In Research Of

Original In Search Of... air date: November 1, 1980 (syndicated; see Deep Cuts) Hosts: Jeb Card and Blake Smith Guest: Sharon A. Hill, geologist, science writer, and author of Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers. Sharon also has a new cryptid-themed podcast out now called Pop Goes the Cryptid! Snag that RSS right here.

Five and a half months after Mount St. Helens blew out its north flank, In Search Of... got a volcano episode on the air, and geologist (and almost-volcanologist) Sharon Hill returns to help us dig through the rubble.

👔 Nimoy Fashion Alert Nimoy trying to cross a military blouse with a safari overshirt - but somehow he makes it work. Nimoy kneels and reveals his dark loafers and dark navy blue pants.

Thanks as always to Pedro, our Canadian fashion consultant. Note that those shoulder loops are not epaulettes.

Sharon walks us through the eruption: phreatic steam blasts starting in March, a bulge on the north face growing about five feet a day, and her old Penn State professor Barry Voight warning that the north flank would fail in a giant landslide. (It did.) Observers said the mountain suddenly "went fuzzy" from the shaking, the flank collapsed, and the pressure underneath flashed into a sideways blast. Then came the ash, which reached a big chunk of the country. Jeb puts the ash-fall map in perspective with the meter-thick layers he encountered on a dig in El Salvador near Ilopango.

Nimoy can't

The Photographers

The episode has stills but very little motion footage, which sent Blake down a rabbit hole about who was actually behind a camera that morning. Robert Landsburg rewound his film, packed it, and lay on his backpack to shield it. His film survived; he did not. Reid Blackburn's camera was recovered, but the heat ruined it. And KOMO's Dave Crockett kept his camera rolling while stumbling through the ash-dark for hours, producing one of the great unintentional found-footage openings of all time: "I honest to God believe I'm dead."

The Eyewitness

Our main on-the-ground witness is Mrs. Adriana Johnson, dressed for the part, standing on the hardened lahar that swallowed her neighborhood along the Toutle River. Sharon explains how the blast hit Spirit Lake and sent a hot slurry of ash, rock, and water down the valley, and why that sediment is still a headache for engineers today.

A Painter and the hidden "bigfoot"

The episode flashes a painting of an earlier eruption without much context. Jeb tracked it to Canadian painter Paul Kane and found his published journal, which describes a "race of beings of a different species, who are cannibals" said to live on the mountain. Yes, the Bigfoot connection to Mount St. Helens goes back to 1847. Kane's next entry, about a burial site set on fire by a visiting American commodore, is a lot less fun. (Jeb reads it in the episode.)

Dr. Alexander McBirney

Jeb spent an embarrassing amount of time making sure the University of Oregon building sign was real (fool me once, UFO Coverups). It is. There we meet Dr. Alexander "Mac" McBirney, who looks highly amused, and who turns out to have written Sharon's igneous petrology textbook. Founding director, UO Center for Volcanology, his obituary is here. We get a filmstrip-style tour of volcano types that was inexpensive but doesn't look "cheap."

The Human Seismograph?

Seismographs are dismissed in the episode as unreliable (they aren't), volcanologists are said to be "developing the magnetometer" (they've existed since the 1830s), and so perhaps the real tool is the human mind. Enter Charlotte King, who says she feels harmonic tremors as migraines, called in a 12-hour warning, and had the pores on her hands open and bleed before the eruption (StigMAGMA). The show catches her in pain on camera, and the USGS confirms tremor activity at that moment. Sharon explains why that's less impressive than it sounds. Note: unlike most of the people in this episode, Charlotte King is still with us, and her website is still active.

Unexpected Final Thoughts

Just when you think the episode is done, it hands the final word to Cowlitz Indian Tribe chairman Roy I. Wilson, in voiceover only, warning of "spirit retribution against the white men who desecrated our graves." We talk about how that lands, what real grievances sat underneath it (clear-cut slopes, dams, Weyerhaeuser), and the woven hat in the closing footage, which is made in the style of Coast Salish basketry hats like this one.

🔬 Deep Cuts & Research Notes

🎸 Goblins about Goblin. The 1981 HBO film St. Helens was scored by Goblin, Dario Argento's house band. Blake's insert covers their path from would-be Yes disciples to Deep Red, Suspiria, and Zombi. Guitarist Massimo Morante died in June 2022. Claudio Simonetti's Goblin is touring a live score to Tenebre this fall. 🎞️ The movie the family hated. St. Helens starred Art Carney as Harry Truman and David Huffman as "David Jackson," a thinly veiled David Johnston rewritten as a maverick. Johnston's family threatened to sue, and 36 scientists who knew him signed a protest letter. Filming started in November 1980 and it premiered on the first anniversary, so a five-month turnaround for this episode is not a stretch. 🏷️ No saint required. The mountain is named for Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens, a British diplomat, by George Vancouver in 1792. (USGS FAQ) 📅 When did this air? TheTVDB lists November 1, 1980; Blake's TV listing is from December 12, 1980. In Search Of... was a syndicated show, so stations aired episodes on their own schedules. Either way, it's months, not years, after the eruption. 📸 The "22 photographers" number. A figure of 22 photographers on the mountain gets repeated online without a source, and it has the feel of echo-lore. Blake's best guess at an origin is USGS Professional Paper 1250, which reconstructs the eruption's timing from photographs taken at numerous viewpoints. Counting attributable images instead: Landsburg and Blackburn in the blast zone; Gary Rosenquist and Keith Ronnholm at Bear Meadow, with Vern Hodgson a few miles farther out; Roger Werth of the Longview Daily News; Robert Krimmel of the USGS; AP staffers; and geologists Keith and Dorothy Stoffel, who were flying over the summit in a Cessna when it went. 🧪 "Acidic ash" that isn't ash. Per Sharon, volcanic "ash" isn't combustion ash at all. It's pulverized rock and volcanic glass, mostly silica and aluminum, from sand-sized down to powder, which is why it's so bad for your lungs. The ash itself isn't acidic; sulfur gases riding along with it make acid rain. Long term, all those minerals make great soil (hello, Idaho potatoes). 🔥 Pelean, Plinian, or both? Eruption styles are named after type volcanoes: Peléan for Mount Pelée, Plinian for Pliny's account of Vesuvius. Sharon flags "Pelean" as the wrong call for St. Helens, though close. Wikipedia currently lists the 1980 eruption as phreatic, Plinian, and Peléan, so the honest answer is "it's complicated," and the signature feature is really the lateral blast. Sharon has seen it called "Pelean-Plinian," which Jeb hates on principle. 💨 The word they never said. We say "pyroclastic flow" a lot in this episode. The script never does. On Jeb's Dante's Peak question: St. Helens' later pyroclastic flows are estimated at 50 to 80 mph, but the lateral blast started around 220 mph and may have hit 670. Outrunning one in a pickup is still a bad plan. (wikipedia) 🌡️ 12,000 degrees centigrade. The episode says the 1902 Pelée blast that destroyed St. Pierre was "estimated at 12,000 degrees centigrade." Nope. Pyroclastic flows run on the order of hundreds of degrees up to around 1,000°C, which is plenty. The ~30,000 death toll is about right, and yes, the man in the jail cell who survived went on to tour with Barnum & Bailey. 🔢 Death toll inflation. The episode gives Krakatoa "more than 96,000" deaths; the commonly cited figure for 1883 is about 36,000, most killed by tsunamis. Etna's 1669 eruption gets 20,000, but contemporary sources don't report mass fatalities and the big numbers appear later (more here). Etna is a lava-flow volcano; it wrecks villages, and people walk away. 🏺 Not mummified, not sudden. The Pompeii "bodies" are plaster casts, a technique introduced by Giuseppe Fiorelli, poured into voids left in the ash. The eruption also unfolded over many hours. At Herculaneum, by contrast, the heat was fast and extreme enough that one victim's brain turned to glass. 🧲 "Developing the magnetometer." Magnetometers date to the 1830s. Sharon explains the real use: rock loses its magnetization when it melts, so rising magma shows up as a magnetic anomaly. And seismographs absolutely are central to volcano monitoring, despite what the narration says. 📈 Charlotte King and the odds. The episode treats a USGS-confirmed tremor during her on-camera episode as a hit. But in late June 1980 St. Helens was an active, closely watched volcano, and harmonic tremors were being reported that very week. Low-level seismicity at an active volcano is near-constant; calling it is playing the odds. Her claims are discussed (skeptically) in David Ulin's The Myth of Solid Ground; BLDGBLOG has a good summary. 🏔️ Shasta's phantom eruption. Nimoy says Shasta "last erupted 200 years ago." That date traces to a plume seen by La Pérouse's expedition in 1786, which has since been struck from the record as probably a grass fire. Shasta's confirmed eruptions are thousands of years old (USGS eruption history). Still a dangerous volcano, just not on that schedule. 🦶 Bigfoot on the volcano. Kane's 1847 "Skoocooms" sits alongside the oft-reprinted 1840 letter attributed to missionary Elkanah Walker about giants stealing salmon (we have yet to find a digitized original). Ape Canyon, site of the 1924 "apemen" story, is on the mountain's flank, and nearby Ape Cave, a lava tube, is named for the Mount St. Helens Apes club that explored it in the 1950s. After 1980, some Bigfooters mourned the local population; others told stories of the Army hauling away injured Sasquatches. 🪵 The Weyerhaeuser story. Weyerhaeuser owned much of the forest around the mountain and kept crews logging near the danger zone. Had the eruption hit on a Monday, the death toll could have been far higher. In 1986 the company settled a suit on behalf of 17 victims without admitting responsibility. Roughly 57 people died in the eruption, with four more indirect deaths from ash-related accidents and heart attacks. 🏛️ The $140 million punchline. In his 2009 response to the State of the Union, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal mocked "something called volcano monitoring" as wasteful spending. Alaska's Mount Redoubt erupted the following month. 🥾 Nimoy's backyard? We're increasingly convinced Nimoy's rocky outcrop is a recurring location (see also our Maya episode). Time for a forensic roundup?

