We Are Not Alone Vol. IX

The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

“The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.”

The first story you'll hear is called Flying Solo, and it's about an Australian pilot who vanishes over a strange area in a very bizarre series of events.

And the second and final story you'll hear is called It Hover's, and it's about one of the most credible paranormal stories we've ever covered. But before we get into today's stories, if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format, and you've come to the right place, because that's all we do, and we upload four times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. So, if that's of interest to you, please replace the fall-about-and-stick deodorant with cream cheese. Okay, let's get into our first story called Flying Solo.

At 7pm, on October 21st, 1978, a 20-year-old pilot named Frederick Valentik flew his small plane over a body of water just south of Australia called the Bass Strait. He'd just taken off from Melbourne, Australia, and his flight plan was to go 60 miles south to an island called King Island, and he was really excited about this flight. Not so much about where he was going, but because this represented the first time he'd actually be flying by himself at night.

So, Frederick had always dreamed of becoming a pilot, but the journey to actually becoming one had been really difficult.

He had applied twice actually to the Royal Australian Air Force, but unfortunately he could not meet their requirements, and then also he had tried to become a commercial airline pilot, but he had failed their tests. But luckily, for Frederick, his father had a ton of money, and he ultimately swooped in and funded Frederick to take some private lessons, and through that he was able to ultimately pass the tests and get his pilot's license. And so, as Frederick coasted along, looking down below at the Lights of Melbourne disappearing behind him, he felt like he was on top of the world.

He was doing the one thing he had always dreamed of, and he was so happy, and it was so cool to be doing it at night by himself. And so he was just looking out at the sights, and looking ahead at the Bass Strait, which is this huge dark expansive water, and it was like everything was right in the world.

He was doing exactly what he wanted to do.

However, only a few minutes into this flight at 706 p.m., something strange happened. As Frederick was flying along, he suddenly became aware of a light coming from somewhere behind him.

“Remember, it's nighttime, so it's totally dark where he is, and he's flying over a body of water, so he's kind of like in this void of darkness.”

And so, any lights are really going to illuminate the cockpit. And so, he sees this light, he turns around, and maybe 3 or 4,000 feet behind him, he sees what looks like a plane. That is the source of the light. And right away, Frederick's thinking, that is both surprising, and also potentially very problematic, because he knew from his training that that was far too close to be to another plane. And so, the only explanation was either that pilot was off course, or Frederick was off course. And Frederick's thinking, you know, if I'm off course here, and I'm flying where I shouldn't be, I'm going to get in trouble with air traffic control, and I might lose my pilot's license, like the one thing I copied.

I might lose it. And so, initially, Frederick really didn't know what to do. He was sort of panicking and just kind of frozen like, "I don't even know what I'm supposed to do right now." And as this was happening, Frederick kept instinctively looking back at this light, trying to figure out what this plane was doing. And every time he would turn around over the course of just a few seconds, it was very obvious that this light, this other plane, was gaining on him. And so, Frederick starts to worry, like, "This is not just about maybe getting in trouble or not."

This plane might crash into me. Look how fast they're going, like, "What do I do?" And so, Frederick, at this point, he double checked that he was on course, and based on his instruments, and what he'd been doing, he really felt like he was on course here,

“and he just thinks, "You know what, the best thing I can do here is just call air traffic control." So, he grabs the radio, and he gets a hold of Melbourne air traffic control.”

And he says, "Hey, there's this plane that is, like, right behind me, they're gaining on me. I'm worried they're going to crash into me. Do I need to deviate, like, what's going on here?" And the air traffic controller, very calmly, says, "Okay, let me check the radar, let me check the schedules." And so, Frederick the whole time he's waiting for a response, he's looking over shoulder, and still this light is gaining on him, it's getting closer and closer, and then finally the controller gets back on the radio.

And they tell Frederick, "There is no other aircraft anywhere near you. Like, there's nothing over the best straight. You are completely alone." But Frederick couldn't believe this, because by now, the light, the aircraft that was right behind him, has gotten right behind his.

But at that very moment, it becomes very clear to Frederick that this is not some ordinary aircraft, because it began doing something when it got right up behind his aircraft that no normal aircraft could do.

“This light suddenly began orbiting Frederick's aircraft. Frederick is traveling forward, and this ball of light is basically whipping around his aircraft. He can barely make it out.”

He's starting to panic, and at the same time, Frederick begins to hear the sound of his engine starting to fail. And there was no reason for it. His craft was fine when he took off, but now it's clearly sputtering and failing, and so all Frederick could do in this totally intense panicked moment, that just grabbed the radio and began talking to air traffic control about what he was seeing. The person Frederick actually spoke to on the ground in this moment was an air traffic controller in Melbourne named Steve Roby, and Frederick would come off to Steve, like he was totally crazy and unhinged, and Steve would say that he couldn't really understand what he was talking about,

but at some point, Frederick clearly began talking about some sort of craft orbiting his own, and that his engine was starting to fail, and he didn't know what was going to happen, and he couldn't make an emergency landing. He was over water, and then suddenly Steve remembers hearing this grinding metallic sound come over the radio that basically washed out whatever Frederick was saying, and then it just goes deadly silent.

And after that, Frederick disappeared. They searched the area where they knew he was before he disappeared, but they never found his plane. There was no sign of a crash.

“He never landed at King Island or went back to Melbourne. He was just gone.”

All they have is that final recording of him describing something orbiting him, then this grinding metallic sound, and then silence. And recently, that audio recording was made public. Here is the official explanation for what happened to Frederick. As he was flying over the Bass Strait, it was so dark, and there were no lights really anywhere, that at some point, you know, because he's an inexperienced pilot, I suppose, he flipped his plane upside down without realizing it, and the light that he was seeing was actually just a reflection of the water below of his own plane.

And eventually, from flying upside down, his engine began to fail, and he crashed into the Bass Strait. However, not everybody believes this explanation, because one, it seems sort of preposterous to imagine that Frederick would not have realized he had flipped the plane upside down and was flying for so long andverted.

Like, how could you not notice that? And two, this would not be the first time that somebody reported unexplained phenomena over the Bass Strait.

In fact, over the years leading up to this incident with Frederick, there had been so many reports of UFOs flying over the Bass Strait, and also unexplained disappearances that they've dubbed the Bass Strait the Bass Strait Triangle, after the Bermuda Triangle. Basically, it's a part of the world where a disproportionate number of unexplained phenomena occur. And so to this day, Frederick's disappearance remains a mystery. The next and final story of today's episode is called It Hover's.

Around 9pm on December 29, 1980, a 57-year-old woman named Vicki Landrum wrote in the front seat of her friend Betty Cash's car, while her seven-year-old grandson named Colby, who she was raising, sat between them. The three of them had just had dinner at a truck stop, and were now on their way home, driving down a dark, wooded highway near Huffman, Texas, which is a small town about 30 miles northeast of Houston. As they drove down the road, Vicki began to notice the windshield was fogging up from how cold it was outside, and how warm it was inside the car.

And so Vicki turned on the defrostor. And as the windshield began to clear, Vicki noticed this bright light right out in front of them up over the trees.

And at first, Vicki just figured they were close to the Houston airport, and so that light must just be an airplane.

But as the trio continued driving down this winding highway road, that light that Vicki really thought was a plain landing appeared to just kind of hover in the trees, and actually as they drove, the light almost appeared to get closer and closer to them, so it didn't really seem like it was a plane. Now at first, Vicki thought this was just kind of interesting and was curious about this light. But as they got closer closer to this light, it became very obvious that the inside of the car was getting much warmer and stuffier than any of the heat settings would allow it to get.

To the point where Vicki was actually sweating and panting from the heat.

“Now all of this was happening really quickly, and so Vicki sort of went from being curious to being kind of anxious, like what was going on here, like does this light have something to do with the heat they're experiencing in the car?”

