This Paranormal Life - #268 The Berkshire UFO - When Aliens Abduct a Whole COUNTY

Episode Date: June 21, 2022

One September night in 1969, the residents of Berkshire County, Massachusetts were rocked by one of the most INTENSE UFO encounters in American History. We're talking about abductions, giant crafts, beams of light disintegrating children... Move over Roswell, it's time to investigate the Berkshire UFO incident. VOTE FOR THIS PARANORMAL LIFE IN THE IRISH PODCAST AWARDShttps://www.theirishpodcastawards.ie/vote/Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis BlatherwickIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is a third nipple the mark of the beast? How abominable can a snowman be? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, your comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and the boy who sits across from me, Kit Greer Malvena, the boy with no name, except the one that he has and we boy who sits across from me, Kit Greer Malvena. The boy with no name. Except the one that he has, and we do mention it quite a bit. Kit Greer Malvena is his name. Don't, shh, don't f***ing say it, dude.

Can you get through this? Because I have a question. Just ask it now. If a third nipple's the mark of the beast, then what do you call this? So many nipples. How many do you have? I've never needed to bring it up before now because I didn't know it was paranormal. My God, it's like the belly of a cat.

How many do you have? In winter or summer? Yeah, I think you need to go see a doctor. I don't think those are nipples. I think those are open wounds. The doctor instructed me to leave when I pulled that stunt last time. Not to get too distracted at the start of the podcast. As you know, every week we tackle a new paranormal tale

and come to a conclusion as paranormal investigators as to whether or not it is paranormal. I feel like I'm getting off track again, but like, I'm going to mix it up. I'm just going to say this week is a yes. I don't even know what it is. I don't even know if you got a story preps. You're saying it right now before I even say it, you think this is a yes. A little Quentin Tarantino movie structure moment. We're going for the ending first and then we're going to tell the story backwards. Okay. Okay.

Well, you know what? How about I match you and I give it a yes too. That's how, that's like, we're playing blackjack here. I don't think you know how to play blackjack. You're saying the guy with 21 nipples doesn't know how to play blackjack. Oh, he can count to 21. I like this. I like this. 21 nipples doesn't know how to play blackjack. Oh, he can count to 21. Uh, I like this.

I like this. So now we get to figure out at the end of the podcast, whether or not we made the right decision at the start. Look, I'm going to need everyone to brace themselves because today we're investigating one of the wildest UFO stories we've ever covered on the podcast. This case goes zero to 100 very quickly.

We're talking multiple witnesses, first-hand testimonies, some pretty far out claims. So buckle up folks, because today we're investigating the Berkshire UFO incident, an alien encounter that rocked an entire county. Wow. This is truly some innovative storytelling. Normally we don't even get to what the case could be about till halfway through. Yeah. We know it's a yes. We know it's about aliens. Here we go. Yeah. And you know, usually our UFO stories would start with, um, you know, someone seeing something in the distance and maybe hearing a weird sound. I cannot stress how much whatever this thing was

didn't care for being discreet. It went on a rampage. It f***ed this county up. This is the UFO paranormal equivalent of a hungry brown bear invading a neighborhood at night, smashing over bins, breaking in through patios. Today's case begins on the 1st of September, 1969, in the Berkshires in Massachusetts,

a region spanning 98 miles north to south with a population of 150,000. It's a popular tourist spot that thousands visit to enjoy outdoor adventures and to taste the quaint mountain lifestyle. Sounds delightful. But on this particular night, it didn't sound that delightful at all. Because something else visited the Berkshires.

And everyone who witnessed it would never be the same. As I said, this isn't our typical UFO story. This craft, whatever it was, went on a rampage. And luckily, whenever you have an alien rampage, you're going to have a lot of witnesses. And that's what we have today. In this episode, we're going to look at the testimonies of a bunch of different families to try and piece together what happened that night. So this is one of these cool times where you can like break a night down from like the perspectives of different people and say like you know like our night like friday night 9 p.m rory was out of the bar with his friends

at that same moment just across town kit was microwaving a burrito in his pajamas he was unshaven and hadn't showered in weeks. You know, it tells the same night from different people's perspectives. Let me tell it from my perspective. Rory was hooking up with an absolute ten. The girl shot him down instantly based on his per appearance. No, no, no.

She was actually really surprised to hear that I wasn't a supermodel. And I told her that I drive race cars for a living. She was disgusted by his bad breath. No, no, no. I wasn't a supermodel and I told her that I drive race cars for a living. She was disgusted by his bad breath. No, no, no. No, no, no. Kit was a microwave burrito.

It was actually a delicious homemade burrito given he is an incredible cook. Sure, sure. Kit has 21 nipples. How about that? That's pretty messed up. Nothing's wrong with that. The girl might have been impressed.

Rory only has two. He's been outmatched. I see what you're saying, though. I like this concept because we are not stuck with a paltry number of witnesses. It makes us frankly question the sanity of our single witness. Exactly. You know, it's hard when you have to take one person's account as the truth. But in this case, oh, you don't think the UFO came down? Why don't you ask Billy? Or Michael? Or Susan? Or Terry?

Or Alex? Or Susan? There's two Susans. Or Jimmy? Susan sees everything that goes on this time. Let's dive into the events of that night, September 1st, 1969. The Reed family were out at a horse show in Great Barrington, a fun day out for the locals. By the time the show was ending,

it was approaching dusk. Nancy and her mother put their two hungry boys back in the car and got ready for the drive back to the family diner for a quick bite to eat. As it was so late, Nancy decided to take a shortcut over Sheffield Bridge. It was one of those wood-covered bridges, real Sleepy Hollow vibes. She slowed down as they approached the entrance to the bridge and began driving across, taking it steadily. The boys, Tom and Matthew, aged six and four, were fussing about in the backseat. Nancy turned around. Will you boys keep it down? That's when she noticed a strange light through the rear window. It looked like it was hovering behind them.

