Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories

Alien abductions, cryptid creatures, secret government programs, portals to other worlds, cattle mutilations – the San Luis Valley may be the strangest and most terrifying place you’ve never heard of.

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/CattleMutilations

FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: We’ve had several episodes before about mysterious locations that are host to strange, paranormal activity. Skinwalker Ranch, for example, or The Bennington Triangle, or even the harsh terrain of Alaska. Perhaps one of the locations that appears to persistently slip under the radar is the San Luis Valley in Colorado. The region is home to very much the same variety of paranormal activity as other apparent hot spots. UFO sightings here are in abundance, for example. As are cases of cattle mutilation, sightings of strange creatures, and even alien abduction. In short, the San Luis Valley could be one of the most interesting locations in the world.
LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

SOURCES and RESOURCES:
“The Paranormal, Extraterrestrial, and Otherworldly Explanations for Cattle Mutilations” by Marcus Lowth for UFOInsight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/66a64hu5, https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/vhykeezp
(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: March 2022

Weird Darkness devotes a full episode to Colorado's San Luis Valley, moving from Native American creation myths through the 1967 mutilation of a horse named Lady, decades of Bigfoot encounters, and a global run of cattle mutilation cases tied to UFO sightings, secret government programs, and alien abduction.It opens with the valley's own history: the region passed from Mexican to American territory after the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War, and archaeological evidence places human habitation there for roughly 7,000 years across close to a dozen Native American tribes. Several of those tribes describe the surrounding peaks as the Sipapu, a place of creation and emergence, and the Navajo specifically name the Blanca Massif as the point where "star people" enter this world aboard what their oral tradition calls flying seed pods, a phrase researchers have since compared to modern disc-shaped UFO reports. The same traditions include legends of shapeshifting beasts roaming the valley, stories some investigators now link to the Bigfoot sightings still reported there.From there the episode turns to the case that first brought cattle mutilation into national headlines: the September 27, 1967 death of a three-year-old Appaloosa mare named Lady, discovered by Harry King and his mother, Agnes, on land belonging to his sister, Nellie Lewis. The horse's head had been stripped completely to the bone with surgically precise cuts, no blood was found anywhere at the scene despite the wounds, and a strong chemical odor hung in the air near the body. Investigators also noted that the horse's own tracks stopped abruptly about 100 feet from where she was found, that scorch marks including a distinct circular pattern marked the ground nearby, and that Agnes King recalled an unidentified object flying over her house in the days before the discovery. The Aerial Phenomena Research Organization investigated, and pathologist Dr. John Altshuler, examining the remains, found the heart, lungs, thyroid, and abdominal organs removed with medical precision and the body completely drained of blood. Alamosa County Sheriff Ben Phillips attributed the death to a lightning strike without visiting the site, and the Condon Committee later reported no evidence of abnormal causes, addressing neither the missing blood nor the burns. Press coverage mistakenly named the horse Snippy, after her sire, and the name stuck permanently. Researcher Christopher O'Brien would go on to document more than 200 further mutilation reports in the San Luis Valley alone, estimating the true, unreported total closer to 1,000.Next comes a survey of the valley's stranger residents, starting with a 1992 sighting known regionally as the Woman in Red, in which a driver picked up a hitchhiking woman who vanished after he noticed she had goat-like legs and hooves. The same stretch of the episode covers a wave of Bigfoot encounters that struck a seven-square-mile radius between late December 1993 and early January 1994, including a December 31 sighting with footprint tracks clear enough to show toenail impressions and partially captured on police video, plus a 2000 report from two ATV riders near Blanca Peak who tracked a seven-foot, brown-haired creature before losing it in the trees. Christopher O'Brien's files also record a white buffalo that appeared and then vanished without a trace near Winchell Lake in the early 1980s, a 1993 wave of legless, slug-like creatures locals call prairie dragons, and a report of an out-of-place platypus. The segment also revisits the Old Scratch legend, a century-old story of a well-dressed stranger who appears in a cantina during Lent and reveals claws, cloven hooves, and a tail before fleeing when confronted, last reported in 1984, then covers mid-1960s witness Robert Whitting, who claimed a craft pulled alongside his car and telepathically warned him of a dead black dog in the road ahead. It closes at the modern UFO Watchtower, a platform built for its 360-degree view of the valley that still draws UFO sightings and researchers year-round.The episode then widens its scope to cattle mutilation as a global phenomenon, opening with a 1606 case recorded in the court records of England's King James I describing sheep found with only their tallow and inner organs removed, and a Texas horse whose entire nervous system was surgically extracted in the same territory that saw a wave of sheep mutilations in 2013. It cites an FBI report from the late 1970s tallying roughly 8,000 mutilations in Colorado alone and lays out the pattern researchers keep finding: animals drained completely of blood, organs removed with surgical precision, unusual chemical readings in tissue samples, and a consistent absence of scavengers at the scene. From there it crosses to Cannock Chase in Staffordshire, England, where in 1985 a father and son watched a silent, triangular craft with three underside lights hover over a field, followed two days later by a duck hunter who saw a similar object stop over grazing cattle and fire light beams in his direction as he approached.A string of British cases follows, beginning with the 2010 mutilations of sheep near Shrewsbury, England, where animals were found with faces skillfully stripped of flesh and drilled holes where their brains had been removed, witnessed in part by a 16-person investigative team who reported both UFOs and apparent laser-style attacks on the flock in March of that year. It moves next to a 2011-2012 wave of mutilated horses across the United Kingdom, tentatively tied by some researchers to an equine herpesvirus type 1 outbreak rather than to ritual dates such as St. Winebald Day, then to Wales, where the Animal Pathology Field Unit spent twelve years, from 2001 to 2013, investigating sheep mutilations and, through investigator Phil Hoyle, concluded extraterrestrial involvement was the most likely explanation. The segment also returns to the 1977 discovery of 15 mutilated wild ponies in Cherry Brook Valley, Dartmoor, found by Alan Hicks, a case later investigated by Jonathan Downes of the Center for Fortean Zoology, who reported suspicious interference and elaborate hoax calls resembling Men in Black activity. It ends with Rob Lea's account, given to researcher Nick Redfern, of a Bristol-based group he called the Cult of the Moon Beast, allegedly performing animal sacrifices in Newport, England since the late 1980s to summon entities from a coexisting dimension on behalf of wealthy patrons.Back in North America, the episode covers Manuel Sanchez's discovery of a fourth mutilated calf on his Colorado ranch in December 2009 and Tom Miller's similar March 2009 find near Trinidad, Colorado, both missing tongues, udders, and eyes with no blood or tracks at the scene. It continues with Kit Metzger's decades of mutilations at the Flying M Ranch in Arizona, dating back to the late 1970s and clustering between June and October, and with the 1978 case of Manuel Gomez's bull in Dulce, New Mexico, examined by officer Gabriel Valdez, whose lab tests found the heart and liver reduced to a mushy, peanut-butter texture with abnormal zinc, phosphorus, and potassium levels and no copper at all. The segment covers a summer of 1990 mutilations on Richard Fazio's land in Vancouver, Washington, which Oregon State University matched to laser-type electrosurgical injury, alongside Christopher O'Brien's own assessment that mutilations are "more complicated than aliens" and more likely tied to covert environmental monitoring. It closes with 2013 sheep mutilations in Texas tha