And then all of a sudden, the light that appeared to be sort of behind the trees suddenly came right out in front of the car, and Vicki screamed at Betty's stop and Becky jammed on the brakes, and they came to a stop, and blocking their path, maybe a hundred feet in front of them, just hovering over the road, is this strange looking aircraft aimed right at them.

For a moment, all three of them just stared in shock at this craft, like it was so unexpected, and so unbelievable that this had happened.

“But then Vicki, who's sitting there still panting and sweating, you know, she's looking out, and she's realizing this craft she's looking at, looks nothing like any other aircraft she had ever seen.”

The craft was a bit bigger than a car, it was diamond-shaped, and it was letting out the strange loud roaring sounds almost like an engine. It appeared to be glowing red hot, and periodically, with those loud roaring sounds it was making, fire would appear to shoot out the bottom of the craft, scorching the pavement right under it. And again, the strange craft is just hovering there right over the ground, appeared to be aimed directly at Vicki Betty and Colby. Pretty quickly, Colby began to cry, he was scared.

But Betty, the driver, she said she couldn't go anywhere, you know, the road was too thin, she couldn't really turn around very easily, and she couldn't drive straight and go under the craft and risk being burned by the flame. And so they were just kind of trapped there. And so Vicki and Betty sort of looked at each other like, okay, we're just going to wait it out and hope this craft just eventually flies away. But after several minutes, and the craft still had not departed, it was still blocking their way, and periodically spitting fire into the ground.

Vicki and Betty are like, well, let's get out and see what's going on here, let's investigate.

“By this point, their fear and anxiety around this had sort of been replaced, but just genuine human curiosity.”

I mean, what the heck is this thing? And so Betty, the driver, she gets out, and Vicki, she tells her grandson stay in the car, so Colby's right here, and Vicki gets out.

And the second she does, and she now has an unobstructed view at this craft, she suddenly remembered this Bible verse.

So Vicki was very religious, and she had read in the Bible that one day Jesus would return to the earth, and when he did, he would return in a reign of fire. And so all of a sudden, Vicki believed that what she was looking at was not some aircraft, but the second coming of Jesus Christ. This was like a highly spiritual moment for her, but just as Vicki was about to go forward and actually inspect this thing up close, she heard Colby called out for her, he was crying hysterically, he was totally scared and upset.

And so this kind of broke Vicki out of her trance, she turned around and went back to the car to come for Colby. And when she got back to the car, she found Colby's scrunched up on the floor, underneath the dashboard, like he was trying to shield himself from this craft. And so Vicki, she got right down there with him, she wrapped her arms around Colby and began praying with him to try to calm him down.

“But while Vicki and Colby were praying inside the car, Betty remained outside of the car, just staring at this craft.”

And it went on like this for about 10 minutes, until Vicki who still tucked down there with Colby, heard that roaring sound coming from the aircraft, get noticeably louder, like it was about to do something. And so Vicki poked her head up and she looked out the windshield and sure enough, this craft was beginning to take off. It was getting higher and higher off the ground, flames were shooting out the bottom of it. Betty was still outside staring at it and then before long, this craft had shot straight up into the air and began taking off up and away from them at a really steep angle.

And at the same time, Vicki suddenly saw the swarm of all these helicopters. These military-style helicopters go right up around this craft, like they were escorting it. And then the craft and all these helicopters took off into the horizon and disappeared.

After they were all gone, Vicki realized that what she had just witnessed was not the second coming of Christ.

Because of these military helicopters that arrived as this craft took off, it told Vicki and also Betty that very likely this was just a US military exercise of some sort. And so a few moments later, Betty came back to the car and sat in the driver's seat and Vicki she climbed back into her seat and lifted Colby up to the middle seat as well. And for a moment, the three of them just sat there in silence. I mean, there's nothing blocking their way anymore. They're just sort of trying to process what just happened.

Eventually, Betty just put the car in drive and began driving straight ahead, crossing right over that scorch mark on the pavement where the craft had been. About 45 minutes later, Betty pulled up to Vicki's house and parked the car. Vicki and Colby, they got out. They said goodbye to Betty. They didn't really talk about what they had just seen. They just said good night and then Vicki and Colby headed inside the house. And as much as both of them did have things to say about whatever it was they saw, they just continued not to talk about it.

