Sometimes the UFO field takes a right turn into the dark recesses of the downright grim. The man called Stanley Romanek has had a pretty weird life. A prominent author and expert on alien and UFO phenomena, he is also well-known as being an alien abductee, which entails those individuals who claim to have been kidnapped by aliens for reasons we may never understand. Besides being an abductee, Romanek has a pretty unusual pedigree even within the UFO field, as his claims of alien contact really run the range of the weird, going well above and beyond the usual oddness. In the year 2000 he claims that he had his first abduction experience, during which time he was allegedly experimented on, and according to him he would be abducted numerous other times. He claimed that the aliens often communicated with him telepathically, and while this might seem pretty mundane by normal abductee standards, this is not even nearly the end of the strangeness. Here we go down the rabbit hole of a man who was embroiled in some really rather bizarre UFO stuff, as well as a dark secret life and unspeakable crimes.

Unlike the usual straight forward alien abduction claims, some of Romanek’s stories really went out past the stratosphere of the odd into the furthest reaches of the bizarre, and over the course of numerous supposed abductions by these aliens some of his stories really stand out. He says that on several occasions he had woken with lost time and inexplicable cuts and other wounds on his body, which oddly glowed brightly when put under a black light. He claims that under hypnosis he would remember that these strange wounds had been inflicted upon him by the aliens using inscrutable medical procedures. On another occasion he woke from one of these experiences and was baffled to find that he was now wearing a woman’s dress. How did he end up in women’s clothing? Why, the aliens did it of course, and not only that, but he was convinced that this wasn’t just any dress, but rather the actual dress that Betty Hill had worn during her famous alien abduction. Why the aliens would do this, Romanek doesn’t say. There was also the time that they installed an implant into his leg. He also claims that the aliens would frequently talk with him either telepathically or through a device known as a “ghost box,” basically an electronic audio device designed to pick up the voices of ghosts, called “electronic voice phenomena,” or EVP.

Stanley Romanek

Throughout these abductions Romanek claims that there was an ominous undercurrent to it all. He would say that the aliens constantly monitored him and followed him around, sometimes even breaking into his home. There also seemed to be others keeping tabs on him, both malevolent and benign. One of these was a mysterious call from a woman with a British accent who called him “Starseed,” and reassured him that he was special and important and that he should not be afraid of what he is, but follow his instincts and stay alert. Another person who contacted him was a little girl who called herself “Kioma” and who claimed to be one of his 9 (!) alien hybrid daughters. Other parties following him around were decidedly more nefarious, and he would complain of being subjected to stalking, harassment, computer hacking, intimidation, and even assault, all in what he claims was an effort to silence him on what he had experienced. So, did Romanek have any evidence for any of this? Well, that’s kind of a long, weird story in and of itself.

Romanek would claim to have taken various photographs and videos of these UFOs and aliens, with perhaps the most famous being what has come to be called the “Boo Video.” The video in question is taken in Romanek’s bedroom, and allegedly shows at one point an alien face leering in through the window. It is blurry and indistinct, like many other similar videos, but Romanek insisted that it was genuine, even going so far as to take a lie detector test over its authenticity after being suggested that he take one by radio host George Noory on the popular paranormal program Coast to Coast AM. Unfortunately for him, he failed the test, but that’s OK, because he would also claim that he had a mysterious medical condition that prevented lie detectors from working for him, later even accusing Noory of having set up the lie detector test to fail from the beginning. Right, then.

This would highlight another aspect of Romanek, which is that he was able to come up with an excuse for his lack of being able to show any concrete evidence at every turn. Seriously, he has a weasel excuse for everything. When he appeared on in an interview on ABC Primetime and someone wanted to examine the supposed alien implant in his leg, he agreed, yet when the time came for him to actually be examined he said it had mysteriously disappeared. When some of his photographic evidence was found to be almost definitely faked, he blamed the shady parties following him of capturing him in a nefarious plot to discredit him. He would use a similar excuse when he admitted that he had faked video footage of moving objects, but then said it was only because authorities had strong-armed him into discrediting himself. Then there was the time he was arrested on charges of child pornography and this was all a government conspiracy too. Wait, wait?

