Somewhere in the Skies - Just Another Tin Foil Hat | Sandown Sam: The Phantom Spaceman

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

In May of 1973, two children came across a truly bizarre clown-like creature on the Isle of Wight. Was it a cryptid? A ghost? A spaceman? Or... just a weird-ass clown? Subscribe to Just Another Tin Foil Hat on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JustAnotherTinFoilHat Book Ryan on CAMEO at: https://bit.ly/3kwz3DO Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/somewhereskies ByMeACoffee: http://www.buymeacoffee.com/UFxzyzHOaQ PayPal: [e-mail] Discord: https://discord.gg/NTkmuwyB4F Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ryansprague.bsky.social Twitter: https://twitter.com/SomewhereSkies Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/somewhereskiespod/ Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/Sprague51/ Order Ryan’s new book: https://a.co/d/4KNQnM4 Order Ryan’s older book: https://amzn.to/3PmydYC Store: http://tee.pub/lic/ULZAy7IY12U Read Ryan’s articles at: https://medium.com/@ryan-sprague51 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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join zilia as she walks us through some of the most bizarre UFO cases and incidents of high strangeness. Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'm just another tinfoil hat. Welcome to my show. Today, we are going to be discussing the fantastically freakish case of the Sandown Clown. Yes, you heard me right, clown, or ghost or spaceman, or, you know, whatever he actually was, he called himself Sam. So one Tuesday afternoon in May of 1973, a seven-year-old girl pseudonymous would refer to as fay. Yes, they literally chose probably one of the most perfect names you could possibly choose for anyone involved

in something really truly bizarre happening, especially on the Isle of Wight. But anyway, a young girl, Sudanisably referred to as Faye, and an unnamed boy of about the same age, were walking near Lake Common in Sandown on the Isle of White, England. When they heard this strange noise,

they compared to an ambulance siren or an odd wailing. More curious than cautious, they decided to follow the noise, across a golf course, and through a hedge, into a swampy meadow near the sand down airport. When they hit the meadow, the noise stopped. So at this point, they were actually crossing a little wooden footbridge, which spanned a creek,

when a hand in a blue glove popped out from under the bridge, followed by a truly odd creature. And when I say truly odd, I mean strap on your seatbelts, because it was truly odd. They described the creature, which will give itself a name in a second here, as standing about seven feet tall and had, much like many hairy humanoid reports, No discernible neck, rather the head sat firmly in the shoulders. However, unlike most hairy humanoid reports, this thing was not in fact covered in hair,

but in addition to the blue gloves, had a truly bizarre get-up. It wore white pants, a green tunic with a red collar, and a yellow pointed hood, which connected to the collar. It had only three fingers on each blue-loved hand and three toes on its bare feet. And, you know, I wish I could tell you that its face was really, you know, kind of nonscript, nothing to write home about, but actually that too was something. to see. From the illustration included in the British UFO Research Association Journal, it looks like he had a flat, round white face with triangles for eyes, a square for the nose,

and these unmoving yellow lips. Round marks were on each cheek and also some red hair on its forehead. To top it all off, a black knob protruded from the top of the hood, and on either side of the face were these wooden antennae, for lack of a better word. Wooden slats also protruded from the sleeves and the pant legs. Oh, and in addition to all, this, his clothes looked all ripped and tattered. So again, as I said, truly, truly odd. Now, when this super bizarre figure first emerged from under the bridge, it was actually holding onto a book, which had then dropped in the water, retrieved, and then hopped along in a weird fashion to a windowless metal hut nearby. So the two children, you know, Faye and no name, I guess we're just

kind of not impressed with this thing. You know, they didn't run away, they didn't run after it. They just sort of continued wandering around much as they had been. But when they were about 50 yards away, this thing showed up near the metal hut, this time with a microphone. The wailing noise immediately started up again and frightened the young boy so badly that he began running off, which I'm going to take a moment here and say that's a very sensible thing to do. Now, then this thing began speaking into the microphone, and its voice showed up right next to the children. It said, Hello, are you still there in such a friendly tone that Thay and her friend decided to go and talk to the guy. As they drew closer, he decided to use a different medium to communicate,

