In the first half, maritime historian Ric Mixter discussed the enduring fascination with the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, a 729-foot freighter that vanished in Lake Superior, 50 years ago, on November 10, 1975 with all 29 crew members lost. He noted the cultural impact of Gordon Lightfoot's iconic song: "The lyrics may be probably 80% wrong, but the song is hauntingly incredible." Recounting the initial media response, Mixter recalled how artifacts from the ship washed ashore, captivating the public. Regarding the mystery surrounding the ship's sinking, he emphasized that the storm it encountered was not among the worst recorded on the Great Lakes. "Why did the 700-foot freighter... vanish?" he mused.
Mixter described the ship's final moments based on his 1994 dive to the wreck at 550 feet deep, revealing a crewman's body found wearing a life jacket. "That brought a whole new picture of did they know what was happening? Did they try to rescue themselves?" he said. Painting a vivid picture of the wreck site as a "tragic grave site of 29 people," he shared details of the final communication with another vessel, the Anderson, which witnessed the Fitzgerald's rapid sinking after being struck by a massive wave. Before the wave hit, the captain of the Fitzgerald had told the Anderson they were holding their own, but at that point Mixter said the ship was taking in so much water through the hatches and vents that had been ripped from the deck that it was getting lower and lower in the water.
Addressing common misconceptions about the tragedy, he affirmed that the official cause was open or improperly secured hatch covers allowing water ingress. He explained that cost-cutting measures led to inadequate hatch closures, contributing to the ship's vulnerability in the storm, and debunked the theory that the ship ran aground, citing evidence that the lakebed was deep where the wreck lies. Mixter portrayed the sinking as swift and merciful compared to other maritime disasters. He also delved into the insurance aspects, reporting that crew families were mostly uninsured and that the shipping company and insurers profited despite the loss.
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In the latter half, researcher and author Chris Aubeck spoke about his extensive work on UFOs, ancient astronaut theories, and historical accounts of unexplained phenomena. Highlighting historical UFO cases, he detailed a 1571 event in Prague where witnesses described "a marching army" with "large humanoid figures" and a "large, round chariot" made of metal that emitted a "terrific noise" before vanishing in a flash of light. "It sounds very much like a spaceship that had fallen down to earth," though he acknowledged the difficulty in distinguishing folklore from fact. On ancient astronaut theories, he traced early ideas of this to a French writer, who proposed that extraterrestrial beings arrived on Earth via asteroid fragments.
Currently, Aubeck is working on a book about a 1946 San Diego UFO sighting involving a "huge, glowing winged object" witnessed for seven hours by dozens of people. Meade Layne documented the incident in his occult bulletin, and the medium Mark Probert was said to establish telepathic communication, and learned that the spaceship was called Kareeta. He also touched on the work and letters of Charles Fort, the influential author of books about anomalous phenomena, as well as the longstanding intersection of religion and extraterrestrial phenomena. "For well over 250 years," religious movements have incorporated alien visitation into their theology, he pointed out.
Aubeck addressed the 1970s speculation that Jesus Christ might have been an extraterrestrial, noting that such ideas actually revive a "200-year-old theological debate" about Christ's role in a universe potentially filled with inhabited worlds. He drew parallels between folklore creatures like fairies and modern alien abduction narratives, noting that early 20th-century accounts began portraying fairies as extraterrestrial beings who abducted humans for breeding-- echoing contemporary abduction stories.
News segment guests: Lauren Weinstein, Mike Bara