This Paranormal Life - #303 Pine Gap - Australia's AREA 51

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Area 51 is known around the world as a hotbed of paranormal and UFO activity, where secretive government experiments are conducted far from the eyes of the public. But did you really think the USA was the only country getting up to such shady shit? It turns out that Australia is home to it's own top secret research facility in the middle of nowhere - Pine Gap. Just like Area 51, Pine Gap is synonymous with unbelievable UFO sightings and experiences stretching from the 1970s to the present day. Time for Rory and Kit to investigate, with the help of their Award-Winning Australian Accents, of course.This Paranormal Life is sponsored by BetterHelp.Go to betterhelp.com/paranormallife to get started today using code "paranormallife".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 CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Louis Blatherwick Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are drop bears real? Humans are 60% water. Is there a being that's 100% water? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! And welcome back to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday me, Kit Greer-Molvena and Rory Powers, who's sitting across from me, get into a different paranormal case, and by the end of the episode, get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. How are you doing today, Rory? I'm so excited to be here. I've just consumed a huge amount of iced coffee,

which means I'm fired up and I'm ready to go. I'm ready to dive into the depths and wrangle ourselves a paranormal case. Rory, I'm so glad to hear it because that makes one of us. Because personally, I'm feeling flat. I'm feeling uninspired. And, um... You do have the flu currently. Pretty bad. Do you ever feel like...

Sorry. Do you ever... No, maybe I should just park it. Maybe we should just get on with the episode. Yeah, okay, sorry. Okay, so today. Do you ever feel like we've done 300 episodes? What is there left to say?

No, I should park it. I should park it to the end. Sorry, I'm just getting. Are you all right? Sorry. I feel like the flu's messing with my head a little bit. Just because maybe we've said it all. Maybe we've said it all, investigated it all.

I mean, I have a couple of cases I researched earlier, so I could take over if you don't think that you have a case for today. Because we definitely haven't reached them all, by the way. We've barely scratched the surface. All right. Yeah, okay, great. Well, like, what's one of your cases? Like the f***ing seven-fingered honey bear?

Like, what is it? Where did that come from? Yeah, because we're out of good ones, is the point. There's only... We've got the five-finger honey bear, the six-finger honey bear. We've only got seven left. I'm hoping you have a case today. I do.

Of course I do. I'm a consummate professional, but... Sorry, I'm just... I think the flu's getting to me. Yeah, you're right. It's the flu. It's the flu. It's the flu.

For a second there, I was like, oh, maybe it's because I've been doing doing this for like so long that like, I don't even know, like what's an original thought anymore or like. Okay. This is definitely the flu talking. Cause a lot of this isn't really making sense. You're right. I'm going to do what all paranormal investigators do best, which is compartmentalize my emotions, seal them into a tiny box and lock them there. I just want to say, if you want to get better and recover from the flu, don't stay up all night making TikTok cooking videos. All right?

Because I need to address this on the podcast, all right? Because you can't keep it a secret anymore. Kit's been trying to launch a TikTok cooking channel for three weeks now. They have no idea

what Italian food means. They don't know what it means. You can't cook. I'm sorry to tell you this. Sometimes you're just using your hands for everything, for everything. You need things to cook with. That's the original Italiano method of making

uh, of making in this case, boiling hot tomato sauce. The recipe book said to beat an egg and you punched a carton for 12 minutes. That's not what that means. I will concede the dishes don't always taste that good, but the followers are going up,

and I think they're laughing with me, not at me. A lot of them are saying some really mean comments here. Yeah, but most of it's in Italian, so I like to assume that they're encouraging me, encouraging me for spreading the word. A lot of these are in English. I'll just rattle a few of these. I mean, top comment on your latest video.

You might have hit translate. I hope he eats Some of his own food Because it's sure to kill him So that wasn't in Italian That was in English Yeah but But the sickness

The sickness came I'm pretty sure it came From my cousin When I saw him last week I don't think it's to do with the It does coincide with When I made bolognese Alright next comment

Next comment Okay I don't know what's Scrambled more Those eggs Or his brains. Alright, this is enough. And this is why I'm on TikTok trying to teach these dumbasses how to cook, because we can't trust their opinions. In your last video it's just how to make ice. A lot of people know how to make ice.

I don't even think that's really cooking. The freezer was broken too, I had to CGI a lot of that. I was punching that water for days. We're getting derailed. We, of course, have a brand new paranormal investigation we have to jump into right after some quick words from today's sponsors. Today, Rory, we're going to a place, maybe the only place in all of TPL history

that we just might not be physically welcome in. Australia. Ah, yes, the country that doesn't exist. Right. Well, no, because we got to the bottom of it at the end and we said that it does exist. By that logic, we're also not welcome in f***ing Narnia and Hogwarts.

Right. It's just that for context, if anyone hasn't heard that episode Rory spent one full hour trying to argue that Australia, the country, borderline continent, doesn't exist. It does. I just want to put that out there. And it wasn't a full hour. There was not enough evidence to barely scrape together 20 minutes of a podcast. And today's case does hinge on Australia indeed existing. We begin just outside a little town called Alice Springs, almost smack bang in the middle of the country.

