S05 Episode 4: How the End Always Is (RERUN)

the United States militaries entire history. The title of this episode is taken from a song by the Cure. It wasn't so much the lyric that reflected the themes of the episode, but more the title of the song. It was taken from Disintegration And so this is Unexplained Season five,

episode four, How the end always is. Considering the amount of high strangeness that residents of Golf Breeze in Florida had become accustomed to over the past few months, a nineteen seventy one VW van with busted tail lights was some way from unusual. It was back in nineteen eighty seven that the quiet town of Golf Breeze, nestled at the tip of Pensacola Bay in the northwest of Florida, became, for a brief moment, a hotbed of apparent UFO activity.

In late November of that year, local resident Ed Walters brought a series of photographs he'd taken of an unidentified flying object to the attention of Dwayne Cook, then editor of the Golf Breeze Sentinel. The pictures, evocatively lit, dark, grainy polaroids, each with the same, almost comically saucer shaped object hanging in the sky, did little to convince Cook until that was he showed them to his parents later that night, who recognized it instantly as the strange object

they'd seen in the sky a few days earlier. And they weren't the only ones. Over the next six months, one hundred and thirty five people reported eighty different sightings, many congregating together in UFO watching parties at Shoreline Park to gaze out across the Gulf of Mexico and up

toward the heavens. An excited anticipation of just what might be the sightings were lent a further air of credibility when in February nineteen eighty eight, city councilwoman Brenda Pollack revealed she too had witnessed something inexplicable while driving across Pensacola Bay Bridge. It was there that she had suddenly caught sight of a strange orange light hanging low over the town. The light appeared to be bob up and down behind distant trees, pulsating with no discernible rhythm. It

was like nothing she had ever seen before. It was perhaps fitting that such an occurrence had taken place in this part of the world, being only ten kilometers across the bay from the pioneering US Naval Training School Naval Air Station Pensacola, having trained thousands of naval aviators in the years since its establishment in nineteen fourteen, it could count one Neil Armstrong among its most illustrative alumni. But

let's get back to that van. It was sometime around three am in the early morning of Saturday, July fourteenth, nineteen ninety but Golfbreys police officer Don Stephens cruised onto US Highway ninety eight and spotted the errant VW. Perhaps intrigued by its Tennessee number plate, Stephens had been keeping a close eye on the vehicle when it drew to a stop at a set of lights. Seeing then that the tail lights were broken, the officer flashed his own

lights and pulled the van over. Stephens stepped out into the warm, humid air, and under that vast blanket of stars, cautiously made his way over to the vehicle. Shining his torch into the driver's side window, he picked out the nervous looking young man inside, his hands gripped uneasily around the top of the steering wheel. Stephens knocked on the window and motioned for the driver to wind it down. Evening, officer said the man. Squinting into the torchlight, Stephens noted

the accent was some way off Florida, Wyoming. Perhaps maybe he was one of the eight hundred out of towners who had turned up the previous week end for the annual Moufon conference. He thought, the mutual UFO network having elected to have its conference there that year on account of the recent spate of sightings. License of registration, said the officer. The driver tensed, I'm afraid I don't have

any idea on me, he said. Stephens stood for a moment, looking the driver up and down as the occasional car wushed past behind. He pointed the torch into the back of the van, but saw no one else inside. Name then, he said, the driver seemed to hesitate. Michael Hoigstadt, he replied. Finally, Stephens told Michael to sit tight while he get the station to run his name through the database. Please don't,

pleaded Michael, catching Stephens off guard. Back in his squad car, Stephens waited on his colleagues at the station until finally they found a match, Michael Hoygstadt, nineteen years old from Farson, Wyoming, or rather private first class Michael Hoygstadt of the U. S. Army.

Mike's name had come up because only a few days before, the United States Army had put out a worldwide plea to be on the lookout for him and five of his colleagues, all of whom had, for reasons unknown, gone a warm Stephens returned to the van and ordered Mike to step out. You don't know what you've done, said Mike, in despair. You've just signed my death warrant. Mike pleaded again, with the officer, even offering a bribe to let him go,

but Stephens had no intention of doing so. After conducting a quick search of the vehicle, Stephens found a cachet of food enough to last for months, as well as camping gear and a hambook on how to survive in the wild packed in the back. Offering no further resistance, Mike was arrested and taken to Golf Breeze Police Station while station Sheriff Jerry Brown waited on word from the nearby Pensacola Naval Air Station on what to do next.

It wasn't long before the call came in. You need to call Washington, said the official on the other end, as in the Pentagon. They want this guy bad, real bad. Brown was asked if Mike had told him where the rest of the deserters were, but he was refusing to cooperate. After making the appropriate calls, Brown was told only to keep an eye on the prisoner and that under no

circumstances should he speak to him. That six soldiers would go a wall from the United States military was unusual enough in itself, but as the tiny scraps of information began to filter through, the story only got more and more strange. By the time it broke in the press, it could well be said to be the most bizarre case of desertion in the United States militaries entire history.

You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard Maclin Smith. What hadn't been revealed to Sheriff Brown at his colleagues was that nineteen year old Michael Hoygstadt was no ordinary foot soldier, but an information specialist. Trained at Corry Station, the US Navy's Center for Information Warfare, Hoigstadt had been instructed on cryptology, coding, and decoding communication, and for the past few months had been stationed in Augsburg, Germany, working as an intelligence analyst,

intercepting and identifying non Morse coded communications. There he was assigned to the seven hundred and first Military Intelligence Brigade as part of U. S Army Intelligence and Security Command, on what at the time was the largest national security agency base in the world outside the United States. In Augsburg, Mike became friends with twenty year old William Setterberg through

a mutual interest in meditation. At some point, the pair then became friendly with Vance Davis and Ken Beeson, two older colleagues with intriguing ideas about the capabilities of human beings. All four of the United States military employees were fundamentalists Christians committed to the beliefs of their church. Ken and Vance, both twenty six years old at the time, had got to know each other during their studies en route to

working for the U. S. Army. Drawn together by their shared interests and Christian faith, they had then begun to open up to each other about their somewhat more unusual beliefs and experiences. When Ken was five years old, he was convinced he'd witnessed a ghost in his bedroom. A few years later, he started suffering continual night terrors due to what he believed were visions of an impending armageddon.

He also became convinced that he'd lived in a previous life and had even once been sacrificed as an offering to the gods. As a teenager, Vance started to believe that the mind was an untapped resource of mystical power, and had even enrolled on a Silver mind control course in New York. The controversial course, developed by jose Silver in the nineteen sixties, was designed to help focus the mind in order to improve memory, but also, as some belief,

to help develop the power of extra sensory perception. After taking the course, Vance claimed he'd mastered the ability to hypnotize himself. Day, while placing himself in a deep trance, Vance believed he'd made contact with an alien entity who proceeded to explain to him that the human race was in grave danger and that an intergalactic war was raging

throughout the galaxy. Shortly after joining the military and completing his intelligence training, Vance claimed he was posted to Fort Meade on account of his proficiency of the Silver mind control technique, and there he was tasked with conducting psychic research. Not a great deal is known about Davis's time at Fort Meade, nor if he really was stationed there or not. However, as improbable as his story may sound, Fort Mead may be familiar to some listeners as the headquarters of just

exactly that kind of research. Established in nineteen seventy seven as the Gondola Wish Program would later become known as the Stargate Project, was a fully funded, twenty year effort to establish the potential for the use of psychic phenomena in warfare. The project's primary focus was in researching the use of remote viewing, with all the potential that offered for spying on people and events from great distances without

