Near-Death Experiences, Super Experiencers, Bigfoot, and Consciousness with Dr. Melinda Greer

Deep in the mountains of southwestern Vermont sits an area surrounded by mystery, strange disappearances, and decades of folklore. Known today as the Bennington Triangle, this region around Glastenbury Mountain has become one of New England’s most fascinating paranormal hotspots.

The name “Bennington Triangle” was coined in the 1990s, inspired by the famous Bermuda Triangle. It refers to an area connected to several unexplained disappearances between the 1940s and 1950s, along with stories of strange lights, unknown creatures, and unusual experiences reported throughout the wilderness.

But behind every legend are real people, real searches, and mysteries that remain unsolved.

The Strange Death of Carl Herrick

Before the most famous Bennington Triangle cases began, there was the unusual death of Carl Herrick in November 1943.

Herrick, a 37-year-old hunter, entered the Vermont woods with his cousin Henry. When Carl did not return, a search was launched. His body was discovered the next day near a tree where his rifle had reportedly been left behind. The official explanation was a bear attack, but the details left some people questioning what happened. Reports described bruising and injuries that led newspapers at the time to suggest he had been “squeezed” to death.

While wildlife attacks can happen, the circumstances surrounding Herrick’s death became one of the early strange stories later connected to the broader Bennington Triangle legend.

Middie Rivers: The Guide Who Walked Ahead and Vanished

One of the first famous Bennington Triangle disappearances was Middie Rivers in 1945. Rivers was an experienced outdoorsman and hunting guide in his seventies who knew the Vermont wilderness well. While leading a small group near the Glastenbury area, he walked slightly ahead of the others.

Then he disappeared.

Despite searches, Rivers was never found. Some reports mention possible clues, including a handkerchief or a rifle cartridge, though details vary depending on the source. What remains strange is that a man familiar with the land seemingly vanished within moments.

Paula Jean Welden: The Disappearance That Changed Vermont

Perhaps the most famous case connected to the Bennington Triangle is the disappearance of Paula Jean Welden. On December 1, 1946, Welden was an 18-year-old student at Bennington College. She decided to hike the Long Trail wearing a red parka.

She never returned.

Searchers, aircraft, and bloodhounds were brought in, but no trace of Paula was discovered. Her disappearance gained national attention and exposed problems with how missing persons investigations were handled in Vermont. At the time, Vermont did not have a state police agency. Paula’s case became one of the events that helped push the creation of the Vermont State Police in 1947.

Several theories have surrounded her disappearance. Some believe she may have become lost in the wilderness. Others have suggested she intentionally left to begin a new life due to possible family issues. To this day, Paula Jean Welden remains officially missing.

Could Paula Welden Have Started Over?

One interesting comparison is the case of Martha Jeanette Jones, a 16-year-old Vermont girl who disappeared in 1950. Like Paula, she vanished and initially appeared to be another mystery. However, Martha was eventually found alive. She had traveled away, changed her name, and started a different life working as a waitress. Because of this case, some people wonder if something similar could have happened to Paula Welden. However, no confirmed evidence has ever surfaced proving Paula left voluntarily.

James Tedford: The Man Who Vanished From a Bus

One of the strangest Bennington Triangle stories involves James E. Tedford, a veteran who disappeared in 1949. Tedford had been visiting family and was returning by bus to the veterans’ home where he lived. According to the story, Tedford boarded the bus. His belongings remained on board, but somewhere along the route, he vanished. Passengers reportedly did not remember seeing him leave. The idea of a man disappearing from a moving bus has become one of the most famous mysteries attached to the Bennington Triangle. Whether there was a missed stop, confusion, or something stranger remains unknown.

Paul Jepson: The Missing Boy and the Mountain Mystery

On October 12, 1950, eight-year-old Paul Jepson disappeared from his family’s property. Paul had been waiting in a vehicle while his mother worked nearby. When she returned, he was gone. Massive searches followed, including tracking dogs. According to reports, dogs followed his scent until it suddenly disappeared near a road intersection.

Several theories developed over the years, including:

• accidental death
• abduction
• a vehicle-related incident
• possible foul play

Adding to the folklore, Paul’s father reportedly said the boy had been fascinated with the mountains before his disappearance, leading some to connect his case with the eerie reputation of Glastenbury.

Paul Jepson was never found.

Frieda Langer: The Only Body Recovered

The final major disappearance associated with the Bennington Triangle era was Frieda Langer. On October 24, 1950, the 53-year-old experienced hiker was near Somerset, Vermont. After getting wet during a hike, she reportedly headed back toward camp to change clothes.

She disappeared.

A massive search effort followed involving hundreds of people, aircraft, and military assistance. Six months later, her body was discovered in an area that had previously been searched. Because of decomposition, determining exactly what happened was difficult. Authorities ruled the death an accidental drowning, but questions remained about why she was not discovered earlier.

Strange Phenomena Around the Bennington Triangle

Beyond the disappearances, Glastenbury Mountain has developed a reputation for high strangeness.

Over the years, stories connected to the area have included:

• mysterious lights in the woods
• UFO sightings
• strange sounds
• Bigfoot encounters
• the so-called Bennington Monster
• legends of portals or dimensional doorways

Some hikers have described seeing lights moving through the forest that appeared similar to headlamps, only to claim there was no person attached to them. Others connect the area to older folklore involving mysterious stone structures sometimes said to represent gateways or unusual energy points. As with many paranormal locations, separating documented events from evolving folklore can be difficult.

The Bennington Monster and Bigfoot Legends

One of the stranger legends connected to the area is the Bennington Monster. Descriptions vary, but many modern researchers associate the creature with Bigfoot or other unknown creature sightings reported throughout the forests of Vermont. Like many cryptid legends, the original sources can be difficult to trace, and stories often change as they are retold. Still, the connection between wilderness disappearances and unknown creatures remains part of the lasting mystery surrounding Glastenbury Mountain.

Legend, Folklore, or Something Else?

The Bennington Triangle remains a fascinating blend of documented missing person cases, local folklore, and paranormal legend. Some explanations are grounded: harsh wilderness, unpredictable weather, accidents, wildlife, or people choosing to disappear. Other theories look toward the unknown: strange lights, hidden phenomena, portals, or encounters with something beyond current understanding.

The truth may not be one single answer.

What makes the Bennington Triangle endure is the combination of real disappearances and the strange stories that grew around them. Deep in the Vermont wilderness, Glastenbury Mountain still holds its secrets.

Locations like the Bennington Triangle remind us why mysteries continue to capture our imagination. From haunted places and forgotten legends to strange encounters that blur the line between reality and folklore, these stories influence both my paranormal research and my fiction writing. Explore more of my work as a paranormal author and researcher.

The Abandoned Dinosaur World Near Beaver Lake

There’s something strange hiding in the woods near Beaver Lake, just outside Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Giant concrete dinosaurs stand among the trees where a thriving roadside attraction once drew thousands of visitors every year.

Welcome to Dinosaur World. Or at least what’s left of it.

Once, this place was one of the quirkiest attractions in the Ozarks. Today it’s private property, overgrown, fenced off, and covered in No Trespassing signs. Naturally, I became interested in it while researching my book.

Dinosaur World originally opened in 1967 as Farwell’s Dinosaur Park. Spread across 65 acres of the Ozark National Forest, it featured more than 100 life-sized dinosaurs, cavemen, and prehistoric creatures. Founder Ola Farwell wanted to build something that would attract travelers heading to Beaver Lake, and he certainly succeeded.

Farwell hired sculptor Emmet Sullivan to design the first group of dinosaurs. Sullivan helped sculpt the faces on Mount Rushmore and later created the Christ of the Ozarks statue overlooking Eureka Springs. Local craftsmen A.C. McBride and Orvis Parker oversaw the actual construction. McBride had served as the Chief Mortar Artist on the Christ of the Ozarks project, while Parker was a local evangelist.

Over time, the park grew until it was considered the largest dinosaur theme park in the world. Admission was only one dollar for adults and fifty cents for children under six. Farwell later said his family never lost money operating the attraction.

In the late 1970s, the park was sold to Ken Childs, who decided dinosaurs alone weren’t enough. He renamed the attraction John Agar’s Land of Kong and added a forty-foot King Kong statue.

John Agar had starred in the 1976 remake of King Kong and allowed Childs to use his name for the park. Many articles claim Agar owned part of the business, but that isn’t true. He simply licensed his name and had no financial interest in the attraction.

For those who enjoy Hollywood trivia, Agar was once married to Shirley Temple. They had one daughter before divorcing, and his struggles with alcoholism affected both his marriage and his acting career. Eventually, the park dropped the Kong branding and became Dinosaur World once again.

Dinosaur World closed in 2005, and everything was simply left behind.

The gift shop still had shelves full of souvenirs, and the building itself featured what was said to be the world’s largest Noah’s Ark mural. In 2011, the gift shop burned to the ground. Today only an empty field remains where it once stood.

The dinosaurs, however, never left.

Many of them are still standing in the woods, slowly disappearing beneath vines, moss, and trees. As you drive toward Beaver Lake, you can still catch glimpses of giant tails, necks, and prehistoric faces peeking through the foliage.

It’s equal parts creepy and fascinating.

How to Allegedly See the Dinosaurs

Before I go any further, let’s establish one thing. Dinosaur World is private property. I’m not telling anyone to trespass. Please don’t trespass.

While researching Dinosaur World for my book, I found a blog where someone claimed there was a way to see some of the dinosaurs without initially crossing onto the property. Whether that’s true or not, I’ll leave it up to the internet.

According to that person, there’s a utility line clearing just before you reach Beaver Lake. It’s impossible to miss. Utility companies cut these perfectly rectangular paths through the forest for power lines, and they stretch over hills and mountains for miles. This particular clearing runs toward the lake near the convenience store where people stop for fishing supplies.

There’s a small pull-off beside the road with a No Parking sign. If you continue a little farther, there’s enough grassy shoulder to park completely off the highway.

Allegedly.

From there it’s about a quarter-mile walk uphill to the utility clearing.

Along the edge of the clearing is an old trail that disappears into the woods between the highway and Dinosaur World. Calling it a trail might be generous. It’s rocky, muddy, overgrown, and absolutely loaded with ticks. Wear boots. Wear long sleeves. Use bug spray. Shake your clothes off before you get back in your car. Your future self will appreciate it.

After about ten minutes, the path looks like it ends.

It doesn’t.

The forest has simply reclaimed it. If you keep following it for another couple hundred yards, you’ll allegedly reach one of the original walking paths from Dinosaur World.

And there they are. Concrete dinosaurs standing quietly beside the lake as if the park closed yesterday and everyone simply forgot to tell them. They’re surreal. They’re weathered. They’re honestly pretty amazing.

I’m not saying you should wander around taking pictures because that would involve stepping onto private property, and that would be trespassing. I’m simply explaining what someone else on the internet claimed exists.

If you do happen to find yourself in the area, stay well away from the trailer on the property. I have no idea if someone lives there, and finding out the hard way sounds like an excellent way to ruin your afternoon.

Let’s continue our completely fictional scenario.

If someone had spent a little time admiring forgotten dinosaurs and didn’t feel like hiking all the way back through the woods, they might notice a gate off to the right with a No Trespassing sign wrapped in barbed wire. There also happens to be a hole in the fence.

Someone could duck through it. Someone considerably more athletic than me could probably hop the fence and call it parkour. Once on the other side, you’d be less than a hundred feet from where you parked.

Again, this is all entirely hypothetical.

Dinosaur World feels like stepping into another time. It’s part abandoned theme park, part roadside Americana, and part forgotten Ozark legend.

Even after all these years, the place still has a strange kind of charm. The dinosaurs continue standing guard over the lake while nature slowly pulls the entire park back into the forest.

If you’re driving toward Beaver Lake, keep an eye on the trees. You never know when you’ll catch sight of a giant dinosaur quietly watching traffic go by.

Just remember to admire them from a legal distance. I’m trying to keep you out of jail.

This article is a condensed version of the Dinosaur World chapter from my book, Ghost Towns and Forgotten Places. If you’re fascinated by abandoned attractions, forgotten history, and the strange places hidden across the Ozarks, the full chapter digs much deeper into the story behind one of Arkansas’s most unusual roadside attractions.

How Elmer McCurdy Became a Sideshow Attraction

Elmer McCurdy should have been a footnote in Oklahoma history. Instead, he became one of the strangest posthumous celebrities in America. After the failed outlaw was killed in 1911, his embalmed body spent decades touring carnivals, sideshows, wax museums, movie sets, and amusement parks before anyone realized the attraction hanging in plain sight was an actual human corpse.

Elmer McCurdy. Bank robber. Train robber. Terrible with nitroglycerin. Better known now as the mummified corpse that spent sixty-five years touring carnivals, wax museums, movie sets, and finally a California funhouse before someone realized,that’s a real dead guy.

This is the story I dug into with Michael Williams, director of, the Oklahoma Territorial Museum and Historic Carnegie Library in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

It starts like a history lesson. It turns into a meditation on death, exploitation, karma, and whether a soul can ever rest if the body is passed around like a prop.

Michael introduces himself. Museum director. Oklahoma Territorial Museum. Historic Carnegie Library. Guthrie, Oklahoma. Part of the Oklahoma Historical Society. His job is to tell the story of how Indian Territory opened to non-Native settlement, how the territory became a state.

Guthrie is not just some random little town outside Oklahoma City.

It was one of the land offices for the Land Run of 1889. It was the territorial capital at statehood. It was the state capital until 1910. It had a federal jail. The deputy U.S. Marshals who went out to chase down train robbers and bandits were coming out of Guthrie’s courthouse.

The Carnegie Library building, where Michael works. That is where Charles Haskell, Oklahoma’s first governor, was inaugurated on the steps.

So yeah. Guthrie is not just “cute antiques and brick streets.” It is one of the historic nerve centers of the state. The funny part is how many people have no idea it exists.

There are basements with giant windows that open at what looks like street level. Half sunken storefronts. Michael explains that at the time, it was normal to build with basements and rent that space out. Main business on the first floor. Offices or living upstairs. Workshops or shops below.

To me, as a California kid, it looks wrong. We don’t do basements because of earthquakes. Oklahoma doesn’t really do them anymore, either, because of water table issues. Early 1900s, Guthrie, though. Different story.

And then there are the fraternal buildings.

You see Masonic symbols on a façade. Or IOOF. Odd Fellows. Those groups would build the building, keep their “temple” upstairs, and rent the main floor to businesses. If you see those marks now, odds are the lodge met above someone’s general store.

That leads us to the real eye catcher in Guthrie.

The huge Scottish Rite Masonic Temple on the hill. And across the street from the museum, the Grand Lodge of Oklahoma.

Why, Guthrie, this is not a huge town?

Michael explains it like this. The city had set aside that Scottish Rite spot originally for the state capitol. When the capital moved to Oklahoma City in 1910, Guthrie was left with a damaged building on prime land that did not get used.

They basically sold the property to the Masons for a dollar.

At the time, Guthrie was not a casual thirty-minute drive from Oklahoma City. There were no interstates. Dirt roads. Horseback. Interurban train. People didn’t live in Guthrie and commute to the city. It was its own world.

You open a door and your hand touches the same hardware marshals and outlaws used.

Michael says he can point to buildings and tell you who walked in and out of them. Bill Tilgman. Tom Mix. Names you read in history books. They grabbed the same handles. Walked the same planks.

Now those buildings are smoothie shops.

If you are even remotely sensitive, you can feel the overlap. Present layered over past. The city is a time capsule.

I met Michael at my sister’s wedding at the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie. We did the tourist thing. Walked around town. Went to the cemetery.

He talked about a dead man being propped up for everyone to see. I thought I knew the story. I asked him something like.

“Is it the corpse they had set up in the window?”

He said no. Not that one. Different corpse.

And I had this moment of.

How many random dead people are being propped up in store windows?

Quite a few, apparently.

At Summit View Cemetery in Guthrie, you can visit two big names. Bill Doolin and Elmer McCurdy. Side by side.

If you have ever watched The Outlaw Josey Wales with Clint Eastwood, there is a scene where he walks into a general store. They show a picture on the wall. An outlaw with his chest full of shotgun holes. That picture is an actual photo of Bill Doolin.

Doolin rode with the Dalton Gang. When most of the Daltons were gunned down trying to rob two different banks in Coffeyville, Kansas, he missed it. The horse came up lame. Bad luck that saved his life.

He later teamed up with another Dalton brother. They became Doolin and Dalton. Also known as The Wild Bunch. They robbed banks and trains all over Oklahoma Territory.

Judge Frank Dale in Guthrie got tired of it. He basically told U.S. Marshal Ed Nix.Just bring them in dead. Forget the trials.

Doolin was first captured in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, by Bill Tilghman. Hauled back to Guthrie by train. People lined up to file past the marshal’s office just to stare at him like a sideshow. Then he escaped from the federal jail. Of course he did.

He was tracked again by Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas near a little place called Lawson, at his father-in-law’s house. They set up an ambush on the road.

Thomas supposedly yelled.

“Hey, Bill.”

Doolin turned, pulled a gun. Thomas shot him with a shotgun.

They brought the body back to Guthrie. Cleaned him up. Put him on a slab. They stuck him in the bank building downtown. First National Bank back then. Bank First now.

People walked through to look at him. That was the entertainment. Look what we did. We got the outlaw.

They embalmed him. Sat him up. Let people file past. Almost like a very grim meet and greet.

The thing that still gets me is how casual everyone was about it.

Michael is very practical about it.

You do not have TV. No radio. You have books and newspapers. You hear there is a dead outlaw on display. You go look. That was true crime then. Exactly the same fascination. Just more hands-on.

The bodies were usually embalmed. So yes. They did at least have that part handled. Then they propped them up in chairs or in front windows.

Congrats. You have earned the right to be a town attraction.

It sounds grotesque to us. To them, it was normal. A warning. A thrill. A morality play you could poke with your finger.

Part of what makes this so strange for us now is how far we have separated ourselves from death.

People used to kill their own chickens for Sunday dinner. Kids would be sent out to wring a neck. That was just Tuesday.

Now you see a cartoon chicken on a package and a boneless skinless chicken breast in plastic. The middle part never crosses your mind.

We extend life farther now. We warehouse sickness in hospitals and care facilities. Death shows up wrapped in paperwork and medical equipment. It is still brutal. It is just sanitized.

They had a completely different relationship with death. Daily. Physical. Intimate. Their tolerance level was higher because it had to be.

There is a whole Victorian industry around death. Hair art.

They would collect hair from the dead. Braid it. Weave it. Build these elaborate wreaths and framed designs from it. Family memorials made of literal human hair.

Sometimes they would collect hair while the person was still alive. Cleaning the hairbrushes in jars. Saving it for later.

They also hired photographers to come take pictures of dead babies and relatives. The only photo some families ever got of their child was post-mortem. They dressed them in Sunday best. Sometimes propped them up with living siblings. Sometimes it is hard to tell who is alive and who is not.

There are photos of caskets in parlors. Dead bodies in living rooms.Because that is where wakes happened.

You did not ship the body off to a funeral home. You bought the casket from the furniture store. The same guy might also be the mortician. They embalmed the body. Brought it back. The casket sat in the parlor. People came to pay their respects.

Then the body went to the church for the funeral and burial.

Michael tells a story from his own childhood.

He was maybe six or seven. A friend’s grandmother died. Italian family. Hartshorne, Oklahoma, near McAlester.

He remembers the house as dark, lit by candles. Heavy smell of wax. The casket in the dining room. A Catholic priest doing mass in Latin. He could not understand the words. Just the sound.

That was his first direct encounter with those older funeral practices. It stuck. That lived memory colors how he sees all this now.

We look at those Victorian mourning photos and call them creepy. But they were ritual. They were a way to face what happened and integrate it. There is a strange kind of grounding in it.

We are the weird ones, in a way. We push death completely out of the frame, then act shocked when it ambushes us.

My sister’s wedding theme was actually based on Elmer McCurdy.

We had the wedding at the Stone Lion Inn in Guthrie. We visited Summit View Cemetery. We went to Elmer’s grave. Put flowers on it. Did a murder mystery dinner where people had to give eulogies for him. Some folks had no idea he was a real person. They thought it was just part of the game.

The wedding favors included a book about him. I had already noticed it at the inn and wanted a copy. Then I opened the little goodie bag and there it was. Very on brand.

Elmer McCurdy was a small-time outlaw.

Bank robber. Train robber. Burglar. Not especially good at any of it.

He robbed a train, got drunk, and passed out in the loft of a barn. The posse tracked him there. There was a gunfight the next morning. He was killed.

They took his body to Pawhuska. Embalmed him. Identified him as Elmer McCurdy. He was wanted for multiple train robberies.

Then the county refused to pay the undertaker for the embalming or a burial. So Elmer sat in a back room for about four or five years.

Over that time, his body naturally mummified. Word got out that the undertaker “had a mummy.” Kids talked. People started dropping by asking to see it.

At first it was just. Sure. Come look. Then the undertaker propped Elmer up in the corner and started charging a nickel.

The carnivals showed up next.

Two men from the Patterson Carnival came in and claimed to be Elmer’s brothers. They said their mother’s dying wish was that her boy be brought home to California and buried next to her.

The undertaker finally handed the body over. After years of being stuck with this unclaimed corpse, he believed the story. Or wanted to.

Within a week, Elmer was a sideshow attraction. And that was his life. Or rather, his afterlife. For the next sixty-five years.

He toured with carnivals. Stood in wax museums. Got rented out as a prop. Was used in exploitation films.

One of the most infamous movies he appears in is Narcotic, made by the same people who did Reefer Madness. It is a wild little film about opium addiction. Elmer appears twice. Once dressed in a stereotyped silk outfit and cap, posed in an “opium den” with a pipe cradled in his arm. Later, they flop “him” onto a table when a character overdoses. If you watch closely, the way that body hits and folds is not how a living person moves. It is him.

At one point, the promoter who owned him would haul Elmer around to screenings. People would put tickets or coins in his mouth for luck or as a dare.

Again. Completely different ethical system. People did whatever made money. If someone wanted a mummy, they got a mummy. No one asked the mummy what he thought.

Fast forward to 1976.

They are filming an episode of The Six Million Dollar Man called “Carnival of Spies.” The set is the New Pike amusement park in Long Beach, California. There is a ride called “Laugh in the Dark,” a classic funhouse ride where you sit in a little car and get dragged through blacklight scenes while things jump out at you.

Elmer is hanging from a noose inside that ride. Painted fluorescent red with phosphorescent paint that glows in blacklight.

During filming, a crew member bumps into him. His arm breaks off.

The guy goes to put the arm back. He picks it up and thinks. This feels wrong.

He looks closer. There is bone sticking out. They gather around. Look at the body. Look between the legs. Realize very fast that this is not a papier mâché dummy.

They call the coroner.

The coroner’s office assumes they are dealing with a recent death. Someone who maybe hung themselves or was murdered and hidden on the ride. They take the body in. Put it on the table. Start the autopsy.

They open him up and realize he has already been autopsied once before. So this is not a recent suicide. This is older. A lot older. They remove the jaw for dental records. Find old coins and ticket stubs shoved up inside.

They start tracing the body’s history. They find the son of one of the early owners, a man named Louie Sonney. The son, Dan, says.

Yeah. That’s Elmer McCurdy.

His dad had gotten the body as collateral on a loan that was never paid back. They kept him for years. Even brought him out at kids’ birthday parties.

“Everyone would play with Elmer.”

Just a casual sentence you never expect to hear. This is where Oklahoma comes back into the story.

The coroner’s office puts out a press release. It hits all the major wire services. Reuters. AP. UPI.

That release crosses the desk of Bill Lehman, editor of the Guthrie Daily Leader. He is part of a group called the Westerners. They are obsessed with Western history. Writers, cops, museum folks, that type.

Two of his friends are key here.

One is a writer and police officer named Glen Shirley, who wrote a lot about Oklahoma outlaws and lawmen. The other is a guy named Fred Olds, the first director of Michael’s museum.

Lehman shows them the wire story.

“What do you think of this?”

Shirley says.“I know who that is. That’s Elmer McCurdy.”

He knows Elmer’s story. He knows about the mummy that vanished into the carnival circuit. It clicks.

Fred asks the important question.“What do you think is going to happen to him?”

Someone says. It is California. They will probably cremate him.

Fred is not okay with that.“That’s one of our people.”

This is funny when you step back. Elmer was from Maine. His only connection to Oklahoma is that he died there after a botched robbery. But in the emotional logic of the West, if you die on our soil, you are ours.

So Fred basically gets dared into doing something about it. He picks up the phone and calls the Los Angeles County Coroner. Long distance. Back when long distance cost money and you had to go through an operator.

He says they think they can identify the body.The coroner asks him to prove it. This is where it gets extremely forensic nerdy.

Shirley had found Elmer’s Bertillon records. These were pre-fingerprint criminal ID files. They measured finger bones, arm bones, and head circumference. Logged scars, healed breaks, tattoos. Took front and profile photos. All to track repeat offenders before fingerprinting was standard.

They also got in touch with Dr. Clyde Snow, one of the first big forensic anthropologists. Ground floor of that field.

Snow had already done work for the FAA on how to identify victims of plane crashes from burned skeletal remains. He developed a technique called superimposition. You take a known photograph of a person and project it onto a skull to see if the features line up.

Different skulls create different facial structures. You learn how lips, noses, brows sit on that underlying bone. Snow projects the old Bertillon mugshot of Elmer onto the skull. Checks the scar records against the actual bones. It all matches.

No doubt. It is him.

At the same time, Michael is geeking out on his own side of the story. The museum has a collection from the man who killed Elmer. A lawman named Stringer Fenton.

Among the artifacts are two automatic pistols.

A Colt 1911 in .45. And what looks like a German Luger.

The old autopsy drawings show a bullet path through Elmer’s body and a recovered bullet jacket. Caliber. .32.

Michael picks up the “Luger.” It feels smaller than the usual nine-millimeter version. He looks at the barrel. It says 7.65 millimeter. That is .32 caliber.

He finds an old quote from Fenton in the paper. Fenton says that a bullet from his “Luger automatic pistol” entered Elmer’s chest and traveled almost all the way through, coming to rest in his hip.

Same path as the autopsy sketch.

Michael calls the LA coroner’s office to see if they still have that bullet jacket so he can test fire the gun at a ballistics lab and compare. They don’t. It was destroyed in the 1980s. So there is no test.

But given the match in caliber, the statement from Fenton, and the autopsy path, Michael is pretty certain they are displaying the actual gun that killed McCurdy.

Back on the body side. Once Snow and Shirley and Lehman make their case, LA agrees to release Elmer.

They bring him back to Guthrie.

He was buried in Summit View Cemetery on April 22, 1977. That date matters. It is 89ers Day. The anniversary of the 1889 land run.

He gets a full funeral. Horse-drawn hearse. People on horseback. Folks dressed as cowboys. Guns. The whole Western funeral fantasy.

They lowered him into the grave. Then, reportedly, they back a cement truck up and fill the grave with concrete before covering it with dirt.

You would think that would be the end.

Of course it is not.

Years later, another TV show calls Michael. Mysteries at the Museum. Travel Channel. They are asking if he has any McCurdy artifacts. He explains that they have Fenton’s gun and gear. Realizes in that process that the 7.65 pistol is the likely murder weapon. They shoot a segment around it. You can still hunt it down and watch it. It’s Season 5, Episode 4: Funhouse Mummy, Playboy’s Gold, and Lawn Chair in the Sky.

Then an email shows up that changes everything.

Somebody is pitching a documentary and a Broadway musical based on Elmer’s story. Michael is used to getting emails from random people who have written scripts about McCurdy. He rolls his eyes. Then he starts looking up the names in the email.

They are not random people. They are Tony, Grammy, and Emmy-winning writers and composers.

This is legit.

They come down. Interview him for twenty hours. They take the story we have just walked through and write a full musical around it.

In 2024, Michael goes to New York for the off-Broadway opening of Dead Outlaw. In April 2025, he goes back for the Broadway opening.

At some point, there will be a Dead Outlaw documentary that weaves together those interviews, the making of the musical, and the underlying history. All because a film crew knocked a painted “dummy” in a funhouse, and his arm fell off.

And because a few Western history nerds in Guthrie said. “No. He is one of ours. Send him home.”

If they had not fought to bring him back. If Guthrie had not claimed a man who never lived there as their own. None of this happens. No musical. No documentary. No gun on display. No strange wedding theme at a haunted inn.

That is the kind of hinge moment that fascinates me. Tiny choices. Huge ripple.

Strange history often proves stranger than any ghost story. If you enjoy bizarre forgotten tales from the American heartland, you may also enjoy my article on Rush, Arkansas, the ghost town that rose and fell during the Ozark mining boom.

The 11 Scientists Who Died or Disappeared: Is There a Connection?

The 11 scientists who died or disappeared under mysterious circumstances have become the center of a growing conspiracy theory, but what were they actually working on?

In Part One, I investigate Michael David Hicks, Frank Maiwald, Nuno Loureiro, Jason Thomas, and Carl Grillmair, tracing their work through NASA, JPL, MIT, Caltech, plasma physics, exoplanets, dark matter, biomedical research, and the search for water beyond Earth. This investigation eventually became large enough that I had to divide it into three parts. Some deaths have fairly straightforward explanations. Others remain less clear. What caught my attention wasn’t simply that these scientists died.

It was what they were working on. And the strange places where some of those lines of research begin to intersect.

Michael David Hicks

Michael David Hicks was born February 7, 1964, and died July 30, 2023, at the age of 59.

Hicks was a planetary scientist who earned his PhD in Lunar and Planetary Sciences from the University of Arizona before working at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

His research focused heavily on the physical properties of comets, asteroids, planets, and moons. During his career, he served on the science teams for projects including DART, Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking, the Dawn mission, and NASA’s Deep Space 1 mission.

He was also a prolific researcher, publishing dozens of scientific papers involving subjects ranging from Saturn’s icy moons and Neptune’s moon Triton to Pluto and potentially hazardous asteroids.

There is no publicly confirmed cause of death for Hicks. That alone doesn’t mean something sinister happened. Families frequently keep causes of death private. But Hicks led me somewhere much more interesting.

The JPL Connection

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory sits near Pasadena, California, and is managed by Caltech for NASA. JPL has been involved in some of the most important robotic space missions in history, including Voyager, Galileo, Perseverance, Curiosity, Juno, and numerous Mars missions. It also operates NASA’s Deep Space Network.

But JPL’s history didn’t begin with peaceful little robots rolling around Mars. Its early history is tangled up with rockets, weapons development, military research, and one of the strangest figures in American aerospace history: Jack Parsons.