They both were just kind of eager to go to bed. However, as Vicki was putting Colby to bed, he began to complain that it's stomach hurt and at the same time Vicki began to realize that she also didn't feel very well. And shortly after that, both of them were vomiting in the bathroom and this scared Vicki. You know, she tried to tell her stuff that, you know, maybe the reason they were sick is because they ate some bad food at that truck stop. But deep down, Vicki was very concerned that their nausea was somehow connected to that strange craft.

And so it was a very long night with Vicki and Colby being nauseous most of the time, but eventually they both did fall asleep. And then when Vicki got up the next morning, she still felt awful. And so Vicki, she rolled out a bed and made her way to the bathroom. And when she looked at herself in the mirror, she gasped. Her skin was bright red and blistered like she had had this horrible sunburn. At this point, she knew whatever was going on here, it had to do with that craft. She just knew it.

And she found he was still sleeping, but she could see his skin was red and blistered in some places, but not nearly as bad as Vicki's.

“And so Vicki, she began thinking about the night before, and she remembered she had gotten out of the car and gotten closer to the craft.”

So she was sort of more exposed to the craft, if you will, than Colby, who stayed in the car and tucked himself down underneath the dashboard the whole time. And so maybe Vicki's exposure to the craft was higher than Colby's, which is why she looked worse. But as Vicki was thinking this through, she remembered that Betty had actually stayed outside the car for 10, 15 minutes much longer than Vicki had. The whole time just staring directly at this craft. And so immediately, Vicki was worried that, you know, if this is what happened to me, I can only imagine what shape Betty is in.

And so Vicki ran to the phone, she pecked it up, and she dialed Betty's number, and she listened, and it just kept on ringing and ringing. That he didn't answer.

“Now, at this point, Vicki was in a full-blown panic, not only because she was worried about Betty, but also, you know, she doesn't really know what's wrong with her or with Colby.”

She doesn't know if their sickness is going to get worse or better. Currently, she felt horrible. She was nauseous or skin seemed to be practically falling off. Colby was in less bad shape, but still not healthy, and also Vicki didn't have the money to even go to the doctor to get looked at. And so as much as Vicki really wanted right now to just go check on Betty, go drive to her house and check on her, she couldn't.

She needed to focus on herself, and her grandson first, and make sure they were okay before she did anything else.

And so, over the next few days, Vicki and Colby stayed home, they slowly regained their strength, and over those few days, Vicki actually would get Betty on the phone.

“And Betty would tell her that, yes, she's also dealing with similar symptoms, but she was okay, which was very reassuring to Vicki.”

However, Vicki also knew that Betty was not a complainer, and even if she did have horrendous symptoms, she was not the type of person who would necessarily tell Vicki, she would sort of tough it out. Finally, after five days, Vicki felt strong enough to go check on Betty in person. However, when she got to Betty's house and went inside, she called out for Betty, but there was no answer. The house was eerily quiet, and so Vicki began walking around Betty's house looking for Betty, and eventually, Vicki walked down a hallway and reached Betty's bedroom.

And the door was shut. Vicki called out for Betty, but there was no answer from inside. And so feeling kind of scared at this point, Vicki reached down, she turned the handle and opened the door, and immediately she saw Betty on her bed, and Betty looked horrible. She was barely conscious, her entire body was red and blistered and bleeding, there was vomit all over the bed sheets, and there were all these huge clumps of Betty's hair, littering her pillow. And so Vicki was horrified, she rushed inside, she scooped her friend up, and between the two of them that kind of hobbled out of the house, Vicki put Betty in her car, and they sped to the hospital.

