In Research Of

⚠️ Heads up: this episode opens with combat footage from the Tet Offensive and includes graphic descriptions of battlefield injury, a child in medical crisis, and animal experimentation. If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available by call or text at 988.⚠️

Jeb and Blake look at the birth of NDE research: a field of study with a significant footprint in the metro-Atlanta area. Rats are bothered. Soldiers are wounded. Canadian teens are frozen. ...and we're here to talk about all of it.

Despite the title, this one isn't really abou...

Note: This episode briefly touches on the topic of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling or texting 988.

Blake and Jeb crash headlong into S05E04 of In Search Of... on the topic of Daredevil Death Wish.

Episode Summary

This In Search Of episode asks a surprisingly straightforward question for this show: what drives daredevils to risk their lives? Rather than chasing aliens or cryptids, the episode plays it remarkably straight - functioning more as a documentary about stunt performers than the paranormal-adjacent fare...

Jeb and Blake tackle In Search Of...'s S05E03 topic of Lee Harvey Oswald.

Episode Summary

This In Search Of episode examines the assassination of President John F. Kennedy through the lens of (at the time this aired) newly discovered acoustic evidence and Cold War intrigue. Rather than accepting the Warren Commission's conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, the episode presents "new evidence" suggesting a conspiracy involving multiple gunmen, potential Soviet involvement, and even the extraordinary theory that the man killed by Jack Ruby may not have been the real Lee Harvey Oswald...

Blake and Jeb discuss ISO's coverage of FAITH HEALING. The episode goes to places new and old. Jeb gives us historical context. Blake gets angry. Nimoy wears a lab coat.

EXTENSIVE Show Notes on our free Patreon page

Weirdumentary has a forward by Stephen Bissette who wrote a book also likely to be of interest to listeners: Cryptid Cinema (affiliate link)
(A follow-up to that book is under construction and will include research by your's truly about the "4-walling" tour of the PGF.)

I linked to Feral House's page for Weirdumentary above at the request of Gary. If you're curious about their catalog, we talked with their owner recently about monstrous food and they also produced Al Ridenour's new book about Carnival.

This is not a complete list of the...

Show less

Jeb and Blake kick off Season 5 of In Search Of... by researching UFO COVERUPS!

Links: 

UFO Crash at Roswell

Catalina UFO Footage and Reddit discussion of same

Twilight Zone - A Small Talent for War

Malmstrom UFO Incident

Obit for Col. Donald Burggrabe

Peter Gersten "the UFO Lawyer"

Raymond Fowler

Col. Robert Friend - and obit

Jesse Marcel Sr.

NASA Lifting Body

Northrop Flying Wing

Doak VZ-4 (not a saucer!)

Blake and Jeb go In Research Of PAST LIVES with Leonard Nimoy. Subjects include reincarnation claims, past-life regression therapy, and some truly baffling Nimoy wardrobe choices. Link to YouTube Episode (while it lasts) Topics we cover include:

Nimoy wandering a Los Angeles graveyard in a strange quasi-military sport coat, and Blake's detective work tying the filming location to Evergreen Cemetery in Boyle Heights.

The famous Pollock twins case from Hexham, England, where two girls were said to be the reincarnations of their deceased sisters — and how later research complicates the story.

Dr. Lucia Ca...

Jeb and Blake ponder Atlantis and "healing holes" in the waters off the coast of Bimini. (Weirdly this is almost literally true as Blake ended up actually in Bimini just a week before this ep released. More on that soon.)

Links for Shownotes:

Roby Yonge on "The Beatles Paul is Dead"

Neptune Memorial Reef

"Psychic" Irene Hughes

Bimini Wall

Edgar Cayce

Beachrock

The Healing Hole

More on the crystal ball from 2010 (Cayce related)

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Flashback to January 2018:
In this episode of MonsterTalk, we return to discussion of the Ultraterrestrial Hypothesis (UTH) and what seems to be its growing influence in paranormal circles. It's been used to explain UFOs, mothman, bigfoot, fairies, dogman, ghosts and many other phenomena which defy scientific demonstrability. Now it crops up again in a new film event titled Alien Intrusion which turned out to be a stealth evangelical creationist film which suggests that aliens and UFOs are actually demonic. We are joined by MonsterTalk alum Joe Laycock, Natasha Mikles and Jeb Card to discuss the UTH and Jeb's Paran...

This is part 2 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. If you haven't listened to Part-1, please turn over the record and start again.

Additional show notes available (for free) on our Patreon page:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/s4-bonus-mothman-129987183 

This is part 1 of our 2-part coverage of The Mothman Prophecies movie. This is in lieu of S04E21 (see below) but we hope you enjoy the content and after part 2, we return to our regularly scheduled episodes list.

