Imagine a crisp night sky with stars twinkling above when suddenly something otherworldly appears, something you can't identify. these moments of horror, terror and curiosity are the heartbeat of our episode. Since the dawn of man, people have witnessed strange things in the sky in the modern era, even with the advent of flight and space travel, the sightings continue. Whether you believe in aliens visiting Earth or not.
Strange things are afoot and countless people have experienced unidentified flying objects. Tonight, I'm sharing a collection of personal accounts submitted by you, our incredible listeners. This is a study of strange. Welcome to the show. The show where we cover all sorts of unexplained, unsolved and all around strange things. I'm Michael May. As we dive in tonight, if you're a new listener right now, subscribe or follow the show. It takes less than a second.
And if you enjoy the show or not, please leave a rating and review. It helps others find us. You can also visit our website to learn how to support the show and get additional content. Or you can find us on Instagram as well. It's a study of strange NBC.com and on Instagram at a study of strange. So this is a special episode for those that have been with me for a while. I mentioned probably over a year ago now that I'm collecting personal UFO or UAP, I think both terms apply.
First, thank you to anyone who reached out. I was surprised how many people have seen something odd in the sky. I didn't get any underwater encounters, which I was actually really hoping to get, but most accounts I received were just too short to include in this episode and the stories we're going to share tonight. They each have something unique about them and they're quite interesting and detailed, and each story was submitted in writing and will be read by an actor.
A little behind the scenes info for you, if you will. I wanted to keep some consistency to these stories, and not everyone wanted to call in to record their story, which was my initial idea. Nor did everyone want to publicly say who they were. So just to keep some consistency, I'm having actors read the parts and I'm generally keeping the names behind these stories to first names only, which has been agreed to across the board. So sit back, relax.
Unless you're listening to this in a place you can't do that and prepare yourself for a journey into the extra ordinary. These are personal UFO encounters. Our first story is from Anonymous and is read by Matt Glass. First. And you can see this in the show. I don't want to have my name associated with the story, so just say it's anonymous. All right. Here's the deal. I'm not I'm not the kind of person who typically buys into the whole UFO scene. I'm a skeptic.
I don't believe conspiracy theories. I don't think Bigfoot is real ghosts or B.S.. So when I tell you that I saw something genuinely freaky, understand that I'm as surprised as you are. This happened in 2018. I'm a middle aged man that was living in an apartment just outside of Phenix, Arizona. I was coming home around 2 a.m. and the streets were practically deserted, which made everything feel a bit eerie. It was late, but I was coming from work, not from a party or a bar.
I was completely sober and I work nights, so the late hour wasn't unusual. I was driving when I noticed this light in the sky. At first I thought it was a plane or a helicopter. But then this light starts changing colors and grows bigger. I think my first thought when this happened was that it was a street light further down the road, maybe changing colors as part of an advertisement or a billboard or something.
However, as I'm driving towards it, it's not just getting bigger, but slowly rising in the air. I end up nearly underneath it when it turned and headed to my left, which basically becomes desert. I was not thinking it was otherworldly when it started moving, I was saying to myself, it's not a billboard. It's got to be a helicopter. I'm not the bravest soul. My idea of a risky move is adding an extra shot of espresso to my coffee.
But Curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to follow the light to try to figure out what it was. I followed it for maybe 5 minutes and I was on a quiet road near some industrial buildings. And here's where it gets a little twilight zone. The light suddenly shrunk to a ball and hovered above the road. Maybe 50 feet above the ground. I stopped about a block behind it. It wasn't your Hollywood style flying saucer, but it definitely wasn't a helicopter.
It had an eerie metallic shimmer and was utterly silent. That's when it hit me that I wouldn't solve this riddle. It's above my pay grade, and this silent metallic light scared the shit out of me. I hightailed it back to my apartment, locking every door and considering a career change in anything that doesn't involve late nights. I'm still not a firm believer in aliens. I don't believe they visit us. But whatever that was that I saw, I can't explain.
I've told only a few people and one of them asked about missing time. I didn't lose any time, but I feel like that unidentified thing wanted me to follow it. I'm glad I had the awareness to get out of there while I still could. Our next story comes from Annie Bee and is read by Tara Perry. And heads up. At the end of the story, Tara left a little anecdote to me with her own experience. I was sitting on the porch of my cousin's cabin deep in the woods in upstate New York.
