Our Strange Skies: UFOs Throughout History

"There are no other cases, this is the case" Frank Galvin, played by Paul Newman in Sidney Lumet's 1982 classic, The Verdict , said. And it's a line that our guest for this episode, Richard Hatem , repeated multiple times. In the film, Galvin starts repeating the line when all hope seems lost. In a parallel to the 1994 Ariel School Landing, the beings that appeared there said something similar abo...

In 1994 it was not uncommon to see experiencers featured on shows like The Oprah Winfrey Show or Geraldo Rivera . The public attention that the Roswell Crash, Whitley Strieber, Budd Hopkins, and John Mack received pushed the UFO into the mainstream like it had never been before. In Australia, a country who's UFO beliefs were very conservative, a story started to spread about a woman who had been i...

Through the annals of UFO lore and literature, there are tales of short humanoid beings with long ears, beings that seem to be ripped straight from the pages of fairy lore, beings that resemble bridge trolls and fauns. On this episode, Greg Newkirk , Director of the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal & Occult , Executive Producer of Hellier and the upcoming film, The Buildout , joins me to dis...

On episode 77 , I presented a wave of UFO activity from 1972 that was witnessed throughout South Africa. On this episode we head over to Argentina where an odd series of "train-like" objects were spotted in the month of July. The main feature of this case, is a series of sightings that took place at the Renault auto manufacturing plant where multiple eyewitnesses described seeing a tall "batman-li...

On this special bonus episode, Spencer Wirth-Davis stops by to talk about his new podcast, Finding Quantum Quest , the mysterious experiences of Joyce Bowles and the frustrations of UFO evidence and the extraterrestrial hypothesis. Sources: Joyce Bowles account in Flying Saucer Review   The North Reddish Humanoid Encounter   Videos of Joyce Bowles talking about her encounters   Theme Song: "Ufo" b...

Often when UFO cases are written about in journals and reviews, particularly when they're from other countries, there is a lack of nuance and cultural background. They are experienced in a vacuum. On today's episode writer, author, and television producer , Fred Andersson joins the pod to talk about some of Sweden's most fascinating, bizarre and absurd UFO cases. We explore the differences between...

Through the annals of alien and UFO lore lives a population of beings so vast and different that it confuses the mind and the senses. The vast differences from sighting to sighting leave so much room for speculation, especially as it relates to the origins of these beings. But what happens when the beings among us try to disguise themselves as humans. On this episode,  AP Strange returns as we tra...

When one of his crew members called out sick, Everett "Carl" Higdon, a resident of Rawlins, Wyoming, borrowed the company truck, and set out for McCarty canyon to hunt elk with his new 7MM Magnum rifle. Along the way, he ran into two guys who were having trouble with their truck. As a nod of appreciation for helping them out, they directed Carl to a remote are of Medicine Bow National Forest. Afte...

For decades, UFO reports from inside the Soviet Union were leaked to various UFO researchers and writers. Flying Saucer Review often printed UFO accounts from behind the Iron Curtain, which was risky, because it was forbidden to write about UFOs in the Soviet Union. And then, in 1989, UFO secrecy seemed to drop overnight. News of a now infamous landing in Yuzhny Park (South Park) from the industri...

Hello Patrons! Here is the early release of the next episode! On today's episode of the Our Strange Skies podcast, we bring you a pair of fairy tales from New York. In November of 1964 a newly married woman, along with her mother in law, observed two UFOs, and a crew of 10-12 normal looking people, repair their craft for over FOUR HOURS! In the second case, a young couple moves into a small cabin...

George Wheeler never expected to see two, let alone one, but his second sighting was different. From the top of Tuttle Hill in Elmwood, Wisconsin, a bright, glowing object hovered 100 feet in the air. George knew what to do this time, and he picked up the radio, and described everything he could to dispatch. And then, the radio went dead... Elmwood, Wisconsin, population 700, is the least likely p...

Dionisio Llanca awoke in a strange place in the early morning hours of October 28, 1973. He was inside a corral that stored a bunch of different carts with no memory of who he was, where he was, or even where he lived. He wandered out onto a road before he blacked out and woke up in the hospital a few days later. What happened in the moments before Dionisio attempted to change his tire and after a...

