77: The Mothman Prophecies with Sam Fredrickson

Dan LeFebvre: [00:02:46] With Halloween right around the corner. This week, I’m excited to be joined by Sam Fredrickson from the not alone podcast. To talk about the stories behind the movie, the moth man prophecies.

Before we dive into that though, Sam, I know you just did a series on moth, man. So can you let that one person who’s listening to this and hasn’t heard of your show yet know where they can find it.

Sam Frederickson: [00:03:06] Yeah, you can just head right over to iTunes or sorry, Apple podcasts. You can head right over to Apple podcasts search for not alone there. you can search for it really on every pod catcher. I haven’t found one yet that doesn’t have us on it. So just by searching, not alone, or you can go to our website, not alone podcast.com.

All of our episodes are listed there in little blog posts and they have like more. about the episode, different links and stuff like that. Where in the middle of moth man, right now, we originally said it was going to be a two parter, but the more and more I do the outline for part two, the more and more I’m afraid it’s going to turn into a three parter.

So we’ll just see how that turns out.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:03:52] That’s funny how that works,

Sam Frederickson: [00:03:53] huh? Yeah, it really is. Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to

Dan LeFebvre: [00:03:59] join me today.

Sam Frederickson: [00:04:00] yeah,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:04:00] let’s just kind of start with talking about the moth man prophecies. So the movie is actually set in 2002, which was the same year that it was released.

Sam Frederickson: [00:04:08] and the

Dan LeFebvre: [00:04:08] main character is a Washington post reporter named John Klein. Who’s played by Richard Gere.

Sam Frederickson: [00:04:15] So, right.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:04:15] I guess the first question I’d have for you is. With your research is John Klein, really a reporter for the Washington post? Is he even a real person that this whole story is based around?

Sam Frederickson: [00:04:25] That’s a great question. it’s very interesting. Essentially, John Klein is, is John keel, who is the author of the moth man prophecies, but he’s John keel. If John keel was not a, you know, didn’t report on fringe. A fringe phenomena. If he didn’t go chasing UFO foes, if he had a nice, respectable job being a reporter for the Washington post, essentially during the time of the moth man prophecies, John keel is an accredited journalist.

He works are he’s accredited by the North American newspaper Alliance, which is one of the larger basically press associations and was also home to when it stayed people like Ernest Hemingway. people like F Scott Fitzgerald. So it is a real organization, but he himself, at this point was more of just a freelance reporter.

And instead of chasing politics, like the movie really shows him out to be he’s more of chasing saucers and, the paranormal or, or just the fringe, the 14. To give it that term.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:05:37] So a little less coincidental that he happened to stumble upon this. He was kind of out looking for it.

Sam Frederickson: [00:05:43] Exactly. Yeah. The, the moth man prophecies, the movie, it does it, it makes it seem like this weird mysterious thing.

Where, what is it he’s driving. He doesn’t know how, but he covers 400 miles in an hour or something like that. He like loses

Dan LeFebvre: [00:05:57] time.

Sam Frederickson: [00:05:57] Yeah. Yeah, in reality, he was looking for this. He went to, to point pleasant West Virginia, because he had heard about what was going on and he knocked on doors and found exactly what he was looking for.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:06:11] So let that be a lesson to you. Be careful what you look for. You might actually

Sam Frederickson: [00:06:15] find yeah, exactly. Especially if that’s a moth man. It really, you really got to wonder about that, but so w if,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:06:24] what about some of the other characters then I know, like Laura Linney plays a major role as Connie mills. I kind of the sheriff there in town.

Was she a real person as well?

Sam Frederickson: [00:06:33] again, you have the, the role, right? The physical, John keel or John Kline’s friend in town, the authority figure that person does exist. Her name’s Mary higher. She’s actually, she’s a, the point pleasant correspondent for the Athens, Ohio messenger newspaper. So. It’s it’s interesting though, because to be fair, I can totally see why they made her a sheriff.

She is a trusted member of the community. People look to her people, implicitly, they trust her and her word. So you have a lot of stories of, you know, John keel saying, well, I went to meet this person. This person didn’t seem to. Happy to see a reporter. And so then I brought Mary higher with me and they were happy to talk because Mary is part of the town.

so I can totally see why they would make her a cop. it kind of fits the same persona and makes it less complicated to explain, well, I’m a correspondent for a newspaper that’s based in a different state beverage. Everybody here trusts me regardless. So, but yeah, at the, at the very base of who she is, she is a real person.

Okay.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:07:49] Interesting. What about a well Pattinson’s or sorry, not Pattinson. We’ll patent his character Gordon.

Sam Frederickson: [00:07:55] Small one. Yeah. Gordon is he’s a composite character. He is a composite between the primary one. Is a fella named Woodrow, Darren Berger, who is probably beyond moth man. Probably my favorite, favorite aspect of the point pleasant case Woodrow Darren burger is the salesman who essentially is driving home one night when he’s he meets a, an alien or at least somebody who seems like an alien, a spaceman at least, and Darren Berger interacts with this individual.

However, Gordon Smallwood takes it a little bit beyond where you actually have him composed of different Conti contactees as well. That. John keel is communicating with during this time who speak with people other than injured cold, which is the alien that Woodrow Darren Berger speaks with. So again, you have at the very base of his, his core, he is a real person, but in this case, he’s actually multiple people thrown in the only one whose name we know for sure is Woodrow Darren Berger, everybody else, John keel gives a pseudonym to essentially interesting.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:09:16] So, and I guess. The kind of the last character that I would mention would be Alexander Leake. Who has. I’m kind of the guy that, Richard Gere’s, John Klein went to as the expert, right. He was kind of a physics professor at Cornell and he was the one that was kind of rooting all of this in, in science as, as far as he’s concerned, at least.

Sam Frederickson: [00:09:39] Right. he, that, and that fellow is my favorite character in the movie to be straight. The, the Cornell physics professor, just because he’s like, he’s searching for something, then he finds it. Then he goes mad and all of this, that’s one of my favorite archetypes and stereotypes. There is no one who really fits that.

Bill. You do have a fella named Ivan Sanderson who is kind of like Kiehl’s mentor in a way, but Sanderson’s a zoologist. Which would fit into this, right? If we’re talking about an unknown bird, which is what everyone kind of. Started by saying moth man is it would make sense that that dr. Sanderson would be influential to John keel, but you don’t at all have the same sort of direct, like an unraveling or unveiling of knowledge, presenting that knowledge to.

John keel through a different individual keel, pretty much finds out everything he finds out through interviewing witnesses and Mary hire. Who’s been keeping records and, and interviewing everybody else. Basically you don’t have any central character that John keel ever interacts with who has all of the answers.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:10:55] It almost sounds, Based on kind of how you’re explaining it with, John keel going out, looking for it, as opposed to John Klein in the movie who kind of stumbled upon it. I wonder if maybe Alexander leek was kind of the, almost another side of the reel of John keel, right? If John keel was the one who actually went to go, Look for it.

Well then maybe there’s kind of these two sides that the movie almost split into two character did split into two characters, right. In one of them is the, the one who is, you know, rooted in science and trying to find the answers to this. And the other one is the one that’s just kind of stumbling upon all of these things.

