32: Great Balls of Fire

On the afternoon of Thanksgiving eve, November 24, 1971, a smartly dressed man approached the flight counter for Northwest Orient Airlines at Portland International Airport and purchased a one-way ticket to Seattle.  The name he gave was "Dan Cooper" as he paid cash to board Flight 305, a short 30-minute trip that would turn into one of the longest criminal manhunts in modern history.  Once aboard, Cooper's requests to Flight Attendant Florence Schaffner were simple: a bourbon and soda, and a note to be delivered to the captain demanding $200,000 in cash and four parachutes.  To add emphasis to his order, Cooper briefly showed Schaffner what appeared to be a bomb in the black attaché case he carried with him.  Calm and polite throughout the ordeal, Cooper was now instructing the pilots to take him to Mexico City during the refueling stop in Seattle.  However, it was never his intention to go that far.  Cooper's additional demands were now that the Boeing 727 fly not higher than 10,000 feet, with the landing gear still deployed, the wing flaps lowered, the cabin depressurized, and at the lowest airspeed possible without stalling the aircraft.  Around 8:13 p.m., the aft airstairs of the jet deployed, and Cooper would leap into a cold rainstorm of a western Washington night and popular culture forever.  Due to a name mixup with an early suspect by a local news reporter, the public would also forever know "Dan Cooper" as "D. B. Cooper."  The mystery of Cooper's true identity and fate, along with the whereabouts of most of the ransom money, would launch a 45-year investigation by the FBI.  His piracy would become a legend and the only unsolved skyjacking case in the history of commercial aviation. For a lot more information on this episode, visit our website!

12 Sep 202057min

In the continuation of our interview with the mastermind behind the infamous and legendary Alien Autopsy film, director, producer, conceptual artist, and magician, Spyros Melaris, we learn more about the process of its creation and the aftermath of its release upon the world.  But if you think this is just one more case of "Mystery Solved! Nothing to see here, folks!" you may not be considering its broader scope.  Because not only is this a rare case where the magician reveals how they did the trick, but its story reveals a glimpse into human nature, a peek behind the curtain of our beliefs and disbeliefs.  The smaller picture is the mechanics behind what we see in the frame.  The bigger picture is a contemplation of how and why we believe the things we do.  Keeping in mind that nothing in the film could be disproven at the time; if you didn't buy what you saw or didn't bother to look, ask yourself, was it because what you saw didn't look authentic in your estimation, or was it because you think the reality of it is impossible?  For those who demand proof of aliens before they accept the idea, why not look at all?  For those that believed, was it an open mind that entertained its veracity or merely wishful thinking, and what does it take to foment disbelief?  What keeps some believing even after revealing the trick?  With the word hoax being so currently prominent in our society, it certainly seems beneficial to examine one of the world's greatest hoaxes and the hoaxer's methods.  The Alien Autopsy film defined for many the adage "Seeing is Believing" to mean seeing in person, but how can we trust what we see?  The proof of alien life would be the biggest story on the planet.  What we would consider the evidence and how we would handle it is our own biggest mystery. For more information on this episode visit our website!

6 Sep 20202h 40min

Indeed, there is no shortage of debatable evidence and probable hoaxes when it comes to the subject of UFOs and aliens. Yet as with any cultural phenomenon, there are those prime examples that rise to the top to become forever cemented into our collective consciousness. One such artifact is a 17-minute black-and-white film that became so iconic it is merely, and famously known only as "Alien Autopsy."  The film sequence purported to show government or military Medical Examiners performing an autopsy on an alien lifeform supposedly recovered along with debris from an equally famous event, the 1947 Roswell UFO crash.  One could argue that the film has become more well-known than the incident upon which it was supposedly based.  The first public screening of the film occurred on May 5, 1995, in a small theater at the Museum of London.  The organizer of the event who had possession of the film at the time, a music and television producer named Ray Santilli, had invited the Press, UFOlogists, and even clergy members to witness the extraordinary footage to generate buzz and controversy.  Accomplishing both aims, news outlets around the world picked up on the story.  But the biggest sensation sparked on August 28th of that year, when Fox Television aired a documentary Special featuring the footage titled, Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.  The Special was re-broadcast two more times, with each one generating millions of more viewers.  The backstory Santilli stated then was that he purchased the footage from a retired military cameraman who shot the film during the actual autopsy at the Roswell Army Air Field.  However, just before the release of a 2006 British comedy called Alien Autopsy, which dramatized the story of the events surrounding the film, Santilli admitted that the film he and his partner Gary Shoefield released was a recreation of the original footage he acquired in 1992. He claims that in the time he first viewed the 22 original reels and the 1995 release, the film deteriorated so severely that his team needed to recreate the shots based on what he had seen.  But Santilli also insists that they spliced frames from the original footage into the film they released – that an authentic, 1947 autopsy film existed.  But that is his story, and as we all know, there are always more sides to one.  Enter tonight's guest, magician and media producer Spyros Melaris.  Spyros has a convincing story of his own, that he and his friend, sculptor and Special Effects artist John Humphreys created the film and everything seen in it – that there is no authentic autopsy film.  Whatever you may decide after hearing part one of our interview with Spyros, one thing is sure: the Alien Autopsy film captured the imagination of the world and might be one of the greatest hoaxes of all time.  For more information on this episode visit our website!

