Mysterious Universe

Sometimes, I’m asked – and particularly so at conferences – what’s it like going on an expedition in search of all-things of a supernatural, paranormal, ufological, cryptozoological or Fortean nature? Well, sometimes it goes very much like the following, which gives a good indication of what life is like in the field when pursuing the odd, the eerie and the downright uncanny. It was February 2008, I was on the road with Lance Oliver, of the Texas-based Denton Area Paranormal Society, and we were headed for Lake Ray Roberts, Texas – where something strange and monstrous had reportedly been seen… 

The lake and its surrounding areas are notable: in times past they were the haunt of various Native American Indian tribes, including the Comanche, the Kiowa and the Tonkawa. Before we arrived, Lance told me there had been a number of interesting UFO encounters in the vicinity, and in May 1990 strange roaring and screaming noises of a distinctly animalistic nature were heard in the woods. Not only that, but in the very same time frame nothing less than an approximately eight-foot-tall hairy man-beast was seen late at night by several young guys who were camped on the north side of the lake. Well, of course, with all that going on, we just had to check the place out!

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Well, I was kind of expecting to see a bit of a fanfare this month about the infamous MJ12 documents. Why? Simple: this month marks exactly twenty-five years since they surfaced into the public domain in the pages of Tim Good’s acclaimed book of May 1987: Above Top Secret: The Worldwide UFO Cover-Up. That there hasn’t seemingly been much in the way of commentary on the 25th anniversary of what are, without doubt, one of the most controversial “things” ever to have surfaced within the ufological arena, suggests a few possibilities…

First, maybe whole swathes of Ufology have simply forgotten about MJ12. Second, perhaps the fact that – for many in Ufology – the documents continue to frustratingly languish in that murky stalemate-driven realm of “genuine, disinformation, or hoax?” has led the research community to focus its attentions on what it sees as far more profitable and likely ways to secure the truth behind the UFO phenomenon. And, third,  maybe people just don’t care anymore about the debate surrounding the papers, their content, the way they surfaced, and the attendant analysis of their content.

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New Mayan calendar discoveries lead us onto a YouTube goose chase as we track down the origins of the “Alien Quarantine” conspiracy.

We then move into encounters with little people, both benign and not so benign, before taking a funky WTF trip aboard a green dragon with the Pink Pearl herself.

Read on for show notes, music and books.

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Greetings, fellow Coppertops! Our weekly sojourn to the very matrix of reality will show us ancient crimes and modern secrets, monstrous things both big and small —some small enough to burst out of your own chest!— and the light at the end of the rabbit tunnel might signal the dawn of a new era. So pay attention, and stop looking at the woman in the red dress.

(10) The last space shuttle is getting moth-balled at the Smithsonian as we speak, and while many Americans woe at their nation’s apparent loss of their foothold in the final frontier, they forget the fact that there’s always been two space programs: the public NASA-directed space program which has suffered numerous set-backs and cuts; and a secret space program maintained by the Military that doesn’t answer to the Congress, which is very much alive and doing well. Extremely well I should say, now that the USAF robotic X-37B space plane continues to break records with its nearly 430-day mission in orbit. The fact that the Air Force has kept mum about the mission objectives and capabilities of this mini-me unmanned version of the iconic shuttle has stirred all sorts of controversy and speculation: is it a spy drone or a weapons platform? And what has it been doing up there all these months exactly?

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Strangely familiar looking Bigfoot photos emerge from Missouri this week along with an interview with the infamous “Bigfoot Killer” Justin Smeja.

After we resist the urge to continue the show entirely in ‘Squatch Speak’ we look at very early attempts at German Rocketry and the occult funding behind them, new huggable robots from the Tokyo design show, and a phantom home invasion.

Read on for show notes, links and music.

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Among the quite colorful theories and quips proposed by American author Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn’s creator also was known to have guessed about the origins of of humankind’s most admired and often-stereotyped recessive trait. “While the rest of the species is descended from apes,” Twain wrote, “redheads are descended from cats.”

Indeed, there are an entire host of traditions that involve superstitions associated with redheads (and cats too, for that matter). Red haired individuals comprise less than two percent of the population worldwide, making them the rarest natural hair color among humans. Though we still manage to see red hair quite often despite these percentages–perhaps due in part to the accessibility provided through cosmetic hair dyes–the trait is uncommon enough that odd misconceptions do still crop up from time to time in modern times. Consider, for instance, the popular story that made rounds in 2007, claiming that redheads would become extinct within the next century.

But what is the likelihood, if any exists, that at least some superstitions involving redheads may actually have some factual basis? More specifically, could there be any evidence to support various legends involving the strange paranormal connections red haired people seem to maintain?

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I first heard of the Missouri Mystery Mound at least ten to fifteen years ago on a now-defunct website. The website claimed the Mound was the Hall of Records, although it didn’t specifically say whose hall of records. The Atlanteans? The great mound building cultures of North America? Egyptian? Mayan? Or some race of peoples lost to time? I’m from Missouri, and if an ancient civilization’s hall of records sat under the soil of my state, I needed to know. Trouble is, I couldn’t find the man who said he had discovered it.

Until now.

I tracked down and interviewed Charles Teague, and found the answers to my questions were stranger than I’d ever hoped.

Teague grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and always had an interest in North American archeology; but it wasn’t until one night in the early 1990s listening to radio host Art Bell interview an American Indian shaman, that this interest became almost an obsession.

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