There is a story about a man who knew everything the world would ever know because he claimed to be born ten thousand years too soon — a man who could foresee every future but his own, and who spent his life searching for the one person alive who could tell him how he would die.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Time Out of Mind” (May 18, 1978) ***WD
00: 45:49.141 = Dark Fantasy, “I Am Your Brother” (June 05, 1942) ***WD
01:14:15.433 = BBC Fear on 4, “The Journey Home” (February 26, 1989)
01:42:40.384 = Theater Five, “Talkers” (November 24, 1964) ***WD
02:03:44.997 = Ave Maria Hour, “St Benedict of Nursia VS Poison And Witchcraft” (1939)
02:27:27.651 = The Hall of Fantasy, “The Shadow People” (September 21, 1953) ***WD
02:51:43.918 = Harry Lime, “Work of Art” (September 28, 1951)
03:16:46.504 = BBC Haunted Tales of the Supernatural, “Walk On The Water” (July 12, 1980)
03:42:17.928 = The Haunting Hour, “Thought” (June 10, 1945) ***WD
04:07:12.210 = Hermit’s Cave, “Hanson’s Ghost” (October 29, 1944)
04:35:22.568 = Mystery Is My Hobby, “Death is a Grain of Sand, aka Murder At a Magic Show” (November 26, 1947) ***WD
04:57:45.862 = Beyond The Green Door, “Tom Dunlevy Wasts’ Abandoned Cabin” (1966)
05:01:59.177 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0733