Whatever it was, it was getting closer. She snapped back round to face forward, glancing at the light in the rearview mirror as they raced along the bridge. Before long, the entire river was lit up on either side of them. She's like, nah boys boys it's an incredibly dangerous bridge and if we go more than three miles an hour we're going to endanger what the is that holy moly foot on the gas guys go go it's just a cyclist yeah it's basically one of those indiana jones bridges that's like dangling from six ropes right she swings a machete out the window of the car hacks off the bridge hoping the light will fall into the cabins below like that's not how

light works nancy nancy kept driving determined to get out of the bridge and home to safety as soon as they departed the bridge their eyes drifted upwards to the sky. In front of the car was a huge ball of light levitating with a smooth metal ship hovering above it. It was firing out rods of light in random directions. Nancy slammed on the brakes and the car came to a halt. What? What the hell is that thing? Before the family could truly react, the sounds of crickets, locusts, and cicadas erupted in the nearby forests. Then the insides of the car became blindingly bright. The family began to panic as the atmosphere became dense. They felt like they were underwater.

Then all of a sudden... Everything stopped. They were just sitting alone in the car. The frazzled family looked outside to see if they could spot the craft. But not only was the craft nowhere to be seen, they couldn't see the bridge either, or the woods. The Reeds family were now parked outside of a drugstore about a mile from the bridge. That could have gone any which direction. They could have been parked outside a drugstore on planet Grugon. Yeah, a mile away from the bridge is actually pretty sweet.

You could have been one light year away from your house. You could turn around to ask for directions and there is a slug in a hat with a briefcase sludging along going i got i don't i'm sorry i'm struggling to understand your accent it was if the entire family had just all woken up from the same dream or as if someone had just put them all back in place but something was off nancy went to grab the wheel when she noticed she was no longer in the driver's seat there is too many things uh that they are just noticing right now i'm on tenterhooks within the next couple of lines is she gonna realize that she has donuts for hands is she gonna realize that her children have been transformed into furbies like what else is

she just about to realize you gotta step up your perception game look when there's that much mad shit going on you can only realize one thing at a time none of them come to think about it i'm not in my car anymore i'm in a giant banana nancy looked across the street and realized she wasn't by the bridge she was by a gas station two miles away she was also a slinky now it's like you gotta realize one thing at a time. You can't realize it because you realize it all at once. Your brain explodes. Yeah. Not so much of an issue if you're slinky. Nancy's mother was now behind the wheel and guess what? What? Grandma didn't drive. That was the most f***ed up bit of all. That's unnerving. Grandma never drove. And for some

reason she was now behind the wheel of this car. So we're kind of in a sort of dream like f***ed up bit of all. That's unnerving. Grandma never drove. And for some reason, she was now behind the wheel of this car. So we're kind of in a sort of dream-like fugue state where nothing is really making sense. And just when you thought there was nothing left to notice. Oh f*** me, here we go. Nancy noticed the time. It was midnight. Three hours had gone by in what felt like a second. Classic missing time. This is a hallmark of UFO cases. Did I mention her wristwatch was a banana as well? Oh my God. Nancy! Sum it up in order of importance. It was half past pineapple. The Reed family claimed that that night they were abducted by what people would come to know as the Berkshire UFO.

Usually, Kit, this would be our whole story. We'd be heading straight into conclusions right now. You're absolutely right. But the Reed family are just one of the many people who not only saw the craft that night, but claimed that they were also abducted. Now that is maybe a TPL first. Also abducted. Now that is maybe a TPL first.

I feel like usually in our UFO stories, we tell the tales of everyone who saw the craft and then we go, if you think that's crazy, this person right at the end of the story actually thought they were abducted. And let's face it, that's at the end of the story because they're a nut job and there's no way the damn thing is true. But you're saying we have more than one person

who thinks they were abducted. The Berkshire UFO was basically the Fortnite battle bus. Half of the town's population were floating in the sky that night on board a f***ing disco ball. My goodness. I can never remember what the classifications of encounters this comes under.

You've got your first encounter, second, third, fourth, fifth. Encounters. I want to say abduction is pretty up there it's maybe like fourth or something like that yeah um i'm pretty sure sixth or seventh is making love to an alien see i always thought it was um the close encounters were following the same kind of rules as the the baseball rules so it's like first base second base third base fourth home run you know unfortunately it's not that different like i i got to third encounter with an alien and it's like oh my god so i think fourth encounter is wait or does it go in reverse order for encounters is encounter of the first kind insane i don't know it's like the def cons i can never remember

which one is high or low. And that's why you'll never be in charge of them. Yeah, it's something like, I think DEFCON 5 is like, everything's cool. It's like, what? Rory's in charge of the government alarm system. No worries, guys.

Birds are chirping. Everything's going great. Clear blue skies. Hits the big red button. Every power station shuts down. The borders are closed. That same night, Jane Green was out driving with a girlfriend, Mary DeGrace. They were headed to Stockbridge in the town of Great Barrington,

gunning in along the highway without a care in the world, when suddenly, up ahead ahead they could see lights. Mary, do you see that? It looks like there's an accident up ahead. As the car got closer, the white light from the middle of the road up ahead got brighter and brighter. Within minutes, Jane had to slow right down and even stop because it was blinding. Cars on either side of them were grinding to a halt along the edges of the road.

People started getting out of their cars to see what was going on. Elbows raised to shield their eyes from the blinding beams. And that's when they saw it. An object floating over the road. Jane couldn't believe her eyes. It was enormous. So big that, looking left and right, she couldn't even see the edges of it. enormous. So big that looking left and right, she couldn't even see

the edges of it. Whoa, that is not good, given that the only thing this could be that isn't paranormal is a helicopter. That's one hell of a copter. That's I heard it. Okay, just I heard it.

