat from outside this.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
World, just like the Roswell incident in nineteen forty seven.
UFOs and aliens are also famously synonymous with a top
secret military base in the desert of Nevada, best known
as Area fifty one. For decades, there have been countless
rumors of alien bodies and spacecraft being hidden and tested there,
(35:24):
stuff that was stretched the limits of pretty much anyone's imagination.
And regardless of all the conspiracy chatter, what remains true
is its existence.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
Area fifty ones like part of this mythology, it's just
become the sort of mecca for people. For a while,
they wouldn't even acknowledge there was.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Such a place.
Speaker 9 (35:44):
We know it exists, but it's extremely secretive.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
The highly classified US Air Force facility was created in
nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't until twenty thirteen the
CIA acknowledged it was actually there, located deep in the
desert of Nova, surrounded by mountains, with signs all around
the base warning that deadly force will be used on trespassers.
It's clear that whatever they do in there, they don't
(36:08):
want us knowing about it.
Speaker 10 (36:10):
If you're building a secret airplane at Area fifty one
and you don't want the Russians to know, or the
Chinese or anybody else, you're potentially benefiting from this sort
of craze of UFO sidings all over the place, and
maybe it's even in your interest to kind of spread
that a little more. Then people start looking over there,
(36:32):
and they don't look over here where you don't want.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Them to look.
Speaker 10 (36:35):
Maybe one of those UFO sidings was actually a test
flight of a secret airplane there building.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
If I'm going to continue down this UFO rabbit hole,
which I've clearly committed to doing at this point, then
I want to get as close as possible to Area
fifty one and see for myself what all the fuss
is about.
Speaker 14 (36:54):
Located in the middle of nowhere, Area fifty one has
been at the center of some of this country's most
closely guarded secrets, but only now has the government officially
acknowledged the existence of Area fifty one in Nevada.
Speaker 15 (37:07):
The two point nine million acre live fire training range,
the largest in the United States, located at Nellis Air
Force Base in Nevada.
Speaker 14 (37:16):
Legions of UFO enthusiasts have long suspected Area fifty one
is where the US hides captured aliens.
Speaker 15 (37:24):
Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training
areas is dangerous.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
My crew and I flew into Las Vegas and drove
over one hundred miles to the desert town of Rachel, Nevada,
population forty eight snooping around a top secret military base
is not usually advisable, so before we left, I arranged
to meet a local guide to help navigate the area.
We met at a UFO themed motel in town called
(37:53):
Little Aleyen, and we all piled into his four wheel
drive truck.
Speaker 16 (37:58):
The first gate we're going here, This one is the
main gate. Where we're going is an entrance, but it's
about forty minutes from the base. This is an active base.
One people think it isn't it is.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
The gates to the base are dozens of miles outside town,
down bumpy dirt roads with no signage or landmarks whatsoever.
You definitely don't want to get stuck out here. There's
no cell service for miles.
Speaker 16 (38:22):
Look how many cameras That one rotates and watches us.
That one sometimes will follow you, and then you have
three cameras on that pullback. There you have a camera
to the right. I don't know of any government installation
of any kind in the country that goes to the
level of secrecy.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
This one does.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
A white truck with heavily tinted windows was parked up
on the hill, cameras and listening devices visible, and seemingly
all directions. I started to feel an overwhelming rush of excitement,
the kind you get as a kid on Christmas morning,
and then the rational part of my brain kicked in, asking.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Should we be doing this?
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I mean, I'd love to see some aliens, but seriously,
I don't want to get shot.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
This is.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
My curiosity was peaked, that feeling of playing with fire.
What would happen if I hopped that gate? Just how
exactly would it all play out?
Speaker 16 (39:25):
If you cross, they will detain you. I hold you
in federal prisons six months to a year.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Serious said, I probably shouldn't cross that stop side.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Do not go through that gate. I'm not going with you.
If you do.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Go to spaceship No space White legendame inhabitat and.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
Smoke play did take a lean, A lean deep, there's
a bean ba.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I've been going Gene because I cool know she was
over pan in the beds of Supert Show Steve bud
top Ton avert riding.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Then you wee you gotta being down and saying the parapet.
