July 25, 2025 • 58 mins
Seeing in the dark can be a great advantage, as long as you don't see things that might scare the life out of you. Are there beings living around us we can't see because they exist in a different vibration, or wavelength than us. There are some stories out there.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Are you Are you coming to the tree? Well hung up?
Who must say she murdered? True, Jonge, things have happened
that no joner would be free. Menma them holling truth.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Come to the show. I'm your host, Chris James. It
was time for our annual pilgrimage to ikea we Go
once a year. Since it's one hundred and sixty miles
one way. I like to play with shopping carts to
begin with, all the wheels work. I have yet to
(00:55):
find a broke down cart like you see in every
shopping ste center store, grocery store on the planet. I
think somebody goes around at night and screws up one
wheel on each cart to add to the weirdness. All
the wheels turn. For steering, you can push the cart
(01:18):
in a circle, like neutral steering a tank. The cart
will spin in its own footprint and it will keep
spinning for about a minute. If you push it hard enough,
you can push the cart at an angle, you know, crabbing,
which looks really weird. I was looking for a new
(01:40):
office chair and a can opener. Plus we needed some
new shelving for around the house and a few things
like that. In the middle of each store is a
nice restaurant. I have yet to eat lunch there, but
I do drink their coffee. It isn't anywhere near as
(02:01):
good as Organicman Coffee Trike coffee, but it is good.
Organicman Coffee Trike has the best coffee in the universe.
They are at four or five is zero one McPherson
and is actually the best coffee ever. Even LDS kids
(02:25):
say so, and they don't drink coffee. If you're not
in Laredo, or you don't have time to drive over,
you can go to Organicmancoffeetrike Dot Shop. As we're getting
closer to the middle of the store, I noticed there
(02:45):
was a lack of the smell of cooking Swedish meatballs
in the air. You usually could smell it real quick,
but this time it just it wasn't there. It fills
the air, but I figured maybe it was all the
new items that they had on display were somehow overpowering
(03:06):
the meatballs. We rounded the corner and the restaurant was closed.
Now they were working on the plumbing and nobody was
making meatballs or coffee, and we simply soldiered on without
Why not try a holiday in Sweden?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
This year.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
See the Lovely Lakes, the Wonderful Telephone System. If you've
never been to Ikea, you walk in the front door
and then you wind your way through maybe eighteen sections
with everything you might need for the home. It feels
(03:52):
like you're walking for miles, but that's mostly just an illusion.
We would take photos of everything we were considered tering buying.
You can pick up one of those tiny little pencils
and some paper and you can write down the numbers.
The shopping cart has a wide place on the handhold
(04:12):
just for that purpose. As you get to the checkout area,
this is where you pick up your purchases. Everything comes
in a box with some assembly required. There are lots
of friendly folks to help you find what you're looking
(04:32):
for and help it get it onto your cart. As
those all wheels steer carts take on weight, there develops
a problem. They tend to go in directions other than
the one you want. You have to be patient and
move slow. Right after the pickup zone is the food market.
(04:55):
We bought some frozen Swedish meatballs for the house. Would
you believe that Ikea is the sixth largest food distributor
in the world. Every store on the planet has moved
a self checkout, which I feel is risky, especially considering
(05:16):
as I tend to miss things in the cart and
sometimes I'll count them twice. I've been known to do
that scan the say I minem a couple of times,
and well, that always costs me money. As we're pushing
our two overloaded carts to the checkout, a young lady
said that she would be happy to check us out.
(05:38):
If you're buying over one thousand dollars worth, you get
special attention that and I'm starting to look a bit old,
and I guess the young folks feel as if they
need to help me. It's a shock when some young
person holds the door open for you or offers to
help you load your groceries. After we'd gotten everything checked out,
(06:02):
we're fixing the leave. I showed the woman the image
on my phone of the Ikea socomb or the guillotine.
I asked where I could find one. Once she'd stopped
laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe, she said it
might be in the Ikea Middle Ages department. She was
(06:26):
super nice and helpful, but she kind of balked at
the idea of coming outside and helping load the truck
since it was over one hundred degrees. There are young
kids who do that, but I always say no because
it makes me feel old, not like I'm old or anything.
It makes me feel like I can't do something. That's
(06:49):
why I tend to hurt all the time. My brain
and my body haven't realized that I'm I'm up there
a bit. Once you eat the exit, it is actually
right next door to the entrance. You've gone in a
great big circle. One thing you need to know about Ikea.
(07:10):
When they say some assembly required, they mean it. If
you buy enough furniture, you become qualified in construction. Now
I have projects that I need to finish this week.
I've already put my chair together because that was highly important.
Now now I have an anti cat device on it.
(07:31):
It's a really nice leather chair, but I have to
keep it covered because otherwise the kids will mess it up.
A moose once bit my sister, No really, she was
carving her initials on the moose with a sharpened interspace
toothbrush given to her by sting her brother in law.
(07:56):
If you shop at Ikea enough times, you learn to
speak Swedish. My grandmother was first generation from Sweden. Nobody
in our family knows any Swedish words. We can't even
agree on what her last name was. It may have
(08:17):
been Peterson or Anderson, or maybe even allofson. Nobody knows
for sure. Makes it kind of hard to do the
old family tree thing. Now, if you're wondering about those
moose references, you must have missed Monty Python's Holy Grail.
(08:39):
Me and my brother went to see The Holy Grail
back when it first came out. We stood in line
for an hour to get in, and then instead of
the movie, we were treated to a thirty minute travelog
about visiting wonderful Sweden that was made back in the sixties.
(09:01):
Back then they used to make these short movies about
other countries as a form of tourism. The audience was
beginning to grow a bit restless, wondering when is the
movie gonna start. Once the opening credits began, everybody settled down,
thinking they were now going to watch Monty Python at
(09:25):
their best. When the first reference to Sweden showed up,
the audience went nuts, and they didn't settle down even
at the end of the movie. It was hilarious. If
you watched the movie after the first few runs. You
probably didn't see that weird travel film, so the credits
(09:49):
made no sense. I still laugh just thinking about it.
For those of you saying I need to get to
the show, well, hey, it's my show. I have received
a few emails and a few messages on YouTube. Hey
why don't you talk about what you said you're going
(10:11):
to talk? I don't understand people Expanded perspectives usually spends
the first half of their show they're talking about other things.
But when I do it, it's a bad thing. Well
why are folks like that even listening to me in
the first place. There are hundreds or thousands of other
(10:35):
podcasts out there that they can listen to and then
give them a bad rating. I have listeners in Sweden.
I wonder if any of y'all work at IKEA. If
you do, let me know in the comments. Have you
ever seen one or several of your pets suddenly paying
(10:58):
a whole lot of attention to something that you can't see.
Sometimes they might turn and run, go hide somewhere safe
from whatever it is they're seeing. My dog will growl
at things that we don't see. I have grabbed my
camera and clicked a whole bunch of photos trying to
(11:20):
see if there was something I should be worried about.
But as far as I've been unlucky to catch anything.
The boys in the white lab coats have admitted there
could be hundreds thousands of other universes. This is all
spread out through the space that our universe is in.
(11:44):
This is kind of hard to comprehend. The universe is
everything for as far as space goes, Yet there might
be other universes in other parts of the universe. The
universe is everything. It includes all of space and all
(12:05):
the matter and energy that space contains. It includes time, space,
you and I. Then there's the multiverse theory. Multiverse theory
suggests our universe, with all of its hundreds of billions
of galaxies and countless stars spinning tens of billions of
(12:27):
light years, may not be the only one. There may
be an entirely different universe separated from ours. There may
be an infinity of universes with all other laws of physics,
their own collections of stars and galaxies, and even their
(12:48):
own intelligence civilizations. The folks who study time travel believe
anytime something significant happens, a time splits, creating two different
times lines, making the Grandfather paradox unimportant. Why would anybody
bother building a time machine just so they can go
(13:10):
back in time and kill their grandfather? Who comes up
with these things? That's as crazy as Schrodinger's cat. No
one is quite certain as to where those other universes
or timelines exist, only they are more than likely there somewhere.
(13:34):
The whole situation might be like a bunch of soap
bubbles all sitting next to and on top of each other,
making contact with other universes on every side. You've heard
how the veil thins around Halloween, allowing creatures from other places,
(13:54):
like spirits and ghosts to come to our world? Are
they really limited to just the one time of year?
As I watched that TV show The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch,
I wonder could there be other places with similar occurrences.
