The Why Files: Operation Podcast - 539: DEEP DIVE: UFO Time Travelers Sergei Ponomarenko and Rudolph Fentz

Episode Date: April 3, 2024

Prepare to have your mind blown by the strangest tales of time travel and UFOs you've ever heard. These stories will make you question everything you thought you knew about reality. From a Soviet man who slipped through time to a tragic traveler in 1950s New York, the cases are as puzzling as they are captivating. Uncover the hidden clues linking UFOs and time travel throughout history, from ancient cave paintings to Renaissance art. Join us as we unravel the mysteries, separate fact from fiction, and explore the incredible possibilities of time travel. Get ready for a journey that will challenge your beliefs and leave you wondering if the impossible might just be possible after all.

You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth. While curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. On April 23rd, 2006, a man in his early 20s was seen in Kiev, Ukraine, staring at a high-rise apartment building. Witnesses described him as looking confused

and anxious. They thought he might have been a lost tourist. The man approached two police officers and nervously asked for directions to a place that no longer existed. The officers asked the young man for identification. There were two problems with his ID. One, his documents were issued by the Soviet Union, which no longer existed. The second problem, according to his birth date, this young man was born in 1932. In 2011, a Russian documentary called The Time Traveler told the story of Sergei Panamarenko, who seemed to be slipping in and out of time. Eyewitnesses first saw Panamarenko standing at an intersection in Kiev,

looking confused and a little frightened. He was described as being in his early 20s and wearing clothes that looked new but were 50 years out of fashion. Panamarenko was asking everyone he met how to get to Peshtaniya Street, but nobody had ever out of fashion. Panamarenko was asking everyone he met how to get to Peshtaniya Street, but nobody had ever heard of it. His strange behavior caught the attention

of police officer Sergei Anapanko and his partner who approached him. Again, Panamarenko wanted directions to Peshtaniya Street. When he tried to find the street on a map, all that was there was a landfill. Officer Anapanko now noticed Sergei's vintage clothing, which looked brand new. He also noticed that Sergei was wearing an antique camera around his neck, which also looked new. But what really caught the police officer's attention

was Sergei's identification. According to the document, Sergei was born in Kiev in 1932. That should make him 74, but here he was looking no older than 25. What surprised me most was his identification papers. The papers were dated 1958, but they were like new. There was a photograph that looked similar to this man. I didn't see how it could be him. I assumed this person was out of his mind and had to get him to a psychiatrist. Sergei Ponomarenko didn't want to see a psychiatrist, but his options were that or be arrested for vagrancy and easy choice. So Sergei

was taken to a private psychiatric clinic where everything was captured on video. And that's when things get really strange. Sergey Panamarenko didn't want to go to a psychiatric clinic. You can see him on CCTV acting agitated and nervous. The receptionist said when he arrived, he became even more confused. I remember he kept looking at my mobile phone, just staring at it. He didn't want to give me his coat or his camera or any of his belongings. I knew he was going to be a difficult patient. After a few minutes, Dr. Pavel Kritikov called Sergei into his office. Please take a seat.

Now tell me, what's going on with you? How do you feel? At first, Sergei said nothing. He just stared at the clock hanging on the wall. He was clearly confused, possibly even in shock. If you don't talk to me, I can't help you. I'm not sure you can help me. What day is it today? The last thing I remember, it was Wednesday in 1958. I don't know. Dr. Kritikoff said he'd seen patients who create stories like this as a defense mechanism. Some people who experience severe trauma or stress

sometimes try to escape from reality. They get lost in their delusion. But in Sergei's case, something was different. What's your name and where are you from? Did you say 1958? You don't look older than maybe 30 years old. Are you saying this is the future for you? Do you remember how you ended up here? My name is Sergei Potomarenko. I was born in Kyiv on June 20th, 1932, and I'm 25 years old. Sergei told the doctor he had the day off from work, so he took his camera and walked around the city. At some point, he looked up into the sky and saw an object shaped like a bell moving erratically. The doctor asked if he was describing a UFO, but Sergei had never heard that word before. Sergei said it's too hard to

describe. It'd be easier to just develop the film. Dr. Kritikov agreed to develop Sergei's film. While waiting for the photographs, Kritikov wanted Sergei to stay in the clinic for a few days for observation. At that point, the doctor realized that Sergei kept looking at the clock on the wall. Uh, the clock stopped. How long have we been here? So Dr. Kritikov checked his watch and noticed that it also had stopped. The clock on the wall showed half past one, the same time as when Sergei came in. But we've been talking for at least half an hour. When Sergei returned to the lobby, the clocks in the doctor's office started working again.

