This Paranormal Life - #234 Soldiers Attacked by Korean 'Pumpkin UFO'

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

In 1951, dozens of American soldiers who were fighting in Korea claimed they were attacked by a UFO shaped like a 'jack-o'-lantern'. The story sounded unbelievable at first but 3 days after the alleged sighting the men began to fall ill...Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL MerchFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Kami TomanResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do demons celebrate Christmas? Can you send emails underwater? All of these questions you can find the answer to on this Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome to this Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale, case, claim, or beast, and come to a conclusion at the end of the episode as to whether or not that thing is truly paranormal. My name is Roy Powers. Across from me sits Kit Greer, my co-investigator for the evening. If this is your first time listening to the podcast,

you know, get the f*** out of here. Take your little asshole and open the door you just came in shut it behind you and and swallow the key why don't you go ahead and swallow that key because you're not coming back in five minutes before recording you said brother we need to uh plug the podcast hard we need to market in all different corners over social media and digital. Downloads are down. It's all about striking the right balance.

Come on in because we do need you and we need the downloads. Okay. At this point, we need to get to the episode itself. But what's your step? Because one foot out of line

and you're out that front door. We talked about it in recent episodes. There's still a lot of complaints about that we don't get to the episode fast enough. Really? Because we used to.

We used to, brother. Yeah, we used to. We got a reputation yeah we used to get there in like a heartbeat lately less so there's been a little bit of rambling at the start let's go straight into the episode so if you're new here welcome aboard but watch out because i got my eye on you and yeah we're going to be talking about some weird stuff today and yeah you might enjoy it and you might not. We have to start. Right, yeah, okay. I am going to get to it, but I feel like the newcomers need a proper welcome. And a proper scolding. Our story today takes us back to May 1951 in Korea. We're just north of Seoul, where Private First Class Francis P. Wall and his regiment are stationed near Chorwon.

The Korean War had been raging for just over a year, and both sides were suffering casualties. Private Wall and his regiment were tasked with clearing nearby villages before demolishing them with artillery strikes. A team would go in, warn the locals of the impending artillery fire, and then regroup with the rest of the squad before blowing it to kingdom come. War is hell, they say, and for Private Wall and his regiment, this would be more than true. It was nighttime, outside Chor Wan, and the team had just cleared a nearby town. All right, the village is clear. Everyone evacuated. You could say, yep, ready for bombardment. Yep, ready for bombard...

Yep, ready for bombard... Yep, ready for bombard... You been drinking, soldier? Ready for the... Yep, I'm gonna get there, Sarge. Yep, ready for bombardment. Copy that. Ready the artillery.

And fire! Fire! Copy that! Ready the artillery, and fire! Artillery shells began raining down on the small village, lighting up the night like fireworks. As the shells continued to drop, the men noticed something strange drifting down from one of the mountainsides. Just to their right appeared to be a hovering jack-o'-lantern floating down towards the village. It was a strange pumpkin-like object that seemed to have holes in it revealing a glowing orange core. If I saw something like this personally, I'm gonna stop bombarding the village. Because you're messing with something that can control pumpkins. The floating jack-o'-lantern

continued to drift towards the village, heading straight into the explosions of the artillery. The men watched in disbelief as the floating pumpkin effortlessly dodged the gunfire, moving so fast it couldn't be touched. Wow. Even after around 45 minutes of shells, the object remained unharmed. Damn, this pumpkin's got moves. It does. When the striking was over, the object began to slowly hover towards the men. I'll give it to you. At this point, I would be a little unnerved.

I'm dropping my knees and praying to the pumpkin gods because this pumpkin is going to, I don't know, gobble me up in its candle mouth. I don't know what this thing's gonna do. It's gonna f*** me up for drinking its brethren pumpkin spice lattes. At the very least, it will unite humanity against a higher enemy. The pumpkin gods. The gourds. It's time for the humans of the world to lay down their differences.

I'm sorry that we just nuked your hometown. Will you join us as we fight this pumpkin? I often think about the concept that there could be any number of creatures on earth, which actually came from space and are aliens, but came so long ago in earth's evolution that we just don't know anymore. They say that could be true about jellyfish

or that could be true about octopus. Yeah. That they actually came from another planet or a meteor and crash landed here on Earth. Who's to say? It's not pumpkins. Yeah, it's very, very true. Yeah, I don't think anyone is running with the theory

that pumpkins came from another universe. That one day a pumpkin asteroid came down. I am, I think, now that I mention it. They taste pretty out of this world. Do they? Have you ever eaten a pumpkin asteroid came down. I am. I think. Okay. Now that I mention it, they taste pretty out of this world. Do they? Have you ever eaten a pumpkin? I guess pumpkin pie is something. Yeah, I guess not.

