Speaker 1: Okay, picture of this. It's November two, nineteen sixty six.
You're driving home late alone West Virginia Highway. Suddenly there's
this weird craft zips right over your van, stops cold,
just hovering there in front of you, right there on
the road exactly. You slam the brakes.
Speaker 2: Then a door opens and outsteps Well just a guy
looks totally normal, tan, dark hair slipped back, and he's
got this constant, kind of gentle smile.
Speaker 1: He walks up to your window. You roll it down,
and then you hear him speaking clear as anything, right
inside your head, but his mouth doesn't move, still smiling,
he says, his name's Cold Searcher from a planet called Lenuelo's.
I mean, what do you even do? Then?
Speaker 3: Yeah? It really does sound like something from you know,
an old pulp magazine, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: But for whatdy?
Speaker 3: Darren Berger, this guy from Mineral Wells, West Virginia, Well,
according to him, this was in fiction. No, this was
the start, the really bewildering, kind of terrifying and well
life changing beginning, this whole saga. It pulled him into
one of the weirdest, most arguable stories in UFO history.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't just that one time on the road.
This thing spirals, you know, claims of more contact, these
really strange figures popping up in weird places, even trips
to other planets. It's complicated, deeply strange, and yeah, super controversial,
which is why we're digging into it.
Speaker 3: Definitely, we've gathered like a whole collection of material on
this wood, these accounts, other people's stories, notes from investigators
who looked into it, analysis, trying to make sense of
it all. So our mission here is really to unpack
all that for you, explore the incredible details, the claims,
what he made.
Speaker 1: But also look at it critically, right, based on what
the sources.
Speaker 3: Say exactly, look at the information from different angles. What's
the core story? Are there links between these different weird events?
And importantly, where does the analysis in these sources kind
of push back and raise some serious questions? So yeah,
let's get into it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So the story really kicks off, like we said,
November second, sixty six, Woody Darren Berger, you as a
salesman driving home on Route seventy seven near Parkersburg, West Virginia.
Here's his noise, loud, like a jet or something behind him,
looks back, sees this bizarre vehicle catching up really.
Speaker 3: Fast, and he described it very specifically, which is interesting.
He said it looked like an old fashioned kerosene lamp
sitting on its side, dark gray, sort of charcoal colored,
a tube shape with a bulge in the middle. Right.
It flew right over his van, apparently went silent once
it was overhead, and then just stopped hovering maybe what
four feet off the road, Yeah, directly in his path.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 3: He was just frozen, totally thought he was about to
be killed.
Speaker 1: And then the door opens and it's not like little
Green men or some monster. It's this incredibly well ordinary
looking guy mid forties maybe average height, average build, dark clothes,
had this noticeable tan, dark slick back hair, and that constant,
amiable smile, almost serene, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as soon as the man stepped out, the
craft just shot straight up, vanished. The man walks over
what he's passenger side window gestures for him to roll
it down. What he does, and that's when the communication starts.
Wood he heard the words perfectly clearly, but inside his.
Speaker 1: Head telepathy, that's what he called it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man's mouth just kept that smile, didn't move wild.
Speaker 1: So what was the first thing he said or thought telepathically?
Speaker 3: The first thing was asking why wood he was so scared.
Said they didn't mean any harm, just wished him happiness.
Asked what he his name, then introduced himself just as Cold,
a searcher from a place called Lanulos, A searcher. Okay,
and the sources say the conversation after that initial shock
was surprisingly mundane. Cold asked some basic stuff about the town,
what he did for work, salesman. Cold just offered that
he himself was a searcher. Small talk, basically alien small talk,
just a.
Speaker 1: Quick chat on the side of the highway with an alien.
After a few minutes, Cold says he has to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah, indicated he had to leave. The craft reappeared nearby,
landed softly, door opened. As Cold got back in, he
turned Wood He heard him again in his mind, It's
been nice talking to you, mister darren Berger. We'll be
seeing you soon. Door closed, ship just blanked out, gone
Wow okay.