At this point, Dr. Kritikov didn't fully believe Sergei's story, but he was intrigued by what might be in the photos. However, developing the film would be a challenge. Sergei's camera was a Yashima Flex. Although it would have been a new camera in 1958, it hadn't been manufactured in 40 years. To be honest, I was surprised. This camera stopped being made in the 70s. I've had films that were only two or three years old. They had to be thrown out. But this film was over 40 years old and was fine. Sergei's film was from the 1950s, which meant it was much different from what we use today.

Back then, there were no cloud storage platforms or digital photos. Before the 1960s, film was made from cellulose acetate, which can last for up to 50 years. However, it must be stored under certain conditions, a temperature of under 70 degrees Fahrenheit and less than 40% humidity. Even so, this type of film was known to degrade over the years. Some films even developed something called vinegar syndrome. It occurs when the cellulose acetate rots, shrinks, and cracks, releasing a stench that smells a lot like vinegar, hence the name. But the film wasn't over 40 years old, and there didn't seem to be an odor, at least according to Sergei.

From Sergei's perspective, he had just purchased the film. It was practically brand new, and uns's perspective, he had just purchased the film. It was practically brand new, and unsurprisingly, it developed just fine. The pictures looked familiar to Dr. Kritikov. He recognized Kiev, but the photographs were of Kiev in the 1950s. Another photo showed Sergei Panamarenko sitting in front of a house. Dr. Kritikoff noticed that Sergei came to his office wearing the same clothes as in the photograph, clothes that looked clean and new. Another picture showed a young woman in her early 20s.

Kritikoff assumed this was Sergei's girlfriend. The final photograph was the most amazing one of all. In the sky above the city, an object shaped like a bell, just as Sergei described. On Sergei's the sky above the city, an object shaped like a bell, just as Sergei described. On Sergei's third day in the clinic, he had another session with Dr. Kritikov to discuss the photos. So can you tell me what's wrong with me? I just want to go home. Yes, I took this picture, but I don't understand what it is. I took the photograph and then I seem to appear in a different world. I don't really think you're sick, but there are some things we still need to figure out. We need to talk about the photographs taken from your camera. I'm most interested in

this one. Please take a look. It looks like a bell or something in the sky. Do you know what this is? Is this a UFO? A UFO? I don't know what that is. After the session, Sergey went to his room in the clinic. When the hospital staff checked in on him, he was nowhere to be found. Not in his room, not in the hallways, not anywhere. Sergey Ponomarenko was gone. When Sergei Ponomarenko went to his room at the clinic, that was the last time anyone saw him.

Even though there were cameras on the only exit and his windows were covered with metal bars, he somehow disappeared. Even if the window is open, it's impossible to climb through the bars. There's only one entrance and exit. All that was left is a newspaper and his notes with the doctor's questions. Dr. Krutikov contacted the police to locate him. Officer Onopenko went to the address that Sergei put on his intake form at the clinic. Of course, nothing was there. But they learned that Sergei's apartment building had form at the clinic. Of course, nothing was there. But they learned that Sergei's apartment building had been torn down and the residence had been moved to a larger building nearby, which had been built in the early 1960s and was still standing. By digging

through the building's records, Onipanko found that Sergei did in fact live in that building, and he lived there for 20 years. And that's where Sergei's story hits another snag. Because, according to police records, Sergei Potomarenko was missing. The police report contained a picture of Sergei, who looked like the man we saw earlier, about

20 years old. He was seen leaving his building in 1978 with his camera and was never seen again. But Sergei's file contained something else interesting. In 1958, he was interviewed on a radio program where he made predictions about the future. Hello, listeners. Today, our guest is an inventor, the head of the Young Technicians Group, Sergey Palomarenko.