A few hours later, Vicki was waiting in the emergency room where Betty was being treated, when Betty's doctor walked into the waiting room, at which point Vicki stood up and rushed over to him, and said, "Hey, what's going on with Betty, what happened to her, what's going on?" But the doctor just shook his head and said, "You know, your friend, her skin is literally peeling off her face and sheets, and there are blisters breaking out all over her body." He told Vicki that her symptoms remind that him of radiation poisoning, however, he also told Vicki that that was basically impossible. You know, for Betty, a woman who lives in rural Texas, you know, where would she go to come and contact with something that radioactive?

It just seemed not possible, so that couldn't be it. But Vicki, when she heard this, felt like she knew exactly how Betty came in contact with something highly radioactive. It had to be that craft, and so without even thinking about it, Vicki began pouring out the story of how her and Betty had seen this light, and then this craft appeared on the road, and it was shooting fire, and then it flew off with helicopter's all around it. But as she was wrapping up her story, Vicki was suddenly overcome with embarrassment, because the doctor was now staring at her like she was totally out of her mind.

A month later, an early February of 1981, Vicki was at her kitchen table with the phone pressed to her ear. She was calling her local senator, who she'd already written to, to try to tell him about the strange aircraft she had seen that made her friend sick. But Vicki did not have high hopes about this phone call, because she had already been ignored so many times by so many people when it came to the story.

So by this point, Vicki and her grandson Colby had basically recovered from their nausea and their burns. However, Betty had not recovered.

She was still cycling in and out of the hospital, she was in constant pain, she still had burns all over her, and in fact, because of all these symptoms, she'd had to move in with her brother. Now, Vicki was certain that all these symptoms Betty had were radiation sickness caused by the radiation from this aircraft they came in contact with, but it was like everybody they told about this aircraft didn't believe them.

And so Vicki quickly explained why she was calling and why she really wanted to talk to the local senator, but the secretary just told Vicki that, "Yeah, she'll pass this along to the senator and he'll be in touch."

“And then, she hung up. And for Vicki, this was the moment she snapped.”

She felt like trying to navigate the proper channels to try to figure out what this aircraft was and what happened to Betty was not working because clearly nobody was taking her seriously.

And so Vicki slammed the phone down and just sat there frustrated having no idea what to do. But as she sat there, Vicki remembered there was actually one place she had not called yet, specifically because she didn't want to call this place. It was a UFO research center. And Vicki hadn't called because she did not believe the craft she had seen was a UFO. She believed it was a military aircraft because she had seen the helicopters escorting it away and that made the most sense it had to be military.

But if she called the UFO research center and people found out about that, it would make her look even crazier because now she's claiming the craft was aliens or something.

But now Vicki felt like she had run out of options. So she picked up the phone, grabbed a piece of paper with a number on it and dialed.

“A couple days later, a scientist named John Schussler drove down the winding-witted highway into Huffman, Texas. He was going to meet up with Vicki.”

John was an aerospace engineer for NASA. However, he also spent a lot of time investigating UFO sightings. Vicki's call to that UFO research center had created a lot of excitement in the UFO community and the story had eventually found its way to John who decided he would take on the case. Now, to be clear, John was not into researching UFO sightings in order to prove they really happened. Actually it was sort of the opposite. He would look into reported UFO sightings in order to prove they were not UFOs. He would find a rational scientific explanation that debunked the sighting.

What he did. And so with Vicki's case, that was his intention to go to Huffman, Texas, talk to Vicki and explain away with science and rationale what happened here. That this was not, you know, aliens. This was something ordinary, like a government aircraft. And so John eventually got to Vicki's house and he went inside and he chatted with Vicki and she talked him through all the details of the story.

“And then eventually, they both left Vicki's house. They hopped in their respective cars and headed out to go to the actual site where this had happened.”

And when they got there and John got out of the car, he didn't need Vicki to direct him to the specific site. Because right in front of him was this really obvious black circle, right in the middle of the road. As if the road itself had been melted and then re-solidified and actually looked different. And Vicki said, that's where it was. That's where the craft was hovering. Those marks are from the craft. Now, this was great evidence that a craft really had been here, but John wanted more.