Speaker 1: So Woody, presumably completely freaked out, drives home eventually.
Speaker 3: Yeah managed to drive home totally shaken, told his wife
he actually reported it to the police too. But the
really striking thing the sources point out is how fast
things moved after that. Yeah, he barely had time to
process it, because, according to Woody the very next day,
mister Cole was back the next day. Yep. And it
was on a later visit that Cole gave his full
name injured Cold. Okay, Injured Cold. Now, this is where
it gets even weirder, right, because the sources start connecting
Woody's experience to other strange stuff happening around the same time.
His wasn't necessarily the first sighting like this.
Speaker 1: That's a really key point from the research. Yeah, a
few weeks before Woody's encounter, back on October eleventh, nineteen
sixty six, there were multiple reports of strange sightings up
in Elizabeth, New Jersey, which is, you know, a good
eight hour drive away New Jersey. What kind of sightings
were they reporting there?
Speaker 3: Well, around ten pm, a police officer in his will
I saw this blazing white light so it was about
car sized near a TV tower. Apparently it barely missed
the tower before it just slowly faded out.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Then just a few minutes later, two other police officers
saw the same thing from a different spot. They described
the light as like blindingly brilliant lit up the whole area.
Speaker 1: Blinding lights, big objects. Sounds familiar, but the sources also
mentioned actual occupants being seen around then too.
Speaker 3: Yes, later that same night, in the town right next door,
a woman reported seeing a flash. Then she saw a
cylinder shaped craft land in a parking lot. Two men
got out. She said they looked ordinary, but they asked
her questions in this really weird dialect. Then they just
got back in the craft and flew off.
Speaker 1: Okay, so strange craft, ordinary looking guys asking odd questions.
Sounds a bit like Woody's encounter, but weeks earlier and
in a different state. And then that same night in
New Jersey, something even stranger, more unsettling was reported.
Speaker 3: This is where the grinning man comes into the picture.
It's a detail that's really heavily linked to the researcher
John Keel. Around ten thirty pm that same night, October eleventh,
two teenage boys were crossing under the New Jersey Turnpike.
They reported seeing this man standing somewhere basically impossible to
get to, like on this steep fenced off embankment right
next to the highway.
Speaker 1: And this guy didn't look ordinary at all.
Speaker 3: No, definitely not. According to the sources, the boy said
he was huge, almost seven feet tall, really broad, wearing
these green coveralls that seemed to glitter. He turned towards
him and they saw he had these beady, wide set eyes.
And this is the bit everyone remembers, a giant, unnatural grin.
It's terrifying. They ran obviously that grin.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's chilling. So these boys, they didn't tell anyone
right away.
Speaker 3: Not at first, but later, after hearing about other sightings,
they reported it and that got the attention to John Keel.
He was already deep into investigating all sorts of weird
phenomena happening at the time.
Speaker 1: Right, Keel, he was a big figure in this field.
Speaker 3: Huge. He interviewed the boy and he was convinced they
were telling the truth, that they saw something terrifying. He's
the one who called this entity the grinning Man.
Speaker 1: So how did Keel make the leap from this seven
foot grinning guy and green, glittery coveralls to Woody darren
Berger's average size visitor with a gentle smile. They sound
completely different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good question, and the sources definitely
point this out. Apparently Keil read about Woody's encounter in
the paper, saw him on TV. He latched onto Woody's
description of Cold always smiling. So, based purely on that
shared trait, that constant smile and the timing, Keel suggested
a connection between Woody's visitor and the new Jersey grinning man.
Speaker 1: Hmm, I feel like a bit of a stretch given
the massive physical difference.
Speaker 3: It does seem like a stretch. Yeah, And the sources
highlight that as curious. It's also crucial to remember Keel
was right in the middle of investigating the Mogman events
happening at the exact same time down to Point Pleasant,
West Virginia, which is only about an hour's drive from
where Woody had his first encounter with Cold.