We all heard it. Ah, thank you sorry I thought I was going to go down better I was honestly being quiet because you have so much stuff to get through if you want oh it's cool I'm just like

let's just go back yeah that's a good one don't make it fake i'll probably put in like audience laughter or something anyway that would be way more fake because we've never had that i just think it's a good enough joke that people would it be so weird that like passers-by would have heard it in the studio and like laughed so that we're in a like hermetically sealed view there's a literal light on the door outside to warn people like a f***ing bumblebee to not come in. There's no passersby.

I guess if the joke was that funny though, the people who didn't even hear it knew that something like that had happened in the universe. It's also not that good. You just said... That's one hell of a copter. That was a fake laugh.

It wasn't! I'm genuinely proud, okay? I'm sorry, guys. That kind of threw me a little bit. It wasn't. I'm genuinely proud, okay? I'm sorry, guys. That kind of threw me a little bit. It shouldn't. I'm not even that interested in this case. It was mostly to tee up the hell of a copter. You said it was the wildest case we've ever covered.

You have to finish the episode because we have also gone on record to say it is a yes, so we have to at least prove that. Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. They couldn't tell if it was bronze or silver, but it seemed metallic for sure. Jane couldn't see any windows or openings. The whole thing was just smooth. And even though it was clearly flying in the sky,

the monstrous craft made absolutely no noise. That's disconcerting. A lot of common themes we see in other UFO stories. Without warning, it suddenly took off up into the sky, disappearing over the mountains. Whoa! Sadly, Mary is no longer with us, but Jane tells the story to this day, and she's absolutely positive about what she saw that night. Wow, that is, as you say, Rory, every kind of encounter we've come across so far is normally

the meat and potatoes of one normal investigation of this paranormal life. Yeah. But we're just rhyming them off like they're goddamn Pokemon. There's 150 that you got to catch. Yeah. There's honestly like six TPL episodes in this one episode. By the way, it should go without saying, Mary and Jane don't know the Reed family. Don't know anyone else that was on the highway that night. Coincidentally, they just saw this the same night

that 60 dudes also said, I was beamed into the sky. I'm also going to go on record to say, this is the kind of diversity in the type of people reporting it. By that, I mean, we've had all women witnesses so far, which is really fantastic. A nice change.

Because normally it's guys that look and sound like Cletus from The Simpsons who we cannot trust as far as we can throw. And we're supposed to believe that even though they live in a shack in the woods, we have to treat them like they're professors and they know everything about it. This is what I want to hear. It's like two girlfriends just going about their lives on a night out and then just driving home in a sensible hour. And then they're like, Hey, I got a busy life. I'm a regular person. And I would never normally say something like this, but this really happened. Yeah. As you said, usually on episodes of the podcast where we're talking about UFOs, We, for 45 minutes, tell you this incredible story about an honest man who was abducted by an alien. And then right at the end, before we conclude, reveal his name is Chuck Puddle. And he eats clay. That's the man that you've been trusting for the last hour.

So I'm very happy to say that not only today do we have a wide variety of witnesses, but none of them eat clay as far as I'm concerned. Yeah. So far, none of them have been part of a government LSD testing program where they frazzle your brain. That we know of, I should say, that we know of. The craziest part is that years after seeing this craft, years and years, Jane finally came clean and told her kids about what she saw that night, and she couldn't believe their response. They said, mom, we saw it too. The kids had been young, but they had seen the bright lights flying overhead looking out of their bedroom window. Look, I've already mentioned that there were dozens of witnesses to this case,

and I'm not exaggerating. I cannot stress how many people saw this thing independently of one another. Very interesting. Although the stories that we've told so far are pretty wild, nothing compares with this next testimony from Tom Warner, a local who was merely 10 years old at the time. Tom Puddle, a clay-eating mother****er in the local area who has some pretty interesting stuff to say about what the craft looked like. Tom was at his babysitter's house, doodling away with a big box of crayons while the TV played in the background. Suddenly, he heard a distant voice echoing above him.

You need to go home now. Was it the babysitter? Tom turned around, expecting to be faced with his babysitter, Jane. But the voice had come from somewhere else. All grown up now, John said that at the time, as a 10-year-old,

he thought he'd heard the voice of God. So he leapt to his feet and got ready to leave. His babysitter, Jane, stopped him at the door. That's a good lad, by the way. No questions asked. Not even going to check if it is God. Okie dokie. You got it, big man.

Hold up, mister. Where do you think you're going? I have to go. Tom squeezed past his babysitter and escaped outside. As he made his way onto the grass, he was struck by a beam of light. What? Oh my God. Tom was still running, but now just running in place. His legs were going full pelt. He got hit with the tractor beam. But he wasn't moving an inch. A babysitter is going to learn from this experience. You don't let the kid get out of sight.

Rule number one. The parents come home and it's like, where's little Tommy boy? You see that burnt patch of garden outside? You ain't going to believe this. That's your son. Like, oh, I see he's having fun with the crayons. Is he upstairs, Tommy? Tommy boy.

He's just upstairs resting. I wouldn't go up there. I think he's just, he's just upstairs resting. Um, I wouldn't go up there. I think he's, uh, I think he's quite sleepy. I took him away. Who said that? Shut up, God. I took your baby boy. To be fair at this point, this boy doesn't know that this isn't God. He thinks he's been raptured. Who knows how the rapture will come for us all it could be a peaceful heavenly harp music playing as you sprout angel wings and float gracefully up to the heavens it could be or it couldn't be a voice that says time to come home and blast you in the chest like a dragon ball z character and you're just beamed up to the stars uh it could

be a scary experience and that's what it was for tom tom felt the atmosphere around him change it was if time was slowing down and gravity was getting weaker yo jane watched in horror as the boy that she was legally bound to protect from harm disappeared into thin air. There's no way. She saw it too? She watched him disintegrate? Well, I was thinking she was still sat watching television in the living room, and she just heard,

and it was like, uh, did you slam the gate in the garden again? There's a smoldering patch of grass and no child to be seen. No, it's the very opposite. She was basically holding onto his body as he was Thanos snapped out of reality. This is hardcore stuff. To be fair, not to get sidetracked, but if I was the babysitter and the child I was watching disappeared for any reason, I might say they were raptured to cover my ass. If I'm a babysitter and the child I'm looking after disappears, guess who else is disappearing?