He needed to figure out what kind of craft this really was. And so we told Vicki he was going to leave and go canvas the area for witnesses and he told her he would keep her updated. So Vicki left and John drove up the road until he reached some campsites and farmhouses. And John systematically went from door to door and tent to tent, asking anybody if they had seen or heard any aircraft or anything strange on the night of December 29. But going into this, John didn't really know what to expect from these people he was asking. I mean, he's some random scientist showing up uninvited at people's homes, asking if they'd seen strange lights in the sky.

However, every single person he spoke to said that yes, they had seen that aircraft on December 29. However, they were obviously just farther away than Vicki and Betty and Colby had been. So now, John felt like he had enough information to speak directly with military officials. However, when he contacted all the military bases in the area, all those officials he spoke to told him absolutely that on December 29, there were zero military operations happening. John found this very frustrating, because to him, it seemed very clear that these officials were just lying to him.

But what they were lying about and why was unclear. So, John actually went to these military bases to speak to the officials face-to-face. And when he did, he showed them all the witness testimony saying what they had seen on December 29. And he also told them that with his own eyes, he had seen the black scorched mark on the pavement, where the pavement seemed to have literally melted in a ring and resulidified from the heat of this craft. And to John, I mean, that scorch mark almost proved something had been there, very likely a military craft. But all these military leaders, despite hearing this and hearing John's testimony, they just said, you know what, you can gather up all the evidence you think you have here, but it doesn't matter.

It doesn't prove that we were in the area. There was no military craft there that night. And so the bottom line was, the military was adamant they were not involved.

And so the case really began to stall. John went home, but he couldn't stop thinking about the case, and so he kept in touch with his witnesses and periodically checked in with military officials, but nothing seemed to change. Except that Betty continued to get sicker and sicker, and Vicki actually began to develop other serious symptoms like developing cataracts in one of her eyes. And then, John got a frantic call from one of the witnesses. They told him they had just seen something truly incredible. And as John listened to the story, he felt his heart sink, because now he knew the military had been lying to him about being out there on December 29.

Because the witness told him that black government vehicles had rolled up to the incident site out on that road, and they'd come along with construction vehicles.

And for no clear, traffic-related reason, they'd cut up one particular stretch of that road, taken it with them, and left. And that particular stretch of road that was removed just happened to be the exact spot where that scorch mark had been left by the craft. It was like they were taking the evidence and getting rid of it.

“Now, John himself was not able to literally go back to the road and see for himself where the pavement had been cut. However, not long after John learned this information, a group of UFO scientists descended on the road to find the scorch mark.”

Or to prove it had been cut out and taken away like the witness had said. And sure enough, when they got out there, they didn't find the scorch mark. Instead, they found nice fresh, brand new pavement. The strange event that Vicki Betty and Colby experienced on the night of December 29, 1980 is widely considered to be one of the most famous and credible UFO sightings of all time.

It's now known as the Cache Land Rem incident after Betty and Vicki's last names, and to the stay, nobody has been able to come up with a rational explanation for what happened if it wasn't a UFO.

To the stay, the US government maintains that they did not have any military operations happening on December 29. However, they did say when it comes to cutting out the road and paving over it, that that was just for routine maintenance. They were not trying to hide evidence. As for Vicki and Betty, over the years, their health continued to deteriorate. They ultimately filed a lawsuit against the government, but because they couldn't actually prove that the aircraft even existed, or that it caused their health problems, their lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

“Both women would eventually die from cancer, which Colby believes is a direct result from radiation exposure. As for Colby, he's still alive and continuing to seek answers.”

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

The Mr. Ballem Podcast, strange dark and mysterious stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballem. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bohn and Colocasio, research and fact checking by Shelley Shu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fassiano. Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Err, audio editing and post-produced by Whitley Casio and Jordan Stittam, production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley, artwork by Jessica Klogston-Kiner, theme song, something wicked by Ross Bubden.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballem Podcast, and just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballem Podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballem YouTube channel that very same day, and trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballem. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and add free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast+ on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com/podcast+ to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice.

“So, that's going to do it, I really appreciate your support, until next time, see ya!”

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