Speaker 1: Ah Point Pleasant, Okay. That brings us to the next
layer of all this strangeness. The sources definitely tie Woody's
story into the whole bizarre cluster of events happening around
Point Pleasant right after his encounter stuff Keel was looking into.
Speaker 3: One big example the sources focus on is the James
Lilly family right there in Point Pleasant, starting just after
wood he met Cold. They reported this whole series of
really unsettling things, not just like poltergeis stuff, doors slamming,
weird noises, but something more targeted, like the phone calls exactly,
Nightly phone calls around five pm. They'd answer, and all
they heard was this bizarre metallic voice speaking some incomprehensible language.
The phone company apparently couldn't trace it, couldn't explain it.
Speaker 1: And there were strange lights too, weren't there over.
Speaker 3: Their house almost every night, they said, Unusual lights blue, green, red,
sometimes changing colors. Some were apparently so low they thought
they could see diamond shaped windows, and completely silent. It
really sounds like something was messing with this family, you know,
actively engaging with them.
Speaker 1: And then the really scary incident with their daughter, Linda.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Linda was sixteen. Woke up one night her a
noise in her room, looked up and saw this man
just leering down at her. He was big, broad. She
couldn't see his face clearly in the dark, but she
could see he was grinning. He walked around her bed,
stood right over her. She screamed, pulled the covers over
her head, and when she finally looked again, he was gone.
Speaker 1: Big broad grinning. That sounds exactly like the description from
the boys in New Jersey. The sources definitely raise the
question was this the same guy and was it connected
to Cold somehow? The timing, the location, it's all clustered together.
Speaker 3: It is, And the sources mention other weird reports from
the Point Pleasant area on the exact same night when
he first met Cold.
Speaker 1: Like the construction workers.
Speaker 3: Right, two guys driving towards Point Pleasant from Ohio. They
encountered a strange flying object that landed right on the
highway in front of them. A man in shiny coveralls
got out another variation right. He asked them these sort
of pointless questions where they were from, what they did,
where they were going, didn't say anything about himself. They
were too scared to ask. He got back in the object,
it floated off. They only came forward after Woody's story broke.
Speaker 1: So in this really short window late sixty six, you've
got Woody meaning Cold in West Virginia, these construction workers nearby,
the Lilly families, whole Ordeal and Point Pleasant, and then
the New Jersey sightings, including that distinct grinning man figure.
The sources paint this picture of this intense burst of
high strangeness, all focused in one region.
Speaker 3: It really does feel like a connected series of events,
doesn't it, even if the nature of that connection is
still pretty mysterious and definitely open to interpretation. Like the
sources themselves struggle to definitively link the Grinning Man in
Cold because the descriptions are just so different.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's shift back to Woody's main story. The sources
make it clear this wasn't just one night. He claimed.
He kept interacting with injured Cold and others too.
Speaker 3: That's right, Woody said, Cold sometimes with other people would
just show up announced. Like one evening, Woody gets home
late and Cold is just waiting there at his house
with a friend named carl Ardo. Wood He apparently sat
out on his proach with them for over two hours,
just talking, even though it was cold out.
Speaker 1: Two hours talking with aliens on your porch. What did
they even talk about for that long?
Speaker 3: Well, according to Woody, they talked a lot about life
on their home planet, Landulos. Cold described it as being
in a distant galaxy or maybe a constellation. This is
actually where the analysis and the sources kicks in. Right away.
Cold mentioned Ganymede in connection with lanulos yan in meat.
Speaker 1: But that's one of Jupiter's moons, isn't it? Not a
galaxy or constellation exactly?
Speaker 3: And the sources point that out immediately. It's one of
those early detailed geographical astronomical that just doesn't fit with
what we know. It definitely raises questions about the literal
accuracy of the account.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a flag right there. Sounds like maybe advanced
ideas getting filtered through Woody's nineteen sixties knowledge, or maybe
even bad info from Cold himself. But hadding that side
for a second, what did Cold say life was like
on Lanuelo's He painted.
Speaker 3: This picture like total peace, unity, compassion. He claimed things
like conflict, hatred, they just didn't exist there. Kids were
taught from day one that all beings were family. It
sounds incredibly idyllic, almost like a utopia.
Speaker 1: And the source has found something interesting about that description too,
didn't they?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The analysis highlights how that description peaceful, unified, no conflict,
everyone's family sounds remarkably similar to the hopes and frankly,
the anxieties of nineteen sixties America, you know, the Vietnam War,
the civil rights movement, deep divisions. This vision felt almost
tailor made for that human context.
Speaker 1: So maybe projecting Earth's ideals onto this alien world, that's
what the analysis suggest.
Speaker 3: Did they talk about religion, Yeah, they believed in one
single universal God, creator of everything, all worlds, all life. Woody,
coming from his background, naturally interpreted that through a Christian lens.
The whole purpose Cold said was just serving the community,
helping each other.
Speaker 1: And what about their abilities, like the telepathy, How did
they explain that?
Speaker 3: Well, they said they'd reached this kind of technological enlightenment
over centuries, mastered gravity, space manipulation. Mental telepathy was apparently
just a universal skill on Landulos. Everyone learned it as kids.
Cold even offered this really strange origin story for it,
maybe existing on Earth too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, what was that?
Speaker 3: He claimed it actually started when a group of Earth
explorers supposedly crash landed on Lanulos ages ago, and their
intense feelings of loneliness somehow sparked latent telepathic abilities in
the Lanulins themselves.
Speaker 1: Whoa wait, so an Earth connection supposedly triggered their main ability.
Speaker 3: That's a twist it is, isn't it. And they believed
if humans on Earth could learn telepathy, it would bring peace,
because you know, if you could read minds, dishonesty is impossible,
you could truly understand how others feel.
Speaker 1: That's a powerful idea, though the sources probably note that
might be a bit idealistic about human nature, filtered through
what his own hopes.
Speaker 3: Maybe probably, Yeah, Yeah, that's the kind of analysis the
sources bring in. Anyway, these visits continued and then one
evening Wood he got invited inside the ship.
Speaker 1: Ah, inside the craft. What did he say he saw?
Speaker 3: He described technology he couldn't really understand. Panels on the
walls with this like cryptic writing made of blue light
that kept changing. He compared them to symbols. But then
he also described things that felt very well, very nineteen sixties,
like the doors they opened on their own shore, but
apparently had these big visible hinges like a car door
and made a definite thunk sound when.
Speaker 1: They closed hinges, and a thunk on an intertellar spacecraft.
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. He also mentioned seeing unexplained fire shooting out
of the ship at one point, and.
Speaker 1: That mix of advanced and mundane tech. That's another thing
the sources really pick up on, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. The analysis points out this weird blend, seemingly advanced
stuff but described with oddly familiar, almost basic, nineteen sixties details.
The hinge doors, the thunk. Later he mentions their cameras
instantly printing photos on paper, which sounds exactly like a
Polaroid cutting edge for nineteen sixty six.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: It suggests the descriptions might be limited by Woody's own
frame of reference, or maybe the tech wasn't as alien
as claimed. For maybe it was something else entirely that
he just interpreted that way.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to describe a smartphone to someone in
I don't know, nineteen twenty, you'd use the terms you have. Anyway,
Wood's fascinated by the ship, and Cold asks if he
wants to go for a ride.
Speaker 3: Yep, what he said, yes, absolutely, Cold told him name
any place you want to see. Yeah, and for some reason,
Woody picks the Amazon.
Speaker 1: Jump the Amazon, okay, and they just went.
Speaker 3: According to Whitty, Yeah, door closed with the hiss gentle vibration,
and bam. Months later the windows open and they're hovering
over the Amazon. He didn't feel any travel take off, nothing.
The instant relocation saw treetoks villages, people down below.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Taking a salesman from West Virginia for a
quick look at the Amazon.
Speaker 3: Woody was thrilled. Obviously, so Cold Up's the ante asked
if he wants to see their planet?
Speaker 2: What do?
Speaker 3: He agrees? Windows close, ship vibrates again and within about
thirty minutes what he says they were off til Annulo's
by bending space and time.
Speaker 1: Okay, now we're really escalating beyond Earth interplanetary travel, claims dramatically.
Speaker 3: Wood He meets more crew on the smaller ship Tanny
Darryl Cold's wife, Kimmy. They reach a point about six
hundred miles from the Moon, and they dock with this
much a bigger ship what he called it the mother ship,
but Cold apparently called it the flagship. Woody said it
was huge, eight nine stories tall, maybe three hundred feet long.
Speaker 1: They got close to the Moon, you said, yeah, wood.
Speaker 3: He claimed they got within fifty feet of the surface,
saw other ships park there. Then windows closed, opened again,
and suddenly they're supposedly above Saturn. Cold told Woody there
was agriculture on Saturn.
Speaker 1: Agriculture on Saturn. Okay, that's another big red flag. Scientifically,
isn't it? Sources must have pointed that out.
Speaker 3: Oh, definitely, another clear factual inaccuracy based on everything we
know about the gas giant. More details that just don't
line up. Finally, Lanulos.
Speaker 1: Finally, Yeah. After the quick stop at Saturn, the trip
to Lanulos itself bending space time, took about thirty minutes.
They arrived, transfer back to the smaller ship zip around
the planet. Woody saw cities, they called them gatherings, huge fields, forests, rivers,
people everywhere, vehicles hovering at a foot off the ground,
no wheels. What was the planet like Cold's home?
Speaker 3: The cities yet taken to Cold's home described it as
pretty modern, brick and glass, automated kitchen, laundry, all powered
by nuclear energy. Apparently visited a city too, Number twenty
seven gathering saw moving sidewalks, shops, department stores. Again, structures
that sound very familiar, very earthlike.
Speaker 1: But there was one really big, very memorable difference that
stood out to Woody.
Speaker 3: Right, the most striking thing. Yeah, everyone on Lanielos was naked.
Apparently their belief was you should be seen exactly as
God intended. They only covered up for dancing or if
it was cold. Woody, who said he was a bit overweight,
apparently fell pretty self conscious about it, especially since all
the Lanulns he saw were like, perfectly in.
Speaker 1: Shape, so physically human, similar buildings to Earth, but a
completely different view on clothes and apparently great physiques.
Speaker 3: Cold told Woody they were physically human and they lived
a long time one hundred and twenty five two hundred
and seventy five years. Attributed it to their healthy, peaceful lifestyle.
Their diet was all organic, no chemicals, avoided stuff like chocolate, pork,
bleached flour, preferred seafood, fruits, vegetables, and apparently decaff coffee
was really popular.
Speaker 1: Decaff coffee is popular on the paradise planet. Okay, maybe
not total paradise then.
Speaker 3: Slight chuckle. Depends on your priorities. I guess their society,
according to Cold, was all about happiness and understanding. School
went on until age twenty eight. Adults could choose any
job change easily. Woody was really struck by how they
handled resources. People got compensated based on family size and needs,
not skill or talent. Cold described it as each according
to his needs.
Speaker 1: Each according to his needs, which, as the analysis and
the sources surely points out sounds exactly like a core
principle of Marxism, right, another very earth bound concept showing
up in this alien utopia exactly.
Speaker 3: The sources definitely find that parallel notable when they're analyzing
where these descriptions might come from. But the story gets
even more complex. It wasn't just the peaceful annulence what
he claimed. He encountered other kinds of visitors too.
Speaker 1: Oh really, not everyone was like Cold and his friendly crew.
Speaker 3: Nope. After Woody got back to Earth, he and a
friend named Jim apparently went to this spot known for
UFO sightings. They saw a pink UFO land. Two beings
got out looked human. As Woody and Jim walked closer,
Cold carl Ardo another guy named Demo Hassan suddenly appeared
nearby telepathically warned Woody, these aren't our people. They're from
another galaxy, and.
Speaker 1: Cold wanted Woody to create a distraction.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Cold's crew could sneak up behind the newcomers.
Wood He pretended to have a big argument with Jim
Cold's guys confronted the other beings. What he thought it
might get violent, but the beings just got back in
their ship and were sort of escorted away by Cold's team.
Speaker 1: Who are these other beings? According to Cold?
Speaker 3: Cold called them humanoids from another yalaxy. So they looked
human from far away, but up close you could see
differences like red wrinkled skin around their eyes, and instead
of hair, they had something like tiny pin feathers, like
on a bird pin feathers.
Speaker 1: Weird. Were they dangerous?
Speaker 3: Cold warned they weren't necessarily dangerous, but they tended to
steal things, including apparently humans. He even made the really
specific claim that they were the ones responsible for the
famous Betty and Barney Hill abduction case.
Speaker 1: Wow, he blamed them for the Hill abduction. That's a
massive claim, linking his story to one of the most
famous UFO cases ever. I bet the source has raised
some questions about that.
Speaker 3: Oh, absolutely they do. The Analyson points out that making
such a specific claim about a separate, well known case
is well convenient for adding weight to his story, but
it's totally unverifiable and it doesn't really match the description
from the Hill case itself. It basically sets up this
classic good aliens versus bad aliens dynamic, you know, a
very common sci fi trop right the sources also mentioned
Woody describing a later standoff involving like eleven of these
humanoid ships apparently ended peacefully, with Cold's group escorting them
to the edge of the galaxy and telling them not
to come back.
Speaker 1: It really does escalate into this huge sci fi epic,
doesn't it. From a guy smiling by the roadside to
galactic border patrol.
Speaker 3: The narrative just keeps expanding. Yeah, which brings us back
to that core question. The sources rustle with why Woody Darrenberger,
why pick this particular salesman from West Virginia, and.
Speaker 1: What was cold supposed reason?
Speaker 3: According to Woody, Cold said he chose him specifically because
he wanted Woody to talk to people, to share his experiences,
to show people on Earth how his people lived without
all the hate and greed.
Speaker 1: So wood you was meant to be a messenger to
bring this message of hope, this vision of a better way.
Speaker 3: That was the stated goal. Yeah, Cold's ultimate aim, as
Woody related, it, was to get people on Earth to
pressure their governments into telling the truth about UFOs and
alien contact. Cold apparently believe humanity was smart enough, ready
to accept it, ready to understand our place in the
bigger universe, free from war division, seeing ourselves as one
human race.
Speaker 1: It's a powerful message peace unity, especially resonent back in
the turbulent nineteen sixties, and wood he did try to
deliver that message.
Speaker 3: He did, He wrote his book, visitors from Lanulo's, did
TV interviews, gave lexers, tried to get the word out,
and by all accounts in the sources, he never changed
his story, never wavered. However, this is where the bulk
of the critical analysis and skepticism in the source material
really comes into play. Right, While Woody's sincerity is sometimes debated,
most UFO researchers, including John Keel, actually they don't buy
the whole story as a literal, factual account, even if
they think something strange probably happened that first night on
the road.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack those key points of skepticism from
the sources. We've kind of touched on some already, like
the tech descriptions, feeling data, the culture being too earthy exactly.
Speaker 3: The analysis digs into several areas we mentioned, the technology
sounding filtered through the sixties, the hinges, the polaroid style
photos that suggests the description might be shaped by Woody's
own understanding, or maybe the tech wasn't that alien, or
maybe it was something else he just interpreted that way, and.
Speaker 1: The Lanuelos culture mirroring nineteen sixties America.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the sources find that really striking, how this supposed
alien utopia aligns so neatly with contemporary American ideals and worries.
A single god interpreted christianly Christmas on December twenty fifth,
the piece message echoing anti war feelings, the resource system
sounding like socialist ideas being debated, then even seemingly traditional
gender roles despite claims of equality. It feels less like
a truly alien society and more like an earth based
concept of paradise.
Speaker 1: Plus the biology and environment being so earth like too right.
Speaker 3: The sources note the claims of the same animals cows, pigs, chickens,
same vegetables, same coffee, details that really stretch credibility for
a planet light years away. Then you have those clear
astronomical and geographical mistakes. The sources flag again me being
called a galaxy or constellation, the inaccurate descriptions of Mars
Venus Saturn, And wasn't there.
Speaker 1: Something about an intergalactic alphabet?
Speaker 3: Oh? Yeah, The sources highlight that the alphabet shown in
Woody's book, supposedly used across galaxies, is structurally identical to
the standard Latin alphabet. We use, just different symbols. Given
the incredible diversity of writing systems just here on Earth,
the idea that a universal galactic alphabet would perfectly match
one used by a small fraction of humans well strains belief.
Speaker 1: For really, major point of skepticism, the sources emphasize, is
just the lack of independent proof for so many of
these claims.
Speaker 3: That's crucial. Yeah, Woody said lots of his friends saw
Cold talk to the Lanulns, but according to the sources,
none of these people have ever been found independently never
verified his story. John Keel is pretty much the sole
source for a lot of the details about the New
Jersey sightings, including the specific description of the grinning man
and the claim Cold was there, And as the sources
point out, Keel's also the only one really pushing the
connection between that tall, grinning, weirdly dressed figure and Woody's
average sized friendly visitor, even though the descriptions clash, The
analysis suggests Keel, while a pioneer, was also known to
sometimes see doo connect dots that weren't strongly supported, maybe
embellished for dramatic effect. He even admitted exaggerating in his
writing sometimes. Plus there's very little evidence in actual news
reports or UFO group files from the time about those
widespread New Jersey sidings.
Speaker 1: Kiel described what about the witnesses, what he did have
like his daughter, how reliable are they considered by the sources?
Speaker 3: The sources look into this quite a bit. Wood He's daughter, Tanya,
She's often presented as this key ongoing contact, but she
was only three years old when Cold supposedly first started visiting,
and as the sources note, research on childhood memory, especially
from that age, shows it's really suggestible kids can easily
mix up real events with things they were told or dreamed. Plus,
by the time Tanya was four, her mother had actually
left Woody and moved away with the kids, and she
left with one of the UFO investigators who was working
on Woody's case, which adds another layer of complexity, maybe
potential influence on Tanya's story over.
Speaker 1: Time that complicates things it does.
Speaker 3: And Tanya's story about Cold reportedly changed over the years.
At different points she claimed Cold was actually Valiant Thor,
another famous contact E figure. Then she said Cold had
died more recently, that he was injured, and she consistently
maintained she was the only way researchers could ever contact
Cold or his group, which makes any independent verification impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes it really tough to check anything. And
wasn't there even a known hoaxer who validated Woody's story
at one point?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's a really unfortunate incident. The sources detail this guy,
Thomas F. Monteleone, he later became a successful sci fi writer,
called into one of Woody's live TV interviews purely as
a prank. Yeah, Monolioni pretended he was also in contact
with Cold, claimed he'd visited Lanielos, gave all these details,
and Woody live on TV confirmed it all is true.
Wood he had no idea as a prank. Then he
actually included this supposed validation in his book, only found
out years later when Monoleno publicly admitted he'd made the
whole thing up.
Speaker 1: Wow, so his story got publicly backed up by someone
who later confessed it was a total hoax. That really
hits the credibility of any cooperation, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: It certainly does, and as a detail, the sources used
to show just how difficult it is to verify anything
in this case. So all this analysis, the tech descriptions,
the cultural mirroring, the science errors, the lack of independent witnesses,
the questions about witness reliability that brank call it all
forms the basis for why most researchers are pretty skeptical
about what his entire story beyond maybe that initial strange
encounter on the road.
Speaker 1: It really highlights the gap between a compelling personal story
and one that actually holds up under scrutiny, checking against
facts and other evidence, and regardless of whether the claims
were true, all that attention had a massive personal cost
for Woody.
Speaker 3: It really did. The sources are clear the attention was
overwhelming and mostly negative. His kids were apparently harassed at school,
people in town called him a liar. The stress contributed
to his marriage breaking up. His wife left him, remember
with one of the UFO investigators.
Speaker 1: Right that detail.
Speaker 3: He lost his job, eventually had to move to another
state just to get away from it. All. That initial
burst of fame around the first encounter kind of fizzled
out by the time his book came out. He didn't
make much money from it. It wasn't a huge success.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a really tragic outcome whatever actually happened.
He didn't seem to profit from it, which just something
people sometimes mentioned to argue he was sincere.
Speaker 3: The sources acknowledged that, yeah, he didn't appear to get
rich off it, which argues against it being purely a
hoax for money. But the analysis also suggests made the
initial motivation came from that intense attention and validation he
got right after he first reported it, before all the
negative stuff really hit.
Speaker 1: So even with all that critical analysis and skepticism laid
out on the sources, the story of Injured Cold has
stuck around. It's still talked about a lot, and plenty
of people still believe what he's account is literally true.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. It's just an incredibly captivating story. It's got wonder mystery,
even this hopeful vision mixed in, and regardless of where
you personally land on the literal truth of the trips
to Lanulo's or the Naked Aliens, the sources, even John
Keel's own writings, often circle back to that core message
Cold supposedly delivered. Even skeptics like Keel found value in
that part.
Speaker 1: What was that message again? Basically, it was a.
Speaker 3: Call for governments to be honest transparency about alien contact,
based on this belief that humanity is ready capable of
understanding it, accepting it, and it offered this vision of
a future without war, without division, where borders don't matter
and everyone sees themselves as just one human race.
Speaker 1: It's a timeless message, really, peace unity, especially powerful coming
out of the nineteen sixty such a conflicted time it is.
Speaker 3: And that for a lot of people is the real
heart of the injured cold story that endures, whether the
details about floating cities and naked people on Lanulow's are
literal fact or something else entirely So.
Speaker 1: We've been on quite a journey in this deep dive.
Started with that totally bizarre roadside meeting in West Virginia
back in sixty six, followed the threads through grinning figures
in New Jersey, weird happenings, and point pleasant explored these
claims of trips to a utopian planet, even got warnings
about other less friendly aliens.
Speaker 3: And we've tried to navigate all that by bringing in
the critical analysis, the skepticism points from the sorts material,
looking closely at the details that don't quite add up,
the cultural context that might have shaped things, the real
difficulties in finding independent proof.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating tension, isn't it, The sheer pull of
this wild, amazing story versus the analytical view the sources
bring questioning its credit ability. It really makes you think
about how we interpret things. We don't understand how much
the times we live in influence the stories we tell
and what we do when the evidence is messy, contradictory,
or just plain missing.
Speaker 3: Precisely, it challenges us to think about not just the
extraordinary claims, but the whole context they came out of,
and how hard it is to separate potential fact from
psychological factors, cultural hopes, or just storytelling.
Speaker 1: So what does all this mean for you? After exploring
these sources with us? Whether the story of injured Cold
is the literal, straightforward truth about benevolent aliens visiting a
West Virginia salesman, or if it's something much more complicated,
maybe a real strange event that got layered with human interpretation,
cultural dreams and fears, maybe even some invention mixed with
genuine belief. Does that core message still hold value, the
message about peace, unity, being open about the unknown humanity's
place in the cosmos. What part of this deep dive
into the very strange case of injured cold resonated most
with you