Episode 03: Exam Conditions

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Welcome to High Strange.

At the time I was coming up to eleven, the school was very much like a small family. It was only one hundred and twenty five people's We were all close. It was a nice atmosphere to grow up in. Lunchtime came around, I thought I'd rather stay in and read a booklin go out in that way there, but some of the kids went out. I was a very voracious reader at that time. The end of lunchtime, they came in. Groups of them were saying that they'd seen something out

Dave says the thought appeared in his mind. It wasn't fear, it wasn't instinct. It was like a third party suggestion not to scream or panic, just leave the area.

Something that didn't come to me until a few years later. I can remember getting in the taxi and the journey home. The journey home was done in complete silence. All of us, including the taxi driver, didn't say a word.

Wouldn't you guys be talking about this crazy thing you just saw.

That's the weird thing. I was in a car with another two witnesses. A group of us had just seen a flying saucer a UFO. We said nothing at all. Boy, I don't know.

I'm not asking you to decide what that means. I'm asking you to notice how specific it is.

The taxi dropped me off. About ten minutes later. I got out of the taxi, and the moment I saw my mother, it was like, Mom just saw a UFO. It was like suddenly I'd switched back on again.

What did you tell your mom?

I just said, I've just seen a flying saucet.

Fear is chaotic, This isn't It's procedural, A simple thought. Leave the area, and then Dave runs.

I mean, my mother knows me. There's no disbelief. The moment I said it, she instantly saw that I was being truthful. We went back down to the school that night to have a look. Obviously by them who got dark it was February, saw nothing at all. Following day, we went back with a local reporter called Hugh Turnbull, who worked for the Western Telegraph. We went back down the school again, investigated the area in which I'd seen

The ride home, you have three kids who allegedly just saw a flying saucer. No adrenaline, no replay, no disbelief, just silence. The second Dave got home, everything switches back on. He tells his mother and she immediately believes him. She can tell by his face. That's the first adult truth test in the story.

By Monday morning, the national press were already phone in the school. Monday morning, we got into school. Instantly, the headmaster pulled all of the ones who had claimed to have seen the UFO to one side and isolated us. It's about fourteen of us. He then put us in examined conditions, sitting apart from each other, with him observing. Gave us all a piece of paper. I said, I want you to describe and draw what you saw.

This is when the head master does something really smart. Fourteen kids separated, no collaboration, no discussion, exam conditions, draw what you saw.

We all drew the UFO that we'd seen, a brief description of it. Then once we'd finished, the headmaster went round, gathered up the pieces of papers, started looking at the pieces of paper and went white. All of those illustrations depicted the same object. His kids had seen something. It totally blew his mind and I didn't know what to think. They all depicted a silver scar shaped object, a dome that covered the middle third of the craft with a

So where does that tell you?

It very much confirms that we all saw the same thing.

Something strange came out of the skies and landed in the Welsh village of broad Haven, was spotted three times by children from the local school. I've just been on the phone to their headmaster.

I know that the sixteen children saw it.

And did they all see the same thing?

Do you think I got them to draw and to write what they saw with similarity between all of the scripts.

Fors and do you believe it? I believe they saw something which is not common in the environment.

Media all around the world, TV crews arriving from every where.

The children say the object had a large dome, It was cigar shaped and was silver in color.

It sort of dawned on us at that time that this was something a little bit more serious. Senior offices from raf Raud and the US Naval Facility wanted to talk to us and find out what we'd seen. They looked at the illustrations we'd done, chatted with us as a group. They basically said, we have no idea what you've seen. What we can categorically state it has nothing to do with us, but we honestly believe you've seen something. The phones were being left off the hook at the school.

My friend Palatier was trying to find a way over the stream and I was looking at the bushes up the top of the trees.

I remember that bloody top and that acre that was in the school playground.

The spaceship. It looks as a cigar shaped with a dome on it.

It had a yellowy orange to red.

Light on the top.

Clip in board Haven in Wales, some extremely interesting pictures in some of the things that told me they couldn't have known about impossible.

My friend Philippio was trying to find a way over the steam and I was looking at the bushes up the top of the trees, and then suddenly the silver cigar shaped objects seemed to pop up from behind the bushes, trying to take off. Then it disappeared again.

Were you frightened at the time, yes, Now we got some younger people in the studio who claimed to have had encounters of their very own.

We just rung off.

We were so scared.

Wasn't just the broad Haven Coast. Other incidents in the area started happening.

They call it the broad Haven Triangle, an area here in Pembrokeshire where sensible, down to earth people I constantly saying, strange objects in the sky, sterious lights. It's an area where an entire classroom of school children saw from their playground a UFO.

