Astonishing Legends

We took a survey a while back, and sweatpants were far and away the number one most requested new merch item, so here’s our first batch with a glow-in-the-dark Astonishing Al on the hip! They are available for pre-order as of right now! We will start printing them over the next few weeks for them to get to you by Halloween with any luck!

We need your scariest stories! Send them in! Like…now!

Truman Bethurum, a UFO contactee, discusses encounters with saucer Captain Aura Rhanes and her crew. The podcast explores the intertwining of ufoology and the occult, early ufology figures like Emmanuel Swedenborg and George Hunt Williamson, the concept of ascended masters, photographing unidentified crafts, and the importance of life insurance. It also delves into cases of extraterrestrial contact in 1952, the phenomenon of exaggeration and manifestation, government paranoia, and the connections between UFOs, occultism, and secret societies.

Truman Bethurum's close encounters with an enormous flying saucer and its crew, including a conversation with a female captain. Discussing the historical context of UFO sightings and the evolving nature of the phenomenon. Speculation on psychic abilities of extraterrestrial beings. Highlights of Factor meal delivery and true crime podcast. Aliens boasting about their superior knowledge. Truman's intimidating encounter on the flying saucer and his interactions with the woman on board. Psychological reactions and societal stigma towards witnesses of unusual events. UFO encounters at a diner. Comparing Hollywood's depiction of aliens to Truman Bethurum's more humanist perspective in his book. Setting up unanswered questions for a potential sequel. The mystery of the Summerton Man and possible involvement of radioactivity. Discussing UFO incidents during Operation Main Race in 1952.

Explore the mysterious Van Meter Monster and theories surrounding its existence, including encounters with witnesses and the possibility of it being a pterosaur, cryptid, or interdimensional interloper. The podcast delves into the effects of unusual sensory experiences on people and the surreal nature of reality. It also touches on topics such as rising streaming service fees, high-quality dog food, friendship between Ivan T Sanderson and John Keel, unusual encounters with mysterious creatures, and the paradoxical nature of existence. The hosts challenge notions of mass hysteria and discuss the presence of mythical creatures and alien DNA theories. The podcast concludes by renaming the Van Meter Monster as the Van Meter Visitor and exploring the concept of collective consciousness.

When most folks hear about a fantastical cryptid sighting, they just assume it was a dubious, one-off, misinterpreted encounter by the town drunk, or overimaginative prankster kids, if they believe any of it at all.  But none of this applies to the incident where a mystical creature terrorized the small farming town of Van Meter, Iowa, in 1903.  For five nights starting September 29, an impossible visitor made its presence known to the townsfolk.  Upon returning at 1:00 am from a job out of town, implement dealer U.G. Griffith spotted a dark figure on a downtown rooftop, which seemed to be shining a bright spotlight around.  Thinking it may be a burglar, Griffith approached to inspect when suddenly, the large shadow leaped to another rooftop across the street and disappeared.  The following night, around the same time, the town’s doctor, Dr. Alcott, was also alerted to a bright light shining through his window and ran outside to investigate.  Dr. Alcott, though, got a better view of the intruder.  The figure was described by him and others as standing eight to nine feet tall, half-human, half-animal, with enormous, smooth, leathery wings, a beak, and most curiously, a blunt horn in its forehead from where this bright light was said to have shown.  Most disturbingly, the creature appeared immune to the bullets fired at it on multiple occasions.  Far from the town’s undesirables, these encounters happened to merchants, a doctor, and a bank manager – some of the community’s most prominent and well-respected members who didn’t care for the notoriety this story brought.  Having had their fill of fearsome appearances, a heavily armed posse confronted the antediluvian monster at its lair in a mine on the edge of town, intending to rid the earth of its existence.  Grab a pitchfork and a torch, and join us as we hunt down the Van Meter monster. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

There is a road in Warren County, New Jersey, that, according to many generations of locals, seems to be a vortex or at least a hotspot of all manner of paranormal and unsettling activity.  Tales of Native American spirits seen along the roadside, ghostly victims of vigilante justice dangling from “The Hanging Tree,” spectral deer running alongside cars, murder and highway robbery, UAPs and glowing orbs, the ghost from a 1950s Prom Date car accident still in her burned dress limping home, and even disturbing Polaroids of distressed people scattered in the woods are all part of the lore of this nearly 7-mile stretch of road officially and aptly named, Shades of Death Road.  But with such an ominous and foreboding name, does this country road live up to the hype, and how did it get its name?  Perhaps one could dismiss Shades of Death Road as just another random community locus that births Urban Legends, except that it’s not the only haunting and notorious landmark in the area.  Adjacent to the road are two other mysteriously named topographical features, Ghost Lake and Jenny Jump Mountain, each with their own disturbing stories.  So is the collection of incidents from these places merely a coincidence that fuels imagination and legends, or does this particular swath of earth generate the creepy activity that happens upon it?  Let’s find out as we deep drive down Shades of Death Road. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

In December 2017, the New York Times published a ground-breaking article titled “Glowing Auras and Black Money: The Pentagon’s Mysterious UFO Program.” The report was noteworthy not only for what it brought to light about the earnest government/military study of the UAP phenomenon but also that such a storied and seemingly no-nonsense newspaper like the New York Times finally took the subject seriously as well. We followed up in January 2018 with a two-part episode called “Imminent Disclosure?”  The question mark on the title indicated we weren’t sure when FULL disclosure would arrive, but drips and drops of astounding revelations were indeed on the horizon. Five and a half years later, since that watershed coverage made a splash, two of its original journalists, Ralph Blumenthal and Leslie Kean, have done it again. On June 5th, 2023, they published an article about a former intelligence official and whistleblower named David Grusch. That article is called “Intelligence Officials Say US Has Retrieved Craft of Non-human Origin.” The title alone should speak to the world-changing implications. Because this story needed daylight quickly, it was published on an independent news website called TheDebrief.org. As it turns out, our good friend and colleague, Micah Hanks, also co-founded that news organization. Thanks to Micah, we were fortunate to be granted an interview with Ralph Blumenthal to get the story behind the story. Following our discussion, we’ll hear from Micah, the Editor in Chief at The Debrief, and Chrissy Newton, their head of Media Relations and a long-time podcaster herself, to consider where we all go from here. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

We were honored to be invited to the inaugural celebration of Monster Fest 2023, produced by our good friends Seth Breedlove and his crew at Small Town Monsters. Taking place at the DoubleTree hotel in downtown Canton, OH, the evening of Friday, June 2, saw the premiere of STM’s latest documentary, On the Trail of Bigfoot: Land of the Missing, at the historic (and haunted) Canton Palace Theater. Saturday, June 3, was the main event which featured a packed and exciting ballroom full of vendors with the most creative and coolest wares on display, expert researchers, authors, artists, podcasters, filmmakers, speakers, special guests... and then there was us, along with legendary screenwriter Rich Hatem. No question, we loved catching up with friends in our fields and meeting new contemporaries. Still, meeting so many of our wonderful listeners was an even bigger highlight. And we’re all fortunate that several generously and bravely shared their stories of paranormal encounters for our live taping in front of an audience, which is what you’ll hear on tonight’s episode. We hope you’ll enjoy this first-of-a-kind show for us and take comfort or trepidation in knowing that when it comes to our weird world, we’re all in it together. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.

We’re pleased and honored to present a special guest for this episode, Dr. Abraham “Avi” Loeb. Dr. Loeb is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science at Harvard University and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel at the age of 24. He has written nine books and nearly 1000 papers, led the first international project supported by the Strategic Defense Initiative, and served as a long-standing member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, among many other achievements. Although his work with the Breakthrough Starshot project to send “light sails” speeding toward nearby stars may have initially gained him the most notoriety in science news, his study and theory of a recent anomalous visitor put him on the radar of the general public. In October 2017, a Hawaiian observatory detected the first interstellar object to pass through our solar system, which was subsequently named Oumuamua, meaning “scout” in the Hawaiian language. That fact alone may have registered a blip of mild interest to most. Yet the first artists’ conceptions of the object as a cigar-shaped asteroid put further curiosity of the masses to rest as it being, albeit odd, just another space rock. However, analysis of sensor data of Oumuamua, with no visual inspection obtained during its visit, led Dr. Loeb and his team to conclude that it was nothing like it was portrayed to the public. Instead, their research showed it was roughly the size of a football field, reflective, spinning, thin as a sheet of paper, and moving unusually. Dr. Loeb hypothesized that Oumuamua could likely be a probe, perhaps manufactured by an ancient alien civilization to gather information as star systems pass by. Not surprisingly, many of his peers met this open-minded thinking with dismissive resistance, hesitant or unwilling to entertain such bold and adventurous speculation. Join us for a fascinating discussion with one of the world’s leading astrophysicists on the challenges of searching for extraterrestrial life on the eve of his appearance at the upcoming annual Contact in the Desert conference taking place June 2 through 4, 2023, in Indian Wells, California. Visit our website for a lot more information on this episode.