S04 Episode 2: Coming to You Live

the North American cope. We have just been informed that this baseball game is being seen in Europe right now over the Telstar satellite. Let's give all the baseball friends in Europe a big hello from Chicago. And so began on July twenty third, nineteen sixty two, the first live transatlantic broadcast beamed courtesy of the newly launched Tellstar's satellite into millions of homes across the United States and Europe.

For those able to tune in and watch the momentous occasion, it was impossible to escape the giddy's sensation that they were witnessing something of the world changing forever right in front of their eyes. As tellst our engineer James Early later remarked, the moment revealed unmistakably that all of humanity

were members of a single global community. Of course, not all of humanity would necessarily have felt themselves reflected in those first few images, let alone all of those who made up the respective populations of the nations receiving them. But certainly never before could an awareness of the simultaneous existence of distant others with which we share the planet

being so profoundly felt. It was an ironic turn of events in some ways, since both the United States and the Soviet Union's space programs, which led directly to the development of satellite technology, had been initiated by those in power not for a collective benefit, but rather to foster a respective sense of superiority over the other. And yet here embodied in the revolutionary Tellstar satellite was not a

tool of division, but one of unity. Almost inadvertently, we had been given what remains today one of our greatest mechanisms for communication, and one that ultimately enabled us, for the first time, to really see each other. The Telstar satellite was very much a tool worthy of the spirit of the age, and one that perhaps could have come soon enough. Barely four months after its launch, the Soviet Union and United States governments brought the world to the

brink of nuclear war. For this was the nineteen sixties, a wildly turbulent decade characterized by complex and often violent social upheaval on a global scale, of multiple nations forging new identities from the ashes of the Second World War, with many having only recently been unshackled superficially at least from the bonds of colonialism. Its strange mix of animus and optimism being no less than the reflections of an entire planet grappling with its future, and everything was up

for grabs. It was also a decade when younger generations felt more empowered than ever before to genuinely challenge the status quos of old, whether it be through the music of the day, the proliferation of recreational drugs, or ordinary political protest. A decade when swathes of teenagers and young adults, using whatever tools they could, took one collective look at the world they had inherited and said no, thank you.

Perhaps it was fitting then that the person who would deliver the first official address on live satellite TV during that July twenty third broadcast would be President John F. Kennedy, the youngest ever American president elected to office. His message to the world that day was very much in keeping with the spirit of communication epitomized by Telstar, as he celebrated the power of this new technology to potentially bring

us closer together. Sadly, in a turn of events that couldn't better encapsulate the tragedy of the human experience, Barely eight months after Telstar's launch, this mighty symbol of unity was destroyed by the radioactive fallout from a high altitude nuclear weapons test. But it was ever Thus we rise, we fall, we rise again, and so too did the Telstar when in May nineteen sixty three, its second incarnation,

Telstar two, was launched into orbit. By the autumn of sixty three, a total of thirteen satellites had been successfully placed in orbit around the globe, though small in comparison to today's models, if you happened to be gazing up at the right time on a clear enough evening, you might just have caught the odd sight of one drifting strangely in the sky, like a star suddenly loosened from

its moorings. Such a sighting at the time would none the less have been a rare occurrence, and one that no doubt had many of those who might have glimpsed one, perhaps believing it wasn't a satellite they had just witnessed, but something a little more other worldly instead. At least that was one of the many suggestions put forward to explain a sighting of an apparent UFO made by four British teenagers on their way home from a dance one

November evening and sixty three. Such a suggestion, however, barely scratches the surface of just what exactly happened. Next, you're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClane Smith. The village of Saltwood, in the southeast of England, located less than a kilometer north of the Kent Coast, is perhaps best known for its eponymous castle, built some time in the

eleventh century CE. It was insult with castle on one cold night in December eleven hundred and seventy that four knights of the Realm, Sir Hugh de Morville, Reginald Fitzurs, William de Tracy and Richard le Breton, took lodgings on the eve of committing the most infamous assassination in British history.

The following day, the four Knights made their way to Canterbury Cathedral under orders from King Henry the Second to apprehend then Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, who was accused of undermining the King's recent efforts to limit the powers of the church. When Beckett refused to accept the Knight's authority to arrest him, they responded by slicing off the top of his head and dashing its contents across the

cathedral floor. Understandably, such history as a knack of lingering in places like Saltwood, much like the talk of ancient bloody battles that are thought to have occurred on the land surrounding the village from as far back as the Bronze Age. That and the existence of numerous Roman and Anglo Saxon burial sites nearby, only served to intensify the belief among some local residents that there were more than just a few ghosts that haunted this quiet corner of

the British Isles. It is little surprised, then, that such things might have wormed their way into the minds of sixteen year old Jenny Holloway, her boyfriend John Flaxton and their two friends Tony and Mervyn as they made their way home on that chilly evening of Saturday, November sixteenth. But all those familiar old tails they knew of ghostly legionnaires and ladies in white so passe. This was the sixties, after all. It was time for something a little different.

Here they come now on their way to nearby Sandling Station, approaching the last street light on the edge of the village. Let's join them as they step beyond the reaches of its soft sodium glow and into the dark of the Kent countryside. It is nearly nine pm when the four friends draw up alongside the playing fields of Saltwood's Brockhill Park School, trying their best to ignore the ominous silhouette of the gloomy old manor house at the back of

the premises. The house, along with the rest of the site, had once been part of a vast private estate belonging to the Tawney family after inheriting it in the eighteen eighties. The estate's last owner, William Towney, considered by some to have been somewhat of an eccentric, was said to have been a recluse rarely seen by any one other than the property's caretakers. Even as far back as the late nineteenth century, Brochial Manor was known to the locals as

the Haunted House. In days gone by, those who dared to get close enough to look inside would be treated to the intimidating sight of a huge polar bear raised up on hind legs, with its teeth and claws, beard, and all manner of other animal skins dotted about the place. But it was for the small patch of woodland located just behind the house that the most elaborate tales were preserved.

For it was there, at the foot of Chesterfield Wood, on a small island in the middle of a private lake, that the enigmatic Towney was laid to rest in the autumn of ninety three, along with his dark Daisy, who was killed and buried with him as per his final request. Tawney's ghost was said to haunt the island and surrounding woods, the same woods, incidentally, towards which something peculiar was now

falling from out of the sky. John is the first to notice it, alerting the others to the bright, reddish yellow light that he assumes to be some kind of shooting star, but just as it looks as though it might smash into the ground, the group watch with amazement as the peculiar light appears to slow down, suddenly, then

hover for a moment before disappearing behind the trees. Growing a little unnerved, the group hurry on toward the station until approaching a bend in the road known as Slighbrook Corner, John notices a strange, hazy glow coming from the direction of the woods. Turning the corner, they catch sight of something resting on top of the hill. At roughly twenty feet wide in diameter and oval in shape, it appears

to be lit up from the inside. As the friends continue on, all the while keeping their eyes fixed on the object, they struggle to shake the distinct feeling that whatever it is is watching them. A short time later, with the group having come to a dip in the road, they have just lost sight of the strange object when a figure suddenly emerges stumbling into the road thirty yards ahead of them. The group freeze as they watched the silhouetted outline of what seems to be a man in

a cloak carrying an old fashioned hurricane lamp. The light of which flashes intermittently as the figure shuffles slowly forwards. When they strain for a closer look. However, they soon realize their mistake. It isn't a cloak that the man has on his back, it's a pair of wings. And where at first they had assumed the man's head to have been rendered invisible by the lack of light, the more they look at it, the more it begins to

seem as though there isn't a head at all. Too afraid to move, the friends watch and stun silence as the figure disappears over the rail track, before running to the safety of the station. After seeing Jenny on to her train, the boys make their way back to Saltwood Village, but see nothing again of the strange figure or glowing light in the trees. Are you always taking care of your family? Do you often take care of others and not yourself? Now it's time to take care of yourself,

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When John Flaxton first recounts the story to his other friends, he has convinced that he saw a ghost, and before long news of the peculiar sighting begins to spread amongst the kids of the local area. However, the following Friday, news of a very different kind was beginning to filter through to Saltwood Village and indeed the rest of the world.