He has some incredible predictions about the science of the future. Hello, Sergey. Hi, thanks for having me on. I want to talk about the wonderful future that awaits us. Sergey went on to describe how artificial hearts will be used in the future and phones will no longer need wires. What really fascinated Sergei was the microwave. In the future, cooking will become convenient and fast. It's a device reminiscent of an alarm clock that goes off at the right time. And in just a couple of minutes, your dinner will be ready. Though old Soviet files contained plenty of information about Sergei, they were no closer to locating him.

Then the police had an idea. There might be a person who could shed some light on Sergei Ponomarenko and what might have happened to him, the woman in the photographs. Her name was Valentina Koulis, and she was still alive. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map. You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna.

There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. You searched for your informant, who disappeared without a trace. You knew there were witnesses, but lips were sealed. You swept the city, driving closer to the truth, while curled up on the couch with your cat. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover heart-pounding thrillers on Audible. You sailed beyond the horizon in search of an island scrubbed from every map.

You battled krakens and navigated through storms. Your spade struck the lid of a long-lost treasure chest. While you cooked a lasagna. There's more to imagine when you listen. Discover best-selling adventure stories on Audible. Tracking Sergei Ponomarenko was difficult. He appeared out of nowhere in 2006 and disappeared a few days later.

He reappeared sometime in the past, made accurate predictions about the future, and then disappeared again. But Sergei left behind the photographs he'd taken before he went missing the first time. In those photographs was a picture of a young woman. Her name was Valentina Koulis, and she was still living in the apartment building where Sergei was last seen. Valentina said that she and Sergei were good friends for many years, but he went missing in 1978 and was presumed dead. His belongings were thrown away and his apartment

was sold. But Valentina did have a picture of him. It was such a long time ago. I only had one good picture left. This was taken in 1958. They compared Valentina's photo to the pictures on Sergei's camera. They were pictures of the same people wearing the same clothes taken on the same day. Valentina asked what this was about, and the police and Dr. Kritikov said they were looking for a man who claimed to be Sergei, and that it might be someone mentally ill, claiming they traveled in time. Valentina stared at the men for a long moment. Then, she took out an envelope. She said that a few years ago, she came home one day, and in her mailbox was an envelope with no postmark or writing of any kind. Inside the envelope was a picture of Sergei.

When compared to the picture at the time of his disappearance, he hadn't aged at all. But even more strange was the photograph's background. The motherland statue was over Sergei's right shoulder. There's no question that this was Kiev. Investigators went to the exact spot where Sergei took the picture. They found the location, but the rest of the skyline was wrong. Kiev didn't have all the skyscrapers that were in Sergei's photo. At least, not yet.

On the back of the photograph was a message to Valentina, written in Sergei's own hand. Dearest Valentina, everything is fine with me. I'll try to return when I can. Yours, Sergei. It would seem that Sergei Ponomarenko had jumped into the future once again. But considering how Big Kiev looked in the photos, and given what the city has endured recently, there's no way to tell just how far into the future Sergei traveled. But it was obviously pretty far. Some sources say Panamarenko dated that photo 2050. As of 2011, when the documentary was released,

Sergei had not reached out to Valentina, nor was he spotted anywhere in the city. If we're going to solve this mystery, we're apparently going to have to wait a long, long time. The concept of time travel has been a staple of science fiction for a long time. In 1770, Louis-Sebastien Mercier wrote the book The Year 2440, in which the hero travels centuries into the future. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, written in 1843, explored time travel in both

directions. But the story that really kicked off the genre was H.G. Wells' The Time Machine, written in 1895. But those are works of fiction. Is time travel really possible? And if so, how? Well, we know that traveling into the future is possible. In 1905, Einstein published his special theory of relativity. In that, he described how moving clocks tick more slowly than stationary ones. The faster you move, the slower time moves. So if you want to travel 100 years into the

future, what you do is take a spaceship that can travel at 99.995% the speed of light, then fly somewhere 50 light years away, turn around and come back. On Earth, 100 years have passed. But because you were going so fast, the trip only took a year. Time travel. This theory has been proven in the real world. If you put an extremely accurate clock on a plane and fly it in the same direction that the earth spins, when you land, that clock will be slightly behind the clocks on earth. That's special relativity. In 1915, Einstein published the theory of general relativity. This theory describes gravity as a geometric property of spacetime, otherwise known as four-dimensional space.