"So... Air Disasters Predictions, Jeb? What do you think we'll get?"

Well it turned out to be more than we expected. During our research for this episode we ran into a bit of a puzzle. It turns out that one of the key figures in the episode is still alive and has become a...

Jeb and Blake go in search of John the Baptist's resting place.

Content Warning: Human remains on screen. Discussion of murder.

Beheading John the Baptist (wiki)

Salome (play)

In 2018 the murder of Bishop Epiphanius took place and rocked the religious community -- not important for this episode but it popped up a lot in my searching.

San Silvestro "head" shown in intro

Same - but wiki article

Nimoy Fashion Alert 
(NFA Wardrobe consulting by The Hogtown Rake, Pedro Mendes)

<...

Blake tries to talk Jeb off the ledge as we return to the classic theme of "ancient astronauts" in this throwback episode titled: Earth Visitors.

Some links relevant to our discussion:

Dejah Thoris (character)

MUFON/Harzan scandal

Roman Dodecahedrons (archaeology)

Frank Frazetta

Boris Vallejo

We mention Zecharia Sitchin.

Research suggests humans grow more neurons than did Neanderthals.

A bunch of this episode comes from the work of Maurice Chatelain, who we shall refer to as "Shadowlane." His book Our Cosmic Ancestors...

Jeb and Blake head out to sea in research of the mystery of what happened to the crew of The Mary Celeste. 

Links:

The Dei Gratia

Nimoy Fashion Alert 
(NFA Wardrobe consulting by The Hogtown Rake, Pedro Mendes)

 Attorney Fred Flood

In 1913, The Strand Magazine provided an alleged survivor's account from one Abel Fosdyk, supposedly Mary Celeste's steward.

The Mary Celeste (1913 article)

Per "WhatTheFont" website identifier, that font is (appropriately):  JOLLY ROGER! 

Meanwhile on Skull Hut Island...

...

Jeb and Blake go into the jungles of California and France in search of WILD CHILDREN! 

This episode of ISO contains a lot of disturbing content and our commentary is laced with expletives, hence the Explicit tag.

Tarzan is raised by a fictional ape species known as The Mangani

The story of Mowgli is LOOOOSELY based on the real-life person Dina Sanichar.

Frequently referenced ERB Zine article

Ian Jackson obituary

News coverage of David as adult (BBC)

2021 update on David

1985 story about...

How could Vincent have been a creative genius - yet also "insane?"
Jeb and Blake take a look at Nimoy's very personal thoughts about this question.

This episode deals with the topic of self-harm and suicide. If you're struggling with thoughts of self harm, please get help immediately.  You can reach trained and empathetic counselors (in the USA) by dialing 988 or 1-800-273-TALK. 

We care about our listeners and want you to be around for many years to enjoy life - and our work.

Links for Show Notes:

N...

Jeb and Blake learn all about the riveting world of stock certificates and inheritance law! It may not be the most mysterious episode of In Search Of... but it's certainly one of the episodes we watched.

Show Notes:

Orson Welles Critic Clip
Lot 249
Texas Pacific Land trust 1980 article
The big 2014 Business Insider article


Pembroke:
http://www.oldlongisland.com/2008/02/pembroke.html
http://www.oldlongisland.com/2011/10/pembroke.html
http://www.oldlongisland.com/2009/07/pembroke-american-architect.html

Pembroke tour (video)

Alice de Lamar

Failed lawsuit

Jeb and Blake are joined by Sharon Hill to get shook by the San Andreas Fault!

Understanding the Richter Scale (logarithmic)

Link (Netflix) to Earthstorm docu series

YT video clip featuring geologist Dr. Kerry Sieh

Classic Budweiser commercial from the 70s

The Salton Sea

Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power

Nuclear activist Ray Vrana

Peter Gros of Wild Kingdom

San Andreas movie with The Rock (Amz affiliate link)

Cover to guide for SF geological tour:

In order to understand In Search Of… The Dark Star, Jeb and Blake will first need to get Sirius; Sirius-B, that is!

Links from this episode:

Siris (A part of the Canis Major constellation) 

Jeb discussed a couple of evocative artworks:
 Appeal to the Great Spirit (Dallin)

End of the Trail (Fraser) 

North African musket (Moukahla)

Colonial Williamsburg

Hoop Rolling

Jacquard Loom

Punched Cards technology

The Hans Guggenheim art project

Isa...

Blake and Jeb look for the real location of Mt. Sinai, where Moses was supposed to have received the Ten Commandments from God.