Parsons was one of the pioneering rocket engineers associated with the group that eventually became JPL. He was also deeply involved in ceremonial magic and Aleister Crowley’s occult system of Thelema.

Parsons participated in what became known as the Babalon Working, an elaborate series of magical rituals conducted with L. Ron Hubbard before Hubbard went on to found Scientology.

And then there is the geography. JPL sits near Devil’s Gate Dam. Devil’s Gate has accumulated its own strange mythology over the decades. The area became associated with occult stories, rituals, disappearances, local legends, and Parsons himself. The dam received its name from a natural rock formation that resembles a face or horned figure. Depending on the photograph, I think it looks more alien than demonic, but that’s another conversation.

The surrounding area was also the site of several disturbing disappearances and attempted kidnappings involving children during the twentieth century. None of that demonstrates a connection to Hicks’ death. But it certainly makes JPL one hell of a rabbit hole. And Hicks wasn’t the last scientist on this list connected to it.

Frank Maiwald

Frank Maiwald died July 4, 2024, at the age of 61. Born in Germany, Maiwald eventually became a spectroscopy engineer at JPL. Spectroscopy involves analyzing electromagnetic radiation emitted or absorbed by matter. In astronomy, spectral signatures can tell scientists an enormous amount about distant objects, including their chemical composition.

Maiwald worked on multiple sophisticated NASA instruments and missions, including microwave radiometers and satellite systems used to study Earth’s oceans and atmosphere. His projects included AMR, SWOT, COWVR, Jason-3, HiFi, and the microwave radiometer aboard the Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter.

And this is where another theme started appearing.

Water.

A surprising amount of Maiwald’s work involved detecting or studying water. Some of the instruments he helped develop measured ocean circulation, sea levels, atmospheric water vapor, storms, and ocean winds. But his research wasn’t confined to Earth.

One of the papers associated with his work involved using passive microwave technology to probe for subsurface oceans and liquid water in Jupiter’s icy moons. That’s considerably more interesting.

Maiwald spent decades working on highly specialized technology capable of studying planets, atmospheres, oceans, electromagnetic radiation, and potentially water hidden beneath the surfaces of distant moons. He authored or co-authored dozens of publications and accumulated thousands of citations.

According to memorials left by family members and colleagues, he was warm, hardworking, creative, and deeply respected. Several messages suggest that his death was unexpected. One colleague wrote about simply staring toward Mount Wilson after hearing the news and asking himself why. Another remarked that it seemed as though Maiwald had left “in the middle of everything.”

Once again, I could not find a publicly confirmed cause of death.

Now we have two JPL scientists, both highly accomplished, both dying relatively young, within roughly a year of each other, without publicly disclosed causes of death.

Nuno Loureiro

The third scientist is where this story takes a much darker turn. Nuno Loureiro was a theoretical physicist and fusion scientist who served as director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. He died at 47 after being shot at his home in Brookline, Massachusetts, in December 2025.

Loureiro studied physics in Portugal before earning his PhD from Imperial College London. His career took him through Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, and eventually MIT. His research dealt with plasma physics, magnetic reconnection, fusion energy, solar flares, and astrophysical phenomena.Shortly before his death, he was also working with quantum-computing algorithms for plasma-physics simulations.

Police eventually connected his murder to Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, who was also identified as the gunman responsible for a mass shooting at Brown University days earlier. Valente was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound inside a storage unit in New Hampshire.

Investigators determined that Valente and Loureiro shared an academic connection. Both had attended Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon during overlapping periods. Valente had reportedly been a high-performing student and teaching assistant before his position at the institution ended in 2000. Loureiro continued his academic career, eventually becoming an internationally recognized physicist. Authorities ultimately characterized Loureiro and Brown University as symbolic targets representing failures and perceived injustices in Valente’s life.

That’s the official explanation. And it is certainly possible. But Loureiro wasn’t randomly encountered somewhere. He was shot at his residence. Twenty-five years had passed since the period when the two men attended the same institution. Valente also used a different gun in Loureiro’s murder than the weapon connected to the Brown University shooting.

None of that proves a larger conspiracy. It does, however, make Loureiro’s murder substantially more interesting than simply describing him as another victim of a spree killer.

Plasma, Plasmoids, and UAP

Loureiro published extensively on plasmoids and magnetic reconnection.

Plasmoids are coherent structures of plasma and magnetic fields. They occur naturally in environments including solar winds, comet tails, and Earth’s magnetosphere and are studied extensively in fusion research and astrophysics.

They are also increasingly appearing in discussions about unidentified anomalous phenomena. A 2024 paper published in the Journal of Modern Physics examined what its authors described as self-illuminating, pulsating plasma-like UAP observed in NASA space-shuttle footage and other recordings.

The paper proposed that some plasmoid phenomena may display complex behaviors and even entertained the possibility that they could represent an unusual form of life. That doesn’t mean Loureiro was researching aliens. He wasn’t.

His work was legitimate plasma physics. But plasma physics itself has become increasingly relevant to discussions surrounding certain categories of UAP. Suddenly, Loureiro’s research looked considerably more interesting within the larger pattern I was investigating.

Jason Thomas

Jason Thomas’ story is completely different.

Thomas was an accomplished scientist and associate director of chemical biology at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In December 2025, Thomas disappeared after leaving his home for a late-night walk.

He had recently experienced an unimaginable personal tragedy. His mother had died while receiving hospice care. Shortly afterward, while dealing with her funeral arrangements, Thomas’ father suffered a fatal heart attack and reportedly collapsed in his son’s arms.

Thomas was an only child and extremely close to his parents. His wife described him as deeply affected by their deaths. He had been crying frequently, going for long walks, spending time outdoors, and struggling with pressure at work. His journals reportedly showed that he was considering changing careers.

On December 12, Thomas and his wife went out socially with friends for the first time since his parents’ deaths. After they returned home, Thomas quietly left for a walk. His wife initially wasn’t alarmed because walking was something he regularly did when stressed.

Then he didn’t come home. She discovered that he had left his phone and wallet behind. More strangely, he had placed his Apple Watch inside their mailbox.

Surveillance footage later showed him near the Wakefield train station and railroad tracks. Police searched extensively. K-9 teams and drones were brought in. Investigators checked surveillance footage, financial accounts, transportation records, and reported sightings. Nothing led to Thomas.

One place investigators wanted to search more thoroughly was Lake Quannapowitt, but winter conditions complicated the search because portions of the lake were frozen. Three months later, after the ice thawed, Thomas’ body was recovered from the lake.

Authorities reported that foul play was not suspected. Given the devastating deaths of his parents, his depression, and what his wife discovered in his journals, suicide is an obvious possibility. Unlike several other people in this investigation, Thomas also had no obvious professional connection to astronomy, plasma physics, planetary science, or UAP research.

Thomas earned degrees in physics and biology from Temple University, a doctorate in biophysics from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and completed postdoctoral work at Scripps Research Institute.

He joined Novartis in 2010 and eventually became associate director of chemical biology. Novartis is one of the world’s major pharmaceutical companies, with research involving oncology, cardiovascular medicine, neuroscience, immunology, and other areas.

The pharmaceutical connection sent me briefly into the COVID-vaccine rabbit hole because of the larger history of vaccine research and collaborations among major pharmaceutical companies. But that still didn’t connect Thomas to the other scientists. Then I searched for Novartis and space research.

Pharmaceuticals Go to Space

Pharmaceutical companies have increasingly used space and microgravity environments for biomedical research.

Experiments conducted aboard the International Space Station have investigated drug formulation, disease mechanisms, muscle atrophy, bone loss, protein crystallization, and other biological processes that behave differently in microgravity.

Experiments conducted aboard the International Space Station have investigated drug formulation, disease mechanisms, muscle atrophy, bone loss, protein crystallization, and other biological processes that behave differently in microgravity.

