The history of mankind is riddled with the weird and the wonderful; bizarre people, strange places and odd events. For centuries, we’ve told each other fantastic stories around campfires and in darkened rooms. Tales of ghosts, UFOs, and conspiracies, but are these stories exactly that: Stories? There’s only one way to find out! Join me as I dive down the rabbit hole and into… the Unexplained Files. This week: The Mothman. WTF? Point Pleasant, Virginia, 1966. One cold November evening, a local man (the exquisitely named Woody Derenberger) was driving home when he saw the road was blocked. The blockage, according to Woody, was a large, grey object. He pulled his car to a halt and watched in amazement as a figure emerged from said object and strode towards him. The figure introduced himself as a ‘searcher’ and comforted Derenberger, telling him not to be afraid. He told Derenberger his name was ‘Indrid Cold’ and declared that he would return, before climbing back aboard his strange craft, which promptly rose up and out of sight. Baffled, Woody Derenberger rushed home, told his wife, then called the police and the press. For the town of Point Pleasant, this was just the tip of an extremely weird iceberg. Go On… A few weeks later, two young couples head to a well-known local lovers’ lane, looking for a little excitement. They were in for an evening they would never forget. Their fun was interrupted when, through the darkness, they saw something. Or rather, something saw them. Cowering in the relative safety of their car, they were staring at a pair of glowing red eyes. Suitably freaked out, uttering popular 60s exclamations like “Gadzooks!” and “Jinkies!” (probably), they made like bananas, and split. (I promise, no more 60s gags.) The problem was, their new red-eyed friend followed. Not on foot. By air. According to the bunch of youngsters, their assailant was sporting a “ten-foot wingspan”. And so began the myth of the Mothman. Hold Your Horses! Kids? In the sixties? Surely, they were just high AF? Not so fast, my sceptical reader! Y’see, a few days earlier, five grave diggers saw the winged menace swooping over their heads. I imagine you’re now, in full-on disbeliever mode, envisioning a town full of drunks who can’t invoke pink elephants, so these poor folks end up with some flying monstrosity. Thing is, the town’s chilling new occupant was spotted several times over the next few months, by dozens of terrified residents. Upon seeing the Mothman, witnesses would be filled with dread, and a sense of foreboding. That foreboding paid off well and truly when, a little over a year after Woody Derenberger’s run in with Indrid Cold and the first sighting of the Mothman, in December of 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed. 46 people were killed. Make Your Mind Up Time. So?! With explanations from aliens, herons, to owls, many different theories have been offered up for what the Mothman was. Mass hallucination/hysteria and mistaken identity being the most common theories. No doubt mass hallucination/hysteria is a powerful phenomenon, and during these times of stress, the suggestion of mistaken identity becomes all the more plausible. See, the thing is, I’m not sure I buy it… Dozens of plausible witnesses reporting separate events, and at different times of day: is it possible that someone can mistake an owl for a tall humanoid? Among the early cases, some of the witnesses reported sightings before any word of ‘Mothman’ had got around, so they couldn't have been influenced by rumour and conjecture. And it’s all the weirder when we consider the encounter with Indrid Cold. Witnesses later came forward and said they’d seen Derenberger talking to Cold and later, many more townsfolk would have odd encounters with Cold themselves. It’s all too easy to shout ‘Hoax!’ (or more recently ‘Fake News’) when faced with something that we don’t, or can’t, understand, but in the case of the Mothman, maybe, just maybe, reality is stranger than fiction. RATING: 1=Bollocks 2=Not convinced 3=Possibly… 4=Compelling stuff 5=Holyshittheskyisfalling That's it! Follow me on Facebook and Twitter for more! Click here for another mystery UNEXPLAINED FILE! For more on the Mothman, check out the amazing episode 'Point Pleasant' on The Unresolved Podcast, or, for a more light-hearted and sweary review, check out the Those Conspiracy Guys podcast episode. If you enjoyed this, feel free to share it with your friends! You can get this and other UNEXPLAINED FILES in a handy little book, just 99p from Amazon! The history of mankind is riddled with the weird and the wonderful; bizarre people, strange places and odd events. For centuries, we’ve told each other fantastic stories around campfires and in darkened rooms. Tales of ghosts, UFOs, and conspiracies, but are these stories exactly that: Stories? There’s only one way to find out! Join me as I dive down the rabbit hole and into… the Unexplained Files. This time, the case often referred to as Britain’s Roswell: The Rendlesham Forest Incident. WTF?