It describes how spacetime is like a fabric or continuum that curves around whatever matter happens to be present. General relativity is a lot, but for the purpose of this episode, it boils down to this. The higher the gravity, the slower time moves. This is called gravitational time dilation. Remember in Interstellar,

there's that scene where Matthew McConaughey and the crew land on that planet near the black hole? The gravity is so severe that for every hour they spend on the planet, seven years passes on Earth. A Les McConaughey example is, GPS satellites are about 12,000 miles above the Earth's surface.

There is less gravity, which means time moves faster up there. Time on the satellites has to be adjusted to match the slower moving time down here on the surface. Otherwise, GPS wouldn't work. Another way to explain it uses renowned scientist Carl Sagan's twin paradox. It's called that because he illustrated the concept with two identical twins. Let's say one stays on Earth while the other travels to space at the speed of light. For reference, that's 186,000 miles per second, extremely fast. Time moves quicker for the twin in space. Meanwhile, the twin

on Earth ages at the normal rate. Depending on how long the space twin is away, these identical twins could end up a decade apart, or that twin could slow down and return from space to an era far, far in the future, where their other twin is long dead. But all of that is time travel into the future. What about time travel to the past? Well, that's a bit more theoretical and controversial. Not all physicists believe it's possible,

but Einstein's theories say it is possible. It's achieved by bending or warping space-time so much that you can take a shortcut from point A to point B, a shortcut that lets you move faster than light. If you can somehow move faster than light and get space-time to wrap around itself like a cylinder, you travel back in time, in theory. But doing something like this would require a lot of energy, possibly all the energy of an exploding star. Obviously, our civilization can't do this, but a very advanced civilization could. On the surface, the topics of time travel and UFOs don't seem to be related at all. But it's hard to talk about one without the other, because some believe that UFOs are actually time machines.

Could that be true in Sergei Panamarenko's case? And how did he get a photo of the UFO when he had no idea what they were? If Sergei was born in 1932, he was aged 25 in 1957. Five years earlier in 1952, U.S. Air Force Captain Edward J. Ruppelt created the term UFO. He used it to describe any sky objects that experts couldn't identify. It seemed to be strictly an American turn of phrase. Even so, Ruppelt and the Air Force kept receiving reports of UFOs in the air. He started Project Blue Book to keep track of them all.

From 1952 until 1969, the document contained over 12,000 sightings. That's a lot of close encounters. Suddenly, people were talking about UFOs across the United States. But remember, it was also the height of the Cold War. It was a tense time, with panic in the air and fear of a nuclear attack. Some people were scared these flying objects could be Soviet secret planes. They thought another world war could break out at any moment. For others, well, theories abound.

They thought these flying objects could be aliens from another planet. Groups and organizations who believed in and investigated UFOs emerged and grew. They insisted that the U.S. government was keeping aliens under wraps and hiding who these beings really were. One theory is that extraterrestrials pilot UFOs. But there's also another theory to consider. It says UFOs are being flown by humans from the future. This idea may date back to 1975, when ufologist Jacques Vallée published his book The Invisible

College. He wrote that the passengers and drivers of the UFOs could be humans from another period. This theory gained further steam in the early 1990s, thanks to two of the most famous scientists in the world. In 1992, the esteemed physicist Stephen Hawking published a paper in the Physical Review. The paper was titled Chronology Protection Conjecture. It argued that the laws of physics made the time warping of space-time impossible. In a 1999 episode of the PBS series Nova, Hawking said that time travel might be possible, but according to him, we'd already have proof if it did

work. Time travel might be possible, but if that is the case, why haven't we been overrun by tourists from the future? Later in the episode, another renowned scientist, Carl Sagan, rebutted this point with a theory of his own. In a separate interview, Sagan believed we could be living among time travelers who are in disguise. This argument I find very dubious. It might be that time travel into the past is possible, but they haven't gotten to our time yet. They're very far in the future.