For viewers of BBC one, the announcement came through at shortly after seven pm UK time that President John F. Kennedy of the United States had been shot while on a presidential visit to Dallas in Texas. A second news flash thirty minutes later confirmed that the president of the United States was dead, Thanks in part to the Telstar to satellite news and images of the assassination quickly filtered

through to the rest of the world. Though some, including far right elements within the United States angered by his position on civil rights, celebrated Kennedy's death, a great many

more around the world were united in shock. Later that night, in Saltwood, another group of friends, this time driving towards Sandling Station, also witness what they at first take to be a shooting star, but then on their way back, they spot a light behind Chesterfield Wood, just as the others had seen the week before, only this time they see it rise into the air and land in a field a hundred yards away in utter amusement. After pulling over the car, one of the group, sixteen year old

Annette Baxter, volunteers to take a closer look. Speaking to reporters a few days later, Baxter described how surely, after making her way toward the light, she saw what she took to be some kind of a figure emerge from out of it. The last thing she remembered was turning

to run before apparently blacking out. That same night, at a quarry located about half a mile outside the village, the appearance of soft glowing lights in the distance is followed by the sound of engines and music growing in intensity, until finally two cars of teenagers burst forth from the surrounding trees. The head lamps illuminate the cavern as space for the briefest of moments as the cars spin round, then come to rest at the quarry's air and the

lights are switched off. Inside the vehicles, cigarettes are passed around as the music shifts and the reedy wobble of a harmonica is followed by two liver Puddlian voices singing in perfect harmony. The kids sing along and turn their heads to enjoy the uninterrupted view of a vast, starlit sky above, too busy to notice the strange figure lurking in the shadows until one of them spots it standing

a short distance away from the cars. In a panic, the kids fumbled for the lights and switch off the radio, but when they look again, the figure has gone. The following day, as the news and implications of President Kennedy's as assination dominate headlines across the globe. For the teenages of Saltwood in Kent, there is only one thing on their mind. With rumors of the recent peculiar sightings beginning to escalate, one resident takes it upon himself to try

and get to the bottom of it all. On the morning of Saturday, November twenty third, sixteen year old John McGoldrick ventures up into the woods behind Brockhill Park, where after a short investigation of the area, he comes upon something unexpected. As he would later recount to the UK's Flying Saucer Review, he had stumbled upon a vast expanse of bracken that looked as if it had been completely flattened, as if a huge, heavy object had rested there. But

that wasn't all. Moving around the space, John came across a series of odd impressions in the ground that looked like huge webbed feet over half a meter in length. Later that afternoon, a strange creature from out of space most definitely did arrive, if only on British television screens. It was shortly after five fifteen PM when thousands of British viewers were introduced for the first time to an enigmatic and prickly individual known only as the Doctor, appearing

in the first episode ever of Doctor Who. But if the Doctor's arrival had stirred the imaginations of the Saltwood Village youth, already preoccupied with their own stories of visitors from space, it would soon be eclipsed by some even more incredible news beamed in from across the Atlantic. The following day. It was hard to say how many exactly tuned in to watch a ghast as Lee Harvey Oswalt, the man accused of Kennedy's assassination, was shot live on

t V by Dallas night club owner Jack Ruby. Either way, there were few who didn't hear about it soon after, and only a day later, to cap off one of the most extraordinary week ends in world history, many British residents watched live again courtesy of the Telstar to satellite, as President Kennedy was laid to rest, and with him too went forever a now quaint and distant age. Only the year before, President Kennedy's press conference had ushered in a new era of hyper connectivity in the hope that

it would foster peace. But in his death something a little darker of this new world was being revealed. A new media age had well and truly arrived. Author of a clockwork Orange and television critic Anthony Burgess would later note, we have seen everything now that impartial eye has looked on murder. From now on there will always be the stain of a corpse on the living room rug. Back

in Saltwood. With all the focus on the extraordinary events that had been taking place in the States, talk of the strange goings on of the previous week had been all but silenced. Sixteen year old John McGoldrick, however, had yet to give up hope of seeing the supposed visitor for himself, and it wasn't long before he would get his wish. It was sometime toward the end of November, around eight p m. The John and two friends made

