Somewhere in the Skies - Michael Huntington: Childhood UFO Encounters

Episode Date: November 27, 2017

On episode 33 of SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES, Ryan tackles a topic he never has before; childhood UFO sightings. And joining him is UFO researcher and blogger, Michael Huntington. They start with the 1917 Fatima encounter and work all the way up to the 1994 Ruwa, Zimbabwe school sighting.  What is it about children that invite some of the most interesting and bizarre UFO sightings into our mythology? And what does it tell us about age when dealing with possible visitors from parts unknown? These questions and more will be covered in this week's conversation. Guest Bio: Michael Huntington is a paranormal travel writer and UFO Researcher living in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. Each year, Michael travels - with his wife and two young boys - to dozens of strange and interesting locations throughout America: haunted abodes, cryptid sighting spots, and famous UFO encounter sites. The Huntingtons document their STRANGE TRAVELS on all social media, on the Strange Travels Blog, and in the soon-to-be-released "Strange Travels" book series. Michael has researched the UFO Mystery for over 40 years and frequently writes on issues related to Reform of Ufology and improving rational methodology. He has been interviewed on television and numerous radio programs discussing a variety of paranormal topics, his family's unusual travels, and the enigmatic UFO subject. Patreon: www.patreon.com/somewhereskies Website: www.somewhereintheskies.com Order Ryan's Book by CLICKING HERE Twitter: @SomewhereSkies Instagram: @SomewhereSkiesPod Opening Theme Song, "Ephemeral Reign" by Per Kiilstofte SOMEWHERE IN THE SKIES is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with Antica Productions 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

Unfathomable, a podcast about UFOs and human evidence, tells the stories of close encounter witnesses in their own words. No interpretation, no debunking, no middleman. To listen, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher, and for information on how to share your story, find us on the web at unfathomablecast.com. Hey guys, Ryan Sprague here. As you all know, the Summer in the Sky's podcast,

is always free to consume, but it isn't free to create. That's why I've started this Somewhere in the Sky's Patreon campaign. On a monthly basis, you give what you think the show is worth. You'll be helping the show continue, grow, and to be something truly communal. And remember, there are rewards for each level of contribution, and the list is only growing. So please, help Somewhere in the Skies now by becoming a patron. To contribute and to learn more, visit www. dot patreon.com backslash somewhere skies. Thank you for your support. And now on with the show.

This is Somewhere in the Skies with Ryan Sprague. Welcome to Somewhere in the Skies. I'm your host, Ryan Sprague. I saw what I believe to have been a UFO when I was 12 years old. That event clearly had a huge impact on me and how my life played out ever since. And this got me thinking about a topic that I haven't covered yet on the show, and that's childhood UFO encounters. We often ignore the small voices of children brushing their words off as pure imagination, but when the eyes of hundreds of children witness a UFO at the same time, it's hard to ignore that something is going on. Is it merely children making up stories? A, mass hysteria running through their impressionable minds? Or are there actually intelligences from other planets visiting these children to attempt communication when adults

simply can't or won't. Listen, today I speak with Michael Huntington about some of the most interesting and bizarre cases of children and UFOs, stretching back almost a century and all across the world. Michael is a paranormal travel writer and UFO researcher living in Cape Girardo, Missouri. Each year, he travels with his wife and two young boys to dozens of strange and interesting locations throughout America. Chronically, their adventures in blog form, known as strange travels. Michael has researched the UFO mystery for over 40 years and frequently writes on issues related to the reform of euphology and improving rational methodology. He has been interviewed on television and numerous radio programs discussing a variety of paranormal. topics, his family's unusual travels, and the enigmatic UFO subject.

So, without further ado, here's my conversation with Michael Huntington. There is a topic within the UFO subset that I've wanted to cover for a while now, and I couldn't think of a better person to bring on to sort of hash this out with me. We're going to overview some of the most famous child UFO cases in UFO history. Like I said, this is a subset of sightings that often gets overlooked, and now, What I find, as I'm sure you do, Michael, is that children usually are honest. You know, they're innocent bystanders when it comes to this topic. So, again, usually you're getting this unfettered, sort of uncensored account when children have a UFO sighting or encounter.

And those encounters are often very dramatic. And what I didn't know personally is that there are many more cases that I first thought could be lumped into this category. There's so many of them out there. So I'd love to go through a bunch of those today. My guest is Michael Huntington. Michael, thank you so much for joining me today, man. Oh, it's always great to talk to you. And, yeah, I'm looking forward to discussing these cases.

They're definitely interesting. And I think it might surprise people with what we came up with here. I think so. Like we'd been talking about earlier, there are just a lot of literature and documentaries that are going to be coming out soon about this very topic of children and UFOs and why so many kids have seen UFOs throughout the years. So I think it's very appropriate that we kind of run through this and, you know, get that out there so people can look into it before all of this really stunning revelations and documentation of these come out. So, again, thank you.

I guess we sort of have to start really early on. And one of the first cases that you and I came across was the 1917 Fatima sighting in Portugal. You know, while many believe this to be a religious experience, the actual account. were very similar to a UFO sighting, if I'm not mistaken. So maybe you could sort of run us through this and get us started on child encounters with UFOs. Yeah, definitely. And before we jump into this, I would want to say that you're absolutely right. This is just skimming the surface of these type of encounters.