In 2014, Romanek was arrested on child pornography charges after an investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security found more than 300 images as well as video files depicting child pornography on his computer. This is a serious felony offense, but both Romanek and his wife, Lisa, immediately strongly denied the charges. According to them this was all part of a vast conspiracy to frame him and to serve as an example and warning to silence other alien abductees. Romanek adamantly claimed that the pornography had been planted on his computer by the authorities in order to implicate him, and that everyone involved in the arrest and trial were corrupt conspirators. Romanek did everything but claim that aliens were actually controlling his mind in an effort to deny any responsibility for his action. He even constantly put off the inevitable by claiming illness on several court dates in order to push back and delay the trial, anything to deflect blame and stave off having to actually face taking responsibility for what had happened.

Lisa Romanek famously proclaimed that they were going to fight it to the end, and were going to “bring ufology into the courtroom,” but unfortunately for them child pornography is pretty serious business that no one really has any sense of humor or leeway about at all, and so their bonkers claims of corrupt cops and shadowy government alien conspiracies did little to stop Romanek’s inevitable conviction. In the end Romanek got off rather lucky, in that he was found guilty of knowingly possessing the pornography on his computer but not of the more serious charge of distribution. He would be sentenced to serve two years in the Larimer County Community Corrections halfway house and to register as a sex offender, including the 10 years of intensive supervised probation and regular mental evaluations that comes with. He has been featured on a Netflix documentary entitled Extraordinary: The Stan Romanek Story. What are we to make of Romanek and all of this weirdness? It is certainly a dark splotch on the record of the alien abductee phenomena, and whether any of his alien encounter stories are true or not, he is undoubtedly a pathetic human being that most are probably willing to agree got what he deserved.

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A brain scan that was performed on a dog-sized dinosaur called Thecodontosaurus that roamed around Britain 205-million-year-old revealed very interesting results. Since the remains were so well preserved, experts from the University of Bristol were able to reconstruct the two-inch-long dinosaur brain in 3D and performed CT scans on it.

Probably the most surprising revelation was that since it was related to herbivores that walked on four legs (such as the Diplodocus and Brontosaurus), it was assumed that the Thecodontosaurus was the same. However, the researchers were able to determine that this species ran quickly on two legs and it occasionally ate meat, in addition to having good eyesight and hearing that made it a great hunter.

Doctoral student and lead author of the study, Antonio Ballell, noted that even though it could catch prey, its tooth morphology indicated that plants were its main food source. This suggests that the Thecodontosaurus could have been an omnivore that ate both plants and meat.

(Not a Thecodontosaurus)

Mr. Ballell went on to explain the scans, “Even though the actual brain is long gone, the software allows us to recreate brain and inner ear shape via the dimensions of the cavities left behind.” “The braincase of Thecodontosaurus is beautifully preserved so we compared it to other dinosaurs, identifying common features and some that are specific to Thecodontosaurus.” “Its brain cast even showed the detail of the floccular lobes, located at the back of the brain, which are important for balance. Their large size indicate[s] it was bipedal.” “This structure is also associated with the control of balance and eye and neck movements, suggesting Thecodontosaurus was relatively agile and could keep a stable gaze while moving fast.”

This is pretty shocking news as the Thecodontosaurus was one of the first sauropods – gigantic herbivores that could grow as long as 110 feet and weigh as much as 100 tons. The Thecodontosaurus, on the other hand, was only about the size of a very large dog, measuring a little over 6 feet in length and 3 feet in height.

Co-author of the study, Professor Mike Benton, weighed in by stating, “It is great to see how new technologies are allowing us to find out even more about how this little dinosaur lived more than 200 million years ago.” (An image of what Thecodontosaurus would have looked like can be seen here.)

Thecodontosaurus was one of the first sauropods.

The first bones belonging to a Thecodontosaurus were found back in 1834 where the Bristol Zoo now sits. Then in 1975, eleven more remains were discovered in a quarry. As a matter of fact, the United Kingdom has been described as a “dinosaur paradise” during ancient times. There were more than 100 different types of dinosaurs living in the UK that included three cousins of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The study was published in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society where it can be read in full.

One of the weirder alien abduction cases happened at a rather unassuming place for such an incident. Back in the 1960s there was a girl’s summer camp along the edge of Lake Champlain, in the U.S. state of Vermont, called Buff Ledge. In its heyday it was a popular place that attracted numerous young people who came to widen their horizons by experiencing nature and engaging in all manner of outdoor activities such as camping, hiking, fishing, boating, water skiing, and horseback riding, among others. On August 7, 1969, two of the camp workers, a 16-year-old maintenance man named Michael Lapp and 19-year-old water ski instructor Janet Cornell, were enjoying a bit of peace and quiet at the boat dock, watching the sun dipping below the horizon. At the time the swimming team staying at the camp had gone off to a meet, and so it was quiet and relaxing until something caught their attention in the sky. And so would begin a very strange alien abduction encounter that has never been adequately explained.

Buff Ledge

They saw a bright light up in the fading light of twilight, which they at first took to be the planet Venus, as it was motionless and perfectly round. Yet as they looked upon this celestial show, the light began to move, and even odder still it began to drop rapidly and sort of flatten out into a disc-like shape. Michael’s first stunned reaction was to blurt out “Wow! Venus is falling!” but it was quite clear at this point that this was not Venus. Whatever it was continued to drop, then levelled out and seemed to head directly towards them, revealing itself to be a saucer shaped metallic object of some sort as it drew closer. As the two looked on, there allegedly would be three smaller lights that detached from the larger object, and these lights would fan out to go shooting out across the lake as the main saucer took off into the night at breathtaking speed. These smaller lights then engaged in a physics defying display of aerial acrobatics, performing flips, loops, zig-zags, sudden stops, hovering, tight turns, and abrupt vertical dips and rises. The two teenagers looked on, almost mesmerized by the bizarre show, yet this sense of wonder would soon turn to fear as the three lights started moving right towards them. Things would only get weirder from there.

As the objects approached, they formed a triangular formation, after which the two in the rear flew off to leave only one remaining, issuing forth a horrible sound like “a thousand tuning forks” as they did. The remaining object then did some aerial maneuvers, shot straight up, and then came down to plunge into the lake, where it remained for some time before emerging once again and hovering right in front of the now terrified teenagers. The object was now very close to them, so close, in fact, that they could see through a transparent dome into the interior of the craft, where there sat two “childlike creatures” with large eyes, oversized bald heads, and long necks. The two teens stared as the creatures stared right back for a few moments, after which a beam shot directly at them, causing them to dive for cover. This light washed over them almost like “a liquid,” and was incredibly bright, creating an odd, X-ray like effect that allowed them to see the bones within their hands. After this, there was blackness.

The next thing they remembered was waking up on the dock. Evening had fallen and the object was now high in the air, looking like a moving star to speed off and vanish. Janet seemed to be in some sort of trance, but he was able to shake her out of it and get her back to camp, where they found that the swim team had long ago returned. The two witnesses decided to just sort of forget about what they had seen, and when the summer camp ended they went their separate ways without mentioning the bizarre incident again. Yet in the following years Michael was plagued by potent, vivid nightmares which he could never really remember the details of, but which would leave him terrified and in a cold sweat. He seemed to remember flashes of the faces of those creatures he had seen at the lake during these dreams, and a connection formed in his mind that caused him to seek out help. He decided to contact the Center for UFO Studies, where he met investigator Walter Webb and began the next chapter of his bizarre odyssey.