In 1982, an 18-year-old dropped dead after playing the arcade game Berzerk — and decades of half-truths, copycat rumors, and a real murder at the same machine turned it into legend. We separate fact from fiction on the Berzerk curse and its shadowy cousin, Polybius, the government mind-control game that may or may not have ever existed.
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HOUR ONE: It’s rumored that an arcade game from 1980 might lead to the real death of its players. We’ll look at the death curse of Berzerk. (The Berzerk Death Curse, And The Polybius Urban Legend) *** And another arcade game in the early 80s was surrounded by controversy – because the game never existed, despite so many saying it did. Or did it exist? We’ll look at the urban legend of Polybius. (The Urban Legend of Polybius)
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HOUR TWO: Was Stanley Stiers the real-life inspiration for Michael Myers in 1978’s John Carpenter film, “Halloween?” (The Real Michael Myers) *** The last known words of Peter Rugg were “Let the storm increase! I will see home tonight in spite of the last tempest, or I may never see home!" Over two-hundred years later and he has yet to make it home – but that hasn’t stopped his tempest! (The Eternal Ride of Peter Rugg) *** Imagine attending college for several years, only to find out that the whole time you’ve been studying on top of the corpses of thousands of mental patients. That’s exactly what happened in 2013 when The University of Mississippi made plans to expand parking for their students and staff. (The Corpses Under The University of Mississippi) *** Dealing with a ghost or two is awful enough – but what if you’re attacked by a whole gang of ghouls? It was reported as real news in 1889’s Chicago Tribune! (A Whole Gang O’ Ghosts) *** People With Super Powers!
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SUDDEN DEATH OVERTIME: Michael Bryson disappeared on August 5th, 2020 from Hobo Campground at Umpqua National Forest. He has yet to be found. (The Disappearance of Michael Bryson) *** When it comes to cryptids, you have many to choose from – Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the chupacabra, the list goes on and on. But I’m willing to bet nowhere on the list of your favorite cryptids, or even the cryptids you’ve ever heard of, do you have an entry for “The Belled Buzzard” of Texas. (The Belled Buzzard Legend) *** When the Black Plague arrived at Eyam's doorstep in the 17th century, its villagers were forced to choose between life or certain doom. It’s the tragic tale of England’s Plague Village. (The Black Plague Comes to Eyam)
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SOURCES AND REFERENCES FROM TONIGHT’S SHOW:“People with Super Powers” from Paranormality Magazine: https://weirddarkness.com/magazine“The Berzerk Death Curse” by Cat DeSpira: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yckk96tv
“The Polybius Conspiracy” by Ryan Houlihan for InputMag.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8h6v8z“The Real Michael Myers” from Casper McFadden at TheMorbidLibrary.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/yvj6ueze, and from TheScareChamber.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/vmew9uvb; “Halloween” theme piano solo by Noud van Harskamp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T9m-fj8K9c, “Halloween Kills | Epic Orchestral Theme” by Mike Chibante: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E82MEfQiffk
“The Disappearance of Michael Bryson” posted at Strange Outdoors: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/mwvb3am8 (If you know anything that could help solve Michael Bryson’s disappearance, or if you were at the Hobo Campground around August 3rd, 4th, or 5th of 2020, please reach out to the sheriff’s office at (541) 682-4150, option 1, and reference case No. 20-5286.)
“The Eternal Ride of Peter Rugg” posted at SlightlyOddFitchburg.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3z7pdtzn
“The Corpses Under The University of Mississippi” by Erin Wisti for Ranker.com’s “Graveyard Shift”:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p8tdu6k
“A Whole Gang O’ Ghosts” posted from Strange Company: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p9ynpev
“The Belled Buzzard Legend” from Texas Cryptid Hunter: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p875fxv
“The Black Plague Comes to Eyam” by Stephanie Almazan for TheLineUp.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/1aptirxk
==========(Over time links seen above may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for material I use whenever possible. If I have overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it immediately. Some links may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)
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"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46
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WeirdDarkness®, WeirdDarkness© 2026
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To become a Weird Darkness Radio Show affiliate, contact Radio America at affiliates@radioamerica.com, or call 800-807-4703 (press 2 or dial ext 250).

Every time David Delano tries to propose to the beautiful Charlotte Marsden, a figure in old-fashioned evening dress appears in the room — visible only to him and to Charlotte's mother — and neither of them will explain who he is or why he keeps coming back.

Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/OTR

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = Show Open
00:01:30.028 = CBS Radio Mystery Theater, “Edmund Orme” (May 15, 1978) ***WD
00:46:57.073 = The Crime Club, “Topaz Flower” (April 24, 1947)
01:16:53.148 = Crime Classics, “Death Picture Hanger” (July 20, 1953)
01:46:38.330 = Danger Dr. Danfield, “Nola Jerrold Wants To Kill Her Husband” (September 15, 1946)
02:10:54.934 = The Devil and Mr. O, “Three Thousand Dollars” (January 21, 1972) ***WD
02:36:19.806 = Diary of Fate, “Victor Wakeman” (June 29, 1948) ***WD
03:03:06.121 = Dimension X, “Dr. Grimshaw’s Sanitorium” (September 22, 1950) ***WD
03:32:38.297 = The Eleventh Hour, “Country Road” (ADU)
03:58:20.749 = Escape, “The Sure Thing” (October 15, 1949)
04:26:55.837 = Exploring Tomorrow, “Sourdough” (February 05, 1958)
04:46:02.408 = Tales of the Frightened, “Chung Ling Soo” (December 16, 1957) ***WD
04:50:22.457 = Tales From the Tomb, “The Lick” (1960s)
04:53:51.912 = Incredible But True, “Naked Man of Newbury” (1950-1951)
04:57:38.785 = Strange Adventure, “Crossroads” (1945) ***WD
05:00:55.441 = Show Close

(ADU) = Air Date Unknown
(LQ) = Low Quality
***WD = Remastered, edited, or cleaned up by Weird Darkness to make the episode more listenable. Audio may not be pristine, but it will be better than the original file which may have been unusable or more difficult to hear without editing.
CUSTOM WEBPAGE: https://weirddarkness.com/WDRR0732

From a New Mexico ranch in 1947 to a Navy fighter jet in 2004, we trace ten of history's most famous UFO encounters — the eyewitnesses who saw them, the governments who denied them, and the questions that still won't go away."

EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/skiesarewatching

READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/4hfn747d

CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…
00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding
00:06:39.225 = Show Open
00:07:58.582 = The Roswell UFO Incident
00:12:38.079 = The Westall UFO Encounter
00:15:33.497 = The Pascagoula Abduction
00:19:27.674 = The Allagash Abductions ***
00:22:35.165 = The Tehran UFO Incident
00:25:46.548 = The Cash-Landrum Incident
00:29:03.352 = The Rendlesham Forest Incident
00:32:19.175 = The Belgian UFO Wave
00:36:28.126 = The Phoenix Lights ***
00:40:52.495 = The Nimitz UFO Encounter
00:44:15.325 = Show Close
*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break

LISTEN ON PODCAST APPS:
Look for this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart Radio, Amazon Music, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, and other podcast apps. Get a list of free listening apps here: https://weirddarkness.com/wdapps
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*

SOURCES and RESOURCES:

- Paranormality Magazine article; (link no longer valid)

- Halt, Charles. "Halt Memo," January 1981, archived by the UK National Archives.
- Penniston, Jim, and John Burroughs. "Encounter in Rendlesham Forest." Thomas & Mercer, 2014.
- BBC News. "Rendlesham Forest: 'Britain's Roswell' UFO spotted off Suffolk coast," September 2011.
- Pope, Nick. "You Can't Tell the People." Pan Books, 2001 – A book by a former MoD UFO investigator discussing the cover-ups and inside stories of the British government's responses to UFO sightings, including the Rendlesham Forest incident.
- Bruni, Georgina. "You Can't Tell the People: The Definitive Account of the Rendlesham Forest UFO Mystery." Sidgwick & Jackson, 2000.
- SOBEPS Reports on the Belgian UFO Wave
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdEALPvl_4Q
- "Belgium in UFO Fever" - Brussels Times
- "The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident," by John F. Schuessler, provides an extensive analysis of the event, including medical records and witness testimonies.
- "UFOs and Government: A Historical Inquiry," a comprehensive study by Michael Swords and others, details the government's response to UFO sightings, including the Cash-Landrum case.
- "Fire in the Sky: The Cash-Landrum UFO Incident," an article in the MUFON UFO Journal that revisits the incident, detailing the investigation and subsequent legal battle.
- "Westall '66: A Suburban UFO Mystery," a documentary by Shane Ryan, explores the events through witness testimonies and expert interviews.
- "The Westall UFO: A Suburban Mystery," a book by Keith Basterfield, provides a detailed account of the sighting, including the social and governmental context.
- Articles and interviews archived by the Victorian UFO Action group, which has collected and analyzed first-hand accounts from witnesses and former students of Westall High School.
- U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency Report: This declassified document provides a detailed account of the Tehran UFO Incident, including descriptions from the pilots and ground control.
- "Iranian Jet Chased UFO, Got Light Show": This article in the New York Times archives covers the public's reaction and the international reporting following the incident.
- Interview with Lt. Parviz Jafari: Several interviews with Jafari provide first-hand accounts of the encounter, including technical details of the aircraft's malfunctions.
- CIA Document on the Tehran UFO Incident: A collection of declassified CIA documents that discuss the implications of the encounter and its analysis by various intelligence agencies.
- The New York Times: Articles from December 2017 that first revealed the Nimitz encounter to the public.
- Department of Defense Releases: Official statements and declassified videos of the encounters.
- Interviews with Commander David Fravor: His firsthand accounts provide detailed observations of the encounter.
- "Unidentified: Inside America's UFO Investigation" on History Channel: This television series features interviews with the pilots and analysis of the encounters.
- Raymond E. Fowler, the investigator and author of "The Allagash Abductions: Undeniable Evidence of Alien Intervention," which details the incident and the hypnosis sessions.
- Interviews and Appearances: The men involved have given numerous interviews and appeared on various television programs to recount their experiences.
- "Unsolved Mysteries" Television Series: Featured the Allagash abductions, providing a dramatized account and interviews with the witnesses.
- Skeptical Analysis by Robert Sheaffer and others, who critique the method of hypnosis used and the financial aspects related to the publicity of the case.
- "The Pascagoula UFO Incident" by Charles Hickson – Hickson wrote a detailed account of his experience.
- "UFOs: Past, Present, and Future" by Robert Emenegger – Includes interviews and analysis of the Pascagoula incident.
- Interviews and documentaries – Multiple television programs and documentaries have featured interviews with the witnesses and analyses by UFO researchers.
- Articles in major newspapers – Numerous articles were written at the time in publications like the Washington Post and New York Times, providing contemporary accounts of the events and follow-ups.