I don’t know. It just kind of interesting that they would change that in the movie to where it

Sam Frederickson: [00:11:35] at

Dan LeFebvre: [00:11:36] it’s like this guy who’s. Asking the questions. I mean, as, as the viewer, I can see that as, you know, we’re the ones asking the questions, right. And John keel would be doing the same thing, but then he’s also the same one.

That’s answering those questions by doing the interviews and, and, you know, going out, finding those answers.

Sam Frederickson: [00:11:52] Honestly, keel is such an interesting person in real, in, in real life. I think that you might be completely correct. Like, I hadn’t even thought of that, but. John keel was, was such a, a fascinating individual who, after getting out of the army, he like went to India to research, basically the greatest stage illusion that that was ever known to man at that point, which was a trick called the Indian rope trick while he was there, he went searching for the Yeti essentially.

And he is. He is the kind of the paranormal, Indiana Jones character, but with the biggest difference of keel, unlike, Unlike Alexander leek, the character keel never lost his mind. Never, never. He did go a little paranoid at the end of it, but he never really shut himself away like this character does.

But I do see where they’d want to get John Klein to be a relatable character. Somebody who, who doesn’t seem like, of course the, the. I hate to say it, but the crazy right, the, the guy going out chasing aliens, you that that character is not relatable. The guy who gets things thrust upon them and then goes to find it from this, this other crazy person, like that is more relatable.

So I do think that you have a point there. I really do. I think that’s a great idea,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:13:24] but okay. So kind of setting up the characters then what about the, well, let’s start with the location. Point place. I think anybody I’m assuming would know that point place is actually a real, location. but is it.

Is it, as we kind of saw in the movie, you know, kind of, you know, where it’s located in and with, with the bridge there. Was that something that, is that actually a real place?

Sam Frederickson: [00:13:50] Yes. Yeah. It’s it’s so it’s point pleasant West Virginia. You’re right. And I said that wrong. That’s okay. I couldn’t remember if in the movie, if maybe they called it

Dan LeFebvre: [00:14:02] point place.

No, no, I need my notes. I have point pleasant. I have no idea why I said point place maybe because I was thinking location and place. It’s completely.

Sam Frederickson: [00:14:10] That’s totally fine. Yeah. point pleasant is definitely a real place. It’s it is the small town, right? It’s the small town. That’s, that’s kind of shown. In this movie, the moth man prophecies, as of the 2010 census, I didn’t go back to see what it was in 1960, but as of 2010, there were only 4,350 people living there.

Like it is, it is definitely your kind of Backwoods, small, not tiny, but not a big metropolitan center. You know, I think they probably got the feel of it pretty well.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:14:46] Now you, you mentioned, the sixties, right. And that kind of brings to the next, question that I had. So the movie is actually based in 2002, which is using cell phones, which grant, I mean, granted, it was not the same kind of cell phones we have now 2002 cell phones.

but you know, using those kind of mobile phones and that kind of thing is obviously not something they had in the sixties. So. Is that, and then they just completely mixed up the timing there. Or is that something that

Sam Frederickson: [00:15:18] no, that’s a, that’s a great question. And that is exactly, exactly what happened.

Basically the events of, of. Moth man. Right. And, and to be fair and we’ll get, I’m sure we’ll get a little more into it here, but there is so much more than moth man to this. it is, it is one of the greatest stories in the world because there’s so much more than moth man to this, but basically what happens is moth man.

Shows up on November 15th, 1966. Okay. And then he stays for exactly 13 months and disappears December 15th, 1967. This, because it is a, it has a, Designated beginning date and a designated end date. It’s what’s known in paranormal research, even normal research. it is what’s known as a flap or a window period as what others might call it.

So there are no indications. There were no reports of moth man. or anything else really happening in point pleasant, West Virginia in 2002, it’s all just that, that 13 month period taken from 1967 to 66 and transpose into 2002.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:16:39] Hmm. I wonder if that too then would kind of go back to making it more relatable,

Sam Frederickson: [00:16:44] which

Dan LeFebvre: [00:16:46] if that’s the case and again, in which kind of.

I’m assuming here, Whitney, I don’t have any, any facts to back this up, but

Sam Frederickson: [00:16:54] if they’re

Dan LeFebvre: [00:16:54] doing that and kind of making it more relatable to the current time, cause movie did come out in 2002. So you set in present day, as far as, you know, when the movie was released and then also kind of splitting if that theory of splitting, John keel into multiple characters to make one of those characters, the more relatable, the one that asks the questions and kind of comes at this, you know, just kind of blindsided by all of these events happening.

I wonder if the filmmakers would do that in order to, to help make it seem a little more believable and a little more real. for obviously when you have things like this happening, you have a lot of people that are skeptics and, you know, just. Instantly are just going to throw it out the window.

Right,

Sam Frederickson: [00:17:34] right. Right. My cohost is like that. Yeah. Yeah. It’s a, I do think that that’s a big part of it. You know, the thing about this whole thing is I, I watched them off man prophecies. I actually. Held off. I had not watched it until I got about half the way through the book actually a few weeks ago, because I didn’t want it to color my interpretation of the events at all, while doing research for the show and really what, what it truly comes down to is that the moth, the events of point pleasant, 66 to 67, they.

Defy a simple causal narrative structure. They defy a point a to point P to point Z plot point plot point plot point, you know, acts one, two, three, and end. It is simply at its core. A nonsensical, jumbled mess, like, and it’s, it’s one of the most beautiful nonsensical, jumbled mess as I’ve ever seen, but for them to even be able to make anything half as good as what that movie came out to be is extremely impressive.

and it, I feel like because of that, there’s no way that they’re going to be able to cover it with. 100% accuracy. And so I think that for them to transpose the time and even transpose the characters, cause the other thing is John, Kiehl’s still alive. When this movie comes out, he dies in 2009, the, the afterward of the moth man prophecies, a book that I have the copy I have, he mentions that.

He says Hollywood’s trying their best to make sense of this. And, and it seems as though they’ve got a good. Head start on it. So to me, that would say that keel himself was probably pretty okay with how this was all panning out with what the script was looking like and all that. To the point where honestly, I feel like the important thing is to tell as much of the story as you can, in a way that will not scare off the, the, audience.

Right? John keel wants the story out. Rich had him who wrote the, wrote the moth man prophecies movie. He wants the story out. Everybody wants people to know about this. If it makes a lot of money, All the better, but I really think for the actual people involved, that was their main concern. And I think that, that it makes total and complete sense to make it as relatable as possible, whether it’s it’s the characters, the time place or the time line, all of it.

So I do, I think that that getting it to be. Something we can grasp and we can understand. I think that was a big part of the production and I think they did very well at it.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:20:25] Now, now, earlier you mentioned, injured, cold, and you also referred to alien. Now I know in the movie they talk about injured, cold as heavily implied.

I don’t think they ever actually come out and have dialogue that says it, but heavily implied injured called is the moth man. So you’re saying moth man is an alien. Are you saying. Egg is kind of laying, laying out that, okay. That’s a tough one. Single question. I just kind of lay out, lets you know, who was injured?

Cold. And how does he kind of play into this story?

Sam Frederickson: [00:20:59] Yes, totally injured. Cold, injured. Cold is one of the most. Fascinating character. I think I’ve said that about everything so far, but I mean, it, he is one of the most fascinating characters in your modern American UFO for folklore. the, the mythos of UFOs, essentially injured cold is an individual who, so there’s a difference.

