The Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special V

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Listen to the Astonishing Junk Drawer exclusively at patreon.com slash astonishing legends. Pandemonium, riots. Altiva. Living together. I am going to be fired by Forrest probably because we gave Ed the night off. All this technology can be weaponized and then we're talking about the ultimate weapon on the Earth. And that was all tied to Bob Bigelow and Bigelow Aerospace. Highlighter and regular pin? I don't think so, Forrest. I would know about it. This upends everything. This breaks the world. And what was allowed to be in the book is what he knows he can safely say. Did you ask it if it believes in aliens? Astonishing Legends would like to thank Squarespace, our contributors at patreon.com, and you, our listeners, for making tonight's show possible. Hey everyone. Merry Christmas and happy holidays from everyone at Astonishing Legends. Tonight, we are thrilled to bring back the Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special for our fifth year. Yes, we are. And tonight, we have rounded up what, by now, are all of the usual suspects. We recorded this live a few days ago and just had an absolute blast. As usual with these, we are combining our cold open and housekeeping for this special episode. So just a couple of very quick announcements. Yeah. Firstly, this is our last episode of our main show for 2024. It will be back on January 11th with a new episode. But in the meanwhile, the Astonishing Dead Letter Office will continue to have new episodes on Tuesdays like Clockwork, so you can expect one of those every week. That's right. But we will otherwise be generally shut down until the holidays pass. Well, we have an amazing show tonight. And the reason it's amazing is because of our wonderful friends, whom we'd like to take a minute to thank for returning. In alphabetical order, we're welcoming back Paul Gledhill, Micah Hicks, Jim Harreld, Richard Haddam, Alison Jorlin, Tess Feifel, and Ed Vecola. I hope that was a TV special announcer-y enough for you. Yes, and they will all be joining us tonight here in a minute. And just like last year, stay tuned at the end of the special for the Astonishing Legends Network After Party, where we'll be joined by Miranda Merrick of the Midnight Library and Ed's co-host from Scared All the Time, Chris Gulari, as well as the executive producer of Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf, Susan Lambert Haddam, for a year-end nightcap and roundup. All right, let's kick this off. Welcome back to Astonishing Legends. I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess. Christmas is the season where you buy this year's gifts with next year's money. Join us tonight for the Astonishing Legends All-Star Holiday Special 5. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Astonishing All-Star Holiday Special No. 5. I'm Scott Philbrook, and this is Forrest Burgess. Yes, hello, everyone, and welcome once again. Are you sure it's number 5? Because that seems like a lot of years. I am sure. I had to go back and look at the archive pages and see how many had been done, and that's the only way that I knew, so yes. Well, it's impressive. We haven't been canceled by now, so we'll keep it rolling. Well, you can't cancel us because we're in charge. People can stop listening, but we can keep posting it. Who cares, right? Well, I guess our guests could not show up, as has happened in some of our real-life parties, but we're glad everyone has. Once again, it's a tradition. We love seeing everyone, and everyone's so busy throughout the year. It's really the only time we get to all come together and chat, aside from just some minor texting here and there on a group chat. We're glad everyone's here in person. We're all rearing to go. We've got some stories lined up for you. Scott has got more details. What are we doing tonight, Scott? We have a good list of guests here, and we're going to bring them up one by one here pretty shortly. We're going to talk about everybody's past year, which for some folks have been extremely eventful, and talk about all the stuff that's going on in the paranormal community. This is one of the shows where we do focus more on topical things than we do the rest of the year, and Tess will be joining us as well, so why don't we get started? Sounds like a good plan. All right, so introducing our guests in alphabetical order, the first person we'd like to bring up is Paul Gledhill. We call him Gled, Gledders. There he is. How are you? Very well, gentlemen. How the heck are you? We're doing good, man. It's good to see you. And you. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, and thank you also for being the furthest. You've traveled the furthest to be here tonight. It's late for you, so we really appreciate you joining us. You're very welcome. We especially enjoy your background there. It mixes everything together. It's got Christmas, it's got USOs, it's got abductions. It's wonderful. Yeah, it ticks every box. It's great. So I knocked that together earlier on today. Just in blind panic, I thought, I can't use the same one as last year. So just pop that together and the wonders of AI. Oh, that's good. Yeah, and that's like me ordering a new ugly sweater two days ago, but it did make it in time. We'll stand up a little and show everyone here. Christmas. Oh, very nice. Crackin'. There you go. Well, let's welcome another one of our guests to the stage, Mr. Jim Harrell. Jim, hello, sir. How are you? Good to be here. Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. This is always a highlight of the holiday season, so thanks for allowing me to be a part of it again. Well, we are so glad to have you, and as usual, your hair is perfect. I have to hide mine under a hat, so you're looking very festive this evening with your green background. Yes, yes, and I've got my, although I have to say, I think I wear this every year, I'm going to have to order a new one if... Yeah, it's a small expense. You can write it off. Yeah, good idea. Good idea. That's all right, Jim. I'm rocking the same one from last year, and I realize that because of the eye line, no one sees it really, so... I know, I know. That's my... I know this is Christmas with green gobs on the bottom there, but... Yeah, I feel ashamed because it's got the beer on it, and I'm actually having the vintage of Deer Park tonight. I guess it's a sign of getting old. I always used to have these great drinks, and now I'm just drinking more of it, trying to get healthier. But anyway, again, thanks for making me a part of it. Always fun to join with all of you guys and everybody else that's coming in, and it's always a great time. Well, thank you, sir. Yeah, it wouldn't be a spooky Christmas without you from the spooky studio, so we always love seeing you, and you're the premier collector, I think, of stories just in general, so we're very eager to hear what you have in store for us tonight. No worries if you don't, but you hear so many... Oh, I've got one. He's got a few. No, he always delivers. That's the thing, is that I think out of all of us, comes across the most stories from average, regular, everyday people, and that's why I keep listening, and we're excited. Like I said, you think after a while, Scott and I did, like, you know, maybe at some point after all these years, there won't be any more spooky stories coming into us, but you have to realize it's always happening. It's happening right now as we're together. There's something weird is out there happening in the world. Speaking of something weird happening, I would like to welcome Micah Hanks to the stage as well. There's something weird happening there, and a gentleman that we met, thanks to Jim. So, Mr. Hanks, thank you so much for joining us, too. Well, it's my pleasure to be here, and thank you for letting me in from out of the cold. You know, I had another holiday party I was supposed to be at tonight, it's true, but I told the fine folks at the DOD, look, you know, we'll just have to catch up a little closer to Christmas. This is a holiday tradition. I'm always here. Now, for those of you who wore the same suit this year that you wore last year, shame on you because even though I was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and everything last year, I have seven of them. So, this is a totally different one from the last one I wore yet last year, and as you can see, I'm still in the Black Lodge, so I had to come up with my agent Dale Cooper, Diane button right here. Those who know will know, and indeed, it is weird. And last thing I'll add here, you know, Jim mentioned, despite the wonderful beer glasses on his sweater, that he's drinking the Deer Park Vintage tonight. That could also be a sign that it's a Monday, my friend. There you go. And no matter who is listening when, it's always Monday somewhere. One thing I just want to interject, you mentioned the Department of Defense. Now, can you either confirm or deny? I know there's some question about the Secretary of Defense nominee. Might you be a possible replacement? I cannot confirm or deny at the present time. That's not classified information, but it is classified as special use only, and so until it has been designated through the proper authorities, and once I've cleared all that through DOPSR, the Defense Office of Pre-Publication for Security Review, then maybe I can talk about that. Unfortunately, I tried- You can talk about it in a SCIF. Yes, I could talk about it in a SCIF, and we'll try and arrange that. And I've got several lawmakers after me about that also, Jim. It's really hard to get SCIF time. It seems like nobody- Well, I'm surprised they let him in there into the secret compartmentalized information facility with his Dale Cooper backdrop and his backdrop and a microphone, which is usually a very bold. Listen, Forrest, I had to prove it's not a real microphone, right? And yeah, they cut me off. I'm drinking, you know, cask-strength apple juice tonight. So Merry Christmas, everybody. I tell you, Merry Christmas. Do we get to see a dancing little person with some mood music short? Well, yeah, perhaps so, you know. Look, I've been in here 25 years. Anything goes, okay? Well, all right, folks, it's time to bring our next guest in, one Mr. Richard Haddam. Hey, you guys. Hello, sir, Rich. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? Good. How are things out in Pasadena? Oh, it's cold and snowy out here. Oh, is it? That's wonderful. That's wonderful. I don't think I saw anything about that on the news. Yeah, it's funny. It gets dark. This time of year, around one in the afternoon, and it stays pretty dark, and then the sun doesn't really come out till around noon. It just kind of grazes the horizon and then right back down. So it's my perfect kind of weather. I love it. Well, we'd like to welcome our next guest, who is coming back since last year. It is Allison Jornlin. Allison, welcome back to the holiday special. Oh, yeah. But this is my third year, actually. Oh, it's the third? Oh, my God. See, that's why I should know. It is. I thought it was the second. Hey, happy holidays, everybody. I look forward to this every year. And whatever is going on, it just brings a smile to my face to just, you know, huddle around the fire with you guys and talk weird. You know, it does my heart good. We are so thrilled to have you. So thank you for coming back and making the time. Thank you. The next guest I would like to welcome is our very own Tess Feifel, who has been able to make it. Hello, Tess. Hi. I dug my way out of the blog archives just to be here to upset Rich with a horrible canned white peppermint Russian cocktail. Oh, come on. What is that? Is that that cut water? It's cut water. Come on, no. Listen, I got to tell you, one of the most distressing developments over the last year, several years, are these canned cocktails. I'm telling you, these things taste like mouthwash mixed with toilet water. It's just so bad. Look, if you're going to drink something, make a drink. Do it the way Micah does. Just drink straight out of a bottle. Well, I don't drink straight out of a bottle, but when I do drink, I drink it straight. There you go. Straight. Nice and neat. I love it. I do have a Miller High Life champagne of beer, but it's my favorite annual tradition, not just to be here with all of you, but to discuss Rich with my canned cocktails. I still think this is worse than the PBR coffee, but the night will only let us know. Oh, man. Yeah, you're a dyed-in-the-wool PBR person. Michael, what's in that glass of yours? Well, I had previously reported it was apple juice, but I suspect that there may be something a little stronger than that. Rich, what's in your glass? It's so sad because it's early out here. It's just Diet Coke. Can you add a little bit of whatever you've got to whatever I've got here? Yeah. You know, I think I've got a little seasonal cheer right here, and of course, it matches the surroundings. So hold your glass over here. Yeah, there we go. Oh, a nice glass, by the way. Nice. There you go. Oh. And you just let me know, brother, if you need a top off at any time. Oh, dang. You pour hard. I do. That's how my mama taught me when I was five years old. Oh, God bless her. How is she? She's doing good, all things considered. You know, it's been a little rough here in Appalachia this year. Yeah, that's what I've heard. That's what I've heard, actually. Well, let's welcome our last guest to the stage. That is also our director from years past, years gone by, and a man with his own show now with his co-host, Chris. Ed Bacola. Ed, come on in, man. Oh. How's it feel bringing yourself on stage? No one else is going to do it. You know, it feels good. It feels good to have this kind of agency. Yeah. Well, now we're all here in the interest of, like, sort of keeping things moving. What I wanted to do was talk to people. Before we get into, like, the top, you know, the super topical stuff, let's just a little bit talk about how people's years have been. And, Gled, again, sticking with alphabetically, let's start with you. You recently completed some higher education, I understand. I did. Yeah, so last year we were talking about the master's that I was doing. Yes. And I've just literally in the past week passed it. Congratulations. Yay. Yes. I am now qualified, God knows how, but I'm qualified to psychotherapize you. All right. Yeah. Yay. That's amazing. Zero clue what I'm doing. Zero. Paul, that is great news because my therapist is retiring. Oh. Oh, there we go. At least that's what she's telling me. Yeah. It's fortune smiles upon you yet again, Richard. So what are you doing Wednesdays at about 10 a.m., my time? What am I doing? I'm charging you $250 an hour. There we go. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Pounds? Dollars? That price. It doesn't matter. That's the friend's rate. And it starts to tell me about your master. I can feel my anxiety rising. Yeah. But I can deal with that for you. I don't know how much therapy you could possibly need, Rich. You've said everything you would say on a couch in your podcast. So I think we're sure. So true. It's a very good point. Strangely, the rest of us find it very therapeutic hearing these stories as well. That's true. I keep telling my therapist, just listen to the podcast. That's got to have been the most cathartic writing that you've done, Richard. Oh, it's great. I don't have to. When I'm writing for television, I just have to sneak things in here and there. With a podcast, no, just go straight to it for 45 minutes. You know, my podcast is about the length of a session. Yeah. Funny how that happened. All right. Well, that's all coming home to me. Have you started getting emails from listeners who've shared their experiences because you've been so just open? Their paranormal experiences or their awkward high school experiences? Yeah. We'll move past that. But in all seriousness, especially maybe around this time of year, you'll get letters from people that say how much you've helped them just by talking, just by being there and being like a touchstone for folks, you know, when they're going through a tough time. And this has certainly been a tough year. But glad. What else about in addition to your education? What's how's your past year been? Well, yeah. I mean, so there is more on the education front because I started my doctorate just a few weeks ago as well. OK. So next year you'll be doctor glad. No, no, it's going to be about three years. Three? Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It's a bit of a top up. But I just thought if I took a year out, I'll never do it. So I'm going to give it a go and see how it goes. As far as other things are concerned. Yeah. So I lost some friends this year. So there's a sad aspect to that. One of them, a guy called Howard Hughes, who, you know, really, really super guy. But maybe we'll talk more about him later. I don't know. But yeah, and just other people, I think this is a thing as you get older, some people just fall by the wayside. So in many ways, it's been a hard year, but there are some real highs in it as well. So I'm fingers crossed for 25 and everything's going to be cool. For listeners who don't know and a lot might, why don't you give a little bit of background on Mr. Hughes? Yeah. So Howard Hughes, a British broadcaster, sort of he was active from the 80s. The similarity and name to your Howard Hughes, I mean, he was actually born Howard Hughes. So that kind of followed him. Every time he went through passport control in the US, hey, this guy over here, you know, because obviously that was New Jersey. And so, yeah, but he had the most amazing radio voice. Absolutely fantastic. He was friends with Art Bell, you know, and Art at one stage wanted him to step up on Art's network as well. And he just never happened. But he was taken ill earlier in the year and unfortunately just never recovered from it. So, yeah, he's going to be sorely missed. He's one of those rare people in broadcasting that absolutely everybody loved because he was just a super nice, kind, humble guy. All right. We have less. And was kind of considered the Art Bell of the UK. Yeah, without a doubt. Yeah. He wouldn't accept it himself, but absolutely. He was too humble for that, but because he was a big fan of Art Bell and Art Bell didn't listen to anybody else's shows, but he did listen to Howard. And I have to chime in here as well. You know, I didn't know him really, but I was on his show in 2018, I think. And so I still think about him. I thought about him today because he just had little tips for me about plug into your router, you know, don't record over Wi-Fi, stuff like that. So every time I plug into my router to record a podcast like this one, I think of Howard. That's a great tip. That's one of the best tips there is, actually. He just was such a kind person. And my husband and I often listen to paranormal podcasts as we're falling asleep. So I haven't even told my husband yet because, you know, it has been a hard year in terms of losing people. So I just don't want to tell my husband yet, you know, let him think that Howard lives on. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I think, not to be morbid, but sometimes I think about after whatever I go to move, leave the earthly plane, it's, I wonder how long the recordings will still be online, which I'm sure many of us wonder since we're all in the same field, but like, you know, how long will people be able to find it? And it would be weird for our friends and family members to hear it, you know? Well, all you have to do, Scott, you know, is just say something really awful and forward, then it'll be around forever. You can guarantee that. Yeah. That's a good way to get it cemented. I think that's a good point. As long as you can sort of time that the right way. Yeah. Well, next, let's welcome back Mr. Harold. Jim, how has your past year been? We heard through the grapevine and by the grapevine, we mean, Allison, that you were closing in on 20 years, I guess, next year? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Next year will be 20 years. That's amazing. That is amazing. It is, and really grateful to be able to do this for a long period of time. I just wanted to mention, just in reflection, what Paul said, Howard Hughes was one of the absolute best, and really one of those guys who went from broadcasting to podcasting and did it effortlessly. You know, a lot of people have tried to do that, and he did it very, very well. A lot of people couldn't make that transition, so kudos to him. And he will be missed. And I don't mean to derail things, but I just want to say it has been a year of great losses. We also lost, there was a great author by the name of Jim Willis, who did a lot of work on ancient mysteries and also some paranormal stuff. And I interviewed him in May about near-death experiences, posted it in June. And lo and behold, within the week, he passed. Oh, that's right. And really just a nice, nice man. Former minister started writing on, you know, more kind of anomalous topics. And then, of course, just on Thanksgiving, we lost Jerry Pauly from Hillbilly Horror Stories. So I don't mean to make the whole thing a downer here. No, but that's what this time of year, it is about looking back on who we lost and how it makes us feel. And Jerry, his community was tremendously hit hard by that. He was so close to people. He would actually give out his personal cell phone number to help people who were in crisis. And him and his wife, Tracy, just very, very sweet people. So my heart goes out to them. And that's a great loss to the podcasting and the paranormal community, Jerry Pauly. And then even towards the end of last year, we lost Ian Punnett in late 2023. So, and there's many that I've forgotten or not mentioned. But really, as you mentioned the 20 years, is I do this more and more and more and more people when I go back and look at that guest list. It's important, very important what you do. It's like that you get these people on record and that their ideas and their thoughts live on. And that's what's for all of us, I think, in terms of interviewing folks and getting them on record, especially when they're in fields that it's harder to get airtime in some places. So I think that's, and you're at the pinnacle of that. So it's cool that people can go and still listen to these folks, you know. And just briefly, in terms of the year, it's been the busiest year I've ever had. I would not say the most successful, but certainly the busiest changed everything on the back end of everything we do. Yeah. And it was quite a heavy lift transferring almost 3,000 episodes to a new media host. Yeah. But yeah, it's been a tough year, but I hope that the seed's planted for 2025. And I'm just thankful I'm here and glad to be with you guys always. Well, thanks again for making the time. Mr. Hanks, you and I had quite a bit of discussion a few months ago, so I know how your year has been. Like, what's the biggest thing that's happened to you lately? Well, there's quite a lot. I've already, in various outlets, discussed the effects of Hurricane Helene on Asheville, where I reside. So I'm not going to get into depth about that right now. I'll simply acknowledge, you know, we had tremendous loss of life, destruction of property. You know, those who emerged from that relatively unscathed are all thankful. I'd like to thank those who are present, you know, who reached out. Jim Herold, my longtime friend and colleague and confidant in many aspects, you know, had been messaging me when, frankly, the messages weren't coming through. But like you said, Scott, when it was all coming down, it's funny how they say when, in times of disaster, you find out who your friends are. Scott Philbrook was one of the very people who was messaging or calling daily until he was able to confirm that I was okay. And then after that was calling to ensure that I had everything that I needed. And fortunately, I was better off than a lot of people here in Appalachia. The first week I told everybody, I spent the entire first week shoveling gravel, fixing roads and just in my neighborhood, partially because the road that you take to get into my community was partially destroyed. We couldn't get out. There was a community further up the road that I wanted to go check on. And many of the vigilant volunteers who were here with better equipment and better wheels, I guess, for getting up the mountain to where this had happened, they told me, they said, you're not going to get up there in your vehicle. You're going to need four-wheel drive, a side-by-side, something along those lines. That little community was called Craigtown, by the way, and many, I think, saw that on their nightly news. A mudslide came down the mountain, at least 11 people were killed. But, you know, again, that's unfortunate and Asheville continues to recover, but we have been strengthened by the lasting friendships, the charity and the kindness that we've received. And that extends to really each of you here, because in times like that, it's just good to know that you got friends and a couple of you were sincerely anchors for me. And those who weren't here present, too, Seth Breedlove and a lot of people. I mean, there were people who were just every single day checking to make sure that we were all good. So thank you to everybody out there who's reached out to my community, because the greater Asheville area was severely impacted by that. And I'll also add this, in line with what Paul and Jim were both saying there, you know, yes, we have lost some people this year. A couple of names that haven't been mentioned were Jazz Shaw, a good friend of mine, also a contributor there at thedebrief.org. And then a friend of many years, Christopher O'Brien, the renowned cattle mutilation researcher. We lost Chris just the other day, and Chris was a dear friend of mine of many years. And it's actually very appropriate at Christmastime to talk about those who we've lost. It's not to be morbid, in fact. And I think that our fallen friends would appreciate this. There's a long tradition at Christmastime of telling ghost stories. And if you think of that in terms of the anthropology, I think that ghost stories, in a way, connect us to the past and to the ones that we've lost. And it can be scary when you're telling a ghost story. But Jim, you know this very well from the campfire tales that you share to people around the world. You share those stories because the deeper underlying context there is that not only does it give us a connection to something beyond the known, it also gives us, to a certain degree, a connection to a so-called afterlife or whatever various cultures, traditions, and belief systems call that. So again, I think it's very appropriate that we remember those we've lost this year at this holiday gathering. And we remember them fondly and with Christmas cheer. Very well put, sir. And thank you also for making time to join. How long were you without power again? I know it was at least 14 days. 17. Yeah. 17. Yeah, I was here. And, you know, I didn't think about that very much. There were, you know, a lot of people who were without water up until maybe just a couple of weeks ago here in Asheville. Fortunately, at my house out here in the country, I have well water, but there was no power. And with no power, you couldn't get the well pump running. So let's just say that after this, I have made investments in solar generators and radios. You know, Uncle Elon sent along a Starlink because, you know, I realized as editor-in-chief of a high-traffic website, it's hard to do your job if you don't have internet for 17 days. So, but we live and we learn. And I think that we're all more prepared for it. And my good friend, Jay Stratton, has vowed that I'm going to be a ham operator before it's all said and done. So I'm also training up right now for my technician exam. And all you ham operators out there, send your call signs because once I finally qualify and I'm on the VHF and the UHF, I'll be out there coasting the airwaves like the late great Art Bell used to do after his primary broadcast. Well, we'll have to get you on HF as well, Micah, and then I can spend the night talking to you as well. Indeed. I'll relish that. Yes, Glenn has gotten us handhelds, but I'm not qualified. So all I can do is listen, but I love it. He programmed mine for me. So it's nice to have. Well, it's good to be able to collect that signals intelligence. Are those bell phones by chance? Yeah. Oh no, you've got YASUS. Oh no, that's right. You're right. That is. It's YASUS. You're right. You're right. That's right. I just remember when I was a kid, I was in the Boy Scouts and my Scoutmaster had a ham radio thing and it took an entire room. It was like 25 pieces of giant metal racks and then a motorized antenna on the roof with the motor control and all. It was the coolest thing ever, but like it was a lot. It was intimidating, the amount of gear. And now you can just, it's like a walkie talkie. I mean, of course you don't have the same range. Well, you know, to get that long range propagation, you still need that good old front end and a nice antenna. But again, that's a conversation we'll save for all the ham enthusiasts and the physicists another time. 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I think we're going to need to start doing the telephone calls to Scott. But Rich, how's your show been going? When did you launch that again? Launched it in March and it's been going great. That's been the greatest part of the year is doing that. And like you said earlier, just communicating with everybody and my listeners, my God, what a bunch of sweethearts. We just all get together on our little Facebook group and just try to outnice each other. Well, that's terrific. You have to be careful when they say, you know what I'm thinking, don't you? We share a mind and I must meet you in person. In fact, I can see you right now. No, you're so candid and it's just so heartfelt. I think that's what strikes everybody when they first start listening to your show and that it's nothing shocking. It's just, it's just innermost thoughts. And then we share a lot of them and it's like, well, you know, you just, like I said, at the beginning of the show, you start to feel like, Hey, this guy kind of gets it. He feels some of the same things that I do. And I think that's the appeal of the show, but, but also you have a broad, you know, depth of knowledge of the paranormal and the books that are a keystone and, and paramount in those. And so I think anybody with this interest, and even if you don't, you, you tune in, it's kind of like car talk. You, a lot of people who didn't, they didn't even care about cars. They just wanted to hear somebody just really relatable. So kudos on that, my friend. It was, and we've talked about this, but it was 2017, which isn't that long ago when I met you guys. And from that, from that contact, it just, just, it has spiraled outward. Everyone who's on this screen, listeners, just so many people and so many wonderful interactions have come into my life that never, ever would have happened without you guys. And so I'm so happy and grateful and thankful that that happened. It really has been the gift of the last few years that it's been the greatest thing in my life. So I'm just, I'm so thankful to you guys. And I'm so glad to be here with all of you. Can I pay a compliment to Rich? You know, and I told you this when we did the show together. Is it about my hair? Well, no, we'll talk about that offline. We're not, that's personal. So anyway, the point of it is, the point of it is, there's so much duplication out there and you really have a unique concept. I really believe you have a unique concept. I mean, I don't know any other show that does what you do and hats off to you for coming up with that. That's, couldn't agree more. Well, thank you. I really, I feel like I really got to jump on the whole Richard Haddam genre. There you go. Yeah. There you go. That's one of my wife's jokes, you know, cause like at the checkout at the grocery store, there's always some people or somebody has thrown together something that's either a retrospective or whatever of the person and her joke was back when she was on Twitter a thousand years ago, she was like, Oh, I'm glad to see that Betty White made the cover of Betty White magazine. Cause that's what it always is. It's like, they put it together and it's up front there. It's like, okay, it's, it's dedicated. Anyway, no, it is an amazing show. I agree with you. I, and I remember thinking when we were like, Hey, you know, we want to do a show. We'll help you get it off the ground and everything. And he sent me the pages and I spent a good two or three days being like, I don't know what's happening here. What is this? And I was like, what is going on? And I was like, you know what, let's do it. This is not what I meant. Yeah. Yeah. This is what I didn't want, but it's, I'm so glad it was so different. So that's, uh, that's really cool. Thank you. And thank you, Jim. Well, just, I just say quickly to your point and, and, you know, look, we've all worked other jobs in this. I don't think anybody started out like my first job was paranormal podcasting and, uh, you're lucky if you do, but you know, we've all had past jobs and you meet a lot of great people and coworkers that you'll remember forever. Uh, some become close friends, but it's different than any other job. And I think we're truly blessed that we get to do, even if it's not your main revenue maker here, that you get to be in this space of, uh, broadcasting about subjects we all love and share. And I think, you know, there's several reasons. One is the nature of what we all talk about and that we've talked about this. Uh, I've said this many times on the show. It's such an intimate or can be a very intimate and personal subject matter for a lot of people. You're talking about people's beliefs and, and what you don't believe and stuff that happened to you that you don't, you may never tell another soul. And so I think we're very fortunate in that medium, but also the people that we've met and this is community has grown. It's like, it's the most we could ever hope for, uh, Scott and I think we just thought like, well, it'd be a fun little community and we can share stories. And, and if somebody wants to know how to get rid of a ghost in their house, we can turn them on to somebody who knows what they're doing. And it's so much more than that. And, and just, this is just evidence of, of that. And just, uh, you know, we've added people every year, we lose some, but you gain some. And that is, uh, you know, you set time of year to, to look back as, as Scott was saying and reflect, and as Michael was saying, it's, it's that time of year when the veil is thin, but, uh, it's also a time to be appreciative of what we have. And I'm, and Scott and I are so appreciative that you, you keep coming back no matter what we, we dish out at you. And, uh, and we just keep making, you can't keep me away. Rich is just here that he's that, that bad paranormal penny, but we, we also keep making new introductions as we go along. And so we're not done by a long shot anyway. And, and one of them is, is Alison who came to us through, yeah, I can't remember exactly. You were mentioned by other people in the field. It's like, oh, you, you got to talk to Alison. She, she's either covered this and, uh. Wow. Really? Yeah. And then, well, just in case in point, one of the. Yeah. I wondered why I got that call. I'm like, hey. Well, something like I said. I've been trying to hide myself. There's no hide with the amount of, uh, tireless and excellent work that you do. There's no hiding from that. Eventually it bubbles up. Case in point, Scott and I were just covering. Oh, you know, it was the, um, Scott was the case of the, uh, it was the entity. And, uh, we were looking for articles and it's like, gee, I wonder if there's any, any good, uh, uh, is it Carrie Gaynor? And it's like, I wonder if anybody's written any good articles. Like, oh, here you go. Alison's. Yeah. Alison's got us several. And so just the people that, like I said, that are just so prolific and keep on going and do excellent investigative journalism and research and, uh, you're, you, there's no going away. So, uh, anyway, that you just, yeah. So the people we met like, yeah. And then just to look back, I'm sure you folks do it too, where it's like, oh yeah, we talked to them or we're going to read them or reread their book. And, uh, like I said, it's just, uh, it, yeah, we just are truly blessed, but blessed to have made your acquaintance. And like I said, do you remember how, uh, that connection or did you, did you reach out to us about something? Yeah, I think, um, I think I must've sent you one of my videos for us and then, but it was still like a year later. Well, that's the pace. That's next day for us. Yeah. I'm just like, oh, Hey, that worked. Just send a video out into cyberspace. And I just was looking, um, on X at our message. It was, I was trying to track, trying to track this down while you guys were talking. The first message I sent you was December 7th, 2022 about coming on the show. Yeah. Yeah. So that was, that was, uh, you know, such a nice surprise. Yeah. And it says here, by the way, I was, you said, what possessed you to reach out to me? And I wrote forest says we should reach out to you. So that's what we do. Okay. Uh, well, I am just so happy to be back again. And, uh, every year I do a lot of work that is not public in terms of it. It doesn't get to the masses. It gets to the people that take our, our American ghost walks tours. How many cities are you guys in now? 35, 40, somewhere in there. Oh my God. That's amazing. So, uh, yeah, it's hard to keep track. I mean, I, I don't write for every single one of them. No, I was going to say, how are you have time to be