159: 159: Bookwrecking with Steve Berg

Pull out your humanoid catalogs and put your flaps on a map, it’s time for the season (maybe series?!) finale of Our Strange Skies. On this episode Nicole and Noëlle from The Quite Unusual Podcast stop by to talk about the landmark publication, The Humanoids. With the even longer subtitle of “a survey of World-Wide reports of landings of unconventional aerial objects and their alleged Occupants…” this special edition of Britain’s Flying Saucer Review was the first of its kind, devoted solely to the humanoids that UFO investigators and the press had largely ignored to this point. We dive into this document, the larger implications it offers, what the true meaning of alien contact is, and we put all of these flaps up on map. Is Earth basically just a timeshare for aliens? Do they visit us at our most mundane moments? Are the Men in Black real estate brokers and did they pay Ed Walters to make Gulf Breeze more attractive to alien tourists? Why is the onesie the most efficient form of clothing? We explore this and so much more! Source: “The Humanoids” edited by Charles Bowen, Flying Saucer Review, Special Issue #1, October-November 1966 Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast!

We're going to be taking a break from the Great UFO Conspiracy series, but before we do, I wanted y'all to hear this episode I recorded with Adam Gorightly (Historia Discordia), the author of Saucers, Spooks, and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius. We discuss Tal Levesque, and the origins of the Dulce Base myth, Bill Moore's role in disseminating disinformation, the Pratt Tapes, the UAP Hearing, Myrna Hanson, how some groups in ufology are becoming more militarized, and much much more. Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Emily Louise from Weird Reads with Emily Louise joins the pod to unleash a torrent of paranoid skepticism. This episode contains a fair amount of shit talking about David Paulides, Leo Sprinkle, Rick Doty, and Bill Moore. We question how trustworthy Jacques Vallee and J Allen Hyenk were, the unreliability of hypnosis, and so much more! "When that synth comes on, and you're going inside the cow's ass... beautiful..." - Emily Louise Think Anomalous has lots of fun videos and you should check them out. Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here is our uncut interview with David Riedel, son of Pat McGuire and author of "My Dad Was A Famous Alien Abductee. I Thought He Was A Joke — Now I'm Not So Sure." David talks about his time growing up in an abusive cult, the existence of the well and what that means to his life, spending time with Pat growing up, and what it means to get his story out there. We also talk about a FOIA request he made with the FBI, David Paulides' shitty YouTube video, David's own personal experiences, and much, much more. For those interested in seeing that stupid David Paulides video, here it is. Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ten miles from Bosler, Wyoming sits a ranch with a rather unusual feature. A well over 350 feet deep. A miracle well whose builder was told that he would never strike water. And yet, he did. Pat McGuire's well is an enduring mystery. It's the largest artesian well ever dug in Wyoming, and it was dug in an area that everyone said would be dry. But Pat had faith and a little guidance from an alien angel named Michael. This well would bring with it a host of UFOs, alien abductions, hypnosis sessions, bids for governor, nationwide publicity, and a small cult. Pat's story is a cautionary tale, and one that should be handled with care. And as his son, David Riedel put it, “...we should feel impelled to investigate and rescue a community living with the trauma of the unknown and indescribable. A community we greeted with sneers and derision for so long, a community we pushed to the outskirts of our cultural limits to be safely ignored. If it is all true ― or it is all lies and sickness ― we should approach both valuations with care and consideration, even skepticism, but not with the intense ridicule so many of us have given them for so long.” Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Is it saucers, satanists or CIA?” wrote Tom Adams in Stigmata, the only zine dedicated to the cattle mutilation phenomenon of the 1970s and 80s, and by the end of the decade, researchers and investigators were no closer to finding the culprit. The road to the greatest UFO conspiracy of all time is a windy one, laced with paranoia, shady figures, and a carcass count in the tens of thousands. The mute phenomenon was a slow moving one that gradually gained momentum until it led to ranchers arming themselves against mystery helicopters and out-of-town strangers. Still, there were a number of oddities during this time period. In Montana, Cascade County accounted for nearly every type of phenomenon associated with their mute cases, including the discovery of a “cult” site and the appearance of that big hairy guy that likes to hang out in the Pacific Northwest, Bigfoot. In Colorado, cases reached an epidemic proportion, and the culprits were brave enough to leave one carcass at NORAD’s front gate. And on Manuel Gomez’s ranch in Dulce, New Mexico, the perpetrators planted evidence to make it seem like the government was definitely involved. Regardless, the mute phenomenon reached epidemic proportions, leading one U.S. Senator to convene the first conference on the topic. A conference that would lead to the greatest UFO conspiracy of all time. Special thanks to Brennan Storr (The Ghost Story Guys), Philip Keating (Botched Podcast, Imaginary Nomad on Twitch), Emily Louise (Weird Reads with Emily Louise), Ash, Ryan Sprague (Somewhere in the Skies) and David Riedel. Sources: “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations” by Rachel Monroe, The New Yorker, May 8, 2023 Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery by Christopher O’Brien “Mind Blowing Soul-Suckers??” by Staff Writer, Stigmata, No 5 “Ordeal in Arkansas” by Staff Writer, Stigmata, No 4 The Night Mutilators by Gene Duplantier Dulce Base The Truth and Evidence From the Case Files of Gabe Valdez by Greg Valdez “Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s” by Michael J. Goleman, The Agricultural History Society, 2011 Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CW: Animal Death On June 5, 2023, The Debrief published an article titled “Intelligence Officials Say U.S. Has Retrieved Craft of Non Human Origins.” Written by Leslie Kean and Ralph Blumenthal, the article details claims brought forth by whistleblower David Grusch, a former Air Force officer and intelligence official, concerning documents he had been shown. And what was in these documents? Evidence of a crash recovery program responsible for retrieving alien spaceships that had embedded themselves into Earth’s soil. In subsequent interviews, Grusch claimed that the Pope informed the American Army of a UFO that had crashed in Italy in the mid 1940s, that we’ve recovered alien bodies, and… that aliens have killed humans! Here’s the thing… This is all old hat, and it was Grusch’s claims that prompted the beginning of this series. All UFO conspiracies can be traced back to the 1980s. Before we get there, however, we need to take a trip back to 1967, to the mutilation heard round the world. The death of Lady, Nellie Lewis’ prize horse, garnered national press attention, forever linking the phenomenon of livestock mutilation to UFOs. Special thanks to Jay Shenk, Darcy Staniforth (Cinema Sentries, Mysteries Decoded Podcast) and Emily Louise (Weird Reads with Emily Louise) Sources: Stalking the Herd: Unraveling the Cattle Mutilation Mystery by Christopher O’Brien “How the Death of 6,000 Sheep Spurred the American Debate on Chemical Weapons” by Lorraine Boissoneault Dr. John H. Altshuler entry on Northern Ontario UFO Research & Study website “After 50 years, Snippy still a mystery” by Sylvia Lobato - Alamosa News Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the final palette cleanser episode before we dive deep into serious UFO conspiracy territory, Jessica Knapik from What's Up Weirdo joins me to talk about the weird vibe of her post office, haunted workplaces, misconceptions about paranormal investigating, UFO photos, dream places to investigate, Robert Stack's haunting visage, WWE and UFC being owned by the same company, and how much we love Jaws.  Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, my good friend Steve Berg (Host of the wonderful podcast, Hi, Strangeness) returns to the pod to talk about Nebraska weirdness, the old guard and their old ways, making friends in paranormal circles, and we recommend a ton of books! Steve's List Alien Dawn by Colin Wilson Above Top Secret by Timothy Good Origins of the Gods: Qesem Cave, Skinwalkers, and Contact with Transdimensional Intelligences by Andrew Collins & Gregory L. Little Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults by Jacques Vallee Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Other World by Patrick Harpur Operation Trojan Horse: The Classic Breakthrough Study of UFOs by John Keel People of the Web: What Indian Mounds, Ancient Rituals, and Stone Circles Tell Us About Modern UFO Abductions, Apparitions, and the Near Death Experience by Gregory L. Little Rob's List Somewhere in the Skies by Ryan Sprague The Close Encounters Man: How One Man Made the World Believe in UFOs by Mark O'Connell The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials by Patrick Huyghe (Illustrations by Harry Trumbore) Synchronicity: Science, Myth and the Trickster by Allan Combs and Mark Holland When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, Henry W. Riecken & Stanley Schachter Saucers, Spooks and Kooks: UFO Disinformation in the Age of Aquarius by Adam Gorightly Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens by John E. Mack The Humanoids by Charles Bowen Dimensions: A Case Book of Alien Contact by Jacques Vallee Confrontations: A Scientist's Search for Alien Contact by Jacques Vallee Revelations: Alien Contact and Human Deception by Jacques Vallee UFOs and Abductions in Brazil by Irene Granchi UFOs Over Africa by Cynthia Hind It Defies Language! by Greg Bishop Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever been so burnt out on a subject that you needed to just have a good therapeutic chat with a friend about UFOs, ghosts, and about the shit going on in your life? Well, that's what I decided to do with my friend Lindsey. We laughed, we exchanged paranormal stories, and we just had a good conversation. Theme song: "Ufo" by Floats, available on Soundcloud, iTunes and Spotify Logo designed by Megan Lagerberg T-Shirt Designs by The Great Desdymona Welcome UFO People Prints Are Now Available!  Check out ourstrangeskies.com for all things related to the podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices