37: Jacob City Miners

Anyone who has experienced what is considered a paranormal event will tell you that it's not easy to tell others about what you had witnessed, especially if that experience was dramatic and significant.  Testimony about such things is often met with ridicule, scorn and sometimes violence by those who feel threatened by such challenges to their reality.  Therefore it takes no small amount of courage and resolution to tell your truth and stick to it.  Such are the qualities that we believe make up the mettle of tonight's guest, David "Dave" Davies.  Davies has had to endure bullying and beatings since he first described what he witnessed for himself and what his classmates had seen landing on the playground of the Broad Haven Primary School in Pembrokeshire, Wales in 1977.  For the 40 years since that close encounter, Davies has stood by his story with conviction and without embellishment or wavering, still ever willing to talk about his experience.  In fact, the sighting had made such an impact on him that he's spent the intervening years in a quest to find an explanation for what he'd seen.  Join us tonight as we hear from an eye-witness to one of the most well-observed UFO cases in history, The Broad Haven School UFO incident. For more information on this episode visit our website!

19 Aug 20181h 27min

So many popular culture misconceptions abound with stories of UFO sightings; that it's always some farmer, alone in his fields when an unidentified flying object appears. The "hayseed farmer" is an easy target to dismiss with ridicule and hubris. Sure, sometimes it is a farm, as it was in 1977 at the Coombs family farm in southern Wales, but it is far from the norm. And it wasn't a singular farmer who witnessed a UFO then, prominent townsfolk and a group of schoolchildren also saw bizarre craft and phenomena during a series of events that would become known as the Broad Haven incident. The Coombs family would also go on to experience High Strangeness that would rival the happenings at Skinwalker Ranch. If you still think that remote farms are still the most likely places for such incredible tales to emerge, you might be surprised that schoolyards also seem to be just as common for alien interactions, with notable cases happening all over the world, in countries like Australia, Zimbabwe, and Russia. Decades later, questions about these cases emerge: Were the goings on in Broadhaven, this "Flap," connected to the incident at Berwyn Mountain, three years prior? Does a "Welsh Triangle" exist? Why do otherworldly visitors want to communicate with our children? Is it because they are more likely to learn lessons we adults are too proud or stubborn to heed? Join us tonight as we examine these cases with a friend and fellow podcaster, Rob Kristofferson, host of Our Strange Skies, as we go in search of answers to these fascinating questions. For more information on this episode visit our website!

11 Aug 20181h 41min

On January 23, 1974, villagers in the community of Llandrillo in the Edeirnion area of Denbighshire, northern Wales, experienced a tremendous jolt and noise a little after 8:30 p.m., akin to a magnitude 3.5 earthquake.  Highly strange, colored lights were seen over the surrounding hills at the same time.  Another unusual occurrence was that the British Military was immediately on the scene as if they were tracking the "geological event" in real time.  The official Ministry of Defence conclusion was that the event was caused by a simultaneous earthquake and meteor impact, with the meteor being the cause of the freakish light show.  However, a meteor impact that would cause a shock of that magnitude would have left a visible crater, which was not found.  And of course, there were reports by witnesses on the scene of the military carting off bodies and wreckage.  Does this sound familiar to you?  It did enough to some tabloid papers at the time who dubbed it, "The Roswelsh Incident."  What's your conclusion? For more information on this episode visit our website!

29 Juli 20181h 30min

Many people enjoy a good mystery.  However, mysteries often leave us slightly disturbed and unsettled, because we're also always searching for answers and when we look for answers, we're sometimes comforted the most by the simplest explanations.  With the case of the Flannan Isle Lighthouse Keepers, most are willing to accept that a massive "Rogue Wave" swept the three men into oblivion.  But what if meteorological science matched against clues left from the scene could show that this theory may not be the most plausible?  What if several simple, yet extreme events combined to plunge this mystery into the depths of the unexplained?  Join us tonight as we interview Keith McCloskey, author of the book, The Lighthouse: The Mystery of the Eilean Mòr Lighthouse Keepers.  We'll discuss his in-depth research into the case and the possibility that the simplest explanations, while the easiest to accept, are often not where the real truth lies submerged. For more information on this episode visit our website!

13 Juli 20182h 30min

In 1899, construction on the Flannan Isles lighthouse was completed, perched atop Eilean Mòr, one of the highest points in the Outer Hebrides off the western coast of Scotland. It would soon experience its first tragedy and an enduring mystery. For several days, it's light could not be seen and on December 15, 1900, the ship Archtor documented this concern in its log while heading to port in Leith. However, 11 days would pass before the lighthouse tending ship Hesperus would be able to dock at Eilean Mòr due to foul weather, for which the area is well-known. What they discovered, or rather, didn't discover, would lead to one of the biggest mysteries of this enchanted region. Serious storm damage was evident on the island, but nothing seemed amiss inside the lighthouse itself except for the fact that the three lighthouse keepers had vanished and would never be seen again.   For more information on this episode visit our website!

24 Juni 20181h 27min

Something or someone of great importance and influence had convinced and motivated these neolithic hunter-gatherers to put their way of life on hold and come together as a group to undertake such a tremendous project as Göbekli Tepe. This is likely the first time hundreds of prehistoric peoples had formed an organized collective in order to build a religious sanctuary. The work would've taken years to accomplish and the temple would be built upon for many centuries more. The result of this work is believed to have spurred civilization as we know it today. But what beliefs or legends could have generated such a monumental task?  In Part Three of our series, we examine the hypotheses put forth in Andrew Collins' book, Göbekli Tepe, Genesis of the Gods: The Temple of the Watchers and the Discovery of Eden. With his comprehensive and detailed research, Collins goes beyond the boundaries of interpretation where Processual archaeologists would not stray. Could the memory of a global, natural catastrophe which nearly wiped out humanity be the impetus for creating a shrine to assuage the gods into sparing them more devastation? Could the builders have been directed by foreign and mysterious visitors who seemed to have knowledge of the heavens and history far beyond their own? If they did indeed fear destruction from the cosmos, then a connection from them to us could be made, because we're subject to those very same dangers.  For more information on this episode visit our website!

17 Juni 20182h 16min

What we've learned so far about Göbekli Tepe, is what it appears to be, which is that it is possibly the world's oldest sacred temple.  We think we know who built it: a collective of hunter-gatherers, who had not yet learned the skills of farming.  We also think we know approximately when.  But the answers to the questions of how and why and what did it all mean to these Neolithic peoples may not be so easily obtained.  In fact, since the 1960s at least in American archaeology, a debate still rages as to how far and by what methods archaeologists should proceed to interpret what they have dug up.  How closely should archaeology be tied to anthropology, how much informed speculation about their beliefs should be allowed and by whom?  Processual and Post-processual archaeology are two schools of thought within the field that currently define this debate.   Tonight we take a closer look at the art, the architecture, and the symbolism from Göbelki Tepe, and what it's lead archaeologist, Klaus Schmidt, thought about what it may have represented to our prehistoric ancestors.  We also get closer to an even grander question, did these ancient peoples know of events in earth's past that would blow our modern minds?  For more information on this episode visit our website!

10 Juni 20181h 38min

In 1963, archaeologists from the University of Chicago and Istanbul University examined a site known by locals as Göbekli Tepe, or "Potbelly Hill."  They dismissed the site at the time as merely a medieval cemetery due to the numerous slabs of stone thought to be grave markers.  However, in 1993, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who was doing work at another Neolithic site in nearby Nevalı Çori, heard about the report and decided to investigate it for himself.  What Schmidt and his team would eventually discover would turn out to be one of the most astounding, mysterious and important archaeological discoveries in history.  Laying just below the surface was the earliest known sanctuary structure ever built by humans.  Somehow, a group of prehistoric hunter-gathers had managed to quarry massive slabs of stone from nearby outcroppings, some weighing as much as 7 to 10 tons with lengths of up to 18 feet.  They then moved them hundreds of feet into numerous circular configurations.  This was done without the use of wheels or animals and before the invention of metalworking, pottery or writing.  The earliest works found at the site date to over 11,000 years old, or around 9600 B.C., predating Stonehenge by at least 7000 years.  While we may not know yet what belief system would motivate these ancient, primitive peoples to undertake such a monumental task, the result of their unbelievable efforts may have led to a ground-breaking theory.  Instead of the previous view that the invention of the domestication of plants and animals led humans to develop civilization and with it, religious belief systems, the human desire to worship as a community may have led to farming and thus sparked civilization.  As researchers are still seeking answers as to what these people believed, there are those that think the answers may be far more mystical than what many are willing to imagine. For more information on this episode visit our website!

27 Maj 20181h 54min