Old Rory. He's skipping down because no one's going to believe that. You best pack up your shit in a burlap sack and try and hitch a ride to the airport because you're on the run now, brother. What's the best case situation? They come home and find the ashes of their child yeah are you gonna explain that one where's timmy he's with the lord not oh he didn't die he's just there for some reason now as we know tom is only one of the humans that claims that they were abducted that night some claim that they can remember parts of what they saw. Other witnesses say they felt drugged as if they'd been pumped full of chemicals to erase their memories. Jeez. But the few fragments we do have from what allegedly took place on that craft is truly terrifying. I don't know if I want to know

what's about to follow. Well, you're gonna know. Melanie, another child who was abducted that night, said that she remembered being laid out on a table in a cavernous room filled with other children. Jesus Christ! As she looked around, she saw the faces of her school classmates. But as she watched, they began to disappear one by one. Oh my lord. Before she knew what was happening, there was was a flash and she was back by the lake barefoot and alone where are the other children i mean i need to know where where are classmates uh interestingly tom who we said was also beamed onto the ship claims that uh he had a very similar experience in which he actually saw Melanie on the craft.

This is mad. They don't even know each other. Yeah, I mean, it pretty much single-handedly takes this from the realm of potential fantasy into verifiable alternate dimensional fact. Like, imagine you had a messed up dream and then someone else was like, yeah, I was there and told you the same story. Your mind would be blown. Yeah. I mean, I think the reason that these events are being talked about as if it felt like, quote, a dream is because it's an experience that's so otherworldly and bizarre. That's the only way that the human brain can frame it to make any sense out of it.

Sure. When Tom was placed back on Earth, he was lying there back on the grass a light beam pinning him in place this is mad it's insane i know you teed this up by saying it's going to be one of the stranger cases this is very intense it almost surpasses movie levels of intense to where it's like so incongruous and extreme for such a sustained period bro i'm not it doesn't do me any favors that it's this wild i don't want it to be this wild i wanted it to be a few people who thought they saw it and maybe one person who claims they were abducted there's like 40 people that night they were like my jeans were ripped off i had scratches on my back i woke up

butt naked in a swamp 20 miles from my house and then you're like okay well uh fine thank you um sir what about you what what happened to you me i woke up 30 miles from my house butt naked with a stick of caramel up my ass and a cowboy hat. And you're like, Oh my God. Can I take the bit and not mentioning your ass and tell people about that? It only gets wilder. Every part of the story only gets wilder. And the interesting thing is they covered this entire story on an episode of unsolved mysteries. You should hear these people talk about it. We talk about it a lot before, but these are normal people who had this experience and it ruined their lives.

They lost their jobs. They were harassed. People had breakdowns. Whatever happened or whatever they think happened was not to benefit them. This was something that was inflicted upon them and has only caused great pain and inconvenience since it happened.

I feel like great pain and inconvenience has befallen me since we started discussing this story. Oh, you're a part of it now, brother. As I said, luckily, Jane will be happy to know that Tom was placed back on earth, lying on the grass. She started screaming at him to get up and run, but he couldn't move. He couldn't move because the light beam was pinning him in place.

I mean, hell, even if the light beam goes away, I'd stay down, pretend to be dead, just in case that beam comes back. Tom claims he heard the voice from above say, Hold still, and it'll only be a minute. Jesus Christ. The voice is talking the same way you are. Do you think I wanted it to be this way? I don't want to do this.

Stop trying to wiggle just stay still it takes like twice as long if you wiggle you little bastard it really says something if uh you get abducted by aliens and then 20 minutes later they're like have him back get the f**k out of here you little ass just as the voice said the beam withdrew 60 seconds later and tom was freed uh now as we said tom loved drawing with his crayons and was actually a bit of an artist and he did in fact he ran back inside his babysitters like are you okay he frantically got out of his crayon he has no pupils in his eyes he's just drawing ancient hieroglyphics on a page uh i'm gonna send you this picture he drew or painted this picture depicting the events that took place oh boy that happened to him that

day oh boy have we ever had this before children's art of a paranormal experience that happened to them i don't know to be fair this art uh i think he did this as an adult oh you know maybe in the years since i guess you'd do that if you were an artist and you were like i don't want to forget what this was like and while my i still have this in my head i want to get it down on paper as best i can and this is what he painted yeah what what am i supposed to do with this? I'm just showing it to you. I get that it's not your fault, but also f*** you for showing this to me. I don't know what you're talking about.

What I'm looking at, ladies and gentlemen, is it's fairly tastefully done. It's a good little painting. It shows a field, a dark sky, as if it has happened at nighttime. In said sky is the most stereotypical ufo sure you've ever seen this is a flying saucer a domed top maybe the only thing that's slightly different about it is there is this kind of multi-colored it's actually tastefully done

it's kind of it kind of shows a kind of iridescent coloring all around the outside of it. And there is a ring of lights. But clearly and most importantly, it is beaming down the classic Star Trek tractor beam. I mean, this looks like it could be a logo for this paranormal life of a UFO. The beam is going all the way to the ground and presumably him as a young boy, a depiction of himself is standing in the light of the tractor beam,

beaming him up. Well, he's not going anywhere, but he's being held down, obviously. I don't know if this is the way people imagined it in their heads, but it looks like a depiction of your basic cliche, everyday UFO abduction, the flying saucer, the light beam shining down on a human, pinning them or lifting them up into space. Yeah. All in all, there were at least 40 witnesses of the UFO activity over the Berkshires on September 1st. Presumably ranging in experience from light in the sky to I was a board and strapped to a table. Yeah. Very wide variety of experiences. Sure. Which if anything, is what you want. If all 40 people said they were on board, that's one thing.