We've made a dot com John Knack and I helped
those boom Nata guys. A Nati Devil.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
High Strange is an eight part series released weekly for
free every Thursday, but if you'd like to binge the
whole series right now, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus
on Apple Podcasts to.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Get all the episodes right now.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram at high Strange,
and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
Payne Lindsay. If you have your own UFO story, email
us at tips at high strange dot com. High Strange
is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association with Cadence thirteen, created,
hosted and edited by myself Payne Lindsey. Executive producers are
(40:51):
myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney, Cooper Skinner
and myself. Original score by Makeup Invanity, sound design, mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production by Mike Rooney,
Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney, Meredith Stedman, and Sidney Evans.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Our cover art is by Polygon.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
This episode features the song space Cadet by metro Booman
featuring Gunna, written by Wesley tire Glass, Sergio Kitchens, Leland Tyler,
Wayne Alan Ritter and Jack Queis Webster, performed by metro
Booman featuring Gunna courtesy of Republic Records under license from
Universal Music Enterprises for metro Booman in three hundred. Entertainment
for Gunna Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the whole
(41:37):
team at UTA, the Nord Group, Station sixteen, Beck Media
and Marketing, as well as Chris Corcoran and the team
at Cadence thirteen. Check out the show's website at Highstrange
dot com, and if you're enjoying the show, please help
us out by rating and reviewing the podcast and share
it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Thanks for listening.
High Strange is released weekly every Thursday, brought to you
absolutely free, but if you want to bene the whole season,
it's available right now on Apple Podcasts for all Tenderfoot
Plus subscribers. You'll also get exclusive bonus episodes throughout the season.
For more information, check out the show notes.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
We were headed home. Worked thirty miles from home, so
it's a bit of a drive. We loaded up all
our equipment in the back of the truck.
Speaker 4 (00:33):
There.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Everybody's tired, so there was various conversations going on in
the truck. Two here or too there like that. As
we were jouncing along this little logging trail, I could
see a glow through the trees up ahead. The whole
clearing there had this really strange glow to it, sort
(00:56):
of a feel. I don't know, maybe there was some
kind of electrical charge in the air, so I'm just
had a really weird vibe to it. It made things
you see at work all day look really strange in
this strange glow. We got to a point where we
were past the thickest part of the growth and we
could see the source of this light boom therewise. It
(01:19):
was unmistakable.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Welcome to high strange. I traveled to Snowflake, Arizona, to
meet with a man named Travis Walton. In nineteen seventy five,
he was working with a logging crew deep in the
woods outside of town when they encountered a flying saucer.
There were seven witnesses in the truck who all claimed
(01:49):
to have seen the same thing. But the story only
really begins there, because immediately after their alleged UFO sighting,
Travis Walton would go missing five whole days, while his
coworkers were interrogated by police and under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
On the night of November.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Fifth, nineteen seventy five, as Travis and his crew were
driving home, they noticed a bright light in the sky
that lit up all the surrounding trees, and as they
reached a clearing, the source of this light came into focus.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Boom, there it was. It was just unmistakable. It was
clearly a metallic disk. Nothing between us and it. Some
indistinct glow suddenly becomes this craft hovering there. I yelled
might stop the truck, and as soon as he stopped,
I threw open the door, thinking this thing would just
(02:44):
take off. It's just a real common thing. You get
a glimpse of a wolf or a mountain lion or something,
and you try to call the attention of the crew.
It's gone before they came and turned their head. I
kind of had that feeling about it, that it would
just be gone. I got close, so I jumped out
and started towards it. I just acted on impulse. It
(03:08):
definitely alarmed the other guys. They're calling at me to
get back in the truck.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Most lying head.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
I was just hoping it would take off before I
got any closer. It was a pale, golden color, metallic.
It's kind of like when you look at a television screen.
It's a source of light, but at the same time,
the light from the window is reflecting off the screen.
I could see the surrounding trees reflected off the surface
(03:42):
at the same time it was glowing. Guys were yelling
at me to get back in the truck and swearing
at me, let's get the hell out of here. I
didn't want to act scared. I was trying to act brave,
but I was terrified. The sound that was making was
very complex mixture of tones. There was a high pitched frequency,
(04:07):
and there was a low, throbbing, sort of a real
super base note. The frequency there was so wide that
it was kind of like off the range of human hearing.
The really low notes you sort of felt in your body.
The sound suddenly got louder when it started to move.