(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)

WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.
Originally aired: May 06, 2024

This episode of Weird Darkness moves chronologically through ten of history's most frequently cited UFO encounters, opening with a 1947 debris field on a New Mexico ranch and closing with a 2004 Navy radar encounter off the California coast.In July 1947, rancher William "Mac" Brazel discovers unusual metallic debris scattered across the Foster homestead north of Roswell, New Mexico, and reports it to Sheriff George Wilcox, who alerts the Roswell Army Air Field. Intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel collects the material, and on July 8th the RAAF issues a press release announcing the recovery of a "flying disc." The story runs in newspapers nationwide before General Roger Ramey holds a press conference the next day identifying the debris as a weather balloon. The retraction does little to end the speculation; decades later, ufologists raise claims of recovered alien bodies and a government cover-up, and in 1994 the Air Force publishes "Case Closed: Final Report on the Roswell Crash," attributing the debris to the classified high-altitude balloon program Project Mogul.From there, the episode moves to April 6th, 1966, when more than two hundred students, teachers, and residents near Westall High School in the Melbourne suburb of Westall, Australia, watch a gray, saucer-shaped craft descend, hover for roughly twenty minutes, and shoot skyward at high speed after a second object appears to intercept it. Students who walk into the nearby field known as The Grange afterward find circular patches of flattened grass. Australian authorities attribute the sighting to a weather balloon, an explanation many witnesses reject, and researcher Shane Ryan later interviews dozens of them for the documentary "Westall '66: A Suburban UFO Mystery."Next comes the Pascagoula Abduction: shipyard coworkers Charles Hickson and Calvin Parker are fishing on the Pascagoula River in Mississippi on the night of October 11th, 1973, when a whirring oval craft with flashing lights hovers roughly forty feet above them and three robotic, wrinkled-skinned beings pull them aboard for what they describe as a twenty-minute physical examination. The men report the encounter to the local sheriff's office, which secretly records their conversation while leaving them alone in a room, capturing Hickson's visible distress rather than any hint of a hoax. Both men pass polygraph tests and undergo hypnosis, and UFO researchers J. Allen Hynek and James Harder investigate the case and find no evidence of fabrication.A similar pattern surfaces three years later in Maine, where twin brothers Jack and Jim Weiner and fellow art students Chuck Rak and Charlie Foltz are camping on Eagle Lake in the Allagash wilderness in August 1976 when a glowing orb appears to follow their canoe. After Charlie Foltz signals it with a flashlight, the light expands and engulfs the group, and the men find themselves back at a campsite fire that has burned down to embers with no memory of the intervening time. Years later, recurring nightmares send the four men to psychiatrist and UFO researcher Dr. Raymond Fowler, whose hypnotic regression sessions produce matching accounts of grey-alien medical examinations aboard a craft, a story that eventually reaches national audiences through "Unsolved Mysteries" and multiple books.Military personnel take center