I know about the Bradshaw Ranch, and the Stardust Ranch
(14:17):
and the blind Frog Ranch, and just to name a few,
not just because of the TV shows, but because I
have read about these places. Just think about this for
a minute. What if these universes, being right next to
each other, have hundreds or thousands of places where images
(14:40):
or even beings from other universes can slip back and
forth from place to place. This could explain why people
never find a bigfoot body. Those huge hair covered creatures
step into our world, look around a bit, then they
go back to their home, leaving only sightings and questions
(15:04):
and maybe a few hundred footprints. The apers all think
I'm nuts for saying such things. They can't explain why
a bigfoot can walk out into a field leaving footprints
behind that suddenly stop. They don't have an answer to
these often reported occurrences, so they just kind of ignore
(15:26):
these reports. James Akin told about his reception in his
book Elkins Creek. He was talking to one of the
very famous bigfoot research organizations as he told about how
he was following the tracks out into an open field,
and they stopped, without any explanation as to why. The
(15:50):
people on the phone discovered other more important things to
look into other than Akin's report. Don't call up or
will call you, which they never did. When we see
a ghost or all these ghosts the same thing. Some
look as if they're living beings, as surprised seeing us
(16:14):
as we are at seeing them. Perhaps what we're seeing
is a person from another universe, a being slightly overlapped
from their world for unknown reasons. The veil or the
edge of each universe somehow merge, causing either us to
(16:35):
suddenly appear in another place, or as somebody appearing in ours.
These days, we have digital tuning on our radios and TVs.
Back when I was young, you had to turn a dial,
slowly creeping from channel to channel until you found what
you were looking for. If you were in the right
(16:57):
place or the signals were close, you could get two
radio stations at the same time. Called it bleed over.
The boys in the white lab coats don't all hide
under their desks waiting for some guy holding the purse
strings to tell them what is fact. Some of them
actually do think outside the cat box. Using the largest
(17:23):
gravitational wave detector ever made, scientists have confirmed earlier reports
that the fabric of the universe is constantly vibrating. They
believe the background rumble is caused by collisions between enormous
black holes that reside in the hearts of each galaxy.
(17:47):
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and
time when incredibly dense and massive objects orbit or collide
with each other. They create these ripples. The densest and
most massive object in the universe are the black holes
and the remnants of dead stars. One of the only
(18:09):
ways to study a black hole is by searching for
the gravitational waves that they admit when they move near
each other. Gravitational waves emit their energy in a spectrum.
The most massive black holes emit the slowest and most
powerful waves. Earth based detectors can pick up the high
(18:32):
frequency gravitational waves created when relatively small black holes collide.
When two galaxies merge, the black holes that their cinders
centers begin to spiral towards each other. In this process,
they send out slow, powerful gravitational waves. All those universes
(18:57):
that surround us on all sides are probably due doing
the same thing that our universe is doing. A vibration
is a periodic motion of an object about an equilibrium position.
It can be simple harmonic motion or a more complex motion.
Vibration is the movement of energy through matter or space.
(19:22):
In physics, vibration is defined as a back and forth
motion of an object or wave. Vibration can be caused
by external or internal forces, and can occur in solids, liquids,
gases or plasma. A person who is tuned in or
(19:44):
open to receiving these vibrations might be able to see
into these other universes or even step through to another world.
This would explain why people see Bigfoot while out hiking
a trail, or maybe a UFO or a ghost. This
(20:07):
makes me wonder why so many Bigfoot researchers get all
bent out of shape anytime anything paranormal is mentioned. A
lot of ghost hunters say Bigfoot is just some guy
in a costume. Yet a lot of the witnesses who
see Bigfoot say that they have also seen other paranormal things.
(20:30):
If a person were to vibrate at just the right frequency,
would they be able to simply walk into another universe?
They say, If you meditate, you can raise your vibration.
The problem a lot of us run into is there
are way too many distractions in our world. All those
(20:53):
cell phone, TV, microwave towers are all sending out signals
that might interfere with a good strong meditation session. Exercise
is supposed to help us focus. I tell folks, if
you want to get a two hour workout in in
one hour, get off social media. I see people all
(21:16):
the time who stop to tell their followers that they
just lifted a weight, and then it's an hour later
before they do the next set. Getting out into nature
is probably the best way, since as you get far
from any cities or towns, the cell phone towers get
few and far between. This cuts down on vibrations that
(21:41):
might interfere with what you're trying to do. What might
happen if one of those other universes gets plunked down
right on top of ours. I don't mean creating a portal,
but actually is right here alongside of us. Could have
beings who we can't see because they're living in a
(22:04):
different vibration or spectrum from us. We don't see them
or feel them because we pass right through them, or
they pass right through us. We see only a part
of the colors around us. The visible spectrum of light
refers to a range of colors that the human eye
(22:26):
is able to see. The spectrum of the visible light
consists of seven main colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
and violet. These seven colors create the rainbow that we
are all familiar with. Each color has a different wavelength
(22:47):
and frequency that our eyes can detect. We see only
from violet three hundred and ninety nanometers to red, which
is seven hundred and fifty nanometers. Infrared light has a
longer wavelength a seven hundred and fifty one or higher
(23:12):
than red light, and is commonly used in night vision
cameras and remote controls. While we cannot see infrared light
with our naked eye, we can use certain technology to
capture and visualize it with the help of an infrared camera.
Objects that appear dark to us in regular light can
(23:36):
appear vibrant in shades of red or orange when viewed
in infrared. Ultraviolet light has a shorter length wavelength than
violet light below three hundred and eighty nine nanometers and
is visible, and the heat is invisible to the human
eye as well. The origins of night vision can be
(24:01):
traced back to the late nineteen twenties and early thirties,
specifically the work of a Hungarian physicist physicist almost called
him a physician, a physicist, Colman Tyronei, who developed early
night vision systems for anti aircraft defense in the UK
(24:23):
in the nineteen twenty nines. It was during World War
II that night vision technology was first utilized in a
significant way, primarily by the military during battles. Colman Tiny
pioneering work led to the development of the first night
(24:46):
vision system, which employed electronic amplification of low intensity infrared
radiation to produce visible images. While these early systems were rudimentary,
they they laid the foundation for future advancement in night
vision technology. Having tongue issues, my eyes see one word
(25:14):
in my notes, and my brain tries to send it
to my tongue and it doesn't get there. Scrambledged. Who
was it that said that one time you're coming in
all scrambledged that was one of our radio operators. When
dimlight enters the NVG, it hits an internal layer called
(25:37):
the photocathoid, which releases electrons. These electrons hit a second
layer called a micro channel plate, where they get multiplied
before hitting the third layer called the phosphor screen. After
passing through that layer, the electrons are converted back into light.
(25:59):
The more electrons the device produces, the higher the image quality.
The ZG twelve twenty nine, the code name the Vampire,
was an infrared night scope developed during World War Two
for the German wear Mark for night operations. It was
(26:21):
intended to be mounted on a stow wire. Yeah, I
don't speak German Stormgire forty four. It was the first
used in combat in February nineteen forty five. The whole
unit weighed a lot. I forget it was something like
(26:44):
eighty pounds. They only built three hundred and ten of
these units by the end of the war. Its main
drawback was it was bulky and it weighed a lot.
It was too cumbersome to be used in any kind
of dynamic maneuvers, but for a fixed position like a sniper,
(27:04):
it was very good. The infrared scope in the spotlight
weighed a little over five pounds. The battery unit was
encased inside a wooden box and it weighed thirty pounds.
It was carried on a harness on the knocked jogger
or the night hunter's back. The battery that ran the
(27:27):
image converters sat under the main battery box in a
modified gas mask container. The whole package was strapped to
the soldier's back and away he went. In nineteen forty five,
of Vladimir's working, a Russian American inventor and engineer introduced
(27:48):
the first practical commercial night vision device at the Radio
Corporation of America. You know it is RCA. It was
used for civilian use. During the Vietnam War, night vision
began to use a much wider use. The primary night
(28:11):
vision device used by American forces was the an PVS
two Starlight Scope, which was introduced in nineteen sixty. This
device allowed soldiers to see in low light conditions, giving
them a significant advantage. Zworkin's night vision device, known as
(28:33):
the Electric Eye, was a significant improvement over the bulky,
cumbersome system used during World War Two. It was more compact, portable,
and offered a much better image quality. This paved the
way for development of night vision goggles, which would become
in valuable tools to our military and law enforcement, as
(28:57):
well as a lot of hog hunters. The Vietnam night
goggles used a green monochrome display. This choice of color
was not all that not just arbitrary. The human eye
is more sensitive to green light, allowing soldiers to see
(29:17):
better in the dark environment while at the same time
reducing eye strain. The green hue also provides better contrast,
making it easier to distinguish between different shades of a tree,
the terrain, or a person. Before white or green light
(29:39):
vision goggles were built, military grade red night vision goggles
were used. They had a chemical known as Dyson. It
was first used during Vietnam War and no other war
after soldiers were going mad because they were seeing things
(30:03):
seeing into the unseen realm. There is a report out
there that says the reason we no longer see red
night vision is because it allowed people to see creatures
that are normally invisible at night. Helicopters were mostly grounded
too many problems of hitting something since they tended to
(30:25):
fly low to the ground. Plus, the enemy could see
the choppers better than the choppers could see them. Nineteen
sixty seven, the Ground Combat Unit branch hired the Hughes
Aircraft Corporation to design a night fighting kit for the
(30:45):
UH one Iroquois helicopter, what we all know as the Huey.
The boys in the lab kept tinkering with night vision,
but when it hit the field, the electronics tended to
go south. The answer was simple, throw more money at
the project. With a lot of extra cash, the night
(31:08):
vision improved. It originally had a red screen. Pilots needed
to see so they didn't hit anything, and door gunners
needed to see so they could take out the enemy
and not to dinner. As the crews were about to
take off, they were each issued a set of night
vision goggles. Their orders were don't lose them and if
(31:33):
you do, don't bother to come back. Things were different
back then. Night Vision goggles can be very uncomfortable to wear,
especially those older versions, Plus each eye had to be
focused separately. The hard plastic made sweat run down into
(31:55):
the old eyeballs, making life interesting. I hated trying to
drive a tank wearing night vision goggles. The hue. He
was flying along over some dense jungle when suddenly the
door gunner began firing. He wasn't shooting downwards, he was
spraying the air around the chopper. The pilot asked what
(32:18):
the heck he was doing, to which the gunner said
there were monsters flying around the aircraft. I don't know
if the pilots had his goggles on at the time,
because he didn't see anything. I would guess he had
them hung around his neck by the strap, because, like
I said, those things were uncomfortable. Had this been during peacetime,
(32:41):
I'll bet the pilot would have headed back to the
base and had his gunner sent in for a psyche valve.
During times of war, things are different. The pilots quickly
snatched up their mvgs and they looked around. They said
there were what looked like UFOs buzzing around them, not
(33:03):
getting too close, but always circling their chopper. The pilots
decided it was best to get back to the base
and file a full report. They did, and the folks
in the rear with the gear believed them, not even
a little. However, once the scientists heard about seeing monsters
(33:28):
while using red colored night vision, the screens were all
changed to green instead. The military banned the production of
dasinine night vision goggles, and some folks say they're illegal
to even have. Okay, before I go on, I did
(33:49):
some checking and I found that you can actually buy
used night Fox red high definition night vision goggles for
one hundred and twenty dollars. The screens are read and
as far as I know, nobody has reported seeing any
monsters while using them. Then there is the possibility that
(34:13):
the red screen envgs used in Vietnam. We're using a
different technology than what we see today. Just because they
say their military grade doesn't mean they were used by
the military. And another thing, anytime I see a commercial
(34:33):
for military grade hardware. I always think they always use
the lowest bidder. Think cheap, not best. Back to Vietnam
we go. Anytime you're in a dangerous situation, it's a
good idea to stay alert. Somebody needs to be on
(34:55):
watch all night. Twenty four hour security. A patrol base
had just been under attack and the soldiers were a
bit edgy. All through the night, they kept eyes on
the surrounding terrain. Each hour, a soldier was sitting on
the firing line watching the base had a starlight scope.
(35:18):
The man on watch would scan the field looking for
any movement. The medic was on his turn, and he
was fascinated by this new technology. He looked out over
the field and he was stunned to see hundreds of
dead vc, all lying with an eyeshot. He wondered, how
(35:39):
could his platoon have killed so many people in such
a short time. As the sun was coming up, all
those dead bodies began to fade from sight. By morning,
there were just a handful. How did hundreds of bodies
just van? The medic began to think maybe the starlight
(36:04):
scope was causing him to hallucinate. A patrol boat captain
said he was using night vision to watch the edge
of the river. As he watched, it looked as if
everything was moving coming to life. Trees became monsters, the
(36:24):
grass became giant snakes. He thought either he was seeing things,
or the envgs were affecting his eyes, or maybe his brain.
A squad of soldiers were sent out on a patrol
with a new well It was new to them a
(36:45):
night scope. It was actually an old one and in
need of repair and then being dropped in the ocean.
The thing weighed a ton and had to be set
up each night to be used. One gi got the
honor of carrying the thing as the squad moved to
their lpopi. Once the sun was on the horizon, the
(37:07):
night scope was taken out and put together. The battery
was the worst part, since it weighed a lot and
it had to be kept dry and clean, which in
the jungle that's quite a trick. Once the device was
up and running, the first soldier looked through the eyepieces
to see what he could see. He scanned the valley below,
(37:31):
looking towards an old cemetery. The soldier said he was
looking into a kaleidoscope. All kinds of colors and shapes
were all moving around in a circle. This got everybody's attention,
and they all wanted to see what was out there.
The next man looked through the scope, said it looked
(37:54):
like there was a circus in the field below. He said,
all the enemy soldiers were dressed like clowns, and there
were animals and rides everywhere. The next soldier swore he
was watching some kind of a peep show. This was
an early form of porn that had far better descriptions
(38:16):
than scenes. One man saw girls dancing like in a
chorus line. As each man took a turn looking through
the sights, they each saw something totally different and very bizarre.
It sounds as if each man saw what he wanted
to see. Finally, one of them said the idea of
(38:40):
seeing in the dark was too close to evil and
it shouldn't be allowed. He fired a parachute flare into
the night sky, illuminating the area below. The squad watched
as a huge black shadow swept across the valley fully
in glow, engulfing the sundemetery. Once the flare went out,
(39:03):
they went back to watching the area around them, Only
now they were worried that the enemy knew they were
there by sun up, nothing else bizarre had happened. We
had infrared sits on our tanks. I hated using them
because everything was blurry and it was hard to distinguish.
(39:26):
At sundown, we had to open up the top of
the sites and remove the daytime disc. It was much
easier to just use the searchlight for illumination. Yes it
was bright white, and yes it turned the illuminating tank
into a target, but it worked so much better. One day,
(39:47):
one of the older NCOs said, let me take a
look at your eye our sights. He did some tinkering
and did some things with a screwdriver that I don't
think he was allowed to do, but he did him anyway,
and the next thing I knew the sites were clear.
All that bouncing around and the dirt and the dust
(40:07):
had messed up our scope. Our maintenance crew never bothered
to check the night sites because they always worked in
the daytime. Nineteen eighty seven we were getting new tanks
with thermal sights, the M six A three Holy Cow.
(40:28):
It went from a one eyed scope to a video screen.
The images were crystal clear and you didn't have to
open the sites and move things around. I only got
to qualify one time with the new toys before moving
on to the border patrol. At our new station, we
(40:49):
had one set of mvgs and they were the old,
crappy kind that you had to focus both eyepieces. We
got a lot of cast offs from the army. Some
people don't need high technology equipment to see things that
the rest of us can't. There are some folks who
(41:09):
can look at a person and see what is wrong
with them physically. Sometimes you can look at what's wrong
with them mentally too. I knew a guy way back
in the early eighties he could see a connection to someone.
One day, while out doing his job, he was the
chief of police in a very small town, he found
(41:33):
a ring lying in the grass. It was just to
kind of popped into his head that he should walk
around out in this grassy field, which he did, and
he found a ring. It was an old fashioned wedding
ring that may be worth a few hundred dollars. Instead
of turning it in at the station, he kept it
(41:54):
in his pocket for a few months. One day, out
of the blue, he saw a woman he didn't know,
but he saw a connection to the ring. This was
how he described it, He walked over and he handed
to the ring, saying, I think this belongs to you.
(42:16):
She about fell over. It had been her mother's wedding ring,
which went missing shortly after her funeral. On a few
other occasions, he would suddenly tell somebody they needed to
look under the bed or inside that old dresser for
whatever it was they had lost. He was right more
(42:39):
often than not. Scrying is a form of scene using
a reflective surface. You can use a bowl of water
or a mirror. Nostrodamus used a bowl to see into
the future, but you can also see what's around you.
You hold a mirror just in front of you, like
(43:01):
about chest high, turn it to the left or the
right so that you're looking beside. You do not look
over your shoulder. If you see something, you're going to
have to spin around in order to see if it
is actually there or not. It's a lot easier just
turn your head left or right. You will find it's
(43:24):
hard to focus on what might be there without becoming distracted.
