Dyatlov Pass Part 1

Who among us hasn't wanted to know the future or have insight into the hidden, at least in passing?  From the first instance a human had a premonition that came true, it seems likely that the adventurous who were shocked and astounded wondered how those without the "gift" could duplicate this impossible experience.  Then, when someone stared too intently into a reflective pool of liquid, a glowing ember, or even the night sky, and experienced an extrasensory perception, a technique and its medium are discovered to tap into a sixth sense.  Practiced now for millennia, this procedure for obtaining occult information has become known as scrying.  One interesting observation is that although there are general guidelines for preparing oneself and performing a scrying session, many mediums can facilitate the phenomenon.  It appears that any object can be used that can capture the light and dazzle the eye, or a reflective surface that can offer deep introspection or a dark void that focuses the senses.  But then the burning question becomes, how does this process work, and from where does the information come?  Does this "second sight" materialize from deep within ourselves, external omniscience, or some combination of both?  In tonight's episode, we'll look at the elements, the history, and the concepts behind this ancient and mysterious means of knowing the unknowable. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

14 Feb 20212h 29min

As we wrap up our coverage of the Frederick Valentich story in Part 3 of our series, we'll continue our conversation with Melbourne resident Chris Tyler about his research into the case and other possibly related UFO incidents around the same time and area.  We'll also examine the Australian Department of Transport accident report's remaining findings and discuss its conclusions.  As you begin to reach your own conclusions, it's essential to keep several factors in mind which make the usual mundane explanations seem inadequate.  The high number of independent sightings of aerial phenomena occurring in proximity to the disappearance suggests Valentich wasn't alone in witnessing it.  The distance a Cessna cowling was found from a potential crash site and the lack of definitive markings makes its discovery inconclusive.  Even if the cowling did come from Valentich's plane, it still doesn't account for what caused him to ditch, let alone other missing debris and Valentich himself.  Perhaps the most surprising revelation comes from the summary of the report itself.  Rather than dismissing the possibility of a UFO entanglement, an official government statement lists it as one of four likeliest scenarios.  Remember that Valentich himself never suggested he interacted with a UFO in his last transmission, despite being painted as obsessed with them by his skeptics.  When these factors and more are taken together, it's no wonder this incident is one of the most baffling and tragic in the phenomenon's history and leaves us all to wonder, what happened to Frederick Valentich and where did he go? Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

24 Jan 20212h 2min

When the facts about a paranormal event yield no more answers, investigators and the public alike tend to turn their attention to the experiencer's character to ascertain its authenticity.  So what kind of person was Frederick Valentich?  A once-lost aircraft accident report from Australia's Department of Transport, which resurfaced in 2012, has shed some light on Valentich's behavior and state of mind leading up to the moment of his disappearance.  Through extensive interviews with his family, friends, associates, and the flight personnel he came into contact with, a picture emerges of Valentich's disposition.  Although there were some puzzling actions and statements by the young pilot, overall, he appeared to be a dedicated and serious student of aviation.  Yet if a paranormal cause of his disappearance is off the table of consideration, then the answer must lie in one of his shortcomings, right?  This has led to speculation that Valentich intended to abscond with the aircraft and start a new life, or he planned a mysterious suicide, or that as a UFO enthusiast, he simply mistook stars and planets for a UFO and crashed trying to avoid it.  As we delve further into the details and analysis from the official report in part two of our series, we're joined by listener and lifelong Melbourne resident Chris Tyler.  Being quite familiar with the case, Chris will lend his own insight into the mystery and illustrate this enchanting Australian backdrop's prevailing attitudes and characteristics. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

17 Jan 20211h 37min

On Saturday, October 21, 1978, at 6:19 p.m., 20-year-old Frederick Valentich took off from Moorabbin Airport just south of Melbourne, Australia, for what was supposed to be a routine training and pleasure flight over Bass Strait to King Island.  A serious student aviator, Valentich had been flying for two years and had accumulated over 150 hours of solo flying time in his goal to one day become a commercial airline pilot.  Although rated for night flying by instrument, the sun was still up, and with clear visibility and good weather, there was no reason Valentich shouldn’t have easily completed this trip, which he’d taken several times before.  However, just over halfway through the flight at 7:06 p.m., Valentich contacted Melbourne Flight Service Unit and reported seeing an unidentified craft above him, traveling at high speed and shining four bright lights.  Valentich would radio back a few minutes later that it didn’t appear to be any known aircraft, and now it had even more unusual characteristics: it was long, shiny metallic, and a green light was emanating from it.  Even more unsettling, this craft he described was deliberately toying with him as it orbited above while his plane’s engine was sputtering.  At 7:11 p.m., the last statement anyone would hear from Valentich would be that the object was still hovering and that it was not an aircraft.  Valentich and his plane had vanished at that moment, but whether it was an elaborate hoax, a deliberate crash, or merely a misidentification combined with a mechanical failure, no investigation has been able to determine.  What is not in doubt is that the case of Frederick Valentich remains one of Australia’s biggest aviation mysteries, if not in all of UFO lore. Visit our website on this episode for a lot more information.