Jeb and Blake extinguish our cigarettes, put our trays in the upright position, and head out the back of the plane in search of the elusive skyjacker known as D. B. Cooper.

Nimoy Fashion Alert - dimly lit corporate office edition.

D. B. Cooper - Wikipedia

The Pursuit of D. B. Cooper (Movie) - if you buy it on Amazon we get a few pennies.

Recent Netflix series on D. B. Cooper

Blake's friend Rick Ollerman offered some opinions on vintage round parachutes.

Jeb and Blake join Leonard Nimoy's search for Pompeii!  (Well - is it really about finding Pompeii?  Or is it about finding a possibly Christian cross in Pompeii?  Tune in and find out!)

Links: 

Depictions of the crucifixion in Medieval Art

People debating the cross at Pompeii

Christian graffiti at Pompeii

House of the Faun - Pompeii

About that "lost Legion" thing

Discovery and rediscovery of Pompeii

Giuseppe Fiorelli 

Terentius Neo

Lupinar

Villa of Mysteries

Jeb and Blake track the last cryptozoology episode of the original In Search Of… as we join the late Peter C. Byrne in a search for "The Abominable Snowman."

Imagining the Wild Man: Yeti Sightings in Folktales and Newspapers of the Darjeeling and Kalimpong Hills

More on Tom Slick - MonsterTalk

Monty Python "abattoir" sketch

Searching for Sasquatch (affiliate link)

Article about Byrne still "hunting" in his 90s.

The Eternal Return

Bigfoot Map

Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds (YouTube)

Horror in...

Jeb is right at home as we go In Search Of... Mexican Pyramids! Links from research

Sacrifice City

Great Pyramid of Cholula

Templo Mayor

Ruz' Palenque Dissertation

The Christmas Robbery of the Century

Secrets of the Maya Temple (1958)

Museo (2018) movie about the robbery - affiliate link

Dr. Joe Nickell recalls his experiences working on the Season 4 episode of In Search Of… dealing with The Shroud of Turin.

note: This interview will be cross-posted to MonsterTalk. The interview contents will be identical, but the framing intro/outro will be unique to the respective shows. 

In Research Of… (Patreon)

In Research Of (free feed)

In Search Of… The Shroud of Turin (YouTube)

Joe Nickell covered by The Daily Mail

That's Incredible! segment on THE AMITYVILLE HORROR. (YouTube)

Joe Nickell's website

Joe's Amazon...

Jeb and Blake unwrap the mystery of the shroud of Turin! (Which might, it turns out, be neither a shroud, nor from Turin - talk amongst yourselves!)

Link to ISO on YouTube: While it lasts!

The bucket brigade saves the shroud in re-creation...

NFA - A return to "the Night Gallery?"

Young Joe Nickell at work in Alan Landsburg's NYC apartment:

The Rev. Francis Filas (1931 - 1985 - NYT OBIT)

Prescriptive Linguistics

Descriptive Linguistics

Overview of...

S04E06 - The Lost Colony of Roanoke

The ISO team take us back to Colonial Virginia to investigate the cold-case of the lost colony of Roanoke. Jeb and Blake learn about armadas, plays, and rock diaries.

Beach Action Nimoy Fashion Alert!

The Money Shot...

Blake thinks the ISO actor is giving off Keenan Wynn vibes.

And we've already discussed the ties between Rod Serling, Leonard Nimoy, Night Gallery, and more, so the visual similarities to this scene and Planet of the Apes mi...

We're going to need a bigger boat!  Jeb and Blake head to Australia to investigate the idea that Great White sharks are immortal!

Links:
1977 San Diego article about Sea World's shark exhibit

Article about weird things allegedly found inside sharks.

Henri Bource - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Bource

Groo the Wanderer

NFA - on the beach!

Sharks are famous for their teeth - and Nimoy's have improved since season one as well.

Nimoy just walking on the beach m...

Jeb and Blake have a look at the Season 4 episode UFO AUSTRALIA which covers the Kaikoura UFO Sighting and the disappearance of Frederich Valentich. 

Nimoy Fashion Alert shot on location at the San Fernando Aerospace Solar Observatory. 

Jeb, Blake and Alex French go in research of The Amityville Horror!

Typewriters 101 site

History vs Hollywood: Amityville

History of the House

The Warren Omission

The Calamityville Horror

The Dictionnaire Infernal

Nimoy gives us the calm and rational look in the midst of so much weirdness!

So many faceless re-enactors in this one!

Horror writer Jay Anson and his trusty typewriter!

And this episode is quite notable fo...