📚 References & Links

The eruption 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens (Wikipedia) The 1980 Eruptions of Mount St. Helens, Washington (USGS Professional Paper 1250, PDF) Mount St. Helens 1980 ash (USGS Volcanic Ash) How the eruption affected surrounding forests (Mount St. Helens Science and Learning Center) After Mount St. Helens erupted, 1980 became a lost spring (UW Magazine) Lahar and Pyroclastic flow (Wikipedia) In the interest of public safety (Penn State on Barry Voight) Witnesses and responders The Haunting Final Images From Two Photographers on Mt. St. Helens (That Oregon Life) Dave Crockett's KOMO interview (YouTube) Echoes of an Eruption: Former deputy shares dispatch recording (The Chronicle; includes an hour of dispatch audio) Christian Science Monitor, June 2, 1980 (Adriana Johnson) History and folklore Paul Kane, Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America (Internet Archive) Paul Kane and Mount St. Helens (USGS) Goat Rocks eruptive period, 1800 to 1857 (Wikipedia) Alleyne FitzHerbert, 1st Baron St Helens (Wikipedia) RIP Roy I. Rochon Wilson, 1927 to 2025 (Chinook Jargon blog) Volcanology UO Center for Volcanology Rise of plate tectonics led UO into volcanology research (UO News) Alexander R. "Mac" McBirney (1924 to 2019) (Eos) Harmonic tremor (Wikipedia) Etna and man (Italy's Volcanoes) Armero tragedy (Nevado del Ruiz, 1985) (Wikipedia) Pop culture St. Helens (1981) (Wikipedia) Goblin (Wikipedia) This American Life #875, "I Hate Mysteries," Act One CHiPs and Robert Pine (Wikipedia) Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer (Wikipedia)

📖 Related Books

Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens by Steve Olson. The book Sharon used for prep, including the Weyerhaeuser angle. In the Path of Destruction: Eyewitness Chronicles of Mount St. Helens by Richard Waitt. A USGS geologist's collection of survivor and witness accounts. Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith by David L. Ulin. Features Charlotte King. Igneous Petrology by Alexander R. McBirney. Sharon's textbook. Devolution by Max Brooks. Sasquatch, Mount Rainier, and a very bad week. Scientifical Americans: The Culture of Amateur Paranormal Researchers by Sharon A. Hill.

⏭️ Next Time

We go in research of The Lindbergh Kidnapping. In Research Of... is a MonsterHouse production. Theme music by Rachel Lackey and Greg Johnson. Support the show at https://patreon.com/inresearchof.

Jeb and Blake go in research of... MOON MADNESS! Does the full moon drive people mad? Will this episode drive your hosts mad? Was In Search Of... not able to afford a fact-checker in season five? SO MANY QUESTIONS!

This is our Halloween Episode for season five.

This is our TIME TRAVEL episode for season five.

This is... MOON MADNESS.

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Extended show notes freely available on our Patreon Site.

⚠️ Heads up: this episode opens with combat footage from the Tet Offensive and includes graphic descriptions of battlefield injury, a child in medical crisis, and animal experimentation. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text at 988.⚠️

Jeb and Blake look at the birth of NDE research: a field of study with a significant footprint in the metro-Atlanta area. Rats are bothered. Soldiers are wounded. Canadian teens are frozen. ...and we're here to talk about all of it.

📺 Episode Summary

Despite the title, this one isn't really about proving there's an afterlife - and that turns out to be the most interesting thing about it. In Search Of takes the near-death experience and, instead of building a case for Heaven, spends most of its runtime on a much stranger question: when, exactly, is a person dead? We get four threads. A grievously wounded Vietnam veteran who watched his own body being worked on and then went back to the battlefield to talk with the men he'd already put in bags. An Emory physiologist chilling rats into a state he calls clinically-but-not-biologically dead. A Manitoba teenager whose heart was stopped for well over two hours in a snowbank and who came back with nothing to report but darkness. And a woman recalling a 1952 polio vision full of white light, a dead grandmother, and a complete moral audit of her own life. Between those, the medical talking heads keep circling the same admission: nobody agrees where the line is. It's a surprisingly restrained ISO episode ... and there's a very large name conspicuously missing from it.

👔 Nimoy Fashion Alert

(NFA fashion consultant, Pedro Mendes)

👥 Who's In This Episode

Tommy Clack — Army captain, artillery forward observer with the 25th Infantry Division "Wolfhounds." Wounded 29 May 1969 near the Cambodian border, losing three limbs; 22 months at the Atlanta VA and 33 operations followed. He finished college as an honors graduate, spent a long career at the VA, and became one of the country's more relentless veterans' advocates. He talks about the out-of-body experience, but - as Jeb found - he almost never leads with it. As of our recording he's still out there supporting veterans.

Dr. Michael Sabom — Atlanta cardiologist. He's here to say that medicine can't pin down the moment of death. Two years later he publishes Recollections of Death, built on 116 interviews which form the closest thing the field had to a quantitative baseline. His later work takes a considerably more explicitly Christian turn.

Dr. Vojin "Voja" Popović — Yugoslav-born physiologist at Emory, and the episode's designated rat botherer. Central casting could not have done better. He chills rats into apparent death and brings them back, drawing his line between clinical and biological death at the two-to-three hour mark. His actual career is a wonder: hibernators, ground squirrels, tumor-bearing hamsters, cooled dogs, hamsters submerged in oxygen-rich fluorocarbon, and a rat experiment slated for a Spacelab flight that never happened. Frequently co-credited with his wife, Dr. Pava Popović.

Ted Milligan — Sixteen, and a student at St. John's Cathedral Boys' School near Selkirk, Manitoba, whose curriculum included a 27-mile snowshoe hike in temperatures around forty below. Found with no heartbeat, no breathing, and a core temperature below 25°C. By the time of filming he's a private in the Canadian Armed Forces. His account of the experience is the shortest in the episode and, for a materialist, the most instructive: darkness, then waking up.

Dr. Gerald "Gerry" Bristow — The episode calls him "James." He's not. Later Professor Emeritus at the University of Manitoba and a genuine world authority on hypothermia; he and Dr. Robert Smith declined to do the sensible thing and kept working on a boy every indicator said was gone. An eyewitness account from anesthesiologist Dr. Arnold Tweed fills in what the episode leaves out, including the documented duration of the cardiac arrest.

Dr. Fred Schoonmaker (d. 2005) — Denver cardiologist at St. Luke's, former fighter pilot, developer of a less invasive cardiac catheter, and a driving force behind Denver air ambulance service. He marks the difference between patients who know their visions weren't real and patients who insist theirs were.

Dr. Janette Rainwater — Introduced as "Janet." A significant figure in Gestalt therapy, Berkeley PhD (1964), author of You're in Charge!, and the veteran of several hundred workshops. Her polio experience is the most classic NDE in the episode - light, deceased relative, life review, a very symbolic climb. Jeb's research turns up a detail the reenactment gets badly wrong, and it changes how you hear the whole segment.

Rev. Loren Young (d. 2003) — Methodist minister and theologian out of Oak Hill, West Virginia; Duke, then a Bachelor of Divinity from Candler School of Theology at Emory; Southeastern Director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. He arrives at the very end to say something warm about a merciful God right before the episode itself goes into the light.

Dr. Raymond Moody — Not in this episode. Which is a puzzle. Moody was born in Porterdale, Georgia, earned his PhD at West Georgia College and his MD at the Medical College of Georgia in 1976, and in 1975 published Life After Life - the book that coined "near-death experience," sold in the millions, and made this a subject television wanted to cover at all. The episode borrows his title, his framework, and arguably his entire premise, films almost the whole thing in and around Atlanta, yet never mentions him.

🔍 Deep Cuts & Research Notes

A partial list of what we get into, without spoiling the good parts: 🌡️ Why 98.6°F was never a real number, and what a 2020 Stanford study says it is now 🎞️ Jeb's video forensics on some footage that looked very familiar, and why "we already did this episode" keeps coming up ⛪ The Company of the Cross, muscular Christianity, Ted Byfield, and a school whose controversial history we found a bit jaw-dropping. 🐹 Fluorocarbon breathing, hamsters, and learning James Cameron didn't make that up for The Abyss ✍️ What happens to a story when a documentary gets someone's name — and age — wrong, and where that sits on the line between sloppy and deceptive 🍑 Blake's hypothesis for why Atlanta briefly became the center of American NDE research, and what it has to do with trauma centers, cardiac units, blue laws, and a media hub 📊 The selection problem sitting underneath all of this: we only ever hear from the people who came back 🧭 Where each of us actually stands on this, perhaps not quite where you'd guess

⭐ Ratings 🔮 Predictions Recap

Skipped this week - Blake is pretty sure this is the last week we are missing the segment. He's found the recordings and I think we have it sorted out from here.

🌕 Next Episode

We go in research of… Moon Madness.

📚 Related Books

These are affiliate links — if you buy through them, the show gets a small cut at no extra cost to you. • Raymond Moody —Life After Life(1975) The book this episode is named after, by the man this episode never mentions. Coined the term "near-death experience" and set the template every account since has been measured against. • Michael B. Sabom —Recollections of Death: A Medical Investigation(1982) Sabom's 116 interviews, published two years after he appears here. The attempt to put actual numbers on the phenomenon. • Michael Sabom —Light & Death(1998) The same researcher, eighteen years later, with the Atlanta Study and a much more openly Christian frame. Useful as a before-and-after. • Vojin Popović & Pava Popović —Hypothermia in Biology and in Medicine(1974) Our rat botherer's standard reference, and still cited in the modern therapeutic hypothermia literature. Expensive and hard to find, but it exists. • Janette Rainwater —You're in Charge! A Guide to Becoming Your Own Therapist(1979) Published the year before this episode aired. Reading it alongside her segment is the whole point. • James Raffan —Deep Waters: Courage, Character and the Lake Timiskaming Canoeing Tragedy The definitive account of what happened to the St. John's school system's outdoor program in 1978. Context for Ted Milligan's segment that the episode does not give you. • Susan Blackmore —Dying to Live: Near-Death Experiences(1993) The materialist case, made carefully and without contempt. Anoxia, endorphins, temporal lobe activity, and the dying-brain model. • Bruce Greyson —After: A Doctor Explores What Near-Death Experiences Reveal about Life and Beyond(2021) Four decades of research from the field's most careful living investigator. The best single answer to "what does this look like now?"

Note: This episode briefly touches on the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Blake and Jeb crash headlong into S05E04 of In Search Of... on the topic of Daredevil Death Wish.

Episode Summary

This In Search Of episode asks a surprisingly straightforward question for this show: what drives daredevils to risk their lives? Rather than chasing aliens or cryptids, the episode plays it remarkably straight - functioning more as a documentary about stunt performers than the paranormal-adjacent fare we've come to expect. After a montage of vintage stock footage the episode profiles several working daredevils: Pat Jackson, a 42-year-old housewife who rides motorcycles through flaming boards; Roger Kober, a 22-year-old whose "slide for life" goes wrong on camera; Hank Wise and his "Iron Man" act (letting a truck drive over his body); and Chuck Strange, a demolition derby natural turned pickup-truck pilot whose Astrodome crash nearly killed him. The episode's most substantive segment features Kim Kahana's stunt school in California, where the veteran stuntman trains young performers in the difference between a daredevil ("a guy who just says, let's do it") and a professional who uses illusion and safety. Psychologist Dr. Samuel Z. Klausner provides the academic frame, describing stress-seeking as almost addictive - the euphoria of overcoming fear becomes a need that grows stronger with each attempt. Notably, the episode is produced by the same team behind That's Incredible!, yet takes a far more restrained, documentarian approach than that show's sensationalist style. The result is one of the most credible episodes of In Search Of we've encountered - and, consequently, one of the least weird.

**EXTENSIVE NOTES AT PATREON**

Jeb and Blake tackle In Search Of...'s S05E03 topic of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Episode Summary

This In Search Of episode examines the assassination of President John F. Kennedy through the lens of (at the time this aired) newly discovered acoustic evidence and Cold War intrigue. Rather than accepting the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the episode presents "new evidence" suggesting a conspiracy involving multiple gunmen, potential Soviet involvement, and even the extraordinary theory that the man killed by Jack Ruby may not have been the real Lee Harvey Oswald. The episode relies heavily on acoustic analysis of the Dallas police motorcycle tape (1978), testimony from KGB defector Yuri Nosenko, handwriting analysis of Oswald's Soviet diary, and the fringe theory of British investigator Michael Eddowes that a Soviet lookalike carried out the assassination.

Notably, this episode aired just three weeks before the election of Ronald Reagan, and sits chronologically between two major investigations: Dr. James Barger's acoustic analysis work (1978) and the National Academy of Sciences' debunking of that analysis (1982). EXTENSIVE Show Notes at our Patreon site - free for reading.

Blake and Jeb discuss ISO's coverage of FAITH HEALING. The episode goes to places new and old. Jeb gives us historical context. Blake gets angry. Nimoy wears a lab coat.

EXTENSIVE Show Notes on our free Patreon page

Weirdumentary has a forward by Stephen Bissette who wrote a book also likely to be of interest to listeners: Cryptid Cinema (affiliate link) (A follow-up to that book is under construction and will include research by your's truly about the "4-walling" tour of the PGF.)

I linked to Feral House's page for Weirdumentary above at the request of Gary. If you're curious about their catalog, we talked with their owner recently about monstrous food and they also produced Al Ridenour's new book about Carnival.

This is not a complete list of the films in the book - and it also covers a few TV series including In Search Of... and Arthur C. Clarke's _____ (he had three ITV series covering topics similar to ISO with each season getting a slightly different name).

1970: Chariots of the Gods, The Unexplained

1971: The Hellstrom Chronicles, The Man Who Saw Tomorrow

1972: Bigfoot Man or Beast, Monsters! Mysteries or Myths?, The Devil's Triangle, The Legend of Boggy Creek

1973: In Search of Ancient Astronauts

1974: Deadly Fathoms, In Search of Ancient Mysteries, In Search of Dracula, UFOs: Past, Present and Future

1975: Mysteries from Beyond Earth, The Force Beyond, The Legendary Curse of the Hope Diamond, The Man of Miracles, The Outer Space Connection

1976: Beyond Belief, In Search of Noah's Ark, Mysteries of the Gods, The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena, The Legend of Bigfoot, The Legend of Loch Ness, The Miracle Healers, The Mysterious Monsters, World Beyond Death

1977: Aliens from Spaceship Earth, Journey into the Beyond, Mysteries of the Great Pyramid, The Lincoln Conspiracy, The Underground Doctors, The Unknown Force

1978: Are We Alone in the Universe?, Beyond and Back, Curse of the Mayan Temple, Manbeast! Myth or Monster?, Mysteries from Beyond the Triangle, Mysteries of the Mind, Mystery of the Sacred Shroud, Secret of the Bermuda Triangle, The Amazing World of Ghosts, The Late Great Planet Earth, The Lost City of Atlantis, The UFO Journals, UFO - Exclusive! , UFO: Top Secret, Unknown Powers, World of the Unknown

1979: Attack from Outer Space, Charles Berlitz's The Bermuda Triangle, Death: The Ultimate Mystery, Encounter with Disaster, Hypnosis and Beyond, In Search of the Historic Jesus, The Doomsday Chronicles, The Prophecies of Nostradamus, UFOs Are Real, World of Mystery

1980: Arthur C. Clarke's Mysterious World (TV), Land of Celtic Ghosts, Mysteries of the Mind, UFO Syndrome

1981: Search for the Titanic

Show less

Jeb and Blake kick off Season 5 of In Search Of... by researching UFO COVERUPS!

Links:

UFO Crash at Roswell

Catalina UFO Footage and Reddit discussion of same

Twilight Zone - A Small Talent for War

Malmstrom UFO Incident

Obit for Col. Donald Burggrabe

Peter Gersten "the UFO Lawyer"

Raymond Fowler

Col. Robert Friend - and obit

Jesse Marcel Sr.

NASA Lifting Body

Northrop Flying Wing

Doak VZ-4 (not a saucer!)

Avrocar

Jupiter II (Lost in Space)

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

UFO Crash Sites in New Mexico:

There is a lot of Top Secret in this episode:

Col Donald Burggrabe

Raymond Fowler

Peter Gersten

Donald Ritter

Jesse Marcel Sr.

Col Robert Friend

And was the model UFO in this episode a guest star from Lost In Space?

Blake and Jeb go In Research Of PAST LIVES with Leonard Nimoy. Subjects include reincarnation claims, past-life regression therapy, and some truly baffling Nimoy wardrobe choices. Link to YouTube Episode (while it lasts) Topics we cover include:

•

Nimoy wandering a Los Angeles graveyard in a strange quasi-military sport coat, and Blake's detective work tying the filming location to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights.

•

The famous Pollock twins case from Hexham, England, where two girls were said to be the reincarnations of their deceased sisters — and how later research complicates the story.

•

Dr. Lucia Capacchione's art-therapy / inner-child work and how the show uses regression narratives to explain modern psychological problems.

•

Playwright A.J. Stewart (Ada F. Kay), who became convinced she was James IV of Scotland and wrote Falcon: The Autobiography of His Grace James IV King of Scots as if from the king's own perspective.

•

Whether past-life regression therapy produces evidence of reincarnation or just vivid, therapist-shaped fantasy, and why skeptics are so wary of hypnosis-based "memories."

NFA (Nimoy Fashion Alert):

Cemetery Detective Work:

Using the 2nd NFA shot, I was able to decipher the tex on the dark tombstone. It is a lot darker in real life with a modern shot.

That "Find a Grave" entry includes the exact location where Nimoy was standing for this episode's cemetery shot.

Jeb asked for an animated gif of the woman in the castle with secret doors:

The cover of Robert and Loy Young's book about reincarnation:

The twins at the heart of the British (Hexham!) reincarnation story:

And I can't help but scream - DON'T GO NEAR THE EDGE!!! This episode is such a cliffhanger.

Deeper reading & sources mentioned: Pollock twins case write-up at the Society for Psychical Research's Psi Encyclopedia Psi Encyclopedia on famous past-life claims (including A.J. Stewart / Ada F. Kay): Ada F. Kay / A.J. Stewart biography (reincarnation claim & Falcon background) Evergreen Cemetery (Los Angeles) – history and the Japanese "Garden of the Pines" section Lucia Capacchione and inner-child / expressive-arts therapy Skeptical overview of past-life regression therapy (Harriet Hall, Science-Based Medicine): General background on past-life regression and why psychologists consider it pseudoscientific

Jeb and Blake ponder Atlantis and "healing holes" in the waters off the coast of Bimini. (Weirdly this is almost literally true as Blake ended up actually in Bimini just a week before this ep released. More on that soon.)

