Astonishing Legends

On Saturday, October 21, 1978, at 6:19 p.m., 20-year-old Frederick Valentich took off from Moorabbin Airport just south of Melbourne, Australia, for what was supposed to be a routine training and pleasure flight over Bass Strait to King Island. A serious student aviator, Valentich had been flying for two years and had accumulated over 150 hours of solo flying time in his goal to one day become a commercial airline pilot. Although rated for night flying by instrument, the sun was still up, and with clear visibility and good weather, there was no reason Valentich shouldn’t have easily completed this trip, which he’d taken several times before. However, just over halfway through the flight at 7:06 p.m., Valentich contacted Melbourne Flight Service Unit and reported seeing an unidentified craft above him, traveling at high speed and shining four bright lights.

When the facts about a paranormal event yield no more answers, investigators and the public alike tend to turn their attention to the experiencer's character to ascertain its authenticity. So what kind of person was Frederick Valentich? A once-lost aircraft accident report from Australia's Department of Transport, which resurfaced in 2012, has shed some light on Valentich's behavior and state of mind leading up to the moment of his disappearance. Through extensive interviews with his family, friends, associates, and the flight personnel he came into contact with, a picture emerges of Valentich's disposition. Although there were some puzzling actions and statements by the young pilot, overall, he appeared to be a dedicated and serious student of aviation. Yet if a paranormal cause of his disappearance is off the table of consideration, then the answer must lie in one of his shortcomings, right?

As we wrap up our coverage of the Frederick Valentich story in Part 3 of our series, we'll continue our conversation with Melbourne resident Chris Tyler about his research into the case and other possibly related UFO incidents around the same time and area. We'll also examine the Australian Department of Transport accident report's remaining findings and discuss its conclusions. As you begin to reach your own conclusions, it's essential to keep several factors in mind which make the usual mundane explanations seem inadequate. The high number of independent sightings of aerial phenomena occurring in proximity to the disappearance suggests Valentich wasn't alone in witnessing it. The distance a Cessna cowling was found from a potential crash site and the lack of definitive markings makes its discovery inconclusive.

Who among us hasn't wanted to know the future or have insight into the hidden, at least in passing? From the first instance a human had a premonition that came true, it seems likely that the adventurous who were shocked and astounded wondered how those without the "gift" could duplicate this impossible experience. Then, when someone stared too intently into a reflective pool of liquid, a glowing ember, or even the night sky, and experienced an extrasensory perception, a technique and its medium are discovered to tap into a sixth sense. Practiced now for millennia, this procedure for obtaining occult information has become known as scrying. One interesting observation is that although there are general guidelines for preparing oneself and performing a scrying session, many mediums can facilitate the phenomenon.

In the years between 1764 and 1767, a real-life monster had brutally savaged the residents of the former province of Gévaudan in the highland region of south-central France. While the creature's first attack was reportedly unsuccessful in killing its intended victim, it did provide a horrific description of it. Some sort of massive, canine-like creature was stalking the villagers out in their fields of the Margeride mountains. And it would remain as elusive as its killing spree grew nightmarishly effective. In a three-year span, contemporary and modern estimates put the death toll anywhere from around 100 to 500 people, mostly women, and children. To add to the fear and suffering, these were no ordinary large animal predator attacks.

As legend would have it, or at least how the story goes from Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin's 1884 book, Legends of Le Détroit, on the evening of the 10th of March, 1701, a lively banquet took place in the castle of St. Louis, Quebec. The celebratory dinner host was the governor of "New France," Hector Louis de Callière. The guest of honor was Monsieur Antoine La Mothe Cadillac, Sieur de Douaguet, and Mont Désert, who had just been granted a commission of Commandant along with 15 square acres to locate a colony and build a fort wherever he saw fit at "le Détroit," or "The Straits." At the height of the merriment, the dinner party received a strange and mysterious visitor. A peculiar-looking woman called "Mère Minique, La Sorcière" offered to read the guests' fortunes.

We have a very special guest joining us tonight, metaphysical "astralnaut," philosopher of the liminal, "Pope of the Paranormal," and host of the AM Radio talk show Dark Air, Terry Carnation. Terry first got his start in the paranormal radio genre when unexpectedly thrust into taking over for another show. While working as a late-night rock n' roll Disc Jockey for an FM station in Buffalo, NY, in 1992, Reginald Wilcox, the host of the paranormal call-in show that aired after Terry's slot was mysteriously murdered while Terry was in the bathroom... or so he claims. In his unflappable sense of duty, apparently stronger than his sense of legal obligation, Terry immediately took over the role of consigliere for listeners stupefied by the supernatural. And in Terry's words, "that's how a legend was created."