But if you got a call at some point from someone saying, hey, I think I saw something really weird up in the sky. And then a few seconds later, someone's like, my child disappeared into thin air while I was holding them in my hands. All of these, you'd think all of these would have a common theme and a link between them. I mean, it is a tricky one though, isn't it? I mean, as long as there is a common theme between them, because as word spreads of a story like this throughout a community,

if one person's got the wild story, then other people are going to start going, huh, do you know what? I did see a light in the sky that night. Yeah. It's like, no, you saw a shooting star, mate. Yeah, yeah. Now that I think about it, I did feel a little weird driving home that evening. I mean, luckily in the stories of the people who weren't abducted, like Mary and Jane,

I mean, they didn't even just see the lights. They said that they had to pull over because it was blinding. People were getting out of their cars. They said they saw the craft in the sky hovering in front of them. Hey, I will say if a craft of this size was to fly by a community and interact in this way, that is at least the amount of witnesses

you would expect to have. Yeah, it's very realistic. Whoever was piloting this craft was not trying to be discreet about it. Usually, you know, we, we say like, oh, the craft made no noise. It was camouflaged amongst the trees. This son of a bitch was treating the people of this County. Like they were salmon Mackey rolls on a sushi go round, basically just abducting people as they pleased in the middle of the road, straight out of their

houses, then just chucking them back onto the streets willy nilly. Now that the middle of the road, straight out of their houses, then just chucking them back onto the streets willy nilly. Now that's kind of the end of the testimony section of this podcast. Thank God. I can't take any more blinding testimony. It's heavy. There's a lot to digest. And I think this is why this is a difficult story because it's so outlandish, but weirdly has quite a bit of evidence and proof behind it. So even though it is very dramatic, it's also quite realistic at the same time. Now, I wouldn't be doing my job as a paranormal investigator if I wasn't completely upfront and honest about some of the skepticism that I have with this case. The first family that we looked at was the Reed family,

who quite dramatically claimed that they had lost three hours of their time. Their world had been flip side upside down. Believe it or not, that wasn't the only time the Reed boys had claimed that they'd been taken by aliens. Oh no. Tom said that he had been taken on board a beat up circular vessel and shown the image of a willow tree. Okay. Matthew said he encountered aliens again in 2009 in Indianapolis. Too recently. And their mother, Nancy, claimed to have been visited by extraterrestrials in 1954 when she was a teenager. So even before this case.

Wow. So the aliens really have it out for this family. Let's talk about this for a second. For me personally, it's a red flag because it shows that you weren't just somewhat an average Joe who had never even thought about extraterrestrial life. And then all of a sudden this thing happens to you.

It seems like they're thinking about it a lot. You're saying it already happened. It already happened when you were a teenager and it happened again. Who knows? There could be something special about this family that means that they're priority number one when intelligent life forms come to this planet.

Sure. But usually I think being abducted by an alien is a pretty unique experience that shouldn't and wouldn't really happen twice in a row. Can you imagine after all those years, they come back and they're just shooting random beams down at Earth, seeing what they can get. It's like fishing to them.

And they pop a sucker up to the thing and they're like, all right, get the scalpel and the probe and let's go. Nancy? Zongtar! Zongtar, get over here! It's Nancy! No way. Oh my god, look how grown up you are. I haven't seen you since Trantoneo. I guess for you, what, 15 years ago?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take a seat, take a seat. You don't mind the scalpel, right? Same as last time, same as last time. You know the drill, you know the drill. Seriously though, the drill, you know it. Yeah, I think that's for me personally, that's a bit of a red flag. It is. It is always a salient reminder of just how much people in this era were thinking about UFOs.

It was at front of mind. This was the era of the space race people were thinking about space and that this new and final frontier whereas today we know that people who claim this kind of thing are crackpots and no one let's not say crackpots because you know it's unexplained phenomenon happens all the time to normal people to normal people sometimes we we say those cases are yes but let's sometimes be honest most of the time crackpots and all right well no well you know we'll see we'll see it's not always chuck puddle sometimes it's normal people like susan smith we know that there's no real reward other than writing a book and and getting up on stage at a UFO conference. There's no real world reward for coming out with these claims. But back then, goddamn, people must have been thinking about this stuff all the time. It's true.

Most of the people who claims they were abducted by this craft had their lives ruined from that point onward. They were ridiculed, made fun of, had to move, sell their businesses. It was a hard life. And as you said, you know, opinions in today's world have changed somewhat and also not changed. It's quite a weird thing where you can see a declassified report from the Pentagon that says, Oh, they're real, by the way. Here's a video of one. We don't know what the hell this is. here's a video of one. We don't know what the hell this is. And in that same breath,

then read an article about someone who claims they saw a UFO and you're like, well, you're a maniac. But it's worth bringing up because quite recently in the news, I don't know if you saw this, the US Congress actually held its first public hearing on unexplained aerial sightings in 50 years. This is extremely recently, right? Extremely recently. And that's why I thought we have to bring this up and talk about it at the end of this episode, because it's important. We've talked about these events in the past. Because God damn it, if the Reid family didn't show up 25 times in this report. They're a big part of it.

They're standing up in Congress. They're r big part of it. They're standing up in Congress. They're ranting about it. A lot of this info I grabbed from the Telegraph who did a great write-up on some of the kind of information that has come out of these hearings. But it's kind of insane. The Telegraph said that intelligence chiefs revealed that they had recorded just about 400 UFO sightings in total. Still less than this paranormal life. Keep going, guys. Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, said at the hearing that there were sightings that he just couldn't explain due to flight characteristics or radar readings from the

objects. He was then asked if there were any collisions between, quote, and ufos he said we haven't had a collision but we've had at least 11 near misses this sounds really familiar i do remember that in one of those kind of uh declassified documents over the last few years they were like these things were passing almost within feet of fighter planes and things isn't that crazy i mean to to to be that specific as well 11 near misses yeah that's the kind of answer where if you probed further they could probably tell you the there'd be a name for every one of those misses yeah they'd be like that was uh columbia 2004 uh missed one of our choppers by a by an inch you know it is absolutely wild you know we talk about it all the time the military particularly the american military because it spans more than every other country

combined essentially they are supposed to represent the bleeding cutting edge of anything that flies yeah so for them to come out and say we don't know what the hell is going on out there that means something yeah they're riding around looking at other alien crafts going Yeah. So for them to come out and say, we don't know what the hell is going on out there, that means something. Yeah. They're riding around looking at other alien crafts going, huh, now that's one hell of a copter. It's not so much the delivery that kills me.