the use of technology. The unit had been established in response to an insistent rumour that the government of the Soviet Union had been investing heavily in psychotronic research, researching whether it was possible to destabilize people's minds with the power of thought alone. After a series of startling results at the Stamford Research Institute under the guidance of physicist Russell Targ and engineer Harold Putoff, the team's research was soon brought to the attention of the U S Department

of Defense. One prominent individual involved in the Stargate project was Major Stubblebs, who, as portrayed in the John Ronson book The Men Who Stare at Goats, had ambitions to create an entire army of soldiers trained in psychic warfare. As it happens, Stubblebyn had also spent time in Augsburg, Germany, where Vance Davis ken Beeson, Bill Setterberg, and Michael Hoigstadt

were stationed. Shortly before moving to Augsburg, ken Beeson was reminded of those terrifying dreams he'd experienced as a child, fearful that they might in fact be real visions of an approaching apocalypse. He began researching ways to investigate them. It was sometime in April nineteen ninety that Ken purchased a wigiboart, intrigued by the possibility of seeking answers from

the spirit world. After suggesting he and Vance try it out, they then asked Bill and Mike to join them, And so it was one night with the men gathered around the wigiboard in a private room in their barracks. Vance lit a candle and placed it in the middle of the table, then switched out the light. Mike took charge of an audio recorder as Bill readied himself with a paper and pencil to jot down whatever messages might come.

As fundamentalist Christians, the four men were wary about the dangers inherent in the wigiboard should they actually find themselves contacting someone or something from the other side. For protection, the men said a short prayer together, asking Jesus to give them a sign if they should not proceed. Getting nothing in response, the men continued. Ken and Vance placed their fingers on the planchet. Then Ken asked softly if anybody was there. Mike gasped as the planchet began to

slide slowly, but in a exorably toward the word. Yes, stop messing about, yelled Vance. I'm not, said Ken. Vance shot a glance around the room, suddenly feeling as though there was someone else in there with them stealing himself. He asked for the presents to introduce themselves. The planchet began to move again. S A F I R E. Sapphire,

said Ken out loud. Within minutes, as Bill furiously tried to keep up taking notes, the planchet had spelled out that Sapphire had once lived in a town in Georgia, USA, and had died in the nineteen sixties at the age of eighty two. Her attention then turned to Ken. Why had he stopped believing in his visions, she asked. Ken looked troubled. Why they set back? In return, because they

are true, came the response. The first session lasted three and a half hours, in which the apparent entity Sapphire elaborated on her shocking revelation. A cosmic battle between two alien species was being raged over Earth, she said, in which the human race were mere pawns. Only those with the correct knowledge, she insisted, would survive the resulting destruction.

With the men thoroughly spooked by their first session, it was another two weeks until they could reconvene around the board once more, but this time Sapphire was not alone. Over the course of eight hours, the men claimed to have communicated with numerous entities, calling themselves everything from Tanach Prophet Sechariah, to Mark and Timothy of the Christian Bible, and the blessed Virgin Mary herself, all of whom attested to the approaching apocalypse. While the men struggled to process

what was happening, Ken grew increasingly troubled. Needing more proof, he demanded that Sapphire provide some concrete evidence that she was who she said she was. She duly informed them that Ken's grandfather was with her, So what is his name? Then snapped Ken, but there was no reply. Then, after a five minute pause, the planchete began to move once more, spelling out the name John. Ken jumped from his seat,

Pulling the board from the table. He tore it in half and threw it across the room as the other men looked on in terror. Before they could ask what he was doing, Ken was already running out the door. It was three days later when Vance had an opportunity to check in on his friend. He found Ken alone in his room in a somber mood. It's true, he told him his grandfather's name was John. It was clear to both of them that they needed to learn more

from Sapphire. Over the next few weeks, the men gathered a further six times to commune with the apparent Sapphire, and were eventually joined by twenty year old Private first Class Chris Purlock and twenty two year old Sergeant Annette eccleston, who, having heard rumors of what had been going on, were

eager to see it all for themselves. During the sessions, Sapphire explained further that one of the alien races battling for Earth were trying to save humanity, the other were trying to destroy it, and had even made a deal with members of the U. S Government to give them power in return for the opportunity to carry out a mass abduction of the Earth's human population. This would be preceded by a series of cataclysmic events that would effectively bring about the end of the world as they knew it.