Smack bang in the middle of Australia? That's right. Where's the outback? Everywhere. Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought in the middle it gets a little desert-y. My geography's not, my Australian geography's not good. Don't Google it, because I almost had a mental breakdown last night

just thinking about how big Australia is. Okay, okay. We're sitting in Northern Ireland. Do you think my potato munching brain can even comprehend how big that country is? This is like a hobbit trying to comprehend Mordor. It's too big for us, little shire folk, okay? I can't think on that scale. This is like a hobbit who's used to burrowing around in hedges to forage fruits, going to a big Tesco's. He doesn't know what the f*** is going on.

Overwhelmed. He's never seen soy milk before. Now he's faced with 12 different brands. seen soy milk before, now he's faced with 12 different brands. Rory, you're right, we are in the vicinity of Outback, which to the layman of course looks desolate, right? I know what we're all picturing, desert meeting mountains and scrubland, littered of course with your obligatory kangaroos, wild boar and other terrifying Australian wildlife, but to a paranormal investigator we know that there's more, something hidden deep in the Australian desert. It was the 22nd of December, 1989, the height of the Australian summer

and the last Friday night before Christmas. Three young friends were out in the bush coming to the tail end of an all-night hunting trip. Hmm. We've said on the show before, Rory, people were built different back in the day. Me and you at this age, it was all-night Pokemon Stadium N64 sessions.

A type of hunting. Glory hunting. Mostly for Pikachus and Caterpies. Not physically hunting animals with deadly weapons. What age did you say it was? I think they were about like 19 or so. Fair. It was 4.30 in the morning

by the time they were satisfied with the hunt and decided to call it a night. They strung up the corpses of the various animals they'd blasted to smithereens and took off on foot. They were stumbling through the dark wilderness in the vague direction of home. What time's sunrise?

5.45. We've got at least another hour of darkness. You know, they say it's always darkest before the dawn, so watch your step. Is that a Florence and the Machine lyric? Yeah, it probably is, but it's also just true. It's like a saying, isn't it? That's not the point anyway. One of us twists an ankle out here and we're in trouble. I don't want to have to carry any one of you shunts all the way back to the trap. They were focusing so hard on where they were putting their feet that they weren't paying much attention to what was around them. They didn't notice the towering chain-link fences looming over the horizon or the array of imposing buildings behind it.

Hey guys, take a look at this. Why is there a perfect rectangle right here? The smooth ground had a distinct oblong patch that didn't match the rest of the path. That's freaky. Maybe it's an opening to some kind of underground lair. They carried on walking, but it was only a matter of seconds before they realised where they were. The distinctive bulbous white towers on the horizon gave it away. They were a stone's throw away from Pine Gap, a remote military base long shrouded in mystery. Before they could worry about snipers or attack dogs, they heard a mechanical sound coming from behind them. The odd patch of ground began to open.

They had been standing on a door which was now swinging open. Inside they could see blinding underground lights, dashed by a flurry of activity. They ran to the trees and ducked from view. of activity. They ran to the trees and ducked from view. They didn't want to be found on military territory, accidentally or otherwise, but they couldn't look away from what was happening through that door. Yeah, if you're going to be caught on a military base, you want to be looking like a tourist. Open map, fanny pack, wearing jean shorts, kind of like, oh, I think I wandered in the wrong area. Y'all speak english around here i assume these guys well they're holding weapons for one probably smeared in the blood of animals

if you are spotted by a military soldier you're getting shot yeah are they're gonna sick the guard kangaroos on you yeah you just walked up to australia's area 51 looking like a Capitol Hill rioter. There is no good ending to this. You might as well have turned up to a primary school playground looking like Pennywise the Clown. It doesn't matter what the story is, what Halloween party you just came from. They could hardly believe their eyes when a metallic grey disc emerged from the opening in the ground

it was flying though there weren't any engine sounds as you might expect all right slow down chief we're moving pretty goddamn fast today usually there's a bit more preamble and a bit more backstory before we reach the flying disc usually the flying disc is like 30 minutes in you think i'm moving fast this thing shot into the air like a rocket. Faster than a rocket, they said. Faster than they'd seen anything move before. Did I mention it was silent? They were listening as hard as they could,

and they could only hear their own breathing. If this paranormal case were a date, you just ordered a condom for the appetizer. We're skipping right to the end here. This is moving very quickly and I would at least like a glass of wine and a salad before we proceed. Oh, I wish it was the end. This is me on the date. Garçon, we're going to take these steak frites in a doggy box because we're about to f**k. We gotta do it doggy style. I look back from the back of the waiter the seat's empty. Ah damn it. I'm not kidding this thing didn't make

a sound. If they hadn't seen it it would have been able to fly right past them and they wouldn't have known a thing. What the what the hell was that? I mean, we got to tell someone. I'm not telling anyone. Why would we tell anyone? They won't believe us. Who would we even tell? The police won't want to know. I don't want any UFO nutcases knocking down my door. I want to jump in here real quick and say before anyone comes at us for our Australian, our authentic Australian accents, all I want to say is the first time we did our Australian accents on the podcast, we won a British podcast award. I'm not saying those two are related. I'm just saying they're

seen in pretty high regard. Or should I say, high regard? Oh my God. Yeah, we don't talk about it all the time, but both me and Rory went to RADA. We spent many years at RADA learning the art form of acting and we don't get to use it much because we're professional paranormal investigators. So, you know, you kind of have to humor us

that we just get to use our award-winning Australian accents anytime. Well, people don't realize, what people don't realize is Kit and Rory are characters. that we just get to use our award-winning Australian accents any time we touch down in Australia. What people don't realize is Kit and Rory are characters. We have never actually revealed our true accents on the podcast just because of the nature of this podcast, declassifying important information. It's important to kind of have a facade, a mask up at all times.