It's just the pause. It's like the expectant, wide-eyed looking at me. Then don't say something. I exhaled out through my nose. Like more do you want oh christ uh i feel like i'm not gonna get a win from that pun the worst part is is i know everyone listening to the show is like going crazy they're howling they're laughing they're like you know hitting their legs cracking up they are and i just like it's just hard for me because i don't hear it in a moment things that have happened this episode just, like, it's just hard for me because I don't hear it in the moment. There's so many, like, funnier things that have happened this episode. It's just tough.

It's just tough for me. And for it not to land the first time and then to, like, try it again. Oh, this is great. Last year, Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence who oversees President Joe Biden's daily intelligence briefing,

released a highly anticipated report into ufos it examined 144 different events since 2004 the report could explain only one oh my god it is a great conclusion to come to he's like i've examined almost 150 different crafts and spent the past 40 years of my life writing a report detailing all the information that we have gathered. What are your findings, sir? No idea. I think one was a bird. Yeah, it's like that's not a good use of millions of dollars of public spending. Yeah, we gave you so much money.

Yeah, you got to at least pad the report out with some bullshit. much money. Yeah. You got to at least pad the report out with some bullshit. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy that out of 144 different crafts, they could only officially explain one of them. I mean, that is truly fascinating that these conversations are still going on to this day. Not only still going on, but I feel like nowadays they're more prominent and more openly discussed than ever. You think 50 years ago we would have been having a public hearing like this? No. Oh, this was a great bit. Ronald Moultrie, President Biden's Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, denied officially that the Pentagon was covering up anything, citing his own passion for science fiction i love fiction that's why i love talking

about it he said i enjoy the challenge of what might be out there yes i have followed science fiction i have gone to conventions there's nothing wrong with that but i don't necessarily dress up what he said that i don't it's hard to get the context of that quote i don't know if he's saying dress up the facts or the truth or if he's talking about i think he's talking about the convention cosplay good lord uh there's nothing wrong with going to the convention there's something wrong with bringing it up during a congressional hearing whether you go to sci-fi conventions. Yes. Please stay on topic, sir. I mean, yeah, I may be a U.S. official and sure, I go to a couple of conventions. And yeah, sometimes I cosplay as Captain John Picard. And of course, sometimes I'll reenact scenes with me

and my buddies. And of course, sometimes after a couple of beers, I will leak confidential government secrets to them at the convention after party. Sir, we asked you if you could identify this plane. Oh, well, yeah, that's an M41 Thunderbird. Okay, you could take your studio. All right. And any notes on the cosplay? Because I did stay up all night stitching the hem. We would ask you to sit down, sir.

All right. Thank you for having me. Set phasers to stun. You know, I appreciate that level of openness and honesty. I mean, this is, look, listen, for all our suspicion of big government, this is ideally how the government would function with openness and honesty and going like,

hey guys, just laying all the evidence out for y'all because we don't really know what's going on here. There's no point in keeping it all secret, but yet we, you know, we just harbor a little bit of that kind of like historic like distrust of like, is this really what's going on? Why are they telling us this? Are they trying to distract from something else in the news? Yeah. You know, these kinds of thoughts.

Yeah. I think it was quite refreshing to hear some of the way that the officials are talking in this hearing because they're trying to, at least from the look of it, trying to be quite honest where they're like, hey, um, we know a ton of shit that you don't. Here's the thing. We can't say everything because our enemies are also privy to everything we say here. And if we openly say that we don't know what this thing is on video, they'll know whether or not we know about their shit if it turns out to be an enemy's craft. So it's kind of like, I think America is holding its cards close to its chest. So if they're in a hearing where it's like,

all right, can you tell us what this is? One of your jets went right past it. They're like, no. And it's like, oh, okay. Do you know what it is? Yes. All right, well, what is it? I can't tell you. I okay. Do you know what it is? Yes. All right. Well, what is it?

I can't tell you. I don't think you know what it is. I think that's what it is. You're scared of it. I know what it is. What do you guys think it is? So you don't know. Why don't we say it at the same time?

Why don't we all, why don't we all say what we think it is? Why don't you say it first? And then I'll tell you if you were right about what it was. You North Korean spy and bastard. Yeah. He's like three, two, one shiny. No. Okay. Three, two, one. Spy drill. No, no, it's not what you were going to say. No, that's not what I was going to say either. Yeah. It's, it's a weird kind of stalemate where I think like everyone's trying to act like they know everything, which is pointless for a hearing like this because the whole point is it's unidentified. I know what you mean. I guess

saying something's unidentified is like the most honest they can be. They can come out and say it's alien in origin. They can come out and say this or that. Like it's kind of like one great big news headline about saying a bunch of stuff is no comment. Exactly. And unfortunately, I mean, I think they've come out and you are totally right. They're like, Hey, we're not going to say aliens who said aliens. No one's talking about aliens. We're just saying it's printed on the giant banner behind you. Congressional hearing on aliens. We're just saying that this weird object flying apparently on stardust and anti-gravity didn't come from america yeah and that's kind of the i mean it's an ongoing thing right now i mean that's how current it is so we'll

have to keep you posted maybe we'll cover some of this in a in a after party episode and just do like a hit all the beats talk about every craft that they're going through you know even on a bonus episode that would be really fun. I like that idea. But today, aside from those little concerns that I had at the end, I will say this case is incredibly credible. Normally, when we're researching these episodes, a lot of the stories will come from the weird websites, Crystallinks.com, random forums, Reddit posts.

