Recap

Gulf War II Mystery Illness

Gulf War Vet advocate Joyce Riley (gulfwarvets.com) appeared in the first half of Friday's show to discuss the mysterious illness affecting the troops in Iraq. She related details in the case of Josh Neusche, a 20-year soldier who died on July 12, 2003 after going on a "hauling" mission at the Baghdad Airport.

At first, Riley said that Neusche's parents were told their son had been affected by a toxin, then the explanation was changed to pneumonia. Now with over 50 soldiers falling ill, the Anthrax vaccine is being called the culprit. Riley believes we are not being told the true story, and speculated that the soldiers may have been wearing defective protective suits during a chemical exposure. However, "I think the story is going to be whitewashed and removed from the scene," she said. For more on her investigation, read Riley's press release.

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Friday Night Feature

This week, we present the first subject of our new Entities Gallery which combines accounts of strange beings with drawings made by the witnesses. The first tale comes from Carolyn K.:

Back in 1966, my brother and I, ages 8 and 9 years old at the time, were camping with our father at a lake in California called Cachuma Lake. This lake is located in the mountains above Santa Barbara.

We both (without our father) got up pre-dawn one morning and walked to our favorite fishing spot and settled in for a morning of fishing. There were no other people in the area at this point (around 5:30 a.m.) We were sitting, relaxed and waiting for fish when something caught my eye over by a huge, old oak tree.

I looked at my brother who was also staring at this "being" who, in turn, was staring at us. It was probably about 40 feet from us sitting on the ground next to the oak tree. Its appearance was strange. My brother and I had a sense that it was sort of human and sort of animal (perhaps.) We had never seen anything like this before. It looked like a small man, about 3.5 feet in height with tan skin, dark eyes and very small Asian features. There was beige colored fur surrounding the face and it reminded me of an Eskimo's fur parka. I could not distinguish if the fur was part of the body or whether the being was actually wearing some sort of coat. We were very cautious and little afraid because we were in a secluded area of the lake shore and there were no other people around.

We had a staring contest with it for about 10 minutes. It then started motioning to us with its finger to come over to it and began uttering sounds/words that we could not understand. Finally, our curiosity overcame us and we slowly walked over to it. As we got closer we were becoming more nervous. It never made any threatening gestures to us. Our fear came from us not know what we were looking at.

We then found ourselves within 5 feet of it and then heard someone honking their car horn. We turned around to see a car winding down the road to the inlet where we were fishing. When we turned back to look at the "being" it had just vanished. There were dead, dry leaves covering the ground so if it had run off, we would have heard it. The oak tree did not have many leaves so we would have been able to see the "being" if it had climbed up into the tree. It really did just vanish.

I have included a very rough drawing (best I could do) of what it looked like. Click here to view. My brother and I are now 44 and 45 years of age and we still remember the encounter to this day. I often wonder what might have happened if other people hadn't arrived on the scene when they did.

--Carolyn K.
ckendrick@chla.usc.edu