The What If? Podcast

Part two of our series on the first documented case of alien abduction in the United States. On September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving through rural New Hampshire when they claim to have been taken aboard a UFO, subjected to medical tests, shown a star chart, and returned to their car by 4.5 foot tall beings from another world. And it only gets stranger from there... See The What I...

This week, we're talking about the first documented case of alien abduction in the United States. On September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were driving through rural New Hampshire when they claim to have been taken aboard a UFO, subjected to medical tests, shown a star chart, and returned to their car by 4.5 foot tall beings from another world. And it only gets stranger from there... See The W...

There's a stinky mountain beast with beautiful hair haunting the Missouri hills in the 1970's. And its name is Momo - better known as: The Missouri Monster. It shuffles the leaves, scares the kids, and stinks up the fields of MO, while stirring up a whole mess of concern in one Missouri town. This week, on The What If? Podcast, we're talking about Momo, and all of the scary he brings. Pumpkin head...

We all know of there's been warring over the years between Germany and Russia. But did you know that there's another war between these two countries over one specific artifact born in the 1700's? Imagine a room constructed almost entirely of amber, from floor to ceiling, with gold foil, mirrors, murals on the ceiling, statues of angels, and more. This was constructed in Berlin, Prussia, moved outs...

A strange phenomenon that's been witnessed on every continent on earth is the discovery of elongated skulls. Archaeological efforts have uncovered these strangely shaped skulls from thousands of years ago. Why do they exist? Especially on many continents, long before we were traveling between them... This week we're diving into two of those specific locations, that turned up these strange skulls,...

Ok, we're talking about David Paulides one last time... We watched David Paulides' new documentary Missing 411: The Hunted, and BOY OH BOY, we have some thoughts. Join us as we discuss stories of missing people, flying sentient light bulbs, and the predator.  Join us on Patreon and get an extra episode every week, plus a back catalog of nearly 100 episodes.  Sign up for Stitcher Premium using the...

We have a very, very special episode this week.  We were lucky enough to sit down with the one and only Chuck Tingle and discuss time travel, our favorite X-Files episodes, which varieties of jets are the sexiest, and a whole bunch more.   Two time Hugo Award finalist Dr. Chuck Tingle is an erotic author and Tae Kwon Do grandmaster (almost black belt) from Billings, Montana. After receiving his Ph...

On October 21, 1972, deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, journalist Al Berry and outdoorsman Ron Morehead recorded what they claim are the sounds of multiple bigfoot communicating verbally with each other and the two men.  Dallas Taylor from Twenty Thousand Hertz joins us to analyze what have come to be known as the Sierra Sasquatch Sounds.  Subscribe to Twenty Thousand Hertz. Sign up for Stitche...

Russia is home to the deepest lake on earth: Lake Baikal. It holds over 30% of the world's fresh water—more than all of the Great Lakes in the United States combined. When you're a 25 million year old lake with trillions of gallons of water—you generate some stories over the years. This week, on The What If? Podcast, we tell those stories. Stories about Russian divers getting murdered by 10-foot t...

This week, we're talking about extreme feats of human endurance, including the Leadville 100-mile trail run, the Sri Chinmoy 3,100 mile race around one square block in Queens, and Herbert Nitsch's 830ft free dive.  Get a free month of Stitcher Premium by using the promo code WHAT .  Join us on Patreon and get an extra episode, plus a back catalog of 70+ episodes. Music by Nelson Devereaux  

In 1996, a series of incredibly strange events unfolded over the course of three months in a small town in Central Brazil called Varginha. It allegedly began with an emergency communication from NORAD to the Brazilian government, continued with cigar-shaped UFO sightings, and demonic alien being sightings, and finished with the death of a Brazilian soldier and a one heckuva story. This week, The S...

This week, we're wrapping up our coverage of Contact in the Desert 2019. Giorgio Tsolukalos can't stand flat earthers, Preston Dennett tells us about the time aliens broke up a cockfight, and David Wilcock thinks the moon is a death star.  Music: Dwynell Roland and Big Cats - Good Life Sign up for Stitcher Premium and get a free month on us! Go to stitcherpremium.com and enter promo code WHAT for...

