By Tim Binnall
Shapeshifters, seances, and the Rendlesham Forest UFO incident were among the fascinating topics explored this past week on Coast to Coast AM. Meanwhile, at the C2C website, we told you about a crop formation found in Brazil, a 'glowing face' that appeared over an Indian village, and a possible Bigfoot sighting in Pennsylvania. Check out our round-up of highlights from the past week ... In Coast You Missed It.
The Rendlesham Forest UFO incident was revisited on Monday night's program as filmmaker Mark Christopher Lee recounted the curious case that has come to be known as 'Britain's Roswell.' Occurring near a pair of joint NATO bases in December of 1980, the three-day-long event saw U.S. servicemen report vivid encounters with peculiar lights and a strange craft etched with hieroglyphic writing. Pointing to secret research facilities in the general area of the incident and reports of high strangeness in the region, Lee speculated that the infamous UFO case could have been the result of a proverbial paranormal portal being opened and allowing the 'visitors' to reach our world.
Bigfoot was back in the news this past week, thanks to a report from a Pennsylvania motorist who possibly spotted the famed cryptid while cruising down the highway. The all-too-brief sighting saw the suspected Sasquatch dash across the road in front of a vehicle ahead of the driver. Remarkably, the scrambling creature was so tall that the motorist could see its head over the top of the car as it scrambled to a median in the middle of the highway. When the witness caught up to the spot, he caught a brief glimpse of a bipedal, hair-covered creature that deftly jumped over a guardrail and vanished into the wilderness.
Shapeshifters were in the spotlight on Tuesday night's program as author John Kachuba discussed these mysterious beings that have long been a fixture in cultures around the world. He defined such figures as entities or individuals who possess or are stricken with the ability to transform into animals, objects, or even other people. Speaking to the ubiquity of shapeshifters, Kachuba marveled that there are countless examples of the phenomenon in global folklore with all manner of colorful origin stories. He noted that ancient accounts attributed shapeshifting to a punishment from the gods, but more modern tales involve such individuals being able to control their own transformation.
This past week featured a pair of stories centered around curious crop formations found in two different parts of the world. First, in Brazil, a dazzling design was discovered in a farmer's field. The formation's appearance did not come as a surprise to residents of the town where it was found, Ipuaçu, as the phenomenon strangely seems to manifest there every few years around September or October. Meanwhile, in a more mystifying case, an Argentine farmer was left scratching his head after he discovered a proverbial doodle 'drawn' into his wheat field by an unknown force that also inexplicably shelled the affected crops.
Seances took center stage on Saturday night's program as paranormal expert Lisa Morton talked about the origins and evolution of the practice said to provide a means of communicating with the 'other side.' She indicated that these get-togethers, which take their name from the French word for 'gathering,' trace back to the 18th- and 19th-century when they were associated with techniques like mesmerism. Seances exploded in popularity in 1848, Morton explained, thanks to New York's Fox sisters, who launched the spiritualism craze with their claims of being able to contact the dead via spirit-rapping sessions. Though the fad largely lost its luster due to fraudulent mediums, she credited the practice with paving the way for modern paranormal investigation.
Two unusual aerial anomaly videos caught our eye this past week, beginning with footage from Wisconsin wherein a weird flying saucer could be seen gliding across the sky beneath a descending jet. The nearly transparent disc-shaped oddity originally went unnoticed by the witness, who was filming the aircraft and only noticed the UFO when she later watched the scene. Later in the week, residents of an Indian village were understandably unnerved when an unidentified illumination resembling a glowing face suddenly appeared in the sky. While the eerie visage was likely a trick of light and shadow brought about by the clouds, the source of the light behind it remains a mystery.
Coast Insiders can check out all this week's shows as well as the last seven years of C2C programs in our enormous archive. Not a Coast Insider yet? Sign up today.