Somewhere in the Skies - Grand Tower: UFOs and other High Strangeness

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

On episode 376, we are joined by filmmaker Joseph Tury, and UFO researcher, Michael Huntington. We discuss their new documentary, Grand Tower: UFOs and other High Strangeness. We discuss their documentary account of the 1973 UFO sighting in Grand Tower, Illinois, which was investigated by Project Blue Book. We also discuss other reports of high strangeness in the area, including cryptids and paranormal phenomenon. Available to stream soon. DVDs available at: https://kunaki.com/accounting/ShowproductDetail.asp?PID=PX008XGEPM Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U YouTube Channel: CLICK HERE Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/somewhereskies/videos Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Read Ryan’s Articles by CLICKING HERE Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte Produced by LIONSGATE Copyright © 2024. Ryan Sprague. All rights reserved. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/somewhere-in-the-skies. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Terms apply. Some contend that there are places on Earth that are unusual. Locations where strange happenings abound and mysteries dominate. Lands of lore. So-called window areas where all varieties of paranormal and anomalous occurrences take up residence, from causes or reasons unknown. One such place is an area located near and around the small Southern Illinois Rivertown of Grand Tower. Once dubbed the unluckiest town in America, it is now considered an epicenter for anomalous study and a hotspot of high strangeness.

A mysterious place which has hosted numerous tragedies, electromagnetic oddities, multiple UFO and orb sightings, unknown hominid creature encounters, haunted and cursed accounts, and other bizarre and unexplained phenomena. The whole area is just, it goes way back in history as being a strange area. So the definition of high strangeness really is when you have anything super anomalous, even outside of what you would typically expect from some sort of paranormal occurrence. You know, people would look at me weird by saying this, but I believe that this might be a portal to unexplain. Well, first of all, you have to acknowledge that 1973 was the big year in terms of Bigfoot and a potential UFO connection.

I look at the data, I listen to the reports by credible people, and I try and analyze it all together, put it all together, and find parallels and patterns that may exist. I went out on the porch area. I lived in Grand Tart at that time, and I went out on the porch and looked up toward the plant, and I could see the bright, red-laking light. And that's just the way it was.

And where it was, I got no idea, but it did happen. This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to another episode of Somewhere in the Skies. And joining us today, if you're watching this on YouTube, you will see their faces. Return guest Michael Huntington. And we have the director and filmmaker of the new documentary, Grand Tower UFOs and other high strangeness. And that is the one and only Joseph Turi.

Gentlemen, welcome to somewhere in the skies. Thank you so much. Thanks for having us. Of course. Now, I had an opportunity to watch an advanced screening of the film. And not only was I excited to see some familiar faces in this thing, but some new faces as well, new UFO cases I personally never heard of in areas that I've never personally researched or investigated. So, I mean, right off the back. You won the heart of a 20-something year veteran, Joe, of UFO research.

And the fact that it was narrated by Michael Huntied didn't just made it all the better. So I want to sort of start guys with your relationship. Like, how did you two meet and sort of give us the origin story of how Grand Tower came to be? And yeah, what it was like working with one another. if you don't mind, whoever wants to take that. Yeah, so my third documentary I did was called Creature from Big Muddy. I started that in 2020 fall of 2020, 2021. I can't remember at this point.

It's too long ago. And then so I was doing that with two authors, Chad Lewis and Kevin Lee Nelson, who wrote the book, The Big Muddy Monster. and I contacted them. That's how I got into that story. And they just had a list of people like, oh, you should have this guy, this guy, this guy. So they reached out to different people for me to be in the film,

Michael being one of them. So at the time, I just thought Michael was a cryptid guy. Like I didn't really know who he was, you know. I'm just, okay, cool. And, you know, he graciously said, yeah, I'll be in the film. So we had him on camera talking about it. And I'm like, man, this guy's pretty good. You know, he knows what he's talking about.

He knows his stuff. He knows some of this obscure stuff that I didn't even know, you know, what's going on. And then, you know, some of that B roll that hit the floor, cutting room floor, Kevin, I had a story with Kevin. And he was talking about Grand Tower and things like that. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting, you know. and I was always looking for my next film, of course, as an independent, and started to get a little bit more interested in the Grand Tower case.

And Chad's like, you know what? You should talk to Michael about that. You know, he's an expert on that stuff. And I'm like, really? And pretty much it was that easy. I'll give a little filmmaker secret away when you, like, need someone or need some help, just reach out to him and ask, you know. I find this in the world of the weird community.

Everybody's very generous and always willing to help. So I just kind of reached out to him. And it just took off from there pretty much. Yeah. That was about three years ago. Yeah. Wow. Okay.

Long time in the making. Okay. Well, Grand Tower, obviously I want to talk UFOs. But to rewind just a little bit, I have to ask, like, what is the big muddy monster? This is a cryptid I've never even heard of.

I mean, I'm a pretty amateur crypted, I guess, research. That's funny. You say it that way because, like, my thing is Bigfoot. Like, that's, I'm a fan of everything. I'm just a huge fan of Bigfoot stories. When I was a little kid, I remember people talking about Mo Mo Mo. No one ever talked about Big Muddy Monster. I live two and a half hours from Murphy's Borough, Illinois, where the Big Muddy Monster

case happened. Big muddy is a river down there. This alleged Bigfoot like creature came out of the river. That's why it's called the Big Muddy Monster. So it was like, I saw the book cover when I was looking for movies to film and I'm like, what in the world is this? How do I not know about this? Like I've watched, you know, all the shows and all that stuff. You know, the cringy shows that you see. I love all that stuff. I'm just a huge fan of it. And yeah. And, yeah. came across this case where I'm like, this is crazy and it's only a couple hours from my house. But basically the main bulk of the case happened in 1973, you know, the year, 1973. Although there was like reports before that, there's been a couple instances after that.

But it was just this creature that reportedly was in this town, small town of Murphy's Bureau. Murpiesboro, Illinois, over the course of about a month or so. And it wasn't a one-off creature per se, but it kind of was as it kind of disappeared after a month in time. I mean, again, there were stories afterwards, but I don't know if I would consider the same creature or same event. But yeah, it never really attacked anyone or anything like that. it was more like lurking in the bushes and watching people type of thing.

Just curious, yeah. Yeah, just a curious creature. Yeah, I don't know what it was. I hope it's a Bigfoot. I don't know, you know. Well, I think we should say that, you know, Southern Illinois, which is the area that we're talking about, where a MoMA was seen, where Grand Tower is located on the Mississippi,

It's like half hour, 45 minutes for me. So this is my backyard. This is my stomping ground. I'm in Cape Charado, Missouri, right on the Mississippi on the other side of the river. And, you know, I focus on GPS positioning anomalies, whether they're UFOs, ghost, you know, strange locations, native sites, places with weird phenomena, cryptids. cryptids, you know, Bigfoot, whatever, if I can GPS them and position them, you know, the idea is that we can define places like this

where a lot of this stuff occurs so that we can try to figure out what's going on. You know, why is it localized? Why is there so many things going on in this one spot? Why is it tied to the geography, the geology? So that's the sort of thing that I do. And where I'm at, luckily, Southern Illinois just so happens to be where Lauren Coleman did all of his early research. Lauren Coleman, you know, he's the father of cryptozoology.

He'll say that it was somebody else, but that's just him being, you know, Lauren. And also on the Missouri side over here, we had Ted Phillips, who was, you know, an Inex protege. So we got all his cases over here. And I've made it a point over the past, you know, decade to visit all these locations that Ted Phillips has researched and that Lauren Coleman has explored and to try to map this stuff out to find these, these locations.

And Grand Tower has proven to be one of these type of spots. You know, a legitimate hot spot of anomalies, you know, not like a, a flat place or, you know, where something happened and went away, you know, trying to find these spots where this stuff is sustained, you know, through the folklore and then over years, I think is a good way to try to encourage study of it. If not, we're at least preserving the folklore and the small town stories and in a lot of these small towns that are that are dying. So, you know, I encourage that at least, you know, to try to get these accounts up, to find out where the lore is, to try to find out these places. So, you know, I've worked with people like Joe who are interested in, you know, the lore, because that's what he is.

He's a filmmaker that looks into Southern Illinois lore. And hats off to him, you know. and other people like Seth Friedlop. His whole company is devoted to that. You know, they work from a model that sustains themselves without exploiting, you know, all of these subjects. But they also reach out and encourage creativity to try to document these places, get more details, so that we can look at these things, you know, through the proper lenses, historically, scientifically, culturally, whatever. because, you know, even if it's a folklore story or a hoax or whatever, that's still value and it's still interesting.

And when you find these places where it's just, there's just a preponderance of things going on that exceed, you know, just probability, then you start to want to consider causal elements. And that's what we're doing. We're sort of laying out all these different anomalies within the time that, you know, Joe wanted to do it without going into the minutia. But showing people that there are these patterns. And if you look at them, there's something going on that I think that we can look at, that I think that we can speculate about. We have a lot of researchers, some of the best in this documentary. It's just great to see them participating and sharing what they know. The people in this documentary are Boots on the Ground researchers.

Every single one of them. Joe is a Boots on the Ground researcher. Joe is now a UFO researcher. Joe went back and investigated stuff that Heinek was involved in. He went back and he interviewed witnesses that Jerome Clark probably didn't interview at the time. You know, and he's been able to capture this history before it's gone. And able to get the testimony, I think, out there. And to focus some of this back on the UFO subject.

and the anomaly subjects themselves instead of the external stuff. You know, this is a UFO case here where there's jets. And during a 1973 major wave, just across the river, Piedmont, you know, mass sightings. 1973, across the country, Cronkites talking about it. You know, some of the biggest cases were during, this time period. There was a lot of weirdness going off. And it's interesting that this place is also wonderful. Yes. Yeah, it's definitely a weird year. And this is definitely a weird place. And I love that you guys kind of used Grand Tower. The, I don't want to say famous, because a lot of people haven't

heard of the Grand Tower UFO case. But they should and they will in your film. It's kind of the anchor, I would say of the film or kind of the stepping off point of like, all right, this kind of major UFO setting happened where Michael, like you said, jets were literally like tried to intercept whatever the object could possibly. And several occasions over a moment. Exactly.

And I do want to dive into the case specifically with you guys. But before we do that, Michael, you mentioned researchers. Now, people are probably familiar. with someone like Zelia, Edgar, who I've had on my show several times. She actually has her show,

just another tinfoil hat. We are now the official home of the podcast version of just another tinfoil hat. So I was really happy to see her in there. She's a wealth of information. But you also had a folklorist. You had a cryptid hunter. Tell us a little about these researchers,

if you guys don't mind whom you have featured in the film. Joe, do you want to do? take that one. Sure. We have Steve Ward, who is just, you know, Mr. High Strangeness himself. Steve currently works in the Mothman Museum. He gives tours out there, but he's just an excellent researcher. He's been around the block a few times, for sure. He's been in different documentaries and such. He's just such, like everybody I've talked to in this, they're just so super nice, man. I mean, it's just crazy.

It's like, Steve, you want to be in this? Sure, I can give some insight into this. And it's not just generic information. Like, it's funny that, you know, like if you're listening to their interviews, they'll touch on something that pops up later in the interview with the witness or something, you know? So, I mean, I just love how these. people have this type of knowledge. And, you know, you mentioned Zilia, which that's the first time I met

her when she interviewed for this. And it's like, I can't, like, Steve refers to her as a potential new, like a John Keel type of researcher, you know, I mean, I kind of agree with that. Like, she really knows her stuff. She knows stuff about the area as well. Kevin Lee Nelson, who, you know, he's an author, but he's appeared in different films as well. But Kevin really knows the area specifically, which blows my mind, him and Chad, they live in Wisconsin. They know roads in Illinois that I don't know. You know what I mean?

It's like, how do you know these places? They told me where to go on some, you know, in different places. And then Ken Gerhardt. he's our he's our cryptid expert um i got ken in there you know when i first asked him he was like uh i don't i don't really believe in high strangeness blah blah blah and i'm just like he's like i'm more of a skeptic on that and i'm like that's what i want i don't i'm not trying to convince anyone of this or that i want opposite points of view i mean he he believes in metaphysical but he's not one to connect Bigfoot with UFOs.

And he'll come out and say that. But again, that's what I want. I don't want people to think that I'm trying to steer them in a certain direction. I kind of approach it like, well, you know, I kind of modeled it after small town monsters. They're not really trying to say this happened and this is what you should believe. It's more like just presenting the facts, make up your own mind, you know. And I love that approach. I think that's an excellent way to do it.

And then a lot of the other people in the film are locals, either local researchers or eyewitnesses. So I've been blessed to get a nice variety of people in here. Some believe, oh, yeah, this is all connected 100%. Other ones are like, nah, it's just kind of a coincidence. type of thing, you know, but, you know, that's the approach. That's what I'm trying to get across on this. Yeah.

Attacking it from all angles, you know, I'm sort of working on my first major documentary right now. And I, you know, it's so important to get all sides of this. So the fact that you are willing to have someone of the skeptic nature, you know, to talk about this. You have to. It's essential. It's essential. Otherwise, you're just making a film promoting something that there's no, you know, ultimately.

Ultimately. I mean, ultimately, you know, a skeptic, believer, all this sort of stuff, it's just different interpretations. Right. It's different competing interpretations of cases, evidence, claims, the credibility of the witnesses, you know, the culture, whatever. It's, it's opinions. And because we don't know the answer and to the ones that are still, you know, unknown or anomalous. So, you know, there are some cases that I think are interesting, you know, and when I say cases, I mean, ghost, bigfoot, UFOs, or whatever, whatever claim you want to have that's outside the norm,

there are some that are interesting. There are some that are certainly not. Not everything is real out there. And it comes down to the merits of each of the individual cases that are being considered. Each of the claims, like as far as like in Grand Tower with UFOs, Ghost, Bigfoot, they're all subjective. I'll stop that.

They're all subjective. And some cases are stronger than others. Some witnesses and stories are more legitimate than others. You know, we're sort of dealing with a lot of, there's a lot of lack of evidence beyond, you know, the anecdotal. So we have to take what we can get information-wise, and we have to parse it out in the proper, honest way, as to, you know, what we have. And all the information that we can get on cases and pieces of evidence, you know, that's how we're able to measure the likelihoods of what are the correct interpretations.

You know, and extreme interpretations are going to require a lot of extreme premises to be fulfilled in order for that to be achieved. So there's a lot of philosophical issues relative to, you know, what truly is skepticism within, you know, these paranormal subjects. I think it depends. I have been called a skeptic. I've been called a believer. People ask me, you know, what do you believe with this case or that case? And that's the way you have to look at it.

You have to look at it case by case, story by story. piece of evidence by piece of evidence. Some stuff I'm very skeptical of. Some stuff I have no problem debunking because it's worthy of debunking because it's not true. There are correct interpretations that you can get based upon the evidence. And there's a lot of stuff out there that you have to sort of sit through.

And being skeptical, being critical, being critical, looking at all of these, not with a judgment so much as, you know, trying to get the information to make a determination. That's what we need to look at. And you know, that's one of the reasons why I like working with Michael

is because I come across these characters in the world of the weird, as I like to call it, that they're, I kind of feel like hopefully this doesn't happen. you, Ryan. But I feel like people, when they're in these subjects over a period of time, they start to lose that skepticism, right? And they, like, everything starts to connect for them. Like, this is proof, this is proof. This is proof. And Michael's not like that. Michael, you know,

hey, Michael, what do you think of this? Oh, that's fake. You know, and then he'll tell me why. And then he'll let me know. But it's just my opinion. Yeah, I understand that. We're all speculating. Yeah. I'm speculating, you know. But I like the fact that it's not. I don't know. I like the fact that it's not like, oh, yeah, that happened.

And we need to talk about that. You know, it's there's some knowledge there and like, you know, just a good head on that shoulder where not everything is fact, you know. And you got to kind of look at these things individually to see if it's real. or if there's something substance there or not, you know? Oh, yeah. I'm actually a skeptic. I want everything to be real. I believe in the paranormal more than anything, but I don't even like messing with it. My favorite subject is Bigfoot. I'm 85% believer, depending on what day of the week it is, type of thing. And so I know UFOs are real. I'm not an alien believer, though. So that's where I sit. So I'm all over the place with it. I'm a... I'm a...

fan. You know, if anything else, I'm a huge fan. Um, so, you know. Yeah, we need those feds, Joe, for sure. And, um, you know, for it. And I love, I love Michael and I have been friends for a long time. And there's no denying that when he gets on Twitter, um, there people come out in droves to crucify the man. And I sit back and I watch these debates that people like Michael and other, what would you even call people like you or I, Michael, maybe like a open-minded skeptic or a skeptical believer? I don't know. I'm a researcher.

I've been a researcher for 47 years. Yeah. And I have the receipts. So some people view this topic through a very particular lens of their own experience. My experience began in 1978, every day since. So I have a different interpretation of this subject as well as a lot of these subjects. Some people take that as like an arrogance sort of thing, but I'm an old UFO guy. I'm a Gen Xer.

I am going to communicate how I want. I have researched a lot of these subjects. I know a lot of these subjects. I am going to give my opinion on things. things. My ultimate goal, and I've been on Twitter mostly as a form of activism, pretty much in the past five or six years. I don't want to derail or movie or start a fight or get political or anything like that. There's a lot of that going on. But Twitter is that sphere within this current era of this subject, where a lot of activism and communication is. is going on. You know, that's,

that's sort of the area of focus. A lot of the social media. So I try to, myself and a few others try to do some counter activism to do a lot of the political stuff that's going on. And by counteractivism, we mean, you know,

like euphology, like promotion of uphology. I am a UFO reformer. That's, that's my, focus within my activist realm. But I'm also a researcher. I do research every day. I archive, I collect, I get into cases in detail and find out GPS positions. And I have this big map database system that I'm building. And I work behind the scenes with a lot of people,

you know, people that you don't see on Twitter, because Twitter is, you know, a very, There's not a lot of researchers on Twitter. Like serious, Dave Marler is not on there. Jan Aldrich, you know, Rick, Hillberg, all these like legends, you know, are kind of avoiding that. So it's the idea that that is

the whole of the subject, I think, is sort of off. And by activism has been to encourage education because I think if you're going to profess to be a proponent or an expert or an advocate for a subject, you should probably know the subject. And this is an 80, 90, 100-year-old subject. And it's, I think, legitimately worthy of a degree as a multidisciplinary subject that crosses all different boundaries, you know, because it has a history and personalities and literature and cultural, political movements, influence, all this stuff is undeniable.

So my goal is the promotion of euthology. I consider myself a defender of ephology. You know, there are invisible colleges, but there are also other groups of people that look to defend euthology, meaning the study of this subject, unmanipulated, honest, open, considerate of all the different ideas. Respectful in the discourse, oh my goodness, wouldn't that be great if we could get back to some collegial discourse

where we're not flaming and attacking each other over UFOs, people threatening and attacking people over UFOs is the most ridiculous thing. And it's also frightening when you put that conspiracy stuff into it and all the cults of personalities. So we need to keep an eye for this. You know, I remember Heaven's Gate. I remember all the MJ12 stuff. I remember the hype from alien autopsies and, you know, all the other big things, you know, when TV shows had programs and it was the day of disclosure.

The day of disclosure has been going on since the 70s, you know. Longest day in my life. It's a subject. It's a subject. And you have to love the subject. And if you don't love the subject, then you're not really in it for the subject. Absolutely. And this is a broad subject.

You know, I have learned that UFOs and Bigfoot and all this stuff are sort of a, not the same cause necessarily, but they're all part of the same subject. Mysteries. There's things we don't know. There's things in the world that people are claiming that are extraordinary. And even if some of them are true, then. there are paradigms to be considered. And how do we get to those?

How do we go beyond the speculation to find out what some of the causal sources are, you know, without getting trapped, without becoming cults or being controlled and manipulated? It's their concerns. But enough of my rant. No, not at all, man. No, I'm glad we got a lot of this out of the way at the beginning because it's very important. Like there are almost like religious undertones that creep up in these worlds, whether it's UFOs or the supernatural. And it can be harming to some people, you know, but it can also be a very, like you said, beautiful, mysterious thing to pursue. So I guess I kind of want to, I want to dive into the meat of the documentary itself.

Now, we've sort of teased it, but the Grand Tower UFO event that occurred. Can we sort of break that down for some of the budding euphologists who have never heard of this case? And yeah, whoever wants to take that, can you sort of walk us through the Grand Tower UFO incident? Hey, everyone, Ryan Sprague here, host of Somewhere in the Skies. If you've ever thought about supporting us, we have great, two easy options for you right now. If you listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, you can click the subscribe button at the top of your Apple feed. Or you can join our Patreon at patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Both of these options give you the same benefits, early access to the main

show, bonus episodes and content, and priority to ask our guests, your listener questions. So, to Help support Somewhere in the Skies. Click that subscribe button on Apple or visit patreon.com slash somewhere skies. Thank you so much for your support. And keep looking up. To set everything up, in 1973 in America,

especially, you know, in the Midwest, was crazy. There were, it's called the Year of the Humanites, because people were seeing a lot of, lot of strange creatures, beings, cryptids, aliens, metalmen. They're seeing flying saucers of all different kinds of variety all over the place, in places like Piedmont, Missouri, where in March and April you had literally entire

townsworth of people in central Missouri there seeing UFOs, but you know, flashing lights, like close encounters type stuff. Even before there was close encounters. The drive in at Piedmont had 500 people have a mass

sighting at one time. You've seen a few people report on this, and these are all from, you know, historical records. Jerome Clark wrote an article for Fate Magazine back in 74 that laid out

some of the stuff that was going on within Piedmont during this time period. It became UFO capital of America for a time period. And Cronkite, I think, did some stuff on it. Hinek came down with Ted Phillips, looked into the Piedmont area. It was sort of nuts.

and it was actually going on there and over into Grand Tower and other places. All of this throughout this year, you got, you know, Coyne Mansfield, you got Pascagoula, you got all sorts of things. There are documentaries made just on 1973. And what was going on? Was it an invasion? Was it some sort of mass hysteria thing? was it an extreme theory like somebody laced the water with LSD? It's all out there, you know, everybody trying to explain all of these different claims

and all of these different mysteries under one umbrella. But it is interesting that a lot of this all happened within this time period. And in this time period over Grand Tower, Illinois, you know, a small town on the Mississippi, not too far from Piedmont, you know, just across the Mississippi, there was a power plant. And some UFOs were seen over that during a subsequent period and over the area. And there were reports of military jets chasing these off. And we go into some of the details there within the article in the film. And we go into, there are.

originating reports. I did look into it, and it is a legitimate thing. And we know it's a legitimate thing because, you know, Joe was able to track down witnesses and peripheral witnesses and people to confirm all this. So it's not one of those, you know, Pulp Fiction magazine made up sort of things. This is the research of Jerome Clark.

That is the basis. That was one of the things that I put on the map there, along with all of the other things within my GPS positioning that denoted patterns. But this is a, it's a great unknown story. I'll let Joe go into more of the details as to which witnesses we were able to talk to. But needless to say, Joe did some, you'd sign a ground investigative UFO. journalism and track down witnesses from a 1973 UFO event. Wow.

Yeah, like out of any of my films, this is the first one I felt like I'm an actual researcher. I know that's funny. I don't consider myself a researcher, but I'm just like I talked to you a couple of the witnesses who, so they're the kids of, there was two main witnesses, Oscar and Willis. Well, the eyewitnesses I talked to were,

the kids of Willis. And you can see all that in the documentary. But they weren't talked to because, well, one of the children, she was 13 at the time. So I don't know if her dad was just protecting her or they're just like, well, that's a 13-year-old girl. We don't need to interview her type of thing. And then the Willis, her brother, he was in his 20s. So I'm not sure why they never talked to him.

but what's funny about their interviews is their interviews matched up. They had no idea what the other one told me. As a matter of fact, the sister, who is Phyllis, she didn't even, she contacted me several years ago and said, told me specific things. And me, I don't have a knowledge. I don't have a UFO history knowledge. I just don't. I'm specific to cases.

So she told me things. And I'm like, okay. and then she kind of fell off the map. She didn't really want to participate. Then she found out I was interviewing her brother. And she's like, well, cat's out of the bag. I guess I'm going to interview too, right? So anyway, they did interviews separately from each other, lined up perfectly.

Like, I'm like, okay, these, I believe you guys. I'm not saying it was aliens. They saw something 100%. No doubt in my mind. And it's just there's details that were told that, I mean, Clark didn't know some of these details because, of course, they didn't ask the 13-year-old girl what was happening. So there's like, I'm like, oh, my God, I found out stuff that these esteemed euthologists, there are researchers, didn't know. You know, I'm like, heck, heck, yeah, you know what I mean? But so that was pretty fun.

That was pretty eye-opening. And yeah, so again, you'll see this in the documentary. But if you don't, if you don't, these people are older folk, they don't give two craps if you believe them or not. So that's why I believe them. They don't care. They don't. They're not trying to get famous.

They're also, they're also Mississippi River folk. Yeah. Yeah. They don't care. No. They don't care what you think. I respect that. I really do. Yeah. And, you know, it was so refreshing again to see firsthand witness. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just so important. So much of euphology nowadays. And this goes even into, you know, all these intelligence people now coming forward, saying like, this happened, this happened. Oh, well, did you see it? No, but I talked to a guy who knew a guy who, you know, once owned a dog who barked once and said,

that he saw this. And I'm just like, come on, guys. So again, it was so cool to see actual firsthand witnesses of such an interesting case. Like, again, we have to stress the United States Air Force came in the form of people like Jay Allen Heineck and Project Bluebook to actually investigate this. Because, again, this is one of those startling cases that happen over a nuclear facility, a power plant. That's very important, too. Well, let's correct that there. It wasn't nuclear.

Oh, okay. Apologies. But there are questions asked to, during these visits, if it was connected somehow to an energy system or like some sort of siphoning or whatever. There's more to research with this case. You know, there's probably records out there. If there's an incident, there's got to be like incident records within the Illinois bureaucracy somewhere, right?

That company doesn't exist anymore, I don't think. It's called CIPS. But there was like government oversight and some of the requirements or reports that they had to maintain within the state of Illinois. So there's, and if they had security incidents or they had incidents where there was, you know, energy siphoned off. Right. So there's testimony I have that didn't make the film because these people didn't want to participate.

You know, you can't force someone to be in your documentary, right? So, but two different people, unrelated, their parents or somebody, I believe it was like their fathers. Again, they're not related. Worked at the power plant and told me that their dad said that the gauges were. spinning and everything kind of shut down and then this UFO left after it was chased off or whatever happened took a while for everything to boot back up so that's where i think some of the speculation of power siphoning is coming from i mean uh it's it's i'm considering actually writing a book because there's so much more information that didn't make the film be just because

again you can't force people to and if you put everything in there's a little bit and if you put everything in there it's going to be a three hour movie well who wants to watch a three hour documentary you know and keep in mind all of this is going on like right and right inside of you know within sight of grand tower you know where there's a hill where there was a haunted house with a ghost and there's a gas pipe kissing going across the river you know it's like one of the few gas pipes literally a gas pipe coming out of the devil's you know kitchen is what they call it And looking over all that is this, you know, this tower rock, this weird paranormal feature that has been part of like native history and tradition that, you know, goes back as a sacred spot that may have even had, you know, like a cross atop at the time of the conquistadors to mark, you know, their northern exploration up towards the river. You know, you got this.

And then all within just a few miles, you have haunted places, other UFO landing, spook lights, haunted cemeteries. You got your Murphysboro Mug Monster. This is the, you know, the big muddy monster. This is the same area. It's the same locale where people are. seeing a giant hairy cryptid also. Everything. In 1973.

Yeah. Well, and you know, the year and the place itself sort of become a character in your documentary too, like all the things going on at the world at the time. You know, you had like you know, the idea of like psychedelics for becoming

a thing and, you know, the hippie movement and new age, whatever. You name it. All the woo. It was all there, it was all happening. So it makes sense that, like, all of these different anomalous things would almost feed off of that or be birthed from that as well.

And Michael, you did mention, you know, sort of the Native American aspect to this, the supernatural. Is that something you guys could expand on just a little bit in terms of what you covered in terms of possibly ghosts or the supernatural or maybe even some of these stories that came from the Native Americans. Is that something we could touch on? I think Joe could probably,

we had our experts, you know, within the film sort of addressed that. And some of them touch on those supernatural elements. By the way, I didn't get to say that, you know, these researchers are some of the best. You know, I mean, Steve Ward is probably, one of the best old old school OG cryptid UFO researchers in the Midwest. You know, anybody that can get into, you know, the 1930s, 40s, 50s, pulp origins,

you know, he's a shaver mystery expert, you know, and a keel expert. And, yeah, he's a great resource. That's why he's, you know, helping run the moth. Man Museum because he knows the subject. So to have him and all the other experts, Chad is a phenomenal writer. Kevin Lee Nelson, I think, is probably one of the greatest on the ground researchers, period.

He travels around the country visiting more than me, you know, like probably 10 times as many places as I've been, you know, visiting haunted spots. and places where there's cryptids and monsters and all that stuff to document it. And Grand Tower is one of those fascinating sort of places. And there's a lot of supernatural stuff. I think when you start to look at these places where there's weird stuff going on, the preponderance of them are going to be haunted places,

where there's haunted claims. And those are easy to position. because they're localized. You know, the folklore is attached to a location, a haunted house or whatever. Grand Tower has several of those. It has, you know, a folklore tale of a riverboat daughter who had a forbidden love with a riverboat captain,

and it was forbidden by the father. And the house that was overlooking the river, she threw herself to her death. And her ghost haunts that area. That overlooks the power plant. You know, so it's sort of interesting to see those things. You can't deny the spiritual connectivity, you know, just from the fact that ghost anomalies are anomalies.

And they're the most common. And so spiritual interpretations in origins of these as causal and as I think are something to look at. And I think our experts offer quite a bit. I think Zelia is probably one of the best experts out there also, especially with being able to connect some of these esoteric spiritual interpretations with, you know, what may be legitimate phenomena and what we can speculate as. as to what might be some of the causal elements behind them. Joe, did you want to touch it all on the supernatural side of what you guys research? So, again, there's things that didn't make the film that we could talk about. I would like to mention that Michael showed me a map that he got from his buddy at Southern,

is it Southern Illinois University? S.I.U. but it was the it's a it was a map of all the mounds in the area and you could just you could just follow the Mississippi River and see all the mounds there and we kind of touch make a statement in the film about you know how you know there's this old trope oh it's a haunted burial Indian burial mound type of thing but it is really interesting I mean we're southern Illinois that's a shawnee national forest right so there were many native tribes in Illinois.

And I mean, you could follow these mound builders along the Mississippi River. Cahokia Mounds is not too far from there. It's like one of the, they considered it the largest mound civilization in the United States, I believe, at one time. You know, so there's like dozens of mounds around the Grand Tower area. we kind of concentrate on one because it's accessible. There's a lot on private property and type of, you know,

things like that. A lot of flat burials, Native American burials around there. So Tower Rock was so what's funny about Tower Rock, that's what the city is named after. Grand Tower is named supposedly after Tower Rock, which is this feature that rises out of the Mississippi River. Yeah.

Well, during the filming, I did some research, and there was actually multiple tower rocks there. And the army came in and blew them apart. I don't know, you know, probably for passage purposes, but, you know, this was considered a sacred area. I talked to someone who's a photographer of petroglyphs in the area. He told me that there was this, some of the native culture. believe there was a giant snake that lived in the tower. You know, there was whirlpools around the tower. And he like took pictures of a snake, you know,

carving in a cave close by there. So there's a lot of strong native history in the area. And we touch upon this mound that has this, again, you know, when you live in these small communities, they have, they're going to have their folklore and their tale. and you know you see this burial mound there so there's a lot of stories of hauntings around the mound um you know just anomalous lights that they see in the area all the time uh things they didn't make the film is like people see lights orbs hovering over this geographical feature in the town called

the devil's backbone it's just kind of rises uh this like spine that rises along the Mississippi River there. It's kind of a weird thing. I don't know how it's formed. I don't know if it's tectonic plates or what, but they see lights over the hill. And, you know, there's a fault line that goes through there. People think fault lines can cause energy sources

that produce lights, you know, that goes through the area. There's a tale of, I don't know if Michael talked about this, but, you know, they have tales of a female spirit name Esmeralda that apparently committed suicide there that haunts the area. There's a tale of a wedding party that went out to Tower Rock, and then they came back and tragically died in the river. So their spirits haunt the area. It's a well-known location of pirates.

So the Spanish cleared the pirates out of there, but there's a lot of legends, historical, you know, sightings of ghosts, pirates, pirate ghost, whatever you want to call them. I was hoping we could squeeze pirates into this interview, so thank you. We have several massacres as well. Yeah. We have several devastating floods. I mean, a grand tower, hopefully, you know, people will come and check this place out. and, you know, Grand Tower will benefit from, you know, some people visiting. At one time, like Joe said, there was a ferry there and a restaurant. So, but, you know, like all river towns, they're sort of, you know, they're sort of dying,

mostly because of floods. And this town is flooded multiple times, you know, and so the numbers are dwindling. The town, you know, is certainly going to be smaller numbers in the future. Hopefully we can get people to take an interest in this. And hopefully we can preserve this history. And, yeah. Yeah, that's one thing. Like, you got to be careful as a filmmaker, not trying to exploit people.

You know, these people love this region. It's not like they're sitting here all miserable and, you know, dying and just like looking around going oh we're all weird you know they weren't they weren't called the unluckiest town in america at one yeah right i mean they had that as their title along with all this other stuff you know floods and massacred and weirdness and and you know but they're still there they're still there yeah i mean it's a beautiful area it's it's you know it's one of the best areas in illinois it's it's incredible um as far as like you know I've been in this place in Arizona where there's like these ruins around.

There's a hole in the ground where this air just pours out. It's a spiritual place. You know, so that kind of reminds me of the Grand Tower location where, you know, they, the native people felt like this was a spiritual area, that this was sacred to them. I have heard I have heard like read some accounts and some some books that I've read read about this that you know there was kind of a joy in the fact with the natives that bad things have happened to this area you know not not now but I'm talking about in the past like because they were persecuted the trail the tears is not too far away from this area right and then you know they're moved out of this area people destroy their their sacred, you know, location. And, okay, now bad things are starting to happen. So again, I'm a skeptical guy and all that, but that's part of the legend.

That's part of the lore. You've got to mention that type of stuff, you know? Yeah, for sure. And people believe in it. I mean, who's to say that their beliefs are incorrect? There are certainly things going on. I mean, there's certainly a preponderance of a lot of stuff going on. But there's also legitimate phenomena.

There are riverboat captains that know that that spot has electromagnetic issues. Yeah, so we talked to someone. I'm not going to mention his name, but I said, hey, what about this? Is this true? And I was expecting him to say, no. And he's like, oh, yeah, it's our navigation instruments do not work in this area. that they just they don't communicate and I'm like what what do you think that is and he goes I just think it's the the layout of the land you know it's it's kind of like a curvy area and

there's lots of features around that area you know like cliffs and but isn't that interesting or you have like you always have these weird stories of electromagnetic interference it's true so think about that you know all of the river boats that go up and down to mississippi go past grand tower and all of them have electromagnetic issues due to something geological electromagnetic within

the area. So for me to triangle maybe. Yeah it is. Well, that's kind of the last thing I wanted to touch on with you guys because again, we don't want to give away too much, but you do pose some theories towards the end of the film, which I found very fascinating too,

whether it's fault lines or the geology of the area, electromagnetism. you bring up what could be considered kind of a controversial theory that has been speculated in different areas throughout the world, whether it's Stonehenge, Rendelsham Forest, the pyramids in Egypt, this idea of the 37th parallel. And I know there are people rolling their eyes right now, but there's also a lot of people being like, yeah, it's real, it's real. And it just so happens that Grand Tower is an area that does allegedly fall on the 37th. parallel. So what do you guys think? Do you put any stock into that or should we let the film speak for itself? I think we talk about it and yeah, I'm a mapper and you know, I map

right, you know, anomalous locations and you do see patterns. I don't think you necessarily see a 37th parallel pattern that goes beyond, you know, just say population. You know, within that range, there's a lot of people living within that range. In order to have an anomalous claim, you have to have people to make it. So, you know, there's a lot of stuff along that, but you can pick other, you know, latitudes, longitudes or whatever. You can find similar sort of things if you look for them deep enough. You know, the whole idea that there's like electromagnetic lay lines surrounding the earth, that somehow connect a lot of paranormal phenomena together,

that there are window areas or places where whatever due to the phenomenon, phenomenological nature of the geological location, maybe there are portals or windows or passageways to other realities or other ways of perceiving or non-human intelligence. that can manipulate perception or different dimensions or, you know, hallucinations, who knows what. You know, there's a lot of different things that can be connected to, you know, whatever the causal element is there. And you do have to make the causal element connect to all of these. But we're pretty much speculating with a lot of this.

I don't think too many people have claimed portal openings within this area beyond, you know, spook-like type stuff. So I don't know. There are other places like Skinwalker Ranch and Marley Woods. I've been to the Marley Woods. I've researched there. There are quite a few places outside of that 37th parallel. I don't see why a human, you know, longitude or latitude thing would have a relevance, you know, to some sort of natural connected phenomena.

I think that is mostly like media sort of thing trying to find those patterns. They're interesting, but I think you need to take some of that stuff out that, you know, maybe is, is not connected to to think you know like the 411 stuff I don't think necessarily connects with that I think it's interesting

when we do have things like mounds that connect to it you know those patterns I think are intriguing it's all about finding these patterns and I'm not too convinced by 37th or but I am convinced that there are that there are hot spots that there are but as a fan

I love the idea of the 37th parallel. I don't have a dog in the fight. I don't care what people think. I love the triangle. I love the permuted triangle, but I don't think it's nice. Good point. You look at the Bridgewater triangle, the Devil's Triangle, the Bermuda Triangle. We like to put shapes and patterns, like Michael said, humans love patterns.

We are creatures of making sense of things through pattern. And when you can make it a triangle, that seems to be the way to go with it. when in reality, you know, you're just kind of, I guess, almost limiting the phenomenology and the anomalous things happening. I think our, I think when we say grand tower, we, we're not necessarily talking about the town. I think we're using Tower Rocks right as our center. Yeah. Because it's an interesting feature that sort of, you know, is a good way to, to broaden out and look. But, but I think from the grand tower feature, if you.

you expand out like about 10 miles, there's just so much within that small area, and it's not a heavily populated area. You can go to like New Orleans and find 80 haunted locations, but a lot of that is going to be tied to the history and the culture, not necessarily anything legitimately phenomenological. Or maybe I'm wrong. But when you, you know, but that's a high population area. So you're going to have greater stories and claims just because there's a longer history. This is a small, small town. It's always been a small town. And this area is actually pretty small. There's a university nearby, but that's sort of the boundaries of where all of these folklore tales that cross different anomalous fields all within this one area. That's what makes an interesting. And that's where we can speculate. The Missouri, Illinois triangle. There we go.

Joe's coined it. All right. Second to last question for you guys. From each of you, what do you hope people will take away from the film? Now, you know, I left feeling really invigorated

and wanting to go there, which again, I think is like what any good film about a specific location should do. So, Joe, let's start with you. What do you hope people will take away from your film?

Yeah. So again, I mentioned I'm a huge fan. So I hope I made a film that I think I like. I made a film that I think if I didn't make this film and someone else did, I think, this is a cool film. That's what I'm hoping, you know, people will see that, like just fans of this type of, you know, subject matter and won't be bored by it. you know what I mean?

I think, I hope they look at it and also kind of think, you know, this is a sincere film. It doesn't sound like, like these people in here are just making stuff up or, you know, it's not like,

again, I watch all these shows on TV, so I'm not doggone on anyone, but a lot of these shows are just, let's just exploit it and will make things happen that are not really, happening. I'm hoping people can look at this and go, I think there's something really here. I like how Kevin mentions in the film and he kind of mentions this in one of his books, too,

that, you know, some people see this stuff and are scared by it. Other people experience this stuff and it kind of charges them. And I've talked to people where they're like, that live down there that like, I like this feeling. I like this weirdness down here, you know? So I hope people can see that that that passion for this subject matter comes across in the film and and you know they can at least enjoy it and maybe give them this sense of wonder that basically that I've had since as a child about these stories that you know people always say why do you why do people mess with bigfoot that's that's bull crap it's like why can't we have fun why can't we just have fun with these subjects. Like, and they are important to a community, you know, it, it does affect the community.

If you really want to get into that, it 100% affects the community. These people have not so much Grand Tower, but there's a big muddy monster festival that people enjoy. Why can't we enjoy these subject matters? So I hope people can at least enjoy the subject matter. And please call it UFO, not UAP, people. We are UFOers through it through. Like, before I get to your answer, buddy, Joe, I have to ask, who was your graphic artist for your animations? They were gorgeous in this film. Let's shut them out. So I did most of them, actually.

So I did all of them, but three of the drawings. And the other guy was Mark Randall. Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he did the Bigfoot stuff. And he also did the depiction of the Enfield horror. creature. So I, but like I've been getting into animation lately. And I know it's not like

Disney quality or anything like that, but I kind of, I don't even know what the style is called, but I kind of like went for like a little bit of a retro look and a retro field trying to go with the time period, you know, but I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm a graphic designer. So I kind of know how to do some stuff, just enough to be dangerous, not enough to be a master. Hey, well, it was great, man. It added so much. to the film. Michael, what do you hope people will take away from Grand Talley? Well, it's, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there that you can consume within these subjects. And I think ultimately everybody's going to see this at some point. And, and I think

people are going to be entertained by it. And I think people are going to be intrigued by it. And I think it's, it's a reboot in a ways to show us that, you know, we can get get back to the basic lore and the basic questions and consider these mysteries, consider what's going on at Grand Tower. I hope that people look into it, they're intrigued by it, and they want to look into it more. And I hope that they engage in research. And some people are encouraged to do even further, deeper research. You know, maybe go after some of those records that I was talking about.

maybe go after some other witnesses, there's probably other evidence out there. I think when you get to these UFO cold cases, which I'm really fascinated with, there's a lot of information out there that is starting to disappear. And as researchers, it's incumbent upon us to try to find that data and keep it so that we can study it and consider it. I hope people look at this and they want to ask questions. I think there's too many, you know, docs out there that claim to have the answers, but really aren't asking the right questions. And I think this encourages us to ask questions.

And I think it excites us, you know, I think it interests us without being sensational. I've always said, and I said that to Joe and Seth and others, over the years that you don't need to sensationalize. You don't need to go overboard with your graphics and all this stuff to try to sell. Because these are really fascinating things on their own. And I think the more honest you are, you know, with how they're represented, the more honest you are with the real stories and the accounts and the way things looked. I think Joe's graphics were on par because, you know, we need to get back to that.

Because if these claims are evidence, then they need to be accurate. And they need to be as accurate as possible, not biased in a certain way to look a certain way. I think Joe was able to balance that artistically really well with the interpretations of what people saw. I think that's refreshing, and I think that's the sort of thing that will get the hook. The reality, you know, these things are just so much more on their own. If you get into the details of these cases, they encourage research. And that's what I want to do. I want to encourage research. Absolutely, man. The new generation's coming up. And I think it's films like this that will really help.

A lot of the younger people know where this all really started to become a thing, to become a field of research, you know, the study of UFOs and high strangeness. We cannot forget that is a huge portion of this film as well, a film that I cannot recommend enough. Thank you so much. Of course, Joe. Obvious last question.

Do we know when and where we will be able to see Grand Tower UFOs? It's going to be a surprise. No. So I have a distributor. So that distributor will be getting it on like Tooby and like Roku and just a host of other streaming services. But before it does that, I'm waiting on this other large company to, and it's a process with them. And I can't even tell you the name of the company because you're, not supposed to advertise before it's on it.

But let's just say if you were in the Amazon jungle, that's a prime location to watch a video. So, but so I'm waiting on that company to release the film. Unfortunately, you know, I mean, a lot of people submit there. So it just takes a long time to review. It's going to pop up here within a month. Okay. And then, and then we'll go from there. Like the movie's complete.

We have DVDs and all that. but we're just waiting for it to launch on the streaming services, waiting patiently for that to happen. Yeah. I know that feeling. Trust me. It was a kickstarter-backed project, which I encourage, you know, because it maintains creative control and control of story.

Exactly. Because when we get to the corporate realm, it's a different thing. It's a different product they're trying to produce with a different focus, and it's very limited. and there's things that they're going to want happen, you know, right before the commercial breaks and all that. But we don't have to worry about that. And this is a great project.

This is a second project I've worked on with Joe. And, you know, like I said, I've worked with Seth and others. And I think this is a good way to do these type of documentaries. This was a great run, creative run for me and Joe here. I think we'll probably collaborate on other things in the future. I'm in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. So there are some, there's a tale here that we may look at. And maybe do a bigger documentary on, you know, a certain saucer incident.

I think that's so subtle with your Cape Girardos and your Amazon jungles. I love that. That's so cool. Well, again, yes, we should also mention this was a kicker. starter campaign and that's so important. You guys, you told the story you wanted to tell and you gave justice

to all of these witnesses and individuals in this town and abroad who experienced these things. So again, I cannot recommend it enough. I can't wait for it to start streaming and I am encouraging every single one of you to go watch it for sure. And I know this will not be the last time

I have you guys on the show from what it sounds like. So thank you. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Thank you, Joe, for coming on Summer in the Sky Studio. Appreciate you. This has been a production of Lionsgate Sound. Please rate, review, and subscribe wherever possible. Thank you for listening.