And the further back in time you go, the more expensive it is. Then there's the possibility that they're here and we do see them, but we call them something else. UFOs or ghosts. Naturally, Hawking also had a counter-argument to Sagan's reasoning. I think that if people from the future were going to show themselves, they would do so in a more obvious way. What would be the point of revealing themselves only to cranks and weirdos? Who wouldn't he be believed? The scientists' dueling viewpoints were fascinating, but they had to agree to disagree. Let's take a closer look at Sagan's theory. What if UFOs were just humans in the future?

And what if Sergey Ponomarenko was one of them? In 2019, Montana Technological University professor Michael Masters published the book Identified Flying Objects. In it, he pointed out that technology is rapidly advancing every day. And at some point in the future, he believes humans finally figured out how to time travel. Whether they found a wormhole or warped time and space successfully, they did it. As a result, those people have been traveling across time in identified flying objects, especially since most close encounters describe them as bipedal, hairless, and with large brains. These visitors tend to communicate with humans in our languages. Their technology also seems to be built upon the foundations of our current machinery.

They sound just like us, but more evolved. Masters calls them extra-tempestrials. It's important to note that Masters' research is still evolving, but he does see it as being the simplest explanation for UFOs. As for Sergei Panamarenko, he was 25 years old in both 1957 and 2006. He didn't come from a distant future. Instead, he came from the past and moved forward to 2050 at one point. He had a Yashima Flex camera that contained a photo of a UFO.

That could have been his method of transportation. A UFO filled with people from the future may have picked him up and left him in another time. Sergei may not have remembered any of it, though. So is that what happened to Sergei Ponomarenko when he took a picture of the UFO? Did he travel with humans from the future across time? Did they all somehow enter a wormhole or a tear in the fabric of space-time? Well, he hasn't been the only visitor who unwillingly traveled into the future.

In June 1950, Sergei Ponomarenko was 18 years old in the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, in New York City, a 29-year-old man named Rudolf Fentz walked into Times Square. It was 11 o'clock at night and he was disoriented. He looked around the bustling landmark in shock. Fentz stared at the cars zooming by. He gazed up at massive billboards, confused. At first glance, Fentence seemed like a lost tourist.

In busy Times Square, though, he didn't attract much attention. That is, until he walked from the sidewalk into an intersection while the traffic light was green. In the blink of an eye, a speeding taxi hit Fence. Bystanders called the authorities, but the man died from his injuries before they arrived. Fence was transported to the local morgue, where officials tried to identify this mysterious man. As they addressed him, the coroner noticed Fence's jacket and hat were very outdated. They weren't from this century.

The officials searched Fence's pockets and found a copper token for one beer at a local bar. But no one recognized the bar's name on the coin, so they searched the city's phone book. Next, authorities stumbled upon a bill from a stable for a horse and carriage fair. No one recognized the stable's name either. In another pocket, they found $70 in banknotes. But these types of bills were extremely old. In fact, they hadn't been used in the United States since the 1800s. Ultimately, the coroner found some identifying information. There was a business card with the man's name, Rudolph Fence, and his local address. He wasn't

a tourist after all. He lived on Manhattan's famous Fifth Avenue. The last item discovered was a letter Fence received from a friend. His Fifth Avenue address was listed on the piece of paper, but the date on it was 1876, 74 years earlier, a time after the Civil War but before the World Wars. How could this be? Well, Fence was clearly a man from another time. The coroner handed off the case of 29-year-old Rudolph Fence's death to the police. The NYPD assigned it to the missing persons department. Authorities thought he might match the description of someone else who was reported missing. Captain Hubert V. Rim took the case.

First, he went to Fence's address on Fifth Avenue, which was no longer a home. It was a small business. When Rim spoke to the owner, they had never heard of Fence. But Rim kept looking. He couldn't find a missing person's report that matched Fence's description. Rim checked to see if Fence's fingerprints were on file anywhere. No dice. Then Rim scanned the phone book, an old-fashioned public register of people's addresses

and phone numbers. There was no sign of Fence. The captain didn't stop there, though. He searched through past phone books, too. Fence wasn't listed in any of them in the 1940s. When Rim looked through the 1939 edition, he spotted a familiar name listed. It was Rudolph Fence wasn't listed in any of them in the 1940s. When Rimm looked through the 1939 edition, he spotted a familiar name listed. It was Rudolph Fence, Jr.