Webb decided to try regressive hypnosis on Michael in order to help him dislodge any repressed memories of the event from the depths of his mind. Over several hypnosis sessions Michael would remember more and more of what had transpired, in the process painting a very strange picture, indeed. According to Michael, the beam of light had not merely knocked them out, but had lifted him into the air and into the UFO, which then moved up through the atmosphere above the Earth. Through the dome he saw the chasm of space, in which hung the looming presence of some sort of immense mothership. Once aboard he says he had seen Janet lying next to him, the two of them on examination tables of some sort and flanked by those otherworldly entities. He could now see them up close, and would say of his memory of them, “The aliens all looked alike, child-like, and had those large eyes, a mouth without lips, no ears, and two small openings for a nose.” They apparently had greenish-blue skin, and for fingers they had three wet digits, with which they operated an array of what appeared to be medical equipment. Michael would remember watching on as the aliens scraped Janet’s skin, pulled her hair, pinched her, shone a light into her eyes, and seemed to withdraw blood. During all of this, the aliens supposedly sent a telepathic message that they meant no harm.

The memories dredged up by the hypnosis were so jarring and revelatory that Webb contacted Janet. Although a decade had passed since that fateful night, it would turn out that she had been having similar nightmares, and Webb managed to convince her to undergo hypnosis as well. Janet agreed, and although she was not able to remember quite as many details of the lost time, she nevertheless gave a report amazingly similar to what Michael had given. In the meantime, Webb would go out to Buff Ledge to investigate for himself, finding several witnesses who recalled seeing strange lights in the sky at around the time Michael and Janet had been abducted, further adding corroborating testimony to the case. He even managed to find to other members of the same camp who also claimed to have been abducted earlier that summer. Webb would end up spending 5 years investigating the case, before compiling his findings, as well as transcripts from the hypnosis sessions, into his 1993 book Encounter at Buff Ledge. His final conclusion was that both Michael Lapp and Janet Cornell were telling the truth, or at least truly believed they were.

Although Webb’s book is now out of print, the encounter at Buff Ledge has gone on to be much discussed within ufology. It is a striking case in that these two individuals, who had had no contact for 11 years, had managed to produce two nearly identical stories under hypnosis, as well as the fact that there was so much corroborative testimony. It has been pointed out that this could have been a hoax dreamed up as a prank by these two kids, but they didn’t say anything about the encounter until a decade later when Michael’s persistent nightmares had driven him to seek outside help. Was it a hoax that they retroactively made, merely saying that this all happened back in 1969? If so, why? What would they have to gain from this? It is all a very strange and somewhat frightening case that leaves us wondering. Was any of this real or not? What happened out on that lake? The Buff Ledge encounter has gone on to become one of those odd cases that seems very promising and intriguing, yet ultimately evades true understanding and answers.

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“The truth is that I was surprised by that object, and I cannot specify what it is. It seems suspended in the sky, and at a relatively low height.”

If you’re interested in UFO sightings and believe the “truth is out there,” you’ve probably heard or read plenty of testimonies which sound something like that one, along with blurry photos similar to the one accompanying this testimony. It would be easy to write this one off as just another balloon/bug/bird/bad photo except for one thing … this testimony comes from a farmer in the Argentine department of Uruguay – just across the Uruguay River from Uruguay, a country with far more UFO sightings than Argentina, a country whose Air Force has conducted UFO investigations since at least 1989 and issued a report in 2009 stating that it still had “about 40 unsolved cases” out of the estimated 100 per year it receives and reviews. Perhaps the truth is out there around the Uruguay River, where farmer Jorge Burgat had his recent encounter.

“There are no differences in the photos that I took through the windshield, with others without the glass in between.”

Uruguay is a beautiful country — do extraterrestrials feel the same way?

Elonce.com, Radio Mitre and other local media sources reported on the photos taken by Jorge Burgat, a “producer and rural contractor” heading home to Colonia San José del Monte in Entre Ríos in the Uruguay province near the river that separates Argentina and Uruguay. (See the photos here.) Burgat said he took multiple photos from both inside and outside his farm vehicle of the sky to record the weather conditions since he works in many locations. He claims he did not see the object in the sky when taking the photos, only when he reviewed them at home, and defended the quality and condition of his camera and his intent.

The local media picked up the photos after he posted them on Facebook, where they were reposted by FM Riel. The comments ranged from UFO to drone to dirt on the lens to plenty of nonsensical suggestions – in other words, no one had any idea what it was. How about the Uruguayan Air Force?

“The Air Force will not publish a “Blue Book” containing the results of these thirty years of investigations, but El País, by decision of the command, agreed to records and testimonies.

Although the Air Force commission that studies the case has been in operation for a few decades, the UFO phenomenon began approximately in 1947 in Uruguay when the worldwide enthusiasm for the sightings rose.

Although it is not Roswell, New Mexico – an emblematic place on the subject of extraterrestrials – Uruguay is a place classified as conducive to sightings of unidentified objects, acknowledged Colonel Ariel Sánchez, an Air Force officer with 33 years of service active and that since 1989 integrates the commission on UFOs and currently chairs it.”

Why are UFOs attracted to farm country?

In 2009, El Pais was allowed to review the cases up until that time in the Air Force files. While the identities of those making the reports were redacted, the details were not, and El Pais describes a wide variety of unidentified objects, cases of alien abduction, missing time, mutilated animals and the like. Again, 40 of the approximately 2,100 specific reports were unable to be explained. When asked to comment, Colonel Ariel Sánchez had this to say:

“The commission was able to determine modifications to the chemical composition of the soil where landings were reported. The phenomenon exists. It can be from a phenomenon that occurs in the lower part of the atmosphere, the landing of an aircraft of a foreign air force, even the extraterrestrial theory. It can be a surveillance probe from space, in the same way that we send a probe to explore distant worlds. The UFO phenomenon exists in the country. I insist: the Air Force does not rule out an extraterrestrial hypothesis based on our scientific analysis.”

As far as this El Pais report is concerned, Uruguay is a UFO hotspot deserving of Air Force investigations. As far as Colonel Sánchez is concerned, “Air Force does not rule out an extraterrestrial hypothesis.” As far as Jorge Burgat is concerned, he photographed something near the Uruguay River that neither he nor anyone else has explained satisfactorily.

Is it time to admit that the truth may be out there over the Uruguay River?

(Note: this story has been updated from a previous version to show that the UFO was spotted in the Uruguay department in Argentina, on the Uruguay River across the border from the country of Uruguay.)

The 19^th century was the period in which astronomers, armed with more and more sophisticated telescopes, began to make astonishing discoveries on the surface of Mars. One of those astronomers was Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli. He was someone who ultimately rose to the position of director of the Brera Astronomical Observatory, which is located in Milan, Italy and that was constructed in 1764; the work having been overseen by astronomer Roger Boscovich. Schiaparelli was enthused to the max by the prospect of learning more and more about Mars. While Schiaparelli was a well-respected astronomer, he was also someone who reached just a little too far when it came to the matter of trying to understand what, exactly, was happening on Mars. Certain light and dark portions of Mars were interpreted by Schiaparelli as oceans and what he even termed as “continents” – terminology that understandably suggested that Mars was not too dissimilar to our Earth. How very wrong he turned out to be. There is also the matter of the canals of Mars that excited the astronomer.

Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli, Public Domain

During the course of his studies of Mars, Schiaparelli’s work led to a most catastrophic blunder; it was a blunder that would never, ever be forgotten. Granted, it wasn’t entirely Schiaparelli’s fault, but he certainly played a significant role in the development of the embarrassing matter. While scrutinizing Mars with his telescopes, Schiaparelli was sure that he could see unusual “channels” on the surface of the planet. He went on to refer to them as “canali.” When the word got out to an excited media, that word – “canali” – was one hundred percent erroneously translated to “canal.” It’s very important to note the time-frame in all of this: this was a particular era in human civilization when canals were rightly seen as vital components of then-modern day society. As an example, in 1869 the 120-miles-long Suez Canal was completed and connected the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. It was a major development of engineering. Quite understandably, for many people of that era, then, the idea of canals on Mars near-instantaneously suggested they were the work and the creation of intelligent beings. After all, that we were constructing vast canals at the very same time, added more and more weight to the theory that Martians might be doing precisely likewise. Thus was born the myth of the Martian canals. It was a myth that didn’t go away.

The planet Mars (NASA)

Another astronomer who bought into the canal theory was Percival Lowell. He wasn’t just an astronomer, but a skilled businessman too – something that ensured him a sizeable fortune. Born and bred in Boston, Massachusetts, Lowell was the brains behind the Flagstaff, Arizona-based Lowell Observatory. Nineteen-Ten saw his book, The Evolution of Worlds, published. He had a deep affinity with Japan, having spent a great deal of time there and getting to know the people and their culture. And, yet, for all of his skills as an astronomer, Lowell also bought into the theory that there were canals on Mars – and not just canals made naturally, but canals created by intelligent Martians. Such was Lowell’s ever-growing fascination with Mars, he wrote three books on the planet: 1895’s Mars; Mars and its Canals, which was published in 1906; and Mars as the Abode of Life, which appeared two years later. The further that Lowell delved deep into his theory, so a larger, and far more elaborate, scenario came to the forefront. He personally weaved a novel and admittedly engaging picture that involved the Martians using huge numbers of canals to move massive amounts of water from the polar-regions to Mars’ equator. The whole thing was carefully, and even ingeniously, worked out. Unfortunately for Lowell, he was wrong. As in dead wrong. History, science, and the ever-growing increase in sophisticated telescopes and probes have since made it very clear that there are no intelligently-made canals on Mars. Anywhere. What was once seen as a major development in the quest to find Martians is now nothing but an embarrassing affair that is best forgotten. Forever.

The small mining town of Dalnegorsk, Russia is a rather bleak, stark, and frigid place. Indeed, the name Dalnegorsk literally means “far in the mountains,” and the unforgiving landscape here is fitting for such a name. It is a remote, rugged place of near perpetual cold, just a speck on the map and unknown to most of the outside world. Yet this forgotten place has one claim to fame, as it was once supposedly the site of a UFO that crashed to earth, which would then spawn stories of conspiracies and cover-ups, as well as usher in a whole series of UFO phenomena and strangeness.

In the cold, dark morning hours of January 29, 1986, hundreds of locals had their attention drawn skyward by an unusual sight. Streaking across the sky was seen a glowing reddish ball, travelling in a parallel, controlled manner at a speed of around 120 mph, described as being about the size of “half of the moon’s disc” and with a metallic surface like “hot stainless steel.” The object was obviously no meteor, as it appeared to slow down to a speed of only around 50 mph as it approached Izvestkovaya Mountain, also called “Height 611.” It was thought at first that this was perhaps something from the military base nearby, but whatever it was did not make the slightest sound as it flew over at a height of around 700 feet. As the villagers looked on in astonishment, the object suddenly jerked and dipped sharply, before plummeting to earth behind the trees and hitting the mountain beyond in a ball of flame, producing a blindingly bright flash, yet there was oddly no expected boom of an explosion. For several hours the glow of what looked from a distance like a forest fire could be seen emanating from where the mysterious object had gone down, yet no one dared approach.

Dalnegorsk, Russia

It would not be until a few days later that anyone would arrive at the remote site to actually check it out, when a team from the Academy of Sciences came to investigate the odd reports. They discovered a circular spot in the forest that had obviously been charred, and to their amazement there were numerous shards of metal, mesh fragments, beads, and an anomalous black film over everything. There were some odd magnetic readings at the site, an unidentifiable chemical odor lingering everywhere, and a certain charge to the air like static electricity, yet no abnormal radiation was detected. Some reports say that those who examined the area experienced various health issues such as nose bleeds, headaches, nausea, and blood pressure fluctuations, and inexplicably all photos taken of it would later come out completely blank. Samples of the materials were gathered and things would get stranger still.

Scientists allegedly found that the beads were composed of lead, silicon, gold, nickel, and iron, but when melted down their composition anomalously changed into such elements as titan and molybdenum. The mesh-like material was found to also have many oddities. For one, its structure was bizarre to say the least, made of microscopic twisted fibers of carbonic and metal threads only 17 micron wide, beyond anyone’s capabilities to make at the time. Some of the fragments featured an incredibly high density of gold inconsistent with the surrounding area. The mesh also proved to be well-nigh indestructible, unable to be damaged by soaking in strong acids or solvents, and only able to be cut with the hardest diamond cutting tools. Scientist were apparently dumfounded by all of this, but rather than explain it as aliens it was thought to perhaps be from an American satellite or aircraft displaying some unknown advanced technology, although the United States would later deny having anything to do with it. In later years some of these fragments made their way to the United States, and some would even be displayed. One such exhibit of some of these alleged fragments was shown at the National Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, and the description at the exhibition reads:

Three Soviet academic centers and 11 research institutes analyzed the objects from this UFO crash. The distance between atoms is different from ordinary iron. Radar cannot be reflected from the material. Elements in the material may disappear and new ones appear after heating. One piece disappeared completely in front of four witnesses. The core of the material is composed of a substance with anti-gravitational properties.

In the days after the Dalnegorsk, the area, and in particular Height 611, would allegedly become ground zero for intense waves of UFOs sightings, with dozens of subsequent instances mysterious objects in the sky. On some occasions the objects were reported as hovering over the mountain and illuminating the forest below with beams, as if looking for something, and such reports would carry on all the way into the following year beyond, given by people from all walks of life, including traditionally reliable witnesses such as doctors, policemen, and military personnel. In some instances, people even claimed to have found more of the mysterious fragments in the area, as well as patches of a strange oil-like substance.

Although it is all a rather spectacular tale, the Dalnegorsk incident managed to be sort of brushed under the carpet, hidden away by what was then the Soviet Union, and it was not until years later that outside ufologists would begin uncovering the tale and making its existence known through articles and TV shows such as a notable segment on a 1995 episode of Sightings. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be much remaining in the way of corroborating evidence, and the vast majority of the supposed material from the crash has gone missing over the decades. While it is all very intriguing and seems promising on some levels, with plenty of eyewitnesses and potential physical evidence, we are forced to relegate it to the files of other cases that have been lost to history, with no way of proving them true or not, one way or the other. What happened at that cold, lonely mountain? We may never know.

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Most people who know the name Jan Broberg will probably know her as an accomplished American actress, singer and dancer, who has appeared in over a dozen feature films and numerous TV shows, and she is also a veteran stage actress appearing in countless productions. She has by all appearances had a very successful life, but often such success stories have an undercurrent of tragedy behind the scenes, and Broberg is one of these. Although she is famous for her stage, television, and movie work, she is also known for a darker time of her life, and here we will look at her bizarre and shocking tale of abduction, confinement, blackmail, and other horrors all set to the backdrop of outlandish alien conspiracies spun by a madman.

It began in October of 1974 with a strange and frightening experience. Jan, who was 12 at the time, woke up in a dazed state in an unfamiliar room with no idea where she was. Disoriented and afraid, she was then subjected to a voice coming from a box nearby, which sounded alien sounding and frightening. The strange voice told her that the world was now being controlled by alien forces and that she had been abducted by a UFO. The aliens then told her that they had an important mission for her, that she was the “female companion” and that she was to meet with the “male companion” and procreate with him to have a child. It was explained to her that this child would help save the aliens’ dying planet and the earth itself, and that if she were to refuse then they would come after her family. The bewildered girl believed it all, saying in an article for Vanity Fair, “I thought I’d been taken by a UFO. I was more terrified of that voice and those messages coming from that voice, than probably anything else that happened to me.”

The man she was meant to procreate with happened to be there at the time, and in fact Jan was in his motorhome far from home. She was surprised to see that he was actually a close friend of the family, a man by the name of Robert Berchtold, who was a well-respected and religious man within the community and beyond reproach. He was so close with the Broberg family, in fact, that Jan saw him as almost a second father, but she was now part of his dark plan to brainwash and abuse her. Berchtold had taken her out for a horseback ride near her home in Idaho, after which he had drugged Jan, put her in his motorhome, and driven her thousands of miles away to a remote area of a Mexican desert. Indeed, it was his motorhome that she had awoken within, and the alien conspiracy was his convoluted plan to brainwash her into doing what he wanted. Yet as fantastical as it all seemed, Jan actually believed it all, and truly thought she was being controlled by alien forces and that she had to do what they said at all costs, but it had all been a carefully planned out, if bizarre ploy by Berchtold that he had been brewing and seeding for some time. Jan would later explain:

I thought I had the alien mission to accomplish! I laugh about it now, but as a 12-year-old who had been to a number of science-fiction movies with the Berchtolds… And there were a lot of articles in the newspapers that had UFO sightings on the front page. It was the ’70s! People ask me, how long did it take you to believe you’d been kidnapped by aliens? I’m like, five seconds. Because for two and a half years Berchtold would bring over the newspaper and say, ‘Look, there’s another UFO sighting.’ I literally did anything the aliens told me to do, because they told me my little sister would be taken if I didn’t fulfil the mission of having the child for their dying planet.

In the meantime, there were suspicious things afoot back at the Broberg home, as when they realized that their daughter had been abducted, Berchtold’s wife was insistent that they not call the authorities, which caused a delay in action being taken. They did not contact the FBI for several days, and refused to believe the idea that Berchtold, who was also missing and had been the last one with her, had taken her, as he was such a trusted and close family friend. It would not be until five weeks later that the FBI managed to find Jan and her captor, but this doesn’t seem to have brought any justice. Not only did Berchtold’s lawyers manage to help him worm out of a charge of kidnapping, but there was also the matter that Berchtold had in fact had an affair with Jan’s mother, Mary Anne, and unbelievably had also had inappropriate relations with the father. Considering their religious standing in the community, Berchtold was able to blackmail them into dropping serious charges against him and conning them into signing affadavits that said he had been given permission to take Jan out of town. There was also the fact that Jan was still so convinced that this was all being orchestrated by nefarious alien forces that she was terrified of telling anyone that in fact she had been sexually abused and raped during her long absence. All of this ensured that Berchtold served only a few days in jail for what had happened, and he walked away a free man, but it doesn’t end there.

Jan Broberg and Robert Berchtold

When she was 14 years old, Jan was abducted yet again by Berchtold, and she was still convinced of the alien conspiracy and he still had that ammunition against the parents to prevent him from being seriously charged. Once again he managed to squirm his way out of it, and he continued to abuse her and keep up the inappropriate relationship for years right under everyone’s noses through manipulation and grooming both Jan and her parents. It would not be until years later that she would finally tell her mother what had really happened to her, and that she had been groomed and abused by Berchtold. Jan and her mother would write a memoir of the experience titled Stolen Innocence: The Jan Broberg Story, which would pave the way for the truth coming out.

In later years, Jan finally had the courage to come out with her story, and that was when other victims also came forward to claim that Berchtold had abused them as well, under the same extravagant ruse of aliens and UFO abductions. This all caught up with Berchtold in 2005, decades after Jan’s kidnapping, and he was accused of the rape of Jan and molesting others, but he was once again able to escape being sentenced, this time by killing himself. In the aftermath of all of this, Jan has gone on into her successful entertainment career, and the whole bizarre story has been made into a well-received documentary called Abducted in Plain Sight, directed by Skye Borgman. It is all quite the tragic and bizarre story, to be sure, and just about the only thing good to come out of it is that Jan finally made a name for herself and found her calling. But it is still tragic, and there will forever be that dark pulse in the background that haunts her, and those strange days of abuse, manipulation, and living under the rule of perceived aliens.