And we're going to try to focus on some of the better documented ones, the ones with a lot of witnesses, but there are certainly hundreds, if not thousands of other cases out there, just involving young children. And really a good place to start would be 100 years ago in Fatima. And you're right. When people look at this story, this account, it's definitely viewed as a religious miracle. And it can certainly be viewed through that angle. In fact, all the participants viewed it through, you know, a rural has. Catholic viewpoint when they tried to interpret what was an unusual series of events involving

lights in the sky and people coming down from the lights and giving messages, which, you know, even if you separate the religious aspect, you at least have on some level, if there was indeed an incident, you know, pretty much a classic encounter. In 1917, what this began around was three children. And they were a peasant sheep herders. They were in like seven or eight years of age. And, you know, they were looking after their flock. And they had a series of lights come down from the sky and glowing beings, which they viewed as angels and the Virgin Mary came out and gave messages. And there was a, I think, five events that took place over, over the course of that year, and it became engulfed, you know, by the local Catholics in the

area as a miracle. And towards the latter parts of these encounters, there were possibly tens of thousands of witnesses to, you know, strange happenings in the sky. Now, talk about a mass sighting. Yes, I think some numbers for, I think, the October 13th encounter, which was called the Miracle of the Sun had somewhere 70,000 witnesses. Wow. Whether or not we could attribute this to some sort of religious mass hysteria coupled with, you know, some sort of atmospheric phenomenon, you know, that's sort of separate from, you know, the issue as to whether or not something happened, you know.

And there's a lot to suggest that there was at least at the outset with these children in some sort of physical events, some sort of actual, you know, glowing craft, you know, with lightning shooting out of it. You know, we got a lot of the elements here that went on into some of the contact tea stories. You know, these children ended up becoming saints. They're on their way to be becoming saints. You know, they ended up going into the clergy because of this miracle. And they had revelations that they got from these angels.

relative to, you know, a lot of the contact team messages of, you know, let's end war, let's, you know, work together, you know, sort of the utopian division of what Earth should be. So it's, yeah, it's really an intriguing case, and it's a good kickoff to looking at cases that involve kids because they definitely have had their impact. And this is a good one to start with. I think so, you know, and children are so susceptible at first, you know, when these kids clearly were. raised pretty religious, I would assume at this time, that they would perceive this as a miracle, that this was the Fatima. And I think that's pretty interesting. We do hear this a lot that people who have UFO settings, a lot of them consider it a religious

experience. And I'm sure some of the other cases involved that as well that we'll go through. But yeah, let's fast forward, Michael, to what do we got next? We've got 1952. Now, this is a case that I covered on a Patreon bonus episode of somewhere in the sky. And that's the Flatwoods Monster. By far, one of the most incredible cases out there, one of my favorites. And it's pretty well known in West Virginia, you know, where this happened.

But to many monster and UFO hunters, it's basically, it involved both of these things. So you've got to tell us a little bit more about what you know about the Flatwoods monster, Michael. Yeah, the Flatwoods Monsters is one of my favorite cases because it's just a weird, you know. It's got 10-foot-tall creatures and weird saucers and, you know, government men coming in to, you know, hush everybody up. So it's got all those sort of, you know, classic elements that you would find in any sort of science fiction film. But Flatwood's, when it happened, you know, in September 12, 1952, the time period of the 50s was starting to, you know, get that science fiction element, you know, influenced within the culture, you know. you were starting to get a lot of sort of science fiction ideas there in the culture. And so when this story came out, it was definitely picked up by the media.

And, you know, 52, you know, that period, everybody in the sauce are crazy. And this story became one of the most famous ones of its time because it was all over the media. And, you know, Blue Book looked into it. And pretty much all the researchers of the time period had opinion. is on this case. And what it was is on the evening, September 12, at around 7, there were some kids playing football, late night football, you know, right around sunset. Kids will do that until, you know, their parents yell at them to come home. And there were some kids playing in the school's football field, and they witnessed an object, like some sort of fireball or reddish ball

of fly overhead and go into into some of the nearby fields, you know. So as any, as any, group of kids that would witness something like that, you know, you're going to start running, going towards it, you know, at least the braver kids. I'm sure there's some kids that said, oh, nope, time to go home. Yeah, that would be me. Not going to lie. Right. But some of them did venture up towards where this object presumably came down and collected a

couple other kids along the way, maybe, and got an adult with them. But, yeah, I think it was Edward and Freddie May and then Tommy Hire and. Neil Nunley and Ronnie Shaver and Eugene Lemon, along with Kathleen May, who was the one adult. They all ventured, climbed over a fence and went into the Bailey Fisher Farm where they thought it went down. So, you know, it started to get dark. They're going up here in the dark. There's a group of them.

They're all kind of excited and they're moving up towards what they perceived to be an object. You know, some sort of maybe car or truck-sized object kind of a kind of a kind of a. orange, reddish pear, you know, smoke coming off of it, sort of hissing, you know, flying saucer, a meteor, who knows? You know, they were all kind of frightened. They noticed it kind of smelled weird, like, you know, some sort of diesel fuel or some sort of chemical smell. There was sort of a weird mist all around.

You know, yet they ventured closer to try to get a better view. And as they approached, they saw a creature about 10 feet tall with big yellowish. eyes and a big red circular head and some sort of big, you know, apparatus around its head, you know, possibly some sort of helmet or whatever and, you know, some, a long metallic skirt and little, you know, spindly hands. And they were stopped dead in their tracks and ran away, flew back home and, you know, did what normal people would do. They would, you know, call the police and, you know, from there you get your, you know, typical response. Of course, nothing's going to be. there when you get there.

You know, maybe a little bit of weird, you know, slime on the ground, maybe a little bit of mist left over, sort of a weird smell. But, you know, nothing was there when the police investigated. And as with these cases at the time, you know, the local military did take interest. You know, you had National Guardsmen out there looking to see if, you know, if there's anything out there that they need to be concerned of, concerned with. And, you know, there was nothing. So ultimately, you know, due to the lack of evidence, you know, the government or I don't know, maybe there was evidence.

Maybe it was covered up. Who knows. But, you know, it sort of has been labeled as, you know, a meteor event, you know, that a meteor came down. Although I would think that there would still be a meteor there, you know, so that that doesn't kind of, you know, really wash. What happened there? Who knows? Maybe some sort of, you know, actual geological event, maybe some sort of craft, maybe some sort of hallucination connected with, you know, that gas. Who knows?

But it's definitely an interesting case maybe kids are more open to see this sort of thing. Maybe, although the one adult that was with them was certain that she saw the same thing. So it's one of the best mysteries, one of the best mysteries to offer. At first, I didn't think it was real. I woke up to this blinding light and I was transported to another place Pluto TV Then I heard a voice

Come with me if you want to live There were thousands of movies and shows And they were all free The truth is our sin It's just so beautiful On Pluto TV free streaming Of Terminator 2, Fringe Arrow The 100 NX files may cause excitement

Loss of sleep and sudden belief in extraterrestrials No credit cards or alien encounters necessary Pluto TV stream now pay never Yeah and I mean even up until today, people still celebrate this encounter there. I mean, you've got like a Flatwoods festival every year, and that's another interesting thing is how towns embrace these things. I know you and I have talked about this in the past, is when these things happen, they

ultimately become the history of these towns, and sometimes the only history of these towns that ever make it out to the mainstream. Yeah, and Flatwood is one of those stories that sort of ebbs and flows with, you know, the culture and, you know, how it's perceived, definitely, uh, I think people will find even more interest here. Our friend Seth Breed loves doing a Flatwoods movie. So, you know, when his documentary hits, I think that'll add a lot of more interest into this intriguing case, which still remains a mystery. Up until this day, well, I mean, the next one we're going to cover, man, this is going to bring us way across the ocean.

And it's perhaps one of the first school sightings that involved a mass siting. And this happened in Melbourne, Australia in 1966. So can you tell us a little bit about the Westall encounter? Yeah, the Westall encounter is probably one of the more, if not the most famous mass school encounter sighties. And it is pretty much the template for a lot of these type of encounters. Yeah, there's so much that's been done on this subject. and it stands as the best because there's so many witnesses that have come forward. Others, there's been a lot of great solid research.

You know, Shane Ryan down there is pretty much, you know, continued to work this story. And, you know, he's probably the best guy to talk to you on this subject because, you know, there was definitely something there on that day. I stood there, absolutely transfixed and saw the most amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. And it took a while for me to sort of comprehend what I was actually looking at because I'd never seen anything like that before. There was three. The one that was closer was just in the sky, just sitting there.

And then it went down, came up, and then banked on its side and took off. Really, really fast. It was moving away, so it had lifted off the oval, okay, and it was moving away. from us and we just were gobsmacked, started chasing it. And my girlfriend and I sat on the fence, climbed up the fence, and just sat there and cried, we thought it was the end of the world. I came down into the paddock where the kids had seen this thing land. The paddock grass was about knee high.

And as I walked through with pushing my bike with my uncle, I saw a group of about 20 people all huddled around looking at the ground. All looking at a circle, perfect circle, it was a perfect circle. was probably about four or five meters in diameter. The edge of the circle was perfectly formed. It wasn't as if you could, you know, cows or any other animals or even the kids had come in and just rolled around. It was too perfect.

I mean, I know what I saw. And in fact, I don't expect them to believe me because when it happened, I didn't believe what I was seeing. Because it wasn't possible. What I was seeing wasn't possible. And it was in April 6th, in 1966, and there were some kids that were outside, presumably for, I guess, for recess or maybe a field day, and they witnessed a couple of flying saucers, you know, your classic silvery two-disk objects, you know, flying over their school. And as any large group of children would do, they became excited.

and, you know, screamed and yelled. And there were hundreds of witnesses to this. Pretty much, I guess the whole school soon learned of the objects outside. And everybody pretty much left their classrooms to run outside and run towards the objects, which, you know, had flown overhead. There were, I guess, airplanes surrounding a couple of these objects at some point. some sort of a single-engine prop plan, maybe like a Cessna or Piper or something,

more than likely a civilian-type craft. And some of the kids noticed, I guess, that at least one of the objects, or some of the objects went behind towards a wooded area called the Grange adjacent to the school property. You know, there was a kind of an unused field area where a lot of the kids had hung out, some of the children had reported that something had landed out there.

There were so many different reports like that, that it sort of makes this event, you know, uncontrovertible as to whether or not something happened. Something certainly happened, you know, to have so many witnesses, whether it was, you know, a military sort of thing. you know, it's interesting that so much has been covered up. I mean, you know, a lot of the, you know, the news stories and reports just sort of disappeared and a lot of the paperwork, even though they were definitely on location for that event within the following days, you know, it's definitely intriguing.

It's more so than any of the other experience or encounters. It has sort of the conspiracy. aspect to the cover-up element more so than any other. Yeah, yeah, I would have to agree. I mean, well, in terms of the actual encounter, Michael, we had another one that happened that same year. This is back in the United States in Miami, Florida. This is Opalaka site.

Could you tell us a little bit about this one? I could tell you in short that at the Crestview School in Opelaca, Florida, April 7, 1967, just, you know, the following year after Westall, Pretty much almost the exact same thing that happened in Westall happened there at Opelaca. To some degree, you know, if it may have lasted actually a series of days, but the same sort of instance as with Westall. You know, a group of kids spot an object. You know, they rest towards the object and teachers and large groups of kids. again, in the hundreds here, just as there was in Westall, along with teachers, you know, witness an object just beyond the perimeter of the school in sort of a wood swampy field area. They witness an object or maybe even multiple objects sort of flying around in the distance, through the air, you know, throughout the trees.