Again, Rimm visited the address, which was an apartment building. He asked residents if they knew Fence's son, but only a few remembered him. They described Fence Jr. as a man in his 60s who moved away in 1940. No one could recall where he ended up. Rimm continued to follow this lead. He investigated Fence Jr. and discovered he died in 1945. But his wife was alive and well in Florida. So Rimm sent her a letter asking for more information on her husband's father.

A few weeks later, she wrote back with some startling information. In the letter, she confirmed her husband's father was indeed the Rudolph Fence who was alive in the 1870s, but he disappeared when he was a young man around 29 years old. Rimm immediately looked through the missing person's archives going back all the way to 1876. And there he found the elder Rudolph Fence's name attached to a report. It said that one night around 10 o'clock, Fence went for a walk in the city. He was last seen in Times Square. The report detailed the same clothing Fence was wearing when he appeared in 1950. This proved that Fence traveled through time from 1876 to 1950 in some kind of Times Square wormhole. A pretty open and shut case for the captain, right? Well, not exactly. Captain Rim was faced with a dilemma. The evidence of Fence's journey through the years was right

there, but he was skeptical. And he worked for a police force that likely didn't believe in anything supernatural. He didn't want to try convincing his colleagues that this was possible. He wasn't even sure he believed it. The whole thing was just too weird for his tastes. So Rims simply marked the case as unresolved and closed it. Despite that, Fence's story lived on and spread. Those who heard it theorized the man likely fell through one of those wormholes in 1876, and that's how he ended up in 1950. Others, like Captain Rim, simply didn't think that was true. But could Fence have time-traveled under the same circumstances as Sergei Ponomarenko?

If Rim had investigated further, would he have found that a UFO was involved too? And are these time travelers only transporting to the future? Nope. There's also evidence that UFOs have traveled to the past. In the 20th and 21st centuries, we're lucky to have devices that capture images like photographs, film, and video. Earlier eras weren't so lucky, but they recorded what they saw in other ways, like art, as in paintings. People painted their surroundings and the things that happened to them. Let's go all the way back to 10,000 BC, a long time before Sergei Panamarenko, Carl Sagan, or Albert Einstein were even born. It was the Mesolithic era.

Early humans used basic stone tools and crafted arrows and spears from antlers, bone, and wood. It was the dawn of agriculture, meaning people began farming. And they expressed their creativity by painting pictures in caves. In central India, archaeologist J.R. Bhagat studied 10,000-year-old cave paintings found in the state of Chhattisgarh. These paintings show yellow human-like beings in a row outlined in red. There were no further details in the paintings,

making them feel slightly off. In some cave images, they were wearing spacesuits, while in others, their noses and mouths were missing. Bogat, in his expertise, believed they were aliens. He said these early humans may have seen these beings, which inspired the paintings and likely influenced local legends. In the area's villages, people have passed down stories for generations, including ones about the Rohela, small creatures who arrived from a round flying object in the sky. Sound familiar? They sound and look like UFOs.

In some paintings, the round spacecraft have antenna and three lines on the bottom, probably representing its landing gear. But these ancient paintings in central India are hardly the only ones showing UFOs and aliens. Jump forward 11,000 years.

Cave paintings are no longer in style. Instead, these strange images started appearing in a more modern, sacred place. Churches. In 1350, someone painted a large illustration of Jesus Christ's crucifixion in a Kosovo church. Inside the Vysoky Dikani Monastery, the image takes up three panels. In the center, Christ is depicted on the cross.

The rest of the panels contain people who could be disciples, Romans, or onlookers. They're surrounding Jesus, watching and waiting in some kind of castle. Some of the individuals even hold spears and shields. But look in the upper right and left corners of the entire artwork and you'll see something odd. Two people traveling through the sky in small pods. One is golden and the other is silver, and both seem to be on the move. They look like space pods. And who could be driving those in the 14th century? Aliens? Future humans? Again, we don't know who created this painting, but we can guess they probably had a close encounter of some kind. Now fast forward to the 16th century in the Transylvania region of Romania.

