By Tim Binnall
Time travel, violent Sasquatch encounters, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence were among the fascinating realms explored this past week on Coast to Coast AM. And, here at the C2C website, we told you about a new theory for the Dyatlov Pass incident, a game camera photo that might show a young Bigfoot, and a Russian man busted for trying to steal Lenin's mummified body. Check out our round-up of highlights from the past week ... In Coast You Missed It.
The tantalizing topic of time travel was explored on Thursday night's program as engineer Marshall Barnes talked turning the fantastic concept into a reality. He observed that going to the future is not particularly appealing because it is fraught with uncertainty, journeying to the past remains presents something of a safe haven since one would know what to expect. To that end, he posited that while some have pondered going back thousands of years in order to 'restart' civilization, he would opt to simply travel around 30 or 40 years into the past since it would be easier to assimilate into society. During his appearance, Barnes explored whether it would be better to make the journey in a vehicle or via a 'station' such as a stargate.
A pair of particularly weird arrests wound up making headlines this past week, beginning with an incident in Russia wherein a man was taken into custody after he tried to break into the tomb of USSR founder Vladimir Lenin and steal the mummified body of the revered Soviet leader. Fortunately, his audacious attempt at grave robbing was quickly thwarted when security guards descended on the scene and then turned him over to police. Meanwhile, in India, authorities busted a pair of con artists who claimed that they had procured a mermaid's eye from a "holy man" and offered to sell the magical item for an astronomical sum. When cops took them into custody, they easily determined that the 'mystical object' was merely a cleverly crafted hoax.
While Sasquatch may seem like something of a docile creature, there are a number of accounts that suggest that Bigfoot could have an aggressive side to it. On Sunday night's program, paranormal researcher William Sheehan shared cases wherein witnesses stumbled upon troubling scenes believed to be the result of an individual running afoul of the famed cryptid. He recalled one such instance in which a hunter felt an inexplicably eerie presence in the woods and then found a pile of bones that included a badly injured human skull. The possibility of Bigfoot being violent was noted, he said, in a military map from the 1970s that had a picture of Sasquatch labeled a 'dangerous creature' to watch out for in Washington state.
The infamous Dyatlov Pass incident was back in the news this week with the advancement of a new theory for what might have caused nine hikers to perish under very strange circumstances in Russia's Ural Mountains 64 years ago. Speaking at a press conference, a team of researchers pointed to declassified documents which indicated that the Soviet Union had been conducting clandestine rocket tests in the general area and time frame of the 1959 tragedy. They argued that the malfunction of one such device unleashed a cloud of nitric acid upon the hikers, enveloping them in a toxic fog that ultimately spelled their doom.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence took center stage on Monday night's program as the SETI Institute's senior astronomer Seth Shostak detailed the latest advancements in looking for alien signals. He indicated that the organization has renewed their effort to integrate artificial intelligence into their work since AI would allow for a deeper and more thorough examination of the copious amounts of data collected by telescopes around the world. Shostak also recounted the history of the SETI Institute, from government program to private organization, and shared his thoughts on the much-discussed government interest in military UAP reports, which he believes are not otherworldly in nature.
This past week saw several compelling cases of various paranormal phenomena possibly being caught on film. There were two potential ghost videos: a suspected apparition spotted by a security camera at a shopping center in Peru and an eerie anomaly that resembled a transparent figure dashing into a campfire. On the UFO front, a witness in Utah captured footage of a dark triangular object hovering over Salt Lake City for several minutes. But it was Bigfoot that may have trumped them all as a game camera in Washington state snapped a fantastic photo of a hairy bipedal figure that some suspect was a juvenile Sasquatch.
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.