And who knows? It's very similar to Westall, which really makes it intriguing. And it became a big story for its time period, probably because of the National Inquirer, which was literally based down the street from, you know, where this school was in Lantana, Florida. So, you know, they definitely pushed the media on this. And it was pushed at that time period. It became a national story. But it sort of died down when the Navy, the Coast Guard, actually, as well as the Navy and NASA and some of the other nearby facilities,

initially pushed it off as helicopters doing maneuvers and then followed by flares. And, you know, that's sort of outraged a lot of the witnesses in the community because by that time, You know, within a few days of the school event, other people had seen other objects throughout that area. So that sort of, you know, infuriated the townspeople, you know, when those explanations came forth. And the Navy even did a demonstrative flare drop to try to show that what the people had seen was flares. Very similar to, you know, what would be tried later in Phoenix. Yeah, Phoenix lights, yeah. Yeah, so, you know, is this maybe one of the first instances where, you know,

flares were dropped to dissuade, you know, UFO sightings? It's quite possible, but... You have to wonder, you know, with all of these mass sightings happening, how many weather balloons and flares do the military have in stock ready to go when these things happen? You just, you do have to wonder. Yeah, and these people, you know, in these communities, it's not so much that they were reminding, you know, being called liars, which I'm sure they didn't appreciate, but they live next to military

installations. They're not stupid, you know, was I think they were more offended by that that, you know, we know what a health, you know, we know what a Coast Guard helicopter looks like, you know. Right. So similar, similar sort of thing in Gulf Breeze and some of these other, you know, military aviation communities, you know, mundane explanations for what these witnesses are seeing. It just, you know, really doesn't hold water. Yeah, it's pretty offensive if you ask me. Well, the next one that we decided to cover, Michael, was the one in Connecticut. Now, this was at Camp Delaware, and this brings us up a mountain with some young hikers.

So we're moving away from schools. We're moving into the woods. So could you tell us a little bit about this 1976 sighting? I really found this one interesting. Yeah. even within a child encounter cases, there's sort of this, you know, Boy Scout in the woods sort of encounter idea that has been demonstrated throughout, you know, the history of the subject. You know, even back in 52 with the famous Florida Scoutmaster, you know, where, you know,

a Scoutmaster in his little group, you know, see something in the, you know, in the forest and, you know, the scoutmaster gets burnt or whatever, you know. So that sort of story was around even in the early 50s. And Camp Delaware is a very similar sort of account along this, along this line. It was a group of hikers. They were about, I guess, probably 14 or 15 of them, 14. And then their hike master, they were teenagers 14, 15 years of age. And they were hiking near Camp Delilah.

in Winston, Connecticut, in 1976. This was July 28th. They were part of a camp program, and they were hiking towards a blueberry hill, which was a nearby feature, a pretty decent hike. And as they neared an area with a bit of a clearing, they could see an object come down that was a saucer with a red dome, as it was described. And of course, they all stopped on their tracks. And, you know, they pointed. And I don't know if anybody took any pictures. I haven't heard of any pictures of being taken. But supposedly the object had, you know, dip down and it landed possibly behind some trees.

And the kids, you know, they ran back. They went to the police. And it was investigated. And it was investigated as credible not just because the counselor saw it. just maybe from the fact that they were, you know, they were scouts. And these kids were, you know, not the sort that are going to lie together, you know, to the police. So, you know, they got a lot of credibility just from the fact that, you know, they were, I guess, sort of model citizens for that time period. But it became a case that was investigated by APRO, the Aerial Phenometer Research Organization, which was one of the leading groups in the 60s.

in the in the 70s and they did a thorough investigation they investigated the area there was there were no trace evidence found but uh from the veracity of the witnesses and and these are teenagers these are you know older than uh you know some of these other accounts where uh you know the kids have been around you know 10 or even younger uh when you get to teenagers uh the the credibility you know goes up a little bit especially if there's an adult involved because uh yeah less likelihood of some sort of, you know, practical joke. Not that those don't occur, but this case, the Camp Delaware case, was considered one of the better cases of the year. And, I mean, you have to wonder what kind of badge they have for UFO hunting for these Boy Scouts.

I think they definitely would have gotten that one. Wow, that's really interesting. And you bring up some good points. Like, these kids wouldn't, why would they make this up? You know, you learned so many good things when you're going through the Boy Scout, you know, thing. I did that growing up as well, and they teach you to be honest. So to have made this up, I don't see it happening. And to have an adult witness this as well, they definitely saw something.

So that's interesting. Well, let's move across the pond this time, Michael, and we're going to Broadhaven. This is in Wales. Same year, excuse me, a year later, 1977. And this is one of the more dramatic encounters that bore a striking resemblance to another case that we're going to talk about shortly, one of the most famous. So could you tell us a little about this case out of Wales? Yeah, Broadhaven, February 4th, 1977. It was the Broadhaven School. I guess it was in the morning or I'm trying to think of what time of the day it was, but same sort of

deal with a lot of these other cases. The kids notice out through the window something or they're on the playground and they notice something. And they all sort of as a group, you know, sort of vacate what they're there to do, you know, that day to run outside and witness, you know, what they think is a flying saucer landing in the field nearby the school. And the same thing happened here to a class full of kids in this small Welsh town. Kids were around age of 10, and they witnessed some sort of like a silvery object with like a red light. I don't know if it was intermittent or if it was solid, but they definitely perceived, you know, saw the red light. That's what got their attention.

And they witnessed this object go down, you know, nearby where the school is. So, you know, wanting to get a closer look. They do, and they see an object and they see nearby, I guess. what is some sort of silvery being of some kind, some sort of a robot or a creature or whatever? Yeah, definitely weird. When kids start seeing robots, that's really when it starts to get interesting, you know, because it always seems to be the children, well, not always. Yeah, but the kids definitely, I think, are more prone to see robotic-type beings,

which I don't know what that means, you know. Maybe there's some sort of psychological component, you know, related to the children, how they're perceiving in the phenomena, or maybe, you know, there was just coincidentally some sort of robotic creature out there. But, yeah, this area in Wales, this account has sort of become a big deal. There's a whole area near Broadhaven that has been called the Broadhaven triangle now because so much happens within that area related to, you know, strange phenomena. especially aerial phenomena. So, you know, 40 years on, this case is still looked at as an important case within British Youthology, and it's still celebrated, and there's still strange things going on where the event near the school happened. Some people have come forward saying that it might have been a hoax, not on behalf of the kids,

but, you know, maybe a practical joke or a prank being conducted. upon the kids by somebody else, you know, but I don't know, that's a lot of work, you know, to build a flying saucer and, you know, not that it can't be done, but I'd imagine that people have better things to do with their time, you know, and we would have heard a little bit more about such a hoax after 40 years, you know, so still an interesting case. Yes, we do know that when the British hoax something, they definitely wanted to be known, hence crop circles. I won't go any further. Yeah.