(04:31):
When I jumped for cover, I just sort of dove
down and forward behind the log. But what they did
was it brought me that much closer to the craft,
and now I'm practically underneath it, screaming at me and
swearing at me to get back in the truck. Stood
up to run back to the truck, and as soon
(04:51):
as I did, bam, something hit me, kind of a
stunning force, electric shock, feeling like getting hit by truck.
They saw me fly through the air and land like
a dead body. I was almost immediately unconscious.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
On November fifth, nineteen seventy five, Travis Walton had an
experience that would change the.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Course of his life forever.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
His six coworkers claimed to have seen Travis struck by
a bluish green beam of light and sent him flying
twenty feet in the air. Terrified out of their minds,
the men panicked and sped into town for help. At
the time, the six men were convinced that Travis was
killed by that strange beam of light, and on their
way into town, pulled off the road to gather their thoughts,
(05:48):
quickly deciding they needed to go back, but when they
got there, Travis was gone. The men drove to the
sheriff's department to report him missing, only to find out
they would instantly become suspects in its disappearance.
Speaker 5 (06:03):
The encounter took place in the Sitgreaves National Forest in
eastern Arizona, on the edge of the Mogoyan Rim.
Speaker 6 (06:11):
They just knocked him backwards through the air, like as
if some sort of an explosion had gone off in
front of him.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It was that dramatic.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
After seeing travistruck, the other crew members did not want
to investigate anything. They left the area.
Speaker 7 (06:26):
Mike Rogers and the other five witnesses returned only to
find Travis missing. After they told their astounding story to
the police, they came under suspicion of murder and attend
search for Travis Walton proceeded for three days, dogs and helicopters.
They were unable to find him or any signs of
where he was.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
Travis was missing for five days as people searched the
woods for him.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Meanwhile, according to Travis, his nightmare was really just beginning.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
But next thing I knew, I was waking up.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
What'd you see around you when you woke up?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
It was just a light above me, and the ceiling
was so close. I figured that maybe I was in
the hospital. The light wasn't all that bright, but it
hurt my eyes to look at it. Everything else was
really dark, and this light was above me like that.
(07:34):
I was in a lot of pain. I felt like
something was seriously wrong. I felt mortally wounded. I finally
did look around. Everything was blurry. I couldn't focus real good.
I could see what I thought were doctors standing over me.
(07:56):
I assumed they were doctors at first, cause my vision
was blurry. As soon as I could focus, I could
see these weren't doctors. Pretty soon my vision cleared and
I could see the faces of these creatures. They were small, hairless,
(08:19):
huge eyes, and I think that partially explained the dim
light in there. The large eyes. I was terrified. It
was straining the limits of my mind to cope with
the situation. That instant jolt of fear made me much
(08:43):
more fully awake I felt mortally wounded. I felt like
I was dying, and I associated this pain with seeing them.
I tried to roll away from them, rolled off of
the table. They had some kind of a device on
(09:05):
my chest that fell off. I backed away, screaming, crying.
They weren't close enough to actually hit, but I was
making it clear that if they did approach me, that
I would fight against them. With them, I was thinking
(09:31):
of fighting my way past them because there was a door,
an opening. It looked like escaped to me. It was
the only way out. I was gonna fight my way
past them and try to escape. I immediately figured I'm
inside that thing that I saw. You know, that all
came together real fast. Before I could put that little
(09:54):
plan into action, they suddenly stopped turning and went out
the door. That was my chance to escape, find a
way out. I went in the other direction, just a narrow,
cramped hallway. I was having trouble breathing. It hurt to breathe.
(10:19):
I felt suffocation. I don't know whether that was an
injury to my chest or lungs or heart or something,
or if there was something not appropriate for humans in
the interior of that craft. But I was just desperate
to find my way out of it, in a irrational
(10:40):
panic sort of way, thinking I could just find a
way to open a hatch and drop to the ground.
You know, I didn't really have a picture in my
mind of the layout of this craft. I was just
blindly looking for openings. There was a room. I approached
(11:01):
some instruments controls of some kind, thinking that they might
open the door. Fooling with these buttons and levers and
things didn't seem to do anything at all. There was
panicked and irrational as I was, I still had the
(11:22):
idea that what I was doing could make things a
lot worse. But there was a change in light from
the door I had come through. When I turned and
I saw a man that I immediately concluded was someone
there to save me from these monsters. Looked like a
(11:43):
human being, but different and unusual ways to I ran
up to him and started screaming about these creatures. He
didn't really react much to what I was saying. I
thought maybe he couldn't hear me because he had a
helmet on. He took me by the arm to lead
(12:05):
me out of there. I was only too willing to go.
