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, to 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 also 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'd suddenly 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
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 that Gulf Breeze Police officer Don Stevens cruised onto US Highway ninety eight and spotted the errant VW perhaps in Tregue by its Tennessee number plate. Stevens 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.
Stevens 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. Stevens knocked on the window and motioned for the driver to wind it down. Evening, officer said the man. Squinting into the torchlight, Stevens 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 weekend for the annual moufon fence. 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. Stevens stood for a moment, looking the driver up and down, as the occasional car bushed 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 Hoikstat, he replied. Finally, Stevens told Michael to sit tight while he get the station to run his name through the database. Please don't,
pleaded Michael. Catching Stevens off guard. Back in his squad car, Stevens waited on his colleagues at the station until finally they found a match Michael Hoikstat, nineteen years old from Fasten, Wyoming, or rather private first class Michael Hoikstat of the US 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 warn. 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 Stevens had no intention of doing so. After conducting a quick search of the vehicle, Stevens found a cachet of food enough to last for months, as well as camping gear and a hamburg on how
to survive in the wild packed in the back. Offering no further resistance, Mike was arrested and taken to Gulf Breeze Police Station while station Sheriff Jerry Browne 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. Browne was asked if Mike had told him where the rest of the deserters were, but he was
refusing to co operate. After making the appropriate cause, Browne 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 Military's entire history. You're listening to Unexplained, and I'm Richard McClean Smith. What hadn't been revealed to Sheriff Brown at his colleagues was that nineteen year old Michael Hoikstat was no ordinary foot soldier, but an information specialist. Trained at Corey Station, the US Navy's Center for Information Warfare.
Hoikstat had been instructed on cryptology, coding and decoding communication, and for the past few months had been stationed in Auksburg, 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 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 Aukesburg, 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, too, older colleague 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 armor geddon. 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, Vans 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 extrasensory perception. After taking the course, Vance claimed he'd
mastered the ability to hypnotize himself. One day, while placing himself and a deep trance, fans 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. Green Chef is a USDER certified organic company that makes eating well easy and affordable, with plans to fit every kind of lifestyle.
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for more details. Shortly after joining the military and completing his intelligence training, fans 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 was stationed there or not. However, as improbable as his story may sound, Fought 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, 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 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 rumor that the government of the Soviet Union had been investing heavily in psychatronic research, researching whether it was possible to destabilize people's minds with the power of thought alone. After a series of staring results at the Stamford Research Institute under the guidance of physicist Russell Targ and engineer Harold put Off, the team's research was soon brought to the attention of the US
Department of Defense. One prominent individual involved in the Stargate project was Major Stubblebein, 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, Stubblebeyn had also spent time in Augsburg, Germany, where Vance, Davis ken Beeson, Bill Setterberg, and Michael Hougstadt
were stationed. Shortly before moving to Auksburg, 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 wija board, 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 wija board 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 weija board 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 recede. Getting nothing in response, the men continued. Ken and Advance placed their fingers on the planchet Then Ken asked softly if anybody was there. Mike gasped as the planchet began to
slide slowly but inexorably 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 planchette 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 the 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 said 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 Tannach prophet Secchariah, 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 planchet 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 US 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 to occur 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 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 west of the Iranian capital to Iran, 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 mountain side, 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 calls. 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 Stan 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. Care Of is a wellness brand that makes it easy to maintain your health goals with the customized vitamin plan that helps you feel your best today and supports you
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Once again, that's take care of dot com and enter code unexplained five zero for fifty percent off your first order. Back at their barracks in Aukesburg, Ken Beeson and Mike Hoistat, 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, she has uncovered the term end of World written on bits
of paper belonging to one of the group. Realizing that fans 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, engulfed breeze, Mike was still refusing to give up the whereabouts of the others in the group, who 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. Vans Davis alleged later that all the papers and notes pertaining to
the Wuija 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 in terror gastion 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 a 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 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 formerly charged with desertion, a crime that ordinarily would lead to it 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 Gulf Breeze Sentinel,
the local newspaper and other news agencies. It read ABC, NBC, CBS, AP UP, I, U S Army free the Gulf 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 A U G S B B three C M. The note was apparently accompanied by two photographs purporting to show two unidentified flying objects. The following day, all of
the Gulf 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 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 the 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, albeit 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 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 suggest that whatever we might think about this bizarre escapade, they were certainly thought more than capable enough by the US 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 Wiger 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.
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