Don't move around while doing this. The motion in the
mirror will be unsettling, and you can trip over things
that you're not looking at. People have seen red eyes
looking back at them. Others see shadowy shapes in the
(43:45):
mirror that aren't there when they turn their head to look.
Only try this if you have a really good, strong
constitution and you don't scar easily. Oh, don't do it
inside your own house. There might be something there, but
you don't want to know for sure. Definitely not in
(44:05):
the bedroom. What is it we're seeing ghosts, spirits, the
visitors from another universe? Is our mind playing tricks on us?
Or is this just some kind of an illusion. The
government has spent millions on trying to find the answers,
and all of their answers are classified as top secret.
(44:30):
Makes you wonder what they actually found. The human eye
is an incredible organ that allows us to see and
perceive the world around us. However, our eyes are limited
in their ability to detect certain colors. While we can
see a wide range of colors in the visible light spectrum,
(44:52):
there are colors that exist beyond our perception. The human
eye contains a specialized cell called photoreceptors that are sensitive
to different wavelengths of light. There are two main types
of photoreceptors, cones and rods. Cones are responsible for color
(45:14):
vision and most sensitive to red, green, and blue light. Rods,
on the other hand, are more sensitive to low light levels,
but do not contribute to color vision. Our eyes lack
the necessary photoreceptors to detect ultraviolet. In infrared light, we
(45:34):
are unable to directly perceive these colors. There are ways
to indirectly detect and represent these colors. We can use
specialized UV sensitive cameras or filters to capture and visualize
UV light. Infrared light can also be detected using thermal
(45:56):
imaging cameras or sensors. They don't just rely on heat.
Some animals can see colors beyond the human spectrum. Bees
can see ultraviolet light, which helps them navigate and locate
flowers that have UV patterns. Snakes can see infrared light,
(46:19):
which helps them detect prey using the heat of the
human body or the heat of the body. The mantis
shrimp have sixteen different types of photoreceptor cells compared to
our three. These cells allow them to see a wide
range of colors, including ultraviolet light, which is way beyond
(46:43):
our ability to see. The photoreceptor cells in their eyes
are divided into three main groups. Those that are sensitive
to colors in the blue spectrum, those that detect only
green or red light, and those that detect ultraviolet light.
These cells are capable of absorbing specific wavelengths of light,
(47:08):
which allow the mantis shrimp to see a lot more
colors than we can. Now, that's just not fair. Why
would a shrimp have better vision than us humans? Makes
you wonder? Indigenous cultures have practiced vision quests and shamanic
(47:32):
journeys for centuries. These practices often involve drumming, fasting, and
plant medication rituals to enter altered states and interact with
non physical beings or landscapes, what some folks would call
drug trips. The difficulty is, how do we know what
(47:56):
they say they are seeing is in fact an alternate
universe or not just something in their heads. In the
nineteen seventies, American eth no ethnobotanist who who in the heck?
Came up with that name. Ethnobotanist and author Terence McKenna
(48:19):
coined the term machine elves to describe the other worldly
creatures that appeared during trips on the psychedelic drug dimethyl tryptophane,
more commonly known as DMT. While McKenna's word put linguistic
weight around these apparitions. Reports of this phenomena predate the
(48:43):
term's invention and have continually sprung up ever since McKenna
coined the term in the seventies. In the years since,
the term machine elves has been used interchangeably with clockwork
l and while the phenomena may escape easy description, users
(49:05):
of DMT reported largely common or at least interrelated characteristics
of these psychedelic entities. So popular is the instance of
these apparitions that one study conducted by doctor Rick Strassman
found that fifty percent of the DMT users report seeing
(49:30):
these machine elves during their trip. The Boys in the
White lab coats dismiss the phenomenon of machine elves as
a mere drug induced fantasy, but it's the commonality of
similar visual descriptions compiled by McKenna's research into the topic
(49:51):
that makes users experience with machine elves feel international. Now
picking the interest of the psychonauts and scientists the world over,
there's a new word for you, psychonots, travelers of the mind.
(50:12):
Reports of machine elf apparitions have even been found among
the indigenous tribes of the Amazon Rainforest, folks who have
never read any of the descriptions written by folks using
these plant based hallucinogens are seeing the same things and
telling about it. Upon encountering these creatures, many users report
(50:37):
seeing flashing displays of constantly changing geometric patterns. While McKenna
himself recalled the elves as looking anything but mechanical, He
described their appearances in vivid color and said they were
shaped like Faberge eggs or jewel encrusted basket and they vibrated.
(51:04):
He described how it is that DMT users came into
contact with these elves. Remember that soldier saying that he
was seeing images that looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope.
Maybe he was having something similar to the DMT trip,
only using a night vision scope to do it. McKenna said,
(51:29):
you pass through a membrane of some sort, and you're
in a place you're pushed through and you see these tykes,
as I call them, the self transforming machine elves that
are singing in a hyperdimensional language. They sound to you
(51:50):
and I as if they're saying welcome, We're glad to
see you. Mckinn's visual description aligned with those of general users,
many of whom have characterized the machine elves as being childish,
short creatures. The entities are almost unanimously seen as welcoming
(52:13):
figures who guide users trips and offer space in a friendly,
celebratory way. The majority of users deemed their encounters positively,
with the descriptions of their appearances ranging from human like
to alien to the super fantastic. While physical descriptions vary,
(52:40):
the behavior of machine elves is commonplace among most trips.
McKenna and most DMT users often stress the importance of
sound to these creatures, who use a language which you
c They are made out of sound, which is vibrant.
(53:01):
It is sound, but you see it, and the entire
point of the encounter from their perspective is to teach
you how to do this. Mckinne theorized many possibilities as
to what machine elves might be. He postulated that they
could be evidence of extraterrestrials, entities from parallel dimensions, human
(53:28):
souls which have departed our world, or humans from some
extraordinarily advanced future world. The other worldly predictions were common
among general users too. Eighty percent of DMT users in
Strassman's studies described their encounters as more than reality. Now
(53:56):
you need to ask yourself what is going on with
these folks who drop DMT and go for a trip.
If they're simply hallucinating, why do so many of them
see the same things? How is it people who don't
have contact with each other are seeing the same kinds
(54:16):
of creatures? Is there such a thing as plant based
dimensional travel? The mind is a bizarre and wonderful thing.
We have the ability, well some of us have the
ability to think up things that never existed before and
(54:36):
then make them happen. We can dream and think and
make whole worlds inside our heads by enhancing our mind's
ability to I don't know dream, Could this make our
inner selves move from one universe to another? LSD was
(55:00):
the drug of choice back when I was young. No,
I never used that stuff. I knew a few folks
who took trips and they still haven't come home. They
might have found a better place to stay, and they
abandoned their bodies to somebody else. Worry about any of y'all.
(55:20):
Remember Timothy Leary? Timothy Leary is dead. No, he's on
the outside looking in. That was a song by the
Moody Blues. How about folks with schizophrenia? They seem to
be living in their own little world or are they
(55:41):
connected to some other place, and the dynamics of seeing
and hearing things and two or more universes at the
same time is just too much for them to handle.
I've tried talking to a few of these folks. On
a good day, they know who they are, what's going
on around them. On a bad day, that is, if
(56:04):
there are monsters or demons running around that are trying
to kill them. And who am I to disagree with
what they are seeing? Am I right or wrong in
thinking that maybe they actually are seeing something? Hope you
(56:25):
enjoy tonight's show. If you did, tell your friends, tell
people you don't even know, tell people you don't even
like that they should be listening to Strange Things with
Chris James. If you have a story that you'd like
to see in print or you'd like to hear it
on the show, send it to me. You can contact
(56:49):
me at Strangethings at arkanassa dot com. It can be
UFO related, cryptid ghosts, spirits, some kind of a weird occurrence,
something you saw that didn't make any sense. As long
as you believe it's a true story, send it to me.
(57:11):
I'll put it in print, I'll put it on the radio,
the podcast. If you send me the story, it can
be in English, it can be in Spanish. My wife
will translate it for me. But if she has to
translate too many really scary stories, well, it makes her
not sleep well at night. She doesn't like horror movies
(57:33):
like I do. If you are listening to the show
and you think maybe you'd like to hear all of
the archives, I've done five hundred shows now. You can
find all the past shows at iHeartRadio in the podcast section,
or you can find most of the shows on YouTube.
(57:57):
Till next Saturday. This is Chris Jane for Strange Things
Are you?
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Are you coming to the tree? When did they strung
up a man who they said he murdered? Three strange
things have happened there. No stranger would it be if
we met at midnight in the hanging tree
Are you Are you coming to the tree? Well hung up?
