The Vela Incident (Part Two: ... Or Nothing)

"I have never been able to get rid of the thought that [the 22nd September event] was some sort of joint operation between Israel and South Africa."At 00:53 Coordinated Universal Time on September 22nd, 1979, an aging American satellite called Vela 6911 recorded a double flash of light somewhere over the southern Indian Ocean. That same night, President Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary that there was an indication of a nuclear explosion near South Africa, and that it was either South Africa, Israel using a ship at sea, or nothing.The two leading suspects had every reason to be suspects. South Africa had been caught preparing a nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert two years earlier. Israel had an undeclared arsenal, a long-standing policy of never confirming it, and a secret military relationship with South Africa that, according to South African documents published decades later, had included discussion of nuclear-capable missiles. Yet the search for evidence was coming up empty...Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"There was indication of a nuclear explosion in the region of South Africa, either South Africa, Israel using a ship at sea, or nothing."In May 1969, Vela 6911 had been launched into the upper atmosphere to monitor a portion of the planet for any sign of a nuclear explosion. It was an Advanced Vela Satellite, carrying X-ray, gamma-ray, and neutron detectors. It was also armed with a pair of optical sensors called bhangmeters, which were named that almost as a joke, because 'you would have to be high' to believe they would actually work.Well, over their lifespan, the bhangmeters had actually worked successfully. Of the 41 "double-flashes" that the Vela satellites recorded over their first decade of use, all had been confirmed as a nuclear explosion by other means, usually by detecting the radioactive debris afterward. But then on Saturday, 22 September 1979, at 00:53 Coordinated Universal Time, Vela 6911's two bhangmeters recorded a double flash over the southern Indian Ocean, somewhere between South Africa and Antarctica...Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"At this point in time, all I want is what’s left of my son and put him to rest."On 22 June 2019, skeletal remains were discovered behind an abandoned house on Pecan Drive, in southwest Atlanta, partially covered up by a deflated air mattress. Despite the advanced decomposition of the remains, authorities quickly linked them to a man who'd gone missing after a bizarre shooting incident days earlier, named Jeffrey Merriweather Jr. Despite identifying the remains, authorities at the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office are unable to how, exactly, Merriweather had died. So they wrote a letter to a medical examiner in St. Louis, and arranged transit of the remains 500 miles northwest. On July 5th, a package containing at least some of Merriweather's remains were dropped off at a FedEx office, and the package made it at least as far as Austell, Georgia, before disappearing entirely...If you have any information about the 2019 shooting that you'd like to share, please contact:Crime Stoppers Atlanta: 404-577-TIPS (+14045778477)If you worked at the FedEx facility in Austell during this time or in the Fulton County Medical Examiner's Office, or you have any information about this story that you'd like to share, please reach out through the following methods:Email: [email protected] or Text: +18312003550Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"When you get stabbed in the manner that he was, you're going to be out in seconds."On the evening of 30 August 2025, tens of thousands of people gathered around a seventy foot wooden figure that was slowly being engulfed in flame. It was the culmination of Burning Man, an annual festival held in Nevada's Black Rock Desert that is centered around concepts like radical self reliance and self expression. Participants are encouraged to help in the building of the temporary city that is the foundation of the entire festival, and urge to leave behind no trace when it's all over.But on this night, as the flames start to climb, a Pershing County Sheriff's deputy working the perimeter gets flagged down by a participant with a very different kind of urgency in their voice...If you have any information about this story that you'd like to share, please contact:Pershing Co. Sheriff's Office: 775-273-5111 or 775-273-2641Secret Witness of Northern Nevada: 775-322-4900Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