Took me out of the craft. There was a ramp
not stairs going down looked really too steep to be
walking on, but it wasn't slippery at all. It was
much brighter outside. It had been comparatively dark in the
(12:30):
interior of this craft. The whole ceiling lit up with
what looked like sunlight coming through a lot cooler, wasn't
as hot. I tried to look around a little bit.
There was some other disc shaped metallic craft of a
different configuration, more rounded. But mainly I was very concerned
(12:54):
with where I was being taken, and I had a
growing anxiety about not getting any response from this guy.
This room that we were in was huge. It was
real high ceilings and very airy and empty. But he
took me through some doors and down a hallway into
(13:17):
another room, and here were some people dressed like him,
except without the helmets. So I'm thinking, finally, somebody can
tell me what's going on. So I start begging for answers,
demanding answers. Was still not getting any response, which really
(13:38):
set off the alarm bells. They were trying to get
me to lay down on this table there, and I
started to resist, and so I tried to fight them.
I was still very weak. I was feeling real shaky
and wounded. They didn't have that much trouble getting me down,
(14:00):
in spite of my adrenaline from a fear, just screaming
and fighting. They seemed much stronger than me, and they
overpowered me and put me on that table and one
of them put a mask over my face and I
tried to get it off. Immediately before I could, I
(14:24):
blacked out.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
This story sounds absolutely unbelievable, trust me, I know. But
while Travis Walton was missing for five days, the police
also found this unbelievable. The six men who witnessed Travis
being struck by the beam from the craft were being
investigated for murder. Five days feels like a very long
time to keep up a hoax when you're starting to
(14:51):
face potential murder charges.
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Out of the five days Travis was.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Unaccounted for, he remembers only one hour total and nothing else.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
This was a very emotional thing for Travis's family and
emotional for us. Travis was my best friend and our
whole lives have been disrupted by this. We wondered if
we would ever see him again.
Speaker 7 (15:15):
Arrangements were made for PSI Gilson, a highly qualified polygraph
examiner to conduct the polygraphs on the six witnesses to
Travis Walton's UNO encounter. Did the utmost care in administering
these light detected tests was exercise. Because the men were
under suspicion of murder.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Convinced that these men had murdered Travis, the sheriff ordered
Arizona State Police polygraph examiner Psyke Gilson to conduct light
detector tests on the crew members.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Once the tests got underway, he started changing his mind
very quickly. After he had test at about three of
the six, he seemed to be acting differently. By the
time he had tested all of us, he seemed to
be able. I talked to him after the test and
he indicated to me, but apparently.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
He was wrong.
Speaker 6 (16:09):
Unofficially, he said that he believed that we had told
the truth because five of us passed the test. He
wrote in his report that we had told the truth.
That apparently there had been a UFO.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Five out of the six men passed their polygraphs and
the last was found to be inconclusive. While the Sheriff's
department tried to make sense of their outlanders story and
debated pressing charges, all of a sudden, Travis magically reappeared
around twenty miles away from the original site.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
When I woke up, I felt the cold, hard payment
under me. There was a light above. I just looked
to see where the light was coming from. Then I
could see this shiny surface, this craft, and it went
off just as I looked, shot up into the sky. Uh.
(17:09):
I could see the lights of the town down below.
Ran down there was a building with some lights on,
and pounded on the door, screaming like a maniac. Nobody came.
Nobody came, So I ran farther into town. I ran
(17:31):
down there and found a row of telephone booths. Made
a collect call to my family.
Speaker 5 (17:57):
On November eleventh, Travis called his brother in law from
this phone booth.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
When did you first learn that you had been missing
it all?
Speaker 3 (18:06):
When my brother picked me up and put me in
the truck, and he literally picked me up. He was
talking about how traumatic it was for my mother, and uh,
he could tell that I thought this was the same night,
This conscious interval in there was not that long. It
(18:28):
certainly wasn't five days. I didn't know who that five
days had gone by. And he said, try, I must
fill your face and I had a five day growth
of beard. That was the stunner. I was just so
completely in a state of terror that I I couldn't
(18:50):
even speak. I was just too messed up. When he
was embracing me, he on to me and took care
of me. I was in terrible shape.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
In the five days he was missing, Travis remembers only
two hours and those, he says, were aboard the spacecraft.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Where was he the rest of the time?