Yes, the home of Dracula, but he's not involved in this story. In a small town called Sigiswara, the monastery church was rebuilt after a fire. But soon after the rebuild, a strange new painting dated 1523 appeared on a wall. The image is of a church-like building engulfed in flames and smoke. There's a mysterious round dome-shaped object floating above the building in the sky. On top of the craft, there's a faint orange beam illuminating the clouds above it. You guessed it, it looks just like a UFO. It looks as if the spacecraft caused the fire. The painting includes a psalm which says,

Israel, put your hope in the Lord. Maybe the artist hoped that God or a higher power could save the church from the fire and the UFO. Otherwise, it's not entirely clear how that line refers to the painting, or if it's just another random psalm on the walls of the church. Also, we don't know who painted this image or if they had an encounter with aliens to inspire this art. Could the UFO have set the church on fire in the first place? Nobody knows. However, these examples clearly show that aliens and UFOs may predate all of us

and could be flying through the past and present. Are these aliens and UFOs really time travelers, as Carl Sagan theorized? Are time travelers secretly walking among us, like Sergei Ponomarenko? And have they been doing that throughout history? Well... Now we've heard the story of Sergei Ponomarenko, and we've determined that time travel is theoretically possible. We've even talked about how UFOs might not be aliens after all. They could be time-traveling humans like Sergei. We examined the story of another time-traveling man named Rudolph Fentz in New York City.

We also examined some of the earliest cave paintings and church art that depict UFOs. So is all this true? No. But every article and video I found covering Sergei Panamarenko's story seemed to be a retelling of each other's versions of the story. And none of these versions are right. Today you learn the real story because I was able to track down the original, full-length documentary and have it translated from Russian, which wasn't easy.

There are a few things in the documentary that point to a hoax. First, there's a casting director in the credits. But maybe that's for the scenes that were dramatized. Fine. But the police officer says Sergei appeared on Tuesday, April 23rd, 2006, while the camera in the lobby says Wednesday, April 23rd. But they're both wrong. April 23rd was actually a Sunday. During his first visit,

Sergei tells the doctor that he was born in June 1932, but his ID says he was born in March. Sergei's second visit to the doctor is at 10.39 a.m. April 26th. But this is supposed to be the following day, April 27th. When Sergei goes down the hall to his room, it's supposed to be the third day. But the camera still says April 26th. And now, for some reason, it's a Friday.

So the dates and times are all over the place. Next, the picture of Sergei that the police have on his missing persons report. It's the same photo he sent to Valentina. His facial expressions are different, but he's been digitally aged, so the producers

probably did that to make him seem more real. Now, these are details good investigators would have caught. On top of all that, the film from the Yashima Flex camera

may have been 40 years old, or it may have been relatively new, and not because of time travel. Stores still sold that type of film up until the 1990s. So in 2006, the cellulose was probably only about 10 to 15 years old, which is why it seemed to develop just fine. Sergei's photo from 2050 shows several skyscrapers that are identical and only vary in size, which is pretty suspect when cities are known for their distinct buildings and architecture. Photoshop didn't exist like it does now, but there were other ways to manipulate and edit images back then, like taking pieces of photos to make one cohesive-looking photograph and passing it off as a glimpse into the future.

So yeah, the story is fake, but I still think it's one of the best time travel stories I've ever come across. The actors are convincing. And as long as you don't pay too much attention, the pictures are great. And by the way, you can see all these photos and video on the Y-Files YouTube channel. Now, Rudolph Fentz's story also has a complicated path to the truth. In 1972, the account was published in the Journal of Borderland Research. That's right, that's an actual academic journal.