here? But, uh, yeah, there's, uh, you know, a lot of, uh, communities that I get to visit and do research in and, uh, then, you know, write about the ghost stories that are native to that community. So, uh, you know, that's basically, you know, what I'm doing for my full-time job. And then, you know, I have a lot of other side projects, which, uh, you know, just get my attention whenever I have time. And, but I'm really excited now, um, that is 2025 and, you know, my main ghost season is pretty much over. I have plenty of projects to work on, especially in our warm weather destinations. Allison, you play it so cool. And yet you've, you've like come up with this genius idea. You're like, I know I'll go places and then start ghost tours. And then I've got to like, sort of keep up with that for business. I wonder if there's any ghosts in Hawaii. Well, um, I, you know, I, I have to give a little bit of background. I didn't, didn't just show up there. I actually have family that, uh, has lived, um, in, um, Hawaii on Oahu for most of it, but they were on Kauai for a while and, uh, they've lived there, uh, for at least 25 years. I think maybe even more. They're getting very elderly. So, uh, this year I actually, it was a pretty good year. Yes. Um, you know, I'd lost, uh, some people as well, but you know, a lot of cultures, they look at it as people returning to the source or returning to the ancestors and, you know, now they're all in the ether there for us to, um, draw knowledge from. So, you know, that's the way that I like to try to look at it so that we can be positive. Yes, it is a loss, but, you know, I think they're still out there somewhere and they've joined the ancestors again, but yeah, I have, um, relatives in Hawaii and, um, now that they're getting elderly, I've been visiting them more often and then doing a lot of more work in Hawaii because, you know, I can't stop looking for ghost stories, obviously, but, you know, any year is a good year when you get to spend a month in Hawaii. So I can't complain. Let's not forget you were on Shark Tank too last year. Oh yeah, last year. That's right. Yeah, it's, it's really, it's really been a whirlwind. Well, thank you for taking the time to join us. Um, I would like to throw it over to our very own, uh, Tess Feifel now, who also made time tonight, who's one of the busiest people I know and has a, uh, has a full-time day gig and, but then also works very hard trying to help us stay afloat, especially on the internet and with research. Tess, how is it going? How has your year been? Thank you for joining us. I am very good. Unfortunately, we did lose some paranormal grades this year, um, which I'll always miss their stories. A lot of them, I can say I'm a little bit young. Uh, I'm 30, so not that young, but I grew up with a lot of those, those folks and, uh, they always kind of seemed like I'd never get to talk to them or interact with them. And to be on a show, kind of honoring them is, uh, is pretty incredible. Um, something else pretty incredible happened this year. Well, two things. One, I met Ed. He came and stayed with me on his road trip. Meeting, uh, Astonishing Legends Network folks is not as simple as you'd think. Unfortunately, you have a lot of West Coast lovers and I am born and bred East Coast. I've been in D.C. for 13 years. So, uh, it took me four or five years to meet Scott and Forrest and I think eight months working with Ed, well, working with since the podcast launch to finally meet him. And we had a great time drinking Miller High Life. He went to one of my favorite, uh, Michigan State bars and we had a good time in D.C. So that was definitely a highlight. It was interesting to explain to my boyfriend, like, hey, my friend Ed is coming, who I've never met in real life, but who I've worked with for years and whose podcast I help support. So, you know, it's always kind of interesting to meld your, your real life, right? With your, your kind of paranormal life. For me, um, I joined Astonishing Legends when I was 21. Like I said, I'm 30 now. So it's been nine years. It technically was one of my first full-time jobs, if you count it like that. That being said, Astonishing Legends has seen me through six jobs, five boyfriends and four apartments, including launching an entirely new network, which did not exist. Um, and then the, the, uh, dead letter office, which I'm an exec producer of, but that being said, all these milestones, this year is the first year that something huge happened. So, uh, Scott and Flores know, and I think Ed has kind of gotten to know, maybe Rich can sense this about me. I have a really robust circle of friends. I'm so lucky to have so many people in my life, especially in DC, which is quite a transient city. But a lot of my friends, we see each other multiple times a week. We've made brunch, an Olympic ranking sport. And no one has ever listened to more than a few episodes of Astonishing Legends. But this year, something amazing happened. My friend, Hannah, her number one listened to podcast was Astonishing Legends. Oh, nice. Like a Spotify wrap. I have been friends on her Spotify wrap. I've been friends with her for four years. She's kind of just started getting into it. So I would say all those milestones, getting one of my friends to listen to it, it outranked the daily show, which like, I'm very grateful for, but that was something great that happened this year. That and meeting Ed were my definite two perks of the year. Wow. Very exciting. So- Ed launching Rich's show. Oh yeah, that was a big highlight, I'm sure. Tess, you were 21. Did you reach out to them as a listener or how did that happen? I reached out when I was, I think I've told this a few times. So, you know, fast forward folks who have heard it five minutes, that's how long it takes me to tell this story. I was a college, like about to be college senior. I had not heard from any of my internships. Little did I know the Smithsonian would eventually hire me as an intern and then hire me as a full time employee. But I was like, I really need an internship because I majored in adaptation studies, which I think I might have invented as a college major at the Catholic University of America. See, that is, I always say that sounds like the fake university that Eddie Murphy says he went to and coming to America. It's not renowned. It's not renowned for its film school. But I had some great, great, great professors who are still there. But, and they teach you how to think, right? That's what you pay college professors to teach you how to think. But I was like, oh my God, I don't have an internship. Everyone's going to kill me. My parents, like, didn't even know what internships were, and they're just proud of me. They didn't have that in a generation. Yeah, they did not. But I reached out to three of my favorite podcasts, Assignaging Legends was one of them, and sent an email, like, I'd say like my spring semester, sophomore year. I had just gotten back from studying abroad at Oxford. I had a nice resume. I worked for our school's library. And I did not hear back for six months. Just empty. And then I think I was maybe drunk at a back-to-school party. Legally? Legally? No one's doing that, man. We don't have to talk about that part. It's a statute of limitations. We're good. We're good. And I decided to follow up and being like, hey, just making sure you guys got this to the email. And they finally responded and said, okay, we'd consider bringing you on as an intern. And when I found out the news, my mom loves this story, I fell down the stairs because I was running. I was at home, and I was running down the stairs to tell my parents, and I totally wiped out on our staircase, being so excited to tell them. I had already, I guess, experienced a little preview. I was on the Oak Island episodes as technically my first appearance, but my true first appearance was, unfortunately, September 11th with the Dyatlov Pass episode one is when I was a, at the time, my title was head of research or head of the research department, jokingly. But yeah, I just emailed them and was really persistent and sent my resume and my CV and hope for the best because I knew whatever I wanted to do when I grew up, I just wanted to tell stories. And I've gotten to work in publishing. I've worked for the Smithsonian. I've worked for parts of the other federal government. I've worked for a weed company. I currently work for a pet benefits company. And I've told a lot of stories. That benefit is weed for pets. Weed for pets is like the best, right? They do have that, unfortunately. Oh, jeez. And dogs can go on Xanax with a prescription. But yeah, now I work for a company called, it's not a joke. It's very serious. No, I'm kidding. Well, they're all sponsored the show. Don't mention them. Suddenly my dog is not feeling well. But yeah, I work for a company now called AirVet, which is a pet benefit for companies all across America and Canada and soon India. Yeah, it's a startup. They're blowing up too, right? Since you've been there. It's been a long, strange road. But I finally, long story short, thanks for letting me go on and on, got my first Spotify wrapped friend. There you go. Congratulations. Yes, that is so great. And I just want to say that I think anyone in the listening audience, if there is a podcast you love or if you think you're a young Tess Feifel, reach out to those podcasts. And here's the thing, if it goes six months and they haven't responded to your email, they need you. Yeah. I would like to say we're down to a few months now, but now it's more like eight or ten. I wanted to note something. I know Tess said she sent, now this was what, nine years ago. So where would that have been? That would have been like 2015. And three shows, and I was podcasting in that time, and I just looked and I don't see my email. Wow. Yeah, you were 10 years in. Yeah. Did you check your inbox? I think you're telling me something here, Tess. You know what? I think the difference is, Jim, you never published late. No, I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. Listen to early Scott and Forrest episodes. You'll be like, sorry, we're four days late. Sorry. No offense. They can't fire me now, so I can say that. But right, I needed to go somewhere where I was needed. That seemed in shambles, yeah. I remember Scott and I talking about, man, we could use some help because we were, I think I was still working full time. Yeah. You know, and then Scott was, you know, he was, I think, working freelance still and managing home duties. And we're also doing the podcast. I think we were on weekends. We don't even know how we did that. And there was a baby. Yeah, there was a, there was a young in, uh, so he was sandwiched in and it is one of those things where, as we've got along with the show, the people that you need, or that would be helpful come into your, your space, your universe here, and they reach out. And we've talked about that with stories. I'm sure, uh, I'm sure Jim and, and Glenn and Micah, uh, you know, Alison, when you think about something or you get kind of, you pay attention to these messages, like a topic will come up like, yeah, well, that would be good to cover, but we should talk with this other person, you know, and, but we have no way of reaching out. And then maybe a few days later, you get an email like, Hey, uh, I know so-and-so, would you like to talk to them? Like, wow, that's weird. They get kind of put in your path. And so I, I, you know, not all the time we've certainly been, uh, turned down here and there with folks or they were just not available, you know, but we managed. And, but a lot of times you'll, you'll see the people that you need kind of come into your, uh, into your sphere and cross paths with, and we pay attention now. When we get messages like that and someone, one just happened. I don't know if we'll talk about it later, but yeah, just the people you'd like to talk to, I won't say it's manifesting, but I just, I think our very first sponsor just living by myself and, uh, kind of meagerly, it's like, man, I could use a bed and some sheets. And then eventually the sheets were our first sponsor and like our very first sponsor, we got some sheets and it's just like exactly what I needed. It's the, uh, cosmic ordering service. It is. And it takes, it takes months or years, but eventually you'll get it. And, uh, the other one was a pair of glass, man, I could use a pair of glasses. Can't you say that Rich is obviously very keen to say something. So it is time that we need to praise Rich now. I just want to check in with Forrest. You needed a bed. No, I had a bed, but, uh, it was, you know, it had it for, uh, you know, very long time. It's like, man, it'd be great to get a new mat. You know, one of those new fangled spongy. Yeah. A new bed. Oh no, what we get was the, yeah, it was the Casper. That was the very, that was the first one. Still have it, still love it. But parachute home was way before. You know, I remember, I remember thinking I need food and then blue apron. Oh, we got food. We had blue apron. And we had blue apron for like three years. I didn't want to say one thing in all seriousness. I mean, Scott and Forrest, you put out the best content out there. You do an amazing job and Tess, you're obviously a big part of that. So my little joke aside, I mean, hats off to you and you guys make a great team. Oh, Jim. Thank you so much for saying that. But again, we, uh, we, we stood on the shoulders of giants. I say this every year at this time. And it's folks like, uh, you, Micah, uh, glitters, uh, it, and his, his twist on it. And then these people kind of coming together, the research like Allison's. And again, we all kind of rely on each other a little bit and hopefully we're doing something good and all getting better and, and continuing to, uh, everything would be different. If I was trying to do this as a podcast on my own, it's like, I think I could do it. I could get it produced and out there. It'd be totally different from what Scott and I do. I think it'd be the same if Scott wasn't there, but for some reason he and I kind of came together and it is what it is because, uh, I think we, we make a such great partnership, but it would be different if we hadn't met any of you, it'd still be a more insular isolated show. And then, uh, and then sometimes you get the, exactly that kind of help we need and we needed technical help. And that's where Ed came along. Hello, Ed, who folded shirts for us. It's like also holding shirts, but also, uh, pushing buttons for us and clicking, uh, happy to do it only took three attempts to get this thing started guys. So I appreciate you keeping me on payroll. That's really nice. Thanks for coming, man. And just where it's good. Now we're going to meet everybody, but in, in here you are alphabetically at the end. Oh yeah. How's your year been? You might not want to talk about it, but I thought you might. Like everybody lost people gained weight, same story every year. Yeah. Well, since we blew by it earlier, I am drinking a beer and I'm wearing a new Bev Christmas shirt, which is a repertory, uh, theater here in LA. Oh, it's a naughty list. It's the best I can do on short notice. I'm born on Christmas Eve. So I'm not like a big Christmas guy. It's your birthday. Oh yeah. So you can get through any TSA check that way, because no matter what the situation, when you walk up to the TSA agent, they look at your ID and you're like Christmas baby, huh? And they all know somebody. They're like, well, my sister, she was born in 29th, but whatever. And so then as long as you say one present, they're like, you're just no way. That's the right answer. Get on here. You're the safest person in the airport. You're fine. And that's why you became a drug addict. That was the day. I will say, we have to remember these things is that you were the present for someone else. Oh yeah, it's true. It seems like a real inconvenient night to go to the hospital, but yeah, no, I was, I'm here. I'm present. I was, it's funny. You get sent home, at least where I lived. I got sent home in a stocking with like a little, I have a picture of me as an absolute, like a baby baby. And I'm in a stocking and I have like a Dickensian sleeping cap, like that little, that's what they send you home in, which is pretty wild. Anyway, no, the year has been, show's been great. No, I think they're trying to get out of me that I was in a pretty serious car wreck a couple of months ago. And I'm just now kind of in the last couple of weeks done with PT and all that stuff. And I'm happy to be here, but I'm not going to get too, too much into it. It was a, it was the worst. It was not great. One of the LA freeways. Yeah. Yeah. I was on the 10. I was just in the slow lane doing the same drive I've done every Sunday night for over a decade and just minding my own business, listening to book on tape and some Corvettes cars racing on the far left lane, lost it, went into the side of a giant pickup truck to the right of me. Then he lost it directly into the side of me, which I never even saw it coming. And so I got sent right into a wall. Then people following too close all smashed into the back of me. And it was like, Oh, it was a whole thing. But which is crazy about it is that I, it was exactly as sudden as it can be. Like I didn't see anything about to happen, which is crazy because if you guys know our show, scared all the time. We talk about fears and we had just recorded the season opening at the time. Uh, we had just recorded sudden death like three hours earlier where we talk in the episode about like, well, I've never been in a major accident and it was like three hours later, I was in like the most sudden death scenario. So we've since done a fear of winning the lottery in hopes that we can manifest, but then directly after fear of winning the lottery, which by the way, guys still broke directly after that, we recorded fear of the big one. And then now the 7.0 in Northern California happened. Yeah. Yeah. And I was like, Oh, this is, we got no nuclear war shows. Yeah. Don't we haven't done it. We thought it would be in poor taste, all things considered. Well, don't wish anyone into the cornfield either. You know, your thoughts are things, Ed, you gotta be careful. We're going to try and do it, but it seems to be resonating with people. The show seems to be resonating with people. I do feel obligated now to say that one of the best things this year was meeting Tess. I'm just kidding. It was absolutely great to meet her in real life though, because I've known her for years over this type of stuff, Astonishing Legends. No. Yeah. So the year has been like highs and lows, but I imagine that's similar to a lot of people. And so the lowest lows was that. And then the highest high, I don't know. Are we supposed to not talk about our shows? Are we not supposed to? You can know. It's okay. It's okay. Tess knows this. Esquire just named us top podcast 2024. Wow. In the top 26 podcasts. 2024. And we're the only podcast that doesn't have our names on the art. So that was a nice end to the year after like truly like financial and physical hardships of the last four months of rehabilitating. Well, we're glad you're back. We're glad you didn't get more seriously hurt. Thank you. I think it was because I was loose. Yeah. You know what I mean? I didn't anticipate anything, so I was rubber. I was like rubber. That's what they say. Be floppy. You know? Yeah. And I'm happy to be the only person to report that not because of drinking. Right. It's been a rough year for many of us. I don't know what to say most of us, but it's been very challenging. And I can only see this as a, it's a lesson of some sort that, you know, to, to get through it. And so congratulations to everybody. Pat yourselves on the back. You've made it this far. That's half the challenge. Protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition. 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Grab one at your local grocery store or head to aloha.com. Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of the podcast Smart Talks with IBM. I recently sat down with IBM's chairman and CEO, Arvind Krishna, and I asked him, how can companies use AI to its fullest potential to create smarter business? My one advice to them, pick areas you can scale. Don't pick the shiny little toys on the side. For example? If anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago, they're already five years behind. If anybody is not using AI to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today, with the goal of being 70% more productive, so we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it. We say, you can leverage what we did. We are happy to bring out all our learnings, including what needs to change in the process, because the biggest change is not technology. It's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things. To listen to the full conversation, visit ibm.com slash smarttalks. This is Sophia Bush from Work in Progress with Sophia Bush. Check out this special moment we did on our show, presented by eBay. When I was living in Chicago, I took part in my first ever giant charity sale, and I was able to auction several items from my personal closet on eBay. They were items that marked huge moments in my life and in my career, and though I was ready to pass them along, I also wanted to make sure they were going to someone who would love them. One of the things I loved the most about doing this with eBay is there was a way for everyone to shop. It wound up being so much fun to see where each and every item was going, where it was going to be loved. And in passing items along like that, authenticity really matters to the person who's getting them. That's why I love eBay's authenticity guarantee. 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There's, you know, with all the disclosure hearings this year, which, you know, some of us watch some of those. Micah, certainly his organization's having to summarize them and put news out about them. And it seems like a lot of stuff may be going to happen in 2025. You know, I'm following UFOB on Reddit, which is, of course, just insane with all these posts. And people are asking questions like, why are these things being referred to as drones? Why is the language changing from UAP? Because some of these incursions, it seems like, well, yeah, this looks like it's terrestrial. This does not seem to be terrestrial. Flight patterns are different. What is going on? Like, Gled, what are you seeing over there in the UK right now? So I think one of the things to refer to first is the feeling of it all. It's got that real Cold War vibe going on at the moment where, you know, everything that's going on in Ukraine and around the world, and I'm not going to get into that. But obviously, at the moment, there's a lot of conflict. There's a lot of dirty dealings behind the scenes and things like that. And, you know, and whilst, don't get me wrong, I would love to be thinking about what's going on over here in the alien style UAP type of realm. And, you know, and I'm going to say to Micah, you know, jump in any time on this because I know, you know, you're going to have a, you know, you're going to have stuff to say on this. So I'm in a very lucky position of living within an hour's drive of Rendlesham. Ed, if you don't mind bringing up the map for people, if that's possible. So just on the right hand side there, you see RAF Woodbridge, which obviously for people listening audio, it's on the eastern part of the eastern side of the UK. I live about an hour's drive south of there. Now, that was obviously a big thing back in 1980 over Christmas, which I find interesting. But now we've got a bunch of UAP being seen by military personnel, local residents over three RAF bases in East Anglia here in the UK. One's RAF Feltwell, RAF Lakenheath is another. And then the other one, which is a very big station, which is RAF Mildenhall. Now, all of those stations, even though it says RAF, they are United States Air Force places as part of, you know, America's involvement within NATO. So to have people going over these bases with drone equipment, because that's what I think is what's going on. I think it's things like octocopters, et cetera. And I think if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, is that it's got something to do perhaps with, you know, ramping up, bringing nuclear weapons to at least one of these bases. Now, if I felt that something was going on at a base and I wasn't able to get a decent spy satellite overhead, I would perhaps get a drone with radiological detectors. I mean, if you think back to the balloons, the Chinese balloons with all the different sensor systems that they had on board, you know, I mean, we know we had at least one, possibly two, maybe more, but there's pictures of them around. With a high altitude balloon, that's just not going to work for targeted reconnaissance. So, you know, if you were to fly a drone over these three bases, at the longest part, they are seven miles apart. They just run on a line of seven miles. So, you know, and there's loads of forest around there. So you could launch a UAP, a drone, get it over and get it back down again, maybe stash it in the forest or whatever. I think it's to do with that personally. And I think it's to do with, you know, the buildup to something that's going to happen over here. And it's not a nice thing to talk about, but it's reality. And, you know, in the buildup to World War II, the Germans were doing absolutely, sorry, in the buildup to World War I as well, the Germans were doing loads of reconnaissance for years in advance of things happening. And it's one of the oldest professions, isn't it? So, yep, I think that's what's going on. I would love it to be aliens. I don't think on this occasion that it is, you know, but it does fit into the narrative of UFOs over nuclear establishments in the past. So there's a kind of a mixture of things going on. Micah, what do you think is happening? Well, first of all, all very brilliant points right there, Paul. And I agree with you fundamentally on the idea that while there is certainly that ongoing question about the genuine anomalies, I wouldn't characterize necessarily what we have seen either over the U.S. bases operating out of U.K. air bases or the recent incursions that we've been seeing over the Northeast, like New Jersey and now actually I hear that's extended to New York, Pennsylvania, possibly other states as well. I don't consider these to be genuine anomalies. I'll point out a very interesting headline right here, and this actually comes to us directly from the New York Times. The headline reads, Russian general calls U.S. chairman of joint chiefs. And they note in the nut graph here, in a highly unusual call, the two men discussed a number of global and regional security issues to include the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. That's just one of many similar headlines. Others include Russia, U.S. army chiefs hold rare call. Ukraine war latest. Putin's top general calls U.S. military chief. Now, why are the U.S. and Moscow leadership talking right now? Well, again, there has been ongoing concern now for weeks about escalation. And to me, it's no surprise whatsoever that suddenly mystery lights appear over U.S. operational bases on U.K. soil. Now, those events, again, as you were describing, Paul, begin, you know, around November 20th. And for several successive evenings, we were seeing lights initially, I believe, over RAF, Lake and Heath. But then that extended to those, you know, immediately nearby. And then, of course, even further down, all the way down to Suffolk, there on the eastern coast. The U.S. Air Force hasn't said very much about this. When asked, they tend to kind of take this dismissive attitude. Well, we don't see any kind of a threat. Could be hobbyists. We don't know. We also are open to the possibility it could be a foreign actor. But again, we're not concerned about it right now. We don't see any kind of real issue. Some have said, and in fact, I've had some phone calls in recent days with some of our friends and many people who have said, you know, look, isn't it traditionally the case that the U.S. Air Force or the U.S. military more broadly is just going to deny? They can't deny because in the social media age, we had people out there every night live streaming these lights appearing over these U.K. bases. And before that, we also had those radio spotters who were nearby intercepting radio communications at those bases, hearing what was happening. This information, of course, either was seen by or was conveyed to reporters like Howard Altman at the Warzone who do an extraordinary good job, you know, collecting this and getting that information out there with almost every one of these drone incursions going all the way back to last December and actually even for years before that. My friend Brett Tingley, when he wrote for the Warzone, was one of those who would report on these drone incidents. The Warzone has consistently done this, and I'll give them props for that right off the bat. And then most of the time, the mainstream media, a few days or even weeks or months after the fact, gets on the bandwagon. And so I think it's important to point out that as a sort of pretext to all the recent discussion between the U.S. and Moscow, that I think these drone incursions over the U.K. have some direct relevance to. A year ago, okay, back in December of 2023, we had these incidents over Langley Air Force Base. Langley Air Force Base. The Langley incident was initially reported yet again by the Warzone. And months later, I think it was October of this year, finally, the Wall Street Journal. Street Journal. Yep. And again, Jim is referencing this because that's a paper of record. When we have a paper of record like Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post covering these stories, people take notice. But to me, it was really that story right there that kind of got this whole ball rolling. After this story comes out and reports, essentially something that many had already been following now for many months, but we see this mainstream publication covering this and saying, whose drones were these? How were they able to invade the airspace over a secure facility in the United States? This comes to the attention subsequently of lawmakers. During the recent UAP hearings, I think both the congressional and the Senate hearing that occurred recently, Langley was referenced. Now, let's be clear. They all refer to the objects as drones, although some may try to insinuate that there's something more anomalous going on. And again, it seems to be the genuine consensus, I think, among most that these were recognized as being UAS, unmanned aerial systems, and that these things were seemingly with impunity in invading the airspace over these bases. But I think that the broader context of all this is, as Paul points out correctly, you know, going back to the Cold War, we had especially over the northern tier sites in the United States, sightings of, again, what we might call unidentified aerial phenomena occurring over as high security facilities. And although I think that some of those do have very anomalous characteristics, there are at least in some instances, cases, if you go back and look at the National Military Command Center documentation that was released by a FOIA to researchers like Barry Greenwood, Lawrence Fawcett, and others back in the 1970s and 80s, those documents tell some very intriguing descriptions of the so-called phenomena. For instance, one of the descriptions reads, it looked almost like a big helicopter with a strange orange light on the front of it, you know, and we could hear what sounded like a helicopter too, but we wouldn't know why there would have been just a random helicopter out there hovering over the base. In some of these instances, and you actually see very similar things with relation to some of the cattle mutilation stories, the so-called black helicopters. There's a reason why that's a meme that has persisted throughout ufology for decades now. Broader point being, back before we had drones, we had black helicopters. And I think that sometimes to truly get to the bottom of some of the UAP cases that are capturing the public imagination, you've got to look a little closer to home. And I think that that's probably true even still with these recent drone incursions. Make no mistake, there's probably a foreign actor who is showing some sort of a display, maybe an intimidation display. This is kind of a common thing that happens amid the kind of conversation that we're seeing in headlines that I'm pointing out right now. But that's also not to be mistaken with the fact that there's the genuine UAP phenomenon that we're all intrigued by. I think it's just distinguishing between the two. And in these cases, I don't attribute these phenomena to UAP. Wasn't there reports that at some point, I think over Langley, that it seemed like whatever these were, were toying with U.S. forces? And was it New Jersey? They said that some of these might be the size of a small car. I was about to say that, Jim, is that there's, with every good paranormal story, it goes along and you think like, oh, that can be explainable. And then there's always a little detail that's like, what? And that was the New Jersey incursion there where, yeah, the size of a minivan. And it's like, okay, well, we have, you know, obviously you've seen them in the news already. They're working on air cars that are automated and for transportation. And they'll have four props on them or, you know, four to six air fans on them and can seat two people. But I can't imagine that or a private company or a private owner testing this out. And those are like 200 grand and there's only been like three of them built so far, I think. I can't say conclusively that that's what actually is contributing to some of these reports. But I will point to a very interesting press release that came out. And this one dated October 1st of this year. Pivotal completes Blackfly electric but vertical takeoff and landing deliveries. They're talking about the company called Pivotal. Blackfly is, again, their small, I think it's a one or two man vehicle. They describe this as a light electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. And they were not only distributing these to private owners, their friends and their families, but also to certain U.S. Air Force facilities. I will say this. There was a photograph that was shown by NBC News during several of their segments covering this, where they described a so-called mystery drone photographed over California. And it very clearly appeared to be the Blackfly EVTOL or something similar to it. Now, whether that is also something that's being flown over New Jersey and other places, I wouldn't rule that possibility out. But I also haven't seen direct evidence. So let me be very clear. But make no mistake, there are people right now currently in possession of very small vertical takeoff and landing aircraft that, I mean, this is like Jetsons era type stuff, if you ask me. It's incredible to see these things being flown. And you can look at Pivotal's website and you can see the Helix, I think, is another one of the designs that they have. Those are actually operating in our airspace right now. But again, this just points to the broader issue. And I said this more than a decade ago. I wrote an article for New Dawn Magazine and my prediction at that time had been, aren't my words, as we go further into the future and drone technology increases and improves and expands and we have more and more advanced drones in the sky, you're going to see the lines begin to blur between UAP sightings and drones. And also, I'll point this out, I was calling them UAP more than a decade ago, too. A lot of people were, in fact. Wait, so how many of these have shipped? Okay, according to the October 1st press release, they said, with 13 prototype EVTOL aircraft delivered and early adopters on board, we're achieving our mission of transforming the power of flight. Now, by now, are there more than 13? I don't know. Again, that is speculation. But let's be clear that according to their own statement, as early as October of this year, they were saying 13 of those were delivered. Well, let's also be clear that the premise of the Jetsons is they've destroyed the surface of the Earth and we all live in the sky now. That's true. That's true. Thank you, man. Speaking of things that are, again, blurring that line to the anomalous, it's like, okay, we've all seen the balloons. They behave strangely in that they weren't shot down for over a week. I'm talking about the ones from last summer. It's like, okay, well, those are just lighter than air platforms for surveillance. And, you know, they shot that down, they collect the materials. And then you hear about one, it's like, well, this one was octagonal shaped. It was shaped like those old time satellites. And again, I think the size of a bus. And so with no balloon on it attached, no visible means of propulsion. And I think that one also either got shot down or got away, but it's just their reaction to these. It's like, okay, you take a private plane into Area 51, you're going to be met with some resistance. It's, you fly over any nuclear base and unless they can't stop you. Now we're talking about Malmstrom and some of these other cases. Terry Lovelace talks about a sighting that way. I don't know if it was ever reported other than by him in his book about a diamond shaped craft that hovered over their base. And they just stood there staring at it for 30 minutes. Nobody knew what to do because they, it just appeared and then, and then took off. Anything else like that, where you go over bases, you're going to have some interdiction. You're going to have some intercepting going on and they didn't seem to do any of that. They just kind of let them take their course. That was odd. But the octagonal one, it's like, okay, what is that thing with no balloon attached to it? How is it staying up in the air? And you just don't like, well, we just don't know. Somebody knows something. The one thing that comes up for me time and time again on this, when I think about it is, and you're absolutely right about interdiction. It's important is the time when this is happening. So if you think back to when, what they call, was it Jetpack Man was over LAX, yeah, reported time and time again by aircraft coming into land. People say, oh, and by the end, it was kind of a joke with the air traffic controllers. It's like, okay, well, you know, this is happening. And then it went away and then it came back again and things like that. But this is happening at night. So obviously it's not going to be that, but it's happening between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. Now, the one thing that our military know, the one thing the Russian military know, is what time the spy satellites go over. And as a result, the work on the ground stops when spy satellites go over. You know, it's just good practice. So by surprising people and sending your own drone over at a certain time, especially sort of 5 till 10 p.m., maybe contractors are still working, it's dark, local people can't really see onto the base. It's a good time to do some reconnaissance. You know, and the other thing is, if it's a person sending this thing over, if you do it after 10 p.m., you're going to be the only car on the road when you recover your device, if that's what's happening, especially in that part of the country, because there's nobody out there. So I went up there for three evenings last week to watch and, you know, and just sat back. I wasn't doing the whole spotter thing at the end of the runway or anything like that. I was just driving around, getting a baseline of what was happening on the ground and the military personnel, much more than you would normally expect, both British and American and police activity. So, you know, when they say, oh, you know, oh, we're just going to blow this off. This is nothing. Well, that's not true because the reaction is there on the ground and it can be seen. And, you know, and I used to live on one of these bases. I used to be in the Air Force here. So it's kind of a rough idea about general lifestyle. And what I was seeing was obviously very busy. So it's not nothing. But what is it? I don't know. I think it's tied to the wave of sabotage that's going on across Europe at the moment. I think that's part and parcel of, you know, intelligence gathering and everything else. You know, we've had the internet cables getting cut. Oh, that's happening a lot in Germany at the moment. There's a lot of trains who suddenly don't want to be on the rails anymore. There have been firebombs in our DHL facilities over here. Oh, that plane, yeah. The DHL plane. And then, yeah, and then there was a DHL plane which crashed in Lithuania. You know, I just think, you know, and I'm not going to be a conspiracy theorist about it, but I'm just reading the tea leaves, just feeling what's in the air, and things are getting a bit warmer. Paul, I'm just going to add, though, briefly also, as you mentioned that there's the official response from the Pentagon. Well, you know, we're not very concerned. There's no sign of any kind of danger associated with these things. You know, they could just be hobbyists. I remember seeing Major General Pat Ryder say that at the Pentagon during a briefing two weeks ago and thinking to myself, you don't believe that. Nobody at the Pentagon believes that. Everybody thinks that this is a concern, but you're conveying a message to the public that downplays any kind of a threat for very obvious reasons, and one of those being that you can't deny the fact that there are live streamers out there photographing these things, posting these images online. People like yourself who are in near proximity to these bases are close enough to be able to get out there and see these things if they appear for yourselves. But again, when you read those tea leaves, some interesting things that are coming, making their way, I guess, to the bottom of the glass, we might say. We had not only… Need a top-up, you say. Indeed. Oh, well, come here. I'll top you right up. Oh, okay. Would you please? I help rich often. Here come your letters. I got you there. Okay. Okay. Let's do that quickly. Got you. Got you, buddy. Okay. The Department of Defense's All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office held a classified briefing on Friday with lawmakers. We can only speculate what they actually discussed because that was classified, but I would probably bet money that the recent drone incursions, both on UK soil and also some of the recent sightings over the northeastern United States, were probably among the things they discussed. And that, despite the fact that Arrow's official mission is not to study drones, and when they find evidence of things that they think are unmanned aerial systems, they say, we pass this on to somebody else. Because we're studying the actual anomalies, hence All Domain Anomaly Resolution Office. So for anyone out there, and there are some skeptics who have tried to say that, well, you know, Arrow's just collecting information on drones and balloons and birds and other things that in the initial phases of investigation can't be identified. Well, think again. And no matter what one may think of him, even the former director, who was the inaugural director, Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick, had said, our so-called target package is essentially metallic-looking spherical objects that seem to move with no discernible propulsion. They can produce radio emissions. These things are detectable. They produce sometimes unique IR, infrared signatures. So to me, not only is there a deep history in ufology of these sorts of objects being associated with genuine UAP, I mean, that was what Dr. Kirkpatrick had said that Arrow was studying. And anybody who watched this recent Senate hearing, Dr. Kozlowski, the new director of Arrow, provided some very intriguing statements about good cases that he says the office is currently looking into. But even more pertinent to the drone incidents happening recently, is it a coincidence indeed? And Paul, again, reading those tea leaves, a coincidence that the DOD released just last week that they have now a new strategy for countering unmanned systems. In other words, small UASs, or unmanned aerial systems. And there's a classified system about this, but an unclassified fact sheet was actually posted at the DOD's website the other day talking all about how basically the DOD has this entirely new strategy for how to counter these things. I don't think that's any coincidence whatsoever. So while the official statements may be, oh, nothing to see here, no threat, we don't know what they are, could be hobbyists, reading the tea leaves says, we have a whole plan for it, and half the information that we actually have is classified. We can't tell you what we're doing, but we realize there's an issue. It's so interesting. Yeah, there must be some defense, right? Because they're not mentioning any kind of defense. There has to be, even if they didn't have it when this started, there has to be, especially if these are terrestrial operations. There are defenses. You have to be able to get these things. The Royal Air Force Regiment have been called in to that part of the country because their number one role, their reason to exist is airfield defense and things like that. So they've been brought in with some of their systems. And that stuff has moved on very much since the time that I was in. The United States spends more money than any military in the world. And if you have, on West Coast, you've had incursions, you've had incursions, Langley, whatever this New Jersey thing is, and then you have these ones in Britain. I assume they fall under NATO operations. To me, if you don't know what it is, and if you are not saying what it is, isn't that an incredible indictment of, and keep little green men out of it and everything, isn't this an incredible indictment of the U.S. military basically failing at their job? Either they're A-lying that they don't know what it is, and that might be understandable under national security, or they're not doing their job. It is an indictment of the U.S. military system. Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong. I think it plays into something that happened over here about two weeks ago, which is that the Ministry of Defense Police, the service police, they're only allowed to operate within a certain radius of the base, right? So outside of that, it falls to the civil police to deal with. And one thing that happened two weeks ago was that they changed, and Micah, I'm sure you're over this, but the DSMA, or what used to be known as the D-notice system over here, which is something that's adhered to by the media here, if you basically think, right, okay, this stuff is national security, there is an agreement in place with the media organizations that they don't really report it that much or don't talk about it, okay? So it's not like you cannot talk, but it's like, okay, it's a back-channel thing where they say, right, if you do talk about this, this is what's probably going to happen, and it's going to damage our national security. Now, two weeks ago, the new government here put counter-terrorism under that banner, and it never was in the past, not really. But the thing is, is that if you have got hostile state actors on the ground in the UK, they are generally dealt with under counter-terrorism legislation. My point is, right now, it's reconnaissance. Think about the horrible implications if these drones, or whatever they are, are weaponized. I mean, it could cause all kinds of widespread horrible things. This has nothing to do with the paranormal, but things like dirty bombs and chemical war. I mean, the mind boggles what damage they can do if they're running amok with these drones that could be weaponized. And apparently, our military is incapable of shooting them down or doing whatever needs to be done. It's asymmetrical warfare, like the attack on the coal. We got these tiny drones. We're not, we can't deal with them, maybe. I don't know, which seems to, the David and Goliath thing. I would be hard-pressed to think that our military could handle these drones if they absolutely needed to. I think the issue is, though, with all of the intelligence that's being gathered about them and the recognition that, and this is, again, maybe perhaps speculation on my part, but I think that there's a lot of good justification for this. The fact that it's most likely intimidation tactics, which is essentially a display, a sort of show, but the recognition based on the display, as opposed to the idea of any kind of weaponization or any kind of legitimate intelligence-gathering capabilities or any kind of effort thereof. That recognition leads to the interpretation that, well, then there's no reason to shoot these things down because actually bringing one of the objects down over the airbase could actually pose more threats to people on the ground than leaving them in the air. And then finally, I would also just say that, although I think that the military, Jim, you make some good points because we, the people, we want to be able to have accountability and we want transparency and we want to be able to hold our government officials accountable. I can just say this. I was on a call until well after midnight last night with former government officials discussing this and other issues. It was a late night, but it was a very fruitful discussion. And this stepping into the current area where I operate as a national defense reporter, some things are managed very carefully, and I would think it's effective and fair to say deceptively by the military in the furtherance of national security, which is coming back to some of the points that Paul was making there. I would argue that indeed we could definitely take down these drones if we wanted to. There are good reasons why we don't. There are good reasons for the unclear messaging that the U.S. is giving on this. And again, to get the full story, I think we have to read between the tea leaves. But at the end of the day, like you, Jim, I'm left wanting a fuller explanation, which is probably what drove me into journalism in the first place. I want to interject as well. My question is, so is what you're saying, Micah, that what we see is, you know, people trying to get a message to us, you know, an opponent getting a message to us, kind of counting coup on us, saying that, you know, we can get to you if we need to get to you. And maybe we're not acknowledging that, so they don't feel like it lands. Or do you think that maybe we're not shooting them down because we don't want them to know that we know kind of thing? I mean, which do? Well, I'll tell you this. On that point, and this comes back to something interesting that Paul was talking about there. When the initial sightings were occurring where radio spotters there in the U.K. were seeing these, and again, we're talking about ham operators, you know, amateur radio operators who are monitoring different frequencies, and they're picking up communications, and they're hearing reports, maybe from aviation band, and also maybe from people operating radios on the ground where they're seeing these drones. Initially, they began to post about this, and apparently that information goes quiet. It goes dark. And Paul, you've probably been following this. It went dark because a lot of those people, even without, as my understanding of this situation goes, without being told, don't talk about it, they were aware of the fact that if this was a hostile foreign actor, posting about it online could provide information that could have been useful to whatever operation they were trying to carry out. And so there ended up being this kind of silencing. You know, and there's a fascinating kind of corollary to this that goes all the way back to the Second World War. One of my favorite books on the subject of ufology, which actually steps well outside ufology, it's a book called Body Snatchers in the Desert by Nick Redfern. And in that book, he tells this incredible, beautiful history about how during the Second World War, when Japan launched the so-called Fugo balloons, balloons, these incendiary devices that were carried by balloons across the Pacific Ocean. And they were hooked up with barometric devices that would actually allow them to, as they began to drop in altitude, they would release little bags of sand so that they would gain altitude. And this would allow them to make their way all the way across the Pacific. The intention was to try and bomb portions of the Pacific Northwestern United States and just really America, also parts of Canada. And they really wanted to try and set forests on fire to deplete our material resources. When the U.S. found out that Imperial Japan was sending these Fugo balloons across the ocean, we knew that there was a problem, but we immediately imposed a media blackout. And the reason why was because we knew that Japan at the time was monitoring our news. They were monitoring our headlines. And we didn't want to give them any indication that there was success to this mission. And sure enough, later, intelligence did reveal that because they start sending these balloons and they see nothing in the American press about, you know, Japanese balloon bomb destroys a portion of Oregon coast or something like that. They said, we saw so little, we assumed the balloons weren't making it over and we gave up the entire operation. So again, that media blackout, there's reason for that. It's got a long history of success. And I think part of your question there that you were asking, Alison, you know, that might be one reason why there would be a certain control of the way that this is reported. But I note that those radio spotters in the UK were doing that apparently of their own accord. And again, I think it's a long held tradition of knowing that loose lips sink ships. Mike, I wanted to just quickly ask you about the craft. There was something that was seen after the balloon incident, like a month or two later, that was supposedly shot down. Dead horse Alaska, right? Yeah, that they couldn't find. Is that where that story ended too? They never- Yeah, there's a lot of speculation about that. And I've already spoken far too much for the course of this conversation, but I'll just really quickly add that it was actually reported in no less than the New York Times that following the passage of the recognized Chinese spy balloon, which actually flew right over my house where I am in this part of North Carolina. If it- I was at the coast when it was shot down and I saw the jets. Yeah. I didn't see the balloon, but I saw the jets. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty remarkable. And in fact, Martin Willis of Podcast UFO, he was there and he photographed it and I had him on my show talking about it. He saw them shoot the thing down. In the immediate aftermath of that, what happened was NORAD, again, jointly operated between the U.S. and Canada. Defense Minister Lloyd Austin went and met with the Canadian Defense Minister and they talked about this. And then it was mutually decided between the two nations that the velocity gates on the radars that NORAD operates would be expanded because currently they operate in such a way that they actually filter out things like the aerial clutter, balloons, birds, aerial trash, and those kinds of things, all of which were described in the original 2021 ODNI report on UAP. When we expanded those velocity gates, everything was showing up on the radar and we wanted to try and find out specifically, are there other spy balloons potentially operating near or in U.S. airspace? There were three objects that were identified as being potentially concerning. One of those was an object that was described as about the size of a small vehicle and it was up there, monitored, I think, for close to 12 hours off the coast of Alaska near Dead Horse. The object was shot down and as the New York Times reported, shortly after that shoot down, the object, when it hit the frozen portion of the ocean there, it seems to have broken into more than one piece, which did not sound characteristic of a large balloon. Now, my understanding is they were not able to recover that object. There were two other objects that were shot down and, of course, Canadian journalist Daniel Otis got some FOIA documents recently about the one that was shot down in Canadian airspace. I believe that those were probably hobbyist balloons. And although it remains in question what was shot down near Dead Horse, Alaska, my suspicion would be that that was probably something along the lines of a meteorological balloon or something similar. And although I can't name my source on this, but I did have a person within the intelligence community who I spoke to informally about this. And so this wasn't some big, like, lead that was given to me as a journalist. This was just an informal conversation, but they had said that they had heard that indeed those objects were prosaic. So take that for what it is. But again, I think that there's been a lot of misreporting also and a lot of mythologizing that incident up there at Dead Horse as well. I know that Mr. Harold has to go. He has another engagement. So we were going to let you go, Jim. Tell folks where people can find your shows and what they should be listening to. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you all. Merry Christmas and happy holidays, Donald. It's always a pleasure to be here. Next time I'll build in an extra hour. I'm sorry. I apologize. You have to always do that. I apologize. You can find the Paranormal Podcast, the Paranormal Report, Jim Harreld's Campfire, Jim Harreld's Crime Scene, my true crime podcast I brought back and my daughter's show, Unpleasant Dreams, which is classic horror. You can find those all on all of your podcast app, podcast, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts, jimharreld.com. And thank you all very much. And I hope you have a great holiday season. And stay spooky. Bye-bye, everybody. Merry Christmas, Jim. Merry Christmas. Bye, Jim. Bye-bye. 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. 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This is a job for Indeed's sponsored jobs. Hey, I can't tell you who I am or where I'm at, but I'm listening to astonishing legends. Here they come. Just a very quick follow-up on what we were talking about there. In relation to the high-altitude balloons, you can shoot those down because they'll land and it saves that information getting back to whoever sent it in the first place, which you could kind of predict because of the way that the atmosphere works and the way the winds go. With these drones that are flying over, you know, if they are drones, flying over the US air bases, if it's an intelligence operation, then the way that you counter it is with an intelligence operation. So by allowing it to run rather than shooting it down, you've got a much better chance of finding out who's sending it up in the first place and where it's going to land. As you folks were talking about, there's a psychological aspect of it is that it's not just military people talking about this. You now have people like us and then on lower echelons of people who don't care as much, just also seeing these things and talking about it and it raises questions and uncomfortable questions for those in charge and it comes up in the news and then if you watch press briefings, there's always somebody who asks about this and of course, there's nothing to be said other than what Mike was saying, we have no concerns at this point but yeah, there's a psychological component to it so it's a cheaper, effective way to get about what you're doing and there's obviously a plan. When I hear that, well, why aren't you doing anything? Why aren't you sharing? No, no, there's a decision now the military coming from a military family it's not always the best decisions there's a lot of hindsight and there's also you talked to my grandfather and some of the things that they decided was the best course of action during World War II got a lot of people killed and then they learn from that later you're also ruling by committee or somebody who has the power to make a fiat declaration that turned out to be not so wise later on but you can tell that obviously there isn't any it's not like no decisions being made whatever's going on you just don't understand it yet because we're not getting all the pieces but I think the question is is it leading to something as Glad was saying is that the feeling the vibe is that there is something there's a Cold War vibe happening there's something going on that's leading up to something is that do people here with you using your intuition do you feel like something is happening here either by the end of the year or first part of it of 2025 can I answer as a person who's really not involved in what you guys do like my show is not really we need to what are you afraid of all the time I'm just a citizen but I'm saying like I'm just a citizen and in terms of that like how do you extrapolate from headlines to oh no something's coming I will say like this getting into my news feed does make it scarier seeming because it's like I don't seek this out and I'm seeing it so regularly as a headline or oh something's flying over here and the fact that they're using drone as the operative word makes it like more military feeling to the average headline reader but I also wonder if that has to do with what you guys were saying about social media where it used to be you can smokescreen anything with like oh it's UAP it's UFO it's whatever like don't worry about it but now they're like oh somebody probably recorded with their cell phone we can't just say which is why what was it Dead Horse Alaska was like seven people there no Dead Horse listeners what's up love you guys but I'm saying like I'm saying you can shoot something out of the sky there and be like we didn't collect it because there's no one with a cell phone so I grew up about 10 minutes from Sikorsky aircraft like my whole town just worked for the helicopter plant and like we would constantly see crazy stuff when I was a kid flying in and out of there and I wonder if that's changed in the age of social media if they don't so like brazenly be like oh here's some thing we're doing since Lockheed bought them too so it's all like skunk work see I do wonder if the age of social media you've had to change the vocabulary of how you talk about things but also the way in which you flaunt it so I don't know these are a lot of questions that no one has answers to I apologize it just seems like you know everybody says well 2025 is going to be a big year it'll be interesting to see when we reconvene next year it'll be interesting to see what all has happened in the next 12 months frankly we'll be so synonymous with drones that we can advertise on them right there'll be so many drones we'll have like it'll be blurry though but that it always is but that was a serious open question to the panel here what are your feelings for the end of the year or anything coming up what are your any predictions any feelings gut feelings intuitions I don't think these headlines get me very positive or excited about 2025 I get more worried about 2025 than I would have necessarily don't worry before the drones get us Skynet is going to kill us off I feel like they know each other or just they're doing this exact same conference right now on another you know another channel that humans can't even access they're just distracting us and annoying us with bad computer animation of people with six and seven fingers they still can't get that right it's just something they will never perfect it also seems like a distraction as well and possibly a threat but it's like that was my lesson from 2024 it's like everything's a trade-off so a few good things happened and a few really awful things happened and it's just it's just one after the other and it just seemed like 2024 was pretty relentless with that and my feeling is that we are headed towards something I don't know yet if it's well it'll be a grab bag it's like it's not totally horrible but there will be good things that come with it and vice versa you know whatever that scale is 60-40 you know if it's going to be it's like with everything there's a catch so it's like well this is this terrific thing happened and we we're all a little more united but we had to pay for it with this high price you know I loved listening to Art Bell was just you know so addicted and still still will listen to Ghost to Ghost when I need comfort yeah we'll be like you know nope I'm not listening to anything new I'm just going to go back to Ghost to Ghost AM so I still do that but you know he used to talk about the quickening I don't know if you guys recall that but you know I think he even wrote a whole book on it that things were culminating you know maybe we have that same feeling now but there's always an alternative perspective certainly politically it's been very tumultuous and hard but there's always good things as well like you were saying Forrest and even with AI I mean there's so many incredible good things that could be coming before Skynet kills us but you know there's that poem by Richard Broudigan all watched over by machines of loving grace you know I always loved that poem although it didn't seem in any way realistic but now it seems to be a possibility of you know someday that we could have counselors that were wiser than us that could you know help us regulate ourselves and stay on a more peaceful path and you know that's what I'm looking forward to in 2025 oh I have to tell you this Ed you fold shirts but there is a robot that can do laundry oh no undoubtedly better than me yeah it's incredible I want that the laundry robot I mean that that's like a whole reason to live in itself that I'm never having to do laundry again I have a laundry bot I mean and we live in an incredible time so you know things can seem dark but never forget that there's the laundry bot out there it's on the horizon well and the other you know the other thing I don't know if you guys saw Kurzweil recently said that the singularity was going to be here by 2045 oh great like emerging oh way to stay relevant yeah let's just keep pushing the whatever it is we might well everyone here might live to see that so you know we might live forever then exactly that's the weird thing about that right so we're going to merge with machines and live forever balance of checking out you know you got to get back into the mix of the ether I think I don't know if it's good to stay down here plugged in yeah it's not the way I'd like to be immortal because on the other flip side of that AI can make tremendous benefits for health care it's just exactly like social media it was a wonderful thing at one point in the week that it started and then you can do some horrible things with it and people behave horribly and you can also it's a choice you're presented and so the problem is that not everybody makes that delightful choice and we're with it comes to AI we getting plagued all day long with a medicare robot that's asking me questions and it just like and you get people impersonating loved ones and those in authority and draining seniors of their life savings it's like okay that is just the worst right yeah there's always bad things you know that certainly can happen but I want to I want to tap Richard over there because he was on monster talk earlier this year talking with Blake Smith and that two part episode that they did was just so hopeful I really would recommend that everybody listen to that because you know they had so many great ideas about you know how things could be improved and you know with AI coming on you know one of the things that we already have the world wide web so but now all these barriers barriers to being able to communicate with people who you know speak you know a huge array of languages and information sources that were closed off to us you know are now going to be available and I've had my own experience with that academia dot edu I saw that professor referenced me in a paper he's from Argentina so it was all in Spanish English and you know there are there were translation solutions available but you know they were pretty clunky and the best ones even though they were they were clunky and they were not free but now with notebook LM I was surprised I uploaded it there and I said hey I can't read this could you translate it into English and it did it like that you know I of course I had read this paper you know somewhat previously by using other translation services but you know this provided instantaneous access to this information and and it was completely free and so that's really something we can use that to bring us together on an international level Rich how how long ago were you on the show with with Blake it was a couple of months ago it's so funny that Allison remembers it so clearly and I don't reach out to us and let us know how much you enjoyed it I do remember talking about how frustrating it can be knowing that there are people writing about the topics that we talk about in other languages that simply aren't being translated it's kind of like the show that you and Forrest did Scott about the elusive force yes and how that that was originally I think written in the 80s and then did not appear in a published English language version until the last few years yeah and the fact that now you know any of us can can unearth all this knowledge that has been locked up you know for time immemorial you know I just just gotta say that was I wasn't just I mean it really it really did touch me so that that's why I reached out because I felt like it was like a call to action like Allison stop sitting on your butt it is and I'll say this I think there are definitely things I would prefer to see AI doing and things I don't need it to do right for me right but I will say this the topics we're discussing and that we're interested in are nuanced and and the concepts are sometimes very difficult to wrap your head around I mean I love Jeffrey Kripal and I don't think I've ever read a book of his that I feel I understand a tenth of you know but I keep reading them I do want translations but you know how in in literary circles people will will argue over you know this translation of the you know the you know the Odyssey and that translation and there are certain people who are known for their nuanced translations that's what I want I am so enamored of people who speak more than one language and if they can write and read and translate some of these texts from you know I just had my conversation with Farah Urdozu the Turkish ufologist and she speaks Spanish and English and Turkish and I would give anything if she had enough hours in the day to translate her Turkish UFO books into English in a way where she's like okay what are the best words that I have to represent my ideas from one language language to the next rather than just having a machine go okay here are words and here's the equivalent of those words because we're not going to get it and these things that you know the cultural implications and and nuances I really want human beings who have an understanding of it to be translating from their maybe first language into English so that we can really get a sense of what do we talk about when we talk about UFOs in Japan in Turkey in South America and really get that information going back and forth like I said we've been it's been 25 years now and we've got the internet and we still have human beings and we're interested in these topics and we want to know what's going on it's not enough to know what's going on in America that's a very small part of our earth we still stay in our little circles and we don't mix it around right and then you can you widen it out English speaking that's great yeah I love what you're saying Richard about there is this whole concept of lost in translation or cultural context and I think you know AI can help us get over the drudgery part you know you never have to have a blank page again that is how I am using it right to eliminate it's only a rough draft it can take away the drudgery and then you can go in and put in the cultural nuances because you don't have to do all the other stuff that that a machine could do again it's it's the good and the bad the the part that I think the biggest problem were it may be the biggest or at least one of them that we're gonna have to deal with and they're already dealing with is about trust is that yeah who can you trust and especially about not information because the AI as we know it I always reference that the 60 minutes interview with the open AI and the the head of their communications and marketing department with leslie stall and it got it wrote a bio of it in milliseconds it was all mostly okay except that it got wrong the the network she works for anybody knows who's watched or seen her she's been on 60 minutes you know for 30 years and in the case of a machine it's we hasn't been taught to care about that and it didn't it's like close enough and so close enough you know as they say with horseshoes and hand grenades is not good and so you get to a problem of like okay here you have a translation but is it totally correct can you trust it all Scott and I have have used it to to kickstart some research a little bit of writing but you have to go back and you have to you have to check on it because you cannot totally trust it and even if it says like oh it's it's totally much more trustworthy well you look at this now we're currently a very divided nation and world because who determines what is misinformation who can you trust and that translates to the paranormal world we hear these stories all the time I saw this doppelganger or there was a presence there and I felt was like a deceased loved one but I just knew it wasn't I just it looked like them it just it just wasn't well how do you know that I mean how do you know again it's you're talking about an ethereal nebulous spirit world but or that presence was female or male or this age or that it's like well how do you know it's just it's unfathomable and yeah there always has to be a human in the loop I mean I think for our right and that's our defense that our defense right which is the 60 minute story by the way well when you human yeah human in the loop not great on that on that end what these folks are having to do out in Kenya identifying child pornography and and all that kind of stuff because a computer yeah yeah it doesn't drop for two dollars a day or whatever right that was tremendously eye-opening to you know the these these people in Kenya being paid pennies because companies can do that they're once again doing that and having PTSD from having to do the labeling for AI but having to look at terrible images that they can't ever on see and having to identify that for the AI you know it's it's not always identifying because we purposely created the terrible that's our business as humans we're good at it and it's unfortunately you know that's you can't get a robot to do that yet so ironically now human beings being way underpaid are now a couple of paragraphs of computer code that has not been invented yet where you can get AI to do that because we have to teach it so then now you have I think we're in a general state again the good and the bad of a term that I came up in a very interesting 70s film with Warren Beatty called the parallax view where he just the parallax view sure he toss off a phrase that I hadn't heard in a long time but you you folks might remember it called future shock were you familiar with that term where I just like yeah let me let me refresh my memory about that and it comes from a 1970 book by American futurist Alvin Toffler I'm just going off the his wiki entry here but it's described as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies and a personal perception of too much change in too short a period of time and as we transmogrify from the industrial society to a super industrial society this overwhelms people and that this this acceleration is causing mass shattering stress and disorientation or in other words to be future shocked and he coined the term as Alvin Toffler information overload so there's your factoid for the day but it's like haven't we that was that book came out in 1970 haven't we been experiencing that since since then and where's it gonna go other than what till you get to the singularity and then you are the information and you are the overload and you're gonna have to manage that for the batteries yeah we talked about Alan Watts talking about he came up with those ideas in the late 50s about a singularity before people were even talking about it and he's saying you know he's just look at the just look at the pattern first you went from a wired society where you have cables and eventually he said before it happened of course decades you're gonna go to a wireless society and what do we have now we have Bluetooth we have Wi-Fi we don't need the cables and then what's the next step you merge with the technology not me sir no way no neural link for me I'm gonna put like a DNR style no neural link you will be mandated to be injected with a chip or something is gonna happen just like they start mandating that I'll lead the resistance how's that I saw it I mean I don't know if it was real like you said fact check everything these days but I saw a clip on Instagram reels yesterday of a small drone with a shape charge on it that could fly the guy like threw it up in the audience it immediately flies up like right to your forehead shape things the size of a I'm a large bumblebee yeah they're making them that yeah that size where it just well this has been fun no I know Merry Christmas happy holiday it has to come with a parental warning Merry Christmas everyone remember there's gonna be a laundry bot under everyone's tree yeah the bottle Allison brought it back we do need laundry bots I'm in favor but what do we give up for the laundry bots this is why I'm bringing it back laundry bots laundry I've worked it out is that we lose trust in the laundry bots because we can't trust them with our underwear so in which case and I'm afraid you're gonna have to just fold everybody's underwear no I'm not good at it but maybe there's a sort of like work program where they'll teach me along the way you're gonna have to do it yourselves and that that's kind of my my final point here is that I think you know there's always a silver lining of sorts if you look for it I think how you defend yourself against this is that you're going to have to develop your own set of information that you trust and and develop your own intuition let's just say your own sense of intuition which even the great skeptical writer and investigator Joe Nickel had to cop to a little bit you know a tiny bit like well maybe it does exist maybe intuition is a thing from his own I think happening with his granddaughter there's that famous story we've talked about and it's like in explaining the impossible or the unseen it's like well maybe that does exist well what's the harm in letting that in a little bit so if you let that in and and develop it I think it's a little bit of armor against what's let's just say might be annoying you in the future and and in the coming year because we're all being tested I feel that something is coming may not be earth-shattering or mind-blowing but just a time of great change which is uncomfortable in itself it always has been it's one of the most uncomfortable things a human can endure is just small to great change and so I think that's coming and the way to do it is to steal yourself against that and to be just prepared mentally and emotionally and and develop that again welcome in the the messages that are coming from the outside and welcome in the things that are telling you trying to nudge you the right way and it could be just your own subconscious but but let that in get the messages and bring up the paranormal homework Ed oh yeah sorry one second I was so enthralled yeah it's like I said you gotta you gotta explore it as much as you can but it's something that remote viewer with Project Stargate early on Lynn Buchanan had said in a he had said in a chat which I think he's done before it was a kind of a webinar he was hosting and people were asking about like you know this may get a little too far out there even for our guests like Micah like the alien agenda like if they are out there if there's competing factions and you know and we can do nothing about that what do they want his basic answer to sum up was that well there's there's different just logically there's different motivations for these different groups and that some want to help us some don't like us and don't want us to succeed and some are just very neutral like they're just here they just want to turn and trade but is he claimed they're all various levels of psychic ability if you read the reddit thread from the molecular biologist who is apparently studying EBEs extraterrestrial biological entities and saying well what do they want and what they want is some kind of a singularity of their own where it's apotheosis they want an evolution to a higher or to the pinnacle of being a life form where you've attained all these things that's what they want because what else is there they've they've mastered technology they're perhaps enclosing whole sun and star systems to to mine the energy it's like what do you do after that well you develop the mind and consciousness that's where everything's heading and so that's what they want and here what Lin was saying is like well he said I what's the defense on this like don't go out and buy guns and get a bunker he said that's not the answer or practice karate that's not going to help you what you can do is develop your own psychic sense of an ability and intuition I don't know that's what he said so I'll that's I got no other answers but that's what I got I'm gonna make I'm gonna take the transcript of that and just make get my online it's just the transcript of everything you just said and be like and that what that that's what I'm saying is I'm not looking for red flags yeah well folks it is time it's time to close this out I know Tess you had mentioned to me some good reading for the holidays you read something recently you think people would enjoy yes in keeping with the tradition of reading ghost stories before Christmas Eve or the holidays or the new year I know not all of our listeners like ghost stories so I'm gonna suggest reading Jordan Peele's edited story collection out there screaming there are tons of new authors you've probably never heard of some familiar faces and there's everything from sci-fi to traditional ghost stories to everything in between so if you're looking for a book do that and I actually suggest reading it out loud to someone you love someone over the phone and just keeping that tradition of reading ghost stories on you know the eve of a new year alive well amen to that I'll just really quickly throw in on that too listen every year okay I read a ghost story for my subscribers to my podcast you wouldn't necessarily associate that with Mr. National and Defense but I mean it's a tradition and you got to sometimes break away from the everyday and that's one of the beautiful things about those ghost stories and lastly who is excited about this new Nosferatu film right yes yeah I can't wait to get the popcorn yeah is this I mean the trailers are looking remarkable it's genuinely creepy looking I mean I know we're all kind of thinking how many more times can we basically hear the Dracula story it's so embedded in our psyche at this point that it has now taken on the level of myth and that's I think why so many of us just go watch the same story over and over and over again just to see how different actors are going to portray it but I'm equally excited and there's no mistaking that there is relevance to the fact that that film is coming out right here in time for the holidays yeah Christmas ghosts baby real deal Christmas vampires for that matter I'll be asking for a steak under my food talking about medium rare baby oh all right folks I want to thank everybody for joining us we should give everyone a chance to talk about where they can be found glad what's going on with anomaly is that you I don't know how you can be working on more degrees than a thermometer and still producing a podcast what's happening there well I looked the other day and realized that I hadn't done an episode of my own podcast for over a year so I think it's probably time that I got on with that and I certainly met a lot of people over the last couple of days as I was at uncanny con who I want to interview get their stories down so yeah the website for my podcast is an anomaly.co.uk you can find me on Twitter and on blue sky just under my name Paul Gledhill and it'll be great to see you there thank you for joining us and and Mr. Hanks how about what's where folks able to get a hold of all the media that you ride herd on well there's an awful lot of it honestly I mean of course the media website the debrief.org where that's the news site I should say we're covering science you know technology defense UAP as well but if you really want to just follow my work I mean it's just micahanks.com and I'll say that that's where you'll find on my podcasts a lot of my other endeavors and earlier this year in January I launched a completely labor of love no profit try to benefit the community type project it's uapsightings.org a lot of time goes into this it is a database I'm collecting UAP sightings right I have not been back since you mentioned that before I need to check yeah uapsightings.org again the the premise here is it is by the people and for the people if you've seen something say something share your sightings we will protect your identity it's all anonymous but we are collecting data I've tried to institute criteria that match a lot of the very same sorts of things that the Department of Defense is looking for currently and that I think will be beneficial for you know future statistical analyses and also information that scientists may find useful so uapsightings.org if you've seen something incredible you're not alone a lot of people have a lot of people are afraid to talk about what they've seen but you will be protected you can support science and how science is applied to the study of UAP I'm trying to do that and I've also agreed to share this data as I'm building this database with my colleagues at the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies as part of a broader database they're building frankly there are so many databases right now operating some of them that have been going for decades like National UFO Reporting Center some of them that are new like Enigma Labs mine's new as well but I think the more data we collect the better and the more we will be able to discern about the granular details about this phenomenon so think about submitting your sightings over their uapsightings.org excellent mr Haddam where do folks find your wonderful podcast on any podcast platform you can find Richard Haddam's paranormal bookshelf and that's where I am that's the best place to find me okay great well and and how about you sir Ed scared all the time podcast.com you can find us there on the astonishing legends network so and Allison what are you going to make us a list of the 35 or 40 cities we need to go to just how about americanghostwalks.com and then I am over at blue sky at paranormal women that be sky that's so wonderful guys everyone thanks for joining us Tess also thanks for making the time tonight to be with us really appreciate it I can't thank you enough hopefully we can do this again next year next year we'll do secret Santa this is the Christmas party for weirdos yeah that's right that's right well well and folks stay tuned we're gonna have an after party with just the astonishing legends network people will be joined by Miranda from the midnight library and Chris Ed's co-host from scared all the time where we'll be talking a little bit more about the year in review for astonishing legends everyone thanks so much for coming and I thank you again even though he's gone to Jim and we'll see you next year happy 2025 all right here we are in the back room for the after party with the astonishing legends network and with some of our friends who we have not yet heard from tonight I would like to welcome backstage here Chris Kulari hello Chris from scared all the time the co-host of scared all the time Richard Haddam from Richard Haddam's paranormal bookshelf hey and his executive producer and better half by a mile Susan Lambert hello and mrs. Miranda Merrick of the midnight library greetings everyone hello hello everyone and also of course our very own test Bible who was who was with us a few minutes ago and is back what about Ed he just oh god I forgot Ed let's welcome Ed Bacola didn't leave much of an impression if I'm doing my job well you shouldn't even know I'm here usually I'm the astonishing legends aspect of it well yeah that's right you're doing your job well and scared all the time we better know you're there otherwise it's just me talking for two hours so so let's talk about that guys like it's it's been a crazy year for for you guys you knew her shows how how has that been scared all the time what how many episodes have you done now 41 well plus a crossover with Miranda so yeah 42 plus if you're adding bonus stuff I don't know but 41 kind of just us yeah we did 41 and then the crossover and then we did during Halloween we did oh yeah we did like three bonus episodes because we hadn't checked our email in a year well we had checked it but we hadn't returned emails to any of the fans for a full year and so we were like increased feeling increasingly guilty about that the way you do when your email box fills up and you know that you owe people replies yeah and the club yeah we got 10 year stack on that yeah well so what we decided to do what I thought would be a fun and easy Halloween treat would be let's just do a couple hours of bonus content where we just replied everyone's emails live on the show and it was very fun but then Ed as he's want to do wanted to make sure that that was polished and it sounded really good and it ended up turning into a weeks-long nightmare of post-production for him cutting everything and then being like oh well wait we could theme them we could do all the hat man stories in one episode and we could do this other way so yeah we did a lot of episodes we also did four seasons in one year which is very silly but we we just started counting every 10 episodes as a season so I don't think we're going to continue that for year two because we'll have done 15 seasons everybody's shows are doing really well here yes partly you know Scott and I want to bring everyone together to just kind of say thank you for all your hard work and to celebrate it at the end of this year and going forward so so thank you from us Scott and I just personally of yeah thanks for being good that's yeah thank you for elevating our brand far beyond we thought that we could you guys are just doing amazing work it's just been unreal to watch you guys go and grow and your audiences and everything expanding how about you rich what's how has it been for you how many episodes have you done now total well I've done 14 okay that's a lot that's a lot that's a lot actually wait actually 15 if you include the one that dropped yesterday okay so which is the Christmas episode although it's Christmassy in a particular way it's one of my favorite books and it's a very strange book called surgeon from another world oh nice it's out there now if you want it rings and reeks of Christmas that that's surgery into it break out the eggnog is that the book the guy you have talked to us about before in the past on the show oh great I think I've mentioned him before yeah yeah well that's awesome so how about your plans for next year like what's happening when you're how many do you do you told me this before you you what are you calling a season and when are you taking time I call 10 episodes a season but I release every second every other week and then take a break between seasons so I'm kind of you know dealing these out as slowly as I possibly can to give me time to keep doing it right but we've got the rest of this season which will go through into February and we end with a book by Raymond Moody who wrote life after life the book where the term near-death experience came into public usage right but this book is called glimpses of eternity and it's about a phenomenon I bet no one has even heard of which is the shared death experience and that's when you're for instance in in a hospital room with a dying loved one and at the moment of their death you experience their transition the room changes shape you witness a giant bright light people have reported witnessing the other person's life review wow that's embarrassing gee yeah right no well it's really weird because they they also describe when we talk about it in the episode they talk about an an aspect of it where in this one case a woman was with her husband who was dying and suddenly their memories are playing out all around them it's like a 3d experience and she said that she she could see relationships he had you know different girlfriends from high school and college great final argument to have but but the weirdest part was she said but there were there were some moments where there was like a like a a panel over a scene and I sort of understood in the moment that that was just a part of his life I was not supposed to see at this point but then I would know about it later but just not now but doesn't seem upset about it I'm gonna jump in if that's my producer Susan Lambert yes Susan yes Susan because we did our first live show in LA of rich doing a live performance which then became an episode I think going forward we are going to do more live shows it was super successful we had a sold-out crowd and people had a blast and going forward I think we're going to do an episode where that's not going to be released at least for a little while it'll be you can only see it unless you hear it is in 2025 I'm gonna do East Coast Midwest yeah Pacific Northwest I heard I might be invited to Charlotte Charlotte's gonna happen Pacific Northwest in the in the Spokannish area will happen maybe there'll be special guests involved when I go to those areas I don't know and then there'll be of course then and then there'll be I think I'm gonna try to do at least two more live maybe three in the LA area in 2025 so there's gonna be there's gonna be a lot more of the live stuff because that was really fun and I love doing it so we're gonna try to figure out a way to to make that a regular part of the show well and we we sold t-shirts and mugs at the live show we weren't intending to but we were had brought them for the special guests and then people were like I want one of those so we opened our store this year too so the shop is open for so it was a building year and yeah so well it was great let's get over here to Miranda who Miranda I guess you're coming to us from the midnight library I wanted to know precisely yeah how are things going over there is the village resolved to kick you out of town yet what's what's not yet not the mob with the torches hasn't shown up quite yet not just yet how many seasons have you done this is our 11th season okay and you know I get by with a little help from mr. darling as you know of course I wish he could have joined us tonight I wish just just be careful watch out for the ghost of Kenneth Marr is showing up with his with his with the pitchfork crowd we're ever saying young Frankenstein of course no mr. darling is he's having a little flea dip in the village oh okay yeah good deal we're we're getting just a warmth from the people I didn't expect and it's absolutely lovely and I didn't realize we were going to have this I was talking with darling about it not too long ago there's a deep emotional attachment which I wasn't expecting but I'm thoroughly enjoying and yeah I'm I'm happy to continue for the foreseeable future I'm I'm very content with how it's going how many episodes are in a season for you roughly eight but then I tend to put out a little bit some extras and some things that I have shared only with the patrons I will take something out of patreon and publish it or it's a little bit of rare material or I'll host a certain theme and then it'll go into patreon and then later I might cut it a little bit differently edit it down a little bit and then release that to the public so roughly eight and then there's always a few goodies thrown in so you're 80 or 90 shows in now we're over a hundred thank you sir yes what crossovers did you do this year you had I know you had one with Ed and Chris that's it they they were my my sole captives this year so far I'll say that the real question is what what do folks have planned for next year and it's it's fine if it's the way I think it's kind of seat of the pants for some of you it's mostly just get up and keep going but I mean like what about what about you guys Ed and Chris what's going on for you guys next year Chris and I you have a baby coming I do February February 15th congratulations thank you docs do dude yeah so you're gonna be scared and tired all the time oh my god so tired so scared yeah I'm very excited about it but yeah Ed and I the way that we ended up starting this show not having really any idea what it was going to entail we never we never banked episodes up front because the time between Scott asking if if if Ed wanted to do his show and us actually posting the first episode was not very long that was your choice by the way no no no I know I know I know I know but but uh Forrest and I talked for like three years before we yeah we work in an industry where it seems like windows close real fast so yeah so we were like we can get it we probably lied we probably like we already have three episodes we we got we got it out really quickly and then I think you know to be honest I think we sort of thought it was gonna be like one and done and something would go wrong and we just wouldn't be doing it anymore or that you know two people would listen and then five people would listen and because of the success of your guys network we had a lot of people listening immediately so we were like well let's just keep going and then we never had a chance to really take a step back so I think between now and the baby coming we're going to try to get as many episodes banked as we can so that we can once the baby's here we are also going to switch to an every other week model I don't know how much time we'll be taking off between those seasons because I think the hope is that we have enough episodes banked that we can kind of give ourselves a little bit of time yeah I mean we've talked about we got the store open this year yesterday this year yeah we're really cutting it yeah we just got it close so we had the store open so it's been it's hard to find the time and prioritize what comes next other than just another show another episode but yeah add what take jump in here what am I like you took care of it like that's this is the longest if anyone listens to our show that was the longest I haven't interrupted Chris in any sitting with microphones present one of the biggest pieces of feedback that we get consistently please stop besides that and and my mother-in-law would love it if we would stop swearing but other than that we we get a lot of people saying like we didn't intend for the show to be helpful for people to think about their fears and feel safer or better we just thought it was funny to talk about how scared of everything we are and a lot of people who like the show have written us saying that they it helps them feel better about the things that they're afraid of which has been great I mean that's lovely I'm glad that we're doing that it's and that's been really a surprising side benefit of it is like having people you know feel better about how awful the world can be I don't think it's on your docket and it probably wouldn't be a very good or long episode but I'm still I just want you to know I have a pervasive sort of concern that the Sun is just going to decide to go ahead and explode early I think you know I you you've told us this before and I wrote it down but I wrote it daily actually I wrote it down somewhere because I think it would make a great pairing with it like if we did an episode about the Sun exploding and the Moon crashing into the earth oh yeah I think we could do like a combo galactic disasters or something I think that's good they're unfolding right now and nobody can seem to figure out what's happening so well what does test think about all this we haven't heard from her yes Tess what is going on what's going on by the way we have no idea what the plans are for astonishing legends you have to tell us so like Tess is so drunk right now I'd be surprised if she could get a sentence out all that all that a canned white Russian has really gotten to my head I think when I what I've heard everyone kind of talk about is is community and I I think it is so important something we've seen so much of especially astonishing legends one thing we started doing during the pandemic in 2020 is hosting digital parties in our like online communities so every major AL holiday which for us is Halloween when the Christmas show comes out so the holiday special comes out between the 23rd and the 26th ish and New Year's we post over a hundred different discussion topics news stories we ask questions and I think for Thanksgiving oh we did Thanksgiving too for Thanksgiving we got in over 10,000 interactions in just one day and I think people are really looking for places where they can come and sit down with people they know or think they know know as much as as y'all will let them and listen to stories because I think although everyone's show here is different the one thing is they're all kind of a little bit strange we're all kind of a little bit strange and unusual and I think a lot of people are strange and unusual and it's nice to feel that community that other people think the way you do because I always say this in my real life none of my friends care about the paranormal at all I have no one else to talk to it to talk to about it except all of you no one is interested I go to horror movies alone mostly all of that good stuff so sometimes I wonder did I create the astonishing legends community because people ask for it or did I create the community so I could indulge and all of you lovely people so one thing that I did pull that I thought would be kind of fun is this is selfish it's I didn't pull it for every show just astonishing legends do you Scott and Forrest want to guess what our most listened to show that released in 2024 is probably your stickini blog which is I realize not an episode but that thing like every time we look at google analytics like that's ridiculous it's just yes the weirdest thing yeah why that but no Tess runs a prolific and terrific blog about all sorts of subjects and we'll just see like that's the most visited thing you know her blog entries the most visited thing on our website but no I can't think of I'm looking at this year I'm looking at everything from don't cheat don't no no no I'm just looking I'm not looking at metrics don't look on audio no no no I have the top five because I can't remember what we've done it's like it's literally starting to blur together well go ahead and I guess surprise us and then we'll we'll comment with our shocked response okay number so the most listened to newly released episode was the third man syndrome oh out of the whole year that third man syndrome that was number one then zigman adamski adamski ghost of versailles the lost city and night marchers those are our top five and what that tells me if I had to look into my crystal ball is next year we should plan to do even more global uh international kind of adamski technically was december december 23 so oh he gets he's but still well audio boom counted it but yeah I think in 2025 we should be doing some more global episodes because all of our top episodes besides the night marchers of hawaii did not take place in america okay we often go as we always say where the stories take us so as far as a third man you know my first thought is there was just a story of the news I think within the last two weeks uh a survival story and I I can't remember but I I think it was a woman who uh was in a she was in a survival situation I saw that I saw what you're I think I know what you're yeah I'm trying and I can't remember the the details but it was something like yeah I just kept hearing this voice and I can't remember if it was a uh her husband or as a it was a past loved one but it was just like just keep going uh you got that you know you you got this you'll get it you're gonna be on the right path and I thought it wasn't mentioned but it was like that's a third man syndrome all right well we just uh thank you guys so much for coming to the after party thank you for making it an amazing year for the astonishing legends network but also for yourselves we are so grateful to have you the quality of work you're doing is just amazing and you're all self starters and it shows just everything you're doing is great and that's the kind of thing we like where we just only all we do is say hey go listen to this and then you guys do all the work we really love it so um we just want to say cheers and thank you for being a part of this and we uh we'll be talking again throughout 2025 and at the party next year hopefully cheers cheers everyone I have a raccoon skull so that's that's all I have that's gonna wrap up 2024 folks thank you so much for listening a very special thanks to Paul Gledhill from anomaly.co.uk Micah Hanks of thedebrief.org and micahanks.com Jim Herald of jimherald.com creator producer and screenwriter Richard Haddam as well as Allison Jornlin co-owner of American Ghost Walks and a self-described professional weirdo you can find her on YouTube as well also a big thank you to the lovely Miss Miranda Merrick from the Midnight Library Ed Vecola and Chris Kulari from Scared All the Time and executive producer of both Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf and her own show 80s TV Ladies Susan Lambert Haddam and of course the boss Tess Feifel from our entire organization and all of our friends and guests to you a very merry Christmas and happy holidays thank you so much for listening without you no us so thank you find and subscribe to the Midnight Library Scared All the Time and Richard Haddam's Paranormal Bookshelf as well as Jim Herald's Campfire or any of his other shows and the Micah Hanks program and his others wherever you get your podcasts and make thedebrief.org your home page for science, tech, space, defense, aerospace and UAP news and don't forget to check out 80s TV Ladies 2 we'll see you in 2025 Astonishing Legends is edited by Sarah Voorhees-Wendell at VW Sound our co-producer is Tess Feifel who also leads our research efforts and manages our social media and we're grateful for the hard work of our technical producer Ed Vecola behind the scenes special thanks to our announcer John Boland for lending his voice to our shows our theme which is available as a ringtone was composed by Judson Crane at FounderMusic.com all other music and sound design for the show is composed and created by Alan Caressia our logo was created by Tommy Beaver Design and our animated graphics for social media and YouTube are done by Joshua Sloan at DeadStreetProductions.com many episodes have transcripts available for ones that don't you can request them by emailing transcripts at AstonishingLegends.com Astonishing Legends would not be possible without you, our listeners visit our store at AstonishingLegends.com or interact with us and other listeners on Facebook Instagram, Blue Sky, Discord, and YouTube you can also visit us at Patreon.com slash AstonishingLegends where patrons have access to commercial free versions of both the main show and the Dead Letter office as well as additional bonus content including the Patreon exclusive show The Astonishing Junk Door if you're new to Patreon you can save money by signing up on the web through a browser or using an Android device rather than Apple's App Store where Apple charges a 30% markup on signups through iOS no part of this show may be reproduced anywhere without permission copyright Astonishing Legends Productions goodnight raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time me too I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle from Olive and June and this is exactly why we created the Manny System we wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home with our tools and our long lasting polish each manicure with our Manny System comes out to just $2 that's right $2 no more $30, $40, $50 manis that you get at a salon and they take hours now you can paint your nails on your time and love them more than ever and by the way when people ask who did your nails where did you get them done you're gonna proudly say I did them myself get 20% off your first Manny System with code DIY nail 20 at oliveandjune.com slash DIY nail 20 that's code DIY nail 20 for 20% off at oliveandjune.com slash DIY nail 20 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 hello hello i'm malcolm gladwell host of smart talks with ibm i recently spoke with ibm's new director of research jay gambetta 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 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 this is sophia bush from work in progress with sophia bush check out this special moment we did on our show presented by ebay there's a different kind of care that comes with letting something meaningful go especially when it has a story attached to it when you pass something on you want to know it's being handled with respect i took part in my first ever giant charity sale and i was able to auction several items from my personal closet on ebay some of them were truly one-of-a-kind pieces connected to specific moments tv sets or from personal collections one of the things i loved the most about doing this with ebay is there was a way for everyone to shop sure people who wanted a pair of my jeans could get them but people who might be a different size than me could buy accessories if you're a size 8 you're lucky because that's my shoe size they could do purses, jewelry, all sorts of things some people needed winter wear some people wanted summer dresses it wound up being so much fun to listen to more check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts find what you love sell what you don't ebay things people love 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 hello hello i'm malcolm glabwell host of the podcast smart talks with ibm i recently sat down with ibm's chairman and ceo arvind krishna and i asked him how can companies use ai to its fullest potential to create smarter business my one advice to them pick areas you can scale don't pick the shiny little toys on the side for example if anybody has more than 10% of what they had for customer service 10 years ago they're already 5 years behind if anybody is not using ai to make their developers who write software 30% more productive today with the goal of being 70% more productive so we are not asking our clients to be the first experiment on it we say you can leverage what we did we are happy to bring out all our learnings including what needs to change in the process because the biggest change is not technology it's getting people to accept that there's a different way to do things to listen to the full conversation visit ibm.com slash smart talks 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 this is sophia bush from work in progress with sophia bush check out this special moment we did on our show presented by ebay there's a different kind of care that comes with letting something meaningful go especially when it has a story attached to it when you pass something on you want to know it's being handled with respect i took part in my first ever giant charity sale and i was able to auction several items from my personal closet on ebay some of them were truly one-of-a-kind pieces connected to specific moments tv sets or from personal collections one of the things i loved the most about doing this with ebay is there was a way for everyone to shop sure people who wanted a pair of my jeans could get them but people who might be a different size than me could buy accessories if you're a size 8 you're lucky because that's my shoe size they could do purses jewelry all sorts of things some people needed winter wear some people wanted summer dresses it wound up being so much fun to listen to more check out the full episode wherever you get your podcasts find what you love sell what you don't ebay things people love all right quick quiz for the hiring managers out there what's worse being understaffed or being poorly staffed well that's a trick question because both are recipes for chaos either way just say to yourself this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs you'll get matched with candidates that meet the skills certifications and everything else you're looking for or go a different way and get no traction seriously sponsored jobs posted directly on indeed are 95% more 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hours vary by location