Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
1966 UFO Pursuit: Police Chase Flying Saucer Across 2 States!
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your curator Zach is taking you on a wild goose chase....Or should we Say Saucer Chase??
Take a ride with us through the 1960s as we relive the high-speed pursuit of an egg-shaped UFO by officers Spauer and Neff. Picture the scene: a mysterious object darting across state lines at 85 mph, leaving a trail of bewildered officers from Ohio to Pennsylvania. The fallout from this encounter was significant, altering the lives of those involved and sparking heated debates about the validity of UFO sightings.
From the iconic chase in Portage County, Ohio, to the film "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," we delve into how these encounters have shaped public perception and influenced pop culture. Along the way, we'll discuss J. Allen Hynek's shift from skeptic to believer and the challenges faced by those who dared to report the unknown.
References:
- https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-saucers/the-ufo-chase-you-saw-in-close-encounters-649637923267
- https://www.timesonline.com/story/news/local/2018/10/18/famous-86-mile-ufo-chase/9513751007/
- https://thepennsylvaniarambler.wordpress.com/2022/02/20/the-great-ufo-chase-part-one/
- https://medium.com/the-portager/seeing-a-ufo-ruined-dale-spaurs-life-f86bab152368
- https://www.clevescene.com/news/strangers-in-the-night-1485939
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_RFPnaIItY&t=2032s
- https://medium.com/on-the-trail-of-the-saucers/something-happened-to-dale-68c2ac39d5a8
- https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=RMD19661016-01.2.10&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN%7ctxCO%7ctxTA--------
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I want to dance with the moment At the Irish shop Baked in the moonlight At the Irish shop. Creep through the graveyard To the Irish shop. The door's always open At the IA Shop. What's up, you little oddballs?
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, the podcast, where we tell you creepy, odd, weird, strange, bizarre and also sometimes funny, but also truly deeply horrifying stories from around the world wow, well, I am your curator, kara, and this is my.
Speaker 1:Uh, whatever, he's cool, uh, curator zachary, but it's his birthday today. Little birthday, birthday boy Zachary.
Speaker 2:I'm old oh please, I shouldn't say that to you, but I feel old.
Speaker 1:You're not making it any better.
Speaker 2:I'm digging a hole over here, fucking idiot.
Speaker 1:Oh well, thank you for that.
Speaker 2:All right. Well, when we're recording this, you're not actually old, no no, no, I'm still young, but for when you're listening to this it's your birthday I'm also, my birthday is the first day of spring, so I am channeling it here. I've got my sleeveless shirt on, you do, and and I am leaving in like three days to be in arizona for a week in the sunlight. So I'm just trying to manifest where my other feelings and we're in the future.
Speaker 1:Last weekend we hung out with Lauren, oh yeah and did some cool things.
Speaker 2:You might have seen our live from hanging out with her.
Speaker 1:I like the future.
Speaker 2:It is so fun. I feel like sometimes when we record these, when we're talking both like present for us and present for listeners, we're like time travelers, dude.
Speaker 1:I know we are, it's cool.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Fierce, we know how to travel in time in our own made up kind of way. Ok, so update on the custom spirit board. It is ready. I have been offered pictures of it but I said no because I want, the first time that I see it, to see it with my whole eyeballs. But my Mothman spirit board.
Speaker 1:I forgot about this.
Speaker 2:I am so, so excited for this.
Speaker 1:I don't think our listeners know I did.
Speaker 2:I said something around Christmas, so my dad's making me a custom Ouija board, spirit board, that's all Mothman themed for Christmas and it is. I saw the concept photo and it was gorgeous and he was trying to send me like updates so that I'm like I don't know pictures, I just I'm gonna message him right after this and be like can I have pictures? Yes, but don't do it, but don't share it with me I'm not going to, I just want to know perfect.
Speaker 2:Uh, what else do you have? I feel like I don't have too much to talk about today um, well, I guess our event is coming up soon.
Speaker 1:So, again, I hate being that person. I don't know if there's tickets, obviously, because I don't know in the future if there is, but if there are, yeah, come join us. Come join us. If there are not, or you just do not want to come, we don't care. That's cool. Send good vibes because, bitches, I am terrified to host an event.
Speaker 2:I am scared that I'm gonna not have know how to talk you're gonna be fine so I need some good vibes that's the other thing you could do, listeners, if this wasn't the event for you, for whatever reason but you do want to hang out with us let us know what other kind of events you'd like us to do, and we will definitely make it happen what if we don't even do an event?
Speaker 1:what if we just do?
Speaker 2:like a meetup somewhere, yes, okay okay, we should. Um, we're gonna get our brains going. I have, I have some ideas, but I'll talk to you off camera about it okay. Yeah, that would be cool cool, but still send us your ideas, cool, cool. What else you got before we open up?
Speaker 1:I think that's it. Uh, thanks, patreon subscribers, thank you, thank you. Yes, we appreciate you so greatly. Do you have a? What else you got before we open up? I think?
Speaker 2:that's it, thanks, patreon subscribers. Thank you, thank you, yes, we appreciate you so greatly. Do you have a question? I do have a question. Would you call the police if you saw a UFO? No, okay, so follow up to that. Other than me, who would your first, who would your first call be to?
Speaker 1:My mom All fair enough, fair enough why would you look like you thought it would be for some to somebody else?
Speaker 2:no, I don't know why, I would have imagined anybody else, but yeah, uh, it's definitely gonna be your mom, yeah, so why would you not call the police? Uh number one, the short version. I know that could be a very long answer.
Speaker 1:Uh, if you even call the police for normal things that are normal, they don't do anything. A lot of the time, too, they're just going to be like you're crazy. And three, they're just going to gaslight you into just believing it's like a spacecraft or, um, a plane or a like fighter jet or gas swamp gas balls oh, hold on to that, because this ties back into the swamp gas episode.
Speaker 1:I have yet another question for you oh wow, this is like my last episode where I had all the questions for you and it was unplanned too um.
Speaker 2:Have you ever seen the movie close encounters of the third kind?
Speaker 1:no, you keep telling me I need to watch it oh my god, you do need to watch it, okay so, hey, actually I have a call to action. Can somebody go back and listen to every single one of our episodes and make a list of all of the tv shows and movies that I'm supposed to watch?
Speaker 2:thank you, oh, don't waste your time doing it. You can tell her to watch them till you're blue in the face. She never will.
Speaker 1:Okay, but I want the list.
Speaker 2:Don't waste your time, friends. Please Take it from somebody who's been doing this job for years. By job, I mean trying to make her watch it, okay, anyways. So in the movie there's a really famous scene, okay, and it's an infamous chase where there's a bunch of police cruisers following behind this like ufo glowing orb, that's like going down the street and they're going through crazy turns at like high speeds and shit. And today I learned well, not today, but today, you are all gonna learn that that scene is actually inspired by a real event. Oh, okay, so I did tell you there was gonna be a swamp gas tie-in though. So if you remember and if you guys have listened to the michigan ufo episode, we talked about um jay allen hynek, the guy who was originally the skeptic um, who worked for project blue book in the air force, but then he, like, over years of researching it, became definitely not a skeptic and like one of the best ufologists.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:In history, right, ok. So he actually comes up with, like the classification system that's used for the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, oh, he creates the six kinds of encounter, ok. So one is and bear with me, I'm doing this by memory one is lights in the sky at night, nocturnal lights. Two is seeing a ufo during the day okay.
Speaker 2:Three is seeing it on like radio or um oh yeah, yeah, satellite yeah four, five and six are then close encounters of the first kind, which would be the night lights, close encounters of the daylight or close encounter of the satellite image. So that's the six kinds of ufo. Okay, um, so anyways. Obviously then alan hynek's or jay allen hynek's research gives names to that movie. He is gonna come back up later in this episode, though, which is why I wanted to remind everybody who he was. Okay, so 48 is when he kind of starts getting involved with blue book. By 53 he starts to like sort of change his mind. In the 60s he's like full-blown believer, and by the 70s he's like screw what the government told everybody. Everything was cool okay okay, the infamous.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay. The infamous case that inspired that scene goes back to 1966, and it's around 5 am on April 17th just east of Akron, ohio, in Portage County, and it's a super cold night but the sky is very clear, so you know there's like crisp April nights where it's just all the stars are out, not a cloud. Deputy Sheriff Dale F Spauer is on patrol with his partner, wilbur, or Barney Neff. I always love, by the way, when they shorten somebody's name. It's the same amount of syllables.
Speaker 1:And it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2:Or like how Jack is somehow the nickname for John. I will never get it. It is yeah, yeah, like John F Kennedy. They call them Jack all the time. I had an Uncle Jack. His name was John I don't get it.
Speaker 1:I don't understand how you get what. What was Barney from Wilbur?
Speaker 2:Yeah, once again, our favorite answer We'll never know, although that one I'm sure we could Google. Okay, so Spauer at the time he's 35. He's been with the force for like two years, happily married, father of two kids. So he works as a night deputy and then he does construction during the day. He's busy. He was also an Air Force veteran of the Korean War. Yeah, he's busy, but he's like an upstanding dude. Veteran construction police.
Speaker 1:What year is this?
Speaker 2:again 66, 66, okay yeah, his partner on this night is barney neff, 26. He's a mechanic by trade who volunteers his time on the weekend to assist assist the sheriff on the night shift.
Speaker 1:Assess the sheriff.
