Somewhere in the Skies - Just Another Tin Foil Hat | The Townsend Tin Can Aliens

Starting point is 00:00:02 Welcome to just another tinfoil hat with your host, Zilia Edgar. Join Zilia as she walks us through some of the most bizarre UFO cases and incidents of high strangeness. Today we are going to be discussing the super trippy Townsend case, or to directly quote John Keel's article about this case in True Magazine, who was that six inch tall animated tin can I saw you with last night? Who indeed? So, yes, this case is probably best known as the case of the tin can or beer can. aliens for reasons which will become apparent in a minute here. So without further ado, on October 23rd, 1965, a 19-year-old radio announcer and summertime Bible camp counselor by the name of Jerry Townsend

Starting point is 00:00:46 was driving from the town of Little Falls, Minnesota, to Long Prairie, Minnesota, at around 7.7.30 in the evening. About four miles outside the town of Long Prairie, as he browned a particular bend in the road, his car up and decided to cut out. Engine, lights, radio, everything went completely dead. Sounds familiar, So he claimed that he coasted for a second, but then put on the brakes, because up ahead of him in the middle of the road was, for all intents and purposes, a rocket ship. Yes, like a high sci-fi space rocket, complete with three large fins. Now, Townsend claimed that it was around 30 to 40 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter, and that it was standing actually on these kind of tripod-like fins. Now, underneath the object was a circle of bright, colorless light, and standing inside the, the circle of light were what have been affectionately termed the beer can aliens.

Starting point is 00:01:38 Now, Townsend claimed that they were these three beings, which looked like tin cans, but were the size of a beer can, quote unquote, which stood on tripod legs with matchstick arms. They had no faces or eyes or anything, and Townsend claimed that his first thought was actually to try and knock one down to take it with him. So to that effect, he jumped out of the vehicle and was about to head on over to knock down one of the beings. Some reports even mentioned that he considered trying to push down the rocket just to prove his experience. When the beings came at him, he claimed that they walked with a side-to-side sort of gait, almost sounds kind of crab-like, and he claims that he got scared.

Starting point is 00:02:15 He said that he thought about how they had just stopped his car and that they could do something awful to him as well. So, Townsend said that he and the little beings stood around for a while in some sort of standoff, when suddenly the beings turned around and ran back under the ship. Unfortunately, the light was too bright to see then what became of them. Now, after the beings vanished in the circle of light underneath the ship, suddenly there was a high-pitched hum as the rocket took straight off into the sky. It continued straight up for about a quarter of a mile by Townsend's measurements,

Starting point is 00:02:47 when it suddenly stopped in mid-air and disappeared. Now, when it was airborne, he claimed that the light actually went out, and that as soon as it vanished, his car came to, and Townsend got the heck out of there. Now, his first order of business was to report what he had seen to the local sheriff, James Bain, as well as police officer LeVern Lovitz. Both of these men returned to the spot, and while they did not find the rocket ship or the tin can aliens, they did find three parallel strips of some oily substance on the surface of the road. And later on, Sheriff Bain also said that two hunters came forward to report that they had observed a lighted object in the same area around that time. Now, two, checking the local papers, it also appears that there were several other reports of bright anomalous objects in the same. the area at the time. So this is really a weird case and one of those great examples of, I mean,

Starting point is 00:03:34 if you're looking for, you know, some extraterrestrial visitation, wow, this is perfect. I mean, almost too perfect if you get my drift. I mean, what, some random guy happens to be driving around and, you know, hits the certain spot of road right as this rocket ship has landed and it's being attended to by little tin can robot alien things. It's just, I mean, it's straight out of a B movie, which of course is not to say that the encounter was false, you know, or that Townsend was hoaxing it. Just that how much can we really trust with these really whimsical, really high-strangeness encounters being what they appear to be? One of the first things to occur to me is how the behavior of these entities, which seem to be really, you know, strong outliers, I would say. You know, so often when people see a UFO and quote-unquote occupants, they tend to appear more biological.

Starting point is 00:04:22 So, yeah, these tin-can robots, they are definitely an outlier. But one of the first things to occur to me is how the behavior of these entities is so very much in common with the behavior of some other decidedly not tin can entities, Honeycuts, infamous frogmen. Now, in each case, there were three beings. Of course, in Honeycuts, there were these frog-faced gnome things, and this one, tripod-legged tin cans, which deliberately approached the witness as the witness moved closer to the anomaly. Also, in both of these cases, there were other sightings in the area at the same time of just strange lights in the sky. Now two, regarding specifically both of these encounters, but also so many other encounters with the anomalous, there's this prevalence of the number three. Now, this has often been noticed and reported regarding the number of entities. And, of course, here we have that, but we also have the number repeated in the fins of the rocket, as well as the strips of oily substance left behind. Now, regarding this particular trace evidence as well on these strange oily marks in the road, these have popped up time and time again in relation to other UFO encounters.

Starting point is 00:05:20 One of major note is definitely the infamous Flatwoods monster. And like so many of these other cases, it seems to corroborate that something did indeed happen as to what it was, who really knows. Two, though, the oil is kind of an obvious, almost too obvious nod, that there is some confirmation that something of a mechanical nature was observed. Again, whenever you have these encounters, these really detailed kind of close encounters, you just have to wonder how much of it truly is what it appears to be, of course, for me. I think that the likelihood is more that what we're seeing is some sort of performance or mask for whatever the real anomaly is.

Starting point is 00:05:55 Now, one of the most dramatic aspects of this encounter, which already is a fairly dramatic encounter, I would say, I mean, a huge sci-fi mid-century rocket ship and little robots, you can't get much more whimsical or dramatic than that. But no, one of the most dramatic aspects of this case has got to be the vehicle stoppage. I mean, you just imagine you're driving down the road and then suddenly your car is completely dead. And then, in this case, up ahead of you is this giant rocket ship. You know, so often when you run across these vehicle stoppage cases, the effect of the vehicle going out is noticed immediately prior to seeing the anomaly. And two, it's very immediate because often the effect ceases as soon as the anomaly leaves the area, or in this case, vanishes.

Starting point is 00:06:37 Now, I would say Townsend definitely came out ahead of, say, Doc Priestley of the Marlinton encounter, however, as he claimed that his car didn't experience any lasting effects from seeing the rocket ship or the tin can aliens, where of course Doc Priestley's car was completely fried out. So interestingly enough, too, for as high sci-fi whimsical as this experience was, it also occurred around the same time as other far less whimsical UFO sightings, just of simple, strange, luminous objects in the sky. Now, this is really, really common to have almost one incredibly detailed, often incredibly strange, closer encounter in the midst of a far less detailed, more ambiguous series of, you know, small,

Starting point is 00:07:16 encounters, usually just of strange lights in the sky. You know, and this is one of those countless cases too, where we kind of have to ask ourselves, how long was this rocket just waiting around to be seen by one particular teenage radio announcer? I mean, countless anomalies have been observed simply because the witness just so happened to be in just the right place at just the right time. Unless, of course, the anomaly wouldn't exist if the witness wasn't there to see it. For today, I am Celia Edgar, signing off. This has been just another 10th of the first one.

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Somewhere in the Skies - Just Another Tin Foil Hat | The Townsend Tin Can Aliens

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