Speaker 1 (19:25):
When was it that you were maybe first reported missing?
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Immediately they went straight to the sheriff and told him
what well. They said, one of her crew is missing.
He might be dead, and the sheriff's ears purke of
oh yeah. The night that they reported it, they did
go back to the site. All three of the lawmen
went out there with the crew, and the next day
(19:52):
this massive man hunt.
Speaker 7 (19:56):
And attend search for Travis Walton proceeded. For three days,
dogs and helicopters. They were unable to find him or
any signs of where he was.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
The crew had been through five days of attacks of
being accused of murdering me. They figured this was just
a cover up for a murder, including my brother. He
definitely thought that they'd killed me and got very aggressive
with them trying to get him to fess up. They
figured this was just a cover up. They were going
to find the body and these guys were gonna hang
(20:29):
for it. Each crewman was interviewed by a different law
enforcement officer and they wrote in their report the descriptions,
how do seven people have the same hallucination?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
The six witnesses to Travis Walton's UFO encounter have made
several statements in the years following, all collectively maintaining their stories.
I found some quotes from each of them. Alan Dallas said,
we couldn't believe what was happening. Horror was unreal. Kenneth Peterson.
I saw a bluish light come from the machine and
(21:06):
Travis went flying like he've been touched by a live wire.
Steve Pierce that ray was the brightest thing I've ever
seen in my whole life.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
Dwayne Smith.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
The UFO was smooth and giving off a yellowish orange light.
Mike Rogers in nineteen seventy five said, I've been working
these woods for over ten years, and this is the
damnedest thing that's ever happened to me.
Speaker 2 (21:29):
Then again in nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
I've been working these woods for over thirty years, and
this is still the damnedest thing that's ever happened to
me and John Goulette. I know what I saw, and
it wasn't anything from this earth. Let's take a step
back here and just look at what we know. Travis
has not changed his story in nearly fifty years, which,
if he were lying, is at least pretty impressive. I
(21:53):
feel like if I was part of some elaborate abduction hoax,
the second the police started framing me for murder, I'd
probably hang it up.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Sorry, we're just kidding. He's right here.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I definitely wouldn't demand for truth serum or a polygraph test.
Travis also lost over ten pounds during the five days
he was missing. Objectively, I feel like there's probably three
potential explanations for all this. A. Travis and the six
other men are lying, and they've kept this gag going
now for nearly half a century. But for the story
(22:23):
to be entirely made up, Travis had to have been
hiding for five days somewhere, intentionally starving himself and not shaving.
In this scenario, it seems likely that someone else had
to be involved to pull it off. Everyone in town
was searching for Travis, even his own brother b They
experienced something else out there, something just as unexplainable, but
(22:45):
they were all convinced it was a spacecraft when it
actually wasn't. Maybe it was some sort of natural phenomenon
and it created this bizarre sensory illusion. But whatever it was,
it still clearly injured Travis, and maybe from there he
was in some sort of coma state for days, just
wandering in the woods somehow not killing himself or see
(23:05):
it really happens.
Speaker 8 (23:08):
He spent five days on the UFO.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
For all intent and purposes, he spent five days on there.
He did come in contact with some beings or human like,
but they weren't human obviously.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
Duane, you know your own brother probably better than anybody else.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Do you believe the story?
Speaker 5 (23:22):
I've never seen him play a practical joke and as
adult lie.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
What do you say to those who just say, oh,
you're friendshit?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Well, you know, to each his own. People have all
kinds of theories and beliefs anything in today's world, all
kinds of contending points of view and theories and stuff. Everything,
It all comes down to facts and reasoning. Are your
(23:50):
facts true and complete, and is your reasoning valid. Failure
to prove is not disproof. I've gotten very abstract in
how people should evaluate claims. You see it back and
forth with these political debates. If you have something, lay
(24:12):
it out there, invite examination.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
It makes complete sense to me how any rational person
would hesitate to believe Travis Walton's story, And personally, I'll
tell you I myself was very skeptical throughout the whole
process up until he finally sat down to tell me
a story. I don't consider myself an expert in human
deception by any means, but I have dealt with a
lot of liars in my time as a podcaster, murder suspects,
(24:43):
drug dealers, actual murderers, you name it. And there was
something sincere about Travis. I'm convinced that even if this
didn't actually happen, at this point, Travis Walton himself still
believes it.
Speaker 4 (24:56):
I don't know mother Travis Walton selling the truth or not.
As I stand here totally open minded. The Travis Walton
cases I understand that had a fair amount of polygraph
involvement before I was asked who become involved.
Speaker 1 (25:10):
This is Cleve Baxter, an interrogation expert for the CIA.
Speaker 8 (25:14):
Before Travis Walton reappeared.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
After the alleged production, the Arizona Department of Public Safety
got quite concerned that there may have been foul play
and that these six individuals on that tree cutting team
may have committed to crime and were trying to hide
the crime, perhaps by reporting the UFO abduction. The six
were tested by cy Gilson of the Arizona Department of
(25:37):
Public Safety.
Speaker 8 (25:38):
Five of them passed. One of them is inconclusive merely.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Because of the person's general nervous tension, not because there
was any failure. In other words, we have three determinations
in polygraph testing and our opinion they're being truthful.
Speaker 8 (25:49):
In our opinion they're being deceptive or what we don't know.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
There was certain forensic that went on at the site.
There was there with a Geiger counter. They found evidence
of elevated radiation. Seven witnesses all passing police light detector tests,
and every theory to try to explain it away has failed.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
Do you want people to believe you?
Speaker 3 (26:22):
I think it's important for people to understand that this
is real. You don't want to believe it, fine, have
it your way.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Do you realize how unbelievable it could sound to somebody.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
Oh yeah, I understand, you know, from the outside, especially
somebody who doesn't know about the physical evidence. I understand
how it can sound to people who don't want to
believe it. Then I have to look very far to
find a reason not to. You ever had a political
argument in the recent years, you can see how people
(26:55):
can be impervious to facts. How do you know what's true?
How do you evaluate claims? What's a fair examination of
the evidence. I really think the entire society would benefit
from understanding what true critical thinking is. How do you
(27:16):
know what's true? How do you evaluate claims in a
fair and unbiased way. You don't begin with a conclusion.
You gather the evidence first. I think we have enough
astronomy knowledge of the universe around us to know that
it would be the most stupendously unlikely thing for this
(27:39):
to be the only life in all of this vast expanse.
Virtually every star has about a dozen planets going around it.
Not only are all these trillions of stars that we
can see from here having planets going around them, some
of them are vastly older. It's the height of arrogance
(28:05):
to presume that we're the only living thing that could
possibly have come into being If the tiniest fraction a
tenth of one percent of these stars have a planet
that could possibly be life supporting, the arrogance to assume
that they couldn't possibly come here just because we don't
(28:27):
know how to go there is ridiculous. Two hundred years ago,
the most technological thing we had was fire. We could
break rocks into sharp things, and we had fire. That
was the extent of our technology. The incredible technological development
of just the last ten or twenty years project that forward.
(28:51):
Imagine a species of similar potential having a thousand years
to go at five times the time we've had one
hundred years ago. You could describe what is commonplace today
based on what we know about the age of these
star systems. Some of them are vastly older than us.
(29:13):
Logically speaking, would therefore be more advanced than we are
in terms of science, physics, and the power to travel
such great distances. It's kookie to think that, yeah, we know,
there's trillions of planets, but only one has life and
it's right here all the rest of it. That's the
kookie thing. Once we look around and understand the true
(29:40):
enormity of the universe. It's not kooky to think that
there's other life in the universe. It's kookie to think
there isn't. What are the odds that this would be
so completely unique. There's literally trillions of opportunities for the
situation to have come. I learned a lot about how
(30:03):
to deal with people's reluctance to believe this also evolved
in my own perception of it. The fascination sometimes hinges
on the fact that people think of this as some
nightmare except the reality of the phenomenon. But let's set
(30:24):
aside the idea that it's something to be afraid of.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Here's Leslie Kane again.
Speaker 9 (31:04):
What makes a case credible is when there's a lot
of data. Definitely, multiple witnesses is a basic criteria. I
think the abduction cases are less credible because there just
isn't enough evidence to prove those stories. I mean, they
obviously meant a lot to the people, but let's just
put those aside because I don't work on those cases anyway.
(31:28):
If the fact is that we're not alone, it's a
scientific fact, like knowing that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Right,
or knowing that the Earth isn't flat. Everyone has a
right to know. Other people make arguments that if it's
going to be really harmful, maybe it's better not to know.
We think of ourselves as being the top of the
food chain, right, We're it to imagine that that's actually
(31:53):
not the case. We don't know the psychological effect that's
going to have. We don't know what effect it will
have on religion, on economic institutions. We don't know how
that'll affect our interaction with other countries who are also
working on this. Maybe it'll be a good thing because
we'll unify. There's one planetary civilization who has to face
this external reality. A lot of others believe they'll just
(32:17):
be a lot of disturbances in our social fabric.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
I agree with Leslie here.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
If the government, or any entity for that matter, knows
something profound, like the existence of extraterrestrial beings, everyone should
have the right to know. But society has had a
long track record of struggling to accept new information. Many
great minds throughout history have been labeled a heretic for
their own profound discoveries. Example, Giordano Bruno, an Italian philosopher
(32:48):
from the fifteen hundreds believe that the universe was infinite
in size and that the Earth is not the center
of it.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
People didn't like that very much.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
He was sentenced to seven years in prison and eventually
ordered to be burned at the stake by the Pope.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
Everything he said was true.
Speaker 10 (33:09):
This is the ultimate human story, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Are we alone?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Here's Brian bender again, a.
Speaker 10 (33:17):
Mystery that has been dogging us basically since the beginning
of recorded human history. John Winthrop, who was governor of
the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the sixteen hundreds, there's several
entries in his diary of this mass hysteria off Boston
when these fishermen came back. If you read it today,
sounds a whole lot like the pig packs.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
On March first, sixteen thirty nine, John Winthrop wrote in
his diary about a very unusual event what he described
as a quote sober and discreet man witnessed strange glowing
objects in the sky darting back and.
Speaker 2 (33:51):
Forth over the village of Charlestown.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
He describes them as swift as an arrow, and that
many other credible people saw the same lights at the
same place. Among other notable accounts of UFOs and American history.
Our own US presidents have made numerous comments over the years,
including Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 11 (34:10):
We saw of bright light up here in the distant
western skies, and it got closer and closer, and when
it was just above the treetops, hit changed color. And
then they stayed there for a while, and then it
disappeared into the distance. And I still don't know what
it was.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Here's Barack Obama.
Speaker 12 (34:30):
There's footage and records of objects in the skies that
we don't know exactly what they are. We can't explain
how they moved their trajectory.
Speaker 13 (34:41):
And Ronald Reagan, we often forget how much unites all
the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside universal
threat to make us recognize this common bound. I occasionally
think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we
were facing an aai in threat from outside this.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
World, just like the Roswell incident in nineteen forty seven.
UFOs and aliens are also famously synonymous with a top
secret military base in the desert of Nevada, best known
as Area fifty one. For decades, there have been countless
rumors of alien bodies and spacecraft being hidden and tested there,
(35:24):
stuff that was stretched the limits of pretty much anyone's imagination.
And regardless of all the conspiracy chatter, what remains true
is its existence.
Speaker 9 (35:34):
Area fifty ones like part of this mythology, it's just
become the sort of mecca for people. For a while,
they wouldn't even acknowledge there was.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Such a place.
Speaker 9 (35:44):
We know it exists, but it's extremely secretive.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
The highly classified US Air Force facility was created in
nineteen fifty five, and it wasn't until twenty thirteen the
CIA acknowledged it was actually there, located deep in the
desert of Nova, surrounded by mountains, with signs all around
the base warning that deadly force will be used on trespassers.
It's clear that whatever they do in there, they don't
(36:08):
want us knowing about it.
Speaker 10 (36:10):
If you're building a secret airplane at Area fifty one
and you don't want the Russians to know, or the
Chinese or anybody else, you're potentially benefiting from this sort
of craze of UFO sidings all over the place, and
maybe it's even in your interest to kind of spread
that a little more. Then people start looking over there,
(36:32):
and they don't look over here where you don't want.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
Them to look.
Speaker 10 (36:35):
Maybe one of those UFO sidings was actually a test
flight of a secret airplane there building.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
If I'm going to continue down this UFO rabbit hole,
which I've clearly committed to doing at this point, then
I want to get as close as possible to Area
fifty one and see for myself what all the fuss
is about.