I guess they just taste pretty soupy and pretty earthy and autumnal. I like the idea of you showing up to like a Halloween festival at a small town. And they're like, all right, everyone. So if everyone's ready we gave you some uh carving equipment and uh next we're just gonna have to hollow out the inside and you just raise your hand oh i'm gonna need another pumpkin you've got seeds all over your orange mouth all right uh kit this is the fourth pumpkin that we've given you um we told you not to eat them because these are have not prepared. I just wanted to taste it to make sure it wasn't gone off.

At the very least, eat the insides of the pumpkin. Don't eat the shell and the core and the outer rims of the pumpkin. That's the best bit. Did you eat? Where's the? We gave you candles. We gave you candles too. Did you take them out?

I feel like someone who's never eaten a candle with a piece of pumpkin. It's a taste sensation to die for, my friend. You don't want me to eat the candles. Don't give me vanilla scented ones. The pumpkin began hovering towards the soldiers. What was this thing going to do? Crash into them? Detonate?

Was it some sort of high-tech security drone? As the craft got closer, its orange glow turned to a bluey-green light that started to pulsate. The men obviously started to panic. Private Wall turned to his lieutenant. Lieutenant Evans, permission to fire on the pumpkin, sir? Branded soldier! Private Wall loaded up his M1 rifle with armor-piercing bullets and fired at the object. To his surprise... With pumpkin-piercing rungs. To his surprise, and everyone else's, he hit it.

The bullet struck right on the side of the craft with a metallic... DUN! Permission to open fire on the pumpkin is not a not a phrase any soldier wants to have to utter uh yeah no one really could have predicted that that was going to be a sentence it was going to be a war on halloween of some kind unfortunately instead of destroying this space pumpkin private wall just pissed it off this thing went fuck wild freaking out in the skies. In later statements, Private Wall said, The object went wild, and the light was going on and off.

It was moving erratically from side to side as though it might crash into the ground. Now, the story might sound wild so far, but let me tell you, Kit, we're only getting started. Before the men could fire off another round, the craft turned to face them the whole regiment watched it's a craft now well it's a little pumpkin ball what do you think it is i'm not

gonna keep i think me and the listeners are picturing a jack-o'-lantern right crooked smile jack-o'-lantern with a bullet hole in it it's and now it's a it's an alien craft it's shaped like a friggin pumpkin it's but it's not a it's not a pumpkin it's got holes in it so you can see the orange glow like a pumpkin but it's but it's not and i can't stress this enough not a pumpkin see that went right over my head that last bit about it not being a pumpkin right over my head i was picturing this with with seeds and orange fleshy filling okay but this is a small unusual craft with crazy lights coming out of it that just happens to look exactly like a pumpkin yes pumpkin shaped sure it looks a lot like a pumpkin uh but i cannot in a soup yeah in a pie of course uh surrounded by bats and vampires. But this thing is not

not a pumpkin. Just to be clear. Just to be just we're on the same page here. It's pumpkin smile twisted. That's quite enough. Before the men could fire

fire off another round the craft turned to face them. The whole regiment watched in awe as the pumpkin began emitting. I did write... Do you understand how this is confusing? We're referring to it as a pumpkin but it's not a pumpkin, but just... Just call it a craft from now on.

I think in the interest of you getting a double yes out of this, we're gonna need to start pivoting to craft as soon as possible. Sorry for trying to make the story a little more exciting and colorful. F*** me, right? It would be more exciting if you referred to it as an actual alien craft, not as a f***ing vegetable. I'm trying to bring this thing to life like a fairy goddamn godmother, all right?

And you're not making it easy if I can't use my words. Fine. Call it whatever you want. The whole regiment watched in awe as this f***ing pumpkin began emitting pulsing waves of light. At the point that it starts emitting pulsing waves of light, it is no longer possible to refer to it as a pumpkin. I also said it was hit with a bullet and a metallic dung rang out. This metal pumpkin is freaking out you're like would you like to see a photo it's a ufo it's a giant glowing ufo you just go pumpkin on the brain they the men refer to it as a pumpkin as a jack-o'-lantern so that's i'm just using their

words the craft began emitting pulsing waves of light that the men claimed were only visible when they were directly aimed at you. Whoa. They said it was like a searchlight beaming down on them. Then, without warning, the object started to emit a horrible roaring sound, like a diesel engine revving up combined with screeching noises. Private Wall felt a burning sensation sweeping over his body, as if he was being penetrated by the light rays. This thing is like the Ark of the Covenant from Indiana Jones, melting these

soldiers like Nazis. It's like it hasn't done anything to harm them yet, but it's all trending in the wrong direction the pulsing light the revving the revving of the engines the screeching noises it's not yeah we're going down a bad it's not about to give you a hug or a present did i mention this thing looks like a pumpkin that alone is pretty scary you mentioned it many times you mentioned it consistently thoroughly to the point where it's incredibly confusing if you're gonna pick an object from the human world to to replicate why pick something that is scary by definition you've picked a scary object you can't be a

symbol of peace if you come down looking like a pumpkin it's's terrifying. They know what they're doing. Think you're just scared of pumpkins. Pumpkins are fine. They're just food. Through the chaos and the roaring, Private Wall heard Lieutenant Evans cry out, everyone retreat back into the bunkers. The men ran back into their bunkers, peeping out of the holes to see what the jack-o'-lantern would do next. The strange craft hovered around the area, scanning its surroundings with its searchlight death ray, before turning at a 45 degree angle and blasting off into the night sky. It was there, and next thing it was gone. Do we have any evidence for why you're calling it a death ray? Well, it penetrated a man with light

to the point where he felt his skin was burning. So I think that justifies death ray as a brand. Fair enough. I don't want to stop us too early on in the podcast, but what are your thoughts so far, Kit? I feel like we need to talk about this thing. What the f*** is going on a gourd appeared in the middle of a battlefield apparently drawing the entire war to a standstill uh this was this came so out of left field the soldiers were um frightened

terrified and had to focus all their armaments on taking this thing down. Yeah. Very bizarre. Whilst it seems surprising to me, I kind of get it. I mean, it would be kind of alarming if you see something so unusual as this. We do know that during other wars throughout history, say even the Second World War, in countries in Asia, they did use things like kind of balloon bombs. They would put up firearms in balloons, float them across to the enemy side.

Very true. And then drop them and things like that. So I can sort of see where these soldiers are coming from. They were kind of spooked by it. But then obviously that wasn't the case. This thing started behaving completely differently and arguably much more disturbingly, trying to melt a man's skin, flying around like really manically. Yeah. I mean, there's so many weird things that have happened here. The fact that it went down into the artillery fire, seemingly on purpose, dodged all the shells and then made its way back up to directly assault these men.

This isn't something that's just floating about in the wind. This is something that is being either controlled or can control itself. Now, one of the reasons that I love this story is because even though so far it's pretty wild, sure, but it does kind of tick a lot of boxes of typical UFO encounters that we've seen before. A craft floating around, occasionally using some sort of light beam or death ray people feeling a burning sensation or the you know feeling like there's radiation being exposed around them it's ticking a lot of similar boxes the pumpkin theme really threw me for a loop i've never really heard of a pumpkin shaped craft your pumpkin your use of the word pumpkin through i think the entire audience for

a loop and i want everyone to know that is not my choice of words the men i think you very much chose to repeat it the men describe this as a jack-o'-lantern shaped object but i will say there are eyewitness sketches of the ufo um that were seen from its side approach by some of the men uh so i think it'd be interesting if you take a look at this picture and see what you think UFO that were seen from its side approach by some of the men. So I think it'd be interesting if you take a look at this picture and see what you think. So this is a sketch of the craft drawn by one of the men who witnessed it that day. No, this is, this is exactly what I said it was going to be. This is the most quintessential UFO shape. It is a flying saucer, ladies and gentlemen,

with a little bit of a command deck on top with three windows. And yet, the line right above it, you've written, it's pretty f***ed up for a UFO to take the shape of a pumpkin. It looks nothing like a pumpkin. Nothing. It looks like a sunflower seed, if anything. It doesn't look like any vegetable or seed or anything on Earth. It looks exactly what you would expect a flying saucer to look like.

Yeah, or like a, I don't know, banana from its size. You need to stop. You have vegetables on the brain. I don't know what's going on. I don't know why the men were so keen to stick with the theme of Jack-o'-lantern when even in their sketch of the object, this thing looks so much like just a typical UFO. It's really bizarre.

Maybe it's more of the theme of an inner core glowing orange, which you can see from the outside, like the candle of a jack-o'-lantern. Maybe it wasn't more about the shape. I mean, if it was about the shape, I don't know what the f*** these guys are carving on October 31st. Because they don't know what a pumpkin is. After the event, the men who had encountered the craft began to fall ill.

It was so bad that they all had to be evacuated by ambulance. Some of them were too weak to walk, and new roads to rescue the men had to be dug. This is the bit that kind of disturbs me about these kind of tales. It's these moments where you hear about people feeling that their skin is being penetrated by the light from the craft and then they fall sick afterwards. Because if we are looking at something extraterrestrial here, it may be using materials that are radioactive or somehow incompatible with our earth biology. And radiation poisoning is bad news, ladies and gentlemen.

It is, and I'm really glad you brought that up. Because a medical examination revealed that the men were suffering from dysentery, nausea, and they also all had an unusually high white blood cell count. Hmm, bit of a mixed bag there. Yeah, quite strange. Private Wall later stated, Let me a mixed bag there. Yeah, quite strange. Private Wall later stated, Let me inform you on this. In the military, especially the army, each day you file a report, a company report.

Now we had a confab about that. What do we do about this? Do we file it in the report or not? And the consensus was, no. Because they'd lock every one of us up and think we were crazy. At that time, no such thing as a UFO had ever been heard of, and we didn't know what it was. I still don't know what it was. But I do know that since that time,

I have periods of disorientation, memory loss. I dropped from 180 pounds to 138 pounds after I got back. That's a big drop, to be fair. It's a pretty big drop, quite dramatic. It seems like the health issues of these men have continued after they've been removed from combat. We've had this happen in a couple of stories before. The one that always hops to mind is the Cash Landrum case,

where I believe people were exposed to radiation, allegedly from the exhaust of a diamond-shaped UFO. That's right. And their hair was falling out as soon as they got home. They couldn't even remember they had burn marks. They had radiation poisoning. It was a whole mixed bag of terrible repercussions. And we're possibly seeing a little bit of that here

from the death ray. It's very interesting. I do also, whilst frustrating, I do also have to understand where they're coming from and not telling people any more about this. Yeah. Because it's what I'm going to refer to from now on as Rory's dog in Yeezy's theorem. If one sees a dog in Yeezy's dark alley. You're just going to tell people you saw a dog because you want a quiet life and you don't want to have to get into the crazy storytelling.

It's not worth it. And the accusations of insanity that will follow telling people you saw a dog in Yeezys. Yeah. You know, war and combat is such a stressful, complicated time. You don't need to come back and have this story to tell your family. That's right. It's too much going on. You have this story to tell your family. That's right. It's too much going on.

You're not going to get your Purple Heart Medal if you tell people this story. So what the hell was this thing? Well, there's a few explanations. As we know, the Korean War lasted years, and during that time, dozens of different men allegedly reported seeing similar unidentified flying objects in the sky. At the time, a lot of researchers believed that these crafts could have been classified as Soviet experiments.

In fact, Korean war historian Paul M. Edwards wrote that these crafts were supposedly so large that they could carry 50 tons of weight and were powered by electromagnetic propulsion. Jesus. So to be clear, this is using technology that really isn't even available today. Yeah. I think, you know, this was a similar thing that happened in World War II, where there was so much secrecy around the technology that every country had, that during the war, people speculated saying that the Nazis had UFOs and laser guns and,

you know, all this sci-fi bullshit. And then after the war, they were like, yeah, it turns out they didn't, they didn't have any of that stuff really. Um, so, I mean, maybe this is also part of that era where you don't really know what your, the technology, your enemies are working with. Maybe they can control pumpkins who knows god knows they've been trying for a long time that's very interesting yes uh there's kind of a number of reasons why right i mean i guess the enemy country will want to make it seem like they

have much better technology than the other country um and then for you know the american sitting at home it makes them maybe feel better about themselves to think that, hey, we may be outgunned by them and that's why they're doing well. But we will ultimately prevail, even if even with electromagnetic hyperspace spaceships and electromagnetic gourds i guess uh i guess it's not as much of a thing in modern day war because even satellite technology means you can pretty much see what's going on in other countries so you kind of have an idea of what they are working with in terms of military technology yeah you'll see in the news it's like north korea announces they have 16 nuclear ballistic missiles. And then CNN's like, we went on Google Earth. They've got like three. Yeah.

But if you Google Earth search for North Korea and you see a pumpkin patch the size of the UK, you need to be worried, folks, because they're doing something with those things. They have a pumpkin arsenal that they're ready to unleash on the world. That would be honestly more worrying. those things they have a pumpkin arsenal that they're ready to unleash on the world that would be honestly more worrying if they were like what it's it'd be one thing to just be like all right to a nuclear refinement facility imagine fields after field hundreds of thousands of pumpkins would you not just be like what what's going on there again you're the one who's afraid of them just saying they're pretty freaky. It's food, brother.

It's just not normal for a thing to be that orange. You know? What about carrots? Sure. But they're like, you know, bunnies eat them. They're kind of cute. They make you see in the dark. What does a pumpkin do?

What does that thing even come from? This is like a live therapy session for brorie about his it's an episode for another day we need to get deep in your psyche about where your first thoughts about pumpkins started it might be something to do with my parents because um like my mom was was really emotionally nourishing but my father was a pumpkin so i think it might have its roots in in that i don't necessarily know but he was when you say that he was a pumpkin yeah you mean like emotionally he was unavailable he was vegetable like he was or do you mean yeah yeah cold and like unloving like round he had a candle in his belly and when he opened his mouth you could see it so he was literally a pumpkin yeah he was he was a jack-o'-lantern my mom had

sex with a pumpkin it's very possible you just got to carve him a little penis and that's absolutely enough and pumpkins have seeds kit and now i'm a boy so that makes you half pumpkin half pumpkin sure yeah i'm damn proud damn proud it doesn't sound like it you hate them you're scared of i'm a little scared of half of me but but yeah i'm proud of my origin but what about the men's mysterious illness the nausea the, the white blood cells? Well, UFO researcher and former NASA scientist Richard F. Haynes said that they were, quote, symptoms that sounded like, as we said, the effects of radiation. Very interesting and probably not well understood because at this time, nukes hadn't been around for a long time.

Yeah, maybe the radiation wasn't being implemented in warfare. I don't remember what year I said it was. 1951. Was radiation being used in warfare in 1951? I don't know. We did a lot of f***ed up stuff. Pumpkins weren't, I'm pretty sure. For just a couple of years. So whatever happened to Private First Class Wall?

Well, after the war, he lost contact with many of the men who were in his regiment. Although the men had promised not to talk about what they saw, the years of long-lasting health problems made Private Wall decide to come forward. Unfortunately, without the corroborating statements from his fellow soldiers, it's hard to truly believe that what Wall claims happened that night really did happen. But if we want to find evidence to help prove this case, maybe the answers lie not in 1951, but in 1981. It was the early morning of March 17th,

and Sergeant Russell Yoakum of the St. Helens Police Department in Oregon was out on patrol, driving along Highway 30 just west of the Columbia River. At the time, St. Helens was a small town, not much going on, especially not at four in the morning. So Sergeant Yoakum cruised peacefully along the riverside. But as he drove, he spotted something ahead, hovering in the night sky. It was a strange light moving upriver. When it got close to the ground, it allegedly lit up the river like it was daylight. Whoa. Yoakum made the call to radio headquarters.

Uh, this is gonna sound crazy, but there's something hovering in the sky above the Columbia River. It wasn't long before a few other law enforcement officers arrived, and another officer joined on the radio to say that he too had seen the hovering light. They all gathered together and watched the strange orb as it continued to fly over the river, turning its entire surroundings into daylight. What the hell? Then, right in front of them, the object started to emit a loud rumbling sound. Oh, here we go.

In a moment of quick thinking, the officers set up a CB radio mic and a portable tape recorder so that they could transmit and capture the strange noise if it occurred again. All right, f***ing MacGyver. He's ready to go. Kit, I have that recording right here. Oh my god, I wasn't expecting this. Some real hard-hitting evidence, my friend. I will say the quality of the recording is quite poor. And obviously, as it's an audio medium, I'm not sure what the best way to do this is.

I might let the audio play and then read out the line so you can actually hear what the person said. That sounds perfect. The video is like, I don't think it's an alien. It's definitely an alien. No, he didn't say that. He didn't say that. I think I hit a f***ing pumpkin with my car. I think I hit an alien grey with my car. We've got a tape recorder sitting here by our radio whenever you're ready. We've got a tape recorder sitting here by our radio whenever you're ready. We'll keep it running. If it starts up again, just key up and we'll record a little bit of it. I just don't want you to think we all had a screw loose. Sometimes I wonder.

Now all it is is just an orange glow. That's all I can see. It's like the sun is just coming up. Pretty convincing stuff so far. I mean, we're listening to a live recording of these police officers witnessing this orb glowing like the friggin' sun. Yeah, we've had this kind of thing on a couple of episodes before where we get like a live recording taken at the time. And it is alarming and it is disturbing and it is convincing because you it feels emotional, feels real and visceral.

Yeah. Whenever he says it's like the sun is rising. My God, it's hard to picture what that would look like. It's intense and kind of scary to think that what we're listening to is the recording of these people watching this thing happen in front of them. This isn't like in the police station the next day or an interview with someone years later. This is the night it happened. It's terrifying to think we're hearing these men get cooked like scrambled eggs by a frigging pumpkin. But the most terrifying part of this recording is yet to happen because at 4..29am, that's when the object started making the noises again. It might be hard to hear in the studio, but that thing sounds like a old tractor engine starting up combined with a demon being banished to hell. It is pure horrifying.

It's very loud and very aggressive. That's right. For that to ring out of the darkness at half four in the morning from a glowing ball of light. It's a shame that they didn't have any photographic evidence, but God damn, this is pretty convincing audio evidence. It's so frustrating. We're very close. You know, it's funny how audio evidence, I mean, particularly when you're doing a podcast,

can be somehow even more convincing than video. Like if we had a silent video, we might be able to claim, oh, that's Photoshop, that's this or that's that. And even though that is possible with audio, it feels very belie feels very believable yeah yeah i think whenever you see video evidence your brain automatically starts trying to look at how it's a hoax and how it's faked whereas audio evidence you're kind of like well this i don't know why it feels yeah a lot more authentic you're like you couldn't have faked this yeah yeah it's really strange so that was some pretty

convincing paranormal evidence i obviously don't need a yes from you just now we can do that later i know i know we're heading in that direction because it's been a big case and you know it's the first time we've ever heard of a pumpkin shape yeah you talked about pumpkins for about nine minutes so uh the episode so i would slow your roll for sure um i i thought hey you know uh your last episode was also about ufos kind of extraterrestrials uh didn't actually know you were going to do that you should have warned me in advance because i did days worth on this pumpkin case so there was a lot of similarities well that's okay because you're covering a pumpkin a halloween pumpkin and i covered one of the most famous UFO cases in American history.

Sure. Yeah. And yours, you know, they both had, well, yours didn't have evidence. Mine had evidence to support it. Yours was kind of just like a free flow late night ghost story. I have an audio recording of police officers witnessing the pumpkin. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah, it was a pumpkin, but it was hovering and lighting up the night like the sun uh so i thought hey why don't i take a page out of old kit's book it worked well last week so why don't why don't i why don't we go run through some theories sure right so here we let's do it uh theory number one okay was it a ufo i mean that's this is the elephant in the room as with last week exactly you know there's a lot of talk about whether this is some sort of experimental Soviet craft. But what if this thing's from another planet?

You know, I don't think it's ever been proven that any country can possess a beam of light that penetrates human flesh from the sky. Absolutely. This is the most difficult question of all. We pretty much have established that this thing contains technology which should not have been available in the early 50s, and yet it did. So is it the property of a country's experimental air force, or is it an extraterrestrial craft? Who knows? It didn't really give any indication of what it wanted, an extraterrestrial craft. Who knows? It didn't really give any indication of what it wanted,

except maybe to die when it flew straight into artillery. But yeah, it's a bit of a mystery. All right, this is going good. I'm glad I did this. Theory number two. Could it have just been a pumpkin? Now that we're talking about it,

could it have just been a pumpkin i grow weary of this segment well after just one possible theory you had a couple theories when you did yours so i needed to have a couple theories when i have any of the theories as i was a little stretched thin as my theories were i think one was uh monkeys one was drinking um none of them one of yours was was it a hoax yeah but it also wasn't was it a pumpkin right because you weren't dealing with a pumpkin shaped craft we just have to enter these are theories this is just a free form all right sorry i didn't mean to shut it down you let me know what is the argument for this thing being a pumpkin? Right off the bat, you see the shape of it? I did. And it was a UFO. It was nothing like a jack-o'-lantern. I don't know when aliens

celebrate Halloween. It could be May. We don't know these things. They absolutely don't celebrate Halloween. It's a Christian pagan festival. This is great because, you know, this is part of just discussing the theories is, hey, some of them get shot down. And that's what we're here to do. Eliminate possibilities and find the true answer. Theory number three. I'm glad to be moving on. I really am.

Was it a hoax? Sure. It's always a possibility. Yeah. A couple other theories. That's it well there's not much to talk about is there if it was pretty pretty hard to hoax the entire u.s military in the middle of the korean war i don't think it's just some private with 30 minutes spare in the middle of an artillery gun battle uh just pranking his

commanding officers oh you don't gotta put me on blast like this man you know i was struggling to come up with theories you don't need to do this to me why were you struggling because you've decided it was just a pumpkin i was three hours of research deep into this case before someone said the word pumpkin and i was too deep to stop i was too far in to stop you think i doubled down all right i doubled down i wish you hadn't i wish you had i wish you had just mentioned it in passing do you want any more theories i could throw a couple more out there If you're not happy with either of those. Are they one word theories like hoax? No.

Two word theories. Okay. Mass hysteria. So you just did my section from last week and copy pasted it except you turned monkeys into pumpkin. I didn't turn monkeys into pumpkins because monkeys is theory number four. Oh my God. Was it possibly monkeys? There's no way. pumpkin i didn't turn monkeys into pumpkins because monkeys is theory number four oh my god was it possibly monkeys there's no way was it possibly monkeys that had controlled some sort of pumpkin shaped graph oh my god we just don't know these things this is the point of the theory

section is to eliminate you should be ashamed of yourself this is an award-winning show we have a high caliber of entertainment and sound design and research and i text you i said i know you got a lot going on this week bro if you if you want me to take over this week's episode and research just let me know um didn't need to evidently it was fine you didn't know it's coming up to halloween you're you're worried about pumpkins you're shit scared of them you're cowering inside at the mere mention of their name um pump phobia is not not to be laughed at and you said no brother i got it i've got an absolute doozy of a award-winning a podcast in the barrel of the gun oh yeah and i didn't lie did i i mean look where we are now you said in the conclusions section of this podcast you said was it monkeys controlling a pumpkin

shaped craft that big got away in the middle of the korean war that big yeah don't when you take it out of context like that that's what you really think maybe happened it doesn't uh it doesn't it doesn't stand up well when you isolate it from the context of the episode. So don't isolate it by saying it. Sure. That's one way to fix the problem is to not say it. But then we don't get theories. We don't get theories. We had plenty of bad theories.

How do you think Einstein came up with the theory of relativity? Huh, buddy? Not this way. Do you think he was sitting at a blackboard going, hey, two plus two is four. Hey, six plus six is 12. There's a theory for for you or do you think he smoked a bowl of crack and went what if the light is made of crabs he just used he just it was a formula he devised looking at a blackboard e equals mc squared you're comparing yourself to einstein on let Known, maybe your worst episode yet. Don't say it's my worst one yet because we both know I've sunk lower.

I actually thought this, it hasn't played out honestly how I wanted it to because I thought. You thought, which of the four theories so far do you think I was going to go for? Honestly, number two. Pumpkin? It was just a pumpkin. Maybe. Maybe. You know me so poorly.

There are some logical theories that people have thrown around. A lot more depressing than monkeys piloting space pumpkins. Was this possibly just PTSD? These men have been through stressful situations they've been in the front line they've been uh seen horrific things coming back from war artillery shells lighting up the night sky uh you know villages being destroyed can your brain concoct something like this it would explain the drastic loss of weight and bad health issues. Yeah. I mean, PTSD is a real thing that can impact people in horrible ways. So to have health issues after

you've left the war, that's a possible explanation. It's also a little bit suspicious because even though Private First Class Wall does swear by his his story swears by the fact that his lieutenant and all the men in his regiment witnessed this event he has one lost contact with everyone in the regiment and two no one has been able to track down any other soldiers who he worked with or was there that night that would corroborate corroborate the story oh so he just says that everyone agreed with him but we can't actually hear from anyone else yeah he says we all swore to not mention it but he's the only one saying it happened and and i don't know if they found anyone else that has said i was there that night nothing happened but um him saying he's lost

contact with everyone is real like they've stopped talking to me vibes right because it's i keep bringing up talking about the pumpkin uh yeah it's you know it's a little worrying if something's witnessed by that many people and it's such a huge event that has that many lasting impacts on their lives you'd like to think that there would be a few more witnesses that would be willing to come forward at At least one more. But, you know, the story for the most part wasn't made up. The lieutenant that he mentions in the retelling, that was his actual lieutenant. Private Walls did serve in the military in Korea. You know, all of these facts do check out. It's just when it gets into the nitty gritty about whether or not this UFO did exist.

When I was searching for kind of similar crafts or similar events that, that story that I included at the end in, in Oregon, that's the only one that people use to, um, corroborate the other story. Yeah. Yeah. There's not any real other sightings of any kind of pumpkin-y shaped crafts glowing in the night making that horrible engine roaring noises i thought it was cool that private wall and the police officers who were there that night both used the same words to describe the sound that the orb is making i was like that's really cool that is because they obviously didn't know each other didn't know what the other people said that's very interesting it is very interesting I mean it happened in Oregon too so it's okay it's far away as hell but it's also the closest place in the

continental United States to the original source of the story yeah Korea so it not, even if it was from outer space or if it was a Soviet test vehicle of some kind, it's not a million miles away from the first sighting. We don't know. It's good to have a story that can back up the original, especially if it's a story that also has audio evidence, as we heard. Yeah. But Kit, we've wrapped up all of our theories. We've wrapped up our conclusions. It's time to decide once and for all, if this craft, let's focus on the original story for right now. Sure. This craft, this UFO frigging jack-o'-lantern, if it truly existed or not, if the men really did see it that night. It's a fascinating tale told by some on paper, good witnesses, you know, a bunch of different men on the front line of battle, clearly with

other things on their mind, but yet they were yanked out from the action and instead had to focus on a squash attacking them from space using some kind of extraterrestrial technology. I mean, it's very, the story itself is very arresting. And yet there are holes. The fact that we have one witness who doesn't seem to have contact with anyone else yet claims that all the others saw the exact same thing the way he described it. Yeah. Granted, pretty exciting that there is one other story 30 years later that corroborates it.

But I think my biggest issue is, do we have anything to suggest that this was extraterrestrial rather than some kind of military experiment? That's the thing. I mean, even military experiment, you know, it was war. There's so much wild shit going on, even in just this scenario where they're aerating a village. There's artillery going off. There's probably gunfire, crazy noises. I think it was nighttime. It's not like it's a clear summer's day and this thing comes out of nowhere.

You're already in chaos. You're in a very chaotic, dramatic environment. So if you're looking for logical explanations, there's a whole bag of them. It could really be anything. But I do agree with you. You know, it's strange for this witness to mention even his lieutenant by name, but the lieutenant hasn't come forward to join him in this tale, even though he was the one that demanded everyone run back to the bunkers. He was the one that said you could take fire at the pumpkin. Yeah. I just wish we had a little bit more evidence for the original story. I did want to include that second story

because it is great. I love the audio recording from the police officers. I think maybe that second story as a standalone, because of the evidence, has more of a chance at being a yes. But I think this one, the evidence, the files, the testimonies have kind of been lost to time. That's right. And the further we get away from it,

the harder it is to prove, really. So unfortunately, you know, for me this week, with the Korean pumpkin UFO is going to be a no. It's a double no today, folks. Damn. I did flip flop on this one a little bit. You know, anytime that there is radiation poisoning or some sort of physical effect of being close to an alleged UFO. That, you know, that's always a good sign in a case.

Well, it's a bad sign, but it's a pretty convincing sign. But sign but unfortunately yeah there just wasn't enough enough there this week god damn it unfortunately another double no but damn i hope you enjoyed this week's episode thank you to cammy toman for editing and uh i don't know if you could tell but uh i actually did the research on this one so uh thanks to me i guess for knocking it out of the park. The pumpkin UFO. Yeah. I think you can tell that this week, you know. You took it off our researchers' hands because, well, you wanted to really bring this one home yourself. Yeah.

Amy actually had like a bunch of other stories prepared. A really amazing one on Project Blue Book. Wow. That would have been amazing. A two-parter on Dr. J. Allen Hynek. No way. People have been amazing a two-parter on uh dr j alan hynek no way people have been asking for that for ages there's a whole you know how they did that big dump of cia files basically proving alien existence oh my god so she'd found a way to like she'd done this huge

like multimedia thing where it was like throwing in clips and it was going to be this incredible big expose i should go look at that um and i said, chill, chill, Amy, because I actually have a case for this week. And you're going to I think people are going to really, really enjoy it. And there you have it, folks. This is Rory's big swing. Will we at least. I told her to scrap that stuff. I told her to just scrap it.

Really? Because I was like, sorry, Amy. But after they hear the pumpkin chat, it's going to be, it's going to be Rory episodes from now on. I don't even think you're hosting anymore, bud. What? Yeah. Welcome to this pumpkin life. We're going to be talking about pumpkins, gourds, squashes.

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until then my little jack-o'-lanterns remember to live fast investigate and die young pumpkins