Well, here's another one, Michael. Now, this happened in 1977, this time in West Pittsburgh, California. This is one of the most interesting because Jay Ellen Heineck, the man, the myth, the legend, he actually considered this one one of only three credible humanoid encounter cases in that year. So could you tell us a little bit about this case out of my new. neck of the woods, California? Yeah, this is definitely a case that I think people should go back and take a look at. It is a center for UFO studies case primarily.

So, you know, you start off with a lot of good credible people involved in this case. Richard Haynes, Harder, Heineck, you know, all these guys were involved in some sort of investigatory aspect with this case. So what happened? May 20th, 1977, West Pittsburgh, California. This is a case of three boys wanting to, you know, enjoy some of the rural area, I guess, nearby them. I think they're actually looking to maybe, you know, just spend a day exploring, hanging out, maybe going to the beach. They weren't really, you know, share what they wanted to do. But they were enjoying the outdoors.

And it was Lenny Young, George Ferreira, and Patrick Morrison. and as they were hiking through the woods, getting ready to hitchhike, I think they were at one point, they encountered an object in the road, sort of a flattish saucer, maybe kind of a bluish, tint to it. It looked like your classic sort of flying saucer, but it was maybe a little squatter. It really gets strange. Soon after, they noticed that there's some sort of beings coming out of this craft. They were sort of shadowy.

They were, you know, sort of robotic. They were kind of non-descript. They were kind of difficult to describe. But the boys all definitely claimed to have seen these beings and that they were, you know, sort of smoky and ethereal, you know, yet robotic. There was a lot of mist. There was a lot of smoke that was put around the saucer as well. So definitely interesting, definitely weird. I don't think there was too much physical evidence gathered.

Again, this is one of those cases where through interviewing the witnesses, looking at motivations, looking at locations, looking at consistencies with an accounts, all the motivating factors that you have from interviewing witnesses, I think that this became a solid case just based upon the testimony. Now, either these kids got their story, you know, just worked out really well, or, you know, they had a shared event. And a lot of noted researchers at the time were convinced that they had a shared event. What I think is interesting is the description of, you know, the beings, which is really not found anywhere else. And it's, you know, the fact that they were kind of, you know, nondescribes.

script and really couldn't see features, you know, that they were shadowy, you know. That sort of makes for interesting possibilities to consider, you know, relative to, you know, how these creatures are perceived again, you know, whether or not they can change perception-wise through, you know, the boys themselves. Who knows? It's definitely interesting. Yeah, yeah, very unique and bizarre. And I think that's when, you know, things start to really get interesting and when that credibility factor kind of gets bumped up a notch when something is so utterly different from these

prototypical things we hear, a lot of these cases involve very similar things, robotic-like things, landing in the schoolyard, this, that. This is one of those cases, like, you know, Hynek said, where it was so different. And like you said, it was so, you know, concrete between these three witnesses that, yeah, definitely something strange happened and what these creatures were. Unfortunately, we'll probably never know. But interesting nonetheless. But all right, my man, here's one that when I read this description, we got to prepare the listeners for this one.

We've got a three-eyed alien and a robot. So we're back to robots again. This is in our friends, the USSR. This was in 1989. So please, you got to tell us, everyone get your whiskey. You got to tell us about this one. Well, my friend, let me tell you an old Russian story. No, I can't do the whole thing with that accent.

No, this is probably when it happened, it was probably, and I remember this very distinctly, probably the top news story of the day. It was on all the newspapers, and it was a Russian task story. And, you know, we're talking about the old Soviet Union here, even back then, you know, government controlled. So whatever was released was released by the Russian government. And this story was released to the American press as a big story, you know, throughout the world. So, you know, the story from the motherland took place September 27, 1989, in Voronish, USSR. are small urban, you know, industrial city in eastern, I guess it's in Russia. You know, there's a lot of Russian states over there and who knows where they're at now.

No, but it was, you know, industrial Russian city park, you know, end of the Cold War era, you know. The way I pictured everything is kind of drab and dreary, you know. Like, yeah, like you see, you know, Russia in the 80s. You know, but they love their kids just like everybody else. And, you know, they had parks and they enjoyed spending time outdoors. And the South Park, Veronish to South Park on this day, there was a number of kids playing and, you know, some adults. And people walking by in the streets, it's a public city park. And the kids began to notice a red, maybe a pinkish-red sort of object, like a circular, you know, like a cherry in the sky, just sort of coming down towards the park.

And, you know, of course, everybody's pointing and looking and their mouths are open and they're saying stuff in Russian and screaming Russian, I'm not sure. And the object comes down and lands in the park, you know, near the playground equipment where the kids, are. So I guess the kids are the closest, you know, to this object. Good size object. I guess maybe the size of, you know, a semi-truck or, you know, somewhere halfway, big enough for, you know, an eight-foot-tall or a ten-foot-tall robotic creature to get out of, you know, or, you know, some sort of three-eyed alien, because that's pretty much what happened. and I saw this flying object at an approximate height of 250 meters. It stated the same height and did not move horizontally.

I was very interesting by all that because it could not be any kind of meteorological balloon. There was a squeaking sound. Perhaps some drilling tool was operating Like it was boring a hole in the ground The creatures started coming out They did not look too much like humans They were much taller than humans They did have shoulders

But I didn't see the head He was huge Really huge, bigger than we are He was a mighty figure I remember a crowd that gathered around the place Everybody was scared Everybody turned pale I was absolutely flabbergasted.