Speaker 14 (36:54):
Located in the middle of nowhere, Area fifty one has
been at the center of some of this country's most
closely guarded secrets, but only now has the government officially
acknowledged the existence of Area fifty one in Nevada.
Speaker 15 (37:07):
The two point nine million acre live fire training range,
the largest in the United States, located at Nellis Air
Force Base in Nevada.
Speaker 14 (37:16):
Legions of UFO enthusiasts have long suspected Area fifty one
is where the US hides captured aliens.
Speaker 15 (37:24):
Any attempt to illegally access military installations or military training
areas is dangerous.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
My crew and I flew into Las Vegas and drove
over one hundred miles to the desert town of Rachel, Nevada,
population forty eight snooping around a top secret military base
is not usually advisable, so before we left, I arranged
to meet a local guide to help navigate the area.
We met at a UFO themed motel in town called
(37:53):
Little Aleyen, and we all piled into his four wheel
drive truck.
Speaker 16 (37:58):
The first gate we're going here, This one is the
main gate. Where we're going is an entrance, but it's
about forty minutes from the base. This is an active base.
One people think it isn't it is.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
The gates to the base are dozens of miles outside town,
down bumpy dirt roads with no signage or landmarks whatsoever.
You definitely don't want to get stuck out here. There's
no cell service for miles.
Speaker 16 (38:22):
Look how many cameras That one rotates and watches us.
That one sometimes will follow you, and then you have
three cameras on that pullback. There you have a camera
to the right. I don't know of any government installation
of any kind in the country that goes to the
level of secrecy.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
This one does.
Speaker 1 (38:40):
A white truck with heavily tinted windows was parked up
on the hill, cameras and listening devices visible, and seemingly
all directions. I started to feel an overwhelming rush of excitement,
the kind you get as a kid on Christmas morning,
and then the rational part of my brain kicked in, asking.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
Should we be doing this?
Speaker 1 (39:01):
I mean, I'd love to see some aliens, but seriously,
I don't want to get shot.
Speaker 5 (39:05):
This is.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
My curiosity was peaked, that feeling of playing with fire.
What would happen if I hopped that gate? Just how
exactly would it all play out?
Speaker 16 (39:25):
If you cross, they will detain you. I hold you
in federal prisons six months to a year.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Serious said, I probably shouldn't cross that stop side.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Do not go through that gate. I'm not going with you.
If you do.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
Go to spaceship No space White legendame inhabitat and.
Speaker 6 (39:47):
Smoke play did take a lean, A lean deep, there's
a bean ba.
Speaker 3 (39:53):
I've been going Gene because I cool know she was
over pan in the beds of Supert Show Steve bud
top Ton avert riding.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
Then you wee you gotta being down and saying the parapet.
We've made a dot com John Knack and I helped
those boom Nata guys. A Nati Devil.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
High Strange is an eight part series released weekly for
free every Thursday, but if you'd like to binge the
whole series right now, you can subscribe to Tenderfoot plus
on Apple Podcasts to.
Speaker 2 (40:26):
Get all the episodes right now.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Follow the show on TikTok and Instagram at high Strange,
and you can follow me on Twitter and Instagram at
Payne Lindsay. If you have your own UFO story, email
us at tips at high strange dot com. High Strange
is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association with Cadence thirteen, created,
hosted and edited by myself Payne Lindsey. Executive producers are
(40:51):
myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney, Cooper Skinner
and myself. Original score by Makeup Invanity, sound design, mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production by Mike Rooney,
Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney, Meredith Stedman, and Sidney Evans.
Speaker 2 (41:11):
Our cover art is by Polygon.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
This episode features the song space Cadet by metro Booman
featuring Gunna, written by Wesley tire Glass, Sergio Kitchens, Leland Tyler,
Wayne Alan Ritter and Jack Queis Webster, performed by metro
Booman featuring Gunna courtesy of Republic Records under license from
Universal Music Enterprises for metro Booman in three hundred. Entertainment
for Gunna Special thanks to Orrin Rosenbaum and the whole
(41:37):
team at UTA, the Nord Group, Station sixteen, Beck Media
and Marketing, as well as Chris Corcoran and the team
at Cadence thirteen. Check out the show's website at Highstrange
dot com, and if you're enjoying the show, please help
us out by rating and reviewing the podcast and share
it with your friends.
Speaker 2 (41:55):
Thanks for listening.
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