a notebook. He wrote a jumble of words and then pointed to each word in order, which Fay then spoke out loud. The message was, hello, and I am all colors, Sam. So as the kids move even closer, and I'm just going to stop here a minute and say that this is one double feature of a super bad idea, Sam began talking normally. And by normally, I mean without the mic or notebook, though this is about as abnormal as you can possibly get. He was speaking without moving his lips. So apparently as an icebreaker, the kids asked him why his clothes were all messed up, and he replied that it was the only set, which doesn't really explain what happened to them,

but, you know, whatever. So then they ventured to ask if he was really a man, to which Sam replied, no. The next logical question was, are you a ghost? To which Sam said, well, not really, but I am in an odd sort of way. They asked, well, what are you then? and he said, you know. Which really isn't that helpful at all, really. And also, too, after christening himself, Sam,

he then went on to say that he actually had no name, that there were more things like him, and that he was frightened of people. I mean, come on, no name, Sam, these kids are not your therapist. So now this is where the story, though, becomes actually scary. Sam invited the kids into his hut, which they just followed him to and then had to crawl through a flap in order to enter.

Inside were two stories. was downright homey with an electric heater, wooden furniture, and blue and green wallpaper with a dial pattern on it. The upper floor was smaller with less headroom and a metallic floor. Once inside, he told the kids a variety of things, such as the fact that he had an additional camp on the mainland and that he could clean the river water in order to drink it. He also took off his hood to reveal that he had these round white ears and thin brown hair, which kind of conflicts with the fringe of red hair on his forehead. That's never really explained exactly what that transition is. He also told them that he ate berries, which he gathered

in the late afternoons, and then presumably kind of showed them how he ingested them. He took a berry and placed it in his ear, and then nodded his head forward. The berry vanished from the ear and then reappeared at one of his eyes. He repeated the nodding motion, and the berry ended up in his mouth. Yeah, as I said, this is a truly freakish case. So the kids talked to Sam for another half hour, said their goodbyes, and immediately ran to tell the nearest adult that they had seen a ghost. Said first adult that they encountered was a workman who simply laughed at them. So apparently, the children came to the conclusion that Sam was either one, a ghost, or two, someone dressed up.

Now, this raises a few more questions that we will get to in a minute. Among other things, Faye claimed that the whole time there were actually two workmen nearby repairing a post. They seemed to take no notice of the creepy clown ghost alien thing, or the fact that it was talking with two small children. Now, Fay's father, Mr. Y, claims that he did indeed return to the area to look for the metal shed to no avail. Unfortunately, this was three weeks after the instance, so it is within the bounds of possibility that a shed could have been moved. So why three weeks later? Well, for the simple reason, that Faye didn't tell her father about the experience until early June.

So there is a lot to analyze from this experience, but before that, as super truly bizarre as Sam the Ghost Clown is, There's actually more to this story. Now, Mr. Wye seems to have simply had a knack for anomalies, which according to the British UFO Research Association Journal, began in October of 1970. While driving from the town of Shanklin, Mr. Wye passed through the village of Braiding when he became aware of a multi-lit aircraft flying low over the nearby swamps.

Swab gas, I presume. So he stopped his vehicle and watched as the object continued over the river Yarr. He said that it looked like a wide ring of approximately seven bright, large, spherical lights, which he said looked each like a bright red cherry. Interspersed by these turquoise and white lights, the whole thing was absolutely soundless. He continued on his way and the object did as well, soaring parallel to his vehicle until it maneuvered across the road and then dropped behind him, which then it started moving just kind of aimlessly and slowly while reducing an apparent size. The number of

lights had decreased to four, and these rotated slowly. Now Mr. Y actually beckoned to this thing with his flashlight for about ten minutes, and the whole time it just sort of moved slowly back and forth. I guess, getting bored with this light anomaly that he was, you know, kind of communicating with, he simply continued on his way to his friend's house. So when he got there, he told his friend what was up in the sky and they both went outside to take a look at it, and the lights were indeed still visible behind the treetops. Eventually, they were lost to view. Now, over the next couple of years, however, Mr. Wye claimed to see single balls of light, which he said would sometimes follow him along, while other times

remained stationary, but just nearby. However, a far more dramatic occurrence occurred in March of 1972, a little over a year before his daughter's infamous experience. Between 9 and 10 in the evening, Mr. Y was sitting on a cliff at Compton Bay when he saw these two points of yellow light, which he referred to as eyes, about 40 feet away glaring up at him just from under the surface of the water. So, super weird indeed, though nowhere near as dramatic as the infamous Sam, the ghost clown. Back to Sam. Truly, there is so much to discuss from this account,

