Astonishing Legends

As we wrap up our 100th episode celebration with "ARCapalooza! Part 2" we'd like to thank the terrific people who have come together to form the Astonishing Research Corps for their efforts, friendship, and sharing their personal stories, demonstrating their generosity and a fair amount of bravery. We'd also like to thank another crucial member of this project, and that is you, our listeners. We're astounded, humbled, and most importantly grateful for the support you've shown with your continued listenership. It's why we keep going. We've always meant for this podcast to feel less like a lecture and more like a conversation between friends who share an interest in fascinating topics. With that spirit in mind, we hope you continue to feel like a part of this group of friends and a cherished member of the team. And now on to the next 100 episodes!

For more information on this episode visit our website!

Since it's no mystery that we can blather and prattle on for hours upon hours, it should come as no surprise that we ran long on Part One of our ARCapalooza 100th Episode Celebration!  The result is this commercial-free, Bonus Episode, where lead A.R.C. researcher Tess Pfeifle poses questions to us submitted by listeners.  We hope you enjoy this candid discussion where we talk about everything from our thoughts on show topics to producing the podcast.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

This podcast wouldn't be as complete or as much fun to work on if it wasn't for the help of a special group of volunteer contributors, collectively known as the Astonishing Research Corps, or ARC for short, who have now become good friends as well as valued collaborators. So we figured it would be fitting to salute their efforts on our celebratory 100th episode by having some of the ARC's founding members tell their own strange and mysterious tales. We hope you find their stories entertaining and engaging, which we believe also serve to reinforce an Astonishing Legends adage, that if you personally haven't had an encounter with the paranormal, you probably know someone who has.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

So, what have we learned about giants? Our current understanding of human biology finds limits as to how tall a person can grow and can still be relatively healthy while enjoying an advanced age. This knowledge then places limits as to what the majority are willing to believe about the tallest humans throughout all history, that no one could have existed beyond 8 to 10 feet tall at the most. In the still-nascent field of archeology in the 19th century, excavations do seem to provide accounts of unusually large individuals in Europe and significant numbers of taller than average Native American tribal members here in the U.S., so perhaps whole communities could have been seen as giants by contemporary standards. However, there are those researchers and writers who believe, possibly spurred by those findings and the subsequent, apparent mishandling of artifacts by some museums and academic institutions, that there exists a conspiracy to keep evidence of beings beyond that range from the public, and that the even more massive giants of yore were real, and some may even live to this day. If this is true, then one must think about our definition of a real giant, and would that giant be a real human?

For more information on this episode visit our website!

What constitutes a "giant" in your mind? Certainly, people who are 6 to 7 feet tall are commonplace nowadays, unlike the Middle Ages, or even a hundred years ago. But what about someone who's seven feet tall or more? We may call them "giants" in jest, but it's not the same as when we think of the giants in our legends. A measurement of more than seven feet is rare, but there are plenty of healthy people living today in that range that prove it's not so legendary by our contemporary imagination. Rarer still is a human that's eight feet tall, but there has been one in recent history: Robert Pershing Wadlow stood 8' 11.1" tall (2.72 m) and weighed 490 pounds (220 kg) and showed no signs of stopping his growth at his untimely death in 1940 at age 22. So it's possible that a height for a human can approach nine feet, but could any height beyond that be sustainable? Because taller than that and it seems we venture beyond not only what is biologically viable for the human body, but also what is believable. It still leaves us with the question, "What makes a giant?" And if a skeleton is unearthed that appears to have horns? Well, that is another matter altogether.  

For more information on this episode visit our website!

Please join us for a special, commercial-free BONUS episode featuring an interview with senior Astonishing Legends Research Corps member, Chemical Engineer and newly appointed Director of Research for MUFON, the Mutual UFO Network, Dr. Chris Cogswell, Ph.D. We originally interviewed Chris for our of Imminent Disclosure? Part 2 episode, but felt this congratulatory announcement and interesting discussion deserved its own segment. Chris explains how MUFON operates, what its aims are, and how through solid, scientific methodology they may continue and deepen this quest to find the truth behind the strangeness many of us are seeing in our skies. If you're interested in joining this adventure, you can use the Coupon Code JOIN25 to receive 25% OFF a One Year Basic Level Membership worth $60. If you're a scientist or academic researcher, contact Chris at [email protected] to discuss collaborating with them with a Full Access Membership. Not only is Chris trying to help find the "Truth Out There," but he has his own show called the Mad Scientist Podcast along with his co-host and ARC "O.G." Marie Mayhew.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

It's easy to imagine a version of ourselves that's gargantuan, magical, a hero that often plays the villain, a giant among the ordinary. Legends of giants doing as they please have been with us since the beginning and continue to fascinate us in cinema and sport. The idea of a giant is easy to entertain because either through genetics or rare disorders, extra-large humans have naturally lived throughout our existence. The idea that's not easy for the modern person to imagine, aside from a singular Goliath-like demigod here n' there, is the possibility of a race of giants having once existed, tribes of superhumans whose feats and physicality filled us with fear and wonder in antiquity. Yet with these tall tales being so pervasive worldwide, could it be that communities of giants were real or was it merely that the occasional taller than average human became the inspiration for myth? Join us tonight as we explore the mystery of legendary giants.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

How "credible" does an eye-witness have to be before their account of an Unidentified Flying Object is taken seriously?  Whom would you think is the most credible sort of witness for this type of impossible craft, aside from the beings or forces that made them?  How about an elite jet fighter pilot from the US Navy, highly trained to identify every known aerial threat – known to a conventional military, of course.  Tonight, we sit down again for Part Two with our friend Rob Kristofferson, from the Our Strange Skies podcast to discuss in detail the eye-witness report and related consequences of David Fravor, USN Ret., former Commanding Officer of Fighter Squadron VFA-41, who along with his Weapons Systems Officer Lt. Cmdr. Jim Slaight engaged a target that behaved like nothing they could imagine.  After hearing about Fravor's account, you just might start to believe that "Secret Machines" do indeed exist... and your next thought will be, "...well then, who, or what is controlling them?"  Get ready for some "Soft Disclosure" everyone.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

The term "Disclosure" in the UFO community generally refers to the long-awaited event when the government, specifically the U.S. Government, finally tells the world that UFOs exist, along with everything they know about extraterrestrials, or so enthusiasts of the topic would hope. While we wouldn't suggest holding your breath until "Full Disclosure" happens, there has been an interesting, recent development worth noting. On December 17, 2017, the New York Times published a curious article titled, "Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program." Apart from the mild surprise that such a serious publication as the New York Times would bother running with any story that would give consideration to such a "preposterous" idea as UFOs being real, is the bigger surprise that from 2007 until 2012, $22 million dollars of U.S. taxpayer money was spent annually on something called the Advanced Aerospace Threat Identification Program. Although funding for this program officially ceased in 2012, it was also revealed that the program still exists and continues to investigate credible reports of possible UFO encounters. Join us tonight as we sit down with friend, collaborator and fellow podcaster Rob Kristofferson, host of his own show called Our Strange Skies as we discuss the significance of a major revelation that there is a serious military effort to investigate what many believe is Science Fiction, but what some "in the know" think may be a threat against which we have no defense.

For more information on this episode visit our website!

Like so many cryptid mysteries, what one realizes is that the deeper you search for the answer of what the creature might be, you find what it represents is so much more than just a singular beast. Such was the discovery of tonight's guest, Professor Daniel C. Taylor, PhD., author of Yeti: The Ecology of a Mystery. Dr. Taylor has spent 60 years of his life on a quest to solve the mystery of the Yeti, and that process has ultimately led to the foundation of a worldwide network and university dedicated to preserving not only the culture and ecology of the Himalayan region and beyond but it has also become a force for social change and preservation in other sensitive areas of the planet. But, if you just want to know if the Yeti is real or a legend, then consider the words of Dr. Taylor: "a legend doesn't leave footprints." The Yeti's prominence in the daily life of the peoples who inhabit the Himalayas makes it very real, and not just in a spiritual and cultural context. If you believe the Yeti exists, but just want to know what it is, you'll find that the question is lacking and that the answer indeed has more to do with the ecology of a mystery.

For more information on this episode visit our website!