Speaker 2:That's a hard sentence to say. Neff also served in the Navy. He worked at or worked in missile tracking at Cape Canaveral, so he's also a pretty outstanding guy too.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, yeah. So they know though what.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they know things in the sky. They know, yeah, they're smart and, like I said, usually at least in the 60s cops and veterans pretty darn trustworthy. I'm going to rephrase that At least in the 60s cops pretty darn trustworthy. I still think veterans are trustworthy car they've had sort of a busy night, they've investigated a crash, they've delivered coffee to linemen who are working late shut the fuck up, that's assisted a stranded motorist, and that's all just since midnight.
Speaker 2:So between midnight and 5 am crazy evening, I know, wow. So as they're driving, they hear some chatter on the radio about a woman who called into the police station regarding some strange lights in the sky near akron. So one of them in the patrol car jokes about it's probably a prank, while the other one states, well, maybe they're just seeing the planet venus, which on this night is like super clear and bright. Um, it's actually brighter than the north star. So, like you know they're, they talked about it, they kind of laughed it off, they didn't give this another thought this is sounding familiar, but I feel like all cases like this I know like the exact same, like start, it's wild oh, it's the same.
Speaker 2:We ignore, yeah, the crazy person who called in about the light. Um, so, as they're driving along, they notice an abandoned ford vehicle. So they're like, well, we should check it out, because, like, what else are they doing in the, the middle of Ohio, in the middle of the night? So, spauer, he gets out, he checks the driver's side, notices the vehicle is empty. Neff is waiting near the rear, in case you know some sort of altercation breaks out.
Speaker 2:Spauer takes his flashlight and he's like looking in the car just to see if he can see. You know anybody, maybe sleeping in the back or like, yeah, anything. Neff goes sleeping back or like, yeah, anything, nef goes, wow, man, venus is really bright tonight, kind of looking off. Oh yeah, that's when they both noticed something a little bit strange about venus way up there in space, because nef looks at it again and realizes that it just moved really quickly uh, yeah, nanny, he kind of brushes it off.
Speaker 2:You know it's it's early in the morning, but then they both notice that venus is getting larger and larger and closer and closer.
Speaker 2:Oh my god something ain't right, something ain't right about venus. Uh, maybe because it's not so. Anyways, they're like totally focused on this now, right, and it's gotten so close that it's like coming just over the treetops as it moves from east to west. What would you do? I don't know. Like because this is you know. They're on a car right off the highway. They've seen this thing way off and all of a sudden, in moments, it's now like hovering close to them at 300 feet off the ground. Yeah, both of them are trying to like squint and get their eyes to focus. It's giving off this really strong, like bluish white light. They said almost like kind of like an arc welder, okay. And then the there's like a spotlight underneath it that's illuminated in the ground brighter than like any moonlight would even be. So it's like this thing is bright, okay. So they're, they're still staring at it, they. They figure it's about 35 to 45 feet across, 15 to 25 feet tall and it's making a low, steady, humming noise, sort of like an electrical transformer.
Speaker 1:I know we've talked about it so many times I think, like in Batsquatch episode, no, you can't. I can't look up at something or look in a distance and be like I think that that's a seven to 10 feet and 45 inches in diameter.
Speaker 2:They do the best they can. I will say in their case like other people give descriptions and it matches almost perfectly. Ok so, but they're doing their best to like no, I know.
Speaker 1:But you know what I'm saying? Like oh yeah, if you were to see a low flying plane, you would have no idea what the dimensions.
Speaker 2:A guesstimate would be no, no, we would literally just do it in like comparison, like that's as big as a, a cyber truck we wouldn't be giving it in feet, in centimeters and shit.
Speaker 1:So it just blows my mind that all these people do this and all these like it's crazy.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, they're like staring at it, they're frozen in fear and then, thankfully, their cop instincts kick in, mostly because the spotlight under this thing is now like coming right towards them and they block it back to the cruiser and they immediately start to remember the prank call from earlier.
Speaker 1:Right, so yeah, because they stopped to just look at the car that happened to be on the side.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, duh so it's now 507. When they call the radio operator, uh, robert wilson, and wilson, notes, takes note of spauer's report and the directive comes through right from wilson. He says just go shoot it down. Thankfully, sergeant Henry Schoenfeld, who is also at the station overhearing this, that hold on we cannot shoot this down.
Speaker 1:It's the worst directive. Such 60s way of thinking what.
Speaker 2:I know he goes. It could be a weather balloon, he goes. Can you guys just take some pictures of it? But they don't have a camera.
Speaker 1:It could be yeah, okay okay.
Speaker 2:So finally a direction comes through that makes any sort of sense. He says, okay, just keep the object in sight while we come up with a plan. Basically, if you need to pursue it, pursue, just follow this thing that we don't know what it is. So, nephenspar, do just that, not a moment. After that, this craft moves a bit east, a bit higher, and then starts to pick up speed and just starts flying. Okay, but it is going right over the highway that they just pulled off of.
Speaker 2:Spauer is driving as fast as he can, neff is. He's got his face like glued to the windshield to not lose sight of it. Okay, they're on the radio. They're starting to like try to give a better description. They say it's almost like egg shaped, with the depression in the top portion of it, with like an antenna coming out of there. Okay, and then below it it looks conical, but it's really just a cone-shaped light coming down. Okay, so they're saying that it's moving about 300 feet off the ground. And now this one I will give them credit for that is moving at 85 miles an hour, and they know this because they are going 85 miles an hour to track it.
Speaker 1:OK, well, yeah, that makes sense, because it's obvious.
Speaker 2:This thing is still like it's kind of darting left to right. It's flying down the road but staying like directly over the highway. They said it felt almost as if like it wasn't trying to get away from them, but almost playing like cat and mouse, like it was kind of like messing with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it was totally playing with them. So they're, they're still going right. They're coming up on Atwater, ohio, then into Deerfield. Object now had like lost them for a little bit. They thought they got lost and all of a sudden it like pops up, like as if it was waiting for them. Ok, so it plays this game through Canfield Village into East Palestine, ohio, and now it's getting near the Pennsylvania border. So they're going like a distance. Wow, up ahead in Pennsylvania, patrolman Wayne Huston. He is 32. He's sitting in his patrol car and he's hearing the radio chatter because back in the 60s, like not every station had different frequencies. They all just kind of basically shared one and if they got close enough to each other they could pick up each other's calls. So he's, he's there listening to everything. He's kind of getting a little bit excited. He realizes they're heading his way. Also, he's been on the force for six years, also a veteran, and was contender for chief. I just want to make sure we have backstory for all these guys.
Speaker 1:Okay, sorry, I just had to look something up because ever since you described the way it looked, I was trying to. I'm like okay, so you said this was in 66? Because the Flintstones came out in like the 60s and the great gazoo is the alien in there. Yeah, and that's exactly what his little spaceship looks like. It's like a little egg, a little egg with uh, okay, yeah, I just had to.
Speaker 2:Similar in my brain. Similar, okay, um. Imagine it more, though, like if the back of his ship, instead of being being totally conical, had a depression, and that's where the antenna was coming out of, and then you have that perfect beam coming down.
Speaker 1:Okay, I just had him in my head. I'm like I've got to look this up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's not totally far off.
Speaker 1:I was like, okay, so if that, because, yeah, if that came out like the 60s I don't know what episode he came into.
Speaker 2:Like what episode he came into, like, are people it could be? I mean, you know what I mean? I'm just 50s and 60s was huge for uf, yeah, yeah yeah, that's when we also have um, oh my god, why am I? Okay, sorry, okay, so, anyways, yeah. So huston, right, he's listening in. He realizes he's like just ahead of the action and then all of a sudden he looks up and goes oh shit, I can see it. He sees the object about five miles away and it's coming right towards him that's so crazy right, so just like within five minutes, okay.
Speaker 1:And now this is at what time.
Speaker 2:So this is still between five and six in the morning. Oh this is crazy, yeah, this whole thing happens over an hour and a half. Okay, so he, like object, goes past him in the sky. He says it's about 85 miles an hour at 900 feet. Okay, okay, he gives a similar description, though so his description now. Mind you, when everyone gives their descriptions, they're not together. He says it looks like an ice cream cone that had started to melt at the top.
Speaker 2:So again, oh, okay, yeah divot with the conical light coming down. Okay, so the object goes past him. And then all of a sudden, spauer and neff fly right past him and he just joins. He's like, okay, whatever, we're on the same radio, I'm helping you guys. So now we have three officers in two cars part of this so bad. I know going at high speeds there's like started in ohio. They just crossed into pennsylvania, okay wait, I'm sorry, little little.
Speaker 1:Uh. Extraterrestrials in the spaceship are like these fucking bozos. They're like why are they? They're never gonna get us like.
Speaker 2:They're just fucking around they're having the time of their lives.
Speaker 1:I love this oh my god, I wish we had the footage of the inside of the.
Speaker 2:I know so this is where it gets fun, though right, because now they're in pennsylvania and the highway is now sort of back roads. Okay, oh, huston is giving directions over the radio to the lead car, which has neff and spauer in it, so that they can keep up with the object as they're going through these back roads and like hills and curves right still like they tap out a couple times over 100 miles an hour. These are 66 patrol cars all right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we gotta remember that now remember it's like six in the morning yeah, so they also start to lose the object because they get stuck in slow moving morning church traffic. Oh church traffic, oh god yeah. So they come into Rochester, pa. They're about to give up and go home. The sun is starting to come up. They lost the object and all of a sudden it pops up over a hilltop again, as if it had stopped and waited for the final, it did.
Speaker 1:This is so funny.
Speaker 2:So they chase it through Conway, pa, where another patrolman, frank Pansanella, age 33, he's standing beside his patrol car Again, a veteran. Okay, this is so funny. It's early morning and he's looking at this guy like what is that? He's rubbing his eyes, looking again, you know, trying to make sense of whatever he's seeing in the sky. Now he describes the object as half a football with a dent in it.
Speaker 1:Hey Arnold.
Speaker 2:Which is the same exact definition or description, except for the fact the sun's coming up, so now he can't see the cone-shaped light underneath it, right, okay. He's on a different frequency, though, than everyone else, because they've traveled so far now, so he hasn't heard the radio chatter, so he's like staring up at this thing, right fuck. Then he starts to see three police officers in two cars one ohio, one pa funny flying past him and he's like what the fuck, what the hell? So they fly past him and then stop ahead and turn around and they like roll down their windows like did you see it? And he's like see what? And they just point to the object and go that. And then panzanella's like oh yeah, I've been watching that for like a half an hour because he's been watching it. Come right, he gets on the radio to let rochester pa know what they're observing and says hey, you need to let the airport know. The radio operator comes back and says are you feeling all right?
Speaker 1:right, exactly, yeah, and panzan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and Pantanello, I love this guy. He's kind of sassy, he goes if I'm sick. So are these other three patrol men.
Speaker 1:If I'm sick, it's a condition going around.
Speaker 2:So they kind of started to take him seriously. They report to the airport and the Air Force and they decide that they're going to try to scramble some jets to intercept the object, because nobody really knows what it is. It's been over an 80 mile chase at this point. Ok, this is so fun. They're all four of them are just kind of you know, parked there watching it. They call it in. Now it's not moving as quickly anymore. It's still moving, but the chase isn't going on anymore. So why is it going to, you know, run away.
Speaker 1:This is so, so hilarious it's taunting them.
Speaker 2:They hear that the jets are closing in. Oh yeah. All of a sudden, though, it starts to slowly rise. From that 900 feet Gets to about 3,500 feet. The jets are getting really close to being like visual range In a second flies up straight into the air. It's gone. I love this. So this chase just comes to a screeching halt after, yeah, 86 total miles they traveled.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about the aftermath of this wait, I'm just thinking that now they've all got to drive all the way back home and just be like this long ass. Drive home. For what?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, going. What the hell did we just see they get back to their stations and they all report. They all give super similar accounts, and so the descriptions I've been giving you of how they've been describing it all come from their reports, which were taken separately at separate stations, except for neffensbauer, right, um, and because the air force was alerted, of course, who gets pulled in?
Speaker 2:but project blue book I forgot about now not, uh, jl and hynek, because this isn't big enough for him really. Um so on friday, april 22nd, major quintanilla jr, who is a another commander project blue book, in case I haven't said it, project blue book is the air force project. That Major Quintanilla Jr, who is another commander of Project Blue Book, in case I haven't said it, project Blue Book is the Air Force project that was studying UFO UAP. So he states, after he interviewed all the officers and everything else, the object Neff and Huston and Spauer chased across two states that Pantanilla also watched was in fact fact the planet venus. To explain the object's movement across the sky, major quintanilla insists that the officers first saw an echo communication satellite that was crossing the northwest. Then they unknowingly refocused on venus rising in the southeast. Sure, most people didn't buy this, especially since we had that call from before, but there was tons of other eyewitnesses, I forgot about that lady.
Speaker 1:What did she say exactly?
Speaker 2:Strange lights in the sky.
Speaker 1:Strange lights Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but there's a bunch of people between Ohio and Pennsylvania who also witnessed this thing.
Speaker 1:Oh well, yeah, I guess they would right.
Speaker 2:So then we get the typical right. It was a weather balloon. So that's what some of the news reports and other people are saying who, don't, you know, buy into Project Blue Book but they're not ready to say UFO. But this was, like really quickly discredited because there's enough weather reports that night to show that if it was at anywhere from this 900 to 3500 feet, there wasn't enough wind to move it at those speeds yeah.
Speaker 2:But the damage is already done by these stories and our officers start getting publicly ridiculed for chasing a UFO. You know everyone's right. It was a satellite dude Like you're really going to be able to protect us, Sheriff Spauer, he, he was the lead of him and he kind of takes the brunt of all the negative attention.
Speaker 2:Oh so most of the news stories and the radio and TV newscasts and what everyone's writing kind of paint this picture. Him is just this crazy UFO chase guy and he led all these officers on yeah but OK, whatever Continue.
Speaker 2:Spauer was usually like somebody who really was cool, calm and collected and he just kept saying I had never seen anything like this. He was really worried people wouldn't believe him and think he was lying. Neff also describes his reaction to an identified object. He said he's not afraid of it more, that he was at peace with it. He said it didn't really shake me up or bother me half as much as it did Dale Spauer, which I think was kind of an unnecessary dig.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that's something that gives proof, though, that Spauer really isn't making this up. Like I said, he's usually really calm and collected. If he was lying he'd probably stay pretty similar, but we actually have a quote from his wife at the time. He came home that day and I never saw him more frightened. He acted strange listless. He just sat around. He was very pale. All sorts of people came to the house investigators, reporters. They kept him up all night. They kept after him, hounding him. They hounded him right into the ground and he changed. That's so awful. Then later he got real nervous and he started to run away. He just disappeared. For days and days I wouldn't see him. Our marriage fell apart, oh shit. So kind of soon after.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry no, I'm just thinking because that comment, what did he say? What was that comment?
Speaker 2:spowers or nafs nafs uh, he said that he wasn't too afraid, that he was at peace with it, but it didn't shake me up or bother me half as much as it did dale I think that like okay, hearing that comment, like you said, that is like a dig and that's like unnecessary.
Speaker 1:But I'm the biggest, the biggest I just put my foot in my mouth type of person where I say things like that, where it's like that's not how I intended it to be, like he might have just been trying to be, like I wasn't as like shaken up or like, but the way it's said is the way it's said is poor.
Speaker 2:What I think he was doing is really close to what you were saying, where, like he didn't mean to put his foot in his mouth, I think he was trying to bury what he was going through. Yeah, by saying it didn't shake me up, but then showing that it shook Dale up kind of gives truth to it happening.
Speaker 1:Exactly, I don't think it. It doesn't, to me at least. It sounds like something stupid that I would say, and then later I'd call you and be like I know I shouldn't have said this, but but soon after the quote from Dale Spauer's wife.
Speaker 2:That's so sad. He comes home after disappearing again, he gets into an argument with her, grabs her by the arm and shakes her, but does it hard enough to leave bruises, which is not good. We don't condone.
Speaker 1:Where was he going? Do we know?
Speaker 2:No idea, he's probably just driving around. She presses charges, he's taken to jail, they take his badge and she files for a divorce. So I'm spower's. Life completely falls apart, um, and this is why we don't really know where he's going. They have tried so many times to get interviews to do anything and he just shut it down. He actually, he, his story gets really sad. He kind of bounces around from job to job and place to place and is just shut it down. He actually, he, his story gets really sad. He kind of bounces around from job to job and place to place and is just really lost until he does end up remarrying. Okay, he moves to west virginia near new river gorge, um, and they kind of have a happy ending running a bar together, which new river gorge in west virginia is where I went last year and I can tell you it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:You should have went to his bar.
Speaker 2:I know, oh, it's closed. I did look that up when I saw this Darn Going back to Neff. Right, we know Neff tried to downplay everything, but again the wife comes in. His wife also gives a quote that Leave it to the wives Gives a little insight. Oh, leave it to the wives Gives a little insight. Oh yeah, they sold these guys right out. So she says I hope I never again see him like he was after the chase. He was real white, almost in a state of shock. It was awful, and people made fun of him afterwards. He never talks about it anymore. Once he told me if that thing landed in my backyard, I wouldn't tell a soul.
Speaker 1:Here's what's unfortunate, because you and I wouldn't call the police if we thought we saw a unidentified object, a ufo, whatever we're calling them nowadays. You and I wouldn't. But they were officers, like they were literally just doing their job and they were reporting their job and they were doing as they were told, absolutely so. To be then ridiculed and made fun of mocks, whatever, is just really. It's disturbing, but it's just like really fucked up to me and it's really sad that, like there are so many people that just cannot handle that type of ridicule and mockery. And I don't know if I could, but I'm just because I've never had to put myself in that position or I've never been in that position and I don't even know how to put my shoes in or you know what the fuck I'm trying to say.
Speaker 1:But that's just like it's really sad, because you do hear a lot of times like any sort of traumatic event or things like that. It does it. You know it ruins your relationships, it ruins your, your, your, almost like your brain chemistry. I know that's probably not right, but like like he wasn't a violent person for them, to him, to them put his hands on his wife, for her to press charges and file for divorce. That's like you know. Like all these out of character.
Speaker 2:You have to think about everything he's going through. Like you said, he did what he was being told. Nobody believes him. Now he's being ridiculed.
Speaker 1:You know this is a man, a family man, who served his country, who served his, then goes on to serve his community so it's crazy to me, though, because you would think that those two would kind of just band together and be like hey, whatever way they wanted to play it. Like hey, I guess we don't know what it was like, we were doing what we were told, and that's that like whatever.
Speaker 2:Like, I think, because both of them kind of took the stance of we're not talking about it at all anymore, you can't. If you're gonna just kind of bury it, you can't band together I guess I mean like at first, yeah, like right away.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Like I, they did at first because when they were being interviewed by project blue book, both of them were super cooperative, telling the whole story. Right, it wasn't until they were diminished by the air force. Yeah, with this bullshit story, because, like, they're trusted members of their community. And then all of a sudden, the air force is coming out and saying they got a satellite confused with a planet and thought it was an alien. Like you know, you have to almost put it in the fact of like the community members, right, is that? Who you want showing up to your murder or your accident is somebody who doesn't know a planet from a alien. I, I think that's where some of the spirals happen in their brains, you know? Yeah, so then we have mr hust. He was the third one to join in, remember?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So after weeks of public ridicule on his end and he's facing the anger of the police chief because remember I told you he was a contender for the police chief oh yeah yeah, the guy who got it was his enemy and looked for any way. So now this guy's just shitting all over him. Yeah, and Huston ends up quitting as well. The only one who remains a cop is panzanella. He doesn't speak about that night again, hardly ever denies every request for an interview. You know he didn't chase it. So I think that like that's part of why huston was fired too. Or ends up quitting because they're like you went into another state with off, or you went in our state with officers from another state. Nobody gave you this, Like you just kind of went rogue.
Speaker 1:I mean, I guess I do understand that part of it, like that's not really your jurisdiction or whatever, like I guess I get that, like I will say this, and this, I think, is one of the things that helps make me trust everything they went through.
Speaker 2:You already believe it anyway. Yeah, couldn't stop right here. This is one of those stories.
Speaker 1:I think that there, there's just not a way for me to disbelieve by any first off, there's less actual evidence of the things that they're claiming that it is than anything else you.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. Just say it's an unidentified object. I think the Air Force I don't think they know as much as we think they know right, all the UFO reports. I think they're just they're better, they're like hey, instead of telling the public we don't know what this is, we're just going to explain it off as something normal.
Speaker 1:Are you talking now or then?
Speaker 2:Or, in general, I'm not saying they don't know nothing, I'm just saying I don't think they know as much as we give them credit, both now and then, because if they were able to explain it fully, we would, they would have disclosed Well, parts of it, you know. Anyways, I still think they know way more than they're ever letting on, but they don't understand it fully.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe you're right that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah. The part, though, that makes me trust them more than anything is that the three officers Neff, Spauer and Huston they never once deny or take back the story. They gave their reports, they were ridiculed, they went silent, but they never, ever say this did not happen, which would be so easy to do if you've already lost everything.
Speaker 1:I guess here's my thought, though I get where you're coming from with that, but if I've already lost absolutely everything, what would the point, what would it benefit me for to go back and be like, yeah, never mind, I was lying. Well, if you were making it up, why would you?
Speaker 2:if you were making it up, you would have came clean almost right when the public ridicule started. If you're not making it up, to take it that far, yeah, because what? What do they have to gain? If they were, you know what I mean anyways. Where, where are you at on this one? Do you even have to ask me I'm, I just fucking did, yeah, but like come on, okay, so so you believe that happened yeah okay.
Speaker 2:So I told you that hynek was coming back into this and you're probably like where is he? Quintanilla and Hynek, both very high up in Project Blue Book, both fucking hate, each other.
Speaker 2:Okay, because Quintanilla thinks that Mr Astronomy Science Hynek over here is not explaining away enough things, away enough things, and hynek is like this dude's trying to say that everything is a gas or a satellite or a planet, like they, they both think that the other one's approaches to explanation, disclosure, are just completely wrong. Okay, and remember, in the 60s, this is our hynex, like bought in at this point. Right, hynek has his assistant, right?
Speaker 1:I just have to ask. I think I got a little bit lost. Okay, so, hynek, and then who's the other person? Quintanilla, but I thought he did believe it.
Speaker 2:No, Quintanilla is the general from Project Blue Book who came down and interviewed everyone and then said it was a satellite. What the fuck was the?
Speaker 1:other guy that like woke up and just looked outside and saw it. What was his name? Panzanilla, panzanilla. Okay, I was like wait, are you fucking with me right now? Okay, okay, okay, fucking with you right now, okay.
Speaker 2:So these two, hynek and Quintanilla, are from Project Blue Bull Got you. I got you they both go and investigate UFOs. They just both go completely opposite, Quintanilla. It's always explainable, Hynek.
Speaker 1:Quintanilla and Tanzarella. I got a little. I'm like wait, I thought he did believe. What are you talking about? Okay, I got you. Now I got you thought he did believe.
Speaker 2:What are you talking about? Okay, I got you. Now I got you. It's some time after, so the official report's already out. Heineck can't do anything about it.
Speaker 2:But what he can do is have his assistant send letters to huston, neff and spauer. Oh and okay. His letter says I found out considerably more about this event uh, about this event than the air force investigator did. Because I can, or because of that I cannot, agree with the evaluation publicly released a few days after the sighting. What you have reported could not possibly lead to such a conclusion. And then, in parentheses, the Venus explanation. I was not consulted before this news release was put forth.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So because I you know, Alan works for Project Blue Book and the Air Force, but he's not a member of the Air Force, he's a scientist. Quintanilla is a general of the Air Force, right? So he can't come out and just say, hey, this other guy's report is wrong, but he can send the letter. No-transcript chase. That inspired the scene in close encounter to the third kind I'm.
Speaker 1:I'm upset, why? Because I feel like it was such a it's listen, you did great, but it was so fun. Like it was such a fun beginning. I'm like this is great, like let's just chase this, like like we're playing a game. I love it. Like this is fun. And then everyone's lives got ruined, yeah, and then it's like for what? For what?
Speaker 1:a game, a cat and mouse like that there are so many worse things that people do and did in the 60s that you. They should have been ridiculed for doing your job and following an object floating in the air. It's just not one of them.
Speaker 2:No, it's um. It's an interesting story, though I think no.
Speaker 1:I love it, but it's just sad.
Speaker 2:Why was so much of this happening? This is the same sort of flap area West Virginia, ohio, pennsylvania where all this was all happening for so long. I need to know more, because you and I and I'm not going to go into a long spiel on this but you and I both agree that most times what we're seeing is UFO or UAP, unidentified aerial phenomenon, or probably not aliens from other planets. But what was going on at that time? I just like I want to, if I could go back in time for real and be a time traveler, I'm going to the flat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 2:Although I would show up and they'd probably think I was part of it.
Speaker 1:So For sure, for sure, Although I would show up and they'd probably think I was part of it, so I don't know if that'd be the greatest thing I want to show you. I got new earrings. Did I show them to you when you were here? They're little aliens. Oh no, let me see.
Speaker 2:Are you wearing them right now?
Speaker 1:No, I should have and I thought about it. Hold on, okay. Okay, one's a little alien, cute dude. You know where I found these claire's meyer? I'm telling you, dude meyer, stepped up their game on that shit, though I'm like they're they're clothes and everything so cute and they're on little chains, so dorbs.
Speaker 2:Okay, sorry, no, you're good I have. So I appreciate you leaving us with something light, but after your darkness last week, I planned a light thing. So do you want to hear a cute story about close encounters of the third kind? Yeah, do you know who watches this on most of their anniversaries every year?
Speaker 1:the parental units oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So when they first started dating, mom calls my dad and says hey, oh god, will you go with me to a halloween party? And he's like yeah, sure she goes. Okay, are they?
Speaker 1:actually official or they're still like. Ok, they're like dating. You know it's fairly early on.
Speaker 2:And mom goes OK, but you have to. You know, like ask your dad. My dad's like why do I have to ask my parents? She was because we're going to Toronto. So mom takes them to this, apparently like crazy Halloween party in Toronto. They have a great time. They get a hotel room. I think your mom told me this in the hotel. Yeah, they watched. It was like one of their first real dates ever. They watch close encounters of the third kind together. So now like they'll like watch it when they want to have like little sappy date nights and stuff.
Speaker 1:It's so cute and I did ask for their permission to to share that.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:That is so cute.
Speaker 2:That's what I've got for you, right? Ok, good job. Emojis for this one Police car and flying saucer. Duh, it's an easy one for sure, Wow. And also, if you made it this far to Echo Cara from last week, we would absolutely love it if you would leave us a review or leave us your own story. Call in, write in whatever you want to do and what else should we do so, we can close the shop up.
Speaker 1:No, just, you know, if you're liking us and you think that somebody else would potentially like us, share, Please just share. Share us with your friends and family, your weirdos share, please just share. Share us with your friends and family, your weirdos. Um, we're just, we're working hard and we want the more growth that we have from you guys, the more we can do for you guys that we want to do for you guys. You know, we want to do some cool things and, um, yeah, let's put our brains together and try to do a meetup and so, if you guys can think of cool things like that, message us, dm us, all those kind of things and let's make some oddball moments, some oddball memories, if you will. Okay, that's really all I have for you. Just be nice to everybody. I don't know, don't?
Speaker 2:call the police if you see an alien. Don't call the police.
Speaker 1:And if somebody does fucking say that they saw a spaceship, don't be mean to them absolutely not shit, or we'll ridicule you yeah, bitches, all right, we gotta go. I'm fucking delusional. I love you guys. Zach loves you guys. Do all the things that we ask all the time. The most important thing you can do for us is to creepy real yab balls, goodbye.
Speaker 2:Outro Music.