Links for Shownotes:

Roby Yonge on "The Beatles Paul is Dead"

Neptune Memorial Reef

"Psychic" Irene Hughes

Bimini Wall

Edgar Cayce

Beachrock

The Healing Hole

More on the crystal ball from 2010 (Cayce related)

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Other interesting images from the episode:

Hemingway's Healing Hole:

Robey Yong and Irene Hughes re-enact their experiences.

Doc Raymond Brown and his crystal ball

Marcel Vogel and some crystals - he was also in S01E01 on talking plants.

Flashback to January 2018:In this episode of MonsterTalk, we return to discussion of the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis (UTH) and what seems to be its growing influence in paranormal circles. It's been used to explain UFOs, mothman, bigfoot, fairies, dogman, ghosts and many other phenomena which defy scientific demonstrability. Now it crops up again in a new film event titled Alien Intrusion which turned out to be a stealth evangelical creationist film which suggests that aliens and UFOs are actually demonic. We are joined by MonsterTalk alum Joe Laycock, Natasha Mikles and Jeb Card to discuss the UTH and Jeb's Paranormal Unified Field Theory (PUFT) as it relates to this film and the work of John Keel and others. In Research Of… MonsterTalk Joe Laycock

Natasha Mikles Jeb Card Music Monstertalk Theme: Monster by Peach Stealing Monkeys

This is part 2 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. If you haven't listened to Part-1, please turn over the record and start again.

Additional show notes available (for free) on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/posts/s4-bonus-mothman-129987183

This is part 1 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. This is in lieu of S04E21 (see below) but we hope you enjoy the content and after part 2, we return to our regularly scheduled episodes list.

"So... Air Disasters Predictions, Jeb? What do you think we'll get?"

Well it turned out to be more than we expected. During our research for this episode we ran into a bit of a puzzle. It turns out that one of the key figures in the episode is still alive and has become an important figure in the world of conspiracy and out of an abundance of caution for our own sanity (as regards potential litigiousness) we've decided to shelve this one for a while. Will we come back and fill in the gap when we think the coast is clear? I don't know - but we didn't want to leave a hole in your listening so we decided to do something... more ambitious. So what we did instead was we recorded a 4+ hour deep dive into the 2002 film The Mothman Prophecies.

Extensive show notes available (for free) at our Patreon page. https://www.patreon.com/posts/s4-bonus-mothman-126932315

Jeb and Blake go in search of John the Baptist's resting place. Content Warning: Human remains on screen. Discussion of murder.

Beheading John the Baptist (wiki)

Salome (play)

In 2018 the murder of Bishop Epiphanius took place and rocked the religious community -- not important for this episode but it popped up a lot in my searching.

San Silvestro "head" shown in intro

Same - but wiki article

Nimoy Fashion Alert (NFA Wardrobe consulting by The Hogtown Rake, Pedro Mendes)

The "head" of John the Baptist at San Silvestro:

Art historian Michael Patroconni (Petroccione?)

I think Jeb and I found this to be the most fun part of the episode:

Gerald Larue obituary

Herod Antipas (the Herod that executed JTB)

Wadi El Natrun

The Cave of John the Baptist

Blake tries to talk Jeb off the ledge as we return to the classic theme of "ancient astronauts" in this throwback episode titled: Earth Visitors.

Some links relevant to our discussion:

Dejah Thoris (character)

MUFON/Harzan scandal

Roman Dodecahedrons (archaeology)

Frank Frazetta

Boris Vallejo

We mention Zecharia Sitchin.

Research suggests humans grow more neurons than did Neanderthals.

A bunch of this episode comes from the work of Maurice Chatelain, who we shall refer to as "Shadowlane." His book Our Cosmic Ancestors sports one of the more interesting book covers we've seen while researching this show.

He also wrote Our Ancestors Came from Outer Space. Maurice Chatelain's credentials appear to have been somewhat overstated in the episode.

We'll be talking about several "Out of Place Artifacts" or OOPAs in this episode. Let's start with the "Boot Print" aka The Meister Print. (pictured below) See also this article by Glenn Kuban.

Very compelling stuff. I guess. I mean it sort of looks like show print.

This interesting looking skull also sent us down some research holes.

The text of the episode seems to be talking about the Del Mar Skull but the image doesn't look like a close match.

A lot of "shapes on the earth" are discussed. The shapes require you to do a lot of work. We'll get into that in the episode. But one is the Maltese Cross that is absolutely stunning, so long as you ignore that some of the points are hundreds of miles from the alleged anchor points and that the temples allegedly at each point were centuries apart. Skeptical response via CSICOP.

Also - this is supposed to be a "pyramid" but seems to be more of what geometry wonks call a "triangle."

I'm trying to find the type of terminal behind our statistician. And - behind the scenes I've managed to contact him and he assures me that the episode required many takes and that his students reported they made him sound like he believes in the whole ancient astronauts thing... More on this if I hear back from a rather lengthy email I sent him today (12/13/24).