So that means it had to be true, right? Well, that's what everyone seemed to think. The story circulated as an urban legend for decades. In the year 2000, a folklore researcher named Chris Aubrecht saw the story resurface in a Spanish magazine and decided to investigate its origins. Aubrecht traced the Fence story back to a 1953 book titled A Voice from the Gallery by Ralph M. Holland, but then he found out that the book was plagiarized from someone else's account. The absolute origin of Rudolph Fentz's tale

is a short story called I'm Scared by Jack Finney. It was published in Collier's Magazine as a work of fiction. And Finney's name should sound familiar. He wrote the famous novel, The Body Snatchers. It's another time traveler story proven to be fiction rather than fact. As for UFOs and time traveling humans, it's a fun theory, but it's just that, a theory.

Carl Sagan spoke in theoretical terms, but also often said that no one really knows for sure. And we may never really know if his hypothesis was true, that time travelers are secretly roaming the earth among the rest of us. We just don't have any evidence. Michael Masters, the professor who wrote a book about UFOs and time travel isn't completely sure either. He admitted that he didn't have much evidence.

According to him, the theory is still quote unquote evolving. The UFOs depicted in cave and church paintings also have other explanations. J.R. Bhagat, who found the cave images in central India, admitted his theory needed further examination, but he didn't have the resources to do it.

When Bhagat did bring in experts, they debunked his theory. Historians said the cave paintings weren't of aliens, but people. Even though they lacked key features, that was typical of art in the region. They were also painted with yellow and red ink, which didn't exist 10,000 years ago. That would make those paintings maybe 1,000 years old. Several scientists and geology historians came to the following conclusion. It's simple rock art, nothing to do with aliens.

And the UFOs in Kosovo's Crucifixion of Christ painting represent something entirely different. Historians and experts said the orange and silver floating pods actually depicted the sun and the moon. The artists likely wanted to show how the heavenly bodies above reacted to Christ's crucifixion. So the people inside the pods weren't aliens who traveled into the past. They were just personified celestial objects.

Now, as for the Romanian painting in Transylvania, the UFO in that one also has a logical explanation. It doesn't symbolize aliens from the future, but the prophet Elijah. In the Bible's Old Testament, Elijah gets beamed up to the heavens in a chariot of fire. So that round dome-like object in the sky wasn't a spacecraft. And those flames weren't just a regular church fire. It was supposed to be Elijah's chariot of fire, helping him ascend to heaven for a secret mission from God.

And I have a video on that on the channel as well. Unfortunately, none of the stories we discussed today were true, but they do show how the concept of time travel has captivated the human imagination for years. Why are we so fascinated with time travel? I think it's because time is one of the few things in our lives that's equal for everyone and that no one can control. No matter how much wealth or power you may accumulate, eventually time wins. Time travel makes us think of the possibilities of the future, of what may exist after we're gone. Time travel also reminds us of the impossibilities of the past, of decisions made, of mistakes, regrets. How many things in your life would you go back and change? Maybe you wouldn't have said

that stupid thing in class, or maybe you would have stood up to that bully in your neighborhood or been nicer to that nerd on the bus. Maybe you would have taken a chance on that business idea, learned a foreign language, traveled the world. But there is a trick we can play on ourselves to take back a little bit of control of time. And it's something I try to do whenever I have a difficult decision to make. 10 years from now or 20 years from now, your future self is gonna think back to today, right now. And you're gonna have regrets. Your future self will say,

I'd give anything to go back and make different choices. Well, you're here now. Now is your chance. Be good to your future self by taking chances, by being kinder, by not sweating the small stuff. Time eventually runs out for all of us. Because when you get to the end, whether it's next year or 50 years from now, you don't want to look back on your life with regret, saying I should have done this or I wish I did that. Don't do that to your future self.

When you finally get to the end, your only thought should be, man, that was a hell of a ride. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. My name is AJ. This has been The Y Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do me a favor. Leave the podcast a nice review. That lets me know to keep making these things for you. And like most topics I cover on The Y Files, today's was recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to learn more about,

go to the Y Files dot com slash tips. And special thanks to our patrons who make The Y Files possible. I dedicate every episode to you, and I couldn't do this without your support. So if you'd like who make The Y Files possible. I dedicate every episode to you, and I couldn't do this without your support. So if you'd like to support The Y Files, consider becoming a member on Patreon. For as little as $3 a month, you get all kinds of perks. You get early access to videos without commercials. You get first dibs on products like the hecklefish talking plushie.

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