Who must say she murdered? True, Jonge, things have happened
that no joner would be free. Menma them holling truth.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Come to the show. I'm your host, Chris James. It
was time for our annual pilgrimage to ikea we Go
once a year. Since it's one hundred and sixty miles
one way. I like to play with shopping carts to
begin with, all the wheels work. I have yet to
(00:55):
find a broke down cart like you see in every
shopping ste center store, grocery store on the planet. I
think somebody goes around at night and screws up one
wheel on each cart to add to the weirdness. All
the wheels turn. For steering, you can push the cart
(01:18):
in a circle, like neutral steering a tank. The cart
will spin in its own footprint and it will keep
spinning for about a minute. If you push it hard enough,
you can push the cart at an angle, you know, crabbing,
which looks really weird. I was looking for a new
(01:40):
office chair and a can opener. Plus we needed some
new shelving for around the house and a few things
like that. In the middle of each store is a
nice restaurant. I have yet to eat lunch there, but
I do drink their coffee. It isn't anywhere near as
(02:01):
good as Organicman Coffee Trike coffee, but it is good.
Organicman Coffee Trike has the best coffee in the universe.
They are at four or five is zero one McPherson
and is actually the best coffee ever. Even LDS kids
(02:25):
say so, and they don't drink coffee. If you're not
in Laredo, or you don't have time to drive over,
you can go to Organicmancoffeetrike Dot Shop. As we're getting
closer to the middle of the store, I noticed there
(02:45):
was a lack of the smell of cooking Swedish meatballs
in the air. You usually could smell it real quick,
but this time it just it wasn't there. It fills
the air, but I figured maybe it was all the
new items that they had on display were somehow overpowering
(03:06):
the meatballs. We rounded the corner and the restaurant was closed.
Now they were working on the plumbing and nobody was
making meatballs or coffee, and we simply soldiered on without
Why not try a holiday in Sweden?
Speaker 1 (03:29):
This year.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
See the Lovely Lakes, the Wonderful Telephone System. If you've
never been to Ikea, you walk in the front door
and then you wind your way through maybe eighteen sections
with everything you might need for the home. It feels
(03:52):
like you're walking for miles, but that's mostly just an illusion.
We would take photos of everything we were considered tering buying.
You can pick up one of those tiny little pencils
and some paper and you can write down the numbers.
The shopping cart has a wide place on the handhold
(04:12):
just for that purpose. As you get to the checkout area,
this is where you pick up your purchases. Everything comes
in a box with some assembly required. There are lots
of friendly folks to help you find what you're looking
(04:32):
for and help it get it onto your cart. As
those all wheels steer carts take on weight, there develops
a problem. They tend to go in directions other than
the one you want. You have to be patient and
move slow. Right after the pickup zone is the food market.
(04:55):
We bought some frozen Swedish meatballs for the house. Would
you believe that Ikea is the sixth largest food distributor
in the world. Every store on the planet has moved
a self checkout, which I feel is risky, especially considering
(05:16):
as I tend to miss things in the cart and
sometimes I'll count them twice. I've been known to do
that scan the say I minem a couple of times,
and well, that always costs me money. As we're pushing
our two overloaded carts to the checkout, a young lady
said that she would be happy to check us out.
(05:38):
If you're buying over one thousand dollars worth, you get
special attention that and I'm starting to look a bit old,
and I guess the young folks feel as if they
need to help me. It's a shock when some young
person holds the door open for you or offers to
help you load your groceries. After we'd gotten everything checked out,
(06:02):
we're fixing the leave. I showed the woman the image
on my phone of the Ikea socomb or the guillotine.
I asked where I could find one. Once she'd stopped
laughing so hard that she couldn't breathe, she said it
might be in the Ikea Middle Ages department. She was
(06:26):
super nice and helpful, but she kind of balked at
the idea of coming outside and helping load the truck
since it was over one hundred degrees. There are young
kids who do that, but I always say no because
it makes me feel old, not like I'm old or anything.
It makes me feel like I can't do something. That's
(06:49):
why I tend to hurt all the time. My brain
and my body haven't realized that I'm I'm up there
a bit. Once you eat the exit, it is actually
right next door to the entrance. You've gone in a
great big circle. One thing you need to know about Ikea.
(07:10):
When they say some assembly required, they mean it. If
you buy enough furniture, you become qualified in construction. Now
I have projects that I need to finish this week.
I've already put my chair together because that was highly important.
Now now I have an anti cat device on it.
(07:31):
It's a really nice leather chair, but I have to
keep it covered because otherwise the kids will mess it up.
A moose once bit my sister, No really, she was
carving her initials on the moose with a sharpened interspace
toothbrush given to her by sting her brother in law.
(07:56):
If you shop at Ikea enough times, you learn to
speak Swedish. My grandmother was first generation from Sweden. Nobody
in our family knows any Swedish words. We can't even
agree on what her last name was. It may have
(08:17):
been Peterson or Anderson, or maybe even allofson. Nobody knows
for sure. Makes it kind of hard to do the
old family tree thing. Now, if you're wondering about those
moose references, you must have missed Monty Python's Holy Grail.
(08:39):
Me and my brother went to see The Holy Grail
back when it first came out. We stood in line
for an hour to get in, and then instead of
the movie, we were treated to a thirty minute travelog
about visiting wonderful Sweden that was made back in the sixties.
(09:01):
Back then they used to make these short movies about
other countries as a form of tourism. The audience was
beginning to grow a bit restless, wondering when is the
movie gonna start. Once the opening credits began, everybody settled down,
thinking they were now going to watch Monty Python at
(09:25):
their best. When the first reference to Sweden showed up,
the audience went nuts, and they didn't settle down even
at the end of the movie. It was hilarious. If
you watched the movie after the first few runs. You
probably didn't see that weird travel film, so the credits
(09:49):
made no sense. I still laugh just thinking about it.
For those of you saying I need to get to
the show, well, hey, it's my show. I have received
a few emails and a few messages on YouTube. Hey
why don't you talk about what you said you're going
(10:11):
to talk? I don't understand people Expanded perspectives usually spends
the first half of their show they're talking about other things.
But when I do it, it's a bad thing. Well
why are folks like that even listening to me in
the first place. There are hundreds or thousands of other
(10:35):
podcasts out there that they can listen to and then
give them a bad rating. I have listeners in Sweden.
I wonder if any of y'all work at IKEA. If
you do, let me know in the comments. Have you
ever seen one or several of your pets suddenly paying
(10:58):
a whole lot of attention to something that you can't see.
Sometimes they might turn and run, go hide somewhere safe
from whatever it is they're seeing. My dog will growl
at things that we don't see. I have grabbed my
camera and clicked a whole bunch of photos trying to
(11:20):
see if there was something I should be worried about.
But as far as I've been unlucky to catch anything.
The boys in the white lab coats have admitted there
could be hundreds thousands of other universes. This is all
spread out through the space that our universe is in.
(11:44):
This is kind of hard to comprehend. The universe is
everything for as far as space goes, Yet there might
be other universes in other parts of the universe. The
universe is everything. It includes all of space and all
(12:05):
the matter and energy that space contains. It includes time, space,
you and I. Then there's the multiverse theory. Multiverse theory
suggests our universe, with all of its hundreds of billions
of galaxies and countless stars spinning tens of billions of
(12:27):
light years, may not be the only one. There may
be an entirely different universe separated from ours. There may
be an infinity of universes with all other laws of physics,
their own collections of stars and galaxies, and even their
(12:48):
own intelligence civilizations. The folks who study time travel believe
anytime something significant happens, a time splits, creating two different
times lines, making the Grandfather paradox unimportant. Why would anybody
bother building a time machine just so they can go
(13:10):
back in time and kill their grandfather? Who comes up
with these things? That's as crazy as Schrodinger's cat. No
one is quite certain as to where those other universes
or timelines exist, only they are more than likely there somewhere.
(13:34):
The whole situation might be like a bunch of soap
bubbles all sitting next to and on top of each other,
making contact with other universes on every side. You've heard
how the veil thins around Halloween, allowing creatures from other places,
(13:54):
like spirits and ghosts to come to our world? Are
they really limited to just the one time of year?
As I watched that TV show The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch,
I wonder could there be other places with similar occurrences.
I know about the Bradshaw Ranch, and the Stardust Ranch
(14:17):
and the blind Frog Ranch, and just to name a few,
not just because of the TV shows, but because I
have read about these places. Just think about this for
a minute. What if these universes, being right next to
each other, have hundreds or thousands of places where images
(14:40):
or even beings from other universes can slip back and
forth from place to place. This could explain why people
never find a bigfoot body. Those huge hair covered creatures
step into our world, look around a bit, then they
go back to their home, leaving only sightings and questions
(15:04):
and maybe a few hundred footprints. The apers all think
I'm nuts for saying such things. They can't explain why
a bigfoot can walk out into a field leaving footprints
behind that suddenly stop. They don't have an answer to
these often reported occurrences, so they just kind of ignore
(15:26):
these reports. James Akin told about his reception in his
book Elkins Creek. He was talking to one of the
very famous bigfoot research organizations as he told about how
he was following the tracks out into an open field,
and they stopped, without any explanation as to why. The
(15:50):
people on the phone discovered other more important things to
look into other than Akin's report. Don't call up or
will call you, which they never did. When we see
a ghost or all these ghosts the same thing. Some
look as if they're living beings, as surprised seeing us
(16:14):
as we are at seeing them. Perhaps what we're seeing
is a person from another universe, a being slightly overlapped
from their world for unknown reasons. The veil or the
edge of each universe somehow merge, causing either us to
(16:35):
suddenly appear in another place, or as somebody appearing in ours.
These days, we have digital tuning on our radios and TVs.
Back when I was young, you had to turn a dial,
slowly creeping from channel to channel until you found what
you were looking for. If you were in the right
(16:57):
place or the signals were close, you could get two
radio stations at the same time. Called it bleed over.
The boys in the white lab coats don't all hide
under their desks waiting for some guy holding the purse
strings to tell them what is fact. Some of them
actually do think outside the cat box. Using the largest
(17:23):
gravitational wave detector ever made, scientists have confirmed earlier reports
that the fabric of the universe is constantly vibrating. They
believe the background rumble is caused by collisions between enormous
black holes that reside in the hearts of each galaxy.
(17:47):
Gravitational waves are ripples in the fabric of space and
time when incredibly dense and massive objects orbit or collide
with each other. They create these ripples. The densest and
most massive object in the universe are the black holes
and the remnants of dead stars. One of the only
(18:09):
ways to study a black hole is by searching for
the gravitational waves that they admit when they move near
each other. Gravitational waves emit their energy in a spectrum.
The most massive black holes emit the slowest and most
powerful waves. Earth based detectors can pick up the high
(18:32):
frequency gravitational waves created when relatively small black holes collide.
When two galaxies merge, the black holes that their cinders
centers begin to spiral towards each other. In this process,
they send out slow, powerful gravitational waves. All those universes
(18:57):
that surround us on all sides are probably due doing
the same thing that our universe is doing. A vibration
is a periodic motion of an object about an equilibrium position.
It can be simple harmonic motion or a more complex motion.
Vibration is the movement of energy through matter or space.
(19:22):
In physics, vibration is defined as a back and forth
motion of an object or wave. Vibration can be caused
by external or internal forces, and can occur in solids, liquids,
gases or plasma. A person who is tuned in or
(19:44):
open to receiving these vibrations might be able to see
into these other universes or even step through to another world.
This would explain why people see Bigfoot while out hiking
a trail, or maybe a UFO or a ghost. This
(20:07):
makes me wonder why so many Bigfoot researchers get all
bent out of shape anytime anything paranormal is mentioned. A
lot of ghost hunters say Bigfoot is just some guy
in a costume. Yet a lot of the witnesses who
see Bigfoot say that they have also seen other paranormal things.
(20:30):
If a person were to vibrate at just the right frequency,
would they be able to simply walk into another universe?
They say, If you meditate, you can raise your vibration.
The problem a lot of us run into is there
are way too many distractions in our world. All those
(20:53):
cell phone, TV, microwave towers are all sending out signals
that might interfere with a good strong meditation session. Exercise
is supposed to help us focus. I tell folks, if
you want to get a two hour workout in in
one hour, get off social media. I see people all
(21:16):
the time who stop to tell their followers that they
just lifted a weight, and then it's an hour later
before they do the next set. Getting out into nature
is probably the best way, since as you get far
from any cities or towns, the cell phone towers get
few and far between. This cuts down on vibrations that
(21:41):
might interfere with what you're trying to do. What might
happen if one of those other universes gets plunked down
right on top of ours. I don't mean creating a portal,
but actually is right here alongside of us. Could have
beings who we can't see because they're living in a
(22:04):
different vibration or spectrum from us. We don't see them
or feel them because we pass right through them, or
they pass right through us. We see only a part
of the colors around us. The visible spectrum of light
refers to a range of colors that the human eye
(22:26):
is able to see. The spectrum of the visible light
consists of seven main colors. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo,
and violet. These seven colors create the rainbow that we
are all familiar with. Each color has a different wavelength
(22:47):
and frequency that our eyes can detect. We see only
from violet three hundred and ninety nanometers to red, which
is seven hundred and fifty nanometers. Infrared light has a
longer wavelength a seven hundred and fifty one or higher
(23:12):
than red light, and is commonly used in night vision
cameras and remote controls. While we cannot see infrared light
with our naked eye, we can use certain technology to
capture and visualize it with the help of an infrared camera.
Objects that appear dark to us in regular light can
(23:36):
appear vibrant in shades of red or orange when viewed
in infrared. Ultraviolet light has a shorter length wavelength than
violet light below three hundred and eighty nine nanometers and
is visible, and the heat is invisible to the human
eye as well. The origins of night vision can be
(24:01):
traced back to the late nineteen twenties and early thirties,
specifically the work of a Hungarian physicist physicist almost called
him a physician, a physicist, Colman Tyronei, who developed early
night vision systems for anti aircraft defense in the UK
(24:23):
in the nineteen twenty nines. It was during World War
II that night vision technology was first utilized in a
significant way, primarily by the military during battles. Colman Tiny
pioneering work led to the development of the first night
(24:46):
vision system, which employed electronic amplification of low intensity infrared
radiation to produce visible images. While these early systems were rudimentary,
they they laid the foundation for future advancement in night
vision technology. Having tongue issues, my eyes see one word
(25:14):
in my notes, and my brain tries to send it
to my tongue and it doesn't get there. Scrambledged. Who
was it that said that one time you're coming in
all scrambledged that was one of our radio operators. When
dimlight enters the NVG, it hits an internal layer called
(25:37):
the photocathoid, which releases electrons. These electrons hit a second
layer called a micro channel plate, where they get multiplied
before hitting the third layer called the phosphor screen. After
passing through that layer, the electrons are converted back into light.
(25:59):
The more electrons the device produces, the higher the image quality.
The ZG twelve twenty nine, the code name the Vampire,
was an infrared night scope developed during World War Two
for the German wear Mark for night operations. It was
(26:21):
intended to be mounted on a stow wire. Yeah, I
don't speak German Stormgire forty four. It was the first
used in combat in February nineteen forty five. The whole
unit weighed a lot. I forget it was something like
(26:44):
eighty pounds. They only built three hundred and ten of
these units by the end of the war. Its main
drawback was it was bulky and it weighed a lot.
It was too cumbersome to be used in any kind
of dynamic maneuvers, but for a fixed position like a sniper,
(27:04):
it was very good. The infrared scope in the spotlight
weighed a little over five pounds. The battery unit was
encased inside a wooden box and it weighed thirty pounds.
It was carried on a harness on the knocked jogger
or the night hunter's back. The battery that ran the
(27:27):
image converters sat under the main battery box in a
modified gas mask container. The whole package was strapped to
the soldier's back and away he went. In nineteen forty five,
of Vladimir's working, a Russian American inventor and engineer introduced
(27:48):
the first practical commercial night vision device at the Radio
Corporation of America. You know it is RCA. It was
used for civilian use. During the Vietnam War, night vision
began to use a much wider use. The primary night
(28:11):
vision device used by American forces was the an PVS
two Starlight Scope, which was introduced in nineteen sixty. This
device allowed soldiers to see in low light conditions, giving
them a significant advantage. Zworkin's night vision device, known as
(28:33):
the Electric Eye, was a significant improvement over the bulky,
cumbersome system used during World War Two. It was more compact, portable,
and offered a much better image quality. This paved the
way for development of night vision goggles, which would become
in valuable tools to our military and law enforcement, as
(28:57):
well as a lot of hog hunters. The Vietnam night
goggles used a green monochrome display. This choice of color
was not all that not just arbitrary. The human eye
is more sensitive to green light, allowing soldiers to see
(29:17):
better in the dark environment while at the same time
reducing eye strain. The green hue also provides better contrast,
making it easier to distinguish between different shades of a tree,
the terrain, or a person. Before white or green light
(29:39):
vision goggles were built, military grade red night vision goggles
were used. They had a chemical known as Dyson. It
was first used during Vietnam War and no other war
after soldiers were going mad because they were seeing things
(30:03):
seeing into the unseen realm. There is a report out
there that says the reason we no longer see red
night vision is because it allowed people to see creatures
that are normally invisible at night. Helicopters were mostly grounded
too many problems of hitting something since they tended to
(30:25):
fly low to the ground. Plus, the enemy could see
the choppers better than the choppers could see them. Nineteen
sixty seven, the Ground Combat Unit branch hired the Hughes
Aircraft Corporation to design a night fighting kit for the
(30:45):
UH one Iroquois helicopter, what we all know as the Huey.