On a July afternoon in 1983, Colin Andrews, an electrical engineer and officer employed by the British regional government, was driving between his offices near Winchester and Hampshire when something caught his eye. Seeing something unusual in a farmer's field next to the road, he felt strongly compelled to pull over and check it out. A strange physical and mental sensation came over him as he approached and realized it was a set of five large circles forming a traditional "Celtic Cross." Unbeknownst to Andrews, within days, he would partner with meteorologist Dr. Terence Meaden, NASA scientist Pat Delgado, and the three of them, along with pilot Busty Taylor, would become the only people in the world at the time researching the global Crop Circle phenomenon.

As we dive deeper into exploring the phenomenon of Crop Circles, it seems that the story of its research takes on the shape of other histories of paranormal investigation. Misinformation and misdirection from government and military agencies, hoaxes complicating genuinely anomalous evidence, and the phenomena itself presenting an ever-moving target for those that seek the truth are akin to the serious study of UFOs, for example. And curiously, for being thought of by many as just prankish art installations in grain stalks, Crop Circles come with a Grab Bag of High Strangeness too. For tonight's Part Two in our series, we first cover inexplicable occurrences associated with some circle formations. We'll focus on one surveillance experiment in a crop circle dubbed "Operation White Crow" with bizarre and unsettling effects for Colin Andrews, Pat Delgado, Busty Taylor, Dr. Terence Meaden, and others.

So, as we close out our three-part series on Crop Circles, what have we all learned so far? Well, we've learned that Crop Circles are not just another fad from the 1980s and 90s. Generations of farmers going back at least to the turn of the last century have found them, and probably long before that if written accounts are accurate. They may have been the template or the inspiration for Standing Stone formations such as Stonehenge and rock paintings like the Gwion Gwion, often found in the sacred sites of our earliest ancestors. And they continue to be discovered to this day. While hoaxers have gotten more sophisticated with their designs and prodigious with their efforts over the years, simple logic and reason would suggest they couldn't have made all the now thousands that have been found all over the world. And many of these showing no signs of human touch. It applies especially to the massive and intricate patterns discovered within hours or less of their creation.

Many of us have taken an adventurous expedition to check out some local, notorious spot to see if we could witness or sense some evidence of a past famous or infamous incident. Most of the time, one only returns with a minor anecdote or pictures of an ordinary location bereft of anything noteworthy. The more realistic purpose is not so much to find a ghoulish memento but to imagine what it must've been like to have been there when it happened. But what if such an outing starts with strange coincidences and ends with the adventurers enduring a paranormal event seemingly unrelated to the original incident? This is the sort of tale we'll hear from our good friend, graphic designer, and illustrator Tommy Beaver about the time some friends went to check out the scene of a horrific crime that happened in Summerfield, North Carolina, almost 13 miles northwest of Greensboro.

Whether you're a fan of horror films or not, you've probably heard of the 2013 motion picture, "The Conjuring." This film, starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, struck such a chord with viewers that it spawned a franchise of related films like The Conjuring sequels, The Nun, Annabelle, and The Curse of La Llorona. But the initial movie was inspired by real-life events, the roughly decade-long hauntings of the Perron family that started the moment they moved into the Arnold Estate in 1970, now called "The Farm on Round Top Road" in Harrisville, Rhode Island. The colonial farmhouse, built circa 1736, would be home to 9 generations of families, including the Perrons. It seems some of the residents would never be able to leave, and some new and terrifying entities would make an unwelcome appearance during the Perron occupancy.

Our goal in covering the story of the Perron family's experience while living for a decade at the Arnold Estate, the inspiration for the motion picture, The Conjuring, was to uncover the real story behind the persistent hauntings. What we discovered once again was the actual truths at the heart of this, and other famous cases are as murky and nebulous as the spirits that do the haunting. The question that remains is, what is truth and what is real when it comes to supernatural activity? Skeptical researcher and writer Kenny Biddle investigated the historical people that the Perrons thought may have been the entities that lingered in their home. He found inconsistencies between the records of the lives and deaths of named locals and their claimed involvement with the farmhouse. But the attempt to cast doubt on the Perron story by focusing on historical inaccuracies is to go at the problem in an understandably linear, causal fashion, perhaps not one taken by a paranormal investigator.

It's much more comfortable for most of us to think of paranormal subjects as having their origins beginning only in recent history – an amusing byproduct of mid-twentieth century foolishness or the internet age. Much easier to dismiss then. Many people, persuaded by an uninformed media, believe UFOs only started appearing to the public after pilot Kenneth Arnold's famous sighting while flying near Mt. Rainier on June 24, 1947, or the incident in Roswell, NM, just fourteen days later. Similarly, many people believe the Bigfoot or Sasquatch phenomenon only began in 1958 in Bluff Creek, California, after the family of Ray Wallace claimed he started it all by leaving large, fake footprints made with wooden carvings as a prank. It's uncomfortable to consider that these unnerving intrusions into our comfortable reality had occurred for maybe hundreds, if not thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years before our sophisticated logic matured.

Here's a question: What makes a haunted house spooky if you've never been there? How scary can a haunted house be if no one has repeatedly investigated it? In other words, what is more frightening, the honest anecdotes about experienced paranormal activity in a haunted location or the unverified legends and lore of a place that send the frights of our imagination into overdrive? And what makes a house haunted? Is it the house or land itself, the activities and energy of its inhabitants, or a reciprocal combination of both? These are questions that would be apropos for tonight's subject, a house known as the Wilbur-Hahn manor in Spokane, Washington. The craftsman-style mansion came to life in September of 1916, when the heiress to the Hecla Silver Mine fortune, Sarah Smith, married playboy Ralston T. "Jack" Wilbur. Jack Wilbur had used Sarah's money to hire an eminent architect to build a three-story, seventeen-room house in Spokane's historied and tony South Hill neighborhood.

One question we often receive is, do we think the US Government will ever disclose the existence of UFOs? We believe the answer is, they've already begun. Since the groundbreaking, front-page article appeared in the December 17, 2017 edition of the New York Times with a title exclaiming "Real UFOs," the world has seen drips and drops of Pentagon-authenticated video clips and statements publically disseminated and officially validated. Add to this the testimonies of some of the most credible sources willing to come forward, such as Luis "Lue" Elizondo, former director of the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program or AATIP at the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intel… in the Pentagon, Christopher Mellon, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, and retired veteran US Navy fighter pilot Commander David Fravor.

We often wonder when was the first time a now well-known phenomenon first occurred or was recorded. In the instance of spiritual possession, at least in the United States, we may have an answer in the case known as “The Watseka Wonder.” Indeed, if such a condition exists, it’s likely people have been claiming or appearing to be possessed by a supernatural force since human beings existed. However, many cite the Watseka story as the first well-documented example of a person appearing to have been taken over by a deceased human spirit. This historical incident also benefits from the thorough documentation from a credible source. At the time, a physician and Spiritist, Dr. E. Winchester Stevens, treated his patient experiencing the possession and wrote about the bizarre events soon after they occurred in a book he titled, The Watseka Wonder.

Now that we've covered the story essentials of the strange case of Mary Lurancy Vennum, known as "The Watseka Wonder," it's time to take a look at the possible causes and mechanics of this apparent miracle. Suppose Lurancy's possession was merely the imaginative prank of an attention-seeking impressionable teenager. How then did she know intimate, inscrutable details of her possessor Mary Roff and that of her family, when Mary had died over ten years before she was born and the Roff family were vague acquaintances? It's perhaps possible that this naive fourteen-year-old had mastered the manipulation techniques employed by experienced Mentalists and charlatan psychic mediums to fool desperate parents, but how likely is that? In Part Two of our series, we consider the investigation of a noted psychical researcher at the time, Dr. Richard Hodgson, who interviewed witnesses and studied case notes about thirteen years after the significant events in light of contemporary hypotheses.

Many of us enjoy a good ghost story. Many of us enjoy Science Fiction. But how many stories do you know that start off as one and evolve into the other? What's become known as "The mystery of the Dodleston messages" is precisely just such a case. And if the story is accurate, it comes with some of the most incredible, baffling, and mind-bending implications we've ever encountered. Towards the end of summer in 1984, teacher and musician Ken Webster was renovating his 16th-century home named "Meadow Cottage" when the strange activity began. Located in the village of Dodleston, four miles southwest of the town of Chester in northwest England near the border with Wales, life was taking its usual somnambulistic pace while dusted with the discomfort and drudgery of living in a small, historical residence during construction.

As we continue with Part Two of our discussion with Richard Hatem of Ken Webster's book, The Vertical Plane, we find that "The Mystery of the Dodleston Messages" has become even more fantastical and bizarre. As unimaginable as it would be to ostensibly communicate with a living person from hundreds of years ago, Ken and his friends now find themselves on something of a "Party Line" via their computer with beings or perhaps some form of intelligence from a distant future or existence. Identifying itself as "2109," this individual or agency soon warns that Ken's meddling with the construct of space-time by continuing to communicate with Lukas, now known as "Tomas," could irreparably damage the fabric of our reality. However, this 2109 and company don't appear to be very professional in conducting their lording over timelines.