This story and the testimonies within it are all reported on The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The Independent. It's insanely well documented thanks to the number of unrelated independent witnesses. Sure, it's clearly, despite having happened a little while ago, it's clearly stood the test of time in terms of the public interest. So Kit, it's time for us to come to our own conclusions independently. What are you thinking? Fascinating case. Fascinating that it happened to so many different people at so many different times, all on the same night. I'll be honest. I think it's a lot to take in and I clearly don't get the full picture of what's going on here. It is very hard to sum this up in an hour long podcast.

This could have been a maybe three parter. But the only problem is there's no natural progression to it. It starts at 100% and goes 100% and then it just kind of ends. Yeah, which kind of fits the bill for the way these government spotted crafts come in and out of visibility. Yeah. They don't hang around for a cup of tea, these UFOs. They pop up, disintegrate a child, and leave.

Granted, I agree, worrying that not all of the witnesses are believable. But, you know, I will say, a sighting like this doesn't discriminate. The UFO doesn't pick its witnesses. And untrustworthy people, even if we're going to go as far to say that they could see things too and you know you could have 90 of people in town telling the truth about what they saw and then just 10 of people just lying to be part of the fun yeah that's a very that's a very good point we're not saying making those claims for anyone in our story but if you know a whole county is saying they saw this UFO, I mean, we know what people are like.

Who's to say a few of them aren't just trying to up everyone's story? It's like, you just saw it? I was up there. It's like, all right, calm down. But that is all I think as a humble co-investigator. What do you think? I have spent a worrying amount of time researching this episode.

I've watched the Unsolved Mysteries episode that they did on it. I've read everyone's testimonies. I've dived through the deep end. Amy, too, our researcher, has put an incredible amount of research into preparing this case. And I have come to the conclusion that whether or not every part of this story is true is still up for debate. But I believe that to some degree, something happened that night. Whether it was a weird thing appearing in the sky and zapping people with a light beam, I don't know what happened, but all I know is a lot of people who are all normal, respectable people say that something happened. Say that something zapped them, and you don't

just make up getting zapped well our listeners at home already know our conclusion that's right at the beginning of this episode we said that today was going to be a double yes and kit i stand by that statement that's right it's a double yes whatever happened that night on september 1st who knows exactly what went down? Who knows the details, the timeline, the true events? All we know is something went down and it was pretty f***ing weird. That is all you can ask for in this life. I mean, Jesus, that's what Congress are trying to work out. Did something happen?

No comment. We investigated 144 cases of something. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. It's an insane one. It took me so long to kind of finish polishing this script and getting it to a place I felt comfortable presenting it in. I think the first time I kind of read through some of these stories, I was like, it's a shame that it's so insane. I wish it was even like less bizarre because that would have made me feel more comfortable even presenting it. But here we are. That's just, we're just telling it how it is. And that's how apparently it went down. And folks, that is a

double yes. Thank you to Amy Grisdale for researching this week's episode. Thank you to Louis Blatherwick for editing this week's episode. Guys, how would you like to be pinned to the floor? By me. Okay, slow down, brother. Where are you going with this? And instead of light, I beam directly into your head 50 additional episodes of this paranormal life. It's barely been recovered, I will say.

You're going to wake up in a park with no clothes, no shoes. This is so threatening. You're not going to know where you are. All you're going to know is that you now have access to 50 episodes and our weekly after party. It's entertainment. Because guess what you did? You joined us on Patreon.com.

That's right. If you head over to Patreon.com, that's it that's the place to be if you are a tpl fan we just rebranded our patreon and we have more rewards there than we've ever had kit what's your favorite reward right now that we offer everyone abadi abadi abadi it's got to be the after party rory what's the after party kid it's a goddamn mother weekly show where every friday this is our way of breaking up the week so that uh in between sandwiched deliciously in between our two slices of plain ass bread which is the tuesday episode you're listening to right now we have the the peanut butter and jam that is our weekly kickback at the after party we're talking q and a's we're talking behind the scenes butter and jam that is our weekly kickback at the after party.

We're talking Q&As. We're talking behind the scenes content and general shooting the breeze. That is just a really fun way of connecting with you guys and giving you a little bit more TPL. We also get blasted on the show. We have established somewhat of a track record of doing this. Yes. Cracking up and open a couple brewskis. A lot of people worried about us in the comments.

Most recently, a bottle of whiskey. Yeah, it's kind of accelerating. But it's great. It's a lot of fun. And it's an awesome way to get more TPL action. What's my favorite reward, you ask? Kit, I think the coolest thing that we do is the fact that we do a monthly raffle where you can actually earn a This Paranormal Life artifact. I didn't ask.

What if I told you you could join the Patreon and this month you could win Kit's fucking iPhone that he uses daily? And we're talking about all of his accounts still logged in, his Gmail, his Twitter, his Instagram. Or he's talking to the camera for some reason for the first time in an hour and 10 minutes. All there for the day king, folks.

Why would we give away my phone that's my one phone it's just for for also why would anyone want that in the sense of surely they would want a piece of paraphernalia it was just a life history just an example of something that you could win because of course this month what we're giving away is the actual cursed doll used on an episode of this paranormal life it's been living in my house for the last six months and i need it gone yes we've established before it's terrifying you don't want it in your house and yet it can be yours unfortunately we did throw away the bag of bones and all the other weird stuff that came with it but the doll itself can be yours you could be the winner let's face it

you could make your own bag of bones. What is a KFC bucket but a bag of bones? And of course, one of the coolest rewards of all is getting your very own personal shout out at the end of an episode of This Paranormal Life.

