Episode 464: Lonnie Zamora: The Ultimate UFO Encounter

03/17/20 • -1 min

On this episode of the world Famous Sofa King Podcast, we examine the Lonnie Zamora UFO Encounter. Zamora was a police officer from Socorro, New Mexico, and he had an experience on April 24, 1964. What he saw lead to an investigation by local police, civilians, the media, the FBI, and the US Air Force, including Project Blue Book. J. Allen Hynek, one of the leads of Blue Book describes it as the “Rosetta Stone” of UFO cases, and it is still considered one of the most investigated and valid UFO encounters to date. In April of 1964, Zamora was perusing some rowdy teens in a car when he suddenly heard a huge roar and saw a massive pillar of flame and dust a mile or so from his position. He turned to investigate what he thought was a local dynamite shed blowing up. He drove to the top of a steep hill where he could see what has happening, and to his surprise, he saw a strange oval craft on the ground in an arroyo, out of sight to anyone but those at high elevation. The craft was a while aluminum with an insignia on it, and nearby were two humanoids. He called them large children or small adults. They seemed surprised that Zamora saw them, and they headed back to their vehicle, which he thought was some strange car that had run into the gulch. There was a second roar and a second pillar of flame, and Zamora ran for cover on the other side of the hill. The craft was in the sky soon, no more roar, no more flame, just silently moving. And moving quickly! Estimate are that it was going at over 700 MPH with no clear sign of propulsion or noise. Zamora called it in, and another cop named Chavez came. He said Zamora looked freaked out but publicly claimed he never saw the craft. They went into the gully and found four imprints from landing legs and burned bushes from the flame. Within two hours, the FBI was one scene was were other cops, and shortly thereafter the USAF showed along with their Project Blue Book as well as investigators from NICAP. The speed with which big league investigators flooded the area was alarmingly fast. This case has it all. UFO? Check. Little “aliens?” Check. New Mexico? Check. Reliable witness? Check. However, some claim it was not real, anything from ball lightning to a college hoax, to a Scooby Doo like scam to boost tourism in the local town. But what did Project Blue Book’s report ultimately say? What did the pre-media witnesses confirm? Why is this considered such a rock solid case? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonnie_Zamora_incident https://www.socorronm.org/attractions/socorro-landing-a-ufo-story/ https://science.howstuffworks.com/space/aliens-ufos/socorro-ufo.htm http://www.nmsr.org/socorro.htm https://skepticalinquirer.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2010/03/p25.pdf https://peoplepill.com/people/lonnie-zamora-incident/ https://www.ufocasebook.com/Zamora.html https://supernaturalmagazine.com/articles/the-lonnie-zamora-incident https://www.history.com/news/ufo-sighting-1950s-questionnaire-project-blue-book

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Episode 463: Irish Potato Famine: Great Hunger or Genocide?

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time to the 1840s and look at the Irish Potato Famine. Known as the Great Hunger, this was a period of years where a horrible blight caused the failure of the single most important crop in the nation—potatoes. But the problem was deeper than that. Part of it was a horribly corrupt system of land ownership which was overseen by the British. Another was massive exports of food forced out of Ireland by the land owners while the common people starved. It all combined to reduce the population of the Emerald Isle by around 25% due to famine, disease, and people getting the hell out of there. So, why did the potato cause so much damage to the nation? Well for one, the (mostly British) land owners forced farmers to grow a single type of potato because it made them the most money. When disease spread killing that crop, there was nothing else in place. It was the main food source of typical Irish farmer/tenants, so the starvation was real. It speaks to the dangers of a monocrop and what a disease can do to a food supply. However, this was just the tip of the spear. The trouble came from horrible laws that were enforced by Britain. They upheld tariffs that made the import of food difficult; this wasn’t done in a previous famine, and the open ports saved the nation. This time, nobody could bring in food. But the landlords also exported the crops that were actually growing. They owned the land and the food produced on it, and most of them lived in England, so the food was shipped away to make a profit. The combination of these factors led to somewhere around 1.5 million people dying of starvation or disease and hundreds of thousands fleeing the country for England, Canada, and America. Many people classify what the British did (and failed to do) as a genocide of the Irish people. Some call it an accidental genocide, but others say it was intentional and fueled by racism and religious hatred against Irish Catholics. Be it planned or accident, the laws and the blight were the perfect storm for the darkest days of Ireland. Visit Our Sources: https://www.history.com/topics/immigration/irish-potato-famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Famine-Irish-history http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.shtml https://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/introduction.htm https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/was-the-famine-genocide-by-the-british-28954929.html https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-26-2-the-potato-famine-and-irish-immigration-to-america.html https://learnodo-newtonic.com/irish-potato-famine-facts https://www.irishcentral.com/news/new-facts-about-great-famine-emigration-out-of-ireland-revealed-139540423-237788421

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Episode 465: Ant Hill Kids: Worst Cult Ever!

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at a most disturbing Canadian cult, the Ant Hill Kids. Founded by Roch Thériault (aka Moses, aka Poppy), this group started as an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists, but soon turned to a sadistic torture house. From frozen babies and the cutting off of toes to homemade pain surgeries and lots of castration, this cult was about as bad as it gets. Thériault was born to a religiously hyper household. They were members of a group called the White Berets, a pseudo-military religion that was highly political and sold journals to make money. Thériault was bright and charismatic from a young age but finished school at 7th grade. His father was abusive, so he left home soon after and married and started a normal life. His life got flipped, turned upside down, when a surgery went bad, and the results were constant pain. He turned to alcohol to self-medicate. His wife left him for sleeping with other women and being drunk, and at his homeless lowest, Thériault found the Seventh Day Adventists. He started selling literature for them and was amazingly successful, so his pastor moved him up to start recruiting members for their church. After a short amount of time, he started to recruit for his own group instead of the church, and his cult was born. On a hike one day, he had a holy vision of a spot that God would spare when the end of the world game a few years later, in 1979. He moved his group there and had them build a new town. He said they worked like ants on a hill, hence the cult’s name. Once everything was in place, the level of pain, punishment, and depravity is hard to capture in a couple hundred words of show notes. Ant Hill Kids had toes and fingers cut off. Limbs were removed. Children were nailed to trees where other kids threw rocks at them. Babies were left to freeze to death as a mercy to avoid Thériault’s sadism. People had to break their own legs, had their teeth plucked out, were castrated, had their genitals burned, and more than one was killed by Thériault’s home surgeries. What happened to Thériault? What brought down the Ant Hill Kids? How many people died? How did Thériault avoid capture when confronted by police more than once? What did the cult do once he was arrested the first time? How about the second? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roch_Th%C3%A9riault https://www.cvltnation.com/ant-hill-kids-break-legs-sledgehammer-go-hell/ https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/murder/roch-theriault-the-horrifying-savagery-home-surgery-of-canadas-most-violent-cult-leader https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/chilling-insight-doomsday-cult-members-13995059 https://www.darkhistories.com/roch-theriault-the-ant-hill-kids/