11 Jan 20212h 15min

Please join us for a very special Astonishing Legends episode – an All-Star holiday party featuring some of your favorite podcast personalities!  Along with consigliere Tess Pfeifle, we welcome our very own "Alexander Leek," sage, screenwriter and good friend Rich Hatem; podcaster, compadre, and casual archaeologist Micah Hanks; our Space Brother and To The Stars professor, Rob Kristoffersen; and our special guest, inspirational pathfinder, and podfather Jim Harold.  We'll engage in all the scintillating conversation and fascinating anecdotes you'd expect to hear at a holiday gathering attended by paranormal enthusiast friends and fueled by high octane egg nog, and Micah will treat us to a guitar performance near the end!  We hope you'll enjoy this virtual celebration and feel part of a fellowship as we find support and unity at the end of a trying year any way we can. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode!

21 Dec 20202h 24min

Our friend Seth Breedlove has a new docudrama out about the Bell Witch and guess who's in it? Forrest!  http://www.smalltownmonsters.com/shop  https://tinyurl.com/markofthebellwitch

15 Dec 20202min

Tonight's episode starts with the coverage of a strange and funny case involving aliens and holiday pies.  On January 4, 1979, Mrs. Jean Hingely of the town of Rowley Regis in the West Midlands region of England was visited by three fishbowl-helmeted and friendly aliens with wings.  After some spiritually uplifting exchanges, her holiday visitors thrashed her Christmas tree and nicked three of her mincemeat pies.  The second part of our episode features heartwarming personal stories of hope from some of our listeners.  These stories may not be proof of an afterlife for some, but for others, they may bolster the belief that our existence doesn't end with our physical death and that somewhere there is a world where everything we cherish is waiting for us, and proof that love is eternal and boundless. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode!

14 Dec 20202h 53min

In a rare dual-subject episode for us, we take a look at two somewhat Christmas-themed stories, the mysterious yet not-so-mysterious "Utah Monolith" and the Warminster "Thing." In the first part of the show, we discuss the recent discovery of a 9.5-foot-tall metal triangular prism-shaped pillar we've dubbed "The Christmas Monolith." This story made the rounds after state biologists from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spotted the out-of-place-artifact while conducting a survey of bighorn sheep by helicopter over San Juan County in southeastern Utah on November 18, 2020. Two days later, the Utah Department of Public Safety posted a photo of the monolith on Instagram, with more pictures and videos of the puzzling pillar to follow. The internet and media outlets were soon abuzz with speculation about who, human, alien, or otherwise, would've illegally planted the iconic looking structure in such a remote red sandstone slot canyon in the middle of nowhere and why. Other metal columns have appeared in Romania and California, prompting the question, are these pranks, artworks, a message, or perhaps all three? The second part of our show tonight examines a freakish "flap" of High Strangeness that's so fantastic in its details and so widely experienced at the time that it's baffling why the story has mostly become forgotten. Generally considered to have gotten its start in the early hours of Christmas morning in 1964, this saga of shocking incidents in hindsight seems to have only publically peaked on December 25th and continued well into the following year, and only gradually declined in the decade to follow. The holiday literally started with a bang for the residents of the town of Warminster in Wiltshire County in southwestern England. Numerous citizens and British soldiers training nearby awoke to a medley of piercing, thundering, clattering, metallic noises in the sky and on their rooftops, the nature of which nearly defies description. The strange and untraceable sounds would continue to accost the townsfolk, with some reporting these sonic attacks were so violent it threw them to the ground and sickened their pets. As 1965 wore on, the unearthly rackets would eventually coincide with sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena and craft so unique they sound unusual even for a UFO wave. And what bouillabaisse of the bizarre would be complete without cattle disappearances, freaky interstellar messengers, and tall, humanoid-alien visitors? Warminster had it all. All told, this series of strangeness was so beyond comprehension, and with no vocabulary to satisfactorily describe it, the phenomena became simply known as the Warminster "Thing." For more information on this episode, visit our website.

6 Dec 20202h 15min