Read even more about the Monte Carlo Method!

Vintage ad for the The Outer Space Connection.

According to Scientific American, the idea that indigenous Americans were here for a very long time (from across the Bering sea) really kicked off in the 1930s.

Read more about The Elephant Slab hoax.

This montage of Kachina dolls really impressed Blake:

Nimoy Fashion Alert!

Native Jewelry Artist Preston Monongye

Engineer Charles Ruggles

Could he be LARPing J. Allen Hynek?

Finally we get to the Cosa Artifact.

And - of course, The Jupiter Menace (1982)

Jeb and Blake head out to sea in research of the mystery of what happened to the crew of The Mary Celeste.

Links:

The Dei Gratia

Nimoy Fashion Alert (NFA Wardrobe consulting by The Hogtown Rake, Pedro Mendes)

Attorney Fred Flood

In 1913,The Strand Magazine providedan alleged survivor's account from one Abel Fosdyk, supposedly Mary Celeste's steward.

The Mary Celeste (1913 article)

Per "WhatTheFont" website identifier, that font is (appropriately): JOLLY ROGER!

Meanwhile on Skull Hut Island...

Pop Culture:

Dead Calm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Mary_Celeste

Read it, it's a time. Hammer film -Jeb

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chase_(Doctor_Who)

Jeb and Blake go into the jungles of California and France in search of WILD CHILDREN!

This episode of ISO contains a lot of disturbing content and our commentary is laced with expletives, hence the Explicit tag.

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Tarzan is raised by a fictional ape species known as The Mangani

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The story of Mowgli is LOOOOSELY based on the real-life person Dina Sanichar.

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Frequently referenced ERB Zine article

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Ian Jackson obituary

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News coverage of David as adult (BBC)

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2021 update on David

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1985 story about search for "wild children" (and Sham Dev/Shamdeo)

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Christopher Hitchens on Mother Theresa

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Japanese quadrupedal runner

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The Green Children of Woolpit

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Victor of Aveyron

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Disturbing story of Genie - more neglected than feral

NFA - Wild Children:

It's supposed to be a Bear but it has some other possumbilities.

How could Vincent have been a creative genius - yet also "insane?" Jeb and Blake take a look at Nimoy's very personal thoughts about this question.

This episode deals with the topic of self-harm and suicide. If you're struggling with thoughts of self harm, please get help immediately. You can reach trained and empathetic counselors (in the USA) by dialing 988 or 1-800-273-TALK.

We care about our listeners and want you to be around for many years to enjoy life - and our work.

Links for Show Notes:

Nimoy's play VINCENT via Archive

81 Words - This American Life on the DSM

The Book of Kells

Bullshit or Not? Was JTR really Nessie?

Article on Jo Bonger

The Golden Gate Quartet

Weird Al's Skipper Dan (YouTube)

Doctor Who clip of Vincent at the art gallery

Early montage sequence shows:

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Self Portrait (1888)

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Starry Night (1889)

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Vase with 15 Sunflowers (1888)

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Bedroom at Arles (1888)

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Night Cafe in the Place Lamartine in Arles (1888)

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Encampment of gypsies with caravans (1888)

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Langlois Bridge at Arles (1888)

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Fishing boats on the beach at Saintes Maries

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Wheat FIeld with Cypresses (1880)

You can find all these and more at the online Van Gogh museum.

Meanwhile... Could Manos be loosely based on Paul and Vincent?

Jeb and Blake learn all about the riveting world of stock certificates and inheritance law! It may not be the most mysterious episode of In Search Of... but it's certainly one of the episodes we watched.

Show Notes: Orson Welles Critic Clip Lot 249 Texas Pacific Land trust 1980 article The big 2014 Business Insider article Pembroke: http://www.oldlongisland.com/2008/02/pembroke.html http://www.oldlongisland.com/2011/10/pembroke.html http://www.oldlongisland.com/2009/07/pembroke-american-architect.html Pembroke tour (video) Alice de Lamar Failed lawsuit Contemporary article about the case

Nimoy Fashion Alert (red-shift corrected)

The case of the missing hair! Jeb was confounded by this man's barberian style choices.

Jeb and Blake are joined by Sharon Hill to get shook by the San Andreas Fault!

Understanding the Richter Scale (logarithmic)

Link (Netflix) to Earthstorm docu series

YT video clip featuring geologist Dr. Kerry Sieh

Classic Budweiser commercial from the 70s

The Salton Sea

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power

Nuclear activist Ray Vrana

Peter Gros of Wild Kingdom

San Andreas movie with The Rock (Amz affiliate link)

Cover to guide for SF geological tour:

Dr. Tim Hall - One of the founders of the San Andreas Fault Trail in 1977. Featured in 2011 documentary available on YT.

Dr. Kerry Sieh

The very sexy VT52 from DEC.

NFA San Andreas edition: