S1 Ep19: Not of this Earth

Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. Shake it up with Vital Protein's Collagen and Protein Shake. It's a high-quality, ready-to-drink shake with 30 grams of protein and 10 grams of collagen to support healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, and joints. With zero grams of added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and absolutely no carrageenan, it's a clean, delicious way to fuel your day. So you don't just age gracefully, you age powerfully. Vital Proteins. Stay vital. Learn more at vitalproteins.com. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners do all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. It's their whole taste-that-grows philosophy. Plant-based ingredients grown in the ground, thoughtfully sourced, and built to keep you satisfied. Their peanut butter cup bar has 14 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, and only 5 grams of sugar. Which is wild considering how delicious it is. Made with no artificial ingredients or fillers, just something that tastes good and works the way it's supposed to. So if you're in the mood for something truly craveable and nutritious, try any of Aloha's protein bars. Grab one at your local grocery store or head to aloha.com. Exploring the unknown is what makes Astonishing Legends so much fun. But when it comes to dinner, nobody wants surprises. Marley's Spoon helps you eat well without overthinking it. Each meal is chef-designed, made with quality ingredients, and balanced so you feel good about what you're eating. With over 100 recipes to pick from every week, there's always something new to try. Whether you're in the mood for a comforting classic, or something a little more adventurous. Marley's Spoon adapts to your life. From breakfast, to dinner, and even those in-between snack moments. The subscription is simple and flexible, so it fits your schedule, no matter how busy things get. Go to marleyspoon.com slash offer slash pod45 for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's right. 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's marleyspoon.com slash offer slash P-O-D-4-5. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends, and now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them too. Join us weekly in the vault beneath Blanket Fortiana, which we call The Astonishing Dead Letter Office. Tonight's episode, not of this earth. In 2023, we received a dead letter that shocked us. Not only for the content of it, but for the connection. A connection to one of the most groundbreaking UAP UFO stories of the past few decades. Commander David Fravor's Tic Tac UAP incident aboard the USS Nimitz in November of 2014. But on top of that, he's had some experiences similar to those Terry Lovelace talked about on our show as well. Yeah, this is actually a couple of stories from listener Mike, and they are pretty phenomenal. The events seem to encircle not only Mike, but his wife at the time, and possibly their child. There you go. Paranormal entanglement. Which means, if you believe any of this at all, a lot more people out there may be experiencing abductions than we all think. Maybe humanity collectively has a blind spot about it. Listen. I'm writing in because I listened to your interview with Terry Lovelace, and I, too, had an interesting story. A friend turned me on to his book. We had been discussing aliens and our thoughts on them. I told him about a particular encounter I had as a child, where four or five me's came into my room and started tickling me. I say me because they all looked just like me. They sounded like me, but as Terry said, they didn't look like they were talking. My friend excitedly stated that he had just read this book about a guy who had this happen to him. But they were monkeys. He sent me Terry's book, the first one, and I read it cover to cover in two days. I couldn't believe that what had happened to me had happened to others. I had never talked about it before because I thought it was the imagination of a child. It was so scary that I had what I call a throat lock. I couldn't scream, yell, or do anything. It was terrifying. I jumped out of bed and jumped down a staircase that was around 13 steps high and one bound. I landed on the bottom landing of the stairs and slammed into the door. My mom opened the door because I was banging on it like a trapped animal. When she did, I told her the story of what happened, and she didn't believe me. Soon after, she took me to the doctor because she was really scared that I was seeing multiple me's. The doctor chalked it up to my getting a hold of LSD, thinking they were stickers or something of that nature, and that I just had a trip. She took me home and never talked about it. Ever. I tried, but she would change the subject, so I just thought, I must be crazy. So I dropped it. I don't ever remember being on a spaceship or anything of that nature, but my life was filled with strange coincidences, like others who have written in have discussed. I, too, saw glimpses of the future, but they weren't impactful at all. They were short scenes, like B-real footage. I think I had the ability to read minds. I found myself saying things out loud in my mind for no reason, and then others, my wife, my co-workers, my son, they would say, I was just thinking that. I found myself answering questions for my wife that she hadn't verbalized. It was strange, but cool, in a weird way. Okay, so that's one story, but he sent another one that we might have saved for another Dead Letter Office episode. However, everything is connected, right? Especially these two stories. Forrest, why don't you read this one? Another interesting aspect of my story is that it wasn't just me. My ex-wife was deathly afraid of aliens. It was shocking to what level she was afraid of them. We got married while I was in the Navy. I was stationed in San Diego on the USS Nimitz. We were married for a few years, and out of the blue, we decided to have a baby. She had a dream that there were four greys that were around her while she was in our bed. She said that they were making her lay in different positions to get her pregnant, as she had issues that made it more difficult to conceive. She was very convinced it was real, and stated that it would be a boy for sure. However, they told her it would be. We found out right after that she was indeed pregnant. We were excited, but also not, as I would be out to sea for my son's birth. I was able to fly off the ship to be with her at the very last minute. Literally. I got home, watched the birth, got back to the boat, Nimitz, and there was talk about seeing an alien ship and that the pilots had gotten it on video during our training ops. This made me really start to think that there may be something more to this. Years later, we talked to my son about going somewhere, and he stated that his real dad had a massive library on his ship and he was able to read whatever he wanted. We were intrigued with real dad and asked about him. Oh yeah, he's my space dad and you're my land dad. This wasn't just a story, as I would ask about him when my son wasn't in the mood to talk. I would ask about the ship and his dad, etc. He would state things as if I were asking about his grandma or grandpa. It was crazy. Also, I had a really strange coincidence that no other person talks about. I knew a Betty with short curly hair and the same kind of twisted thumbs that Terry described in his book. I was in shock because I only knew one person who had thumbs like Betty from the book, and her name was Betty. I've been around the world and met a ton of people. No one else has the same thumbs, let alone the name Betty. Anyhow, those are my stories. All right, so the first thing that's fascinating about this is that when Mike heard Terry Lovelace's story on our show, he turned into that Leonardo DiCaprio meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, where he sees himself on the TV. He's like pointing, you know, with the beer in his hand and the cigarette. He's like, that's me. He saw himself. He was like, which is, I think is, you know, it's entertaining, but it's also like scary. He's like, wait, no, this happened to me. Right. You know, Terry Lovelace had the monkeys coming into the room and he's like, I had the mini-me's or whatever. And it's that whole thing that we talked about, Forrest, and we talked about on the main show before, the idea of the screen memories and this concept that something is happening, but you don't really know what it is because the memory that's implanted is designed to confuse you. Or also, and we've speculated on this in the past, be so fantastical that if you recount it to someone, there's no way they're ever going to believe you. That's kind of what they're counting on. Although I believe maybe if there's an alien perspective about this, they just don't care so much about that. One of the arguments, of course, to debunk this about UFO crashes like Roswell or anywhere else, and there's been many crashes, if you follow the UFO lore, is that people say, well, they're an advanced race. Why would they ever crash? That's stupid. It's like, they have such advanced technology, they wouldn't crash. Like, well, how do you know? Number one. But the bigger point I'm trying to make here is they're not perfect. Nobody is. One theory is that they're trying to become perfect. And apotheosis is what they're seeking, which is why they are experimenting with us to achieve some kind of metaphysical pinnacle of sorts. But obviously, it's technology. It fails. I don't care how much you think it's perfect. Remember when it took four floppy disks to get a printer working back in the 90s. Well, yeah. And to your point there, I think about, you look at the Apollo program and everybody's always like, well, your iPhone is 20 times more powerful than all the software and chips that it took to do that. But you think about the other components, it's like, well, we've gotten pretty sophisticated these days. And when you look at what SpaceX is doing or Blue Origin, again, it's privatization of rocket launches. But, you know, catching rockets and having them land on a platform in the ocean, that seems pretty sophisticated for humanity. But by the same token, things go wrong. I mean, billions of dollars get spent on these launches, and not just in the United States, but with foreign countries. They're putting all this money into things, and still stuff goes up and it gets a mile up in the air and starts spinning sideways and explodes. Accidents happen, even though we're bringing everything we got to the table. And, of course, you know, people will say, well, yeah, but we're humans. We're primitive, which is, I think it's a little bit reductive. It's like, yeah, we are, but we also, this is a thing we've been doing for decades. We should be pretty good at it by now, but things are still going wrong. That's right. Things are still going wrong. It's all point of view and where you're at. And everybody has the perspective of, this is the pinnacle. We're at it, especially human beings. We're very egotistical in that way. A lot of hubris about, no, no, no, we've got this figured out, or we will, which is what keeps us going. That's terrific. But you have to realize everybody thinks that in their generation. We got this figured out. Yeah. And there may have been ancient civilizations 20, 30, 40,000 years before this, before the younger Dryas period, where they did have a lot more technology that wasn't wires and nuts and bolts. It did maybe involve electricity, but it was more mental. It was more metaphysical in a way, along with some technology, if you believe the Atlantis kind of thing. I do wonder if Murphy's Law is pervasive across all realities. Because when you think about, you know, if it can go wrong, it will. That's inherent in nature. That's not an observation of humanity. That's inherent in nature. So there's no reason not to think that even the most sophisticated technology in the world, if they just didn't cross that one T or dot that one I, you know, the Gravitron reflector is going to fall off because we used the wrong bolt. And next thing you know, we're a meat waffle at Roswell. It's like things might be going wrong across all dimensions and all realities. But to your earlier point in trying to figure stuff out, and it links to my point as well, from Terry Lovelace's story, the purpose was, well, humans, you got cartoon monkeys all the time. Curious George and whatnot in the circus. You love monkeys, right? I mean, they're almost like you. In fact, we think of you as just hairless monkeys. You're about as smart to us and just as grubby and filthy. That's how they view us as a lower class kind of species. But you love monkeys, so this little kid should love monkeys. And it's like, no, not in this way. Not in the middle of the night. And not coming to play with you. So right there is a mistake. Because as Terry told it, they were getting upset with him for not wanting to come play. Right. It's like, why don't you like this? We set up all this whole thing, the monkey mask and everything. So they're not perfect. They don't understand us. And my point being, on the other hand, they don't really care that much. No. People have, the screen memories aren't perfect. People remember things. If it was perfect, we should remember nothing about this. There should be no question about any abduction because no one would ever have any memory or thoughts of it at all. But it doesn't work completely well. Right. By the way, shout out to season three of Resident Alien, too. I just want to say, season three is back. I've watched the whole thing in like two days. It is amazing. Speaking of screen memories and that kind of stuff, that comes up in it. No spoilers. Okay. Really great. Really great. It's very funny and very entertaining. But the other thing I wanted to say for us, and I mentioned this on the main show before, growing up, one of my favorite books that I had, and I think it came down to me about my grandfather. I don't even know anymore. It was a book called Barnaby. And this was based on a comic strip, a little boy. And he had a fairy godfather who would come around and grant wishes for him. And his name was Mr. O'Malley. And his catchphrase was Cushla McCree. And he would come in and he was like a short little stout dude. And he had a little fedora and a little suit, but he also had wings on his back. And he would show up whenever Barnaby was having a problem, be like, I'll fix it for you or whatever. And invariably it would go wrong. Something would go wrong and Barnaby would get in trouble and Mr. O'Malley would disappear. And so his parents never believed him. The doctor didn't believe him. By the way, this particular comic book artist, his name is Crockett Johnson, was the same guy that did Harold and the Purple Crown. He was far more famous, far more famous. And Harold, by the way, and Barnaby look exactly the same. That's the same drawing style. And I still have that book. I have an original and I had it rebound, but I have this book that I grew up with and it's like an anthology of all the stuff that he did. But my point is about Barnaby and the parents never believing. And like when you get to the very end of the book, they meet Mr. O'Malley. They meet him. And that's what I'm thinking about, you know, because when I think about what's going on here with Mike, and to be clear, we're not doctors. No. You know, I'm a parent. I don't think it's good to completely ignore when your kid says they've had some kind of bizarre encounter, whether you think it's real or not. I think you should support where it's coming from. Right. And I'm not saying without regard for reality, but like I can only imagine how many paranormal stories are swept under the rug by parents who think, oh, it's just my son. It's my daughter's imagination. No disrespect to Mike's mom. Everybody has their own reasons for doing things. But like walk a mile in your kid's shoes. That's all I'm, I'm just saying that broadly because sometimes they're onto something or you might be missing something. And, you know, in this case, it's paranormal and it's psychologically seems kind of damaging, but physically it's harmless. In other cases, it could be something more intense. It's like, you really should pay attention. I think to what young kids are telling you. Yes. There is a flip side of that and which I completely understand and not as a parent, of course, but I understand what do you do with that information? Because when you do take them to professional Western medical help, that is mainstream, they will say, well, you saw several of yourself. Well, that's impossible. That can't happen. So what are the other options? The other options that you're on drugs, kid. And you're taking LSD because that's what we have in our bag. That's what we know happens sometimes. You're on DMT, you're on LSD, you freaked out, you saw a rock poster, you saw this. You found some stamps with LSD on them and you, and you licked it because you thought you were mailing a letter. It's like, wait, what? It's like such a stretch. So it's like the swamp gas that you tell the kids. That's all you have to work with. It's Joe Nickel and the owls. That's all you got because that's all you, that's in your magic bag because you don't know how the trick works. Really. You don't have the switcheroo and the diversion is done and the turn and the higher intelligences that are messing with us do. And so you're not able to see all the tricks and you just say like, well, obviously the spoon did not materialize under the handkerchief. So it was hidden somewhere else up the sleeve and that's, that'll be the case. You're just not sure where. In this case, we're talking about a technology where it seems like a spoon has materialized magically under a kerchief or a rabbit is really materializing in a top hat because we don't understand how the mechanics work yet. But in this case, what you're saying is that that's all you got. It's like when you tell somebody this outrageous paranormal story and I don't fault them and like, huh, okay, well, I believe you believe it because that's all you can do. It's like, you're my friend. I trust you. You've never told me a lie before. I trust what you're saying, but I don't know how to process this information because this is so far out of my realm of possibility and understanding and experience and comprehension that that's all I got. So what are we going to do? We're going to take you to the doctor and they're just going to say like, uh, you're tired, you know, like stop taking drugs. So I understand that, but you should, again, it's going back to like my friend, John and the sludge entity is that I give them a lot of credit for not stopping at the Western world's understanding of medicine because that answer stopped. It was, well, we don't know what's going on. Just bring him back if he gets worse. And they kept doing that and that yielded no results until they went an alternative direction. And you can believe whatever you want about it. I don't know how or what worked, but it did work. There was a positive result and healing. Yeah. Because they didn't stop there. It's like, well, that's it. We're at the end of the road and the end of our insurance. So we're going to stop there. So, but it's not in everyone's toolkit or wheelhouse to be able to do that. And so, yeah, no, no fault given here. So what I can say from this, though, is it's just also what Terry Lovelace talked about. Now, we didn't mention this on the show, but in the appendices, I believe, or the latter part of his second book, I believe, he talks about being an assistant district attorney and trying to prosecute cases based on the testimony of minors, of children, younger and 12 years and 14 years old, even. And you think that they're sophisticated, but when something horrible happens to them or very unexplained, like they don't have the words and the tools to be able to express that fully of what's going on. And we've talked about this on the show. I don't, I'm not sure if we did with Terry, it was so long ago, but it also ties back into as Mr. McBeavey, right? On the Andy Griffith show. The point there, and they connect, is that in Terry Lovelace's legal career there, as an assistant DA, one case, the, and I think the girl was like 12 or about that age, not real young, as you would expect like a six or seven year old to describe something. But she said, well, when I was abused, the guy, his eyes would come out of his head like a cartoon. Oh, right. And he would, you're like, really? And then he would do this circus thing and he would kind of play music and ride around and you think like, okay, that she's having a break from reality or was so traumatic, her mind's making this up. It really didn't happen. What they found out later is that this guy, when he would do his horrible things, had those joke glasses with the bug eyes that came out with the springs. Yeah. They had like slinky springs on them. Yeah. Exactly. And people will know what that is, the joke glasses, but she'd not come across that before. It had no way to describe that as a- She didn't have the language for it. She doesn't have the tools. But what she was describing was accurate. His eyes did comically bug out of his heads and like, boing, you know, like the cartoons do. And just quickly for people that don't know, the Andy Griffith show or Mr. McBeavey, Andy Griffith was a long running sitcom that came out in the 60s. Very funny show, Don Knotts, Andy Griffith. The Mr. McBeavey episode aired in 1962. That's where Opie, Andy Griffith's son on the show, who is now famed director Ron Howard, who everyone should know, he was going out in the neighborhood and seeing this guy who would tell him all kinds of fantastical stuff. And he said, walked in the trees and all that. And Andy didn't believe him. Nobody believed him when he said, I saw Mr. McBeavey. And everybody's like, oh, now Opie don't make things up. Right. He had jingly things, right? On his fingers. Yeah, oh, and he's jingling and he's making jingly sounds. That's right. And it turned out, he's a, you know, spoiler alert, it's 1962 episode. Now I'm doing the spoiling. Right. But turns out Mr. McBeavey was a lineman. He worked on the telephone poles and he did. He had all kinds of keys and tools on his belt and he climbed and walked in the trees and everything Opie said was true, but Andy didn't believe him. And Andy, at the end of the episode, to his credit and the writer's credit on that show was like, oh, we should listen. We should listen when we hear these crazy stories. Here's, I think the line, and it's been a long time since I saw that. I do love that show. Yeah. The key to the whole philosophical concept, and I believe the tack that should be taken, is that I believe there's an exchange with Barney, of course, and he's a sweet guy. But he's taken the, well, you don't really believe what he's saying, Ang. It's like, you know, it's because it sounds ridiculous, right? Yeah, yeah. And this is what, as a father and as, you know, the moral pillar and the common sense of the show and the pillar of reason on the show, this is his response. And that, you know, it's like, well, you don't believe what he's saying and what he says, but I believe in Opie. And that always gets me every time. That's right. Good point. I forgot about that. Yeah. It's like, look, I don't know exactly what he saw. That's right. He winds up supporting Opie before he finds out Mr. McBeavey is real. That's what happens. I forgot about that. Yeah. It's human nature and characters that he knows his little boy, and he raised him to be, to tell the truth. And sometimes there's a fib in there, and that gets sussed out, like every little kid does. And they try that out, because that's human nature. That's how you grow. Like, does this lie work? And so when it talks about observation and the truth, Andy's point of view is like, I know my son. If he's telling me that this is the truth, and I've asked him, like, you know, don't be fib and are making up stories, there's something about that that is true. It may not be exactly as he described it, but there is some element that is true to his perception and our shared reality. And in this case, if there are five mini-me's at the bottom of the staircase, okay, we don't know what that is, because people think, like, there's no five duplicates of you, and doppelgangers aren't a real thing, and there's no such things as aliens. So what did happen? Now, it could be something that is biochemical or some chemistry in your brain that is malfunctioning. Something is going wrong. You're seeing a hallucination. That's certainly a possibility. In my point of view, it could be completely paranormal. There's nothing wrong with your perception. You're seeing what's actually there. Or it could be a combination of the two, and that's in the middle space there, where something is affecting you, or you are affected, and whatever it is, is taking advantage of that on purpose or not, and it's affecting your perception. So part of it is true. And one thing I want to say right away is that I think you should put out a storytelling album, and the title of it should be called Don't Be Fibbin'. It does speak to a lot of what we're saying, and like, yeah, they're trying to make it fun, and the gentle wisdom of that show is one of the things that makes it so great, and that Andy screws up too. You know, as a dad, he makes mistakes, as we all do, but he generally tries to fix things. He's like the other guy without trying to do a subterfuge. He's like... I love how this has turned into an Andy Griffith. Because it deals with, like I said, it's a common thing where you're talking about simple, comical things that happen, but with real world and sometimes serious consequences. Well, I would just tell you something, currently being in the state of North Carolina, and only about an hour from the town of Mount Airy, which Mayberry is based on, I will tell you this, the other night, for whatever reason, in my doom scrolling and whatever, I became obsessed with remembering that Aunt Bea, the actress, Frances Bavier, or Bavier, excuse me, I'm not sure how you say, Frances Bavier, who was from New York City, didn't get along with him. They famously clashed, and she sort of had problems with him, and for some reason, that popped back into my head, and I was like, I wonder about this, and I started looking up YouTube videos or whatever. This was literally like four nights ago, not knowing that we were going to talk about this. Oh, right. And I started watching all of them, and it's interviews with her, and she's just like, well, you know, and even though she said she classified, it's because she was a classical trained actress, and she sort of looked down her nose at the sitcom and all that. Well, she was a great beauty in her youth, too, I think. Yes, yes, and she had been on Broadway, and he was just improv-y and Southern, good old boy kind of way, but in a wholesome way. You know, good old boy has a bad connotation now, at least in the South, but like in a wholesome kind of way. And she talked about clashing with him, but she also, in the interviews, and of course, these are interviews, so she knew they were going out on TV or whatever, but. She was like, but he knew what he was doing, and he really managed to show really well. And my overall point of all of this is just like, I didn't believe, and she said this, I didn't believe him when he said, no, this is how the South really is. This is what these small towns are like. And she was like, I did not believe him. I couldn't believe it was possible, because she was born in New York, grew up there, worked on Broadway, went to LA, did this show, and she was like, there's no way this is like this. And then she went to North Carolina, where I'm at now, and visited it, and was like, oh my God, it really is this way. And she loved it so much, she moved to Siler City, North Carolina, which is where she retired and died. Really? Yes, in a very small town. That I did not know. Again, about an hour from me, she said, you know, of course, everybody still expects me to be Aunt Bea, but she said, it is very much like how he portrayed it. It was very authentic. And in the later stages of her life, she admitted that she regretted being contrary to him. But it was just, it's a different, you know, when you hear about this all the time with actors, you get these people who are classically, they're method acting or whatever, and then you get, I just watched a clip today with Don Rickles and De Niro from, I think from Casino, where he was like, well, you just say the lines, as much money as you're making, let's get out of here, you know? So it's a lot of that stuff. So we have really gone on a tangent here. All right. Well, let me just steer this back from Andy Griffith and try to make a connection here, because my point with that is that here you have, as you were just saying, they seem like a fictional small town folksy America. That's not real. But you're saying what Aunt Bea found out is that, yeah, back in that era, there was that kind of genuineness and honest naivete, I guess, but also with a lot of wisdom. And then people are like, that's corny, folksy wisdom. But like, no, it's how you deal with extraordinary things that happen in an everyday setting. And that's my point here is that you had something really extraordinary. You have some down to earth folks. It's like, I don't know what to do with that. So we're not going to talk about it. And that's an expected reaction. Now, I'm not sure what Andy would have said, but he just sure would have been like with his toolkit. And I had to keep saying that, but it really is like the abilities you have to deal with something that outrageous is that a lot of people just, they don't know what to do, so you do nothing. All right. So now just quickly, we need to address the second part of Mike's story here. No, yeah. The monkey in the room, the elephant in the room, the Nimitz. I mean, he was stationed on the Nimitz. For folks who don't know, if you're not paying attention to disclosure, you're not paying attention to Astonishing Legends and nearly every other UAP thing on every social media platform everywhere. The Nimitz was the base aircraft carrier for Commander David Fravor's UAP incident or UFO incident with the Tic Tac that famously we have the radar, not just the radar data, but also the video footage of. And so think about this. Mike was stationed on the Nimitz and now him and his now ex-wife were trying to have a child. And his ex-wife was describing that she was having dreams where she was getting lessons on how to get pregnant from greys, from grey aliens, and those instructions worked. So here's the big thing. He left the Nimitz to attend the birth of his child and then returned shortly after. During the time that he was off the ship, Commander Fravor's mission that rendezvoused with the Tic Tac took place. Is there a connection here? I wonder. Is he really mixed up in this and really caught up in this whole thing and his ex-wife at this point in, like, they don't really know how intertwined they are with this story or is something else going on? You know, it's just like there's something about that and this story that's very compelling to me. And this comes back a little bit to, you know, we talked about this with Skinwalker Rancher, more specifically Skinwalkers at the Pentagon, the newer book from George Knapp and Colin Kelleher, where you get this idea of contagion, how all of this stuff is intertwined and there's these things happening and relationships are connected across different people with different experiences. And maybe this is a multidimensional relationship that's happening between humanity and the Tic Tac. It's not just this thing in the sky that Commander Fravor and the other pilots who were with him saw or that the radar data took. It's also interpersonal, direct relationships, mental and maybe even physical, with people who are associated with the Nimitz and maybe not even based on it like Mike's wife. Right, right. It's very compelling. I think when you hear about these things, it's hard to, especially if you're not into this kind of stuff, if you're not into this at all or believe in any of it all, you don't really consider all the elements of it. Or if you're trying to, even if you're trying to debunk it, you can only tackle one point of reason or line at a time. And that's why I think some of those explanations are often unsatisfactory. Like, oh, it was a reflection. Like, well, what about this? And if you listen to, I think it's in the Tic Tac video, a word that I think is often ignored or just not dealt with or considered much is that the guy says the electronic warfare officer, I think, who's monitoring it says there's a whole fleet of them. So as we see the video, you only see one. And it's like, well, that's just a reflection. That's just kind of the airplane turning. It's a reflection off a lens or a camera or blip. But they witnessed and had on radar a whole fleet of them is what he says. So now what is it? And what was their purpose in the mission? And I believe it was at the time of Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich. She was one of the pilots, I believe, during the Tic Tac incident here. And I think it was her saying that what was bubbling under the water, remember that, was so massive, it really put the fear of them. Yes. Because what is that? That should not exist. But here they are, sober-minded, highly trained individuals. Some of the best pilots in the world are seeing this. And it's like, okay, that's not a reflection off our sensor data. I'm actually seeing this. And that's ignored. That's what I'm saying. It's like, well, you know, they didn't know what they were seeing. I think that's highly disrespectful. And I don't like that. But the fact that you're seeing something that you don't know how to defend against or had no training for with how to deal with or intercept, that puts the fear in you. And that's what people aren't getting because they weren't there. And so what you're saying is that like with these experiences and like with Mike's wife and you put it all together, like that is the big question. What was the mission? Was he a part of it? What is the understanding and the scope of this thing? Because that's an element here. It's like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters. I get that's a fictional account. It's a movie or whatever. But it's like, does he not even realize how central he is in everything that's going on? Possibly. Or his family is. Or his kids, maybe. You don't know how to deal with this because like I said, there's some of the most highly skilled and trained combat individuals in the world. And in her 60 Minutes interview, she said it was unsettling. You know, neither aircraft was armed at the time. I'm reading a Business Insider article with her. We do air-to-air scenarios where we expect to encounter adversary aircraft. We have set plans for how we approach them, Dietrich explained. But these assume that it's a generation of fighter we'd be at least familiar enough with. We had not been briefed on any protocol for intercepting or merging with a UIP. So this is outside of their scope of how to deal with this stuff and understanding. And I think the point to consider here, one of the main ones with Mike's wife, is that there are two, I've always said this on the show now. It's what I've come to believe. There are two levels of acceptance or partial acceptance of this. And one is just seeing this craft. And is it Chinese tech? Is it Russian who's operating this thing? Is it some advanced tech of theirs? Is it ours? And I don't believe this scenario either. People posit like, well, they're just putting that up there, this advanced tech that no one's seen, to see how they react. I think that's baloney. I think you're going to get people killed and multi-million dollar aircraft and technologies. And you're putting people in harm's way because you know how they're going to react. They've been trained for this kind of stuff, not for this, but they know how to deal with an aerial threat. So what are you testing? They did exactly what they were trained to do. They observed, they tried to make contact. What's the unknown there? I think that's a baloney kind of explanation. But here, what you're seeing is the other level. And that is them physically violating us in some way on a very personal and human level. And that's abduction. And that's the area we don't want to talk about. That's the next step that we can't take because we can talk about, and we are starting to talk about things seen on sensor data, these craft that do amazing, impossible things, breaking the laws of physics as we know them. And then there's the other scarier option is, what do they want? What are they doing? Why are they messing with us? What is their end goal? By the way, the way they break the laws of physics, and I just saw this, I think yesterday because I'm always like, I'm doing too much scrolling on Instagram. Lazar, Bob Lazar is just like, the ships have their own gravitational fields in them. They're not reacting to the gravity on Earth. They have gravity within them that makes it possible for them to do whatever they want without having any effect on the occupants. There's no change for them on the occupants from a physics standpoint. I believe that's the Bob Lazar explanation. And there are others to back this up as well of how element 115 works and that it's such a conversion of energy on such galactic scales, cosmic scales, that it opens up a bag of its own space-time. And that's how you were able to travel around in it. And maybe that's what accounts for the leaf falling motion or the weird tipping and the rotating is that they are operating in spaces that we are not familiar with as a mainstream society yet. They're operating on principles that make sense to them or that are conducive to their technology and what they're using. Yeah, you've opened up this bag and now you're able to slingshot yourself forward without the effects of gravity and normal propulsion, even through space or even underwater because they move faster than anything that we know should be able to move underwater. Right. Well, they don't have to deal with friction. They don't have to deal with the physics. They're like, and they don't have to deal with gravity. Yeah, it's fascinating. And we're turning this into- I know. UFP technology. You know, Grand Unified Theory of the Paranormal, this whole thing. Yeah, and the technology and all that stuff. Okay, so here's the other thing I want to touch on for sure, though. You know, and I'm not making fun of this, but it's a little bit funny. It's like, you're not my dad. My space dad's my dad. He's got his land dad and his space dad. My space dad has a better library than you. It's like, that's what your kid is telling you? It's like, your space dad lets you read whatever he wants in his library on his ship. It's like, that is super cool. It's cool, but also, as the real Earth dad, very disturbing. Because that's my point about this, is that it's, as Commander Dietrich was saying, it's unsettling to encounter something that you have no defense or training for or against. But how do you- Yeah, how am I going to compete with space dad, by the way? How do you do this when it has literally invaded your family and manipulated your loved ones in a way that you don't want anyone on Earth to do that, or anyone anywhere in space? But it's a tremendous violation of which you have no defense against. Because how do you stop that? Well, there are people who believe that there are ways to do that, to mitigate that interaction, to make yourself unsavory, I guess, for these types of beings. Right. Then the other thing that was super amazing about this was Mike's description of Betty, the Betty that he knew, just like Terry Lovelace's Betty, with the crazy-shaped thumbs. Like, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And I do want to say, I'm disappointed we missed this when it came in, but we have since attempted to connect Mike with Terry. They probably have a lot to talk about, but this is a very compelling dead letter. And also, I will say now, we have many, many more to go. And by the way, we're getting so many great new stories in. I want to thank everybody for sending those in. Send them in to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. This is just, it's just amazing hearing from you folks and being able to share these stories and talk about them in the context of our show. But one thing I will say just about these first ones that we picked out, and they're in no particular order. They've come in over the years, and we're sort of selecting them a little bit randomly, but also to keep things mixed up. But there is a much larger number of stories coming into us that connect back to Terry Lovelace's abduction than almost anything else, which is fascinating to me. If you're taking a sample of all the stuff that we're getting, and you're trying to figure out what's the most common thing that happens to people right now, and this isn't scientific at all, but like right now, a little bit, it's like folks are talking a lot about really weird abduction experiences that are very similar to the things that Terry Lovelace experienced and has talked about on our main show several times. We'll put links to the Terry Lovelace episodes up with this particular dead letter office. But it's like he said, when he told his own story, then everyone started emailing and writing him stories, and he wrote a whole book with their stories. That was what we had him on for, the second book, Reckoning, Devil's Den the Reckoning. What is going on out there? Is this all just psychological? It's like we get to that whole part. It's like, oh, it's sleep paralysis. It's the old hag syndrome. It's, you know, you're just imagining this, or it's angels and demons, and that's what the evangelicals are saying. Oh, no, you're talking about demons here. I said, I mean, you're doing it with aliens, but it's like, whatever it is, a lot of people are going through it. Yeah, some would say it's just pop culture influence, and we're all kind of in a shared delusion here for folks that share this. But it's enough now that it makes me believe in the possibility that something really is going on. Just what that is and why, that to me is the biggest and most important question in our world. Mike, thank you so much for sending your story into the Dead Letter Office. I want to know if your son still talked about his space dad, and would that guy be willing to join us on Astonishing Legends for an interview? No offense to you. By the way, this story was super compelling. So glad we could share it with our listeners. But we would love to hear about the Space Dad's library. The Astonishing Dead Letter Office is hosted by Scott Philbrick and Forrest Burgess, and is executive produced by Tess Feifel. The show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees-Wendel at VW Sound. The theme is based on the Astonishing Legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music, arranged by Alan Carissia, who composes all the other music in the show. Tommy Beaver Design created the logo. The announcer is John Bolton. That's me. Stories are lightly edited for length, content, and readability, but otherwise presented as they're sent to us. We're always looking for more Dead Letters, so if you have a story of your own you'd like to share, email it to deadletteroffice at astonishinglegends.com. Please include how you would like to be credited. First name only? First name last initial? Anonymous? A pseudonym? Let us know. Due to the number of emails coming in, we often cannot respond, but we do read them all. No part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission. Copyright, Astonishing Legends Productions. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of, or artificial sweeteners are doing all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. It's their whole taste that grows philosophy. Plant-based ingredients grown in the ground, thoughtfully sourced, and built to keep you satisfied. Their peanut butter cup bar has 14 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, and only 5 grams of sugar, which is wild considering how delicious it is. Made with no artificial ingredients or fillers, just something that tastes good and works the way it's supposed to. So, if you're in the mood for something truly craveable and nutritious, try any of Aloha's protein bars. Grab one at your local grocery store or head to aloha.com. Exploring the unknown is what makes Astonishing Legends so much fun. But when it comes to dinner, nobody wants surprises. Marley's Spoon helps you eat well without overthinking it. Each meal is chef-designed, made with quality ingredients, and balanced so you feel good about what you're eating. With over 100 recipes to pick from every week, there's always something new to try, whether you're in the mood for a comforting classic or something a little more adventurous. Marley's Spoon adapts to your life, from breakfast to dinner, and even those in-between snack moments. The subscription is simple and flexible, so it fits your schedule no matter how busy things get. Go to MarleySpoon.com slash offer slash pod 45 for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's right. 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's MarleySpoon.com slash offer slash P-O-D-4-5. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. If it tastes good, you flip it over only to discover it's made with a whole paragraph of ingredients you've never heard of. Or artificial sweeteners do all the heavy lifting. It's basically dessert in disguise. You shouldn't have to choose between tasty and nutritious. And that's what makes Aloha stand out. Aloha protein bars nail the delicious and nutritious. They're USDA organic and made with ingredients that actually grow somewhere. It's their whole taste that grows philosophy. Plant-based ingredients grown in the ground, thoughtfully sourced, and built to keep you satisfied. Their peanut butter cup bar has 14 grams of protein, 10 grams of fiber, and only 5 grams of sugar. Which is wild considering how delicious it is. Made with no artificial ingredients or fillers, just something that tastes good and works the way it's supposed to. So if you're in the mood for something truly craveable and nutritious, try any of Aloha's protein bars. Grab one at your local grocery store or head to aloha.com. Exploring the unknown is what makes Astonishing Legends so much fun. But when it comes to dinner, nobody wants surprises. Marley's Spoon helps you eat well without overthinking it. Each meal is chef-designed, made with quality ingredients, and balanced so you feel good about what you're eating. With over 100 recipes to pick from every week, there's always something new to try, whether you're in the mood for a comforting classic or something a little more adventurous. Marley's Spoon adapts to your life, from breakfast to dinner, and even those in-between snack moments. The subscription is simple and flexible, so it fits your schedule no matter how busy things get. Go to marleyspoon.com slash offer slash pod 45 for 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's right, 45% off your first order and free delivery. That's marleyspoon.com slash offer slash P-O-D-4-5. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I recently spoke with IBM's new director of research, Jake Embatta. We discussed his vision for the future of quantum computing. At IBM Research, what we always do is answer what is the future of computing. Whether it's coming up with new algorithms, coming up with better AI, coming up with quantum, or coming up with just how do different accelerators go together. It's our DNA to answer the question of what is the future. Isn't it a perfect problem for IBM because you kind of need to have a legacy of building stuff? Yes. Building actual physical machines. Yeah, it's why I came to IBM. I wanted the experience, the culture of building hard things that others have not done before. Where do you imagine we are in the timeline of this technology? There will come a point when it will mature, right? Yeah. My cell phone is a mature technology at this point. How far are we from that point with quantum? By 2029, we'll build the first fault-tolerant quantum computer. That is one that can run a very, very large, large problem. To learn how IBM is building the future of computing, visit ibm.com slash quantum. Hey, it's Jay Shetty from On Purpose. Check out the best of a moment we did presented by eBay. I'd never owned a vintage camera before. There was something about it that felt almost unnecessary in a world where everything lives on our phones. But I wanted to change that. So I started the hunt for a point-and-shoot camera. When I finally found the perfect one on eBay, I didn't keep it to myself. I left it out on a table. Always within reach, people started picking it up without asking. Family, friends, everyone to take a photo of whatever felt important to them in that moment. There was no editing, no retakes. You took the photo and that was it. The moment became real right away. It was about choosing something. Deciding this matters. Even if it came out blurry, the vintage camera belonged to the room, to the moment, to the people in it. Over time, the photos started to pile up on the fridge, on shelves, tucked into books. Each one a reminder that meaning isn't always planned. That's what I appreciate about eBay. It's a place where you can find things that bring people together and pass along things you no longer need, so they can become part of someone else's memories. To listen to more, check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. Visit ebay.com to shop your favorite finds. Find what you love, sell what you don't. eBay. Things people love. With the Venmo debit card, a taco in one hand, and ordering a ride in the other, means you're stacking your rewards. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more. Pick a bundle with your go-tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Do more stash. Get more cash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max $100 cash back per month. Ever notice that feeling your worst also seems to happen at the worst time in the worst places? Like sudden nausea at 9 p.m. when you're out of town. Really? Now? Fortunately, with Hartford HealthCare's HHC 24-7 app, you can get answers, diagnosis, prescriptions, even speak live with clinicians anytime, anywhere. So maybe there's never a good time to be sick, but at least the best care is always there. Download the app at your app store or hhc247.org. With the Venmo debit card, a taco in one hand and ordering a ride in the other means you're stacking your rewards. Nice. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo Stash on your favorite brands when you pay with your Venmo debit card. From takeout to ride shares, entertainment and more. Pick a bundle with your go-tos and start earning cash back at those brands. Do more stash. Get more cash. Venmo Stash bundle terms and exclusions apply. See terms at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max $100 cash back per month. At CVS, it matters that we're not just in your community, but that we're part of it. It matters that we're here for you when you need us, day or night. And we want everyone to feel welcomed and rewarded. It matters that CVS is here to fill your prescriptions and here to fill your craving for a tasty and, yeah, healthy snack. At CVS, we're proud to serve your community because we believe where you get your medicine matters. So visit us at cvs.com or just come by our store. We can't wait to meet you. Store hours vary by location. Let's go. how are you?