so I guess I'm going to begin at the beginning. And that is with the odd whaling noise. Now, of course, that's what initially attracted the attention of the two children. And that's how they found Sam, the ghost clown, was because they were following this siren-like whale. Now, a couple of things to say about this. One, the wailing noise, you know,

is really heavily associated with all types of paranormal phenomena. Even though I will kind of say that what it immediately conjures up, for me at least, is definitely like, you know, haunted houses and ghost activity. And so the really interesting thing, though, too, is that, and this is something I've kind of been noticing, just pouring through many of these cases. It seems as though there's almost a preliminary event to kick off encounters with entities. And very often, it's a light anomaly.

You know, researchers such as John Heel, Patrick Harper, Jenny Rambles, have kind of pointed out that they, you know, they'd almost feel like there is some sort of priming that occurs with these light anomalies. However, the other thing is that many of these encounters also begin with a strange noise. And very often it is either like, you know, a wailing or a whistling, the sound of crying. Of course, too, we have the heavy machinery noises which are associated with poltergeist activity. But my point here is that it really does seem that often encounters with specific entities or figures are ushered in by something that is far more vague, far more difficult to pin down, such as a strange light or strange noise, which makes me almost think that

there is some sort of priming that occurs, whether, you know, with actual, like, visuals or with audio. So it's really interesting to see that the kids were literally led towards this noise, and that's how they found Sam. So also, too, speaking of, you know, the sounds associated with this encounter, the displacement of the voice is absolutely intriguing to me for many reasons, the first of which is the microphone. I mean, so many, you know, really classic kind of UFO entity encounters have these things holding what people say, oh, it looked like some sort of translator, it looked like a microphone. There's this implication that it somehow involves speech. And so here we have Sam the Ghost Clown holding a microphone. Now, the other really interesting thing about that, though, is that when he

initially spoke into it, his voice appeared right next to the two witnesses. And, you know, this kind of voice displacement continued when he even began talking to them and his lips weren't moving. So, again, there's kind of, you know, there's definitely, I mean, there's a million ways you could look at this. And again, I'm just going to say for the record, I don't truly believe that any rules are hard and fast in the paranormal. You know, so, and that this case is definitely no exception to that rule, that there are no rules. But anyway, no, the voice displacement, many UFO entity encounters, you know, the witnesses will say that there was just communication. And sometimes they refer to it as telepathy, whereas other times, you

like in the Simonton encounter, he didn't really nail it down as telepathy. He just said that he knew what they wanted. You know, and so with these kids, the way that they discuss, you know, Sam's voice, it sounds like they were actually hearing it. However, he wasn't actually moving his lips. So was it some form of telepathy or was it just, was it an actual sound that they heard? Because then on the flip side, you know, going away from the more euphological way of looking at this and into kind of more spectral encounters, there are countless. encounters with ghosts where people will have a visual of something, they will see an apparition. And simultaneously, they hear a voice, and usually it's right next to them.

So it's really intriguing that Sam, the ghost clown, kind of falls into, you know, this really perfect example of what we would tend to consider kind of spectral encounters. Youth sports families and fans huddle up. Wherever life takes you, game changer keeps you connected. Stream games live and full HD when you can't be there. Get play-by-play updates right on your phone. and share game highlights with everyone, full bragging rights included. Live the game like never before with Game Changer.

Create your free account today at gc.com. Now, on the flip side, too, though, I mean, the fact that it literally appeared coming from the river underneath a bridge, as the children crossed it, I can really think of no better kind of symbolic metaphor for something emerging from the collective unconscious, you know, to be viewed by these two witnesses. In addition to that, too, you know, also the fact that these kids were so young, and the thing manifested as this clown-like image, I can think of nothing more terrifying than something trying to look friendly, which is kind of exactly what this feels like. You know, even his statement that he was afraid of people, it really kind of seemed as though

he was trying to diminish the perception of, you know, him being ominous or threatening. It seems like he was really trying to make this approach as he's friendly and he kind of needs some help, which is definitely terrifying, in my opinion. Now, the other super weird kind of icon in this case has got to be the fact that Sam first showed up with a book, which he then dropped into the water and then retrieved. Books really show up time and time again in these paranormal encounters. You know, they're associated with men in black, but in this case especially, it really reminds me of the infamous book that was denied Betty Hill at the end of her abduction experience. You know, it's just truly odd that we have, again, this ghost clown showing up with the

them, then also using a notebook to communicate. You know, you just have to wonder if there is, again, you know, something in these particular images that is easier to manipulate for people. It's kind of the vibe that I get, especially the fact that he was writing his messages in a jumbled manner, which then Faye had to put together in the right frame of words. Which, speaking of those words, the message is given to the children from Sam were also very strange, specifically saying, I am all colors. You know, this is kind of, again, I have. going to go on this rickety peer of pure speculation. But immediately when I heard that, the very first thing I thought of was,

I am all colors, the spectrum of colors, you know, what if this is some sort of almost reference to the super spectrum idea? I know that this is super far out. But, you know, it just, there is something about this phenomenon that, to me at least, that does seem to really kind of play around with people's belief systems. Another perfect example that this within this particular occurrence was when they asked him, are you a ghost? And he said, no, I'm not a ghost.

And they were like, well, what are you? And he said, you know. Again, it's almost like, almost a teaser that parts of this phenomenon are sourced in the human psyche. Again, this is pure speculation. It's kind of standing on a rickety peer. But these are just things that occurred to me as I was going through this particular occurrence. So the windowless hut calls to mind many other cases of mystery structures, especially one from the Mothman prophecies. Near Duncan Falls, Ohio, in late October of 1966, a gentleman by the name of Leonard Elmore found a strange. galvanized iron shed with no doors or windows. And as he approached the shed,

he heard this disembodied but otherwise normal male voice say, don't run. This infamous case has probably one of my favorite witness quotes of all time. Elmore said, I didn't exactly run, but I walked pretty fast. By the time he returned with his rifle, the shed had bamused. So ultimately, though, in this case, the children maintained that Sam may have been something far scarier than some manifestation from the collective unconscious. They said, hey, it may have been some guy in a costume, making his motivations for a very different type of abduction far more sinister than a quick trip to the other world via a metallic hut. So while on the topic, I'm going to mention a very small aspect of this case, and that is the berry. So the conjuring trick of kind

of tossing it around in his nagon is reminiscent of accounts where UFO-related entities or even the men in black perform these small yet impressive feats of magic, as though to prove that they are every bit as inhuman as they claim to be. In addition to that, of course, the inclusion of a in such a prominent way, conjures up immediately, you guys probably guessed it, connections to the fairy faith. And then from there, also connections to missing 401 cases as well. Which definitely makes me wonder if the two kids had stayed much longer in the cozy wallpapered hut, if they may have stayed much longer. So, too, the other really strange thing is that Sam really nailed down that he picks those berries in the late afternoons. And it's really interesting because through the

folklore, especially of the British Isles, there's actually traditions involving when and when not to pick berries, because of course, at certain times of the season or times of day, the good folk kind of have free reign of the berry patches. So that's definitely another really intriguing little detail that was included. And finally, the inclusion of Faye's father's cases definitely add some intrigue here, although neither account was as close or as dramatic as Sam the Clown thing. The case of the Red Light stands out because they appeared to be tailing him. And it was a after this sighting that he seems to have begun to see these lights on what sounds to be a regular basis. In addition, while his sighting of the thing in the ocean was investigated in a

strictly euphological sense, we can't get away from the fact that he referred to those two lights beneath the waves as eyes, which calls to mind the form of some great beast lurking just off the shore. So in my opinion, again, too, this is all just conjecture. But it almost seems like it's not too much of a leap to suggest that for whatever reason, that initial sighting of the red light began an entanglement of Mr. Why with these anomalies, which continued largely in light form for a couple of years, until escalating with something indicative of a giant monster in the waves. Finally, it culminated with the infamous sighting of Sam by his daughter. So I would love to know if anything happened to follow that citing, or if that was that.

For today, I am Zelia Edgar, signing on. This has been just another tinfoil hat with Zelia Edgar. Be sure to rate and review wherever you get your podcasts. For full video versions of these episodes, be sure to subscribe to just another tinfoil hat on YouTube. Thank you for listening.