It was a crisp, clear night in the fall last year. It was perfect for stargazing. We were out there just talking about life and stuff when out of nowhere, this bright light caught my eye. It wasn't like a shooting star or a satellite or plane. This thing was moving erratically, like zipping left and right, and it was pretty close to us. I guess a half mile to a mile away. I remember that we joked about it being a drone peeping on our neighbors.
But the way it moved, it was like nothing I had ever seen. The light started to get brighter, and then that's when things got real intense. It swooped down closer to the light near the cabin, and for a second it illuminated the entire area like a big flashlight. So it definitely wasn't a drone. No light would shine like that from a drone. We could see the trees, the water, even the startled face of a deer caught in the glow. A few seconds later, it completely disappeared.
Like it didn't shoot up flyaway or anything. It was just gone. We tried to laugh it off. Like blame it on the bears. Did I mention we were drinking? But deep down, we both knew that we'd seen something unexplainable and creeped me out. To give you a little background. I was 31 when this happened. And I've been going up to this cabin almost my entire life. We have family vacations there. My cousin is about the same age, and we have never seen anything like this before.
Never. I know these words. I know this lake. I can recognize the strange things that you can experience there. This was different. I know people may be skeptical and may even mention the beers, but we were not drunk. We spent the rest of the night inside peeking out the windows, but nothing else happened. The next day, we even went down to where we saw the light. But there was no sign of anything unusual, no burn marks, no weird footprints, no handwritten message left behind by an alien.
I've told this story a few times since then. Most people seem pretty open and don't think I'm crazy. Even if they did, I know what I saw. I also feel lucky. How many people get to say that they've seen something truly out of this world? Mikey, I'm telling you, I swear to. Thanks. One. I saw a light. I think I told you years ago with my mom, my grandma, my sister, and blah, blah, blah. We were driving home, shopping, and it was the same thing, a big light in the middle of the field.
And it was like this bright blue color, like way bluer than, like, you know, an LED blue, just like blue. And it lit up. It looked like daylight, and then it just turned off. It was like a huge light just stopped. And then the other night, we saw a light bouncing around the forest. Thank you for that, Tara. Our next story comes from Claire W and is read by Kara Schaaf. Hey, there. I'm Claire from a town near Chico, California. And I've got a story for you that's strange and true.
It happened in October, around 15 years ago. I remember it being October because Halloween was only a few days away. One morning, I was out walking my dog and we were on our usual path, which ran along the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. And it was foggy. The fog was so dense you could barely see your hand in front of your face. Buster. My dog was pulling on his leash, whining and all worked up. He was tugging me off the sidewalk and was focused on something in the trees.
It was too foggy to see anything, but I wasn't concerned at all because I thought Buster smelled a squirrel. And that's when I hear it's a weird low hum. It's coming from the direction that Buster's been focused on. I told myself it was a power tool of some kind in the distance, but it didn't sound like a tool I had ever heard before. The hum was more like a jet from a hot tub, but weirder, and it resonated within my body. I wish I could describe it better, but that's the best I can do.
Then the sound stopped. I brushed it off and continued on our walk and we ended up in this little clearing we often pass through. But that day was different. The fog there was swirling around like someone was stirring it with a giant spoon and right in the middle, there's this column of fog swirling and turning almost like it was alive. Then the humming started again, and it was coming from the direction of the swirling fog. And then just like that, the sun.
Rosa, quickly and soon everything was quiet. The fog cleared and everything goes back to normal as if nothing had happened. Buster, calm down right away and gives me this look of diamonds. Next. He didn't seem as concerned as I was. It wasn't scary, really. Just didn't cry. Strange. I've gone back to that spot lots of times, hoping to catch the fog, doing its stance again. But no luck so far.
Part of me thinks it could have been an unidentified alien object and created a mist around itself for camouflage. But who knows? Maybe I've listened to too many podcasts like yours. I do believe something unknown was there was happening, and I caught a glimpse of it. I hope you enjoyed the story. Our next story comes from Janelle and is read by Amy Shalabh. Back in the summer of 1978, when I was eight, something happened to me that even after all these years, I think about often.
I grew up in Salt Lake City and our cozy house was the setting for my childhood adventures. My two sisters, they're three and five years older than me and I grew up playing outside all the time. We weren't tomboys. But my mom had a strict rule that we had to play outside until dinner, unless we were doing our homework. Looking back on it, it helped us become lovers of the outdoors, gave us confidence, and we always sought out adventure. One night I found myself unable to sleep.
I did what an adventurous nine year old would do. I decided to sneak out to the backyard for some fresh air and hopefully a glimpse of the stars. The night was breathtaking. A canvas of black adorned with twinkling lights so vast and unfathomable. I lay there on the grass when suddenly a peculiar light caught my attention. It wasn't the steady blinking of an airplane or the natural twinkle of a star.
This light pulsed gently and danced around the sky as I watched mesmerized, This light drifted closer and closer, revealing itself to be something unidentified. It was a craft unlike anything I'd ever seen or could have imagined. Silent with a series of blinking lights along its underside in a pattern that felt almost hypnotic. It was near, but not directly overhead, near enough, though, to see that it was not a plane or helicopter or balloon. I should have been scared, I suppose.
But in that moment I sensed profound calmness. That is, until I heard the sobbing. Turning my head, I saw our elderly neighbor standing at the edge of her property, looking up at the craft. She was a kind woman, a perfect neighbor. But as a kid, I didn't know much about her life or why she would be crying. I still don't and wish I did. The craft kept flying and was out of our view, quickly disappearing from sight. Our neighbor never saw me and I never told her that I saw her or the UFO.
As I've gotten older, I began to think that maybe Mrs. Thompson was in awe of what she saw in the sky and was crying out of a sense of wonder and curiosity and not sadness. I did share this story with my sisters years later, and they have a theory that I was influenced by movies or TV shows. And as years have progressed and active imagination makes it all feel like a memory, Real or not, that encounter changed me.
I understood there is more out there and that we're all connected in ways that are beyond our comprehension. I was never scared and still look back at the experience with joy. And finally tonight, we have a story from Anthony Kay that I will be reading. One night in 2016 or 17, I was camping in New Mexico near Santa Rosa with my buddy A.J.. The plan was simple disconnect. Enjoy the peace of the desert and play guitar by the fire. That night, the sky was full of stars.
It must have been around midnight when I first noticed it. A low pulsating hum that seemed to come from everywhere. I tried to brush it off as the wind, but there was no wind that night. Then the temperature dropped. In the desert, nights are cool. But this was a cold that seeped into your bones like someone hit a switch to change it from warm to cold. And that's when I saw something above a ridge miles away. A light began to ascend. It was like a ball of light on an elevator into the sky.
I reached for my camera and as I did, the light suddenly shot toward us. It happened so fast. One moment it was a distant ball miles away. Then about halfway to us. I hadn't said anything to A.J., but he suddenly stood up, pointing and saying. You see that? I did take some pictures. But the light was so bright. You can't tell with the images. Besides a bright light. Then it was gone. We sat back down and we kept talking about what we saw.
We did go to sleep a few hours later, but it's not over yet. We were there for three nights, and that was the first. The second night we set up, scouring the horizon and looking towards the mountains. We had seen the light lift up from the night before. Nothing happened. On the second night. The third night, you could tell neither of us expected we would see the light again around midnight. AJ Kind of as a tent. Went to sleep. I stayed by the fire, was taking pictures of the sky.
A few hours later and I decided to sleep. But I walked away from camp first to pee. I did my business and walked back towards camp. The fire was out and I got a feeling like I should turn. I did. And above a different mountain. In the first night I see a ball of bright light slowly rising. I was expecting it to shoot toward us again, but this time it shot straight up into the sky. Then to the right of where the light lifted off from another ridge.
A bright light there floated up into the air and then shot straight up. After a minute of floating, I was too engrossed to call out and wake up. I didn't notice any humming sound that night or temperature change that I was aware of. Maybe I was too excited to see a light again, though I am an experienced camper and I've camped mostly through the West and Southwest. I have camped in that same site before this experience and since then and never experienced those lights.
I have no idea what they were. The craziest thing to think about, though, is that this campground is only about an hour away from Roswell. And that'll do it for our special U.F.O. episode. Thank you to everybody that shared stories. Thank you to the actors that performed. I'll provide some links to them in the show notes. Additionally, if you have a story about a UFO or your spur of the moment thing, if you've seen a ghost or encrypted or anything strange like that, right?
In a study of strange at gmail.com, I'd love to hear your story. Maybe have you on the show. Or maybe we'll do something like this episode again in the future. Make sure to follow us on Instagram. Check out our website. Check out our substack for exclusive content. And that is a great way to support the show. You can find that through a website. A study of Strange Gqom. We will be off next week, but then back with more strange tales after that. Thank you and good night.