And that's what we're going to do right now. Thank you so much to Kevin Gaddy. Kevin Gaddy, the number one caddy for anything, not just golf. If you play basketball, he'll just follow you around with like towels and shit i don't really know what caddies do isn't a caddy also like a type

of basket or something is it it's definitely both ah well there you go kevin will either help you play golf or carry stuff for you thank you to asia croteau you think the reed family were problematic for getting abducted three to four times? Asia gets abducted three times a week. Whoa, against their will? It must be some kind of f***ed up part-time job, honestly. They get picked up on a Monday and dropped back on a freaking Wednesday evening

with cash in their pocket. A space box. Thank you to Kim Terry. If it isn't Harry Terry, their biggest problem is at any point if they're just, you know, out for a little walk in the woods,

having a little stroll. Sure. Everyone's like, that is Sasquatch. That is Bigfoot. But no, no, no. It's just Harry Terry. All right.

Terry just needs to go home, quick shave. Of course, by six o'clock, it's not just a shadow. It is, it's a black hole. The hair is back. But don't be alarmed. If you see what you think is Bigfoot, it might just be Hairy Terry. Look into laser hair removal, Terry.

Thank you to Jonathan Skinner. Now, Jonathan Skinner, on the other hand, is sort of confusingly and disturbingly completely hairless. Right. Looks like a giant baby. Yes. You know, aerodynamic, innit? Yeah.

Good at swimming. Good at running. Exactly. It makes you faster when you need to escape from your enemies and just covering yourself up in something like baby oil and Vaseline will make you very hard to catch. That is also accurate because he is also the build and size of a giant baby. Right.

Thank you to Julie. Julie is the official commune jeweler. Whenever my crown gets a little dusty or one of my jewels gets a little dulled, I say, Julie the jeweler. And she just comes up and kneels before me with a little tray of jewels. Sometimes it's what we've been able to find from the minds of the paranormal commune sometimes it's whatever we've just ganked from the people when they came in the front door yeah it's a bit like prison being in the commune you

get all your stuff confiscated and we say you'll get it back if you ever leave but no one ever leaves so the jewels are pretty much up for grabs thanks julie can you bust on my watch julie truly thank you to julia thorn julia was the original jeweler before we got julie but julia was actually a thorn in my side it turned out because the jewels she was offering us they just weren't up to scratch and she kept saying i don't think it's ethical that you actually take these from the people that come in this is their i don't even feel comfortable offering you blood diamonds but you insist on only using gigantic blood diamonds and we said julia that's enough give me your give me your diamond necklace and get out of here and that's when we hired julie and we don't talk about julia

thorn anymore thank you to rich Hoover. Richard the Mover Hoover. We actually hired him when we needed to move the royal jewels from our old commune to the new commune. Now, in the process of moving them, I won a tiny diamond really out of thousands and thousands of blood diamonds went missing. So we had Richard beaten to within an inch of his life uh sadly it did turn up later on yeah you found it it was underneath your pillow so so we had it the whole well no hard feelings richard thank you to your kim kohlberg the titanic was lucky that it only hit an iceberg imagine if it had actually hit a Kohlberg. Huh? Kohlberg is a paranormal object

that sometimes is found in a sea of space. And instead of just being a big... Wait, what's the sea of space? The sea of space. It's like the ocean of the universe. You have to move past that because that's not the part that I'm talking about. Apparently. So it's like instead of just hitting

the Titanic hit, which was what, a f***ing frozen rock? It's a giant hump of ice. Or something like that. Thousands and thousands of tons. And then just like, kabloosh, the ship went down or something. Like, I don't really remember. I didn't read about it. Okay, a lot of people died.

Didn't make it to the end of the movie. Imagine it hit a Kohlberg. Sure. If you hit- I still don't know what the sea of space is, so. If you hit a Kohlberg, the memories and the futures and the past of you and your family are melted into a dying star that explodes in your own eyes. What does this have to do with Joachim?

I think he's one of them. And thanks for supporting the show. Thank you to Ilka Niemann. It's great to have Ilka's ilk hanging around the commune they've got a real eye for jewels oh that's just what we need around here that's why they're the premier jewel enforcer that means if someone even considers wearing a stone on a piece of string as a necklace yeah if it's too shiny they just gank it off their neck and give it to us even like sentimental shit like if it was like i don't know like a teddy bear that that your mother

gave you when you were a child that's kind of a jewel in your eyes and we want it the sentimental value is enormous thank you also to daniel bruzas daniel actually weirdly runs a kind of abduction experience weekend thing it's's on like Airbnb. If you're in the Austin area and you want to feel like you've got abducted, you sign up and he'll put a sack over your head, load you in the back of a van, and

beat the crap out of you with a bag of pennies for three days, and then dump you outside a drugstore at 5am. Yeah, and you're like whoa, what time is it? What happened to my shoes? You get the full experience. It's pretty unique. Thank you to Cameron Neves.

Cameron keeps his camera on whenever he's around the Royal Jewelry Collection. He is the Royal Jewelry Photographer. If we frame giant images of the most precious jewels around the castle of the commune. Except in the last few weeks the

photos have been a bit blurry so i handed them over to daniel uh for a three-day abduction experience just to really sharpen his focus for the next round of photos yeah we kind of pitched it as like a reward for doing such a good job we said we're all going on a work trip and he was basically forced into a sack for a whole weekend. So let's hope those pictures get a little clearer, buddy. And lastly, but not leastly today, thank you to Cara Sharp. Cara Sharp, our resident knife expert in the commune.

You know you're really f***ed up if we introduce you to Cara. If we send you to Cara for a weekend experience, she really knows her stuff. She really does. But unfortunately, some of the knives recently have been a weekend experience. She really knows her stuff. She really does. But unfortunately, some of the knives recently have been a little blunt. So, Cara,

welcome to your exclusive weekend getaway via the sack. We sent a lot of business to Daniel. We really do. Thank you so much to everyone that we shouted out. And thank you to everyone that supports us on Patreon.

If you're on that tier, your shout out is coming. Keep an ear out. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. I hope you had as much fun as we did. And of course, we'll be back

next Tuesday with a brand new episode.