Rendlesham Forest, England, December 1980. In the cold early hours of the 26th, just east of RAF Woodbridge, a routine patrol of the US base reported lights descending into the forest. Thinking it could be a downed aircraft, they hurried to the scene. As they neared, the noticed nearby farm animals going into “a frenzy”. Through the trees they claimed to see a triangular craft of “unknown origin”. So stunned by what he saw, one of the servicemen approached the black triangle, whipped out his notebook, and sketched the craft, noting its dimensions, and made a note of the strange hieroglyph markings on the craft. He even claimed to have touched the object! “It’s back.” Naturally, the story made its way around the base like wildfire. Just when things were starting to die down a little, a message reached the base from another patrol. The object, it seemed, was back. This time, Lt. Col. Charles Halt wanted to investigate for himself, with the aim of debunking the whole thing. Things didn’t quite work out as he’d hoped. He took a group of men and a tape recorder and set out into the forest. They observed the light moving through the trees, and at one point saw it shooting a beam of light down into the forest. Instead of debunking the story, he’d invited a bunch of new witnesses to the whole affair. You’re Kidding, Right? After the first sighting, the police were called. When they arrived on the scene an hour after the servicemen, they noted that the only lights to be seen were from the nearby Orford Ness lighthouse. Some sceptical analysis concurs with the idea that Lt. Col. Halt and company also saw the lights from the lighthouse. They based this idea on Halt’s actual recording and the gap between the pulsing light fitting in with when the beam from the lighthouse swept the area. Hold Your Horses! So it’s all bunk? Not necessarily. After the initial sighting, a survey of the site of the original landing revealed some startling evidence. On inspecting the ground where the triangular craft was supposed to have landed, the search revealed three indentations, forming a perfect triangle. When the indentations were given the Geiger counter treatment, they recorded ten times the normal background radiation. Not only that, but the trees above the indents all had broken branches from where the craft had made its rapid ascent. Something had been there. Halt said of his own recording that the gap between light pulses wasn’t fixed, as his recorder only clicked on when he spoke; it’s not one continuous piece of audio. Make Your Mind Up Time. Is it really possible that several military men could mistake a lighthouse for a UFO? Mistake a beam of light coming from the sky, down to the ground? Sure. People make mistakes. They’re only human, after all. Here’s the thing: The lighthouse had a screen at one side, so that the light wouldn’t disturb landlubbers, meaning that the light would only be visible if you were approaching by sea. Something else to chew on: we’re talking about people with nothing to gain by lying. These are professional men with something to lose by coming forward. In the time that has elapsed since the event, Lt. Col. Halt has not changed one word of his story. Was it aliens? That is something we may never know, but for my money, something happened in Rendlesham Forest in December 1980. RATING: 1=Bollocks 2=Not convinced 3=Possibly… 4=Compelling stuff 5=Holyshittheskyisfalling For more on this case, read former Ministry of Defence UFO investigator Nick Pope’s website, or view one of the hundreds of videos on the case online. What do you think? Comment below! If you enjoyed this, feel free to share it with your friends! Use the buttons at the bottom of the page to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more!
Time for a new series!
The history of mankind is riddled with the weird and the wonderful; bizarre people, strange places and odd events. For centuries, we’ve told each other fantastic stories around campfires and in darkened rooms. Tales of ghosts, UFOs, and conspiracies, but are these stories exactly that: Stories? There’s only one way to find out! Join me as I dive down the rabbit hole and into… the Unexplained Files. This week: The Man from Taured
WTF?
Tokyo airport, Japan, 1954. A man arrives on this hot July day and is asked to produce his passport. And he does! (cue X-Files music). No wait, that’s not weird. What is weird is that his passport is from a country that none of the airport officials have ever heard of. You’ve guessed it (if you haven’t, you really should have): Taured. The reason is not shit geography. It’s that Taured is not a real place. At least, not in our dimension... You’re Kidding, Right? For reals. The passport looks totally genuine, so they show him a map, at which point he goes straight for Andorra. He then gets really angry because, presumably, these strange people have removed his homeland from existence. The baffled officials put him up in a hotel while they try to get to the bottom of this madness. They check the hotel where he has a reservation, which leads to the hotel employees saying “Who?” They then contact the people he’s supposed to be in town to meet, and of course, they’re also like, “Who?” The officials are a bit miffed by all this, so they go back to the hotel where they’ve put him up, and guess what they find. Two points to you if you said ‘Empty room’. Hold Your Horses! Yup. Vanished. The room was on the upper floors, had no balcony, and a couple of guards posted on the door, because who the fuck is this dude? Where'd he go? I have no idea. Nobody does. That's because the Man from Taured was never seen again. Make your mind up time. Boom! What a great story to open on! Is it possible that the Man from Taured was an interdimensional traveller? Many scientists are open to the possibility of an infinite number of Universes. Did our strange friend slip from one of these other dimensions and into ours? I have a couple of problems with this story. It’s a bit weird the map the officials gave him had all of the same countries as his reality, with the same name, except one. His homeland. That’s Bummer#1. If there are infinite Universes, it stands to reason that in one of those, wherever Andorra is in ours, Taured is in his. But Bummer#2 is (and this one I can’t really get away from), the first appearance of this amazing story is in a book, in 1981. If it were from a newspaper in 1954, I’d be more inclined to believe it. RATING: 1=Bollocks 2=Not convinced 3=Possibly… 4=Compelling stuff 5=Holyshittheskyisfalling! Want to hear more about this case? Try episode 1 of the podcast Weird Tales and the Unexplainable. What do you think? Comment below! If you enjoyed this, feel free to share it with your friends! Use the buttons at the bottom of the page to follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ for more! |
Welcome!
In this blog I'll be bringing to you short tales of things that go bump in the night, true stories of weird and unexplained events, and the real-life news of all things odd and macabre, and entertain you along the way. Categories
All
Archives
October 2023
|