S05 Episode 4: How the End Always Is

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, editor of local newspaper,

The Golf Breeze Sentinel. The pictures, evocatively lit, dark and grainy polaroids showing 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 same strange object they'd seen only 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 had congregated together at UFO watching parties held at Shoreline Park, where they gazed out across the Gulf of Mexico and up toward the heavens in 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 that she too had witnessed something inexplicable while driving across

Pensacola Bay Bridge. It was there that she caught sight of a strange orange light hanging low over the town. The light appeared to bob up and down behind distant trees, pulsating with no discernible rhythm. It was like nothing she'd ever seen before. It was perhaps fitting that such an occurrence would take place in this part of the world, only ten kilometers across the bay from the pioneering US

Naval Training School Naval Air Station Pensacola. Since its founding in nineteen fourteen, the station has trained thousands of naval aviators, and among its most distinguished alumni was none other than the first Man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong. But let's get back to that VW van. It was sometime around three am in the early morning of Saturday, July fourteenth, nineteen ninety that Golfbree's police officer Don Stephens cruised on to U S Highway ninety eight and spotted the errant

v W. Perhaps intrigued by its Tennessee license plate. Stephens was already trailing 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. Officer 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 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. Good evening, officer, said the man. Squinting into the torchlight, Stephens noted his

accent was some way off of Florida, Wyoming. Perhaps maybe he was one of the eight hundred out of towners who turned up the previous weekend for the annual Mouffon conference. He thought the mutual UFO network had elected to have its conference there that year on account of the recent spate of sightings in the region license and Registration, said the officer. The driver visibly tensed up. I'm afraid I

don't have any idea on me, he said. Officer Stephens stood for a moment, looking the driver up and down as the occasional car wushed past behind. He angled the torch toward the back of the van, but found no one else inside. Name then, he said, the driver seemed to hesitate. Michael Huckstead, 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, suddenly

catching Stephens off guard. Back in his squad car, Stephens waited on his colleagues at the station until finally they found a match. Michael Huckstead, nineteen years old from Farsen, Wyoming, or rather private first Class Michael Huckstead of the US Army. Michael'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 wall. Officer Stephens made its way back to the van and ordered Michael to step out of it. You don't know what you've done, said Michael in despair. You just signed my death warrant. Mike pleaded again with the officer, even offering a bribe to let him go, but Stevens had no intention of doing so. After making a quick search of the vehicle, Officer Stephens found a cash 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 of the line. 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 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 simultaneously go a war from the United States Military was unusual enough in itself, but as more and more 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 military's entire history. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McLean Smith. What hadn't been revealed to Sheriff Brown at his colleagues was that nineteen year old

Michael Huckstad was no ordinary foot soldier. He was an information specialist trained at Cory Station, the US Navy's Center for Information Warfare UKSTETT, had been instructed on cryptology, coding, and decoding communication, and for the past few months had been stationed in Augsburg, Germany, where he worked 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 US 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 Varce Davis and Ken Beeson, two older colleagues with intriguing ideas about the capabilities of human beings. All four of them were fundamentalist Christians, utterly committed to the beliefs of their church. Ken Advance, both twenty six years old at the time, had got to know each other during their studies on the way to

working for the U. S Army. Drawn together by their shared interests and Christian faith, they gradually began 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 began suffering continual night terrors due to

what he believed were visions of an impending armageddon. He also became convinced that he lived a previous life and had even once been sacrificed as an offering to the gods. As a teenager, Fans Davis became convinced 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 believe, to help develop the power of extrasensory perception. After taking the course, Fans

claimed to have mastered the ability to hypnotize himself. One day, after placing himself in a deep trance, Fans believed he 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, Davis claims he was posted to Fort Meade on account of his proficiency of the Silver mind control technique. While there,

he was apparently tasked with conducting psychic research. Not a great deal is known about Davis's time at Fort Meade, or if he really was stationed there at all. However, as improbable as his story may sound, fort Meade 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, what 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 so searching the use of remote viewing, the idea that it was possible to spy on people and events from great distances

using only the power of the mind. The unit had been established in response to an insistent rumor that the Soviet Union had been investing heavily in psychotronic research, the study of whether it was possible to destabilize people's minds with the power of thought. Back in the early nineteen seventies, research conducted by physicist Russell Targ and engineer Harold put Off at the Stamford Research Institute hinted at a startling

possibility that telepathy might be real. Their experiments were so provocative they soon drew the attention of the United States Department of Defense. These experiments would form the foundation of the Stargate project. One prominent individual involved in Stargate was Major Albert Stubblebin, 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. Stubblebyn, as it happens, had also spent time in Augsburg, Germany, where Vance Davis ken Beeson, Bill Setterberg, and Michael Huckstet 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 genuine visions of an approaching apocalypse, he began researching ways to investigate them.

It was sometime in April nineteen ninety that Ken purchased at Wigiboort. Intrigued by the possibility of seeking his answers from the spirit world, he then invited Vance, Bill and Mike to join him. One night, Vance, Bill, and Mike were gathered together in a private room in their barracks as Ken laid out the wigiboard before them. Then Vance lit a candle and placed it in the middle of

the table and switched out the light. Mike took charge of the audio recorder as Bill readied himself with a paper and pencil to jot down whatever messages might come through. Wait said, Vance, shouldn't we protect ourselves first? As fundamentalists Christians, the four men were wary of the inherent dangers 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 Advance placed their fingers on the planchet. Then Ken asked softly if anybody was there. Mike gasped as the planchet began to slide slowly burt inexorably toward the word yes, stop messing about, yelled Vance. I'm not, replied Ken. Vance glanced around the room with the sudden feeling that they were no longer alone. Stealing himself, he asked for the present to introduce themselves. The planchet began

to move again. Ken spoke the letters out loud as it moved from one to the other s A F I, R E Sapphire, he said, with confusion as Bill furiously tried to keep up taking notes. The plant had spelled out that Sapphire 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 do you ask? He said back in return,

Because they are true, came the response. The first Weija 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, 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 gathered round the board for a second time, 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 Tannic prophet Zechariah 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's his name? Then snapped Ken, but there was no reply. Then, after a five minute, the planchete began to move, once again, 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 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 was true, he told him his grandfather's name was John. It was clear then 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 Eggleston, who having heard rumors of what had been going on, were eager to see it for themselves. During the subsequent sessions, Sapphire explained further that while one of the alien races battling for Earth were trying to save humanity, the other

was trying to destroy it. They had apparently 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 would be taken off the planet and saved from

this fate. Viewed through the prism of their fundamentalist 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, which is said in the Bible to proceed or in fact mark the end times, which would then be followed by the arrival of the

second Coming of Jesus. It was claimed that Sapphire gave the group a series of predictions, a list of violent events and cataclysms that would take place over the next decade, in an effort to convince them further of her warnings. The first prediction, an earthquake in Iran that would supposedly result in tens of thousands being killed or injured, would take place imminently. Another was that sometime in the not too distant future, a war breakout in the Middle East

between the United States and Iraq. The group finally had what they were looking for, something concrete to lend credibility to the apparent entities improbable claims. All they had to do then was weight. It had just gone past midnight local time in the early morning of June twenty first, nineteen twenty, 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 townsand villages to the ground in an earth shattering hail of bricks and water, 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, it seemed, had

come true. It was a few days later when Stan Johnson, a friend of Ken Beeson's, was at home in by B Tennessee, when he received an unexpected phone call. It was Ken calling from Germany. The pair had become friends not long after Ken 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 got back to him to let him know he'd found one, Ken then told his confused friend to meet him at the nearby Knoxville's McGee Tyson Airport on July sixth. Sure Enough, on July sixth, Ken arrived at Knoxville accompanied by Michael Huckstead, with Stand there to meet them. They drove together 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, he said, they would not be taken into the Kingdom of Heaven,

and with that they were gone. Back at their barracks in Haughtsburg, Ken Beeson and Mike Huckstet's, superiors of the seven hundred first Military Intelligence Brigade, were growing concerned. Though the pair had signed off on leave, a letter left behind by Ken seemed to suggest that 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 murder for knowing them. You will search for these and thousands more like them, but you

will be searching for naught. God takes care of his elect and those that follow them. It went on. If you listen to this letter, you who claim to be of Christ, our Lord, 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 searches around Ken and Mike's barracks uncovered the term end of world written on various pieces of paper. A short time later, it was realized that Vance Davis, William Setterberg, Chris Perlock, and Annette eccleston had also disappeared from the base, and so it was that on July ninth, a worldwide

alert was issued to bring them back back. At that police station in Golf Breeze, Mike was still refusing to give up the whereabouts of the others, whose 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. She opened the door to find two FBI officers waiting outside, Bursting into the property, the officers quickly located the rest of the group, who had all been hiding out at foss apartment, with the exception of a net who was picked up soon after from a local camping site. The group's possessions, including four thousand dollars worth of cash, suitcases, Foster's computer, and floppy discs,

were all confiscated. Vance Davis alleged later that all the papers and notes pertaining to the Wija 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 Michael Huckstadt. The following day, the group were flown two hundred odd 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 fourteenth, The Pentagon gave an official briefing on the incident on the seventeenth, describing the six as

being part of an end of the World cult. Two days later, a relative told the press the group had in fact been 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 three years. But then something strange occurred. On July twenty fifth, ten days after the group were apprehended, a strange message was sent to local newspaper,

The Golf Breeze Sentinel, and other news agencies. It read, ABC, NBC, CBS, AP UPI U S 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. The note was apparently accompanied by two photographs purporting to show

two unidentified flying objects. The following day, all six of the group, dubbed the Golf Breeze six, were released without charge. Not only were they spared a trial by court martial, but they were also discharged with full honors. This was upgraded soon after, however, when Colin Powell, who was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, felt

duty bound intervene. As if to draw attention away from the unusually lenient punishment, Powell removed their discharge with full honors and instead had them discharged with a loss of rank and one month's pay. Many have questioned the unusually soft outcome, with the suggestion that perhaps the group, in their capacity as intelligence analysts, had stumbled upon some genuine

albeit through rather unorthodox methods. Some have also suggested that perhaps the golf Breeze six had unwittingly been used as guinea pigs in a dummy psychic operation that ended up going a little further than intended. In nineteen ninety one, the seven hundred and 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, the individuals involved were certainly thought more than capable enough by the US Army to be employed alongside their best intelligence analysts. The documents relating to the case were eventually declassified. They included some of the

group's personal records of the WIJA sessions they'd can do did. However, it has been reported that fourteen hundred pages out of sixteen hundred relating to the case remain classified. Thank you as ever for listening Unexplained as an AV Club Productions podcast created by Richard McLain Smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now

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