24 Aug 20202h 31min

In the continuation of our interview with esteemed UFO and paranormal investigator Stan Gordon, he relays case studies that indicate that the event at Kecksburg may have been merely one incident in a long and continuing saga of High Strangeness.  In his 61 years of research so far, beginning in 1959 at the age of ten, Stan has interviewed thousands of UFO witnesses and hundreds of people who've claimed to confront Bigfoot.  In the decades of data collection and analysis, reaching a crescendo with the Pennsylvania UFO "Flap" of 1973 and continuing to this day, a startling and incomprehensible pattern began to emerge.  Many of these accounts of two traditionally thought of as disparate types of phenomena, UFOs and Bigfoot, occurred in the same places and within days, hours, or minutes of each other.  In a few of the most bizarre cases, Bigfoots appeared to interact with a UFO encounter, as if one may be responsible for the other.  Yet reports over the years weren't limited to these two favorites of Forteana.  Stan had also investigated connected reports of other cryptid sightings, strange environmental phenomena, spirit activity, and had himself come across footprints of 3 and 4-toed unnatural creatures, along with classic Bigfoot tracks that inexplicably stop as if the being had vanished.  A significant number of reports originate in the Chestnut Ridge region, an approximately 75 mile-long westernmost ridge of the Allegheny Mountains extending into West Virginia.  However, incidents have spread out like a virus over the decades to cover most of Pennsylvania.  Some paranormal researchers would be hesitant to publicly consider an association between these marvels or even scoff at the notion.  But a lifetime of investigation leaves Stan with the conclusion that a mind-blowing connection between these cases indeed exists.  That these connections would be statistically unreasonable to ignore, and this camp of thinking is growing.  As we conclude this interview, one might be wondering, what are the implications if a correlation is real, and if it is, is Chestnut Ridge, the Skinwalker Ranch of Pennsylvania? For more information on this episode visit our website!

16 Aug 20201h 48min

Tonight's show will be a special treat for those listeners who've been patiently awaiting a revamping of our coverage of the Kecksburg UFO incident.  Those unfamiliar with the case but entertain a curiosity with mysterious, non-organic objects falling from our skies meeting an equally mysterious fate will also find this episode fascinating.  In the late afternoon of December 9, 1965, thousands of citizens watched as a large, fiery object streaked through the skies over at least six to eight U.S. States and Ontario, Canada.  Many who observed its unusually slow path claimed it seemed to be under "intelligent control."  While astronomers continued to assume it was merely a meteor bolide entering Earth's atmosphere, some type of craft crash-landed in the woods near the town of Kecksburg, Pennsylvania.  Local eye-witnesses and First Responders who descended onto the scene described the object as looking like a giant acorn, large enough for a human to stand in, and encircling a band near its base were strange markings some likened to Egyptian hieroglyphs.  Uncharacteristically for something as natural as a meteor landing, military authorities, purported NASA personnel, and State troopers immediately arrived and cordoned off the crash site and shooed away onlookers.  The object was loaded onto a flatbed truck along with multiple unknown containers, tarped and hauled away to some government facility, which would be the last time any unauthorized civilian would see it.  This was before initial reports that the U.S. Air Force and State troopers found "absolutely nothing" during their search.  There have since been speculations that the craft was a downed Soviet space probe called Kosmos 96, or perhaps a General Electric Mark 2 Re-entry Vehicle.  While we could've revisited the story with just these oft-told elements and our own speculations, we thought it was best to wait patiently to speak to an authority who's studied the case for decades for some much-needed insight.  We're finally fortunate enough to talk with Stan Gordon, a paranormal investigator from the area who's researched the Kecksburg crash since his teens, and has tracked all of the associated High Strangeness that has followed.  Also joining the conversation is Stan's friend Ron Struble, a witness to the original incident as a Kecksburg Volunteer Firefighter.  This a discussion that not only examines a plausible scenario through reported facts but one that has altered our assessment of one of the most well-documented cases in UFOlogy, one that has become known as "Pennsylvania's Roswell." For more information on this episode visit our website!

9 Aug 20202h 2min

For children, the world is still new and full of wonder. Every day is a chance for an adventure, discovering exciting possibilities, and meeting interesting people. Sadly, today's world is a little less safe for kids to explore on their own than it was in the nostalgically idyllic year of 1973. In early May of that year, two kids would make a new friend that may have literally been out of this world. A 7-year-old girl known as "Fay" and her friend, a boy about the same age, took a walk near Lake Common, adjacent to the town of Sandown, on the Isle of Wight off the southern coast of England. Around 4:00 p.m., the pair heard a strange wailing sound coming from across the nearby golf course. They followed the noise until it ceased. The children were walking over a wooden footbridge that crossed a narrow stream when suddenly a hand wearing a blue glove appeared and out from under the bridge a most bizarre being emerged. After some initial slapstick-like fumblings, what eventually followed was an encounter and discussion with a creature whose actions and description seem beyond the imagination of even the most precocious child. Fay and her friend described its appearance as nearly seven feet tall and similar to that of a partly wooden, partly mechanical, partly flesh clown, and not like from any circus you're likely to see. It introduced itself as "...all colours, Sam." Seemingly friendly, and perhaps a little lonely and certainly misunderstood, the children began to ask "Sam" what he was, whether a man or if not that as best they could figure, a ghost. The cryptic answer they received was, " ...Well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way." The two would spend around 30 minutes visiting with their new friend in his liminal, metal shack, which later vanished. Whether Sam was some "Ultraterrestrial" entity, a sentient cyborg from another world, or merely the "whimsy of a child," this is a story that is precisely the kind we like to talk about... nay, MUST be discussed. And that's what we're going to do in tonight's episode, with the help of our good friends Micah Hanks of the Micah Hanks Program and Rob Morphy from the Cryptonaut podcast. We may never understand what Sam indeed was, but there are enough weird and wonderful elements to this case that neither child nor adult could ever forget meeting Sam the Sandown Ghost Clown. For more information on this episode visit our website!

25 Juli 20202h 6min

In the second & final part of our Question & Answer interview with the inimitable Rich Hatem, Scott & Forrest continue to babble & blather on & on about everything from UFOs & Ghosts to vampires & Yetis, and everything in-between.  Because, you know, everything is connected.  And if everything is indeed connected, then is anything really, a long, drawn-out, tedious tangent?  Why not dare to find out?!  Let's face it, if you've stuck with us this far, you might as well see it through to the end, and we'd be so glad to have you! For more information on this episode visit our website!

19 Juli 20201h 47min

Believe it or not, we've always viewed this podcast as a journey.  Initially, we wanted the feel of the show to embody the spirit of why we wanted to start a podcast in the first place – because we enjoyed discussing the strange and mysterious stories of this weird and wonderful world of ours with good friends.  We hope that spirit of camaraderie, curiosity, and discovery remains.  We're still unsure where this adventure into the unknown will take us, perhaps to some enlightenment or just more questions, but we couldn't be more grateful and honored that you've decided to travel with us.  Along the way, many listeners have had questions for us or wanted to share an anecdote about their own experiences.  As we've said many times before, one of our few regrets is that we haven't had the time to answer or respond to all of them directly, but perhaps these next two episodes will help a bit with that.  We felt it was a good time to take a moment, well, two very long moments spread out over two episodes to address some of the most frequently asked questions and also engage in a little introspection on where we're all at since starting this show in October of 2014.  And what better host and moderator to guide us and embrace that feeling mentioned above than our good friend Rich Hatem.  We'll talk about our backgrounds, motivations, intentions, processes, thoughts on our topics, and how our beliefs have changed... or not.  We hope you'll join us for a reflection as we continue on this journey together. For more information on this episode visit our website!

12 Juli 20202h 4min