Okay. Let me just start with that. The movie shows, I believe. It’s that the character based on Woody Darren burger is driving past like the old chemical plant and he meets injured cold there and injured, cold tells him people are going to die and not to be afraid. And it’s okay. Right. I, if I’m, if I’m getting it correct.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:21:44] Yeah. That’s a will patents, Gordon Smallwood character.

Sam Frederickson: [00:21:47] Yes. So in, and I am going to say this in real life, what actually happened because. I do believe that this happened some way or another. I don’t know if it was a completely physical interaction of parts of it were mental or what, but essentially what happens is Woody Darren Berger is driving home.

He’s a traveling salesman and I think he sells sowings show sewing machines. He’s driving home to his wife and his two kids. And. As he’s as he’s, Oh, what’s let me double check where it is that he is he’s at, but he’s pointing, he’s passing a city. Which is Parkersburg. So he’s, he’s passing Parkersburg and suddenly a long dark object passes in front of his truck.

And he says, okay, whatever, I just got cut off this object, then flips sideways, long ways blocking the entire roadway and out of its steps, this individual he’s about six foot six. He’s got. Long black slicked back hair. He has this big smile, which has led to him being called the grinning man. And he approaches the car and telepathically.

For some reason, telepathically, he tells what he, Darren burger to roll down the window. He doesn’t need to because they don’t actually speak the entire time. This is happening. They all do it telepathically in their heads. And it’s such a bizarre interaction because basically cold says to Darren burger, What is that?

And he motions over to Parkersburg. He says, what is that? And. Woody Darren burger has to kind of explain like what a city is. And he says, Oh, in my, in my world, we call them gatherings. He says, don’t be afraid because I come from a country, much weaker than yours. And he just asks. Like, who are you? What is a city?

Where are you going? What are these lights? Like all of these different, weird questions. And then he says, mr. Darren burger, we will be seeing you again. And he climbs into a saucer and he. Takes off into the night sky. There’s nothing at all, inherently sinister about it. Like it, other than you’re meeting an individual from a different, potentially a different world.

Like it, as far as we know, the evidence suggests that injured cold is really just a groovy space alien that’s, that’s all it is. Whereas moth man is, is this terrible force, right? So I would say that. It is, it’s also one of the best questions out there. Does Android cold implicitly have anything at all to do with moth man?

There’s no answer it. You can argue for it. You can argue against it, but injured, cold, never mentions moth man is never, never seen around the same time as moth man. The only person to really interact with cold specifically is Darren Berger. And. Darren Berger never sees moth man or has his own mouth man experience.

So it’s entirely impossible to say myself personally. I like to think that cold had something to do something more on the observational side of things. but yeah, he’s, he’s definitely not moth man. That’s that’s for sure. I don’t know exactly what he is, but

Dan LeFebvre: [00:25:27] well, if memory serves me right from some of the research that I did for this.

injured coal in the,

folklore of, of this also goes by the name grinning man, correct?

Sam Frederickson: [00:25:38] Yes. Yes. And especially in his post point pleasant days because people have reported seeing him after this. Okay. He’s known as the grinning man.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:25:49] Okay. And so I would assume the only way to keep that grin on your face is to speak.

Telepathically of some sort, otherwise you’d have to open your mouth to talk, right?

Sam Frederickson: [00:25:58] Yes. Yeah, totally.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:26:01] Well, that’s interesting though, that he would say,

we will be seeing you again. I mean, I wonder, and again, I’m just kinda thinking of. Off the top of my head here, if,

Sam Frederickson: [00:26:11] if they’re seen

Dan LeFebvre: [00:26:12] in around the same time.

and there’s, as far as I know, no reason to assume that they

Sam Frederickson: [00:26:19] don’t

Dan LeFebvre: [00:26:20] know about each other, right. They’re happening around the same time. I wonder if the, we that he’s referring to maybe would be moth, man. Do you think that’s a plausible theory?

Sam Frederickson: [00:26:33] It is a plausible theory. You also have the tiny little detail that I left out, but when his craft comes back down a hand, reaches out to grab him and to take cold back into the craft.

I forgot to mention

Dan LeFebvre: [00:26:48] that. So

Sam Frederickson: [00:26:49] yeah, it, well, it is scary. It’s more like a, I would say it’s more like a gesture of. Brotherhood comes space, brother, let us ascend to the stars. and to me, that’s what, that’s how I’ve always taken. It is just injured cold, and whoever else is on that freaking ship, we’re going to see you again.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:27:09] Hmm.

Sam Frederickson: [00:27:10] Inter again, there’s there’s no way to say that for sure. It could be moth, man. It could be anything. I mean, that’s, what’s so. So interesting about it. So

Dan LeFebvre: [00:27:22] I have to ask then in your research other than moth man, and, injured cold, if they’re not related then, cause you said Andrew called didn’t mention moth man at all.

Were there any other sort of, sightings of things during this time period that might. Or might not be related, but you know, kind of we’ve kind of related at least because they happen around the same time and in the same place.

Sam Frederickson: [00:27:47] This is, this is my favorite question I’ve ever been asked. the, the short answer is yes, the long answer longer answer is essentially.

For these 13 months point pleasant. I was actually just talking with, with a friend who, you know, every year they go, they have a moth man festival in point pleasant. It’s so ingrained in their identity. They keep this tradition alive. He had gone there and he said he just got the feeling, listening to the stories that people told and, and learning more about it.

He felt almost as if. Point pleasant was taken from this reality and transposed into another reality for just 13 months, because in addition to injured cold, in addition to moth, man, you have an unprecedent unprecedented number of UFO sightings. You have Mary higher telling us that on one weekend at the peak of activity, she received over 500 reports of UFO in and around this area, you have John keel talking about going up to the five mile Creek bridge lookout point that he, he stakes out in a place called gala police ferry, which is just a few miles up the river from point pleasant and going out there every night and every night, seeing you for.

And signaling to him, to them, with his, his flashlight and having them signal back. You even have Mary higher going with him, seeing this happen, and then signing an affidavit saying like John keel signaled the thing with three, three bright flashes, the UFO signaled back to us with three flashes and then it zipped into the night sky and disappeared.

Like it is. It is one of the highest periods of UFO activity, not only in the Ohio river Valley, but also nationwide, according to keel, I wasn’t able to open my search parameters wide enough to really dig into the national UFO events at the time, just because it takes so much effort. Focusing on this one tiny town, but essentially he says that you’ve got stories from Oregon all the way to Maine of, of saucers of UFO is of all types.

And you have interesting sorts of things happening as well, sort of. More like psychic phenomena that happens in, in relation to the UFS because John Kiehl’s biggest thing. And it’s something that the more research I do on UFO is the more I read his big thing is that he no longer believed UFO to be extra terrestrial in origin.

Same thing with moth, man. He didn’t believe that moth man was a, alien creature or a cryptid or anything like that. He referred to them off man, as an ultra terrestrial, as opposed to an extra terrestrial. So John keel believes that these things happen both in the mind and in real life, one of the best examples of this, that, that he has to give.

Is that I believe it was in or around the point pleasant area, but it may have been part of that bigger national, national flap. At the time, there was an individual who saw just in the road and this man was, was a, a sober man. He was killed, described him as one of the most reliable witnesses he had ever met.