their way along the Sandling Road. When, having just passed the school playing fields, John caught sight of what he took to be a tall figure standing still in the field behind a line of trees. The boys hurried along the path as they fought to keep it in their sights, but as they approached the entrance to the school, they were disappointed to find that the figure had now disappeared. Moments later, one of the boys let out a sharp

gasp and pointed toward a corner of the playing field. There, standing motionless in the middle of it was the tall figure they had seen earlier. Hoping they hadn't been spotted by it, the boys quietly made their way to Slaybrook Corner and into the field beyond. They were hoping to get a more sheltered view of the figure from up the hill, but was soon questioning their decision when halfway up the rise they caught the whip of something putrid.

After taking only a few more steps further, John let out a cry at the sight of the figure that was now standing directly in front of them. The boys immediately fled from the scene in terror, running without once

looking back to the safety of the village. With a few local journalists starting to pick up on the story, two reporters accompanied John and his friends to the same spot a few weeks later, where they reported witnessing a strange, pulsating light coming from within the trees that lasted for

almost half an hour. Neither of the group, however, were quite willing to get a closer look at it, and so concluded the last reported sighting that formed just one of the many strange events that took place in a quiet seaside community in the south of England one eventful month in nineteen sixty three. After eventually being picked up by the national press, the apparent sightings convinced a number of UFO enthusiasts to visit the area not long after

the initial reports first came out. Despite collating a host of eyewitness accounts from local residents, with many reporting the sighting of a bizarre winged bat like creature, no satisfying explanation for the events was found, and that it seemed was that it was three years later, almost to the day of that first sighting in Saltwood Village, when four thousand miles away outside the small town of Point Pleasant in West Virginia, USA, two young couples were cruising in

a car along the back roads of a local farmlands and wetlands region known as the TNT Area. The place was so called due to its former usage as an ammunition manufacturing and storage facility for the US military. More recently, however, it had become a popular spot for kids and young adults from the local area to hang out and loose away from the prying eyes of the town's more senior residence,

but that night the area was oddly deserted. The four friends, Roger and Linda Scarborough and Mary and Steve Mallett, were just about to head home when Steve spotted something up ahead by the side of the road. It was some kind of animal that appeared to be caught on a wire and was trying desperately to free itself, but as they drew nearer, they soon discovered it was like no animal either of them had ever seen before. Roger, who was driving at the time, slammed on the brakes and

switched off the radio. Then together they sat in stunned silence as they tried to wrap their minds around what it was they were looking at. The apparent creature had two long arms and stood upright on two legs, looking almost human were it not for its disproportionately large hands. It was almost seven feet tall, with a lithe and muscular body, and from what they could make out and the glare of the headlights, a sort of pale beige in color from afar, It had first appeared as if

the creature's hand was trapped in the wire. It was only when they moved in closer that they realized it wasn't a hand. It was then they noticed the pair of them sticking up behind its shoulders, having eventually freed itself and then stumbled away. The apparent creature was alleged to have appeared in the sky moments later and chased the four friends all the way back to Point Pleasant.

This creature that became known as the Mothman, was considered by some, such as famed uthologist John Keel, to be an almost mythological being of indeterminate galactic origin. Keel's best known book on the subject, The Mothman Prophecies, although dealing mainly with the sightings and subsequent events that took place around Point Pleasant, also speculated that the bizarre sightings in Saltwood, England, three years previously might have been of the same creature.

That the Mothman was possibly a portent of tragedy and death was perhaps one of his more outlandish theories. Either way, one thing we can be sure of, whatever it was that took place exactly in that quiet Kent village in nineteen sixty three, remains to this day unexplained. If you enjoy listening to Unexplained and would like to help supporters, You can now go to Unexplained podcast dot com Forward slash support. All donations, no matter how large or small,

are massively appreciating. All elements of Unexplained are produced by me, Richard mcclained smith. Please subscribe and rate the show on iTunes. Feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can reach us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter at Unexplained pod. Now. It's time to

take care of yourself. To make time for you, teledoc gives you access to a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time, seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most insurance or employers. Download the app or visit teledoc dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get started. That's t e l a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast