Before we move on to explore some of these cases of UFOs not only near water, but of them seemingly extracting it for their own ends, we will turn our attention to just some of the encounters on record that detail UFOs and mysterious power blackouts, including them appearing to use our own energy resources as a power supply.

Perhaps the best place to start would be with arguably the most famous alleged UFO blackout case that occurred in November 1965, a series of bizarre incidents that are loosely referred to as the 1965 East Coast UFO Power Blackouts, at least in UFO circles.

What is certain is that at around 5:30 pm on November 9th, 1965, New York City's power supply suddenly failed, and the entire city was plunged into total darkness. Authorities were perplexed as to what had caused the power failure, as they received no indications of such an occurrence (although it later came to light that an “unusual flow of current” was experienced just north of the main power plant’s location). Compounding matters was that only several minutes later, the entire eastern seaboard of the United States lost power, followed quickly by several regions of southeast Canada.

In fact, it was Canadian investigators who immediately notified their United States counterparts that they had detected a “huge surge of electricity flowing in the opposite direction to the normal flow at that time”, dismissing American assertions that the fault was likely a power line near Niagara Falls. Although a joint US-Canadian investigation was set up, they were unable to establish a cause for the sudden widespread fault, even going as far as to say in their conclusions that it simply “should not have happened”. However, when the Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO) conducted its own investigation of the blackouts, it uncovered some remarkable details.

One of these accounts came from a private pilot, Weldon Ross, who claimed he witnessed a “strange, red fireball-type object” that hovered in the air before rising from the power lines below him. He was flying to Hancock Field at the time of the sighting, which also occurred right before the first blackout took hold. Moreover, Ross’s account was corroborated by Robert Walsh, an employee at Hancock Field, who happened to be arranging some emergency lighting as the incident in question was unfolding.  These blackouts, however, were not limited to November 9th, nor were they limited to the United States. What’s more, almost all of the strange power blackouts that followed in the months after the East Coast incident occurred around the same time as a surge of UFO reports.

On the evening of November 15th, 1965, for example, following a run of UFO reports in what had been a very active year for UFO reports in the United Kingdom, London suffered multiple widespread power failures. Four days later, on the evening of November 19th, on the other side of the world, similar power system failures hit Lima in Peru. Although there were no widespread power failures reported, on the evening of November 26th, in St. Paul, Minnesota, multiple residents, as well as several police officers, reported seeing several strange, blue objects overhead, while at the same time also experiencing a sudden draining of car headlights and batteries, as well as interference on car radios. Between December 2nd and December 4th, Texas and New Mexico experienced several widespread blackouts, and on December 26th, large portions of Buenos Aires in Argentina also completely lost power. Several weeks later, one evening in January 1966, several regions of southern Italy were plunged into darkness for several hours, with no explanation ever offered for the sudden power cut by authorities.

These incidents – in the pre-Internet days, remember – might have been forgotten about had it not been for a UFO symposium held in the summer of 1968 at the request of the Committee on Science and Astronautics of the US House of Representatives, during which the 1965 East Coast blackouts were examined, with some of the most remarkable testimony offered by Dr. James E. McDonald from the University of Arizona. He stated that “UFOs have been seen hovering over power facilities” on multiple occasions, and that power blackouts often followed these sightings. He also detailed several witness reports from residents of New York City from the night of the blackout, including details from one resident who saw a “strange object” hovering overhead before shooting off into the distance a second before the power suddenly failed. Similarly, five residents of Syracuse reported seeing a hovering spherical object in the moments after the blackout. Even more intriguing, Dr. McDonald offered that the Federal Power Commission had received “dozens of (UFO) sighting reports” on the evening of November 9th, the night of the blackout, as well as reports from across the wider New England area.

Dr. McDonald also went on to state that there were some “slightly disturbing coincidences” that deserved deeper consideration and investigation, not least as no explanation of any kind had been offered regarding the sudden power surge that appeared to have caused the blackout. Incidentally, three years later, in 1971, Dr. James McDonald tragically took his own life. Make of that what you will.

Whatever the truth regarding the East Coast blackouts and whether or not they were connected to UFO activity in the area or not, there are many other similar encounters on record. If we go back just short of a decade, for example, to Rome in August 1958, multiple residents reported seeing a strange, large object make its way over the city. Moments later, the city was plunged into total darkness as the power system failed. With all of the lights extinguished on the ground, multiple residents of the city looked up in awe as the glowing object continued on its way. Less than a year later, in the summer of 1959, an almost identical event unfolded in Salta, Argentina. At around the same time, in August 1959, in Uberlandia, Minas Gerais, Brazil, a large, unknown object passed directly over the transmission lines of the local power station. As it did so, the automatic power keys switched to the “off” position. They remained locked there until the mysterious object had moved away, at which point, they switched back on.

Just short of a decade and a half later, and eight years after the East Coast blackout incident, one night in 1973 in Ontario, Canada, one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking encounters involving UFOs and power supplies occurred. On the night in question, Art Larabie arrived at his home on Kukagami Lake Road after visiting his wife in the hospital. He had been at work the entire day before the visit, and now, at a little after 10 pm, he was so exhausted that he went straight to bed. He was so tired he could hardly remember his head hitting the pillow and was almost immediately in a deep sleep. He was, though, dragged from his slumber shortly after midnight by the sound of his panicked neighbor banging on his front door. In fact, his neighbor was knocking so loudly in their attempts to wake him that they “nearly knocked the door down!”

Realizing something truly out of the ordinary must have happened to cause such a reaction in his neighbor, Art pulled himself out of bed and made his way to the front door. His neighbor immediately urged him to “come outside and see” the bizarre object that was hovering just above the nearby powerlines. Art initially dismissed his neighbor’s concerns, stating the “object” was likely nothing more than the Moon. His neighbor, however, insisted the object was far stranger than that, and eventually Art followed him outside.

Almost as soon as he had done so, he could see a “massive object” that was glowing like a lightbulb between 500 and 1000 feet away, hovering approximately 40 feet above the powerlines, its width spanning three of the poles the lines were attached to. Stranger still, a tether of some sort stretched down from the object and connected to one of the power lines. Art couldn’t escape the feeling that the object – whatever it was – was draining the power from the lines and taking it on board, almost as if it was charging itself up.

The two men remained where they were, each in complete awe at the bizarre aerial display in front of them. Then, after around 25 minutes, the object suddenly shot away into the distance and disappeared. In fact, the object vanished so quickly that neither of the men could recall actually seeing it leave. However, when they looked at the powerlines directly below where the object had been hovering, they could see that the lines were now strangely illuminated, so much so that they cast a brightness to the ground below.

The following morning, Art visited his other neighbor to ask if she had witnessed anything from the previous evening. She said that she hadn’t seen the object itself, but that she was awakened in the middle of the night by an intense light that filled her bedroom for several minutes. She told Art that she had been “groggy” from being woken up, and believed that the brightness was down to “the kids leaving the lights on,” and, ultimately, she went back to sleep. It was only now, as Art told her of the strange events he and his other neighbor had witnessed, that she realized she, too, had caught a glimpse of the otherworldly events of the previous evening.

Just what the object was, where it came from, and whether it was taking power directly from the powerlines remains open to debate. The incident, however, adds another layer of nuance to the UFO and alien mysteries.

During the early 1990s, Puerto Rico, arguably one of the most active locations for UFO sightings on the planet, experienced several strange power blackouts that appeared to be connected to UFO sightings. On the evening of October 2nd, 1991, for example, hundreds of residents were plunged into total darkness for around half an hour as the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) suddenly failed. At the same time, a PREPA engineer, Ramon Montalvo, witnessed several strange lights hovering above the plant “the minute the power was cut off!”

Following this insinuation that an object of otherworldly origin might have been responsible for the power cut, Lieutenant Rafael Rodriguez, a Lajas police officer, offered that the lights Montalvo saw were likely nothing more than reflections from the surface of the nearby lagoon. However, when authorities attempted to prove that Rodriguez was correct by setting up large reflectors on the crest of Mount Candelaria, their experiment actually proved the opposite, with no reflections visible on the surface of the water from what would have been Montalvo’s viewpoint. Ultimately, no official explanation was given for the strange power blackout.

Around six months later, in mid-1992, in Trujillo Alto, another bizarre incident took place. Late on the night in question, residents were woken by a monstrous noise and a bizarre but captivating blue glow that washed over almost the entire city. Looking out of their windows and looking up from the streets, residents of the city watched in awe as the light changed color, going through “almost all the colors in the spectrum”, while, at the same time, two bizarre searchlights appeared and scanned the ground below, as if looking for something. At some point during these bizarre events, witnesses began to notice that the object behind the glow was hovering directly over one of the nearby power stations. In fact, as more and more residents focused on the object itself, they could see that it was “drawing electricity” from the power station, with some witnesses even recalling seeing sparks flying between the power plant and the object above.

The object remained visible for several hours. However, the following morning, several intriguing discoveries were made at the power station itself, not least that the transformer terminals had become completely molten. Moreover, investigators were perplexed as to why the breakers had failed to act and shut off such a huge loss of current. In total, it was estimated that the incident had cost almost a quarter of a million dollars in terms of damage and energy reserves.

In more recent times, during the summer of 2001, a similar UFO blackout case hit the small village of Nanesti in Romania. While authorities and media outlets either didn’t mention or played down the apparent UFO aspect of the power outage, Gheorghe Cohal and Catalin Banica from the Association for the Study of Unidentified Aerospace Phenomena (ASFAN) outlet immediately highlighted the potential connection, and their investigation into the incident provided by far the most detailed account of the strange events.

It was during the evening of June 30th, 2001, at around 10:30 pm, when a motorist who just happened to be driving through the village (most accounts state he was a resident of Bucharest) suddenly spotted a strange, glowing light overhead. He watched this glowing object for several moments before making a report to a local media station. Sparked by this report, several journalists and local television crews arrived in the small village the following day, with reports going out from residents on various media platforms, and ultimately, drawing the attention of the two previously mentioned ASFAN investigators.

It came to light that at the time the motorist had spotted the strange object over the town, most of the local residents were at home watching an extremely popular television show on the national station TVR1. It was while they were watching this program (ASFAN spoke with over 50 residents) that the town’s power supply suddenly cut out. Power outages were relatively common in Nanesti, but, generally speaking, only lasted a minute or two. This time, though, after several minutes without power, many residents began to sense that this power cut was different somehow, and many of them ventured outside. When they did so, most immediately noticed the bizarre, red, glowing, round-shaped object overhead. They recalled that it moved slowly before coming to a sudden stop and then rotating on its axis. As they looked on, the object seemed to transform itself into a ring that was divided by a yellow hue, which then descended toward the ground.

Then, when it came to around 1000 feet from the ground, the object began to ascend once more, its spinning movements clearly visible to those below. It eventually returned to its original position before repeating the descent and the ascent. It did this several times, suggesting to investigators that the object, or the intelligence behind it, was either investigating the villagers or had decided to put on a purposeful display. As midnight arrived, and with the power still not restored, several of the villagers returned inside their respective homes. Others, on the other hand, remained outside in case any further aerial displays took place. Investigators, though, discovered other witnesses who further corroborated what had been seen by residents of Nanesti.

Many of these were in the cultural center of the town, attending the wedding reception of the son of the village manager. The reception itself was in full swing by the time the power suddenly went out, leaving the bride and groom, and their guests, in total darkness. By midnight, with many of the guests preparing to leave, the hosts contacted the Vulturu power planet to ask about the outage and when they expected power to be restored. To their confusion, they were informed that this particular power plant (even though it provided power to the area) was functioning normally, and that the issue could be with another nearby power plant in the Focsani region. By 2 am, the power was restored, and with many of the wedding guests still at the cultural center, they continued with their celebrations. In the days that followed, however, several intriguing details came to light concerning the power supply to the affected region on the night in question.

Renel, for example, investigated the source of electricity distribution to the village that night and discovered that there were no recorded faults with either of the power plants. And while one charred transformer was discovered at one of the power plants, a blackout across such a wide area and for such a long time could not be attributed to a single charred transformer. Moreover, there is still the issue of just what caused the charring in the first place. Of course, given the multiple witnesses to the bizarre aerial object witnessed overhead at the same time as the power cut, we would be irresponsible not to assume that there is a likely connection between the two.

Perhaps of more concern than UFOs syphoning energy straight from our power stations or causing power systems to temporarily go down is the notion of UFOs extracting water for their own needs, not least because of our own need for it, combined with the fact that it appears to be extremely rare in the known cosmos.

Arguably one of the most intriguing of these accounts unfolded in the early hours of September 30th, 1980, at the White Acres property near Rosedale in Victoria, Australia. At around 1 am on the night in question, the 54-year-old caretaker of the farm was dragged from sleep by a sound that he likened to “a screeching whistle” that was coming from outside. At the same time, as he shook off the grogginess of sleep, he could hear the agitation of the cattle, clearly telling him that something untoward was taking place. He dragged himself from bed and, still wearing his nightclothes, ventured to the back door of the property where the commotion seemed to be coming from. He opened the door and stepped outside onto the wooden rail. As he did so, he saw a bizarre “domed, disc-shaped object” with orange and blue flashing lights moving across his field from left to right in his vision. He estimated that this strange craft was no more than ten feet from the ground and was approximately 500 feet from him. He further estimated that it was around 25 feet in width.

He continued to watch as the object moved precisely across his land, negotiating several trees and outbuildings as it did so. As he watched, he noted that although the object was brightly lit underneath and “gave out light at its own height”, it didn’t illuminate the ground below (a detail that shows up in numerous other UFO accounts). Then, the object came to a sudden stop directly above a concrete 10,000-gallon water tower. It then descended and came to a stop only a short distance from the structure.  

At this point, the caretaker rushed back inside the house, threw on some clothes, and jumped onto his Suzuki 100 motorbike before racing across the fields towards the water tank in order to take a closer look. There had been several cases of cattle rustling in recent months, and, despite the truly bizarre nature of the events he was witnessing, the caretaker still hadn’t dismissed that this bizarre object could be somehow connected to the cattle rustlers. When he came to a gate, he quickly jumped off the bike and proceeded to open it. As he did so, he caught sight of one of the cattle nearby. He recalled seeing the fear in the cow’s eyes, and also noticed that it was “frothing at the mouth”, such was the anxiousness it was clearly feeling. With the gate open, he got back on the bike and set off once more. When he was no more than 50 yards from where the object was hovering, he brought the bike to a stop and got off once more. He immediately noticed a bizarre sensation running through his body, making him feel like he was “like a jelly on a plate”. He also noted that the whistling noise was much louder than it had been previously, likely due to his being much closer to the strange craft. In fact, the volume of the noise was so loud that he was forced to cover his ears. From this vantage point, he could see that the top of the craft was dome-shaped and white in color, while the bottom half was orange and featured several “circular windows or lights”.  

Then, the whistling noise changed into “an awful scream”, while at the same time, a strange, black tube emerged from the craft’s underside. The tube began to extend, and as it did so, a “loud bang” was audible, quickly followed by a sudden rush of hot air that was so powerful it almost knocked the caretaker off his feet. The caretaker looked up and could now see the craft ascending slowly, the black tube still connected to its underside. After several seconds, the object came to a stop and went completely silent. At this point, the tube was no longer visible. However, a downpour of items, including stones, rocks, and cape weed, began falling to the ground. A moment later, the object began moving to the east.

The caretaker restarted the bike’s engine and rode to where the object had been hovering only moments earlier. He could clearly see a strange “ring of black” on the ground directly below where it had hovered. He looked up once more, just in time to see the strange craft disappear into the night sky. At this point, the caretaker felt a strange mixture of confusion, exhilaration, and excitement. He started the bike’s engine once more and rode straight back to the house. As he walked into the property, he noted that the clock on the wall declared it was 1:50 am. As he prepared himself a cup of coffee, however, he happened to glance at his wristwatch and discovered it had stopped at 1:10 am. He reset the watch to the correct time, and it appeared to be working as it should. However, only ten minutes later, it had stopped once more. It would be several days before the wristwatch worked properly.  

After draining the coffee cup, he returned to bed, although he remained fully clothed and slept very little. By 5 am, he ventured back outside to the paddock where he had witnessed the UFO. The black ring was still clearly visible on the ground. Moreover, in daylight, he could clearly see that the grass had been pressed flat in an anticlockwise direction, with all of the flowers within the circle no longer there. He could also see six “spoke marks” that matched exactly the spokes he recalled seeing on the craft’s underside. He continued along the path the object had taken, noting that there was various “debris” left on the ground, the debris that he had heard falling the previous evening. He considered that the long tube he had witnessed extending from the object had likely used suction to take up what it wanted from below before discarding what it didn’t. This was seemingly confirmed to him when he examined the water tank shortly after. The entire contents – all 10,000 gallons of water – were now completely gone, presumably taken by the strange craft.  

Following the arrival of the farm owner later that morning, the caretaker reported the bizarre encounter to the Gippsland Times newspaper, which ran a front-page story on it the following day, in their October 1st, 1980 edition. Later that morning, while the caretaker continued to examine the site, he was approached by a passing truck driver. He stated that the previous evening, at around 1 am, he had pulled to the side of the road to rest for a short while. He had also noticed a strange object following his truck for some time before he decided to bring his vehicle to a stop. When he did so, the object continued on and into the caretaker’s field.

Although the true motivations of the intelligence behind this strange craft, as indeed just what that intelligence might be and where they came from or went to, all remain open for debate. It appears clear, however, that the target of the UFO that evening was the water tank on the White Acre property. Despite the presumed advanced nature of this object, we might consider whether water is required in the same way that we require water for a car. Or might it be that water is utilized in ways we wouldn’t understand for some kind of highly advanced propulsion system? What is certain is that even the draining of the tank suggests advanced technology. It was discovered that the tube had seemingly pierced the water tank from beneath, and algae was discovered on the sides and roof of the tank, suggesting that these had been somehow separated before the water was drained. Even more remarkably, it would, generally speaking, usually take around three days to fully drain the entire tank of its contents, something this otherworldly object achieved in less than an hour.

A decade earlier, at around 10:30 pm on the evening of August 15th, 1970, near Good Hart, Michigan, another case involving water and UFOs unfolded, this one much more disturbing. According to the files of Michigan Ufology Central, on the night in question, the anonymous witness was staying at their parents’ home when they felt a sudden and compelling urge to drive to the banks of Lake Michigan and watch the night sky. It was while they were looking skyward that they noticed a particularly bright light that was not only moving but appeared to be descending. Alert that they were watching something out of the ordinary, the witness raised their telescope to their eye. Magnified, the witness could make out many finer details. The “light”, for example, was a disc-shaped object that had orange, yellow, green, and blue lights on its exterior. They could also make out what appeared to be windows, with light emanating from them. Stranger still, the witness could see what appeared to be several figures inside the craft, who appeared to be manipulating some kind of controls. Within moments, the object came to a stop on the water’s edge around 100 feet from where the witness stood. He remained where he was for around 15 minutes before finally deciding to approach the craft.

Almost as soon as he began towards it, he noticed that the air felt decidedly different; hotter somehow. Despite this, he continued on. Then, when he was around 50 feet from the object, he heard a metallic, mechanical sound. He stopped immediately. From where he was, he could see a ramp-like structure extending from the side of the craft towards the ground. At this point, the witness felt an urge to approach the craft, almost as if something had taken control of his body and mind, and he began approaching it once more, eventually stepping onto the ramp. A moment after he had done so, the side of the craft seemed to disappear, revealing an opening in its exterior. He proceeded through this opening and stepped inside the craft, finding himself in a strange room with terracotta-colored stone walls, from which a soft glow appeared to emanate, lighting the room. He recalled that the temperature was relatively cool, and he further recalled aromas that were similar to cinnamon and sage.

At this point, he scanned his surroundings, noting that the room appeared to stretch around a corridor in both directions, while also noting there were various levers and other doorways along the way. He continued, opting to go left when he came to the corners. As he did so, he noticed that the aroma of cinnamon and sage got decidedly stronger. He eventually came to a door that stopped his progression. When he turned, however, he realized that another door had closed behind him. He looked down at the floor and realized he was standing on a transparent section through which he could see a part of Lake Michigan, as well as the Big Rock Nuclear Plant. His attention then turned to a window in the wall. He peered through it and saw several humanoid figures with oversized heads on the other side of it, all of whom were manipulating controls on some kind of panel. Each of the figures wore the same style tight-fitting suit, and each had a strange blue glow to them. Then, without warning, one of the figures turned and looked directly at him. When it did so, the witness could see it had no nose, large cheekbones, and large, black eyes.

Moments later, a strange vision appeared in his mind, a vision that the witness realized had been put there by this strange entity. He was now looking at himself, but from this mysterious figure’s perspective. The next thing he realized was that he was being led into a different room and then placed into a bizarre chair. A short time after that, “rapid 3D images” ran through his mind, quicker than his conscious mind could process them. Then, one of the strange creatures approached him and seemingly spoke to him telepathically. In its hand, it had a strange cube that was filled with a clear blue liquid, which he was instructed to drink. Although this figure passed on much information directly into the witness’s mind, he could only remember small pieces of information, the most important being that these apparent alien entities were visiting Earth primarily for its water supply. His next memory following this was of waking up on the water’s edge, where he had first spotted the strange object.

Four years earlier, on the afternoon of July 5th, 1966, in Port Jervis, New York, two friends were driving home after spending the day fishing when they spotted a particularly quiet and scenic spot near the roadside. Realizing it would be an ideal spot to spend an extra hour trying to make a catch, they brought the vehicle to a stop and quickly retrieved their fishing gear before heading to the water’s edge. It was as they were casting their lines into the water that they noticed a bizarre, oval-shaped object appear just above the surface. Moreover, it was heading in their direction. They both looked on in shock as the object continued to approach. They recalled that the strange craft had a “rusty brown” exterior with a “matte to purple finish”, as well as several portholes around the edge, out of which shone a “green fluorescent light”.

Then, an already strange situation turned even stranger. From the object’s underside, two “purple pinkish beams of light” appeared and began to “sweep” from side to side, breaking the water’s surface, as if the object was searching for something under the water. The more the two men looked, however, the more they could see that these beams of light had a “solid substance” about them, and rather than searching for something, it appeared as though the object was “sucking up the water” through these tube-like beams. As it did so, the object continued in the pair’s direction, eventually getting so close that they could see two figures inside the craft, each of which had a “leathery, wrinkled face” and “large pointed ears”. After several moments, the object disappeared as quickly as it arrived.

Only several months later, at around 4 pm one afternoon in January 1967, an anonymous witness was sitting in his boat on the Old River in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, when he noticed a strange object appear in the overcast sky. Moreover, the object was heading in his direction. Realizing he had his camera with him, he immediately reached for it and began trying to get the object in the viewfinder. When he did so, he saw the object beginning “a rather slow turn to the right”. He pressed down on the shutter and captured the object at a 45-degree angle. Then, before he could capture another picture, the object simply vanished. As bizarre as the events were, he put the incident out of his mind and went back to checking his fishing lines. Several hours later, though, it seemed the object had returned.

At around 9 pm, the witness became aware of a strange noise, similar to a “huge vacuum cleaner (that was) running full blast”. Curious, he cautiously moved his boat to where the sound appeared to be coming from. However, try as he might, he was unable to find the source of this unsettling noise. He eventually returned to the main port, by which time, the disturbing noise had stopped. He secured his equipment and decided to turn in for the evening.

The next morning, he sat out as usual to his preferred spot on the water. However, as he guided his boat there, he noticed several dead fish were floating on the surface. In fact, the further he went onto the water, the more dead fish he discovered. A little perplexed at this discovery, he returned his boat to the port and decided to practice target shooting with his hunting rifle at the edge of the water. After shooting for several minutes, all the while keeping the Old River in his sight, he noticed that the crows in the trees began “chattering like crazy”. He immediately shifted his focus in the direction of the cacophony and immediately noticed the strange object he had witnessed the previous afternoon. And once more, it was heading in his direction.  As he had done the previous day, he reached for his camera and attempted to capture as many shots as he could. However, after managing to take one picture, the object moved upward “like an elevator” and disappeared, this time for good.

There are many other UFO and alien encounters involving the taking of water supplies, many of which are documented in the book UFOs and Water: Physical Effects of UFOs on Water through Accounts by Eyewitnesses by Carl W. Feindt.

At around 2 pm on June 12th, 1981, for example, truck driver Robert Gomez was driving his water truck near Alice, Texas. He had just made a delivery and had around 165 gallons of water in the tank, with zero pressure on the gauge. The radio was playing loudly as he headed down the highway when he suddenly became aware of a strange object in the sky ahead of him. To begin with, he thought the object was nothing but an airplane. However, as he watched, the bizarre craft suddenly increased dramatically in brightness before it stopped dead and hovered motionless overhead.  Gomez could now see that the object was disc-shaped and glowed a “brilliant white”, while also having a “dark ring” around the edge and a “dark inner ring” around the center. He also noted that the top section was dome-shaped.

By now, Gomez noticed that the truck was slowing down, causing him to press down on the accelerator. However, no matter how hard he did so, it seemed to have no effect. At the same time, the radio turned into a burst of static. Realizing he was in the middle of a truly bizarre situation, he reached for his CB radio (which was seemingly still working) and contacted the dispatcher to inform them of what he was seeing and experiencing. As he was doing so, the object suddenly shot directly upward into the clouds and disappeared.

As perplexed as he was by the whole affair, he continued with his journey, eventually arriving at Alice. By the time he had arrived, the radio had resumed working again. However, as he turned off the engine and stepped out of the truck’s cabin, he noticed the concerned look on the face of one of the maintenance men, who was focused on the back of the vehicle. Gomez approached him, and the maintenance man pointed to his valve at the back of the truck that was “smoking”, as if it had experienced intense heat. Moreover, as Gomez examined the truck, he noticed that the pressure gauge, which had previously been at zero, was now showing 55 points of pressure. He opened the valve to release whatever water was left inside. However, when he did so, he realized that the tank was completely empty. Whether the water was somehow taken by the mysterious object before it disappeared into the clouds or whether the truck somehow heated up as a consequence of the encounter is open for debate.

Just short of four years later, at around midnight on the evening of April 26th, 1985, in Gomoub in Namibia, 12-year-old Hannetjie was at home, unwell with a fever. She had just gotten out of bed to get some medicine from her mother when she noticed a “strange phenomenon” out of the window, which she later described as looking like a “round ball” that was slightly “bigger than the headlight of a motorbike” and had what appeared to be “several little stars” inside that sparkled brightly. The object itself seemed to move in complete silence as it eventually disappeared into the distance. Moreover, Hannetjie noticed that each of the family’s pet dogs was exceptionally quiet, as if they too had picked up on the strange aerial anomaly. The bizarre events, though, were far from over.

The following afternoon, one of the farmhands arrived at the property, and he had a remarkable account to tell the owners from the previous evening. He claimed that as he was guarding the sheep (as per his duties), a strange “glowing red ball” appeared overhead and proceeded to “drink” the water from the Lower Dam. Moreover, all of the sheep appeared to be extremely agitated while the glowing red object was present, and refused to go anywhere near the water afterward. When the dam was examined a short time later, it was found to be completely dry.

Another bizarre encounter can be found in the research files of Thiago Luiz Ticchetti. The incident in question unfolded around 1 am on August 21st, 1999, in Cubatao, São Paulo, Brazil, when resident Robert Rabelo noticed a huge object in the night sky as he drove to the Water Treatment Station. Upon his arrival, he found three other witnesses, all of whom also noticed the strange aerial vehicle. To begin with, they speculated that there might be a short circuit on the plant’s energy towers. However, when one of them climbed the tower to see if this was the case, they realized the glowing object was much higher, so they had to dismiss this suggestion.

They continued to observe the bizarre craft, eventually noticing that it was a dark, triangular craft, at least the size of a football field, with three red lights on its underside, and what appeared to be one larger red light on the top. Then, without warning, “lots of flashes, hundreds of white flashes” began and then disappeared almost instantly. Following this, a bright yellow ball-like object exited from the triangular craft and headed off into the distance. After around 20 minutes, the triangular vehicle disappeared, seemingly into thin air. Just what the mission of this object, including the smaller, yellow object, might have been remains open to debate. That it appeared directly over a water treatment facility, though, given the many other accounts we have examined here, is certainly interesting.

Just short of two years later, according to the research files of Albert Rosales, another intriguing incident occurred in Brazil, this one near the Tocantins River. On the evening of March 22nd, 2001, Vinicius Da Silva and Marta Rosenthal were returning home from a fishing trip when they felt a jolt from their vehicle that appeared to come from one of the wheels. Suspecting a blown tire, they pulled the vehicle to the side of the road. Vinicius examined the tires, finding all of them to be completely undamaged. It was as he was doing so when Marta suddenly let out a scream. He immediately turned to her and saw she was pointing to the right-hand side of the road. There, only several feet away, was a bizarre “metallic object” that had “small windows along its edge”. Moments later, the pair could see a strange figure, approximately four feet tall, standing in front of the craft. In the strange figure’s hand was what appeared to be a hose. From what the witnesses could tell, the figure was using the hose to draw water out of the river. After two or three minutes, the figure pulled the hose out of the water and went back inside the object. A moment later, the object rose into the air slowly, glowing brightly as it did so. Then, it shot directly upwards and disappeared into the evening sky.

The cases we have examined here are just a small number of UFO encounters on record that detail extracting water or affecting power supplies. Indeed, we might ask, particularly where water is concerned, if at least part of the reason these seemingly otherworldly travelers visit Earth is to extract water. As bizarre as this might sound, it makes a certain amount of sense. If we assume that these strange craft do belong to a space-traveling civilization for a moment, then, upon reaching our part of the Universe, although liquid water can be found on certain moons, Earth is the only place where stable liquid water can be found on the surface, which could make our planet a very attractive, perhaps even necessary, location.

Where, might we ask, though, do power blackouts and apparent stealing of energy reserves reside in all of this? The key element here is electricity. Many researchers have suggested that these seemingly otherworldly crafts might use some form of electromagnetic propulsion system. Furthermore, the Earth’s magnetic field might interfere with these propulsion systems, leading to many of the sightings around the world. In extreme cases, this interference could result in crashes, such as the Roswell incident, which many believe marked the beginning of the Modern UFO Era.

Ultimately, though, we might ask if these objects are regularly visiting our planet not so much to study human beings or other life forms here, but for crucial raw materials. If this is the case, the outlook for humanity in the face of these alien visitations perhaps looks a little bleak and uncertain. We might consider how we as a race might conduct ourselves if we needed valuable materials and resources from the cosmos (assuming we had the technology to harvest such materials from space). Would we take what we needed regardless of the consequences to other life? The answer to that question, if we are being honest, should make us all uncomfortable.

The man known as George Valiantine was born in 1874 in Williamsport, New York, and was a rather late bloomer as far as supposed psychics go. Where many psychics are aware of something different about them from childhood, Valiantine only first discovered his alleged powers at the age of 43, during which time he had been living a humble life as a manufacturer. His first introduction to his own psychic abilities allegedly happened quite by accident one night as he was staying at a hotel. During the night, he claimed to have heard mysterious raps on the walls and ceiling that seemed to be trying to tell him something, and which responded when asked questions. When Valiantine told of this to a friend who was into Spiritualism, she suggested that he try and hold a séance to invoke the spirits that seemed to be trying to communicate with him. During this séance, he would conjure up the spirit of his deceased brother-in-law, Bert Everett, who allegedly told him that the spirits had been trying to make contact with him for some time.

Valiantine would begin to hold regular séances after this, where he would purportedly regularly invoke several different spirits, including Everett, a mysterious “Dr. Barnett," as well as three Native Americans named "Hawk Chief,” "Kokum," and “Blackfoot,” all of whom had wildly different voices and speech patterns. One of his main tricks was using a trumpet, through which the spirits would occasionally speak as it floated through the air, and another draw for his seances was when he would channel spirits from various places all around the world, often speaking in foreign languages that Valiantine did not supposedly speak. This attracted the attention of a psychic researcher by the name of H. Dennis Bradley, who met with the medium in 1923 and decided to try and test out his abilities in a controlled setting.

Bradley would witness all manner of weirdness during his sittings with the medium. Valiantine would conjure up numerous spirits, both men and women, who spoke in tones that Bradley was sure could not have been faked or produced by the medium, saying “each spirit was distinct and each spoke with an accent unlike the other.” He also saw the trumpet float through the air with his own eyes, and he would often hear the voices of the spirits and Valiantine speak simultaneously. These spirits often gave information on Bradley and the other sitters that Valiantine could not have possibly known. Other phenomena reported by Bradley were floating orbs of light that would careen around the room, taps and raps on the walls and furniture, and even a few occasions where an unseen hand rested upon his shoulder. Through all of this, neither Bradley nor any of his assistants could rationally explain it, with Valiantine clearly seen to be still tied to his chair and no apparent evidence of any trickery. Even when his mouth was taped, the spirits and voices would come, leading Bradley to come away from these séances convinced that Valiantine was the real deal.

In late 1923, The Scientific American of New York offered a prize of $2,500 to anyone who could provide proof of a genuine spiritualist phenomenon under test conditions. Valiantine entered the contest with the full support of Bradley, after which two private preliminary sittings were arranged by Gardner Murphy of Columbia University and Kenneth Andrews of the New York World. The seances were by all accounts a success, and Valiantine moved on to the real test before the committee of The Scientific American. During these sittings, Valiantine allegedly channeled a total of eight different spirits, their voices coming from high in the air and holding conversations with those present. The trumpet was also witnessed to hover through the air, but while it was all very impressive and no one could figure out how it was being done, there were some red flags. It seems that the committee had secretly installed an electrical pressure sensor into Valiantine’s chair to measure whether he left it during the sittings, and on several occasions, it registered the medium leaving the chair for short durations. Psychical researcher Harry Price would say of this:

“At the final sitting, in complete darkness, on May 26, 1923, special apparatus was installed. This was an electrical circuit which included the chair on which the medium sat. When the medium rose from his seat, a light went out in an adjoining room. Dictaphone notes were taken of all that occurred. It was found that Valiantine left his chair fifteen times when he should have been in it, sometimes for as long as eighteen seconds, and that these periods corresponded with those when the sitters were touched by the ‘spirits'."

Partly due to this, while much of what was witnessed was not able to be easily explained away as tricks, it was nevertheless deemed to be inadmissible as actual proof, and so Valiantine did not win the prize. Indeed, he was mostly painted as being a fraud by the Scientific American committee, yet despite this setback, he was wholeheartedly endorsed by Bradley and continued to amaze audiences with his seances. Valiantine began travelling to England and Europe to give demonstrations, often leaving audiences flabbergasted as to how the spirits he channeled knew so much about them and could speak in different languages, but there were still plenty of skeptics. One of these was a wealthy American financier by the name of Joseph de Wyckoff, who had several samples of writings channeled through Valiantine’s hand by spirits analyzed by experts. It was found that the spirit writing was most definitely written by Valiantine himself. Of course, Valiantine himself vehemently denied this, all the while continuing his séances and maintaining his believers. During one particularly spectacular séance held in 1924, Valiantine channeled an estimated one hundred different spirits in the presence of a crowd of fifty people, of which de Wyckoff was one, causing him to question whether he was wrong about the medium being a fraud, but he was still suspicious.

It seems that Wyckoff would become a constant thorn in Valiantine’s side, continuing his efforts at debunking it all, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, Bradley continued his experiments with the medium and came away convinced every time. Further tests were arranged to investigate the viability of Valiantine’s ability to channel foreign languages. When Valiantine began claiming that he could channel the spirit of the great Chinese philosopher Confucius himself, Bradley brought in Dr. Neville Whymant, an authority on Chinese history, philosophy, and ancient literature, who said of what he witnessed at the séance:

“Suddenly, out of the darkness was heard a weird, crackling, broken little sound, which at once carried my mind straight back to China. It was the sound of a flute, rather poorly played, such as can be heard in the streets of the Celestial Land but nowhere else. Then followed in a low, but very audible voice the words 'K'ung-fu T'Zu.' Few persons, except Chinese, could pronounce the name correctly as the sounds cannot be represented in English letters. The idea that it might be Confucius himself never occurred to me. I had imagined that it might be somebody desirous of discussing the life and philosophy of the great Chinese teacher.”

Whymant even asked questions of Confucius that only a person from that era of Chinese history could know, and Valiantine passed with flying colors. On top of all of this, Valiantine demonstrated the ability to write out ancient Chinese characters accurately in near complete darkness. Indeed, Whymant came away very impressed by it all, stating that not only did the voice speak with Chinese that was period accurate for the era, but also that it had knowledge that it was seemingly impossible for Valiantine to know. Whymant would claim that there were “only about six Chinese scholars in the world whose knowledge would have been equal to the one displayed by the direct voice.” How could the medium possibly be able to fake this? It is all even more impressive when one considers that Valiantine was not particularly well-educated or even fully literate, of which Bradley would say:

“He is a man of instinctive good manners but it is essential to state that he is semi-illiterate. He possesses no scholastic education whatever, beyond the ordinary simplicities; he is ill versed in general conversation and ideas. I mention these facts because many of the communications which have been made in the direct voice under his mediumship have been brilliant in their expressions and culture.”

It is interesting in that one of the most bizarre aspects of Valiantine’s career as a psychic medium is just how inconsistent he was. For every amazing and truly unexplainable display, there would be another in which signs of trickery were found. For instance, one psychical researcher, Ernest Palmer, found after examining Valiantine’s trumpet that it was warm to the touch and had moisture in the mouth piece in exactly the way one would suspect if a human had used it and not a spirit. On other occasions, there were found fraudulent movements from the medium during sittings were found, and perhaps the most famous sign of trickery happened in 1931, when Valiantine agreed to produce spirit fingerprints in wax of such names as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lord Dewar, and Sir Henry Segrave. The procedure involved the imprints of these spirits’ fingerprints being put into a wax mold, but the imprints left behind were disappointing. For instance, the imprint from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was found to be a match to the print of Valiantine's big toe on his right foot, the spirit thumbprint of "Lord Dewar" was the same as that of Valiantine's left big toe, and a spirit fingerprint of "Sir Henry Segrave" was the print of Valiantine's middle finger. Nevertheless, Valiantine would never admit to any fraud.

Rather oddly, over the years, opinions on Valiantine’s abilities would shift. Bradley, who had carried out over one hundred experiments on the medium and had always held up as genuine, would become rather skeptical when he found what he believed to be signs of cheating and later deemed him to be a fraud, even writing a whole book about why he thought so in 1931. Yet at the same time, Valiantine’s nemesis, Whymant, would come to the conclusion that he really did possess mediumship abilities, but was just not able to fully control them, and they would appear only sporadically, therefore forcing him to occasionally resort to fraudulent means. Valiantine has gone on to become quite the polarizing force in the history of supposed psychic phenomena, with people seemingly equally divided down the line between thinking he was a huckster and those who truly believe he was the real deal. Which was it? Was he one of the biggest frauds of all time, or one of the greatest psychics there ever was? It is really hard to say, and all we can do is wonder.

Moving to our next case, the life of one of the most celebrated mediums and psychics of the 19th century began in 1833, when Daniel Dunglas Home was born in Currie, Scotland, and was soon adopted by a childless aunt and uncle when he was just a baby, as his own parents were unable to handle all of their eight children and Home was a sickly and weak child that was proving to be a burden. Even as a baby, weird stories were starting to orbit Home, as he had come from a long line of psychics and seers in his family, including his mother, and it was claimed that his cradle would sometimes rock by itself, and as a young child, he allegedly accurately predicted the death of a cousin. In other words, he was a creepy kid from the beginning, but things would really get interesting when he emigrated to America when he was just 9 years old, and the next chapter of his strange life would begin.

He and his aunt and uncle settled in Greeneville, Connecticut, and Home would be mostly a loner and friendless, yet he did form a bond with another boy named Edwin, with whom he took an oath that if ever either of them died, they would try to contact the other from the afterlife. This would lead to his first real full-blown spiritual vision, when one day Edwin appeared to him, surrounded by a bright light, and it would turn out later that the boy had died three days before, which should have been impossible for him to know, as they had moved to Troy, NY, which is about 155 miles from Greeneville. A few years after this, he would also predict the death of his own mother after she appeared to him in a vision, allegedly right down to the very hour. Then there was the poltergeist activity, such as moving objects or furniture, and anomalous noises such as strange raps and knocks from within the walls. This only ever seemed to happen when Home was around, and all of this proved to be too odd for his adopted family. Believing him to be possessed by the Devil, they kicked Home out when he was just 17, and he was left on his own.

This seemed to have done little to deter Home, who began to believe that he had a powerful gift and started arranging séances, which were all the rage at this time when spiritualism was en vogue. He certainly made an impression, as during his first séance in March 1851, a table reportedly moved on its own, despite the efforts of the guests to physically stop it. This incident would hit the news and make Home practically an overnight sensation, launching his career as a medium. He would begin travelling all over New England performing séances, sometimes six or seven a day, in which he reportedly was able to cause moving objects or inexplicable lights, heal people of ailments, and provide uncannily accurate information and divulge details gleaned from the spirits of the dead that he could not have possibly known. These apparent potent psychic abilities caused Home’s fame to spread far and wide.

Making it all the more interesting is that Home at no point ever asked for money in exchange for performing these seemingly miraculous feats, although he did receive donations and gifts, and he was also very willing to carry out his séances in well-lit conditions and under the scrutiny of more skeptical observers. Indeed, many skeptics, including scientists and trained observers, often came away from Home’s séances convinced that they had not been deceived in any way. He was not totally without his critics, for instance, Vanity Fair writer William Makepeace Thackeray once called his act “dire humbug, dreary and foolish superstition,” yet even he was supposedly impressed when Home had a table move during one of his sessions without any discernible trickery.

Home really got people’s attention when he began demonstrating the apparent ability to actually levitate. His first show of this power was in August 1852, in South Manchester, Connecticut, where he was reported as levitating twice, floating all the way up to the ceiling in full view of an astonished audience. Some reports of this event claim that when people tried to pull him down, they were lifted up off the floor as well. When the levitation was added to his bag of tricks, Home became more popular than ever before, becoming a common fixture at the homes of society’s elite, yet he still refused any payment for these performances and séances despite money being shoved at him. While all this was going on, Home decided to pursue a profession that he could do to make a stable living on his own, and to this end, he began to study medicine at Newburgh, Connecticut, but this was cut short when he fell ill with tuberculosis in 1854. Doctors recommended that he return to Europe to recover, and so in March of 1855, he departed America’s shores on his way to the next chapter of his unusual life.

Home would settle in London, where he lived for free at a sprawling hotel owned by a fan of his named William Cox, and it was not long before he was back to performing séances. As in America, he quickly made a name for himself and was soon entertaining the high class, elite, and royalty, including Napoleon III, the Czar of Russia, and Queen Sophia of the Netherlands, at the same time adding to his bizarre repertoire by including so-called “phantom hands,” which would appear to poke or touch people present, and the ability to hold white-hot embers in his bare hands without injury. Most of these witnesses to his apparently vast powers were convinced that it was all genuine, and both shocked and awed by what they saw in Home’s presence. Queen Sophia would say of the séances she participated in:

“I saw him (Home) four times...I felt a hand tipping my finger; I saw a heavy golden bell moving alone from one person to another; I saw my handkerchief move alone and return to me with a knot... He himself is a pale, sickly, rather handsome young man but without a look or anything which would either fascinate or frighten you. It is wonderful. I am so glad I have seen it.”

As before, Home conducted these séances in brightly lit rooms or in broad daylight, and once again, levitation featured in his séances. Paranormal historian Frank Podmore would say of one such instance, "We all saw him rise from the ground slowly to a height of about six inches, remain there for about ten seconds, and then slowly descend." Indeed, these displays became more impressive than ever, including levitating chairs while people sat in them, and in 1868, he reportedly pulled his greatest feat of all, purportedly levitating right out of a 3rd story window to come hovering back in through a different window. One of the more famous supporters of Home was the writer and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was impressed by the fact that Home had a vast array of psychic abilities, including the ability to let spirits speak through him or to audibly speak, the gift of clairvoyance, and most incredible of all his ability to move objects with his mind and levitate, a combination that few possessed. Indeed, his powers were so amazing and seemingly real that Home was actually expelled from Rome in 1864 on the charge of sorcery.

Of course, he did have his critics, who believed that this was all trickery, illusion, and sleight of hand. One of these was famed illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini, who was actually well-known at the time as an intrepid debunker of spiritualism and séances. Houdini claimed that Home was using the tricks of illusionists and magicians, and even proclaimed that he was able to reproduce the same results himself, although it seems he was never able to demonstrate this, ultimately leaving even him a bit baffled by it all. However, Houdini remained convinced that Home was using some sort of illusion to pull off his stunts; it was just a matter of how, and others were willing to take Home to task through controlled experiments, which, surprisingly, the medium was all up for.

Perhaps one of the most well-known of these experiments was carried out over several years by the respected English chemist, physicist, and fellow of the Royal Society, William Crookes, beginning in 1871. The experiments were conducted in a self-built laboratory in North London, using a series of different tests in an effort to measure Home’s “psychic force.” During the experiment, Crookes would become convinced that Home’s powers were genuine and that they could not be explained by current science. Crookes would say:

“During the whole of my knowledge of D. D. Home, extending for several years, I never once saw the slightest occurrence that would make me suspicious that he was attempting to play tricks. He was scrupulously sensitive on this point, and never felt hurt at anyone taking precautions against deception. To those who knew him Home was one of the most lovable of men and his perfect genuineness and uprightness were beyond suspicion.”

However, the experiment would be criticized because it was not under ideal conditions, lacked proper scientific controls and protocols, and it was not repeatable, sometimes failing to measure any phenomena at all, and so it was largely scoffed at by mainstream scientists of the day. There is also the fact that Crookes was well-known for testing a variety of other psychics, and that he truly sought to prove psychic abilities, which may have made his results somewhat biased. Home's nemesis, Houdini, would say of Crookes and his folly of an experiment:

“There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that this brainy man was hoodwinked, and that his confidence was betrayed by the so-called mediums that he tested. His powers of observation were blinded and his reasoning faculties so blunted by his prejudice in favor of anything psychic or occult that he could not, or would not, resist the influence.”

Yet for all of the criticism of Home and his alleged powers, it seems that no one was ever able to figure out how he actually did it, and no one was ever able to successfully replicate any of his “tricks.” Speculation ran rampant, including that he was using secret pulley systems, magic tricks, tiny gadgets hidden on his person, mass hypnosis, or even trained monkeys to move things around, but no one knew for sure. By all accounts, if he wasn’t a real psychic, then he was perhaps the greatest magician and illusionist who had ever lived. Home would continue baffling people all over Europe until his tuberculosis finally caught up to him, and he died on June 22, 1886, after a career of over 1,500 séances and countless private demonstrations.

In more modern times, it has come to light that Home was, in fact, caught cheating on several occasions in private, and that these were simply not reported on publicly, but there is still much that is mysterious about Daniel Home, in that many of his greatest performances have never been adequately explained or recreated. If he was a fraudster and an illusionist, then he was extremely skilled and gifted, but how he did it all was taken to the grave with him. The fact that he was able to work his way into high society and impress so many, as well as that he never asked for payment, only further cements his legend. Was Home a charlatan and trickster, or did he perhaps have access to powers of the mind beyond our understanding? The answer to that largely depends on who you ask, but one thing that is for certain is that he is one of the most prominent and greatest mediums and psychics who has ever lived.

In another amazing case, born in Ireland in 1893, Eileen J. Garrett had a rough go of things from an early age. Her mother killed herself by drowning just a few days after she was born, and her father followed suit just 6 weeks later by shooting himself, leaving her doomed to never even really know their faces. She was sent off to live at a rural farmhouse with her aunt, who was overbearing and prone to fits of rage that often sent the young child off on her own in her own little world. She felt more of a connection with nature than with people at this time, spending most of her time wandering the moors. It was at about 4 years of age that she began to be aware that she had certain gifts. She started to see and communicate with spirits, in particular those of two girls and a boy around her age, and she also developed the powers of precognition, clairvoyance, telepathy, and the ability to see the energy auras of people and objects, which she called “the surround.” She would say of this ability:

“I saw all bodies surrounded by a nimbus of light, not merely as physical bodies, but as if each were set within a nebulous egg-shaped covering of his own. This surround, as I called it for want of a better name, consisted of transparent changing colors, or could become dense and heavy in character—for these coverings changed according to the variations in people's moods. From the beginning, space has never been empty for me. There was both sound and movement in the 'space' of every area, and I could discriminate among environments by the impressions of this tremendous 'vitality' that I appear to gather otherwise than by means of my five senses.”

She also would claim to be able to see the life force leave a body upon death. For instance, once when she was angry at her aunt, she killed some ducks on the farm as revenge, and as they died, she could see “a gray, smoke-like substance rose up from each small form.” These powers would grow and follow her as she grew up, but so did misfortune and tragedy. She would marry three times and lose three sons as infants, each time reportedly witnessing their souls leave their bodies. Her marriages were marred by this tragedy, as well as hallucinations and signs of dissociative identity disorder that led one of her husbands to describe her as “on the brink of madness.” Her second husband died in an explosion during World War I, an event she had a premonition of during a dinner party, of which she would say:

“I was caught in the shattering concussion of a terrible explosion. I saw my gentle, golden-haired husband blown to pieces. I floated out on a sea of terrific sound. When I came to myself, I knew that my husband had been killed.”

It was yet another horrific tragedy for Garrett, but nevertheless, her psychic abilities had also grown. She became convinced that she was imbued with “cosmic consciousness,” and that she was being followed around by a sort of guardian angel in the form of man “in gray garments", who had helped save the life of her ailing daughter, Babette, when she was ill with pneumonia. In the 1920s, she began to try and focus her gifts for spirit mediumship, in particular what is called “trance mediumship,” during which the medium goes into a deep trance and channels spirits through them. Garrett very quickly became popular in the spiritualist movement at the time, and was a regular feature of high-profile seances and mediumship sessions. During these years, she became aware of what she called “spirit controls,” who were sort of spirit guides, and she claimed to have two. One of these was named Ouvani, or Uvani, who was apparently a 14th-century Persian soldier, and the other was the man in grey himself, known as Abdul Latif, a 13th-century Muslim physician. These spirit controls helped her to hone and improve her powers and gave her insight and guidance into the afterlife. In one instance, the spirit control Uvani channeled the spirit of British barrister Sir Edward Marshall Hall, who allegedly told the audience of his experience with the afterlife:

“I fear I am going to disappoint you, but this is not heaven, neither is it hell, though it savors of both. My friends are still tied up with knots and problems, but I played at both things and was terribly sincere when I played. I am still playing. This is not a state of spirit any more than the one I have left, and I am young here, a mere baby. I have only been over a year or two. I am doing what the other infants do, opening my eyes, looking around and asking questions. There is still a lot of earth man left in me, thank God. I am still in a state of matter, with a more beautiful and much less troublesome body. I take a hand in everything that is going on ... This is a place where free will predominates . . . All experience is growth ... it can be Hell or Heaven . . . from my own point of view, I am not in Hell ... I am now in a comfortable part of the globe ... Here is freedom from pain, freedom from sorrow, the vision which has led me all my life and which I would not change.”

Garrett steadily rose to international fame through her sessions, and it was this high profile that brought her to the attention of many researchers, scientists, parapsychologists, and spiritualists, including such organizations as the American Society for Psychical Research, Duke University’s parapsychology laboratory, and the British College of Psychic Science. In 1931, she moved to the United States and famously subjected herself to a series of experiments to test her abilities. In one of these, carried out by the National Laboratory of Psychical Research, she contacted the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin, captain of the British R101 airship, which crashed in 1930, killing 48 people. During this session, he apparently gave information and technical details that only he could have known, and it was big news at the time. Psychical researcher Harry Price would say of this particular experiment:

“It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.”

During another experiment, Garrett also allegedly channeled the spirit of the mother of the famous film producer Cecil B. DeMille, who wanted to give her son advice on a movie he was making. She was also studied by J. B. Rhine and William McDougall at Duke University, the Boston Society for Psychic Research, the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London, the psychical researcher Hereward Carrington and Dr. Adolph Meyer of Johns Hopkins University, among others, but the results of these were mixed at best, with conclusions ranging from that she was genuinely psychic to that she was merely conjuring up alternate personalities in her own psyche, to that she was no more successful than random guessing.

Garrett would head back to Europe, where she assisted in the French Resistance during World War II, after which she immigrated permanently to the United States in 1941 to flee the Nazi occupation. There she established her own New Age publishing company, Creative Age Press, which published the well-received publication Tomorrow, and she wrote many of her own books, including My Life in Search for the Meaning of Mediumship, Telepathy: In Search of a Lost Faculty, Awareness, The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy, Life is the Healer, Many Voices, and others, as well as three fiction novels. In 1951, she helped found the Parapsychology Foundation along with U.S. Congresswoman Frances Bolton. In addition to hosting various conferences with the Foundation, she continued her forays into psychic powers, including a case in which she exorcised the supposed spirit of a witch who had been plaguing a wealthy young married woman living in an opulent townhouse on New York's Upper East Side. She also became involved with the psychedelic movement in the 60s, falling in with the renowned psychedelic author and researcher Aldous Huxley and his research team. Garrett would claim that psychedelics helped her greatly expand her powers, at one point saying:

“I have had psychic experiences which occur at the height of the LSD experience. I believe the drug has made me a better, more accurate sensitive when I perceive, hear, think and feel.”

She was so enamored with the psychedelic culture that the Parapsychology Foundation carried out its own experiments into LSD and its effects on psychic abilities and other psi phenomena, and they held several conferences on the matter. Indeed, Garrett would be seen as a pioneer in the world of psychedelic research. It is interesting that in later years, Garrett distanced herself from the idea that she was being guided by outside spirits, instead embracing the theory that these spirit controls were merely aspects of her own mind linked into the cosmic consciousness. Indeed, she would state that she did not believe that there was even necessarily a spirit world at all, although she still insisted that her powers were very real; she just was not sure exactly from where they sprang. However, she constantly tried to downplay her abilities while at the same time fighting off skeptics, and would once say, “I have been called many things, from a charlatan to a miracle woman. I am, at least, neither of these.”

Garrett continued her work and demonstrations up until September 15, 1970, when she tragically passed away from heart failure during the Parapsychology Foundation's nineteenth international conference, in Nice, France. There is no way of knowing if she could ever do the things she claimed, and the tests done on her were inconclusive at best, so we are left to wonder. Who was this mysterious woman, and what was she really capable of? If she did possess these powers, then from where did they originate? In the end, it doesn't really seem to matter, as Eileen J. Garrett has most certainly cemented herself into place as one of the most famous psychics of the century, and no matter what the story behind her story might be, she will likely remain that way for some time to come.

We are left to wonder just what was going on with these people. Did they ever have the psychic powers they claimed they had, and which were witnessed by so many? Or was this all smoke and mirrors and trickery? How can we explain some of the more amazing feats we have looked at here? Whatever you may think ion these claims, all of the people we have looked at here have left their indelible mark upon history and the world of psychics, and are among the most famous and allegedly most powerful the world has ever seen. 

The wilderness seems to beckon people to join it at times. Here we see some of the most mysterious vanishings there are, with people who have just gone off into the trees to evaporate into thin air. These dark places at times have a habit of drawing the unwary in and not letting go, leaving behind vanishings with a wake of strange circumstances and bizarre clues. 

Our earliest case here brings us back to August of 1934, when 21-year-old Olga Mauger seemed to have things going pretty well for her. She had just married wealthy Wyoming oil magnate Carl Mauger after a two-week whirlwind romance and the two were madly in love. They also had an upcoming elk hunting trip in the scenic wilderness near Dubois, Wyoming, that they saw as a romantic honeymoon. It seemed as if she had her whole future ahead of her, but she was about to become the center of one of Wyoming’s oldest and strangest unsolved mysteries.

The couple made their way to a place called Floyd Stalnacker camp, at Togwotee Pass up in the remote mountains, just six days after their wedding, and at first, the trip was everything they had hoped it would be. On September 17, 1934, the sixth day of their trip, the couple headed out into the wilderness on a scout expedition for elk. At some point during their hike, Carl told his wife he wanted to go up a small ridge not too far away, but Olga said that she was tired and wanted to take a rest. It was a bit strange because Olga was an avid hunter, athletic, and in incredible shape, to the point that it was usually Carl trying to keep up with her, but at the time, he didn’t think much of it and continued up the ridge as she sat down on a rock to rest. Little did he know that this would be the last time he would ever see her again. 

When Carl returned to the same spot 20 minutes later, his wife was nowhere to be seen. A quick search around the area turned up nothing else, and his calls out to her remained unanswered. Not long after this, authorities were summoned and they would launch a massive search involving an aircraft and over 300 people, bloodhounds, and even 20 Native American trackers, but they could find no trace of her. The dogs brought in could not find a scent trail; there was nothing. The only thing they managed to turn up was an empty paper sack in which there had been three sandwiches, but no sign of the food. How is it that she could so completely vanish within 20 minutes to the point that not even dogs and expert Native trackers could pick up her trail? No one had a clue, but as night approached and the weather got very cold, it was feared that wherever she had gone, Olga, who had been lightly dressed, might not survive. 

Nevertheless, the search continued into the coming weeks, and there were some clues that would show up during this time. One was that some local campers would claim to have heard a woman screaming out in the woods of a nearby canyon three days after she had gone missing, but this could not be confirmed to have been her. There was also much excitement when a set of footprints was found at a wooded area known as Turpin Meadows, about 8 miles from where Olga had gone missing. The tracks were first thought to be hers, but it turned out that they were not. There were also some reports of seeing a woman walking along the nearby Togwotee Pass Road, but these could not be verified to have been her. The search went on into October, until a massive snowstorm hit, and it was called off for good. Rather oddly, shortly after the end of the search, a woman was found in Bridgeport, Nebraska, who allegedly looked so much like Olga that she had to be ruled out. 

At the time, it was seen as a very odd disappearance for several reasons. One was that Olga had been hunting and fishing in that same area since she was a child and was very familiar with the terrain, meaning that it seems unlikely she could have gotten lost, and even if she had, why hadn’t she called out for help or answered calls out to her? Carl had allegedly been gone for only 20 minutes, so wouldn’t she be able to hear him? Also, how could she have managed to so completely elude the dogs and trackers? Why would she have wandered off from her spot on that rock in the first place? No one knew, but there were ideas. 

One idea was that she had gone down to the road and either hitchhiked a ride or been kidnapped, but why would she have gone there? Another was that she had simply gotten lost and met with misfortune, but with her knowledge of the area, this seemed unlikely, and again, why would she have gone off into the wilderness to begin with? It could also have been a bear attack, but again, this would have made a commotion, and no body or signs of an animal attack had been found. As more information came in, there was also seen the possibility that she had run away to start a new life. It would turn out that her marriage was not as blissful as had been thought when Olga’s sister claimed that the couple had been on the rocks, arguing frequently, and that Olga had been unhappy with the marriage and had regretted having the wedding so soon. In this scenario, Olga had used the elk-hunting trip as a ruse for her escape, knowing that with her outdoor survival skills, no one would be able to follow her. After this, all she had to do was go to the nearby road and hitch a ride to a new life. This might help explain how she was able to evade the search party, and it would also explain the oddity of her wanting her husband to continue on while she took a rest. If she had run away, then it was actually a pretty good plan.

Another, more ominous possibility was that it had been foul play. It would be found that Carl had been dating a woman by the name of Ella Tchack for five or six years when he met Olga at a dance. It had apparently been serious enough that they had been considering marriage, and Ella was reported as having been very upset about Carl running off with Olga, to the point that it was claimed she had threatened to commit suicide. Yet another witness close to her claimed that Ella and Carl had continued seeing each other after Carl’s marriage to Olga, something that Carl vehemently denied. The idea here is that Carl had perhaps murdered Olga to get out of his marriage and get back with Ella, and there were some sinister clues that supported this. One was that he would later contradict his statement that he had been gone 20 minutes, giving a different figure. Even more damning is that the Native guides made the observation that Carl Mauger's path away from his wife to the spot he claimed to have gone would have kept him in full view of her sitting place from the moment he left her to the moment he claimed he had returned. An excerpt from the Casper Star-Tribune says of this:

“They also pointed out that, although the country is rugged, it is open and that Mauger was in full view of the place, where he claimed he left his wife until he reached a small path where he said he turned around and retraced his steps.”

If this is true, then she would have never been out of his line of sight at all. It seems pretty ominous, but without any real evidence of wrongdoing, there was nothing to go on, and Carl Mauger was never pursued as a suspect. In a curious aside, he would be arrested not long after and put in jail after being mistaken for a wanted criminal who just happened to be his doppelganger and had the name Carl Mager. Weird. Also, rather odd, or to be expected, depending on your stance, Carl would later remarry, this time with Ella, the one he had been dating when he married Olga. Coincidence or not? We are left to ask ourselves what happened to Olga? Was this a tragic accident or foul play? Where did she go that day, and what became of her? Considering it is one of Wisconsin's oldest cold cases and there have been no new clues in decades, we will probably never know for sure.

Moving along, Susan Adams, 42, and her husband, Tom, of Austin, Texas, had been looking forward to their next big camping trip for months. Both avid campers, hunters, and birdwatchers, their plan was to take a wilderness tour with a group called Iron Horse Outfitters, their destination being a protected wilderness area near the Idaho/Montana border called the Selway–Bitterroot Wilderness. Lying along the Bitterroot Mountain range, it is a rugged domain of thick forests and alpine parkland that spans 1.3 million acres, making it one of the largest such wilderness areas in the entire country. The couple was very excited about exploring it, they both had experience with the outdoors, and they were going in with a reputable wilderness tour company and seasoned guides in good spirits. There was no reason to suspect this would be anything other than the trip of a lifetime, but this was an excursion that only one of them would return from.

On September 22 of 1990, the couple arrived in Idaho Falls ready for their adventure and met with the owner of the tour company, Art Griffith, before heading out a few days later to take a long horseback ride through pristine wilderness to the outfitters' camp in the Battle Lake area. There they were greeted by the rest of the crew, consisting of a group of hunters, guides, and the camp’s cook. They then spent about a week leisurely exploring the area, hunting, and engaging in their hobby of birdwatching, before Tom decided to go out on September 29 with some of the camp hunters for an overnight hunting trip. Susan decided she would stay behind at camp, and after escorting her husband by horseback to a ridge, she said her goodbyes and returned to camp. No one at the time realized that this would prove to be their final goodbye.

The following day at around 9 AM, Susan decided to go do some birdwatching at a nearby meadow. The weather was clear and calm, and so she only had with her light clothing, her binoculars, and her camera. The meadow was nearby and an easy short hike away, so when she told the camp cook that she was headed over there, no one thought anything of it. She walked off, but never came back. No one in the camp seemed to really be all that alarmed, as it was a nice day, the meadow was so close, and Susan had not said anything about when she planned to return. It didn’t even cross anyone’s mind that something was amiss until Tom came back from his hunting trip in the late afternoon, and she had still not returned.

Tom waited a while, but as darkness began to creep in, he became worried. He went out towards the meadow, where he found footprints that led away down a trail. Oddly, he claims that at some point, the tracks just abruptly ended right in the middle of that dusty trail, with no sign of any leading off anywhere. According to Tom, it was unsettling, as if she had simply vanished right there on the spot, and he would say, “I followed the footprints to a place about 20 yards from the meadow, where the tracks stopped.” He looked everywhere for more footprints, but there were none, and his desperate calls out into the trees were answered by the sounds of the darkening forest. He was then joined by the camp guides and hunters, many of them experienced trackers, but they had no more success, and after some time scouring the area with no sign of Susan, night was finally upon them, forcing them to abandon their efforts and just hope that Susan made her way back.

The following morning, Susan was still gone, and so authorities were notified of the disappearance. A large-scale search was launched of the entire area for miles around, but nothing whatsoever was found, and the operation had to be suspended due to cold and snowy weather moving in, which was worrying since Susan had not brought any warm clothing or survival gear with her. The search then resumed with renewed efforts to find the woman, as it was thought that every minute lost was dangerous if Susan was still alive at all. Aircraft, dogs, and hundreds of volunteers meticulously combed the area, even walking side by side at arm’s length apart through large stretches of wilderness to leave no stone unturned. Some scattered footprints were found that indicated perhaps someone who was injured, but they were so faded and unclear that it was not positive that they had belonged to Susan Adams at all. The theory that was brewing among law enforcement officials at the time was that she must have gotten injured and died out there, and before the official search was closed for winter, Sheriff Randy Baldwin would say:

“I believe beyond any reasonable doubt that Susan Adams died from injuries or other related causes due to being lost or hurt in the wilderness area near Battle Lake. I also believe that Susan Adams' remains are still in that area, but feel that any future organized search would not be effective in locating her remains.”

The family was so desperate that they even hired a psychic, who rather eerily came to the same conclusion, predicting that Susan had sustained a head injury and perished not far from camp. Yet if this is all correct, then why hadn’t they found any trace of remains or indeed any sign of her at all, despite such a detailed search? Another idea was that a wild animal might have attacked her and dragged her off, but if this were the case, it is thought that she would have screamed out, which would have been heard at the nearby camp, and there was also no sign of blood, shredded clothing, no indication of a struggle, nor any tracks from a dangerous animal. It is hard to believe that a vicious wild animal could have swooped in to take her away completely silently, without any sign of blood or a fight, and without leaving any tracks behind. The idea of foul play was also briefly looked at, but neither Tom Adams nor any of the hunters or guides was found to have any evidence at all that they were linked to the vanishing.

What happened to Susan Adams? How did she just wander away so close to camp and then evaporate to never be found? Was she attacked by an animal or a nefarious party? Was her attention drawn by something to bring her out and get injured? Or was it something far stranger? Why is it she did not call out, and why was no trace of her remains ever found? Even more eerily, what is the meaning of those tracks that just stopped in the middle of a trail? We will probably never know, and it is another bizarre case to add to the considerable number of those like it.

Some of the strangest of these wilderness vanishing cases have been written of by missing persons researcher and author on the subject, David Paulides, in his Missing 411 series of books, and these accounts can range from the slightly odd to the full-on bizarre. One very weird case that has been much discussed and speculated upon is that of a seasoned, experienced hunter who went out with a group of friends only to step off the face of the earth and leave strange clues and mysteries that have not been solved to this day.

The setting for this strange case is the rather ominously named Crazy Mountains, in the northern part of the Rocky Mountains of Montana, in the United States, where, in September of 2014, a 38-year-old elk hunter by the name of Aaron Joseph Hedges was out on a hunting trip with friends Greg Leitner and Joe Depew. The trip started on September 3, when the group headed out from the Cottonwood Lake Trailhead along with two horses and a mule. The men were in good spirits, looking forward to their excursion, and things were going smoothly as they headed towards a place called Campfire Lake, but they hit an obstacle when their mule got spooked and Hedges’ sleeping bag was thrown off the trail and lost.

It was an unfortunate turn of events, but fortunately, the group kept another hunting camp they had used the previous year and had loaded up with an emergency cache of extra supplies just in case they ever needed it. Among these supplies were extra sleeping bags and so on. On September 5, Aaron decided to make a trek up that way, towards a place called Sunlight Lake. It wasn’t a particularly formidable distance for the experienced outdoorsman, and he had a walkie-talkie, cellphone, and was armed with a firearm and bow, so no one thought much of it, especially since he told his companions that he was just going to grab the supplies and would be back before nightfall. Little did they know that as he stalked off up that trail into the trees, it would be the last time anyone saw him alive.

Night came and went with no sign of Hedges, and the next day he still did not turn up. The group tried numerous times to call him on his walkie-talkie, but there was no response. A look at the GPS for the walkie-talkie system showed that Hedges had missed the fork in the trail that he was supposed to take to his destination, and it labelled his position as being out at the very edge of the screen. They waited around the area for several more days, hoping that he would find his way back to them, but there was no further word, and Aaron Hedges was finally reported missing on September 8. A search was mounted, and although the effort was somewhat impeded by snow that had hit the area, the surroundings were meticulously scoured using helicopters with infrared equipment, horses, and 20 tracker dog teams, all of which turned up no sign at all of the missing hunter.

It was not until the second day of the search that a clue was finally found. By a creek just east of Sunlight Lake was found a spot where someone had attempted to start a fire using a pack of cigarettes, and nearby were found the water bladder that Hedges had been carrying, the waist straps of his backpack, and his shoes sat down neatly side by side as if they had been carefully removed and placed there. Oddly, the site was found in an area the search teams had just combed the previous day without finding a thing, and it was also considered puzzling that he would have taken his shoes off and just left them behind, considering the plummeting temperatures and snow. Also unusual was that tracker dogs passing through were unable to pick up a scent trail for the missing man, which was a bit hard to explain.  This was the only trace of Hedges that would be found during the search efforts, and it was as if he had just vanished into thin air, but things would get even weirder still, a full 9 months after the disappearance.

In June 0f 2015, a hiker by the name of Roger Beslanowitch was staying with relatives at a place called the Rein Anchor Ranch, when he took a walk to the top of a nearby ridge and came across someone’s outdoor gear, including a backpack containing a cellphone, an orange hunting vest, bow, clothes, a hunting license, and some scattered wrappers from granola bars. Bizarrely, at the head of the ridge was also a thermos cup placed upon a rock, along with an open energy drink nearby. Beslanowitch would report that he had been sure there had to be a body somewhere, but he could find none, just those belongings eerily piled up against a tree. When it was found through the hunting and driver’s licenses in the pack that they had belonged to Aaron Hedges, the authorities jumped all over this new lead in their cold case, but they could find no trace of any human remains.

It would not be until the following summer that remains would finally be discovered about half a mile from where the gear had been found, which was a full 15 miles from where he had last been seen and 6 miles from where his boots had been found, meaning he had somehow traversed that snow swept wilderness without his boots all of that way, along a route that had no major trails. Making it even weirder was that the area the remains were found in was within eyesight of the nearby ranch and right next to a frequently used road, which would have meant safety, but he had never managed to reach it. How could this be? He had obviously stopped to have something to drink on that ridge, from which he would have been able to clearly see the house, so why did he just stop, strip down out of his clothes, and die so close to safety?

The whole case is permeated by strange details. The fork in the trail that Hedges was originally meant to take up to his destination was clearly delineated and visible, and he was equipped with a GPS, yet he had gone right by it. He had then managed to set up a camp that evaded a complete search of the same area, then taken his boots off in freezing weather and somehow managed to walk 6 miles over rough terrain off-trail through snow, which authorities see as highly unlikely, as it would have been an incredible feat for even the most hardened survivalist. Indeed, why had he taken his shoes off to begin with? Then there is the fact that dogs could not pick up his scent, and all of this is punctuated by the rest of his belongings and his body plopped out there practically right on top of an inhabited ranch. The cause of death could also not be determined, as neither the skull nor any of the bones exhibited any sort of trauma indicating an injury of any kind. What is going on here?

There have certainly been plenty of theories ranging from the plausible to the far out. The official explanation is that he had probably had hypothermia and disorientation, which had caused him to wander about aimlessly and display his odd behavior. He may have even intentionally avoided search party teams and that ranch to cover the fact that he and his friends may have been hunting in off-limits areas and poaching. Other theories are decidedly more fringe, including the pervasive idea that he somehow passed into another dimension or through a portal. One Reddit user on the Missing 411 forum called “DapperWinner” explains his spin on the theory and how it matches many of the stranger details as follows:

“The turn in the path: Aaron left his hunting buddies to go to a cache that was a hike away, there was a visible path and clear turn for him to ascend up and get to the cache. What I believe happened is somewhere just before that turn or on it he 'passed' over into another dimensional reality. It was getting late and his friends tried to call him over the walkie talkie and they did ping his GPS. Now at this point, somehow I think for a split minute or so he flickered back into this reality in just enough time for the GPS to go off and then flickered back out. I'm no expert on this stuff so forgive the terms.

 The boots: The SAR has been called and they comb the area for him, dogs also cannot get a scent. Now with the dogs i believe the reason why they cannot find one is because he literally is not there, he is in some other dimensional reality overlapping our own. Further in the case they find his boots and other items AFTER they combed a particular area bythe ridgeline. Similar things have happened in other cases, so we came up with a theory that what if his items have somehow re-materialzed back into our reality? Let’s say that in the dimension he is in, whatever bad weather is happening in ours (The snow) Is not happening where he is. So perhaps he has a rest and takes his boots off to rest his feet, somehow those items reappear back in our reality and he loses them. This would explain why his boots were found just set there as if someone had placed them. Because they were.

 The pack: Months pass and the somebody finds Aaron hedges backpack and drinking equipment overlooking a property with human houses and structures visible. Let’s say Aaron did make his way to this place and I think he knew where he was going expecting to find those peoples properties. But here’s the thing: They weren't physically there in that other reality! He made his way to that ridgeline expecting to find houses but did not. And again, his items have somehow re-materialized back into this reality where they were found by a neighbor. Now this is where the speculation gets a little crazy: We theorized that what if the alternate reality he stumbled in, time flows differently. As they found his pack a year or so later I believe? What if wherever he is, it’s only felt like a day or two for him being lost, but in our reality a year had passed? As I said it’s just speculation on our part, but i find it hard to believe a backpack containing food was sitting there perfectly for a year for someone to discover without it being ravaged wildlife.”

What happened to Aaron Hedges? Did he simply get lost and succumb to the stresses of the environment? Is this, as the authorities say, a case of hypothermia-induced psychosis? If so, then what are we to make of all of the weird clues orbiting the whole thing? Or is this, as some of the stranger theories have posited, something altogether more bizarre and past out ability to really grasp? Just about the only thing we really do know about this weird case is that Aaron Hedges disappeared without explanation, his remains reappeared just as mysteriously, and no one truly knows what exactly happened to him except for him and the trees.

Finally, we come to the case of Terrence Shemel Woods Jr., of Capitol Heights, Maryland, who at the age of 26 years old made a pretty good success of himself as a filmmaker. Educated in England, he had worked on numerous TV programs and documentaries, including several that had taken him out into the rugged outdoors for shoots in such far-flung places as Turkey and Alaska, making him no stranger to roughing it. In 2018, Woods was working for a London-based production company called Raw TV, which specializes in the outdoors and is perhaps best known for the Discovery Channel reality show Gold Rush. In October of that year, he was enlisted to spend a few weeks in the remote wilderness of Montana and Idaho to work on a documentary for a British show called Whitewater, in this episode about the abandoned gold mine called Penman Mine, which lies within a place called the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest, in the heart of north-central Idaho. Terrence was there with 12 other crew members and was reportedly in good spirits at first, but things were about to take a turn for the strange.

On October 5, 2018, the crew spent the entire day out at the mine filming. It was fairly isolated, rough and mountainous terrain, but all of them were quite experienced with this sort of shoot, and it was nothing they couldn’t handle. Woods reportedly had been quieter than usual that day, which most just chalked up to tiredness. As the crew began finishing up for the day, something very strange would happen when Woods took off running for no apparent reason and just kept on running right off the face of the earth. The production manager who witnessed it all would later say in a statement to Woods’ father:

“So we were finishing up for the day and your son was talking to one of the miners. I was in one of the vehicles doing some work when your son told the miner that he had to go relieve himself. Something told me, kind of like a gut feeling, to look over near the cliff your son was at, when I looked over there all I saw was the radio lying on the ground. I originally thought your son fell off the cliff so I leaped out of the vehicle and ran over there immediately. To my shock, your son was already 15 feet down the cliff running like a hare. I’ve never seen anyone run that fast. At that point I yelled to the crew to get in a vehicle and go to the main road. I proceeded down the cliff after your son but he kept running. Due to my professional SAR training, I stopped running after him out of fear he’d be further scared. So I went back topside and the crew hadn’t found your son on the main road. At this point we found the first house with a phone and reported your son missing.”

When he made his sudden run into the wilderness, he was carrying his cell phone, but he left behind his two-way radio and a backpack containing his belongings. By the time authorities reached the area, it was getting dark, and after a preliminary patrol of the area with no sign of the missing man, the search was started in earnest the following morning. The search teams used dogs, helicopters, and infrared cameras, but were unable to find a trace of Woods, with even the dogs unable to pick up a scent. A fresh sheen of snow had also fallen, yet no footprints could be found, and it was claimed by a search team member that it was “as if he had never been there at all.” After a week of nothing, the search was called off. In the meantime, some strange clues were turned up.

It would be discovered that, although he had planned to be in Idaho until mid-November, Woods had texted his father to tell him that he would be returning on October 10th, with no elaboration whatsoever, and it was even odder in that he had never been known to cut an assignment short. Some friends and family would also say that he had been acting uncommonly anxious about this trip in the weeks leading up to the shoot, and that he had expressed his desire not to go. This was all very unusual for him, because Woods had always been very enthusiastic about his work and the adventures it took him on. Not everyone agrees with this, though, and his older sister, Sharnia Tisdale, would say:

“I talked to him before he went out there and he seemed fine. He was going to go out and do a job with the film crew and he was going to come home, nothing abnormal and he wasn't acting different. We talk all the time. He is not the type of person that would just run off or do anything like this, so it seems unusual to me but you know I wasn't there so I can only go by what they are saying. He's traveled around the world he really likes to do tv, he is a loving person and caring and an all around good person.”

Also rather weird is that on the morning of the day of his disappearance, he had sent his father creepy footage of a river flowing through a canyon without any explanation or discernible reason for doing so, and although nothing was thought of it at the time in retrospect it now seems a bit eerie. There also seemed to have been some disagreements between Woods and the production manager, although what connection this could have is unknown.

Flyers were distributed all around the region, and volunteer searches orchestrated by the family continued, but no trace was found, and with the cold, snowy weather that had moved in, there was little hope that he could have made it out of there alive. It was truly baffling because Woods’ family would insist that he had never done drugs and did not have any mental issues or personal problems, making it all the more unusual that he should just suddenly bolt like that. While it is easy to see how someone could get lost in this treacherous and hostile terrain, what is it that made this normally rational individual just decide to suddenly drop everything and go running over a cliff to keep on going into that remote landscape to vanish into thin air?

One of the ideas postulated by the family is that he may have been scared of one of the crew members for some reason, to the point that he might have felt his life was in danger, but authorities have said there is no sign at all of foul play. In their opinion, he suffered some sort of mental break and perhaps had even been planning on committing suicide out there, but this is not in keeping with his established character and mental history. Indeed, Woods’ father has accused the police of not properly pursuing the case due to racism. Another rather ominous scenario is that he was possibly murdered by one of the crew members, but there is no evidence of this at all and none of them have ever been considered a suspect. Other, more fringe ideas are that some sort of paranormal force took him after luring him out into the woods, or that he passed through some sort of portal.

What happened to Terrence Shemel Woods Jr.? Why did he just suddenly decide to run off like that to join the annals of strange vanishings? Was this foul play, suicidal tendencies, a death wish, or something perhaps even stranger? To this day, the case has never been solved, and it continues to haunt family, friends, and those who would seek answers.

What is it about the wilderness that draws so many mysterious disappearances to it? Is this just a result of the terrain and wilderness itself, or is there something else going on here? Did these people just get lost or succumb to the elements, and if so, how do we explain all of the strange details involved? There is no way to really know what is going on, and at the moment, some wild places have many strange mysteries, indeed, and people still have a habit of coming here never to return.

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The Bigfoot and the Yeti (or Abominable Snowman) are known to almost everyone, both inside and outside of the paranormal and anomalous world. Indeed, so well known are these creatures that to many, even those would not class themselves as “believers” in the weird and the wonderful perhaps would not be at all surprised if proof of their existence was discovered, with many people accepting there is a good chance that these creatures are very real and not just the stuff of legends, myths, and folklore.

These elusive creatures, though, would appear to be far more than an undiscovered primate or even hominid. Those who have researched, studied, and investigated these mysterious creatures suspect that rather than just being another animal waiting to be discovered and catalogued by science, they are perhaps something much more otherworldly, and understanding these creatures could very well help us understand the bigger picture of the paranormal and anomalous world. Indeed, the notion that Bigfoot creatures are simply an undiscovered animal or a possible hominid is very much up for debate. There is good reason to suspect that these creatures, far from being merely flesh-and-blood animals, are something much more, possibly supernatural, perhaps even interdimensional.

Perhaps one of the first areas of concern (outside of a lack of a recovered body or evidence of a Bigfoot habitat) surrounding an undiscovered flesh-and-blood beast that had eluded detection for seemingly thousands of years was the many accounts that featured these Bigfoot creatures seemingly vanishing into thin air. The highly respected researcher and author, Linda Moulton Howe, for example, recalled an encounter that a rancher had with a Bigfoot creature on his land. She stated that the rancher in question suddenly found himself only several feet from this menacing creature, and after a moment of contemplation, he instinctively raised his weapon and prepared to fire. Before he could, though, the creature simply disappeared in a bizarre flash. This detail can be found in multiple Bigfoot reports and accounts, with many witnesses stressing how the creature was “there one minute and then gone the next!”

We might ask, then, are these creatures simply making themselves invisible? As bizarre as that might sound, there have been several intriguing pieces of footage circulating on the Internet for several years of what appears – or is at least claimed – to show a “cloaked Bigfoot” creature.

Or might it be that these creatures quite literally leave our realm of existence to a destination elsewhere, another dimension, perhaps, or even another time? And if that is true, then how do they achieve this? Can they manipulate reality or the environment to create a portal or gateway, and if so, do they achieve this through their own supernatural (to us) abilities, or do they utilize some kind of advanced technological device? Or perhaps they are simply aware of where certain X-points exist, and are sure not to venture too far from them, which might explain why there are certain “cluster areas” throughout the North American continent of Bigfoot hotspot locations?

Just one Bigfoot researcher who has concluded that these Bigfoot creatures are using some kind of portal or interdimensional gateway to enter our world is Becky Cook, who investigated dozens of Bigfoot encounters throughout the state of Idaho. Cook, though, has also gathered further remarkable data, not least that around 70 percent of people who have had encounters with a Bigfoot creature have also had “at least one near-death experience!” Moreover, rather than just being a strange and fascinating statistic, Cook believes that these near-death experiences have likely opened something within a person’s mind or perception that allowed them to see these elusive creatures in the first place.

There are ample reasons for us to contemplate that these Bigfoot creatures are not only highly intelligent but also have the ability to alter time and even wipe memories, either due to their unique capabilities or, as strange as it might sound, with access to some kind of advanced technology.

With this in mind, an encounter that unfolded in New Zealand in the late 1990s is of particular interest to us here. The anonymous witness claimed in his report that he and a friend were hiking in the wilderness and had made camp in a clearing in the forest on the night in question. During the night, the witness woke needing to relieve himself and so left the tent in order to do so. However, while answering the call of nature, he spotted two huge, hairy, beast-like creatures appear, as if from nowhere, out of the trees, approaching the tent where his hiking partner remained asleep. He noticed that they each took exceptionally long strides as they moved. Moreover, he stated that he could almost “feel” each footstep through the ground itself. Then, the two creatures came to a stop right outside the tent’s entrance. The witness remained as quiet and as still as he could, watching as the two creatures seemingly sized up the tent in front of them. After several moments, they simply turned and headed back into the woodland. By the time the witness returned to the tent, he could see from the look of distress on his face that his friend had also witnessed the bizarre event. The following morning, things turned even stranger.

By 7 am, with daylight bringing a slight sense of calm to the two hikers, they decided to head into the woods in the direction the Bigfoot-type creatures had disappeared. However, almost immediately after heading in that direction, the two witnesses found themselves approaching their camp area. Moreover, it was now sunset. They checked their watches and discovered that 12 hours had passed, 12 hours that they had no memory of whatsoever. Whether this missing time is connected to the strange creatures or not is perhaps open to debate. There are, though, several things for us to consider.

Firstly, there is a connection between UFO hotspots and areas of regular Bigfoot reports, with an increase in such reports usually coinciding with increases in UFO sightings. With this in mind, then, the two witnesses could have found themselves at the center of a close UFO encounter, perhaps even an alien abduction. Even with this possibility, there are perhaps two main “sub-possibilities” to consider. The first is that the two strange creatures are somehow connected to this speculative UFO, and so facilitated an equally speculative abduction scenario. Or, the second possibility is that, if we assume for one moment that these Bigfoot creatures are arriving in our realm from elsewhere, that whatever mechanism they use for this also allows UFOs access to our world, and so this mechanism, combined with the hikers’ curiosity, placed them in the middle of a close encounter. Indeed, if this were the case, then the location in New Zealand (which, unfortunately, is not known) could be considered a place of High Strangeness. Of course, alien abduction is not the only possibility.

If not UFOs or alien abduction, then might we consider that the Bigfoot creatures themselves were responsible for the missing time of the two hikers? Some researchers into these elusive creatures suggest that they not only have the ability to come in and out of our realm of existence (making them both supernatural and flesh-and-blood creatures at the same time) but that they are able, using nothing more than the powers of their minds, able to force people to simply not see them (essentially, making themselves invisible) or for a person to forget their encounters altogether. Could that have been the case here? Could the two creatures have encountered the two hikers the following day and simply erased their minds somehow using some kind of invasive form of telepathy? Indeed, telepathy is another trait that several researchers have suggested these creatures are skilled with.

With this in mind, it is worth exploring another encounter with a Bigfoot creature in the early 2000s in the woodlands of New Hampshire in the United States. According to the report, the anonymous witness was hiking in a remote area, deep in the woods, when he stumbled upon a wounded deer. It was still alive, but it had an arrow sticking out of its body. The witness carefully pulled the arrow out, discarded it, and then tied the deer to a nearby tree so that he could clean the wound. Ultimately, he decided to set up his basecamp next to the deer and continued to tend to it for several days. When it was fully healed and back to good health, he untied the animal, and it headed off back into the woodland. A short time later, the witness began packing up his equipment, ready to move on and explore elsewhere. As he was doing so, however, he suddenly sensed movement behind him. He spun around and was more than shocked to see a Bigfoot creature sitting on a log no more than 20 feet away from him. Then, an already bizarre situation turned even more surreal.

To his shock, this strange creature spoke to him, although not physically, but directly into his mind. This creature stated that it had been watching him as he had cared for the deer and nursed it back to good health. As the creature was telling him this, the witness thought to himself that this figure was the source behind the many sounds of snapping twigs and rustling of bushes he had heard over the last several days. To his further amazement, the creature then confirmed this to him only moments after he had thought it.

While there are reports of Bigfoot creatures all around the planet – some of which we will explore shortly – undoubtedly the biggest concentration of reports comes from North America, particularly the United States and Canada. Furthermore, these reports are only continuing today; they appear to be increasing. One particular encounter made international news headlines in January 2019 after a missing child was discovered, safe and well, offering to his mystified parents and searchers that “a bear helped him” to get back home. According to the reports, three-year-old Casey Hathaway went missing from his North Carolina home and remained missing for the next 48 hours, seemingly somewhere in the forests close to his home in freezing conditions. Then, not only was he discovered safe and well, but he also offered his account that the bear had kept him safe and, essentially, brought him home.

As we might imagine, many experts and people involved with the search put forward that the boy’s claims were simply a coping mechanism, or even a “fantasy” of his creation, not least as not only are there no known similar accounts on record, but most bears would have been deep into hibernation at this time of year. While most people were happy enough to accept this explanation, those in the Bigfoot community believed that the truth of the matter was staring people right in the face. One such commentator stated that:

“….…there are no reports available of bears coming out of hibernation to tend to lost children. However, also on record, are many reports of Bigfoot helping lost children…So, did Casey Hathaway spend two days with a bear, or did he spend two days with a Bigfoot? Some may doubt such a thing. However, in the light of what we know about bears in winter. And Bigfoot’s documented interaction with other children. I am going with Bigfoot!”

Just what did happen to the young boy in question remains unknown. There are, however, other cases on record of people going missing, particularly young children, who have claimed a “hairy man” fed and looked after them and returned them home, many of which have been documented by David Paullides as part of his Missing 411 research. Moreover, these encounters stretch back well over a century, at least.

In Northern Michigan in 1868, for example, a three-year-old girl seemingly vanished into thin air while with her father at a lumber camp. He later stated that his daughter was there one moment, and then gone the next. With the help of two local hunters, the three men set out in search of the missing girl in the next woodland. They searched for the remainder of the day until nightfall forced them to stop. Then, the following morning, they returned to the woods to continue the search. To begin with, it appeared their efforts would go unrewarded. Then, much to their surprise and relief, they heard the “muffled or muted” sounds of a young girl’s voice somewhere close by.

The three men followed the sound of the voice, eventually coming to a river. There, they heard a large splash, and when they turned their focus to where the noise had come from, they could see a “dark shape” that was swimming away from them, towards the opposite riverbank. Before they could take in any further details, however, they noticed the missing girl, standing on a log nearby. She was seemingly in shock, but otherwise unharmed. Eventually, the young girl spoke of the incident to her father, claiming that the large figure – which she called “Mr. Wolf” – had held her prisoner somewhere near the water. What’s more, the creature had “eaten her hat and taken her shoes” (indeed, she was discovered without her hat or shoes). Although she didn’t explain why, she said the wolf-like creature had taken her to the river and left her on the log where she was found. Was the dark figure the three men witnessed Mr. Wolf? And was this strange creature, in fact, a Bigfoot?

Just short of three decades later, there is another encounter of a child who went missing before being discovered that could also have involved a Bigfoot-like creature. Although there is no direct evidence to suggest this, some of the details in the case are very similar to the missing girl in Michigan 30 years earlier. In August 1897, in Maine, six-year-old Lillian Carney was picking blueberries (a bizarre detail that often shows up in missing persons cases) with her mother she simply vanished. Her panic-stricken mother immediately raised the alarm, and a short time later, no less than 200 volunteers were searching the area for the missing girl. She was eventually discovered two days later, although her discovery brought with it more questions than answers.

To begin with, she was in a “trance-like state” and several “dazed!” However, she eventually managed to speak to her parents about her ordeal. She claimed that she had suddenly found herself in the middle of the forest “where the sun had shone the entire time!” It has never been made clear what she meant by this, not least as the weather during the time of disappearance was grey and overcast, and she spent at least some of the time she was missing at night. This has led some people to speculate that she was perhaps inside some kind of structure or building deep in the forest, or that she had even been a victim of alien abduction, and the “sun” was, in fact, some kind of artificial light. We might also consider whether she had quite literally vanished into thin air. After all, if we accept the notion that portals could be responsible for at least some of the Bigfoot appearances and disappearances, perhaps this might also explain not only the young girl’s sudden disappearance and reappearance, but also the constantly shining sun.

Almost exactly a year later, on the afternoon of August 25th, 1898, three-year-old Alice Rachel Peck was picking berries with her mother when she simply disappeared. She was eventually found three days later, no less than five miles away. Much like Lillian and the girl from Michigan, Alice was in a trance-like state, at least to begin with. Then, after several hours, she recalled walking along a strange road and that she was missing her shoes. Perhaps strangest of all, though, an odd creature that she referred to as “the black man” guided her to a safe spot where she was eventually found. Was this “black man” she referred to a Bigfoot creature?

It is also interesting to note that each of these cases featured the respective witnesses feeling dazed and confused following their discovery. If we accept, for a moment, that these cases did involve Bigfoot creatures, is this an example of their apparent ability to control a person’s mind and make it difficult for them to recall their encounters?

In more recent times, even if we take only the second half of the twentieth century onwards, there have been multiple reports of Bigfoot – quite literally thousands of sightings and encounters, specifically so in the United States and Canada. And while these reports occur regularly and consistently, some of the strangest and most detailed occur during UFO waves. In 1973, for example, during one of the busiest and most active UFO waves in history in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, a particularly intriguing Bigfoot encounter unfolded.

According to the account, at around 9 pm on October 25th, multiple witnesses reported seeing a “red spherical object” hovering low over a nearby field. Then, after several moments, the glowing, red orb began to descend, eventually landing in the field in question. Intrigued, several of the witnesses headed over to the landed object. As they approached, they could hear a strange “whirring” sound and could see that the strange object was white and dome-shaped. Most bizarre of all, though, they witnessed two tall figures, each between seven and nine feet tall, emerge from the object. These creatures were covered in thick, shaggy hair, and each had arms that appeared too long for their frames. Most disturbing, however, were the glowing green eyes that each figure sported.

By now, several of the witnesses had drawn their weapons, and, rightly or wrongly, they opened fire on the two creatures. However, rather than drop to the ground injured or even dead, the two figures turned around, and a moment later, a blinding flash filled the witnesses’ vision. When this flash had cleared, the object was no longer there, and the two figures were almost a speck in the distance near the surrounding woodland.

A team of local UFO investigators arrived at the location shortly after, and remained there for most of the night. They noticed that the animals that would normally use the field and graze there wouldn’t go anywhere near it, as if they sensed something utterly terrible. Even stranger, they noticed that almost all of these animals paid them no attention whatsoever, but instead, appeared to be focused on the woods where the two creatures had disappeared. Stranger still, at one point during the evening, investigators witnessed a blinding flash – similar to that witnessed by the witnesses in the field they were investigating – come from another local farmhouse a short distance away. Then, an already bizarre and surreal experience turned even stranger.

Suddenly, one of the witnesses went into a bizarre trance-like state. Stranger still, he began barking and howling like a dog. This continued for several moments, with the witness even pushing investigators to the ground when they tried to restrain him. He ran off into one of the fields, the bizarre, guttural, animalistic sound coming from him as he did so. Then, the sounds stopped for a second or two before an “inhuman scream” came from him. Following this, the man collapsed to the ground, seemingly released from whatever power had overtaken him. As this was happening, investigators noticed the sudden odor of “rotting eggs” – most likely sulfur, an aroma that accompanies a whole host of paranormal phenomena, from ghosts to UFOs, and, of course, Bigfoot encounters. Incidentally, when the man came to, he was able to give a clear description of the events, claiming that while he was in this trance, his mind filled with visions of “the end of the world!”

If there is a Bigfoot presence on the North American continent, whether a permanent one or a recurring temporary one, they have been there for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Many Native American legends, for example, not only refer to these Bigfoot-like creatures, referred to by some tribes as Skoocooms, who they believed were a supernatural-type being.

We might also explore the records of the Norse explorer Leif Erikson, who appears to describe witnessing strange, beastly men during his expedition to the region. Although some researchers put the date of this expedition in the year 986, it appears more likely that the date would have been at some point in the early 1000s. According to the account, as they navigated the New World (North America) they stumbled upon “manlike beasts” who were “horribly ugly, hairy, swarthy, and with great black eyes!” Furthermore, these strange creatures had a “rank odor” and issued a “deafening shriek”, and it was clear that they “towered over” Erikson and his men. According to the record, Erikson and his men had several such encounters with these hairy beasts, and it is perhaps worth noting that Erikson’s men themselves had long hair and thick beards, so, interestingly, they should describe these strange men as “hairy”, perhaps indicating that they were making reference to hair that covered the entire body.

As we mentioned, it isn’t just in North America where Bigfoot encounters are reported. If we turn our attention to the United Kingdom for a moment, we find the research and investigations of Adam Bird, the co-founder of the British Bigfoot Research Organization, who not only documented a Bigfoot encounter in the woods of Lincolnshire in the 2010s, but also captured a picture of it. After collecting several reports from the area, Bird ventured out to the woodland himself. Not long after arriving, he noticed strange footprints in the ground and began hearing the occasional rustling coming from close by. Then, he spotted a strange, shadowy ape-like figure that appeared to be watching him from the surrounding trees. It was at this point that Bird snapped the picture, although he and several fellow members of the organization remained in the area for several hours, during which time they “felt watched and followed!” Bird offered to the media following the encounter that Bigfoot creatures are spotted all over the UK, with reports seemingly beginning to “spread from Scotland right down to southern England!” Moreover, Bird put forward that the creatures themselves are “something unknown” and that the picture he managed to capture “could be genuine evidence that the British Bigfoot exists!”

It is also worth our time exploring the Bigfoot sightings recorded in what is today modern-day Germany, with historical, legendary accounts of a creature known as a Wildermann, whose description is almost identical to what most people would recognize as a Bigfoot. The Wildermann is described as being hairy from head to toe, with huge feet that often leave impressions in the ground. Arguably, the first officially documented encounter with a Bigfoot in Germany occurred in 1855 when Johann Georg Schmidt reported encountering a hairy man-like creature while he was walking in the forests of Bavaria.  

In more recent times, in 1963, several hikers were making their way through the Black Forest when they spotted a Bigfoot-like creature a short distance away. Just short of 20 years later, in 1982, Peter Durr not only spotted a Bigfoot creature on the Bavarian Alps, but managed to capture a photograph of it. Even in the contemporary era, there continue to be sightings and reports. In 2015, for example, a young couple reported seeing such a creature heading towards the Harz Mountains, while in 2018, a man encountered a Bigfoot close to the Rhine River.

If we venture to the other side of the world, to Australia, we can find legends of the Yowie, said to roam the Australian Outback, and these legends go right back to the indigenous tribes of the region. The Yowie is said to be anywhere from six to 12 feet in height and has a distinct “ape-like” appearance, although, like Bigfoot, it walks upright on two legs. Despite this domineering appearance, the Yowie is said to do its best to avoid human contact, and there have been no known cases of a Yowie showing aggression (although there are reports of “savaged pets” on record).

In Japan, there are legends of the Hibagon, which is spotted on and around Mount Hiba in Hiroshima and, from descriptions, appears to be almost identical to the typical American Bigfoot, although it seems to be shorter in height, standing around five feet tall. What is particularly strange about the Hibagon, though, is that sightings of it seem to have started from nowhere at some time in the early 1970s. This sudden appearance has led to multiple possible explanations, ranging from the Hibagon being nothing more than an undiscovered breed of monkey to it being possibly one or more residents of the city who were still suffering the aftereffects of the nuclear bomb dropped over the city in 1945 to bring the Second World War to an end.

In the remote woodlands and mountain regions of Hubei in China, we can find a very similar creature known as the Yeren, sightings of which, similarly, exploded in the second half of the twentieth century. In fact, according to statistics from the Xinhua News Agency, there have been over 400 official reports.

If we return to the United States for a moment, it is very much worth our time exploring the legends of the Billiwhack Monster that is said to reside in the abandoned Billiwhack Dairy Plant in California. Sightings of this strange and ominous creature began at some point after the Second World War, and while reports continue today, they appeared to reach a peak in the 1950s and 1960s. Those who claim to have encountered this menacing beast claim that it is covered in “dirty white hair” and has razor-sharp claws and “ram-like horns” on its head. Perhaps strangest of all, it is often described as looking half-human and half-sheep.

Some of the legends behind this beastly creature are as bizarre and intriguing as the monster itself. According to some, the Billiwhack Monster is the result of a top-secret military experiment that took place towards the end of the Second World War. This experiment looked, according to legend, to create a genetically superior super soldier by combining human DNA with that of an “unknown creature!”

It is interesting to note these claims of a “super soldier” that is a result of human and beastly DNA being combined. While we should treat them with a considerable pinch of salt, much like the claims of the Billiwhack Monster, is that some researchers suggest that the Third Reich were involved in almost identical genetics experiments during the Second World War, with the express purpose of having soldiers who could operate in the freezing conditions of Antarctica (these were, according to the claims, as Polar Men). Could it be possible, perhaps through such post-Second World War programs as Operation Paperclip, that these experiments were carried on, in top-secret, in the United States? It is certainly something worth keeping on the back burner of our minds.

Perhaps what is most interesting about the Billiwhack Monster is that its description is more akin to a Yeti, a creature often referred to as a Siberian or Russian Bigfoot, or, more widely, as the Abominable Snowman. And it is to the Yeti that we will turn our attention next.

In truth, it appears the Yeti roams the mountainous regions of Asia, Siberia, as well as the Himalayas, and we should note that for a large part of the twentieth century, many of these regions were under the control, or at the very least, the influence, of the Soviet Union. And while many insist that the Western Bigfoot is more of a supernatural being rather than a flesh-and-blood one, there is perhaps more reason to believe the latter is the case with the Yeti. It is perhaps worth noting the comments of Sir David Attenborough, who offered, following the discovery of fossils with huge molars, that “the Abominable Snowman may be real”, even suggesting that the Himalayas and the “immense rhododendron forest that goes on for hundreds of square miles could hold the Yeti!” He elaborated that “if there are some alive, and you walked by their habitat, you can bet these creatures may be aware of you, but you wouldn’t be aware of them!”

Sightings of the Yeti would appear to go back thousands of years, at least. One of the earliest apparent documented encounters with this Bigfoot creature of the East is relayed in the book Yeti, Sasquatch, and Hairy Giants by David Hatcher Childress. The account is taken from the ancient writing, Anabasis Alexandri: Book VIII by Arrian, and took place during Alexander the Great’s invasion of India in 326 BC. While making their way to the Indus River, a battle between Alexander’s men and a group of “hairy men” called Tomerus ensued. These Tomerus lived in “stifling cabins” along the banks of the river, and after engaging with Alexander’s men, several of them were captured while the rest fled to the nearby hills.  Upon studying these captives more closely, it was recorded that they “were hairy, not only the heads but the rest of their bodies!” Moreover, they had “nails rather like beasts’ claws!” Interestingly, the account states that these beastly creatures wore “skins of animals” for clothing.

We can find another account from the ancient world of a Yeti in the writings of Claudius Aelianus in De Natura Animalium (On The Nature Of Animals), who detailed an encounter in India around 200 BC. Aelianus called these creatures Satyrs, and he wrote that they were “covered with shaggy hair!” He continued that these strange creatures, “when left to themselves, stay in the forest and eat tree sprouts!” However, when approached, “they run with incredible speed to hide in mountain caves!” One particularly interesting detail is that these creatures “repel approaching humans by hurling stones down at them!” This, of course, echoes many Bigfoot encounters.  

We can find further documented encounters with Yetis in more (relatively speaking) recent times, many of which were relayed in the book Bigfoot by Rupert Matthews. One such account unfolded in Nepal in 1825 when hillwalker B.H. Hodgson claimed his porters told him of seeing a “tall creature covered with long, dark hair!” As soon as the strange creature noticed it was being watched, it “bounded off in apparent fear!”

Just short of 65 years later, in 1889, in Sikkim in northern India, Major L.A. Waddell was on an expedition when he came upon footprints that “seemed to be those of a barefooted man with enormous feet!” Perplexed but amazed, he asked his guide what the footprints belonged to. Without hesitation, he was told that they belonged to “the wild, hairy man!” Moreover, his guides insisted that they all should leave the area immediately.

Several years later, also in the Sikkim region of India, at some point in the 1890s, William Knight encountered an almost identical creature. Although the incident happened at the end of the nineteenth century, it wasn’t until the 1920s that Knight spoke of the encounter via a letter he sent to The Times newspaper. He stated that he was traveling from Tantok to Sedonchen when he stopped to allow his horse to rest for several moments. Almost as soon as they had come to a stop, he could hear a sound coming from behind him, like something emerging from the woodland. He turned around, and “some 20 paces away,” there was a strange creature. He wrote in the letter that he immediately assumed this was “one of the hairy men that the Tibetans call the Abominable Snowman!” He recalled that despite the “bitter cold”, the creature was completely unclothed and was well over six feet in height.

Although he stated that this figure had hair all over its body, he noted that he could make out “pale yellow” skin and that the figure had more hair on its head than on the rest of its body. Even stranger, he claimed that this creature was carrying “some form of primitive bow!” Ultimately, he watched the figure for around five minutes. Then, whether it noticed his attention or not, it suddenly took off running at “tremendous speed!”

A particularly interesting encounter unfolded in the early years of the twentieth century, not least as documentation of it likely resulted in the widely used epithet that this beastly creature would become known by. The encounter involved Mary MacDonald, the daughter of a colonial military officer who was with a team of porters in the mountainous regions close to the Tibetan border. As they made their way along the trail, a sudden piercing cry rang out, causing the group to stop in their tracks. Mary asked her guide what could have made such a sound. However, when she turned to face him, she realized the group was running in the opposite direction in terror. Instinctively, she reached for one of the guns and then set off towards the rest of the group. They all eventually came to a stop, and she was told that the creature who made the shrieking call was a “Metoh Kangmi” – this translated as “Bad Man of the Snow!”

Now, it would be another two decades before this moniker came up again, only on this occasion, the translation was slightly different, and it was this translation that spread throughout the West. As he was scouting Mount Everest, Colonel Howard-Bury was told of the same creature after they discovered extraordinarily large footprints in the snow. Howard-Bury, however, mistranslated the name as “Abominable Snowman”, which subsequently began appearing in print in English newspapers in various parts of the world.  

Sightings and encounters with the Yeti have continued across the decades right into the modern age, with some of the most well-known occurring in the 1950s, a time when the wider populations of the West began taking notice of this strange cold-weather creature. Arguably, the most famous of these encounters resulted in one of the most famous photographs ever captured, which showed a clear, large footprint in the snow around Mount Everest. The picture was captured by English mountaineer Eric Shipton, who was on a research mission in the region in 1951. Incidentally, the discovery of the foot impression was at approximately 20,000 feet above sea level.

Three years later, John Angelo Jackson led an expedition to the same region with the specific goal of finding evidence of the “Abominable Snowman” – as it was now being referred to. The expedition was sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper (and even billed as the Daily Mail Snowman Expedition) and stretched from Everest to Kanchenjunga. As well as discovering and photographing several footprints impressed into the snow during the expedition, the team also uncovered ancient symbolic depictions of the beast, perhaps confirming that it had been in existence in the region for thousands of years.

In 1959, American entrepreneur Tom Slick embarked on his expedition of the Himalayan regions in an attempt to locate proof of the Yeti, and his mission was arguably one of the most fruitful yet. He not only discovered a feces sample thought to have come from a Yeti, but when this sample was tested, a parasite was discovered within it that was, and remains, unknown to science. Moreover, declassified documents have since shown just how much of an interest the United States intelligence services took in these Bigfoot and Yeti creatures. This document states that “American resources in the last two years have been concentrated on efforts to capture the Abominable Snowman!”

One person who has studied the Yeti extensively is Maya Bykova, who conducted decades of research right up until she died in 1996. Perhaps one of the most fascinating details of her research, not least as it would resonate with researchers of the North American Bigfoot, is that these creatures can make themselves “invisible” as an act of defense. Once more, we might ask, is this something these creatures simply can do, or do they utilize some kind of technological device? To answer that question, we continue relaying Bykova’s research, which highlights the beliefs of the Tibetan red-hatted monks. They claim that the Yetis (and, incidentally, Bigfoot creatures) are one of the few remaining creatures on Earth that can control their brain activity to the point where they can make themselves appear invisible.

At this point, it is worth asking if the Yeti and the Bigfoot are the same creature, even different breeds of the same creature, or whether they are entirely different. Clearly, white hair aside, physical descriptions are very similar, although there are some differences. Their height, for example, is perhaps one of the clearest differences, with the Yeti seeming to be around six feet tall and the Bigfoot being around eight feet in height. Moreover, while Bigfoot is described as specifically ape-like, many descriptions of the Yeti tend to have an appearance more like a bear. Ultimately, these differences aside, it would appear that these creatures are related somehow.

We might ask, then, if there is a connection between these strange and elusive creatures, how long have they been here, and where did they come from? Are they indigenous to Earth, or were they brought here from elsewhere? Or might, as some researchers have suggested, they have been the result of a genetic experiment deep in antiquity? Although we are straying into ancient astronaut territory here, some researchers have highlighted several verses from ancient Sanskrit texts translated by Zecharia Sitchin that appear to describe just such a genetic experiment. The verses in question feature Enki, one of the leading Anunnaki, who is selecting the “most developed primate” on the planet with which to combine Anunnaki (extraterrestrial) DNA. Describing one of these early attempts, the verse states:

“Shaggy with hair all over was the newborn. His foreparts like of the Earth creatures were. His hind parts to those of the Anunnaki more akin they were.”

Another verse is even more descriptive. This verse describes one of the genetically-altered creatures after it had been given time to grow and develop. Despite this, Enki soon realized that this creation was also not suitable for their needs. The verse states:

“Taller the Earth child grew. In the image of the Anunnaki he was not. His hands for tools were not suited. His speech only grunting sounds was!”

Do these verses describe what we might recognize as a Bigfoot creature? And if Sitchin’s translations are correct (and we should note that many are highly suspicious as to the accuracy of his translations), then do they describe the Bigfoot’s origins on our planet? Is this why they seemingly possess such remarkable abilities as being able to render themselves invisible or even control a person’s mind? Perhaps these Bigfoot creatures were allowed to develop on their own, away from the Anunnaki, and, over the eons and centuries, away from humanity until (relatively speaking) recent years. If we look at another Sanskrit writing – the Epic of Gilgamesh – we might find another telling of Bigfoot and its history on our planet.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is the oldest text in the world, dated around 2700 BC, and tells the story of Enkidu, a close friend of Gilgamesh, a “wild man” who resided outside of the main city. Part of that text describes Enkidu as:

“…like an animal, Enkidu’s body had hitherto been covered with hair which is now shaved off. He is anointed with oil and clothed like a man!”

Could Enkidu have been a Bigfoot creature? And is this not only another example of documentation of these creatures in the ancient world, but of their apparent intelligence? While this tale tells of Enkidu wearing clothes and shaving his body hair, we might imagine that other Bigfoot creatures will have existed who remained outside of society.

As we might imagine, many experts insist that the Epic of Gilgamesh is nothing but a work of fiction. However, we should note that Gilgamesh himself was very real, with many records of his activities and achievements. Moreover, when this particular tale was committed to the official record, writing was much more of an arduous and expensive task, and as such, only the most important information was “written” down. With this in mind, and given that we know Gilgamesh very much existed, we perhaps should take the tales of Enkidu at much more face value.

Whatever the truth, Bigfoot (and Yetis) remain not only one of the most elusive entities on the planet, but one of the most mysterious and intriguing. Indeed, should we ever manage to establish the true nature and origins of these creatures, it would likely shine a light on many other unsolved and unexplained areas of our collective reality, possibly providing answers to everything from cryptid creatures (as we would understand them) to UFOs and even the potential existence of portals and gateways. In that sense, Bigfoot is so much more than just a wild beast that roams the woodlands and wilderness in an attempt to avoid contact with humanity. It is very likely one of the keys to the mysteries of the Universe and our collective existence within it.