That's why we have to do these voices, these characters. Sorry, when I say, like, if I've ever had, like, a breakdown in the past on the podcast where I say that, like, a mask up at all times. That's why we have to do these voices, these characters. Sorry, when I say like, if I've ever had like a breakdown in the past on the podcast where I say that like, I don't have supportive parents or like,

I don't have a girlfriend or a wife or anything like that. It's like, that's a bit, that's like a character that I'm doing for Rory. Like, he's a character.

Yeah. Although, spoiler alert for some of the listeners because I know the real person behind the mask of the story some of that shit is true actually

no no it's method acting it's method acting so it's kind of like no most of it yeah for sure but like for sure

there is like a grain a lot of it is there is like a grain a lot of it's yeah a pretty sizable grain and the tiny dick stuff as well tiny dick stuff is all character stuff

I don't know if that's ever come up did I not mention that on the podcast before I never mentioned that? I think that was the first time. Okay. All right.

That's a character choice. Moving on. Okay. We go so method. Between episode one and episode 200, I gained and lost 150 pounds of pure fat like Christian Bale. Kit lost it and I found it.

Back to our story. These guys didn't have any more time to sit around and talk about what just happened. Just then, the floor hatch began to close and soon it was back in position, blending in with the ground. The lads ran off in the direction of home. Rory, what has just happened?

You asking me? Well, the thing I find weird about it is it didn't seem like they, you said that they came up against a chain link fence, but we have to ask the question posed in the popular TV show, Malcolm in the Middle. Is that a fence to keep people out or keep people in? Are they crossing it to go into the base or out of the base? Because presumably if they are at a point now in the desert where a craft is flying out of the earth, that's the fence to get out. They're already in it, presumably.

Yeah, it's a great point, actually. I believe that they were not inside the compound, and we will hopefully see that from other stories in today's case. Then they need to work on their parameters. Why is the fence not guarding off the secret alien escape tunnel? This is the Outback. Anything can happen. That's the tagline of the Outback, by the way. Is it? I've been to Australia. Anything can happen. That's the tagline of the Outback, by the way.

Is it? I've been to Australia. Anything can happen. I thought that was Florida's Disneyland. Look, my knowledge of the Australian Outback is very limited. It basically goes only as far as having watched The Rescuers Down Under as a child. That's all I know about it. It's a dangerous, scary place where talking mice rescue a small child from a redneck man who's trying to hunt a giant eagle. Well, no spoilers for the rest of this episode because it could be given quite a bit away. I agree. This is strange. It brings to mind things like Thunderbird Island.

Remember the morally questionable British puppets, Thunderbirds? Yes. And they lived on an island, I think. But all I remember is that, you know, there would be a mountain on the island and then just a hole would just open up in the middle of the island and a giant warship would fly out. Right, right. That's kind of what's happening here. I think the Thunderbirds had the advantage of no one else was on the island and a giant um warship would fly out right right that's kind of what's

happening here i think the thunderbirds had the advantage of no one else was on the island uh whereas here i think the government in this case are hoping that they are so far from civilization that um no one's wandering into this kind of thing yeah i guess you know if you're creating a tunnel where a flying craft is going to go up into the sky, in theory, it doesn't matter how far you build that fence. It's going up. Someone's going to see it in the sky. Yeah, it's very true.

There also could be a degree of plausible deniability that maybe they don't want people to think this is coming from Pine Gap, from the government facility. Yeah, if you go talk to them about it, they're like, what? That's crazy. It didn't happen in the fence, did it? That's all our shit is in the fence. Whoa, that's wow, you guys should, yeah, that's crazy. Maybe it was an animal or something. That's nuts. So passive aggressive. On which side of the fence was that on? Oh, that's right. On the other side? Why are you talking to me then?

Don't want to f*** you here. Did it happen inside of the facility or outside the facility? Oh, it was outside the facility. Oh, all right. Oh, just so we're clear. Just so we're clear. Yeah, all right. Well, there's a door.

Thanks for bringing it up. Thanks for bringing up other shit that is in our business. You're like, it said government of Australia on the side of the craft. The dude's like, Terryry show these guys out terry is a 10 foot blue man like the f***ing people from avatar it's like all right i think there is something weird going on though i just wanted to give a quick shout out also to um one of our lad friends here who saw the craft and he fully embodied the dog in Yeezys effect talked about many times in this paranormal life

that it was coined by Professor R. Patrick Powers. Don't give away my middle name. No one should know that. But it's fake so it doesn't matter. Oh yeah, of course, yeah. Forgot.

