James Renner, It came from Ohio

[wwkirk]

I missed Chris. But it was a good interview nonetheless. James's head is on his shoulders.

 

[Sue]

I thought it was a fascinating show, in spite of only being paranormal-ish. The guest had great stories and I enjoyed hearing Gene intone lines from whatever movie that was. Between this show and the last, which made me wonder if I had tuned into NPR's Science Friday by accident, I'm impressed with the versatility of the podcast.

 

[joeyk22]

Great episode. Gene, thanks for asking my questions! I don't post often but I like to make them count!

 

[flipper]

Excellent Guest and an Excellent interview.

 

[jpw.in.wi]

VINTAGE Paracast! Outstanding guest, fascinating content, excellent questions, and masterful navigation through it all on the part of the host ... it doesn't get any better than this!

Thank you, Gene!

 

[Gene Steinberg]

You're welcome. So I'm vintage eh?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

You are sooo vintage Gene - but vintage like a 25 yr malt whisky!

I concur with all praise above. This was classic Paracast with an intelligent guest who had something totally new to say, that is, he wasn't re-hashing the same old stuff the way many others do.
Best bit: The nurse exclaiming, 'he isn't human!'

Sometimes we can be happy when wrong; I predicted last week that understandably, the show would be unable to keep up this run of great guests/shows any longer as we'd already over-milked the guest-gods no doubt but I am happy to say I was totally wrong - the show has just continued the quality without coming up for air. Nice one guys.

 

[jpw.in.wi]

It's episodes like this one that illustrate why the Paracast truly is the gold standard of paranormal radio; and it all comes down to the host, who he brings on as guests, and how he shapes the conversations. Yes, Gene, you are "vintage" in all the best senses of that word!

And ditto, Goggs!

 

[Wade]

Just listen to the episode. I thought Chris was uncharacteristically quiet. I don't have a lot to comment on except that once again we hear about a bigfoot sighting that involved an awfully strong, and sometimes overpowering after smell. It almost seems like a meme It's an aspect that you don't hear as much.at least i haven't but then i haven't looked too hard...when you come across sightings of other wild "animals" unless they are used as defensive weapons or are part of a mating process, ( musk) . Sure there are reports about other animal encounters that involve a strong smell, but the bad odor part pretty much permeates countless BF reports which leads me to consider that a large, hairy, muscular and possibly carniverous 6.5' + 400 lbs.+ size 14+ wearing biped either feels it needs to use smell to keep people away from him, or he/she is always on the make, or despite showing sizes of cognisance, can't keep itself groomed despite the fact there is a myriad of deers, bears, wolves and other animals that tend to den or sleep in confined areas that would probably foster orders yet don't tend to offend our olfactory capacities.

Or then again, maybe BF bunks in sulphur pits or maybe they are actually dead but haven't come to terms with it and that rank smell is putrification.

Sent from my SGH-M919 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Gene Steinberg]

Silent as in not being there.

 

[joeyk22]

I liked that park ranger story but i also wonder if the rangers were eager to exaggerate their belief that Bigfoot is present in the park in hopes of driving up visitors. Bigfoot "hunting" seems to be all the rage today.

Gene, I hope Chris was off exploring that underground city in the Grand Canyon!

 

[Christopher O'Brien]

...I hope Chris was off exploring that underground city in the Grand Canyon!

Nope. I was speaking at a conference in IL, meeting up w/ a haunted site investigator/friend in Chicago and was lasooed by a production team from the UK for a new show that looks at compelling US treasure legends—in particular the fabled 1790 French Expedition to southern Colorado, etc. Had a great time, the trip was fun and productive and the tight scheduling went off like clockwork.

 

[Wade]

Nope. I was speaking at a conference in IL, meeting up w/ a haunted site investigator/friend in Chicago and was lasooed by a production team from the UK for a new show that looks at compelling US treasure legends—in particular the fabled 1790 French Expedition to southern Colorado, etc. Had a great time, the trip was fun and productive and the tight scheduling went off like clockwork.

Yeah, Gene actually mentioned this on the most recent show, I just can't help being a smart ass sometimes. But seeing how you breached the subject we expect a full report next Sunday.

 

[Wade]

Silent as in not being there.

Which is another thing , this strong smell that is associated with BF would certainly announce its prescence. For a creature that relies on stealth there is a clear conflict of interest. If I could advise BF I'd tell it to take it down a notch on the smell unless it couldn't be helped for some reason.

Sorry Gene I know that isn't what you were getting at but it did make me think of another aspect of BF sightings.

 

[joeyk22]

Nope. I was speaking at a conference in IL, meeting up w/ a haunted site investigator/friend in Chicago and was lasooed by a production team from the UK for a new show that looks at compelling US treasure legends—in particular the fabled 1790 French Expedition to southern Colorado, etc. Had a great time, the trip was fun and productive and the tight scheduling went off like clockwork.

Awesome Chris. Can't wait to see what it looks like. Are you still planning on going with JC to check out that possible entrance you found at the Grand Canyon? Did you listen to this episode, if so your thoughts?

 

[jpw.in.wi]

Nope. I was speaking at a conference in IL, meeting up w/ a haunted site investigator/friend in Chicago and was lasooed by a production team from the UK for a new show that looks at compelling US treasure legends—in particular the fabled 1790 French Expedition to southern Colorado, etc. Had a great time, the trip was fun and productive and the tight scheduling went off like clockwork.

Sounds very interesting! Hoping we'll hear about it on the next show!

 

[boomerang]

Great guest and great show ! Renner has a quiet understated delivery that makes for good listening and an impression of sincere credibility. Good stuff.

 

[Burnt State]

Who names a saucer Floyd? Well, if you are constantly looking for the UFO you saw one night with your patrol partner then you can see how over Police dispatch the chatter quickly named Dale Spaur’s saucer after him, hence his middle name as the designation, “Spaur, we’ve got Floyd showing up above the old Brenner place. You better head out there right away.”

You can also see how Spaur himself must have endured no end of ridicule amongst colleagues on the force. Spaur was not the only casualty who lost his job and a bit of his grip on reality. Seeing and chasing this particular UFO brought misery all around to the witnesses in a powerful manner. One wonders how much was this engineered vs. how much it was brought on by the obsessive compulsive nature of the witnesses themselves. The old adage seems to bear itself out in this case: to see the UFO is to be cursed by society. I wonder if that curse has lifted at all yet?

There were many corroborating witnesses for this case including an actual photo taken by a Police Chief of the UFO in question. It’s easily found online and you can check its provenance for yourself. But the quote from the man who took this photo includes the usual: "I'D RATHER NOT talk about it," he says. "It's something that should be forgotten...left alone. I saw something, but I don't know what it was."


Police Chief Buchert's photo of said UFO and Patrolman Wayne Huston's Description

Spaur would not and could not forget it.Here’s an excerpt from an article by John de Groot writing a very sad UFO witness story for the Akron Beacon Journal October 3 1966 titled, “Its Chasing Him Now, Flying Saucer Blasts His Life.” It’s a highly instructive piece identifying how Spaur was obviously emotionally destabilized by the event which was complictated further by public attention to the case and then finally becoming the one being stalked by Floyd, his own personal alter ego UFO doppleganger. Jung would have had a field day with this case.

“Something happened t o Dale, but I don’t know what it was,” she says. “He came home that day and I never saw him more frightened before. He acted strange, listless. He just sat around. He was very pale.

“Then later, he got real nervous. And he started to run away. He’d just disappear for days and days. I wouldn’t see him.

“OUR MARRIAGE fell apart,” she said. “All sorts of people came to the house. Investigators. Reporters. They kept him up all night. They kept after him, hounding him. They hounded him right into the ground.

“And he changed,” she recalls.

Then one night, Dale came home very late. He isn’t sure what happened. He walked into the living room. There were some other people there. Things were very tense. Very confused.

HE WALKED up to his wife and he grabbed her and shook her. Hard. He kept shaking her. It left big ugly bruises on her arms.

He doesn’t know how or why….

But too much had happened. Too much. That was the end of July. Daneise filed assault and battery charges. They arrested Dale and booked him. Put him in jail.

The night they jailed him, he turned in his badge.

THE LOCAL paper printed a story about how the deputy who chased the flying saucer had been jailed for beating his wife.

When he got out of jail, Dale ran . . . left town, turned his back on everything.

But the saucer followed him, locked in his dreams.

In Ravenna, Daneise can only say, “Dale is a lost soul. And everything is finished for us.”

IN SOLON, Dale told me, “I have become a freak. I’m so damn lonely. Look at me . . . 34 years old and what do I have? Nothing.

“Who knows me? To everyone, I am Dale Spaur, the nut who chased a flying saucer. My father called me several weeks ago. A long time ago, we had a fight. I hadn’t heard from him for years. Then he calls me.

“Do you think he called to ask how I was . . . to say I love you, son . . . to see if I wanted to go fishing, or something? Hell, no. He wanted to know if I’d seen any more flying saucers.”

DALE SPAUR is a bitter lonely man who has lost himself. He is no longer sure he knows who he is.

“I tried to go church for help. I went to church and the minister introduced me to the congregation. ‘We have the man who chased a flying saucer with us today,’ he said.

Dale Spaur wept as he spoke in his motel room in Solon. The tears filled his eyes as he told me what the flying saucer named Floyd had done to him.

He calls it Floyd because he saw it once more while he was still working for the Sheriff’s Department.

THE RADIO operators knew civilians were monitoring their broadcasts. So they agreed to use a code name if the flying saucer was seen again. They called it Floyd . .. Dale Spaur’s middle name.

Dale was driving east on Interstate 80-S one night in June. He looked up. There it was.”Floyd’s here with me,” he whispered into the radio.

Then he parked the car.

TOO MUCH had happened.

He sat in the car, alone. This time Barney Neff w a s not with him. Dale did not look out the window. He lit a cigarette and stared at the floor of the cruiser. He sat there for nearly 15 minutes . . . not looking outside, not wanting to see Floyd.

Then, when he looked up, Floyd had disappeared.

Yet it still follows him. And it has ruined his life. This he believes.

But what captured my interest in this story right from the start is the truck that Spaur and partner both witnessed that had the lightening bolt insignia in the centre of a logo with the words Seven Steps to Hell around it. Now you just can’t help but dig into the possibilities of this juicy tidbit. ATS has detailed the heck out of this case as have many others, as it truly is a saucer full of secrets and we’re only getting glimpses of what actually happened. Isn’t this always the case?

Now according to Weitzel, the NICAP investigator who shows up on the scene right away, and whose report on this case is conspicuously absent from the Condon report, he found an abandoned old truck on the side of the road filled with old kids’ toys and other junk. This was exactly where Spaur and partner say they saw the truck with all the electronic equipment inside, doors open and seemingly playing a direct role with the UFO that was immediately witnessed afterwards. They went looking for this very odd vehicle with insignia markings after the chase and they say it was gone. But the next day the abandoned truck is there….hmmm. This is where things get really weird.

The Seventh Army is the Army that invades Europe and sets the campaign for Hitler’s destruction. Their battles were fierce at the outset of European fighting and they represent that first charge into the heart of war. The shoulder patch for the Seventh Army was approved on 23 June 1943. From Wikipedia: “The letter "A" (for "army") is formed by seven steps indicating the numerical designation of the unit. The colors suggest the three basic combat branches which make up a field army - blue for infantry, red for artillery, and yellow for armor (cavalry). Veterans of the Seventh Army wore a tab reading "Seven Steps to Hell" under the patch, but this tab was never officially authorized.” I understand from researching here and there that the patch itself was decommissioned and is not authorized at all anymore as an official patch to wear.

The Seventh Army has a number of different training divisions as well and their insignias, as you can see above, do in fact contain a lightening bolt on their interior – interesting right? So what can be concluded: that in fact this was either a military experiment of hardware, psychology or both was taking place and the usual smoke and mirrors show is on display with a couple of police officers filling the role of causalities in the fray, one taking the hit much bigger than the other.

Spaur certainly seems to have been psychologically affected as seen with the violence towards his wife that night – he was a changed man. But was this really the army getting up to tricks? Do they have a training team, or an active squad who is launching the first engagement with a whole new kind of enemy, hence the Seven Steps to a paranormal kind of Hell? After all, who would place the abandoned truck on the road if not the military – isn’t that the classic X-Files material that we’re all familiar with?

Of course the other option is that what Spaur and Neff saw wasn’t actually there, and that the old trickster is at work, drawing relevant imagery from human history and messing with the two officers on purpose in a highly elaborate cat and mouse game of grand psychological and physical proportions that followed Spaur for quite some time. I’m not too sure about the whole bit where Brenner reports that Spaur’s son, while visiting him in the hospital, states the Nurse’s observation, “that man’s not human; there’s something inside of him.” That’s just an out of context statement, as is the native tribe that shows up at the funeral – sounds like complete mythological development of the highest order, all assembled from old X-files episodes as well.

Nevertheless, Spaur’s life story is a warning is it not? That engaging the saucer is to set your controls for the heart of the sun. Personal disaster will follow. You will be left in pieces. Don’t talk about such things. Not even a whisper is acceptable.

There's lots of great places to see more about this case. Here are some links for those who want to dig deeper:

Strangers in the Night | News Lead | Cleveland Scene

#UFO Case Files: Portage County Ohio, Police UFO chase 1966

The Portage County Ohio UFO Chase

*Above BlueBook* - Ohio UFO Chase , Portage County April 17, 1966, page 1

Two Articles About the Ravenna / Portage Co. Ohio UFO Chase

 

[Burnt State]

Check out Spaur and Neff's report sent to NICAP. The description of the craft is simply stunning - new that's what I call a WUAO (wicked unidentified aerial object). I'm making up my own acronym - let's see if it sticks, after all, there's more vowels.

"Deputy Sheriff Dale F. Spaur and Posse Member W. L. Neff letter to Donald Keyhoe, head of NICAP.

"STATEMENT: On April 17, 1966, at about 5:00 AM, the undersigned, Dale F. Spaur and Barney (W. L) Neff, were patrolling the southeast portion of Portage County, Ohio. We had been hearing radio traffic about a UFO near Portage County. We found an abandoned car on the berm on Rt. 224 between Atwater and Randolph. We left our car to routinely investigate this vehicle. Spaur noticed a light over the trees on the hill next to the berm, and called Neff's attention to it. As we watched, the light came closer and a large, self-illuminated object was seen as its source. The object came directly overhead and hovered above us. Its light lit up the ground where we were standing, and our cruiser, P-13. It was too bright to look at without hurting the eyes. We got into our car and radioed that we had spotted the UFO. During that time, it began moving away from us. We followed it down 224 onto Rt. 14, to the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, and into Pennsylvania on Rt. 51; then through Rochester, Pa., and on Rt. 65, up to Conway, where we stopped. As we passed East Palestine, Ohio, Patrolman Wayne Huston, of the East Palestine Police, joined in our pursuit. In Conway, Pa., Officer Frank Panzanella met us where we stopped, and we stood with him watching the object as it hovered and then rose, twice, in a rapid climb. The object seemed 30-45 feet across, and 18-24 feet high. The light it gave off lit up the ground over the road and over fields as we pursued it. At first it was about 150 feet up; then it rose to around 1000 feet. During the chase it changed altitude and direction, maneuvered smoothly, had a sort of dome-shaped top, and at times showed a projection on the top part, near the trailing edge. Not all of it was self-illuminated; part of the top trailing portion looked metallic; not shiny, but satiny. At times we measured its speed over the ground at about 103 miles per hour. At one point, near Rochester, we lost it while getting through a bridge-underpass area, but when we emerged, it had come down lower and seemed to have waited for us; it went off fast ahead again then. We were, and are, sure we were not chasing an illusion, or seeing a reflection, star, planet, or similar still object. As far as our part in this sighting is concerned, at least, the article by Tom Schley in the Beaver County Times, April 18, 1966, about this, is accurate."

From ufo - UFOS at close sight: 1966 Portage County UFO chase by policemen

 

[Constance]

Much additional information here:

*Above BlueBook* - Ohio UFO Chase , Portage County April 17, 1966, page 1