Jeb and Blake look back at the ISO team's coverage of the global manhunt for the terrorist known as "Carlos."

This episode gets an Explicit tag because of language.

Nimoy Fashion Alert:

Dr. Frederick Hacker (Obit) 

Carlos - aka The Jackal  (Wiki)

Raid on Entebbe (Wiki)

Carnaby Street, England (Wiki)

Friendship University, Russia (Wiki)

News story about how Carlos got his name

Nydia Toban (Obit) 

Carlos's Lawyer/"wife" 

Additional background material on this episode is available for Patrons.
Jeb and Blake wade into the first episode of season 4 of In Search Of... to learn a thing or two about tsunamis. (Yes, the producers actually said that they called it "tidal waves" because if they'd used "tsunami" Americans wouldn't have bothered to find out what it was about.  I remember being taught the "new" term during my basic education. -B)

Lots of good footage, interviews, reenactments, and science in this one!  

Nimoy Fashion - Henley Shirt (we assume he's wearing pants below the cu...

Blake and Jeb discuss their thoughts on the third season of In Search Of...

Things get... weird.

Jeb and Blake head out into the valley of the kings to learn more about King Tut. 

History of the Valley of the Kings 

Pyramid Secrets (IRO S02E09) 

Significance of pyramids (Benben) 

The Colossi of Memnon (the singing statue) 

Nimoy Fashion - in the desert 

Demotic writing 

Example of Cartouche:

James Lew - martial artist & actor 

The complex history of the Noah's Ark Hoax (article by Jim Lippard)
(featuring Gerald Larue)

We're joined by Dr. Nathan French to discuss the Biblical tale of Sodom and Gomorrah and the ISO team's efforts to examine archaeological evidence supporting its actual historical existence. Nimoy Fashion:

Dr. Avrahamm Biran (1909 - 2008)

The concept of Biblical Maximalism

The big dig at Ebla where the library of clay tablets was found.

In 1976 Giovanni Pettinato claimed tablets found at the dig contained the names of five cities of the plain including Sodom and Gomorrah. Modern scholarly consensus is that this was incorrect.

...

We are joined again by Alex French to discuss "Brain Power."  No kids were harmed, but some hosts were shaken. The ISO episode contains outdated wording about cognitive states that are now considered offensive.  Our podcast episode steers clear of that but we wanted you to be aware if you decided to watch the original episode. 

Nimoy Fashion:

Discussed in this episode:

The Raimondi Stele (Jeb discusses flipping it to see different interpretation)

Discussion of Haeckle's Embryos (Amazon Affiliate Link)
Article on controversy (New Scientist)

The 1997 art...

Jeb and Blake drag Alex French back into the studio to endure a "ghostly stakeout" with the sultry voiced Sylvia Browne.

Haunted Lives (Tobe Hooper, Nimoy, Sylvia Browne)

The Dead Files - S01E09 Scandal in the South (episode set in Blake's hometown of Cartersville, GA)

1972 Akai Video Camera

Sylvia Browne - self-proclaimed psychic - and she started a church!

Site of first "haunting" in renovated farmhouse (which burned in the 1980s)

Near the village of Jenner

An...

A look at the Hope Diamond and other allegedly cursed gems from recent history. 

DeBeers slogan (1947) predates Bond book (1956) and is different:
A Diamond Is Forever | Diamonds Are Forever

The Gift - anthro book about reciprocity
Superman and the giant spider story - Kevin Smith

Osiander's preface to Copernicus

Robert Conrad (the actor) famous battery ads from 1979

David Trampier - artist for D&D PHB

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Re...

We're joined by Sharon Hill to look into the vital 1970s question: Was Noah's Ark Real? (And does it disprove Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection?)  spoilers: No and No. 

The episode opens with "footage" (re-creations, repurposed footage) of the famous 1889 Flood.

The footage in the movie appears to be from a short film called The World that Perished (1977) but we couldn't find a version of that to share. 

The 1976 film In Search of Noah's Ark is available (in poor quality) on YouTube. 

Nimoy reminds of us the other Ark with...

We follow Nazi Hunter Simon Weisenthal as he hunts the notorious war criminal Josef Mengele. 

Simon Wiesenthal - wiki

Josef Mengele - wiki

Dr. Ellen Lingens - wiki

Juan Domingo Peron - wiki

The Big Gun - Gerald Bull, Saddam Hussein and the Mossad 

Read about Escape from Sobibor - this is an amazing story

There is the "real" ODESSA and then there's the fictional novel and film The ODESSA FIle.

Shadow over Günzburg

What really happened to Mengele? Britannica