That's fake. The tiny dick's fake and all that other shit is fake. Sorry. When the mic's off, you're like, why did I use my real name? Why did I use my real name? forgot that's fake the tiny dick's fake and all that other shit is fake sorry when the mic's off you're like why'd I use my real name why'd I use my real name

I could have picked any name yeah it's dog and Yeezy Professor Powers posited that if one were to see a dog

walking down the street wearing Adidas Yeezy 350s it would be easier one's life would be made easier to just forget that it ever happened Rather than bring it up

And be made to sound like a lunatic Yeah At least leave out the Yeezys Just talk about the dog Talk about the dog And in this case Our lads didn't necessarily Want to even talk about this

They were like Forget it ever happened Fair Just you know Grab our stuff from the hunt Let's get home And just get on with our lives Well as it so happens The lads did tell someone The only person they could think of you know grab our stuff from the hunt let's get home just and just get on with our lives well as

it so happens the lads did tell someone the only person they could think of their university professor professor pew which was incredibly lucky because while he absolutely couldn't have cared less he did know a ufo researcher who did care he introduced the boys and they told him their story and when he finished writing it down he threw that document on a massive stack of other papers. You know why, Rory? Because this was far from the first time something unexplained happened in this corner of the Australian outback. It was part of a long list of paranormal activity in a secretive government facility known as Pine Gap. Have you ever heard of it? Uh, no, never heard of Pine Gap. Have you ever heard of it?

Uh, no, never heard of Pine Gap. I don't think so. It might have come up on the podcast before, but my knowledge about it is very, very limited. I wasn't aware of it either until quite recently, thanks to Tim Gill, for one, who wrote in and suggested this. I'm sure others did on social media, but Tim emailed that in. But Rory, I wouldn't be surprised

if our listeners hadn't heard of Pine Gap because it's supposed to be secret. Wait, what? Oh, right. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, sorry. But despite being a secret, we do have pictures on this thing.

Do you want to take a look of what the outsides might look like? Shit, yeah. I mean, presumably, if this place is just out in the middle of the outback, there's no hiding it from Google Maps. Feast your eyes. All right, that is not a picture of a facility.

You've just Googled UFO. No. That's just a picture of a UFO. No, no. That is, all right. I was thinking more like satellite photos or something. I don't know how that got in there actually that's crazy but actually while we're talking about that is actually similar to the ufo scene

at pine gap it looked like clip art as you can right but as you can see i did google pine gap ufo um sure okay here's what the pine gap facility looks like here's an aerial photo. Okay, okay. Guys, we're talking about a textbook secret laboratory here. Lots of white, long buildings, what looks like airplane hangars, and then, weirdest of all, lots of spherical balls. I guess that is what spherical means. Spherical objects, giant balls. They look like almost enormous golf balls. I guess that is what spherical means. Spherical objects, giant balls, they look like almost enormous golf balls. What are those supposed to be? I believe these are a type of

satellite. If you think of a satellite normally being a kind of a dish, these are enormous spherical ones. Well, this dish is a shit sandwich. Because if you think I'm supposed to believe that alien egg is a satellite, then we're both morons.

You know, the facility is just kind of intriguingly bland enough and small enough that it leaves a lot to the imagination, but it should be pointed out early that it's believed that this shit is an iceberg. Most of it's underground. I see, I see. Because, yeah, it's believed that this shit is an iceberg. Most of it's underground. I see. I see. Because, yeah, it's not too big and it's definitely not trying to hide itself. These are bright white buildings. They're not camouflaged in with the brown earth.

You know, you bring up an interesting point about Google Earth. You know, there are places on earth that are like forbidden from being on google earth and i know for a long time like i'm struggling to think now but it might be like i don't know bases in like north korea you ain't getting a satellite image of right i don't know how they stop that shit but uh whether north koreans do it on their side that they block satellites or that they block the imagery somehow, or whether it's like sensitive government stuff and the American government talks to Google and says, how about when you get to Area 51, we slide you Benjamin across the table and you just copy paste a bit of desert over where Area 51 is.

You ain't showing people the entrance to the hollow earth. So whilst Google Earth is generally unbelievably reliable, there are certain places where we can't trust it. That's crazy. That's f***ed up, man. No one should be able to tell me what I can and cannot see on this earth. We should be able to see whatever we want. This is Rory at the door to the Staples Center in Los Angeles trying to

bargain to get courtside Lakers seats. No one can tell me what I can't see with my eyes. I want to see LeBron work his magic. I'm going to search on Google Maps to see if I can find Pine Gap on Google Maps with the satellite view. For sure. Let's see. Satellite, satellite view. It's kind of crazy you can do this. I don't do this enough. A red dot has appeared on Rory's chest, I will say,

but I think he's got just enough time to try and get the results here. Look at that. I can see it on the satellite view. Wow, look at that. That's so cool. That's genuinely crazy. And in pretty high res as well. Like, holy shit. Google Maps maps is insane isn't it um i can literally see how many cars are in the car park i'm also gonna tell you

uh it sounds like i'm google earth pilled um i don't know why i know this but i actually read this on twitter the other day that i thought it was all satellite imagery apparently google earth is so high res because much of its imagery is actually taken by planes. Oh. Not by satellites. I see. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Because this is insane.