If the group took her advice, however, they could be taken off the planet and saved from this fate. Viewed through the prism of their fundamental Christian belief system, the group came to the conclusion that what Sapphire was detailing was, in actuality, the rapture which would make the impending destruction. She spoke of the Tribulation, a period of worldwide suffering and pain said to proceed or in fact, mark the end times, which would then be followed by the arrival

of the second Coming of Jesus. Sapphire gave the group a series of predictions, a list of violent events and cataclysms that would take place over the next next decade, in an effort to convince them further of her warnings. The first prediction, an earthquake in Iran that would result in tens of thousands being killed or injured, would take place imminently. The group finally had what they were looking for, something concrete to lend credibility to the apparent entities improbable claims.

All they needed to do then was wait. It had just gone past midnight local time in the early morning of June twenty first, nineteen ninety, when two hundred kilometers northwest of the Iranian capital Tehran. The ground shook with

devastating fury, with the initial shake lasting sixty seconds. An earthquake measuring seven point four on the Richter scale ruptured a dam, tore off chunks of mountainside, and raised more than one hundred towns and villages to the ground in an earth shattering hail of bricks and mortar, burying thousands in its wake. In total, up to forty thousand people were thought to have been killed and upwards of one

hundred thousand injured. Sapphire's prediction had come true. It was a few days later when Stan Johnson, a friend of Ken Beeson's, was at home in Bybee, Tennessee, when he received an unexpected phone call. It was Ken calling from Germany. The pair became friends shortly after. Ken had finished his army training in nineteen eighty seven, but had not spoken

a great deal in recent months. Without wanting to go into too much detail about why, Ken asked Stan to find him a van big enough to fit six people in it. When Stan let him know he'd found one, Ken then told him to meet him at nearby McGee Tyson Airport in Knoxville on July sixth. Sure enough, on July sixth, Ken arrived in Knoxville, accompanied by Mike Hoigstadt, with Stand there to meet them. Together, they drove to

the home of Bill Grant in nearby Morristown. Bill thought little of the men when they assembled on his driveway to inspect the van he was selling them and was happy to accept their money for it. It was only when he asked them shortly before they left what they planned to use it for that he was given pause

for thought. Ken explained matter of factly that they needed the van to drive to Pensacola Beach to prepare for the end of the world and the second coming of Jesus, and if they didn't make it in time, they would not be taken into the Kingdom of Heaven. And with that they were gone. Back at their barracks and Augsburg, Ken, Beeson and Mike Hoigstadt, superiors of the seven hundred first

Military Intelligence Brigade, were getting concerned. Though the pair had signed off on leave, a letter left behind by Ken seemed to suggest something unusual was going on to whom it concerns. It began, we are of sound mind and spirit. You will want to hide this letter, but we recommend that it be forwarded to the highest possible command. The following letter may sound wild, but what was said about the apostles in Christ's time? For it is said in the end young men will see visions of that to

come and hide themselves away for the battle. May you take warning in this time has come for a decision to be made, and they made theirs. Their works will be known throughout the lands, and many will be murdered for knowing them. You will search for these and thousands more like them, but you will be searching for nought. For God takes care of his elect and those that

follow them. It went on those of you who know of the truth and feel its pull, then leave all and search for the elect and their followers, as they are of God's chosen leaders. You of the world, listen carefully. The time is now to wake up your spirits and heed the warning. I'm the last to speak to you ever. Now the Elect take over the mission of the Apostles. Further search is uncovered the term end of world written on bits of paper belonging to one of the group.

Realizing that Vance Davis, William Setterberg, Chris Purlock, and Annette Eggleston were also absent from the base, some of them without even the pretense of authorized leave. The army sounded the alarm on July ninth, they issued a worldwide alert to ascertain their whereabouts. Back at that police station in Gulf Breeze, Mike was still refusing to give up the whereabouts of the others in the group, whom some had

begun referring to as the end of the World group. Meanwhile, at the home of Anna Foster, a few minutes drive away, there was a knock at the door. Foster, a self described psychic, had befriended Chris Purlock and later Ken Beeson while they were stationed in Pensacola. Opening the door, she

found two FBI officers waiting outside. Bursting into the property, the officers quickly located the rest of the group who'd been hiding out at Foster's apartment, with the exception of Annette, who was picked up soon after from a local campsite. The group's possessions, including four thousand dollars worth of cash, suitcases, briefcases, Foster's computer, and floppy discs, were all confiscated. Vance Davis alleged later that all The papers and notes pertaining to

the Wigia board sessions were also confiscated. Strangely, the officers were under orders not to ask any questions, merely to arrest the deserters and have them delivered to the brig at Pensacola Naval Air Station, where they were joined soon after by Mike Hoigstadt. The following day, the group were flown two hundred miles to Fort Benning in Georgia for interrogation before being taken to Fort Knox in Kentucky for

further questioning. With the press picking up the story soon after, Speculation was rife about just who the group were and what they were intending to do, as the public waited with bated breath to learn their fate, with the group having been in custody since July fourteen. The Pentagon gave a briefing on the incident on the seventeenth, describing the six as been part of an end of the World cult.

Two days later, a relative of the group told the press they were actually heading to Florida to expose a government cover up of UFOs. Soon after, the Pentagon retracted their statement, with no more information forthcoming. Relatives of the group grew increasingly concerned about their well being. In response, Chris Purlock's mother began a public media campaign to help

get them released. On July nineteenth, they were formally charged with desertion, a crime that ordinarily would lead to at the very least a dishonorable discharge from the army and a period of confinement for up to as much as three years. But then something strange occurred. On July twenty fifth, ten days after the group were apprehended, a strange message was sent to the Golf Breeze Sentinel, the local newspaper, and other news agencies. It read, ABC, NBC, CBS, ap

UPI US Army free the Golf Breeze six. We have the missing plans, the box of five hundred plus photos and the plans you want back. Here is proof with close ups cut out. Next we send the close ups and then everything unless they are released. Answer code augs BB three c M. The note was apparently accompanied by two photographs purporting to show two unidentified flying objects. The following day, all of the Golf Breeze six were released

without charge. Not only were they spared a trial by court martial, but they were also discharge with full honours. This was changed soon after, however, when Colin Powell, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, felt duty bound to intervene, as if to draw attention away from the unusually lenient punishment, Powell removed their discharge with full honors, deciding instead to have them discharged with

a loss of rank and one month's pay. Many have questioned the unusually soft outcome, suggesting that perhaps the group, in their capacity as intelligence analysts, had stumbled upon something genuine orbeit through rather unorthodox methods. Some have also suggested that perhaps the six were unwittingly being used as guinea pigs in a dummy psychic operation that ended up going

a little further than intended. The following year, the seven hundred first Military Intelligence Brigade were awarded the agency's Travis Trophy for being the nation's top performing signals intelligence unit that year. That this was the unit the group belonged to suggests that whatever we might think about this bizarre escapade, they were certainly thought more than capable enough by the U. S.

Army to be employed alongside their best intelligence analysts. Documents relating to the case were eventually declassified, including some of the group's personal records of the Wiga sessions they conducted. However, it has been reported that fourteen hundred pages out of the sixteen hundred relating to the case remain classified. I'd like to thank Patricia Cortez for introducing me to this week's story. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created

by Richard McClain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, were also used by me. Richard McClean Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories you've

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