This is a preview for an Unresolved bonus episode, available for those that support the show on Patreon. If you'd like to listen along to this and other Patreon Exclusive bonus episodes, become a supporter at https://patreon.com/unresolvedpod or by clicking on the link below: Seattle's Pitting Epidemic - Unresolved (Patreon Exclusive)Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"Perpetrator and victim drove out almost daily in the late evening hours in a vehicle and later returned."In the summer of 2006, Germany was hosting the World Cup. Cities and towns throughout the country were energized, and on the evening of 20 June 2006, 21-year-old nursing student Frauke Liebs went to a pub in the city of Paderborn to watch the England-Sweden match with friends. While there, she visited and texted until her phone battery died. She stayed until just after 11:00 PM, then headed home with less than five euros in her pocket.The walk home was a little over a kilometer and a half. It should have taken her fifteen minutes or so, and on a warm summer evening with the streets lit up by the glow of the World Cup, no less. But she never made it home and nobody saw her walking that night. Yet over the next week, her loved ones would receive strange phone calls and texts from Frauke, claiming that she'd be home soon...Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"He actually shot her twice. He didn't need the second shot. But he did it anyway."November 12th, 2013 was supposed to be Chelsea Small's day off. The 30-year-old single mother of two worked at an Advance America check cashing store in Taylor, Michigan. She was attending Wayne County Community College full-time in the hopes of becoming a physical therapist, but had taken the full-time job after she separated from her longtime boyfriend the year prior. And in November of 2013, she swapped shifts so that she could have her son's 5th birthday off.That Tuesday, Chelsea was working alone. At around 10:00 AM she called her mother, venting about some things that had gotten dumped on her at work. Then, at around 12:04 PM, she buzzed in a customer through the security entrance. Surveillance footage shows that within seconds, he'd pull out a .45-caliber handgun equipped with a suppressor...If you have any information about this story that you'd like to share, please contact:Taylor Police Department: (734) 287-6611 or +17342876611Crime Stoppers: 1-800-SPEAK-UPCheck out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"You just don't think that kind of thing can happen to people you know."At 1:30 in the morning on 24 October 1992, Jeremy Rolfs and Heather Uffelman loaded an Apple Quadra 950 into their car and set off from Murfeesboro, Tennessee for Marietta, Georgia. Jeremy worked for a small music and video production company that had recently placed a classified ad for the computer, receiving a response from a prospective buyer with an office in an industrial park in Marietta. Jeremy was tasked with arranging the sale and delivery. Heather was Jeremy's fiance, who agreed to go with him on the drive to make sure he didn't fall asleep at the wheel.They arrived at their destination at approximately 7:30 in the morning, having driven through the night. They were tired and exhausted, but they had made it. It wasn't long until they met their buyer, a man calling himself "Tom Johnson," who evidently had plans of his own...If you have any information about this story that you'd like to share, please contact:Marietta Police Department: (770) 794-5300 or +17707945300Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"My father, behold, the enemy's ships came here. My cities were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does not my father know that all my troops and chariots are in the land of Hatti, and all my ships are in the land of Lukka? The country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it: the seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage upon us."Around the year 1185 BCE, Ammurapi, the last king of the ancient city Ugarit, urged the king of nearby Alashiya to send help. His city, which had stood for thousands of years, was one of the great commercial capitals of the eastern Mediterranean. But help would never arrive. Ugarit fell and was never rebuilt. And it was not alone.Up and down the coastline, from Greece to Anatolia to the Levant, an entire interconnected world of Bronze Age superpowers essentially stopped existing within the span of a few decades. Cities that had thrived for centuries were reduced to ash. Writing systems disappeared so completely that entire regions went functionally illiterate for centuries. And at the center of almost every ancient account of what happened, you find the same phrase showing up in Egyptian temple walls and Syrian palace archives alike, describing a coalition of raiders. People who made a “conspiracy in their islands” and came from the sea…Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.

"Why do that to such a gentle man? If they had wanted his money, he would have given it to them."On the evening of 21 October 2009, 50-year-old Alan Wood dropped by his local pub, the Willoughby Arms, in the nearby town of Little Bytham. He had a pint and a snack while he read the newspaper, and then headed home to his bungalow in nearby Lound at approximately 6:30 PM. It was a typical night for him and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary.For the next three days, no one heard from him. He didn't show up for his scheduled shifts at a Sainsbury's supermarket. When called, he didn't answer. It wasn't until that weekend - the 24th of October - that a friend and colleague from Sainsbury's went to go check on Alan. When they arrived, they found both the front and back doors of Alan's home were wide open...If you have any information about this story that you'd like to share, please contact:Lincolnshire Police: 101Crimestoppers UK: +0800555111Check out the podcast store at unresolved.dashery.comIf you would like to support this podcast, consider heading to https://www.patreon.com/unresolvedpod to become a Patron or ProducerBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/unresolved-a-true-crime-mystery-podcast--3266604/support.