The boys in the lab kept tinkering with night vision,
but when it hit the field, the electronics tended to
go south. The answer was simple, throw more money at
the project. With a lot of extra cash, the night
(31:08):
vision improved. It originally had a red screen. Pilots needed
to see so they didn't hit anything, and door gunners
needed to see so they could take out the enemy
and not to dinner. As the crews were about to
take off, they were each issued a set of night
vision goggles. Their orders were don't lose them and if
(31:33):
you do, don't bother to come back. Things were different
back then. Night Vision goggles can be very uncomfortable to wear,
especially those older versions, Plus each eye had to be
focused separately. The hard plastic made sweat run down into
(31:55):
the old eyeballs, making life interesting. I hated trying to
drive a tank wearing night vision goggles. The hue. He
was flying along over some dense jungle when suddenly the
door gunner began firing. He wasn't shooting downwards, he was
spraying the air around the chopper. The pilot asked what
(32:18):
the heck he was doing, to which the gunner said
there were monsters flying around the aircraft. I don't know
if the pilots had his goggles on at the time,
because he didn't see anything. I would guess he had
them hung around his neck by the strap, because, like
I said, those things were uncomfortable. Had this been during peacetime,
(32:41):
I'll bet the pilot would have headed back to the
base and had his gunner sent in for a psyche valve.
During times of war, things are different. The pilots quickly
snatched up their mvgs and they looked around. They said
there were what looked like UFOs buzzing around them, not
(33:03):
getting too close, but always circling their chopper. The pilots
decided it was best to get back to the base
and file a full report. They did, and the folks
in the rear with the gear believed them, not even
a little. However, once the scientists heard about seeing monsters
(33:28):
while using red colored night vision, the screens were all
changed to green instead. The military banned the production of
dasinine night vision goggles, and some folks say they're illegal
to even have. Okay, before I go on, I did
(33:49):
some checking and I found that you can actually buy
used night Fox red high definition night vision goggles for
one hundred and twenty dollars. The screens are read and
as far as I know, nobody has reported seeing any
monsters while using them. Then there is the possibility that
(34:13):
the red screen envgs used in Vietnam. We're using a
different technology than what we see today. Just because they
say their military grade doesn't mean they were used by
the military. And another thing, anytime I see a commercial
(34:33):
for military grade hardware. I always think they always use
the lowest bidder. Think cheap, not best. Back to Vietnam
we go. Anytime you're in a dangerous situation, it's a
good idea to stay alert. Somebody needs to be on
(34:55):
watch all night. Twenty four hour security. A patrol base
had just been under attack and the soldiers were a
bit edgy. All through the night, they kept eyes on
the surrounding terrain. Each hour, a soldier was sitting on
the firing line watching the base had a starlight scope.
(35:18):
The man on watch would scan the field looking for
any movement. The medic was on his turn, and he
was fascinated by this new technology. He looked out over
the field and he was stunned to see hundreds of
dead vc, all lying with an eyeshot. He wondered, how
(35:39):
could his platoon have killed so many people in such
a short time. As the sun was coming up, all
those dead bodies began to fade from sight. By morning,
there were just a handful. How did hundreds of bodies
just van? The medic began to think maybe the starlight
(36:04):
scope was causing him to hallucinate. A patrol boat captain
said he was using night vision to watch the edge
of the river. As he watched, it looked as if
everything was moving coming to life. Trees became monsters, the
(36:24):
grass became giant snakes. He thought either he was seeing things,
or the envgs were affecting his eyes, or maybe his brain.
A squad of soldiers were sent out on a patrol
with a new well It was new to them a
(36:45):
night scope. It was actually an old one and in
need of repair and then being dropped in the ocean.
The thing weighed a ton and had to be set
up each night to be used. One gi got the
honor of carrying the thing as the squad moved to
their lpopi. Once the sun was on the horizon, the
(37:07):
night scope was taken out and put together. The battery
was the worst part, since it weighed a lot and
it had to be kept dry and clean, which in
the jungle that's quite a trick. Once the device was
up and running, the first soldier looked through the eyepieces
to see what he could see. He scanned the valley below,
(37:31):
looking towards an old cemetery. The soldier said he was
looking into a kaleidoscope. All kinds of colors and shapes
were all moving around in a circle. This got everybody's attention,
and they all wanted to see what was out there.
The next man looked through the scope, said it looked
(37:54):
like there was a circus in the field below. He said,
all the enemy soldiers were dressed like clowns, and there
were animals and rides everywhere. The next soldier swore he
was watching some kind of a peep show. This was
an early form of porn that had far better descriptions
(38:16):
than scenes. One man saw girls dancing like in a
chorus line. As each man took a turn looking through
the sights, they each saw something totally different and very bizarre.
It sounds as if each man saw what he wanted
to see. Finally, one of them said the idea of
(38:40):
seeing in the dark was too close to evil and
it shouldn't be allowed. He fired a parachute flare into
the night sky, illuminating the area below. The squad watched
as a huge black shadow swept across the valley fully
in glow, engulfing the sundemetery. Once the flare went out,
(39:03):
they went back to watching the area around them, Only
now they were worried that the enemy knew they were
there by sun up, nothing else bizarre had happened. We
had infrared sits on our tanks. I hated using them
because everything was blurry and it was hard to distinguish.
(39:26):
At sundown, we had to open up the top of
the sites and remove the daytime disc. It was much
easier to just use the searchlight for illumination. Yes it
was bright white, and yes it turned the illuminating tank
into a target, but it worked so much better. One day,
(39:47):
one of the older NCOs said, let me take a
look at your eye our sights. He did some tinkering
and did some things with a screwdriver that I don't
think he was allowed to do, but he did him anyway,
and the next thing I knew the sites were clear.
All that bouncing around and the dirt and the dust
(40:07):
had messed up our scope. Our maintenance crew never bothered
to check the night sites because they always worked in
the daytime. Nineteen eighty seven we were getting new tanks
with thermal sights, the M six A three Holy Cow.
(40:28):
It went from a one eyed scope to a video screen.
The images were crystal clear and you didn't have to
open the sites and move things around. I only got
to qualify one time with the new toys before moving
on to the border patrol. At our new station, we
(40:49):
had one set of mvgs and they were the old,
crappy kind that you had to focus both eyepieces. We
got a lot of cast offs from the army. Some
people don't need high technology equipment to see things that
the rest of us can't. There are some folks who
(41:09):
can look at a person and see what is wrong
with them physically. Sometimes you can look at what's wrong
with them mentally too. I knew a guy way back
in the early eighties he could see a connection to someone.
One day, while out doing his job, he was the
chief of police in a very small town, he found
(41:33):
a ring lying in the grass. It was just to
kind of popped into his head that he should walk
around out in this grassy field, which he did, and
he found a ring. It was an old fashioned wedding
ring that may be worth a few hundred dollars. Instead
of turning it in at the station, he kept it
(41:54):
in his pocket for a few months. One day, out
of the blue, he saw a woman he didn't know,
but he saw a connection to the ring. This was
how he described it, He walked over and he handed
to the ring, saying, I think this belongs to you.
(42:16):
She about fell over. It had been her mother's wedding ring,
which went missing shortly after her funeral. On a few
other occasions, he would suddenly tell somebody they needed to
look under the bed or inside that old dresser for
whatever it was they had lost. He was right more
(42:39):
often than not. Scrying is a form of scene using
a reflective surface. You can use a bowl of water
or a mirror. Nostrodamus used a bowl to see into
the future, but you can also see what's around you.
You hold a mirror just in front of you, like
(43:01):
about chest high, turn it to the left or the
right so that you're looking beside. You do not look
over your shoulder. If you see something, you're going to
have to spin around in order to see if it
is actually there or not. It's a lot easier just
turn your head left or right. You will find it's
(43:24):
hard to focus on what might be there without becoming distracted.
Don't move around while doing this. The motion in the
mirror will be unsettling, and you can trip over things
that you're not looking at. People have seen red eyes
looking back at them. Others see shadowy shapes in the
(43:45):
mirror that aren't there when they turn their head to look.
Only try this if you have a really good, strong
constitution and you don't scar easily. Oh, don't do it
inside your own house. There might be something there, but
you don't want to know for sure. Definitely not in
(44:05):
the bedroom. What is it we're seeing ghosts, spirits, the
visitors from another universe? Is our mind playing tricks on us?
Or is this just some kind of an illusion. The
government has spent millions on trying to find the answers,
and all of their answers are classified as top secret.
(44:30):
Makes you wonder what they actually found. The human eye
is an incredible organ that allows us to see and
perceive the world around us. However, our eyes are limited
in their ability to detect certain colors. While we can
see a wide range of colors in the visible light spectrum,
(44:52):
there are colors that exist beyond our perception. The human
eye contains a specialized cell called photoreceptors that are sensitive
to different wavelengths of light. There are two main types
of photoreceptors, cones and rods. Cones are responsible for color
(45:14):
vision and most sensitive to red, green, and blue light. Rods,
on the other hand, are more sensitive to low light levels,
but do not contribute to color vision. Our eyes lack
the necessary photoreceptors to detect ultraviolet. In infrared light, we
(45:34):
are unable to directly perceive these colors. There are ways
to indirectly detect and represent these colors. We can use
specialized UV sensitive cameras or filters to capture and visualize
UV light. Infrared light can also be detected using thermal
(45:56):
imaging cameras or sensors. They don't just rely on heat.
Some animals can see colors beyond the human spectrum. Bees
can see ultraviolet light, which helps them navigate and locate
flowers that have UV patterns. Snakes can see infrared light,
(46:19):
which helps them detect prey using the heat of the
human body or the heat of the body. The mantis
shrimp have sixteen different types of photoreceptor cells compared to
our three. These cells allow them to see a wide
range of colors, including ultraviolet light, which is way beyond
(46:43):
our ability to see. The photoreceptor cells in their eyes
are divided into three main groups. Those that are sensitive
to colors in the blue spectrum, those that detect only
green or red light, and those that detect ultraviolet light.
These cells are capable of absorbing specific wavelengths of light,
(47:08):
which allow the mantis shrimp to see a lot more
colors than we can. Now, that's just not fair. Why
would a shrimp have better vision than us humans? Makes
you wonder? Indigenous cultures have practiced vision quests and shamanic
(47:32):
journeys for centuries. These practices often involve drumming, fasting, and
plant medication rituals to enter altered states and interact with
non physical beings or landscapes, what some folks would call
drug trips. The difficulty is, how do we know what
(47:56):
they say they are seeing is in fact an alternate
universe or not just something in their heads. In the
nineteen seventies, American eth no ethnobotanist who who in the heck?
Came up with that name. Ethnobotanist and author Terence McKenna
(48:19):
coined the term machine elves to describe the other worldly
creatures that appeared during trips on the psychedelic drug dimethyl tryptophane,
more commonly known as DMT. While McKenna's word put linguistic
weight around these apparitions. Reports of this phenomena predate the
(48:43):
term's invention and have continually sprung up ever since McKenna
coined the term in the seventies. In the years since,
the term machine elves has been used interchangeably with clockwork
l and while the phenomena may escape easy description, users
(49:05):
of DMT reported largely common or at least interrelated characteristics
of these psychedelic entities. So popular is the instance of
these apparitions that one study conducted by doctor Rick Strassman
found that fifty percent of the DMT users report seeing
(49:30):
these machine elves during their trip. The Boys in the
White lab coats dismiss the phenomenon of machine elves as
a mere drug induced fantasy, but it's the commonality of
similar visual descriptions compiled by McKenna's research into the topic
(49:51):
that makes users experience with machine elves feel international. Now
picking the interest of the psychonauts and scientists the world over,
there's a new word for you, psychonots, travelers of the mind.
(50:12):
Reports of machine elf apparitions have even been found among
the indigenous tribes of the Amazon Rainforest, folks who have
never read any of the descriptions written by folks using
these plant based hallucinogens are seeing the same things and
telling about it. Upon encountering these creatures, many users report
(50:37):
seeing flashing displays of constantly changing geometric patterns. While McKenna
himself recalled the elves as looking anything but mechanical, He
described their appearances in vivid color and said they were
shaped like Faberge eggs or jewel encrusted basket and they vibrated.
(51:04):
He described how it is that DMT users came into
contact with these elves. Remember that soldier saying that he
was seeing images that looked like the inside of a kaleidoscope.
Maybe he was having something similar to the DMT trip,
only using a night vision scope to do it. McKenna said,
(51:29):
you pass through a membrane of some sort, and you're
in a place you're pushed through and you see these tykes,
as I call them, the self transforming machine elves that
are singing in a hyperdimensional language. They sound to you
(51:50):
and I as if they're saying welcome, We're glad to
see you. Mckinn's visual description aligned with those of general users,
many of whom have characterized the machine elves as being childish,
short creatures. The entities are almost unanimously seen as welcoming
(52:13):
figures who guide users trips and offer space in a friendly,
celebratory way. The majority of users deemed their encounters positively,
with the descriptions of their appearances ranging from human like
to alien to the super fantastic. While physical descriptions vary,
(52:40):
the behavior of machine elves is commonplace among most trips.
McKenna and most DMT users often stress the importance of
sound to these creatures, who use a language which you
c They are made out of sound, which is vibrant.
(53:01):
It is sound, but you see it, and the entire
point of the encounter from their perspective is to teach
you how to do this. Mckinne theorized many possibilities as
to what machine elves might be. He postulated that they
could be evidence of extraterrestrials, entities from parallel dimensions, human
(53:28):
souls which have departed our world, or humans from some
extraordinarily advanced future world. The other worldly predictions were common
among general users too. Eighty percent of DMT users in
Strassman's studies described their encounters as more than reality. Now
(53:56):
you need to ask yourself what is going on with
these folks who drop DMT and go for a trip.
If they're simply hallucinating, why do so many of them
see the same things? How is it people who don't
have contact with each other are seeing the same kinds
(54:16):
of creatures? Is there such a thing as plant based
dimensional travel? The mind is a bizarre and wonderful thing.
We have the ability, well some of us have the
ability to think up things that never existed before and
(54:36):
then make them happen. We can dream and think and
make whole worlds inside our heads by enhancing our mind's
ability to I don't know dream, Could this make our
inner selves move from one universe to another? LSD was
(55:00):
the drug of choice back when I was young. No,
I never used that stuff. I knew a few folks
who took trips and they still haven't come home. They
might have found a better place to stay, and they
abandoned their bodies to somebody else. Worry about any of y'all.
(55:20):
Remember Timothy Leary? Timothy Leary is dead. No, he's on
the outside looking in. That was a song by the
Moody Blues. How about folks with schizophrenia? They seem to
be living in their own little world or are they
(55:41):
connected to some other place, and the dynamics of seeing
and hearing things and two or more universes at the
same time is just too much for them to handle.
I've tried talking to a few of these folks. On
a good day, they know who they are, what's going
on around them. On a bad day, that is, if
(56:04):
there are monsters or demons running around that are trying
to kill them. And who am I to disagree with
what they are seeing? Am I right or wrong in
thinking that maybe they actually are seeing something? Hope you
(56:25):
enjoy tonight's show. If you did, tell your friends, tell
people you don't even know, tell people you don't even
like that they should be listening to Strange Things with
Chris James. If you have a story that you'd like
to see in print or you'd like to hear it
on the show, send it to me. You can contact
(56:49):
me at Strangethings at arkanassa dot com. It can be
UFO related, cryptid ghosts, spirits, some kind of a weird occurrence,
something you saw that didn't make any sense. As long
as you believe it's a true story, send it to me.
(57:11):
I'll put it in print, I'll put it on the radio,
the podcast. If you send me the story, it can
be in English, it can be in Spanish. My wife
will translate it for me. But if she has to
translate too many really scary stories, well, it makes her
not sleep well at night. She doesn't like horror movies
(57:33):
like I do. If you are listening to the show
and you think maybe you'd like to hear all of
the archives, I've done five hundred shows now. You can
find all the past shows at iHeartRadio in the podcast section,
or you can find most of the shows on YouTube.
(57:57):
Till next Saturday. This is Chris Jane for Strange Things
Are you?
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Are you coming to the tree? When did they strung
up a man who they said he murdered? Three strange
things have happened there. No stranger would it be if
we met at midnight in the hanging tree
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