I'm looking at their swimming pool by the car park. This is crazy high res. So officially, Pine Gap opened in 1970. Its location, 18 miles southwest of Alice Springs. What do the government say this facility is for? Officially? Satellite surveillance. But between you and me, brother, they've got E.T. tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth, waterboarding him every eight minutes to try and get him to talk. It's said that if you ask a Pine Gap employee about their job,

they'll lie and tell you that they're a gardener. There is a garden. I do want to say I did see that on Google Maps. They have quite a nice little garden area. I'm like, really? Fuck. Yeah, you're like, Pine Gap is a garden center. They sell plants. I don't know what you were reading on crystallings.org.

And there's a huge amount of claims about what goes on inside Pine Gap. Put it this way, to give you the scope of what could be happening in here. Remember when Edward Snowden showed that we're all being spied on 24-7? He says that's happening in Pine Gap. That's where they're doing it. I thought it was the NSA. I thought it was an American company. Because Pine Gap is run by both the Australians and the CIA together.

Wow. Interesting place to do it all. I guess you're just on a big island in the middle of the ocean and in the middle of nowhere on that island. So it's pretty secretive in theory. It's there because it's at least a thousand miles in any direction away from basically another country who would want to get access to that facility. in theory it's there because it's at least a thousand miles in any direction away from uh basically another country who would want to get access to that facility right if you think about trying to put a facility like that in i don't know uh spain it's like there's a bunch of other

countries only a couple hundred miles away um who could get in, could spy, could use long-range technology to detect stuff, block communications. But in the middle of Australia, no one can hear you type. Only a couple of redneck 19-year-old hunters. Exactly. But of course, we're not here to talk about Edward Snowden. We're here to talk about the paranormal. What we're interested in are the numerous claims of UFO activity in and around this facility. Our hunter lads from the beginning were not the first to see a UFO emerge from Pine Gap.

They weren't even the first to claim to see a camouflaged door open in the middle of the wilderness. On another occasion, one day, two Northern Territory police officers were part of a search operation for a missing child. They were covering the area near the Pine Gap facility when suddenly a concealed doorway opened in full view of them. Stunned, they watched as several objects shaped like bathtubs emerged and made their way smoothly across the base.

They also reported that a vast dark hole appeared from nowhere in the hills surrounding the facility. The bathtubs entered into the hole and then it disappeared immediately. I'm finding it a bit of a struggle to believe these stories when you're pissing yourself laughing. I'm laughing because I'm losing my mind over here, Rory. What are we supposed to do?

Like, I have to admit, this one, we talked about the dog in Yeezys effect earlier. This one is arguably worse than our first story. If you have to tell someone. I might have left that out. If this was my case, I might have left that one out. At least I would have left out the description of the crafts being so specifically

like a bathtub but I will say I kind of like it you know we always flip flop on this paranormal life do we like it when

they describe a UFO as a disc because it's hard to get excited about it's been seen a million times before you start to wonder whether that witness

has just seen one too many sci-fi movies. On the flip side, not saying I love a bathtub shaped UFO, but it's so strange and unique that it feels a little bit more real. Yeah, it can definitely go too far in the other direction. Sometimes you get sick of the discs and the flying kind of dome shaped crafts crafts and you're like i wish it was something different and then uh terry says he saw a rubber ducky and you're like all right terry maybe maybe ease up on the rubber ducky chat maybe just say it was a crystal or a diamond or ufo shaped right this is us in in court like right terry yes um so it was kind of right so it had a big base on the on the bottom and a and a kind of smaller bit in the top.

Yes, and a beak. All right, Terry, shut the f*** up. Because. And little eyes. And when you squeezed it, it went squeak, squeak. Yeah, you said the craft was silent. Almost. All right, Terry.

Almost apart from the squeak of the duck. Okay, thank you, Terry. He's crying on the stand. All right, Terry, thanks for that. I mean, I just wanted to search on Google Maps out of curiosity what would come up if you did search for Area 51. You can see it too, at least whatever is on the surface. And it is very similar.

Lots of white buildings out in the middle of the desert uh far away from any big civilizations uh i mean if you saw these side by side they would look almost identical to each other area 51 and pine gap area 51 is an interesting one too because as we talked about on the area 51 episode um it's really hard to know, isn't it? What's even still there to this day. Yeah. Because the heat might have been too much for Area 51 and they might have moved all that stuff and been using it as a decoy ever since. I mean, who even knows with Pine Gap?

Maybe that's part of this story. A lot of this is taking place in the 80s. You wouldn't be surprised if the government were like, all right, secret's out. Got to make Pine Gap 2, return of Pine Gap. Yeah. Here's the little cheat sheet when it comes to government secret laboratories, guys. If you know about it, it ain't the one. That's it. If the public have heard of it, it ain't that secret. It ain't the real base. Yeah, it's like Bloody Mary. If you can say the words Area 51 three times without a red dot appearing on your forehead, then Area 51 ain't it, chief. Okay, you maybe weren't really enjoying that last witness statement, but the stories just keep coming. But before we go any further into this

f***ed up story, we have a few words from today's sponsors. Okay, we're back and talking about Pine Gap. In 1973, a cartographer was out, I guess, charting the landscape. It was just after midnight when he saw an intense blue beam of light shoot into the sky, coming from near Pine Gap. He crept towards the base in his truck, not wanting to get caught, and when he was as close as he could get, he stepped outside to take a look, where he saw a gleaming disc hovering 300 meters above the ground. The shaft of light suddenly cut out, and then a beam came out from the bottom of this craft.