He described seeing a metal sphere. With four legs each with a little wheel on the bottom of them and a propeller just hovering in the middle of the road. And then the propeller sped up and the sphere shot off into the sky, which is one of the most quaint, like UFO sightings I’ve ever heard of like, Oh, it has a propeller.

And it’s using that to try, you know, go across the stars and it. It’s completely nonsensical, but a week after this has reported to keel in a famous magazine at the time, I think it’s called fate. basically some engineers got together and they designed hypothetical UFO, and one of them was completely and totally.

Detail for detail, this exact same thing, this exact same metal sphere with the wheels and the propeller. And it was a ton of tongue in cheek thing. Of course, the engineer knows this thing. Can’t make it through space when he says, well, if I have to draw you a file, I’m going to draw this keel makes the point that this sort of UFO was never seen before and has never been reported since.

And it’s almost as if psychically, somebody was thinking about this. Transverse through whatever it uses to transverse God in this other guy’s head and then manifested. And that’s the kind of weird stuff that keel was, was faced with. Like, if we take his book and as somebody who, who has a good amount of respect for John kill, I take his book and I believe what he is saying.

I don’t think he’s outlined outright lying or anything like that. Interpretations may be different, but it’s that sort of strange phenomena that, that. Surrounds moth man. And so we have to ask if the CFO’s are, are happening. In our heads may or may not be actually happening in reality, but also happening in our heads.

What about moth, man? Is he in our heads? Is he in reality? Is he that weird mix of both? and that’s really what keel was trying to find, but you also of course have another great component, which is the men, the men in black, right? So where there are UFS, there are men and black and. That is the other fourth component, right?

If you have to break down point pleasant in these days, you have moth. Man is one, John keel is two. He’s his own element. You FOS and there, and habitats are three and the men and black are four. So this is actually a four faceted phenomena. and it is all happening in point pleasant in the same amount of time.

And the most frustrating thing is. Is besides the UFO and the men in black, there’s no way to tell what else is related and how it’s related and why. And that’s where the, the. posturing comes in, that’s where the, the theorizing comes in and that’s why it’s one of the best cases ever. So is,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:34:21] was this phenomenon kind of the first time that the men in black war?

well, not that we know a lot about them anyway, but,

Sam Frederickson: [00:34:29] you know, where’s, it

Dan LeFebvre: [00:34:30] kind of the first time that they kind of came to the forefront

Sam Frederickson: [00:34:32] as, as much as, not necessarily. the men and black. So John keel as well, one of his, his best, like, things that he’s known for are, is coining the term men and black.

It wasn’t while they. No, it wasn’t well spent. although that might unfortunately be what, what he goes down in history for, which would be sad, but yeah, so you, you have John keel who coined this term and worked a lot with them or not worked with them, but, but worked in that area essentially though he is not the, this is not the first time they showed up.

He just really coined the term the very first time. That they, that he really showed up was, there was an individual called Albert K. Bender and bender. he went ahead and he formed the first ever international UFO organization. essentially he called it the international flying saucer Bureau. He in the year, I want to say, when was it here?

Let me double check. I want to say it was actually in the early fifties. So he, he creates this international flying saucer Bureau and bender during this time as well. Is just kind of losing it. And his entire family has been plagued with health problems, cancer tumors of the brain, things like that.

And he’s, he’s losing it after having this international flying saucer Bureau open for a while. He finally shuts the Bureau down. Out of nowhere, like, yeah, he wasn’t doing great, but the Bureau was fine. He shuts it all down out of nowhere. And the only thing he’ll say is that three men came to him. They were dressed in dark suits with dark hats, with dark glasses.

They told him that he was right. But they told him that he could not tell anybody. And so that is our very first encounter with the men in black, which happens. I want to even say it was 52. Kenneth Arnold’s famous, citing, which is that happened in 1947. That’s where we get the term flying saucer. So pretty much as long as.

As there have been UFO, there have been men in black. So why do you

Dan LeFebvre: [00:36:52] think then that if there’s all, all of these things happening, kind of bring it back to the point, pleasant, but there’s all of these things happening around then. Why do you think kind of moth man stood out? I know John keel wrote his or called his book, the moth man prophecies.

So that’s why, you know, the movie then follows that. But why do you think

Sam Frederickson: [00:37:12] if he was

Dan LeFebvre: [00:37:13] researching all of these different things in his mind? There had to have been something that made him kind of focus on moth, man, at least in the title. To draw that. Why do you think that would be?

Sam Frederickson: [00:37:25] So I think it’s because out of all of the unknowns math man is the least known, right?

The flying saucers, the, and their inhabitants, the, men and black, all of these things are things that even in 1967, 66, we knew things about. but if you really go through and read the book moth, man’s not in it that much. Like he’s there. He may be, gets, he may be get, I want to say out of a 300 page book, he maybe gets 30 pages of screen time.

And then from there, it’s all about the, the other things happening as well. I think he, he mentioned the moth man prophecies. He takes it and connects it very well to different. basically different religious and mythological, frameworks throughout the world. So you have, he actually calls them off man, a Carta, which is a sort of man bird thing of, of Hindu lore that does.

Act kind of as a portent of doom. And that’s where you get this idea that that moth man is potentially a portent of doom. However, without what happened to the bridge, I don’t necessarily think that that, that would be how we remember moth man, even when there was a big. There was actually a moth man sightings flap in Chicago, last year.

And so people, certain people have been kind of sitting around being like, ah, something’s going to happen. What’s going on? I’m kind of paranoid about this. And I really think at the end of the day, it all just comes down to timing because in the book, the moth man prophecies. In moth man is not the one making the prophecies.

He’s not making the predictions. There are predictions and prophecies being made, but moth man is pretty much as popping up every now and then to give you a spook. And then, and then disappearing.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:39:20] Now in the movie, there were some predictions that were made like, the Denver nine, the, they think that, and the equator, the, you know, they mentioned the.

The 300 will die. so you’re saying that moth man wasn’t necessarily really related with those?

Sam Frederickson: [00:39:36] No, no, they, again, all of this is happening during the same time as the moth man sighting and honestly, potentially that. Now that I think about it, that could be the reason as well. Right? If, if this is all happening within a moth man flap from November 66 to December 67, that might be why the focus is put on that.

Because even though. Moth man himself is not, or itself is not doing that much. It is. It is what seems to have Harold all of this. Essentially, you have another individual named mr. Apple and Apple is spelled APO L unlike injured, cold, who is, is primarily given the credit for making the prophecies that, that lead to people’s doom and gloom.

It’s actually mr. Apple, who. Makes a lot of these prophecies and he does it via it’s. It’s one of those situations where you have Apple. And he’s talking to what is referred to as a contactee, somebody who has had contact with a, an unknown force. I don’t want to say extra terrestrial, but unknown force.

And then those contactees relay there, the message of mr. Apple, back to John keel and that, you know, that famous scene with Android cold on the telephone, probably the scariest scene of everyone’s childhood, where. You have this weird voice and it’s telling John client exactly what he’s doing that according to keel that’s sort of did happen even down to him, putting his watch in his shoe.

And then mr. Apple saying the Watchers in your shoe. yeah. And it’s this individual who makes these predictions now. The thing about it. The, the tragic thing about it is that the moth man prophecies comes out in 1975. I want to say so, unfortunately there’s no open-ended predictions here. There is no, you know, in 2015, this is going to happen.

All of the predictions are in the past from the point of publishing. So from there, that’s where you get a lot of skepticism and a lot of, of just, well, Of course, he, he made this prediction because that’s what happened. But the interesting thing about Apple is that these predictions were both correct and incorrect at the same time.

So one of the best ones that he gives is regarding Martin Luther King jr. Okay. Mr. Apple tells his contactee who then tells John keel that Martin Luther King jr. Is going to be shot while standing on a balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He tells him that it’s going to happen on February 4th. When in reality, all of that is true, but it happens on April 4th and it’s, it’s the same sort of thing.

He, he, all of the contactees are very worried about Pope Pope Paul, the sixth, they were saying Pope Paul is going to be. Assassinated by a man wearing black in an airport, in a foreign land, using a dagger and where you get like this earthquake, right? They, they made that prediction about the earthquake, essentially the Pope announced, or the Vatican announced, I think it was July.

20th of 1967, they announced that the Pope would be going to Turkey on the 26th on the 22nd. There is an airplane or sorry, on the 22nd, there is an earthquake and a lot of people die in Turkey, but the assassination attempt. Doesn’t happen until November 27th, 1973 years later. And basically Pope Paul is, is in the Manila airport.

It’s the first time a Pope ever visited the Philippines and a man dressed in the black robes of a priest, attacked him using a dagger. So you have these sort of similarities, but they’re not completely accurate. And usually it’s because of the time, because, and I think, I think that they talk about it in the movie, but I might be confusing it with a book, essentially.

It’s as though these forces want John keel to know. That they know, but they don’t want him to be able to do anything about it. Right. When, when he heard about this plan to kill MLK, he called MLK. Entourage, whatever it was is his group of people and tried to warn them. And they may or may not have taken it under advisement, but in any case, it doesn’t matter because he wasn’t killed until two months later.

And, and that is really what it comes down to. At the end of the moth man prophecies, he is worried of a nationwide blackout. He says, there’s going to be the, the contactees have told me of a nationwide blackout that’s going to happen. The moment that they flipped the switch to turn on the Christmas tree at the white house, right?

It’s on December 15th, 1967. They’re going to flip the switch. There’s going to be a nationwide blackout. He stockpiled water and food and everything and got ready and told people. And I’m sure looked pretty crazy. And then he’s watching this on TV with a buddy who was just sitting there freaked out of his mind.

Keel is a pretty cool cat usually, but even he is. Is pretty freaked out. They’ve flipped the switch keel braces for the blackout. Of course there is no nationwide blackout, but then that’s when the. the news channel changes and says the bridge has collapsed and such and such. People are dead in such and such.

People are missing. So you have this idea that these people want killed to know that they’re in charge, that they’re powerful, whether they’re making these happen, things happen, or they just have the power to see them. He never says, but just because they know doesn’t mean he’s going to know, and doesn’t mean he’s going to be able to stop or help any of it, you know?

Dan LeFebvre: [00:45:44] Yeah. It sounds kind of like, Kind of going back to the movie. As I recall, the parts were the specific predictions that they made were like the Denver nine 99 will die. and I actually paused the movie there, cause I’m a nerd like that. Now I’ll pause it to see the, you know, the little TV that they are in the diner.

And, and it says like domain, air flight nine out of Denver and there’s no domain air airlines. So of course that’s not real. But it, you know, it sounds like they took some of those things or some of those ideas similar with, I think it was in the newspaper and you saw equator 300 will die, you know?

Sam Frederickson: [00:46:18] right.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:46:20] It sounds like there, as far as the movie, at least is concerned, they’re taking. Events that that happened. I mean, obviously we have, we have earthquakes, we have plane crashes, you know, we have these sort of tragedies and these sort of things and kind of leading to as similar to what you said, where, you know, showing that this creature or entity or whatever you want to call it, knows, know something, you know, know knows something and is kind of showing us that it knows it, but.

Not letting us have enough information to be able to do anything about

Sam Frederickson: [00:46:54] it. Right, right. And that, yeah. I think that that’s, a big part of it. he does state and it’s just in passing, but he States that the main reason that he believes mr. Apple, Is the fact that he made a very, a series of very successful predictions regarding playing crashes.

And he makes these predictions at the point when John keel says, well, I’m sorry to tell you this, but you are crazy and you’re not talking with an alien. Who’s telling you the future. That’s that’s ridiculous. And then. He says, well, really well, this plane is going to go down. This plane is going to go down and this one’s going to go down and this is when they’re going to do it.

And he says, fine, whatever. And then it happens. And then that’s where that’s when the aliens really start or sorry, not aliens. The whatevers, the ultra terrestrials, really start messing with him. Unfortunately, keel does not tell us what planes, what flights, what, how many people I’m missing that.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:47:53] So I wonder, did Keogh give any indication or did you find anything in your research,

Sam Frederickson: [00:47:59] that

Dan LeFebvre: [00:47:59] might have them maybe, maybe did they know about it or were they causing it?

I guess would be another thing, because that would kind of be the first thing that comes to my mind is

Sam Frederickson: [00:48:09] if you’re going to tell me that

Dan LeFebvre: [00:48:11] this air, this plane is going to crash and this plant is going to crash and this plane is gonna crash. Wait a minute. Are you doing this

Sam Frederickson: [00:48:18] right,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:48:19] right. In the future, are you causing these things to happen?

Sam Frederickson: [00:48:23] Yeah, that’s the question and there’s, there’s really no straight answer on it. you get the, you get the sense, he talks about what he calls it as the games that non-people play and O N people play. And he talks about these petty little games that the. The controllers of the contactees, make them play wherein one of the contactees will be told to.

And because peel is, is communicating with everybody, he can put this together individually. They’d never know. Basically one of the contactees is told. I think it’s something like salt. He’s like take a pound of salt drive into the, to the, to the woods or something and leave it under this specific tree.

And so contact you we’ll do that. And then contact be contact. DB will be told, go to this specific tree and there will be salt there. And that’s how you can know that I am. Omniscient and all knowing is because I, I created the salt basically. And so it’s, it’s bizarre, man. It is, it is so weird because it is not what I would anticipate at all.

And, and when I look at it under that lens, I say that these individuals do not have. I mean, you want to talk about how to crash your plane, you know, that can be made to happen. But when you’re looking at earthquakes or, or PayPal assassinations or assassinate, assassinations of MLK, things like that, I don’t feel like they’re powerful enough or, or have that ability to make that happen.

I feel like they would be more likely to simply be. Observing it and reporting it. And if you, I guess if you follow some of the more typical UFO lore, the stuff that’s not completely out there, you do have the idea of, of, the UFO inhabitants of being fourth dimensional, creatures, whatever they are. To the point where they can see through space and time.

And so you have this idea that they could probably see these things happening, but not caused them. Now at the same time, judging by that exact same rationale, you could say, well, it could be that the individual who, who attempted to assassinate Pope Paul was a contact D and he was. He was told by mr. A mr.

Apple to assassinate Pope Paul and the same thing with MLK and all of that. So it’s that thing where you just have absolutely no answer. I don’t think I will say that. I don’t think that whoever it is, whatever they’re doing, I don’t think that they have. Even within this mythos, assuming that everything John keel says as a hundred percent true, nothing indicates that they have any sort of power over, you know, earthquakes and natural phenomena.

