What if a ghostly black dog could decide your fate?

In EP 3: Black Dog of Hanging Hills, host Justin Gearheart explores one of Connecticut’s most enduring legends with guests Tristan and Christina, who encountered something unexplainable on a hike near Castle Craig. The folklore says that if you see the Black Dog once, it brings joy. Twice, it brings sorrow. And the third time… it means death.

Tristan, a schoolteacher and avid hiker, had long been fascinated by the story. But when he and his wife Christina saw a strange, blurry, almost pixelated black dog cross their path, the legend became real. Both witnessed the figure, shimmering with an aura, yet behaving like no ordinary animal. It left no tracks, acknowledged no humans, and vanished as quickly as it appeared.

In this episode, you’ll hear Tristan describe his lifelong connection to folklore and hiking, Christina share her perspective as a natural skeptic who was stunned into belief, and how the experience changed their views on the paranormal. Their story, told side by side, raises unsettling questions: was it a ghost dog, a trick of perception, or proof that some legends walk among us?

This isn’t just local folklore. It’s a chilling glimpse into paranormal encounters, urban legends, and unexplained phenomena that refuse to stay buried in history.

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What’s really flying over New Jersey — hobby drones, advanced tech, or something we can’t explain?

In this Close Encounter Club bonus episode, host Justin Gearheart speaks with Retired Air Force Major Ben Hewitt, a veteran aviator and former air battle manager with over 20 years of global military experience operating the E-3 AWACS surveillance platform. Ben has tracked drug runners in South America, coordinated missions in the Middle East, and overseen radar operations capable of detecting objects across hundreds of miles. Now, he shares his perspective on the mysterious “drone swarms” spotted in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and beyond.

This raw, unfiltered conversation dives into how radar really works, what counts as a legitimate unknown, and why some sightings can’t be explained away as planes, satellites, or hobby drones. Ben also reflects on the stigma aviators faced when reporting anomalies, the cultural shift since 2017, and the eerie sense that we’re being “warmed up” for a larger revelation.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Ben’s military training shaped his view of UFOs, why the official explanations for the New Jersey sightings don’t add up, and how both government responses and public videos paint two very different pictures of what’s in our skies. The conversation expands to UFO whistleblowers, quantum computing, simulation theory, and whether humanity is brushing against a great filter moment in its evolution.

This isn’t a polished interview — it’s a candid talk with someone who’s seen the world from a radar screen and knows the difference between noise and something truly anomalous.

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What if a single sentence spoken in the middle of the night could predict tragedy?

In EP 2: Milford Has Been Shot, host Justin Gearheart speaks with Christopher from Omaha, Nebraska, who shares a chilling family story that has echoed through generations. In the 1960s, Christopher’s mom suddenly jolted awake during The Tonight Show and declared, “Milford has been shot.” Hours later, the phone rang with the devastating news that her brother Milford had been killed — exactly as she had said.

That wasn’t the only time fate intervened. Decades later, Christopher found himself in a bar having a casual conversation with a stranger who told an almost identical story from his own family’s past. The synchronicity was so unlikely that the odds defy imagination — a one-in-250 quadrillion chance.

In this episode, you’ll hear how Christopher’s mother’s premonition unfolded, why his skeptical father and brother never forgot it, and how a chance barroom conversation reopened a mystery that had been buried for decades. You’ll also hear about Christopher’s own journey as an open-minded skeptic, from experiments testing whether unseen forces could hear his thoughts to moments of mindfulness and even a possible astral projection experience.

This is a story about synchronicity, fate, and premonition — and the possibility that something beyond us may be nudging events in ways we can’t explain.

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What if your faith and your reality collided in the middle of the night?

In EP 1: The Miters Hill Incident, host Justin Gearheart introduces the very first Close Encounter Club story — and it’s one of the most unsettling we’ve ever covered. Miriam, a 26-year-old makeup artist from Monterrey, Mexico, describes the night she awoke to find a Gray alien with soulless eyes standing in her home. Alongside it was a strange, shifting, black smoke-like entity — something she could only compare to Venom.

Frozen with fear, Miriam tried to wake her husband, who slept through the entire event. As the being moved closer, raising its long, disjointed fingers toward her face, Miriam did the only thing she could: she prayed. In that instant, both entities vanished.

The next day, while hosting a small gathering for her birthday, her husband and friends witnessed something extraordinary outside — flashes of greenish-blue light over Cerro de las Mitras and a massive craft streaking across the horizon. For Miriam, this chilling confirmation proved she hadn’t been dreaming.

In this episode, you’ll hear Miriam’s account of the gray alien and the shadowy entity in her room, how prayer in the name of Jesus ended the encounter, and how her husband’s UFO sighting the very next night cemented her belief that what she saw was real. The experience forced her to reconcile faith, spirituality, and extraterrestrial life in ways she never imagined.

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Teaser #1 for the Close Encounter Club podcast.