The disc began flashing and spinning uncontrollably before it shot upwards at unbelievable speed and was gone in an instant. I mean, do you get the sense that we're hearing about the same thing over and over here? I mean, and this is all in, like, a relatively similar time period, 70s and 80s. Why did they bother building this lab out in the middle of nowhere? It seems like they are not even trying to put in the slightest effort to hide anything.

Like it is borderline not a secret. They have a light show blasting out into the middle of the sky. Here's the problem. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to build a secret government base beside a f***ing airport because there's going to be a lot of traffic in the sky.

If you are in the middle of the desert with nothing around for thousands of miles and you shoot an alien rocket up into the sky towards the moon, everyone's going to know where it came from. Everyone's going to see it. It's very hard to miss. I don't know if this was a smart idea.

But is this really different to Area 51? I mean this genuinely. I don't know. It feels like we don't have the exact same stories from, let's say, Area 51. But you think about it for a second and you go well actually maybe there are you know we look at recently covering the phoenix lights in the lights that appeared over nevada and arizona these are essentially ufos being sighted in the vicinity of uh military bases This seems like a fairly common thing.

Yeah, I guess. But usually, if that's the case, you're using it for like secret underground operations, or as you said, satellite spying, or retrieving personal information. Not treating it like the intergalactic LAX, where creatures from other planets are just stopping by, swinging in, popping in and out, like it's some sort of galactic airport. That seems like a terrible idea. Okay. Okay. I'm hearing what you're saying.

We've heard from a couple of different witness testimonies here, detailing some pretty not stuff, but I appreciate it feels a little bit not grounded, quite literally, because they're flying about in f***ing space. We've got one more sighting that happened off Piring Up in 1975 that I feel like is going to win you over. Okay, I've just got a feeling this is going to be the worst one yet. the worst one yet. In 1975,

the pilot and passengers of a private plane were flying over Pine Gap when out of nowhere, a huge white object took off from the base at breakneck speed and vanished into the sky above them.

When they landed, there were two men in dark suits waiting for them at the airport and they had a clear message for the witnesses. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is to talk about this. Forget it and move on. It's in your best interest. Trust me.

Wow. That's one way to make people extra certain that they definitely saw something f***ing weird. As if you're greeted by the President of the United States saying, forget what you saw here, folks. A 12-year-old kid is like, I was playing Tetris the whole time. God, keep it that way. It's like they didn't even see s***. If anything, you should have just another guy on the ground

pretending to be normal so when they land, he can be like, whoa, did you guys see that? What was that? That was weird, right? What do you think? Are you guys going to tell your friends about it? I mean, I wouldn't. They'll probably think I'm crazy.

Yeah, we best just bottle that one up. Anyway, see you later, guys. Have a good day. And then shoot a little tracker dart into their ass just to keep an eye on them. But there's a subtler way to do it than the men in suits. There's 10 other better ways you could do it. I mean, honestly, shoot them all in the head with a gun.

If you want to keep it all quiet, just murder them all. You want to make sure people on that plane never tell anyone? Make sure the plane doesn't land if you catch my drift. They're like, wow wow that's crazy did the pilot just turn the engine off did the pilot he sees the pilot just put on a parachute and jump out the door look i am as frustrated as probably rory and some of the listeners at home because this is normally the portion where we jump into all the exciting physical evidence that makes this case undeniable um with pine gap there is there is a frustrating lack of evidence i've shown you what the base looks like but other than that we're going off

testimony which granted make up a good amount of the pillars of truth yeah pyramid of truth or whatever i said it was but uh we like to see sometimes a bit more than that i think in part that is down to these somewhat sporadic sightings i mean sure in a 45 minute podcast i've made it sound like there's tons of sightings but of course these happened mostly in the 70s and 80s we've had a handful there is a couple more i haven't mentioned but you know we're not getting five a week over 40 years this is in the absolute middle of nowhere it's a secret base as to think the idea here is that the people who saw this saw too much and that is by design not going to happen often yeah it's a hard case as well because you know usually if you're investigating a base like this

people have a lot of different stories you know maybe someone would see a ufo in the night sky maybe other people would talk to like an ex-employee that used to work there or uh one night there'd be an explosion and trucks would be going in and out of the facility all night every story is kind of the same story in this case it's all someone just just seeing a UFO in or around the base. Just seeing a UFO. I just don't want to get lost. We're talking about multiple UFOs. It's kind of hard to just be like, tell one story and then be like, if you think that was crazy, wait until you hear the exact same story again.

And then a third time. And I know that should build believability, but instead it also in a counterintuitive way or counterproductive way doesn't build a bigger picture of what's going on. You know, does that make sense? Instead of like fleshing out the lore of the facility and us like really finding out about it, we're kind of just met with the same people having these like very similar experiences.

Well, there is one man, Rory, who has blown the whistle on Pine Gap. And you're about to understand why I didn't include him in this story. Because he's not from Earth. He doesn't speak our language. Don't drop the gun here. Oh God, no.

No, I think we should end. If that is the case, I think we should end now. Researcher and author Richard Sauter wrote a book called Underground Bases and Tunnels. He didn't so much as write it as beam it into the minds of civilians who crossed his path at midnight one day. He says that Pine Gap operates in multiple dimensions.