And, and even when it comes down to the bridge, you know, it’s, it’s more about fortune telling than making it happen, especially with those, those bigger things

Dan LeFebvre: [00:51:27] is, as you’re explaining that to. especially with the contact, he’s kind of going, you know, contact the AE, doing this, and then making it seem like the next person.

there was a

Sam Frederickson: [00:51:37] surprise, right?

Dan LeFebvre: [00:51:38] It almost reminded me of geocashing. I don’t know if you remember that. I don’t even know if it’s Oh

Sam Frederickson: [00:51:42] yeah, but I would joke ashing all the time.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:51:46] I mean, I mean, that’s it, that’s what it sounds like to me. And if, if anybody’s not familiar with that, essentially, it’s, you have like a, a location, right.

And there’s going to be somebody put something there and they’d say where the location is and, would be listen.

me growing up there were, you know, websites, I’d go to it and give a location. Y’all usually. Coordinates or, you know,

latitude, longitude, and you, you find where it’s at and that’s kind of the fun of it is you go out there, hiking, wherever, you know, out in the wilderness and find this thing.

And then you find the little treasure. I mean, it’s all, it’s different, what it is, right. It’s never any, you’re not actually pirate gold or anything like that.

but you know, it’s just the, the adventure of, of going out there and finding this. It just sounds almost like if this happened in the sixties, like in.

An early version of that

Sam Frederickson: [00:52:31] extra terrestrial, geocashing all fits. It really does. So

Dan LeFebvre: [00:52:36] in the movie, there are some things that,

Sam Frederickson: [00:52:39] they refer to

Dan LeFebvre: [00:52:40] as being associated with moth man. and I’ll I’ll 0.2 out because they’re, they’re kind of, the two that kind of stood out to me, there was one where the lady.

Sam Frederickson: [00:52:49] I don’t remember her

Dan LeFebvre: [00:52:50] name in the movie, but, she claimed seeing red eyes outside of her window and, and you know, this huge, six or seven foot tall creature.

and then there was another one where there was, I believe it was,

Sam Frederickson: [00:53:02] it was

Dan LeFebvre: [00:53:03] Gore. I think Gordon had this happen to him. Well, patents are it keeps saying patents well, patents,

Sam Frederickson: [00:53:08] character,

Dan LeFebvre: [00:53:09] notice interference with the phone. And it happened with, John Klein as well. You know, you’d have these weird squeals and odd noises.

so this kind of start with, I guess,

Sam Frederickson: [00:53:20] moth man’s

Dan LeFebvre: [00:53:22] appearance was there or is there something to that’s the kind of the way the movie. Explained it being, you know, with red eyes and six or seven feet tall, and then kind of the weird, interference and things like that. Were, were those things that happened with the moth man sightings?

Sam Frederickson: [00:53:38] Yes. Yeah. So I cannot recall one way or the other, if I want to say that it probably did happen, but I can’t recall one way or the other, if there was that, that story of the woman, just seeing the red eyes at her window, or out her window. In the, in reality in the book. But I think even if it didn’t the point that it serves is primarily moth, man has two super defining features.

obviously he’s weird all in all, but his. His eyes are the number one thing right there, these red eyes, and they are hypnotizing. And you kind of see this in the very beginning when John Klein’s wife dies in the car accident. You see her just go blank and to look into these eyes and then have everything else happen.

and that is his most defining characteristic to the point where we don’t necessarily even have a good description of moth man’s face because everyone who saw him saw the eyes and said the eyes. Drew their focus that they could not focus on anything else. One of the witnesses, Connie carpenter, who was actually married hires niece said that it was a miracle.

She didn’t run her car off the road when she had her experience. Because those eyes, you just could not stop looking at them, which keel then takes that and makes that association with, Basically the hypnosis that, that UFO and moth man seemed to put people under and how eyes are, how lights can be used to induce miniature Caesar seizures and stuff like that.

And that’s what he thinks of as a scientific, rational explanation. But those eyes are the primary thing. The second thing are his wings because everything else, I mean, I have seen. A guy who is seven foot tall once it was insane, but it was not paranormal. Right? So that, that in and of itself, isn’t, isn’t too big of a deal.

And his typical size is six to seven feet. His wings though, are, are dark bat, like wings that unfurl unfurl from his back to stand at a bout, Oh, a wingspan of 10 feet. So very large. And then. What happens, essentially. He never flaps these wings, not once. He simply unfurls the wings. And then with them being unfurled, he is able to rise into the air and glide around, which is just bizarre.

Just no other

Dan LeFebvre: [00:56:20] way of doing that. That’s been visible. No, like I would say jet pack, but I mean, you’re like, no, no, no. The ideal form of being able to levitate like that

Sam Frederickson: [00:56:29] or just. That is essentially what it sounds like is that he has a jet pack on, like, I’m not saying that’s what it is at all, but yeah, it shows no physical, actual creation of thrust, nothing that would, would possibly get him off the ground.

He just unfurls his wings and there he goes, strange. And that is something as well that we kind of mentioned in our first episode. That was not a widely reported aspect of him, but when John keel checked everything out, everybody said the same thing. Nobody saw him with his wings flapping, but at, at the very first, in the first few days before the story got way, way, way big, nobody talked about how his wings didn’t flap.

And it’s one of those tiny little details that to me just makes it seem all the more like, if, if. Over a hundred people because that’s what it ends up being. If over a hundred people are going to lie, why did the first 16 of them, 12 to 16 of them all have this one random little fact, you know, it’s just bizarre, but so that’s, that’s him.

He’s also covered in grayish. It’s kind of, for all it really says is gray. and, and he has legs like a man. So that’s the other big thing is. People say, well, moth man was just the Sandhill crane. And to that, I said that’s. If, if you look at what the witnesses actually said, that’s completely impossible because the Sandhill crane has the legs of a bird and moth man has the legs of a man.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:58:06] I don’t want to go way into a completely a side tangent here, but it sounds almost like Batman. I mean, like you’ve got the, you got the, he’s got the big Cape, right. And he never really flops it. He uses. His, you know, Oh, I don’t remember the, grapple to repel up and things like that. Right.

Sam Frederickson: [00:58:23] so his, how he gets

Dan LeFebvre: [00:58:25] around, but he’s got this huge, the wings, right?

The same sort of wings. And I dunno, that’s just the first thing that came to mind when you mentioned that he’s. The wings are almost pointless. Like what’s the point of wings. If you’re not going to flap them, actually use them to fly. Well, then it’s,

Sam Frederickson: [00:58:40] it’s true. And the name moth man. So the first two or three days, people are just saying this big bird, this big bird was seen in point pleasant.

This big bird looked like a man and had glowing red eyes. And then. Basically, I think it was a fella in Chicago. I can’t remember exactly, but some reporter saw the story and said, Oh, I’m going to name it. Moth man. And that was actually based off of a Batman villain was moth man. So yeah, it, the Batman parallels run deep in this.

So

Dan LeFebvre: [00:59:12] moth man. Is from Batman. Nice.

Sam Frederickson: [00:59:14] Yes. Yes.

Dan LeFebvre: [00:59:17] So what about kind of the weird, the interference and things like that, that they had in the movie? Was that something that occurred as well?

Sam Frederickson: [00:59:24] That is absolutely something that happened. the phone system plays a really big part in the book, which is a weird thing to say, but it’s true.

Basically you have almost every single individual who had a UFO sighting. Or a moth man siding. They would, within the following days and weeks and months, they would answer their phones just to have the phone squeal, or they would have the phone make, basically Morse code beeps at them. you had like the stereotypical answering it and there’s nobody there or there’s someone there, but it sounds like heavy breathing, but no, one’s actually there.

Sort of thing or no one’s talking, you then also have the idea that when moth man and the UFO is, are, are around in that moment, these things will happen. There was actually an individual who may or may not have been the actual first sighting of moth man. He reported his sighting after the, the. the customary, the one that everyone thinks of, which is four kids in a car driving around and seeing him, this was an individual about 90.

I want to say, 90 to 100 miles away who claim to have seen the moth man 90 minutes before these kids dead. And essentially he, he knew that. He, he knew something was happening because he was sitting inside watching his television and then the reception bugged out and his TV started just acting crazy and getting, getting fuzz and coming back in and distorting.

And he went outside and he saw these black or sorry. He saw these big red eyes staring at him out of the trees. His dog ran in. To, to attack this thing. And then the dog never came back and then the eyes disappeared. And once the eyes disappeared, the TV went back to normal. So this idea of like everything electronic going haywire, completely lines up, not only with these sightings, but with pretty much the majority of modern UFO sightings as well.

You have as well with when it comes to the phone, you have a lot of weird situations where John keel is, is talking to people and saying, people are saying like, Oh John, it was so good to talk to you two days ago. And he was like, I never, what do you mean we didn’t talk two days ago? And he says, no, you called me on the phone.

And we talked about this and this and keel says that people seem to be imitating his voice. And he’s getting calls from fellow UFO ologists. Who he can identify as not actually being them, but it sounds like them, and they’re talking about things they would be talking about, but little things are just wrong.

So yeah, the phones are a, are a big part of the phenomena is now in

Dan LeFebvre: [01:02:19] the book though, where they, where they actually associated with mafia or where they associate with some of the other aspects.

Sam Frederickson: [01:02:26] They’re associated with both they’re associated with moth, man, for sure. If you have a moth man siding, you’re going to have the beeps in the soils at least.

And maybe also, Picking up the phone, hearing other people like discussing you, that would happen sometimes. but as much as that happened with moth, man, it also did happen with, the UFOs as well. Hmm.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:02:49] Okay. Well, okay. So I’m gonna, I’m gonna kinda just. Break the fourth wall here for a moment because I just noticed it is hailing outside.

Sam Frederickson: [01:02:58] Oh no. So

Dan LeFebvre: [01:03:00] if you’re listening this and you hear something in the background, I’m going to keep going, but, that’s hail right now in the middle of a big storm. So, you know, Halloween, right? but let’s move on to kind of like the, the big finale in the movie and that’s the

Sam Frederickson: [01:03:15] steel bridge,

Dan LeFebvre: [01:03:16] on the, or the silver bridge made us steel, but yeah.

silver bridge

Sam Frederickson: [01:03:21] on the Ohio river

Dan LeFebvre: [01:03:22] that dies and, or not. People die on it. Right.

Sam Frederickson: [01:03:27] And the bridge itself, the bridge itself,

Dan LeFebvre: [01:03:30] it’s a great tragedy. I think that’s what they Walkman called it. Right. A great tragedy on the river Ohio. so obviously if the movie is set in 2002, and obviously the timeline shifted, so it didn’t happen in 2002 would be my guess.

but did it even happen at all? Would be my

Sam Frederickson: [01:03:47] question. Yeah. Good question. And yes, it did. It, it happened. On that final day of, of the moth man flap, which was December 15th, 1967. So it, it, it absolutely happens. you get this idea that certain individuals, right before the bridge collapsed, looked over to see red lights.

It doesn’t say whether they. Where the red eyes of moth man or red UFOs or whatever, kind of circling around the bridge. And even from there, we aren’t able to say, you know, did these things directly cause, the bridge to collapse or what? But the silver bridge definitely went down and unfortunately, Quite a few people.

I think it’s around 36 people, I want to say lost their lives and the tragedy.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:04:40] Do you know what the official cause was that? I mean, did authorities actually say that it was moth man or some sort of creature that caused this to happen? And what was the official,

Sam Frederickson: [01:04:51] English authorities would say it was moth man.

No. and to be straight, I don’t necessarily think. Moth man, or the UFO has caused it. The official report was that this, this bridge was built for when the population had a lot less people traveling in it. So the thing is right. Point pleasant is not a very large area, but that is the silver bridge is the only bridge for, I think like 25, 50 miles.

So it had an. An extremely high amount of traffic, beyond what the engineers had had originally planned. And really what it came down to is the bridge was old. The bridge was not well maintained and the bridge collapsed. And that’s why, again, when we look at like, are these things causing it or are they just predicting it?

That’s a big, big strike in the prediction column because at the end of the day they, they were, and they actually, what they did is they. This is, this is crazy to me that they could do this, but they essentially grabbed all the pieces of the bridge they could, and they reassembled it elsewhere. And that’s how they came to that conclusion.

So I trust that pretty well. There were no like cut lines or, or broken, you know, intentionally sabotage beams or anything like that. It was just a tragic event of. Basically neglect. Yeah.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:06:19] I could see that. I mean, I’ve, I’ve not been near anybody who does that for bridges and such, but I actually, I used to work, was contracted to the air force and I worked in, a materials lab where we did very similar sort of things for aircraft engines and, or really aircraft overall engines were kind of our specialty.

But, and so if there was something that failed, Usually, you know, w whether it be corrosion or creep or like the part just failing, you know, figuring out what that is, would be something that’s, I guess my point being there’s labs out there that can do that kind of thing to figure out exactly what causes something to fail.

yeah. And it’s crazy. It’s crazy. I mean, there’s incredibly smart people to be able to figure that kind of stuff out, but yeah, I would, I would trust what your assessment is.

Sam Frederickson: [01:07:07] Yeah. Like a part of me. I mean, I don’t want to say a part of me wants to be moth, man, because that would say a part of me wants it to have happened.

Obviously I don’t want it to happen, but you know, I would have loved for it to come back and been one of those situations. Like I’m sh I think as the movie makes it out, that bridge is perfectly fine. It never had an issue all his life. You know what, where’s this coming from? Yeah, that just wasn’t the case, unfortunately.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:07:33] Well, it only takes one issue that can be perfectly fine. And then only once, right?

Sam Frederickson: [01:07:39] Yeah. So

Dan LeFebvre: [01:07:40] overall. I’m going to ask you kind of the big question we’ve, we’ve talked about it.

Sam Frederickson: [01:07:46] but

Dan LeFebvre: [01:07:46] do you believe moth man, to be real and

Sam Frederickson: [01:07:49] overall

Dan LeFebvre: [01:07:50] kind of, how would you say, even though the, the details and stuff that we’ve talked about, the sounds like the movie changed quite a bit.

Do you think that the. The spirit of moth man came through pretty well for the moth man prophecies the movie, not that book.

Sam Frederickson: [01:08:06] Yeah. Right, right. I would say personally, I’m going to put myself in the yes. Column. I believe John keel in his book. I think it’s like, what one is it? It’s not the math mind prophecies.