The earliest abduction cases, like those of Betty and Barney Hill and Antônio Villas Boas, were strange and new. Cases in which people were kidnapped by alien beings were rare. So rare, in fact, that they had never appeared in print before. But when they did cases started to emerge, slowly, into the ufological psyche.  One of the earliest cases involves the abduction of a Brazilian soldier, José A...

It wasn't long after Kenneth Arnold's infamous sighting, in June of 1947, that the humanoids appeared. First in Brazil and then in Italy. Early humanoid cases were few and far between, and and when they did appear, they were devoid of detail or the beings that piloted their UFOs were very strange. Some were 7 feet tall, others had 4 thumbs, and some looked like monsters plucked from a sci-fi horro...

The ufological landscape of 1989 was very rigid. Long since gone were the humanoids of old, replaced with the greys: short humanoid beings with grey skin, big heads, and terrifying eyes that resembled black inky pools. Cattle mutilations were happening in record number, and by 1980 they had been linked to the UFO, and secret government tests. 1989 was the year that Bill Moore shocked the world at...

Aside from a few stray cases, such as that of Elizabeth Klarer, and the roadside encounter of a disc shaped object by two constables in Pretoria, the UFO was an unfamiliar sight in South Africa. That all changed in 1972 when "Bennie" Smit opened fire on a strange egg shaped object skulking around his farm. The shots heard 'round Braeside farm led to a wave of UFO activity that caught the attention...

More often than not, these encounters, which are often fleeting, are reported from well known countries, like the United States, Brazil, Russia, and various countries throughout Europe. One continent that doesn't get highlighted enough is Africa. And yet, Africa offers us a unique look at the phenomenon through a multi-cultural lens.  This episode of the Our Strange Skies podcast is from a present...

The body of ufology, and other areas of paranormal study, are comprised of experiences that are collected, catalogued, debated, theorized, and sometimes debunked. They are presented time and time again as proof of something otherworldly happening in our world or seen as just crazy stories told by crazy people. I, for one, have never shied away from telling stories of my experiences. On this episod...

We can all do better, and I will do my part to make this a more inclusive space going forward. Email: ourstrangeskies@gmail.com Sources: MUFON UFO Journal, May 1983 UFO Afrinews, June 1989 Music: Vine Crawler by Blue Dot Sessions Come as You Are by Blue Dot Sessions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of the  Our Strange Skies  podcast, Rob dives into three obscure UFO cases from Canada in an attempt to know the country's UFO landscape a little better. There are stories of abductions, the Men in Black, alien dance parties, and oddly the smell of chicken? This episode has it all! Sources: "Toronto Abduction Report" by L.J. Fenwick & J. Muskat,  Flying Saucer Review  1980, V 2...

There is a place in Southern California that feels as alien as the surface of the planet Mars would. The Tujunga Canyons was first inhabited by the Tongva people, the Native tribes of the Los Angeles basin. The name, Tujunga, is believed to mean “old woman’s place,” a reference to mother earth. In 1953 the area that comprises the Tujunga Canyon region was much less developed today, home to a smatt...

WARNING: THIS EPISODE IS NSFW On this, the second collaborative episode between Our Strange Skies and the Cryptonaut Podcast , Rob, Marc and Rob explore the curious and dramatic encounter that a pair of cross-country skiers, Arno Heinonen and Esko Viljo, had in the forests of Imjärvi, Finland in the winter of 1970. The trio then tries to unravel the continued encounters experienced by Arno through...

For every UFO sighting reported, how many many go unreported? Even more, how many of them become classic cases that are mentioned and written about for time immemorial? This case is one that has lived in obscurity since it was first written about.  I stumbled upon it while perusing old issues of Flying Saucer Review , and I felt like I couldn’t cover it alone… so I asked my buddies, Marc Storrs an...

In 1975, over the skies of southern Manitoba, a quaint UFO would begin to make regular appearances that would last for nearly two years. Some would camp out and watch the strange red objects fly over their skies and down into Minnesota. The residents would name this UFO, Charlie Red Star, and would characterize the UFO as one that made "beer runs." Many of Manitoba's residents would claim to see C...

For this special round table edition of the Our Strange Skies podcast, I'm joined by Chris Cogswell of the Mad Scientist podcast, Deana Marie from the Twisted Philly podcast, Jennifer Taylor from the In Defense of Liberty & Vanished podcasts, as well as writer R. Scott Whitley to discuss the ins-and-outs of the Betty and Barney Hill case. The group discusses the physical evidence, the roll of...