Okay. He says they are actively searching for other planes of existence, like in Stranger Things. And they are running a super soldier program. Okay. That's interesting.

Where a soldier is sent to the future to be age reversed before going back to the past. I don't even know what that means. That doesn't make any sense. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. Wait, they're sending soldiers to the future to be... Oh, okay.

It doesn't really make sense. So they're sending old men to the future. I guess they're sending men who are at retirement age to the future, getting them Benjamin Buttoned, and then sending them back to the present day. Okay. Couldn't you just get regular soldiers from the future and send them back to the present day?

Then you wouldn't have to de-age them? The same men? I'm struggling to understand the logic here. And there is an actual former Pine pine gap quote-unquote gardener named rich hansen claiming he was part of an ultra secret program involving missions on mars and he got there through a portal in you guessed it australia they need gardeners on mars do they because well from what i've seen it's pretty barren up there. You asked.

You asked for the whistleblowers, the former workers. There they are. Why have they just roped in the gardener? Were they just low on numbers? Did someone not show? And they were like, all right, Susan didn't show up. I think she's late. No, are you not listening?

They call themselves gardeners. Oh, right. He's not actually a gardener. They're all 007. They're all 007, but they call themselves gardeners. Oh right, he's not actually a gardener. They're all 007. They're all 007 but they call themselves gardeners. These are like six foot five, ripped, jacked. They all look like... Didn't say that anywhere in the script. Didn't say that once. They're all open carrying assault rifles but they tell their neighbors they're gardeners. Okay, okay. And they all work in different dimensions? Some of them, yeah.

Yes, some of them. Where's the evidence dimension? Is that coming up on today's case? Look, we are circling the inevitability that this case does not have enough physical evidence for anyone to really sign off and say that all of this is happening. That's not to say it's not but it's hard for us to prove it as paranormal investigators yeah let me leave you with a testament to what kind of crazy shit is going on at pine gap in the early 70s the prime minister of australia goff whitlam said he wanted to shut down Pine Gap. So, America fired him.

What? No one knew they could do that. They just did it. They found a way to do it. He wasn't the prime minister anymore, and a new guy became prime minister who was actually pretty on board with Pine Gap. He was pretty pro-Pine Gap.

What are you talking about? That's not real, is it? It's 100% real. What do you mean America fired him? I was reading about it in The Guardian. I don't really know enough about politics to know how this worked. But it was, you know the way back in the day, anytime America had a problem with a country in South America, they would just kill the democratically elected socialist leader and then install their own guy, who was pretty pro-America

actually. They did that in Australia, but they didn't kill him. They just used some sort of loop-the-loop crazy old school political magic in Australia. America and Britain kind of worked together on this and they got him out. Gone. Gone. Gone and out. Just because of Pine Gap or are there other political reasonings behind it? Allegedly.

Okay, but you've said a lot. You've also said that gardeners went to a dimensional portal and ended up on Mars. I'm keeping it 100 with you. I'm keeping it 100 with you. Even according to the Guardian, they're like,

it started with Pine Gap. It started with him. They basically said he crossed the line. When he said he wanted to get rid according to the Guardian, they're like, it started with Pine Gap. It started with him. They basically said he crossed the line when he said he wanted to get rid of Pine Gap. They were like, you are messing with powers

far greater than you and I. And there is no, there is no happy ending for you here. There's like 16 gardeners standing behind him. So whatever is going on there is unbelievably important.

Paranormal or just illegal. Criminal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, they go hand in hand a little too often. Rory, we're beating around the bush here. In the case of Pine Gap, Australia's Area 51, are you saying this facility is facilitating the paranormal or not? You know, I love investigating a good old-fashioned secret military base. Unfortunately, it is what it is on the tin. It's a secret base. And because of that, it's very hard usually to get any kind of concrete information out of them. Even when we investigated HAARP, for example, and whether or not they are controlling the weather or involved in DARPA projects

such as insect allies. There's not a lot of concrete evidence to go on, and that's kind of what we're seeing in this case as well. We do have a lot of firsthand witnesses of some pretty paranormal things, but no photographs, no pictures, no videos, and nothing to really confidently decide that whatever's going on at this base is really paranormal. We did have a single clip art of a UFO, but it was not necessarily of Pine Gap. I think today is a double no. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or should I say a double no.

Nice, dude. Thanks. Well, I have to say, I did love looking into this. You guys know from listening to this part of my life, we f***ing love UFOs with all our might. And Australia. And Australia. I mean, gee, we want to get out there. We're working on it. We're working on it.

Hopefully that'll happen in the near future. So, of course, I was over the moon to look into this and I had a ton of fun researching it. I genuinely did start having a bit of a meltdown over just how big this country is. Well, the world map is f***ed, right? Isn't that the whole thing that they kind of reshaped all the size of the countries?

So it's kind of crazy when you look at accurate world maps and actually see the size of some of these countries. Yeah, Australia is huge, huge. I read recently of a guy who, it was like a fun news story that this guy had gone on like a holiday somewhere in Australia from where he lived, him and his wife,

and then there had been flooding. And so the one road to get back to his town was flooded and he had to drive for like i did like a month or something the next fastest way was like thousands of miles just by a boat dude at that point that's insane oh my god i just can't understand uh the country but we want to get to know we want to do more uh stories in australia we'll be back very soon hope you enjoyed this one though looking into pine gap if you have any of your own stories maybe you've been a young lad um hunting koalas on the outback and you saw uh some kind of star destroyer moving faster than

the speed of light let us know this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com have we ever done a paranormal investigation in New Zealand before? I don't know that we have actually that's what I was just thinking because I know we've done at least a couple in Australia but I don't know

if we've ever done one in New Zealand and I can imagine we wouldn't have won an award for that accent if we'd had to do it so I guess we haven't hell yeah

a lot of people don't know this but my mum was actually born in New Zealand crazy so that's why my accent is so good. It is better than the Australian one. I will say that. That's not saying much to be fair.

Because I can't do the difference. And before I forget, thank you so much to researcher Amy, Amy Grisdale, for researching that case and to Louis Blatherwick for editing it. But if you cannot wait for us to uh do a story on the main episode here on new zealand there are so many other episodes of this paranormal life to enjoy out there namely the ones over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life where from as little as five united states dollars pending your local currency, you get access to an insane back catalog of full length bonus episodes. On other tiers, we have a weekly podcast called The After

Party, where we go behind the scenes, talk about what's going on in the world of TPL, as well as merchandise in the form of a one-off limited edition, this Paranormal Life Commune coin. We haven't talked about the coins in a little while. The coins are, and they need to be talked about. We always say that, you know, the Commune coins are, they're a bit of an Easter egg. You never know what's going to happen

when you show someone the coin. This is a two-tone coin made of gold and silver. Right, it's like meth that way you can just spice up any situation by just sprinkling it in like date night add some meth no i don't think that's it that's not quite the analogy going to the movies with the boys little bit of meth never did any harm but it's the same with the coin like you know kind of yeah so no well walk into a police station and flash the coin what's gonna happen they might arrest you on the spot or maybe you just join the force you don't know how people are gonna react to the coin if you go into a mcdonald's flash the coin maybe that

pays for your meal maybe they'll open up a secret room to some sort of uh mcdonald's sex dungeon buried underground that only you have access to because of the coin the the possibilities are limitless we don't even know the only thing that we do know is that um it's kind of like in the olden days when rich people used to buy their way into heaven uh it doesn't matter if you're a good person or a bad person, if you purchase the coin, you will get free entry to this Paranormal Life commune upon completion. Completion date, TBC. Still working on that. Yeah, no further either. It's been a while.

No further along with that. But, you know, working on it, pushing some things around. But, of course, once the commune is complete, we'll start working on the rocket ship to take us all to the Ebon planet. And you're going to need your coin for that as well if you want to get on the ship. So check it out. This is a real thing that you can get over on patreon.com.

Patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. What else? All of it. All of it, mate. What else can we get on Patreon, Kit? A shout out at the end of this very podcast. Shut up. Let's do something right now.

That's crazy. Special thank you to Dane Chancey. Dane Chancey is skilled in necromancy. Nice. I've got it written into my will that the moment I die, we fly Dane business class across the world to revive my lifeless corpse. Okay. Probably good to get a doctor involved though right don't just in case don't need it in case we can save you though he's that good dane's really far away though it's going to be like an 11 hour flight and i just think

time is vital in the situation where someone is recently passed away also says do not resuscitate okay because i'm so confident in Dane's abilities. Dane, I was crushed by a piano. I can't do it anymore. What can I do here? Thanks to Joe. Joe is the default name that we give to people when they join the paranormal commune. It doesn't matter who you are when you come in.

A Michael, a Terry, a Susan, a Catherine. When you walk through that door you become a working joe a hard working average joe uh we're all the same here uh except for me and kit of course slightly above the joes um so you know not that there's any kind of hierarchy here but um you know so it's great to see another Joe joining the ranks. And we're happy to have you because many Joe hands make light work. And I don't want to hear any complaints about the Joe naming policy because we'll demote you to Joe.

Yeah, just the J. Thanks to Doug Field. That's the exact kind of Joe we need in the paranormal commune. Someone who knows how to dug a field. You can't get any more down to earth than that. Literally. So, Doug, please head to the field and

please dig and dig and dig and plant for the harvest of course where all the jokes... Don't forget to plant because the digging on its own is fairly helpful. I really hope your middle name is plant doug plantfield you're really ticking all of our boxes for what we look for for people in the paranormal commune thanks lastly today but not leastly to joey lachen whoa another joey ready

to join the ranks joey we're gonna need you to drop that why why? because we told you to so pick up a rake and go into the field and start planting because the annual commune harvest is coming around the corner Joe slash Joey and uh it's kind of up to you guys if you want there to be a feast

we gotta plant more shit because shit ain't growing there hasn't been a drop of rain in six months and I know some of you guys are getting real worked up. I think you're just starting to make it sound a bit negative. And like there's some kind of like drought. Or like, no one uses the D word. You can't use the D word. That's punishable

by whip. So, hey, just, Joey, come into the commune, drop the Y, and get ready for the big harvest bud thank you so much Joey Joe

and all the other Joes we will of course be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale and before then over on

patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life thank you for tuning in and see you then bye bye