I saw some traces there and also a strange man. Outwardly, he looked like any other man. Only he was huge. A moment later, he suddenly disappeared. I had no doubt that the UFO and the giants existed, because I saw them. But sometimes when I look back, it seems sort of like a fairy tale. Within a few minutes, you know, the door opens,

And a 10-foot-tall, three-eyed, strange kind of, I don't know, overall clad, metal overalls sort of a creature, comes out with a little small, little, you know, square robot next to it. And sort of looks around, and it sort of gets weird. I guess they look around, they go back in their ship, they come out, they disappear, they look around. they look around, you know, they're sort of doing this in-and-out thing with their flying saucer. And, you know, the kids are, you know, the closest and, of course, the more curious and the more adventurous and also, you know, the dumbest, you know, they're going to, you know, approach this object and these beings. And at some point, you know, these four kids that are getting closest to the object, one of them gets zapped by a rod that the big creature, the big three-eyed, 10-foot tall. guy is holding, points that at one of the kids is getting too close and he sort of freezes. You know, like, not frozen like with icicles hanging off, but, you know, like a suspended form

of, you know, paralysis. And I get back in their ship and then, you know, at some point they take off and, you know, the kid gradually comes out of it. This whole series of events, I guess, is like maybe half hour, 45 minutes. Certainly it seems like that, you know, based upon all the description. descriptions, you know, a sequence of events. But, you know, it's one of those things where it's like everybody was like, hey, there's a UFO down in the park, you know?

So the crowd had actually gotten bigger. So not just the kids were witness to this playground event, but upwards of, you know, maybe 50 people or maybe even into the hundreds, you know, had begun to move down towards this park. So, and then it hit the media. And it was a big deal in Russian press and then American press. Who knows? Man, they always got to try to outdo us, don't they?

Yeah. You know, and the Russians, you know, they did their investigation and their military police and all that. Interesting, though, the Russians were actually a little more open to this sort of thing back then. You know, so when they talked to like an investigator, you know, some sort of general that was investigating the, you know, the general would say stuff like, oh, it was probably aliens from all to space. face. They're totally okay with saying that because, you know, it's their news service so they can say whatever they want. Right.

Yeah, if we've learned anything from RT News, that's kind of how it goes for sure. Right. All right, man. So on a more serious note, we are going to move to our final case, probably the most famous case to date. Many documentaries have covered it. There's going to be some more coming out. Even the Harvard psychiatrist, John Mack, was involved.

with this one. So please, to sort of cap all of these cases off for us, can you run us through the deeply dramatic Rua Zimbabwe case of 1994? Absolutely. And yeah, this is probably one of the high caliber cases in this subset of UFO investigation and history, mostly because of the quality of the investigation and the quality of the quality of the investigator involved in this. And, you know, if Dr. John Mack, who was head of the psychological department, I believe at Harvard at the time, taught at Cambridge University, really high-calibur, you know, learned man within legitimate psychiatry and psychology, began to take interest in UFOs, not so much, you know, with an idea of investigating

the phenomena, but investigating people that claim interaction with the phenomenon. Because as a psychologist and a psychiatrist, he was interested in, you know, what they perceived, what they thought, what, you know, if there was certain psychological components that he can explore, you know, can he deem through examination and psychoanalysis, you know, if there was some sort of, you know, reality to the circumstances involving, you know, encounters with especially beings. And he would use hypnotic regression and some of the classic methods to explore that. So he was interested in the subject as a mainstream psychologist and as somebody interested in, as I had said, the psychological aspects of encounters.

And so he was already on the radar. He was already out there. he had written some papers and, you know, was under scrutiny by Harvard, you know, relative to a big university, a legitimate university, should be involved in investigating, you know, such things. And he was ultimately given academic freedom to explore these issues. And as a result, you know, he began to get cases thrown to him. And he was coincidentally in Zimbabwe or near there back in 1994. And he was told of this case at the aerial school in Rua, Zimbabwe, just outside of Harare. And he made it down there, I think, within, you know, maybe a week or two of the initial encounters. And he was able to interview and investigate more so than anybody I've heard of, you know, a case, you know, relatively quickly on location, you know, after it happened.

They describe these experiences or these events like a person talks about something. that has happened to them. And when you're talking with a psychotic who's telling you something and it's a delusion and you feel that it really didn't happen, I can tell. I mean, I know this is something that a person wants me to believe or they're frightened or they're distorting reality in some way. There's nothing like that here. These are people of sound mind by and large telling me something that's very, they know that

I might think they're crazy and so they're a little concerned about. telling me and they're very full of questioning themselves and doubt and I mean the way and then they describe something very real and intense of light or something happened to their body or they did it's the whole quality of the way they talk about it is the way a person talks about experience that happened to them what happened on September 16th 1994 there were 60 kids at this aerial school and And Zimbabwe has had its head, its periods of colonialism, you know, so there were different ethnic makeups within this school, different backgrounds.

You know, white children and Indian children and African native children all attended this school. It was very, you know, popular and organized and ordered school. And 60 of these kids this day were on the playground. And similar to, you know, the other accounts, they witnessed, you know, in high school. object, you know, like a cigar-shaped or a flying saucer-shaped object, land in the fields just beyond the school grounds. And similar to, you know, some of these other stories, they see a couple of men. And, you know, with the big black alien bug eyes, you know, sort of going in

and out of this flying saucer. And that's what Dr. Mac had gone down here to investigate. And these kids, you know, when he investigated, when he interviewed them, They told predominantly the same story, but they just had, you know, they had little, many sort of cultural changes, you know, cultural descriptions that were a little different, you know, relative to, you know, to the creature's appearance or even the appearance of the crack. Something scared you, is that right? Yes. What, what scared you? The noise. What noise?

The noise that we heard in the air. You heard the noise in the air? Yes. Like a roar or a buzz or a hum or what kind of a noise? It was like someone was blowing a flute. It was scary myself. You were scary because you saw something yourself? Yes.

I saw a little object hovering. It was quite big actually and then there was little ones all round it. We saw something silver and then we quickly ran to the logs and we saw a silver thing and we saw a manseller. man standing next to it. What was it, what did it feel like when he was looking at you? I felt scared. It felt scared? What was scary about it?

Well, I felt scared because I've never seen such a person out that before. Was he near the silver object or was he fought? No, on top. On top of the silver object? Okay. And, um, did you look at him? Yes. Did he look at you?

He gave me the creeps, then I stopped. Gave you the creeps. Actually, in your drawing, you showed him standing up, didn't you? Yes, I had to do him standing up, was I couldn't dream sitting. What I thought was maybe the world's going to end, maybe they're telling us the world's going to end. That's sort of an interesting aspect. I think everybody involved, you know, the main investigators and Dr. Mac, you know, believe that there was some sort of encounter.

And again, you know, you start. you start getting into the, you know, when you investigate it, especially with children, you start, you start to see these perceptual aspects that are, that are kind of interesting. And, and for Dr. Mack, was the heart of his investigation. You know, some of those, you know, for instance, like the African children who witnessed it, sort of perceived like hair, you know, and they identified it as like a classic creature, you know, from their culture called a Togolishi, you know, which is like some sort of like spirit or some sort of being. So, you know, there's interesting stuff there to explore. I'm by no means an aerial expert. There are a lot of people out there that know a lot more. There are in our documentaries coming down the road. I think aerial phenomena is one that is going to be coming out.

And I think our friend James Fox has been doing some aerial stuff as well for his projects. So, yeah. And some of the children witnesses, they're grown up now. So they've taken to speaking about their encounters. Emily Trim is one. She's out there. She speaks about the encounter that she was involved with that day. And, you know, some of the kids claim further encounters or at least, you know, messages.

You know, we sort of have that contactee aspect of, you know, receiving messages. messages by some of the witnesses, you know, utopian-type stuff, which is fascinating. Yeah, absolutely. It's a great case. And like you said, the witnesses are still willing to talk about what happened to them. And it's clear that they're still affected by this, and they stick by their stories. So that's what I find most interesting about this one. It's the most current one we have to date, and it's also the one where we still have these witnesses around to tell this story.

So this case is not going to die. These documentaries are only going to shine more light on it. So I'm excited to see where that goes. Michael, these cases, it's astounding how many there are. And like you said, right before we started, there's hundreds of more. But with all of these, all of these cases that involve children, I want to hear from you, man, in your opinion, do you think whatever is happening to these kids, do you think it's intentional by these possible intelligences?

Are they actually targeting these children to appear to? Or is this all complete happenstance? Is it different for every case? Where do you sort of land in terms of why so many child UFO encounters happen? Well, ultimately, I would say I think it's different in each case. You know, I do think that these cases have to kind of, you know, be viewed independently of each other. But, you know, the comparisons are really striking, you know. You can't get around that.

that, I don't know, what kids are seeing? Are they more open to that sort of thing? I would think that it's probably the personality, you know, of whoever is perceiving, I guess, whatever is being perceived. That's sort of a long way around of saying, you know, maybe it depends on the person. And maybe it does depend on the fact that these are children. And, you know, perception does play as part into it. I can tell you myself though, and I think you're right along there with me that as a person who saw an object as a kid, it definitely influenced me. It got me further interested into the subject. I don't know if a lot of these people who saw these ended up going on to, you know, not too many of them that I've heard of have gone on to, you know, spread the UFO message.

or whatnot, but, you know, at least for a time they were vocal in the reality of what they saw. I don't know. I think, you know, some of these cases, maybe there's some sort of misidentification. Mass hysteria is always a possibility. Hoaxes are a possibility in some instances. But all of these cases, I think, stand out in that, you know, when you start getting into hundreds of witnesses and you start moving out of, you know, the child demographic and you're starting to get adult and other people seeing the same thing, then something is being seen then. You know, something is being experienced, you know, perceptions as to, you know, beings and all that.

I find very intriguing, very interesting. What's going on? I don't know. That's what makes these, you know, especially interesting. And, you know, I'd love to try. track some of some more of these witnesses down to some of these cases to see how it's affected them long term or if or if they've changed their mind i i think from those that have come forward even to this day they stand by yeah themselves as children you know this is what

i saw when i was a kid yep and you can ask for more than that from a witness you know they they have defied that sort of stigma that comes with reporting a UFO uh they were kids you know there wasn't this idea that I'm going to lose my job if I talk about this or, you know, the Johnson's next door are going to talk about us. It's, you know, it's, they're open, they're honest, and like you said, they're willing to be more honest than I think an adult would be in terms of coming forward with things like this. In terms of that, I have a question for you, in terms of like UFO organizations that investigate cases, do you think, in terms of these cases, that there should be some sort of organization that strictly deals with kids?

That's a good question. I think it's always advantageous to, you know, have people, you know, interested in specialized aspects of, you know, this subject and its history. As far as an organization, I think there's a pretty good Westall group on Facebook where a lot of these cases are discussed. It's Shane Ryan, the Westall investigator down there, and he's done some other investigations into similar school-type events. I think his group would probably be a good one to sort of interconnect with different people. You know, what makes these interesting and a little more problematic logistically for having a group is, you know, these cases are all over the world, you know. So if we're going to interact, you know, relative to these cases, you know, it's probably going to have to be a cyber organization like the Westall group.

But definitely I think it's a good area of focus. And, yeah, and there's other accounts out there. Yeah, we just hit the iceberg, you know. The famous Delphos case was a child case. The Cash Landrum was a child case, you know. Yep. There's a lot of our famous case. is involved children, and it would be good for somebody to look into that.

I think we got a lot of good searchers like Shane out there doing that for us. Yeah, he is doing some great work. And again, the Westall case is definitely one people should look into. Well, speaking to children, Michael, many of my listeners, they know this, but certainly not. You are the host of the Strange Travels blog. And don't think you weren't going to get away without talking about this, man. This is where you chronicle your adventures across the U.S. and with your children and your wife, which again, I envy tremendously. And you've gone to some amazing places.

This past year, tell me, debrief me. Have you personally been to any places that you really want to talk about? Anything strange happen or really come to mind, stick out? Oh, man. Yeah, we're doing the same thing that we've been doing. I call myself a paranormal travel writer, but that's not really my job. I'm just a regular, you know, just UFO junkie here in Missouri. But I do take my wife and kids to interesting spots, and we'll visit the occasional

famous UFO place, and I like to take pictures and document and share. The big thing probably this past year, we went to Kelly, Kentucky, home of the the Kelly Hopkinsville encounter of 1955, you know, where our house was besieged by goblins. I'm sure everybody's familiar with it, but yeah, I went there for the eclipse,

and it just so happens on the day, the anniversary of day of the eclipse, was also the anniversary of the encounter. Ooh, wow. Creepy. And it was also the highest, longest duration of point for the eclipse.

So it was the epicenter of the eclipse at this famous UFO spot. So we had fun there and I got to look around. I got to go onto the grounds of the property and then stand where the goblins were and look at the trees that they

leapt up into and even saw the flying saucer that or the circular patch that their saucer supposedly landed in in 1955. Wow. Wow. That was sort of that, that was one of the big highlights.

But that's the sort of thing that we do. You know, they have a UFO festival and all that. But, yeah, we like to do a lot of the peritourism and the UFO tourism. And, you know, we go to haunted houses and big footplaces. And we're still doing that. And we're still blogging about it. And thank you, Ryan. I know you've been liking a lot of my stuff on complimenting me.

You've been a big supporter, and I do appreciate that. Oh, I love it, man. more jealousy than anything, but no, I have a great respect for what you do and that you introduce this to your children. I think that's important. You're not telling them what to think. You're not telling them what all of this is. You're introducing them to a topic that many parents would be shy away from with their children. And, you know, we grew up having experiences and that's what led us to do this. So I do, I know I've asked you this on Into the Frey, but I want to ask you again. How do you deal with this with your kids? What do they, what do they take away from seeing

the indentation where a possible UFO landed and goblins came out? What does a kid make of this? That would blow my freaking mind. Well, well, first off, yeah, I'm jealous with my kids because I, you know, when I was a kid reading about this stuff, I wanted to go there immediately, you know, and look around. And, you know, so my kids are kind of lucky in that, you know, they get to go to a lot of interesting, you know, places. And when they're there, they know what they're there for. They know that, you know, supposedly, an alien was seen over there, you know, a big foot was seen, you know, right where you're standing, whatever. And they think it's fun and they think it's interesting. They're, luckily, they're into all this, too.

You know, they ask a lot of questions. I don't push, you know, hypotheses. In fact, I encourage my kids to come up with different ideas. And that's always fun, you know, when we're going through the TNT area, looking for the Mothman, you know, my boys will get into a competition of theories as to what they think it really is, you know. But there's always that little bit of mystery that little kids maintain that always gives them a little. bit of fright and a little bit of, you know, intrigue and a little bit of mystery, you know, within them that keeps them engaged. And my kids, luckily, they love monsters and aliens and all that. And they love going along with me and exploring as well.

Oh, that's awesome. God bless him. Well, what can we expect next? Where are you guys head in this year? The year's almost wrapped up. What's coming next for you guys? Well, we're probably going to tool around here in Missouri, visit a couple of local urban legends. You know, there's a couple of spooky haunted places and alien landing site that I need to check out before the end of the year. But next year, I think we're going to go up to Hannibal, Missouri, visit Mark Twainstown and have some fun up there. I think that's probably one of our big trips that we're looking to do. go up there and maybe have my kids paint the fence, you know, and a Tom Sawyer, uh, Hug Finn, uh, competition.

I think, uh, that might be on Mark, but, uh, that's great, man. It's not all UFOs and ghosts and gobbins. You got to teach him some literature too, right? Well, but, you know, Ryan, there's a lot of, uh, it also right near there is the first momo saying. Okay. And, uh, yeah, the famous, uh, you know, a couple famous UFO, uh, landing spots. I shouldn't know.

Yeah, I'm still going to take advantage of, yeah, and of course there's haunted places in Hannibal, I'm sure. So, yeah, we're going to do the weird stuff while we do our normal family stuff, you know. Good, good. I'm glad to hear that. Well, I mean, where can we find out more about what you're doing? Well, I am all over social media. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, you know, all that good stuff. I'm usually on Facebook quite a bit, and if I'm posting something somewhere or talking on the radio somewhere, I usually put a link up there. So just look me up there and you can file what we're doing.

I do have my WordPress blog, just keeping at it. It's still working out in the book. Hopefully, we're actually expanding that, and we're going to do some art projects connected with it. But, you know, when it's done, it's done, you know, we'll see how it goes. But, you know, it's a lot of stuff out there, a lot of stuff you want to do, and we're keeping at it. But I'm always interested in making more friends. And if anybody's got a cool place, they want to tell me about or a cool story, I'm always good to hit it for a chat. Awesome. That's so great to hear, man.

Well, this has been an absolutely fascinating crash course and a subtopic of UFO settings that, doesn't get talked about often. And I'm so glad that this is what we landed on. I know I've wanted you on since I started the podcast, and we couldn't really like nail down a topic. But I think this was a good one. We haven't talked about it before. There's clearly a lot of questions to still be asked

about why all of these trial UFO encounters happen. And I couldn't think of a better person to do that today. So thank you again for coming on somewhere in the skies. Thank you, Ryan. It is a pleasure. and you're doing a great job with the show. Keep at it, buddy. That is it for this week's episode.

All of Michael Huntington's work can be found on Facebook and on Instagram. Just search for Huntington Strange Travels. If you really want to help out Somewhere in the Skies, please consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing on iTunes. It truly helps more than you know. Somewhere in the Skies is on Twitter at SomewhereSkies and on Instagram.

At SomewhereSkies Pod. The official merch store is, is open with several different designs. Visit tepublic.com and search for Somewhere in the Skies. That's T-E-E-E-E-Public.com. I will see you here next week, and remember, keep your feet on the ground, but never stop searching somewhere in the skies.

Where in the Skies is produced by Third Kind Productions, in association with Antica Productions and the Antica Podcast Network. To learn more, visit anticaproductions.com.