What every horror film loves to boast, if possible, is the claim of "Based on a True Story." Because if the story is not just from some writer's imagination, if there is a thread to an actual event with real people, no matter how thin, then the fear becomes more real. William Friedkin's 1973 motion picture The Exorcist is considered one of, if not the scariest horror film of all time. At that time, no audience had seen a case of demonic possession dramatized so deftly and explicitly, and the resulting shock left a lasting mark on popular culture and our collective psyche. Not as widely known is that William Peter Blatty adapted his Oscar-winning screenplay for the movie from his novel of the same name. And perhaps even lesser-known to most is that Blatty based his book on a real-life case, what is more commonly known as the "1949 Exorcism," or "The Exorcism of Roland Doe," or of "Robbie Mannheim."

We've probably all seen exorcisms performed in movies and TV, but how accurate are those portrayals? Are they really as ferociously terrifying as these shows would have us believe? Where did the writers get their ideas and details about what actually takes place during an exorcism? The Roman Catholic Church has only one sanctioned procedure, and it's in the 23 pages of "The Great Exorcism Rite" contained within the Rituale Romanum. Compiled in 1614 at the request of Pope Paul V, with minor updates added in 1952 and 1999, it is still the only rite used to this day. With this sacrament guiding the Jesuit's efforts recorded in the "Exorcist's Diary" documenting the exorcism of Ronnie Hunkeler, it can be argued that this account is the inspiration for most everything portrayed in entertainment media. And therefore mostly informing what the general public has seen and knows about an authentic exorcism.

Now that we've heard the shocking details of Ronnie Hunkeler's exorcism, we're once again left to wonder at what point does a logical, scientific explanation become inadequate in accounting for all the extreme events that occurred? Looking objectively at Ronnie's behavior before, during, and after the exorcisms, those who favor a psychiatric or medical diagnosis could explain them as the result of an ailment like Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Dissociative identity disorder, or perhaps Anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis along with comorbidities. For those who believe in supernatural possibilities, then a spiritual force of possession could explain the incredible actions, or maybe one in conjunction with a medical condition; for them, the two are not mutually exclusive. Yet mental illness or a brain abnormality only goes so far in explaining Ronnie's lifetime of conduct.

We're proud and pleased to bring back one of our most intriguing guests, Terry Lovelace, Esq., to talk about his new book, Devil's Den: The Reckoning. Our first interview with Terry, episode 155: "Abduction at Devil's Den," which aired on October 13, 2019, is one of our most popular and one of the most talked-about. Surprisingly, not because of its controversial nature, but because Terry's unassailable character has imbued chilling credibility to his claims, leaving the listener to ponder the terrifying implications. Terry's first book chronicled his life-long encounters with extraterrestrial beings, culminating in a partially-suppressed, horrific abduction while camping with his best friend at Devil's Den State Park in Arkansas. At the time, Terry and his friend Toby served in the USAF as EMTs stationed at Whiteman AFB in June of 1977.

More people have personal paranormal stories than you know. Even some of your relatives or your closest friends. They're not likely to share those stories because they know or suspect the telling will be met with, at the least, eye-rolling or good-natured ribbing, and at the worst, ridicule, scorn, and even anger. Beyond confessions of seeing ghosts or cryptids, this seems to be even more true for claims of encountering UFOs or UAP. And further still, as more people seem to be willing to consider that extraterrestrial vehicles exist, believing that there are beings that control these objects, ones that would logically have an agenda, is paradoxically too far of a leap for most to take. But to hear someone else's paranormal anecdote, if you convince them that you'd be respectful and open-minded, or better yet, lead and open up with your own story, you'll often find they're glad or relieved to be able to share one of theirs.

We at Astonishing Legends love… well... legends of course, and myths, and traditions. The first two often lead to the latter. But none of it, no story we've ever come across or covered, happens in a vacuum. The one constant connection between all of it, which matters most to us, is people. And so continuing on with a new tradition of our own, we'd like to present another Astonishing All-Star Holiday Special. It's time to congregate with great friends, share stories and ideas, and reflect on things that keep us searching for answers in a spirit of wonder and imagination. Once again, we're joined by our paranormal cadre, in alphabetical order: Micah Hanks, Jim Harold, Richard Hatem, Rob Kristoffersen, a special segment from our own Tess Pfeifle, and our most cherished guest, YOU. As we relax and enjoy this new tradition of a virtual year-end party. Please keep in mind that as everything is connected, so is everyone, in a profound and meaningful way.