Novartis has participated in space-based biomedical research, including studies involving skeletal muscle atrophy. The company has also partnered with Voyager Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing gene therapies for neurological diseases.

That doesn’t mean Jason Thomas personally worked on any of those projects. I found no evidence that he did. But it meant the organization he worked for wasn’t as disconnected from space science as I initially assumed. Still, Thomas remains one of the weakest connections in the larger pattern.

His death may simply be exactly what it appears to be: the tragic end of a man devastated by grief.

Carl Grillmair

Then we get to Carl Grillmair. He was a Canadian astronomer and astrophysicist who spent nearly 30 years at Caltech.

His research involved exoplanets, galactic structure, stellar streams, dark matter, and the history of collisions between the Milky Way and smaller galaxies. He worked with data from major NASA telescope missions including Hubble, Spitzer, and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.

He worked at the Space Telescope Science Institute and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He was a member of the NASA Astrobiology Institute. And he helped develop techniques for studying exoplanets. One of his most significant accomplishments involved detecting evidence of water in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting another star. There’s the water again.

Grillmair wasn’t simply studying distant planets. He was helping scientists determine what those planets were made of and whether their environments contained molecules associated with potentially habitable conditions.

He received major NASA recognition, enormous amounts of telescope time, research grants, and participated in projects involving galactic dark matter, stellar debris streams, exoplanets, and the evolution of galaxies.

Then, on February 16, 2026, Grillmair was shot outside his home in Llano, California. He died from a single gunshot wound to the torso. A suspect, 29-year-old Freddy Snyder, was arrested two days later. This case has a documented history behind it. Snyder reportedly lived nearby and had previously trespassed on Grillmair’s property. Grillmair had contacted law enforcement about him months earlier. Snyder had reportedly claimed that he was hunting a coyote on the property. He was arrested on weapons charges but released.

According to Grillmair’s widow, Snyder later returned carrying a baseball bat before eventually returning again on February 16, when Grillmair was killed. She does not believe her husband’s death was connected to a conspiracy. She believes Snyder blamed Grillmair for his previous arrest and killed him in retaliation. And she may be completely right.

But Grillmair’s murder inevitably attracted attention because it happened only about two months after the murder of Nuno Loureiro. Two internationally respected scientists. Both involved in highly advanced areas of physics or astronomy. Both shot at their homes. Within approximately two months of each other. That is going to make people ask questions.

o What Is the Pattern?

At this point in the investigation, I’m not ready to say there is one. There are still six scientists left to examine. These aren’t fringe researchers operating from somebody’s garage. These were highly educated scientists working at some of the most important scientific institutions in the world.

Their research concerns technologies and discoveries that could fundamentally change how we understand energy, space, planetary environments, biology, and potentially life beyond Earth. That doesn’t mean someone is killing scientists to prevent disclosure. It doesn’t mean every death belongs to the same story. In fact, some almost certainly don’t.

Jason Thomas’ death has an obvious personal context. Carl Grillmair’s murder has an identified suspect and documented history of conflict. Authorities have provided a motive for Nuno Loureiro’s murder.

Meanwhile, the causes of death for Michael David Hicks and Frank Maiwald simply haven’t been publicly disclosed. Those distinctions matter. But patterns don’t always begin with answers. There are six more scientists to investigate. And this rabbit hole is nowhere near finished.

f this investigation sounds familiar, it’s because the deeper I dig into UFO history, government programs, strange technology, and the people working at the edges of accepted science, the more these subjects begin crossing paths. I’ve explored many of those connections elsewhere on my blog where I dig into the researchers, programs, conspiracy theories, paranormal history, and high-strangeness rabbit holes that keep resurfacing in stories like this one.

The 11 Dead Scientists: Strange Deaths, Disappearances, and Aerospace Connections

In Part One, I examined the deaths and disappearances of Michael David Hicks, Frank Maiwald, Nuno Loureiro, Jason Thomas, and Carl Grillmair. Some of their cases have perfectly ordinary explanations. Others contain details that are difficult to reconcile. What interested me most was not simply that these scientists had died or disappeared, but that so many of them occupied overlapping worlds involving aerospace, advanced technology, energy, defense, propulsion, nuclear research, and institutions such as NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Part Two takes us deeper into that territory with two women whose stories are very different but equally strange: Amy Eskridge and Monica Jacinto Reza.

Eskridge was researching anti-gravity and unconventional propulsion technology before her death in 2022. In the months and weeks before she died, she publicly claimed she was being surveilled, threatened, followed, and targeted because of her work.

Reza was a highly accomplished materials engineer whose work helped advance rocket propulsion. In June 2025, she went hiking in the Angeles National Forest and seemingly vanished within feet of another hiker.

Then there are the places surrounding them. Huntsville. Redstone Arsenal. Rocketdyne. Santa Susana Field Laboratory. NASA. JPL.. Once you start following those connections, the story becomes considerably bigger than two scientists.

Amy Eskridge and Anti-Gravity Research

Amy Catherine Eskridge was only 34 years old when she died on June 11, 2022.

She had an extraordinary academic background that included chemistry, biology, electrical engineering, physics, genetic engineering, and nanotechnology. She was also the chairwoman and president of the Institute for Exotic Science in Huntsville, Alabama, an organization she co-founded to explore scientific concepts outside conventional aerospace technology.

Much of Eskridge’s research focused on gravity modification, high-frequency gravitational waves, and propulsion systems that could potentially move beyond traditional fuel-based technology. In other words, she wasn’t trying to make a slightly better rocket. She was interested in fundamentally different ways of moving things.

According to reports published after her death, Eskridge believed her research had attracted unwanted attention. She told friends and colleagues that she was being monitored and receiving repeated death threats.

From this article: How Did Amy Eskridge Die? Chilling Last Text, DEW, Havana Syndrome Claims Emerge In UFO Scientist’s Death | Times Now

One chilling text dated May 13, 2022, read: “If you see any report that I killed myself, I most definitely did not.”

He said Eskridge also warned others: “If anything happens to me — suicide or an accident — it wasn’t, it’s suspicious, treat it as such.”

Milburn further claimed Eskridge reported being followed, drugged, and targeted by coordinated groups in public spaces. She allegedly described strangers approaching her with detailed knowledge of her life and repeatedly questioning her about her research.

She also reported receiving disturbing anonymous messages: “A s** load of anonymous messages. Offering advice on how to kill myself… phrased as these crazy, creepy rhymes.”

Messages attributed to Eskridge became particularly disturbing after her death because she had reportedly told numerous people beforehand that she was not suicidal and feared that she might eventually be killed. Her death was officially reported as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Her family has publicly stated that they do not believe her death was suspicious. Her father described her as extraordinarily intelligent but said she suffered from chronic pain and warned people against reading too much into her death. That should be included when discussing this case. But so should everything Eskridge herself was saying before she died.

The Surveillance Claims

Eskridge didn’t make vague statements about feeling watched. She described specific incidents. In one recorded account, she said she and her former boyfriend became convinced someone had been entering their apartment while they were gone. They noticed a silver Lexus with heavily tinted windows repeatedly parked near their apartment.

According to Eskridge, while she and her boyfriend were watching the Lexus from their window, she suggested aloud that they should photograph its license plate. Within minutes, she claimed, a man walked outside carrying another license plate and changed the plate on the Lexus in front of them. After that, she said the Lexus began following her.

She described seeing it with different license plates, including temporary dealer plates and plates from different states. In one particularly bizarre incident, she claimed her boyfriend ordered an Uber and the Lexus pulled from its parking spot and presented itself as his ride.

Whether every element of this story can be independently verified is another question.

But Eskridge clearly believed something was happening. And she believed it was escalating. She spoke about publishing her research because she thought public disclosure might be the only way to protect herself. She described increasingly invasive harassment, including people entering her apartment and going through personal belongings. Then there were the alleged directed-energy attacks.

Directed-Energy Weapons and Eskridge’s Injuries

Another video recorded shortly before Eskridge’s death shows her discussing injuries to her hands. She believed some form of directed-energy weapon was being used against her while she worked on a computer. In the video, her hands appear red, although the footage itself obviously cannot establish what caused the redness.

Eskridge reportedly shared photographs of the injuries with former British paratrooper Frank Milburn. In May 2022, she sent him another unsettling message telling him that if he ever heard she had killed herself, she had not. Milburn has since been outspoken about the circumstances surrounding her death and the harassment she said she experienced.

Eskridge reportedly described the suspected weapon as an RF-band emitter powered by multiple car batteries inside an SUV. That sounds like something hauled out of an X-Files episode.

Unfortunately, directed-energy technology itself isn’t science fiction. The difficult question is what these systems are actually capable of, who possesses them, and whether anything resembling them had anything whatsoever to do with Eskridge.

Havana Syndrome and Anomalous Health Incidents

That question led directly into another rabbit hole: Havana Syndrome. Beginning in 2016, American and Canadian diplomats, intelligence personnel, government employees, and family members began reporting unusual neurological symptoms. These incidents are now often referred to as Anomalous Health Incidents, or AHIs.

Reported symptoms have included headaches, dizziness, vertigo, balance problems, cognitive impairment, memory problems, tinnitus, ear pressure, fatigue, sleep disturbances, nausea, visual problems, and unusual sounds or sensations immediately preceding symptoms. There is still no universally accepted explanation.

Proposed causes have included environmental exposure, chemicals, stress responses, psychological factors, ultrasound, pulsed radio-frequency energy, and combinations of several mechanisms.

The subject becomes particularly interesting in the context of Eskridge because her claims weren’t simply that someone was following her. She specifically believed technology was being used against her physically.

Congressman Eric Burlison has publicly discussed the possibility that Eskridge may have been exposed to some form of microwave or directed-energy technology. That doesn’t establish that she was. It does establish that questions about directed-energy attacks are no longer confined entirely to anonymous conspiracy forums.

Voice-to-Skull Technology

Then we arrive at one of the stranger branches of this story: voice-to-skull technology, sometimes abbreviated V2K. The concept is connected to the microwave auditory effect, sometimes called the Frey effect after researcher Allan Frey. Research dating back decades demonstrated that pulsed microwave energy could produce auditory sensations perceived inside the head.

The early experiments didn’t create elaborate conversations inside someone’s brain. Subjects reported sounds such as buzzing, clicking, knocking, or tones. Still, once you establish that electromagnetic energy can create a perceived auditory effect without an external speaker, the obvious question becomes what later generations of that technology might be capable of.

Patents and research have explored variations on remote auditory communication, brain-wave monitoring, microwave auditory effects, and related technologies. Medical researchers have considered possible applications for hearing and communication disorders, while military applications have also been discussed.

That doesn’t mean every modern claim about V2K is real. A patent doesn’t prove a technology became an operational weapon. But the underlying phenomenon isn’t imaginary. And that distinction matters.

My Conversation With Ben Hansen

While researching this series, I came across comments from investigator Ben Hansen discussing directed-energy technology, Havana Syndrome, and the possibility that outside influence could contribute to unusual behavior.

Then I happened to encounter him at the Roswell UFO Festival in July 2026. I asked him about it directly. Hansen wasn’t doing podcast interviews, but he gave me permission to paraphrase our conversation.

He clarified that clips circulating online did not represent his complete position. He wasn’t claiming that a particular directed-energy system had definitely been used in these cases. His point was that the technology is theoretically plausible, related patents exist, and anomalous incidents involving government personnel have been taken seriously enough that dismissing the entire subject without investigation makes little sense.

He also raised an uncomfortable hypothetical. If someone possessed technology capable of causing confusion, anxiety, auditory disturbances, disorientation, or other neurological effects, it could theoretically be used to influence behavior or make a person appear unstable.

Again, theoretical. But theoretical isn’t the same thing as impossible. And while I was in Roswell, something happened that made this rabbit hole considerably more personal.

The Clicking and Buzzing in Roswell

While filming in Roswell, I heard a strange clicking and buzzing sound. Then I became dizzy and felt off-center. Initially, I assumed it was just me. Then my mother mentioned hearing the buzzing and clicking. Sean, who was there filming with NVUS Alien Productions, heard it too.

I’m not claiming someone fired a secret government microwave weapon at us in Roswell. I have absolutely no evidence for that. But the timing was weird.

I had just spent an enormous amount of time researching auditory effects, directed energy, and anomalous neurological symptoms, and then three people in my group independently noticed an unusual sound.

Roswell also still has a visible military and government presence despite the common narrative that the government packed everything up decades ago. Maybe it was nothing. But it certainly got my attention.

Why Huntsville Matters

Eskridge lived and worked in Huntsville, Alabama, better known as Rocket City. That matters because Huntsville isn’t simply a town where some aerospace companies happen to have offices. Its modern identity is inseparable from American missile development, the space program, Redstone Arsenal, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and Operation Paperclip.

After World War II, German scientists were brought to the United States to assist American military and aerospace programs. Among the most famous was Wernher von Braun, who had been a member of the Nazi Party and worked on Germany’s V-2 rocket program.

The sanitized version of this history tends to emphasize von Braun’s scientific accomplishments and later contributions to the American space program.

The actual history is considerably uglier. Redstone Arsenal itself began during World War II as a chemical weapons manufacturing complex. Its facilities produced substances including phosgene and mustard gas before later becoming central to missile and rocket development.

After the war, German rocket scientists connected to Operation Paperclip worked there on American ballistic missile programs. NASA eventually established the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, which became deeply involved in propulsion development and the Saturn rocket program. Redstone remains a major military research and development center today.

So Amy Eskridge wasn’t conducting unconventional propulsion research in some random Alabama town. She was doing it in one of the most historically significant centers of American missile, propulsion, aerospace, defense, and space research. That doesn’t prove anyone wanted her dead. It does make the environment surrounding her research worth understanding.

Monica Jacinto Reza and the Rocketdyne Connection

The second scientist in this part of the investigation takes us from Huntsville to Southern California. Monica Jacinto Reza was a metallurgist and materials engineer whose work directly affected rocket propulsion.

She co-invented Mandaloy, a nickel-based superalloy designed to survive the extreme conditions inside rocket engines without requiring the protective coatings traditionally used on similar components. That is a major technological achievement.

Reza earned a master’s degree in materials engineering from UCLA and worked for Rocketdyne, later Aerojet Rocketdyne. Her research included oxygen-rich staged combustion engines, advanced alloys, and propulsion technology. She received patents for burn-resistant, high-tensile-strength metal alloys and was recognized for her contributions to aerospace engineering. By 2023, she had moved to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Then, on June 22, 2025, she went hiking in the Angeles National Forest. And disappeared.

Thirty Feet Away

According to reports about the disappearance, Reza was hiking with a small group near the Mount Waterman area. At one point, another hiker was approximately 30 feet ahead of her. He rounded a corner. When he realized she was no longer behind him, he went back.

She was gone.

Reza was reportedly wearing a bright red shirt, which should have made her easier to spot from the air. The subsequent search was enormous. Search-and-rescue teams from multiple counties participated. Helicopters, thermal imaging, drones, canine teams, and other technology were deployed.

Searchers even used an algorithmic pixel-matching program to analyze aerial photographs for the specific shade of red Reza had been wearing. It repeatedly located red objects. They turned out to be Mylar balloons. A beanie believed to belong to her was eventually found in a ravine. Scent dogs reportedly followed her trail to the beanie. Lip balm was later reportedly discovered nearby. There was also a report of a woman screaming in the area on the day Reza disappeared.

Despite the size of the search, no body was recovered.

The Memorial That Appeared While They Were Still Searching

Then something very strange happened online. A Find a Grave memorial appeared for Reza only four days after she disappeared, while search operations were reportedly still underway.

The memorial listed her death date as June 22, 2025, the same day she disappeared.It also reportedly listed her remains as having received a green burial. Except there were no remains. The original memorial was subsequently removed.

Another memorial appeared later with different information, stating that her death was unknown, burial details were unknown, and that she had not been declared dead. The first page could have been an overeager internet user making assumptions. Find a Grave is user-generated, and people make mistakes.

Still, creating a memorial identifying a missing woman as dead while helicopters are actively searching for her is bizarre. Adding burial information when no body had been recovered makes it stranger.

Rocketdyne and Santa Susana Field Laboratory

Reza’s professional history led me straight into a place I know extremely well. Rocketdyne operated major facilities in Canoga Park and at the nearby Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

I lived in Santa Susana Knolls when I was younger. Rocket and engine testing wasn’t some abstract piece of history to the people living nearby. You could hear it. Sometimes the ground shook. Testing often happened at night. It was one of those things you grew accustomed to because it was simply part of living there.

Only later did I understand how much had actually happened at Santa Susana. The field laboratory had been used for rocket engine testing and nuclear research. Its history includes contamination, radioactive material, chemical waste, cleanup disputes, lawsuits, and decades of concern from surrounding communities.

The corporate lineage surrounding Rocketdyne is equally complicated. Ownership moved through North American Aviation, Rockwell International, Boeing, United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and eventually other corporate structures.

That matters because environmental liability doesn’t vanish simply because the sign on the building changes. Santa Susana has been the subject of long-running battles over contamination and cleanup. Communities surrounding the site have raised concerns about cancer and environmental exposure for decades.

And this is the technological world in which Reza built her career.

Mandaloy, NASA, and JPL

Reza wasn’t a peripheral employee. Her work was important. Mandaloy was designed to withstand extreme rocket-engine environments while maintaining structural strength. Her work contributed to propulsion systems and was connected to research involving NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory.

She later became a technical fellow at Aerojet Rocketdyne, reportedly the company’s highest technical rank, before moving to JPL. That’s where another connection appears.

Major General William Neil McCasland, another person on my list of scientists and aerospace figures who died or disappeared under unusual circumstances, also had connections within this broader research environment. McCasland will appear later in this series, so I’m not going to jump too far ahead. But his story eventually crosses back into Reza’s.

And that makes her disappearance even more interesting.

If you like digging into strange deaths, government secrets, UFOs, paranormal phenomena, conspiracy theories, and all the other weird rabbit holes I regularly disappear into, check out more investigations and deep dives on the blog.

Is Bigfoot More Than Flesh and Blood? Exploring the Bigfoot Phenomenon

The Bigfoot phenomenon is once again at the center of controversy thanks to a new documentary that may challenge what people believe about the famous Patterson-Gimlin film.

The film, Capturing Bigfoot, reportedly contains previously unseen footage connected to the famous Patterson-Gimlin film. According to people who have seen advance screenings, the documentary may include material that appears to show a rehearsal for the iconic footage that has fueled debates for nearly sixty years.

If those claims are accurate, many people believe it could dramatically impact the long-standing argument over whether the Patterson-Gimlin film shows a real unknown creature or a man in a costume.

But what if that isn’t the most important question?

For decades, the Bigfoot conversation has been dominated by a single debate: Is it flesh and blood?

The problem is that many investigators who spend significant time in the field eventually find themselves confronting experiences that don’t fit neatly into that framework. Strange lights, synchronicities, seemingly psychic experiences, unexplained sounds, unusual dreams, and encounters that feel more like paranormal events than wildlife observations begin appearing alongside traditional Bigfoot reports.

At some point, the question stops being “Is Bigfoot real?” and becomes “What exactly are people experiencing?”

That shift has led some researchers toward a very different model of investigation.

Rather than treating Bigfoot as an undiscovered primate, researchers such as Ron Meyer and others involved in the growing CE6 movement approach the phenomenon in much the same way UFO researchers investigate contact experiences. The focus is no longer on tracking footprints through the woods. Instead, it becomes an exploration of consciousness, perception, and human experience.

Whether Bigfoot is biological, paranormal, interdimensional, symbolic, or something else entirely becomes secondary to the fact that people continue having encounters.

And those encounters often look remarkably similar across different paranormal categories.

The deeper many investigators go into high strangeness, the harder it becomes to separate Bigfoot from UFOs, ghosts, shadow figures, synchronicities, precognitive dreams, and other anomalous experiences. The boundaries that seem obvious at first begin to blur.

A person looking for UFOs may eventually encounter something that feels more like folklore. Someone investigating haunted locations may find themselves studying geomagnetic anomalies, ancient ritual sites, or reports of strange creatures in the woods. A Bigfoot researcher may begin documenting experiences that sound surprisingly similar to contact reports.

Instead of separate phenomena, some researchers have begun wondering whether these experiences represent different expressions of the same underlying mystery.

That idea raises another fascinating question.

Why do people experience the phenomenon so differently?

Two people can have an encounter in the same location and come away with completely different interpretations. One person may perceive a UFO. Another may perceive a spiritual being. A third may describe Bigfoot. Yet when they compare notes, the emotional impact, the synchronicities, and the transformative effects of the experience are often remarkably similar.

It is almost as though the phenomenon adapts itself to the observer.

This is where things become particularly strange.

Many investigators eventually reach a point where collecting evidence is no longer their primary goal. The question shifts from proving something exists to understanding why these experiences occur in the first place.

Why do certain people seem drawn into these encounters repeatedly?

Why do some locations produce reports of ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, and spiritual experiences all at once?

Why do so many paranormal hotspots share similar characteristics?

Again and again, researchers find recurring patterns.

Water.

Caves.

Mines.

Geological fault lines.

Quartz deposits.

Areas with significant historical trauma.

Locations where ritual activity has occurred for generations.

Places associated with power generation, dams, electrical systems, or unusual geological formations.

These patterns appear so frequently that many investigators have begun examining the landscape itself as a possible factor in paranormal activity.

Perhaps location matters more than we realize.

Perhaps the environment acts as a kind of amplifier.

Or perhaps these places create conditions that make unusual experiences more likely.

No one knows for sure.

What becomes increasingly difficult to ignore, however, is that the same types of locations continue appearing across reports involving ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, and other unexplained phenomena.

The mystery only deepens when consciousness enters the equation.

Many experiencers report receiving information through dreams, intuition, symbolic encounters, or meaningful coincidences. Others describe experiences that feel less like communication and more like participation in an ongoing process.

The more attention they give the phenomenon, the more it seems to respond.

That idea can be unsettling because it challenges the traditional investigator’s role.

What if we are not passive observers?

What if we are part of the equation?

Instead of standing outside the phenomenon and studying it, perhaps our perceptions, expectations, emotions, and consciousness are somehow woven into the experience itself.

That possibility creates more questions than answers.

Maybe that is the point.

The deeper people venture into high strangeness, the more they discover that certainty becomes harder to find. Evidence remains elusive. Definitions become blurry. Categories collapse.

Bigfoot starts looking a little like UFOs.

UFOs start looking a little like hauntings.

Hauntings start looking a little like consciousness.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, investigators find themselves asking a question far bigger than whether a creature exists in the woods.

They begin asking what reality actually is.

Maybe the Patterson-Gimlin debate will finally be settled.

Maybe it won’t.

Either way, the larger mystery remains.

Because if Bigfoot isn’t just flesh and blood, then we aren’t dealing with a creature anymore.

We’re dealing with a phenomenon.

If this conversation resonates with you, you’re not alone. Many of the themes explored here, including high strangeness, consciousness, synchronicity, paranormal hotspots, and the overlap between seemingly unrelated phenomena, appear throughout this blog. Feel free to explore some of my other articles as we continue pulling on the threads of a mystery that may be far larger than any single explanation.