It actually came out a few years before he. He cataloged 26 individual sightings that he found to be credible of moth, man. It was called like strange beasts and wonderful wonder or something like that. I’ve completely buttered it. That’s not it at all. Anyway, he catalogs 26 individual sightings. And when you.

Take all of these sightings together, it adds up to over a hundred reliable witnesses who saw something. My cohost, Jason is the skeptic of us and that’s fine. And that’s why we love him. And that’s why he’s on the show. I’m on the show. It works, Jason. It has gone through and found a good amount of hoaxing that happened.

He found stories of people who tied like lanterns to balloons, people who there was one individual, according to him who had a. A biplane essentially, and would be flying it and then would cut the engine and glide over people. Right. And almost basically almost crash his plane just to get a rise out of these people.

So I think that the human. Ability to hope and to, to get a laugh at someone else’s expense is extremely high. And I think that that plays a big part in all of this, but I think that when you go back there, there’s so much more evidence we didn’t even touch on here, but when you go back, when you examine all of it, I think to say that everybody was hallucinating to say that it was the Sandhill crane, which John keel took pictures of that burdens showed it to everyone.

And everyone said, no, that’s not what I saw, to say it was an owl or anything else like that. Any standard explanation, I think just isn’t going to cut it. I don’t know exactly what I think about math, man. I think that it’s definitely not something that can be easily explained or, or. Currently understood.

but I do think that it happened as far as the movie. I think that the movie was created by a man. I don’t know if you, do you listen to astonishing legends at all?

Dan LeFebvre: [01:10:29] I I’ve heard a few episodes. I don’t listen regularly. There’s just way too many shows out there. I know

Sam Frederickson: [01:10:35] it’s insane. astonishing legends.

There are pod fathers. They’re listening to their show is what made me inspired to do ours. And they have. An amazing first off an amazing series on moth man, but they actually through some weird confluence of events and stuff. They know the, the screenwriter of the moth man prophecies. and so they’ve had him on, I want to say twice now, his name’s rich Haddam.

He is a believer in the paranormal. He is not just some individual who sat down and said, Oh, I’m getting paid to turn this book into a movie. He truly. Wants to get to the bottom of this and wants to tell this fantastic story. And I want to say that rich did the best he could, and it is a good entertaining, fun kind of spooky movie in and of itself at the end of the day.

It’s it’s not going to be exactly like the book because you simply couldn’t be. but I think that he kept the spirit of, of moth man and the spirit of John keel alive. Even if he had to change a lot of the details to get there. Sure.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:11:47] Well, I mean, even in what we’ve covered,

Sam Frederickson: [01:11:50] there’s so much more yeah, just, yeah.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:11:54] You know, the, the moth man aspect and things like that. And. That was something I touch on the hoax is real quick, because I know that is something that not just with mafia, but in any of these sort of, happenings hoaxes happen a lot. Right. You know, a lot of people try to do that kind of thing. But the thing that always sticks in my mind is in,

Sam Frederickson: [01:12:14] in order to get,

Dan LeFebvre: [01:12:15] Hoax is on the level of, you know, consistency in the reports.

Right. You’d have to have, at least I would assume you’d have to have some sort of, some sort of report that happens first to lead that off. Right. So what is, what does this look like? What is this, what is this creature or being or whatever it is, what is this? Initially look like, okay. It has red eyes, it has wings that don’t flap.

It has, you know, all these different things. And then that’s kinda what hoax is based off of. Right. Kind of going off of that. otherwise it would seem like you just have a bunch of random things that don’t have any connection whatsoever. I dunno, maybe that’s just, that’s just kinda my thought on

Sam Frederickson: [01:12:52] the.

The

Dan LeFebvre: [01:12:54] hope side of it, because I get that and yeah, there’s definitely could be, and I’m not, I’m sure there are a lot of writers and things like that out there. that kind of filter into a lot of it, but I don’t know. It sounds, it sounds like definitely like some something interesting happened.

Sam Frederickson: [01:13:10] I’m a, I’m the same way I say.

I, I w with these sorts of things where you have a lot of people saying it, whether it’s moth, man, whether it’s the Jersey devil, these sorts of things, you have to have at least some kernel of truth. Some things you don’t have to have a kernel of truth. Some shit things can be completely made up lies. I don’t like to assume that I always take everyone at their word until proven otherwise.

And maybe that’s my problem, but you know, if you have one or two people saying something, if you have a husband and a wife or a family, or, or I’d say even up to 10 people, you could just have people straight up saying, Oh, let’s tell a story. Let’s get some notoriety. For it to be disparate people, different things, different events, different times.

There’s gotta be some kernel of truth. And that’s, that’s what it comes down to for me as well. So I agree completely.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:14:06] And I think if anything, listeners of this show will know that. With, with a lot of movies, right? I mean, they claim to be based on a true story and there, but there’s, there’s that kernel of truth in there.

And a lot of times the movie changes things completely, but still we’re trying to find that kernel of truth. And it sounds like we’re kind of in a similar path, different, different topics, perhaps a similar path, trying to find that kernel of truth, whatever it may be.

Sam Frederickson: [01:14:32] I like that. I think so. I liked the idea of us as kindred spirits.

That’s good. That’s good. Yeah. The movie, the movie has that Colonel, unfortunately, because it had to be a narrative. Otherwise people wouldn’t see it. I mean, John keeled didn’t have a wife. He died, a bachelor, his nonexistent wife never got in a car crash. This never spurred him off to get to the bottom of it.

You know, all of this and that he wasn’t even in point pleasant when the bridge collapsed. But at the end of the day, if it’s a movie about moth man and not a movie about John keel, I think that they were pretty. Pretty close to the source there.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:15:13] Very good. Well, I really appreciate your time, Sam. And, before we wrap up, I know you’ve got plenty more on not only moth man, but also plenty more topics.

Can you let everybody know where they can find your podcast?

Sam Frederickson: [01:15:27] Yeah. Yeah. Just, open up your favorite podcast app. We’re there just syringe, not alone. iTunes, Stitcher, apparently we’re having a problem on Stitcher, but I’m getting that, trying to get that fixed right now. Regardless iTunes, Stitcher, pod bean, the, the other non pod catcher place to find us would be our website, which is not alone.

podcast.com. We are on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can just search, not alone podcast on any of those. And you’ll find us, if you have any, any suggestions for us, if you want to talk to us at all, you can email us@notalonepodcastsatgmail.com. Especially if you want to correct me. That is my favorite thing in the world.

A lot of people, even like in regards to this interview, if I said something wrong, please let me know, because I want to know, I don’t want to be given false information, but yeah, we’re, we’re everywhere. If Jason were here, he would say just Google us, which by the way, That is, that’s what he loves to say.

Every episode Jason wishes, he could make it. We just trying to wrangle three people’s like wrangling catch and he just had to work. So he’s here in spirit.

Dan LeFebvre: [01:16:32] Well, I appreciate your time coming on salmon and. Talking moth man prophecies with me.

Sam Frederickson: [01:16:39] Yeah, my pleasure. If you ever need any other spooky movies or, or weird, anything like that, you just let me know.

I’m your guy

Dan LeFebvre: [01:16:45] now. All right. Sounds good. Thanks.

Sam Frederickson: [01:16:47] Thank you.