Contact In The Desert is the Coachella of weird. And they happen about five miles from each other. And dammit, we went. We saw. And we're bringing the weird back in full force to all of you. At this year's #CITD19 we interviewed purveyors of the strange, abductees, experiencers, and saw sessions delivered by the most heralded minds in the world of paranormal. Spencer went. Ryan asks questions. And...

Call it an urban legend if you want. Call it creepy pasta if you have to. Call it cloaked aliens hiding in your room if you must. But Shadow People have been around for what's said to be hundreds of years. Ominous presences that dart out of sight as soon as seen, sometimes have red eyes, and would ya look at that, sometimes they're even wearin' ding dang hats. This week, on The What If? Podcast we...

In the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina, a very strange phenomenon has been reported for over 100 years. Lights of multiple colors have been observed rising and falling and darting throughout the skies over Brown Mountain. What's happening in the skies of the Appalachian mountains? Why are there enough eyewitness sightings to accommodate years of reports? Why was a book written about Venuti...

We're going back to Florida nerds, and it's gonna get dicey again. Don't say we didn't warn you. It's 1974, and while exploring their 88-acre property, the Betz family found an 8 inch wide, 22-pound shiny steel sphere, with no marking except for an isosceles triangle stamped in the side. But things get stranger from there. The sphere began to move, of its own accord. It hummed. It played organ mus...

In the early 1900's a Latvian immigrant built what's since been referred to as the eighth wonder of the world. A limestone castle in south Florida made of 1,100 tons of stone pillars, some as large as 30 tons apiece, that he quarried, carried, and set himself. Over the past roughly 100 years, many questions have been asked. How in the heck did he take on and execute such a massive feat by himself?...

Today, we tackle a true legend of the alien conspiracy theory world. In the New Mexico desert, not far from Roswell, a town called Dulce has stories that transcend all avenues of the paranormal world. From lights, to UFOs, to military presence, to cattle mutilations and more, the rumors abound. Rumors, of a base in the mountains where alien hybrid humans work together testing and reverse engineeri...

Today features one of the wildest stories we may have ever told here on The What If? Podcast, along with one of our favorite friends of the show, and oft request guest, Lydia Liza. The Irving family, of the Isle of Man, received international press after tales of a strange invader of their home made waves throughout the British Isles. They told of a ghostly animal inhabitant, by the name of Gef. G...

We're all a little tired. Studies say most folks (at least in the US) are chronically underslept. The interesting piece arrives in the space between tired and truly sleep deprived. The world of sleep loss is a big one, and hallucinations, wild thoughts, and intrigue creep in when the eyelids stay open. This week, we talk about insomnia, sleep deprivation in doses big and small, and the case of Ran...

In 1952, at the end of the Summer of Saucers, a group of young boys in the West Virginia foothills saw a glowing light blink through the sky and land in the hills. Upon gathering more friends and their mother to join them, they hunted for what seemed to have crashed near them, only to be scared half to death by what we now know as The Flatwoods Monster. A 10-foot tall being with glowing eyes, mech...

In Lubbock, Texas, in 1951, one of the most famous UFO cases in the history of The United States occurred. Hundreds of residents of the city reported seeing lights flying over the city, low and silent, in strange formations, at speeds as slow as 600 MPH, but possibly as fast as 1,800 MPH. From PhD level professors at Texas Tech to Q-level security clearance workers in New Mexico, people across the...

In 1948, one of the most famous UFO incidents in the history of the United States occurred, seeming to have spawned a slew of added sightings, and garnering national attention. Over the night skies of North Dakota, a WWII veteran and National Guard member engaged in a nearly 30 minute dogfight with an unidentifiable, seemingly intelligent, light in the sky. One that defied every known law of physi...

In 2006, an Australian man named Ricky Megee travelled into the Outback, and through a series of unfortunate, and somewhat disputed, events—disappeared. What happened next is detailed in his book, Left For Dead, wherein Megee tells the story of how he survived in the Australian Outback, for an unbelievable 71 days, with nothing but the clothes on his back. This week on The What If? Podcast, we div...

An infamous area off the southeastern tip of the United States is known worldwide as The Bermuda Triangle. It's been the home to hundreds—if not thousands—of ship and airplane disappearances and wrecks over the past 500 years, which has made it a massive source of mystery over that same time period. What happens there? Why do so many boats and planes go down? Why do they sometimes disappear comple...