Are you all honestly going to say that you think that the things you saw were short of saying most of this world?

Do you think those were related? Yeah? Basically the same objects. Silver sco shaped objects sighted off the Gower Swansea coast, another one in Larn.

Yet another flying software to add to the lengthening list of tame sightings over Pembrokeshire Compryside.

From the south of Wales right round to the southwest the Wels Triangle.

Is it all really a case of mass hysteria or is there some reality in the unreal The people who live around Broadhaven will tell you that what they've experienced has reeled up.

There was another case, the Ripperston Farming case. Things were happening there that were almost like politiceist activity.

This story doesn't stay contained, it only starts spreading.

I could see this here the glight.

This find so fair.

I knew the people involved. I had no reason to doubt what they were saying.

After the Broadhaven school incident, reports were coming in from all across the region, different objects in the sky, the same shapes and colors. There were other tales in that region that play out like a nightmare.

When you're an ordinary farming family and you're convinced you've seen spaceships and creatures from another planet, how do you persuade friends, neighbors, and the world in general that you've not taken leave of your senses. That's the constant problem with Face Billy and Pauline and Coombs.

When it happened to me the first term, I thought, you know, I'm imagining things.

Over the years, I've sort of tried not to dwell on certain parts of the story.

What kind of details.

Occupants this silver suited figure was wandering around Pembrokeshire.

Local residents claim to have seen an enormous, metallic like man, jumping fences, standing in the window, other strange lights in the sky, and encounters that feel way more personal a.

Silver suited man.

It was the most terrifying experience of it.

Always something was happening, but what.

Their arms were exceptionally long, their legs were exceptionally long, and they definitely didn't have face, and they were faceless people, no eyes, no mouth. This thing throughout the hage, it jumped over this gate.

There's something droll about it. No mind that jumped.

Back gate.

Ripperston form. This isn't a side quest, this is escalation. The phenomenon leaves the schoolyard and enters private homes.

Police were called out the night of the incident at the Combses Farm.

It's probably of all the incidents in my twenty sixts service, that's the most friends of family I had helped us.

Do you see arguments?

No, A lot has to be who your witnesses, the age of the witness, perhaps, the social status of the witness, certainly, the educational background, the integrity.

And then the contamination arrives.

The mold asked the local MP what's happening down in Pembrokeshire. By the time the local MP had been asked that a hoax had been perpetrated, the guy walking around Pembrokeshire dressed in a firefighter's suit, this silver suited figure that was wandering around Pembrokeshire. Everybody knew the incidents that he was responded sable for. You know, did they sort of conflate these two things? Yes. When the MP was asked what's going on in Pembirakeship regarding the UFO's fighting sources.

Why do you think that happened?

The hoax thing? Because Pembrokeshire is full of idiots. We arrived in school one morning to find the headmaster going absolutely nuts. There was what looked like a bomb in the front playground of the school. We identified it as the long range fuel tank of for Bomber. It was the fuel tankle for Bomber, this rocket shaped projectile planted in the playground as a joke. My headmaster had got in touch with the media, said about it. They came

Let's zoom out for a second.

Do you have all these kids who claim to have seen the same UFO in their schoolyard, then subsequent sightings of a similar object all around the region for months.

Then it gets weirder and darker.

People claim to see this large metallic man stalking them. Then there's reports of an actual man dressed up in a silver suit.

Yeah, there were hoaxes at the time. I know of one personally. He gave his story for the price of a half answer tobacco, with no truth in it whatsoever. We met one day and he actually thought I was lying and confirmed it to me that he was lying, and said, what about you, now, mate, who is this?

Oh?

Now that I don't want to confirm. If you get in contact with any of the kids that saw this object, they all except for two, maintain that they saw that object. Now the two that's plained they didn't and that they may did our Oh god, how can I've got this? When something's happening like that, you always get a couple of kids who will jump on a bandwagon. The majority of us kids will tell you flat out straight, but

This is how real events get buried, not by disproving them, by surrounding them with stupidity until nobody wants to touch them. Poses don't erase the signal, They just drown it.

Over the years, I've sort of protected those two because I don't want two people who just joined in at the time because something that was happening who now say, oh, no, we didn't see anything at all. I don't want those two having a negative impact on what the rest of us really did see. It's almost slipped into folklore.

Just press the green says there, she knows they're here, by the way, because I said to earlier.

On Oh yeah, I don't swear as you've been recorded.

Um, oh dear, it's a shame, ma'am.

Have you got have you got too minutes? Do you remember the day I came home from school after seeing the UFO?

Oh yeah, definitely.

When he came home, what did he say?

He said he had seen a UFO. I thought, oh, you're joking you no boy. Anyway, I could tell by his face that he was telling me the truth, because I could always tell if he was telling me a football or not. But I knew this was genuine. I knew it's something at that end. Yes, I believed them.

All these years later. What do you think happened that day? What do you think these kids experienced.

After all these years? I strongly believe that they saw something in the UFO which can't be explained, because I mean, if they had lied, somebody would have spilled the beans. By now, and this has never ever happened. They still they still tell you exactly what happened, the same thing now, all these years later.

Was he a good kid?

Uh?

Yeah, that's right, Yeah, I think right.

Yes, you were on time.

Yeah, what do you think it was after all these years?

Well? I keep an open mind, but I believe that there is something of the I don't know. It's my feeling that there is something. I haven't seen anything myself, but yeah, I do believe there's something there.

Okay, mam, talk to you. So in anyway, ma'am, all.

Right, golam giving paid.

Yeah, by the words. In the early days, I had probably thought that by now we'd have had confirmation with being visited. The one thing that we have had in confirmation of in recent years is that these damn things exist, whether we know what they are, or where they're coming from or whatever. I confirming that these things exist major piece of vindication for me. Whilst I can't go out and say, okay, the alien's visiting, I can go out and tell you the people, look, US government has confirmed

All these years later, you've had almost fifty years to think about this. What do you think it was that you saw that day?

I think I've probably entertained all hypotheses extraterrestrial, that it's one of ours, extra dimensional, even the possibility that these things are not going from anywhere else, that they're a lot more local than we think possibly coming from here. And by here, I do not mean human intelligences here, I mean another intelligence here. I mean I supposed to

But it's been fifty years, yeah, and.

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

We're moving into a world where fewer things will stop and ask us what do you want. Most systems are just going to guess, optimize and decide what makes sense based on data and probability. And the annoying thing is, most of the time they'll be right enough that it feels stupid to argue that's the shift that's easy for all of us to miss.

The future doesn't take.

Your choices away, It just makes it easier to stop making them.

You don't lose control in one big moment.

You lose it in small handoffs, one click, one default, one sure. That's fine, until suddenly you look up and realize a lot of your life is running on autopilot. The skill that matters now isn't resisting technology or just opting out of the world. It's noticing when you're drifting, pausing long enough to ask a simple question, did I actually choose this? Or am I just going along with

It was a very hot verse August. The livestock crew was managing livestock out on the range, had cowboys out. Later on that morning. I received a call from my cowboss on the radio. We had these handheld radios that could reach across the ranch so we could stay in communication.

He calls me on the radio and he.

Says, one of our range bulls is dead. It looks like there's some odd, weird things about this animal. It was kind of describing for me what he was seeing, and so I started asking questions. It was probably about forty minutes later he calls me on the video again and he says, you will not believe this. We found another range bowl that is dead and it is nearly in the exact same condition as the one that he

Now, I got two range bowls.

Both have the same mutilations on their body, and that is.

Just absolutely unheard of.

I walked up to the very first bull, and as I'm walking up to him, I can just see his back and he's laying on the ground. If you didn't know, you'd say he was just laying there asleep. Walk around on the other side so that I could see his belly.

And his legs, and that's when I saw that he had had his testicles completely removed.

The penis was completely removed.

After a little bit further investigation, we saw that his tongue had been removed as well. You're you're looking at this and you're trying to process it in your brain because nothing makes sense about it. There's no struggle marks on the ground, there's.

No indications that they'd put up a fight. There was no bite marks, there was no bullet wounds. It was so odd.

I went back to the ranch, called the sheriff's office and we got in touch with the State Police.

Notified the Force Service what we had found.

Whoever's doing this understands anatomy, I mean surgical precision.

I've spent my whole entire life around livestock.

At no point in my life have I ever experienced anything like that. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. You start thinking, Okay, how could this happen? Who would want to do this? What's the reason behind it? What's the purpose? I'm not naive to think there is an other life in the universe.

Why is it being done?

Hi strange?

It is a production by Tenderfoot TV in association with iHeart Podcasts, created, hosted and edited by myself, Payne Lindsay. Executive producers are myself and Donald Albright. Editing by Mike Rooney, Cooper Skinner and myself. Original scorer by Makeup and Vanity Set, Sound design, mixing and mastering by Cooper Skinner. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington, Eric Quintana, Sean Nurney.

And Meredith Steadman.

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